Chapter 83
Above the Triskelion, Washington, D.C.
September 2011
Sam twisted. His wings flared. With a grunt, he pulled out of his dive and sped up toward the top deck of the helicarrier. Steve was a dead weight in his arms. The suit wasn’t meant to carry two full-grown men for this long. They’d underestimated the speed at which the helicarriers would ascend. It could be a fatal mistake.
He huffed out a breath of relief when the edge of the helicarrier came into view and threw them forward into a roll. Steve tensed. Sam set go of the supersoldier and flared his wings in the same instant. Their momentum arrested, Steve dropped neatly to the deck and bolted for the nearest door. Sam shot the lock off from midair and soared up into the sky.
“Go for the third helicarrier!” Steve ordered over the comms.
“Barnes, where you at?” Sam said, banking away from the deck. He was a speck. Camouflaged against the bulk of the helicarrier. The second he peeled too far away, the escorts would spot him, and hopefully mistake him for a large bird.
“Lowest helicarrier,” Barnes said.
An explosion and a gout of flame erupted from the belly of a helicarrier to Sam’s left. Glass fell toward the lake below. “You good?”
“Go, Wilson!” Barnes snapped.
Sam rolled his eyes, tucked in his arms, and zipped toward the final helicarrier.
His luck ran out halfway through the journey. Machine guns rattled and tracer fire tore apart the air around him. Sam launched into some of the most extreme evasive maneuvers he’d ever performed. Spinning, diving, throwing himself from barrel rolls to loops to dives until the horizon spun around him like a top and up and down were meaningless.
“Think I–found those bad guys you were–talking about,” he panted, speeding along the side of Barnes’ helicarrier for cover. “Can one of you get to the last ship?”
“I’ll try to find a copter.” Barnes.
Sam took a breath and twisted in the air, turning until he surged up and over the edge of the helicarrier. He had to take out those roof guns or Barnes would never get off the deck.
A rumbling escort jet hovered not thirty feet from Sam’s face.
For one precious heart-stopping second, he was sure he was about to die.
Then he registered that the pilot was waving frantically and pointing at the SHIELD logo on his chest. That he hadn’t opened fire.
“Got friendlies out here,” Sam said, waving at the pilot and launching forward, around the escort. It fired up and lifted higher from the deck, returning fire at the hostile escorts, while Sam folded his wings and sprinted across the surface. Wind bit at his ears.
“Running out of time,” Maria said urgently. “Guys. These things are on a connected network. I’ll get all of them or none. You have to get to the last helicarrier now, or Natasha dies.”
A shuffle and muffled voices came over the comms.
Sam popped grenades off his suit. Pulled the pins. Ran faster.
“Maria!” Steve shouted. “What’s happening?”
An agonizing pause.
Sam aimed.
“You’ve a little more time. Agent Carter’s taking over here,” Maria said.
He threw the grenade at the roof gun, spun, and ducked behind a stationary escort for cover. “What?”
The explosion beat against Sam’s eardrums. He peeked around the nose of the escort. “Barnes, roof gun’s out. You can take off. I’ll try to draw their fire.”
“Copy,” Barnes grunted. “Almost to the deck.”
A new voice joined the conversation. “Carter here. Hill passed on her orders; she’s going after Pierce and Romanoff.”
“We go with it,” Steve ordered. “Bucky, do not lose that mask.”
Sam took a deep breath.
“Over here!” someone shouted.
He barely dodged in time. Bullets slammed into the ground at his feet and pinged off the armor of the escort. Sam jumped straight up, flapped once, and flew straight into the guy who’d pulled the trigger, knocking him out cold.
Six other agents in uniform bolted out of a stairwell nearby. Sam turned so he had a human shield and raised his stolen automatic rifle.
He remembered the pilot who’d given him cover. Hesitated.
One of the agents raised his gun.
Before Sam could fire, three others tackled the outlier. They panted, stood up, saluted him.
Cautiously, he dropped his human shield.
They didn’t shoot.
“We’re the only air support Captain America has,” Sam rapped out, stepping forward. He fell easily back into command mode. As if he’d never left. “Get in your planes. There’s a helicopter taking off from here in a few minutes. It’s gotta reach that helicarrier–” he pointed at the one remaining– “or a lot of people are gonna die. Copy?”
“Yes, sir!” the agents shouted, and ran for the nearest escorts.
Gotta love the army, Sam thought.
Across the deck, a door burst open, and a large masked figure bolted from it. Seconds later, other agents poured out behind him. Hostiles. The helicopters sat two hundred meters away.
Sam launched himself across the deck, three feet above its surface, and raised his pilfered automatic. It was almost impossible to aim while flying like this but the nice thing about automatic weapons was that he could just pull the trigger and spray a massive burst of cover into the group of agents chasing Barnes. Three of them fell instantly. The rest turned and opened fire on Sam.
He twisted, flared his wings to block the barrage. Most of the bullets went wide; a few ricocheted off his wings; one punctured the metal and shot straight between Sam’s legs. He tossed a smoke grenade and flipped out from behind the smoke screen, flying around it in an arc while bullets shredded where he’d been seconds before.
Sam took out four more with his rifle. Noticed Barnes over by the helis. Hesitating.
“Don’t wait for me, Barnes, I’m busy saving your ass!” Sam ordered. The rifle was empty. He spun and dropped onto the remaining three agents. Clubbed one over the head while helicopter rotors spun to life behind him. A bullet smacked into his body armor, thrust him back a step. He dodged an overhead blow, tried to take off, but a Hydra agent grabbed his wing and yanked him back to the ground. Sam went with it and turned the momentum into a twist, plucked a knife from his tac vest, and left it in the man’s throat while he turned and used him as a shield to shoot the last man.
They fell around him in a clot.
Sam turned around. Barnes was gone. The helicopter roared across the open space between the helicopters in a desperate bid for the final helicarrier.
“Approaching three thousand feet,” Carter said tensely.
Sam rolled his aching shoulders. He’d forgotten how tiring flying was. Time to start working out more.
“Steve, find a jet and get off that thing. I’ll draw ‘em off,” he said, and launched himself forward again.