Chapter 1474: Insider Information and Outsider

It wasn’t easy to activate a nuclear weapon launch sequence. Even the Secretary of Defense had to go through a fixed procedure if he wanted to activate it, and it was necessary to report it to the president.

Thus, even if it might have just been a “tactical” nuclear weapon, it was unbelievable that it had actually been launched and shot at Manhattan.

Tony didn’t look happy. “Stark Industries is a little… close to that department head.”

Luke looked at him. “You want to help him?”

Tony smiled bitterly. “No way. The best outcome would be for him to go home and retire. Also, those Wall Street bigshots who almost lost their lives are ready to let him go, if that means that they get to live a few years longer.”

After drinking the whiskey, he poured himself more from the bottle. “If I hadn’t intercepted that nuclear weapon, Stark Industries would’ve been in serious trouble this time.”

Luke smiled and touched the glass to Tony’s. “Then you were lucky this time.”

Tony thought for a moment and laughed. “Fine. At the very least, I’m indeed luckier than that department head.”

Although the identity of Iron Man, this superhero, had brought him a lot of trouble, the overall situation was still under control.

Compared with the Secretary of Defense, who had inexplicably fallen from grace and whose life was even under threat, the tycoon was practically in paradise.

After laughing, Tony lowered his voice. “Nick Fury has already done a routine audit of SHIELD headquarters and the New York branch. The situation is pretty bad.”

Luke raised an eyebrow. “How bad?”

Tony wagged a finger. “Previous audits didn’t uncover anyone suspected to be Hydra.”

Luke rubbed his chin. “He doesn’t think there might be something wrong with my information?”

Tony sneered. “The fact that he didn’t find anything is the biggest problem.”

Luke nodded in agreement.

A routine audit of a secret organization like SHIELD couldn’t be said to be borrowing trouble.

It was better to have suspicions and then rule them out. It was impossible that there were no suspicious targets at all. Otherwise, there would be no reason for the department in charge of routine audits to exist.

A situation where there were no suspicious targets at all was the most unusual.

This meant that in SHIELD, Hydra already had the power to bypass Fury, the person at the helm, and could completely operate independently.

Luke thought about how two fighter planes had taken off without the director’s permission from the Helicarrier; the director’s ability to control SHIELD was worrying.

It was a good thing that Nick Fury had adamantly disagreed with launching the nuclear missile and had in fact ordered that no fighter planes were allowed to take off.

There was a recording for the whole thing, which was why he hadn’t taken the blame for this. Otherwise, he would’ve lost his position as director.

Luke asked, “When is he going to take action?”

Tony looked at him strangely. “You didn’t want to have too much contact with SHIELD before. Why are you worried about this now?”

Luke shook his head. “No, I like playing games with b*stards. All New York gangs can attest to that.”

Tony was lost for words…. So, you like beating up b*stards until they’re crippled? And those crippled gangsters are all your witnesses?

After thinking about it, the tycoon felt that there was nothing wrong with this answer. It seemed very reasonable.

This violent man! Silently cursing in his heart, he said, “It’s still early; it’ll be at least three months. It’s hard for Nick Fury to trust most of the people in SHIELD, and not many of them can be used. He’s a little similar to you. The person in charge of this is an acquaintance — half a month ago, he ‘died,’ so no one else knows about this secret investigation.”

“Phil?” Luke paused. “How is he now?”

Tony shrugged. “He’s very lively. Nick Fury tried to hide it from me at first, but I talked to him in private, and he admitted it.”

Luke was completely reassured. “This director doesn’t seem like an honest man.”

Tony raised his glass and didn’t think much of it. “Everybody needs friends, especially rich and powerful ones. If he wants to build more Helicarriers and improve them so that they can be synchronized, he needs my help.”

Luke frowned. “Doesn’t SHIELD already have a Helicarrier? Why build more?”

He had unearthed some hints after the battle. After asking Tony, the tycoon revealed some relevant information.

However, Tony didn’t know much about the Helicarriers.

He was willing to help Nick Fury make improvements probably because he wanted to see how the Helicarriers performed as a whole.

“Of course, they won’t compare with the Chitauri motherships, but it’ll still be possible to deal with those big worm battleships.” Tony sighed. “Otherwise, if something like this happens again, and SHIELD and the American government still can’t perform, there’ll be nothing else they can say.”

Luke could only agree with that.

With no invasions from alien armies, there would indeed be no need to invest in Helicarriers on a large scale.

Now that the Chitauri had amply wrecked New York, the fact that America had Helicarriers at all, no matter how backward they were, would be a start.

In fact, after Tony and the scientists on Earth comprehended some of the Chitauri’s technology, designing a Helicarrier with stronger combat power would undoubtedly be the best option.

But this was in effect an engineering project, and it was SHIELD and the American government that had to launch it

Indeed, the Helicarrier was currently Earth’s most powerful weapon. It was built for Earth’s safety, so the authorities had to take part.

At that point, Luke didn’t mention SHIELD anymore. Instead, he gave Tony some information on the Chitauri’s technology.

Tony was surprised to hear it. “Wait, don’t tell me your people cracked it.”

Luke sipped his wine. “I don’t know. In any case, that bigshot has it, so I copied some of the information. Take a look.”

Tony drew his hand back from the silver suitcase. “It wasn’t cheap, right?”

Luke said, “It was an insider price; it wasn’t that expensive.”

Tony: “…Why is it so expensive for me?”

Luke looked at him strangely, which made the tycoon feel a little uneasy. “Why? What’s wrong?”

Luke said, “Because I pay an ‘insider’ price.”

Tony understood what he meant. He pointed at himself and said, “I’m not an insider?”

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Luke said, “Insiders are under a lot of restrictions, which you probably wouldn’t be happy about. That’s why that person didn’t extend an invitation to you. In any case, you don’t lack money.”

Tony hesitated for a moment before he asked, “What kind of restrictions?”

Luke said, “It used to be based on favors, but now it’s a credit points system. You can buy things at a discount with credit points. Some things can only be bought with credit points. It just so happens that I got a lot of credit points from the Battle of New York.”

Tony frowned. “I also participated in the Battle of New York, right?”

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Luke chuckled. “That man already detected the scepter and the Tesseract during the battle. After that, we provided him with enough intact Chitauri equipment.”

Hearing that, Tony immediately remembered what that bigshot who sold everything had done.