Aaron Elkins - Fellowship Of Fear

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.