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  "Yes, Koreans were excellent shipbuilders-when building ships for Koreans, not oppressors."

  Remo nodded. He used to listen to Chiun's accounts of his homeland with one ear. Now that he knew Chiun and he shared a common ancestry, he was more interested.

  "The day came that the invasion fleet of the Khan set sail for Japan," continued Chiun, his voice growing in fullness. "Mighty were its vessels, packed with soldiers and horsemen. Fearsome was the fate that awaited Japan, the unprotected."

  The Japanese passengers became very still in their seats now.

  "Then a mighty wind blew out of the north," said Chiun. "A typhoon, Remo. It tossed the fleet of the Khan about. They wallowed helpless in the waves. The warships fell apart, foundered and sunk. The noble invasion was never to be. The fearful Japanese, beholding this with their own incredulous eyes, named this storm Kamikaze, which means 'Divine Wind.'"

  All through the cabin, Japanese heads bobbed in agreement with the words of the Master of Sinanju. "But in their ignorance, they never suspected the truth," Chiun added quickly.

  The agreeable bobbing stopped.

  "The Master of that time sunk the ships, right?" asked Remo.

  Chiun shook his wise old head. "No."

  "No?"

  "No," said Chiun, waving his jade nail protector in the air without realizing. "That had nothing to do with Sinanju and everything to do with Japanese ignorance and arrogance. For the Korean shipbuilders who constructed the fleet of Kublai Khan did so with inferior lumber and weak nails. Any storm would have sunk the fleet. The Khan never knew this, so no retribution was visited on Korea. The Japanese never imagined this, so they believed themselves to be under divine protection, which accounts for their insufferable arrogance."

  All through the cabin, the glaring of turned Japanese faces grew venomous.

  "Look," said Remo, "can we get off this subject? No more Korean stories, okay?"

  "If you insist," Chiun said thinly. Chiun was silent for only a short time.

  "Have you noticed, Remo?" he asked over the windup whine of the 747's turbines.

  "Noticed what?"

  "How much Japanese faces are improving."

  "Huh?"

  "Not the older generation. They are too set in their ways. But the younger ones. They are marrying outside of the islands. New blood is flowing into their veins. I do not normally approve of mixing the blood, but for the Japanese it is a good thing. Their faces are slowly improving. They are not as good as Korean faces, or even Mongol faces. But in another century, perhaps two, Japanese will not be burdened with such morose countenances."

  Assorted Japanese passengers turned in their seats and looked unhappily in Chiun's direction.

  "I never noticed that," Remo said guardedly.

  "It is a fact, Remo."

  After that, the majority of the Japanese passengers found ways to change seats with others, and the midsection of the cabin was suddenly free of Japanese glaring.

  The Master of Sinanju smiled with quiet satisfaction for the remainder of the flight.

  Remo just hoped it would end soon. They were only now taxiing to the Logan Airport runway. And it was fourteen hours to Osaka.

  Chapter 3

  NYPD Patrolman Tony Guiterrez had just turned the corner of Eighth Avenue and Thirty-fourth Street when it exploded.

  A hot blast of air picked him up off his feet and threw him down the side street as he was admiring the maddening swing and sway of a redheaded girl's walk. She had a nice behind. It wiggled. Normally Patrolman Guiterrez paid more attention to his surroundings, but you didn't see a lot of Anna Nicole Smith behinds on the streets these days. Women liked to keep themselves trimmer than that.

  A slow smile of appreciation was tugging at Patrolman Guiterrez's lips when he felt his feet leave the hard concrete, and he forgot all about the girl and her undulating pelvis. The thunderous boom seemed to be chasing him.

  His mind froze in midthought. Explosion!

  Many people's lives flash before them when they feel the cold touch of death. Patrolman Guiterrez was made of different stuff. He recognized the sound of a detonation. Even in that split second when his eardrums were being punished by the leading edges of the traveling shock wave, his mind correlated a half-dozen random facts.

  The explosion was directly at his back. Couldn't be more than twenty yards away. Sounded right at the corner, too.

  What had exploded? he wondered with an eerie clarity of thought.

  The faces of the pedestrians Guiterrez had passed flashed by his mind's eye. Ordinary people. None had caught his observant eye.

  There had been a Dodge Ram pickup truck at the corner light. Traffic on Eighth Avenue was flowing smoothly.

  A car bomb! he thought. Yeah. That's gotta be it. A car bomb.

  Then he was slammed into the free-standing wire trash container.

  It probably saved his life, though Guiterrez didn't realize it for a while. He struck the trash barrel with such force that for three days afterward the wire pattern was visible in white against his red cheek. They bumped together in midair, then rolled. Guiterrez landed atop the rolling container, mashing it almost flat with his 215 pound body. The barrel was full of newspapers and other paper refuse. They helped save him, too.

  When Guiterrez came to, he was looking at a dragon of smoke rolling across the otherwise blue September sky.

  Guiterrez sat up. He hurt in so many places he didn't know where to start. He looked at his feet. Still attached-though he'd lost one regulation shoe. He noticed he couldn't feel the ground with his supporting hands, so he looked right, then left, half-expecting to see raw stumps.

  One palm was skinned raw, but it was whole. He counted his fingers to make sure.

  When he tried to stand up, his spinal column felt like a fracturing icicle.

  But Guiterrez got up. He had to. His clearing sight showed him the corner he had just passed.

  The first thing he saw was the woman on her back. Her mouth was open as if she were screaming. Something very red and uncertain was foaming up from it. Her eyes stared glassily. Guiterrez couldn't tell if she was ejecting blood or viscera or a jellylike combination, but he could tell she was all but dead.

  Not far from her, a meaty naked leg lay scorched and smoking.

  The silence in the aftermath of the explosion seemed to last a long time. The screaming soon followed it. Guiterrez was running to aid the wounded by the time they were swelling into a chorus of agony.

  He found the man who had lost his leg around the corner. A black man. He sat up against a building facade looking down at his missing leg. Guiterrez could tell he was seeing what had happened to him but he wasn't getting it. Not yet. Then without warning, he did. He let out a bellow like a wounded bear.

  Guiterrez was barking into his shoulder radio. "Central, send X-ray and fire apparatus. Corner of Eighth and Thirty-fourth."

  The Dodge pickup was on fire. The driver behind the wheel didn't have any head. He didn't have much of anything from the shoulders down. A monster might have taken a bite out of him.

  If it was a car bomb that had done this, Guiterrez realized, it wasn't the pickup.

  Other cars were shattered and broken. One was flung over on its side.

  Whatever the bomb was, it had been big.

  But it wasn't a car bomb. Guiterrez had seen plenty of car-bomb footage on TV. They usually left a smoking axle. Maybe not where it should have been, but it always landed somewhere.

  No cars had blown up. Guiterrez was positive of that.

  As the wail of sirens started up, Guiterrez went from car to car, checking for dead and wounded, wondering what had blown up. What on earth had blown up? He should have seen it when he turned the corner. The corner had been ground zero. But try as he might, he couldn't remember anything sitting on that corner.

  At least, nothing that stood out. And Tony Guiterrez prided himself on his powers of observation.

  THE CHIEF OF DETECTIVES for Manhattan's bomb s
quad took him aside an hour later and asked, "What did you see?"

  They were on ground zero. The crater on the corner still smoked lazily. Blood and glass lay everywhere. Building facades at all four corners showed scars.

  Guiterrez was staring at the crater. It had disrupted the entire corner, flinging granite curbstones like bricks. One had been discovered on the smashed remains of a desk in a second-floor office on the other side of Thirty-fourth.

  "There was something there... " he muttered.

  "What?"

  Guiterrez banged his forehead in frustration. "I don't know. Damn."

  "A package?"

  "No."

  "A suspicious person?"

  "Only the injured. Unless someone came out of a building. But he wouldn't have time to drop a bomb and get away intact."

  The detective frowned at the crater. "Whatever blew up, it was big. Too big to carry. Too big to escape notice."

  "I walked this beat every day for three years," Guiterrez was saying in frustration. "I know this corner. There was something there."

  "Something out of the ordinary?"

  "No," Guiterrez said dazedly. "Something that's always been there. I just can't remember what it was."

  "How can something be there and you can't remember it?"

  "It was something ordinary. Something you take for granted."

  The bomb-squad detective was looking around. A lone EMT ambulance stood nearby, in case an unsuspected body turned up. A fire engine was pulling away, its job done. The air smelled of hot metals and warm blood.

  "What color?" asked the detective.

  "I don't remember that, either. Damn it, why won't my mind work?"

  "Was it green?"

  "Huh?"

  The detective was on his knees. He waved Guiterrez to join him.

  Near the pediment of a door, something had chipped at the concrete. A fragment lay on the ground. It was scorched black, but as the detective nudged it with a pen, the other side came to light. It was olive drab.

  "Could be military ordnance of some type," the detective was saying.

  Guiterrez shook his head slowly. "I don't remember anything military."

  "A jeep? A duece-and-a-half truck?"

  "It wasn't a car bomb, I tell you," Guiterrez said angrily.

  The detective got up and looked around. He held the fragment of scorched olive drab metal in a clean handkerchief.

  "It wasn't any guy wearing a brace of M-80s for a girdle, either," he said grimly.

  AT THE FIFTH AVENUE city morgue, the coroner extracted a large section of steel from the body of the woman whose pureed innards had come bubbling out of her mouth.

  Patrolman Guiterrez was there to see it.

  The coroner laid the piece of metal on a stainless steel circular tray and with a thing like a tiny flexible shower nozzle, hosed it clean.

  As the blood ran clear, the steel turned olive drab. And embossed on one side were two raised letters: U.S.

  "Damn," the bomb-squad detective muttered. "Damn. Maybe it was an ammo box. I hope to hell we don't have militia loose in Manhattan."

  "We don't," Guiterrez said slowly. "I don't think."

  "You recognize it?"

  "Yeah. If you search hard enough, you'll find the piece that fits under it. There'll be letters stamped on it, too."

  The bomb-squad detective and the ME looked at him expectantly.

  "The letters will say 'Mail.' I remember now. The thing that blew up was a US. Mail relay box."

  The detective looked as if he wanted to cry. "Did you say a mailbox?"

  "Yeah."

  "I gotta call the commander. This could be big."

  THE COMMISSIONER of police of New York City received the call from the commander of South Precinct Midtown at approximately 12:53.

  "It was a mail relay box that blew up," the commander said.

  "Damn. Anyone could have planted it, then."

  "No, sir, I said a relay box. Not a postal collection box."

  "What's the difference?"

  "Collection boxes are blue and are for the public convenience. Relay boxes are olive drab and can only be accessed by a postal employee with a key."

  "That should narrow it down, shouldn't it?" suggested the commissioner of police.

  "It should, sir," the precinct commander agreed.

  "So, this isn't a terrorist event?"

  "It doesn't appear that way."

  "Could be a Unabomber-style mail bomb that detonated prematurely. Or a disgruntled postal worker."

  "Is there any other kind?" the commander grunted. The commissioner thought it prudent not to answer that question directly. It was one thing for a commander to indulge in a little gallows humor. A commissioner had to be sober.

  "I have a detective interviewing the postmaster," the commissioner said. "All mail is sorted before it's dropped off. We may develop a lead by the evening news, if not sooner."

  "Let's hope we don't have a jurisdictional problem."

  "I hadn't thought of that."

  "The blown box is a federal problem."

  "But it blew in a city street. That makes it our investigation."

  "Like I said, let's hope we don't have a jurisdictional problem."

  NYPD CHIEF OF DETECTIVES Walter Brown walked up the granite steps and through two of the phalanx of Corinthian columns of the General Post Office on Fifth Avenue in midtown Manhattan. It was the most impressive building in the entire city that wasn't a skyscraper. It occupied a full city block and looked as solid as the bedrock under Manhattan. Over the lintel was carved the motto of the United States Postal Service:

  Neither Snow Nor Rain Nor Heat Nor Gloom Of Night

  Stays These Couriers From The Swift Completion Of Their Appointed Rounds

  Inside he was directed to the office of the postmaster of New York City, where he flashed his badge and announced himself.

  "Detective Brown. Urgent business."

  "One moment," said the secretary. A moment later, Brown was ushered through a door with pebbled glass panel and the words Myron Finkelpearl Postmaster in gilt letters. It was a substantial door, as befitted the office of the man who oversaw the flow of mail through the most important city in the world.

  The postmaster waved Brown to a maroon chair. "A half an hour ago," Brown began, "an explosion took place at the corner of Eighth and Thirty-fourth."

  "I heard."

  "We've determined the object that exploded was one of your relay boxes."

  The postmaster turned pale. He actually wove on his feet like a drunken man. Out of his pocket came a white linen handkerchief. He ran it across his forehead, sat down and said, "Thank you for bringing this to my attention."

  It was Brown's turn to look dazed. "We'll need the names of all postal employees with access to the box in question."

  "Impossible."

  "Don't give me that. Generate the list from payroll."

  "Relay boxes are locked with what we call a master key. Tens of thousands of master keys are carried by postal workers all over the country. Any key can open any box anywhere."

  "Let's start with your people."

  "Sorry. This is a federal matter."

  "Federal? There was an explosion!"

  "Of federal property. I will launch a full investigation and relay the findings to your superior."

  "With all due respect, I can't accept that answer. There are casualties. Destruction of property. Not to mention the possibility that the individual responsible may have planted more bombs in other relay boxes."

  If possible, the postmaster turned even more pale. And Detective Brown figured he'd gotten through the man's thick, bureaucratic skull.

  "I will get right on it, I assure you."

  Brown lost it then. "Are you crazy!" he barked, slamming a fist on the postmaster's big desk. "This isn't a jurisdictional matter. A mass murder took place not three blocks from here. It falls under police jurisdiction."

  "It's federal. Now I must ask you to lea
ve." Detective Brown glared at the postmaster for a full minute.

  The postmaster's return glare was opaque. Neither man looked as though he would budge an inch. "You'll be hearing from us," said Brown, storming out.

  AS HE CLATTERED DOWN the wide granite steps, Brown wore his face like a stone mask. The brass of that guy. So what if he was federal. Did he think he could sweep this under the rug? Already the corner of Eighth and Thirty-fourth was surrounded by news crews. By 6:00 p.m. this would be the lead story. They were already breaking into afternoon programming with updates.

  Brown was pulling open the door of his sedan when he was knocked off his feet. He landed on his back, the air driven out of his shocked lungs from the impact.

  He lay there dazed a moment, his ears ringing, then found his wits and his feet.

  Down Fifth, a worm of black smoke was coiling upward in the aftermath of the detonation. Then the screaming began.

  Detective Brown started for the sound when he heard another boom. This one farther away. Then another. Then, as if fireworks were going off, a string of detonations reverberated through the canyons of Manhattan.

  Over the skyscrapers and high-rise office buildings, thin threads of smoke lifted, darkened and became a pall. All in the space of a minute-the time it took Detective Brown to reach the scene of the first explosion, cursing the delays, the bomber and most of all the postmaster of New York, who now had the biggest headache in the greatest city on earth sitting on his desk like a ticking bomb.

  And it served the fucker right.

  Chapter 4

  At Osaka International Airport all the Japanese passengers got up simultaneously, blocking the aisle. They seemed in a rush to deplane. Remo figured it might have had something to do with the Master of Sinanju's trips to the bathroom. He managed to hit every one of them. After which the doors refused to open. This led to a lot of squirming passengers and a few unpleasant accidents.

  "Guess we wait," said Remo.

  "You may wait," said the Master of Sinanju, getting out of his seat.

  As Remo watched, Chiun started forward. His hands were tucked into the joined sleeves of his kimono when he started. Yet Japanese passengers began jumping back into their seats, making a path as if stung by a very busy bee.

  The way clearing before him, Chiun padded up the aisle like an apricot apparition. Red-faced Japanese faces glared at him in passing. A few held themselves and looked desperate.