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It had been a long night. Bucky had tried to get some sleep on the flight over to Germany but every time he’d get close the cold would jolt him awake. It was for the best. He stared out at the black night and fought back memories of a sky like this one alight with fire. The sound of bullets whirring past his head, explosions in the distance, and the screams of men too young to have even lived had filled the air on those nights. An entire continent ablaze. As he passed downwards through the wispy clouds and Germany came into sight he exhaled with astonishment at the lights. Where once there had been carnage, where once there had been death, there was life. It was one thing to hear and read of the country’s resurgence but another to see it with his eyes. It was astounding, more astounding even than Steve’s daughter or Tony Stark’s suits. It was almost like the war hadn’t happened.

By the time Bucky boarded his flight to Jakarta he soon gave into the tiredness. The sun had long since climbed high into the air and the cloudless sky provided no shade for Barnes aboard the aircraft but he slept sounder than he might have done in the dead of night. His dreams were vivid. More like half-forgotten memories than dreams. Barnes saw himself crouched in a booth at an Opera house looking through the scope of a sniper rifle at a handsome young couple. He saw himself covered in blood running barefoot across the roof of favelas with a hatchet in his hand. In London calmly sipping tea in a cafe opposite a burning building whilst all about him lost their heads. As Bucky woke he found the images lingered in his mind.

Stood over him was a young SHIELD agent that had accompanied him from Germany that morning. He remembered the agent saying his grandfather had fought with Steve at a battle that neither he nor Bucky had been at. Barnes thought he’d thanked the man but amidst his tiredness he couldn’t quite remember their exchange. Finally the wall of warmth that hit him as he deplaned in Jakarta woke him up properly and he followed after the agent towards a woman and two men approaching them. The woman was tall and dark-haired with streaks of white in it. She was beautiful, almost impossibly so, and moved as if she were aware of the fact. 

“Welcome to Jakarta, Captain. My name is Valentina Allegra de la Fontaine. I’m Station Chief here in Indonesia.”

Valentina extended her hand, silkly smooth to the touch, and Bucky shook it and smiled politely. “Nice to meet you.”

“These two gentlemen are Agents Brent Jackson and Michael Stevenson. They’re part of my team here in Jakarta and they’ll be working alongside us on this operation. Good men, both of them, reliable too. In the event that this thing goes south on us you’ll be glad to have them on your side.”

Jackson had short blonde hair, a goatee that he clearly meticulously groomed, and donned a white, orange, and blue gilet that even Bucky knew to be out of the ordinary. The thick glasses that rested on his nose were not dissimilar from Smiley’s but were markedly trendier than the Deputy Director’s had been. Stevenson was a big, broad man with slicked back brown hair and he towered over Bucky, Jackson, and Valentina. His face was warm and he smiled at Bucky as the two made eye contact. Beneath his eyes lay a propensity for violence that only a man like Barnes could diagnose. It was the same instinct he had.

An oily smile appeared on Jackson’s face. “That’s the nicest thing she’s said about either of us in sixteen months.”

Valentina smiled at the quip but Stevenson’s eyes remained glued on Bucky as he reached forward and extended one of his large hands towards him.

“It’s an honour to meet you, sir.”

It was the uniform. They knew he wasn’t Steve Rogers, Jeffrey Mace, or even Frank Simpson but the uniform seemed to have an effect on people. If wearing a star on his chest could make even the most hard-nosed SHIELD agents starry-eyed, Bucky wondered how the rest of the world would come to take the return of Captain America. He dismissed the thought from his mind and shook Stevenson’s hand, placing his other hand atop both of their hands warmly, as he sensed their meeting was more significant to Stevenson than he could understand.

“It’s a shame it’s not under better circumstances.”

Bucky said a cordial goodbye to the SHIELD agent that had accompanied him from Germany and followed Valentina, Jackson, and Stevenson to a blacked-out Jeep parked some fifty feet from where he’d been greeted by them. Brent took to the driver’s seat, Stevenson the passenger’s seat, and Valentina sat next to Bucky in the back. From the pouch on the back of the driver’s seat Valentina produced a file that she handed to Bucky as the Jeep pulled out.

“The Indonesian government is onboard on this one. Tiger Shark has been a thorn in their side for the past three years. They’ve spent most of that time lobbying SHIELD to move on Tiger Shark and now with an election on the horizon we finally decide to make our move. Needless to say they expect this thing to go as quickly as quietly as possible. We do not need a botched SHIELD operation to be the talking point of the next election here.”

Jackson peered into rear-view mirror at Bucky with a smile. “I believe what Val is trying to say that it’s her head if this thing goes wrong.”

Valentina smiled at the quip and shook her head disarmingly. “Thank you for that, Agent Jackson, I think the Captain could have deduced that one on his own.”

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There was an ease to the group that only came with experience. Their trust for one another was clear to see even to an outsider like Bucky and that de la Fontaine’s management style was so relaxed seemed to set the tone for her small team. Bucky sensed that it wouldn’t be long before the three of them were out of Indonesia and somewhere where they might be more useful. They’d need men and women like them in the fight against HYDRA.

Bucky had no intention of letting this one get out of hand. He smiled reassuringly at Valentina. “Just get me to Tiger Shark and I’ll handle the rest.”

Valentina returned Bucky’s smile with a warm smile of her own and looked to Stevenson in the passenger’s seat. “You’re up, Mike.”

Stevenson twisted round in his seat partially to face Bucky.

“When word came down on high that we’d be moving on Tiger Shark we set some of our contacts in the Indonesian underworld about spreading the word that there’d the haul of a lifetime coming through the Port of Tanjung Priok tonight. Tanjung Priok is the largest port in Indonesia and handles nearly fifty percent of Indonesia’s trans-shipment cargo traffic. It’s also the least efficient port in South Asia. Things have a habit of going missing in the stacks. The workers there are more concerned with lining their pockets than they are anything else.”

Bemused by the minutiae of Indonesian ports, Bucky lifted his hands into the air with exasperation. “Where are you going with this?”

“Just wait,” Jackson said into the mirror with a grin. “It’s a doozy.”

Stevenson started up again. “We’re going to load you onto a container ship setting sail from the port that will cross the stretch of the Indian Ocean where Tiger Shark most frequently operates. Given the kind of chatter we’ve been hearing since we put the word out about what’ll be coming off those stacks tonight, there’s no way he’ll be able to resist trying to get a taste.”

Bucky smiled knowingly. “The old Trojan horse.”

It was a trick as old as time. That wasn’t to say it wasn’t an effective one. There was a reason that it had stuck around as long as it had done. It worked. Bucky could remember at least three or four occasions in which Steve and he had infiltrated enemy territory during the war using some variation of the Trojan horse. It figured that they’d use Tiger Shark’s own strength against him.

A lock of Stevenson’s slicked back hair fell onto his forehead and he pushed it back before continuing his explanation. “From the little we know of Tiger Shark he lets his men do most of the dirty work and stays on his yacht whilst they slaughter the men onboard. Once Tiger Shark’s men have boarded the container ship you’ll have a three-minute window to board his yacht and extract him.”

Bucky made a mental note of the three minutes and then looked to Valentina. “Extraction?”

“That’s Brent’s wheelhouse,” de La Fontaine said with a nod in Agent Jackson’s direction. “If there’s anyone that can get you out of there, it’s Brent. He’s the second best helicopter pilot this side of the Pacific.”

The Jeep stopped at a set of traffic lights in time for Jackson to turn his head round and frown. “First best.”

“The second Tiger Shark’s men board the container ship he’ll be dispatched to your location,” Valentina said, tapping a finger one one of the pages of the file in Bucky’s hand. “Brent’s an asshole but he’s our asshole so try not to get him killed.”

A smile equal parts modest and playful crossed Bucky's lips. “I’ll do my best.”

The Jeep pulled out into the street and through the tinted windows Bucky could make out Tanjung Priok in the distance. Rows of cranes that hoisted the containers onto the stacks dotted across the skyline and the sky above the port was distorted slightly by all the smoke. As they pulled into the stretch of road leading to Tanjung Priok, Stevenson turned in his seat to face Bucky again. 

“So what do you think of the plan, Captain?”

Bucky glanced down at the pages in the file in his hand and ran through the plan in his mind one last time. It was strange. Bucky felt more at home sat in a Jeep full of strangers plotting the kidnap of an international criminal than he had done at any point since opening his eyes in the Triskelion. [i]These[/i] were his people. This was his life. He was a soldier first, a symbol second, and he always would be. He realised that as he met Stevenson's gaze and nodded at him determinedly.

“I think Tiger Shark’s not going to know what hit him.”