by Joseph Silva
The Red Skull had infinite ways to destroy you. Outside, in the snowy woods, Caroline had nearly frozen to death. In here, Cap knew he’d soon be barbecued.
He had to continue snaking along on his back. If he remained still, the heat of the metal floor would burn him.
He worked his way toward a wall. Sweat was pouring down his face now, and the hot air of the cell was unbearable.
When he was directly beneath one of the fire-spewing jets, he shifted over on his side. He felt the flames go shooting over him. Bringing his knees up carefully, he was able to tug off one of his scarlet boots.
When his bare foot touched the floor there was a hissing sound, and a large blister formed on his skin.
Grimacing, Cap undid his belt. His head was throbbing now, his skin ached, the perspiration was running into his eyes.
He swung up the boot and capped the gas jet with it. His fingers were scorched, but he managed to hold the boot over the flame nozzle. Swiftly, he wrapped the belt around his makeshift plug. It held.
There was now a space in which to stand.
Gingerly Captain America arose, staying close to the wall. There was a narrow fire-free corridor. He backed along it, hopping on his injured foot, until he was as far from the blocked jet as he could get.
Kneeling, he tucked his head into his arms.
The floor was so hot it produced continual pain. He had to fight to breathe, for the air burned at his throat.
Captain America’s boot was made of an exceptionally tough synthetic that couldn’t burn. Now, as it corked the flow of gas, Cap knew that the pressure would build and build. The gas had to go someplace and finally—
Wham!
On the other side of the room, the pipe exploded, blowing a large jagged hole clean through the cell wall.
There was a room beyond it.
Running, Cap dived through the new-made hole. He found himself in another metal room, its floor lined with pipes and conduits.
Across the room was a door.
He went through that and into a long metal corridor.
Two men in coveralls were running toward him.
“That’s what the explosion was!”
“Ja, the American swine—”
The guard got no further.
Cap had run to meet him and had delivered two smashing blows to his midsection. The follow-up punch to the jaw sent him sprawling and spread him out on the metal floor.
The second guard was reaching for his gun. Or rather, intending to reach for it.
Instead he found his gun arm twisted painfully up behind his back.
“Where’s the girl?” demanded Cap.
“Ow . . . ow . . .”
“The girl?”
“On the next level,” groaned the man. “In cell twenty-six.”
“Thanks.” Cap dealt him a chopping blow to the neck.
When the unconscious guard hit the deck. Captain America was already running along the corridor.
He went through a door, up a winding metal staircase and through a second door.
“Mein Gott!” A guard on the new level came around a bend and saw him.
But Cap didn’t stop.
And the guard never got to use his gun. Two sharp blows to the stomach doubled him up; then he was thrown against the wall. He hit it with an echoing metallic smack and passed out.
Another man appeared. This fellow had apparently been assigned the job of putting Cap’s shield in a safe place, for he was strolling along with it tucked under his arm.
He next got the novel, but ill-advised, notion of using the red, white, and blue disc against its owner. Grunting, his eyes narrowing, he flung it awkwardly.
“Thanks,” Cap said as he caught the weapon, in midair. He threw it expertly back. “Pay attention, this is how you really do it.”
The shield smashed into the guard’s chest with sufficient force to send him reeling back against a cell door.
As he bounced off that, Cap met him with several punches.
Cap fished a ring of keys from the unconscious man’s pocket.
There was one labeled twenty-six and, sure enough, it opened the door to cell twenty-six.
Caroline was in there, clad now in a tan shirt and a loose pair of khaki trousers. She was huddled on a low cot, hugging herself and crying softly. “What are . . . oh . . . Captain America!”
“Know where they have your dad?”
“Something’s about to happen,” she said, her voice faint. “The Skull has him upstairs.” She pointed at the ceiling.
He crossed the cell in a few strides, scooping the girl up in his powerful arms. “We’ll see what we can do about rescuing him,” he said, heading for the open doorway. “First, though, I’ll see to it you get out of here.”
“Please, stop putting me first. You’ve got to save him now. We may not get another—”
The floor jumped.
The walls shook.
An enormous rattling commenced.
“The sonic gun!” cried the girl in Captain America’s arms. “They’re going to use it . . . on us!”
Twenty-One
“In my own way,” said Jake Sheridan, as he guided the rented Datsun around a treacherous curve of the road, “I’m as gifted as you are, Mandy. I pilot this buggy pretty deftly.”
The auburn-haired girl sat in the passenger seat, her hands clenched nervously in her lap. “Wish I could have landed closer to Mottsville,” she said. “Feels like we’re in a toboggan race.”
“Twenty-five miles in a blizzard,” he said. “Something to tell your grandchildren about.”
“Think I’ll keep quiet about it until then.”
The heavy-falling snow was pelting the windshield, and the wipers moaned as they fought against it. The road to the resort town was like an endlessly climbing and dipping roller coaster route.
“Mottsvile five miles,” Jake read off a snow-smeared road sign. “We’re pressing ever closer.”
The girl said, “Do you think maybe we should have alerted somebody?”
“Nope.”
“This Red Skull outfit sounds even tougher than the Mafia,” Amanda said.
“We don’t have any hard evidence to take to anybody yet, Mandy. We got nothing but hearsay,” he reminded her. “Once we establish that Dr. Crandell is being held in this town, then we can—”
“In order to establish that, Jake, we may get killed. I saw real fear in the eyes of the people we finally persuaded to talk.”
“Nobody said the Red Skull was a pussycat. In our line of work, though, you have to take chances.”
“I’d rather take chances after the FBI has gone in and done a little initial tangling with these guys.”
“If we bring in the FBI now we don’t have an exclusive story anymore.”
“You’ve watched too many old Front Page-type flicks on the late show, Jake. You think every reporter has to—”
“Aren’t you, correct me if I’m wrong, the lass who just now piloted a jet through a snowstorm to get us here?”
“That’s different,” Amanda responded. “Battling the elements I understand. Going up against a fellow who has a scarlet skull instead of a head, that’s something else again.”
“Halloween stuff.”
“A lot nastier than that.”
Squinting, Jake rubbed the heel of his hand over the fogged inner surface of the glass. “Mottsville two miles. Closer, ever closer.”
The car quivered in a huge gust of wind, lost traction and suddenly started to fly off the road toward a drift of snow.
“Jake!” the girl clutched at his arm.
Gently, Jake turned the steering wheel and brought the machine back on the proper course. “It’s okay, we’re back on an even keel.”
Amanda relaxed in her seat. “That was deftly done.”
He glanced over at her. “You know, Mandy, I have the feeling you’re not simply concerned about yourself,” he said. “Could it be that you actually care about my well-being to
o?”
“Hooey.”
“Maybe, underneath your loathing lies a real and genuine affection.”
“Unlikely.” She gazed out the side window at the raging storm. “I’m no more concerned about you than you are about me.”
After a while he said, “Oh, so?”
Buildings were showing up in the snowy afternoon. Small cabins, a motel, a modest ski lodge or two. The ski lifts farther on hung still, and the slopes were empty. The storm was too severe for any recreation.
“This is the place,” said Amanda.
“Okay, we’ll check in at one of the posher inns and—”
The trees and the buildings started to shake. Snow was dropping down off branches and rooftops in great white chunks.
“Jake, what is it?”
He swung the car to the side of the road and killed the engine. “I’m afraid we got here just in time for a quake.”
Twenty-Two
“Cripes, ya ain’t gonna let a little storm scare ya off?” boomed Nick Fury. He was pacing the control room of the giant helicarrier, surrounded by a cloud of acrid cigar smoke.
The immense craft, built from an exclusive SHIELD design, was traveling rapidly toward Mottsville, Vermont, its enormous rotor blades chopping at the snow-laden air.
The pilot and copilot were hunched over their controls.
“This is awful rough weather,” said the copilot.
“So tell me somethin’ I don’t know, pal.”
“Even a supership like this one,” explained the copilot, “may not be able to withstand—”
“G’wan, don’t be such a Nervous Nellie,” Fury admonished. “There ain’t another ship in the world like this crate. We’re made outa the strongest alloy ever dreamed up.”
“Even so,” persisted the copilot, “this storm is giving us one hell of a—”
The helicarrier dipped, rose, then dipped more violently.
Fury was tossed against a bulkhead. “Geeze, go easy on them potholes, fellas!” He bent down to retrieve his smoldering stogie. Puffing it back to life, he said, “Anyway, we ain’t that far from Mottsville, are we?”
“We should be over the town in another six or seven minutes,” said the pilot.
“Okay, we oughta be able to stay aloft that long.”
The ship took another tremendous dip.
“Nick, something’s up.” A blonde girl in a SHIELD jumpsuit made her way into the control cabin.
“What, Sharon?”
“Our scanners are picking up some odd stuff from that ski town.”
Fury’s single eye went wide. “Gimme a frinstance, kiddo.”
“Come along to Data Two and see for yourself,” the girl invited. “We’re not certain, but it looks as though they’re having a severe earthquake down there.”
“Kee-rist!” said Fury.
Captain America held the girl tightly in his arms. “Hold on now, Caroline.”
“Shouldn’t we look for my—”
“No time. This whole place is about ready to topple!”
The chalet was shaking, bouncing, groaning. With the girl held close to him, Cap took a running jump at the window on the ground floor. There wasn’t enough time to get to the front door.
They went through like a human cannonball. Glass went splashing in every direction, and the shards mixed with snowflakes as they fell to the ground.
Cap landed on his feet and started running, still carrying the girl.
“Open ground doesn’t seem as bad,” he told her. “If we can get clear of the buildings and the trees we may have a chance.”
She was gazing up into the sky and the snow slapped brutally at her face. “Up there, that helicopter. They must be up there.”
Following her line of vision, Cap saw a black aircraft rising up into the storm. A panel in its belly was open. “The Skull must have the sonic guns up there.”
“To kill us, he’s willing to destroy his own people,” said Caroline. “And the whole town of Mottsville as well.”
You could see the town in the distance, and its buildings were starting to sway.
Captain America was rarely pessimistic. But just now, as he stared up at the Red Skull’s ship, he felt a tremendous wave of helplessness. The ruthless Skull was going to kill just about everyone for miles around—and Cap couldn’t stop him.
A tremendous cracking sound started up suddenly, as though a giant were pulling immense nails out of a mammoth board. There were screams, too, and cries of pain and fright.
“The chalet,” said the girl.
It was falling to pieces. Great slabs of the roof came knifing down, the sturdy walls cracked and crumbled, the windows exploded into kaleidoscopes of glass.
Captain America kept right on running along the wide gravel driveway, away from the falling house.
Now the trees were toppling over like ten pins, whooshing down to slap the white ground and send up geysers of snow.
“We’ll die,” gasped Caroline.
“Not yet,” he promised.
He covered ground at an incredible speed, and gave an impressive display of broken-field running. Dodging falling trees, and crashing debris, he made certain that he and the girl were always in the clear.
The Skull’s ship remained in the air, partially masked by the swirling snow.
Then there was another shape in the gray sky. Bigger, darker.
Cap looked up. “That’s Nick Fury,” he announced, grinning.
The Red Skull had come to the same conclusion. His craft suddenly shot forward and moved out of sight.
The SHIELD helicarrier didn’t pursue. Instead it came dropping down toward Captain America and the girl.
There were loudspeakers mounted on the underside of the huge, unique machine. Out of these came Nick Fury’s voice. “Hey, ya want a lift?”
Twenty-Three
Plumes of smoke came spinning out of Nick Fury’s nostrils. “I coulda tailed that chopper,” he growled, “and nabbed the flappin’ Red Skull.” He pointed a stubby finger at Captain America. “Instead, bein’ a goldang humanitarian at heart, I stop an’ pull your cookies outa the fire.”
Cap was seated in the executive chamber of the helicarrier. “There might still be time—”
“Naw, forget it! We couldn’t find a trace of the dang contraption.”
“I could have gotten the Crandell girl to safety on my own, Nick.”
“Maybe yes, maybe no,” boomed Fury. “But when I saw ya stuck out there in the snow an’ trees droppin’ down all round ya . . . well, my sentimental side got the best of me.”
Grinning, Captain America said, “I’ve known you a good many years, Nick. First I ever heard of your having any feelings.”
“Nell’s bells! Ya happen to be a good buddy of mine,” Fury told him loudly. “I couldn’t let ya an’ the chick get swallowed up.”
The SHIELD helicarrier had set down near the heart of Mottsville. The Skull’s hurried departure had aborted the quake he’d initiated, but a great deal of damage had already been done. Fury had sent out a crew of SHIELD paramedics to aid the dozens of injured. There was also a SHIELD crew looking after the fires and explosions the quake had triggered. The storm was abating, but civil rescue teams were still having a difficult time reaching the injured town on the snow-blocked roads. Until outside help did get through, Nick Fury was going to stick around.
“You’re also helping out the townspeople,” Cap pointed out.
“I gotta do that. That’s how ya can tell I’m a good guy an’ not a rat.” Fury, trailing smoke, stalked over to a wall that was covered with TV monitor screens. He jabbed a thumb at one of them. “My number six cam is pickin’ up what’s left of that flappin’ chalet. Now maybe, old buddy, if we sifted through the rubble, we might find some info that’d tell us where the heck he took Doc Crandell.”
Captain America shook his star-spangled head. “The Red Skull is efficient. He wouldn’t leave anything behind, once he’d made up his mind to total the chalet
.”
“Did ya learn anything while ya were the Skull’s guest?”
Cap said, “Only that he never runs out of ingenious ways to try to do me in.”
“Ya knew that goin’ in,” snorted Fury. He began to pace. “The rat’s got Crandell’s sonic weapon, he’s usin’ it. We got to stop the guy!” He took several angry puffs on his cigar. “Okay, so where’d he go? Where’d he haul the doc off to?”
“The Red Skull has more than one secret hideaway, Nick. He could be heading just about anywhere.”
“If only . . .” Fury snapped his fingers. “The girl! Sure, his daughter was in that dump for weeks. She musta learned somethin’!”
Captain America stood. “She’s been through a lot, Nick. We can’t expect—”
“Whadda ya mean?” Fury came striding toward him, scowling. “Ain’t ya the one who’s all the time talkin’ about what a great country we got an’ how we got to fight to protect it? Okay, buster, the Red Skull just gave us a little demonstration. If we hadn’t arrived when we did, Mottsville woulda been leveled. He can do that to any city in the U.S.A. Detroit, New York, Philly, Frisco—he can shake ’em all down. Unless, old buddy, we stop him damn quick!”
“You’re right, Nick.”
“Bet your duffy I am,” agreed Fury. “Okay, I know the kid’s been through a lot. Still we just got to question her . . . right now.”
“She may not know anything. I don’t think she ever even saw the Skull.”
Fury said, “Maybe she don’t think she remembers anything, but we can always haul her into the ESP chamber.”
“That could be rough on her,” said Captain America.
“It could,” agreed Nick.
No more snow falling. A clear, crisp night sky spotted with stars. A crescent moon showing above whatever treetops still remained.
“Moonlight, a chalet, a winter wonderland,” remarked Jake Sheridan. “Didn’t I tell you we’d hit all sort of romantic spots if we stuck together, Mandy?”
Amanda Twain let her flashlight beam play on the ruins of the Red Skull’s abandoned chalet. “Not a bad location, but the house needs a little work.”
