Warren Murphy: The Final Reel

The connection was severed.

Omay returned the phone to his subordinate. He did not think to return Minister Hamza's call. "You will celebrate alone," the sultan said ominously.

As the young soldier near him held the binoculars up to his tired eyes, Omay returned his gaze to the field of battle.

Chapter 32

Even as the Eblan soldiers prepared to rape his common-law wife, Tom Roberts tried to understand their motivation.

"Are there socioeconomic roots in what you're doing?" he asked earnestly. His eyes were nearly swollen shut from the beating they had given him. Capped teeth jangled in his bloody mouth.

A soldier grunted something in the Eblan Arab dialect and brought a pointy-toed boot sharply into Roberts's side.

Roberts gasped, clutching at the soft area beneath his rib cage. "Reaganomics!" he wheezed. "This is all because of the greed of the eighties, isn't it?"

"For Christ's sake, shut up and do something!" Susan Saranrap screamed at Roberts.

She was lying on her back just inside the monkey house.

Two of the men held her arms above her head. A third wrapped a leather belt around her narrow wrists, lashing them to the bars of the chimpanzee cage.

"I tried reasoning with them," Roberts explained from his spot on the floor. Blood dribbled from his mouth. "But I'm really limited when dealing with them. Damn my school system for not having ethnic studies while I was growing up!"

Another boot silenced any further self-recrimination from the actor. Roberts collapsed into a heap on the floor, groaning in agony.

The five leering Eblans turned their attention solely on Susan Saranrap. One of them tore at the black robe she was wearing. While he did this, the rest began pulling at their own clothing.

Helpless to prevent what was about to happen, Susan Saranrap did the only thing she could.

She screamed.

REMO HEARD THE SCREAM as he raced down the zoo path. He hopped a fence and raced across a strip of grass.

As he loped onto the next path nearer the monkey house, Remo saw the carcass of a half-eaten zebra lying in the bushes next to the strip of asphalt. There were the remains of several more animals around it.

The Eblan soldiers who were occupying this part of California had apparently spent part of the past two days consuming the exhibits. Remo remembered the same thing happening at the zoo in Kuwait. Everyone assumed then that it was a matter of starvation that propelled the Iraqi soldiers to participate in something so nauseating. Remo now suspected otherwise.

Leaping at a full, outstretched hurdle, Remo cleared another low fence. He bounded into the fetid, gloomy interior of the monkey house.

Susan Saranrap was in the process of issuing a final caution to her assailants. Her eyes bugged crazily.

"Watch it, buster," the actress threatened the Eblan who was climbing atop her. "You don't know what I do to men. Didn't you ever see Zelma and Patrice?"

The man hadn't. And in another second he would never have the chance. The Arab was in the process of running his rough hands up the actress's pale, wrinkled thighs when he abruptly found that his hands were no longer his to rub anywhere.

The soldier screamed, struggling to his knees. Blood pumped from wrist stumps where his hands had been.

He turned in time to see Remo throwing a pair of very familiar objects into the chimp house. There were fingers attached to them.

A moment of shock gave way to an eternity of oblivion. Remo pivoted on one foot, the other braced against his calf. A kneecap crushed the forehead of the Eblan soldier.

The other men didn't have time to react to the initial assault before Remo was among them. Hands and feet lashed out in a furious concert of death. Four pelvises were mashed to damp powder. As the men collapsed one after another, toes took out throats. All were dead before they hit the floor. Remo waded through the pile of Eblan debris. He used the sharpened edge of a single fingernail to slice the cords around Susan Saranrap's wrists. She was shaken but unharmed. He helped the actress to her feet.

Rema then went over to assist Tom Roberts.

It appeared as if most of the actor's injuries were superficial. Still, he'd need to see a doctor. Remo propped him up by one arm and helped walk him to the door.

Susan Saranrap took Roberts by the other arm. "Why couldn't you do anything?" she demanded. "I had to wait for this guy to save me." She jutted her pointed witch's chin at Remo. "And he's not even in the Industry."

"My fault. Multiculturalism was the answer," Tom burbled through a mouth of blood. "I lacked understanding because of my accursed dead white European male perspective. Damn me!"

"Oh, brother," Remo griped.

Roberts turned his swollen eyes to Remo. "I wasn't talking to you, you ...homophobe!" he accused.

Remo looked puzzled. "Are you gay?" he asked.

"No," Roberts admitted. "But it seemed like the right thing to say."

"So does this," Remo said. "Good night."

He squeezed a spot at the back of Roberts's neck. The actor's head lolled forward.

They carted him the rest of the way back to the Taurus Studios jeep in blessed silence.

FIVE MINUTES LATER Remo was on one of the zoo pay phones with Smith. The jeep was parked and idling nearby. Bindle and Marmelstein were tending to Tom Roberts in the back seat while Susan Saranrap sat in the front, pointedly ignoring the activity going on behind her.

"Remo, where have you been?" Smith demanded urgently. "You have missed your check-in time by hours."

"No sweat," Remo said. "I've still got time to spare."

"No, you don't," Smith explained hastily. "Chiun landed in Tel Aviv more than an hour and half ago. According to what I have been able to find out, he may already be at the Eblan side of the conflict."

"What conflict?" Remo asked.

Smith told him of the incursion by Ebla Arab Army forces into the Golan Heights region. Apparently the news had not been big enough to merit mentioning on the West Coast.

"I hate Hollywood," Remo muttered when the CURE director was through.

"The United States Army is preparing to invade the occupied territory in California," Smith said. "If Omay has anything planned with al Khobar, it has not yet occurred."

"I think I know why, Smitty," Remo said. "Assola was kidnapped by a thug who worked for one of the studios out here, but he got away."

"That makes sense," Smith mused. "If Omay thought al Khobar had been killed he would have gone ahead and sprung his end of the trap. But we still do not know what they have in store for Hollywood."

"Oh, yes, we do," Remo said.

"What?" Smith asked.

"No time to explain," Remo said. "Before the Army rolls in here, get me every member of the L.A. bomb squad and every demolition expert the Army and National Guard have stationed near here. Put them in Arab clothes, stick them on trucks and have them meet me on the corner of Hollywood and Vine as fast as possible."

"The Eblan forces on the ground might object to their presence," Smith cautioned.

"The only way these dips would notice is if they rode in on animatronic camels. Hurry, Smitty." The CURE director did not ask about the enigmatic remark. Nor did he need to be prodded again. He quickly hung up the phone.

Remo raced back to the jeep.

Tom Roberts had just regained consciousness. "We can cover up the bruises with makeup," Hank Bindle was assuring the actor.

"I'm dumping all you dingdongs off someplace safe," Remo told them as he climbed back behind the wheel. He floored the jeep, and they zoomed away from the phone bank.

"Can't I go with you?" Susan Saranrap asked, supremely disappointed. Wind whipped her long, dyed hair around her age-ravaged face.

"What about your boyfriend?" Remo asked, nodding back to Tom Roberts.