Marvel Novel Series 06 - Iron Man - And Call My Killer ... Modok!

by William Rotsler

“Obvious tactic, my dear sir. Then of course,” he said casually, “you intend to pull off coups in your own countries.”

  There was a gasp from all four, even the Oriental. “You cannot know that!” Salvadore exclaimed.

  Modok laughed at them, a sneering, insulting sound. “Gentlemen, gentlemen, you must never underestimate Modok. I have a rather complete dossier on each of you. Complete, I said. I know how your minds operate. I know your favorite foods, your sexual preferences and practices, your secret ambitions, your puny little deals and bribes. I have a list of your Swiss bank account numbers . . . including, I might add, Señor Salvadore, the key words as well. And Mister Dodd, do the words Bellingham-Seven and Firth of Forth-Nine mean anything to you? Of course they do, sir, do not be shy! They are the ultimate keys to your computer records in England and America, are they not?”

  The buyers, their faces pale, exchanged another set of looks, this time with even more distressed expressions. “I could go on, of course,” Modok continued. “Mister Solomon’s little paramilitary organization, for example. The Black Dragon Society of Mister—”

  “Enough,” the Oriental said quickly. “We acknowledge your Superior intelligence and information, but what . . .” he glanced at his companions, then back at the screen to Modok’s face, “. . . are your plans?”

  “To be put in charge of the laboratories and manufacturing plants which shall produce this armor, then . . .” He paused for effect. “Then a high position in the first of your countries to fall under your new regime—and that, I surmise, will be Señor Salvadore’s Costa Verde.”

  The buyers, now somewhat hardened by the repeated shocks at the revelations of their secret plans, were less surprised. If Modok knew what he seemed to know, it was no great surprise that he knew of the first of the four major takeovers, the cornerstones for their eventual political and military dominance.

  “You . . . you are certain the power of your mind can always defeat Iron Man, or anyone else in a similar set of armor?” Dodd asked.

  “Yes. I think I have proven that.” He gestured toward the immobile Iron Man and the frustrated activities of Happy Hogan, who had been attempting to revive his employer and friend.

  The buyers exchanged meaningful looks. They all knew the ambitions of the ambitious for they, themselves, had ridden to power and wealth by the power of their dreams . . . and would continue to rise. They knew what some people might do, once they had obtained the vast power contained in any version of the Iron Man armor. An overriding force would be highly useful—and, after all, Modok was only one person. Any one individual, however powerful, could be controlled by a great variety of means. Cleopatra had controlled first Caesar, then Mark Antony, two of the most powerful men on earth at the time, by the power of her beauty and imagination, the wealth of her nation, and a complete absence of scruples. Queen Theodora had risen from the lowest prostitute to queen of Byzantium by the power she learned to use. Men of great wealth had learned to use their power, overt and covert, to shape the destinies of nations. Men used force, bribes, subtle actions, and the broadest spectrum of violence to gain their ends. They would find the chink in Modok’s defenses and learn to control him. He was, after all, a freak. Freaks were certain to have greater and more obvious flaws than others. If he wanted sex, for example, no woman in Costa Verde or any of the countries they would come to control would be able to escape her duty. If it was drugs he desired, they would establish laboratories to manufacture them. No matter how kinky, how strange, how outrageous his needs and desires, they knew they would have the ability to satisfy them.

  They were all adept at manipulating people, including people of prestige and power. Modok would be no different in principle, just perhaps different in application. They smiled at each other—soft, knowing smiles. People were such dupes. As Napoleon had said, “Men are led by such trifles.” An actress feared mutilation—a senator wanted the actress . . . the senator introduced legislation . . . Other senators wanted homes, money, unusual sex, or continued political life, so they supported the legislation . . . and the figures of power prospered.

  “Yes, of course,” Salvadore said smoothly. “We would be honored. It is, as you said, a move of mutual benefit.”

  And Modok smiled. He, too, was adept at the manipulation of pawns.

  Thirteen

  “Jasper, I’m so worried!” Pepper exclaimed. “The plane dropped right off the radar less than two hundred miles out.”

  Jasper Sitwell patted her shoulder, his stern face filled with sorrow. “Don’t worry, don’t worry, Pepper. After all, Happy is in good hands with Iron Man in the crate. That is a powerful combination, you know. We knew they’d try something along the way. We have only to wait for a signal. SHIELD is ready with a strike force from the helicarrier.”

  Pepper sighed. “I hope . . . I . . . Jasper, will they be on time? Will they get a signal out? Maybe we should have put a radar tracer on the armor.”

  “You know Mister Stark nixed that. He said they’d be certain to smell a rat and put a tracer on any radio waves going out. They’d just find the transmitter, kill it, and know the whole thing was a setup.”

  Pepper sighed. “Yes, you’re right. But so many things can go wrong . . .”

  “Now, now,” Jasper said. “Where did Mister Stark get to, anyway?”

  Pepper veiled her eyes. “He’s . . . he’s in one of his secret labs, I think. You know how he is when he gets an idea.”

  “Uh-huh,” Jasper said, nodding. The dangers were great. There was something very wrong somewhere. Who was behind all this, anyway? he wondered. Someone powerful, very powerful. This was no time for Stark to be tinkering away in some smelly lab. He ought to be helping.

  Modok had come to the part that was, for him, dessert. He blanked off the cameras to the buyers and turned his attention toward the immobile Iron Man.

  “Hogan, stand back,” he rumbled.

  “I’ll not,” Hogan snapped, still trying to unfreeze the armor. “He’s my friend and I’ll not—”

  Modok made a gesture and four of AIM’s troopers seized Happy. “Put him in Cell Block Beta,” Modok commanded and the soldiers led off the struggling Hogan. Looking back over his shoulder at Iron Man he let out a yell of defiance as he saw Modok deliberately blast Iron Man with another blazing mental bolt.

  “Ya—!” Hogan knocked one of his guards down and was about to belt another when a rifle butt crashed against his skull. There was a bright light in his mind, then Happy Hogan took the count. The three remaining guards dragged him away unceremoniously.

  Modok watched with interest as Iron Man regained his senses. Ready with a paralyzing bolt, Modok watched as Iron Man swayed slightly, then looked around.

  “Welcome back, tin man. Please do not trouble both of us with further physical activities. I believe I have proven that your metal exoskeleton is no match for my mental powers.” Modok permitted himself a slight, sneering smile.

  Iron Man was silent, but his head turned this way and that, seeking information. The revived AIM troopers were hauling away the bodies. Happy Hogan was gone. The plastic shield was up. There was still power in his repulsor rays. One quick motion and he could send a blast straight at Modok’s deformed figure. He tensed, sending the motor impulses to the powered arms of the suit, and discovered he could not move.

  Above him, Modok sneered again. “I have given only limited control back to you, my metallic dunce. Now if you would be so good as to remove your helmet I should like to see just what individual inhabits that iron suit.”

  Iron Man struggled to resist. He wanted to resist, to reach out and blast the monstrosity above him into atoms, but he could not. He felt his arms moving up, his hands reaching for the edges of his helmet . . .

  . . . fingers moving . . .

  . . . coming closer . . .

  . . . unable to stop . . . it was a nightmare, going against everything Iron Man had fought for. In seconds, he would be revealed as who and what he was. Everything would be
lost. Iron Man would never again have the anonymity to retreat to, to disappear into.

  . . . he felt his fingers, unguided by his mind, unlatch the helmet . . .

  . . . depolarizing it into a clothlike substance . . .

  . . . and pulling it off.

  “Tony Stark!” Modok’s voice betrayed his surprise. Then he laughed. “Tony Stark? The playboy fool? The womanizer? The financier?” Demonic laughter filled the empty chamber. “Tony Stark?”

  “Among others,” Stark said. His mind was racing. He could think of only one ploy, only one defense—safety in numbers.

  “What do you mean?” Modok demanded, the laughter gone.

  “I’m afraid you have defeated only Tony Stark, not Iron Man, old boy. You see, my bloated friend, Iron Man is not a man, but a, shall we say, a group?”

  Modok’s eyes slitted to vicious slits. He felt the nerve pulse of frustration building in him, ready to trigger another angry mind blast, his best and ultimate weapon. He would reduce this meddling ass to a vegetable, burn out his neural circuits. Tony Stark would never even be able to feed himself again. Uncaring nurses would have to feed and wipe him all the long years of his life to come—a living corpse, he’d make him a living corpse . . .

  “We long ago knew that sooner or later one of us would be caught and uncovered.” Tony Stark gave Modok a mocking smile. “You’ve already uncovered Happy. There are others, have been others. Your old friend, Captain America, for example. You will forgive me if I do not name all of my compatriots in this venture, I’m sure.”

  There was a low rumble in the room and Stark identified it as a growl from the direction of Modok’s pedestal.

  “I’m sorry to say certain of us have died wearing this armor, but their deaths in the line of duty were honorable deaths in the service of mankind.” Stark shrugged as well as he could with his limited control over the highly flexible armor.

  “Since we knew full well that you would make an attempt to steal the armor from Happy, I decided to wear it myself, as well. Just to meet you face to face, Your Ugliness.” Stark made a brave smile and would have followed it through with a mocking bow, if he had been able.

  There was a long, thoughtful pause as Modok regained his composure. His mounting anger controlled, he spoke softly. “So much the better, Tony Stark.” There was something in his voice that made Stark’s blood run cold, some hidden thought, some secret menace. “Now you will join us on our little trip to the secret laboratories of my new cohorts. Once there, you will help me mass-manufacture your famous armor.”

  “Like hell I will,” Stark replied at once.

  “Oh, you will,” Modok said silkily. “If you do not, certain rather nasty things will happen. First to your friend, Hogan. We have certain, um, devices shall we say, that will make his continued hold on life rather less than, um, desirable.” Modok paused to study Stark’s impassive face. “Then, if that does not stir your feelings about helping us, I shall see that Pepper Hogan is brought here, and others you call friends, and you, Mr. Stark, shall watch them suffer as no human was meant to suffer. My torturers are very good, you know. They can make the pain go on and on.”

  Modok waited patiently. There were times when he liked the smooth, seamless, and deft application of power. Give me a fulcrum of power, he thought, and I can change the world.

  “All right,” Stark said, and Modok smiled thinly.

  “I know you think to outwit me, Stark. I would in your place.” Modok laughed mockingly. “Except, of course, that I would never be in your place.”

  He remained expressionless but Tony Stark was smiling inside. Exactly what I wanted. Perhaps not exactly the way I had hoped, but still, getting to the secret labs is the key.

  “Guards!” Modok commanded. A door hissed open and ten of AIM’s toughest troopers marched in. Modok frowned at Iron Man for a moment and Tony found he could move. “Take him to the jet.”

  Stark went off with them, finding that he still had only limited control. He could walk, that was all. “Strip him of that armor,” Modok called after them. “Then get those new business partners of mine on the plane, too.”

  The door hissed closed and Modok smiled. Sometimes it was almost too easy. Men were led by trifles: fear, usually—and scruples, love, ego. Modok continued to smile.

  Fourteen

  Happy’s head hurt—again.

  Feels like Smasher Pelz caught me while I wasn’t lookin’, he thought wearily. Where was the referee, huh?

  Happy Hogan felt the tender bump on the back of his head and thought maybe being knocked out by gas—twice!—was better than whatever steam shovel they had clobbered him with. Massaging the sore spot, he looked around.

  Concrete—and bars.

  Bare concrete walls, a metal bunk with a thin, stained mattress, a toilet with no seat, and a barred door looking out on more concrete. Happy got up from the bunk, felt the stab of pain tear off the back of his skull, and caught himself on the bars. He held on grimly, eyes closed, fighting the nausea and wondering why his brains weren’t dribbling down the back of his rumpled shirt.

  After a thousand years or so he opened his eyes and tried to see down the corridor by pressing his face through the bars. Not much in sight. More bars along his side, nothing on the other except the faint pattern of wood in the poured concrete. Not very artistic, he thought. Maybe they should decorate the place. The History and Glory of Advanced Idea Mechanics or sumpin’—bright colors, noble figures, lots of gears and sheaves of corn. Real post-awful mural. Brighten up the joint.

  Happy sat back down and held his head and tried to figure out what to do. No bail here, no visits from a court-appointed lawyer, no civil rights—no nuthin’, just pain and frustration.

  What’n the blue blazes had they done with Iron Man? Killed him? Froze him up in that suit like he was a codfish?

  Happy gritted his teeth and tried to make plans. How do you break out of a jail, anyway? Maybe they’d let Pepper in with a cake seasoned with a file. “If this wuz an Errol Flynn movie,” he grumbled aloud, “there’d be some monks to switch costumes with—or a dumb guard.” There were always dumb guards in every movie he’d ever seen with a guy in a jam like this—always dumb guards. Without no dumb guards how the heck is the movie going to keep moving on?

  But this was no movie, he groaned to himself. This is what they call Real Life.

  Concrete—and bars.

  He tried to make plans, but nothing was coming.

  Concrete.

  And bars—lots of steel bars.

  No dumb guards in sight.

  Not even a semismart one.

  Stripped of his armor, Tony Stark was given a fresh AIM uniform, but this one had a slight difference. It had a target painted on it.

  “You fellas need visual aids?” Tony said as he held out the shirt.

  “Shuddup and get in it,” the guard said, prodding him with a machine-gun barrel.

  Stark dressed, tucked in his shirt, and meekly followed his special, private guard out to an enclosed garage. There, under the muzzles of several machine guns, and without the protection of his armor, he allowed himself to be blindfolded, handcuffed, and put into a car.

  He heard a door creak open and the car started forward, went up a ramp, crossed some enclosed space, and climbed a spiral ramp. Stark tried to count the turns and estimate the distance, but it was useless. They stopped for another door to open mechanically then the sound changed. They were outdoors and going down a street. Again, Stark tried to memorize the pattern of left and right turns, but the driver was apparently covering a deliberately confusing path.

  Then the car stopped. They pulled him out and he heard the sound of a jet whining into action. He was taken across an open space, then guided up a stairway and into the plane. He was fastened into a seat; the blindfold was left on.

  Cautious people, Stark thought. I hope they are not so cautious with Happy. We have to get the location of the AIM headquarters to SHIELD.

  The jet taxi
ed into position. Stark heard carefully guarded conversation in at least two languages. The plane took off with a roar and they were airborne. Destination: unknown.

  Happy felt better, but not much better. He could at least move his head from side to side without the feel of a bayonet jabbing into his skull. He considered his assets carefully.

  Shirt, pants, shorts, socks; no belt or tie. No pocket change, wallet, or car keys. No credit cards, no set of master lockpicks, no blasting powder. No secret compartment in the heels of his shoes. Even if there had been, he didn’t have any shoes. So much for the fancy superspy breakouts. Something a bit cruder would have to be found.

  Once again he looked the cell over carefully. The metal bunk was heavy steel, carefully welded. He doubted he could break anything off to use as a weapon. There was a lot of graffiti. Modok is out of his gourd! For a good time, call the torture chamber. E=MC2 Modok is such a creepy guy the roof over his head is a rock. Modok is all right in his place, but they haven’t dug it yet.

  Gallows humor, by those with nothing to lose. Then Happy saw something. The graffiti had been scratched into the concrete all over the wall, probably with spoons. All along the base was a little trickle of concrete dust from the scratchings—and he had a pair of socks. Happy got down on his hands and knees and began to pick up little pinches of concrete dust, one painful, gritty bit at a time.

  The jet droned on through the sky. Tony Stark sat quietly, trying to single out and overhear the murmurs of conversation. Where was Modok? Was he aboard? Who was flying with him? They sounded more intelligent, more cultured than the thugs who guarded him and talked incessantly about baseball.

  Anthony Stark waited with barely concealed impatience for the plane to land. The next move would be Modok’s . . . but Iron Man was still not checkmated, only in check.

  Happy Hogan hefted the damp sock in his hand. The water from the toilet made the sockful of cement dust considerably heavier. He carefully concealed the sock in the folds of the bed, then lay down. He sat up almost at once and pulled off the other sock. He didn’t want anyone to notice one missing and wonder where it was. His feet were cold. He curled up in a suitable position to strike from and tried to look unconscious.