Entry 4
2008
AFGHANISTAN
“Sir, would
it be cool if I take a picture with you?”
“Yes, its very cool.”
“Yes, its very cool.”
Just then a
moment later, the front car of the convoy blows up. Before my mind could
process what happened infront of me, another bomb dropped just where it landed
before, with a loud thud. Everything near my ear rang. The front foreman driver
and his commander leaves the humvee to hold the ground. Both of them get shot as
soon as they leave the armoured car. The soldier sitting beside me was ordered
to stay with me but seeing his fellows being shot at, he also ran out. Within
seconds I lost him in all the dust flying around. Feeling like a chicken in an
oven getting reading to be turned on for frying, even I left the vehicle, dogging
the bullets running towards a rock away from the road. There were still shots
being fired behind me and more grenades and bombs were thrown towards the
armoured convoys. As easy as it was to understand, this was a terrorist attack.
Just as I took out my phone to call Obadiah Stane, a missle landed just where I
was hiding. At that moment, it felt like that time has stopped. A lot of
memories crossed my mind. Pepper, Dad. I could see all their faces.
Bomb near me
exploded and sent me flying across the ground. I felt a deep pain running
through my chest. Only one thought now surrounded my mind, Is this the end of
Tony Stark?
HALF WAY ACROSS THE WORLD
It was a
start of a gentle morning here in New York. I woke up on time to do my workout
sessions in the park. Normal strength training to keep the body ready whenever
the situation required to. It had been a long time since I had been on a field
mission. Missing all the action made me a bit nervous sitting around holed up
either in a bar or doing all the research work back at my apartment. All I used
to live up for, was the adrenaline rushing through the veins when I was on a
mission or when bullets were fired at me. In a manner of saying, with all these
three years of covert mission and job, I missed the bullets the most.
Coming back
from the park, I saw Phil standing outside my apartment with his matte black
range rover and shades. All he said was there’s a problem back at the base.
Someone went missing.
As we
entered the SHIELD headquarters, I saw Nick Fury standing there waiting for us.
We all entered his office, Nick activated the systems that made the room
sound-proof from inside and so no one could hear outside what was being
discussed inside the room. Nick used this system a lot as he barely trusted
anyone here even in the SHIELD. It was me who recovered this sound-proofing
tech from a 19 year old back in Canada when he happened to create it for a
college project. Fury had a tense look on his face all this time. As we settled
down, he told that Howard Stark’s son Tony Stark, had gone missing. He was in
Afghanistan on a job when his convoy was attacked by terrorist and he was taken.
It was yet unclear if they had killed him or not, but the latter seemed
unlikely. No ransom calls had been made yet and this tensed Fury. Fury had
always wanted Stark in his team after Howard’s contribution to the SHIELD and
the world. Howard Stark was one of scientist who gave the world its first
atomic bomb. Fury believed that Tony Stark had the caliber to live upto his
father’s image but his attitude with all the riches he had, every senior member
of SHIELD voted against hiring Tony. But Fury looked out for Tony more than
anyone ever knew. Tony was never told what his father did in reality.
After Tony
was taken a hostage, Fury called a Board of Director’s meeting asking them to
send a search party for Tony, but as decided before, SHIELD didn’t find Tony as
an asset so they denied any forces to be deployed finding him. So that’s when
Fury decided to do what he does best, going outside the system. Fury wanted me
to scan the areas for any radio broadcast while Phil went into the hiding in
Afghanistan looking and tracing Stark’s captors footsteps.
BACK IN 2005
It was my 67th
day here in New York with Ted and his friends. I had grown fond of all of them
by now. Something told me that this mission was going to be a long one so I
decided to start bonding with all of them on a personal level to know them
more. The more time I spent with them, the more I got to know about the normal
American life.
I never had the chance to live a normal life.
With my dad himself being a SHIELD agent with clearance level 10, my training
began from the day I was born. Afterall he wanted his name to be continued in
SHIELD after him. My youth was a particular difficult one with all the training
hours I had to log in.
Out of all, Barney
Stinson turned out to be a great guy. He was funny, witty and he did stupid
things to impress others but he was a guy good at heart. I could tell. He did a
lot of stupid stuff everyday just to prove a point or other and tried to get
others also be a part of it. It was yet another one of those days when everyone
was hanging around the bar like usual. Barney with another one of his crazy schemes
started offering me money to say some words he wanted on tv while I was doing
my news coverage. I liked the sound of this game. It was a challenge that
Barney offered me and I loved competiting. Barney was a player and he always
offered big stakes for a game and that’s what made this game interesting. I
never had the chance to fool around or do stupid stuff all together. I accepted
the challenge and hence started a few days of fun.
Who said
SHIELD agents couldn’t have a bit of fun themselves while undercover. It was
during that time I fell in the horse poop while shooting one of the set-up
news. It wasn’t intended to happen but when it happened, it stayed on for long.
Story being aired on national television, it attracted many viewers around the
world. Even SHIELD agents saw it and gave me a smirk whenever I walked through
SHIELD headquarters later on for months.
2008
It was very
uncanny that Fury called and informed that Stark has been found and will soon
be returning back home in a military assisted plane. Tony had somehow escaped
from the hands of his captors in Afghanistan after being held prisoner for 3
months. It was a suspicious occurring that a normal man ‘gunned’ his way
through terrorist captors unharmed and into the hands of U.S military. Nick
Fury decided it was time Tony heard from SHIELD and he asked me to do this. But
knowing how similar behavior he had to Barney, womanizer and eccentric, I refused
and asked Coulson to go instead of me. He might be able to get more from him
than I could.
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END OF Episode 4-------
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