Fade to Black td-119 Read online

  He couldn't call Smith. Not without telling him why Chiun was at Taurus. And if Remo blabbed to Smith about the Master of Sinanju's upcoming movie, the old Korean would resolve to make Remo's every waking moment a living hell for the rest of his life. If he was lucky.

  Even if he told Smith, that was no guarantee of guarding Chiun's safety. If the CURE director sent a swarm of police to Taurus, the bombers might turn skittish. Cops could spook the terrorists into setting off the bombs sooner.

  "Dammit, Chiun, why do you have to complicate everything?" Remo griped. He snapped the next phone down in its cradle.

  Exhaling angrily, Remo spun away from the bank of phones. The instant he did, he spied a familiar purple leisure suit bobbing and weaving toward him through the main terminal concourse. Quintly Tortilli had caught up with him in the parking lot at the Dregs. On the way to the airport, Remo had been in too much of a hurry to throw him out of the car.

  A few heads turned as Tortilli shoved through the crowd, waving a pair of airline tickets over his head.

  "We're all set!" Tortilli panted, sliding up beside Remo. He slammed into the phones, out of breath. "Two tickets on the next flight to L.A. We've got about seven minutes." His famous face was slick with sweat.

  Remo was trying to think. "Yeah, and the bombs could go off before that," he muttered.

  "But maybe not," Tortilli stressed. "This is a business charter jet," he added, flapping the tickets at Remo. "We can be in L.A. in an hour and a half. Maybe less."

  "And stacked up over LAX for two days," Remo complained. There had to be another way. Every minute in the sky worrying about the Master of Sinanju would be torture.

  Tortilli shook his head. "I can get us cleared to land as soon as we get there," he insisted. Remo's head snapped around. "How?"

  "Puh-lease," Tortilli mocked, raising an eyebrow. "I'm me."

  Remo frowned. "What kind of perks do you get when you make a good movie?" he asked.

  Before Tortilli could mention a word about his People's Choice Award, Remo reached over and grabbed an extrawide purple lapel. Dragging the director behind him, he sprinted for the departure gate.

  "YOU THERE!"

  The sharp words sliced into Lester Craig's marrow. He pretended he didn't hear the voice. Averting his eyes, he continued walking briskly alongside the massive building that was Soundstage 1.

  "Hold!" the singsong voice commanded. Lester wouldn't have listened under ordinary circumstances. Never would have listened under these particular conditions. But at the moment, the fury in that voice was more frightening to him than the jury-rigged truck bomb he was fleeing.

  Lester stopped dead. William Scott Cain stumbled into him.

  "What do we do?" William demanded.

  "Remember the extra who tried to run from him yesterday?" Lester said from the corner of his mouth. "Traction for six months, minimum." Flies in amber, the two men remained stock-still as the Master of Sinanju bounded up behind them. "Are you two layabouts not employed as overcasts on my magnificent film?" the tiny Asian demanded as he slipped in before Lester and William. Narrowed eyes squeezed glaring fury.

  They knew better than to lie. The two men nodded dumbly.

  The Master of Sinanju's tongue made an angry clicking sound, "That man's laziness is a disease," he hissed to himself.

  "Actually-" Lester ventured.

  The word was barely out before long-nailed hands appeared from the voluminous sleeves of Chiun's kimono.

  "Silence!" he commanded. Angry swats peppered the faces and heads of both extras. "Return to work immediately or you will never breathe in this town again."

  They didn't need to be told a second time. Turning from the furious, slapping dervish, the two men ran off in the direction of the dummy New York exterior. In spite of the knowledge that, in less than two hours, a massive, earthshaking explosion would reduce the entire set and the studio on which it sat to smoking black rubble.

  Chapter 12

  The charter jet skimmed over the border between Oregon and California with steady, confident speed. In the cabin, Remo watched the skimpy white film of clouds dissipate beneath the sleek, gently shuddering wings. Glinting sunlight illuminated tense lines on his hard face.

  Quintly Tortilli had gone to the cockpit while they were still over Washington. To Remo's relief, he didn't return for a large chunk of the flight. Only when they were flying over California's Salmon Mountains did the young director wander back down the aisle.

  Tortilli plopped into the seat next to Remo. "I'm back," he announced.

  Remo continued to stare out at the wing.

  "I'm thinking of doing a disaster movie on a plane," the director said enthusiastically.

  "It's been done," Remo grunted.

  "Not with curse words," Tortilli replied happily. "I plan on using a lot of them. Every other word will be an F word." He held up his hands defensively. "I apologize in advance. I know you don't like that kind of language."

  "What?" Remo frowned, finally turning from the wing.

  "You don't like swear words." Tortilli nodded. "You made that clear when you were strangling me. But when I use swear words in my movies, it's like poetry. All the critics say so."

  Remo couldn't even remember what he had said to the director at their first meeting. He decided he didn't really care. He turned back to the window.

  The ensuing moment of silence between them was filled by the constant hum of the engines. Soft murmurs of conversation rose from around the cabin. Somewhere close behind, a flight attendant banged items on a serving cart.

  "Anyway," Tortilli continued after a short time, "the airplane movie is just one idea I'm working on. Do you realize I've got seventeen sequels in production for my werewolf movie From Noon till Night?"

  "I'm sure whoever invented Roman numerals is committing suicide right now," Remo muttered.

  Tortilli didn't hear him. "Course the first five sequels tanked, but we're bound to hit with one of them," he mused. "Say, do you remember that invasion trouble in Hollywood last year? All those tanks and troops from that Arab country? I forget the name."

  In spite of himself, Remo found that he was being drawn in. It was probably good to get his mind off Chiun.

  "Ebla," he supplied. "Yeah, I remember."

  Tortilli grinned. "That's it. Well, something you might not have heard about was the bombs. There's a rumor that the terrorists wired all of Hollywood to explode. Boom! Everything gone, just like that." He snapped his fingers.

  "No kidding," said Remo Williams, the man who had stopped those self-same bombs from going off.

  "Oh, sure. It was kept quiet afterward. I think the government was embarrassed about letting all those tanks and troops and explosives into the country. They gave them all a pass because they thought it was part of a movie."

  Remo was rapidly losing interest. "Is this like one of your movies, or do you have a point?" he asked.

  Tortilli nodded conspiratorially. "The first movie of the summer season is a make-or-break actioner from Taurus based on those events. Die Down IV. Don't or Die."

  Remo's face clouded. "They turned all that into a movie?" he said, appalled.

  "It's a fictionalized account," Tortilli replied. "A lone cop is dropped into the middle of the occupation and has to fight his way out. It's gonna be a blockbuster. Opens two weeks before Memorial Day."

  "Did it ever occur to whoever's responsible that it's in incredibly bad taste to capitalize on an invasion of America?" Remo asked.

  Tortilli frowned at the unfamiliar term. "Bad what?"

  Remo shook his head. "Does Hollywood at least get blown up?" he asked hopefully.

  "Among other things." Tortilli nodded.

  Remo crossed his arms. "Good," he murmured. "The point is, in the movie, the terrorists smuggle the explosives onto the studio lots. Ring any bells?"

  Remo frowned. He'd been so concerned with the Master of Sinanju that he hadn't thought about how all this might relate to his current assignme
nt. Worse, it took Quintly Tortilli to explain it to him.

  "They're copying the movie," Remo said dully. "I guess Cabbagehead wasn't mainstream enough. They've branched out from indies to the summer blockbusters."

  Remo considered the implications of what Tortilli was saying. Summer movies were notoriously big on mindless destruction. If the same people responsible for duplicating the plot points from the small Seattle film company had moved on to big-budget Hollywood films, the real-world terror could have just shifted from the equivalent of a firecracker to a nuclear bomb. Literally.

  Beside Remo, Quintly Tortilli seemed unfazed by his own deadly deduction.

  "Die Down IV. Now, that's got some action that'll knock your socks off," the director confided. "The cop is the same one from the first three movies. He has to run through Hollywood, as well as other parts of the country, fighting terrorists and defusing bombs. It's wall-to-wall action."

  "Can't you people make a single summer movie without blowing something up?" Remo asked, annoyed.

  Tortilli shook his head. "You need explosions," he argued. "Each big action sequence adds at least ten million to the domestic gross. And they eat the stuff up overseas. My theory is, the more bombs you have going off in a movie, the less dialogue. If no one's talking, foreigners can forget they're watching Americans."

  Again, Tortilli was making sense. It was unnerving.

  "Die Down IV is so loaded with explosives Lance Wallace-he's the star-barely has to open his mouth," Quintly said, pitching his voice low. "Which is a good thing if you've ever seen him act. But don't tell him I said that. I directed him in Penny Dreadful. The guy's a loose cannon. If he heard what I really thought of him, he'd probably shoot me, then claim he thought I was one of the IRA terrorists."

  "What IRA terrorists?" Remo asked.

  "They're the villains in Die Down."

  "I thought you said it was based on what happened in Hollywood last year?" Remo said, confused.

  "It is."

  "Those maniacs weren't IRA. They were Eblans."

  "And Eblans are Arabs, and Arab villains are a big no-no in movies. You can only use white guys. We've replaced the Arabs with a fringe IRA group led by a fey Englishman."

  "That's insane," Remo said. "An Englishman is the last person on earth a fringe faction of the IRA would listen to."

  "Hey, Hollywood only reflects reality," Quintly Tortilli argued. "Therefore, anything produced in Hollywood must be reality. Therefore, the Arab terrorists must really have been IRA. Maybe they had suntans."

  Remo had known it couldn't last. Tortilli was starting to sound like Tortilli again. Blinking wearily, he turned away from the director.

  "Here's some Hollywood advice," Remo said, eyes firmly on the wing. "Every second of screen time doesn't have to be filled with dialogue."

  Tortilli scrunched his already scrunched face. "Is that a polite way of saying shut up?"

  Remo didn't answer. Face concerned, he stared unseeing out the small window.

  Quintly Tortilli eventually grew bored.

  Getting up from his seat, he wandered up the aisle. He found a stewardess to talk to for the rest of the trip to Los Angeles. When he asked for her number, he told the woman it was all in the name of research. He was thinking of doing a movie where the main character was a female flight attendant. Tortilli was sure it would make a ton of money.

  THE RED STUDIO JEEP with its white-striped cloth canopy roof tore off Fifty-seventh Street onto Broadway. Driving crazily through the dodging crowd, it came to a screeching halt in the middle of Times Square.

  The vehicle had been built with no doors. Through the wide opening behind the driver's seat flew two frightened blurs. The pair of men slid to a flesh-raking stop at the edge of the crowd. Several bruised hands reached down to help the shaking men to their feet.

  The Master of Sinanju emerged from the jeep. "These are the last," Chiun announced darkly. He had enlisted a driver to help him locate the rest of the missing extras. Luck proved to be on his side. The extras had all been located in the vicinity of six very similar trucks that were parked all around the studio lot.

  There was a total of only nine men. All of them seemed afraid to move away from one another. The two new arrivals blended in with the huddled group.

  Chiun scanned the line of men, turning with fresh disapproval to Arlen Duggal.

  "Why are there not more?" he demanded of the assistant director. "I have been to the vile city after which this fabrication is patterned." He nodded to the mock-up of New York. "Hordes fill its fetid streets."

  "This is after the first bombing," Arlen explained as he made some quick notes on his shooting script. "Panic's gripped the city. Most people are afraid to go out."

  Chiun allowed a nod of bland acceptance. Padding over, he took up a sentry post behind the A.D., hands thrust deep inside his kimono sleeves. He glowered at the crowd.

  Finishing a notation, Arlen looked up from his script.

  "Okay, we've wasted enough time already," he called to cast and crew, "so I want this thing done fast and I want it done right."

  "Or else," Chiun interjected from behind him.

  Arlen flinched, then forged ahead. "We've gotten strong first takes the last couple of days, so let's try to nail it down out of the gate."

  "Or the next nails you will see will be those being hammered into your coffins," Chiun said menacingly.

  Arlen couldn't take this much longer. Everyone's nerves had been rubbed raw by this maniac screenwriter. The backseat driving and constant threats were already more than he could bear. It was worse than if they'd hired Kevin Costner to star.

  It would help morale if they could get the old man off the set, even if it was just for an hour or two. But his vanity was such that he didn't trust Arlen alone for a min-

  A thought popped into the assistant director's head.

  "People," he muttered, nodding. He wheeled to the tiny Korean. "Mr. Chiun, you're right," he said excitedly, snapping his fingers.

  Chiun's face was bland.

  "Of course I am," the Master of Sinanju sniffed. "What is it that I am correct about this time?"

  "People. We do need more on the streets. A bomb scare wouldn't keep everyone inside. Not in New York. The bravest, wisest, handsomest people would still go outside."

  "Perhaps," Chiun admitted, stroking his sliver of beard. "If I needed to."

  "Exactly!" the A.D. enthused. "You're wasted behind the scenes. You belong in front of the camera!"

  Chiun's hazel eyes sparkled. "Do you really think so?"

  "Absolutely. Wardrobe!"

  One of the wardrobe mistresses hurried forward. "I want Mr. Chiun outfitted with an appropriate costume," Arlen insisted. "I want him to look perfect, so be sure to take your time," he stressed.

  "Is there something wrong with your eye?" Chiun questioned.

  Arlen stopped his frantic winking. "I was merely blinded by your dazzling charisma," he covered quickly.

  On the sidewalk, the sweating extras seemed thrilled at the thought of Chiun leaving. All nine simultaneously glanced at their watches.

  "I understand." The wardrobe woman nodded.

  "Sir?" She directed Chiun toward the jeep he'd commandeered.

  The Master of Sinanju was only too delighted to go.

  "I cannot wait to tell Remo," the old man said, beaming. "I have been discovered."

  As Chiun got in the back, the woman climbed in next to the driver. A moment later, they were zipping back in the direction from which Chiun had come mere minutes before.

  "Thank God," Arlen exhaled as the jeep vanished down Fifty-seventh. "Next film I work on? No writer," he vowed.

  Script in hand, he hurried over to his assistant.

  REMO KNEW they were dangerously close to Hollywood airspace when the copilot and navigator came back to discuss the scripts they'd each written. Tortilli took their numbers and shooed them back to the cockpit.

  Not only did the director arrange to have their pla
ne land immediately upon arrival over Los Angeles International Airport, but he'd also used the phone on the jet to call ahead for transportation. A long black limousine was waiting for them on the tarmac. They were speeding away from the sleek aircraft less than thirty seconds after they'd deplaned.

  "Any news about Taurus?" Tortilli asked the driver.

  "Taurus?" the limo driver said. "Are they still in business?"

  In the backseat, Tortilli glanced to Remo. "Guess that means it hasn't blown up yet, huh?" Hope tripped in Remo's chest.

  "Put on the radio," he commanded the driver.

  "There's one back there, sir," the man offered. Remo looked down on the row of knobs and buttons arranged on the seat panel. It looked more complicated than the cockpit of the plane he'd just left behind. He saw a TV screen set into the console. Remo opted for this over the radio.

  He flipped a switch. A panel opened over an ice bucket. He hit another button. The sunroof slid open, revealing sunny, blue California sky.

  "Just put on the damn radio," Remo ordered sourly.

  The driver did as he was told.

  There was nothing about Taurus Studios on any of the local stations. If a bomb had leveled the place, it would have merited a bulletin. He listened for only a few minutes.

  "Shut it off," Remo insisted, sinking glumly back into the plush seat.

  His heart thrummed an anxious chorus. As he tapped nervously on the seat, his eyes alighted on the car's phone.

  He could have called Smith. Under any other circumstances, would have called him without hesitation. But thanks to Chiun, he couldn't. This was all his fault.

  "Old egomaniac," he muttered to himself.

  "What?"

  The voice drew him from his trance. When he glanced at Quintly Tortilli, his gaze was immediately pulled beyond the director. There was a car parked next to them.

  Remo suddenly realized they'd stopped. "Hurry up," he ordered the driver.

  "I'm sorry, sir," the limo driver apologized. "The freeway's clogged."

  Craning his neck over the driver's shoulder, Remo saw that it was true. Bumper-to-bumper traffic extended as far as the eye could see. At this rate, it would take forever to get to Taurus. By the time he got there, anything could have happened. "Dammit, Chiun," Remo barked.