"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.
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.