you were actually going to suggest we make up something new."
"You mean, really new? Out of thin air?" said Marmelstein. "Why would we want to do that? We're producers, not some cockamamie writers in the East. Bindle and Marmelstein stand with Hollywood tradition. We will never produce what is not tried and true. We will never do anything that hasn't been done before. You want inventions, go to General Electric. We're movie makers."
"Movie makers," said Bindle. It made him feel in some way noble, part of a great tradition stretching back through generations of copiers and idea-thieves.
"Getting back to the point," said Schweid, "you want the trainer to be white, right? And you want his pupil to be not so good, sort of vulnerable. And you want big breasts."
"Just write in women. I'll take care of the breasts," said Marmelstein.
"Women in jeopardy," said Bindle.
"With ripped shirts," said Marmelstein.
"What about a big-breasted Hungarian woman trained to be the killing weapon for a secret U.S. government agency?" suggested Schweid.
"What are you talking about? Nobody's ever done that," said Marmelstein.
"I'm giving you what you want."
"I want box office. I want the gross over four hundred million," said Marmelstein.
"But those things come after you make the movie, not before," said Barry Schweid.
"Oh," said Marmelstein.
Chapter Six
Neville Lord Wissex waited for the message that would tell him the woman had been captured.
Already his plans had been formulated. He would turn her over to Moombasa, and then— at a fair market price— provide her with escorts so she could travel around the world looking for the mountain of gold.
As he totaled up the costs on a yellow pad on his desk, he felt pleased with himself. He had expected a rock-bottom minimum of five million dollars. When his knife fighters had been bested, the price had risen to ten million. Even for the House of Wissex, it was a very tidy sum, and it would enable them to carry on while he was promulgating similar large schemes. And it saved the house all the trouble of racing around to unmanageable countries with unpronounceable names to silence dissidents, all in the name of anti-imperialism.
It was the new direction that the young Lord Wissex envisioned for the ancient house: big projects with big returns.
He waited all afternoon and no radio operator picked up any signal.
The agent who had been waiting within radio range of the group in the Yucatan phoned at what was midnight for him and predawn in London with a report that there was complete radio silence out of the Yucatan. Not even a peep. He was heading in toward the village.
Wissex examined the description of the bodyguards again. He had fed it into his computer terminal in the London townhouse and now he tried to pull from the machine the probable source and probable training of the bodyguards.
The House of Wissex knew how the KGB, how the American FBI, CIA, and Secret Service trained. How MI5 trained. He could spot someone trained by any of them, and he could spot even the freelance terrorists because all had their little idiosyncracies. Some did well against knife fighters. Others did well against snipers. But according to the information coming back from the computer, only one agency did well against both.
That was the Swiss secret agency, perhaps the best in the world, and certainly the most secret. They guarded Swiss banking interests all over the world and on those rare occasions that a cover was blown, they managed to sew another back on immediately, no matter who or how many were killed. The real beauty of the Swiss was that they did things so quietly; none of their killings ever made the press.
Competent and discreet. These two bodyguards for the American woman could have been working for the Swiss, but they only employed Swiss nationals. And one of the two bodyguards was described as a frail old Oriental in a kimono. Not even close to a hundred pounds.
"You mean, really new? Out of thin air?" said Marmelstein. "Why would we want to do that? We're producers, not some cockamamie writers in the East. Bindle and Marmelstein stand with Hollywood tradition. We will never produce what is not tried and true. We will never do anything that hasn't been done before. You want inventions, go to General Electric. We're movie makers."
"Movie makers," said Bindle. It made him feel in some way noble, part of a great tradition stretching back through generations of copiers and idea-thieves.
"Getting back to the point," said Schweid, "you want the trainer to be white, right? And you want his pupil to be not so good, sort of vulnerable. And you want big breasts."
"Just write in women. I'll take care of the breasts," said Marmelstein.
"Women in jeopardy," said Bindle.
"With ripped shirts," said Marmelstein.
"What about a big-breasted Hungarian woman trained to be the killing weapon for a secret U.S. government agency?" suggested Schweid.
"What are you talking about? Nobody's ever done that," said Marmelstein.
"I'm giving you what you want."
"I want box office. I want the gross over four hundred million," said Marmelstein.
"But those things come after you make the movie, not before," said Barry Schweid.
"Oh," said Marmelstein.
Chapter Six
Neville Lord Wissex waited for the message that would tell him the woman had been captured.
Already his plans had been formulated. He would turn her over to Moombasa, and then— at a fair market price— provide her with escorts so she could travel around the world looking for the mountain of gold.
As he totaled up the costs on a yellow pad on his desk, he felt pleased with himself. He had expected a rock-bottom minimum of five million dollars. When his knife fighters had been bested, the price had risen to ten million. Even for the House of Wissex, it was a very tidy sum, and it would enable them to carry on while he was promulgating similar large schemes. And it saved the house all the trouble of racing around to unmanageable countries with unpronounceable names to silence dissidents, all in the name of anti-imperialism.
It was the new direction that the young Lord Wissex envisioned for the ancient house: big projects with big returns.
He waited all afternoon and no radio operator picked up any signal.
The agent who had been waiting within radio range of the group in the Yucatan phoned at what was midnight for him and predawn in London with a report that there was complete radio silence out of the Yucatan. Not even a peep. He was heading in toward the village.
Wissex examined the description of the bodyguards again. He had fed it into his computer terminal in the London townhouse and now he tried to pull from the machine the probable source and probable training of the bodyguards.
The House of Wissex knew how the KGB, how the American FBI, CIA, and Secret Service trained. How MI5 trained. He could spot someone trained by any of them, and he could spot even the freelance terrorists because all had their little idiosyncracies. Some did well against knife fighters. Others did well against snipers. But according to the information coming back from the computer, only one agency did well against both.
That was the Swiss secret agency, perhaps the best in the world, and certainly the most secret. They guarded Swiss banking interests all over the world and on those rare occasions that a cover was blown, they managed to sew another back on immediately, no matter who or how many were killed. The real beauty of the Swiss was that they did things so quietly; none of their killings ever made the press.
Competent and discreet. These two bodyguards for the American woman could have been working for the Swiss, but they only employed Swiss nationals. And one of the two bodyguards was described as a frail old Oriental in a kimono. Not even close to a hundred pounds.
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