"Who are you? I don't know any Whitehall; you have the wrong person."
He wore large-framed glasses and a crisp suit, exuding the air of a successful man. Though Sitwell worked in administration, he was still an agent and possessed the necessary vigilance. He rejected Daisy without a second thought.
This was precisely what Daisy expected. She recited like she was reading from a file, "In 1945, in Austria, after Mr. Whitehall was captured, the Obelisk he had studied his entire life fell into S.H.I.E.L.D.'s hands. Sir, you need to use your authority to retrieve the Obelisk from S.H.I.E.L.D.'s classified vault."
Inside the Obelisk were Terrigen Crystals, but they could only be opened in a special location. Hydra and S.H.I.E.L.D., unaware of the truth, studied it for fifty years with no results, and it was now completely shelved.
"The Obelisk?" Sitwell genuinely didn't know about this item, but he had confirmed the other party's identity. They were a member of Hydra, or at least someone connected to Whitehall, even if his initial guess was wrong.
"Consider it Mr. Whitehall owing you a favor. I'll call back later. Hail Hydra!" With that, Daisy hung up and quickly erased her digital footprint.
Sitwell's reflex kicked in; he immediately stood at attention and softly replied "Hail Hydra" into the phone, only to realize the other party had already hung up.
As an Honduran-American who managed to be a mid-level Agent in both S.H.I.E.L.D. and Hydra, the bald man was not lacking in insight or intelligence.
Among the fiercely loyal Hydra members who would poison themselves if caught, he was a rare anomaly. In the original timeline, he was threatened by Captain America once and spilled everything he knew, his integrity shockingly low.
Unlike the high-ranking Hydra members who wanted to conquer the world, unlike the mid-level agents dissatisfied with their political status, and unlike the brainwashed lower ranks, he was afraid of death and had a strong opportunistic streak. This was all information Daisy had analyzed.
Hydra had mixed factions. Sitwell was a direct subordinate of Alexander Pierce, the former director of S.H.I.E.L.D. They belonged to a different faction than the Whitehall Daisy mentioned.
As a small fry under a big boss, he certainly felt a sense of crisis, especially with his clandestine identity. As a smart man, he wouldn't switch allegiances, but having an additional connection was very important to him.
For the next few days, Daisy secretly observed and tracked his phone signal, roughly outlining his area of activity. Through clues on the internet, she determined that the bald man was indeed searching for information about the Obelisk.
As for whether he would inform his boss, former Director Pierce, Daisy thought there was a 70% chance he wouldn't.
If the big bosses communicated and solved the problem, the favor would belong to them, not him. That would be a foolish thing to do.
As a not-so-dutiful double agent, the bald man also had ambitions.
Daisy's roommate, Angela, a Black woman, felt she had been acting strangely lately. Today, she saw her seemingly spot something and quickly run out.
Three minutes earlier, Daisy observed Sitwell's phone signal leave a shielded area. She had a feeling—a woman's intuition—that he had found something.
Avoiding her roommate, she disguised herself and dialed his number.
"You work fast, Agent Sitwell," she praised him first.
She couldn't see a live broadcast this time, but she could hear the pride in his voice. The bald man said somewhat arrogantly, "Accessing the Obelisk requires level 10 clearance."
Daisy sneered. "If it weren't for level 10 clearance, would I even be looking for you?" The other party had already accepted her identity as Hydra, and this was his way of trying to claim credit.
She raised her tone a couple of notches. Hydra didn't care for gentleness or humility; being too soft would only arouse suspicion.
"This task isn't difficult. There are hundreds of other unknown and unused items. Borrowing Director Pierce's authority shouldn't be a problem, should it?"
Hearing the name Pierce unexpectedly from her, Sitwell became even more certain of her identity. She might even be a quasi-high-ranking official, and his tone immediately became somewhat fawning.
"Yes, sir. How do I deliver the Obelisk to you? And might I have the honor of meeting Mr. Whitehall?"
"Heh heh," Daisy let out a somewhat sinister laugh through the voice changer. She switched to a formal address, "Jasper Sitwell, do you really want to meet Mr. Whitehall?"
To deepen his impression, she continued, "You've looked into the Obelisk's history, haven't you? Do you know what happened to everyone who touched it? How many S.H.I.E.L.D. researchers turned to stone because of it?" After a pause, she countered, "Are you still sure you want to bring the Obelisk to meet Mr. Whitehall? You know, after being imprisoned for so many years, his emotions haven't been very stable..."
Her words were vague, leaving plenty of blanks for him to fill in.
The bald man immediately imagined Whitehall trying to make him pick up the Obelisk. Treating subordinates as tools was Hydra's consistent policy and nothing new. So many people had tried to pick up this unknown metal, and without exception, they turned to stone. Sitwell didn't think he would be the exception.
Between his life and wealth, he automatically chose life.
At the same time, he imagined that the person on the other end of the phone would embezzle his credit in this matter, and might not even mention him to Whitehall in the end.
Cunning, devious—that's very Hydra.
Convinced he saw through the other party's facade, his tone became less respectful. "All the credit is yours. What do I get out of this incident?"
"Guaranteed safety, steady advancement, and a fallback option at a critical moment. You don't think Director Pierce's faction is the only one within S.H.I.E.L.D., do you? S.H.I.E.L.D. is a vital asset of Hydra, after all."
Anyway, Daisy remembered that the bald man would live for several more years, so she could write as many blank checks as she wanted.
She continued to entice him, "We can mobilize some resources to help you get promoted. Walking on two legs is more stable."
The bald man, who was afraid of death and loved vanity, eventually accepted this proposition.
The call quickly ended. Daisy instructed him to place the item in a designated trash can. After he left, she hired a homeless man to retrieve it.
In an alley, Daisy, wearing a hoodie, stunned the homeless man with a taser. She quickly glanced at it; it was a rectangular metal box with the cover number S.S.R.084.
Whether there was a tracker on the box was unknown. She put on gloves and pried open the box.
Inside the box was a polygonal metal obelisk, over thirty centimeters tall, which from a distance looked somewhat like the World Cup trophy.
Time was tight, so she couldn't examine it closely. She grabbed the Obelisk with pliers, put it into her backpack, and then carried the box into a chemical factory, throwing the metal box into a sulfuric acid pool.
No matter how resourceful the agents were, they wouldn't find this box.
As for the Obelisk, there was even less to worry about. This Kree technology, with its seamless exterior, could disable electronic devices and turn intelligent beings without Inhuman blood into stone. Earth's current technology couldn't even attach a tracker to it.
Under the cover of night, Daisy deleted the footage of herself from nearby cameras, then hailed a taxi and left the scene.