I know I didn't update yesterday, and I'm REALLY sorry! My day got a little crazy! But here you are! A juicy little chapter pushing us right into the thick of things...
Thank you in advance for your continued reading and reviews! See you soon! :D
Obadiah Stane's plane touched down in Seoul, South Korea on a private government airstrip after he'd taken the red eye from Stark Aviation thirteen hours earlier. The private 747 landed in a slight drizzle, the gray skies making the midday hour seem much later than it was. The South Korean dignitary that Obie was scheduled to be picked up by at the airport had posted his assistant at the top of the stairs of the plane with an umbrella once the staircase had been lowered. And, as soon as Obie emerged, they jogged side by side down the steps to the awaiting black Mercedes sedan with dark-as-pitch tinted windows.
"Annyeonghaseyo, and welcome, Mr. Stane," the man said. "Minister Jeung has been anxiously awaiting your arrival."
"So have I," Obadiah said eagerly.
The driver of the car swiftly opened the back passenger car door, and bowed sharply, yet respectfully, in Obie's direction. He bowed politely back before entering the car, the driver closing the door after him, the assistant climbing into the front seat.
Inside, sat Minister Lee-Soo Jeung, Secretary of the South Korean Treasury, a portly man of 55, with thick black hair slicked with hair gel and combed straight back. His eyes were dark and beady, and he always wore a disapproving scowl, the corners of his mouth permanently turned down and his swollen lower lip jutting out like a discontented bulldog's. His cheeks were always ruddy, an effect of his fierce Cheongju addiction, a rice liquor similar to Japanese Saki, but milder in flavor. It was rare that he didn't have any on hand, and even in this instance, he produced a silver flask from the breast pocket of his jet black custom-tailored suit with which to offer his guest a drink.
"Already celebrating?" Obie quipped. "The deal isn't done yet."
"Then call it a preemptive drink to future endeavors," Jeung explained in thickly accent-laden English, leaning over to grab a couple of shot glasses from a small compartment in the console between them. He poured enough for both, and handed Obie his, nodding to him expectantly to partake. Obie did as expected, throwing back the clear liquid swiftly and swallowing it down with a groan. He examined the inside of his glass and smacked his lips.
"Honestly, Jeung, I could think of smoother liquids to swallow than this stuff. I don't know how you do it," he joked, with a smirk.
Jeung just chuckled, and poured himself another shot as the car moved into motion off the airstrip.
XxXxXxXx
Minutes later, the car arrived in front of a luxury hotel in downtown Seoul. But it rolled right past the front entrance and instead went around the corner into a lower parking garage, accessible only through a manned security gate, to which the driver handed a laminated badge to the guard. The guard scanned the badge in a reader inside his booth, and handed it back to the driver, promptly pushing a button for the gate to roll back and allow the car to enter. The car slowly pulled into the closest parking spot to the access into the building, and stopped. The passengers, Jeung and Obadiah, had been busy chit-chatting about their upcoming video conference, set to take place in a private room in the hotel in a matter of minutes, and had hardly noticed they'd arrived until the driver and assistant exited the vehicle and abruptly opened their doors in tandem, bowing again swiftly to the men, out of respect.
Obie climbed out of the car, his tall frame towering above the assistant. He cleared his throat and buttoned his suit jacket, readying himself for the meeting, his eyes hard, and his brow furrowed. Jeung walked around the car and moved toward the hotel entrance, his assistant opening the door for them. Both Jeung and Obadiah walked inside, the assistant following behind.
They took the lower access elevator silently to the floor just above them, where the doors opened up on to a floor that was lavishly decorated with burgundy and gold furnishings. Ornately carved chairs with satin damask-print upholstery, which closely matched the carpeting, were paired together every few feet, along with large potted palms between them. The hallway was lined with mirrors framed in gold leaf frames hanging on the walls, the men's reflections jumping from one to the next as they walked briskly to the end of the hall, turning right toward a set of heavy oak doors, which the assistant bustled to open for them. He bowed again sharply, and Jeung and Obadiah entered the vast room, decorated much the same way as the hallway. A large and very long, dark wood boardroom table, lined with high-backed leather chairs on both sides was before them. And, coming out of the ceiling at the end of the table, was a jumbo-sized retractable screen. Obie noticed a computer and a projector positioned at the center of the table, the projector pointed toward the screen.
"The Supreme Leader will be joining us at any moment, gentlemen. In the meantime, please make yourselves comfortable," the assistant instructed.
Jeung took a seat mid-table and sat his barrel-shaped frame down heavily in one of the chairs. Obie took the seat across the table from him. They sat quietly for only a few short moments before the screen before them flickered blue and then the face of North Korea's Supreme Leader, Kim Jong-un suddenly appeared.
Jeung immediately averted his eyes, and bowed his head. Obie observed this and followed suit. "Hail, Supreme Leader," Jeung said.
Obie repeated his comrade's actions and words, keeping his eyes averted and head bowed until the dictator acknowledged their presence.
"Minister Jeung, and Mister Stane," the leader said coolly. "It is with great pleasure that I am able to meet with you." Obie flicked his eyes to Jeung, and mirrored his movements, raising his head and casting his glance back at the screen as he watched Jeung do the same.
The dictator continued. "By your good-faith appearance in Seoul, Mr. Stane, I am of the understanding that we can begin discussing our prospective business arrangement?" he asked.
"Your understanding would be correct, Dear Leader. All is going according to plan. My associate in London is working closely with Mr. Stark as we speak! In fact, he's set to accompany her back there within the week."
Jong-un frowned. "How was Mr. Stark so easily persuaded?" he asked.
Obie smiled and sat forward, interlacing his fingers and resting his forearms on the table. "Dear leader," he began. "Any chance Tony Stark has to flaunt his knowledge base, he'll take full advantage of. So getting him to agree to go to London was of no difficulty. And once he's there, he'll be shown a set of dummy blueprints for phony nuclear energy applications that my associate, Ms. Vanessa Matthews of Matthews Energy, will claim are prospective future projects that she needs his," Obadiah said, making air quotes, and rolling his eyes. " 'Input' on. That's what he'll believe, anyway. In the meantime, using the security code to Tony's personal workshop that Ms. Matthews obtained only a few short days ago, I'll be able to access encrypted files saved only on Tony's personal server stored there, which contain nuclear weapons plans his father and I started developing decades ago, until our leads on a supply of plutonium and uranium dried up, that is. Blame it on the cold war, I suppose," he said, chuckling and smirking. Jong-un just cracked a polite smile, and nodded curtly.
Obie continued. "Once the plans have been obtained, I'll hand them to Matthews Energy, complete with the shipping mandates for all of the non-nuclear implements we'll be providing, signed by Tony himself, and production will begin immediately in her home factory to complete the assembly. We'd do it in ours domestically, but there are too many prying eyes. We can't risk being tied directly to your operation. You understand," he said. "But a few missile casings? And some mother boards? This isn't uncommon in our line of work, Dear Leader, to sell parts back and forth within the industry so nothing will appear out of the ordinary if we ship a batch now and again to Great Britain." Obadiah sat back and sighed, folding his arms. "If you ask me, it's the perfect arrangement. I have full confidence that our weapons plans will serve every purpose you'd ever need, Dear Leader, so long as our good friend, Minister Jeung, here," Obadiah said, gesturing to the man across from him. "Ponies up the funds from the South Korean treasury as a measure of good faith. If all goes to plan, and the first shipment gets delivered on time, you'll transfer payment to the Swiss bank account we've set up in the Cayman's within the next 90 days, the funds from the treasury can be replaced without anyone noticing they are missing, and we all become very wealthy people," he said, finishing with a smug smile.
But Jong-un was still frowning. "And you get Mr. Stark's signature on the shipping mandates how?" he asked skeptically.
Obie smirked, and reached inside his suit jacket to produce some neatly folded documents. He tossed them on the table and pushed them across the way to Jeung to peruse. Jeung took them, and examined them. A moment later, he smiled approvingly and nodded at the Supreme Leader.
"As Mr. Jeung will attest, the shipping documents have already been signed. Call it kismet, but it just so happens that during the last week of every month, Poor Tony Stark is subjected to a rigorous schedule of having to physically sign each and every shipping mandate that comes through our office. But what no one but myself knows is that he rarely reads what he signs. The task is such an imposition to him, he just wants to get it done and out of the way so he can get back to pursuing other interests, shall we say?" he joked, tongue planted firmly in cheek.
The other two men laughed knowingly at the jab at Tony's lifestyle. Jeung handed the mandates back to Obie, and he refolded them, stowing them away in his inside breast pocket again. "All I had to do was put them in the stack for him to sign with all of the others. He was never the wiser."
"Your plan sounds promising," the dictator said. "But tell me something, Mr. Stane. How do you propose keeping this arrangement going long term?" he asked. "Sooner or later, it is inevitable that Mr. Stark will become aware of our operation."
Obadiah smirked, and held up his pointer finger. "You know, you asked that at exactly the right time?" he said jovially. "As you've so astutely deduced, this plan will only carry us so far. Tony may be self-absorbed, but he's no dummy. So really our little plan is only meant to get us through the initial stages, and you your first shipment, " Obie stated. "That's why I made the move to incorporate Ms. Matthews in the first place. She's too hard for Tony to resist, first of all. And second, Dear Leader," Obadiah purred. "She's has a genius IQ, and a penchant for playing dirty. What she can't get Tony to give to her? She'll easily take from him. And that is the ultimate goal, isn't it? To get that little twerp out of the picture for good? So we can stop all of this sneaking around behind his back and just do what the hell it is we want?"
The North Korean dictator smiled devilishly, and nodded. "Excellent," he purred back with approval.
