The Charm School

General.”
    Hollis replied, “I thought it was the fuel gauge. You’re confusing me.”
    O’Shea smiled grimly.
    Hollis increased the craft’s speed to two hundred kph.
    O’Shea observed, “We’re operating at full power at the end of a long flight. Do you trust these turbines?”
    Hollis glanced at his instruments. The turbine outlet temperature was redlined, and so was the oil temperature. “Never trust the reds.” Hollis called back to Brennan, “So what made you come back for this, Bill?”
    “Oh, I don’t know. Seth Alevy said you were in trouble. That’s why Captain O’Shea volunteered too. Right, Captain?”
    “Right.” O’Shea said to Hollis, “I want you to reconsider my evaluation report.”
    “I’ll think about it.” Hollis began a long sloping descent. O’Shea said to him, “How many hours of rotary wing do you have, General?”
    Hollis glanced at the clock. “Counting the last thirty minutes, one hour.”
    O’Shea said, “Seriously.”
    “I don’t know… ten or twelve. Is this a test?”
    “No. I’m just wondering who should put it down.”
    “If it’s a power-off landing in the freezing gulf, you can do it. If it’s power on, on the deck of the freighter, I’ll do it.”
    “Okay.”
    The Mi-28 continued descending, and Hollis noticed its ground speed bleeding off, indicating increasing headwinds. At five hundred meters its airspeed was still 200 kph, but its actual speed relative to the ground, which was the speed that mattered, was not quite 130 kph. Hollis knew they were encountering those infamous winter winds from the Gulf of Finland, winds so strong and steady that they sometimes caused the gulf to rise as much as five feet, flooding Leningrad. He thought about heavy seas and their freighter rising, falling, rolling, and pitching in them.
    Hollis could now see the main arteries leading into the city and saw some predawn traffic below.
    Leningrad.
The most un-Russian city in Russia. A city of culture, style, and liberal pretensions. But a city where the KGB was reputed to be particularly nasty, a counterweight to the westward-looking populace. Hollis had sometimes liked Leningrad and felt some sense of loss as he flew over it for the last time.
    O’Shea said, “I think that’s the Moscow highway down there. So Pulkovo should be to port.”
    Mills said, “I haven’t heard the recording for a while.”
    Hollis replied, “I think he gave up on us.”
    O’Shea said, “Is that it?” He pointed out the left side window.
    Hollis looked and saw the familiar blue-white aircraft lights. “Yes.” He added, “That was a remarkable piece of land navigation, Captain.”
    “Thank you, sir. I tried to allow for wind drift, but I wasn’t sure how much we were being blown off our heading.”
    “Apparently not enough to miss a whole city.” Hollis banked left as he increased the rate of descent. The altimeter read two hundred meters, and he leveled off. He estimated he was a kilometer south of Pulkovo’s tower, and he took a heading of 310 degrees. They were so low now that Hollis could make out passengers in a bus below. He saw a few factories slide by and saw a train speeding away from the city. To the north, the great city of Leningrad seemed to grow brighter minute by minute as it wakened from its long autumn night.
    O’Shea said, “I think I see the gulf.”
    Hollis looked out and could see where the scattered shore lights ended and a great expanse of black began. “Another few minutes. Look for the lighthouse at the end of the jetty.”
    The minutes passed in silence. The coast slipped below them, and they were suddenly out to sea. Hollis looked at the clock: 7:14.
    Mills said, “That’s it. No going back.”
    Hollis nodded. If they went down and survived the crash, survival time in the near-freezing gulf would be about fifteen minutes.
    O’Shea pointed directly ahead. “Lighthouse.”
    “See it.” Hollis continued on and within a half kilometer of the lighthouse began to throttle back and pick up the nose. The ground speed hit eighty kph as he passed over the lighthouse on the end of the two-kilometer-long concrete jetty. He swung the nose around to the new heading of 340 degrees and noted the time on the clock: 7:17. “Captain, keep the time.”
    “Yes, sir.”
    Hollis watched the compass and maintained the northwesterly heading but had no doubt that the north wind was blowing them off course. He tried to calculate how much drift there might be