McCullen had long since lost the suave composure he'd worn while schmoozing NATO officials. Gone too was any memory of the farce he'd scripted and directed—bombing Paris for profit. He stared at Storm Shadow with naked anguish.
"Again and again—why do you keep doing this? I trusted you! I valued you! And this is how you repay me?"
Storm Shadow's lip curled. "Valued me? I joined your outfit to avenge my master. Remember that? You promised to give me the killer's name. So where is it?"
McCullen felt ice settle in his chest, but he kept the mask of false concern firmly in place. "We're still investigating. You know how it is—it's been so many years... Do it!"
He snapped his hand down. The two guards raised their weapons in unison—but Storm Shadow was faster. Two shuriken flashed left and right, and both soldiers were clawing at their throats before their fingers ever found the triggers.
Storm Shadow was no paragon of virtue. He was petty, vindictive, and held a grudge like a religion.
You sent a hit squad after me, and now you talk about trust? Save it. I'm not leaving without taking a piece of you first.
Bella's kill order had merely given him a convenient excuse. All she'd required was a high-profile figure capable of threatening M.A.R.S. Industries—she hadn't cared who. But the personal satisfaction of gutting McCullen's operation was all Storm Shadow's.
Unlike the ambush at the French police station, Storm Shadow had come prepared this time. The moment the pretense dropped, he went on a killing spree.
The G.I. Joe operatives whom the Baroness had guided inside immediately seized the opportunity. Snake Eyes—Storm Shadow's fellow disciple from the same school, clad in black combat gear and bound by a vow of silence—drew his katana and carved through Cobra soldiers like a scythe through wheat.
The rest of the team followed: Scarlett, Ripcord, and other elites piled into the elevators and drove deep into the secret base.
G.I. Joe's numbers were small, but every one of them was a specialist. With the Baroness defecting from the front and Storm Shadow butchering from within, Cobra Command lost both commanding officers in one stroke. The troops devolved into a headless mob, and the Templar Order and Trinity struck at just the right moment.
Trinity's soldiers were a breed apart—reckless, fearless killers to the last. They stormed the main entrance, gunning down anyone in their path. Cobra's leaderless troops buckled under the onslaught, falling back position after position, on the verge of total collapse.
Amid the hail of gunfire, McCullen hunched behind cover and pulled out a communicator. He dialed a special number.
"Esteemed Baron, I regret to inform you of unfortunate news. Your wife has betrayed you." His voice was barely controlled hysteria.
The voice on the other end was perfectly composed. "That is not my wife. She does not even qualify as a substitute. My wife died in Berlin in 1945."
McCullen's restraint snapped. "Fine! Fine! Long live the glorious Aryan race—I have nothing but respect for your wife, for you personally, and for Hydra. But I believe I need your help right now. Building Cobra Command was the whole reason you've been funding me, wasn't it?"
A cold laugh crackled through the communicator. "What we needed was a dog. An obedient dog. Attacking Paris? Assassinating Inner Sanctum knights? Would you like to aim higher next—perhaps assassinate the American president?"
Storm Shadow's actions had left M.A.R.S. stained beyond any hope of washing clean.
McCullen couldn't explain what had happened. The sinister-faced man didn't want to beg—but he didn't want to die, either.
"Hold out as long as you can, Mr. McCullen. If you survive, we'll send someone for you." The line went dead, leaving nothing but a busy signal echoing in his ear.
"Shit!" He hurled the communicator to the floor and stomped on it twice, then rallied what remained of his troops.
Fine—the base is lost anyway. Every enemy I kill is a bonus.
"Zartan! Take your people and hold those bastards off. Don't try anything clever—if I die, you die with me! Where are the missiles? All launchers to firing status! These sons of bitches want me dead? Then I'm taking them down with me!" His voice cracked with the raw edge of hysteria.
Every weapon port on the underwater base swiveled south, where the combined fleet—led by Britain, France, and Germany, with Denmark, the Netherlands, and others in support—was rapidly closing in.
On the thick ice above, most warships could only hold a perimeter. At best, they deployed soldiers onto the ice sheet to seize Cobra's surface escape routes. The real underwater fight fell to the submarines.
McCullen's order came, and the underwater city-fortress opened fire first.
Armed with cutting-edge technology acquired from Hydra, the base's firepower exceeded all expectations.
Cannons locked on targets, charged, and fired.
In the blink of an eye, two submarines were obliterated by Pulse Cannon blasts.
A follow-up energy shockwave struck a French destroyer. The hull fractured at the forward third, and the ship erupted in a secondary explosion.
"What the hell was that?" The coalition's generals were stunned.
Whatever had hit the destroyer clearly wasn't a torpedo or conventional missile. It resembled an electromagnetic weapon—and at Earth's current technological level, that was extraordinarily advanced.
The sailors had signed up for what they'd assumed was a pleasure cruise with guns. Nobody had steeled themselves for a genuine battle to the death. Protests erupted across the fleet: some demanded surrender, some wanted to retreat, others insisted on shore leave. Fortunately, the flag officers held their nerve.
"Launch torpedoes! I want that base taken! Get me a line to G.I. Joe—I don't care what they're doing down there, tell them to knock out that cannon or whatever it is!"
The coalition commander was a bona fide French vice admiral. Ordering a handful of G.I. Joe grunts around required zero negotiation.
He swept his arm forward. Full assault.
The battle between the coalition and Cobra Command had no effect on Bella and Natasha.
A single teleportation spell and they were inside the underwater base.
The scale was staggering. Natasha had seen plenty of black-site technology during her years at S.H.I.E.L.D., but this base still caught her off guard.
"Where did they get this technology?"
Bella hadn't given it much thought. She vaguely recalled that Hydra maintained an underwater base somewhere, but whether Cobra and Hydra were connected, she genuinely didn't know.
"Beats me. It's chaos out there, though."
The two of them tucked into a quiet corner of the base, watching the pandemonium unfold nearby: Cobra troops, Templar soldiers, and Trinity operatives locked in a three-way melee, with the occasional Navy sailor descending by elevator to join the fun. Every so often, a G.I. Joe operative could be spotted killing and setting fires with abandon. The scene was pure, concentrated chaos.
"Let's wait until they finish killing each other, then head out. Oh—Nata, I think little Elsa just kicked me!" Bella pressed her ear to Natasha's belly, her face glowing with dopey bliss.
Natasha rolled her eyes. "Even if she's kicking, she's kicking me. It has nothing to do with you."
"How can it have nothing to do with me? I hope little Elsa gets my looks and your figure... Ow! Stop twisting my ear—I'm stating facts!"