The Master of Sinanju made two claws of his hands and lifted them. His wrinkled features were extremely intent. His concentration was ferocious.
"It's too late," Remo said.
"Never fear. I will capture the dastard!" Chiun hissed.
"That's not what-"
And Chiun brought his palms together in a short blur. His nails intersected. Fingers nested. Palms met with a meaty slap.
The ziii stopped abruptly.
Chiun squeezed his hands, grinding them together. A crackly sound came from the thin plane where his palms met.
With a flourish, the hands separated, and what was left of the bee fell to the floor. A black sandal snapped down, grinding the remains into the rubber floor mat.
"You are defeated, bee-who-is-not," Chiun intoned.
"You're too late, Little Father," Remo said thickly.
Chiun shook his aged head firmly. "No. It was too slow. Although it was exceedingly swift for a bee."
Remo stood up. "I got stung."
Chiun flinched. "Where?"
Remo had his hand over the carotid. "Here."
Reaching up, Chiun slapped Remo's hand away and pulled his neck into view by the harsh expedient of dragging down on his pupil's dark hair.
"Let me see."
"Ouch!"
Chiun scrutinized Remo's pulsing carotid artery. "I see a tiny wound. How do you feel?"
"Cold."
"You should feel stupid. To let a mere bumblebee sting you."
"You saw what it did. You saw how fast it was. Even you had trouble catching it."
"I did not allow it to sting me," Chiun spat.
"What do I do?" asked Remo.
"Try standing on your head. If the poisoned blood is drawn from your brain, little will be harmed." Remo's eyes went into hurt shock. "How can you say that?"
"It is easy," snapped Chiun. "For you are not poisoned."
"I'm not?"
"No. There is no redness. Your eyes are clear."
"Maybe I'm immune ...."
"Perhaps the bee had already exhausted its venom."
"Guess that's possible, too, but I still feel kinda cold."
"Stupidity. It will pass." Chiun turned about, coaxing Remo to follow with a crooking finger. "Now come. We must leave this wounded bird that you so clumsily wrecked, lest we are discovered by prying eyes."
"Yeah. Okay. We can't afford to answer too many questions anyway."
Passing the first-class cabin, Chiun announced in a loud voice, "Hearken well, for you have been saved by the House of Sinanju. These are your tax dollars at work. Pay your taxes promptly and often. Lest your nation lose our services, and your empire succumb to foreign emperors."
The passengers looked too dazed to respond. Many were still fumbling with their seat belts or lifting their heads from the between-knees crash-survival position. Nobody appeared injured.
"What happened to avoiding problems?" Remo asked Chiun.
Chiun dismissed his pupil's objection with a careless wave. "That was advertising. It always pays."
Remo tried to open the hatch by hand, but the mechanism was too complicated, so he just kicked it open. The thick hatch jumped outward with a dull sound like a flat bell being rung. It went splat in the foam. That seemed to rouse the flight crew.
At the emergency exits, inflatable escape chutes were deploying, and the first passengers began sliding down the big yellow chutes, under the direction of the flight attendants.
In a very short time, passengers were milling around the tarmac as paramedics and other emergency professionals came and got them.
When the big silver bus came to load the most able aboard, Remo and Chiun were already calmly seated in back.
It was easier to go this way than trying to walk along the wide-open runway system under the sweep and blaze of emergency lights.
At the terminal, an airline representative was waving sheafs of official-looking forms and began trying to get the walking wounded to sign away their rights to sue or receive compensation for their injuries.
Remo took an offered Bic pen and jammed it halfway up the airline rep's left sinus cavity. The man stumbled off, muttering nasally that he was going to sue somebody. That was the end of airline damage control.
From a pay phone, Remo called Harold Smith.
"Smitty, get set for the unbelievable."
Smith sighed. "I deal with the unbelievable on an almost daily basis."
"We were tailed from the coroner's office," Remo said.
"Yes?"
"The tail sneaked aboard our flight. We saw him go through the food-service door. Once the plane was in the air, it murdered the pilot and copilot. We would have crashed, but I took the controls and landed the plane."