Warren Murphy: Angry White Mailmen

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.

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.