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Return to Cloak & Dagger Volume 2 Listing.
The issue begins with a distorted memory of Tandy’s (Dagger’s) childhood; where her father is at the play, Bill Clayton is there, as a child. She finds Tyrone as Baby Jesus; all before finally stepping out of Cloak’s shadows. Cloak explains that it’s the furthers and farthest they’ve gone, and Dagger had been expending her light, as they stop in the Middle-East.
Cloak suspects that Bill Clayton may be involved with the Smugglers and that’s why he knows so much about their route; but Bill assures them that he was the son of an American Ambassador who spent his life in a war with drug cartels, and that’s why Bill knows so many different languages.
The scene shifts to a woman named Nephtali and a man named Hassim, who hide from local patrols, after committing what the government would consider “acts of terrorism.” As it turns out, one of the children slain in a bus that they had attacked was the daughter of an agent by the name of Beth Stein who now is among the many others hunting them down for the murders they committed – specifically the murder of her daughter. We learn that Nephtali is pregnant as some guards find them and shoot at them, gunning down Hassim.
The scene switches to Cloak, Dagger and Bill – and Dagger realizes her dream was influenced by the fact that it’s almost Christmas. This makes Cloak think about his own Christmas’ in the past; and Bill actually catches Cloak crying. Bill thinks about how he had planned to kill Cloak once he had begun to suspect Bill’s true intentions. We discover Bill worked with the smugglers all along, and was the one in charge as a fight breaks out between his arms dealers and the arrival of Beth Stein. The gunfire awakens Cloak & Dagger who had been sleeping nearby. Nephtali attempts to gun down Dagger, but despite his connections which are now exposed – he dives in front of the gun fire. Nephtali is then shot in the shoulder by Beth Stein, who then intends on gunning down Nephtali. But Cloak and Dagger plead for the unborn child’s life, and Beth finally agrees. Both Nephtali and Bill are taken to the hospital. Bill confesses that he was in it for the money and excitement until he had met Tandy; then everything changed for him. And those are his final words as he dies. However, not far, Nephtali gives birth to a healthy child.
In a backup story, Cloak and Dagger teleport into a smuggler plane headed for Cambodia, based on a tip given to them by Bill, before he passed away. The plane lands and the men that meet the smugglers outside turn out to be assassins who killed the original Cambodian smugglers and took their uniforms. They gun down everyone on the plane, narrowly killing Cloak and Dagger who teleport away. They follow the men to a fortress where a white man grabs a spear and throws it through the darkness and strikes Cloak, causing him immense pain. Cloak and Dagger quickly teleport blindly away. At the village a woman pulls the spear from Cloak’s shadowed body.
Dagger disguises herself while Cloak recovers and discovers the warlord is ruthless and cruel beyond words; forcing locals to be enslaved to harvest the poppy flowers, and those who oppose him or don’t move fast enough are gunned down as an example and thrown into a massive, shallow grave full of over one hundred bodies. Cloak and Dagger go after the Warlord but realize he may be too powerful so they begin teleporting the slaves to freedom instead. The Warlord attempts to strike them with the spear again, but this time Dagger uses her light dagger to bat it away, and it lands in the poppy fields, immediately igniting them on fire. They teleport back and confront the Warlord who falls over, from what appears to be a heart attack. They then find food that can feed all of the slaves. Cloak admits that those who were slaves will take some time to get used to thinking for themselves.