"Find that bee, and you'll see different," Tammy insisted. "It's vicious."
This time, everyone searched except Tammy. She was busy working her minicam. She rolled tape as she blazed light in every direction.
In the end, they were forced to give up. There was no sign of the bee or its tiny furry corpse.
"It is very puzzling," Wurmlinger murmured.
"Maybe it crawled back out," Tammy suggested.
Wurmlinger shook his head. "Impossible. It should have been in its death throes after all that happened."
"Tell that to the damn bee," grunted Tammy, dousing her minicam.
At that moment, a man poked his head in the open office door and Tammy did a double take. He had pronounced cheekbones and extremely deep-set eyes. One hand held the door, and it was backed by a wrist like a two-by-four.
"Do I know you?" Tammy blurted.
"Were you ever a flight attendant?" asked the man with the very thick wrists.
"No."
"Then probably not."
The man showed his ID card and said, "Remo Teahan. Center for Disease Control. This is Bruce Rhee."
Tammy took one look at the elderly Asian who entered next and said, "I know you, too!"
"Remo, it is Tamayo Tanaka," the Asian flared in a familiar voice.
Remo looked more closely. "Oh, yeah. I didn't recognize her without the phony Japanese makeup. I thought they drummed you out of network news when your Geisha wig fell off on camera."
"I'm with Fox now," Tammy said defensively.
"Then I was right. Drummed out."
"Hey, we're the cutting edge in the next century news. All the Generation Xers watch us instead of those stuffy bleeding ponytails on the majors."
"Wait'll you turn forty," Remo warned.
Tammy shook her blond head stubbornly. "Never happen."
"We're looking for Dr. Wurmlinger."
Wurmlinger actually raised his hand. "I am he."
"Gotta talk to you. In private."
"And this is about what?"
"We're looking into these bug killings. We think there's more to it than bee stings."
Unnoticed by everyone, a pair of feelers emerged from the right eye socket of the hanging skeleton specimen. They quivered.
Remo went on. "This is starting to look like a serial killer bee is on the loose."
"Serial killer bees! What a great lead," Tammy rejoiced.
"Shut up," said Remo, who was making up his theory for the sake of cutting through objections.
"Are you suggesting a serial killer is employing bees?" asked Dr. Krombold.
"Maybe," said Remo, who was suggesting no such thing.
The bee's entire head emerged and looked at Tammy with its compound eyes like black bicycle reflectors.
"This is the story that will make my career," she was saying. "I can hardly wait to tell the world. Never mind my generation. Just call me Blond Ambition."
At that, the bee launched itself toward Tammy. It landed atop her hair, crimped its plump abdomen and inserted its vicious little stinger into the exact apex of her skull.
"Ouch!" she cried, smacking the top of her head. Too late. The bee slipped past her snatching hand.
Then realization hit her. She began doing a syncopated version of the macarena.
"I've been stung! Oh, my God, I've been stung! And I'm going to die. God, I'm going to die. I can feel myself dying."
Remo stepped in, both hands coming together. He had the bee between his hands.
Slap.
"Got him!" said Remo.
"No, you did not," said Chiun, his hazel eyes sweeping the room. He brought his nails up into a defensive posture, turning with each sweep and tumble of the bee's flight.
"I had him," Remo insisted.
"You missed."
"I can't miss. I had him dead to rights."
In a corner, Tammy was searching her hair, trying to locate the site of the bee's attack. "Someone help me. Somebody suck out the poison."
"That is for snakebite," Wurmlinger said, completely unmoved by events.
"What do you do for bee stings?"
"You have not been stung," Dr. Krombold assured her. "That is a drone honey bee. It is stingless."
Then the bee proved him wrong by alighting on his hand and stinging him viciously. Krombold let out a snarl.
"I have been stung," he announced, more in annoyance than anger.
"Are you allergic to bee stings?" asked Wurmlinger, coming over and taking his hand.
"No. I have been stung many times without incident."
Wurmlinger used his eyeglass lens on the sting site. "I see no barb."
"I can assure you I was stung. It was quite painful."
Then Krombold started to turn red in the face and wheeze.
"You are going into anaphylactic shock," Wurmlinger said disappointedly. "This is impossible. You couldn't have been stung."
Dr. Krombold nodded his agreement with Wurmlinger's professional diagnosis of anaphylactic shock but shook his head vigorously at the sting assessment.
Clutching his throat, he lumbered to a wooden chair and sat down, where he went into urgent respiratory distress and then cardiac arrest. With a final convulsive shudder, he deflated like a burst football.
"Is he dead?" Tammy gasped from her corner.
Remo and Chiun, swiping at the airborne bee, were too busy to reply. Wurmlinger strode over to the coroner and examined him with clinical disapproval.
"Yes, he is dead."
"Why aren't I dead?" asked Tammy in a funny, low-to-the-floor voice.
"You are not allergic."
"But he said he wasn't allergic, and look at him."
The weird low quality of her voice brought all heads turning her way.
Tammy had stood herself on her head in a corner. She was supporting her body with her flat-to-the-floor hands.
"What are you doing?" asked Remo.
"Standing on my head."
"We can see that. Why?"
"So the bee poison in my scalp will drain out," Tammy explained.
"That will not work," Wurmlinger said.
Abruptly, Tammy somersaulted to her feet. She grabbed Wurmlinger by his smock lapels. "I'll pay you to suck out the poison! I'll put you on TV. I'll do anything."
If the prospect of a blank check with Tammy Terrill's name on it interested Helwig X. Wurmlinger, he gave no sign. After a twitchy pause, he pulled free and returned his attention to Remo and Chiun.
They had the bee surrounded. It was describing loops, turns, chandelles and other aerial acrobatics over their heads. Remo kept trying to catch it between his hands while the old Korean was clearly attempting to slice it in two with extended fingernails. They were good techniques, but they failed utterly.
The bee was swifter than any drone Wurmlinger had ever before seen. And it seemed to be getting faster by the second. It would hang like a bumble in one spot, as if baiting the pair to strike. Then as hands blurred toward it, it would drop or dart or pirouette out of range. It was very striking. The bee showed signs of intelligence. There was certainly cunning and forethought, at least.
"Do not kill that bee!" he sputtered.
"Why not?" asked Remo, switching to his fists. He let fly as if to sucker punch the bee from behind.
"That is no ordinary bee."
"No fooling," said Remo.
"It appears to be intelligent."
"Well, it is fast."
The bee swooped. Spinning, it dive-bombed Remo. Remo feinted. The bee barrel-rolled out of the way. Recovering, Remo backhanded it smartly.
The bee was nimble. It came close to escaping, but it flew out of harm's way into harm's way. A slashing fingernail like a thin ivory dagger caught it.
Helwig Wurmlinger heard the tiny clip as one of the bee's wings came off in midair.
Buzzing, the bee dropped, fought to regain airspeed and struck the floor.