The Death Of Captain America Read online

  Winter Soldier had been a perfect weapon and zero security risk because his memory could be selectively wiped after every mission. But now he remembers, and that perfect weapon is running loose with no decent restraints—operating beyond the pale, with little mercy in his heart for the man who used him with no mercy at all.

  SIXTEEN

  YOU’D think an organization full of technical geniuses would learn from past mistakes. As many times as A.I.M. facilities have been taken down recently, all they’ve done is increase the complexity of their entry codes. It seems that tech geeks are very good at protecting themselves against other tech geeks, but pretty useless against the likes of Falcon and me.

  I shoot out the lock, and Falcon punches down the door. A few of them have the wherewithal to mount a modest armed defense, but most of them just run around in a panic. Luckily, the armed ones are the type who look down their noses at conventional firearms in favor of pulse pistols and plasma projectors of their own design, which are too complex to be field-practical or dependable. Those of us who have to deal with the A.I.M. fanatics refer to them as “beekeepers” or “bucket-heads” because the cylindrical hazard-suit helmet they wear resembles the headgear of apiarists.

  The fight stands in the balance when one of the A.I.M. members gives the order to call out the M.O.D.O.C. Squads. The last thing we need is well-armed armored goons with a hive mind showing up to rain on our parade. Falcon yells, “Stop that bucket-head!” One of the wounded beekeepers is staggering toward a big, red panic button mounted on the wall under a yellow-and-black-striped safety cover. He’s got the cover half-lifted when I bring my elbow down hard on his spine just below where it meets his skull. No “Military Operatives Designed Only for Combat” are being summoned that way.

  Team fighting involves watching your partner’s back, but my preemptive foray leaves an opening for a bucket-head with a flamethrower to step out from behind a corner. He sets Falcon’s costume alight with a stream of jellied gasoline. I drop to a knee and get off one supported and aimed shot with my pistol, rupturing the compressed fuel tank on the flamethrower operator’s back. Sparks from the bullet entry ignite the contents; the operator runs down the hall, screaming, en flambé.

  Falcon is pulling off his burning shirt with one hand and punching out bucket-heads with the other. He is a sight to dismay the remaining A.I.M. security goons, since his gloves and head are still on fire. I grab a fire extinguisher and start to douse him, but he is not having it.

  “Don’t waste time over me,” he says as he sinks his fist into a yellow-clad midsection. “Get to the computer bank before they erase everything. We need that intel to find the Skull.”

  Nick Fury had provided us with a ground-penetrating radar scan of the A.I.M. facility, so I already knew which underground passage led to the computer suite. There’s no resistance as I run through the maze of corridors with my pistol ready in a two-handed combat grip.

  I enter the computer chamber to find a senior A.I.M. tech punching a long series of numbers into a keyboard while an armed goon urges him to speed things along. Again, the tech-geeks are undone by their addiction to complicated security measures. The armed goon lets loose at me with a shoulder-fired plasma cannon that singes my right shoulder and gouges a ten-foot furrow in the corridor wall behind me. I put three rounds of high-velocity, armor-piercing 9mm through his center of mass before I traverse my point of aim to the tech-geek who’s taken off his helmet to read the LED numbers on the security lock. I tell him in no uncertain terms to get the hell away from the keyboard. He complies, raising his hands as if to protect his face. He is so scared that snot is running out of his nose and mixing with the blood splatter from his companion. He is pleading between the whimpering and sniffling.

  “Please. Don’t kill me.”

  I take my gun sights off his face. I start to say, “I’m not a—” But I am holding the same gun I used when—

  Oh my god.

  I blink, and I see Steve on the courthouse steps. I see the blood welling from the wound in his shoulder. I see the look in his eyes when I draw my—

  I close my eyes, but the image will not go away. It just coalesces into sharper focus, and I hear the three pistol shots echoing over and over.

  Nausea hits me like a punch in the gut. Turning away, I lose my lunch in a series of painful spasms. It brings no relief to the despair and self-disgust. In my peripheral vision, I see the tech-geek reaching for the plasma cannon in the hand of the goon I shot. All I have to do is pivot and shoot. I just watch him, instead. Let him do it for me, I think. Let him end my psychic pain forever. It’s an odd relief I feel as the weapon rises, and I am staring directly into the muzzle. The tech no longer looks frightened. He looks jubilant. Triumphant. His finger tightens on the trigger.

  A red boot smashes the tech’s face to a pulp, and the plasma cannon clatters to the floor.

  Falcon.

  He’s standing over me, asking whether I’m okay. He’s bare-chested, and angry red burns cover his shoulders and back. He must be in terrible pain, but his concern is only for me.

  I tell him I’m fine, and I just lost my equilibrium for a minute. I know it’s a lame excuse. I can see he doesn’t believe it, but he doesn’t press the issue. I ask myself how I deserve a friend like this. I wonder whether he would still be my friend if he knew what I did.

  “Let’s just get what we need and get out of here, Sam.”

  SEVENTEEN

  TRANSCRIPT of secure encrypted voice communication between agent Natalia Romanova (Black Widow) and Director Tony Stark.

  NR: I ran out of other leads, so I started a rotating surveillance on the A.I.M. sites that the S.H.I.E.L.D. counterintelligence team believes are also known to Nick Fury.

  TS: On the assumption that the data was provided to Bucky deliberately by Fury?

  NR: We don’t know that. Winter Soldier may have compromised Fury’s security and accessed the files himself. He has the technical expertise to do so.

  TS: You wouldn’t be reporting in if you hadn’t found something. Do you know where Bucky is now?

  NR: No, but I found an A.I.M. listening post that had been sanitized recently—all hard surfaces wiped down with bleach, and all computers wiped. Some hardware at head level has been removed. That may be because of bullet damage. Soviet-era wet-work operatives were trained to go for head shots. There were traces of smokeless powder residue and blood inside one of the ventilator ducts. I snaked the floor drains, and I found a spent .45 ACP cartridge caught in one of the traps. The Winter Soldier was definitely there.

  TS: There are a lot of operatives out there using .45 caliber—

  NR: I had a gunsmith friend check the rifling markings on the shell. She said she’d never seen anything similar. I checked the OSS records from the Second World War. They had insisted the barrels in the .45-caliber automatic pistols supplied to the USSR as part of the Lend Lease program have a unique twist, so they could be identified in the future. The gun that ejected the shell I found was part of a shipment to Russia in 1942, and no specimen of that shipment has ever surfaced in the United States—until now.

  TS: That’s very convincing, Natasha, but where does that leave us?

  NR: Nowhere. But when I concentrated my attentions on another A.I.M. site, I found it was in the midst of being raided by the former Agent 13, abetted by the Falcon.

  TS: Sharon Carter and Sam Wilson were on the same trail?

  NR: Exactly.

  TS: That would mean…

  NR: That they probably have the same source of intel?

  TS: Is it stretching you too thin to keep an eye on Carter and Wilson as you search for Winter Soldier?

  NR: Impossible to maintain covert surveillance on a subject who can fly and has every bird within a half-mile spying for him.TS: Stay on Bucky, then. Give me the heads-up if you find anything, no matter how trivial.

  NR: Understood.

  WITH one hit of the “delete” key, Director Stark erases the only reco
rd of his communication with Black Widow. He is in his office on the top floor of the S.H.I.E.L.D. administration building, an armored sanctum that has more flat-screen monitors than a motion-picture editing suite. It is a functioning smaller version of the Combat Information Center in the Helicarrier, with the main difference being that all the monitors and retrieval systems can be controlled from Stark’s desk.

  The director leans back and slowly rotates his chair to scan the panoply of screens displaying diverse streams of information, edited blocks of surveillance footage, and scrolling columns of data. One large screen begins flashing, signaling a pre-flagged incoming alert. Stark grays down the other screens and expands the flashing one to cover half the wall. It’s Agent 32—the leader of the investigation team that went to interview Dr. Benjamin, the psychiatrist who had been conducting the evaluations on all the missing agents. Although the burly agent fills most of the screen, other agents can be seen behind him pulling books from shelves and opening drawers.

  “There’s nobody here, sir. His house is deserted.”

  “Is that a preliminary assessment, or have you ripped up the floorboards yet?”

  “Sir, we shut off power at the main trunk and made an armed forced entry covering all egress points. We then conducted a room-to-room in complete darkness with night-vision goggles and came up with nada. The power has been switched back on, and we’ve got the forensics unit going through now with dogs, sniffer packs, and metal detectors.”

  Tony Stark feels a migraine coming on. He wishes he had a drink. But he always wishes he had a drink. He is about to sign off when he sees a forensics tech in a white crime-scene coverall whispering to Agent 32.

  “Sir, one of the dogs found something in the basement.”

  The camera wobbles as it follows the tech and Agent 32 down the stairs to the basement where a dog handler, a panting beagle, and two enforcement agents are standing next to an open chest freezer that has been partially emptied. The forensics tech is explaining as the camera approaches the freezer.

  “Charmaine—that’s the beagle, sir—she kept coming back to the freezer, so we started taking out the frozen dinners and bags of venison and pheasant, and I think we found Dr. Benjamin, sir.”

  The camera tilts down into the freezer to reveal the psychiatrist on his side in a fetal position, his head nestled between a package of pork chops and a family-sized bag of broccoli florets.

  “He’s got a bad case of freezer burn, sir. I’d say he’s been in there a long time.”

  EIGHTEEN

  THE man who used to be the Soviet’s premier assassin and dirty-tricks specialist waits in the dark for the man who used to be his controller. The alarms and sensors have been deactivated, and a loop circuit has been wired into the control box at the door so the system appears to be functioning normally and will respond to the entry code. Three guards with Russian Mafia tattoos are unconscious and duct-taped in the pantry.

  Aleksander Lukin’s penthouse atop the Kronas Corporation Tower boasts picture windows with stunning views of the city in all directions, but the Winter Soldier’s attention is focused on the door that provides entry from the private elevator.

  When the elevator opens, two distinct voices can be heard arguing. Winter Soldier steps back into the shadows, behind a wall. Lukin had always been a very private individual, so the Winter Soldier had not even factored the idea of Lukin allowing even a close colleague into his sanctum into the plans. Now, those plans have to be rethought, to account for an unknown factor. Winter Soldier decides to wait until he can assess the new situation before he acts.

  “Damn you, Red Skull—”

  It’s Lukin’s voice, clear as a bell. Lukin is having Red Skull over for vodka and caviar? The two archenemies are now in league with each other? How can that be? Winter Soldier inches farther back. He can’t see who has stepped out of the elevator into the foyer. Footsteps are approaching.

  “Yes, that is a given. And what could you have possibly been thinking…?”

  That’s definitely the Red Skull replying. The inflections, the pronunciation of “given” as “giffen,” the slight sibilance— but the timbre of the voice itself is all wrong. The pitch is too high.

  “…that I was asleep in there all this time?”

  The speaker steps into view, and it is Aleksander Lukin. There are no other passengers on the elevator. The man is having a conversation with himself in two different voices.

  The thought enters Winter Soldier’s mind that Lukin has gone over the edge into complete insanity, and then he decides he doesn’t care. He slips out of the shadows and slams the Russian oligarch against the wall.

  “Surprised to see me, Lukin?”

  “I’m surprised you didn’t kill me outright. You’ve lost your touch, Winter Soldier.”

  “No, I’m saving that for later.”

  “Then why are you here? Not looking for work, are you?”

  “Not hardly. You disgust me, you know. You always made out how your worldview was so superior, that you had such lofty ideals and such loyalty to a higher cause—but now you’re nothing but a sham.”

  Lukin attempts to hit Winter Soldier with a right hook, but a metallic hand catches the fist mid-strike.

  “That was stupid, Aleksander. You, of all people, should know that isn’t going to work on me. So, tell me— why are you working with the Red Skull? I overheard you rehearsing a conversation with him, talking to yourself. That’s low, even for a mass murderer like you.”

  “Are you sure you want to be tossing that word around?”

  Lukin can feel the grip tightening on his lapel. He doesn’t seem concerned or worried in the slightest. Alarm bells that should have been going off in Winter Soldier’s brain are muted by overwhelming anger.

  “Don’t push it. Just tell me where I can find Red Skull, and maybe I’ll let you off with nothing more than a couple of broken arms.”

  “You want to find the Red Skull? Oh, that is quite amusing. C’est très drôle, as the French say. More so than you realize.”

  A hidden panel in the opposite wall slides open before Winter Soldier can answer, and the towering over-muscled mercenary known as Crossbones strides into the room followed by Sin. Both have pistols drawn and ready.

  “Hands off the boss man, sidekick.”

  Sin giggles. She thinks her lover is so clever.

  Lukin pulls his hand loose from Winter Soldier’s grip.

  “Do you see now?”

  Crossbones holsters his gun and gets in the first punch before Winter Soldier can release Lukin’s lapel and turn to face him. Several punches, kicks, and combinations batter the smaller man to the floor. Sin stands ready with pistol aimed in case Winter Soldier gets the edge on her boyfriend.

  “You’re going to hurt, but you won’t die just yet,” Lukin says as he pulls a red rubber mask from his pocket. “We need you for something very important.”

  As Lukin draws the skull mask over his head, the timbre of his voice changes. Red Skull is now completely in charge of Lukin’s body.

  “Would the Aleksander Lukin you knew ever cooperate with the Red Skull voluntarily? Weren’t you trained to be on the watch for anomalies like that? Very sloppy pedagogy on Lukin’s part.”

  Winter Soldier intercepts a vicious kick aimed at his head with his robotic arm and sends Crossbones staggering backward, trying to regain his balance. Before Bucky can follow up with a counterattack, Sin is on his back and pressing her pistol muzzle into his temple. Her finger takes up the slack on the trigger. Her father’s voice growls, “I said we need him for later. Did you not hear me?”

  Sin is lifted off her feet by Winter Soldier and flung across the room to bowl over Crossbones. Winter Soldier is on both Sin and Crossbones in a flash, smacking Sin out of the way with a powerful backhand. He hauls Crossbones to his feet, takes him up in a full body lift, and brings him down headfirst on a Le Corbusier mechanics desk, instantly turning it into very expensive kindling.

  “Did that
hurt? Probably not enough to suit me, but we can fix that.”

  Sin attempts a knife thrust from behind, but Winter Soldier deflects it with his prosthetic arm, shattering the blade. A knee in her gut and an elbow in her face puts her down on the floor in a dazed and bloody state.

  “Haven’t you ever fought anybody who knows what they’re doing? Or do you specialize in innocent bystanders?”

  It is not the Winter Soldier who turns to the man who has Red Skull living in his head. It is the grown-up boy who was once Captain America’s fighting partner.

  “Don’t go away. I’ll get to you next.”

  There is no expression to read on the mask. It is just the face of death molded in rubber and tinted red.

  Captain America’s grown-up boy-partner stands over the semiconscious Crossbones and kicks away the splintered pieces of the desk.

  “You shot my friend, and I don’t have many friends.”

  Mechanical fingers close around Crossbones’ throat and lift him until his feet are dangling an inch off the floor. The fingers start tightening like a vise. The mercenary’s boots kick, seeking traction that isn’t there. Under the black-and-white skull mask, veins are popping. There is no exultation in Bucky’s face, only determination. A shudder runs through Crossbones’ body.

  “Interesting,” says the body of Aleksander Lukin speaking with Red Skull’s voice. “Steve Rogers would never have thought of cold-blooded murder as an option. ”

  It is the Winter Soldier—not Bucky—who drops Crossbones, then turns to address the man with the red mask. “You do not have the right to speak his name.”

  “His name means nothing. He’s dead.”

  The Winter Soldier’s march across the room carries the Red Skull to the row of windows facing south until the back of the red rubber mask is touching the glass.