Fade to Black td-119

by Warren Murphy

  Trailing the rest came Quintly Tortilli. As he ran past the Master of Sinanju, panic on his face, the old man snagged him by the arm.

  It was as if Tortilli had been hit by a truck. He went from a full sprint to a dead stop. His arm felt as if it had been wrenched from the socket. And as he twisted, trying to pull free, Tortilli was confronted by a being who breathed menace from his every pore.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Chiun charged, voice low.

  "It's a bomb, Sidney Toler!" Tortilli announced. If it was possible for Chiun's eyes to narrow any more than they already were, they did. A laser would have failed to penetrate the furious slits between his crinkled lids.

  "You dare?" Chiun barked.

  "What?" Tortilli asked, sensing he'd stepped over some unwritten line. For an instant, confusion vied with fear.

  Most of the cast and crew were gone already. The New York lot of Taurus was virtually deserted. Distant shouts rose from beyond the facades of buildings.

  "I have heard this term before. You insult my film."

  "I don't know what you mean," Tortilli begged. "We've got to get out of here!"

  "A boom is another way of saying that a movie is not good," the Master of Sinanju intoned. "By saying Assassin's Loves is a boom, you insult my talent."

  "This film is yours?" Tortilli asked, anxious understanding ignited his face. "You're Chiun?" The old man's nod was crisp. "It is your privilege to know he who will remove your insolent tongue," he menaced.

  "Remo!" Tortilli shouted.

  The director hadn't even seen the old Korean's fingers flashing toward him. He jumped when the bony hand with its five deadly talons locked in place before his face.

  "You know my son?" Chiun asked. His frozen hand did not waver.

  "He's your kid?" Tortilli asked, eyeing Chiun's fingernails with no small concern. "Wow. Must run in the family. Yeah. Remo told me- Remo!" He seemed to suddenly snap back to reality. "This studio's a bomb!" he yelled.

  Chiun's fingernails retreated inside the baggy sleeves of his police costume. "Explain."

  "There are truck bombs everywhere. Remo's trying to defuse them now. He wanted me to clear the studio."

  Chiun's eyes widened. "Remo sent you here? Where is he?" the old man demanded.

  "I don't know," Tortilli replied hurriedly. "In a limo somewhere on the lot. He's got the terrorists with him. Listen, we've got to get everybody out of here. These things could go off any second. You should get out of here as fast as possible."

  When Tortilli turned urgently away, Chiun let him go. The gangly young man raced from the deserted studio back lot.

  Behind him, a frown spread across the parched leather face of the Master of Sinanju.

  Chiun could scarcely believe it. His crowning moment of cinematic brilliance, ruined. By Remo, no less.

  He'd thought they had put this all behind them. But here it was again, after all these months. Remo's jealousy had returned.

  Well, it was high time he put a stop to his pupil's rampant, green-eyed envy once and for all. Girding his thick leather belt around his narrow waist, the Master of Sinanju clomped angrily off the lot in search of his envious son.

  "THERE'S ANOTHER ONE!"

  The limo driver had been infected by Remo's sense of urgency. Fingers clenched white on the steering wheel, he spotted the next bright yellow Plotz truck the instant the big car rounded the side of Soundstage 4.

  It was positioned in front of the bland walls of the studio's executive office building. The big vehicle was parked across both Hank Bindle's and Bruce Marmelstein's personal parking spaces. In the back of the limo, Remo was stunned the executives hadn't had it towed away.

  On the seat across from him, the terrorists were lined up like ducks in a shooting gallery.

  When the limo screeched to a stop next to the parked truck, Remo snatched the next man in line. He popped the door and bounded for the truck. The lock surrendered to a pulverizing blow, and the trailer door rolled open.

  Up and in, he flung the terrorist onto the baking fertilizer. Before even a hint of odor could escape the rear, he yanked the door back down, welding the handle in a crushing grip. With two steps and a leap, he was back inside the limo.

  "Next," he snapped to the six remaining extras. "Soundstage 5 is closest," one offered quickly. Remo didn't even have to ask the driver if he knew the way. The man was already peeling across the lot in a cloud of smoking rubber.

  The next truck proved as easy as the first two. Remo was beginning to think they might make it after all. He had slammed the trailer door and had just dived back into the limo when he heard the first shrieks. The limo was speeding through a shadow cast by one of the soundstages.

  "We've got company," the driver said worriedly, easing up on the gas.

  Remo leaned over the seat. Through the front windshield, he saw the first screaming man race into view. Blind panic filled his ashen face.

  "I hope that's Goldie Hawn's makeup guy," Remo said thinly.

  The first man was followed by another. Yet another man and three women followed hot on his heels. The driver had to slow to avoid hitting them. The floodgates were opened. As Remo's limo inched forward, a multitude of screaming studio personnel came racing around the corner. The driver slammed on his brakes as the crowd swarmed the sleek black car.

  "Tortilli," Remo muttered.

  He wasn't sure if he should laud the director for his bravery or kill him for his timing.

  The wide avenue between soundstages was clogged with people. The crowd pushed against the car, rocking it wildly on its shocks. Some men scrambled up the hood. Leaden footsteps buckled the roof as they clambered across to the trunk. The sunlight was marred by shadows as the terrified Taurus employees slid down over the small rear window.

  People were trampled underfoot. One woman was shoved roughly from behind and knocked through the open door to the nearest soundstage. She didn't reemerge.

  "I can't get through this!" the driver shouted. He winced as a boot cracked the windshield. Remo spun to the last five extras. "Three bombs left?" he asked sharply.

  Nods from the terrorists. After a second's rapid calculation, Remo slammed the heel of his hand into the temples of three of the men. So fast were the blows delivered, it was the burst of displaced air before Remo's flying hand that did the actual deed. The two surviving extras watched in shock as their confederates slumped forward.

  Pressure from the stampeding throng held the door in place. Unable to open it without severely injuring passersby, Remo did the next best thing. Fingers curling around the handle, he wrenched. With a shriek of protesting metal, the door collapsed in around its frame. Remo tossed the buckled door to the wide floor.

  The noise from the crowd exploded around their ears.

  Reaching over the seat, Remo plucked the driver from behind the wheel. "Get ready to run," he instructed the man as he pushed him out the door.

  "Wait!" the driver screamed.

  Holding the man by the shoulders, Remo hesitated.

  "What?" he pressed.

  The driver looked sheepish. "It's just that I've got this script I've been working on. If you could let someone know what I did today-"

  The rest of what he said was lost. Remo fed the man into the crowd. The limo driver was carried along with the fleeing mob to the main gate.

  Plucking up the two remaining terrorists, Remo jumped from the car. He was a salmon swimming upstream as he sprang to the roof of the limo, an extra tucked under each arm. He slid from the hood and met the crowd head-on, butting people from his path by twisting the men he carried right and left. The extras were bruised and bloodied by the time Remo ducked away from the thinning crowd into an adjacent avenue. Soundstages flanked the road.

  A huge 5 was painted on one side of the nearest big building. Beneath the number sat the next Plotz truck.

  Remo moved so quickly the next battered extra didn't even know what was happening until he felt himself sinking into fertilizer. Outside, Rem
o was sealing the door.

  "Where's the next one?" he asked the final terrorist.

  The man seemed dazed. Blood trickled from gashes in his chin and forehead.

  "In the alley between the creative-office complex and the commissary building," he offered, wobbling uncertainly.

  "And the last one?"

  "Soundstage 9."

  Remo had already gathered the man up and was running down the wide avenue when the extra added, "I think."

  The crowds were virtually gone by then. Alone on the road, Remo was at a full sprint heading for the commissary. Whitewashed buildings flashed by. "You don't know?" he demanded.

  "I didn't park it. I'm not sure."

  Remo finally asked the question he dared not ask earlier. "How much time do we have?" he said, voice grave.

  Even as Remo carried him along, the man looked at his watch. He was surprised at how easy it was to read the face. There was no bounce whatsoever to Remo's confident stride.

  "Two minutes, ten seconds," the extra said, a freshly worried edge to his quavering voice. Thanks to his time spent at Taurus the previous year, Remo at least knew the basic layout of the studio. But now he had just over two minutes to eliminate the last two truck bombs on the lot. And no knowledge of the Taurus lot would help him if the last two trucks and the tons of explosive force within them weren't where they were supposed to be.

  Face hard, Remo's feet barely brushed the ground as he flew headlong into the ticking maw of death.

  Chapter 14

  "How long do we have to keep circling?" Hank Bindle asked, peeved.

  The Taurus cochair frowned as he looked out the car window. They were driving down the same strip of Santa Monica Boulevard for what seemed like the millionth time.

  Bruce Marmelstein was sitting in the back of the limousine with his partner. He had been staring at the face of his Cartier off and on for the past half hour.

  "Don't worry. Any minute now."

  Bindle closed his eyes. He took a sip from the martini in his hand. They'd packed extra liquor for this hour of waiting. But it hadn't sat well. Bindle swished the liquid around his mouth before swallowing it with a loud gulp.

  "This is ridiculous. We were titans in this town once."

  Marmelstein didn't disagree. The fact that he was using the same watch after nearly a full year was proof enough for him that they had fallen on hard times. There was a time he wouldn't have used a simple gold Cartier to bang in a nail.

  "It isn't our fault," Marmelstein pointed out somberly. "Circumstances have conspired against us."

  "Whatever. At least you have a career to fall back on," Bindle lamented.

  "Hairdressing isn't much of a career, Hank." Bindle nodded.

  "Yes, but you were Barbra's hairdresser. That's something. You know how I broke into the industry? I cleaned leaves out of Liberace's pool. I was a pool boy, Bruce. The things I did for that man just to get my first lousy job as a script reader...." Hank Bindle shuddered. He downed the last of his martini in one gulp. As soon as it was gone, he returned to the stainless-steel decanter in the limo's tiny fridge.

  Bruce Marmelstein furrowed his brow.

  There was a time when Hank Bindle wouldn't have mentioned the Liberace story. In fact, once he'd become a player in the industry, Bindle had fired anyone who mentioned the word pool within a two-block radius of him. But that was then. Now Hank Bindle was sinking into a quagmire of self-pity.

  "Liberace is dead. I can't go back there. I can't start at the beginning. Not at my age. If this plan goes south, I'll be an unemployed fifty-year-old with a hundred-million-dollar golden parachute." He moaned loudly. "What will I do with the rest of my life?"

  Bindle swigged his glass dry.

  "Get us back to the studio," Marmelstein suddenly announced to the driver over the intercom. Bindle sniffled. "Is that it? Is it time?"

  "It'll be gone by the time we get back," Marmelstein assured him.

  "Wait. I think I felt a tremor." Bindle held on to the seat, bracing himself against the imaginary quake.

  "It hasn't happened yet," Marmelstein stressed.

  "Hmm." Bindle didn't sound convinced. He reached for the fridge once more. "Well, it better work. We paid good money for this."

  "Don't worry. Soon, Hank. Soon."

  When Bindle offered him a martini, Bruce Marmelstein didn't refuse.

  BUILDINGS FLEW BY at breakneck speed.

  Even as he ran, Remo was mapping a strategy. The Soundstage 9 truck was first. It was farther away than the other, but he had plans for the last vehicle.

  Fortunately, the extra had been right. The truck was where he said it would be.

  Though far from an explosives expert, Remo guessed the Plotz truck had been positioned to inflict massive damage on not only Soundstage 9, but also on any structure in the immediate vicinity. Earthquake resistant or not, the flimsy Taurus buildings would have been blown from here to Fresno if all six bombs had gone off.

  As he flung the final extra into the rear of the penultimate truck, Remo prayed the man's confederates had neutralized the other four bombs.

  With barely more than a minute to spare, the extra's only hope of survival was to disarm the bomb. He was scrambling over the heap of fertilizer as Remo slammed the door. In no time, Remo was flying across the lot toward the commissary.

  His face was steel, his arms and legs featureless blurs as he tore down one avenue and ripped up another.

  The roads on which he ran were abandoned. The match of fear had been dropped, and the panic had spread like wildfire through the studio. Everyone had fled. Remo only hoped the Master of Sinanju had gone, as well.

  Hurtling around the side of the commissary, he found the last truck precisely where the extra had said it would be. He sprinted to the vehicle. Thirty-four seconds.

  Remo didn't even bother with the trailer. He knew nothing about dismantling bombs. His only hope was to minimize the damage.

  As he flung open the cab door, a horrible thought sprang to mind.

  "Keys!" Remo hissed.

  He'd forgotten to ask for them! Thirty seconds.

  He'd hot-wired cars before, but never that fast. He doubted he could get it done in time.

  No time to reconsider. There might yet be people in the surrounding buildings. He dived beneath the dashboard.

  A dangling weight brushed his short hair. Spinning to the source, he found the keys hanging from the ignition an inch from his nose.

  "Thank God for amateurs," Remo grumbled, falling back in the driver's seat.

  The engine started with a rumbling cough. Twenty-eight seconds left. How far to drive back across the lot?

  Even as he wondered the distance, he was stomping on the gas. The big truck lumbered forward. Slowly at first, but with greater speed with each passing second.

  Remo plowed over whatever was in his way. Clothing racks and backdrops were crushed under speeding treads.

  Ahead was an open hangar door. Engine building to a throaty protest, Remo jounced through the opening, straight into the soundstage.

  In the semidarkness of the huge interior, lights and cameras bounced off the grille. Thick cables thrummed relentlessly below.

  Another hangar door. This one closed.

  Shifting, Remo accelerated more. A final burst of speed and the truck punched through it, bursting out into bright sunlight.

  An instant of relief.

  He had oriented himself correctly. The truck was now headed precisely where he wanted it to go. Eighteen seconds.

  All at once, a familiar figure was standing in the truck's path. Daring Remo to run him down. Parchment face furious.

  Chiun. He hadn't fled with the rest.

  "Get out of the way!" Remo screamed, even as the truck consumed the final distance between him and the Master of Sinanju.

  Eyes slivers of angry disbelief, Chiun stood his ground until the last instant. Only when it became clear that Remo had no intention of stopping did he bound from the rushing truc
k's path.

  The instant after the old man's eggshell pate vanished from before the windshield, the passenger's side door burst open. The Master of Sinanju blew into the speeding truck's cab like a raging wind.

  "What is the meaning of this?" Chiun demanded from the seat beside Remo.

  "No time," Remo snapped through clenched teeth.

  Before them appeared the outdoor New York set. Remo had seen it on one of his bored tours of the studio last year. It looked to have been abandoned for ages. Cries for realism had forced most films and television programs to relocate to the real New York. But today there was equipment everywhere.

  "I thought this place was abandoned!" Remo yelled as the truck barreled onto the set. Equipment crashed away from the cab, flying in every direction as the big vehicle lumbered forward. Beside him, Chiun's eyes were wide in shock.

  "Remo, have you gone mad!" the old man gasped.

  Fifteen seconds.

  "There's a bomb on board!" Remo screamed. Hazel eyes grew to saucers of incredulity.

  There was no time for further explanation. Only for one last warning.

  "Run!" Remo shouted desperately.

  And flinging open his door, Remo dropped from the cab.

  Even as Remo was jumping out one way, Chiun was leaping out the other. Both men hit the ground running.

  Ten seconds.

  The truck careered forward, finally crashing headlong into one of the phony buildings. The very real brick wall behind it stopped the truck dead, nose crumpling back through the cab to the trailer. The impact didn't set off the explosives.

  Wordlessly, Remo and Chiun ran. Arms swinging, legs pounding in furious concert.

  Neither man looked at the other as they raced side by side for the end of the lot. They hit the main concourse to the soundstages. Still they didn't slow.

  In his head, Remo was counting down the time. Seven seconds.

  He remembered the cratered Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and similar blasts at embassies in Africa. They might not be far enough away.

  Five seconds.

  Running blindly, lungs working furiously.

  Not enough distance. Not enough time to get away.