Story continued from DEFENDERS #105.
As the story opens, the Defenders (Hellcat, Valkyrie, Gargoyle, and Kyle "Nighthawk" Richmond) are unconscious in a darkened room. Roman soldiers remove Kyle and he awakens to see August Masters, who has a part for him to play in his sinister scheme….
The scene then jumps several weeks to Steve Rogers and Bernie Rosenthal on their way home from the movies; she says "I love you" to him and they are suddenly both embarrassed. [Meanwhile, a passer-by spots Steve and is surprised; he will be revealed as Steve’s boyhood pal Arnie Roth in issue #270.] Reaching home, Steve excuses himself to sweat over his drawing board. Suddenly a psychic shock rips through his brains; by the time Bernie and Josh Cooper come running, the attack has passed and Steve is back to normal. Donning his Captain America togs, he goes out to investigate: he recognized the blast as coming from Ursula Richards and Phillip LeGuin, the two psychics he rescued from Morgan MacNeil Hardy in issue #264. He finds Ursula’s apartment wrecked and gains a mental picture of the two being kidnapped. Heading to SHIELD HQ, Cap undergoes a mind probe to see if it can reveal anything but the machine overloads and burns out….
Back several weeks, August Masters tells Kyle that his girlfriend Mindy Williams is severely mentally unstable because of her psychic ablates; the only thing that can calm her is Kyle’s presence. Masters threatens to kill the other Defenders if he won’t cooperate….
Now: Cap goes undercover near the site of Masters’ secret lab. His guide leads him into an ambush but Cap easily bests the Roman guards and enters the facility. He runs straight into Masters and an armed reception. The villain explains that he has hooked the most powerful psychics he could find to a machine and is planning to wage mental warfare against the Soviet Union to wipe it out. Cap recoils from that idea and clobbers Masters. Meanwhile, Ursula and Philip, who had contacted Cap earlier, have now awakened the Defenders and released them from their prison. The heroic team arrives with Kyle and the freed psychics and they fight the guards while Cap destroys the machine. Masters sets the facility to self-destruct and only Cap’s surrender will stop it; Cap wisely yields. As the villainous plan resumes, Kyle wishes he could contact Doctor Strange; the catatonic Mindy picks up this thought and sends a mental summons to the Sorcerer Supreme….
Story continues in DEFENDERS #106.