Warren Murphy - Waste Not, Want Not

Unseen by the roadblocks up ahead, Remo dragged the Cuban leader out of the car, stuffing him in the trunk.

By the time he got in the back seat, Chiun had already persuaded the driver to continue without question. The Cuban behind the wheel was driving with one hand. The other arm hung limp at his side. He gritted his teeth against the pain.

They kept the tinted windows rolled up tight. Remo, Chiun and Petrovina were waved through the roadblocks and onto the main grounds. At the site they abandoned the limo, racing for the fenced-in Vaporizer.

The two Masters of Sinanju could already feel the thrum of power from the machine. It was the same buildup they'd felt during the test two days previous. "It's close to going off," Remo warned.

Luckily the rest of the dignitaries and reporters had been herded into the visitors' center. There were only a few guards and security personnel near the main gate. When they saw the small trio racing toward them, the men drew guns.

There was no time to argue. Remo and Chiun swept into their midst, fingers and palms putting to sleep all who came at them. As the men toppled left and right, Remo yelled over his shoulder at Petrovina.

"Get to the control booth! Try to shut it down!" She nodded, scooping up the pistol of a fallen Secret Service agent. She ran through the open gate and up the narrow, fenced-in corridor that separated the main driveway from the exterior Vaporizer wall.

Remo and Chiun quickly removed the remaining guards. The last man had not yet hit the ground when they were flying through the fence to the Vaporizer wall. Near the bin with the protective boots waited Jack James's disciples.

Only eight of the twelve remained. They had been ordered to hold their ground and not let anyone inside.

"The Lord shall punish the wicked!" one man shouted as the group assembled around Remo and Chiun, weapons drawn.

"Show of hands for whoever has heard enough of that crapola," Remo said. One hand rose. It, as well as the arm that went with it, was no longer attached to its owner.

Remo tossed the arm to the ground, taking out the one-armed gunman with a sweeping toe. He and Chiun flew through the rest. When the last disciple had fallen, the two Masters of Sinanju raced to the sealed Vaporizer door.

They could feel the hum coming through the black wall.

"Stay here, Little Father," Remo said.

The old man shook his head. "We go together."

"Can't risk it. Not both of us in there."

"I expect your superior knowledge of garbage to save me," the wizened Korean sniffed, reaching for the door.

"This isn't a debate," Remo snapped. "I'm Reigning Master. It's my decision. I need you out here."

Chiun saw the look of determination on his pupil's face. Jaw tightening, the Reigning Master of Sinanju Emeritus nodded sharp agreement. "Have a care," he warned.

Despite his concern, Chiun felt his heart swell. It was a moment of great import. Significant not just in Sinanju, but throughout the history of mankind. Fathers and sons. The passing of authority from one generation to the next.

Remo didn't seem to realize it. Like all the young, he was too concerned with the present.

Remo's face was grim. Whirling, the latest Reigning Master of Sinanju reached for the door.

THE PRESIDENT of the United States never dreamed he would meet his end like this.

Mayanan Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume had apparently gone insane. The President could see the crazed man's shadowy face peering down from the control booth.

There was nowhere to go. No way to call for help. The President and the other world leaders were effectively standing inside the Vaporizer. The President had seen the device being demonstrated on television. He understood what was about to happen to all of them.

Many of the others couldn't seem to accept the inevitable. Across the deck they kicked and screamed, pummeling one another with fists as they pounded on the door.

As the lights glowed brighter all around, the President stood his ground, determined to meet his end as a man.

In his mind he recited the Lord's Prayer. He didn't know he was speaking the words aloud until he heard the prime minister of Great Britain saying them alongside him.

The two men glanced at each other. The President gave a smile and a sharp nod. As he did so, he heard fresh shouts from over near the sliding door.

The other world leaders were backing fearfully away from the door, babbling in dozens of languages. As the President watched, hope tripping deep inside his chest, the door began to bow inward. The regimented lines of glowing lights stretched out across the bubbling surface.

With a shriek the door burst off its sliding track. Men scattered. Trailing wires, the door slid across the deck, bouncing off the chain-link fence and skittering away.

A man appeared behind it. With dark, deep-set eyes, he viewed the stumbling, panicked world leadership.

"There's six billion people out here who'll probably want to lynch me for this," Remo Williams grumbled.

And with an unhappy scowl, Remo grabbed the collars of two nearby diplomats.

With a sharp tug, the chief of government of the Principality of Liechtenstein and the president of South Africa were dropped to their backsides. The deck was black ice. The two men zipped across the frictionless surface and disappeared through the opening.

And like a shot, Remo launched himself out on the deck.

He had not donned a pair of frictionless boots. Forward momentum carried him on sliding soles. He snagged the prime minister of Niger and the president of Honduras. Both men were launched back across the deck.

Outside the open doorway, Chiun grabbed these two as he had the first. The old Korean stopped them, stacked them to one side and spun back just in time to accept the next pair.

Inside the Vaporizer, Remo was picking up speed. They flew in his wake-blurs of presidents, prime ministers, princes and kings. He banked off each set, changing direction in a slivered second, flying off to the next.

By the time he reached the President of the United States, prime minister of England and president of Russia, Remo was a barely visible blur.

Each man felt a sharp tug. In the next instant he was flying through the door of the Vaporizer and into the flashing hands of the former Reigning Master of Sinanju.

And in a flash Remo was off to the next set of world leaders, ever mindful of the awesome manmade power that was swelling up all around him.

AT FIRST JACK JAMES didn't see the commotion down on the upper level of the Vaporizer. He had been preoccupied watching the monitor. The device was nearly powered up.

When he glanced down, he blinked in shock. There were fewer men than had been there just a moment before.

Impossible. There was no way out. He had sealed the door himself. They couldn't have broken out. And yet there were definitely fewer world leaders on the deck.

As he watched in amazement, more vanished. It couldn't be. The device wasn't yet ready. Blurs across the deck. On the security camera he caught sight of men appearing through the door. The open door.

In that moment the impossible registered in his dull mind. Something was throwing the men to safety.

There was still a way. He had hoped to savor his victory, hoped to live to tell the tale. But the fools didn't know. Jack James would go, but he would take them all with him. And Jack James was eternal. Jack James was light. Yes, he would die this day but, after, he would live forever in glory while all the other, lesser beings were thrown into the dark, there to wail and gnash their teeth.

A light flashed green. The Vaporizer was at full power. James reached for the keyboard, tapping a single key. The instant he did so, a voice shouted at his back.