Warren Murphy - Waste Not, Want Not

"Mr. President?"

The voice intruded on the President's private thoughts. He had been shaking hands with members of the Chinese delegation. He looked up to find Mayana's executive president standing before him. Some of the other world leaders had begun to gather around him.

"We're nearly ready for the demonstration," Blythe Curry-Hume said. "I'm sure you will find it fascinating."

With a friendly sweep of his arm, Jack James herded the world leaders through a nearby gate.

As he followed the Jamestown cult leader through the gates to the deck of the Vaporizer area, the President of the United States concentrated on controlling the smirk that so bedeviled and delighted members of the fourth estate.

REMO DUMPED Vlad Korkusku at the hospital in downtown New Briton around the corner from the presidential palace. After the injured Russian was wheeled off to surgery, Remo decided to try Smith again.

This time he didn't even bother to ask Chiun for the cell phone he was sure was still stashed up the old man's robes. Chiun was acting too weird and possessive to even try arguing. He went off and scraped up his own phone. He was back in a minute. He was happy when he managed to open it but stood blankly staring at the buttons for a long moment.

"Do you know what you are doing?" Chiun asked.

The two men stood near the glass-enclosed entrance to the emergency room. Outside, streetlights were winking on.

"Of course I do," Remo said. "A phone's a phone." He stared at the cell phone for a few more seconds.

"You have to press those little buttons," Chiun offered.

"I know that," Remo snapped.

He pressed some of the little buttons. Nothing happened.

"Nothing happened," Chiun pointed out.

Remo gave him a withering look. He tried pressing the buttons again, this time in a different combination. Still nothing. Frustrated, Remo collared a passing doctor and asked him for help.

"I think it's broken or the batteries are dead or something," Remo said as the balding man took the phone.

"No, no," the physician said with a helpful smile.

"See this little button here? You've got to hold that down for four seconds before you can make a call. That way it won't accidentally turn on if it's jostling around in your pocket. See? You're ready to make a call now. It's not that complicated really. I've got the same model."

"Thanks," Remo said, taking the cell phone back and feeling a little guilty for the fact that this nice and helpful man actually no longer had a phone like this one, since it was his pocket Remo had swiped the phone from in the first place.

Through some miracle he was able to place the call. He was amazed when Smith answered. "Remo, thank God," the CURE director blurted, his tart voice straining with barely controlled panic. When he heard Smith's tone, Remo's brow furrowed.

"What's wrong?"

"My God, he's still alive," Smith spluttered. "No one knows it. I tried to contact the President, but he will not take my calls. I almost issued a warning through some of the other governments there, but who would believe it? It sounds too incredible. But it's true. My God, I was helpless. If word got out, he might be alerted and do something rash."

"Deep breaths, Smitty. He who?"

"Jack James," Smith insisted. "He didn't commit suicide with his cult at Jamestawn. He is still alive."

Remo took a second to absorb the CURE director's words. "Is he still in Mayana?" he asked.

Smith blurted the whole story, as quickly and concisely as was humanly possible. When he was finished, Remo didn't bother to say goodbye. He tossed the phone into a trash can and whirled to his teacher. Chiun had heard everything. His parchment face held a look of deep concern.

"Next time I say I'm bored just hanging around Sinanju, remind me to take up basket weaving," Remo said.

Side by side, the two men raced out the emergency-room door and into the warm South American night.

THE WORLD LEADERS were asked to leave their entourages out in the parking lot. There was only a limited number of protective boots to go around, they were told, and this test would be a nice shared moment for the men who held the environmental fate of the world in all their hands.

The Vaporizer was just as most of them had seen on television. The black deck was surrounded on all sides by a wall made out of the same material that lined the pit. A chain-link fence prevented the men and women from falling in.

"What you witness here today is something the world will talk about long after you have all turned to dust," Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume promised as he ushered the last of the world leaders out onto the deck. "If you will all step to the fence. We will be ready to begin momentarily."

The President of the United States fell in with the prime minister of Britain and the president of Russia. The first few leaders had reached the fence. A ripple of confusion passed through the group as they looked in the pit. As the men and women glanced at one another-muttering in dozens of languages-another sound rose above them.

The President heard the muted sound of shouting voices.

"What's that?" he asked.

America's chief executive and the others hurried to the fence at the edge of the pit. When they looked down inside the Vaporizer, they were stunned to find not garbage, but human faces staring up at them.

Captain Gennady Zhilnikov and the rest of the crew of the ill-fated Novgorod looked pleadingly up at the world leaders.

"What is the meaning of this?" the President demanded. "Is this supposed to be some kind of sick joke?"

He turned to look for Mayanan Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume. Only then did he see that the black door had slid silently shut behind them, sealing them in. In the crowd of confused world leaders he didn't see the face of Mayana's executive president. And then he heard Curry-Hume's voice. It boomed at them over the public-address system.

"'And there was given to him the key of the bottomless pit,'" Curry-Hume recited in a tone suited more to a carnival revival meeting than a summit of world leaders. "'And he opened the bottomless pit and there came up smoke out of the pit like the smoke of a great furnace; and the sun and air were darkened by the smoke of the pit.'"

The President felt his blood run cold. There was no way out. The door was sealed. He glanced into the pit.

The crew of the Novgorod was growing more frantic. Some clawed at the walls. The President now saw why. The lights in the walls had gone from a dull glow to a brilliant white. The deck beneath their feet hummed with energy.

"'For they are spirits of demons working signs,'" Blythe Curry-Hume shouted, "'and they go forth unto the kings of the whole earth to gather them together for the battle on the great day of God almighty.' That day is upon us!"

There was a flash. White and all-consuming. And in a series of pops so fast they seemed to happen simultaneously, the crew of the Novgorod vanished from sight.

Even as understanding of what had just happened was sinking in, the world leaders had a fresh shock. All around the upper deck, little pressurized caps began popping off the walls, one at a time. Beneath the caps winked on the sightless eyes of glowing nozzles.

The realization fell softly over the crowd like a settling shroud. And like the crew of the Novgorod, many of the leaders of the world screamed and ran for the walls.

"'And there came forth a loud voice out of the temple from the throne, saying, "It has come to pass!" the man who had been Jack James cried out with joy.

And at the edge of the upper deck, a few of the leaders who held their ground-the President of the United States included-watched with stoic countenance as the little lights continued to twinkle to life in the walls all around.