. "If we're going to do anything,
let's get started."

* * * * *

Twelve hours later, Kenneth J. Malone was sitting quietly in a small
room at the rear of a sporting-goods store on upper Madison Avenue,
trying to remain calm and hoping that the finest, most beautiful and
complete hunch--only now it wasn't a "hunch" any more, he reminded
himself; now it was prescience--was going to pay off. With him were Boyd
and two agents from the Sixty-ninth Street office. They were sitting
quietly, too, but there was a sense of enormous excitement in the air.
Malone wanted to get up and walk around, but he didn't dare. He clamped
his hands in his lap and sat tight.

They waited in silence, not daring to talk. There wasn't a sound in the
room. Malone felt like screaming, but he managed to control himself with
an effort.

There was no reason why the plan shouldn't work, Malone told himself.
According to all the theory he knew, it was fool proof. Her Majesty had
no doubts about it, either. She assured him that he had prescience, and
several other powers as well. Unfortunately, Malone wasn't quite as sure
as she was.

Even if the theory seemed to back her up, he thought, there was still a
chance that she was wrong, and the theory was wrong, and everything was
wrong. His hunch--prescience, if you wanted to call it that, he
amended--said definitely that this would be the place the Spooks would
hit tonight. Her Majesty was quite sure of it. And Malone couldn't think
of a single really good reason why either of them might be wrong. But
maybe he'd got the address mixed up. Maybe the Spooks were somewhere
else right now, robbing what they pleased, safe from capture--

It doesn't do much good to know where a teleporter _is_, Malone thought.
But it's extremely handy to know where he's going to be. And if you also
know what he plans to do when he gets where he's going, you've got an
absolute lead-pipe cinch to work with.

The Queen and Malone had provided that lead-pipe cinch. They were sure
that Mike planned to raid the sporting-goods store with the rest of the
Spooks that night.

But, of course, they might all just be riding for some kind of horrible,
unforeseen fall--

The main part of the sporting-goods store was fairly well lit, even at
night, though it was by no means brightly illuminated. There were
show-window lights on, and the street lamp from outside cast a nice
glow. Malone was grateful for t