Early one morning Captain America is seen racing across the Brooklyn Bridge on his way to SHIELD headquarters. He leaps atop a bus which carries him all the way to midtown Manhattan, paying the fare to a startled driver, and departs over the rooftops toward his destination. His mission: to see if Nick Fury can unscramble his jumbled memories, as the "lost memories" which were uncovered by Dr. Harding’s mind-probe (issue #225) contradict what has been bubbling to the surface since then. He enters SHIELD headquarters through the secret entrance and demands to be escorted to Nick Fury’s office….
Back at his apartment house, Josh Cooper receives a special delivery letter for Steve Rogers, but Steve isn’t home. Mike Farrel takes Josh to meet someone….
At Nick Fury’s office Cap discovers that Fury is not there; Dum Dum Dugan is holding down the fort. Cap explains his concern to Dugan, how he has two conflicting sets of memories. Fury had anticipated this and he assures Cap everything will be cleared up as soon as the boss returns for his current mission….
Nick Fury is at a maximum security prison in upstate New York for a meeting with Baron Strucker. Fury has the pleasure of telling the Nazi villain he will be extradited to Israel to stand trial for war crimes. Strucker responds by tossing down a gas grenade, which puts Fury to sleep, and then he hijacks the SHIELD flying car to make his escape….
Dugan takes Cap to a secret area where he is shown his old footlocker; it contains his original triangular shield and his wartime journal. The journal reveals that when Steve Rogers first became Captain America, false memories would be implanted in his mind in case he was captured and interrogated by the enemy. Walter Rogers of the State Department was in charge of the project and he provided Steve with memories that he was Walter Rogers’ son, raised in Maryland, with an older brother who died at Pearl Harbor. These were the memories triggered by Dr. Harding’s mind-probe.
Suddenly Fury’s flying car comes crashing through the wall, Baron Strucker at the wheel, intent on killing Cap. Separated from his shield Cap uses the original as a defensive weapon while Dugan opens fire. Cap hurls a piece of debris, damaging one of the propulsion units, causing the car to hit a wall. Strucker leaps out shooting and wounds Dugan in the shoulder. Cap hurls the old shield, distracting Strucker long enough to leap on him. Strucker removes a glove, revealing that he is wearing the deadly Satan Claw, an electrified gauntlet. An injured Nick Fury emerges from the damaged car and tosses Cap his modern shield which the hero uses to destroy the villain’s weapon. As they place him under arrest, Strucker gives the Nazi salute—then explodes. As the heroes stand amazed that they were fooled by a life-like robot, they are unaware they are being watched by the android’s creator—Machinesmith—and that he is planning to use Cap to test his next subject….