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join him,” came the summons.
    Snarling beneath his breath, he slammed the receiver onto its ivory cradle, making the pencils and pens in the cup on his highly polished parquet desktop rattle and bounce.
    His angry stride carried him across the room where he grabbed a lightweight black denim jacket from the hall tree and shrugged his powerful arms into the sleeves with no care if he tore the seams. Still growling like an enraged dog, he jerked open the door and rocketed out of the room, slamming the portal shut so hard, the adjoining wall shuddered.
    Disdaining the elevator because he loathed the closed-in feeling of the metal cage, he took the stairs, his thick boot heels rapping out a hard drumbeat on the metal risers as he descended. By the time he yanked open the outside door, rain was falling in a slanting, silver downpour.
    “Son of a warthog bitch!” he exploded in his native tongue as he came up short under the overhang. He glowered at the wet sidewalks where puddles were already forming.
    Rather than go back into the stairwell and take the even more claustrophobic underground convergence of tunnels, which connected the condos with each of the other five buildings of the Eastern complex, he clenched his jaw and shoved his hands into the pockets of his black jeans. He hunched his wide shoulders then ventured out into the chill rain.
    * * * * *
    From the panoramic bank of high windows in his fifth-floor office, Dr. Brighton Wynth, Executive Director of Operations of Wynth Industries, frowned heavily as he observed his captain of security services cutting a determined diagonal across the quad.
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    BlackWind: Viraiden and Bronwyn
    Turning away from the window once the captain entered the administration building, Dr. Wynth walked to his desk and sat down. His desktop was bare of the usual accouterments of files, papers, books and the assorted paraphernalia that pertained to his line of work. What sat atop the rich oak slab, however, was what the EDO deemed necessary—two phones, one black, one red, sat on the right side of the desk, a white telephone sat on the left. The black and red phones had bug-free, secured lines while the white phone was for “ordinary” use. In the center of the sleek, oak finish sat an expensive, leather-edged blotter, its paper pad pristinely unblemished—no doodles, notations or scribbling adorned the smooth surface.
    When the intercom attached to the white phone buzzed, another man, Burkett, bent forward and pressed the speaker button.
    “Dr. McGregor is here,” the secretary informed them.
    “Show her into Dr. Wynth’s receiving office, please,” Burkett ordered. “Make her comfortable and tell her it will be a few minutes. I believe she has a fondness for hot chocolate. Would you make a cup for her? Please add a generous amount of marshmallows.”
    “Certainly, sir,” the secretary said.
    Dr. Wynth was looking at the row of closed-circuit television monitors lined along the south wall of his office. He watched his captain of security services take the stairs two at a time. At level three, he stumbled and nearly fell then lashed out with a fist, slamming it into the fire door as he passed.
    Wynth chuckled, leaned back in his chair and threaded his stubby fingers over his slight paunch. “My, my. He’s a tad ungraceful today. Not in the best of moods this dreary Saturday morning, is he, Alex?”
    Alex Burkett grimaced. “I’ve never known him to be anything but rude and abrasive, sir.”
    “Oh, he has his moments.”
    The intercom buzzed again. Burkett ran a finger under his collar before he answered.
    “The captain is here, sir,” the secretary said in a subdued voice.
    Burkett looked to his boss. At Wynth’s nod, the thin man squared his shoulders.
    “Thank you, Corrine.”
    Wynth watched his assistant cross the room and put his hand on the door handle.
    He couldn’t see Burkett’s face, but he knew there would be precious little color in the already pasty English