Charm School v1_0

by Nelson DeMille

  He went into the living room and kicked magazines and newspapers under the couch, then scooped up three ties and dumped them behind the books on his bookshelf. The doorbell rang again. “Hold on.” He placed an ashtray over a scotch spill on the coffee table and bounded down the stairs. He opened the door. “Hello.”

  She came inside wearing an ankle-length white wool coat, a Russian blue fox hat, and carrying a canvas bag. She kissed him lightly on the cheek, which he thought was more intimate than on the mouth. She stomped her boots on the rug and handed him the bag. “Snowing,” she said.

  He helped her off with her things and put the hat and coat in the foyer closet. Hollis saw that under the stylish coat she'd worn into the city, she was wearing a black velour sweat suit.

  She sat on the stairs, pulled off her boots and socks, and massaged her feet. “Where were you?” she asked. “I was in the kitchen.”

  “No, I mean earlier this evening.”

  “Oh, I was sending and receiving.”

  “Boy, I wish I had a secret room where I could tell people I was, even if I wasn't. That could come in handy sometimes.” He led her up the stairs.

  “Captain O'Shea got all shifty when I asked him where you were. I looked for you in the lounge.”

  “I was in the radio room. Sending and receiving.” They stepped into the living room. She asked, “Are you seeing anyone else? I never asked you that, because I am naive. But I'm asking you now.”

  Hollis was momentarily nostalgic for a wife who didn't care where he was. “There's no one else. What's in the bag?”

  “The best that Gastronom One has to offer.” She walked into the center of the living room and looked around at the eclectic collection of Asian, South American, and European furniture. ' Is this your wife's taste?

  “We picked up pieces all over the world.”

  “Really? Does she want it back?”

  “I don't know.”

  “Where are you having it moved?”

  “My next duty station, I guess. Do you want this stuff in the kitchen?”

  “Yes.” She followed Hollis into the kitchen and unpacked the canvas bag. Hollis looked at the jars and cans—pickled vegetables, horseradish, salted fish, canned sausage, a piece of smoked herring, a box of loose tea, and a carton of cookies labeled cookies. The Russians were into generics. Hollis had tried those cookies once and thought they smelled like rancid lard and pencil shavings.

  He said, “Where's the beef?”

  “Oh, they don't carry real food at that Gastronom. Only specialty items. I'll just make a platter of zakuski, and we'll pick. I'm not very hungry.”

  “I am. I'll go to the commissary.”

  “There's enough here. Make me a vodka with lemon while I put it together. Where's your can opener?”

  “Right there.” Hollis got his Stolichnaya out of the freezer and filled two frozen glasses. “I don't have lemon. No one has lemon.”

  Lisa reached into her pocket and produced a lemon. “Got this in the lounge. The bartender is in love with me.”

  Hollis cut the lemon and put a wedge in each glass. They drank, opened cans and jars, and looked for bowls, plates, and serving pieces. Hollis found that he didn't know his kitchen very well.

  “Go sit on the couch,” she said. “I'll serve you there. Go on.”

  Hollis went into the living room and found a magazine under the couch.

  She came in with a tray of food and placed it on the coffee table, then sat beside him and tried to push the ashtray aside. “This is stuck.”

  They ate zakuski, drank vodka, and talked. Hollis asked her about her work.

  “I'm a fraud. I write what I know they want, in the style they want, the word length they want—”

  “Who is'they'?”

  “I don't know. That's the scary thing. Do you know?”

  “In the military you know”

  She nodded. “Actually, I'm a good writer. I can do some good stuff. But I like the glamour of the Foreign Service. What should I do?”

  “Stay with the service. Write the good stuff on the side, under a pen name.”

  “Good idea. Do you think they'll reassign us together?”

  “Is that what you want?”

  “Have I been too subtle, or are you dense?”

  He smiled. “I'll work it out.”

  “Can you?”

  “I think so.”

  She took out her cigarettes. “Do you mind?”

  “No.”

  “Want one?”

  “Later.”

  She drew the ashtray toward her. “Why does this stick?”

  Hollis poured himself another vodka.

  She lit her cigarette and said, “How have the last six months gone, Sam? You miss her?”

  “No, but my bachelorhood hasn't been too thrilling either. There aren't many social opportunities in merry Moscow and fewer here on the compound. I can't play bridge with the marrieds anymore, and I don't hang around with you unmarrieds in the lounge. I'm in limbo.”

  “You've been horny.”

  “It's been a hard half year.”

  “So the stories I heard about your amorous adventures were not true?”

  “Well, maybe three of them were.” He smiled.

  “Am I the first woman who's been up here?”

  “You're into counting, aren't you?”

  She gave him a look of mock anger and grabbed his tie. “You remember how I kicked Viktor in the balls? Answer me, Hollis.” She pulled his tie.

  “You're making my tie hard.”

  She suppressed a smile. “Answer me.”

  He laughed. “Yes, yes. I told you. I've been alone.” He grabbed her wrists and pinned her to the couch. They kissed.

  She moved away. “Later. I have a videotape in my bag.” She stood, retrieved the tape, and put it in his VCR. “Doctor Zhivago. There was a month wait for this, so we have to see it.” She went back to the couch and lay down, putting her bare feet in his lap. “Are you into feet?”

  “I never gave it much thought.”

  “Would you mind rubbing my feet?”

  “No.” He rubbed her feet as they watched the tape and drank vodka.

  “I've seen this movie four times,” she said. It always makes me cry.

  “Why don't you run it backwards? The czar will be on the throne at the end.”

  “Don't be an idiot. Oh, look at him. He's gorgeous.”

  “Looks like a used-rug salesman.”

  “I love 'Lara's Theme.'”

  “I love Lara. I could eat that woman.”

  “Don't be gross. Oh, Sam, I wanted to go out to Peredelkino and put flowers on Pasternak's grave and listen to the Russians read his poetry in the churchyard.”

  “It seems you won't do many of the things you wanted to do here to satisfy your Russian soul.”

  “I know. It's sad. I almost got home.”

  “Watch the movie. This is where Lara shoots the fat guy.”

  They snuggled on the couch and watched the videotape. A cold wind rattled the windowpane, and a few flakes of snow fell.

  They made love on the couch and fell asleep. At one A.M. Hollis awakened and put on his trousers. She opened her eyes. “Where are you going?”

  “To the Seven-Eleven for a pack of cigarettes.”

  “Whom are you meeting?”

  “The ambassador's wife. I'm going to break it off.”

  “You're meeting Seth.”

  “Correct. Jealous?”

  She closed her eyes and rolled over.

  Against his better judgment, Hollis said, “You never told me he lived like a czar. Did he give you the icon?”

  “I told you it was my grandmother's.”

  “That's right. And you sounded so appreciative when I said I could get it out in the diplomatic pouch. Christ, your friend Alevy could get the Kremlin's domes out for you.”

  “Don't be a postcoital beast.” She closed her eyes and rolled over.

  Hollis left, slammi
ng the door behind him.

  * * *

  PART III

  The Russian is a delightful person

  till he tucks in his shirt. As an Oriental,

  he is charming. It is only when he

  insists on being treated as the most

  easterly of western peoples instead of

  the most westerly of easterns that he

  becomes… difficult to handle.

  —Rudyard Kipling

  22

  The background music on the tape deck in Alevy's apartment was the Red Army Choir singing patriotic songs.

  Hollis asked, “Could you change that?”

  “Sure.” Alevy opened the door on the sideboard and stopped the tape. “Sometimes I play things they like to hear too.”

  Hollis looked out the window toward a ten-story apartment building across the street. The top floor was where the KGB manned its electronic gadgets aimed at the embassy compound. He wondered just how much they saw and heard.

  “Tina Turner or Prince?”

  “Whatever turns you on, Seth.”

  Alevy put the Prince tape on and hit the play button. “That should send them to their vodka bottles.” He turned to Hollis. “So to pick up where we left off, what are those three hundred American fliers doing in that prison to earn their keep? To keep from being shot?”

  “Let's back up a minute,” Hollis said. “If we know that American POWs are being held at that place, why isn't our government doing something about it?”

  Alevy poured brandy into his coffee. “We didn't know until Friday night.”

  “You people knew something before then.”

  “What were we supposed to do about it? If the president made discreet inquiries or demands of the Soviet government, they would say, 'What are you talking about? Are you trying to wreck the peace again?' And you know what? They're right. And if the president got angry and made a public accusation, he would have to recall our ambassador, kick their ambassador out, and cancel the summit and arms talks. And we still wouldn't have a shred of evidence. And the world would be pissed off at us again. This guy they've got in the Kremlin gets good press, Sam. He says he wants to be our friend.”

  Hollis observed, “Then he shouldn't let his K-goons kill and harass Americans.”

  “Interesting point,” Alevy conceded. “And that's part of the complexity of the problem we face. This new guy has inherited three hundred American POWs. But it's the KGB who runs that camp. How much has the KGB told him about the camp? How much have they told him about what we know about the Charm School? For that matter, were not telling our government much, are we, Sam? The KGB may be looking to hand the Kremlin an embarrassing and serious problem at the last possible moment. The KGB and the Soviet military have pulled that stunt before. They don't want peace with the West.”

  “Don't your people sabotage peace initiatives?”

  “Not too often.” Alevy gave a sinister laugh. “How about your folks at the Pentagon?”

  Hollis replied, “No one's hands are clean.”

  “And you personally, Sam?”

  “Peace with honor,” Hollis replied. “How about you? You're no fan of the Soviets or of detente.”

  Alevy shrugged. “I'm just giving you the party line. I do what they tell me. They tell me not to embarrass the Soviet government with revelations that they might be holding American citizens as prisoners.” Alevy sprawled on the couch. “So I don't. Then Burov moves the camp or just shoots all those airmen.”

  Hollis said, “That's why we have to move fast, Seth.”

  Alevy stared up at the ceiling. “Right. Those men would be dead right now, if it weren't for Dodson. Dodson is living evidence, and Dodson is on the loose. So Burov has the Charm School and its population on hold. If Burov gets Dodson before we do… I keep waiting for Dodson to show up here.”

  Hollis said, I keep thinking about the thousand missing fliers and the three hundred we know are in the Charm School. I suppose there were more, but through attrition… natural causes, suicide, executions … Three hundred. I think it's up to us, Seth, to save them. Screw the diplomats.

  Alevy regarded Hollis a moment, then spoke. “You know, Sam, in the two years I've been working with you, I never understood where you were coming from.”

  “Good.”

  “But now I've got a handle on you. You're willing to break the rules on this one, risk your career, world peace, and your very life to get those fliers out. Cool Sam Hollis, Colonel Correct, is a wild jet jockey again, ready to bomb and strafe anything in his way.” Alevy smiled. “Yet everyone still thinks you're a team player and I'm the rogue. They don't know what I know about you. That could be useful. Welcome to my world, Sam Hollis.”

  Hollis made no reply.

  Alevy said, “Think of the downside of your goal. Let's say we got those men out, through negotiations or otherwise. Christ, can you imagine three hundred middle-aged American POWs landing at Dulles airport on a flight from Moscow? Do you know what kind of public outrage that would produce?”

  “Yes, if my outrage is any gauge of American public opinion.”

  “Right. Scrap the summit, the arms talks, trade, travel, the Bolshoi, the works. We might have our honor intact, but I wouldn't give odds on the peace.”

  “What are you saying, Seth? Washington doesn't want them home?”

  “You figure it out.” Alevy got up and poured more coffee and brandy from the sideboard. He shut off the tape. “What do you want to hear?”

  “In the last two years I've heard every piece of music written since 1685. I really don't care anymore.”

  “How about bagpipes? Listen to this. The Scots Highland Regiment. A limey at the U.K. embassy gave me this one. He says the Russians hate the sound of bagpipes.” Alevy put on the tape of pipes and drums, and the regiment swung into “The Campbells Are Comin'.”

  Alevy said, “Let's return to the question of why these fliers are still in Soviet hands. After they were wrung dry by the Red Air Force and GRU, why did the KGB come in and co-opt the place?”

  Hollis sipped on his coffee. “Mental labor. A sort of think tank. A KGB think tank. An extension course of the Institute of Canadian and American Studies.”

  “Something like that,” Alevy replied. “But a little more sinister.”

  “Meaning?”

  “We think those POWs are causing us damage, God forgive them. So our concern is not purely humanitarian. If it were, then you'd be correct in your cynical assumption that we'd just as soon let them rot in order to save detente. Fact is, Sam, our concern—my company's concern—is very deep and has to do with urgent matters of national security.” Alevy walked toward Hollis and said, “To put it bluntly, we think that fucking prison camp is a training school for Soviet agents who talk, look, think, act, and maybe even fuck like Americans. Do you understand?”

  Hollis nodded. “I know that. I've known that from the beginning. A finishing school, graduate school, charm school… whatever.”

  “Right. If our theory is correct, a graduate of that place is indistinguishable from a man born and raised in the good old U.S. of A. When an agent leaves there, he has a South Boston accent like Major Dodson or maybe a South Carolina accent or a White-fish, North Dakota, accent. He can tell you the name of Ralph Kramden's wife and beat you at Trivial Pursuit. See?”

  “Whitefish is in Montana, Seth.”

  “Is it?”

  “Who played shortstop for the 1956 Dodgers, Seth?”

  Alevy smiled grimly. “Phil Rizzuto.” He waved his arm. “Anyway, I can't be one of them.”

  “Why not?”

  “My company doesn't let you in just because you talk the talk. They want to interview mothers, fathers, and high school teachers. Point is though, most private companies just want to see documentary evidence that you were born, educated, and so forth.' Alevy grinned.”But it was a good question. You'll be asking it again.“Alevy added,”You've met a graduate of the Charm School.

  “The ma
n in Fisher's room. Schiller.”

  “Yes. Was he perfect?”

  “Chillingly so.” Hollis thought a moment. “So you think these… graduates of this school have entered American life, in America?”

  “We believe so. They might not work for my company, but they could work for contractors we hire, and they could live next door to me in Bethesda or empty the trash in CIA headquarters. They could install my telephone and audit my taxes. They can go to computer schools or other technical schools and could most probably join the military.” He looked at Hollis. “Who did play shortstop for the 1956 Dodgers?”

  “Howdy Doody.”

  “Bang, you're dead.” Alevy poured brandy into his empty coffee cup. “Want anything?”

  Hollis could see that Alevy was fatigued, high on caffeine, and low on alcohol. Hollis went to the sideboard and poured the last of the coffee. He said, “So they quack like a duck, look like a duck, and even lay eggs like a duck. But they ain't ducks.”

  “No, they ain't, Sam. They's red foxes. In the chicken coop. Or if you prefer, Satan in the sanctuary.”

  “How many do you think have graduated that place?”

  “When the school was first started, there were probably more Americans—let's call them instructors. The Charm School, as an offshoot of the Red Air Force school, has been in existence maybe twelve to fifteen years. The Charm School course would have to take at least a year. Probably a one-on-one situation. The little Red student assimilates the sum total of the Americans knowledge, personality, accent, and so forth.”

  “The invasion of the body snatchers,” Hollis said.

  “Precisely. So the school may once have had the capacity to graduate several hundred agents a year. But we assume some of the Russkies flunked out, and we assume some of the American instructors flunked in the ultimate sense, and also we don't think the KGB undergraduate schools here in Moscow or in Leningrad could supply that many qualified students to the graduate school—that's what we called it. But Major Dodson called it Mrs. Ivanova's Charm School, and that's from the horse's mouth. I guess the Americans there call it that as a joke. We still don't know what the Russians call it. Probably Spy School Five. Anyway, we can't be sure all of the graduates were infiltrated into the States. So to answer your question, I would guess maybe fifteen hundred to two thousand. Maybe more.”