The Charm School

to the main road and continued on.
    Lisa said, “Let me ask you something, Commander… do you ever get the impression that these students are… seduced by our way of life?”
    Poole motioned them both closer and replied in a low voice, “Yes. But I think only superficially. The way an American might be seduced by Paris or Tahiti. They don’t necessarily want any of this for
their
country. Or perhaps some of them do, but they want it on their terms.”
    Lisa nodded. “The Russians still equate material wealth and good living with spiritual corruption.”
    Poole glanced at her as they walked. “You do know your Russians. And yet they are schizoid about it. They have no God, but they worry about their spiritual life; they live in poverty, which is supposed to be good for their Russian souls, yet they buy or steal anything they can get their hands on and want more. And the few who obtain wealth slip quickly into hedonism and drown in it, because they have no guiding light, if you know what I mean.”
    Hollis said, “That’s not peculiarly Russian.”
    “No,” Poole agreed, “but I’ll tell you what is. Most of them seem to have a dark core, an impenetrable center that will not let in the light around them. It doesn’t matter how many books they read or how many videotapes they watch. They will not hear, and they will not see. Of course, there are a few—more than a few, maybe twenty-five percent of them—who crack open. But when they do, they’re spotted very quickly by the proctors, even though we try to cover for them. The KGB takes them away. Maybe we got a few converts out of here. But I don’t think they get past the oral examination—that’s what we call the marathon polygraph sessions they go through.” Poole, still speaking softly, said to Hollis and Lisa, “We’re always hoping that one of them will get to America and walk right into the nearest FBI office with the spy story of the century.” He asked, “Has that happened yet?”
    Hollis shook his head.
    “Incredible.”
    Hollis was glad to discover through Poole that the men here still had a sense of themselves as American military men and that they still held the Russians in some contempt. Hollis asked, “How many of you have been imprisoned here?”
    “It’s hard to say. In the early days from about 1965 to the end of the air war over North Vietnam in December 1973, hundreds of men passed through here. Most of them are dead. We’ve put together a list of about four hundred and fifty fliers who we know were shot, died of neglect, or killed themselves. It was a very turbulent time, and we were not in a position to keep good records.” Poole whispered, “But we do have that list, several copies of which are hidden about the camp.”
    Hollis stopped, and the three of them stood close, facing one another. “May I have a list of the dead?”
    “Yes, of course.”
    “And a roster of the men who are here now?”
    “Yes.”
    “Did Jack Dodson have that information with him?”
    “Certainly. Are you saying
you
may be able to get this information out of here?”
    “I’m not saying that, but that is obviously what I have in mind.”
    Poole nodded. He said, “Something else you ought to know. After the Paris Peace Treaty and after all the POWs were supposed to have been freed, we were still receiving American fliers from North Vietnamese prisons. These men were in incredibly bad shape, as you can imagine. There were about fifty of them, back in the mid and late seventies. The last one was in 1979.” Poole looked at Hollis. “These men said there were still American POWs in North Vietnamese camps. We have a list of those men who made the sightings and the names of the POWs they say were left behind in North Vietnam.” Poole looked from Hollis to Lisa as they stood face-to-face in the tight circle and added, “We have signed depositions to that effect. Also, the list of the two hundred eighty-two men who are now here is in the form of signatures, all written under a statement attesting to their imprisonment in the Soviet Union and the nature of this school. It would be very good if we could get this documentary evidence to Washington.”
    Hollis nodded. Not everyone thought it would be good at all.
    Poole added, “I got here in June of 1971. I’d been in North Vietnamese prisons for about six months prior to that.” He thought a moment, then said, “As I said, I was flown from Hanoi in a Red Air Force transport on a direct