through the rows of grapevines. One of his hands was on Marti’s shoulder, keeping her near the ground.
Gideon heard a far-off shout, unmistakably a command. He looked in the direction of the sound. Farther down the hill, behind a low stone fence near the road, were the three men he had seen cutting across the vineyard. They were pointing squat, ugly handguns at the crouching men. The three were in identical postures. Each was on one knee, calmly sighting along the gun held in his extended right hand while the left hand propped up the right wrist.
They were a different breed, those three. Gideon could see that from two hundred feet away. Not like the tense crouching men with the book; not like John, excitable and gallant; certainly not like Gideon himself, who could move from violent, courageous fury to hesitant timidity and back again, all within a few seconds. These three were professionals, emotionless, just doing their savage job, and terribly sure of themselves. Gideon knew the two crouching men would die. A cold droplet of sweat ran down the middle of his back.
The crouching men turned toward the shouted command, craning their necks to see through the vines. John held his fire and watched. The terrace was silent and breathless once again. The sound of a heavy truck shifting gears was somehow carried up from the Rheingoldstrasse along the Rhine, faint and strangely mundane. People on the terrace began to sit up or get tentatively to their knees. Janet pulled her face away from Gideon’s body and started to rise. He put his hand on her arm to check her, and they both watched, leaning on their elbows.
The crouching men finally saw the ones at the stone fence and fired, once each, before the men began firing back. The sounds were flat and unimpressive on the open hillside, like the tiny explosions of penny firecrackers. But Gideon could see how the powerful repercussions jerked the hands of the men at the stone fence as if they were puppets with strings around their wrists. Only their hands moved. They didn’t duck or flinch or shift their positions. They remained, each on one knee, straight-backed and impassive, firing slowing and steadily.
The blond, beefy man with the book was hit first. He stood up suddenly, almost angrily, his back slightly arched, and flung the book over his shoulder. Then he seemed to leap backwards off his feet, landing flatly on his back. He twitched and began to rise, getting as far as his knees and waving his gun drunkenly, but facing the wrong direction. He put a hand on a vine support to steady himself, then twitched wildly one more time and fell forward into the row of vines. There he lay still, his upper body supported and shaded by the trellis, his knees and feet on the ground. Gideon saw the gun slide gently from his fingers and knew he was dead.
The bald man, who had seemed momentarily benumbed by the sight of his partner dangling from the vines, now shook himself, snatched up the book, and began to sidle rapidly between two planted rows, scrambling along in the dirt on his hands and knees, his fat thighs pumping. The vines gave him little protection, Gideon saw; when he came to the end of the row, he’d be completely in the open. Gideon wished he would surrender. His naked skull looked very vulnerable and pink; it would stand up to bullets about as well as a soft-boiled egg.
The three men at the stone fence did not encourage him to give up. They had given him his chance; the choice was his. Dispassionately, they swung their weapons slowly to the right, following him. At the end of the row of vines, the bald man gathered himself. His intention was obvious. He would fire a few quick shots to cover himself, then dash across the ten feet of open space to the start of the next row. But what then?
“Give up! Surrender!” Gideon was startled by his own hoarse shout, and strangely embarrassed, as if he had made some ill-bred noise. On the terrace, faces turned reproachfully toward him. Bruce Danzig, huddling under a table a few feet away, threw him a disgusted glance. He half-expected to be hushed by the others.
Angrily he shouted again: “Surrender, damn you! They’ll kill you!”
The bald man paid no attention. He scrambled across the open space, firing a nervous shot as he ran. The men at the fence swiveled in calm unison, and their guns jerked at the same time, ending with little flourishes, as if they were a formal firing squad.
Nevertheless, the bald man made it across the open ground to the cover of the vines. He ran a few feet into the rows, then sat down with his back against a support post. Gideon saw him take a deep breath and let his chin sink to his chest as if he were quietly weeping.
Thank God, he thought, he’s had enough. He’s going to give up. He relaxed his tense shoulders and heaved a sigh of relief. At the same time, he was uncomfortably aware of a small dark part of him that was disappointed, that would have liked to see the thing carried out to its bloody end.
As he shook his head to clear the thought away, he saw the men at the fence rise and walk confidently forward, their guns held loosely. Puzzled, Gideon looked at the fat bald man. He had not moved, was not moving, was not looking at them. He still sat slumped against the post, his head drooping dispiritedly. The book lay open on his lap as if he were reading it.
And in the middle of his chest, just below his chin, a red flower of blood bloomed rapidly over his sky-blue shirt.
EVEN LESS COHERENT THAN usual, Dr. Rufus was the picture of consternation. And yet there was something about the agitated features, the contorted expression, that didn’t quite fit, something that bothered Gideon, worried him. But he couldn’t put his finger on what it was. He leaned forward and watched intently as the chancellor dabbed at his neck with a sodden handkerchief and babbled on.
He had already been babbling for some time. As soon as the shooting had stopped, one of the NSD agents had run up to the terrace—he was surprisingly young, seen up close—and brusquely herded the USOC group into the interior of the wine restaurant, there seating them at several long tables. In a strong Scottish accent, he had flung terse, excited questions at them: Had anyone recognized the two men? Were they already on the terrace when the group arrived? Who saw them first? What were they doing? Did they talk to anyone?
The responses had been listless and uninformative, and the agent, still flushed and edgy from the killings, quickly became hostile. Dr. Rufus, as protector of his brood, had sprung up and begun to prattle. But what
“… and when I saw that he had a gun,” he was saying, “or rather that
“I want to know exactly how he got his hands on the book,” the agent said, looking at the floor.
“The book, yes, the book!” Dr. Rufus said. “Why ever would he steal a book? Why, he just ran right up to the table and… and…”
It came to Gideon at last, with a shock that made him blink. He stared at Dr. Rufus for another few seconds,
