"Listen, why don't I just forget what I saw here and you guys can just let me go?" Stark pleaded.

"Escort him to the back entrance," the lead guard ordered.

They motioned with their guns for Stark to move toward the back door of the office. They marched him to a door that led outside.

It was about 20 degrees outside, and Stark was only in a business suit. He thought that since they were going to kill him, it must have not mattered whether he was cold or not.

They brought Stark to a small gully near the compound.

"Ready your weapons, men," the lead guard barked. Stark could hear the barrels of the five Uzis cock all at once.

A helicopter suddenly appeared over the top of the hill. It was small, but extremely deadly. Its double barrel-shaped machine guns strafed the guards, killing two, and sending the other three packing.

The helicopter then hovered in midair in front of Tony. He clutched his briefcase, trying to figure out what to do next. Maybe the Iron Man armor could form around him in time to prevent him from being shot by the helicopter, or maybe not.

He could see a figure through the helicopter window, wearing a white hockey mask and a black winter jacket. The figure picked up a radio, which turned out to be attached to the outside address system.

"Are you Tony Stark?"

Tony hoped that "Yes" was the right answer. "That's me!" he shouted back.

"If you want to get out of here, jump in! I have a few questions for you."

The pilot landed the helicopter and let it hover just a little bit above the ground so that Tony could jump in. Tony threw his suitcase in ahead of him, and then clambered into the helicopter.

They could see other ULTIMATUM guards approaching, some on snowmobiles and others on a larger snow-cat like vehicle. Once Tony was aboard, the pilot turned the helicopter and sprayed bullets into the midst of the guards.

The helicopter then swiftly took off into the sky, with bullets flying at it from the ULTIMATUM soldiers below.

Night was falling over the mountains, preceded by a marvelous sunset that one could only see in Switzerland.

In the small shelter, the pilot turned on a portable heat generator, and shared some food and coffee with Stark.

Stark took the food and coffee gratefully. "I know you know who I am, but do you mind if I ask who you are?"

"My name doesn't really matter. Some people call me Wild Dog."

"How did you know to come and get me?"

"I've been following your recent activities for a while, and I was there, following you around, in Monaco."

Tony thought he sensed someone following him around the whole time he and Pamela were in Monaco.

Wild Dog pointed a gloved finger at Stark. "It seems you've been donating a lot of money to Flag-Smasher's cause and to other terrorist organizations. So I knew it was only a matter of time before you came to visit ULTIMATUM's headquarters here."

Even though his host was wearing a mask, Stark could sense that he was staring hard at him.

"Look," Tony explained, "I know that somehow money got from me to Flag-Smasher, but I wasn't behind it. I haven't even developed anything for anybody's military for at least five years."

"That's why I didn't shoot you down with my 'copter's guns," Wild Dog replied. "There was about a fifty-fifty chance that you were really into funding terrorist groups, or that you were being duped by someone. Either way, a lot of your money is funding ULTIMATUM's recent activities."

Tony was taken aback. The thought of his technology falling into the wrong hands had always scared him; the thought of his money, and relatedly, his name, being tied to terrorism scared him even more.

Tony cleared his throat. "I have an agent, called Iron Man. If you consent to let me go, I'll have him come back and help you take down ULTIMATUM. I can get him here pretty fast. His suit is designed to travel about the speed of a rocket."

"I may need his help. Flag-Smasher has always been the enemy of governments, whether they were democratic or communist, dictatorships or otherwise. With your money, he has built a massive project. If I don't get in there and dismantle it, the world as we know it will cease to exist in two days."

Under different circumstances, Stark would not have believed his host. But after finding out that he was donating money to terrorists, and almost being killed, and then being rescued, Stark's realm of possibility was definitely expanding.

"I'll call Iron Man to help you, if you can get me to a hotel in Berne."

"Down there are silos, which hold five special Intercontinental Ballistic missiles," Wild Dog said. "I found out that if these missiles are launched at their targets--Japan, the U.S., England, Russia, and Australia--each missile will create a high-volume electromagnetic pulse in the atmosphere--enough to disable the communications and computers of each of those countries. They're targeting the most communication-dependent nations, because those are the ones Flag-Smasher hates the most."

"How do you know all this?"

"I learn all I can about my prey," Wild Dog replied. "That's the way I used to operate back in the States, and that's the way I operate now." Wild Dog pointed at the silos. "We have to get down there and disable those missiles before they are launched."

"How are you planning to do that?"

He was so tired that he did not notice the presence of Iron Man and Wild Dog until they were right next to him.

"Uhh..." He wanted to pick up his gun and sound the alarm, but a mild buzzing in his brain made him just want to do whatever these nice men told him to.

Wild Dog stepped up to him and whispered. "Just press the button that releases the door and I won't send a bullet into your skull."

"OK, I'll do it, don't have to be mean about it..."

The guard opened the door and then curled up in the corner of his guard box and took a nap.

Iron Man and Wild Dog walked into the control room. A group of technicians did not notice them. They were too busy preparing for the eventual launch of the missiles, and there were lots of people coming and going these days.

Wild Dog motioned quietly to Iron Man, who went over to an unused workstation on the side of the room. He pointed his gauntlet at the computer, and a small input jack ejected itself.

The first thing Iron Man did was to use his armor to create a tiny electromagnetic pulse of its own, just enough to register confusion in everyone in the room. With confusion in their minds, the assembled technicians would be a lot less likely to notice him, or they would dismiss seeing him as a hallucination.

An anti-virus program that Oracle himself had helped design checked the ULTIMATUM workstation before Iron Man started to do his work. Wild Dog waited pensively in the shadows as Iron Man's computers searched through the network of ULTIMATUM computers to find and manipulate the computers that controlled the launch of the missiles.

After a few moments, Iron Man had access to the program that determined when and how the missiles would launch. He was no master programmer, but he knew enough to change just a few things in the program, to insert bugs that would screw everything up.

He ejected from the workstation, just as Flag-Smasher and some of his guards entered the silo. Flag-Smasher shook his head a little, looked around, and noticed Iron Man and Wild Dog standing there. He was not as suggestible as his subordinates.

"I know you," Flag-Smasher said, indicating Iron Man, "but I don't know this other person here. Here to make up for your employer's misdeeds, Iron Man?"

Flag-Smasher's guards tried to clear their heads so they could ready their weapons.

"My boss would never support you! He got out of doing weapons a long time ago."

"Well, his donations were very useful in building these missile silos. Which, you are not going to destroy. In fact, I'm going to launch them now, just to show you how fruitless your efforts have been!"

"Fire the missiles! Start with the one for North America!"

The technicians slowly complied with Flag-Smasher's request-Iron Man's pulse was still affecting their motor functions.

Wild Dog and Iron Man stood expectantly. Had Iron Man tweaked the launch program enough to stop the missiles from launching?

"It's not working, sir!" a technician called out languidly.

"What do you mean, it's not working? Launch another one of them and do it quickly!"

"None of them will launch, sir."

Flag-Smasher took his attention away from the two heroes, which was precisely when they struck.

Iron Man fired a dispersal of low-energy repulsor rays at the guards in the room, as Wild Dog went after Flag-Smasher.

Flag Smasher reacted with timing more expert than the heroes had expected. He pulled a Browning pistol from his holster and began firing at Wild Dog. Wild Dog barely dodged the bullets, then leapt at Flag-Smasher.

"I know everything about you, Flag-Smasher! I even remembered to bring armor-piercing shells!" Wild Dog brought up his gun to shoot the villain.

But Flag-Smasher was too fast for him. The villain shot Wild Dog in the foot. As Wild Dog clutched his foot, Flag Smasher grabbed him by the facemask and smashed him with his mace. Wild Dog was lucky that his hockey mask had some protection in it against blunt impact, but the blow knocked him out.

Iron Man ignited his boot jets and flew across the room. Flag-Smasher pulled an electronic scrambler from his belt, preparing to latch it on to his foe's armor. Iron Man's computers informed him of the scrambler's existence.

Unbeknownst to Flag-Smasher, Iron Man electrified the outside of his armor. When Flag-Smasher touched Iron Man to put the scrambler on him, the resultant shock was enough to short out the scrambler, and send Flag-Smasher to the floor, twitching in shock.

As the technicians stood dumbfounded at the failure of their leader's plan, Iron Man radioed the Swiss Army to come and clean up the rest of ULTIMATUM's forces. Iron Man and Wild Dog had helped save the Western world from electronic darkness.

After the Colonel left them, Wild Dog got to his feet, having regained consciousness, and shook Iron Man's hand. "I guess I was wrong about your boss, Iron Man. I just hope he can track down whoever is making those donations to terrorist groups. ULTIMATUM wasn't the only group, you know. Neo-Nazi groups, separatists, even the Legion of Hate...you name it...they're all getting money from your boss."

"I'm going to help him look into it," Iron Man replied.

Wild Dog spoke into a small communicator in his glove and his helicopter appeared. It landed, and he embarked, racing away to fight the next terrorist threat to the world.

There was a message from someone at Stark International, but he wasn't sure which department she worked in. Missy Hayden...she was a bright new temp in the Accounting Department that he had seen once in the courtyard of Stark Enterprises. Stark wondered why she would be e-mailing him directly. He had nothing else to do, so he read the message.

Dear Mr. Stark:

I know I shouldn't be e-mailing you directly, but I wanted you to know that I have been reconciling the expenses from your operating budget and I'm noticing that there's been a lot of money going under donations in the last month. My brother works for a branch of the FBI that is out here, and he says that the recipients of your donations are terrorist organizations. I don't know you too well, seeing as I work down in Accounting, but I believe that you are a very kind and moral man, and I don't think you would spend your company's money this way.

Is there anyone else in your office with check-writing power? You might want to see if someone working close to you has been writing $100,000 checks in your name.

Sincerely,
Missy Hayden
Accounting (temp)

Stark was steamed. He now had an idea who was filtering money from Stark Enterprises to terrorists. It was someone who worked close to him, to whom he had given check-writing power because she was so reliable.

It was Pamela LaPlante. The woman whom he had just fallen in love with.

They were going to have a talk once Stark got back to California.

The headline was there, in 40-point type: TONY STARK: SUPPORTER OF TERRORISM?

Luthor chuckled to himself. The damage was done. He had successfully infiltrated Tony Stark's company and his agent had done significant damage. His revenge would be complete when Stark Enterprises was put up for sale, and when Lex Luthor bought it for a song. Then he would take Stark's designs, brand them as his own, and add them to the technologies that fattened his bank accounts.

"Tess? Transfer the balance of what we owe her to Miss Isley's account. She has performed her work successfully."