Angry White Mailmen
( The Destroyer - 104 )
Warren Murphy
Richard Sapir
GOING POSTAL
Hell is being hand- delivered in a rash of
federal bombings and random massacres by postal employees across the nation. And CURE'S Dr. Harold Smith sends Remo and Chiun to root out the cause.
The mail carriers, who'd complained they couldn't get no respect, now seem to be competing with the domestic militias to win the horror-and-bloodshed game. They've got a new- and-improved way to deliver death to America's door—until the Destroyer starts biting at their heels.
But deadly momentum propels the master plan of destruction toward its culmination. Death is headed for middle America—and even the Destroyer may be too late to stop an express delivery of doom.
Destroyer 104: Angry White Mailmen
By Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir
Chapter 1
He had a face, but no one could describe it afterward.
He had eyes in his face, but everyone remembered their color differently. His complexion had texture, but no one noticed it. Some remembered his hair as red, others as yellow and still others said it was brown.
What they did remember was his uniform. Everyone noticed the uniform. No one paid any attention to the man inside.
It was not that he blended in with the early-lunchtime crowd returning to the new Wiley Post Federal Building in Oklahoma City. A few people actually flinched involuntarily as he approached the stone steps. It was the uniform that made them flinch. Yet his face was benign, his carriage unthreatening.
But no one was looking at his face as he mounted the steps.
Later a few survivors thought it was strange that he wore earphones. They remembered it as strange because they thought there must be some regulation against listening to a Walkman while making one's appointed rounds.
The security guard at the metal detector looked up, saw the blue-gray uniform and not the man and, recognizing the uniform, waved the unfamiliar face around the metal-detector line, which was backed up to the stairs.
"You're late today," the guard called after him.
The uniformed man nodded curtly and passed through the primary line of defense unchallenged. No one questioned the uniform. It could be seen on virtually every street in the nation and while it was feared by some, it was respected by most Americans.
Stationed before the elevator, where he could scrutinize all unfamiliar faces, a lobby guard made eye contact and asked, "New guy?"
"Started today," the uniformed man said curtly.
The elevator arrived, its massive doors sliding apart.
"Well, take it easy," the lobby guard said.
"Uzi does it," the man called back. In the commotion of federal workers filing through the metal detector, his exact words registered only in retrospect. People hear what they want. Just as they see what they expect.
Stepping off on the sixth floor, the man with the eagles on his uniform-jacket shoulder patch looked both ways and saw a closed door with a sign that read, Court in Session. He strode toward it, one hand dipping into his capacious shoulder bag.
Another guard was on station at the door. He suddenly blocked the way, saying, "Sorry. No admittance. Court's in session."
The man extracted an envelope from the bag, saying, "Special delivery."
The guard frowned. The envelope was addressed to Judge Calvin Rathburn.
"Okay, but try not to call attention to yourself." He opened the door to let the man enter, holding it open so he could close it quietly afterward. Judge Rathburn ran a strict court.
Reaching into his big leather bag, the man stepped in. He suddenly pivoted, and the guard saw the stubby Uzi submachine pistol in the cold, frozen moment before it snarled hot and angry at his exposed stomach.
The uniformed man snarled, too. "Die, disbeliever!"
Crumpling to the floor, the guard watched the rest, helpless. He lived long enough to tell the authorities all he witnessed.
The man entered Judge Rathburn's court and immediately opened fire. Panicked screaming drowned out that first horrible burst. The guard recognized some of the voices. The cute stenographer he had the hots for. Lawyer Tate, who sounded as high-strung as a woman before his voice turned into a hideous gurgle. A persistent banging sounded ineffectually-the judge trying to call order in the abattoir that had become his court of law.
The gunman emptied clip after clip at random. The guard saw only one bloody slice of it from his vantage point on the floor. When Judge Rathburn's red, angry face turned to exploding blood pudding, the guard closed his eyes and, impotent with rage, shook and shook on the floor, unable to move his arms, helpless to draw his weapon.
In his ears, the screaming of the victims died as the gunman's raging voice lifted over the echoing din of gun thunder.
"Unbelievers! I drink in your disbelieving eyes! I rejoice in your misery. God is grape! He commands you to accept the deaf penalty meted out by his lawful messenger!"
No one answered. They were already beyond hearing, beyond caring.
"My God!" the guard muttered. "He's gone postal. Completely postal."
It was over in less than five minutes.
The guard sensed the gunman stepping over him, hard heels clicking down the marble hall. The ding of the elevator signaled his escape.
That was the final thing he remembered before the FBI started questioning him. It was the last clear memory he carried with him to the grave.
THE FBI WERE ON THE SCENE in less than ten minutes. They could have been there in five. Their local office was on the twentieth floor, but the new federal building had been constructed like a bunker. Bombproof. Bulletproof. Soundproof.
No one had heard the shooting and dying. Until the lunch crowd began filtering back to the sixth floor and the guard was discovered in a welter of his own blood, no one suspected anything violent had happened.
One look inside the half-open courtroom door changed all that.
By the time the FBI got organized and ordered the building sealed, it was far too late.
The faceless man in the respected uniform had quietly left the building and melted into the streets of Oklahoma City. No one would have thought to detain him anyway. No one would have dared search him or his big leather bag. He was inviolate.
For everyone understood his mission. And although a tragedy had occurred, he could not stop or be stopped.
Rain or shine, snowstorm or bloodbath, the mail had to go through.
Chapter 2
His name was Remo, and he had nothing against the Japanese.
He felt certain on this point, so he said it aloud. "I have nothing against the Japanese as a people or a race."
A squeaky voice hissed, "So you have forgotten Pearl Harbor?"
"Before my time," said Remo.
"What about the Bataan death march?"
"Same answer. That was an earlier generation."
"The dead cry out for retribution, and you say this?"
"Peace was declared fifty years ago. We're not at war anymore," Remo said reasonably.
"Then why did they send their vicious samurai to these shores intent upon slaughter and maiming?" asked the Master of Sinanju.
"For crying out loud, Chiun, you only lost a nail!"
"You who have no fingernails to speak of may say this. It is nothing to you to be deprived of a nail. You have never achieved correct nail length."
Remo had no answer for that. He sat on a round tatami mat in the bell-tower meditation room of his home. Remo was looking out a window. On the other side of the white-walled square room, the Master of Sinanju sat at the opposite
window, also gazing out. They were supposed to be meditating. Instead, they were arguing.
The silence lasted long enough that Remo thought he was going to get some peace. As usual, he was wrong.
"And why am I forced to endure this interminable wait?" Chiun suddenly wailed. "Why am I forbidden to rend Japanese limb from limb?"
If there was a good answer to that, Remo didn't have it, so he kept quiet.
At length Chiun spoke in a more subdued squeak. "What about their hideous automobiles, which clog the streets of this land you love so well, filling the very air you breathe with their stench?" he asked.
"If people want to drive Japanese cars, that's their business."
"Have I not heard you refer to them as rice burners?"
"The cars, yes. The people, no."
"Reverse racist!" Chiun spit.
"I am not a reverse racist."
"You do not hate the Japanese as you should. Therefore, you are a reverse racist."
"There's no reason for me to hate the Japanese," Remo insisted, an edge creeping into his voice. Abruptly Chiun whirled to his feet, his face a wrinkled web of rage. He shook a fist.
"I am forced to wear this to hide my shame. Is that not reason enough?"
More calmly than he felt, Remo got to his feet and faced the Master of Sinanju.
Chiun stood only five feet tall, but his rage seemed to fill the close confines. He shook a fist like a yellowed ivory bird claw. Abruptly he opened it.
His extended fingers looked even more like bird talons. His nails were long and curved to glittering points. Except the right index nail. It was capped by an ornate nail protector of imperial jade.
"Only till it grows back," Remo contended, trying to keep calm.
He stood exactly six feet tall, and the only thing he and the Master of Sinanju had in common was the leanness of their limbs. Chiun looked seventy, but was a century old. His face was a wrinkled map of Korea. His eyes were hazel almonds.
Remo was white. In him, only a hint of Chiun's almond eye shape was noticeable, and then only from certain angles-a fact that Remo always denied and that never seemed apparent to him no matter how much he stared into the mirror. Remo could have been anywhere from twenty-five to forty-five. His skin was stretched tight over high cheekbones, and his dark brown eyes lay deep in the hollows of his skull. His wrists were unusually thick. Otherwise, he looked outwardly ordinary.
But he was not. Neither man was. They were Masters of Sinanju, practitioners of the formative martial art called Sinanju, from which all other Eastern killing arts had been struck, like transitory sparks off a spinning flintstone. Where karate, kung fu and ninjutsu had devolved into mere tournament exhibition skills, Sinanju remained the ultimate assassin's art. From the royal courts of Cathay to the Pyramids of the Pharaohs, Masters of Sinanju had preserved thrones down to this very day, where they secretly worked for America.
"You know yourself to be blessed with Korean blood," Chiun snapped.
"Yeah ... ?"
"It is the duty of every Korean to hate the Japanese, who have oppressed their homeland."
"My homeland is America," Remo pointed out.
"Only because your most important ancestor, Kojong, stumbled to this land and took root."
Remo knew he couldn't argue with that. An exiled ancestor of Chiun's had indeed come to America. Remo was a direct descendant of Master Kojong. That made him part-Korean. And gave meaning to the historical accident that had caused his government to select him as the first non-Korean to be trained in Sinanju in order to protect America from its enemies.
"In your essence, you are Korean," Chiun continued. "And the essence of being Korean is to hate the Japanese oppressor."
"I do not hate the Japanese," Remo said flatly.
"Their vile kudzu weed is even now strangling the gracious garden that is your southern provinces."
"I do not hate the Japanese," Remo repeated firmly.
"Not even for the horrors of Yuma?"
Remo's strong face stiffened. Years ago he had been in Yuma, Arizona, when it was attacked by unsanctioned Japanese forces and overrun. It was a rogue scheme undertaken by a Japanese industrialist determined to avenge the nuking of his home-town of Nagasaki. Seizing Yuma, he began executing U.S. citizens, televising these war crimes to all of America.
He had hoped to goad the US. president into nuking Yuma to save it.
It might have worked, but Remo and Chiun were already in Yuma, on assignment for CURE, the supersecret government organization for which they both worked.
Although the industrialist was killed, the company he controlled had continued to make mischief.
The most recent instance had been an industrial-espionage agent sent to wreck the US. rail system. He'd operated in the electronic equivalent of samurai armor. Chiun had encountered him, thinking it was a ghost samurai returned from the dead to haunt the House of Sinanju. During their first encounter, the samurai's electronic sword had clipped off Chiun's right index fingernail, which only convinced the Master of Sinanju he was dealing with a supernatural avenger. Though Remo and Chiun had eventually caught up with the samurai and separated him from his head, Chiun considered the insult not fully avenged because the samurai's employers had not been relieved of their heads, too.
It was a political problem, according to their employer, Dr. Harold W Smith. The Nishitsu Industrial Electrical Corporation was one of the most important conglomerates on the face of the earth. There was so far no evidence the Japanese government had backed any of the corporation's clandestine operations.
"Look, Smitty explained the problem," Remo said with more patience than he felt. "The Japanese government knows America employs the House, which almost every foreign government also knows, thanks to that stunt you pulled last year where you offered our services to every tyrant and thug who controlled a government treasury."
"It was good advertising," sniffed Chiun.
"If we hit Nishitsu Corp and the Japanese find our fingerprints on the deed, we'll have an international incident."
"Our fingerprints will adhere to no Japanese corpses," Chiun flared. "No one will know it was the House."
"Everyone will know it was the House if you flay the Nishitsu payroll to ribbons like you've been threatening for weeks."
"Weeks!" Chiun shrieked. "It has been more than two months. Nearly three. Why, oh, why am I being denied the vengeance that is my right?"
And so saying, he faced a pristine white wall and inserted nine of his ten fingers into it. The wallboard made a sound like cardboard being murdered.
Then he dragged both hands all the way down to the baseboard, leaving nine ripping tracks.
"Tell you what," Remo said suddenly. "Why don't I check with Smith?"
In answer, the Master of Sinanju inserted his surviving nails into another part of the wall and waited expectantly.
Snapping a telephone off a taboret, Remo hit the one button. Relays clicked, initiating an untraceable call to Folcroft Sanitarium, the cover for CURE. After a moment, a distinctly lemony voice came on the line.
"Remo."
"Smitty, you owe me."
"Remo?"
Remo made his voice hard. "You framed me for a murder I never committed, railroaded me into the electric chair and buried me in absentia."
"I am still looking for your missing daughter," Smith said hastily.
"This isn't about her. It's about Chiun."
"What is wrong with Chiun?"
And Remo lifted the receiver in the Master of Sinanju's direction.
As if on cue, Chiun brought his nails ripping down again. He threw in a low moan of repressed rage. "Is he dying?" Smith asked anxiously.
"If he doesn't get another crack at the Nishitsu Corp, someone will be," Remo said pointedly.
"I am still working on the logistics of it. I may have a safe plan of attack for you soon."
"How about we get on the road to speed things up.
"Are you certain it is necess
ary?" And Remo lifted the receiver again.
This time Chiun punched a hole in a new wall and pulled out a mass of wiring.
"My honor must be avenged!" he cried. "Why will the gods not hear my beseeching entreaties?"
"You know it's urgent when he starts invoking the gods," whispered Remo. "Normally he doesn't acknowledge any gods."
"I will make flight and hotel arrangements," said Smith.
"You'll be glad you did," said Remo, hanging up. Turning to the Master of Sinanju, he said, "We're on."
Chiun flung a nest of wiring away with such force it adhered to the wall like tossed spaghetti.
"At last. At last my ancestors will again rest in peace."
"Not to mention this descendant," Remo said dryly.
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."
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