Fade to Black td-119

by Warren Murphy

  "But if he does finish tonight, he's guaranteed us 125 million by Memorial Day," Hank Bindle argued hastily. "Even if it tanks afterward, that'll carry us through another hundred million, domestic."

  "And even halfway decent word of mouth could push us over three hundred million before foreign, pay cable or video," Marmelstein supplied rapidly. "And a real dead President bumps foreign box office out of the solar system."

  "Bottom line, Chiun, baby," Bindle concluded hurriedly. "Presidents come and Presidents go, but you keep turning out dynamite scripts like Die Down IV, and you and Taurus'll be counting Oscar gold for years to come."

  Sweating anxiously, the two Taurus cochairs studied the Master of Sinanju's reaction, Bindle with one bloodshot eye closed.

  The wizened Asian turned a narrowed eye to his pupil. "Is it possible for a film to survive the deaths of the executives in charge of the project?" he asked.

  Remo was already edging toward the door. "Little Father, every time a Hollywood honcho dies, an angel gets his wings," he answered quickly.

  Both executives still squatted on Bruce Marmelstein's desk, looks of anxious fear on their tan faces. They seemed oblivious to Remo's words, focused as they were on the Master of Sinanju.

  Chiun stood silent before them, a figure of solemn contemplation.

  In a move so swift it did not have time to startle, the old Korean's hands suddenly shot up.

  Bindle and Marmelstein held their collective breath. Fearful, fascinated eyes stared with rapt attention at two extended index fingernails.

  Chiun paused an instant-an orchestra conductor holding a note a beat too long.

  A flash. Nails dropping, thrusting forward. Puncturing soft abdominal tissue. A jerking blur. Chiun's bloodless nails retreated to his gold kimono sleeves.

  With twin gasps, Bindle and Marmelstein looked down in time to see their bellies yawn open in sideway smiles. Slick red organs slopped out onto the cold metal desk. Frantic faces looked to Chiun in desperation.

  "We'll give you points," Bindle gasped. With one hand, he was trying to hold in the last of his trailing internal organs. The other palm was braced helplessly on the desk.

  Chiun spun away, gliding swiftly across the office. Remo was already pushing the door open. Marmelstein toppled to the floor. "No writer gets points," he panted weakly. "We'll give you ten off the top."

  "We already told him ten," Bindle wheezed faintly.

  "Twenty. "

  Remo and Chiun were already gone.

  From the top of the desk, Hank Bindle looked down with glazed eyes at his dying partner. "Net?" he panted.

  "Gross."

  It wasn't clear if Marmelstein was talking about film profits or the fact that they had each just collapsed into the slimy sacks of their own internal organs.

  And in another moment, nothing mattered to them at all.

  Chapter 31

  Cameras clicked like a hundred crazed crickets as Quintly Tortilli exited the main door of the Burbank Bowl. His pointy cheekbones and chin seemed more prominent in the presence of the tight rictal smile he gave the paparazzi.

  The press was kept back farther than usual by a contingent of dark-suited Secret Service agents. The armor-reinforced presidential limousine with its tiny twin flapping American flags stopped at the end of the long red carpet just as Tortilli made it to the curb. Before and behind the limo, motorcycles and official vehicles of the presidential motorcade stopped, as well.

  The President climbed from the back seat with a beaming smile beneath his familiar bulbous nose and baggy eyes.

  "Quintly, good to see you!" the President exclaimed hoarsely. He pumped the young director's hand for the cameras.

  "Glad you could make it, Mr. President," Tortilli said, his own smile never wavering. "Thought that wacky Washington scene mighta kept you east of the mighty Mississip."

  A hint of discomfort flitted across the Chief Executive's face.

  "Oh, I'm fine," he dismissed. "The First Lady was pretty shaken up, but she's keeping her mind off things by staying busy. Last I saw her she was knee-deep in paperwork."

  The President was only too happy to change the subject. Only in California and New York did he receive such enthusiastic crowds these days. Waving to reporters and cheering bystanders, the President began walking to the Burbank Bowl entrance, Quintly Tortilli at his side.

  "How soon'll you be shooting?" the chief executive asked when they were nearly at the door. Tortilli's smile broadened just a hair. For a flickering moment, it almost seemed sincere.

  "Any minute now, Mr. President," he promised. As the cameras flashed, the two men disappeared inside.

  THE ROUTE to the Burbank Bowl was jammed with cars. Through the trees at the side of the freeway, Remo could see the parking lot was also packed.

  "No time to wait for the off-ramp," he said tightly.

  "The faster we finish this business, the sooner I may depart this province of broken dreams," the Master of Sinanju replied irritably.

  Remo nodded. "We bail."

  They ditched the rental car in the middle of the freeway. Horns honked angrily as the two Masters of Sinanju ran between cars and hopped the jersey barrier. Side by side, they skidded down the dusty embankment. At the bottom, they raced across the short stretch of woods to the fringe of the parking lot.

  "Care to tell me how this picture ends?" Remo asked as they flew between rows of parked cars.

  "The good version, or theirs?" Chiun retorted.

  "The shooting script," Remo pressed.

  "I believe there was some sort of boom device on the stage," Chiun sniffed as he ran. "Who knows if that has been changed since last week."

  Remo's face was grim as they swept between cars.

  "Let's hope Tortilli hasn't seen another movie since then," he grumbled. "The way he rips everybody off, he's probably got a mechanical shark swimming around the orchestra pit."

  Careful to avoid Secret Service and police foot patrols, the two men raced on toward the great beveled dome of the Burbank Bowl.

  THE AUDIENCE had endured the theme from Star Wars and Raiders of the Lost Ark before the orchestra finally segued into the 1812 overture.

  Far away from the stage, Quintly Tortilli's purple tuxedo was stained dark with sweat. The nervous grinding of his molars was drowned out by the thunderous music.

  Far below the VIP box, Lee Matson waited calmly onstage, not a care in the world. Before him, a pair of breech-loading field guns aimed into the crowd. Only Tortilli and Matson knew that their explosive powder charges had been replaced with live shells.

  In the box beside Tortilli, the President of the United States smiled and nodded to the music. Thank God Tortilli had always been a generous contributor to the President and his party. There was no way he'd be there otherwise. It was a fat check drawn from the Die Down IV budget that had gotten Tortilli access to the White House layout, as well as a night in the Lincoln Bedroom thrown in for good measure.

  Vanity drew the President there today. Eight cameras whirred around them at this very moment, catching the President's every blink, smile and itch.

  Tortilli had told the President that he wanted realism for his latest film. His desire was to capture the real effect on a crowd when the Chief Executive was in attendance.

  Of course, it wasn't vanity alone. A fresh, generous studio check to the President's legal-defense fund and-in spite of the previous day's unpleasantness-the Chief Executive had readily agreed.

  Around the bowl, the rumbling music grew in intensity. Almost over.

  Tortilli stood abruptly. A few eyes turned his way.

  Sweating, the director patted his stomach. "Gotta take care of business," he mouthed over the din.

  As Tortilli slipped quickly from the box, the Secret Service entourage didn't give him a second glance.

  Ears ringing, Tortilli hurried out into the enclosed hallway. To await the thunderous explosion that would be heard around the world and herald three hundred million, domestic,
by Labor Day.

  THE BURBANK BOWL WAS a half shell open-air amphitheater. Half-wall partitions near the stage separated the more expensive seats from the general-admission bleachers. A few VIP boxes lined the far back wall.

  Remo and Chiun had taken a rear entrance, bursting into the main bleachers section at the midpoint. As soon as they were inside, they spotted the President. He was way back in the center box at the rear of the big stadium.

  "Must have taken a cheerleader with a MilkBone to get him and Fido out of that closet," Remo commented.

  Chiun was scanning the opposite direction. A long nail unfurled.

  "There!" the Master of Sinanju exclaimed. Following his teacher's extended finger, he spied the cannons at once. The tuxedo-clad figure behind them smiled with demented eagerness.

  "I'll get Mr. Nutbar," Remo barked.

  Chiun nodded. "I will attend the puppet President."

  In a swirl of silken robes, Chiun headed for the rear of the theater. Remo flew down the long flat steps toward the main stage.

  The Secret Service protection thinned the farther he ran from the President, replaced by uniformed police officers.

  Thanks to Remo, there weren't as many cops as there should have been. Every other police officer in California was doubtless waiting at the abandoned Long Beach shipyard for an attack that would never come. He avoided police all the way to the front of the stadium.

  Down front, he hesitated.

  He couldn't very well leap onstage. Wrists rotating absently, he tried to think of a way to take out the assassin without being seen.

  Seen!

  It was risky, but it might work. In any event, at least he had a plan. He only hoped he could implement it in time.

  As the music swelled, Remo raced around the side of the stage, away from the cannons and the madman behind them.

  QUINTLY TORTILLI LURKED anxiously in the hallway behind the closed-off VIP tier. Face a sheen of glistening sweat, he studied his watch. Mickey's hands moved with agonizing slowness.

  He didn't know how far away he should be. He knew he wanted to be in San Diego when the cannon blasted the presidential box to smithereens. Or, better yet, Mexico. But he needed to be close enough to allay suspicion.

  What if they linked him to Lee Matson?

  What if they traced the Taurus prop cannons to him?

  What if as a result of bad press, Lord help him, Die Down IV flopped?

  He shook away the negative thoughts.

  "Get a grip, Quint," he muttered to himself. "You're a Hollywood director. You're smarter than everyone in the world."

  Feeling dizzy, he took a deep breath.

  "People sez you're a genius," he panted, leaning against the wall for support. The cold sweat on his back made him shiver.

  "Every kid in film school wants to be you," he insisted.

  A rumble. Felt through the wall.

  For an instant, he thought Matson had fired his cannons early. But before he could check his watch, his peripheral vision saw what his back had felt. A few yards away, one of the doors that led into the auditorium exploded inward.

  Tortilli jumped back from the wall, expecting to glimpse a whistling artillery shell. But instead of a missile, the upside-down form of a blue-suited man soared in amid the splinters of wood.

  The Secret Service agent slammed into the distant wall. As his unconscious body dropped to the floor, a tiny figure whirled like a miniature gold typhoon through the opening the unfortunate agent had made.

  Chiun shot a single glance at Tortilli, eyes filled with the promise of vengeance.

  Recognizing his famously vicious-tempered screenwriter, Tortilli sucked in a shocked gasp of air. But the old man didn't seem interested in him just yet. Chiun flew in the opposite direction, toward the restricted end of the corridor and the presidential box.

  As the tiny Asian raced off, a sudden all-engulfing blackness consumed him. The racing dark cloud swallowed the rest of the corridor and the amphitheater beyond.

  Tortilli didn't even seem to notice that the lights had gone out. As the first querulous shouts began to rise from the darkened stadium, the panicked young director was stumbling in blind fear down the pitch-black corridor. Away from the terrifying figure in gold.

  BACKSTAGE, Remo spun from the sparking breaker panel. He had to hop over the bodies of three unconscious Burhank police officers.

  "Work fast, Little Father," he muttered.

  Swift feet moved in confident strides as he raced through the darkness toward the stage.

  THE INSTANT the lights went out, alarm signals went off in the mind of the President of the United States. Yesterday's frightening events were far too recent.

  "What's going on?" he asked the nearest Secret Service agent, trying to mask the fear in his voice.

  "Unknown, Mr. President," the agent replied tightly.

  As soon as he had spoken, a cry rose from beyond the closed balcony door. The sounds of a scuffle ensued.

  The Secret Service retinue reacted instinctively. The President was yanked from his seat and thrown to the floor. A crush of dark-suited bodies-guns drawn-collapsed on top of him. Air rushed from his lungs.

  Through his filter of living human flesh, the President heard muted shouts, then the sound of crashing wood.

  More shouts. Louder. A single gunshot. A yelp of pain.

  The President felt the weight on his prone form lighten.

  Another cry. Lighter still.

  No time to even fire. In a panicked instant, his entire human shield was stripped away. He was naked. Exposed.

  Looking up, frightened, the President saw the shadowy contours of a vaguely familiar face. "Your life is in jeopardy, Your Majesty," the vision above him intoned urgently.

  That voice. The President knew that voice. It was one of Smith's men. The old Asian.

  Before he could ask the Master of Sinanju what he was doing there, the old man pulled him off the floor, depositing the burly Chief Executive on his own bony shoulders.

  As the Master of Sinanju raced to the door, there came a distant explosion. Through angled eyes, the President saw a brilliant flash of light from the stage.

  And cutting through it all, the sound of a single shell whistling through the air.

  The door was a million miles away. The shell was coming in fast. Too fast.

  A fiery impact. Explosion. Thunder and light. The President felt the heat from the blast erupt around them, enveloping them. Obliterating them. And the final, fatal burning fear consumed him.

  REMO REACHED the stage too late.

  Too late he heard the soft foom followed by an intense blast. The thunderous boom of a single cannon round being fired exploded from out the darkness.

  An instant later came the sound of a distant impact. Then another explosion as the President's box burst apart in a brilliant flash of light.

  Pandemonium instantly erupted all around the Burbank Bowl. In the darkness, terrified concertgoers screamed and shoved in a mad race for the exits.

  The orchestra was fleeing, as well. Alone on the stage, Lee Matson was preparing to launch a second shell at the President's box just to make sure before joining the rest of the mass exodus.

  Face hard, Remo sliced through the fleeing orchestra members and onto the stage.

  THE PRESIDENT of the United States was dead. He had to be.

  The shell had struck. There was the crackle of impact. Splintering wood. Fire, heat and shrapnel racing toward his unprotected face.

  But then something strange happened. The world seemed to freeze. The explosion, the fire, the hurtling debris-everything save the old Asian on whose shoulders he was perched appeared to lock in place.

  Running seemingly apart from time, the Master of Sinanju zoomed out the balcony door.

  Only when Smith's man had borne him to safety did the President realize this strange netherworld of slow motion was merely an illusion.

  In the hallway, time tripped back to normal speed.

  Fl
ames belched out in the wake of the running Korean. The wall blew in, chunks of flesh-tearing debris screaming into the corridor in their wake.

  Too late. The Master of Sinanju had already outrun the worst of the blast. He was halfway down the hall when he finally stopped. Chiun sat the shaken chief executive on the cool concrete floor. Behind them, fire burned. Fresh screams rose from the bowl through the shell-blasted opening.

  "Twice," the President gasped. "Twice in two days."

  Standing above the panting Chief Executive, the Master of Sinanju was impassive. "Do you still think to settle in this province once your reign has ended?" he asked.

  "What?" the President sniffled, still trying to catch his breath. "Oh. I've got a few standing offers in Hollywood. If my wife doesn't follow through on her latest threat to run for the Senate out of Bangkok in 2004." He seemed shellshocked. His eyes were ill as he looked down the corridor at the ragged wall.

  "Heed my advice," Chiun instructed somberly. "Follow the Shrill Queen to some other province. If this kind of treachery unnerves you, you will not last a single day on the coast."

  With that, the Master of Sinanju became a whirl of silk.

  On bounding pipe-stem legs, he flounced away from the president and the burning VIP box. Fire in his eyes, he headed off in the direction Quintly Tortilli had gone.

  Chapter 32

  The cannons were both pre-aimed. Even as Lee grabbed the cord that would fire the next shell, he marveled at the laxness of the Secret Service. He had read how this White House had at other times ordered agents to loosen security in certain situations-usually when the White House didn't want to be caught in something untoward.

  Lee surmised their seeming dereliction of duty had something to do with the movie cameras he'd seen around the bowl. Quintly Tortilli must have convinced the President that too many agents would interfere with his shot.

  Lee giggled at the irony.

  "I can't wait till I have that kind of clout," he said.

  Chuckling to himself, he fumbled in the darkness for the cord on the second cannon.

  His hand brushed something warm.