"A terrorist cell has infiltrated the United States Postal Service," he said, his words like flint being scraped. "That means they could be operating in every city and town and village in the nation, unknown and unsuspected. Wearing mail-carrier uniforms, they can enter any public building unchallenged and unquestioned, from the most public office building to the most secure federal facility. No one can question a mailman. I doubt if many security guards bother to ask them to walk through metal detectors. Certainly no one can look into their bag. The mail is protected from casual scrutiny."
Smith's voice was hollow. He was staring into space, looking at nothing. He was talking, but not to them. It was more as if he was thinking out loud.
"There are an estimated four hundred thousand postal employees in the nation. In some towns, the postmaster is the only representative of the U.S. government. Virtually every town and city has its own post office. There are more post offices than military bases in this country. These terrorists have theoretical bases in every corner of the nation. They have government vehicles at their disposal. On virtually every street in America, there are relay boxes just like the ones that exploded today. And these devils have the power to booby-trap any one of them. No one is safe. No building is secure."
"So what are we waiting for? Let's get them."
Smith snapped out of it. "How?"
"Can't you trace them through the Internet?"
"They communicate through an automatic anonymous server, which relays their communications to the final server site, this Gates of Paradise entity. All these e-mail files are stored there, not in the systems the terrorist cells used to access them."
"Can you trace this server?" asked Remo.
"I already have. It is near Toledo, Ohio. But I cannot follow the audit trail to the Gates of Paradise host site without accessing the Toledo site."
"So let's get a move on."
"I have already instructed the FBI to get on it. I need you for the serious work that lies ahead."
"Just point us in the right direction, and we'll do what we do best," said Remo.
Chiun made a grandiose gesture with the ornate jade nail protector. "Yes, O Smith. You have merely to instruct us, and Muslim heads will fall at your feet like so many pomegranates, and equally as red."
"No doubt Al Ladeen was the driver of the mailtruck bomb that destroyed the General Post Office, covering his tracks and killing himself in the process. That is what these people do. It is one of the others who will act next."
"Yeah. If only we knew their real names."
The system beeped again, and Smith leaped on the keyless keyboard.
"Here we go again," said Remo.
The bulletin was a follow-up to an earlier one. Smith scanned it, instantly judging it as not mission critical. "It is just more on the Oklahoma courtroom shootout," said Remo.
Smith scanned the text with eager eyes. "We may have a lead," he said.
"What do you mean?"
"According to this, the shooter in Oklahoma City is believed to be a disgruntled postal employee."
"Not another one."
"They have all gone mad," said Chiun.
"This could be a simple case of one postal worker going over the edge," Smith said tightly as he worked his keyboard. "It may not be connected to the events in New York."
"Doesn't fit the MO," agreed Remo.
"If we are fortunate, the preliminary findings of the FBI have been logged into the computer in the Oklahoma City branch office of the FBI."
"Would they work that fast?" "Everyone files on computer these days."
"Except you and I. Right, Little Father?"
Chiun sniffed, "I will have no truck with machines that beep at one like a nagging wife."
Smith was keying so furiously that his fingers, tapping the flat white letters and numbers on the desk, caused them to flare briefly.
"I have something!" he said hoarsely. They crowded around.
The screen displayed an FBI computer form that had been filled in. Their eyes raced down the entries. Almost at the same time, they alighted on the same line. It was headed Suspect Name.
The name typed on the glowing amber line was one they all recognized: Joseph Camel.
Chapter 13
It was perhaps inevitable that Yusef Gamal would come to be called Abu Gamalin-"Father of Camels."
Even as a boy, he had shown the strength of his namesake, the camel. He possessed camel shoulders. His curly hair was reminiscent of a camel's thick coat as well. And perhaps not as noticeably, he had the prominent nose of a camel.
A mighty nose it was, too. It was the first thing one noticed about Yusef Gamal, eventually to be known as Abu Gamalin.
So it was not strange that in his early years, the other Palestinian boys nicknamed him Al Mahour-"the Nose."
"That is not a bad nom de guerre, " his father had told him.
"It is not a warrior's name," Yusef lamented.
"There are worse things to be called," said his father in a strange tone of voice. He was looking at Yusef's face when he spoke those fateful words. And if he was looking at his face, Yusef remembered thinking, he had to be looking at his nose. It was unavoidable. Like looking up at the sky and seeing the sun. By the time Yusef turned thirteen, his voice had yet to break and the hairs on his lower body were thin and unimpressive. By then, he had killed several men, for this was what Palestinians of his age did in those days. For the intifada was in full cry in the Occupied Territories, where the Zionist entity was most vulnerable. His skill at killing Israelis came to the attention of Hezbollah, and Yusef had been summoned to Lebanon, making contact with others of his kind. There on the banks of Nahr-al-Mawt-the River of Death-he was trained in the lethal arts, wearing fatigues and a checkered kaffiyeh over his face.
They were glorious days, filled with bloodshed and maiming. Through it all, Yusef fully expected to die. He longed to die. He prayed to Allah the Compassionate that he die in mortal combat, for he had been taught that the gates of Paradise could only be opened by breaking them down with Zionist skulls.
Yusef was responsible for denuding of flesh many Zionist skulls in the hellhole that his kind had made of Beirut.
When the tide turned inevitably against the Palestinian cause, and the PLO had sold out Hezbollah and embraced the Zionist enemy, Yusef found himself not dead but very much alive. He was disappointed. He wanted to die. He yearned to die. He had been taught by the religious leader of Hezbollah that to be martyred was a thing to be embraced wholeheartedly.
"A martyr is automatically granted entrance to Paradise," Yusef was assured. "In Paradise there is no toil, no cold, no pain. Every man wears green silk, and the sweetest grapes are always within reach."
"What about women?" Yusef asked.
"In Paradise the blessed are each allotted seventy-two virgins, untouched by man or jinn. These are called houris. And they belong to the martyr exclusively."
"Seventy-two?" asked Yusef, brightened by his prospects.
Thus, finding himself in a PLO detention camp, still living for his unkissed houris awaiting him in Paradise, only compounded the matter. Here he was no longer the feared Nose, but only Yusef Gamal, out of bullets and out of hope.
"I will never dance with my houris rotting away in this place of pestilence," he complained to a fellow Hezbollah freedom fighter.
"I hear there are great opportunities in Afghanistan," said his fellow Palestinian.
"Afghanistan?"
"Yes. The godless Russians have been driven out. It is jihad."
Yusef had visibly brightened. "Holy war! Killing Jews!"
"There are no Jews in Afghanistan."
"What is the glory in that?" Yusef complained. "Afghan skulls will not break down the gates of Paradise."
"That is not what the mullahs and imams are saying."
Yusef shook his head vigorously. "No, it would take too many Afghan skulls to gain me entrance to Paradise. I do not have all my life in which to martyr mysel
f. What good will I be to the compliant houris if I am too old and feeble to adore them? These women are expecting certain manly duties of me."
"If you change your mind, speak to Muzzamil. He will see that you get to Afghanistan."
Eventually boredom got to Yusef Gamal, and he made the acquaintance of the mysterious Muzzamil. "I am interested in Afghanistan," Yusef explained. "I understand the opportunities for martyrdom are very great there."
Muzzamil had a very thick beard and flashing opaline eyes, which immediately fell upon the exact center of Yusef's visage.
"You have an interesting nose."
"Thank you, but what about Afghanistan?"
"It is a very Jewish nose."
And hearing this insult, Yusef Gamal seized the insulter by the throat and attempted to squeeze his head off.
Others came and clubbed him off Muzzamil. "He is a hothead, forgive him, O Muzzamil."
"He is Palestinian. That is the same thing," Muzzamil said as the good color returned to his dark, bearded face. His voice sounded squeezed, but his tone was without fear or anger.
"It is sometimes good to have a Jewish nose," Muzzamil told Yusef, who promptly threw off his compatriots and took another lunge at the hateful Muzzamil.
This time Muzzamil was ready for him. Yusef, who was used to fighting with Kalashnikovs and RPG's, did not expect something as lowly as a fist to lay him out. In truth, he never saw the fist that connected with the stubbled point of his chin.
When he regained consciousness, Muzzamil was bending over him. "Your nose is not broken. That is good."
"My jaw feels like broken glass," Yusef muttered dazedly.
"It will heal. For what lies ahead, you will need that Zionist nose of yours."
"I go to Afghanistan?"
"No. That is for cannon fodder and other fools. For you, I have special plans."
That night Yusef was spirited out of the camp. A long series of journeys by Land Rover, by boat and camel brought him to a city of minarets he did not recognize.
"What city is this?"
"Tehran."
"I am in Iran!"
"Yes."
"You are a Persian?"
"Yes. My true name is Aboof."
Yusef Gamal frowned. It was true that the Persians worshiped Allah and their leader the ayatollah was a devout Muslim. But they were Persians, not Arabs. It was a very different thing.
"For the work that lies ahead, you will need a new name."
"Abu Gamalin," Yusef said quickly.
"That is a good name for waging terror campaigns and issuing communiques and threats, yes. But I was thinking of a contact name for our files."
"It will not be a name that I use?"
"No, it will be for internal use only."
"Then I do not care what I am called," Yusef snapped.
"Good," said Aboof the Persian, who told him his code name would henceforth be Yusef the Jew.
The only thing that stopped Yusef Gamal from throttling the despicable Persian on the spot was the presence of the armed Revolutionary Guards.
"You will go to America," said Aboof when Yusef had calmed down.
"I will never go to America. It is an un-Islamic place."
"There you will apply for US. citizenship."
"Never! I would rather burn in Hell first."
"You will get a job and you will sleep," continued Aboof the Unflappable.
"What manner of orders are these for a warrior?"
"The job will support you until you are called. The sleep I speak of will be the sleep of a sleeper agent."
"How long must I sleep?"
"Until you are told to awaken."
"What will my duties be at that time?"
"Whatever is decided then. For you may sleep a long time."
IT was, in fact, six years. So long that Yusef the Jew had wondered if he had been forgotten by the lordly Persians. The intifada had ended. Many had been martyred. The Gulf War had also passed. Yusef had missed out on all of it. Worse, he was a lowly American citizen driving a cab in New York City, unmartyred and unfulfilled.
It was a terrible destiny. All of his friends, he had heard, were dead and already in Paradise, safely in the arms of Allah. And he was stuck fighting treacherous traffic and conveying Jews to their destinations like some camel driver of old.
The call came in the middle of the night, six months after the World Trade Center bombing.
"We are assembling an army," the soft voice said.
"Who is this?" Yusef asked sleepily.
"Aboof asked me to contact you."
"Aboof! Where is he?"
"In Paradise."
"He is lucky. For I am living in Hoboken. A place worse than Hell itself."
"Come to the Abu al-Kalbin Mosque in Jersey City, Yusef the Chosen."
"Why?"
"Because we are creating a secret army to smash the Great Satan."
Now Yusef knew for sure he was speaking with another Persian. For only Persians spoke of the Great Satan. But he agreed to go anyway. Driving a cab in New York City was slowly driving him mad.
The Abu al-Kalbin Mosque was a storefront mosque in the heart of the dirty place called Jersey City, not very far from city hall. Yusef took the PATH train to the Journal Square stop and walked as instructed along Kennedy Boulevard.
The neighborhood was unpleasant, but such was the lot of Muslims who came to dwell in America. There was no justice. Never once had the taxi company Yusef worked for given him his Fridays off or allowed him to pull over and face Mecca for his daily prayers.
At the door, he was greeted by an Egyptian face he did not know. But the man's dark eyes exploded as if in recognition. Then they narrowed in anger and disgust.
"Go away, Jew. We want none of you here."
"I am no-"
The plain door slammed in his face. Annoyed, Yusef knocked again.
"Go away, Zionist entity," he was told.
"I am no Jew, but Abu Gamalin the Feared."
"Liar."
"It is true. I swear by the beard of the prophet."
"If you speak truly, state your secret code name."
"I told you. I am Abu Gamalin."
"I have no such name on my list, Jew."
"I am not a Jew. I am sometimes called Al Mahour."
"I have no Al Mahour here. Perhaps it is some other mosque you are trying to infiltrate, Jewish dog."
"For the last time, I have come as summoned. Do not turn me away to drive the Hasidim around until I am mad with craziness."
"And for the last time, I ask you the code name you were given if you were given one."
Insulted to the bone, Yusef Gamal would have turned around and gone home. But he had slept so long. He did not wish to sleep any more. He wished excitement. He wished to feel young again. He craved the strong hardness of a Kalashnikov in his hands and the stink of infidel blood in the wind.
So he stood on the stoop of the Abu al-Kalbin Mosque, racking his brains. What was it he had been code-named? It had made his blood boil with rage when he first heard it. He was so offended by the very sound, he drove it from his memory. Now he beseeched Allah to unlock his memory again so he could speak the despised words aloud.
Then it came to him.
"I remember!" he cried through the shut door. "I remember now! I am called Yusef the Jew! Do you hear? It is Yusef the Jew. Open up."
"You admit to being a Jew?"
"No, I am called Yusef the Jew. It is my code name."
"No Jews are allowed in Allah's holy temple. This is a holy place. Go away or we will smash your teeth in your foul mouth."
Then a new voice came. Deeper, vaguely familiar. After it had spoken, Yusef placed it. It was the telephone voice.
"He is expected. Let him in."
The door opened. Yusef peered in cautiously. Shadows lay thick.
The voice said, "Enter, one who has slept too long." And Yusef Gamal entered.
The room was ill lit. It was night. No cand
les burned.
"You are the last chosen one who is expected," said the voice. "Enter, Seeker of the Light, and follow."
"I follow."
Other shadows huddled around. Yusef could feel hard eyes on him. On his nose, actually.
"Is a Jew allowed to meet the mullah?" a suspicious voice asked.
"He is not a Jew, but only called that," said the voice from the telephone.
"His nose is Jewish."
"His nose is his ticket to Paradise. Be envious of it, ye of lesser noses."
"I prefer to be called Abu Gamalin," Yusef said, squaring his shoulders.
A voice hooted. Another called him Gamal Mahour.
Yusef would have taken offense, except that he did not know these men, and at least "Camel Nose" was better than being called Yusef the Jew.
They were escorted to a room where thin light fell from a skylight that was obscured with muslin to foil prying eyes. Prayer rugs were pointed out, and they took kneeling positions of supplication, including the tall shadow whose voice Yusef had heard over the telephone.
When all was still, a candle was lit. It guttered, its sickly yellow light showing a screen. The shadow of a seated man was visible behind the screen. The figure was rounded, the head fringed with a full beard.
"True Believers, we will speak English here because some of you know Farsi and others Arabic, but not both."
The voice was strange in its accents. Musical, the vowels odd. Yusef, who knew few Persians, decided it must be the accent that made the English so sickly sweet to his ears. Or perhaps it was the contrast to the nasal English of New Yorkers, with whom he had dwelt for so long.
"The sight of my holy countenance must be denied even to you, the faithful," the voice began. "To cast eyes upon me is haram-forbidden. My true name will never be known to you. Some called me their mufti. Others imam. Some of you here have heard of me by a name bestowed upon me by the intelligence organs of Egypt, Iraq and the Great Satan. This name is the Deaf Mullah."
A gasp raced around the supplicant men.
Yusef was impressed. All True Believers knew of the Deaf Mullah, a Persian cleric reviled in the West for his exhortations against all things Western. It was said he had personally constructed an infernal device intended to destroy the Egyptian puppet, Mubarak, but that it had exploded in his hands. His survival was considered a gift from Allah and a sign of his holiness. For the mullah had lost only the hearing in one ear entirely and the hearing in the other but partially. More impressively it was the Deaf Mullah who had organized the enterprise that nearly brought down the World Trade Center, as well as demolishing the Lincoln and Holland tunnels, except for certain unfortunate misadventures that resulted in the capture of the conspirators, incidentally landing the Deaf Mullah in a federal prison.
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