Chapter 22- Arnim Zola
A/N: This is where I planned on Yelizaveta finding out her father is the Winter Soldier, but not that he's Bucky. That would come around the battle at the bridge and Bucky's mask falls off.
The sun was going down on the abandoned army base. So this was Camp Lehigh where Steve had trained during the second World War and this was also where the SSR had formed and Dr. Erskine had recruited him for his Project Rebirth. They all left the car and there was a look of nostalgia on Steve's face as he looked around. The man was probably remembering training, such as the time Colonel Phillips tossed a dummy grenade and Steve went on top of it to protect everyone or when Phillips had ordered that anyone who captured a flag on a flagpole got to ride back to the base with Agent Carter. Steve had told her some of the stories and it was obvious he missed all of his friends. Yelizaveta had seen the same look on his face when he went to the Smithsonian and had seen all his old friends in the Howling Commandos and Peggy.
"I'm sorry, Steve," Yelizaveta said, squeezing his hand gently.
"Not your fault, Liz. This is it," Steve said as Natasha held up a tracker.
"The file came from these coordinates," Natasha said.
"So did I," Steve said as they looked at the sign restricting all personnel that wasn't a part of the army. They made their way to a bunker. "This camp was where I was trained," Steve said, as they made their way through the dark.
"Change much?" Natasha asked, holding up the tracker as she stood in front of a building on the porch.
"A little," Steve said as he looked around, a thoughtful look on his face.
"This is a dead end. Zero heat signatures, zero waves, not even radio," Natasha said, looking at her tracker before putting it in her back pants pocket.
"Whoever wrote the file must have used a router to throw people off. What is it?" Yelizaveta asked as Steve looked at the building that housed weapons.
"Army regulations forbid storing munitions within 500 yards of the barracks," Steve said as they went to the munitions bunker. "This building is in the wrong place," Steve said as he raised his shield and broke the lock in front of the door. They made their way down a flight of stairs and Natasha flipped on a light switch that showed the S.H.I.E.L.D. logo on the wall.
"This is S.H.I.E.L.D.," Natasha said.
"Or was until they moved it to D.C.," Yelizaveta remarked.
"Yeah. Maybe where it started," Steve said as the walked between the desks to the logo and Steve opened a door beside the logo. They went into what looked like a file room with pictures on the wall.
"Hmm. And there's Stark's father," Natasha said, looking at a picture of a handsome man with a thin mustache. He looked like Stark a lot.
"Howard," Steve supplied the first name.
"Who's the girl?" Natasha asked, looking at the picture of Peggy Carter beside Howard Stark. A pained look crossed Steve's face as he looked at Peggy and he walked away without a word, Natasha and Yelizaveta following. Steve went to an empty bookcase.
"If you're already working in a secret office, why do you need to hide the elevator?" Steve asked as he moved the bookcase to reveal an elevator behind it.
"Maybe someone read about hiding places in Nazi-occupied Europe that the Jews used and decided to take a page from that," Yelizaveta said.
"Maybe," Natasha said, holding up her phone x-ray to reveal the security code on the number panel. Natasha punched in the code and the door swung open to reveal an elevator and they went down the shaft. When they reached the bottom, the room was as dark as pitch, except for a few lights on what looked like computer monitors. They made their way forward and lights suddenly switched on. Yelizaveta stared in surprise at what looked like computer modules and screens from the sixties.
"This can't be the data point. The technology is ancient," Natasha said with a small laugh.
"Except for that, Nat," Yelizaveta said, indicating the thumb drive by the monitor in the center of the room.
Natasha pulled out the flash drive and plugged it into the machine. The machines in the room all came to life and a camera on top of the monitor started to move. "Initiate system?" A computer voice asked as the words wrote on the screen.
Yelizaveta went to the keyboard and started to type. "Y-E-S spells yes," Yelizaveta said and the monitor powered up. "Shall we play a game?" Yelizaveta asked with a small laugh, thinking of the movie "War Games."
"It's from a movie that was really-" Natasha started to say.
"I know, I saw it," Steve interrupted.
What looked like the outline of a face came on the monitor as the camera went to Steve.
"Rogers, Steven, born 1918," a foreign voice said. The camera then went to Natasha. "Romanoff, Natalia Alianovna, born 1984," the camera then went to Yelizaveta. "Markova, Yelizaveta Ioanna (Jane) , born 2000." the voice said with finality.
"It's some kind of recording," Yelizaveta said, furrowing her dark eyebrows.
"I am not a recording, Fraulein. I may not be the man I was when the Captain took me prisoner in 1945 or when I made your father into the Winter Soldier. But I am," the voice said as the picture of a short, slightly overweight man appeared on the monitor beside the large one.
"My father is the Winter Soldier?" Yelizaveta said, feeling a cold numbness go through her.
"You didn't know? Why else would the Red Room turn you into a Winter Soldier like him? They wanted to breed a Winter Soldier so they forced your father and mother to make one and then when you reached the right age, they misled them to think you were dead," the recording said.
"He doesn't know," Yelizaveta said, more a statement than a question.
"No, he does not," the computer agreed.
"You know this thing?" Natasha asked Steve. The look of shock on Steve's face was enough to break Yelizaveta out of her own stupor of the knowledge she had just gotten.
"Arnim Zola was a German scientist who worked for the Red Skull. He's been dead for years," Steve said as he walked around the monitors.
"First correction, I am Swiss. Second, look around you. I have never been more alive. In 1972, I received a terminal diagnosis. Science could not save my body. My mind, however, that was worth saving on 200,000 feet of databanks. You are standing in my brain," Zola said with triumph in his voice.
"Ewww! Sounds too much like the book "A Wrinkle in Time" by Madeleine L'Engle," Yelizaveta said, making a face.
"Ahh, yes! A children's story of children who fight against IT; a brain that is all evil," Zola said as Steve came back to the front of the monitor.
"How did you get here?" Steve asked.
"Invited," Zola said.
"It was Operation Paperclip after World War II. S.H.I.E.L.D. recruited German scientists with strategic value," Natasha said.
"They thought I could help their cause. I also helped my own," Zola said with a smirk in his voice.
"Other than Liz's school in Russia, HYDRA died with the Red Skull," Steve said.
"The Fraulein's school was actually in Belarus and if you cut off one head, two more shall take it's place," Zola said and his computer head split on the screen before coming back together.
"Prove it," Steve said.
"Accessing archive," Zola said as film footage rolled across a smaller monitor. "HYDRA was founded on the belief that humanity could not be trusted with it's own freedom," Zola said as a picture of Johan Schmidt and rows of soldiers filled the screen and shouting "Heil HYDRA!" "What we did not realize was that if you try to take that freedom, they resist," Zola said as film footage of Steve as Captain America filled the screen. "The war taught us much. Humanity needed to surrender its freedom willingly. After the war S.H.I.E.L.D. was founded and I was recruited. The new HYDRA grew. A beautiful parasite inside S.H.I.E.L.D. For 70 years, HYDRA has been secretly feeding crisis, reaping war, and when history did not cooperate, history was changed," Zola said as scenes of violence filled the screen.
"That's impossible. S.H.I.E.L.D . would have stopped you," Yelizaveta said as her father's metal arm came into the frame, followed by a news headline of Howard Stark and his wife dying in a car accident.
"Accidents will happen," Zola said dispassionately, followed by a picture of Fury and the word "Deceased" across it. "HYDRA created a world so chaotic that humanity is finally ready to sacrifice it's freedom to gain its security. Once a purification process is complete, HYDRA's new world order will arise," Zola said as the helicarriers Fury had shown them came on the screen and the guns were primed. "We won, Captain. Your death and the little Winter Soldier's death amounts to the same as your lives. A zero sum," Steve then drove his fist into the screen. Zola's face then appeared on a smaller monitor. "As I was saying-" Zola started to say.
"What's on this drive?" Steve asked, with barely controlled anger.
"Project Insight requires insight. So, I wrote an algorithm," Zola said.
"What kind of algorithm? What does it do?" Yelizaveta asked.
"The answer to your question is fascinating. Unfortunately, you shall be too dead to hear it," the doors then slid closed and Steve and Yelizaveta tossed their shield and Sword to prevent them from closing all the way. But too late. The doors closed and the weapons bounced back to them as Natasha's phone went off.
"Steve, Vet, we've got a bogey. Short range ballistic. 30 seconds tops," Natasha said.
"Who fired it?" Steve asked.
"S.H.I.E.L.D.," Natasha said, her face devoid of color.
"I am afraid I have been stalling, Captain," Zola said as Yelizaveta pulled out the flash drive. "Admit it. It's better this way. We are, both of us, out of time," Zola said as Steve pulled up the grate in the floor and he, Natasha, and Yelizaveta crawled into it as a fireball exploded and Steve covered all three of them with his shield. Steve groaned as the bunker collapsed on them and then stopped. Steve grunted and pushed at the debris until it moved. Yelizaveta turned to look at Natasha, who was barely conscious. Steve came to her and lifted Natasha into his arms.
Yelizaveta looked into the direction Steve was planning to go and saw searchlights. "Steve," Yelizaveta said, pulling on his shoulder.
They went behind some rubble as Rumlow arrived, flashing the light on his rifle's scope. "Call in the asset," Rumlow said. The asset? who was the asset? But considering it wouldn't take long for them to find them, they would see what or who the asset was.