"United States Department of Agriculture bees," the farmer snapped. "Bred to wreak havoc and make foul mischief. Which is what they done here."
"That's crazy! Who in their right mind would breed bees to ruin a corn crop?"
"The same ones who spent billions of dollars flying a man to the moon, where the soil won't yield and there's no air to breathe."
"That's a big leap in logic," Remo argued.
"I seen it all on the TV."
Remo looked at the screen. The station was coming up to its top-of-the-hour news segment. A purple-haired girl of about seventeen with jet black lipstick began reciting the headlines, pausing only to crack lime green bubblegum between items.
"New strain of voracious insects strikes at the heartland. Entire farms in Iowa have been leveled. Is there a connection to the mysterious assassin-bee deaths on both coasts that have authorities baffled? With us now is Fox star-reporter Tamara Terrill. Tammy, what's the latest?"
The familiar figure of Tammy Terrill appeared, clutching a microphone in her white-knuckled hands.
"Heather, official Washington is being stonily silent on this latest event in the looming insect crisis, but officials with the U.S. Department of Agriculture are issuing heated denials that they are behind the outbreak of vicious insects."
"How are these denials being met, Tammy?" the news reader asked.
"With skepticism. I myself have been investigating this threat for, oh, almost thirty-six hours now, and I don't believe a word of it. They're hiding something. Just like on 'X-Files.'"
The anchor nodded in agreement, adding, " 'X-Files' rules. And it's on Saturdays now."
"Cool," chirped Tammy.
In his recliner, the farmer was also nodding. "See? Proof positive."
"That's no proof!" exploded Remo. "It's just two media dips throwing wild speculation into the air to see where it will land."
"It landed," the farmer said miserably, "in my corn."
"Look, I'm serious about looking into this. Can you tell me why some farms were stripped clean and others untouched?"
"Any fool can plainly see the why in that!" the farmer exploded.
"Well, I'm a fool from New Jersey. Humor me."
The farmer got up. He was taller than Remo expected. He walked with a stoop to his porch. There didn't seem much fight left in him, so Remo followed him out.
Standing out in the fading sunlight, he waved a plaid arm as if to encompass all of Iowa.
"What you're looking at is the first crop of the new Super Yellow Dent corn. Fool geneticists said it would resist corn borers, worms, cockleburs, you name it. Nothing could touch it. Nothing could lay it low. I paid a third more for that seed as any corn I ever bought. The slickers who sold it to me said the only thing that could kill it was drought. Now look at it. Bugs buzzsawed through it like no one's business."
The man whipped a red handkerchief out of the back pocket of his overalls and wiped his eyes on both sides. There was no moisture there. Remo figured the farmer had already cried himself out.
"I'm sorry this happened to you," Remo said simply.
"I got took. That's all there is to it. I got took for all I had. Super Yellow Dent is supposed to give off an odor that was poison to any pest known to prey on corn. Instead, it seemed to have drawn a worse pest than anyone ever heard of."
"Maybe it wasn't the corn."
The farmer expectorated noisily. "Oh, it was the corn, all right. And I can prove it. You can, too."
"How's that?"
"Take a survey of all the cornfields out this way. The ones that got hit grew Super Yellow. The ones that got off soot-free was ordinary corn. Golden Dent. Boone Country White. Champion White Pearl. Silver Mine. Early Huron. You name it. Everything except Super Yellow Dent, the savior of the corn farmer." The farmer spit a second time angrily.
The Master of Sinanju appeared at that point. He was carrying an ear of corn before him, carrying it by the corn silk, as if it were a distasteful yellow dropping.
The farmer straightened with a start of surprise. "Who in hell is that?"
"My colleague," said Remo.
"Looks more like a refugee from Chautauqua Week, you ask me my opinion."
"Behold, Remo," exclaimed Chiun, lifting his prize high.
"It's an ear of corn. So what?"
"See how it has been chewed on one side and not the other?"
Remo took the ear. It was chewed on one side. The other side showed rows of tiny kernels, each one indented as if nicked by a cold chisel.
"Looks like the stuff that survived had the moisture sucked out of it," Remo remarked.
"You idjit!" the farmer bellowed. "Don't you know corn? That's Dent corn. Them indentations are perfectly natural."
"I never saw corn like that," Remo said defensively.
"That's because Dent corn is purely cattle feed. You boil and bite that stuff, and it'll crack your teeth apart worse than Indian corn."
"Oh. What do you make of the fact the bugs ate only one side?"
"A freak of nature. That's what I make of it."
Chiun shook his head firmly. "Many ears show such signs."
The farmer took the ear from Remo, examined it with methodical interest, then stepped off his porch into the field.
He foraged about until he had picked up a double handful of corncobs. Every example had been stripped on one side and one alone.
"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."