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strangely’ how?” Scott asked.
    “I’m not really sure,” the Professor said. Cain Marko was the Juggernaut, and the X-Men had, so far, been the only thing that had managed to consistently stop or slow him down.
    “I got this report faxed to me twenty minutes ago,” the Professor said. He handed Scott a paper and waited for them to read it together.
    Basically the fax said that the Juggernaut had stormed right through the middle of an Ohio town, heading east and slightly north. The problem was that he hadn’t even bothered to use a road, simply walked through, or over, anything that was in front of him. So far, the damage had been minimal, and limited to vehicles, the occasional fire hydrant, and one deputy who made the mistake of trying to stop him and had a concussion to show for it. With the Juggernaut’s strength, that could just as easily have been a broken neck.
    “Something got under his helmet,” Scott said, shaking his head. “That’s for sure.”
    “You want us to confront him?” Jean asked.
    The Professor nodded. “Yes. This is not a typical rampage, but the Juggernaut is still a danger. At the very least, we need to keep an eye on him.”
    “We’ll handle it,” Scott said confidently.
    “Thank you, Scott,” the Professor said.
    “No problem, sir,” Scott said.
    Arm in arm, the two turned and left the dark study to return to the bright light of the summer day.
    For a moment the Professor watched them go, then turned and stared into the fire.
    There had been a number of times he wished he could get inside his stepbrother’s mind to see what drove him. But the helmet he wore kept out any telepathic intrusion.
    What are you up to, Cain?
    There was no answer.
    The plush office of Wingate Toole overlooked the river and parts of New Orleans beyond through two-inch-thick, bulletproof glass. A well-stocked bar filled the wall nearest the window with shelf after shelf of varied liqueurs and ornate glassware. The room was thickly carpeted and oak paneled, and the center of the area was dominated by a massive oak desk surrounded on three sides by heavy, high-backed chairs.
    Air-conditioning kept the temperature of the room at exactly seventy-one degrees no matter how warm and humid it got outside. But this morning, to Wingate Toole, the temperature seemed much higher. The air felt thick and heavy with the fear that he held clamped inside his stomach. Every so often, during the morning, he had broken out into a thick, oily sweat.
    A large man, built like a truck driver, Toole normally would be sitting at his desk at this time of the morning, his feet up, the smoke of his cigars filling the air as two or three of his business partners sat nearby talking over the coming day’s activities.
    But not this morning.
    In the middle of the night, he’d sent his entire organization into full security alert. The warehouse complex that housed his office had become like Fort Knox.
    No one got in or out.
    Period.
    Thick, steel shutters had been lowered over his huge office window, blocking the view and the rising sun. Extra machine guns had been set up facing every possible entrance. A helicopter circled slowly over the area, also armed and watching for any sign of anything different.
    Over two hundred men with the newest, most modem and powerful weapons guarded the inside of the warehouse complex, all in full combat alert. All had orders to shoot to kill.
    Toole chain-smoked cigars as he paced behind his desk. His most trusted associate, a tall, rail-thin man
    SI1-HEM
    named Kyle, stood and watched, saying nothing. Kyle had been at Toole’s side since shortly after the fear had crawled into Toole’s head in the middle of the night and warned him of someone coming after him.
    It had been a long night for both of them, but Toole knew it was only starting. The long night was going to stretch into days, maybe weeks, before this was finished. He knew it “inside” like he had known other things over the years that