Sons of Liberty: Gone But Not Forgotten

[x-dominion.livejournal.com]

Before leaving for California, Kane makes a stop at the Brownstone to speak to Bucky Barnes.



Kane took the steps up the Brownstone landing in a single leap, wrenching open the door. His cellphone was still at his ear, and he was hoping that Ramsey was available. Otherwise, he had a very uncomfortable conversation ahead of him. As he opened the door, he stopped short at the inner security door, twisting the handle of the locked doorknob.

"Come on, Doug. Get the damn door. I'm supposed to be on my way to the airport to meet the Wicked Witch of the West to get on a flight."

Doug had gotten the buzz notifying him of a visitor to the building, and he saw Kane on the monitor, so he jogged quickly down the stairs to the lobby and let the Canadian in. "Garrison. What can I do for you?" he asked curiously.

"I need to talk to one of your building mates. You got anyone older than God named Barnes around here?" He said, already knowing the answer.

"Why does anyone ever bother asking rhetorical questions?" Doug muttered, mostly to himself, but loud enough that Kane could probably hear as well.

"Yeah. First floor. Hope he's expecting you, he gets cranky at the unexpected."

"That's kind of my issue. I need this guy willing to talk to me about issues from the fifties. If you've got any goodwill built up, I could use the help." Kane said. "Seriously, it's important."

"Goodwill?" Doug snorted. "The guy maced me in the face." He waved a hand. "Okay, granted, it was because Jubilee was searching his place because we thought he might be some kind of brainwashed Russian assassin, but still. I'm not sure the guy even knows the meaning of the word 'goodwill'." He shrugged. "But I'll give it a shot." He showed Garrison to the man's door, and knocked on it.

"If it helps, I've been tempted to mace you at times." Kane said out of the corner of his mouth as the door opened. Bucky Barnes blinked twice, and then took a sip from his tea cup.

"You had better be damn tech support, Ramsey. Otherwise, you and your squarehead friend can hit the road."

"Tech support? Why, what's the issue?" Doug asked, curious despite Barnes' abrasive demeanor. He shook himself, realizing he hadn't provided introductions. "James Buchanan Barnes, Special Inspector Garrison Kane of the Royal Canadian Mounted Police." He was good and didn't even do the usual "blah blah blah" motion at the mention of the RCMP.

"Mounted Police? What, did I run over a beaver and not notice?"

"I work for the FBI, Mister Barnes. I have a couple of questions I'd like to ask you. And I'm sure Doug would help with your computer issues." The look Kane gave Doug didn't exactly give him a way to back out gracefully.

Doug wouldn't have backed out, not when there was a chance of watching what promised to be an extremely sarcastic and interesting conversation. "What's the issue, Mr. Barnes?" he repeated. Clearly, Barnes had been a little too engaged with his cutting remark at Garrison.

"You. Queer bait. My email doesn't work." Barnes turned back to Kane. "So, Nanook of the North. Why are you interrupting my television?"

"Sons of Liberty mean anything to you?"

Barnes paused, and groped for his seat. "I apologize, Ramsey. Sit down. You too, Captain Canuck."

Doug did his best not to bristle at Barnes' jibe at him, concentrating on enjoying the barbs he was giving to Kane instead. The phrase 'Sons of Liberty' and Barnes' reaction to it pinged his mental radar, and he sat down and did his best to keep quiet and absorb everything that was said.

"The Sons of Liberty was a group several of us started in the fifties. You kids wouldn't understand the Pentagon's hysterical priority to develop new special programs over the years. We made a little group, William Naslund and I, to make sure that volunteers for any experimental program got the proper pension and support from the Army for their sacrifices."

"When's the last time you talked to them?"

"1965. I was on my way out at the time, and I just wanted to be sure that the coverups didn't involve killing good, innocent kids."
Doug kept his face smoothed over at the 'good innocent kids' line. It wasn't his place to bring up the story of Barnes' adoptive daughter, especially if Kane wasn't aware of her. Barnes might not be a member of X-Force, but Doug would keep his secrets just as readily as any of his teammates'. He'd earned that.

"What's your interest in them?" he asked Garrison, though clearly it had something to do with why the Canadian had come looking for Barnes.

"We've been getting crazy terrorist like messages from the Sons of Liberty. And only members know who talks to who." Kane pointed out. "Tell me I'm going down the wrong way?"

"It's not the most unoriginal idea for a name for ultra-patriots." Barnes pointed out.

Doug's eyes narrowed. "How 'crazy terrorist like' are we talking, here?" he asked Garrison. The word terrorist always set off alarm bells in his head, considering the line of work he was in.

"The Tree of Liberty must be watered from time to time with the blood of patriots."

"I hate that quote. It's very easy to die for your country. It's a lot harder to live for it," James walked over to his massive library. "I remember when injured soldiers would line up on broken legs to see Cap."

Doug was starting to feel a bit like a third wheel to the conversation between Kane and Barnes, but he stayed, watching them both. He was curious as to whether Barnes was looking for something in his library, or just walking as he gathered his thoughts. He also had a brief side thought that he would love to spend a day browsing through the large shelves of books the older man kept. "So there's some escalating rhetoric? Anything more?" he asked Garrison.

"Mister Barnes? Can you answer that one?"

"Let me tell you something, my young Mountie friend. Law enforcement might teach that aggressive tone because it works on most people. But I was one of the first through the gates at Dachau. I was armed with nothing but a camera when the Chinese hit the Yalu River. And I watched my best friend singlehandedly make sure that the first nuclear bomb to explode on a populated city wasn't manufactured in Germany. You don't impress me and you can't intimidate me." Barnes' voice hadn't changed, but the iron certainty underneath them sat Kane down as hard as anyone ever had. The Canadian flushed for a moment and cleared his throat.

"Now that we're clear. Will Naslund and I had been wrapped up in a Super Soldier program so top secret that less than 1% of Congress had knowledge of it. Over the years, the temptation has been there for both of us to leverage that knowledge whenever there's a breakdown in talks. The politicians who do know about it, even decades later, still are concerned that one day, one of these old men will decide that his life is basically over, and spill the whole truth. Captain America wasn't the only product of a secret program, and not the only fatality either."

"That's not really what I meant. A few days ago, several ATF agents were gunned down during a raid on a shipment of assault weapons. One of them left behind a note referencing the 2nd Amendment and signed it the Sons of Liberty. It's the sixth note of its type we've found at a scene of violence against either a government facility or law enforcement."

Doug's eyes widened. Six incidents definitely stood out as some kind of pattern of behavior to him. And he could see why Garrison was concerned. Federal agents getting gunned down was a serious thing, to be sure. He turned to Barnes, to see how he would react to that news. He may not have liked Garrison's interrogation-style tone, but this was something else.

"That- that isn't right. Our Sons of Liberty were always about veteran rights for volunteers for top-secret experimental programs. Most of the people who were in it would be old men by now, on government pensions or in VA hospitals. Will Naslund's almost ninety. If you're looking for an active terrorist group, the only connection they could have to our old group is the same name." Barnes shook his head.

"Can you be sure? You said that he had been part of a Super Soldier program. Maybe he found others."

"The only true Super Soldier the program has ever produced, to my knowledge, was Steve Rogers. When Will Naslund went through the program, it seemed to work, but after a few years, the effects faded quickly. No other candidate had even as much success as that. If it was 1947, sure. But now, he's just an old man like me." Bucky stressed. "I've known Naslund for six decades. Patriot, yes. Fanatic, no. The closest he'd ever come to terrorism might be making his experiences public." He slowly got up and walked over to his desk, and rummaged around for a moment before coming up with an address. "Go talk to him face to face."

It was a fairly clear dismissal, and Doug looked over at Garrison, and stood at about the same time the Mountie did. "Thanks for your time, Mr. Barnes. I'll take a look at your email now, if you like?" He cast a quick glance at Garrison to say that if the Canadian needed any help tracking people down, all he really had to do was ask. Not that the FBI didn't have its own resources in that regard, but still.

Kane just nodded. "Thank you for your time, Mister Barnes. I'll let you know how things turn out."