The Charm School

people here and see how we can help.”
    Lisa rose also and put her hand on his arm. “Sam… I hope you’ll understand… but I don’t think we should sleep together… for a while at least.”
    “I understand.”
    “Do you? It’s nothing to do with you.”
    “It’s all right.”
    “I love you.” She kissed him, and they linked arms, walking back toward the path. She asked, “Do you think they’ll give me a Bible?”
    “I think they’ll give you nearly anything you want. That’s the whole idea. They’re not trying to brainwash us here. On the contrary. They want you to be Lisa. And they want you to turn out other Lisas.”
    “I won’t.”
    “You most certainly will.”
    “I never said I would.
You
said I would.”
    “Do you want to be shot?”
    “Maybe.”
    Hollis glanced at her. “Lisa, just play for time. All right?”
    “You know, I think these pilots here have been playing for time for nearly twenty years.”
    “One week. Promise me.”
    She nodded. “One week.”
    They got back on the path and continued their walk. The pine forest was rather nice, Hollis thought, a real Russian
bor,
alive with birds and small animals. Pinecones lay strewn on the log trail, and a carpet of needles covered the earth. Among the pines were a few scrub oaks, and red squirrels gathered acorns from the base of them. As Hollis and Lisa rounded a bend they saw an unexpected knoll covered with yellow grass, atop which were a dozen white Russian birches, alight in the fading afternoon sun. Lisa took Hollis’ hand, and they made their way to the top of the knoll and stood among the birch trees. She said, “The circumstances notwithstanding, this is lovely.” She pointed. “What is that?”
    Hollis turned toward the setting sun and shielded his eyes. About a hundred meters off, through a thin growth of pine, he could see a tall wooden watchtower, grey and brooding in the gathering dusk. “That is what has replaced the onion-dome church as the predominant feature of the Russian landscape. That is a guard tower.” He couldn’t see the barbed wire or the cleared zone, but he knew it was there. He picked out another tower about two hundred meters beyond the first. Hollis reckoned that if the camp was about two kilometers square and the watchtowers were about two hundred meters apart, there could be as many as forty towers around the perimeter. Each one would have to be manned by at least two Border Guards in eight-hour shifts, meaning there were no fewer than two hundred forty guards for the towers alone. There would be perhaps another two hundred for the perimeter patrol and the main gate, plus the headquarters staff and the helipad personnel. Based on just what he’d seen, here and from the air, Hollis thought there could be as many as six hundred KGB Border Guards in the camp. A formidable force. That was a lot of people to keep about three hundred Americans contained. But it was critically important to the KGB that not even one American should get out of here. And for nearly two decades, no one apparently had. Then Dodson had done the seemingly impossible, and the whole chain of command, from Burov right up to the Politburo, was worried. Hollis wondered how Dodson had gotten out.
    Lisa looked out at the tower and said, “This is the limit of our world now, isn’t it?”
    “Apparently.”
    “I wish I had wings.”
    “I’m sure the airmen imprisoned here remember when they did.”
    They walked back down the knoll to the path and turned in the direction from which they’d come. Lisa said, “I still feel weak.”
    “Do you want to stop?”
    “Later. I want to walk while the sun is shining. I’ll hold your arm.”
    They rounded a curve in the path and saw coming toward them a young couple dressed in jeans and ski jackets. Hollis said to Lisa, “Be friendly and play instructor.”
    “One week.”
    The couple smiled as they drew closer, and the man introduced himself, “Hi, I’m Jeff Rooney, and this is Suzie Trent. You must be Colonel Hollis and Lisa Rhodes.” He stuck out his hand.
    Hollis shook hands with him and felt a firm, powerful grip.
    Rooney took Lisa’s hand. “Great meeting you.”
    Hollis looked at the man. He was in his mid-twenties, probably a two- or three-year veteran of the Red Air Force. He may have had some university years and perhaps some time in Air Force Intelligence school. Certainly he had spent his one year at the Institute for Canadian and American Studies in Moscow.