We Were Soldiers

41. In Plain Sight

Bucky quickly learnt that Colonel Phillips did not take Nazi spies lightly. Less than an hour after issuing his instructions, Hodge, Hernandez and Robertson were standing at attention in the command tent, looking twitchy and exuding guilt. Bucky couldn't blame them; everybody was guilty of something. Even Carrot had the guilt of Stark's pilfered Scotch weighing eternally on his conscience. No doubt the three men were trying to work out which act had gotten them summoned to the command tent along with one of their sergeants.

Three men from the 9th had been brought along, too. Unlike the men from the 107th, they didn't stand to attention. They didn't exude guilt. In fact, they stood at their ease, and if they were at all uncertain about why they'd been brought here, they didn't show it.

Stark had recovered the other five SSR-01 rifles. Bucky's was still being fixed following its use as a glorified crutch—a fact which Stark lamented loudly, several times, until everybody else ignored him and he was left grumbling to himself.

"Sir," said Agent Carter, without preamble, "I've reviewed camp security and have a couple of suggestions. First, we should randomise sentry duty. Nobody should know until we make camp exactly who will be guarding at night. And the men in the foxholes should not be from the same regiment; men who are familiar with each other may overlook odd behaviour. As well, until this situation is resolved, nobody should go anywhere without reporting their destination to their senior officer, and nobody should go anywhere alone. I recommend two men as escorts, to minimise the risk of an enemy agent overpowering his guard."

It sounded drastic, but Phillips merely nodded. "Very good. Anything else?"

What else could there be? Agent Carter had the place as secure as Fort Knox. But, apparently, it could be even more secure.

"Yes. We should set a guard on all food stores, gasoline supplies, the camp's water supplies, the medical supply tent and the quartermaster's store. As well, men who aren't on sentry duty should be forbidden from carrying their rifles outside their barracks tents; sidearms only. At the end of every march, the petrol should be drained from every vehicle and stored away from the motor pool. Yourself, Mr. Stark and Colonel Hawkswell should have an armed guard at all times. Two men from different regiments."

Fort Knox had nothing on Agent Carter.

"Don't you think that's a bit over the top?" Bucky asked her. He received a frosty glare in return.

"Sergeant, you yourself were almost killed—twice—by one spy," she pointed out. "I would think you, of all people, would appreciate the need for enhanced security measures, especially when a single act of sabotage could destroy everything we came here to do. The loss of our commanding officers, or an explosion of the petrol or munitions stores, would be disastrous. We've been operating under the assumption that our presence here has been a secret. Clearly that is no longer the case, and we have no idea who else that information has been communicated to."

Bucky held up his hands to halt the onslaught. "Alright, alright, I get the point."

Colonel Phillips stepped forward, his hands clasped behind his back as he took in Bucky and the rest of the men. How he'd managed to keep Colonel Hawkswell out of this, Bucky had no idea, but he guessed Hawkswell must be spitting flames right about now.

"Men," barked Phillips, and the three from the 107th straightened up a little more. "As you are no doubt already aware, our camp has been infiltrated by a Nazi spy. This spy attempted to kill Sergeant Barnes. Luckily, she failed. But we now know she wasn't working alone." He looked around, at the faces of each man. The three SSR recruits hadn't been with the 107th as long as the rest of his friends, but Bucky was proud that none of them flinched under the Colonel's hard gaze. "I personally recruited each of you from your regiments, and I'm going to assume that if the Nazis had managed to plant an agent at the candidate level of Project Rebirth, they would not have needed to use Senator Brandt to later sneak in a second agent to assassinate Dr. Erskine."

Huh? Project Rebirth? Senator Brandt? Dr. Erskine? What the hell did all those things mean?

"Therefore," Phillips continued, "I'm also going to assume that none of you are spies, which means the people present in this tent, right now, are the only ones I can be assured of not being enemy agents. With that in mind—"

Bucky looked at the men of the 9th Infantry. Only three had been brought here, out of the thirty or so who'd been with the SSR right from the start. Why these three? And why wasn't their sergeant, Haven, here with them too? Why would the colonel think three privates above suspicion, but not their sergeant? Bucky suspected he'd get his head chewed off for opening his mouth, but right now, he didn't care.

"Excuse me, sir, but why do you trust these men, in particular, from the 9th?"

"Because, Sergeant Barnes, these are the Germans in my camp that I know about."

As Bucky's eyes danced over the men, a piece of the puzzle fell into place. Of course! The Germans they'd been leaving to run the HYDRA bunkers had come with Colonel Hawkswell's task force, but Bucky had never even seen them during the marches, or during meal times. It was as if they'd disappeared into thin air. No wonder he and Wells hadn't been able to find them—they'd been dressed up as members of the 9th Infantry! Probably for their safety, as well as the camp's. And probably nobody other than the 9th Infantry themselves knew about the Germans in their midst. That was probably why Phillips never sent the 9th out of camp. Because even though he'd compartmentalised everything, he was still damn paranoid. So he used the 107th and the 69th for combat missions and scouting, and kept the 9th close to home.

"Stark," Phillips said, when no more questions were forthcoming, "how much of that truth-serum do you have left?"

"Not enough, Colonel, if you're thinking of testing the entire camp."

"Enough to randomly test a dozen or two?"

Stark stroked his chin in thought. "Yeah, as long as it's no more than two dozen. But Colonel, the chances of us catching the spy in randomised testing are… well, phenomenally low."

"We don't need to catch him, Stark. When you're hunting wild ducks, you don't send your dog out into the field to catch a duck; you send him to flush the duck out so you can shoot it. All we need our spy to believe is that we're performing randomised testing, and that we have more of your truth-serum than we actually do."

"You want to force him to run," Agent Carter said. Her dark brown eyes were animated by a sparkle of excitement, and not for the first time, Bucky was able to appreciate just how attractive she was. But even as the thought crossed his mind, he mentally chided himself. Head in the game, Barnes. You can appreciate Carter later; right now, focus on this spy business.

"Exactly," said Phillips. "Sooner or later, the risk of getting caught is going to outweigh the reward of staying put, and our spy's going to break. He'll have to cut and run, or risk being picked for randomised testing; especially if he thinks we have a healthy supply of the truth serum which got Ms. Bergmann spilling her guts. What do you think?" he asked, turning to the three German men.

They shared a glance before one of them spoke up. His English was marred by a strong accent, but Bucky still didn't know whether the three remaining men were actual Germans, or Allied agents pretending to be German.

"It is a sound plan, Colonel. But you shouldn't just spread a rumour of randomised testing… you should make it a reality. Interrogate a few of the men from each regiment. Let them undergo the serum, question them harshly, then return them to their barracks. They will go back and spread stories of what they endured, and it will help to fire the imagination of the man responsible for plotting against you."

"If I was a spy," Agent Carter mused aloud, "and at risk of being subjected to interrogation under the influence of Stark's truth serum, I would wait until nightfall. Use the cover of darkness to make my escape. Men in foxholes may not be enough to catch our spy, if he choose to flee at night."

"Now that," said Stark, "is something I think I can help with."

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"Remember," Bucky told the three privates from the 107th around the corner from their regiment's tent, "go in, get your stuff, and get out. If anybody talks to you, just reply as you normally would. And try not to do anything too suspicious. This has to look like a standard recon mission."

"We got it, Sarge," said Hodge.

"Yeah," Mex agreed. "From Colonel Phillips. And then from Agent Carter. We really don't need the same instructions three times. Well, maybe Hodge does."

"Hey!"

"Alright," Bucky sighed. "We'll meet outside the hospital tent in ten minutes."

The barracks was only half full when Bucky stepped inside. His eyes automatically scanned the faces of the soldiers reading their books, talking in small groups, polishing their boots, cleaning their guns… any of them could be a German spy. But still, the idea that one of the men he'd come to know and trust over the past few weeks might be an enemy agent—might even have ordered his death by overdose of that damn psycho-whatever compound—was a difficult pill to swallow.

"Hey, what's happening?" Wells asked. He dog-eared the corner of his book and sat up on his bed, blue eyes full of curiosity.

"Nothing," Bucky said, trying to sound at ease, instead of the increasing bundle of nerves he felt inside. "Just a recon."

"An hour ago, Stark was in here taking Tex's SSR-01 away. Then Agent Carter came in and practically hauled Tex, Hodge and Mex out by their family jewels. And now you're telling me that the three of them, led by a guy who looked like walking death 48 hours ago and only got discharged from the hospital earlier today, are going on a recon?"

"Yep."

Wells scoffed loudly. "That smells worse than something that came outta Gusty."

Bucky shrugged as he began packing his backpack for all he'd need for an overnight recon. Sleeping roll, blanket, waterproof poncho, toothbrush… it was just like that time he'd gone to summer camp. Except, the kids at summer camp didn't have to pack a box of spare ammo or a gun servicing kit.

"Y'know, Barnes, you're a terrible liar."

He tried to keep his head down as he packed his bag. Tried not to steal glances at Wells, watching from his bed. "I know." No point trying to deny it. The harder he tried to deny that he was lying, the more convinced Wells would be that he was.

"I'm not some buck private who doesn't notice he's being shelled unless someone tells him to find cover. I know something's going on, and I know you're thick in it."

Bucky continued packing in silence. What else could he say? He didn't think Wells was a Nazi spy, but Phillips had been very specific about not breathing a word about their orders. He wished he could bring Wells and a few of the others in on this, to have more people he trusted watching his back… but it wasn't his call.

"So that's how it's gonna be?" Wells said. "I saved your life, and you're just gonna let me sit in the dark?"

Bucky turned to face his friend. "Look," he said, "when you asked me to trust you, and inject that stuff into my leg, I did. Even though my mind was screaming at me that you were trying to trick me, trying to get me to hurt myself further, I trusted you. Now I'm asking you to do the same. You know I'd tell you everything if it was my choice, but it's not. I just want you to trust that I'm doing what's best for everybody."

"Dammit, I knew that whole trust thing would come back to bite me on the ass one day," Wells scowled. "I should'a just knocked you out and carried you back."

"In your dreams, pal," Bucky scoffed. Just because he'd been crazy, didn't mean he'd forgotten everything his dad had taught him about fighting. Taking a seat on his bed, he faced his friend and lowered his voice. "No word of a lie, I'll tell you everything as soon as I get the chance. And don't try and hold 'I saved your life' over me, because have you forgotten about that whole jeep-over-a-cliff thing? I figure this just about makes us even. Hell, when I was off on my crazy Nazi spy hunt, you even said that you wanted me to be able to look back and know that I saved my own life and didn't need you to do it for me." He flashed a grin at his fellow sergeant. "So, thanks for that."

"Fine. But next time your life needs saving, I'm doing it without your permission, before you get a chance to do it yourself."

"Yeah, that'll show me." He glanced down at his watch, at the seconds ticking by… and imagined the scowling face of Agent Carter, her voice all high and prissy as she complained about those damned Americans, late again. Bloody men, etc etc. "I really do have to go. Hopefully by the time I'm back, everything will have been sorted out. Do me a favour and try not to break everything while I'm gone, okay?"

"If I break things, it's only so that you can satisfy your obsessive need to fix things. Without me, you would have no raison d'être."

"Uh-huh. You keep telling yourself that." He stood up and shouldered his backpack, then grabbed his barely-used M1 rifle. "See you soon."

He met the other three outside the hospital tent, and they set off east, out of the camp. The sentries had obviously been told to expect a scouting party to leave, because Bucky wasn't challenged as he left. Pretty soon they were out of sight of the tents, on an invisible path to a distant rendezvous point. They walked in silence, which was just how Bucky preferred it. His thoughts were still heavy with the weight of the plan… and the identity of the second spy.

Half an hour later they reached the rendezvous point. The purr of a jeep's engine reached Bucky's ears even before he saw the vehicle. Agent Carter was leaning against the vehicle's side, arms folded against her chest as she chewed her lower lip. She didn't glance at her watch as the group approached; she didn't need to. A novel of impatience was written all over her face.

"I was beginning to wonder if you'd gotten lost," she said, as the men dumped their backpacks on the ground. She reached into the back of the jeep and pulled out four long metal boxes. "Howard's made the modifications, and he asked me to remind you that his weapons are not to be used as personal walking aids."

Bucky rolled his eyes. Stark was never gonna let him forget that. "Is everything else in place?"

Carter's head dipped in a curt nod. "Howard's already begun random testing of the men. He'll 'accidentally' let slip the knowledge that he's busy creating more of the truth-serum, so that everybody can be tested. Hopefully it will set a fire under our spy and smoke him out before he can do any real damage. I mean, any more damage," she amended, with a guilty glance at Bucky. She picked up two of the boxes and handed them over to Bucky and Tex. "Sergeant Barnes, Private Robertson, you have three hours to make experts out of Privates Hodge and Hernandez. Best of luck."

And with that, she climbed back into the jeep, put it in gear, and drove off. No doubt she wanted to be back at camp, right in the middle of the action. She was probably hoping that their random testing would find the spy before night fell. And Bucky had to admit, he was kinda hoping that, too.

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"Who do you think it is, Sarge?" asked Hodge, as he sighted down the scope of the SSR-01 he'd been given temporary use of. He'd done better with the weapon than Bucky had hoped. So had Mex. Bucky and Tex had struggled a little; the new night-vision scope altered the balance and aim of the gun he'd once found so familiar. It was like relearning how to use a completely different weapon… one that was even more deadly, now that it had an enhanced sight. "The spy, I mean."

Bucky didn't look up from the pot of beans he was stirring over the fire. "I don't know." He didn't want to think about it. He just wanted to do his job, and go back to camp. For a couple of hours they'd practised with their sniper rifles, then settled down for a quiet dinner of beans and hardbread before they had to get into position. They'd purposely kept their campfire small, to be sure nobody from the camp saw the rising smoke. Even though the darkening evening was warm, they huddled around the fire, finding comfort in the smell of burning wood and cooking beans.

"Me, I think it's one of the soldiers from the 370th," Hodge continued. He put his SSR-01 down and fixed a derogatory smile on his face. "My Pap always said you never could trust a Nigger."

With a quiet snort, Bucky shook his head. "If anything, there's even less chance of it being someone from the 370th," he said. "The Nazis are about as racist as it comes. Black spies don't exactly fit their model of white supremacy." Which meant the chances of it really being someone from the 107th increased.

"I reckon it's Doctor Peacock," said Mex. His dark eyes gleamed in the firelight. "Every time I see him he looks shifty, like he's up to something. Plus, it would take a genius at biology to cook up that poison that nearly killed you, right, Sarge?"

"Colonel Phillips says Dr. Peacock is Jewish."

"Really? Huh. I wouldn't have thought it to look at him. Alright, who's your money on, Tex?"

Tex gave a noncommittal shrug. "Ah bet it's someone ah've never met. There's hundreds of men in that camp, and it could be any one of them. Ah don't even know the names of everyone in the 107th."

Bucky's thoughts wandered back to the camp. To the men he saw every day but couldn't put names to. The strangers he ate beside, slept amongst and would one day be fighting with. Thank God they all wore…

"Tags," he said, glancing up at the faces of the other three. "How the hell did he get tags stamped?"

"Whaddya mean, Sarge?" asked Mex.

"The only way to Europe is through NYPOE, and you can't get through NYPOE without tags; the camp staff record everything. Which means the spy must've gone through boot camp with everyone else, and got his 'official' tags, and been shipped out here with the rest of the company. That means he could've been in place for months. Maybe even a year, or longer, depending on when he did his Basic. The 69th and half of the 107th had been in Plymouth for eight months by the time the other half of us got there."

"Now there's a comforting thought," Hodge grumbled. "Hell, it might not even be an enlisted man. Maybe it's an officer."

"Uh, Sarge, I think the beans are boiling," said Mex.

Bucky swore as he looked down into the pot and saw the beans bubbling over the top. He knew he'd filled the damn thing too full, but they'd all been hungry, and they had a long night ahead of them.

"Here, pass me your trays," he said.

After spooning out beans for the others, he took what was left in the bottom of the pot and didn't even bother with his serving tray; just tore up his hardbread and let it sink to the bottom of the slightly burnt beans. The conversation died away as they ate, and Bucky's thought went back to the camp again. The sun was getting low, which meant soon the men would be turning in for the night. Maybe they'd stay up late talking about the interrogations that Phillips had put some of their number through. Maybe they'd speak in hushed whispers about which of them was going to be questioned next. Maybe, like Hodge and the others, they'd talk about who they thought the spy was. Perhaps fights would break out over it.

But down there, in that camp, one of them would be thinking about getting out before he could be taken for questioning. If the random testing had caught the spy, Agent Carter would have sent word to them by now. The fact that she hadn't meant the spy was still down there, his identity still concealed. And when he finally broke, and decided to run, Bucky had to be ready to stop him.

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"Don't get closer than two-hundred metres. We can't risk telling the men in the foxholes that you're out there, and if they see movement, they're going to shoot at you. Remember, they won't have the same night-vision capabilities that your SSRs do."

Phillips' instructions drifted through Bucky's mind as he lay on the bare ground, peering down at the camp from his vantage point a short way above it. Through the scope of his rifle he could see the men sitting in their foxholes, and he made a mental note to suggest to the colonel tomorrow that foxholes shouldn't be dug in places they could be easily overlooked.

"We need disabling shots, ideally. I'd prefer to capture that spy alive, but if you have to make a choice between taking him out and letting him go, don't hesitate to take him out."

When the colonel had given the instruction, Bucky imagined it would be easy. That he'd have full view of the camp. That it would just be a matter of waiting for the guy to leave, and taking a shot at the appropriate moment.

The reality was much different. The rifle's scope was small, providing a limited field of view. Every time he took his eye away from it, he lost sight of the area he'd been monitoring, and had to waste time finding it again. Trees were a nuisance; their trunks interrupted his view, creating blind spots he couldn't see behind. The tents themselves often blocked his view of what was behind them, and seeing everything in a green wash was eerie, to say the least.

"Everything's quiet on the east side," Mex reported, for the hourly check in. His voice was quiet over the short-range radio; Bucky had turned the volume as far down as he dared, so that the intermittent crackle of static and voices wouldn't be heard by the men in the foxholes.

"South quarter's A-OK," Hodge added. "And I have a great view of the women's tent. Too bad the flap's down for the night."

"Nothin' goin' on in the west side of the camp," Tex spoke up. "Just guys in foxholes. Kinda wish I was down there mahself; foxholes are comfier than the bare ground."

"I know everything's been quiet so far, but don't let your guards down," Bucky told them over the radio. "And remember the colonel's orders; shoot to disable if you can. If you can't, shoot to kill."

?Again, Philips' words came echoing back from earlier in the day."If there's no action overnight, I'll send Agent Carter with some additional supplies in the morning. We might need to let this play out for a couple of days. If our spy hasn't cut and run after three nights, I'll bring you back and we'll try to come up with a different plan for flushing him out."

Phillips was full of ideas. Hiding spies, flushing out spies, capturing spies, interrogating spies… maybe they ought to rename the Strategic Scientific Reserve to the Strategic Spy Reserve.

"Don't worry, Sarge," said Hodge. "I have the eyes of a hawk and the reflexes of a cat. Nothing's getting past me tonight."

Bucky shook his head. Try as he might, he just couldn't warm to Hodge. The guy was a braggart, and one of the biggest egos in the camp. Stark got away with it because he actually was a genius. Wells got away with it because he didn't actually believe his own bullshit. Hodge, on the other hand, was neither a genius, nor humble enough to admit that his bullshit was mostly that.

But Hodge was an issue for another time. Bucky shifted on the hard ground, trying to dislodge a stone that was poking through his jacket and into his abdomen. In the end, he gave up, and resigned himself to a long night of discomfort.

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Agent Carter laced up her boots in the darkness and crept out of the women's tent so as not to wake the sleeping nurses. The early morning sun assaulted her eyes, and she squinted as she ran her gaze across the camp, looking for anything out of place. She'd wanted to spend the night patrolling, but Phillips had shot that idea down. Said they needed to give the impression of 'business as usual.' He also didn't want to risk one of the men accidentally shooting her.

There had been no shots in the darkness. No calls for a medic, no requests for help, and no reports of a man taken into custody. Peggy had lain awake for most of the night, half-dressed, her pistol by the side of her bed, ready to spring up at a moment's notice. No springing had been required. That could mean only one of two things. Either they hadn't spooked the German spy enough to scare him into fleeing, or that he'd fled and not been captured as he left. She hoped to God it was the former.

The command tent wasn't exactly abuzz with activity, but there was more of it than Peggy had been expecting at this time in the morning. Stark was there—he'd probably chosen to coffee, rather than sleep—along with Phillips, and Sergeant Haven, of the 9th Infantry. The sergeant's posture was stiff, his moustached face barely concealing his agitation. Peggy picked up her pace.

"…just can't believe it, sir," Haven continued to Colonel Phillips, as Peggy arrived as unobtrusively as she could. "Corporal Durkin is a good man. A hero. He was the one who saved what's left of our regiment. He couldn't sleep, always got sea-sickness, and he was on his way back from the john when the submarine attacked the ship carrying us. He guided us up to the deck, avoiding the damaged side of the ship. If it wasn't for him, we would've drowned along with the crew and the rest of the regiment."

"Agent Carter," Phillips barked, and she stood quickly to attention. "It seems we have a man missing. Corporal Durkin wasn't in his bed this morning."

"His gear?" she asked.

Haven hesitated before answering. He never had liked answering to a woman. "His pack's gone, along with his guns. Everything else is still in the tent."

"Don't you find it odd," Stark said to the sergeant, "that the corporal just happened to be awake at the time your ship was attacked by a U-boat? And he just happened to get you all—and himself—to safety, thereby placing himself above suspicion?"

"Sir," Haven said, ignoring Stark as he turned back to Colonel Phillips. A pang of sympathy tore through Peggy's chest at the expression on his face. It was as if somebody had just told him his childhood pet dog had to be euthanised. "I'm telling you, there is absolutely no chance of Durkin being the spy you're looking for. I've known the man for years. We went to high school together. I've met his family at church picnics. They're good people, and Durkin is a good man. Until we were sent to Africa, the furthest from home he'd been was Chicago."

Peggy didn't have to be a mind reader to know what Phillips was thinking. His face had been an almost perpetual scowl since this whole business of German spies came up, and now his grey eyes were troubled as he ran through scenarios in his mind. She knew he respected Sergeant Haven as a steady, honest, if unimaginative man, and that he'd initially intended to use the 9th for capturing the comms bunkers, before the need to hide their own agents and compartmentalise the operation had become greater.

"Alright," Phillips said at last. "Agent Carter, organise search teams. Sweep the ground to a couple of hundred metres outside the perimeter."

"What should we be looking for, sir?" she asked.

"Signs of a struggle, a dropped button, tracks in the mud, fresh signs of digging. Anything at all that seems incongruous or out of place. If Durkin didn't run, he has to be somewhere. Question the men in the foxholes. Somebody must have seen something. Anybody not working a search is confined to their regiment's tent until Corporal Durkin is found." His grey eyes scanned their faces briefly before he turned to look at one of the pinned-up maps. "Tear this camp apart, if you have to."

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Bucky kept a bleary-eyed watch in the early afternoon soon, too dog-tired to move to somewhere more shaded. The other three men slept soundly nearby in their sleeping rolls; Hodge's snores were gentle and rhythmical, lulling Bucky's tired mind into a dreamy haze. An occasional word of Spanish mumbled by Hernandez pulled his mind out of that haze, jarring him back to reality.

It had been an uneventful night. As the first rays of sun had begun creeping over the hills, they'd retreated back to their campsite, almost a mile away. There they'd made a quick breakfast of rations and water, then taken it in turns to keep watch and sleep. Bucky was starting to feel exhaustion set in from the previous days of gruelling punishment he'd endured. Rightfully, he ought to be getting some bedrest, and plenty of sleep to aid his recovery after almost dying. In truth, he knew bedrest was a luxury he could not be afforded right now. Not with an enemy spy on the loose.

The telltale sound of a motor jarred him from his latest round of battling against his own tired mind. Even before the jeep pulled up, he'd made his feet and was calling out for the others to wake. They did, with considerable grumbling as they grabbed their sidearms in case they were being attacked.

Their paranoid vigilance turned out to be unnecessary; Agent Carter was behind the wheel of the jeep, and as she pulled up, Bucky did not like the expression on her face one bit. The last time he'd seen that expression, she'd been rendered defenceless and left bound to a tree, and his immediate thought upon seeing it again was: Oh god, what's Wells done now?

"Sergeant," she snapped, as she got out of the vehicle, "did you or your men see anything last night?"

"No. We would have reported it if we did. Why? What's happened?"

"Last night, a soldier was killed," she said. "Murdered."

When Bucky felt something sharp bite into the palm of his right hand, he looked down and saw his fingers curled, nails digging into his own skin. He forced his fingers to relax as the images of countless faces flew through his mind.

"Who?"

"Corporal Durkin, from the 9th," she said, her voice a little gentler as she broke the news. Bucky felt relief flood his chest, even as he cursed himself for benefiting from another regiment's loss.

"Durkin!" Mex gasped, his brown eyes widening a fraction. "I played dice with him a few times. He seemed a good guy. What happened to him?"

"He was strangled," Carter said. She delivered the news through a clenched jaw, her voice laced with frustration. "His body was found stuffed into the back of a jeep, and covered with a tarp. He was probably drugged first, to prevent him crying out whilst he was killed. Howard suspects chloroform, or something like it. He and Doctor Peacock are still working on the autopsy."

"I thought you had the jeeps guarded?" Bucky asked.

Carter shook her head. A few locks fell free from their pins. She clearly hadn't had much time for personal grooming this morning. "The camp's petrol supplies were guarded, but since the jeeps were drained of their fuel, there seemed little need to keep a guard on them. They weren't going anywhere. Not without fuel."

"But why would somebody kill Durkin?" Mex insisted. "I mean, was he close to figuring out who the spy was? Or was he in the wrong place at the wrong time?"

"Colonel Phillips believes Durkin was killed in an attempt to frame him. Some of his kit was found in a second jeep, and it had been made to look like Durkin left in the night with some of his gear. The plan was probably to wait until the camp was moved, then bury his body at night. Now, who was covering the section of the camp with the 9th's tent in it?"

"Hodge," Bucky said.

Agent Carter pursed her lips and purposely didn't look at Hodge. "Show me exactly where he was positioned last night."

So they piled into the jeep and took her to where Hodge had been keeping watch. As soon as they got there she grabbed one of the SSR-01 rifles and lay down on the ground, uncaring of how the dusty earth sullied her uniform, to peer through the scope. After a moment, she gave an impatient sigh and pushed herself to her feet. Bucky took the gun from her, and adopted the same position, glancing through the scope at the activity in the camp. The mood down there seemed muted. Hopefully Wells was taking care of the guys in the 107th. Trying to reassure them. To keep their spirits up.

And maybe tonight, pigs might fly.

"Just as I thought," she said. "A perfect view of the 9th's tent. How on earth did you manage to be up here and see nothing, Private Hodge? Were you perhaps watching with your eyes closed? Did you nod off halfway through your shift? Or was the sight of a body being dragged through the camp something that you thought didn't warrant attention?"

A quick glance at Hodge's face showed it turning progressively redder. Last night, the man had bragged that nothing would get by him, and today they learned that a murder had happened on his watch. Maybe his face wouldn't be quite the same shade of beetroot if the dressing down came from Colonel Phillips, but Agent Carter had a particular penchant for belittling jabs. Sure, Hodge was an egotistical ass at times, but he was still a part of the 107th. He was still Bucky's responsibility.

"Hang on a moment, Agent Carter," he said, swinging his vision back down to the camp, to the area of the motor pool where the jeeps were kept. He could barely see anything, thanks to a dense screen of trees. "Give Private Hodge a break. There's no possible way of seeing the motor pool from this location, and seeing somebody leave the 9th's tent carrying a body would have meant he'd have to be looking at that exact spot at exactly the right time. We all had large areas to actively monitor, and if the spy struck whilst Hodge was looking at another section of his area, it would have been easy to make it to the motor pool from the 9th's tent without being seen by us or by the men in the foxholes. And I know none of us fell asleep, because we kept hourly check-ins over the radio." He pushed himself to his feet and handed off the SSR-01 to Tex, so that he could brush the dust and debris from his uniform. "But if it reassures you at all, I can take this position tonight. Maintain an extra vigilant watch on the 9th's tent."

She looked like she wanted to glare daggers and spit venom at his defence of Hodge, but she quickly leashed whatever anger or annoyance she was feeling to shake her head in decline of his offer.

"It's very unlikely the spy will strike in the same place twice. Keep to your original positions, and try to be more alert to any movement tonight."

"Guys, take a walk, give us five," Bucky said. They didn't need to be told twice; they set off roughly in the direction of their temporary campsite, giving Bucky a moment alone with one awkward, stubborn agent. Sometimes, she reminded him of Steve. "There's still one more undamaged SSR-01, down in the camp," he pointed out. "And it would be useful to have an extra pair of eyes up here."

"Sergeant, anybody wielding one of those weapons needs to know how to use it well enough to perform a disabling shot." Her deep brown eyes glared briefly in what felt like a challenge. "Do you know how many people have that level of skill with the weapon?"

"Probably just you," he admitted, and those deep brown eyes widened slightly. Perhaps she was surprised that he'd said it. Perhaps she'd been expecting him to push for Wells being given enough trust to keep a watch. But Bucky needed Wells down in the camp, keeping an eye on the men. Keeping them safe.

"I'm needed in the camp," she said. Probably didn't want to be more than a stone's throw away from whatever was going down. But Bucky had done enough combat missions now to know that you had to use everybody's strengths appropriately to ensure the success of a mission.

"No, you're not," he countered. He rushed on as she opened her mouth to object. "There are damn near eight hundred men in that camp, and to the best of our knowledge, all but one of them are loyal to the cause. But there are only four of us up here. Four of us to keep watch over the entire camp. Maybe down there is where you want to be, but up here is where you need to be. Your skills will be wasted down there."

"I will… consult… with Colonel Phillips," she grudgingly relented. "If he orders me to be up here, then I will follow his orders."

"Good. And one more thing." He could see the sigh of impatience that she swallowed, but she waited silently for him to continue. Maybe he'd earned himself some brownie points. "If the spy's resorting to murder, then you need to let Sergeant Wells, and Weiss, and the officers of the other regiments, know to stay alert during the night."

"If our plan is to succeed, it relies on maintaining an air of normalcy—"

He scoffed loudly. "C'mon, Agent Carter, you know better than anyone how fast rumours fly around a camp. By now, there's not a man or woman down there who doesn't know that a member of the 9th was killed last night. Everyone's gonna be on edge because of that, but if you don't let a few of the officers know what they need to be alert for, then you're complicit in the next murder that happens. And if I lose one of my men to this, I'm holding you responsible."

"I'll keep that in mind, Sergeant," she said, clambering back into the jeep. She hit first gear and revved the engine. Bucky winced. He suspected she'd somehow make him regret that last threat… but one way or the other, she was going to learn that Bucky Barnes was going to do whatever it took to keep his men safe and get them home. And if she had to learn that the hard way, so be it. "I trust you can find your way back to your campsite from here?"

She didn't wait for his response, merely set off back to camp, leaving him to choke on the dust of her departure.