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

by William Rotsler

  Pepper paced the floor, chewing on her lip, which was raw from all the chewing. Jasper had given up trying to make her sit down and was reading a SHIELD manual on poisonous plants. You never knew when something might come in handy.

  The landing had been smooth enough. This time they pulled off his blindfold even before they unfastened him from the seat. Stark’s legs were nearly asleep and he staggered upon standing. It gave him a chance to look out of the windows at what was outside.

  Night—floodlights and a glint of metal vehicles. A hint of lush greenery—somewhere in the tropics. Could it be Costa Verde? he wondered.

  “This way,” the sergeant in charge snapped. Stark went down the steps and across the floodlit asphalt to a truck—military type, but without any markings. Under the muzzles of his ever-present honor guard, Stark got into the back of the truck. He was very hungry.

  “Hey, wake up!”

  Happy Hogan didn’t move. Come in, sucker, come right in, he thought. I got somethin’ for ya.

  A different voice said, “Maybe he’s still out.”

  “Hell, it’s been eight hours, damn near. Think we killed him?”

  “Naw. You go in, I’ll cover.”

  “Well, watch it, huh? If ya hafta shoot, make blessed sure ya hit what ya aim at. And remember, those jacketed slugs ricochet like mad in that room there, huh?”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatcha think I am, some kinda rookie? I been with AIM for five years, almost. And before that I was with Angie Martinello.”

  “Yeah, sure, I know about yer big time tour with the Mafia, Freddie. Jeez, have a heart.”

  Happy heard the key in the lock. Oh, both of you, come in, come in. Don’t one of you stay out there with a machine gun, please. The door creaked open.

  “Hey, you, Hogan! Wake up, yer chow’s here.” Happy stayed motionless. He located both of the guards by their sounds. You had to know things like that sometimes, in the ring. Get hit so bad sometimes you couldn’t see, but you had to keep punching.

  “C’mon, punk, wake up and—”

  Happy spun in the bunk, bringing the weighted sock around in a spin, smashing it right into the face of the startled guard. Then, continuing with the movement, he hurtled the sock straight at Freddie, who stood in the corridor with a leveled machine gun.

  But reaction times differ. Happy was faster. The sock struck a bar and ruptured, sending a blinding spray of wet concrete bits stringing into the face of the guard. Freddie swore, staggered back and clawed at his eyes. Then he recovered and, although blinded, brought the gun up to spray lead into the cell.

  However, Happy Hogan hadn’t been standing still. He had followed the sock throw with a leap through the open cell door, and punched Freddie in the gut. Happy followed with a knockout blow to the chin and Freddie crumpled without another sound—and without firing a warning shot.

  Happy checked the first guard. He was out. Happy dragged Freddie into the cell, took both their side arms and Freddie’s machine gun, and locked the cell door.

  There was only one prisoner in the other five cells, and he was unconscious. Happy edged toward the door at the end of the short corridor. He heard someone say, “I’ll raise ya two bucks.” He gripped the machine gun and started through the door.

  Fifteen

  Modok’s gargantuan face creased into what Stark thought might be a smile. He sat strapped into his power chair atop a short, concrete pedestal in a concrete room.

  “Welcome, Anthony Stark, to the secret headquarters of our organization here in exotic, romantic Costa Verde.”

  Stark bowed slightly, a mocking light in his eyes. “I did not know that AIM had taken up country-grabbing as a hobby.”

  “It is not a hobby, Stark, it is a vocation. AIM seeks power and what better power than to control an entire country? Or four countries?”

  Tony Stark looked at the people assembled on either side of Modok’s thronelike dais. Five of them stood out from the hodgepodge of assembled thugs and uniformed henchmen. Three were obviously businessmen; one was an Oriental—but it was the fifth man that attracted Stark’s eyes. He was huge, a good seven feet, but magnificently proportioned, a mountain of muscle tuned to perfection. Like many men with exceptional muscularity, he went bare chested, and stood with his arms folded to accent the bulging muscles. His gaze at Stark was hostile and arrogant.

  Egotistical giant, Stark thought, but from the first look he might have a lot to be egotistical about.

  “You stare at my aide, Stark,” Modok said. “He is the first of my new army.” Stark noticed a flicker of concern cross the faces of the business-suited men. “He is the prototype for the army I shall build for . . . for these gentlemen.” There was an undertone in Modok’s voice that Stark could not identify. “I shall use every technique at my command, but Randy Greiner is the first.” Modok’s lips twisted in a paroxysm that Stark thought might be a smile. “The name is appropriate, is it not? As all his abilities are increased, so is that one, that very one, which I have rejected.”

  “I can’t imagine why,” Stark muttered, keeping an eye on the muscle man.

  “Your impertinence is noted, Stark,” Modok said dryly. “Greiner is in charge of security here and a stern taskmaster he is. It would save you much pain and trouble to obey him.”

  “While I build this army for you.”

  “Yes, and you shall, never fear. An army that will overthrow the weak-kneed democratic government of Costa Verde, and replace it with a suitable government, fashioned to the needs of the times, to the realities of life.”

  “To you and your friends, that is.”

  “Of course, Stark, of course. I am not so hypocritical as to attempt to disguise my desires . . . and those of my companions here . . . as anything but what they are. The procurement and application of power.”

  “Uh-huh,” Stark said dryly, looking at the others in the room.

  “Knowledge is power, Stark, and I have that aplenty. But what is power without the use of it? It is like a muscle unused—it withers and dies.”

  “Awww . . .” Stark said in mock sympathy.

  Modok frowned. “I had thought perhaps you might be an individual worthy of some intellectual debate, but I see I was wrong. Rather, I was right, as all such as you are inferiors. You would rather get off a paltry quip or a rudeness than engage in anything meaningfull.” Modok made a nasty sound and gestured at Greiner. “Take this intellectual midget to the gamma lab. He must begin the adaptation at once.” Modok’s huge, bulging eyes swung again to Stark. “You will use the Iron Man suit as a matrix, to adapt the manufacture to our plants here and elsewhere.”

  “Sure. Right. I don’t suppose you have any unions here? Fringe benefits? Coffee machine? Junk-food truck? No, I suppose not.” He sighed and put out his hands to Greiner. “Take me away, Randy baby.”

  The muscle man moved toward Stark without changing expression, his muscles lightly oiled. His back-handed slap sent Stark tumbling to the feet of a squad of AIM troopers. Wiping blood from his mouth, Stark rose up, wary.

  “Enough,” Modok said. “Take him away.”

  Happy Hogan looked over the sights of his machine guns and the startled guards stared back. One had a card in his hand and a pained expression. “Oh, no. And me with the first royal flush I ever even saw, much less drew.”

  “Everyone has it tough, spitball,” Happy growled. “Up against the wall.” They obeyed; then Happy prodded one that wore sergeant’s stripes. “You, which way to the radio room?”

  With the guards all safely locked away in the cell block, Happy started down the cement corridors, wearing the sergeant’s uniform. He passed several other troopers but the head-covering AIM helmet concealed his identity.

  The radio room was guarded, but they meekly surrendered under the muzzle of Happy’s machine gun. “Now,” he said to the startled operator while he kept an eye on the two guards, “get on to the SHIELD emergency frequency and send this message.”

  The slugs whined off the concrete
walls and splattered against the end of the corridor. Happy’s grim expression did not change as he dropped to the floor and edged the machine gun around the corner at ground level, spraying the corridor with leaden death.

  “Those dudes at SHIELD better move their buns,” he muttered. “I only got one clip left.”

  The helicarrier spouted flyers like a hornet’s nest. The troop carriers angled down as the helicarrier exchanged explosive rockets with the dug-in ground defenses. The fight was short, but furious. Nick Fury’s black-clad warriors were too much for the mercenaries of AIM. It was not long before Colonel Fury himself strode through the smoke-filled corridors, .45 in hand, glaring at each and every prisoner. “Hogan—where the muck are you?”

  “Here,” Hogan said. Fury stepped over a few bodies, then clambered over a larger heap. He stopped, shifted his cigar butt and said, “So, what’s the score?”

  “Too close,” Happy grunted. He aimed his machine gun at the ceiling and pulled the trigger. Click. It was an empty weapon.

  “Well, you could o’ frowned at ’em or something,” Fury said. “So fill me in.”

  Hogan nodded and laid out the entire deception plan to Fury, including some of Stark’s assumptions about AIM and what they were up to. “So I think we oughta scoot that helicarrier of yers down south and blast our way right to Iron Man.”

  Fury took out his cigar butt and stared at it. Behind him the cleanup crews were lifting bodies and carrying off the wounded. “Got one trouble there, Hogan,” Fury said. “It’s another country. One on good terms with the ol’ US of A. We just can’t go charging in there—shooting, especially.”

  “But Iron Man is—”

  “Yeah, yeah, well, he’s a volunteer, ain’t he? We can’t just send a military force into another country just like that. We aren’t even official US forces, y’know. Create one hell of a stink.”

  “Fury, now dammit, this ain’t somethin’ for no blasted rule book; this is life and flippin’-A death!”

  “I know,” Fury said. He turned abruptly and started back through the bullet-scarred corridors. “C’mon, Hogan. We gotta get on a horn to Washington and kick a few bottoms . . . and get official leave to make our little invasion.”

  Hogan groaned. “When in hell did anyone ask permission to start a war?”

  “Right now, in about four minutes. Maybe longer, if you spend a lotta time kissin’ ’n’ huggin’.”

  “Huh?” Hogan said brightly.

  “Pepper,” Fury said, aiming a thumb up at the helicarrier.

  Sixteen

  Stark bent over the breastplate of his armor with a pair of calipers. He took a measurement, then compared it to the plans. Surreptitiously, he stole a look from the corner of his eye at Greiner. The towering muscle man stood impassively near the door, his eyes almost always on Stark. The duplicate suit, customized to fit Greiner, was all but finished.

  The inventor walked over and held up the calipers and a tape measure, his eyebrows raised. Greiner nodded curtly and Stark reached up to measure his neck at the base and up higher, near the ears. Then he took a calibration of the giant’s jawline.

  “These things are customized, you know—at least for you. I suppose later, like all armies, they will he stamped out in just two sizes—too big and too small.”

  Greiner never smiled. All of Stark’s attempts to ease the tension between them were failures. He didn’t want to make friends; he wanted to mislead the huge watchdog. He returned to the workbench and shielded the Iron Man helmet from Greiner’s gaze, making certain quick adjustments. He moved on down a bit and kept moving around, from suit to plans to another measurement on the big watchman. Each time he could, he did something to the helmet. Palming a small piece of printed circuitry he had altered, Stark implanted it in the helmet. It was very slow going and subject to discovery at any time.

  “Happy!”

  Pepper ran across the steel plating of the helicarrier’s command landing deck and threw herself into Hogan’s arms. The big ex-fighter patted her back and looked embarrassed.

  “Hey, that’s okay, hon, that’s okay.”

  “C’mon, c’mon,” Fury said impatiently. “Do all that while we’re cutting through the red tape.”

  Stark knew something was about to happen when a guard stuck his head into the lab and whispered to Greiner. The bare-chested muscle man made a quick tour of the room and stared hard at the exposed parts of the two sets of Iron Man armor. He grunted and returned to his post.

  In moments, Stark heard a hissing. The door was opened and Modok entered, floating on compressed air-jets from the bottom of his power chair.

  “Stark!”

  Tony turned casually, hiding the helmet from Modok’s gaze with his body.

  “What is it? I’m busy, Modok. I can’t get anything done if you keep coming in here bothering me.”

  “Still impertinent. Greiner.”

  The seven-foot muscle man moved swiftly as Stark backed away, but the blow that sent Stark crashing into some lockers also kept Modok from looking at the helmet too closely.

  Stark got to his feet slowly. “Not so easy, is it, without your Iron Man armor?” Modok sneered.

  “Yeah, I get the point. Let me go back to work. The sooner I finish, the sooner I get out of here.”

  “Why, of course,” Modok said smoothly. His power chair turned on its jets and left in a flurry of dust. Greiner returned to his post and Stark wiped the blood from his cheek. He could taste it in his mouth. He picked up a pair of side cutters and went back to work.

  Jasper Sitwell was fuming. “We must rescue Iron Man!”

  “Washington says no,” Fury said. “Well, actually they are ‘taking it under advisement,’ but you know what that means. They’ve shelved it. They are not going to be accused of invading a country for just one man.”

  “But—” Happy Hogan began.

  Fury cut him off with a gesture. “Forget it, you guys! I’m sorry, but this is one mess Iron Man will have to get out of himself.”

  Pepper cleared her throat. “It’s . . . it’s not Iron Man. It’s Tony . . . in Iron Man’s spare armor.”

  “What?” Fury stopped and the cigar almost fell from his mouth. “What in blue blazes was Stark doing in that suit?”

  Pepper looked at Hogan, who looked even more unhappy than usual. “He . . . well, uh, Iron Man wuz not available—”

  “Where the blazes is he?” Fury demanded. “We need him!”

  “He . . . we can’t, uh, get to him right now. So that’s why Tony did what he did.”

  Nick Fury made a sound and punched a metal wall. “It doesn’t change anything. We can’t go in, not without permission. I ain’t about to get this country in trouble . . . not even for Tony Stark!”

  Pepper’s mouth went slack with dread and Happy Hogan’s face grew longer.

  Seventeen

  Stark waited patiently. He was tired, but he couldn’t trust himself to wake at the proper time. Timing was important. He watched the small clock in his room with weary resignation. A watched clock never moves.

  But, finally, it was time. He slipped from the room and across the hall to another bedroom where two relief guards slept. Stark tiptoed across the dark room carefully. The walls of the rooms were prefabricated, fitted into a larger, concrete shell. The walls were not structural, but merely for effective division. With great care Stark unfastened a panel. If his sense of direction was right, this was a wall shared in common with the room right next to his laboratory. He need not attempt to move through guarded passages, but quite literally would go through walls.

  The panel came out and he peered through. The storeroom. Stark stepped through and set the panel back in place. He moved by feel through the storeroom into the lab and felt for the switch.

  Light flooded the room and Stark stepped straight toward the crimson-and-gold armor on the workbench—and stopped.

  Modok stared at him with his bulging eyes and mad, mad expression. Next to him stood Greiner, looking
almost happy. His eyes gleamed with anticipation. Arranged around the room were a half dozen AIM soldiers.

  “You didn’t really think you could outsmart Modok, did you?” Modok asked. “We knew you would try to escape as soon as possible. What better way than with the Iron Man armor?”

  Greiner took a step toward Stark, who appeared to cower backward, anticipating the massive blow. But he cowered against the workbench with the armor on it. “Wait, Greiner,” Modok commanded.

  “You have proven a nuisance, Stark. I think we can proceed without you, don’t you? You are more trouble than you are worth.”

  Greiner flexed his hands greedily. “Now, Modok? Now?”

  “No, this is one pleasure I reserve for myself. Stark may be only one, shall we say, facet of Iron Man, but he is still Iron Man. I, Modok, will destroy him with a mind blast.” He turned to Stark. “A very selective blast, Stark. You might even appreciate my technique. I will burn away certain neural circuits, you see. You will continue to see, to feel, your heart will beat and your body will continue to function . . . but without much help from you, Stark. You will become a vegetable. I have thought about this and I believe it to be a most fitting end. From playboy to patient; from VIP to vegetable.” Modok’s laugh was nasty, booming—like a safe falling down stairs.

  Stark did not wait for the laughter to cease. He spun and his hands went for the helmet. Greiner acted at once and leaped for Tony, his powerful hands reaching out.

  But Tony Stark was on the move; he dropped to one knee as the seven-foot giant went crashing over him—and, in the same motion, he pulled the helmet over his head.

  Modok uttered a growl like that of a lion and his mind blast seared the air to strike Iron Man’s armored head. The very air crackled with raw power as the neural barrage blasted against the Shellhead.