He caught something almost at once. A clerk or agent was inputting the just-developed information that the vehicle-identification number of the exploded vehicle found in the rubble of the Manhattan General Post Office positively identified it as a USPS relay truck.
A suicide bomber, as Smith suspected.
As he watched, Smith saw another piece fall into place. Dental bridgework found at the scene matched the dental records of one Allah Ladeen. That closed the books on one terrorist.
Then his computer began spitting out the whereabouts of the other suspected terrorists.
Jaw dropping, Smith saw the names and addresses of Jihad Jones, Ibrahim Lincoln, Yassir Nossair, Mohamet Ali and most of the others start scrolling before his incredulous gray eyes.
Picking up the telephone, he began calling FBI district offices, starting with Chicago.
"This is Assistant Special Agent in Charge Smith, calling from Washington headquarters. You are ordered to pick up the following subjects in connection with the terroristic events of the day."
No one questioned him. If they called back the Washington number he gave them for verification, they would get Smith's Folcroft line. But no one called back. Virtually every district branch had had dealings with ASAG Smith in the past.
Chapter 16
It was the indignity of indignities. It was ignominy. It was shame.
But it was necessary, and so Yusef Gamal, alias Abu Gamalin, endured the shame.
He had made his escape to the airport and the flight that awaited him to the city of Toledo in Ohio. It was a good city name, Toledo. There was a Toledo in Moorish Spain. It was the original Toledo. Spain was one of the few nations where Islam has been in retreat for centuries, but that would also change.
Yusef Gamal was very happy at least that none of his fellow Palestinians could see him now seated on the flight to Toledo wearing a long, funereal black coat, black beaver hat and a wig fringed with stringy ringlets of hair called paye.
He was dressed as a Hasidic Jew. It was the perfect disguise, the Deaf Mullah had assured him by e-mail. "They will be looking for a postal worker. Perhaps, if they detect our intentions, an Egyptian or Palestinian. Never a Hasidic Jew."
"I must be a Jew?" Yusef had e-mailed back.
"To escape, you must be a Jew. Allow your fearless Semitic nose to guide you to sanctuary."
"As you command, Holy One."
So Yusef sat quiet in the back of the plane with his ringlets shivering and shame in his hot eyes.
At least it was a short flight. That alone was consolation.
That and the fact that the kosher in-flight meal they had served him was technically halal, and so, could be eaten safely.
At the Toledo airport, Yusef was the last one off the plane and looked around for the True Believer who had been appointed to meet him.
The waiting area was crowded with passengers hugging their relatives in the most naked and unseemly fashion. The women did not wear veils, and their brazen lips were everywhere, like flowers dipped in poisonous blood.
Some held up signs. The Deaf Mullah had not said who was to meet him, but it was possible the messenger carried a sign also.
Scanning the crude cardboard signs, Yusef's eager eyes alighted on one that was held over the heads of two shamelessly kissing women. It read: Islamic Front For The National Association Of Letter Carriers.
Fortunately it was in Arabic, and so was not understandable to Western eyes.
"Here! I am here!" Yusef cried, pushing through the crowd.
A head poked up over the kissing female faces, and Yusef's eager expression turned to a glower. The face was darkly freckled, and the hair was very red.
"You!" Yusef spat, seeing that it was the Egyptian who was called Jihad Jones.
"I was right. It is true. You are a Jew. A Hasid, no less."
"It is a disguise ordained by the Deaf Mullah himself," Yusef said defensively.
"The Deaf Mullah did not instruct me to pick up a Jew, but a mujahid. "
"I am that mujahid. Have you not heard of the wonderful carnage in Oklahoma City? I was the author of that carnage."
"I spit upon your carnage. My cousin Al Ladeen personally blew up several blocks in Manhattan where Jews such as you dwell, then drove his mail truck into the post office, obliterating the godless and himself in one mighty blow."
"I am no Jew. I have told you this. Why will you not listen?"
"Because the proof is standing before me, as black as a buzzard," Jihad Jones retorted hotly.
"The Deaf Mullah instructed you to take me to him. I insist that you do this at once."
Jihad Jones glowered, his face turning as scarlet as his disheveled hair. Yusef met his gaze with a contemptuous one of his own.
"Offspring of a Crusader!"
"Jew!"
"Idolworshiper!"
"Eater of pork!"
Finally Jihad Jones threw down his placard and said, "Very well. I will take you to the Deaf Mullah. But only because I know he will have you put to death."
"I am not afraid, because if I die a true Muslim, my allotment of seventy-two houris will be waiting for me in Paradise."
"We will see about that, too."
They drove south along a long, undulating highway. The area was very open, and there were barns. This was farm country.
"Where are we going?" asked Yusef Gamal. "To the town of Greenburg."
"What is there?"
"The secret sanctuary of the Deaf Mullah. A place where no one would think of looking for him."
"The Deaf Mullah hides in a town with a Jewish name?"
"The name is Greenburg. With a u, not Greenberg with an e. It is not Jewish."
"It sounds Jewish."
"You should know, who look Jewish."
"I am not Jewish. I am a Semite, the same as you."
"I am an Egyptian."
"We are both brothers in Allah."
"Except that you secretly practice Jewishness."
"It is called Judaism."
"Hah! Your words are the very proof of my conviction."
"How do I know you are not secretly a Copt? You look like a Copt."
"If I am a Copt, you are a Jew for Jesus. This is worse than being a Hasid."
At that, Yusef shut his mouth, thinking, I am only getting myself in deeper with this idiot Egyptian camel driver.
Some thirty minutes into the journey, the broad highway lifted and swept into another highway.
And Yusef saw it, rearing up over the surrounding flatness like an alabaster vision. His eyes flew wide. "Look, it is-"
"Yes."
"A mosque."
"Of course it is a mosque. Do you think the Deaf Mullah would dwell in a temple for Jews?"
"But it is so big. Why have I never heard of such a mosque here in Ohio?"
"Because it is more than a mosque," said Jihad Jones cryptically.
Chapter 17
The flight to Oklahoma was routine except for the Japanese tourist in first class who, evidently impressed by the cut of Chiun's splendid traveling kimono, snapped a picture of the Master of Sinanju as he boarded.
In response, the Master of Sinanju snapped the Japanese tourist's shutter-pressing finger out of joint and relieved him of his camera, too. He returned it empty of film. When the Japanese complained, the overexposed roll somehow found its way into his throat, lodging there.
A stewardess, hearing the frightful choking sounds, rushed up and demanded, "What is it?"
"This man requires the Heimdail maneuver," sniffed Chiun. "He has stupidly swallowed something stupid."
"Oh, my God."
The stewardess fell on the man, grabbed him about the waist from behind and tried her mightiest to expel the foreign object from his throat. Every time she pulled back with her clasped hands, the tourist only strangled more loudly.
That was when Remo stepped on board. He took one look at the stewardess, apparently trying to break the back of a Japanese passenger, then the Master of Sinanju looking on with thin approval.