With the heightened senses that were part of his genetic mutation, Logan could not escape the horrible chemical smog that clogged the air. Pavement and cobblestone and cement alike were all coated with a layer of grime that might never come off. Certainly not unless East Berlin underwent radical changes.
They had been fortunate on the road. While they had passed plenty of Volksarmee units, none paid much attention to them. But Logan suspected things would be a little more intense in the city proper. And he’d been right. Volksarmee soldiers goose-stepped along Unter der Linden and in Alexander-platz. Kampfgruppen—citizens who played soldier part-time—marched in formation dressed in their gray, featureless drone uniforms. But Team X was already on foot, and beneath the notice of soldiers with a job to do, as long as they stayed inconspicuous, and as long as no Stasi officers got a good look at them.
The facet of East Berlin that Wolverine found most disturbing was the almost surreal emptiness of the place. Other than the marketplace and the squares where the military displayed their marching prowess, East Berlin seemed nearly a ghost town. In a sense, he knew, that was true. The city was severely underpopulated. Team X tried to stick as much as possible to areas where civilians did congregate.
The sky was overcast, and it seemed to threaten rain, something Logan prayed would not happen. It was enough that the smog was damp and heavy, but for it to fall in poison rain from the sky would disgust him even more. In the gray streets of East Berlin, he longed for the freedom of the Canadian wild more than ever.
“Tavern ahead,” Creed grunted in German. “That our goal?”
“No. We still have a few blocks to go,” Logan replied in the same language. “It’s a nice restaurant called the Bucharest. Gonna be hard not to draw attention to ourselves, but we’ll work it out.”
Silver Fox slipped up beside him and grabbed his hand, gave it a lover’s squeeze. But he knew there was nothing romantic in her touch. It was unlike her, and she used that to draw his attention to the interior of the tavern’s entrance, where two Stasi officers were shouting at a man, presumably the proprietor. Wolverine strained to listen.
There had been a murder, apparently. A barmaid. Nobody knew what had happened, but that wasn’t good enough for the Stasi.
For a moment, one of the officers glanced their way. Wolverine didn’t know if it was paranoia, but the man’s gaze seemed to linger on Silver Fox. He hoped it was only lechery and not suspicion.
“We should just kill them,” Creed whispered in German. “If they’ve spotted us, they might just sit tight until they can call out some help from their buddies.”
“Shut up, Victor,” North snapped. “Just keep walking.”
Logan strained to hear more of the officers’ shouted words, the tavern keeper’s plaintive excuses. He wanted to know why the Stasi were here and not the police. But they didn’t dare slow down to pay more attention. In moments, they had passed the tavern and the officers hadn’t given them a second glance, despite the one’s lingering look at Fox.
Logan breathed easier.
Now if they could just find the restaurant where they were supposed to meet their contact, they could get on with the mission and get home.
Home. With the exception of the Canadian wilderness, Logan knew he didn’t really have a home. Truth be told, the Agency was all the home he could lay claim to—Team X the only family. Which meant that no matter what his misgivings about this op, he would do whatever it took to complete their mission and get everybody back alive.
Even Creed.
Wolverine would protect Sabretooth with his life if it came down to that. As far as he was concerned, if Creed ever needed killing, it’d be Logan himself who would do the job.
* * *
“I still don’t get it, Logan,” Mystique said angrily. For once, it seemed like the ice queen had had her feathers ruffled. Wolverine was glad. It made her seem more human. She wasn’t scared, exactly. He wouldn’t have expected that of her. But she was anxious and annoyed. Raven Darkholme clearly didn’t like being on the receiving end of a covert operation—didn’t like being a target.
Logan tipped his coffee mug up, took a long drink, and completely ignored her. They were barely allies, as far as he was concerned. He didn’t like what was happening any more than she did, but he did enjoy seeing her sweat.
“Wolverine!” Mystique snapped in frustration.
“Good coffee, Ivan,” Logan drawled, forcing himself not to smile.
A lot of people could be dead, including a few that Logan thought of as friends. All but Creed, actually. And if he had a choice, he’d prefer to kill Creed himself, if it came to that. Probably should have done it a long time ago, he thought. If he was the same man who’d run with Team X those years ago, he surely would have.
But the X-Men had a little problem with indiscriminate killing. Killing of any kind, actually, unless it came down to saving your own life. It had kind of rubbed off on Wolverine. Sometimes he wished he hadn’t changed; sometimes he felt it would be easier.
Thing was, nobody ever said life was supposed to be easy. Killing and dying and lying and hiding … those were the easiest things in the world. Being out in the world and trying to do the right thing, that was hard. He would have liked to explain it to Mystique, but he didn’t think she’d ever understand.
Besides, he was no preacher. He’d leave that to the X-Men’s founder and mentor, Professor Charles Xavier.
“Thank you,” Ivan said, but his response was half-hearted. He was being eaten up inside by the idea that something might have happened to Natasha. “What are we going to do, Logan? You know the connection behind all of these … abductions, but you have no idea who would have any interest in such a huge effort at vengeance. In fact, we don’t even know that’s what it’s about. Wasn’t there anyone else involved in that mission?”
Wolverine’s eyes lit up.
Mystique looked surprised, stared at him.
“What?” she asked finally.
Logan shook his head. “John Wraith,” he said. “He was our extraction man, and he still works for the government, far as I know.”
“Do you think he’ll have answers for us?” Mystique asked.
“Let’s find out,” Logan snarled. “First, we gotta find him. We need access to top-secret government files. The kind o’ things that can’t be hacked into from your average PC.”
“S.H.I.E.L.D.,” Mystique said.
“Huh?”
“There’s a S.H.I.E.L.D. base in midtown, under the Viacom building,” she explained. “Even if they don’t have direct access to the files, we’ll be able to hack them easily from there. The priority security system is already bypassed by S.H.I.E.L.D.’s computers. If we can get in there, I can find your pal Wraith for you.”
Wolverine had logged a lot of time in New York City over the years. Granted, his memory had been played with so often, and so drastically, that a lot of things were lost to him forever. And some of what he remembered, he couldn’t really trust. But he knew Manhattan Island almost as well as he knew the wilds of Canada.
Both were home. They were just different kinds of wilderness.
Times Square had once seemed so majestic to him. The center of the world, you’d think, at least for the minutes you spent there. One moment in Times Square he would never forget was the euphoric celebration, the wave of relief and good feeling and pure, undiluted joy that swept through the city when it was announced that the war in Europe was over.
In moments, the streets were filled with people weeping and laughing. Men who would have crossed the street to avoid him clapped him on the back and called him brother. Women who would have tittered nervously if he caught their eye kissed him full on the mouth in the middle of a crowd, in a day when such things were just not done.
He’d never forget it. No matter what had been done to his mind.
But Times Square didn’t seem like the center of the world anymore. Nor was it the majestic symbol of America it had once bee
n. It had gone through extraordinary changes over the years. Most of them for the worse. For a long spell, Times Square had been a place to be avoided if you valued your wallet and your safety.
They finally cleaned it up, of course. It would never be what it once was. It was still purely New York, and he was fond of it for that alone. But now it was garish and cold, the ultimate outdoor mall.
In spite of the situation, Logan smiled at the thought. He wondered if Jubilee had been down in Times Square at all since the big renovation. She would have loved it. Maybe, if the world ever allowed them a day off, he’d drag her down from Massachusetts and get her reacquainted with the Big Apple.
Listen to me, he thought. Planning an excursion into the city like some kind of suburban uncle didn’t exactly match the covert operative who went into East Berlin all those years ago. Neither did his relationship with Jubilee, which he’d always thought of as mentor-student. Father-daughter, though, wouldn’t have been too far off the mark.
“This one,” Mystique said.
She had changed again, back into the chocolate-eyed woman she’d been in the White Horse earlier. Wolverine wasn’t complaining. The look was striking. His only problem was that it might be too striking. The last thing they needed right now was to draw attention to themselves.
They stood on the east side of Times Square, looking west at 1515 Broadway: an enormous office building that comprised the entire block between Forty-fourth and Forty-fifth Streets. It housed a number of major corporations, including Viacom. If they only knew what was beneath their feet.
“You sure?” Logan asked.
“Very,” Mystique said, and that was all.
“How do you want to play this? I don’t want any S.H.I.E.L.D. agents gettin’ hurt,” Logan cautioned her. “Nick Fury would never let me beat him at cards again.”
“Nobody’s going to question you, Wolverine,” she said sweetly. “You’ll be with me.”
“What, you gonna tell me you’re a S.H.I.E.L.D. agent now?”
“Not exactly,” Mystique said.
She turned and walked away from him, turned the corner, and started east on Forty-fourth. The second storefront down was a deli, and Mystique ducked into it. A few seconds later, a tall, burly man emerged. He had stubble on his chin and a newly unwrapped cigar in his mouth. There was white in the hair at his temples, and a patch over his left eye.
Not exactly, Mystique had said. Wolverine understood now. Why take the chance of shapeshifting into some kind of low-ranking S.H.I.E.L.D. agent when you can take the appearance of the agency’s director? Nobody was going to question Logan showing up with Nick Fury. It sure wouldn’t be the first time Wolverine worked with S.H.I.E.L.D. In fact, it made him feel a little guilty to use his association with Fury to pull one over on his people.
But only a little.
“Too bad we couldn’t just go to Fury directly,” Mystique/Fury said, not bothering to actually light the cigar. Her gravelly voice was a perfect reproduction of Fury’s own. “You don’t think he’d tell you what you want to know?”
Logan considered the question carefully. A cabbie leaned on the horn as they crossed toward 1515 Broadway, but rather than slowing, the driver sped up and swerved around them. Wolverine and Mystique kept walking. Didn’t much matter if they drew attention to themselves now.
“Nick’s a friend,” Logan finally replied. “But he’s also director of a UN-sanctioned espionage and antiterrorist operation. We could go to Fury directly, and maybe we’d get what we want.”
“But?” Mystique asked as they passed through the revolving doors at the southern entrance to the building.
“I got two reservations,” Wolverine explained.
They stepped on the escalator and let it pull them up toward the building’s lobby.
“First, who knows if he’d have easy clearance for the information?” Logan said. “Nick isn’t going to break into federal computer systems he doesn’t have clearance for. Not on somethin’ like this. Second, there’s no guarantee Nick’d tell me what I want to know. Instead, he’s likely to tell me what he thinks I need to know. The difference could get us killed.”
Mystique only nodded, and Wolverine was glad he didn’t have to explain any more. He didn’t really know why he had bothered to explain to her at all. Perhaps it was only because she would understand the delicate nature of relationships in their business. She had gone from spy to criminal and sometime terrorist, but she had to have feelings of her own. She had to know that most of the time, it would be easier not to have them. No friends. No lovers. Just the job.
Once upon a time, Wolverine had actually bought into that belief, in spite of his love for Silver Fox. But the X-Men had changed his mind, had taught him to expect more from life—taught him that nobody was beyond redemption.
With that thought, he stared at the back of Nick Fury’s head—not Fury’s head, but Mystique’s—and wondered what it would take to redeem a woman so gloriously amoral.
Together they crossed the lobby, walked down the narrow passage between elevator banks, and turned a corner to the alcove where the service elevators were. Nobody looked at them oddly as “Fury” pressed the elevator call button.
When the elevator arrived, they stepped inside. The doors slid shut and Mystique reached out with Nick Fury’s hand and pressed “B” for basement. She allowed her finger to linger on the button for several seconds as the elevator started to move. The button erupted with light, scanning the print from her finger, taking DNA samples, maybe, from the oils on the skin.
“Voiceprint analysis beginning. Identify,” crackled electronically over a small speaker in the ceiling.
“Fury, Nicholas J.,” Mystique said. “And Logan, no other initial. My guest.”
The elevator slowed to a crawl. On the row of numbers above the elevator doors, the “B” lit up. But the doors didn’t open at the basement level. Several seconds ticked by, during which Wolverine hoped it wasn’t going to turn ugly. He didn’t want it to play out that way, didn’t want to hurt any of Fury’s agents.
There were several loud thumps and the sound of gears grinding, and then the elevator seemed to simply let go, dropping into a nauseating free fall. It lasted only a few seconds, during which they must have descended at least fifty feet, perhaps twice that distance.
The doors slid open. Wolverine tensed for a confrontation. But their only greeting party seemed to be an officious, twenty-something college girl, fresh out of S.H.I.E.L.D. training, who must have been an extraordinary student if she was an officer already. The woman’s hair was cropped in an attractive yet severe cut, and her eyeglasses added to the stern quality of her face. But she positively beamed at their arrival.
“Colonel Fury!” she said happily, and saluted. “I’m Lieutenant Clancy, sir. Lisa Clancy. You’re a little ahead of schedule, but we’re almost ready for you. Let me just say how pleased we all are to have you working out of our location this week. If there’s anything I can do …”
Wolverine’s eyes widened. This kid hadn’t even noticed him, just as he’d suspected. He was with Fury, that was enough. But from what she’d said, Fury was supposed to be coming here anyway. Which would not be good. Not at all.
“There is somethin’ you can do, Lieutenant,” Mystique snapped. “You can quit your yammerin’ for a minute, and let me get down to business.”
The smile seemed to tumble from the woman’s face.
“Yes, sir. I’m sorry, Colonel, I was only …”
“Yeah, I’m early,” Mystique replied gruffly, playing up the role of Fury to the hilt. “How early am I, Clancy?”
“Urn, nearly an hour, sir,” she replied uncertainly. “But we are ready for you, Colonel. As you requested, we’ve got the X-317 flight suit ready for testing, and plenty of space available for you to try it out on the premises. We’re—”
“Clancy.”
“Yes, Colonel?”
“Enough.”
“Yes, Colonel.”
“Now, listen carefully. I’ve got a crisis on my hands, top priority and eyes-only clearance. I need a secure room with computer access and I need it right now.”
“Yes sir!” Clancy snapped in military style. “Right away, sir!”
She led them silently down a long hallway. “Fury’s” presence was electrifying to every agent they passed. Heads popped out of offices and up from cubicles. Many saluted; others just stared.
“This is the office we’ve set up for you, Colonel,” Lieutenant Clancy said. “If there’s anything else you’ll need, of course…”
“Thank you, Lieutenant, that will be all,” the false Fury said, not even bothering to face Clancy while dismissing her.
“Yes, sir,” Clancy replied immediately.
But Wolverine couldn’t help noticing the combination of hurt surprise and annoyance on her face. Like most every new agent coming into S.H.I.E.L.D., the young woman probably thought of Nick Fury as a hero, a legend of sorts. Maybe even her idol, if this was really what she wanted to do. Mystique had squashed that image but good.
Clancy turned and strutted away, and with his enhanced hearing, Logan could not miss the word she muttered under her breath.
“Jerk.”
Wolverine frowned. He hoped this little stunt wouldn’t burn any bridges with Fury, though the two of them had gone through worse. At best, though, he was going to have a lot of explaining to do the next time he ran into his old comrade. For now, they just had to concentrate on getting out of there before the colonel arrived. They had less than an hour.
Mystique dropped her guise as soon as the door was closed. She seemed relieved to slip back into the red-haired, blue-skinned appearance that Wolverine had always thought of as her natural form. And, given the fact that his old buddy Nightcrawler, who also had blue skin, was Mystique’s son … well, it only made sense that this would be her true face. But, then, there was really no way to know.
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