"Sandstorm," he muttered, grinning like a wolf.
He sent the tank into the obscuring storm. Sand came in through the port, making it impossible to see where he was going. But Bronzini didn't care. A cannon boomed far behind him, and was answered by an equally distant detonation. If anything, the shell had fallen further away than the last one.
Bronzini set his tank on a straight line and held it. The Japs could empty their cannon all over the desert, for all he cared. He was driving a sand-colored tank through a sandstorm. It couldn't be more perfect than if he'd written the script.
Then Bronzini realized that in a way he had. His Sicilian face darkened with wrath. Hunched under the sand-spitting port, he fumbled for the protective goggles he knew every tank carried. He found them and yanked it over his eyes. They afforded him no more visibility than he'd had before, but at least he could look out the periscope. Sand stung his face like hot needles, but Bronzini felt a different kind of pain.
Somewhere beyond the haze lay the city of Yuma and help. Bartholomew Bronzini vowed he wasn't going to stop until he reached the city.
"I should have known!" he muttered. "Nobody pays an actor a fucking hundred million dollars for a one-picture deal. Not even me."
The C-130 Hercules transports were warming up, their rear drop gates down and gaping like maws as First Assistant Director Moto Honda pulled up in a microwave-equipped TV transmission van.
Air Force Rangers stood waiting under Colonel Frederick Davis' proud steely gaze.
"Snap to it, men," he barked. "It's showtime."
The airmen were attired in their camouflage utilities. First A. D. Moto Honda approached Colonel Davis with a hard face that might have been formed out of a block of dog chewbone.
"You men ready, Coronel?" he demanded brusquely.
"Just say the word," Colonel Davis returned. "Just don't forget-I jump first."
"Understand," Honda said, bowing. "You jump first. Be first to hit ground."
"Real fine," Davis said. "How're the Marines doing?"
"Not werr. Base has farren to invader."
"That's what I like. Hardheaded realism." Davis noticed the camera being set up. Another camera was being lugged by another uniformed Japanese crewman. "So shall we go for a take?"
"One moment. Sright change in script. Propman make mistake with parachute."
"Which one?"
"Arr parachute." When Davis looked his lack of comprehension, he added, "Every one."
"Oh. I understood they were thoroughly checked by your people as well as my own. Where's that stunt guy of yours, Sunny Joe?"
"Here!" Sunny Joe Roam called. He loped up to the knot of men. "There a problem, Colonel?" he asked.
"Smarr probrem," Honda said. "Change in script. We wirr not firm parachute drop as night scene. Parachute must be ... What is word?"
"Substituted?"
"Yes. Thank you, substituted. Instead of brack parachute, we issue white day parachute."
Colonel Davis looked at Sunny Joe Roam.
"What do you think?" he asked uneasily. "My people found them shipshape."
"They're good chutes," Roam admitted.
Honda spoke up. "New chutes from same factory, Nishitsu. Only finest materiars. But we must hurry."
"Hold your water," Roam snapped. "I'm responsible for the safety on this shoot."
"We lose much money by deray," Honda pointed out. "Shooting schedule tight."
"Damn!" Roam said distractedly. "Sure wish Jim was here. Well, trot them out. We'll both look 'em over. That good enough for you, Colonel?"
"Yes. Anything to keep the film on schedule." Honda led them to the back of a van filled with packed parachutes. They were so tightly jammed into the van that Sunny Joe Roam and Colonel Davis had difficulty extracting a pair. Finally, two came loose. They knelt on the ground and opened them.
"Looks good to me," Roam said, running his fingers between shroud lines.
"I'm satisfied," Colonel Davis agreed.
Honda grinned tightly. "Very good," he said. "Have men rine up for exchange."
Colonel Davis returned to his men. Sunny Joe Roam stood by his side, his face troubled, his big arms folded over his chest.
"Listen up, men," Davis bellowed. "There's been a script change. We're getting new chutes. Each drop team will form a line at that van." He pointed back to the van, where uniformed crew members were hastily dumping parachutes onto the ground. They set several of these aside. No one noticed that this weeding-out included only the chutes that had formed the exposed group from which the test samples were selected.
Three lines of airmen formed up. They shucked off their chute rigs and traded them for white packs. Remo Williams was at the end of one of the lines. He caught Sunny Joe's eye. Sunny Joe sidled up to him. "What's going on?" Remo whispered.
"Another damned script change. They were going to film the scene with filters to make it look like a night drop. Now they want a day drop. So out go the black parachutes and in come the white parachutes."
"Anybody test these things?" Remo asked worriedly.
"The colonel and I looked a couple of them over."
"That's it?"
"They're as good as the others. If you're worried, think of it like this. Out of five hundred chutes, how many of them could go bad? One, maybe two. The odds of your getting a bad one are pretty damn slim."
"Whatever you say," Remo said. He was still concerned. He hadn't expected filming to be this immense and fragmented an operation. How the hell was he going to protect Bronzini if they kept getting separated? Not that Remo cared much about Bronzini. The guy was obviously a stuck-up jerk. But an assignment was an assignment.
Remo was the last in his line to pick up his chute. He buckled it on and tested the webbing straps. They seemed solid.
As three lines formed near the three droning transports, Colonel Davis looked to First A. D. Honda. Honda was looking through the lens of the camera. He looked up and nodded to Davis. Sunny Joe ducked into one of the transports to get out of camera range. "Action!" Honda called.
Another crewman warned, "Rorring!"
Davis turned and shouted a command to his men over the climbing whine of the transport turbines. The airman teams turned snappily and humped up the ramplike drop gates. As they crouched down on the floor of cargo bellies, the gates rose like hydraulic jaws. Remo watched the sunlight being swallowed by the closing gates and felt the plane shudder as the brakes were released. He felt like Jonah being swallowed by a whale. The noise was overpowering until the Hercules lifted off the flight line.
Sunny Joe Roam hunkered down beside Remo. "You go last!" he shouted over the engine sound.