Feast or Famine td-107

by Warren Murphy

  "This is powerful fascinating," he muttered.

  "Mean anything to you?" asked Remo.

  "I could be wrong," he said, looking at the corn and not them, "but I would swear these ears were all chewed at from an easterly direction. The western sides are just fine."

  "So what does that mean?" asked Remo.

  "It means the pestiferous critters or whatever they were that ripped through my corn were headed away from the hellish place that spawned them, namely Washington."

  "There is something else," said Chiun.

  "What's that?" asked Remo.

  "The corn has been chewed but not consumed."

  "Can't be," the farmer snorted.

  "Why not?"

  "Insects don't chew through corn for purely mischief's sake. They need to eat. I don't know what new species of bug committed this travesty, but I do know it needs to eat. And if it ripped up my corn without eating any, that means but one thing I can think-"

  "What's that?" asked Remo.

  "It ain't no insect made by God, but something else entirely."

  Remo looked to the Master of Sinanju. Chiun beamed back at him. "Perhaps it was a not-pest," he said to the farmer but really for Remo's benefit.

  Neither the farmer nor Remo knew what to make of the Master of Sinanju's comment, so they said nothing.

  From the farmer's house, Remo called Harold Smith.

  "Smitty, we don't have much, but here it is. Looks like every farmer that was hit grew a new kind of pest-proof corn, called Super Dent."

  "Super Yellow Dent. Get it correct," the farmer's voice called from outside.

  "Super Yellow Dent. According to a farmer who was hit-"

  "And don't call us farmers. My pappy was a farmer. His pappy was a farmer. I'm an agribusinessman. I can not only say it, I can spell it, too."

  "-this stuff was the only corn that got hit. Everything else survived. You should check it out," finished Remo.

  "That is very odd, Remo."

  "Also, I think we need to drop our USDA covers," Remo added in a lowered tone of voice.

  "Why is that?"

  "Tammy Terrill and Fox are painting the USDA as the fountain of all evil. I had to take a doublebarreled scattergun away from the farmer I just questioned before he could perforate me with it."

  "I will look into the supercorn theory, Remo."

  "Add this to the mix," Remo said. "According to Chiun, the things that leveled the cornfields out here chewed but didn't swallow. And they traveled from east to west. Only the eastern sides of the cobs are stripped clean."

  "What kind of insect is attracted to a plant and does not eat it?" Smith asked.

  "Search me. Maybe one that's bred to wreck crops."

  "Pesticide-resistant crops, in this case," Smith mused.

  Dead air filled the line for too long, so Remo asked, "Anything on the dead talking bee?"

  "The USDA laboratory is working on the corpse right now. I hope to have something soon."

  "Okay, where next?"

  "The FBI has generated another profile. It paints a portrait that fits only one individual my computers can find-Helwig X. Wurmlinger. It is time you paid that visit to his laboratory."

  "There goes my date ...."

  "You are dating again?"

  "Yeah," said Remo defensively. "Why are you surprised?"

  "Because you did not request a background or marital-status check from me this time."

  "That's right. I didn't. I guess I have a good feeling about this one."

  "You said that about the last three."

  "This is an extragood feeling. Even Chiun likes her. "

  "That is surprising."

  "Yeah. I think he has a good feeling, too. Or maybe he's just taken by her last name."

  "Which is?"

  "Subject to change," said Remo, who then hung up, knowing that when the implications sank in, Harold Smith would start reaching for the Axid AR or Pepcid AC or Tagamet HB-or whatever he was using to ease his chronic heartburn these days.

  Chapter 34

  The package was marked Rush.

  No surprise there, thought USDA entomologist B. Eugene Roache of the USDA Honey Bee Breeding Center and Physiology Research Laboratory in Baton Rouge, Louisiana.

  By now, everybody was reading or hearing about the new strain of killer bee that had struck on botfi coasts. They were calling it the death's-head bee, and the word was it was a new kind of Africanized Bravo bee.

  It struck Roache as pretty strange from when first he heard about it. A new kind of bee appearing on opposite coasts in the same week. Normally, any new bee population entered through a single ecological gateway-and they wouldn't be bicoastal. Up from Mexico like the scutellata, sure. Down from Canada, maybe. But bees were not fond of the cold. The idea of bees coming down from Canada seemed farfetched.

  A bicoastal entry suggested the cargo-ship theory. If it were just a Pacific deal, some kind of Asian superbee would be a possibility. With Atlantic attacks, the Asian theory looked thinner.

  Those were the thoughts that ran through Roache's head as he waited for the rush package to be couriered from what he thought was another USDA laboratory in New York State. He had been alerted to the incoming package by a lemony telephone voice that said, "Identify this bee as quickly as possible."

  That meant FABIS-the Fast Africanized Bee Identification System. They were better, surer methods of identifying a suspect bee to see if it were Africanized, or even a hybrid strain of Africanized European bee.

  If it were a live bee, a stingometer would do the trick. It was an electrical box that recorded the number of bee stings-or attempted bee stings, since the suspect bee couldn't penetrate its hard shell. Four hits per second meant a Eurobee. Fifty-two hits, and it was a Bravo bee. That was how vicious the latter could be. It was the gang-banger among bees.

  But this bee was coming in dead, and, after setting aside the foam and bubble wrap, Roache lifted the dead bee and set it on his workbench under a strong light.

  He was surprised to see confirmation of the reports that it was a male honey bee drone. Or at least morphologically similar to one.

  Under a magnifying glass, he examined the tip of the fat black abdomen. He gasped when he saw the stinger that shouldn't be there. It wasn't barbed, like a worker bee's or a yellow jacket's. This was the smooth hypodermic lance of a wasp.

  "This bee can sting at will without penalty to itself," Roache muttered.

  Excitement growing in his chest, he examined the death's-head markings at the back of the bee's fuzzy yellow thorax. It was distinctly a skull outline. It was almost perfect in its contours, like a tiny cameo.

  "I have never seen anything like this. I can't believe anything like this exists," he muttered. "This is an entirely new species of bee."

  Normally, the first step of the FABIS process was to dissect the bee in order to measure its significant components-the thorax, legs and wings. But this bee specimen came with an extra unattached wing, and Roache was loath to dissect the intact specimen just yet.

  Taking up tweezers, he lifted the bee from the tabletop. He brought it closer to the light preparatory to setting it on an overhead projector for enlargement. He was curious to see the texture of the wing unassisted.

  As the wing came closer to the desk light, he saw that the vein pattern was quite regular. In one corner, there was a tiny dot. A blemish of some kind.

  Before Roache could take the wing away, a strange thing happened. Emitting a thin thread of smoke, the wing curled up and shriveled.

  "Damn!"

  The wing fell to the desktop. Roache blew on it. It continued to smoke. The stink was terrible. In the end, he was forced to press down on it to stop it from disintegrating completely.

  The bee's wing, now curled into a blackened crisp of material, was pretty far gone, but the tip had survived. Roache placed it on the glass of the overhead projector anyway.

  Clicking on the light, he projected the transparent image onto a clean
white wall where preprinted outlines of Africanized and non-Africanized bee parts had been hung for comparative purposes.

  The crisped wing was useless for comparison purposes.

  But in the unburned corner, Roache saw the small dark blemish. He saw it clearly. And when he recognized it, his eyes all but bugged out of his head and he swore for ten minutes straight without repeating himself or running out of things to say.

  Then he took his dissecting kit and attacked the complete specimen, his eyes bright and feverish.

  Chapter 35

  They could smell death from a mile away.

  The air was thick with the rotten, sickly sweet odor of bodies in the early stages of decomposition.

  "Uh-oh," said Remo at the wheel, and slowed the rented Jeep Grand Cherokee.

  "Death hangs over these woods," intoned Chiun, drawing a silken sleeve to his nose and lips to ward off the offending stench.

  "A lot of death," said Remo.

  They came upon the string of parked vehicles just short of the end of the dirt road that led to their destination. The vehicles blocked the road completely, forcing Remo to brake.

  Getting out, they moved off the road and saw the top of the mud hive as the morning began painting its flowing contours in smoldering colors.

  "What the hell is that?" Remo wondered aloud.

  "The den of iniquity and bees."

  "Looks like a beehive."

  "A fitting abode for the self-styled Lord of All Bees."

  As they moved in a circular-approach pattern around the weird place, the low sound of bees awakening with the sun began to fill the morning air.

  Remo paused in midstep. "Hear that, Little Father?"

  "Bees. Bees that are not happy."

  "That's exactly what I thought."

  They moved closer. That's when they found the first body. He was dressed in military-style camouflage fatigues. An AR-15 rifle lay next to him. His eyes were open and they were empty. Literally empty.

  "Check it out," said Remo.

  Chiun knelt. He saw the empty red caverns already crawling with ordinary flies. The mouth lay parted. Chiun forced it open. The dead jaw popped in protest, but the sun sliding into the open mouth revealed no tongue, only a raw root and the dry enamel of teeth. The smell from the mouth was rank.

  Chiun arose. Moving closer, they found more bodies, all without eyes or tongue. Some had fallen in such a way that their brain matter leaked from an ear or nostril-even from the mouth, as if they had died vomiting out their own brains.

  "Just like that guy in Times Square," Remo said grimly.

  Chiun nodded.

  Checking a corpse wearing more stars and braid than a six-star general deserved, Remo discovered a black Velcro patch on the dead man's shoulders in place of insignia. He stripped it.

  Under the black patch was an embroidered one showing an ear of corn over crossed muskets. It said Iowa Disorganized Subterranean Militia-E Pluribus Unum.

  "Hey! These guys are from Iowa. And they're militia."

  Chiun made a shriveled-yellow-raisin face. "Here, Remo, is proof that the fiend who breeds talking not-bees will be found lurking here."

  Remo stood up. "Maybe. But if militia are involved, I wouldn't bet on their being right about anything. Most of these guys are weekend warriors with delusions of civil war."

  Chiun's eyes grew intrigued. "A civil war might be advantageous. Prince against prince. There would be much work for the House. And opportunity for raises."

  "Can it. Let's pay a call on Wurmlinger."

  Chiun got in Remo's way. "Have you forgotten the first rule of survival?"

  "Yeah. Don't walk into anything blind."

  "The scourge that felled these soldiers is unknown to us. Perhaps it is the very plague that brought sweet peace to the land of garish corn."

  Remo considered that a moment and went to a handy body. It turned out to be Commander Mearl Streep's, but he didn't know that.

  Kneeling, Remo took the dead man's head in both hands and turned it to one side so the left ear was suspended over the dirt. Shaking vigorously, Remo got a sound like scrambled eggs being agitated.

  Gray brain matter began dropping from the left ear.

  It was already congealing. Remo hurried it along with a few more encouraging shakes.

  When he got the head emptied, Remo set it off to one side and stood up to regard the malodorous custardlike pile with the Master of Sinanju.

  "What do you think? Is that all his brain matter?" he asked.

  Chiun regarded the dead man's head a moment. "Yes. It is more than enough to fill his narrow skull. No doubt his eyes and tongue lie in that puddle, as well."

  "Brains chewed but not eaten. Just like the corn in Iowa."

  "It is the curse of corn descending upon the sons of corn, Remo," Chiun warned. "Take heed. Stick with rice for the rest of your days."

  "I plan to. But not the rice you're thinking of."

  "What other rice is there?"

  Remo grinned. "Jean Rice."

  Chiun turned to face the mud nest. "Now we must confront the author of the not-bees."

  "I only see one door."

  "We are Sinanju. We make our own doors."

  "Lead the way," said Remo.

  The Master of Sinanju approached by the back way. Coming to the boxes where bees made unhappy sounds, he skirted them carefully. Remo did likewise.

  Going to a window, Chiun peered in.

  Remo took up a position beside him. When Chiun withdrew one eye from the porthole, he motioned Remo to take his place.

  Peering in, Remo saw that he was looking at a bedroom. It was an ordinary-looking room except for one thing. The wallpaper was done in a distinctive spiderweb pattern.

  Eyeing Chiun, Remo shrugged, as if to say, So what?

  Chiun drew near and hissed, "This is the lair of the fiend."

  "We don't know that yet. So let's not jump to conclusions until we talk to Wurmlinger."

  "Look again," said Chiun.

  When Remo did, he frowned.

  "Look at the wall above the head of the bed, and tell me that I am not correct, as always."

  Angling around, Remo's eyes fell on the spiderweb-pattern wall above the bed. What he saw made his mouth hang open in surprise.

  Before he could say what was on his mind, Chiun had turned, emitting a warning hiss more venomous than that of a cornered cobra.

  Remo spun, too.

  The Master of Sinanju had dropped into a defensive crouch, long nails floating before his face, ready to snap out and fend off the threat that had slipped up behind them.

  Hovering in the air only three feet before them was an unmistakable death's-head bee. Its tiny legs were gathered up under its body, and it made no move to attack.

  "Remo," Chiun urged, "prepare to execute the Silken Noose with me."

  Remo frowned. Out of the side of his mouth, he asked, "Is that the maneuver where one of us gets behind an opponent while the other distracts him from the front?"

  "No, you are thinking of the Meeting Palms," hissed Chiun. "The Silken Noose requires-"

  The hanging bee interrupted his next words. In a voice tiny but loud enough to be heard clearly, it said, "Fools! How dare you molest the one who is protected by Bee-Master."

  "Bug off," said Remo, whose own hands were crossed at the wrist before his chest in case the bee made a lunge at him.

  "This dwelling, and all who dwell within, are under the all-encompassing protection of the Bizarre Bee-Master."

  "Bizarre is right," grunted Remo. "You zap those nuts in the camouflage outfits?"

  "They dared to thwart the Bee-Master's supreme will."

  "Looks like they tried to hit Wurmlinger the Weird."

  "And they paid the ultimate price, as do all who challenge the true protector of the insect kingdom."

  "I don't know what makes me feel stupider," muttered Remo to Chiun, "having a conversation with a bee or having the bee parrot dialogue out of an old comic book."


  "His stinger is not made of paper," warned Chiun.

  "Gotcha. Okay, bee. Let's lay our cards on the table. We're here to talk to Wurmlinger. You planning on getting in our way?"

  "No," said the bee. "I am but a guard bee. The wrath of the Bee-Master will soon be upon you, would-be thwarter."

  "In that case, you're so much beeswax."

  Without warning, Remo turned in a flashing sidekick. His foot snapped out with such blurred speed that it had returned to the ground before the bee could react.

  The bee, however, continued to float in place, unfazed.

  "You missed," it taunted.

  "Yes, you missed, Remo. How could you miss?" Chiun demanded.

  "Look at my foot," Remo undertoned.

  Chiun did. Remo's right foot rested on the ground. It was barefoot. His Italian loafer was missing.

  A moment later, it dropped from the sky to catch the waiting bee unawares.

  The open mouth of the shoe enveloped the bee. Bee and shoe hit the ground. Reacting with perfect timing, Remo's fist jammed the shoe into the ground. There came a satisfying crunch.

  "Got the little bugger!" he crowed.

  Recovering his shoe, Remo shook it out. A thoroughly mashed bumblebee fell out. After it hit the dirt, it didn't twitch. Not once. Its wings relaxed open in death.

  Grinning, Remo restored his shoe to his foot. Facing the Master of Sinanju, he said, "I'm learning."

  "Have you forgotten the wrath of the Bee-Master?"

  "I'm more interested in talking to the Bee-Master himself."

  With that, Remo went around to the front door and lifted his fist as if to knock. His knuckles traveled a short way. When they struck the door, it traveled a longer way.

  Right off its hinges and across the living room.

  Remo went in after it, calling out, "The jig's up, Wurmlinger."

  A toilet flushed. And a cracked voice asked, "Who is there?"

  "You remember us."

  A door fell open with a creak, and around the corner of the door, Helwig X. Wurmlinger peered. He blinked his magnified tea-colored eyes slowly. He was very pale.

  "What are you two doing here?" he demanded.

  "We just snuffed your superbee. He gave you up first. You might as well come clean."