Warren Murphy - Waste Not, Want Not

"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.