The telephone poles fanned out in either direction, forming a semicircle around the near end of the valley, connected by cables. At the top of each pole a black box that looked like a miniature outdoor speaker was directed down into the valley.
"The demolecularized trash we sent up from the Vaporizer traveled the cable and was redirected back out through those," Sears explained. As the four of them climbed out of the Jeep, he pointed up at the boxes on the poles.
In the distance some trash had materialized on trees, bending them low. In most places it had obliterated the local flora. The valley floor was a growing mountain of trash. Seagulls flew above while rats played on the piles.
"Your great work," Remo said acidly.
"I didn't invent it," Sears said defensively as he looked down on the valley. "They brought the technology to me. They needed a public face to keep the secret. I learned enough to keep it running, but I didn't come up with it."
"Yes, your secret," Petrovina spat. "That you did all this with technology stolen from Russia." Remo had kept quiet on the subject for the ride up. He shook his head firmly.
"Only after Russia stole it from Japan," he insisted.
He spoke with utter certainty. Both Sears and Petrovina saw the confident cast of his face. As he looked out across the valley, Chiun nodded agreement.
"What are you talking about?" Petrovina demanded.
"Russia doesn't do complex, Petrovina," Remo explained. "Russia does clumsy. Tanks and trucks and missiles that rattle apart as soon as they're driven off the showroom floor. Russia can't build a toaster small enough to fit in your garage. If they can't build it with hammers, they can't build it. This was the Japanese. If you want specifics, it was the Nishitsu Corporation that came up with all this."
Both Sears and Petrovina knew the company well. Nishitsu was huge. Like most people in the West, they each owned several Nishitsu appliances.
"How do you know?" Petrovina asked skeptically.
"Because we've had experience with this stuff," Remo replied.
And he told them about a man both Remo and Chiun had encountered before. A man who wore a suit that could compress atoms and redirect them through telephone lines. The suit had been developed in Japan by Nishitsu and stolen by the Russians. Twice Remo and Chiun had gone up against a Russian in the suit. One time they had met a Japanese who worked for the corporation that had developed it.
Petrovina remained skeptical, but Mike Sears was nodding with growing enthusiasm.
"The suit," he said excitedly, eyes wide with interest. "You actually saw it? I mean, you saw it work?"
"It was a thing of evil," Chiun said coldly. He made a point of tucking his long fingernails deep inside the sleeves of his kimono.
"Wow," Sears said. "I never saw it myself. It was in the specs he brought. There were schematics and everything. We were able to reverse-engineer the technology from the data he stole and adapt it to the Vaporizer."
"You are saying this is true?" Petrovina asked.
"It's basically the same thing," Sears said, nodding. "Only on a much bigger scale. We were redirecting a lot more matter than is present in a single human being. No sweat, because the fiber-optic lines gave us much more capacity than even we needed. The only real problem was that the suit was built to protect the wearer. It reconstructed on the far end after transport because the matter was contained. Our open version couldn't reconstruct like that. Not a problem for inanimate matter, but for organic material..."
His voice trailed off. He had seen the look on Remo's face.
Remo was peering down into the valley, his expression dark with disgust. Wordlessly he left the others, taking off down the hill.
"Where are you going?" Petrovina asked. She started after him, but Chiun held her back.
"Leave him be," the old Korean cautioned. "He cleans up the mess Russian meddling has wrought." Remo found his way down the stone slope to the valley floor. The trash stretched up high before him. He had spotted the deformed bundles from above. They decorated the nearer slope of the trash heap.
The Russian sailors from the Novgorod looked like mutated mockeries of human beings. Misshapen white bones jutted out like armor-plated spines on deformed dinosaurs. Uniforms were intermingled with flesh. Buttons were fused to the exposed radius of one man's twisted forearm.
From the mound of garbage, Remo heard a pathetic wheezing. He quickly scaled the pile. Gennady Zhilnikov had survived the process. The Russian submarine captain was deformed almost beyond recognition. Yet there was a glimmer of human intelligence in his pleading eyes. He held his arms out in prayer.
Remo killed him gently, mercifully.
Afterward he went through the others, checking for signs of life. No more had survived.
Just to be certain he searched for the body of Jack James. He found the Mayanan executive president lying dead on a rotting heap of trash, his head haloed by his own twisted limbs.
Turning, he hiked back up the hill. The others were waiting for him in the Jeep.
"I guess they just don't make gods like they used to," Remo announced as he climbed into the passenger seat.
As seagull squawks echoed loud and shrill across the valley behind them, the Jeep turned lazily around. They headed back down the rutted ravine path.
Chapter 33
They had no choice but to release him.
Ever since Nikolai Garbegtrov had been trundled through the high gates of the Russian embassy in New Briton, his Green Earth followers had been gathering outside. They set up tents, lit candles, carried signs, sang protest songs.
The mob was growing, and it was getting ugly. They were demanding the release of the former premier.
The Russians had planned to spirit their traitorous former leader back home to a prison cell and a lengthy sentence. But this was a new era. And with cameras lined up beyond the gates, the entire world was watching.
They couldn't let the world see them dragging the screeching Garbegtrov from the building, couldn't risk a riot breaking out. In the end the Russians caved to the pressure of the protesters.
When Nikolai Garbegtrov stepped out the front gate in the company of two Green Earth elders, a cheer rose up.
The former Russian leader was wearing a white cap with the green Green Earth emblem on the front.
The men with him wore identical caps. So did many in the crowd. The caps were made from 100% recycled material. Garbegtrov loved recycling. Garbegtrov loved Mother Earth.
The ex-premier raised his hands in victory. "Hello, friends!" Garbegtrov yelled to the crowd. The crowd yelled back. There was love in Garbegtrov's eyes. There was love right back at him in the eyes of the protesters, his people. Everyone loved everyone.
Garbegtrov was about to speak of his confinement. To tell those gathered about the hardships and horrors he had endured during his day of captivity. Hours during which he had been warm and fed, unlike the people who had suffered years in freezing hunger in gulags while he had presided, fat and uncaring, over old Soviet Russia.
He was going to say many things, but something strange suddenly happened.
Garbegtrov saw something small and slow flying toward him from the direction of the street. So slow was it that he could clearly see that it was a small pebble.
It was an odd thing to see a pebble fly. Odder still when it seemed to abruptly pick up speed and bank upward.
The instant the pebble disappeared, the former Soviet premier felt the warm sun on his head. But that wasn't right. Sunlight had not touched his scalp in many months. It could only be doing so now if...
With sudden shock, he felt for his hat. His hand touched skin. He turned, horrified, to the crowd.