Angry White Mailmen td-104

by Warren Murphy

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."