Chapter 3
Camp Griggs, USMC Forward Operating Base
South of Dilla, Ethiopia
0340 Hours, Local Time
Natasha would have preferred going on the helicopter with Steve and Rhodes, but her cover story as an intelligence liaison had put her in a proverbial corner. With no combat role, her chances of inserting herself on the mission were nil. Her friends were equally helpless in that regard, since they couldn't push for her inclusion without raising too many questions.
Getting herself flown ashore with the Marines, however, to await Captain America's return with the prisoner, had been surprisingly easy. So long as she stayed out of the way of the Marines' rather prickly command staff, no one paid much attention to her. Of course, that made monitoring Steve's situation rather difficult, so Natasha needed another option.
Fortunately, there was a small team of Army communications technicians on site, preparing for the eventual arrival of the infantry units from Afghanistan, who were far more hospitable to a "fellow Army officer" than the overworked Marines who were rushing to set up the base. Romanoff latched on to one lonely private named Kris, who was more than willing show off the high-tech communications and radar equipment they'd set up so far in their small corner of the base. She monitored the helicopter's flight from there.
"They crossed the border without incident, about forty miles to go. A few more minutes and the fireworks start," Kris said, adjusting the volume on his headset where he would be able to listen in on the team's radio chatter. A green indicator on the large monitor in front of them represented the Chinook and its projected flight path.
"Will we be able to see them once they leave the helicopter?" Natasha asked.
"Um-hmm," Kris tapped a control, and a smaller monitor lit up, but only showed a standby screen. "Once they're on the ground, their helmet cams will connect with the satellite uplink."
Indicators on the large monitor began to blink. Kris frowned. "Uh-oh."
Natasha frowned, glancing at him. "What?"
The private unplugged the headset so that the sound played from the speakers on the desk. The Chinook pilots' voices could be heard.
"...Incoming!"
"Deploy countermeasures."
" Command, Stalker One, Command, Stalker One, we are under atta—"
The green indicator blinked red, then vanished off the screen.
"What happened?" Romanoff demanded.
"I don't know," Kris replied, panic edging into his voice. He entered commands on his keyboard, and a slow-motion replay of the last few minutes was displayed on the screen. "That's a surface-to-air missile warning, but...they were miles away from the target zone. The only way someone should have been able to take a shot at them out there is—"
Natasha finished the thought for him. "Is if someone knew they were coming."
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Eastern Ghudaza
0355 Hours, Local Time
The stench of smoke was the first thing Steve was aware of, followed quickly by an intense headache and the all-too-familiar feeling of being completely buried in debris. He tried to take stock for a moment, noting his shield beneath him, the edge cutting into his ribcage, and the wad of canvas netting from the back of the helicopter seat draped over his throbbing head.
He reached up with his left arm, carefully, in case he was more wounded than just an apparent concussion, and tried to dislodge the netting. It took a few seconds to pull his head free. His vision cleared enough for him to see that he was lying face down on the forest floor, covered in scraps of metal and plastic, random bits and pieces of shattered equipment and a few of the soldiers' heavily loaded rucksacks from the overhead storage nets. Steve pushed himself to his hands and knees with a groan. His sides hurt, his head felt like it weighed as much as the chopper, and his right hand and arm were smarting from where he landed atop his shield.
That was...what? Three or four times in a year? Steve was really tired of being hit with missiles and grenades.
"Here." The Iron Patriot's electronically modulated voice seemed all too loud for Steve's aching head. He looked up to find Rhodey standing over him, offering his armored hand to stand up. Steve took it gratefully, but immediately regretted being upright when the vertigo hit. He sagged against Rhodes for a moment before finding his legs. "What the hell happened? Thought we were too far out to be shot at."
"Me too," Rhodes replied. "Can you stand?"
"I'll manage." Steve said, sliding his shield into its place on his back and trying to stand as level as he could until the dizziness receded.
Rhodes moved away, clearing out wreckage and looking for survivors. Steve spied Coleman sitting against a large section of the Chinook's scorched hull. Or maybe it was the landing ramp? There was so little left of the vehicle it was hard to determine what even the largest pieces used to be. Steve staggered over and knelt beside him. "You okay?"
"I'm alive," Coleman said, dabbing at a cut along his forehead. "Thanks to you."
Steve frowned at him, confused.
"When the chopper started falling, you grabbed me and put us behind that shield. We were thrown clear when we hit the ground."
Steve didn't remember any of that. Coleman gestured toward Steve's helmet. "Take it off for a second."
He complied, groaning anew as he tugged the suddenly too-tight helmet free. Maybe his head was literally swollen. Steve laughed faintly at the image. Gotta draw that later...
The sound of snapping fingers brought his attention back to Coleman. "Hey, Cap! Focus for me, man. How many fingers am I holding up?"
Steve shrugged. "Easy. Four."
Coleman nodded. "Not bad. Only two off. Sit down before you fall over, Captain."
Shaking his head slowly, Steve motioned toward the rest of the debris around them. "No, we need to find out who else made it. I'm fine...I'll be fine. I've had worse."
Coleman frowned, but motioned to be helped up. Steve heaved him to his feet, noticing that the captain was favoring his right leg. He slid Coleman's arm over his shoulder and together they slowly made their way in Rhodey's direction.
"Bet you never had this kind of reception when you were with the USO," Coleman said, grinning.
"You didn't see my first show in Italy," Steve shot back. "Crashed and burned."
As they neared Rhodes, they spotted Liufau, bloodied and bruised, but apparently all right. He was squatting off to the side, checking his remaining gear. Not as happily, Steve spotted two other members of the squad behind the big Hawaiian, unmoving, scraps of canvas from the helicopter's bench seats covering their faces. That's two, so far, he thought sadly.
Rhodes had uncovered another soldier from beneath the remains of one of the Chinook's huge engines. After a moment, he stood and looked over at Coleman and Steve. The armored faceplate was unreadable, but the slump of Rhodes' shoulders wasn't. He moved deeper into the wreckage without a word.
The only other survivor they found was one of the squad's communications specialists. Steve tried to remember his name...Farouk, that was it. Steve had met him the night before. An Egyptian by birth, lived in the States since he was two. He was dazed, muttering quietly to himself among the smoking fragments of one of the bulkheads. Coleman kneeled beside him, smacking his jaw lightly to rouse him. "Hey, Daki. Daki! Wake up."
The man—boy, really—muttered a few more incoherent words, then blearily opened his eyes and tried to focus on his C.O.. It was clear he wasn't completely conscious. He coughed when he tried to speak.
"H-hail...HYDRA..."
All three of the standing men froze in place. Steve's foggy brain took a minute to process what he'd heard, far longer than it took Coleman, who lunged at the younger soldier. "You son of a—!"
Steve stepped forward, pulling the captain off the man. "Hey. Hey! Save it."
"Guess now we know how they knew we were coming." Rhodes said grimly.
"We need to call for evac." Steve said to Rhodes, still holding Coleman away from their treacherous teammate. It was finally getting easier to stand up on his own.
"Not going to be that easy," Rhodey replied. "I got nothing but white noise...we're being jammed. Not even Tony's secure-sat frequencies are getting through."
Steve turned back to Coleman, tapping his shoulder to focus his attention and pointing at the specialist's pack. "Check his comm equipment. Maybe he'll have a channel that's clear."
"Sooner the better," Rhodes interjected, facing across the clearing from their crash site. "We've got company."
Steve grabbed some night-vision binoculars and stepped over to join him. The clearing was a few miles across. Along its southern edge, he spotted a dozen or more armed men. A few wore military uniforms, others civilian clothing, but all were packing rifles and flashlights. And they were headed toward the crash site with haste.
"We need a defensible location, somewhere we can lay low until the cavalry gets here." Coleman said from Steve's right.
Rhodey's helmet dipped for a moment as he consulted the maps they'd uploaded into the Patriot armor's memory banks that morning. "There's a town not far from here, to the Northeast. About five miles behind us. But it'll be a helluva race with them on our tails."
Steve knew his friend was right. Coleman was injured, Liufau less so, they had a stunned prisoner...it would be a running gunfight all the way to the town. He doubted they make it even halfway under those conditions. "We'll have to slow them down, first."
The Patriot's glowing reddish-white gaze shifted to him. From that angle, the lines of the helmet formed a dour frown. "What's this 'we,' Steve? You're in no condition to take on an army."
"I've had worse."
"You keep sayin' that," Coleman muttered doubtfully.
"We don't need to fight the whole force," Steve explained. "Just sow enough chaos that we can pull out without them following right away."
Rhodey sighed audibly, but didn't object further. He could calculate their chances as well as Steve. "What's the play?"
Steve thought for a moment, watching the advancing line of lights in the distance. They were moving in quickly. "Run and gun. Just like Houston last year."
"We had Sam as decoy for that."
"We'll just have to do double duty." Steve replied. He turned to Coleman and Liufau, who had joined them. "You two take Daki. Head for the village." He pointed toward the Northeast, hoping the town was as easy to find in the dark as it sounded.
Coleman didn't look happy. "Captain—"
"Rhodey and I will be right behind you." Steve said, his tone brooking no argument. "We've done this sort of thing before. Get going."
The two soldiers didn't look at all happy about it, but they obeyed. They dug out some plastic zip ties—which, ironically, they'd planned to use on Achebe, not one of their own—and tied Corporal Farouk's hands behind his back. Liufau took the extra precaution of slapping a piece of tape from the first aid kit none too gently over his mouth. Farouk seemed more aware, eyes wide, no doubt realizing that they knew his true allegiance.
As Coleman led his group into the dark forest, Rhodes turned, his faceplate lifting so Steve could see his unhappy expression. "We haven't exactly done this before."
Steve smiled faintly, but there was little happiness behind it. "You said it yourself, they'll be all over us before we get to the village. We gotta slow 'em down."
Rhodes sighed. "Are you sure you're up to this? You can go with the others..."
Steve pulled his helmet on over his still sore head. The headache was still there, but the adrenaline was starting to clear his mind. Enough to function, anyway. He actually had had worse. He motioned past the wreckage of the chopper with his right thumb. "I'll circle out, flank them. Just keep their eyes up for me."
"Yeah. Be careful, Steve." Rhodes said as he lowered his faceplate. The assorted gun and missile pods on the Patriot armor were already opening and humming to life. Steve took a deep breath and released it, steadying himself, then took off into the forest.
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Steve Rogers was out of his mind, but that never seemed to stop him from being right.
Rhodey flew a big circle, about a hundred feet in the air, strafing Achebe's troops with his minigun and occasionally dropping flares and smoke grenades into their midst. It was quite a light show, and they were just as distracted and disoriented as Steve had hoped. Many were falling back toward the trees at the edge of the clearing, some simply diving for whatever cover they could find behind rocks, fallen trees, and in gullies.
A few were either well-trained—or stupid enough—to stand and return fire. Rhodey dispatched them with blasts from his repulsors or nonlethal "icer" rounds that Tony had appropriated from the defunct Cybertech Corporation's seized warehouses.
Throughout, Rhodey kept an eye his HUD, which was displaying the real spectacle. Steve had emerged from the treeline on the left flank at full speed, plowing through unsuspecting squads and reducing the enemy line to utter chaos.
Steve was an artist with that shield. He saw Rogers hurl it as he approached a squad of three men. It struck one man's helmet, knocking him cold, then rebounded, glanced off a tree trunk and hit a second man in the back. Steve delivered a roundhouse kick to the third man before catching the spinning disc from the air and moving on to the next group.
The plink-plink of a few AK-47 rounds glancing off his armor forced Rhodes to switch his attention to another group of soldiers who were using a large fallen tree for cover. His infrared scan showed five men huddled there, two standing and firing on him. He kicked in his afterburners and dove low, racing past the tree at head level. "Icer" rounds dropped the two gunmen. As Rhodes pulled up and gained altitude, he looked back. The glowing display showed Steve skidding in like a baseball player heading for home plate. The three remaining men were swept off their feet and onto their backs. Rogers turned and swung his shield in a wide arc, bludgeoning two of them into unconsciousness. A left hook downed the last man.
Rhodey noted that Steve was a little slower than normal when he left the scene. Steve's body had a rapid healing factor, but it still required rest, which he hadn't been able to get after the crash. He toggled his comm, hoping the short range signal could punch through the interference. "I think we've got 'em, Cap. Fall back."
"R-zzz-ger th—," Steve's voice came through garbled, but he clearly got the message, as he made a bee-line for the side of the clearing. Rhodey swung around to cover his escape route, laying down fire to keep the enemy troops occupied.
He was about to turn and pick up Steve for a faster withdrawal, when he saw a group of soldiers emerge from the trees near Rogers' position. They were more heavily outfitted than the other troops, with body armor, heavy assault rifles and dark visors on their helmets. HYDRA troops. Rhodey had seen plenty of them in the past year.
One of them raised a long-barreled weapon and fired. Whatever it was slammed Steve in the back, and Rhodey's HUD registered an energy discharge. Another round caught Steve in the side, and that time Rhodes saw the electricity arc around his body. Some kind of souped-up tazer, it seemed.
Rhodes turned and swooped down. Whatever they were using was unlikely to stop his armor.
A bright flash to his left caught his attention. His HUD flashed red and displayed a warning. He barely had time to hit his left hand repulsor and spin out of the way. The 125mm tank shell glanced off his chest-plate just hard enough to set off its detonator. The explosion flipped Rhodes head over heels. He was almost a hundred yards away when the autopilot managed to steady him and he righted himself. He quickly found the source of the shell: an old Soviet-built T-72 had rumbled out of the treeline, and was already lining up another shot at him. Dozens of Achebe's troops were rushing for cover behind the tank's armored bulk.
"Rh-zz-dey! Ge-zzz out of here!" Steve's voice could barely be heard over the interference.
"Not a chance, Steve. Hold on!" Rhodes called back. He headed back toward Steve.
"There-zzz more coming! Get zzz-zzz Coleman!" Steve said urgently.
Even as Rhodey processed the garbled words, a line of vehicles crashed through the underbrush and raced into the clearly. A mix of old jeeps, trucks, and motorcycles was followed by an armored troop transport and another T-72.
"Get Coleman and zzz-zzz men out!" Steve shouted over the comm. The HYDRA troops had surrounded Steve, now. When he attempted to resist, they put another tazer round into his back.
Tracer fire and more tank shells were coming Rhodey's way. He gritted his teeth. The enemy's cavalry had gotten there first. It was too late.
He turned and hit his afterburners, hoping to get to Coleman in time to grab the trio and flee before the wave of vehicles reached the crash site.
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White House Situation Room
Washington, D.C.
10:00 PM Local Time
Matthew Ellis barged through the doors to the Sit Room, General Serrano and Defense Secretary Chambers on his heels. He walked straight for Admiral Pollack, the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs.
"What the hell happened, Admiral?" To the others around the table who'd stood when he entered, he waved his hand. "Take your seats."
Pollack wore a grim expression, but met Ellis' ire unflinchingly. "We lost contact with the helicopter around 0340 Ghudazan time, sir, when they were making their run in to the target. We've had no contact since their distress call, and the helicopter's transponder isn't broadcasting either."
"We sent two of the best counter-terrorism assets we have over there so they could help, not for someone to use as target practice," Ellis said in exasperation. He took a deep breath and dropped into his seat at the head of the table, briefly scanning the documents that had been laid out for him. "Where exactly did they go down?"
A map appeared on the projection screen at the other end of the room. Red indicators marked the crash site. "Right about here. Eastern Ghudaza, roughly twenty-nine miles inside the border," Pollack said. "Far enough away that they should still have been safe, Mr. President. The fact that they weren't—"
"All but confirms what we suspected all along," Serrano growled. "That we still have HYDRA moles in our intelligence agencies."
The prospect was troubling, but Ellis couldn't deny the probability. In the year since S.H.I.E.L.D.'s downfall, his administration had purged dozens of HYDRA sleepers from the ranks of the military, the CIA, FBI, NSA, even Congress. The news had been filled with civilian trials and military tribunals for months. But, for all their efforts, they kept finding more HYDRA agents. They were living up to their "two more heads" mantra frighteningly well. The Europeans and Chinese were having similar difficulties in their halls of power.
Ellis looked down the table to his Director of National Intelligence. "Paul?"
"A Keyhole satellite made a pass over the crash site an hour ago. At the time, the area was swarming with insurgents, but given the terrain it's impossible to get firmer details." Cabot replied.
"What about Insight?" Ellis asked.
"No progress, sir. Our team is still working around the clock, but..."
CIA and NSA experts had been trying to break in and take control of S.H.I.E.L.D.'s network of advanced Insight satellites for eight months, but their best programmers had been stymied. One report he'd seen described the programming of the satellites' control systems as "irrational." Others stated that the systems' coding changed every time they tried to access it. Ellis privately felt that that gave more credence to Roger's and Romanoff's report about the sentient computer program they'd found in New Jersey, regardless of what excuses the experts in his intelligence community kept giving him.
"If Captain Rogers and Colonel Rhodes survived the crash and were taken prisoner, Achebe and HYDRA will probably parade them on international television." Pollack said grimly.
"That's actually a good thing, Mr. President," Serrano said. "It means they'll be kept alive."
Ellis considered that. "Rescue options?"
"The Marines can launch a SAR from their base in Ethiopia within the next few hours." Pollack said.
"What kind of force are we talking about?"
"Two Hueys for the search and rescue, four Cobra gunships for escort and fire support if the crash site is still in enemy hands."
Serrano didn't look pleased. "But if HYDRA saw our spec ops squad in their one helicopter coming, they'll certainly see a large rescue team coming before they even get to the border."
Pollack nodded. "The Marines have four Harriers on site, and they're preparing spots for eight more as we speak. They can send them over the site first, in case there are any more surprises waiting."
Ellis nodded. The element of surprise—that had been hoped to make the entire Ghudaza campaign a success—was already out the window. "Send the jets in with the rescue team, Admiral. Let me know when their ready to move."
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Location Unknown
Steve's head was swimming. He reached up to hold his head—or tried to at least. His arms wouldn't budge. He forced his eyes open...only to find them so blurred that it wasn't much help. In the dim light, he could see that he was lying on his back. Steve tried to sit up...which he did, surprisingly. He looked down, squinting, and could focus enough to see the thick metal shackles around his wrists. That explained why he couldn't sit up all the way. He tested his legs, only to find his ankles trapped in similar restraints.
"He's awake again. Increase the dosage."
Steve jumped at the sudden voice, turning his head to see a person step in close, blocking whatever view of the room he might have had. He felt a sharp jab in his arm, and after a moment the room began to spin a bit faster.
He dropped back against the...was it a table? No mattress, no pillow...felt like a table.
"What of the iron one...Rhodes?" The same man asked.
"No sign yet, Reverend. We are searching the forest."
The first speaker moved into Steve's line of sight. He was dark-skinned, thin, and wore a broad, unsettling smile. "It is an honor to meet you, Captain America. Truly."
TBC