"I have mail."
"Leave it."
"I must give this to you personally, for otherwise it will not be considered delivered by the mighty postmaster general."
"For whom have you mail?"
"I must look. One moment," said Farouk, feigning ignorance. "Ah, yes, here it is. I have a special- delivery letter for Abeer Ghula. Is there an Abeer Ghula at this address?"
"I will look."
"Thank you," said Farouk, smiling broadly. They were checking. No doubt they were being careful.
When the door opened, it did so without warning. And a thick-wristed hand snapped out, took hold of his throat and withdrew with amazing speed.
Farouk could feel his shoe soles actually burn and smoke so swiftly was he carried inside.
His back was slammed against a wall, and the air exploded from his stunned lungs.
At which point Farouk clawed for his well-hidden Uzi. Digging into the jumbled mail, he ignored the paper cuts and found the butt of the submachine gun. His fingers wrapped around it.
Then other unfamiliar fingers wrapped around his fingers. They squeezed. And the pain traveling up Farouk's right arm turned to crimson when it reached his eyeballs.
He screamed. The words were inarticulate. If they were even words.
The crushing hand withdrew, and Farouk whipped out his burning hand.
His eyes cleared of the red pain, and he stood stunned, looking at his gun hand.
It was not bleeding. This was very surprising. He associated the red haze before his eyes with the color of blood. His blood. But the hand was not bleeding. It was very black, actually. The fingers were bent in strange ways—as was the much more sturdy Uzi submachine gun.
Farouk was not absorbing the fact that his fingers and the Uzi were an inextricable lump of broken and fused matter when the face of his assailant loomed up in his line of sight.
It was a cold face, very pale and Western.
"Messengers of Muhammad?" he asked.
"I do not say yes and I do not say no," he said.
"That is a yes," a squeaky voice piped up.
And nearby, Farouk saw a little Asian, wrinkled features like a wise old monkey's, dressed for a funeral.
"My name is Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca," he said.
"He is a Moor," said the Asian.
"Truthfully I am Black Irish."
"His eyes do not smile," the Asian said.
"Before we punch out your lights," the other said, "who do you work for?"
"The postal service, of course. Do you not recognize my proud and honorable uniform?"
A hard hand backed by a thick wrist wrapped itself around the Uzi again and gave a forceful squeeze.
This time Farouk's eyeballs exploded into pin- wheels of colored light. The pain clutched at his stomach, and though he screamed, no words issued forth. It was that painful.
"Here we go again. Who sent you here to erase Abeer Ghula?"
"The Deaf One."
"The Deaf Mullah?"
"Yes, yes," he gasped. "None other."
"The Deaf Mullah's in solitary."
"The Deaf Mullah is wiser than infidels. He walks free, breathing clean air and eating food, which is denied him by his supposed captors."
"I'm going to say this one last time. Who gave you the order to come here?"
"The Deaf Mullah."
"You see him?"
"In the holy flesh."
"Where and when?" "Many months ago, in the storefront mosque in Jersey City. Although he sat behind a bulletproof screen to protect him from those who would do violence against him, it was unmistakably he. I swear by the Holy Beard."
The death's-headed one turned to the Asian. "How's he sound to you?"
"He is telling the truth. You can hear it in his pounding heart."
"I am telling the truth. Now I must kill and die."
"No killing, but you get to die."
"I cannot die until I kill the heretic."
"She's sleeping and doesn't want to be killed right now," said the Westerner in a serious voice, although his words were foolish in meaning.
"Then I will refuse to martyr myself."
"That's what they all say," said the white infidel.
And the irresistible vise of a hand on the Uzi-and- mangled-hand combination led him out into the rectangular corridor and to the low edge of the retaining wall.
"What are you going to do?" asked Farouk.
"Nothing. You're going to commit suicide."
"Gladly. If you tie Abeer Ghula's feet to my own."
"Out of rope today," said the man, peering down. "Not here," he muttered.
"Good. I am not ready to die just yet."
But Farouk's relief was short-lived. He was walked around the corner to another point of vantage.
The infidel leaned over. "This looks good."
"Why is this spot good and not the other?" Farouk wondered aloud.
"Because there's a restaurant down there, and I didn't want to drop you in somebody's Caesar salad." "I do not mind taking infidels with me when I go to my welcome death."
"But I do."
And though the infidel with the thick wrists was on the lean side and showed insufficient muscle for the task, Patrick O'Shaughnessy O'Mecca, a.k.a. Farouk Shazzam, found himself lifted bodily and dangled over yawning space.
"There is still time for you to relent and embrace Allah," Farouk offered hopefully.
"Have him give me a call," said the infidel, letting
go.
It was not so terrible. The force of gravity simply took hold of Farouk's stomach, and he fell, pulling the rest of him with it. He enjoyed the acceleration, the lightheadedness and the wild thrill that comes from free-falling at over one hundred miles per hour without a bungee cord.
When he struck the parquet floor, he became an instant bag of blood, brains and loose bone that lay flatter than it seemed possible for a fully grown human being to lie.
But he died with a smile of joyous expectation on his shattered face.
to the screams wafting up and told the Master of Sinanju, "That should give the FBI guys reason to tighten their security."
"They are not perfect," said Chiun, who was watching the local Korean-language channel on TV.
"They let one get through."
On the bed, Abeer Ghula stirred. She twisted one way and then the other like a cat, the royal blue bed clothes slipping off her supple, dusky form.
One arm flopped over the edge of the mattress, and as she began a subvocal murmuring that promised full wakefulness, Remo indicated the exposed underside of her wrist and said to the Master of Sinanju, "Your turn."
Chiun refused to drag his hazel eyes from the screen. "I will wait. It may yet be possible that the Messengers of Muhammad will succeed in their task and I will be spared the ignominy."
"Fat chance."
"Another five minutes will do no harm."
snapped up the receiver as soon as it rang. It was the blue contact phone.
"Yes, Remo?"
"M.O.M. just tried again."
"Did you interrogate the assassin?"
"I wouldn't dignify him with that word," Remo said dryly. "But yeah. He was dressed up like a mailman. Somehow he got through the FBI security ring. Or maybe the NOW bruisers."
"Go ahead."
"He swore on Allah's beard it's the Deaf Mullah."
"Allah is not known to wear a beard. You mean the Prophet."
"He swore, he spoke the truth as he saw it, and as a lesson to the FBI, we disposed of him after we were done. Expect to hear about another postal suicide before long."
"They will not give up this easily," warned Smith.
"Just look into the Deaf Mullah thing. Something's not right here."
"My thinking exactly." "If these people served the Deaf Mullah, wouldn't they be calling for his release rather than screw around with the Middle Eastern version of Bella Abzug?"