[A/N: My bad for not updating so long, I haven't had the fuckin' time to write due to some Univ matters (Pre-Oral thesis defense, Capstone, final exams, presentation, papers, assignments, all the horrors of education). I'm cooked...]
Location: The Sokolov Estate, Malibu, California
Agent 47 adjusted the brim of his tactical cap, shading his eyes from the relentless California sun.
He walked the perimeter of the estate with the bored, confident stride of a man paid to stand around and look intimidating. The guard's uniform was a tight fit across his chest, but it served its purpose. To the other security personnel patrolling the grounds, he was just another silhouette in the same color scheme.
Security was tight, but it was standard.
Predictable routes. Shift changes that left thirty-second gaps in the visual net.
It was sloppy.
But as 47 moved past the staff quarters near the kitchen entrance, his enhanced hearing picked up a conversation that was far from standard.
Two housekeepers were huddled by a linen cart, smoking cigarettes with frantic, jerky motions.
"I'm telling you, Elena, he's losing it," one whispered in Spanish. "He threw a vase at me because I brought him sparkling water instead of still. He's shaking like a leaf."
"It's the drugs," the other replied, exhaling a plume of smoke. "He's been snorting lines since breakfast."
"No, it's not the drugs. I know what he looks like when he's high. He gets touchy. He gets... nasty. This is different. He's scared. He locked himself in the West Wing study. He screamed—actually screamed—that if anyone comes near that door, he'll shoot them through the wood. He said he needs to 'think for a scene,' but he sounded like a man writing his will."
47 slowed his pace, pretending to check his radio.
"He's locked himself in there alone?" Elena asked.
"Yeah. Explicit orders. No one goes in. Not even for room service. He's barricaded himself in."
47 moved on.
Intel Updated.
Target Location: West Wing Study.
Status: Alerted / Paranoid.
47 analyzed the data. Sokolov's behavior was inconsistent with a man hosting a party. It was the behavior of a man who knew the reaper was knocking.
'He knows I am here.'
The realization didn't cause panic; it caused a shift in his tactical calculus.
It was impossible.
47 had ghosted his way to California.
He hadn't used S.H.I.E.L.D. transport. He hadn't used S.H.I.E.L.D. funds.
He had flown commercial under the 'Jacob Leiter' alias, using a passport forged by his own hand, not by the agency. He had even worked a shift as a flight attendant to ensure his passage was undocumented in the passenger manifest.
To the world, Agent 47 was still in D.C.
For Sokolov to know he was coming meant the leak wasn't in the travel logistics.
It was at the source.
'Fury? Unlikely.'
Fury wanted Karpov destroyed.
'Hill? Possible, but she lacked the motive.'
The Council?
Someone high up. Someone from the shadows.
47 reached the side of the mansion.
The West Wing jutted out over the cliffside, an architectural marvel of glass and steel suspended over the ocean.
The study had a balcony.
47 checked the patrol pattern. The nearest guard was rounding the corner of the pool house.
He had forty-five seconds.
He didn't use a grapple. He used the architecture.
He vaulted onto a decorative trellis, finding purchase on the stone cladding. He climbed with the silent, fluid grace of a spider, his fingers finding grips in the mortar lines that a normal man wouldn't even see.
He pulled himself up to the ledge of the second floor.
He shimmied along the narrow concrete lip, the ocean crashing two hundred feet below him.
He reached the balcony of the study.
The glass doors were heavy, hurricane-proof, and tinted. But the window was cracked open an inch—likely to let out the smoke from Sokolov's nervous habit.
47 crouched in the shadow of a potted palm. He focused his hearing.
Inside, a man was pacing. The footsteps were erratic, heavy, scuffing on the hardwood.
"Those bastards!" Sokolov's voice muted by the glass, but audible. He was speaking Russian. "Using me as bait! After what I sacrificed for them. After the money I washed!"
Snort.
The sound of cocaine being ingested.
"They said I was protected! They said the General had my back!"
47's eyes narrowed behind his sunglasses.
Bait.
The contract wasn't just an assassination; it was a trap. Someone had fed Sokolov to him, likely hoping 47 would walk into a kill box.
But Sokolov wasn't the threat.
47 sensed it then.
A second heartbeat.
It wasn't nervous like Sokolov's. It wasn't elevated. It was... artificial.
Heart rate: 45 BPM. Consistent. No variation.
Respiration: Shallow. Controlled.
Movement: Null.
There was a person standing in the corner of the room, so still they might as well have been furniture.
"And they send me this?" Sokolov ranted, seemingly addressing the empty air, though 47 knew better now. "A single fucking Widow! Fuck! What is one girl going to do against that... thing? I heard the stories about the flight! I heard what he did to the Winter Soldier!"
'A Widow.'
47 remained motionless.
He remembered the facility in Siberia. The women in the training tanks. They were skilled, dangerous, but they were human.
But the breathing pattern inside that room... it didn't sound human. It sounded calibrated.
Bio-feedback regulation.
This wasn't a defector. This was a product.
47 processed the implication. If this Widow was active, and guarding a man connected to Karpov, then the link to Dreykov was absolute.
New Objective: Acquisition.
Killing the Widow was the efficient choice. A bullet through the glass, two to the chest, one to the head.
But a corpse couldn't talk. And 47 had questions. He needed to know where Dreykov was.
He needed to know the location of the facility that had birthed him into this world. He needed to know about the serum coursing through his own veins.
This Widow was a key.
47 formulated a plan.
Direct entry was risky.
The Widow was waiting for a breach. She was in an ambush position. If he entered, Sokolov might die in the crossfire before divulging the location of the drive, or the Widow might execute Sokolov to deny 47 the objective.
He needed to separate them.
He needed an opportunity.
He looked at Sokolov through the sliver of the open door. The man was unraveling. He was terrified of the "Ghost" coming for him.
Fear was a powerful solvent. It dissolved rationality.
If Sokolov thought the police were coming, he wouldn't run. He couldn't. He was holding illegal material. He would try to purge it. Or he would try to bargain.
But if Sokolov thought the Ghost was already inside...
No.
That would make him bunker down.
47 needed to force movement.
He looked at the phone in his pocket—the burner he had taken from the unconscious clown in the public restroom.
He dialed 911.
"Emergency services," the dispatcher answered.
"I need to report a crime in progress," 47 said. His voice shifted. It wasn't his usual baritone. It was higher, breathless, mimicking the panic of the 'agent' he had met earlier on the beach. "I'm at the Sokolov Estate in Malibu. 10880 Pacific Coast Highway."
"Sir, what is the nature of the emergency?"
"I... I was hired for a party," 47 stammered perfectly. "But... oh god. There are kids here. Little kids. And cameras. They're hurting them! Please, you have to send someone! He has a gun!"
"Sir, stay on the line. Officers are dispatched."
47 hung up.
He pocketed the phone.
The police would arrive in minutes. Sirens. Lights.
A perimeter.
Sokolov was a cockroach. When the light turned on, he would scatter. He wouldn't want to be caught by the FBI with a hard drive full of underage exploitation and Russian state secrets. He would try to flee, or destroy the evidence.
The Widow's priority would be protecting the asset (Sokolov) or eliminating the liability (Sokolov).
Either way, they would leave the room.
47 moved away from the glass doors. He climbed up the trellis to the roof of the study.
He lay flat on the warm tiles, positioning himself above the balcony.
He waited.
30 minutes later
Inside, Sokolov was still pacing.
"One Widow," Sokolov spat. "If I get out of this, I'm going to tell Karpov everything. I'm going to burn Dreykov's whole operation to the ground."
The Widow didn't respond. She just breathed.
In. Out.
In the distance, the faint wail of sirens began to rise over the sound of the ocean.
Sokolov froze.
"Police?" he whispered. "No... no, no, no. That wasn't the deal!"
He scrambled to the window, peering through the tint.
"Who called the cops?! Who called the cops!?"
Sokolov turned to the Widow.
"We have to go! If they find the studio... if they find the drive..."
"My orders are to hold position," the Widow spoke.
Her voice was devoid of inflection. Monotone. Robotic.
"Screw your orders!" Sokolov screamed. "If the Feds get me, I talk! Do you hear me? I talk!"
The threat registered.
The Widow moved. 47 heard the shift in her weight.
"We will relocate to the extraction point," she said.
"The panic room in the wine cellar," Sokolov said, grabbing a laptop bag and the chain around his neck—the drive. "Go! Move!"
They were moving.
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