The Charm School

approach.”
    Mills looked from Hollis to O’Shea. Pilots, he thought, like CIA operatives, resorted to black humor when things were least funny.
    Hollis watched the altimeter needles moving. At three thousand meters he arrested the ascent, and the airspeed climbed back to 150 kph. The ground-speed indicator read nearly the same. “That’s better.”
    O’Shea said, “Maybe I should have climbed earlier.”
    “Maybe. Maybe the headwinds were stronger up here earlier.”
    “It’s hard to know without being able to call for weather conditions.”
    “Right.” Hollis familiarized himself with the controls and with the instruments. He played around with the data available: speed, altitude, load, fuel, elapsed flight time, estimated distance to landing—but he couldn’t say with any certainty whether or not they’d see the Gulf of Finland before dawn or for that matter even see the Gulf of Finland or the dawn.
    O’Shea seemed to be thinking along the same lines. “If we spot a landmark, we can figure our distance to landing. But I don’t have a feeling for that fuel gauge.”
    Hollis replied, “We have the speed we need to arrive on time at the only landing site we have. Those are close parameters, and there’s nothing more we can do at the moment.”
    O’Shea said, “Maybe we’ll pick up a tailwind.”
    “Maybe.”
    Mills, who had been listening intently, asked, “What if we pick up another headwind?”
    O’Shea glanced back at him. “No use worrying about something we can’t do anything about.”
    Mills said to Hollis, “Basic question, General—what are the odds?”
    Hollis replied, “I just got here. I’m not giving odds on
your
game plan.”
    Mills asked, “Look, would it help if we dumped some weight?”
    “I assume you’ve already done that.”
    O’Shea replied, “Yes. Coats, baggage, drinking water, some hardware, and all that. Lightened us maybe a hundred pounds.”
    Mills said, “I had something else in mind.”
    Hollis inquired, “
Whom
did you have in mind, Bert?”
    “Well… Dodson or Burov, I guess.”
    “You need them,” Hollis said. “Would you like
me
to jump?”
    “No. I don’t want Captain O’Shea flying again. He makes me nervous.” Mills smiled, then added, “Look, we
can
get rid of Burov if it would make a difference.”
    Neither Hollis nor O’Shea replied.
    Mills said, “Well, forget it. I’m not playing that lifeboat game. That’s your decision if you want to make it.”
    Hollis rather liked Mills when Mills was being Mills. But when Mills was trying to be Alevy, the result was an affected cynicism without his boss’s style or moral certainty.
    Lisa, who hadn’t spoken in some time, said, “I don’t want to hear about any more murders, please.”
    No one said anything, and the only sound was from the turbines and rotor blades.
    Hollis asked O’Shea, “Have you sighted any aircraft?”
    “No, sir.”
    Hollis nodded. He didn’t think anyone at the Charm School had had the opportunity or ability to radio out any information. But by now, the Soviets might have discovered that their facility had been wiped out, and they might have made the connection between the missing Aeroflot Mi-28 helicopter and the disaster at the Charm School. And if they had put it all together, they were probably thinking of the only safe place other than the American embassy that an Mi-28 could reach: the Gulf of Finland.
    Hollis turned to Mills and asked, “Did you people consult any Air Force types when you put this scheme together?”
    “Of course,” Mills said in a slightly offended tone.
    “How did you expect to escape Soviet radar detection?”
    “Well,” Mills replied, “the Air Force guys we spoke to figured we’d be out of reach of Moscow’s radar by the time they drew any conclusions. We knew we couldn’t be spotted visually with our navigation lights off.” Mills said to O’Shea, “You have some technical written orders, don’t you?”
    O’Shea replied, “I was supposed to get down low to avoid airborne radar—to blend in with the ground clutter—and take an evasive course toward the gulf. But I sort of figured that the available fuel wouldn’t allow for that.”
    “You were sort of right.” Hollis said, “Even if they’re not looking for us, we’re going to show up on somebody’s screen as we approach Leningrad’s air traffic control area.”
    O’Shea said, “At that point we’re going to have to get in low, below the radar. We can