In 2000, Stearns personally oversaw the "Great Purge", an operation to exterminate all Assassin camps and safehouses, following the return of the Templar sleeper agent Daniel Cross to Abstergo's Philadelphia facility. Using Daniel's memories obtained from him via interrogation, Stearns sent teams of Templars dressed in military fatigues to the various Assassin hideouts Daniel had visited. In Philadelphia, the Taurus team discovered a hidden chamber underneath an Assassin safehouse disguised as a Chinese laundromat.