“I had hoped you would spend your famous c-virus rounds. Which you did. I am so happy we two titans are talking, Tony Stark. But the girl has three hundred seconds only.”

  “Squash him, Stark,” said Saoirse defiantly. “Squash him flat, then go save my sister in Fourni.”

  “That is an option,” said the Mandarin. “Take your revenge on me and let the girl die. Or…”

  “Or we fight? Correct?”

  “Yes. Come out of the suit and fight me. Once I have dispatched you, then I deactivate the ring.”

  Tony felt he had to ask: “And if I win?”

  “If you can force me to yield, then I will also deactivate the ring. You have my word. And please, Tony Stark, do not attempt to hack my rings. They are coded to my biometrics and on a network closed more tightly than the fist of God.”

  “So you keep your wonderful rings? Hardly a fair fight.”

  “Of course not. We fight as my ancestors did. Fists and fury. That means you remove your college ring also.”

  Tony removed a gauntlet and tugged off his ring, his blood boiling. This hateful person was infuriating. It was almost unbelievable to him that the man who claimed to have killed his friend was within reach and not only was Tony not repeatedly punching his smug face, but he was contemplating getting into an unfair fight in which he himself was likely to be beaten to death.

  But what choice did he have?

  There must be a way out. He couldn’t think. There was no time.

  “Tick-tock,” said the Mandarin melodramatically. Then, as though taking Tony’s decision for granted, he stood and stripped off his gown, revealing his muscular torso with its dragon tattoo.

  “Nice ink,” said Tony. “Prison?” But the jab was not delivered with his usual jauntiness, possibly because it was hurled at this particular man at this particular time.

  The Mandarin wagged his finger like a metronome pendulum. The message was clear: five minutes would soon be four.

  “All right, all right,” said Tony, stepping out of the armor, which reverse-telescoped away from his limbs as he moved. For his part, the Mandarin tugged off his nine remaining rings and built a neat tower on the arm of the sofa.

  “I will relish this, Stark. No trickery this time. Just two men destined to wage war on each other.”

  No trickery, thought Tony. I doubt that very much.

  Truth be told, he could use a little trickery of his own about now. Although he had been patched up pretty well in the Tanngrisnir’s sick bay, he was still crocked in the lower-limbs department, and his shoulder felt as raw as a bloody steak where the Mandarin had cut into it in their last fight.

  Not exactly peak fitness.

  The Mandarin gestured at the two transparent casts wrapped around Tony’s legs.

  “I had thought that your legs must be shattered.”

  “They were, but don’t worry, I can still lick you, buddy.”

  The Mandarin finished limbering up. “Air casts?”

  “Yeah,” lied Tony. “Can we get on with this? Tick-tock, right?”

  “Most assuredly, Mr. Tony Stark,” said the Mandarin. “Before we begin, just remember that I murdered your paramour.”

  Rational, laid-back man that Tony was, this comment turned him into a raging gorilla, and he rushed at the Mandarin, forgetting every lesson Rhodey had ever taught him, chief among them being that outside the suit he was just a normal guy.

  The Mandarin sidestepped the attack with ludicrous ease and finger-jabbed Tony in the solar plexus on his way past. The sharp pain brought Tony back to his senses, but it was probably too late, because, contrary to what the movies teach us, in hand-to-hand combat one good blow usually decides the outcome. The Mandarin spun on his toes and pursued Tony, landing several chops on his damaged shoulder. There was no banter or discussion. The Mandarin was all business on this occasion and would not allow his prey to escape once more. With each blow Tony sank lower until he was down on one knee panting, with blood streaming from his injured shoulder.

  Anna, he thought. I have failed you.

  For a crazy moment it seemed that he saw Anna’s face in the factory floor dust, and though he knew it was just his exhausted mind playing tricks, it gave him the strength to fight on.

  The Mandarin locked his hands and raised them overhead for a finishing strike to the back of his opponent’s exposed neck, when the opponent did something that should not have been possible except on the surface of the moon.

  Tony somehow leaped six feet straight up and spun in the air, sweeping his right leg in a roundhouse kick that took the Mandarin straight in the teeth. In truth, the blow hurt Tony almost as much as it hurt the Mandarin, but Tony had the satisfaction of seeing the pain on his mortal enemy’s face.

  The Mandarin’s strong teeth bit deep into the cast, and gas flooded his mouth. Tony suddenly lost his altitude, and both men went down in a heap. The Mandarin spat out plastic and crawled away.

  “That is no ordinary cast,” he said, and Saoirse burst out laughing, for the Mandarin’s voice was that of a chipmunk.

  “That is no ordinary cast,” she squeaked. “I’d say there was some helium in there.”

  Which explained why Tony could jump so high.

  Tony used his remaining cast to spring himself across the factory floor and pounce on the Mandarin.

  “Now,” he said, grabbing the Mandarin by the throat, “you will release the girl.”

  The Mandarin said nothing, so Tony punched him in his smug face, maybe half a dozen times, each blow sending shockwaves down the length of his own fractured legs.

  “Let her go!” he shouted. “This is over!”

  The Mandarin declared, “Nothing is over, Tony Stark!” which might have sounded ominous had it not been for the helium squeak.

  But as he said this, the Mandarin stretched out his arms and separated his fingers—for all the good that would do him, one might think—but on the arm of the sofa, the stack of rings rattled and quivered.

  “No!” said Saoirse. “Boss, look out!”

  One by one the rings lifted into the air. They formed a revolving circle before zooming over to drop neatly onto the Mandarin’s waiting fingers.

  “Coded to my biometrics,” he said, his voice back to normal. “Now this is truly over.”

  The Mandarin’s thumb ring flashed, and from its crystal grew a flower of white light that sprawled across the terrorist’s hand, creating in effect a glove of power.

  “You see? I, too, have a gauntlet,” he said, and he brought the armed hand up to strike Tony in the temple.

  The effect was staggering. Tony was knocked clean across the room. He crashed through an old cabinet and into the solid wall. Dust and plaster showered on top of him when he fell to the floor, bleeding from his ears. It was clear that the Mandarin’s strength had been considerably magnified by the mysterious white light, and it was equally apparent that even if by some miracle Tony rallied, he would not survive a second blow.

  “Now, Tony Stark,” said the Mandarin, “you fought dishonorably, and that is how you shall die. I would like you to know that I have no intention of freeing the girl. So die in the full knowledge of your failure to avenge your beloved and rescue the damsel in distress.”

  Tony managed to roll over onto his back, and the effort sent sharp bolts of pain shooting through his chest.

  The Mandarin loomed over him, holding out his enhanced fist. “Do you like my new technology? It may further infuriate you to know that Anna Wei developed the white-light ring.”

  Tony coughed and it felt as though his lungs had come loose from their moorings.

  “Let the girl go, Mandarin,” he said. “Show some humanity.”

  The Mandarin smiled through bloodied teeth. “That’s just the thing, Mr. Tony Stark. I despise humanity.”

  And his hand came down. But before it could do more than graze Tony’s chest, the Mandarin was knocked sideways slightly as Saoirse butted him in the midriff, which would have had no impact at all had she not been wearing the Party Pack Iron Man helmet. As it was, the impact was minimal, and the Mandarin simply reached down with his free hand and planted it on the crown of the helmet.

  “Enough, child,” he said, grunting to dislodge the girl as she wrapped her hands around his waist. “Your time is running out.”

  Saoirse held on for a good ten seconds before the Mandarin put his shoulder into it and pushed her across the room. Tony watched the girl roll in the dirt and thought that he would prefer to spend his last moment looking at Saoirse rather than the Mandarin. It was almost unbearable that the man who killed Anna was about to kill him and then the Irish girl.

  Saoirse tumbled in the dust and raised the Iron Man visor. The face that appeared should have been despondent, but instead Saoirse’s expression was fierce and victorious. Looking Tony straight in the eye, she very deliberately took off the Mandarin’s ring.

  “Hey, Mandy,” she said, tossing the ring to him. “Catch.”

  It would take a strong and focused person to resist a cry of catch, and the Mandarin was not as focused as he might have been. Instinctively, he reached up to snatch the twinkling ring out of the air.

  He looked at the ring in his hand and did not understand what was happening. “My ring. Mine.”

  “That’s right, your ring.”

  “But…” said the Mandarin. “But…”

  Tony finished the sentence for him. “But how?”

  How had Saoirse removed the ring?

  Saoirse made a duh face at him and pointed at the Party Pack helmet. And then Tony, being a genius, got it.

  When the Mandarin put his hand on the helmet, Saoirse downloaded his biometrics and synced with the rings. She controls them now.

  About half a second later, the Mandarin got the idea and dropped the explosive ring like a hot coal. He looked down fearfully at his other rings, but he couldn’t do anything without letting go of Tony’s chest.

  “No!” he said. “It’s not possible.”

  Then one of his rings activated and sent an electrical shock through his body. And from him into Tony.

  “Friday!” said Tony when his jaw loosened. “What are you doing?”

  “I don’t know specifically,” said Saoirse. “I activated them all.”

  This was good news in that Tony was alive to hear it but bad in that one of the rings was explosive—at least one.

  The Mandarin confirmed Tony’s worry. “What have you done, child? There’s an impact beam on my index ring.”

  It’s incredible how two words can motivate the most exhausted person, and the words impact beam are right up there with beware shark for getting someone up and moving. Tony bucked and wriggled until he was free of the Mandarin. Then he grabbed his enemy’s hand.

  “Let me help you,” he said, attempting to straighten the Mandarin’s index finger. “An impact beam will hit like TNT.”

  The Mandarin lashed out, scything the air with an icy blade from his left hand. “Never, Stark. Never will I bow to you.”

  Saoirse pulled Tony, yanking him clear of the sheet of ice.

  “Come on,” she said. “We need to—”

  “Exit quickly,” said Tony. “And I know a man who can fly. An Iron Man.”

  Saoirse grabbed Tony’s elbow and dragged him along. “Quickly, boss. Suit up.”

  The suit stood where Tony had left it, yawning open as though an alien had burst through the chest.

  “Protocol thirteen!” he shouted. “Envelope.”

  The suit jerked to life, used its fourteen cameras to precisely locate Tony Stark, and seemed to drop on him like a knocked-over suit of armor. But the suit’s fall was scientific and accurate, and moments later it was a second skin on the billionaire inventor.

  “Climb on,” he said to Saoirse. “There are handles on the upper back.”

  But Saoirse was already there. She knew the Iron Man system inside out, and by the time Tony had finished the command, she was clamped on and ready to go.

  “Fly, boss!” she called. “Fly!”

  Tony did not need to be told twice—though she had told him twice—and he blasted off toward the busted roof panel.

  “Hold on,” he said, and he piloted the suit to a safe distance over the fish factory. His last sight of the Mandarin before a churning explosion filled the factory’s every corner was on the monitor from the suit’s rear camera. The Mandarin was tearing off the remaining rings and hurling them from him. It might have been a trick of the gloom, but it seemed as though the Mandarin looked skyward into the camera and shouted, “Soon, Tony Stark!”

  He would have to have his lip-reading software analyze that later.

  Then the explosion shook the factory to its foundations, Saoirse screamed, and Tony forgot all about the Mandarin’s last words—if they were his last words.

  The wreck of the Tanngrisnir

  Diavolo Conroy was still lying on the bridge of the Tanngrisnir a few minutes later when Iron Man descended slowly through the hole made by Freddie Leveque.

  Tony Stark flipped up his faceplate and could not hide his dismay as the sheer scale of the devastation sank in.

  “Not a scratch, Conroy. I did say that, didn’t I?”

  Conroy did not bother getting up. In fact, he didn’t even have the strength to open his eyes. “Yep, I do recall something along those lines, but things got out of hand.”

  Tony noticed Leveque. “You took out Freddie. How the hell did you manage that?”

  “I had a stick,” said Diavolo.

  “A stick?”

  “I had a ball, too. Not just a stick.”

  “Well, that explains it.”

  “It was a hurley, I bet,” said a girl with a slight lisp.

  Conroy opened his eyes and climbed to his feet to see a teenage girl on Iron Man’s back. The girl’s face was soot streaked and her hair looked like an electrical current had recently passed through it. She had nasty shiners coming up around both eyes and seemed to be missing a front tooth.

  “You’d be Saoirse, I suppose. Good to see you safe and sound.”

  “Thanks to me,” said Tony. “Credit where it’s due.”

  “Credit?” said Diavolo. “The poor child is in worse shape than this boat. And you have her flying around on your back?”

  “In my defense, there are some handles back there,” said Tony.

  “I would be surprised if her parents don’t sue you, Stark. Once the United Nations gets through with you.”

  “Luckily for me, Saoirse doesn’t have parents,” said Tony. “Oh, wait—that was insensitive, wasn’t it?”

  Saoirse slapped his armored shoulder. “Yes, it was, boss. Very.”

  Conroy took out his smartphone to call a doctor, then realized that it was just as fried as the rest of the boat’s instruments.

  “I suppose we’ll just have to find a doctor the old-fashioned way,” he said, tossing his phone onto a heap of smoldering electronics. Conroy helped Saoirse down from the Iron Man suit. He pointed to her mouth. “Do you still have the tooth?”

  Saoirse grimaced. “I swallowed it.”

  “I don’t suppose you’ve got a machine that can fix teeth, Tony boy?”

  “If I did, it’s junk now, along with the rest of my gear.”

  “Shiv, my wife, will think of something,” Conroy assured Saoirse.

  Stark grinned. “Shiv. You do know that your wife’s name is slang for—”

  “I know. A concealed blade.”

  “Wait a minute,” said Saoirse. “Why would your wife be getting involved?”

  “Because you are a minor without any guardians as far as I can see. So you stay in our spare room tonight. And you”—he turned to Tony—“sleep on the couch. I have questions for you both.”

  “Come on, Diavolo,” said Tony. “I’ve had a rough night, saving the environment and so forth. I need five-star accommodations.”

  “That’s Inspector Conroy to you,” said Diavolo. “And our couch is five stars. There’ll be tea and toast in it for you if I like the answers to my questions.”

  Stark jerked a thumb upward. “I could just fly away. I’d be stateside before you could get the word out.”

  Conroy looked him squarely in the eye. “You could do that, Tony, but I would think less of you.”

  Saoirse laughed. “I like this fella, boss. He knows your weak spots.”

  “There’s a lot of that going around,” said Tony. “I’m the one wearing the armor here, but I feel like a soft touch.”

  The three talked and bonded a little bit and were all mightily relieved that they hadn’t allowed untold tragedy to come to pass. But things could have gone a whole different way, because Spin Zhuk was watching the entire touching tableau through a starboard porthole, thinking, They are so fat-faced with their smugness. Stark’s mask is open, and I have a shot.

  And she would have taken that shot, because even though the Mandarin had been a cruel master, Spin Zhuk was a loyal soldier. She could only presume that Iron Man had killed the Mandarin, and he must pay for his crime.

  But then her communicator vibrated in her pocket, and it was a most significant vibrating pattern. SOS—save our souls.

  The master is alive, she realized. But if he was sending the SOS code, he was injured and needed her immediately.

  I will follow the locator on my communicator, Spin decided, and it would be prudent to do so without security forces on her tail.

  “Another time, Iron Man,” she whispered. “Another time.”

  For now, Spin Zhuk was content to hike across country as far as Dublin Busáras, where she had a fully equipped go-bag in locker forty-two.

  By sunset that evening Spin Zhuk was on the ferry to Holyhead, watching reports of her own failed mission on Sky News.

  The tiny island of Fourni had for centuries been considered the gateway to West Africa. Nestled in the equatorial Gulf of Guinea, the country enjoyed the cool night breezes from the Atlantic but was spared the worst of the Saharan glare. Once a French colony, Fourni had achieved its independence in 1956 and had avoided the all-too-common afflictions of the African continent—dictatorships, political corruption, and military coups—largely because of the strength of both its ancient people and its economy. In the previous decade, however, like much of the planet, Fourni had fallen on hard times. The general impact of the world depression on its export market was compounded by the confusion of its aging president and the influx of asylum-seekers from neighboring countries. The capital, Port Verdé, was hit hardest, and many of the wealthier citizens literally fled in the night, fearing that their assets might be seized should they wait for a total collapse.