"Dammit, not again," Remo snarled. "What did he say?"
Hardwin offered a hopeful, snaggletoothed smile. "Well, after we blew up the Regency-" he shrank from Remo's glare "-he called about this," he continued timidly. "He knew his way around the White House. He gave me blueprints and sketches. Things not known to the public. He was the one who arranged for the explosives in New York and the guns and the charges for the fence here. He seemed very connected with the underworld."
"If you factor in whores and drugs, so's pretty much everyone in Hollywood."
Remo was thinking of Stefan Schoenburg and his contributions to the President. His donations could have bought him an insiders' look at the White House layout. Face stern, Remo reached for Hardwin.
"Die Down IV!" the actor gasped, jumping from Remo's hand.
The name caught Remo off guard. "What?" he asked.
"This," Hardwin insisted, waving both arms grandly to encompass both White House and grounds. "All this is part of Die Down IV. An extended action sequence takes place here."
Remo's brow furrowed. "Someone told me Die Down IV is based on the Hollywood invasion last year," he said.
"It is," Hardwin explained. "This is an interpretation of those events. An extrapolation, if you will. My contact didn't tell me this. I learned it through the actors' grapevine. I don't know if it's helpful, but if it's information you desire, I give you this freely in exchange for my life." His eyes were pleading.
Remo was thinking about Bindle and Marmelstein. Quintly Tortilli had said Die Down IV was a Taurus production, set to kick off the summer movie season in just a couple of weeks. If this had anything to do with that, then-Chiun or not-the two Taurus cochairs were going to have more than just a little explaining to do.
Before him, Reginald Hardwin took Remo's silence for agreement to his terms. The actor smiled. His eye behind his broken socket winced.
"Sorry about all this, dear boy," he apologized. "Bit of a mess we've made for you, I suspect." He spotted a couple of his teeth on the portico and put them in his pocket. "Can't really blame me, though. Remember our credo-an actor lives to act."
Remo looked up absently. He was biting his cheek in thought. "You're the exception that proves the rule," he said.
Reginald Hardwin almost saw the hand that ended his life. He definitely saw stars. Unfortunately, none of them were him. And then the stars fell, the universe collapsed and the curtain came down on the most brilliant acting career that never was.
Chapter 25
When Remo swung up from the darkened elevator shaft into the hallway of the First Family's residence, the first instinct of the Secret Service agents was to open fire. They found their fingers clutching air instead of triggers.
To their astonishment, they saw that their guns were lying in a neat pile on the carpeted floor a few feet from the open elevator door.
"Remo Barkman, assistant treasury director," Remo said, waving an ID at the startled agents. "Downstairs should be secure, but you better check. Until you know for sure, I don't want anyone announcing anything over the radio."
The men quickly obeyed. A contingent remained to safeguard the First Family while the rest collected their guns and raced downstairs.
Remo's sensitive nose detected a thin wisp of smoke in the air. He followed it to the library. Inside, the First Lady was in full shred mode. In her haste, she was destroying every scrap of paper she could lay her hands on. It looked like a tickertape parade had passed through the room. She stood ankle deep in strips of paper, a demonic look on her beauty-cream-caked face.
"What the hell do you want?" the First Lady demanded when Remo stuck his head around the corner.
She was stuffing the D.C. Yellow Pages into the smoking shredder. Yellow confetti flew out of the overstuffed bin.
"Just checking to see if you're okay, ma'am," Remo said.
"Do I look okay?" the First Lady snarled. She had finished with the phone book. An angry hand grabbed up a book of Walt Whitman's poetry. With the hilt of an antique sword that had belonged to Ulysses S. Grant, she began stuffing the volume into the shredder. The machine clunked and whirred in pain.
"Who's that? Is it safe?" a familiar muffled voice whined timidly from the closet. Beyond the closed door, a dog barked.
"Shut that damn dog up," the First Lady snapped. She was having trouble with the cover of the poetry book. She pounded it down with the sword hilt. "I swear, if that mongrel was female we'd be combing your DNA out of its mangy fur," she muttered.
As the smoke detector began to sound, Remo ducked back out of the room. The poor overused shredder continued to clonk in pain as he headed to the Lincoln Bedroom.
THE CRISIS in Washington had crawled into the silent postmidnight hours, and still Harold W. Smith had not left his desk. Eyes burning with fatigue, he was sitting in his battered leather chair scanning the latest information from out of the nation's capital when the red White House phone buzzed to life.
He jumped in his chair. Fingers fleeing his keyboard, he quickly picked up the receiver.
"Yes?" he said, voice tentative. As if unsure who might be on the other end of the line. "Break out your checkbooks-the White House is safe once more for Chinese arms dealers and South American drug lords," Remo's familiar voice proclaimed.
"Remo," Smith exhaled. "Is the crisis over?"
"I wouldn't want my daughter interning here," Remo replied dryly, "but if you mean the terrorists, they're history. You can start sending in the cavalry in a couple of minutes. Just give me a sec to sneak out of here."
"The President?" Smith asked.
"He's okay, Smitty," Remo said. "Although he did about as well as his ROTC commander would expect. He's hiding in the closet with the First Mutt while Lady Macbeth shreds the life out of every scrap of paper in a three-state area."
Smith let out a protracted sigh. "That is a relief."
"If your definition of relief is having these two in the pink, I don't want to know what you think anxiety is."
The CURE director refused to get caught up in discussing the personalities of the First Family. "Who was behind the siege?" he pressed.
"Hold on to your socks, Smitty," Remo said. "It's the same crew we're already after." Smith's voice was sharp. "How can you be certain?"
"Because I'm up to my armpits in SAG membership cards," Remo said. "According to the nitwit in charge here, this was all staged to help the new Die Down movie. Oh, and the bombing in New York is tied in with all this, too."
Smith could scarcely believe what he was hearing. "I will see which studio is producing that film," he said, swiveling to his computer.
"Don't bother," Remo said. He took a deep breath and prayed Chiun wouldn't hold this against him. "It's Taurus, Smitty," he informed the CURE director.
"Bindle and Marmelstein," Smith breathed.
"I'll talk to them when I get back to Lalaland."
"Be sure you do," Smith insisted. "It appears they are more deeply involved than you had earlier determined."
"Yeah, but this wasn't on the agenda, Smitty. At least not when I talked to them."
"There have not been any suspicious calls to either their homes or office," Smith explained. "If the telephone is the means by which the mastermind of these events contacts his employees, then this must have been planned prior to your visit with them."
"Maybe," Remo said. "It's amazing that even a couple of dopes as big as Bindle and Marmelstein would go to these lengths to make sure some stupid movie is a hit."
Alone in his drab office, Smith shook his head. "Not really," he said. "I have been doing some research. The market is very competitive. A big-budget Hollywood film can cost anywhere from 50 to 150 million dollars to produce. Some have gone even higher. Given the lucrative overseas and home-video markets, some would apparently do anything for a hit." Smith drew their conversation to a close. "Remo, if this is all, you should leave there. I do not like the idea of you staying in the White House any longer than is necessary."