Jack James stood on a platform supervising the operation. He wore an untucked dress shirt buttoned to the collar and a pair of dark aviator's glasses. He watched in satisfaction as the second step of his plan was carried out.
"It's the only way for us," he shouted over the public-address system. "The haters of light draw near. The United States government is rallying its evil might against us in the name of the unholy one! We do this now to rob the wicked of their prize!"
James continued to cheer them on even as they dropped like flies, courtesy of the cyanide he had added as a special ingredient to their fruit punch.
Not everyone wanted to drink. These were dealt with by the twelve heavily armed members of Jack James's security forces.
It took just over an hour.
Once phase two was complete, phase three was quickly put into action.
There were time constraints now. The dead congressman had already been to New Briton. The government there would eventually send someone to look for him.
The bodies of the men and women who had followed their god to South America had already begun to putrefy in the hot Mayanan sunlight as James and his trusted apostles opened the door to the forbidden barn. Inside was a neatly stacked row of thirteen bodies. All had been prepared earlier that day.
They had been selected for their looks. Each body bore a physical resemblance to one of his security agents. Beaten faces and mangled fingertips would prevent positive identification. All wore a special People's Sanctum tag, identifying them as Jack James's chosen disciples.
"Are you sure this will work?" one of the men asked as he dragged his own double into the sunlight. Jack James smiled. "Ye of little faith," he said, removing his aviator's glasses.
It was Jack James the authorities would be looking for. One of the corpses was thin, for he had been worked hard over the past few years, but his resemblance to Jack James was still uncanny. He had the same general facial features. The same hair color, same build.
James put his sunglasses on the corpse. His wallet had already been stuffed in the pocket of the man's trousers. There was no record of Jack James's fingerprints anywhere. He had never been in the military, and he had fled the United States before he had been arrested for his crimes there. The dead man had a similarly clean record. His face was bruised only slightly and his fingers were left intact.
God knew that it would be enough to fool Satan. James and his followers left the look-alike corpses and escaped into the hills of Mayana. When the authorities arrived, they found exactly what Jack James wanted them to find-a cult leader who had forced his followers to commit suicide, killing himself, as well, rather than go to prison. It was instant frontpage news.
The legend of Jamestown flared brightly for a time. But news was an ongoing search for fresh blood. As time went on, Jack James was tossed on history's dusty heap of infamous psychotics.
And while the mass suicide he had engineered became the stuff of twisted legend, the real Jack James hid out in a small village in the dense Mayanan jungle. After a year in exile, he ventured out of the forest into New Briton.
James found a gifted plastic surgeon, a British expatriate who had left England under unpleasant circumstances. The man asked few questions. A few years and several operations later-with the bandages off, the scars long healed and the bruises faded away-Jack James emerged from the jungle as politician Blythe Curry-Hume. A true man of the people. A patient man, he started small. A handshake here, a small village meeting there. As the years went on, the drip-drip-drip of personal appearances swelled into a river.
It didn't take a great effort to establish a trust with the disaffected element of the Mayanan population. His years in the wilderness had not diminished his ability to weave his charismatic spell. He became champion of the common folk.
The rest took longer. Over time, Blythe Curry-Hume graduated to bigger cities, larger crowds. And when the time was right, he made the final move from the fringes of Mayanan politics. It was a journey of almost two decades.
The Almighty was slow to anger and righteous in his wrath. As executive president, Blythe Curry-Hume's platform was a simple one. He wanted revenge. Revenge against the world that had banished him. Revenge against those who thought him mad. Revenge against the wicked mortals who had persecuted him. And, fittingly, God's scheme of vengeance was truly great.
James had constructed his instrument of revenge on the old Jamestown site. And the fenced-off valley where his followers had met their end hid a special secret.
Finance Minister Carlos Whitehall still thought the Vaporizer Project was his own idea. He resented Blythe Curry-Hume as an interloper who had stepped into office after the project had already been started. The fool.
Carlos Whitehall was a tool, to be used and discarded. A scapegoat if one became necessary. The same was true for all of Mayana if it came to that. But it would not come to that.
They were all unwitting pawns. Every last one of them going about their prearranged parts in a play written in blood by a madman who alone knew the final act. And when revenge came, the world would be rocked to its molten core and the heavens would rain fire.
THERE WASN'T A SIGN of fire in the beautiful clear blue sky as Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume watched the heavens. Along with his entourage, he stood on the tarmac of New Briton International Airport. The sun warmed his upturned face, glinting off his sunglasses.
The plane appeared as a dot, growing larger along with its fighter-jet escort. Curry-Hume watched as it landed and taxied slowly to a stop on the main runway.
Curry-Hume stood more erect as the air stairs were rolled up to the plane.
Soon, very soon.
At his side Finance Minister Carlos Whitehall stood at attention. The fussy older man seemed irritated that there were others from the Mayanan government there to intrude on what was actually his moment in the spotlight. Curry-Hume noted the minister's irritation.
No clue whatsoever that he was a minor player. The fool, manipulated by the king.
"Is everything all right, sir?" Minister Whitehall asked, concerned.
"Couldn't be better," Curry-Hume replied. "Why?"
"Well, sir, your smile. It-" Whitehall shook his head. "Never mind."
Blythe Curry-Hume hadn't even been aware he was smiling. A grin of wicked triumph had stretched across his tan face, drawing tight the face-lifted skin at the back of his jaw. A few eyes had turned his way, brows raised. News cameras clicked and whirred in his direction.
The executive president relaxed his smile. Patience, patience...
Men in black suits with radio receivers in their ears swarmed around the ramp. When the all-clear was given, a lone figure finally emerged from the plane.
The man waved to the crowds at the airport before climbing down the stairs.
Blythe Curry-Hume was there to meet him. The executive president of Mayana extended his hand. "Welcome to Mayana, my friend," said Jack James to the President of the United States.
Chapter 24
A series of afternoon thunderstorms swept down from upstate New York, bringing heavy rain and wind. Thunderclaps rattled windows for two hours as people from Westchester County to the Bronx ran to catch runaway lawn furniture and trash barrels. As quickly as they had come, the fast-moving storms blew out to sea, leaving eerie calm in their wake.
As usual, in the sparse office of Harold Smith the severe weather had gone all but unnoticed. If the one-way glass of his picture window had been shattered by a blown tree branch, Smith would have donned a slicker against the gale-force winds and hunkered back down at his computer, ignoring the driving rain on his back.
The storm was several miles out to sea. Soft thunder still rumbled angrily in the distance. The late-afternoon sun was peeking out from behind the black-streaked clouds high above the whitecapped waters of Long Island Sound.
Smith's secretary had already left for the evening. After remaining at Folcroft the previous night, Smith was exhausted. He intended
to leave soon, as well. But there was something that made him linger.
Something scratching at the back of his mind that would not let him go.
He wasn't sure what it could be. All the loose ends seemed to be tied up. The submarine had been taken care of. The crew was in custody. Smith had phoned the President early that morning, clearing the chief executive for his trip to the Globe Summit. Remo and Chiun would soon be home.
So why did Smith still sit?
As a rule he didn't believe in hunches. Harold Smith preferred to truck in cold, hard fact. But there were rare occasions, going back to his days in the OSS in World War II, where Smith had felt the lure of intuition. Being a man not ordinarily given to hunches or even simple imagination, when Smith had a hunch it usually meant something.
Before shutting down his computer for the night, Smith pulled up the Mayanan file.
The file was still active. The CURE mainframes were still drawing information related to the Mayanan situation and dumping them in the growing file. There were a few newer entries since the last time Smith had checked.
News out of Russia on the background of the Novgorod's captain. The Russian president commenting on the situation on his way from Moscow to the Globe Summit. Still no mention of Nikolai Garbegtrov's involvement.
There was a story on the U.S. President's arrival in New Briton. A picture with the story showed the President shaking hands at the airport with Mayana Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume. Smith noted with a frown that Curry-Hume was wearing sunglasses.
Aside from backwater dictatorships, one rarely saw world leaders wearing sunglasses at important meetings. Men preferred to look one another in the eye at such events. But the sun at the airport did seem bright, at least in the photo. Most of the men with Curry-Hume were squinting.
Probably just an unintentional gaffe by Mayana's new leader. And an understandable one, given the fact that his small country had suddenly drawn international attention.
Smith was going, to close out the file, but something about the picture made him linger. He was still staring at the image when a message suddenly popped up on his screen: Dr. Smith, could you come to my office for a minute?
Casting one last, puzzled look at the picture of Blythe Curry-Hume and the American President, Smith turned down the brightness on his monitor. The picture darkened. Leaving the computer on, he went down the hall.
Mark Howard generally worked with his door locked. He had unlocked it for Smith and was just sitting back down behind his desk when the CURE director entered.
"What is it, Mark?"
"I found something, Dr. Smith," Howard said excitedly. "Though I'm not sure what it means. Take a look at this."
Howard's desk was a sturdy oak slab too large for his small office. Smith had to sidestep to get in behind it.
Unlike Smith's hidden desk unit, Howard's monitor and keyboard sat on top of the desk. A recessed stud could be used to lower them below the surface.
Standing next to his assistant's chair, Smith peered at Mark's computer screen.
"I've been going over blowups of those satellite images like you asked me to," the assistant CURE director said, tapping at his keyboard. "Here." A picture popped up on his screen. It was in clear focus with sharp lines, cleaned up by special software. "Here's the road we saw above the Vaporizer. Take a look at what's next to it."
Mark had drawn red circles around two objects on the ground. They might have been mistaken for trees from far off. At close range it was clear what they were.
"Telephone poles?" Smith asked. "That should all be uninhabited jungle. There aren't any settlements in that region."
"I double-checked that, too, just to be sure. There aren't. But those are definitely telephone poles. And right there." He tapped the screen between the poles where a few thin black threads stretched from one to the next. "I think this is where your fiber-optic cables went. But what they're doing with them out in the middle of nowhere is a mystery to me. Look. See where they run off here into the jungle?"
Mark quickly accessed several close-up pictures that he had prepared earlier. In breaks in the dense jungle foliage he showed glimpses of the continuing road-now unpaved and rutted. There were underlined markings on each photo to show the telephone wires running parallel to the road.
"It goes clear up the hill," Howard said.
Smith was intrigued. "It can't be a government installation," he mused. "I pulled all those records at the start of the crisis. If it's a secret, it's not one tied to their defense forces."
"I think it's something else. Lemme show you." Howard pulled up a wider image of the Mayanan satellite picture in order to give Smith a clearer idea where the road headed. He had traced a path up the mountainside, through a ravine and into the valley beyond. The strange grayish blot at the edge of the valley that had caught the eye of both men earlier that morning reappeared.
"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.
Waste Not, Want Not td-130 Page 20
