“Tricky,” Malone said.
“Very,” Lou said.
“But—” Malone blinked. “Wait a minute,” he said. “Your agent? You mean you had Governor Flarion killed?”
Lou nodded soberly. “We had to,” she said. “That paranoid mind of his had built up a shield we simply couldn’t get through. He had plans for making himself president, you know—and all the terrifying potentialities of an embryonic Hitler.” She grimaced. “We don’t like being forced to kill,” she said, “but sometimes we’ve got to.”
Malone thought of his own .44 Magnum, and the times he had used it, and nodded very slowly.
“There are still a couple of questions, though,” he said. “For instance, there’s that trip to Russia. Why did you make it? Was it your father?”
“Of course it was,” Lou said. “We had to get him back in and make sure he was safe.”
“You mean that Vasili Garbitsch is a PSR member?” Malone said, stunned.
“Well, really,” Lou said. “Did you think my father would really be a spy? We had to get him back to Russia; he was needed for work in the Kremlin. That’s why we nudged Boyd into making the arrest.”
“And the others?” Malone said. “Brubitsch and Borbitsch?”