Aaron Elkins - Fellowship Of Fear

Eric Bozzini had come late Monday morning and had left at four in the afternoon. John had found out the time of his arrival, and Gideon met him with the rented car for the mile-and-a-half drive to the Officer’s Club for lunch. He also drove him back at the end of the day and spent several tedious hours with him in between. Eric was garrulous and good-humored, seemingly not in the least anxious to shake him off. When Gideon wasn’t with him, John shadowed him from a distance. The net result was a certainty that Eric had conducted nothing but Logistics business at Torrejon. What he might have done had they not been there, they had no way of knowing, but Gideon was more convinced than ever that Eric was not the mysterious USOC’r of the Russian messages.

American NATO bases are among the least exotic, most humdrum places in the world. After two days at Torrejon, Gideon, growing restive, had begun to wonder if he’d deluded himself into expecting a nonexistent adventure. Why was he so sure the things that had happened to him were not simply coincidences? Coincidences did happen, after all, and were they not, by definition, unlikely sets of causally unrelated events? With NSD cutting its ties to him, what made him think he’d still be of interest to the Russians, if indeed he ever had been? How did he know they hadn’t already gotten whatever it was they were after at Torrejon? After all he’d been through, he still didn’t know who or what he was looking for. Nor was he very clear on his wheres or whens. That left whys and hows; not so hot there either.

On Tuesday night, at their regular after-class meeting in John’s room, John had told him that he had been ordered back to Heidelberg and had to fly out of Torrejon late the following afternoon.

With less difficulty than he had anticipated, Gideon had convinced him that they should give up the hunt and go see something of Madrid on John’s final day. John had grumbled a bit about it being unsafe for Gideon off the base, but hadn’t taken long to agree to a trip to the Prado; he was as frustrated and bored as Gideon.

Now that they were finally out, the beer, the food, and the Paseo were all beginning to raise their spirits. With a try at jauntiness, John banged his empty glass on the table. "I’m still not ready for all those paintings. How about some more shrimp? And let’s split another bottle of beer."

Both men relaxed with their refreshed beers and let their eyes rove about the scene around them. Gideon looked with pleasure at the eighteenth-century colonnade of the Prado and at the long rows of narrow windows. Three weeks in Europe had hardly diminished his I-can’t-believe-I’m-really-here-seeing-all-these-wonderful-places attitude. John, however, was looking from face to face of diners and passersby with more than casual interest.

"Looking for anyone in particular?" Gideon asked.

"No," John replied, his eyes continuing to move. "Cop’s habit, I guess. Just seeing if there’s anyone watching us, or anybody else who looks like a cop or an agent. Anybody who doesn’t quite belong."

"I understand how you’d spot a cop-he’d have his back to a tree or a wall, the way you do-but how do you tell agents?"

"You learn. It’s part of the job."

"Are you finding anything?"

"Probably not," John said, smiling as he peeled a shrimp with his fingers. "There are a few people who don’t look Spanish. I was just wondering if one of them could be a Russian. The blond guy leaning against the fountain-the one studying the guidebook so hard."

Gideon sipped his beer and looked at the tall young man over the rim of his glass for a few moments. "Nope," he said.

"Nope, what?"

"Nope, he’s not a Russian."

"If you mean he’s reading a German guidebook, I can see that, too, but that doesn’t prove anything."

"Of course not; I was looking at him from an anthropometric perspective."

"Oh boy," John said.

"Oh boy, what?"

"Oh boy, I’m about to get bullshitted."

"How can you say that?" said Gideon, keeping his face straight only with an effort. "I was just going to point out that he’s a classic model of Nordic subrace characteristics: extremely dolicocephalic-cranial index of no more than seventy-five; leptorrhine nasal index. Why, look at the compressed alae and malars. Just look at those gonial angles!"

"See? I can always tell when it’s coming. So, if he’s not Russian, what is he?"

"Swedish, or maybe from the Norwegian uplands, or even northern Germany or England. But definitely not Russian."

"What would he look like if he was Russian?"

"If he were Russian, he might be one of several anthropomorphic types, or a composite. First, he-"

"I’m already sorry I asked," muttered John.

"-could be an East Baltic brachycephal, or he might be a Dinaric acrocephalic brachycephal, or an Armenoid-" Gideon couldn’t help bursting into laughter at John’s disgusted expression. "You’re not doubting me, are you?"

"Doc, I never know whether you’re kidding when you do that. Jesus Christ, acrybrachyphallic…"

Gideon finished his beer and wiped his lips with the cloth napkin; he was feeling much better. "Anyway," he said, "I’d still bet that guy’s a Scandinavian."

"But-"

"What’s the difference, anyway? You don’t have to be a Russian to be a Russian spy. And he could come from Scandinavian parents but be a Russian himself. No way to tell that from cranial conformation. But how can you be thinking about spies on a day like this in a place like this?" "That isn’t the point. You just finished telling me-"

"In any event, it’s moot." Gideon gestured with his head, and they both watched the tall young man walking away from them toward El Retiro Park, his head still buried in the guidebook.

John sighed in mock exasperation. "You know, you’re the only guy in the whole world I never win any arguments with."

"That’s because I am a Ph. D. and therefore know all kinds of smart stuff."

John nodded soberly and sighed again, like a man resigned to his fate. "I think I’m ready for the Prado now."

John was a good sport about it, but it was obvious that the endless galleries severely tested his endurance. He expressed considerably more appreciation for several of the women visitors than for any of the works of art, and was always a few steps ahead of Gideon, pulling him on to the next painting, the next room. Gideon quickly gave up on John’s art education and concentrated on enjoying the paintings himself.

After three hours in the museum, he had had enough. Promising the long-suffering John no more than a ten-minute detour, he led them back to the Velazquez rooms for one more look at Las Meninas. At the entrance to the Great Rotunda, Gideon stopped.

"Now there you are," he said, pointing at a hulking man with shaggy, dark hair who stood in front of a portrait of Philip IV mounted uneasily upon a horse. " That is an absolutely classic Armenoid composite. Acrocephalic, mesorrhine, cephalic index of at least eighty-five, everted lower lip-"

"Are you saying he’s Russian?"

"Maybe. More like Balkan-Rumanian, Yugoslavian, Bulgarian…"

John looked keenly at the man, watching him move slowly to a second portrait of the ungainly Philip and bend close to examine the ornate frame.

"Don’t get excited, John. What would an agent be doing here?"

"It’s not that. I just think you’re wrong. I say he’s English."

"English! That guy doesn’t have an English gene in his entire body. He’s pure Balkan."

"A famous professor once told me there’s no pure anything."

"So much for famous professors," Gideon said.

"How much do you want to bet?"

A disapproving guard approached with outstretched palms and frowning brow. "Senores…por favor…" They apologized and moved out of the entrance way.