A tall, broad-shouldered man calmly strode toward the trio huddling behind their pickup truck, seemingly paying no attention to the hailstorm of automatic weapons fire they were laying down.

On him.

His dark brown skin was set off by a thin black turtleneck, black pants... and a modified Nehru jacket in bright red.

"Holy s#!" gasped one of the men. "Th-that's D-doctor Steel!"

Eddie Hayes' eyes widened. He had heard of Dr. Steel, of course - if you had been living anywhere near Detroit for any amount of time, you had - and had of course heard that he was bulletproof. But actually seeing the bullets just ricochet off his skin?

That was unreal. It - it was as if - he were made of steel.

"Keep his 'tention," snarled a second man, powerfully built with a shaved head. "'Tect the boys inside!"

"Bronco" Barnes wasn't afraid of anything - even when showing a little fear would be appropriate.

"Yeah - c'mon, Ira!" Sid "the Weasel" Lupin barked as he fired again. Damn! They needed heavier weapons, or - or -

Dr. Steel strode up to the pickup, to where the men were shooting at nearly point-blank range.

They could feel his cold stare, though his eyes were hidden by dark, nearly opaque, sunglasses.

"You fellows want to quit embarassing yourselves?" Steel intoned, cracking his knuckles.

Eddie thought for just a moment - the hero certainly didn't seem to be in any hurry to get the boys inside the building - he was solely concentrating on the truck-bound trio.

And Eddie saw no reason to lose some teeth to protect those guys, anyway.

"No, man! Don't hurt me!" He sprang to his feet, arms raised. "Don't hit me, Doc!"

"What the h&@! - Hayes, you idiot, don't -

"Aaaagh!"

Bronco cried out as the hot barrel of his gun was rapidly grabbed and twisted around his wrists, like handcuffs.

Dr. Steel turned to face Sid the Weasel, who had his assault rifle aimed right at Steel's face.

Steel looked at him, with no more concern than if he had been ready to spit a soda straw in his general direction.

He didn't say anything, he didn't move.

He just... stared.

To the point that Sid the Weasel, the man with the assualt rifle just inches from his opponent's face, slowly came to believe that the other man had him at a disadvantage.

He dropped the rifle and shakily raised his hands.

The hero permitted himself a moment of satisfaction.

One of these days, he sighed inwardly, someone was actually going to fire.

Steel gestured with a slight crank of his head, and the two gunmen sadly marched to the policemen on the corner.

Not Bronco Barnes.

"Fine, you got us, Steel! You got us. But we delay-y-y-y-ed you long enough!"

"Oh?"

He made no other response, save an eyebrow slowly rising over the rim of his dark glasses.

"Y-yeah, Mr. Big Shot Hero! We -

"Aaaughh!"

Bronco crumpled as a man in his 30s came crashing through the door of the Jewelry Exchange Building behind him, smashing into Bronco's back.

Steel looked up as a woman in a silver, long-eared cat mask popped her head out the door.

"Problem, Serval?"

"There will be," Silver Serval hissed, "If he ever touches me like that again!"

"Maybe our reputation is slipping."

The Spirit of '76 rubbed his lightly-bearded chin. By all appearances he was just a man in a football jersey - emblazoned with a number 76 of course. He didn't even wear a mask. Yet the other heroes in the room listened intently to his every word.

"Unlikely, to that extent," Dr. Steel said quietly. "That they wouldn't expect at least one of you to also appear? No, I expect we'll find that they are from out of town... far out of town."

"They'd have to be... not local," Silver Serval said, her voice darkening as she absently flashed her long claws, "To try and... grab me like that."

Blessed with great speed for short bursts, she shared that trait, and her costumed appearance, with the great cat from which she took her name.

"That or crazy," muttered Spirit.

"They didn't give you any trouble - er, other than that - did they?"

Serval shook her head. "No. No trouble. Just like the last ones."

The trio glanced up as the heavy steel doors slid open and an attractive, nearly seven-foot-tall woman seemingly made of translucent ruby waltzed into the armored hall known as the Steelworks.

"You are late, Jaspis," Steel remarked, as if he had been commenting on the weather.

"I know," Jaspis replied with her usual good cheer, plopping down into the sole remaining chair. "Sorry. I was out... "

" ...fighting crime," she mock-whispered, playfully.

She grinned even wider than usual at her compatriots.

"Uh, Jazz?" Spirit leaned forward. "Maybe it isn't such a good idea for you to - "

"I know what our mysterious master criminal is up to," she sang happily.

"You do."

She nodded excitedly. "Mind if I use the mission board?"

"Not at all," Steel replied, leaning forward in his chair. "You are an Enforcer now."

"Thanks!" she chirped, her fingers flying over the keyboard set in the console before her.

"Jaspis? Nice... outfit," Serval said, trying to keep the jealousy out of her voice. Jaspis wore a simple, sleeveless white leotard with a large diamond shape cut out over her impressive decolletage, and white cheerleader boots.

It was the fact that she was wearing anything that was so unusual.

Jaspis' cheeks slightly darkened.

"Mercy, Kittycat," she stopped typing briefly and looked up and grinned. "That's French. I saw it on TV."

"Thought you didn't mind walkin' around in your ruby form," Spirit offered.

"I don't, silly... but this makes me look more like Silver Serval or ..."

She shrugged.

"You know... a superhero."

Serval felt her face warming. Jeez, can't you just let me enjoy being jealous for a minute?

"That it does," Dr. Steel said calmly. "However, you claimed that you knew - ?"

"Right. Right.

"Okay.

"We know that over the past two weeks, a half-dozen jewelry establishments have been hit by poorly-organized criminal gangs. It occured to me that each of these attacks... "

A holographic model of Detroit emerged from the center of the table, along with arrows marking the sites of the robberies floating in the "sky".

Spirit stood to get a better view overall. He was always suitably impressed by the mission board, but he was also impressed that Jazz had learned to operate it so well.

"I... don't see a pattern... " he mused.

"That's because there is none," Jaspis rapped the keyboard. "Except... "

Holographic projections of newspaper ads rose above the table.

Each of the six - seven if you count today's - of these places emphasize diamonds in their ads, above all else."

"Every jeweler advertises diamonds, Jazz," The Spirit of '76 mused. "It's part of the business."

She nodded in acknowledgement.

"These jewelers specialize in diamonds," Jaspis said. "They're wedding mills - selling EGL certs at prices that are slightly below market. In some cases, significantly below market."

"How do you know - ?"

"I used to be a real woman, remember?" she smiled at Dr. Steel without animosity. "And a real woman is certainly aware of the price of diamonds."

"So... what?" Silver Serval scrunched up her nose. "They're hitting these... wedding mills?"

"Mmmm, not exactly," Jaspis' fingers rampaged across the keyboard. "See, I remembered something Spirit said when you guys were giving me the welcome tour last month. About really looking into things, digging deeper.

"So I got to wondering - how could these stores sell their diamonds for that much less?"

"'We make it up in volume'?" Serval cracked a smile.

"A bit of history. Bear with me.

"In 1869, a Griqua witch doctor named Swartbooi found an 83.5 carat, brilliant white diamond, nicknamed the 'Star of Africa', on land owned by two Afrikaner farmers, Diederik and Joahannes De Beers. The sale of this diamond sparked the diamond rush to South Africa. The De Beers, Worried about damage from diamond seekers invading their land, sold their diamond-rich land to one Cecil Rhodes, who took over several of the claims and incorporated the De Beers Consolidated Mines in 1871.

"Now here's where it gets interesting," Jaspis said, as holographic portraits of the men being discussed appeared over the three-dimensional cityscape.

"De Beers, through a cartel that Rhodes helped form, at one point controlled nearly the entire market in diamonds. In the 1930's, Sir Ernest Oppenheimer, the chairman of De Beers Group, came up with the idea of 'single channel marketing'... basically, Oppenheimer formed a cartel on the premise that he was operating a legitimate enterprise."

"Mmm," mused Dr. Steel.

"For a time De Beers owned and controlled over 90% of diamond production in the world. By doling out a limited supply of diamonds they could control the 'rarity' and keep values high.

"Oppenheimer stomped out all competition. Many of their dealings were shady, and they were known for particular ruthlessness against their competitors.

"Now, eventually his son took over, and launched their famous 'A Diamond is Forever" campaign. The goal behind this campaign was to ensure that women kept their diamonds literally forever. The goal was to prevent a secondary market for diamonds by persuading women that diamonds should be untouched by another woman to really have any meaning. This allowed De Beers to maintain control of the diamond trade at wholesale level and retailers to sell diamonds at a high price without competition - you know, from previous owners."

Jaspis leaned back in her chair and looked over at Silver Serval. "Feeling a bit manipulated, Kittycat?"

Serval responded with a slight nod.

"Wait... a... minute," Serval said. "This sounds like... I mean, you're saying the worldwide diamond market is being run... how is this possible?"

"All right, a cartel controls the diamond market (just as countless supervillains have threatened to do over the years)," Dr. Steel said solemnly. "How does that impact the robberies in Detroit?"

Jaspis' smile faded. "Stay with me here. Believe me, this is...

"Well... not 'good', by any means.

"As diamonds became more and more precious, and all those diamonds were just lying there untouched, even worse bad guys took note, and the efforts to extract those diamonds became... more violent.

"They are called blood diamonds.

"Rebel armies from Angola, Sierra Leone, Cote d'Ivoire, Liberia, The Congo - they mine and sell these diamonds on the cheap - largely to finance the purchase of guns that will be used in the attempted toppling of legitimate, internationally recognized governments. Mass murder, amputation, and the use of child soldiers are an all too-common part of the process."

A map of Africa appeared, with those countries floating about an inch above the map, for emphasis.

"In rebel-held diamond mining regions, the little subsistence farmland available to local populations is razed and gutted by this... gem-lust. Farmers are taken from their land and forced to work as prisoner-laborers in the open pits, being shot on the spot for such crimes as disobedience and under-productivity. More than fifteen hundred of the miners in Sierra Leone's Kona region were children, who could just as easily find themselves drugged, press-ganged, and holding a diamond-bought AK-47... an underaged combatant."

Japsis paused and looked around the table. Silver Serval and Spirit of '76 appeared dumbfounded. Even the normally placid Dr. Steel looked... perturbed.

Any trace of a smile on her face was long gone.

"This... can't be happening now...?" Spirit offered.

"Ohh, yes. It can.

Just last year, for example, Sierra Leone descended into hell," Jaspis replied quietly. "As rebels clashed with the government, elections were scheduled, but people had to vote with a thumbprint. To keep people from voting, the Revolutionary United Front instituted a campaign of amputation, to chop off people’s limbs so they could not vote. The violence was so gruesome that Nigerian troops and a United Nations peacekeeping force were sent in to remove the people in power and try to bring about a semblance of normality."

"My God," Spirit mused as he read one of the articles that Jaspis had found, now floating as a kind of teletype above the table. "Why haven't we heard of this before?"

Jaspis looked at him sadly.

"Because it's Africa.

"The rest of the world has a blind spot when it comes to that continent," she said, her voice rumbling with anger. "Who the hell cares what happens to Africa? Or Africans?"

For a moment no-one said anything.

Jaspis looked around the table, at Dr. Steel, at Spirit of '76, at Silver Serval - all of them African-American, as was she. She hadn't meant to insult anyone...

Anger them, yes.

"Rough, unfinished diamonds," Dr. Steel stated quietly, "Hold many... advantages for these insurgents: they are difficult to trace, easy to transport, and are accorded great value all over the world."

He paused, peering over his sunglasses.

"There are no currency exchange issues when dealing with 'ice'."

"N-no, there aren't," Jaspis agreed. "Each... of those stores that were robbed, bought their diamonds outside of the De Beers KPCS - that's Kimberly Process Certification Scheme, their sop to the United Nations. Meant to trace the origins of each rock."

Silver Serval sat straight up. "Wait a minute. You're saying that these stores - "

"Bought and sold blood diamonds. Hundreds of brides are wearing a diamond on their finger, that cost someone else their hand."

Holographic copies of bills of sale, bills of lading and other bits of the paper trail she had followed appeared over each Enforcer's keyboard.

"And in the process I discovered two more such stores: Middleton's Jewelry midtown, and Jarod's Galleria of Jewelry over in Dearborn. Both made purchases which can be traced back to Angola and Cote d'Ivoire."

"Holy crud," Spirit whispered as he flipped through the stack of virtual paper, one by one.

"Remarkable work," Dr. Steel finally stated. "Excellent work...Jaspis."

"Yeah..." breathed Silver Serval. "Who would have thunk it?

"Uhhh," she inhaled sharply, suddenly cognizant of the others' stares. "I just meant, that, gosh, you're so strong and all... "

Jaspis smiled. "Told you I used to be a pretty fair detective."

"I also owe you an apology, Jazz," Spirit of '76 said, walking through the corner of the table. "It's just... such a departure from our normal way of doing things. Usually we just react.

"Uh, no offense, Doc."

"None taken," Steel said, as if he were commenting on the weather. "Two potential targets left, correct, Jaspis?"

"Yes. What do you think we should do?"

"No-o-o - what do you think we should do?"

Jaspis would have blinked if she could have.

"Me?" she said, barely audibly.

"You've obviously put a lot of work into this," Steel said solemly. "If you read the Enforcers' charter we gave you when you joined, it states that the hero who is first on the scene or who starts an investigation is in charge of that case."

The corners of his mouth turned barely upward.

She glanced from Dr. Steel, to Spirit of '76, to Silver Serval. Each was looking at her in a way she hadn't seen before.

"A-all right.

"Here's what I'm thinking... "

Late that night, a lone figure clad in matte black sweatshirt and jeans moved swiftly across the mall's roof. He pulled a device from his belt that resembled a gun from a Flash Gordon serial, and pointed it at the Jarod's building at the end of the row of stores.

The device's barrel glowed green as he "shot" the roof. Then, satisfied, the man tripped across the power line leading to the store, and crouched down on the roof.

He scrambled over to the air-conditioner, then, with the aid of a compass, carefully paced off a certain number of steps. He bent low, shielding a high-powered laser from view as it cut through the roof.

The man grinned as he made his way through the drop-ceiling. He paused to put on a red domino mask - perhaps there were some cameras his EMP gun hadn't managed to knock out.

Nonsense, he thought as he kicked out a ceiling tile and dropped on through. There are no alarms ringing, so there were no cameras working. And no one to stop -

"Well. Hi, there."

He whirled!

Standing in the shadows was a woman who... looked as if she had been carved from ruby? She stood well over six feet tall, and wore the bodysuit and boots combination that read "superhero".

The man's eyes widened. Why wasn't she at the other store?

"Wow, I figured you were getting frustrated with our interference and all, but I never dreamed you'd come yourself," she nodded to the red diamond he had painted over his heart. "You are the man behind all those robberies, right?"

She walked out to the center of the floor, among the display cases.

"Oh. I'm Jaspis."

The dark-skinned man blinked, and slowly began backing away.

"Y-you knew I'd strike here... you must know why!"

"You mean, the blood diamonds? Yep."

The man took two steps backward. "Do you know what those diamonds have paid for? What atrocities?

"I strike for justice, for those oppressed!"

Jaspis gave a wan smile and moved a foot or two forward.

"Do you not see? We are on the same side!"

Jaspis paused, obviously pained.

"In a way," she finally agreed. "But you... committed robberies. Hired thugs. Stole.

"Whether you meant to or not, you put a lot of good people in danger."

She threw up her hands. "I mean, I agree with what you're doing, in theory - "

"I keep nothing! The diamonds are sold to pay for food, for milk for children! For farmland -"

His hand snapped down to the Flash Gordon gun on his belt. "Don't you care?"

"Sure, we care," a voice behind him said as the gun was plucked from his grasp.

The man spun to see Spirit of '76 casually floating before him.

Quickly he threw a punch - only to stumble as his fist passed right through the hero as if he wasn't even there.

"Nice gun," Spirit commented. "What's it do?"

The man hesitated for a moment, then sighed heavily.

"It is a pulse gun. Fires a pulse that... knocks out alarm systems."

"Pretty... sophisticated," Spirit said, "for a one-man revolution, hey?"

"I built it," the man said quietly, crestfallen. "Copied it from Popular Mechanics."

"This is the drop point, isn't it?" Jaspis said gently. "The one store in the Metro area where these blood diamonds were shipped. That's why you chose to come here tonight."

"... yes."

He whirled to face her!

"For the love of heaven, how can you defend this practice?!"

"Hey! Hey! You're talking!" Spirit shouted.

The man in black just... looked at him.

"Yes. Yes, I am?"

"I meant, as opposed to you being in a pile on the floor. Understand? We could have pounded you in no time flat."

"That," the man said dramatically, his body shifting into a fighting pose, "remains to be seen!"

His eyes glowed with anger as his fists raised, and his body coiled along a diagonal path, ready to strike!

"Watch yourself, Jazz!" Spirit barked, letting his body go insubstantial once again. "He's deadly!"

The man glanced over at him and raised an eyebrow.

"Speckled... cobra," Spirit of '76 snarled. "Oh, yeah, I recognize it, diamond man. Less than a dozen men know that technique... "

"You... know of it?"

The man in black hesitated, his lip quivering.

Then, he sighed, and the pose seemed to... leave him.

He settled back into a casual stance.

"I... will not fight one who was also trained... in the Abbey of Phantoms. There are so few of us, and..."

"What?" Japsis' question was almost a statement.

"The abbot would only train.... good men," Spirit of '76 looked his foe up and down.

For long moments no one moved or spoke.

"Arrest me," the man in black said, holding out his hands. "Allow these people to create fortunes on the backs of the destitute!"

"Look, brother, this isn't sitting well with us, either," Spirit said as he withdrew plastic wrap-cuffs from this pocket and placed them around the man's wrists. "But what can we do?"

"We can start a publicity campaign."

Jaspis and Spirit of '76 whirled to see Dr. Steel striding up the main aisle of the store. Outside, they could see Silver Serval just landing one of the skybikes.

"How - how did you get in - ?"

"Front door," Steel jerked his thumb over his shoulder.

"But... my gun just deactivates the alarms. Not the locks."

Steel held up a small cylinder. "Universal key."

Silver Serval zoomed into the room, screeching to a halt just before Jaspis.

"Sorry we got held up at Middleton's fighting crooks with ridiculous-sized weapons," she ran off without taking a breath.

"They were supposed to draw your attention," the masked man sighed. "You weren't supposed to be here."

"As I was saying," Steel continued calmly, "We will give these so-called blood diamonds, the stores that trade in them, what they least want and most fear.

"Exposure."

He nodded toward the masked man. "There are many ways to put an illicit operation out of business. One, is to make people unwilling to patronize it."

The man took a deep breath and nodded.

"Understood."

He looked at each of the Enforcers in turn.

"Sorry for the trouble."

Then he walked outside with Dr. Steel.

"Guys?" Jaspis said quietly.

"I feel pretty... bad."

Spirit and Serval looked at Jaspis.

"I mean, he wasn't a real supervillain or anything - he didn't even have a code name. His heart was in the right place..."

"Maybe," Serval said. "But his mind sure wasn't. Robbery's never a good first option, you know?"

Jaspis nodded, crestfallen.

"Kinda hurts, don't it?" Spirit said as the trio made their way to the front door. "You can't let it bother you too much, Jazz. You're gonna find that a lot of crooks have what they think are good reasons for the stuff they pull."

"How - how did you get used to it?"

Spirit held open the door. "Never did."

The trio walked outside into the cool evening air.

Jaspis looked over at Dr. Steel and the masked man sitting on a bench, awaiting the police.

"Hey." Silver Serval zipped in front of her. "Jazz. Come on back to the Steelworks - gotta recipe for jerk chicken you gotta try."

The ruby woman looked down at the speedster and gave a wan smile.

"Sure, Serval. That sounds... nice. I'll be along in a little while."

She sauntered over to the bench.

"Fellows? If you don't mind...

"I'd like to wait with you awhile."