The Impossibles Page 31

remembered Kettleman telling himthat. And the Queen never touched the stuff either.

  "What's wrong?" Boyd said.

  "Malone, you look green."

  "I feel green," Malone said. "I feel like newly sprung grass. I feelas if I had just hatched out of something. I feel wonderful."

  "It's the strain," Boyd said. "That's what it is, strain. You'vecracked at last."

  Malone ignored him. "Tell me," he said to Dorothea with elaboratecasualness, "when your brother says that, what does he mean?"

  "What?" she said. "Oh, I don't know. I--" She stopped and her eyeswidened. "You don't think that--"

  "I don't know," Malone said. "But we can sure as hell find out."

  Dorothea blinked. "What can you do?" she said. "I mean, to find out.You can't force them to drink or anything, can you?"

  "No," Malone said. "I can't do that. But it does give me an idea."

  Boyd held his untasted drink in his hand, staring at Malone and thegirl. "What are you two talking about?" he said. "Or is this thespecial Captain Midnight code? I left my code ring home this week."

  "Boyd," Malone snapped, "get on the phone."

  "Are you sure it will hold me?" Boyd said.

  "I want you to call Dr. O'Connor at Yucca Flats," Malone said. "Shutup and listen."

  There was silence.

  Finally Boyd said, "I don't hear anything."

  "Never mind," Malone said. "I mean listen to me. I know it's prettyearly out where O'Connor is, but that doesn't matter now. Wake him up.Wake everybody up, for all I care."

  "Malone," Boyd said carefully, "are you sure you haven't gone nuts?"

  Malone grinned cheerfully. "No," he said. "Are you? Now listen: findout what effect drugs have on psionic abilities."

  "Drugs?" Boyd said, and then his eyes lit up. "My God!" he said. "Wemight have something, at that!"

  "Get the Queen up too," Malone said. "Ask her the same question. Ihope we do have something."

  "So do I," Dorothea said.

  "And if we get the information we're hoping to get, I want Her Majestyon the first plane to New York," Malone said. "I don't care whatstrings you have to pull to get that done. Call Burris if you have to.It'll be worth it." Malone paused. "Hell," he said, "call him anywayand tell him what's happened. But get the Queen here!"

  "Right!" Boyd said. He dove for the phone and started dialing.Suddenly he looked around. "Hey!" he yelled. "Where are you going?"

  Malone, one hand on the door, turned. "Down to see Fernack," he said."I've got to make some arrangements. I'm betting we're right, Tom!" Hecharged out the door, slamming it. A second passed and it openedagain. Malone's head popped back in. "Dorothea," he said. "When Tomgets off the phone call your mother. Tell her you're going to be awayfor a day or two--two at the most--and she's not to worry. We'll needyou, and her, too, to talk to Mike when the time comes. So stickaround."

  Then he was gone.

  * * * * *

  Twelve hours later, Kenneth J. Malone was sitting quietly in a smallroom at the rear of a sporting-goods store on upper Madison Avenue,trying to remain calm and hoping that the finest, most beautiful hunchhe had ever had in his life was going to pay off. With him were Boydand two agents from the 69th Street office. They were sitting quietlytoo, but there was a sense of enormous excitement in the air. Malonewanted to get up and walk around, but he didn't dare. He clamped hishands in his lap and sat tight.

  They waited in silence, not daring to talk. There was no sound exceptfor the faint whoosh of their breathing through the gas masks theywere wearing, and the muffled hiss from a tank nearby.

  There was no reason why the plan shouldn't work. Malone told himself.

  It looked foolproof. But he didn't believe it would work. This was thetime, he assured himself, that his luck ran out. He'd been lucky fortoo long, and now the wheel was going to turn and he'd be lost. All hecould do was wait for it, and hope.

  Her Majesty had said definitely that this would be the place theSpooks would hit tonight. She had no doubts about it. And Malonecouldn't think of a single reason why she might be wrong. But maybehe'd got the address mixed up. Maybe the Spooks were somewhere elseright now, robbing what they pleased, safe from capture....

  His hunch about drugs had been correct, or at least everybody had saidit was correct. Dr. O'Connor had assured Boyd that the deleteriouseffects of drugs on psionic abilities had been known ever since theearly days of Dr. Rhine's pioneering work, more than twenty yearsbefore. And Good Queen Bess had admitted the same thing. She neverdrank, she said, because on the one occasion when she'd tried it,she'd lost her telepathic ability, and "My goodness, it was just likegoing blind."

  Burris had had to put on the pressure, but it had worked. The Queenhad been flown to New York, under psychiatric guard just as soon aspossible after Boyd's phone call, and she'd been able to pick up MikeFueyo without any trouble at all as soon as she was within the samecity, and close enough to him.

  It doesn't do much good to know where a teleporter _is_, Malonethought. But it's extremely handy to know where he's _going to be_.And if you also know what he plans to do when he gets where he'sgoing, you've got an absolute lead-pipe cinch to work with.

  The Queen had provided that lead-pipe cinch. Reading Mike's mind,she'd told Malone that he planned to raid the sporting-goods storewith the rest of the Spooks that night. Lucky again, Malone thought;he might have had to wait two or three days before the Spooks set up arobbery.

  But, of course, he might just be riding for some kind of horrible,unforeseen fall.

  The main part of the sporting-goods store was fairly well lit, even atnight, though it was by no means brightly illuminated. There wereshow-window lights on, and the street lamp from outside cast a niceglow. But the back room was dark, and the four men there were wellconcealed. A curtain closed the room off, and Malone watched the frontof the store through a narrow opening in it. He stared through ituntil his eyes ached, afraid to blink in case he missed the appearanceof the Spooks. Everything had to go off just right, precisely onschedule.

  And it was going to happen any minute, he told himself nervously. Injust a few minutes, everything would be over.

  Malone held his breath.

  Then he saw the figure walk slowly by the glass front of the shop,looking in with elaborate casualness. He was casing the joint, makingsure there were none left in it.

  Mike Fueyo.

  Malone tried to breathe, and couldn't.

  Seconds ticked by.

  And then--almost magically--they appeared. Eight of them, almostsimultaneously, in the center of the room.

  Mike Fueyo spoke in a low, controlled voice. "Okay, now," he said."Let's move fast. We--"

  And that was all he said.

  The odorless anesthetic gas that filled the room had its suddeneffect. Fueyo dropped out like a light.

  The other seven followed him within seconds. Ramon Otravez, thetallest of them, stayed on his feet a little longer than the rest,obviously trying with all his strength to teleport himself out ofdanger, but the effects of the fast-working gas had already been felt.He was, literally, too stunned to move.

  He too slumped to the floor.

  For a second after that, none of the men in the rear room moved.

  Then Malone said, "All right, boys. Let's get them out of here. Theycan't stay too long in this atmosphere." The men started forward intothe front room, toward the still bodies. "Boyd," Malone said. "Get outfront and wave the ambulance over here. I'll get the air-conditionersworking and stop the gas."

  He reached down and turned off the valve on the gently hissing tank ofanesthetic gas that sat on the floor near him. "You guys get thekids," he said. "And let's make it fast, okay?"

  14

  "The one thing we had to worry about," Malone said, pouring some morechampagne into the two hollow-stemmed glasses, "was whether it waspossible to give them just enough synthecaine. Too little, and they'dstill be able to teleport. To
o much, and they'd be too groggy."

  Dorothea relaxed in her chair and looked around at the hotel roomwalls with contentment. She looked like the proverbial cat who hasswallowed the cream. "It looked to me as if it worked," she said."Mike seemed pretty normal--except that he had that awful _trapped_feeling."

  Malone handed her one of the filled glasses with an air. He wasbeginning slowly to feel less like the nervous, uncertain