"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, Remo 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.