Summary: As the cargo container ship the Badeaux Strait heads through the Gulf of Mexico to Panama, some of the crew begin poking around a mysterious piece of cargo. The item activates and begins humming. It soon opens fire on the crew, leaving no survivors.

In an immense underground headquarters known as the Pit, beneath a tiny army depot in the Nevada desert, G.I. Joe team members Duke and Beach Head discuss what they miss about their past lives, though Beach Head has suffered some memory loss regarding his past. Then Beach Head wishes for more of a challenge on their missions. A female team member named Dial-tone tells Duke he's to report to Scarlett in the "Think Tank". In the command center, Scarlett contacts a team of divers including Shipwreck, Torpedo and Deep Six. They report back to her as they investigate the wreck of the Badeaux Strait, finding bodies and bullet holes. Duke arrives and discusses the little intelligence they have about "Cobra"with General Hawk and Scarlett. The Joes don't even known who or what Cobra is, only that the term keeps coming up throughout the global underworld.

At a mansion south of Yalta on the Black Sea -- the Crimean Riviera -- a criminal boss named Nico argues with someone on the phone about why the ship and his caller's shipment was lost. After the caller confirms that Nico's at home, an armored figure appears from a flash of light armed with strange weapons and kills all of Nico's guards before dissolving into a pile of dust. Nico frantically runs out of his house and drives away as Snake-Eyes steps into the room and investigates.

Back at the Pit, Scarlett receives a package containing what is left of the assassin in a vial, along with his weapons and a note showing a photo of two dice, only one dot showing on each -- "snake eyes". A group of Joes -- Dusty, Frostbite and Airtigh -- are studying the cargo from the sunken ship that looks like machinery in the form of a dense cube made of metal. After asking Scarlett's permission -- and after her and Duke display the obvious bad blood between them -- the Joes prepare to open the "humming" object, unaware that it is transmitting audio and video of them to a bank of monitors... somewhere.