Fellowship of Fear

by Aaron Elkins

  Some plan: Option A, crawl like a snake; Option B, run like a rabbit. Still, the rabbit had made it.

  There seemed to be some purposeful activity on the bridge now. Gideon could see from the flashlight beams that the men were separating. Chances were, they were splitting up to search for him. Now was the time.

  He pushed himself into a kneeling position and grabbed the bag of garbage. It was good to move, to contract his muscles. He could almost feel his autonomic nervous system go smoothly to work, pumping out the adrenalin. More exhilarated than frightened, he was optimistic now about making it, and anxious to give it a try. He longed in fact for a physical encounter, a showdown, but he knew he’d be crazy to try it.

  As he shifted his hand to a throwing grasp around the neck of the bag, someone lowered a flashlight an arm’s length over the side at the far end of the bridge, where he had jumped off, and swept the beam in a circle. Gideon had to drop flat again, his eye to the space between bridge support and brace. Just before the beam reached him, he realized with a start of horror that he hadn’t let go of the bag, that his right arm was out in the open, not behind the support. He had no time to move it, however, before the beam was on him, lighting up his wet and glistening forearm, it seemed to him, like a multi-faceted diamond, throwing reflections and rays in every direction. As the beam hovered for a moment, an icy sweat jumped to the surface of his skin below the warmer layer of muck. He lay, breathless and tight-chested, waiting for the bullets, exerting all his control not to pull his arm out of the light and get up and make his run right then.

  And the beam moved on; somehow they had failed to see him. He lay trembling in the slime. His autonomic nervous system seemed to have changed its mind; a physical encounter was the last thing in the world he wanted.

  When he raised his head to look toward the far end of the bridge, he saw a pair of legs dangling from where the flashlight had been shining. The man sat on the edge of the bridge for a second and then dropped to the muddy stream bed with a soft plop. Gideon was surprised to see that the drop was a good six feet. He had been lucky not to break a leg when he had plunged blindly over the side. The first man then helped a second down—the tall, slender one— and they both moved toward the support at the far end, pistols and flashlights in hand. Gideon felt an absurd flash of relief that he had made for this support instead of that one; it gave him perhaps another minute before he was discovered.

  He remembered seeing a broom handle nearby when he had reached for the garbage bag. Now, without taking his eyes from the two men, he moved his hands through the filth until he found it. It was only a two-foot length, cracked and splintered at one end; not much protection against two guns.

  As he slid it toward him, another pair of legs swung suddenly over the side almost directly above him. Without moving from his place, he could have swatted them with the broomstick, had he wanted to. He quickly gathered himself into a crouch as his nervous system switched on again with a click that was nearly perceptible.

  The man above him shone his flashlight down to check the surface. Gideon noted that it was in his left hand. If he had a gun, and Gideon was sure he did, it would be in the right. The dangling legs wriggled a little as the buttocks above them sought a better grip on the edge of the bridge. Gideon could see that the pants were tightly cut and the shoes had high, stylish heels. Finally, the body pushed off with a wriggle of the legs, and the man came down.

  Gideon uncoiled and launched himself at the dark figure a fraction of a second before the feet touched earth. He wanted to hit him at the precise moment he landed, when he would, for the barest instant, be concentrating on his equilibrium. Coming at him from behind, Gideon whipped the broom handle down at the back of the man’s right hand.

  Three things went wrong. First, Gideon’s left ankle seemed to give way under him as he came out of his crouch, and he slipped. Second, the bulging, slippery garbage bag somehow got in his way and nearly overturned him. Third, the man landed awkwardly and twisted his body around to try to keep his balance. Thus Gideon’s blow was tardy by about a third of a second; the figure was nearly facing him instead of landing with his back to him; and the target—the gun-holding right hand—was flailing around on Gideon’s left instead of hanging motionlessly on the right, where it belonged.

  The broom handle, as a result, came down on the side of the man’s neck, sloppily but hard. The look on his face was so innocently astounded that for a preposterous second, Gideon wanted to apologize. He was only about twenty, lean and powerfully built but smaller than Gideon. Even in the dark, Gideon could see that he was badly shaken.

  They stood looking at each other for a ridiculously long time. Then Gideon said suddenly, "Look, this is crazy. I don’t want to hurt you—"

  The boy leaped back and pointed the gun directly at Gideon’s face. Gideon ducked and grabbed for his wrist with his left hand. Instead, he caught the barrel of the pistol. He held it off to the side, pointing away from them and, off balance, tried to twist it free. Somehow, the boy held on to it and managed to fire a shot. Immediately there was a shout from the other end of the bridge.

  "Marco!"

  Marco, his wrist bent nearly double, but still hanging onto the gun, gave a panicky gasp and hit Gideon weakly on the forehead with the flashlight in his left hand. Gideon sent it spinning to the ground with a backhanded swipe of the stick just as they were both lit up in the glare of the others’ powerful flashlights. He knew he had only a few seconds. The other men were no more than a hundred feet away and would not be much deterred by the uneven ground. He had to get the gun away from Marco, and he had to stay close enough to him so they wouldn’t dare shoot.

  He twisted the pistol barrel with all his strength. Marco’s wrist seemed to turn a full, boneless circle, but still he held on and clawed at Gideon’s face with his other hand. Gideon hit him in the face with the broom handle. Marco made a dreadful mewing noise but held on and kept clawing. He had gotten his fingers inside Gideon’s lower lip and was twisting hard. Gideon felt something give, and hot blood gushed onto his chin. Tears jumped to his eyes with the sudden pain.

  "Drop it!" he shouted thickly through the ripping fingers. His cheek flapped hideously. He clubbed Marco again and then again.

  The boy’s fingers held rigidly onto the gun, although his face was suddenly smeared with blood and weirdly awry. Gideon kept smashing with the broom handle. He was wild-nearly hysterical—with pain and horror.

  "Drop it, damn you!" he screamed. "Drop it, drop it, please, God, drop it!" Then he heard himself shrieking wordlessly to drown out the rising scream from Marco’s mangled, bloody face.

  Finally, Marco sagged and Gideon wrenched the gun out of his hand just as the two others got to them. Gideon brushed off a grasping hand and swung the semiconscious Marco around, getting his arms through the boy’s armpits so that he supported the limp, moaning form between himself and them. He pressed the end of the gun barrel under Marco’s heart and glared crazily at the two men. He tried to speak but couldn’t. Marco’s damp, greasy hair was against his nose; he could smell sweat and cheap hair oil.

  In all his life, Gideon had never been so wildly out of control. He couldn’t stop gasping, or maybe it was sobbing, and he was full of an awesome rage. To be hunted down by maniacs with guns; to be standing there in the dark, covered with blood and slime, his lip torn off for all he knew; to be pressing a gun into a boy’s abdomen; to be forced to club that juvenile face into a gory…

  One of the men addressed him in a lazy, arrogant drawl. "Oliver, if I were you—"

  Gideon shouted at him to shut up, only what burst from him was not words but an inarticulate, savage bellow that seemed to come from some beast—some literal, material beast inside him.

  So ferocious was it that both men jumped back. Even Gideon was shocked by its violence; stupidly, he patted Marco reassuringly.

  While the two men stared at him with pistols leveled at his chest—at Marco’s head, to be more exact—Gideon tried to
review his situation. He knew he was hurt and weakened and that his thinking was fuzzy. He wasn’t sure how much of the slop on him was blood, nor how much of the blood was his own. He couldn’t free a hand to explore his mouth, but he was sure it was terribly lacerated. He thought his face was cut in other places, too. Most important, there had been a sharp pain in his ankle when he had swung Marco around and propped him up. He had done something serious to it, and he knew he couldn’t run on it or even drag himself and Marco away on the threat of killing the boy if they followed. Moreover, he wasn’t sure that Marco’s life would carry any weight with them anyway; they were older than the boy—harder, a different breed. And when it came down to it, he knew he couldn’t fire into that helpless, battered body. The other two, he thought, would know he was bluffing.

  The older of the two men, the one who had spoken before, appeared to know what he was thinking.

  "Oliver," he drawled again, "this really won’t do any good, you know. I’d rather not endanger our poor friend there, but if it can’t be helped, I assure you I’ve no qualms about it, none whatever." His speech was English public school, self-assured and superior, with strong Italian overtones.

  Gideon didn’t answer, but kept the gun pressed to Marco’s belly. He had less reluctance about shooting the two others, but he knew he could never get them both. He doubted he could hit even one. He didn’t even know whether you had to push back the hammer or simply pull the trigger. From the way they held their weapons, it was clear that the other two were on intimate terms with them.

  Marco stirred and tried to plant himself more firmly on his feet. His hands came up to Gideon’s forearms and then explored his own face. He groaned; Gideon shuddered, but tightened his hold and braced himself against the boy’s body.

  "Oliver," the older man said once more, "do let’s be reasonable. We’d simply like to talk to you, you see. I’m not really sure how we’ve arrived at this ridiculous juncture, and I’d be a great deal happier if we weren’t pointing these things at one another, wouldn’t you?"

  He smiled, and it wasn’t a bad smile. Gideon said nothing, but kept watching him. He had a lined, high-nosed face, aristocratic in the Italian way, and his smile lent warmth to his eyes. Standing in a Sicilian mud puddle in the middle of the night seemed no more plausible for him than for Gideon.

  "I’ll tell you what," he went on. "Why don’t I put mine away, then?" He did so, slipping it into a shoulder holster underneath a well-cut suit jacket. Then he held up his empty palms.

  "Take the light out of my eyes," Gideon said.

  The man lowered his flashlight and gestured at the other one to do the same. "There," he said, "is that better? Now suppose that on the count of three, you and my friend here, who is really much more sympathetic than he looks, both lower your weapons until they’re pointing at the ground. Then you can both drop them at the same time and we’ll have our chat. Now, how does that sound?"

  From the way he spoke—slowly and reassuringly, as if he were talking to a child—Gideon knew his own rapidly dimming faculties were apparent. As patently deceptive as his instructions were, Gideon longed to follow them. The pain in his face and his ankle was excruciating, his mind was growing more cloudy each second—he must have lost a lot of blood—and the world was beginning to tilt and slowly spin. He wanted terribly to sit down, but he held on and kept the gun pressed into Marco’s ribs, though he swayed on his feet.

  "How tiresome," said the cool voice. "Well, old boy, you know perfectly well you’re not really going to shoot."

  Gideon was having a hard time seeing. He blinked, trying to focus his vision. Suddenly the gun was no longer in his hand. The world turned entirely upside down, and he found himself sitting on the ground at last. He couldn’t imagine where Marco had gone.

  The slender man was no longer smiling. He said a few quick words to the other one, who moved toward Gideon, stony-faced. Dimly, Gideon understood he was going to be shot. He sighed and waited, his mind empty.

  A light, much more powerful than a flashlight, flicked on from the bridge, capturing them all in its fierce glare.

  "Drop the gun! Quick!"

  The older man spun and flashed his light at the voice. Gideon saw a familiar face lit up. Now who was it? Let’s see…it wasn’t anyone in his family, not Dad or Saul. Was it one of the kids he played around with?… Um, no, because it was a man, and his friends were only kids. Or maybe it was himself? He giggled. How did his face get so wet?

  There was more shouting, and other noises too, but they were a long way off, booming and slow, like a record played at the wrong speed. He giggled again. What was Mom going to say about his dirty clothes?…And how did his face get so wet?

  SEVEN

  THE nurse—large, clean, and handsome—bustled in carrying a tray and exuding a take-charge aura as welcome and natural in Sigonella Naval Hospital as it would have been in Kansas City General.

  "Well, how’s my favorite patient? Were we taking a little nap? Wake up, sleepyhead. Lunchtime!"

  "I can hardly wait," said Gideon, but he was glad to see her. "What color straw do I get today? Can I have yellow again? The kind that bends?"

  "No straws today. Doctor says you’re on solids now. What do you think of that?" She put the bed tray down in front of him. There was a bowl of dark gray porridge, a cup of light gray pudding, and a glass of milk.

  "These are solids?"

  "Well, they’re not liquids. Would you believe mushies?"

  "I’ll take ‘em. I’m hungry. Which feels very nice." He raised himself to a sitting position.

  "We have to be careful with the spoon, now. Try to keep it away from the left side. Your cheek’s going to be a teeny bit tender yet. Oh, you have a visitor. He’ll be in after you eat."

  "Who is it, Sue?"

  "Name’s John Lau. Nice guy. Says he’s an old friend."

  "Old friend" was stretching things a little, but only a little, under the circumstances. "Can’t you send him in now? I mean, of course, if the rules permit."

  "They don’t, but I’ll make an exception, seeing as how you’re going to be such a good boy and eat up all the nice glop."

  A few seconds after she left the room, the big policeman walked in with a twinkling smile that was good for Gideon’s soul.

  "What’s up, Doc?"

  "I don’t believe it," Gideon said. "What are you doing in Sicily? Or am I back in Germany?"

  "No such luck; you’re in sunny Italy." As always, John’s babylike laugh made Gideon laugh too. Then he winced; the stitches had come out just that morning.

  "Hey, I’m sorry, Doc. You want the nurse again?"

  "No. It only hurts when I laugh." He held up his hand quickly. "Also when you laugh."

  John smiled, which was better. "Don’t let me stop you from eating. It looks wonderful."

  "I’ll tell you, it’s the closest thing to real food I’ve had since the shore patrol deposited me here Friday. Five days. Have a seat." He dug into the porridge and gingerly put the spoon in his mouth. Sue was right; it was still pretty raw in there.

  John made a face. "What is that stuff?"

  "I don’t know. Gruel, probably."

  "Nah, gruel’s thinner." John watched in good-humored silence as Gideon worked his way through the porridge, which tasted wonderful. With hot food in him and a friendly face nearby, he was starting to feel nearly human again.

  "Boy," John said happily, "you sure look like hell."

  Gideon put down his spoon. He hadn’t seen himself since the bandages had come off. "I sure feel like hell. I may as well see the worst. How about handing me the mirror on the bureau there?"

  John gave it to him. "You’ll be sorry."

  "Holy mackerel," said Gideon, "look at that." It had taken twenty stitches to pull together the jagged tear at the junction of his upper and lower lips, and six to close a cut at the side of his left eye, probably from when he’d banged his head on the bridge support. There were another four stitches over his right eye (M
arco’s flashlight?) and several nasty contusions that had left most of his face brown, black, and purple. Add to this a patchy five-day beard, and Gideon was surprised that he was feeling as well as he was, which wasn’t all that good.

  John replaced the mirror. "How about the ankle?" he asked.

  "Looks worse than it is," Gideon said, indicating the protuberance at the end of the bed formed by a metal framework that kept the covers off his foot. "Sprained a couple of ligaments. I’m supposed to be up tomorrow, but I’ll have to use a cane for a while."

  "Well, Doc, you sure get involved in some pretty strange situations for a nice, mild-mannered professor-type."

  "Amazingly enough, the same thought has been occurring to me. The Curse of the Visiting Fellow, no doubt."

  "The curse of the who?"

  "You don’t know? It’s an honorary curse; goes along with my position. The last fellow, two semesters ago, got killed in a car accident, and the one before that disappeared. Or maybe I have them backwards."

  John took his notebook from the flap pocket of his shirt and wrote in it. "Go ahead," he said.

  "That’s all. Dr. Rufus told me about it… the chancellor. He was sort of embarrassed to have me even know about it; he didn’t exactly gush with information."

  John nodded. Gideon saw him print "Rufus" in the notebook. "Okay, Doc. Look, if this keeps up, you’re gonna get killed—or kill someone else, more likely. Let’s try to find out what the hell is going on. Now, I’ve seen the police reports and the transcripts of your statements, and I still have some big questions—"