The Death Of Captain America Read online

  “I’m going after Zola, Falcon!”

  Professor Arnim Zola is not a mere “nerd with a gun,” but an armored cyborg wielding a Tesla-coil plasma pistol. The hydrogen bolt he fires would have blasted a hole through Bucky’s chest if the shield hadn’t deflected it. The back-blast fries the central nervous systems of four of Zola’s A.I.M. stooges right through their protective suits.

  A confused beekeeper stands directly between Zola and Bucky, but that doesn’t prevent the deranged robotic professor from shooting, since meat and bone do little to diminish the energy of a hypervelocity hydrogen bolt. A smoking 10mm hole appears in the brick wall behind where Bucky had been.

  Steve Rogers would have never played a defensive game. Bucky flings the shield, knowing full well he is defenseless until it returns to his hand. It’s a seven-point carom shot, bouncing off steel support pillars, walls, and the concrete floor—making it impossible to predict the ultimate impact point.

  Arnim Zola turns his plasma pistol on three support pillars, bringing down a large section of the second and third floors in the shield’s flight path. Bucky has to make a lunging dive to save the shield from being buried in tons of rubble. Three of the remaining A.I.M. crew are not so lucky.

  Zola has retreated up to a steel catwalk and is retraining his weapon on Bucky when Falcon crashes through the window and topples a twenty-foot-high heat-transfer unit on top of him. A flesh-and-blood human would have been crushed against the catwalk grates, but the cyborg Zola shrugs off the rusting metal and blasts a fusillade at Falcon that empties the charge in his weapon.

  Climbing to what’s left of the third floor, Zola dashes inside a windowless room and slams a steel door behind him. On the ground floor, the remainder of the A.I.M. agents have recovered a cache of plasma pistols and are punching more holes in the walls where Bucky used to be. As he throws the shield, Bucky calls out to Falcon, “I’ll take care of these creeps—don’t let Zola get away!”

  Falcon rips open the steel door on the third floor to find Professor Arnim Zola plugged into a machine that takes up most of the room, vibrating at a frequency that threatens to loosen his molars. Six or seven monitors are flashing number sequences. Zola’s voice booms from multiple speakers.

  “You have accomplished nothing. I am taking everything of importance with me!”

  It comes to Falcon in a flash that the number sequences are a countdown in seconds, and they have just passed 7.306.

  At 3.963 Falcon zooms to the ground floor and grabs Bucky.

  Falcon, carrying Bucky, barrels out of the facility at the 2.511 mark. They hit the ground, tumble, and roll. Bucky gets the shield up to cover both of them as the fireball engulfs the building and scorches a perimeter of fifty yards.

  They stand, batting out live cinders while watching the devouring flames.

  “What are you thinking, Bucky?”

  “I’m wondering what Red Skull wants to hide this badly.”

  INTERLUDE#17

  HE feels good to be back in the Captain America uniform because it is rightfully his. He knows this because Doctor Faustus told him so, and Doctor Faustus is right about everything.

  He had been Captain America when it actually meant something to be Captain America. The uniform he wears is exactly the same as the one worn by the last real Captain America—not like the sleazy, redesigned rag worn by that ignoble imposter who went on a rampage in Washington and assaulted Kane-Meyer patriots who were just doing their duty.

  Wearing the uniform is a hallowed trust of which one must be worthy. Bearing the title “Captain America” is the highest honor he can think of, and the idea of a pretender to that title besmirching the uniform is more than he can bear. It makes his burn scars itch maddeningly, but he forbears scratching through the sacred cloth.

  The man at the podium in the plaza far below is another matter. Senator Gordon Wright embodies all the principles in which Captain America believes fervently. Another true patriot, Wright has come to Chicago on the first leg of a campaign tour that will hopefully wrest the White House from the traitor who defiles it.

  A huge, enthusiastic crowd has gathered to hear the venerable legislator’s earnest words. Wright invokes the Constitution but stresses the need for security. Wright uses the word “freedom” thirty-six times and “the people of this great nation” eleven times. Everything is going exactly as written in the script.

  The man with the burn scars wearing the Captain America suit stands on the rooftop ledge adjacent to the plaza and adjusts the straps on the shield hanging from his left arm. It’s not the original shield, of course. Not Vibranium, but a laminate of moly-steel, Kevlar, and carbon-fiber resin. It has a propulsion and guidance system created by an extremely patriotic organization called A.I.M., but that is a national secret. Doctor Faustus made him promise never to reveal it.

  He is proud to be a part of this night. He understands the reasons for the careful scripting of this event. What does a little deception matter against advancement of the greater good? The fate of the nation hangs in the balance, and the enemies of liberty are truly ruthless.

  The assassins rushing the podium are real enough. They are fanatical believers in a political stance diametrically opposed to what Senator Wright stands for. Does it matter that they were duped, prepped, and prodded toward this night’s actions? Is it important that the weapons and opportunity were provided for them? Of course not. They are grace notes in a major orchestration.

  He hears his cue and attacks as the would-be assassins draw their weapons and shout their slogans. Within seconds, they are lying at the foot of the podium, bloody and lacerated. The crowd is cheering. Captain America addresses the throng.

  “My fellow Americans…”

  THIRTY-FIVE

  BUCKY had watched the newscast with growing anger and disgust. The man on the screen looked so much like Steve Rogers, but the words coming out of his mouth in support of Senator Wright were such twisted perversions of the ideals by which Steve Rogers had lived that Bucky wanted to smash the screen.

  He had been in the downstairs gym in Falcon’s loft, sparring and working out when Sam got the heads-up from Natasha to turn on the cable news.

  Watching the address, and seeing replays of the assassination attempt and rescue, Bucky had been struck speechless. Falcon wasn’t one to keep his opinions to himself.

  “This is the Skull’s work. It has to be. He’s got the motive, the wherewithal, and the organization to make this happen. I just knew in my gut that Senator Wright wasn’t on the level.”

  “And now Wright is linked with this new Captain America,” Bucky mused. “Maybe both of these guys are a direct connection to Kronas, and to the Red Skull?”

  A few days later, Bucky is standing in the crowd at another Wright rally, this time in Minneapolis. Falcon has begged off—he and Black Widow have to do a complete background investigation on the senator, his staff, and anybody he’d been in contact with for the past six months. Bucky wanted to get his boots on the ground and see Wright in action, especially if the other Cap was so tight with him.

  The demographic that turns out to hear their demagogue is a cross-section of America that clearly deserves better. It disheartens Bucky to see Lincoln’s quote about not being able to “fool all of the people all of the time” being trumped by the quote attributed to P.T. Barnum about how often a sucker is born.

  Bucky has agreed to Falcon’s request that he only be a passive observer. He is here to see whether the Steve Rogers stand-in makes another appearance and to try to track him. He’s not supposed to take direct action. He is still an unregistered hero on a black op for Tony Stark, who is holding all the plausible deniability cards and will hang him out to dry if he drops the ball.

  Seeing all the headlines on the newspapers littering the streets is what makes up his mind for him.

  “IS CAP REALLY BACK?”

  Damn straight he is.

  But not the Cap bankrolled by the Red Skull.

  At th
e motel where he stashed the motorcycle, Bucky dons the uniform and picks up the shield. Falcon won’t be happy that he’s going outside mission parameters, but seeing Wright work the crowd was an eye-opener. He can’t let this lie.

  The senator is staying at one of the most expensive hotels in town. He won’t qualify for Secret Service protection unless he scores well in the primaries, so his security is being supplied by Kane-Meyer. A tough bunch of well-trained and well-armed pros. Just the kind that Winter Soldier would eat for breakfast. The one on the roof and the pair in the hall are unconscious before they hit the floor. The one on the balcony is problematic until he is fooled into opening the slider himself. Putting up a fight earns him extra bruises.

  What Bucky sees in the bedroom and bathroom of the suite sets off all the alarm bells in his head—or rather, what he doesn’t see. No luggage, no toiletries, nothing to indicate that Wright is actually staying in the room.

  It’s a trap.

  The attack comes from the sitting room in a streak of red, white, and blue. The punches catch him unawares and send him crashing into a desk, splintering it. When he picks himself up, he is staring into the face of righteous indignation—and it bears the features of Steve Rogers.

  It speaks with Steve’s voice, as well.

  “I’m going to rip that fake suit off your back and make you eat it, imposter.”

  How surreal is this? Bucky thinks. Then he strikes back.

  THIRTY-SIX

  THE ICU in this facility’s medical bay is tiny, so they had set me up next to Red Skull’s daughter, Sin. I was on a security gurney in a four-point padded restraint when they brought me in, heavy canvas bands with thick leather straps on both ankles and wrists. They left me in the restraints and plugged me into the monitoring system while Sin screamed psychotic threats at me.

  If she hadn’t been in an upper-body cast and an immobilizing head brace, Sin would have been off her bed and strangling me. She had to make do with screeching the same expletive at me over and over. I offered to teach her some more imaginative invective, but that just increased the volume. Eventually she got hoarse and just lay there panting. She started screaming that the itching on her cast was so unbearable that she was going to have her father cut off their noses and other important body parts if they didn’t take it off her. That particular harangue went on for three days.

  So now one brave member of the medical staff has pushed in a cart loaded with a tray of scalpels and hemostats, an assortment of salves, and a battery-powered Stryker cast saw.

  “Your collarbone has knitted enough for you to wear a flexible brace, so I’m going to remove your cast, Sin.”

  Sin isn’t thankful at all. She starts yelling at the aide to hurry up, which I can see is annoying the guy. He unlocks the wheels on my gurney and pushes it flush with the wall so there’s room between me and Sin for the medical cart to squeeze in.

  I tell the aide very politely in my sweetest voice that my nose is itching and driving me crazy, and would he be so kind as to loosen the restraint cable on my right hand just enough for me to be able to reach it? Sin helps my cause by stepping up her nastiness and raising questions about the aide’s parenthood. The aide loosens my right hand, making sure I can’t reach the buckles and lock on my left hand. But I can now reach my nose, and the side of the gurney. I have a crazy outline of a plan, but the odds are stacked against me.

  The saw is rotary, with a trigger and some sort of safety device. It’s about the size of one of those giant pepper mills they use in restaurants and has a heavy power unit plugged into the bottom. It makes a dull whine as it cuts through Sin’s cast. After sawing through the last section of cast, the aide engages the safety and lays the saw on the end of the cart farthest from me. He checks to make sure that I can’t even reach the end of the closer cart. I have to bite my lip. My crazy plan might work.

  The aide tells Sin that her flexibility looks good as he slathers her chapped skin with lotion. She is wiggling her torso as much as she can with her head still immobilized by the cranial restraints. The aide says that Doctor Faustus will be very pleased with her progress. That one really sets her off.

  “Faustus can bite me! I’ve been through his secret files, and I know stuff that can get him lowered face-first into one of my father’s acid vats!”

  My hand may not be able to reach the medical cart, but I now have enough slack to reach the wall—and the gurney wheels are unlocked. I push off from the wall and roll until I can reach the close end of the medical cart. The aide sees the cart move and makes a grab for the saw, but I jerk on my end of the cart, causing the saw to slide across the top and into my hand.

  The aide has to push aside the cart to get at me, but I have already cut through my right hand restraint by reversing the grip on the saw and activating the trigger with my nose. I cut up my forearm a bit but nothing arterial. When the aide tries to take the saw from me, I bash him in the temple with the heavy battery end.

  He drops like a rock.

  Sin is screaming her head off but talk about crying wolf. The medical staff probably keeps on playing online games or scraping their lottery cards. I’m a lot more careful about how I cut my other restraints.

  “Keep it up, sweetheart,” I say to Sin. “I’ll be over there in a minute to settle up.”

  It must hurt like hell for Sin to be unscrewing her head restraint since any movement of her left arm has to be pushing and pulling on her broken collarbone. She does manage to free herself, but she isn’t in what you might call fighting trim. Her attempt to brain me with the big stainless-steel cranial clamp she just unscrewed from her head goes ridiculously wild, which makes me underestimate her. I don’t see the scalpel in her other hand until she’s lunging at my throat with it.

  My reflexes are still good enough to get my forearm up in time to stop the scalpel. It hurts like all blue blazes, but it’s still better than getting an amateur tracheotomy. I bash her face so hard with the saw handle that the battery pack cracks off, making the saw completely useless.

  I pull the scalpel out of my forearm, grab a fistful of Sin’s hair, press the razor-sharp blade against her carotid artery, and frog-march her toward the door.

  “We are walking out of here, you and me, and nobody’s getting their panties in a knot, right?”

  THIRTY-SEVEN

  KARPOV, the Russian spymaster who turned Bucky into the Winter Soldier, had always said that hubris was the agent’s biggest danger. It occurs to Bucky that a darkened hotel room in Minneapolis—during a knockdown-drag-out with a man who is not only dressed as Captain America but is also almost as strong and skilled—is not the time or place to be ruing a failure to remember life lessons.

  Bucky’s best moves get blocked, and he does not succeed in countering several punches and kicks that connect to bruising effect. By the time most of the furniture in the suite has been reduced to matchsticks, Bucky knows for certain that he is not facing any old ringer, but a product of some kind of Super-Soldier Serum. But that is categorically impossible, because there has only ever been one true Super-Soldier.

  Impossible, because that Super-Soldier, Steve Rogers, is dead.

  Impossible, because Steve Rogers would never have been capable of the unadulterated hate spewing from the imitation Cap’s mouth.

  “It hurts me to have to pound your despicable body to a pulp while it’s draped in even a debased version of my uniform! I swear, I will remove it from your corpse and dispose of it with dignity!”

  The real Cap could hate the idea and the deed. Never the man.

  The real Cap wouldn’t have the glint of pure insanity in his eyes.

  A furious barrage of lightning punches propels Bucky through the plate-glass sliders and over the balcony rail. The senator’s suite is in a setback—Bucky doesn’t plummet the full thirty floors to the sidewalk but hits a part of the hotel roof three stories below. It’s still enough to knock the wind out of him.

  The man with burn scars covered by a Captain America
suit lands nearby and faces the former Soviet assassin who is also wearing a Captain America suit.

  “James Buchanan Barnes, you deserve to suffer more than this. You betrayed your country and killed loyal Americans to serve your masters in the Kremlin, and you dare to profane a uniform that stands for ideals you turned your cowardly back on?”

  The words stagger Bucky more than any combination of punches and kicks ever could.

  The words stab him through the heart, because they are true. There’s nothing to deny. They are bald facts stripped of pretensions, and facing them is a soul-shriveling experience. But those horrible truths gloss over something very important. The truths totter atop a pyramid of lies and deceptions built by the Red Skull for his own evil purposes.

  The man facing Bucky is not Steve Rogers but an insane puppet of the Red Skull. And he has to be taken down.

  Bucky throws the shield—the real shield—and it shears through the edge of the pretender’s shield as if it were cardboard.

  The Skull’s puppet Captain America is caught off-guard; he loses concentration long enough for the Vibranium shield to bounce off a vent pipe, ricochet from a chimney, and knock his feet out from under him.

  Catching the shield in midair, Bucky brings it down hard on the other Cap’s head before he hits the roof. Ripping off the man’s mask is the ultimate shock—a stunned Bucky finds the face of Steve Rogers staring back at him.

  “No way in hell. You’re not Steve Rogers.”

  “Can’t take it, can you, turncoat? I’m the real Steve Rogers.”

  The one man alive who has spent more time looking at the actual Steve Rogers than anybody else spots the little differences and the unfamiliar facial expressions and understands who is now in front of him.

  “I know who you really are.”

  “I’m Steve Rogers.”

  “That’s what Doctor Faustus told you, but he didn’t tell you that he really reports to the Red Skull, did he?”