Chapter 30: The Ironback Joins, and Eleanor Comes Home
Fisk didn't hesitate for a moment.
"Hit back." His voice was cold and flat. "I want the Devil's Gang to understand exactly where they stand."
"Absorbing a few casinos and bars while Hammerhead was down does not make them a threat to me. Whatever they are and wherever they came from, they should be grateful I haven't gone looking for them yet. The fact that they're apparently considering a move against my operations tells me they need that lesson delivered sooner rather than later."
"As for Spider-Man and Daredevil." He said it like he was writing something down. "I'll handle that personally."
"You can go."
"Yes, sir."
The door closed. The office was quiet again.
Fisk stood alone, picked up the desk phone, and dialed a number from memory.
"It's me. Fisk."
Two months had passed since Tony Stark's disappearance.
Matthew had not spent a single hour of that time worried about it.
He knew what was happening in Afghanistan. He knew it because he knew what came next. The capture, the cave, the chest piece, the suit. Whatever Tony was going through right now was not something that ended badly for Tony. It was the thing that made him who he became.
This was exactly why Matthew had handed him that card.
Adding flowers to a garden already in bloom was one thing. Being the person who showed up with a light in the dark was something else entirely. When Tony finally came back and thought about who had treated him like someone worth paying attention to before any of this happened, that was when Matthew's investment would start paying out.
In the meantime, Obadiah Stane had come back.
Same pitch as before. He wanted to hire a team for a quiet operation. No specifics on the target.
Same answer as before.
Can't help you without knowing who.
Stane had left the second time with considerably less composure than the first. The neutral expression he'd maintained in their initial meeting had developed a visible undertone of something hotter. He was a man with deep reserves of self-control, and he used all of them to get out the door without making a scene.
Matthew, for his part, didn't particularly care what Stane was feeling.
If Stane ever did lose his composure enough to slam a table in this office, Matthew would simply ensure he had an unfortunately eventful experience on the streets of New York shortly afterward. The city was chaotic at the moment. Smash-and-grab incidents, gang disputes, the occasional stray altercation. A wealthy man walking into the wrong situation at the wrong time would not look suspicious to anyone.
He was turning this over idly when the desk phone rang.
He picked it up.
Front desk.
"Boss. There's a gentleman here asking to see you. He says his name is Leon S. Kennedy. He was sent by Ms. Eleanor."
Leon.
"Send him up."
A few minutes later, three knocks on the office door.
"Come in."
The door opened. The person who walked in had his hair side-parted and was wearing civilian clothes. His face still had the quality of someone who hadn't yet had everything that could happen to a person happen to him.
This was not the Leon of later years. Not yet. He was a rookie cop who had, so far, led a reasonably intact life.
"Hi. I'm Leon S. Kennedy. Ms. Eleanor asked me to come. This is her letter of introduction." He produced a sealed envelope from his pocket. The paper was clean and white, the flap bearing the distinctive wax seal of the Umbrella Corporation.
Matthew took the envelope and looked between the letter and Leon for a moment.
"Leon S. Kennedy."
"Yes."
"Eleanor sent you."
Leon nodded again.
Matthew opened the letter. This wasn't distrust of the man in front of him. It was the reasonable precaution of someone who had recently learned that Wesker could put a trained operative in his office with fabricated credentials and a plausible cover story.
Inside, the paper was neatly folded. The crease had caught a little dust, the mark of someone who had been moving fast through a lot of different places.
Eleanor wrote:
[Sir. As instructed, I located all four targets: Leon S. Kennedy, Chris Redfield, Claire Redfield, and Jill Valentine.
I'm sorry to report that Chris, Claire, and Jill all declined to join Umbrella. They were not simply uninterested. They appear to hold a significant and specific hostility toward the company. Based on my assessment, pursuing any of them further at this point would not be productive.
The result of this trip is not what I hoped to bring back to you. Only Leon S. Kennedy, the rookie cop, agreed to come.
I apologize for not completing the assignment to your expectations. I hope I haven't let you down.]
Matthew's brow had been creasing since somewhere around the second paragraph.
"Eleanor didn't come back with you?"
Leon paused. His eyes moved, almost involuntarily, toward the door behind him.
Matthew's gaze followed his past Leon to the entrance.
"Eleanor. Do I need to actually invite you in?"
From around the doorframe, Eleanor appeared. She had the expression of someone who had been hoping she wouldn't be noticed and had just been noticed. There was dust in her hair.
"Sir. I'm sorry I let you down."
Her voice was the same composed, measured tone it always was. There was something underneath it.
Matthew looked at her for a moment.
He reached out and put a hand briefly on her shoulder. "You haven't let me down. The trip was hard, and you brought back what you could. I'm satisfied."
"You've been traveling for weeks. Take a week off. Paid."
Eleanor had prepared herself for a different conversation. Whatever she had been bracing for, this wasn't it. The composure on her face shifted very slightly.
"...Thank you, sir."
"Go rest."
"I will." She nodded, and for a brief moment there was something warmer than professional acknowledgment in her expression.
She turned to leave.
Her eye caught something at the edge of her vision.
A woman was sitting in the office. She hadn't been there before. She was wearing a red fitted sweater and black boots, and the overall effect of her presence was the kind that made you notice it.
Eleanor felt something she would have struggled to name precisely. A sudden awareness. Something that made the idea of taking a week off seem considerably less appealing than it had thirty seconds ago.
"Sir. Who is this?"
"Ada." Matthew glanced over. "She's my assistant. She's been covering while you were out. Honestly, she's been a tremendous help."
Ada stood, crossed the room, and extended her hand with a smooth smile.
"Ada."
"Eleanor."
The two of them looked at each other across the handshake. The atmosphere between them had the quality of two very sharp things that had just made contact for the first time and were taking stock.
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