Jumping down, Remo hurried over to the limousine. When he stuck his head inside, seven frightened faces darted up from the body of William Scott Cain.
"How many more of you assholes are here?" Seven heads shook in unison. "None," seven fearful voices chirped.
A minor silver lining. No one left to set off the remaining bombs. But that wouldn't matter if time ran out on even one of them.
Remo's thoughts spun to the Master of Sinanju. Fear for Chiun's safety kept him from asking how soon the bombs were set to go off. By the looks on the faces of his captives, it had to be any minute. He hopped into the limo, barking over his shoulder, "Get onto the stages. Warn everyone to clear the lot."
Anxiety flooded Tortilli's face, yet the director didn't argue. As Remo's limo tore off in a squeal of smoking tires, Quintly Tortilli ran toward the nearest soundstage.
Chapter 13
When Chiun strode grandly onto the set, resplendent in his altered police commissioner's uniform, he was certain his magnificent raiment would cause a jealous stir. Unfortunately, at the instant he appeared, he was upstaged before both cast and crew by some unknown interloper who came racing onto the New York mock-up from the opposite direction.
"It's a bomb!" Quintly Tortilli was screaming at the top of his lungs. His eyes bugged wildly as he ran, arms flailing.
Arlen Duggal turned to the commotion. "Quintly?" the assistant director asked, as if seeing a ghost. He seemed both surprised and relieved at once.
"It's a bomb, Arlen!" Tortilli screamed, grabbing the A.D. by the biceps.
Arlen pitched his voice low. "I've been thinking the same thing," he whispered. "But no one will listen."
He sucked in his breath when Tortilli squeezed his arms tighter, a look of mad desperation in his eyes.
"Clear the studio!" Tortilli screamed. "There are bombs set to go off all around us! They're blowing up the studio!"
A crowd was gathering.
"What are you saying, Quintly?" Arlen asked, confused.
"The extras! The extras planted truck bombs!" Tortilli released the man, spinning to the others nearby. "This whole studio is one big bomb! Run for your lives!"
His frantic mannerisms sent a charged ripple of fear through the crowd. As one, those gathered suddenly remembered the urgency with which the missing extras had been running. As if for their own lives.
There was a single frightened moment of clarity. Then hysteria.
Men yelled; women screamed. The pandemonium rippled out from Tortilli all across the set. By the time it reached the approaching Master of Sinanju, it was a tidal wave.
People ran in every direction. Whatever they'd been doing was abandoned. Whatever they'd been holding was flung aside in their desperate charge for safety.
Eyes narrowing to furious slits, Chiun clomped in his big boots through the stampeding mob.
A burly teamster tried to shove the tiny Asian out of his way. His crumpled body fell in the wake of the crowd. No one offered him a hand.
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.