Warren Murphy - Angry White Mailmen

"I have to make water.''

"Why did you not go before we left?"

"We were rushed. I did not think. There was no time"

"I refuse to stop the vehicle now that I am pilot- martyr. Besides, there is no brake, as you know."

"Then what do I do? I cannot enter the gates of Paradise with my trousers stained. My sweet houris would be shocked. I would make a terrible first im­pression on them."

"I do not care what you do," muttered Jihad Jones, wrestling the wheel.

"Then I will do what I must," said Yusef, unzip­ping his fly from the throat down.

As a spattery tinkle filled the cockpit of the Fist of Allah, Jihad Jones muttered, "You are worse than a Jew. When we are dead and in Paradise, do not speak tome."

"I will not."

"Then do not, weak-bladdered one."

"My Arab tool is still bigger than your Egyptian tool," Yusef boasted, zipping up again.

Remo stayed on the tail of the Fist of Allah as it chewed up a long stretch of the Ohio Turnpike. The rear tracks spit gravel and gouged up pieces of as­phalt.

Remo steered around them as F-16s crisscrossed overhead, low and menacing. A wind was coming down off Lake Erie, clean as fresh laundry.

"Okay, I'll pull up alongside, you toss the naviga­tion thing. Just make sure it lands in one piece."

"I will not fail," Chiun promised.

"Because if you break it, it'll be no good and if it slides back off, it's useless."

"I am not a child," Chiun sniffed.

"Just don't blow it," said Remo, accelerating steadily.

It should have been easy. But they had been ex­posed to hard radiation, and their systems were hy­persensitive to it now.

Remo felt a tingling in his fingertips as he held the wheel straight.

Coming up in the gargantuan rear deck that resem­bled the back end of an aircraft carrier, Remo cut around to the left and paced the gigantic vehicle. Its whirling tires dwarfed them.

Chiun had one pipe-stem arm out the window and held the instrument package that Remo had extracted from under the hood.

Chiun gave it a casual toss. It veered out and up to land with a clink in the V of an angled tailfin.

Breaking, Remo watched.

The package did not slide off. He picked up the cell phone and called Harold Smith.

"Package delivered, Smitty."

"I have the navigational signal," said Smith.

"That didn't take long."

"I acquired it while it was still in your possession."

"Okay, what do we do now?" asked Remo.

"I have arranged for an Army helicopter to pick you up."

"Where are we going?"

"You will remain with the Fist of Allah until you are needed."

"Gotcha."

Harold Smith watched the red blip on his computer screen. The Fist of Allah was now crossing the Ohio-Pennsylvania border. That meant ground zero was not in Ohio. That reduced the pool of target options. The only question was where they would go when the Ohio Turnpike petered out.

"What are you doing?" Jihad Jones asked Yusef Gamal.

"I am consulting the map."

"I forbid this. I am custodian of the sacred map."

"You are pilot-martyr right now. The map there­fore reverts to the martyr-navigator."

"I am navigator."

"When I have the wheel again, yes," said Yusef.

"I forbid you to look at the target. It is haram. Es­pecially to a Jew such as yourself."

"I will agree not to look at the target if you stop calling me a Jew."

Jihad Jones was silent a long, fuming moment. "Very well," he snapped. "I will no longer denounce you as a Jew."

"Good."

"Gamal Mahour."

"You cannot call me Camel Nose, either."

"You did not stipulate this."

"I think we should take Route 6," said Yusef, changing the subject.

"The sacred map said to follow 80."

"The Six is also good."

"We will take Eighty."

"And I will take the wheel again soon, for it is al­most my turn," said Yusef.

"Until then, keep your camel's nose out of the sa­cred map."

Harold Smith sawthe red dot take Route 80east, and automatically the tracking program displayed a new bar graph of optimum targets. Washington, D.C. was still possible. New York City, however, looked more likely.

Smith input additional data and asked the system to narrow down the working list.

The system responded with the same list. Mostly post offices along the route and significant military targets.

Smith frowned. The limitations of the computer were the same as in his Univac days. To discover the truth, human reasoning would have to be brought to bear.

In the Huey helicopterRemo watched the Fist of Allah roll along Route 80and felt helpless. Pennsyl­vania State Police cars were following the giant ma­chine at a discreet distance, roof lights pulsating.

"There's gotta be a way to stop that overgrown Tonka toy."

"I agree," said Chiun.

"But I can't think what that might be."

"In the days of the Mongol Khanates, a Master of Sinanju encountered such a conundrum."

"They had something like this back then?"

"No, but there were war elephants in those days."

"Yeah?"

"In the best way possible."

"I'm listening," Remo said.

And leaning over beneath the rattling main rotor, the Master of Sinanju whispered in Remo's ear.

"You're kidding!" Remo exploded.

Harold Smith tried totell the Chief Executive there was a ninety-five percent probabilitythat the Fist of Allah was targeted at New York City.

"Are you sure?"

"I said ninety-five," said Smith, wondering at the presidential educational level.

"What in New York City? Can they blow up the whole island?"

"Theoretically, yes. Practically speaking, I doubt it. There must be a specific target. One of practical or symbolic importance."

"In New York City, there have to be dozens. Wall Street. The UN. The Statue of Liberty. The Liberty Bell. No, that's Philadelphia, isn't it?"

Smith froze. His bone marrow suddenly turned to ice water.

"Mr. President, this is only an educated guess, but I believe I can postulate the likeliest ground-zero tar­get."

"What is it?"

"The same target the Deaf Mullah originally at­tempted to demolish. A target through which airline traffic-control phone lines, television broadcast sig­nals and other critical communications systems pass. By coincidence, the place where the Deaf Muilah's most hated enemy now resides."

The President started to ask the question when Harold Smith answered it for him.

"I am standing on ground zero."

In the mosquein Greenburg, Ohio, FBI Tactical Commander Matt Brophy picked through the wreck­age as his men cleared various chambers.

The mosque was a total disaster, and since that was probably going to be the ultimate state of everyone's careers, there was no point in standing on ceremony.

In the cavernous room from which the gigantic juggernaut had rumbled, they found a bearded man with his lower body pressed flat by the enormous treads that had cruelly rolled over him.

All around the room stood great empty drums with radiation warning signs and symbols plastered on them.

Matt Brophy decided that securing the room and getting the hell out was the safest option possible. Having a career train wreck was one thing, but going radioactive was another kind of career setback en­tirely.

The President gotthe word within ten minutes.

"Mr. President, we've found something at the mosque site."

"Go ahead."

"There are tons of steel barrels for storing nuclear waste—all empty."

Harold Smith got the word minutes later.

"You are certain of this intelligence, Mr. Presi­dent?" Smith asked tightly.

"That's what I'm told by FBI."

"There is only one conclusion I can draw from this. The Messengers of Muhammad have loaded the Fist of Allah with radioactive waste, effectively turning it into a radiological bomb."