"I'll give you eight million—if you want Skull Coins, that's fine too. Just let me go. Just this once."
Lawrence's voice trembled as he spoke to Zod.
Zod studied the metal door.
How terrified of death did this man have to be to install an alloy door this thick?
The walls were concrete, but Zod's x-ray vision picked up the reinforcing bars buried inside. Labor costs in the States were no joke; who knew how much this underground bunker had cost him.
"It's useless. Even a bomb wouldn't blow this open."
Lawrence sounded calm enough, but he simply didn't want to spend the rest of his life holed up in this bunker. After all, this assassin was terrifying—he had taken out more than three hundred and fifty armed men by himself. Even Bullseye couldn't manage that.
Zod considered the problem for a moment, then placed his hand on the steel handle.
Crack.
Lawrence thought he heard the alloy groan. A thin stream of dust shook loose from the doorframe.
Impossible. Must've been his imagination.
He shook his head.
Zod pressed his other hand against the door.
The alloy shuddered violently, shedding more powdery dust.
Zod increased the pressure bit by bit. A grating, metallic shriek tore through the bunker as the door was forced in a direction it was never meant to move.
Even so, he couldn't tear it open—not with his own strength. Not yet. Machinery still had the upper hand.
Lawrence's jaw dropped.
Zod sighed, giving up on brute force.
Then he tapped the device on his chest. Armor unfolded and locked into place over his body in a flash.
Armored up, Zod grabbed the alloy door with one hand and ripped it off its hinges as if it were cardboard, flinging it into the wall behind him.
Lawrence stared, slack-jawed, as Zod dispelled the armor, leveled his pistol, and pulled the trigger.
"No—!"
Bang.
After sweeping the place, Zod gathered a little over two million in cash. No idea why Lawrence kept that much money at home.
Well, it was his now.
To erase evidence, Zod lit a roaring fire and piled the grenades and other explosives he'd collected into the basement.
A thunderous blast erupted upward, flames spearing into the night sky as Zod walked out of the villa district.
…
The Continental's intelligence network was nothing to scoff at. Zod had barely stepped out of the neighborhood before they already had the situation logged.
Once the fire was extinguished, the local Continental branch even recovered a good amount of evidence. Zod had only destroyed the basement, after all.
"Three hundred and fifty-three dead. Aside from fifteen wearing ballistic helmets, every single one was shot through the head. Those fifteen had their necks broken."
An executive clicked his tongue as he read the report.
"He took down three hundred fifty-three men by himself. Bullseye only ever managed to wipe out that seventeen-man SEAL team, right?"
A heavy-bearded middle-aged man, the kind who looked like he sprouted hair everywhere, spoke up.
"It was seventeen SEALs, sir."
"There were no extra bullets at the scene. Which means he fired exactly three hundred thirty-eight shots. One hundred of those were from his own ammo—same caliber, same make. The rest came from whatever guns he picked up on site. Do you know what that means?"
An older man with a prominent forehead, wide brow ridge, narrow cheekbones, and a jutting chin leaned back, voice laden with meaning.
"It means he's terrifyingly confident—and his marksmanship is beyond imagination. Looks like the Continental just gained a new star attraction."
…
Instead of returning to the Washington branch, Zod checked in at the Continental in California.
"Welcome, Mr. Heath," the receptionist, a neatly dressed Black man, greeted him.
"How do I claim my bounty?"
Zod nodded curtly and asked.
"You can request cash—we offer dollars, euros, pounds, even Hua-yuan, all clean and fully legal. The fee is twenty percent. Or we can set up an anonymous account you can withdraw from at any time. Of course, you can also take your payout in gold coins. Easy to transport, easy to convert, and redeemable for all Continental services."
The receptionist explained fluently.
"Half cash, half coins."
Zod made his decision.
"As you wish, sir."
He received a pouch of Skull Coins.
Each coin was about the size of a bottle cap, thicker than a normal coin, engraved on both sides with skull motifs. In the right light, faint hidden patterns shimmered across the surface.
Mass-produced or not, the craftsmanship wasn't bad.
Zod stowed away two hundred gold coins.
The Continental gave these coins a high gold content—close to pure.
He then spent two coins to hop onto the Continental's private transport route, returning swiftly to Texas.
"Didn't expect them to have private jet service… and an invisible flight corridor at that."
Zod couldn't help but marvel. It only made it easier for him to identify who was backing the Continental.
Invisible routes weren't easy to obtain. They required calculating every blind spot in surveillance systems—timing, satellites, radar—or… arranging things ahead of time so the entire flight path was waved through.
He was nearly certain the power behind the Continental wasn't the CIA, the U.S. government, or any other major agency.
No, it was clearly—HYDRA.
And Zod was leaning heavily toward HYDRA.
"Boss."
Jadrey hadn't seen him for a few days and immediately noticed something different about him.
Zod nodded. He disliked banks—preferred cash—so he tossed the newly acquired million-plus dollars directly into the ranch house.
Jadrey was dumbfounded. A few days apart and the boss had somehow pulled in another fortune?
"Relax. It's clean money. All of it."
Zod assured him. Even with the twenty percent cut, the Continental's service was practically generous. Most laundering operations charged forty percent minimum—often more.
Kingpin, for example, employed an entire team of accountants just to figure out how to wash his money.
In America—really, in most capitalist countries—any accountant capable of laundering funds with a seventy percent retention rate would instantly be fought over by every major corporation.
Even with legal status now, Zod had no intention of moving to New York or anywhere else crowded. The ranch suited him. It gave him room to grow.
The Continental revoked his bounty. Those who heard of his feat started calling him "the Devil," and because of his pale looks, it eventually shifted to "White Devil."
There was no Continental branch in Texas. If Zod wanted to work, he'd have to go to major cities like Washington.
/-\
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