Beneath the blazing sword edge, Gideon Malick represented the Council on Foreign Relations in laying out the terms and revising the contract with Salomon, who sat astride Pegasus. The war against Latveria was a carnival for the Military-Industrial Complex. This group of major American shareholders, the Council on Foreign Relations, would never pass up any opportunity to profit—though this was hardly their only opportunity, their greed would never spare even a single coin that had fallen into their hands. The million-dollar sheep in Afghanistan were merely a trivial fraction; from 1998 to 2015, a full twelve trillion dollars in U.S. military funds had vanished without a trace. Even all the white gloves in every branch of the military combined could not have swallowed that much. As a former member of the UN Security Council and the current chairman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Gideon Malick had an excellent excuse to gather the members capable of deciding this matter at United Nations Headquarters to deliberate and revise the UN resolution. Everyone he had summoned stood to gain from the war, and they had been engaged in long-term, family-run corruption, practically equivalent to the US Government paying dividends under the table to these American shareholders.
Other than those old men already blinded by greed, few could remain unmoved by the majesty of Latveria's ruler. When the Praetorian Guard dragged several Council on Foreign Relations members out of the audience and forced them to revise the UN resolution according to his wishes, not many of the others resisted. The agreement was concluded with remarkable speed. Although Gideon Malick appeared to be negotiating the terms, every clause he proposed had already been discussed by the Internal Affairs Department in the City of Immortals. He also knew exactly where to bargain in order to