By Jean-François Virey.
Based on the novel « Silent »
by A.A.Attanasio
and Robert S. Henderson

6 Quai des Houillères
59500 Douai
France
Tel :03.27.98.99.41

Ó 2000 All rights reserved by / Tous droits réservés par Jean-François Virey

FADE IN

EXT. THE DEPOT - NIGHT (FULL MOON)

Located in the outskirts of Boston, the Depot consists of several rows of warehouses hemmed in by a wire fence.

A car drives in and parks outside the gate on the deserted parking lot. A man (PATRICK ROCCIO) gets out, in his mid-twenties, dressed in a business suit, with a youthful air of self-confidence and enthusiasm on his beautiful face.

He walks to a lit guards’ house and shakes the hand of the guard sitting behind the counter.

INT. THE DEPOT - NIGHT

The guard barely looks at him, intently watching THE SIMPSONS on a small, almost mute black and white TV set, surrounded by several surveillance screens.

GUARD
(Not lifting his eyes from the screen)
Homer’s on. Wanna watch ?

ROCCIO
(lewdly)
Nah. I prefer doing it.

Both smile at the joke. Roccio leans over the counter to take a lamp and a belt with a well-furnished key-ring and a walkie-talkie. As he turns around to exit the guard’s house, the guard picks up a bag from the floor.

GUARD
Oh ! Thresher left this for you.

Roccio opens the bag and draws out a bulletproof plastron – definitely state-of-the-art police equipment.

ROCCIO
Cool.

Taking off his vest, he puts the plastron on.

ROCCIO (CONT’D)
You've gotta love the woman.

He puts his vest back on over the plastron and exits the guard’s room with his keys and lamp.

EXT. THE INNER AREA OF THE DEPOT - NIGHT

Lighting a cigarette, Roccio walks in the middle of the central alley, leisurely, listening to the distant bustle of the city, watching a helicopter fly over the harbour.

Suddenly, he hears the sound of broken glass coming from one of the warehouses. He picks up the walkie-talkie.

ROCCIO
I heard some noise in Four. I’m going in.

GUARD
(in no hurry to answer)
Yeah. Whatever.

Roccio smiles, probably expecting to find some rat. He circles the warehouse, and notices that one of the windows is slightly ajar, about four meters above the ground. Switching off his lamp and drawing his gun, he enters the warehouse silently by a man-sized door at the rear end.

INT. WAREHOUSE 4 - NIGHT

Roccio hears men whispering and the sound of metal grating on metal. As he walks to the end of one of the alleys, he sees two figures busy picking the lock on a reinforced cupboard. The two men are bikers, wearing ski-masks.

Suddenly, Roccio switches on the lamp in the bikers’ direction. They freeze fatalistically.

ROCCIO
Stay calm. I have a gun pointed at you, but I’m not gonna use it so long as you play along. Put your hands behind your necks.

The bikers do as he says.

ROCCIO (CONT’D)
All right. Now turn your backs to me.

As they turn round, Roccio sees the patch on Bassman’s back. Its logo is a skull wearing a blue bandana and a large golden earring, with fiery eyes staring menacingly. The words « Street Gypsies, M.C. » are sown in blood-red letters beneath it.

ROCCIO (CONT'D)
Now what do we have here ? Street Gypsies ! I’m not sure Mr. Hellas will approve.

He puts the lamp down on one of the shelves so as to keep the Gypsies within the light and himself in the shadows. He draws his walkie-talkie.

ROCCIO (CONT’D)
I’m ordering a pizza. You want something ?

As he switches on the walkie-talkie, he hears a mewing behind him : someone has been watching too many Bruce Lee movies. He turns around rapidly, dropping the walkie-talkie on the floor and breaking it. But in the switch from light to dark he can’t see anything and he barely has time to get one random shot before the violent impact of a metal nunchuck cracks open his skull and he falls dead to the floor.

Barefoot and dressed in a sleeveless shirt, Bobby « MAD DOG » Gomes is frozen in a Bruce Lee position, his muscles taut, with the eyes of a fanatic warrior. This is no tongue-in-cheek impersonation.

The two bikers walk to the corpse, taking off their ski masks. One of them, BASSMAN, is a 6’4’’ Jamaican with pink and purple dreadlocks. The other, a boy of 21, wearing the same long, jet-black hair as Mad Dog, but with a face as beautiful as the latter’s is ugly, and a Wild Bill moustache, is STRIKER. He looks at the corpse, aghast, and swallows two pills from a pillbox.

BASSMAN
Three beers.

He takes the key ring from Roccio’s belt and goes back to the cupboard, trying the smaller keys.

Getting out of his trance, Mad Dog puts the nunchucks in the back of his trousers and kneels down, opening Roccio’s vest to admire his plastron.

MAD DOG
Nice armour, soldier. You’re gonna be very secure in this.

He takes it off from Roccio’s body, admiring it with an almost religious feeling, and tries it on.

MAD DOG
(not looking at Striker)
Get his ID, Striker.

His face very pale, Striker puts his hand in Roccio’s interior vest- pocket, searching for Roccio’s wallet. He finds it and opens it.

STRIKER
Roccio… Patrick. Patrick Roccio.

BASSMAN
Oh boy.

MAD DOG
What ?

BASSMAN
No wonder the guy’s got premium hardware. He’s Thresher’s beau.

STRIKER
Who’s Thresher ?

Bassman returns to his keys and finally finds one that fits. As he opens the cupboard, the other two draw near.

BASSMAN
(handing out two bags to Striker)
The squeeze who should have her name on these pills. Ex-military. She’s with the Hellas Brothers.

MAD DOG
Isn’t. They had a fall-out over spoils last month.

BASSMAN
Maybe so. But as soon as she finds out one of us Gypsies did that, we’re all history – whether the Hellases are on her side or not.

As they talk, they fill their jackets with transparent plastic bags containing hundreds of small dilaudid (morphin) pills.

MAD DOG
(looking around)
Let her come.

Their jackets crammed with the drugs, the Gypsies suddenly freeze. The roar of several approaching cars can be heard in the distance. They look at each other rapidly and dash towards the door. Not knowing what to do with the wallet, Striker drops it in a box on one of the shelves and follows the other two.

EXT. THE DEPOT PARKING AREA - NIGHT

Three cars screech to a halt on the asphalt of the parking area. The guard rushes out of the house to meet several men carrying semi-automatic weapons.

EXT. THE DEPOT (INNER AREA) – NIGHT

Sneaking out of the Depot by an opening in the wire fence, Mad Dog, Bassman and Striker run to their motorbikes over a small hill.

EXT. THE DEPOT - NIGHT

As four of the men enter the inner area via the guard’s house, three others run around the perimeter to have it surrounded.

EXT. A NEARBY ROAD - NIGHT

The bikers kick-start their Harleys and dash off.

EXT. THE DEPOT - NIGHT

The armed men hear the roar of the engines of the Harleys and rush toward it. As they arrive atop the hill, the motorcycles are already too far for the men to shoot or even for the patches on the bikers’ backs to be visible.