Dazed and squinting through the dazzling light, I didn't recognize him at first. Then Serena let out a short, sharp scream and I realized it was Jamal.
"Sometimes," said the old, kindly Arab man, his wise eyes twinkling, "sometimes we must turn to the beautiful wisdom and imagery of the Koran for guidance."
"Allahu akbar! God is great!" Jamal shouted.
Now the music swelled romantically to underscore Muammar al-Qadi's wisdom. The bearded old man lifted his hand. There was a venerable leather-bound book in it. Jamal lifted his hand almost simultaneously. There was a detonator in it. I could see the red button under his thumb.
"Allahu akbar!" Jamal shrieked.
I had one last moment to look around me, to turn and cast my gaze over the shifting phantoms on the dazzling stage. There was Todd with the tough-guy stubble on his chin and Juliette looking bold and adventurous and Angelica looking wicked but strong. I saw the kindly old Arab with his turban and black beard and Patrick Piersall in sweatpants and an orange pullover of some kind…
And the last thing I remember thinking before the blast was: Patrick Piersall? Is he in this, too?
Apparently he was. He had entered from the direction of a passing truck. He was standing in the yellow sand right there beside me. Even here in the movie, he appeared pudgy and yellow-eyed and dissolute. Yet in this role at least, he managed to put on a heroic demeanor. He was planted firmly with his legs apart and wore a look on his face so stalwart and grim, he might still have been piloting his spaceship through the galaxy as in days of yore. I saw Todd stride manfully past him to Juliette. He put his hands on her shoulders and drew her to him and said, "Where the hell have you been?"
"God is great!" shouted Jamal, holding up the detonator.
"Eat shit and die!" said Patrick Piersall.
He lifted his hand, too. He was holding a gun in it. It was that 9mm automatic he had shown me in the Ale House.
The music was blossoming around us like a sudden garden with a scent redolent of courage and romance. Then came the blast-a shocking blast. It wasn't loud-not as loud as the explosions in the movie-but it was real and vibrant, sucking the air into itself and blowing it out again so that I felt it like a punch to the cheek.
Piersall had pulled the trigger of his weapon. And now he pulled it again and again. There was another blast and another. And another as he pulled the trigger again.
I turned and turned in confusion and terror, Serena screaming in my arms. I saw Todd drawing Juliette to him. I saw Juliette lifting her lips for a kiss. I saw Angelica looking on in fury and frustration and the old Arab man looking wise and kind.
And I saw Jamal. His eyes were wide. His arms were flung out on either side of him. The front of his shirt was being torn to bloody shreds in front of my eyes as Piersall's bullets pounded into his chest. The detonator fell from his hands as he reeled backward a step, his arms pinwheeling. He tumbled right through Todd and Juliette and dropped down into a pool of light that swirled over the stage floor like sand.
A girl shrieked. I looked toward the sound. No, it wasn't a girl. It was a skinny little man jumping to his feet in the first ring of seats above me, his hands clutching the sides of his head. It was Todd-the real Todd, up in his seat, watching the movie. His face was quivering with realization and fear. His hands flew from his head to grip the tier rail in front of him. He let out another high-pitched shriek.
"That's not in the movie!" he screamed. "That scene's not in the movie. Those people are real!"
"There's still a timer," Serena said to me. "It'll still explode!"
"There's a bomb!" I shouted. "It is real! There's a bomb in the theater!"
For one more moment-one more and then one more-all those faces flickering in the seats rising higher and higher around me remained as they were. Coiffed and bejeweled and beautiful and distracted. It struck me as an almost wistful tableau, like a daguerreotype of a vanished and well-loved past. For one more moment, all those rich, lovely, comfortable cosmopolitans gazed down at the movie, their minds trying to convince themselves that whatever was not the movie must just be some kind of joke or mistake.
Then at last-at last-the truth dawned on them: They were under attack.
As if on cue, there were more explosions. It nearly stopped my heart as a medallion of fire and debris leapt out of the air at my feet. A moment later, I realized this, too, was only part of the movie, another scene in the movie in which bombs went off. But even as I realized that, I became aware of another noise, a deeper noise: a low rumble as of a great beast stirring. I listened to it through the blasts and the music. On every side of me, there were murmurs-murmurs becoming voices, voices spiraling up into cries-a rising grumble of movement as people stood up out of their seats, a growing thunder rolling down from tier to tier and over the stage to tremble above me, beneath me, around me.
An explosion went off beneath the sphinx, hurling bodies and flame and sand: still the movie. I lifted my eyes in the blazing, flickering light and saw the faces above me starting to flow and migrate into the aisles. I heard more voices, more screams.
"It is real! There's a bomb!"
"Someone's been shot!"
"Oh my God! Oh my God!"
I saw a man in a tuxedo tumble frantically over a low railing to get down to the stage. Another followed. Then more men and women started to spill over and others above them were pushing out of their rows of seats, fighting their ways to the aisles. Every moment, there were more of them moving, a thick flow of them moving faster and faster.
"It's real! It's real!"
"Is there a bomb?"
"Someone said there's a bomb in the theater!"
"There's a bomb, a bomb!"
Suddenly I saw Todd racing toward me-wispy little Todd in his tuxedo-racing across the bright stage with his arms and legs churning, running for his life with all the intensity and dedication of a cartoon mouse. I stood and watched fascinated as he rushed right into the gruff three-dimensional image of himself-Todd with a day's growth of beard and a gun in his hand. For an instant, they seemed to be a double image of one man. And then the real Todd burst out of the phantom Todd and dashed up an aisle and vanished into the shadows.
I turned-turned with Serena in my arms-turned past the phantom of Angelica Eden as she laughed wickedly at the destruction around her. I turned to Patrick Piersall. He stood where he was, staring down at the sprawled, bloody body of Jamal on the floor. Piersall's arm was still extended in front of him, the gun still in his hand.
As I watched him, he seemed hardly to notice the commotion growing around him. He lifted his eyes slowly. Vaguely, he looked up at the tiers of seats. He seemed barely to know where he was.
The music thrummed dangerously now. Phantoms fired phantom rifles in our direction. Phantom explosions went off at our feet and in the sand and around the pyramids.
"Piersall!" I shouted.
The old actor blinked. He looked at me vaguely.
"It's done," I said to him. "Let's get the hell out of here."
There were others running across the stage now-real people, I mean-more and more of them. Men in tuxedos and women in evening gowns legging it through the desert sands beneath the sphinx's impassive gaze. The rumble above me was growing louder, stronger as more and more people began to panic and flee. The atmosphere quivered with their movement. The shouts and the footsteps were merging into a single quaking thunder.
"Let's go!" I shouted.