Marvel Novels--Captain America

by Stefan Petrucha

  The truck was bulletproof, but a second RPG could take it out. Ignoring the runners, he headed for the foxholes—until a double-check of the perimeter stopped him cold.

  The old man and the children, a boy and a girl, hadn’t budged. They stood there gawking, not at the gunmen, but at him. Their predictable day shattered, they were in shock. When a stray shot hit the dirt at their feet, the old man wrapped his bony arms protectively around the children, but they still didn’t run.

  Rogers knew he’d bring the bullets with him if he headed toward them to help. To draw the fire away, he pivoted in the opposite direction. But the truck disobeyed his orders. Gouging thick lines in the earth, it put itself between them and the gunfire.

  He glimpsed Nia pulling the civilians inside the open rear doors before a groan of gears turned him back toward the large hut. The tip of a Scud, rising into launch position, poked through the thatched roof. Sunlight intruded on the dark interior, revealing the edges of an old Soviet 8x8 artillery truck, exactly the type needed to transport and launch the tactile ballistic missile.

  He didn’t have time to admire the two runners for being willing to face him up close. His rising shield smacked the pistol from one man’s hand. An elbow to the chin knocked the other out cold. The disarmed man went to his knees and raised his hands in surrender—only to be hit by the continuing fire from the foxholes.

  Throwing his shield ahead, Rogers ran toward the holes. The spinning disc took out four more of the men. Two kicks and a roundhouse eliminated another three. The last man standing whirled to face him just in time for the returning shield to clonk the back of his head.

  All the weapons were automatics. The RPG was a one-off. Good.

  He rushed into the hut just as the Scud locked into its firing position.

  The slightly heavy man at the controls was better dressed than the others, his beard neatly groomed. One hand hovering over the launch button, he gesticulated with the other as he spoke.

  “Look at you, fancy hero, U.S.A. Think that we’re the bad guys? No.” His English was broken, his speech slurred. “We take food from the U.N. ships before the warlords can steal it, so more people can eat. Tankers come into our waters, destroy our fishing, so we take payment.”

  There was something wrong with him, and it had nothing to do with the rhetoric. He was sweating. It was a desert, of course, but this man was dripping. Heat exhaustion didn’t make sense. Not only would he be used to these climes, the wet canteen dangling from his side made dehydration seem unlikely.

  Rogers relaxed his stance. “What’s your name?”

  “My name? I don’t want to give you my name. Call me Robin Hood. You know him?

  “I do. So you’re not the bad guy, great. How about proving it by stepping away from the missile that’s threatening innocent lives?”

  Robin Hood’s shoulder twitched. He clenched his free fist. “It’s the greedy Wakandans who are killers! They have all the Vibranium in the world. The money we could raise from the small amount we asked for could feed thousands. If they gave us that, none of this would be happening. But they needed motivation, so they will get it.”

  “Let’s say I believe you. Do you know what your partner will do with their half? I’ve got a feeling they won’t be using it to feed anyone.”

  Robin Hood grabbed at his own arm, then started punching it. A heart attack?

  Nia spoke through the comm. “Those are rabies symptoms.”

  Still in the truck, she was watching the scene on the monitors via Cap’s body cam. It was the first time he’d heard tension in her voice. “The payload is leaking?”

  “Not necessarily. Rabies symptoms don’t appear for two to twelve weeks following infection. I don’t see any obvious signs in the gunmen or the civilians. It’s more likely he was exposed while arming the missile.”

  The hand above the launch button wavered. If it moved away for a fraction of a second, Rogers knew he’d have the man. But when Rogers took a cautious step forward, Robin Hood rallied.

  “Stay put, U.S.A.”

  Cap locked eyes with him. “You’re infected.”

  Head shaking, the pirate chuckled. “I know it. Our sterilization facility was not up to Western standards. It was a storage shed. But it will be worth dying if my family won’t have to worry for the rest of their lives.”

  “You don’t have to die. We can help you.” He whispered softly into the comm, “Right, Nia?”

  The answer was even softer. “Uh, no. Once the neurological symptoms begin, rabies is almost always fatal. But now would not be a good time to tell him that. Known strains of the virus are transmitted through saliva, from a bite, but we’re getting into our suits in case this is different. Keep your distance.”

  The pirate’s eyes darted about. One moment he was looking toward the entrance, the next at the shadows in the hut. “What do your friends in the truck say, U.S.A.? They think they can take me out with a sniper?”

  “There’s no sniper, I swear. It’s fine. Everything is fine. If you’ll just—”

  “Everything is not fine!” Snarling, he slammed his hand down toward the controls.

  Rogers’ enhanced reflexes sent the shield sailing. In an instant, the pirate’s body was curled around the disc’s spinning edge, flying backwards. But as he flew, the fingers of his flailing hand hit the button.

  Rogers, N’Tomo, and Jacobs all shouted, “No!”

  Smoke poured from the Scud’s engines. Its hissing mixed with a sad, cackling laugh. Robin Hood lay on the earth, the shield still atop him.

  “See?” he said between rattling coughs. “I told you everything would not be fine.”

  Flames pressed from the roaring rocket motor. The missile shook, but did not rise. A look at the launcher told Rogers why: Thanks to the operator’s incompetence or disease, the restraining straps that kept the Scud in place for transport hadn’t been disengaged.

  The thrust was building. Either the metal bands would snap, releasing the missile, or it would expel its deadly cargo here and now.

  As Rogers ran for his shield, he heard Nia scream. “Don’t touch it! It could be contaminated.”

  “I need it to pry open the missile covering.”

  Having heard her through the comm, he didn’t realize she’d left the truck until the bluish UV rays glanced along his back and shoulders. Covered head to toe by a military-grade hazmat suit, she was waving the UV gun about as if attempting to cleanse the air.

  She came up alongside him. “We’ll have to find another way. But if you let me get to the payload, I think I can defuse it. I know I can.”

  I know I can.

  Her words, mixed with the roar and smoke, conjured a deeply ingrained memory. An eager teen in the war, clinging to a hijacked drone, had told him much the same:

  I can bring the plane back—I know I can!

  Let go! It might be booby-trapped! You can’t deactivate the bomb without me! Drop off!

  You’re right, Cap! I see the fuse! It’s gonna…

  He wanted to shove her away for her own protection, but settled for shouting, “There’s no time! Stay back!”

  The few yards to the launcher seemed like a mile. Having lived with his augmented body for so long, he had a pretty good idea how strong he was. He knew, for instance, that he could push a full-sized car a yard or so sideways. But he had no idea at all whether he could do what he had in mind. He’d have to land above the engine to avoid the yellow-white flames, but he’d also need his hands free.

  So he jumped, landing upside-down, and wrapped his legs around the missile’s base. Even from here, the heat from the thrusters burned him through his uniform.

  I don’t know how Spider-Man does it…

  His added weight shifted the balance. The restraints snapping, the missile tilted. Before the few remaining metal bands could give, he drove his fists through the covering, reaching toward the propellant pumps and the raging motor itself. His body offered some heat resistance, his gloves a little more,
but neither stopped the searing pain as he braced his feet against the missile, wrapped his fingers around the hot engine mounts, and pulled.

  He had to rip out the engine—and fast, before the fuel tank could ignite.

  Once it came half free, he twisted and turned, hoping to use the suddenly unhindered thrust to steer the engine away from the body of the Scud. It roared off in a mad blur. He fell backwards, scorched by the edge of the trailing exhaust. The rest of the Scud teetered and fell. At first, he wasn’t sure whether he’d succeeded. If the missile hit the ground hard enough to ignite the impact fuse at its tip, the payload would disperse.

  Instead, the cylindrical body came to rest on the edge of the hut’s wall, its nose pointed toward a thick cloud low on the horizon, just visible through the hole in the ceiling left by the Scud. Once he got to his feet, a gaping hole in the opposite wall told him where the engine had gone. Disconnected from its fuel source, it had petered out, the charred metal leaving a thin trail of black smoke that seemed an insult to the wide blue sky.

  A happy giggle turned him back toward the entrance.

  Nia was holding back one of the children, the little girl. Despite being restrained by a stranger in a hazmat suit, she was wide-eyed, grinning, saying, “Captain America!”

  2

  OH, DYING WOULD MATTER TO THEM, OF COURSE. NO ONE WANTS TO DIE.

  THE HOSPITAL gown was uncomfortable. Rogers had taken it off. Sitting in his white underpants on the edge of the table, he felt as if he was waiting to be examined for the draft. But it wasn’t December 8, 1941, and he wasn’t on New York’s Lower East Side. He was about 50,000 feet up, still somewhere over Africa, he assumed, stuck in a small quarantine chamber in Lab 247 on a S.H.I.E.L.D. Helicarrier staffed by nearly two thousand personnel.

  He tugged out the borrowed laptop’s earbuds and looked up from the movie he’d been trying to watch. The only sound was the steady hiss of the negative air pressure, meant to prevent the spread of contagious disease. An immune system like his, enhanced by the Super-Soldier serum, provided its own substantial protection, but with the details of the weaponized virus unknown, they rightly were taking no chances.

  Rogers didn’t mind the boredom. He did mind not knowing what was going on with the others. Regardless of her hazmat suit, Nia had been close to the infected pirate. Bilan, the child who had run in to see him, had been completely unprotected.

  He looked through the clear wall into the lab’s whites and silvers. His sole companion, Dr. Winston Kade, moved from instrument to instrument, making notes in a PDA. If Nia had a poker face, Kade’s was stone. While his expression said nothing, his appearance revealed him as a 60-something who’d survived rough times. His skin had an odd yellowish pallor. Chunks of his salt-and-pepper hair were missing in a pattern that resembled radiation burns.

  Rogers didn’t want to distract him from his work, but it had been hours since he’d had an update. At least they’d determined the warhead hadn’t leaked, and that it wasn’t likely “Robin Hood” had infected any others. Seeing their leader’s corpse, the captured gunmen, fearing for their families, had cooperated freely, providing every location the virus had been. But still not who supplied it.

  The film he’d been watching didn’t help, but the laptop hadn’t been cleared for connection to the Helicarrier network. Its current playlist belonged to its owner, Kade. Thinking Rogers would feel more at home with a black-and-white movie, he’d suggested 1950’s Panic in the Streets, a thriller about a race to prevent a plague outbreak in New Orleans. The rest of the choices were similarly odd for someone in quarantine:

  The Andromeda Strain, Crazies, Outbreak, 28 Days Later.

  Maybe he should be glad the guy wasn’t talkative.

  Still, Nia insisted Kade was number one in the field, that they were lucky to have him. Apparently the promise of access to some new Stark Industries med-scanner was too tempting for him to pass up.

  His patience at an end, Steve rapped on the glass, but the composite was thick, the hiss of the air loud, and the distance too great. Either that, or Kade was ignoring him. He waited until the doctor passed directly in front of him, then pounded a bit harder than he intended.

  The rattling stopped them both short.

  “Sorry about that.”

  Eyes suddenly wide, Kade stepped back and checked the monitors for leaks. Satisfied, he flicked the intercom button. “Yes?”

  “The children from the village, the old man—do you know yet if they’re all right?”

  Kade nodded. “They were cleared and returned to their homes long before we left Somali airspace.”

  “Nia…Dr. N’Tomo? And Agent Jacobs?”

  He kept nodding. “Both cleared, as were the gunmen. The rabies was a standard strain, rather poorly aerosolized. To catch it, you’d either have to directly inhale it during the few hours it would remain viable, or be bitten by someone infected.”

  “That’s great, but, then… I’m the only one still in isolation?”

  Kade gave him a strangely quick nod, as if impatient at having to state the obvious. “Yes.”

  Rogers’ brow knitted. “Can I ask why?”

  “You’re an unusual man with unusual biometrics. Unusual things warrant more scrutiny.” He looked down as he spoke, fingers dancing across the PDA keys.

  “Uh…anything you’re not telling me, doc?”

  “Yes.”

  Rogers expected him to continue, but Kade walked off and went back to work.

  Reminded of another genius who sometimes failed to see the trees for the forest, he laughed lightly to himself. This guy’s even more distracted than Tony Stark. I guess I’ll find out when I find out.

  Rather than dwell on the uneasy sensation of being treated like a lab rat, he focused on the fact that everyone else was all right—especially Nia. Finding himself a little too relieved about Nia’s health, he turned back to the laptop.

  Maybe he should give The Crazies a try. But he did prefer black-and-white films. There was something about the lack of color that made things seem more real.

  He was about to press PLAY when the lab door opened and Nia walked in. No longer in fatigues, she wore a lab coat over her tasteful civvies. A small pendant, which he recognized as a symbol of Wakanda’s N’Tomo clan, hung from her neck. After giving Rogers a vague smile, she approached Dr. Kade.

  “Mind if I visit with the patient?”

  He paid her as much attention as he had Rogers. At least it wasn’t personal. “You know the protocol.”

  Taking that as a yes, she stepped up to the glass.

  Forgetting his lack of clothing, he stood and stepped closer to the transparent boundary. “Nia, what’s going on?”

  “Honestly, I don’t know, Steve.” Her tone was friendly, but smacked of a well-practiced bedside manner.

  “Is it the rabies?”

  She shrugged. “If it is, there’s no cause for concern.” As she spoke, her eyes darted along his muscular body. It wasn’t sexual—more the way a doctor would give a visual examination. “Even if a stray bit of saliva entered an open wound, you’ve no symptoms. A course of immunoglobulin would…”

  She stopped and stared at him, puzzled.

  “What?”

  “It’s just… You don’t have any scars. You’ve been in countless battles, and you don’t have any scars.”

  “That’s not exactly true. I do have one.” He twisted and slightly lowered the elastic band on his underwear, revealing a stiff, whitish mesh on his hip about the size of a silver dollar. His expression grew grim as he explained the source.

  “It happened during the war. I was holding onto the end of a drone-plane when it exploded. A flaming piece of the engine hit me. Apparently, I held onto it all the way down.”

  She pressed her hand to the glass near it. “But that’s all?”

  “I’m resilient, but I’m not Wolverine—or, thank heavens, Deadpool. I heal at a normal rate, but my body tends to do it without scarring. Plus, S.H.I.E.L.D. hi
res the best doctors.” He nodded toward Kade. “If not always the friendliest.”

  She lowered her voice, but spoke with unconcealed admiration. “Dr. Kade was an intern in Germany in 1967, during the Marburg outbreak. Marburg is a slightly kinder cousin of Ebola, and this was the first we’d seen of such a thing. For a few days, he and the staff were convinced the world was about to end, but he selflessly treated the victims and became infected. Most survivors lost all their hair, but the effects weren’t just cosmetic: It also damaged his nervous system. Since then he’s spent his life going from hot zone to hot zone. Just last year he singlehandedly prevented an Ebola outbreak in Manfi, a West African village. As far as I’m concerned, the lack of social skills is his business. His work is impeccable, his devotion…obsessive.”

  Rogers held up the laptop. “Kind of got that from his taste in film. Speaking of which, all this waiting’s got me thinking. If not drinks, maybe we could catch a movie? I prefer action films, but in your case, I might be willing to take in a comedy.”

  “You’re asking me now?” She chuckled and lowered her head. “Seriously?”

  “Well, no…a comedy.”

  She leaned against the wall, holding her index finger against the glass. “Finding a time we’re both free—that might be an adventure in itself.”

  “Is that a yes or a…”

  The lab door opened again. S.H.I.E.L.D. Director Nick Fury stormed in with his usual lack of ceremony. Even in his fitted one-piece field suit, the veteran with an eyepatch and a face full of stubble managed to look grizzly.

  “Dr. Kade, I appreciate you crossing all your t’s, but my eyes are getting crossed.” His low, gruff voice made it sound like he was growling. “It’s time to tell my country’s greatest hero why he’s still stuck in that fish tank.”

  Rogers briefly raised his hand to meet Nia’s finger. “Looks like my wait is over. We’ll pick this up again later.”

  “I look forward to it.”