"The Faltese Malcom?" The fat man laughed. "I hardly think so, Mr. Spaid. Another one of Miss O'Shaughnessy's little fictions I fear. What we are looking for is the Maltese Falcon." But that was in San Francisco of 1927. In everyday Washington, the Falcon they were trying to hang around Josh's neck was a guided missile stolen from the Patuxent Naval Base. And what mattered in the end, was, indeed, the Faltese Malcom.