Marvel Novel Series 04 - Captain America - Holocaust For Hire

by Joseph Silva

  The man howled, accusing Fury, in Spanish, of not fighting fair.

  “Who fights fair in a brawl, ya yoyo?”

  Maybe the fact all these bozos had jumped him when he’d come to nose around the Kesselring factory and warehouse was a good sign. Nobody’d go to all this trouble to guard a joint unless there was something important inside it.

  “C’mon, stay down, will ya please!” He was almost certain he’d decked this same guy once already.

  Cap ought to get a gander at him now. He could have come in here with a whole SHIELD crew, instead of trying the solo bit. But Fury’d figured it was best to be subtle about this caper. Take a quiet look, find out what Kesselring knew and what the jerk had to do with the Skull.

  “Huh?”

  He stopped still in the Barcelona alley, blinking his lone eye. Fury’s mind had been wandering, and he hadn’t realized that he had finally succeeded in knocking out the whole set of heavies.

  Using his cigar as a pointer, Fury counted off the sprawled bodies. “One-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight-nine-ten-eleven-twelve-thirteen. A butcher’s dozen.” He put the stogie, which had gone out somewhere during the fracas, back in his mouth.

  “Better tuck these babies away somewheres an’ then have myself a look-see,” he decided. “Got a real strong hunch I’m gonna get some juicy info inside this Kesselring joint.”

  Twenty-Seven

  “Now real careful, suh, you set that mean-looking shield way over across the room there,” ordered the soft-spoken, sun-tanned Klise, his .38 revolver pointing directly at Captain America. “You really played havoc with my staff.”

  Slowly Cap walked over to lean his shield against one of the bookcases that lined three walls of the electronics tycoon’s office. “Like to do the same with you.”

  “Imagine you would, suh, but you are not going to get the chance,” said Klise in his drawling voice. “Just, please, set yourself in that big old chair facing me. We all are going to have us a little talk before I take care of you, Captain America.”

  “You know who I am.”

  “I’d be mighty dense if I couldn’t figure that out, suh. Aren’t too many fellows go around wrapped up in Old Glory.”

  “Are you really in on this thing with the Red Skull?”

  The tanned man frowned. “There’s really no reason why you should cooperate with me,” he said, settling in behind his heavy wooden desk. “Still and all, I’d be obliged if you’d tell me how you linked me to the Red Skull.”

  “One of the Skull’s toadies talked when he shouldn’t have,” answered Cap.

  “Disappointing.” Klise kept his gun leveled at Captain America. “I had thought that his organization functioned better than that.”

  “You’re in for a lot more disappointments if you stick with him.”

  Klise laughed. “I seriously doubt that, suh.”

  “What has the Red Skull promised you?”

  “Really none of your damn business, my friend.”

  “I imagine you expect to have a position of considerable power in this Fourth Reich of his.”

  “That might well be. But it’s none of—”

  “I’m sure you’ve heard about the minor quake the Skull created up in Vermont yesterday,” said Cap. “He destroyed a chalet he was using as a headquarters base. The house and two dozen of his people along with it. All of them no doubt expecting a share of his cockeyed utopia.”

  “Underlings.” Klise dismissed them with a wave of his free hand. “People of no importance. I’m in complete agreement with a man who destroys the insignificant when they are no longer of any use. I wish I was able to do the same, suh.”

  Cap smiled evenly at him. “What you don’t realize, Klise, is that a man like the Red Skull doesn’t assign any significance to you either. Once you’ve served him, helped him gain access to a satellite, he’ll have no further use for you.”

  “Cheap propaganda,” said Klise. He started to rise up out of his chair. “I’ll now take you to another part of my house, suh, some rooms that are a bit more soundproof than these. Then we can—”

  Captain America’s move was completely unexpected and incredibly swift. His crimson-booted feet all at once snapped out, striking the desk with tremendous force. The heavy object went shooting across the floor.

  It took Klise hard in the midsection, shoving most of the wind out of him.

  His finger just managed to squeeze the trigger, sending a slug into the polished desk top, as he gasped, howled, and doubled over. His chin hit the edge of the desk with a crack.

  Cap leaped up and knocked the revolver out of his fingers. Then he caught him by the neck, lifted him clean off the floor, and threw him against the wall.

  Klise hit it with his arms flapping. The wall shook, sending the books cascading down. They pummelled him and bounced off onto the thick carpet.

  Captain America caught the gasping Klise on the rebound. One powerful hand gripped his shirt front and the other closed around his rapidly swallowing throat. “I don’t like you, Klise,” Cap told him. “I’ve served my country a good long time and I believe in it. People like you are like cancers, eating away at democracy. Right now, let me assure you, I’d like nothing better than to break you in pieces.” He brought his angry face closer to Klise’s, which was now very pale. “But I want to know some things, Klise, and you’re going to tell me exactly what I want to know. You’re going to tell me what the Red Skull’s planning. You’re going to tell me where he took Dr. Crandell. You’re going to tell me where the Skull himself is. Because if you don’t . . . I promise you, you’ll regret it, for however long you manage to live thereafter. Do you understand me?”

  It took Klise over a half a minute to stop the chattering of his teeth. When he was finally able to speak, he blurted out, “I’ll tell you everything.”

  Twenty-Eight

  It was midnight. Nick Fury lit a fresh cigar.

  Puffing out a contented plume of smoke, he contemplated the computer terminal he’d discovered in the Kesselring offices.

  “This ’puter oughta know what Kesselring’s sendin’ out and where it’s goin’,” he told himself.

  From a flap pocket in his jumpsuit the SHIELD chief extracted a small electronic device that had been designed in the organization labs. Stepping up to the computer terminal, he casually slapped the gadget onto its side.

  Fury seated himself at the terminal, flexed his stubby fingers, then punched out a communication with the computer. “I got a parasite gizmo stuck to ya. Git me? Means ya gotta do what I want ya to.”

  A message flashed on the display screen. “Okay, boss.”

  “Okay, so let’s get crackin’. Is Kesselring doin’ business with the Red Skull?”

  “Correct assumption.”

  “Gimme some details.”

  “Supplying components to R.S”

  “Fer sonic weapons?”

  “Exactly.”

  “Where’s he sendin’ the stuff?”

  “Skull’s island.”

  “Sounds like a spot I wanna visit. Where is it?”

  The computer supplied Fury with the exact South Pacific location.

  “Sounds like one of them tropical paradises.”

  After gathering a few more pieces of information, Fury removed the gadget and dropped it away in his jumpsuit pocket.

  “Nice talkin’ with ya,” he told the computer as he moved toward the exit. “Got a lot out of it.”

  “Information I’m afraid you won’t be able to utilize.” A hairless man with a monocle was standing just on the other side of the threshold. He held an odd-shaped gun in one hand.

  “You the night watchman?”

  “No.”

  “I thought ya looked too fancy fer that.”

  The hairless man clicked his heels. “I am Baron Graff,” he explained. “In the service of the Red Skull. Your intruding here was an unfortunate mistake, Mr. Fury.”

  “Lemme ask ya somethin’, baldy.” Fury eased
nearer to the baron. “Do ya shave yer coco or did all yer hair fall out one day?”

  Baron Graff smiled an unamused smile. “If you’ll be so kind as to accompany me now, please.”

  “Ya outa yer mind? What I’m gonna do is shove that silly little gat down yer—”

  “This is no ordinary gun, Mr. Fury.” The baron pulled the trigger.

  Fury heard nothing; he saw nothing. But he felt the force of the hand-sized sonic gun. Waves of an ultrahigh frequency roared silently over him and shook him like a leaf in a storm. He began to tremble uncontrollably, he screamed in pain.

  The pain built and built until his whole body was filled with it. Fury tried to hold on to consciousness, but he was being torn apart. He wanted to get back at the hairless man, he wanted to rip the sonic gun from his hand.

  Instead he fell to the floor.

  Another hot morning in Texas.

  Amanda Twain finished eating the powdered sugar donut, wiped her fingers sedately on a paper napkin, and wadded it up in the rented car’s ashtray. “When I talked to Mixx this morning, he said he was satisfied with our story on the quake that hit Mottsville. He especially enjoyed the veiled hints about a vast conspiracy, the clear implication that Newsmag was on top of the story and would soon reveal all.”

  Jake Sherdian guided the car along the wealthy street. “We make a great team, Mandy,” Jake observed. “We’re like Rodgers and Hart, Laurel and Hardy, Simon and Kirby.”

  “It wasn’t a bad story.”

  “Not bad? We gave Mixx three pages of absolute dynamite.”

  Tapping her fingers on an air-conditioner outlet, the red-haired girl said, “We could quit while we’re ahead.”

  “Meaning what? Stop being a team?”

  “Meaning the veiled hints stay veiled,” she said. “We forget about this earthquake-making yarn. We go home to quiet, smoggy, completely bonkers Los Angeles.”

  “Mixx wouldn’t like that. And my journalist’s soul wouldn’t like it either.”

  “Well, we’re probably off on a wild-goose chase anyway.”

  “Proverbial wild-goose chase,” he corrected. “Only we’re not.”

  “Slim clue.”

  “It isn’t,” Jake insisted, glancing at the enormous homes all around them. “The business card we dug out of the remains of the chalet points right here to Texon and Klise.”

  “I still can’t believe Klise is goofy enough to go along with—”

  “The guy is plenty goofy, Mandy. I read one of his books, little epic entitled Solution to the Racial Question. I have to tell you he worked out one whale of a solution, something that’d warm the heart of Adolf Hitler. No, take my word—”

  “There it is.” Amanda pointed.

  “Impressive, nice intimidating wall around it,” Jake said as he slowed the car.

  “You’re really going to use the direct approach on him?”

  “Sure, tell him we’re with Newsmag and ask him point-blank about his connections with the Red Skull,” said Jake. “It ought to stir up the waters.”

  “More like stirring up a hornet’s nest.”

  The iron gates hung open. Jake turned into the grounds of the Klise estate. “I’m getting a funny feeling,” he said.

  “Three jelly donuts and a Seven-Up for breakfast will do that.”

  “A spooky hunch,” he amplified. “Something’s wrong here, Mandy.”

  There was no sign of life. No one to halt their progress right up to the front doors of the concrete and glass mansion.

  Killing the engine, Jake scooted out of the car. He stood on the white gravel of the broad drive, hands on hips, scanning the front of the mansion. “Notice the front doors? Half open.”

  The girl joined him. “Yes, that is sort of odd.”

  “Plus there’s nobody around.”

  “Wait.” There was a rustling in one of the nearby hedges. “Something’s moving over there.”

  It was a depressed-looking German shepherd. The creature hobbled out of the brush and eyed them, its head downcast.

  “We’re basically friendly,” Jake told him.

  At the sound of Jake’s voice the dog gave a yelp, turned around, and ran scrambling away, its tail between its legs.

  “Every now and then I affect somebody like that,” Jake said. He climbed up to the front doors and knocked.

  It brought no response.

  He pushed the bell button, setting off chimes deep inside the house.

  Still no response.

  “Shall we look inside?” suggested Amanda.

  In answer, Jake pushed the doors open wide. “Hello? Anybody at home?”

  Silence.

  Taking hold of Amanda’s arm, Jake crossed the threshold. He sniffed. “Somebody’s been firing a gun in here,” he announced. “Over this way.”

  They crossed a hall and entered a large study. Many of the books had fallen off their shelves, the desk was pushed over into the wall, and a chair and lamp were overturned.

  “Stay here.” Jake went over to look behind the desk. “No bodies.”

  “Plenty of signs of a struggle.”

  “No bloodstains, though.” He poked at the desk top. “Here’s a bullet hole.”

  “Certainly looks as though Klise was into something hazardous.”

  “And so are you, my friends.”

  In the doorway now stood two men—large, somber, dark-suited, side by side, each of them holding a Luger.

  “You aren’t by any chance with the FBI?” asked Jake tentatively.

  “We aren’t FBI agents, no,” said one of the large men.

  “Probably not local cops either,” guessed Jake.

  “No.” said the other man. “We represent the Red Skull.”

  Twenty-Nine

  Captain America returned to the barbershop.

  He went through the identification routines, traded a few pleasantries with the pretty manicurist, and then entered the underground SHIELD headquarters.

  At once, Cap sensed an uneasiness. The SHIELD agents weren’t going about their tasks with the usual concentration, and when he entered, several of them started and glanced at him anxiously.

  It was Caroline Crandell who broke the news. She came running across the wide floor toward him. “He’s missing!” she said, putting her palms against his broad chain-mailed chest.

  “Nick Fury?”

  The girl’s head bobbed up and down. “It’s my fault. Everyone who tries to help me ends up—”

  “Whoa now,” Cap advised. “Feeling sorry for yourself isn’t going to help. You’re not a jinx.”

  “Maybe not, but—”

  “Cap, we’ve been waiting for you,” said a young SHIELD agent who came hurrying up to them. “We have initiated several procedures, and SHIELD squads are at work. But so far we haven’t come up with a trace of Nick.”

  “Suppose you tell me exactly what happened, Reisberson,” Cap requested.

  Reisberson took a deep breath. “While you were checking out the Houston lead, Nick jetted over to Spain to look into the Kesselring connection. You knew that. Thing is, Cap, Nick insisted on doing a single. He left his backup team at the airfield, promising to call them in as soon as he’d done some preliminary nosing around.” The concerned young agent spread his hands wide. “He never contacted the team. So at oh-one-hundred hours they proceeded to the Barcelona factory. They found evidence, including a local thug with a fractured skull, that Nick had been there.”

  “You questioned the hood?”

  “Yes. He was hired by parties unknown to attack Nick if he should show up in the vicinity of the Kesselring complex. The thug and a dozen of his cronies were given pix of Nick and a hundred bucks each,” said Reisberson. “We’ll, obviously, check this out further. But right at the moment all we have is a lot of dead ends.”

  “You found signs that Nick had been at the factory,” said Captain America, frowning. “Any indication he’d been shot or otherwise injured?”

  The young SHIELD agent s
hook his head. “No, there was no blood, or any other evidence of a physical injury.”

  “So Nick may have been taken out of there alive.”

  “We think so, Cap. Although that may be wishful thinking.”

  Caroline asked, “Did you find out anything in Texas?”

  Nodding, Captain America said, “Klise decided to be very cooperative. I turned him over to some SHIELD field agents in Houston. He was able to tell me where the Red Skull’s central base for this earthquake operation is. A small island in the South Pacific.”

  “They may have taken Nick there,” said Reisberson, brightening.

  “I’ll bank on that.”

  “We’re prepared for a massive raid, using the helicarrier and—”

  “I don’t think we’re quite ready for an all-out invasion,” Cap said. “The island has to be scouted out first.”

  “But the longer we wait—”

  “Here’s what we’ll do,” said Captain America. And he outlined a plan.

  A half hour after the helicarrier had taken off for the Pacific, there was a timid knock on the door of Captain America’s cabin.

  “Come in,” he called.

  Caroline entered, head down. “I . . . I wanted to talk to you.”

  “Okay.”

  “Firstly, I-I appreciate your letting me tag along. I promise you I won’t get underfoot or—”

  “You’re going to stay right here in the helicarrier during the whole operation,” he reminded her. “You’ll be perfectly safe.”

  “I know.” She touched a metal chair, then decided to sit. “Do you think my . . . my father is still alive?”

  “Yes, he’s alive, no doubt about it.”

  “What makes you so positive?”

  “I mentioned earlier, Caroline, that Klise was quite talkative once I got him started. He’s been expecting to play a big part in the Red Skull’s projected Fourth Reich. They’ve confided in him to a certain extent, giving him the illusion that he’s a lot more important that I suspect he really is. Klise told me your father was taken to the Skull’s island.”

  “Oh, then he isn’t dead.”