"I think customs might have taken a powder on this one, Smitty," Remo said sarcastically. "I didn't see a single agent within a country mile of those containers."
"You are suggesting someone bribed the customs officials?" Smith asked.
"There's an Arab army on the loose in Hollywood with more military hardware than Saddam Hussein has in his rumpus room. What do you think?"
Across the country, in the solitude of his Folcroft office, Harold Smith leaned his bony elbows on his desk. Eyes closed, he pinched the bridge of his patrician nose as he considered.
"We have no options," he said slowly. The admission of helplessness chewed like bitter-tasting acid straight through to his native New England core.
"There's got to be something we can do," Remo insisted.
"No. There is nothing," Smith said. "It is the perfect trap. Its two parts are set to spring a world apart if but one side is upset. If you eliminate al Khobar, the sultan will kill the secretary of state and invade Israel. If the sultan is removed in Ebla, a cataclysm will befall Hollywood, the nature of which is still unknown to us. We are helpless."
"Are you going to just leave a foreign army on the loose in California?"
"It is already on the ground, Remo," Smith droned. His caustic tone made it clear he thought part of the blame for this rested on Remo's shoulders. "Al Khobar has men everywhere in the Hollywood area, if what you told me is accurate." Smith opened his eyes. He was suddenly intensely weary. "Give me time to think. There must be an option. I will endeavor to find it."
On the West Coast, Remo forced a smile. "Don't worry, you will," he said. His attempt to cheer up Smith sounded patronizing at best, pathetic at worst. He tried to change the subject. "Oh, you might be interested to know Bindle and Marmelstein are in charge of Taurus," Remo offered weakly.
"I know," Smith told him. "And it is irrelevant to your current assignment." It sounded as if the life had drained from him. "Is this the number where you can be reached?"
"I'll call you when I book a hotel room," Remo said.
"Please do," Smith said, his voice devoid of all energy.
When he hung up the phone, the CURE director left Remo feeling intensely guilty. Rotating his wrists in frustration, Remo looked back out the window.
By this time the camels had all been mounted. The Arabs atop them-and they were Arabs, not Mexican extras as Remo had foolishly thought tipped their heads back. Tongues extended, they offered triumphant screams to their fellow Eblans. A chorus of shrieking ululations echoed off the soundstage exteriors, carrying through the office walls.
Battle cries.
Real guns and real swords rose high in the warm California air.
And as Remo watched, his stomach sinking, the victorious Eblans spurred their camels forward. Beasts pounding a crazed chorus, wave after wave of soldiers began riding out through the gates into the parched street beyond the Taurus walls.
A cloud of dust rose high into the dry air, kicked up by the furious beating of more than a thousand frantic hooves.
With tire squeals and angry horn honks, the Bentleys and Porsches that had been driving along the road in front of the studio slammed on their brakes or pulled onto sidewalks, steering out of the path of the crazed Eblan army.
Cries of triumph filled the air.
The invasion of Hollywood had begun. And Remo Williams could only watch it happen.
Chapter 13
The occupation of Hollywood and Beverly Hills up to Burbank in the north, and down through Culver City in the south, took less than four hours to complete.
Within the first hour forces from the United States Army and the California National Guard had established a neutral zone running over to Glendale in the east, skirting downtown Los Angeles and up around the San Fernando Valley to Santa Monica in the west. As the forces of the Ebla Arab Army secured more-permanent positions within the zone, the U.S. military sat outside. Waiting. They had been instructed to do nothing to provoke a situation that might harm innocent civilians.
The situation offshore was no better. Vessels of the U.S. Navy from the Pacific fleet were on high alert between the mainland and Santa Catalina Island. But a safe channel had been established to allow free travel of Eblan vessels into L.A. Harbor. So while the Navy was present, it could do nothing to stop the influx of more men and materiel for the sitting Eblan army.
The streets of Hollywood, Burbank and Culver City had been abandoned to Eblan soldiers. Tanks and jeeps, as well as men on camels and horseback, patrolled the otherwise empty thoroughfares. Every soldier held an automatic weapon in his triumphant hand. Americans remained for the most part hidden fearfully behind locked doors.
The sights he beheld sickened Remo Williams as he drove through Hollywood's streets in a Taurus Studios jeep.
The store windows along Rodeo Drive had been shot out. Expensive leather garments were strewed across sidewalks and atop the hoods of abandoned Rolls-Royces.
Someone had driven a tank over a fire hydrant. The tank was long gone. The hydrant continued to shoot a stream of water high into the air, flooding the street and washing away some of the goods first looted, then abandoned.
The water was halfway up the jeep's tires as Remo toured the street, unmolested by Arabs. They always seemed to be wherever he wasn't. Growing bored at last, he drove back to his hotel.
When Remo pushed open the door to his suite, he found Chiun seated placidly on the floor. Even with the chaos all around them, the old Korean was as calm as a wooded glade at sunset.
Chiun wore a hyacinth kimono. Along the back of the garment twin peacocks raised multicolored feathers, their edges outlined in striking gold accents.
Even amid all of the terror and uncertainty, the Master of Sinanju had found someone at Taurus willing to retype his screenplay. The text had been transferred from parchment to standard computer paper and was now contained in a special leatherbacked binder.
Chiun was scanning the hundred-plus sheets of paper. As he worked, he occasionally clucked unhappily, making a correction in red ink in the wide margins.
"I'm back," Remo announced glumly.
Chiun looked up. "Remo enters, clomping and braying like a wounded mule," he said merrily. The Master of Sinanju returned to his work.
"Stop talking like the freaking narrator," Remo griped.
Shuffling across the room, Remo gathered up the remote control from atop the hotel television. Collapsing boneless into a chair, he turned on CNN.
The Eblan story was still raging strong. He hadn't really expected otherwise. Turning down the sound, he watched images of men on camelback riding along a closed section of Santa Monica Freeway.
It was only a few minutes after Remo started watching the TV that Chiun finished scribbling on the last page of his screenplay. The old man made a small, final mark, closing the binder with a lordly flourish.
"Perfect," he exclaimed grandly. Remo ignored him.
"You have noticed, no doubt, that I am talking to you once more," Chiun announced.
"Yep," Remo said with a bland sigh. He continued staring at the screen, his thoughts elsewhere.
"When I learned of your deception, I was understandably cross," the Master of Sinanju scolded gently.
"Listen," Remo said, shaking his head. "I know what you're like when you're around this town. I figured you'd get all moon-eyed looking for Raymond Burr and Edward G. Robinson and I wouldn't get any work done. Besides, it was supposed to be a quick assignment."
"There, you see?" Chiun said placidly. "Even when you incorrectly paint me as a burdensome celebrity stalker, I am not cross. I am in a magnanimous mood, Remo. Bask in my achievement."
"Okay," Remo groaned. "I'm not gonna get any peace until I ask. What have you achieved?"
"Success," Chiun proclaimed. With one wickedly sharp fingernail he tapped the cover of the screenplay on the floor beside him. "I have written a story filled with sex and violence. Oh, it is a marvelous thing, Remo. Dinosaurs and pyrotechnics abound. One does not turn a page without coming upon a thrilling car chase or a dastardly space alien. Oh, what a wonderful day to know me. An even more glorious day to be me. You, Remo, are truly blessed."