In all honesty, Jim was sorry to see the horse-drawn carriage go. Sure, it smelled of horseshit and misery, but there was something he liked about the rhythmic clip-clop of those hooves on the ground, even when the sound was muted by dewy grass. It was also nice to go a few kilometres without having to lug the damn radio on his back. Thing got heavy after a while no matter how many "improvements" Stark made to the design. (Eating a few rations was more effective at lightening Jim's load than Stark's tinkering had ever been.)
The other things the engineer invented for them were more interesting. Jim would gladly carry some of those babies around before he packed another battery for the radio. Sure, the guys needed the radio. But they'd been just fine so far, hadn't they? They needed it, but did they really, really need it?
Something to keep his mind off the stink of horseshit.
But they were booted from the carriage by the order of Captain America and told to hoof it the rest of the way to the outskirts of Prague, where they'd be met by some resistance men. From what Jim heard — and he made a point to not hear much — this whole damn country was a mess. And how it had come to be occupied? Yeesh. The Czechs were really unlucky motherfuckers.
When Cap gave the order, Jim shook Barnes off his shoulder; the guy was leaning on Jim real heavy-like. Of course, the lousy Mick didn't have the manners to fall asleep. Just sat there staring off at nothing. Barnes's eyes were starting to look really round, red, and sunken. Looked awful.
Jim and Gabe pulled their packs back on. Was it possible that they could have gotten heavier while they rode in the back of the carriage? Jim was beginning to think so. Gabe wiped at his nose and watched beside Jim as Barnes practically fell out of the back of the carriage. He looked like sludge; his body wasn't truly solid. Just some ball of grease rolling around.
Gabe sniffed and swiped his hand under his nose again.
"You catchin' somethin'?" Barnes said.
He lives after all, thought Jim.
Gabe shrugged. "Just the weather. I'll be fine."
But it brought the life back to Barnes. His arms didn't look so heavy. Lights sparked back to life in his eyes. Jim rolled his own eyes and turned to Cap.
"Lead the way," he said.
Cap had his eyebrows raised at the three of them. But then he shook his head and said, "Form up. I'll be at the head of the column. Morita take the rear—"
"Yes, sir!" Jim said with enthusiasm.
It was the captain's turn to roll his eyes. Pointing at Barnes and Gabe, he said, "You two stay somewhere in-between."
"Between Steve's head and Jim's rear," Barnes said to Gabe. "Where else would a guy want to be?"
Gabe whispered back, "I can think of a few places."
"Wanna tell me about 'em?"
Gabe shook his head. The helmet on his head bobbled comically. "Nah. Those are just for me."
Jim's fingers toyed with a cigarette in his pocket. There wouldn't really be a risk in lighting one. Smoking was allowed during marches. And he was looking at a whole day of listening to those two trade innuendos. Didn't take long for Jim to light one. Cap didn't have much to say about the conversation that took place between them. Occasionally, he'd look over his shoulder (first at Barnes and then at Gabe) and catch Jim's eyes. They'd exchange commentary with the arch of an eyebrow or twitch of the lip.
Bringing up the rear had a few advantages. Jim had a great view of both Barnes and Gabe. Those two knew how to conceal truths on their faces, but, Jim was glad to find, neither knew how to hide it in their postures or the way they walked. He could see the sag of both their shoulders. Barnes's toes would catch in the grass every couple hundred steps before he made a deliberate correction. Then he'd get tired and the cycle would start all over again. Gabe walked more stiffly than usual. Not just stiff, but sloppy at the same time. However that was possible. Their translator was coming down with something and he was hiding it better than Jim thought he would be capable.
All that intelligence and the nice guy persona made Jim think that Gabe Jones didn't tell lies, even lies of omission.
Barnes and Gabe would bump shoulders when their fatigue cycles synched up. Jim rolled his eyes at the two of them laughing and lightly shoving each other to play off the moment. They joked about naps and being drunk from several nights ago.
When it happened for the third time, Gabe said, "Reminds me of my first kiss. There was all sorts of head-knocking."
"That's not how you're supposed to do it," Barnes said.
"Yeah, well, I know that now. It takes practice."
Even from behind, Jim could see Barnes rolling his eyes. "You don't need practice, Gabe."
"Don't try to tell me that you came out of the gate kissing like a Casanova."
"I did! You don't need practice when you just have it. Tell 'em, Steve."
Cap tossed a look over his shoulder that had trouble written all over it. "Casanova isn't really the word I'd use to describe Bucky back then."
"Don't tell me you're still jealous," said Barnes.
Cap shrugged. His shoulders shook with suppressed laughter. "Jealous of what? How much you embarrassed yourself? Betty McPoyle is probably still traumatized."
"If she was so traumatized, then why did she go out with me three times in the tenth grade?"
Cap shrugged. "Some people's brains are never right again after trauma."
Jim sniggered. His imagination was working overtime.
"Wanna elaborate?" Gabe asked the captain.
"If you look really close," said Cap, "you can see a scar under Bucky's chin."
Barnes's hand jumped to his face. "That had nothing to do with Betty and you know it, you lying sack of shit."
"I just remember things differently, I guess," said Cap.
"If that's the way you wanna play it, why don't we talk about the time you tripped into Eleanor Gribsby's chest and needed seven stitches?"
Jim nearly choked on the smoke he'd just inhaled. He'd never get tired of imaging the Rogers that Barnes had grown up with. Cap was just so big. It was hard to imagine him any other way. On the other hand, seeing a guy that used to be so small as a giant must be just as bizarre for Barnes.
Cap looked over his shoulder and said, "It wasn't my fault she was so tall and, uh, developed."
"I think I'd have taken the stitches," Jim said.
"Oh, definitely," said Barnes. "But not the humiliation that a girl whooped your ass. Took months for that one to die down."
"It only happened because she was the biggest one in the class," Cap said. "They stopped talkin' because she could have done it to anyone."
"That, and you got your molars knocked out by Everett Geracy."
"They were loose anyway."
Gabe turned and caught Jim's eye. "Small favours," he said.
Jim said around his cigarette, "There must be more broads like Carter than we realize."
"If that's the case, we're all doomed," said Barnes.
"I look forward to it," said Cap.
"What was that you were saying about places that were just for you, Gabe?" Barnes asked.
The two of 'em snickered like kids on their way home from school. Jim kicked the bottom of Gabe's boot when he took a step. Jim smiled sweetly when Gabe gave him a harmless dirty look, and he lit another cigarette.
It was a long march.
The physical distance that they had to cover wasn't that long at all, Steve noted. It was a mystery why the journey felt like it took so long. He suspected that the awful feeling of being out in the open had something to do with it. But he didn't lead the men into any more ambushes, and the conversation was lively to say the least. Never mind that Steve increased the distance between himself and the rest of them a few times. Being a soldier didn't make him exempt from being a decent human being.
If she were still here, Sarah Rogers would be proud of her son.
A Czech resistance fighter met them outside the city. Jones stepped up to the head of the column with Steve. The Czech and Jones spoke to each other in French, their best mutual language. Jones introduced the man to the rest of them as Jan Novák. They were told to be on alert but not to appear too militant. Then they were off, appearing as normal as possible.
A stinking tram took them deeper into the city. Nazi flags (and, deeper in the heart of the city, HYDRA flags) hung from damn near every window. The people were small and bent as they went about their business. Bent, but not yet broken. The only cars on the streets sported tiny flags bearing swastikas.
After all the things Steve had seen and done, ruined places still made bile rise up in the back of his throat. He'd never seen Prague before the war; never even really cared to know a damn thing about the country with such a weird name, Czechoslovakia. Steve didn't have to know what the place looked like only a few short years ago to know that he was looking at something beautiful as it rotted and died. The city wasn't bombed to hell and littered with the stones that used to contain lives. For the most part, it was one of the most well-preserved cities — architecturally — that Steve had come across since all of this started.
He supposed that was what surrendering to occupation earned a man: Untouched buildings, devastated people.
The sight of Novák talking with the grey locals and leading them through this city reminded Steve that the people here hadn't wanted surrender. They would have taken the bombs over occupation; the freedom to die over a life lived in fear. That obligation to fight for convictions he could never compromise on was what Steve had fought for before he'd ever stepped foot on an army base. None of these people had been given the chance to fight because someone in a fancy suit thought it was better for them to stay put, told them it was for their own good. He was saving their lives by prohibiting action.
The tram stopped and a crowd of German officers boarded. Everyone around Steve shuffled away from them, heads bowed. Every instinct in Steve told him to plant his feet and face those officers head-on. Never had Steve run away from confrontation. Not with bullies, not with his mother, not with his teachers and priests — certainly not with Bucky. If he ran or ducked, another fight would be just around the corner. Better to sort it out here and now.
Steve set his jaw and began to lift his head in the direction of the officers when something stopped him. It was a jab in the arm. Steve looked first at his arm and then at Bucky. His friend's fist was still curled up tight, and the stubborn duck face was in place.
Bucky shook his head. "What do you plan to do? Start a fight in here?" he said in a low voice.
Steve looked from Bucky's hard stare back at the German officers. Another punch and Steve looked away from them.
"Why not?" he said.
Bucky jerked his head toward the front of the car. "That's why not."
Steve bent his neck to see. Three young girls stood huddled together. They were holding hands. Their eyes were closed and their lips were moving. Steve thought it was possible that they might be praying. They were all with child.
"Jesus," he said and quickly looked away. "They can't be more than fifteen."
Bucky didn't say anything, but he stood squarely in front of Steve, his back to the German officers. The message was clear: Pay attention to your surroundings, punk.
So Steve restrained himself and didn't attack the men on the tram even though he dearly wanted to. Novák led them off the tram a few minutes later. It was lucky that a lot of people got off at that same time. Would have looked suspicious otherwise.
Another thing Steve noticed: A lot of the people seemed to be more interested in Jones and Morita than they were in Captain America standing in their midst, hardly disguised at all. He didn't need to know Czech to know that a lot of things that the locals were muttering weren't flattering things. Bucky punched Steve's arm again when a teenager spat on Gabe's boot.
"Damn serum made you worse," Bucky muttered darkly.
"Go take a nap," Steve muttered back.
"Only been using that comeback since you were eight."
Patrols opposed their progress, but Novák led them safely to a group of buildings that seemed to huddle with their heads down just like all the people downtown. The big stone building in the centre of a square was easily identified as their target building. The HYDRA flags hanging what had to be fifty feet from the top of the building really gave it away. Steve didn't fail to notice the obstacles that stood in the way, though. Barbed wire and endless Czech hedgehogs blocked the roads.
Steve caught Morita staring at them. They nodded to each other. Steve immediately started figuring in his head. The size of their target, the number of resistance fighters they had, how much ammunition, how many guns, how much artillery, were there any heavy weapons to be had — what kind of defensive measures did they have the means to employ?
They would be attacking a well-defended position. Elevation was negligible, which was to neither side's advantage — or disadvantage. HYDRA was the enemy here, but Steve needed to know how the other Germans occupying the city would react when they launched an assault on the city. Last time Steve had been in the war room with the S.S.R., it was clear that the Germans were not on the side of HYDRA. What remained unknown was where the Germans would fall when the Allies attacked HYDRA. Steve almost felt bad for them. It must be hard enough for Germans to fight the world without them having to fight themselves, too.
He hated that he was starting to think this way. It was dangerous. He'd have to think about it when they planned the attack on the HYDRA building, but now wasn't that time. Steve shoved it from his mind, but he dreaded it. It was better to get the whole thing over with. Maybe he should keep his mind on the present and get to shelter. Steve didn't want Bucky's bony fist punching anymore craters into his arm.
Through a few shoddy fences of their own, Steve and the others were led into the heart of the resistance. Novák took them inside one of the buildings with a smile. Steve had expected an apartment complex, but instead the building looked more like a boarding house. Behind him, Jones coughed into his jacket. The group of them walked up the stairs and then down a long, narrow hallway. They were inside what was either a poorly arranged recreational area or very casual dining room.
"Well I'll be goddamned," said a familiar voice. Dugan popped out of the crowd of people and approached. Steve held out a hand which Dugan ignored, embracing Steve instead. Steve couldn't say he was upset. Dugan did the same things to Morita, Jones, and Bucky. He stepped back from Bucky, looked at the four of them, and said, "You all look like shit."
"Good to see you, too."
By then, Monty and Dernier had joined the group. Monty shook hands and slapped each of them on the shoulder and left his hand there for a fraction of a second too long. Dernier kissed them.
"What's been going on here?" Steve said.
Dugan looked to Monty and Dernier. It wasn't a great look; Steve was both looking forward to hearing what they had to say and dreading it.
"Let's go somewhere quieter."
They departed from Novák and let Dugan lead the way to a bedroom with two irregularly-sized beds and little other furniture. The seven of them spread out around the room, some sitting and others electing to stand and lean against the stained walls. There were dark curtains pulled over the window. It looked like they were sewn together in the centre to better keep them closed. Steve didn't think too much about it. He sat on the edge of one of the beds. Bucky was already lying down on the one Steve sat on so, naturally, Steve sat on Bucky's hand. Yanking it free, Bucky jabbed a finger into Steve's kidney. Steve slapped Bucky's stomach in retaliation. A flick to Steve's ear resulted in the administration of an unapologetic dead leg to Bucky's left thigh.
"Son of a bitch," Bucky breathed.
Steve was sure only his enhanced ears heard it. He turned toward Bucky and raised an eyebrow. It crossed his mind that he may have forgotten his body's new strength and actually hurt his friend. "What did you say about my mother?" he whispered.
"I said she's a bitch and a whore!" Bucky shouted.
Steve should have hit him harder.
"If you two are done," Monty said loftily.
Steve turned to face the rest of them; Bucky snorted.
"So what have you seen?" Steve said as if he hadn't just taken part in a juvenile slap-fight.
"The short version," said Dugan, "Schmidt is in town."
"Well fuck," said Morita. "How long's he been here?"
"Since we've been here," Monty said. "Haven't seen him much outside the castle. I'm sure you saw it on the way in."
"We did," Steve said. "What do we know about what's going on inside there?"
They talked for hours. Schmidt had been sighted, but there was no word on Zola. Resistance confirmed that there were a lot of weapons moving in and out of the barricaded castle-like building that HYDRA had taken up residence in. Heavier weapons were the main concern. The smaller arms that were powered by the blue light hadn't been noticed. Reports only saw the heavier guns which required a charger to be carried on the wielder's back. Large tanks had been seen rolling around the castle, but they never came out past the elaborate barricades that had been erected.
Steve thought that could be used to their advantage. The tanks couldn't leave the vicinity of the castle. Yeah, they were tanks, but it didn't look like the resistance had any armoured vehicles anyway. It was easier to avoid a tank when you were on the ground (and could run fast enough). The bigger the tank, the less manoeuvrable. And if the size of the tanks that HYDRA was building in Poland were any indication, these new tanks would be slow as molasses in January. Powerful, yes. But slow.
If they could take one for themselves, it would be only too easy to breach the castle. Their objective was always to wipe HYDRA factories off the map, but if there was a chance that they could take in Schmidt, Steve was going to go for it. He only wished that Zola could have been here, too. There were a lot of things Steve had to say to Zola — maybe more than he had to say to Schmidt.
"Who runs the city?" Bucky said. Despite the planning that was taking place, he was still lying in bed. "Germans or HYDRA?"
Monty said, "It appears to be the Germans. HYDRA just goes about its business. I don't think they want any trouble with the people. Just need to get done whatever they're doing. They only fight when the Wehrmacht goes on the offensive."
"The shitty thing is that a lot of the citizens are volunteering to work in the castle," said Dugan. "They're volunteering to work for HYDRA. Maybe they think they're doing it as civilians."
"What, are they under the impression that HYDRA is better than the regular, run-of-the-mill Germans?" Morita asked.
"Maybe," said Dernier. "Germans occupied the country, but then HYDRA came in and fought against them."
"It's not as if life is great here," Jones said. "HYDRA didn't do anything to improve the lives of the citizens."
"No," Steve said forlornly, "but they stood up to the Germans and established dominance in the city. They'd probably rather play host to HYDRA than suffer further occupation." He thought of the pregnant teenagers and the stink of the city, how broken down it was.
"What they think is the lesser of two evils," Bucky said.
"So if the Germans run the town, they're the ones who'll react to chaos in the streets?" Steve said.
"Might be a better question for the resistance fighters, but that appears to be the case," said Monty.
Steve nodded. "We'll need a distraction when we assault the castle. We need to draw out HYDRA's defences."
"Make it look like the Germans are attacking," said Bucky. "They don't care about the citizens, but they care when the Germans try to take back control of the castle."
"When we attack HYDRA, are the German gonna attack us?" said Morita.
Monty said, "This is going to be delicate."
Steve's mind was racing; pieces of a plan were bonding together. He looked behind himself at Bucky. Just a look and he knew his friend was thinking something similar.
Bucky looked to Monty, Dugan, and Dernier and said, "Can we get a German uniform?"
Monty said, "They have a prisoner."
Falsworth and Barnes roused early the next morning thanks to Dugan. Rogers was still sitting up with a few of the resistance fighters and one of the wives who was misplaced from Wales fifteen years ago; she acted as translator. As soon as both major and sergeant were upright, Dugan fell right into the place they vacated. He soaked up their residual warmth while they both cursed him.
In the war room (as it was called), Falsworth and Barnes reported. Rogers looked up and didn't quite smile but made a face that implied he was happy to see them.
"All set?" he said.
They nodded drowsily.
"Got my threads?" said Barnes.
Rogers nodded and indicated the stack of cloth on a chair in the corner. Barnes retrieved it while Falsworth tried not to sway on his feet. Damn but his eyelids were heavy. Rogers met Barnes at the chair. They had a conversation with their eyes and shoulders. Falsworth was used to seeing these exchanges and didn't bother trying to decipher it. Rogers slapped Barnes's back and that was that.
Falsworth followed Barnes out of the room, down the stairs, and out onto the street. They were quiet but companionable. This was one of the first times they got to put their skills to the test. Barnes fell back to let Falsworth lead the way through town. Those few days he had spent in town had been enough for him to be something approaching an authority on navigation. Things would get tricky once they got into German territory — which was outside the resistance's blocks and clear through the HYDRA area too.
They avoided trams and stuck to side streets. Barnes kept the German uniform in his pack. There wasn't much they could do about the Johnson besides break it down partway. It's what they'd been doing since disembarking from the refugee boat, and it hadn't failed them yet.
A few citizens were waking from their dry husks and emerging to get to work. Falsworth made sure to avoid any of the young girls. So many were pregnant and it made something within him squirm when he saw them. Whether they had gotten into the condition on purpose, because of the will of the Germans, or because of something else, Falsworth didn't want to know. Dernier had made the mistake of mentioning it to the resistance. They said that a few were because of the German occupation but most had happened because it was the only way for the young girls to avoid toiling away at work.
Falsworth thought that the girls had signed themselves away to a much more permanent kind of toiling. He knew it wasn't prudent to say aloud. War had turned him into something new. He could think of nothing more masochistic than parenthood.
In the German-occupied sector, the two of them drew together. Barnes kept his head down and swiped his hands at his face a lot.
"Fortunate you haven't had a haircut," Falsworth muttered.
"Don't I know it," Barnes replied. "My mother would skin me alive."
"Bit unreasonable, is she?"
Barnes smirked but didn't otherwise respond.
They only went a few blocks deep into the German-held territory. Then they headed for a tall building. It was on top of a shop that must have had an apartment complex above it. It was handy that Falsworth had spent a lot of his childhood scrambling up trees on the estate. He got creative and scaled the side of the building without too much flailing, and he didn't need to alert any of the occupants in the building, knocking on doors. No one noticed him go up. Partway up the building, he paused on a fire escape and turned back toward Barnes. The sergeant tossed the bag containing his broken-down rifle and the German uniform up. Falsworth caught it, surprised by the ease with which Barnes threw it and how hard the throw was. Then Barnes flew up the side of the building even more easily than Falsworth had moved.
"I'll take it," Barnes said when he joined Falsworth on the fire escape.
He handed the bag over and didn't say anything. They went the rest of the way up the building without much trouble.
"What do you like?" said Faslworth once they were on the roof.
Barnes walked the perimeter of the roof, taking stock of what was already up there. There were a few metal barrels lying around. Falsworth couldn't imagine what used to be kept in those barrels. Something from the shop, he thought. Shouldn't the metal have been reclaimed and recycled for the war effort?
Barnes took one of the badly dented barrels and dragged it across the roof. He fitted it against the ledge and dropped his stuff down. "Here's good," said Barnes.
Falsworth nodded and made himself his own nest beside the barrel. Barnes pulled out his rifle and began to reassemble it, checking the components as he went. The spare rounds tinkled together in the pack. Barnes took a long time to undo all the buttons on his jacket. Falsworth watched the sergeant's fumbling fingers out of the corner of his eye.
"Alright?" he said.
Barnes's head shot up. He smiled. "Yeah. Nerves, I guess."
What a crock. The sergeant got the jacket off and pulled on the German prisoner's field jacket. The buttons were done up just fine. Boots were unlaced and pulled off.
"Your socks are absolutely putrid," Falsworth said.
Barnes shrugged. "We call it 'lived-in' where I come from."
"Remind me never to visit that place then."
"Will do, Major."
He shucked off his trousers once the boots were gone. The German trousers were pulled on. Barnes poked a new hole in the belt to make it fit his waist. Then the boots went on. Lucky they took the same size.
"Boots are damn good," he said.
"I've heard that somewhere before," Falsworth said. He was setting out their supplies: pup tents, stiff blankets, a few of those garbage K-rations from the US Army.
"Helmet's stupid though," said Barnes. He put it on his head anyway.
"Would you prefer a dunce cap?"
"You know, I had to wear the dunce cap in school? Happened all the time."
Falsworth smiled mutedly. "I wish I'd've been there."
"You can't imagine what it was like to be called Bucktooth Barnes and wear a dunce cap at the same time."
"Is that how Rogers ended up as your only friend? Since you've said that he was such a combative shrimp."
Barnes shrugged and gave Falsworth an evasive look. "Maybe."
They finished getting set up and traded infrequent anecdotes from their childhoods. There wasn't a lot of crossover in either of the stories. They had grown up too differently. Falsworth had private tutors and very specific courses. A lot of times, he hardly ever left his family's manor. Barnes was at Catholic school with all the other children of Irish immigrants. Nevertheless, there was something they could find of themselves in the other's tales. There was something about that which comforted Falsworth.
At last, Barnes curled around the barrel, his rifle resting on the length of it. He attached Stark's latest telescopic sight and then peered through it.
"Range," Barnes said.
Falsworth raised his binoculars and found the castle HYDRA was holed up in. A few men milled around outside the building, hauling things on skids. Finding the centre of one of their hideous black flags, he said, "Sixteen hundred meters."
"Me, too."
"Let the game begin."
The hours whittled away up on the rooftop. Falsworth checking his notebook and peering through the binoculars every other minute. Barnes lying like a dirty statue on the barrel, Johnson welded to his hands. The first shot came at 0756.
Falsworth was staring through the binoculars and spotted their target. "Left end of the courtyard," he said. "Black uniform. Mask. Two silver markers on the right sleeve."
"I got him."
"One thousand, six hundred, and fifteen meters."
Barnes tracked the man through the scope while Falsworth did the same with the binoculars. Just as the man in question was turning, Barnes squeezed the trigger. The instant before he fired, Falsworth flattened himself below the ledge. The man was probably dead before he heard the gunfire. Barnes pulled away from the barrel immediately after firing and laid flat beside Falsworth. If anyone saw where the shot came from all they'd have seen was a German helmet.
"Confirmation," Barnes breathed.
Falsworth checked. "Kill confirmed."
They stayed flat for a few minutes. There was a flurry of activity on the street after the shot. Falsworth checked the scene with the binoculars. The body was being dragged out of the courtyard. A dirty red puddle was left behind.
So that was how they spent most of the day. Falsworth would pick out a worthwhile target and Barnes would wait for the right time to shoot. If the time never was right, he didn't take the shot. Instead, Falsworth noted the officer's motion and recorded it. Not a lot of good targets came outside. They watched trucks come in and out of the castle and its courtyard. Based on the way the HYDRA agents walked between the Czech hedgehogs, there were some mines planted beneath the stones.
Around midday, as they were eating the godawful K-rations, Falsworth said, "I noticed you weren't very enthusiastic about your assignment." Barnes looked a little uncertain so Falsworth elaborated, "At Great Dunmow. When we first got there. You didn't seem very taken with the idea of being a sniper. Even when we worked together."
Barnes chewed slower to stave off having to answer. But Falsworth was patient. He was English.
Barnes said, "When you watch those people, what do you see?"
"What do you mean? When I look through the binoculars?"
Barnes nodded and drank from the water canteen. The canteen containing more interesting drink sat unopened, saved for later. "What do you look for?"
"Rank," he said immediately. "I look for indications of rank. Who gives orders to whom. I make sure civilians aren't being dressed up in uniforms to be used as human shields." That seemed to convey the idea of things Falsworth looked for.
Barnes looked at his hands. "I can see if they have cigarettes in their pockets."
Falsworth nearly regretted asking. They didn't talk for the next few hours. Not until after Falsworth called Barnes's fourth shot of the day. That time, Barnes let his helmet linger where anyone could see before he ducked below the barrel.
There were no more opportunities. Falsworth cleaned up and removed the evidence of their stay while Barnes stripped out of the German uniform and became American again. The enemy's uniform cushioned his rifle when he dismantled it again. The helmet was still the most annoying part of the costume; it fit oddly in the pack. Barnes went down the side of the building first. Falsworth dropped the bag down to him and then he went after it. They loped back to the resistance block under the camouflage of the rest of the citizens scurrying home before curfew fell.
Inside the boarding house, Barnes said, "Tell Steve I'll be in my bunk if he needs the uniform back or somethin'."
"Will do."
The sergeant disappeared down the hallway while Falsworth went up the stairs and found the war room packed with the resistance and Dugan. They waved to each other. Dugan mimed holding a shield and pointed down the corridor. Falsworth took that to mean the captain could be found in the recreation room. Seemed odd: the captain and recreation usually didn't end well for everyone else.
As expected, the Czechs were being absolutely destroyed by Captain Rogers in their own card game. Just like all the howling terrors had been before they learned never to teach the captain the rules. He was usually quick to figure out the rules by watching them play anyway. Falsworth had good reason to believe that Barnes whispered tips to Rogers the whole time. Thick and thin, the two of them.
Falsworth observed the game for a while. Rogers noticed him standing there almost immediately, but Falsworth waved a hand, encouraging the captain to finish the hand. It gave Falsworth time to reflect on how much he did not miss commanding. The attention and pressure were not missed in the slightest. Not long after Falsworth arrived, Rogers won the hand and excused himself to many relieved whoops from the Czechs.
"Good game?" said Falsworth.
"Not my best," said Rogers.
"Report."
"Let's go somewhere quieter."
Rogers led the way to an empty bedroom. There were no beds in this room. Just a scratched and crooked table with no chairs. Falsworth pulled out his notebook and gave Rogers a report for the day. Most of the talk was about the four targets that had been eliminated and about how no one ever attacked their location.
Rogers nodded his head once the report was done. "You'll go to a different location tomorrow. I don't want you guys going back to the same place if we can help it. For all we know, they took notice of you but decided to let you get comfortable in one place so they can really get you where it hurts."
Which made a lot of sense. Falsworth nodded. He mentioned the trucks that came and went and the mines he suspected had been planted around the courtyard. Rogers led him to the war room and had him mark the approximate locations on a drawing that had been made of the place by one of the resistance men who, uncannily, happened to be a cartographer.
"It's not a comprehensive list," Falsworth made sure to say.
All the men seemed to understand even if they didn't speak English.
Dugan popped out of the woodwork and slapped a hand on Falsworth's back. The big man smiled to see that he had taken Falsworth by surprise. "The boys are askin' for ya, Monty," said Dugan.
The alcohol on his breath was sharp and sour in Falsworth's nose. It smelt like missing out. Falsworth looked to the captain who nodded once, eyes back on the map. Before disappearing with the brash American, Falsworth inclined his head toward Rogers and said, "Barnes went for a lie-down. Said to come find him if you needed anything."
Rogers hid his relief. "Thanks."
Falsworth left the captain to it. He was willing to bet a full minute wouldn't pass before Rogers went looking for Barnes. Strange how Rogers was always looking out for Barnes but didn't seem to be noticing that Barnes hadn't slept properly for weeks. Falsworth hoped both captain and sergeant survived this war. For both their sakes.
The next few days followed the same pattern as the first one. Dugan kicked Falsworth and Barnes awake and fell into one of their still-warm beds. They met Rogers for about five minutes and then they were back in the streets, searching for a new building to sit on top of. He didn't know how word got out — Falsworth certainly hadn't been talking, and Barnes usually went right to bed when they got back — but everyone would slap Barnes on the back when they returned each evening. The Czechs whistled at the two of them and asked how many bodies had been dropped today. Barnes's kill count had risen dramatically since the first day. More and more HYDRA agents were coming out of the castle as the body count rose. Strange: you'd have expected they'd do the opposite. In five days, Barnes got up to forty-six. The Czechs called him the American Death, which appeared to be a play on the nickname of a Finnish sniper — "the White Death" — who gave the Soviets trouble a few years ago.
The sergeant accepted the attention gracefully and pretended to smile and joke along with the rest. Falsworth knew that Barnes wasn't proud of the number. There was no pride in taking lives away from packs of cigarettes, dropping bodies wearing wedding rings. Falsworth didn't say anything the day that Barnes walked back to the boarding house still wearing the German boots.
This morning was supposed to be the big one. The battle for Prague wasn't going to be like the others. It wasn't going to start with shooting and chaos. Rogers and the resistance had planned this one carefully, each detail ironed out. A few days ago, Morita and Dernier led a raiding party on a German OP. They wiped out the whole place according to reports. They returned with all the uniforms. The women in the boarding house spent the next day cleaning the blood stains on the uniforms and darning any tears. The uniforms were just another part of the battle that would be started today. Even Rogers was going to be out there in full regalia.
(Gabe Jones was meant to go with on the mission, but he had certainly come down with something. His cough was too loud for him to go on the mission. Falsworth was worried that he was catching whatever his comrade had. The scratchy throat was ominous. Not to mention the way his head felt filled with boiling water.)
The men of the resistance were stationed all throughout the city today. A lot of them donned German uniforms. They'd infiltrated most of the buildings in the blocks bordering the HYDRA castle. Falsworth and Barnes were in the top of a clock tower today. It wasn't the highest point in the city, but it was highest vantage point they were going to get that was within reasonable distance of their target.
Around mid-morning, Dernier was going to take his squad of explosives handlers (which, surprisingly, turned out to be nearly all women) and detonate it outside one of the fringe HYDRA buildings. The resistance men disguised as Germans would be in full view and be tossing grenades. Hopefully, this would draw out the HYDRA troops and incense them into battle with the real German forces. Thus, the way into the castle would be much easier to fight through for their smaller forces. The captain, Morita, and Dugan had already spent a night mission laying charges near the mines buried in the path to the castle through the hedgehogs. It was decided that it was easier to simply detonate the mines than to try to avoid them. Falsworth just hoped it was all enough.
Barnes lit a cigarette and leaned against one of the pillars. His back was currently to the castle, Johnson lying in his lap. He blew the smoke upward toward the workings of the clock and the inner dome of the hanging bell.
"Think Schmidt will come out when it starts?" said Falsworth.
"Fuck," said Barnes. "No. Probably not. Bastard'll probably run like he did last time. Tell you one thing, if he does come out, it's one shot I'm not going to hesitate to take."
"I'd just like to see the damn man in person."
He nodded. "Just a creepy little red skull on his neck. It's been a few months — and I wasn't exactly sober the first time I saw him, but I reckon he looks pretty much the same."
"Could you imagine if we actually caught the devil?"
Barnes kept staring upward and puffing on the cigarette. "Nope," he said.
They got to watching the castle through their respective telescopic lenses. Falsworth had his binoculars and Barnes had the removable sight from Stark. Neither saw hide nor hair of Schmidt. To be fair, Falsworth had to look away a lot to muffle another cough in his sleeves. After the fortieth minute of this, Barnes looked at the major with some concern.
"Maybe you ought to head back," he said.
"The battle's about to begin."
"We got time," Barnes said after consulting his wristwatch.
Posh and pretentious as it might seem, Falsworth preferred the pocket variety of watch that had been gifted to him by his grandfather. His family wasn't a lot of things, but gift-givers they were. They spoke in gifts. He could hardly recall anyone saying "I love you" or any similar sentiment. It was always the casual "take care" that came out automatically after chatting with an old friend. There were no kisses on the cheek. No hugs of hello or good-bye. No casual arms flung over shoulders that was so common among the Americans.
It was one of the things that struck Falsworth the hardest once he'd been roped into that bird cage with the Americans and the Frenchman. They were all so tactile — and they were so casual about it! They leant on each other's shoulders and touched while they did everything. Hugs and pats on the back and shaking of arms. It was all so foreign to Falsworth. His family simply didn't do that. There were expectations of him academically, morally. He was to be a lord, and lords must always serve their country wherever they can. They must earn honour and have a history of bravery. All that cheery nonsense that looked good on the family tree but rotted the individual in real-time.
No, he was never shown love in the form of touch or there-ness. He was shown love in the form of things. Gifts were their main form of communication. If someone had something important to say, they said it with a gift. If they were leaving, it was something personal that they were passing on. If there was something new coming to the family, it was something impersonal but functional. Most of the time, gifts were practical. Other times, they were books with notes from your great-great-grandfather or rings your great-aunt prized so much that she never wore them.
In the case of Falsworth going off to war, the gift was the pocket watch his grandfather had given his father, who had given it back to his father upon his return from war.
Gifts often weren't permanent; they were talismans to be lost forever or returned to their giver, should it still be living.
Falsworth hated everything that watch stood for, but it was an admirable piece.
Barnes said, "Believe me when I say that I know what a bad cough sounds like."
"Oh, I believe you. I just don't think it'll make much of a difference being here or there."
"It'll make a difference. Trust me."
As hard as it was to admit, Falsworth knew he was falling ill, if he wasn't bad enough to be labelled so already. Amazingly, he hadn't been ill since he began serving duty. Not during the bombings, not in the sands of Africa, not in Krausberg.
"Monty, just go. I don't want to catch anything," Barnes said with a sideways look on his face. "Send Dum Dum out in your place. If that makes you feel better about this."
Somehow Barnes ended up convincing Falsworth to abandon the bell tower. He knew he moved too fast through the streets. Attention was sticking to him like clothing caught on thorns. A little attention was nothing compared to what the captain would do if he knew that Barnes had been abandoned on top of a tall building again. If Falsworth was caught, the best he could hope for was losing only one limb to the captain's ire.
When he arrived back at the boarding house, Falsworth coughed for nearly two straight minutes. Conveniently, it drew Dugan to his location.
"What's going on here?" he said.
Falsworth hauled in a clear breath. "Barnes," he managed to get out but then had to breathe again. "Barnes sent me back. Wants you up there instead."
Dugan looked as though a dirty trick was being played on him. "You didn't manipulate the poor bastard into giving you the morning off by coughing up a lung, did you?"
Falsworth smiled despite the fire in his chest and throat. "I'm not to question the sergeant's orders." Never mind that Barnes only strongly suggested that Falsworth leave, never commanded it.
He said, "He's at the clock tower above that church. The one from where the bell tolls? You best be off. Wouldn't want anyone to know we left him alone up in one of those again."
Dugan grumbled like a thunderstorm but collected his gear and hit the streets. Falsworth's chest felt empty and rough. He went and sat down in a chair beside an empty fire place. The boarding house was buzzing with last-minute preparations. Somehow, he fell asleep.
Dum Dum Dugan left the boarding house while the other men were arming themselves with the weapons that had just been smuggled in from the French and Greek resistances. His own Thompson kept hitting his back as he shoved his way through the streets. According to his watch, the first explosions were to go off at any minute. Barnes was so full of shit — what was he thinking, sending Monty back so close to the start of the battle?
And just like everything in the world, this went to shit, too. Of course something went wrong and the timing was off. Of course. Dramatic acts were bound to happen when you were part of Captain America's team. So: Dugan heard the crack of Barnes's Johnson (he'd know it anywhere) followed immediately by the popping of the charges they'd placed around the landmines. Terrified shouts from the citizens rose in the air like waves on the sea. The bodies around Dugan began to shift and push against each other; they searched for a safe place which surely did not exist anymore.
In short, the true battle had finally begun.
Dugan picked up his pace, using his size to his advantage and shoving the citizens out of his way. Gunshots were being fired somewhere not too far away. There were smaller pops indicative of grenades and hand-made explosives. (It was a shame that they were wasting so much good hooch on those bombs Frenchie dreamed up with those broads.)
Nothing hit too close to Dugan as he fought the crowds. It didn't help that he was fighting against the flow of citizens. But Dugan had a history of being a bully and a delinquent that he never quite shed. Shoving wasn't something he batted an eye at. Especially when there was someone or something that needed him on the other side of this crowd. The crack of the Johnson was too familiar — Dugan didn't realize he was following the sound like it was a siren's song until he didn't hear it anymore. He looked around himself and realized he'd overshot the church by a good quarter mile.
"Aw, hell," he said aloud.
Around him, the sounds of war were really picking up. A few buildings were trembling nearby. Dugan just barely caught himself on the ledge of a building; a huge squad of German soldiers were mobilizing toward the castle. The plan had worked; they had a three-way fight on their hands. No sooner had he thought it than he heard that heavy, metal scream of an 88 being fired. Those fuckers sounded like damn freight trains trying to take flight. He saw the shell explode in the body of a shop. The whole thing collapsed once the hole had been punched in its middle.
Bang — it was the Johnson. He took off running in the direction of the tower. Dugan could see the damn thing. A flash from the muzzle — but Dugan couldn't hear him fire it over the sound of another 88 being fired. The stones beneath his feet trembled as another building wept onto the road. HYDRA was firing that 88. Heavy rumbling and squeaking told Dugan that a Tiger tank was pulling up the road that sat alongside the church.
Fucking great. Barnes was a bigger pain in the ass than Rogers.
Boots skidding on the pavement, Dugan stood at the base of the clock tower and shouted up, "Fuck you, Jimmy!"
A pale, dirty speck of a face appeared at the opening near the top, looking down. Dugan waved his arm in a "come on" gesture. If he had the volume, Dugan would have said: "Get the fuck out of the tower, asshole." He saw the speck all the way up at the top hold his rifle out of the window horizontally. The speck disappeared. Their signal for "I'm coming, you don't have to yell."
About forty seconds later, an 88 smashed into the clock tower. Dugan heard it and saw it happen at the same time. One by one, the stones began to fall. Like an idiot-moron, he barged through the wooden door to retrieve whatever remained of Barnes.
"Thank God in heaven," Dugan said when he saw the sergeant rolling down the last set of stairs and stumbling down into the rows of pews. The building was crumbling from inside, too, but Barnes regained his feet and charged at Dugan.
"Get out, get out, get out," he was chanting as he reached Dugan. A hand twisted itself in Dugan's jacket and yanked him bodily from the disintegrating church.
The streets weren't any safer from falling stones than the church was, but at least they could see the sky. Dugan freed himself from Barnes's hold and followed his sergeant through the streets. They had little trouble snaking through the German forces. They were too distracted with the HYDRA troops that were invading the streets. The resistance fighters in Wehrmacht uniforms didn't help their confusion much either.
One German officer grabbed hold of Barnes's arm — he was still wearing the German uniform he sniped in — but Dugan whipped the man in the face with the butt of his Thompson so hard that he immediately dropped. Their stride was hardly interrupted. A lot of harsh German words were tossed at their backs. Dugan was pretty sure none of them were complimentary. Whether or not the officer was attempting to get his men to seize them remained unknown — if he was trying to do that, the soldiers were all too busy fighting and being confused to carry out the order.
Now that they were running in the same direction as the majority of the crowd (German soldiers instead of Czech citizens), it was a lot easier to get through. Dugan still shoved people. Maybe he threw a few elbows, too. They weren't HYDRA but they still weren't allies. Actually, in this case, Dugan really didn't want to think about where the Germans fell in relation to the local resistance and himself.
Despite how much he didn't want to think about it, the thought weighed on his mind with every passing second. Just as Dugan realized it, Barnes looked back over his shoulder, caught Dugan's eye, and let out a contagious shout of laughter. It was hard to breathe as they ran through crowds because their laughter was stealing all the air from their lungs. It was insanity. This was war! All around them bombs were dropping and bodies were falling. But James Barnes and Timothy Dugan were laughing.
It was very possible that Gabe's lungs were trying to turn themselves inside out. His head was hot and filled with water that threatened to tip him off-balance if he moved the wrong way. Ah, well, he should have seen an illness coming after all the places they'd been through. He'd been hoping for a simple cold, but it looked like the dice hadn't fallen that way for him. When had they ever, really? His life was all about taking the hand he was dealt and fighting tooth and nail against a deck that had always been stacked against him.
To be quite honest, the victories were especially sweet because of this arrangement. It made Gabe work harder for another taste. He didn't like the situation, but he thought he might appreciate the satisfaction that could be found in the struggle and in never, ever giving up.
Anyway, he was laying down covering fire so that the resistance could push their way through the Czech hedgehogs. The courtyard around the castle wasn't as bare as they would have liked. Seemed as though their plan to head off some of HYDRA's forces hadn't entirely worked. But there was confirmation that the Wehrmacht had engaged HYDRA's forces in the German-held blocks. It was better than nothing.
The all-too-familiar clang of the captain's shield rang above all else. Gabe took a gamble, pulled his eyes away from what was in front of him, and chanced a glance at what Captain Rogers was doing.
Heroics. He was doing literal heroics. Gabe knew the captain carried weapons, but right now Rogers seemed intent on killing HYDRA with his hands. The captain threw the shield around like it was nothing. He kicked chests; surely all the ribs were snapping like dry twigs inside. He wrestled the energy guns out of the HYDRA troops' hands. Never did Rogers fire one of the things at the enemy, though. He just took possession of them, smashed in the troop's face with the butt of the gun, and tore the hose that connected the rifle part to the charge pack.
Gabe wished the captain would change up his style. It was only too clear that Rogers was prioritizing the men with the energy guns. Some of the HYDRA troops with regular old gunpowder weapons were realizing it and catching Rogers in their sights. Gabe swung his Browning around and mowed down the potential offenders with precise, small bursts of fire. He didn't want to get too carried away and spray bullets into a crowd that contained friendlies.
Something big landed in the centre of the courtyard. Bodies simply disappeared, HYDRA and Czech alike. Gabe did a stupid thing by ceasing his fire. He stared at the tank rolling out from behind the castle. It was huge. A true colossus.
"Jesus, Mary, and Joseph," Gabe said.
It was easy to see who was with the resistance just then — they were all the people who stopped to stare at the monster of a tank rolling toward them. Blankly, Gabe thanked God in heaven that the monster tank wasn't outfitted with a cannon powered by blue light. Good lord, the thing had to be three stories tall.
There was a streak of blue rushing toward the metal monstrosity. And then two bodies shoved past Gabe, one familiar voice saying, "Aw, fuck no, Steve!"
Really, Gabe didn't have a choice. He ran after Barnes and Dugan; they were off to ensure their captain didn't get himself well and truly exploded.
"Steve!" Barnes was absolutely screaming as the three of them fought their way through the courtyard.
It was packed with fighters. Bayonets were being buried in the stomachs of some. Others were being shot at close range with rifles, some with pistols. Still there were groups of men fighting with fists and broken pieces of barbed wire. Gabe just missed being thrown into one of the hedgehogs by a Czech resistance man smashing a HYDRA agent's head into the rusted metal. The air was thick with the sound of dying men pleading for their mothers. Intestines were kept from spilling out onto the ground by shaking, numb hands. Legs were missing the rest of their body. Glazed eyes stared out from heads that had no backs, brains slipping like thick soup from the leaky bowls of their skulls.
Dum Dum Dugan was doing an excellent job of shoving and throwing elbows at the right men. He even got a few rounds off with his Colt. Gabe's hands were still full with the Browning. If he wanted to draw his sidearm, he'd have to leave the machine gun. And it was too valuable a weapon to leave on the ground where it could be picked up by the wrong side. It wasn't all bad. The barrel was hot from all the firing. Gabe left brands on as many HYDRA soldiers as he could. Their screams often died in their throats; the burn made them vulnerable to the attacks of the resistance fighters.
Barnes caught up to Rogers at the incredibly loud, squeaky tracks of the monster tank. Still shouting, the sergeant ran full-tilt until he crashed into Rogers's side. (Gabe privately thought that would have been the only way to get the captain's attention by this point.)
"Bucky, what the hell—"
"You fucking idiot!" Barnes was shaking Rogers. "What the fuck do you think you're doing?"
Rogers wrenched himself out of Barnes's grip and shoved him back. The shield came up and deflected six shots. The collapsed bullets rained down on their boots.
"This thing will kill everyone if I don't take it out!" Rogers shouted.
"There's no tank buster in the world that could take out this thing!" Dugan said.
Gabe nodded his agreement.
"You're not the only one out here," Barnes said in a voice that suggested he was irritated at everyone for not getting the point he was trying too make. "You have a team!"
"Then help me disable it!" Rogers said. There was anger in his voice. He didn't appreciate the insubordination right now.
"How?" said Dugan.
"Jones, come with me up to the top," said Rogers. "We take out the men inside. Dugan, Buck — knock the treads off."
"How!" Dugan said again.
"Get creative. Hasn't Dernier taught you anything? Jones, with me."
Gabe didn't stick around to hear what Dugan and Barnes were going to plan. He ran after Rogers, who took a few running strides before launching himself up the back of the tank and onto a service ladder that ran the entire height of the tank. Of course. How else would the men get there?
The private scrambled up the side of the tank after the captain. The cannon fired two more rounds before they made it to the top. There was a horrible kick that rocked the whole machine whenever they fired. It taught Gabe a lot. This tank had questionable balance, poor manoeuvrability, and had a long re-load time. All useful. Powerful things are often slow.
At the top, Rogers turned and gave Gabe a significant look. Gabe watched the turret spin and the cannon adjust several degrees. He gestured to it. The captain nodded and wedged his shield into the track that guided the cannon around the turret. Gabe went down on one knee and aimed at a hatch on the tank's body. Sure enough, it popped open. Immediately, Gabe mowed the three men down with his Browning. Then he was on his feet, struggling only a little bit to free a few grenades from their notches. Pulling the pins in turn, Gabe dropped several down the hatch. Slamming the top down, he moved as far away from the hatch as was safe.
Rogers had succeeded in breaking the track. The cannon was now immobile; they just needed to disable its ability to fire. Gabe was about to shout out a ridiculous suggestion when the whole tank shook from a boom coming from down below — Barnes and Dugan at work, Gabe hoped. The tank rocked so that one set of tracks lost contact with the ground. Both Gabe and the captain were knocked off their feet and sent sliding. Rogers got a hand on a rail stuck around the turret; the other hand caught Gabe's left arm.
The tank slammed down with a screech. Inching to the side, Gabe and Rogers peered down. The tracks had been left behind. This tank could no longer move its cannon or roll itself anywhere else.
Rogers had apparently come up with his own idea: Launching to his feet, he ran, jumped impossibly high, and slammed the edge of the shield down on the cannon. It was something out of a science fiction novel, a Greek myth. The shield put a huge deformity in the length of the cannon. No round would make it out of there; it would blow up in the chute and ruin the whole thing.
Rogers landed on the ground, shield first. He rolled a bit and then took out about three HYDRA soldiers in hand-to-hand before Barnes was on him, shouting probably. But Rogers was looking beyond Barnes, up at the castle. Gabe looked too and saw it right away. It was just a small, floating red dot in one of the castle's windows, but Gabe knew what it was. There was only one thing it could ever have been: Schmidt.
The Red Skull was definitely here.
Rogers took off running for the castle. He knocked men out of his way easily. Gabe climbed down off the monster tank with much less fanfare than the captain; he went down the same way he had gotten up. He did it a lot faster though. By the time he reached the ground, he was only a few strides behind Barnes and Dugan as they pursued Captain Rogers into the castle. As they pursued Red Skull, by a transitive property.
Inside the castle was beautiful despite the bodies. It was crammed to bursting with fighting. Weapons were everywhere. They spilled out of cabinets and wooden crates. Hand-to-hand combat dominated, though. The guns were used almost exclusively as blunt-force objects. Gabe heard German and Czech voices echo off the huge expanse of stone walls. The voices cried in their mother tongues "I surrender", but they died anyway. Some men dressed in HYDRA uniforms sans helmet cried and held their hands up in surrender just to have their bellies skewered on the ends of bayoneted rifles.
Here there was no such thing as surrender. Once you're in, you're in for life. What was forgiveness to a world at war?
It was easy to see where the captain had been. All the three of them had to do was follow the trail of blood and bodies. There were smashed-in heads and mangled legs. A few even had bullets buried in their flesh. Barnes led their small pack, shooting with his Colt at anyone who dared to get in his way — or whacking men with the Johnson when the revolver wasn't violent enough. Sometimes the sergeant simply punched with his bare hands. It became less necessary for Barnes to demonstrate such naked ferocity the deeper they ran into the castle. Rogers had already taken care of any resistance they might have encountered. It was simply a game of following the bread crumb bodies now.
The soldiers were the only thing holding back the sergeant. Now that they faced no resistance, he pulled too far ahead of Gabe and his watery lungs. Dugan was getting left behind, too. Gabe suspected that may have had to do with the sort of shape the man was in. But the two of them kept up. They only ever lost sight of Barnes when the sergeant rounded a corner. It was lucky that he seemed to having trouble with the turns. Gabe heard the German boots squeak on the polished, empty floor of the castle.
The ceilings were tall and the walls were still lined with crates. Gabe didn't stop to look, but he had a feeling that these crates carried something more sinister than bullets and rifles.
Gunshots echoed down the long corridors. Barnes shouted in response, angry. Gabe forced his hot lungs to expand to greater capacity and made his body come even with Dugan's. The three of them stumbled onto the same scene in a matter of seconds.
Shots immediately forced them down behind some upturned lab table that definitely wasn't part of the original decoration. Barnes learned around the edge to watch, and Gabe did the same thing on the other side.
Schmidt was standing inside a sort of glass chamber within the ballroom. The chamber was large, dome shaped, and took up half of the room. There was an arched entrance facing them, a bit like an igloo. There was an airtight seal firmly closed. Beyond the sealed door was a middle section between the entry point and the inner dome like a decompression chamber.
A control panel deeper in the room clearly controlled the whole thing. Two HYDRA operatives were at the station. They were the ones pinning Gabe and the others down.
Bodies littered the ground around Schmidt inside the chamber. Gabe could just make out a hazy mist inside the chamber. There was some sort of gas inside. The mask that Schmidt wore was also an obvious hint.
Barnes growled and flattened himself against the side of the table, leaning out as far as he faded to watch Rogers. The captain was standing in the in-between section. It dawned on Gabe that that area was where the people went to decontaminate themselves when coming in from the gas chamber. Rogers wore no gas mask. His intent was clear: He was going in.
Barnes fired his Colt at the glass dome. It didn't even crack the glass. Rogers didn't flinch, certainly didn't look Barnes's way.
"Cap, this is a bad idea," Dugan shouted. He wasn't acknowledged either.
"Steve," Barnes said. That was his command voice. Gabe had heard it often when the sergeant tried to organize the other prisoners at Krausberg. It was the sort of voice that made men turn their heads and sigh out their relief that someone was here to take care of them. "Steve, get back on this side of the glass now."
"Listen to your friends, Captain," Schmidt said tauntingly. "You are out of your depth again."
Gabe watched Rogers's fists tighten. The captain said, "Here you are trying to run again. What are you so afraid of? Aren't you better than all of this? All of this humanity?"
"Your mind is still so small," he said. He walked toward the back of the chamber. Gabe saw that there was another in-between room over there. Another exit. "So much is wasted on you."
The captain broke into the gas chamber in the blink of an eye. Gabe wouldn't have believed his eyes if he didn't hear Rogers firing off his sidearm. The magazine was entirely emptied as he charged Schmidt. He whipped the shield at the red-faced thing. But Schmidt deflected it without so much as stuttering backwards. Gabe had never seen anyone simply absorb the impact of Cap's shield and remain upright.
Schmidt parried with Rogers for a few blows. They moved so fast. It was hard to track the action. But whatever was in the gas acted just as fast. Gabe could see Rogers slowing and watched him take a hit in the side. It knocked him to his knees. It was possible that Gabe's heart had crawled into his throat. He was frozen to the spot. Schmidt was looming over Rogers, a glowing blue sidearm of his own drawn.
Bang-bang.
Gabe whipped around. The two HYDRA agents at the control panel dropped like sacks of potatoes. Barnes was busting through the decontamination chamber and firing at Schmidt. The man looked surprised. Schmidt shifted his hand holding the energy pistol away from Rogers and toward Barnes instead. Rogers looked livid but also two seconds away from being unconscious.
Bang.
Barnes's shot tore the gas mask. Schmidt's eyes went wide; Gabe could see it from his vantage point. He fired his pistol a little wildly, enough to make Barnes duck. Enough to buy him time to clamp a hand over the torn mask and retreat.
The Red Skull escaped, and Barnes retrieved the shield and heaved Rogers into his arms. Gabe and Dugan finally sprang into action. Dugan waited anxiously at the other end of the decontamination chamber — or whatever the fuck it was actually called — as Barnes dragged a now fully-unconscious Rogers across the chamber. Gabe went to read the control panels. He punched a few buttons and got the gas to begin filtering away. Barnes's movements grew laboured much faster than Rogers's had. He had to stop to cough a lot. Dugan went into the chamber after the gas was evacuated to meet the two of them.
Dugan helped Barnes drag Rogers into the clean air. Once they were on the right side of all of it, Barnes fell to all fours and coughed harder than Gabe had ever seen in his life. Thick clumps of bright red blood was spat onto the ground. Barnes turned over and sat heavily, lips stained red.
"Is he OK?" That's what Gabe thought the sergeant was trying to say.
Dugan hovered over Rogers and pressed an ear to his chest. He messed with the captain's eyelids. The verdict was "wheezy."
The whole castle shook. Gabe recognized the sounds outside. An 88 was being fired at their position. It was probably the Germans.
"We gotta go," Gabe said hoarsely. "Evacuation plan."
Dugan looped one of Rogers's arms around his neck. Automatically, Gabe got the other one. They stood with Rogers's strung between them. His boots would be awfully scuffed when he finally woke up.
"C'mon, Jimmy," Dugan said to Barnes. "Up and at 'em. You gotta get us outta here. Steve needs you to get us out of here."
Barnes pushed himself up. He picked up the Johnson he'd dropped before breaking into the gas dome, and with the other hand he took up Cap's shield. Though his steps were a little unsteady and his lungs hacked dryly, his hand hardly shook on the rifle. Gabe coughed in sympathy.
"Move out," Barnes rasped.
As before, they didn't meet a lot of live bodies on their way out. The noise of the fight got closer and louder though. They were nearly there when Barnes leaned hard against the wall. He dragged his body along it, needing the support.
"Hey, hold up," Dugan said.
"Think I need a minute," said Barnes.
"Switch places."
Gabe held up the captain's side until Barnes dragged his feet back toward where the two of them stood. The transfer wasn't easy, but soon Gabe was the one on point with the shield, and Rogers's weight was shared between Dugan and Barnes.
It was a good idea: Gabe was on high alert and firing like mad once they made it around the next turn. The Germans were making an attempt to breach the castle, which, it appeared, had fallen into the hands of the resistance after Rogers, Barnes, Dugan, and Gabe had breached the inside defences.
Jan Novák from the resistance flagged them down. He dodged stray fire and slid up beside Dugan.
"You must leave," he said. "HYDRA has been driven out, but now the German look to rule once more. You cannot fight their numbers."
"We'll stay," said Dugan. "We'll help."
Novák shook his head. "We are grateful, but ending the occupation here is not your mission. We can deal with Germans; your mission is HYDRA."
Gabe felt the pained look on his face. It was mirrored on the faces of Dugan and, to a lesser degree, Barnes.
Novák understood. "You cannot save everyone. We will cover you. Get out of the city and continue your mission. We will continue ours."
They moved on and fought their way out of the city. It was hard at first, the four of them moving in active battle zones. But they made it past the most intense fighting and they moved out to the quieter parts. There was a suburb that had been agreed upon to be their evacuation point. Actually, the S.S.R. had told them that the house would be their point of egress.
Partway there, Dugan shifted out from Cap's weight to take point. Gabe took his place. That was how they arrived at the house in the suburbs several hours later. A woman met them on the drive. She talked to herself in Czech and led them inside. The door locked behind them. Four more women were inside, in addition to three men. They took Rogers and laid him out on a cot. Barnes went with as if inescapable magnetism held the two of them together.
A woman asked Barnes what had happened in the city. The sergeant didn't reply. Gabe was almost embarrassed. Someone ought to tell Barnes about the blood on his chin. He looked feral. The woman moved to Dugan, who gave her a report and asked after the others. No one else had arrived.
Gabe was overcome by a coughing fit all at once. He had to sit down. The little room they were all in shivered with the raspy breath of Captain, Sergeant, and Private.
Two hours later, Dernier turned up on his own. He nearly collapsed. Two of the men carried him inside and made him comfortable on the floor beside Barnes. Gabe tried not to bite his nails. All they had to do was wait for Jim and Monty. And hope the captain woke up.