Thirty years ago: carrying out his assignment Soviet assassin Winter Soldier spies on the remote cabin where defecting scientist Dr. Linus Tarasova and his handler, SHIELD Agent Gina Autry are holed up. He takes aim with his sniper rifle and kills both of them as they sit inside the cabin; he then slowly approaches the structure….
Today, Bucky Barnes, ex-Winter Soldier, has SHIELD undercover agent Joe Robards in a Paris safe house owned by Natasha Romanov, the Black Widow. The suicidal Robards wants to leave; Bucky debates telling him he was the one who destroyed Robards’ life by killing Autry all those years ago. On a pier where he sits fishing, the retired Nick Fury has a visit from SHIELD’s acting director Maria Hill who wants to know what Fury intends for Bucky Barnes. Nick explains that he gave Bucky a mission to keep the loss of Natasha (issue #14) from destroying him. Hill questions involving him in the case of the Electric Ghost, but Fury is confident…..
Bucky knows that Tarasova’s daughter Tesla was spirited away after her father’s death and raised to be a killer in the notorious Red Room, and he tells Robards that finding Tesla will lead to Autry’s killer. Their lead is Colonel Petrov a/k/a Father Hammer, who had been his commander during his Winter Soldier days. Petrov fled the collapse of the Soviet Union and established "The Orphanage," a similar training ground for young assassins on a remote island. Bucky has Robards fly him to the island where he is greeted by a series of severed heads mounted on stakes. Soon he comes upon a group of murderous children tormenting one of their former teachers, a big brutish man with steel teeth known as Master Murder Mouth. Bucky steps from the jungle and the kids set their captive upon him. He is good but Bucky is better and he quickly overcomes his foe. He demands to know where Father Hammer is; the girl in charge tells him that he is dead, killed by The Electric Ghost, who freed them. Bucky realizes they are talking about Tesla Tarasova….
Thirty years ago: Winter Soldier enters the silent cabin and finds his two victims dead, plus a third person: Tarasova’s frightened young daughter, who had been drawing pictures of Captain America and Bucky…