The door rattled against Malone’s back as a hand twisted the knob and shook it. He braced himself for the next assault, and it came: the shudder of a heavy body slamming up against it. Miraculously, the door held, at least for the moment. But the roars outside were growing louder and louder as the second team came up.
Where was the Mongol? he wondered. But there was no time for idle contemplation. The scene inside the room demanded his immediate attention.
He was in the anteroom, a gilded and decorated parlor filled with overstuffed chairs and couches. There was a door at the far side of the room, and a woman suddenly came out of it holding a pocketbook in one hand and a large powder-puff in the other. She saw Malone and reacted instantly.
Her scream seemed to be a signal. The two other women sitting on couches screamed, too, and jumped up with their hands to their faces. Malone shouted something unintelligible but very loud at them and brandished a fist menacingly. They shrieked again and ran for the interior room.
Malone heard the roaring outside, and pressed his back tighter against the door. Then, suddenly, he broke away from it and ran over to Her Majesty and Lou. He looked down. Lou was apparently completely unconscious by this time, and there was a peaceful look on her face. The Queen looked down at her, then up at Malone.
“I’m sorry, Sir Kenneth,” she said, “but we really haven’t time for romantic thoughts just now.”
Malone passed a hand over his brow. “We haven’t got time for anything,” he said. “You can see what’s going on outside.”
“My goodness,” Her Majesty said. “Oh, yes. My goodness, yes.”
“Okay,” Malone said. “We’ve got to teleport out, if we can—and if we can take Lou with us.”
“I don’t know, Sir Kenneth,” the Queen said.
“We’ve got to try,” Malone said grimly, looking down. There was a crash as something hit the door. It shuddered, creaked, and held. Malone took a breath. Lou was too beautiful to leave behind, no matter what.
“I’ll mesh my mind with yours,” Her Majesty said, “so we’ll be synchronized.”
“Right,” Malone said. “The plane. Let’s go.”
There was another crash, but he hardly heard it. He closed his eyes and tried to visualize the interior of the plane that was waiting for them at the airfield. He wasn’t sure he could do it; the vodka might have clouded his mental processes just enough to make teleporting impossible. He concentrated. The crash came again, and a shout. He almost had it ... he almost had it....
The last sound he heard was the splintering of the door, and a great shout that was cut off in the middle.
Malone opened his eyes.
“We made it,” he said softly. “And I wonder what the MVD is going to think.”
Her Majesty took a deep breath. “My goodness,” she said. “That was exciting, wasn’t it?”
“Not half as exciting as it’s going to be if we don’t hurry now,” Malone said. “If you know what I mean.”
“I do,” Her Majesty said.
“That’s good,” Malone said at random. “I don’t.” He helped the Queen ease the unconscious body of Luba Garbitsch into one of the padded seats, and Malone pushed a switch. The seat gave a tiny squeak of protest, and then folded back into a flat bedlike arrangement. Lou was arranged on this comfortable surface, and Malone took a deep breath. “Take care of her for a minute, Your Majesty,” he said.
“Of course,” the Queen said.
Malone nodded. “I’m going to see who’s up front,” he said. He walked through the corridors of the plane and rapped authoritatively on the door of the pilot’s cabin. A second passed, and he raised his hand to knock again.
It never reached the door, which opened very suddenly. Malone found himself facing a small black hole.
It was the muzzle and the bore of the barrel of an M-2 .45 revolver, and it was pointing somewhere in the space between Malone’s eyes. Behind the gun was a hard-eyed air force colonel with a grim expression.
“You know,” Malone said pleasantly, “they’re good guns, but they really can’t compare to the .44 Magnum.”
The pilot blinked, and his gun wavered just a little. “What?” he said.
“Well,” Malone said, “if you’d only join the FBI, like me, you’d have a .44 Magnum, and you could compare the guns.”
The pilot blinked again. “You’re—”
“Malone,” Malone said. “Kenneth J. Malone, FBI. My friends call me Snookums, but don’t try it. Why not let’s put the gun away and be friends?”
“Oh,” the colonel said weakly. “Mr.—sure. I’m sorry, Mr. Malone. Didn’t recognize you for a second there.”
“Perfectly all right,” Malone said. The gun was still pointing at him, and in spite of the fact that he felt pleasantly like Philip Marlowe, or maybe the Saint, he was beginning to get a little nervous. “The gun,” he said.
The colonel stared at it for a second, then reholstered it in a hurry. “I am sorry,” he said. “But we’ve been worried about Russians coming aboard. I’ve got my copilot and navigator outside, guarding the plane, and they were supposed to let me know if anybody came in. When they didn’t let me know, and you knocked, I assumed you were Russians. But, of course, you—”
Conversation came to a sudden dead stop.
“About these Russians—” Malone said desperately. But the pilot’s eyes got a little glazed. He wasn’t listening.
“Now, wait a minute,” he said. “Why didn’t they notify me?”
“Maybe they didn’t see me,” Malone said. “I mean us.”
“But—”
“I’m not very noticeable,” Malone said hopefully, trying to look small and undistinguished. “They could just have ... not noticed me. Okay?” He gave the pilot his most friendly smile.
“They’d have noticed you,” the pilot said. “If they’re still out there. If nothing’s happened to them.” He leaned forward. “Did you see them, Malone?”
Malone shrugged. “How would I know?” he said.
“How would you—” The pilot seemed at a loss for words. Malone waited patiently, trying to look as if everything were completely and perfectly normal. “Mr. Malone,” the pilot said at last, “how did you get aboard this aircraft?”
He didn’t wait for an answer, and Malone was grateful for that. Instead, he stepped over to a viewport and looked out. On the field, two air force officers were making lonely rounds about the plane. Fifty yards farther away, a squad of Russian guards also patrolled the brightly-lit area. There was nothing else in sight.
“There isn’t any way you could have done it,” the pilot said without turning.
“That’s the FBI for you,” Malone said. “We’ve got our little trade secrets, you know.” Somehow, the pilot’s back looked unconvinced. “Disguise,” Malone added. “We’re masters of disguise.”
The pilot turned very slowly. “Now what the hell would you disguise yourself as?” he said. “A Piper Cub?”
“It’s a military secret,” Malone said hurriedly.
The pilot didn’t say anything for what seemed a long time. “A military secret?” he asked at last, in a hushed voice. “And you can’t tell me? You’re a civilian, and I’m a colonel in the United States Air Force, and you can’t tell me a military secret?”
Malone didn’t hesitate a second. “Well, Colonel,” he said cheerfully, “that’s the way things are.”
The pilot threw up his hands. “It’s none of my business,” he said loudly. “I’m not even going to think about it. Because if I do, you’ll have a mad pilot on your hands, and you wouldn’t like that, would you?”
“I would hate it,” Malone said sincerely, “like hell. Particularly since I’ve got a sick woman aboard.”
“Disguised,” the pilot offered, “as Lenin, I suppose.”
Malone shook his head. “I’m not kidding now,” he said. “She is sick, and I want a doctor for her.”
“Why didn’t you bring one with you?” the pilot said. “Or wasn’t the disguise big enough for three?”
“Four,” Malone said. “We’ve got three now; me and Miss Garbitsch and Miss Thompson. Lou—Miss Garbitsch is the one who’s sick. But I want a doctor from the American Embassy.”
“I think we could all use one,” the pilot said judiciously. “But you’d better tell me what’s the matter with the girl.”
Malone gave him a brief and highly censored version of the melee at Trotkin’s, particularly omitting the details of the final escape from the MVD men.
When he had finished, the pilot gave a long, low whistle. “You have been having fun,” he said. “Can I go on your next adventure, or is it only for accredited Rover Boys?”
“You have to buy a pin and a special compass that works in the dark,” Malone said. “I don’t think you’d like it. How about that doctor?”
The pilot nodded wearily. “I’ll send my navigator over to the airfield phone,” he said. “As a matter of fact, I’ll tell him to tell the doctor I’m the one who’s sick, so the Russians don’t get suspicious. It may even be true.”
“Just so he gets here,” Malone said. The pilot was flagging his navigator through the viewport as Malone went out, closing the door gently behind him. He went back down the plane corridor to Her Majesty and Lou.
Lou was still lying on the makeshift bed, her eyes closed. She looked more beautiful and defenseless than ever, and Malone wanted to do something big and terrible to all the Russians who had tried to take her away or dope her. With difficulty, he restrained himself. “How is she?” he asked.
“She seems to be all right,” the Queen said. “The substance they put in her drink doesn’t appear to have had any other effect than putting 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 skull fracture, a broken arm, two bitten hands, and a large and varied assortment of dental difficulties and plain hysteria. No dead, however. I really don’t understand why not.”
“Well,” Malone said, “nobody wanted to create an international incident.”
“Hmf,” the doctor said. “I see. Or I think I do, which is as far as I care to go in the matter. The Russians suspect, by the way, that you’ve managed to get aboard the plane. They do know, of course, about the girl, and when the pilot called for me they put two and two together. In spite of his story about being sick. What they can’t figure out is how you managed to get aboard the plane.”
“Neither can I,” Malone said at random. The doctor gave him a single bright stare.
“Well,” he said at last, “I suppose you know your own business best. By the way, my examination accords pretty well with our unofficial information about the girl—that she was given some sort of drug in a drink. Is that what happened?”
Malone nodded. “As far as we know,” he said. “She did get rid of a lot of it within a few minutes, though.”
“Good,” the doctor said. “Very sensible.”
“Sense had nothing to do with it,” Malone said.
“In any case,” the doctor went on doggedly, “there can’t be too much left in her system. Her pulse is good, she’s breathing easily and there don’t seem to be any complications, so I should doubt strongly that there’s been much damage done. Besides all which, of course, the Russians would hardly have wanted to hurt her; what they gave her would probably have done little more harm even if she’d ingested it all, and kept it down.”
“Good,” Malone said sincerely.
“I’ll give you some pills,” the doctor said, fishing in his bag again, “and you can give them to her when she wakes up.”
“Is that all?” Malone said, vaguely disappointed.
The doctor eyed him keenly. “Well,” he said, “I could give her an injection, but I’d be a little afraid to. If it had a synergistic action with the drug, she might be worse off than before.”
“Oh,” Malone said. “By all means. Just the pills.”
“I’m glad you agree,” the doctor said. “Oh, and about leaving—”
“Yes?” Malone said. “We want to get out of here in a hurry, if we can.”
“I think you can,” the doctor said. “The ambassador mentioned that he’d try to arrange it with the Russians. I don’t know what he’ll tell them—but then, that’s why he’s an ambassador, and I’m a doctor.” He straightened up and handed Malone an envelope containing three green capsules. “Give her these if she wakes up with a headache,” he said. “If she feels all right, just forget all about them.”
“Sure,” Malone said. “And thanks, Doctor. Tell the ambassador we’d appreciate it if he got us out of here as soon as possible.”
“Certainly,” the doctor said. “After all, I might as well take on the job of a diplomatic courier.”
Malone nodded. “Well,” he said, “goodbye, Mr. Courier.”
The doctor went to the door, opened it and turned.
