Tortilli jumped back from the wall, expecting to glimpse a whistling artillery shell. But instead of a missile, the upside-down form of a blue-suited man soared in amid the splinters of wood.
The Secret Service agent slammed into the distant wall. As his unconscious body dropped to the floor, a tiny figure whirled like a miniature gold typhoon through the opening the unfortunate agent had made.
Chiun shot a single glance at Tortilli, eyes filled with the promise of vengeance.
Recognizing his famously vicious-tempered screenwriter, Tortilli sucked in a shocked gasp of air. But the old man didn't seem interested in him just yet. Chiun flew in the opposite direction, toward the restricted end of the corridor and the presidential box.
As the tiny Asian raced off, a sudden all-engulfing blackness consumed him. The racing dark cloud swallowed the rest of the corridor and the amphitheater beyond.
Tortilli didn't even seem to notice that the lights had gone out. As the first querulous shouts began to rise from the darkened stadium, the panicked young director was stumbling in blind fear down the pitch-black corridor. Away from the terrifying figure in gold.
BACKSTAGE, Remo spun from the sparking breaker panel. He had to hop over the bodies of three unconscious Burhank police officers.
"Work fast, Little Father," he muttered.
Swift feet moved in confident strides as he raced through the darkness toward the stage.
THE INSTANT the lights went out, alarm signals went off in the mind of the President of the United States. Yesterday's frightening events were far too recent.
"What's going on?" he asked the nearest Secret Service agent, trying to mask the fear in his voice.
"Unknown, Mr. President," the agent replied tightly.
As soon as he had spoken, a cry rose from beyond the closed balcony door. The sounds of a scuffle ensued.
The Secret Service retinue reacted instinctively. The President was yanked from his seat and thrown to the floor. A crush of dark-suited bodies-guns drawn-collapsed on top of him. Air rushed from his lungs.
Through his filter of living human flesh, the President heard muted shouts, then the sound of crashing wood.
More shouts. Louder. A single gunshot. A yelp of pain.
The President felt the weight on his prone form lighten.
Another cry. Lighter still.
No time to even fire. In a panicked instant, his entire human shield was stripped away. He was naked. Exposed.
Looking up, frightened, the President saw the shadowy contours of a vaguely familiar face. "Your life is in jeopardy, Your Majesty," the vision above him intoned urgently.
That voice. The President knew that voice. It was one of Smith's men. The old Asian.
Before he could ask the Master of Sinanju what he was doing there, the old man pulled him off the floor, depositing the burly Chief Executive on his own bony shoulders.
As the Master of Sinanju raced to the door, there came a distant explosion. Through angled eyes, the President saw a brilliant flash of light from the stage.
And cutting through it all, the sound of a single shell whistling through the air.
The door was a million miles away. The shell was coming in fast. Too fast.
A fiery impact. Explosion. Thunder and light. The President felt the heat from the blast erupt around them, enveloping them. Obliterating them. And the final, fatal burning fear consumed him.
REMO REACHED the stage too late.
Too late he heard the soft foom followed by an intense blast. The thunderous boom of a single cannon round being fired exploded from out the darkness.
An instant later came the sound of a distant impact. Then another explosion as the President's box burst apart in a brilliant flash of light.
Pandemonium instantly erupted all around the Burbank Bowl. In the darkness, terrified concertgoers screamed and shoved in a mad race for the exits.
The orchestra was fleeing, as well. Alone on the stage, Lee Matson was preparing to launch a second shell at the President's box just to make sure before joining the rest of the mass exodus.
Face hard, Remo sliced through the fleeing orchestra members and onto the stage.
THE PRESIDENT of the United States was dead. He had to be.
The shell had struck. There was the crackle of impact. Splintering wood. Fire, heat and shrapnel racing toward his unprotected face.
But then something strange happened. The world seemed to freeze. The explosion, the fire, the hurtling debris-everything save the old Asian on whose shoulders he was perched appeared to lock in place.
Running seemingly apart from time, the Master of Sinanju zoomed out the balcony door.
Only when Smith's man had borne him to safety did the President realize this strange netherworld of slow motion was merely an illusion.
In the hallway, time tripped back to normal speed.
Flames belched out in the wake of the running Korean. The wall blew in, chunks of flesh-tearing debris screaming into the corridor in their wake.
Too late. The Master of Sinanju had already outrun the worst of the blast. He was halfway down the hall when he finally stopped. Chiun sat the shaken chief executive on the cool concrete floor. Behind them, fire burned. Fresh screams rose from the bowl through the shell-blasted opening.
"Twice," the President gasped. "Twice in two days."
Standing above the panting Chief Executive, the Master of Sinanju was impassive. "Do you still think to settle in this province once your reign has ended?" he asked.
"What?" the President sniffled, still trying to catch his breath. "Oh. I've got a few standing offers in Hollywood. If my wife doesn't follow through on her latest threat to run for the Senate out of Bangkok in 2004." He seemed shellshocked. His eyes were ill as he looked down the corridor at the ragged wall.
"Heed my advice," Chiun instructed somberly. "Follow the Shrill Queen to some other province. If this kind of treachery unnerves you, you will not last a single day on the coast."
With that, the Master of Sinanju became a whirl of silk.
On bounding pipe-stem legs, he flounced away from the president and the burning VIP box. Fire in his eyes, he headed off in the direction Quintly Tortilli had gone.
Chapter 32
The cannons were both pre-aimed. Even as Lee grabbed the cord that would fire the next shell, he marveled at the laxness of the Secret Service. He had read how this White House had at other times ordered agents to loosen security in certain situations-usually when the White House didn't want to be caught in something untoward.
Lee surmised their seeming dereliction of duty had something to do with the movie cameras he'd seen around the bowl. Quintly Tortilli must have convinced the President that too many agents would interfere with his shot.
Lee giggled at the irony.
"I can't wait till I have that kind of clout," he said.
Chuckling to himself, he fumbled in the darkness for the cord on the second cannon.
His hand brushed something warm.
Lee recoiled. The something he had touched had fingers.
In the dark, people still screamed. Succumbing to the contagion of their fear, Lee squinted at the blackness before him.
The blinding flash of the artillery explosion had splashed dancing splotches of light on his retinas. As the light-blindness receded, a figure resolved from out of the shadows. The cruel cast of the stranger's face jump-started Lee's waxing fear into full-blown panic.
"Tell me when this hurts," Remo said evenly. Lee tried to jump back.
A firm hand gripped his throat, holding him in place.
"But I've got a development deal," Lee begged as Remo dragged him down to the business end of the cannon.