Chapter 25
"Take off the blindfold, Nicole," I said ten minutes into the lesson. "It gets in your way. You have a huge blind spot in combat." To illustrate my point, I ducked under her punch and hid in the very spot I was talking about. And from there, I delivered two light, signaling strikes: to the temple and to the throat.
"But you know what I have under it..." she began, breaking the distance and catching her breath.
"I know," I answered harshly. "A second eye that sees perfectly well. Perhaps even better than the first."
"But..."
"In a fight, there is no time for 'beauty.' Here you either fight to the death, or you don't fight at all."
"But that's in a fight..."
"And you never know when it will start. It's always sudden."
"But..."
"Then at least put a dark sunglass lens into the patch. Do you understand that your combat capabilities are reduced almost threefold because of it?" I finished an unusually long speech for me. It's amazing how I even managed it.
"I'll think about it," Nicole answered evasively.
"Right now, just take it off! You're spoiling all the fun for me."
"You're strange, Victor," she noted with a sigh, untying the strap of her eye patch. "Do you like looking at ugly women?"
"Right now you are not a woman, but a student," I replied, crossing my arms over my chest.
"Fine," she threw the patch into the corner of the gym. "Let's continue..."
We warmed up well. The session lasted no less than three hours. I was, in principle, satisfied with her physical shape. The same as Cap's. Maybe even a little better. But the technique left much to be desired. In general, she coasted almost entirely on reflexes and developed intuition. Plus extraordinary flexibility. That was essentially her entire combat potential without taking weapons into account.
"What do you say?" she turned to me when we, having already showered (in my gym it's separate for girls and boys. Just like the locker rooms. And no, we didn't take it together, as someone might think) and changed into everyday clothes, were sitting on the veranda (yes, I have a veranda in this house too. And it doesn't face the street, but the courtyard. I actually live practically in the suburbs of Paris. I don't like it in the city itself. There's just a smell of carrion coming from somewhere there and that's it) and drinking tea.
"Bad," I didn't spare her ego. "Technique is at zero. Against simple fighters, the abilities the serum gives are enough. But against someone tougher—a complete failure."
"Harsh," she noted. "But generally true. I've relaxed with these abilities. I rely on them more and more."
"You should rely on them. They are your strength. It's foolish not to rely on your strength. But technique is what distinguishes a fighter from a lummox, a sword from a crowbar."
"Hai, Sensei," Nicole drawled displeasedly.
"What brings you here?" I asked the question.
"I came home on vacation," she took a sip of tea from her cup.
"I recall you moved from here. A long time ago," I noted.
"I bought the house a couple of years ago."
"A couple of years?" I didn't believe it. Erik and I have been living here for four years now. And when we arrived, the same hired worker as now was already in that house.
"Right after the war," she corrected herself. The skepticism on my face was too clearly readable.
So she came for me. So the house was a long-term ambush, calculated for one sentimental old fool. Well, congratulations—the ambush worked. But I didn't say all this.
I just sighed and looked mournfully at the sky.
"Well, Uncle Victor, don't be offended," she touched my hand holding the cup. "Yes, I didn't believe that some pathetic Hydra remnants could finish you off. Max—maybe. But not my Uncle Victor, who knows how to do everything, can do everything, and is afraid of nothing!"
I again said nothing. What's there to say, they figured me out. My own fault. It's surprising they only made contact now. Waited four whole years. Although I haven't noticed any particular surveillance all this time.
"What are you offended by? What did I do? Why don't you admit the possibility that this is my private initiative?" Wow, she reads me like an open book. Not only what I didn't say, but even what I didn't formulate. Although... She was preparing for the conversation... probably.
"The director of S.H.I.E.L.D. cannot have a private initiative," I replied.
"You know about S.H.I.E.L.D. too," she let go of my hand and grew gloomy. "So you don't believe me..."
"I believe. I believe Nicole. I don't believe the director of S.H.I.E.L.D.," I replied.
"The house belongs to Nicole, not to S.H.I.E.L.D. And I really am on vacation," she replied.
I silently took a sip of tea from my cup. Words decide little here. After some time, Nicole broke the established silence.
"Do you know that the Union has granted you Soviet citizenship?" I shook my head.
"So here it is: you are an Honorary Citizen, twice Hero of the Soviet Union, Major of the Red Army Creed. You are listed as missing in action," I merely shrugged. A cunning move on their part. If dead—then a dead Hero is an example to follow for future generations of youth. If alive and surface somewhere, they can demand the return to the "motherland" as a prisoner of war held by force. And simply—a good bait.
Honestly, I expected them to pin desertion on me. And maybe they still will. That's what they gave the rank for, along with the status of a serviceman, his rights and obligations. After all, a civilian, and a citizen of a foreign state at that, cannot desert, since he owes nothing to anyone.
In any case, I am not going to the Union in the coming years. Especially under the name of Victor Ivanovich Creed.
Having been there during the war, I understood one thing: to be happy in the Union, you have to be born in it. This condition is not sufficient, but absolutely necessary.
"Anyway," she shook her hair, as if putting an imaginary period, "I'm glad to see you. And that won't change anything."
"Me too," I smiled. "Are you here for long?"
"For a month. Will you help me with my technique?"
"It all depends on you. How you work."
"You know me," Nicole pouted.
"Exactly. That's why I'm saying it," I nailed it down.
* * *
If on the first day in the windows of the gym, during our classes with Nicole, I noticed only one child's little face with round eyes and an admiringly open mouth, then on the second day, the heads of all the participants of both my groups were sticking out there. And their faces were all a copy of the first one.
Well, I understand them—a fight between two super soldiers, even a training one, especially a training one, is something that shocks and stuns the average person.
And when Nicole, missing me, hit the wall with her fist (a brick one, by the way) and broke through it... I thanked the gods that it was the fifties and there was no YouTube yet, and no smartphones with video cameras lying in the pocket of every brat.
But rumors were spreading. The number of spectators increased every day. This made me nervous.
On the fourth day, I went to the liquor store on the next street and bought the only bottle of terribly expensive cognac from them. Its name meant nothing to me, since I don't really understand alcohol. The trick with this bottle was that there was only one in that store.
And the fact that it was bought will tell Erik that I am waiting for him at the agreed place at three in the morning. That means I have something to say.
* * *
We were sitting on my veranda again. But this time there was no tea on the table, but a bowl of fruit, two cognac snifters, and that very bottle.
"How is Stevie doing?" between sips of the drink, the such expensive charm of which I do not understand, I asked Nicole the question. I wouldn't say the answer was important to me, but still, an acquaintance.
"Chasing all over the world. Looking for Schmidt," she sighed. "All of S.H.I.E.L.D. is looking for him. As if the bastard fell through the earth. Even Hitler turned out to be easier to find."
"Hitler?" I was surprised. "Didn't he poison himself in his bunker when the Soviets stormed Berlin?"
"A staged event," Nicole waved her hand. "He dug in in Antarctica. Concluded a treaty of protection and cooperation with the Union. Conducts some research for them."
"Well, wow!" I couldn't hide my shock. Heard, of course, in "that" past life different versions, including something similar, but never believed it. Thought the UFOlogists were bullshitting. And here you go!
I even shook my head.
"And what, are you just going to leave him be?"
"Let him sit there. He defanged himself with this staging. And Stalin won't let anyone get to him. His attack aviation already sank a whole American fleet there. They deployed a base not far from the Krauts there. Guarding the gold."
"Gold?"
"So Adolf managed to transfer almost the entire gold reserve of the Reich (including what was looted from the occupied countries) to the Antarctic base, like a hamster into a burrow. He pays off the Soviets with it. Made a cash cow out of himself: no industrial base, no food of his own, only what Soviet convoys and submarines deliver. And there pay for every transport... Those Krauts who headed to Australia and South America acted even more far-sightedly... Now Schmidt is much more dangerous. A genius with an inexhaustible source of energy and an extensive, well-camouflaged agent network, having the ability to deploy production in any Third World country..."
"Your Schmidt is dead," I decided not to obfuscate.
"How dead?!" Nicole didn't immediately comprehend.
"Quietly. In his sleep. Back in '43," I brought the snifter to my lips and took a large sip. What do they find in it, in this cognac? Literal bedbugs.
"And the Cube?"
"Don't know. Didn't look for it."
"And Klaus?"
"Klaus is dead too."
"So Hydra is finished?" Nicole asked with surprise and hidden hope. I shook my head negatively.
"Arnim Zola, Wolfgang von Strucker, Helmut Zemo... It's Hydra: 'Cut off one head, two more shall take its place,'" I shrugged. "So keep looking. They will still spoil everyone's blood."
"We will look," Nicole replied. "And you? Will you?"
"They didn't touch me," I looked into the girl's eyes. Heavily. Meaningfully. So much so that she even shivered. Maybe it was feigned. Maybe insincere. But what I wanted to say, I hope she understood.
"And where did Johann die?" Nicole changed the subject.
"In New York."
"And Klaus?"
"In Buchenwald."
"May they burn in hell," she raised her glass, saying a toast.
"We will all burn in hell," I replied calmly. And we drank without clinking glasses.
* * *