As he flung the final extra into the rear of the penultimate truck, Remo prayed the man's confederates had neutralized the other four bombs.
With barely more than a minute to spare, the extra's only hope of survival was to disarm the bomb. He was scrambling over the heap of fertilizer as Remo slammed the door. In no time, Remo was flying across the lot toward the commissary.
His face was steel, his arms and legs featureless blurs as he tore down one avenue and ripped up another.
The roads on which he ran were abandoned. The match of fear had been dropped, and the panic had spread like wildfire through the studio. Everyone had fled. Remo only hoped the Master of Sinanju had gone, as well.
Hurtling around the side of the commissary, he found the last truck precisely where the extra had said it would be. He sprinted to the vehicle. Thirty-four seconds.
Remo didn't even bother with the trailer. He knew nothing about dismantling bombs. His only hope was to minimize the damage.
As he flung open the cab door, a horrible thought sprang to mind.
"Keys!" Remo hissed.
He'd forgotten to ask for them! Thirty seconds.
He'd hot-wired cars before, but never that fast. He doubted he could get it done in time.
No time to reconsider. There might yet be people in the surrounding buildings. He dived beneath the dashboard.
A dangling weight brushed his short hair. Spinning to the source, he found the keys hanging from the ignition an inch from his nose.
"Thank God for amateurs," Remo grumbled, falling back in the driver's seat.
The engine started with a rumbling cough. Twenty-eight seconds left. How far to drive back across the lot?
Even as he wondered the distance, he was stomping on the gas. The big truck lumbered forward. Slowly at first, but with greater speed with each passing second.
Remo plowed over whatever was in his way. Clothing racks and backdrops were crushed under speeding treads.
Ahead was an open hangar door. Engine building to a throaty protest, Remo jounced through the opening, straight into the soundstage.
In the semidarkness of the huge interior, lights and cameras bounced off the grille. Thick cables thrummed relentlessly below.
Another hangar door. This one closed.
Shifting, Remo accelerated more. A final burst of speed and the truck punched through it, bursting out into bright sunlight.
An instant of relief.
He had oriented himself correctly. The truck was now headed precisely where he wanted it to go. Eighteen seconds.
All at once, a familiar figure was standing in the truck's path. Daring Remo to run him down. Parchment face furious.
Chiun. He hadn't fled with the rest.
"Get out of the way!" Remo screamed, even as the truck consumed the final distance between him and the Master of Sinanju.
Eyes slivers of angry disbelief, Chiun stood his ground until the last instant. Only when it became clear that Remo had no intention of stopping did he bound from the rushing truck's path.
The instant after the old man's eggshell pate vanished from before the windshield, the passenger's side door burst open. The Master of Sinanju blew into the speeding truck's cab like a raging wind.
"What is the meaning of this?" Chiun demanded from the seat beside Remo.
"No time," Remo snapped through clenched teeth.
Before them appeared the outdoor New York set. Remo had seen it on one of his bored tours of the studio last year. It looked to have been abandoned for ages. Cries for realism had forced most films and television programs to relocate to the real New York. But today there was equipment everywhere.
"I thought this place was abandoned!" Remo yelled as the truck barreled onto the set. Equipment crashed away from the cab, flying in every direction as the big vehicle lumbered forward. Beside him, Chiun's eyes were wide in shock.
"Remo, have you gone mad!" the old man gasped.
Fifteen seconds.
"There's a bomb on board!" Remo screamed. Hazel eyes grew to saucers of incredulity.
There was no time for further explanation. Only for one last warning.
"Run!" Remo shouted desperately.
And flinging open his door, Remo dropped from the cab.
Even as Remo was jumping out one way, Chiun was leaping out the other. Both men hit the ground running.
Ten seconds.
The truck careered forward, finally crashing headlong into one of the phony buildings. The very real brick wall behind it stopped the truck dead, nose crumpling back through the cab to the trailer. The impact didn't set off the explosives.
Wordlessly, Remo and Chiun ran. Arms swinging, legs pounding in furious concert.
Neither man looked at the other as they raced side by side for the end of the lot. They hit the main concourse to the soundstages. Still they didn't slow.
In his head, Remo was counting down the time. Seven seconds.
He remembered the cratered Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City and similar blasts at embassies in Africa. They might not be far enough away.
Five seconds.
Running blindly, lungs working furiously.
Not enough distance. Not enough time to get away.
Three seconds.
A concussive wave at his back. Early. The terrorist had miscounted.
He felt himself being lifted in the air; thrown forward.
Something flashed in his peripheral vision. Hands windmilling. Slicing furiously at air. Chiun.
And in that sliver of airborne time at the hellish forefront of a consuming wave of raw explosive energy, Remo finally noticed the Master of Sinanju's costume. In his altered police uniform, the old man looked like Korea's answer to the Keystone Kops.
Remo made a mental note to ask Chiun about the outfit when they reached the Void, for there was no doubt in his mind that they were both going to die.
And as this final thought flitted through the mind of Remo Williams, the wave of intense heat from the powerful blast overwhelmed them.
Chapter 15
When the sound wave screamed over his prone form, exploding with deafening force in his ears, Remo realized that he had survived the explosion after all.
The ground where he'd landed shook from the intensity of the blast. Pressure waves expelled before the rushing explosive force shattered windows in all of the studio buildings around him. Glass fragments attacked the roadway like shards of finely honed ice.
Even as the sound blew away from him, rumbling furiously into the distance, the wide stretch of road where Remo had been thrown was pelted with a hail of hot gravel and dirt. Chunks of smoldering wood from the flimsy New York facades scattered like matchsticks, curls of smoke rising from their charred ends.
The explosion and its aftermath-even the fact that he had come through in one piece-meant little to Remo. He had only one overriding concern.
As he scampered to his feet, Remo's worried eyes searched for the Master of Sinanju. His tense face became a wash of relief when he spied the old Korean scurrying out from beneath an abandoned studio jeep. Embers from the explosion had ignited a small fire on the jeep's striped-cloth canopy.
Chiun was getting to his feet when Remo approached.
"That was close," Remo exhaled. As he walked, he slapped grime from his chinos.
"Close!" the Master of Sinanju raged, parchment face flushed red. "Have you lost your mind?" Nails like daggers were clutched in furious fists of bone.
"What's with you?" Remo griped, instantly aggravated at the belligerent stance the old man had taken.
"I will tell you what!" Chiun snapped. "This-this outrage!" He waved an angry hand back toward where the explosion had leveled most of Times Square.