Occasion for Disaster Part 24

"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 a.s.sign 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.