Ridiculous. Absolutely ridic—
Well, Queen Elizabeth had seemed pretty certain when she'd pointed him out in Dr. Dowson's office. And even though she'd changed her mind, how much faith could be placed in Her Majesty? After all, if she'd made a mistake about Burris, she could just as easily have made a mistake about the spy's being at Yucca Flats. In that case, Malone thought sadly, they were right back where they'd started from.
Behind their own goal line.
One way or another, though, Her Majesty had made a mistake. She'd pointed Burris out as the spy, and then she'd said she'd been wrong. Either Burris was a spy or he wasn't. You couldn't have it both ways.
Why couldn't you? Malone thought suddenly. And then something Burris himself had said came back to him, something that—
I'll be damned, he thought.
He came to a dead stop in the middle of the street. In one sudden flash of insight, all the pieces of the case he'd been looking at for so long fell together and formed one consistent picture. The pattern was complete.
Malone blinked.
In that second, he knew exactly who the spy was.
A jeep honked raucously and swerved around him. The driver leaned out to curse and remained to stare. Malone was already halfway back to the offices.