Chapter 5
Weeks went by. To James’s relief Schulz had decided that Natalia had had enough training and his coaching was no longer necessary. It wasn’t like James didn’t want to spend time with her, on the contrary. But he didn’t trust himself with being alone with her, when the mere sight of her already set his soul on fire and the gym could be entered by someone else any time.
After their first night together, they had decided that it was too dangerous for either of them to sneak to the other’s bedroom again, so they had to find other ways to be together. They would steal a kiss when accidentally meeting in one of the more secluded areas of the facility; took advantage of late-night training sessions that would lead them deep into the surrounding woods; or arranged for a very, very early shower together, the lingering danger of getting caught making it all the more thrilling.
However, as time went by, James began to notice a change in him. He couldn’t quite explain it but ever since he had opened up to Natalia it seemed like something that had been buried deep inside of him was slowly drifting back to the surface. He had been on three more missions lately and each time a nagging feeling that what he did was wrong and that there was more to the story than he knew kept haunting him.
What if Schulz and the other Hydra officials hadn’t told him the truth? He had never questioned his orders but now that he thought about it, he realised that he never knew why his targets had to be eliminated. What they had done to deserve death.
In addition, he kept having the weirdest dreams that were so vivid that he would constantly wake up in the middle of the night, covered in sweat and taking a moment or two to make sure that he had actually been dreaming.
His dreams took him back to World War II, a time he couldn’t remember when being awake but apparently it had left a deeper impression in him than he had thought. He suspected that he was mixing experiences from his diverse missions with memories from his time in Brooklyn adding some of the nonsensical elements not uncommon in dreams.
While he usually didn’t dream at all or immediately forgot what he had dreamed when waking up, those dreams seemed to cling to him for the rest of the day leaving the strange feeling that maybe they were more than just ordinary dreams.
One of the more confusing ones included James lying on a surgical table being woken by his old childhood friend Steve Rogers. However, Steve, who had always been skinny and peaky, was now a tall, muscular soldier who called himself Captain America and claimed he had come to rescue James.
Another time, James and Captain America fought an army of Hydra agents who shot blue beams from their guns that would vaporise any object or person they hit. The men were led by a fierce-looking man dressed in a black cape who at one point tore the skin from his face revealing a red skull, all the while continuing to talk like this was the most ordinary thing in the world.
What worried James the most, however, was the fact that those dreams didn’t seem to be restricted to when he was asleep. More and more often he was hit by flashback-like pictures in broad daylight. Snippets of him marching into an army camp accompanied by a group of soldiers; he and the same group of men entering a driving train crossing a bridge surrounded by huge snowy mountains; he falling into an abyss of pitch-dark blackness with Steve trying in vain to save him.
Those attacks always came without a warning and though they never lasted longer than a few seconds, they would throw him off balance, left him unfocussed and made him start to doubt his sanity.
“I think I am loosing my mind,” he finally told Natalia when they were alone once again. They had been sent off to check the barbed wire fence surrounding the perimeter and James took the chance to pour out his heart to Natalia. He told her everything about his dreams and the fits he had had lately. When he had finished, Natalia took his hands and looked at him anxiously.
“Do you think those dreams might be actual memories preserved in your subconscious?”
James shrugged and bit his lip. “I don’t know. It doesn’t make any sense, does it? Steve being that huge specimen, and that guy with the red skull…. And in those … those dreams Steve was trying to save me when I fell from the train when really I was pushed down.”
“But what if he – or whoever that guy was – really tried to save you?” Natalia asked. “You don’t remember what happened before you came here. All you’ve got is what Doctor Zola and the others told you. And honestly….” She lowered her voice to a whisper that was almost inaudible even though there was no one around for almost a mile. “I wouldn’t trust any of them.”
James looked at her in surprise, shocked by the fact that she had put his worst fears into words.
“So you think that none of it is true? That they lied to me to win me over?”
“You really don’t know anything about Hydra, do you?” Natalia asked looking at him almost pityingly. “We aren’t the good guys, James. We are trained assassins, made to help them take over the world. Hydra is one of the most dangerous organisations in the world and we are their weapons. Whatever they told you about freedom and the elimination of the evil, it’s all a lie.”
James swallowed hard, feeling embarrassed that he had been so ignorant and naive for all those years. “How do you know about all this?” he asked. ”You’ve only been here for six months. They wouldn’t tell you about it.”
Natalia shook her head sadly. “No, they wouldn’t. But when I was still in the orphanage, I overheard some of the instructors talk about it. Of course they didn’t know I was there. I was supposed to be in my dorm with the other orphans, but I had snug out to get some food from the kitchen. That’s when I heard voices coming from one of the offices and I crept to the door to listen. They said that this year’s class was very promising and that we – me and the other girls – would become wonderful agents, ready to kill without asking questions, bringing them one step closer to world dominion.“
“And you still stayed there?”
“What choice did I have? I was only ten years old and I had nowhere to go. My parents were dead and the school was the closest thing to a family I had. They treated us well as long as we stuck to the rules, and I was too young to fully understand what I had heard.”
“But you understand it now and you still chose to come here.”
“I didn’t choose it, James. Once you are a part of Hydra, there’s no going back. They would have you killed long before you even left their premises.” A single tear rolled down her cheek and James wiped it away with his thumb. “Don’t think that I never thought about leaving. I thought about it more often than I can count but it’s impossible. We are stuck here until we die – and this is probably going to be very soon. I’m assigned for my first mission the day after tomorrow and I don’t know whether I’ll be coming back.”
James looked at her for a moment, then he wrapped his arms around her and kissed her softly. “No, you won’t come back. Because you’re not going on that mission. We’re leaving here tomorrow.”
“Don’t be ridiculous. I told you it’s impossible.”
“Maybe. But I am willing to take the risk. I’d rather die than be under their control any longer.”