Deadly Delivery

Everything About Fiction You Never Wanted to Know.

A criminal or terrorist poses as a package Courier or mailman to deliver a bomb, or get the target to open the door so he can be shot or kidnapped. The advantages of this are obvious—by insisting that the target sign for the package, the killer can be sure a) the door gets opened for a stranger, and b) he's got the right man.

Of course, there is nothing to stop the hero from using this technique too, for non-lethal purposes—see Delivery Guy Infiltration. When the bomb is simply mailed to the target, that's You Got Murder.

See also Room Disservice. An inversion is Shoot the Messenger.

Examples of Deadly Delivery include:

Anime and Manga

  • Rurouni Kenshin. Hajime Saito pulls this stunt when he visits the Kamiya dojo, by posing as a peddler selling medicines and home remedies. Sanosuke almost falls for it, until he notices the calluses on Saito's hands. At which point Saito drops the facade and attacks Sanosuke, nearly killing him. He notes the attack would have been fatal had it not been for the flimsyness of the sword he was carrying.
    • Saito pulls this again, only hours later, this time posing as a police officer, under the pretense of having heard of the attack from before. Kaoru and Megumi tell him Kenshin's out, so they invite him in. Saito behaves this time—until Kenshin finally arrives.

Fan Work

Film

  • Three Days of the Condor opens with a CIA station being wiped out by three assassins. As the station is protected by CCTV cameras, locked doors and a guard — even the receptionist has a gun in the drawer—the killers get inside by sending in a man dressed as a postman. The place gets regular deliveries of books so this doesn't seem strange. The postman killer tries the same trick on the protagonist later on, but this time he's ready.
  • Action Jackson (1988). Used by the Invisible Men to kill a witness, with a silenced gun held behind the Clipboard of Authority.
  • Fright Night (2011): One of the vampires impersonates a delivery person so he will be invited inside and bypass the entry prohibition.
  • The movie version of Thr3e opened with a scene where a girl is given a book by the Riddle Killer from a hot dog vendor. Said hot dog vendor is actually the Riddle Killer, giving her his message.
  • Terminator 2. The T-800 carries a longbox that looks like it's full of roses. And it is, but it's also got a shotgun in it.
  • In The Living Daylights, The Dragon disguises himself as a milkman and a balloon salesman. Both times he kills his targets by strangling them with the chords of his headphones.
  • The villain in Phone Booth lures and kills a pizza delivery man to his hiding place to fake his suicide.
  • Quick. The title female assassin (Teri Polo) gets into a police safe house by pretending to be a pizza delivery girl. She conceals a pistol under the pizza box.
  • In Léon: The Professional, Mathilda (Natalie Portman) tries this trick to get past the door security at the NYC DEA office.
  • The Mechanic (original). The hitman pretends to be driving one of the chicken delivery trucks.
  • "Candygram for Mongo!" The hero uses this tactic against a dimwitted and nigh-invulnerable thug deployed by the villains in Blazing Saddles. Subverted in that this is a comedy, and the explosion only results in an Ash Face and Mongo's capture.

Literature

  • In Scorpia from the Alex Rider series, Alex himself does this to try to kill Mrs. Jones.

Live Action TV

  • Luther. A gang of home invaders looking to steal diamonds from a pair of white collar criminal who are about to leave the country turn up in an identical removalist van to the one that's just left. Thinking there's been a mistake the man answers the door only to be struck in the face.
  • Chuck: Shows up at least once, when a courier picking up a package decides to also kill the guy he's getting it from.
  • Saturday Night Live season 1. A recurring character is a "land shark" that tries to get people to open their door. He always gets in when offering a candygram.
  • Buffy the Vampire Slayer: In "What's My Line?", Cordelia lets a cosmetics salesman into the house, unaware that he is actually an assassin who can transform himself into thousands of mealworms.

Music

Video Games

  • There's a murderer in Trauma Team who kills her victims by masquerading as a postal worker, then "delivering" a package containing a hidden bomb.
  • In Phoenix Wright Ace Attorney: Justice for All, Career Killer Shelly deKiller disguises himself as a hotel bellboy delivering tomato juice to get into his target's room.

Web Original

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