Warren Murphy - Waste Not, Want Not

"It leads there?" Smith asked.

Mark Howard smiled. "Wait," he said excitedly. "Get a load of this."

Typing swiftly, he pulled up another enlarged picture, this one from the valley. It was a super-close-range photo of a single item that had been isolated on the ground.

When Smith saw the familiar image on the screen, he blinked surprise. Assuming he had made a mistake, he leaned in, peering more closely at the picture.

The image was not quite right, but it was clear enough.

"It's a car," the CURE director said, puzzled. Howard nodded. "Pretty mangled. I'd say it had to be in an accident, but it doesn't look like it was damaged in a crash. The metal's not crumpled and there's no shattered glass. It just looks sort of rearranged. See that shiny stuff on the hood? I think that's the windshield. Or was."

Where Mark Howard pointed, a thick, clear, uneven substance looked to have thawed and congealed on the hood. It had the rough, rolling edges of solidified lava.

"It appears to have melted," Smith said.

"I thought so, too. We can't see too well from this angle, but it looks like that tire has fused with the fender. And right there. See that?" He pointed to a small rectangle on the car's roof.

Dragging a magnifying glass icon over the spot, Howard clicked to enlarge it. The image of a license plate appeared in great detail. It looked as if it had been grafted to the roof. Smith could clearly make out the numbers.

"I ran the plate through the New Briton driver registry," Howard said. "The car belonged to a guy named Toshimi Yakamoto. He was a Japanese scientist who worked on the Vaporizer." He glanced up at the CURE director. "Someone reported him missing yesterday morning."

Smith's frown deepened. "I suppose he could have driven up that road and gotten lost or injured. If so, we should report this to the proper Mayanan authorities. Still, it doesn't explain what happened to his vehicle."

"This might help," Howard said anxiously.

With great enthusiasm he attacked his keyboard. He expanded from the image of the license plate by rapid degrees. The car briefly filled the monitor once more. The picture quickly enlarged to encompass a wide area around the car. When he was done, Mark sat back in his chair, careful to keep his head from bumping the near wall. There was a flush of giddy triumph on his wide face.

Smith's mouth opened a shocked sliver. A cloud of dark confusion passed across his gray features. The car sat on a mound of heaped bags and paper. All manner of metal and plastic jutted crazily from everywhere around the pile. Since it was a still image taken from above, Smith could distinctly see the backs and outstretched wings of several seagulls frozen in flight as they swooped over the piles.

Smith tore his eyes off the screen, glancing in confusion at his young assistant.

"Trash," the CURE director said, frowning.

Howard nodded. "Tons of it," he said. "It looks like a big blur from above because it's pretty much shapeless. It almost looks like that's where they're dumping everything they're bringing up to the Vaporizer."

"How?" Smith asked. "They aren't using that road. It's far too narrow and remote. And there are no others up into the hills. Besides, they are driving to the device on public roads. They would be missed if they detoured for as long as it would take them to get all the way up there."

"I know," Howard said, pursing his lips in thought. "I've tracked some of the trucks off and on today. They go from the harbor, up to the Vaporizer, dump their stuff in and then go back down." He crossed his arms, frustrated. "Unless they found some way to beam it up there from down below, it's getting vaporized, just like they claim."

Smith raised an eyebrow. "Beam?" he asked. Howard had learned this about his employer early on. The CURE director knew little about popular culture.

"From a TV show, Dr. Smith," Howard said. "They could transport matter from one spot to another." He was peering at his screen. "I don't know. I thought this might be something, but it must just be an old dump," he concluded. "It's probably stuff they've been dumping there for years. Doesn't have anything to do with the Vaporizer. Still, I'd like to know how that car got all the way out there."

He was still staring at his screen when he heard a soft hiss of air beside him. When he glanced up he saw a flush of color on his employer's normally gray face.

"The scientist you mentioned," Smith pressed urgently. "The one whose car that was. You said he was Japanese. Did you research him-specifically employment history?"

"Some," Howard said. He pulled up the file on Toshimi Yakamoto. "Not much here. Hired a year ago by the government of Mayana. Before that he worked for fifteen years for the Nishitsu Corporation of Japan. I can do more if you'd like."

Smith was shaking his head. There was a look of quiet triumph on his face.

"Of course," he said. "It all makes sense."

Mark Howard looked from Smith to the monitor, then back to Smith once more. "It does?"

The CURE director shooed the younger man from his seat. Mark Howard stood back in the tight corner as Smith sat down before the raised monitor. The older man's hands flew over the keyboard, keys clattering madly.

"I gave you some research material from our old files after you came to work here," Smith explained while he typed. "Out of necessity I condensed much of it," He finished with a flourish. "Here it is. Read this file. It's more complete than what I gave you before. Digest the broad details as quickly as you can. Skim the rest for now. When you are finished, meet me in my office."

He vacated Howard's chair. The younger man was slipping back in the seat as Smith hurried back into the hallway.

The CURE director marched back to his own office. He slipped into his own familiar chair and grabbed up the blue contact phone. From memory, he called Remo's hotel room directly.

There was no answer. He tried the number a few more times before calling the main desk. Remo and Chiun had not returned, nor had they checked out yet.

That was at least a good sign. Remembering that Rema had checked in by cell phone, Smith spun to his computer.

When he turned up the brightness an the monitor, he found the picture of Mayanan Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume smiling on the tarmac of the New Briton airport.

Feeling a stir of something in the back of his brain, Smith dumped the picture, activating CURE's tracer program.

He quickly traced the line Remo had used to report in. He was concerned to find that the phone was registered to a Russian telephone service.

Smith tried the number several times.

No answer. Knowing Remo, he had most likely tossed the phone in the trash once he was through with it.

Smith was sitting back in his chair and frowning in deep frustration when Mark Howard entered his office. The young man was shaking his head in amazement.

"You read the material?" Smith asked.

"Enough," Howard said. "You sure about this?"

Smith nodded crisply. "It all fits," he said.

Mark seemed to still be digesting everything he had just read. "How did all this end up down there?"

"I have a good idea on that, as well," Smith said, tapping a frustrated hand on his desk. "Fortunately this is not necessarily a major problem. Not for CURE anyway. As long as Remo is down there, I would like to have him confirm my suspicions before he leaves."

He reached once more for the contact phone. Maybe Remo had returned to his hotel by now.

"I can see them choosing that valley," Howard mused. "It's the perfect site. That's the exact spot where Jamestown was. No one's allowed out there."

Smith already knew the location of Jamestown. Yet it took someone else speaking the word aloud for the little nagging doubt that had been playing persistently at the edges of his mind to finally crystallize.