"Smitty, you're keeping me here for some pig in a poke," Remo muttered. "We don't know if he has anything planned here at all. This whole Hollywood angle might just be an ego boost for that rotting old fossil."
"Listen to Remo, Emperor," Chiun called, irritated, from across the room. "This is one of those rare times when he makes sense."
"I do not believe so," Smith said. "Given what we have just witnessed, the sultan has obviously stepped up his campaign. His designs since the outset have included both the entertainment community and the situation he has created in the Mideast." Smith's voice sounded firmer, as if he were pleased to finally take some action. "CURE can no longer sit idly by and allow this crisis to go on indefinitely. It has finally escalated to the point that it has become necessary to split you and Chiun up in order to strike back in a two-pronged attack."
"What do you want us to do?"
There was urgency to Smith's tone. "This is the plan I had hesitated to use before," he said. "It requires a great deal of delicacy. More delicacy, perhaps, than you and Chiun are capable of."
"Lather us up, why don't you?" Remo said sarcastically.
"That is not an insult, but a statement of fact. Remo, I need you to remove Assola al Khobar in America at the precise moment Chiun dispatches Sultan Omay in Ebla."
Remo's face clouded. "What good will that do?" he asked. "You said yourself taking out Assola might be the trigger that starts everything going over here."
"Perhaps not," Smith said. "If the leaders of both Eblan factions are removed simultaneously, their larger scheme might collapse. One might not be able to act without the other there for guidance."
"'Perhaps Perhaps ... might ... might.' You don't sound too sure."
"I am not," Smith admitted. "But we have reached an impasse. Better to get whatever is to happen over with quickly than to allow it to go on any longer."
"If you say so." Remo didn't sound convinced. Remo's uncertainty did not deter Smith.
"There is a ten-hour difference from Los Angeles to Ebla. You and Chiun are to strike tomorrow at precisely 8:00 p.m. Pacific daylight time. That is 6:00 a.m. in Ebla. Chiun should be in place by then."
"Did you get that, Chiun?" Remo asked.
"I am annoyed, not deaf," the Master of Sinanju answered. His wrinkled face was bunched into a scowl.
Remo knew he was thinking about the precious screenplay he'd left in the hands of Bindle and Marmelstein.
"In the interim, Remo, stick close to al Khobar. Even an inadvertent slip could give us a clue as to what he has done with the mysterious missing shipment of cargo."
"Not very bloody likely," Remo muttered.
"Irrespective, when the eleventh hour is upon us you may, er, persuade him to give you the information before his ultimate removal."
"'Ultimate removal.' Geez, Smitty, you make it sound like I'm taking out the freaking trash," Remo complained.
The CURE director did not miss a beat. "You are."
Chapter 22
Hank Bindle was beginning to think he didn't like directing. Nothing was going right for him.
The Arabs were no longer cooperating as they had been. He could thank Mr. Koala for that. The Eblan executive had pulled all the extras away from the production after that minor unpleasantness in Beverly Hills. Every available man was now out patrolling the streets with an enthusiasm that, frankly, Hank Bindle thought was bordering on nutty.
His new "Arabs" consisted of anyone he could find and wrap in a bedsheet. None of them looked convincingly like Middle Eastern terrorists. Particularly the female office workers he had conscripted. Their silicone- or saline-enhanced chests kept bouncing out all over the place in a very nonterroristic way. On top of that their false mustaches kept getting gunked to their lip gloss.
The shoot had gone on for barely two days and already it was an unqualified disaster.
Now on top of it all, he'd lost the sun. "Shit!" Hank Bindle screamed.
He waved a menacing fist at the heavens. "Shit, shit, shit!" he screamed more loudly.
The sun remained behind a smear of thin white clouds. Even the sky itself mocked him.
Bindle flung his megaphone away.
"I can't believe this!" he screamed. "Cut!" Bindle wheeled around. "Get that sun out here, pronto!" he yelled at his alarmed assistant.
"I'll get right on it, H.B.," the assistant said gulping. She ran off to call the Griffith Park Observatory. Bindle stormed around his exterior set. He wore a bright green ascot and a red beret tipped at a rakish angle. The sleeves of his red sweater were draped lazily across his shoulders and were tied at his chest. In his clashing reds and greens he looked like a Louis B. Mayer-era director dressed up for the studio Christmas party.
A group of men in T-shirts and shorts was working on a strange mechanical creature behind one of the cameras. It was the first of the eight dozen animatronic camels Bindle had ordered. The hastily constructed prototype cost thirty-seven million dollars and looked as if someone had flung a hairy rug over a tall chain-link fence.
"Have you got that thing working yet?" Bindle demanded.
"Some sand got inside the gizmo. Shorted it out," an electrician said. "Do they have to actually walk in the desert?"
"No," Bindle said sarcastically. "Why don't you strap a pair of mechanical wings to them and we can fly them around like frigging Aladdin's magic carpet?"
"Gee, I'm not sure about the aerodynamics of this design." The electrician frowned seriously.
Before Bindle could explain to him that he'd been joking, a voice broke in behind them. "How's it going?"
The men returned to their work as Hank Bindle turned around. Bruce Marmelstein stood near the cameras, a tight smile on his face.
"Rotten," Bindle grumbled to his partner. "Nothing is working right. This whole production is a mess."
"Have you found a script yet?" Marmelstein asked. He appeared nervous. Sweat beads dotted his tan forehead.
Hank Bindle was surprised. They were only two days into production. Too early for a finished script. And Bruce Marmelstein had never expressed an interest in the creative end of the business before. He was only concerned with money. For Marmelstein everything was ultimately affected by the bottom line.
Bindle took Marmelstein by the arm. He quickly guided him away from the crew's prying ears. "What's wrong?" Bindle whispered.
"I was just checking on our finances," Marmelstein said anxiously. "We're heading onto shaky ground vis-A-vis the Omay situation."
"For this production?"
"For the entire studio. The Movie is sinking us into a quagmire of red ink. It's gone way over budget."
"Hmm," Hank Bindle considered. "I forget, how much was the original budget?"
"Three hundred million."
"And how much have we spent?"
Marmelstein checked a wrinkled sheet of paper clutched in his hand. It was damp with sweat. "Two and a half billion," Marmelstein said sickly.
"Is that a lot?" asked Bindle, who, after all, was creative and not a money cruncher.
"A billion is a number followed by nine zeros."
"Wow." Hank Bindle almost sounded impressed at their ability to spend.
"We've gone from being in the black to being in the red in one day. They haven't picked up on it in Ebla yet, but it's only a matter of time. I think they're busy with something else right now. A war, maybe."
"That's politics," Bindle said dismissively. He pitched his voice low. "We've still got other ways to finance. What about our video-distribution company?" he asked.
"I think we might have hit a snag there," Marmelstein said. "Apparently Jimmy Fitzsimmons turned up dead at some kind of rally in Boston. When the cops investigated, they checked his warehouse. The videos were all seized."