Chapter 1732: The Chief Has Been Taken, and a “Righteous” Trial?
At half past eight, Miami left the sun’s embrace.
The last bit of red light struggled for less than a minute before it completely disappeared.
The entire city was lit up at night.
Countless people were still partying on the beach, on the roofs, and on boats.
Luke, who was flying quietly in the air, sighed when he saw this. What a huge field ripe for harvesting.
It seemed that his Level 1 clone would be playing here for a while after this.
Collecting his thoughts, Luke scanned the first target at the port.
There weren’t even any regular people, let alone soldiers with higher body temperatures.
Luke left two drones behind as a precautionary measure before he flew to the second target.
Before he arrived, Tony sent a message. “Not on my end.”
Luke said, “Then it can only be the southernmost target.”
Tony said, “I’m on my way.”
Five minutes later, Luke and Tony both heaved sighs of relief as they looked at the oil tanker in the southeastern port of Florida.
Tony murmured, “Gotcha.”
On the oil tanker, four or five soldiers with clearly higher body temperatures could be seen.
At that moment, there was a streak of flames from the north, and something landed on the deck. It was none other than Iron Patriot.
A moment later, Killian appeared and opened the armor remotely. An Extremis soldier grabbed the person who was inside and pulled him out.
Seeing the man’s face, Luke couldn’t help but smack his lips. He then looked at Tony. “This armor… Erm, it’s no longer clean, right?”
Tony’s face immediately darkened.
Because the person who came out was… the new chief in the White House, Ellis.
Killian’s men had definitely captured Mr. Ellis on the plane.
At that moment, Tony received a call. “What’s up?”
Rhodes said, “Tony, bad news. One of Killian’s men suited up in Patriot and pretended to be me to capture Mr. Ellis.”
Tony: “…Got it.”
Rhodes said, “Right, can you hack into War Machine’s system and get it back?”
Tony thought for a moment. “Hacking went out of fas.h.i.+on ten years ago. I need its connection to a satellite. It might be possible to enter the system through the back. Right, the account is still War Machine 68, right? What’s the pa.s.sword?”
After a brief silence, Rhodes said, “‘War Machine rox,’ with an X, all capital letters.”
Tony said, “Ha, that sounds much better than Patriot or whatever.”
Rhodes was disgruntled.
Luke waited for Tony to hang up before he asked, “What’s wrong?”
Tony said, “Rhodes told me that Killian’s men took Ellis away in Iron Patriot.”
Luke turned around and looked at the chief of the White House, who was being pulled along by Killian. “…And?”
Tony hesitated for a moment, but didn’t say anything about Rhodes’s request.
It was one thing for him to mock Rhodes, but it wasn’t appropriate to joke about Rhodes asking him for help. “I’ll see if I can gain control of War Machine.”
Luke hummed in response.
If Tony could control it, that would be another backup plan.
If that didn’t help, Luke could send it flying later. It would be troublesome to destroy it.
It wasn’t a matter of a waste of capital. The important thing was that Colonel Rhodes already knew that someone had “absconded” with his “wife.”
If his “wife” turned up “dead,” the colonel would probably get PTSD on the spot.
Thus, the two of them observed from a distance, and had no intention of saving Mr. Ellis.
A large number of mini drones snuck into the dock and the oil tanker from both sides, and started operating.
On the oil tanker, Killian looked at Mr. Ellis with a smile. “Do you know where we are?”
After a brief hesitation, Ellis ventured, “Miami?”
Killian patted his shoulder with a smile. “You’re very funny, Ellis. But I’m talking about this boat — the Norco. Do you remember?”
There was a flash of memory in Ellis’s eyes, and his expression changed slightly.
“Yes. Two years ago, it leaked a million gallons of crude oil into a bay in northwest Florida,” said Killian unhurriedly, like a teacher explaining something patiently. “Until now, n.o.body paid the price for it, all because of you.”
He stopped. “You helped those people escape responsibility. That’s why you’re able to sit in the White House.”
Ellis’s lips moved, but he couldn’t say anything.
The person in front of him was a terrorist, not an ignorant citizen in front of a TV.
Looking at the man’s face, Killian smiled even wider. “Haha, don’t worry. I just need a reason to kill you.”
In fact, Killian knew which faction in Roxxon Corporation Ellis had helped clean up the mess, since Killian was in the opposite faction.
Thus, this was a Roxxon internal conflict disguised as terrorism.
Killian was just the enforcer who would also take care of his personal grudge in pa.s.sing and kill Iron Man.
While Killian hadn’t succeeded in killing Iron Man, he still had to follow the plan and get rid of Ellis.
After all, as long as this boss wasn’t dead, the man who was Killian’s patron was just decor and basically had no power.
In the event of Ellis’s unexpected death, this patron would become the fallback guy who would temporarily exercise the president’s power until a new president was selected.
Ellis had only been in office for half a year. If the fallback guy was capable, he might be able to stand for election four years later.
Even if he wasn’t as capable, Killian and the people behind him would still benefit greatly in the year or two that the fallback guy had the job.
There was no need for this inevitably temporary power to exceed its expiry date – there was no need to be too shameless.
Finish what you set out to do and leave – that was standard procedure.
Putting everything else aside, Ellis’s death and a seemingly incompetent fallback guy stepping forward would be enough to scare the world, and Killian would be able to make a killing in the financial market.
If there was another financial crisis, he would definitely become rich overnight.
Pleased, Killian raised his hand and said, “Come, string up our soul of America.”
While Ellis was still in a daze, he was taken away by two soldiers.
A moment later, the man was tied to a cross above the deck.
A few Extremis soldiers used forklifts to pile up barrels of oil under his feet.
Tony paused. “War Machine’s communication system was completely destroyed, and the control system was rebooted. Hm, are we really going to wait for Ellis to be roasted before we take action?”
If that was the case, it would be best for them to pretend that they had never been here.
Otherwise, they would definitely have had a hand in conspiring to kill the chief of the White House.
Luke said, “Okay, the drones are done with reconnaissance. Our teammates are here. Let’s get to work.”
As soon as Luke said that, Tony received an invitation to join the team.