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 had 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.”
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?”
O’Shea replied, “Based on average airspeed and elapsed traveling time, I estimate about a hundred and fifty klicks. I have a land navigation chart, but I can’t see any landmarks below. We’re on a heading for Leningrad. When we see the lights of the city, we’ll take a new heading.”
Hollis looked at the airspeed indicator and the altimeter. They were traveling at 150 kph at 1,600 meters. He read the torque gauge and tachometer gauges, then checked the oil pressure and oil temperature, battery temperature, and the turbine outlet temperature. Considering the load weight and the distance already traveled, the helicopter was performing well. The only problem he could see was with the fuel: there didn’t seem to be enough of it. He tapped the fuel gauge to see if the needle moved.
O’Shea thought Hollis was drawing attention to the problem and said softly, “I don’t know.” He forced a smile and using an old pilot’s joke said, “We might have to swim the last hundred yards.”
Hollis replied, “You burned some fuel coming back for me.”
O’Shea didn’t reply.
No one spoke for some time, and Hollis noted that for all the euphoria they must have felt over a narrow escape, the mood in the cabin was anything but jubilant. He suspected that everyone’s thoughts were flashing back to the Charm School and forward to the Gulf of Finland. The here and now, as Brennan was demonstrating, was irrelevant. He said to Mills, “If I understand you correctly, you, Brennan, and my former aide here are still in Helsinki and most probably will not be returning to Moscow to resume your duties, diplomatic or otherwise.”
Mills replied, “That’s a safe assumption.”
“And Burov and Major Dodson will disappear into the American Charm School.”
Mills nodded tentatively.
“And Lisa and I will get a ticker tape parade in New York.”
Mills stayed silent for a moment, then said, “Well… did Seth speak to you?”
“Yes. I know that Lisa and I were not supposed to be on this helicopter. But now that we are…”
“Well… I suppose we can say your helicopter accident was a case of mistaken identity. I guess we can work out your resurrection.”
“Thank you. You worked out our death real well.”
Mills smiled with embarrassment.
Lisa looked from one to the other. “I’m not completely following this, as usual.”
Hollis looked at her. “It wasn’t sleeping gas. It was nerve gas. Poison.”
“What…?”
“There will be no negotiating or swap for the others. Everyone back there, including Seth, is dead.”
“No!”
“Yes. You and I were supposed to be dead too.”
“Why…?” She looked at Mills. “Seth… dead? No, he can’t be dead. Bert said he would be taken prisoner and exchanged for Burov. Bert?”
Mills stood. “Sit here.” He took her arm and moved her into his seat. Mills squatted on the floor and drew a deep breath. “It’s very complicated to explain, Lisa.”
Hollis said, “No, it’s not, Bert. It’s very simple. You just don’t want to say it out loud.” Hollis said to Lisa, “The State Department, White House, Defense Intelligence, and the CIA cut a deal. Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School is closed forever, and Mrs. Johnson’s Charm School is about to open.”
Mills said, “I don’t think you should say anything else, General. I don’t think Seth would have wanted her to know any of this.”
Hollis ignored him and continued, “The two seemingly insolvable problems were, one, how to identify the Russians in America, and two, how to deal with the Americans held prisoner in Russia. A man named General Surikov provided the solution to the first problem, which allowed Seth to provide his solution to the second.” Hollis related to Lisa what Alevy had told him.
Lisa stared at Hollis’ reflection in the Plexiglas window as she listened. When Hollis finished, she said in a surprisingly strong voice, “And that was all Seth’s idea?”
Hollis nodded. “To his credit, he felt remorse over the consequences of his finest moment. And he couldn’t bring himself to let you die. He was ambivalent about me right to the end. I shouldn’t even tell you that, but you have a right to know everything.” He added, “That’s what you always wanted.”
“I don’t think that changes how I feel about him right now.” She thought a moment. “I can’t picture all those people dead… . All those men, their wives, the children… Jane, the kidnapped American women… .” She shook her head. “I can’t believe he made up that lie about sleeping gas and prisoner exchanges.” She looked at Hollis. “You knew it was a lie, didn’t you?”
“It seemed a bit too good and didn’t fit the facts.”
She nodded but said nothing.
Hollis said to Mills, “I consider that my life and Lisa’s life are still in danger.”
Mills seemed uncomfortable. “I’m not the source of the danger. We’ll work something out.”
“Like what? Life tenure in the new Charm School?”
“I think that all Seth ever wanted from you two is a promise never to reveal a word of this to anyone.”
Hollis noted that Mills’ voice had that tone in it that one uses in speaking of recently deceased heroes. The legend begins. Hollis looked at Lisa and saw she had her hands over her face and tears were streaming down her cheeks.
Hollis turned back toward the front and concentrated on the problem at hand. His eyes swept the gauges again, and he noted an increase in oil temperature and a drop in pressure. The fuel needle was in the red, but the warning light was not on yet. He said to O’Shea, “You’ve done an admirable job of burning fuel. Reduce airspeed.”
“Why not?”
“Well, according to my instructions, which I opened only after I was airborne, our rendezvous with the ship must occur before dawn. The ship won’t identify itself after daylight. There may be Soviet naval and merchant vessels in the area.”
“I see.”
O’Shea added, “First light in that part of the world isn’t until zero seven twenty-two hours. We’re cutting it close even at this speed.”
Hollis nodded. He’d thought the problem was only fuel. Now it was the sunrise. Hollis looked at the airspeed indicator, then the more accurate ground-speed indicator. Airspeed was still 150 kph, but actual ground speed was only 130. They were obviously bucking into a strong headwind.
Hollis looked out the windshield. Thin, scudding clouds flew at them, and occasionally he could feel the turbulence of the gusting north wind.
The sky above was layered with clouds, and there was no starlight. Below, Hollis could not see a single light. He’d flown this route to Leningrad with Aeroflot, and he knew this part of Russia. Much of it was an underpopulated expanse of forest, small lakes, and marshes. Last autumn he’d taken the Red Arrow Express from Leningrad back to Moscow, and the train had passed through the same country he’d seen from the air. The villages had been dilapidated, and the farms badly kept. It was a cold, unforgiving stretch of country below, not the sort of place where one would want to forceland a helicopter.
Hollis said to O’Shea, “Did you try a higher altitude?”
“No, sir. I didn’t want to burn any more fuel on a climb.”
The Charm School Page 65