Charm School v1_0

by Nelson DeMille

  Burov saw he wasn't going to get a reply and continued, “I'm going for a drive. I'd ask you to come along to give me some pointers, but I'm leaving the camp. I want to get it out on the Minsk highway and see if it can really do a hundred and forty miles per hour.” Burov added, “Unfortunately I can only take it out at night when there are no foreigners about. Someone might see it and put two and two together, as you say.”

  Lisa said, “I hope you kill yourself in it.”

  Burov looked at her. “No, you don't. I am the best thing that has happened to this camp. After me—who knows?” He looked back at Hollis. “I assume you are on your way to pay a courtesy call on General Austin. Or are you going to pick mushrooms?”

  Hollis said, “General Austin. How about a lift?”

  Burov laughed. “I'm afraid if I let you in this car, the temptation to try something stupid would be too great for you. You and Ms. Rhodes are slippery characters, as I discovered.” Burov raised his right hand and showed an automatic pistol. “So you will have to walk. It's good for your heart. Good evening.” Burov let up on the clutch and hit the accelerator. The Pontiac chirped, lurched, then stalled. Burov restarted it and managed to leave a little rubber. Hollis watched the taillights disappear toward the main gate. Beneath the lighted license plate was a bumper sticker that read: POWs and MIAs—not forgotten.

  Lisa said, “I still hope he kills himself.” She turned to Hollis.

  “That's ghoulish. Driving the car of the man he killed. He's sick.”

  Poole asked, “That was the car of the American boy killed in an accident? Fisher?”

  “Yes.”

  “We read about it in the American newspapers. And Landis told us that you know about Jack Dodson through Fisher. They met? And Fisher contacted the embassy?”

  Hollis said, “I can't discuss this now.”

  Poole nodded, then asked, “Where are we exactly?”

  Hollis looked at him. “Where do you think you are?”

  Poole replied, “A few kilometers north of Borodino battlefield.”

  Hollis nodded.

  Poole continued, “We know from the flight that took us from Hanoi that we were landing in European Russia. We've also done some star and sun plotting to confirm that. The climate too is probably mid-Russian and not Siberian. The biggest clue is all those aircraft we see descending to the southeast. The traffic has grown over the years. We figured that had to be Moscow.”

  “And Borodino?”

  “The cannon fire,” Poole replied. “Every September seventh and October fifteenth and sixteenth, we can hear a twenty-one-gun salute a few kilometers to the south. Those are the anniversaries of the two battles of Borodino. Correct?”

  Hollis nodded again. He had actually attended the September ceremony the previous year.

  “Well,” Poole said, “I guess the question is, did Jack Dodson make it to the embassy?”

  “That,” Hollis replied, “is the question.”

  They continued their walk. As they passed in front of the massive grey headquarters building, Poole said, “You spent some time in the back rooms there, did you?”

  Hollis answered, “Not long by Russian standards.”

  “Almost everyone here has done time in the cooler. But Burov has more subtle means of punishment. It's counter-productive to throw instructors in the cells, so he throws the Russian wives or girlfriends in if one of us commits an offense. Most of us have wives or children now—hostages to fortune—so it makes it difficult for us to act.”

  The road curved and dropped as they rounded the bend, and Hollis realized it had become darker. He looked up at the sky and saw nothing but blackness.

  Poole said, “Camouflage net.”

  Hollis thought this was the camouflaged area he'd seen from the helicopter.

  Lisa said, “Look, Sam!”

  Hollis looked ahead and saw dim lights suspended from lamp poles. As they got closer Hollis saw he was looking at a paved parking lot, complete with white lines. Set back from the parking lot was a row of about ten darkened storefronts, looking very much like a suburban shopping plaza. The main store in the row was a large 7-Eleven complete with the distinctive white, green, and red sign. Hollis said to Lisa, “See, there's the Seven-Eleven we were looking for on the road to Mozhaisk.”

  Lisa stared at the stores. “Incredible.” She moved across the dimly lit parking lot toward the row of red brick shops. Hollis and Poole followed.

  To the left of the 7-Eleven was a laundromat, a Bank of North America complete with logo, a place called Sweeney's Liquors, a barbershop called Mane Event, and a beauty parlor named Tresses. To the right of the 7-Eleven was Kruger's Hardware store; a stationery and tobacco shop, Main Street Pharmacy; a bookstore that also carried audio- and videotapes; and at the end of the row, a sort of luncheonette-coffee shop called Dunkin' Donuts.

  Hollis asked, “Is that a legitimate franchise?”

  Poole laughed. “No. But we're trying to get an American Express travel agency here.”

  Hollis walked past the luncheonette and peered into the bookstore.

  Poole said, “To varying degrees these stores are all functioning operations. You need camp scrip to buy things at all of them except this book and tape store. Everything there is only for loan. It's sort of the camp audiovisual department, though it's set up as a retail bookstore for training purposes. We get a wide selection of publications, videotapes, and some decent cassettes and albums.”

  Lisa looked at the window display of recent American and British hardcover fiction and nonfiction. “I couldn't find some of this stuff in the embassy bookstore.” She saw a copy of John Baron's classic, KGB, and the Soviet defector Arkady Shevchenko's expose, Breaking with Moscow. “And they let you … and the so-called students read this stuff?”

  “They don't have any choice, do they?” Poole replied. “If they don't read it now, they'll read it stateside, where it might blow their minds. They're inoculated here with the truth.”

  Hollis peered through the windows of the pharmacy and stationery store. “You men don't lack for anything here, do you?”

  “Not in the material sense, Colonel. You know what we lack.”

  Hollis didn't reply but moved over to the hardware store. “Mostly American brand name goods here.”

  “Yes,” Poole replied. “Most of the hardware and housewares in the camp are American. Keeps things standard and easy to fix. That's why the plumbing works.”

  “You do your own repairs?”

  “Yes, with our students. Most Soviet men aren't very handy, as you know. I guess that's because they all live in government housing that's falling apart. We teach them how to be weekend handymen.” Poole smiled. “So someday when their American wives nag them to replace a leaky washer, they don't have to call a plumber.” Poole added, “Or as we say—How many Russians does it take to change a lightbulb? Ten. Nine to fill out the requisition forms for the bulb and one to screw it in.”

  Hollis, Lisa, and Poole moved to the plate glass windows of the 7-Eleven. Poole said, “We get most of our packaged and canned food here. Some of it is American, some Finnish, some Soviet. Supplies vary. For fresh meat and produce, we go to a warehouse near the main gate and get whatever is available on a rationed basis. That is the same as everywhere else in this country.”

  Hollis asked, “But you actually get paid here?”

  “Yes. This scrip…” Poole took a five-dollar bill from his wallet and handed it to Hollis.

  Hollis and Lisa examined it in the dim light of a lamp pole. The note looked like a five-dollar bill and in fact was a color photocopy of one. The only difference was the poor quality paper and the reverse side, which was blank.

  Poole said, “That's part of the psychology of keeping us from becoming complete zombies. We have to balance our personal budget and all that. The students do too. They pay to board with us for instance. Banking transactions and finance are one of the most important parts of the curriculum. It's more difficult than
you might think to teach these people a sense of fiscal responsibility. They're used to blowing a month's pay on the first consumer items they see on the way home from work.” Poole added, “It's still not a completely realistic economic model here. For instance, we don't pay taxes.” He smiled.

  Lisa asked, “Where do they get all the American-style fixtures and such for these stores? The Seven-Eleven sign for instance.”

  Poole replied, “That came from Mosfilm. Their prop shop, I guess you'd call it. Same with the Bank of North America accoutrements. The smaller items, consumer goods and so forth, come through the diplomatic pouch or through the International Center for Trade in Moscow. I saw a picture of that place in a magazine. Built by Armand Hammer. Looks like a Trump building in New York. All glass, brass, and marble. Now that's real Little America, isn't it? You people been there?”

  “Yes,” Lisa replied. “It's quite a place. An opening to the West.”

  Poole commented, “More so than you know. They send the students to stay in the hotel there as a graduation present. They spend a month living it up and mingling with Western businessmen and VIPs. Sort of a halfway house. Then they head West.”

  Hollis moved down the row past the laundromat and the bank and stopped in front of Sweeney's Liquors, examining the stock and the window displays of various Western distilleries and vintners. There was a professionally done display of world-class Italian wines with posters of sunny Italy and cardboard Italian flags. A wicker basket held bottles of Principessa Gavi and the Banfi Brunello di Montalcino, both popular wines that were widely imported in America.

  Lisa said, “These are very good wines. Can you buy these?”

  Poole replied, “We can buy the wines before they turn. Sometimes we can buy the Western liquor. Depends on supply. We can buy all the Soviet stuff we want.” He added, “Everyone here was amused when we started reading that Stolichnaya had become something of a trendy drink in America. I'll take Kentucky bourbon any day.”

  Hollis commented, “I was told there was another training environment here. Kitchens, offices, and so forth.”

  “Oh, that's right here. Below our feet. A large subterranean arcade. There are staircases behind the shops. There is a sort of office suite with a reception room down there. It's mostly to familiarize the students with office etiquette and office equipment. Word processors, Photostat machines, water coolers, electric staplers. The works. There's also an auditorium where they show first-run movies that aren't on videotape yet. I don't know how they get them. Also, there are two very modern home kitchens, an extensive reference library, a hotel and motel check-in desk, airport customs, and a motor vehicle bureau desk where two nasty Russian women abuse people. They don't even have to act. They were both government bureaucrats once. The students think it's funny that a state motor vehicle bureau approximates Soviet life in general.” Poole smiled, then continued, “They also do house closings down there, employment interviews, and so on.” He added, “The most popular amusement down there is the brokerage firm of E.F. Hutton.”

  Lisa asked, “You play the stock market here?”

  Poole smiled. The ultimate capitalistic parasitic endeavor. Everybody here plays—the students, the instructors, the wives. The Russians fly in a videotape of the ticker quotes, so the Charm School is two days behind Wall Street. We all got hurt in the crash of '87.“He laughed without humor.”But I'm up about six thousand dollars now.

  Hollis and Lisa glanced at each other.

  Poole continued, “It's a very wide-ranging curriculum here, but aside from language and social customs, it's impossible to go into depth, to jam the knowledge and life experiences of a twenty-five-year-old American into the head of a Russian of about the same age within thirteen or fourteen months. That's how long most of them are here. Of course they come here with good English and some knowledge of America. They're all graduates of the Red Air Force intelligence school outside Moscow and of the Institute for Canadian and American Studies.”

  Hollis nodded. As an intelligence officer, he knew a good program when he saw one. Whereas the American intelligence establishment had shifted the emphasis from spies to satellites, statistical analyses, and other passive means of intelligence gathering, the Soviets still believed very much in the human factor. That, Hollis thought, was ironic, considering the relative values each society placed on the individual. Hollis always believed that the Soviets' emphasis on the human spy was the correct approach. Alevy too believed in human intelligence gathering; which, Hollis suspected, was why he and Lisa were in the Charm School.

  Lisa glanced in the windows of the barbershop and the beauty parlor and asked Poole, “Do the women in the camp actually come here to have their hair done?”

  “Oh, yes. The hair stylists in both shops are barbers from the Gulag. All the employees in these places are from the Gulag, most of them women and most of them now married to or involved with American instructors. It's a strange little world we have here. The milieu is mostly suburban, as you can see. That's because most of us were suburban, I guess.”

  “But no cars or PTA,” Hollis said.

  “No. And no travel agency.” Poole seemed lost in thought a moment, then continued, “The population of Anytown is a little over a thousand. There are two hundred eighty-two former American pilots at last count and about an equal number of Russian wives, plus our children. Then there are the six kidnapped American women—seven now—and there are some Russian service people and medical staff also from the Gulag. Then of course there are the students—about three hundred at any given time. And there are about fifty Russian proctors, as they're called. Control officers, actually, one for each six students. They're KGB intelligence officers who speak and understand English. Then there is the KGB Border Guard battalion, about six hundred men, living mostly in their own compound and patrolling the perimeter. We don't really count them as part of the camp population. We never have to deal with them, and they are forbidden to try to communicate with us.”

  Poole stayed silent awhile, then took a breath. “So that's it. One thousand souls, living in this miserable square mile, spending each and every day pretending. Pretending until the pretense seems reality, and the reality we read about and see on videotapes seems like reports from a doppelganger planet. I tell you, sometimes I think I'm a certifiable lunatic, and other times I think the Russians are.” He looked at Hollis, then at Lisa. “You just got here. What do you think?”

  Hollis cleared his throat. “I'll reserve judgment, though I don't think it matters if you're all insane. My problem with this place is that it works.”

  Commander Poole nodded. “That it does. We've hatched thousands of little monsters here. God forgive us.”

  They walked through the parking lot back to the main road and continued on.

  Lisa said, Let me ask you something, Commander … do you ever get the impression that these students are… seduced by our way of life?

  Poole motioned them both closer and replied in a low voice, “Yes. But I think only superficially. The way an American might be seduced by Paris or Tahiti. They don't necessarily want any of this for their country. Or perhaps some of them do, but they want it on their terms.”

  Lisa nodded. “The Russians still equate material wealth and good living with spiritual corruption.”

  Poole glanced at her as they walked. “You do know your Russians. And yet they are schizoid about it. They have no God, but they worry about their spiritual life; they live in poverty, which is supposed to be good for their Russian souls, yet they buy or steal anything they can get their hands on and want more. And the few who obtain wealth slip quickly into hedonism and drown in it, because they have no guiding light, if you know what I mean.”

  Hollis said, “That's not peculiarly Russian.”

  “No,” Poole agreed, “but I'll tell you what is. Most of them seem to have a dark core, an impenetrable center that will not let in the light around them. It doesn't matter how many books they read or how many videotapes
they watch. They will not hear, and they will not see. Of course, there are a few—more than a few, maybe twenty-five percent of them—who crack open. But when they do, they're spotted very quickly by the proctors, even though we try to cover for them. The KGB takes them away. Maybe we got a few converts out of here. But I don't think they get past the oral examination—that's what we call the marathon polygraph sessions they go through.” Poole, still speaking softly, said to Hollis and Lisa, “We're always hoping that one of them will get to America and walk right into the nearest FBI office with the spy story of the century.” He asked, “Has that happened yet?”

  Hollis shook his head.

  “Incredible.”

  Hollis was glad to discover through Poole that the men here still had a sense of themselves as American military men and that they still held the Russians in some contempt. Hollis asked, “How many of you have been imprisoned here?”

  It's hard to say. In the early days from about 1965 to the end of the air war over North Vietnam in December 1973, hundreds of men passed through here. Most of them are dead. We've put together a list of about four hundred and fifty fliers who we know were shot, died of neglect, or killed themselves. It was a very turbulent time, and we were not in a position to keep good records.“Poole whispered,”But we do have that list, several copies of which are hidden about the camp.

  Hollis stopped, and the three of them stood close, facing one another. “May I have a list of the dead?”

  “Yes, of course.”

  “And a roster of the men who are here now?”

  “Yes.”

  “Did Jack Dodson have that information with him?”

  “Certainly. Are you saying you may be able to get this information out of here?”

  “I'm not saying that, but that is obviously what I have in mind.”

  Poole nodded. He said, Something else you ought to know. After the Paris Peace Treaty and after all the POWs were supposed to have been freed, we were still receiving American fliers from North Vietnamese prisons. These men were in incredibly bad shape, as you can imagine. There were about fifty of them, back in the mid and late seventies. The last one was in 1979.“Poole looked at Hollis.”These men said there were still American POWs in North Vietnamese camps. We have a list of those men who made the sightings and the names of the POWs they say were left behind in North Vietnam.“Poole looked from Hollis to Lisa as they stood face-to-face in the tight circle and added,”We have signed depositions to that effect. Also, the list of the two hundred eighty-two men who are now here is in the form of signatures, all written under a statement attesting to their imprisonment in the Soviet Union and the nature of this school. It would be very good if we could get this documentary evidence to Washington.