Fade to Black

After Walter Anderson is killed at home, police find his wife and daughter apparently lifeless under bags and learn his son was shot earlier; the killer escaped through a tunnel and took Alice’s Girl Scout beret and sash. A film called Suburban Decay mirrors the case. CURE director Harold Smith identifies similar Florida student murders and a Boise torso murder, each followed by a thematically related release from Seattle’s Cabbagehead Productions. Remo traces the company through executive Shawn Allen Morris and director Quintly Tortilli; Tortilli’s rumor leads to Leaf Randolph, who confesses to the paid Florida murders before Remo kills him. Chester Gecko admits a paid Boise murder and reveals a separate plot to bomb Taurus Studios.

Remo returns to California with Tortilli while Chiun manages his secret Taurus production. Six ammonium-nitrate truck bombs are planted by hired extras; Remo stops five, diverts the last truck into a fake New York set, and escapes its blast with Chiun. Taurus co-chairs Hank Bindle and Bruce Marmelstein admit they paid $8 million for a publicity bombing scheme, while concealing the further New York plan. The first New York bombing has already killed office workers, and the anonymous attacker then leads a violent takeover of the White House. Smith’s unnamed President and First Lady are held captive; Remo enters the grounds and kills assailants. After the siege, and before the Burbank Bowl attack, Chiun kills Bindle and Marmelstein.

Reginald Hardwin, an actor playing a terrorist, reveals that an anonymous employer supplied plans and explosives, then dies at Remo’s hand. Lee Matson—Captain Kill, a discharged would-be commando—turns out to have carried out the Anderson killings, directed other hired actors and explosives teams under Tortilli’s instructions, and built a masked phone relay. Tortilli’s staged Die Down IV merges the crimes into a film, but the actual plot escalates to a third act: assassination of the President at the Burbank Bowl. Tortilli pays Matson to fire live shells from cannons during the 1812 Overture, and uses generous studio contributions to gain White House access and secure the President’s attendance.

Chiun lifts the President toward the exit before the shell hits; the shell strikes and the blast catches them, but Chiun carries him beyond the worst of it. Later, Remo kills Matson by firing the second shell while Matson’s head remains in its barrel. Remo and Chiun capture Tortilli, but the director is later found dead in a Taurus screening room, apparently killed by an unidentified person who forced his tongue and head into a projector. Police match Matson’s fingerprints to the Anderson home and tunnel tools. The President survives both attempts, while Taurus collapses into litigation and Chiun’s film remains unreleased amid legal holds. The source never names the President or resolves who killed Tortilli.