Story #2If a Hostage Should Die!
Writer: Stan Lee. Layouts: Jack Kirby. Penciler: John Romita. Inker: Frank Ray. Colorist: ?.
Synopsis
Steve Rogers watches a TV documentary on the
Liberation of Paris in which
Captain America is the central player. The narrator is puzzled that Cap’s expression seems to be one of near-panic rather than jubilation and has no answer. Steve, however, knows the circumstances: it was the loss of his
wartime love, whose name he never knew. He recalls the aftermath of the
D-Day invasion, with the desperate Nazis fighting back against the advancing
Allies, and Cap himself arriving to lead the French partisans to victory. Cap meets up with his beloved
Agent Thirteen, and they confess their love for one another. When duty separates them, they vow to each other that they will not be separated in the end. But further missions intervene, and Thirteen is captured by the
Nazis and she is marched before a firing squad. The
French underground attacks at this point allowing prisoners to escape and Thirteen leaps on a Nazi officer to prevent him from shooting at the fleeing partisans. A shell lands in the courtyard at that moment, knocking her unconscious. As the Nazis are being driven from Paris, Cap learns that his beloved was captured and races to Gestapo headquarters, where he is unable to find her. As the Allies celebrate the liberation of the city, a distraught Captain America masters his fear and hopelessness and allows himself to be honored as a hero. It is revealed that the explosion has rendered Thirteen amnesiac, and in the present we find Steve brooding, having never learned her fate.