Angry White Mailmen td-104

by Warren Murphy

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

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

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

  The White Room.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Smith. FBI."

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

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

  "Well, you're early anyway."

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

  "Coffee?"

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

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

  "No comment," said Smith.

  "Damn."

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

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

  "M.O.M?"

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

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

  "This time we can safely discount them all."

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

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

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

  "Exactly. Some letter carrier gone postal."

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

  "What doesn't?"

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

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

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

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

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

  "They're stonewalling that."

  "Who is?"

  "The postmaster."

  "What!"

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

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

  "What about the briefing?"

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

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

  "Who is it?" asked the police commissioner.

  "FBI."

  "Smith?"

  "No, Rowland."

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

  "Smith?"

  "Special Agent Smith. You know him?"

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

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

  "That fits a lot of Smiths, too."

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

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

  "That's what he claimed."

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

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

  "You didn't ask for ID?"

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

  "Media."

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

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

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

  Chapter 6

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Good."

  "To arrest us."

  "That they will never do."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Where? Where?"

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

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

  "Chiun!"

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

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

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

  "They have insulted me."

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

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

  "Is that me?" Chiun asked in English.

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

  The Japanese man began shaking his head no. Vigorously.

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

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

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

  "You are. He's trying to get away."

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

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

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

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

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

  "Sure, why?"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Pajamas."

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

  "I do not know."

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

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

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

  "Not what I meant," Remo muttered.

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

  When they checked in, they were given keys.

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

  "Casual establishment," remarked Remo.

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

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

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

  Chiun nodded. "Yes. The fifth."

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

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

  "Must be storage lockers," said Remo.

  "Yes," added Chiun with a frown.

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

  Soft music floated out of the sealed hatch.

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

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

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

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

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

  "Capsures," repeated Chiun.

  "I heard that. What's he mean?"

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

  "We want our money back," said Remo.

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

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

  "You open, you rent. Sorry."

  "I have n
ot opened mine," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju, slapping his key down with a flourish.

  "You may reave," the clerk allowed.

  "Not without refunds," insisted Remo.

  "If you insist, I wirr summon porice."

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

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

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

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

  "Yes. This one very good."

  "Other than this one," Remo said wearily.

  "We have branch in Shinsaibashi District."

  "It have rooms?"

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

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

  DAWN WAS BREAKING at the Osaka International Airport.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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