The words "metal left arm" detonated in Steve's mind like a high-explosive armor-piercing round.
The solid wood table shook violently. Steve's right hand shot out with a rush of air and seized Lynn by his trench coat collar. His immense strength dragged Lynn, chair and all, half a meter forward.
Clatter!
Two cups of scalding black coffee toppled over. Dark brown liquid streamed over the edge of the table, dripping onto the wooden floor. The intense, bitter smell instantly overwhelmed the sweet scent of cinnamon.
"What exactly do you know?!" Steve kept his voice low, each word seeming to squeeze through his clenched back teeth. Heat radiated from his body as though he had just exercised strenuously. His blue eyes were filled with shock, wariness, and barely concealed urgency.
Lynn did not resist. He let Steve's rough hand clamp tightly around his neck, even as breathing became somewhat difficult.
But he showed no panic whatsoever.
Lynn sneered inwardly. He took the bait. Steve Rogers, the most morally upright "gem" in the Marvel Universe-as long as I have hold of his fatal weakness, Bucky, he'll obediently become the sharpest blade in my hand.
"Cough..." Lynn coughed deliberately, a trace of bleak self-mockery appearing in his eyes at just the right moment. He raised his chin slightly and met Steve's oppressive gaze. "I told you, Captain. I'm just a low-level agent who could be fed into the meat grinder at any moment."
Lynn spoke very softly, but his voice carried the numbness of someone driven into a corner.
"That shot last night came from a water tower fifteen hundred meters away. They used a dumdum round." Lynn lowered his gaze to Steve's hand, its veins bulging. "If it weren't for Wanda's magic shield... I'd be a corpse with my head blown open right now. Do you think an ordinary logistics agent is worth sending that caliber of assassin after?"
Steve's breath caught, and his grip involuntarily loosened a little.
Lynn took the opportunity to knock Steve's hand aside and unhurriedly straighten his crumpled collar. He leaned back in his chair, staring straight into Steve's eyes.
"Inside S.H.I.E.L.D., there's a screening mechanism called the 'Zola Algorithm.'" Lynn delivered the most lethal piece of intelligence. "They use this algorithm to identify everyone who might obstruct the establishment of their 'new order.' Then they hand that death list to the ghost with the metal left arm to carry out."
At the name "Zola," Steve's pupils contracted sharply. Memories from more than ninety years ago surged back like a tide. Hydra's chief scientist, the very man responsible for Bucky's plunge into the abyss!
"They call that ghost the 'Winter Soldier.'" Lynn deliberately emphasized the words, his voice carrying a bone-deep chill. "A 'tool' whose memories have been completely erased, who knows nothing but obeying orders. Captain, do you understand what 'tool' means?"
Steve dropped back into his chair, his fists clenched tightly beneath the table. His knuckles cracked under the force.
"No thoughts, no sense of pain, just a blade for killing." Lynn leaned forward, resting his chin on his interlaced hands, his gaze turning utterly sincere and pained. "And now, they've set their sights on Wanda."
Lynn drew a deep breath, as though struggling to suppress his fear and anger.
"Wanda is too powerful. Powerful enough to make those at the top both afraid and greedy. They want to turn her into a second Winter Soldier! And I..." Lynn gave a bitter laugh and spread his hands. "I'm Wanda's only bond in this world. As long as I'm alive, she won't submit to their control. So I have to die."
This award-worthy performance was nothing short of perfect.
Lynn wielded the information gap, emotional manipulation, and moral coercion to perfection. Before Steve, he successfully fashioned himself into a tragic hero trapped by powerful forces, enduring humiliation and hardship to protect an out-of-control girl.
Steve looked at the young man before him. In that moment, he seemed to see his former self in a Brooklyn alley, holding a trash can lid and taking a beating yet refusing to back down; he also saw Bucky, brainwashed and controlled, carrying out assassination missions amid ice and snow.
An uncontrollable fury blazed in Steve's chest.
Not at Lynn, but at S.H.I.E.L.D., rotten to its core!
"Captain, you could bury yourself beneath a glacier for seventy years to save the world. But I'm not that noble." Lynn's voice dropped, carrying a hint of resolute hoarseness. "I'm just a selfish, ordinary man. I only want to protect the girl who was willing to give up her life for me in those ruins."
Lynn stood up and looked down at Steve.
"If protecting that bond means betraying all of S.H.I.E.L.D. and becoming a 'rogue ninja' in their eyes... so be it."
With that, Lynn turned and walked away without the slightest hesitation.
"Stop."
Steve's low, firm voice came from behind him.
Lynn paused, the corners of his mouth lifting into a cold smile of triumph while his back was turned to Steve. But when he turned his head, his face still wore that same weary, guarded expression.
Steve stood, his broad shoulders blocking the morning sunlight streaming through the window. He strode up to Lynn, unquestionable resolve burning in his blue eyes.
"You're not a rogue ninja, Lynn." Steve looked straight at him, his voice firm and forceful. "The real cancer is the people hiding in the shadows, pulling every string. I'll uncover the truth about the 'Zola Algorithm,' and I'll find that killer with the metal arm."
Steve reached out with his right hand and clapped Lynn heavily on the shoulder.
"Until then, I promise no one will treat you two as expendable. Not S.H.I.E.L.D. Not anyone."
Lynn looked at Steve's outstretched hand and fell silent for two seconds before finally taking it.
"Thank you, Captain."
His invisible shield had officially taken shape. With Captain America, that perfect "gem," standing in front of him, Hydra would have to consider whether they could withstand Captain America's shield before moving against him in secret.
At the same time, at the Triskelion in Washington, D.C.
Inside the top-secret control room seven floors underground, the air was as cold as an ice cellar.
Alexander Pierce stood before an enormous holographic surveillance screen, his expression utterly stormy. He stared fixedly at the surveillance footage of that Brooklyn bakery.
There was no sound. But he could clearly see Steve Rogers's fury as he grabbed Lynn's collar, and the solemnity with which the two subsequently shook hands.
Pierce's breathing quickened. He tugged irritably at his tie, feeling as though the expensive silk had become a noose slowly tightening around his neck.
"Sir, Captain Rogers just left the café." Crossbones, Rumlow, stood nearby, his right arm still in a cast, his expression equally grim. "Should we send someone to follow him?"
"Follow him to their deaths?!" Pierce whipped his head around, his gaze murderous. "That's Captain America! Do you think your men can evade his countersurveillance?"
Pierce turned his gaze back to the screen.
Panic. An unprecedented panic gnawed at his reason like a venomous snake.
What exactly had that lunatic Lynn, that wild card who could fool even a lie detector and held a nuclear bomb on a leash, told Steve?
Steve had only obtained the doctored fragments of "Project Insight" last night, and he had approached Lynn first thing this morning. This was no coincidence!
"He's overturning the table..." Pierce muttered, a fine layer of cold sweat forming on his forehead. "He never intended to cooperate with us. He's using Rogers to drag Hydra out into the sunlight!"
That absolutely could not be allowed to happen.
Project Insight still needed twenty-four hours before it could be fully activated. If Steve made a scene, that old dog Nick Fury would never stand idly by.
Just as Pierce's mind raced, searching for a way out of this predicament.
An eerie change occurred in the surveillance footage.
Lynn, who had been about to leave his seat, stopped moving. He picked up the half-full cup of cold coffee on the table and slowly turned his head.
He did not look at the pedestrians in the street or the servers in the shop.
He raised his head, his gaze crossing dozens of kilometers of physical distance to meet Pierce's eyes precisely through the cold surveillance camera.
Pierce's heart abruptly skipped a beat.
On the screen, Lynn's lips curled into a smile of undisguised mockery. He raised his coffee cup toward the surveillance camera in an outrageously brazen toast.
Then Lynn's lips moved soundlessly.
Having started out as an elite agent, Pierce was proficient at lip-reading in multiple languages. He stared fixedly at Lynn's mouth, piecing those syllables together in his mind.
-"Checkmate, Pierce."
Boom!
A chill shot up Pierce's spine to the back of his head. He stumbled back a step, knocking over the metal chair behind him.
Lynn knew he was watching! Lynn had deliberately dragged Steve into this for him to see!
"Sir?" Startled by Pierce's loss of composure, Rumlow hurried forward to steady him.
"Get away!" Pierce shoved Rumlow aside, his eyes bloodshot with extreme fear and anger. He lunged at the console, flipped open the red safety cover, and slammed down the black button with the highest authorization level.
"Wake the asset!" Pierce roared frantically into the communicator, his voice distorted with hoarseness. "Thaw the Winter Soldier immediately! Take Steve Rogers and that Lynn and..."
Before Pierce could finish, the control room's red warning lights began flashing wildly without warning.
A piercing alarm tore through the dead silence seven floors underground.
"Sir!" A technician pointed at the main screen in terror. "Project Insight's underlying firewall... has been breached by unknown code!"
Before you continue