Tony opened the fridge and tossed me a can of ginger ale.
"Thanks," I said gratefully.
"When you said you were gonna meet me here, I picked up some extra supplies when I went shopping for those," he said, gesturing to the array of weapons made of ordinary home appliances and hardware lying on the dining table. I was impressed. I'd always known Tony was a genius; that fact was difficult to ignore. But this time he really wowed me. It was McGyver to the max.
Tony had spent the past hour briefing me on what he'd found out. The Mandarin bombings were set off by biologically-enhanced terrorists infused with a virus called Extremis. The virus, however, wasn't perfect, and anybody who couldn't handle the power it gave them blew up; hence no trace of forensics when anybody tried to ID the bomb. The virus was administered to former handicapped persons who'd signed up for Extremis' regenerative properties. Funding the entire mad scheme was Advanced Idea Mechanics, commonly known as AIM, run by Aldrich Killian. Turns out he and Tony met a long time ago, but that meeting, and Tony's flippant, insensitive treatment of the guy, was enough to send him into planning the greatest take-over-the-world-and-exact-revenge scheme I'd heard since Loki (and that only took first place because, well, aliens.)
"And this Killian guy's working with the Mandarin?" I said incredulously.
"All evidence points to it," Tony said, shrugging. "My bet is that Maya Hansen's involved too."
"The girl who came over to the mansion?"
"Not just any girl," said Tony. "One of the most brilliant botanists I've met. Her work pioneered the beginnings of Extremis."
"Holy crap," I hissed. "So this is all her fau—"
"No, it's not," said Tony, almost sharply. Then his expression softened. "Look, for all we know she got all tangled up in this without meaning to hurt people. I knew Maya. She's a good person."
"I don't know, Tony," I said, and went on to relate how Pepper had left with Maya shortly after the helicopter attack.
Tony stared. "So what, you think she baited Pepper?"
I shrugged. "I honestly don't know, Tony. It might be a possibility. You could call Pepper right now just to check."
Tony gave me a skeptical look, but pulled out a cell phone and dialed anyway.
"I can't reach her number," he said, and a slight note of panic crept into his voice. Silence descended on us.
"We can't not consider the possibility that they kidnapped her," I said in an undertone.
"Or that Maya came to warn us and they kidnapped both of them," Tony supplied.
"That too," I said, "but in any case, if you intend to take out the Mandarin right here, right now, maybe we should consider that Pepper—and, okay, maybe Maya—would be held in the base somewhere. Whatever plan you had up till now is gonna have to change if we want to get them out safe."
Tony only nodded, but I could almost see the gears spinning behind those brown eyes of his.
"Between us, we have one suit of armor, and McGyver's weapon stash," he said finally.
"But Chrome's specifically equipped for speed-sensitive tasks. You designed her that way."
"I need a distraction to get to the Mandarin, but if Pepper and Maya are in there, we'll need an extraction too. Preferably at the same time."
"Well…what if the extraction IS the distraction?"
Tony locked eyes with me. A smile began at the corner of his mouth.
"Now you're talking. Here's what we're gonna do…"