Waste Not, Want Not

Destroyer 130: Waste Not, Want Not

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

PROLOGUE

She had lost faith in God even before the Almighty decided to slaughter his flock.

As she lay in the mud, she tried to remember when the loss of faith had happened. She supposed it came by degrees. She only remembered waking up in the jungles of South America one morning to the realization that the god she followed was a fraud. By then it was too late.

In the last few minutes before the bullet cracked her skull and pureed her brain, the thing that really vexed Jennifer Lonig's terrified mind was her own gullibility. He claimed to be God, for criminy's sake. Wasn't God supposed to be nice? Oh, sure, there was the occasional toad downpour or Mrs. Lot salt lick-but that was Old Testament God.

This was 1978. Smack-dab in the post-Watergate, free-loving, buy-the-world-a-Coke New Testament. All that everlasting-vengeance stuff had gone the way of burning bushes and Ozzie and Harriet. God was nice now. Everybody knew that. But it turned out the god Jennifer had chosen to worship was just a big old meanie.

"Check the ones at the back."

The voice came over the scratchy public-address system. The booming voice was calm, even as the world crashed down around his ears. The voice belonged to the man Jennifer now realized was not God.

Most of the others were already dead. They had lined up like good sheep at the big communal kettles. At their bad shepherd's command, the foolish righteous had dutifully drunk the tainted soft drink. As the first followers clutched bellies and throats, dropping lifeless to the muddy jungle floor, the rest continued to drink the poison.

They dared not defy God.

Jennifer had only pretended to drink. She found a nice spot in the mud and lay down, hoping-praying-to be lost in the crowd. Surely they wouldn't notice. There were hundreds of bodies-acres of dead.

Through barely open eyes she strained to see. Jennifer was face-to-face with a glassy-eyed corpse. What was the woman's name? Tammy something. From Denver?

Greenish stomach bile dribbled down Tammy-from-Denver's pale cheek.

"The devil rides in on wind of fire," the man who wasn't God announced. "The flock must perish to save the shepherd."

Someone was coming to the camp. Government troops. Maybe even American Marines. Their imminent arrival had sparked panic among the camp's leadership. But they were an eternity away yet.

They'll be here soon, she told herself. Soon.

Jennifer just needed to hold on until the cavalry arrived. And they couldn't possibly check every corpse. If she could stay still, she might just survive. The loud pop of a gunshot. Very nearby.

Jennifer almost jumped at the sound. By force of will she kept her body slack.

The gunshots had been coming sporadically over the past hour. It was clear that Jennifer was not the only one to fall from the faith. Others had refused the poisoned drink. Their eternal reward came at the end of a rifle barrel.

Another pop. Closer still.

Jennifer shivered in the humid afternoon sun. Shock numbed her senses. The world took on a hazy, unreal tone.

Tammy from Denver was smiling. Chin dripping black and green. Dead lips twisting over stained teeth.

Was she talking?

"He is not God, he is not God...."

The voice sounded familiar. But it couldn't be Tammy from Denver. Tammy was dead. See? There's a fly on her eyeball. Living people don't let flies land on their eyes. But if it wasn't Tammy speaking, who was it?

"He is not God."

Jennifer tried not to shiver.

The beatings, the forced labor, the stress and shock and horror. They had all taken their toll.

The sun was hot. So why was she so cold? And why wouldn't dead Tammy stop talking? Didn't she know? They would find her and kill her all over again if she didn't stop.

"Shh," Jennifer hissed. Her face was covered in a sheen of sweat.

A scuffling footstep. Somewhere nearby, a grunt. "He is not God, he is not God...."

Wait. That voice. It wasn't Tammy. It was Jennifer. Her own lips were moving. She could see them puckering through her own half-opened eyes. And something else.

A shadow. Blocking Tammy's dead and grinning face. A pair of boots. Very close.

"I got another one," a man's voice called impatiently.

"The world will not be spared the wrath of God," called the voice over the PA system almost simultaneously.

But that wasn't right. The man making the announcement was not God. Jennifer was sure of it. She almost said so yet again, but then she heard a sharp click behind her ear.

And then there was an explosion so loud and so close it was like the birth of the universe, but within the confines of her own skull.

The earthly Jennifer Lonig never even felt the bullet pierce her skull or the warm mud accept the twitching body that had been hers in life. The essence of what she was had already taken flight from her human shell.

She was swept up into the eternal hum of life that was something that had been beyond her understanding on Earth.

She saw brightness. Shadows of people that she knew in life but had lost. And something else. Something vast and warm and wondrous and everything else the man who had claimed to be God was not.

And in that moment of pure love and contentment, Jennifer Lonig was given a hint of something terrible. A vision of something that would not come to pass until two decades after her corpse had been flown back to the United States for burial. It was a glimpse of the vengeance that would be visited on those who had murdered her. A god from the East who wore the face of a man would visit the land of death. Where this man walked, the world would split, hurling blood and fire into the blazing sky.

And the false god of Earth who cowered in his path would tremble with fear.

Chapter 1

They wanted garbage. Mountains of it. Piled high and reeking. They wanted much more than they could possibly produce themselves. For the volume of garbage they wanted, they'd had to advertise.

The call was heard around the world.

Household or industrial waste, it didn't matter. Coffee grounds and paper plates were the same as asbestos-lined pipes and dioxin drums. All was welcome.

Industrial sludge was shipped by the barrelful, rolled off boats on pallets by men in protective space-age suits with special breathing masks. It found a temporary home next to buckets of old paint, used-car batteries, rotting rubber tires and stacks of bundled newspapers oozing toxic ink.

When Carlos Whitehall toured New Briton Harbor in the small South American country of Mayana and saw the first of the scows festering at the docks, he allowed a tight smile.

"Beautiful," he said softly.

Oh, not in the conventional sense, of course.

The scows were practically overflowing. Men in masks raked the refuse as it smoldered in the hot sun.

The many seagulls flapping around the junk on the boats brought a sense of vitality, of life, to the trash heaps.

That's what this was all about-life.

The country of Mayana was coming to life. Finally claiming its place in the sun. And it would do so by making itself indispensable to the modern world.

The trash was coming in by the boatload. Mounded in teetering piles, it was coming on slow-moving scows down through the Caribbean to Mayana. The first shipment had reached the port city capital of New Briton the previous evening. It was docked at pier 1.

As he walked, seagulls scattered and ran. Carlos Whitehall almost seemed pleased that the birds could share in his good fortune, in the good fortune of all Mayana.

Whitehall strode along the newly constructed docks amid a phalanx of his deputies of commerce. The men pressed white handkerchiefs firmly over their mouths to keep out the smell. Carlos Whitehall-Mayana's finance minister and direct adviser to President Blythe Curry-Hume-seemed to revel in the foul stench.

"There are eighteen scows so far, Minister," the young man nearest Whitehall said. George Jiminez was deputy finance minister and assistant director of the top secret Vaporizer Project. He puffed hard behind his handkerchief.

"When will the other bays be ready?" Whitehall asked. He was a tall man with a deep, healthy tan.

Despite the surroundings, there wasn't a single spot or smudge on his light cotton suit.

"They tell me now it won't be until next Tuesday."

Whitehall stopped dead. The rest of his entourage stumbled to a stop.

"That's ridiculous," the finance minister snapped, eyes flashing with his trademark unpredictable anger. Behind him, a scow loaded with rusted drums of human waste from a Mexican processing plant was baking in the hot South American sun. The smell failed to bother Whitehall.

"They've taken too much time already," he said, aiming an unwavering finger at Jiminez. "Tell them the president has authorized me to use whatever means necessary to have this up and running by Friday. I am not putting up with any more delays. After the conference Mayana's treasury will have more than enough to hire outside contractors."

"The people might not like that," George pointed out from under his sweaty hankie.

"The people won't care," Whitehall said. "This is going to make everyone in Mayana rich." He waved to the docked scows. "Now, Sears has a few trucks up there, but they'll need two more loads for the last tests." He pointed at the Mexican scow and the one beside it. "That one and that one."

"Maybe we shouldn't charge for these," Jiminez suggested. "A sample for new clients."

"Are either of them from the United States?"

"No," Jiminez replied. "If you'd prefer it, there are at least two from New York out in the Caribbean."

Whitehall shook his head firmly. "The United States can afford to pay. This one is from Mexico?" George Jiminez nodded. "Okay, let them both have it on us." Through the swarming seagulls he read the markings on the next scow. "Russian. There's some irony, I suppose," he muttered under his breath. "They've got an environmental movement now. With the mess they've got they'll need our services."

A half-dozen cell phones appeared from suit jackets. Arrangements were made to off-load the two scows.

Minister Carlos Whitehall spun on his heel. The tall man in the spotless beige suit began marching up the dock.

George Jiminez jogged to keep up. The wind was shifting out to sea. He came out from behind his handkerchief, testing the air. It was a little better.

"I've spoken with the president's office," Jiminez said, tucking his hankie back in his pocket. "Everything's set. "

"Of course it is," Whitehall snapped unhappily. "Our first-term executive president had to be dragged on board this project by me. He contributed nothing, George. Nothing. He only got elected at a propitious time."

They were at the parking area beyond the docks. Whitehall's driver ran around his limousine to open the back door for the finance minister.

George Jiminez knew this was a touchy subject. There was animosity between the finance minister and the executive president's office. Still, they would all be able to bury their differences soon. Today Mayana would take the first step to becoming the richest country in South America.

As Minister Whitehall climbed into the car, Jiminez glanced back over his shoulder.

A few of the men were coming out to the parking lot, clicking shut cell phones. They got into government cars.

The harbor teemed with seagulls. They filled sky and land. In the far distance, another scow piled high with teetering garbage was making its lazy way in from the sea.

The wind shifted suddenly. The fresh stench nearly caused George Jiminez to vomit his breakfast. He fumbled in his pocket for his handkerchief.

"See Mayana and lose your lunch," he coughed as he climbed into the back seat of the air-conditioned limo.

As the finance minister's limousine sped up into the Mayana hills, George Jiminez wondered briefly how that slogan would look on a T-shirt, perhaps spelled out with rotting banana peels. He made a mental note to bring it up at the afternoon public-relations meeting.

THE VAPORIZER WAS a square pit the size of two Olympic-size swimming pools. The interior was lined with a frictionless black substance that seemed to absorb light. A black hole, plucked from the depths of space and pressed into the virgin Mayanan hills.

Spaced down along the walls of the device, thousands of black-coated nozzles aimed across the vast pit. The tips of the nozzles glowed dull orange.

A black patio rimmed the pit, surrounded around by an eight-foot-high wall. Both deck and wall were coated in the same material as the Vaporizer. Carlos Whitehall noted the drabness of the device as he and his entourage entered the Vaporizer deck through a silent sliding door.

"I still think they could have done something better with the color," the finance minister complained. As usual, he tried to see to the bottom of the pit. As usual, the severe black made it impossible for his eyes to find focus.

"Dr. Sears says the black is necessary," George Jiminez replied. "Whatever's in the nonreflective coating wouldn't work with another color."

Whitehall snorted derisively. "Dr. Sears is hardly the expert I'd quote on any of this," he grumbled. A group of men waited at the far corner of the deck. Leading the way, Whitehall marched over to them.

His feet made not a scuff nor a sound. Before entering through the sliding door, Whitehall and the rest had pulled special clear boots over their shoes. The booties were required as a precaution to keep visitors from losing their footing on the slippery surface of the deck.

Even wearing the special shoes, Whitehall felt uneasy stepping along the deck. He had been present for some of the more recent tests. Although a chainlink fence had been set up around the very edge of the pit to prevent anyone from falling in, it didn't help him forget the very near danger. Whenever he ventured out on the deck, he felt as if he were climbing down into a massive garbage disposal unit to retrieve a wayward spoon that had fallen down the drain.

The waiting men gave only quick glances as Whitehall and his entourage approached. While irritating, their lack of deference wasn't a surprise. There was already a preening rooster in the henhouse.

Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume stood at the center of the crowd of men at the edge of the pit. If his close proximity to the Vaporizer caused him any concern, it didn't show. His blandly handsome face was drawn into something that might have been a smile or a grimace of pain.

The president of Mayana seemed to have only one facial expression. For the hundredth time since election day, Carlos Whitehall strained to see a hint of the alleged magnetism that had propelled this political neophyte to his nation's top elected office. As always in Whitehall's critical eye, Executive President Curry-Hume came up lacking.

"I'm glad you could finally make it," the president said thinly as Whitehall stopped before him.

"Yes, Mr. President," Whitehall said tightly. "You do understand that we are not scheduled to begin until two." He made a show of checking his watch. It was barely past ten.

"The world waits. If we are ready, why not go ahead? We are ready, aren't we?"

Whitehall's lips tightened. "I'll need a few minutes to line everything up," he replied, biting off each word.

The two groups went into huddles. Whitehall's men got back on their phones, barking orders down to the docks. At one point an exasperated Carlos Whitehall glanced over at the president.

Executive President Curry-Hume stood with hands planted on his hips as he stared into the Vaporizer pit. His sharp eyes had taken on a dreamlike quality. This was one of the things that had appealed to Mayana's female voters: the president's soulful eyes.

One of the executive president's security men stepped up to whisper something to Curry-Hume. The security agents were always around. About a dozen of them had been brought into government with the current president, supplanting the normal presidential security force. The silent men had a habit of making everyone around them feel uncomfortable.

Frowning, Finance Minister Whitehall turned away.

"We're ready," George Jiminez was saying. "The first two trucks are here."

Nodding sharply, Carlos Whitehall went to inform the president. The call went down the line as men snapped into action. The gates were opened. Reporters who had been waiting impatiently outside swarmed onto the deck, all outfitted in slip-resistant boots.

Finance Minister Whitehall had seen some press when he arrived half an hour earlier. There were many more now.

Many were already there to cover the Globe Summit, the world environmental meeting which was being hosted by Mayana and was scheduled to begin later in the week. But they had no idea why they had been called out here to the hills above New Briton. Some wondered if it had something to do with the Mayana government's call for trash from around the world. Many suspected the call for trash was a PR trap set up by environmental groups to be sprung on the world leaders who would be flying in for the conference.

The president worked the crowd, answering questions in an impromptu news conference. As he watched with growing jealousy, Finance Minister Whitehall clenched his teeth until the enamel squeaked. Barely controlling his anger, he whipped out his phone to call up to the control booth.

"Yes, that is true," Executive President Curry-Hume was saying to a reporter from the Washington Times. "This demonstration is of global significance. Its reach is so great it is only fitting that it take place now, the week of the Globe Summit. Mayana is about to change the world for the better. I won't spoil the surprise that my people have worked so hard to get ready for you. I think we should stand back and let them show us what they've done for us all."

He was backing into his entourage, ready to permit the demonstration to commence, when a final question was shouted from the gaggle of reporters.

"Isn't this near the site where the Jamestown tragedy took place?" a reporter for the Boston Blade called.

On his cell phone, Carlos Whitehall froze.

This was the one question he had feared more than any other. The finance minister had yelled, bargained and begged not to build here. But the land was government owned and ideally located. Whitehall had been outvoted.

The finance minister held his breath, awaiting the president's response.

The executive president nodded soberly to the now silent crowd. "As you say, Jamestown was a terrible tragedy," Curry-Hume said, voice rich with sadness. "But we are not here to focus on the past. We are here to celebrate the future. A better, cleaner future for the entire planet." He turned his back on the reporters. "Gentlemen, if you please."

Carlos Whitehall released a secret sigh. "Begin," he barked into his cell phone. Turning expectantly, he handed the phone off to George Jiminez.

Immediately, a large set of double doors at the far end of the long pit yawned open. Like the smaller door through which the reporters had come, the double doors had been invisible when closed, blending in with the smooth wall.

All eyes turned. Cameras rolled.

Something big crawled up an unseen ramp. When it stopped, everyone there briefly wondered why they were looking at the back end of a dump truck. The truck was dwarfed by the vast black pit.

The truck was overflowing with garbage. Heaps of torn plastic bags spilled their contents. A few seagulls had flown up from the bay. They swooped lazily in the warm air around the truck.

Even the breeze was cooperating. The wind blew away from the press, toward the truck.

At a nod from Carlos Whitehall, George Jiminez spoke in hushed tones into the phone. An instant later, the nozzles lining the black pit glowed brighter. They went from orange to brilliant white.

Through their special boots, the gathered men and women felt a growing hum beneath their feet. Across the pit, the back of the dump truck slowly began to rise. The maw swung open and the truck's contents slid down into the black pit.

The trash never reached the bottom.

As it passed by the array of white-tipped nozzles, there came a series of sharp flashes from all around the pit. And like popping soap bubbles, the bags of trash began to vanish.

There was a shocked intake of air all around. Reporters ran to the chain-link fence that surrounded the pit.

"Not too close!" Finance Minister Whitehall called.

He nudged himself cautiously to the edge, careful to keep at least a foot away from the fence at all times.

The falling trash continued to vanish. The reporters blinked as if witnessing some sleight of hand in a sidewalk shell game.

Another door opened above the pit. A second truck was already in position. Bags and steel drums of solid waste were dumped into the deep hole. When they passed by the glowing nozzles, they began winking out, piece by piece.

The backs of both trucks tipped nearly vertical, loosing the last of their cargo. Not a single piece of trash made it to the bottom of the deep pit.

The final floating scraps of paper and plastic caught the dying breeze on their way into the pit. They went the way of the larger trash bundles-erased from the air by some invisible force as they passed the glowing nozzles.

The dump trucks drove away, the doors slid closed once more and the hum of energy faded to silence. As it diminished, so, too, went the nozzle lights. The brilliant white dulled to yellow, then orange.

Sensing their meal had gone, the circling seagulls swooped curiously once more high overhead before heading back down toward the harbor.

The reporters stood in shocked silence, staring down onto the empty black floor of the pit. A floor that should have been lined with trash.

"Where did it go?" one small voice finally asked. President Blythe Curry-Hume stepped forward. "It went where it can never harm the environment again. It went where no beaches are despoiled by medical waste and no neighborhood is poisoned by seeping toxic chemicals. It went where the air is clean and the water is pure.

"Ladies and gentlemen," the leader of Mayana called, "I give you the hope of a cleaner future for all the world. l present to the world its own salvation. The Vaporizer." His grimacing smile of triumph was a little too tight near his ears.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo and he was Master of all he surveyed.

The thought came to him as he stood on a rocky bluff that jutted over the cold waters of the West Korea Bay.

Remo. Master of all he surveyed. Him. Remo Williams. Master Remo Williams. It was a strange feeling and, at the same time, so very, very right.

It had been a long time coming. Days spreading to decades. At times it seemed as if it would never happen. Now? The wink of an eye. Master of all he surveyed.

Remo looked out over his domain.

The tiny North Korean fishing village of Sinanju had been settled among craggy rock and sunken mud flats five thousand years before. It looked as if it hadn't seen a lick of paint or a single straight nail hammered since then.

The crummy little shanty homes of tumbledown wood and moldy thatch were clustered together against the elements. The dilapidated shacks looked like something out of The Grapes of Wrath without the cheery Steinbeck optimism.

With the melting winter snow came the annual rising tide of mud. Thick goop like brown oatmeal filled the crooked little streets and clogged the main town square.

The Mission San Juan Capistrano had the annual tradition of its returning swallows. Sinanju had a similar event, but with a non-avian twist. When the ground thawed, the sleeping snakes of Sinanju percolated to the surface. Remo had seen the first million serpents of spring slithering through the ugly brown weeds the previous week. There seemed to be a lot more with every passing year. The exhausted female snakes of Sinanju apparently spent the long winter months unsuccessfully fending off the amorous advances of hissing, horny paramours.

Remo would have thought the men of Sinanju were slipping the snakes Viagra for laughs if not for two things. First, the men of Sinanju were far too lazy to bother with the effort. Second, if they did have access to the drug, they'd need all they could spare for themselves.

Which brought him to the people of his dominion. The women of Sinanju were shapeless lumps with manhole-flat faces that looked like the south end of a northbound mule. The chronically unemployed men had raised indolence to Olympian heights. With a village stocked to its rotting rafters with ugly women and lazy men, the only good to come from the arrangement was an exceedingly low birthrate.

Not that a larger population couldn't have been cared for. Oh, not by the villagers. As a fishing village, Sinanju had always been a failure. The waters of the West Korea Bay supported little marine life. If there had been fish there at one time, the bay had long since been fished out. The surrounding plains were bad for farming, not that the villagers had ever shown much of an aptitude for agriculture. There were no minerals to mine, no crafts with which to barter. There was nothing really that the people of Sinanju had to offer.

At least not on the surface. That's where Remo came in.

Sinanju had one great asset, one shining jewel amid the cold and mud that made it far greater than it appeared.

The tiny, seemingly inconsequential village was home to the Masters of Sinanju. The most ancient and deadly martial art had been born on these inhospitable shores. Death was the brush of the Masters of Sinanju; the world their canvas.

If all the other, lesser martial arts were rays, Sinanju was the sun source. The rest had splintered from it. And, being but imitations, they were all inferior. Sinanju was the pure source, the essence of what could be for men in complete control of mind and body.

Since the start, the Masters of Sinanju had used their skills as assassins. And they excelled at their craft. Scalpels employed to take the place of clumsy armies, the Korean assassins were capable of feats that would seem superhuman to the average man.

There were only two Masters of Sinanju in a generation, teacher and pupil. But that was more than enough. The people of Sinanju need never work, for the efforts of the Masters of Sinanju kept them fed and warm.

Since before the time of the pharaohs, emissaries had come to the village to retain the services of the famed Sinanju assassins. And for aeons empires flourished or fell thanks to the secret services of the men from Sinanju.

The dawn of a new century had brought a new beginning to the venerable House of Sinanju. Remo-a white American-had recently become the first non-Korean Reigning Master, accepting the title and all the responsibilities that came with it. But in his heart he knew that his skin color didn't really matter. In truth he knew that he was just the latest in an unbroken line stretching back through time to that long-ago, forgotten day when the first crooked beam was set upon the first mossy stone to form the first pathetic hovel from which would grow the village over which he now stood as Reigning Master.

Taking it all in on the lonely bluff above the village-the history, the surroundings, the wind, sea and air; allowing the salty mist to sting his exposed flesh-a newfound poetic sense swelled deep in the spirit of Remo Williams. And the newest Reigning Master of Sinanju did give word to his innermost feelings. And that word did roll off his tongue, loudly proclaimed for all around to hear.

And that word was, "Yuck."

Thus spake Remo Williams, newly invested Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju.

He might have gotten in trouble for saying it aloud, especially if it fell on a particular pair of sen sitive ears. Fortunately for Remo, only one person was nearby.

"Excuse me, Master of Sinanju?"

Though Korean, the groveling man's English was very good.

The man in the North Korean general's uniform was not of Sinanju. General Kye Pun was head of the People's Bureau of Revolutionary Struggle. He had recently been given a temporary assignment by North Korean Premier Kim Jong-Il. Kye Pun was to personally act as liaison between the new Master of Sinanju and the Communist government in Pyongyang.

A few months before, there had been a power struggle in the village. A man had come to the ancient seat of the Masters of Sinanju to claim the title of Reigning Master for himself. At the time it was not absolutely certain who would be the victor. But the premier had a history with the white Master of Sinanju. The truth was, the crazy American scared him silly. Kim Jong-Il had thrown his support behind Remo.

When the dust settled, the premier was relieved to find that he had chosen wisely. Still, he wanted to be sure that the brave but dangerous Master Remo knew that he had the continued full backing of the leadership in Pyongyang.

General Kye Pun had been put at the disposal of the new Reigning Master by Kim Jong-Il as a show of support. At the moment Kye Pun seemed confused by Remo's spoken thought.

"What?" Remo asked, annoyed. Annoyance came easy to him lately. He had spent most of his days in Sinanju annoyed. As time went on, he had only grown increasingly annoyed.

"I do not understand this word 'yuck,'" Kye Pun said.

"Oh." Remo nodded. "Yuck," he repeated slowly. "As in 'Yuck, this place is a shithole, I want to go home.'"

"Ah," said Kye Pun. "Home."

The general looked over his shoulder at the lone house that sat across the bluff on which they stood. It was an eyesore, but of a different kind than the shacks of Sinanju. The big house looked to have been contracted out to a hundred blind architects who had each graduated last in his class. Dozens of architectural styles from countless centuries had been forced together in a clash of rocks, marble, granite and wood that made the sensitive eye ache just looking at it. Sitting on the roof was a gleaming satellite dish. The newly mounted eyesore-on-an-eyesore was aimed up at the heavens.

The building had become Remo's official residence when he assumed the mantle of Reigning Master.

"There is mud on the path to your home," Kye Pun said. "Allow your unworthy servant."

The general began to lie down in the mud to form a human bridge so that Remo's Italian loafers would remain unsoiled.

At any other time this would have been far too great an indignity for Kye Pun to bear. Not any longer. At least, not for this particular man.

Four months ago, when this young Master of Sinanju had arrived by jet in the capital of Pyongyang, Kye Pun met him at the airport. Kye Pun's personal bodyguard was present. The bodyguard was a massive, muscled mountain of flesh who could have wrestled a live ox through a meat grinder onehanded. He was assigned to kill the white Master of Sinanju. The young white Master of Sinanju swatted the behemoth bodyguard's head from his shoulders with a single slap. The head lodged in a jet engine.

After that incident, Kye Pun decided that there was nothing that he would not do to make the white Master of Sinanju happy. If that meant lying on his belly in the mud, he would wallow like a pig in a pen with a song in his heart.

The Korean general had barely gotten to his knees when he felt a strong hand on his shoulder.

"Hey, Sir Walter Dingbat, I'm not talking about that dump," Remo said, lifting the general from the ground and setting him back to the path. "I meant America."

Kye Pun felt his breath catch. He could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "You will return to the bourgeois land of the capitalist oppressors?" he sang.

"I prefer to think of it as the good ol' U.S. of A.," Remo said thinly.

"Of course," Kye Pun said quickly. He pumped a clenched hand in the air. "Go, Dallas Cowboys, John Wayne and Mickey Mouse." He pitched his voice low. "You know, I have always secretly been a great fan of the exploitation of the workers by the power elite," he confided.

"As a card-carrying Commie, you'd have to be," Remo said dryly. The sarcasm was lost on the North Korean general.

"How soon will you leave?" Kye Pun asked excitedly. "Do you wish for me to make the travel arrangements? They are still repairing the engine of the Iraqi jet you came in. Shan Duk's accursed skull caused much damage." He spit angrily on the ground. "Or I am certain the premier himself will gladly loan you his plane, as he has in the past."

"Hold your horses," Remo said. "First, are you absolutely sure we're all through here?"

The general looked at the clipboard in his gloved hand.

A stack of papers had been snapped to the board. Lines of neat text were written in English for the benefit of the new Reigning Master of Sinanju. Across the top of each page, columns were labeled National Leader, Assassin's Name, Method/Date of Shipment, Time of Contact/Name of Caller. To the left were lined up the names of countries, one atop another. To the far right were boxes to be checked off when a line was full. All of the boxes on the first page had received a tidy red check mark.

Most of the paperwork had been filled in four months before. The Contact/Caller column and the checks had been slowly filling up as the months wore on.

General Kye Pun licked the tip of his black-gloved thumb as he rattled through the paperwork.

"Yes, yes, ye-es," he said, nodding as he went. "As I mentioned when I arrived, it appears to be finished. Norway and some of the African nations took a long time to get back to us. But the last was Morocco, and that call came today. That is why I came here. Not that I would not trade my eyes for another glimpse of this, the Pearl of the Orient."

He waved a hand to grandly encompass the mud pit and decaying shantytown that was Sinanju. At the same moment, the shifting wind brought a fresh gulp of putrescence from the thawing public outhouses.

"Beautiful," Kye Pun enthused even as he turned to vomit down the side of the bluff.

"Thanks a lot," Remo groused. "That was the one spot in town that didn't have something disgusting dripping off it."

Kye Pun apologized profusely. The general was climbing down, handkerchief in hand to clean off the rocks even as Remo turned on his heel and headed down the path.

Remo's gait was easy as he headed into the village proper. More a steady glide than a walk. The villagers he passed seemed delighted to see him. They offered reverent bows as he strode through their midst. In Korean, they offered what sounded like words of praise.

"I will never get used to those eyes," one said, bowing deeply to the new Reigning Master.

"Yes, they are homely things," agreed another. "Still, they are better than that ghost-belly white skin."

Remo-who was fluent in Korean-pretended he didn't understand a word they were saying.

It was a little game he had been playing to pass the time. He had come to Sinanju many times over the past few decades. While there, some had heard him speak Korean. This visit, he wondered how easy it would be to convince the populace that he had only ever spoken words and phrases by rote, and that he didn't understand the language at all.

He was stunned to find the people of Sinanju were even dumber than they were lazy. A few helpless shrugs and loud "whats?" during conversations, and all of them were convinced he couldn't speak a word of their language.

Through feigned ignorance he was finding that he was having to knock the bottom out of his already low opinion of the ungrateful inhabitants of Sinanju.

"Woe are we to live in this time," a man said. "To have the greatness of Sinanju squandered on this white."

"Yes," lamented a decrepit old woman as Remo passed out of the square. "If that is our future, it almost makes me wish the old one was back as Reigning Master."

These last words stung Remo.

Not for himself. He could take whatever barbs the people of Sinanju hurled at him. His troubled thoughts were of another.

He had come to Sinanju four months previous as part of the Sinanju Time of Succession, the final rite of passage before his ascension to full Reigning Master. And now that it was finally time to leave, he was afraid he would be going alone.

He followed the path to where it veered away from the shore. The hills rose above the West Korea Bay.

A pair of tall rocks in the shape of curving horns framed the sparkling water. Climbing past the artificial rock formation, Remo found himself on a wide plateau.

The mouth of a deep cave yawned wide at the back of the hilltop. A wizened figure fussed near the opening.

The old man's skin was like leather left to bleach in the desert sun for a hundred years. It was as delicate as rice paper, pulled taut over an egg-shaped scalp. Above each shell-like ear, soft tufts of yellow-white hair danced in the breeze. A thread of beard touched his sharp chin.

Chiun, former Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju, wore a striking kelly-green kimono. Across the back, mirror-image dragons of bright red reared, their embroidered tails extending down the billowing sleeves. The piping at the neck and hems was spun gold. The robe's colors made the old man look like an ancient Christmas present, forgotten and left unopened for more than a century.

The kimono danced around the elderly Korean's ankles as he breezed around the cave's entrance. He fussed at the tiny copse of three trees that grew at the mouth of the cave.

Near the old man, a peculiar little animal stood on stumpy legs. It was no more than three feet tall, with a long body that looked like a blend of cow and camel. The sad-eyed creature chewed languidly on a pile of straw.

As Remo approached, Chiun's face remained bland. He didn't lift his head from his work.

"And to what do I owe this honor, that the Reigning Master would deign to visit this lowly villager?"

"Ha, ha," Remo said. "That's almost as funny as it was last night at supper, not to mention the thousand times before that."

With fingernails like curving daggers, Chiun snipped a dead branch from the hearty pine tree at which he worked.

"If my mean utterances do somehow bring offense to the delicate ears of the Reigning Master, I beg his forgiveness," he intoned seriously. "Now, if the most gracious and honored Reigning Master would kindly move his giant clubbed white feet, his servant would be most grateful."

Frowning, Remo moved and Chiun slipped by, humming happily to himself as he went.

"You know, if your attitude fell somewhere between the sarcastic ass-kissing and the full-out insults, that'd be okay with me."

Chiun paused in clipping another dead branch. The old man cast a dull eye on the Master who had succeeded him.

Remo sighed. "Just a thought," he said.

"Our new Reigning Master is truly compassionate. How kind of you to postpone this new flirtation with thinking until spring. It would have been cruel to force the mice who lodge in your brain out into the snow."

"Yeah, I'm in real tight with the North Korean SPCA," Remo said dryly. "Speaking of animals, are you sure it's safe to drag that thing around with you?" He aimed his chin at the strange creature near the cave.

The old man glanced at the sad-eyed animal.

"I appreciate the company," Chiun replied. "It is an improvement over what I am used to."

"I'll buy you a dog," Remo said. "That thing was built out of genetically engineered spare parts by a certifiable psycho. It's probably hatching diseases that don't even have names yet. Plus it's ugly as all hell."

"Do not say such things about Remo," Chiun scolded.

Remo frowned. "And that's another thing. I don't appreciate you giving it my name."

"I meant no disrespect," Chiun replied. "I only wished to honor our village's newest Reigning Master."

When he looked up at his former pupil, Remo noted the old man's eyes. He had been doing that a lot lately.

Chiun's hazel eyes had always been much younger than his years. For a time there had been a growing weariness in them. Remo hadn't even noticed until the weariness was gone. It had disappeared four months before. Of late, there seemed a spark of renewed vigor in his teacher's eyes.

It was a thing Remo was not allowed to mention. During the Time of Succession, Remo and Chiun had been separated. While Remo was elsewhere in the world, Chiun had come back to Sinanju alone.

Something had happened to his teacher while they were apart. Something had restored the old man's fresh, youthful outlook. But whatever it was, Chiun was not yet ready to share. Remo had asked a few times.

"When I understand," was all Chiun would say, his voice mysterious. And that ended discussion on the subject.

Remo was understandably curious, but he respected his teacher's privacy. As the old man pruned the trees, Remo wondered again what had happened with Chiun. He had the distinct impression it was something big.

Chiun seemed to sense his pupil's unspoken thought.

Papery lips puckered as he worked his way around the far side of the pine. "How do you feel?" Chiun asked, preemptively changing the subject.

"Not sprouting any extra arms or eyes, if that's what you mean," Remo said. "I'm one hundred percent me."

"You say that like it is a good thing," Chiun said.

"From where I was four months ago, you better believe it is. Don't get me wrong. It was good those couple of days. You know, to see. That's still with me. But as for being something other than Remo Williams, not anymore."

Briefly during his Time of Succession ordeal, Remo had been given a glimpse of something larger than himself. For years Chiun had maintained that his pupil was the fulfillment of an ancient Sinanju prophecy. The old man claimed that Remo was the avatar of Shiva, the Hindu god of destruction. There had been moments in Remo's life that appeared to confirm this. Whenever some strange occurrence during their association arose to bolster Chiun's claim, Remo turned a blind eye. For years it was the eight-hundred-pound gorilla sitting in the corner of his life that he studiously ignored.

There was a reason why he chose to ignore it. In his secret heart, Remo was afraid. Afraid that if it were true, that if some ancient force dwelled within him, his own days as an individual were numbered. For if he was merely a vessel, Shiva was simply awaiting the day to spring forth and consume him utterly. And when that day finally came, the god would win and there would be no more of Remo Williams.

It was a fear he had lived with for as long as he had quietly believed the truth of Chiun's words. All that was different now. For a little while, Remo had seen what his future would be.

It was impossible to put into words. He had tried to explain it to Chiun several times. It was a feeling of... completeness like he had never before experienced. The world and everything in it-including Remo Williams-finally made sense. When Remo had told Chiun this last part, the old man strongly disputed the possibility that Remo could ever make sense. Remo had dropped the matter.

The god was gone and the man remained, but Remo no longer had the fear that he would be whisked into the ether, a forgotten soul, cast into eternal nothingness.

Reflecting on the experience, Remo felt another momentary shudder of peace. He watched quietly as Chiun stooped to collect the twigs he had trimmed from the trees.

"Kye Pun's here," Remo said all at once. "He heard back from the last Time of Succession country. The last body has been shipped and acknowledged. The new Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju has now been officially introduced to all the important courts of the world."

At this, Chiun only grunted.

There was a long moment during which neither man said a word. Chiun finished gathering his sticks. On shuffling feet, he carried them to the open mouth of the cave. As he laid them carefully inside, Remo finally broke the silence.

"I'm going back, Chiun," he announced all at once.

The old man turned slowly. His expression was unreadable. "How soon?"

"Soon. I haven't checked in with Upstairs in ages. Smitty's probably wondering if I'm dead again." A thought occurred. He turned from his teacher, cupping his hands to his mouth. "Hey, Pun!" he hollered in the direction of the village. "You nimrods get the phone working yet?"

Although he should have been too far away for anyone other than Chiun to hear him, his words carried easily across the village far below. Somehow the sound avoided the ears of the people, who were busily engaged in their daily business of hanging around doing nothing. Like a vocal dagger it landed only on the ears to which it was directed, those of the North Korean general, who was still using his hankie to polish rocks over on the bluff near the House of Many Woods.

Far, far on the other side of the village, Kye Pun scrambled to his feet. There was panic on his face. He twisted left and right, looking for ghosts.

"Over here, you doof!" Remo yelled.

Kye Pun's eyes were drawn to the source of the voice. Squinting, he saw the impossibly tiny speck of Remo standing way off in the distance, on the flat hill in the shadow of one of the Horns of Welcome. "The phone!" Remo yelled. "Is it working?"

Kye Pun took in a deep breath. "The work was completed this morning, Master!" he screamed at the top of his lungs.

More than a few heads in the village turned his way. The villagers had no idea why the North Korean general was standing up on the bluff with a dripping hankie and shouting like a lunatic to himself.

Across the village, Remo turned to his teacher. "Phone works. I guess I can finally call Smitty."

"You need not have waited four months," Chiun said. "You could have phoned your emperor from Pyongyang."

With some sadness, Remo noted the "your" emperor.

"I don't like Pyongyang. Too many Pyongyangers for one thing. Plus I have it on good authority that a young man puts his virtue at risk just walking down the street there."

"And so you remained here," Chiun said. "Which I suppose means that you now like Sinanju?"

"Parts of it," Remo said. He looked around. Below, the morning sun was burning steam off the thatched roofs and mud streets. With the rising steam came the rising stink. "A part of it," he admitted. "Pretty much just the you part."

Chiun could feel the sympathetic waves emanating from his pupil. He turned his weathered face to Remo. "And so you thought to extend your time here. Why? To watch your poor old Master in his dotage? To mope around and stare me to an early grave? I told you before. I have a future."

Remo released months of frustration in an exhale of angry air.

"Of what?" he asked. "Really, Chiun. What? Pruning hedges? Taking care of Flossie over there?" He waved a hand at the homely little animal. "You're retired, Little Father. And I know the rules. First I become Reigning Master. At some point after that, I get a pupil of my own. As soon as I do that, the retired ex-Reigning Master is required by tradition to climb into that cave over there like Punxsatawney Phil, and we all pretend you're dead."

"That has been the tradition for many years," Chiun admitted, nodding agreement.

"Well, it's stupid. But you're this big stickler for tradition, so I know one morning I'm going to turn around and you're gonna be squirreled away in the back of that cave. I say screw it. You're better than a freaking hole in the ground. You're not ready for retirement."

Chiun considered his wards thoughtfully.

"No," the Korean said eventually, the light of wisdom dawning in his young eyes. "You are right."

Remo felt a tingle of hope in his chest.

"Yes, Remo, you are correct," Chiun insisted firmly. "I am ready for something else."

"Yeah?" Remo asked, a hint of relief in his voice.

The old man's jaw was firmly set. "I am ready for breakfast," he announced with certainty. Unhooking the leash from the rock, he led the strange little animal past his pupil.

"Come, Remo," the wizened Korean said to the creature. The animal struggled on short legs to follow. Beast in tow, Chiun headed back down the rocky path to the village.

"On the other hand, I could always toss you in there myself and roll a rock in front of the door," Remo called after his retreating back.

"If that is the wish of our beneficent new Reigning Master, this humble retired villager would have no choice but to obey," Chiun called back. "After breakfast."

And he was gone.

Alone on the bluff, Remo glanced at the dark mouth of the cave. Only a few months before, he had seen a hint of his own future. Now, looking into that cave was like staring into the future of his teacher. Cold and unavoidable.

A dark chill gripped his heart.

Turning his back on the cave, Remo headed down the rock-lined path to Sinanju.

Chapter 3

Captain Frederick Lenn had sailed his ship beneath the proud shadow of Lady Liberty in New York Harbor and down the Eastern Seaboard of the United States.

He had been blessed with calm seas and good weather, something for which Captain Lenn was grateful. The Caribbean Sea was a sheet of glass. He could have skipped a flat stone all the way to Puerto Rico. The perfect blue water sparkled as he dropped anchor, barely making a splash or ripple.

It was truly a beautiful day. Unfortunately, Captain Lenn was too busy to enjoy it.

Lenn had spent his life on or near the ocean. He had enlisted in the Navy at nineteen, a few years before Vietnam began to ooze up into the nation's consciousness. When the war was over and his hitch was up, he drifted from job to job. Somehow he always wound up near water.

He repaired fishing nets in Nova Scotia, worked as a night watchman at a cranberry bog on Cape Cod and even opened an unsuccessful fried-fish restaurant near the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis.

A stint in the merchant marines led to a long career with a passenger cruise line. He retired from that job two years earlier with a captain's rank, a nice pension and-still fit at the age of sixty-two-the promise of a long and healthy life of shuffleboard and Thursday-night bingo.

After two weeks of sunny retirement, Frederick Lenn was going out of his bird. Within three weeks he had a new job.

It was not a luxury cruise liner this time. But he was a captain again. And with the command of his own vessel and a rolling deck beneath his feet, there was nothing that could destroy the romantic allure the ocean had for Captain Frederick Lenn.

Sure, other ships had names that challenged the human spirit like Endeavor or Enterprise. Or called to mind great historical figures like Washington, Grant and Nimitz, or places like Alabama, Maine and Virginia. But a rose was still a rose no matter what you called it.

So Captain Lenn's ship was called 12-837. It was a serviceable name. It might not inspire poets or balladeers, but then Samuel Coleridge and Gordon Lightfoot probably had a bugaboo about garbage scows.

So what if 12-837 hauled trash around the high seas? It was still Captain Frederick Lenn's boat and he treated her with the love and tenderness he had failed to show either of his two ex-wives and his three estranged children.

On the bridge of his ship, Captain Lenn looked back across the mountain of trash that was mounded behind him. The scow was like a long flat pan floating in the sparkling sea. The bridge sat at one end, a rusted rectangular box. The windows were weathered, filled with pits and scratches.

The smell was strong, even in the closed-off bridge. This was New York City trash. The worst of what the Rome or Athens of the modern world considered junk. Seagulls flapped all around the massive pile, leaving blobs of white everywhere they went.

"How is it they crap more than they eat?" asked Lenn's first officer.

Lenn glanced at the young man who was peering out the window beside his captain. Besides Frederick Lenn and his first officer there were only two other crewmen that served aboard 12-837.

"How long till Briton Bay flags us in?" Captain Lenn asked, ignoring the man's question. "Nothing is moving from the docks. They're saying now it could be days."

"That damn Globe Summit," Lenn complained. "They've got politicians from around the world in there. And their state departments and security. Why they couldn't put us off for another week I'll never know."

"They wanted to make sure they've got enough shit to dump in that machine of theirs," the first officer replied.

They had seen the Vaporizer unveiling on the news from their cramped crew quarters.

Lenn sighed. "I guess we get paid no matter what."

Lenn rubbed his fingers through his shock of gray hair. It felt dirty. It would have been nice to take a few days in Mayana, maybe a night or two in a hotel. Time away always made his return to his boat that much sweeter. But there was no way that was happening now. The whole of New Briton was booked solid. And now, as the country that was going to solve the world's waste disposal problem, things were going to get even more insane.

"I just hope we have enough provisions if they keep us stuck out here." Lenn scooped up a pair of binoculars.

There were many other scows in the same metaphorical boat as his. So many, the crews had come up with a name. "Garbage City" was rapidly filling this part of the Caribbean to capacity, with more scows on the way.

"It's getting pretty tight out there," Lenn commented as he passed his binoculars to starboard, aft. As he spoke, something caught his eye. He almost missed it through the flocks of crazed seagulls.

Another scow-this one from Mexico-was anchored nearby. When he trained his binoculars fully, he saw a thin line of black smoke curling up from the far side of the ship.

"Have we gotten any radio messages from next door?" Lenn asked his first officer.

The younger man had left the window. "No, why?" he asked absently, not looking up.

Lenn held his binoculars steady.

"They're in some kind of trouble," he said with a frown. "Looks like a fire. Radio over. Ask if they need help."

"Aye, sir," the first officer said. As he reached for the radio, Captain Lenn continued to monitor the other scow.

It was still smoking. Could be an engine fire. But who knew what they were hauling? Depending on what was on board, a small fire could send a scow up in flames in seconds.

"I can't raise them, Fred," the first officer said. "Could be they have their hands full."

"Hmm," Lenn said, lowering his binoculars as the first officer came up beside him. "You and Bob better take the little boat over. See if they-"

"Holy shit!" the first officer interrupted. He was staring out the window.

Lenn wheeled just in time to see the other scow's nose lift out of the water. He whipped his binoculars back up.

A huge fissure ripped the side of the scow. Streams of garbage slurped overboard as the ship listed to one side. As Lenn watched in horror, the bridge windows shattered. Flames began pouring out into the clear blue sky.

Lenn spun. "Weigh anchor," he ordered. "Sir?" the helmsman asked.

"Do it! Get us out of here, best possible speed!"

"What is it, Captain?" asked the suddenly worried first officer. "What's wrong?"

"Get on the radio to Mayana," Lenn snapped. "Tell them we're under attack."

"Attack?"

"Now!" Lenn twisted back to the grimy window. The scow was already slipping under the waves. All that remained was a thick oil slick and bits of floating garbage. He searched desperately for survivors in the widening debris field.

The first officer had raised Mayana.

"They want to know if this is some kind of joke," he said, holding out the microphone.

"Give it here," Lenn commanded. He took a step. But only one.

The scow lurched suddenly. Lenn had to grab the navigation station to keep from being hurled to the deck.

"Dammit!"

He scrambled to his feet and ran to the bridge window. The sea was still calm. Not a cloud in the sky. They hadn't been hit by a sudden squall. Lenn's stomach sank, growing cold as the ocean deep.

"Captain?" the first officer asked. He was steadying himself on the back of a chair.

Lenn's voice was flat. He had known it as soon as he'd seen the other scow's damage. Hoped to hell he was wrong.

"Torpedo," Captain Frederick Lenn replied, voice hollow.

The instant he spoke, a second explosion rocked the scow. Lenn felt the rolling impact through the metal deck.

The men were thrown from their stations.

As Frederick Lenn watched, the rear of his boat split apart. The bridge twisted as the massive weight of garbage shifted and began vomiting into the sea. "Abandon ship!" Lenn shouted.

The bridge was angling into the water. As the ship listed, the men stumbled and crawled across the slanted floor and out the door.

The deck was slick. Greasy water attacked their ankles. When his helmsman slipped and fell against the rail, Captain Lenn dragged the kid back to his feet by his shirt collar.

A lifeboat hung behind the bridge. Holding on to chain railings, the men scurried back to it. As they reached for the metal hooks, there came a sudden painful groan.

Captain Lenn stopped dead. "My God," he whispered.

And the ship bucked beneath his feet and split cleanly into two halves.

The bulk of the cargo dumped into the sea, the bridge pitched forward and a pile of front-loaded garbage came toward them in an avalanche.

Eighty thousand pounds of trash barreled across the cabin and slammed full force into the struggling crew. Captain Lenn caught a mouthful of rotting garbage before he and his panicked crew were swept into the churning sea.

With more groaning and spilling greasy mounds of trash, the little scow from New York joined its proud captain and crew in a watery grave.

Seagulls pecked away at the lazily scattering trash. And far off, the single eye of a periscope watched in silent satisfaction. Sun glinted off glass as it dipped below the waves. And was gone.

Chapter 4

It was awful. Just so sad and scary at the same time. And they didn't really care. They were doing it just to shock. It was like all those TV programs now. Those ones where men would jump out of airplanes with rubber bands around their legs or practically set themselves on fire for money. Or worse, the ones where women with tattoos and no self-respect cavorted around like little tramps with men to whom they weren't even engaged, let alone lawfully married.

One thing was certain-years ago they never would have allowed such things on television. This was just the latest example of the sorry state of the media. In fact, this was worse than all those other shows combined.

All these thoughts passed through the empathetic brain of Eileen Mikulka as she sipped fretfully at her morning coffee in front of the fifteen-year-old TV in the warm and tidy living room of her small home in Rye, New York.

"How long has it been going on?" the matronly woman asked, her sympathetic eyes glued to the screen.

The steam from her World's Greatest Grandma mug curled up around her blue-tinted perm. "About one last night. I can't believe they're wasting all this time on it. They should just let them drown."

It was just like Kieran Mikulka to say something horrible like that. Eileen's youngest seemed fond of shocking his mother with such thoughtless statements.

The boy was in his mid-thirties and without a job. He did little but sit around and watch television all day. They said that TV viewing desensitized the young to violence. If Kieran Mikulka was any example, that was certainly true.

"Kieran, that's a terrible thing to say," Mrs. Mikulka scolded as she put down her mug. She was careful to use one of the cute little froggy coasters she'd picked up twenty-seven years ago on a Jersey shore vacation with her late husband, God rest his soul. The frog was mostly worn-out now, but you could still see his faded green eyes.

Of course it was terrible. That should have gone without saying. Anyone with an ounce of heart would think the same thing. On the screen the image played again.

Fire and rescue personnel stood on the street. Beyond them a crowd of onlookers-some still in pajamas and nightgowns-stood anxiously. All around, raging water from a fierce overnight rainstorm rolled furiously down the gutter, cascading into a culvert at the end of the road. The water crashed white around the boots of the burly men.

The storm drain was barely visible, so deep was the river. The men stooped and dug with their gloved hands. Tree branches and clumps of wet leaves were pulled out. Once they were removed, some of the raging water rolled into the drain. With shouts from the men, a tiny camera no bigger than a wire was slipped down through the metal grate.

Eileen Mikulka had seen the footage three times. She held her breath as she watched the tiny camera snake its way through the water and into the dark cavern below the street.

She didn't know how far down it went. It seemed to go on a very long time. At the last moment, it twisted....

And there they were. All wet and frightened. The three kittens sat meowing on a slippery ledge. Mrs. Mikulka's heart broke when she saw them. "No one knows how they got here or what happened to their mother," a reporter said, voice as serious as if she were reporting on an attempted presidential assassination. "But the three kittens-dubbed Muffy; Tuffy and Sam by the children who first heard their pitiful cries-have so far evaded all attempts by rescue workers to save their lives."

"It's terrible,'" Mrs. Mikulka said, eyes sad as she watched the drama on the flickering TV screen.

"It's ridiculous, Ma," Kieran insisted. "Lookit." With the remote, he flipped from channel to channel. All the networks were carrying the same story. "It's been going on like this all night. Three mangy cats were stupid enough to fall in a hole and they're treating it like a dead Lady Di, for Christ's sake. Who the hell cares?"

"Language," Mrs. Mikulka scolded. "And I care. You should, too. Remember Mr. Tiddles?"

Mr. Tiddles had been the Mikulka family cat until an unfortunate encounter with Mr. Phillips's Oldsmobile had sent him prematurely to kitty Heaven. His earthly remains were buried in an old Buster Brown box out behind the toolshed.

When she thought of her beloved cat gone ten years come June-Eileen Mikulka made a mental note to do a little weeding when the ground dried out later that spring.

"They're just strays. Ma," Kieran insisted morosely. "Who'd notice if they all died?"

Eileen Mikulka stood. She fixed her son with a hard look. "God would notice," she said firmly. "He has a place for all his creatures, whether they know it or not."

She had been saying that a lot lately. Eileen was a Presbyterian with a churchgoing record that could charitably be described as spotty. But the more it became evident that Kieran intended to waste his life on the couch, the more she had been speaking about God's great plan for everyone. She had said it so much Kieran didn't even roll his eyes anymore. With a grunt, he flipped over to Barney on PBS.

Frowning, Mrs. Mikulka glanced at her watch. "Oh, dear," she clucked.

She didn't have more time to lecture her son or to fret about those poor, poor kittens on television. Gathering up her coffee cup, she hurried into the kitchen. It was immaculate, just as she liked it. It was getting harder and harder to keep it that way. By the time she came home in the evening there would be dirty dishes, crumbs and empty cracker boxes all over.

She rinsed out her coffee mug and put it in the dishwasher. Her handbag was near the refrigerator. This was where she'd kept it for years, ever since the children were little. But for a while recently she had started keeping it in her bedroom. Ever since that time a few months back when she started to notice bills disappearing from her wallet. But she had started leaving it out again now that she was keeping enough money for lunch locked in her desk at work.

"I should be home at the usual time, dear," she called into the living room. "Don't lean on the door to the fridge when you look in, and don't hold it open too long."

This time there wasn't even a grunt.

Purse in hand, Eileen Mikulka hurried out to her car.

She seemed to be having a harder time getting to work on time these days. She used to come in much earlier than eight o'clock. But her employer had lately cut her back to a strict forty-hour work week, insisting that it was for her own good. After all, she wasn't getting any younger.

It seemed to be harder for her these days. She now had too much time in the morning to get ready. As she drove up the lonely wooded road she wondered if she could start sneaking in earlier again. Probably not. Other bosses might not tiotice that she had started coming in at the old, early time. Maybe they would even applaud her diligence. Not her employer. When he said 8:00 a.m., he meant 8:00 a.m.

In fact, this was one of the traits she admired in him. Unlike a lot of men these days, her boss meant what he said. He was also serious and strict and punctilious. He liked order to his world. Her employer was very much of the old school, which was just fine with Eileen Mikulka.

A high wall rose beside her car. As she rounded a bend, she noted a lighter spot in the rough shape of an arch. The wall had been damaged more than a year earlier and had only recently been repaired. Mrs. Mikulka assumed it would take many years for that one spot to fade in with the rest of the wall. She doubted she would be around to see that far-off day when the wall finally matched once more.

Her thoughts turned once more to Kieran, sitting on the couch in the living room, day after day. Wondering who would take care of her poor lost son on that day, Mrs. Mikulka drove the rest of the short way to work.

The wall led to a gate. Mrs. Mikulka steered her car under the watchful gaze of two granite lions and headed up the gravel drive to Folcroft Sanitarium.

The big brick building was coming to life in the warm smile of early spring sunlight. The crawling ivy that clung to its sides had lately darkened and was ready to bud. Beyond the sanitarium, Long Island Sound invited morning pleasure boaters to enjoy the unseasonable warmth.

Mrs. Mikulka watched the crisp white sail of one boat close to shore as she walked from the parking lot to the side door of the building. It was so nice to see people enjoying themselves. Kieran didn't seem to have that anymore.

When she thought of her son, she immediately thought of the poor kittens trapped in the storm drain. They were so pathetic. Dripping wet and meowing pitifully. You just wanted to take them and cuddle the daylights out of them.

How her son could say something so awful about those cute little creatures was beyond her. Maybe it was the lack of a male role model. His father passed on when Kieran was still in his twenties. He had already been a handful at the time. He'd only gotten worse in the past decade.

She shook her head as she pushed open the fire door.

It was cool inside the stairwell. Mrs. Mikulka climbed up to the second floor.

It was dark in her office. A flick of a switch and the overhead lights hummed to life. As she did every morning, Mrs. Mikulka went to her desk and locked her handbag in the bottom drawer. Getting back up, she carefully smoothed the wrinkles from her skirt.

She cast a glance at the inner office door. A brass nameplate read "Dr. Harold Smith, Director."

Not a sound issued from inside. Still, Mrs. Mikulka knew that her employer was already on the other side of that door, toiling away, Dr. Smith rarely missed a day, and only then because he was away on business of some sort. It made her feel good that there was still someone in this crazy world who treated his work as seriously as Dr. Harold Smith. Mrs. Mikulka ran some water in her little sink, starting the coffeepot in the corner.

There was an empty can in a cupboard that she had decorated with a piece of old wallpaper. It was for the office coffee fund. When she picked it up, the change inside rattled. She shook it out into her palm. She didn't bother to count it. There was always the right amount.

As part of her duties every morning, Mrs. Mikulka got her employer a little something from the cafeteria. It was not something he had requested. Dr. Smith's wife was a notoriously bad cook and, well, Eileen Mikulka had decided to see to it that the poor man had something to keep his strength up. He worked so hard.

The first time she had done it, she paid out of her own pocket. The first time was also the last time. Dr. Smith liked to pay his own way. On the second day the change had appeared in the coffee-fund can. It was always the exact right amount, down to the penny.

The coffeemaker was just beginning to gurgle as Mrs. Mikulka left the office.

She headed down to the cafeteria, which was at the tail end of the breakfast rush. Individual trays were being prepared and loaded on carts for Folcroft's patients. A few doctors and nurses sat scattered at the cheap tables around the room.

Mrs. Mikulka took a tray from a stack and went to the serving line. There was only one person in front of her, a lean young man in a blue suit.

A woman in a starched white uniform and redcheckered apron was ringing up the man's order. "Good morning, Eileen," the cafeteria worker said as she worked the old-fashioned register. "Good morning, Helen."

The young man glanced back over his shoulder. "Oh, morning, Mrs. M.," he said, offering a pleasant smile. "I didn't realize it was you sneaking up on me."

Mrs. Mikulka returned the young man's smile. "Good morning, Mr. Howard," she said.

Assistant Director Mark Howard was a new addition to the Folcroft family. He was such a nice young man. Always so cheerful. Although lately he seemed a bit more careworn than when he'd first arrived at Folcroft two years earlier. That was no doubt due to his great responsibilities. Folcroft administered to the needs of many elderly and invalid patients. Mr. Howard took that duty very seriously. So nice for a man his age to treat his job with such sobriety.

Mrs. Mikulka wondered briefly how old he was. Probably about thirty. Younger than Kieran and already in a position of authority.

"You're a little late getting down here today, aren't you?" Mark Howard asked Mrs. Mikulka as he paid for his food.

"A little," she admitted. "I was still on time for work," she added hastily. "It was just something I saw on the television this morning slowed me down."

"Not those poor kittens?" the cafeteria worker asked as she prepared Dr. Smith's usual breakfast. Two halves of toast. Dry. No butter, no jelly.

"You saw?" Mrs. Mikulka asked. "My Kieran showed it to me. Wasn't it terrible? The poor dears."

"They say it might be hours before they get them out," the cafeteria worker said knowingly.

With a bemused smirk, Mark Howard extricated himself from the conversation. "I'll see you in a bit, Mrs. M.," he said softly, not wanting to interrupt.

Still grinning, he carried his tray with its bowl of cornflakes, carton of milk and glass of orange juice out the side door and was gone.

Mrs. Mikulka felt her face flush. She didn't know what was wrong with her this morning. She certainly hadn't wanted to seem like a gossip in front of Mr. Howard.

Paying hastily for her breakfast tray with the change picked from the coffee-fund can, she hustled upstairs.

The coffee was ready. She filled a mug from the pot and placed it on the tray beside the plate of toast. She walked to the inner office door and rapped a soft knuckle beneath the nameplate even as she pushed the door open.

The room beyond was cheerlessly functional. Everything was bland and colorless, including the gaunt man who sat behind the big desk across the room. "Good morning, Dr. Smith," Mrs. Mikulka said as she brought the tray over. She set down coffee and toast. "Is there anything else you need?"

"No," replied Director Smith, in a voice as tart as unsweetened lemonade. "Thank you, Mrs. Mikulka, that will be all."

She nodded efficiently. Cafeteria tray in hand, she left the drab office to begin her day's work.

When the door clicked shut behind Mrs. Mikulka's ample form, Dr. Harold W. Smith checked his Timex.

One minute after eight. Mrs. Mikulka was a minute later than usual this morning.

Frowning at what he hoped was not the start of a trend for which he would have to discipline his normally punctual secretary, he turned his attention to his desk's surface.

The gleaming onyx desk was a high-tech departure from the rest of the decidedly low-tech office. Beneath the surface was a computer monitor, canted so that it was visible only to whoever sat behind the desk.

With eyes of flint gray, Harold Smith watched the monitor. Every now and then, long fingers swollen at the joints with arthritis tapped at the edge of the desk. Where fingertips pressed, luminescent keys of a touch-sensitive keyboard lit like sparks of amber lightning.

Relentless streams of data rolled past, reflected in the owlish glasses perched on Smith's patrician nose. Though Smith had been in this same position since coming to work at 6:00 a.m., there was no strain in his back or on his face. He had spent the better part of his life like this, staring into the electronic abyss. The information that rolled past had nothing to do with operating a small, private hospital.

Here there was a report of a corrupt judge in Ohio; there was damning data on a crooked mayor in Massachusetts. A major drug shipment was due in the country that night, flying from Haiti into Louisiana.

In each of these cases, Smith merely watched. A program he had written took the necessary action. State police and the FBI were informed of the problems in Ohio and Massachusetts. The DEA was told about the drugs. Orders were issued surreptitiously. Through untraceable means they were sent back along invisible tendrils to the persons and agencies who would need to look into each event.

It was all handled in seconds. Quietly and efficiently, and in such a way that no one would know of the involvement of the dull little man in a drab, three-piece gray suit sitting in a sedate, ivy-covered brick building on the shores of Long Island Sound. Such was the life's work of Harold Smith.

Eileen Mikulka knew her employer only as Dr. Harold W. Smith, director of Folcroft Sanitarium for the past forty years, and her employer for just over thirty of those years. She and the rest of the regular sanitarium staff would have been surprised to find that penny-pinching and time-clock-watching Dr. Smith held another post, vastly more powerful than that of Folcroft's director.

Harold Smith was also secret director of CURE. CURE was the dream of an American President, long dead. The agency was created to work outside the Constitution in order to preserve that most sacred document. Harold Smith was CURE's first and only director. For forty years he had come to that same office every day, doing his small part to see to it that the greatest experiment in democracy survived for another generation of Americans.

So engrossed was he in his work, Smith scarcely noticed the toast and coffee Mrs. Mikulka had brought him.

An electronic beep sounded from within his desk. As it did so, a new window opened on his monitor. It was an interoffice communication. There was only one other person on Earth with access to the CURE system.

Smith scanned the information forwarded him by Mark Howard-his assistant both at Folcroft and with CURE.

It was the latest information on the expanding list of dignitaries who intended to visit the small nation of Mayana for the Globe Summit later in the week. Smith frowned when he saw additions to the Cuban and Iraqi delegations.

Mark had denoted each of the add-ons. With no trouble Smith was able to find summaries of all available background information on each of the men. None were diplomats. Most were members of security or armed forces.

Smith shook his head. "It would be safer for him to not attend," he muttered to his empty office. Worry etched deep in his frown lines, he closed out the window and returned to his other work.

He didn't realize he had worked for nearly a full hour until there came a knock on his door.

"Come in," he called tartly.

As Mark Howard entered the office, Smith noted the time. Precisely 9:00 a.m. The CURE director met with his assistant at the same time every morning. This day as every day, Smith was quietly pleased that good fortune had blessed him with such a conscientious young man for an assistant.

"Did you have a chance to read the stuff I sent you?" Howard asked as he took his familiar plain wooden seat before the CURE director's desk.

"Yes," Smith said. "And there is virtually no way the Secret Service or FBI can weed through all of the data. Not on this timetable. It's a security nightmare. And I have just read an account of an incident in the Caribbean. Apparently two garbage scows have sunk."

"I saw that," Mark Howard said. "There was an open radio. They heard the captain yell something about a torpedo before the boat went down. Mayana's dismissing it all as an accident. You think the guy was for real?"

"I'm not sure," Smith said. "If so, it is something outside the ordinary purview of the Secret Service." An uncomfortable expression passed over his gray face. "Mark, you have no, er, sense that something is wrong, do you?"

Howard shook his head. "Sorry, no."

It was a subject neither man was comfortable discussing. Mark Howard's unexplained sixth sense for danger had come in handy for CURE in the past.

Wordlessly Smith pursed his lips, lost in thought. "If you're worried, Dr. Smith, you should talk to the President again," Mark suggested.

Smith shook his head. "It would do no good. The President has stated in no uncertain terms publicly and privately his intention to attend the Globe Summit."

"But doesn't that vaporizing thing of theirs change things? In the past three days, the Caribbean has been piling up with garbage scows. They're leaking oil, trailing trash in the water. There are a half-dozen countries in the region with environmental complaints already. It's a bigger zoo down there than anyone thought it would be, even for an environmental conference the size of the Globe Summit."

"Yes," Smith agreed, his voice grave. "And perhaps someone sees Mayana's new technology as a threat. Or views the Globe Summit itself as an inviting target."

"You think there's really a sub loose down there?"

"Perhaps," Smith said. Tapping a finger on his desk, he considered for a thoughtful moment. "If someone is creating mischief, the risk is greater than to just the President of the United States. By week's end, most of the other leaders of the world will be there, as well. It might be wise to investigate."

"In that case, I might have some good news," the assistant CURE director said. "I've had the mainframes checking the Sinanju 800 line repeatedly for the past few months, like you asked. It's working again."

Smith's eyes widened slightly behind his rimless glasses. "When?" he asked with more interest than he normally would exhibit.

"Just before I came up here. They've gotten it working a couple of times before, but it's fritzed out. But it looks like it's going to hold this time. If you think you need them, you can call Remo and Chiun back to work."

Smith's frown deepened.

The phone line to Sinanju had been cut months earlier. Threats from Chiun had encouraged the North Korean government to make repairs a priority. Unfortunately the Communist government's talent for dispatching telephone linemen was on a par with its skills at solving the perpetual famine that plagued their country. During the previous winter, under the watchful eye of the People's government, North Korea's population had continued to starve and the phone line to Sinanju had persisted in stubbornly not working.

"Very well," Smith said. "I'll recall Remo. His injuries should be healed by this time. Knowing the way he feels about Sinanju, he is probably anxious to leave by now. However, I'm still not certain how Master Chiun sees his status with us. The last contract we signed was hastily drawn up before Remo took over officially as Reigning Master. It is possible that Chiun may decide to remain in Sinanju."

"You think he'd do that?"

"I'm not sure. This is unprecedented for us. Technically Remo has always been CURE's lone enforcement arm. The Master of Sinanju only ever accompanied him on assignments to protect the investment he had made in Remo's training. But now that Remo is Reigning Master, Chiun is officially retired. He could opt to stay home. The contract does provide such an escape clause."

Smith and his assistant had been present in Sinanju for the ceremony that had seen Remo elevated to Reigning Master and Chiun step down from the post that he had held for the better part of a century. Briefly Smith wondered if CURE had lost one of its most valuable assets.

"I will not press the issue," the older man decided finally. "Not now. Besides, this might be nothing. And we don't need both of them for such a simple matter. I will phone once we are finished here."

The decision was made. Putting thoughts of Mayana from their minds for the moment, the two CURE men turned their attention to the other problems of the day that might require the intervention of America's best-kept secret.

Chapter 5

After breakfast, the former Reigning Master of Sinanju padded off to a back room in the House of Many Woods.

Most of the Master's House was crammed full of treasure-generations of tribute to the Korean assassins. For years this back room alone had been kept bare. With just a few candles and reed mats scattered on the wooden floor, it was traditionally a place of spiritual contemplation.

There had been a recent addition to the room, a gift from North Korean Premier Kim Jung-Il. Chiun sat cross-legged on a simple mat before a magnificent, fifty-one-inch high-definition Panasonic television. The set was turned up full blast. Speakers from the new Sony surround sound system, which had been placed carefully around the room, rattled the rafters.

The new satellite dish on the roof picked up shows from all over the world. When Remo entered the room he found Chiun watching a Mexican soap opera. Women with too much makeup and men with too-white teeth squinted and sneered at one another in extreme close-ups, just like their American counterparts. It occurred to Remo recently that soap operas might be the first hint that world peace was just around the corner. If-thanks to modern technology-lousy entertainment was proving to people across borders that things weren't so different on the other side, surely peace, love and understanding among all nations couldn't be far behind.

This day, Remo wasn't thinking about world peace.

Chiun had the volume turned up so loud the house shook.

"I think you're causing structural damage with that thing," Remo said, eyeing the ceiling worriedly.

"Repairs are no longer my problem," Chiun replied, eyes glued to the set. On the screen, a man who was evil because the music said he was squinted in extreme close-up. Thanks to the big screen, his nostrils looked like open manholes.

Remo tore his eyes from the rattling ceiling. The old Korean was still staring in rapt attention at the TV.

"You sit too close to that thing. You're probably getting dosed by a trillion rads of radiation. And you don't have to listen to it so loud. There's nothing wrong with your hearing. I wanted to call Smith."

"Do your complaints never end? Can you not just go outside and enjoy the beauty of spring in Sinanju?"

"What spring? There's two seasons in Sinanju, winter and mud."

"You are the American Reigning Master. If I bother you so much, do what Americans do. Build an apartment for your unwanted father and his meager belongings over the garage. Do not trust the Carthaginians for the labor, however. They pad their bills."

"A, we don't have a garage. B, that junk must've cost more than four bills. It's not meager. And not to split hairs, but it's mine, not yours. Kim sent all this garbage to me as a Reigning Master coming-out present. "

"Do you want it?"

"You know I don't watch much TV."

"Then I lay claim to it. Now leave an old man in peace and answer the phone."

Remo hadn't heard it ring. He was surprised when it suddenly jangled to life. When he glanced at his teacher, there was a look of soft satisfaction on the old man's face.

Eyes narrowing, Remo scooped up the phone. "Captain Clyde's Clam Shack," he announced. "All-you-can-eat buffet now guaranteed eighty percent ptomaine-free."

"Remo, Smith."

Remo was surprised how good it was to hear the CURE director's lemony voice. From what he could hear of it. The music from the TV had risen to earsplitting levels.

"Hey, Smitty. I was just gonna call you. Just a sec."

He held the phone to his chest. "Chiun, could you, please?"

The old man's show had come to an end. As the music fed into a commercial, a bony hand reached for the remote. The screen collapsed to a dot and the walls stopped shaking.

"Thanks, Little Father," Remo said, turning back to the phone.

"I'm glad you called, Srnitty. I'm ready to get back to work. I've cooled my heels here for so long I've got moss growing on my rust."

"If Chiun thinks you are ready, I may have an assignment for you," Smith said.

"My opinion no longer matters, Emperor Smith," Chiun called. "Remo is now Reigning Master of Sinanju. Ask him if he is ready, not me. Go ahead, ask him."

"Er, are you well enough, Remo?" Smith asked.

"I'm all healed up, Smitty," Remo promised.

"See?" Chiun called. "He can speak for himself. And it is important that Remo feel fine, for he is Reigning Master. You do not have to waste breath to ask how I am, Emperor. I am only the one who has taken mud and transformed it into diamonds, who has made a thing of greatness from a pale piece of a pig's ear. I am Chiun, the human alchemist who raised a worthless white foundling to the loftiest peak of perfection. Do not ask me how I am, for I am but a servant. And a retired one at that."

"I think he wants you to ask him how he's doing, Smitty," Remo said.

Smith had gotten the hint. "How are you, Master Chiun?"

"Don't ask," Chiun replied.

"Okay, that was fun," Remo said. "Now, where's this assignment? Preferably it's someplace where I can get a really bad sunburn."

"Then this is an ideal situation," Smith replied. He spoke too quickly for Remo's liking.

"What do you mean?" Remo asked, suddenly suspicious.

"I realize you are isolated, but have you heard any press reports out of Mayana?"

"Just on CBS, NBC, ABC, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, Lifetime, Telemundo and the freaking Food Network. That Don King-headed dipweed Kim Jong-Il wired up Chiun's house for cable."

"It is not my home any longer," Chiun interjected. "I abide here only through the kindness of the Reigning Master."

Remo cupped the mouthpiece. "Knock that off, will you?" To Smith he said, "Mayana. They've got some newfangled garbage disposal or something, right?"

"If they are to be believed, it is much more than that," Smith replied. "It is an amazing technology. According to Mayanan government fact sheets, it was developed by one Mike Sears, who until 1991 was a developmental scientist with the aerospace industry in California."

"So this guy sold American technology to another country and you want me to zap him."

"No," Smith replied. "Actually the device is a distraction in what might be a larger problem. In fact, it might be the greatest contribution to modern civilization since the start of the Industrial Age."

"The Industrial Age is overrated. The Han Dynasty in China, now that was a good age. Profitable for the House. We hooked them up for trade with the Roman Empire, you know."

Across the room, Chiun gave a faint smile of approval.

"Be that as it may," Smith said, steering them back to the topic at hand. "Everything is composed of atoms. Atomic mass gives density to all matter. The Mayana device allegedly breaks the bond at the atomic level. Substantive objects are broken up into their most elemental forms. They are literally disintegrated."

"Okay, I'm no good with this science mumbo jumbo. Are you saying it turns something into nothing?"

"Not exactly," Smith said. "More accurately, it transforms something you can see into something too minute to see. Allegedly," he added.

"There's that skepticism again," Remo said. "It sounds like you don't believe them."

"I have my reasons to doubt their claims," Smith said. "Dr. Sears has had an unremarkable career. It is unlikely in the extreme that he could have developed the device on his own, as they claim. Mayana's own scientific community is unspectacular at best. He did not receive help there. It is almost a certainty that aid in development came from outside the country. That is, assuming it works at all."

"I saw it on TV, Smitty. It looked real to me."

"Much can be rigged these days. I am having Mark delve more deeply into the matter. If there is something amiss here, I have confidence he will find it."

Remo grunted acceptance.

When Mark Howard first came aboard CURE, Remo was skeptical of the young man's worth to the organization. The assistant CURE director had drained little of that doubt away as time wore on. But the bulk of Remo's disapproval had gone out the window four months before when Mark Howard had proved brave and selfless in a crisis, aiding Remo during battle with his greatest adversary. Remo hated to admit it, but the kid had something.

"So you don't want me to knock off the guy who built it," he said. "It sounds like you don't want me to pull the plug. What is it you want me to do?"

"That is the thing. This so-called Vaporizer of theirs has complicated an existing problem. You have heard of the Globe Summit later this week?"

"Sure," Remo said. "That's when the world gets together in the nicest slum of some stink-ass rathole of a country and berates the United States for drilling holes in the ozone, torching the polar ice caps and leaving the rest of the environmental toilet seat up so the rest of the planet falls in when it has to take a whiz in the middle of the night."

"Yes," Smith said slowly, not disagreeing. "The President has confirmed that he will be attending."

"Brilliant," Remo said. "No fun flinging mud at America if you can't get some in the top dog's eye. Doesn't he know the bad guys are trying to kill us more than usual lately?"

"Which is one of my concerns," Smith said.

"There is a troubling report that two of the garbage scows waiting to be brought into Briton Bay may have been sunk by torpedo."

"Why would someone want to do that?"

"I don't know for certain. To foment chaos and fear, perhaps." Smith sighed. "Not that there is not already a large enough problem to worry about. Heaven only knows what is being shipped in on those scows."

"Smitty, I am not going down there to frisk garbage heaps for Shining Path whack jobs."

"Neither am I," Chiun chimed in. "I spent enough years pawing through white garbage. I am not starting over again."

"I thought you were retired," Remo said.

"My work status is in flux," Chiun sniffed. Smith seemed cheered by the old man's words.

"Obviously Master Chiun is welcome to join you. In fact, the last contract-"

"It would be my joy to accompany Remo, Emperor Smith!" Chiun interrupted hastily. "Though but a humble citizen of Sinanju now, if by some modest contribution to his great work I might bring further glory to your crown, I would consider myself honored."

Remo's eyes narrowed suspiciously. "What's all this about?" he asked Chiun in Korean.

"How should I know?" Chiun sniffed in the same language. "When you and Smith talk, it is all garbage to me." He focused a little too much innocent attention on the TV.

"That thing's more interesting when it's actually turned on," Remo said in English, nodding to the black screen. To Smith he said, "I don't suppose you'd care to fill me in on what his game is, Smitty?"

"Er," Smith said hesitantly.

"Remo, do not press your Emperor," Chiun insisted. "Have I taught you nothing?"

"As usual, Remo's in the dark," Remo grumbled. "Now I've got something else to worry about while I'm doing the Secret Service's job."

"Then you will go," Smith said. "Do I need to make arrangements for you to leave North Korea?"

"Nah. Kim's got us covered. He'll be relieved to get us out of here."

"Good. Because of the Globe Summit, Mayana is limiting the movement within the country of those not with foreign delegations. To make things easier, I have placed you on the American delegation. As a cover, you and Chiun will be Interior Department scientists who study waste disposal. I will have Mark overnight credentials to New Briton. They will be waiting at the airport when you arrive."

"What do you mean, study waste disposal?" Remo asked.

"There are scientists who have made a career of studying human trash," Smith explained.

"I take it they do more than snap on Jerry Springer?" Remo said dryly.

"Much of the work is done in garbage dumps," the CURE director said. "Decades' worth of trash can be drilled through and drawn up, presenting snapshots in time, like rock strata. Scientists are able to study decay rates, soil contamination and a host of other refuse-related topics."

"You've gotta be pulling my lariat," Remo said. "Are my tax dollars paying for that?"

"You do not pay taxes."

"Glad I don't. I'd feel a real urge to toss something more than tea into Boston Harbor if my hard-earned money was going to study snotty Kleenex. I'd probably start with my congressman."

"Be that as it may," Smith said blandly, "you will be Dr. Henell. Chiun will be your assistant." Across the room, Chiun's eyes opened wide. "I will not be Remo's assistant," the old Korean snapped.

Remo was cringing even before Smith had finished. "Chiun won't play second fiddle to me," he told Smith.

"It will only be for a day or two," Smith said. "I assumed that with your new status as Reigning Master-"

"It's not a problem with me, Smitty," Remo whispered.

"It is with me," Chiun called. "I may have surrendered my honorific here in Sinanju, but in this case I must remain senior to Remo, for I am the far greater expert on garbage. Remo has only had the mirror to study, lo these many years. I have had all of Remo, all the time."

"Ha, ha," Remo said. "And I thought being Reigning Master was supposed to bring me a little more respect."

"If you believe a title alone confers respect, Remo Williams, then I have wasted the past thirty years of my life," Chiun replied, tone serious.

"Very well, Master Chiun," Smith said. "You and Remo may be partners."

"Partners, Little Father?" Remo asked hopefully. The old Korean's leathery face drew into a scowl. "I will accept this as the latest episode in a long history of abuse. But I am the more senior partner," he added quickly.

"We're a go, Smitty," Remo said into the phone. "Let's just hope Chiun and I don't end up bamboozled into some cyanide-swilling cult. Mayana's got a history in that department."

"It would be best if you did not mention Jamestown while you are there," Smith said. "Jack James and his followers are still a sore subject as I understand it. The Mayanans are resentful that an American cult became so infamous on their shores. Now, if there is nothing else, I will make the arrangements with Mark for your identification."

He broke the connection.

Remo hung up the old-fashioned phone. "You want to tell me what that stuff was about the contract?" he asked Chiun.

The old Korean was rising to his feet like a puff of soft steam. He turned in a swirl of kimono silk. "You have never before been interested in the business affairs of our profession," the old man said dismissively as he breezed past his pupil. "Why break a perfect record of ignorance?"

The wizened Asian hustled from the room to pack. "Because maybe I have a feeling I'm being hosed?" Remo hollered at the old man's disappearing back.

His answer was a self-satisfied cackle from somewhere in the depths of the House of Many Woods.

Chapter 6

The normally sedate international press was gathered with giddy excitement on the hot tarmac at Mayana's New Briton International Airport. When the portly man finally stepped from the Learjet onto the air stairs, an enthusiastic cheer rose from the crowd of ecstatic newspeople.

It was unusual in the extreme for the press to display anything but cynical disdain for Western leaders. The farther west, the more disdain. But this was a special case.

The dumpy little man offered a melancholy smile. Nikolai Garbegtrov, the last premier of the old Soviet Union, had shed his usual heavy wool overcoat in favor of a light French-tailored suit.

The sun was hot on his pale face. As he climbed down the steps, he waved politely to the crowd of reporters. His tired eyes scanned for Mayanan government officials. Any dignitaries at all who might have come out to welcome the arrival of the man who had once had at his fingertips control of one of the world's greatest nuclear arsenals. He saw only press.

"Mr. Garbegtrov, why are you in Mayana?"

"Mr. Garbegtrov, could you sign this? It's for my son."

"Mr. Garbegtrov, I just loved you in Reykjavik." He knew why they were called the press. They swarmed him, pressing in. Scarcely allowing him room to breathe.

It was always this way. For the Western press-particularly that of America-Nikolai Garbegtrov was like the Beatles landing in New York.

As usual, he politely shook hands and signed a few autographs as he made his way through the crowd. His bald scalp itched under his golfer's cap, which he wore pulled down tight to his eyes. Beads of sweat rolled from the band down the back of his neck. He wanted more than anything to scratch his head. He fought the urge.

"Mr. Garbegtrov, Mr. Garbegtrov, I have a question," a reporter said, muscling in. "Why do you wear a hat in public all the time these days?"

He had gotten as used to hearing the question as he had to ignoring it.

Garbegtrov moved with the surging crowd to his waiting sedan. As the reporters clawed at him, desperate to touch his greatness, he fell through the door, collapsing exhausted onto the rear seat. His driver slammed the door on the shouting crowd and in a minute they were speeding away from the plane, away from his adoring public. The same public that would turn on him in a heartbeat if they learned his secret shame.

Garbegtrov was a bland little man in his seventies. A nondescript apparatchik who had risen up the ranks of the Soviet political system in the dying days of the failing Russian Communist empire. Everything about him was bland, from his physical appearance to his demeanor. His one great distinguishing physical characteristic was the large birthmark that was splotched on the front of his bald head.

The birthmark was his most famous feature. It had also not been seen in public for over two years. His great, secret shame.

Alone in the back seat of the speeding car-behind tinted windows through which no eye or camera lens could see, beyond a panel that separated him from the driver-Nikolai Garbegtrov finally, gratefully, tugged off his hat. Desperate fingers scratched away at his bald scalp.

It was always itchy these days. Ever since that dark night two years ago.

As he scratched, he leaned over to get a glimpse of his reflection in the chrome lid of the armrest ashtray.

There it was. As big as life. The reason he could no longer show his head in public.

U.S.A. #1

The logo was plastered around his bald pate, put there as a twisted joke by vandals while he slept. They had used his birthmark as a jumping-off point.

He had tried everything to get rid of it. Lotions, chemical peels, laser removal. Nothing worked. Whatever process had been used to tattoo the slogan there kept bleeding it back to the surface. The doctors finally gave up, and Nikolai Garbegtrov was forced to put a hat on or face the wrath of those who professed to love him most.

The press had always been his most devoted fans. Short of diddling Lenin's corpse in Red Square on May Day, there was little he could do to make them turn on him. But tattooing a pro-American slogan on his head was one thing a rabidly anti-American press corps would never stand for.

And the worst thing-the absolute worst-was the itch.

As he dug away at his scalp with his pudgy fingers, he pondered anew what would happen if the world found out.

Garbegtrov had always had the press. Without them, he truly would be a man without a country. The metaphor stirred old embers in the former Communist leader's heart. He stopped scratching. Hat in his hands, he sank back tiredly in the seat of his speeding car.

It was his fault. All of it. And it was all a horrible, horrible mistake. He never intended for the Iron Curtain to fall. As premier, he initiated reforms, but they were never meant to go so far. The dissolution of the Soviet Empire was all a terrible accident.

Western commentators at the time insisted that he would not be able to put the toothpaste back in the tube. But he had always assumed that, were it to become necessary, he would be able to cram it back in somehow.

When he declared himself to be the first Russian president, he didn't leave the Communist Party. Yet another mistake. The Communist Party was now openly despised, thanks to Garbegtrov's misfiring reforms. When the party was thrown out of power, Garbegtrov was thrown out, as well.

With the dawn of a new, freer age, there was no longer anything for him at home. He wandered the world for a time. A speech at a press gathering here, another at a university there. Always well received, of course. But for a man who had helped run the world, it was never enough.

His whole life changed because of his blundering. He thought he could never find anything to compare with the clumsy, iron-fisted, pig-headed Soviet Communist system.

Then he went to San Francisco.

Nikolai Garbegtrov's spirits were at their absolute lowest when he was called to make a speech before something called Green Earth, an organization devoted to environmental concerns of global scope.

He assumed he was being hired as a whipping boy. Since the Green Earth people were supposedly concerned with the environment and since the USSR had been the most notorious environmental offender in the history of civilization, Garbegtrov naturally assumed they would hammer him with accusations concerning Russia's dismal record. He would willingly suffer the slings and arrows of these self-loathing products of capitalist wealth. All for a big, fat paycheck.

But at the meeting something strange happened. During the question-and-answer period he brought up the Chernobyl disaster. The Green Earthers dismissed it as nothing. They wanted to talk about Three Mile Island.

"But Chernobyl was catastrophe," Garbegtrov said. "Many have died. Many more will die. Poison cloud of radioactive material spread across Europe. Chernobyl was disaster on scale that still cannot be calculated. Your Three Mile Island was-how you say?-like X ray at dentist."

But try as he might, they would not let go of Three Mile Island, a twenty-year-old accident that did little more than prove that American safety procedures worked.

Changing focus, he mentioned Russian dumping of nuclear waste and reactor cores into the Arctic Sea, poisoning coastal land and water for hundreds of miles. They talked about Meryl Streep and Alar on apples. Wasn't she great in The China Syndrome? That was Jane Fonda. Oh.

Garbegtrov talked about draining Lake Aral, which devastated the center of Russia and destroyed the largest body of fresh water within the former Soviet Union's borders.

They finally grew suspicious, asking if he was really the Nikolai Garbegtrov and demanding he show them his driver's license.

After his talk was through, Garbegtrov stayed behind to speak with members of the environmental group. Something about their attitude struck him as familiar.

He quickly learned that their faith in the dire pronouncements of dubiously accredited doomsayers was unshakable, even with mountains of evidence to the contrary. There was not an ozone hole that was not man-made nor a polar ice cap that was not melting because someone somewhere liked to squirt cheese on his crackers.

If saving an endangered rat in a California farmer's field threw hundreds of human families into chaos, so be it. Everyone knew animals were intrinsically good and humans were, by nature, evil. After all, the only rat on the bridge of the Exxon Valdez was the human kind.

No matter the motives, no matter the bad science, no matter the downright dangerous silliness, they accepted the words of their leaders with pure, blind faith. In short, they were better Communists than any the old Soviet system had ever produced.

On that day, after years of dispirited wandering, Nikolai Garbegtrov finally found his new home. After joining the international environmental movement, Garbegtrov quickly became the poster boy of Green Earth. He traveled the world-lecturing, hectoring. He liked the West especially. He could always be guaranteed a warm greeting by a fawning press. For the ex-Communist premier who had lost an empire, it was almost like the good old days.

The traffic grew heavier as his car drove into the heart of New Briton. Despite the air-conditioning, his head was sweating. The itch began anew. He did his best to ignore it, pulling his golf hat back on.

His car dropped him off in front of the Chamberlain Hotel in the center of New Briton. He was met by a fresh crush of reporters.

Green Earth handlers hustled the former premier up the sidewalk, beneath the gilded canopy and into the hotel lobby.

After a brief exchange of pleasantries with some of the Green Earth leadership, he was led into the grand ballroom and herded onto the dais amid a flurry of flashbulbs and shouted questions. Someone handed him a few 3 x 5 note cards. On them, carefully typed lines had been written out phonetically. Behind the podium, he perched a pair of bifocals on the end of his nose.

The ballroom noise swelled, then subsided. Garbegtrov didn't smile to the crowd as he read Green Earth's statement. He spoke in heavily accented English.

"Ladies and gentlemen." His words echoed out across the ballroom. "The eyes of world are directed here this week. People of good conscience are about to come together in this small country to confront serious, devastating environmental havoc that the West continues to wreak on rest of globe. Now, during this time when environmental misdeeds of the West should be on trial, Mayana has chosen to reveal its new technology for the disposal of waste. We at Green Earth are skeptical of this device. Is it smoke screen to provide cover for polluting America? If it works, what is cost to precious environment? Will release of atoms destabilize ecosystem?

"These are questions for vigilant press to ask. I would caution other leaders of world as they convene here in days that follow to not forget the environmental horrors the United States and others-but mostly United States-have visited on planet. Green Earth remains vigilant."

He tapped his note cards back together. A few reporters shouted from the hall. Garbegtrov held up a staying hand.

"There will be no questions now. I, like you, seek answers. Donations may be sent to Green Earth world headquarters in San Francisco. Is your planet, people."

And with that, Nikolai Garbegtrov walked offstage. He left behind the growing murmur of the dispersing press corps.

Backstage, Garbegtrov's brow was furrowed beneath the brim of his hat. Members of his Green Earth entourage hurried up to meet him.

"Sock it to 'em, comrade," said an intense, bearded man in a hemp suit. He was just the sort of political agitator Garbegtrov would have sent to a gulag back when the Western media used to ignore the fact that Garbegtrov's gulags were standing room only. "Show them the power of Mother Earth."

The former Soviet leader's eyes were flat. This idiot-indeed all of the dolts in Green Earth-had no idea what real power was like. Or, worse, what it was like to lose it.

"Is my room ready?" Garbegtrov grumbled morosely. His head was itching like mad.

"Oh, yeah. Sorry." The man clapped his hands. Garbegtrov's entourage reassembled around the former Soviet premier. Like a sad little tyrant prince surrounded by his pathetic court of sycophants, Nikolai Garbegtrov-itchy tattoo and all-trudged from the shabby backstage.

Chapter 7

Petrovina Bulganin steered her cute little 2002 Ford Thunderbird convertible through the sharp twists and turns of Moscow's narrow old streets. In the urban valleys the growling engine was a nasty rumble that rattled dirty windows high up in ugly Communistera tenements.

Petrovina didn't pay much attention to the engine sound. She was too busy reapplying lipstick in the rearview mirror.

Barely nudging the steering wheel, she flew around a corner. A big truck blocked her side of the street. Two men lugged a ratty sofa down the back ramp.

Petrovina noted the workers with bland impatience. She flew up to them without slowing, cutting sharply at the last moment and zipping around the truck, her rear wheels just nipping the corner of the ramp. The sports car bounced and the men dropped their sofa. They were cursing and raising their fists at her even as she zoomed off down the street. Petrovina waved a dainty hand back at them. Petrovina Bulganin was in a hurry. And when Petrovina Bulganin was in a hurry, she slowed for neither pedestrians nor other vehicles.

A dumpy old woman in a tattered babushka was crossing the street. Petrovina had finished checking her makeup. She frowned as the woman grew larger. Laying on the horn, Petrovina raced straight up to the horrified crone, zooming neatly around her at the last possible moment.

She watched in the mirror. When the woman twirled and fell, it was from shock. Petrovina knew she hadn't hit her. The car handled like a dream.

The Thunderbird was a gift from a French government official. Petrovina had gotten it for a weekend of passion in his family villa outside Paris. The deal was a simple one. The Frenchman got the lovely Petrovina Bulganin, warm and without reservation. She got her new Thunderbird, along with the latest detailed intelligence on the whens, wheres and hows of NATO's integration with the former Soviet republics of Western Europe. The latter included up-to-date espionage and government contacts-payrolls, codes and time schedules-within four countries. The former included fully independent suspension and an overhead-cam V8.

Petrovina loved her little Thunderbird. She was so glad that Ford had decided to make them again. It was a beautiful little joy, sleek and dangerous at the same time. Much like Petrovina Bulganin.

Petrovina was part of the new wave of Russian espionage agents. Brash, young, good at their game-none of whom had ever set foot inside KGB headquarters. Not that they had not been in the actual building. But by the time this generation came around, the KGB was the SVR. Many in their field had never even known life in the old KGB.

There was a time not too long before when that would have been unthinkable. But ten years was an eternity in the espionage business. The old KGB men were retiring out of the service or moving up to desk jobs. The void was now being filled by young agents for whom the old Soviet system was something that had been dismantled while they were still laughing as children on playgrounds. Those same children-now grown-had known adulthood only in the new Russia.

Petrovina had not been groomed for the espionage business from early childhood or plucked out of school by a keen-eyed KGB scout. When she completed her studies, she entered the job market like anyone else. Her language skills and intelligence quickly landed her a dull desk job with the SVR. She might have stayed for years in that dreary little out-of-the-way position if her personnel file hadn't found its way into a special set of hands.

It had all started nineteen months before.

The events unfolded so quickly Petrovina was fuzzy on all the details. She was working at her desk one Friday morning translating English-language intercepts from Kosovo when her supervisor came to collect her.

Petrovina wasn't sure what was going on. The man brought her to the back of the building, to a corridor and elevator that she hadn't known existed. Two minutes later she was stunned when she found herself being ushered into the office of Pavel Zatsyrko, the head of the SVR.

As a lowly language clerk toiling away in the basement, she had never had cause to catch the eye of someone so important. Briefly she wondered if she was being fired.

Zatsyrko did not offer her a chair. He sat behind his desk, the slats of the blinds closed on the morning sun.

"You have been reassigned," the SVR head announced dully. He didn't look her in the eye. He was looking down at the file on his desk.

"Sir?" Petrovina questioned.

"Here."

He slid her the file. Hesitantly-for she still did not know what was going on-she picked it up. She was surprised to see the file was her own. All of her employment records, all of the data that had been collected on her when she joined the SVR, her entire life-everything was in the file.

"Bring this with you to your new assignment. Your desk has already been emptied. Collect the box with your personal belongings on your way out. If you are asked, you never worked here. The rest will be explained when you get there."

Confused, Petrovina asked where "there" was. Pavel Zatsyrko offered her a withering look and pointed to the file before turning his attention to his desktop and other, more important matters of his workday.

Petrovina found a small scrap of paper in the back of her personnel file. A pink Post-it note with an address.

She took the bus-back then she could only afford public transportation-as far as it would go, then walked the rest of the way. She found the building in an out-of-the-way corner of a bustling Moscow district. It was an impossibly huge slab of concrete that occupied an entire city block.

As she drove her Thunderbird up to the building this day, she thought of herself nineteen months ago. This day she had the top down on her car. Her tousled mane of glorious hair blew wild in the cold, its raven hue matching the twinkling cunning of her coal black eyes.

Back then she was a timid mouse, hair pulled back into a sensible ponytail. When she was ushered through the gate back then, she didn't know what to think. It felt as if she were walking inside a prison.

But that was ages ago. Another lifetime. A different Petrovina Bulganin.

She stopped the Thunderbird at the gate. Her pass card got her through. She waved to the woman at the security window as she drove into the first-floor garage.

There were a few other cars inside. Not very many for a building this size.

The size of the building did strike Petrovina as odd. There never seemed to be very many people there. On that first day more than a year and a half earlier, she had not asked why so large a building was needed for so small a staff. She was too busy absorbing new information.

On that day she had been ushered into a basement office. A honey-blond-haired woman of about forty sat waiting patiently behind a small desk. The woman's name, Petrovina learned, was Anna Chutesov. She was director of an agency so secret that few outside a tight circle knew of its existence.

"We are called the Institute," Director Chutesov had explained. "I act as an adviser to our president. But I am understaffed." She seemed puzzled at the admission. As if she had worked there for many years, never having noticed that she was, alone in the drafty concrete building. "There have been a few instances during my tenure here where simple advising has not been sufficient. But I have no field agents. That has changed. I have recently gotten permission and funding to increase Institute staff."

"So I am to be transferred from the SVR?" Petrovina asked, confused. She was a nervous little thing back then. So timid, so fearful. The big building was cold. She hugged herself for warmth.

"You have already been transferred," Director Chutesov had said blandly. "You work for the Institute now. For me. Give me your personnel file."

Petrovina still held the manila folder she had been given back at Pavel Zatsyrko's office. Her clenching hand had made a wet imprint on the light cardboard. She gave the file to Director Anna Chutesov.

The Institute head opened the file and began feeding it piece by piece through the shredder beside her desk. The confetti curls of Petrovina Bulganin's life whirred out the far end.

"You are dead to the SVR," Director Chutesov said. "They have expunged your files. You never worked for them. Nor do you work for me. At least as far as the world knows." She offered a mirthless smile. "Welcome to the world of espionage, Agent Dvah."

In Russian, dvah was two; adeen was one. Bewildered, Petrovina asked if Director Chutesov was Agent Adeen.

"No," Director Chutesov had replied. "And never ask that question again."

Petrovina thought there was some sort of dreadful mistake. She was not a spy. Even when she began her training, she expressed doubts to all her instructors.

No one listened to her protests. Eventually, as the months wore on, she stopped protesting, due mainly to the fact that the training began to draw out elements of her personality that she had not even known existed.

Marksmanship and limited martial-arts training weren't a problem. Petrovina had taken several self-defense courses while at the SVR. A single girl in Moscow couldn't be too careful. She had a good eye with weapons and had always had an athletic bent. So said her SVR file.

But as her skills increased, so, too, did her coldness. A veneer of icy confidence slowly emerged from the shell of the timid little language expert. By the end, Petrovina was the ugly duckling that became the beautiful, deadly swan.

In under a year's time Agent Dvah was on assignment, becoming the Institute's first official field agent, answerable only to Director Chutesov herself. It was a life Petrovina Bulganin had been born to live and that, but for the intervention of the Institute's director, she would never have discovered.

Now, months since that first assignment and already in her mind a seasoned pro, Petrovina danced through the labyrinthine hallways of the Institute building.

The scattered workers she passed were all women. There was not a single male face among them.

She found her way downstairs to the special room in the private corridor. There was no secretary. She knocked on the door. Petrovina heard the sound of a bolt clicking back. She pushed the door open.

Director Chutesov sat behind her desk. There was a computer monitor sitting on the corner near the shredder. Her vacant ice-blue eyes watched the pulses of the screen without really seeing them. She said not a word as her finger retreated from the switch that had unlocked the door.

After an awkward moment, Agent Bulganin cleared her throat. "I came as quickly as I could." Director Chutesov didn't stir from her trance. She continued to stare at the monitor. One hand rose above desk level, waving Petrovina to a chair. Petrovina watched the director of the Institute, unsure if she should speak again.

"This building is an odd thing, Petrovina," Director Chutesov said after another long moment. "You thought so yourself many months ago. It is large, isn't it? Too large, it seems, for the needs of the Institute."

Director Chutesov looked up from her monitor. There was a glint of deep intelligence in her blue eyes.

"There are rumors that ghosts once lived here," she continued. "The people in the area swear this building was haunted. Do you believe in ghosts, Agent Bulganin?"

Petrovina admitted that she did not. "I believe in what I can see, Director," she said.

"As you are, I once was. And yet there are things that neither you nor I can see. For instance, why would an individual empty a building of furniture-give every last scrap of it away-and then forget they had done so?"

It was an odd question. Director Chutesov seemed very serious asking it. As if she desperately wanted an answer.

"Madness?" Petrovina suggested. "Drugs or alcohol?"

"I do not take drugs. I drink alcohol rarely, and then only lightly. And I am not mad."

Petrovina blinked. She hadn't realized they were discussing Director Chutesov herself.

"There are outdoor markets near here," Director Chutesov explained. "Perhaps you've been to them. No? Well, I have. A few months ago I went one afternoon looking for antiques." She dropped her voice knowingly. "Some of these sellers are idiots. They would not know good furniture if it fell on their heads. The parents or grandparents die, and the children immediately race off to sell hundred-year-old antiques for kopecks at market. As I was looking for bargains at a particular stall, I caught the eye of the seller. Before I knew what was happening, he began to argue with me. He told me that I had given everything to him fair and square and that I could not have it back."

Petrovina frowned. "Did you know this man?"

"No. He was a complete stranger to me."

"Then I do not understand."

"Nor did I. Nor do I still. But he was adamant that the items for sale at his stand were from me. He claimed that I had allowed him and others like him into this very building. They are the ones who emptied it of furnishings."

"He mistook you for someone else," Petrovina said. "That is, assuming you did not give away Institute furniture." She laughed a tinkling little laugh. Director Chutesov's face was deadly serious.

"I did not. Not that I can remember. But there were a few others at the market who made the same claim. I could not believe that they were all insane. When I pressed them, they were able to give a fairly detailed description of the interior of this supposedly secret building."

Petrovina was intrigued. "Thieves," she said. "They somehow got in here and stole whatever they were selling. What is it they had for sale, by the way?"

"Blankets, cots, storage bins. The Institute was apparently home to some secret garrison. And, no, Petrovina, they were not simple thieves. If there was a break-in, I would have known of it. Or should have. No, the likeliest, if most disturbing conclusion to be reached is that I did indeed open the doors of the Institute and allowed strangers inside to empty it out."

Petrovina was at a loss. "Forgive me, Director Chutesov, but what does it mean?"

Anna Chutesov tapped a slender finger to her own forehead. There were care lines in the perfect porcelain skin. They had appeared only recently.

"I think, Agent Bulganin, that there is a piece of something missing," Director Chutesov said. "Up here. One day I will find out what was taken and how. And when that day comes, woe to the man who took it from me."

Petrovina understood. Director Chutesov believed that some invisible someone had stolen parts of her memory. That it was a man was a given. Agent Bulganin had learned early on that her superior at the Institute was a staunch feminist. This was why no men worked in the big concrete building.

"That is why you called me here," Petrovina said confidently. "To look into this matter."

Director Chutesov shook her head. "There is not enough information at the moment. I will continue to investigate this myself. We will address it when the time comes. You are here for another reason. The usual reason, in my experience. To clean up a mess the men have left for us."

The Institute director reached inside her top drawer. She tossed a file across her desk.

Petrovina noted that there were old Red Army codes on the flap. Inside was data on a shipyard in Latvia, as well as detailed personnel information on several former Russian navy men. Agent Dvah scanned the old photograph of a Captain Gennady Zhilnikov. The picture was ten years out of date.

"The Institute is a clearinghouse for information," Director Chutesov explained. "From that raw data I have identified something that might be a problem, if it is true." She pointed to the file. "That will be your primary assignment. Have you seen the news today?"

Before becoming a spy, Petrovina had watched the news faithfully. She watched less these days. The only story she had seen that morning was about three kittens trapped in a storm drain in California. Russia had pledged equipment and manpower to help rescue the trapped animals.

"No, I have not," Petrovina admitted.

"There is also a device in Mayana that the SVR has been assigned to look into. A machine that destroys trash. There is a team of SVR agents that, like you, will officially be part of our Globe Summit delegation. As long as you are there, you will handle that task, as well. It is only simple reconnaissance. It will not take you long away from your main mission. That was my excuse for getting you in the country. And as simple as it is, I would not trust the men of the SVR to not bungle the assignment. You may sign for the equipment downstairs. For now, read that file. Save your questions until you are through."

Petrovina Bulganin nodded, pulling open the file.

Director Chutesov exhaled, turning attention back to her computer. The Institute head muttered as she poked lifelessly at the keys.

"And if we are very lucky, Agent Bulganin, perhaps I am wrong for the first time in my life and the idiots who run this country have not given the world yet another reason to think us a dangerous laughing-stock." Disgusted, she pulled up her solitaire program. "Men," Anna Chutesov swore.

Chapter 8

Traditionally a Master of Sinanju departed the village to much fanfare. Remo didn't like fanfare. Preferring not to make a big scene, he suggested that he and Chiun slip out of town quietly.

Chiun wouldn't have it. A newly invested Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju could not sneak out of his village like a common thief. What would the villagers think?

Remo pointed out that they'd probably be pretty okay with it, since they spent their entire lives from cradle to grave with their hands stuffed in someone else's back pocket.

"I'll toss my Visa card in the mud on the way out the door," Remo said. "They'll be so busy massaging the cramps from forging my name they won't even know I've left."

"Do you want to break with five thousand years of tradition? Is that what you want?" Chiun demanded.

"I'm down with that," Remo replied.

Chiun tried a different approach. "Do you want to spend the entire trip to South America listening to why you have shamed me yet again in front of my ancestors?"

The entire population of Sinanju was gathered in the main square of the village to bid farewell to the new Reigning Master. General Kye Pun was allowed to witness the Rite of Departure. He was swept along behind Remo and Chiun by the mass of humanity.

Remo was ushered uncomfortably through the multitude to the edge of the village. Men and women who had spent the past four months bad-mouthing him wore phony smiles as they sang him on his way.

"Hail, Master of Sinanju, who sustains the village and keeps the code faithfully," they shouted, their voices raised as one. "Our hearts cry with joy and pain at your departure. Joy that you undertake this journey for the sake of we, the unworthy beneficiaries of your generosity. And pain that your toils take your beauteous aspect from our midst. May the spirits of your ancestors journey safe with you who graciously throttles the universe."

Remo was tapping his toe impatiently on the wellworn path as they recited. When they were finished, he pointed at several random villagers.

"Up yours, yours, yours and yours," he said in English. He said it with a smile, as if conferring a blessing.

There were happy smiles all around.

"And I think I hate you most of all," Remo added, pointing to a woman with a particularly nasty tongue and only three teeth. She seemed delighted to have been singled out by the new young Reigning Master.

She sneered through her jack-o'-lantern dental work at the rest of the villagers.

"Now beat it," Remo said, motioning with both hands like a farmer scattering chickens. "If I have to look at your ugly faces for two more seconds, I'll have to start drinking again." As the villagers turned back to the center of town to resume their longstanding tradition of doing absolutely nothing, Remo wandered over to Chiun. "Can we go now?"

The old Korean was conversing with an elderly woman who had stood separate from the other villagers. She was nodding intently as she listened to his instructions.

"In case of emergency, you may use the telephone in the Master's House to reach the Emperor of America," the old man was saying. "He will locate me."

"I understand," the woman replied.

"She already knows about the phone, Little Father," Remo said. Kye Pun waited near him. "Let's shake a leg."

Chiun ignored him. "And the burner in the basement," he told the woman. "It must be checked every day."

"As you wish, I will do," she said.

"Little Father?" Remo insisted, touching the old man on the elbow. "She knows the drill. It's time to go."

The old man's frown lines deepened. At last he nodded. He offered the crone a bow. She gave one to both Chiun and Remo in turn before turning back for the village.

General Kye Pun hurried up the weed-lined path before the two men.

"You don't have to worry. Hyunsil will do fine," Remo said as they walked along behind the North Korean general. "She already knew most of the stuff from Pullyang."

Chiun nodded. "Her father taught her many of his duties before he passed on. However, it is important that she make no mistakes, for she is the first female entrusted with the duties of caretaker."

"Gotta break that glass ceiling sometime," Remo said.

The long path led to a wide, four-lane highway. The strip of blacktop seemed as out of place in the Korean countryside as a yellow racing stripe up a pig's back.

A car waited for them on the road. Kye Pun held the door, ushering the two Sinanju Masters into the back before sliding in behind the wheel. In another minute they were speeding down the empty highway.

When they got to the airport in Pyongyang, Remo was surprised by the crowds. There were soldiers lined up as if for review, as well as many government officials.

Remo assumed they had driven into the middle of some big Commie block party commemorating the invention of the airplane by Karl Marx. His eyes grew flat when he saw Leader-for-Life Kim Jong-Il on the reviewing stand in the middle of the crowd. The North Korean leader was smiling nervously as Remo's car drove through the parting throng.

"Holy cripes," Remo complained. "It's for me."

"Take it while you can," Chiun advised from the seat beside his pupil. "As the new Reigning Master this is likely the only time you will be heralded on your way like this."

"New Reigning Master, my foot. Kim is just happy to get me out of the country. This is his party, not mine."

The car stopped between the reviewing stand and the waiting North Korean plane. It was the premier's own plane, not the Iraqi jet on which Remo had flown to Korea four months earlier. His stolen plane was still being repaired. From what he'd seen of the technical skills of the North Korean people, he'd give them another million years to fix the broken jet engine, give or take a hundred thousand.

Kye Pun raced around to open Remo's door. Schoolchildren threw flower petals from woven baskets onto the red velvet carpet at Remo's feet.

"I'm surprised they don't have a goddamn brass band," Remo groused to Chiun as they stepped up the carpet.

The minute the words were out, a brass band marched around the side of the terminal playing something that sounded like John Philip Sousa being sucked up a tin whistle.

On the platform, Kim Jong-Il's anxious smile stretched wider. The shock of hair bestowed on him by cruel nature and crueler genetics stuck straight up in the air. Sweat beaded on his broad forehead. He waved a frantic pudgy hand for the band to cut the music. The reedy tootling petered out.

"Your unworthy cousins bid farewell to the new Reigning Master of the House of Sinanju," Kim Jong-Il announced. "Would that you could stay with us forever, but we understand that your awesome responsibilities must take you from our midst. Any words that the Reigning Master would bestow on us in departure would be drops of honey on our unworthy ears."

Remo looked up at the Korean leader. His eyes settled blandly on the fat man's standing-up hair. "Buy an effing comb," Remo said.

He made a beeline for his plane.

Kye Pun's worried eyes darted wide apology to the North Korean premier as he ushered Chiun to the waiting jet.

Their flight to the South had already been cleared. It was a short hop across the thirty-eighth parallel. At the airport in Seoul, General Kye Pun got them to the gate of their commercial flight and waved them gladly on their way.

From the plane's window, Remo saw the general weeping tears of joy as the plane taxied from the terminal.

When they were airborne, the Korean peninsula slipping in the wake of the rising plane, Remo snapped his fingers.

"I should have told them to make sure they keep my Iraqi jet hangared for me," he said. "Just because I'm not in town anymore doesn't mean I want them stripping it for spare parts or boiling the seats for soup."

"They will not damage your plane," Chiun replied. "They would not dare. You are the Reigning Master of Sinanju."

This time, almost for the first time, he said it without sarcasm. Chiun was sitting by the window, careful eyes trained on the gently shuddering left wing. Remo smiled at the back of his teacher's age-speckled head.

He felt good. Here he was, sitting beside his teacher on a plane while Chiun studied the wing to make sure it didn't fall off during takeoff. It was business as usual. He had spent the past four months worrying for nothing. Things hadn't changed as much as he had feared.

When the plane leveled off at cruising altitude, Chiun turned from the window.

"Move your feet," he insisted. The old man scampered around his pupil, forcing Remo to vacate his seat.

They switched places, Remo settling in by the window, Chiun taking the aisle seat. It was a familiar drill that Remo normally found annoying. This day it made him smile.

"What are you grinning at, imbecile?"

"Nothing. This is just nice is all, Little Father."

Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed. "What is?"

"Me, you. Together again. Just like old times."

"When you are my age you may think wistfully of old times. Only dying insects wax nostalgic for last week."

"Don't rain on my parade. Which, by the by, Kim Jong-Il nearly threw for me back there. Everything's coming up Remo. I feel so good I don't even care about whatever's up with Smitty and you and that contract stuff you won't tell me about." He raised a brow. "You want to tell me about it?"

"No."

"Okay by me," Remo said sincerely. "I'm just glad things are finally getting back to normal. You're here, the world's back in order, God's in his heaven and everything's just hunky-dory with me."

Chiun fixed his level gaze on his pupil. "Only the white parts of the world are ever in disorder," he droned. "And do not drag in whatever god it is you people bend your knees to this week. As for me, where else would I be? I cannot be allowed comfortable retirement when I am needed so desperately. You might be the Master of Sinanju, Remo Williams, but I am the Master of Garbage."

He grabbed a passing male flight attendant. "You," he demanded. "Go and inform the inebriate who pilots this air carriage to take care, for he has some very important cargo."

"Sir?" the young Korean asked, confused.

"You're not going to sour my mood, Little Father," Remo warned, "so you might as well give it a rest."

The old man ignored him. "I am a famous scientist of garbage," he confided to the flight attendant. "En route to an important conference."

The young flight attendant's face lit up. "Are you going to the Globe Summit in Mayana?" he asked.

"Is that the ugly name of the place we are going?" Chiun asked Remo over his shoulder, face puckering in displeasure.

"Not helping you out," Remo said. In his seat pocket he had found a magazine that he was pretending to read.

"The name does not matter," Chiun said to the flight attendant. "The only thing that matters is that I go there to unveil my prize specimen of garbage to a horrified world. And there it sits." He held out a bony hand to Remo. "I call it 'Hamburger in White.' Do not get your hands too close to its ravenous mouth," he cautioned.

"Oh," the young Korean said, the light of understanding dawning. He offered the sort of smile flight attendants were trained to give to senile old passengers. "How nice. If you will excuse me, I have to help get the meals ready."

He slipped cautiously away from the strange little man.

"If you're trying to get my goat, it won't work," Rema said once the young man was gone. "I'm happy and that's that." He contentedly rattled his magazine.

Their plane brought them to Mexico City. From there a connecting flight took them across the Gulf of Mexico to the Caribbean Sea and the tiny South American country of Mayana.

For both flights, Chiun grabbed random flight attendants and lavatory-bound fellow passengers to inform one and all that he was a noted garbage scientist. When asked what this entailed, he confided that he mostly studied Remo. Remo did his best to ignore the old man's stage whisper. In his head he kept repeating to himself that this was better than the alternative.

Remo had hoped the old Korean would have exhausted his little joke by the time they landed at Mayana's New Briton International Airport. His hopes were dashed when they entered the terminal and Chiun raised his pipe-cleaner arms high into the air.

"I am Chiun, noted garbageologist! " he announced to the throngs of harried travelers. "Behold! My lab specimen!" He stepped aside to allow Remo into the terminal.

"Okay, okay, you've had your yucks," Remo snarled. "Now do us all a favor and cram it."

A thin smile of satisfaction toyed with the corners of Chiun's papery lips.

Chiun stayed in the main concourse while Remo went off in search of their false identifications.

He had spoken to Smith for instructions once in the air. He found an airport storage locker, located the counter to get the right key, then broke the key off in the lock and had to rip the door off the locker. There was a sealed shipping envelope inside. Tearing it open, Remo dropped both envelope and locker door in the trash before rejoining Chiun.

Hands tucked deep in his kimono sleeves, the old Korean was standing at the edge of a small crowd that had gathered near the terminal doors. He and the rest of the group were listening to a young man in a business suit.

"What are you doing?" Remo asked as he came up beside his teacher.

"Working," the old man replied. "Hush."

The man at the front of the crowd noticed Remo. "Oh," he said. "I assume you're Dr. Chiun's associate. I'm George Jiminez, deputy finance minister."

Jiminez checked Remo's and Chiun's identification. Satisfied, he wrote their names in felt-tipped pen on two sticky name tags, which he handed to them just as he had to the others in the group. Remo stuck his on a potted plant. Chiun stuck his to the side of a passing woman's American Tourister suitcase.

At the front of the group, Jiminez was entering their cover names into his pocket organizer. With a satisfied smile, he slipped the small computer into his pocket.

"If that's everyone, we can begin our tour of the Vaporizer site," he said.

He led the group outside to a waiting bus.

"This is just a cover," Remo whispered as the rest were getting on the bus. "Do we really want the nickel tour?" He noted that most of the others looked like nerdy scientists.

"If there is a charge, you pay it," Chiun replied. "I forgot my purse in Sinanju." Hiking up his kimono skirts, he climbed aboard the bus.

The front seats had already filled up. The only ones open were in the rear. Chiun stopped dead near the empty driver's seat, a flat look on his leathery face. Remo didn't have to ask what he was thinking.

"The cool kids always sit in the back," Remo suggested tactfully.

Chiun gave him a baleful look. With swats and shoves, he promptly expelled the seated men from the front, bullying them down the aisle and into the back.

When George Jiminez boarded the bus a minute later, he found most of the tour group cowering in fear in the back of the bus. Chiun sat directly behind the driver's seat, his face a mask of pure innocence. Remo had reluctantly taken the seat next to him.

The confused deputy finance minister got behind the wheel. Pulling away from the curb, the bus headed off into the hills above New Briton.

Remo glanced toward the back of the bus, where the group of wheezing scientists were reliving junior high. A few were sucking on asthma inhalers.

"Why didn't you shake them down for their milk money while you were at it?" he whispered.

"They should thank me for building strength of character," Chiun sniffed.

"Yeah, I'm sure they'll do that right after they finish pissing their snow pants." He was watching the scientists through narrowed eyes. There appeared to be faces from around the world in the group. "They've got a regular League of Geek Nations going on here," he commented.

"That would explain the stink," Chiun replied. Remo knew what he meant, although the men on the bus were not the source. The smell had been strong ever since they left the airport terminal. It was the combined stench of hundreds of garbage scows moored just offshore. They had seen the boats from the window of their plane.

A major highway out of the city took them into the sloping hills above the bay. New Briton Harbor sparkled in the brilliant white sun. A finger of land formed a seawall at the mouth of the wide bay. In the Caribbean Remo could see the eyesore of Garbage City-scows as far as the eye could see waiting to be called to land.

And then they were gone. Boats, sea and harbor vanished behind thickening jungle foliage. Signs along the road warned that they were entering a restricted area.

"We're nearly there," George Jiminez promised over his shoulder.

"Why are the signs in English?" Remo asked.

"Mayana is an English-speaking country," Jiminez explained. "We were a British protectorate until the 1950s. Many British citizens emigrated here."

"That is doubtless what attracted Smith's friend here," Chiun observed. He had a sharp eye directed on the men in the back. One had strayed over an invisible line. The old Korean scowled him back over it.

"Huh?" Remo asked.

"The one you and Smith were discussing," Chiun said. "The British enjoy their cults. If it is not Freemasons, it is Druids-if not Druids, Anglican Catholics. Smith's friend must have felt right at home here."

"Ye-es," George Jiminez said slowly, color rising in his cheeks. "You're referring to the Jamestown tragedy. Jack James was American, not British. And I'm sorry, but that's not a topic we like to discuss." Jaw clenching, he turned full attention on the road.

"Nice going, Little Father," Remo whispered. "Anyone else you want to tick off at us?"

The old man's hazel eyes were still trained on the back of the bus. He was watching one man in particular-a nervous-looking Asian.

"The day is young," Chiun replied ominously. His suspicious gaze never wavered.

Chapter 9

Mike Sears was not good under pressure.

He should have been able to keep up a confident front. After all, as the official mind behind the Vaporizer, the world now considered him a genius. But he just didn't seem to have the confidence to pull it off.

Not that he was an intellectual slouch. His credentials were top-notch. He had been hired as a developmental scientist for Lockheed after graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1980s. He had worked on some of the new tiles, as well as the remodeled booster system for the space shuttle after the Challenger disaster. From there he had gone on to help develop new titanium Mach shields for the Air Force's top secret Aurora Project.

Such important work should have given him at least some grace under fire. But the stress of the Vaporizer project, getting the device up and running, and now the busloads of experts and foreign officials who were being hauled hourly up to the site for demonstrations-it was all becoming too much for him to handle.

Mike Sears felt a grumble of nervous bile in the pit of his empty stomach as he stood in the cramped room.

"Grid four, section thirteen," Sears said into a microphone. The words echoed across the Vaporizer pit.

Sears was in the control booth above the Vaporizer. The booth was nestled in a niche carved into a small hill. On a monitor screen he watched a man in a white lab coat scurry over the removable scaffolding on the unit's black wall.

"Four, thirteen," the man responded.

The speaker next to Sears crackled with static. A residual effect of proximity to the device. "D-four," Sears said.

Through a remote camera, Sears watched his assistant as he worked on the Vaporizer. The man was Japanese. His dark black hair shone in the sun.

Toshimi Yakarnoto had been uncomfortable going into the machine ever since it had gone online. His face betrayed his anxiety as he inched along the interior wall.

Yakamoto found the problem nozzle and went to work on it with a tool that resembled a pair of tiny forceps.

Sears spun in his chair. Sharp green images on another computer screen offered a three-dimensional image created by sensors buried in the frictionless black walls.

"Careful," Sears warned into the microphone. "You've gone too far."

Yakamoto readjusted the nozzle again. Even on camera, beads of sweat were visible on his broad forehead. They rolled down his anxious face.

"Is better now?" he asked hopefully.

In the control booth the computer image showed the problem nozzle in perfect alignment.

"That got it," Sears said. "Lock it down and get back up here. We've got company."

On the security camera he saw Deputy Minister Jiminez's bus coming through the front gate.

The bus was loaded with thirty more scientists. Thirty more chances that Sears's secret might become known.

"Play it cool, Mike," he muttered to himself. Leaving the booth, he went down the fence-lined path to the parking lot. The visitors were already getting off the bus. Two men had gotten off first-a young Caucasian and a very old Asian. The rest seemed to be avoiding these two. They stumbled off almost desperately, forming a fearful group away from the first pair.

George Jiminez was the last one off.

"Ah, Dr. Sears," the deputy finance minister said. "Are you ready to dazzle your latest guests?"

"Of course," Mike Sears said, a nervous smile plastered across his face. He turned to the group of scientists. "Welcome to the future, gentlemen. I'm sure your governments will be fascinated by your reports. If you'll come this way." He and Jiminez began herding the scientists into the Vaporizer compound.

Remo and Chiun brought up the rear. Remo was sniffing the air. "It stinks worse here than it did back in the city," he complained. "You'd think they'd figure out a way to zap the stink when they zap the garbage."

When he got no reply, he glanced at his teacher. Chiun was still studying the Asian man he had singled out on the bus. The man was Japanese. His name tag identified him as Dr. Hiro Taki. Dr. Taki seemed nervous and jumpy. Remo assumed it had to do with first being assaulted on the bus, then drawing the exclusive attention of his assaulter.

"Remember, the war's over, Chiun," Remo warned.

"I am not an American who thinks it is highminded to turn a blind eye to human nature," the old Korean replied. "That man is up to no good."

"Could be," Remo said. "Or it could be he senses he's being targeted by a known Japanese basher."

"Is it bashing to point out that all Japanese are liars and thieves?"

"Yes," Remo said. "Especially when there's actual bashing involved, which there most times is. And while we're at it, wasn't the guy who founded Sinanju Japanese?"

Chiun tore his eyes from Hiro Taki's back. "Why do I even talk to you?"

Quickening his pace, he shuffled ahead of his pupil.

A hurricane fence surrounded the area. Beyond was the exterior wall of the Vaporizer.

Special reusable boots were issued to the group from a large bin inside the fence.

"These will keep you from losing your footing inside," Mike Sears explained, forcing a smile as the men slipped the boots over their shoes. "I doubt any of you want to fall in."

Wearing the protective boots, the group stepped through the gap in the outer wall and out onto the deck of the Vaporizer. The black pit yawned before them.

"You'll notice that the walls around us are of the same material as the Vaporizer itself," Sears said. "This upper level will eventually be part of the unit, almost doubling capacity. For tests until now we have dumped single loads into the device. That's good for demonstration and experimentation, but isn't cost-effective. When we settle into daily use, the main pit and upper level will be filled to capacity before the unit is activated. Hundreds of tons of waste will be removed in the wink of an eye."

Some members of the group were touching the walls. Their faces grew surprised. Remo and Chiun tried it, as well.

There was barely any sense of anything at all. The strange coating seemed to dissipate Remo's touch across the surface. It was almost like touching air.

"It's a kind of rubberized tile," Sears explained. "We use some of the same principles used by defense departments, NASA, the computer industry. The walls were tricky. We had to design them so that the process itself didn't swallow up the unit. If we got it wrong, when we switched it on, it would theoretically destroy itself along with most of the hill we're standing on."

Some of the braver men edged toward the fence that surrounded the pit. The capped nozzles in the black walls glinted in the sunlight.

Workmen were in the Vaporizer pit. An Asian scientist was just climbing out. His face glistened sweat. Other men drew up the scaffolding he had been working from.

"Dr. Yakamoto was just making some minor adjustments," Mike Sears explained. "I think he's all set now."

Yakamoto nodded.

"Great," Sears said. "Maybe you'd like to see a demonstration before we get into Q and A. Please come this way."

Sears and Jiminez began to herd the crowd back to the door. Dr. Hiro Taki lagged at the back of the group, as did Dr. Yakamoto. The men didn't seem to know each other. In fact, they seemed to make a point of not knowing each other. It was a subtle nuance that would have gone unnoticed by anyone other than Remo and Chiun.

Remo didn't know how he knew the men were acquainted. It was something instinctive. His suspicions were confirmed when the men just for a moment-locked eyes. Dr. Taki offered a single nod. Yakamoto's face showed a flash of horror before turning away.

"See?" Chiun said. "Do you see why my father always said never trust a son of Nippon?"

"Was he trying out for the role of Korean Archie Bunker?" Remo said dryly.

Unseen by the Mayanans, Remo had kicked off one shoe to test the surface underfoot. It was as frictionless as the walls. Without their special boots, even he and Chiun might have fallen. He slipped his loafer with its boot back on.

When he glanced up he saw that Chiun had padded farther ahead. The old man had caught up to Toshimi Yakamoto. Leaning in, he whispered something to the Japanese scientist.

Yakamoto responded with shock. The color drained from his sweating face. He hustled away from the wizened Korean, forcing his way through the group of visitors and out the gate.

"Do I want to know?" Remo asked once he caught up to his teacher.

"It was nothing that you do not already know," Chiun replied. "I told him that the Japanese as a people cannot be trusted and that I know he is up to no good. And look, see how he runs like a frightened rabbit when confronted by the truth. Pitiful. The one thing these Japanese had was pigheaded bravery, and Western subversion has robbed them even of that. I blame the French."

Leaving his pupil on the Vaporizer deck, he flounced out of the gate to remove the special boots from his sandals.

Remo tipped his head, considering. "Now, there's some racism I can finally support," he said, nodding. He followed the others out the gate.

Chapter 10

Toshimi Yakamoto ran.

Fear slowed his legs. His lungs burned, his brain sang a symphony of panic.

The old man knew. Somehow he knew.

He hadn't been specific. But those penetrating hazel eyes said all that was unspoken. He knew the truth.

The Korean had spoken Japanese. It was unlikely that anyone would have understood had they even heard, but the fact was, Yakamoto had been found out.

It was no wonder.

Toshimi Yakamoto had no business being here. He was a scientist, not a spy. But he was a scientist who had been there at the start. The real start, not this bastardized Mayanan version of it. He understood the nuts and bolts of what needed to be done and so-despite his protestations-had been drafted kicking and screaming into this project.

But now it was done. He had been found out. Mind swirling, he ran out of the Vaporizer compound and through the hurricane fence.

He passed colleagues whom he had worked with for nearly a year, as well as other workmen from the project. He ignored all their smiles and hellos, shoving through them.

Another tour bus was coming up the road from New Briton. The driver had to lay on the horn as Yakamoto darted out in front of it. The bumper nearly nicked him. He felt the exhaust breeze as he made it to the other side of the road.

Passengers watched the little man in the white lab coat running like a maniac from the Vaporizer site. The bus continued up toward the cluster of buildings as Yakamoto ran down into the lower parking lot.

He found his Toyota, fumbling his keys from his pocket. He dropped them to the gravel drive, knocked them behind a tire and scraped his palm clawing them back out. Keys rattling, he unlocked his car and fell inside.

He hunkered down in the back seat. His injured hand found his cell phone in his coat pocket. With shaking hands he pressed out the special number.

The phone was answered on the first half ring. "What is it?" the deep voice demanded in Japanese. A demon's voice, rumbling up from some low circle of Hell.

"I have been discovered!" Yakamoto blurted. As he spoke, he glanced in fright around the parking area. There was no one else there. He expected them to come any moment. He sank farther in on himself, trying to melt into the seat.

"Explain," demanded the man on the phone.

In a voice bordering on hysterical, Yakamoto whimpered out the details of his brief confrontation with the visiting Korean scientist.

"What exactly did he say?" the man on the phone demanded once Toshimi Yakamoto was finished. "He said I was untrustworthy and that I was up to no good," Yakamoto pleaded.

There was a pause. "And?" the voice asked. Yakamoto felt his breathing coming under control. His head was clearing. Somehow actually repeating the words of his accuser out loud made them sound not quite so damning.

"He said Japanese eyes were funny," Yakamoto said.

"In other words, he said nothing specific except to insult your nationality?"

Yakamoto was thinking much more clearly now. His brow furrowed deeply. "I suppose not. No, he did not."

"You became panicked for nothing," the man on the phone said. "This Korean merely saw a Japanese and automatically became envious. It is not uncommon. After all, Koreans spring from a pool of envy. It is in their nature, for they all wish they were Japanese. Who can blame them?"

Yakamoto was feeling much better. He wiped some sweat from his face with the cuff of his white lab coat. "Do you really think so?" he asked hopefully.

"Of course. From what you say, he did not accuse you of anything specific, nor did he speak to your supervisor. He did not even threaten to do so or to go to the Mayanan government. You misinterpreted this Korean. That is easy enough to do. Their mouths form words funny."

Dr. Yakamoto didn't mention that the old Korean spoke flawless Japanese. He was just relieved that the man on the phone was not yelling at him for wasting his time.

"I am sorry to have panicked," Yakamoto apologized.

"Never mind," the deep voice said. "This is not your field. As long as you have called, have you spoken with Dr. Taki yet? We have gotten him in as consultant to the prime minister. It was the best way to get him into Mayana without arousing suspicion. He should be in New Briton by now."

"No," Yakamoto admitted. "He must have just arrived. He was in the group that just came up from the airport. The same group with the old Korean."

A sharp intake of angry air. "What do you mean, the group that just came from the airport? Your confrontation with this Korean, when did all this happen?"

Yakamoto felt the fear rising again. Different now than the fear of discovery. It was fear of a man who held the power to hire and fire.

"Less than five minutes ago," he admitted guiltily.

The low voice rumbled deeper. "You are not calling from a secure location?" the man demanded. This was one of the most important security details that had been drilled into Toshimi Yakamoto. He was to find call-in sites where he was least likely to be monitored. Public places were not perfect but were preferable. Parks and the rest rooms of restaurants and bars were good. Not his car and not his apartment, since they could be bugged. And the one place over all others where he was never, ever to call from was the Vaporizer site itself.

"I am... that is- The Korean frightened me."

"Tell me, Toshimi Yakamoto, that you are not at the site of the Wayanan device," the deep voice said.

"There is no one else around," Yakamoto blurted. "The parking lot is empty. And the people who saw me run down here did not know why I was running." There came a few seconds of angry snorting on the other end of the line, like a bull getting ready to charge. When the voice spoke once more, it was a growl of barely controlled fury.

"Get back to work," the man snarled. "If anyone asks, tell them you were running because you thought you left the lights on in your car. Have your scheduled meeting with Dr. Taki in the city. You said you required help. He will help you. And when you call to report this evening, Toshimi Yakamoto, you had better do so from a secure location. If not, I will personally wring your idiot neck."

The phone went dead in Yakamoto's hand. Clicking it shut, he slipped it back into his pocket. He had never heard his employer so angry. Far more frightening than his trademark outbursts of temper was this quiet, controlled rage.

Yakamoto had made a mistake. It was not his fault, since this was not his field of expertise, but that obviously didn't matter. It was clear that this incident would not be forgotten. One more misstep like this one and he would be out of a job. His only hope now was to impress the higher-ups by completing this mission successfully.

It was humid in the car. Yakamoto mopped the sweat from his glistening face with the tails of his lab coat before opening the door.

He thought he had left the lights on. A plausible excuse. He came in early enough in the morning that he might have had them on. People would believe that.

He climbed out of the car, careful to lock it up tight.

Yes, the lights. They hadn't been on, of course, he would say. But he was afraid he might have left them on.

"I left my lights on, I left my lights on, I left my lights on...." He repeated it many times just to be sure.

The perfect excuse.

Straightening his shoulders, the little scientist pressed his black hair back carefully with both hands. With a deep breath, he marched back up to the Vaporizer site.

Above, the parking lot security camera recorded his every move. And, unknown to Toshimi Yakamoto, in the coil of a spring under the front passenger seat of his Toyota, a hidden listening device had picked up his every word.

"I LIGHTS my left on," Toshimi Yakamoto announced with great confidence to the roomful of men.

No one paid the Japanese scientist any attention when he marched into the control booth. The tour group-which included the old Korean and his young associate-was at the window. Below them was the Vaporizer. Deputy Minister Jiminez was nowhere to be seen.

"I mean, I left my left on. My lights. On. But lights were not on, were off. But I was afraid lights were on."

The Japanese scientist's babbling finally drew someone's attention.

"Oh, Toshimi, you're here," Mike Sears said. "Can you give me a hand setting up this test?"

"I did not leave lights on in car," Yakamoto promised.

Mike Sears was no longer paying attention. He was fussing at a computer keyboard.

Yakamoto felt a wash of great relief. It was clear he had barely been missed. His employer-his true employer-had been correct. And Dr. Taki was not looking his way. He was staring out the window, back rigid.

Things were fine. He had panicked for nothing. Careful to keep out of the way of the envious old Korean who wished he was Japanese, Toshimi Yakamoto hurried over to assist Mike Sears.

At the window, Remo glanced back at Yakamoto. The Japanese scientist's confrontation with Chiun was already forgotten. Yakamoto was engrossed in his work.

"I'm surprised he came back," Remo commented to Chiun in Korean. "The way you spooked him out, I figured he'd be dog-paddling back to Tokyo."

"Doubtless he remembered there were more rolls of toilet paper to steal from the lavatory," Chiun droned. He didn't turn to watch Yakamoto working. The old man's button nose was pressed against the window.

Two trucks piled high with teetering stacks of garbage had been lined up on ramps at the edge of the Vaporizer pit.

"Probably just an industrial spy," Remo said. "The Japanese'll steal the design of this thing and start cranking them out like toasters. Still, whatever you said to him, it probably wasn't very nice. You know, Little Father, it wouldn't hurt to tone down the racist stuff."

"Bah," Chiun grunted. "I am not racist. The aberration of you as Reigning Master notwithstanding, true Masters of Sinanju have always been Korean for a reason. The only good race is Korean. In fact, to accuse me of racism is to slander the most perfect specimen of Koreanness. Me. I refuse to speak to one who is so racist."

Eyes narrowing to razor-thin slits, he stared out the window.

Mike Sears talked the group through the process. It was exactly as Remo had seen it on television. The nozzle tips buried in the black walls of the deep pit glowed a brilliant white. The trucks tipped their loads into the pit, and the trash winked out of existence in star flashes, piece by piece.

Remo tried to track some individual pieces of garbage. In the microsecond before they disappeared, they seemed to elongate. No human eye save those of the two Masters of Sinanju could have seen it. The trash stretched, then seemed to explode in bursts of brilliant white.

With flashbulb pops that were blinding in their speed, the two loads of trash vanished, absorbed back into the ether as scattering molecules.

"So much for Smith's doubts," Remo said.

He glanced at his teacher. Chiun had been looking for a trick. Anything that might have gone unnoticed by the rest of the world. But, like Remo, he saw none.

Bearing witness to such new, powerful technology, the former Reigning Master of Sinanju's face became a mask of stony silence.

George Jiminez had slipped into the room for the end of the test. The deputy finance minister had been out greeting the next bus of guests.

"If you'd like to come to our visitors' center, Dr. Sears will answer your questions now," Jiminez announced.

While the group filed out, Sears gave instructions to Yakamoto to check another misaligned nozzle before the next test. Grateful for the opportunity to keep busy, Yakamoto hurried downstairs. The American scientist left the room, as well, making a detour down to the Vaporizer deck.

"We better skip out on the spiel, Chiun," Remo whispered. "It's getting late and I want to get a decent night's sleep before I check out those sunk scows tomorrow."

He slipped out the door with the crowd.

Chiun gave a single backward glance at the Vaporizer.

The next tour group had donned the special boots and was now coming out onto the deck. Near the open gate, Dr. Sears was in whispered conversation with a janitor. The man wore coveralls and leaned against a push broom.

Out on the deck, a beautiful woman with long black hair pulled up in a bun mingled with the rest of the new group. Every now and then, her long fingers brushed the broach that was pinned to her sensible white blouse.

She was subtle, for a white woman. Her mannerisms were not broad enough to give her away. Chiun alone knew the woman was taking pictures with a miniature camera.

Aiming her broach at the gate, the woman snapped a photo of Mike Sears and the janitor.

The old Korean quickly lost interest. Turning from the window, he followed the others out the door of the Vaporizer control room.

Chapter 11

In the bowels of the Institute building in Moscow, Anna Chutesov sat behind her tidy desk.

The head of Russia's secret Institute was bathed in the glow of her desktop monitor. The only sound over the soft hum of her computer was the regular click of her mouse.

Through careful eyes she studied the photographs e-mailed to her by Petrovina Bulganin.

Most of the pictures were of little interest to Anna. They depicted, from different angles, shots of the Vaporizer unit. The Institute wasn't interested in the technology. She would forward those photos to the proper scientific directorate.

Anna doubted anything could be learned from them. A photograph of an automobile didn't tell one what was under the hood. Still, she had usurped the investigation of the Vaporizer from the SVR in order to get her agent into Mayana. The time Agent Dvah wasted on the pictures was necessary.

Originally reconnoitering the device was going to be the SVR's responsibility. But at a security meeting with the president and other high-ranking officials at the Kremlin three days before, Anna had argued that the assignment required subtlety-a trait sorely lacking among most of the KGB throwbacks who filled the ranks of the SVR.

"Give this job to the SVR and they will kill, drug and blackmail everyone in Mayana," Anna had said. "And they will still find a way to come back empty-handed."

"This is outrageous," Pavel Zatsyrko, the head of the SVR, spluttered to the president of the Russian Federation. "This woman is a menace and her agency is a joke. The SVR has handled far more serious tasks. And, I might add, so has the KGB, which she is so quick to dismiss."

The president-a former KGB man himself-turned his watery eyes to the head of the Institute. "Why are you even interested in this, Anna Chutesov?" he asked, suspicion on his bland face.

Anna shrugged. "My field agents need experience," she replied simply.

"My agents have experience," Zatsyrka interjected.

"Yes," Anna said. "But why trust a tank when you have a scalpel?"

A few of the other men laughed. Even the president cleared his throat, covering a smirk behind a small hand.

Pavel Zatsyrko was outraged. Even more so when the president handed the assignment over to the Institute.

Anna could not have cared less about the victory. The truth was, she wasn't interested in the Vaporizer. But with the delegations of each nation to Mayana being limited, thanks to the Globe Summit, she couldn't very well say she wanted to assign one of her agents there based on suspicion alone.

Once Petrovina was done at the Vaporizer, she could begin her true assignment.

The thought troubled Anna Chutesov.

Out of necessity, Anna had been forced to entrust her Agent Dvah to a team of SVR men who had been assigned to Mayana. Anna was reluctant to recruit assistance from the SVR, but she had no other choice. She had won a victory with the president for one agent, but she would not be permitted to pull the entire SVR group and replace it with spies from her Institute.

Pavel Zatsyrko wasn't alone in his opinion of Anna and her agency. Already more than a few men higher up in Russia's intelligence services were griping about Anna Chutesov's all-female group. Typical. The same fools didn't open their big mouths to complain when the men were in control and running Russia into the ground for more than seventy years.

The same old story. Men circling the wagons, protecting themselves and their delicate egos.

Thinking bitter thoughts of the opposite sex, she clicked a slender finger on her mouse. The images went by lazily, one after another.

Petrovina had grouped the photographs by category. The pictures proceeded from the Vaporizer grounds, to the unit itself, then on to some of the personnel.

Anna recognized Mike Sears from the television. Her fledgling agency still relied on the SVR for much of its information. They had little data on the American scientist.

There were a few other people. Technicians and officials from the Mayanan government. As she clicked through them, one photograph caught her eye.

It was of a man somewhere in his early fifties. Dressed as a janitor, he stood near the open Vaporizer door.

The man was talking to Dr. Sears. He held a push broom listlessly. He didn't seem pleased.

The man didn't look Mayanan. While many in the South American country had soft, white British features, a disproportionate number of these were still among the upper classes. The social pecking order almost required that a janitor in Mayana be of local peasant stock.

She enlarged the picture.

The man seemed too refined to be a janitor. For one thing his hands looked too clean. The same for his clothes. The knees of his coveralls weren't worn or baggy in the least. And he held his broom in a way that made it look like an offense that he was even asked to carry it.

Odd that he would wear such an expression while talking to the head of the Vaporizer project.... Turning on her printer, Anna made physical copies of all the photos of the Vaporizer and the grounds around it. She slipped the two stacks of pictures into envelopes and addressed them to the proper government departments. The photos of the personnel she put in another envelope.

When she was finished, she pressed her intercom. "Yes, Director Chutesov," a female voice replied.

"I have some photographs that I want the SVR to go through for us. Tell them it is top priority."

"Right away, Director Chutesov."

Anna turned her attention back to her computer. She pulled up the picture of the janitor once more. Something didn't seem right.

Blue eyes suspicious, she reached for her mouse. After a few clicks the printer next to her chair whirred to life once more. When it was done, Anna took the color photograph in slender fingers.

For a long moment she studied the picture of the Mayanan janitor. There was definitely something not right about the man. She would have to tell Agent Dvah to check on him once she was finished with her assignment.

Anna finally set the photo to one side of her desk. Putting the janitor from her mind, the head of Russia's secret Institute returned to work.

Chapter 12

Toshimi Yakamoto worked late into the evening. It was well after ten o'clock by the time he shut off the lights in his little corner office and headed for the door.

Yakamoto always worked late. His diligence had been applauded on several occasions. With the excitement of this morning, he had no intention of arousing suspicions by breaking with eleven months' worth of tradition.

He shut his office door, locked the dead bolt with his key and stepped out into the warm South American evening.

From the far-off hills came distant jungle sounds. To accommodate the Vaporizer site, many acres of trees had been chopped back. The creatures that thrived in darkness growled and screeched at a safe distance.

When he first came to Mayana, Yakamoto had been bothered by the animal noises. But it was a fear he had been able to put aside once he had been given a tour of the site.

A great fence stretched all around the vast hilltop area. There were only two routes in. The main road, used by most of the employees and visitors, and the secondary road, which was used for hauling trash up from the harbor.

The gates were staffed by security during the day and locked down tight at night. Nothing could get past that fence without authorization. Including whatever jungle dangers might be lurking in the darkness.

Feeling safe from animal dangers, Yakamoto headed across the well-tended grounds of the visitors' center.

The high fence that surrounded the immediate Vaporizer area was similar to the one that enclosed the entire site. The gate was still open. Yakamoto stepped inside, past the box of special safety boots, to the outer door of the device.

It was secure. Nodding his satisfaction, he headed back out through the gate, locking it carefully behind him.

Routine was very important for him to maintain. They had stressed that back in his training in Japan. "You must work hard for them," he had been told in that final briefing many months before.

It was in the familiar cold and gleaming conference room back in Osaka. The man who had summoned him there was the same man Yakamoto had called in desperation that very morning. His employer had a deep voice and a bulging neck that made him look like a Japanese bullfrog.

"They must never suspect you are anything other than a loyal employee," his true employer had insisted. "You will remain safe as long as you are a hard worker. Obey the security rules we have taught you. It is likely that they do not know the truth behind their own research. As well, it is doubtful their source will reveal the truth to them. Too much false pride to admit it is all lies. You will be safe in the guise of an average scientist." The bullfrog smiled. "Until the day you bring ruin down around their ears."

Toshimi Yakamoto was grateful that day had almost arrived.

He headed away from the main buildings, walking calmly down the same road he had run along in panic that morning.

It would be a relatively simple matter to destroy the device. He had worked out exactly which nozzles would have to be misaligned. Several hundred in each of the four major grids would have to be bent. Generally only one out of alignment automatically drew attention from the safety systems, but Yakamoto could easily get the computer to lie. When the device was switched on, extra power would be shunted through those nozzles. The device would overload, feeding on itself. Once started, there would be no way to stop it. When it was done, a smoking crater would mark the site.

Actually, as he walked down the road, Yakamoto doubted there would even be smoke.

He understood why this espionage could not take place before the device was introduced to the world. He could not have tipped his hand four months ago, before anyone knew of the Vaporizer. The Mayanans would have uncovered the spy in their midst quietly, and all Yakamoto would have accomplished was a short delay. It had to come when the eyes of the world were watching, when everyone would see the great danger posed by this machine.

Soon. Now that he had the help he needed, he could be finished with this affair and on a plane back to Osaka by the end of the week. The thought gave him great relief.

A warm breeze brought a foul scent down from the low mountains that crowded the western slope of the Vaporizer hill. There was a great valley beyond the mountains, off-limits to all but a few select individuals. Twenty-five years before, a little corner of that valley had become famous as the home of the Jamestown cult.

Yakamoto crinkled his nose as he walked.

The odor was particularly strong this evening. When they had started their tests there had not been a smell. The more trash they removed, the worse the odor became.

Yakamoto shook his head. The Mayanans were such fools.

The parking lot was empty, save Yakamoto's little Toyota. Even Mike Sears was gone for the night, off at yet another in the seemingly endless functions hosted by the government of Mayana in the days since the machine had been introduced to the public.

At the moment Sears was at a hotel ballroom in downtown New Briton. Four blocks from there, Dr. Hiro Taki would already be waiting for Yakamoto. Yakamoto had made arrangements to meet with his new secret assistant in a corner booth of a restaurant lounge.

Later that week, Dr. Taki would return with one of the tour groups. When the visitors left, Taki would stay behind to assist Toshimi Yakamoto. Today had been a dry run.

An electronic security record was kept of everyone who visited the site. Those managing each tour group used a pocket organizer to check guests in and out. The handheld PCs were tied in with the site computer system. When Yakamoto had used his office computer to remove Taki's name from the computer, no one had batted an eye. When he showed up at the bus to leave, Deputy Prime Minister Jiminez assumed he had missed logging Dr. Taki in at the airport. He recorded his name into his organizer and let Taki on the bus.

It was that simple. Simpler on Friday, when Taki would return with the entire Japanese delegation to the Globe Summit. Then he would be an Asian face in the crowd. No one would miss him when the group left without him. As simple as that. Oh, he might get a little cramped hiding in the well of Toshimi Yakamoto's desk all day, but that was just part of the price of doing business.

Somehow just knowing that he finally had an accomplice in Mayana was enough to bolster Toshimi Yakamoto's spirits. Better was the fact that when they were done, Yakamoto would at long last be allowed to return to Japan.

Yakamoto walked briskly, as if by quickening his stride he could somehow hurry along the future. His shoes scrunched gravel underfoot as he headed for his car.

As he was reaching for his keys, he noted a soft metallic squeak from somewhere above his head. With a sudden sinking feeling, Yakamoto's eyes searched for the sound.

He found the security camera where it always was, mounted to a light post at the parking lot's edge. As Yakamoto watched with growing dread, the automated camera rolled to one side. Again came the soft squeak.

The daytime noises always drowned it out. The squeak was only audible in the quiet of late night. Yakamoto had forgotten about the camera. After eleven months working at the Vaporizer site, he was so used to it that he had blotted it from his mind. But it was there. Just as it had been there twelve hours before while he was cowering in the back seat of his car with his cell phone.

Alone in the midnight parking lot, his hands began to shake. His keys rattled in his pocket.

He tried to be rational.

Only a camera. Even if it had seen him it did not hear him. He could have been calling anyone from his car. His mother, his sister, his wife. The camera didn't know.

The keys came out, jangling in frightened fingers. As he tried to steady the key into the door lock, he wondered briefly where the camera images went. There was a security building at the site, but now that he thought of it, he couldn't remember ever seeing a surveillance room there. Strange for there to be so many cameras on the grounds yet no place there to view the images. He would have to mention this to his new confidant, Hiro Taki, the man who had unknowingly become Toshimi Yakamoto's best friend simply by saving the poor frightened scientist from being alone.

The key slipped into the lock.

Yakamoto had just begun to turn it when his shocked ears detected a new sound.

A footfall. Very close by. Almost simultaneous with the sound, looming shadows fell across the car. When the strong hands grabbed him from behind, Yakamoto could not even find breath to gasp. He was thrown roughly against the side of his car.

There were three men. Two were large brutes. The third was a slight man with a pale face and sagging eyes.

Yakamoto knew the last man. He worked maintenance at the site. He seemed to always be underfoot. Yakamoto had even gone to Mike Sears about the nuisance janitor who seemed to do nothing but get in everyone's way. When he did, Sears had gotten a funny look on his face. The head of the Vaporizer project had brushed aside Yakamoto's complaints.

Now here he was being assaulted by the strange janitor and two men Yakamoto didn't know. "What is meaning of this?" Yakamoto demanded, forcing the fear from his voice. "What you think you doing?"

He tried to puff out his chest. After all, he was authorized to be here. His heart pounded madly. The janitor's face remained flat. There was no hint of emotion in those dark-rimmed eyes. "We have been sent to take out trash," he replied in heavily accented English.

It was the first time he had ever heard the man speak. When he heard the janitor's voice, an icy fear gripped Toshimi Yakamoto's belly. He knew that accent.

"You are not Mayanan," Yakamoto said, his voice weak.

The janitor didn't answer him. He turned his sagging eyes to the big men who stood behind him. "Bring him," he ordered with crisp authority. Turning on his heel, the janitor marched off. The two men grabbed hold of Yakamoto. They dwarfed the little man as they dragged him back up the road to the hurricane fence.

Yakamoto's mind raced. Pleading eyes darted up at the two who were carting him along.

"What are you doing with me?" he begged.

In some lucid part of his brain he suddenly realized that there was something familiar about them. He seemed to recall seeing them the day the Vaporizer had been revealed to the press. They had witnessed the test along with the group of Mayanan government officials.

Sweet relief sang in his ears. When he had heard the janitor speak he had feared the worst. But knowing these men were from the government changed everything.

The janitor was just that. A janitor. In his panic Yakamoto had misheard the man's accent.

He might be arrested. But there was nothing he could be charged with. He had not done anything yet.

Probably deportation. He would be sent back to Japan. A failure, yes. Probably fired from his job. But he would be alive. And at the moment he realized that there were things far worse than personal disgrace.

Feeling the tension of months of subterfuge drain from his narrow shoulders, Toshimi Yakamoto offered no resistance as the trio led him back up the road to the small complex of buildings.

He assumed they were going to the security room to call the police. Ahead, he saw the closed gate in the chain-link fence that led to the Vaporizer.

No, not closed. Open now. Which was very strange, since Yakamoto was certain he had locked up everything tight before leaving a few minutes earlier. He must have left them open, since the gates could only be opened by special access codes.

The security building was a simple concrete salt box at the edge of the main road. The fear returned full-blown when the group bypassed the building and headed for the open gate to the Vaporizer.

"No," Yakamoto whined in disbelief as they propelled him up along the alley formed by the high hurricane fence.

"No!" he cried louder when they forced him toward the sprawling black deck of the Vaporizer. "No!" he screamed when they shoved him through.

The frictionless black deck was slicker than ice. Without the special boots over his shoes, Yakamoto's feet went out from under him. He landed roughly on his back. Forward momentum skimmed him across the surface of the deck. He only realized that the inner fence directly around the pit had been rolled back when he slipped out into open air. The scientist felt a horrible instant of weightlessness.

Then he fell.

The pit walls tapered halfway down. Yakamoto hit the wall hard. Something snapped in his right leg. Daggers of pain shot from his shin as he rolled to the floor of the pit.

He fell onto something soft. In the darkness he couldn't see what it was.

All around was black. When he looked up he saw stars.

"Let me out, please!" he screamed.

His reply was a gentle hum of electricity from the walls. As the sound grew, lights winked on all around him. Tiny dots of yellow arranged in perfect little lines stretching around the four walls of the deep pit.

The nozzle lights illuminated the floor of the pit. He saw what it was he had landed on.

Dr. Hiro Taki was cold in death. The scientist's mouth yawned wide from his last moment of shock and pain.

When Toshimi Yakamoto saw the dead man's belly, his own mouth dropped in shock.

Dr. Taki's stomach wasn't there. There was a wide hole from sternum to pelvis. A perfect circle had been carved through from front to back. Whatever had hollowed him out had somehow cauterized the wound. No blood or organs spilled into the vacant, ghastly circle.

The hum grew in intensity. "Stop, please!"

Yakamoto was begging, crying.

He hopped on his uninjured leg, scratching at the walls. There was nothing to hold on to. There were no handholds. The nozzles were rounded stubs. In his clawing desperation he tore off a fingernail. He screamed in fresh pain.

By now the air around him was humming like a furious wasp. In all the tests he had never before heard the sound. Somewhere in his terrified brain he realized that sound could not escape the Vaporizer pit once the machine was switched on. He didn't care. He cried and screamed.

The sound was sucked to silence from his parted lips.

And then was a sudden stillness. Yakamoto held his breath.

And all around nozzle tips flashed to brilliant white.

Stars in a midnight sky, impossibly close. Burning, flaring. The light exploded from every point, all around-dizzying, blinding. And he was suddenly part of the light, and the light was accepting him into it.

Toshimi Yakamoto felt a strange whooshing vibration as his molecules rattled apart. As the world compressed and stretched into a single living stream, the black wall suddenly flew up to meet him. A single glowing nozzle tip burst in warm light all around him.

And then he was in the light and gone.

The black walls of eternity closed in around Toshimi Yakamoto. There was a weird out-of-body experience as he traveled through an endless black tunnel. It seemed to take forever, but he knew that it was only the wink of an eye.

The tunnel opened, the whooshing stopped and Toshimi Yakamoto found himself looking at other stars.

These stars weren't regimented like the false stars of the Vaporizer. These were the real thing, scattered randomly throughout the twinkling night sky.

The warm breeze touched the swaying tops of tropical trees. Though dry, it felt wet on his skin. When he looked, he saw why.

What should have been skin was now a damp mass of reddish blue, a human husk stripped and turned inside out. Fused bones of rib and spine curled in horrid shapes from pulsing, exposed organs.

There was no horror. In fact, Toshimi Yakamoto didn't mind at all.

The brain had gone the way of the body, twisted in shapes that no longer comprehended pain. When the end came, it came without understanding. The final breath wheezed out, and the quivering mass simply died.

And on the growing mountain of garbage, the rats came tentatively out of hiding. To feast on the inhuman jumble of flesh and organs that in life had been one of the brightest minds of Japan's Nishitsu Corporation.

Chapter 13

The Caribbean sun rose yellow and beautiful in a cloudless dawn. Petrovina Bulganin watched it sneak over the horizon as if it were a skulking enemy.

This mission was proving more of a nuisance than she had thought it would be. It wasn't just the side trip to the Vaporizer where she was doing the work of the SVR. It was the company she was being forced to keep.

The men on the Russian fishing trawler were blockish, simple-minded things. They lumbered around the deck doing their best to ignore the woman in their midst. As she watched them, she wondered if KGB idiocy was contagious.

Suspicions that extended to the center of the solar system were not typical for Petrovina Bulganin of the Institute, Petrovina Bulganin, formerly of the SVR. That sort of mindless distrust for everyone and everything was an old KGB trait. It was definitely her companions who were making Petrovina suspicious of the sunrise.

They looked ridiculous. Though at sea, they each wore the badly tailored black business suits of the former KGB. And not one of the fools realized how silly he looked.

Although it could have been worse, she decided. For a moment she pictured them in matching black swimming trunks, black socks and dress shoes, their shoulder holsters and guns leaving sunburn lines in their pale flesh.

This was the fault of Russia's current president. The man was former KGB and so trusted almost no one but former KGB. His entourage for the coming Globe Summit consisted almost entirely of Soviet-era KGB dinosaurs drafted from the ranks of the modern SVR. And so Petrovina was forced to work with them or no one.

Petrovina stood on the deck of the trawler. In the distance was floating Garbage City. The foreign scows and other sea traffic had been ordered from the area where the two boats had gone down. There wasn't strict enforcement. Petrovina's trawler had sailed in unmolested.