“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.” “I know what was on their minds,” Her Majesty said. “At least partly. It was all so confused it was difficult to get anything really detailed or complete.” “There,” Malone said fervently, “I agree with you.” “The whole trouble was,” the Queen said, “that nobody knew about anybody else.” “I’d gathered something like that,” Malone said. “But what exactly was it all about?” “Well,” the Queen said, “Major Petkoff was supposed to tell Lou, in effect, that if she didn’t agree to do espionage work for the Soviet Union, things would go hard with her father.” “Nice,” Malone said. “Very friendly gentleman.” “Well,” the Queen continued, “he was supposed to tell her about that at the bar, when he had her alone. But she got that drugged drink before he could begin to say anything.” “Then who drugged it?” Malone said. “Lou?” The Queen shrugged. “Someone else,” she said. “Major Petkoff didn’t know anything about the drugged drink.” “A nice surprise for him, anyhow,” Malone said. “It was a surprise for everybody,” the Queen said. “You see, the drugged drink was meant to get her to the hospital, where they’d have her alone for a long time and could really put some pressure on her.” “And then,” Malone said, “there were the men who wanted to arrest me. And the ones who wanted to take Lou to jail. And the mad Mongol who just wanted to fight, I guess.” “There were so many different things, all going on at once,” the Queen said. Malone nodded. “There seems to be quite a lot of confusion in the Soviet Union, too,” he said. “That does not sound to me like an efficient operation.” “It wasn’t, very,” the Queen said. “You see, they have Garbitsch now, but they can’t do anything to him because they can’t get to Lou. And it doesn’t do them any good to do anything to her father, unless she knows about it first.” “It sounds,” Malone said, “as if the USSR is going along the same confused road as the good old United States.”