Aaron Elkins - Fellowship Of Fear

"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.