Based on the criminals’ physical characteristics, language, and numbers, Barbara had a rough idea of their backgrounds, which gave Luke an advantage.
After collecting this intelligence, he activated the optical camouflage again and left the ward, sneaking out of the base.
In the wilderness, he pondered for a moment before he took off the Big Dipper Armor and put on the White Wolf Armor.
This time, the White Wolf Armor’s wings shot out right away. The back was taller now, with three mini propulsion jets on it.
Activating the jets, Luke flew toward his first destination.
The new experimental jets on the armor were far less efficient than Tony’s Iron Man Armor. After all, the raw materials for energy were a big problem, so he could only economize and use cruise mode for long-distance flights.
Even then, the armor’s cruise speed was still roughly 120 kph.
Afghanistan was a war zone filled with mountains and mixed forces, and had prominent advantages.
A small plane would be faster, but taking off would be a problem. Luke couldn’t obtain many materials for the time being, and he had no way of sorting out the stealth function.
Using the White Wolf Armor to fly at a low altitude wasn’t a problem.
Crossing mountain ranges in the night sky, Luke soon reached a place hundreds of kilometers deep in the mountains.
After confirming that this was indeed one of the coordinates provided by Barbara, he quickly reduced the power output on his back to the minimum and glided down soundlessly in his armor, the pure white color of the armor also vanishing into thin air.
As semi-assassin type armor, White Wolf now had an optical camouflage system which Luke had added in subsequent modifications, but it still wasn’t as stealthy as the Big Dipper Armor.
Thankfully, this wasn’t America; it was just a small village in Afghanistan.
Luke snuck into the biggest house in the village. He didn’t need to interrogate the guards; he simply gave one of the guards a dose of the inducing agent. Then, following the guard’s information, he found the leader of this place and also gave him a dose.
In this lawless place, he could fully utilize methods which he hadn’t used casually in the past to be as efficient and as quick as he wanted.
Ten minutes later, Luke rose into the air again, leaving only a few bodies in the room.
He didn’t deal with the bodies, since he didn’t have to worry about the terrorists calling the police.
If something big happened in Afghanistan, he could make White Wolf or Big Dipper take the blame.
He had to avoid using the Ghost Butcher’s methods.
There were as many factions here as there were hairs on a cow, and their backgrounds were extremely complicated. Thus, Barbara’s intelligence had only locked onto a rough area.
Luke could only search one by one.
If he was lucky, he would be able to find the person right away.
If he was unlucky, he could only hope that someone from another faction knew where Tony was.
It didn’t have to be someone who saw it with their own eyes. They only needed to confirm that a certain force had made a big move here some time ago; that would be an extremely obvious clue.
They had successfully ambushed the American convoy with more than two hundred people at once. It was impossible for them to hide this from other local forces.
The leaders earlier didn’t belong to the group that had attacked Tony, and they didn’t have any information on Tony’s whereabouts.
Luke could only find out from them who was more powerful and had more information channels. Then, he quickly turned around and headed for the next intelligence provider.
…
As Luke shuttled through the night sky over the mountains in Afghanistan, Tony was in the final stage of his last-ditch effort.
Half a month ago, his convoy was attacked.
Tony was injured and unconscious.
After losing consciousness for a period of time, he entered a semi-conscious state, and was in perpetual nightmarish pain.
Just as he was about to fall asleep, a lot of bearded men hung around in front of him shouting, and Tony found the noise annoying.
He couldn’t understand what they were shouting. It was as if everything was a dream, and he forgot most of what he saw.
Finally, he completely woke up from his coma.
Except for a faint yellow light not far away, everything was dark around him.
A moment later, he realized that he was in a cave with a middle-aged bald man.
He soon learned that the middle-aged man was called Yinsen, a scientist and a doctor.
In 1999, they met at a conference in Bern, Switzerland, but Tony had been too drunk to remember Yinsen.
To that end, Tony could only apologize for his previous foppish personality.
Thankfully, Yinsen had a good temper. Although Tony had ignored him back then, Yinsen dropped the subject after saying a few words in jest.
If Tony had run into a petty person, the latter might bear a grudge against him for the rest of his life.
The two of them were now in the same boat after being kidnapped by the terrorists outside the cave.
However, Yinsen was at least still physically sound, while Tony was horrified to discover that there was a hole in his chest.
Not only was there a hole, there was also… an electromagnet installed inside it.
That wasn’t the worst thing – the worst thing was that it had to be powered by a cumbersome battery.
Without the electromagnet to pull on the rocket shrapnel in his chest wound, the shrapnel could flow into his heart at any moment and kill him.
It was Yinsen who had operated on Tony, taken out the shrapnel and installed the electromagnet.
So, Yinsen was the tycoon’s savior.
Unfortunately, they were in an extremely bad environment. Tony was dragged out not long after he woke up.
After experiencing water torture for the first time in his life, Tony, this smart guy, chose to play along and agreed to start work.
The so-called job, however, was something that he completely hadn’t taken seriously before — building a Jericho missile.
In the face of the leader’s request, the tycoon had mixed feelings.
Wasn’t he just fooling the company’s shareholders and the military with this piece of sh*t? Now, someone had actually kidnapped a super magnate like him over something so ordinary.
The criminals were also very persistent. They wanted the third-rate missile which he had just developed.
What shocked Tony even more was that after he agreed to cooperate, he was taken out of the cave for the first time, only to see the Stark Industries logo everywhere – on the guns the criminals were holding, the cars, and the weapons piled up together.
After he was rushed back to the cave, he mumbled in disbelief, “Where did they get my weapons? And so many?”
Yinsen didn’t think much of the tycoon’s shock. “They’ve always had secret channels to buy your weapons in bulk. They’re genuine big clients, and you’ve made a lot of money off them.”
“WTF?!” Tony looked incredulous.
As an arms dealer, he naturally earned money from selling weapons.
But the firearms he had just seen clearly exceeded a certain amount.
Many of them were powerful anti-tank and anti-aircraft missiles, and their production numbers indicated that they were new from recent months.