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"It is no doubt dead by now," Wurmlinger insisted.
"I'll believe it when I see its fuzzy dead behind."
Wurmlinger started and gave Tammy a goggly look. "You say the bee was fuzzy?"
"Very. It looked like a tiny black-and-yellow mitten."
"You are describing the common bumblebee."
"There was nothing common about this guy. He had more lives than Felix the Cat."
"Bumblebees are not aggressive by nature. They rarely sting."
"That one stung. We all saw it."
Wurmlinger frowned. "It could not be the morphologically similar male drone honey bee. They are not equipped by nature with a modified ovipositor, or stinger. It is impossible for it to sting. Nor do drones possess venom sacs. The drone can neither sting nor inject poison, possessing neither biological apparatus. Yet bumbles are not violent."
"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.