Aaron Elkins - Fellowship Of Fear

"Are you sure?"

"Well, I think so. I work part-time in the Logistics Office, and I make up a lot of the itineraries."

"You work with Eric?" There was a slight chill in his voice.

"Oh, for gosh sake, don’t go all green-eyed monster on me. A lady has to support herself you know."

She kissed him briskly. Then she turned on the lamp near the bed and propped herself up on one elbow. Gideon rolled over on his back, his hands behind his neck.

"This oddball routing," Janet said, "do you think it has something to do with the funny stuff that’s been happening to you?"

"I sure wouldn’t be surprised. Obviously, my ferret-faced friend was aware that I was back." He paused, chewing his lip. "Maybe I was even brought back so he could do whatever it is he had in mind. Or has in mind."

"But what could Eric possibly have to do with that?"

"I don’t know, but I intend to find out." He turned toward her again. She was still on one elbow, one round breast swaying gently, inches from his face.

"My God, Janet," he said softly, "how beautiful you are." He cupped the mysterious heaviness of one lovely globe in his hand and moved it toward his lips.

"Be serious, now, Gideon; don’t do that," she said, but Gideon noted that she didn’t pull away. "This stuff scares me. Do you think you’re in danger? Is Eric involved? What could the point possibly be?"

"Mmm," said Gideon.

"Gideon, don’t do that," she said again, but her voice was husky. She began to stroke his hair.

"Mmmmmmm," he said.

Deep in the night, he had a childish nightmare. A glaring monster-an old movie-style zombie with outstretched arms, but with features that were familiar-pursued him. He couldn’t run; his feet were caught in gluelike mud. He must have cried out because he was awakened by Janet caressing his cheek.

"Sh, sh," she said. "It’s all right, I’m here. Shh."

When he was free of the dream, she said, "Do you want to talk about it? Did it have to do with the little rat in the Haupstrasse?"

As soon as she said it, he knew to whom the features had belonged.

"Yes," he said. "You know, the way that guy looked at me tonight… as ifI were a…a…"

"A fat green worm he found in his soup."

"Ugh. Yes. Like that. That’s what bothers me the most. That man detests me, absolutely despises me-and I don’t even know who he is. It’s so-"

Janet placed her fingers on his mouth and then gently cupped his face. "Sh," she said again. "Four a.m.’s a rotten time to try to think anything through. We’ll talk about it in the morning. Hug me, please."

But when he jumped out of bed four hours later, Janet merely opened one eye. "Eek," she said. "There’s a naked man in my room." She chortled and went back to sleep.

Gideon put on enough of his clothes to walk down the hallway to his room. The check of the carpet, almost habitual by now, revealed no toothpick slivers. Entering the room, he found it pleasantly austere, almost monklike, after Janet’s clutter. Not that he was complaining. A little clutter wasn’t the worst thing in the world.

While he shaved and showered, his mind kept drifting happily over the previous night, although he knew he should have been framing questions for Marks. Certainly he wasn’t in love with Janet; he doubted if he would ever really love anyone again. But she was surely the best thing that had happened to him since Nora. Cautiously, he probed his mind for traces of guilt or disloyalty, but none were there. He had crossed a big barrier last night. Things were definitely looking up.

By the time he finished dressing, he was whistling. It was 8:25. If he didn’t dawdle, there’d be time for a cup of coffee and a roll at the Officers’ Club before heading downtown.

At the door to his room, he paused to search for the toothpick slivers so he could reinsert them. They would fall out, of course, whenever he opened the door, and he usually picked them up on entering. When he’d returned from Janet’s room, however, he’d had a cane in one hand and some clothes in the other, so he hadn’t bothered.

Or had he? They weren’t on the floor. A panicky sort of alarm went through him as he searched his memory. No, he was sure he hadn’t picked them up. Opening the door wide, he checked to see if they had somehow lodged in the jamb or the hinges and failed to drop the floor. That hadn’t happened, of course. The wood splinters were simply gone.

Closing the door again, he stood with his back against it, his mind working jumpily. Could he have forgotten to place them before he went out with Janet last night? He wasn’t sure. He couldn’t remember doing it, but he couldn’t remember not doing it either. No, he thought, he must have; there was no way he would have forgotten to do that. Someone must have been in his room, then-perhaps during the night, perhaps earlier when he’d been out with Janet. His check of the carpet when they’d returned hadn’t meant anything one way or the other.

In the back of a notebook, he found the list of articles he had made in Sicily and began to move around the room checking things off. It still didn’t seem possible that anyone had been there; it might mean that someone had seen the two tiny splinters fall to the floor when the door opened, and had simply removed them. Gideon just couldn’t accept that. Each sliver was the pointed end of a toothpick, less than a sixteenth of an inch long. Unless you knew what you were looking for, they would be invisible against the mottled beige carpet. No, it was impossible. No one could have seen them.

But someone had. On top of his desk, in the exact middle, lay a sheet of white paper he hadn’t noticed before, its edges neatly aligned with the borders of the desk. In the middle of the paper, a heavy black circle had been drawn with a marking pen. And in the middle of the circle, neatly parallel to each other, lay the two minute fragments of wood.

With a spurt of energy, Gideon hurried through his list. Nothing was missing. There was no sign of anyone having been there, as far as he could tell, except for the paper on the desk. Going back to the desk, he stood looking down at the slivers, trying to analyze what he was feeling. There was the now-familiar sense of privacy invaded, of vulnerability; he had felt that in both Heidelberg and Sicily, when he’d found that someone had been in his room. But now there was something different. Then, fear had been a prominent emotion. Not now. He wasn’t even remotely frightened. That ferret-faced son of a bitch had come into his room when he wasn’t there, had covered up his tracks without a trace, and then had had the effrontery, the gall, to flaunt the fact that he’d done it, as if Gideon were so stupid he’d never have figured it out for himself. Which happened to be true, but that was beside the point.

What he was feeling was a cold, lucid anger. In the mirror above the desk, he saw his own battered image: red welts from the cuts around his eyes, a livid scar where his cheek had been torn, fading but still-prominent bruises over the rest of his face. What the mirror didn’t show was the anxiety he’d been living with since the first time Ferret-face and his friend had skulked into his room and ambushed him two weeks ago.

Well, he was done being a pawn. If NSD, and John Lau for that matter, couldn’t protect him, he would protect himself. And he’d settle his own scores. No more of this passively waiting around until the next time he got beaten up.

He crumpled up the paper with the slivers and tossed them into the wastebasket. When he walked to the door, his back felt straighter than it had in a long time. He threw the cane on the bed as he left. He felt very, very fine.

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.