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."