1953-07-17 - Spies Like Us: Part I
Summary: Young Agent Danvers is forced to work with one of Russia's most dangerous assassins, Codenamed: Winter Soldier. The year? 1953. The mission? In the shadows of the early day of the cold war, a remnant Nazi organization is attempting to marshal their resources and weaponry to start a Fourth Reich. However, their shadowy masters might have a different agenda altogether… and it's up to an elite team of top agents to stop their plans before they come to fruition. Part I of the ongoing Spies Like Us plot.
Related: none
Theme Song: None
bucky carol 


Bucky has partially disconnected.

*

Monaco. 1953. The Casino de Monte-Carlo.

Inside, was a picture of glamour, and wealth. Inside, everyone who was anyone in Monaco was busy casting their money away into the fog of cigarette smoke and laughter, losing more than winning at craps, roulette, blackjack - or for the daring, poker.

But some - some - were lucky enough to win.

And there was a man at the roulette who seemed to be doing just that. Chips piled in front of him, and black hair slicked back, his smile not betraying his steely eyes that seemed to take in every detail, Henrik Brandt was one of the most wanted persons left that was involved in the regime that was toppled at the end of WWII. Involved with the SS, as well as highly placed in the leadership of the Reich, the truth behind the man - his background, his history - indeed, what he had done, was cloaked in a veil of mystery. But he was implicated in so much. Such as being involved with the construction of a weapon - a weapon whose destructive potential was only hinted at - but the hints given were not good. Not one bit.

But catching the man was like catching a shadow. Here, he was speaking perfect Italian, and had a cover of an Italian mogul who got rich in postwar reconstruction, here in Monaco to blow off some steam, and perhaps, catch a few local girls. Or less local girls. Monaco, after all - was a place that attracted people of all types - and all places.

Such as Charlotte Price - the daughter of a British businessman, struggling to find an in with the emerging global elite - leaving his daughter alone and bored in a casino full of the rich and famous.

Carol Danvers had objected to this particular cover. Rather loudly. But she was, after all - a woman of duty. And duty, at this point, involved letting her long blonde hair fall in waves over her shoulders, wear makeup to the nines, and wear a shimmering red dress and heels that suited her rather well. And sipping expensive wine, purchased for her by those who took a fancy to her, of course. But her eyes were on Henrik, as she nurses the wine, lounging at a nearby craps table.

*

Tim 'Hooligan' Bradey, sitting at Carol's side at the bar, takes a sip of his scotch and pivots so he can watch Carol's back while she's surveilling the target. Where Agent Danvers is all legs and heels and blonde perfection, he's craggy and lean, his pale skin at odds with the calluses on his palms and the broken spot on his nose. "He's a cold bloke, I'll give 'em that," the Brit says, in a low sotto voce, his lips barely moving. "Saw him take in close to ten thousand quid while you were in the loo, and he barely smiled. Lost six thousand on the next hand— didn't blink twice." He shakes his head and eases his weight back, trying to look 'comfortably relaxed', as per his guise as a relatively wealthy aristocrat piddling away some family pocket money in Monaco for the weekend.

He glances around and drops his voice to a low murmur, leaning in as if whispering a joke to Carol. "I've talked to the shift manager and he's ready to move. Get that Jerry bastard into the lounge and hold the staff off until we can bag him— out the service corridors, through a fire door, Bob's your uncle we can interrogate him to our heart's content." He takes a sip of his scotch and uplifts his chin as the fellow asks the pit boss to start boxing his chips for him.

"There. He's getting ready for his biscuit break. Go ahead into the lounge," he orders Carol. "I'll meet you at the exit point in ten minutes. Good luck," he tells her, pressing a quick kiss to her cheek. He throws a few bills on the counter and with a wink at Carol, takes off at a quick walk towards the staff area.

*

A laugh - tinkery and musical and perhaps pleasant - comes from Carol. "What you call coldness, Tim - I call confidence," says 'Charlotte', letting a smile drift over her painted lips some - a silk-gloved hand lifting to draw a thumb over the rim of her glass. Her dress was modest, except where it wasn't - with a well-placed shawl over the shoulders.

One doubted a spoiled rich girl would have a military physique, after all.

Lifting her glass to her lips, when he leans over and whispers to her, she has a return of that laugh ring through the casino, her own demeanor relaxed - perhaps edging towards bored, with slumped shoulders, a lean towards the bar, and little motions of her wrist to let her wine twist in her glass.

"Oh, absolutely," she says, with an easy, playful roll to her voice, the laughter still lingering in it. He could no doubt sense the sudden stiffness in her at the kiss upon her cheek, but her return whisper in those moments - "Same to you," was clipped and a bit professional.

Another sip of her wine that wasn't quite a sip at all, and she sets her half-empty glass on the bar, gathers up her shawl, and starts her way towards the lounge proper.

It would be a few moments of lingering there before Henrik arrives. And as soon as he does, 'Charlotte' makes certain he catches her smile from across the room. Even if the coldness in his features didn't abate one moment - he returns her smile with a nod. She has to keep to let it from wavering.

He didn't give her a second glance. Which was good when she comes up behind him, gently nudging a pistol into his ribs. "No shouting. No scowling," she says, reaching up her free arm to lay gently upon his arm, looking up towards him with a bit of adoration. "I think we want to go to the service area, right?" she asks, her tone of voice low - cloying. As if she were whispering something enticing to him. Henrik was stone-faced.

But he complies - his eyes tracking across the room as he heads towards the service area, Carol at his side.

*

And it's all going swimmingly up to that point, when the service door to the lounge swings open a bit violently. The fellow coming back at Carol and her prisoner might have passed for a waiter or valet at a glance, but the facemask covering his features conceals all from view except the scraggly, unkempt brown hair that hangs past his neck.

Even by the standard of Carol's fast reflexes, he's swift. Two guns come up. The right hand grips a Browning 9mm, a popular European semi-auto handgun; the left, a double-barreled shotgun that's been sawed down into a mere pistol.

And everything about the fellow screams 'killer', from his posture to his effortless, instant aim. He drives the barrel of the handgun towards the German, and aims his shotgun at Carol.

"Tot oder lebendig, du mit mir kommst," the man says in German, his voice muffled by his metallic facemask. His tuxedo doesn't remotely fit, and looks as if he relieved someone of the outfit as a temporary disguise.

The goggles transfer towards Carol. "Drop the pistol. He's coming with me," the masked man says, in muffled but flawless English.

*

It was that rumpled uniform that triggered Carol's suspicions at first. Well - that and the violent way he makes his appearance. The facemask - well, that just sealed the deal. The pistol that Carol clutched, for that matter, was an Astra 300 - a .380 pistol of Spanish make.

Carol was fast - amped up, and expecting danger at any moment. But he was swifter. Carol was, after all - only human.

For the time being, that is.

And her pistol was out of position. Tightening her grip on the pistol for a moment, the Astra 300 tumbles to the ground as she releases it. Arguing with a shotgun was a good way to lose whatever argument you might be making. Jaw tightens, and her eyes grow steely. "What have you done to the others?" she asks, lifting her chin down the service corridor.

What Carol was hoping was that Bucky's attention would be focused enough on the German for… "And what do you plan to do with…" Hopefully, she was near enough to grab the muzzle of the shotgun, and twist it away from her, her expensive skirts flapping as she tries to jab the muzzle of the shotgun in the belly of the German. Hopefully, that would keep Bucky from pulling the trigger.

While she doubted she could beat him in strength, she was counting on the surprise of the twist to be good enough to get her a little forward - closer to his side.

*

Carol's strong, and well-trained, and executes the maneuver perfectly. Grip the barrel, rotate weapon towards the thumb— the weakest point of the grip— apply leverage to elbow as needed for follow through.

Except that the barrel deviates from point of aim all of six inches. The fellow's impossibly strong and his posture, his balance are superhuman. With only the strength of his shoulder he pushes back at Carol, but the force behind the motion is more like a powerful shove than a brushing nudge away.

The barrel of the Browning crosses over to aim at Carol's face, and in a small gap between a black leather glove and his sleeve, something metallic glints as if he's wearing a metal cuff of some kind around his left wrist.

"Back away or I shoot you in the face. You have three seconds to comply." The finger on the Browning starts tightening slowly as he marks a countdown until Carol surrenders, or… well. The mask doesn't make it easy tell if he's bluffing, but he certainly sounds convincing.

*

Carol was counting on the positioning of his body to make it difficult for him to twist the Browning around to target her. And indeed, she was already moving as if to sweep her leg up against his, to try to keep him off of his balance.

But the man was a machine. In more ways than one, apparently. Carol's grip on his elbow, and the grip itself, loosens. Especially with the shove that follows - sending her flying backwards to the side of the service tunnel - unbalanced not just by his strength, but by the damn heels her costume demanded she wears. One of the heels falls off of her foot with the motion, by the way, hanging on by the tone alone.

And Carol holds up her hands, as if in surrender.

"Don't shoot - but don't think you can get away with this. I'm not alone today," she says. "I think your best bet at making your way out of this alive? Is to turn over the asset," a glance towards Henrik, who was watching the exchange with a watchfulness - and a confidence unbefitting his situation - quietly.

"Hey - play nice, and we might even let you go," she says, putting on a wide sort of grin.

*

"Your team is neutralized," the masked men tells Carol. "The Brit fought back. He'll need a doctor. The other two are handcuffed and gagged in service exit dumpster." The fellow speaks with a chill casual tone, despite having just neutralized a British OSS officer and two former French commandos on loan from INTERPOL. He rounds on Henrik, partially concealing the shotgun under his black jacket, and shoves the Browning into the small of the German's back, where the fellow's liver is located. A killer indeed.

And without another word for the blonde, he frog-marches the fellow out the service exit door, leaving her the dirty business of rounding up her team. 'Hooligan', indeed, will need stitches and possibly medical care, and her two commandos are bound and gagged, but otherwise not terribly harmed. All three of them said the fellow dropped them with his bare hands, fighting like nothing they'd ever seen before.

Leaving Carol the sole operating member of her little team, she'd had to call a cab (The intruder had stolen their getaway car!) and pile her troops into the vehicle for the short trip back to their safehouse a few blocks away.

All the while, one troubling question resounding in Carol's mind: Who was that masked man, anyway?

*

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