The Avengers: Everybody Wants to Rule the World Read online

  But Steven Rogers, known as Captain America, had also been gifted by science. His lifespan had been much longer than most men could expect, and his physical abilities were profoundly beyond those of an average human being.

  Strucker lunged for the carry-box. Cap leapt, too, body-checking Strucker onto the ground. They landed hard, struggling. Strucker was extremely strong. Cap grappled with him, trying to pin him and lock his arms. Strucker jabbed an elbow into Cap’s throat and then repeated the jab twice more, striking Cap’s sternum. Cap rolled clear, and came back with a punch that connected with the back of Strucker’s skull and drove his face into the carpet.

  The terrorist was dazed. Cap dragged him to his feet, attempting to turn him around and push him against the desk to restrain him.

  But Strucker was feigning weakness. He lashed out, and his right fist caught Captain America’s chin, jarring him sideways. Strucker laughed. The black leather of the glove on his right hand was smoldering and burning away, revealing the burnished metallic filaments of his favored personal weapon: the Satan Claw.

  He swung at Cap again. The Claw sizzled as it came. Cap dodged aside. Strucker raked the Claw back again, and it delivered a vicious electrical charge as it grazed Cap’s right shoulder.

  Cap staggered away, wincing as he shook out his stinging arm. Strucker swung another punch, the Claw crackling with power. Cap sidestepped, then drove his shoulder and elbow into Strucker’s ribs. Strucker grunted and almost fell. He wheeled, but missed Cap with his next, hasty jab. Cap deflected Strucker’s arm and punched Strucker in the mouth, breaking one of his front teeth.

  Snarling, Strucker regained his balance and swung again.

  The Claw connected.

  Bright sparks spat from Cap’s chest-armor, and there was a loud electrical crack. Cap flew across the reception area and smashed into the decorative false wall, knocking part of it down.

  He didn’t rise.

  Strucker spat blood onto the carpet. He grabbed the carry-box and ran for the exit.

  “Gustav!” he yelled as he ran. “Extraction now!”

  No one answered him. He came out onto the turning circle. Captain America had dealt with Strucker’s entourage on his way into the offices. Gustav and the other bodyguards were crumpled on the ground, their sidearms scattered. One lay across the trunk of the rear limousine. Both drivers had also been taken down. Ernst, the driver of the front car, was struggling to rise from the ground beside the open driver’s door. The “door open” chime was pinging.

  “Get up!” Strucker yelled at him, running to the lead car. “Get up and drive!”

  Strucker’s bodyguards had all been handpicked from the world’s finest private security firms and non-governmental military outfits. They were highly trained, highly skilled, utterly ruthless, and keenly aware of both the fees they were earning and the level of loyalty Hydra expected for such compensation. Despite his broken collarbone and concussion, Ernst clambered into the driver’s seat and gunned the engine. Strucker jumped into the rear of the heavy black automobile.

  The limo sped away, screeching a hard turn out of the circle, and roared toward the down-ramp.

  Shield in hand, Captain America raced out of the reception area. He saw the bright taillights of the limousine receding in the gloom of the parking level. He paused for a moment, gauging the viability of a shield throw, but the car was too far away.

  Instead, he turned and ran toward the outer wall of the structure. One of the bodyguards tried to rise and block his path, but Cap knocked him aside with the flat of his shield.

  He reached the waist-level wall and looped the shield over his back. It was an eight-story drop to the street below. Without hesitation, he vaulted up onto the concrete wall, swung his legs over, and pushed off, falling feet-first.

  He dropped one level, snagging the wall lip with his arms to arrest his descent. Teeth gritted, he hauled himself up and over the wall and back into the structure.

  Strucker’s limo had already driven down one level. It thundered past Cap and turned for the next ramp.

  Undeterred, Cap turned back and flipped himself over the wall again. This time he dropped three stories. He slammed into the concrete wall span, grabbing the lip with both arms. His chest scraped against the concrete. He heaved himself up and over, dropped onto the precast floor, and started running. He could hear the echo of tires squealing above him. Now he was at least one floor below the fleeing limo.

  He saw it coming along the length of the floor above, the light from its blazing headlamps blinking as the car passed each vertical column and concrete riser. He chased it at full sprint, moving parallel on the level below. He arrived at the bottom of the next exit ramp seconds before the car reached the top.

  The limo swung around onto the ramp with a brutal squeal. Ernst was a skilled driver, even with a vehicle so heavy and potentially cumbersome. Cap stood his ground at the foot of the ramp as the car burned down toward him. He unslung his shield, gripping its edge with his right hand, and hurled it at the oncoming vehicle with a powerful underarm sweep.

  The shield hit the windshield, shattering the armored glass, and punched inside, taking Ernst out of the game. Before the now uncontrolled car could mow him down, Cap leapt aside, rolling hard across the precast.

  The car shot past him. It didn’t turn at the foot of the ramp—it simply plowed into a concrete pillar facing the ramp access. The impact smashed in the nose of the glossy black vehicle, and slewed the tail around hard. Airbags fired and inflated. Fluids gushed from ruptured ducts, creating a black, rapidly spreading slick under the car. Steam billowed from the crumpled radiator.

  Cap got up and approached the wreck. He dragged his shield out of the mangled, glittering glass of the collapsed windshield and moved toward the rear. He wrenched open the door.

  In the back seat, Strucker lay dazed, bleeding from a head wound. Cap reached to grab him by the throat.

  He heard a shriek of tires and the roar of another engine. The second limo came down the ramp toward him at high speed, headlamps blazing. Cap glimpsed the near-maniacal face of Gustav at the wheel.

  Cap launched himself out of the way. The second car missed him by inches.

  Gustav’s vehicle smashed the open rear door of the first car off its hinges and sent it flying in a shower of shattered glass. Gustav lost the headlights on one side of his vehicle, and scraped the wing of his car along the bodywork of the other limo, buckling the door panels and scoring the paintwork down to bare metal.

  Gustav threw his limo into reverse, spinning the wheels so hard they billowed acrid smoke from the wheel arches. The limo lurched backwards, the two cars parting with a squeal of complaining bodywork.

  Strucker struggled out of his limo and ran crookedly toward Gustav’s car, carry-box in hand. He dragged open the rear door and fell inside. Gustav swung the limo around before Strucker could even pull his door shut. The limo clipped the tail of the crashed car, then accelerated along the parking bay toward the next down-ramp.

  Cap ran after it and threw his shield. The red-white-and-blue disk spun through the air and hit the nearside rear wheel as the car turned. The wheel drum buckled slightly, but the limo had run-flat tires. The car continued to accelerate.

  The shield bounced off the wheel, soared away, and ricocheted off a concrete column. Cap, still running, caught it as it returned.

  Without breaking stride, Cap kicked open the fire door of the stairwell and descended the steps three at a time, sliding his hip off the handrail at each floor-turn.

  He got to the ground floor. The fleeing limo had already reached the street exit at the far end of the structure. Without slowing, it tore through the automatic barriers, showering splinters of red-chevroned white plastic, and rocked out onto the street in a wild oversteer.

  Cap’s custom Harley was propped in one of the ground-floor bays where he had left it. He leapt astride it, kicked it to life, and tore away with his shield across his back.

  The matte-bl
ack bike had originally been a Street 750, but the tech guys at S.H.I.E.L.D. had seriously upgraded its performance. Cap, no mean mechanic himself, had tinkered, too. The goal had been the perfect balance of maximum speed and optimal road-holding ability.

  Cap’s wheels cracked over the fallen pieces of barrier, and he hit the street, leaning hard into each turn. The limo was still in sight, driving recklessly fast. Traffic was light in the district, but it wouldn’t be for long. Rush hour was coming. Cap gripped the throttle and started to close the distance, taking a racing line and cutting corners to gain as much ground as he could.

  He synched his suit-mic to the bike’s com unit.

  “Whisper, this is Sentinel,” he called.

  The radio link crackled over the roar of the Harley’s straining engine.

  “Sentinel, this is Whisper. Go.”

  “Are you painting me, Whisper?”

  “Affirmative, Sentinel. We have you on screen.”

  Somewhere above Berlin’s cloud cover, a S.H.I.E.L.D. recon plane in stealth mode had him locked. Cap took another corner hard.

  “It’s Strucker,” Cap said, concentrating on the road ahead. “I’m in pursuit. Can you lock target?”

  “Target sighted and locked.”

  “Strucker’s got something. Cargo he clearly doesn’t want to give up. Can you patch me in to Fury?”

  “Uh, negative at this time, Sentinel.”

  “Then give me a direct priority link to Avengers Tower.”

  “Apologies, negative. S.H.I.E.L.D. shadow on you, sir. Choppers inbound, and security details moving in from the north and east. That’s the available limit right now.”

  “Understood,” Cap replied. He dearly wanted to ask why neither the director of S.H.I.E.L.D. nor his fellow Avengers were online. But wondering what kind of emergency might have called them away was a distraction.

  Strucker was an emergency all by himself. Any time Hydra showed one of its ugly heads, it meant the world was in trouble. Cap had been undercover in Berlin for three days following leads. Now that he was coming up for air and assistance, everyone was busy.

  Don’t think about it, he told himself. It was taking every ounce of his nerve and skill to stay on Strucker’s tail at these speeds. One lapse in concentration, one distracted moment of worry, and he would spin out or plow into oncoming traffic.

  And Strucker would be gone.

  “Get EMT and tac support to Auger GmbH,” he instructed. “Suspect injuries, fatalities on site. Go in full-tac. Hydra agents on the ground. Secure the location and lock it down. I want a full site-condition review and summary as soon as this is done. Strucker had business there.”

  “In work, Sentinel. Tac teams dispatched.”

  “Tell local to clear the route,” Cap ordered. “Strucker’s not stopping for anything. I do not want civilian collateral.”

  “Understood.”

  Cap could already hear sirens in the surrounding streets. He passed at least one fender-bender where cars had swerved to avoid Strucker’s speeding limousine.

  “Track the target,” Cap said. “Find me some corners to cut.”

  “Affirmative. In work.”

  The limo was running hard. Each time Cap began to close, boosting his speed on a straightaway, the car turned hard and changed course. They were entering a busier part of the city. Vehicles were screeching to a halt, sounding their horns as the car and its bike pursuit blasted past. A delivery truck barely avoided collision with the limo and shunted into a bus shelter. A group of cyclists scattered and fell in their effort to get out of the car’s way when it swung out into the facing lane to get around a line of stopped traffic.

  “Next block, cut left,” the link said.

  “Got it,” replied Cap.

  He turned hard, his rear wheel slipping out, and raced along a serviceway between a factory and a row of retail outlets. Litter fluttered and flew in his wake. The roar of his engine echoed off the buildings around him.

  He exited the mouth of the serviceway, narrowly missed a curb, and joined another street. Car horns sounded. He put one foot down to steady his turn, slithered a little, then accelerated off. The cut had shaved a few hundred meters off his lag. The limo was up ahead, powering down the wrong side of the street into heavier traffic.

  Cars swerved out of its way. Two off them crunched together, sideswiped. A Polizei traffic car, light strap flashing and siren wailing, changed lanes and tried to cut off the limo.

  The car piled right through it, its massive bulk hurling the police vehicle aside into a nose-to-tail spin, scattering headlight glass and broken bodywork.

  Cap slalomed around the wrecked police car and picked up speed. He veered left to miss a garbage truck, then hard right to dodge a bus. Its windows were full of wide-eyed, horrified passengers.

  The limo hit roadworks, tearing through the red-and-white temporary barriers and scattering the frantic work crew. It avoided the heavy surfacing machine the crew had been operating by pulling out hard across the median strip. A sports car skidded to get out of its way, then fishtailed into a van and a compact.

  Cap was closing. The sheer density of rush-hour traffic was forcing the limo to go slower. Where cars blocked its way, Cap could weave and slip in between moving traffic.

  Strucker appeared, leaning out of the limo’s rear passenger window. He was clutching a machine pistol.

  He opened fire, blasting at the bike on his tail. Cap saw the muzzle flash and the bullets coughing dirt-smoke from the road surface to his left. He steered out, pulled his shield off his back, and dropped it in front of his chest and chin. Riding a Harley with one hand was not ideal, especially at high speed.

  Strucker changed clips and fired again. Rounds spanked off Cap’s shield, making it vibrate and shudder. A bullet took out the headlamp of his bike. Stray rounds smacked into vehicles on either side of him and chewed into the road.

  Cap accelerated into another gap, just missing a truck. He pulled around it, trying to move up on the side opposite Strucker’s firing position and hoping to restrict the terrorist’s cone of fire.

  Strucker saw what he was doing, and he disappeared back into the limo.

  Changing sides, Cap thought. He did the same. By the time Strucker and the gun appeared out of the other passenger window, Cap had pulled hard across the lane and was coming up on the rear quarter of the limo where Strucker had previously been positioned. He saw Strucker attempt a shot, curse the angle, and duck back inside.

  Cap got closer. He wondered whether he could risk a jump from bike to speeding car. He was so close—so very close—matching speeds, but the chance of rebounding off or missing a grip was too great.

  The rear window of the limo exploded as Strucker shot it out. The glass chips pelted back at Cap. Strucker slammed in a third clip and began shooting through the ragged window space. Cap took several shots against his shield, and then revved hard and burned up along the left side of the limo. Strucker appeared at the passenger window and resumed shooting, but Cap had switched the shield to his side. Cap swung in recklessly and slammed the shield flat against the window opening, knocking Strucker back into the passenger seat.

  The car suddenly veered away to the right. Cap saw they were coming up fast on the rear of a slow-moving eighteen-wheel rig. The limo had swerved to avoid ramming it. Cap jerked the wheel hard, narrowly averting a crash. The speeding vehicles passed the rig on either side—limo to the right, bike to the left. As soon as they were past it, they swung together again. Strucker hosed another clip at Cap. Shop windows on Cap’s side of the street shattered.

  “Damn you,” Cap snarled, too aware of how many innocent people were in the vicinity. He spurred closer to the racing limo, blocking gunfire with his shield.

  The limo started to slow. There was a heavy stream of traffic ahead, backed up from a busy bridge crossing.

  Cap took his chance. He steered in sharply and leapt. The Harley kicked out underneath him, fell sideways, and was left spinning and sli
ding in the road in a trail of friction sparks.

  Cap landed, belly-first, on the hood of the car and clung on. He felt himself slipping, but scrabbled to keep his grip. At the wheel, Gustav started to snake the limo violently from side to side in an attempt to throw Cap off.

  When that didn’t work, Gustav drew his handgun, opened the driver’s window, and leaned out to spray shots across the car’s nose. One tore across Cap’s left sleeve, barely deadened by the armor. Cap got his shield around and blocked two more shots. He tried to gain purchase with his boots to kick up the hood and attack through the windshield. If he could tackle Gustav, the chase would be over.

  Trying to shoot at the Avenger had distracted Gustav from driving. Cap heard Strucker yell out from the rear. Gustav hauled on the wheel.

  The speeding limo swiped the end of one of the stationary cars in the queuing traffic, barely avoiding a full-on collision. The halted cars cannoned into each other.

  But Gustav had lost control. The limo struck the curb violently and lurched up onto the sidewalk for thirty meters. It ripped down a row of railings one after another, and then smashed through a safety barrier.

  Captain America was still clinging to the hood.

  The limousine burst through the bridge abutment and cleared the towpath at a height of six meters. Trailing debris and the tatters of its tailpipe system, it plunged headlong toward the broad, calm river far below.

  69˚ 30’ SOUTH, 68˚ 30’ WEST

  07.26 LOCAL, JUNE 12TH

  IT WAS a long drop.

  He came tumbling and spinning out of the floor hatch into the shocking cold and turbulence.

  Below him, dense cloud cover. Below that, uncertainty.

  Hawkeye had performed several HALO drops in his career—but always with prep, and never in an emergency.

  He hadn’t even had time to strap on the drop-pack properly. It was hooked over one shoulder, the other set of harness straps flying and snapping in the ferocious air.