Angry White Mailmen

Destroyer 104: Angry White Mailmen

By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir

Chapter 1

He had a face, but no one could describe it afterward.

He had eyes in his face, but everyone remembered their color differently. His complexion had texture, but no one noticed it. Some remembered his hair as red, others as yellow and still others said it was brown.

What they did remember was his uniform. Everyone noticed the uniform. No one paid any attention to the man inside.

It was not that he blended in with the early-lunchtime crowd returning to the new Wiley Post Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A few people actually flinched involuntarily as he approached the stone steps. It was the uniform that made them flinch. Yet his face was benign, his carriage unthreatening.

But no one was looking at his face as he mounted the steps.

Later a few survivors thought it was strange that he wore earphones. They remembered it as strange because they thought there must be some regulation against listening to a Walkman while making one's appointed rounds.

The security guard at the metal detector looked up, saw the blue-gray uniform and not the man and, recognizing the uniform, waved the unfamiliar face around the metal-detector line, which was backed up to the stairs.

"You're late today," the guard called after him.

The uniformed man nodded curtly and passed through the primary line of defense unchallenged. No one questioned the uniform. It could be seen on virtually every street in the nation and while it was feared by some, it was respected by most Americans.

Stationed before the elevator, where he could scrutinize all unfamiliar faces, a lobby guard made eye contact and asked, "New guy?"

"Started today," the uniformed man said curtly.

The elevator arrived, its massive doors sliding apart.

"Well, take it easy," the lobby guard said.

"Uzi does it," the man called back. In the commotion of federal workers filing through the metal detector, his exact words registered only in retrospect. People hear what they want. Just as they see what they expect.

Stepping off on the sixth floor, the man with the eagles on his uniform-jacket shoulder patch looked both ways and saw a closed door with a sign that read, Court in Session. He strode toward it, one hand dipping into his capacious shoulder bag.

Another guard was on station at the door. He suddenly blocked the way, saying, "Sorry. No admittance. Court's in session."

The man extracted an envelope from the bag, saying, "Special delivery."

The guard frowned. The envelope was addressed to Judge Calvin Rathburn.

"Okay, but try not to call attention to yourself." He opened the door to let the man enter, holding it open so he could close it quietly afterward. Judge Rathburn ran a strict court.

Reaching into his big leather bag, the man stepped in. He suddenly pivoted, and the guard saw the stubby Uzi submachine pistol in the cold, frozen moment before it snarled hot and angry at his exposed stomach.

The uniformed man snarled, too. "Die, disbeliever!"

Crumpling to the floor, the guard watched the rest, helpless. He lived long enough to tell the authorities all he witnessed.

The man entered Judge Rathburn's court and immediately opened fire. Panicked screaming drowned out that first horrible burst. The guard recognized some of the voices. The cute stenographer he had the hots for. Lawyer Tate, who sounded as high-strung as a woman before his voice turned into a hideous gurgle. A persistent banging sounded ineffectually-the judge trying to call order in the abattoir that had become his court of law.

The gunman emptied clip after clip at random. The guard saw only one bloody slice of it from his vantage point on the floor. When Judge Rathburn's red, angry face turned to exploding blood pudding, the guard closed his eyes and, impotent with rage, shook and shook on the floor, unable to move his arms, helpless to draw his weapon.

In his ears, the screaming of the victims died as the gunman's raging voice lifted over the echoing din of gun thunder.

"Unbelievers! I drink in your disbelieving eyes! I rejoice in your misery. God is grape! He commands you to accept the deaf penalty meted out by his lawful messenger!"

No one answered. They were already beyond hearing, beyond caring.

"My God!" the guard muttered. "He's gone postal. Completely postal."

It was over in less than five minutes.

The guard sensed the gunman stepping over him, hard heels clicking down the marble hall. The ding of the elevator signaled his escape.

That was the final thing he remembered before the FBI started questioning him. It was the last clear memory he carried with him to the grave.

THE FBI WERE ON THE SCENE in less than ten minutes. They could have been there in five. Their local office was on the twentieth floor, but the new federal building had been constructed like a bunker. Bombproof. Bulletproof. Soundproof.

No one had heard the shooting and dying. Until the lunch crowd began filtering back to the sixth floor and the guard was discovered in a welter of his own blood, no one suspected anything violent had happened.

One look inside the half-open courtroom door changed all that.

By the time the FBI got organized and ordered the building sealed, it was far too late.

The faceless man in the respected uniform had quietly left the building and melted into the streets of Oklahoma City. No one would have thought to detain him anyway. No one would have dared search him or his big leather bag. He was inviolate.

For everyone understood his mission. And although a tragedy had occurred, he could not stop or be stopped.

Rain or shine, snowstorm or bloodbath, the mail had to go through.

Chapter 2

His name was Remo, and he had nothing against the Japanese.

He felt certain on this point, so he said it aloud. "I have nothing against the Japanese as a people or a race."

A squeaky voice hissed, "So you have forgotten Pearl Harbor?"

"Before my time," said Remo.

"What about the Bataan death march?"

"Same answer. That was an earlier generation."

"The dead cry out for retribution, and you say this?"

"Peace was declared fifty years ago. We're not at war anymore," Remo said reasonably.

"Then why did they send their vicious samurai to these shores intent upon slaughter and maiming?" asked the Master of Sinanju.

"For crying out loud, Chiun, you only lost a nail!"

"You who have no fingernails to speak of may say this. It is nothing to you to be deprived of a nail. You have never achieved correct nail length."

Remo had no answer for that. He sat on a round tatami mat in the bell-tower meditation room of his home. Remo was looking out a window. On the other side of the white-walled square room, the Master of Sinanju sat at the opposite window, also gazing out. They were supposed to be meditating. Instead, they were arguing.

The silence lasted long enough that Remo thought he was going to get some peace. As usual, he was wrong.

"And why am I forced to endure this interminable wait?" Chiun suddenly wailed. "Why am I forbidden to rend Japanese limb from limb?"

If there was a good answer to that, Remo didn't have it, so he kept quiet.

At length Chiun spoke in a more subdued squeak. "What about their hideous automobiles, which clog the streets of this land you love so well, filling the very air you breathe with their stench?" he asked.

"If people want to drive Japanese cars, that's their business."

"Have I not heard you refer to them as rice burners?"

"The cars, yes. The people, no."

"Reverse racist!" Chiun spit.

"I am not a reverse racist."

"You do not hate the Japanese as you should. Therefore, you are a reverse racist."

"There's no reason for me to hate the Japanese," Remo insisted, an edge creeping into his voice. Abruptly Chiun whirled to his feet, his face a wrinkled web of rage. He shook a fist.

"I am forced to wear this to hide my shame. Is that not reason enough?"

More calmly than he felt, Remo got to his feet and faced the Master of Sinanju.

Chiun stood only five feet tall, but his rage seemed to fill the close confines. He shook a fist like a yellowed ivory bird claw. Abruptly he opened it.

His extended fingers looked even more like bird talons. His nails were long and curved to glittering points. Except the right index nail. It was capped by an ornate nail protector of imperial jade.

"Only till it grows back," Remo contended, trying to keep calm.

He stood exactly six feet tall, and the only thing he and the Master of Sinanju had in common was the leanness of their limbs. Chiun looked seventy, but was a century old. His face was a wrinkled map of Korea. His eyes were hazel almonds.

Remo was white. In him, only a hint of Chiun's almond eye shape was noticeable, and then only from certain angles-a fact that Remo always denied and that never seemed apparent to him no matter how much he stared into the mirror. Remo could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. His skin was stretched tight over high cheekbones, and his dark brown eyes lay deep in the hollows of his skull. His wrists were unusually thick. Otherwise, he looked outwardly ordinary.

But he was not. Neither man was. They were Masters of Sinanju, practitioners of the formative martial art called Sinanju, from which all other Eastern killing arts had been struck, like transitory sparks off a spinning flintstone. Where karate, kung fu and ninjutsu had devolved into mere tournament exhibition skills, Sinanju remained the ultimate assassin's art. From the royal courts of Cathay to the Pyramids of the Pharaohs, Masters of Sinanju had preserved thrones down to this very day, where they secretly worked for America.

"You know yourself to be blessed with Korean blood," Chiun snapped.

"Yeah ... ?"

"It is the duty of every Korean to hate the Japanese, who have oppressed their homeland."

"My homeland is America," Remo pointed out.

"Only because your most important ancestor, Kojong, stumbled to this land and took root."

Remo knew he couldn't argue with that. An exiled ancestor of Chiun's had indeed come to America. Remo was a direct descendant of Master Kojong. That made him part-Korean. And gave meaning to the historical accident that had caused his government to select him as the first non-Korean to be trained in Sinanju in order to protect America from its enemies.

"In your essence, you are Korean," Chiun continued. "And the essence of being Korean is to hate the Japanese oppressor."

"I do not hate the Japanese," Remo said flatly.

"Their vile kudzu weed is even now strangling the gracious garden that is your southern provinces."

"I do not hate the Japanese," Remo repeated firmly.

"Not even for the horrors of Yuma?"

Remo's strong face stiffened. Years ago he had been in Yuma, Arizona, when it was attacked by unsanctioned Japanese forces and overrun. It was a rogue scheme undertaken by a Japanese industrialist determined to avenge the nuking of his home-town of Nagasaki. Seizing Yuma, he began executing U.S. citizens, televising these war crimes to all of America.

He had hoped to goad the US. president into nuking Yuma to save it.

It might have worked, but Remo and Chiun were already in Yuma, on assignment for CURE, the supersecret government organization for which they both worked.

Although the industrialist was killed, the company he controlled had continued to make mischief.

The most recent instance had been an industrial-espionage agent sent to wreck the US. rail system. He'd operated in the electronic equivalent of samurai armor. Chiun had encountered him, thinking it was a ghost samurai returned from the dead to haunt the House of Sinanju. During their first encounter, the samurai's electronic sword had clipped off Chiun's right index fingernail, which only convinced the Master of Sinanju he was dealing with a supernatural avenger. Though Remo and Chiun had eventually caught up with the samurai and separated him from his head, Chiun considered the insult not fully avenged because the samurai's employers had not been relieved of their heads, too.

It was a political problem, according to their employer, Dr. Harold W Smith. The Nishitsu Industrial Electrical Corporation was one of the most important conglomerates on the face of the earth. There was so far no evidence the Japanese government had backed any of the corporation's clandestine operations.

"Look, Smitty explained the problem," Remo said with more patience than he felt. "The Japanese government knows America employs the House, which almost every foreign government also knows, thanks to that stunt you pulled last year where you offered our services to every tyrant and thug who controlled a government treasury."

"It was good advertising," sniffed Chiun.

"If we hit Nishitsu Corp and the Japanese find our fingerprints on the deed, we'll have an international incident."

"Our fingerprints will adhere to no Japanese corpses," Chiun flared. "No one will know it was the House."

"Everyone will know it was the House if you flay the Nishitsu payroll to ribbons like you've been threatening for weeks."

"Weeks!" Chiun shrieked. "It has been more than two months. Nearly three. Why, oh, why am I being denied the vengeance that is my right?"

And so saying, he faced a pristine white wall and inserted nine of his ten fingers into it. The wallboard made a sound like cardboard being murdered.

Then he dragged both hands all the way down to the baseboard, leaving nine ripping tracks.

"Tell you what," Remo said suddenly. "Why don't I check with Smith?"

In answer, the Master of Sinanju inserted his surviving nails into another part of the wall and waited expectantly.

Snapping a telephone off a taboret, Remo hit the one button. Relays clicked, initiating an untraceable call to Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for CURE. After a moment, a distinctly lemony voice came on the line.

"Remo."

"Smitty, you owe me."

"Remo?"

Remo made his voice hard. "You framed me for a murder I never committed, railroaded me into the electric chair and buried me in absentia."

"I am still looking for your missing daughter," Smith said hastily.

"This isn't about her. It's about Chiun."

"What is wrong with Chiun?"

And Remo lifted the receiver in the Master of Sinanju's direction.

As if on cue, Chiun brought his nails ripping down again. He threw in a low moan of repressed rage. "Is he dying?" Smith asked anxiously.

"If he doesn't get another crack at the Nishitsu Corp, someone will be," Remo said pointedly.

"I am still working on the logistics of it. I may have a safe plan of attack for you soon."

"How about we get on the road to speed things up.

"Are you certain it is necessary?" And Remo lifted the receiver again.

This time Chiun punched a hole in a new wall and pulled out a mass of wiring.

"My honor must be avenged!" he cried. "Why will the gods not hear my beseeching entreaties?"

"You know it's urgent when he starts invoking the gods," whispered Remo. "Normally he doesn't acknowledge any gods."

"I will make flight and hotel arrangements," said Smith.

"You'll be glad you did," said Remo, hanging up. Turning to the Master of Sinanju, he said, "We're on."

Chiun flung a nest of wiring away with such force it adhered to the wall like tossed spaghetti.

"At last. At last my ancestors will again rest in peace."

"Not to mention this descendant," Remo said dryly.

THE NORTHWEST AIRLINES flight to Osaka had more than its share of Japanese passengers, and their faces stiffened when the Master of Sinanju stepped aboard, resplendent in his apricot kimono with silver stitching.

Chiun glared at every Japanese face that dared glare at him first.

By the time the plane filled up, the cabin atmosphere was thick with glaring.

Chiun took his accustomed seat over the left wing. He wore the jade nail protector designed to protect the stub of the injured nail he was cultivating, and curled the finger in the palm of a clenched fist so it could not be noticed.

"Let's not have a scene," Remo whispered. "it's gonna be a long flight."

"Agreed. We will talk of Korea to pass the long hours until we perform this important service our Emperor demands of us."

"Feel free."

Chiun raised his voice. "Have you ever heard of the feared kamikaze warriors, Remo?"

"Yeah. What's that got to do with Korea?"

"Everything." Chiun lifted his voice to an even higher register. "It was during the era of Kublai Khan, who wished to subjugate Japan, a noble goal. Kublai had first conquered Korea, an ignoble goal, from there to launch his invasion by sea. But Kublai impressed Korean shipbuilders to build his war fleet."

All through the cabin, Japanese heads cocked to catch the words of the Master of Sinanju.

"Are Koreans good shipbuilders?" asked Remo. "I know they were excellent horsemen."

"Yes, Koreans were excellent shipbuilders-when building ships for Koreans, not oppressors."

Remo nodded. He used to listen to Chiun's accounts of his homeland with one ear. Now that he knew Chiun and he shared a common ancestry, he was more interested.

"The day came that the invasion fleet of the Khan set sail for Japan," continued Chiun, his voice growing in fullness. "Mighty were its vessels, packed with soldiers and horsemen. Fearsome was the fate that awaited Japan, the unprotected."

The Japanese passengers became very still in their seats now.

"Then a mighty wind blew out of the north," said Chiun. "A typhoon, Remo. It tossed the fleet of the Khan about. They wallowed helpless in the waves. The warships fell apart, foundered and sunk. The noble invasion was never to be. The fearful Japanese, beholding this with their own incredulous eyes, named this storm Kamikaze, which means 'Divine Wind.'"

All through the cabin, Japanese heads bobbed in agreement with the words of the Master of Sinanju. "But in their ignorance, they never suspected the truth," Chiun added quickly.

The agreeable bobbing stopped.

"The Master of that time sunk the ships, right?" asked Remo.

Chiun shook his wise old head. "No."

"No?"

"No," said Chiun, waving his jade nail protector in the air without realizing. "That had nothing to do with Sinanju and everything to do with Japanese ignorance and arrogance. For the Korean shipbuilders who constructed the fleet of Kublai Khan did so with inferior lumber and weak nails. Any storm would have sunk the fleet. The Khan never knew this, so no retribution was visited on Korea. The Japanese never imagined this, so they believed themselves to be under divine protection, which accounts for their insufferable arrogance."

All through the cabin, the glaring of turned Japanese faces grew venomous.

"Look," said Remo, "can we get off this subject? No more Korean stories, okay?"

"If you insist," Chiun said thinly. Chiun was silent for only a short time.

"Have you noticed, Remo?" he asked over the windup whine of the 747's turbines.

"Noticed what?"

"How much Japanese faces are improving."

"Huh?"

"Not the older generation. They are too set in their ways. But the younger ones. They are marrying outside of the islands. New blood is flowing into their veins. I do not normally approve of mixing the blood, but for the Japanese it is a good thing. Their faces are slowly improving. They are not as good as Korean faces, or even Mongol faces. But in another century, perhaps two, Japanese will not be burdened with such morose countenances."

Assorted Japanese passengers turned in their seats and looked unhappily in Chiun's direction.

"I never noticed that," Remo said guardedly.

"It is a fact, Remo."

After that, the majority of the Japanese passengers found ways to change seats with others, and the midsection of the cabin was suddenly free of Japanese glaring.

The Master of Sinanju smiled with quiet satisfaction for the remainder of the flight.

Remo just hoped it would end soon. They were only now taxiing to the Logan Airport runway. And it was fourteen hours to Osaka.

Chapter 3

NYPD Patrolman Tony Guiterrez had just turned the corner of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street when it exploded.

A hot blast of air picked him up off his feet and threw him down the side street as he was admiring the maddening swing and sway of a redheaded girl's walk. She had a nice behind. It wiggled. Normally Patrolman Guiterrez paid more attention to his surroundings, but you didn't see a lot of Anna Nicole Smith behinds on the streets these days. Women liked to keep themselves trimmer than that.

A slow smile of appreciation was tugging at Patrolman Guiterrez's lips when he felt his feet leave the hard concrete, and he forgot all about the girl and her undulating pelvis. The thunderous boom seemed to be chasing him.

His mind froze in midthought. Explosion!

Many people's lives flash before them when they feel the cold touch of death. Patrolman Guiterrez was made of different stuff. He recognized the sound of a detonation. Even in that split second when his eardrums were being punished by the leading edges of the traveling shock wave, his mind correlated a half-dozen random facts.

The explosion was directly at his back. Couldn't be more than twenty yards away. Sounded right at the corner, too.

What had exploded? he wondered with an eerie clarity of thought.

The faces of the pedestrians Guiterrez had passed flashed by his mind's eye. Ordinary people. None had caught his observant eye.

There had been a Dodge Ram pickup truck at the corner light. Traffic on Eighth Avenue was flowing smoothly.

A car bomb! he thought. Yeah. That's gotta be it. A car bomb.

Then he was slammed into the free-standing wire trash container.

It probably saved his life, though Guiterrez didn't realize it for a while. He struck the trash barrel with such force that for three days afterward the wire pattern was visible in white against his red cheek. They bumped together in midair, then rolled. Guiterrez landed atop the rolling container, mashing it almost flat with his 215 pound body. The barrel was full of newspapers and other paper refuse. They helped save him, too.

When Guiterrez came to, he was looking at a dragon of smoke rolling across the otherwise blue September sky.

Guiterrez sat up. He hurt in so many places he didn't know where to start. He looked at his feet. Still attached-though he'd lost one regulation shoe. He noticed he couldn't feel the ground with his supporting hands, so he looked right, then left, half-expecting to see raw stumps.

One palm was skinned raw, but it was whole. He counted his fingers to make sure.

When he tried to stand up, his spinal column felt like a fracturing icicle.

But Guiterrez got up. He had to. His clearing sight showed him the corner he had just passed.

The first thing he saw was the woman on her back. Her mouth was open as if she were screaming. Something very red and uncertain was foaming up from it. Her eyes stared glassily. Guiterrez couldn't tell if she was ejecting blood or viscera or a jellylike combination, but he could tell she was all but dead.

Not far from her, a meaty naked leg lay scorched and smoking.

The silence in the aftermath of the explosion seemed to last a long time. The screaming soon followed it. Guiterrez was running to aid the wounded by the time they were swelling into a chorus of agony.

He found the man who had lost his leg around the corner. A black man. He sat up against a building facade looking down at his missing leg. Guiterrez could tell he was seeing what had happened to him but he wasn't getting it. Not yet. Then without warning, he did. He let out a bellow like a wounded bear.

Guiterrez was barking into his shoulder radio. "Central, send X-ray and fire apparatus. Corner of Eighth and Thirty-fourth."

The Dodge pickup was on fire. The driver behind the wheel didn't have any head. He didn't have much of anything from the shoulders down. A monster might have taken a bite out of him.

If it was a car bomb that had done this, Guiterrez realized, it wasn't the pickup.

Other cars were shattered and broken. One was flung over on its side.

Whatever the bomb was, it had been big.

But it wasn't a car bomb. Guiterrez had seen plenty of car-bomb footage on TV. They usually left a smoking axle. Maybe not where it should have been, but it always landed somewhere.

No cars had blown up. Guiterrez was positive of that.

As the wail of sirens started up, Guiterrez went from car to car, checking for dead and wounded, wondering what had blown up. What on earth had blown up? He should have seen it when he turned the corner. The corner had been ground zero. But try as he might, he couldn't remember anything sitting on that corner.

At least, nothing that stood out. And Tony Guiterrez prided himself on his powers of observation.

THE CHIEF OF DETECTIVES for Manhattan's bomb squad took him aside an hour later and asked, "What did you see?"

They were on ground zero. The crater on the corner still smoked lazily. Blood and glass lay everywhere. Building facades at all four corners showed scars.

Guiterrez was staring at the crater. It had disrupted the entire corner, flinging granite curbstones like bricks. One had been discovered on the smashed remains of a desk in a second-floor office on the other side of Thirty-fourth.

"There was something there... " he muttered.

"What?"

Guiterrez banged his forehead in frustration. "I don't know. Damn."

"A package?"

"No."

"A suspicious person?"

"Only the injured. Unless someone came out of a building. But he wouldn't have time to drop a bomb and get away intact."

The detective frowned at the crater. "Whatever blew up, it was big. Too big to carry. Too big to escape notice."

"I walked this beat every day for three years," Guiterrez was saying in frustration. "I know this corner. There was something there."

"Something out of the ordinary?"

"No," Guiterrez said dazedly. "Something that's always been there. I just can't remember what it was."

"How can something be there and you can't remember it?"

"It was something ordinary. Something you take for granted."

The bomb-squad detective was looking around. A lone EMT ambulance stood nearby, in case an unsuspected body turned up. A fire engine was pulling away, its job done. The air smelled of hot metals and warm blood.

"What color?" asked the detective.

"I don't remember that, either. Damn it, why won't my mind work?"

"Was it green?"

"Huh?"

The detective was on his knees. He waved Guiterrez to join him.

Near the pediment of a door, something had chipped at the concrete. A fragment lay on the ground. It was scorched black, but as the detective nudged it with a pen, the other side came to light. It was olive drab.

"Could be military ordnance of some type," the detective was saying.

Guiterrez shook his head slowly. "I don't remember anything military."

"A jeep? A duece-and-a-half truck?"

"It wasn't a car bomb, I tell you," Guiterrez said angrily.

The detective got up and looked around. He held the fragment of scorched olive drab metal in a clean handkerchief.

"It wasn't any guy wearing a brace of M-80s for a girdle, either," he said grimly.

AT THE FIFTH AVENUE city morgue, the coroner extracted a large section of steel from the body of the woman whose pureed innards had come bubbling out of her mouth.

Patrolman Guiterrez was there to see it.

The coroner laid the piece of metal on a stainless steel circular tray and with a thing like a tiny flexible shower nozzle, hosed it clean.

As the blood ran clear, the steel turned olive drab. And embossed on one side were two raised letters: U.S.

"Damn," the bomb-squad detective muttered. "Damn. Maybe it was an ammo box. I hope to hell we don't have militia loose in Manhattan."

"We don't," Guiterrez said slowly. "I don't think."

"You recognize it?"

"Yeah. If you search hard enough, you'll find the piece that fits under it. There'll be letters stamped on it, too."

The bomb-squad detective and the ME looked at him expectantly.

"The letters will say 'Mail.' I remember now. The thing that blew up was a US. Mail relay box."

The detective looked as if he wanted to cry. "Did you say a mailbox?"

"Yeah."

"I gotta call the commander. This could be big."

THE COMMISSIONER of police of New York City received the call from the commander of South Precinct Midtown at approximately 12:53.

"It was a mail relay box that blew up," the commander said.

"Damn. Anyone could have planted it, then."

"No, sir, I said a relay box. Not a postal collection box."

"What's the difference?"

"Collection boxes are blue and are for the public convenience. Relay boxes are olive drab and can only be accessed by a postal employee with a key."

"That should narrow it down, shouldn't it?" suggested the commissioner of police.

"It should, sir," the precinct commander agreed.

"So, this isn't a terrorist event?"

"It doesn't appear that way."

"Could be a Unabomber-style mail bomb that detonated prematurely. Or a disgruntled postal worker."

"Is there any other kind?" the commander grunted. The commissioner thought it prudent not to answer that question directly. It was one thing for a commander to indulge in a little gallows humor. A commissioner had to be sober.

"I have a detective interviewing the postmaster," the commissioner said. "All mail is sorted before it's dropped off. We may develop a lead by the evening news, if not sooner."

"Let's hope we don't have a jurisdictional problem."

"I hadn't thought of that."

"The blown box is a federal problem."

"But it blew in a city street. That makes it our investigation."

"Like I said, let's hope we don't have a jurisdictional problem."

NYPD CHIEF OF DETECTIVES Walter Brown walked up the granite steps and through two of the phalanx of Corinthian columns of the General Post Office on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. It was the most impressive building in the entire city that wasn't a skyscraper. It occupied a full city block and looked as solid as the bedrock under Manhattan. Over the lintel was carved the motto of the United States Postal Service:

Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Heat Nor Gloom Of Night

Stays These Couriers From The Swift Completion Of Their Appointed Rounds

Inside he was directed to the office of the postmaster of New York City, where he flashed his badge and announced himself.

"Detective Brown. Urgent business."

"One moment," said the secretary. A moment later, Brown was ushered through a door with pebbled glass panel and the words Myron Finkelpearl Postmaster in gilt letters. It was a substantial door, as befitted the office of the man who oversaw the flow of mail through the most important city in the world.

The postmaster waved Brown to a maroon chair. "A half an hour ago," Brown began, "an explosion took place at the corner of Eighth and Thirty-fourth."

"I heard."

"We've determined the object that exploded was one of your relay boxes."

The postmaster turned pale. He actually wove on his feet like a drunken man. Out of his pocket came a white linen handkerchief. He ran it across his forehead, sat down and said, "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

It was Brown's turn to look dazed. "We'll need the names of all postal employees with access to the box in question."

"Impossible."

"Don't give me that. Generate the list from payroll."

"Relay boxes are locked with what we call a master key. Tens of thousands of master keys are carried by postal workers all over the country. Any key can open any box anywhere."

"Let's start with your people."

"Sorry. This is a federal matter."

"Federal? There was an explosion!"

"Of federal property. I will launch a full investigation and relay the findings to your superior."

"With all due respect, I can't accept that answer. There are casualties. Destruction of property. Not to mention the possibility that the individual responsible may have planted more bombs in other relay boxes."

If possible, the postmaster turned even more pale. And Detective Brown figured he'd gotten through the man's thick, bureaucratic skull.

"I will get right on it, I assure you."

Brown lost it then. "Are you crazy!" he barked, slamming a fist on the postmaster's big desk. "This isn't a jurisdictional matter. A mass murder took place not three blocks from here. It falls under police jurisdiction."

"It's federal. Now I must ask you to leave." Detective Brown glared at the postmaster for a full minute.

The postmaster's return glare was opaque. Neither man looked as though he would budge an inch. "You'll be hearing from us," said Brown, storming out.

AS HE CLATTERED DOWN the wide granite steps, Brown wore his face like a stone mask. The brass of that guy. So what if he was federal. Did he think he could sweep this under the rug? Already the corner of Eighth and Thirty-fourth was surrounded by news crews. By 6:00 p.m. this would be the lead story. They were already breaking into afternoon programming with updates.

Brown was pulling open the door of his sedan when he was knocked off his feet. He landed on his back, the air driven out of his shocked lungs from the impact.

He lay there dazed a moment, his ears ringing, then found his wits and his feet.

Down Fifth, a worm of black smoke was coiling upward in the aftermath of the detonation. Then the screaming began.

Detective Brown started for the sound when he heard another boom. This one farther away. Then another. Then, as if fireworks were going off, a string of detonations reverberated through the canyons of Manhattan.

Over the skyscrapers and high-rise office buildings, thin threads of smoke lifted, darkened and became a pall. All in the space of a minute-the time it took Detective Brown to reach the scene of the first explosion, cursing the delays, the bomber and most of all the postmaster of New York, who now had the biggest headache in the greatest city on earth sitting on his desk like a ticking bomb.

And it served the fucker right.

Chapter 4

At Osaka International Airport all the Japanese passengers got up simultaneously, blocking the aisle. They seemed in a rush to deplane. Remo figured it might have had something to do with the Master of Sinanju's trips to the bathroom. He managed to hit every one of them. After which the doors refused to open. This led to a lot of squirming passengers and a few unpleasant accidents.

"Guess we wait," said Remo.

"You may wait," said the Master of Sinanju, getting out of his seat.

As Remo watched, Chiun started forward. His hands were tucked into the joined sleeves of his kimono when he started. Yet Japanese passengers began jumping back into their seats, making a path as if stung by a very busy bee.

The way clearing before him, Chiun padded up the aisle like an apricot apparition. Red-faced Japanese faces glared at him in passing. A few held themselves and looked desperate.

Remo hurriedly followed.

As the Master of Sinanju stepped off the plane, the Japanese stewardesses in their traditional geisha-style kimonos blocked Remo's way.

"You are not staying, gaijin?" one asked.

"Osaka is my destination," Remo pointed out.

"We are coming back to Osaka. You may stay with us. Fly back to America, then come back. We will make it very pleasant for you, gaijin. "

And they all smiled their geisha smiles.

"Thanks," said Remo. "But my friend will make it very unpleasant for me if I don't get off in Osaka." The Japanese stewardesses all made pouty faces and one asked, "You know of Japanese hara-kiri custom?"

"If you're trying to blackmail me into staying by threatening to commit suicide," Remo said, "it's been tried."

"It has?"

"Many times."

"Did the girls open their bellies for you?"

"I never stick around long enough to find out," said Remo, brushing past.

Remo found Chiun waiting near the baggage chute. There was no luggage. They were only staying a day. Normally the Master of Sinanju took some portion of his fourteen steamer trunks along but in this case he decided against risking even one to what he darkly referred to as "Japanese atrocities."

"Let's find a pay phone," said Remo.

"You did not stay to watch?"

"The stewardesses commit hara-kiri? No. Too messy."

"It is the one Japanese custom of which I approve," Chiun said loudly in English. "If only more Japanese would slit their bellies in shame of being born of these islands."

"Look," hissed Remo, "can we just be on our way?"

"Yes," said Chiun even more loudly. "Let us be on our way. Let us enter Occupied Japan with all its sinister intrigues."

"Japan isn't occupied anymore, Little Father."

"It is occupied by Japanese. Better it were occupied by Koreans, who would improve it. But that is not to be in my lifetime, I fear."

Remo noticed they were being followed by a white gloved security detail so he pretended not to be with the Master of Sinanju. He found a pay phone and dialed the USA country code, then leaned on the 1 button.

"We're here," Remo told Smith when the lemony voice came over the line.

"Go to the Sunburst Hotel on Sakai-Suji Avenue," Smith said.

"No time. Chiun's already stirred up the natives. We've got to be in and out quick."

"I have not yet determined a plan of attack for you," Smith hissed.

"We can go in and kill everyone," Remo suggested.

"Technicians and salary men are not worth our time. Go to Nishitsu Osaka. Make sure the Nishitsu executives understand we have discovered their plot to destroy our rail system and have traced it back to them."

"How?"

"You will find a way. Just be subtle. You are delivering a message."

Rejoining Chiun, Remo related the conversation, then added, "Guess we're just going to have to march in and kick butt."

"Too subtle," Chiun said, stroking his wispy beard. "You call that subtle?"

"I have a more appropriate idea. One that will impress even thick Japanese skulls."

"You lead and I'll follow."

Remo did. First to the Osaka customs counter, where Chiun was asked if he had anything to declare. The question and the Master of Sinanju's vituperative answer were in Japanese, and Remo didn't understand any of it. But the way the customs officials' ears turned red and their facial expressions flattened out suggested that Chiun had declared them all illegitimate sons of Japanese snow monkeys.

The security police who were hovering in the background now rushed forward.

More heated exchanges transpired.

Chiun flung hot words and brandished his jade nail protector in official faces. Someone decided it was undeclared contraband and attempted to seize it.

Instead, he seized his own crotch. Others seized other sensitive portions of their anatomies and Remo had to rush in to rescue the Japanese constabulary from the Master of Sinanju's wickedly flashing nails.

He accomplished this by sending them spinning into a nearby men's room and with his hand cold-soldering the door shut after the last one tumbled in.

After that Remo followed the Master of Sinanju to a waiting taxi.

"Why did you not come to my aid sooner?" Chiun sniffed. "You know I am nearly toothless in my present condition."

"I was pretending I wasn't with you, okay?"

"I do not blame you," Chiun said, voice suddenly dejected. "I have allowed myself to be shamed in your eyes. And in the eyes of my ancestors. I wear a horn of jade where my Killing Nail should be."

"That's not it, Little Father. I just didn't want to be made."

Chiun's eyebrows lifted. "But it's all right that I am made?"

"Look, you couldn't be more obvious if you carried a flag. I like to blend in."

"I would like to blend the Japanese shogun who stole my honor," Chiun said fiercely.

"Just keep a low profile and you'll get your wish," Remo cautioned.

Chiun gave the driver instructions and Remo spent the ride looking out the rear window in case they were being pursued.

"You know they'll be looking for us when we try to fly out of Osaka," Remo undertoned.

"I will be looking for them, too," sniffed Chiun. "They who dared covet the nail protector of Gi."

"A previous Master broke a nail?"

"Gi had weak cuticles and protected his Killing Nails when he was not dispatching enemies of the Khan with them."

"Which Khan?"

"Kublai."

"Gi worked for the Khan who oppressed Korea?"

"Gi offered his services to the Korean emperor, whose offer was far less than that of the Khan."

"Doesn't sound like much of a Master."

"He was a wonderful historian and so we revere him."

"You revere him," said Remo, "The only thing I revere is finishing this freaking assignment."

"Oh? Are Japanese bothering you?"

"They're starting to," Remo growled. Chiun only smiled thinly.

FROM THE OSAKA AIRPORT the red taxicab conveyed them to a train yard where old diesel locomotives sat rusting and peeling.

While the cab waited, Chiun went among these and inspected them carefully, knocking on noses and sides until he was satisfied.

The Master of Sinanju haggled with the yardmaster in Japanese. Then they reclaimed their cab. "What was that all about?" asked Remo.

"You will see."

Next Remo found himself in an airfield where helicopters buzzed overhead. Again there was haggling. Then Chiun called out, "Come, Remo we are going for a short ride."

Soon a giant helicopter sky crane was lifting off with Remo and Chiun in the cabin.

Night had fallen. Chiun guided the pilot with quick gestures. Before long they were over the train yard. A cable was lowered at Chiun's direction and the locomotive was secured by a ground crew.

"Why are we stealing a locomotive?" Remo wanted to know.

"We are not. I have purchased it at a fair price,"

"Yeah? What are you going to do with a locomotive? It won't exactly fit into the overhead bins on the flight home."

Chiun examined his nails. "I will think of something."

Twenty minutes later they were approaching a great industrial complex of white buildings under blue-white floodlights. Remo looked down. He saw a tiny helicopter on a roof helipad. The helipad was in the shape of the three-moons symbol of the Nishi samurai clan, now Nishitsu Industrial Electrical Corporation.

If they stayed on course, the ponderous weight of the diesel locomotive would soon overfly the helipad, Remo saw.

"You're not thinking what I think you're thinking," Remo said.

"We have been asked to deliver an unmistakable message."

"Does he know that?" Remo asked, indicating the earphoned pilot in the control bucket.

"Not as yet."

"So all we have to do is pressure him to hit the cable release at the right moment?"

"No, he will never do that because he would fall into great difficulties. I will persuade him to tarry here a moment or two. Having accomplished the difficult part of the assignment, the rest will be up to you."

Remo shrugged. "Fair enough." And opening the side door, he stepped out into a wheel strut. His actions were so quick and fluid that the pilot, occupied with his flying, didn't notice.

Remo was gone almost five minutes. The skycrane started to pitch and sway. Then with an adroit parting of cable, the helicopter suddenly rose higher, freed of its tremendous burden.

The locomotive actually whistled as it fell. Its monstrous moon shadow lay over the helipad, and kept shrinking. It struck with a great booming like a peal of thunder. The chopper actually shivered.

The pilot started to caterwaul the most ungodly curses as Remo climbed back in. He hadn't noticed Remo was gone.

"What took you so long?" asked Chiun.

"Cable that thick takes time to snap," said Remo, looking at his greasy hands.

Chiun made a face. "If you have correct fingernails, your hands would now be clean."

Remo frowned.

"I thought you were off this fingernail kick?"

"I have agreed that you may wear your nails as you wish. That does not mean I am forbidden from describing other options."

In the control bucket, the sweaty-faced pilot swung his ship around to inspect the damage.

It wasn't complete, but there was a big hole where the main Nishitsu roof had been. Gone were the helipad and its helicopter. Smoke and flames were boiling up. Amazingly, almost no one reacted on the ground. Since it was evening, loss of life would be minimal.

And the Master of Sinanju leaned forward and took hold of the pilot's very red neck.

The pilot decided this was the airspace he most didn't want to loiter in. The skycrane went rattling away like a huge frightened pelican.

"Think they'll get the message?" asked Remo.

Chiun shrugged. "Who is to say? They are Japanese and therefore thick of head and slow of wit."

Chapter 5

Dr. Harold W Smith had been plucked out of the CIA data-analysis section to run the supersecret government agency called CURE for more than one reason. There were many excellent analysts in those early days of the CIA when Univac computers the size of an entire room were constantly keypunching data to be processed and analyzed.

It was said of Smith in those Cold War days that he was worth two Univacs. The raw intelligence that passed before his gray eyes prior to being fed to the big systems often never reached the keypunch stage. Smith had only to glance over it, correlate it with other data cataloged in his gray brain and inform a superior of his conclusions.

"The Soviets are about to crush the Hungarian revolution," Smith would warn.

"What makes you say that?"

And Harold Smith would reel off a list of seemingly routine troop and armor movements, canceled vacations, recalled ambassadors, increased food imports and other outwardly unrelated data in support of his conclusion. And he would be right.

At first he was dismissed out of hand.

"Leave the correlating to the computers, Harold."

But Smith was stubborn. And not blind. He kept offering his analyses, and they were on the money 99.7 percent of the time.

As punishment, Smith was exiled to a windowless office of his own. To his superior's intense exasperation, he continued predicting world events and continued memoing his superiors. And he was invariably, infuriatingly, stubbornly correct.

Finally they had no choice but to promote him to senior analyst. From then on, the agency pretended Harold Smith was just another Univac. In fact, he outperformed the Univacs, which were only brute computers whose keypunched ticker tape had to be decoded by higher-level analysts. Uncorrelated data in, correlated data out.

With Smith, they skipped two of the three steps. And saved on electricity.

Smith called the revolution in Cuba correctly. He proved conclusively on paper that the so-called missile gap was just Soviet propaganda perpetuated by Pentagon scare mongers. And by the time of the Bay of Pigs invasion of Cuba, the CIA was only too glad to see him take early retirement. A man that unrelentingly single-minded could be a royal pain in the ass.

Harold Smith did not retire. He instead went on to head an organization that CIA never dreamed existed. It was called CURE. The premise of the President of the US. who had created it and installed Smith as its director was staggeringly simple. The American experiment was in collapse. The Constitution lay in shreds. It was not possible to maintain order and defend the nation from the rain of threats from all quarters-and remain within the rigid limitations of the law.

CURE would operate outside constitutional and legal mandates. Smith's task-one as staggering as those faced by the early Founding Fathers-was to beat back the modern-day Huns and Visigoths who were chipping away at America's freedoms by any means possible.

Three decades later, Harold Smith was still at it, operating from the same cracked leather chair in the same Spartan office in the same cover institution. Folcroft Sanitarium, ostensibly a warehouse for the chronically ill and mentally impaired. Smith ran both organizations with a firm, unsentimental hand. Older, grayer, yet still recognizable as the supercompetent bureaucrat the CIA had nicknamed the Gray Ghost.

The only thing that had changed in those years was Smith's computer setup. Initially it was an oak desk that concealed a terminal that rose from his desktop like a crystal ball and connected to the hidden bank of mainframes in the basement, dubbed the Folcroft Four by Smith.

The Folcroft Four still hummed behind a blank concrete wall, backed up by optical WORM-drive servers and other new innovations in data storage and retrieval. But Smith's desk had been replaced by a modern desk with a black glass top. Buried under the tinted glass was a fixed monitor. Smith hated change, but this new desk was much more secure than the old.

From his chair, he stared down into the black glass. The amber letters on the screen floated as if in some dark liquid medium.

There was no keyboard in the usual sense. When Smith brought his hands close to the desktop nearest him, the thin white letters of a standard alphanumeric keyboard arrangement glowed. But there were no keys in the physical sense. It was a touch-sensitive capacity keyboard, that darkened the second Smith withdrew his hands.

Smith was scanning the vast daily stream of data that his mainframes pulled off the Net and wire-service links, collating the bulletins, discarding the trivia and saving in files those items he believed would be useful for future operations.

It was after noon. Two hours past midnight in Japan. There was no news out of Osaka. Smith had had misgivings about sending Remo and Chiun to deal with Nishitsu before he had fully identified the situation. But sometimes keeping his only employees happy was his only survivable option.

At 12:33 his system beeped, and a red light popped up on one corner of his screen. Smith brushed a flat hot-key, and an AP bulletin appeared. It was brief, indicating it was only a first, sketchy report moving on the wire.

Oklahoma City, OK-Courtroom Shooting (AP) An unidentified gunman burst into the court of Judge Calvin Rathburn at 11:15, Oklahoma time, opening fire. Initial reports indicate more than two dozen persons wounded or killed. The gunman fled. Eyewitnesses have so far provided no description of the assailant. The attack took place in the new Wiley Post Federal Building, which replaced the old Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, destroyed by a truck bomb more than a year ago previously in the worst case of domestic terrorism in US. history.

Frowning, Smith began tapping his keyless keys and dumped the report into a growing file he called Militia Threats. This was supposition on his part. But it seemed a solid one.

Not ten minutes later, the first report of the explosion at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street in midtown Manhattan bubbled up. One glance at it, and Smith immediately consigned it to another file labeled Terrorist Threats.

Nothing about either event suggested a link to the other. Smith invariably thought in links and patterns. But no pattern or link was apparent. In fact, it never occurred to Smith to connect the two, even as closely spaced in time as they were.

Smith had gone on to his work, knowing his ever-vigilant system would alert him to significant followups when, approaching 1:00 p.m., the bulletins began peppering him like thrown darts.

New York, New York-Mystery Explosions (AP) A string of as yet unidentified explosions occurred today at approximately 12:27 in Manhattan's West Side. Initial reports indicate a series of seven detonations, all in a multiblock area surrounding the Manhattan's General Post Office. Damage and casualty reports are unavailable at this hour. No link to the earlier explosion at Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street has been established.

The anonymous AP wire copywriter, bound by the rules of journalism, could do no more than suggesting a link. But not Harold Smith.

Eight explosions at a minimum, all in the relatively confined sector of midtown Manhattan.

Something was up. Something big. With a sharp pang, Smith regretted having sent Remo and Chiun out of the country. But done was done.

In their absence, Harold Smith would look into the situation. There would be time enough to bring Remo and Chiun into this when a target was established.

After all, they were assassins, not investigators. Smith made excuses to his secretary and left his office with a shiny leather briefcase that contained his telephone-computer links to the Folcroft Four. It was a new system, one he had built to replace the old one, which had been destroyed recently. This would be a good opportunity to field-test it.

SMITH TOOK the Henry Hudson Parkway into Manhattan, noticing that the trees on either side of the parkway were being choked by wild catbrier and hops. He frowned. Someone should do something about it. Smith hated untidiness in any form. Even in nature. If he had his way, trees would grow in orderly ranks and flowers would sprout only where they were wanted.

His briefcase lay open on the seat beside him, and the computer system was up and running.

Bulletins continued to pour in. There were now nine confirmed explosions. Eyewitness accounts recounted of death, maiming and carnage. This was a big operation, one of the biggest since the World Trade Center, Smith thought grimly.

No sooner had the thought crossed his mind than the skyline of Manhattan came into view, featuring the twin towers of the World Trade Center. These were Smith's ultimate destination.

New York City was under siege. Law-enforcement agencies would be mobilizing. Security would be tight. That meant one thing to Harold Smith.

The White Room.

IT WAS NOT CALLED the White Room because it was white, although the walls were white. The door was a plain veneer panel with no lettering. The only key belonged to the commissioner of police for New York City.

The plain door lay at the end of a long corridor on a lower floor of Tower One of the World Trade Center. It was soundproof and bugproof. Its phones were scrambled.

That was why, although the police commissioner's office was only a few blocks away, in moments of greatest emergency he held crisis-management meetings in the White Room. No news leaks ever escaped the White Room. No eavesdropper ever overheard a whisper from within. The press knew of the White Room, but could not get to it. Especially in the aftermath of the failed World Trade Center bombing. All that came out was white noise. Hence the name.

It was the irony of ironies, the police commissioner thought as he unlocked the plain door to the White Room, that during the last serious terrorist crisis this leakproof office was denied to the commissioner of police because it literally stood on ground zero. No one had gotten into the White Room that day. The World Trade Center bombing had been a crisis that belonged to a previous police commissioner. Now the current holder of that position had a crisis of his own.

There was a long, buffed mahogany conference table in the middle of the White Room. It was bare except for strategically placed telephones. A Mr. Coffee stood on a wheeled cart and offered six kinds of coffee. The commissioner started the Mr. Coffee, knowing it was going to be a very long day.

The meeting had been called for two-thirty. Ostensibly its purpose was intelligence sharing and tactical coordination of the joint NYPD-FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force, but that would be the least of it, the commissioner knew. The FBI just wanted to stake out their territory. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would claim this as their investigation. It would be all the commissioner could do to keep his hand in. But it was his city. And his meeting.

He was sugaring the first cup when a peremptory knock rattled the door.

"Who goes there?" the commissioner called over his shoulder.

"Smith. FBI."

The commissioner of police opened the door, saying, "Your office said to expect Special Agent Rowland."

"Rowland was held up," said Smith, quickly entering-

"Well, you're early anyway."

The commissioner sized Smith up as a middle-level bureaucrat. A GS-10 at best. He wore a gray threepiece suit and had the personality of a rain cloud. His accent was lockjaw New England.

"Coffee?"

"No time," Smith said. "There is much to be done. I need to be brought up to speed as quickly as possible."

The commissioner blinked. "Is this happening outside the city?"

"No comment," said Smith.

"Damn."

"There is no time to waste on guessing," said Smith. "Who has claimed responsibility for these acts?"

"Who hasn't?" the commissioner grunted, pulling a sheaf of faxes from his open briefcase and laying them on the polished table. "Hezbollah. Hamas. Islamic Jihad. The Muslim Brotherhood. The National Front for the Salvation of Libya." He grunted. "I guess Khaddafi is out of favor among the fundamentalists these days. The Abu Nidal Group. A.I.M. M.O.M."

"M.O.M?"

"Messengers of Muhammad. Then there are the Eagles of Allah, the Warriors of Allah, the Islamic Salvation Front, Armed Islamic Group, Taliban, the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine and something called the Islamic Front for the A.F.W.U. We don't know what 'A.F.W.U.' stands for yet."

"In other words," said Smith, "every active terrorist cell looking for publicity has claimed responsibility?"

"This time we can safely discount them all."

"Why do you say that?" Smith asked sharply.

"We've determined the first explosion was a post office relay box. A piece of shrapnel was stamped US. Mail. The later explosions showed the same MO. Every explosion took place on an open sidewalk. Olive drab shrapnel everywhere. I'm still trying to get a handle on the dead."

Smith was sharp. He jumped right on the money. "Relay boxes are not accessible to the public. It is virtually impossible for a letter bomber to orchestrate a series of closely spaced explosions in relay boxes and have none of the devices go up in postal-service hands or at the destination address. We may be dealing with a postal employee."

"Exactly. Some letter carrier gone postal."

"That theory does not fit the psychological profile of postal offenders," said Smith.

"What doesn't?"

"Postal employees invariably direct their anger at their superiors and co-workers, not the general public."

"There was an incident a few years ago up in Boston. A disgruntled postal clerk grabbed his AK-47 and buzzed the South Postal Annex in a stolen light plane, sniping at random."

"Exactly," said Smith. "He fired at his place of employment"

"And everything else in sight," the commissioner countered.

"I assume you have the names of the postal employees who had access to the destroyed boxes?"

"They're stonewalling that."

"Who is?"

"The postmaster."

"What!"

"Won't take my calls. Says it's a federal matter. I don't suppose you FBI boys have any pull with the postal service?"

"I will get back to you on that," said Smith, picking up his briefcase and storming to the door.

"What about the briefing?"

"I have had my briefing," said Smith, slamming the door.

THE HEAD Of the port authority arrived ten minutes later and accepted a cup of black coffee and a seat. Then came a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" asked the police commissioner.

"FBI."

"Smith?"

"No, Rowland."

The commissioner threw open the door and said, "Smith told me you couldn't make it."

"Smith?"

"Special Agent Smith. You know him?"

"Do you have any idea how many Smiths there are with the Bureau? What did he look like?"

"He was-" the commissioner frowned "-gray," he said.

"That fits a lot of Smiths, too."

"Over sixty. Banker's gray. Gray eyes. Rimless glasses. Gray hair. Thin as a rail."

Special Agent Rowland looked doubtful. "That doesn't fit any of the Smiths I know. You certain he was with the Bureau?"

"That's what he claimed."

"Claimed! You saw his ID, didn't you?"

The commissioner of NYPD blanched. "I-he didn't show any."

"You didn't ask for ID?"

"It slipped my mind. Christ, he could have been-"

"Media."

"My God, if the media has penetrated the White Room, I'm going to look like a fool."

"Let's concentrate on the crisis at hand before we start worrying about job security," said FBI Special Agent Rowland, flint in his voice.

The commissioner of police sat down like a log dropping. He wore the approximate expression of a crosscut tree stump-flat and spinning in concentric circles.

Chapter 6

When the helicopter skycrane landed in an Osaka field, the pilot jumped out and came at the Master of Sinanju with a knife.

"Don't do it," Remo said in English.

"It is too late," said Chiun, stepping out. "I have been challenged."

"I was talking to the idiot," said Remo.

The Japanese pilot lunged for Chiun's midriff. Chiun separated his hands as if to clap them together. Then he did. They came together flatly, with the thrusting steel blade between them. Chiun twisted both wrists, redirecting the knife thrust. The pilot's wrists were carried along for the ride. The hapless pilot, too.

Chiun left him holding the broken bits of his blade in his hands and a stupefied expression on his gaping face.

"You know," Remo said as they walked away, "I don't blame him for being upset. They're going to hang this on him."

"Let him commit hara-kiri, then. I do not care. It is nothing to the pain inflicted upon my august person."

They found a cab with a red light in the windshield indicating it was free, and Chiun got into an argument with the cab driver before they were under way. "What's he saying?" Remo asked Chiun.

"He is saying the airport is closed at this hour. I am saying it will be opened for us."

"Little Father, they're going to be waiting for us."

"Good."

"To arrest us."

"That they will never do."

"What say we crash for the night and figure out something in the morning?"

"What hotel did Smith say he secured for us?" asked Chiun.

"The Sunburst. Knowing Smith, it's probably the cheapest fleabag in Osaka, too."

Chiun relayed that information to the taxi driver, and they were off.

They were cruising the neon-bedazzled streets of Osaka not long after. Like Tokyo, the city might have been a gigantic laboratory for company logos. Every building and tower seemed to shout a name in English and Japanese.

Seeing little police-cruiser activity, Remo relaxed slightly. "Looks like the manhunt has quieted down," he told Chiun.

Then Remo saw the Sony Jumbotron TV screen mounted high on an office tower overlooking the heart of the city-an artist's composite sketch of the Master of Sinanju was being telecast to all of Osaka, if not Japan.

Remo lowered his voice. "Little Father, don't spook the driver, but your face is on the giant TV screen up there."

"Where? Where?"

"I said don't make a fuss," Remo hissed. Then Chiun did.

Catching a glimpse of the face shown in full, Chiun's own face collapsed in anger. "That is not me!"

"Chiun!"

"Look, Remo, they have desecrated my face with a mustache. I wear no mustache. And those eyes! They are Japanese, not Korean. How dare they! We must sue for satisfaction."

And switching to Japanese, the Master of Sinanju called for the driver to stop.

Chiun got out, walked to the sidewalk opposite the giant image, which had receded into a floating graphic beside the head of the Japanese network anchorman, and frowned up at the colossal screen.

"They have insulted me."

"Look, people are going to notice us," warned Remo, looking around warily.

Catching a passerby, Chiun took him by the back of the head and directed his face to the Jumbotron screen.

"Is that me?" Chiun asked in English.

The Japanese looked up. Chiun directed his head at his own face, then redirected it back at the screen. "Is it?" Chiun demanded.

The Japanese man began shaking his head no. Vigorously.

"See, Remo. Even he does not see the likeness."

"That's because he doesn't understand English and you're shaking his head for him," Remo argued.

"I am not," said Chiun as the hapless Japanese's tongue began wagging like a dog's tail. His eyes rattled like crazy dice.

"You are. He's trying to get away."

"Then I will grant him his wish," said Chiun, releasing the man.

The Japanese stumbled away, holding his head and staggering off like a salaryman full of saki.

"There is the proof," said Chiun. "If he thought that wretch was the Master of Sinanju, he would have called for my arrest."

"Right now all he's calling for is a doctor."

Chiun glared at the image on the screen. "Remo, have you any coins?"

"Sure, why?"

"Never mind the why. Let me borrow the largest." Remo dug into his pocket. "A Kennedy half dollar do?" he asked.

Chiun accepted the fat, gleaming coin. "It is perfect."

Flipping it, Chiun made the coin bounce and sing. He flipped it several times. Each time the coin spun higher, singing at a higher pitch.

On the fourth flip, the coin shot up, then angled across the street, as if suddenly pulled by a giant magnet.

Before Remo knew it, the Jumbotron screen winked out, leaving a tiny hole that smoked.

"There," said Chiun, satisfied. "Now we will go to our hotel."

"You're going to get us tossed in the local pokey if you keep this up."

But Chiun padded on, serene in the knowledge that he had righted a severe injustice done to him.

In the neighborhood of the hotel, Remo started noticing people walking around in what appeared to be thin blue pajamas. The pajamas all had the same sunburst crest over the blouse pocket.

"What kind of outfits are those?" Remo asked Chiun.

"Pajamas."

"That's what I thought. This a new Japanese custom? Wearing pajamas at night?"

"I do not know."

When they found their hotel, Remo noticed the sunburst pattern on the marquee.

Through the open door, men came and went in the identical blue pajamas with the sunburst monogram. "I don't like the look of this."

"Do not fear, Remo. To Japanese eyes, all Koreans look alike."

"Not what I meant," Remo muttered.

Inside they had to leave their shoes and put on paper slippers. Since Chiun did this without complaint, Remo followed suit.

When they checked in, they were given keys.

"We are on the fifth floor," said Chiun as he led Remo to the elevator where more men in pajamas waited. They had the sleepy look of hotel guests, not employees.

"Casual establishment," remarked Remo.

"Customs are strange in this occupied land." Stepping off on the fifth floor, Remo at first thought he had stepped into a morgue.

The walls were beige, and there were no doors recognizable as such. Instead, spaced along the walls were hatches like the drawers in a morgue, set in twos, one atop the other.

"You sure he said fifth floor?" asked Remo, looking at his key.

Chiun nodded. "Yes. The fifth."

"Our rooms must be down the hall. Way down the hall."

But in fact, they were just around the corner. Remo's key number corresponded with an upper hatch. Chiun's the lower.

"Must be storage lockers," said Remo.

"Yes," added Chiun with a frown.

But as they looked around for the corresponding room door, a Japanese in blue pajamas walked up to a wall hatch, unlocked it with his key and calmly crawled into the lighted tube, shutting it after him.

Soft music floated out of the sealed hatch.

"Did you see what I just saw?" Remo asked Chiun. Remo went to his hatch and opened it.

Inside it was like a morgue drawer except there was bedding. Soft fluorescent lights illuminated the sixfoot-long tube. On the bed lay neatly folded a pair of the blue pajamas, sunburst monogrammed pocket side up. There was a TV screen recessed into the ceiling directly over the short white pillow at the far end. On one side was a control panel for lights and TV

"I'm not sleeping in this!" flared Remo.

"Nor am I," huffed Chiun. "It is an insult!" They turned back, heading down to the lobby. The clerk patiently explained in English that they had no rooms. Only "capsures."

"What's he saying?" Remo asked Chiun.

"Capsures," repeated Chiun.

"I heard that. What's he mean?"

"This capsure hoteru," the clerk said briskly. "No rooms."

"We want our money back," said Remo.

"Sorry, you open hatch. Room is rented. No refund."

"It's not a room," Remo retorted. "It's a freaking drawer."

"You open, you rent. Sorry."

"I have not opened mine," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju, slapping his key down with a flourish.

"You may reave," the clerk allowed.

"Not without refunds," insisted Remo.

"If you insist, I wirr summon porice."

"Yes, call your constables," flared Chiun. "We refuse to knuckle under to your barbaric customs."

"No, don't do that," Remo said hastily. And lowering his voice, he whispered urgently, "We're wanted. Remember?"

"I am not wanted. Some mustachioed impostor is." Remo rolled his eyes.

Turning to the stone-faced clerk, he asked, "Look, can you recommend a good hotel?"

"Yes. This one very good."

"Other than this one," Remo said wearily.

"We have branch in Shinsaibashi District."

"It have rooms?"

"Sunburst Hoteru chain never offer room. We are budget hoteru. Offer exerrent economy for weary traverer."

"Remind me to extract Smith's fingernails one by one when we get back," growled Remo, collecting his shoes.

DAWN WAS BREAKING at the Osaka International Airport.

"So how do we pull this off?" said Remo. "Disguises?"

"I do not require a disguise," said Chiun. "They are seeking an impostor, not me."

"Count on them rounding up every Korean they can lay hands on and sorting them out later. You're not out of the woods yet."

"Nevertheless, I intend to board the next aircraft leaving this hateful land, with or without you."

Remo looked concerned. "Maybe if we go in separate entrances . . ."

"Chicken," sniffed the Master of Sinanju, who padded toward the glass doors.

Remo hung back. It wasn't that he feared for Chiun's safety. The Master of Sinanju could probably take out the entire Osaka airport-security force unassisted. But doing so would create an international incident-exactly what Smith didn't want.

The automatic glass doors parted, and Chiun passed into the sprawling complex of glass and steel.

Remo counted forty-five seconds by his internal clock and followed.

When the doors hummed apart, he expected to hear the sound of gunfire, or at least screaming. He heard neither. A frown touched his strong face. This was too easy.

Taking the escalator to the Northwest concourse, Remo kept his eyes open and his other senses alert. He got to the top of the escalator, then looked both ways.

A flash of apricot caught his eye. There was Chiun walking through the metal detector cool as could be. The security guards barely looked at him.

Shrugging, Remo decided it was going to be easy after all.

At the magnometer frame, a guard began gobbling at Remo angrily.

"I don't speak Japanese," Remo said calmly.

The guard spit out more gobbling words. Another chimed in. Remo was quickly surrounded.

"Look, I have a ticket," said Remo, reaching for his ticket, which was stuffed into his back pocket. It was a mistake. They thought he was reaching for a weapon. They drew theirs.

Remo tried to bluff his way through. Throwing up his hands, he said, "Look, I'm unarmed. My ticket's in my back pocket. Okay? Ticket. Back pocket. Don't shoot."

One guard evidently knew a little English. "Freeze," he said.

"I'm frozen. Friendly. Okay?"

"Freeze!" the guard repeated.

"I am frozen," Remo repeated.

"Freeze!" the guard snarled a third time. Others joined in. They started to remind Remo of Japanese prison guards in old World War II movies Remo used to watch. Faces flat and harsh, they looked ready and willing to shoot him on general principles.

And deep inside Remo, a growing anger took root. "Look, I said-"

"Freeze!"

That did it. Remo took the one-word guard out with a hard slap to his jaw. Pivoting, he kneecapped the one at his back with one heel of his Italian loafers. The third guard took two steps back and snapped off a single shot that Remo evaded without thinking. His return blow was calculated, however. Remo came in, grabbed the slide of the automatic with one hand and rammed it back hard.

The guard staggered back. Remo stepped back, relinquishing the weapon. The guard recovered his composure and raised his weapon. That's when he saw he had no hammer. The slide had broken it off.

Remo walked past the frustrated man who kept pulling his trigger over and over again. In exasperation, he threw the weapon at the back of Remo's head. The pressure of air advancing before the thrown weapon signaled Remo that he should bob his head to the left, so he did. The gun sailed harmlessly past him and went skating along the polished floor.

Remo found the Master Sinanju calmly seated at a gate.

"What do you think you are doing?" he demanded hotly.

"Waiting for my flight, of course."

"I've been made."

"But I have not been," Chiun huffed. "Please do not sit near me. I am not with you."

"You're joking."

"I am not wanted. You are. Shoo."

"I wouldn't be here if it wasn't for you."

"That is your misfortune, not mine," said Chiun, suddenly leaving his chair and disappearing into the men's room. The door shut and then opened a crack. Remo spotted one hazel eye regarding him warily.

Down the corridor, hard footsteps on marble warned Remo of an approaching security force. "Damn." So Remo decided to board his plane early. He found an exit door, pried it open and discovered it looked out over a thirty-foot drop. Obviously a jetway-ramp door. But there was no jetway. Remo dropped down anyway, bending his knees and straightening like a double-springed puppet upon landing.

The Northwest 747 stood out on the tarmac, a set of air stairs off to one side. The hatch was closed, but Remo wasn't going to let that stop him.

Slipping up on one of the wheel struts, he examined the wheel well. Most aircraft could be entered by a number of avenues. Including maintenance hatches. Remo knew there was one in the wheel well, so he climbed it, loosened the screws with a very hard and slightly longer than normal right index fingernail and eased the access panel open.

Slipping up, Remo replaced the panel the hard way, by turning the screw threads with his fingers.

When he was inside, he pulled up a big piece of luggage and used it for a pillow. The Japanese security police would never find him in a million years. And if they detained the Master of Sinanju, that was his own fault.

Remo knew he was home free when the big turbines spooled up and the 747 began moving. Soon the takeoff rumble of tires on tarmac ceased, and the big aircraft was climbing hard.

Raising his voice, he spoke up in Korean, "You there, Little Father?"

"I am not with you," said Chiun in a normal tone of voice that only Remo could hear.

Satisfied that the Master of Sinanju was safely aboard, Remo went to sleep.

AT LOGAN AIRPORT, Remo was the last one off the plane. He was surprised to find the Master of Sinanju waiting for him at the concourse.

"I trust you enjoyed a pleasant voyage," Chiun stated in a voice as bland as his expression.

"Remind me never to visit Japan again," growled Remo.

"Why do you say this?" "I hate the Japanese."

"My son," cried Chiun, his wrinkles breaking into a rapturous expression.

Chapter 7

Harold Smith took the Twelfth Avenue West Side Highway back to midtown.

The General Post Office was on Fifth Avenue, behind Madison Square Garden. Smith fought the congestion of ubiquitous white mail trucks and yellow cabs to Fifth Avenue, thinking that these days Manhattan traffic consisted chiefly of cabs and assorted mail, UPS and Federal Express trucks, all fighting for the privilege of moving the people and packages that made the big city hum.

Smith found a parking lot on West Thirty-fifth and grudgingly paid the hour rental fee. During the fourblock walk, he passed three different post-office relay boxes.

Prudently he crossed the street three times to avoid being caught in the probable blast radius should one of them go up. None did. He noticed other pedestrians doing the same thing. In fact, he noticed fewer people on the streets than normal. They were only a few blocks from the afflicted area.

Police helicopters throbbed through the haze of cordite hanging over midtown. It stung the nostrils. Sirens came and went, not rushed, just nervous. When the wind was right, it brought the unmistakable tang of fresh blood.

Smith mounted the granite steps of the General Post Office two at a time, despite his arthritic knee. Time was of the essence.

His gaze skated across the carved postal-service motto, and an unaccustomed chill took hold of his spine.

The secretary to the postmaster of New York began, "Mr. Finkelpearl is unavailable," but Smith flashed his postal-inspector ID card.

"One moment."

Smith waited standing. In a moment, he was ushered in.

The postmaster of New York wore a sheen of sweat under his receding hairline. He had an open but worried face. It was about as worried as only the face of a man under the gun could be.

"Reilly?" he asked Smith.

"Smith," Smith returned.

"What happened to Reilly?"

"Delayed."

Postmaster Finkelpearl looked at his wristwatch. "He's due any minute."

"Then let's get started. I require the names and home addresses of all USPS personnel who had keys to the relay boxes in question."

"We've already narrowed it down to one man. The relay driver. Al Ladeen."

"Address?"

"Seventy-five Jane Street, in the Village."

"Has Ladeen shown any signs of psychotic behavior?"

"No. His supervisor tells me he's a perfectly rational man. Passed all the mandatory Dale Carnegie and stress-management courses. He was very excited to get a relay route last month. For some reason, he didn't like working indoors. We can't understand it."

"What measures have you taken to ensure that other relay boxes have not been rigged to explode?"

"Other-?"

"Get on it," said Smith.

"Look, we have to move the mail. We can't halt the mail stream for one-"

"Massacre?" prompted Smith.

"Yes, not even for a massacre. The mail must go through. You know our motto-Neither Gloom Of Night-"

"I am expressly ordering you to take all measures to ensure that the relay boxes in this city are secure."

"Do you have any idea the number of boxes we're talking here? Over three thousand. Three thousand boxes."

"Then you had better start immediately," Smith said sharply. "I will be in touch."

With that, Harold Smith left the postmaster's office.

Down in the ornate lobby, he passed a man who had postal inspector written on his stern face. Reilly hardly glanced in Smith's direction as he strode to the bank of elevators.

By the time he reached the postmaster's office, Smith would be unfindable in the canyons of New York.

JANE STREET WAS OFF the Twelfth Avenue Highway, and Smith found it easily. Number 75 was at the Hudson end of the street, tucked in a row of aging but well-maintained brownstones.

There were three apartments. The top button was labeled Al Ladeen. Smith pressed it, not expecting an answering buzzer. He was correct. Smith then tried the other button.

Apartment 1 answered. "Yes?"

"Smith. Federal Bureau of Investigation. Are you the landlord of this building?"

"I own it, yeah."

"I would like to speak to you about a tenant." Smith was buzzed in at once.

A black bearded man in an open-necked white shirt met Smith at the door. He looked as if he'd last shaved during the Carter era.

"What's this about?"

"When did you last see Al Ladeen?"

"Al? Is he in trouble?"

"Please answer my question," Smith said firmly.

"Two days ago. He comes and goes. I don't pay much attention."

"I would like access to his apartment."

"You got a warrant?"

"I will not require one if you will cooperate."

The landlord scratched his curly beard and squinted his right eye, then his left, as if weighing the pros and cons with both hemispheres of his brain.

"If I just knew what this was about..."

"It may be connected to the midtown explosions."

"Jesus, don't tell me Al's a terrorist!"

"I said nothing of the kind," Smith said sharply.

"Isn't that what this is about?"

"Mr. Ladeen is a postal worker," said Smith.

The man clutched the doorframe. "Whoa. I didn't know that. You sure?"

Smith nodded. "A relay driver."

"Damn. All this time, I never suspected. Damn, that is scary."

"The overwhelming majority of postal workers are nonviolent," Smith explained.

"Yeah. Well, I read the papers and watch TV. You ask me, they're all slowly going bug-fuck nuts. This keeps up, it won't be long before they'll be replacing Nazis as the bad guys in the movies."

Smith cleared his throat.

"Let me get the key," the landlord said hastily.

THE APARTMENT WAS sparsely furnished and ordinary, except the walls in every room were green. They were all the same green, too. Not a tasteful avocado or an eggshell green, but a uniform lime green.

This seemed to be news to the landlord.

"Jesus, look what he did to the walls. Isn't green the color of madness?"

"No. Purple."

"Thought purple was royalty."

"Royalty and madness," said Smith. "I must ask you to wait in the hall."

Smith closed the door in the landlord's curious face and moved about the six-room apartment, not touching anything or turning on any lights lest he leave fingerprints.

In an alcove of the den stood an ordinary IBM-clone PC on a folding card table, the keyboard covered by a dust protector. On the wall behind it was a bumper sticker that said Save Jerusalem.

Smith frowned. He had never heard that slogan before.

The computer was running. That was not unusual. Sometimes people left them running, although it struck Smith as a frightful waste of electricity. Easily twelve cents per 24 hour period. On the other hand, the stress of powering up and down often wore out a system faster than continual running.

As Smith bent to examine the monitor he saw a screen saver was in operation. Another waste of money, as Smith saw it. Modern monitor tubes no longer retained burned static images if left on too long.

The screen saver featured a long building on a low hill against the backdrop of a blue bay. Nothing seemed to be happening. Then up the lone access road came a truck, trailing dust. As it approached a guard box, the truck accelerated. A uniformed guard jumped out and opened fire, his tiny M-16 making ineffectual electronic pops.

The truck ran him over on its way to crashing into the long, low building, which blew up into red-and-yellow fragments to the accompaniment of more electronic explosion sounds.

After the dust settled, the sequence started up all over again.

There was something familiar about the scene. Smith decided it must be some kind of child's game he had once seen advertised on TV.

A quick turn around the green apartment brought nothing unusual to light.

Smith had all but decided to leave the apartment untouched and was walking to the door when the computer abruptly beeped.

A thin, high voice lifted, calling out. "Allah Akbar!"

Smith froze. The voice was familiar. He had never heard it before, not that particular voice. He had heard one just like it many times. In the Far East. In news reports from the Middle East and documentaries.

It was the sound of a Muslim muezzin calling the faithful to prayer.

"Allahu Akbar!"

"Allahu Akbar!"

The keening cry petered out, and a female voice spoke lightly in what Smith recognized as Arabic. It repeated in English.

"It is time for the afternoon prayer," the voice said. Smith rushed back to the monitor. He had noticed the rug that was stretched out to one side. Now he saw it for what it really was. A Muslim prayer rug. It faced a blank wall. Smith didn't have to reflect long to understand it also faced Mecca.

The screen saver was still cycling. Smith looked closer, his gray eyes squinting. He pulled up the chair and sat down.

Face stiff, Smith watched the cycle again. This time he saw the flag atop the long, low building before it was destroyed. It was an American flag.

"The Marine barracks in Lebanon," Smith said in a low, stunned voice. "This is a reenactment of the truck bombing of the U.S. Marine barracks in Lebanon."

The stunned expression on Harold Smith's ashen face lasted less than a minute. When he stood up, it was stone.

Powering down the system, Smith unplugged it. Setting the useless monitor and keyboard off to one side, he gathered up the beige plastic case containing the hard drive itself and tucked it under one arm.

Lugging it and his ever-present briefcase to the door, Smith had to call ahead.

"Please open the door. My hands are full."

The door obligingly opened. Then the landlord saw the system under Smith's arm.

He said, "Wait a minute! Can you just take that?"

"I am taking it."

"Legally, I mean."

"It is material evidence in the commission of an act of terror against sovereign United States soil," Smith said harshly.

That impressed the landlord, who staggered back and lost facial color. "What happens if Al comes back?" he asked.

"He will never come back."

"Didn't one of the nuts who blew up the World Trade Center come back for the damn deposit on his Ryder truck?" the landlord puffed, following Smith down the gloomy staircase.

Smith blinked. "If he comes back, do not alarm him. Notify the FBI at once. Ask for Special Agent Rowland."

"Gotcha. Man, I can't believe it. He's a terrorist. That's worse than a postal worker, isn't it?"

"Far worse."

The landlord opened the entrance door for Smith, who turned and asked a question he should have asked before.

"What is Ladeen's first name?"

"Allah. But everybody called him Al."

"I was never here," said Smith, hurrying down the stairs.

Chapter 8

The first thing Remo Williams did upon returning to his Quincy, Massachusetts, home was check the message machine in the downstairs kitchen.

He expected a blinking red light. There was no blinking red light.

"Maybe Smith hasn't gotten word about Osaka," he told Chiun.

The Master of Sinanju made a dismissive gesture with his jade nail protector. "Smith and his oracles see all and know all."

"Maybe the Japanese are hushing it up for now."

"Smith would know this, too."

"Well, he hasn't called," said Remo. "Could be he's not mad at us."

"Why should he be angry? We only executed his royal decrees."

"We created an international incident. Your face is probably in every post office in Japan by now."

Chiun stroked his wispy beard. "I would not mind gracing a postal stamp. Assuming my countenance was not marred by unwanted facial hair."

"I meant on Wanted posters."

Chiun's smile disintegrated. "The Japanese would doubtless fail to pay me my hard-earned royalties, knowing their ilk," sniffed Chiun.

"Might be a good idea to check the news," said Remo. "It's almost six o'clock."

"Yes. We will watch Bev Woo."

"Which one?" asked Remo.

"The substantial one, of course."

Remo frowned. "You mean the dumpy one?"

"She is substantial, not dumpy. Only obsessive Western eyes like yours would call the gracious Bev Woo that awful word."

"I like the other Bev Woo. The one on Channel 7."

"The Channel 5 Bev Woo is the only Woo worth watching."

They were mounting the staircase to the bell tower, Chiun hurrying ahead in order to be the first to the big-screen TV. There were TVs all over the house, but the one they watched together was in the bell tower.

"At least she isn't Cheeta Ching," said Remo.

"Do not mention that name in this house."

"Sorry," said Remo.

Cheeta Ching was a sore spot with the Master of Sinanju. For most of the '80s, he had been secretly enamored of the national network anchorwoman. It had not been a problem as long as Chiun worshiped her from afar. But when he attempted to pursue his feelings, it had brought Remo and Chiun in repeated contact with the voracious anchorshark.

As a result, Chiun had fallen out of love with Cheeta Ching, just as he had earlier gotten over his infatuation with Barbra Streisand. Since then, there had been no similar figure in the Master of Sinanju's life.

Beverly Woo was not the object of Chiun's affections. She had been a long-time reporter on the local Channel 5. Until recently Chiun had hardly paid any attention to her.

Then the rival Channel 7 had hired another Asian anchorwoman, coincidentally also named Bev Woo. The second Bev Woo was young, slim and Remo found her passably attractive. It wouldn't have mattered much except Remo had once remarked to Chiun that the new Bev Woo was an improvement over the old.

Chiun had retorted, "Are you mad! The new Bev Woo is scrawny and underfed!"

"The old Bev Woo is dumpy and round."

"At least you cannot count her ribs through her clothes, like the new Woo."

"The old Woo is built like a Mack truck."

"The old Woo is built to bear babies, as a woman should. This new Woo is a mere slip of a girl."

"I'll take her over the old Woo."

"You cannot have her. I forbid it!"

"For crying out loud, I don't want her, Chiun. I'm just talking."

"You are babbling. To compare this new, upstart Woo to the wise and substantial Woo of old-"

"Look, I don't want either Woo. But if I'm going to watch one on TV, I'd rather the new Woo."

"From this day forward," Chiun had proclaimed, "I forbid the face of the new Woo on my TV screen." And from that day on, Remo had made a point of tuning in to the new Bev Woo whenever possible, even though he would have much preferred the brunette on Channel 4. But this was a matter of pride. He was a grown man and a Master of Sinanju, besides. He would watch whomever he wanted to watch.

Reaching the top of the stairs, Chiun dashed into the bell tower and snatched up the remote control. He aimed it at the screen. On came Channel 5 and the old Woo in all her doughy glory.

Laying the clicker on the hardwood floor as he sat down, Chiun watched the newscast intently.

Remo took his place beside the Master of Sinanju. Chiun's attention was focused on the big screen. Surreptitiously Remo's hand took up the clicker. "If you point that device at the old Woo, I will break it," warned Chiun without looking away from the screen.

Remo thought about that a minute. They had been through all this before, but Remo wasn't about to give in so easily. It was a matter of pride. After all, it was his house, too. And his TV.

Willing his forehead to perspire, Remo waited until the sheen of his forehead was reflected in the dark parts of the TV screen.

Then he said, "I'll promise not to point the clicker at the TV if you promise not to break it or change the channel for the rest of the evening."

"Done," said Chiun.

And holding the clicker so it pointed at his own shiny reflective brow, Remo pressed the 7 button. The infrared signal hit his forehead and bounced back.

The channel flicked over to 7, and the pretty face of the new Woo appeared.

"What is this! What is this!" Chiun howled.

"Must have pressed the button by accident," Remo said, face bland.

"You changed the channel."

"I didn't point it at the screen," Remo said quickly.

"What white talk is this? Change it back this instant."

"I'd like it the way it is, and don't forget your promise."

Chiun's hazel eyes narrowed suddenly. "Why do you perspire?"

Remo shrugged. "Why not?"

Chiun's eyes squeezed almost shut. His papery lips thinned. "You tricked me!"

"I outwitted you. Maybe. Now settle down. I want to hear what she's saying."

Redirecting his attention back to the screen, Chiun made a sour face. "How can you stand that thin, pasty face?"

"It's makeup, and her face has a nice shape."

"She has the head of a turnip. And she is sunken of cheek and hollow of eye."

The graphic over the new Woo's head showed an explosion. The words Bomb Scare labeled the explosion in scary, shattered red letters.

"Hold on. This may be it," said Remo, reaching for the clicker to turn up the volume.

"Remember your promise," hissed Chiun.

"Oh, right," said Remo.

"And I will not be silent until I have the old Woo back in all her oblate glory."

"Chiun, this is important."

"So is the correct Woo."

"How about we compromise and watch Channel 4?" Remo suggested.

Chiun hesitated. "I may be willing to compromise as long as I am spared the horrid sight of the new Woo," he allowed thinly.

"Good," said Remo, lifting the clicker again.

"No. I must do it. You have made a promise."

Remo hesitated.

"I have promised," said Chiun. "And you have promised. We are prisoners of our promises."

"Okay," said Remo, handing over the remote control.

The Master of Sinanju changed the channel with a quick flourish.

Instead of the expected brunette, there was a new Asian female reporter doing a remote stand-up on Channel 4.

"Who is she?" Remo blurted.

"Aiiee! A Japanese!" shrieked Chiun. "Change the channel."

"I can't. I made a promise."

"So have I," gasped Chiun. "Is there a fourth channel?"

"There's CNN, but you hate them worse than Woo."

"Not more than Japanese."

"What's with this mania for Asian news reporters all of a sudden?" Remo wondered aloud. "Channel 5 had Bev Woo, so 7 countered with their own Bev Woo. Now 4 pulls out this one. What's her name anyway?"

The graphic under the reporter's face said she was Tamayo Tanaka. She was standing against a backdrop of- the Manhattan skyline, hazy with a lowhanging cloud of smoke.

Chiun lifted an apricot kimono sleeve to shield his eyes and said, "I will listen to the strident voice, but not suffer the sight of Japanese countenances."

Remo decided that was okay with him as long as he caught the newscast.

Tamayo Tanaka was saying, "At this hour, the death toll stands at forty-three in midtown Manhattan, where a string of terrorist-style bombings took place during the noon hour today. Authorities are being tight-lipped, but at least thirteen separate explosions took place within a large radius between Pennsylvania Station and the Jacob Javits Center. According to FBI sources, several Middle Eastern terrorist groups have claimed responsibility, but informed sources insist that while they cannot at this time discount a Middle Eastern connection, they are focusing their investigation elsewhere."

"Sounds like militia crazies," said Remo worriedly.

"This is good," said Chiun from behind his sleeve.

"It is?"

"Yes. If terror has gripped this nation, Emperor Smith will have work for us."

"How is that good?"

"He will have no time to fret about Japanese complaints."

"Hadn't thought of that," said Remo, leaning toward the screen.

"Tragedy is not limited to Manhattan on this busy news day," Tamayo Tanaka was saying. "In Oklahoma City, an unknown person stormed into a packed courtroom in the new Wiley Post Federal Building and opened fire, killing at least two dozen people. No motive for the massacre has been determined at this hour, but Oklahoma City police are seeking a possible disgruntled postal worker for questioning. It is not known if this postal worker is a suspect or a witness to the killings."

"Sounds to me like the disgruntled postman is a good bet," Remo said dryly.

"We are doubly blessed," said Chiun.

"I don't consider all those innocent victims a blessing," said Remo.

"We did not dispatch them. They are dead. We cannot bring them back. Their lives are wasted. Why should we not enjoy the bitter fruit of their wasted existences?"

"I'm not that cold-blooded."

"At least you despise Japanese."

Remo grunted. The brunette anchor took back the show and said, "Stay with 'News 4' for more on the events in New York. We are the only Boston station with a reporter on-site in Manhattan."

"I wish someone would explain why local reporters have to cover national stories," Remo complained. "That's why we have national news."

Ten minutes into the broadcast, there was a brief mention that the Japanese ambassador to the United States had been recalled for consultations.

"That usually means they're upset with us," said Remo.

"Not as upset as we are with them," Chiun countered darkly.

"Maybe this will blow over after all," said Remo. The telephone rang during the weather report, and Remo shot to his feet, saying, "That's gotta be Smith."

"Convey regrets but not apologies," said Chiun.

"What's the difference?"

"Sinanju does not apologize, but we are not above expressing regret on suitable occasions. Such as this."

Harold Smith's voice was vaguely breathless when Remo picked up the receiver.

"Remo, I am glad you have returned."

"We're glad to be back, too."

"I need you and Chiun here. At once."

"Why?" Remo asked guardedly.

"Because the Master of Sinanju understands Arabic, and I cannot get the Arabic-conversion program to work."

"Huh?"

"Please hurry, Remo. This situation is urgent." The line went dead.

"We're wanted at Folcroft," Remo told Chiun as he replaced the receiver.

"I heard," said Chiun, rising from his tatami mat like a puff of fruity smoke.

"Then you also heard that Osaka didn't even come up."

"No doubt Smith intends to ambush us with all manner of complaints. We must concoct a story he will believe, Remo. Something properly grandiose, but plausible."

Remo suppressed a sly grin. "How about the dog ate our assignment?"

"What dog?"

"We'll buy one on the way down."

"You are not making sense."

"Look, Smitty sounded worried. And he said something about needing you to translate some Arabic. Osaka's probably the furthest thing from his mind right now. Let's get shaking."

"Very well. But if we are in trouble with our Emperor, it will be your responsibility as Apprentice Reigning Master of Sinanju to fall on your sword."

"I don't have a sword," said Remo, shutting off the TV.

"We will purchase one on the way to Fortress Folcroft," Chiun said blandly.

Chapter 9

Dr. Harold W Smith was swearing softly under his breath. New Englanders are a salty class by temperament, and Harold Smith, of the Vermont Smiths, educated at Dartmouth, was as New England as they came. But he had long ago suppressed the urge to curse. Profanity was a wasteful expenditure of breath, he believed. It was impolite. It accomplished nothing. And most of all, it was unseemly. Especially in mixed company.

The last time Smith had cursed aloud and in anger had been a few years before when he had read that his old college song, "Men of Dartmouth," under pressure from a campus women's group, had been changed to "Alma Mater" and all gender-specific references neutered.

Smith had read this in the alumni newsletter in the gray privacy of his living room.

"God damn their bones!" he exploded.

His wife, Maude, had almost fainted in her overstuffed chair. The Smiths had long ago ceased sitting on the sofa together. Mrs. Smith was watching "Jeopardy" while Harold read. This was their version of sharing quality time.

Mrs. Smith had severely lectured Harold on his language, and Smith had stiffly apologized. Inwardly he was embarrassed at the loss of self-control, and the next day firmly resolved to cut his annual donation to Dartmouth exactly in half.

As he now sat at his Folcroft desk with the late-afternoon light streaming in through the picture window of one-way glass at his back, Smith started cursing softly.

"Blast their souls!"

He had his desktop system running. On the desk was the captured system of Allah Ladeen, United States postman and suspected terrorist bomber. A cable snaked from the PC system into the kick space of Smith's desk, where it connected to Smith's own system.

Smith had downloaded the entire hard drive onto one of the Folcroft Four. Normally he should have been able to access the contents by a brute-force mainframe attack on the encryption system. Unfortunately the system was configured to the Arabic language, a fact Smith had discovered after a full hour of fighting what he thought were scrambled codes but was in fact flowing Arabic script.

Smith's mainframes were configured for English. They had other-language capability, but this was limited to Latin-based languages and Cyrillic Russian. He could not decode Arabic.

Reaching out to cyberspace, Smith had found and captured an Arabic-to-English automatic conversion program from Yale University's Language Department. But it was bulky. His only hope lay in the Master of Sinanju, and so Harold Smith cursed low and feelingly under his breath as he waited with the afternoon sun sinking at his hunched back.

"Damn their eyes!"

OUTSIDE THE CLOSED DOOR to Smith's office, the Master of Sinanju suddenly halted and said, "Hark, Remo. Listen."

"Damn their eyes!"

Chiun's hands fluttered with uncharacteristic nervousness.

"That is Emperor Smith's voice, and he sounds very angry."

"He sounds more like a pirate with his peg leg caught in a knot hole," Remo said.

"Perhaps he is angry with us," squeaked Chiun.

"If he is, we'll just have to take our medicine."

"Blast their cursed bones!" came Smith's voice, twisted and low.

Abruptly Chiun got behind Remo and started pushing with both hands. "You go first, Remo."

"Why me?"

"Because you are half-white, like Smith. He will not turn on one of his own."

"Here goes," said Remo, pushing open the door. Harold Smith looked up sharply from his work. No trace of relief touched his patrician features.

"I am glad you are here, Remo," he said in a voice that contradicted his words.

"A mastiff ate our assignment!" called Chiun in a loud voice. "We are not to blame."

"What is this?"

"Chiun's making a joke, Smitty."

"I need you both."

Noticing the blind system on Smith's desk, Remo asked, "Computer crash on you?"

"I am attempting to enter this captured system."

"Captured? Who captured it?"

"I did," said Smith.

"No kidding. Who'd you capture it from?"

"If I am correct, the perpetrator of the rash of bombings in New York City."

"Anyone who would dare bomb one of your most famous cities is indeed rash," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju, stepping into the room. "Greetings, O Smith. How may we be of assistance?" And Chiun bowed formally, his hazel eyes peering upward to assess Smith's reaction.

"What did you say about your assignment?" asked Smith.

"Went off without a hitch," said Remo.

"Good," said Smith.

"Don't you want to hear about it?"

"Later," said Smith, tapping his keyboard with frustrated fingers.

"We dropped a locomotive onto Nishitsu headquarters in the middle of the night. Nobody killed that we know of. Message delivered."

Smith said nothing.

"The hotel accommodations were really special," Remo added. "You must have a saved a bundle, you old skinflint."

Smith nodded his gray head absently and addressed the Master of Sinanju. "Master Chiun, is your Arabic up-to-date?"

"It is impeccable," said Chiun.

"Please join me on this side of the desk."

With a low smile of satisfaction, the Master of Sinanju bustled up to Smith's desk and took a position beside his emperor. His eyes, meeting Remo's, were bright and taunting.

"I dropped the locomotive, but it was Chiun's idea," Remo continued.

Chiun's eyes turned venomous. A low hiss escaped his papery lips.

"We figured Nishitsu'd realize it was the American response to all those train wrecks, and rethink their global marketing strategy," continued Remo.

"Emperor Smith and I have no time for your prattle," said Chiun quickly. "We have important work to do. Why do you not take a walk?"

"Where would I go?"

"There is a short dock at the water's edge. It is a good place for a long walk," said Chiun blandly.

"No, thanks. I want to watch. This should be interesting. The hard-of-hearing leading the nearsighted."

Throughout this exchange, Harold Smith continued tapping away furiously. He seemed to have registered none of it.

"The owner of this system configured it for the Arabic language," Smith started to explain. "I cannot read Arabic. But I have a program that will convert it once I am inside"

"Inside what?" asked Chiun.

"The system," said Smith.

"What system?"

Smith pointed to the humming hard-drive case on the desk.

"Impossible!" squeaked Chiun.

"There is no system I cannot enter once I bypass the security firewalls."

Regarding the bright plastic case, Chiun said, "If touched by fire, that box would melt quickly."

"That's not the kind of firewall he's talking about," offered Remo, taking a seat on the green vinyl divan across the room. "He means the system is password protected."

"Ah. Now I understand. You seek the password?"

"Yes," said Smith, squinting at his desktop monitor, which was displaying a changing sequence of gibberish. "I believe it is asking me for the password. But I cannot tell."

"Allow me to gaze into this oracle's innermost recesses," said Chiun, bending to peer into Smith's desktop. "Yes. It is asking for the secret word."

"It says 'Secret word'?"

"Yes," said Chiun, laying his jade nail protector against the black tinted glass. "You see this script? It says, 'Secret word.'"

"I don't see a colon."

"Arabs retain their colons within their bodies unless put to the sword. But it is asking that you inscribe the secret word in that space."

"Damnation," said Smith. And Chiun shrank from the soft vehemence of the unexpected word from his emperor's lips.

"What is wrong?" he asked.

"My password-attack program takes hours to run. Sometimes days, with a particularly obscure password. The additional step of converting its data base of likely passwords into acceptable Arabic would take weeks-perhaps months with the transliteration problem."

"Then why not simply guess the secret word?" Smith shook his gray head savagely.

"That could take years. Only a sophisticated computer system has the brainpower to enter a protected system without knowing the password in question."

"Why do you not seize the owner of this device and wrest the secret word from him?"

"We have yet to trace him. And I have the system, not the owner here. And I am determined to crack it."

"You say the owner of the box is an Arab?"

"Yes."

"A cattle or city Arab?"

"I have no idea. His name is Al Ladeen."

"Ah, a cattle Arab. Bedouin are very colorful in their language."

"There is no telling what password he employed. It could be a name from the Koran or The Arabian Nights or anywhere at all."

"Could the secret word be more than one word?"

"Yes, it could."

"Inscribe 'Iftah ya simsim,'" said Chiun, slowly stroking his wispy beard.

"What?"

"'Iftah ya simsim.' Cattle Arabs have employed it for centuries in their secret intrigues."

"Hah," said Remo. "Fat chance this is going to work."

"Hush. You know nothing of these matters, counter of ribs."

"I am willing to try anything," said Smith. "Please spell the phrase, Master Chiun."

Chiun did. Smith input the English approximation, activated the conversion program and in a moment the Arabic script equivalent to the words Iftah ya simsim appeared in the wake of the blinking amber cursor, which moved right to left, the direction Arabic script was read.

The screen winked out. Instantly music emanated from the system.

"What is this?" asked Chiun.

"It's a song," said Remo. "Sounds like harem music."

"It is of no importance," said Chiun. "For we have succeeded in our task."

Remo shot out of his seat. "What? This I gotta see!"

"Hold," said Chiun. "Emperor Smith has not given you leave to join us behind his royal table."

"Remo may join us," said Smith.

"If you deem it fitting," said Chiun in a thin voice. He eyed Remo unhappily.

Remo stared into the desk. "Don't you get neck strain from looking into this thing all day?" he asked Smith.

Smith didn't reply. He was eyeing the black screen expectantly as the hauntingly familiar music tinkled. Abruptly a new screen appeared. It showed Arabic script for several seconds, then changed.

"What did it say?" Smith asked Chiun.

"It said, 'Here dwell the secrets of Al Ladeen. Infidels and idolators turn back before it is too late for you.'"

"That name sounds familiar," Remo said.

"Yes, it does," Smith agreed.

"I have heard Western tongues mangle the worthy name 'Al Ladeen' into the corrupted 'Aladdin,'" Chiun offered.

"Al Ladeen-Aladdin?" Smith blurted.

"Yes."

"Obviously a false name," Smith said.

"No," Chiun said. "'Aladdin' is the false name. 'Al Ladeen' is correct."

A new screen appeared.

"What is this?" asked Smith.

Chiun read the screen. "Verses from the Koran. The prayer Muslims call the Fatiha-or the Opening."

"Is it 'Muslims' or 'Moslems'?" Remo asked. "'Muslim' means 'believer,'" said Chiun. "'Moslem' means 'cruel.' Muslims are very sensitive about being called Moslems."

"I'm going to have to remember that next time someone tries to blow up the Holland Tunnel," Remo said dryly.

That screen lasted nearly a minute, then a third screen came on. It was a thick forest of Arabic. "What is this?" asked Smith.

Chiun frowned like a mummy drying. "It is not words,"

"What do you mean?"

"The script has no meaning. It is only gibberish."

"It must mean something,"

Remo looked at it, then pulled back. "You know, from this angle it looks like someone's made a pattern."

"I see no pattern," said Smith.

"Nor do I," said Chiun.

"Well, I do," said Remo.

"What is it?"

"A bird's head."

"I see no bird," sniffed Chiun. "You are imagining things."

"Sure, see the beak? Looks like an eagle."

Smith said, "I see nothing like a beak."

"That's because you have the imagination of a toothpick. See-this is the beak. This is the eye. And this dark area here is a kind of frame for the eagle's head."

"I see no eagle," said Smith, adjusting his rimless glasses.

"Take it from me," said Remo. "That's an eagle."

"It is a hawk," said Chiun. "I see a hawk."

"Eagle. It's the national bird."

"And it is composed of Arabic symbols. Therefore, it is a hawk."

"I see an eagle, and nothing you can say will make me change my mind."

"Let me see if I can convert this to English," Smith said thoughtfully.

"Don't waste your time, Smitty. It's a graphic." Smith ran the program. The script soon converted into a meaningless nest of English letters with no meaning.

"Do either of you see a pattern now?" asked Smith.

"Well, it's fuzzier than it was, but I still see an eagle's head inside of a rectangle," said Remo.

"It is possibly a falcon," said Chiun. "Falcons were employed by sheikhs of old for sport and hunting."

"If that's a falcon, I'm a toad," Remo said firmly.

"You are a toad who peeps nonsense," scoffed Chiun.

Smith squinted at the screen thoughtfully. "A hitherto-unknown terrorist group called the Eagles of Allah claimed responsibility for today's bombings."

"According to the news, they're discounting the Arab-terrorist theory," Remo argued.

"They have good reason to," said Smith. "The bombs appear to have been planted by an employee of the US. Postal Service."

"Yeah? Now, that makes sense to me. Muslim terrorists can't bomb their way out of a soiled diaper, but I wouldn't put anything past a disgruntled postman."

"The man who owned this system was a postal worker," said Smith.

"Well, he's gotta be one thing or the other but not both, right?"

Harold Smith ignored Remo's question. "This system appears to be hung up on this screen," he muttered.

"Try the secret word again," suggested Chiun. Nodding, Smith began inputting the command.

"What is this secret word anyway?" Remo asked Chiun as Smith worked.

Chiun fluttered a casual sleeve. "That is for me to know and you to find out. When you are Reigning Master, I may share this important information with you, which makes the Master of Sinanju more intelligent than the mightiest oracle."

"It sounds like simsim salabim, but that can't be it."

"I do not know that phrase," said Chiun, face puckering.

"You grew up before cartoons," said Remo. "Hey, Smith, don't look now, but I think something's happening."

The eagle graphic suddenly exploded, clearing the screen. In its place were columns of filenames. They were in English.

"What's this stuff?" Remo asked.

Smith scanned the columns. "Standard-data processing and Net-access programs. I do not recognize these columns."

"These are the names of the books of the Koran," said Chiun.

Smith pulled up a file at random.

"Yes, the Koran," Chiun said. "These are verses. And this portion is a list of the ninety-nine names of God."

"'God the Avenger'?" said Remo, reading one aloud.

Smith closed down the file. He tried others. They were books of the Koran, as well.

Frowning, Smith leaned back in his chair. "It appears to be empty of useful information."

"What I want to know is what's the secret word?" asked Remo.

Smith appeared to be intrigued by the same question. Inputting the word in a fresh file, he accessed his conversion program.

"'Open sesame,'" said Smith. "Very clever, Master Chiun."

Chiun beamed at Remo as if to say I am smarter than you.

"You wish," Remo whispered back.

Abruptly Smith said, "Perhaps there are files stored on Ladeen's e-mail server."

Smith brought up the Net-connection program and waited for the system to dial in. It took only forty-five seconds, and the speedy right-to-left cursor traced a skyline out of The Arabian Nights, complete with lofty minarets.

A flowing legend read Welcome To The Gates Of Paradise.

Once again Smith was confronted by a password prompt.

"'Iftah ya simsim' has worked so far," suggested Remo.

Smith input the phrase, hitting Enter. He got a "login incorrect" message.

"We are stymied," he said.

"That's your cue, Chiun," Remo suggested. The Master of Sinanju made a face.

"Try 'Aladdin,'" said Remo suddenly.

"That will never work."

"It can't hurt," said Smith, who typed the name "Aladdin" and hit Enter.

The system hesitated, the screen went blank and they held their breaths in unison.

Then an e-mail menu appeared.

"It worked," Smith said in surprise.

Behind his back, Remo stuck his tongue out at the Master of Sinanju, who looked away from the rude display in disgust.

Smith keyed his way through the corridors of the e-mail files, finally reaching a list of folders that included Saved Mail, Sent Mail and Messages. He placed the cursor on Messages and opened the electronic file folder.

The incoming messages were logged in numerical order by date, sender, user name and subject heading.

"Jihad Jones?" said Remo, reading a name at random.

"Obviously a pseudonym."

"No kidding," Remo commented. "Are you sure?" Other names were equally unlikely. There was an Ibrahim Lincoln, a Yassir Nossair, a Mohamet Ali, a Sid el-Cid, a Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca and others just as odd. Only one name seemed plausible at first glance. Remo pointed to it. "Try that guy. Yusef Gamal. He looks like he might be real."

"Pah!" said Chiun. "It is obviously false."

"What's phony about the name 'Yusef Gamal'?" asked Remo.

"That is for me to know and you to ponder, wild guesser."

"'Yusef' is the Arabic equivalent to the Christian 'Joseph,'" Smith explained. "The last name I confess strikes me as familiar, as if I have heard it before."

"The only thing it reminds me of is 'camel,'" said Remo.

Chiun became very still.

Remo and Smith hit it at the same time. Their eyes met and they said, "Joseph Camel?"

"Argh," said Chiun.

"Well, we know one thing," said Remo. "No terrorist with all his marbles is walking around the U.S. of A. calling himself Joe Camel."

"That would seem to be inescapable," Smith said unhappily.

"Yes, for once Remo is correct," Chiun chimed in. "There is no such person as Yusef Gamal."

Chapter 10

Al Ladeen cruised the streets of the capital of idolatry, New York, blending with the flow of traffic. Here, mixing with the other vehicles emblazoned with the fierce eagle of the United States Postal Service as they jockeyed to outperform their hated foes-the Federal Express, the UPS, Roadway, DHL, and others-he was all but invisible to searching police eyes.

The coils of black smoke that he had authored with his well-placed bombs were graying now. Soon they would be but sweet, acrid memories. The tumult that was to go down in the history of the world as the last works of the brave martyr, Allah Ladeen, was subsiding.

It was sad. But at least the dead were still dead. They would never stop being dead.

And now it was time to make more dead.

As he turned onto Fifth Avenue, and the tall gray teeth of the General Post Office came into view, Al Ladeen drew in his last breath of victory and wrapped about his lower face a green checkered kaffiyeh.

It was the appointed hour. Time for the last great blow Allah Ladeen was destined to strike in his life. Pressing the accelerator to the floor, he urged the white mail truck to hurry. It raced past the traffic-choked side streets, oblivious to the red lights, unheeding of the blaring cars and cursing pedestrians who scrambled from its careening path.

When he came abreast of the great granite temple from which he had left on his appointed rounds that morning, he flung the wheel to the left and with a glad cry of "Allah Akbari!" Allah Ladeen sent his blessed steed crashing into the immovable granite face.

And, Allah be blessed, the immovable granite moved!

But Allah Ladeen was ignorant of the miracle. He had already been catapulted into Paradise. Although, the truth be known, his body parts were scattered all over Fifth Avenue.

Chapter 11

The postal manager of Oklahoma City was in his office when the first sketchy word came in.

"There's trouble in the new federal building," the assistant manager gasped out.

"Jesus Christ!" Postal Manager Ivan Heydorn said, at first thinking the worst. "It's not a bomb. Tell me it isn't a bomb."

"It's a shooting," said the assistant manager. Manager Heydorn relaxed in his executive chair. "Of course. It can't be a bomb. We'd have heard a bomb, now, wouldn't we?"

"Someone walked into open court and opened fire with a machine gun."

"Terrible, just terrible," the manager said, visibly relieved. He had been sitting in this very seat when the old Murrah building had been blown to kingdom come. What a god-awful day that had been. His chair had tipped over on its casters, throwing him backward. He had come off the floor thinking an earthquake was shaking the building.

An earthquake would have been a blessing. An earthquake would have been an act of God. In the early hours after the terrible truth had come out-that the Murrah Federal Building had been demolished by a truck bomb-the talk had naturally turned to Muslim fundamentalists.

It took three days for the truth to begin trickling out. That Americans had done it. It was unbelievable. Staggering in its enormity. The real enemy dwelled within the heartland of America.

"How many are hurt?" the manager asked his assistant, shaking off the dark, claustrophobic memories.

"No one knows. But they're calling it a massacre." Hearing this, the manager buried his face in his hands. It was unreal.

"How much pain can this poor town absorb?" he said shakily.

For an hour, the bulletins crackled over the office radio.

An unknown assailant. No one had seen him. Or if they had, they hadn't noticed anything unusual about him. He had mingled with the returning lunch crowd and shot up the courtroom and everyone in it. It was senseless. Brutal, senseless carnage.

By three in the afternoon, they were reporting a survivor. Someone had seen something. The FBI was being tight-lipped about it and had imposed a media blackout. The FBI had come in because a federal building had been targeted. Everyone assumed it was a deranged claimant shooting up a court that had done him wrong.

No one in his right mind would attack the new federal building in Oklahoma City.

At exactly 3:15, the desk intercom buzzed, and his assistant manager's voice said, "FBI Agent Odom to see you, sir."

"Send him right in," the manager said, snapping off his office radio.

The man was as big as a refrigerator and to-the-point. "Special Agent Odom."

"Have a seat."

"I'll just need a moment. This is about one of your carriers."

"My God. He wasn't caught in the shooting over there?"

"No, he wasn't."

"Is he the witness they're talking about?"

"No. We think he might be the perpetrator."

"Perp- You can't mean the killer!"

"A security guard lived long enough to say the man who walked into the courtroom and massacred all those poor people was wearing a postal-service uniform."

"That can't be. It just can't."

The agent flipped open a pocket notebook. "Description as follows. Five feet seven, dark eyes, curly brown hair, prominent nose."

"How prominent?"

"Very."

"Sounds like Camel."

The agent began writing. "'Camel' as in 'dromedary'?"

"Yes, yes. But this makes no sense to me." The FBI agent was unmoved.

"First name?"

"Joe."

"Joe Camel?"

"Yes."

"You have a letter carrier named Joe Camel working for you?"

"Well, I didn't name him. Oh, good Lord, it sounds phony, doesn't it?"

"How long has he been with you?"

"Less than a year."

"No sign of psychotic behavior before today?"

"He was perfectly normal."

"Except that his name was Joe Camel," The FBI agent said, grimacing.

"Look, I know how it sounds, but that was his name."

"Do you have a photograph of the subject, Camel?"

"No. But he shouldn't be hard to locate. Not with that nose of his."

"I'll need to see his personnel file."

"You have it, Agent Odom," said the postmaster of Oklahoma City, buzzing his assistant manager. "Sherry, pull Joseph Camel's file. And get the PG on the line."

Special Agent Odom cocked an eyebrow. "The PG?"

"The postmaster general. I have to report this"

"You might want to wait," Agent Odom said, flipping his notebook closed. "I think he has his hands full today."

"What do you mean?"

"Didn't you hear about the bombings in New York City this afternoon?"

"Bombings?"

"A string of relay boxes exploded all at once. They're looking for a postal relay driver. Guy named Ladeen. I think his first name was Al."

"Al Ladeen ... That sounds familiar somehow."

"I thought the same thing myself. Can't place it, though."

The assistant manager walked in at that point with a manila file folder and said, "The line to the PG is busy. Shall I keep trying?"

"Leave a message that I called. I understand the PG is having a very bad day."

THE POSTMASTER GENERAL of the United States was having fits. He kicked over the office wastepaper basket. He rammed his chair against a wall so hard it bounced back and took a bite out of his heavy desk, knocking over a desktop sign that said "Protect the Revenue."

It was three-thirty in the afternoon, and the urgent calls and faxes had been coming in since 1:00 p.m. First it was the postmaster of New York.

"We have a serious problem up here, sir."

"I'm listening, New York."

"Er, it appears that one of our relay boxes-"

"Out with it."

"-has exploded."

In the steady hum of his ostentatious office in the City Post Office adjoining Union Station in Washington, D.C., the postmaster general of the United States blinked rapidly.

"Exploded?"

"That's correct. The FBI has been here, demanding our cooperation."

"Stonewall them!" the postmaster general roared.

"I thought you would want it that way, and that's what I did do."

"Good. You're a good man, whatever your name is."

"Finkelpearl, sir."

"Take no calls, Finkelpearl. I'm sending a man. His name is Reilly. Talk to no one until you talk to him."

"Understood, Mr. Postmaster."

The postmaster general hung up, muttering, "This is all the service needs."

Ten minutes later, Finkelpearl was back on the line. "Sir, it's happened again," he croaked.

"Another bomb?"

"Thirteen relay boxes have exploded. All in a narrow radius of this facility. It's a reign of terror."

"My God. Is someone attacking the postal service?"

"I cannot speak to that, Mr. Postmaster."

"Or has one of your employees gone off the deep end?"

Postmaster Finkelpearl cleared his throat. "That's not impossible, as you know."

"Wait for Reilly. And remember the watchword. Stonewall. Stonewall. Stonewall."

"I'm stonewalling as best I can."

After New York signed off, the postmaster general was dictating a preliminary statement for the benefit of the media when the incoming calls began coming in a barrage.

"The director of the FBI, on line 1."

"I'm in conference."

"The commissioner of police for New York City. Line 2."

"Tell him to liaise with the FBI. I talk only to federal agencies."

"Yes, Sir."

"Postmaster Finkelpearl on line 1."

The postmaster general hesitated. "Patch him through."

"Mr. Postmaster, this is Finkelpearl."

"I know. Out with it."

"Did you send a postal inspector named Smith to interview me?"

"Smith? No, I told you to await Reilly. He's en route."

"An Inspector Smith just left my office. He showed an inspector's badge. Then Reilly appeared."

"Did you talk to him?"

"I-I'm afraid he managed to get a name out of me."

"What do you mean, a name?"

"They think the bombs were made by one of ours."

"Is that possible?"

"We've had employees shoot other employees, take hostages, steal the mail and destroy it. Just last month, we were breaking in a new man on an optical reader here. The damn fool couldn't punch in the zip codes fast enough to keep pace with the mail stream, so he would stuff postcards into his mouth, chew and swallow them whole."

"That's disgusting."

"Pressure will do that, sir."

"We're not the only game in town any more. Federal Express and UPS are eating our lunch. If we don't get competitive by the end of the century, we'll be reduced to shoveling junk mail. There's good money in junk mail, but it isn't enough. We need more market share, especially in the lucrative express niche. Business won't trust us with their overnight packages until we demonstrate unrelenting reliability in the first-class department."

"I understand the problem, sir. What do I do?"

"What name did you give him?"

"Al Ladeen."

"Al Ladeen. Al Ladeen. Do I know him?"

"I don't see how. He came on board only last year."

"Finkelpearl," said the postmaster general.

"Yes, sir?"

"I think you may have given up one of your own to a federal agent in disguise."

"That's what Reilly thinks."

"We're really screwed now. This is no longer an internal USPS matter."

"What shall I do?"

"Stonewall your end. I'll stonewall my own. If we're lucky, Ladeen is at this moment a face-cancel case."

"Sir?"

"Sucking on the muzzle of a smoking .45."

"Let's hope so."

"You know the drill.. . . They all go that way in the final sort."

Hanging up, the postmaster called out to his secretary, "Tear up that press release and get in here. We're starting over."

The paper went into a waste basket and the postmaster general began again. "In an enterprise as large as the USPS, as in any military organization that depends upon conscripts and volunteers, there are always bad apples," the postmaster general began. He stared up at the office ceiling. Washington traffic hummed outside. Making a mouth, he wrinkled his forehead into fleshy gullies. "Add some boilerplate from my last speech, throw in a sprinkling of happy horseshit. And don't forget to end with 'We deliver for you.' "

"Yes, sir," the secretary said, rising.

After the door had closed, the postmaster general of the United States of America leaned back in his chair and groaned, "What next?"

That was when the call from Oklahoma City came in.

"This is Heydorn. Manager, Oklahoma City."

"Is there a problem, Oklahoma?"

"We've had a shooting here."

"And you call me with that?" the postmaster general exploded. "If I had to field every call when a postal employee went nuts, I wouldn't get any work done." Lowering his voice, he added, "Look, can you keep a lid on this a day or two? We have a pony-distress situation up in New York City."

"Mr. Postmaster, the shooting was not in this building. It was in the new Wiley Post Federal Building."

"A postman was shot?"

"No, the postman did the shooting."

"That makes it tougher to media manage. Damn."

"He massacred an entire courtroom full of people. Including the judge."

"Federal or local?"

"Federal."

"That may be a good thing. Maybe I can pull some strings. Get it swept under the rug or something."

"The FBI has already been to see me."

"You didn't give the bastard up?"

"I handed over his file."

"You utter clown! Who do you think you're working for?"

Manager Heydorn's voice tightened. "The United States Postal Service."

"And who are you answerable to?"

"Why, you, sir."

"Don't you understand the table of organization? Have you ever heard of chain of command? You don't talk to other agencies first. You clear it with me first. What's gotten into you?"

"But, sir, this is Oklahoma City. We've had more than our share of tragedy out here."

"Don't snivel! I can't stand sniveling. No one snivels in my outfit."

"I understand, sir. But we have a rogue letter carrier who's wanted by the FBI for mass murder"

"For which I plan to hold you responsible, Oklahoma. Didn't you read my directive about anger management?"

"We painted all the walls a soothing pink, as directed."

"Including this man's cubicle?"

"He's a letter carrier. He has a route. He can't deliver the mail if he's staring at a pink wall all day."

"What about the premium coffee?"

"Er, I haven't felt the need to deploy it. My employees all seem pretty level-headed. Their psychological tests all came back good. No undue stress. This isn't the big city, you know."

The postmaster general's voice became low and urgent. "I hereby order you to declare an emergency-sanity maintenance coffee break. Understand?"

"Yes, sir."

"Until you hear from me, say nothing, give up nothing and above all, we haven't had this conversation."

"I understand, Mr. Postmaster."

"Remember, loose lips sink ships."

The postmaster general hung up furiously. "Two in one day. God damn the bad luck!"

When his secretary buzzed him again, he was tempted to ignore it. But then, maybe it was good news this time.

"An Inspector Reilly on line 2. It sounds urgent."

"I'll take it."

Reilly's voice was twisted like a bent paper clip when it rattled out of the receiver.

"What's wrong?"

"Sir, I just came from the General Post Office."

"You knock that fool Finkelpearl in line?"

"He understood his responsibilities, sir. But I'm afraid there's more bad news."

"Not more blown boxes?"

"No."

"A shooting?"

"No, it's-"

"Out with it!" the postmaster general roared.

"I'm trying. I left the building not fifteen minutes ago. Took a cab to my hotel. Then I heard it. It was the damnedest sound I'd ever heard in my life. Like an explosion, a sonic boom and an earthquake all run together. I'm looking west from my hotel-room window now. All I can see is a column of smoke."

"What are you trying to say?"

"It's gone."

"What is?"

"The building, sir. It's been obliterated."

The postmaster general of the United States slowly came to his feet, his mind racing. He was thinking, He can't be talking about his hotel. He's calling from his hotel. He can't be calling about any old building, because I don't care.

The postmaster general swallowed so hard his Adam's apple went away. "Say you're not going to tell me I've lost a post," he croaked.

"Sir, you might want to turn on CNN."

The postmaster did. The office TV was recessed into a cabinet. He used a remote.

CNN was live with the story. They were remote telecasting an aerial shot of midtown Manhattan. Madison Square Garden was in the shot. On the Hudson sat the glass puzzle that was the Jacob Javits Center. It looked as if a thousand mirrors had dropped out of a million frames.

But east of it lay a pile of smoking ruins that occupied an entire city block. Stone rubble. And among the smoke and fires, the postmaster general of the United States could see the broad, cracked steps like something out of ancient Rome, and tumbled and broken all over them lay the remnants of the twenty Corinthian columns of the General Post Office, the largest postal facility in the entire nation.

At that exact mouth-drying moment, the intercom buzzed and the secretary's hushed voice said, "The President of the United States on line 1."

Chapter 12

The sun was sinking behind Harold Smith's back when his system beeped without warning.

"What's that?" asked Remo, who had returned to the green vinyl divan. The Master of Sinanju hovered behind Smith, reluctant to relinquish his honored position beside the man he called Emperor.

"Incoming bulletin."

Smith logged off the e-mail files and brought up an AP bulletin.

New York, New York-General Post Office Explosion (AP)

A massive explosion rocked midtown Manhattan at 4:44, demolishing the General Post Office and Mail Facility on Fifth Avenue. Rescue crews are on the scene. Casualty figures are unknown but the loss of life is feared to be great.

"My God!" croaked Smith.

"What's up, Smitty?" asked Remo, coming off the divan.

"The General Post Office in New York City has been demolished by an explosion. The explosive force must have been tremendous."

"Is that the big place on Fifth Avenue with all the columns?"

"It was," Smith said dully.

"What the hell is going on?" asked Remo. "Why would anyone want to blow up an entire post office?"

"Perhaps to show that it can be done."

"Huh?"

"At the very least, the person or persons responsible for the mailbox bombings have just covered their tracks in the most absolute fashion possible."

"Are we fighting Muslim terrorists or the US. Postal Service?"

Smith logged off the AP bulletin, and his eyes were stark.

"I believe we are fighting both."

"Both?"

"This e-mail account strongly suggests a terrorist network of Muslim fundamentalists. Al Ladeen is clearly of this group. And he was an employee of the post office."

"Yeah..."

"It is possible that others of his cell are also employees of the post office."

"You know, that could explain a lot of things. All these mailmen going postal, for example."

"Postal?" asked Chiun.

"That's what they call it," said Remo. "When a mailman goes nuts and starts killing other mailmen, they call it 'going postal.'"

Chiun stroked his wisp of a beard, his narrowing eyes turning reflective.

"In the days of Alexander, messengers often arrived crazed with thirst and exhaustion. It was very common for them to lay the message that they carried at the feet of their king and expire on the spot."

"That's because they had to run barefoot three or four thousand miles to get the word out."

"In those days, it was not so far," Chiun sniffed. "A certain Greek scribbler once said of the messengers of Persia that neither darkness nor cold nor rain could deter them from their duties."

"Isn't that the motto of the post office?" asked Remo.

"Adopted from Herodotus," said Smith.

"Yes, that was the Greek," said Chiun.

"According to these files, this cell has been operating for less than a year," Smith added.

"So why are they acting up only now? What do they want?" asked Remo.

"Unless I am misreading the events in Manhattan, they are making a statement."

"A statement. Of what?"

"That they exist. That they can strike us with impunity."

"That's what the fanatics behind the World Trade Center bombing thought. Look where they are now. All rotting away in a federal pen, including the Deaf Mullah."

"I must inform the President of our findings," said Smith, reaching into a desk drawer. Out came a cherry red telephone, a standard desk model, except that its blank face lacked a dial or keypad. He placed it on the desktop.

"My guess is he's already gotten word," Remo said dryly as Smith picked up the receiver and placed it to one ear.

Smith waited. The dedicated line activated an identical telephone in the Lincoln Bedroom of the White House by the simple act of Smith lifting the receiver. The line rang audibly in Smith's ear. And rang. And rang.

At length, a female voice came on the line. "Who is it? Who's at the other end of this thing? Is this Smith? Speak up. I know you're there. I can hear you wheezing."

"We are undone!" Chiun wailed. "It is the meddlesome queen!"

Coloring, Smith hung up, "Evidently he is not in the residence," he said nervously.

"Probably on the campaign trail, trying to scrounge up a few last votes," grunted Remo.

"He will have to return to Washington," said Smith. "This is too important."

"It will be too late to save his doomed presidency," intoned the Master of Sinanju.

"What makes you say that?" asked Smith, turning.

"Because those who squat on the Eagle Throne are by their nature doomed. I have dwelt in this mighty land many years now. I have seen the Presidents come and go, like untrustworthy viziers. I know them by heart. The Unshaven President. The Pretender. The Peanut Farmer. The Jelly Bean Eater. The Inarticulate One. The Glutton. Say but the word, and we will dispense forever with this succession of fools. Do not deny that your loins yearn to occupy the Eagle Throne in all its pomp and circumstance."

"We stay out of elections," Smith said flatly.

Chiun made his voice conspiratorial. "You have the power to abolish them."

Face puckering in a lemony frown, Smith returned to the e-mail.

Remo whispered to the Master of Sinanju, "Don't you ever get tired of trying?"

"He who ceases to try engineers his own defeat. He who never gives up cannot be defeated."

"He who hectors his Emperor to distraction may find his silken skirts on the street."

Chiun stiffened. "He would never-"

"We're all expendable on this bus," said Remo with a thin grin.

Face tightening, the Master of Sinanju took his right wrist in his left hand and his left wrist in his right hand. His kimono sleeves slid along his forearms and came together, concealing both hands and the jade nail protector that Chiun wore like a badge of ignominy. He composed his features into bland inscrutability.

A low growl from Smith's throat caught their attention.

"Find something interesting?" asked Remo.

"This appears to be a recipe for a homemade ammonia-fertilizer bomb similar to the one that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah building in Oklahoma City."

"Big surprise there."

"A bomb whose chief stabilizing ingredient is junk mail," added Smith.

"No kidding."

"And here are plans to fill up a mail truck with the concoction."

"A mail-truck bomb?"

"Yes. And I would wager such a weapon was responsible for the disaster at the General Post Office."

Smith's eyes suddenly jumped behind his glasses. "My God!"

"You keep saying that. How many times can you be surprised at what these guys are capable of doing?"

"I am looking at one of the claims faxed to the FBI in the wake of this afternoon's mailbox bombings."

"So?"

"Several were received. Some came from the usual terror and jihad groups. A few were organizations never before heard from, such as the Eagles of Allah and the Warriors of God."

Remo looked to Chiun. "W.O.G.?"

The Master of Sinanju shrugged. "Are messengers of Allah not usually wogs?"

"It is very likely that these new groups are in fact one and the same," Smith went on. "It is common practice among Middle Eastern terrorist groups to operate under multiple names in order to confuse the issue and make themselves seem more numerous and threatening than they really are. One new group called themselves the Islamic Front for the A.P.W.U. This is the name on this fax file."

"What's 'A.P.W.U.' stand for?"

"See for yourself."

Remo did. He looked. Then looked again. "Isn't that-?"

"The eagle graphic we saw before, yes. I recognize it now. It is the new emblem of the United States Postal Service. But look below it."

Remo's eyes went where Smith's bony finger pointed. He read aloud. "'Islamic Front for the American Postal Workers' Union.' A terrorist group has infiltrated the postman's union?"

"No, it is far graver than that."

Abruptly Smith turned in his chair. It swiveled to the big picture window. Smith looked past them at Long Island Sound, which was turning fiery orange in the dying afternoon light.

"A terrorist cell has infiltrated the United States Postal Service," he said, his words like flint being scraped. "That means they could be operating in every city and town and village in the nation, unknown and unsuspected. Wearing mail-carrier uniforms, they can enter any public building unchallenged and unquestioned, from the most public office building to the most secure federal facility. No one can question a mailman. I doubt if many security guards bother to ask them to walk through metal detectors. Certainly no one can look into their bag. The mail is protected from casual scrutiny."

Smith's voice was hollow. He was staring into space, looking at nothing. He was talking, but not to them. It was more as if he was thinking out loud.

"There are an estimated four hundred thousand postal employees in the nation. In some towns, the postmaster is the only representative of the U.S. government. Virtually every town and city has its own post office. There are more post offices than military bases in this country. These terrorists have theoretical bases in every corner of the nation. They have government vehicles at their disposal. On virtually every street in America, there are relay boxes just like the ones that exploded today. And these devils have the power to booby-trap any one of them. No one is safe. No building is secure."

"So what are we waiting for? Let's get them."

Smith snapped out of it. "How?"

"Can't you trace them through the Internet?"

"They communicate through an automatic anonymous server, which relays their communications to the final server site, this Gates of Paradise entity. All these e-mail files are stored there, not in the systems the terrorist cells used to access them."

"Can you trace this server?" asked Remo.

"I already have. It is near Toledo, Ohio. But I cannot follow the audit trail to the Gates of Paradise host site without accessing the Toledo site."

"So let's get a move on."

"I have already instructed the FBI to get on it. I need you for the serious work that lies ahead."

"Just point us in the right direction, and we'll do what we do best," said Remo.

Chiun made a grandiose gesture with the ornate jade nail protector. "Yes, O Smith. You have merely to instruct us, and Muslim heads will fall at your feet like so many pomegranates, and equally as red."

"No doubt Al Ladeen was the driver of the mailtruck bomb that destroyed the General Post Office, covering his tracks and killing himself in the process. That is what these people do. It is one of the others who will act next."

"Yeah. If only we knew their real names."

The system beeped again, and Smith leaped on the keyless keyboard.

"Here we go again," said Remo.

The bulletin was a follow-up to an earlier one. Smith scanned it, instantly judging it as not mission critical. "It is just more on the Oklahoma courtroom shootout," said Remo.

Smith scanned the text with eager eyes. "We may have a lead," he said.

"What do you mean?"

"According to this, the shooter in Oklahoma City is believed to be a disgruntled postal employee."

"Not another one."

"They have all gone mad," said Chiun.

"This could be a simple case of one postal worker going over the edge," Smith said tightly as he worked his keyboard. "It may not be connected to the events in New York."

"Doesn't fit the MO," agreed Remo.

"If we are fortunate, the preliminary findings of the FBI have been logged into the computer in the Oklahoma City branch office of the FBI."

"Would they work that fast?" "Everyone files on computer these days."

"Except you and I. Right, Little Father?"

Chiun sniffed, "I will have no truck with machines that beep at one like a nagging wife."

Smith was keying so furiously that his fingers, tapping the flat white letters and numbers on the desk, caused them to flare briefly.

"I have something!" he said hoarsely. They crowded around.

The screen displayed an FBI computer form that had been filled in. Their eyes raced down the entries. Almost at the same time, they alighted on the same line. It was headed Suspect Name.

The name typed on the glowing amber line was one they all recognized: Joseph Camel.

Chapter 13

It was perhaps inevitable that Yusef Gamal would come to be called Abu Gamalin-"Father of Camels."

Even as a boy, he had shown the strength of his namesake, the camel. He possessed camel shoulders. His curly hair was reminiscent of a camel's thick coat as well. And perhaps not as noticeably, he had the prominent nose of a camel.

A mighty nose it was, too. It was the first thing one noticed about Yusef Gamal, eventually to be known as Abu Gamalin.

So it was not strange that in his early years, the other Palestinian boys nicknamed him Al Mahour-"the Nose."

"That is not a bad nom de guerre, " his father had told him.

"It is not a warrior's name," Yusef lamented.

"There are worse things to be called," said his father in a strange tone of voice. He was looking at Yusef's face when he spoke those fateful words. And if he was looking at his face, Yusef remembered thinking, he had to be looking at his nose. It was unavoidable. Like looking up at the sky and seeing the sun. By the time Yusef turned thirteen, his voice had yet to break and the hairs on his lower body were thin and unimpressive. By then, he had killed several men, for this was what Palestinians of his age did in those days. For the intifada was in full cry in the Occupied Territories, where the Zionist entity was most vulnerable. His skill at killing Israelis came to the attention of Hezbollah, and Yusef had been summoned to Lebanon, making contact with others of his kind. There on the banks of Nahr-al-Mawt-the River of Death-he was trained in the lethal arts, wearing fatigues and a checkered kaffiyeh over his face.

They were glorious days, filled with bloodshed and maiming. Through it all, Yusef fully expected to die. He longed to die. He prayed to Allah the Compassionate that he die in mortal combat, for he had been taught that the gates of Paradise could only be opened by breaking them down with Zionist skulls.

Yusef was responsible for denuding of flesh many Zionist skulls in the hellhole that his kind had made of Beirut.

When the tide turned inevitably against the Palestinian cause, and the PLO had sold out Hezbollah and embraced the Zionist enemy, Yusef found himself not dead but very much alive. He was disappointed. He wanted to die. He yearned to die. He had been taught by the religious leader of Hezbollah that to be martyred was a thing to be embraced wholeheartedly.

"A martyr is automatically granted entrance to Paradise," Yusef was assured. "In Paradise there is no toil, no cold, no pain. Every man wears green silk, and the sweetest grapes are always within reach."

"What about women?" Yusef asked.

"In Paradise the blessed are each allotted seventy-two virgins, untouched by man or jinn. These are called houris. And they belong to the martyr exclusively."

"Seventy-two?" asked Yusef, brightened by his prospects.

Thus, finding himself in a PLO detention camp, still living for his unkissed houris awaiting him in Paradise, only compounded the matter. Here he was no longer the feared Nose, but only Yusef Gamal, out of bullets and out of hope.

"I will never dance with my houris rotting away in this place of pestilence," he complained to a fellow Hezbollah freedom fighter.

"I hear there are great opportunities in Afghanistan," said his fellow Palestinian.

"Afghanistan?"

"Yes. The godless Russians have been driven out. It is jihad."

Yusef had visibly brightened. "Holy war! Killing Jews!"

"There are no Jews in Afghanistan."

"What is the glory in that?" Yusef complained. "Afghan skulls will not break down the gates of Paradise."

"That is not what the mullahs and imams are saying."

Yusef shook his head vigorously. "No, it would take too many Afghan skulls to gain me entrance to Paradise. I do not have all my life in which to martyr myself. What good will I be to the compliant houris if I am too old and feeble to adore them? These women are expecting certain manly duties of me."

"If you change your mind, speak to Muzzamil. He will see that you get to Afghanistan."

Eventually boredom got to Yusef Gamal, and he made the acquaintance of the mysterious Muzzamil. "I am interested in Afghanistan," Yusef explained. "I understand the opportunities for martyrdom are very great there."

Muzzamil had a very thick beard and flashing opaline eyes, which immediately fell upon the exact center of Yusef's visage.

"You have an interesting nose."

"Thank you, but what about Afghanistan?"

"It is a very Jewish nose."

And hearing this insult, Yusef Gamal seized the insulter by the throat and attempted to squeeze his head off.

Others came and clubbed him off Muzzamil. "He is a hothead, forgive him, O Muzzamil."

"He is Palestinian. That is the same thing," Muzzamil said as the good color returned to his dark, bearded face. His voice sounded squeezed, but his tone was without fear or anger.

"It is sometimes good to have a Jewish nose," Muzzamil told Yusef, who promptly threw off his compatriots and took another lunge at the hateful Muzzamil.

This time Muzzamil was ready for him. Yusef, who was used to fighting with Kalashnikovs and RPG's, did not expect something as lowly as a fist to lay him out. In truth, he never saw the fist that connected with the stubbled point of his chin.

When he regained consciousness, Muzzamil was bending over him. "Your nose is not broken. That is good."

"My jaw feels like broken glass," Yusef muttered dazedly.

"It will heal. For what lies ahead, you will need that Zionist nose of yours."

"I go to Afghanistan?"

"No. That is for cannon fodder and other fools. For you, I have special plans."

That night Yusef was spirited out of the camp. A long series of journeys by Land Rover, by boat and camel brought him to a city of minarets he did not recognize.

"What city is this?"

"Tehran."

"I am in Iran!"

"Yes."

"You are a Persian?"

"Yes. My true name is Aboof."

Yusef Gamal frowned. It was true that the Persians worshiped Allah and their leader the ayatollah was a devout Muslim. But they were Persians, not Arabs. It was a very different thing.

"For the work that lies ahead, you will need a new name."

"Abu Gamalin," Yusef said quickly.

"That is a good name for waging terror campaigns and issuing communiques and threats, yes. But I was thinking of a contact name for our files."

"It will not be a name that I use?"

"No, it will be for internal use only."

"Then I do not care what I am called," Yusef snapped.

"Good," said Aboof the Persian, who told him his code name would henceforth be Yusef the Jew.

The only thing that stopped Yusef Gamal from throttling the despicable Persian on the spot was the presence of the armed Revolutionary Guards.

"You will go to America," said Aboof when Yusef had calmed down.

"I will never go to America. It is an un-Islamic place."

"There you will apply for US. citizenship."

"Never! I would rather burn in Hell first."

"You will get a job and you will sleep," continued Aboof the Unflappable.

"What manner of orders are these for a warrior?"

"The job will support you until you are called. The sleep I speak of will be the sleep of a sleeper agent."

"How long must I sleep?"

"Until you are told to awaken."

"What will my duties be at that time?"

"Whatever is decided then. For you may sleep a long time."

IT was, in fact, six years. So long that Yusef the Jew had wondered if he had been forgotten by the lordly Persians. The intifada had ended. Many had been martyred. The Gulf War had also passed. Yusef had missed out on all of it. Worse, he was a lowly American citizen driving a cab in New York City, unmartyred and unfulfilled.

It was a terrible destiny. All of his friends, he had heard, were dead and already in Paradise, safely in the arms of Allah. And he was stuck fighting treacherous traffic and conveying Jews to their destinations like some camel driver of old.

The call came in the middle of the night, six months after the World Trade Center bombing.

"We are assembling an army," the soft voice said.

"Who is this?" Yusef asked sleepily.

"Aboof asked me to contact you."

"Aboof! Where is he?"

"In Paradise."

"He is lucky. For I am living in Hoboken. A place worse than Hell itself."

"Come to the Abu al-Kalbin Mosque in Jersey City, Yusef the Chosen."

"Why?"

"Because we are creating a secret army to smash the Great Satan."

Now Yusef knew for sure he was speaking with another Persian. For only Persians spoke of the Great Satan. But he agreed to go anyway. Driving a cab in New York City was slowly driving him mad.

The Abu al-Kalbin Mosque was a storefront mosque in the heart of the dirty place called Jersey City, not very far from city hall. Yusef took the PATH train to the Journal Square stop and walked as instructed along Kennedy Boulevard.

The neighborhood was unpleasant, but such was the lot of Muslims who came to dwell in America. There was no justice. Never once had the taxi company Yusef worked for given him his Fridays off or allowed him to pull over and face Mecca for his daily prayers.

At the door, he was greeted by an Egyptian face he did not know. But the man's dark eyes exploded as if in recognition. Then they narrowed in anger and disgust.

"Go away, Jew. We want none of you here."

"I am no-"

The plain door slammed in his face. Annoyed, Yusef knocked again.

"Go away, Zionist entity," he was told.

"I am no Jew, but Abu Gamalin the Feared."

"Liar."

"It is true. I swear by the beard of the prophet."

"If you speak truly, state your secret code name."

"I told you. I am Abu Gamalin."

"I have no such name on my list, Jew."

"I am not a Jew. I am sometimes called Al Mahour."

"I have no Al Mahour here. Perhaps it is some other mosque you are trying to infiltrate, Jewish dog."

"For the last time, I have come as summoned. Do not turn me away to drive the Hasidim around until I am mad with craziness."

"And for the last time, I ask you the code name you were given if you were given one."

Insulted to the bone, Yusef Gamal would have turned around and gone home. But he had slept so long. He did not wish to sleep any more. He wished excitement. He wished to feel young again. He craved the strong hardness of a Kalashnikov in his hands and the stink of infidel blood in the wind.

So he stood on the stoop of the Abu al-Kalbin Mosque, racking his brains. What was it he had been code-named? It had made his blood boil with rage when he first heard it. He was so offended by the very sound, he drove it from his memory. Now he beseeched Allah to unlock his memory again so he could speak the despised words aloud.

Then it came to him.

"I remember!" he cried through the shut door. "I remember now! I am called Yusef the Jew! Do you hear? It is Yusef the Jew. Open up."

"You admit to being a Jew?"

"No, I am called Yusef the Jew. It is my code name."

"No Jews are allowed in Allah's holy temple. This is a holy place. Go away or we will smash your teeth in your foul mouth."

Then a new voice came. Deeper, vaguely familiar. After it had spoken, Yusef placed it. It was the telephone voice.

"He is expected. Let him in."

The door opened. Yusef peered in cautiously. Shadows lay thick.

The voice said, "Enter, one who has slept too long." And Yusef Gamal entered.

The room was ill lit. It was night. No candles burned.

"You are the last chosen one who is expected," said the voice. "Enter, Seeker of the Light, and follow."

"I follow."

Other shadows huddled around. Yusef could feel hard eyes on him. On his nose, actually.

"Is a Jew allowed to meet the mullah?" a suspicious voice asked.

"He is not a Jew, but only called that," said the voice from the telephone.

"His nose is Jewish."

"His nose is his ticket to Paradise. Be envious of it, ye of lesser noses."

"I prefer to be called Abu Gamalin," Yusef said, squaring his shoulders.

A voice hooted. Another called him Gamal Mahour.

Yusef would have taken offense, except that he did not know these men, and at least "Camel Nose" was better than being called Yusef the Jew.

They were escorted to a room where thin light fell from a skylight that was obscured with muslin to foil prying eyes. Prayer rugs were pointed out, and they took kneeling positions of supplication, including the tall shadow whose voice Yusef had heard over the telephone.

When all was still, a candle was lit. It guttered, its sickly yellow light showing a screen. The shadow of a seated man was visible behind the screen. The figure was rounded, the head fringed with a full beard.

"True Believers, we will speak English here because some of you know Farsi and others Arabic, but not both."

The voice was strange in its accents. Musical, the vowels odd. Yusef, who knew few Persians, decided it must be the accent that made the English so sickly sweet to his ears. Or perhaps it was the contrast to the nasal English of New Yorkers, with whom he had dwelt for so long.

"The sight of my holy countenance must be denied even to you, the faithful," the voice began. "To cast eyes upon me is haram-forbidden. My true name will never be known to you. Some called me their mufti. Others imam. Some of you here have heard of me by a name bestowed upon me by the intelligence organs of Egypt, Iraq and the Great Satan. This name is the Deaf Mullah."

A gasp raced around the supplicant men.

Yusef was impressed. All True Believers knew of the Deaf Mullah, a Persian cleric reviled in the West for his exhortations against all things Western. It was said he had personally constructed an infernal device intended to destroy the Egyptian puppet, Mubarak, but that it had exploded in his hands. His survival was considered a gift from Allah and a sign of his holiness. For the mullah had lost only the hearing in one ear entirely and the hearing in the other but partially. More impressively it was the Deaf Mullah who had organized the enterprise that nearly brought down the World Trade Center, as well as demolishing the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, except for certain unfortunate misadventures that resulted in the capture of the conspirators, incidentally landing the Deaf Mullah in a federal prison.

As he reflected on these tales, Yusef noticed that the man behind the screen held an ear trumpet in one hand. It was the Deaf Mullah. Truly.

"You who have slept in this infidel land are now called upon to awaken. For an army of the faithful is being mustered, and you will be its soldiers."

"Praise Allah," a man said fervently. It was the telephone summoner, Yusef realized.

"Praise Allah," another man vowed.

"Yes, praise Allah that you have lived to see this day," the Deaf Mullah said. "You all have been selected for your devotion, your ferocity, your courage and your ability to exist in an enemy land unchallenged. You all are U.S. citizens. This is important. When this plan was created years ago, it was not understood how important. But becoming citizens of the United States is a necessary step to joining the army that will break the American spine in many places.

"For you all to understand your task, it is necessary that you all understand the state of things as pertains to the march of Islam."

They listened attentively.

"You all know that the first attempt to bring jihad to America ended in abject failure. The one who came before failed. They brought disgrace to Islam through their base ineptitude. They made mistakes. They failed to destroy the twin towers of the World Trade Center. They did stupid things for which they were caught. Others of their cells also failed in executing important tasks, such as the destruction of the bridges and tunnels and other lawful targets. As a consequence, many laughed at our cause, derided us as stupid. No more. Those days are done with."

"Praise Allah," another man said.

"We are done with being mocked. For we have found another, truer path. One that will lead us to victory over the infidel. You are not alone among True Believers. Our numbers increase. Even the American media have noted that we Muslims outnumber the Episcopalians and Presbyterians. In a few years, we will outpace the Jews. But we cannot wait for that day. We must begin to strike at their soft underbelly."

"How, O Holy One?"

"Yes, we are with you."

A broad hand was raised. "Patience. My tale is not done."

They settled down, their bodies leaning forward in their eagerness. Their breathing became audible. "More recently a building was destroyed in the city called Oklahoma. For this, we were blamed, though we were truly blameless."

"It is a sign of the anti-Islamic virus that infects America!" Yusef exclaimed.

"No, it was a good thing that we were blamed. For although it is an insult and an affront to Allah, whose children we are, it is more important that the infidel fear us. But in time it was discovered that infidel elements were themselves responsible for this outrage."

"It is not an outrage if it afflicts the infidel," a man suggested.

"It is an outrage that infidels are more successful in striking at infidel targets than us, who have been anointed by Allah to do this thing."

Murmurs around the room agreed that this was in fact an outrage.

"Long I have pondered this conundrum. Much thought have I put into this problem. The infidel no longer fears us. How, I asked myself, could I strike fear into the craven hearts? More importantly how can we strike at the heart of the Great Satan when they have hardened their hearts against us?"

"They will never embrace Islam!" Yusef spat. "It is a waste of time to convert them. Instead, they must be put to the sword!"

"The hearts they have hardened are not their false hearts beating within their breasts, but the hearts of their government. Their federal buildings. Their courthouses. These places of wickedness that are denied us."

"Oh," said Yusef, who now understood.

"How to enter these places that we might destroy them from within was my thought. Long I prayed Allah to enlighten me. It came to me that even you, who wear faces that enable you to blend in with the infidel's base, corrupt civilization, were not equal to the task."

"We are equal, Holy One."

"We are greater than equal. We are Muslims."

"We are ready to die."

"Yes, you are ready to die," said the Deaf Mullah. "But are you prepared to succeed?"

"Yes, yes."

"Good. For the next step lies before you."

"What is this?" Yusef asked:

And the candle was snuffed out by a quick movement of the hovering ear trumpet, and a curtain was drawn before the dark shape of the Deaf Mullah.

Lights came on. They hurt the eyes. When Yusef looked down, there was a pen and a sheaf of papers resting before his crossed legs.

"What is this?" he asked aloud.

"It is called an exam. In order to take the next step, you must pass it."

Yusef picked up the papers. Reading, he frowned. "I understand the words, but the questions are hard."

"Yes," another said. "It is harder than passing the test for citizenship. You must memorize all manner of godless notions."

"Nevertheless," said the melodious voice of the Deaf Mullah from behind the curtain, "you will do your mightiest."

Yusef raised a hand. Then he realized the Deaf Mullah could not see him, so he said, "I have a question, Holy One."

"Ask it."

"Can we cheat?"

"Yes. Cheating is allowed by Allah, who has blessed this enterprise."

And Yusef and the others grinned. As long as they could cheat, success was possible.

It was at that point that Yusef got a good look at his fellow worshipers. Fear touched his eyes. These men did not look Arabic or even Persian. They were too white. Even the Egyptian, seen in a clear light, looked wrong. His hair was as red as a Crusader's. Two men were black, not the coffee black of Libya, but the ebony of lower Africa.

Noticing that the eyes of the others were looking back at him strangely, Yusef blurted, "I am not Jewish. Really, it is just my nose. I am a Semite, as are many of you. It is a Semitic nose, not a Jewish one. There is a very great difference."

That night everyone took the exam, and though they cheated their mightiest, as Allah would wish them to, no one passed.

"Have we failed?" asked the flame-haired Egyptian.

"No," returned the Deaf Mullah. "This is not the true test, for that can only be given by the generals who control the infidel army we seek to infiltrate."

"What army is this?"

"The most dreaded army in this hateful land." Yusef said, "It is the Marines. They are the most feared."

"The Marines were crushed and broken in Lebanon," the Deaf Mullah reminded.

"It is the Navy," said another. "For the Navy have warriors who are called sea lions and can swim underwater like fish and steal up from the very waters to do evil, un-Islamic things."

"You will not become Navy SEAL," intoned the Deaf Mullah from behind his curtain.

"Then what will we be?" a man wondered aloud. "We cannot be Army men. For all know the Army is composed of pigs."

"They are called grunts," said the Deaf Mullah. "Not pigs."

"What army, O Imam?" they beseeched him. Then the uniforms were brought out.

They were blue and gray. Down the gray pant legs ran a very military blue stripe. And on the breast and shoulder was a patch showing a striking eagle's head. "We are Air Force!" he cried.

"Shut up, Jew," a man cried sourly. "These are not Air Force uniforms."

"They are blue and they show an eagle. Unquestionably it is Air Force that we will infiltrate."

"These are not the uniforms of the United States Air Force. Note the patch. What do the initials say?"

"USPS," a man said slowly.

"We are paratroopers!" Yusef exclaimed. "We will jump out of airplanes and strike at will! Allah be praised."

"Your brains are in your nose," the sour voice of the fiery-haired Egyptian spat at Yusef.

"May Allah change your face," Yusef retorted hotly. The two men jumped up and squared off.

The Deaf Mullah clapped his hands sharply. "There will be no fighting in this holy place. Remember that 'Islam' means 'peace.' We are men of peace when dealing with one another."

"But men of death when dealing with the infidel," said the Egyptian who had been about to punch Yusef in his camel-like nose.

"You will not be paratroopers," the Deaf Mullah said quietly. "For the initials USPS stand for United States Postal Service."

A hush fell over the room. The men looked at one another, their faces contorting with confusion and doubt.

"We will be mailmen?"

"You will be the Messengers of Muhammad," the Deaf Mullah announced, standing up.

"A boustajai?" asked Yusef.

"No uniform is more feared!" the Deaf Mullah proclaimed. "Nor more respected. Wearing these colors, you will be admitted freely into the holiest of holies of the infidel nation. No one will question you. No one may challenge you. For their mail is sacred to the infidel. You will swear allegiance to the mighty postmaster general, but in reality you are answerable only to your imam and Allah the Compassionate, the Merciful, on whom all praise must fall."

"I cannot be a postman," Yusef complained. "I am a Palestinian. It is a demotion in the eyes of Allah."

"As a Palestinian, you are a fierce killer?"

"Yes. Many enemies have I slain."

"Tell me, O brother, who do you fear?"

"No one."

"Do you fear the Israeli?"

"Never! I have killed Israelis like dogs."

"If I placed you in a room with two doors and told you that you could have any weapon at your disposal and that you must escape through one door and one door only, which door would you choose? The one behind which stands an Israeli soldier or the one behind which stands a United States postman?"

"Both are armed?" asked Yusef. "With Uzis."

Yusef hesitated. "If they are both armed with Uzis, I might be able to kill the Israeli first. Or trick him by pretending to surrender and slaying him when his guard is down. But the postman, if he is armed that means he has gone crazy. Who can defeat a crazy man?"

"Exactly."

"A crazy man is crazy. He will not listen to reason, but only shoot without discrimination. Even at his own."

"Yes," said the Deaf Mullah. "The postal worker is feared because he has been driven mad by the stern demands of un-Islamic living. He will kill anyone or anything without compunction."

"This is my point exactly," retorted Yusef.

The Deaf Mullah lifted his voice to address them all. "Today. In the West, if an American was walking down a dark street and was confronted by one of you wearing a kaffiyeh over your face and a postal worker carrying a gun, the American would throw himself on your mercy because he knows from the wild look in the postal worker's eyes no mercy is to be found there. That is why you will wear this feared uniform. This is how you will infiltrate the buildings that are denied to us by increased American security. This is how we will bring down the towers of the infidel so that the minarets of our own pure and thrice-blessed culture may rise to the very stars."

Yusef Gamal looked at the uniform with strange eyes and asked, "Do they not carry great leather bags?"

"You will all be given leather bags large enough to conceal the deadliest weapons. You will be scattered to the compass points of the infidel nation until you are activated. Also you will have to join a union. Some of you will join the American Postal Workers Union, others the National Association of Letter Carriers. A few, the National Rural Letter Carriers' Association."

"It is a small price to pay in order to insinuate ourselves into the bosom of the infidel," Yusef proclaimed.

"You must also change your names so that you may further blend in with the ones you will destroy."

"American names?"

"Yes. Of course."

A man stood up. He struck his chest with his fist. "Then I will be Al Ladeen."

"And I Jihad Jones," said the fire-haired Egyptian.

"I insist upon being Abu Gamalin," said Yusef.

"You cannot be Abu Gamalin," said the Deaf Mullah.

"If that one can be Jihad Jones, I can be Abu Gamalin."

"I will allow you to retain your true name, if you are careful. To us, you will be Abu Gamalin. But to the Americans, you will be known as Joseph Camel."

And for reasons unknown to Yusef, the others softly laughed in the Abu Al-Kalbin Mosque.

"It is better than the other name," he said, mollified.

YUSEF GAMAL TOOK the postal-service exam, passing only through the coaching of the Deaf Mullah and by wearing a shirt whose green patterns in fact were imprinted with key answers in Arabic script-which was unreadable to stupid Western eyes.

This was in the state of Oklahoma, in the city of Oklahoma, as prescribed by the Deaf Mullah and ordained by Allah. Yusef's job at first was to place mail in canvas bags and in pigeonholes. It was very tedious work, and the bosses were hard taskmasters, which made Yusef understand why some of the workers went crazy from time to time.

"It is not just because they have turned their face from Allah," he told the Deaf Mullah via e-mail, the secure method of communications they all used. "It is the mindless tasks they are forced to perform that unbalance them."

"But you are getting along with the Godless?" the Deaf Mullah wrote back.

"Some think I am a Jew. Jews are not plentiful here, so I am singled out in this way."

"This is good, for when the appointed hour comes, they will remember you as a Jew and not Abu Gamalin."

"When will the hour come, O Imam? I chafe and fret among these infidels."

"Soon, soon. Have patience. First, you must be given a route."

"I am trying very hard, because these pigeon holes are driving me to distraction. They have recently painted the walls a hideous pink."

"Think of Islamic green."

"I am thinking of green. But I see pink. Everywhere I look, I see pink."

"Contain your rage. Store it. When the time comes, it will be unleashed."

"That is the problem," typed Yusef. "The more I see pink, the less angry I become."

"Think green. Paint the walls of your home green so that you can at night dispel the pink influence of Christianity."

The hour at last came, and Yusef received his instructions.

"But the federal building is not on my route," Yusef protested.

"It does not matter. Your uniform will gain admittance for you. Go forth and slaughter those who inhabit the court of Judge Rathburn."

"I hear and obey."

"When the slaughter is complete, fly to Toledo in Ohiostan. You will be met there by your brethren."

"Then I am done? After only one slaughter?"

"No, for your slaughter will inform the infidel that his much-protected federal building is vulnerable to us. That the messengers of Muhammad are as mighty as their own militia. After this and other deeds are done, we will embark upon our true mission."

"Which is?" Yusef asked eagerly.

"For you to know in Toledo. Go now, Abu Gamalin. And do not forget to shout the slogans you have been taught."

"God Is Grape!"

" 'Great.' The English for Allahu Akbar is 'God Is Great.' "

"Yes, yes, I will remember."

"And do not forget to tell the dying Americans that they are suffering the deaf penalty."

"The death penalty, yes."

"No, 'deaf.' Not 'death.' The deaf penalty."

"What is the difference?"

"None whatsoever," the Deaf Mullah replied.

It was easy, Yusef discovered. With his Uzi in his leather letter bag and ear protectors, he had walked into the Wiley Post Federal Building, took the elevator to the court of Judge Rathburn and killed all within.

No one questioned him going in, and no one stopped him on the way out. He was well out of town when a search was organized for him. But he was not the usual mailman on that route, and all who saw him saw the uniform, not the man.

It had been perfection-and proof the enterprise had been blessed by Almighty Allah.

Chapter 14

The President of the United States was in the middle of a whistle-stop stump speech in Charlotte, North Carolina, trying to hold on to the slipping South when his press secretary attempted to convey an urgent message.

Deep into his exhortation, the President was oblivious to the raised finger in the wings, which turned into a circling finger, indicating that he should wrap it up quick.

The President wouldn't have been aware of the finger if it had been jammed up his nose. Besides, his handlers were forever giving him the circling finger.

The President was reading off the twin Teleprompters-two Lucite electronic screens set at eye level to the left and right of the portable podium emblazoned with the presidential seal. A traveling liquid-crystal line of text, visible whether he faced left or right, told him what to say.

"'Make no mistake, this election is about change,'" he read. "'This election is about ... an explosion in midtown Manhattan'?" The President stopped reading. The crawling blue letters had turned red. That was the signal that he wasn't to read what followed. Red letters were the stage directions such as "Gesture with fist a la JFK," or "Stay behind the podium, your fly is open."

The President paused. The red letters crawled along: "No further information available..."

"I have just been told," the President said, recovering quickly, "that there has been an explosion in Manhattan."

The crowd made a little murmur like a wave breaking and muttering in the sand. The blue letters returned, and the President resumed speechifying. He wondered why his handlers had bulletined him in the middle of his speech about an ordinary explosion. And why hadn't they said what had exploded? A car? A building? The Statue of Liberty? Coney Island?

The President was into paragraph fifty-seven of his ten-minute speech-now running twenty-five minutes overlength-when the blue crawl once again turned angry red.

"AP now reporting multiple explosions N.Y.C.. . . cause unknown..."

The President decided not to communicate this to the crowd. Another ten minutes, and the speech would be over. He had to pick up the pace. A few people were already nodding off. One heavy-lidded man actually swayed on his feet, but an alert Secret Service agent caught him and shook him back to attention. This was a constant problem on the campaign trail. The President wondered if his supporters weren't afflicted with some new kind of attention-deficit disorder.

"Some say the ideals of the '60s are dead. They're not dead. They're only a prisoner of the Republican Congress. Reelect me and help preserve the legacy of the past from those who-"

"Courtroom massacre in new federal building Oklahoma City..."

The President blinked. His stricken eyes chased the red letters off the Lucite screen. Did it say Oklahoma City? Damn, he thought, wishing there was a replay button. There was no replay button. No freeze-frame, either.

As the crowd watched patiently, he cleared his throat and charged on. He was going to finish this speech if it took all day.

Casting his gaze back and forth to make eye contact with the two wings of the crowd, the President awaited the next string of blue letters.

They never came. Instead, another crawl of red marched past: "For God's sake, Mr. President! Please cut short your speech. This is an emergency!"

"In conclusion," the President said, shifting gears, "a vote for continuity is a vote for electoral balance, and a vote for electoral balance is a vote for future and lasting change."

Three minutes later, the crowd was applauding and the red, white and green balloons-some advance man had screwed up-went up to the sky.

Surrounded by a diamond of moving Secret Service agents, the President rushed to the waiting armored limo. Or was rushed by them. Sometimes it was hard to tell.

The Secret Service agents looked nervous. More so than usual. The President wondered if they had read the bulletins, too.

They clapped the door shut on the presidential limo, and a running roadblock of armored Secret Service sedans escorted the careering vehicle to the Charlotte airport.

In the back, the press secretary offered the Chief Executive his choice of secure telephones.

"What's this?"

"Director, FBI. On the explosions."

Indicating the second cellular with its light on, the President asked, "Is that for me, too?"

"Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms."

"What do they want?"

"I think they want to beat FBI to your ear."

"Are they fighting again? Damn!"

"Which do you want first?"

The President hesitated. "You decide."

"I can't. You're Chief Executive."

"Hell, hand 'em both over." And the President clapped both cell phones to his head, one to each ear. "This is your President," he said in his best authoritative voice. "Consider this a conference call between FBI and ATF."

"Damn," a small voice said.

"Which one of you said that?" the President demanded.

No one answered. They figured he might not be long for this political world, but couldn't chance offending him.

"FBI, bring me up to speed on these explosions."

"Yes, Mr. President," said the right-hand cell phone. That meant it had been ATF that had cursed. "First, at approximately 11:20 Central Time, an unidentified gunman burst into a federal courtroom in the new federal building in Oklahoma City, He killed everyone in the room except a court officer who is now talking."

"Who did it?"

"I'm coming to that."

"At 12:10 Eastern Standard Time, an explosion took place at the corner of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street in midtown Manhattan. It was determined that a postal relay box had exploded. Then at 12:20 EST-note the time-several other relay boxes also detonated in midtown."

"Eleven-twenty in Oklahoma and 12:20 Manhattan time are the same time, aren't they?"

"Accounting for the time difference, yes. There's more. The relay boxes can be opened only by a postal employee with a master key. The Oklahoma City court officer claims a letter carrier committed the massacre."

"What are we looking at here?"

"On the surface, disgruntled postal employees."

The President looked doubtful. "What about under the surface?"

"If I may get a word in?" ATF began to say from the opposite cell phone.

"Hold on. I'll get to you."

"Damn," the ATF head whispered.

"Well, Mr. President," the FBI director resumed, "disgruntled postal workers haven't to date operated in concert. Certainly not coordinated across state lines as this situation appears to suggest."

"They just flip out and shoot at anything that moves, right?"

"That's what my Violent Postal Worker Task Force behavior team says."

"You have a Violent Postal Worker Task Force?"

"Postal crimes have quadrupled in the last five years, sir."

"What gets into these people? Is it the uniforms? The routes? Paper cuts? All of those zip codes they have to remember?"

"We're still working up psychological profiles on that, Mr. President," FBI continued. "In any event, these are clearly federal crimes, and FBI would like the authority to take the tip of the spear in this early investigatory phase."

"Objection! Objection!" said ATF, who suddenly sounded like a lawyer. Ever since the O.J. trial, a lot of federal employees had gotten into the habit of shouting objections.

"You can object later. The President and I are talking," FBI told ATF, apparently using the President's head as a sound-conducting medium. "This is a federal matter. It falls under FBI jurisdiction."

"Don't hand me that. Explosions are ATF."

"Courtroom shootings are FBI. And these events are connected. FBI had suzerainty over ATF in this instance."

"Then we work together," ATF insisted.

"Not a chance," said the President, realizing the last thing he needed a month before his possible reelection was another Waco.

"Very well," the ATF head said. "You must decide, Mr. President."

Thinking that the next last thing he wanted to do before the November election was make an important decision that could backfire, the President clapped the two cell phones together and said, "You two work this out. I have a better idea."

Air Force One was suddenly visible ahead. The President was astonished at how much ground they had covered.

Exiting the presidential limo, he hurried up the air stairs with his entourage and when he entered the gleaming 747, was immediately handed a thin sheaf of papers.

"What are these?" he asked.

"Updates on the incidents in Oklahoma and New York."

His press secretary then offered what appeared to be a block of white wood.

"What's this?"

"Text of your next speech, sir."

"Cancel it."

"All of it?"

"We're headed back to Washington."

The press secretary looked as if he'd been summarily fired.

"Mr. President, we have the Washington vote all sewn up. We can't."

"And get me the postmaster general on the line. What's his name again?"

The press secretary looked blank. The chief advance man looked blank. Everyone looked blank. "Doesn't anyone know who the postmaster general of the United States is?" the President demanded.

"Is he important?"

"If what I hear is true, he may be the most important man in America today."

And the President rushed to his private cabin to hide before the White House press corps surged onto the plane like a human tidal wave in search of quotes and free pretzels.

They were in the air when the presidential press secretary knocked once and poked his head in. "Damon Post on line 1 for you."

"Who?"

"The postmaster general."

"Oh, right. What do I call him - 'Mr. Postmaster'? 'General'?"

The press secretary looked startled. "I don't know. Should I pull the etiquette book?"

"I'll wing it," said the President, picking up the secure cabin phone.

"Damon, this is the President. I hope you don't mind if I call you 'Damon."

"Call me whatever you want, Mr. President."

"Damon, I've been brought up to speed on these incidents. What can you add?"

"We have people on the Manhattan matter."

"And Oklahoma City? What about that?"

"I have no comment on Oklahoma City."

"No comment? What kind of answer is that to give your President?"

"A politic one, Mr. President. It did not involve a postal employee." And from the tone of the postmaster general's voice, the President of the United States understood that he was calculating the odds of not having to deal with executive-branch interference until after the election.

"What do you mean, it didn't involve a postal employee? A dying witness described the assailant as a mailman."

"No, he described an assailant dressed in a USPS uniform. There's a big difference. Anyone can steal a uniform."

"What about the Manhattan explosions, then? The American people want to know if their mailboxes are safe."

"We are investigating the possible theft of master keys by non-postal-employees."