The Price of a SoulPart 1/? - Agent RusselPart 2/? - The LetterPart 3/? - Miss LakePart 4/? - The St

The Price of a SoulPart 1/? - Agent RusselPart 2/? - The LetterPart 3/? - Miss LakePart 4/? - The StewardessPart 5/? - An AssassinationPart 6/? - FalloutPart 7/? - Face to FacePart 8/? - Deals, Details, and Other DevilsPart 9/? - BaggagePart 10/? - Private FundingPart 11/? - Just Passing ThroughPart 12/? - Party of FourPart 13/? - ResolutePart 14/? - The WreckPart 15/? - Body SnatchersPart 16/? - Out of the Frying PanOut of the frying pan, but into the fire would be a worse mistake than Peggy knows.-Part ofPeggy’s mind was flying.  How had Mastersfound out about this?  Thompson wouldhave let him know when Kay escaped, but wouldn’t have had any idea where theywere going because Peggy hadn’t told anyone about the coordinates except Danieland… well, there was Russel, who could probably guess the significance of thembut would not have known that Peggy was planning to actually investigate.  She’d only mentioned them to him once.  Had Kay left a note?  Or was her initial theory correct, and he’djust overheard Jason’s radio message to Stark Industries?  What had Jason actually said?Another partwas doing its level best to clamp down on the urge to punch him in the face.“AgentCarter,” he said.  “Fleeing the countryupon finding out you’re under investigation doesn’t look good at all.”“I had everyintention of returning, which you would know if you’d asked my landlord ormy employer,” Peggy replied.He was notimpressed.  “And what’s your explanationfor assisting in the escape of a known Soviet agent – again – andattempted theft of US Government property?”“Don’tinsult me,” said Kay.  “I escaped bymyself.”Mastersglanced at her.  “From full-security policelockup under the noses of the entire East Coast SSR and the CIA?”“What?  Like it’s hard?” asked Kay, in a mock ‘dimwit’voice, wiggling her head and shoulders to cement the implication that anyfloozy could have done it.“Whatgovernment property are you referring to, Mr. Masters?” Peggy asked.  She had a feeling she knew the answer, andshe didn’t like it a bit.Mastersturned to her again.  “You know damn wellI’m referring to Captain America and his equipment.  The shield is the world’s entire known stockof Vibranium, and his body is the only hope we or anybody else have ofrecreating Erskine’s serum.  And youwere about to sell both of them to the Russians!”  He looked her over in disgust.  “Were you already planning that when he wasalive, or is it that now he’s dead his wishes don’t matter anymore?”This timePeggy very nearly did punch him – she actually raised an arm before shemanaged to get herself under control, leading Kay to grab her around theshoulders to stop her, and several of the soldiers surrounding them to aimtheir guns at her face.“Theycertainly don’t seem to matter to you,” she said through her teeth,shrugging Kay off of her.  “Steve wouldnot have wanted to be an object of study after his death.”“CaptainRogers wanted us to win the war,” Masters replied.  “We’re fighting a new war now and he’s gonnabe our key to winning it.”  He steppedback.  “I want these two put in the brig,Captain Lewis – and don’t take eyes off them for a moment.  They’re slippery.”The man whomust’ve been Lewis nodded.  “Do it,” hetold the men.  “And get the Captainstraight down to the morgue to thaw out. The scientists are waiting.”Peggy andKay were taken unceremoniously by the shoulders and frog-marched inside.It took afew minutes for the red haze at the edge of Peggy’s vision to fade away and herfists to unclench before she could think about this logically, and when shedid, she began to realize she was in very serious trouble indeed.  All this time Masters had nothing on her butsuspicions and circumstances, but now she’d been caught with her hand in thecookie jar, so to speak.  Who wouldbelieve her story that she and Howard were just bringing Steve back forburial when they’d been so secretive about the whole thing?  Perhaps Kay would testify in her defense… butwho would believe her when she was an admitted spy and a murderess?The soldiersput them in a cell in the brig, far down in the belly of the ship, and left twovery large and imposing men to watch over them. Peggy and Kay sat down on the little cot in the cell, and their guardssat down on either side of a small table outside, and dealt themselves a handof cards.  How ironic, Peggy thought witha barely-suppressed sneer.Kay had saidnothing since mocking the SSR’s security out on the deck.  She did not look particularly inclined to sayanything now.  She merely sat looking ather watch.“Have youanything to say for yourself?” Peggy asked her.There was noreply.  Of course there wasn’t.  Kay had never explained anything andthere was no reason for her to start now. Instead of trying to talk, Peggy decided to try to think.What weretheir options at this point?  They couldsit here and be taken back to the States for trial – that would most likely endin a guilty verdict and imprisonment, if not hanging, for both of them.  They could try to escape.  Peggy could probably pick the lock on thedoor but the guards would see and hear her doing it, and she doubted she could takeboth of them.  Perhaps Kay could takeone, but that would just be further evidence that the two were in cahoots.  What a silly-sounding word cahootswas.  Where on Earth had it come from?If they didescape, where would they go?  They wereon a ship.  Peggy could not fly a planeor a helicopter, although she wondered whether Kay might be able to.  Their only options would be to take alifeboat or to jump into the water.  Theformer would be easily pursued, and the latter meant death by hypothermia.  The same fate Steve himself had suffered…also nicely ironic.They couldtry to escape long enough to go get Steve’s body back, but what would they do withit?  The options seemed to be destroyingit or dumping it overboard.  The secondwas not a good idea – it might still be retrieved.  But the former was deeply distasteful.  Peggy couldn’t imagine cutting him up or… orburning him?  The ship would have hugefurnaces to keep the crew warm and provide steam for the propellers.  Those would certainly make a finecrematorium… could she bring herself to do it herself?Maybe shecould, if she were desperate enough.  Atthe moment Peggy had nothing to lose… but that still left the question of howto get out of this cell…“You stupidbitch,” said Kay suddenly.Peggy’s headsnapped up.  “Excuse me?” she said.  Her companion had said nothing at all forwhat must have been ten minutes at least, and now was offering insults out ofnowhere?Kay shot aglance at the guards, then glared at Peggy. “You had no plan, did you? Here I thought you were coming out here knowing what you were doing, butyou had no idea and now we’re in here!”Ah.  “Why should I have a plan?” Peggydemanded.  “I didn’t think we were goingto find a bloody thing up here except ice and snow!  Did you really think I was taking yourword for something so important?  How canyou be smart enough to escape from Thompson and yet stupid enough to think Iwould trust you?”“You didn’tneed to trust me!  You just needed tohave a backup plan!”  Kay gavePeggy a shove.“Don’t youdare touch me, you daft Russian whore!” Peggy shoved her back, and the two ofthem rolled off the cot to grapple on the floor.   Having fought with Dottie more than once,Peggy knew the Russian women were ruthless and skilled, but now Kay wrestledlike a child who’d never been in a fight in her life, grabbing and pinching andpulling hair.  Peggy did likewise.  If this were going where she thought it wasgoing…“That’senough, you two!” a male voice announced. Keys jingled.  Peggy didn’t darelook up as two pairs of heavy boots approached – the men were going to try toseparate her.  For an instant she caughtKay’s eye, and saw a smile on the other woman’s face.Then a pairof hands grabbed Peggy’s shoulders.  Shewrapped her legs around the man’s boots and twisted – he fell against thecot.  Before he could right himself,Peggy was on her feet and grabbed him by the hair to smash his face against thewall repeatedly.  By the second impacthis nose was bloody, and by the fourth he was limp in her hands.  She let him drop and turned around.  Kay had gotten a hold of the second man’stags and twisted them tight around his neck. Peggy was just in time to see him turn blue and pass out.“Well done,”Peggy said, as the soldier collapsed at Kay’s feet.“Lettingthem think you’re stupid and emotional is always your best weapon,” Kay toldher, brushing off her hands.“I have someexperience with that myself,” said Peggy. “To the morgue?”“Obviously.”They helpedthemselves to the unconscious soldiers’ guns, and Peggy took the keys off oneof their belts and locked the cell door on them.The shipthey were on was a Casablanca-class escort carrier.  Peggy had never been on one, but she knewthat on large military ships both the brig and the morgue were deep in theinterior, far from anywhere the rank and file sailors would normally go.  Left to her own devices, it probably wouldn’thave taken her very long to find the one from the other, but she didn’t haveto.  Kay appeared to know exactly whereshe was going.  She headed down a flightof steps, and then paused in the stairwell, putting an ear to the doors.  Peggy crept up next to her.“How’s hedoing?” a male voice asked.“He’s freeof most of the ice,” a woman replied, “but still pretty solid.”Peggy puther eye to the gap between the two doors. Two doctors in white coats were talking to a brunette nurse, just to theright of a solid door labeled MORGUE. The door was closed and apparently locked.“We can’twait too long, or the blood will start to clot,” said the shorter of thedoctors.“We’ll stillhave the bone marrow,” the first man reassured him.  “Can you give me an estimate, Miss Harper?”“They’resaying at least another hour,” the nurse said, and turned to unlock the door.  All three people headed through.Peggy andKay exchanged a glance to make sure they were still agreed as to the plan.  It seemed they were, so they both burst outof the stairwell and took the trio from behind. Peggy clocked the taller one on the back of the head with the gun she’dtaken off her jailer.  He dropped to hisknees, holding his bleeding scalp.  Kayvaulted onto the shorter one’s back and knocked him forward into Miss Harper,spilling both of them onto the floor. Miss Harper tried to scream, but Kay kicked her in the face, and thendrove her knee into the second doctor’s jaw. He fell.Inside themorgue room, two more doctors and three nurses were standing around the gurneywhere Steve’s body was now lying.  Theywere, for the moment, too shocked by this sudden and violent intrusion to reactto it, which gave Peggy and Kay the advantage. Peggy grabbed the nearest equipment tray and hit one of the doctors inthe face with it.  The first blowappeared to merely stun him and he just stood there blinking at her.  She hit him three more times, until hefell.  One of the nurses tried to flee,and Peggy pushed the doctor’s body into her.While Peggywas occupied with that, Kay had shoved the other doctor into the open drawerthat had been waiting to receive Steve’s body. She shut it and turned the lock, then she and Peggy both pulled outtheir guns and trained them on the two nurses still standing.  Both women put their hands up.Kay twitchedher chin towards the first two doctors and Miss Harper, all lying on the floorin various states of unconsciousness. “Get them out of the way,” she ordered the nurses.The womendidn’t move.“We have hada very upsetting day,” Peggy warned them.Terrified,the nurses went to start rolling the bodies of their co-workers away from thedoor.  Kay kept her eyes and a gun onthem, while Peggy took the brakes off the gurney.  There was a white drop cloth over the corpse.  Peggy knew it would be a terrible ideato look beneath it, but she told herself that after all this trouble they hadbetter make sure they had the right body, and lifted it for a peek.There hewas.  They’d cut his uniform off him,leaving him quite naked.  Bruises andscrapes he’d gotten on his last mission were still there.  Peggy recognized one on his arm where abullet had grazed him.  She’d bandagedthat herself, because he’d been too sunken in depression from the death of hisfriend to do it.  And the cut on hischeek, just beneath his left earlobe. She’d kissed that.  The memory,buried for three years, was suddenly as fresh as if it had happened momentsago.She reachedto touch the place, and quickly drew her hand back upon finding his skin was wetand still icy cold, feeling more like frozen meat than human tissue.  How was he still pink?  As he thawed the blood ought to start poolingin his back and buttocks, like it always did on dead bodies.  Maybe those parts were still frozen.“Peggy!” Kaybarked.  “Is that him?”Peggyquickly dropped the cloth and wiped her wet fingers on her coat.  “It’s him,” she said.“Follow me,”said Kay.“Where arewe going?” Peggy asked, as she wheeled the gurney out of the room.Kay led theway up the hall with the longest strides she could take.  “The boiler room,” she said.“Oh,good,” Peggy nodded.  Had Kay’s missionperhaps been to either secure Captain America’s body for her own people or,failing that, to see to it the Americans didn’t get a hold of him either?  Peggy decided she didn’t care anymore.  Whatever the reasons, they were goingto do right by Steve, and after that, if Masters wanted to hang her, she wouldgo to the gallows with her head held high. -- source link
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