Fellowship of Fear

by Aaron Elkins

  He knew these songs had been sung in this room for nearly three hundred years. He knew that images from The Student Prince were supposed to leap to the mind of the visitor. They didn’t. What he saw instead was an ominous scene out of the 1930s: flushed, sweating faces, glazed and fervent eyes… It wasn’t for him; maybe another time.

  "You’re right," he shouted over the singing. "Let’s go someplace else."

  They turned to leave and were almost bowled over by a husky, perspiring serving wench who might have stepped out of a Frans Hals painting: rosy cheeks, cherubic smile, peekaboo seventeenth-century bodice and all. Arms aloft, she banked as she charged toward them, apparently taking advantage of centrifugal force to keep the four liter-sized steins of beer she carried in each red hand from spilling.

  Janet ducked under one brawny forearm, Gideon under the other, and they emerged laughing and hand-in-hand into the street, where Gideon ran directly into a smallish man standing on the sidewalk at the entrance. His first reaction was one of concern. They had been moving with considerable impetus, and Gideon weighed over a hundred-and-eighty pounds. The man in the street, he was sure, was going to be knocked sprawling. Automatically, he reached out to steady him.

  Gideon’s second reaction, following closely on the first, was amazement. Running into the motionless figure was like running into a two-ton statue. Not only did he not go flying; he didn’t budge. It was Gideon who was nearly knocked off his feet.

  His third reaction was a mixture of alarm and fury, just barely in that order. It was the ferret-faced man, staring at him with an expression closer to disgust than menace. The man began to turn away.

  "Hey!" Gideon cried. "You! Wait!" He thrust out his cane to block the man’s path. Calmly, the smaller man seized it and pulled it across his chest, jerking Gideon toward him and spinning him half-around. Then, with an expert, economical motion, like a martial-arts instructor demonstrating before a class, he lifted his foot and brought down the sole on the calf of Gideon’s left leg. Gideon’s knee buckled like cardboard, and he fell to the ground, writhing desperately to keep his weight off the injured ankle. The cane was wrenched from his grasp and sent clattering into the street.

  As a boxer in college, Gideon had learned to anticipate an opponent’s movements by watching his eyes. Now, even as he landed heavily on his back, he looked up into the face above him and was stunned by a blazing look of surpassing contempt, theatrical in its intensity.

  The man blinked, and a little of the glittering danger left his eyes. Then he pivoted abruptly, as if forcing himself to leave, and began to walk firmly away.

  "Wait a minute, you—" Janet cried, stepping slightly forward. Gideon’s arm went out to warn her off, but she stepped back on her own when the man stopped, rotated his snaky neck, and fixed her with those fierce eyes. Turning a little further, he looked at Gideon one more time with a glare that said he was considering whether he might not rather come back and kill him after all. Apparently deciding against it, at least then and there, he turned once more and disappeared quickly into the darkness.

  The entire episode had taken about ten seconds, not enough time for a crowd to collect, but four or five nearby people were watching intently.

  Gideon picked himself up self-consciously, brushing off Janet’s offered help. Gingerly, he tested his left ankle; amazingly, it was no worse than it had been before. Janet, also looking self-conscious, began to dust him off with her hands.

  With a surly gesture, he shrugged off her attentions, then apologized at once.

  "I’m sorry." He reached for the hand he had just brushed away.

  "I know," she said, squeezing Gideon’s hand. "Hey, how’d you like to come up to my place to see my dissertation notes?" She wiggled her eyebrows roguishly, but Gideon could feel her hand trembling in his. He found it strangely affecting. Vulnerability was a side of her he hadn’t seen before. Of course, he thought it might be his hand that was doing the trembling; his heart was pounding hard enough.

  A wide-eyed, rosy-cheeked adolescent wordlessly handed Gideon his cane. He took it with a nod of thanks, and they began to walk back down the Haupstrasse.

  Janet took his arm again. "What was that about, Gideon? It happened so fast I hardly saw it. Who was that creep?"

  "He was one of the ones in my room at the Ballman; the one with the knife. He was following us." Gideon could hear the irascibility in his own voice. He was annoyed with Janet, but he didn’t know why.

  A little uncertainly, Janet laughed. It didn’t improve his temper. "I think you’re becoming paranoid," she said. "Or melodramatic is more like it. If he was following us, he wasn’t very good at it. He was standing right out in the middle of the street gawking at the Red Ox like anyone else."

  Gideon didn’t think so. Ferret-face didn’t strike him as a gawker. "No," he said impatiently. "I think we surprised him by coming back out almost as soon as we went in, that’s all."

  Janet thought about it. "Could be." She thought about it some more. "You know, I never saw anyone move quite like that. He had you flat on your back so fast I could hardly follow it."

  "Well, hell, Janet," he said, his voice rising, "I’ve got a bunged-up ankle, and this damn cane throws me off balance… What the hell is so funny?"

  She was laughing again, easily now, and with an affection that put a chink in his petulance. "You’re funny," she said. "You sound exactly like a twelve-year-old that just got beat up by the neighborhood bully in front of his girl."

  "God damn it, Janet—" he began, and then realized she was absolutely right. "You’re absolutely right," he said. "That’s exactly what I’ve been doing." He stopped walking and faced her squarely; it seemed important to get this right. "Janet, I’ve been acting like an immature boob. I had no call to snap at you like that. I’m sorry."

  She smiled at him—a wide, warm smile. "Professor Oliver, you’re a very likable man." She hugged his arm to her, and he felt the back of it brush her breasts, first one and then the other. He shivered, knowing from the change in her eyes that she had felt him tremble.

  "Now," she said, "what about those dissertation notes?"

  "Can I trust you?" he asked.

  "What do you think?" She wiggled her eyebrows again.

  "I hope not. Let’s go."

  TEN

  TO get to her room in the BOQ, they had to walk past Gideon’s door. He paused there to take a long look at the floor around it, even using his cane to probe the strands of the nearly nonexistent carpet nap. There were no toothpick slivers. (He had switched from paper clips to toothpick pieces; they were easier to break off and much less likely to be spotted by intruders. He had also taken to putting one at each side of the door for insurance.)

  When Janet asked what he was doing, he explained and added, "I suppose you’re going to say this is paranoid too."

  "Even paranoiacs have enemies," she said seriously.

  Janet’s room was a replica of his, except for the mess.

  Janet took a slip and blouse from the green plastic-covered armchair and tossed them on one of the beds. "Setzen Sie sich," she said. "I’ll make some drinks."

  After rummaging first in a desk drawer and then in the closet, she located a bottle of Scotch and poured some into a couple of paper cups. She gave Gideon his drink, kicked off her shoes, and sat on one of the beds, her back propped against the white metal bars at its head. As she drew her legs up, Gideon caught a glimpse of long, tawny thighs. Suddenly, he was both excited and shy. He looked down into his cup and swirled the liquid around.

  "So tell me," Janet said, "how do you like teaching for USOC?"

  "It’s okay, but it’s been pretty dull so far."

  Janet laughed as she brought the drink to her lips, spluttering the Scotch a little. When she had done that over wine with Eric, it had been an annoying mannerism, contrivedly girlish. Now it seemed spontaneous and charming.

  "Janet Feller," he said. "Nice name. Right out of a teenage romance. Do you know I don’t know anythin
g about you?"

  "Ah, you would like to hear more about the dissertation, then? Excellent. Let me read you the first two hundred pages—"

  "No, I mean about you."

  She told him. For over an hour, through three cups of Scotch, she told him how she’d been raised in Illinois; how at eighteen, on a trip to Athens with her parents, she’d fallen in love with a Greek truck driver; how she’d married him against the wishes of both families and then lived two hellish years in his mother’s house in Piraeus, never managing to learn the language. Somehow, her father, an elementary-school principal, had managed to engineer a divorce and bring her back to Champaign, where she had lived at home while working on her B.A. in history. Her father’s graduation present was a trip to New York. There she promptly met and married another truck driver. That had lasted two months.

  This was all vaguely unsettling to Gideon. Janet was full of surprises. Every time he thought he had her fitted into a niche, she came up with something new.

  "Hmm," he said, "you seem to fixate on truck drivers, don’t you? I wonder if there’s a name for that. Truckerphilia, maybe."

  As soon as he said it, he was sorry. He had meant to be entertaining, but it had come out flip.

  Janet, however, appeared to be amused. "It does seem that way, doesn’t it?" she said as she got up to pour their fourth drinks. "Truckerphilia. Sounds naughty. Say, you don’t by chance happen to drive a truck, do you?"

  "I could learn," he said, feeling loose and happy. "I don’t see why it should be difficult. I’m super-competent in a Rabbit, except for parking and backing up, and turns give me a little trouble." He sipped his Scotch, enjoying her laughter. "Go ahead, what happened after that marriage?" As she hopped back onto the bed, Gideon watched her smooth thighs more openly.

  "Nothing; that’s all there is. I put in four years of graduate work at the University of Chicago, came to USOC three years ago, and I’ve been teaching and trying to write my damn dissertation ever since. Oh, and I never got married again, and I’m thirty-one."

  Thirty-one was what he’d guessed. "Astounding," he said. "Quite well preserved, in my opinion."

  "So I assumed from all that leering and heavy breathing."

  "Sorry. I didn’t mean to be so obvious."

  "Like hell you didn’t. I gather you’re a leg man. A legophiliac." She smiled sweetly. "Or did I just forget to put on any pants?"

  Gideon’s cheeks turned hot. Women had changed a lot in the decade since he’d been in active pursuit. He’d had little practice at the new banter and, try as he did, no witty response came to mind. Angry with himself for being a prude, he bent over his empty cup, trying to hide the fact that he was blushing.

  Janet leaned forward and clasped her arms around her knees. "Hey, Gid," she said softly. Coming from her, in that tone, "Gid" didn’t sound so bad. "That was crude, wasn’t it? I’ve had too many Scotches. Now I’m embarrassed. Look, how about telling me something about you? You know everything about me."

  "There isn’t much to tell," he began, but then he found there was. At first he talked about his childhood in Los Angeles, about how he’d wanted to be an anthropologist before he even knew there was such a thing, about how he’d supported himself through his Ph.D. at Wisconsin with a host of part-time jobs: waiting tables, being a night watchman, delivering cigarettes to vending machines. ("Did you drive a truck?" asked Janet. "Only a little one," Gideon said, "a panel truck." "Oh," she said, with a make-believe pout, "that doesn’t count.")

  He told her, too, about how he’d boxed at local fight clubs for fifty dollars a fight when part-time jobs dried up. Once, calling on a talent he hadn’t known he possessed, he had lived for two months on his takings as a ping-pong shark in the Student Union. They were both laughing, and he was feeling relaxed again. But suddenly he found himself in the dangerous region, the region he’d never shared with anyone. He told her about Nora and what she’d meant to him, and even—at least to the extent that words could do it—about what it had been like when she had died.

  When he was done, she came over to him and knelt between his legs, laying her head against his chest and embracing him with unexpected strength. It made Gideon’s entire body tingle. Bending his head, he kissed her soft, fresh-smelling hair, then turned up her face and kissed her gently on the lips. Their faint raspberry taste was a surprise, an exciting one.

  When he released her head, Janet remained looking into his face for a long moment, then hugged him even harder. With nearly unbearable pleasure Gideon could feel her breasts against him, her body pressed hard between his legs. He ran his hands through her hair and over her face.

  Catching one of his hands, she brought it to her lips and kissed it.

  "You’re a nice man, Gideon. I like you very much," she said, with her head against his chest. Her voice had a throaty quality that hadn’t been there before.

  "Um," said Gideon, his own voice a little unsteady, "I appreciate the warm and no-doubt sisterly intent of all this, but I have to confess that my own feelings are becoming rather, um, amatory."

  Janet shifted her knees to snuggle in even closer. Her fingertips played gently over his thighs. "I’m aware of that, my friend. I’m not wearing a suit of armor, you know. However, I think ‘erotic’ would be more accurate than ‘amatory.’ In fact, I’m positive," she said as her hands continued to explore him. "And if you think I’m being sisterly, you sure got a funny family."

  Gideon was breathless. He had forgotten the way it could be. "Janet, Janet, come and lie down with me," he said.

  She led him to the bed and began to unbutton her blouse. He stopped her, though, and with trembling, reverent fingers, undid the buttons one by one, slowly and with care.

  "HM?" he said drowsily. He was lying on his back, not sure if he was awake or asleep. Janet’s head was tucked into his shoulder, her body pressed against his side, her leg thrown over his.

  "What?" she replied, her voice muffled by his chest.

  "No, I asked you what you said." On its own, his hand moved slowly down her side into the deep valley of her waist, up and over the big, delicious, roller-coaster curve of her hip.

  "Mmm. How do you expect me to concentrate when you do that?" she said, her voice becoming interested.

  "Hey, are you in the mood for a little more…?" The arm that had been lying across his chest shifted, and her hand began its way down his belly.

  Laughing, he caught and held it. "No, wait, have a heart. Believe me, I’ve shot my wad."

  "Gideon, what a gross expression. I’m surprised at you."

  "It’s not gross at all. The phrase stems from how you fired a cannon in the nineteenth century. You take a wad of—"

  "I know what it stems from. I mean that the use of that particular metaphor under these particular circumstances is somewhat coarse. Wouldn’t you say so?" Her hand broke free and moved on down him. "Besides, it feels to me like the old cannon’s getting ready to shoot another wad."

  "Now that’s gross," he said, catching her hand again and moving it away. "Come on, hold off a minute and tell me what it was you said."

  She pulled her hand free and poked him in the side. "Oho, so that’s the way it is, is it? The old story. First it’s all tender supplications, but now that he’s had his way with her, it’s ‘hold off a minute,’ is it? You nasty… man!" She punctuated the last word with another jab in the side.

  "Ouch!" Laughing, he leaned over and pinned both her wrists to the bed. "I’m pushing forty, you know. I can’t do this sort of thing all night. Now what was it you said?"

  "All right. I don’t know what you think I said that was so important, but all I said was that I’m glad you’re stopping in Heidelberg. Is that such a surprise?"

  "That wasn’t what you said. You said you were glad I didn’t go the usual route directly from Sigonella to Torrejon."

  "So what’s the difference? Gideon, you’re hurting my wrists."

  He let go at once, and she immediately grabbed for him again. They rol
led over, wrestling and laughing, and ended up in a long, sweet kiss that quieted them both and almost made Gideon lose the thread he was trying to follow. Lying in Janet’s arms, pressed against her from face to toe, he made a last effort.

  "The difference is, Janet, that Eric told me there wasn’t a direct route; that the only way to get from Sigonella to Torrejon was by coming through Frankfurt."

  "That’s crazy. Since you were flying military anyway, you could easily have gone just to Naples and then to Torrejon, or maybe even on a direct flight. Or you could have flown commercial from Catania to Rome, then to Madrid. That’s no reason to come back to Germany."

  "Are you sure?"

  "Well, I think so. I work part-time in the Logistics Office, and I make up a lot of the itineraries."

  "You work with Eric?" There was a slight chill in his voice.

  "Oh, for gosh sake, don’t go all green-eyed monster on me. A lady has to support herself you know."

  She kissed him briskly. Then she turned on the lamp near the bed and propped herself up on one elbow. Gideon rolled over on his back, his hands behind his neck.

  "This oddball routing," Janet said, "do you think it has something to do with the funny stuff that’s been happening to you?"

  "I sure wouldn’t be surprised. Obviously, my ferret-faced friend was aware that I was back." He paused, chewing his lip. "Maybe I was even brought back so he could do whatever it is he had in mind. Or has in mind."

  "But what could Eric possibly have to do with that?"

  "I don’t know, but I intend to find out." He turned toward her again. She was still on one elbow, one round breast swaying gently, inches from his face.

  "My God, Janet," he said softly, "how beautiful you are." He cupped the mysterious heaviness of one lovely globe in his hand and moved it toward his lips.

  "Be serious, now, Gideon; don’t do that," she said, but Gideon noted that she didn’t pull away. "This stuff scares me. Do you think you’re in danger? Is Eric involved? What could the point possibly be?"