The Charm School

life. It was also dangerous. Being in Moscow was dangerous enough by itself.

 
3
    “Russian efficiency,” said the voice again.
    Greg Fisher did not turn, did not breathe.
    “American?”
    Fisher found himself nodding in the dark.
    “I’m over here.”
    Fisher turned slowly toward the voice. He could make out the figure of a man standing among the pine boughs on the far side of the road. The man was tall, heavily built, and wore matching dark clothing that looked like a uniform.
    The man stepped onto the road, and Fisher saw in his right hand the glint of steel. A gun. Fisher took a step back.
    The man spoke as he walked. “Name’s Dodson. Yours?”
    “Fisher.” He cleared his throat. “Gregory. American.” Fisher thought that if he had a serial number he’d give him that too. “Who are
you
?”
    “Keep it down.” The man stopped a few feet from Fisher.
    Fisher swallowed and inquired, “Tourist?”
    The man smiled without humor. “Resident.”
    “Oh.”
    “Are you lost, Fisher?”
    “Very.”
    “Alone?”
    Fisher hesitated, then replied, “Yes… .” He saw now that the steel was not a gun but a knife. The man was about fifty years old with short, dark hair and eyes that glinted like the steel in his hand. There was something—blood, maybe—smeared on his chin.
    Dodson said, “You might just be a graduate student.”
    “I am.
Was.
Yale. Business school.”
    Dodson smiled again. “No. I mean…” He regarded the Pontiac Trans Am, its engine running and its headlights on. “No… I think you’re the real thing.”
    Fisher was confused, but he nodded. He took a deep breath and looked cautiously at the man. It was not a uniform but a blue warm-up suit with red piping. The man wore running shoes.
Unreal
, he thought.
    Dodson slipped the knife into a scabbard beneath his waistband, then pointed at the Trans Am. “You drive that from Yale?”
    “Yeah. Sort of. From Le Havre.”
    “Amazing.”
    “Yeah. Well, I have to get going. Not supposed to be driving after dark. Hey, nice meeting you.” Fisher glanced at his car but didn’t move toward it.
    A dog barked again, and Dodson motioned Fisher toward the car. Dodson got in the passenger side and closed the door quietly. Fisher got behind the wheel. Dodson said, “I have to put some distance between me and this place.”
    “What place?”
    “I’ll tell you later. Turn it around. Kill the lights.”
    “Right.” Fisher pulled the Trans Am up into the turnaround, backed out, and headed down the narrow road.
    “Cut the engine and coast.”
    Fisher glanced at his passenger, then put the transmission in neutral and shut off the engine. The car rolled down the slope he’d come up. “Hard to see the road.”
    “Where are you heading, Greg?”
    “Moscow.”
    “Me, too.”
    “Oh… well, I guess I can drop you off… .” Fisher felt his head beginning to swim. “I mean—”
    “Where are we?”
    “Russia.”
    “Yes, I know. How far are we from Moscow?”
    “Oh, about a hundred kilometers.”
    Dodson nodded to himself. “Closer than we thought.”
    Fisher considered the big man sitting beside him.
Resident. How far are we from Moscow? You might just be a graduate student.
Clearly the man was nuts. Fisher said tentatively, “Someone after you?”
    “Depends if they know I’m gone yet.”
    “Oh.” Fisher stared out the windshield. “Getting harder to see.”
    “Peripheral vision is better at night. Try it.”
    “Yeah?” Fisher moved his eyes slightly and found that indeed he could see better. “Learn something every day.”
    “Yes. Escape and evasion,” Dodson said. “They teach you that course at Yale?”
    “No.” The road began to wind, and Fisher found himself gripping the wheel, tugging it left and right to try to make it respond without the power steering.
    Dodson picked up a handful of maps and brochures from the console between them. “Can I borrow some of these?”
    “Sure. Help yourself. Take them all.”
    Dodson opened the glove compartment and sorted though the maps by the dim light. “Where are we in relation to Moscow?”
    “West. A little north. We’re near Borodino. That’s where I got a little lost.”
    “Borodino. The battlefield.”
    “Right. I have to try to find the Minsk–Moscow highway. This road isn’t even on the map.”
    Dodson nodded. “No, it wouldn’t be.”
    Occasionally branches brushed either side of the Pontiac, and Fisher jerked the wheel the opposite way. The car went