The Death Of Captain America Page 18

  I’m certain there has to be at least one or two secret escape routes. That has been routine for every lab or facility that Arnim Zola and Red Skull have ever used, and I saw for myself the one Doctor Faustus utilized to beat a hasty retreat when Falcon and Black Widow attacked the R.A.I.D. site. That was when Faustus handed me one of his many security cards so I could get through locked containment doors to recapture Winter Soldier for him.

  I never returned that card to him, and that now gives me a chance for freedom.

  The most obvious escape route would be a tunnel, so I make my way down to the basement. There is free access to the utility rooms housing the furnaces and boilers. I give them a rudimentary search, but I don’t think Red Skull would choose too obvious a location. At the back of a large storage area, I find a steel door marked “cleaning supplies” that requires security-card access. That’s suspicious off the bat. I swipe and enter.

  The room is too large for a supply closet. There are steel shelves full of sealed metal containers, stacks of large crates, and aisles between the shelves wide enough for a forklift. There is a hum that sounds like a refrigeration fan from the far end of the room.

  The noise is from a freezer unit with two backup power sources. The thing is the size of a coffin and has a frosted-over glass inspection port. When I wipe away the frost, I see a face I know all too well.

  It’s Steve Rogers.

  My knees are going rubbery, and my knees never go rubbery. Bile is rising toward my throat. I hear my forehead hitting the inspection port, but I don’t feel it. Steve’s face is inches away, but the details are getting fuzzy. It’s my own breath fogging the glass again.

  A thousand questions, and no answers. Isn’t he dead? Didn’t I shoot him at Foley Square? Didn’t I see his body at the morgue? Wasn’t there a funeral and a burial? Is everything I know just a lie implanted by Doctor Faustus? Is my pregnancy even real?

  All those questions and more are cut off by the sound of the security door buzzing open.

  In the darkest corner of the room, I slip behind the shelving and hunker down. It’s not an ideal hiding place, but it affords me a view of the freezer unit. I watch a R.A.I.D. security team take up positions around the freezer as a crew of A.I.M. techs attaches a portable power unit to it. Another tech drives up a forklift. I hear Arnim Zola’s robotic voice before I see him.

  “Be very careful with that. If you damage him, and he can’t be awakened, you will answer to the Red Skull.”

  I inch back as far as I can when Zola comes into view. The box that serves as his head turns in my direction, and the single red lens in the middle of it seems to be looking me right in the eye. I scrunch back farther and hold my breath.

  The forklift backs out of the freezer room, followed by the A.I.M. techs and R.A.I.D. guards. The door closes, and the sound of footsteps fades down the basement corridor.

  Zola’s words ricochet around my brain. One word in particular stands out: “awakened.”

  Steve isn’t dead.

  They’re going to revive him.

  It feels like Christmas and the Fourth of July with opened presents and fireworks. But my escape plans are cancelled. I am not leaving Steve in their hands.

  No way.

  It won’t be easy. They took away my gun again after I jettisoned Winter Soldier from the escape jet. Faustus didn’t lock me up—but he forgot he gave me one of his security cards, so he assumes I can’t move freely. Big deal. Getting through the containment gates and blast doors is one thing, but navigating the halls and corridors is something else again. I’m still wearing my white jumpsuit, which stands out among all the yellow and red here. It took me an hour to get down to the basement because I had to keep waiting for the next stretch of corridor to be empty.

  I can’t keep worrying about all the negatives. I have to get Steve away from here. There’s nothing left but to start moving and make my way up to Zola’s lab as best I can.

  The security card is in my hand and I’m about to swipe the lock when the door opens and an A.I.M. tech steps into the room. I brazen it out with an authoritative, “What are you doing here?”

  Confused, the tech blurts, “I came back to get the tetrachloromethane coupler—”

  After I take him down with a roundhouse kick to his solar plexus, I strip him of his yellow beekeeper suit and helmet. He’s also carrying a railgun, a pistol-sized weapon that uses an electric field to shoot hyper-velocity projectiles. I slip it into my empty holster.

  A quick search of the empty spot where the freezer unit stood yields a stainless-steel fitting that could well be a refrigerant coupler. All I can remember of the name of the refrigerant is that it starts with a “T.”

  Ten minutes later, I’m at the door to Zola’s lab, which unfortunately is guarded by a pair of very large R.A.I.D. troopers armed with kinetic-energy weapons. Holding up the stainless-steel device, I say, “I’m bringing the T-coupler.”

  They don’t have any idea what I’m talking about, and I have no plan “B.” I’d have to unzip the beekeeper suit to get at the railgun I took off the A.I.M. tech, so shooting them before they shoot me isn’t an option. My choices ratchet down to zero as the guards level their weapons at me.

  “That’s the coupler for the tetrachloromethane hose.”

  Doctor Faustus has walked up behind me. He plucks the coupler from my hand.

  “I’ll take that.”

  He swipes one of the security cards he still has. The door opens to reveal Steve stretched out on an operating table, with Arnim Zola leaning over him, hypodermic jet injector in hand.

  The box that serves as Zola’s head stays motionless, but the lips move on the holographic projection in his chest.

  “Good of you to join us, Faustus.”

  “Don’t take that tone of voice with me, Zola. You wouldn’t even have this specimen if it wasn’t for me.”

  Faustus steps inside, and the doors slide shut.

  I have no choice but to turn and walk away. But now I know where Steve is. And if they “awaken” him, I can walk him out of this place rather than wheel him out or carry him. I have to think positively. I have to keep my wits together. I have to do all of this because I am living for two people now.

  Dawdling in the corridor is impossible, but I can make a circuit of the lab perimeter—passing back and forth on a cross passageway every five to ten minutes, changing my gait, alternating between slouching and a severely erect posture. I note that there is only one security cam, and it’s pointing directly at the lab door.

  On my fifth pass, the lab doors open. Zola and Faustus emerge side-by-side, pretending to tolerate each other.

  “Complete success. Red Skull will be extremely pleased with me, Faustus.”

  “With us, Zola.”

  The next set of blast doors closes behind them before I can hear Zola’s reply.

  I unzip the yellow suit, take out the railgun, and step out of the passageway into the corridor to shoot out the security cam. My next two shots take down the R.A.I.D. guards. I swipe for entry into Zola’s lab, drag the guards inside one-by-one, and close the door. I listen for any reaction, but there’s none. The railgun is completely silent except for the small sonic boom from the projectile, which is nowhere near as loud as a conventional firearm.

  I’m halfway to saving my man. Now all I have to do is get him out of here.

  Steve is lying on the operating table with an IV glucose drip, and he’s plugged into both cardio and brain-wave monitors. There’s no respirator, so they’ve managed to get him up and running amazingly fast. Probably got pins and needles from head to foot, though. But none of these things would stop the Steve I know. I’m sure if I can get him to stand up, I can also get him to walk out of here. I glance back to the door and see that one of the R.A.I.D. guards is close to Steve’s size. We can both breeze out under their noses with luck and some good, old-fashioned audacity.

  I’m standing over Steve pulling the sticky EEG electrodes from his head, and his
hands are stirring under the sheet that covers him to his neck. I’m so happy to see him breathing that the tears are rolling down my face and falling on his cheek.

  “Steve? Can you hear me?”

  His eyes open, and he looks directly at me with no recognition at all. When he speaks, it’s not with Steve’s voice or any trace of his faint Lower East Side accent. “Who are you?”

  It becomes apparent as he sits up into the light that although he bears a facial resemblance to Steve, it’s an artificial likeness—like it had been enhanced with plastic surgery. His gestures and body language are all wrong.

  “You’re not Steve,” I gasp.

  “That’s my name. I am Steve Rogers.”

  The doppelganger shakes his head. The sheet slips off his upper body, and I see large areas of keloid scarring—healed burns covering one shoulder and much of his chest. That’s what tells me who he really is.

  “No. Your real name is William Burnside. You were part of an FBI program to create a new Captain America in the 1950s, but the Super-Soldier Serum they used was flawed. You were in and out of suspended animation for years until Doctor Faustus—”

  The horror sitting up before me with Steve’s face cuts me off.

  “Doctor Faustus is helping me. I’m going to be Captain America again.”

  Faustus is the one who once tried to make Burnside over into a hate-mongering fascist super hero called “The Director.” When Faustus had ordered Burnside to kill Steve Rogers, something inside him had snapped; he’d triggered a self-immolation device. Everyone thought Burnside had been dead all these years, but Faustus apparently had him stashed away. And Faustus has conveniently removed important parts of Burnside’s memory. The doppelganger thinks he’s Steve Rogers, but he’s really a bad experiment gone worse—and a dangerous psychotic.

  So Steve is really dead, and this lunatic is alive and wearing Steve’s face. And now Red Skull and Faustus are going to set him up as the new Captain America. It’s more than I can bear.

  I’m not going to let that happen.

  The railgun is in my hand and pointing at the imposter’s head. He backs off, not comprehending why this is about to happen.

  My finger tightens on the trigger—

  INTERLUDE #16

  “IT seems your patient isn’t exactly your patient anymore, Doctor Faustus.”

  Aleksander Lukin, holding an A.I.M. knockoff of the S.H.I.E.L.D. neural neutralizer, stands over the limp body of Sharon Carter. The weapon isn’t exactly smoking, but it is shedding strayions.

  “Your grasp of the obvious is impressive,” Faustus says. “Am I addressing Lukin or Red Skull? It’s hard to tell without the mask.”

  “Both. We are sharing today.”

  “This could have been a disaster if I hadn’t brought you back to look at the results. Zola should have stayed here to monitor the subject.”

  “Zola had to go oversee the sterilization of the facility where you had previously stored the subject. We don’t want any clues lying around that would bring the wrong people here, do we?”

  Lukin/Skull pries the railgun from Sharon’s hand and pockets it. “We really need to do something about her brain, you know. We can’t have her running amok in her delicate state. In the meantime, she should be securely strapped down in the medical bay.”

  “Where your daughter, Sin, is recovering?” Faustus asks. “Such a lovely girl. Found her hacking into my personal files once. She said she was intending to help me organize them. Wasn’t that sweet? I’ll bet she’s been helping you, as well, while you weren’t looking.”

  Red Skull turns and walks out with no reply.

  Faustus has to step over Sharon’s inert form to lead Burnside back to the operation table.

  “She was trying to kill me. Why would she do that?” Burnside seems genuinely puzzled. “She was very confused. She called me by my name, and then she said I was somebody else.”

  Faustus pulls the sheet back over the imposter’s body. “Just the mutterings of a foolish girl. Everybody knows who you are. You’re Captain America.”

  THIRTY-FOUR

  THE motorcycle he’s riding to upstate New York is still called “American Iron,” even though it is only assembled in the United States from parts made all over the world. But, heck, Bucky figures, if Captain America’s riding it, that’s all the brand recognition you need. Its liquid-cooled dual-overhead cam 1,250cc V-twin engine may not get him places as fast as a flying car, but the scenery is better. The shield strapped to his back adds to the drag coefficient if he sits up straight, but he’s not Easy Rider, is he?

  A glance to the sky tells Bucky that Falcon is still flying high up there along with Redwing.

  Last night, Bucky had the same nightmare he has had every night since he agreed to be the new Captain America. It makes no logical sense, but it makes a lot of emotional sense—which, he supposes, is what dreams are supposed to do. It’s a pastiche from the war—some bridgehead in Holland. Tiger tanks and Panzer Grenadiers try to hold off the Allied advance, while Captain America and Bucky chip away at the German flank. Cap flings his shield and topples a Waffen SS officer. The shield is flying back, and Cap yells out, “Catch it, Bucky!”

  And Bucky does.

  But Bucky isn’t Bucky anymore. He’s wearing the new Captain America uniform, and he’s holding the shield he just caught. The old Captain America is fading away like Alice’s Cheshire cat, with only the star on his chest remaining solid.

  “Don’t lose the shield, Bucky. I’m going to want it back.”

  “I won’t lose it, Cap! Don’t go—”

  “Say it in Russian, Bucky.”

  “What? What does that mean?”

  And then, even the star is gone.

  Bucky feels like a little kid again, like the red-white and–blue suit he’s wearing is six sizes too big, and he’ll never be able to fill it out. He’s shouting, “That wasn’t really me! That wasn’t my fault!”

  “What wasn’t your fault?”

  Bucky had sat bolt upright in his bed to see Falcon perched on the ledge of the cheap hotel window.

  “Don’t you ever come in through the door?”

  “What, and walk up five flights of smelly stairs?”

  “You’re not here to throw down on me, are you?”

  “Say what?”

  “Sorry. What do you want, Sam?”

  “Saw you on the news. I wasn’t thrilled at first. But when I thought about it, I couldn’t think of anybody who could do it better.”

  “Damning with faint praise, but go on.”

  “I got a lead on where Sharon Carter might be. I thought you might want to get in on trying to save Steve’s lady.”

  “She’s your friend, too, right?”

  “She is that.”

  “Then let’s do it.”

  That’s all it took. Now, Bucky is wearing the suit and getting the wind and bugs in his face on the thruway heading north. It’s a bright, beautiful day to be heading toward what might be a grim and nasty fight, but he remembers many days like this during the war. Most people alive today tend to think of World War II as a dreary black-and white event. They don’t realize that the push to Paris after D-Day took place between the beginning of July and the end of August 1944. Bucky saw some horrific carnage on days that were just as bright and sunny.

  Falcon circles down and points to a road leading off the highway. Stopping on the side of that road, they have a short tactical briefing and planning session.

  “Satellite imagery showed trucks going northwest on this road, departing from a suspected A.I.M. facility that we know was used by Doctor Faustus. The trucks stopped briefly at that complex there on the other side of the woods—an abandoned upscale mental-health clinic we now suspect was a front for Faustus. Who knows what went on there?”

  Bucky can make out tall chimneys sticking up through the trees a quarter-mile away, reminding him of nightmarish places he saw in Germany and Poland.

  “I’ve met Faustus.
I can imagine.”

  “You have no idea, Bucky. Faustus tried to start a race war back in the day. He even brainwashed William Burn-side, who the Feds had set up to be Captain America in the fifties. Can you imagine that? Using a guy who’d worn Cap’s colors to lead a lynch mob of race-baiters and bigots?”

  Just the idea of it infuriates Bucky, cementing his enmity toward Faustus.

  Hiding the motorcycle in the bushes, the duo strikes off through the foliage toward the facility with Redwing flying ahead to reconnoiter. At the chain-link fence delineating the property’s perimeter, they stop in the shadow of a tall pine as Falcon “sees” through Redwing’s eyes.

  “A.I.M. agents. The yellow-beekeeper-suit guys. Looks like they’re shutting the place down, loading equipment on to one of their VTOL transports.”

  “Bucket-heads? Nerds with guns is all they are.”

  “One of Red Skull’s top guns is there, playing head honcho on the job. Professor Arnim Zola himself. He’s another psycho with roots in the Third Reich, like Skull and Faustus.”

  “I guess I don’t have to ask which one us goes in high, and which one goes in low?”

  Their combined attack from the ground and from the air catches the A.I.M. agents loading the transport completely by surprise. A third of them are laid low before the rest are even aware something is wrong. There is no loud discharge of firearms, shouting, or snappy repartee—just a methodically violent demonstration of team fighting elevated to an art form.

  Falcon’s economy of motion and combative efficiency remind Bucky of Steve Rogers. Not the style, exactly, but certainly the attitude. Watching Falcon in action makes Bucky think of the time he and Cap almost caught the Red Skull napping in Denmark. It makes Bucky smile—and care about not letting Falcon down, showing him he can do his job. Showing him he was right to place his trust in him.

  When he’s certain Falcon can mop up the remainder of the crew loading the transport, the man who was once a boy-soldier and now wears the uniform of Captain America rushes into a large structure that had once been the institutional laundry facility.