pronker

January 15, 1945 Gotenhafen 0800 hours

Nothing got a Howler down in the dumps quicker than boredom.

"Sarge, how long did Cap say we gotta stay incognito?"

Fury lowered his field glasses and rubbed his eyes. "As long as it takes to capture Parmanova for Cap after we figure out her plan. Dry up, Dum Dum, we've only been cooped up three stinking days. That's a walk in the park."

Dugan shrugged. "She's easy on the eyes, which is why you hog the binocs. Am I right, yez maroons?" He swung his arm around to include the squad nestled in various stages of repose in the small room above the tobacco shop. Everyone kept his kit in a particular way in a particular spot in the room, settling in like a flock of geese to nests they had built themselves. Gabe polished his horn, Izzy read the worn out Popular Mechanics he carried around with him, and Reb regarded the icicles spiking downwards outside the windowsill gloomily.

"This purely ain't like anyplace below the Mason-Dixon line, fellas. Cold 'n me don't get along."

Manelli lay on his belly atop three boxes he'd shoved together. "I'm sick of hearing about you and cold, Reb."

Pinky plucked at the yellow tassel on his Carlist beret before twirling his non-reg headgear on one finger. "Chaps, I have generally got patience but --- "

"She's opened the ratty curtains in her room. She's awake and dressed, prolly heading downstairs to the café for chow." Fury laid the field glasses in his personal nest and stretched, spine popping.

Gabe removed the mouthpiece from his horn; he held it up to a sunbeam breaking through their camouflaged observation window. "You and Cap cooked up a story yet about how come I'm with you, Sarge? I want to hear it. It must be a beaut."

Manelli laughed. "You are our captive, of course. We six bring your valuable person with valuable information about Ethiopian defenses. I speak German and look swell in disguise as a Kraut, so I'll do all the talking if Cap radios us to go public for the grab."

"Come again? I seen Ethiopians in a TravelTalk movie right before a double feature and I do not look Ethiopian, or talk Ethiopian, or anything Ethiopian. You guys are talking through your --- hats."

Manelli sat up so he could slap Gabe on the back. "We love you, too."

Fury answered the question put to him some time back as if he'd not heard the chatter among his squad. "She's fair in the looks department, yeah. I like 'em dark-haired, though."

"We know," chorused Fury's Howlers. "We know."

"Keep quiet! Tobacco in Gotenhafen may be scarce like the tobacco guy said, but that don't mean a Kraut soldier or civvie mightn't try to scare some up in the shop ten feet below. Cap said that the tobacco guy is top notch loyal to the Allies. He's done all right by us so far."

Izzy spoke up. "I wanted a hamburger last night and I got cabbage what he brung us. He ain't that wonderful."

IOIOIOIOIO

Despite Marya Parmanova's cramped room above a café and even more cramped funds, Gotenhafen held one magnet for a loyal Russian: the Amber Room. Crated, degraded and slated for transport to Germany, probably Kiel, though Marya considered it too soon to know for certain. No matter. She attached herself to it metaphorically since it left Konigsberg; it was her lodestone. Every so often she would wake, shiver and peer through the threadbare curtains of her room towards the blacked-out pier with its precious pile of crates. Soon her countrymen marched here on their way to Berlin, but what damage would faithful, vengeful soldiers of the Motherland inflict on ancient, fragile amber crated with German markings?

This is what spoiled her nights, not the murmur of bitter ersatz coffee drinkers downstairs, not the tinkle of dishwashing in the café sink and not fearful conversations in the hallway regarding which set of relatives to flee to before the Russians reached Gotenhafen. Neighbors up and down the hallway burdened their lives with families, elders, babies and newlyweds jammed into one room. She remained the lone single tenant until she met him.

"A simple-minded private with великолепный muscles and a well-shaped skull shining like beacon," thought Marya this bleak January morning. "I can use him."

He was a tall private with the closest Prussian haircut she had ever seen. He loaded his coffee with sugar and cream, how decadent of him. He looked old to be a private, but his scarred face roused her admiration: this was a fighter.

Marya made her move.

She swayed through the café tables, brushing against patrons as she murmured, "Pardon me, please" to gain attention while sashaying her hips in the fashion that always worked. He looked her way once and returned to his newspaper, idly stirring the brew that passed for coffee in these times.

"Good morning," she said without asking if the other seat at his bistro-sized table was taken. "I see you read English newspaper. May I practice English with you?"

He looked up when she sat down. For what seemed hours he did not speak. "Why?"

She shrugged as she bit deeply at her lower lip to make it flush. She knew it made her appear mischievous because both men and women had said so. "Good conversation is hard to find. I need to know truth."

"And you do not find it from a German source?"

This was the first test. Marya took a deep breath. "Not lately."

"Bring your coffee from your table. We shall talk."

Marya rose slowly, as if she had all the time in the world to fetch her black coffee from her table. Her lapis lazuli knit suit snugged in all the right places while she made her way there and back. "I am called Marya, a Russian name but do not hold it against me."

"Wolfgang von Strucker, at your service." He rose to click his heels and bow over her hand. This was no private. Intriguing.

The next hour passed quickly as they flipped through the newspaper. Marya discussed English cricket scores, English sales on gabardine outerwear, and the latest English battlefield triumphs touted on the front page. Wolfgang surprised her by dispassionately critiquing Germany's maneuvers, though never its armed forces.

At the end of the hour she knew he had been invalided into an extended leave, he was unmarried, and he was ambitious. She had let slip that she, too, was unattached, and that she awaited transport to "anywhere away from Gotenhafen" when the Wilhelm Gustloff sailed.

"Why that ship?"

She was ready with the answer. "Just look at it!" She waved her arm towards the pier that neither could see from the café. "Glassed in decks, guest capacity of fifteen hundred, gorgeous paint of white with green stripe --- "

"I saw it when I arrived yesterday. It is battleship gray."

"Use imagination, mein Herr! I am psychic and I see boat as it used to be --- "

"You are frivolous."

"Guilty, I admit freely."

He looked ready to leave upon hearing the word psychic, so Marya thought hard. Hmmmm, a second test was in order. "How goes it with English poetry by you?"

"I memorized Goethe's Faust at Heidelberg University."

"You are marvelous! Such German intellect!" Marya slapped his forearm. "And someday I would love to hear Faust in entirety, but today I write for amusement a limerick to practice English."

"Then I insist you read it to me." He appeared bordering on a smile. Marya yearned to break the grave demeanor to see which way his scars would slant.

At least he chose to sit still to listen where moments ago his bottom was nearly out of the seat. Marya dredged a small piece of paper from her sleeve and cleared her throat.

"There was a young girl from Pskov

charming, yet no regal Romanov.

Born late in July

(she grew up a fine spy)

when Julian dates there was no more of."

He remained sober. "I thought it would be dirty."

"Please, darling, in public? I am proper lady."

"So I see." He rose to bow once more. "I take your limerick to be only whimsy since you are no spy. Goodbye, Fraulein."

Opportunity demanded boldness. "My name is Parmanova and I am spy." She replaced the paper into her sleeve before leaving coins to cover her coffee along with his. "And so are you, because you are no private."

Hooked oh yes, hooked good and solid. He offered his arm and she stood to take it. "My room or yours for tête-à-tête, Wolfgang?"

Now he did smile. "Yours. I fear my four roommates would crowd us."

"I lead way."

IOIOIOIOIO

"Aw, no, shut the curtains, toots. I don't want to see --- good. You heard me. Mebbe you are a psychic like Cap says you claim to be." Fury plopped into his nest, leaning back into his pack. He extracted a can of C rations from it. "Yum, I can hardly wait to taste mystery meat. The label fell off."

Dum Dum plotzed beside him. "Don't want to see what?" He rested his derby on his bent knees.

"Her and von Strucker sealing the deal." Fury leaned away from Dum Dum's flailing elbow. "Hey! Watch those meat hooks! You'll make me spill it!"

"Von Strucker? Our Baron Bad Breath? That one?"

Fury took his first bite. "Pork and beans, my favorite. Yeah, that Baron. Pinky, crank up the unit, I'll radio Cap when I'm done."

Dum Dum knelt before the window, ogling through the spy hole. "How come we didn't spot him, how come, huh?"

Fury burped. "'Cause he's now a private. I won't believe he got busted from general since we ran into him last so he's just slinkin' away ahead of the Russkies, in disguise, you know."

Manelli joined Dum Dum at the window. "Give me the binoculars, caporale."

"Nothin' to see, lover boy." Dugan passed the field glasses to Manelli, who looked once and grunted.

Reb sounded sleepy, like the cold lulled him into hibernation. "Y'all think we can capture 'em both, Sarge?"

Fury scraped the bottom of the can, smacking his lips at the final spoonful. "Depends on orders. Cap said, and I quote his mellifluous tones, Think, Fury, of after the war ends. America will need women of her caliber to liaise with Russia and it's gosh awful important to secure her loyalty."

"By kidnapping her away from whatever her mission is? That'll put the Ewe Ess of Ay in right with her, that will," Dum Dum snorted.

Fury crumpled the can in one meaty fist and cocked an arm as if to toss it until Dum Dum blocked the throw with an exaggerated shhhhhhh. "Yeah, men, I dunno what she wants with those crates, neither," Fury said. "She's went to the docks every day, hangs out for an hour, and then tippytoes back to her room. It's like she cases 'em to steal 'em, but she can't take them anyplace without a ship or C-47."

Izzy stayed put in his nest as he joined in. "And it's gotta be a ship since we're on the edge of East Prussia and the deep blue Baltic and no C-47s within eighty miles. I place her on the fancy Wilhelm Gustloff myself." He went back to reading.

"I say, did you spy the glassed in decks on the W.G.? I'd fancy that comfortable a ship in January, too." Pinky adjusted the radio frequency before passing the mic to his sergeant. "Steady on, Sergeant, ready to transmit."

crcklespitwhzzzzeeeee deeeditditdit deeeeeeeeeditditditdit "Formica to Arborite, Formica to Arborite, come in Arborite." Fury drummed his fingers because he did not wait well without a stogie, but an answer came swiftly.

zzzzpppttttttrrrreeee --- "Arborite here."

Gabe whispered, "That's Bucky's voice."

"Yeah, what's goin' on?" Reb whispered back.

Fury plowed ahead, but delicately. "Arborite, where is ... Arborite Senior?"

"He's securing a B.S. from Fleet Admiral K."

"A B.S.? Arborite Junior, you're not allowed to use that language."

The young voice whispered until Fury had to lean in. "That's code for Big Ship so we can follow You-Know-Who."

"What's the rush?"

Now there was pride in the young voice. "Northern Horde will reach your position in approximately ten days. Intelligence predicts You-Know-Who will flee."

Northern Horde was the Russian army. "Yeah, we figure her to head for the hills before then with the crates on a fancy liner called Wilhelm Gustloff. Did Nimrod come up with a reason she's scared of her own people - "

"Arborite Senior here. Nimrod hunted down clues from Papa Bear to what she is after and it's a national treasure she wants back from the Nazis. Papa Bear doesn't know the details but he contributed a huge dossier on her character. The treasure is big enough to fill twenty-seven crates."

"Bingo! Sorry, sir. I mean, we've seen them on the pier. We've also seen Baron von Strucker in Gotenhafen disguised as a private and this very minute he's hooking up with You-Know-Who you know how."

"Blast."

"Yeah, we were surprised, too."

A moment passed as Fury assumed Cap's super-soldiered brain formed a plan. "Formica, the two of them together spell dynamite. You-Know-Who is clever enough to escape us in a panicked crowd. I'm not interested in capturing the Baron."

"We could do it, sir. There are seven of us and one of him."

"No. I want to concentrate forces on her. He flees his country in disguise with nothing but the shirt on his back. He knows Germany faces defeat and as a nobleman, his spirit will be crushed."

Speaking of spirits, Fury felt it his duty to point out inconsistencies to one spirit more pure than his own. "Er, sir, if he gets a woman on his side personally, they can be really, really inspiring --- and a woman like her, well --- "

"Those are my orders. I want her."

"Sir?"

"Formica, the Northern Horde must remain our allies and her talents are key. When this war ends, and God knows I want it to as much as you do, we'll have her. Saving the national treasure is secondary. She is Russia's treasure."

Fury knew the end of a discussion with the brass when he heard it. "Understood."

"Junior and I can reach a recently liberated port in days and we'll wait for you. Our ship will be synchronized with Nimrod's tracker. I expect you to deliver more intelligence on her methods and as for the Baron, I need you all to keep out of his sight. Permission granted to stretch your legs out of the room, two of you at a time. The tobacconist will supply civvies."

"Understood, Arborite. Formica out."

IOIOIOIOIO

"Dum Dum, you fit right into this crowd in those lederhosen."

"So did you until you just had to fix that overloaded family car."

"What could I do? They looked so sad and it was a easy adjustment to the carburetor --- "

"And then kaboom! A backfire that made everybody jump nine yards straight up. I thought I was back in the circus watching the Flying Wallendas."

"Do you think Herr Baron saw us?"

"Depends. If he was alive and in this crowd waiting to get a ship ticket to safety, then he saw us."

"What'll you think he'll do? If Sarge is right, he's got nobody to call for backup minions. He'd for sure want to, though. He hates our guts."

"Likewise. Besides, his goons are long gone, but you know what?"

"What?"

"If he can get to a radio, he could call in some favors with --- "

"Who?"

"Well, now, I dunno. Allies of Germany, mebbe."

"Italy is out of it since '43 and Japan don't hang out around here. Hungary and those other little countries don't count."

"I gotta tell Sarge about what you done, Izzy."

"Yeah. I know. Some leg stretching exercise this was. I wish I done isometrics instead."

"What songs you want at your funeral?"

February 28, 1945

As the gramophone borrowed from Captain Okada clicked itself off, Baron Wolfgang Franz Nikolaus Maria von Strucker smiled, he who rarely smiled. The expression skewed his scars and could be called reverent, so he made sure that no one else but Marya saw him today. She was a Slav, so she did not count. It was a pity she was a lowly Slav because of her charming ability to be all in all to him at this stage of his life, but her race was a fact and Aryans faced facts. He removed his gloves before touching the one wall of his shipboard bower that was not gray steel pocked with rivets. The golden gleam gilded his fingers as the single amber panel on display warmed to his touch, and his smile turned dreamy. As a kindergardner, he had sucked his thumb. If she were not here, he might take up the habit once more in pure indulgent ecstasy.

Von Strucker's thoughts drifted to an oxbow on the Upper Rhine, where Großvater placed him as a five year-old on his lap as the two sat upon green spring grass. "My mother remembers well when the Rhine curled like a corkscrew that will open a vintage Mosel for our luncheon today." Then Großvater nodded up at Urgroßmutter. Vater and Großvater had made a chair with their arms to carry her to the riverside picnic grounds from the Daimler Phoenix that led the three-car procession from Bavaria, two for family, one for servants. Urgroßmutter's spine remained straight in great old age, though her legs did not work properly. She transferred to sit on a cushioned chair that servants positioned at Rhine's edge under a linden. She interrupted her son's story about straightening the Rhine without begging pardon after six and a half minutes.

"The twentieth century is only three years old, but I am ninety-five years old. Make your story short."

"Jawohl, Mutti!"

Wolfgang knew better than to expect a wink from Großvater.

Großvater squeezed him harder instead. "And so, Wolfgang, Karlsruhe shows perfect Prussian planning. The palace tower centers the thirty-two streets fanning outward in straight lines from its hub, as I pointed out when we drove through the city this morning. Germany calls it the Fan City since Prussians invented the folding fan, too."

"My tutor says the Japanese invented --- "

"And do you see him picnicking with us today? I dismissed him for telling untruths."

"Yes, Großvater."

Vater left the seated group for the automobiles parked on the roadway above to aid Mutter, who lately had gotten fat. The two of them proceeded slowly through the tall grasses that plucked at Mutter's skirts on the slanted embankment. Wolfgang thought of a question to show he had been listening.

"Großvater, is planning a good thing?"

"Wolfgang, it is the best thing. Orderliness guarantees a perfect life, is that not so, Mutti?"

"If I say yes, will you allow me peace?"

Wolfgang thought harder. "Waters come in here" --- he pointed to the south, where the Rhine flowed towards the picnic grounds from an unseen source --- "to leave there" --- he pointed to the north, where the Rhine disappeared around a curve --- "so why did the straightener leave a twisty part? Why is not all the Rhine nice and straight?"

"Mutti, help me."

"Always, mein Sohn. Wolfgang, Tulla the straightener left in some oxbows to allow Rhinemaidens a place to hide their gold. Run down to the river to look for it."

Wolfgang sped to the river.

IOIOIOIOIO

"You dance divinely, Wolf," purred Marya, interrupting his reverie. She perched beside him, or as beside him as she could get, on the eighteenth century teakwood loveseat unexpectedly crated among Amber Room panels. Its burgundy velvet upholstery mostly contained its horsehair stuffing. Mostly. A bit stuck up through the lush material, just enough to make her squirm most attractively, Wolfgang mused. Although the hair jabbed through his jodhpurs, he prided himself on Prussian stoicism to not wiggle because, well, she may be his friend, yet there existed Prussian pride to uphold. Urgroßmutter would expect no less.

"Wolf," continued Marya, stroking the back of his hand where it rested on the amber, "where is our submarine bound, darling?"

Another fact to be faced as the war drew on was that he lost more faith in the Fuehrer day by day. The man edged into insanity, drew back from the brink, and then surged further down that dark path. Germany bound its fate to his. Whatever respect Wolfgang owed the Austrian burnt away until a dry husk remained, masked with pretenses of agreement to scheme after crazed scheme. There was one scheme Wolfgang thought Adolf might approve: an Alpine redoubt to ensure survival for his own inner circle if all were lost, but in recent days the idiot blindly insisted the war went well. Superior minds knew better, unafraid of the future. Are we not the supermen? Wolfgang mused. Aryan pure supermen? There was only one answer to his friend's question. "We sail from death to life, liebchen."

Marya laced her fingers through his and reached to enjoy the amber as well, but she stopped within one centimeter after a sharp look from her companion. "And in marvelous style!"

"And with one companion whom you have not yet met. A companion whom you will entertain." He stroked the point of her chin.

Marya leaned into the caress. "All I do, I do for you. It is my way."

Wolfgang mulled over events on this very loveseat. "Your agility is the stuff of legends, as is your wit."

"You speak truth, so it is not flattery." She traced the deepest scar on his cheek. "As you know, it is impossible to flatter me when truth does not threaten honor by lying. For example, it is truth that you and I enjoy friendship with benefits."

"You have confided that you hate truth, so does that mean --- "

"Never! With you? Never!"

"You could hardly answer otherwise."

The loveseat creaked as Marya knelt upon the velvet to lean over the divider. "I could produce an encore."

"Nein. Later."

"You only like me when you are bored."

Wolfgang rose to his feet after delivering a peck to the pouting plush lips. "Puppchen, we sail for the Lao People's Revar. True, that nation is landlocked yet we shall prevail upon the Reich's treaty with our honorary Aryans, the Nipponese, to debark at Haiphong Harbor and trek overland with our treasures" --- a frown marred her flawless brow --- "or perhaps we shall commandeer a cargo plane in Hanoi, which would be easier on you --- I'll ask Okada - "

Dare she interrupt him when he was being considerate? Curled upon the seat with legs underneath like a cat's, she shifted moods from lusty to curious to threatening. "Lao People's Revar? But I am White Russian! I refuse to mingle with sovietsky. Find somewhere else in Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere to land. I favor Madripoor."

She pushed, so he pushed back and sat down again to dominate with his nearness. "Are you sorry you came? I could have abandoned you to the commandos who howl, and where would you be now?"

"Pfah, I could have exposed you to them with one womanly scream. As it is, they can never reach Madripoor. Sail us to Malay Archipelago instead of Lao and I shall make it worth your while, in any number of ways." She produced a manicure file from somewhere and buffed her nails, squinting this way and that as she shaped them. The poking horsehairs must have bothered her dimpled knees because she shifted her weight back and forth as she continued to kneel.

Even though the idea flowered from a Slavic mind, the scheme deserved some thought. Madripoor could be bought; Madripoor held allies; Madripoor ran rings around Lao People's Revar in terms of sophistication. He and Marya could own Madripoor ... if it were not necessary to defeat local ninjas loyal to the Hand and its jonin. And the Hand's current leader, The Most Honorable Jonin Whatever-Their-Name-Is-Now. This sounded like work, in which a German, an Aryan, glorified ordinarily, but he deserved leisure to savor their golden treasure. It was best to buy some time with her before considering her plan. Taunting proved the best way, as always.

"Afraid?"

"Never! A true Russian fears nothing!" The file arrowed from her hand to pierce the velvet upholstery between his thighs. "It slipped, darling. Forgive me?"

"As much as you forgive me."

He plucked the sharpness out to twiddle it before her bright, bright blue eyes. He could end her with the file or with his bare hands, he knew it, she knew it, so why did she not cower?

She gripped the divider instead with nary a quiver in her taut figure. "Wolf, take the room and me to Madripoor."

"No."

"Kaigoon? Carupa? Karaku?"

She could bend in her desires in the most interesting ways. Delicious.

One way she did not bend in was her resolve not to have anything to do with Soviets and this made the following three days tiresome indeed.

"Keeeeyyyyy-ripes with a clutch purse, it's as big as an I-180!" Bucky hollered. The lad in blue and red hunkered hard over the Adamant's railing to take in the astounding sight of the Dragon of Death, ignoring Cap's restraining hand on his bicep. "What a shame it's an enemy sub!"

"We're in trouble," Cap said quietly enough that Nick Fury knew the words were meant to escape Bucky's eager ears. The captain of them all gestured to the sergeant at his left. "Fury, get your squad below. Let our Navy have first crack at the sub, but grab your weapons."

"It" possessed a dragon's head that appeared to spout flame. Fury hadn't a clue how the illusion worked, but it did. Days had become weeks as the Cannon Class destroyer escort Adamant earned its name APD High Speed Transport as its skipper pushed his ship to the limit pursuing the Dragon of Death from Gotenhafen.

The last people Fury saw topside was the skipper hustling over to Cap and the still-entranced Bucky. He looked up to the sky's bright blue, which he preferred as the color of a pretty girl's eyes before he met Pam, and then the hatch clanged shut. He hustled down the ladder, and the squad must have read his mind because they high-tailed it with clattering boots through the narrow corridor for their quarters. Sailors that he had gotten to know a smidgen in past weeks thundered past him to where the action was, either in the ship's guts or on top to man the guns. How did negotiations about the dame get so confused? Fury wondered. Once Okada realized that his oh-so-secret sub got tailed by a lowly destroyer escort burning after it around Africa through to the Pacific using the cutting edge LORAN-G tracker and top of the line sonar blockers in the chase, he'd surfaced to semaphore questions and answers back and forth with Cap in better English than Fury's.

The skipper of the Adamant forged an agreement to hand over the Russian spy in return for allowing the Dragon to head on her way. Or had it been too easy? Somebody got mad. Fury still wondered about the Captain America-Okada chinwag upon reaching the generous quarters given them. He suspected Captain America arranged the roomy expanse, though Cap and Bucky shared a tiny space.

M-1s formed a teepee in one corner of their quarters. Each Howler grabbed his weapon without checking closely that it belonged to him because, really, wasn't it SOP that after so long together they arranged their arms in the same compass rose position each time? Fury's was always northwest, assuming the wall - or bulkhead - was north.

He hefted his rifle, aware that all eyes rested upon him. "We'll come through fine or my middle name ain't Joltin' Joe." He expected griping.

He got it.

"All this fershlugginer crap for some dame we never even heard of before," growled Izzy.

Fury had his mouth open to reply when a kaboom! lifted him from his feet.

"Torpedo!" He adjusted to the rippling deck and so did his men, balancing on the balls of their feet while gripping their M1s as horizontally as a high-wire artiste hoists a weighted pole.

In the awful timeless time between a baby's hurt and her first scream, there comes the realization that this is just the beginning of bad. Fury felt the deck slant ever so gradually and by the looks on their faces, so did Dugan, Manelli, Cohen, Jones, Ralston and Pinkerton.

"We don't wait to take our Saturday night bath cuz we leave now. Grab your gear."

Before he could add, "Cap needs us," another kaboom! split the morning air, which was followed by cries in the corridor using Navy lingo that not one of them understood. Fire from one 3"/50 caliber deck gun answered the torpedo attack. Wait, only one gun? This sounded like more bad.

Part of his mind didn't worry about their safety because several ships lurked within call; one or two or three of them, quite close because orders stood to allow Adamant to negotiate with Okada via Cap and the skipper. Even if the Adamant sank, her crew would be picked up. The mission to secure the Russian woman proved a washout, though, and that rankled. Cap had his reasons for wanting her taken aboard.

As the slant worsened, Fury jerked a thumb upwards. As orderly as ever, the clot of Howling Commandos proceeded calmly to the ladder, but they opened the hatch to chaos.

The tail end of the ship --- the, the stern, rather --- wasn't the tail end anymore. The growing slant would knock them off balance if the scurrying sailors didn't do it first. What the hell were Cap and Bucky doing, not even taking cover except behind Cap's shield? The Dragon's deck guns ceased fire, the Dragon backed off the faltering Adamant, its threatening dragon head now flameless. If anything, the sub looked like a tourist taking Kodak Brownie shots of a doomed vessel for the folks back home. No one remained visible on deck, when international maritime law declared rescue efforts to an enemy ship's survivors ought to begin.

Fury wasn't holding his breath on that one.

Cap and Bucky cried out, no that was just Bucky yodeling defiance or something and then Cap grabbed his young pal to clamp his hands to the rail under his brawnier ones. The rail also slanted down as far as possible without actually being upright. The Howlers grabbed onto those cleat things studding the deck that sprouted everywhere.

"Cap!"

"Fury! Chase that sub! Get the woman!" Cap roared. "I don't care how!"

"Sir, yessir!" Fury paused. "How?"

"Ask Pinkerton!"

And then Cap darted towards the bridge, towing Bucky against the slant though it seemed impossible. Cap vaulted over an unsecured canister the size of a beer keg for a whopper promotion party to send it rolling towards his troops.

The canister unfurled partway as it rolled with paddles sticking out for legs. It reminded Fury of a gray roly poly bug, but he saw it to be a rubber raft. Everyone's footing currently resembled climbing into your bunk when you were drunk as a skunk. He slung his M1 over his shoulder and straddled the now smaller cylinder like he did a horse he had ridden once on a posh bridle path with Pam.

Since he couldn't fly over the slanting deck and he was almost sure Cap couldn't fly either, he grabbed hard onto the railing to soccer kick the raft towards his squad. The Howlers formed a chain with Gabe looping his great arms around the railing and various other Howlers anchoring onto him with their feet. Those guys, aw those guys, inflated the raft and stuck oars into oarlocks before you could say Jack Armstrong. When the sea bubbled beneath the Adamant just before Fury figured she was a goner, he and his squad hauled freight to follow the Dragon of Death.

What next?

IOIOIOIOIO

"Don't look at the wreck, I said."

"Sergeant, numerous lifeboats surround our ship."

"Noted and logged, Pinkerton. Now why would Cap say you know a tactic to stop a sub?"

Since everyone was in excellent physical shape, rowing at their top speed winded them not a whit. Pinky pulled at his oar in unison with his squad as he answered.

"I bally think he's considering our little chat about naval warfare while you Yanks played handball on deck with Bucky last evening."

To gauge their course, Fury looked over his shoulder at the Dragon of Death, whose leisurely rate of speed kept the raft's occupants busy as a jitterbug at the Roseland Ballroom and having one sixty-fourth as much fun.

"Yeah, spill it while you stroke. I need time to tacticize."

Pinky's prim tones told of a Great War battle only Fury had heard of. "Gallipoli turned out bloody awful except for --- "

"Gallipoli? You pick Gallipoli as inspiration? Aussies, Kiwis and you Brits failed --- "

Percy could shout when he had to. "Indubitably! Except this strategem worked!"

"Simmer down, Pinky!" Gabe could yell, too. "Sarge, what choice do we have?"

"Shut up and row, Jones. Pinkerton, out with it."

Pinky looked over his shoulder once at the enormous sub as he rowed. "Periscopes prove vulnerable to damage when sailors sneak up to it and break it. The submarine chaps won't submerge blind so they stay at surface. Subs make better speed up top, but their chief defense against ships' guns or depth charges is going down deep after attacking. I postulate arrogance from Okada when he selected to stay up top after attacking us. He's showing off, the bounder."

"And this tactic you know, how?"

"A ex-Navy chap I knew at Southsea resort told me he did just that in 1915. I believe him. He used a flogging hammer to break the periscope when his mates rowed him to a submarine."

Fury stroked harder. "And me forgetting my flogging hammer back on the Adamant!"

"Sergeant, I have just the tool." Pinky managed his oar with one hand and picked up his bumbershoot with the other. Still rowing, he passed it over his shoulder to Fury.

Fury matched Pinky's feat of rowing one-armed as he grasped the umbrella, fingered the icepick-sharp tip and then handed it back. "Hmmph. Your M1's sturdier --- "

"My M1 I shan't risk dropping into the briny if I overbalance. My brolly means piffle."

"All right, all right, gimme five. I'll think it over. Row, you 4F rejects." Nobody talked for four minutes as the sub proceeded in a disciplined fashion and they trailed twenty feet behind its periscope. At the fifth minute, Reb whispered something to Pinky and Pinky nodded.

IOIOIOIOIO

Junior Juniper always smiled. That was one thing which made Sarge certain he and Junior could never be friends. The boy grew into a man's shape but not into a man's mind. This was all right with Sarge because he could think for the two of them, in fact, for the seven of them: himself as leader Sergeant Nick Fury, along with Juniper, Manelli, Dugan, Gabe, Reb, and the ever lovin' Izzy Cohen.

"I say, sergeant --- " began Pinky, and that was when Fury remembered that Junior was dead. Pinky was Junior's replacement, straight from the repple depple. Pinky upheld the best traditions of his original unit and now Fury's unit. Fury jolted back to the present and an onlooker would have said the lines on his face appeared smoother following his brief excursion to the past.

An errant wave sloshed over the gunwale of the rubber dinghy. Izzy, Pinky, Dino, Reb, Gabe and Dum Dum continued to paddle with grim faces, but then Izzy's grin gave him away. Those five read him all too well, Pinky less well. They knew that cruising on waves soothed Fury in one way, and that memories surfaced whether he wanted them to or not. Well, he didn't want them to. Let Junior rest in peace because life was for the living and so was deciding.

"Yeah, yeah, go to it on my mark."

Reb and Pinky shipped their oars. Pinky, who had gripped his bumbershoot in both hands, nodded at Reb and whispered, "Yahoo."

"Yahoo, pilgrim," Reb whispered back.

"Mark."

Reb undid the lasso cinching his waist, twirled the pre-formed honda thrice and aimed perfectly for the periscope that zzzzrhsssted through the foam twenty feet away. He tied off the rope in record calf-roping time to the dinghy's front docking ring. The seven let out a breath they did not know they had been holding when ten minutes passed with no change in trajectory, speed, or depth. They upped paddles and sluiced along in a Nantucket sleigh ride, all arms and legs inside the craft, facing the sub now with all hands ready for action when word was given.

The dark steel shape beneath them could have been sharks or whales or some goofy critter straight out of the comic books, but Fury could handle those. This Dragon of Death he could handle, too, now that he had a tactic. Maybe the enemy tricked her out to scare the scareable, with a dragon's horned head, armored scales and suchlike, but she relied on a periscope like any other sub. Leave it to Pinky to crack open a battle tactic from the War Before and discover a way to disable the beast and leave it to Pinky to use a bumbershoot as a weapon. They'd been tasked by Cap to complete this mission and by George VI, they'd do that piffling thing. Their ship called the Adamant torpedoed from under them was piffle.

It couldn't be this easy. It couldn't. Fury gave the signal.

The dark shape smoothed its way through the current as six Howlers hauled themselves hand over hand on the rope to edge the dinghy closer to the periscope. The seventh clambered from his seat, jutting proudly into the sea just like an old timey figurehead on some British sailing ship bound for glory. Pinky placed one foot on the gunwale to gain height, grabbed the periscope and levered back his bumbershoot.

He stabbed the glass eye in one swift, sure stroke.

When the Dragon of Death slowed and then stopped to surface, the unmoored dinghy bobbed in place safely twenty feet away while Fury prepared to make sure that Cap's wishes regarding the Parmanova woman were carried out. It helped some that Cap had briefed him on the basics; he could make up the rest as he went along.