6

Pepper strode down the executive hallway at Stark Industries headquarters, aimed straight for Rhodey and Obadiah Stane. They were engrossed in conversation. Both men looked upset, and Pepper knew why. She was upset, too. Not just upset. Furious.

As she approached, Stane sighed and went into his office. Rhodey headed for the door, but Pepper intercepted him.

“So that’s it?” she asked angrily. “You’re giving up the search for Tony? Everyone’s pulling the plug and moving on?”

Rhodey shook his head. “There’s nothing left we can do. It’s been weeks. If there was any indication that Tony was still alive—”

“Spare me,” Pepper hissed. “I read the official e-mail. I thought that maybe, as Tony’s best friend, you’d have something different to say.”

She turned on her heel and stormed into her office. Rhodey followed.

“Pepper—” he began. But before Rhodey could say another word, Pepper stopped him.

“If anyone could figure out how to beat the odds, it’s Tony,” she said. “If it was you over there, he’d be finding a way to get you back.”

Rhodey moved close to Pepper so that no one else could possibly hear him. “That’s just what I am going to do,” he said. “You can’t tell anyone this, but I’m going back to Afghanistan—and I’m not coming home without him.”

Pepper smiled. “Maybe you are Tony’s best friend after all.”

Rhodey stood on the tarmac at Edwards Air Force Base, a duffel bag slung over his shoulder, waiting in a line of soldiers. Everyone in line saluted as General Gabriel pulled up in a golf cart.

“What do you think you’re doing, Rhodes?” Gabriel barked.

“Going back there, sir,” Rhodey replied.

The general shook his head. “Listen, son, it’s been three months without a single indication that Stark is still alive. We can’t keep risking assets—least of all you.”

“Are you blocking my transfer, sir?” Rhodey asked.

General Gabriel gazed down the line of soldiers. “Any one of these guys would kill for your career, Rhodes,” he said. “Are you telling me you’re willing to sacrifice that to fly desert patrol halfway around the world?”

“I am, sir.”

The general took a deep breath. “Then I have only one thing to say. Godspeed.” He saluted.

Rhodey saluted back and climbed aboard the plane.

Tony finished adjusting the carefully positioned tinsel strips and the laser in the tiny boxlike device. He checked the camera in the corner, remaining out of sight as he worked. It had been difficult to disguise what he and Yinsen had been doing over the past weeks. This device would make it easier.

He peered through the hole in the front of the box. Inside was a perfect camera-obscura style projection of the lab, with the furnace flickering in the darkness.

Taking a deep breath, Tony crept beneath the surveillance camera, and pushed the box into position. To anyone watching, it would appear as though the lab was quiet, and both men were sleeping. They could only use the box for brief periods before its batteries needed recharging, but hopefully that would buy them enough time to do their secret work.

Tony pulled back his shirt, revealing the glowing Repulsor Technology “heart” keeping him alive. He plugged a long wire into the chest plate and then attached a sensor on the end of the wire to his leg.

Yinsen positioned an electronic contraption that looked like a piece of hinged metal on a tabletop nearby. He nodded and held his breath.

Tony flexed his leg. The glow of his chest plate, which was powering the device, dimmed slightly. The beat-up laptop attached to the device whirred, making the necessary control calculations.

The contraption on the table jumped, moving in the exact same way that Tony’s leg had.

The two men looked at each other, triumphant.

Tony unplugged the device. “We’re ready,” he said. “A week of assembly and we’re a go.”

“Then perhaps it’s time we settle another matter,” Yinsen said.

Tony nodded and switched off the hologram projector.

Soon, he and Yinsen sat across the lab table from each other, playing backgammon while they ate. “Yinsen, you’ve never told me where you’re from,” Tony said.

Yinsen paused and moved his piece on the board. “I come from a small village not far from here,” he said. “It was a good place ... before these men ruined it.”

“Do you have a family?”

“When I get out of here, I am going to see them again,” Yinsen said. “Do you have family, Stark?”

“No.”

Yinsen leaned back in his chair. “You’re a man who has everything ... and nothing.”

Without warning, the viewing slat on the door opened, and Abu Bakar stormed in.

Yinsen pointed to a pile of neatly folded laundry, stacked near the washer and dryer that Tony had demanded as part of his working bargain, and said something in Urdu. Abu Bakar grabbed his laundry, lifted it to his nose, sniffed, and smiled. He walked back to the door, pausing only long enough to sneer at the two men.

“Yeah, yeah,” Tony said. “Enjoy your laundry.” He and Yinsen turned back to their game.

In Raza’s control room, Khalid watched the monitor nervously. On the screen, Yinsen worked furiously, cutting and welding. Sparks flew, at times obscuring the camera’s view.

Raza entered the control room and glanced at the monitor. “Khalid,” he said, “where is Stark?”

With a shock, Khalid realized that he hadn’t seen Stark in some time. It was too early in the day for Tony to be sleeping. He tapped the monitor, as though that might somehow make Stark appear.

“Go find out,” Raza growled.

Khalid rushed down the hall to the laboratory door and opened the viewing slat. Inside, Yinsen continued to work furiously. Stark was still nowhere in sight.

“Yinsen!” Khalid called. “Yinsen!”

But Yinsen didn’t turn away from his work. Khalid’s stomach lurched. Yinsen and Stark were up to something.

He fumbled with the keys, unlocked the door, and pulled it open.

As he did, an explosion rocked the hallway, blasting him back against the wall and knocking him unconscious.

Yinsen waved the smoke from the explosion away from his face. “How’d that work?” Tony asked.

“Oh my goodness,” Yinsen said. “It worked all right.”

“That’s what I do,” Tony said. “Come over here and button me up.” Tony studied the laptop control screen. They had initialized the power start-up sequence and he watched the laptop screen they were using to monitor it. The program bars were all moving slowly. Too slowly. It was time to get moving.

Yinsen pressed a control button on the lab’s winch and lowered a huge metal chest piece over Tony. Stark connected the armor’s electronics as Yinsen used a power drill to seal him inside the suit.

Yinsen looked at the laptop. The control bars signaling the power initialization continued moving very slowly. They could hear the guards outside.

“Get to your cover,” Tony said, his voice echoing inside the metal suit. “Remember the checkpoints—make sure each one is clear before you follow me out.”

“Sorry, Stark,” Yinsen said. “They’re coming and you’re not ready to go yet. If I can just buy you a few minutes more ... ”

He turned and ran into the hallway, scooping up Khalid’s weapon from the floor.

“Yinsen!” Tony called.

But it was too late. Yinsen ran into the hall, firing the machine gun, trying to keep the guards back.

“Yinsen!” Tony called again, but his friend didn’t reply.

Tony looked at the program bars on the laptop, but they were still moving so slowly. Gunfire sounded in the corridor outside. He could hear men running toward the lab.

Now! He needed the programs to finish now!

Suddenly, power surged and the lights dimmed into darkness. Two guards rushed in, firing. Tony grabbed them with his armored hands and threw them aside. As he approached the door, he saw his reflection in the shaving mirror on the wall.

He was huge and bulky, like a walking tank. Crude gray metal armor covered him from head to toe. The Repulsor Technology generator glowed softly in his chest plate.

He’d become like the prince in Yinsen’s story—a man of iron.

As more guards raced into the hall beyond the lab, Iron Man crashed through the doorway. XEyD8VBfn4opeqM9IzwceQWiPLJuVKiRKdj9tS/iUQEFwu6WQw1YRah4N46XJN0y