The Final Reel

The narrative Prologue presents Chiun’s rejected screenplay as a friend’s work; Remo critiques it before leaving on assignment. Sultan Omay, once a public peacemaker after cancer treatment, resumes a jihad and works with Saudi terrorist Assola al Khobar. Al Khobar brings cargo to Taurus Studios under a film-production cover. Studio cochairmen Hank Bindle and Bruce Marmelstein expand their production and unknowingly spend Omay’s linked personal and state funds. Omay seizes Secretary of State Helena Eckert and her delegation in Ebla, personally shoots two hostages in separate public broadcasts, and orders an attack on Israel. Remo and Chiun intervene in occupied California: local resistance grows, Remo saves retired officer Frank Hanlon and kills Eblan soldiers, and he discovers the studio explosives.

Bindle and Marmelstein pay Reggio Cagliari to abduct and torture al Khobar for spending signatures; al Khobar escapes and later tries to trigger the studio network by radio. LAPD bomb-disposal teams have dismantled the charges; after al Khobar presses the remote and no detonation occurs, Remo kills him. The only explosions in that final confrontation are around Taurus during the Army’s attack. In Israel, Chiun reaches Omay’s command post, takes the sultan alive and frees the hostages. At the camp, the second televised victim and three additional Americans, including Helena, are dead; four American bodies are loaded there. This local count does not aggregate the earlier press-conference victim.

Chiun restores Omay’s health temporarily, then controls his voice for a public renunciation; Omay throws himself through the Fishbowl balcony and the crowd tramples his body. The Great Plan fails because Taurus’s spending drains Omay’s and Ebla’s linked funds, and the fictional state’s economy collapses. Bindle and Marmelstein recover, Taurus is bought back by Nishitsu Corporation, and Chiun ends excited by a letter whose contents and any film offer are not shown.