15. THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN THE HOURS OF 7 P.M. AND 8 P.M. PACIFIC DAYLIGHT TIME
“Cue camera three, pull back camera one. Get ready for a close up, camera five. On three, on two, one…”
From his cushioned chair, director Hal Green watched the main monitor that displayed the feed as it was going out to the network and millions of viewers. He ignored the huge picture windows a few feet in front of him, though they offered a vista of center stage and almost the entire auditorium. He wanted to see what everyone else was seeing on their TV screens.
At the moment, the camera was focused on Chip Manning as he strode into view from stage left and moved toward the main podium. Manning was a popular actor, tall and muscular with dime-a-dozen cover-boy model features capped with hair in a Caesar cut. He’d paired his exquisitely tailored Helmut Lang suit with a white shirt, open at the collar, ostrich-skin cowboy boots and a salon-trimmed five o’clock shadow. The entire look had been carefully calculated by his stylist to accent Manning’s “casually-aloof-yet-elegant tough guy” persona.
“Cue camera five. Two, one…”
The camera focused on Ava Stanton, a long-limbed beauty in a daring fuchsia gown. The eyes of every technician in the control room remained fixed on Ava’s strapless decollete, riding low on her ample cleavage. As the glammed-up actress teetered on her high heels in a shaky journey from stage right to center stage, the crew braced for a “costume malfunction” with a combination of FCC fear and hopeful anticipation.
“Cue camera one on the podium…”
Hal Green lowered one hand and rested it on the control board. With the other he sipped coffee from a thermal cup. Under bushy gray brows, his alert hazel eyes almost never left the main screen. When they did, it was only to check the view from another camera in one of six secondary monitors.
Ben Solomon, at the next console, groaned. “It’s going to get dicey here. Ava never gets it in one. And she flubbed her lines at both rehearsals. And look who she’s paired with. Chip Manning—”
Hal smiled at the remarks of his sixty-year-old assistant director. He’d heard several like it in the past ninety minutes. But that was Ben. After hiring the man for this job consistently for the past nine shows, Hal knew what to expect.
“It’s a crying shame what this business has come to,” Ben muttered. “Chip Manning teaches a couple of government trainees a few karate chops at a Sunset Strip dojo and his press agent calls him ‘a career martial artist who advises members of America’s intelligence community.’ And Ava Stanton is nothing more than a glorified supermodel. She’s no Elizabeth Taylor, that’s for sure.”
“She’s no Elizabeth
“Please,” Ben muttered in genuine horror. “Don’t use that term with me. I remember the real stars— Bogart, Jimmy Stewart, Bette Davis, Bergman—”
“What the hell is that?” Hal suddenly cried.
Rising to his feet, he lifted his gaze from the monitors to stare through the immense windows overlooking the auditorium. Ben tried to rise but got tangled in his headset. He heard confused cries, shouts, even nervous laughter from the audience.
Chip Manning and Ava Stanton had just launched into their scripted “off-the-cuff-sounding witty banter” when they’d been upstaged by a prop. Behind their backs, the top of the huge Silver Screen Awards sculpture had opened up and eight armed men wearing black masks had slid down short ropes to the stage.
This absurd, ridiculous, almost surreal scene had been greeted by nervous titters of laughter mingled with cries of surprise and alarm.
“Clear the stage!” Hal Green shouted into his headset. “Security, get them off,
Obeying the director, several security men rushed onto the stage to intercept the masked invaders. Armed only with nightsticks and electronic stunners, they’d never had a chance. Every trained assassin had dropped to one knee, raised his weapon, and fired into the uniformed ranks.
The explosion of weapons, then the red tracers warbling across the stage to rip through flesh, muscle, and bone had ended any notion that this was some sort of prearranged stunt. People in the audience stumbled into the aisles, trampled over each other, trying to flee the auditorium, only to be turned back at the doors by the handsome ushers and seat escorts provided by the Dodge Modeling Agency. These young men, who’d already donned black headscarves and green armbands, waved submachine guns, firing into the air in an effort to throw back the panicked mob.
Meanwhile, on stage, Chip Manning and his tough-guy five o’clock shadow were giving the world a demonstration of his martial arts skills. With lightning quick evasive maneuvers, he’d managed to flee the attacking gunmen faster than his lovely co-presenter who, hobbled by her high heels, was easily brought down by the butt of an assassin’s gun.
Up in the control booth, the director heard a crash, turned to find a trio of armed men breaking in. Black headscarves covered all but their eyes, and each carried some kind of machine gun with a banana clip and a big ring under its barrel.
The single security guard inside the booth aimed his sidearm. The chatter of a machine gun stopped him, eliciting cries of horror from everyone in the small space.
“Put your hands up!” One of the masked men was aiming his short, stubby machine gun at the control booth crew. The invader slapped a gloved hand on Hal’s shoulder and roughly yanked him off his chair, to the floor.
“Bastard,” Ben Solomon spat. He tried to strike back, but the terrorist threw the older man off, hitting him with the butt of his gun.
“Ben!” Hal cried.
Now both men were cowed and down on the floor. The masked man herded them into a corner. The second gunmen pushed the soundman and the rest of the staff into the opposite corner.
The third masked man strode to the center of the control booth, machine gun resting on his elbow. He scanned the room, then spoke.
“This auditorium, this event is now in the control of the United Liberation Front for a Free Chechnya. Cooperate and you may live. Resist and you will most surely die.”
“LAPD respond! Respond!” cried the uniformed dispatcher over the radio. “This is an emergency, the Chamberlain Auditorium is under attack. There’s gunfire, officers down. Repeat. We are under assault.”
Static was the only answer.
Security Chief Tomas Morales squeezed the dispatcher’s shoulder. “The system’s down. Or the signal’s jammed. We can’t talk to the outside. I hope the cops figure out what’s going on. Until then, let’s open up the arsenal.”
Nodding, the young dispatcher stood and hurried to the next room.
“The goddamn phones are out too,” said a woman at the next desk, a bank of security monitors in front of her. Heavyset, with short red hair, Cynthia Richel slammed the receiver into hits cradle. Today was her forty-fifth birthday.
Cynthia turned to the security chief. “I could have predicted this, Tomas. In fact, I
Morales shifted his gaze to the dozens of monitors in front of Cynthia, all displaying scenes of terror and chaos, save one.
“The network has gone to commercials,” noted Morales.
“Someone’s thinking.”
The dispatcher returned, handed out weapons. Cynthia dangled the barrel of a handgun between thumb and
