Chapter 8

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.”