Aaron Elkins - Gideon Oliver 01 - Fellowship Of Fear

by Fellowship Of Fear

  "Monsieur Delvaux, I get the impression that you don’t hold Bureau Four in high regard."

  "I hate them. They are like the SS. They go where they want; they do what they want. They are responsible only to their own director. Wherever they go, their wishes outrank the orders of the highest field officer." The sparkle had left his eyes. He sipped his coffee quietly.

  "Can you tell me why he was… What was his name? I can’t keep calling him Ferret-face."

  "Joseph Monkes."

  "And was I correct in assuming he was an American who had spent a lot of time in Germany?" It hardly mattered, but Gideon couldn’t resist asking.

  "Yes, he had been in Europe since 1959. And yes, he had lived in Germany almost all that time. One of your linguistic deductions, I believe? Very clever." At Gideon’s surprised expression, he smiled and added, "I spent an hour talking with John Lau last night."

  "Joe Monkes," Gideon said. The name fit, somehow. "Can you tell me why he was following me?"

  "I can indeed." Delvaux dropped his chin and looked up at Gideon from under bushy, tousled white eyebrows. "Now, you must look at this with a sense of humor, a certain detachment." Gideon, who had been trying to think of who it was that Delvaux looked like, suddenly remembered: Grumpy of the Seven Dwarfs—but a sly, jolly Grumpy.

  "I’ll try," he said with a smile. "I’m about ready for a laugh."

  "Bien. He was following you because he thought you were working for the KGB." He held up his hand when Gideon opened his mouth. "And why, you will ask, would he think you were a spy? Because, I will reply"—here his eyes literally twinkled—"because he knew that the KGB’s source was someone from USOC, and he very cleverly determined that you were the only one who had been, or would be, at the critical bases—Rhein-Main, Sigonella, and Torrejon—all at approximately the critical times."

  Delvaux waited happily for this to sink in and continued, "But, you will say, it was not the Russians who arranged for me to go there; it was NSD itself, in the person of the estimable Mr. Marks. So why, you will say, did Mr. Monkes not know of this? And I, I will answer—"

  "—the need-to-know principle."

  "Exactly! Bravo! Will you not admit the adventure has its humorous side?"

  Gideon smiled crookedly. "I can see a certain element of farce in it, yes." Then he shook his head and laughed. "That’s really incredible, you know."

  "I agree." Delvaux laughed too. "We used you as bait— forgive me, an unfortunate expression—as an enticement to draw out our quarry. But the Russians would not be drawn out, and neither would the USOC source—who still remains a mystery, by the way. The only ones who—’bit,’ I believe you say?…were our own people in Bureau Four." He shook his head. "One for the books, one for the books." He sighed with great contentment. "And now I have some more to share with you."

  Gideon was suddenly famished, and excused himself to get some breakfast. He came back with a huge plateful of overcooked but nonetheless appetizing scrambled eggs, with bacon, sausages, fried potatoes, biscuits, juice, and coffee, and sat down opposite Delvaux, who had refilled his own cup.

  Delvaux looked at the heaped tray with a mixture of admiration and disgust. "Formidable. We Europeans cannot eat a breakfast like that. Except the English, of course." His grimace summed up his opinion of English cuisine. "Now, where was I?"

  "Before you go on, I have a question. I wasn’t the only USOC’r at Sigonella and Torrejon—"

  Delvaux nodded. "Eric Bozzini. John Lau told me."

  "So why did Monkes think it had to be me? Why not Eric?"

  "I don’t think he knew about him. Your schedule was arranged in advance. On paper. Eric Bozzini’s was not." He smiled. "Incidently, I myself suspect Mr. Bozzini no more than I do you. You, he, and others may have been at the same bases. It is very easy to travel around Europe today. But let us return to the, ah, misunderstanding between you and Mr. Monkes."

  While Gideon addressed his meal, Delvaux carried the conversation single-handedly for several minutes. As the chief of a major regional office, he explained, he was in charge of all NSD functions in Germany, except for those of Bureau Four. That bureau’s activities were kept secret from his through strict application of need-to-know logic, of which he approved… in principle.

  Naturally, the possibility of such a mix-up as had occurred had always been considered, and had in fact happened before on a smaller scale—agents of one bureau beginning to compile dossiers on agents of another, for example. For this reason, certain safeguards were built into the system at the highest levels to make sure no irremediable mistake was made. And none had ever been made, until yesterday.

  After Gideon’s call to Marks the evening before, Delvaux had become suspicious and had immediately called the director of NSD at SHAPE—Supreme Headquarters Allied Powers in Europe—in Mons, Belgium. A series of conference calls to the far-flung outposts of the NSD empire, and face-to-face meetings in Mons and Brunssum, Holland, had brought out the facts.

  The dead man was certainly Joe Monkes, and he had definitely been on Gideon’s trail since somehow learning about Gideon’s schedule at the crucial bases. Even though he had turned up nothing in his search at the Hotel Ballman, he had convinced himself that Gideon was the traitorous USOC source who was turning over vital military secrets to the Soviet Union. Since then, he had been hounding Gideon through three countries.

  "Was he behind the attack in Sicily?" Gideon asked.

  "No. He was a vicious man, but that he did not do. That I will come to later."

  Gideon shook his head slowly as he poured cream into his coffee. "I thought you said there were safeguards against this sort of thing."

  "There are, and they are strictly enforced. But Bureau Four agents are different—I told you, like the SS. They are individualists, free thinkers. They do things their own way, and there are not many who dare quarrel with them, including sometimes their own supervisors."

  Monsieur Delvaux had finished with his coffee. He gazed thoughtfully at the grass and trees of the patio, then looked directly at Gideon. "His superior believes Monkes was emotionally unstable, that perhaps your resistance to him and his colleague in Heidelberg created a personal hatred toward you that became an obsession."

  Gideon could believe it. Again he slowly shook his head. "I’d say your need-to-know principle needs looking at."

  Delvaux laughed; he seemed delighted with the phrase. "Yes, needs looking at! It certainly does. And already certain changes are being made so that this can never happen again. In the present case, the principle is being superseded entirely. I have been placed in charge of all aspects of this matter. All." He sat back with a childish pride that Gideon found charming, and waited for Gideon to say something.

  "Congratulations, Monsieur Delvaux."

  "Thank you, my good friend." He smiled merrily at

  Gideon. "Have you finished your breakfast? Shall we walk outside? The day seems pleasant."

  The day was not pleasant. The unsubstantial clouds of the day before had thickened, so that an unusual gray sultriness enveloped the base. There was, however, a welcome normalcy in the simple white buildings; the neat, wide lawns; and the sounds of plain, homely American speech around them. Delvaux seemed content to walk in companionable silence, his hands clasped behind him. After a while, Gideon spoke.

  "What you’ve been telling me is extremely interesting, of course…"

  Delvaux peeked sideways at Gideon from under his wild eyebrows. "I should think so."

  "But I don’t understand why you’ve taken the trouble to come here to give me the information. Why are you telling me all this?" Gideon stopped walking, to focus the conversation, but Delvaux continued abstractedly. Gideon took a long step to catch up with the smaller man.

  "We have caused you a great deal of trouble," Delvaux said. "I felt we owed it to you to explain it. As I had to come to Spain in any case—to examine the bodies, to secure certain effects of Mr. Monkes, and so forth—it was little trouble to take an
hour or two with you. Besides," he said, smiling up at Gideon, "obviously, you already know a great deal more about this than you pretend."

  "I beg your pardon?"

  "Your excellent friend John Lau was very free last night in telling me about the information he has been passing on to you."

  Frowning, Gideon halted again. This time Delvaux stopped with him. "Monsieur Delvaux, is John in trouble over this? I can assure you, he didn’t give me any… sensitive information—"

  "—which you would not, in any case, recognize should it bite you on the nose, eh?" Delvaux laughed. "Don’t worry. John has been a little indiscreet, but it is to his credit that he realized before the rest of us that you were in danger. It would have been better if he had gone through formal channels…but who knows? We probably would not have listened. In any case, I am satisfied that he neither passed on nor obtained—nor tried to obtain—highly sensitive information."

  They began to walk again. "In one thing Mr. Monkes was very meticulous, which is to our good fortune," Delvaux said. "Apparently he was taking punctilious care in documenting a case against you."

  "Yes, good fortune has always smiled on me."

  Delvaux laughed. "He kept a very careful diary. We deciphered enough of it this morning to answer many of our questions."

  They had walked several blocks. At Delvaux’s suggestion, they seated themselves in the bleachers of a softball field on which six or seven youngsters were playing a desultory game. Delvaux’s facetiousness had disappeared. He spoke seriously.

  "Monkes watched you or had you watched from the minute you arrived in Torrejon, but he never saw you do anything suspicious. Nevertheless, he was convinced you had somehow obtained the information you were after."

  "Whatever it was."

  "Whatever it was. He followed you to the Prado. He was convinced that you were going to meet your case officer— your contact—there. He hoped to catch you in the act of turning over the information."

  "But John was with me. He must have known John’s with NSD…?"

  "Well…" Delvaux gave one of his Gallic shrugs. "Perhaps he thought John was also a turncoat. In any case, the moment he saw Sholokov in the museum, he was certain he was correct."

  "Spotted whom?"

  Delvaux tapped his thigh. "Ah, I forgot. You wouldn’t know Victor Sholokov, a senior KGB agent… with Department V."

  From Delvaux’s tone and meaningful look, Gideon knew he should be impressed. He raised his eyebrows questioningly.

  Delvaux spoke with mild surprise at Gideon’s ignorance. "Department V—that is their assassination and murder unit. And a very effective one."

  "Are you suggesting that this Sholokov was there to murder me?"

  "Certainly. But of course Monkes didn’t know that. He thought Sholokov was your contact. And when he saw him attack John with the umbrella—"

  "That was Sholokov? Was I right then? Was he Balkan?"

  Delvaux smiled. "The scientist verifying his theory. Yes, he was a Rumanian. Most impressive, professor."

  "Ha!" Gideon said jubilantly. He’d collect that dinner from John yet. Then he frowned. "But wait a minute; this Department V assassinates its victims with umbrellas?"

  "You’re not very far wrong, but I’ll come to that in a few moments. In any event, Monkes assumed that Sholokov had spotted him and that the umbrella attack was simply a way to warn you not to carry out the rendezvous with him. Sholokov," he added, seeing Gideon’s confused frown. "So Monkes—"

  "Wait, please. I’m starting to lose my way. Why did this Sholokov attack John? Was he trying to kill him?"

  "No, no," Delvaux said. "Don’t you remember? You and John walked directly up to him to talk to him. Isn’t that correct? It’s what John told me."

  "Yes, it’s correct, but I still don’t understand."

  "It seems quite clear to me," Delvaux said with a touch of impatience. "Sholokov assumed that you and John had somehow found him out and were approaching him to detain or perhaps kill him. Probably he thought the Prado was full of NSD agents. And so he panicked, then ran. At least, that is what we think."

  To shake his head perplexedly was not a habitual gesture for Gideon, but he did it for the third time in an hour. The answers he was getting were as complex and paradoxical as the questions. "So I was being hunted by an assassin who thought I was hunting him, and who Monkes thought was my accomplice?"

  Delvaux guffawed as if he had heard a joke. "Exactly, exactly!" He dabbed at the corner of his mouth with a handkerchief. "After the incident in the Prado, Monkes decided to remain with Sholokov rather than with you. After all, he knew where you were staying and could put his hands on you at any time. He followed him to a hotel near Alcala de Henares and monitored his telephone calls."

  Gideon didn’t bother to ask how one goes about monitoring telephone calls. He assumed there was a quick, logical, improbable answer.

  "As soon as Sholokov got to his room, he called the Education Office here at the base and learned your schedule for the next day; that you were taking your class to Torralba—"

  "They told him that?"

  "Why not? A person calls, identifies himself as a Luxembourgian military officer who needs to speak with you—"

  "But didn’t he have a Russian accent?"

  "Ah, but not everyone has your facility with linguistics. And of those who do, how many know what a Luxembourgian sounds like? Eh?"

  Gideon almost shook his head again. Instead he sighed. The boys had stopped playing and had gone, leaving them alone. Gideon suggested that they walk some more and headed them in the general direction of the base shopping center. He wanted people around, Americans engaged in everyday, routine activities.

  "So," said Delvaux, walking with his hands again clasped behind his back and his head thrust forward on its short neck, "Monkes drove to Torralba several hours before you were due to be there, with tape recorder and camera, in order to surprise you in flagrante delicto with Sholokov—"

  "…who was actually going to Torralba for another try at killing me?"

  "So we assume. What happened then is—"

  "Let me guess. When Monkes got to Torralba, he found that the only place he could observe me without being seen was in the museum, so he paid the custodian to let him in and keep anyone else out. Then Sholokov also came early, and he found that the museum was the only place with any cover, and… what? I suppose they surprised one another, fought, and killed each other?" Gideon spoke matter-offactly. The continuing talk of spies and murder had worn down the sharp edge of implausibility.

  "It’s impossible to tell. Monkes’s diary does not include the encounter, of course. But we think that is what happened. And so the book is closed."

  They had reached the shopping center. Even at nine-thirty there was a cheerful, gratifying bustle. The hot-dog stand was already open, and Gideon found the aroma irresistible. He wasn’t sure if he was still hungry because of missing dinner last night or if he simply needed to bite into a chunk of down-home America. Delvaux merely shuddered when Gideon asked him if he would like a hot dog, so Gideon bought one for himself and painted it with a heavy coat of mustard. They found a nearby bench and sat down. Gideon bit in, savoring the American mustard’s clean tang.

  Bright blue patches were appearing in the clouds after all, and the sounds and movement in the shopping center were wonderfully humdrum. He began to understand the virtues of military bases that looked like pieces of Oklahoma, no matter in what exotic locale they sat.

  "Do you know," said Delvaux brightly, "that smells very nice. I believe I will have one."

  He marched off to the stand on his stumpy legs, like a soldier going off to battle, and returned with a hot dog gingerly daubed with mustard.

  "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 batt
ered 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.