Angry White Mailmen

"In other words, you're saying your people aren't responsible."

"I have no hard evidence to support that theory at this hour, Mr. President."

"I'm going to be getting back to you on this," the President growled.

"Feel free," the postmaster general said. "We appreciate your business."

The line went dead.

"'We appreciate your business'?" said the President, staring at the receiver. "Who the hell does that guy think he is?"

As Air Force One screamed toward Andrews Air Base, the President slowly replaced the receiver. He was thinking of another telephone receiver. A red one.

With the FBI and ATF struggling over turf and the postmaster general stonewalling, the President planned to cut the bureaucratic red tape the same way his predecessors had for the past three decades.

If this wasn't a CURE matter, he didn't know what was.

He just hoped that damn Smith agreed. The President who had created the organization had included a fail-safe in its unwritten charter. The President could suggest missions, not order them. It would be up to Smith to make the decisions, a situation for which this President was grateful. He hated making decisions. There were always consequences.

"Coffee or tea?" asked a voice through the door.

"Surprise me," said the President.

Chapter 15

Harold Smith knew the President was upset from the instant he heard his raspy voice.

"Smith, this is your President speaking."

It wasn't the hoarseness of the President's voice. This President was naturally hoarse. It wasn't the breathlessness indicative of his sudden return to the executive mansion, and the dash he'd made up to the Lincoln Bedroom and his end of the dedicated CURE line.

It was the utter silence in the background. Almost every time Smith had spoken to the President in the past, Elvis music had played in the background. Smith couldn't actually tell-he assumed it was Elvis. All popular music recorded since World War II sounded pretty much alike to Harold Smith, who'd stopped listening to popular music around the time swing gave way to post-war bebop.

This time there was none of that. This more than anything told Smith that the President understood the gravity of the situation.

"I am listening, Mr. President."

"You've heard about the mailbox bombings in New York?"

"Yes, and the court shooting in Oklahoma."

"I think this may be only the beginning."

"You are correct. It is only the beginning."

"That's not exactly what I wanted to hear," said the President, suddenly realizing that being right in this case was not as useful as being wrong.

"That is not a guess on my part," Smith continued. "Someone just demolished the General Post Office in midtown Manhattan."

"How serious is that? We're just talking about a mail-processing center, right?"

"One that occupies an entire city block in the heart of Manhattan and greatly resembles the U.S. Treasury in size and design."

The President could be heard swallowing hard. At least, a distinct gulp came over the dedicated line. "My God, it's as if postmen everywhere have gone crazy."

"The correct term is 'decompensated.'"

"So you agree with me?"

"No, I do not. This is not a case of a handful of postal employees experiencing a psychotic break or suffering from episodic explosive disorder."

"Why not? It happens all the time. I remember reading about a New Jersey postal worker who up and killed his co-workers just so he could steal enough money to pay his back rent."

"This is true. But psychotics do not operate in concert. They are loners. Antisocials. You would have a better chance of organizing squirrels to program network television."

"I think it's been tried," the President said distractedly. "Look, I just spoke with the postmaster general, and he's stonewalling me. You don't think this is orchestrated, do you?"

"I am afraid that it is."

"By whom?"

"Mr. President, if you are not sitting down, I must ask you to do so."

"Go ahead, Smith."

"A Muslim fundamentalist terror group has infiltrated the postal service with the intention of waging a war of urban terror against the nation."

"Infiltrated? What do you mean, infiltrated?"

"I mean," returned Harold Smith in a bitter, lemony tone, "that virtually any letter carrier, postal worker or USPS truck driver might be a secret terrorist intent upon wholesale destruction."

"My God. How many of them are there?"

"I have developed information that suggests over thirty terrorists are in this cell. But there may be other jihad cells. We do not know."

"Thirty? Even thirty can do a lot of damage."

"I assume the carnage of today is the work of one or two, or at most three terror agents. Thirty terrorists could do incalculable damage."

"Do you-do you think this is meant to embarrass me just before the election?"

"I doubt that, Mr. President. This is clearly a first strike. The cell has demonstrated its power. Assuming there are no more incidents today, we must await a communique of their demands or intentions."

"How can we counteract them?"

"Short of shutting down the mail system, I do not know."

"Can I do that as President?"

"That is between you and the postmaster general."

"Is that what you're recommending here? Shut down the mail until we get a handle on how deep the postal service has been compromised?"

"Events may or may not force you to that decision, Mr. President, but for now I have my people on it."

"What are they going to do?"

"They are on the trail of the Oklahoma City terrorist."

The President's voice was startled. "You know who he is? Already?"

"Yes. He goes by the name of Yusef Gamal, alias Joe Camel."

"Did you say Joe Camel?"

"I did," said Harold Smith.

The President's voice dropped to a low, conspiratorial tone. "You don't suppose the big tobacco companies are behind this, do you?"

"Muslim fanatics, Mr. President."

"Because if there's any chance-any chance at all-that the tobacco companies have funded these people, it would be a useful campaign issue."

"I would not advance in public any theories that might backfire," Harold Smith said thinly.

"I don't know which is worse," the President lamented, "Muslim fanatics, tobacco companies or disgruntled postal workers."

"Muslim terrorists in the guise of disgruntled postal workers."

"Why are they disgruntled? Were they ever gruntled? Is that even a word?"

"I will be back to you, Mr. President," said Smith, thinking it had been a long four years of service at the pleasure of this particular President. Another four was not something to look forward to.

HAROLD SMITH HAD RETURNED to his terminal and its silent, keyless keyboard.

The global search for Yusef Gamal, a.k.a. Joseph Camel, turned up the fact that he was a naturalized citizen of the United States and had been with the postal service less than two years. There were no indications of credit-card purchases of airline reservations or transportation in the recent past that would indicate a premeditated escape route. Smith had hoped for such an audit trail.

Working quickly, he input some of the other cover names-Ibrahim Lincoln, Yassir Nossair and others. It was too much to hope something would turn up, but Joe Camel had panned out despite all logic to the contrary.

While he waited for results, Smith logged on to the FBI central data base in New York City, hopping from desk terminal to desk terminal, seeking activity related to the day's events.

He caught something almost at once. A clerk or agent was inputting the just-developed information that the vehicle-identification number of the exploded vehicle found in the rubble of the Manhattan General Post Office positively identified it as a USPS relay truck.

A suicide bomber, as Smith suspected.

As he watched, Smith saw another piece fall into place. Dental bridgework found at the scene matched the dental records of one Allah Ladeen. That closed the books on one terrorist.

Then his computer began spitting out the whereabouts of the other suspected terrorists.

Jaw dropping, Smith saw the names and addresses of Jihad Jones, Ibrahim Lincoln, Yassir Nossair, Mohamet Ali and most of the others start scrolling before his incredulous gray eyes.

Picking up the telephone, he began calling FBI district offices, starting with Chicago.

"This is Assistant Special Agent in Charge Smith, calling from Washington headquarters. You are ordered to pick up the following subjects in connection with the terroristic events of the day."

No one questioned him. If they called back the Washington number he gave them for verification, they would get Smith's Folcroft line. But no one called back. Virtually every district branch had had dealings with ASAG Smith in the past.

Chapter 16

It was the indignity of indignities. It was ignominy. It was shame.

But it was necessary, and so Yusef Gamal, alias Abu Gamalin, endured the shame.

He had made his escape to the airport and the flight that awaited him to the city of Toledo in Ohio. It was a good city name, Toledo. There was a Toledo in Moorish Spain. It was the original Toledo. Spain was one of the few nations where Islam has been in retreat for centuries, but that would also change.

Yusef Gamal was very happy at least that none of his fellow Palestinians could see him now seated on the flight to Toledo wearing a long, funereal black coat, black beaver hat and a wig fringed with stringy ringlets of hair called paye.

He was dressed as a Hasidic Jew. It was the perfect disguise, the Deaf Mullah had assured him by e-mail. "They will be looking for a postal worker. Perhaps, if they detect our intentions, an Egyptian or Palestinian. Never a Hasidic Jew."

"I must be a Jew?" Yusef had e-mailed back.

"To escape, you must be a Jew. Allow your fearless Semitic nose to guide you to sanctuary."

"As you command, Holy One."

So Yusef sat quiet in the back of the plane with his ringlets shivering and shame in his hot eyes.

At least it was a short flight. That alone was consolation.

That and the fact that the kosher in-flight meal they had served him was technically halal, and so, could be eaten safely.

At the Toledo airport, Yusef was the last one off the plane and looked around for the True Believer who had been appointed to meet him.

The waiting area was crowded with passengers hugging their relatives in the most naked and unseemly fashion. The women did not wear veils, and their brazen lips were everywhere, like flowers dipped in poisonous blood.

Some held up signs. The Deaf Mullah had not said who was to meet him, but it was possible the messenger carried a sign also.

Scanning the crude cardboard signs, Yusef's eager eyes alighted on one that was held over the heads of two shamelessly kissing women. It read: Islamic Front For The National Association Of Letter Carriers.

Fortunately it was in Arabic, and so was not understandable to Western eyes.

"Here! I am here!" Yusef cried, pushing through the crowd.

A head poked up over the kissing female faces, and Yusef's eager expression turned to a glower. The face was darkly freckled, and the hair was very red.

"You!" Yusef spat, seeing that it was the Egyptian who was called Jihad Jones.

"I was right. It is true. You are a Jew. A Hasid, no less."

"It is a disguise ordained by the Deaf Mullah himself," Yusef said defensively.

"The Deaf Mullah did not instruct me to pick up a Jew, but a mujahid. "

"I am that mujahid. Have you not heard of the wonderful carnage in Oklahoma City? I was the author of that carnage."

"I spit upon your carnage. My cousin Al Ladeen personally blew up several blocks in Manhattan where Jews such as you dwell, then drove his mail truck into the post office, obliterating the godless and himself in one mighty blow."

"I am no Jew. I have told you this. Why will you not listen?"

"Because the proof is standing before me, as black as a buzzard," Jihad Jones retorted hotly.

"The Deaf Mullah instructed you to take me to him. I insist that you do this at once."

Jihad Jones glowered, his face turning as scarlet as his disheveled hair. Yusef met his gaze with a contemptuous one of his own.

"Offspring of a Crusader!"

"Jew!"

"Idolworshiper!"

"Eater of pork!"

Finally Jihad Jones threw down his placard and said, "Very well. I will take you to the Deaf Mullah. But only because I know he will have you put to death."

"I am not afraid, because if I die a true Muslim, my allotment of seventy-two houris will be waiting for me in Paradise."

"We will see about that, too."

They drove south along a long, undulating highway. The area was very open, and there were barns. This was farm country.

"Where are we going?" asked Yusef Gamal. "To the town of Greenburg."

"What is there?"

"The secret sanctuary of the Deaf Mullah. A place where no one would think of looking for him."

"The Deaf Mullah hides in a town with a Jewish name?"

"The name is Greenburg. With a u, not Greenberg with an e. It is not Jewish."

"It sounds Jewish."

"You should know, who look Jewish."

"I am not Jewish. I am a Semite, the same as you."

"I am an Egyptian."

"We are both brothers in Allah."

"Except that you secretly practice Jewishness."

"It is called Judaism."

"Hah! Your words are the very proof of my conviction."

"How do I know you are not secretly a Copt? You look like a Copt."

"If I am a Copt, you are a Jew for Jesus. This is worse than being a Hasid."

At that, Yusef shut his mouth, thinking, I am only getting myself in deeper with this idiot Egyptian camel driver.

Some thirty minutes into the journey, the broad highway lifted and swept into another highway.

And Yusef saw it, rearing up over the surrounding flatness like an alabaster vision. His eyes flew wide. "Look, it is-"

"Yes."

"A mosque."

"Of course it is a mosque. Do you think the Deaf Mullah would dwell in a temple for Jews?"

"But it is so big. Why have I never heard of such a mosque here in Ohio?"

"Because it is more than a mosque," said Jihad Jones cryptically.

Chapter 17

The flight to Oklahoma was routine except for the Japanese tourist in first class who, evidently impressed by the cut of Chiun's splendid traveling kimono, snapped a picture of the Master of Sinanju as he boarded.

In response, the Master of Sinanju snapped the Japanese tourist's shutter-pressing finger out of joint and relieved him of his camera, too. He returned it empty of film. When the Japanese complained, the overexposed roll somehow found its way into his throat, lodging there.

A stewardess, hearing the frightful choking sounds, rushed up and demanded, "What is it?"

"This man requires the Heimdail maneuver," sniffed Chiun. "He has stupidly swallowed something stupid."

"Oh, my God."

The stewardess fell on the man, grabbed him about the waist from behind and tried her mightiest to expel the foreign object from his throat. Every time she pulled back with her clasped hands, the tourist only strangled more loudly.

That was when Remo stepped on board. He took one look at the stewardess, apparently trying to break the back of a Japanese passenger, then the Master of Sinanju looking on with thin approval.

"Now what?" Remo demanded.

"This woman is attempting to preserve this Japanese's useless life," Chiun replied casually.

"What did you do to him?"

"He did it to himself."

Seeing that the stewardess wasn't exactly equal to the task, Remo loosened her fingers, spun the tourist around and clapped him on the middle of the back once very hard.

The roll of film shot out of his mouth like a plug of black plastic chewing tobacco, and rebounded from an overhead bin.

"He take a picture of you?" Remo asked Chiun as the tourist sank gasping into his first-class seat.

"This is unproven," sniffed Chiun, hurrying up the aisle.

The confused stewardess asked, "What happened?"

"I smacked him on the back," explained Remo.

"That's the old way. It's not supposed to work anymore."

"It worked for me."

"Oh," said the stewardess, who then noticed Remo's very thick wrists. "Are you a first-class passenger?"

"You wish," said Remo, who had had enough of amorous flight attendants of late.

The stewardess's shoulders collapsed, and her pretty face sagged like dough layered in pancake flour. Flakes of makeup were actually precipitated to the carpet, so profound was her change in expression. "Maybe we can get you upgraded," she suggested.

"Not a chance. I always fly coach."

"What's wrong with first class?"

"If the plane goes down, first class always buys the farm."

She drew closer, preceded by a warm wave of frankincense, myrrh and overactive pheromones. "If I buy the farm, will you miss me?"

"Aren't you in the wrong cabin?" asked Remo, dropping into the empty seat beside the Master of Sinanju.

"I am allowed in coach," she said huffily.

"Another stray?" asked Chiun after the stewardess. had gone.

"Yeah," growled Remo. "What's wrong with stewardesses these days? They take to me like honeybees to nectar."

"They sense you are next in line to me."

"Then why don't they just skip over me and try to climb up your skirts?"

Chiun suppressed a distasteful pucker. "That is because when a Master achieves Reigning Master status, he learns to control his masculine lures without thinking."

Remo looked interested. "Teach me how."

"No."

"Why not?"

"We may yet need one of these bosomy cows to foal you a son."

"I'll pick my own brides, okay?"

"How vulgar. I do not understand how this nation can survive without the blessing of arranged marriages."

"Was your marriage arranged?"

"Of course."

"Who arranged it?"

"I did."

"Isn't that against the rules?"

"Possibly. But I was never caught."

"So? What's good enough for the Reigning Master should be good enough for the Apprentice Reigning Master."

"You will never be good enough until you unlearn your white ways," Chiun said, smoothing his plumhued skirts on his lap.

The plane was delayed over an hour. The pilot came on the PA system and explained that the bombings in New York and Oklahoma City meant they were on a heightened FAA alert status and would be taking off "momentarily."

Then they did. An hour later.

SOMEWHERE OVER the Ohio Valley, the pilot came back on and drawled that their flight was diverted to Toledo because of a "minor problem."

"Great," growled Remo. "By the time we get there, Joe Camel will have blended in with the other dromedaries."

"We do not even know who we are looking for," Chiun complained, "other than a faceless camel." From a pocket, Remo brought out a folded sheet of fax paper. It was the FBI file on Yusef Gamal. It included a Wanted poster, showing a blank face with a mailman's cap on it. A nose was sketched in-very prominent but somehow, at the same time, nondescript.

"Not much to go on," Remo muttered.

"I have seen this nose," Chiun murmured. "We are seeking a cattle Arab. A bedouin. I will recognize him when we meet, rest assured."

"How a guy with a name like Joe Camel got work in the post office beats me. You'd think someone would have gotten suspicious."

"I have read that these messengers are increasingly disgruntled, Remo. Why is this?"

"Search me. The way the country is going these days, killing your boss is a form of severance benefit."

On the ground in Toledo, they were put off the plane. Only then did it get out that a mail-bomb threat had been called against their flight.

A new plane was rolled up to the gate while the old one sat on a side runway being searched by ATF agents wearing blue bomb-disposal bunny suits.

While they were waiting to board, a flight from Oklahoma City landed. Remo noticed it and said, "You know, if I were Joe Camel, I'd be on the first flight out of town."

"You are correct, Remo. Let us quietly observe those who emerge from the aircraft. Perhaps our keen eyes will detect the one we seek."

At first it seemed like an ordinary crowd of people. Finally the last man stepped off the jetway. He wore the severe black of a Hasidic Jew.

"Well, I guess Camel wasn't on that flight," said Remo.

"None of those were cattle Arabs," Chiun agreed. As they watched the crowd disperse, a high voice floated above the airport murmur.

Remo tracked the commotion with his ears, his eye falling almost automatically on two men walking out of the airport gesturing animatedly and arguing at the top of their lungs. One was the Hasidic Jew, and the other was a red-haired man who had been waiting in the crowd.

"Listen, Remo," Chiun said quietly.

"To what? I can't understand a word"

"That man is speaking Arabic."

"Yeah? What's he saying?"

"He is calling the other man a Jew."

"The guy in black?"

"The Hasid, yes. The other is reviling him for being a Jew."

"Well, he is, isn't he?"

"Yes, but the way the man is speaking, it is a curse, not a compliment."

"That redheaded guy doesn't look Arabic to me."

"He is not. He is an Egyptian, tainted by Crusader blood."

"Well, he can't be our man. He didn't get off the Oklahoma plane."

Chiun's eyes narrowed. Then the pair disappeared out the door.

Their new flight was called, and they were soon back aboard. With a sinking feeling, Remo noticed that the first-class stewardess from the last flight was now a coach stewardess on this one.

"I have a message from the Japanese tourist in first class," she purred, speaking to Remo and Chiun at once.

"I do not wish to hear it," said Chiun.

Addressing Remo, she said, "To you, he said, Domo arrigato."

"That means 'thank you,'" translated Chiun.

"And to you he said ... " She lowered her voice, whispering a single word.

"What! He said that! To me!"

"Take it easy, Chiun. Simmer down. What'd he say?"

"It is an insult."

"Fine. You were insulted. Take it easy. I'd like to get to Oklahoma City without being held up on murder charges."

"Yes, but only because the needs of the Emperor demand it, do I endure such abuse."

Halfway to Oklahoma City, Remo turned to the Master of Sinanju and asked, "So, fess up. What'd he say?"

Chiun made a distasteful face.

"It is a very grave insult Japanese fling at one another. I am astonished that jokabare would have the temerity to cast it at me."

"Okay, so what's it mean?"

"'Your honorable self."'

Remo blinked. "That sounds like a compliment to me."

"It is not. It is very sarcastic and insulting, coming as it does from Japanese lips."

Remo shrugged. "If you say so."

"You do not understand the Japanese mind, Remo. They live out their lives in terrible frustration because they know they can never be Korean. It grates upon them."

"Must be hard," Remo said dryly.

Chiun nodded. "On the way out, I will get him back."

"Listen, it was bad enough you jammed his film down his throat. Just leave it alone."

"I will call him an even worse name," Chiun confided.

"Like what?"

Chiun rattled off a mouthful of Japanese Remo couldn't sort out into consonants or vowels. "What's that mean?"

"'Your mother's belly button pokes out.'"

"Your mother is an outie?"

"It is a very bad thing to say to a Japanese." Remo swallowed his emerging smile.

"It's your neck. If you want to stick it out like that, go ahead. Let's hope he doesn't go postal."

"I do not understand this going postal. This disgruntledness. Why is this, Remo?"

"Maybe if we finally get to the Oklahoma City post office, we'll both know."

THE OKLAHOMA CITY post office still bore a few scars from the 1995 explosion of the Alfred P. Murrah building only a few blocks away, Remo saw as the cab dropped them off. At the same time, another cab dropped off a petite blond woman clutching an oversize shoulder bag. She hurried into the building, looking as if witches were chasing her.

"Behold, Remo-a postal worker."

"How can you tell?"

"Observe the frightened cast of the face, the nervous, erratic gestures. This one is clearly on the verge of posting someone or something."

"You mean going postal, and I think she's just in a hurry, Little Father."

As they were going in, the blond woman suddenly came spilling out. She did not look happy.

One heel caught on a step, and she went pitching forward. Remo caught her. And caught a clear look at her delicate-featured face.

"Don't I know you?" Remo asked, setting her on her feet.

She shook her blond shag, and every hair fell back into place as if individually trained.

"No. You never saw me before," she said distractedly. She avoided their eyes guiltily.

Remo looked closely. "I know that voice."

"I'm not from around here."

"I, too, recognize the voice," said Chiun, stroking his beard thoughtfully.

They studied her thin face, her sassy blond shag and red lips. Her nose was perfect, her complexion almost golden. She had the bluest eyes Remo had ever seen.

"You can let go now," she told Remo, pulling away. A pouty lilt in her voice struck Remo's ear.

"Tamayo Tanaka!" he exploded.

"Who?" the woman said.

"Cut the crap," snapped Remo. "I know that voice."

"Yes," added Chiun. "You are Tamayo Tanaka, and you have turned white."

"Shh. Okay, okay. You got me. I'm on undercover assignment."

"In Oklahoma City? You're a Boston reporter."

"The station sent me to New York City to cover the bombings there, and I made the connection with the courtroom shooting, so I came here. I'm the only reporter covering both angles of the story."

"What is wrong with your eyes?" Chiun asked.

"Nothing."

"They are round. Tamayo Tanaka possesses Japanese eyes."

"Oh, that. Don't tell anyone. But this is my undercover disguise. I dab this gel at the corners of my eyes, and when it dries it stretches them so they look round. But we'll let that be our little secret, okay?"

"You are mad," Chiun retorted. "You are not a Japanese who has turned white! You are a white that has turned Japanese! Why would anyone in their right mind seek to appear so?"

Tamayo Tanaka suddenly wore the look of a trapped animal. Her blue eyes looked in both directions as if seeking the safest escape route.

"I categorically deny being white," she said. "I'm not ashamed of being white-if I was, you understand, which I'm not-but I'm Japanese. Really."

"You're white," Remo insisted.

"And yellow haired," added Chiun.

"Dye," Tamayo said stubbornly as her face reddened.

"I see no roots," said Chiun.

"Okay, okay. Since this isn't my market, what's the difference? My maternal grandmother was one-eighth Japanese. I have a little Japanese blood in me. Enough to get a job in broadcast journalism. I was going nowhere as a blonde."

"Tell that to Diane Sawyer," grunted Remo.

"She made it before Asian anchors became de rigueur," Tamayo spat.

"Looks like it's not working for you today."

"The postmaster is stonewalling. No one is allowed in or out until coffee break is over. Have you ever heard of a post office being shut down for a coffee break? It's a cover-up."

"What about the mail?" asked Remo.

"Get real. Have you ever sent a videotape overnight with these people? You'll be lucky to see it within four days. And those three-day priority mail packages? Five to seven days minimum. Unless it's across town, then add an extra weekend. They don't even try to move mail across town on deadline."

"Come on, Little Father. Let's look into this."

"Take this in?" Tamayo asked, hefting her shoulder bag. "My undercover camera's inside. Oh, and my concealed mike. Turn around while I unhook my audio bra rig."

"Forget it," said Remo, brushing past her.

There was a uniformed security guard at the door, and he took up a position blocking the lobby, hand on holstered side arm. He might have been guarding Fort Knox from his cold expression.

"We're on break," the guard said flatly.

"You're not," Remo responded.

"I'm on duty."

"How would you like to be on break?" asked Remo.

"I must ask you to turn around and wait until the doors open again," the guard said stonily.

"They're open. See," said Remo, whose hands blurred toward the guard's gun belt, took hold and spun him around. The gun belt broke at its weakest link-the buckle-and the guard went spinning down the steps to land in a sprawl.

Remo shut the door in his face. Tamayo's face, too. She dropped to one knee and, ripping open her blouse like Clark Kent turning into Superman, said, "Look directly at my cleavage and tell me why this facility is on lock down."

GIRDING HIS PLUMMY SKIRTS, the Master of Sinanju put on a stern face and said, "We must prepare ourselves to enter the domain of the disgruntled."

"I don't think we're going to have any problem," said Remo.

They pushed open the inner doors to the service area and were surprised at the color. The walls were all a very bright pink.

"Someone should talk to the painter," Remo grunted, looking around. "Looks like Zsa Zsa Gabor's bedroom."

The teller windows were empty. But from the back, the aroma of fresh-brewed coffee wafted, and they heard a low, musical humming floating out.

"Sounds like a coffee commercial filming back there," said Remo. Looking around, he spotted the door that said Manager.

"Let's see the guy in charge."

The manager was working the telephone when they barged in. He looked up like a schoolboy who had been surprised picking his nose.

"Who are you?" he demanded.

"Postal inspector," said Remo. "In a T-shirt?"

"Undercover. This is my partner, who's in deep cover."

Chiun bowed, saying, "The Japanese display my picture in all of their postal offices."

The manager sat back down. "The PG send you?"

"Could be," said Remo, who had no idea who the PG was.

"I think I've got everything under control here. They're on emergency sanity-maintainance coffee break now."

"They sounded pretty happy about it."

"Were they... singing?"

"Sounded like humming to me."

"My God. It works. I've got to see this."

They followed the postal manager to the back room, where canvas mail sacks were stretched on old metal frames, mail sat in pink pigeonholes and the entire sorting staff of the Oklahoma city post office lounged about drinking coffee and singing Barry Manilow songs.

"They always this chipper?" asked Remo.

"It's the Prozac in the coffee," the manager confided. "It kicked in like an adrenaline rush."

"You spiked their coffee?"

"I did not. This is USPS-issue coffee rations, laid in for psychological contingencies on orders from the PG himself." He lowered his voice. "Never thought I'd have to deploy it, though."

"What's it doing to them?"

"Prozac raises the serotonin levels."

"What's serotonin?" asked Remo.

"Some kind of soothing chemical produced in the brain, as I hear it. I'm exempt from drinking the stuff. Someone's gotta keep a clear head."

Evidently they were overheard, because one of the postal workers started to improvise a little ditty. "Serotonin, Serotonin, Dormez-vous, Dormez-vous?" The others joined in.

"Sonnez tes matines!

Sonnez les matines!

Mailman mood.

Mailman mood."

As they launched into their second chorus, Remo pulled out the blank FBI picture of Yusef Gamal and said, "We need you to fill in the blanks on this guy."

"You got the hat right. In fact, it's perfect."

"Thanks," Remo said dryly. "What about the face?"

"Joe only worked here about a year, all told. I don't remember the color of his eyes. Not sure about his hair. He had a pretty ordinary mouth, too."

"In other words, nada."

"Well, he did have what you'd call a pronounced beak. Not like this one here, though."

"Like a falcon or an eagle?" squeaked Chiun.

"More like a camel, actually. It wasn't sharp. It was more bulbous."

From a sleeve of his kimono, the Master of Sinanju extracted a folded sheet of paper, unfolded it delicately and held it up to the postal manager's eyes. "Such as this?" he asked.

"You know, I never noticed the resemblance before, but that's a right good one. Except for skin color. He was pretty white."

"What's this?" asked Remo, stepping around. Chiun directed the fluttering sheet of colored paper toward him. It was a cigarette ad, Remo saw. He blinked. Then blinked again.

"He looked like Joe Camel?" Remo blurted.

"Yes. More or less."

"What do you mean, more or less?"

"More the nose, less everything else."

"You had a postal worker named Joe Camel who looked like the cigarette character Joe Camel, and when the FBI asked you and your people to describe him all you came up with was a cap?"

"The PG asked us to cooperate as narrowly as possible."

"Let me ask you something. Did this Joe Camel look Middle Eastern or talk with an accent?"

"Sure, he talked funny. He was from New Jersey. They all talk funny out that way."

"But did he look Middle Eastern?"

"No, he looked Jewish. But so do a lot of folks from Jersey."

"Spoken like an Okie from Muskogee," said Remo. "What happens when they find Camel?"

"Not my concern. They always find these canceled stamps with a gun in their mouths. My job is to keep the others from going berserk."

Remo eyed the still-singing postal workers. They were doing a barbershop-quartet rendition of "Please, Mr. Postman" that got so hopelessly mangled in the third verse they gave up and picked up "Take a Letter, Maria" in midchorus.

"Hardly any chance of that now," Remo commented.

"Thank God."

"Getting the mail out will be interesting," added Remo, watching a mail sorter dive in a canvas-sided mail cart and start snoring "The Serotonin Song."

"Mail? We can always deliver the mail somewhere down the road. Preserving service cohesion is the priority today."

"Where does Gamal live?" Remo asked the postal manager.

"Over in Moore. You can't miss the place. FBI has it staked out like an anthill."

"Thanks," said Remo, walking out to the strains of "Message from Michael" as paper airplanes made from undelivered mail crisscrossed the air.

OUTSIDE they were followed by Tamayo Tanaka, who demanded, "What did you find out?"

"Prozac is good for the nerves," grunted Remo.

"I take Zoloft," Tamayo said, "It's great. Not only do I wake up humming, but I have daily bowel movements."

"Good for you."

"Begone, rice-for-brains. We are busy," said Chiun. "We could share information."

"What makes you think we have information?"

"You guys are up to something. I can smell intrigue a mile away. Let's pool our facts."

"You first," said Chiun.

"Postal workers go nuts in two states. It's the beginning of the psychological disintegration of the whole postal system."

"What makes you say that?"

"I'm a psycho-journalist. Dual major. Psychology and communications, with a minor in cultural anthropology."

"Sounds like a career strategy," Remo said. Tamayo yanked a green-covered book from her big hag.

"This is your basic psychiatric-case-study book. Tells everything you need to know about any kind of psychotic and how to diagnose him. With this, I was able to discover the deepest, darkest secrets of the postal service."

They looked at her.

"It's just riddled with psychotics," hissed Tamayo.

"Where do you get that?" demanded Remo.

"From this book. According to this, psychotics are drawn to regimented and highly structured environments. Like the police, the military and the post office."

"Yeah?"

"These guys all look, act and behave normally. Until you hit their specific area of paranoia. Then they go off. We psych majors call them land-mine personalities because they suffer from explosive personality disorder. Say an ordinary postal worker is on his rounds and he keeps stepping in dog pooh. It can happen once in a blue moon, and he'd be okay. But when it happens every week over three months, then, say, every two weeks, and then one day he steps in two different dog turds. Snap! Just like that, he suffers a psychotic break. Completely decompensates. Grabs up his trusty shotgun and blows away all his coworkers."

"Why not shoot dogs?" Remo wondered aloud.

"Because he's a postal worker, and once they go off, all rationality flies out the window. Don't you watch the news?"

"Sounds farfetched," said Remo, looking around for a pay phone.

"Did you know that Son of Sam was a postal worker?"

"I think I heard that."

"And that creepy fat guy on 'Seinfeld,' he's a postal worker, too."

"That isn't reality."

"And Son of Sam was? The man took his orders from a dog that wasn't even his. Think of it. The way they run the postal service these days, they're practically breeding Son of Sams. If America doesn't get a grip on the mail system, we could all be massacred. Is that a story or what?"

"It's a load of crap."

"Yes," said Chiun, "it is bullock manure. You are speaking idiocy. None of these things explain what has happened."

"Then you explain it," retorted Tamayo.

"Muhammadans have-"

"Don't say it, Chiun-" Remo warned.

"-infiltrated the post office."

"Muhammadans? What are they?"

"For us to know and you to find out," said Remo, pulling the Master of Sinanju away.

Down the street, Remo found a pay phone. "Did you have to spill the beans?" he complained.

Chiun composed his expression. "They are true beans. Why should I not spill them?"

"We don't want her to cause a nationwide panic by going on the air with that story."

"Why would Muhammadans cause more panic than gruntless mailmen?"

"Actually it might cause less," Remo admitted. "But we don't want to blow our investigation." Dialing Folcroft, Remo got Smith on the line. "Smitty, you'll never believe this. The local post office is feeding its employees Prozac to calm them down. They got the walls painted pink, too. And we know how that works."

"What about Joe Camel?" asked Smith.

"Can your computers take that blank face and superimpose another? Kinda morph them into a human face?"

"Yes."

"Good. Take one of those Joe Camel cigarette ads, paste the camel's face into the blank spot, then try to make him look as human as you can"

The line was dead for possibly fifteen seconds. "That is not funny," Smith said tartly.

"And I am not joking. We showed the blank FBI poster to the local postal manager, and all he could remember was that the guy had a nose like a camel. That was when Chiun whipped out a magazine, and the manager said-I swear to God-'That's him.' Hey, Chiun, where'd you get that ad anyway?"

"From a magazine on the airplane."

"Are you telling me that Yusef Gamal looks like the Joe Camel of the cigarette advertisements?" Smith asked.

"At least close enough to give us something to work with. Try what I said and give it to the FBI. How's it going on your end?"

"I have alerted FBI branch offices to the identities and whereabouts of the other conspirators on the Gates of Paradise bulletin board. The roundup has begun."

"How'd you find them so quick?"

"Their Gates of Paradise user names turn out to be the names by which they are operating in this country."

"Yeah ... ?"

"Most of them are listed in their local phone directories," added Smith.

Remo grunted. "Sounds like the World Trade Center screwups all over again."

"We cannot underestimate these people," Smith warned.

"Think picking them up will be as simple as that?"

"We can only hope."

Just then a single beep came over the line.

"Hold the line, please," said Smith, his voice turning tense. Remo recognized the sound of Smith's computer issuing a warning bulletin.

Smith's tone was urgent when it came back. "Remo, it appears that we have something. A SWAT team has cornered one of the suspect terrorists near the South Postal Annex in Boston. The man is up on the roof of South Station and will not come down. He is heavily armed."

"Can't they just pick him off?"

"That is what I am afraid of. I do not want him picked off before he can talk. We need to know who controls this terror group. You and Chiun fly to Boston."

"Let's hope we'll be on time," Remo said.

"His name is Mohamet Ali."

"No kidding. What do we do with him after we're done squeezing out information?"

"If the roundup goes well, his usefulness will be over once he talks," Smith said coldly.

Chapter 18

The mosque was a pristine vision of white stone capped by an alabaster dome. Two lofty minarets lifted to the heathen, unclean sky of Greenburg, Ohio. Mosaic tiles trimmed its supreme beauty.

All this, Yusef Gamal saw as the Egyptian who was tainted with Crusader blood and might or might not be a secret Copt drove him up the winding access road.

The road was immaculate. All was immaculate. There was only one strange thing.

The mosque appeared empty of all life. No garden­ers tended the green grounds. No light showed any­where, though it was growing dusky. It might have been deserted.

And there was something else, which Yusef could not put his finger on. It was there, but it was hidden. It was palpable, but it was also ineffable.

"What is this place called?"

"Al-Bahlawan Mosque," he was told.

"A good name."

"An Islamic name," the red Egyptian agreed as the car rolled to a stop and it was time to get out.

"Why have I not heard of this mosque?"

"You will be told this." "This is the greatest, most magnificent mosque in all of Christendom," Yusef marveled. "I have never seen its equal outside of the Holy Land."

"It is not a place of worship," Jihad Jones snapped.

"Is it not a mosque? Does it not possess magnifi­cent minarets pointing the way to Paradise?"

"Yes, yes."

"Then why is Allah not worshiped within? Tell me this."

"I need tell you nothing, Jew. Except that Allah is served in other fashions by this mosque."

And because he never again wanted to be called a Jew by a man he suspected of being a Copt, Yusef Gamal ceased his questions. He was becoming very thin-skinned about this Jewish question. Also his side- lock-festooned wig itched, and he desired to remove the entire despised costume.

Inside, there was more magnificence. Arabesques. High ceilings. The clean smell Yusef always associ­ated with the mosques of his homeland. Except here the smell was somehow... dead.

After they had removed their shoes and performed the ritual washing, they were greeted by Sargon, the Persian aide to the Deaf Mullah.

"As-salamu 'alaykum.' "

"Peace be upon you," they returned in respectful Arabic.

"You are expected, for you have done well."

Yusef turned on the Egyptian, Jihad Jones. "See? I have done well. I am not to be killed."

"My cousin's carnage was better than your car­nage," the other sneered. "And my carnage will ex­ceed his." "My carnage is not yet complete. You will see. The Deaf Mullah has further work for me."

"He has further work for both of you," said Sargon the Persian.

"If I am to meet the Deaf Mullah, I must rid my­self of these offensive garments," Yusef protested.

"Proper attire awaits both of you," said Sargon.

Yusef did not know what this meant. Jihad Jones looked down at his own Western clothes and looked vaguely embarrassed.

"What is wrong with my attire?" he wondered aloud.

"It is unsuitable for the work that lies ahead of you."

"He means you dress like a Cross-worshiper," Yu­sef sneered.

"I spit upon you and your lies!"

But to himself, Yusef only smiled. He had gotten under the Egyptian's thick red skin.

In a chamber that looked as antiseptic as a hospital operating room, they were given strange garments of one piece. They were green, and the Western-style fly zipped up from crotch to collar.

"See?" said Yusef, pointing proudly. "This is an Arab's fly. For my tool is an Arab's tool."

'' My fly is also large,'' Jihad Jones protested.

"It is not the same as having a large tool. Obvi­ously your fly is only a disguise to convince unbeliev­ers you are not Egyptian."

And so angered did Jihad Jones become that he whipped out his tool to prove the lie to Yusef's words. Yusef met his thrust with a matching one of his own.

"I win," said the Egyptian.

"Only because you have coaxed its girth by rub­bing," Yusef accused.

"This is its natural size."

"And you are a natural liar!"

Sargon barked, "Enough! Zip your flies and your mouths both. The Deaf Mullah awaits."

In silence, they donned black boots and were given green checkered kaffiyehs to wear around their necks.

Yusef looked his kaffiyeh over, very pleased with its length. It would be large enough to conceal his offensive-to-Muslims nose. This was good. Perhaps now he would obtain respect from this penis-envying Egyp­tian.

They were taken to a room where the air was cool and the light was weak. It was guarded within and without by burly Afghan warriors who held AK-47 rifles, while curved scimitars were thrust into the sashes of their native costumes. They stood like fierce statues whose eyes were black points of malevolence.

"Mujahideen from the Afghan organization called Taliban," Sargon explained.

Yusef nodded. "Taliban" meant "Seekers of the Light." Such men as these had broken the back of the Russian Bear.

The Deaf Mullah sat in the chevron-shaped niche behind a partition of wavery green glass the color of the Red Sea in fall.

At their approach, he lifted his ear trumpet and placed it against his right ear, a pale, wavering shadow.

"As-salamu'alaykum, my shuhada," the Deaf One intoned.

Yusef Gamal and Jihad Jones knelt on the rugs that were placed before the Deaf Mullah for that purpose,

their hearts quickening. They had been called shuhada, a title bequeathed only on martyrs en route to Paradise.

"You have done Allah's good work," the Deaf Mullah added.

"Thank you, Amir al-mu'minin,'' they said in uni­son, using the preferred honorific meaning "Com­mander of the Faithful."

"But there is work yet to be done."

"I am ready," said Jihad Jones.

"I am more ready than this dog," Yusef spat.

"We will have peace in this place of peace while we talk of the destruction of this corrupt and infidel na­tion."

Yusef composed himself, resting his hands on his knees. Jihad Jones did the same, but Yusef saw with ill-concealed satisfaction that his posture was poor.

"Today we have restored the fear of Allah into the heart of the godless nation. This is good. Yet it is but the beginning."

They nodded. These were true words. The Deaf Mullah continued.

"Greater than the fear of jihad is the shadow of what the West calls the Islamic bomb. Long have they feared it. Great is their dread of it. But until this hour, there has been no such thing. It is only a jinni of smoke invoked to frighten the Western mind."

Yusef and Jihad Jones exchanged startled glances.

"Yes, I see it in your faces. It is too good, too won­derful to fall truly upon your believing ears. But it is true. While the Western intelligence organs chase Germans and Poles and Russian scientists, seeking to interdict the forbidden knowledge that will bless Is­lam with the might to enforce its will through peace

and terror, we have in this place, in the heartland of the infidel nation, developed a true Islamic bomb."

The silence hung in the cool air a long moment.

"For months it has brooded in a secret silence, only awaiting what some call a delivery system. This, too, has been created."

"A delivery system, Holy One?" asked Jihad Jones.

"A missile. The greatest missile in the history of the world."

"It is gigantic?" Yusef queried.

"Long as the tallest minaret. As formidable as—"

"As my Egyptian tool," said Jihad Jones boast­fully.

"I will wager it more properly resembles my tool," Yusef insisted.

"You will soon judge for yourself," intoned the Deaf Mullah from behind the green-as-water glass screen. "For you have been chosen as pilot-martyrs."

And in the cool silence of the al-Bahlawan Mosque, Yusef Gamal and Jihad Jones exchanged pleased ex­pressions.

They were going to die.

It was what they had lived for.

Chapter 19

Ibrahim Suleiman, known to the Chicago post office as Ibrahim Lincoln, awoke to the four-times-repeated cry "Allahu Akbar" coming from his always-running personal computer.

Rising from his bed in his nightshirt, he scratched his beard as he padded barefoot in answer to the sum­mons to the dawn prayer. It was afternoon, but since he worked the night shift he was allowed to say the dawn prayer in place of the afternoon prayer and so on all through the day.

The prayer rag faced Mecca. He knelt upon it for many thoughtful minutes.

His prayer done, he sat himself before the terminal whose screen was as green as the walls of his home. He loved green. Not only was it the color of Islam, but it was the perfect antidote to the pink walls of his place of work, which quelled the Islamic fervor in his heart.

Accessing the Gates of Paradise bulletin board, he found he had mail. It was from the Deaf Mullah. Ibrahim's heart skipped a beat.

For the message was tagged The Ordained Hour.

Calling up the message, he read it with avid eyes.

My shahid, the day you are fated to enter Para­dise has come. Execute the task as instructed.

Make no mistakes, for you are blessed by Allah and guaranteed entry into Paradise for your holy sacrifice, which as a True Believer you know to be no sacrifice at all.

Il- Ya Islam!

Clapping his hands with joy, Ibrahim Lincoln shut down his system for the last time and went to the basement of his home.

There, the great plastic drums were ready. He be­gan filling them with the ammonia-and-fertilizer mix­ture to create the powerful bombs that would catapult him into the arms of his allotment of seventy-two houris. The mixture required constant thickening, but Ibrahim had foreseen that.

Going to the corner, he pulled out a dirty canvas mail bag by its ropelike drawstring and dragged it to the cluster of containers.

Opening it, he lifted the bag with some difficulty, but once he had it in place at the plastic lip, was re­warded by a cascade of old junk mail.

It was ironic, Ibrahim thought, that the very mail he had been entrusted to deliver would intermingle with the witch's brew destined to destroy the post office from where it originated.

It was a very simple operation. The Chicago post office had been built over the eight lanes of the Con­gress Parkway. It would not even be necessary to crash the mail van into the building itself. Only to stop it at the point on the expressway directly beneath.

The resulting explosion was calculated to lift the grim ten-story building off its support columns and send the broken fragments raining down upon eight lanes of rush-hour traffic.

Raining down upon Ibrahim Lincoln, too, but this was necessary to prevent the spread of what the Deaf Mullah decried as Westoxification. And the blood of the infidel was lawful. For it was written in the Koran that Allah does not love the unbeliever, and further, that idolatry is worse than carnage.

It would be terrible, yes, but making widows and orphans was necessary in order to establish a pure Is­lamic theocracy upon the ashes of the United States. Besides, Ibrahim Lincoln would be spared the terrible sights and sounds of the dead and maimed because the explosion would catapult him into the waiting arms of the eternal virgins promised to him.

He hoped at least one of them had an oral fixation. Neither of his wives would do this for him, never mind spitting afterward.

Ibrahim Lincoln was contemplating his posthu­mous sex life when feet pounded down the stairs. The door was thrown open and he was thrown to the floor by a thick wave of men.

One knelt on his back while others pointed guns at him.

"Ibrahim Lincoln?"

"Yes, that is I."

"You are under arrest for the crime of sedition and waging a terroristic campaign against the United States."

"Does this carry the death penalty?" he asked un­happily.

"You bet it does."

"It is not as good as victory, but it is better than nothing," he said as they cuffed him and dragged him to his feet.

Chapter 20

"I am to be martyred?" Yusef Gamal exclaimed.

"You are both to be martyred," the Deaf Mullah explained in his sweet-as-raisin-tea Persian voice. He was a dappled shadow behind the green glass parti­tion.

The last echoes of his words reverberated in the great al-Bahlawan Mosque in Greenburg, Ohio, be­fore a new sound stirred the dead air.

"I will go first," said Jihad Jones.

"No, I will."

The Deaf Mullah raised a quelling hand. "You will both go together through the true gates of Paradise."

Jihad Jones flared like a struck match. "With this Jew? Never!"

"I would sooner lose half my allotment of houris," spat Yusef.

"Allah has willed that you do this, and you will," intoned the Deaf Mullah.

"If Allah wills it, then I will do it," swore Yusef.

Jihad Jones made his face resolute. "Yes. If Allah wills that I have to die in the company of a Jew, then it cannot be avoided. My only solace is that the gates of Paradise will shut behind me and pinch cruelly the Hebrew nose that thinks it will follow me." "This is an Arabian nose. You wish you possessed a nose as mighty as mine."

"I would rather have a mighty tool than a mighty nose. The houris will not supplicate themselves be­fore a mere nose."

"Even with only my nostrils, I could pleasure a thousand times a thousand houri," Yusef hissed. "You could not do it if Allah himself blessed your limp Egyptian tool."

"Do not invoke Allah in such a disrespectful man­ner," the Deaf Mullah snapped. "It is improper."

Yusef subsided.

"You will both be trained to pilot the Fist of Allah, which is the name we have given to the missile that will punish the city we failed to punish before," the Deaf Mullah told them.

"I am ready," said Yusef.

"As am I," swore Jihad Jones.

"You are neither trained nor ready to pilot the Fist of Allah," returned the Deaf Mullah. "Only to die."

"That is what I meant," said Yusef.

"That is what I said, in truth," Jihad Jones added.

"Be patient. Martyrdom will both be yours. But first we must make demands upon the infidel na­tion."

"Let us demand they exile the Jews, starting with this fool," Jihad Jones suggested fiercely, digging a green elbow into Yusef s unprotected side.

"Better that we demand the unbelievers refer to us as Muslims, not Moslems. I rankle every time this is done. We Muslims are not cruel. We only seek to convert the godless and crush all who resist Islam."

The Deaf Mullah shook his ear trumpet angrily. "Silence! We will first make a demand of the Ameri­can President."

"He is stubborn."

"But also very weak. And vacillating."

"We will make a demand to show that we have de­mands. Either they will meet this demand or they will not. If they do not, we will launch the Fist of Allah at the heart of their power."

"And if they do?" Yusef wondered aloud.

"Then we will make another demand, and if they fail to meet this demand, the Fist of Allah will come hurtling into their deepest heart."

"And if they meet this second demand?" asked Yusef.

"Then we will make demand upon demand until we finally demand the impossible," the Deaf Mullah said. "In the end, the Fist of Allah will strike because that is why it exists. To strike. And punish."

"Where is the Fist of Allah?" asked Yusef.

"In a secret place not far from here. You will see it when you have completed your training as pilot- martyrs."

"I live to die!" shouted Yusef.

"I will not be content to die once, but many times for the glory of Islam!" Jihad Jones howled.

"You will die at the appointed hour. First you will train."

His brow furrowing with worry, Yusef raised his hand.

"Will we have to take a test this time?"

The Deaf Mullah shook his bearded head. "No written examination."

"Good. I do not like written examinations."

"There will be no examinations. They are not re­quired by Allah in this thrice-blessed enterprise."

Yusef raised his hand again. "Is cheating al­lowed?"

"Not in this enterprise."

"Oh," said Yusef Gamal, who hoped he could get by without cheating. He very much wanted to die. For he could not endure the thought of his allotment of houris pining away in Paradise without him, unkissed and uncaressed.

Chapter 21

The flight back to Boston left the gate on schedule, lifted off on schedule and made excellent time to Lo­gan airport.

Over Pennsylvania, the aircraft started its descent, and Remo heard the pilot promise an early arrival.

"We're going to crash," Remo told the Master of Sinanju.

"Why do you say this?" asked Chiun, quickly checking the aluminum wing outside his window for signs of structural weakness.

"On-time performance never happens anymore. God is trying to make our last hours on earth very special."

"Then why does He thrust stewardesses in your face at every turn?"

"He's thinking of the old Remo. In the old days, I never turned down an available stewardess."

"This was before the boon of Sinanju, of course."

"Yeah. Back when I was a cop, stewardesses hardly ever looked twice."

"And now you have them in abundance when you do not wish them. Is life not unfair?"

"Life is very unfair," agreed Remo.

"Therefore, we will not crash," said Chiun, set­tling the matter.

Over Rhode Island, Tamayo Tanaka came out of first class and hurried to a rear rest room, carrying a makeup case. She pointedly ignored them.

"I can't believe that's the same woman on Channel 4," Remo remarked.

"I cannot believe any white woman would lower herself the way that one does."

"When did white people slip beneath Japanese on the Korean evolutionary scale?''

The Master of Sinanju lifted his jade-capped index finger. "Since I was reduced to wearing this orna­ment."

Tamayo hogged the rest room for nearly half an hour, and when she came back up the aisle she was dabbing some shiny, slick stuff at the comers of her eyes, which were now as slanted as almonds. Her skin tone was now a dusky ivory, her lips very red.

"Don't look now, but Tamayo just turned Japa­nese."

"The brazen hussy. Look at her flaunt her false Japaneseness."

"Takes all kinds."

The 727 landed approximately twenty-two minutes early. Deplaning, Remo said, "I'll bet Smith pulled some strings with the FAA to get us here this fast."

There was no sign of Tamayo Tanaka in the airport waiting area. Downstairs the cabstand was backed up, so the Master of Sinanju simply went to the head of the line and stepped into the back of the next taxi to

go.

Shrugging, Remo followed.

"Hey! You can't do that!" a familiar voice com­plained.

And to their dismay, Tamayo Tanaka hopped in with them. "Two can play this game," she said.

"You people all together?" the cabbie demanded through the cloudy Plexiglas partition.

"Yes," said Tamayo.

"No!" snapped Chiun.

"Maybe," said Remo, who alone understood that time was of the essence. "We're going to the main post office."

"South Postal Annex? Where that nut is holding the FBI off?"

"That's where I'm going, too," said Tamayo.

That was enough for the cabbie. He shot out from the curb.

In traffic, Tamayo pulled a cell phone from her purse and called her station.

"I'm almost to the Sumner Tunnel. Be at South Station in ten minutes. What's the latest?"

Remo and Chiun listened in.

"They've still got him treed on top of South Sta­tion, Tammy," a voice said.

"Tammy?" said Remo.

"Shh," Tamayo hissed, turning toward the car window. "Is he saying anything?"

"Only that he's disgruntled."

"Maybe I can talk him down."

"If you can, you're better than the FBI Violent Postal Worker Task Force."

"See you in ten," said Tamayo, clicking off.

"Violent Postal Worker Task Force?" said Remo as Tamayo shoved her cell phone into her purse.

"It's new."

"It's an idea whose time has come, I guess," said Remo.

"Are you two going to tell me who you're with?"

"Fraudulent Japanese Squad," sniffed Chiun. "We are new, too."

"There's no law against coaxing a person's reces­sive genes to the surface."

"There should be," said Chiun. "Christmas cake."

"Christmas cake?" Remo said.

"It is what one calls a Japanese woman who is not married by a certain age, Remo. A very deep insult, which is lost upon this imposter."

"I don't know why you're being so peppery," Ta- mayo said. "You and my maternal grandmother could be related."

Chiun made a shocked O with his papyrus lips. "Remo, I have been insulted."

"Inadvertently," said Remo.

"Stop this vehicle and deposit this tart-tongued witch."

"No time."

"Then I am getting out," Chiun snapped, grasping the door handle and opening the door a crack.

Reaching over, Remo pulled it shut again. "For Christ's sake, we're almost there."

And then they were there. Because of the crowds, the cab had to drop them off at Atlantic Avenue near the tall aluminum washboard that was the Federal Reserve Building.

It was dusk now. State-police helicopters criss­crossed the sky. Searchlights made hot circles in the ornate sandstone facade of Boston's South Station at the intersection of Atlantic and Summer Street. As they got out, one light fell upon the big green copper- faced clock, which showed exactly 8:22, and then moved up to the resting stone eagle at the roof comb.

A huddled figure in blue and gray withdrew from the light, slipping behind one outstretched stone wing.

"Looks like our man," said Remo.

Chiun nodded. "It will not be a simple thing to capture him living."

"Not with all these witnesses. Let's check in with Smith."

Remo was about to start off when the cabbie de­manded his fare.

"Here's our share," said Remo, handing over a twenty.

"I'll need the other one's share, too."

Remo looked around. "Where'd she go?"

"Took off."

"How about that, Chiun? Tammy stiffed us for cab fare."

"We will have our revenge on her and all of her blood," Chiun vowed.

"Not over a twenty," said Remo, handing over an­other bill.

At a pay phone, Remo checked in with Harold Smith. "Smitty, he's still up on the train-station roof."

"I know. I am monitoring the situation."

"It looks like a parade route here. And that's not counting the FBI, police and media. Any sugges­tions?"

"According to early reports, the terrorist escaped through the rear exit of the South Postal Annex to the train terminal. From there, he was pursued to the roof."

"Ever hear of the FBI Violent Postal Worker Task Force?"

"Are you making this up?"

"I hear they're trying to talk him down." "They will fail. They are dealing with a hardened terrorist, not a disgruntled postal worker."

"We go in with all these TV cameras, and we'll be all over the evening news."

"Try the rear route."

"Why not?" said Remo, hanging up.

Skirting Summer Street, they slipped to the South Postal Annex, which was still open but deserted ex­cept for a solitary mail clerk. Bypassing the lobby, they walked to the rear of the building. A short path took them to the Amtrak platforms at the rear of South Station.

They scrutinized the blank back end of South Sta­tion. Except for a few police officers preoccupied with listening to their shoulder radios, the field was clear.

"Looks like we're in luck," Remo said. "I see a couple of blind spots we can climb."

Chiun looked at his jade nail protector and made a face.

"Can you climb with that thing on?" asked Remo.

"Of course," Chiun said, his voice unconvincing.

"Maybe you should stick it in your pocket so you don't lose it."

"I have no pocket."

"Let's go, then."

Moving to a place where the rude sandstone came all the way to the ground, they started their ascent.

Remo went first. Laying his hands against the rough-textured blocks, he made his palms into shal­low suction cups. Then, moving one hand up, he got a toehold. The toe pushed him along. And his other hand suctioned a higher spot on the facade. After that, he was a silent spider moving vertically.

Chiun, following, used his fingernails to gain pur­chase, assisted by the toes of his sandals. He quickly came even with Remo. Then, in a flutter of plum- colored skirts, he pulled ahead.

"This isn't a race," hissed Remo, noticing that the Master of Sinanju had crooked the nail protector against his palm to keep it safe.

"Then you will not mind losing," Chiun retorted.

They gained the coping at the same time, slithered over and crouched down so they wouldn't be spotted by the rattling helicopters overhead.

A pair of local news helicopters orbited at a much wider periphery, obviously under orders not to ven­ture into sniper range.

Across the roof, a mailman hunkered down behind the spread-winged sandstone eagle, an Uzi cradled in one hand.

"Stay away!" he shouted at the crowd below. "I am disgruntled. I am feeling very disgruntled today. There is no telling what I am capable of in my present state of disgruntledness."

Chiun whispered, "Did you hear that, Remo? He is disgruntled."

"He's going to be a lot worse after we're done with him," Remo growled, starting forward.

They moved like two shadows, avoiding the search­lights of the hovering police choppers, pausing, re­suming, backtracking until they were almost on their quarry.

Mohamet Ali could not believe his evil luck.

He had been sorting mail in his hideous pink cubi­cle when the two Westerners with bad ties and stone faces came and announced their intentions.

"Mr. Mohamet Ali?" asked one.

"Yes. That is I."

"FBI. We need to speak to you."

Mohamet Ali froze inside. Outwardly he kept his composure. After all, these were not Muslims, but dull Westerners. It would be easy to outwit such stone- headed ones.

"I am speaking to you," he said.

"You'll have to accompany us to headquarters."

"I am very busy here. Can this not wait until I am finished for the day? The mail must go through. Do you not know this?"

"Now," said the senior of the two FBI agents.

"I must get permission from my supervisor. They are very strict about such things here."

"It's been cleared. Let's go, Mr. Ah."

They were taking no nonsense. So, containing his nervousness, Mohamet Ali shrugged and said, "If I must go with you, I must go with you—although I do not not why."

"We'll talk about it downtown."

On the way to the front exit, they walked on either side of him. They did not handcuff him. That was a mistake. For as they approached the exit, Mohamet Ali took his USPS-issue pepper spray from his pocket and turned on the man behind him.

One squirt, and the infidel's godless eyes were stung blind.

The other FBI unbeliever spun in time to accept the bitter taste of defeat in his face, as well.

Mohamet Ali left them shouting and cursing their unjust God as he returned to his work area, took up his Uzi from his locker and ran out the back door- right into the train platform as people were boarding.

His machine pistol was not noticed at first. But his blue sweater with the blue eagle of the USPS was im­mediately recognized.

The first people he encountered shrank back. A woman screamed. Someone yelled, "Look out, an­other one's gone postal!"

That was enough to start a panic.

Mohamet Ali found himself caught in a frantic boil of people, all running in different directions, includ­ing unwittingly at him.

Like a man who faces a herd of charging elephants, Mohamet Ali lifted his Uzi and triggered a stuttering skyward burst.

"Back! Back away, I tell you!"

That changed the direction of the human herd. People leaped into the empty train track bed and hunkered down.

Mohamet Ali fled into the great concourse of South Station—right into the approaching police officers.

"Stay back!" he cried. "I am disgruntled. I am very disgruntled!"

The police came to a halt, hands on service pistols.

One made calming gestures with his empty hands. "Stay cool, buddy. We won't hurt you. Just lay down your weapon. Okay?"

"I am feeling very disgruntled today. I will not lay down my weapon for any of you."

All shrank from his fearsome words.

"Look, we don't want this to get any worse than it already is."

"Then let me pass. The mail must go through. You cannot impede me, for there are laws against such things. Have you never heard of the crime of interferrag with the mail? It is federal. A federal crime— which is the worst of all."

"Gone nuts for sure," one of the policemen mut­tered.

"Let's talk about this. My name's Bob. What's yours?"

"Mohamet Ali."

One of the policemen thought this was humorous, and to be taken seriously meant survival if not es­cape, so, Mohamet Ali set the Uzi to single shot and shot him dead.

The surviving police took him very seriously after that. They tried to kill him, in fact.

Mohamet Ali threw himself behind the big glass newsstand. Firing wildly over his shoulder, he made his way to a door.

The police wanted to shoot him but did not want to shoot other people. So their shots were infrequent and futile.

Mohamet Ali ran upstairs, downstairs and every­where he ran, he found that there were U.S. police agents blocking his path of escape. From their ex­pressions, they were very frightened of him.

Somehow he found his way to the roof of South Station, where he could command all approaches.

Hours later, with night falling, Mohamet Ali still commanded his destiny—but escape was out of the question. The intersection below was filled to over­flowing with infidels of all kinds.

His only hope lay in rescue. If not, then he would martyr himself in some spectacular way designed to bring great credit to the Warriors of Allah, which was the name of his jihad cell.

The trouble was, he could think of no suitable fashion to enter the gates of Paradise, and he pos­sessed but one clip of bullets, now half-spent.

Meanwhile the criminal FBI down below kept try­ing to talk him down while news reporters shouted ex­hortations and entreaties from a distance.

"What do you want, Mr. Ah?"

"I wish to escape, fool. Is that not obvious?"

"Why do you want to escape? What do you want to escape from? Is it the pressure?"

"Yes, yes. The pressure of fools such as you."

"Talk to me about the pressure, Mohamet. What is it that's made you unhappy. Can you articulate it?"

"No, I cannot. It is unspeakable!"

"Nothing is so bad it can't be talked about. Come on, fella. Let it all come spilling out. You'll feel bet­ter."

Mohamet Ali considered these words. And angling the Uzi around the great decorative stone eagle, shot the fool dead.

After that, they did not try to talk him down. They pulled back and attempted to wait him out.

Infidels began calling for him to jump to his doom. It was a thought. But because infidels desired it, he would refuse their enticing entreaties.

At the hour when Mohamet Ah realized his best option was to suck on the erupting barrel of his own Uzi, his weapon was forcibly extracted from his hands.

Ah was stuck in his crouch, trying to keep his legs from going numb. He heard no approaching foot­steps, felt no shadow, but his Uzi jumped from his hands.

Ali's gaze followed his weapon, and he saw a tall man with the shadow-hollowed eyes that made him look like a death's-head.

"Are you crazy!" he hissed. "I am a crazed mail­man! Such a one as I am is very, very dangerous."

"Cut the crap. You're only a terrorist. Time to cough up."

And the Westerner gave the captured Uzi a squeeze. The gun actually complained as it twisted up. Then it fell to the roof, clearly maimed by the experience.

"That which you just did was impossible," Mohamet muttered.

"That which I am about to do will hurt very deeply."

"I fear no pain, not even death."

A different voice said, "You will learn fear, then, Muhammadan."

And Ali felt pain such as he had never known. The source seemed to be in the vicinity of his ear. It was very acute, as if the ear were being ripped away with exceeding slowness.

Ali screamed. And screamed some more.

The pain subsided to a dull achiness, and his tear­ing eyes sought out the source.

An Asian man. A little mummy of a man, impos­sibly old.

"Who are you, mummia?"

"Your doom," intoned the mummy whose eyes glowed in the waxing moonlight. He had the lobe of Mohamet's right ear pinned between his thumb and some sinister green implement of torture capping his forefinger.

"I will tell you nothing," Mohamet said bravely.

"You will divulge the name of him who commands you."

"Never!"

Then the sharp green torture tool pinched more deeply, and the pain returned. Not only to his ear, but to his shoulder and the back of his neck. It was like electricity. Ali understood that Westerners believed the human body to be electric. He had never accepted this heresy until now. Now his entire body felt like a jerk­ing puppet of sparks and short circuits. Very painful ones.

Ali attempted to beseech Allah to help him with­stand the wicked agony. But Allah did not hear him. He heard the words coming from his own mouth as if from far away.

"The Deaf Mullah! I serve the Deaf Mullah!"

"Nice try. The Deaf Mullah's in the federal pen. Better coax him harder, Chiun."

The pain became exquisite.

"The Deaf Mullah! By Allah, it is the Deaf Mullah who commands me!"

"Better let me try, Chiun. I think you're off your game."

"I am not. This man cannot resist me."

"He's telling lies."

"No, I swear by the Prophet's beard. No lies. I am a servant of the Deaf Mullah."

Then the hard steel fingers dug into his shoulder. Where the other dispensed electric pain, this one gave bone-breaking agony.

"The Deaf Mullah, by all that is holy! The Deaf Mullah! How can I say it that you will believe me?" Mohamet blubbered painfully.

The two withdrew, hovering some feet away in the dark. Ali could hear their urgent whisperings.

"He's telling the truth," said the tall Westerner with the death's-head face.

"I told you this, but you did not believe me," squeaked the ancient mummy.

"Maybe the Deaf Mullah's getting messages out of the pen."

"This is possible."

Then they returned, two grim moon shadows.

"What's the game plan?" asked the Westerner.

"To visit terror, shed infidel blood and create other anti-Western mischiefs," Mohamet grudgingly ad­mitted. "So that the infidel nation collapses, and the pure flame of Islam flowers in the scorched soil of idolatry. It is really for your own good, for you are truly Muslims under your infidel skins."

"What was your part supposed to be?"

"When I was told, I was to blow things up."

"What things?"

"Whatever things I was told."

"What were you told?"

"I was not told! What manner of terrorist would I be if I fell into enemy hands and told of my mis­sions?"

"A valuable one," said the mummy Asian.

That sunk in.

"Then I am not valuable?'' asked Mohamet.

"Not to us," said the Westerner.

"You are going to kill me?"

"Nope. You're going to commit suicide."

"I wish to die. I admit this. Paradise calls to me. But I have no intention of committing suicide unless in doing so I can take infidels with me. That is not my mission. I am a suicide mailman, not a fool."

"Maybe you're both."

"I do not see how."

Then the Westerner picked him up bodily and tossed him over the spread-winged eagle.

Mohamet Ali saw the pavement come rushing up to meet him, and his last conscious thought before his head pulped against hard Western concrete was, I am too young to die.

Remo and Chiun left the roof by the back way and melted into the surging crowds.

"This may be easier than we thought," Remo was saying. "We know where the Deaf Mullah is. All we have to do is take him out."

"Smith's missions are never simple," Chiun said.

"This one will be."

"You wish."

They were moving back to the heart of the com­motion at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Summer Street. As the police pushed back the crowd to clear the way, an ambulance came scooting up Atlantic.

"What is the hurry?" asked Chiun. "He is dead."

"I think they want to scoop him up so the cameras can't telecast every drop of blood."

"What kind of cretins enjoy the sight of blood?"

"People who don't have to deal with it every day like you and me," Remo growled.

Chiun nodded, his hazel eyes roving. Abruptly they narrowed. A hiss escaped his papery lips.

Remo spotted Tamayo Tanaka almost as quickly. She was standing before a mobile microwave TV van,

a Channel 4 microphone floating before her sensual red lips.

Her crisp words floated to their ears, thanks to their ability to filter out unwanted sounds and focus on the important.

"...unimpeachable information that the United States Postal Service has been infiltrated by Muslim terrorists bent on global domination, wholesale rap­ine and pillage and deeds even more unwholesome."

She touched her earphone connection to listen to the on-air anchor.

"Yes, Muslim terrorists. Not militia, as reported elsewhere. Nor a breakaway faction of the postal union."

Remo said to Chiun, "Nice going, Little Father. She's starting a panic."

"It is not my fault," Chiun said stiffly.

Over at the remote truck, Tamayo Tanaka said, "Back to you, Janice," and flipped her mike to a sound man, who had to tackle it so it didn't break on hard pavement.

She was touching up her makeup when Remo and Chiun suddenly appeared on either side of her.

"I thought you needed at least three sources to go on the air with something like that?" Remo de­manded.

Tamayo didn't even look up from her compact mirror. "Well, you're two of them."

"Not on the record."

"And I'm the third," she added. "My numbers are good, which translates as automatic credibility."

"What if we're all wrong?" demanded Remo.

"Then a weekend anchor gives a fifteen-second re­traction, and all the important careers go on. Are my eyes on straight?"

"One is drooping," Chiun said.

"Which one?"

"Figure it out," said Remo. "By the way, you owe us a twenty for the cab ride."

"It was my cab. You hijacked it. Be thankful I didn't kick you out."

"You know, you remind me of Cheeta Ching."

Tamayo grinned broadly. "She's my hero. I'm go­ing to be the next her."

"The last her was pretty hard to take."

"Fly to any city in the country, and you'll find at least one Asian anchor, all competing to take Cheeta Ching's place in the constellation that is network news. And I just took a major step up the golden lad­der."

She pressed her lips together, thought them too red and reached over to take the sound man by the sleeve of his white shirt. The sound man was busy coiling up the mike line and didn't notice he'd been hijacked un­til Tamayo delicately dabbed her mouth with his sleeve.

"Just right," she said, returning the arm. "Too red, and I look like a Ginza hooker on the make."

"Go with the feeling," said Remo. "Come on, Lit­tle Father."

From South Station, it was a straight subway run to Quincy, so they filtered through the emergency- services people and grabbed a Red Line train.

From the North Quincy T stop, it was a short walk home to Castle Sinanju, a converted church.

Remo used the kitchen telephone to report to Har­old Smith. "Good news and bad news," said Remo. "Which do you want first?"

"The bad," said Smith.

"No surprise there. A local TV nitwit named Ta­mayo Tanaka just went public that Muslim terrorists have infiltrated the postal service."

Smith's lemony voice was now sounding startled. "What is the source of her information?"

"I think Chiun can explain that," said Remo, holding the phone down for the Master of Sinanju's convenience.

The Master of Sinanju grabbed the receiver in both hands and squeaked, "It is an impenetrable mystery without explanation. Do not attempt to fathom it lest you succumb to madness."

Remo took the phone back and said, "She got it out of him."

"She has no other sources for this?"

"No, but that doesn't seem to faze her much."

Smith vented a sigh like a creaking barn door. "What is the good news?'' he asked.

"The terrorist gave up the name of his master­mind."

"Yes?"

"Ever hear of the Deaf Mullah?"

"He is in prison."

"So is John Gotti. And I hear he can still get things done with a phone call."

"This is very useful," said Smith. "If we isolate the Deaf Mullah from outside contact, we can hobble this conspiracy overnight."

"How's the roundup going?" "The FBI has in custody seven of the principal sus­pects."

"That's a good dent. Anything we can do on this end?"

"Stand by. I am working on the composite sketch of Joe Camel."

"This is one terrorist I'd like to see in the flesh," Remo grunted.

"This may yet happen," said Smith, terminating the call.

Replacing the receiver, Remo said, "What say we catch up with the events of the day?"

"Only if we watch the proper Woo," Chiun said thinly.

"After Tamayo Tanaka," said Remo, "I'll take any Woo I can get."

Chapter 22

In his private quarters in the al-Bahlawan Mosque in the upper reaches of Ohiostan, the Deaf Mullah sat before his computer terminal, his ear trumpet resting on the carpet beside him, his loyal Afghan guards ar­rayed outside, with their Russian rifles and their sharp scimitars.

Here was the perfect method of communications with his network of mujahideen. Especially for one to whom the entire world of sound rang and rang. Tin­nitus, the Red Cresent doctors had called it. The re­sult of the premature explosion of a bomb meant for the godless modern pharaoh of Egypt. Lies. It was the voice of Allah, believed the Deaf Mullah, to whom the incessant hardship was a spur to press forward his mission on earth.

The nightly contacts were coming in now, from Chicagostan, from Washingtonstan, from Los Angelestan—all major cities where his mujahideen could wreak great, Allah-blessed terror and destruction.

And it had only begun.

The message from A1 Islam in Philadelphiastan was simple: "I await the call to arms."

"Patience," typed the Deaf Mullah. "Patience."

"When will I die with the dignity I deserve?" asked Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca in Washingtonstan.

"When Allah wills the time is correct," returned the Deaf Mullah.

There was no contact from Ibrahim Lincoln in Chicagostan, who was to have martyred himself by now. But he was often late, working the night shift as he did. Nor did Mohamet Ali in Bostonstan sign on at the ordained hour.

Time passed as the Deaf Mullah sat before his per­sonal computer. It dragged.

At length, the computer dinged and the electronic muezzin called him to prayer.

Shifting to his prayer rug, he faced Mecca and in­dulged in contemplation and the evening prayer.

When he was done, the beard of the Deaf Mullah bristled at the absence of contact from many of his messengers.

After such a day of triumph, where were they? he thought bitterly. Were they men—or women afraid of what had been unleashed in Allah's name?

A message popped onto the screen from Abd Al- hazred. It was tagged, Difficulties.

Punching it up, the Deaf Mullah read with dark, eager eyes.

"Mohamet in Boston martyred himself," the mes­sage began.

"How can that be?" the Deaf Mullah typed back. "It was not yet ordained."

"The criminal FBI found him out, and to avoid capture he martyred himself. It is on all the newses."

"The only news that matters comes from Allah, on whom all blessings are meet," typed the Deaf Mullah furiously.

"Are we discovered?"

"How could that be?" returned the Deaf Mullah.

"I see no word from many of our brethren."

"They are late. But they will post at the appointed hour, inshallah."

But the hours passed, and there was no word from the missing. This was grave, the Deaf Mullah thought. This was very grave.

He considered. It was approaching the hour that the first demand was to be made. This demand had yet to be decided upon.

Perhaps the demand would be freedom for the missing, if they had fallen into godless hands.

No, that would indicate weakness, as well as show that the small group of martyrs were important in and of themselves. Better the infidel nation believe they had captured but a small number of a great many.

Then what demand would be made? What was worthy in the eyes of Allah?

The Deaf Mullah stared into the growing green screen of his Gates of Paradise network with its elec­tronic minarets, praying to Allah to provide guid­ance.

It must be something that would be easy for the in­fidel to accede to. A political victory, not a military one. One that would show the Islamic world it was possible to foil the Great Satan, America.

As if in answer, a message popped onto the screen from Sid el-Cid, truly Siddiq el-Siddiq, and the head­ing was The Hypocrite Ghula Has Come!

A thin smile split the frizzled beard of the Deaf Mullah. Yes, this was the victory required.

Leaning into his keyboard, he began typing the de­mand that with the touch of a button would be auto­matically faxed to the FBI in Washingtonstan, as well as to all major news organs.

By midnight it would be the topic of "Nightmirror."

And this was only the end of the first day of the war against the infidel nation.

Chapter 23

The fax rolled out of a machine in the Pennsylvania Avenue headquarters of the Federal Bureau of Inves­tigation in Washington, D.C., and sat unnoticed in the tray of a plain paper Sharp faxphone as the director of the FBI tried to figure out what the hell was going on in his district offices.

"Who gave the order to arrest that subject in Bos­ton?" he demanded of the agent in charge of the Bos­ton branch of the FBI.

"Sir, we received a transmission this evening to pick up the subject, Mohamet Ali."

"The boxer?"

"This Mohamet Ali is spelled differently, sir."

"Who authorized that pickup order?"

"An ASAC named Smith, out of your office."

"First name?" asked the director, thinking assis­tant special agents in charge were as numerous as VPs at IBM.

"I'm looking at the transmittal order now, and there's no first name. Just a squiggle."

"What kind of a squiggle? Is it an initial? Can you make out an initial?"

"No, it's just a—squiggle."

"Can you make out any letter? Does the squiggle end on a recognizable letter?" "Not that I can recognize."

"We have a dead postal worker on our hands, the major media outlets want to know why this man was picked up, I'm hearing from other branches that we have better than a half-dozen postal workers in cus­tody and no one can tell me why."

"You should ask this Smith, sir."

"Which Smith? Do you have an idea how many Smiths there are down here?"

"We have a few here in Boston, too."

"All press releases and other public statements must be cleared through my office. Is that understood?"

"Yes, Mr. Director."

The director of the FBI hung up the telephone and asked himself how this was possible. At the CIA, rogue elements pulled this kind of shit all the time. Not at the Bureau. It just wasn't done.

Fortunately only the Boston incident had made news and only because the arresting agents had bun­gled the job. Whatever it was.

The intercom buzzed.

"St. Louis office for you, Director."

"Put him through."

"This is St. Louis Bureau Chief McBain, Mr. Di­rector. Am I to understand we are to hold this suspect indefinitely?"

"I'm not telling you to do that," the director snapped.

"Do we release him?''

"No, don't do that, either. That was an off-the- record suggestion, by the way."

"I don't understand. What was the purpose of picking up this individual?" "As soon as I have that nailed down, you'll receive further instructions," the director growled.

"I have orders to pick up and hold a USPS em­ployee named Sal Adin for interrogation. What I need to know is who is to interrogate this subject and on what matter?"

"He's a postal worker, isn't he?"

"A letter carrier."

"We have mailmen going postal all across the country," the director bit out. "That's reason enough for now. Just keep the bastard on ice until I have fur­ther instructions for you."

"Yes, Mr. Director."

The director of the FBI slammed down the phone, wondering if the head of the Bureau of Alcohol, To­bacco and Firearms had anything to do with this PR disaster.

A moment later, he forgot all about ATF.

"This just came in," said his secretary, dropping a sheet of paper on his desk. "It looks important."

The director picked up the sheet and scanned it briefly. It had been a long day, so he didn't really take in the sense of the test at first, just the disconnected words themselves.

He had to read it a second time before the cobwebs melted from his fatigued brain.

"Oh, my God! "he said.

Dr. Harold W. Smith had computer taps on all lev­els of official Washington. If a fax came into the FBI, CIA, NSA or any of a number of official U.S. agen­cies, the transmission was intercepted and a duplicate fax was created in Smith's vast CURE data base.

Smith had his graphics program up and running and was meticulously filling in the blank areas of the FBI Joe Camel Wanted poster with an ad for Camel ciga­rettes. At first the brown cartoon face looked ridicu­lous. Then Smith ordered the automatic morphing program to anthropomorphize the image.

The nose receded, the eyes became humanlike and other features fluidly reconfigured what had been an exaggerated cartoon into a passable representation of a human being with a very pronounced, camel-like nose.

Since the transformation ended up as a line-drawn sketch, there was no need to concern himself with the niceties of hair and eye color. Once he had the image developed, Smith transmitted it to FBI field offices all over the country.

That task had been completed when the automatic program that captured incoming faxes began beep­ing. All at once. Smith knew without checking what it meant. Someone was simultaneously sending an important fax to official Washington.

Punching up the FBI faxfile intercept, Smith brought the text to his desktop screen:

The Islamic Front for the American Postal Worker's Union today decrees the following de- mandment upon the Infidel Nation:

That the apostate Abeer Ghula be barred for­ever from bringing her counter-Islamic poison to the shores of the Great Satan, otherwise Amer­ica.

If the hypocrite Ghula steps onto American soil, she will be destroyed and a second wave of terror will be inflicted upon the Infidel Nation.

The first wave of terror you have experienced on this the dawning day of our glory.

Fail not to heed this warning, for there shall be no other. The Messengers of Muhammad are everywhere, their faces secret, their targets un­known and undiscoverable by you. We can strike anywhere and everywhere, and now that the Great Satan knows this, he cannot risk further action.

Il-Ya Islam!

Smith frowned. This was strange. He had expected a demand. And he knew what the demand had to be. The only demand that made sense.

If, as Remo and Chiun had determined in Boston, the terror group took their orders from and worked on behalf of the Deaf Mullah, the only logical first de­mand would be freedom for the Deaf Mullah.

If not that, then surely they would have sought the freedom of their recently captured terror agents.

Perhaps, thought Smith, they hadn't realized they had lost so many agents. It was conceivable.

But this demand was insignificant. A mere test of American political will.

For whether or not Abeer Ghula came to America or not was not worth arguing about, since among Muslim religious fanatics, she was the most fanatical of all. And the least likely to accomplish her grandi­ose goals to revive the guttering flame of Islam.

Chapter 24

Abeer Ghula was the most hated woman in the Mus­lim world.

She was not hated for her alien faith, because she herself was a Muslim. She was not hated because she was a self-avowed feminist and refused the veil. Nor was she hated because she had undergone two abor­tions, kept two husbands in simultaneous ignorance and slept with three women of different faiths—activ­ities all expressly forbidden by the Koran.

Although all of these transgressions had caused the thirty-three-year-old former University of Cairo political-history instructor to be chastised and shunned by good Muslims everywhere, the transgression that caused mullahs and sheikhs and other men of faith to issue a religious edict called a fatwa, calling for her immediate and unceremonious hanging, was her at­tempt to revise the Koran to bring it into the '90s.

It was bad enough, this talk of the '90s. For Islam recognized not the '90s but another calendar. It was sufficient insult that Abeer Ghula went through the Koran and randomly changed the proper nouns to their opposite, so that Muhammad became a female and his wives alternately male and female. These could be forgiven as the act of a madwoman, not a heretic and murtad—a renegade.

No, the crime of crimes was that in her Women's Revised Koran, Abeer Ghula insisted through empiri­cal reasoning that enraged Westerners and Muslims alike that Allah is a woman.

When the sixteen computer-generated copies of her revised Koran were confiscated and destroyed, Abeer Ghula went into hiding and wrote "Allah Is a Woman."

A copy went out on the Internet and was published in Great Britain, and from there it radiated out like a broadcast of poisonous dandelion seeds.

That was when the Grand Ayatollah in Iran issued his fatwa.

Abeer Ghula issued one of her own. She told the world that the Grand Ayatollah in Iran could eat her pubic hair and swallow it dry.

The Grand Ayatollah issued a codical to the fat­wa—hitherto unheard of in Islam—that while being hanged from the neck, the atheist Abeer Ghula must be stoned and clubbed naked.

Abeer Ghula transmitted a public entreaty to Um Allaha—her name for Allah—that the Grand Ayatol­lah's penis fall off the next time he took a squat.

Islamic radicals throughout Egypt hunted in vain for Abeer Ghula. Her face was plastered on walls, placards and transmitted through all available com­munications links. Rewards were offered for her head. Would-be martyrs were promised instant and unques­tioned access to Paradise if they were to perish in the act of snuffing out the apostate Ghula. The belea­guered Egyptian government, sensitized to the issue, posted her face at all airports and border crossings in hopes of preventing her from leaving the country. They had no stomach to prosecute her or hand her over to an Islamic court. But they knew if she made it to a Western country, she would stir up the Islamic world as no one had since Salman Rushdie.

On the day Abeer Ghula walked into the Cairo air­port, ticket to New York City via Paris in hand, no one looked twice at her. No one recognized her golden eyes, which women of her desert tribe possessed, or the thick eyebrows decried by men of faith as a cer­tain sign of Satanic influence.

That was because her supple body swayed under the all-concealing black shroud of a chador, and contrary to all oaths she had professed in the past, Abeer Ghula had taken to the veil.

With the tasteful sunglasses, it was the perfect dis­guise.

No one questioned her or her ticket. Nor asked to see her identification. For no one prevented persons from leaving their home countries much these days. Only entering other lands.

And so she slipped out of Egypt unhindered.

The customs.agent in New York City saw the tall, veiled apparition as she swayed toward his counter. He saw many veiled women pass through his post lately. It seemed that the Middle East was leaking citizens like a sieve these days.

This woman was unusual because she came unac­companied. Most veiled Muslim women traveled with husbands or male family members.

"Passport," he ordered.

The woman took hold of her black garment and with a flourish, whipped it up.

It settled on Customs Agent Dan Dimmock's head like a collapsing parachute. He dragged it off his head, sputtering, "What the hell?"

The woman who stood before him now still had on her veil. That was all. Not even a stitch of underwear. Her body was a smoldering, dusky flame dotted by black brushfires.

"I am Abeer Ghula and I have come to America to spread the word of Um Allaha, creator of us all in her infinite wisdom and mercy."

"Um-?"

"Formerly known to you as Allah."

"I don't know anyone by that name."

"You are a Cross-worshiper?"

"Never heard it put that way before."

"Abandon your dead god Issa on his rude cross of misery. Um Allaha sends her kisses of love and mercy through me, her true prophet."

"I'll give you a second chance," said Agent Dim- mock, amazed at the dark vividness of her jutting nipples. "Put this on and show me your passport, and I won't have you arrested."

"Neither the mullahs nor pharaoh could arrest me. What makes you think you can accomplish this im­possible task?"

"Because if you don't have a visa, you're an illegal alien and subject to deportation," Dimmock said pa­tiently.

"Arrest me. See if I care that you do this," Abeer Ghula spat.

"You want to be arrested?"

She set her black-nailed hands on her dusky, lyre- like hips defiantly. "It does not matter. I have suc­ceeded in entering America, where I am free to proselytize in the name of Um Allaha."

"Look, for the last time, do you have a visa or not?"

The woman spun in place, her arms outflung, firm breasts lifting to rubbery bullets as if in reply.

"Do you see a visa?"

"No," Dimmock admitted as an interested crowd gathered. "I guess I have no choice but to detain you for attempting to enter the U.S. illegally."

Abruptly the woman hopped up on the counter and spread her long legs.

"I come to America with my visa firmly clutched in my womanhood. Dare you pluck it out, godless un­believer?"

"I believe in God," said Dimmock, trying to find a safe place to rest his eyes.

"Do you believe in Um Allaha, Mother of Moth­ers?"

"Not enough to stick my fingers where they don't belong," said Agent Dimmock as he signaled for INS backup.

They marched Abeer Ghula to a detention cell, where the problem of the visa was discussed vigor­ously.

"She says it's in there," Dimmock told his super­visor.

"Get a matron," his supervisor said.

"We're not sure if we can legally go in, the matron or not."

"She won't cough it up—so to speak?"

"Refused. Dares us to fish around for it."

"What did she say her name was?" "I didn't catch it. Last name Goola or something like that."

"Goola. Goola. Hold on. Let me call up the watch list of undesirables."

The watch list was checked on a terminal, and the supervisor asked, "First name 'Abeer' by any chance?"

"Yeah, that was it."

"Woman's a flake. Fundamentalist in Egypt want to hang her ass from the highest date palm."

"I'd pay to see that. She's a royal pain in the Al­lah."

"Let's kick this tarbaby upstairs."

"How far upstairs?"

"Far enough we don't have to mess with it."

The sticky matter of the Muslim heretic Abeer Ghula was kicked up to the head of the Immigration and Naturalization Service, then to the attorney gen­eral, who told INS, "I'd like to bring the executive branch into this."

"Fine," said INS, knowing there was no chance of getting a decision on political problems out of that permanent bottleneck.

The INS head was astonished less than an hour later when the attorney general's gravelly woman's voice came back and said, "Release her. We're granting emergency political-prisoner status."

"The President told you to say that?" the INS head sputtered.

"No. The First Lady. I went to the very top."

When she was first informed that she had been granted special-sexual-refugee-immigrant-victim sta­tus, Abeer Ghula had one question: "Does the press know of this?"

Abeer Ghula gave her first press conference in the nude, with the black chador wound around her waist for decorative purposes at the New York headquar­ters of the National Organization for Women, with a full-court press contingent in attendance.

"Cast down your male gods, your false prophets and your brazen phallic idols. I call upon all Ameri­can women to embrace Um Allaha, the Mother of Us All, and compel their menfolk to take up the veil and kneel at her gold-painted toes."

A reporter asked, "Are you renouncing Allah?"

"No. I spit in his false face. There is no Allah. He is only a stern stone mask the imams and mullahs cower behind because they are too old to hide behind the skirts of their mother's chador."

"What about the fatwa?"

"Up here with the fatwa," said Abeer Ghula, pointing to her naked buttocks.

"Aren't you afraid?" a reporter from People asked.

"I am in America now. What can the mullahs do to me now that I enjoy the protection of the Second Commandment?"

"That's 'Thou shalt not take the Lord's name in vain.' "

"No, the other thing."

"That's the right to bear arms. You probably mean the First Amendment of the Constitution."

"I intend to wallow in all amendments as I prose­cute my religious freedoms upon all Americans of every faith."

"Have you heard about the Muslim attacks in New York City?"

"I hear about them all the time. I left them behind in Cairo. Such male thunderings are behind me now."

"A jihad group calling itself the Messengers of Muhammad has infiltrated the post office. They're wreaking havoc everywhere."

Abeer Ghula didn't skip a beat. "I demand protec­tion, then. If I am killed, a terrible blow will be struck against freedom of worship, not only here but in other countries where women are repressed by masculine oppression."

"This group has called for you to be sent back to Cairo in irons."

"They cannot compel me to go," Abeer sneered.

"They've made the demand on the White House."

"The Very First Lady has cast the iron shadow of her womanly protection over my mission."

"What happens if she's voted out of office next month?"

"They would not dare!" Abeer flared, gold eyes flashing.

"Happens almost every four years like clock­work," a reporter said dryly.

And before the eyes of the assembled press, Abeer Ghula paled from her shiny forehead to her ebony toenails.

Without another word, she unwound her chador and dropped it over her body, covering her face with her trembling hands.

"I am not afraid," she quavered.

Chapter 25

By 9:00 p.m. the postmaster general thought the worst was over.

There had been no more explosions up in Manhat­tan. The Oklahoma City situation had died down. They were still looking for the assailant, but no one was reporting his capture, and with luck the SOB would hold out until the New York story had blown over.

Best of all, the President had not called back. He would be easy to wait out. The man was at the end of his term of office, and he still hadn't filled some empty cabinet posts.

Post offices over the nation were on emergency sanity-maintenance programs. That would bring the mail stream to a near-halt for at least a week, but these days people expected sluggish mail delivery. After all, what did the American public expect for a lousy thirty- two-cent stamp? Personalized service?

The postmaster general was filling his briefcase with rolls of stamps intended as Christmas presents for im­mediate relatives when his executive secretary buzzed him.

"Boston postmaster on the line."

"Find out what it's about."

The secretary was not long. "A postal worker com­mitted suicide."

"What's with these nervous nellies? I have a huge operation to run. Employees self-destruct every damn week."

"He's saying the man died fleeing FBI custody."

"Find out if he's the shooter from Oklahoma City."

The secretary was back in ten seconds this time. "He doesn't believe so, but he's really anxious to talk to you."

"Take a message. I've had a long day."

Shoveling the last sheets of mint Elvis stamps into his briefcase, the postmaster general of the United States got up and walked past his secretary as she was trying to record the message from the Boston post­master on a yellow legal pad.

He was almost out the door when the secretary hung up, tore off the top sheet and turned in her seat.

"You might want to read this."

Growling, the postmaster general said, "Read it to me."

"Local TV station here is reporting that the USPS has been infiltrated by a Muslim terrorist group for the purpose of waging a campaign of terror on entire populace. No further details."

The postmaster general froze with his hand on the brass doorknob. His sweat turned cold in his palm.

"Get Boston back on the line. Right away," he barked, whirling back into his office, his long face al­most matching his tie in length.

The Boston postmaster was trying to explain him­self when the postmaster general cut him off. "You just let the FBI walk off with an employee?"

"They were the FBI." "A branch of the Justice Department. USPS is part of the executive branch. Do I have to tell you what that means, Boston? We report to the President di­rectly. We don't go through that ball-busting arsonist over at Justice."

"It seems un-American to stonewall the FBI."

"If it was good enough for Dick Nixon, it's good enough for me." Calming down, the postmaster gen­eral asked, "Did they say why they wanted him?"

"No. Only that one agent was with something called the Violent Postal Worker Task Force and the other was Counterterrorism."

"Violent Postal Worker—"

"Yes. I never heard of it, have you?"

"No, but I guarantee you by the time I'm done, it will be abolished. Is Justice crazy? They can't tar the service with that kind of bureaucratic slander."

"After today I wouldn't be so confident, sir," said Boston dispiritedly. "The man who jumped is on file as Mohamet Ah."

"And you didn't report him?"

"For what? Being a Muslim? We don't disqualify on the basis of religion. He's a citizen and he passed all tests."

"You get back to business, or I'll bust you down to mail sorter. Is that understood?"

"Yes, sir," said Boston.

The postmaster general was in the middle of dictat­ing a firm denial of the Muslim-infiltration rumor when Ned Doppler called.

"Damon, this is Ned," said the crisp voice of the host of "Nightmirror."

the years. Every time they raised the price of a stamp, as a matter of fact. Took the sting out of it whenever he hearkened back to the halcyon days of the Pony Express and two mail deliveries a day.

"Tonight's topic is the Manhattan bombings, and we'd like to give you the opportunity to present your side of the story."

"I don't have a side. None of those had anything to do with the service."

"We've booked Boston reporter Tamayo Tanaka, who broke the story of the Muslim infiltration of your organization."

"You can't go on the air with that wild rumor! There's no substantiation for any of it!"

"She broadcast it, it's news. Do you want to rebut or not?"

"I do not. It would be irresponsible to give cre­dence to this crap. Do you want to terrify the Ameri­can public? Do you want to sink the service? Do you, Ned? Do you?"

"No," returned Ned Doppler, cool and crisp as a celery stalk, "but you might be interested to know that highly placed sources at Justice are telling us they are in the middle of a roundup of elements of this jihad group, and a terrorist organization has taken respon­sibility and promises more strikes if Abeer Ghula isn't deported by tomorrow."

"Who's Abeer Ghula?"

"Imagine a cross between Salman Rushdie and Martha Stewart."

"Is that possible?"

Angry White Mailmen

"Why don't you be at the studio at eleven sharp and see? She's a guest, too."

"It doesn't sound like I have a damn choice, do I?" the postmaster general demanded.

Ned Doppler's chuckle was as dry as bone chips settling in a stopped blender. "The making of news is kinda like the manufacture of sausage. Watching the process doesn't make the product go down any bet­ter."

Stonefaced, the postmaster general of the United States replaced the receiver and tripped his intercom. "Contact all major city branches. Find out what you can about an FBI roundup of postal employees."

"Yes, sir."

Then the postmaster general sat back in his hand­some red leather chair and felt as though he was shriveling inside.

Chapter 26

Tamayo Tanaka could hardly contain herself.

She was going to be on network TV. Better than that. On "Nightmirror." Even better than that. On "Nightmirror" during a genuine national crisis. Which meant both Letterman and Leno would be left trailing in the dust of the overnights. Her dust.

It was all she had ever dreamed of.

Which is why Tamayo Tanaka wanted to be extra, extra certain she had her face on perfectly.

It was not easy obliterating her com-fed white- bread looks every morning. There was the long, slinky black wig, the brown-tinted contacts and the pale golden pancake makeup. But hardest of all was keep­ing her eyes straight. The damn Mongoloid eye-fold had to be exactly right in both eyes, or she looked cross-eyed or Chinese or worse, like a female Two- Face from that Batman movie.

As the cab raced from Dulles Airport to the Wash­ington, D.C., studios of "Nightmirror," Tamayo fussed with her eyes. In the early days of her career, she'd used Scotch transparent tape to effect the trans­formation. That had been during her pie-broadcast career when she'd discovered that she could earn her way through college by acting in skin flicks.

"A lot of actresses start out this way," she was told by a producer who tried to pick her up in a University of Indiana disco.

"I'm not going into acting, but TV journalism."

"Gloria Steinem once posed for Playboy."

"Nice try. She was a Playboy bunny, and it was an undercover assignment. Doesn't count."

"Suit yourself," the producer said, finishing his drink. "I was thinking of casting that cute little Jap trick in the corner anyway."

Tammy Terrill's blue gaze went to the smoky cor­ner where a girl in a flame red slit dress was toying with a Bloody Mary as red as her lips.

"Her? I don't think she'd know how."

"Asian women are more supple anyway. I need a contortionist for this flick. She's gotta be able to blow the male lead while twisted into a pretzel shape."

"Not my department. I'm strictly missionary. Face- to-face, turn over and go to sleep. I have to be up in the morning for the rest of my professional life."

"Too bad," said the producer. "Pays five grand for three days' work—if you can call it work."

Tammy blinked. Five grand was her tuition for a whole quarter. And she was hauling a double major.

She caught herself muttering, "Never work. I do this and it ever gets out, I'm dead in broadcast jour­nalism."

"We can make you look different," said the pro­ducer, sensing a chink in her armor.

"How different?" Tammy asked, stirring her C-breeze.

"Just like that almond-eyed fly-teaser over there."

"Sure. Our makeup guy once made Roxanne Roeg- Elephante look halfway fuckable. He can work mira­cles."

"No one will recognize me?"

"Myma Loy got her start playing Orientals, though not in skin flicks, that's for sure."

"Who?"

The producer beamed like a porcelain knicknack. "See? You just proved my point."

Over the next two years, Tammy Terrill made a half- dozen direct-to-video and pay-per-view films as Suzy Suzuki, including Jade Crack, Dildo Fury and her fa­vorite, Ben-wa Ballbuster, where she got to lift a guy up by the scruff of his scrotum and drop him bodily into a car crusher—with a little help from the FX de­partment.

No one at the University of Indiana ever caught on.

But when Tammy graduated, doors were slammed in her face everywhere she went.

"What's wrong with me?" she moaned at the end of six months of rejected resumes.

"Take a look around," her TV agent told her. "Deborah Norville's career just crashed, taking the whole perky-young-blonde trend with her."

"How could she? Didn't she know she was the Great Blonde Hope?"

'"Golden Lads and girls all must...' I think you know the rest. Anyway, the hottest thing going now are Asian anchorettes. That leaves you out."

"My maternal grandmother was one-eighth Asian," Tammy ventured.

"What was her last name?"

"Tanaka. They tossed her butt into an internment camp during WWI." "That was WWII."

"I got the initials right, didn't I?"

"Listen, Tammy, how do you feel about a name change?"

"To what?"

"Tamayo Tanaka. It's legit. The name is in the family, just lying around unexploited. We update your resume, put you down as Japanese-American and you have your second chance."

"With this hair and these baby blues?"

"Squint."

Tammy squinted. Her face became a cream puff with sapphires for eyes.

"Can you read a cue card like that?"

"I can't even tell if you have one nostril or two."

Her agent sighed. "Well, it was a long shot any­way. Even with a wig, you'd never pass."

"Yeah, that kind of stuff only worked for Myrna Loy."

The agent's glum expression got interested. "Myrna Loy? I remember her. Thirties actress who got her start playing Chinese types. After she drank that well dry, she came out as a Caucasian and had a whole new career."

Their eyes met, collided, ricocheted and locked to­gether with a growing but nervous interest.

"You know, they can do amazing things with makeup these days," Tammy said.

"You'd have to lead a double life," the agent warned.

"I could go undercover as myself!"

"What if you got caught?"

"Then I'd be the story! I'd go through the roof."

"We could sell your story. Sultry Japanese reporter unmasked as com-fed Iowa farm girl."

"I'm from Indiana," said Tammy.

"Flays just the same in Peoria. Let's give it a whirl. If it doesn't pan out, you're still Tammy Terrill."

"No, I'm going to be the next Cheeta Ching."

Four years and six local markets later, and she was on her way to a face-off with Ned Doppler on "Nightmirror."

"It's the American dream come true," she mur­mured, touching up her slim eyebrows. "It doesn't matter who you are, you can go anywhere you want in life if you just play by the rules of the moment."

"Eh?" asked the cabbie, who was some kind of Hindu.

"Someday your kind will get their turn," she said, snapping her compact closed.

Then they were at the studio, and it was time for Tamayo Tanaka's moment of truth. More or less.

A network page greeted her inside the studio, and she was taken to a soundproof booth where she was seated on a plain chair. A camera dollied up so close the glassy lens almost kissed the tip of her nose. The tally light wasn't on, so she relaxed and said, "When do I meet Ned?"

"You don't," she was told.

"Ever?"

"You'll be up on the screen with the others so it looks like he's talking to all of you at once," the busy technician explained.

"Where are the others?"

"The booths on either side."

"Shouldn't we be seated all together?"

The technician shook his head. "We did that in the early days. Had too many on-camera punch-outs and hair pulls. Just think of the camera as Ned's face and you'll do fine."

The technician shut the soundproof door before Tamayo thought to ask, "What others?" Didn't she own the story? Who else was there? And how impor­tant could they possibly be?

All at once, she could feel the flop-sweat oozing up through her pores, pushing aside her facial makeup. The network lights were a lot hotter than affiliate lights.

The director of the FBI would have given his pen­sion to avoid it all.

"Nightmirror" was no place for the mentally un- nimble. He'd seen bureaucrats mousetrapped live and sweating by Ned Doppler more times than he could count. He did not want to be one of them.

But when "Nightmirror" called, even the director of the FBI had to answer. Especially with the nation lurching toward panic and needing answers.

The President of the United States had personally put it to him this way: "You go on."

"The Bureau's investigation is in its earliest stages," he protested. "We'd be at risk of tipping our hand."

"What do you have?"

"We're still sorting it all out, Mr. President. But the mail-truck bomber in New York has been identified from dental records as the suspect in the string of re- lay-box explosions. Guy named A1 Ladeen."

"You go on. Otherwise, I'll have to. And I don't have any more answers than you do."

"Yes, sir," said the director of the FBI, realizing that he had been demoted to sacrificial lamb.

The postmaster general took his seat in the re­mote broadcast booth that was in reality not thirty feet from the set where Ned Doppler nightly decon­structed guests with a twinkle in his eye and a stiletto up his sleeve.

It was a problem. But it wasn't a big problem. All Doppler had was rumor and half-assed reportage.

Damon Post had the two mightiest tools in a bu­reaucrat's arsenal—the ability to stonewall, and utter and total deniability.

They should be more than enough to hold off the smug bastard for thirty minutes, minus commercials.

Then the strident "Nightmirror" fanfare began, and the red tally light eyed him warningly.

In the bell-tower meditation room in their Quincy, Massachusetts, home, Remo Williams and the Master of Sinanju both reached for the clicker at the same time, Remo to switch from the overfed Bev Woo and Chiun to shut off the set for the evening.

"I want you see what they're saying on 'Nightmir­ror,' " Remo explained.

"It is your bedtime," Chiun argued.

"Smith said to stand by in case we have to fly out on short notice."

"Which is why you need your five hours of sleep."

"I'm not sleepy and I want to know what the latest is, the same as the rest of America."

"I cannot sleep with this machine yodeling, so I will watch with you."

"You just don't want me sneaking a peek at the nice Bev Woo."

"I would tolerate this so long as you do not seek out the false wiles of Tamayo Tanaka."

"Not a chance," said Remo as the "Nightmirror" fanfare started to blare and the cobalt blue computer animation went into its inevitable cycle.

Ned Doppler's puffy face came on.

"Tonight on 'Nightmirror'—Bomb scare. The ter­ror in Manhattan. With me are the postmaster gen­eral of the U.S., Damon Post, Gunter Frisch, director of the FBI, and Tamayo Tanaka, the woman who may have broken the story of the bizarre link between a hitherto-unknown terror group and one of the oldest and most respected organs of our government, the United States Postal Service."

"Argh," said the Master of Sinanju, tearing at the cloudy puffs of hair over each ear.

"Let's hope our names don't come up," Remo said unhappily.

"First a recap of the day's events. At approxi­mately 12:20 EST today, simultaneously in Okla­homa City and midtown Manhattan terror struck. The vehicle—men and equipment of your postal service. And tonight in Boston, a postal worker with the vaguely familiar name of Mohamet Ali leaped to his death before TV cameras and a crowd of witnesses. Are these events connected? What does it mean? Joining us in our Washington studio is the man head­ing the investigation, Gunter Frisch. Mr. Director, what can the FBI tell us?"

"Our investigation is at a sensitive stage, and I would rather not get into details, Ned."

"I understand," Doppler returned smoothly. "We don't want to jeopardize the investigation for ratings, not even for the public's right to know. But I must tell you there are wire-service reports that an FBI roundup of suspect postal workers is under way at this hour."

"I have ordered no such roundup," the director said quickly.

"So that means what? You're denying these re­ports?"

"My answer stands, Ned."

"Given that a reported eight or nine relay boxes lit­erally blew up in New York City today, could we not assume that postal workers are being looked at?"

"We at FBI overlook no suspects in our efforts to get to the bottom of this matter. I would stress that nothing is being ruled in or out at this juncture."

"On that careful note, I would like to bring the postmaster general into this discussion," Ned Dop­pler said smoothly.

Damon Post came on the screen, replacing the FBI director.

"Mr. Post? No sense dancing around it. Has the postal service been compromised?"

"Absolutely, categorically not."

"Yet someone planted infernal devices in midtown relay boxes. Someone wearing a letter-carrier uni­form burst into an Oklahoma City courtroom and lit­erally massacred some twenty people. I don't have any more facts than you, but come on, it looks bad, doesn't it?"

"I know how it looks, Ned. But we lose master keys to theft from time to time. And letter-carrier uni­forms can be purchased through the manufacturer without proof of employment in USPS."

"Imposters, until proved otherwise. The mail sys­tem has not been compromised by militia, Muslims or any other group, as certain irresponsible reports have it."

"But you don't know that, do you?" Doppler prodded.

"I don't know my relay drivers aren't Martians, ei­ther. But I don't worry about the possibility."

"Yet in recent years, there have been, to put it charitably, certain violent incidents involving postal workers. Have there not been?"

"Stress is a big part of everyone's lives these days. I run a first-class operation, and in a first-class operation, people have to hustle. Some people just don't hustle well. They crack. We try to keep these things to a minimum."

"You do see a connection between these personnel failures and the events today?"

"None whatsoever."

"And the man who jumped to his death in Boston. What was he? Just another letter carrier who took a swan dive into hard concrete rather than face another irate customer? And not a Muslim terrorist? Tell me."

The postmaster general struggled with his glower. "There are no terrorists in the Boston office," he said tightly. "The American public is perfectly safe."

"Unless they walk past a relay box that just hap­pens to blow up. Or have the bad luck to be standing under a falling postal employee," Ned Doppler sug­gested with an irritating lack of sarcasm.

"That's not fair, Ned, and you know it. You don't burn down the whole orchard because of a few wormy apples."

"The question of Muslim terrorists aside, what are you doing about the stress level among your peo­ple?" Doppler asked.

"We've instituted a broad-based five-year plan to ensure that psychological decompensation levels at- trit at a predetermined rate until achieving parity or near-parity with comparable package-delivery com­panies."

"What's that mean in layman's language?"

"We're weeding out the problematic people."

"So you admit there are problematic workers?"

"There are problematic workers driving school buses and frying up Whoppers," Damon Post said tightly.

"Granted. But you're artfully dodging the issue at hand. Forgive me for putting too fine a point on it, but even if we accept as dubious the proposition there are no terrorists in the postal service, there are Muslims, aren't there?"

"I imagine so. We don't discriminate at USPS."

"Are you looking into the backgrounds of these people, just on the off chance that they, shall we say, studied in the Bekaa Valley?"

"We're migrating in that direction," the postmas­ter general admitted cautiously. "But I would like to assure the general public that all employees of the postal service are required by law to be U.S. citizens."

"Correct me if I'm wrong, but weren't U.S. citi­zens behind the Oklahoma City bomb blast last year?" Doppler countered.

"Yes. But they were military wackos."

"I'd like to call your attention to a fax our news department received in the last few hours, purport­edly from a group calling itself the Messengers of

Muhammad. I won't read it all, but they hint strongly and unmistakably that the events of today were their work and they are preparing to strike again if Abeer Ghula is allowed to remain in this country."

"Who's Abeer Ghula?" Remo wondered aloud.

The Master of Sinanju waved the question away.

"I wouldn't put much stock in an anonymous fax," the postmaster general countered brittlely. "Anyone can send a fax."

"And on that note, let me bring in the third person in this mystery, Tamayo Tanaka."

Tamayo Tanaka's sultry face replaced that of the postmaster general.

"It's great being here, Ned," she said.

"Thank you. I only wish the circumstances had been more pleasant."

"I'll take a network debut any way I can get it."

On the screen, Ned Doppler tightened his face and pressed on. "You broke the post-office-terrorist con­nection before the first faxes were received. What was your source?"

"I'm afraid I'll have to invoke my journalistic pre­rogatives on that one, Ned. But they are unimpeach­able until events suggest otherwise."

Doppler cocked a skeptical eyebrow. "Sounds like you're hedging a little."

"No, I'm not hedging. Just being careful. I trust my sources. I just refuse to name them."

Remo turned to Chiun and said, "Looks like we get to keep our jobs."

"This was never in doubt."

"If she fingered us, we'd be history."

"No, Smith would only alter your plastic face once again."

Touching the tight skin over his high cheekbones, Remo said, "I don't think I have another plastic sur­gery in me."

"Let me ask you this," Ned Doppler was saying. "Does your information square with what the major news outlets have been getting?"

"I'm a psycho-journalist, Ned, and I can only tell you, based on my knowledge of the psychological profiles of postal workers who snap, that unless something serious is done, and soon, we could be fac­ing a reign of terror that will make what we've seen today look like a third-grade pajama party."

"Is she crazy?" Remo exploded. "She's going to start a panic."

"Why do you say that?" Ned Doppler asked.

"Again I don't want to get into sources, but imag­ine the deadly combination of trained terrorists and crazed postal workers."

"Well, they have to be one but not the other. I mean, I've never heard of a trained psychotic."

"Ned, this is bigger and juicier than Watergate and O. J. Simpson combined."

An exasperated voice said, "Ned, can I get a word in here?"

The postmaster general's annoyed face popped onto the screen.

"I would like to add my input," the FBI director inserted off camera.

"One at a time. You first, Mr. Post."

"This is outrageous and irresponsible. None of these allegations are true."

"I second that," said the FBI director. "We do not want panic."

"Miss Tanaka?" "I stand by my sources," Tamayo Tanaka said firmly.

"Is her left eye drooping?" Remo asked Chiun.

"No, her right eye is straightening."

"Looks like the hot lights are decompensating her makeup job."

"If she is unmasked for all the world to see, it will be her own fault, the brazen hussy."

"Shh. I want to hear this."

The President of the United States didn't want to hear any more. He was watching his reelection plans disintegrating on network television as some New England anchorwoman he'd never even heard of calmly and almost maliciously predict that the Amer­ican public was risking life and limb every time they mailed a postcard or checked their porch mailbox for bills. And the idiot FBI director and postmaster gen­eral were letting her get away with it.

When in the second segment, Ned Doppler got the postmaster general to concede that if the postal ser­vice were infiltrated by Muslim terrorists he couldn't take action until they actually committed a crime, the President excused himself from the First Bed and ran to the Lincoln Bedroom to call Harold Smith.

Smith answered on the second ring. "Yes, Mr. President?"

"I'm watching 'Nightmirror' and they're showing the headline for tomorrow's New York Times."

"I know," said Smith.

"It reads Postal Apocalypse."

"What if these threats are true?"

"You can deport Abeer Ghula. I believe you have grounds." "Tell that to the First Nag. She signed on to this."

"It may be that Abeer Ghula could be useful to us."

"How?"

"She is an absolute magnet for the wrath of these people. She may draw them out. We still have a hand­ful of suspects not yet in FBI hands.''

"That reminds me. Last time I spoke with the FBI director, he didn't say anything about a roundup. And he's denying it now."

"He has nothing to do with it," Smith said crisply.

"Then who does?"

"I have pulled certain strings."

"You have people in the Bureau?"

"Moles, yes. Informants. But the roundup orders came from this office."

"I would like to know where this office is."

"This information is strictly on a need-to-know basis."

"Can you give me a little hint?" the President wheedled.

"No," Smith said flatly.

"I kinda imagine you in some windowless room on the thirteenth floor of a New York skyscraper that can be gotten into only by a secret door and a keyed ele­vator."

"You have been reading too many spy novels, Mr. President. I will have my people protect Abeer Ghu­la. This may buy us time."

"And if it doesn't?"

"One day at a time, Mr. President."

"That's easy for you to say. Nobody gets to reelect you." "The continuity of this office over successive ad­ministrations is built into the charter," Smith said thinly.

"Is that a written charter?"

"No."

"Well, keep me informed."

"Of course," said Smith, who hung up the red telephone and immediately picked up the blue con­tact telephone with the old rotary dial, which Smith favored because he made fewer mistakes than with a push-button phone.

Remo answered. "What's the latest?"

"You and Chiun will proceed immediately to New York City and the Marrioi Marquis Hotel, where you will protect Abeer Ghula from these terrorists."

"What good will that do?"

"She is the most likely target."

"Any sign of Joe Camel?"

"If we are fortunate, the FBI roundup has deci­mated their ranks, and Camel or one of the other sur­vivors will surface in New York. It will be your job to handle that end."

"What about the Deaf Mullah?"

"I am reliably informed the Deaf Mullah is in soli­tary confinement and it is impossible for him to com­municate with the outside world."

"I don't think that terrorist was lying."

"It is entirely reasonable that he was continuing the Deaf Mullah's mandate for jihad. Question more carefully the next terrorist you encounter."

"Will do."

The line went dead. In his Folcroft office, where he was working late, Harold Smith turned up the sound on the TV screen in time to hear Ned Doppler.

Abeer Ghuia had been brought into the discussion. Her sharp, dusky face smoldered at the viewing pub­lic.

"I fear no terrorists, for I am under the protection of the Very First Lady and the National Organization of Women, two of the most potent political entities in ail of America."

"Is there anything you can tell us about these Mes­sengers of Muhammad?"

"Nothing. There is nothing to tell. Muhammad is a false prophet. I am the new prophet. With those who follow me, I will sweep across the face of America and then the world like an angry ocean, drowning those who do not believe as I do and carrying believers in Um Allaha to Paradise, where women will liberate the enslaved houris from the dead Muslim males who rape and enslave them cruelly."

An off-camera voice cut in. "I have something to say, Ned."

"I'm still with Miss Ghula, Miss Tanaka."

"But she doesn't know anything about the terror­ists. I do."

"Just a second. Your turn will come."

"She has had her turn," Abeer Ghula spat. "I am speaking now."

"This is my story," Tamayo Tanaka said petu­lantly.

"And this is my show," countered Ned Doppler. "And according to the little voice in my earpiece, we have to take a break."

The camera captured Doppler's fleshy jack-o'- lantern face.

"I'll be back after this." "That means the show's over," said Remo as they cut to a commercial.

"He said he would be back," Chiun argued.

"He always says that to trick people into watching the last three commercials.''

"But he was not done."

"Doesn't matter. He's done."

"We will watch to be certain," said Chiun, confis­cating the remote control.

After the commercial break, Ned Doppler's face reappeared. "That's all we have time for tonight. Good of you all to come on 'Nightmirror.'"

Amid the unhappy murmurs from the FBI director and the postmaster general, Tamayo Tanaka's miser­able voice said, "Thank you for hosting my network debut."

"Told you so," said Remo, hitting the remote's Off button.

At Folcroft, Harold Smith blinked. Was Tamayo Tanaka's left eye deformed? It looked positively swollen next to the slim, dark almond that was her right.

Chapter 27

Abeer Ghula woke up in a luxury suite of the Marriot Marquis Hotel in the heart of Manhattan's theater district and kicked the sleeping woman in the bed be­side her.

"Get me breakfast."

The woman—Abeer could not recall her name- awoke with a start. She looked about, saw her clothes on the floor and her NOW button on the end table with her watch and slowly remembered who she was and how she had gotten here.

"What did you say?" she asked sleepily.

"I said, 'Get me breakfast, wench.'"

"I'm not your wench."

"You were given to me by NOW to serve my every need. I have had you in bed, and now I would like breakfast in bed."

"I'm strictly security. Call room service."

"You call them."

"I'm not your slave!"

"Yes, you are. You were given to me."

A pungent personal characterization and an over­size pillow came flying in Abeer Ghula's sharp-nosed face.

Whipping it away, she reached over and smacked her erstwhile bed partner in the face.

"That's for your insolence, woman."

The woman grabbed her stung cheek. "I—I thought you loved me."

"I did love you. Last night. Now I am hungry. I love food. You will bring me all I ask, or I will find an­other who worships my womanly wisdom."

Her lower lip quivering, the woman whimpered, "What do you want?"

"For breakfast, pork. All kinds of pork. Pork is forbidden by Allah, but Um Allaha has decreed it halam not haram. I will have pork and endless cups of black Turkish coffee. And if you give me these things before my stomach growls, I may allow you to lavish your caresses upon the perfection that is my back. For it aches."

Meekly the white woman left the bed.

"And for lunch, I would like a man," Abeer Ghula called after her.

The woman started. "A man!"

"I like men—when I am not in the mood for women. I had two husbands until they discovered each other."

"I can't love a woman who loves men!"

"You will love who I tell you to, or Allaha will turn her scornful back upon you," said Abeer Ghula, turning her own scornful back on the angry, hurt face of the white woman whose name was unimportant because she was only the first white woman Abeer Ghula intended to despoil on the path Um Allaha had chosen for her.

"I would like pork for breakfast and Turkish cof­fee."

"Will that be all?"

"Yes. Have it delivered by a blond-haired man with very broad shoulders. We do not have blond-haired men in my homeland. I would like to taste one. Blue eyes are my preference."

But the man who delivered the breakfast tray was neither blond nor blue eyed, and at first Abeer Ghu­la's eagle eyes flashed in her anger. Then she took an­other look at him.

"You are not what I asked for."

"I didn't exactly beg for this job, either," he said, wheeling the gleaming service cart to a stop and reaching into his pocket. He had deep-set dark eyes and wrists as thick around as bedposts.

"Remo Clear. FBI."

"I do not understand," said Abeer Ghula, sitting up in bed so that the royal blue covers fell from one dark- nippled breast.

"I'm your bodyguard until further notice."

"Do your duties include pleasing me?"

"Within reason."

"Excellent," said Abeer Ghula, who let the lus­trous black cloud of her disheveled hair fall back into the pillows. She whipped the bed clothes away and said, "Pleasure me, my dark infidel."

"Thought you wanted breakfast," said Remo Clear, lifting the trays. He recoiled from the hot, pungent smells.

"What is this stuff?"

"What does it look like?" "Sausage links, sausage patties, bacon and pork chops smothered in apple sauce. I thought Muslims were forbidden pork."

"Old, outdated Muslims. I am of the new wave of Muslims who will dominate the universe. And I have selected you to be my first male infidel conquest."

"This place smells like you've already worn out that track."

"You are very insolent for a mere Western male. Have you not read that you are soon to be extinct?"

"I'm not the one eating my way to an early coro­nary."

"I am merely going through a pork phase. Would you like to pork me? Is that not the Western slang?"

"Am I going to have to satisfy you in order to get you off my back?"

"Yes. And I am willing to let you get on my back," said Abeer Ghula, turning over on her back.

"If I don't have a choice," sighed the FBI agent.

Remo Williams had been briefed that Abeer Ghula was going to be a problem and decided the sooner he got the obligatory sex out of the way, the better.

"Put it anywhere you wish to start," she said ca­sually. "I will allow this. After you have climaxed, I will tell you where to put it so that I receive the maxi­mum enjoyment."

"I know exactly where to put it," growled Remo as he ignored the long, arching back and tensed but­tocks that were laid out before him and found Abeer Ghula's left wrist. Turning it over, he began tapping.

"What are you doing?" she asked doubtfully.

"Foreplay."

"You are tapping my wrist as if you are bored and you are calling it foreplay?"

"Wait for it," said Remo in a bored tone.

In the middle of this, a knock came at the door,

"Who is it?" asked Remo.

A squeaky voice asked, "You do not recognize my knock? Allow me in."

"Can you wait?"

"Why should I wait?" demanded the Master of Si­nanju.

"Because Abeer and I are having sex."

"If you impregnate her, see that it is a boy."

"I don't think she has the stamina to get that far."

"I will never have your child," Abeer Ghula spat into the pillow. "I want your hard maleness, not your seed. I spit your foul-tasting seed back in your un­blessed face."

"Let's get past the foreplay before we break out in a cold sweat over the rest," said Remo.

"If I were to become pregnant by you, I would abort the baby."

"No surprise there."

"I would abort the baby and send the dead thing to you in a box to show my contempt for your seed, which had the temerity to grow within my belly."

"Forget my seed. Concentrate on my finger."

"It is in the wrong place. You should be using it to plumb my warm, liquid depths."

"Here it comes," said Remo, varying the rhythm and concentrating on the sensitive nerve in Abeer Ghula's left wrist, very near to her pulse. Remo was tapping in time with the pulse, which was accelerat­ing. That was his cue to switch to a dissynchronous tapping, as the Master of Sinanju had taught him so long ago. It was step one in the thirty-seven steps to bringing a woman to sexual fulfillment. Remo once got a woman to step two before she turned to con­tented but untouchable jelly.

She taps in, Abeer Ghula gave a low animal moan and arched her back so sharply the gully over her spine filled with a sudden musky moisture.

"What are you—?"

"Almost finished," said Remo as Abeer's buttocks clenched as if touched by an electric prod and her cloudy black hair began shaking back and forth and back and forth sharply, in the involuntary torment of her approaching ecstasy.

"What is happening?" she screamed.

"It usually helps to take a mouthful of pillow and bite down hard," Remo suggested casually.

"Uhh," said Abeer Ghula, her face contorting in a pure orgasmic rictus.

Then, thrusting her face into the pillow, she vented her sexual pleasure as her body writhed and twisted in the exquisite sexual release caused by the monoto­nously tapping finger.

A final gasp, and she collapsed as if her bones had melted under her relaxing muscles and skin.

Remo lifted her face from the pillow and turned her head to one side so she wouldn't suffocate by acci­dent and went to the door to let the Master of Sinanju in.

"You are done?" asked Chiun, his wrinkled face tight. He wore stealth black, with thin, deep red pip­ing that would disappear under night conditions.

"Covered her up and everything."

Chiun walked over to the bed and peered at the sleepy face. "Her lips are tight."

"She's a little high-strung."

Chiun regarded Remo with stern disappointment. "I taught you the proper first steps to pleasuring a woman. If you did it correctly, her lips would be parted, her mouth open and her breathing just so. In­stead, I see thin lips that are not parted."

"Sue me for malpractice. At least you won't have to hear about how she's going to sweep across America like a flood."

Changing the subject, Chiun said, "I have checked this floor and those above and below."

"Any mailmen?"

"None."

"Good. Because if the Messengers of Muhammad send their guys after her, they're probably going to be wearing letter-carrier blue."

Abruptly Chiun began sniffing the air. "That smell..."

"Pork. It was supposed to be breakfast."

"Dispose of it. For the stink of burned pig offends me above all other meat smells."

Because it offended Remo Williams's nostrils, too, he did as the Master of Sinanju bid. Neither of them ate meat except for duck and fish. Down the toilet went the breakfast fixings.

"What happens when she wakes up?" Remo asked, surveying the now-snoring Abeer Ghula.

"You will please her opposite wrist."

"Not me. I did my duty. You take the next trick."

Chiun made a distasteful face. "Let us hope the Messengers of Muhammad strike before then."

Chapter 28

Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca was whistling "Peace Train" as he stepped off the Greyhound bus at the Port Authority Terminal. He had been told to take the bus instead of flying, because while buses crashed as readily as aircraft, one could survive a bus acci­dent. Few survived a falling airplane.

Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca, born Farouk Shazzam, took this as a sign that the Messengers' of Muhammad were soon to target American aircraft. He had no knowledge that of the original band of mes­sengers, he was one of the few survivors. For he did not watch "Nightmirror" or any of that Western filth.

So when the e-mail summons to go to New York City came, he did not think it strange. New York City- had been targeted the day before. No doubt those True Believers who executed the New York operation were now lying on arabesqued couches, being fanned by houris beyond compare, happily deceased.

Now it was Farouk's turn.

He had been told to take his uniform leather bag and other equipment with him but not to wear it.

As he left the busy Port Authority terminal, he could understand why.

The police bomb squad was X-raying a blue collec­tion box just outside the terminal. He himself had to walk around the yellow police tape that cordoned off the area.

Farther down Ninth Avenue, they had a wheeled robot circling an olive-drab relay box. The robot looked like a mechanical dog on wheels, but he un­derstood how such devices worked. This one was sniffing for explosives. If any were found, it would be made to shoot a charge into the box while the bomb squad stood off at a safe distance behind steel body bunkers and other armor.

But there was no bomb in the relay box. Farouk knew this. He had been advised that as long as he was on his holy mission of murder, New York would not explode in whole or part.

It was a wonderful feeling, to be told that New York City was safe only as long as Farouk Shazzam had work to do in it.

Going to the Marriot Marquis Hotel near Times Square, he was confronted at the entrance door by an FBI agent who demanded his hotel-room confirma­tion number. In the lobby, an ugly woman in black leather and a red beret emblazoned with the letters NOW demanded the same information.

This accomplished, he checked in as Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca and was given a key. No one questioned him further, for he was neither dressed as a postal worker nor did he look Middle Eastern, al­though he was a Hashemite born in Jordan. His dark Moorish good looks struck many as quintessentially Black Irish.

The glass capsule elevator took him to the sixteenth floor. When he got off, the corridor was very ordi­nary, but when he left the area of the elevator bank it became very strange.

The hotel, he saw, was built about a great concrete cathedral-like atrium. The entire center was hollow. It seemed foolish to Farouk, especially with real-estate prices as they were, but many things were strange in the land of the infidel.

The rooms all faced outward, along the square concrete walkway. A low, fern-tipped concrete wall prevented one from tumbling over into the cavernous space through which thin light spilled down from great skylights.

Farouk found his room number and entered with a magnetic pass-card.

Unpacking his bag, he removed his letter-carrier uniforms, leather pouch, ear protectors and Uzi with spare clips. His red prayer rug he unrolled on the plain hotel carpet so that it faced Mecca.

Kneeling, he bowed his head and began to pray.

Into his mind came his favorite verse from the Ko­ran: "No man knows the land in which he will die."

It was a favorite Koranic saying. And very poi­gnant on this day, on which he was fated to die in the supreme act of annihilating the heretic Abeer Ghula.

Assuming, of course, that the call came.

At exactly noon, the room telephone began shiver­ing.

"Yes. Hello?" he said in his unaccented English.

A sweet voice said only, "It is the ordained hour."

"I understand."

The line went dead. Nothing more needed to be said. The Deaf Mullah had spoken. His pronounce­ments were absolute.

Reciting one final prayer—the afternoon prayer— Farouk donned the uncouth blue gray uniform with the eagle's head on blouse and shoulder patch, added the blue cap and, after checking the action of his Uzi, stowed it into the leather pouch, which he then shoul­dered. It was filled with junk mail he had neglected to deliver on his Washington route. These useless things concealed the Uzi.

Clapping the ear protectors over his head, he stepped out and took the elevator down to the tenth floor, where it was said that Abeer Ghula dwelt in imagined safety, but in truth cowered in terror.

The difficulty lay in that it wasn't said which room the hypocrite cowered.

This was easily discovered, Farouk thought. Start­ing with the first numbered room, he knocked on all doors and, when someone answered, he handed them a piece of gaudy junk mail addressed to Occupant.

Many were surprised by him. Some shrank from his smiling face. And why should he not smile? This was his last day on the unhappy earth.

At the room numbered 1013, his knock was an­swered by a querulous "Who is it?"

"I have mail."

"Leave it."

"I must give this to you personally, for otherwise it will not be considered delivered by the mighty post­master general."

"For whom have you mail?"

"I must look. One moment," said Farouk, feign­ing ignorance. "Ah, yes, here it is. I have a special- delivery letter for Abeer Ghula. Is there an Abeer Ghula at this address?"

"I will look."

"Thank you," said Farouk, smiling broadly. They were checking. No doubt they were being careful.

When the door opened, it did so without warning. And a thick-wristed hand snapped out, took hold of his throat and withdrew with amazing speed.

Farouk could feel his shoe soles actually burn and smoke so swiftly was he carried inside.

His back was slammed against a wall, and the air exploded from his stunned lungs.

At which point Farouk clawed for his well-hidden Uzi. Digging into the jumbled mail, he ignored the paper cuts and found the butt of the submachine gun. His fingers wrapped around it.

Then other unfamiliar fingers wrapped around his fingers. They squeezed. And the pain traveling up Farouk's right arm turned to crimson when it reached his eyeballs.

He screamed. The words were inarticulate. If they were even words.

The crushing hand withdrew, and Farouk whipped out his burning hand.

His eyes cleared of the red pain, and he stood stunned, looking at his gun hand.

It was not bleeding. This was very surprising. He associated the red haze before his eyes with the color of blood. His blood. But the hand was not bleeding. It was very black, actually. The fingers were bent in strange ways—as was the much more sturdy Uzi sub­machine gun.

Farouk was not absorbing the fact that his fingers and the Uzi were an inextricable lump of broken and fused matter when the face of his assailant loomed up in his line of sight.

It was a cold face, very pale and Western.

"Messengers of Muhammad?" he asked.

"I do not say yes and I do not say no," he said.

"That is a yes," a squeaky voice piped up.

And nearby, Farouk saw a little Asian, wrinkled features like a wise old monkey's, dressed for a fu­neral.

"My name is Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca," he said.

"He is a Moor," said the Asian.

"Truthfully I am Black Irish."

"His eyes do not smile," the Asian said.

"Before we punch out your lights," the other said, "who do you work for?"

"The postal service, of course. Do you not recog­nize my proud and honorable uniform?"

A hard hand backed by a thick wrist wrapped itself around the Uzi again and gave a forceful squeeze.

This time Farouk's eyeballs exploded into pin- wheels of colored light. The pain clutched at his stomach, and though he screamed, no words issued forth. It was that painful.

"Here we go again. Who sent you here to erase Abeer Ghula?"

"The Deaf One."

"The Deaf Mullah?"

"Yes, yes," he gasped. "None other."

"The Deaf Mullah's in solitary."

"The Deaf Mullah is wiser than infidels. He walks free, breathing clean air and eating halai food, which is denied him by his supposed captors."

"I'm going to say this one last time. Who gave you the order to come here?"

"The Deaf Mullah."

"You see him?"

"In the holy flesh."

"Where and when?" "Many months ago, in the storefront mosque in Jersey City. Although he sat behind a bulletproof screen to protect him from those who would do vio­lence against him, it was unmistakably he. I swear by the Holy Beard."

The death's-headed one turned to the Asian. "How's he sound to you?"

"He is telling the truth. You can hear it in his pounding heart."

"I am telling the truth. Now I must kill and die."

"No killing, but you get to die."

"I cannot die until I kill the heretic."

"She's sleeping and doesn't want to be killed right now," said the Westerner in a serious voice, although his words were foolish in meaning.

"Then I will refuse to martyr myself."

"That's what they all say," said the white infidel.

And the irresistible vise of a hand on the Uzi-and- mangled-hand combination led him out into the rec­tangular corridor and to the low edge of the retaining wall.

"What are you going to do?" asked Farouk.

"Nothing. You're going to commit suicide."

"Gladly. If you tie Abeer Ghula's feet to my own."

"Out of rope today," said the man, peering down. "Not here," he muttered.

"Good. I am not ready to die just yet."

But Farouk's relief was short-lived. He was walked around the corner to another point of vantage.

The infidel leaned over. "This looks good."

"Why is this spot good and not the other?" Farouk wondered aloud.

"Because there's a restaurant down there, and I didn't want to drop you in somebody's Caesar salad." "I do not mind taking infidels with me when I go to my welcome death."

"But I do."

And though the infidel with the thick wrists was on the lean side and showed insufficient muscle for the task, Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca, a.k.a. Farouk Shazzam, found himself lifted bodily and dangled over yawning space.

"There is still time for you to relent and embrace Allah," Farouk offered hopefully.

"Have him give me a call," said the infidel, letting

go.

It was not so terrible. The force of gravity simply took hold of Farouk's stomach, and he fell, pulling the rest of him with it. He enjoyed the acceleration, the lightheadedness and the wild thrill that comes from free-falling at over one hundred miles per hour with­out a bungee cord.

When he struck the parquet floor, he became an in­stant bag of blood, brains and loose bone that lay flatter than it seemed possible for a fully grown hu­man being to lie.

But he died with a smile of joyous expectation on his shattered face.

Remo shut the door to the screams wafting up and told the Master of Sinanju, "That should give the FBI guys reason to tighten their security."

"They are not perfect," said Chiun, who was watching the local Korean-language channel on TV.

"They let one get through."

On the bed, Abeer Ghula stirred. She twisted one way and then the other like a cat, the royal blue bed clothes slipping off her supple, dusky form.

One arm flopped over the edge of the mattress, and as she began a subvocal murmuring that promised full wakefulness, Remo indicated the exposed underside of her wrist and said to the Master of Sinanju, "Your turn."

Chiun refused to drag his hazel eyes from the screen. "I will wait. It may yet be possible that the Messengers of Muhammad will succeed in their task and I will be spared the ignominy."

"Fat chance."

"Another five minutes will do no harm."

Dr. Harold W. Smith snapped up the receiver as soon as it rang. It was the blue contact phone.

"Yes, Remo?"

"M.O.M. just tried again."

"Did you interrogate the assassin?"

"I wouldn't dignify him with that word," Remo said dryly. "But yeah. He was dressed up like a mail­man. Somehow he got through the FBI security ring. Or maybe the NOW bruisers."

"Go ahead."

"He swore on Allah's beard it's the Deaf Mullah."

"Allah is not known to wear a beard. You mean the Prophet."

"He swore, he spoke the truth as he saw it, and as a lesson to the FBI, we disposed of him after we were done. Expect to hear about another postal suicide be­fore long."

"They will not give up this easily," warned Smith.

"Just look into the Deaf Mullah thing. Some­thing's not right here."

"My thinking exactly." "If these people served the Deaf Mullah, wouldn't they be calling for his release rather than screw around with the Middle Eastern version of Bella Abzug?"

"There is something very wrong here, I agree. I will get back to you."

"Can't be soon enough," said Remo.

A rippling ululation like a grieving woman at a Lebanese funeral came across the wire.

"What is that sound?" asked Smith.

"Oh, that's just Abeer Ghula going into parox­ysms of ecstasy."

"Who is-?"

"It's Chiun's turn."

"You are joking, of course."

Then a squeaky voice rang out. "Remo! Come look. See the lips? They are relaxed. See how the mouth is parted? That is how a woman is pleasured."

"What is going on down there?" Harold Smith de­manded.

"We're just keeping Abeer out of trouble our way," explained Remo.

"Do nothing to her that cannot be explained to the First Lady."

"I think the First Lady knows about this kind of stuff by now," said Remo, hanging up.

Smith used the untappable blue contact telephone to reach the warden of a Missouri federal prison.

"This is Assistant Special Agent Smith, FBI Wash­ington."

"Go ahead."

"We are calling to confirm the security of Prisoner 96669." "How many times do I have to tell you people? He's in administrative detention. That's solitary to you."

"Can you assure me he has no contact with the outside world?"

"That's why they call it solitary. He's in a bare cell, with no loose items except a fireproof blanket and a paper prison uniform. He gets one hour a day to shower and exercise under armed guard."

"How does his counsel communicate with him?"

"He doesn't. The lawyers stopped coming around about six months ago."

"Do you know the status of his appeal?"

"Dropped."

"Dropped?" Smith asked sharply.

"Dropped cold."

"Doesn't that strike you as unusual?"

"Yeah. We assume his people are waiting for the day they can ransom him out through hostage taking or terror threats and are saving their money for blast­ing caps."

"I concur with that assumption," Smith said tightly.

"If I'm told to release him by a federal authority, I will. Until then, he's just Prisoner 96669 and a son of a bitch besides."

"You should consider doubling his guards."

"I can guarantee you they won't be busting him out."

"A simple precaution may save you embarrass­ment, if not serious career consequences."

Chapter 29

In the al-Bahlawan Mosque in the flat state of Ohio- stan, the Deaf Mullah read the news that a postal worker had jumped to his death in the Marriot Mar­quis Hotel in Manhattan.

Farouk Shazzam of the Moorish-Irish face had failed. That meant he had been murdered by U.S. se­cret agents, his mission unfulfilled. That further meant that the Messengers of Muhammad lacked an­other willing martyr.

And Abeer Ghula lived.

He considered this at length. To send another mes­senger? Or not? They were intended to be used in this way, but with so many in FBI hands, they were now precious. And the two at hand, Yusef and Jihad Jones, were critical to the next phase.

Tapping a chime, he sat back and listened to the in­cessant ringing that troubled his waking hours and whispered of the vengeful god he served.

Sargon appeared.

"Farouk is no more, but the hypocrite lives," the Deaf Mullah intoned.

"Her hours are numbered," Sargon replied.

"As are yours."

"I hear and obey."

And without another word, Sargon, trusted Sar­gon the Infallible, left the room never to return.

For it was his duty to prepare the Fist of Allah for launch.

Facing the electronic green minarets of his termi­nal, the Deaf Mullah began composing the commu­nique that would signal to the godless the nearness of Allah's holy wrath.

On the Ohio Turnpike, Yusef Gamal watched the miles speed by as Jihad Jones drove the practice mis­sile eastward.

"When will it be my turn to drive the practice mis­sile?" he complained.

"When it is," the Egyptian spat.

"Why do you always take this tone with me?"

"Because you annoy me always."

"I am hungry," Yusef said suddenly.

"I, too, am hungry," Jihad admitted.

"There was a seafood restaurant two miles back. Since I may die at any hour, I am in the mood for sea­food."

"I myself am in the mood for shrimp."

"I do not eat shellfish," Yusef muttered.''I belong to the Hanafi school. Shellfish is impermissible."

"I am a follower of the Shafeii school. Shellfish is halal with us. We eat it up and say, Alhamdulillah."

"That is your school," said Yusef as Jihad wres­tled the big silver bus off the turnpike exit.

After a silence, Jihad said, "The Jews are forbid­den to eat shellfish, too."

"I am just pointing out a known fact. Jews do not eat shellfish. You do not eat shellfish. There may pos­sibly be a connection. I do not know. I cannot say. I am just saying it."

"Say it to yourself," said Yusef. "I am wondering something else."

"And what is this you are wondering?"

"Why if we are to pilot a missile called the Fist of Allah into Paradise, Sargon is making us practice by driving a mere bus. A bus rides on wheels. A missile streaks through the air like an arrow."

"There is a good reason, never fear."

"I know there is a good reason. What I am won­dering is what this reason is."

"I am wondering this same thing, too," Jihad Jones said as he pulled into the seafood restaurant in exotic Ohiostan.

Yusef took the cell phone with him because Sargon the Persian had insisted he carry it at all times in case they were to be summoned.

After they entered the restaurant, a convoy of offi­cial FBI cars and Light Armored Vehicles raced along the Ohio Turnpike in the direction of the Al-Bahlawan Mosque.

But neither man saw this.

Chapter 30

Tamayo Tanaka wasn't going to take it lying down.

She was supposed to be the story. Now Abeer Ghu­la was the story. If Tamayo Tanaka wasn't going to be the story, then she had to get next to the story.

And that meant getting next to Abeer Ghula, dis­tasteful as it was.

Not that it was going to be easy.

Everyone wanted to get next to Abeer Ghula. Es­pecially after it was reported an attempt had been made on her life. The First Lady herself had de­nounced the attempt and thrown the awesome weight of her political power behind Abeer Ghula. That made it the lead story of the day. And Tamayo Tanaka had to own that story.

So she called her news director up in Boston from her Washington hotel.

"Check it out, Tammy. Still got your hidden cam­era?"

"It's my pillow at night, you know that."

"After last night, your face will be recognizable all over Manhattan."

"Don't worry. I'll wear a fright wig and dark glasses."

"Try to blend in with the other Asian reporters.

There must be a tidal wave of them down there by now."

"Got it covered," said Tamayo Tanaka, blow- drying her pert blond coif. No one was going to rec­ognize her in her undercover disguise. No one at all.

Except maybe her mother.

They were taking out the body when the Yellow Checker cab dropped Tamayo off at the corner of Broadway and West Forty-fifth Street ninety minutes later. A sheet shrouded the gunman, but as they bumped him into the back of the waiting ambulance, an arm flopped out. Literally flopped. It was as thin and boneless as a noodle. But it was covered in fabric that, while stained burgundy, showed clean patches of USPS blue gray.

With her hidden camera, Tamayo Tanaka captured it all.

Then, breezing past the stony-faced FBI agents once she gave them her hotel confirmation number, she took a glass elevator to the upstairs reception area.

It was a joke. The FBI had the place guarded against mailmen and famous-faced journalists, but it was still a public building and one of the best hotels in the city.

No one could stop a guest from checking in.

"I want a room as far above Abeer Ghula's as pos­sible," she told the reception clerk, "unless she's on a lower floor, in which case give me one beneath her in case I have to evacuate for a bomb threat. I don't trust these glass elevators. They make me nervous."

"Will the third floor do?"

"It'll do perfectly," Tamayo Tanaka said, sup­pressing a grin. That narrowed the floors down.

At her room door, the bellboy accepted a twenty- dollar bill in return for revealing the floor where Abeer Ghula was holed up.

"I don't know the room number," he said.

"Not necessary," Tamayo said. "I don't suppose I could talk you out of that uniform?"

"I'm not allowed to fraternize with the guests."

"Bend a rule for a blonde with a problem."

"Man, this never happens to me," the bellboy said, shucking off his uniform tunic and stripping down his

fly.

"Change in the bathroom and toss your duds out as you go," Tamayo told him.

The bellboy shrugged. "It's your party."

When he was done, the bellboy was chagrined to see the blonde was buttoning his tunic over her pink silk bra.

"Is this a TV kind of deal?" he asked.

"I'm not on TV."

"I mean transvestite TV. Because if it is, I'll wear whatever I have to if it makes you horny—I mean happy."

Zipping up her fly, Tamayo threw open the room door.

"Where are you going?" the bellboy called after her.

"I'll be back as soon as I can. Sit tight."

"What do I do with this hard-on?"

"Soak it in something."

"Wait!"

But the door slammed in his face and his unhappy "Oh, shit."

On the tenth floor, Tamayo Tanaka walked as if she were wrapped in a starched straitjacket. That was how it felt, but if it worked she was back in the game.

And nothing was going to knock her out of the game again.

Yassir Nossair had a problem.

It was not a little problem. It was a very big prob­lem.

Hiring the aircraft to fly over Manhattan was not the problem. This was easily done for the right amount of money. Many journalists were hiring aircraft, so it was not unusual to do this.

The problem was crashing the aircraft into the ho­tel room of the hypocrite Abeer Ghula.

It had been leaked, the floor. Counting up from the first floor was easy. Yassir Nossair used his Zeiss field glasses. He had the floor pinpointed exactly.

It was the correct side of the hotel. The correct room would have been better, but this was impossible. Ob­taining the correct side ensured success. Once the air­craft smashed into the appropriate side of the hotel, the explosion would totally rip that wall of her build­ing apart, ripping Abeer Ghula's heretical bones apart with them.

"Want to circle again?" asked the pilot.

"Yes, I am thinking."

Would it be the side facing Mecca? he ruminated. No, it would not be the side facing Mecca. Abeer Ghula was too contrary.

Perhaps it was the side opposite, facing away from Mecca. Would that not make sense?

At last, after careful thought because he possessed only one plane and one life, Yassir Nossair decided it would be the side opposite Mecca.

"It is time," he announced.

"You're done?" the pilot asked.

"Nearly so. I must ask you now to fly closer to the hotel."

"How close?"

"Point it at the hotel and fly toward it."

"Sure."

The Piper Cherokee banked and came in on a level line.

"Lower, slightly," said Yassir Nossair, looking through the windscreen with his field glasses. Quickly he counted up.

"Yes, remain on this level."

"Aren't you going to take a picture?"

"Yes, yes. How stupid of me."

And from the gym bag at his feet, Yassir Nossair took up a 9 mm pistol and placed it against the pilot's unsuspecting temple.

He fired once. The pilot's eyes were dragged from their sockets to smear like burst grapes against the suddenly-shattered side window.

Yassir Nossair took the control wheel from him and held the plane steady as he shouted, "Allah Akbar! God is Great!"

There were approximately ten doors on each of the four sides of the tenth floor of the Marriot Marquis. The sun was high in the sky now, and the autumn light streaming down through the skylights made eerie golden shafts in the cathedral interior.

Tamayo walked the wide, rectangular corridors as softly as possible, so that she could catch any sound that came from behind the doors.

At each door where she heard a noise, she knelt be­neath the glass eye of the peephole and laid an ear to the panel.

She heard TVs, afternoon lovemaking, but nothing that suggested Abeer Ghula's strident voice.

At one door, she heard a TV set tuned to CNN, a network she loathed because their anchors might as well be working in a factory as a broadcast studio for all the publicity their careers got. Not one of them had ever been asked to appear on Leno, never mind Let- terman.

About to rise, she heard a squeaky voice say, "See who is lurking at the door, Remo."

The voice sounded familiar, but before Tamayo could think it through, the door swung inward and she spilled inside, yelping like a cat with a trampled tail.

Her big bag was taken from her, and a hand reached down and grabbed her by the collar. She was hoisted up as if weightless.

When hex face came level with her molester, she recognized the deep-set eyes and high cheekbones, not to mention the T-shirt and chinos.

"What are you doing here?" asked the man she knew only as Remo.

"None of your business," Tamayo retorted.

"That's not the answer I want to hear."

"Look, give me ten minutes with Abeer Ghula, a worldwide exclusive, and I won't tell anybody she's in this room."

"No deal." "Fine. But think of the inconvenience when I go on the air with this."

"You're not going on the air with anything."

And Tamayo Tanaka found herself being led over to a queen-size bed where a raven-haired woman lay under the royal blue covers.

"Is she dead?" she gasped, seeing her story take a dark turn into a brief, third-segment obituary.

"Just sleeping one off."

"Muslims don't drink alcohol."

"Thaf s not what she's sleeping off," said the voice of the hand that squeezed her neck.

Tamayo Tanaka didn't remember pitching face-first into the bedding. Only waking up later, with the foul garlic and olive stench of Abeer Ghula's breath in her face.

"Mmm," Abeer murmured.

"I'm Tamayo Tanaka and I'm wired for sound. Can I get a quote?"

"Mmm."

"Psst! Remember me? Tammy? From 'Nightmir­ror?'"

Abeer Ghula opened one golden eye. It fell on Ta- mayo's face, flicked up to her hair and came to rest on her eager blue eyes.

"Are you my blue-eyed blonde?"

"If I can get a quote, I'll be your little pink poo­dle."

Abeer Ghula smiled dreamily. "I have never fil­iated a blond man," she said. "Did you know fellatio is an Arabic word?"

"I'm not a-"

"I will tell you whatever you wish if you allow me to taste your blond infidel hardness." "Sure," said Tamayo, making her voice husky. "But we have to do it under the covers in the dark."

"Yes, it will be very exciting this way."

"Close them. Are you ready?"

"Put it in my mouth, and I will suck it dry."

In THE OTHER ROOM, Remo Williams said, "Sounds like a certain someone's awake."

"Both are awake," said Chiun on the floor, where he could watch TV in comfort.

"What are they saying?"

"The false Japanese wench is trying to coax words from the harlot."

"Let her. She's not going anywhere."

"And the other is promising to suck it dry."

"Suck what dry?"

Chiun shrugged. "Who can say when a false prophet awakens beside a blond-haired Japan­ese?"

"I'd better look into this."

"Do not forget. It is your turn to please the female Ghula. And see that her smile is correct this time."

"Maybe I'll just show Tammy how to do it and save us both a week of boredom."

Remo stepped into the bedroom and saw a double lump under the bed covers. It was a very active lump, with distinctive sucking sounds coming from it.

He was hesitating between breaking it up or letting the orgasms fall where they may when a flash of sil­ver caught his eye.

A light plane was circling outside the window. It lined up nose-first on the hotel. Approaching, it dropped until it was level with his window.

Remo's eyes had been trained to see in darkness, under difficult light conditions and as far away as the human lens mechanisms allowed for optimum sight.

He saw that there were two men in the cockpit. Then the passenger placed a pistol to the pilot's head and shot him through the temple.

That was all Remo needed to see.

Racing to the bed, he yelled, "Make for the door, Little Father! Incoming!"

"Incoming what?" asked Chiun.

"No time! Run for it!"

Tucking a squirming bundle tucked under his arm, Remo got out of the room fast on the heels of the Master of Sinanju's skirts as Chiun flashed out the door.

Remo pulled the door shut, thinking it might not help but who knew.

The splintering of glass came as they mounted the low retainer wall, flipped over it and, using one hand for leverage, swung downward and in, landing on the floor below.

From there, they ran to the opposite side of the floor.

The explosion shook the building like a milk shake. Up above, a skylight cracked. Down came shards of glass. The second boom was lighter, but it made the door to their room cartwheel out and tumble past them in a hot breath of air to land far below.

The rest of it was mostly fire and crackling.

When it sounded safe to get up off the floor, Remo whipped the blanket off the prone forms of Tamayo Tanaka and Abeer Ghula.

Eyes closed, Abeer was energetically sucking on Tamayo Tanaka's thumb.

Chapter 31

"Just another minute, okay?" Tamayo whispered. "We're almost done here."

Dr. Harold W. Smith was assuring the President that all was well with Abeer Ghula when the blue contact telephone rang.

"I assure you, Mr. President, the woman is being protected by the best."

"Do you know what my wife will do to me if that woman is killed? It'll be worse than if I'm not re­elected and she's out of office."

"Your wife holds no public office."

"Tell her that. Right now she's plotting my new Southern strategy."

"The South appears lost to your party."

"Tell my wife. She thinks she can flip the South like a hamburger if only someone will hand her a big enough spatula."

"Excuse me," said Harold Smith. "I must get this other line."

Scooping up the blue contact telephone, Smith placed the red receiver to his gray chest.

"Yes?"

"Smitty, they tried again," Remo said unhappily.

"They failed, of course."

"Say again?"

"Forget it. We can't stay here if they're going to drop aircraft on us. We need a new locality."

"Hold the line."

"Sure." Over the line, Smith heard Remo ask the Master of Sinanju, "Are they done yet?"

"I do not know. The blond one's thumb is bleed­ing, and the other is sucking it harder now."

"Leave them alone. They obviously know what they're doing."

"What is going on there?" Smith demanded hoarsely.

"You don't want to know."

"I have the President on the dedicated line. Wait, please."

Swapping receivers, Smith told the President, "I am back."

"What's wrong?"

"What do you mean?"

"I could hear your heartbeat. It went into over­drive."

Smith cleared his throat uncomfortably. "There was another attempt on Abeer Ghula's life, but she is safe. I am going to have to move her to a safer location."

"Whatever you do, don't send her to Washington. The last thing I need is terrorists attacking the capi­tal. The pundits are already calling me the President who let the postal system lurch into chaos. The damn Speaker of the House is right now talking up legisla­tion to abolish the postal service."

"I will be back to you."

"If it's bad news, keep it to yourself as long as pos­sible. After the reelection would do just fine."

Hanging up on the White House, Harold Smith re­sumed speaking with Remo Williams.

Remo said, "Did he really tell you to keep a lid on the bad news?"

"He did."

"He's sure running scared."

"Not our problem, Remo. I want you to move Abeer Ghula to the World Trade Center."

"Why there?"

"Since the 1993 bombing, it has become the hard­est, safest structure in all of Manhattan. They would not dare to attack her there."

"You ask me, they'd dare to attack her in the Vati­can."

"I stand corrected. They will be unable to breach the World Trade Center security. Move her immedi­ately. I will arrange for an FBI counterstrike force to meet you."

"On our way. What about the dip-shit?"

"Leave her behind. Of course."

"Prying her thumb out of Ghula's mouth may be more work than just pretending they're Siamese les­bians and treating them as a set."

"Leave her," Smith said coldly.

Terminating the call, Remo spoke to the Master of Sinanju. "Smitty says we gotta take Abeer to a safer location, but to leave the dip behind."

"What about the dip's thumb?"

"Won't it come out?"

"I refuse to attempt such a thing. Besides, it is your turn."

"Does this count toward pleasuring Abeer?"

Chiun gave the question barely a second's thought. "Yes. Definitely."

"Sounds Sike a fair trade to me," said Remo, grin­ning.

"I will guard the approach and thus spare my aged eyes the terrible sight of what it is you must do."

As Chiun padded away, Remo dropped to one knee beside the two preoccupied women. Abeer was com­pletely oblivious to everything except Tamayo Ta- naka's thumb, while Tamayo was biting her lips to keep from crying out in her pain.

"Whatever this is, it's over," Remo said.

Tamayo said, "Shh. She thinks I'm a guy."

"She should open her eyes."

"Not until I get my quotes. I'm wired for sound."

"Where's the mike?"

"In my bra, where else?"

"Thanks," said Remo, squeezing Tamayo by the neck until her eyes rolled up in her head and she sank back into a soundless state of unconsciousness. Her blond head went bonk off the floor. Remo didn't at­tempt to cushion it, figuring she could use a hard knock on her skull.

As she fell, her hand tugged at Abeer Ghula's mouth. Abeer responded by flying into some kind of religious ecstasy and sucked all the harder.

Finally she released Tamayo's bloody thumb and sank back herself, sighing with a rush of content­ment.

"All done?" asked Remo, standing over her.

"Yes. It was wonderful. The blond one's seed tasted just like blood."

"Glad you got your money's worth. We gotta go now."

And reaching down, Remo gathered her up, blue blanket and all.

"I will go nowhere without my blond infidel."

"Where we're going, all the blond infidels you could want will be waiting," Remo promised.

"I will accept my fate, then, if it includes blond in­fidels."

"You know AIDS is transmitted through the blood."

"I am the Prophetess of Allaha. She will protect me from AIDS."

"Spoken like a congenital thumb sucker," mut­tered Remo.

"I am very oral," said Abeer. "Especially with congenitals."

They took the elevator to the ground floor, where a bell captain, seeing a tali man and an elderly Asian attempting to abscond with a Marriot blanket, blocked their way.

"You can't remove that from the premises. Hotel property."

"We'll bring it back," Remo assured him.

"I am sorry, you cannot."

The Master of Sinanju stepped up and showed the bell captain the trivial nature of his complaint by dis­locating his kneecap with an expert side-kick.

They left the angrily hopping bell captain behind and took the next cab in line.

"World Trade Center," Remo told the cabbie.

"Tower One or Two?"

"One. If it's not One, it's a short ride to Two."

The cab slithered into traffic.

An FBI counterterrorist SWAT team in full battle gear was waiting when they pulled up before Tower One.

"Tower One it is," Remo said cheerily.

The FBI commander on the scene rushed up and said briskly, "Sorry. We'll have to search you."

"Search this first," said Remo, letting the blanket unroll and depositing Abeer Ghula at the man's black boots.

Abeer looked up, blinked and said, "Are you my blond infidel?"

"No."

"'Yes' will get better cooperation," Remo ad­vised.

"I have a few white hairs coming in," the FBI commander allowed.

"Guaranteed to multiply by shift's end," said Remo. "Just show us where to go."

"This way."

Tucking Abeer Ghula under one arm, Remo al­lowed an FBI unit to form a moving wedge around them. They were escorted in.

Chiun trailed along, hands tucked into his kimono sleeves and hazel eyes scanning their surroundings, not wishing to defer to white customs.

"You know," Remo told the FBI commander after they made it into the lobby, "a better approach might have been incognito."

"Normally. But the Oval Office wants this done right."

"Right is subtle."

"Subtle is open to criticism. Up front and out in the open means no one can haul our butt before a con­gressional inquiry."

"Point taken," said Remo.

The elevator whisked them to an upper floor where they were led to a spacious room that had been hasti­ly converted into an FBI command center.

"No bed?" asked Remo, eyeing the nest of com­munications equipment.

"We're working on it."

"She likes to sleep."

The room was packed with FBI agents, and Abeer Ghula walked among them, eyeing them sleepily and asking, "Are you my blond infidel?" over and over in a petulant voice.

Remo mouthed "Say no" whenever he could.

"Then where is my blond infidel?"

"Working on his roots. Haven't you had enough for one day?"

"I am insatiable for this one. For this one, I will willingly renounce all women, all other men. Even if his penis is short and stubby, it was as hard as bone and salty as the rich blood of my period, which I have tasted in the slavish mouths of my own lovers."

"Give him time to recover. You were very hard on him."

"All men will be slaves under Um Allaha,"

"Don't quit your day job just yet," Remo said.

Turning to Chiun, he saw that the Master of Si­nanju had his hands over his small, delicate ears.

Remo made a sign that indicated it was okay to lis­ten.

"She is finished?" Chiun asked.

"For now."

"The harlot has a mouth like a sewer and the hab­its of certain lower animals I will not name for fear of offending them."

"Good move," said Remo, who then invited the FBI to leave the room.

The FBI commander shook his head stubbornly. "Can't. She's our responsibility."

"No. Guarding the building is your responsibility. Guarding her is ours."

"What agency are you with?"

"A secret one," said Chiun. "If its name so much as falls upon your ears, I must slay you on the spot."

The unit commander cracked half a smile, then suppressed it when he saw the serious expressions confronting him.

"I take my orders from Special Agent Smith. No one else."

"Smith your ramrod?" asked Remo.

"Yes."

"Let's call him."

"Sorry, I don't have the number."

"But I do," said Remo, picking up the phone and thumbing the 1 button. When he heard the first ring, he handed the phone to the commander, knowing Smith would pick up before the second ring.

"This is Commander Strong, on site at WTC."

Smith's voice was sharp. "How did you get this number?"

"Tell him Remo dialed it for you," Remo sug­gested.

"He says his name is Remo and he's ordering us out of the secure room. What do we do?"

"Obey him. Guard the building."

"Sir, I can't."

"That is a direct order," said ASAC Smith.

"Yes, sir."

Taking the receiver back, Remo held open the door as the FBI SWAT team trooped out, looking dejected and unappreciated.

"Remember, keep this floor clear. The last FBI team had really sloppy security habits."

Then Remo shut the door.

Abeer Ghula was huddled in a chair, the blue blan­ket slipping off her dusky shoulders, exposing por­tions of her anatomy neither Remo nor Chiun cared to contemplate at that particular time.

"I want my blond infidel," she muttered darkly.

"Your turn, Little Father," said Remo.

Hearing this, Abeer Ghula tucked her wrists pro­tectively under her hairy armpits.

"I know what it is you desire," she spat. "But you cannot touch my precious new erogenous zones."

"I do not want them," Chiun sniffed.

"I want my blond infidel."

"It's going to be a while," Remo explained. "Would you rather sleep through the long wait?"

"I am very hungry."

"We'll order up. What do you want?"

"Blond infidel aujus."

"Settle for steamed rice?"

Abeer Ghula was still whining an hour later when Harold Smith walked in unannounced.

Remo was moving toward the door, ready to take out the intruder when the sound of Smith's familiar heartbeat reached his sensitive ears and he pulled back.

"Nice going, Smitty. I almost took your head off."

"It is a good test of security," Smith returned.

Chiun bustled up, tight features breaking into a sunrise of pleased wrinkles. "Greetings, O Smith. What service may we render?"

"I am taking charge of this woman."

"You?"

"I need you both elsewhere.''

"Great," said Remo.

Chiun bowed more deeply than Remo had ever seen him bow to anyone. Another foot, and he could al­most kiss Smith's immaculately buffed Cordovans.

"Your munificence enriches our dreary toil. Speak the service, and it will be done with glad, adoring hands."

"I have traced the anonymous computer-server link to the Gates of Paradise."

"Yeah? Where?" asked Remo.

"A mosque in Toledo, Ohio."

"There's a mosque in Toledo?"

"One of the largest in the nation. But it's suppos­edly not in use."

"Why not?"

"It was built with its orientation slightly askew, and does not face Mecca."

"So why don't you just have it raided?"

"It is still a mosque. A raid would be politically embarrassing for the President and the nation, and would only inflame these people."