The Charm School by Nelson DeMille
Burov said, “What have you decided?”
Lisa replied, “We’ve decided to work here.”
Burov nodded and looked at Hollis. “I want to hear it from you, Colonel.”
Hollis said, “I will work here.”
“Good. And you will both submit to interrogations with truth drugs and polygraph machines. Correct?”
“Yes.”
“And you understand that you will not attempt to dissemble and confuse the machines. You will tell the truth the first time you are asked a question. If you lie even once, you go to the electroshock table. If you lie twice, you may go to the firing squad. Understand?”
“Yes.”
“Now let me ask you some questions, without drugs or polygraph. And your answers had better prove true when you get on the machine. First question—Does American intelligence know of the general nature of this facility? Colonel?”
Hollis replied, “Yes.”
Burov stared at him a moment, then asked, “They know there are American fliers held here?”
“Yes.”
“Do they know how many?”
“No.”
“What do they plan to do about the Americans held here?”
“I don’t know.”
“You don’t? That answer had better not send the needle off the polygraph paper, or you’ll find out how painful an electric shock to the genitals can be.” Burov looked from Hollis to Lisa, then asked Hollis, “Is your presence here a result of my cleverness or Seth Alevy’s cleverness?”
“I’m not following you.”
“But you are. Did you and Alevy know you might be kidnapped?”
“No.”
Burov’s eyes fixed on Hollis, and he stayed silent for a long time, then asked, “Is there an American intelligence operation of any sort planned against this facility?”
“I don’t know of any.”
Burov said, “You know, Hollis, if I see that you’ve lied to me twice so far, you go right to the wall, sparing yourself the electric shock. But perhaps I didn’t impress that upon you. So I’m going to ask you the same questions again.” Burov proceeded to ask the questions in the same words and got the same responses from Hollis. He rephrased the final question, “Has Seth Alevy even hinted to you of an armed or clandestine American mission directed toward this camp?”
“No, he has not.”
Burov smiled thinly. “I hope for both our sakes that you are telling the truth.” He looked at Lisa. “And you. Are you in any way involved in intelligence work?”
“No.”
“No? You are simply involved with intelligence men?”
Lisa nodded. “Yes.”
“How unfortunate for you. If there were a next time for you, I would advise you to sleep with less dangerous men.”
Lisa started to reply but then simply nodded.
Burov went on, “Your two spy friends have gotten you into this. I can’t get you out of it now. But I can see to it that you live comfortably if you do what I say.”
Again she nodded.
Burov said, “You heard Colonel Hollis’ response to my questions. Were his responses true, to the best of your knowledge?”
“Yes.”
“Do you know what an electroshock table is?”
“I think so.”
“Good. Next question, Ms. Rhodes. Did you and Colonel Hollis speak with General Austin at his cottage two nights ago?”
“Yes.”
“Did you speak to Commander Poole at that time, and also again near the recreation building earlier this morning?”
“Yes.”
“Was an escape plan or a rescue mission discussed on either of those occasions?”
“No.”
“No? Well, we’ll see how many strikes you have when we attach you to the polygraph.”
Burov looked at Hollis. “In baseball you get three strikes. Yes? Here we play softball. The game is easier, but you only get two strikes in softball, and you’re out.” Burov smiled.
Hollis said to Burov, “That’s a bad analogy.”
“Metaphor,” Lisa corrected.
“I can’t keep them straight,” Hollis admitted.
Burov’s eyes narrowed and his lips pursed. “I love your language. I really do. The spoken language. But the English-speaking peoples think that anyone who doesn’t speak their language is a moron. That’s a source of great amusement for you. But do you know something? When a person is strapped to the electroshock table, only one language comes out of his or her mouth, and it doesn’t resemble any human language you have ever heard.”
Burov looked at them both, then said, “Tomorrow morning two interrogators will arrive here from Moscow. The first is a polygraph and drug expert. Your sessions with this man may last several weeks, and aside from some drug hangovers, you will not be uncomfortable in any way. The second interrogator is a man they call the elektromonter—the electrician. He dwells in the basement of the Lubyanka, and he has seen things there that would make the three of us sick.” He added, “Luckily for you the choice is yours, not mine.”
Lisa said, “We’ve chosen.”
Burov looked into Lisa’s eyes a long time. “What, I wonder, has happened to your spirit.” He shrugged. “Well, anyway, I congratulate you on your wise decision.”
Hollis asked, “What’s going to happen to Major Dodson?”
“Oh, you know I have no control over that.”
“Why not? Who runs this place?”
Burov seemed annoyed. “You must understand, Colonel Hollis, that Dodson, aside from committing a capital offense, has seen too much of the country between here and Moscow. I don’t want him briefing the others about the terrain and such. The man will be executed.”
“When?”
“Tomorrow morning.”
Hollis stood. “You—”
One of the guards put his hands on Hollis’ shoulders and slammed him back into his chair.
Burov shrugged. “We simply cannot have people trying to get out of here. It would ruin everything. For all of us. For world peace. For the Americans here as well. They’d be sent somewhere else and probably shot. You understand how important this all is.”
“I understand,” Hollis replied, “that if Dodson had made good his escape, you would have been shot. I understand a system that finds merit in cruelty and uses terror as a management tool.”
Burov shrugged. “And so do I. But that’s the way we’ve always done it here, Hollis, since even before the czars. I terrorize the people below me, and Lubyanka terrorizes me. So terror breeds terror. So what? It works.” He looked directly at Hollis. “I value my head, and Major Dodson’s head is not so valuable to me. I have a family to support.”
Lisa asked, “Can’t you just imprison Major Dodson?”
“No. We must make a public example of him.”
Hollis said, “If you kill him, you may have trouble here.”
“Yes?” Burov looked at him. “You’ve heard that? Well, you can tell your compatriots that I’m prepared to shoot as many of their wives and girlfriends as I have to if they even think of trouble. Will you tell them that for me, Colonel Hollis?”
“Yes, I will, Colonel Burov. But I was thinking too of your compatriots. These young students. How will their new American sensibilities be affected by this execution?”
“Don’t try to bait me or cow me, Hollis. My students are not going to be affected in any way by Major Dodson’s execution. Even those who knew him will not shed a single tear.”
“I ask you to consider all the possible consequences of your action, Colonel Burov.”
“It was up to Dodson and his friends to consider the consequences.”
Hollis drew a deep breath. “May we go?”
“In a moment. I want you to report to this headquarters immediately after the execution tomorrow. Yes, it will be a public execution. On the soccer field at eight A.M. You may pass the word around. Any man who does not attend will have his woman shot. Any woman who
“Will anyone else be executed?”
“Yes. Ten others. Major Dodson is now being interrogated regarding his accomplices. If he doesn’t divulge any names, I’ll pick ten people at random, including women.” Burov added, “Don’t feel sorry for them. They knew the rule. I’m sure there won’t be another escape attempt for at least another ten years. Good evening.”
Hollis and Lisa stood.
Burov said, “You will attend the Halloween festivities tonight. The camp will turn out at the soccer field at eight A.M., hangovers notwithstanding. You may leave.”
Hollis walked quickly to the door, followed by Lisa and the two guards.
They made their way out of the headquarters building and onto the dark road, leaving the guards behind. The night was very cold, and through the pine bough canopy Hollis could see stars but no moonlight. They both walked in silence toward the VFW building. Hollis suddenly stopped and kicked savagely at a fallen branch. “Damn him!”
Lisa put her hand on his shoulder.
“That son of a bitch! He knows. He knows the difference between right and wrong, between good and evil, and he chooses wrong and evil. Evil is an industry here. He has a family to support. Do you believe what you just heard? I thought I’d heard it all. Jesus Christ.”
Lisa said, “Let’s walk. Come on, Sam. Walk it off.”
They continued along the road. Lisa said, “Tomorrow… will there be trouble? A revolt?”
“I don’t know. I do know that six hundred unarmed men and women have no chance against two hundred armed Border Guards.”
“But could you use this to spark a revolt?”
“Maybe… as far as the people here are concerned, we just dropped in from heaven with God’s last commandment. But… is it right to incite a revolt that will end in a massacre?”
They walked slowly up the road toward the VFW hall, which was all alight for the party. Lisa asked, “What are we going to do about the interrogation, Sam? We both have two strikes before we even walk in there.”
“We seem to be running out of time and space, don’t we?”
Hollis thought of the secrets he had to protect. He had to protect Surikov in the event Surikov had not gotten out of the country yet. He had to protect the fact that the three thousand graduates of the Charm School were about to be blown and swapped for Burov’s three hundred Americans. He had to keep Burov thinking that Alevy had no plans to try to grab a few Americans out of here to show the world. But he could no longer stall Burov, and Burov would get what he needed from Hollis through drugs, clubs, electric shock, or just the polygraph paper. Then Burov would evacuate the camp, and the KGB would alert its three thousand agents in America. Then that would be the end of the operation and the last of America’s MIAs would finally and forever be lost.
Lisa stayed silent as they walked. Finally, she said, “Nina Sturges and Mary Auerbach.”
“Who?”
“The two American women who killed themselves here.”
Hollis didn’t reply.
“Sam… tomorrow we are going to watch eleven good men and women die in a horrible way. Then we are going to be interrogated for weeks. We may not ever leave that building back there. You know that.”
Again Hollis said nothing.
Lisa said softly, “I’ve been thinking… if we went to bed tonight… and just kept on sleeping… together… you and I… forever. Wouldn’t it be better? In each other’s arms?” She added, “They used the propane heater… .”
He looked at her. For the first time since he’d met her he felt totally responsible for her fate. But now she was trying to take her destiny and his destiny into her own hands. He said to her, “There have been a lot of sunrises I haven’t looked forward to. But we’ll see this one. Together. I don’t want to hear any more of that.”
“I’m sorry… I don’t want to do it without you… but it’s going to be such a long night.”
“Maybe we’ll find the answers in the long night.”
PART V
It doesn’t do to leave a live Dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
—J.R.R. Tolkien
37
Seth Alevy put on his trench coat, took his attaché case, and left his room on the twelfth floor of the hotel located within the complex of new buildings called the Center for International Trade.
He stepped out into the large marble lobby, which he noted was crowded, mostly with Western and Japanese business people.
As he crossed the lobby, he heard a loud shout and turned quickly toward it. At the far end of the lobby, two men in expensive-looking suits rushed toward a burly-looking man and grabbed him, pushing him against a stone pillar. One of the two men shouted in Russian, “We are CIA! Yuri Sergunov, you are under arrest!”
The burly man, Sergunov, delivered a vicious karate chop to the neck of one of the men, who crumpled to the floor. The second CIA man drew his gun, but Sergunov got to his first and fired twice into the CIA man, who dropped to the mauve carpet, blood spreading across his white shirt.
A few people at that end of the lobby screamed and ran as Sergunov sprinted toward the glass doors, brandishing his pistol. He knocked over a doorman, and Alevy saw him disappear into the night.
Someone yelled, “Stoi!”
The action in the roped-off section of the lobby stopped. The CIA man who had been judo-chopped stood and shouted, “Can’t you explain to that cretin how to fake a chop? He nearly broke my neck.”
A man standing next to Alevy inquired, “Do you speak English?”
“Yes.”
The man said in a British accent, “They ought to announce these things, don’t you think?”
“Actually, there’s a sign over there.”
“It’s in Russian.”
“It’s a Russian movie,” Alevy pointed out.
“Can you read that?”
“A bit. Something about asking our indulgence while a film scene is being shot.”
“What sort of film? Looked like a cops and robbers.”
“It’s a spy movie,” Alevy replied. “The fellow who escaped was probably the hero. A KGB man, I’d guess.”
“You don’t say. That’s a different slant on things.”
“This is Russia,” Alevy reminded him.
“Who were the other two chaps, then? Not MI-6, I hope.”
“No. CIA.”
“Ah.” The Englishman thought a moment. “It seemed the CIA men were trying to arrest the KGB fellow. They can’t do that in Russia.”
“It would be good if they could. But this is supposed to be America. Mosfilm uses this place as their American locale. I’ve seen this hotel in ten movies already.”
The Englishman laughed. “Don’t the Russians get tired of seeing the same place?”
“The Russians, my friend, don’t get tired of anything but work.”
“Right you are. Well, this is something to tell everyone back home. You know, I just stepped off the lift, and I was a bit taken aback for a moment. A man can get paranoid in this country.”
“Why is that?” Alevy asked.
The man didn’t respond.
The director was setting the scene again as the CIA man changed into a clean shirt for a retake.
The Englishman said, “This sort of thing is not in the best of taste, if you think about it. I mean, almost everyone here is Western. It’s somewhat offensive.”
“It’s their country.”
“Yes, but really, this is an expensive hotel. We don’t need this sort of thing here. Americans being shot and all that. Though I don’t suppose anyone would know that if they didn’t speak a bit of Russian.”
“Art imitates life,” Alevy said.
“I always thought it was the other way around. Well, I must be going. Good ev
Alevy watched the scene begin to unfold again, but decided he didn’t want to see the CIA man take two more shots in the gut, so he turned and left.
He made his way to the shopping arcade, a thickly carpeted concourse with six specialized Beriozkas fronting on it. In the windows of the Beriozkas were decals of American Express, Eurocard, and five other major world credit cards, and the glass was clean.
Alevy walked into the store called Jewelry Store and examined a string of amber beads. Four well-dressed Japanese businessmen browsed together through the elegant shop. An American man next to Alevy said to the woman with him, “If the masses could see this place, they’d revolt again.”
Alevy took the beads, brought them to the counter, and presented a Eurocard issued under the name of Thornton Burns. The salesgirl placed the necklace in a satin box and slid the box into a colorful paper bag. She smiled and said in English, “Have a good evening,” but Alevy had the impression she was reading from a sign over his left shoulder.
He went out into the concourse past the window of a store called For Men and Women that sold an odd combination of Russian furs, embroideries, china, and cut glass. He glanced at his watch and saw it was nine-thirty. The Beriozkas would be closing soon. He passed by the shops marked “Radio Goods” and “Bookstore” and turned into a downward-sloping passage to the food store.
Even at this hour, he noted, the small supermarket was crowded with guests of the hotel, plus diplomats and their spouses from every embassy in Moscow, ranking Party officials with access to hard currency, and black marketeers who were using Western currency at the risk of doing two to five in Siberia.
The market was well-stocked with European canned goods, meat and fish, Soviet hothouse vegetables, and tropical fruits, most of which Muscovites had never seen outside of a book or movie. Alevy noticed that a new shipment of pineapples, still in crates marked “Nicaragua,” was disappearing fast into a dozen carts.
Alevy purchased some Swiss candy bars, American bubble gum, and Finnish hard candies. He paid for the items in American dollars and went back to the concourse, where he found the Intourist service desk located behind a glass wall. He placed his passport, visa, and airline tickets on the desk and said in English, “I would like to confirm my helicopter connection to Sheremetyevo and my flight to Helsinki.”