Chapter 28
The bumblebee had moved to the main entrance of Folcroft Sanitarium by the time Remo drove the rental car through the stone gates with their foreboding lion heads on either side.
Folcroft was in a state of lock-down. No one could get in or out. And through the car telephone, Harold Smith was sounding nervous.
"Find that thing and crush it!" Smith was saying. "We cannot afford to call attention to the organization."
"Relax, Smitty. You run a sanitarium and you have an extermination problem. The exterminators are here. We'll take care of it."
"Hurry," said Smith.
Remo drove up to the main door, and the hovering bee seemed to take almost instant notice of Remo and Chiun.
It was completely white now, carrying a coat of drying insecticide as if it had just emerged from a happy bubble bath.
It flitted before their windshield, regarding them with what looked like cataract-gazed eyes.
"Okay," said Remo, "let's take this guy."
Chiun lifted a calming hand. "Wait. Let us observe it for a time."
"What's to observe? It's another of those superbees. Our job is to kill it and turn the body over to Smith."
"No, our task is to survive our encounter with this devil in the form of a bee."
"That, too," Remo agreed. Turning off the engine, he settled back in his seat.
They watched as the bee grew increasingly curious, zipping to Remo's side window, around the back, then to Chiun. It butted its head against the glass at several points.
"It wants in," Remo muttered.
"No, it desires us to step out."
"Just say when."
Chiun was stroking his wispy beard. "We must foil its evil intentions, Remo."
"Hard to believe a bee has any intentions, evil or whatever."
The Master of Sinanju said nothing. His eyes were intent upon the hovering bee. They studied one another for several moments, then gradually, imperceptibly, Chiun slipped his fingers up to the small wing window on his side of the car.
"Remo," he undertoned, not moving his lips.
"Yeah?" said Remo, equally stiff lipped.
Chiun wrapped ivory fingers around the window latch. "When I say jump, you will jump from the vehicle as quickly as you can, taking care to slam the door behind you, also as quickly as you can."
"And what are you going to do?"
Instead of answering, Chiun flipped open the wing window and squeaked, "Jump!"
Three things happened in very quick succession. Remo jumped from the car. The bee slipped through the open window, and the Master of Sinanju simultaneously shut the window behind it and exited the vehicle.
So perfect was their timing that both doors clunked shut with one dull sound, and the bumblebee found itself trapped in the vehicle with no escape. It went into a frenzy of aerial acrobatics and glass-butting.
Harold Smith came down to see it for himself.
"Behold the fruits of your power, O Emperor," proclaimed the Master of Sinanju in a lofty voice. "The assassin that sought your life awaits your tender mercies."
Smith frowned with all his lemony intensity. "It should be dead."
"This can be arranged," said Chiun.
"Yeah," added Remo. "We'll just push the car into the water and drown it."
Smith shook his head. "No. I need to examine it."
"That's going to be a trick," said Remo. "It was a trick getting it in there. Getting it out safely, I don't know about."
"There must be a way."
"There is," said Chiun.
Remo and Smith looked at the Master of Sinanju with studied interest.
"But I do not know what that way is-as yet," Chiun admitted thinly.
All three men gave it considerable thought.
Smith said, "Insects breathe by diffusion, which means air comes in through their bodies. It is not possible to suffocate it in the normal sense."
"Insecticide is out," added Remo. "You tried that."
"Ah," said Chiun.
"Ah?"
The old Korean flitted into the building and returned moments later carrying the separate parts of a Pyrex cake holder in his long-nailed hands, undoubtedly scavenged from the Folcroft cafeteria.
"I don't think that's going to work, Little Father," Remo cautioned.
"Ordinarily, what I have in mind would never work," Chiun allowed. "But you are not undertaking the task at hand, but me. I will make it work."
Addressing Smith, he said, "Emperor, seek a place of shelter from which you may enjoy this display of the power you control so artfully."
Smith retreated to a position behind the glass door and watched intently.