Occasion ... for Disaster
"Russian spies," Burris said, "do not make mistakes. Or, anyhow, we
can't depend on it. We have to depend on the fact that they're
operating at peak efficiency, Malone. Peak."
Malone nearly asked: "Where?" but controlled himself at the last
minute. Instead, he said: "But the confessions are right there. And,
according to the confessions--"
"Do you really believe," Burris said, "that a trio of Soviet agents
would confess everything as easily as all that if they didn't intend
to get something out of it? Such as, for instance, covering up their
methods of doing damage? And do you really believe--"
Malone began to feel as if he were involved in the Athanasian Creed.
"I don't think the spies are the real spies," he said stubbornly. "I
mean the spies we're all looking for."
"Do you mean to stand there and tell me," Burris went on inexorably,
"that you take the word of spies when they tell you about their own
activities?"
"Their confessions--"
"Spies can lie, Malone," Burris said gently. "As a matter of fact,
they usually do. We have come to depend on it as one of the facts of
life."
"But Queen Elizabeth," Malone said stubbornly, "told me they weren't
lying." As he finished the sentence, he suddenly realized what it
sounded like. "You know Queen Elizabeth," he said chummily.
"The Virgin Queen," Burris said helpfully.
"I wouldn't know," Malone said, feeling uncomfortable. "I mean Rose
Thompson. She thinks she's Queen Elizabeth and I just said it that way
because--"
"It's all right, Malone," Burris said softly. "I know who you mean."
"Well, then," Malone said. "If Queen Elizabeth says the spies aren't
lying, then--"
"Then nothing," Burris said flatly. "Miss Rose Thompson is a nice,
sweet, little old lady. I admit that."
"And she's been a lot of help," Malone said.
"I admit that, too," Burris said. "But she is also somewhat battier,
Malone, than the entire Order Chiroptera, including Count Dracula and
all his happy friends."
"She only thinks she's Queen Elizabeth I," Malone said defensively.
"That," Burris said, "is a large sort of _only_. Malone, you've got to
look at the facts sensibly. Square in the face."
Malone pictured a lot of facts going by with square faces. He didn't
like the picture. "All right," he said.
"Things are going wrong in the Congressional computer-secretaries,"
Burris said. "So I assign you to the case. You come back to me with
three spies, and the trouble stops. And what other information have
you got?"
"Plenty," Malone said, and stopped for thought. There was a long
pause.
"All this business about mysterious psionic faculties," Burris said,
"comes direct from the testimony of that sweet little old twitch.
Which she is. Dr. O'Connor, for instance, has told you in so many
words that there's no such thing as this mysterious force. And if you
don't want to take the word of the nation's foremost authority,
there's this character from the Psychical Research Society--Carter, or
whatever his name is. Carter told you he'd never heard of such a
thing."
"But that doesn't mean there isn't such a thing," Malone said.
"Even your own star witness," Burris said, "even the Queen herself,
told you it couldn't be done."
"Nevertheless--" Malone began. But he felt puzzled. There was no way,
he decided, to finish a sentence that started with _nevertheless_. It
was the wrong kind of word.
"What are you trying to do?" Burris said. "Beat your head against a
stone wall?"
Malone realized that that was just what he felt like. Of course,
Burris thought the stone wall was his psionic theory. Malone knew that
the stone wall was Andrew J. Burris. But it didn't matter, he thought
confusedly. Where there's a stone, there's a way.
"I feel," he said carefully, "like a man with a stone head."
"And I don't blame you," Burris said in an understanding tone. "Here
you are trying to make evidence to fit your theories. What real
evidence is there, Malone, that these three spies ... these three
comic-opera spies--are innocent?"
"What evidence is there that they're guilty?" Malone said. "Now,
listen, Chief--"
"Don't call me Chief," Burris murmured.
"Another five minutes," Malone said in a sudden rage, "and I won't
even call you."
"Malone!" Burris said.
Malone swallowed hard. "Sorry," he said at last. "But isn't it just
barely possible that these three spies aren't the real criminals?
Suppose you were a spy."
"All right," Burris said. "I'm a spy." Something in his tone made
Malone look at him with a sudden suspicion. Burris, he thought, was
humoring him.
Is it possible, Malone asked himself, that _I_ am the one who is as a
little child?
Little children, he told himself with decision, do not capture Russian
spies and then argue about it. They go home, eat supper and go to bed.
* * * * *
He stopped thinking about sleep in a hurry, and got back to the
business at hand. "If you were a spy," he said, "and you knew that a
lot of other spies had been arrested and charged with the crimes you
were committing, what would you do?"
Burris appeared to think deeply. "I would celebrate," he said at last,
in a judicious tone.
"I mean, would you just go on with the same crimes?" Malone said.
"What are you talking about, Malone?" Burris said cautiously.
"If you knew we'd arrested Brubitsch, Borbitsch and Garbitsch," Malone
went on doggedly, "you'd lay off for a while, just to make us think
we'd caught the right men. Doesn't that make sense?"
"Of course it makes sense," Burris said in what was almost a pitying
tone. "But don't push it too far. Malone, I want you to know
something."
Malone sighed. "Yes, sir?" he said.
"Contrary to popular opinion," Burris said, "I was not appointed
Director of the Federal Bureau of Investigation just because I own a
Hoover vacuum cleaner."
"Of course not," Malone said, feeling that something of the sort was
called for.
"And I think you ought to know by now," Burris went on, "that I
wouldn't fall for a trick like that any more than you would. There are
obviously more members in this spy ring. Brubitsch, Borbitsch and
Garbitsch are just a start."
"Well, then--" Malone began.
"_I'm_ not going to be taken in by what these three say," Burris said.
"But now, Malone, we know what to look for. All we have to do is
pretend to be taken in. Get it?"
"Sure," Malone said. "We pretend to be taken in. And in the meantime I
can go on looking for--"
"We don't have to look for anything," Burris said calmly.
Malone took a deep breath. Somehow, he told himself, things were not
working out very well. "But the other spies--"
"The next time they try anything," Burris said, "we'll be able to
reach out and pick them up as easy as falling off a log."
"It's the wrong log!" Malone said.
Burris folded his hands on the desk and looked at them for a second,
frowning slightly like a psychiatrist. "Malone," he said at last, "I
want you to listen to me. Calmly. Coolly. Collectedly."
Malone shrugged. "All right," he said. "I'm calm and cool."
"And collected," Burris added.
"That, too," Malone said vaguely.
"Malone," Burris began, "you've got to get rid of this idea that
everything the FBI investigates these days is somehow linked with
psionics. I know you've done a lot of work in that connection--"
"Now, wait a minute," Malone said. "There are those errors. How did
the technicians feed the wrong data into the machines?"
"Errors do happen," Burris said. "If I slip on a banana peel, do I
blame psionics? Do I even blame the United Fruit Growers? I do not,
Malone. Instead, I tell myself that errors do happen. All the time."
"Now," Malone said, "you've contradicted yourself."
"I have?" Burris said with a look of complete surprise.
"Sure," Malone said. He leaned forward across the desk. "If the errors
were just ordinary accidental errors, then how were the spies
responsible? And why did they stop after the spies were arrested? When
you slip on a banana peel, does it matter whether or not the United
Fruit Growers are out on strike?"
"Oh," Burris said.
"You see?" Malone said. "You've gone and contradicted yourself." He
felt victorious, but somewhere in the back of his mind was the
horrible sensation that someone was about to come up behind him and
hit him on the head with a wet sock full of old sand.
A long second passed. Then Burris said: "Oh. Malone, I forgot to give
you the analysis report."
That, Malone realized dimly, was supposed to be the wet sock. Fate, he
told himself, was against him. Anyhow, something was against him. It
was a few seconds before he came to the conclusion that what he had
heard didn't really make any sense. "Analysis report?" he said.
"On the water cooler," Burris explained cheerfully.
"There is an analysis report on a water cooler," Malone said.
"Everything now becomes as clear as crystal." He heard his voice begin
to rise. "You analyzed a water cooler and discovered that it was a
Siberian spy in disguise," he said, trying to make himself sound less
hysterical.
"No, no," Burris said, pushing at Malone with his palms. "The water in
it, Malone. The water in it."
"No Siberian spy," Malone said with decision, "could disguise himself
as the water in a water cooler."
"I didn't say that," Burris went on. "But what do you think was in
that water cooler, Malone?"
"Water," Malone said. "_Cool_ water."
"Congratulations," Burris said, in the hearty tones usually reserved
for announcers on programs where housewives win trips to Nome. "You
are just a shade less than ninety-nine point nine nine per cent
correct."
"The rest of the water," Malone hazarded, "was warm?"
"The rest of the water," Burris said, "wasn't water. Aside from the
usual minerals, there was also a trace of one of the psychodrugs."
* * * * *
The word seemed to hang in mid-air, like somebody's sword. Malone knew
perfectly well what the psychodrugs were. Over the past twenty years,
a great number of them had been developed by confused and anxious
researchers. Some were solids, some liquids and a few gaseous at
normal temperatures. Some were weak and some were highly potent. Some
were relatively innocuous, and quite a few were as deadly as any of
the more common poisons. They could be administered by mouth, by
injection, by spray, as drops, grains, whiffs or in any other way
conceivable to medical science. But they all had one thing in common.
They affected the mental functioning--what seemed to be the
personality itself--of the person dosed with them.
The effect of the drugs was, in most cases, highly specific. One might
make a normally brave man a craven coward; laboratory tests on that
one had presented the interesting spectacle of terrified cats running
from surprised, but by no means displeased, experimental mice. Another
drug reversed this picture, and made the experimental mice mad with
power. They attacked cats in battalions or singly, cheering and almost
waving large flags as they went over the top, completely foolhardy in
the presence of any danger whatever. Others made man abnormally
suspicious and still others disassociated judgment to the point where
all decisions were made completely at random.
The FBI had a large file on psychodrugs, Malone knew. But he didn't
need the file to see what was coming. He asked the question anyhow,
just for the record: "What particular psychodrug was this one?"
"One of the judgment-warpers," Burris said. "Haenlingen's Mixture;
it's more or less a new development, but the Russians probably know as
much about it as we do. In large doses, the drug affects even the
automatic nervous system and throws the involuntary functions out of
whack; but it isn't usually used in killing amounts."