by Aaron Elkins
The beginnings of a breeze ruffled their hair and made a soft sound in the dry brush on the hill. For perhaps twenty seconds, a respectful silence endured. Gideon’s words echoed in his own mind, as he knew they did in the minds of his students. Two or three of them bent toward the gravelly ground and contemplatively picked at embedded fragments with their fingers. Gideon knew exactly what they were wondering: Is this stone right here in my hand one of the rocks they threw at the elephants so long ago? Has it lain here undisturbed for three thousand centuries, until I, here and now, picked it up? Was the last person to touch it a naked, savage ape-man?
It was precisely the kind of near-mystic musing that had first attracted Gideon to anthropology, and it still sent chills down his spine.
The mood was broken by one of the less receptive students, a glib, bearded civilian from the personnel office.
"A couple of questions, Dr. Oliver." From his tone, Gideon knew they would be arguments, not questions. He steeled himself. "One, from what you say, was this the start of civilization, or wasn’t it really the start of our rape of the environment? Just what do we mean by ‘civilization’?— The ability to kill animals by the hundreds?"
Gideon glowered at him, to no effect.
"And I keep wondering about the anthropologist’s usage of ‘man’ and ‘mankind.’ Shouldn’t it be ‘people’ and ‘personkind’? Were there only cavemen? Weren’t there any cavewomen?" He looked quickly around the circle for approval but got only bleak stares.
Gideon was half-heartedly putting together his response when one of the women, a uniformed lieutenant down on her knees in the dirt, saved him.
"Oh, for Christ’s sake, Dennis, I don’t want to deal with that crap now."
There were several muttered "Right on’s." Mentally, Gideon applauded. He couldn’t have said it better. Dennis opened his mouth to speak, but the lieutenant cut him off.
"Dr. Oliver, what kinds of things would we have seen in the museum if we’d gotten in?"
"I’m not really sure, Donna," Gideon said. "Possibly, some of the elephant bones in situ. There wouldn’t be any human bones, because none were found. Probably some of the stone tools from the site. Maybe some spear fragments; the oldest known weapons in the world were found here, you know."
"Now, you see, that’s my point," said Dennis, warming up for a speech. Again he was interrupted, this time by a shout from a student who had wandered over to the squat building.
"Hey, the museum’s unlocked!"
With the others, Gideon walked over to the structure. When they had first arrived, several of the men had stood on each other’s shoulders to peer through the high windows into the dark interior, but no one had thought of trying the door. Now Gideon could see that there was no padlock on the rusty hasp. The student who had called out had pushed the green metal door open an inch or two and was looking at Gideon for approval to open it all the way.
Instinctively law-abiding, Gideon hesitated for a moment, but only for a moment. This was Torralba, and he might never come this way again. Besides, the incident with the old caretaker had brought out his refractory side. He nodded, and the student pushed the door farther open.
"Something’s blocking it," the student said, leaning his body against it. Suddenly, he stiffened and jumped back. "Hey, there’s a guy in there!"
The door remained about three-quarters open. Spotlighted in the shaft of soft sunlight that streamed through it, a body lay on its left side on the earthen floor, its back toward the doorway. Its legs were bent at the knees so that the feet prevented the door from opening completely. It was a dark-haired man wearing a tan windbreaker. Where his right ear should have been was a hideous mess of torn flesh and sinew. A great, red-brown stain glistened dully on the jacket’s back and had discolored the pale earth around the man’s shoulders and head.
Two of the students, a man and a woman, dropped to the ground and put their heads between their knees. The others stared in dumb, greedy shock. Gideon’s courage failed him. He felt an overpowering sense of onrushing doom, an urge to turn and run, to leave undisturbed whatever lay within.
"Well, let’s see what this is about," he heard himself saying quietly.
The students wordlessly parted for him. At the entrance he was caught by a terrific smell of blood, a slaughterhouse stench. He steadied himself momentarily with a hand on each side of the doorway, closed his eyes, and willed himself not to be sick. The warm perspiration on his body had turned cold; an icy globule ran freezing from his armpit down his side. He forced himself to breathe in the fetid atmosphere. Then he stepped over the body, carefully avoiding the blood, and turned firmly to look at the man’s face.
It wasn’t John.
Until then, he hadn’t even realized what the irrational fear had been, but now the flood of relief dropped him to his knees, heedless of the blood and the gaping students.
He closed his eyes again and thanked the ancient primitive gods that had hovered there since mankind’s dawn.
But behind his lowered eyelids a flicker of recognition sprang up, an uneasy memory…
To his mind came a long-forgotten anecdote of Sartre’s in Being and Nothingness: You are late for an appointment with your friend Pierre in a cafe. You are not sure if he has waited for you. As you come in, you quickly scan all the customers in the crowded room, and you see that he is not there. But what exactly have you seen? Would you know any of the hundred customers if you were to see them again? No. You have not really seen them. You know they are not-Pierres, that is all. Only when you have given up the search for Pierre will they become recognizable entities in their own right, foreground rather than background…
So it was with the maimed thing by which he kneeled. At first he knew only that it wasn’t John. Now he knew who it was. He opened his eyes and looked.
Ferret-face. With pity and revulsion, but also with the sense of a great load lifting from his shoulders, he studied the dead man. There was little remaining of the right side of his face. Through shreds of red muscle and gleaming ligament, Gideon could see the round yellow condyle of the shattered mandible. One eye was half-open, one was closed, and the lower part of the face was queerly askew because of the broken jaw. Even so, and even with the drying blood that covered the features, it was unmistakably Ferret-face.
The hunter had himself been hunted down. But by whom? Almost indifferently, Gideon turned the question over in his mind, but he couldn’t concentrate. He was more absorbed by a glow of triumph—vicious, but undeniably satisfying. I am still here, alive, his thoughts ran, and you are dead. I’ve won; you’ve lost. With an effort, he put aside the ugly thoughts and looked up at the students clustered around the door.
"Well, he’s certainly dead," Gideon said, his voice echoing in the cool concrete structure. His words jogged a young, crew-cut student out of his stupefaction.
"You better not touch anything, Professor." When Gideon looked up at him, he blushed and added self-consciously, "I’m in the military police. We’ll have to inform the Guardia Civil." Again, a self-important, embarrassed pause. "This looks like homicide."
Gideon resisted a strange urge to laugh. Looks like homicide. What did he think—that a heart attack had blown away half the man’s head? He rose to a standing position, conscious of the bloody stains on the knees of his beige trousers.
"You’re right, of course," he said. "Maybe there’s a telephone in the village."
The MP came forward and offered Gideon his hand to assist him in stepping over the corpse and the blood-soaked ground. As Gideon took it and came back through the door, the boy stiffened and froze, eyes wide with dismay.
"Jesus Christ, there’s another one!"
Gideon spun and looked within. At the far end of the narrow twenty-foot-long aisle that bisected the building lay what could have been a discarded, life-sized puppet. It was on its back in the gloom, its arms akimbo, its legs outflung, and its head and shoulders propped against the base of the concrete wall.
It was the man from the Prado: the man with the umbrella.
SIXTEEN
GIDEON took another long swallow, and the warmth and relaxation finally began to spread outwards from his stomach. It was his second bourbon, and he was drinking it in the dim cocktail-lounge atmosphere of the Officers’ Club bar on the base. A dull ache at the back of his neck reminded him that he had been sitting rigidly erect since he came in, and he let himself sink back with a sigh against the booth’s black plastic upholstery.
Since he had found the second dead man, his mind had been working in a kind of otherworldly fervor, agitated and darting, turning in upon itself, questioning, testing, doubting—yet it had produced nothing of consequence, and little in the way of logical thinking. Gideon had given up trying to direct his racing thoughts hours ago and now sat there like an observer, watching his own mind go where it would. The bourbon seemed to be helping, however. He signaled the waitress for another.
The first thing he’d done when he’d gotten back from Torralba had been to telephone John in Heidelberg from the lobby of the BOQ, but John had been out of the office.
Rather than trying to get another line to call him at home, he had asked to talk to Marks. He had been connected at once and had briefly described what had happened. Marks had instructed him not to return to his room but to go to the Officers’ Club and wait there for the telephone to ring in the booth just outside the bar.
Gideon had been reassured by Marks’s brisk efficiency and by the fact that he was familiar with details such as the location of a telephone booth at Torrejon. He had, however, defied orders and returned to his room to shower and change his bloody clothes.
When the telephone rang, Gideon took his drink with him to the booth.
"Hello?" Gideon said.
"Who is this?" It was Marks.
"For Christ’s sake, it’s me. Gideon Oliver."
"Are you alone?"
"No, I have eleven pals from the KGB in the booth with me. Look, Marks—"
"All right. Hold your horses. Now listen. You’re not to go back to your room under any circumstance. We have a place for you—"
"Why not?" Gideon asked.
"Don’t get excited. You’re to go—"
"I’m not excited. You just told me not to go back to my room. I want to know why not."
"Don’t give me a hard time, Oliver. You’ve already caused a lot more trouble than you’re worth."
Gideon very nearly hung up on him. Instead, he took a long, slow sip of his drink and mentally drew a dotted-line balloon. But he couldn’t think of anything to write in it.
Marks apparently heard the tinkling of the ice in the glass. "You’re not drinking, are you? That won’t do. I’m not going to have you—"
"Let me remind you," said Gideon, steadied by the alcohol and by Marks’s familiar offensiveness, "that I don’t work for you. I was fired, remember?" Marks began to interrupt, but Gideon talked over him. "I’ll give you thirty seconds to say what you want to say, and then I’m hanging up. Go."
"You stupid—"
Gideon hung up and waited there for the telephone to ring again. He knew that he was being more cocksure than was good for him, but slamming down the receiver was an impulse not to be denied. Just as he began to worry that Marks might not call him back, the telephone rang again. He let it ring five times before picking it up.
Marks’s voice came from the earpiece. "Who is speaking, please?"
"This is Tom Marks, calling to speak to Gideon Oliver," said Gideon.
There was silence at the other end. After a few seconds, Marks spoke, suppressed anger obvious in the soft, distinct words: "Oliver, we’re not sure whether you’re in any danger or not, but we don’t want to take any chances. If they don’t know where you are, you’ll be safer. Stay away from your room."
"Who’s ‘they’?"
"Who’s ‘they’? The KGB."
"Do you think the KGB is after me, then? Why?" Despite the grisly events of the day, Gideon was beginning to feel a certain jauntiness. Being pursued by the KGB was not without its elan.
"I’m not at liberty to discuss that," said Marks predictably. "Now listen, please. We’ve arranged for you to spend the night in on-base housing. We’ve gotten a two-bedroom house for you. You’re to go to the Security Office and ask for the keys that are being held for Colonel Wellman."
"What if they ask for identification? Besides, some of the Security people know me."
"Don’t worry about it; it’s arranged. Stay in the house and wait for us to call. We’ll get back to you tonight or early in the morning. Don’t go out. Just wait for our call."
"I’m scheduled to leave for Heidelberg tomorrow, you know."
"We know; tomorrow afternoon. You’ll hear from us long before that."
"All right," said Gideon. He hung up, and finished his bourbon sitting in the telephone booth.
THE call came at 7:00 a.m. Gideon had just awakened and was lying quietly in the first supraliminal moment, aware that something unpleasant had happened, but not remembering what it was. He waited with some anxiety for full consciousness to return and was somewhat relieved when he remembered the previous day. Of his entire life, the worst moments had been during the three or four months after Nora had died, when he’d awakened to the heart-constricting knowledge that she wasn’t there anymore. Since then, nothing had seemed too bad.
He had forgotten to note the telephone’s location before he went to bed, and it took him a few seconds to find it in the living room.
"Ah, Dr. Oliver, this is Hilaire Delvaux. Do you remember me?"
"Of course. Good morning."
"Can you meet me in the Officers’ Club for breakfast?"
Gideon’s sleepy mind processed the question slowly. "You’re here in Torrejon?"
"Most certainly."
"I’ll be there in twenty minutes."
He was there in ten. With his shaving equipment and toothbrush still at the BOQ, his toilet was a five-minute affair. Monsieur Delvaux was seated at a small table near the glass wall that looked out on the club’s green central patio. If he noted Gideon’s unkempt appearance, he gave no sign.
But then, Monsieur Delvaux did not appear to be a keen observer of fashion. He was dressed exactly as he had been when Gideon had seen him last: rumpled white shirt with wrinkled collar, and pants belted so absurdly high that Gideon could see the buckle as he looked at him across the tabletop. He was eating toast and drinking coffee. As soon as he saw Gideon, he wiped his mouth and jumped up, still chewing.
"Ah, Dr. Oliver," he said, his French accent very pronounced: Docteur Oh-le-vair. "Will you have something to eat?"
"No, I don’t think I could eat anything. But you go ahead, please."
"Yes," said Delvaux, "you must be very disturbed. Not precisely a quiet professor’s life you’re leading. I assure you, I sympathize." He sounded rather gay. "You were surprised to find me here, yes?" he said, biting into the bread with his stumpy teeth, his blue eyes sparkling.
"Yes, I was," admitted Gideon. "I assumed you were in Heidelberg."
"In Heidelberg?" he cried with delight. "At eight o’clock last night I was in Heidelberg. At nine-thirty I was in Belgium. At midnight in Holland. And I have been in Spain since five. A good night’s work for an old man, no?"
Gideon was impressed. Delvaux had a distinctly disheveled look, but no more than at their previous meeting. For a man in his late sixties—maybe his seventies—who had spent most of the night in jets and airports, he was very chipper.
"And all because of you," Delvaux continued pleasantly. "Ah, and I have found out many things, many things. I think you will be interested." He chewed his toast and smiled at Gideon, waiting for a response.
"I’m interested," Gideon said.
"First of all, I believe you are familiar with this gentleman." He wiped his fingers carefully, using the napkin as if it were a washcloth, and reached into the wrinkled seersucker jacket that hung on the back of his chair. From a wallet h
e took a scowling, full-face photograph of Ferret-face. "Do you know who he is?"
"No," Gideon said. "Only that he’s been following me. And, of course, that he’s dead now."
"Ah, indeed, extremely dead. I viewed the body an hour ago. And the other one as well."
The experience had not affected Delvaux’s appetite. Throwing his head back, he drained his coffee with a delicate sound and wiped his lips. Then, looking Gideon directly in the eye, he went on:
"He’s one of our agents."
"One of your agents…!"
"Ho-ho, I thought you would be surprised." Delvaux chuckled expansively, as if he’d just given Gideon a surprise present. "Well, not one of mine, personally, but yes, an NSD agent. He was with Bureau Four. Do you know what that is?"
"I’m afraid I can’t keep the bureaus straight. Is that counterespionage?"
"No, no," said Delvaux. "That’s the Second Bureau. Bureau Four…Do you mind if I get some more coffee?" Without waiting for Gideon’s answer, he beamed at him and went waddling cheerfully to the cafeteria line, cup in hand.
Gideon’s mind was back in a confused whirl. Ferret-face was on their side… his side, rather …yet he had been stalking Gideon, had glared at him with crushing hatred, had nearly killed him. Now he was dead, murdered, and Delvaux didn’t seem disturbed in the least. Quite the opposite.
Delvaux returned to the table with a brimming cup, sat down, and hunched forward. "Now. Bureau Four. Bureau Four is the part of NSD we don’t talk about. They are our internal watchdogs, our secret police. They ferret out— I understand you referred to him as Ferret-face; very perceptive—they ferret out security risks within NSD. They also sometimes… entrap nationals of NATO countries whom they believe to be collaborating with the Communists."
"Monsieur Delvaux, I get the impression that you don’t hold Bureau Four in high regard."
"I hate them. They are like the SS. They go where they want; they do what they want. They are responsible only to their own director. Wherever they go, their wishes outrank the orders of the highest field officer." The sparkle had left his eyes. He sipped his coffee quietly.
