"The cool kids always sit in the back," Remo suggested tactfully.
Chiun gave him a baleful look. With swats and shoves, he promptly expelled the seated men from the front, bullying them down the aisle and into the back.
When George Jiminez boarded the bus a minute later, he found most of the tour group cowering in fear in the back of the bus. Chiun sat directly behind the driver's seat, his face a mask of pure innocence. Remo had reluctantly taken the seat next to him.
The confused deputy finance minister got behind the wheel. Pulling away from the curb, the bus headed off into the hills above New Briton.
Remo glanced toward the back of the bus, where the group of wheezing scientists were reliving junior high. A few were sucking on asthma inhalers.
"Why didn't you shake them down for their milk money while you were at it?" he whispered.
"They should thank me for building strength of character," Chiun sniffed.
"Yeah, I'm sure they'll do that right after they finish pissing their snow pants." He was watching the scientists through narrowed eyes. There appeared to be faces from around the world in the group. "They've got a regular League of Geek Nations going on here," he commented.
"That would explain the stink," Chiun replied. Remo knew what he meant, although the men on the bus were not the source. The smell had been strong ever since they left the airport terminal. It was the combined stench of hundreds of garbage scows moored just offshore. They had seen the boats from the window of their plane.
A major highway out of the city took them into the sloping hills above the bay. New Briton Harbor sparkled in the brilliant white sun. A finger of land formed a seawall at the mouth of the wide bay. In the Caribbean Remo could see the eyesore of Garbage City-scows as far as the eye could see waiting to be called to land.
And then they were gone. Boats, sea and harbor vanished behind thickening jungle foliage. Signs along the road warned that they were entering a restricted area.
"We're nearly there," George Jiminez promised over his shoulder.
"Why are the signs in English?" Remo asked.
"Mayana is an English-speaking country," Jiminez explained. "We were a British protectorate until the 1950s. Many British citizens emigrated here."
"That is doubtless what attracted Smith's friend here," Chiun observed. He had a sharp eye directed on the men in the back. One had strayed over an invisible line. The old Korean scowled him back over it.
"Huh?" Remo asked.
"The one you and Smith were discussing," Chiun said. "The British enjoy their cults. If it is not Freemasons, it is Druids-if not Druids, Anglican Catholics. Smith's friend must have felt right at home here."
"Ye-es," George Jiminez said slowly, color rising in his cheeks. "You're referring to the Jamestown tragedy. Jack James was American, not British. And I'm sorry, but that's not a topic we like to discuss." Jaw clenching, he turned full attention on the road.
"Nice going, Little Father," Remo whispered. "Anyone else you want to tick off at us?"
The old man's hazel eyes were still trained on the back of the bus. He was watching one man in particular-a nervous-looking Asian.
"The day is young," Chiun replied ominously. His suspicious gaze never wavered.
Chapter 9
Mike Sears was not good under pressure.
He should have been able to keep up a confident front. After all, as the official mind behind the Vaporizer, the world now considered him a genius. But he just didn't seem to have the confidence to pull it off.
Not that he was an intellectual slouch. His credentials were top-notch. He had been hired as a developmental scientist for Lockheed after graduating from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in the early 1980s. He had worked on some of the new tiles, as well as the remodeled booster system for the space shuttle after the Challenger disaster. From there he had gone on to help develop new titanium Mach shields for the Air Force's top secret Aurora Project.
Such important work should have given him at least some grace under fire. But the stress of the Vaporizer project, getting the device up and running, and now the busloads of experts and foreign officials who were being hauled hourly up to the site for demonstrations-it was all becoming too much for him to handle.
Mike Sears felt a grumble of nervous bile in the pit of his empty stomach as he stood in the cramped room.
"Grid four, section thirteen," Sears said into a microphone. The words echoed across the Vaporizer pit.
Sears was in the control booth above the Vaporizer. The booth was nestled in a niche carved into a small hill. On a monitor screen he watched a man in a white lab coat scurry over the removable scaffolding on the unit's black wall.
"Four, thirteen," the man responded.
The speaker next to Sears crackled with static. A residual effect of proximity to the device. "D-four," Sears said.
Through a remote camera, Sears watched his assistant as he worked on the Vaporizer. The man was Japanese. His dark black hair shone in the sun.
Toshimi Yakarnoto had been uncomfortable going into the machine ever since it had gone online. His face betrayed his anxiety as he inched along the interior wall.
Yakamoto found the problem nozzle and went to work on it with a tool that resembled a pair of tiny forceps.
Sears spun in his chair. Sharp green images on another computer screen offered a three-dimensional image created by sensors buried in the frictionless black walls.
"Careful," Sears warned into the microphone. "You've gone too far."
Yakamoto readjusted the nozzle again. Even on camera, beads of sweat were visible on his broad forehead. They rolled down his anxious face.
"Is better now?" he asked hopefully.
In the control booth the computer image showed the problem nozzle in perfect alignment.
"That got it," Sears said. "Lock it down and get back up here. We've got company."
On the security camera he saw Deputy Minister Jiminez's bus coming through the front gate.
The bus was loaded with thirty more scientists. Thirty more chances that Sears's secret might become known.
"Play it cool, Mike," he muttered to himself. Leaving the booth, he went down the fence-lined path to the parking lot. The visitors were already getting off the bus. Two men had gotten off first-a young Caucasian and a very old Asian. The rest seemed to be avoiding these two. They stumbled off almost desperately, forming a fearful group away from the first pair.
George Jiminez was the last one off.
"Ah, Dr. Sears," the deputy finance minister said. "Are you ready to dazzle your latest guests?"
"Of course," Mike Sears said, a nervous smile plastered across his face. He turned to the group of scientists. "Welcome to the future, gentlemen. I'm sure your governments will be fascinated by your reports. If you'll come this way." He and Jiminez began herding the scientists into the Vaporizer compound.
Remo and Chiun brought up the rear. Remo was sniffing the air. "It stinks worse here than it did back in the city," he complained. "You'd think they'd figure out a way to zap the stink when they zap the garbage."
When he got no reply, he glanced at his teacher. Chiun was still studying the Asian man he had singled out on the bus. The man was Japanese. His name tag identified him as Dr. Hiro Taki. Dr. Taki seemed nervous and jumpy. Remo assumed it had to do with first being assaulted on the bus, then drawing the exclusive attention of his assaulter.
"Remember, the war's over, Chiun," Remo warned.