n't the only possibility.

Suppose, he thought, that he was perfectly right, and that the group
was waiting inside. And suppose, too, that he'd misunderstood their
motives.

Suppose they were just waiting for him to get a little closer.

Malone kept walking. In just a few steps, he could be close enough so
that a bullet aimed at him from the house hadn't a real chance of
missing him.

And it didn't have to be bullets, either. They might have set a trap,
he thought, and were waiting for him to walk into it. Then they would
hold him prisoner while they devised ways to....

To what?

He didn't know. And that was even worse; it called up horrible terrors
from the darkest depths of Malone's mind. He continued to walk
forward.

Finally he reached the steps that led up to the porch, and took them
one at a time.

He stood on the porch. A long second passed.

He took a step toward the high, wide and handsome oaken door. Then he
took another step, and another.

What was waiting for him inside?

He took a deep breath, and pressed the doorbell button.

The door swung open immediately, and Malone involuntarily stepped
back.

The owner of the house smiled at him from the doorway. Malone let out
his breath in one long sigh of relief.

"I was hoping it would be you," he said weakly. "May I come in?"

"Why, certainly, Malone. Come on in. We've been expecting you, you
know," said Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI.

XVI

Malone sat, quietly relaxed and almost completely at ease, in the
depths of a huge, comfortable, old-fashioned Morris chair. Three
similar chairs were clustered around a squat, massive coffee table,
made of a single slab of dark wood set on short, curved legs. Malone
looked around at the other three with a relaxed feeling of
recognition: Andrew J. Burris, Sir Lewis Carter and Luba Ardanko.

Sir Lewis softly exhaled a cloud of smoke as he removed the briar from
his mouth. "Malone," he asked gently, "how did you know we would be
here?"

"Well," Malone said, "I just ... I mean, it was obvious as soon as
I--" He stopped, frowning. "I had one thing to go on, anyway," he
said. "I figured out the PRS was responsible for all the troubles
because it was so efficient. And then, while I was sitting and staring
at the file reports, it suddenly came to me: the FBI was just as
efficient. So it was obvious."

"What was?" Burris said.

Malone shrugged. "I thought you'd been keeping me on vacation becau