Fellowship of Fear (23 page)

"My fairs’ ‘uht dohg," he proclaimed in his most atrocious accent. Then he laughed, and Gideon laughed too.

After a few quiet minutes of congenial munching, Delvaux spoke again.

"Ah! I nearly forgot! Do you recognize this?" He placed a battered black umbrella on his lap.

Gideon had vaguely noticed him carrying it on their walk.

"No, should I?"

Monsieur Delvaux popped the last fragment of hot dog into his mouth. "Look here," he said, pointing to one of several dents in the umbrella. "You are an anthropologist. Would you not say that this indentation matches the cranial conformation of Monsieur Lau?"

"This is Sholokov’s umbrella?" Gideon said.

Delvaux energetically licked some crumbs from his fingertips, then rubbed his hands together. They made a dry, rustling sound. He unscrewed the metal ferrule at the end of the umbrella, slipped off the black fabric with its underlying struts, and set them aside on the bench. What was left was a conventional handle of artificial bamboo attached to a very unconventional length of aluminum pipe a little over a foot long and an inch in diameter. Two inches down from the handle, something that looked very much like a trigger protruded from the pipe.

"Pull it," said Delvaux.

Gideon did; there was a click and a powerful concussion inside the pipe. Delvaux took the instrument back from him.

"To pull the trigger releases a spring inside," he said. "The spring drives a piston hammer—you know what a piston hammer is?"

"Sort of," Gideon said.

"…drives a piston hammer two inches forward. Inside the tube is, or was, a small cylinder of gas that is attached to a hollow needle. Do you follow me so far?"

"More or less. Go ahead."

"The piston drives the needle two millimeters into the victim’s skin—your skin, let us say—at the same instant as the gas impels a miniscule pellet, less than a millimeter in diameter, into the tiny skin puncture. The needle retracts at once, leaving you with nothing more than a passing pinprick sensation…and an invisible poison pellet lodged under your skin. Ingenious, no?"

Amid the shopping center sounds of normal living, Gideon found it hard to give credence to the device, in fact to the whole conversation. Nearby an eight-year-old and his mother were talking at the mustard dispenser.

"Mom, could Jesus Christ beat up King Kong?"

"Yes," the mother said, not listening.

"If King Kong was after me, I would punch him in the stomach with a karate chop."

"That’s right, hon," the mother said.

Gideon picked up the weapon and looked at it. The soldered joints were surprisingly sloppy. "You know, it’s hard for me to believe this sort of thing really exists."

Delvaux smiled. "It was used quite successfully in Munich in 1963, in Vienna a few years after that…and who knows how many more times? The poison is unknown and nearly undetectable."

"Why didn’t he use it this time?"

"I think we can assume he was working his way up to a ‘casual’ brush against you when—so he thought—you spotted him."

"But why didn’t he use it then instead of hitting John over the head with it?"

"The poison is slow-acting. In four hours the victim notices some difficulty in breathing. In twenty-four hours, by which time he has forgotten all about the brief, stinging sensation of the day before, he is dead. Excellent for leisurely assassinations, but not much use for quick getaways, you see."

"I killed him, didn’t I?" said Gideon quietly. "In the scuffle. I heard the click."

"It’s hard to say," said Delvaux. "He was stabbed several times in the fight with Monkes. But yes, he also had a pellet in his foot. The autopsy has not yet been performed. Probably the pellet would have killed him soon enough."

Delvaux looked into Gideon’s face, his eyes suddenly concerned. "My dear friend, you cannot allow yourself to suffer for this. It was not your fault. He was an assassin, a professional killer. It was his own weapon, meant for you. He brought it upon himself."

Gideon wondered what Delvaux was seeing in his face. What he was feeling, if anything, was a detached, mild interest; it was difficult to convince himself that any of it was real, let alone that it involved him. "You’ve explained why Monkes was after me," he said slowly, "but why Sholokov? Why would the KGB want to kill me?"

"We believe that also is because of a misunderstanding—"

"I’m certainly happy to hear that."

Delvaux smiled, not without friendliness. "Let me go back a little. As you know, we have been aware for some time that a member of your university has been supplying extraordinarily crucial information to the Russians in connection with a mysterious undertaking we know only as Operation Philidor. Our hope in assigning you to Sigonella and Torrejon, the two remaining bases, was to draw this person out. We hoped that he, or perhaps she, feeling hounded and personally endangered, might turn to you, a naive, ignorant newcomer—you understand the sense in which I speak—for help in getting the needed information. We did not think he—or she—would ask you outright, of course, but we thought he might try to use you in some way. And so we sent you to Sigonella, and we watched you very carefully—"

"Yes, I understand all that. But why would they want to
kill
me? If he thought I was being used to trap him, all he had to do was ignore me—"

"Correct, and that is apparently what he did. But we—" here he paused to give his grandest Gallic shrug—"we, in our brilliance, not only fooled completely our own Mr. Monkes, but also the entire, mighty KGB. They have been under the impression that Dr. Gideon Oliver is in reality one of NSD’s most formidable and dangerous agents of counterespionage." He began to reassemble the umbrella.

"By association, you mean? They found out that I had been in contact with you?"

"That’s the idea, yes. They made, it would seem, the same mistake that Mr. Monkes did. They discovered that you were assigned to go to Sigonella and Torrejon, and that you had already been at Rhein-Main—all at the critical times. They assumed—correctly, in the latter two cases— that these assignments were no mere coincidences. Their deduction?… That you must be an NSD agent sent to these bases in an effort to thwart them. I think we may also surmise that they found out you had been to our headquarters in Heidelberg—the building is watched, of course— and so such a conclusion on their part was really quite reasonable."

After a moment Gideon said, "Monsieur Delvaux, does this sort of thing happen every day in your field? Or am I simply fortunate in having been involved in an extraordinarily… interesting adventure?"

Monsieur Delvaux laughed with real amusement. "I have been in intelligence for thirty-three years, and I have never—neh-
vaire
—encountered an affair like this. And you, you lucky devil, walk right into it the first time!" He laughed again. "Do you know, several weeks ago we began intercepting Russian messages referring to an NSD agent who was hot upon their trail—that is the correct phrase? We racked our brains many hours trying to determine who in the world they were talking about. It was only after the terrible attack on you in Sicily that we began to think it might be
you
. That, of course, is the reason we terminated our relationship, or tried to, when you were last in Heidelberg— concern for your life."

"I wish Marks had told me that. I wouldn’t have insisted on coming here, believe me."

"Unfortunately, dealing with others is not Mr. Marks’s forte. He did what he was told. But I am surprised that Dr. Rufus consented to send you here."

"Did
he
know the Russians were after me, too? Did everybody know it but me?"

"You and Monkes. No, Dr. Rufus didn’t know. But he
did
know we didn’t want you sent here, and that has been enough for him in the past."

Delvaux’s severely pursed lips indicated more than a little displeasure with Dr. Rufus. Gideon was tempted to inquire further into the arrangement between NSD and USOC. Instead, he defended Dr. Rufus.

"He wasn’t very keen on my coming. I leaned on him pretty heavily. And I made a point of asking him not to inform you." He wasn’t altogether sure about that, but he didn’t like the idea of Dr. Rufus, who had been so reluctant about it, having difficulties on his account.

"So," Delvaux said. "Well." He placed both hands on his plump thighs. He was ready to go. The interview was over.

"Before you go," Gideon said, "there is a small matter that worries me just a little. The KGB thinks I’m some kind of super-duper agent who’s going to foil their plan to blow up the world or whatever it is. They’ve tried to kill me twice—at least, two times that we know of. It seems rather probable that those efforts will continue, doesn’t it?"

"No, you can stop worrying. They are no longer interested in you. I guarantee it."

"I value your guarantee highly, but it would certainly ease my mind if you could share with me the reason for your confidence."

Delvaux smiled. "I enjoy you, do you know? Not all Americans have so nice a way with words, even in their own language. Here is what we’ve done. In the past twelve hours, we have sent four secret messages to our agents which make it extremely clear that you are no longer involved with us in any way, and that they are neither to communicate with you nor to accept any communication from you."

"But it’s the KGB I have to worry about, isn’t it? What good does—" He stopped when Delvaux raised his hand.

"You see, the KGB works very hard at intercepting our messages, just as we do theirs. And we are well aware of certain of our own secret channels that are not quite as secret as they are supposed to be. The new directives concerning you have been routed through several of those rather leaky channels."

"But how can you be positive they’ll be picked up by the Russians? It hardly seems certain." He was beginning to understand the way John felt in their anthropological discussions. Every question he asked received an answer that left him maddeningly incredulous and thoroughly convinced at the same time.

"Oh no. We
know
. You see, we are rather good at intercepting
their
messages too. And twenty minutes before I called you this morning, I received word that the KGB has already sent out word that the… what was it? the super-duper agent?…is no longer a threat and is to be left in peace. They did not name you, of course, but there is no question that it is you. You are in no danger. Period."

Gideon’s mind was beginning to turn soggy. It seemed as if NSD had a more reliable communication interchange with the KGB than it did with its own Bureau Four. "But look," he said. "If
you
can send out false messages for the sole purpose of being intercepted by them, what makes you think
they
can’t do the same thing? How do you know that this morning’s message about me is reliable?"

"Ah, we can be sure about that. When a message is encoded—"

This time it was Gideon who held up his hand. "Stop. I don’t want to know. I can’t process any more data. I believe you, I believe you."

Delvaux laughed softly. "That’s fine." He looked at his watch. "And now I must go. Is there anything else I can tell you?"

"Yes. Why were my socks stolen?"

"Ah, that is a funny one. We don’t have any idea. We know that Mr. Monkes was in your room several times looking for information he thought you’d stolen. But the socks, they make no sense whatever. As for as we can tell, the incident has no significance."

"Could it have been the KGB?"

"That stole your socks? Hardly. Now, if they’d been American blue jeans…"

They said good-bye at the terminal. Gideon shook hands with affection, and felt the grip returned.

"Where are you off to now?" Gideon asked.

"Now I go back to Holland, to Brunssum, to confer with Herr Embacher, the director general."

"The head of NSD? This is as important as all that?"

Delvaux shrugged expressively but did not reply.

Gideon’s mood was one of reasonable satisfaction as he watched the bus leave. Delvaux had assured him that his personal safety was no longer at risk. The fact that he had received similar assurances two weeks before was of minor concern. More importantly, his scientist’s soul was content—or nearly so; Delvaux had fitted almost all of the missing pieces into place. Only a few annoying questions remained: Who was the spy on the USOC staff? What were the Russians really up to?

And somehow most perplexing and bothersome of all in its own niggling way: Why had someone stolen three pairs of his socks?

   AS soon as he saw the figure at the top of the stairs, Gideon knew there was something odd about him. A slight, dark young man of twenty with flashing black eyes, he looked distinctly out of place in the BOQ. He was certainly no air force officer. He would have seemed more at home on the stage of a flamenco cabaret or with a sword and
muleta
in his hands at the Plaza Monumental. He was an American, though; Gideon’s anthropological intuition told him that. He had the graceful slouch of a New Yorker or perhaps an Angeleno; a big-city boy returned as an indifferent GI to the land of his fathers.

What caught Gideon’s attention, however, was the boy’s hesitant stealth, a furtiveness that was almost appealing in its naivete: an abrupt, startled stop when he first saw Gideon at the foot of the stairs, then a quick intake of breath for courage, and a patently feigned nonchalance as he descended. He was even whistling tunelessly as he passed Gideon at the middle of the stairway.

He was nearly past when Gideon saw what he was carrying in his hand. Gideon reached behind him and grasped the boy by the upper arm. The biceps was stringy and tough.

"I think that’s my radio you have there, isn’t it?"

"What?" said the boy. His eyes darted quickly to the side, and Gideon tightened his grip. "Hey, let go of me, man. What the fuck do you think you’re doing? You don’t let go of me, I kill you!" The words were accompanied by a snarl, but the heart-pounding fear behind them was obvious: He tried to shake off Gideon’s hand, and they both bumped roughly into the wall and staggered down a couple of steps.