Chapter 12

After the great mass of teeth, vaguely surrounded by a face, had faded from Malone’s screen, he just sat there, looking at the dead, grey screen of the visiphone and feeling about twice as dead and at least three times as grey.

Things, he told himself, were terrible. But even that sentence, which was a good deal more cheerful than what he actually felt, didn’t do anything to improve his mood. All of the evidence, after all, had been practically living on the tip of his nose for nearly twenty-four hours, and not only had he done nothing about it, but he hadn’t even seen it.

Two or three times, for instance, he’d doubted the possibility of teleporting another human being. All his logic had told him it wasn’t so. But, he’d thought, he and Her Majesty had teleported Lou, and so, obviously, his logic was wrong.

No, it wasn’t, he thought now. There would be too much mental resistance, even if the person were unconscious. Teleportation of another human being would be impossible.

Unless, of course, the other human being was able to teleport on her own.

True, she had been no more than semiconscious. She probably couldn’t have teleported on her own. But Malone and Her Majesty had, ever so kindly and ever so mistakenly, helped her, and Lou had managed to teleport to the plane.

And that wasn’t all, he thought dismally. That was far from all.

“Let’s take another for-instance,” he said savagely, in what he thought was a caricature of the Manelli voice. In order for all three to teleport, there had to be perfect synchronization.

Otherwise, they’d have arrived either at different places, or at the same place but at different times.

And perfect synchronization on a psionic level meant telepathy. At least two of the three had to be telepathic. Her Majesty was, of course. Malone wasn’t.

So Lou had to be telepathic, too.

Malone told himself bitterly to quit calling the girl Lou. After the way she’d deceived him, she didn’t deserve it. Her name was Luba Garbitsch, and from now on he was going to call her Luba Garbitsch. In his own mind, anyway.

Facts came tumbling in on him like the side of a mountain, falling on a hapless traveler during a landslide. And, Malone told himself, he had never had less help in all of his ill-starred life.

Her Majesty had never, never suspected that Luba Garbitsch was anything other than the girl she pretended to be. That was negative evidence, true, and taken alone it meant nothing at all. But when you added the other facts to it, it showed, with perfect plainness, that Luba Garbitsch was the fortunate possessor of a mind shield as tough, as strong and as perfect as any Malone, O’Connor or good old Cartier Taylor had ever even thought of dreaming up.

And then, very suddenly, another fact arrived, and pushed the rest out into the black night of Malone’s bitter mind. He punched hard on the intercom button and got the desk of the agent-in-charge.

“Now what’s wrong?” the A-in-C said. “Ghosts got loose? Or do you want some help with a beautiful blonde heiress?”

“What would I be doing,” Malone snapped, “with a beautiful blonde heiress?”

The agent-in-charge looked thoughtful. It was obvious that he had been saving his one joke up for several hours. “You might be holding her,” he suggested, “for ransom, of course.”

“That’s not funny,” Malone said. “Nothing is funny any more.”

“Oh, all right,” the A-in-C said. “You Washington boys are just too good for the rest of us. What’s on your mind?”

“You’ve got a twenty-four-hour watch on Luba Garbitsch, haven’t you?” Malone said.

“Sure we have,” the A-in-C said. “Boyd said--”

“Yes, I know what he said,” Malone cut in. “Give me a check on those men. I want to find out where she is right now. Right this minute.”

The agent-in-charge shrugged. “Sure,” he said. “It’s none of my business. Hang on a second.”

The screen went blank, but it didn’t go silent. Each of the agents, on a stakeout job like the Garbitsch one, would be carrying personal communicators, and Malone could hear the voice of the agent-in-charge as he spoke to them.

He couldn’t make out all the words, and it wasn’t important anyhow. He’d know soon enough, he kept telling himself; just as soon as the A-in-C came back and reported.

It seemed like about twelve years before he did.

“She’s all right,” he said. “Nothing to worry about; she’s probably working late at her office, that’s all. She hasn’t gone home yet.”

“Want to bet?” Malone snapped.

“Don’t tempt me,” the A-in-C said. “I wouldn’t take your money--it’s probably counterfeit, printed in Washington.”

“I’ll give you ten to one,” Malone said.

“Ten to one, I’ll take,” the A-in-C said rapidly. “Ten to one is like taking candy from a traffic cop. I’m no amateur, even if I am stuck away in dull little old New York--and I know the boys I’ve got on stakeout. I’ll check, and--”

“Let me know when you do,” Malone said. “I’ve got some long-distance calls to make.”

Forty-five minutes later, he had all the news he needed. Spot checks on PRS offices on the West Coast, where it wasn’t closing time yet, showed that all the executive officers had suddenly felt the need of extended vacations to parts unknown.

That, if not exactly cheering news, was still welcome; Malone had more backing for his theory.

An overseas call to New Scotland Yard in London took a little more time, and several arguments with bored overseas operators who, apparently, had nothing better to do than to confuse the customers. But Malone finally managed to get Assistant Commissioner C. E. Teal, who promised to check on Malone’s inquiry at once.

It seemed like years before he called back, and Malone leaped to the phone.

“Yes?” he said.

Teal, red-faced and apparently masticating a stick of gum, said: “I got C. I. D. Commander Gideon to follow up on that matter, Mr. Malone. It is rather late here, as you must realize--”

“Yes?” Malone said. “And they’ve all gone?”

“Why, no,” Teal said, surprised. “A spot check shows that most of the executives of the London branch of the Psychical Research Society are spending quiet evenings in their homes. Our Inspector Ottermole actually spoke to Dr. Carnacki, the head of the office here.”

“Oh,” Malone said.

“They haven’t skipped,” Teal went on. “Is this in connection with anything serious, Mr. Malone?”

“Not yet,” Malone said. “But I’ll let you know at once if there are any further developments. Thanks very much, Mr. Teal.”

“A pleasure, Mr. Malone,” Teal said. “A pleasure.” And then, still masticating, he switched off.

And that, Malone told himself, was definitely that. Of course the British PRS hadn’t gone underground; why should they? The British police weren’t on to them, as Scotland Yard showed. And, no matter what opinions Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth I might hold in the matter, the FBI had absolutely no jurisdiction in the British Isles.

Malone buried his face in his hands, thought about a cigar and decided that even a cigar might make him feel worse. Where were they? What were they doing now? What did they plan to do?

Where had they gone?

“Out of the everywhere,” he said in a hollow, sepulchral voice, “into the here.”

But where was the here?

He tried to make up his mind whether or not that made sense. Superficially, it sounded like plain bad English, but he wasn’t sure of anything any more. Things were getting much too confused.

There was a knock at the door.

Malone, without any hope at all, called: “Come in,” and the door opened.

The agent-in-charge came in, and dropped a dollar on Malone’s desk.

“So you checked,” Malone said.

“I checked,” the A-in-C said sadly. “The boys went through the entire damned building. Not a sign of her. Not even a trace.”

“There wouldn’t be one,” Malone said, shoving the dollar back to waiting hands. “Take the money; I knew what would happen. It was a sucker bet.”

“Well, I feel like the sucker, all right,” the A-in-C said. “I don’t know how she did it.”

“I do,” Malone said quietly. “Teleportation.”

The A-in-C whistled. “Well,” he said, “it was a great secret as long as it was FBI property. But now, friend, all hell is going to bust loose.”

“It already has,” Malone said hollowly.

“Great,” the A-in-C said. “What now?”

“Now,” Malone said, “I am going to go back to Washington. Take care of poor little old New York for me.”

He closed his eyes, and vanished.

When he opened them, he was in his Washington apartment. He went over to the big couch and sat down, feeling that if he were going to curse he might as well be comfortable while he did it. But when the air was bright blue, some minutes later, he didn’t feel any better. Cursing was not the answer.

Nothing seemed to be.

What was his next move?

Where did he go from here?

The more he thought about it, the more his mind spun. He was, he realized, at an absolute, total, dead end.

Oh, there were things he could do. Malone knew that very well. He could make a lot of noise and go through a lot of waste motion--that was what it would amount to. He could have all the homes of all the missing PRS members checked. That would result, undoubtedly, in the discovery that the PRS members involved weren’t in their homes. He could have their files impounded, which would clutter everything with a great many more pieces of paper, and none of the pieces of paper would do any good to him. In general, he could have the entire FBI chasing all over hell and gone--and finding nothing whatever.

No, it would be a waste of time, he told himself. That much was certain.

And, though he probably had enough evidence to get the FBI in motion, he had nowhere near enough to carry the case into court, much less make a try at getting the case to stand up in court. That was one thing he couldn’t do, even if he wanted to: issue warrants for arrest on any basis whatever.

But Malone was an FBI agent, and his motto was: “There’s always a way.” No normal method of tracking down the PRS members, and finding their present whereabouts, was going to work. They’d been covering themselves for such an emergency, undoubtedly, for a good many years and, due to telepathy, they certainly knew enough not to leave any clues around, of any kind.

But nobody, Malone told himself, was perfect. There were clues lying around somewhere, he was sure of that; there had to be. The problem was, simply, to figure out where to look, and what to look for.

Somewhere, the clues were sitting quietly and waiting for him to find them. The thought cheered him slightly, but not very much. Instead, he went into the kitchen and started heating water for coffee. He thought there might be a long night ahead of him, and sighed gently. But there was no help for it. The work had to be done, and done quickly.

But when eight cigars had been reduced to ash, and what seemed like several gallons of coffee had sloshed their way into Malone’s interior workings, his mind was as blank as a baby’s. The lovely, opalescent dawn began to show in the East, and Malone swore at it. Then, haggard, red-eyed, confused, violently angry, and not one inch closer to a solution, he fell into a fitful doze on his couch.

When he awoke the sun was high in the sky, and outside his window the cheerful sound of traffic floated in the air. Downstairs somebody was playing a television set too loudly, and the voice reached Malone’s semi-aware mind in a great tinny shout: