immediately attacked one microbot apiece. Now there were four anti-scavengers. Shortly there were sixteen. “These microbots have no defense against being reprogrammed. Whoever built them thought they could overrun anything, making new copies of themselves to replace the older ones. We’ll unleash this countermeasure at the Los Gatos site to handle any stray microbots that might have escaped the freeze. And we’ll keep a few for ourselves.”
Thirty-two. Sixty-four. The electromechanical antidote spread through the mass of scavengers. One hundred twenty-eight. Two hundred fifty-six.
“Any big news today, Flash?” Cap asked, sitting on a lab stool and folding his arms. They were muscled not with the lumps and knots of a body builder, but with the smooth, hard lines of a man of action. Captain Anger had made himself into a man of uncommon strength, but his strength lay in more than mere muscle. His was a strength powered by will and an astonishing self-confidence.
“ General Secretary of the United Nations was missing for forty-eight hours,” Flash announced as if reading from a report. “Back at work now with no explanation.”
Cap nodded, storing the piece of information for later consideration. “Anything on Dr. Madsen?”
Flash answered the captain. “ The mortgage and utility payments on his Palo Alto home are current, even though he’s been missing for four months.”
“Let’s drop some of these little bugs off in Los Gatos to handle any strays we may have missed, and then go pay his house a personal visit.”
Chapter Ten
The Safecracker
The house—an expensive, two story building—sat on a culde-sac in an exclusive suburb of Palo Alto. Cap drove his unassuming white van past the domicile and parked halfway down the block. Leila and Rock stepped out, this time dressed more conservatively. Rock wore a dark blue business suit that attempted but failed to conform to his thickset physique. He wore a wide, garish blue paisley tie around his thick neck. Leila, at least, looked refined in a free-flowing maroon jumpsuit not too different from her more functional black one. Neither of them wore their pistols on the outside. A barely visible bulge under Rock’s left arm, though, let the experienced observer know that he was armed.
Cap emerged from the van finally looking like himself. He was a tall man, over six-foot-three, who seemed even taller because of his self-assured and powerful bearing. When in disguise, he could look several inches shorter simply by assuming a poor posture and a weaker attitude. Now, though, he stepped onto the sidewalk with strength and dignity, cleansed of all disguise and wearing an outfit specially designed for his life of action and danger.
Pants, shirt, and jacket of khaki clad his body with comfort and panache. But unlike the mock clothing sold in fashion houses, Captain Anger constructed his gear of a rugged, almost indestructible weave of aramid fibers developed in his own lab. The same cloth composed Rock’s business suit and Leila’s apparel. The dense fibers provided some protection against low velocity bullets and insulated well against heat and cold while maintaining a constant body temperature for the wearer.
Captain Anger’s shirt sported several pockets, two large ones and several smaller ones designed with their openings disguised and not obvious to the casual glance. His pants similarly possessed cargo pockets that did not bulge away from his strong legs, but rather conformed to them without clinging tightly. The jacket hung to mid- thigh and displayed crisp, no-nonsense lines. It hid many secrets in its six outer pockets and ten inner ones. Even the belt that cinched his waist held its share of surprises.
His face, scrubbed clean of the rubber mask he utilized in his guise as the old bum, looked even more impressive in the afternoon sun. This was a man meant to live in the fire of adventure, born to roam the world and change it wherever he went. Nothing less could please such a man of action.
Yet in his gaze dwelt the soul of a scientist, a rationalist whose every action was ruled by the cool workings of the intellect. Even his boldest, wildest moves operated under the firm yoke of reason.
It was his expertly trained intellect that warned him of danger in the seemingly unthreatening home. He stepped in front of the other two members of his team and strode to the front door. Standing aside to avoid any gun blast that might chance to punch through the closed door, he swung the ornate brass knocker twice.
No response.
Without any urging, as if they had rehearsed a hundred times, Rock and Leila split up, heading to the left and right sides of the home. Captain Anger withdrew a slender, bendable black tube from his jacket and peered around the window frame and through the glass next to the entry. The tube—an infra-red viewer—detected the slightest variance in temperatures and converted it into an image. Looking through it at the hall carpet, Cap saw the blurred heat-outline of footprints. Someone had been there only a few moments ago. The steps led from the foyer up the curved stairway to the second story.
“Someone’s in there,” he subvocalized without moving his lips or even opening his mouth. The tiny but powerful microphone in the earpiece he wore picked up the nearly inaudible tones conducted through jawbone and inner ear, transmitting them to his comrades who wore the same devices and via satellite to Cyclops. A second microphone operated on a different frequency, capturing all the sounds that Cap heard and transmitting them back to the Institute. The earpiece was smaller than the smallest hearing aid so that Captain Anger’s team could be in full communication with one another at all times without anyone suspecting. Cap was one of the most circumspect people imaginable. So much so that his enemies sometimes swore that Cap and his friends were telepathic, or psychic, or black magicians.
Rock crept through the neat bed of bright yellow flowers surrounding the south wall of the house. He discovered a patio and sliding glass door. The door hung jimmied open on one hinge. “My side,” he muttered, “fast!” With that, he jumped from the flower bed and through the doorway, landing on the carpet of the breakfast nook with astonishing silence for a man of his bulk. He crouched, listening for any sign of movement.
Cap was the first to join him, quietly appearing at his side. Leila crept in an instant later.
Cap peered through the infra-red scope, determined that no one had been in the room for a few minutes, and signaled the others to follow.
Halfway up the hall stairway, they heard a mighty crash, the sound of steel against steel. Captain Anger raced swiftly up the stairs three steps per stride and followed the sound to its source.
The ringing smash sounded again. And again. Cap entered Dr.
Madsen’s upstairs office to see a long-haired blond teenager frantically swinging a sledgehammer at a wall safe.
The boy, who could not have been more than fifteen, took another swing at the exposed hinges on the safe. Steel hit steel, sending white-hot sparks flying, scenting the air with the smell of burnt iron. He took a moment to wrist away the sweat dripping into his eyes. Then, for whatever reason, he turned around to check the doorway.
And saw the tall, copper-haired man in khaki.
With a startled gasp, the young man raised the hammer and lunged toward the bearded intruder, swinging the weapon with all his might.
Cap caught it in one hand, near the business end of the sledge, and reduced its motion to zero. With his other hand, he gripped both the boy’s wrists and pried them away from the handle.
The kid struggled and screamed, “I’ll kill you, you murdering bas—”
“Hold on, son,” Cap said calmly without releasing his grip. The boy tried to kick him, but he lifted him up by the wrists, out and away from harm in a feat of leverage that would have astonished a professional weightlifter. “We haven’t killed anyone lately. Who are you?”
