Luca smiled, stood up, and chuckled.
"Everyone, bear witness. I didn't force him to inject himself. This was his own suicide attempt. It had nothing to do with me."
Tony and Yinsen looked at each other but said nothing.
They began looking around the office, making fun of the country bumpkin boss's taste.
"Look at that painting on the wall. What is it supposed to be? A Middle Eastern Mona Lisa? That damn taste of his is an insult to art."
Tony complained, pointing at an oil painting on the wall.
Luca walked over to the open safe and gave it a kick.
"This guy actually kept dozens of gold bars in his safe. What outdated taste. Who still keeps physical gold these days?"
But for all their complaints, they still had business to attend to.
Tony maneuvered the armor over to the desk.
But he found that its hands couldn't type on the keyboard at all.
"Damn it, the armor's too clumsy."
Tony grumbled.
Then he pulled a catch on the chest and quickly climbed out of the armor amid a series of clicks.
He caught a whiff of the mixed odors on his body and grimaced in disgust.
"When I get back to New York, I'm going to soak in the tub for a whole day!"
Tony muttered as he sat down in the chair at the desk and began typing on the computer.
Luca stood beside him, watching Tony's fingers fly across the keyboard, and couldn't help laughing.
"Tony, your typing speed has arthritis. Want me to get you some lubricant?"
"Shut up, you all-muscle, no-brain mutant," Tony shot back without looking up.
"I'm bypassing their firewall. These idiots actually used a United States military encryption system. Looks like there really is a big fish backing them."
Before long, a string of green code appeared on the computer screen.
"Done." Tony raised an eyebrow.
He had cracked a deeply hidden encrypted offline file.
Tony opened the file, and the first thing that popped up was a muffled recording of a voice call.
Without thinking much of it, he clicked play.
The bald leader's accented English came through the recording.
"You didn't pay enough. I found out Tony Stark wasn't the only one we captured. Their lives are worth more than that..."
Then a voice altered by a voice changer came from the other end of the call.
"Kill them according to the original plan, and the balance will be transferred to your account. Don't complicate things."
The recording ended there.
Tony immediately opened another document in the file.
It was a detailed financial transaction record for weapons smuggling.
It contained records of a large number of transfers.
Tony traced the transfers back, trying to find the source of the funds.
But when the final result appeared on the screen, Tony's fingers stopped.
The source account for the funds bore a familiar encryption symbol.
It was an encryption key reserved for senior members of the Stark Industries board!
At the sight of the symbol,
Tony and Luca's expressions instantly darkened.
"Fuck! Those damn bastards!"
Luca dropped his grin and cursed, undisguised killing intent flashing in his eyes.
Tony slammed a fist into the desk.
"Those treacherous animals!" Tony cursed through gritted teeth.
Now, the whole truth was clear.
This was no terrorist attack, nor was it a simple kidnapping for ransom.
It was a long-planned assassination!
Someone high up inside Stark Industries wanted the two brothers to die in this deserted wasteland of a desert, so they could swallow up all of Stark Industries under a legitimate pretext!
The two exchanged a glance and instantly understood what the other was thinking.
"Back to New York." Tony's gaze was as cold as ice.
"We'll drag that damn traitor out!" Luca clenched his fists, his knuckles cracking.
They talked it over and reached an agreement.
No matter which senior board member had done it, once they caught him, they would make him pay the most painful price.
But first, they had to get out of this godforsaken place.
Tony quickly unplugged the computer's data cable and stuffed the hard drive containing the evidence into his pocket.
Then he walked over to the armor, opened some hidden panels inside it, and pulled out several wires.
Next, Tony picked up the detonator remote the bald leader had dropped on the floor earlier.
Finally, after some quick modifications, he reconnected it to the explosives wiring inside the base and set a timed detonation sequence.
"I never leave weapons for the enemy. Let's go." Tony brushed off the dust and stood up.
Luca nodded.
He walked between the two men.
He grabbed Yinsen by the collar with one hand and Tony by the shoulder with the other.
"Ready for takeoff, old men?" Luca teased.
The next second.
Carrying the two men, Luca smashed through the office roof and flew at top speed toward the outside through the base's ventilation shaft.
Just as they flew out of the mountain.
"Boom!!!"
Amid an earth-shaking explosion.
The entire mountain began to shake violently. Flames shot into the sky, and billowing black smoke rose straight into the clouds.
The explosives Tony had set had gone off, burying the evil inside beneath the ruins.
High in the air.
Luca carried the two men through the fierce wind rushing at them, finally relaxing.
The wind kept Tony from opening his eyes, and he shouted his complaints.
"Hey, Luca! Slow down! I remember your legs used to turn to jelly on amusement park roller coasters. Didn't you have a terrible fear of heights? How dare you fly this high now? Aren't you afraid you'll piss your pants?"
Hearing his big brother bring up his embarrassing past, Luca shot back without holding back.
"That was ten years ago! And it wasn't a fear of heights. I just had doubts about how safe those roller coasters were!"
"Look at yourself, Tony! You're the one who looks like a quail right now. Want me to find you a diaper?"
The two bickered in the sky, neither giving an inch, as if the life-and-death crisis they had just faced had never happened.
The wind was distorting Yinsen's face, but when he heard the two still dredging up each other's embarrassing pasts, he helplessly closed his eyes.
Soon.
To avoid drawing attention by being too conspicuous in the sky, Luca flew some distance with the two men before landing on a flat sand dune.
After landing, Tony pulled a satellite phone from his pocket that he had just swiped from the base.
It was what the bald leader had used to contact the outside world.
Tony deftly dialed an encrypted number.
The call connected after two rings.
"This is Rhodey. Who's this?" A tired but serious voice came from the other end.
"It's me, Tony. Hurry up and come get me. All I want right now is to lie on the couch and have an ice-cold martini," Tony said lightly.
There was a second of silence on the other end, followed by an ecstatic shout.
"Tony?! Oh! My God, you're still alive! Where the hell are you?!"
"Yes, I'm still alive, and barring any accidents, I'll stay that way for the next few decades."
Tony looked up at the position of the sun, gave him an approximate set of coordinates, and hung up.