“World domination through sewage,” said Tony. “That’s a new one.”

  The Mandarin took the sarcasm as a compliment. “And that is not the only novel facet to my plan. I have subverted the normal engagement protocols for common assassins in that I manufactured the targets. It’s a business lesson I learned from your father. He was quoted in Time magazine as saying: ‘Sometimes the opportunity does not exist, and so you must create the opportunity.’”

  Tony remembered the quote. It had been one of his father’s regulars, along with: “We are Starks, Titans of the modern world” and “What the heck are you wearing, Tony?”

  “You manufactured the targets?”

  “Exactly,” said the Mandarin. “Once I had decided who to eliminate, I wondered who would want me to kill them. And believe me, Mr. Tony Stark, environmental ministers have many enemies. My little group will be owed favors from two motor companies, a logging multinational, a pharmacy giant, rival politicians—oh, and two angry spouses—to name but a few. One particular minister, the Swedish one I believe, has three bounties on his head. Such a naughty boy. Each client believes he is the only one. It is, as you Americans would say, quite the sweet deal. And all the blame will fall at your door, Mr. Stark.”

  “Not that I’ll be alive to shoulder it,” guessed Tony.

  The Mandarin wagged his finger, and Tony saw that his college ring glittered among the Mandarin’s own ten rings. “Precisely,” said the terrorist. “Dead men deny nothing.”

  Which is never a good thing to hear when the terrorist’s finger is pointed in your direction.

  The Mandarin had Tony dragged outside to the courtyard, cuffed hands jerked cruelly high behind his back. The sun was peeping through the crags of the western island, and the screeching gulls in morning flight were knife slashes in the sky. It was difficult for Tony to believe that so much had happened in a single night, and yet the world looked the same this morning.

  The Mandarin stood in the center of the flagstones, stripped to the waist, performing what looked like a combination of tai chi and disco dancing, which Tony, given his impulsive and foolhardy nature, could not help commenting on even though he could guess what it would cost him.

  “Hey, Mandarin,” said Tony, after Leveque had forced him to his knees, “I can tell by the way you use your walk, you’re a woman’s man, no time for talk.”

  The Mandarin considered this while he finished his routine. “This is true generally,” he said bowing to Tony. “However, I do find that taking the time to talk is beneficial to a relationship. But I feel you are mocking me, so…”

  The Mandarin raised a fine eyebrow and Leveque dealt Tony a savage blow to the neck.

  “Now, now, Freddie,” admonished the Mandarin. “Not so severe, if you please. Mr. Tony Stark will need his wits about him for the morning’s activities. I would not wish him to claim that I had an unfair advantage.”

  In spite of the vicious blow, Tony’s mouth kept running. “Hey, Mandarin. Is it just Mandarin? Like Prince, or Beyoncé? Or can I call you Mandy?”

  The Mandarin squatted before him. “My family name would have been known to your father, as we were the Asian equivalent of the Starks, you might say. But the communists were covetous of my family’s power and violently relieved us of it. Since that day I have been reminding governments of the fragility of their positions.”

  Tony coughed blood onto the flagstones. “Nice justification speech, Mandy. I used to give those to myself in the mirror. Never out in the real world, though—that would be weird.”

  If Stark had been hoping to rile his enemy, then he was disappointed. The Mandarin just clapped his hands and smiled broadly.

  “Tony Stark, you are somehow a genius and an idiot at the same time. There is no possible advantage with these, as you Americans call them, wisecracks. All you do is force me to weaken your body in advance of the combat that is to come.”

  “I do not like that word,” said Tony.

  The Mandarin shrugged. “Combat? I am afraid that it is inevitable.”

  “No, the other word: wisecracks. This is good material here. Grade A stuff.”

  The Mandarin stood, his knees cracking. “I see how it is, Stark. The idiot has taken over. Such a pity, as the genius might have been of some use to you this morning.”

  Leveque grabbed a fistful of Stark’s hair and pulled his head back. “Zis rich man is nuzzink without ’is metal toy,” he said into Tony’s ear. “Zis will not be a contest, chef. It will be a slaughter.”

  The Mandarin stretched, reaching overhead with fingers crooked as though he would tear holes in the sky.

  “Let us hope so, Freddie. We are on the clock, after all.”

  Tony decided he had played the fool long enough for the idea to take hold in the Mandarin’s mind, so he asked some pertinent questions.

  “So, what? We’re fighting to the death now, is that it?”

  “That is indeed the case,” said the Mandarin. “I know it would make more financial sense to ransom you back to your company, but you are a loose end.”

  “So I need to be taken care of, right?”

  “Precisely.”

  “Some kind of respect thing?” said Tony. “You gotta show the staff how you still got it, right?”

  The Mandarin nodded. “Yes, yes, exactly. A simplistic explanation, but accurate. The power structure of the world I choose to live in is in no way democratic. It is based on fear. These men obey me because they fear me—and because I pay them an exorbitant amount, but fear is the key.”

  Tony shook off the effects of Leveque’s blow and climbed to his feet. “And now you feel you have to eat my heart, as it were, and steal my powers.”

  “That does not actually work,” said the Mandarin, straight-faced. “But symbolically, yes. I vanquish my enemies and thereby absorb their reputations at least, and mine grows with it.” He sighed. “It has become something of a tiresome tradition with this group that I personally hunt down the hostage at the end of each operation. When I extinguish the life in your body, it is nothing personal, you understand? I would much prefer to shoot you in the head now and spare us both the effort.”

  “I’ll keep that in mind,” said Tony dryly. “So how do we do this? A throwdown, right here?”

  Tony certainly hoped not. He was exhausted and hungry, and the Mandarin seemed in excellent shape—fit and fresh, his skin glowing as though he’d just stepped out of a sauna.

  “No, no,” said the Mandarin. “That would hardly be sporting, and my ancestors have always been hunters. I myself can kill a mockingbird at a hundred paces with a bow and arrow. I remember being so disappointed when I read that American book. Quite the misleading title, I thought. No, to finish you here would be decidedly unsporting, and so I will evacuate my men to ensure that the competition is fair. They will wait for me on the boat while I follow you across the island. Once I have killed you and presented your head as proof of my victory, then we can be on our way. Tradition satisfied, loyalty ensured.”

  “Glad to be of service,” quipped Tony. “And tell me, buddy: what happens if I present your head down at the docks? Your guys let me go?”

  The Mandarin hid a gentle smile behind his hand. “Ah, yes, Tony Stark. It is possible, I suppose, that you would triumph. In that event you will simply have bought yourself some few minutes until my men slay you in revenge for the loss of their income stream. So you must run the gauntlet through me and then my small group of soldiers if you are to escape the island.”

  “Great,” said Tony. “A lose-lose situation. My favorite.”

  Things were looking grim for Tony Stark, it must be said. Nobody but an idiot would bet against the Mandarin in this dogfight. The terrorist was fit and relaxed. Perhaps Stark had the age advantage by a couple of years, but frankly, judging by appearances, it would not have surprised the Mandarin’s men much if he was able to rip Stark’s head from his shoulders with his bare hands. It was a David and Goliath situation, except in this modern version, David did not have a sneaky slingshot hidden in his pouch.

  Stark could not help considering his imminent decapitation. “Hey, Mandy, are you planning to bite my head clean off with your pearly whites, or are we getting weapons of some sort?”

  “Weapons, of course,” said the Mandarin. “Sharp blades for the both of us. Prussian sabers. My absolute favorite.”

  “That’s a little unfair,” commented Tony. “My favorite sharp implement is the knitting needle. It won’t take your head off, but give me a couple of hours and I could knit you a lovely vest.”

  The Mandarin wiggled his fingers so the rings caught the sun. “Count yourself lucky it is simply sabers, Stark. Were I to activate my wondrous rings, I could kill you in many horrible ways.”

  “I probably wouldn’t notice after the first time.”

  The Mandarin actually yawned. “The idiot part of you is tedious, Stark. But I understand. People deal with their imminent deaths in different fashions, but ultimately they all beg to live. You, too, shall beg.”

  “I doubt it, Mandy,” said Tony, and there was resolve in his voice. “I’ve been up against tougher customers than you. Dear old dad, for one.”

  The Mandarin tugged the rings off his fingers—all except Tony’s ring—and handed them to Leveque for safekeeping.

  “I was hoping for some meaningful last words,” he said, seeming genuinely disappointed. “But I see now that you are determined to maintain your cowboy act until the end. How American of you.”

  “Sorry to disappoint, Mandy,” said Tony, “but I have bigger things on my mind than trying to provide wise words for a terrorist’s memoirs.”

  “Very well, Tony Stark. I will remember you as an idiot to the last, if that is how you wish it.”

  Tony grew suddenly tired of the “cowboy act.” After all, it was not riling up the Mandarin as he’d hoped. The point of riling someone up was that angry people made rash decisions. But if the desired level of anger was not achieved, then the riler was just wasting his breath.

  “Okay, Mandarin. Just give me my instructions, and let’s get on with this. We both have schedules. You need to blow up a summit, and I need to save one.”

  The Mandarin laughed long and hard, clapping his hands in mock tribute. “Oh, dear me, Tony Stark. Save a summit? You cannot even save poor naïve Saoirse. You have only the slimmest hope of saving yourself.”

  “Instructions,” insisted Tony. “Let’s have them. If this is supposed to be a fair fight, you’re gonna take off the cuffs at least?”

  “Freddie will uncuff you,” confirmed the Mandarin. “At which point you can do something stupid and be shot on the spot or you can proceed to the western summit two kilometers from here. On the summit you will find an ancient stone seat, the king’s seat. And on the seat fresh clothing, food, and water will await you—and of course your saber. I shall join you in one hour for our duel. An idiot-proof plan. And just as well, I think, having gotten to know you.”

  Tony nodded slowly, absorbing the instructions, ignoring the jab. “Two kilometers west. Supplies and a weapon on the stone seat. One hour from right now or one hour from when I reach the stone seat?”

  “One hour from now,” said the Mandarin. “As you say, Tony Stark, we both have schedules. If you are not waiting at the stone seat, then I will unleash my dogs of war, as I do not have the luxury of time to spend hunting you—though a morning hunt would indeed be a pleasure.”

  Tony glared at the Mandarin, unconsciously clenching and unclenching his fists as he stared. The look in Tony’s eyes was one that his close friend Rhodey had christened Business Time, as in, whenever Tony wore that expression, he was preparing to do whatever had to be done. Playtime was well and truly over.

  Freddie Leveque hiked Tony’s wrists high behind his back, one last sadistic infliction of pain before unlocking the cuffs. Tony felt the fingers of his own Iron Man gauntlet close painfully around his hand. Thankfully, the servomotors were not operational, or his metacarpals would have been shattered.

  “Run, little billionaire,” said Leveque, turning the key. “Allez vite!”

  And for once Tony Stark did not spare time for a withering retort. He simply shambled across the courtyard toward the winding path beyond, and as his kinked and stiff limbs loosened up, his shamble transformed into an all-out sprint.

  Two kilometers over rough terrain could take up to fifteen minutes. That left three quarters of an hour to prepare for the man with the big sword.

  As it turned out, Tony had overestimated his own fleetness of foot, and it took him almost twenty-five minutes to reach the stone seat. The Mandarin had neglected to mention that the last quarter mile of his trek would be a steep climb over loose shale slickened by sea spray even at this altitude.

  With each backslide Tony cursed the terrorist, but he drove himself forward, because this fight was not just about himself. It was about the future of the environment. If the Mandarin succeeded in assassinating the various ministers, it would be decades before such an assembly could be reconvened, and by then it might be too late to save the Arctic glaciers and the ozone layer, to name but two, which would mean the extinction of dozens of species and the displacement of millions of people. As tragic as those scenarios were, right now Tony had to concentrate on the immediate loss of life that would result from his augmented Iron Man suit’s dropping in on the summit.

  The stone chair put Tony in mind of Arthurian England—as in, this was what Arthur’s throne probably would’ve looked like if someone had left it exposed to the ferocious elements since Arthur took a shank in the skull from nephew Mordred way back in the sixth century. Perhaps the chair had once been an impressive seat of power, but now it was worn down to a nub of its former self.

  “I know how you feel,” Tony said to the seat, displaying a spark of his old gumption even if no one was around to hear it. And he thought that he’d better watch the thinking-out-loud thing, because if Friday wasn’t in his ear, then he was just an unkempt guy muttering to himself.

  The throne had been carved from the rock itself sometime in the dim and distant past, and it was adorned with panels of Celtic spirals and pictographs that had no doubt once stood out in clear relief but were now dissolving slowly, eroded by salty mist and obscured by fingers of moss. On the seat itself sat a care package in a Red Cross bag. The famous red cross had been crudely augmented with the Mandarin’s dragon chest tattoo symbol. Beside the package, glinting sunrise red, stood a long sword.

  That thing is humongous, thought Tony. I might not be able to lift that, never mind swing it with enough force to lop the guy’s head off.

  Tony crossed the clearing and tore open the bag. Inside were vacuum-packed foil meals and bottled water.

  Stark twisted the cap off the water and raised the bottle to his lips, then paused before drinking as something occurred to him.

  “Mandarin,” he said, “the only thing I know about you is that you don’t play fair with friends or enemies. So I wonder how that particular personality defect is manifesting itself today.”

  And then he said, “Tony, baby, you gotta stop talking to yourself. Folks will think you’re crazy.”

  Some thirty-odd minutes later, the Mandarin strolled easily into the clearing to find Tony Stark lounging on the stone seat, swigging the last from his bottle of water.

  “Oh, Mandy,” said Tony. “You came.”

  The Mandarin’s smile was a little forced. He was determined to remain gracious, but this American was sorely testing his mood. He cheered himself by visualizing the blade of his saber cleaving Stark’s spine.

  “Mr. Stark,” said the Mandarin, “your time is at hand. I do hope the idiot in you took some time off to allow your serious side to make peace with your chosen god.”

  Tony stood and did a few stretches. “You know what, Mandy? I’m feeling better. A lot better. Maybe that water has magical restorative powers.”

  “I think not,” said the Mandarin, allowing himself a brief smirk, which did not go unnoticed by his opponent.

  “Don’t write me off so soon, Mandy,” said Tony, hefting his sword with obvious effort. “I might surprise you.”

  The Mandarin twirled his saber as though it were light as the oft-referenced feather.

  “Your bravado is to be expected. It is basic psychology, in fact. A weak opponent will put on a braggadocious display with the hope of disconcerting his enemy. A vain hope, unfortunately, Mr. Stark.”

  “Worth a shot,” said Tony. “But I would add that, in addition to the disconcerting thing, I was also time-wasting.”

  The Mandarin assumed a fighting stance. “A strange tactic indeed, considering the fact that Iron Man will shortly be seen to murder seven environmental ministers and you will be held responsible.”

  This remark seemed to press a button. Tony Stark suddenly attacked with considerable speed, forcing the Mandarin to execute an expert parry and sidestep as Stark’s saber came whistling down where his head had recently been.

  “Well done, Stark old man,” said the Mandarin. “You have found some spirit.”

  It seemed as though Tony was done talking. He whirled around and launched another offensive, the tendons in his neck standing out as he raised the sword and swung at the Mandarin. It was not an attack of any great finesse, because Tony had never trained with a saber, but he did know the basics of fencing thanks to several lessons with Friday, who had studied the teaching methods of David Abramovich Tyshler, widely regarded as the greatest fencing instructor in recent history. So Tony kept his weight low and did not overreach, but other than these two elementary tactics, the Mandarin was his superior in every way.

  The Mandarin blocked the blade with his own and the sabers sawed at each other, raising sparks at the contact.

  “Ha!” said the terrorist. “Good.”