Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 01 - Fellowship Of Fear Page 22

  It was too much for Danzig. He was on his feet again, his little breast heaving like a bird’s. "You idiot, you don’t know what you’re talking about—"

  Gideon cut him off. With his heart in his mouth, he took a gamble. "Bruce, you said there was a rush request on the Weidenreich book. Who was asking for it?"

  "Well…" Danzig darted a sudden look at Dr. Rufus.

  Gideon pressed him. "It was Dr. Rufus, wasn’t it?"

  Danzig spoke carefully. "Well, it was the chancellor’s office. But that happens all the time. His secretary—"

  Gideon pushed on. "And before I left for Torrejon, Dr. Rufus sent me to the library. He said you were holding some books for me. Where’d you get them? Who suggested the titles?"

  Danzig stammered wordlessly, but his confused glance at Dr. Rufus was answer enough. He sat down slowly, blinking.

  "That’s an awful lot of interest in my books," Gideon said, talking more to himself than Danzig. "And I remember something else. I wasn’t planning on taking any books with me to Sigonella either. But he pressed me—remember, Bruce?—he told me what a fine library you had, how you’d be hurt if I didn’t take any. And he made sure he knew just which books I did take…"

  He had been dreading looking at Dr. Rufus. Now he turned to him. "…didn’t you?" he asked quietly.

  A look at the chancellor drained the belligerence from Gideon as if someone had pulled out a plug. Dr. Rufus was staring at him, trembling all over and blowing his lips in and out like a hooked fish on a pier. He looked about as much like a spy as Santa Claus did. Gideon’s heart went out to him. He had liked Dr. Rufus, really liked him. He still did.

  "I think we three should have a private little talk," the agent said without expression. He made a curt hand motion to Dr. Rufus, a wordless "Get up, you." Better than words, it summarized the sudden, awful role transformation that had come to the chancellor of United States Overseas College. It saddened Gideon to see him obey the rude gesture.

  They walked toward a small private room. The agent pointedly waited for Dr. Rufus to precede him, even giving the shambling, red-faced figure a casual, gratuitous nudge.

  Gideon followed, his feelings turbulent and paradoxical. He, who had just publicly denounced and humiliated Dr. Rufus, burned with rage at the agent’s supererogatory disrespect. And he, who had been so vilely betrayed; why should he feel like the betrayer?

  "SO it was the books," Janet said, looking out the car window at the dark, nearly deserted autobahn.

  "Yes," said Gideon, "both times. They’d pick out some wide-eyed kid and tell him he was serving his country by stealing something from the computer room or the control room and sticking it in one of my books. A patriotic act. Apparently Dr. Rufus was a pretty convincing Times reporter."

  "Yeah, sure," said John, "with some money thrown in in case the kid wasn’t a true-blue patriot."

  Janet frowned. "But do you mean that Dr. Rufus flew down to Sigonella and Torrejon himself, and then flew right back?"

  "Sure," John said, "no problem there."

  Marti shook her head. "Now wait a minute, you guys. Gideon, what made them think you wouldn’t find it when you read the book?"

  "That’s why they had to know the exact books I had with me. They put the information in them on Thursday night both times, after I’d had my final class, and they picked a book I wouldn’t need for my next course, assuming that I wouldn’t be reading it."

  A car zoomed out of the night, passed them, and disappeared in seconds, going at least a hundred miles an hour. "God, these German drivers," John said.

  "I still don’t get it," Marti said.

  "I had the Weidenreich with me for the course in Torrejon. My next class, in Izmir, deals with Upper Paleolithic population distributions, so naturally I wouldn’t be expected to be reading a book on Homo erectus javanensis."

  "Naturally," John said. "Any fool could see that. I’m surprised at you, Marti."

  "Rat piddle," she said. "How could they be sure you wouldn’t want to read it anyway?"

  "Obviously, they couldn’t," Janet said. "In fact, that’s just what happened this time. You kept the book, and they came after it."

  "Boy, did they," Gideon said with a sigh. He was very tired. The agent had made him wait, alone, until Delvaux had arrived by helicopter about 9:00 p.m. Three hours of questions and putting the pieces together had followed. Then, at midnight, Gideon had been offered a ride back to

  Heidelberg in the helicopter with Delvaux. He had declined, unable to face the prospect of having Dr. Rufus as a handcuffed fellow passenger, and had started the drive back with the others at a little before one in the morning. For a while they had talked excitedly, but then their fatigue had caught up with them as they headed south from Frankfurt, and they sat without speaking for many minutes at a time.

  Once Gideon was awakened from a doze to hear John ask quietly, "Did Delvaux tell you how the NSD guys got here so fast? Were they following you?"

  Janet’s hand, lying in his own, jumped; Gideon knew she had been asleep too. "No," he said, "they didn’t know where to find me. They were following Bruce. Delvaux thought maybe he was their man."

  "Because of the books. Yeah," John said.

  Gideon gently pulled Janet’s head to his shoulder and sat, comfortable and warm, watching the dark flat landscape go by.

  A little later it was Janet who stirred and sat up. "Wait a minute," she said. "Dr. Rufus warned you, remember? And he tried to stop them, and took a pretty good crack in the face. Was that an act?"

  "He said he didn’t know there’d be guns, and he was afraid we’d be hurt. I believe him, you know; but I think Delvaux thinks it was just an act."

  Marti spoke quietly: "What’d he do it for, money?"

  Gideon nodded, then realized she couldn’t see him in the dark. "Yes," he said, "so he says."

  At about 2:30 a.m., famished, they stopped at an automated roadside AAFES canteen for sandwiches and milk. Their first bites revived them, and they began talking again.

  "Mmm," Janet said, chewing her egg salad sandwich with such evident pleasure that Gideon, who was already eating a roast beef sandwich, searched his pockets for change to buy one. "Mmm, question," she said. "If Dr. Rufus went all the way to Sigonella and Torrejon anyway, why didn’t he have these kids bring the information directly to him, or go on base himself and have it delivered to him there? Why involve a middle man?"

  John answered for Gideon. "Too much risk. The kids were amateurs. They’d be nervous, and an alert guard could tell something was wrong." He bit off a huge corner of his pastrami sandwich and chewed happily for a while until he could speak again. "And as for Rufus taking it off the base himself "—Gideon noted the dropping of the honorific title; one more indignity Dr. Rufus would have to get used to—"why take the risk when ol’ Gid could take it for him? There was always a chance the stuff would be found by a guard, after all."

  "Does anyone have a quarter?" Gideon asked. Janet gave him one, and he went to the machine for an egg salad sandwich. He pulled unsuccessfully on the plastic wrapper, then tore at it with his teeth. A memory came suddenly to his mind, and he sat thoughtfully with the plastic wrapping in his mouth.

  "Want some mustard to go with that?" Janet said. "Brings out the flavor."

  He removed the wrapping. "I was just thinking about how Dr. Rufus snowed me. When I went in to see him and he calmly…and damn cleverly… sat there while I talked him into letting me take the Torrejon assignment. And all the time I was playing right smack into his hands."

  They ate and drank quietly for a while. John finished his sandwich and milk, and brought coffee for them all. He sat down with a great sigh and looked straight at Gideon.

  "Okay, Doc, lay it on me. I guess I can stand it now."

  Gideon looked blankly at him.

  "Marti," said John, "you ask him. I can’t bring myself to do it."

  "Yowzah, Massa John," Marti said. "We’re all dying to know how you did it."

&nbs
p; "Did what?" Gideon said.

  "How you knew it was Dr. Rufus, you turkey!" Janet said.

  Gideon laughed. "Oh no, you don’t. Every time I try to tell John about the marvels of modern scientific inference, he argues with me."

  "No," John said, "I’ve learned my lesson, Doc. I promise I won’t say a thing."

  Gideon had looked forward to this scene. He took his time, adding a little powdered creamer to his coffee, tasting it, and then carefully stirring in a little more.

  "I’ll give him ten more seconds. Then I hit him," Janet said.

  "I’ll tell you, but you’re not going to believe me," Gideon said, looking at John.

  "I knew it, I knew it," said John, "I’m already sorry I asked."

  "Do you remember," Gideon said, "how Dr. Rufus was sitting there telling the agent about what happened, and how amazed he’d been, and so on?"

  All three of them eagerly nodded at the same time.

  "How surprised he looked? Raised eyebrows, wrinkled brow, big eyes, mouth open and puffing away?"

  They all nodded at once again, encouraging him to go on. It was like being in front of a good class.

  "Well, that’s the classic expression of surprise, all right, except for three things: his upper eyelids were completely raised—"

  "He was surprised," John said. "When you’re surprised, your eyes open up wide."

  "No, and that’s my point. Most people think that surprise results in a pop-eyed stare. It doesn’t. It raises your upper eyelids only partway, like this."

  "That looks like a pop-eyed stare to me." John said.

  Gideon turned to Marti. "Didn’t I hear him say he wasn’t going to argue?"

  "Shut up, Lau," she said. Then to Gideon, "You said there were three things."

  "Yes. Number two: the lateral ends of his eyebrows were raised, as you’d expect, but the medial corners weren’t."

  "I don’t follow. Demonstrate, please, Professor," Janet said.

  "I can’t. Most people can’t voluntarily raise the medial corners of their eyebrows. That’s my point."

  "Dammit, Doc," John said excitedly, his hands chopping away at the air. That’s the second time you’ve said that. What’s your point?"

  "Will someone kindly control this person?" Gideon said.

  "Goddammit, Doc—"

  Gideon laughed and patted John’s arm. "My point is that Dr. Rufus’s surprise was fabricated. He was faking it." He sipped his cooling coffe. "He knew those men were going to come after me, and he knew about the book. Ergo, he was the spy."

  John shook his head doubtfully. "I don’t know…"

  "What’s point three?" asked Janet.

  "That his facial expressions were asymmetrical; much more pronounced on the left side."

  "I see," Janet. "So you assumed that the neurological pathways were subcortical in origin. Very clever, if I do say so myself. How—"

  "Argh," Marti said. "I’m going bonkers. Will somebody let us poor mortals in on this?"

  Gideon laughed. "There are two separate paths from the brain to the facial muscles, one for deliberate expressions and the other for involuntary ones. And they result in different faces. Involuntary expressions are usually very symmetrical. Deliberate ones are almost always more pronounced on the left side."

  "Doc," John said, "no disrespect intended, but is this a little theory of your own, or is there any scientific basis for it?"

  "That’s an excellent question… finally. There’s plenty of evidence. Duchenne did some preliminary work on the facial muscles in the 1860s, and Izard was analyzing facial expressions in the 1920s in the U.S. But the main work’s being done by Ekman at UC—the University of California— and by Friesen. Ekman’s even talked to the CIA—"

  "All right, all right, you win." John was quiet a few moments. Then he said, "Okay, I admit it. I’m impressed."

  Gideon stood up and stretched. "And now that one and all have been astounded by feats of scientific legerdemain, why don’t we hit the road and get home?"

  In the dark car, John turned on the ignition, then shut it off and turned to Gideon, his arm on the back of his seat.

  "Here comes the rebuttal," Gideon said to no one. "I thought it was too easy."

  "No rebuttal, Doc. I’m just not clear about everything yet. It doesn’t make sense that the Russians were trying to kill you. They were getting their information through you, right? So why would they want you dead, huh?"

  "Yeah, huh?" said Marti.

  Gideon smiled, although he knew no one could see it. "The need-to-know principle," he said softly. "The great standard of the espionage world. It just turns out that the Russians are as dumb as we are."

  When he was silent for a few moments, Janet said, "If that was an explanation, I’m afraid I missed something."

  "You know how NSD got mixed up?" Gideon said. "How Intelligence was protecting me because I was working for them, but Bureau Four was after me because they thought I was a spy?"

  There were murmurs of assent.

  "Well, the same thing—the exact same goddamn thing— happened to the Russians. Their espionage people knew I was their source, but espionage and counterespionage don’t talk to each other—just like us—and as far as counterespionage was concerned, I was a danger, an NSD operative."

  "Which you were," John said.

  "Which I was." He sighed. "Which I sure was. I was hunting like mad for the KGB source…and it was me. And I was searching everywhere for the dead drop…and I had it. ‘One for the books,’ Delvaux said."

  "Huh," John said.

  "Jumpin’ Jehoshaphat," said Marti.

  Heidelberg: BOOK 8

  TWENTY-TWO

  IMMERSED in the International Herald Tribune the next morning, Gideon started when a pair of hands were laid gently on his shoulders. "Janet!" he said. "Hi, sit down. You look great in yellow."

  She took his empty cup to the coffeepot at the back of the faculty lounge and filled it, along with one for herself. She didn’t often wear summery frocks, but it was unseasonably warm. Her bare arms were brown and firm and very smooth.

  He smiled at her when she returned and sat down.

  "That’s not a smile; that’s a leer," she said. "I know leers, and that’s one."

  "Hey, lady, can I lick your arm? Did anyone ever tell you you have extremely sexy arms?"

  "I can’t handle any more compliments," she said. "I still haven’t gotten used to the one about the subtrochanteric what-ever-it-was."

  "Trochanteric subcutaneous adipose tissue deposit. Mmm, that’s nice, too."

  "What’s with you? You didn’t seem very interested last night. You were asleep before the lights were out."

  "I was tired. I’m wide awake now." He reached out and stroked her arm.

  She covered his hand with her own and squeezed it. With a quick glance around to make sure they were alone, she leaned forward and kissed him gently.

  When they pulled back, a lump rose suddenly to his throat. "Ah, Janet, I’m afraid you’ve gotten to me, and I didn’t want to be gotten to. It’s going to be a long four days in Izmir without you."

  Her eyes shining, she smiled at him. "Listen, I need to tell you about the staff meeting."

  "It was a short one, wasn’t it? You were only in there half an hour."

  "Yes, but big things happened. In the first place, Eric Bozzini is going to be acting chancellor until they get a replacement."

  "Eric?" You’re kidding! That’s ridiculous."

  "He’ll do fine," Janet said. "There’s more. First, I’m going to be acting logistics director. Acting acting director, I guess it is."

  She seemed so pleased with the appointment that he congratulated her. "Is it a good position for you?"

  She laughed with a tinkling, pealing laugh he had not heard before. He hoped he would hear it many times again. "Who cares about the position?" she said. "The point is, with the Russian thing off and the alert over, we go back to our normal schedule. Isn’t that great?"

&nbs
p; "I guess so," he said, "but am I missing something?"

  "You bet you are. It means that the logistics director has to get out of her office and start making field visits. And guess which base hasn’t been visited in two years?"

  He sipped his coffee, giving himself time to determine whether he was feeling happy or anxious. He decided easily on happy. "It wouldn’t be Izmir?" he said.

  "It sure would," she said, and then looked at him for a long time. "Is that all right?"

  Her hands were clenched on the table. He covered them with his own, and she turned her palms up to clasp his fingers.

  "Yes, that’s all right," he said, with a fine, painful tightness in his throat. "I guess I’m getting kind of used to you." He paused. "Did I ever tell you what beautiful orbicularis oculi you have?"

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  «——THE END——»