Two sleek black jets soared over the ocean’s shore and shredded inland at a dizzying speed. Jonathan Madsen stared out of the cockpit at the blur of golden sands and green-brown sea cliffs that raced by below. The sun, squat on the horizon and red as a ruby, gave up the last of its light to the haze of Los Angeles. That city, off to the right, began to glow as lights inside skyscrapers winked on.

Below their jets, though, spread mountainous and rugged terrain. Only a few wealthy mansions dotted the landscape here and there, and at two thousand feet altitude, the small and superbly crafted jet engines barely whispered to anyone on the ground.

The jets slowed and descended gently to a small runway. Though the sophisticated electronics on the aircraft would have permitted a landing in total darkness, the strip adjacent to the Anger Institute sparkled with green and white landing lights and the cool blue glow of taxi lights. Cap and Leila followed these to the hanger where they disembarked to leave the jets in the able hands of Jack, the mechanic. Jonathan Madsen followed Captain Anger, Rock, and Leila to a chamber in one of the hangers.

The chamber housed a smooth, stainless-steel cylinder about the length and width of a mid-sized automobile. Cap ushered them inside and sealed the hatch. An invisible hand shoved Jonathan back in his seat as forcefully as the acceleration of the jet had.

Floating on a field of magnetic levitation, the vehicle raced underground through its tunnel, speeding beneath the airfield at over two hundred miles per hour. The trip to the nearby Anger Institute took less than a minute.

•

Captain Anger stood before one of the wide, large windows of his office. Taking up the entire fifth floor of the Anger Institute’s administration building, it constituted the tallest point on the sprawling campus. It served as more than an office, housing Cap’s own computer and communications center, living quarters, exercise studio, and meditation retreat.

At the moment, it served as a meeting room for five of the most remarkable people in the world.

Of them all, Captain Anger was the most impressive, standing in front of the darkened window gazing out at the softly illuminated complex of laboratories and offices comprising the Anger Institute for Advanced Science. His tall figure, dressed now in a fresh, clean duplicate of his black flight suit, stood silhouetted against the night sky, silent and pensive. If he wanted to, he could have melted into the night without a trace. For now, though, he stood quietly while his aides assembled.

Leila and Rock had arrived at the office before him. Leila- clad in a crème-white, business-style jacket and skirt that accentuated her pale skin and jet-black hair sat in a deep, burgundy-hued leather chair. Rock, wearing a crisp white lab coat over blue slacks and a khaki shirt, paced around the room. Jonathan Madsen had showered and received expert treatment for all his wounds. Clean, bandaged and wearing hospital greens, he sat on another of the plush leather chairs and watched in curious amazement as three newcomers arrived.

Phil “The Flash” Hoile arrived. Slender, dark-haired, and youngish, he looked only a few years older than Jonathan-in his early twenties at best. He carried with him a small black box, which he placed on the expansive walnut desk at the far end of the room.

The second man to enter was an opposite of Flash in nearly every way. Physically huge at six-foot-five, he strode through the doors with the muscular grace of a circus strongman. The dark brown skin and long black ponytail that announced his African and American Indian heritage contrasted starkly with the dark blue three-piece suit, maroon and navy rep tie, and light blue shirt he wore. Where someone of his build ought to have looked uncomfortable and out of place in such clothes, he seemed perfectly natural and at ease. His massive hands looked like battering rams, as dangerous in a fight as gallon barrels of lead shot. His smooth, clean-shaven face supported eyebrows perpetually knotted in a meditative frown, as if he thought he could be off doing something even more important.

His name was Jefferson Sun Ra Paine, and in his profession he only used his fists to pound on the defense table in passionate pleading for his clients. Paine, quite possibly the finest attorney in the world, practiced criminal, corporate, patent, and tax law. He only defended the unjustly accused and he made his fortune from counter-suits brought against the false accusers.

In his leisure time, he sought to right the monumental wrongs that the law handled either reluctantly or not at all. That was why he enjoyed the company of Captain Anger and his compatriots. They embraced that philosophy to the hilt.

He set his briefcase down beside a chair and sat. In a deep but pleasantly mellow voice, he said, “Skipper, I’ve got to be back in court by Tuesday. I read everything in the computer on the flight out here. What do you need from me?”

Captain Anger said nothing for a moment, then turned to speak. As he was about to say something, the oak double doors of the office swung wide with a jarring crash.

“Hellfire, boy!” shouted an unmistakably Texan voice. “Ya drag me out here promising four skull jobs and they tell me I’ve got another hour to wait!”

The man who shouted stood at average height and medium build. The two-inch heels of his grey ostrich-skin cowboy boots, though, coupled with his overbearing attitude, made him appear nearly as tall as the lawyer Paine. Clad in black jeans held up by a silver concho belt and a black cavalry shirt trimmed with silver, he clompped in and made a show of removing his jacket- a full-length grey duster as formidable as that worn by any gunslinger in the Old West. He wore no gun, though. He reached up to remove the black ten-gallon hat trimmed with a hat band of silver Indian beadwork. From beneath the sweatband exploded a riot of salt-and-pepper grey hair. The man-easily the oldest of the six people present-displayed a little mad scientist’s gleam in his southerner’s eyes. He flung the Stetson so that it frisbeed across the office, landing squarely on a bronze bust of Benjamin Franklin. That was when Jonathan noticed the man’s hands.

The hands of the latest arrival were thin and long, almost half again as long as normal for a man his size. And though the fingers looked slender and the hands and wrists narrow, they grasped, held, and tossed aside hat and jacket with a grace and strength that belied their delicate appearance. For the hands of Dr. Uriah West served as his most powerful tools, instruments of life with a healing ability of incomparable proportions.

Captain Anger nodded at the newcomer. “Tex, Sun Ra-I’d like you to meet Jonathan Madsen, grandson of Dr. Julius Madsen. Jonathan-”

“Call me Johnny, if you’d like, Mr. Anger.”

“All right.” Captain Anger smiled. “And you can call me Cap.” He looked back at Sun Ra and Tex. “Johnny, meet Jefferson Paine, Esquire, and Dr. Uriah West.”

“Call me Sun Ra,” rumbled the attorney’s pleasant, deep voice.

“And my handle’s Tex,” the doctor said with a wide grin, “as if ya couldn’t guess.”

Jonathan nodded at them, a little subdued by the strange assemblage of talent. He had seem some interesting types at his grandfather’s lab, but no one nearly as wild as this crew.

Cap said, “The patients are on a chartered commercial jet out of San Jose. I suspect they have implants controlling their gross motor functions. Your operating room’s ready and your surgical team awaits.” He turned to the other arrival. “Sun Ra, thanks for handling those weapons charges with the Los Gatos police. Where’s Glenn?”

Flash spoke up. “Glennis is in Antarctica with the greenhouse project. There’s no way she could have made it here by midnight.”