"Gimme a minute here, Mr. Koala," Reggio said politely.
One thing everyone who knew anything about Reggio Cagliari knew. He liked to be certain of things.
Dusting the powdered sugar off his hands, Reggio fumbled at his front pocket. He pulled out the check from Bindle and Marmelstein, which had been the first thing he'd given Assola to sign.
Behind him a lion growled. He glanced over. There were several of the animals on the other side of a prisonlike cage door. Only one had taken a real interest in the activity going on inside the shed. Its nose was sniffing curiously at the bars as Reggio turned back to the all-important check. Reggio checked the signature carefully. He wasn't quite sure what he was looking for, but it seemed okay. He stuffed the check back into his pocket. "We're all set here, Mr. Koala," he said. "Sorry about all this." He shrugged as he passed a fat hand over the pulled teeth. "Business and all."
His work done, Reggio glanced around for the hammer he'd brought in along with the rest of his meager supply of equipment. He thought he'd left it on the crate near Koala's extracted teeth. It wasn't there.
Grunting, Reggio leaned one hand on the crate, careful not to touch any of the blood-and-saliva mixture.
Nope, the hammer wasn't there. He was beginning to think he'd left it in his truck.
"I can get you more than that," al Khobar said. His voice was close to Reggio. His tongue lisped through the newly formed gaps in his gum line.
"Thanks. I'm all set here, Mr. Koala," Reggio said.
Of course it wasn't in his truck. He'd used it to pound the nails into the Arab's lip.
Reggio exhaled loudly. A puff of confectioner's sugar blew from his large lower lip.
It must have fallen to the floor somehow.
With an effort Reggio got to his knees. They ached from the strain. He felt around the side of the crate.
Nothing.
There was really no place the hammer could have fallen. And wouldn't he have heard it?
"You Americans are all the same. Fools motivated solely by money."
Al Khobar sounded more confident now. Even with the nails which still fixed him in place. His voice came from above Reggio as the big man crawled on all fours around the side of the small wooden crate.
"Yeah, we all gotta make a living, right, Mr. Koala?" Reggio Cagliari asked, red faced.
"Death is my living," al Khobar hissed.
Reggio looked up in time to see the grimace of fierce intensity on the face of Assola al Khobar. He also saw his missing hammer. It was in the terrorist's hand and was even now in the process of swinging down toward Reggio's own head.
The hammer connected solidly. Reggio felt a surge of sudden, intense pain above his right temple before the world grew coldly black.
AL KHOBAR WATCHED the Mafia thug drop to the floor.
Red-rimmed eyes traced the hammer. The irony that it should be his salvation was not lost on the terrorist. He could almost hear the snide laughter of his billionaire construction-magnate father.
The pain in his lip was excruciating. Quickly Assola twisted the claw end around, slipping it awkwardly into the space beneath his nose. He pushed it under a nail head.
With a scream that made the nearby lions bellow in rage, he pulled the first nail free.
THE FIRST THING REMO SAW inside the Los Angeles Zoo was what appeared to be the half-eaten carcass of a metallic creature lying in the bushes just inside the main entrance. A mangy-looking pelt lay near it.
"Hey, what's my animatronic camel doing here?" Hank Bindle demanded.
Remo spotted the reason why a few moments later. They were zipping along the pedestrian path in their Taurus jeep when he caught a glimpse of several Arabs near the monkey house. They appeared to be handling one of their fellow Eblans roughly. As they shoved the man forward toward the gorilla cage, Remo recognized a familiar voice.
"Do you people have any idea how many Academy Awards I've been nominated for?"
Bindle and Marmelstein spun toward the shouted voice. From where he sat in the speeding studio jeep, Hank Bindle was only able to see the animals on exhibit.
"Hey, that monkey sounds like Tom Roberts," Bindle mused, nodding toward the gorilla cage.
"Monkeys can't talk," Bruce Marmelstein said, irritated. He had seen the Arabs and suspected who was really shouting. The Eblan soldiers vanished inside the monkey house.
"Oh," said Hank Bindle. "So I guess those ones must be animatronic."
No one bothered to explain the truth.
They found the lion cage a few minutes later. "Stay here," Remo ordered.
Bindle and Marmelstein didn't argue. They sat dutifully in the rear of the jeep while Remo trotted over to the lion paddock.
There was the familiar scent of blood in the air. Remo attributed it to the carcasses that were regularly fed to the jungle predators. He circled the large pen from west to east, keeping his senses tuned to their maximum.
The path he took brought Remo near a large shedlike structure built into the side wall of the pen. He noted as he passed around the front of the building that a gate at its rear, which led into the lion's pen, had been left open.
At the front of the building, he noted a pair of fresh skid marks in the asphalt. Someone had left here recently. And whoever it was had been in a hurry.
As he reached for the door, he caught another whiff of blood. Unlike the stale scent wafting from the main paddock, this was not from an animal that had been prepared for consumption by a zookeeper. The smell of blood here was fresh.
Pausing for a moment outside the door, Remo sensed a few large and distinctly nonhuman heartbeats coming from the interior of the shed. Having seen the open gate on the other side of the shed, Remo had little doubt what was inside.
If Assola al Khobar was alive in the small building, Remo would have preferred to leave him there. However, he couldn't afford to. Not with the unknown elements of Sultan Omay's trap still prepared to spring.
Placing the flat of his palm against its surface, Remo pushed the door steadily open. When the gap was wide enough for him to fit through, he slipped inside.
He pulled the door shut behind him.
Chapter 28
In his air-conditioned basement office in the Great Sultan's Palace in the Eblan capital of Akkadad, Mundhir Fadil Hamza was trying to make sense of what he was seeing.
Nothing seemed to add up properly. And as a fastidious bookkeeper, he was used to things adding up. Hamza was finance minister of the nation of Ebla and was perhaps the only man in the country not concentrating on the war that was raging at the mouth of the Anatolia Corridor. This was because he had a mission. One that was far more important than the war itself.
His mission had been given him in secret by none other than Sultan Omay sin-Khalam himself. As one of the sultan's oldest and most trusted friends, Minister Hamza had been put in sole charge of the Great Plan.
And it was a great plan.
It was a scheme that would ultimately and assuredly upset the political order in this region of the world, more than the war itself. Even if the sultan were to perish in battle-even if the battle were a complete disaster-the Great Plan would assure ultimate victory.
Hamza had learned in their parting conversation that the sultan never even expected to live until the end of the skirmish with Israel. If he was not killed by an enemy of Ebla, his illness would surely take him before his return.
But the war was only the foundation for a far more diabolical plan. Omay had revealed to Minister Hamza a singularly brilliant stratagem that would crush Israel and banish the influence of the West from the Mideast forever.
It could not fail. Not as outlined by Omay.
But something about the outline was not quite right. The Great Plan relied heavily on one element. This was the precise aspect that did not add up correctly for Ebla's finance minister.
Minister Hamza scrupulously checked and rechecked the finances of the Ebla sultanate. As he did so, and the answers kept com
ing up the same, he felt his stomach turn slowly to water. There were no errors.
It was not just the private area that was the problem. It was public, as well. It had happened quickly. Too quickly for the finance office to even be aware it was happening. The insidious tentacles stretched everywhere through the Eblan economy. And it seemed to come from one place.
Hamza reached a shaking hand out to his intercom. A woman's voice answered, muffled through a traditional chador.
"Please get me Taha al-Sattar," he said, head pounding.
As he waited for the call from Akkadad's premier banker, Hamza felt the first reflexive wave of panic grip his bowels.
Chapter 29
There were several large shapes within the small shed. A few lionesses had moved in around the open gate. Some had chosen to remain in the paddock outside. The rest were sprawled lazily in the cool interior of the shed.
A single lion, presumably the patriarch of this pride, was farther inside the shed than the rest. Remo saw it sprawled on its back near an overturned wooden box.
The scent of blood was strong inside. Remo saw a dark stain on one side of the crate. He spotted a few rotted and bloodied teeth scattered like used jacks on the floor. He recognized them instantly as Assola al Khobar's. No one else in Hollywood had teeth like that.
The lion near the box watched him slip through the door. Lying on its back, the animal had a small square of paper propped between its massive paws. As it followed the new intruder with a single wary eye, it continued to drag its big, rough tongue across the exterior of the paper.
Remo was barely inside the shed when he caught another odor, this one stronger than that given off by either blood or lions. It was the familiar smell of nervous human perspiration.
"Hey! Psst! Up here!"
The voice was soft and anxious.
Remo followed it up to the top of a stack of baled hay. An overweight man was crouched precariously atop the bales. They wobbled beneath his great girth, threatening to topple him into the center of the pack of lionesses. A thick trickle of half-congealed blood stained his forehead.
"Dr. Livingstone, I presume," Remo said dryly.
"No," the frightened man snapped. "Reggio Cagliari. Shit, pal, you gotta get me outta here." With a snap of its back and massive shoulders, the lion rolled over onto its stomach. The speed with which it moved was impressive. It let out a low snarl at Remo; however it made no move toward him. It went back to licking the paper.
Remo noticed that what so interested the lion was an ordinary manila envelope. It was smeared with some kind of thin white powder. Scraps of pink cardboard lay on the floor all around the animal.
"Oh, crap!" Reggio begged. "Don't piss him off!"
The lion began chewing contentedly on the envelope and the papers inside.
"Where's al Khobar?" Remo asked Reggio. Reggio didn't have a chance to answer. At that moment the door Remo had come through burst open.
"Get that away from it!" Bruce Marmelstein screamed desperately. He pointed to the envelope clasped between the lion's mighty paws.
The lion had been content to leave the other men in the shed alone until now, but at the abrupt entrance of the movie executive the head of the pride pushed itself hastily to its huge feet. Its roar was deafening inside the small room.
"Shit, shit, shit, shit, shit!" Reggio screamed. He crawled as far away as he could on his wobbly haystack, pushing himself against the wall.
"Are you crazy!" Remo snapped at Marmelstein. "I thought I told you to stay in the car."
"I peeked in the window," Marmelstein said quickly. He jabbed a thumb toward a small window near Reggio's hay bales. "I need that." He pointed to the half-shredded envelope.
The lionesses rose to their feet. There were four of them, huge creatures with a grace and confidence that almost belied their great fierceness.
The lion tipped its head to one side, seeming to work its jaw into another, even louder roar. It would try to force them toward the females. They would then be responsible for the killing.
He was already partway across the room. While the lion was in midroar, Remo reached quickly over, snatching the crate off the floor. He held it out before him, feeling a bit foolish. With a whip in his other hand he could have applied for a job at the circus.
The lion's eyes had been closed while it roared. When it shut its massive jaws it seemed a bit surprised that its great bellow had not had the proper effect. Instead of fleeing, Remo was even closer than he had been.
The female lions were still near the door. This might be easier than he thought. Remo took another step toward the large creature. The lion was curious, but not fearful. It held its ground as he approached.
"Get that envelope first," Bruce Marmelstein's voice pleaded anxiously, too close to Remo's right ear.
"Get away from me," Remo snapped, elbowing Marmelstein in the gut.
The Taurus executive let out a gust of air, doubling over in pain.
This sudden movement was enough for the lion. Coiling the powerful muscles in its hindquarters, it pushed off into the air. In a split second it was hurtling toward Remo, front paws extended, razor-sharp claws splayed.
The animal cut the distance between them in no time.
The lion was fast. But Remo was faster.
When it was close enough that he could smell the stench of rotted flesh on its breath, Remo dropped low. He tossed the crate from left hand to right, keeping it out of the animal's way. Using his free hand as a fulcrum, he propped his palm up against the breastbone of the great beast as it soared above him.
In a move that seemed almost gentle, Remo flipped the creature up and over. Four hundred and fifty pounds of lion soared through the air, landing in a rough heap amid the females of the pride. Unlike a house cat, the lion did not land on its feet. A few of the female lions were knocked over by the male. All of them scrambled quickly to their feet. But Remo was already amid them.
Using the crate so as not to injure the creatures, he coaxed them all back out through the gate. Unlike their counterparts in the wild, these zoo lions didn't put up much of a fight. Remo was wrangling the last lioness back out into the paddock when the shed door that led into the park burst open yet again.
"Come quick!" Hank Bindle shouted urgently. Remo was replacing the bolt that Assola al Khobar had removed prior to his escape.
"Isn't anyone afraid of lions anymore?" he griped.
"This is it. We're dead," Bruce Marmelstein cried to himself. He was crouching on the floor amid the damp remains of his precious paperwork. The documents that would have implicated Assola al Khobar as the man responsible for the extravagant spending binge at Taurus Studios were in wet tatters. A bit of the powdered sugar that had attracted the lion in the first place still clung to the shreds of the envelope.
"Hurry!" Bindle insisted, ignoring his partner.
"What's wrong now?" Remo asked wearily.
"Monkeys don't talk!" he cried.
"Okay, that's it," Remo snapped.
Using the same crate he'd employed on the lions, but much less delicately, Remo knocked the two men back out the door. He propped the crate up against the knob to keep them from coming back in. When he turned back around, Reggio Cagliari was just climbing down to the floor.
"Man, dat was close," he panted. He was sweating profusely. Remo could smell the distinct odor of lion saliva on the man's face. There were remnants of damp powdered sugar there, as well.
"You were lucky," Remo told him. "So far."
"Males don't usually hunt," Reggio explained, still trying to catch his breath. "Females do. They must not have been hungry, I guess."
"I guess you know a lot about lions," Remo said.
"Hey, I get by," Reggio answered. The panic of a moment before was already given way to suspicion. The hood that was Reggio Cagliari was reasserting itself. "You a fed?"
"I don't have time for this," Remo said. "Where's al Khobar?"
"Who the hell's El Kabong?" Reggio aske
d, genuinely confused.
"Koala," Remo snapped.
Reggio balked. "Koalas?" he said vaguely. "Don't know if they got them here. I seen hyenas."
"I told you," Remo said, "I don't have time." Grabbing Reggio by the neck of his sweaty shirt, Remo spun around. He dragged the thug roughly across the floor toward the gate that fed into the lion paddock. As the gate swept toward him, the petty gangster decided that cooperation might be the best way not to while away the evening inside the digestive tracts of a dozen lions.
"He knocked me out!" Reggio cried. "I woke up with dat lion licking my face. I don't know where he went! I swear to God, I don't know."
He was telling the truth, Remo knew. But in this instance the truth was no help.
"Thanks," Remo said coldly. He reached for the bolt.
"Wait, wait!" Reggio pleaded. "Maybe I can give you somethin'." His voice was desperate.
"Doubtful," Remo said.
"Those wires all around town! All around the studios! Doncha wanna know what they are?"
Remo paused. He released his grip on Reggio's shirt. "I'm listening," he said.
Reggio took a deep, thankful breath. "They're hooked up to explosive charges," he said.
Remo frowned. "Are you sure?"
"Whaddya mean?" He sounded mildly insulted. "Sure I'm sure. I use ta use the same sort of stuff sometimes for the Pubescios back before I hadda go to work for dat skunk Vaggliosi. When I picked up Mr. Koala I even sneaked into one of the soundstages at Mammoth Studios just to have a look-see. Dese A-rabs have packed enough explosive crap into the studios around here to blow all of Hollywood down to Tijuana."
Remo thought about all the similar wires he'd been seeing all around the motion-picture capital. Like a picture that had previously been just slightly out of focus, the entire scheme of Sultan Omay suddenly became clear. Remo had a pretty good idea what had been on Smith's missing ship.
"Thanks, Reggio," Remo said with a nod. "You don't even know it, but you just helped out your country."
"Really?" Reggio asked. His eyes narrowed slyly. "Do I get a reward?"
"Absolutely," Remo said agreeably. Reggio smiled broadly.
"What is it?"
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