Fellowship Of Fear

ELEVEN

The young guard in the dreary vestibule was the same one who’d been on duty before. He looked sourly at the ID that Gideon held up before the thick glass.

"I have an appointment with Mr. Marks," Gideon said.

The guard shoved a half-eaten Oh Henry candy bar off a typewritten sheet on the counter in front of him, then brushed away peanut and chocolate crumbs with the back of his hand. He studied the sheet for a long time. Finally, with a sigh and a what-the-hell-I-don’t-give-a-shit shrug, he said, "Go ahead."

Gideon was in the mood for a fight, but not with a churlish adolescent who didn’t even know he was being rude. He walked down the seedy hallway to Mark’s office, where he found Fraru Stetten looming steeply over her typewriter. Without stopping her typing, she glanced up at Gideon and cocked her head at the door to the inner office.

"Thank you and good morning to you too," Gideon said.

As usual, being snide gave him an immediate rotten feeling. Catching her eye as he walked past her, he smiled at her as pleasantly as he could. In return she bestowed a highly perfunctory lip contraction that made him sorry he hadn’t left well enough alone.

Marks was half-sitting on the windowsill in a pensive, judicial pose, arms folded and head inclined, with the earpiece of his horn-rimmed glasses between pursed lips.

The man of a thousand roles, thought Gideon. Had he been posing like that since nine o’clock, or had he leapt there upon some secret signal from Frau Stetten? Maybe there’d been warning of Gideon’s approach from the guard. All of the possibilities were in keeping with what he’d seen of Marks so far.

"Sit down, Dr. Oliver," he said without moving. "Just thinking through a tricky little problem here."

With an affable smile, Gideon sat down in a metal side chair. The desk top was littered with the remains of an earlier meeting: half a glass pot of coffee, three or four styrofoam cups, three doughnuts, two of them untouched.

Gideon gestured at them with his chin. "No chance for breakfast this morning. Do you mind?"

"What?" said Marks abstractedly from the labyrinthine corridors of profound thought. "Yes, certainly. I mean, no, of course not."

Gideon wolfed down a vanilla-iced doughnut. It was delicious. The coffee was lukewarm, so he poured what was left of the milk from a metal creamer into a cup and drank that. Inasmuch as Marks was still chewing his spectacles, Gideon went cheerfully on to the next doughnut, a jelly-filled one. Besides tasting good, his impromptu breakfast seemed to throw Marks off his stride, which was fine. Gideon needed a lot of information from him, and if he were rattled, so much the better.

Marks took his glasses out of his mouth and sat down behind his desk with an "Ah, well…" that announced he was regretfully now back in the mundane world represented by Gideon Oliver. He lit a cigarette while watching Gideon lick the last of the jelly from his fingers.

"I thought we had a nine o’clock appointment," Marks said.

"Sorry. Someone broke into my room last night. It held me up."

"Is that right? Don’t tell me the Sock Bandit of Sicily has struck again?"

"Is that supposed to be funny? Look, Mr. Marks-"

"Oliver, let’s stop fooling around. It’s not working. We picked the wrong man. Let’s forget the whole thing." He dragged deeply on his cigarette.

Gideon was so surprised that all he could do was echo Marks stupidly: "Forget the whole thing?"

"That’s right. Consider yourself fired. Without prejudice, of course."

"Fired? Hell, you never hired me!" The anger Gideon had been carrying around went from a simmer to a boil. It felt good. "Now let’s get things straight. A couple of weeks ago, you asked me to take on an assignment-for the cause of peace, if I remember correctly. There wasn’t going to be any danger to me, virtually none, as you put it-"

"Monsieur Delvaux."

"What?"

" Le directeur said that, not me."

Gideon looked sharply at him. The stare was blandly returned through a haze of cigarette smoke. Marks wasn’t quite the clown he’d been last time.

"Since then," Gideon went on, "I’ve been beaten up twice, I’ve been attacked by an armed gang, my room’s been broken into at least two times-"

"Not quite right; you’ve only been beaten up once. The first time you were beaten up was before you took the assignment. Remember, we talked to you Friday, the day after-"

"God damn it, Marks, don’t fuck around with me!" He clamped his mouth shut; this wouldn’t do. Using profanity was rare with him, a sure sign that he had slipped from the cool, rational anger with which he’d walked in, into the sort of loutish tantrum he despised. It was he, not Marks, who was off his stride. He took a long, slow breath.

Marks put his hands behind his head and leaned back lazily, eyes narrowed against the smoke of the cigarette dangling from his mouth.

"A little while ago, you said you’d picked the wrong man," said Gideon more quietly. "I’d appreciate knowing what you think I did wrong."

Marks raised his right eyebrow above his horn-rimmed glasses in a gesture that must have taken hours of mirror practice. "Look, Oliver, you’re just not the type. Our people have to be unobtrusive. You seem to have a way of getting into violent situations. To be perfectly frank, we think there’s something unstable about you, and we can’t risk it."

"Unstable?" Gideon couldn’t sit still any longer. He jumped to his feet. "I can’t believe this! You’re actually blaming me for what’s been happening?"

"You get into altercations on the street, for God’s sake! Like last night on the Haupstrasse…just because someone bumps into you… I mean, really-"

"Bumps into me! Marks, that wasn’t someone! That was the man who tried to kill me a couple of weeks ago. He was following me-" Gideon stopped himself, aware of how emotional he was and how melodramatic he sounded. A sudden thought hit him. "Wait a minute. How did you know about that? Are you people following me around?" He sank back into his chair.

"We’ve been keeping an eye on you, yes. We wouldn’t just turn you loose without protection. And it’s been more trouble than we can afford."

"Protection!" Gideon said. He knew he kept repeating Marks, but he couldn’t help himself. Somehow, Marks had taken control, and every statement he made was so newly outrageous that it threw Gideon into fresh confusion. "If that’s the way you protect your people, no wonder the free world’s in trouble."

"Is that right?" For the first time, Marks’s voice had an angry edge. "Just who do you think got you out of that ditch in Sicily?"

"The man on the bridge? That was one of your men? Then you must know who those… goons were."

"Forget it. I already told you more than I should have."

"Marks, I have a right to know. I came awfully close to being killed."

"We don’t operate on right-to-know. We operate on need-to-know, remember? And you don’t need to know."

"Marks-"

"Oliver, there’s no point in continuing this. I’ll be as honest as I can." He lit another cigarette from the stub of the old one and inhaled deeply. "We are terminating our relationship with you because it’s not doing any good. That’s all I’m at liberty to tell you." He reached for a manila folder on the desk and opened it. "Now, I have a lot of important things to do." Once again Gideon was being dismissed.

"At liberty, hell," Gideon said. "You don’t know any more than I do about this, do you? I don’t know why I’m wasting my time talking to Delvaux’s errand boy." He got up again.

As simple as it was, it worked. Marks was still Marks. Two red spots appeared on the sides of his throat. He slammed the folder closed. "The Russians needed something from Sigonella; they got it. They needed something from Rhein-Main; they got it. They got it without having to go to you." As he spoke, smoke dribbled from his mouth as if his tongue were on fire. "They don’t need you. They’re obviously getting what they need some other way. So you’re not doing them-or us-any good. What’s more, you’re one hell of a lot of trouble. So thanks for all your help, and good-bye. You’re no longer involved." He opened the folder again.

Gideon put his hands on the desk and leaned over Marks. "It’s not that simple. There’s something about being run off the road, and shot at, and garroted, and having a knife waved in your face that’s highly involving-engrossing, even. Whether NSD likes it or not, I’m involved, and I intend to say involved."

Marks looked up at Gideon, his hands flat on the folder. "It’s not that simple either. I’m having your schedule changed again. You won’t be going to any more sensitive bases, I’m afraid. So there won’t be much chance of involvement."

"What do you mean, ‘again’?" It was you who got Dr. Rufus to change my schedule in the first place?"

"What?" said Marks with mock surprise. "You mean the learned professor didn’t have that figured out? Yes, of course it was us, and we intend to do it again. You can kiss romantic Torrejon off, Doctor. On Monday you’ll be off to Frankfurt."

"Oh no," said Gideon with more confidence than he felt. "No way. I’m a teacher; I don’t work for NSD. I agreed to go to Torrejon, and that’s where I’m going. I’ve put too many hours into preparing my lectures to have the schedule changed with one day’s notice." This wasn’t strictly true, but it wouldn’t hurt.

Taking the cigarette from his mouth, Marks stifled a fake yawn. "We’ll see," he said.

In his mind Gideon drew a comic-strip balloon with dotted lines. "Screw you," he wrote in it. (Imaginary profanity didn’t count.) Aloud he said, "Well, thanks for your time." As he was leaving, he smiled again at Frau Stetten, receiving in return an aloof and virginal nod.

"Puffed wheat," said Dr. Rufus from behind him.

"Pardon?" Gideon said, turning in his chair and beginning to rise.

"No, stay where you are, my boy," said Dr. Rufus, coming up to Gideon and pounding him on the shoulder. "I said that the object you are holding in your hand and studying so carefully is a kernel of puffed wheat."

He had come looking for Dr. Rufus a few minutes earlier, straight from NSD headquarters. The chancellor’s secretary had said he was somewhere in the building and had shown Gideon into his office to wait. He had taken a thickly upholstered chair in a grouping by the window, and his attention had been caught at once by the large glass bowl on the coffee table nearby. He had thought it was full of lentils or pebbles until, sticking a finger in, he had found them hollow. He had just picked one up to smell it when Dr. Rufus came in.

With a sigh, the chancellor plumped his bearlike body down in the sofa opposite Gideon. "Ah, yes, puffed wheat, couldn’t live without it. Finest snack in the world. Munch ‘em all day long and never gain an ounce. Why, the whole bowl probably doesn’t contain ten ounces. Of course, you have to get the good kind, not the ones in the plastic bags; those are two-thirds sediment."

He settled back and crossed one chubby thigh over the other. "Well, well, well, you’ve had quite a harrowing adventure, I hear. I hope you’re all right now?" His face sagged as he took his first good look at Gideon. "Oh my! You’ve really been hurt, haven’t you? I had no idea…"

Gideon smiled, something he could do with no pain at all now. "You should have seen me last week. I’m fine now, and they tell me it won’t be long before I look myself, or at least before I’m predominantly flesh-colored again."

"I’m certain of it. Still, I just had no idea…" Dr. Rufus slowly shook his head back and forth.

The commiseration was making Gideon uneasy. Until then he had been rather pleased with the improvement in his appearance. "Sir," he said, "I’ve just come from NSD. Tom Marks told me that the reason you changed my schedule a few weeks ago was so that they could use me as an informant at Sigonella and Torrejon. Is that true?"

"Well," said Dr. Rufus, frowning and reaching into the puffed wheat, "well now-"

"Dr. Rufus, I’ve been through a lot since I came to USOC. I’d certainly appreciate the truth."

Dr. Rufus absent-mindedly popped a kernel into his mouth. "All right, Gideon, I agree with you." He was still frowning, and Gideon could see little beads of sweat glistening on his pink forehead. "I’m just not sure how much I’m allowed…" He wiped his brow, snorted forcefully, and appeared to come to a decision.

"All right," he said, looking extremely uncomfortable. "About a week before the new faculty came to Heidelberg, Mr. Marks called me. He had a list of, oh, three or four of you. There was you, and Dr. Kyle, and, um, Mr. Morgan, I think. Mr. Marks asked me if I could assign any of you to both Sigonella and Torrejon, as a favor to the NATO Security Directorate. Ah, no, it wasn’t Mr. Morgan, it was Dr. Gordon. I remember because-"

"You mean he would have taken any of us? He didn’t want me, specifically?"

"You, specifically? Oh, no, no. They ran checks of the incoming faculty, and the three of you-you know, I think it was Morgan-were found to be entirely trustworthy; ‘clean’ was the way Mr. Marks put it. Choosing you, I’m afraid, was my doing."

"Why did you pick me?"

"Well, Dr. Kyle teaches physics, you see, and Torrejon had just had physics last semester; and Mr. Morgan-yes, it was Morgan, I’m sure of it-teaches only undergraduate courses, and Sigonella needed a graduate offering. You, on the other hand-"

"…got into this incredible situation because I happen to teach graduate anthropology."

Dr. Rufus looked contrite. "I’m afraid that’s right. I can’t tell you how sorry I am that it’s resulted in so much trouble for you. If I’d had any idea you’d be hurt…" He spread his hands, palms upward, in an impotent gesture of sympathy.

"Dr. Rufus," said Gideon, "forgive me, but just what sort of thing did you think NSD had in mind?"

The chancellor shook his head woefully. "I suppose I didn’t think. Mr. Marks assured me there wouldn’t be any risk. And I, well, I felt it was USOC’s duty to provide assistance to NATO, as long as it didn’t interfere with our plans."

"Well, it sure interfered with my personal plans."

Abstractedly, Dr. Rufus ate some more puffed wheat. "Of course," he said, "I don’t know what it is Marks asked you to do; I never do. But are you certain that your, ah"- he gestured at Gideon’s scarred face-"is a result of your… um, association with NSD?"

Gideon ignored the question. "What do you mean, you never do? Has Marks asked you to do this before?"

"What?" In his surprise at the question, Dr. Rufus put back into the bowl a kernel he had been about to eat. "Well, yes, certainly, of course. Didn’t I say that? Nearly every semester. There’s always some small schedule rearrangement or program change they’d like us to make. If we can, we do. If we can’t, that’s the end of it. But nothing like this has happened before… Sicilian gangsters shooting at you…"

"What about the two previous visiting fellows?"

"Oh no, surely you don’t think…why, I can’t really recall…Mr. Marks asks us not to keep records of that sort of thing… But look, Dr. Dee wasn’t attacked; he was killed in an automobile accident in Italy."

"And so would I have been, if I hadn’t been able to brake in time. Dr. Rufus, I can’t believe you’ve allowed your faculty to be used like this."

The chancellor’s remorseful expression made him relent a little. "Of course," Gideon went on, "I understand why you’d want to help NATO. I feel the same way. But to simply do whatever they want without asking any questions, and to put your staff into situations of danger without their even knowing it…" Feeling unpleasantly sanctimonious, he let the sentence trail away. Dr. Rufus hadn’t put him into his situation; he’d done it himself. If he hadn’t wanted to go along with NSD, he’d had his chance to say so to Marks and Delvaux.

Dr. Rufus mopped the back of his neck and put his handkerchief in his pocket. He was done with sweating, the gesture seemed to say. He sat up straight, his hands on his knees. "You’re entirely right," he said. "I’ve always been ambivalent about this sort of thing, you know. I should never have allowed it. My God, to think I might be responsible… My boy, we’ll cancel your Torrejon assignment, of course. Where would you like to deliver your lectures instead? I’ll personally arrange it anywhere we have an education office. We certainly owe that much to you. Rome? Athens? How about Istanbul? Berlin?"

"Torrejon."

Dr. Rufus looked at him with his mouth open. Gideon had an urge to toss in a puffed wheat kernel.

"Yes, Torrejon. Now that I’m in it, I want to stay in it. There are too many loose ends for me to just give it up."

"But my boy, my boy, you’ve already been nearly killed. Oh, I could never let you…oh no, it’s out of the question. I’d never forgive myself…" The handkerchief was out and at work again. "Besides, Mr. Marks, Mr. Delvaux… They’d never permit it-"

"Are you saying that, as chancellor, you have to get their permission to assign your own faculty?"

"Well, in a case like this…Why, I think I should… After all…"

"Dr. Rufus, I’ve nearly been killed twice. I’ve got thirty-some stitches in my face. I’ve been driven to hurting other people, maybe killing one. My privacy’s been repeatedly violated. And," he said, realizing for the first time what the heart of it was, "I’ve been made to feel like a puppet, a pawn…a fool. I’m not out for vengeance; at least I don’t think I am. But I can’t just walk away from it now and let it ferment for the rest of my life." Embarrassed and a little surprised by his vehemence, he stopped.

Dr. Rufus looked at Gideon with a mixture of pride and concern, as a father might watch a son going off to war. "Very well, my dear boy, I understand, more than you think I do." He patted Gideon’s knee. "Torrejon it is. Mr. Marks can go to hell. But you will be careful, won’t you? If there’s any help I can give you…"

"Thanks, sir; John Lau’s already being very helpful. In fact," he said, standing up, "I’m supposed to meet him for lunch in half an hour. Then I’ve got a few business stops to make back here."

The chancellor rose and walked with Gideon across the office. "Ah, yes, you’ll have to pick up your travel orders and tickets and things. And be sure and stop by the library. Bruce has been holding onto some new books for you."

"I will. I have to return some to him, anyway."

"Fine." Placing his hand on Gideon’s arm to stop him at the door, he spoke in a low, earnest voice. His honest face, close to Gideon’s, was redolent of after-shave lotion and puffed wheat. "Gideon, are you sure you’re doing the right thing? Shouldn’t this be left to the professionals? My boy, if anything were to happen to you…"

"Don’t worry, Dr. Rufus. I know exactly what I’m doing," said Gideon, wishing mightily that he did.