The office was sizable, and decorated to please Fury. Instead of the cold white box of plastic and metal that was sort of par for the course at the close of the millennium, the room had been outfitted to appeal to an older sensibility. Nick Fury had fought in World War II. Something called the Infinity Formula had slowed his aging process, so he was really an old man with a much younger man’s body. Wolverine could relate.
He was pretty comfortable in the office himself.
The walls were painted an off-white, but there was real carved woodwork at their tops and bottoms, and around the doorframe. There were bookshelves built into one side, a huge cherrywood desk, and a high-backed, burgundy leather chair that must have come from an antique store.
The computer looked out of place. Wolverine remembered when entire banks of computer equipment, enough to fill the entire room, would have been needed to perform the same functions, if that, of the little unit on Fury’s desk in his little home away from home.
“Nice office,” he said.
Mystique didn’t bother with a response. She slid into Fury’s chair and turned the computer on. In seconds, she had the fibre-optic dataline running, searching S.H.I.E.L.D.’s own database until she gained access to the Department of Defense computer systems.
“Easy enough,” Wolverine observed.
He reached for a wooden chest on Fury’s desk and was pleased to discover it was exactly what he’d hoped: a cigar box. He pulled an expensive Cuban from the box, popped a claw to slice off its end, then used a bronze lighter to set it aflame. Mystique pulled her eyes away from the screen for a moment to stare at him.
“That’s a disgusting habit,” she said. She had already tossed the cheap cigar purchased in the deli into Fury’s wastebasket.
“So’s terrorism, but I ain’t said a word to you since we started on this little mission, now have I?”
Mystique’s eyes narrowed, but she turned silently back to the computer. On the screen, the DOD system was demanding a password. Mystique sat and stared at it for several minutes, and Wolverine began to grow anxious. Nick Fury was never late. Early, on the other hand, was entirely possible.
“Raven, we ain’t got the time to …”
“If I enter the wrong password, not only will the system shut us out, but it will trace us back here immediately. I don’t care if they think Fury’s hacking their files, but we need that information,” she explained.
“I thought you were hot stuff with this kinda thing,” Logan grumbled. “Ain’t there some way you can just bypass this stuff entirely?”
She nodded. “But it might take a while.”
“Just do it.”
Mystique bent her head slightly and focused completely on the computer. So completely, Wolverine thought, that she had dropped her guard in his presence for the first time. Ever. Probably the last, too. She knew as well as he did that just because they were working together, it didn’t put them on the same side. In fact, right about now they were walking the fence together. That was all.
“It’s odd, isn’t it?” Mystique asked suddenly.
Wolverine puffed on his cigar. “What is?”
“Or at least, ironic,” she added. “I know we’re really not doing this for him, but I never thought I’d see the day that you went out of your way to save Victor Creed’s life.”
“You’re right,” Logan grunted. “We ain’t doin’ it for Creed. Sabretooth ain’t on my list o’ people I owe favors to. Neither are you, come to think of it.”
“But he used to be your partner,” Mystique reminded him.
“Yeah,” Wolverine admitted. “An’ he used to be your boyfriend, or whatever it was you two were to each other. But that was a long time ago, for all of us.”
Mystique smiled. “Oh, I don’t know. It wasn’t so long ago I don’t remember that you weren’t always as righteous and upstanding as you are now. Your friends in the X-Men wouldn’t have even recognized you back then, Logan.”
“Sure they would. At least, those that knew me when I first joined the team. It’s only since then that I started actin’ like a grown-up. You might try it sometime, Mystique.”
“We’ve all changed, Logan. You’re not the only one,” she said, turning back to the computer screen. “I know what you think of me. For the most part, you’re right. But in the years since we first met, I’ve come to know what it’s like to care about people and then lose them. There are a lot of things I regret, a lot of things I’ve done that I wouldn’t do today.”
Wolverine was quiet for a moment, watching her, her blue skin and yellow eyes lit by the glow of the computer.
“Maybe you have changed at that, Mystique,” Wolverine said. “But I’m not gonna take any bets about how much. No offense.”
“None taken,” she said, and smiled again, this time without looking up. “In fact, we’ve all changed. All of us involved in this thing, anyway. Maverick’s nowhere near as naive as he was back then. Cassidy’s becoming a responsible old man, a role model, which is pretty funny actually. The Widow smartened up, too. Got a life and a philosophy of her own.”
“We haven’t all changed,” Wolverine replied grimly. “Silver Fox is dead. Creed is more bloodthirsty than ever, no matter what his government keepers want anyone else to think. Then there’s Wraith.”
“I guess we’ll see about Wraith,” Mystique said.
“Yeah,” Logan agreed. “We’ll see. I’ll tell you this much, though. Wraith was our only direct contact with the Agency. Plausible deniability, they called it. They gave Wraith orders to make somethin’ happen, didn’t tell him how to go about it. They knew about Team X, o’ course, but Wraith never talked about us with the Agency—they couldn’t be held responsible for what they didn’t know.
“I didn’t much trust Wraith back then, and I don’t even know him now. But he was always good at one thing in particular.”
“What was that?”
“Following orders,” Logan told her. “John Wraith was a good little soldier. Kinda like Lieutenant Calley’s men.”
Mystique grimaced. She got the message. Even the hardest-hearted of human beings would be appalled at the reference. A U.S. Army officer had ordered his men to line up more than four hundred Vietnamese in the village of My Lai—mostly old people, women and children—and to execute them all. And they’d followed his orders to the letter.
Good soldiers.
Wolverine trusted Wraith to do exactly what his superiors told him. Anything beyond that … well, who knew, maybe the man had changed like the rest of them. Maybe not.
Logan glanced at the clock often over the next fifteen minutes. Every so often, Mystique would curse under her breath. The cigar smoke got pretty thick with the door closed, and Logan wanted Mystique to be able to concentrate, so he put it out. But not before he grabbed two more and put them in the inside pocket of his battered leather jacket.
Mystique grunted, leaned back, slapped the desk on either side of the computer.
“In,” she announced.
Wolverine crouched next to her. “Run the search for John Wraith.”
She typed the name in and clicked on the search icon. The computer started running, but seemed slow to Logan.
“If anyone can help us figure out who’s behind this whole thing, it’ll be him,” he said idly. “He would have known a lot more about the mission than anyone on the team.”
“Yeah,” Mystique replied. “You were just following orders.”
Wolverine glared at her, a little bit of rage igniting within him. But it was directed at himself just as much as it was at Mystique. Maybe more.
“Nothing,” she announced.
“Try codename: Kestrel,” he said quickly.
She typed it in. The answer came up in seconds.
“Got him,” Mystique said. “Address is in D.C.”
That was when the alarms went off. Wolverine glanced at Mystique, but she was already changing, morphing back into Nick Fury. The alarm could have been anything: a real e
mergency, a drill, the Department of Defense calling to complain about S.H.I.E.L.D. hacking their computers.
It could have been anything. But it was the worst thing.
Logan pulled open the door and heard the ratcheting sound of more than a dozen S.H.I.E.L.D.-issue sidearms being cocked. There were a pair of plasma rifles as well, one of which was being held by Lieutenant Clancy, who stood just in front of the door and held the barrel of her weapon inches from Wolverine’s forehead. Behind him, Mystique froze.
“Not another move, little man,” Clancy growled.
Wolverine didn’t move, but not because of Clancy. She had spunk, and he had to respect that. But that wasn’t the reason he had a hard time deciding what his next move would be.
No, that reason wore an eyepatch and smoked a cigar, and stood at the center of the line of S.H.I.E.L.D. agents now holding weapons trained on Wolverine and Mystique. Fury didn’t even bother drawing a weapon of his own.
“Hello, Nick,” Wolverine said.
“Logan,” Fury replied, by way of greeting, then his eyes flicked over Wolverine’s shoulders to glance at his doppel-ganger—Mystique—before returning to stare at Logan. “Take it that ain’t a Life Model Decoy back there?”
“Nope.”
“Guess you had some business you didn’t think I’d want to help out with?” Fury asked.
“Yep,” Wolverine agreed.
“Care to tell me what it was all about?”
“Nope.”
“You know I’ve got to hold you until you explain yourselves, you and Ms. Darkhblme, that is?” Fury noted.
Behind Wolverine, Mystique shapeshifted back into her own body. Why not? Fury had already guessed it was her.
“Can’t let you do that, Nick,” Logan said, truly sorry. “I got some business to take care of that won’t wait. Now, you wanna sit tight for a few days, you know I’ll be back, and then we’ll work it out over a game o’ blackjack. Seems to me you still owe me about five hundred from our last game.”
“Four seventy-five,” Fury corrected. “And you know I can’t do that, Logan. It’d be an invitation to my other card-playin’ pals to pop in for a visit any time they like. I take it you stole some of my cigars, too. I’ll just deduct those from my debt, if you don’t mind.”
“Not at all,” Logan agreed.
There was a pause before Fury said, “Take them into custody.”
Snikt. Wolverine moved fast, claws slashing the barrel of Clancy’s gun to ribbons.
Then he was falling, throwing himself back through the door as bullets whipped past above him. Mystique forced the door closed behind him, and Wolverine drove the desk against it with all his strength. Bullets slammed harmlessly into the outer wall—impenetrable, of course.
But a couple of blasts from a plasma rifle and it would all be over with.
“What now?” she asked.
Logan didn’t even answer. He moved to the back wall of Fury’s office and started slashing with his claws. Three seconds later, they had a ragged back door that hadn’t been there before. They emerged into a hallway juncture, at the cross of a T, and on either side, they could hear the pounding of feet as the agents came running. Straight ahead was their only option.
They ran. Unarmed, it was their only choice. Plus, Logan had no interest in hurting any of Fury’s troops, and Mystique wasn’t about to do it with Logan standing by. Maybe she had changed, he thought. At least a little.
Just before the pack of agents on their trail would have rounded the corner behind them and opened fire, they passed a pair of huge white double doors with lab: authorized personnel only stenciled on the outside. He grabbed Mystique by the arm and kicked the door open.
“You’re Fury,” he told her.
A pair of scientists, undisturbed by the alarms, were working diligently on what looked like a back brace—or would have, if it weren’t for the twin cones jutting from the back of the thing. There was a heavy jumpsuit stretched out on a table, with a pair of gloves and boots on top.
“C-C-Colonel Fury!” one of them stammered. And then, as if finally noticing the alarms: “What’s happening, sir? Are we under attack?”
“It’s a drill, Doc.” Mystique replied. “Is that what I think it is?”
“Yes, sir!” the other scientist snapped. “The X-317 is ready for you, sir. We’ve just finished calibrations. It isn’t just a pack, you know, sir. The suit itself will protect you from the elements, and from any engine flare that…”
Wolverine grabbed the thing that looked like a brace and snapped it together around his chest and shoulders. The rockets on his back weighed almost nothing.
“Sir? What’s…”
“How do you operate it?” Mystique/Fury asked.
“The gloves, sir. If you’ll give us a moment to explain …”
But Wolverine was already putting on the gloves.
“And the exit?” the false Fury demanded.
One of the scientists walked to the wall and pressed a button. A portion of the ceiling in the far corner slid aside immediately.
“It will take you up to the subway tunnels, Colonel. But this is most irregular. The X-317 isn’t safe without the flight suit, and…”
They ran for the opening in the ceiling, Logan glancing down at the straps across his chest for some clue how to turn the thing on. Behind them, the doors slammed open and the scientists shrieked like children.
Mystique was herself again as Wolverine slid his arms around her and held on tight. He felt something inside the right glove, and he squeezed it. Bullets ripped the air around them even as the rockets erupted into life on his back, and they blasted off the ground at dizzying speed.
The entire way up through the exit tube, Wolverine was roaring in pain as the rockets burned the flesh right off his back. The moment they burst up into the subway tunnel, he dropped Mystique and squeezed his fist together again.
The engines cut out, and he fell to the tracks.
A subway train screamed toward them, spotlighting them in the tunnel.
“Logan!” Mystique shouted. “Move it!”
Biting back the pain, Wolverine rose to his feet and they dove from the train’s path. They hustled, jogging a few hundred feet to the Times Square station. It was the N train, heading downtown, and they pulled themselves up onto the train platform and boarded the train that had almost killed them.
“Won’t they be able to trace us?” Mystique asked. “To follow the train?”
Wolverine grimaced and tried not to lean his already healing back against the seat.
“I know every back alley in this city,” he grumbled through gritted teeth. “Even Fury won’t be able to find me if I don’t want to be found. We gotta set some priorities, though. I gotta get me a new shirt.”
* * *
It wasn’t a heavy rain that came out of the gray German sky, not the type that might have sent anyone on the street running for cover, but a light, chilly drizzle that only served to make the day that much more miserable.
Like many wild animals, Logan didn’t really like to be wet. It put him in a foul temper—as if he needed anything else to give this op a nasty little sense of foreboding.
North was at point and Silver Fox batting cleanup. Logan and Creed strode side by side, talking in low voices in German, just enough to create a semblance of normalcy among men trying very hard to look like common laborers. Fox kept back a bit—her gypsy clothing drew a little attention, but none of it the suspicious kind.
“You an’ the squaw gettin’ on pretty good, eh?” Creed whispered.
Logan frowned. “Auf Deutsch, Viktor,” he snarled.
With a cruel smile—the only kind at his command—Sabretooth repeated himself in German. Or, at least, he tried. There was no direct German translation for “squaw,” and Creed couldn’t manage the same tone of lecherous disdain in another language.
Wolverine told him it was none of his business, but Creed wasn’t about to let it go.
“Let m
e know if things don’t work out,” he said in German. “I wouldn’t mind a taste of that.”
His guts burned with anger, but Wolverine laughed heartily, bent over slightly, and clapped a hand to Creed’s back as if they were the best of friends.
“One of these days,” Logan said in German, menace informing his tone despite the smile on his face, “you’re going to go too far.”
Sabretooth smiled back, stopped walking to stare down into Logan’s eyes. He snarled. “You have no idea.”
The moment lasted longer than it ought to have, considering they were trying to stay inconspicuous. It ended only when Maverick backtracked to step between them.
“I don’t know about you two,” he said, “but I would dearly love a beer.”
Logan looked up, keeping the forced plastic smile on his face, and was about to tear into Maverick when he realized what his teammate had meant. They had reached their initial destination. Just ahead on the left side of the street was a glass-and wood-fronted building with bueharest restaurant engraved in German on a sign in front. It was a nicer establishment than they ought to be going into dressed like this, but there was nothing to be done for it now.
Across the street from the restaurant was a big, ugly, ancient Wartburg truck—a model manufactured in East Germany— whose broad-shouldered driver wore a shiny leather apron and was busily unloading beer kegs from the back.
“Creed,” Logan said, “hang back, keep an eye on the door. If we’re in trouble, you’ll know it. We don’t want any rude surprises while we’re inside.”
Sabretooth nodded, eyes narrowed and filled with danger. But he didn’t argue. He did exactly what Logan told him to do. Logan was field command on this op, after all. And, for the moment at least, Creed was willing to be the good soldier. As long as that involved bloody murder.
Logan and North moved to the front door of the restaurant and looked inside. They went in and each of them stepped to one side to allow Silver Fox in after them. Fox walked straight ahead, finding a table near the back. While anyone interested in watching them followed Fox’s progress across the room, Logan and North scanned the interior. It was almost a full house, which surprised Logan because he’d figured East Germans didn’t have the time or the money to be sitting around inside a restaurant/tavern in the middle of the day. On the other hand, he figured, those that did have some spare time didn’t have a whole lot else to occupy it.
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