At noon, the Afghan desert was less a landscape than a furnace.
The sun blazed overhead without mercy, and the pale sand reflected every ray back into the air until the temperature climbed well past 104 degrees Fahrenheit. Even the locals avoided traveling at this hour whenever possible.
Yet a lone figure staggered across the dunes.
His clothes were all wrong for the desert. Instead of the loose robes that shielded people from the heat, he wore black trousers and a green tank top. His jacket had been wrapped around his head as a makeshift veil against the sand, but it did little to keep the scorching heat at bay.
To any observer, he looked like a man determined to die.
The truth wasn’t far off.
That man was Tony Stark.
CEO of Stark Industries.
He had come to Afghanistan to close a weapons deal.
Instead, he’d found the turning point of his life.
After demonstrating the Jericho missile and thoroughly impressing the military brass, the sale had gone exactly as planned. Riding high on success, Tony had ignored Colonel James Rhodes’ suggestion to fly back by helicopter and insisted on taking the convoy by jeep instead.
Then fate had struck.
The convoy was ambushed.
Every soldier escorting him died.
The irony couldn’t have been crueler.
Tony Stark had been knocked unconscious by one of his own company’s weapons.
The terrorists hadn’t wanted him dead.
Unfortunately, they hadn’t wanted ransom, either.
Money couldn’t solve this problem.
Worse still, the Jericho missile had performed exactly as Tony had designed it to.
Tiny metal fragments from the explosion had lodged inside his chest. They would slowly travel through his bloodstream until they reached his heart. Once they did, death was inevitable. The process would take about a week.
Now he had become a victim of his own engineering.
If he’d had the strength to laugh, he might have appreciated the cosmic joke.
His survival depended entirely on a crude electromagnet wired to a car battery and strapped to his chest. The device held the shrapnel in place, preventing it from reaching his heart.
It had been installed by a compassionate local doctor, under orders from the terrorists who had captured him.
They wanted him to build weapons.
Specifically, the same Jericho missiles he’d proudly demonstrated only days earlier.
Tony refused.
Not because he was an idealist incapable of building weapons, but because he wasn’t about to arm the people who had murdered innocent soldiers.
So he and the doctor put on the performance of a lifetime.
"You want a missile? Fine," Tony had told them.
"But unless you expect me to build one out of pliers and baling wire, I’m going to need proper materials."
Explosives.
Armor plating.
Computers.
Welding equipment.
Metal stock.
Every request sounded perfectly reasonable.
The terrorists gathered everything.
Tony Stark lived up to his reputation as a genius.
Given enough tools, he could build almost anything.
Instead of constructing a Jericho missile, he secretly assembled the first Iron Man armor.
It was crude.
Bulky.
Hideously ugly.
But it could fly.
It could fight.
And, most importantly...
It could get him out.
When the suit was finished, Tony carved a path through the terrorist compound. Bullets bounced harmlessly from the armor as he tore through his captors.
The doctor wasn’t as fortunate.
Caught in the crossfire, the old man died buying Tony the time he needed to escape.
Afterward, Tony detonated the terrorists’ stockpile of munitions and blasted into the sky.
One observation deserved mentioning.
The terrorists had watched Tony work for days under constant surveillance.
Somehow, none of them noticed he’d built a powered exoskeleton instead of a missile.
There were failures of education...
...and then there was whatever this had been.
Unfortunately, the Mark I armor was exactly that: a first attempt.
Heavy.
Unrefined.
Barely capable of sustained flight.
Not long after escaping, the suit lost power and crashed into the desert.
The landing could generously be described as "controlled."
Tony hit the sand feet first before burying himself waist-deep in a dune. The armor broke apart around him, but somehow he survived with no major new injuries.
Digging himself free, he looked back only once.
Destroying one terrorist camp meant very little.
There were countless others scattered across the region.
If they found him again, imprisonment would be the best possible outcome.
He checked the sun, estimated his direction, and forced himself onward.
His only hope was that the U.S. military hadn’t given up searching for him.
If they had...
The desert would claim him long before the terrorists did.
"Ice-cold whiskey..."
He stumbled another few steps.
"...cheeseburger..."
His vision blurred.
"...Pepper..."
He couldn’t tell whether he was talking to himself or simply dreaming aloud.
He’d suffered life-threatening injuries.
Undergone surgery.
Worked nonstop to build the armor.
Fought his way out of captivity.
Flown across the desert.
Then walked through it for hours with almost nothing left in the tank.
His body finally reached its limit.
Tony collapsed face-first into the sand.
As darkness crept over him, he thought he heard helicopter rotors in the distance.
Thump.
Something landed squarely on his back.
It was heavy.
Warm.
Breathing.
Relief flickered through Tony’s exhausted mind.
Someone had found him.
Whether it was the military or the terrorists remained to be seen, but at least he probably wasn’t going to die mummified in the desert.
Then came the slaps.
Smack.
Smack.
Smack.
His face snapped from side to side under a relentless barrage.
Tony’s first thought was simple.
Definitely terrorists.
Only someone with absolutely no bedside manner would wake a dying man like this.
He forced his swollen eyes open.
If they kept hitting him, he’d need reconstructive surgery before he even got home.
The sight before him permanently rewired his understanding of reality.
A Siberian Husky was sitting proudly on his chest.
Its front paws rose and fell with remarkable enthusiasm, delivering rapid-fire slaps to both sides of his face.
Left.
Right.
Left.
Right.
The dog looked completely committed to the task.
Tony stared in mute disbelief.
The husky managed another dozen enthusiastic smacks before Tony finally recovered enough to throw up his hands.
"Stop! Stop! I’m awake!"
To his astonishment...
The dog actually listened.
It immediately lowered its paws, hopped off his chest, and sat neatly beside him as though nothing unusual had happened.
"Tony!"
A voice echoed across the desert.
Tony turned toward the sound.
A U.S. Army helicopter was descending nearby while an escort formation circled overhead.
As the helicopter hovered just above the ground, one man jumped out before it had fully landed.
Four soldiers followed immediately behind him.
They sprinted across the sand.
Leading them was Colonel James Rhodes.
Seeing his old friend alive, Rhodey finally let himself relax.
"So," he called with a grin, "still think the jeep was the better ride?"
Tony answered with a smile that looked more painful than cheerful.
A moment later, the two embraced.
Nearby, the husky sat quietly, watching the reunion with the satisfied expression of someone who believed it had performed exemplary emergency medical care.
At the military base, Phil Coulson stepped into a secure communications room and activated an encrypted channel.
"Director," he said.
"We’ve recovered Tony Stark."
He paused.
"But that’s not the most important thing I need to report."
Visit and read more novel to help us update chapter quickly. Thank you so much!
Use arrow keys (or A / D) to PREV/NEXT chapter