Warren Murphy: The Final Reel

She raised a disdainful eyebrow. It was drawn in with a pencil. "After today I don't want to have anything to do with him ever again."

In the back seat Hank Bindle's eyes sprung as wide as saucers. "What about our movie?" he pleaded.

"Especially that," Susan sniffed.

"Uhng. My heart," Bruce Marmelstein choked. He clutched at his chest.

Bindle abandoned Roberts to attend to his longtime partner.

"You're killing him, you know that?" he accused Susan Saranrap harshly.

In the front seat Remo Williams smiled. "That's showbiz, sweetheart."

The jeep bounced back through the main gate and flew across Griffith Park, away from the zoo.

Chapter 33

Sultan Omay's vision had not become so poor that he did not see the blue six-pointed star painted on the side of the jeep. It was the Magen David, the Shield of David. The star was at the center of a field of white. Two narrow blue bands ran parallel to one another at the top and bottom borders of the painted flag.

The jeep bounced through the Israeli lines unmolested.

It was the first to break through.

The Ebla Arab Army forces still alive in that area of the battlefield concentrated their fire on the rogue jeep. A violent hail of bullets rattled endlessly against the vehicle. Noise from ricochets and the thunking sound of metal penetrating metal filtered through the other heavy battle noise. But through it all, the jeep kept coming.

"We must retreat, Sultan," the soldier holding his binoculars insisted. There was fear in his young voice.

It was an effort now for the sultan to raise his head. He did so nonetheless. He regarded the frightened soldier as he might have an insect.

"We stay," Omay wheezed.

The jeep rounded a turn in the rocky terrain, disappearing behind a stab of pocked white rock. When it reappeared on the ancient road, it was much closer. Omay saw the driver.

He didn't appear to be a member of the Israel Defense Forces. Indeed at first glance he did not appear human.

Through the shattered glass of the windshield Omay could see a pair of hands gripping the steering wheel. They had to reach up to do so. A pale dome-like a fossilized dinosaur egg-poked up somewhere behind the hands. Every once in a while, when the jeep hit a rocky bump in the path, a pair of angry, narrow eyes popped up above the dashboard.

The Eblan forces were depleted near Omay's command post. The jeep had a straight, unmolested path to the sultan of Ebla. As the men around him drew their weapons, the Israeli jeep roared into the base camp, a cloud of dust rising behind it. It screeched to a stop.

The thing that Omay suspected for a time to be inhuman as the jeep raced across the field, proved itself to be nearly so. As the few scattered men around him moved to surround the jeep, the driver's door exploded open.

The two soldiers nearest the door were first to fall. Propelled from its hinges by a force greater than any in the arsenal of the nation of Ebla, the door rocketed into the alert forms of the soldiers. Every bone between their necks and ankles was crushed instantly. Their skin became a pulpy mass holding in their pulverized remains.

Omay had barely taken in the slaughter of the first two soldiers when a tiny shape emerged from the vehicle.

There were a dozen more men in the camp. At the moment the first men were falling, the rest opened fire.

Bullets savaged the air around the strange intruder. But as Omay watched, not one round of ammunition seemed to penetrate the air around the whirling purple dervish.

"You dare, Ebla offal?" the intruder shrieked. Enraged, he fell among the men.

Hands flew faster than the eye could see. The results, however, were plainly evident.

Necks surrendered heads like melons plucked from vines. Blood erupted from wounds in chests, stomachs and throats. Limbs fell and were crushed beneath swirling, stomping feet.

When the ancient figure finished a few seconds later, not one Eblan soldier remained upright. Only then did the hell-sent devil slowly turn his vengeful eyes on Sultan Omay sin-Khalam.

Fearful of the wraith, Omay tried to stand. He could not. He fell back to his stool as the demon in purple swept through the bloody arena and over to his command tent.

"You are sultan of Ebla?" the demon demanded.

"Yes, I am, 0 spirit," Omay stammered. His grayish skin had become flushed. He felt his head reeling.

"I am no spirit," the old one spit. "I am flesh and blood as you. Although my flesh is the proper hue and my blood is not flooded with the sickness that has befallen you in your weakness." He crossed his arms over his chest imperiously. "I am Chiun, Master of Sinanju," he intoned.

"Sinanju?" Omay asked, his voice weak. He was panting. "You are myth."

"So thought your ancestors. And it is because of this pigheaded disregard of fact that no work has ever come to Sinanju from the sin-Khalam sultanate."

Omay's sickly eyes grew suddenly crafty. "Then let me correct the errors of my ancestors," he said quickly. "I offer you employment, O great Master of Sinanju."

Chiun grabbed the sultan, dragging him to his feet.

"I have employment, Eblan filth." He raised a single curved index fingernail. "And hark you now. The death I will inflict upon you this day will be as nothing compared to the torment I will subject you to in the Void if my movie deal falls through."

With angry shoves Chiun propelled the sultan of Ebla toward his waiting Israeli jeep.

Chapter 34

Remo had to hand it to Smith. He worked fast. After dumping Tom Roberts, Susan Saranrap and the pair of Taurus executives at a doctor's office, Remo had sped to Hollywood and Vine. There he found a caravan of nine trucks already lined up along the curb. The insignia on their doors and license plates had been spray-painted over.

Remo jumped out of his studio jeep and ran up to the lead truck.

"Where's the LAPD guys?" he asked urgently.

"Right here," the driver of the first truck said. "Sergeant Jack Connell, bomb squad." He pulled back the veil that was draped over his nose, revealing a face far too pale to belong to an Eblan terrorist.

"Split your men up with the National Guard and Army forces," Remo instructed. "Make sure there's someone who knows the area well in every truck."

"Yes, sir," Sergeant Connell replied. He hopped down from the cab.

Running to the rear of his vehicle, the police officer began shouting orders to the men inside. Two dozen men in robes climbed down and began spreading out to the other trucks. Soldiers in similar costume ran back, making up the difference in the lead truck.

"Where'd you get the outfits?" Remo asked the officer during the manpower exchange.

Sergeant Connell grinned.

"Let's just say the California National Guard is looking at one mother of a linen bill," he said.

CHIUN WAS ONLY HALFWAY BACK to Akkadad when his gas finally ran out.

He had been well into his nineties the first time he sat behind the wheel of a car and as a result was still new to the vicissitudes of Western conveyances. Sometimes when a vehicle broke down on them in America, Remo would raise the hood and poke around beneath it. More often than not, after his pupil was through tinkering with the engine, the car would end up more broken than it had been. Chiun lacked even the meager automotive repair skills that Remo possessed. He didn't know why the jeep stopped, only that it had.

The Master of Sinanju climbed down from behind the steering wheel.

Omay sin-Khalam remained in the passenger's seat. He had been lapsing in and out of consciousness since their trip from the battle scene. For the moment his eyes remained closed. His chest rose and fell sporadically. The sultan lived, but not for long.

Standing beside the jeep, Chiun squinted at the horizon. They had moved down out of the mountainous region and were in a more level expanse of desert. A few thin blue mountains rimmed the periphery of the vast wasteland.