Warren Murphy - Waste Not, Want Not

REMO'S CAR SQUEALED to a stop at the rear gate of the Mayanan presidential mansion. As it rocked on its shocks, he and Chiun were already out the doors and racing to the gate.

Two uniformed guards tried to stop them. Remo put them to sleep and dumped them in the bushes while Chiun kicked open the gate. The old man swirled inside, Remo behind him.

They met no other guards on their way to the building.

"I don't like the looks of this," Ramo said. "This place is like a ghost town."

"The Reigning Master of Sinanju Emeritus fears neither ghosts nor living men," Chiun intoned. Ducking beneath the shadow of a long canopy, the old Korean cracked the shatterproof doors that led into the mansion. Sheets of bulletproof glass imploded, crashing to the floor and scattering like glistening sand.

The sound finally attracted attention. Guards came running up the hall, rifles aimed at the two men who were charging toward them.

"Emeritus?" Remo asked as the men opened fire. He twisted and twirled around volleys of screaming lead.

"It is a title conferred on Masters who, while technically on the edge of the Time of Seclusion, still actively ply their trade," Chiun explained.

The guards were upon them. There were seven of them. Some dropped their rifles in favor of handguns. Others tried hand-to-hand attacks.

"How come I never heard of this before?" Remo asked suspiciously as he slapped a palm into a soldier's forehead. The man's eyes rolled back in his head and he slumped unconscious to the floor.

"If I am now expected to catalog those things which you do not know, I will have to plead with the gods to extend my life by another five hundred years," the old Korean replied. Darting hands slipped past the defenses of two charging, screaming men. Slender fingers pressed two throats and the men collapsed.

They made short work of the remaining guards. Leaving the men asleep on the floor, the two Masters of Sinanju flew for the stairs.

They found the presidential suite of offices all but deserted. Only one heartbeat issued from a back room. Remo kicked the door open. It screamed off its hinges, cracking to kindling against the far wall. The Mayanan president's office was empty.

They traced the heartbeat to a locked bathroom. Inside, Petrovina Bulganin was bound and gagged on the floor. The Russian agent had shattered the vanity mirror and was using a fragment to saw through the ropes at her wrists. Her hands and forearms were covered in blood.

On the floor near her was the male SVR agent she had brought along to help. The man had not fared as well as Petrovina. His skull had been fractured in several places. The body was rolled toward the wall.

When the door burst open, Petrovina looked up with fear. Her face quickly collapsed into relief. Chiun cut the ropes at her ankles and wrists with his long fingernails while Remo removed her gag. "Jack James!" she exhaled the instant the gag was loose. "He is alive!"

"Not for much longer," Remo replied coldly. "You know where he is? This place is deserted."

"He has gone to the Vaporizer site," Petrovina said, scrambling to her feet. "He was keeping me alive for his pleasure later on. I heard his plans. He will claim to give them a demonstration, but he intends to murder them all."

"Murder who?" Remo asked.

"Every leader in the world who is in Mayana," she answered. "World will be thrown into chaos. Governments will collapse. Panic could destabilize entire continents." There was a look of terrified urgency on her face.

"Every leader in the world, you say?" Remo asked, sitting down on the closed toilet lid.

"Yes," Petrovina replied sharply. "Hurry." She was edging anxiously for the door.

"Don't rush me," said Remo. "I'm thinking."

Chapter 29

From the window of the Vaporizer control shed, Jack James watched the frightened little men who thought they ruled the world. As the caps popped off the fully functioning upper level of the device and the lights of doom glowed brighter, the men and women tore at the walls. They screamed and climbed over one another in blind panic.

The walls were too smooth. There were no handholds. Thanks to distance and the weird soundproofing quality of the frictionless walls, their yelling wouldn't be heard by their staffs and the press gathered out in the parking lot.

Their cell phones had been confiscated. They'd been told that the devices could interfere with the operation of the Vaporizer. Trusting, wicked fools.

As the little men ran around in fear, James smiled. The sheep were scattering.

The history of this day would be written in blood on scrolls for wicked mankind. They would call it Judgment Day. The day that he, Jack James-Almighty Jack James-punished the evildoers for their sins and washed clean the face of the earth. It was the Flood, the rapture, the expulsion from Paradise.

All the sins of the world were concentrated in the hands of these, the stewards of this modern Sodom. With a calm that chilled the cold air-conditioned room, Jack James glanced down at the control monitor. The power levels were nearly at maximum. Only a few minutes more.

He was glad he had told them to simplify the Vaporizer commands. At the moment he was the only one there who could operate the device.

In the corner of the room lay Mike Sears.

When he realized what the executive president of Mayana had in store for the crew of the Novgorod, the Milquetoast American scientist had grown a backbone. It hadn't been enough to withstand the mighty rod of persuasion.

James's precious cane hung on the edge of a table. He had kept it throughout his years in exile. Through a life of adversity and persecution.

Blood dribbled down from the scientist's forehead. Sears was unconscious. For his disloyalty, James would finish him off when this was over. Just a few minutes more.

James sat down in Sears's well-worn chair to await the end. As he watched, the last of the little lights continued to come to life. Just as the very first light had been brought into existence on that first long-ago day, the day Almighty Jack James created the heavens and the earth.

THE ROAD UP to the Vaporizer was jammed with abandoned cars. Buses were being used to cart reporters and lesser dignitaries to the site. When Remo and Chiun arrived with Petrovina, they found that only VIP limos were being allowed past the yellow sawhorses.

"They took my purse with my diplomatic identification back at presidential palace," Petrovina said, frustrated. "Have you ID?"

Remo was hardly listening as he glanced around. "My dog ate it," he said.

"There is no way we will get in," Petrovina said.

"I hope you are listening to this, Remo," Chiun said. "You who would invite all manner of Russian trailer trucks to drive into your bed should realize that if you make a baby with this one, it will inherit not only its mother's mustache and swollen ankles, it will get that optimism for which all Russians are famous."

Remo was looking down the road. "Not all Russians are bad, Little Father," he said absently. "Anna was okay."

Face tight, Petrovina glanced sharply at Remo. "That's right," Chiun said. "Drive the knife deeper into your poor old father's dying heart."

A limousine was driving up from New Briton. It had diplomatic plates. One of the attendees of the Globe Summit was arriving late for the Vaporizer test.

When the car drew past them, Remo reached over and popped open a rear door while Chiun opened the driver's door.

Remo found himself looking into the familiar bushy-bearded face of the president of Communist Cuba.

Remo had met the man years before. There was a flash of recognition. When he opened his mouth to scream, his cigar flopped out, scattering burning ash on his drab fatigues.

"Glad we don't need a reintroduction," Remo said. "C'mon, Fuzzy, move it o muerte."