*Author's Note: Torture strongly implied in this chapter, though not clearly described. My apology for the late update. This chapter turned out to involve a lot of lengthy research.

1965

The mission, of course, wasn't just a simple assassination.

Nor was it just the three powerful governments HYDRA was simultaneously implicating in his death. It wasn't even the seismic political shifts that would certainly occur as a consequence of his disappearance. No, I reflected as I gazed out the window of our modified Blackbird at the glaring sunlight on the tops of white clouds. HYDRA only ever had one mission, the one shining goal no one else had ever been bold enough or visionary enough to grasp.

Always, always, HYDRA only wanted chaos.

Not mere anarchy. That was no new concept, even then. We worked carefully, lovingly, to craft a controlled environment of danger and unpredictability that would bring the world not only to its knees, but bring it to its knees before us. Begging us to rule, to protect.

This, of course, was all we wanted; not the mere power to rule humanity, but the opportunity to protect it from itself. At times like this, when a mission took me away from my family, forced me to do things I would have considered unthinkable only the day before I did it, it always gave me comfort to remember those beautiful ideals that we were working toward. No change is without pain, I thought, glancing down from the vista of cloud and mountain outside the window to my lap, where I held a small photo of Luciya and Andrei. It's a given that some must suffer in the world. All we do is make sure they suffer with a purpose.

We were heading to France. The target was a controversial Moroccan political figure, who would be visiting Paris by invitation to discuss a pet film project exactly now. He was supposed to stay in Paris for two more weeks, although he was privately considering extending his stay through the month. He was planning to spend tomorrow afternoon visiting the homes of two influential literary figures to discuss the film project, but would first dine at the Brasserie Lipp at 12:00pm CEST (although he had arranged to eat at Maxim's instead, and wouldn't change his mind until about 10:00am that day). He was scheduled to disappear at 11:40am and to die in great pain two days later, at about noon.

My thoughts drifted to the unconscious assassin at the rear of the plane. He was kept under heavy sedation, of course, for the duration of our transit. Once he was properly conditioned and briefed, we had no further use for him until we reached Paris, and I was not eager to be confined in the aircraft with a brain-damaged killer. It had now been forty-eight hours since I had first descended into the bowels of the HYDRA compound, and the asset had been comatose for thirty of those hours.

Dmitri had told me that, ordinarily, the asset wasn't even brought out of stasis until we were onsite, but the routine had varied this time in order to provide me with a chance to experience the deployment procedure with a former handler present for guidance.

For all the help he was, I thought sourly.

The usual routine involved actually transporting the Winter Soldier to the mission rendezvous while still in cryostasis. As unwieldy and cumbersome as that sounded, I would prefer that, I thought. I would have near-total autonomy during projects and missions in my new role; perhaps in the future I could delegate the task of awakening and conditioning the asset to another agent.

The process had thrown me. It was necessary for any successful agent to become toughened to the regrettable but necessary atrocities that arose in the service of HYDRA, and I was no exception. I had proven myself willing and able to work smoothly around all kinds of unpredictable situations, and I had been fully briefed on the Soldier in advance. The dull orientation documentation that I had memorized the month prior had been completely accurate in its descriptions of what to expect. Dmitri had kindly provided additional detail and color, and all in all there had really been few surprises during that first meeting with the asset.

Why, then, did my stomach twist with nausea when I remembered it?

My thoughts wandered back to that day, about six weeks ago now, when I had learned that I was to advance another level in the hierarchy of HYDRA. During a routine debriefing at our Moscow headquarters, I had been informed that, effective a month later, I would become the Regional Strategic Director, and would assume a new world of responsibility and power. My clearances were updated, and I was given a stack of files to familiarize myself with. One of them bore a title that filled me with excitement: Project: Winter Soldier.

A few hours later, I settled down in my new office (still rather bare) to review the Soldier's file. I could probably have taken it home safely if I had exercised a reasonable level of precaution, but agents had been "replaced" for taking much lower-profile chances that this. I was a believer in risk-taking only when the potential gains were worth it. Besides, my curiosity was strong enough in this instance that I couldn't be certain that I would be able to maintain the necessary degree of guardedness at home.

Project: Winter Soldier fascinated me. It didn't take many years of service before a HYDRA agent learned the basics about it, of course. Any of us needed to know enough to assist however we could with one of his missions at any time, in any place- or, at least, to recognize him well enough to stay out of his way. There is a weapon, it looks like a man, it has been in successful use for a lifetime, it is powerful and obedient to its handler but is not programmed to look after the safety of anyone else. We knew his description, and some of us knew him by sight from the occasions when he was led from one facility in the compound to another. Any further information was restricted, available only to those few accorded the highest degree of trust.

People like me, I thought with a swell of pride. I opened the thick file before me and began to read.

An hour after we reached the Paris safehouse, the asset was brought to me, alert, calibrated, and ready for service. He impassively reviewed the logistics of the mission with the strike team, and the quiet sound of his voice as he made his contributions to our plans startled me. I had known from the documentation that he could and did speak, but the humanity implied by the act was jarring nonetheless. He made critical observations in a low, flat tone, using as few words as possible. When the discussion was over he said no more.

Project: Winter Soldier

Initiated: February 3, 1945

Proposed by Dr. Armin Zola, approved by Herr Johann Schmidt

The objective of this Project is to provide HYDRA with an organic, interactive weapon of maximum personal destruction and stealth. It was decided to build the Winter Soldier using a former human in order to take full advantage of the natural versatility and superior inductive capabilities of a human brain. Although thorough testing was performed, no fully synthetic weapon can be created at this time that can duplicate the uniquely deadly nature of a focused homo sapiens.

With the regular application of the Winter Soldier's established maintenance protocols (see attachment A), all undesirable traits also inherent to a human brain can be satisfactorily eliminated. If properly and consistently regulated, the Winter Soldier is fully responsive to the will of its handler. It will question no orders.

The plan, at this point, was simple. The strike team would accompany our unwitting accomplice in the French Intelligence, Antoine, to the Brasserie Lipp, all dressed as plainclothes members of the Paris police force. They would "escort" the target into an unmarked Peugeot 403. Once inside the vehicle, the target would be subdued with a fast-acting sedative to avoid the possibility of a suspicious scene. The politician in question was a revolutionary, and it was commonplace for local police forces to bring him in for questioning and intimidation; as long as he displayed no fear, no one would accost them. Antoine, believing himself to be participating in a relatively innocent effort to menace the troublesome activist, would take a separate car to the next stage of the job, a decadent villa in Fontenay.

The team had been instructed to simulate a trumped-up political arrest, which would explain any token resistance witnessed by anyone on the street. The target would be kept in a twilight sleep, with the appearance of consciousness, until the party switched vehicles in a low-traffic area. The politician, now placidly dreaming in the trunk of a standard Humber Hawk, would be brought to the villa for the next phase.

It was all fairly straightforward so far; we might not even have needed the Winter Soldier along, but with so many potential witnesses and variables, he was invaluable insurance. I had read that he carried with him all the lessons learned from over a decade of successful missions, although not much else; if anything went amiss, he could evaluate and adapt faster than anyone else available. A mission involving the Winter Soldier was a mission that would not fail.

The Winter Soldier is capable of any activity necessary for the completion of even the most intricate missions required by HYDRA. It is trained extensively in the operation of a comprehensive array of vehicles, weapons, and tools. It is proficient in all known techniques for reconnaissance, strategy development, abduction, intimidation, torture, termination, sabotage, and destruction of property. It is the responsibility of the Winter Soldier's handler to utilize the skills HYDRA has painstakingly ingrained in it to the best possible effect. In short, use with discretion.

I sat in the area serving as an office at the rear of the guest wing of the villa, performing a preliminary debrief of the strike team leader. We had time to kill. The target wasn't scheduled to die until sometime tomorrow. The dying sunlight played beautifully on the expanses of shining glass and marble, painting the rooms with soft red light. We had appropriated the property from an underworld player for the purposes of this mission. He had taste, at least. We were dressed for our parts, I as a native Moroccan agent, the team leader still as a French officer. It was a necessary element of HYDRA's plan.

Although the abduction itself was simple, the larger strategy was not; from the misled Antoine, to the fictional involvement of Moroccan officials, to the "borrowed" villa, we were playing a bigger game. The current stage was not about the politician at all; it was about the Moroccan, American, and French intelligence agents who were currently standing in the next room watching, aghast, as the man hailed as the next Che Guevara was slowly torn apart, piece by screaming piece.

They each, of course, believed they were witnessing a fearful horror contrived by their own government; they each, of course, thought they had willingly assisted in the proceedings up to this point, and could be held as culpable. They each, of course, were there only as ignorant pawns of HYDRA.

The French would blame the Moroccans. The Moroccans would blame the French. The Americans would look shifty and say nothing. The world would protest, documents would be classified, and humanity would trust its governors just a bit less.

The revolutionary's mistake hadn't been the sweeping changes he favored, or his growing success and influence. HYDRA loved revolutions. The goals and philosophies involved were irrelevant; radical changes meant chaos, and we could always work with chaos. This man's erring step had been in the opposite direction. His country's leader had offered him a government position- likely to keep him under control- and we had learned that he was considering the offer. An established monarchy, even a bad one, felt safe to its subjects. A status quo was a thing we could not work with.

If he would not help us to promote disorder with his ideals, he would help us create revolt with his death.

"We located the target almost exactly where we expected him."

"Almost?"

A muffled crash and a shout from behind the wall to my left nearly drowned out the question. Then, a low moan. Another voice spoke softly, the words French but unintelligible. We paid no attention and continued.

"Yes. He was actually across the street, at a bookseller with a companion."

"Did the variance pose any difficulty?"

"No, Director Yenin. The target was not close enough to our vehicle to take him by force without creating a scene, but the asset seemed to know exactly what to do. He approached the target with another operative in the character of officers come to escort him away for a bargaining meeting between rival political leaders, and the target didn't resist."

The soft French voice in the background lilted questioningly. The other one, the moaning one, whimpered an answer, then rallied with its defiant baritone. Brave, and futile. We didn't really need any answers anyway.

"The asset actually performed a role here?"

"No, sir. He didn't really attempt to act, but the situation didn't call for it. He's always very deadpan and, well, kind of disinterested, so it worked for the minute or two that we needed. The asset can't act, you know, or perform infiltrations. He does't generally blend well."

"Yes, I can imagine." I rubbed a hand across my eyes. I really needed a good night's sleep, preferably before I returned home; I missed my family but Andrei would likely still be wakeful during the night. Maybe I would get a chance during the flight back to Moscow. Although I would have time to sleep here, the muffled commotion and screams in the next room were scheduled to continue through the approaching night. They were easy enough to ignore, but probably not easy to sleep through.

The leader of the strike team was watching me. He twitched as if about to speak, then subsided.

"What is it?" it came out more irritably than I intended. I had a reputation for unflappable calm during missions, but the combination of a sick infant and promotion jitters had me truly exhausted. I had developed a hair-trigger temper over the last several hours.

He flinched, but continued obediently. "It's just… you would probably rest better tonight with a little less noise, right?"

I stilled and fixed him with my best glare. He wilted noticeably. Good, I thought savagely. "What is your point, agent?"

"Well… I've worked with the asset before. If you need him to be quieter, why not just tell him?"

I restrained myself from rolling my eyes and replied sarcastically, "What, just tell him to torture the target more quietly?"

"Yes, sir."

I stared at him, temper temporarily forgotten. "He… he can do that?"

"If his handler asks him to, yes, sir. He'll find a way to do anything you say."

I continued to stare at him for a few moments longer. Then, in a spirit of curiosity more than anything else, I rose and crossed the room to the ornate door opposite. I opened it to the sight of the Soldier as he raised a boot threateningly over the curled figure of his victim. The room had probably been some sort of lounge originally. It had been cleared of all furniture and now wore only its ornate wallpaper and tasteful paintings in token of its former grandeur.

The assorted planted government agents were lined up against the far wall, armed, guarding against the captive's escape and looking sickened. The figure on the floor shuddered on his side in a pool of blood and vomit. Ignoring him, I caught the Soldier's eye and he froze, instantly intent upon me as if the broken figure at his feet had ceased to exist.

"Proceed as planned but allow no more noise. I want to hear nothing from outside. Do you understand?" I said firmly in my best Standard Arabic, chosen for the benefit of our clandestine observers.

The asset's eyes searched my face, waiting for further comment. When it was clear that I was finished, he responded with a slow nod.

"Good. Carry on." I withdrew. As the door closed I caught a glimpse of the asset crouching down purposefully over our captive.

We heard nothing more for the rest of the afternoon. Or night. Or the next morning.

Just before settling down late that night in a nearby borrowed bedroom, I opened the door again- just a crack- to make sure nothing was wrong. The agents were leaning against the wall, eyes glazed and limbs slack with exhaustion, but still hanging onto wakefulness by their fingernails. The asset was clearly still hard at work, hunkered down over the politician and doing something small and careful to his face. I caught a glimpse of the target's incredibly wide brown eyes, bulging with fear, a flash of silver, and tendons straining out at his throat. The only sound in the room was the harsh intake of breath through the target's nose, over and over, too fast.

He's good, I thought admiringly, and withdrew again.

It was my first good night of sleep in weeks.