“Thanks,” said Fury.
She turned to go.
“Yes, thank you,” said Stark. “A little good news, and made all the finer because it was brought to us by the stunning Tina Legs.”
“Valentina Allegra de La Fontaine,” she said.
“Yup,” Stark agreed.
“You know she could kill you from where she’s standing, don’t you?” asked Fury. “With a snow cone?”
“Just one of her many superlative qualities,” said Stark.
“How’s Pietro Maximoff?” asked Fury.
“Stable, but unconscious,” said de la Fontaine.
“The Vision is with him.”
“Any idea what’s wrong with him?” asked Stark.
“Apart from exhaustion, there are no obvious signs of injury or illness,” said the Contessa. “Medical is running checks now. It seems mental, not physical.”
Fury nodded.
“If there’s nothing else, Director?” said de la Fontaine.
“One thing,” said Stark. “Last time I stayed over, did I leave a change of clothes here?”
“Do you mean the night you broke my heart and left in the morning without waking me to say goodbye?” she asked.
“I never did that,” said Stark. “I never did that,” he added to Fury.
“I know,” she said with a smirk. “I was merely riffing on your deliberate innuendo. Like you should be so lucky.”
“He means the armor,” said Fury.
“I know what he means. Yes, there is a spare Iron Man suit in the Helicarrier vault.”
“I need it,” said Stark.
“You do,” agreed Fury. “I saw the one you came in wearing.”
“I don’t have the time or the means to summon another one from Avengers Tower by remote,” said Stark.
“I’ll have your valet lay it out for you,” said de la Fontaine.
“That would be awesome, Tina Le—”
Stark paused.
“Contessa,” he finished.
She nodded and left the briefing room.
“When you die, Stark,” said Fury, “it won’t be because of Ultron or whoever. It’ll be at the hands of a woman. A woman like that, who won’t take your crap anymore.”
“I’m counting on it,” said Stark.
“So…you’re going to suit up,” said Fury, rising. “Where are you going?”
“Let’s see what plays out in the next ninety minutes,” said Stark. “Right now, my answer is Berlin.”
SEVENTEEN
C BERLIN
23.09 LOCAL, JUNE 12TH
AP LUNGED forward to grab the dispersal device. The vapor had fogged the air of the dining room in Strucker’s elegant apartment. Cap could feel droplets of moisture on his face.
Strucker stood up so fast the chair he was sitting on toppled backwards. He snatched up the laser pistol and fired at Cap.
Cap blocked the shots with his shield, and the laser bolts ricocheted away. One blew a hole in the ceiling; the other tore a chunk out of the edge of the dining table.
Cap vaulted the table and threw himself at Strucker. Two more shots, point blank, rebounded from his shield before the two men connected. Cap’s flying tackle knocked Strucker backwards. Locked together, they crashed into the corner of the room. Strucker’s frantic left fist caught Cap’s jaw. Cap swept his shield-arm sideways, right to left, and the flat of the shield smacked Strucker into the wall. The edge of the shield ripped the laser pistol out of Strucker’s hand. It bounced off the window frame and fell out into the night.
Dazed, Strucker threw another left jab. Cap caught the fist with his right hand. He slammed his shield sideways again, this time left to right, and the dish of it smashed Strucker full across the side of the face. The Hydra mastermind lurched backwards violently, the back of his head making a dent in the wall plaster. Cap knocked him out with a straight punch to the face, then picked him up and threw him.
Strucker landed on the table and slid along it, plowing files, maps, and plastic cases onto the floor. He fell off the far end, broke a chair, and sprawled unconscious onto the carpet.
“Biohazard!” Cap yelled into his mic. He turned back to the device on the table. “Biohazard release!”
“Cap, confirm that!” Runciter responded over the link.
“Gail, Strucker released the pathogen!”
“We’re coming in! Tac teams go!”
“Negative! Negative! Get clear! Seal the building!”
Cap grabbed the device. He realized his hands weren’t steady. He was swaying. His vision was swimming. He was burning up.
“Cap? Cap, report?”
He tried to concentrate. He knew he was dying. Skin contact and inhalation—the pathogen was already deep in his system, and it was killing him. How long? Minutes? Seconds?
He fumbled with the device, and managed to unwind the milled collar and open the curved lid on its hinge. There was a green metal bulb in the socket inside. It was punctured, just like the one he had seen in the S.H.I.E.L.D. forensic lab.
He remembered Strucker’s attaché case on the lab bench. Two bulbs. God, why couldn’t he think clearly? There had been two bulbs. The other one was an antidote. A counteragent. Strucker and his men had been immune. The extortion…the extortion was only going to work because Hydra could counteract the pathogen.
The power of life and death. Rule through fear. A declaration to the world: the murder of Berlin.
“Cap! Talk to me!” Gail Runciter sounded very far away. Cap could barely hear her over the blood pounding in his head.
He wanted to sit down. He wanted to close his eyes.
He groped around. Where was it? There were aluminum carry cases on the table. Strucker would keep the pathogen and the counteragent close by. Cap wrenched open a case: paperwork, design briefs. He tossed them aside. Papers fluttered in the air. He grabbed another case, laid it flat, and opened it.
Foam liner. Six recesses. Five green bulbs. All pathogen. No counteragent.
He leaned on the table edge with both hands. He could feel sweat pouring off him. He shook his head, trying to clear it. The fever was burning through him, white-hot.
Where was it? Try to think.
There was a case on the floor. Cap bent and picked it up. Bending down made the blood rush to his head and he almost collapsed.
He rose again, swaying. He steadied himself. He dropped the case on the table and yanked it open.
Foam liner. Six recesses. Six red bulbs.
He could still do this. How did the dispersal unit work? He reached for it and tried to fish the punctured green bulb out of the socket. It was hard to get at. He pulled off his glove so he could use his bare fingers. Come on. Come on!
He removed the punctured bulb. It flew out of his fingers, bounced off the table, and rolled across the floor.
Red one. Red one! Move, Rogers!
He pried one of the red bulbs out of the liner. His hands were shaking so badly he could barely hold it.
Strucker grabbed him from behind, his arm locked around Cap’s throat. He yanked Cap backwards, and Cap lost his grip on the red bulb. It thudded away across the table like a loose baseball.
“Stop these desperate attempts, Captain!” Strucker growled in his ear.
Cap tried to break the grip. He could barely speak. He could taste blood in his throat. He felt as though he were melting inside.
“Just submit!” hissed Strucker. “Lay down and die! Your death is long overdue! I will not allow you to disperse the counteragent. The venomous breath of the Hydra is in the night air!”
Cap fought back. He knew he was on the verge of blacking out.
“Berlin must die,” said Strucker. “Its doom is a necessary demonstration of Hydra’s authority. The nations of the world will witness this act and learn. They will fear. They will obey, or their cities will die as Berlin has died.”
Cap pushed back hard, crushing Strucker against the wall behind them. The throat-hold broke. Strucker activa
ted his lethal Satan Claw, which crackled with power. Cap blocked it with his shield. There was a shower of discharged sparks as the jolt rocked Cap backwards. Strucker launched an expert pivot-kick that caught Cap in the chest and sent him reeling.
He smashed through the dining room’s half-open double doors, and landed on his back on the floor of the sitting room beyond. Strucker ran at him, Satan Claw raised. He brought it down. Cap rolled aside, and the Claw’s impact burned a deep hole through the expensive white area rug, scorching the floorboards underneath.
Strucker regained his footing and lashed sideways at Cap. Still prone, Cap blocked with his shield, and then swept Strucker’s legs away with his shin. Strucker fell, and tried to get back up immediately. Cap was on his knees, but he landed a body-punch that knocked Strucker down again.
Cap rolled clear and got up. His balance and coordination were shot. His mouth was full of blood. He could feel his heart racing way beyond safe levels. He was going into cardiac arrest.
On his feet again, Strucker charged at him. He body-slammed Cap, and the force of the collision pumped a gout of watery blood out of Cap’s mouth. Cap under-punched twice with his bare fist. Then he got hold of Strucker by the front of his suit and swung him. Strucker half-flew, half-stumbled across the rug, and fell against one of the open dining-room doors, slamming it shut and splintering it backwards through its frame.
He came back at Cap, but Cap was already sinking to his knees. His heart was misfiring, seizing, arresting. His eyesight failed. He saw brown darkness and colored blobs.
Strucker hit him in the chest with the Satan Claw. The electric discharge ripped through Cap; he fell, spasming, onto his back.
Strucker stood over his foe’s twitching body, panting from the exertion. He smiled a triumphant smile and leaned down to check the pulse in Cap’s neck.
Cap opened his eyes. The agonizing shock had restarted his heart more surely than a paramedic’s cardio-paddles.
He rolled back onto his shoulders and put the full force of his body into a straight kick with both legs. His boots piled into Strucker’s midriff, hurling the terrorist into the air and across the room. Strucker collided with the enormous flatscreen TV, which exploded into pieces. He struggled to free himself from the wreckage of broken display and mangled TV stand.
Cap hurled his shield. It hit Strucker before he was entirely back on his feet, and hammered him into the wall so hard that the plaster cracked, and pictures dropped and shattered.
Strucker fell on his face and lay still.
The shield, rebounding, flew past Cap. He wasn’t quick enough to catch it. It bounced off the other wall and fell to the floor.
Cap limped back toward the dining room. He wanted to stop, to get disposable restraints on Strucker’s wrists and remove the Satan Claw, but there wasn’t time. He had no time. He’d used it all up, and then some.
He leaned against the broken dining-room door, breathing hard, and then carried on. He was forced to use the edge of the dining table as a guide and handhold. He tripped on a fallen ammo box. He scuffed papers underfoot, and walked into a chair.
He got to the dispersal device. He reached out for it, but only managed to knock it on its side. He set it upright again.
He could see spots of his own blood hitting the tabletop, dripping from his chin. He clawed for the open steel case and dragged it closer. There was no time to retrieve the red bulb he had dropped. Another one. Another one. Numb fingers seized the next one and plucked it out of its foam recess. It slipped out of his hand and rolled onto the floor.
Another one, Rogers. Another one.
He got hold of the third red bulb and took it out of the case. His hands were clumsy. There was no finesse in his fingers, no strength in his arms.
He slotted the bulb into the device’s socket, and snapped shut the curved lid. That took three attempts.
The base of the device...dispersal activation was the ring around the base. He fumbled with the lower ring.
“Work...dammit...” he gasped.
There was a soft click.
Steve Rogers didn’t hear it. He was falling. Falling sideways. Falling toward the unyielding floor.
Falling toward a never-ending blackness.
EIGHTEEN
MADRIPOOR
04.16 LOCAL, JUNE 13TH
BANNER moved around the bomb carriage, slowly and methodically making notes on a clipboard pad. Every now and then, he paused and drew a quick sketch of a structural detail or a circuit diagram.
The High Evolutionary’s New Men had set up a draftsman’s table in the corner of the bomb chamber, and the top was covered in large-scale copies of Wyndham’s schematics. Banner wandered back to it and started to work through several particular sections. He made more notes.
“I see you’re busy,” said the High Evolutionary. He had arrived soundlessly.
Banner turned. “Yes,” he said.
“Have you any initial thoughts?” asked the High Evolutionary.
“It’s very early to say,” Banner replied. He took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. He was tired. He had no idea what time it was anymore.
“I realize that,” said the High Evolutionary. He looked down the room at the massive gamma bomb. “However, time is also pressing. My agents in Lowtown tell me that S.H.I.E.L.D. is very active. Its operatives are searching for you and your agent friend. I have managed to stay one step ahead of them so far, but we are committed to this location now. If S.H.I.E.L.D. finds us and initiates a raid, there will be violence. I will be obliged to protect my interests. There’s too much at stake.”
“You must do what you feel is right,” said Banner. “Listen, Wyndham, I’m dedicated to this enterprise. I understand the difficult choices we have to make to get it done. You’ve told me what’s at stake, and I believe you. God help me.”
“I am gratified,” said the High Evolutionary. “And I am grateful for your support.”
“I presume you’re going to tell me the nature of the threat?” asked Banner.
“Of course,” replied the High Evolutionary.
Banner waited for a moment.
“But not now?” he pressed.
“There’s too much to be done to lose time with a lengthy digression,” replied the High Evolutionary. “I need to spend a few hours verifying the virus’s distribution status. I will then look forward to hearing your thoughts on the means of improving the weapon’s efficiency. Perhaps when those technical elements are being implemented we can sit down and discuss the broader picture.
“Remember, Doctor Banner: The threat issue will become utterly irrelevant once we are successful. The world is in peril. That is all you need to know. Let us not lose valuable time discussing something that will become academic.”
Banner bit his lip and nodded.
“I think,” he said, “I can see immediate ways of increasing the fallout coverage by a factor of twenty-five while also reducing the actual blast effect. You have a machining and fabrication facility?”
“On the second floor.”
Banner nodded.
“Give me a few hours, and I’ll present my findings. I need to think. I’m a pacer, Wyndham. I need to move around to keep my thought processes working. I presume you will allow me to roam without constant security checks?”
“Within reason,” said the High Evolutionary. “My New Men are posted throughout the building. I can’t allow you to leave the facility or risk you being seen at a window. Otherwise, you’re free. I understand: We all have our processes. Mine was always meditation and bicycle riding.”
“And I can access the lab for computer use?”
“I’m a longhand man myself,” said the High Evolutionary, “but of course. There are laptop devices there.”
“I’ll speak to you in a few hours, then,” said Banner.
The High Evolutionary nodded and left the chamber.
Alone, Banner sat the drawing table. He fought for a moment to contain his deep frustration and reg
ulate his pulse.
He left the bomb chamber and wandered through the area at the back of the factory level. McHale had been given medical attention and then transferred to a private room. The dog-hybrid was guarding the door.
“I want to see him,” Banner said.
The dog-hybrid glared at him.
“Your master said I could go where I please.”
The dog-hybrid paused while it psionically verified the fact. Then it unlocked the door and let Banner through.
The door closed behind him. Banner heard it lock.
The room was dirty and the window boarded. McHale lay sprawled on a rusted cot, handcuffed to the frame. He stared at Banner in disgust. The back of his head was bandaged.
“Are you all right?” Banner asked him.
McHale shook his head. His expression was contemptuous.
“I’m sorry I hit you,” said Banner. He looked around. There was a medical pack on the floor beside the door, out of McHale’s reach. It contained the usual first-aid items: fresh dressings, antiseptic, and painkillers.
“You’re with him, now, huh?” asked McHale bitterly. “You’re working with him?”
“There are big things at stake,” replied Banner. He searched through the medical kit, examining a few items.
“I trusted you,” said McHale. There was resentment in his tone.
“Then trust that I’m doing the right thing.”
“What did he offer you?” McHale asked. “What did he promise you?”
“Something I’ve always wanted,” replied Banner. He got up and looked back at McHale.
“I thought you were a standup guy, Doc. I really did. Despite everything, I thought you were one of the good people. Man, was I wrong.”
“People can be mistaken,” said Banner, “when they judge character, or actions, or a particular situation. Sometimes they don’t appreciate the whole picture. Sometimes they get fooled.”
McHale muttered a curse.
“Sometimes you have to act in-character to convince people,” said Banner. “You have to show them what they want to see so that they’ll trust you. Maybe you underestimated how good I was at it. Do you know what I mean, McHale? As a professional espionage operative, I’m sure you do.”