Terror Squad

by Warren Murphy

  Terror Squad

  The Destroyer #10

  Warren Murphy & Richard Sapir

  For Scott and Kelly

  Special Author's Introduction

  Behind the New Direction

  THIS BOOK WAS WRITTEN when three positions were generally considered acceptable in New York City: left, lefter, and leftist.

  One of the authors went out with a young woman whose chilling left vision of the world seemed very much like Nazi Germany. The only difference was who would be going into the ovens. Most of the writers at the time considered left the direction of virtue, and were surprised how each country that was liberated became a hellhole. You could tell the countries already liberated. People would be shot for trying to leave, and the U.N., and most of the press, would stop criticizing them.

  In any case, this young woman with a dynamite body had a vision of an especially native socialism for America, a Yankee Doodle Socialism, as she called it. The author asked her if she ever heard of National Socialism. She hadn’t.

  They were the Nazis, she was told.

  We’ll be different.

  No you’re not, the author told her.

  Then put on your pants and get out of here, she said.

  I was only joking, the author said. Then he began Terror Squad, which deals with revolutionary groups. There was a special righteous irony in his writing. She didn’t believe he was joking, and he did have to put on his pants. In that cold night, the true dangers of the international left were perceived, as the author bought a Playboy magazine and went home alone.

  Message from Chiun

  Here we have the second book dealing with the shame of Sinanju* who I will not mention, although the authors feel free to bandy about his name. And as an introduction, the author writes about his own pants.

  Now these two, the authors, should disprove once and for all the Darwinian theory of survival of the fittest. Could Sapir and Murphy be the fittest of anything? Even the fittest of whites?

  What happened in this book is that the shame of Sinanju seduced unwitting people to his own ends. That is what happened in this book. What is left out of this book is the difficulty I had at that time reasoning with Remo, whom many of you have been led to believe is white.

  On this subject, I will say only one thing. The authors are white. Does that lead you to believe there might be some hidden self-interest here? The authors are the people who describe the characters in the book. You know what race they are by the way the authors describe them. This subject comes up again in later books. In those books, they imply that I, Chiun, Master of Sinanju, glory of the sun source of all the martial arts, would mislead you.

  The real lies are these books. I am hard pressed to name one that fully and honestly portrays the glory of Sinanju. And since you seem like a nice person, let me confide in you that you cannot get the glory of Sinanju in English. The language was meant for science, but not for the greater truths of how you breathe, move, and think.

  English was never a language for breathing. Name one major work on how to breathe. Go into your library and find the breathing section. It is not there, not in an English library.

  Therefore, these books in English give you only a mild understanding of the true magnificence that is Sinanju. Sinanju, the glory of Sinanju, is the real reason these books sell, and can only be taught fully in pure Korean. I refer to the decent language before the modem corruptions from Pyong Yang, or the evil Japanese influence, or the sloth of the Chinese tongue. I refer, of course, to that awesome language of my ancestors.

  You could have had it, by the way. I suggested giving the authors Sinanju in the only form it can be written, pure Korean using the Tang poem structure. It would have been a mere 12,000 pages, and by the end of it, you would have known the first simple elements of breathing, so you could stop doing it the way you and your ancestors have done it forever, any which way you happen to start the moment your backsides touched cold air.

  No, they said. Twelve thousand pages was too long. Too long? Do you know how many pages these books add up to so far? Fifteen thousand at least. And much of it has to do with violence, and whites. Is that Sinanju? Is that what you have paid so much money for?

  And now you are paying again. More. For what you could have gotten for less, years ago. No wonder twenty-four million copies of these things have sold.

  To this civilization, the authors imply, I, Chiun, would bother to lie. Shame on them. And you. If you believe it. Go read about people putting their pants back on.

  * * *

  *The shame of Sinanju is Nuihc. So evil was Nuihc that Chiun reversed the sounds of his name so as to be the opposite of such infamy. Nuihc was introduced in book seven, Union Bust.

  CHAPTER ONE

  AN AIRPLANE IS AN UNSUPPORTABLE outpost. You cannot reinforce it. You cannot resupply it.

  Mrs. Kathy Miller listened to this description on a flight from New York City to Athens, Greece. The man beside her was fascinating, a gentle person in his late thirties with soft brown eyes and a craggy face honed by wind and sun. He spoke with a slightly guttural accent she could not place, and he was attempting, unsuccessfully, to calm her fears about skyjacking.

  “Airplane travel today is far safer than going from one small village to another during the Middle Ages.” he said. “And for the hijacker, it is becoming almost impossible today to successfully achieve the capture of a plane. It is a vulnerable, unreinforceable outpost in the air. It has to land.”

  He smiled. Mrs. Miller hugged her infant son Kevin closer to her breast. She was not reassured.

  “If worse comes to worst, we will all fly around and in perhaps Libya or Cairo be returned. Even the most militant governments today are tired of hijackers. So, I do not know how horrible a delay would be for you, but for me it would be delightful. I have you and your adorable child for company. Americans are such good people, really.”

  “I hate the idea of hijacking. Even the thought of it makes me…well, mad and frightened.”

  “Ah, so we have it, Mrs. Miller. You are not afraid of the hijacking, but the idea of it. Being defenseless.”

  “Yes. I guess so. I mean, what right do those people have to endanger my life? I never did anything to anyone.”

  “A mad dog, Mrs. Miller, does not dispense justice. Let us be grateful that their fangs are weak.”

  “How can you say they’re weak?”

  “How can you say they’re strong?”

  “Very simply. They kill people. They murdered those athletes in Munich, those diplomats in wherever-it-was. They shoot people from rooftops. They bomb stores. They snipe at innocent people from hotel rooms. I mean, that isn’t weak.”

  The passenger in the next seat chuckled.

  “That is the sign of weakness. Strength is irrigating a field. Strength is constructing a building. Strength is discovering a cure for a disease. The random lunatic killing of a few people here and there is not strength. The odds against getting hurt by those madmen are astronomical.”

  “But it can happen,” said Kathy Miller. She felt strangely annoyed by the man’s argument. Why did he take terrorism so lightly? Her fear was gone now. It had been replaced by annoyance.

  “Many things can happen,” he said. “But that’s life. Landslides when you ski. Sharks when you swim. Accidents when you drive. But to live life, you must accept accidents as such, as inherent parts of living. You see, what bothers you is the fact that you are vulnerable to accidents, not that accidents exist. What bothers you is that these terrorists remind you of something you would like to keep hidden in some dark closet: your mortality.

  “The answer to these mad animals is to live. To love. Look, you have a beautiful baby. You are going to meet your husband
in Athens. Your very life and loving is a refutation, and a strong refutation, of every terrorist act every committed. You are taking an airplane today. That shows the terrorists are weak. They could not stop you.”

  “There’s something wrong with that argument,” said Kathy Miller. “I don’t know how or why, but there’s something wrong.”

  A stewardess leaned over the three-seat section and, with a plastic smile, asked if anyone wanted a beverage.

  Mrs. Miller wanted a cola.

  Her neighboring passenger shook his head.

  “Pure sugar and caffeine,” he said. “No good for you or for your baby whom you breastfeed.”

  “How do you know he’s not on a bottle?”

  “Just the way you hold him, Mrs. Miller. My wife also. I know. That’s all.”

  “I love cola,” she said.

  Three men in business suits brushed quickly behind the stewardess, heading toward the front of the plane. The passenger, whose movements had been so slow and relaxed, looked up suddenly at the three men, watching them like a gazelle alert for a tiger.

  “Do you have the cola now?” he asked the stewardess.

  Kathy Miller blinked in puzzlement. What was going on?

  “Yes. I have it right on this cart,” said the stew.

  “Now, please,” said the passenger.

  “Two colas then,” said the stewardess.

  The passenger, who had been so gentle and considerate since the plane left New York City, rudely snatched a drink before the stewardess could serve Kathy.

  He held it to his lips. Watching the front of the plane in wide-eyed fear, Kathy could see he held a white oblong pill near the lip of the glass.

  Without taking his eyes off the front of the plane, he said: “I want you to remember one thing, Mrs. Miller. Love is always stronger. Love is strength. Hate is weakness.”

  Kathy Miller did not have time for philosophy. Over the plane’s loudspeaker came words that curdled her intestines.

  “This is the Revolutionary Liberation Front of Free Palestine. Through our courageous endeavors, we have gloriously captured this vehicle of capitalistic-zionistic oppression. We have liberated this airplane. It is now in our hands. Make no sudden moves and you will not be hurt. Any sudden moves and you will be shot. Everyone put his hands on his head. No sudden moves. Anyone who fails to put his hands on his head will be shot.”

  To put her hands on her head would mean dropping the baby, Kathy Miller put her left hand on her head and held the baby with her right. Maybe one hand would be good enough. She shut her eyes and prayed, prayed as she had been taught to pray in Sunday School in Eureka, Kansas. She talked to God, explaining that she had nothing to do with this and that they shouldn’t hurt her or the baby. She begged God to let her and her baby live.

  “Dr. Geleth. Dr. Isadore Geleth. In which seat are you?” came the voice over the loudspeaker.

  Kathy could hear people move down the aisle. She felt a wetness at her feet. It must be her cola, that she had dropped. She did not want to open her eyes to see it, though. She would keep her eyes shut and hold Kevin to her chest and it would all pass. She had nothing to do with this whole thing. She was just a passenger. At worst, the plane would fly around a few hours longer and then she would open her eyes and find that they had finally landed at Athens Airport. That’s what would happen if she kept her eyes shut. The people who were hijacking the plane would have to land somewhere. They would get off and she and Kevin would fly with everyone else to Athens.

  “Dr. Geleth. We know you are aboard. We will find you, Dr. Geleth. Do not endanger other passengers,” said the voice from the loudspeaker.

  Kathy heard the passengers murmur. One woman shouted that she was having a heart attack. A young child cried. A stewardess kept repeating that everyone should be calm. Kathy felt the plane descend. She remembered she had read somewhere that a bullet through the skin of a plane at high altitude could cause an explosion. Or was it an implosion? No, an explosion. Everything would rush out. Air pressure at high altitudes made a gun battle tantamount to turning the aircraft into a bomb.

  “Dr. Geleth. We will get you. We call upon the passengers to signal if they are sitting next to Dr. Geleth or know where he is. We do not wish to harm you. We are peaceful. We do not wish to harm anyone.”

  Kathy felt something hard and metallic next to her head.

  “I can’t put my other hand up. I’ll drop my baby,” she said.

  “Open your eyes.” The voice was soft and menacing, the silky smoothness of a snake.

  Kathy did what she had not wished to do until it was all over. She opened her eyes. A pistol was pointed at her forehead, and a nervous, gaunt-faced young man in a business suit leaned over from the aisle holding it.

  The passenger who had assured her that hijacking was so improbable was sleeping through this. His eyes were closed, his hands relaxed on his lap. The tip of his tongue stuck out of his lips like a sliver of bubble gum. It was then that Kathy realized that she was still holding her drink, in the hand above her head. The passenger had dropped his and that was probably the wetness she had felt. But she did not dare look down.

  “You know him?” said the gunman, nodding toward the passenger.

  “No. No. We just talked,” said Kathy.

  “We know him,” said the gunman, and let out a stream of foreign words that sounded as if he were preparing to spit.

  Quickly another gunman came up behind him in support.

  “May I put down my drink?” asked Kathy. The other gunman, a swarthy youth with the inner stillness of a cave, nodded that she might do so.

  Kathy dropped the drink to the carpeted floor of the plane and clutched Kevin with both hands.

  “What is your name, if you please?” asked the swarthy gunman.

  “Miller. Mrs. Katherine Miller. My husband is an engineer for a construction firm. He’s on a job in Athens. I’m flying there to meet him.”

  “Very good. And what did Dr. Geleth say to you while you flew next to each other?”

  “Oh, just conversation. I don’t know him. I mean, we just talked.” She kept waiting for the passenger to wake up, to say something, to draw their attention from her onto himself.

  “I see,” the gunman said. “And he gave you something?”

  “No, no,” said Kathy, shaking her head. “He didn’t give me anything.”

  The swarthy gunman gave a sharp command in that guttural language. The gun next to Kathy’s head disappeared inside a belt. His hands free, the lighter-skinned gunman removed the jacket from Dr. Geleth and in the leaden way the body responded, Kathy knew the gentle passenger next to her was dead. The pill he had held near his glass when the three men in business suits went forward, had obviously been poison.

  With swift expert hands, the lighter gunman stripped and searched Dr. Geleth.

  “Nothing,” he said finally.

  “No matter. It was his mind that we wanted. Mrs. Miller, are you sure Dr. Geleth said nothing of importance to you?”

  Kathy shook her head.

  “Let us try. What were the last words he said to you?”

  “He said love was stronger than hate.”

  “That is a lie. He told you something,” said the swarthy gunman, his lips quivering.

  “We have failed,” said the lighter-skinned man. “What could he tell her in a minute? Besides, even if he had given her his life’s work, what was important was him. His body for ransom. He knew that dead, he was worth nothing to us in an exchange. We are defeated. We failed.”

  Froth formed at the corner of the swarthy man’s mouth.

  “We have not failed. This American helped the Jew. If the Americans didn’t help, we would have succeeded. She is responsible.”

  “Brother, leader. She is just a housewife.”

  “She knows something. She is part of the capitalistic zionistic plot that cheated us of victory.”

  “Dr. Geleth cheated us, not her.”

  The swarthy face redde
ned and the dark eyes heated with anger.

  “You sound like an Israeli agent One more defeatist word and I will shoot you. Take her and the child to the rear. I will question them.”

  “Yes, brother leader.”

  Kathy tried to get up but something held her down. The lighter-skinned gunman reached over and she thought he was going to touch her private parts, but he merely unbuckled the seat belt.

  He helped Kathy to her feet and she stumbled into the aisle over the legs of Dr. Geleth.

  “I really didn’t know him.,” she sobbed.

  “It wouldn’t have made any difference if you did,” said the light gunman. “He was not military. He was just valuable for what he was.”

  “What was he?” asked Kathy.

  “Cancer research. We do not want the Israelis to be the first to discover a cure. It would be too good for their propaganda. But we would have been willing to trade back Geleth for some of our members in Israeli jails.”

  “Quiet!” came the command from the leader.

  In the rear lounge, the leader took Kevin from Kathy.

  “Search her,” he said to his accomplice. There was a stream of the spitting language which Kathy now judged to be Arabic. It came from the lighter gunman. He said it with palm open, as if disputing the sanity of the order. A quick violent sentence from the leader and thettttx other gunman bowed his head.

  “Strip,” he said, “I’m going to search you.”

  Sobbing, Kathy took off her plaid jacket and white blouse and unzippered her skirt. She let it fall to her ankles. She averted her eyes from theirs.

  “Strip, he said,” barked the leader. “He did not mean leave clothing. Strip is strip.”

  Head bowed, Kathy reached behind her back and unhitched her bra. She was too terrified now for shame. She jimmied the panties down from her hips and let them fall along her legs over the skirt at her feet.

  “Search her whole body,” said the leader. “With your hands.”

  “Yes, Mahmoud,” said the lighter gunman.