Fellowship of Fear

“Do you remember,” Gideon said, “how Dr. Rufus was sitting there telling the agent about what happened, and how amazed he’d been, and so on?”

All three of them eagerly nodded at the same time.

“How surprised he looked? Raised eyebrows, wrinkled brow, big eyes, mouth open and puffing away?”

They all nodded at once again, encouraging him to go on. It was like being in front of a good class.

“Well, that’s the classic expression of surprise, all right, except for three things: his upper eyelids were completely raised—”

“He was surprised,” John said. “When you’re surprised, your eyes open up wide.”

“No, and that’s my point. Most people think that surprise results in a pop-eyed stare. It doesn’t. It raises your upper eyelids only partway, like this.”

“That looks like a pop-eyed stare to me.” John said.

Gideon turned to Marti. “Didn’t I hear him say he wasn’t going to argue?”

“Shut up, Lau,” she said. Then to Gideon, “You said there were three things.”

“Yes. Number two: the lateral ends of his eyebrows were raised, as you’d expect, but the medial corners weren’t.”

“I don’t follow. Demonstrate, please, Professor,” Janet said.

“I can’t. Most people can’t voluntarily raise the medial corners of their eyebrows. That’s my point.”

“Dammit, Doc,” John said excitedly, his hands chopping away at the air. That’s the second time you’ve said that. What’s your point?“

“Will someone kindly control this person?” Gideon said.

“Goddammit, Doc—”

Gideon laughed and patted John’s arm. “My point is that Dr. Rufus’s surprise was fabricated. He was faking it.” He sipped his cooling coffee. “He knew those men were going to come after me, and he knew about the book. Ergo, he was the spy.”

John shook his head doubtfully. “I don’t know…”

“What’s point three?” asked Janet.

“That his facial expressions were asymmetrical; much more pronounced on the left side.”

“I see,” Janet. “So you assumed that the neurological pathways were subcortical in origin. Very clever, if I do say so myself. How—”

“Argh,” Marti said. “I’m going bonkers. Will somebody let us poor mortals in on this?”

Gideon laughed. “There are two separate paths from the brain to the facial muscles, one for deliberate expressions and the other for involuntary ones. And they result in different faces. Involuntary expressions are usually very symmetrical. Deliberate ones are almost always more pronounced on the left side.”

“Doc,” John said, “no disrespect intended, but is this a little theory of your own, or is there any scientific basis for it?”

“That’s an excellent question      . finally. There’s plenty of evidence. Duchenne did some preliminary work on the facial muscles in the 1860s, and Izard was analyzing facial expressions in the 1920s in the U.S. But the main work’s being done by Ekman at UC—the University of California—and by Friesen. Ekman’s even talked to the CIA —”

“All right, all right, you win.” John was quiet a few moments. Then he said, “Okay, I admit it. I’m impressed.”

Gideon stood up and stretched. “And now that one and all have been astounded by feats of scientific legerdemain, why don’t we hit the road and get home?”

In the dark car, John turned on the ignition, then shut it off and turned to Gideon, his arm on the back of his seat.

“Here comes the rebuttal,” Gideon said to no one. “I thought it was too easy.”

“No rebuttal, Doc. I’m just not clear about everything yet. It doesn’t make sense that the Russians were trying to kill you. They were getting their information through you, right? So why would they want you dead, huh?”

“Yeah, huh?” said Marti.

Gideon smiled, although he knew no one could see it. “The need-to-know principle,” he said softly. “The great standard of the espionage world. It just turns out that the Russians are as dumb as we are.”

When he was silent for a few moments, Janet said, “If that was an explanation, I’m afraid I missed something.”

“You know how NSD got mixed up?” Gideon said. “How Intelligence was protecting me because I was working for them, but Bureau Four was after me because they thought I was a spy?”

There were murmurs of assent.

“Well, the same thing—the exact same goddamn thing— happened to the Russians. Their espionage people knew I was their source, but espionage and counterespionage don’t talk to each other—just like us—and as far as counterespionage was concerned, I was a danger, an NSD operative.”

“Which you were,” John said.

“Which I was.” He sighed. “Which I sure was. I was hunting like mad for the KGB source… and it was me. And I