Warren Murphy: Angry White Mailmen

THE NORTHWEST AIRLINES flight to Osaka had more than its share of Japanese passengers, and their faces stiffened when the Master of Sinanju stepped aboard, resplendent in his apricot kimono with silver stitching.

Chiun glared at every Japanese face that dared glare at him first.

By the time the plane filled up, the cabin atmosphere was thick with glaring.

Chiun took his accustomed seat over the left wing. He wore the jade nail protector designed to protect the stub of the injured nail he was cultivating, and curled the finger in the palm of a clenched fist so it could not be noticed.

"Let's not have a scene," Remo whispered. "it's gonna be a long flight."

"Agreed. We will talk of Korea to pass the long hours until we perform this important service our Emperor demands of us."

"Feel free."

Chiun raised his voice. "Have you ever heard of the feared kamikaze warriors, Remo?"

"Yeah. What's that got to do with Korea?"

"Everything." Chiun lifted his voice to an even higher register. "It was during the era of Kublai Khan, who wished to subjugate Japan, a noble goal. Kublai had first conquered Korea, an ignoble goal, from there to launch his invasion by sea. But Kublai impressed Korean shipbuilders to build his war fleet."

All through the cabin, Japanese heads cocked to catch the words of the Master of Sinanju.

"Are Koreans good shipbuilders?" asked Remo. "I know they were excellent horsemen."

"Yes, Koreans were excellent shipbuilders-when building ships for Koreans, not oppressors."

Remo nodded. He used to listen to Chiun's accounts of his homeland with one ear. Now that he knew Chiun and he shared a common ancestry, he was more interested.

"The day came that the invasion fleet of the Khan set sail for Japan," continued Chiun, his voice growing in fullness. "Mighty were its vessels, packed with soldiers and horsemen. Fearsome was the fate that awaited Japan, the unprotected."

The Japanese passengers became very still in their seats now.

"Then a mighty wind blew out of the north," said Chiun. "A typhoon, Remo. It tossed the fleet of the Khan about. They wallowed helpless in the waves. The warships fell apart, foundered and sunk. The noble invasion was never to be. The fearful Japanese, beholding this with their own incredulous eyes, named this storm Kamikaze, which means 'Divine Wind.'"

All through the cabin, Japanese heads bobbed in agreement with the words of the Master of Sinanju. "But in their ignorance, they never suspected the truth," Chiun added quickly.

The agreeable bobbing stopped.

"The Master of that time sunk the ships, right?" asked Remo.

Chiun shook his wise old head. "No."

"No?"

"No," said Chiun, waving his jade nail protector in the air without realizing. "That had nothing to do with Sinanju and everything to do with Japanese ignorance and arrogance. For the Korean shipbuilders who constructed the fleet of Kublai Khan did so with inferior lumber and weak nails. Any storm would have sunk the fleet. The Khan never knew this, so no retribution was visited on Korea. The Japanese never imagined this, so they believed themselves to be under divine protection, which accounts for their insufferable arrogance."

All through the cabin, the glaring of turned Japanese faces grew venomous.

"Look," said Remo, "can we get off this subject? No more Korean stories, okay?"

"If you insist," Chiun said thinly. Chiun was silent for only a short time.

"Have you noticed, Remo?" he asked over the windup whine of the 747's turbines.

"Noticed what?"

"How much Japanese faces are improving."

"Huh?"

"Not the older generation. They are too set in their ways. But the younger ones. They are marrying outside of the islands. New blood is flowing into their veins. I do not normally approve of mixing the blood, but for the Japanese it is a good thing. Their faces are slowly improving. They are not as good as Korean faces, or even Mongol faces. But in another century, perhaps two, Japanese will not be burdened with such morose countenances."

Assorted Japanese passengers turned in their seats and looked unhappily in Chiun's direction.

"I never noticed that," Remo said guardedly.

"It is a fact, Remo."

After that, the majority of the Japanese passengers found ways to change seats with others, and the midsection of the cabin was suddenly free of Japanese glaring.

The Master of Sinanju smiled with quiet satisfaction for the remainder of the flight.

Remo just hoped it would end soon. They were only now taxiing to the Logan Airport runway. And it was fourteen hours to Osaka.

Chapter 3

NYPD Patrolman Tony Guiterrez had just turned the corner of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street when it exploded.

A hot blast of air picked him up off his feet and threw him down the side street as he was admiring the maddening swing and sway of a redheaded girl's walk. She had a nice behind. It wiggled. Normally Patrolman Guiterrez paid more attention to his surroundings, but you didn't see a lot of Anna Nicole Smith behinds on the streets these days. Women liked to keep themselves trimmer than that.

A slow smile of appreciation was tugging at Patrolman Guiterrez's lips when he felt his feet leave the hard concrete, and he forgot all about the girl and her undulating pelvis. The thunderous boom seemed to be chasing him.

His mind froze in midthought. Explosion!

Many people's lives flash before them when they feel the cold touch of death. Patrolman Guiterrez was made of different stuff. He recognized the sound of a detonation. Even in that split second when his eardrums were being punished by the leading edges of the traveling shock wave, his mind correlated a half-dozen random facts.

The explosion was directly at his back. Couldn't be more than twenty yards away. Sounded right at the corner, too.

What had exploded? he wondered with an eerie clarity of thought.

The faces of the pedestrians Guiterrez had passed flashed by his mind's eye. Ordinary people. None had caught his observant eye.

There had been a Dodge Ram pickup truck at the corner light. Traffic on Eighth Avenue was flowing smoothly.

A car bomb! he thought. Yeah. That's gotta be it. A car bomb.

Then he was slammed into the free-standing wire trash container.

It probably saved his life, though Guiterrez didn't realize it for a while. He struck the trash barrel with such force that for three days afterward the wire pattern was visible in white against his red cheek. They bumped together in midair, then rolled. Guiterrez landed atop the rolling container, mashing it almost flat with his 215 pound body. The barrel was full of newspapers and other paper refuse. They helped save him, too.

When Guiterrez came to, he was looking at a dragon of smoke rolling across the otherwise blue September sky.

Guiterrez sat up. He hurt in so many places he didn't know where to start. He looked at his feet. Still attached-though he'd lost one regulation shoe. He noticed he couldn't feel the ground with his supporting hands, so he looked right, then left, half-expecting to see raw stumps.

One palm was skinned raw, but it was whole. He counted his fingers to make sure.

When he tried to stand up, his spinal column felt like a fracturing icicle.

But Guiterrez got up. He had to. His clearing sight showed him the corner he had just passed.

The first thing he saw was the woman on her back. Her mouth was open as if she were screaming. Something very red and uncertain was foaming up from it. Her eyes stared glassily. Guiterrez couldn't tell if she was ejecting blood or viscera or a jellylike combination, but he could tell she was all but dead.

Not far from her, a meaty naked leg lay scorched and smoking.

The silence in the aftermath of the explosion seemed to last a long time. The screaming soon followed it. Guiterrez was running to aid the wounded by the time they were swelling into a chorus of agony.