"Good morning, Miss LaPlante!" he said cheerily. "Been holding down the fort for me?"

"Mr. Stark!" she exclaimed, getting up from her desk. "I was so afraid for you!"

Pamela was wearing a perfume made with a strong wormwood extract, mixed with flowers to give her an irresistible aroma. All she had to do was to get close enough to Stark to have him get a whiff of it, and he would be madly in love with her. If he kissed her, the lipstick she had crafted herself would ensure that Stark would be hers.

She drew close to Tony, putting her hand on his arm.

"I was so afraid . . . "

Tony suddenly did not know what was happening. All of a sudden all that he wanted to do was to take Pamela in his arms and hold her . . . kiss her. But he unconsciously stepped back a little, and he realized that he hardly knew her. She was his assistant, after all, and he couldn't possibly . . .

He drew away and cleared his throat.

"As I said, Pamela, thanks for keeping things in order while I was gone."

"You're welcome, Mr. Stark," Pamela said, her voice a little colder now that she had been thwarted. "You have an appointment this afternoon at the Kunlong Consulate in San Francisco, with Ambassador Khan."

"Oh, yes," Stark replied, glancing at the personal information manager program on his computer. "I had forgotten about that."

"Pamela, you've done such a good job of keeping things in order while I've been gone . . . I'd like you to visit the consulate with me, as my assistant. Perhaps you could take notes on our meeting or something."

"Oh, I don't know what to say! Who will watch the phones while I'm gone?" Pamela was smiling coyly on the outside, but as much as she may have been attracted to Stark, it was getting hard to fake being a loyal secretary all the time.

"Just set them to send everything to voice mail. I think you'll enjoy visiting the consulate."

Stark had learned a lesson from his encounter with Neutron, who had attacked Stark Enterprises and had helped to kidnap him. In his workshop, Stark examined his Iron Man robot and saw the damage the radiation had wrought. If it had been Stark in the suit, he would have been killed by that amount of radiation exposure. Stark decided to use the time he had before the appointment to install some experimental counter-radiation technology into his suit. It wouldn't take too long.

The week he had spent captured by Mentallo had tested Stark's creative ability to the maximum, and he was still fired up from all that work in such a short period of time. It didn't take him long to make some significant mechanical improvements to his suit of armor. Time was running out, though; he would have to work on the Iron Man robot later.

"Please go ahead, Pamela," Tony said.

As Pamela stepped slowly into the jet, Tony felt he was being tugged along by her perfume. He shook his head, determined to keep his mind on the meeting with Ambassador Khan. They flew to a small airport near San Francisco, where the Kunglonese consulate was.

They arrived at the consulate in a limousine Stark had hired out. As soon as Stark's limousine reached the gate, it was greeted by attendants dressed as if they were still living in the golden age of China.

They met Ambassador Khan in a small garden full of silken-winged butterflies. He had one ancient ring on each of his ten fingers, and wore a green silken jacket and slacks that flowed like quiet pools of water as he moved. An orange and black-spotted butterfly rested on Khan's hand and he examined it closely up until Stark and Pamela had reached the entrance to his garden.

"Oh. Come in, please," Khan said as he moved his hand slightly and coaxed the butterfly into floating away.

A bouquet of butterflies of all colors scattered as the two visitors walked into the garden.

"Beautiful, aren't they?" Khan asked. He was tall and rather fierce-looking, with short ebony hair and a long mustache, with a short beard.

When Pamela took his hand, she was surprised at how his skin felt almost plastic, as if he were an ancient man pretending to be someone much younger.

"I had no idea you would be bringing such lovely company to visit, Mr. Stark," Khan said, smiling.

"Yes, please allow me to introduce Pamela LaPlante, my assistant. She is, in a word, indispensable."

Khan bowed his head slightly, and then looked Pamela over. "As any good assistant should be."

"Please follow me," Khan said, as he led them into a sitting room adjoining the butterfly garden. "I am having less and less of a chance these days to visit the United States."

"Is there trouble in your land?" Stark asked. "I have done some reading about your country, and your troubles with the Chinese, but I'm afraid I'm not totally aware of the present situation."

"Kunlong is a secretive land, Mr. Stark," Khan responded. "Do not feel that you have to apologize. We have been able to hold the Chinese at the border of our land for almost a century. But they have broken the rules, so to speak."

"They haven't threatened you with nuclear weapons or anything, have they?"

"No," Khan said, idly caressing the rings on his right hand. "Something potentially worse. It is evident that the Chinese are assembling a group of genetically-engineered superhumans to infiltrate and attack my land. My people have been able to hold them off so far, but the Chinese are recruiting stronger and stronger agents."

"If you don't mind my impertinence, Ambassador Khan," Stark asked, "what role does Stark Enterprises play in this?"

"I have previously asked the American government to assist me with weapons and super-agents, but they said that any interference might cause a war between China and the United States. So I have to seek other sources of help."

Stark gave him a long, hard look.

"I'm not asking for charity, Mr. Stark," Khan insisted. "My country may be small, but it is certainly not poor. We have large quantities of jade and gold that we have been able to live off for centuries. Trade has been slowing because of the strength of the Chinese, so we have another reason to ward them off."

Khan looked at Stark with his almost hypnotic green eyes.

"We would be willing to pay you handsomely for any help you could offer."

To Stark, it seemed too good to be true. He had never interfered in the external affairs of a country before, but he was entranced somewhat by the ancient beauty that Kunlong represented.

"Perhaps you would like to see my land for yourself, to help you with your decision. If you and your lovely assistant would like to come along with me, we can take my plane from the International Airport to Kunlong."

Stark agreed to this, and Pamela was secretly intrigued by the thought of going off to a foreign land. Hopefully, they would return soon, so she could enact the next step of her plan to make Stark her own and to bring his company down.

When they arrived in Kunlong, it was as if they had stepped into the pages of James Hilton's novel, Lost Horizon. Beautiful green mountains stretched out before them, the bottom of which they could not even see from their vantage point on the Ambassador's veranda. A grey mist hung lazily over the land below, and the air was crisper and thinner than what Stark and Pamela were used to.

Stark and Pamela stood there for a moment to take in the view. The Ambassador seemed to have disappeared, to have purposefully left them alone together. Night was about to fall, and all of a sudden, Pamela was absolutely irresistible in Stark's eyes.

"How lovely to be in such a magical place," Stark noted in an offhand manner.

"Yes," Pamela said, her green eyes twinkling in the sunset.

"With such magical company," Stark said. He put his arm around Pamela's waist and turned her toward him. Pamela knew that this was the moment when Stark would become hers. Their eyes met and locked upon one another, and Tony bent down to kiss Pamela. Their lips barely touched . . .

All of a sudden a blast tore through the wall of the balcony where they were standing. Pamela screamed and ducked for cover, as Stark whirled to face the attacker. A huge figure wearing a green metal harness and glowing with green energy jumped on to the balcony. Ambassador Khan came out from the pagoda's interior to see what was the matter.

"Death to Sima Yi Khan! Long live China!" the green man yelled.

He threw a bolt of radioactive energy at Ambassador Khan, who dodged with the speed of one who was trained in the martial arts. Stark pushed Pamela toward the pagoda entrance.

"Let's get inside and take cover! I'll call Iron Man! I had him stationed nearby to keep an eye on us!"

A bolt of radiation flew at them as they both ran into the palace.

Stark needed to get to his suitcase, which contained his suit of armor. He ran down the hall to the room where he was staying and opened his suitcase. At his command, the armor unfolded itself and began to attach itself to him. He could hear the power blasts outside; he had to hurry.

He flew out the window to give the impression that Iron Man had arrived from outside. He soared up into the night sky and zoomed over the top of one of the mountains. He paused at the side of the top of the mountain and waited for a moment. He then zoomed down out of the sky with repulsors at the ready.

Iron Man zoomed into the pagoda to where Radioactive Man had Ambassador Khan and Pamela cornered. Iron Man's suit was picking up traces of radiation leaking from the villain. Khan and Pamela didn't have too long before the leaking radiation could start hurting them.

"Hold it right there, Greenie!" Iron Man said mockingly. "You won't be killing anyone today!"

"Oh, I rather think so, Imperialist Man!" The villain turned and sent a radioactive blast at the hero. "Know your murderer, Iron Man! Know that it was Radioactive Man who sent you to your death!"

Iron Man threw up an energy force field that lessened the effect of Radioactive Man's blasts. However, his armor's radiation sensors were going crazy at the large amount of deadly radiation that Radioactive Man was emitting. It was time to take the fight to less populated quarters.

Radioactive Man did not seem to be able to fly, so Iron Man decided he would have to give the villain a lift out of the Ambassador's pagoda. He put full power to the thrusters on his jet boots and propelled himself at the villain. He grabbed Radioactive Man and used his suit's strength to help pick the villain up off the floor.

"What are you doing, fool?" Radioactive Man asked.

"Taking you to where you can do a little less harm," Iron Man responded. Iron Man could feel Radioactive Man struggling against his hold. It was taking a lot of the suit's power to hold the villain. He would have to drop Radioactive Man somewhere.

Iron Man soared to a barren cliffside, and dropped Radioactive Man on one of the cliff's ledges. Radioactive Man landed with a thump, and would have rolled over the side of the ledge into the valley below, if not for his superhuman strength.

Radioactive Man pulled himself up and collected himself enough to take a few shots at Iron Man, but the hero was able to stay out of range. Radioactive Man seemed to give up on shooting, and instead stood there quietly.

"You want to give yourself up now, Mister?" Iron Man called out.

"Radioactive Man never gives up!" He had built up a huge amount of radiation while he was waiting and let it go in one harsh blast.

It was almost more than Iron Man's suit could handle, even though his force field deflected a lot of the blast. He reeled a little bit, flying back through the air and until he came to a rather harsh landing on a precipice across from the one on which Radioactive Man was trapped.

"Now you are like a cat up a tree as well. Farewell, Iron Man!"

Radioactive Man generated an energy field around him, then emitted a blast that incinerated the ledge he was standing on. He guided the energy ball in which he was standing softly down toward the valley floor.

Iron Man knew he had to react quickly, or Radioactive Man would head right back to the pagoda to finish his assassination attempt on Ambassador Khan. He let Radioactive Man get low enough near the valley floor for him to not see him, and then switched his boot jets to stealth mode. He soared up into the sky and then did a dive, straight down at where the villain was.

Radioactive Man lay on one of the cavern ledges, obviously shaken from his wild ride with Iron Man. He was getting ready to shoot at the recovering Golden Avenger.

Iron Man knew that it would take only one more blast from Radioactive Man to fry his armor and kill him. Radioactive Man had to be stopped before it was too late. So the hero powered up his repulsors and let fly at the cavern walls.

The rock in the walls began falling down upon Radioactive Man. He tried to blast the rocks away, but they were coming too fast for him to repel all of them. Iron Man kept blasting rock down upon Radioactive Man until he was confident that he could not escape.

The avalanche of stone packed Radioactive Man far beneath the earth, and the only thing that could penetrate the tons of stone were his cries of agony and frustration. Iron Man was victorious.

"Excellent work, my American friend. You would make your employer proud. Please ask him to accept my invitation to stay here for just a few days longer."

"My employer will arrange for Radioactive Man to be returned to the Chinese. If they want to attack Kunlong, they'll have to do it with someone else."

Iron Man landed next to the old man and Pamela, and took a look at Stark's secretary. She shook her head a little, knowing that he was looking at her, and her red hair flowed like a waterfall made of roses.

Stark was happy he was in the Iron Man armor, and not outside, or Pamela would have seen him blush.

Here in the Kunlong mountains, having defended an ancient people from danger, with a beautiful woman by his side, Stark was truly in paradise.

Or so he thought.