Maria paused before speaking again. “That’s one thing, but there’s something else—I’m almost certain someone is trying to kill Katherine.” Her tone was so matter of fact that Steve almost missed the import of her words. “Again, nothing I can prove. She was waiting for the subway, during peak hour, and someone jostled her. She fell on the tracks but someone pulled her up just in time.”
“But it could have been an accident?” Steve asked.
“Once could have been an accident, but there have been other incidents. It’s starting to look like a pattern.”
“So you want me to find out who’s behind this?”
“No.” She held up a hand to cut him off. “I know that isn’t your skill set, Steve. I’m going to keep digging and see what turns up.”
“So what do you need from me?” He was pretty sure he knew.
“I need time, but I don’t know how much of that I have. There are only so many accidents one person can walk away from. I need you to keep Katherine alive so I can focus on finding out who wants her dead.”
“Surely you have resources who are better suited for a bodyguard job,” Steve said. “It’s not that I don’t want to help, but I’m not sure I’m the best man for the task.”
“Don’t be obtuse, Steve. You’re the only man for the job. At the moment, I don’t know who I can trust inside the organization. There might only be one more traitor working with the two that I suspect, but as yet, I haven’t even been able to narrow it down to a list of possibilities. What if I chose the one person I shouldn’t have, and Katherine died because of my mistake? At this point, I really only have one guarantee—no one has ever questioned your integrity.” Maria smiled, and it was little less forced than the others had been, a little closer to the real thing. “And let’s be honest, who’s going to try going through you to get to her?”
Maria must have seen the hesitancy in his face.
“Please, Steve. I need your help. Katherine needs your help.” Maria played her trump card. “You aren’t going to leave her defenseless, are you?”
“That’s a dirty trick, Maria.” There wasn’t any heat in his voice. She had him, and they both knew it. He could never resist an appeal to his sense of responsibility. Looking out for people was what he did. More importantly, if he said no and anything happened to Katherine, he would never forgive himself, even if he’d never met the girl.
“Fine, where is she?”
Maria passed Steve a scrap of paper with an address on it, grabbing his hand and squeezing it hard, her eyes locked on his and burning with intensity.
“She’s in a safe house—one that hasn’t been integrated into the network yet, and that I’m pretty sure no one but me and one or two others know about. It’s the best I can do, but I don’t know how long it will be safe for. I’m scared for her every moment that she’s alone,” Maria said. She let go of his hand, her touch lingering on his jacket sleeve for a few moments. “Get her out of the city while I lay a false trail to make it look like she’s out of the country. I’ll fake plane tickets, customs clearances—the works.”
Steve nodded. “I know a place I can take her. A friend of mine who has the gift of discretion owes me a favor. Most importantly, there’s no connection with any of the agencies. And then what?”
“Give me a week; by then, I should know more. Then bring her back to the city—it will be the last place anyone will be looking for her, plus I need to be here while I chase information, so I’ll want her close to hand when I find something. Find somewhere to lay low where I can reach you and wait for word from me. Can you do that?”
“Don’t worry, Maria, I’ll keep her safe,” Steve said. “But you need to look out for yourself, too.”
“Don’t worry about me, Rogers, I can take care of myself. You just keep Katherine safe for me.”
“I will. I promise,” he said.
“That’s all I wanted to hear. If you can’t trust Captain America’s word, whose can you trust?”
With that, Maria turned and walked toward the exit without looking back. Steve stared after her for a moment, hoping that she wasn’t heading into more danger than she could handle. But then he caught himself—when it came to Maria Hill, it was more likely that anyone getting in her way would be the one in danger.
Chapter 3
Alexandria, Virginia: 2100 hours
The safe house looked like just any other suburban home, right down to the abandoned tricycle that sat on the lawn next to a discarded ball. Anyone walking past would have simply thought it was occupied by a family with a dog and 2.5 kids, too busy to mow their lawn quite as often as they should, but otherwise completely unremarkable. That was what made it a good safe house. Of course, the average citizen wouldn’t have noticed the ring of masked men surrounding the building. Some were positioned on rooftops, others in the shadowy paths that ran between homes. Steve was grateful to the instinct that had prompted him to dump his motorcycle a few blocks back.
Biding his time with the patience bred by a thousand ambushes, Steve trudged around the block, giving the appearance of aimless wandering until he had mapped out all of the watchers’ locations in his mind. He’d kept the battered trench coat on, hoping that any observers would simply assume he was another homeless man in a city full of them. There was only one place that wasn’t overlapped by at least two of the watchers—a narrow path that ran between the safe house and one of its neighbors. He assumed that had been one of the reasons that the safe house had been chosen, as the path provided a means of escape if worse came to worst.
The side yard of the safe house was shielded by the spread branches of a row of willows, the shadows growing as the sun traced its weary way across the sky. He had about an hour until it was fully dark, and Steve guessed that that was when the men would make their move—it was what he would have done.
Once he was sure that he had located all of the observers, Steve slipped down the path between the houses. The watcher in this area was halfway up one of the trees, concealed among the branches. His camouflage was the latest in stealth tech, and he was nearly indistinguishable from the shadows that moved across him as the leaves shifted with the wind. The observer himself was almost completely motionless; the only thing that had betrayed him was a brief moment when he had flinched, as if bitten by a bug or a spider. Even with that giveaway, Steve had nearly lost the watcher again several times. Slinking along the fence behind the tree, Steve reached down and picked up a large rock, then straightened and hurled it at the man in one fluid motion. Stunned, the man toppled from the tree, and Steve made short work of him, leaving him unconscious and bound to the trunk. Steve had searched him for a clue as to who had sent him, but the man was a ghost, completely free of identifying insignia. Even the labels on his clothing had been removed.
Rogers now moved with fresh urgency. He knew it was only a matter of time before the man was discovered and the place swarmed with backup. Prying off one of the side-fence palings, he squeezed through and into the yard of the safe house, keeping low to the ground and staying in the shadows. Steve froze, his face mere inches away from a gleaming trip wire. He had no idea who might be in the house, and whether it was already compromised. Setting off any alarms, silent or otherwise, would hardly help his cause—he didn’t know whether the watchers had tapped the phone lines and would be able to intercept the alarm, and know that someone else was in the area.
Carefully, he stepped over the wire and, keeping low as he moved to avoid any unfriendly eyes, finally made it to the basement door at the side of the house. He ran his hands along the doorframe, finding the seam where the locking mechanism met the frame. Steve pulled a small, rectangular square about the size of a credit card, but made of steel, from his pocket. Slowly, he worked it into the gap between the lock and the frame, jiggling it back and forth until he heard the soft click of the latch sliding back into the faceplate. Steve opened the door and checked it
carefully for pressure pads or wires, before slipping into the basement, careful not to make any noise.
It was a perfectly normal looking basement, empty of any decoration, and with no sign of motion detectors or cameras. In the corner, a set of stairs led up into the house; he quickly climbed them and found himself in a narrow hallway illuminated by bright lighting. Placing his feet with a delicacy that anyone would have been surprised to see in such a big man, he made his way silently toward the main living area, ignoring the closed doors to either side of that room. The sound of canned laughter from a TV sitcom floated toward him, and Steve made sure his shield was positioned perfectly on his back in case it was needed.
Steve stepped into the living area and froze. The light was off, the only illumination coming from the flickering images on the television screen. The chair in front of the television was empty, rocking slightly as if it had been occupied only a moment before. A faint whisper of movement came from behind him and Steve turned—straight into a punch that landed flush on his chin. He shook his head slightly, shaking off the pain, and raised his arm to ward off the next blow.
His assailant was outlined by the light from the hall, and he could make out the slender silhouette of a figure that barely came up to his shoulder. Whoever it was, they were fast, unleashing a flurry of blows that had surprising power for the size of the attacker. Steve managed to keep most of the blows from landing, but he was handicapped by a desire not to cause any damage in return. He was uncertain of who his assailant was, and he was conscious of the fact that he was, after all, the intruder here. He grunted as a small fist struck him under the ribs; this was followed by a knee headed straight to his groin that he just managed to twist fast enough away from to catch on the big muscle of his leg.
“Okay, that’s enough. That could have been painful.”
He caught the next punch in his gauntleted hand and squeezed hard enough that bones creaked. His attacker let out a gasp as Steve bent the captured wrist back, causing them both to fall to their knees. The light from the television flared, revealing the face of a young girl—no, a young woman, early twenties at the most. Steve was so surprised that he almost missed the flash of metal from the pistol she was bringing up with her free hand. A moment later, the gun flew across the room as he chopped the inside of her wrist with the rigid blade of his hand.
“Ouch! That hurt.”
The indignation in her voice left Steve speechless for a second.
“What did you expect, me to let you shoot me?”
“It would have been nice of you,” she snapped.
Steve chuckled at the ridiculousness of that, then shot out his hand to catch the fist flying toward him.
“Will you stop that,” he said irritably. “I’m not here to hurt you.”
“Funny way of showing it.”
“I could have hurt you if I’d wanted to,” Steve said patiently. “Surely you know that.”
“I know no such thing. And I don’t know you, either. Why should I believe anything you say?”
As she spoke, the young woman strained against Steve’s grip, her muscles quivering with effort. She may as well have been trying to bend a steel bar for all the success she was having, but he had to admire her determination.
“Look, you may not know me, but I know you must be Katherine, and you know the person who sent me. Maria asked me to take care of you.”
She froze in his grip.
“Aunt Maria sent you? You’re friends?”
“I’d like to think we have a mutual respect for each other, but we aren’t BFFs or anything.” Steve was rather proud of himself for remembering what modern youth said. “She said to remind you about the yellow chrysanthemums, whatever that means.”
Katherine relaxed slightly, and Steve let go of her hand. She stood, and Steve watched her warily as she brushed herself off, just in case she had ideas about launching another attack. Instead, she plopped into the armchair and grabbed the television remote, flicking through the channels.
“They’re my mom’s favorite flowers. Still, if you’d claimed that you were . . . BFFs, then I would have known not to trust you, code word or not.” The pause told Steve that he hadn’t impressed her with his attempt at being modern. “I don’t think Aunt Maria is the sort of person to have a BFF.”
“She’s a good woman,” Steve said with a hint of reproach in his voice.
“Oh, don’t get me wrong. I love her dearly, and she’s always been very kind to me. She’s just . . . reserved, I guess you’d call it.”
Steve nodded. Reserved was a good choice of word when it came to Maria.
“And now I recognize you, too. You look a little different out of your uniform, but you’re Captain America, aren’t you? I’ve seen you on TV, and once at headquarters. You were with Tony Stark, and they were giving you both a tour of the new armory. We couldn’t believe we were seeing you in the flesh.”
“We’re just like anyone else,” he said, slightly embarrassed. He hoped he wasn’t going to be dealing with a case of hero worship. Her next words quickly dispelled that notion.
“Tony really is hot.” She looked at him. “He doesn’t seem like a square, either.”
“Tony’s a good guy,” Steve said. “We have the occasional . . . difference of opinion, but we’re on the same side.”
“Don’t take this the wrong way, but from what I’ve seen, you seem like someone who’s big on rules and regulations. You know . . . the military background and all.”
“Rules are there for a reason, most of the time,” Steve said defensively. “Tony and I disagree about that occasionally, but that doesn’t stop us from being friends.”
“Are you BFFs?” It took him a moment to realize that she was teasing him.
“Look, we really have to get out of here,” Steve said. “There are some people watching the house, and I don’t think they’re here to check on your well-being.”
“So you say. You can go if you want; I was just about to make some soup,” Katherine said. “You can have some if you promise not to twist my arm again.”
Steve followed Katherine into the kitchen, and pulled up a stool while she busied herself among the cupboards. It took a great deal of willpower not to simply grab her and bundle her out of the house, but he knew if he did that, it would be the end of her trusting him, and if he was going to keep her safe, he would need her cooperation. Forcing her from the house would have to be a last resort, so, instead, he gritted his teeth and watched as she pulled out a large pot and placed it on the stove. He’d give her five minutes, and then he would have to make a decision—and deal with the consequences.
“How does tomato sound?”
“Fine with me,” Steve said. “But once you’ve had something to eat, we need to make a move.”
“Whoa, hang on a moment. Who said I was coming with you?”
“What do you mean? Why wouldn’t you? We’ve established that I do know Maria, and that she was the one who sent me. Not to mention, this safe house is no longer safe.”
“That’s not the point, Cap— what do I call you? I’m not calling you Captain America.”
“Steve is fine,” he said impatiently. “So, what is the point?”
“Steve, the problem is that you’re as establishment as they come. I mean, you carry around a flag wherever you go, for crying out loud!”
“And what’s wrong with that?” Steve asked stiffly. “I’m proud to wear that emblem, and to carry it on my shield. Why wouldn’t I be?”
“I hate to tell you this, Steve, but this country isn’t always in the right.”
“I think it’s more often right than not.”
“I wish I felt the same way,” Katherine said. “I’ve been working for the government for the last two years, and look where I am now—the government isn’t always your friend. It’s certainly not mine at the moment, anyw
ay. And you don’t get much more government than Captain America.”
“It’s obviously rogue elements, but that doesn’t mean everyone is against you.”
“For rogue elements they seem pretty well informed. Aunt Maria told me that they knew where she lived,” Katherine said. “And it isn’t just that. It’s not the first time I’ve been told to stop pursuing avenues of research that have the potential to make a huge difference for a lot of people. The moment an issue is bigger than just one country, they can’t look past partisan self-interest. Sometimes, I think they forget that they’re meant to work for the people, not the other way around.”
Steve couldn’t argue with that. He’d seen too much of it himself—people in politics or public service for themselves, not out of any sense of patriotism or duty. Still, he wasn’t sure it was fair to tar everyone with the same brush.
“Maybe they had their reasons,” Steve said. “We don’t always know the big picture, and we can get caught up in our little corner of it.”
“Don’t patronize me,” Katherine snapped. “I’m not a child. I know the difference between a bit of caution and something more sinister. Anyway, it was the moment I told my supervisor about my project that things got really weird. He has to be part of it.”
“If you’re going to keep us sitting here while we wait for whoever’s outside to decide what to do, can you at least tell me about this project? Maria was very hazy on the details,” Steve said. “I’ve got no clue about the specifics.”
“Why do you want to know?” Katherine asked suspiciously. “It’s one thing telling Aunt Maria, but just because my superiors are stupid, or corrupt, it doesn’t mean I’m going to start spilling state secrets. It may sound silly to you, but I’m hoping to still a have a career after this. Working in that lab was a dream come true for me.”
“If I’m going to protect you, the more I know, the better,” Steve said. “That’s all.”
Marvel's Captain America: Sub Rosa Page 3
