Chapter 75
En Route to Triskelion, Washington, D.C.
September 2011
“Insight’s launching in sixteen hours. We’re cutting it a little close here.”
Even the earpiece wasn’t enough to disguise the tension in Romanoff’s voice. Sam glared across the backseat of the car at Sitwell.
“I know,” steve said from the front. “We’ll use our new friend to bypass the DNA scans and access the helicarriers, shut them down.”
“This is a terrible plan,” Sitwell insisted.
Sam rolled his eyes. “Yeah, of course you’d say that.”
“Who are you working with?” Sitwell demanded. “Who are you talking to?”
“No one you’d want to meet,” Sam said.
“Ouch,” Romanoff said. Sam snickered.
Something slammed into the roof of the car.
“What the–”
Bullets tore through the roof and backseat. Sitwell slumped.
“Steve!” Sam shouted, reaching for the SHIELD agent, but the man was already dead.
He lunged forward, twisting into the front seats and shoving Steve out of the way just as more gunfire shattered the steering column.
“Brake,” Steve got out.
Sam reached underneath himself and yanked up the parking brake.
The car squealed and shuddered and spun. A body flew off the roof and landed and rolled impossibly on the concrete.
Sam was dimly aware that Romanoff was shouting in his ear about what is happening, what’s going on, talk to me Steve.
A massive impact rocked the vehicle and it flipped.
“Hang on!” Steve shouted, grabbed Sam’s bicep, and slammed them into the door.
It fell away. They dropped for a terrifying half second before the door hit the pavement and they began to slide. Horns blared and metal screeched. Their car, with Sitwell’s body, slid into the barrier and flipped over, off the road.
Their attacker was two hundred meters away but closing fast.
Sam groaned and got to his feet.
“Romanoff, stay back!” he got out. “You show your face, we all go down! It’s one guy!”
“It’s Rumlow,” Steve said grimly. “And he’s been enhanced.”
Sam glanced at Rumlow, took in the speed he was moving, and realized Steve was right.
Gunfire barked. Pavement fractured and shrapnel stung Sam’s calves. He and Steve sprinted back the way they’d come along the overpass. Hydra agents in tac gear poured out of several vehicles surrounding them and opened fire. Sam dove behind a parked car and ducked down behind its engine for cover, Steve beside him.
“I’m coming in,” Romanoff said.
“Natasha–”
Steve didn’t get to finish. Bullets ricocheted up under the car and into the barrier behind them. Sam sprinted to the side. Around a car and straight into one of the Hydra grunts.
Sam launched himself forward, shoving the agent’s rifle up and away with one hand and swinging a punch with the other. He knew this body armor, knew its joints and weak places, and he hit a soft spot over the agent’s ribcage dead on. The agent grunted. Sam wrested the gun away, threw it behind himself, took a punch to his kidney and fought through the pain. He landed an overhead chop where the agent’s neck met his shoulder and kneed the man in the face as he went down.
Panting, Sam rolled the body off the overpass, grabbed his rifle, reassessed.
There was Steve, down below, ducking behind a concrete divider while automatic fire shredded cars around him. His shield was twenty feet away and completely exposed. Two men held the overpass and laid down cover fire for three others rappelling down to street level. Sam couldn’t see Romanoff or Barnes. Or Rumlow.
Street Fight, Washington, D.C.
September 2011
“Stay here!” Natasha shouted.
Zima opened his mouth, but she was already gone, out the driver’s side and bolting down the pavement.
His voice came through her earpiece. Private channel. “Pauk–”
“They can’t see you,” she insisted.
“I know. Be careful.”
“I love you,” she told him.
“You too.”
Natasha slipped between several cars, looking for her friends.
The Hydra agents were circling a set of cars pressed up against the side of the overpass. Rumlow was directing them, shouting orders. Natasha’s lips pulled back from her teeth.
They had Sam and Steve pinned down back there.
She launched herself around a corner and straight at Rumlow.
He moved inhumanly quickly and dodged her blade.
Natasha rebounded off another car and dodged out of sight.
She heard Rumlow’s steps and slid carefully away, moving out of sight but drawing him away from the firefight.
“Come out, Widow,” he said. “Don’t make this harder than it has to be.”