The Charm School

by Nelson DeMille

  “Amen, brother,” Hollis replied in English.

  Lisa poked him in the side.

  Sasha continued, “You should go there on Sunday. The believers have mass in the cathedral there. I went once. It was very… interesting. Then go to the cemetery there too. You like our writers? Chekhov is buried there.”

  “And Gogol?” Hollis asked.

  “Oh, yes. He’s there too.”

  Hollis glanced at Lisa, who was smiling.

  Sasha went on, “Also Khruschev is there and other party members. Why do you suppose they wanted to be buried in holy ground and not at the Kremlin wall? Who can say? Maybe they’re taking no chances.” Sasha laughed again.

  They all got back into the Volga. Sasha said, “You have almost two hours left for what you paid.”

  “I think we’ve had enough,” Hollis said.

  “Good. Me too. I invite you to my flat for food. My wife always wanted to meet Americans. I told her someday I’d bring some home. You’re the first I’ve met who speak our language. Also, I like you.”

  Lisa looked at Hollis and nodded. Hollis said to Sasha, “Thank you, but we can’t.”

  “I know who you are. I saw both your pictures on television last night. But we have glasnost now. It doesn’t matter.”

  Hollis wondered how Soviet TV had gotten their pictures. Hollis replied, “I’m afraid this is beyond glasnost, and it does matter. For you, not for us.”

  Sasha pulled the car away and chuckled. “Maybe they’ll kick me out too.”

  “Do you know where the American embassy is?”

  “Who doesn’t?”

  “We’ll go there now.”

  The Volga came down from the Lenin Hills, crossed the Moskva, and headed toward the embassy along the embankment road.

  Lisa put her head on Hollis’ shoulder. “Busy tonight?”

  “Meeting until about nine.”

  “With whom?”

  “Spies.”

  “Do you want to come over afterward?”

  “I’d love to.”

  “Stay the night?”

  “Stay the rest of the week, if you want.”

  She smiled. “Good. Move in. Shake up the diplomats and their stuffy wives.”

  “Hang my underwear from your clothesline.”

  “I don’t have a clothesline, but I’ll put your name on my buzzer.”

  The Volga slid along the misty embankment road following the loop of the Moskva. The red brick chancery building appeared all alight through the river fog. Lisa said, “I thought you were relieved of your duties.”

  “I’m just briefing and being debriefed.”

  “Kay won’t even let me in my office. I guess this really is serious business. Are we in more trouble than we know?”

  “Not at the moment. But we will be if we don’t keep our mouths shut.”

  “You’re still on the case, aren’t you? You’re still working with Seth.”

  Hollis didn’t reply immediately, then said, “Discharges don’t come so easily in this war.”

  He leaned over the front seat and said to Sasha, “Don’t slow down until you’re at the gate, then stop quickly, as close to the gate as you can.”

  Sasha glanced at him. “I can’t cross the militiamen on the sidewalk.”

  “No, but get close. We’ll be leaving the car quickly, so I’ll say good-bye now.”

  “Da svedahnya,” Sasha replied.

  “Someday we’ll have that dinner.”

  “Someday.”

  Hollis pulled his hat down and slid back low in his seat.

  Lisa slid down beside him. “Is this necessary?”

  “No, it’s my idea of fun.”

  Sasha maintained his speed, then suddenly pulled over to the curb and hit his brakes. Hollis opened the curbside door, and he and Lisa jumped out. He took Lisa’s arm and moved her quickly past the militia guards just as they stepped out of their booth. “Stoi! Pasport!”

  Hollis called out to the Marine guard. “Hit it, son.” The electric gates began to part as Hollis heard running boots behind him. He pushed Lisa through the opening, then followed, returning the guard’s salute. Hollis looked over his shoulder at the two militiamen glaring at him through the gate. Beyond them he saw that Sasha now had two embassy watchers in his Volga and was looking rather uncomfortable.

  Lisa remarked, “I think I’ve had enough cloak and dagger for the day. I think what I’ll do is have a drink, then I’ll move your things over while you’re at your meeting. Maybe I can have someone from housekeeping help me. I’ll call the Kellums.”

  “No, I’d rather you and I did it later. Okay?”

  “Okay.”

  They walked into the chancery building, and Hollis said, “I’m going up to my office awhile, then to my meeting.”

  “Will Seth be there?”

  “I guess. Why?”

  She hesitated, then said, “You’re jealous that we were involved… . I’m jealous of his relationship with you.”

  Hollis didn’t think it was quite the same thing but didn’t reply.

  Lisa added, “Be careful of him, Sam.”

  Hollis glanced at his watch. “Well, see you later.”

  “Thank you for today.”

  Hollis walked to the elevator as Lisa walked out the back toward the residences. As Hollis rode up to meet Alevy, it occurred to him that two of the great puzzles in life were women and espionage and that he was up to his eyeballs in both.

  24

  Hollis buttoned the blue tunic of his Air Force uniform and straightened his tie. “How do I look?”

  “Very sexy,” Lisa said. “I’m going to lose you to some young secretary tonight.”

  Hollis adjusted his row of ribbons.

  Lisa asked, “Do you arrange them by color, chronologically, or what?”

  “By order of importance. Good conduct last. Which secretary?”

  She smiled. “Will you teach me how to put your uniform together?”

  “It’s not important. I can do it.”

  “Did your wife do it?”

  “I don’t think she knew I was in the military. Do you have any scotch?”

  “One bottle left in the kitchen. Help me with this zipper.”

  Hollis zippered her black silk dress, then reached around and cupped her breasts in his hands. “World-class jugs.”

  “Gross. You’re getting very gross. You used to be an officer and a gentleman.”

  He kissed her on the neck, and they went downstairs. Lisa got the scotch and a bottle of soda. Hollis filled two glasses with ice.

  She said, “These packing boxes are getting on my nerves.”

  “Where’s the icon?”

  “Over there on the bookshelf. I’m going to send it to my boss at the USIS in D.C. I wrote and asked him to hold it. Will you get it into the diplomatic bag for me?”

  “I said I would.”

  “Thanks. Can you pick it up for me when you go to Washington?”

  “Sure.” He took the icon from the bookshelf and looked at it. It was a square, about two feet on each side. The painting was of a male saint, but Hollis couldn’t identify him. “Who’s this guy?”

  She came up beside him. “That guy is the Archangel Gabriel. See his trumpet?”

  “Right.”

  “This is painted on larch. Too many of them were done on pine, which warps and cracks.”

  “I see.”

  “A lot of people don’t like icon painting. The figures have no perspective, no depth or movement. They’re just flat, and the faces seem stiff and distant.”

  “Like eight million Muscovites.”

  “But there’s a warmth to the colors they used, and there’s a certain serenity in that beatific face, don’t you think?”

  “Oh, yes. How much?”

  “Is it worth? Well, they’re hard to get appraised in the West, but I found an art historian at Columbia once who said it was sixteenth century, Kazan region, which I knew. Worth maybe twenty-five thousan
d.”

  “Jesus. What if I lose it?”

  She poured scotch in his glass. “I can’t imagine a spy losing things. I trust you.”

  “Okay.” He put the icon carefully back on the shelf.

  She said, “The icon has a very special importance in Russia. During the Tartar invasions, when churches were burned and priests massacred, the icon was small enough to be hidden, and each household had one. For hundreds of years these deeply religious people came to see the icon as the symbol of survival of the Russian culture and Christianity.”

  Hollis nodded. “You see parallels?”

  “Of course. Everyone does. If the Orthodox church and Russian culture could survive almost three hundred years of wild horsemen, it can survive those fools in the Kremlin. That’s part of the symbolic meaning in the revival of iconography. The portraits themselves may be uninspiring, but people here who keep icons are making a statement of dissent. I think they know and the Kremlin knows who are the keepers of the culture and who are the Tartars.”

  “Interesting. Sometimes I think there’s more to this country than meets the eye. We forget they have a history.”

  “They don’t forget for a minute.” Lisa sipped on her scotch. “I’m a little anxious about this party.”

  “Why?”

  “Well… it’s sort of… I guess I’m basically shy. I don’t like being the center of attention, especially at a party celebrating my getting kicked out.”

  “I hadn’t noticed your shyness,” Hollis ventured. “Anyway, it’s all good fun. I went to one in Sofia once. The deputy CIA station chief there had seduced the wife of a Bulgarian official or something. Long story short, he got caught and booted. Anyway, the party lasted all weekend and the poor guy… what’s the matter?”

  “Men are pigs. That’s not a funny story.”

  “Oh. Seemed funny at the time. Maybe you had to be there.”

  “You know, this espionage business is sort of… anyway, it’s not you. Can you get out of it? Do you want to get out of it?”

  “I’d like to fly again.”

  “Do you? Or have you been saying that too long?”

  Hollis sat on a packing crate and didn’t reply.

  “I’m sorry, Sam. I’m pushing too much. I don’t own you.” She finished her scotch. “Yet. Want another?”

  “No.”

  “I do. I’m jumpy.”

  “I see that.”

  She poured another drink, then found her cigarettes on an empty bookshelf. “Want one?”

  “After I finish my drink.”

  She lit her cigarette. The doorbell rang. “I’ll get it.” She went down the stairs and came back with Charles Banks.

  Banks said, “Hello, Sam. Lisa assures me I’m not intruding.”

  “Then you’re probably not. Take off your coat, Charles.”

  “No, this will only take a few minutes.”

  “Drink? Scotch only.”

  “A short one. Soda or water.”

  Lisa went into the kitchen.

  Banks looked around. He said to Hollis, “I’ve seen this scene so often in my career and in my life. My father was a Foreign Service man.”

  Lisa came back with a glass of ice water and filled it with scotch. She handed it to Banks.

  He raised his glass. “Let me be the first, before your soiree begins, to wish you both the best of luck in your careers and personal happiness.”

  They touched glasses and drank.

  Banks remained standing and said to Lisa, “I was telling Sam, I was a diplomatic brat, like he’s an Air Force brat.”

  “I didn’t know that, Charles. No one here knows much about you, to be frank.”

  “Well, some people do. I’ve spent my life in diplomatic posts and in fact, my father, Prescott Banks, was with the first post-Revolution diplomatic mission here in 1933. I was eight at the time, and I remember Moscow a bit. It was a grim place then.” He smiled. “I know, I know. Anyway, I met Stalin when I was about ten, I guess.”

  “How fascinating,” Lisa said. “Do you remember him?”

  “I remember he smelled of tobacco. My father told me jokingly that I was going to meet the czar of all the Russias. Then when I was introduced to him at his apartment in the Kremlin, I told him he didn’t look like the czar of all the Russias. Stalin laughed, but my mother nearly fainted.”

  Hollis smiled. “You weren’t always so smooth, were you?”

  Banks chuckled. “No, that was my first diplomatic faux pas.” He shook the ice in his drink, then said, “Well, then, the first order of business…” He looked around the room. “A bit of music would be nice.”

  Lisa nodded and went to a tape player on the shelf. “They’ve packed my stereo. Here’s a few tapes. Charles, do you know Zhanna Bichevskaya, the Joan Baez of Russia?”

  “I’m afraid I don’t know much about contemporary Russian music. I’m sure it will be fine for our purposes.”

  “Right.” Lisa put the tape in and hit the play button. A soft guitar, then a beautiful, clear Russian voice filled the room. Lisa said, “Her songs make me melancholy. I’ve tried to get her on a tour of America, but the bastards won’t let her out of the country. I can’t even speak to her. I don’t know where she lives or much about her, except I love her voice. I assume she’s politically unreliable.”

  Banks said, “She does have a lovely voice. At least they let her sing.”

  They all moved nearer the tape player, and Lisa adjusted the volume. Hollis said, “I think that’s about right. Go on, Charles.”

  Banks cleared his throat. “Yes, first thing. You both disappeared the other day for some time, and there was some fear here and in Washington that you’d met with foul play. Therefore, the ambassador has requested that you stay inside the compound until you are both driven to the airport by security personnel, Monday morning. That will not cause you any hardship, I trust.”

  Hollis replied, “No, it won’t, since I’m not taking orders from the ambassador. Lisa and I intend to go to church in the city on Sunday.”

  Banks replied in an impatient tone, “Why do you want to provoke them and expose yourself and Lisa to danger?”

  “Surely, Charles,” Hollis said in a baiting tone, “you don’t think the Soviet government or its organs of State Security would make an attempt on our lives even as our diplomats are discussing a new era of Soviet-American friendship?”

  Banks replied coolly, “Not the Soviet government, perhaps, but I can’t fathom what the KGB is up to, and neither can you. We have a similar problem right here with Mr. Alevy, whose organization seems to be pursuing its own foreign policy. In fact, if the KGB and the CIA have one thing in common, it’s their desire to wreck any rapprochement between their respective governments.”

  “That’s a very strong statement,” Hollis observed.

  “Nevertheless it’s what the diplomatic community believes.”

  “Charles, I don’t like it when the diplomatic community here or anywhere tries to take the moral high ground. My work and Seth Alevy’s work may not be to your liking or your superiors’ liking. But it is, unfortunately, necessary work. And there is an implied understanding that the Foreign Service will provide support services to the intelligence personnel within the mission. No one in my office or Alevy’s has ever asked anything of you more than room and board and an atmosphere of cooperation and understanding. We have never compromised the diplomatic personnel here. Whoever takes over from me has a tough enough job, and he deserves your respect if not your sympathy.”

  Banks set his drink down on a bookshelf. “Personally, I agree with you. The world has changed since the days when the only spies in an embassy were a few Foreign Service people known unofficially as State Department Intelligence. However, the ambassador’s fear in this current problem… the fear of the White House itself, if you want to know the truth… is that one of you—you, Seth Alevy, the naval attaché, the Army attaché, or any of the people who work for you—will seize on this current Fishe
r and Dodson business as a tool to wreck the diplomatic initiatives. Enough said.”

  Hollis poured more scotch into Banks’ glass and handed it back to him. “I’m afraid I have to have the last word on that, Charles. You’re afraid of us troglodytes, but I want to remind you that many of the fruits of hard-won military and intelligence victories, paid for in blood, were lost by the State Department and the Foreign Service. I fought a war, and my father fought a war, and your father… well, I know the name Prescott Banks. I want to remind you of the sterling performance of the State Department at Yalta and Potsdam, when your forebears gave Stalin everything but the west lawn of the White House. That’s why we’re in the goddamned mess we’re in now.”

  Banks’ ruddy face turned even redder. He took a long breath, then sipped on his drink. “That was not our finest hour. My father regretted his role in that in his later years.”

  Lisa poured more scotch for everyone and said, “I know that the past is prologue for the future, but you old duffers are talking about things that happened before I was born.”

  Banks said, “Well, more recent news then. As you know, Gregory Fisher’s parents have had an autopsy performed on their son. We’ve received information on the results of that autopsy.”

  “And?” Lisa asked.

  “The medical examiner’s report states that the injuries were not the immediate cause of death.”

  “What,” Lisa asked, “was the cause of death?”

  “Heart failure.”

  Hollis observed, “Heart failure is the cause of all deaths. What caused the heart to fail?”

  “Partly trauma. But mostly alcohol. Mr. Fisher had a deadly amount of alcohol in his blood and brain tissue.”

  “The KGB introduced the alcohol before death,” Hollis said, “through a stomach tube. The perfect poison, because nearly everyone takes it now and then.”

  Banks seemed uncomfortable with this type of talk. “Really? Is it possible to do that?” He looked at Hollis as though he were discovering a new species of human being. “That’s terrible.”

  Lisa said, “So, we have no evidence that could be used in a court of law or in a diplomatic note of protest if anyone considered such a course of action?”