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xp_logs2011-05-17 02:32 pm
x-cypher.livejournal.com) wrote in xp_logs2011-05-17 02:32 pm
Operation: зимний солдат - White Flag
X-Force is busy with a teleconference discussing what information they have on Mr. Barnes and the Winter Soldier, and what to do next, when the last person they expect comes walking through the front doors of the Snow Valley offices.
Doug had one of the chairs in the conference room leaned back as far as it would go, because it hurt like hell to actually sit up straight. He was glad in one respect that the rest of the team members on the far end of the line couldn't see just how badly he'd gotten worked over by a man three to four times his age. He supposed he was proving that old saw about old age and treachery all too true. "He completely caught me by surprise," he admitted aloud. "He came back to the brownstone way too quickly, he must have gotten some kind of warning," he continued, the tone of his voice clearly saying that he didn't blame Jubilee in any way. It was becoming obvious that they had all underestimated Mr. Barnes.
"I think it is safe to assume he will not return to his apartment." Marie-Ange's said. In her hotel room, she was seated on the floor, back against the bed, with a notepad resting on her knees. "If he is this Winter Soldier, we have been sitting on a double agent right under our noses for years." And overlooking him because of his age, which they should have known better, just because of Magneto. "He could be on the other side of the country by now."
"Might be, although I get a feeling the guy might come back for his stuff," Jubilee replied, glancing over at Doug to check he was still doing okay. "I didn't find anything particularly incriminating in his safe, birth certificate, guy is eighty-four, full name appears to be James Buchanan Barnes and he was married to a Gail Richards, she's dead by the way, and I found a birth certificate for someone called Rebecca, also deceased. Apart from that, there were family photos, they all seemed pretty happy, some military medals, I took photos of them since I've got like, no idea."
Behind them, on the other side of the office, the elevator doors slid open and an elderly man walked into the front reception area. He was certainly old, but he held himself erect, back ramrod straight and no sense of fatigue in his movements. It was like watching an old soldier at a memorial - obviously advanced in his years, but still enough of a shadow remained of what he had been to make it obvious. He quickly scanned the room, his eyes taking everything in, before walking forward to the main desk. "Ms. Black, is it?" He said, picking up her name from the plaque on the desk. "I would like to have a word with Mr. Wisdom or Ms Braddock, if possible."
When the doors opened, Cammie was busy taking three seconds to read through an old issue of The Onion. The horoscope for Scorpio did make her giggle. Don't worry: You're more than just a collection of annoying, loosely bundled neuroses. There are some tightly wound dangerous psychoses in there too. She had to check these more often. They had to be the best thing since... oh crap, there was someone here.
Cammie looked up, scooting the old, fake paper under her sociology text book. She did work on school shit while working, truthfully she had quite a bit of time between phone calls and stuff, "Um, yeah," Cammie started, "There's a meeting going on right now, so I can take your name...?" It didn't help that she didn't know either of the people he mentioned personally. But people didn't exactly stumble in here, either. So someone would be able to talk to him, when they weren't all busy.
"I am afraid that I must insist, young lady. The matter is..." He paused for a moment. "Urgent might be an understatement. I'm James Barnes."
If she had been drinking anything at that moment it would have ended up all over her fancy don't-use-this-for-porn work computer. Given her habit of imbuing highly toxic or corrosive things, it was doubly a good thing. Cammie opened her mouth and then closed it before opening it again, "Gimme a second and I'll get someone up here," she said. She could say more than three words without swearing, though she had to hold back the reflexive 'holy shit.' She hit the button to buzz the phone in the conference room, knowing they couldn't really shoot her head off for this all things considered.
Jubilee hit the button to open another line, knowing Doug was still too bruised to want to be moving about much. "Yes?"
"Yeah, sorry to interrupt and stuff, but I got someone out here I think you guys might want to talk to," Cammie said simply, "And I mean really."
Doug's eyes narrowed. Cammie sounded...nervous, which wasn't like the newest member of X-Force. "I'll be right out," he told her, disengaging the intercom before returning to the teleconference line. "Hold on a minute, something's up," he told the team members on the far end before getting up and crossing to the conference room door. He went out and down the hallway, turning the corner to see what had Cammie so spooked...
His eyes widened at the sight of Mr. Barnes, and he reflexively reached behind his back for a gun that wasn't actually there, but locked in a box in his server room. The moment of panic passed, and the older man was clearly doing his best to make no threatening moves, so Doug made himself untense. "What can we do for you, Mr. Barnes?" he asked with an edge to his voice.
"You can take me to Mr Wisdom or Ms Braddock, Mr Ramsey. No offense to you, but I'd prefer not to have to repeat myself to every level of this organization before getting to the decision makers." He said, standing calmly in the lobby with his hands resting comfortably on his cane.
"Ms. Braddock and Mr. Wisdom are both on sabbatical and out of the country at present," Doug said in a neutral tone of voice, trying to give away as little as possible to the older man. Given the information they were currently trying to sort through, their suspicions about Barnes, and how few members of the team were currently in the office, Doug wasn't very interested in letting him past the lobby without a good reason.
Of course, that was the same exact thought he'd had in the lobby of the brownstone, and he winced to remember how that had gone. Of course, this time he had Cammie as backup if things went in that direction. His eyes flicked to the desk where she was watching the byplay with her head pivoting back and forth like she was at a tennis match.
"I see. And what name does Gambit go under these days? LeBeau?"
Doug grunted. "He's...unavailable." Because he sure as hell wasn't going to say "he got captured in a trap" to a man he had very little reason to trust at the moment.
Bucky sighed; more resigned than frustrated. "It looks than like the rest of you have been promoted. How nice for you." He began to stride into the office, passing. "I would assume that Ms Colbert and Ms Frost have assumed some form of temporary command. Let's go, young man. Get them conferenced in and get started. I'm an old man, you know. You, Black. Two sugars, one milk."
Doug let the old man walk by. He could always have Cammie stick her finger in his coffee or something. "We were in the middle of a conference call when you showed up," he informed Mr. Barnes, pointing to the conference room door. As the pair walked in, Doug spoke up so the others could hear on the conference line. "Anyone want to place bets on who just walked into the office? Everyone who answered 'Mr. Barnes' gets twenty bucks from everyone who said someone else."
This was shaping up to be quite possibly the second worst day ever. After all, he hadn't died yet, so the day still had a ways to go to move into first place.
"Who's where? Doing what exactly?" Amanda's voice cut in suddenly. "I can be there - just say the word."
"I am sorry, what?" Marie-Ange actually sounded startled. "Doug, repeat that, because you are not making any sense." In the hotel room, she had picked up her phone, set the hands-free device in her ear and then let herself into Wanda's room next door, holding up a note with "Text Amanda?" written in large block letters. If things started to go badly at the office, then they would need to move -very- quickly.
For her part, Wanda held up the cellphone in her hand at Marie-Ange to show they were on the same page when it came to calling in all the troops. Typing as quickly as she could, she glanced over at the other phone she'd been using for the conference. "Would a recap be easier now or shall we just see what Mr. Barnes wants?" she asked dryly.
"My name is James Buchanan Barnes, although I assume by your pilfering of my apartment that you've already at least done some basic research. I was a reporter for 'Stars and Stripes' magazine in the Second World War, during which I was assigned to be the personal liaison to Captain America. I've seen that look before, and yes, he was more than just a publicity stunt to sell war bonds. After the war, I worked for several different major news outlets as a photojournalist, including Time, Life and the New York Times, up until my retirement in 1993. Since then, I release the odd book and lecture occasionally."
"During the Second War World, I was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by Bill Donovan, which led to my role with the Captain. Following the war, in 1948, Admiral Hillenkoetter contacted a number of former OSS operatives with an offer to join his new Central Intelligence Agency, which would replace the OSS." He accepted a cup, sniffed it, and passed it back. "Two sugers, one milk, no bodily fluids. Please try and contentrate, Miss Black."
"I worked for the Agency for twenty years, before resigning in 1968. I will spare you the details, but the leadership of the Agency and my own ethical code had been diverging for years, and an incident proved the final straw." Barnes said, his voice steady and firm, as if he was merely delivering a report. "Any good journalist is essentially an intelligence operative, so for the remainder of my career, I have maintained a healthy interest in developments around the world. When Ms Frost acquired the building, and men the likes of Peter Wisdom and Gambit appeared, I first thought I might finally be a target. When it became clear none of you had the slightest clue who I was, it was easy to keep covert tabs on you, and by matching your absences with the news, develop an understanding of what you people are about."
The dryness in Emma's voice wasn't undermined by the fact that she was on the other end of a phone line. "You must be an old-fashioned journalist, Mr Barnes. investigative journalism is so quaint these days. Positively old-fashioned even." Emma couldn't bring herself to be surprised by Barnes' revelations; the fact that he had stayed in the brownstone despite various happenings had indicated that he wasn't exactly what he had appeared to be.
Doug thumbed at his phone under the cover of the conference table, tapping out a message by feel, and keeping his eyes on Barnes. ~Hold position for now, but stay ready,~ he sent to Amanda. Barnes wasn't making any overtly threatening moves, and in fact seemed to be explaining the situation to them. If things went sideways, though, Amanda's ability to teleport made her a very helpful backup.
"An incident?" he asked, catching the subtle emphasis Barnes gave the word, and prompting him to elaborate.
"In 1968, my daughter Rebecca Barnes was reported by Army authorities as KIA in her service as a nurse in a forward firebase. This was not the truth." For the first time, Barnes' implacable expression cracked, a hint of anger and regret crossing over his face. "Rebecca was not a nurse. She was... different."
"She was covert ops," came Amanda's voice through the speaker phone, matter of factly. "And I'm guessing she had some kind of powers too, to be recruited."
"Nineteen sixty-eight? The Vietnam conflict?" Marie-Ange said, voice . "Mister Barnes, are you quite seriously about to tell us what I think you are about to tell us?" Their brief investigation of the mysterious Winter Soldier urban legend had put the first rumors at the end of the Vietnam War.
"Technically, Rebecca was my stepdaughter, although few people know. Her real father was Captain America. I won't reveal his real name." Bucky said finally. "He had been the result of a program called SUPER SOLDIER during the early days of the war. It made him faster, stronger; about as physically perfect in all aspects as is humanly possible. Whatever process was used passed certain traits down to his child, Rebecca. The Agency recruited her over my objections in the mid-sixties. She would have been younger than most of you when she was killed during a CIA operation on the Loatian border. They refused to provide any details of her death to me. I had been cut out of the loop. A month later, I was in a room speaking with Ronald Haeberle, an Army photgrapher who we had tapped for intelligence on our own troops. He passed me a series of photos from a raid on the village of S'on My by the 23rd's Charlie Company, supposedly an attempt to trap the retreating 48th Battalion of the NLF. I passed along some excerpts of the photos and contact information for some of the men involved to Seymour Hersh, an old friend of mine. It led to the end of my time at the CIA."
He paused, and looked up. "Did none of you think to look into the name 'Winter Soldier'? The CIA sent my daughter into an illegal war, and when she fell into enemy hands, they sent us back an empty casket. And then, in 1973, the first rumours of a new Russian super soldier program trickle out of Russia under the codename WINTER SOLDIER. The bastards might as well have sent me a goddamn telegram mocking me."
"Mr. Barnes," Wanda replied, "you have to understand that when we first started to investigate this matter, I was one of the few that had heard the name Winter Soldier. Some had heard it in mention with Vietnam war crimes but I had heard rumors while looking for other stories in Europe. But all we have found, and all I had heard prior to this, had been rumors. Nothing more. A ghost assassin working for the KGB - if the Winter Soldier goes beyond rumors, the information is buried very deeply."
Doug had been watching Barnes intently the whole time, trying to parse through the information they were being given, and extrapolate what wasn't being said. "So you're saying that your stepdaughter is the Winter Soldier." It would neatly explain the appearance of the name 'Barnes' in the file Amanda had examined - it just turned out the name had been Rebecca, not James. "So what are we dealing with? Brainwashing?" he asked, still not entirely trusting of Barnes, despite the fact that the report from Muir Island had said that he was a baseline human, and plainly not capable of the superhuman things that the Winter Soldier could apparently do.
"Surprisingly enough, the Soviet Union decided not to provide me with a full dossair about just what they did to my daughter. I can tell you that none of her missions showed any indications that she was operating with anything less than total commitment to her orders. If she had wanted to escape or to contact myself or American forces, she chose not to take advantage of any number of opprotunities to do so." Barnes said quietly. "I believe we must assume that whatever methods the Soviets used to turn her into their ally, whether coersive or not, have been successful."
"You came to us, Mr. Barnes," Amanda said in the pause that followed. "You obviously want something. What's it to be?"
"Winter Soldier may be a Soviet era weapon but Rebecca Barnes is my daughter. If there's anything left of her that can be saved, I have to try."
"Get tickets to Moscow. You can meet us here." Marie-Ange's voice came through the phone, clear and firm. "All of you, including you, Mister Barnes. Make whatever arrangements you like, or travel with our team, it is your choice. But please do not pepper spray any more of my people?"
Doug had one of the chairs in the conference room leaned back as far as it would go, because it hurt like hell to actually sit up straight. He was glad in one respect that the rest of the team members on the far end of the line couldn't see just how badly he'd gotten worked over by a man three to four times his age. He supposed he was proving that old saw about old age and treachery all too true. "He completely caught me by surprise," he admitted aloud. "He came back to the brownstone way too quickly, he must have gotten some kind of warning," he continued, the tone of his voice clearly saying that he didn't blame Jubilee in any way. It was becoming obvious that they had all underestimated Mr. Barnes.
"I think it is safe to assume he will not return to his apartment." Marie-Ange's said. In her hotel room, she was seated on the floor, back against the bed, with a notepad resting on her knees. "If he is this Winter Soldier, we have been sitting on a double agent right under our noses for years." And overlooking him because of his age, which they should have known better, just because of Magneto. "He could be on the other side of the country by now."
"Might be, although I get a feeling the guy might come back for his stuff," Jubilee replied, glancing over at Doug to check he was still doing okay. "I didn't find anything particularly incriminating in his safe, birth certificate, guy is eighty-four, full name appears to be James Buchanan Barnes and he was married to a Gail Richards, she's dead by the way, and I found a birth certificate for someone called Rebecca, also deceased. Apart from that, there were family photos, they all seemed pretty happy, some military medals, I took photos of them since I've got like, no idea."
Behind them, on the other side of the office, the elevator doors slid open and an elderly man walked into the front reception area. He was certainly old, but he held himself erect, back ramrod straight and no sense of fatigue in his movements. It was like watching an old soldier at a memorial - obviously advanced in his years, but still enough of a shadow remained of what he had been to make it obvious. He quickly scanned the room, his eyes taking everything in, before walking forward to the main desk. "Ms. Black, is it?" He said, picking up her name from the plaque on the desk. "I would like to have a word with Mr. Wisdom or Ms Braddock, if possible."
When the doors opened, Cammie was busy taking three seconds to read through an old issue of The Onion. The horoscope for Scorpio did make her giggle. Don't worry: You're more than just a collection of annoying, loosely bundled neuroses. There are some tightly wound dangerous psychoses in there too. She had to check these more often. They had to be the best thing since... oh crap, there was someone here.
Cammie looked up, scooting the old, fake paper under her sociology text book. She did work on school shit while working, truthfully she had quite a bit of time between phone calls and stuff, "Um, yeah," Cammie started, "There's a meeting going on right now, so I can take your name...?" It didn't help that she didn't know either of the people he mentioned personally. But people didn't exactly stumble in here, either. So someone would be able to talk to him, when they weren't all busy.
"I am afraid that I must insist, young lady. The matter is..." He paused for a moment. "Urgent might be an understatement. I'm James Barnes."
If she had been drinking anything at that moment it would have ended up all over her fancy don't-use-this-for-porn work computer. Given her habit of imbuing highly toxic or corrosive things, it was doubly a good thing. Cammie opened her mouth and then closed it before opening it again, "Gimme a second and I'll get someone up here," she said. She could say more than three words without swearing, though she had to hold back the reflexive 'holy shit.' She hit the button to buzz the phone in the conference room, knowing they couldn't really shoot her head off for this all things considered.
Jubilee hit the button to open another line, knowing Doug was still too bruised to want to be moving about much. "Yes?"
"Yeah, sorry to interrupt and stuff, but I got someone out here I think you guys might want to talk to," Cammie said simply, "And I mean really."
Doug's eyes narrowed. Cammie sounded...nervous, which wasn't like the newest member of X-Force. "I'll be right out," he told her, disengaging the intercom before returning to the teleconference line. "Hold on a minute, something's up," he told the team members on the far end before getting up and crossing to the conference room door. He went out and down the hallway, turning the corner to see what had Cammie so spooked...
His eyes widened at the sight of Mr. Barnes, and he reflexively reached behind his back for a gun that wasn't actually there, but locked in a box in his server room. The moment of panic passed, and the older man was clearly doing his best to make no threatening moves, so Doug made himself untense. "What can we do for you, Mr. Barnes?" he asked with an edge to his voice.
"You can take me to Mr Wisdom or Ms Braddock, Mr Ramsey. No offense to you, but I'd prefer not to have to repeat myself to every level of this organization before getting to the decision makers." He said, standing calmly in the lobby with his hands resting comfortably on his cane.
"Ms. Braddock and Mr. Wisdom are both on sabbatical and out of the country at present," Doug said in a neutral tone of voice, trying to give away as little as possible to the older man. Given the information they were currently trying to sort through, their suspicions about Barnes, and how few members of the team were currently in the office, Doug wasn't very interested in letting him past the lobby without a good reason.
Of course, that was the same exact thought he'd had in the lobby of the brownstone, and he winced to remember how that had gone. Of course, this time he had Cammie as backup if things went in that direction. His eyes flicked to the desk where she was watching the byplay with her head pivoting back and forth like she was at a tennis match.
"I see. And what name does Gambit go under these days? LeBeau?"
Doug grunted. "He's...unavailable." Because he sure as hell wasn't going to say "he got captured in a trap" to a man he had very little reason to trust at the moment.
Bucky sighed; more resigned than frustrated. "It looks than like the rest of you have been promoted. How nice for you." He began to stride into the office, passing. "I would assume that Ms Colbert and Ms Frost have assumed some form of temporary command. Let's go, young man. Get them conferenced in and get started. I'm an old man, you know. You, Black. Two sugars, one milk."
Doug let the old man walk by. He could always have Cammie stick her finger in his coffee or something. "We were in the middle of a conference call when you showed up," he informed Mr. Barnes, pointing to the conference room door. As the pair walked in, Doug spoke up so the others could hear on the conference line. "Anyone want to place bets on who just walked into the office? Everyone who answered 'Mr. Barnes' gets twenty bucks from everyone who said someone else."
This was shaping up to be quite possibly the second worst day ever. After all, he hadn't died yet, so the day still had a ways to go to move into first place.
"Who's where? Doing what exactly?" Amanda's voice cut in suddenly. "I can be there - just say the word."
"I am sorry, what?" Marie-Ange actually sounded startled. "Doug, repeat that, because you are not making any sense." In the hotel room, she had picked up her phone, set the hands-free device in her ear and then let herself into Wanda's room next door, holding up a note with "Text Amanda?" written in large block letters. If things started to go badly at the office, then they would need to move -very- quickly.
For her part, Wanda held up the cellphone in her hand at Marie-Ange to show they were on the same page when it came to calling in all the troops. Typing as quickly as she could, she glanced over at the other phone she'd been using for the conference. "Would a recap be easier now or shall we just see what Mr. Barnes wants?" she asked dryly.
"My name is James Buchanan Barnes, although I assume by your pilfering of my apartment that you've already at least done some basic research. I was a reporter for 'Stars and Stripes' magazine in the Second World War, during which I was assigned to be the personal liaison to Captain America. I've seen that look before, and yes, he was more than just a publicity stunt to sell war bonds. After the war, I worked for several different major news outlets as a photojournalist, including Time, Life and the New York Times, up until my retirement in 1993. Since then, I release the odd book and lecture occasionally."
"During the Second War World, I was recruited into the Office of Strategic Services by Bill Donovan, which led to my role with the Captain. Following the war, in 1948, Admiral Hillenkoetter contacted a number of former OSS operatives with an offer to join his new Central Intelligence Agency, which would replace the OSS." He accepted a cup, sniffed it, and passed it back. "Two sugers, one milk, no bodily fluids. Please try and contentrate, Miss Black."
"I worked for the Agency for twenty years, before resigning in 1968. I will spare you the details, but the leadership of the Agency and my own ethical code had been diverging for years, and an incident proved the final straw." Barnes said, his voice steady and firm, as if he was merely delivering a report. "Any good journalist is essentially an intelligence operative, so for the remainder of my career, I have maintained a healthy interest in developments around the world. When Ms Frost acquired the building, and men the likes of Peter Wisdom and Gambit appeared, I first thought I might finally be a target. When it became clear none of you had the slightest clue who I was, it was easy to keep covert tabs on you, and by matching your absences with the news, develop an understanding of what you people are about."
The dryness in Emma's voice wasn't undermined by the fact that she was on the other end of a phone line. "You must be an old-fashioned journalist, Mr Barnes. investigative journalism is so quaint these days. Positively old-fashioned even." Emma couldn't bring herself to be surprised by Barnes' revelations; the fact that he had stayed in the brownstone despite various happenings had indicated that he wasn't exactly what he had appeared to be.
Doug thumbed at his phone under the cover of the conference table, tapping out a message by feel, and keeping his eyes on Barnes. ~Hold position for now, but stay ready,~ he sent to Amanda. Barnes wasn't making any overtly threatening moves, and in fact seemed to be explaining the situation to them. If things went sideways, though, Amanda's ability to teleport made her a very helpful backup.
"An incident?" he asked, catching the subtle emphasis Barnes gave the word, and prompting him to elaborate.
"In 1968, my daughter Rebecca Barnes was reported by Army authorities as KIA in her service as a nurse in a forward firebase. This was not the truth." For the first time, Barnes' implacable expression cracked, a hint of anger and regret crossing over his face. "Rebecca was not a nurse. She was... different."
"She was covert ops," came Amanda's voice through the speaker phone, matter of factly. "And I'm guessing she had some kind of powers too, to be recruited."
"Nineteen sixty-eight? The Vietnam conflict?" Marie-Ange said, voice . "Mister Barnes, are you quite seriously about to tell us what I think you are about to tell us?" Their brief investigation of the mysterious Winter Soldier urban legend had put the first rumors at the end of the Vietnam War.
"Technically, Rebecca was my stepdaughter, although few people know. Her real father was Captain America. I won't reveal his real name." Bucky said finally. "He had been the result of a program called SUPER SOLDIER during the early days of the war. It made him faster, stronger; about as physically perfect in all aspects as is humanly possible. Whatever process was used passed certain traits down to his child, Rebecca. The Agency recruited her over my objections in the mid-sixties. She would have been younger than most of you when she was killed during a CIA operation on the Loatian border. They refused to provide any details of her death to me. I had been cut out of the loop. A month later, I was in a room speaking with Ronald Haeberle, an Army photgrapher who we had tapped for intelligence on our own troops. He passed me a series of photos from a raid on the village of S'on My by the 23rd's Charlie Company, supposedly an attempt to trap the retreating 48th Battalion of the NLF. I passed along some excerpts of the photos and contact information for some of the men involved to Seymour Hersh, an old friend of mine. It led to the end of my time at the CIA."
He paused, and looked up. "Did none of you think to look into the name 'Winter Soldier'? The CIA sent my daughter into an illegal war, and when she fell into enemy hands, they sent us back an empty casket. And then, in 1973, the first rumours of a new Russian super soldier program trickle out of Russia under the codename WINTER SOLDIER. The bastards might as well have sent me a goddamn telegram mocking me."
"Mr. Barnes," Wanda replied, "you have to understand that when we first started to investigate this matter, I was one of the few that had heard the name Winter Soldier. Some had heard it in mention with Vietnam war crimes but I had heard rumors while looking for other stories in Europe. But all we have found, and all I had heard prior to this, had been rumors. Nothing more. A ghost assassin working for the KGB - if the Winter Soldier goes beyond rumors, the information is buried very deeply."
Doug had been watching Barnes intently the whole time, trying to parse through the information they were being given, and extrapolate what wasn't being said. "So you're saying that your stepdaughter is the Winter Soldier." It would neatly explain the appearance of the name 'Barnes' in the file Amanda had examined - it just turned out the name had been Rebecca, not James. "So what are we dealing with? Brainwashing?" he asked, still not entirely trusting of Barnes, despite the fact that the report from Muir Island had said that he was a baseline human, and plainly not capable of the superhuman things that the Winter Soldier could apparently do.
"Surprisingly enough, the Soviet Union decided not to provide me with a full dossair about just what they did to my daughter. I can tell you that none of her missions showed any indications that she was operating with anything less than total commitment to her orders. If she had wanted to escape or to contact myself or American forces, she chose not to take advantage of any number of opprotunities to do so." Barnes said quietly. "I believe we must assume that whatever methods the Soviets used to turn her into their ally, whether coersive or not, have been successful."
"You came to us, Mr. Barnes," Amanda said in the pause that followed. "You obviously want something. What's it to be?"
"Winter Soldier may be a Soviet era weapon but Rebecca Barnes is my daughter. If there's anything left of her that can be saved, I have to try."
"Get tickets to Moscow. You can meet us here." Marie-Ange's voice came through the phone, clear and firm. "All of you, including you, Mister Barnes. Make whatever arrangements you like, or travel with our team, it is your choice. But please do not pepper spray any more of my people?"