Aaron Elkins: Fellowship Of Fear

To his initial dismay, the ship was packed with people: not only the USOC group and many German families, but two of the high-spirited, well-lubricated tour groups, one with yellow hats and one with orange hats. Nevertheless, Gideon enjoyed the trip. The finespun mist that hung in the Rhine valley, the fall colors, the vineyards running nearly vertically up from the river, and above all the castles-the ghostly, haunted, stunningly beautiful castles-all held him so enthralled that he barely noticed the racket on the boat.

After the first half hour, John and Marti went in search of wine and USOC company, but Janet stayed with him in the relatively uncrowded stern, watching the castles glide by. One after another they came, literally at every turn. There was hardly a time when two or three castles could not be seen perched high in the gorge.

When they approached the Lorelei, the great rock that juts into the Rhine like the prow of a stupendous ship, the loudspeakers squawked twice, announced "Die Lorelei," and emitted a series of hollow, tinny noises that were barely recognizable as Silcher’s music to Heine’s famous poem. At first it distressed Gideon. He had loved the song since his high school German class-it was almost all he remembered-and he found the scratchy rendering tasteless and commercial. The passengers paid no attention; they continued to shout, laugh, and pour huge glasses of wine and beer.

Then, as they neared the great rock, the clamor died down. One by one, the Germans softly took up the song, so that, as they passed the towering cliff face, the mournful, surpassingly sweet melody enveloped the ship like a sad, silvery cloud. Gideon was too overcome by the beauty of it to sing. Others were weeping as they sang, and he felt the tears come to his own eyes. Janet, her eyes shining too, leaned closer from her chair and tilted her head onto his shoulder.

"Oh, you neat, crazy man," she said, her voice furry. "It is glorious, isn’t it?"

He squeezed her hand and leaned his cheek against the top of her head.

After a while in the hush that followed the song, she spoke again, her head still on his shoulder. "Do you know, everyone talks about how corny that is. Me, too. But in my heart I’ve always felt it was beautiful. I was afraid you wouldn’t like it, but I should have known."

He must have dozed then in the peaceful filtered sunlight, because when he felt something brush heavily against his arm he sprang up, startled and ready to fight. What he saw were several yellow-hatted tourists lurching down the deck away from him.

"Easy, easy," Janet said, a gentle concern in her voice. "They just bumped you accidentally. They’re a little pie-eyed, that’s all."

"That’s twice today," he said angrily. "Why don’t they watch where they’re going?"

"Be fair, now. It’s not as if they were the same people."

"They look the same to me. That guy on the right, he sure looks like the one that practically ran me over on the Drosselgasse."

"How can you tell? You barely saw him."

"Well," he said, knowing how childish he sounded, "he’s blond and big, and full of beer, and-"

"So are ninety percent of the passengers." She laughed, suddenly. "My, baby gets grumpy when he wakes up all of a sudden, doesn’t he?"

He smiled sheepishly and sat down. "I guess I do. I’m not sure why you put up with me." He turned over The Skull of Sinanthropus Pekinensis. The back cover was partially torn off. "They nearly knocked it overboard, and my arm with it. Bruce will have a fit."

"Well, for all the reading you’ve done in it, you could have left it with him this morning."

"I know. I really did mean to read it, though."

"Go ahead; it won’t bother me. I should go mingle for a while, anyway. I’ll bring you back some wine later on."

After she had left, he realized that the boat was on its return trip; he had slept longer than he thought. When she returned with the wine half an hour later, the book lay on his lap, still open to page three. With a sigh, he closed it and willingly gave himself up to the Rhine, the wine, and Janet.

Gideon poured another glass of the superb 1971 Johannisberger Auslese from the little gray ceramic pitcher in front of him. Then he sat back, absently fingering the raised crest on the pitcher while he gazed at the famous vineyards that ran from the edge of the terrace down almost to the Rhine far below. He was utterly content. Russian spies and military secrets and threats of war and umbrella-guns were parts of another world.

At the table with him, John, Marti, and Janet looked equally relaxed with their own glasses and pitchers. In the middle of the table, two plates held some creamy white smears and a few dark specks, all that was left of a huge order of weisskase and black bread.

They were on the Rheinterras at Schloss Johannisberg, a few miles south of Rudesheim, refreshing themselves before continuing back to Heidelberg. The university had reserved five tables at the famous castle, home of the Metternichs since the early 1800s and prime source of one of the world’s great wines. As he did every year, according to Janet, Dr. Rufus was paying for it out of his own pocket. There had been several toasts to the chancellor, and he had returned them copiously. He was, in fact, well into his fourth pitcher of wine, and more red-faced, amiable, and bearlike than ever, moving from table to table, backslapping, guffawing, and mopping his beaming face.

"It’s a good thing he’s going to be riding home in the bus," John said, smiling, as they watched him roar delightedly over something a pretty history instructor had whispered in his ear.

"Yes," Gideon said. "It’s nice to see him have a good time, though."

Marti spoke suddenly, directly to Gideon: "Hey, who invented wine?"

"Well, let’s see," he said. "I’m not really sure. The Romans and Greeks had it-"

"Same kind of wine as this?" she said, holding up her glass.

"I wouldn’t be surprised. I think Riesling goes back to the Romans, or to Charlemagne, at least. I know he planted vines right on these hillsides about 800 a.d."

John laughed, "Doc, now how the hell would you know that? You’ve never even been here before."

"Well, Charlemagne did plant vineyards in the Rheingau hills-everybody knows that-and the Rheingau isn’t very big, and these are the only hills that are-"

He stopped suddenly as he was waving an arm over the scene. Two bulky men were walking onto the Rheinterras, looking casually about them. Gideon stared hard at them. Then he looked away. Janet had been wrong; he was sure of it now. The man who had bumped into him in Rudesheim and the yellow-hatted tourist who had nearly knocked him from his deck chair had been the same. And here he was again, once more with the fat bald man who had pinned his arms on the Drosselgasse.

"What’s the matter, Doc? What is it?" John spoke urgently, his eyes sweeping the terrace.

Gideon didn’t reply. Out of the corner of his eye, he had seen them notice him and gesture inconspicuously at the wine glass near his hand. But why the wine glass? He looked down at the table; wine glass, pitcher, book…The book!

He suddenly remembered the envelope he’d been carrying in the inside pocket of his jacket all day. Fingers trembling with excitement, he pulled it out and tore it open.

"Gideon," Janet said, "what is it? What’s wrong?"

"Wait," he said breathlessly, "just let me…" He read the note urgently: Do not let book, Skull of Sinanthropus Pekinensis out of your sight… " Good God!

"Doc, for Christ’s sake-"

"John, John!" he said, his thoughts tumbling wildly. "It’s the book! The book!"

He grabbed awkwardly at the book, almost dropping it, and riffled the pages. At once, near the back he found the half sheet of memo paper with writing in pencil on it. He read it aloud in a stunned whisper: " ‘Deployment of tactical air forces. 1. Northern sector: Fighter-bombers, missile-equipped, 220 aircraft…’ God!" It finally clicked in his mind. He spun out of his chair to face the two men, and shouted to the others at the table. "Janet, watch out! John-"