The Charm School

many guards do you mount there?”
    “Three.”
    Alevy glanced at the twenty armed men in the rear of the truck whose heads were turned toward him. Alevy addressed the driver. “The personnel in the headquarters and the helipad have two more hours punishment duty for sloppy attitudes.”
    “Yes, sir. By whose authority, Major?”
    “Mine, Corporal. Go directly to the towers and the main gate, then bring the rest of your men back to the guard house.”
    “The barracks, sir.”
    “Yes, the barracks.” Alevy felt a bead of sweat form under his cap and roll down his forehead. “Dismissed.”
    The driver hesitated, then saluted and turned on his heel.
    Alevy walked back to the Zil and got into the passenger side. “Turn it around, Bert.”
    Mills had trouble finding reverse, then got it into gear, and the Zil stalled. “Damn it!” The big troop carrier sat on the road in front of them. Mills restarted his vehicle and made a choppy three-point turn on the narrow road as the troop carrier moved off slowly. No one spoke. Mills got the Zil moving back down the road toward Burov’s dacha. He said softly, “I don’t drive Russian.”
    Hollis said to Alevy, “I heard most of that, and I don’t think he completely bought it.”
    “You don’t understand the Russian mind.”
    “I understand the military mind. Men will take orders from their own officers, but not necessarily from an officer they don’t recognize.”
    “I seem to be doing all right.” Alevy asked, “Do you want to turn back or go on?”
    Hollis replied, “Go on.”
    Lisa made a sound of exasperation. She said to Mills, “Please, Bert, can’t you reason with these two?”
    Mills thought a moment, then replied, “No.”
    A minute later, Alevy asked, “Is that the dacha’s guard booth ahead?”
    Hollis peered out the windshield. “That’s it. The dacha is surrounded by barbed wire. Dogs run loose between the wire and the house. There should be two KGB at the guard booth and one inside the dacha itself. But you never know.”
    “That driver confirmed three.” Alevy said to Mills, “You take the guard that approaches, I’ve got the other one.”
    “Right.”
    “Down in back.”
    Mills slowed the vehicle and drew closer to the guard booth. Alevy looked past the gate at the rather plain-looking dacha sitting in darkness about a hundred meters away. Mills brought the Zil to a bucking halt, and it stalled. He started it again. “I never got the hang of a stick shift.” He drew his pistol and held it in his lap.
    One of the guards walked up to the driver’s side and looked in the open window. “Yes, Captain?”
    Mills pumped a single shot between the man’s eyes as Alevy opened his door and stood on the running board. The second guard was still in the small booth, and Alevy could see him furiously cranking the field phone as he reached for his rifle. Alevy steadied his aim over the roof of the Zil and fired all eight rounds from his pistol into the booth. The glass and wood splintered, and the man dropped to the floor.
    Mills shut off his headlights.
    Hollis got out of the Zil as Alevy moved to the gate. Hollis grabbed Alevy’s shoulder. “He’s mine.”
    Alevy nodded. “Okay. But don’t kill him.”
    “I know.”
    Alevy looked at his watch. “We have thirty-four minutes to get to the helipad.”
    Lisa said to Hollis, “Let me go with you. I can help you get past the guard inside.”
    Hollis nodded. He opened the wire gate, then turned to Alevy. “On the left side of the house is Greg Fisher’s Trans Am. We’ll take that out of here.”
    Alevy seemed not to understand. “Fisher’s Trans Am? Here…?”
    “Burov drives it. Keys are most probably in the ignition.”
    Alevy nodded. “Good idea, Sam. They might be on the lookout for a Zil-6 by now. And if the Trans Am is Burov’s car, we might not be challenged.”
    Mills added, “And we may need the speed and handling. The Zil’s a pig.”
    Hollis replied, “All that may be true. But I want the Trans Am, because… I want the Trans Am.” He took Lisa by the arm and began running up the long blacktop path toward the dacha.
    Two German shepherds suddenly appeared out of the dark, tearing toward them from opposite directions. Hollis dove into a prone firing position, steadied his aim, and fired at the closer dog to his left. The automatic coughed softly, but the dog yelped loudly. Hollis rolled to his right just as the second shepherd reached him and Lisa. Hollis could