,
that Boyd's cards were Boyd's, too, and in general that the four of them
were not insane, not spies, and not jokesters out for a lark in the
sunshine.

Malone had expected all of that. He went through the rigmarole wearily
but without any sense of surprise. The one thing he hadn't been
expecting was the man who was waiting for him on the other side of the
gate.

When he'd finished identifying everybody for the fifth or sixth time, he
began to climb back into the car. A familiar voice stopped him cold.

"Just a minute, Malone," Andrew J. Burris said. He erupted from the
guardhouse like an avenging angel, followed closely by a thin man, about
five feet ten inches in height, with brush-cut brown hair, round
horn-rimmed spectacles, large hands and a small Sir Francis Drake beard.
Malone looked at the two figures blankly.

"Something wrong, chief?" he said.

Burris came toward the car. The thin gentleman followed him, walking
with an odd bouncing step that must have been acquired, Malone thought,
over years of treading on rubber eggs. "I don't know," Burris said when
he'd reached the door. "When I was in Washington, I seemed to know--but
when I get out here in this desert, everything just goes haywire." He
rubbed at his forehead.

Then he looked into the car. "Hello, Boyd," he said pleasantly.

"Hello, chief," Boyd said.

Burris blinked. "Boyd, you look like Henry VIII," he said with only the
faintest trace of surprise.

"Doesn't he, though?" Her Majesty said from the rear seat. "I've noticed
that resemblance myself."

Burris gave her a tiny smile. "Oh," he said. "Hello, Your Majesty.
I'm--"

"Andrew J. Burris, Director of the FBI," the Queen finished for him.
"Yes, I know. It's very nice to meet you at last. I've seen you on
television, and over the video phone. You photograph badly, you know."

"I do?" Burris said pleasantly. It was obvious that he was keeping
himself under very tight control.

Malone felt remotely sorry for the man--but only remotely. Burris might
as well know, he thought, what they had all been going through the past
several days.

Her Majesty was saying something about the honorable estate of
knighthood, and the Queen's List. Malone began paying attention when she
came to: "... And I hereby dub thee--" She stopped suddenly, turned and
said: "Sir Kenneth, give me your weapon."

Malone hesitated for a long, long second. But Burris' eye was on him,
and he could interpret the look wit