Supermind
her to sleep and making her a little sick—and that was a good thing.”
“Oh, sure,” Malone said. “That was fine.”
“Well,” Her Majesty said, “she did get rid of quite a bit of the drug
in the ladies’ room.” She smiled, just a trifle primly. “I think
she’ll be all right,” she said.
“There’s a doctor on the way, anyhow,” Malone said, staring down at
her. He tried to think of something he could do for her—fan her, or
bring her water, or cool her fevered brow. But she didn’t look very
fevered. She just looked helpless and beautiful. He felt sorry for all
the nasty things he had said to her, and all the nasty things she had
said to him. If she got well—and of course she was going to get well,
he told himself firmly—things would be different. They’d be sweet and
kind to each other all the time, and do nice things for each other.
And she was definitely going to get well. He wouldn’t even think about
anything else. She was going to be fine again, and very soon. Why, she
was hardly hurt at all, he told himself, hardly hurt at all.
“Sir Kenneth,” Her Majesty said. “I’ve been thinking: while we were
about it, why didn’t we just teleport all the way back home?”
Malone turned. “Because,” he said, “we’d have had the devil of a time
explaining just how we managed to do it.”
“Oh,” she said. “I see. Of course.”
“This teleportation gimmick is supposed to be a secret,” Malone went
on. “We don’t want to let out anything more about it than we have to.
As it is, there’s going to be some fierce wondering among the Russians
about how we got out of that restaurant.”
“Obviously,” the Queen said, entirely unexpectedly, “a bourgeois
capitalistic trick.”
“Obviously,” Malone agreed. “But we don’t want to start up any more
questions than we have to.”
“And how about the plane itself?” Her Majesty went on. “Do you think
they’ll let us take off?”
“I don’t know how they can stop us,” Malone said.
“You don’t?”
“Well, they don’t want to cause any incidents now,” Malone said. “At
least, I don’t think they do. If they could have captured us—me, or
Lou, or both of us, depending on which side of the argument you want
to take—anyhow, if they could have grabbed us on their own home
grounds, they’d have had an excuse. Lou got sick, they’d say, and they
just took her to the hospital. They wouldn’t have to call it an arrest
at all.”
“Oh, I see,” Her Majesty said. “But now we’re not on their home
grounds.”
“Not so long as we stay in this plane, we’re not,” Malone said. “And
we’re going to stay here until we take off.”
Her Majesty nodded.
“I wish I knew what they thought they were doing, though,” Malone
mused. “They certainly couldn’t have held us for very long, no matter
how they worked things.”
“I know what was on their minds,” Her Majesty said. “At least partly.
It was all so confused it was difficult to get anything really
detailed or complete.”
“There,” Malone said fervently, “I agree with you.”
“The whole trouble was,” the Queen said, “that nobody knew about
anybody else.”
“I’d gathered something like that,” Malone said. “But what exactly was
it all about?”
“Well,” the Queen said, “Major Petkoff was supposed to tell Lou, in
effect, that if she didn’t agree to do espionage work for the Soviet
Union, things would go hard with her father.”
“Nice,” Malone said. “Very friendly gentleman.”
“Well,” the Queen continued, “he was supposed to tell her about that
at the bar, when he had her alone. But she got that drugged drink
before he could begin to say anything.”
“Then who drugged it?” Malone said. “Lou?”
The Queen shrugged. “Someone else,” she said. “Major Petkoff didn’t
know anything about the drugged drink.”
“A nice surprise for him, anyhow,” Malone said.
“It was a surprise for everybody,” the Queen said. “You see, the
drugged drink was meant to get her to the hospital, where they’d have
her alone for a long time and could really put some pressure on her.”
“And then,” Malone said, “there were the men who wanted to arrest me.
And the ones who wanted to take Lou to jail. And the mad Mongol who
just wanted to fight, I guess.”
“There were so many different things, all going on at once,” the Queen
said.
Malone nodded. “There seems to be quite a lot of confusion in the
Soviet Union, too,” he said. “That does not sound to me like an
efficient operation.”
“It wasn’t, very,” the Queen said. “You see, they have Garbitsch now,
but they can’t do anything to him because they can’t get to Lou. And
it doesn’t do them any good to do anything to her father, unless she
knows about it first.”
“It sounds,” Malone said, “as if the USSR is going along the same
confused road as the good old United States.”
The Queen nodded agreement. “It’s terrible,” she said. “I get those
same flashes of telepathic static, too.”
“You do?” Malone said, leaning forward.
“Just the same,” the Queen said. “Whatever is operating in the United
States is operating over here, too.”
Malone sat down in a seat on the aisle. “Everything,” he announced,
“is now perfectly lovely. The United States is being confused and
mixed up by somebody, and the Somebody looked like a Russian spy. But
now Russia is being confused, too.”
“Do you think there are some American spies working here?” the Queen
said.
“If they’re using psionics,” Malone said, “as they obviously are—and
I don’t know about them, Burris doesn’t know about them, O’Connor
doesn’t know about them and nobody else I can find knows about them—
then they don’t exist. That’s flat.”
“How about outer space?” the Queen said. “I mean, spies from outer
space trying to take over the Earth.”
“It’s a nice idea,” Malone said sourly. “I wish they’d hurry up and do
it.”
“Then you don’t think—”
“I don’t know what to think,” Malone said. “There’s some perfectly
simple explanation for all this. And somewhere, in all the running
around and looking here and there I’ve been doing, I’ve got all the
facts I need to come up with that answer.”
“Oh, my,” the Queen said. “That’s wonderful.”
“Sure it is,” Malone said. “There’s only one trouble, as a matter of
fact. I don’t know what the explanation is, and I don’t know which
facts are important and which ones aren’t.”
There was a short silence.
“I wish Tom Boyd were here,” Malone said wistfully.
“Really?” the Queen said. “Why?”
“Because,” Malone said, “I feel like hearing some really professional
cursing.”
* * * * *
Three-quarters of an hour passed, each and every minute draped in some
black and gloomy material. Malone sat in his seat, his head supported
by both hands, and stared at the back of the seat ahead of him. No
great messages were written on it. The Queen, respecting his need for
silent contemplation, sat and watched Lou and said nothing at all.
It was always possible, of course, Malone thought, that he would fall
asleep and dream of an answer. That kind of thing kept happening to
detectives in books. Or else a strange man in a black trenchcoat would
sidle up to him and hand him a slip of paper. The words: “Five
o’clock, watch out, the red snake, doom,” would be written on the
paper and these words would provide him with just the clues he needed
to solve the whole case. Or else he would go and beat somebody up, and
the exercise would stimulate his brain and he would suddenly arrive at
the answer in a blinding flash.
Wondering vaguely if a blinding flash were anything like a dungeon,
because people kept being in them and never seemed to come out, Malone
sighed. Detectives in books were great, wonderful people who never had
any doubts or worries. Particularly if they were with the FBI. Only
Kenneth J. Malone was different.
Maybe someday, he thought, he would be a real detective, instead of
just having a few special gifts that he hadn’t really worked for,
anyhow. Maybe someday, in the distant future, he would be the equal of
Nick Carter.
Right now, though, he had a case to solve. Nick Carter wasn’t around
to help.
And Kenneth J. Malone, FBI, was getting absolutely nowhere.
Finally, his reverie was broken by the sounds of argument outside the
plane door. There were voices speaking both English and Russian, very
loudly. Malone went to the door and opened it. A short, round,
grey-haired man who looked just a little like an over-tired bear who
had forgotten to sleep all winter almost fell into his arms. The man
was wearing a grey overcoat that went nicely with his hair, and
carrying a small black bag.
Malone said: “Oog,” replaced the man on his own feet and looked past
him at the group on the landing ramp outside. The navigator was there,
arguing earnestly with two men in the uniform of the MVD.
“Damn it,” the navigator said, “you can’t come in here. Nobody comes
in but the doctor. This is United States territory.”
The MVD men said something in Russian.
“No,” the navigator said. “Definitely no.”
One of the MVD men spat something that sounded like an insult.
The navigator shrugged. “I don’t understand Russian,” he told them.
“All I know is one word. No. _Nyet_ Definitely, absolutely irrevocably
_nyet_.”
“_Sikin sin Amerikanyets!_”
The MVD men turned, as if they’d been a sister act, and went down the
steps. The navigator followed them, wiping his forehead and breathing
deeply. Malone shut the door.
“Well, well, well,” the doctor said, in a burbling sort of voice.
“Somehow, we thought it might be you. Anyhow, the ambassador did.”
“Really?” Malone said, trying to sound surprised.
“Oh, yes,” the doctor assured him. “You have raised something of a
stench in and around good old Moscow, you know.”
“I’m innocent,” Malone said.
The doctor nodded. “Undoubtedly,” he said judiciously. “Who isn’t? And
where, by the way, is the girl?”
“Over there.” Malone pointed. News apparently traveled with great
speed in Moscow, MVD and censorship notwithstanding. At any rate, he
thought, it traveled with great speed to the ears of the Embassy
staff.
The doctor lifted Lou’s limp wrist to time her pulse, his lips pursed
and his eyes focused on a far wall.
“What have you heard?” Malone said.
“The MVD boys are extremely worried,” the doctor said. “Extremely.” He
didn’t let go of the wrist, a marvel of which Malone had never grown
tired. Doctors always seemed to be able, somehow, to examine a patient
and carry on a conversation about totally different things, without
even showing the strain. This one was no exception. Malone watched in
awe.
“According to the reports we got from them,” the doctor said, “you
wandered off from _Trotkin’s_ without your escort.”
“Well,” Malone said at random, “I didn’t think to leave them a
farewell note. I hope they don’t think I disliked their company.”
“Officially,” the doctor said, lifting Lou’s left eyelid and gazing
thoughtfully into the blue iris thus exposed, “they’re afraid you’re
lost, and they were apologetic as all hell about it to the
ambassador.” The iris appeared to lose its fascination; the doctor
dropped the eyelid and fished in his black bag, which he had put on
the seat next to Lou.
“And unofficially?” Malone asked.
“Unofficially,” the doctor said, “we’ve got news of a riot at
_Trotkin’s_ tonight, in which you seem to have been involved. Mr.
Malone, you must be quite a barroom brawler when you’re at home.”
“Frankly,” Malone said, “I’m a little out of practice. And I hope I
never have the chance to get back _into_ practice.”
The doctor nodded, removing a stethoscope from the bag and applying it
to Lou’s chest. He waited a second, frowned and then took the plugs
out of his ears. “I know just what you mean,” he said. “You might be
interested to know the first unofficial score of that little match.”
“Score?” Malone said.
The doctor nodded again. “Three concussions,” he said, “one possible