matter, theMafia and the organizations like it. What would spies be doing in theMafia?"
"Learning Italian," Boyd said instantly.
"Don't be silly," Malone said. "If there were that many spies in thiscountry, the Russians wouldn't have to fight at all. They could _vote_the Communists into power--and by a nice big landslide, too."
"Wait a minute," Boyd said. "If there aren't so many spies, then howis all this getting done?"
Malone beamed. "That's the question," he said. "And I think I have theanswer."
"You do?" Boyd said. After a second he said: "Oh, no."
"Suppose you tell me," Malone said.
Boyd opened his mouth. Nothing emerged. He shut it. A second passedand he opened it again. "Magic?" he said weakly.
"Not exactly," Malone said cheerfully. "But you're getting warm."
Boyd shut his eyes. "I'm not going to stand for it," he announced."I'm not going to take any more."
"Any more what?" Malone said. "Tell me what you have in mind."
"I won't even consider it," Boyd said. "It haunts me. It gets into mydreams. Now, look, Ken: I can't even see a pitchfork any more withoutthinking of Greek letters."
Malone took a breath. "Which Greek letter?" he said.
"You know very well," Boyd said. "What a pitchfork looks like. _Psi_.And I'm not even going to think about it."
"Well," Malone said equably, "you won't have to. If you'd rather startwith the Russian spy end of things, you can do that."
"What I'd rather do," Boyd said, "is resign."
"Next year," Malone said instantly. "For now, you can wait arounduntil the dossiers come up--they're for the Senate Office Buildingtechnicians, and they're on the way. You can go over them, and startchecking on any known Russian agents in the country for contacts. Youcan also start checking on the dossiers, and in general for anyhanky-panky."
Boyd blinked. "Hanky-panky?" he said.
"It's a perfectly good word," Malone said, offended. "Or two words.Anyhow, you can start on that end, and not worry about anything else."
"It's going to haunt me," Boyd said.
"Well," Malone said, "eat lots of ectoplasm and get enough sleep, andeverything will be fine. After all, I'm going to have to do the realend of the work--the psionics end. I may be wrong, but--"
He was interrupted by the phone. He flicked the switch and Andrew J.Burris' face appeared on the screen.
"Malone," Burris said instantly, "I just got a complaint from theState Department that ties in with your work. Their translator hasbeen acting up."
Malone couldn't say anything for a minute.
"Malone," Burris went on. "I said--"
"I heard you," Malone said. "And it doesn't have one."
"It doesn't have one what?" Burris said.
"A pig-Latin circuit," Malone said. "What else?"
Burris' voice was very calm. "Malone," he said, "what does pig-Latinhave to do with anything?"
"You said--"
"I said one of the State Department translators was acting up," Burrissaid. "If you want details--"
"I don't think I can stand them," Malone said.
"Some of the Russian and Chinese releases have come through with themeaning slightly altered," Burris went on doggedly. "And I want you tocheck on it right away. I--"
"Thank God," Malone said.
Burris blinked. "What?"
"Never mind," Malone said. "Never mind. I'm glad you told me, Chief.I'll get to work on it right away, and--"
"You do that, Malone," Burris said. "And stop calling me Chief! Do Ilook like an Indian? Do I have feathers in my hair?"
"Anything," Malone said grandly, "is possible." He broke theconnection in a hurry.
III
The summer sun beat down on the white city of Washington, D. C. as ifit had mistaken its instructions slightly, and was convinced that thecity had been put down somewhere in the Sahara. The sun seemedconfused, Malone thought. If this were the Sahara, obviously there wasno reason whatever for the Potomac to be running through it. The sunwas doing its best to correct this small error, however, by exertingeven more heat in a valiant attempt to dry up the river.
Its attempt was succeeding, at least partially. The Potomac was stillthere, but quite a lot of it was not in the river bed any more.Instead, it had gone into the air, which was so humid by now thatMalone was willing to swear that it was splashing into his lungs atevery inhalation. Resisting an impulse to try the breast-stroke, hestood in the full glare of the straining sun, just outside the SenateOffice Building. He looked across at the Capitol, squinting his eyesmanfully against the glare of its dome in the brightness.
The Capitol was, at any rate, some relief from the sight of ThomasBoyd and a group of agents busily grilling two technicians. That wasgoing on in the Senate Office Building, and Malone had come over towatch the proceedings. Everything had been set up in what Maloneconsidered the most complicated fashion possible. A big room had beenturned into a projection chamber, and films were being run off overand over. The films, taken by hidden cameras watching thecomputer-secretaries, had caught two technicians red-handed punchingerrors into the machines. Boyd had leaped on this evidence, and he andhis crew were showing the movies to the technicians and questioningthem under bright lights in an effort to break down their resistance.
But it didn't look as though they were going to have any more successthan the sun was having, turning Washington into the Sahara. Afterall, Malone told himself, wiping his streaming brow, there were noPyramids in Washington. He tried to discover whether that made anysense, but it was too much work. He went back to thinking about Boyd.
The technicians were sticking to their original stories, that themistakes had been honest ones. It sounded like a sensible idea toMalone; after all, people did make mistakes. And the FBI didn't have asingle shred of evidence to prove that the technicians were engaged indeliberate sabotage. But Boyd wasn't giving up. Over and over he gotthe technicians to repeat their stories, looking for discrepancies orslips. Over and over he ran off the films of their mistakes, lookingfor some clue, some shred of evidence.
Even the sight of the Capitol, Malone told himself sadly, was betterthan any more of Boyd's massive investigation techniques.
He had come out to do some thinking. He believed, in spite of a gooddeal of evidence to the contrary, that his best ideas came to himwhile walking. At any rate, it was a way of getting away from fourwalls and from the prying eyes and anxious looks of superiors. Hesighed gently, crammed his hat onto his head and started out.
Only a maniac, he reflected, would wear a hat on a day like the one hewas swimming through. But the people who passed him as he trudgedonward to no particular destination didn't seem to notice; they gavehim a fairly wide berth, and seemed very polite, but that wasn'tbecause they thought he was nuts, Malone knew. It was because theyknew he was an FBI man.
That was the result of an FBI regulation. All agents had to wear hats.Malone wasn't sure why, and his thinking on the matter had onlydredged up the idea that you had to have a hat in case somebody askedyou to keep something under it. But the FBI was firm about itsrulings. No matter what the weather, an agent wore a hat. Malonethought bitterly that he might just as well wear a red, white and blueluminous sign that said _FBI_ in great winking letters, and maybe ahooting siren, too. Still, the Federal Bureau of Investigation was notsupposed to be a secret organization--no matter what occasionalcritics might say. And the hats, at least as long as the weatherremained broiling, were enough proof of that for anybody.
Malone could feel water collecting under his hat and soaking his head.He removed the hat quickly, wiped his head with a handkerchief andreplaced the hat, feeling as if he had become incognito for a fewseconds. The hat was back on now, feeling official but terrible, andabout the same was true of the fully-loaded Smith & Wesson .44 Magnumrevolver which hung in his shoulder holster. The harness chafed at hisshoulder and chest and the weight of the gun itself was an added andunwelcome burden.
But even wi
thout the gun and the hat, Malone did not feel exactlychipper. His shirt and undershirt were no longer two garments, butone, welded together by seamless sweat and plastered heavily and nottoo skillfully to his skin. His trouser legs clung damply to calvesand thighs, rubbing as he walked, and at the knees each trouser legattached and detached itself with the unpleasant regularity of a wetbastinado. Inside Malone's shoes, his socks were completely awash, andhe seemed to squish as he walked. It was hard to tell, but