Steed and Purdey are on the scene when agent Martin returns to the West by crashing down a lonely border post, to be shot down by a sniper's bullet. His last words before dying: "Angel of Death... the killer within." Back home the New Avengers attend a departmental meeting headed by Pelbright, a man who looks fit and healthy after a week on a health farm. Nevertheless he dies within a few minutes after opening a folder with a strange design painted on it.