Waste Not, Want Not

The narrative Prologue follows Jennifer Lonig during the 1978 People’s Sanctum massacre. Jennifer sees the corpse of a woman she tentatively recalls as Tammy from Denver; the text presents Tammy’s speech as Jennifer’s hallucination, then depicts Jennifer’s death and a vision of vengeance. Mayana unveils the Vaporizer as a device that will eliminate the world’s refuse; CURE sends Remo and Chiun to investigate after Captain Frederick Lenn’s garbage scow is torpedoed. Remo has recently become Reigning Master after the Sinanju Time of Succession, while Chiun remains his teacher and former Master. Remo recalls a brief experience during the succession and Chiun’s claim that he is an avatar of Shiva, but says he remains fully himself and cannot explain what he saw.

Petrovina Bulganin, a former SVR clerk recruited into the all-women Institute, investigates the scow attacks and Vaporizer. Toshimi Yakamoto, a Nishitsu scientist assigned to sabotage the machine, panics after Chiun’s accusation, then returns to work; he is later abducted by an unnamed janitor and two men, pushed into the active pit and killed. His and Dr. Hiro Taki’s remains are grotesquely rematerialized in the trash valley. Nikolai Garbegtrov says he arranged for Green Earth to supply a stolen nuclear submarine, the Novgorod; its captain Gennady Zhilnikov turns the vessel against the scows in a revenge campaign against Garbegtrov. Remo and Chiun capture the submarine and its crew.

Meanwhile, Smith and Howard discover a hidden garbage valley linked to the Vaporizer. The Jamestown history recounts cult leader Jack James’s 1978 crimes and says he faked his death with look-alike corpses; after plastic surgery he resurfaced as Mayana’s Executive President Blythe Curry-Hume. James traps visiting world leaders in the Vaporizer in an attempted mass killing. Remo and Chiun rescue them; Petrovina shoots the control computer, and James throws Remo into the energized pit. Remo returns alive and throws James into the device; James’s corpse is later found in the valley. In a separate scene, Anna Chutesov shoots the escaping janitor; Smith later identifies him as Russian scientist Alexei Aliyev, who had adapted stolen Japanese vibration-suit technology for the Vaporizer.

At the valley, Sears explains that the machine redirected trash through cables to emitters, while malformed human remains are found among the garbage. Zhilnikov survives in a deformed state and Remo kills him mercifully. Garbegtrov is released to Green Earth supporters; Remo’s pebble knocks off his cap and reveals the U.S.A. #1 tattoo, and the angry crowd kills him. Two days later, Smith tells Remo by phone that the world leaders left Mayana safely and that the Vaporizer is being dismantled. At Remo and Chiun’s Connecticut home, they discuss Remo’s right as Reigning Master to choose a pupil while Chiun retains the right to criticize. The final news report says a gas-main explosion and sinkhole caused eight deaths and extensive property damage during the prolonged kitten rescue; the kittens were safely pulled from the drain.