"The Deaf Mullah, by all that is holy! The Deaf Mullah! How can I say it that you will believe me?" Mohamet blubbered painfully.
The two withdrew, hovering some feet away in the dark. Ali could hear their urgent whisperings.
"He's telling the truth," said the tall Westerner with the death's-head face.
"I told you this, but you did not believe me," squeaked the ancient mummy.
"Maybe the Deaf Mullah's getting messages out of the pen."
"This is possible."
Then they returned, two grim moon shadows.
"What's the game plan?" asked the Westerner.
"To visit terror, shed infidel blood and create other anti-Western mischiefs," Mohamet grudgingly admitted. "So that the infidel nation collapses, and the pure flame of Islam flowers in the scorched soil of idolatry. It is really for your own good, for you are truly Muslims under your infidel skins."
"What was your part supposed to be?"
"When I was told, I was to blow things up."
"What things?"
"Whatever things I was told."
"What were you told?"
"I was not told! What manner of terrorist would I be if I fell into enemy hands and told of my missions?"
"A valuable one," said the mummy Asian.
That sunk in.
"Then I am not valuable?'' asked Mohamet.
"Not to us," said the Westerner.
"You are going to kill me?"
"Nope. You're going to commit suicide."
"I wish to die. I admit this. Paradise calls to me. But I have no intention of committing suicide unless in doing so I can take infidels with me. That is not my mission. I am a suicide mailman, not a fool."
"Maybe you're both."
"I do not see how."
Then the Westerner picked him up bodily and tossed him over the spread-winged eagle.
Mohamet Ali saw the pavement come rushing up to meet him, and his last conscious thought before his head pulped against hard Western concrete was,
the roof by the back way and melted into the surging crowds.
"This may be easier than we thought," Remo was saying. "We know where the Deaf Mullah is. All we have to do is take him out."
"Smith's missions are never simple," Chiun said.
"This one will be."
"You wish."
They were moving back to the heart of the commotion at the corner of Atlantic Avenue and Summer Street. As the police pushed back the crowd to clear the way, an ambulance came scooting up Atlantic.
"What is the hurry?" asked Chiun. "He is dead."
"I think they want to scoop him up so the cameras can't telecast every drop of blood."
"What kind of cretins enjoy the sight of blood?"
"People who don't have to deal with it every day like you and me," Remo growled.
Chiun nodded, his hazel eyes roving. Abruptly they narrowed. A hiss escaped his papery lips.
Remo spotted Tamayo Tanaka almost as quickly. She was standing before a mobile microwave TV van,
a Channel 4 microphone floating before her sensual red lips.
Her crisp words floated to their ears, thanks to their ability to filter out unwanted sounds and focus on the important.
"...unimpeachable information that the United States Postal Service has been infiltrated by Muslim terrorists bent on global domination, wholesale rapine and pillage and deeds even more unwholesome."
She touched her earphone connection to listen to the on-air anchor.
"Yes, Muslim terrorists. Not militia, as reported elsewhere. Nor a breakaway faction of the postal union."
Remo said to Chiun, "Nice going, Little Father. She's starting a panic."
"It is not my fault," Chiun said stiffly.
Over at the remote truck, Tamayo Tanaka said, "Back to you, Janice," and flipped her mike to a sound man, who had to tackle it so it didn't break on hard pavement.
She was touching up her makeup when Remo and Chiun suddenly appeared on either side of her.
"I thought you needed at least three sources to go on the air with something like that?" Remo demanded.
Tamayo didn't even look up from her compact mirror. "Well, you're two of them."