We Were Soldiers

154. Trapped

"You know," said Jacques, "when I joined the Resistance, under the ocean was not one of the places I expected to find myself."

"What surprises me," Monty spoke up, "is that Kevin hasn't already made a movie about this scenario. Captain America and his Howling Commandos Battle Undersea Nazis."

"How do you know he hasn't?" Steve asked him. "I remember forbidding you all from watching those movies." They were pretty bad. The kids seemed to like 'em, though, so that was something. Hopefully one day he might even inspire someone, the way his own childhood heroes had inspired him.

"Oh, my mother told me. She's seen them all."

There was movement by the hatch, a dark shadow rising from the depths. Steve stood and groped at his side for his knife, wishing that he'd practiced more with a blade. It didn't come as naturally to him as it did to some of the others, and he felt the absence of his shield like a missing limb. An instant later, Jones surfaced, dragging behind him a package wrapped in what looked like several layers of plastic. He spat out his rebreather mouthpiece and said, "Little help please."

Steve dashed forward and hauled him up out of the water while Monty and Jacques grabbed the rope that was towing the package and wrestled it to the floor. "It's good to see you again, Gabe," he said. "What's the word from the surface? Were you able to make them understand our situation down here?"

Jones nodded, slipping back the head cover of his wet suit as he took over handling the package he'd brought down. "I did. And I've got a lot to report back to you, and not much time to do it. First and most urgent thing you need to know is that we're sinking."

"What?!"

"It's true," said another voice. Relief flooded Steve's head as Bucky strode into the room. A stranger followed him, a man dressed in a Kriegsmarine uniform, and Dugan brought up the rear. "This is Gefreiter Karl Wagner, and he just told us that the sub hit a depth charge that took out the engines and damaged the hull plating. One section of the boat is already flooded, and it's probably only a matter of time before the door holding back the ocean can't hold it back any longer."

"That man is sick!" The Nazi—Wagner—pointed an accusatory finger at Morita, who had slipped back into sleep after another period of violent thrashing and moaning. "You must kill him immediately, before he can escape and spread the infection!"

"Nobody asked your opinion, Fritz," said Dugan. "And I'm sure as hell nobody cares. Now sit down over there where we can keep an eye on you." He gave the young man a shove in the direction of the wall.

"Jones, did they give you any idea of how far we've sunk?" Steve asked, putting the German out of mind for the moment. It was good enough that Dugan was watching him closely.

"Yes, we're sinking at a rate of one metre every two minutes. It might not sound like much, but in another three hours' we'll be deep enough that it will make leaving via the same way we came in dangerous, due to the pressure of the ocean. The sub will survive another few hours after that, but we definitely won't. Right now they've got a team of engineers kitted out with rebreathers, and they're working on the engines from the outside, seeing if they can repair them. After two hours they'll ask us to go to the control room and try to fire them up. If we can't get them started, then we've got an hour to get out. Once we're clear, they're going to drop depth charges to make the sub sink faster."

"Okay. Good job." Two hours. That ought to be plenty of time for them to find however many infected crewmen were still out there, and either stop or restrain them. If the sub could be salvaged, the crew would need to be incapacitated or dead before they brought it into shore. "Did they get chance to look at the blood sample you took up?"

"They did. And we have some help with that." He tore through the plastic packaging and brought out several of the high-calorie ration bars that Howard made up for Steve and Bucky. "Stark says these are fortified with iron. Morita needs to eat as many as possible. We have to force him to eat them, if necessary."

"Why?"

For an answer, Jones dug something else out of the plastic-wrapped package. It was one of the radios that Howard had invented for short range communication. He switched it on and handed it over. "It will be easier if he explains it himself."

Steve accepted the radio and pressed the transmit button. "This is Captain Steve Rogers calling the surface. Do you read?"

"Loud and clear, Steve," replied a familiar voice. "Was there any doubt? I did invent these things, you know."

"And a great job you did, but we're on the clock with this one, Howard." In other words, he didn't have time to stroke the inventor's ego. Not with so much at stake. "What sort of situation are we looking at here? Morita thinks he's been infected with rabies."

"Good news: he hasn't." The relief that passed through the room was palpable. "Bad news: it's worse."

Oh god. What could be worse than rabies? "Worse how?"

"I'll not waste time on the details. The short of it is, whatever has infected Private Morita has caused rapid and extreme iron-deficiency anemia. That's why he looks pale. Iron-deficiency affects haemoglobin, which carries oxygen around the body, hence the complaints of cold in the extremities. I'm told that several of the infected crew attacked you?"

"That's right. They were like animals. And it seems they killed their own crew, ripping them open and eating parts of their bodies."

"Not eating. Drinking. If you're low on iron and haemoglobin, the most appropriate replacement is like for like. By drinking the blood of their victims, those crew replenished some of their own haemoglobin levels and likely bought themselves some extra time. But without a regular intake of iron, they're going to die, and it won't be pretty."

Bucky spoke up. "We saw one of the crew trying to eat a handrail… he actually chewed and swallowed a metal cigarette lighter. And Wagner says he saw several crewmen trying to eat parts of the ship."

"My favourite drinking buddy has hit the nail on the head," Howard continued. "Desperate times and all that. German manufacturing runs heavily to the iron industry; just about anything metal down there is going to have iron in it, to some degree. Wait, who's Wagner?"

"But humans can't digest metal," Steve pointed out. There would be time to talk about Wagner later, when Morita was saved.

"Don't I know it! But if the crew are as far gone as you say, they won't be cognisant of that. They'll be operating on some primitive survival instinct. They'd probably even eat sewing needles if they were on offer, desperate for iron, uncaring that the needles would kill them. Did Jones give you the calorie bars? I fortify them with iron, amongst other things. Have Private Morita eat as many as he can. If he's past the point where you can make him eat, then it's time for Plan B. In the care package I sent, you'll find an intravenous drip system and several bags of solution which contain soluble iron. Hook him up to it and keep the bags going for as long as you can. It will buy him some time."

"What about a cure? Did you send any antibiotics?"

"They won't help. This isn't a bacteria; that was the first thing we looked for. It must be some sort of virus, and it may even be related to rabies, but I'll need time to analyse its protein structure before I can even attempt to synthesise a cure."

"There's a chance this sickness was created by Schmidt," Bucky spoke up. He gestured to the young German sitting under Dugan's watchful gaze. "Wagner says that the U-boat picked up a passenger before it left port in Norway, a scientist carrying papers signed off by Schmidt. When he came on board, he brought only a briefcase with him. No luggage or any personal effects. And he got mighty twitchy when he almost dropped it. I think that maybe this sickness was inside his case, and whatever vial it was in broke and released the disease. The scientist was the first affected. Maybe he was developing some new biological weapon for Schmidt, and transporting the finished product back home in what he thought would be the safest way possible."

"That's extremely troubling to hear. I'll make a start with the blood sample you sent up, but if Schmidt had a hand in this, it's gonna be nasty. Getting your hands on either patient zero or that briefcase would be a great help. But I can't talk more right now, there's some twitchy British guy here who insists on speaking with you. Yes, yes, I know, it's urgent, stop badgering me, I'll hand it over in a second. Steve, get that iron in Morita now before he declines any further. I'm gonna head back to shore where I can have some medical equipment set up, but I'll patch in with another radio once I'm there."

"Captain Rogers, this is Sub-Lieutenant Kessler, I'll be liaising directly with you over the next two hours as our engineers try to fix the external damage to the engines. Now, there are a couple of things we need to do before we try firing the engines up. Firstly, it's imperative that you find and eliminate all infected crewmen before that boat moves anywhere."

"We got a lot of them already," Dugan said. "Cinderalla here has been keeping count."

Bucky rolled his eyes. "The manifest lists forty-five crewmen; between those killed by the infected crew, those drowned when part of the boat flooded, and those we've taken care of ourselves, we can account for thirty-eight of them. We've swept almost the entire fore section of the sub, and locked all the doors behind us of areas that we've checked. The remaining seven crewmen must be in the aft section, but we don't yet know whether or not they've been infected."

"Sounds like you've been busy down there. Good work. You'll need to find the last seven crew, or else check every single room for signs of life. If you can't find them, we'll have to assume they're amongst the dead."

"You said there were a couple of things we need to do?" Steve prompted.

"That's right. Next you'll need to check the oxygen scrubbers on the sub. U-boats need to surface every seventy-five hours as a rule, to recharge their batteries and take in air. Not just for the oxygen scrubbers, but also for the sub's diesel engines. Without oxygen, they'll stall as soon as you try to start them up. Because you're upside down, you can't take in air, so we'll need to repipe it to the engines from the atmosphere of the boat, providing there's enough left in there."

"Won't that leave the air a little thin for us?" Dugan asked.

"Normally, yes. But you've barely used your oxygen rebreathers so far. If necessary, you can equip them or share use of them for the ascent. It will only take a few minutes to get you back on the surface once the engines are started."

"Is that everything?" Steve asked.

"One last thing. And this is vitally important. You need to find the codebook."

"Codebook?"

"Every U-boat receives coded orders via the Enigma machine they carry on board. It's how we were able to break their codes back in '41; we managed to get our hands on a machine and its codebook from a sinking U-boat. We did the same in '42 as well. The Nazis change their codes regularly, so what's contained in that codebook will help our code-breakers back at Bletchley to figure out German communications."

"Got it. There's just one problem," he said. "Our expert on diesel engines and other technical things is currently not doing too well. Even if we knew where to find the oxygen scrubbers, we wouldn't know how to figure out what's going on with them."

"I know where to find them," said Dugan. "That's where Barnes and I found Fritz here."

"Take this radio with you," Kessler advised. "I'll talk you through what you need to do once you get there."

"Too many of us down there will just get in the way," Bucky spoke up. "I can go deal with those last few crewmen while you tinker with technology, if you like."

"We must take care of Jim, too," said Jacques.

"If I may," Wagner said, cringing slightly when Dugan glared at him, "I have some ideas about where the codebook may be. The Kommandant's quarters are still accessible, and there was a secure locker he used sometimes as well."

"We'll split up into groups," Steve instructed. "Dugan, Monty, you'll take Kessler on the radio and check out those oxygen recyclers. The rest of us will take Morita to the infirmary and get him hooked up to a drip. Jacques, I'd like you to stay with him. Jones and I will take—Wagner, was it?—Wagner to look for the codebook. Bucky, it's too dangerous for you to go off huntin' Krauts by yourself, so you'll stay with—"

"I don't intend to hunt them, that'll take too long," his best friend replied. "I plan to set a trap and lure them in so I can shoot them before they even know I'm there."

"How?"

Bucky reached over to the package Howard had sent down and plucked out one of the drip bags full of soluble iron. "By using this as bait. These infected crewmen respond like wild animals to the presence of iron. I'll pick a room that has only one way in, sprinkle a little of Stark's magic water around, and wait for them to come sniffin'. Meanwhile, I'll be positioned somewhere safe. Somewhere with a good view."

"That's… actually a really good idea," he admitted. "But I still don't like the idea of you doing this alone. You won't have backup. If something goes wrong—"

"Then you better make sure you find that code book fast, so you can come and help me finish the job."

"Remember, you're on the clock," Kessler reminded them. "If we can't repair the damage, you have to leave within three hours, or you may not survive the ascent."

"Okay everyone, you have your orders," Steve told them. "I personally don't intend to make this U-boat my final resting place. Let's get this done and get home." Hopefully he could make it back before Peggy started worrying about him.

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

Bucky hummed to himself as he made his way through the aft section of the U-boat. The song was an earworm that had been in his head for the past hour, and he'd finally figured out the best way to get it out of his mind. He would inflict it on the infected crew, and then shoot them.

"They made him blow a bugle for his Uncle Sam

It really brought him down because he couldn't jam"

It was the song that had been playing at the conscription office when he and Steve had gone to sign up, and he hadn't thought about it since that moment. So why was it in his head now?

"The captain seemed to understand

Because the next day the cap' went out and drafted a band"

To be fair, Steve had pretty much just drafted a team in the same way. Phillips hadn't thought they could learn to work together, but they'd proved him wrong.

"And now the company jumps when he plays reveille

He's the boogie woogie bugle boy of Company B."

Jacques would kill him if he heard Bucky pronounce reveille like that, but lyrics were lyrics, and you couldn't get an earworm out of your head by changing it.

"Here, Nazis," he called as he walked along the corridor. He tapped the muzzle of his gun on the wall a few times, to make a little more noise. "Come out and play."

The pressure of the mission was starting to get to Steve. It was very likely nobody else had even noticed it, but Bucky knew his best friend like the back of his hand. If Steve was actually thinkin' like he normally did, he would've realised that Bucky would never have sacrificed something that might save Morita's life just to kill a few Krauts. Not when he had something else that would do the job just as well.

"Look what I've got for you," he continued, as he stepped into a room that looked suitably defensible. Only one way in meant that he might become trapped, but it also meant that he couldn't be surrounded. Besides, with only seven crew unaccounted for, he fancied his chances. Holstering his gun, he drew his knife and cut a quick, shallow score across his palm. Blood began to pool immediately. Idiot. What if you have to swim back and sharks smell the blood too? the tiny voice in his head pointed out. You can't shook sharks underwater.

Too late to think about sharks now. He let the blood pool in his palm a little, then flicked it out of the door and into the corridor. If these Krauts were desperate enough to live that they were swallowing metal, then the scent of blood ought to bring them running. He sheathed his knife and drew his pistol once more. A quick stop at the armoury before leaving Steve and the others meant he had enough ammo to kill each remaining Nazi three times over, and Steve had nodded approvingly at his caution.

"Come get some fresh blood, fellas."

He would use a little of the liquid iron if he had to, to get the ball rolling, but he'd save most of it for Morita. Hell, as soon as these last Nazis were dead, he might even volunteer to put on a rebreather and haul Morita's incapacitated ass up to the surface. Little Jim needed more help than he'd find down here, and Bucky could always return after getting him to safety. Of course, if he did volunteer for that, Steve would probably forbid him from returning. Maybe even make it an order.

Perhaps he could volunteer Dugan for that…

"Come on, where are you?" he called out. "I'm kind of on a tight schedule here. Can we hurry things along?"

As if waiting for that very invitation, there was movement down the corridor. One of the crew, clearly as infected as the rest, stepped forward and sniffed the air. His head swivelled left and he stared at Bucky for a moment before letting out a pained howl and racing forward. Just as Bucky raised his gun, six other infected crew followed suit.

Shit. What were the chances that all seven of them would be clustered together? Then again, it was pretty much par for the course these days.

BLAM.

He shot the first Nazi in the head, and the guy dropped where he ran. The six behind him continued, uncaring of how they clambered over their fallen comrade. They clearly didn't give a damn about camaraderie anymore, but they also weren't turning on each other like they had the uninfected crew. Did there come a point where their bodies became so depleted of iron or haemoglobin or whatever, that they no longer identified each other as food?

BLAM. A shoulder shot. The Nazi stumbled but kept coming. BLAM. Headshot. The crewman finally dropped.

Two Nazis tried to come down the corridor together, slowing the progress of the three behind as they fought to make headway. Bucky unholstered a second gun he'd brought from the armoury and aimed both guns at the heads of the men. He wasn't left-handed, but he fired both weapons twice, just in case. The bullets found their mark and the two men sank lifelessly to the floor. Ceiling. Whatever.

The three Nazis behind pushed on. They were gettin' close. Bucky stepped back as he aimed both guns, buying himself a little space. BLAM. The closest Kraut dropped like a sack of potatoes, and in a heartbeat, the two remaining crewmen were on him. He dropped the gun in his right hand and drew his knife. Firing with his less accurate and already-bleeding left hand at the Nazi closest to him, he slashed with the knife in his right hand, severing the tendons that ran to the wrist. The second Nazi bared his teeth and lunged forward.

BLAM.

A headshot from behind sent the Kraut spinning to the side to bang against the wall before dropping. With only one injured crewman to deal with, and conscious that any bullet he fired might go through the Kraut and hit whatever member of his team had been stupid enough to follow, he let the gun slip from his bleeding left hand and put all his power into one last attack. Drawing back his right shoulder, he tilted the knife upwards and as the Nazi lunged forward again, drove the blade up through the underside of the jaw and into the skull. The crewman's eyes rolled back into his head, and Bucky turned his face to avoid being sprayed by a foamy plume of blood as the man let out his dying breath.

When the last Kraut dropped to the floor, he turned to face the one who'd shot a crewman from behind, to give them a piece of his mind—and instead found himself looking up into the barrel of a pistol.

The mad thud of his heart pounding in his chest was like a drum screaming at him to attack first to survive. But he'd dropped his guns. Had only his knife. The pistol was just out of his reach, and he didn't think he was faster than a bullet. Not at this close range. Instead, his eyes went to the face of the man holding the weapon. He wore the uniform of a Kriegsmarine commanding officer, and the flash of white at the temples of his dark black hair spoke of someone who was old enough to have seen a lot of action. Maybe even served in the Great War. Like Bucky, his face was sweaty and blood-spattered, and there was an uncompromising gleam in his cold blue eyes.

Did I miscount? Those seven should've been the last. Forty-five crew. Or was Wagner mistaken about how many men died before we got here?

"Are you the voice?" the Nazi officer asked. His English was pretty good, his German accent merely a soft lilt.

"The voice?" Bucky asked.

"From the intercom. The voice of the American soldiers come to pillage what's left of my ship?"

"The voice was our commanding officer, and our translator." He glanced down at his nearest sidearm. Definitely too far for him to make a grab for it. "What's your name?"

The man raised his chin. "I am Fregattenkapitän Hans Howaldt, second in command of this vessel."

"And I'm Sergeant Bucky Barnes." Time to take a chance. "Are you gonna shoot me, Fregattenkapitän?"

"I haven't yet decided."

"Okay." He glanced down at his gun again. "Well, given that you literally just saved me from that infected crewman, I'm gonna assume that your plan wasn't to save me from him just to shoot me yourself. So, I'm gonna crouch down and pick up the gun next to my feet. I'm gonna move slowly, and I'm not gonna aim it at you once I have it, but it seems I miscounted how many of your crew we'd dealt with, and I'd prefer not to be without a gun right now."

Slowly, very slowly, he bent his knees and groped blindly for the pistol with his injured hand. He had a sneaking suspicion that if he took his eyes off the gun currently pointed at him, it would be fired. That just by looking at it, he could stave off the next bullet sitting in the chamber.

When his fingers found the pistol he gripped it loosely and then stood just as slowly, putting the gun in the holster and finally sheathing the knife he still held in his right. So far, so good.

"Look, 'kapitän Howaldt, I don't know if you're aware, but your ship is sinking."

"I know. It should have sunk by now. I don't know why it hasn't."

"Do you think you could maybe stop pointing your weapon at me? I promise I'm not gonna do anything stupid. I just wanna get of this alive."

"There is no getting out alive," said Howaldt. He finally holstered his gun, though he did it reluctantly. "I purposely selected this area of the ocean to steer the vessel, knowing that it was riddled with depth charges."

"You did this on purpose?! Why?"

"My commander was dead. Our crew, massacred. The saboteur cut off our outside communications, to ensure we could not call for help. I knew that—"

"Wait, what saboteur?"

"A man we took on board before we departed Norway—"

"The scientist?"

He shook his head. "I know nothing about a scientist. This man was a soldier, a member of the Schutzstaffel, carrying urgent transport papers." He sneered coldly. "I should have listened to my conscience and turned him away right then. I do not know how, but he infected several of the crew with this sickness that quickly caused them to become violent and attack each other. The men they attacked either died from their injuries or became infected themselves, and very quickly we lost control of the situation. I tried to send out a message for help, but the man's sabotage had been thorough. I feared that this sickness would reach the surface and spread throughout the continent, another Black Death that we could ill afford to fight on top of the war, so I made the decision to sink the boat by forcing a collision with a depth charge. We hit a charge which caused damage, but obviously not as much damage as I'd hoped."

"How were you planning to get out?"

Howaldt met his eyes calmly. "I wasn't. A captain should go down with his ship, and with our kommodore dead, that responsibility falls to me. Besides, even if I did escape, nothing but execution would await me. I intended to sink the boat and prevent the saboteur from returning to report his success to whoever gave him his orders. Before changing course, I took all the Dräger breathing systems and destroyed them. The saboteur tried to stop me by sending some of the infected crew to intercept me, but he was too late."

"What? This guy can control the sick men?" This was big. Steve needed to be told. Maybe it could help Morita in some way. "But they're mindless animals. They don't seem capable of taking orders. Hell, they don't even seem to realise when they're still carrying weapons!"

"They are mindless," Howaldt agreed. "Yet he directs them still. There is a certain smell that precedes an attack. I can only think that he is using something in the air distribution system to lure them into specific areas."

The air distribution system? "You mean the oxygen recycler things?" Howaldt nodded. "That's where we found Wagner."

"Who?"

"Gefreiter Karl Wagner. A member of your crew."

Howaldt shook his head. "We have no such crewman by that name."

"Are you sure? Maybe you just never met him. This is his first mission."

"What did he look like?"

"About this high," Bucky said, holding his hand at his own chin height, "dirty-blond hair, brown eyes—"

"That is the man we picked up in Norway. The saboteur."

A chill stole over Bucky's flesh, sending deep shiver down his spine and into his stomach. For the first time since boarding the U-boat, he felt true cold. "He's with some of my team right now. Said he could show us where to find your boat's codebook."

"He can't show you where it is; I destroyed it when I took the Drägers. I could not risk him fixing the communications and betraying our new position after I changed course."

Communications… "My team and I were using your boat's internal comms to speak with each other as we investigated, but it got cut off."

"Yes, I heard you speaking. But he will have damaged that system to prevent you from using it."

Bucky closed his eyes and tried to make sense out of the situation. Somebody was lying. Wagner said it was a scientist who brought the sickness aboard, and Howaldt said it was Wagner. They could not both be telling the truth. Wagner had seemed pretty genuine. A terrified young man on his first voyage from home. It was hard to imagine him as the one who had infected the crew. Howaldt, meanwhile, seemed cool and calm by comparison. If anyone could control the sick men, maybe he'd done it, to win Bucky's trust by saving his life in a timely rescue.

But… if Wagner was telling the truth, if the 'scientist' had been shot, fifteen killed, three drowned and the rest accounted for by the Commandos, Howaldt should not exist. He was one person too many. And what was it Wagner had said about the scientist?

"A last minute addition to the crew… We are not a passenger vessel… but this man came to our dock with papers explaining that he had to urgently board our vessel and go with us to Germany. He was on an important research mission for a man named Herr Schmidt, who is a close adviser of Hitler. He was shot. It was about three days into our survey, and all was quiet. The scientist—nobody told me his name—went to the medical lab complaining of cold and feeling unwell."

Nobody had told Wagner the scientist's name, but they'd told him the guy was on a mission for Schmidt? And how did Wagner, or anybody else aboard a Kriegsmarine U-boat, know that Schmidt was a closer adviser of Hitler?

"Does the name Schmidt mean anything to you?" he asked Howaldt.

"I went to school with a boy named Schmidt, but I have not seen him in decades. Should it mean anything to me?"

"I hope not." Wagner knew too much. "My team have accounted for all of your men." He nodded to the seven on the ground. Saying accounted for was easier than saying killed. "These were the last. There is nobody left for Wagner to control, and two of my team are at the oxygen recyclers; if there's been tampering, they'll find it. What will Wagner do now?"

Howaldt gave it a moment of consideration, his cool blue eyes assessing Bucky as he pondered the question. "Try to escape," he said. "He cannot send messages on the Enigma machine without the codebook I destroyed. He cannot leave via the hatch, because I destroyed our Drägers. So whatever method you used to get down here—where are you going?" he called, as Bucky turned and ran.

"To stop him," Bucky shouted back over his shoulder. "I know what he's going to do."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

The kommodore's room was a cramped mess. Everything that wasn't bolted down had been thrown clear across the room during the sub's roll, which meant sifting through paperwork, clothing, and other personal effects. To keep Wagner out of trouble, Steve hauled a few drawers out into the corridor and instructed the Kraut to go through them with a fine-toothed comb. Wagner did so without complaint, probably keen to show his potential saviours that he was worth the trouble of saving.

Jones handled the paperwork, since he was better at reading German, while Steve rifled through the deceased boat captain's personal effects. Most of what the man had were souvenirs of his travels; judging by the carved wooden mask that had once hung from the wall, the kommodore had served in Africa at some point, while a delicate silk fan had a definite oriental feel to it. Below the bed, which was still fixed above, lay two damaged photo frames. One was a more recent black-and-white photo of the kommodore standing in a dock shaking hands with Hitler himself while the U-2540 sat sleekly and the correct way up in the water behind them. The other was an older picture, a tintype of the kommodore at a much younger age, along with what were presumably his wife and two younger children.

He disliked Nazis as he disliked all bullies, but seeing the tintype struck a chord within his heart. Here was another father who would never return home from war. Another family who would get a letter telling them their dad was gone. This fight, like the one before it, had already claimed so many fathers, brothers, husbands and sons, and today, it had claimed forty-odd more.

"You got something interesting there?" Jones asked.

The words jolted Steve out of his internal musing. How long had he been staring at the picture? "No, just thinking about loss," he said, holding up the tintype for Jones to see. "The only picture I have of my dad is a tiny portrait inside my mom's locket. Growing up, I would've given anything for a picture like this one. It really hits home, you know. Every time we kill a Nazi, we're depriving a family of a loved one."

"Yeah, it's a tough idea to get your head around," said Jones. "In the heat of battle, when it's kill or be killed, it's not something I let myself think about. But afterwards, I wonder what was going through their minds when they signed up to fight. Did they do it because they supported Hitler? Or did they have no choice in the matter? Were they the sort of bastards who are better off in the ground, or mere soldiers of fortune?" He reached over to take the more recent photo from Steve's hands. "Take this guy. This picture says to me that he supported everything Hitler is doing. He had this photo in his personal room, right next to a picture of his family. This moment meant something to him. He was proud of it. So, I'm not going to lose too much sleep over the fact that he's gone. What about you, Cap? Why'd you sign up?"

"I've been thinking about that a lot, lately," he admitted. "Told myself, told everyone, that I signed up because I wanted to make my dad proud. Follow in his footsteps. Be the brave hero he was, y'know?" Jones nodded in understanding. "But the truth is… I've always been really, really bad at keeping my mouth shut when I see something I don't like. Right before I ran into Dr Erskine and got drafted into the SSR, there was this one incident in the cinema. A guy heckling the screen because of a conscription advertisement. A real Hodge kinda guy, though probably not even as good as Hodge, because at least he did sign up. Anyway, there was this one dame in the audience who was crying when she saw the ad, and I figured it hit a little too close to home for her, that she might've lost someone. And now she had to sit there and endure heckling from some jerk who was too much of a coward to sign up for a real fight. Nobody else in the audience said anything, but I couldn't keep silent. I spoke up. Told him to shut his mouth… though I probably said it more politely than that."

"And did he?"

Steve offered a grim smile. "No, he dragged me into the alley behind the cinema and proceeded to use my face as a punching bag. But it never once occurred to me that I shouldn't have said something. When you see something you don't like, you've got a duty, maybe even an obligation, to speak out. Now, me signing up… that was my way of speaking out against Hitler. And when they wouldn't take me… well, that felt like being told no. Like being told that I wasn't allowed to speak out. That I had no right to do it. And you know how I feel about people telling me that I can't voice my opinion."

"Got any regrets?"

"Only that I didn't meet Erskine earlier. Maybe if I'd run into him six months before then, I could've been out here with the rest of you, doing all that SSR stuff that I missed out on. You know, all the stuff Bucky won't talk about."

"If you wanna know about the missions, then why not just ask Phillips? You're the SSR's greatest asset. You're the reason he gets so much funding. Hell, General Marshal himself wanted you to be out here kicking Nazi butt! Phillips will probably give you full access to all those mission files, if you ask him."

"He probably will," Steve agreed. "But it's not the same. An official mission report will never be the same as my best friend's accounting of those missions. Mission reports are just facts and figures, accruals and casualty lists. They don't say anything about feelings and emotions, anger or regret, fear or pain."

"And you think those are the things Barnes doesn't wanna talk about?"

Steve nodded. "He's shut me out for a reason. I wish I knew what it was."

"Heh. Well, I gave up trying to figure him out long ago. Me, I'm just along for the entertainment." His teeth shone white in a wide grin. "Anyway, I got nothing. Most of this paperwork is personal correspondence, there's no sign of the codebook. How about you?"

"Zip." Steve craned his head towards the open door. "Hey, Wagner, have you found anything in those drawers? Wagner?

The two of them stepped out into the corridor, but apart from the drawers he'd dragged out, it was completely empty. "Maybe one of those sick crewmen got him," Jones offered.

"No way. I would've heard that. Even you would've heard that. Plus, Bucky and Dugan said this part of the boat was clean. He must've gone wandering. Didn't he say the kommodore had a locker somewhere? What was the guy's name, do you remember if he ever told us?"

"No." Jones suddenly slapped his own forehead. "Wait, I grabbed the manifest after I got back from my trip top-side." He opened up his utility belt and pulled out a roll of paper that was only slightly soggy. "Kommodore Ernst Busch. If he's got a locker somewhere, let's hope he put his name on it. Hmm, wait a minute, our guy's name is Wagner, right?"

"Yeah, why?"

Jones held the document up for inspection. "His name's not on the manifest."

That didn't make sense. The only way his name wouldn't be on the manifest, is if he wasn't really part of the—He met Jones' worried gaze. "Son of a…. Come on, I think I know where he's headed."

: - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - : - - - — — — - - - :

One of the rebreathers was missing. Bucky clocked its absence as soon as he reached the room where they'd entered the sub. No no no, this can't be happening. This is all my fault. Why wasn't I more suspicious of the guy?

He flung himself at the ladder and climbed down it as quickly as he could manage, then took a deep breath as the water level rose to his chin. It was blessedly cool after the heat of the sub, but he had no time to enjoy the brief reprieve. He groped for each rung with his hands, pushing himself down. Any minute now he'd enter open water. Any minute now… his feet met solid steel The hatch was closed, and no amount of pulling on the handle would release it. Suppressing a cry of frustration, he let go of the ladder and pushed off from the bottom, letting his own buoyancy carry him to the surface.

He rose in time to see Steve and Jones race into the room, their faces a mirror of the panic he felt inside. "Steve, Wagner's gone," he said quickly. "And he's locked the hatch from the outside."

Steve didn't miss a beat. Turned immediately to Jones and said, "Get to Monty and Dugan. Tell them to get on the radio to Kessler, warn him that there's a guy on his way up from the sub. He's a Hydra spy and must be captured at all costs."

Jones offered an affirmative nod, then raced off. Bucky allowed Steve to help haul him out of the hatch. "How did you know?" he asked.

"His name wasn't on the manifest. Never trust a liar." Steve nodded at something on the other side of the room. "Who's your new friend?"

New..? "Oh, that's Fregattenkapitän Howaldt." The man had followed his progress through the boat, and now stood warily watching the exchange. "He's the second-in-command. He's also the one who aimed the U-boat at a depth charge in an effort to sink it."

"It was a good effort, Fregattenkapitän," Steve told him. "You may yet get your wish. How did your hunt go? And what happened to your hand?"

Bucky glanced down at the cut on his palm. It wasn't bleeding profusely, but it was noticeable. "My hand? Just a scratch, nothing to worry about. I've managed to find the last seven sick crewmen. Now the entire crew is accounted for." Accounted for. Dead. Death seemed to follow him wherever he went, and judging by how he'd yet to glimpse its reflection in a shop window, it was a much better stalker than Wells was.

"That's one good piece of news, at least. Now let's get going. I want to reconvene the team at the radio and get a sitrep from Kessler." He looked down at the shaft that led to the hatch. "I hope to God he's got some good news for us too, because as of right now, we're all trapped down here."

Author's note: Bucky's earworm is 'Boogie woogie bugle boy' by The Andrews Sisters, a popular WW2 song first released in 1941 and still worming its way into peoples' brains today. Please go to youtube and have a listen!

Also, I took creative license with the size and layout of the sub, because it turns out U-boats are actually kinda cramped inside, and I wanted our heroes to have a little more space to stretch their legs, explore and shoot Nazis.

Glad to hear people enjoying the excursion so far! :)