by Joseph Silva
“Nick,” said Cap, “the story, with the exception of their references to you, seemed pretty accurate to me. And Jake and Amanda were very good about keeping certain facts out of print. All in all, they did a good job.”
“Oh, so maybe I ought to run over an’ pin a flappin’ Pulitzer Prize on ’em?”
“My advice is,” said Cap in a calming tone, “to clip out the story and paste it in your scrapbook. Six months from now give it another read through and see how it hits you.”
“Six months?” boomed Fury. “I want to punch somebody out before then.” He grabbed the magazine, growled, and tore it in half. Then in quarters. “Paste it in my blinkin’ scrapbook. Why, I’ll stuff it, piece by piece—”
“I heard you bought ten copies,” said Cap. “So I suppose you can afford to rip one up.”
“It was only five, Cap. Mostly because the photo they used of me ain’t bad. I think maybe they had an artist touch up the gray at the temples. Sort of flattering.”
Captain America laughed and then asked, “Any more news?”
Fury shook his head, using the flat of his hands to arrange the scraps of the magazine into a pile. “Everything’s coming up negative,” he replied. “We sent another crew of SHIELD divers down. They found the chopper this time, Cap. Skull wasn’t in it. Doesn’t mean much. His body coulda slipped out. If you’re an optimist you can figure he’s inside a few sharks now. Me, I’m not closing the ledger on the Red Skull.”
“We’ll have to be very alert for a while, Nick. If he is alive, I want to stop his next scheme before he destroys a half dozen cities the way he did this time around.”
“Yeah, we’ll nip the so-and-so in the bud,” promised Fury. “If he does come back to life.” He sighed. “Be a nice world if there wasn’t any Red Skulls in it. Haw, that’ll be the day.”
Cap noticed something sitting on the edge of the desk. “Postcard?”
Fury chuckled. “These government red-tape guys tickle me. Yeah, it’s a postal from Caroline Crandell,” he said, handing it across to his friend. “I didn’t get it in the mail—it came in a diplomatic pouch.”
Captain America read the short message and set the card aside. “She sounds happy . . . or at least happier than she has been for quite a while.”
“Gonna take a long time for them to get over what they been through,” said Fury. “But I gota hunch they’ll make it.”
Cap nodded. “Yes, I—”
“Nick!” a young SHIELD agent came bursting into the office. “Can you come into communications? We’ve got something big coming in.”
Fury pushed back from his desk. “Sure, be right there,” he said. “Come along, Cap. This might be something that’ll interest you.”
The two men walked out of the office, side by side.
Table of Contents
Back Cover
Preview
Titlepage
Copyright
Dedication
One
Two
Three
Four
Five
Six
Seven
Eight
Nine
Ten
Eleven
Twelve
Thirteen
Fourteen
Fifteen
Sixteen
Seventeen
Eighteen
Nineteen
Twenty
Twenty-One
Twenty-Two
Twenty-Three
Twenty-Four
Twenty-Five
Twenty-Six
Twenty-Seven
Twenty-Eight
Twenty-Nine
Thirty
Thirty-One
Thirty-Two
Thirty-Three
Thirty-Four
Thirty-Five
Thirty-Six
