Chapter 16
Romanoff and Barton returned from abroad a week later, travel-worn and filled with information.
“The Ten Rings isn’t some random group of upjumped shepherds and angry teenagers,” Barton grumbled, leaning back in one of Coulson’s chairs, tanned from the sun and somewhat scruffy from Peggy’s perspective but newly showered and dressed on his end of the teleconferencing camera. “It’s more of a terrorist collective, like some sort of weird group of assholes who all have beef with someone and network together to reign havoc on whoever they are picking on at the moment. Right now, it’s central Asia.”
Romanoff seemed less enthusiastic about her partner’s assessment. “From what my contacts have got, it seems much more like a network of mercenaries for hire, ex-soldiers looking for work, disaffected youths looking for training, they’re not particular who they work for as long as they are paid or get experience, often both. Their very diversity means they don’t hold to any one particular cause, so it’s less a jihadist training school and more soldiers of fortune working for a warlord.”
“We did find out more about the guy they are working for, though.” Barton tapped the glass top of Coulson’s desk. On their shared screen, a grainy photograph of a bald man in fatigues and some sort of goggles appeared, too blurry for fine details but enough to get a general idea. “His name is Raza, seems to be a local militant leader who got sick of the Taliban’s shit and decided to carve out a kingdom for himself. He has tapped into this Ten Rings network to do that, bringing in professionals from all over the world. They’ve been playing a slow game of attrition with other local warlords along the mountains north and west of Kandahar, picking them off one by one and taking all the spoils. The going is slow for them, though. The area is mountainous and dry, and his forces are mostly mercenaries for hire, so they don’t know the region or speak most of the dialects, and there are as many new groups popping up there as there are people who get guns. It’s like the Wild West, frankly, but Raza has the backing, money, and ruthlessness to pull it off.”
“Who is backing him?”
Romanoff provided the answer to that question. “That is more shady. There are all sorts of interests throwing money into these sorts of places, sometimes because they want to have one side or the other win a civil war. It’s just to cause mayhem to justify an outside force to come in and hold it down. Frankly, my guess is it is the latter, given the Western presence in the region. Someone wants to play up that there is chaos in the backcountry and the West is needed there, but who that is, hard to say. That would take a lot more digging around, and likely not in the foothills of the Hindu Kush.”
Peggy, who had been listening from her office in New York along with Sharon, studied the grainy picture of this Raza. “Do we know where it is located?”
“No,” Barton replied quickly. “I was down deep with everyone there I could get to talk to me. He’s somewhere in the western range, but outside of that, it’s a mystery. I guess that he likely has a base deep in a cave somewhere hidden and mostly operates from outlying bases scattered on the edges of the range further out. That way, no one can follow their movements. Wherever that base is at, though, my guess is that’s where Stark is at as well.”
“No word on him,” Coulson queried in a tone that said he doubted that there was.
“Not that anyone was talking about,” Barton replied ruefully. “I think it was a B&E. They grabbed and ran. I don’t think anyone even knew that it happened. Most of the guys I talked to didn’t seem to know anything about it.”
“I didn’t get much more with my sources either,” Romanoff added. “Like I told you, there are known shipments of Stark weapons in the area, but how they got there, who knows. The thing I did hear with any consistency is that there is a lot of money being thrown around to ensure that people like Raza get what they need, which means there is a market for it. Someone is supplying it to them, someone who is profiting off of the sale of those arms to the Ten Rings.”
“And you think it’s Stark,” Peggy challenged again.
Romanoff shrugged. “He is the one who profits the most from a conflict. The more wars there are, the more people want to buy his goods, the more race cars he can buy.”
“And it couldn’t possibly be one of these shadowy types you mentioned, the ones pushing this conflict.”
“It could be,” Romanoff admitted without so much as a flicker of doubt, a cynical acceptance that anyone could be responsible. “Certainly, Stark isn’t the only one. The CIA could be the one pulling the strings here, but it would be far from the first time they have ever done that. It could be the FSB, it could be Middle Eastern oil interests, it could be Iran, or it could be all of the above all at the same time. None of that finds Stark, however, but it’s all avenues to bring up to him once he does get back. Why did he go to Afghanistan, and what was he up to? Isn’t that what you built SHIELD for, to be the group that ensures that people like the Starks don’t get to foment private war to push their personal interest?”
Romanoff’s question glided off her tongue as sweet and non-aggressive as could be, but even Sharon beside Peggy gasped. Barton, on the other end of the line, whipped his head around to stare at her in shock. As for Peggy, she quietly ground her teeth, biting off the retort she would have given, stunned that Romanoff had said it and confused as to what reason she could have possibly given the woman to dislike her.
Blessedly, Coulson stepped in, carefully and expertly cutting through the tension. “We will handle the extra piece with Stark when we find him. Director Carter, how is that going on your end?”
Peggy took a steady breath, slapping on a smile despite the sting of Romanoff’s words. “Rhodes was able to get us access to the Stark Industries satellite networks, at least temporarily. We have Agent Burk and his team reviewing the data, we hope that they start picking up something soon. Stark’s phone wasn’t found on the scene, perhaps it could be a clue, perhaps not. With Barton’s information, however, it may help us cut down on the swath of territory we are looking in.”
“I’ll send what I got over to Burk. See if it helps,” Barton offered with a smile, still cutting a sideways glance to his imperturbable partner.
Coulson seemed satisfied with that. “If you get something, will you let Rhodes know?”
“I promised him he would be the first person I contact,” Peggy assured him. “Is there anything else?”
Coulson glanced at Romanoff but shook his head. “Not for now. We’ll keep each other posted.”
“A pleasure as always, Agent Coulson.” She pushed the various buttons that turned off the screen, waiting till it faded to black before she exhaled deeply into the silence.
“What did you do to get on Romanoff’s bad side?” Sharon stared at her in utter shock.
“I think the fact that I exist, maybe? I don’t know. I’ve hardly said two words to the woman when we weren’t in a meeting together.” Peggy didn’t deny it bothered her more than a little. It was far from the first time she’d had to deal with hostility in the workplace, but at least with Jack Thompson and his ilk, she understood the dislike, no matter how juvenile and childish it was. Romanoff had no reason to hate her that she knew of, and yet she seemed to go out of her way to make it clear that she did or at the very least that she didn’t trust her.
Sharon frowned in worry. “No offense, but Romanoff isn’t someone I would want angry at me.”
“You don’t believe she would do anything foolish?” Peggy couldn’t believe anyone Fury trusted would go that far.
“No, she wouldn’t, but if she felt you were a threat…”
“To what? I arrived here months ago with just the clothes off my back and nothing else. I’ve done nothing to warrant suspicion outside of being a dead woman who happened to reappear.”
“I don’t know,” Sharon shrugged, gathering her things. “But speaking of coming back from the dead...so Easter is this weekend.”
Peggy paused, surprised by that. “Is it?”
“Yeah, I know. You’ve been here about four months.”
That hardly seemed possible, that only four months had transpired in her life. It felt like a million years. She did suppose it was at least sixty. “Time has flown.”
“In more ways than one. Anyway, I’m catching a flight down to DC tonight. I promised Mom I’d be there to spend the holiday with everyone. We aren’t precisely religious, but any excuse to get everyone together, Mom uses it. If you might be interested…”
Peggy froze. “You meant to see your family for the holiday.”
Sharon shuffled nervously, her laptop and things in hand. “I mean, they're your family, too.”
Peggy realized her faux pas and flushed, uncharacteristically feeling herself trip all over her own words. “Yes, they are, it’s just...do they even know about me yet?”
Sharon shuffled even more. “I mean, I mentioned that I had big news to share.”
“Big news could mean anything from you getting a promotion to you being engaged, not that a long lost aunt has appeared from the dead.”
“I know, I just...thought it would be nice to have you all connect, finally, so I don’t have to sidestep the issue of who I am staying with while working on a case up here.”
“What have you been telling them on that score?”
“That you are a college friend who is letting me crash while I’m on assignment.” Sharon shrugged in mild disgust at herself. “In fairness, I just don’t know what to tell them about all this.”
“I am not denying it is difficult, but I don’t know how I feel just showing up on their doorstep when they feel I’m dead. Perhaps...perhaps after you talk together, then maybe we can arrange something later.”
It didn’t make her niece happy, but it was a compromise. “I don’t like the idea of you here by yourself spending a holiday all alone.”
Peggy chuckled, thinking of the many such days she’d been by herself. “It’s not the first one nor the last. I’ve been living on my own since I was nineteen. There were more than a few holidays and birthdays on my own.”
“Oh, wait, and isn’t your birthday coming up?”
Peggy was frankly surprised she knew that. “As a matter of fact, yes.”
“So we are planning on doing something for that, right?” Already Easter was forgotten in favor of a new plan.
“I usually ignore it, but if you would like.”
“Your first birthday in a new century, we should do something. How old will you be anyway?”
“The math on that makes my head hurt.” Peggy really had no way of even beginning to figure it all out. “Biologically, I would be turning 28, I suppose. In actuality, I’m 89, if one goes by my birthdate.”
“You look damn good for 89 years. You must tell me your skin care regimen.”
Peggy snorted. “I wasn’t sure I’d live to either age, frankly.”
Sharon's expression was one of utter wonder. “You aren’t much older than I am and you’ve lived more in a lifetime than I could ever hope to!”
“Different times, a different world. We fought a war so you could be my age and not have those experiences in your life. Believe me, you wouldn’t want them.”
“That’s what Grandpa used to say.” Her expression grew sad and reflective. “He said he saw things...and did things... things he couldn’t take back and would never forget. Perhaps, in the end, his memory, the dementia...maybe it was for the best.”
Michael had always had an extraordinary mind, for as far back as Peggy could remember her elder brother. Their father had always hoped for Michael to follow in his footsteps in the law, his memory was that good, his arguments that sound, his logic that quick, but Michael had always craved to do something more meaningful. That the mind that had been his gift in life would have failed him made Peggy unfathomably sad. Still, perhaps in the end it was for the best. She knew of some of what lurked there. She knew what lurked in her memory. Perhaps there was a kindness in that, even though she knew it had to be painful for Sharon and her family to watch.
“War is a dirty business,” she finally sighed, shrugging. “No one wins in it, no matter what they say. There’s no glory in it, no triumph, and when it’s all done you are left having to put the pieces back together and nothing will ever be the same. Your grandfather and I found that out, I think most of the men and women who served did. I remember the end of the war in Europe mostly as just being relieved it was over and that we hadn’t died.”
That made her niece grow quiet. Peggy felt guilty for doing it. They had been having a lighthearted conversation about her birthday and she had to turn it into sadness. “My apologies, I’ve gone and made it all depressing. If you want to do something for my birthday, that would be lovely. Dinner? I’ve yet to try half of the new food in this world.”
“We could invite people. It will be nice!” Sharon's smile returned a bit at that. “I know...I know that this is crazy, don’t get me wrong, I’m still trying to wrap my head around this. I know it has to be hard knowing that everyone you cared for is gone now and that you have to pick up and make new friends, a new life. But you’ve been here three months and you have friends, family, and people who can make this life pretty good too. And I’m not saying you can’t or shouldn’t mourn the ones you had before, I think you should, else it lessens them, but...I am saying you could build something good here too, with us.”
Peggy thought of her offer, of the huge clan of Carters in Virginia whom she could be spending an Easter weekend with. “I will, Sharon, I promise, just one step at a time.”
“Okay,” she wrapped her arms more tightly around her things. “And I will tell them about you and we will feel out the waters.”
“That will be good. Maybe the next holiday, should we find Stark by then, we can plan something.”
Sharon nodded, pleased by this compromise. “I hope we find Stark by then. You do know that every day he’s gone, the chances of us finding him alive and whole drop drastically.”
“I know.” That was a statistic that Peggy knew well enough from her time in the war. “Perhaps, combining Burk’s work and the intel from Romanoff and Barton, we will be able to pinpoint something.”
“Do you think that Stark has been doing shady deals on the side.”
Peggy didn’t want to believe so. “As you said, Tony isn’t Howard’s son. I don’t know him. I would hope that Howard would instill in him the values not to, but...if Romanoff’s right, then perhaps he was and that is what all of this is about.”
“Or it could be someone in the company banking off of Stark’s negligence and tendency to not micromanage his company using it to make money off of it as well. If that’s the case, he could simply be caught up in all of that, a victim of circumstance.”
“Then I suppose I should suggest to Coulson that Romanoff go start looking into some of those pits she wasn’t willing to dig deep down in.” Coulson she was sure would agree to it, Romanoff...less so. “Have a good trip. Enjoy the holiday.”
“Try to do something fun.”
“I can make no promises,” Peggy smiled, waving her off. “Let me know when you get there safely.”
“Of course. Let me know what you turn up over the weekend.”
“I will.”
As Peggy watched her niece leave she couldn’t help but remember Michael that fateful night long ago, her engagement party, and the awful row they had. Even all these years later she still seemed to muck it all up with the lot of them. What could she tell her brother’s children? How could she explain?
She was good at getting herself into fine messes.