Wiser Days: Part 1
by Alicia McKenzie
DISCLAIMER: The characters belong to Marvel, and are used without permission for entertainment purposes only. This story is set ten years before the Outsider's Arc, based on the tale that Pete relates to Kitty about his first meeting with Cable in part 4 of True Believers.
Ever had one of those days? You know, one of those days when you wake up and you just bloody well KNOW that your life's about to go to hell in a handbasket? I'm not claiming to be able to see the future or anything, mate. But even a amateur like myself develops instincts for these things. You have to, if you're going to stay alive in this bloody business.
And when Walsingham, this stupid git of a bureaucrat who usually treated us field agents like something he'd had to scrape off the bottom of his shoe, slapped that file down in front of me on his desk and gave me an ingratiating smile, all of those instincts went off at once.
"What the bloody hell's this?" I growled suspiciously. It was seven'o'clock in the morning, I hadn't had any coffee, I was itching for a smoke, and Walsingham was looking far too satisfied with himself for my peace of mind.
"Your next assignment, Wisdom," he said pleasantly. "You've done a fine job so far, my boy--"
My boy? What a bleedin' wanker.
"--so we've assigned you a very delicate case," Walsingham continued, his smile growing a little brittle at the look I was giving him.
"Delicate? Subtle ain't exactly my cup of tea, mate," I pointed out ironically, reaching out and opening the file. The first page was a snapshot of a tall, cold-faced man sitting at a table in what looked like a sidewalk cafe. It could have been just about any European city; I couldn't spot any distinguishing landmarks. "Who's the bloke?" I asked casually.
"Your target," Walsingham said briskly. "A mercenary. Calls himself Cable." He leaned back in his chair, studying me with a thoughtful look that made me want to plant a hotknife right between his eyes. "He's been interfering with--some very important operations. We need him eliminated."
"A mercenary," I said thoughtfully, tossing the picture aside and flipping through the file. I whistled appreciatively at the list of ops attributed to this Cable's group. The Wild Pack? Oh, that was friggin' cute, I thought, a bit superciliously. "A pretty damned good mercenary, from the looks of this--"
"One of the best," Walsingham admitted, sounding almost grudging. "You'd do well to consider him the very definition of a hard target, Wisdom."
I snorted. The man was all but chained to his desk, and he was giving me advice on strategy? Sodding presumptuous bastard, I thought in amusement as I continued to skim through the file. As I did, I came across what looked like a very abbreviated version of a personnel record, stamped with a VERY familiar insignia. "Wait one bloody second, Walsingham!" I snapped. "An ex-SHIELD agent?"
"A rogue," Walsingham said firmly. "No longer operating under government sanction of any sort. You won't have any difficulty from SHIELD, Wisdom." His eyes narrowed. "I could assign this to another agent, if you don't think you can handle it--"
"No, no, don't get your knickers in a knot," I said, still frowning. According to this, Cable had worked directly for Fury. No details on why he'd left SHIELD, but then, there wouldn't be, would there? Not if he'd gone rogue. "I can handle it."
"Good," Walsingham said curtly, rising and sliding an envelope across the desk to me. "Passport, plane ticket to Mexico City. One of our people's working as cultural attache at the embassy there. She'll brief you when you arrive."
***
Mexico City. Soddin' miserable place to visit, and I sure as bloody hell wouldn't want to live here. Between the altitude and the pollution, I sounded like a poster child for emphysema before I was five minutes out of the airport. To make things worse, the stupid git of a cab driver I'd been dumb enough to hire kept eyeing me in the rear-view mirror, as if he was wondering how much money I might be carrying. I hadn't gotten any sleep on the flight, so I was in enough of a mood to half-wish he would try something.
He decided not to try his luck. Either that or he'd figured he ought to focus his attention on the road. If it was the latter, I could hardly blame him. I'd heard stories about the traffic in Mexico City, but they fell far short of the reality.
We managed to get to the embassy in one piece, and I paid the driver double the fare he demanded, just to see the look on his face. Wasn't my money I was spending, after all.
The papers Walsingham had given me got me in to see the 'cultural attache' almost immediately. Stepping into the office I was directed to, I was more than a little surprised to see that my contact was a tiny, red-haired woman who would have looked perfectly natural in a lime tu-tu and ice skates if she'd been twenty years younger. Rosalind Chalmers, according to the name on the door and the info Walsingham had given me. I knew better than to think that was her real name, of course.
Piercing blue eyes widened as they gave me a once-over. "Bloody hell," Chalmers swore, getting up and shutting the door behind me. "Sit down."
I scowled, not sure what to make of her hostile attitude. "Nice to meet you too, love."
She gave me a disgusted look. "Good God," she growled, shaking her head. "I don't ruddy well believe this."
This was swiftly moving beyond irritating. "I don't recall our paths ever crossing before, Chalmers," I snarled pleasantly, "so I can't quite figure out what problem you could possibly have with me. Care to fill me in?"
She blinked at me, as if taken aback by my vehemence, and then went and sat down behind her desk again. "Don't be ridiculous," she said irritably. "We've never met. It's just that I, for my part, can't 'figure out' why Walsingham wouldn't have sent an experienced agent on a mission of such importance." I bristled, and she waved a hand at me almost dismissively. "Are you going to sit down, Wisdom, or stand there glowering at me?"
"I'll stand," I growled. "Sat for long enough on the bloody plane, thanks."
"As you wish," she said, looking almost amused suddenly, as if I'd said something terribly funny. I bristled, but kept my mouth shut. "Familiar with the city at all?" she inquired, shuffling through the papers on her desk.
"Studied a map on the plane," I said brusquely.
"Well, I'll have a few more for you to look over," she said, still sorting through papers. "Specifically, of the area where your target seems to be operating within the city. Carrying out your assignment will be difficult enough under the best of circumstances--"
"Walsingham said the same soddin' thing," I pointed out, fumbling for the pack of cigarettes in my pocket. "The bloke can't be as tough as you're all making him out to be."
Chalmers raised an eyebrow. I expected some sort of snide comment about overconfidence, but she merely smiled. "We'll see," she said mildly.
***
I spent a couple of days getting the feel of the city. I sure as bloody hell could never hope to pass as a native, but I needed to know my way around, more than a map could teach me. Of course, I ended up seeing just enough to realize I hated the place. Maybe it was the climate or something, I don't know, but it made me impatient to get the job done and get out of here.
Which was why I started trailing my target a little too soon. Twenty-twenty hindsight and all that bloody garbage, I suppose. But Walsingham's dossier had been a little uninformative on the details I really needed to do this job properly, and Chalmers was still treating me like a puppy liable to misbehave at any moment. I had no soddin' idea why she was being so close-mouthed. She got this bloodthirsty glint in her eyes whenever she talked about the target, so you'd have thought she'd have been more helpful, right? Women.
I could have used the help. My target certainly wasn't acting like I'd expected. Walsingham had claimed that he was interfering in 'sensitive operations', but, as far as I could tell, he wasn't doing much of anything. Most of the time, he stayed in a perfectly ordinary-looking house in a run-down area of the city. He'd leave the house, but not the area, and only to meet with people--sometimes individuals, sometimes groups. Back-alley meetings, some of them, especially when the people he was meeting weren't locals--which was the case about half the time, I figured after two days of following him around.
He himself certainly didn't look local. Even at the distance I was following, he stood out in the crowds, and that was putting it VERY mildly. Just his height was unusual enough. The air he gave off--that sort of quietly dangerous 'keep your friggin' distance or I'll have your legs off' attitude I'd only ever seen in very senior agents back home--should've been enough to make the locals give him a fairly wide berth. But they didn't seem to notice, or care if they did. Bloody odd, it was.
It was the evening of the third day--three days in which I hadn't seen even a potential opportunity to finish the job--when I lost him. One minute, he was there, striding along the street as if he was out for a evening stroll, and then he was gone.
Cursing under my breath, I headed for the last place I'd seen him, careful to keep my walk casual, relatively slow, as if I just happened to wander that way. I'd been doing the 'lost tourist' impression, so I made sure to stop a couple of times and ask for directions in bad Spanish, just in case.
When I finally got to the last place I'd seen him, I wasn't entirely surprised to see the narrow alley leading off from the street. Call me pessimistic, but I'd been waiting for SOMETHING to go wrong for the last three days. Did he spot me? Keep walking, you stupid git-- No bloody way was I walking into that alley. If he had spotted me, doing this on his terms would be the quickest way to get myself killed. Close quarters weren't to my advantage, especially with a man who was probably perfectly capable of taking me down and mailing me back to England in separate envelopes if I gave him half a chance.
I kept walking. Didn't stop until I happened on what looked, from the outside, to be the local version of the neighborhood pub. I got a few stares from the other 'patrons' when I walked in, but there were a few other adventurous tourist-types in the crowd, so I didn't stand out too badly.
I went over to the bar, thinking that something alcoholic would definitely be in order at the moment. I just needed a fag. Yeah, that was it. That was the only reason my hands were a little shaky.
Bugger. If he'd pegged me as being on his tail, this was going to get a LOT more complicated. Not to mention the fact that I'd pretty much come to the conclusion two days ago that 'at a distance' was the only safe way to do this. That was one hell of a dangerous bloke--you could see it in the way he moved, if nothing else. And if he'd spotted me--Bloody hell, I could really do with some scotch--
"They're not likely to have scotch," a deep, amused voice said from somewhere over my shoulder. "This is Mexico, after all. Tequila, maybe. Will that do?"
I turned around and looked up at my target. Cable shrugged slightly, a faint, sardonic smile playing on his lips.
"Not that I haven't been enormously entertained by watching you follow me around for the last three days," he said with a perfectly straight face, "but I thought we'd put an end to the little dance, if it's all right with you. I've got too much on my mind at the moment to be bothered with babysitting."
My instincts chose that moment to be 'helpful' again, pointing out that it looked like it was going to be one of THOSE days. Again.
to be continued...