Red Thorn

Chapter 18

Early 2016

Lagos

"Alright, what do you see?" Cap asked over the radio from his vantage point in a nearby abandoned apartment.

Wanda, who was sitting in a café, looked around. "Standard beat cops. Small station. Quiet street. It's a good target."

"There's an ATM in the south corner, which means..."

"Cameras," Pietro answered as he bit into the Akara he'd just bought from a nearby stand.

"Both cross streets are one way," the Captain pointed out. This was their way of training the two new recruits, getting them to analyse the situation whilst on mission. With a little guidance here and there of course.

Wanda took a sip of her tea. "So compromised escape routes."

"Means our guy doesn't care about being seen, he isn't afraid to make a mess on the way out," the supersoldier explained. "You see that Range Rover halfway up the block?"

Pietro peaked around the back of the stall. "Yeah, the red one?"

"It's cute," Wanda added.

Natasha, who was sat two tables from Wanda, glanced over at her teammate. "It's also bulletproof, which means private security, which means more guns, which means more headaches for somebody. Probably us."

"You guys know I can move things with my mind, right?" Wanda joked, her brother quick to join in.

"And I can get there and back before they even realise what's going on."

"Looking over your shoulder needs to become second nature," Nat told them, if her years in the Red Room had taught her anything, it was just that.

"Anyone ever tell you that you're a little paranoid?" Sam teased from his perch on a nearby roof.

"Not to my face. Why?" Nat smirked into her cup. "Did you hear something?"

"Eyes on target, folks. This is the best lead we've had on Rumlow in six months," Cap told them. He wasn't going to let the traitor get away, not again. "I don't want to lose him."

"If he sees us coming, that won't be a problem. He kind of hates us," Sam pointed out, and he was right. For some reason, Rumlow had a deep set hatred for the team, especially Cap.

Noticing a garbage truck making its way up the busy street with no regard for other vehicles or even pedestrians, Cap asked Sam to tag it.

"Give me X-ray," Falcon instructed his drone, Redwing, only for it to come back with some surprising stats. "That truck's loaded for max weight. And the driver's armed."

"It's a battering ram," Natasha concluded.

"Go now."

"What?" Wanda asked, confused by the sudden change in the Captain's orders.

"He's not hitting the police," Cap explained as Sam dove off the building. "Pietro, you're fastest, follow them but stay out of sight."

"Cap, they've just breached the Institute for Infectious Diseases," Pietro said, speeding back to the shadows once he'd safely moved the two guards at the gates out of the way. "Diseases, that's a hard word to say."

"Pietro, concentrate," his sister scolded.

He rolled his eyes. "Two more large yellow trucks. They've gassed the building. I can take them."