The Charm School

where he disappeared to.”
    “My copilot, Ernie Simms, similarly disappeared.”
    “Yes, I know that.”
    The picture of Dodson disappeared, replaced by another man. It took Hollis a few seconds to recognize Ernie Simms.
    Neither man spoke for a while, then Alevy said, “I don’t know if he’s here in Russia, Sam.”
    Hollis did not respond.
    Alevy added, “We can’t refight the war, but sometimes we get a chance to make a little change in the present to make the past better.”
    Hollis looked at Alevy in the blue light but said nothing.
    Alevy shut off the video screen, and they sat in the dark room in silence. Alevy said, “There’s more to this slide show. But now it’s your turn to do show-and-tell. Borodino. You’re on, Sam.”
    “Lisa and I will be assigned together if that’s what we decide we want. That’s the quid pro quo.”
    Alevy kicked off his shoes and propped his feet on an electronic console. He unwrapped a stick of gum and popped it in his mouth. “Well… I suppose that’s easier to do than convincing her that justice will be done.”
    Hollis stared into the darkness of the room, then began, “We went north of Borodino Field. There’s a ridge line covered with pine trees there.” Hollis related the story of their excursion, telling Alevy what he saw and what he deduced about the place.
    Alevy listened intently, then asked. “More like a prison than a restricted area?”
    “Definitely. A local Gulag.”
    “KGB Border Guards?”
    “Yes.”
    “Wearing the standard winter uniform? Olive drab, red piping?”
    “Yes.”
    “Soft caps or helmets?”
    “Soft caps. Why?”
    “AK-47’s?”
    “Yes. I also saw a guy in the half-track with a long rifle and scope. It could have been one of those SVD sniper rifles. The Dragunov. You know it?”
    “Yes.”
    “Why do you want to know all that? As if I didn’t know.”
    Alevy said nothing.
    Hollis remarked, “You’re crazy.”
    “Oh, I know that.” Alevy continued his questioning. “You saw no Red Air Force people, signs, or markings?”
    “None.”
    “Okay, so when you got back to your office you started digging in your files, correct? What did you learn?”
    Hollis tapped his fingers on the armrest. Sharing military secrets, saying them aloud, did not come easy to him, but he thought the time had come. “I discovered that this area is off limits to civilian aircraft overflights.”
    “So’s ninety percent of this country.”
    “Right. I also found an old survey of Red Air Force bases that my office did about fifteen years ago. The file was labeled Borodino North for want of a Russian name. Lacking an airfield, the survey termed it a ground school, perhaps a survival course, though the area is largely benign farmland. Even the forest is a piece of cake. But that’s all the report said.”
    Alevy nodded. “We had no interest in the area until recently. But when I got interested, I had some people poke around there. It
had
been a Red Air Force installation about fifteen years ago according to local memory. That jibes with your old survey. But then the uniforms started to change to KGB and to civilian attire. The personnel inside the installation have virtually no contact with Borodino village, Mozhaisk, or the surrounding countryside, according to the locals. They helicopter back and forth, presumably to Moscow. Conclusion: Top secret stuff. Personnel have Moscow privileges and so forth.” Alevy looked at Hollis. “Okay, your turn.”
    Hollis replied, “I found some old SR-71 photos. But these were taken in 1974 or ’75 at eighty thousand feet with cameras that don’t have the resolution that your recon satellites do now.”
    “What did the photo analysts say about those shots?” Alevy asked.
    “Well, Air Force Intelligence was only looking for things that interested
them
. They concluded that the installation, which seems to cover about three hundred hectares, a little more than a square mile, had no military significance in a tactical or strategic sense. That’s where my file ends on Borodino North. Case closed.”
    Alevy asked, “What do
you
think the place is?”
    “Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School,” Hollis replied.
    “And what,” Alevy asked, “is Mrs. Ivanova’s Charm School?”
    “You tell me. And if you have pictures, and I guess you do, let’s see them.”
    Alevy hit the remote switch again, and the screen brightened to show a slow-motion aerial view of farmland. Alevy said, “The recon satellite