Senator Tom Herald is addressing an
audience in a Manhattan ballroom when agents of ULTIMATUM crash in
and take everyone hostage. The group's leader, Flag-Smasher, calls on
both Captains America to help him deal with enemies of peace and
liberty. Sam Cap and Steve Cap arrive and head up in the elevator
while Sharon Carter secures the area with SHIELD agents and has Rick
Jones monitor the building via computer.
When the Caps arrive in the ballroom,
Flag-Smasher lectures them on the growing influence of fascism and
nationalism as a threat to the world and asks them to join him in his
crusade. He reveals that seven bombs have been planted to destroy
restrictions on the flow of information. The first one will erase the
TSA's No-Fly List and to show he's serious a bomb detonates in the
room and kills a hostage. The two Caps start fighting the ULTIMATUM
soldiers as Flag-Smasher announces that the next data bomb will
decrypt America's nuclear launch codes (accompanied by the death of
another hostage); Rick Jones jumps to the task and is able to defeat
it just in time. Flag-Smasher then aims his gun at Senator Herald;
Sam Cap hurls the shield—and misses. The villain calmly fires three
bullets into the Senator's chest, killing him. Flag-Smasher and his
minions depart via jet pack, leaving Sam to brood on his failure....
Steve Cap, agent of Hydra, returns to
his base where he explains to Erik Solveig how he maneuvered Sam Cap
so that his shield throw would miss. The plan is to have Sam be
crushed under the weight of the controversy and corruption around him
and “the country will break with him.”