Angry White Mailmen td-104

by Warren Murphy

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I'm frozen. Friendly. Okay?"

  "Freeze!" the guard repeated.

  "I am frozen," Remo repeated.

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

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

  "Freeze!"

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

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

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

  Remo found the Master Sinanju calmly seated at a gate.

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

  "Waiting for my flight, of course."

  "I've been made."

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

  "You're joking."

  "I am not wanted. You are. Shoo."

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Chapter 7

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "One moment."

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

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

  "Reilly?" he asked Smith.

  "Smith," Smith returned.

  "What happened to Reilly?"

  "Delayed."

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

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

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

  "Address?"

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

  "Has Ladeen shown any signs of psychotic behavior?"

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

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

  "Other-?"

  "Get on it," said Smith.

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

  "Massacre?" prompted Smith.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  Apartment 1 answered. "Yes?"

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

  "I own it, yeah."

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

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

  "What's this about?"

  "When did you last see Al Ladeen?"

  "Al? Is he in trouble?"

  "Please answer my question," Smith said firmly.

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

  "I would like access to his apartment."

  "You got a warrant?"

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

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

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

  "It may be connected to the midtown explosions."

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

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

  "Isn't that what this is about?"

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

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

  Smith nodded. "A relay driver."

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

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

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

  Smith cleared his throat.

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

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

  This seemed to be news to the landlord.

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

  "No. Purple."

  "Thought purple was royalty."

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

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

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

  Smith frowned. He had never heard that slogan before.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "Allahu Akbar!"

  "Allahu Akbar!"

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

  "I am taking it."

  "Legally, I mean."

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

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

  "He will never come back."

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

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

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

  "Far worse."

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

  "What is Ladeen's first name?"

  "Allah. But everybody called him Al."

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

  Chapter 8

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

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

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

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

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

  "Smith would know this, too."

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

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

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

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

  "I meant on Wanted posters."

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

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

  "Yes. We will watch Bev Woo."

  "Which one?" asked Remo.

  "The substantial one, of course."

  Remo frowned. "You mean the dumpy one?"

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

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

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

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

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

  "Do not mention that name in this house."

  "Sorry," said Remo.

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

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

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