Warren Murphy: Angry White Mailmen

There was a long, buffed mahogany conference table in the middle of the White Room. It was bare except for strategically placed telephones. A Mr. Coffee stood on a wheeled cart and offered six kinds of coffee. The commissioner started the Mr. Coffee, knowing it was going to be a very long day.

The meeting had been called for two-thirty. Ostensibly its purpose was intelligence sharing and tactical coordination of the joint NYPD-FBI Anti-Terrorist Task Force, but that would be the least of it, the commissioner knew. The FBI just wanted to stake out their territory. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms would claim this as their investigation. It would be all the commissioner could do to keep his hand in. But it was his city. And his meeting.

He was sugaring the first cup when a peremptory knock rattled the door.

"Who goes there?" the commissioner called over his shoulder.

"Smith. FBI."

The commissioner of police opened the door, saying, "Your office said to expect Special Agent Rowland."

"Rowland was held up," said Smith, quickly entering-

"Well, you're early anyway."

The commissioner sized Smith up as a middle-level bureaucrat. A GS-10 at best. He wore a gray threepiece suit and had the personality of a rain cloud. His accent was lockjaw New England.

"Coffee?"

"No time," Smith said. "There is much to be done. I need to be brought up to speed as quickly as possible."

The commissioner blinked. "Is this happening outside the city?"

"No comment," said Smith.

"Damn."

"There is no time to waste on guessing," said Smith. "Who has claimed responsibility for these acts?"

"Who hasn't?" the commissioner grunted, pulling a sheaf of faxes from his open briefcase and laying them on the polished table. "Hezbollah. Hamas. Islamic Jihad. The Muslim Brotherhood. The National Front for the Salvation of Libya." He grunted. "I guess Khaddafi is out of favor among the fundamentalists these days. The Abu Nidal Group. A.I.M. M.O.M."

"M.O.M?"

"Messengers of Muhammad. Then there are the Eagles of Allah, the Warriors of Allah, the Islamic Salvation Front, Armed Islamic Group, Taliban, the National Front for the Liberation of Palestine and something called the Islamic Front for the A.F.W.U. We don't know what 'A.F.W.U.' stands for yet."

"In other words," said Smith, "every active terrorist cell looking for publicity has claimed responsibility?"

"This time we can safely discount them all."

"Why do you say that?" Smith asked sharply.

"We've determined the first explosion was a post office relay box. A piece of shrapnel was stamped US. Mail. The later explosions showed the same MO. Every explosion took place on an open sidewalk. Olive drab shrapnel everywhere. I'm still trying to get a handle on the dead."

Smith was sharp. He jumped right on the money. "Relay boxes are not accessible to the public. It is virtually impossible for a letter bomber to orchestrate a series of closely spaced explosions in relay boxes and have none of the devices go up in postal-service hands or at the destination address. We may be dealing with a postal employee."

"Exactly. Some letter carrier gone postal."

"That theory does not fit the psychological profile of postal offenders," said Smith.

"What doesn't?"

"Postal employees invariably direct their anger at their superiors and co-workers, not the general public."

"There was an incident a few years ago up in Boston. A disgruntled postal clerk grabbed his AK-47 and buzzed the South Postal Annex in a stolen light plane, sniping at random."

"Exactly," said Smith. "He fired at his place of employment"

"And everything else in sight," the commissioner countered.

"I assume you have the names of the postal employees who had access to the destroyed boxes?"

"They're stonewalling that."

"Who is?"

"The postmaster."

"What!"

"Won't take my calls. Says it's a federal matter. I don't suppose you FBI boys have any pull with the postal service?"

"I will get back to you on that," said Smith, picking up his briefcase and storming to the door.

"What about the briefing?"

"I have had my briefing," said Smith, slamming the door.

THE HEAD Of the port authority arrived ten minutes later and accepted a cup of black coffee and a seat. Then came a knock at the door.

"Who is it?" asked the police commissioner.

"FBI."

"Smith?"

"No, Rowland."

The commissioner threw open the door and said, "Smith told me you couldn't make it."

"Smith?"

"Special Agent Smith. You know him?"

"Do you have any idea how many Smiths there are with the Bureau? What did he look like?"

"He was-" the commissioner frowned "-gray," he said.

"That fits a lot of Smiths, too."

"Over sixty. Banker's gray. Gray eyes. Rimless glasses. Gray hair. Thin as a rail."

Special Agent Rowland looked doubtful. "That doesn't fit any of the Smiths I know. You certain he was with the Bureau?"

"That's what he claimed."

"Claimed! You saw his ID, didn't you?"

The commissioner of NYPD blanched. "I-he didn't show any."

"You didn't ask for ID?"

"It slipped my mind. Christ, he could have been-"

"Media."

"My God, if the media has penetrated the White Room, I'm going to look like a fool."

"Let's concentrate on the crisis at hand before we start worrying about job security," said FBI Special Agent Rowland, flint in his voice.

The commissioner of police sat down like a log dropping. He wore the approximate expression of a crosscut tree stump-flat and spinning in concentric circles.

Chapter 6

When the helicopter skycrane landed in an Osaka field, the pilot jumped out and came at the Master of Sinanju with a knife.

"Don't do it," Remo said in English.

"It is too late," said Chiun, stepping out. "I have been challenged."

"I was talking to the idiot," said Remo.

The Japanese pilot lunged for Chiun's midriff. Chiun separated his hands as if to clap them together. Then he did. They came together flatly, with the thrusting steel blade between them. Chiun twisted both wrists, redirecting the knife thrust. The pilot's wrists were carried along for the ride. The hapless pilot, too.

Chiun left him holding the broken bits of his blade in his hands and a stupefied expression on his gaping face.

"You know," Remo said as they walked away, "I don't blame him for being upset. They're going to hang this on him."

"Let him commit hara-kiri, then. I do not care. It is nothing to the pain inflicted upon my august person."

They found a cab with a red light in the windshield indicating it was free, and Chiun got into an argument with the cab driver before they were under way. "What's he saying?" Remo asked Chiun.

"He is saying the airport is closed at this hour. I am saying it will be opened for us."

"Little Father, they're going to be waiting for us."

"Good."

"To arrest us."

"That they will never do."

"What say we crash for the night and figure out something in the morning?"

"What hotel did Smith say he secured for us?" asked Chiun.

"The Sunburst. Knowing Smith, it's probably the cheapest fleabag in Osaka, too."

Chiun relayed that information to the taxi driver, and they were off.

They were cruising the neon-bedazzled streets of Osaka not long after. Like Tokyo, the city might have been a gigantic laboratory for company logos. Every building and tower seemed to shout a name in English and Japanese.

Seeing little police-cruiser activity, Remo relaxed slightly. "Looks like the manhunt has quieted down," he told Chiun.

Then Remo saw the Sony Jumbotron TV screen mounted high on an office tower overlooking the heart of the city-an artist's composite sketch of the Master of Sinanju was being telecast to all of Osaka, if not Japan.