Aaron Elkins - Fellowship Of Fear

Crow: Who told you? Oliver, the guy whose room it was? Pino: No, I never seen him before. He wasn’t supposed to know about it, man. No, this was the guy I met in the bar.

Crow: All right, never mind. What was it you copied?

Pino: I don’t know. The guy told me the code number of the sheet. It was mostly numbers. Uh, deployment, something like that. Yeah, deployment patterns, stuff like that. Tactical fighters or something. I don’t remember.

Crow: All right. Now listen to me, Manny. You’re in a hell of a lot of trouble. You’ve been spying-

Pino: Hey, man, I ain’t no-

Crow: You’ve been spying, and that means you could be executed.

Pino: (Shouts and jumps from chair; forcibly restrained.)

Crow: Manny, you’re only making it worse for yourself. Now either cooperate-

Pino: Okay, okay, okay.

Crow: All right, then tell the truth. I mean it.

Pino: I am telling the truth. Look. I’m in this bar in Madrid on Monday night-

Crow: What was the name of the bar?

Pino: Oh, come on, man, I don’t know. It was where all those bars are, where they sell those shrimp. All the guys go there.

Crow: All right, go ahead.

Pino: So I’m in this bar, and this guy comes up to me, and he’s a reporter from the New York Times. Mr. Johnson.

Crow: Did you see some identification? Pino: What, are you kidding? A guy starts talking to me in a bar, I’m supposed to ask for his ID?

Crow: What did he look like?

Pino: I don’t know-like a reporter, I guess. He was pretty old, fifty or sixty. He seemed like an okay guy.

Crow: All right, go ahead.

Pino: So he tells me he’s writing this story about the crummy security on American bases. Like a, a…

Crow: An expose?

Pino: Right, right. So he says if I put the stuff in this guy’s book, he’ll sneak it off the base and then the Times does a big article, and then they’ll pass some laws to tighten up security.

Crow: Go ahead.

Pino: Well, that’s all, man. I know it’s dumb, but I done it. I was trying to be patriotic.

Crow: He gave you money, didn’t he?

Pino: Well, yeah, a hundred dollars, but that’s not why I done it.

I

Delvaux cut in. "Karl, did he tell you how he knew which book to put it in?"

"Yes, he-"

"No, read me the transcript." For a moment there was no sound but the crackling and humming of the wires.

"Here it is," said the agent.

Pino: The guy in the bar, he told me to put it in the back of a book, just stick it between the pages so it doesn’t show.

Crow: Just any book?

Pino: No, he gave me the name. I wrote it on a piece of paper. Hey, I still got it. It’s in my wallet. (Contents of wallet examined. Found cocktail napkin with penciled note: Skull of Sinanthropus Pekinensis, Franz Weidenreich.)

"Why did he say he took the radio, Karl? Impulse?"

"Uh-uh. Here, let me find it…"

"No, no. You can just tell me."

"He says the man in the bar told him to take it. Not the radio, necessarily, just something. Pino said the man told him it would be a cover."

"I’m afraid I don’t see-"

"Well-this is according to Pino, now-the alleged reporter told him that Oliver had ways of knowing if anyone had been in his room, even if a single book or anything was moved a fraction of an inch. But if something was missing, the idea was that Oliver would be bound to think somebody had been in there to steal something; it wouldn’t occur to him that somebody had left something."

Delvaux laughed drily. "What do you think of all this, Karl?"

"We haven’t put Pino on the polygraph yet, but I’d bet he’s not lying. I think the whole thing is so crazy that maybe it’s true."

"That’s precisely what I think. Splendid work, Karl. You’ve done wonderfully."

Delvaux’s breath was shallow with excitement as he replaced the telephone. So Monkes had been correct after all. It was Gideon Oliver, but an innocent Gideon Oliver, who was unknowingly carrying tactical aircraft deployment plans from Torrejon. No doubt the Russians had gotten the information in the same way at Sigonella, only then it had been three pairs of socks, not a radio, that had served as cover.

If only he had given credence to Oliver’s complaint then and had investigated the theft…But it was too late for that now. Now the only important thing was to find Oliver and the book before the Russians did. How strange to think that the key to an East-West confrontation might lie between the pages of an abstruse text in the care of a brilliant but frighteningly naive professor of anthropology.

But where was Oliver? He had been scheduled for a flight from Madrid to Frankfurt that afternoon. He was probably in Germany already, on his way to Heidelberg. My God, was it already too late? There must have been a hundred chances for them to get the information from Oliver: at the airport in Madrid, on the airplane itself, at the Frankfurt airport, at the train station in Frankfurt… No, he told himself. Do not become addle-brained at the moment of success. Be rational.

There was no time to waste on speculation. Oliver had to be found quickly. With Operation Philidor set for Sunday, the Russians would have to get hold of the information within the next twenty-four hours, and that would mean some time tomorrow, no doubt at Heidelberg. Whoever the USOC source was, and however patient, he would be tense with the strain of operating on a timetable that left no room for error. And tense spies were dangerous spies; Oliver’s life would be in considerable peril as long as he held the deployment plans.

There were many things to be done. It would be another night without sleep. First, a call to SHAPE at Mons to tell them about the Pino affair. Then he would telephone Thomas Marks in Heidelberg. Finding the professor could hardly present a problem, even for Marks. The schedule of trains arriving at Heidelberg that evening from Frankfurt could be easily obtained, and one or two men placed at the bahnhof to intercept Oliver. For insurance, Marks could be sent to Oliver’s room at the BOQ to wait for him.

Delvaux smiled a small, tired smile. Once again, the harried professor might have a surprise encounter with strangers in his room. This time, however, he would have no cause for complaint. Until Gideon Oliver was separated from the vital, deadly information he carried, his life was worth nothing. And the closer Operation Philidor’s deadline came, the more danger he would be in.

At ten-thirty that night Gideon lay naked on his side, languorous and content. He was moving his hand down Janet’s bare back in long, slow strokes, starting with firm pressure on her hair, then down the length of her torso, and ending with a gentle caress of her firm, smooth buttocks. Janet was sighing deep in her throat.

"I didn’t know human beings could purr," he said dreamily.

"Was that me?" she said.

"Yup."

"I guess they can, then," she said, and made the sound again. "Ah, Gideon, I’m so glad you’re here, it’s scary. I don’t like liking anyone this much."

Gideon had told her the entire story, from the first solicitation by NSD to Monkes’s death and the theft of the radio. Afterwards, although they had made love earlier, they did so again, with a fierce, almost desperate tenderness on Janet’s part.

At one point during their lovemaking, she had sobbed- a single, gasping sob, like a man’s-and said with anguish,

"They could have killed you," her voice muffled by his chest.

"What?" he had said.

"Nothing," she replied, but he had heard her, and his heart had constricted with pleasure and worry.

"Gideon," she said, "how did you get here so early? I thought your train wasn’t due until eleven."

"I sat next to an army captain from USAREUR on the plane. His wife met him at the airport and they gave me a lift right to the door. That reminds me," he said, beginning to pull his arm from underneath her, "I’d better go down and register. I came straight to your room without stopping at the desk."