Charm School v1_0

by Nelson DeMille

  “I'm afraid so. They'll stay in Moscow awhile longer. They have to or the KGB will know that Surikov blew the Charm School graduates. We can't have that until the FBI is ready to round them all up. You know that.”

  “You're a bastard.”

  “I'm a patriot.”

  Bullets began slapping into the log walls again, and Hollis could now hear the deep chatter of a heavy machine gun. The walls began to splinter, and Hollis lay prone on the floor. “Get down.”

  Several rounds hit the radios, and they disintegrated. The porcelain stove shattered, and smoke and ash billowed out of it. The three corpses on the far wall took some hits, and Hollis could hear the sound of popping body gases and smelled death. Hollis reached out and pulled an AK-47 toward him, then rolled to the door and fired at some nearby muzzle flashes. “They're here, at the front of the cabin now.”

  Alevy didn't seem interested. He remained sitting with his back to the wall. He remarked, “And to add insult to injury, Sam, my people are going to smuggle the Kellums out. They'll get teaching positions in our American Charm School. They're quite bright as it turns out and willing to cooperate in exchange for not being thrown in the Moskva.”

  Hollis reloaded another magazine. “What a fucking mess. The people you were supposed to rescue here are going to die—”

  “Right. Quite painless though. Sarin is quick.”

  “And Lisa and I were supposed to die. And Burov the sadist lives, and the fucking Kellums live, and Surikov and his granddaughter who risked their lives for us are stuck here, and Dodson whom you all wanted to kill to shut him up is going from a living death here to another living death in your goddamned new Charm School—”

  “That's about it. Except taking Dodson was your idea. I wanted the general. Anyway, Charlie Banks and his crowd are quite pleased. Your people are sort of pleased because the honor of the missing airmen remains unblighted. It would be hard to explain all those traitors—”

  “They weren't—”

  “They were. And needless to say, the CIA got what it wanted.”

  “And you? Did you get what you wanted, Seth?”

  “I guess. Maybe I just got what I had coming.”

  Hollis looked at Alevy in the dim light. “Do you understand how monstrous this is?”

  “Absolutely. But do you realize how brilliant it is? This is a classic turnaround of a massive espionage offensive against us into an unmitigated disaster for them. We've bought a little more time for the fat, decadent West to consume more designer jeans, play at democracy, talk about peace and understanding, write diet books—”

  Hollis sprang across the room and knocked Alevy over. He pinned his shoulders against the floor and put his face near Alevy's. “Do you know what you've done! Has everyone in Washington gone stark fucking crazy?”

  Alevy shouted, “They're scared shitless is what they are! Get off your high horse, General Hollis. This is bottom-line survival.” He pushed Hollis away and sat up.

  “Then you're all missing the goddamned point!” Hollis shouted, “We can't survive by becoming like them. People like Surikov and his granddaughter… we're their light in this darkness… don't you understand, Seth? I've just gone through two fucking weeks of totalitarianism. You and I lived here for two years, Seth. Jesus Christ, man, haven't you learned anything—?”

  Alevy pulled his pistol and pointed it at Hollis' face. “I don't want a goddamned lecture. I know what the hell I did. At least admit that it had to be done. Or just shut up.”

  Hollis lay prone on the floor and listened to the gunfire getting closer. He could hear men shouting orders and guessed they were getting their nerve up for the final assault across the open space between the road and the cabin. He took a deep breath and said to Alevy, “All right… I understand.” He thought of Jane Landis, then of Tim Landis and their little boy. He recalled the quiet suffering of General Austin, the understated bravery of Lewis Poole, and the tragedy of all the Americans he'd met here and their Russian wives and their children. He remembered the female doctor who had checked him over and remembered the other political prisoners who were victims of this madness. He even had a passing thought about the students, especially those who had raised their voices at the VFW hall. And there were the five or six hundred Border Guards, who to some extent were blameless, and there was Burov's wife, his mother, and his daughter. “Damn it!”

  Alevy threw away his pistol and grabbed one of the AK-47's from the floor. He stood at the window and fired a continuous stream of bullets until the rifle overheated and jammed. He threw it down and stooped for another rifle as a burst of bullets tore at the shards of glass and window frame.

  Hollis picked up the remaining AK-47 and moved to the window that faced away from the gunfire. He raised the butt of the rifle and smashed away the glass and wood.

  Alevy looked up at him. “Where are you going?”

  “Home.”

  “No, you're not.” Alevy swung his rifle around and aimed it at Hollis. “You know too much now.”

  “That's why I'm going home.” Hollis lifted himself into the window. “Let's go.”

  Alevy fired a burst of rounds into the wall above Hollis' head.

  “Stop!”

  “No. I'm doing it my way, Seth. Not yours.”

  You owe me, Sam. For saving Lisa's life. Cover me.

  “I don't owe you a thing. Hey, Seth.”

  “What?”

  “You cover me. Okay?”

  Alevy looked at him across that dark cabin. “Sure. I always have.”

  Hollis nodded. “Thanks, Seth.”

  “Yeah. You too. I'll be right behind you, Sam. See you on board.”

  Hollis rolled out the window and lay still on the ground. Suddenly, he heard a shout from a chorus of voices. “OOO-RAH!” The air was split by the deafening round of AK-47's on full automatic, coming closer as the Border Guards began their final charge across the open space toward the cabin.

  Hollis ran toward the clearing, keeping the solid cabin at his back. Stray rounds streaked by to his right and left, but he ignored them, focusing only on the field ahead. He reached the grass and dove into a prone position.

  Behind him he could hear footsteps beating on the soft earth. He watched Alevy coming toward him, then Alevy seemed to stumble and fall, disappearing in the tall grass. Suddenly, the undulating grass became the swells of Haiphong harbor, and the figure trying to rise up out of it was not Alevy, but Ernie Simms. A voice called out, “Sam! Sam!” And Hollis could not in truth tell if it were Alevy's voice or Simms' voice echoing down through the years. Hollis stood and ran toward the voice.

  He reached Alevy crawling through the yellow grass, and Alevy clutched at Hollis' leg, then rolled to his side as Hollis dropped low beside him. “Sam…”

  Hollis tore open Alevy's tunic and saw the dark stain spreading over his snow white shirt. “Damn it, Seth.”

  Alevy rolled over on his back, and Hollis pressed the heel of his hand against the sucking chest wound. “Lay still, Seth. Shallow breathing.” But already Hollis saw the frothy blood bubbling from Alevy's lips. “Easy. It's all right.”

  Alevy's eyes seemed clouded, and his breathing was coming in gasps, but he spoke distinctly, Go… go… they're waiting … don't let them wait…

  Hollis hesitated just a split second, then said, Not this time.

  We sink or swim together, buddy.“He grabbed Alevy under the arms and began to pull him up but felt Alevy's body stiffen, then go limp. He looked into Seth Alevy's dead open eyes and let him slip easily back onto the damp Russian earth. Hollis drew a deep breath, then said softly,”I think I'm going to miss you, my friend. And when the KGB found his body, Hollis thought, they would know that it was Seth Alevy who had beaten them, and that there would be no tit for tat this time.

  Hollis rose slowly to one knee and peered out into the dark clearing. The helicopter was gone, and he looked up and saw it rising vertically into the air. He looked at his watch and saw it was 3:48. They h
ad waited, but not long enough. He supposed that O'Shea, Brennan, and Mills had seen to it that Lisa did not leave the helicopter. Still, he thought, she might be out there in the dark field. He stood, cradled his rifle, and began moving toward the center of the field where the helicopter had been.

  He heard a noise behind him and glanced back at the radio cabin. It was burning now, and by the light of the fire he saw the figures of KGB Border Guards moving into the clearing, coming toward him.

  Hollis turned back toward the field and continued walking, though with each step he was more certain that she wasn't out there. He was glad she wasn't, but he would have liked to see her once more just the same.

  He reached the place where the helicopter had been and stood in the flattened grass. He looked up but could no longer see the aircraft in the dark sky.

  Hollis heard a noise, and he looked out toward the opposite tree line. He could make out another line of men moving in his direction. The searchlights on the closest watchtowers were turned inward now, and two of them were sweeping the field. One of them caught him in its beam.

  From the direction of the cabin, a voice called out in Russian, “Surrender. You are surrounded. Put your hands up.”

  Hollis dropped to one knee and fired back toward the cabin, then turned and fired at the advancing line approaching from the other direction. Both lines of men hit the ground, but he drew no return fire as they couldn't shoot toward each other. He watched them coming in short rushes through the knee-high grass, then taking cover, both skirmish lines of KGB Border Guards converging on him. The spotlight remained fixed on him, and he fired along its beam until it went black.

  “Surrender! Stand up!”

  Hollis fired off the remaining rounds from his rifle, then drew his pistol and waited. Both groups of men were within fifty meters of him, and they were calling to one another. Someone gave an order, and the group from the direction of the cabin dropped low into prone firing positions. The other line knelt with rifles raised toward him, like a firing squad. He fired his pistol at them and waited for the fusillade of bullets to rip into him.

  He waited, but nothing happened. He looked toward the men who had been kneeling, but he couldn't see them any longer, and he realized they must have also dropped into prone firing positions in the grass. He called out in Russian, “I do not surrender! Come and get me!”

  He waited, but no one replied. He heard someone retching, then a moan, and he understood. The nerve gas, coming from the north, had reached the first group of men before it had reached him. He noticed, too, that the spotlights from the towers were no longer moving but were pointed motionless into the air.

  He looked back at the guards who had come from the cabin, downwind of him, and he saw they were still moving through the grass. Hollis stood with his pistol drawn, waiting for the nerve gas or the last of the Border Guards, and knowing it made no difference which reached him first.

  The sky was clear, and the gentle wind still blew from the north. He felt no particular fear of dying, knowing in his heart that but for a matter of minutes in Haiphong harbor, he might have spent the last fifteen years of his life here. Fate had given him some extra time, but it was borrowed time, and now the debt had to be paid, as he always knew it would.

  There was already an occupied grave for him at Arlington, and he didn't suppose it mattered that the ashes in it were not his, but were those of some unfortunate Russian. Everyone had paid their respects and were getting on with their lives. This death then was somewhat redundant, just as the deaths of the airmen here were redundant. In truth, he knew that by playing Alevy's game he had contributed to this outcome, and he thought it fitting that he should be here with the men who would never go home.

  And in truth, too, he knew he could have left that cabin two minutes sooner. But for reasons better known to Alevy than to himself, he had stayed, had found himself too drawn to Alevy and too involved with the man's seductive madness.

  But Alevy he could forgive, because Alevy was willing to die for his convictions. Someone such as Charles Banks and the people who played global chess in Washington and Moscow were another matter. They were the ones, he thought, who needed a whiff of cordite, dead bodies, and gas to bring them back to reality.

  Hollis closed his eyes and conjured up a picture of Lisa the first time he'd ever really noticed her, in the duty office the night of Fisher's disappearance. Looking back, he realized that something had passed between them that night and that he knew where it was going to lead; just as he'd also known that the business of Fisher and Dodson would eventually lead him to this moment. But as these were conflicting premonitions, he had tried to distance himself from her. If he had any regrets, it was that he should have loved her more, should have given her what she gave with such enthusiasm to him.

  The wind picked up, and he took a deep breath. The pine and the damp earth still smelled good, its essence, at least, untainted by the deadly man-made miasma. He felt a slight nausea and an odd tingling sensation on his skin. He heard a man cry out briefly in the distance, then another one moaned. He wondered how the gas was killing the Russians downwind of him before it had killed him.

  Somewhere in the back of his mind he heard a steady flapping sound, like the wings of dark angels, he thought, coming to lift his soul away. The wind picked up and he opened his eyes. The sky was pitch black above him, and he saw the darkness descending on him like some palpable thing. Then he saw the wings of the angel whirling in the night sky and understood that it was no gas-induced apparition but a helicopter, clearing the air around him, creating a small pocket of life in the dead zone.

  Hollis shook his head. “No! Go away!” Haiphong harbor was his second chance. He deserved that one, but he didn't deserve this one. “Go away!”

  The helicopter slipped to the side, and he saw her kneeling in the open door, ten feet above him, her hand extended toward him. Beside her was Brennan, and in the window was Mills. In the pilot's seat O'Shea was flying with far more skill than he was capable of.

  Hollis shook his head and waved them off.

  “Sam! Please!” She leaned farther out the door, and Brennan pulled her back, then threw a looped line down to him.

  The helicopter hovered a moment, and Hollis saw it was being buffeted by its own downdraft. He realized that O'Shea would sit there until he either crashed or was killed by the gas. Hollis drew the looped line under his arms and felt his body leave the ground, swinging through the air, then he felt nothing.

  * * *

  42

  Sam Hollis felt his body swinging through the black void. The sensations of weightlessness and motion were soothing and pleasant, and he wanted it to last, but by stages he realized he was not floating but sitting still.

  He opened his eyes to blackness and stared at distant lights until they came closer and took the familiar form of a cockpit instrument panel. He focused on a clock in front of him and saw it was nearly six. He assumed it was A.M. He turned his head and looked at O'Shea, sitting in the pilot's seat beside him. “Where the hell are you going?”

  O'Shea glanced at him. “Hello. Feeling all right?”

  “I feel fine. Answer my question, Captain.”

  Lisa leaned between the seats and kissed him on the cheek. She took his hand. “Hello, Sam.”

  “Hello to you. Hello to everyone back there. Where the hell are we going? The embassy is only twenty minutes—”

  Bert Mills, sitting behind him, said, “We can't go to the embassy with this load, General. Captain O'Shea, Bill, and I are officially in Helsinki. You and Lisa are officially dead. Dodson died almost twenty years ago, and Burov is a major complication.”

  Hollis nodded. He knew all that. “We're going to the gulf.”

  O'Shea replied, “Yes, sir. Gulf of Finland. To rendezvous with a ship.” O'Shea added, “Congratulations on your promotion.”

  Typical military, Hollis thought. No congratulations on being alive, but promotions were important. He grunted. “Thanks.”r />
  Mills asked, “How do you feel physically?”

  Hollis moved his legs, then his arms, but didn't feel any lack of coordination. His vision was good, and his other senses seemed all right. He smelled a faint odor of vomit and realized it was coming from his sweat shirt. He hadn't voided his bladder or bowels, which was good. He realized the right side of his face was numb and put his fingers to his cheek, feeling a gauze pad over the area where Burov's teeth had ripped his flesh. The numbness, he assumed, was caused by a local anesthetic and not the effects of nerve gas. “I'm all right.” He turned in his seat and stared at Mills. “You administered pralidoxime?”

  Mills nodded, acknowledging that what they were discussing was the antidote for nerve gas, not sleeping gas.

  “Did I convulse?”

  “Slight. But if you feel all right, then you're all right. That's how that stuff is.”

  Lisa said, “I didn't think sleeping gas could make you so sick.”

  No one replied.

  Hollis turned and looked around the dark cabin. Lisa was kneeling on the floor between the seats, Mills was directly behind Hollis, and Brennan was sleeping peacefully in the seat behind O'Shea. In the two rear seats were Dodson and Burov, odd seating companions, he thought. They both were held upright by shoulder harnesses.

  Mills said, “Dodson will be okay. He just needs a few square meals. Burov… well, he needs his face rebuilt. I hope there's no brain damage.”

  “He started with brain damage,” Hollis replied. Hollis felt Lisa squeeze his hand, and remembering his one regret, squeezed it in return. He said, “Good to see you.”

  She said, “We waited for you, but…”

  “You weren't supposed to wait, and you weren't supposed to come back and risk everything.”

  Mills said, “We took a vote, and I lost. Nothing personal, General. Just for the record.” Mills added, “Also for the record, you and Seth shouldn't have waited for me. But thanks.”

  Hollis turned back to the front and scanned the instrument panel, his eyes resting on the fuel gauge. “How far are we from the gulf?”