The Mission (Part-3)

-------Hope POV------

Hope was sitting in the operations room, looking in the monitor where Steve was training and talking with the rest of the unit. It was clear that everyone subconsciously was listening to him and treating him as their leader. Good for the team. Suddenly Martha gave her a notification that took away whatever smile was there on her face.

"Ms Hope, I have discovered that HYDRA has taken over all the cameras on the road and a few unidentified vehicles have covered exit 2 and exit 3 as marked on the map. There is also a group of workers who suddenly started repair work on exit 4 which is not mentioned in any database."

"Fuck. Call captain ... I mean commander. Call knight commander and ask the whole unit to prepare for dispatch. Activate all the falcon birds in the area and I want a live topographical map here on the command screen. Any unidentified vehicle or person to be labelled a threat."

"Displaying the map on screen 1, Ms. Hope. On-screen 2, I am listing all the unidentified personnel and vehicle. In the next 20 minutes, the Falcon unit will cover the entire pathway from Stark Manor to Pentagon and we will have a complete live map projection on the command table."

"You paged me Hope." asked the commander as he approached the operation room.

"Snakes alert Steve. It's just lunchtime and these snakes are all out of the pit. I am not sure what they are trying to do but from the looks of it, they are isolating this particular road and building an airtight blockade around it. There were 6 possible exits and they have covered 3. 2 out of these have too much traffic load which clearly shows that they are directing the entire traffic towards exit no. 5. It is near the pier and provides the perfect getaway after the accident."

"I will go with the team. You can relay all the other information via earpiece. I will take the chopper and let you know what is going on in real-time."

"Sure. Chopper is fully loaded and outside. It is untraceable to us but Phil said this is his first chopper and we must get it back in one piece."

"Sure. Will try."

-----HYDRA COMMAND ROOM (SHIELD BASE- H2)--------

Alexander Pierce POV

"Team is on the ground. I repeat team is on the ground. We have cameras on the loop." - 'Tech 1'

"What is going on with the exits?," asked Pierce

"Sir, all the possible exits are covered and we also have eyes on Exits-1,5 and 7,"- 'Tech 1'.

"Good, stay sharp. I want all police lines monitored for any random guy reporting anything stupid. Keep an eye for anything suspicious or just a random accident." Pierce said while looking at monitors. He sat in the middle of room on the main chair and everyone else got busy.

Pierce started his layout early today. He had verified the information regarding super serum from the agents working in Howard's team. Today will be the day when Hydra will move ahead with the Winter Soldier STRIKE team. They have 5 operatives that are perfectly loyal and trained to be the best assets on the ground. All he needs is the serum and make sure that Howard stark is perfectly punished as requested by Doctor Zola. That immortal bastard is sure vengeful even in this state.

"Sir, there is an incoming call from Colonel Vasily Karpov on line 1," Tech 1 interrupted Pierce thoughts.

"Yes, Vasily?" questioned Pierce after picking up the call.

"Winter Soldier has set off for his mission. He will reach there at 18:30 hours," came a Russian voice from the other end of the call.

"Noted. I hope Siberia is not too cold my friend."

"The cold keeps me calm Alex. It makes me remember my history and my origins. Soon, I will have my STRIKE team and with that, I will remove the parasites that have destroyed this country."

"Good luck Vasily, good luck. Hail Hydra!"

"Hail Hydra."

While Pierce was talking to Vasily, a quinjet was on its way from Siberia to Long Island. Bucky Barnes was sitting in a corner. His motorcycle was attached to the floor and he was checking his guns and knives for the mission. As he was loading the bullets, he could see Siberia fading out of the window and birds flying freely in the air. For a minute his eyes were empty before they regain focus but no one noticed this anomaly.

------------ Long Island Pier-------------

Rogers and his team landed their chopper near the pier and moved towards exit point 5. Since Hydra kept this exit clear, their people must be nearby.

Roger pressed his earpiece - "Can you hear me, Hope?"

"Yes, Commander. Loud and clear. We still have more than 3 hours before the operation time and almost 4 before the starks even leave their home. If you are going to catch some snakes commander, the team needs to hide and wait. This may be our first mission together but we can't mess this up," came instructions from the Hope.

"Understood Hope. Keep a lookout in the skies and do let us know if something changes on the ground. For now, we are going to separate and take cover," captain said while making hand gestures. All shadow knights understood the command and separated into smaller units and disappeared among the trees.

"Aye Aye Commander," chuckled Hope. She loved whenever Rogers would treat her like this. There was respect and proper curtsey. Keeping a straight face he questioned Martha, "Martha how much time before I can see the live map?"

"The visualisation will be ready in 3 minutes and 23 seconds," Marth replied.

"Okay. What is the position of the suspected targets?"

"Most of them are still in the same position Ms. Hope. The unauthorised road repair team left after damaging the road in a few places and barricaded the exit. 4 threats are guarding the checkpoint. Exits 2 and 3 are blocked by spillover trucks and traffic is re-routed. It looks like an accident but both of the drivers in the accident simply got up and left the scene without making any noise or action which is a clear anomaly."

'I wish Phil was here. Maybe he could use his intelligence to deduce why these snakes started this mission so early? Did I miss something?' Looking over the data and the map, Hope was quite confused. 'It looked all normal. So what?'

'Is HYDRA going to just sit and wait for 3-4 hrs before Howard stark even leaves his mansion? Do they have so much free time?' While Martha was thinking about asking Phil for some help in understanding Hydra operations, Phil was riding a pigeon.

When he was sliding down towards the road a flock of pigeons just decided to take off and he nearly crashed into one. Thankfully it all worked out in the end and no one else has seen this embarrassment.

Anyway, he dropped himself to the nearest tree on the road from the manor. His helmet gave him a telescopic view of the mansion. He has to wait for hours and during this time, he was trying to understand the motive for Hydra for laying out their plan so much ahead in the advance.