by Alex Irvine
Copyright
This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is coincidental.
© 2017 MARVEL
Excerpt from Phase One: Iron Man copyright 2014 by Marvel
Cover illustration by Danny Haas.
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First ebook edition: January 2017
ISBN 978-0-316-31409-1
E3-20161122-JV-PC
Contents
COVER
TITLE PAGE
COPYRIGHT
PROLOGUE
CHAPTER 1
CHAPTER 2
CHAPTER 3
CHAPTER 4
CHAPTER 5
CHAPTER 6
CHAPTER 7
CHAPTER 8
CHAPTER 9
CHAPTER 10
CHAPTER 11
CHAPTER 12
CHAPTER 13
CHAPTER 14
CHAPTER 15
CHAPTER 16
CHAPTER 17
CHAPTER 18
CHAPTER 19
CHAPTER 20
CHAPTER 21
CHAPTER 22
CHAPTER 23
CHAPTER 24
CHAPTER 25
CHAPTER 26
CHAPTER 27
EPILOGUE
A SNEAK PEEK OF IRON MAN
PROLOGUE
1991
Somewhere in the Soviet Union
A Soviet officer named Karpov punched the secret code into the keypad protecting a secure locker deep inside a remote base that did not appear on any map. The door opened, and he removed a small red book. It contained, among other top-secret information, the elaborate series of command words that would reactivate the experimental subject known as the Winter Soldier. This was only to be done for critical missions, but Karpov had just such a mission to complete. Only the legendary Winter Soldier could be trusted to do it.
As Karpov entered the laboratory, the Winter Soldier, barely conscious, was taken out of his stasis tube and brought into the laboratory. Soldiers locked him into a chair with a metal framework overhead, taking special care to secure his cybernetic arm. The containment divide dropped down to lock in place around his head. Karpov nodded at a technician, who activated large electrodes. Their crackle filled the room along with the Winter Soldier’s screams. Karpov cared nothing for the Winter Soldier’s pain. He only wanted a functional asset to execute the mission.
When the electrodes had finished their work, the Winter Soldier slumped, limp in the chair. Karpov opened the book and began to read in Russian. “Longing. Rusted. Seventeen. Daybreak. Furnace.” Each word slotted into the Winter Soldier’s head like a puzzle piece, slowly putting his mind back together. “Nine. Benign. Homecoming. One. Freight car.”
The Winter Soldier raised his head, eyes focused.
“Good morning, soldier,” Karpov said. He set the red book on a table near where the Winter Soldier, shackled and sweating, sat.
The Winter Soldier looked him in the eye. Did he remember that he had once been James Buchanan Barnes, best friend of Captain America? Could he? Karpov did not know and did not care. The important thing was what the Winter Soldier could do. The command words removed his willpower, and that was all that mattered.
“Ready to comply,” the Winter Soldier said.
Karpov nodded. “I have a mission for you. Sanction and extract. No witnesses.”
The Winter Soldier took his time observing the targets to establish their patterns. He chose the perfect night to execute the mission. When the moment came, he pursued the targets’ vehicle, a stylish town car, down a remote country road. He shot out a front tire and the car crashed into a tree. Then he opened the trunk and found the object he’d been assigned to recover: a steel briefcase. He did not know what it contained, but that was not part of his mission. When he had secured the case, he made sure there would be no witnesses. The two people in the car would look as if they had died in the crash. The mission went precisely as planned.
When the Winter Soldier returned to base, the only thing Karpov said before scrambling his mind again was, “Well done, soldier.”
CHAPTER 1
Present Day
Lagos, Nigeria
Wanda Maximoff was dressed in her street clothes, sipping coffee on the patio of a restaurant in downtown Lagos. As an Avenger, she was known as Scarlet Witch. She acted casual as she listened to Captain America’s voice through a hidden earpiece. He was watching the area from an upper-floor window in a hotel down the block. “All right, what do you see?”
She looked around. The restaurant was across from the police station they were staking out. A pair of uniformed officers stood near the door. “Standard beat cops. Small station. Quiet street. It’s a good target.”
“There’s an ATM in the south corner, which means—”
She knew exactly what it meant. “Cameras.”
“Both cross streets are one-way?”
This didn’t bother her. “So compromise the escape routes.”
“Means our guy doesn’t care about being seen,” Cap said. “He isn’t afraid to make a mess on the way out. You see that SUV halfway up the block?”
She did. “You mean the red one? It’s cute.”
“It’s also bulletproof,” said Natasha Romanoff, more famously known as Black Widow, who was sitting at a nearby table. Like Wanda, she was in a civilian disguise. “Which means private security, which means more guns, which means more headaches for somebody, probably us.”
Wanda thought they were maybe worrying a little too much. “You guys know I can move things with my mind, right?”
“Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature,” Black Widow answered. She had a good reason to feel that way, and Wanda knew it.
From the top of a nearby office building, Sam Wilson, code-named Falcon, chimed in. “Anybody ever tell you you’re a little paranoid?”
“Not to my face. Why? Did you hear something?”
“Eyes on target, folks,” Cap said, keeping them on mission. “It’s the best lead we’ve had on Rumlow in six months. I don’t want to lose him.”
“If he sees us coming, there won’t be a problem,” Sam answered. “He kind of hates us.”
They had been looking for Brock Rumlow since he’d been unmasked as a Hydra mole inside S.H.I.E.L.D., and they’d finally tracked him down here in Lagos. They suspected he was about to attack the police station, but they weren’t certain yet.
Cap scanned the area and saw a loaded garbage truck forcing its way down a narrow side street, close to their stakeout location. As he watched, i
t crashed into a parked car, pushing it out of the way. Angry onlookers shouted at the driver, who ignored them. “Sam, see that garbage truck?” Cap said. “Take it.”
Falcon touched a button on his armored forearm, and a bird-shaped robot took off from his back—he affectionately called it Redwing. It soared over the adjacent buildings and swooped down to street level, hovering under the truck. “Give me X-ray,” Falcon said. Redwing returned a visual scan of the truck’s interior directly to Falcon’s goggles, along with images of the driver and data about the truck’s cargo.
“The truck’s loaded for max weight, and the driver’s armed,” he reported.
“It’s a battering ram,” Natasha said.
Cap realized she was right. “Go now,” he barked.
“Why?” Wanda asked.
Cap was already moving. “He’s not hitting the police.”
The Avengers swung into action as the garbage truck accelerated out of the narrow street and across an open square in front of a research facility. A sign near the fortified gate read, INSTITUTE FOR INFECTIOUS DISEASES. The driver dove out and rolled along the pavement as the truck smashed into the gate, destroying it and crashing to a halt on the other side.
Two box trucks appeared from another side street, following the garbage truck’s path. The institute’s gate guards scrambled out of the way. A group of armed men in black body armor leaped from one of the trucks and shot their way across the parking lot, taking out all the security guards in the area. Then two of them fired gas grenades through the windows of the institute’s main building.
As the gas took effect, the institute’s staff dropped to the floor and lay unmoving. Masked and heavily armored men from the truck entered the building while the first combat team stood guard outside.
But they weren’t counting on Captain America. He dropped over the institute’s wall from a nearby building and disabled three soldiers before the rest knew he was there. From the top of a truck, he briefed the rest of the team. “Body armor. AR-15s. I make seven hostiles.”
Falcon swooped low over an upper balcony overlooking the courtyard, spinning into a double kick that laid out two of the gunmen. “I make five,” he said as Scarlet Witch arrived.
A gunman took aim at her, but she cast a swirling shield of chaos energy that no projectile could hope to penetrate. Then she caught him and flung him into the air, calling out, “Sam!”
Right on time, he dove down and smashed the flying gunman across the courtyard with the leading edge of his wing.
“Four,” he said, and landed next to Cap and Wanda as Redwing scanned the building’s upper windows. “Rumlow’s on the third floor.”
“Wanda,” Cap said immediately, “just like we practiced.”
“What about the gas?”
“Get it out,” he said. The move they had practiced involved her using her powers to throw Cap across distances too far for him to jump. It worked to perfection. Red energy reached out to him and catapulted him up and through a third-floor window. He landed and knocked the nearest gunman sprawling, then ran farther into the building, looking for Rumlow.
Outside, Falcon deflected the incoming fire from Rumlow’s men while Wanda used her powers to draw the gas out of the building. She built it into a tornado that spun up into the open air, dissipating where it wouldn’t hurt anyone else. Remote-controlled mini-missiles from shoulder mounts on Falcon’s armor took care of the closer gunmen, but there were still a lot of them.
Inside, Cap reached the secure lab where Rumlow had been. Shattered doorways and windows were an easy trail to follow. At the back of the lab was a cold-storage case with biohazard symbols inscribed on it. It was open and empty. Bad news. Turning back, he called to the team. “Rumlow has a biological weapon.”
“I’m on it,” Black Widow responded. She was on a motorcycle outside the compound, playing a support role and waiting for her moment to provide backup, and now she raced into the courtyard. She saw Rumlow in his battered metal mask, climbing up onto an armored truck to enter through its top hatch, but there were at least half a dozen armed men between him and her. No problem, she thought.
She laid the bike down and tumbled after it as it crashed into the first man. A second went down twitching when she hit him with her wrist-mounted electrical stingers. Three, four, and five caught boots or elbows to the face before they could get off a shot. Six dropped from another stinger, and then it was just her and Rumlow.
But he was a lot tougher than he’d been the last time she saw him. She hit him with almost everything she had, and he didn’t stagger. She finally used a stinger, jabbing it straight into his neck, and he just paused long enough to say, “I don’t work like that no more.”
With that, he threw Natasha down into the armored vehicle… and dropped a grenade in after her. “Fire in the hole.”
She had only seconds to act, but that was all she needed. With two quick attacks, she knocked out the soldiers in the Humvee with her. Then she crouched down, holding one of them in front of her to shield her from the explosion.
When the grenade went off, the blast blew Natasha through the Humvee’s back door. She hit the ground and rolled to a stop, dazed for a moment. Then she saw where Rumlow was headed and called out to Falcon. “Sam, he’s in the main Humvee heading north.”
CHAPTER 2
Inside the truck, Brock Rumlow handed the crucial sample to one of his men. “Take this to the extract,” he said, meaning the point where they would meet the buyer and leave Lagos. “We’re not going to outrun him. Lose the truck.”
“Where are you going to meet us?” the gunman asked. He stowed the sample in a duffel bag.
Rumlow’s answer was grim. “I’m not.”
Sam was in the air, soaring over the crowded streets. He saw the truck swerve and crash into a row of stalls at the edge of a market square. Four men spilled out the back of the truck and ran, trying to disappear into the crowd. Sam didn’t see Rumlow. “I got four,” he said. With the help of Redbird, he’d found them using facial-recognition software. “They’re splitting up.”
“I got the two on the left,” Natasha said. She had “borrowed” another motorcycle and was swerving through traffic. She saw two men running ahead, but stalled cars blocked her path. Dumping the bike, she ran across the cars’ hoods and wove through the crowd after them.
Cap reached the crashed Humvee a moment later and saw a vest and other equipment from Rumlow’s men scattered around the street. “They ditched their gear,” he said, scanning the area. Panic was spreading in the crowd, and he couldn’t pick out the targets in the sea of running people. “It’s a shell game now. One of them has the payload.”
He made a guess where Rumlow’s men had gone and had just set his feet to take off after them when he heard Rumlow himself call out from near the crashed Humvee. “There you are!”
At the same moment, a magnetized grenade clanked on to Cap’s shield. Instantly, he threw the shield up into the air. High over the square, the grenade exploded harmlessly, blasting Cap’s shield away into the crowd.
“I’ve been waiting for this!” Rumlow growled. He charged forward at Cap, and the fight was on.
Sam tracked the two gunmen until they came out into an open space at the back of the market square. He swooped down and slammed into the lead man, plowing him into the ground. Then, getting a little extra lift from his extended wings, he spun and laid the other guy out with a double kick. Quickly, he rifled through their pockets. Nothing. “He doesn’t have it. I’m empty,” he reported.
Hearing that, Natasha ran harder, shouting at people to get out of her way. She caught up with the fleeing pair of Rumlow’s gunmen in a side street lined with market stalls. Jumping over the nearest stall, she scattered its wares on the ground as she tackled the closest gunman. He went for his gun, but she held his arm and knocked the breath out of him with a flurry of gut punches. Then she spun toward the second man, closing in as she knocked the gun out of his hand with a heavy woven baske
t. She took him down hard, scissoring her legs around his neck and twisting him to the ground. His gun bounced free. Natasha went for it and came up, whirling around to see that the first man had his own weapon back. It was a standoff.
“Drop it,” Rumlow’s other man commanded from her left. Natasha leveled her gun. He was holding the vial stolen from inside the lab. “Or I’ll drop this.”
Natasha didn’t know what was in that vial, but she knew Rumlow wouldn’t have shot his way into the institute for something unless it was very, very dangerous. “Drop it!” Rumlow’s man shouted again.
His partner looked as nervous as Natasha felt. “He’ll do it!” he said.
Natasha hesitated. She couldn’t let them escape with the vial. But what was the best way to…
Sam solved the problem for her. His birdlike drone dipped into view and, with a single shot, dropped the gunman holding the vial. Natasha shot the other man in the arm and dove forward in a desperate lunge. That vial could not be allowed to hit the ground. At full stretch, she caught the vial inches from the ground and landed hard, clasping it and breathing a sigh of relief. “Payload secured,” she said. “Thanks, Sam.”
“Don’t thank me,” he said as he flew into view. He nodded at the drone hovering between them.
She shook her head. “I’m not thanking that thing.”
“His name is Redwing,” Sam said.
“I’m still not thanking it.”
Catching up to them, Wanda looked at Redwing with a little smile. “He’s cute,” she said. Natasha rolled her eyes.
Cap had forced Rumlow to turn and fight, but this wasn’t the same Brock Rumlow he’d known before. Rumlow had pneumatic gauntlets that gave him the power to hit like a truck, and he barely flinched at punches that would have put an ordinary man in the hospital.
“Come on!” Rumlow taunted him after knocking Cap flat and pounding him with a series of punches that left the Avenger bruised and staggered. He stomped the ground as Cap rolled away and got to his feet. He hit Cap again and forced him up against a wall. “This is for dropping a building on my face,” Rumlow said. A blade snapped out from one of the gauntlets. Rumlow stabbed it at Cap’s head, but the other man dodged and Rumlow’s gauntlet buried itself wrist-deep in the wall. Cap grabbed the gauntlet and ripped it off. Rumlow raised his other hand, showing another blade. He swiped at Cap, who leaned back and used the motion to start a spinning kick that knocked Rumlow across the street, where he crashed into a patio table in front of a restaurant.