Falcon and Black Widow arrive at the Kurtzberg Institute for the Criminally Insane to investigate the escape of Sin from the facility. Security cameras reveal the leader of the rescue team to be the Nazi Master Man….
Steve Rogers meets with Sharon Carter to try to puzzle out Sin’s scheme….
Preparing for the trial of Captain America, Bucky’s lawyer Bernie Rosenthal interviews expert witness Dr Faustus, who declines to participate unless granted a Presidential pardon. Steve offers to reveal publicly the fact that it was Faustus who phoned in the tip that led Cap to prevent the Red Skull’s assassination of a Presidential candidate (CAPTAIN AMERICA Vol. 5 #42-43). Faustus balks at this deal until Steve outlines the alternative: prosecuting the sinister psychiatrist for his part in the plot. Steve is persuasive….
Elsewhere, Sin dreams that her father the Red Skull is rejecting her for being a girl; she pleads with him, promising that she will be better than him…then she awakens….
When the trial begins, District Attorney Blake Tower announces he will prove that James Barnes committed an act of terrorism on American soil; Bernie plans to base her defense on Bucky’s being brainwashed—but Tower produces a surprise: taped interviews with Sin claiming that the brainwashing was a cover story and that Bucky was working for the Red Skull all along. Worse, these tapes have been leaked to the press so that Bucky is beaten in prison by "patriotic" guards….
Immediately, Falcon sets out on a hunt for informants who can tell him what Sin is plotting; the lowlifes don’t know but they’ve heard it is big….
Elsewhere that evening, Master Man beats senseless a cadre of guards so that Sin can safely unload a cargo of very powerful explosives—on Liberty Island….