We Were Soldiers
40. Questions
Sleep did not come easily, despite Bucky's best attempts to embrace it. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw his own hand. Picking up a scalpel. Holding it to the throat of Nurse Klein. In his mind's eye he was peering down the scope of his rifle, his finger caressing the trigger as he waited for the perfect moment to squeeze.
Burdened by the things he had almost done, haunted by the ghosts of what if, he drifted in and out of a light sleep, never finding true peace, until a swish of cloth moving against cloth woke him fully.
A figure in the shadows stepped forward into the dim light of the nearby oil lamp, becoming Nurse Green carrying a tray of food. She smiled warmly when she saw him awake and watching her.
"Trouble sleeping, hun?" she drawled, her voice a silken balm to his troubled mind.
"Just a little. Bad dreams," he admitted.
"Well, ah've got something that might cheer you up a little."
She placed the tray on the table beside his bed. When he saw cookies, his lips pulled up into a smile. He tried to stifle it, to inject some mock severity into his voice.
"Nurse Klein said my gum isn't healed enough for hard food."
"We'll keep this between us," she winked. "What Nurse Klein doesn't know can't hurt her. Besides, ah think you deserve a little sweetness, after everything you've been through."
He grabbed a cookie from the tray and munched it happily. "I completely agree. Could I maybe have a glass of milk, too? My mom used to let me have milk and a cookie before bed, when I was a kid."
"Of course." She smiled again, and plucked something from one of the deep pockets of her pinafore. It was a syringe. Bucky pulled his face when he saw it. He'd been stuck with so many needles over the past two days it was a wonder his skin wasn't one giant hole. "But first, ah need to give you another shot of medicine."
"What is it?" he asked. Nurse Klein had already told him he'd finished his course of antibiotics. Dr. Peacock had offered him a sedative in pill form, but was reluctant to put even more drugs in his body whilst Stark's cure was at work.
"Just a booster of Mr. Stark's formula," she said, taking off the cap, exposing the gleaming silver needle. "You'll soon be right as rain."
With his second cookie halfway to his mouth, Bucky froze as Stark's voice came echoing back from earlier in the day. "This cure is highly experimental… I have to monitor the exact dosage very carefully. Too little, and it won't neutralise all of the compound in your blood. Too much, and it could leave you a vegetable… I doubt there's anyone else in this camp with the knowledge and skill to develop and administer such a pioneering and dangerous drug."
Howard Stark might be an egotistical braggart, but he wasn't a liar. And he wouldn't trust someone else with such a dangerous substance; he was surprisingly protective of his inventions, even that damn face-on-a-stick.
But… why would Nurse Green lie?
He looked down at the cookie in his hand. If he wanted to give somebody something that wasn't good for them, he'd try to lower their suspicions by giving them something they really wanted. Something to distract them. To make them trust him enough to let him close enough to strike.
He looked up at Nurse Green's face, and that's when he knew.
She'd poisoned him.
She was the woman he'd overheard, and she'd made him crazy so nobody would believe him. And now she was trying to make him crazy again. Or worse, she was trying to finish the job she'd started. He'd barely survived whatever she'd injected him with last time.
I have to warn the colonel!
His eye fell on the metal tray, just within arm's reach. "I think I'll finish this later," he said, reaching out to put the cookie down. As Nurse Green advanced, his groping fingers found the tray and he brought it across with force, striking her hand, sending the syringe flying. She gasped in pain and shock, but Bucky was already moving.
The need to survive kicked his tired, aching body into action. He threw himself from the bed and tackled Nurse Green to the ground. He expected her to cry and sob and plead as Nurse Klein had, but instead she fought with her hands, her fists, her elbows, her knees. Like a wildcat, she scratched at his chest with her nails, and he struck out with a back-hand even as his mom's voice in his head yelled, James Buchanan Barnes, you do not hit girls!
In the end, his weight and height gave him the upper hand; as Nurse Green tried to scramble away on her hands and knees, towards the dropped syringe, he threw himself on her and forced one arm behind her back, whilst his knees pinned her legs in place. Colonel Phillips' warnings of cyanide pills prompted him to reach out to the nearest bed and pull the blanket from it. He quickly twisted it around, and pulled it into the nurse's mouth, separating her top and bottom jaw so she couldn't clamp down on whatever suicide pill she might be considering.
No sooner had he done that, than two MPs came rushing in, drawn by the scuffles and squeals of the fighting. Panting hard as he leaned his body weight down on the struggling woman, he glared up at them, and snapped, "Fetch Colonel Phillips."
The MPs lifted their guns, aiming at his back.
"Sergeant, let the nurse go," one of them said.
"Like hell I will!" he growled. "She's a Nazi! Now go get the colonel." They didn't move, so he raised his voice and shouted, "Colonel, Colonel Phillips!"
That seemed to do it. He heard people waking in the tents around the hospital. The nurses calling out questions. Soldiers asking if they were under attack. In the silence of the night, his voice carried far, even from within the canvas walls. One of the guards finally left to fetch the colonel, and Bucky felt himself immediately vindicated.
He didn't have to wait long. Colonel Phillips appeared dressed for bed in his shorts and a tee, a pistol clasped in his hands. Agent Carter appeared by his side, dressed in her uniform, perfectly buttoned without a single crease. Did she sleep in the damn thing?!
"Sergeant, what in God's name is going on here?" the colonel barked. "Have you lost your mind?"
"Sir, she poisoned me."
"Not this again!" Agent Carter sighed.
"This is different, she really did poison me. Look, over there." He nodded to the fallen syringe. "She was trying to inject me with that. She said it was Stark's cure, but Stark already told me he wouldn't trust anyone else to give me that."
"That's true, sir," Agent Carter said. "I was there at the time. Howard's very precious about anything he's invented. He's afraid people are going to steal his ideas. He wouldn't even let Dr. Peacock examine the formula, before giving it to Sergeant Barnes."
"She gave me cookies, too," Bucky added. As the others looked on, he realised it wasn't exactly a heinous Nazi act, to give a guy baked goods. "I'm not supposed to have cookies."
Phillips crouched down, tilting his head to stare at Nurse Green's face. Bucky couldn't see her expression, but he didn't think she'd was smiling warmly anymore.
"Nurse Green, do you have anything to say for yourself?"
"I can't let go, sir," Bucky said. "She might have one of those cyanide capsules you told us about."
"Alright." Phillips glanced up at the MPs. "Men, take custody of Nurse Green, and don't remove that gag from her mouth. Agent Carter, take that syringe to Mr. Stark; I want to know what's in it, and I want to know within the next half hour. Then fetch Dr. Peacock and ask him to check Sergeant Barnes over."
The MPs shouldered their weapons and came forward to restrain Nurse Green. It took Bucky a moment to relax enough to let them take her, and as soon as she was led struggling and growling from the hospital, Bucky's legs turned to jello. Luckily, Phillips was loitering nearby. He managed to grab hold of Bucky's arm and practically hauled him back onto his bed.
"Just take it easy, Sergeant, you've had an exciting few days. It seems you have a flair for attracting trouble."
"Me?! No, sir, nothing like this ever happened before I signed up," he assured the colonel. Then, childhood memories came flooding back in. "Well, hardly ever. Not very often, at least."
But judging by the look on the colonel's face, Bucky didn't think his CO believed him anymore.
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"…and then I tackled her to the ground, and she fought like a damn cat. Just as I got her into an arm lock, the MPs came. I think they thought I was crazy again, and I knew if I let her go, we'd probably never see her again, so I thought, I should make as much noise as possible, wake the whole camp. Because I wasn't actually crazy this time, so it didn't matter if I acted crazy. And when the colonel arrived, he had her dragged off for questioning, which is where she is now."
Bucky finished his tale and settled back down onto his half of the bed. Since the ruckus in the early hours, he'd had lots of well-wishers come visit him in the hospital. In fact, there were some whose names he didn't know. Some who weren't even from his regiment. Some weren't even infantry. Eventually, the nurses had gotten so fed up with the queue of people trying to get answers out of Bucky, that they'd implemented a 'three guests only' rule.
Carrot, Gusty and Wells had pulled rank to ensure they were the three who got in. Carrot was very smartly standing to attention beside Bucky's hospital bed, whilst Gusty was lounging on the next bed over sipping water from a plastic cup that probably wasn't supposed to be used for drinking from, and Wells had appropriated half of Bucky's bed for himself.
"I gotta say," Wells said, after the whole story had been told, "you have impeccable taste in dames, pal. I can't remember the last time a dame I was sweet on tried to kill me. By the way, are you going to eat that?" He pointed to the tray of canned pears, on the table beside the bed.
Bucky wrinkled his nose. "I've been eating canned pears since I got admitted here. I think I might be sick if I have any more."
Wells grabbed the tray and began stuffing pear slices into his mouth. "Thanks. I've been—"
"Losing weight," they all finished. The record was getting old.
"That's quite an exciting tale, Sarge," said Carrot appreciatively. "I can't imagine being attacked by Nazi spies. If Tipper were here, he could've made a book out of it."
"So, let me get this right," Gusty spoke up. "Even when you were crazy, you were right?"
Bucky shrugged. "I guess even my crazy mind spotted some iota of truth amongst the madness."
"Huh. I wonder who she really is, and why she's spying on us."
"Phillips will get it out of her," Bucky told him. Now that the shock of nearly being killed—twice—had worn off, his desire for answers was growing. Just who was Nurse Green? What was her mission here? Had she really liked Bucky, or had her flirting been a ploy, just another part of the act?
"Have they said when you can be released, Sarge?" Gusty asked him.
He nodded. "After lunch." And he couldn't wait for things to get back to normal.
"You know, I think you've actually put weight on since being in here," said Wells, eyeing Bucky beneath his itchy woollen medical blanket. "Maybe I should get sick. In fact, maybe I already am. What if my weight loss is due to intestinal parasites, or… ahh… a tapeworm, or something?"
"Everyone's looking forward to you getting back," Carrot offered. "The tent's not the same without you, Sarge."
"Yeah," Wells agreed. "For a start, I get to lie in bed without having things thrown at me."
The arrival of a stern-looking nurse halted any further banter. She stopped in front of the group with her hands on her ample hips, took in the sight of Gusty lounging on a bed sipping water and Wells taking over half of Bucky's bed, and gave them a deep scowl.
"This is a hospital, not a hotel. Get your feet down off that bed, Corporal, and those beds were not made to hold two, Sergeant."
"I'm glad you're here, Nurse," Wells said, as he slid off the bed. "I've been losing a lot of weight recently. I think I have a tapeworm."
"You think you have a tapeworm," she said, though to Bucky's ears it didn't sound much like a question. With a deep sigh, she walked over to a cupboard, took out a pair of medical gloves and pulled them onto her hands, to halfway up her forearms. The elastic snap they made as she pulled them tight against her skin held an ominous undertone. With a grim smile, she patted the bed nearest to her. "Very well. Drop your pants and bend over here. The rest of you might want to avert your eyes; this isn't going to be pretty."
Wells paled by several shades. "Did I say tapeworm? I mean… err… bookworm. I love reading. My intestines are fine."
"What a remarkable recovery. Now, Sergeant Barnes needs a final checkup, Mr. Stark needs a blood sample, and I need space to work. Anybody who isn't sick needs to leave."
"We'll see you later, pal," said Wells. "Don't let these vultures bleed you dry."
Gusty halted by the nurse on his way out. "Is, umm, Audrey working the day shift today?"
The nurse gave him a glare, and he slunk sheepishly out.
"I'm glad you're not crazy anymore, Sarge," Carrot said, before he followed the others.
"Me too, Carrot," he smiled at the man. "Me too."
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Peggy stifled a yawn as she strode towards the command tent. She wished it was night, and that she'd already washed off her makeup, then she could rub a little life back into her tired eyes. After twelve hours of interrogating Nurse Green—whom she now knew probably wasn't actually called Nurse Green at all—she had discovered exactly nothing. It was time to hand over the operation to somebody else. To hope a fresh pair of hands could shake something loose. And if that fresh pair of hands came close to throttling the woman… well, Peggy could sympathise.
When she arrived at the command tent, she found Howard busy debriefing Colonel Phillips on the syringe that Nurse Green had tried to inject Sergeant Barnes with.
"…really is quite diabolical. And very potent. I hate to think of the damage she could have done with this. A single drop would be enough to send a man cuckoo for hours, and she gave significantly more than a drop to Sergeant Barnes, when she first injected him. I'd guess there's probably double in this syringe; enough to kill him in just a few hours, and it wouldn't have been a pleasant death."
Despite the warmth of the day, Peggy shuddered at Howard's words. Though she often despaired over the soldiers in the camp, she didn't truly wish any of them real harm. Perhaps the occasional punch to the face or kick to the shins, but nothing serious, and she certainly didn't want any of them to die as Sergeant Barnes nearly had. They were damn lucky, all of them, that Sergeant Barnes had survived. That Nurse Green had tried to finish the job. Otherwise, they never would have discovered how Barnes had become sick, and Nurse Green would have remained free to go about her nefarious business.
"Agent Carter, how goes the interrogation?" Colonel Phillips asked, turning his grey eyes to her.
"Not well," she admitted. "I've tried goading, threatening, belittling, and a dozen other techniques short of physical torture, but she won't talk. Dr. Peacock has determined she doesn't have a cyanide pill embedded in her teeth, though, which tells us one thing."
"She's not HYDRA," said Stark.
"Probably not HYDRA," Phillips amended. "Those people are so twisted there's no telling how duplicitous they are. But admittedly, it's more than likely she's just a regular Nazi spy."
"Let me give the interrogation a try, Colonel."
"You?" Peggy scoffed. "Interrogate someone? What do you plan to do, talk her ear off?"
"Of course not. But I've been looking for a test subject for my truth-serum, and for some reason it's been difficult finding volunteers from amongst the troops." Stark leant forward, his gaze fixed on the colonel's face. "Just gimme a couple of hours, Colonel. I should know by then whether the serum's going to work. And if it doesn't, it's not as if we've lost anything by trying, right?"
"What if your serum poisons her, and she dies?" Peggy asked. Brilliant as Howard claimed to be, his prototypes didn't always work as intended. His first incarnation of the truth serum had actually had the opposite effect. Annoyingly, Sergeants Barnes and Wells had found a use for that, to keep the HYDRA troops from radioing for help after they infiltrated the last bunker. She still hadn't discovered how they'd learnt about Howard's failed truth-serum in the first place.
"C'mon, Peg, have a little faith! I didn't poison Sergeant Barnes, did I?"
"Alright," Phillips agreed. "You can have a shot. Let me know if she starts to talk, no matter what language it's in."
After Stark left, Peggy pursed her lips as she watched Phillips toy with the syringe, his finger tracing the cap as if memorising its shape. The faraway look in his eyes suggested he hadn't realised Peggy was still there. Time and her astute powers of observation had taught her to read the colonel's moods; he showed his irritation openly, but everything else was buried much deeper. In many ways, he was the perfect CO for the SSR. Right now, the look on his face troubled her. She'd seen that well-hidden desperation before, and it usually boded ill for somebody.
"You're planning something, sir," she said, jolting him out of his reverie.
"I'm always planning something, Agent Carter, you should know that by now," he snapped without any true anger.
"Yes, but you don't usually look this troubled about it." In the early days of the SSR, he'd been typically mannish about the things that troubled him. Sat on them until he was red in the face and refused to talk about them with anybody. It had taken Peggy nearly two years to convince him that not only could she be trusted, it was often in his best interests to trust her. The nature of their organisation's existence demanded secrecy, but secrets had a way of weighing a man down. And a woman too, for that matter.
"If I wanted a psychological evaluation about my state of mind, I would've asked for one," he grumbled.
"Can I be of any help?" she asked. Again, experience had been an excellent teacher. Phillips didn't like people prying; offering help put the cards back in his hands. Let him know that he didn't need to do everything alone.
"No." He gave a quiet grunt as he held up the syringe. "I can't help but wonder whether a taste of her own medicine might loosen Miss Green's tongue."
"And send her doolally. It would be unethical, sir." Not that she had much of a problem with 'unethical,' in this case. Nurse Green had very nearly killed Sergeant Barnes, and was making her best attempt to try again. Giving the fake nurse the same injection she'd tried to give the sergeant would be rather poetic.
"I know. But I don't give a damn about ethics, Agent Carter. I give a damn about completing our mission and winning this war. And right now, I need to know whether or not Nurse Green was working alone. Sergeant Barnes overheard her talking to somebody, and I'm pretty damn sure she wasn't talking to herself."
She nodded in understanding. A couple of nights ago, she'd told Sergeant Wells that this mission was bigger than one man. That at any moment, any of them might be called upon to make the ultimate sacrifice. If this mission was bigger than one man, it was definitely bigger than one woman, and if it meant getting some answers out of Nurse Green, Peggy was willing to stick the needle in the woman's arm herself.
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Howard's truth-serum worked so well that twenty minutes after he'd administered it, he sent for Peggy and Colonel Phillips. When Peggy arrived at the quartermaster's tent, where Nurse Green was being kept bound to a chair and under guard, she found the woman blubbering incoherently, tears streaming from her eyes, whilst Stark and Phillips looked on.
"What the hell did you do to her?!" Peggy demanded of Howard. The woman was crying so much her makeup was running down her cheeks, leaving dark streaks, like tears of soot.
"I swear, I didn't lay a hand on her," said Stark, completely misinterpreting Peggy's accusation. "The truth-serum seems to induce talkativeness and truth-telling, but it's not targeted at a specific memory or event. Nurse Green just finished telling me how her older sister threw her pet cat out of the upper window of their house when they were children, just to see if cats really can land on their feet."
"Nurse Green," said Phillips, leaning down to peer at the sobbing woman, "what is your real name?"
"A—Astrid," the woman sniffed. "Astrid Bergmann." Her blue eyes went wide as the words left her lips. Peggy smiled.
Gotcha!
"And your mission here?" Phillips asked.
"J—Just to spy. To gather intelligence."
"And to poison our men!" Peggy accused.
Nurse Green—Astrid—shook her head, her lips pressed close together, as if she was trying to keep something back. But Stark's serum was at work in her body. Even as she sat there, sweaty-faced, tear-stained, dishevelled and discomposed, the serum was affecting her mind. In the end, the answer came willingly.
"That was never my mission. But I had new orders. Someone here in camp. He made contact, gave me instructions, told me I had to help him create a new weapon, one that could affect enemy troops on a large scale."
On the arms of the chair to which she was bound, the woman's fingers curled into her hands, nails biting into her palms in a desperate attempt to stop the words, to silence her own betrayal. She began sobbing again, though Peggy suspected it was out of self-pity.
"Who's your contact here in the camp?" Phillips demanded. Astrid sobbed again and shook her head, so Phillips reached out and shook her shoulder. "Tell me who he is!"
"I don't know!" the spy wailed. "I never saw his face, and he never told me his name. But he knew the words, the secret phrase I was given so that I could identify a member of the Gestapo. He made me bring him things. He left notes beneath my pillow, encoded, telling me when and where to meet him. All he would tell me was that the Führer would be pleased with my work."
For one brief moment, Peggy pitied the dreadful woman. She knew all too well what it was like to be kept in the dark. To be given orders without explanations. To be expected to jump to obey. But then, Peggy had never tried to inject a man with a lethal dose of a psychogenic compound. The pity swiftly fled.
"Surely you must have some suspicions about who he is," she suggested.
Astrid's head jerked from side to side even as her mouth betrayed her. "I thought he was one of the soldiers from Colonel Hawkswell's task force. The notes only appeared after we met up with the Colonel and his infantry regiments. I tried to identify his handwriting, but I couldn't find a match."
"How did you make the compound which nearly killed Sergeant Barnes?" asked Stark.
"I d—didn't! I was instructed to bring ingredients. I left my perfume bottle, and each time it was added to."
"Your perfume bottle?"
"It's where the compound is kept," Astrid said miserably. "In my footlocker."
Colonel Phillips glanced up at Peggy, but he didn't have to say a word. Even before he could open his mouth, she was on her way out of the tent. She knew what was at stake. She knew how dangerous it would be if that perfume bottle fell into the wrong hands.
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It wasn't even dinner time yet, and Bucky was already in trouble again.
At least, that's what he'd thought when he'd been summoned to the command tent. That had been half an hour ago. In the half hour since, Colonel Phillips had told him a story. About how the real Marielle Green had been buried in a deep grave in her home state. How the German spy, Astrid Bergmann, medically trained and inducted by the Gestapo, had stolen the dead woman's identity. How she'd signed up, been sent to Europe, and had been attached to the SSR.
It was frightening to think that it could happen so easily. German intelligence had gathered all the data they needed to allow them to plant someone within the military's ranks, and they'd done it without raising any suspicions because medical staff were generally above suspicion.
More frightening, though, was the next part of the tale. That Nurse Green—Astrid Bergmann—hadn't worked alone. That she'd been in contact with another spy in the camp. Agent Carter had then produced a perfume bottle, and explained how the compound had been created piece by piece. It was the very same perfume bottle Bucky had once held in his hands, and he shuddered to think of how close he had come to discovering it by accident. If only he'd dropped that bottle, back when he'd infiltrated the women's tent in search of Nicely Spiced.
Now that Bucky had the answers to all the questions he'd been pondering, he kinda wished he was still in the dark. Things were easier, in the dark. Less worrying.
"Sir, I appreciate you telling me all of this," Bucky said at least. "But… why are you telling me all of this?" Until now, Phillips had hardly been forthcoming with answers. The whole damn SSR seemed to be about keeping secrets.
"Because we have a serious problem, Sergeant Barnes," said Phillips, "and the number of people I can trust with this information is frighteningly small. I can't let this mission continue with a spy in our midst. Too much could go wrong. We're going to have to find a way to flush him out, and since they almost killed you for overhearing their conversation, I'm going to assume you're not the spy."
"Of course I'm not the spy!" he spluttered. The fact that Phillips had even considered it was ludicrous! If Bucky were a spy, he'd be about the worst damn spy in the whole world, after exposing his own co-conspirator and having himself almost murdered.
"You would be surprised at some of the things spies do to win the trust of their dupes," said Agent Carter, as if reading his mind. She and Stark were present for the meeting, but nobody else was; not even Colonel Hawkswell. Did Phillips suspect him, too? If so, he was even more paranoid than Wells!
"There are a few things we know for certain," said Phillips. "We know that Astrid Bergmann was sent to spy on us. We know that she received new orders from someone within camp. We know she believes the second spy is someone from one of the infantry regiments, because the notes only started arriving after Hawkswell's task force joined us—however, that could have been a result of the spy biding his time and hoping to make it appear that he was from one of the infantry regiments. We're also pretty sure that neither of the spies is HYDRA; they were planning to wait until after we'd taken out Schmidt's communication bunkers here before poisoning our water supply with the psychogenic compound. Your actions in overhearing their conversation forced their hand and exposed their plan."
"We also know," Stark picked up, "that whoever the spy is, he's got a background in science. The compound he created is very complex; definitely not something a guy with only a standard high school diploma could create. The question is, apart from me, who in this camp has the knowledge to cobble together such a deadly concoction?"
Bucky's thoughts went immediately to the syndicate. To Davies and his co-conspirators with their illegal moonshine still and ability to get their hands on pretty much anything they wanted or needed. The number of people capable of creating a deadly compound was probably significantly higher than Stark suspected.
"Until now, we've compartmentalised out of necessity," Phillips said, "but clearly there are still flaws in our security. Agent Carter, I want you to review camp procedures. Until this spy is found, I want security so tight that a man can't even visit the pits without three other people knowing about it."
"Sir, I can vouch for a number of the 107th," Bucky said.
"This isn't a matter of trust, Sergeant," said Agent Carter. Her frosty exterior may have melted a little in the wake of his almost-dying, but now that he'd been released from hospital she was back to cool professionalism. "By their very nature, spies are duplicitous. It could be anybody. Literally, anybody."
"Except probably the nurses," said Stark. "Putting two spies in the same area has gotta be risky. But I'm more than happy to question the nurses personally, if you'd like to allay any further suspicions against them, Colonel."
Peggy rolled her eyes, and Phillips ignored the suggestion as he turned back to Bucky.
"Agent Carter is right. As far as we know, it could be anyone, even Colonel Hawkswell." Yup. He was definitely even more paranoid than Wells. "Now, I'm starting to put together a plan to flush this spy out, but until we know who it is, nobody outside of his tent is above suspicion. Do you understand?"
"Yes, sir."
Two days ago, he would have believed every single man in the 107th capable of being a Nazi spy. Now, he couldn't believe it of any of them. Didn't want to believe it. The men he knew were real. Genuine. Carrot and his girl, Samantha. Franklin's odd way of stirring his coffee. Davies' methods of making the impossible happen. Biggs with his sleepwalking. Gusty's nervous flatulence. Wells and all his bullshit. Those men were his friends, and the idea of one of them being a spy… it was ludicrous. Easier to believe it of Colonel Hawkswell.
"Good." The colonel turned to Stark and Carter, and Bucky could almost see the gears in his mind turning. "Recover all the SSR-01s. I don't want to take any chances. Bring me the three Project candidates, and our friends from the 9th. It's time to put my plan into motion and see if we can snare ourselves a Nazi."
Author's note: That's not actually how you check for tapeworms. Nurse Madeley is just very clever. If you suspect you have a tapeworm, please see your friendly neighbourhood physician.