The Charm School

waters were black. He went back to the copilot’s chair and sat. “I’ll take it.”
    Hollis looked at the clock: 7:21. About six minutes’ flight time to their rendezvous site, but only one or two minutes to first light. They weren’t going to reach the freighter before dawn.
    O’Shea was looking intently out the front windshield. Mills and Brennan were looking out the port side, Lisa was looking out to starboard. They all searched the dark sea below. There were lights down there, Hollis saw, boats and channel markers, but no triangle of yellow lights.
    As Hollis watched, the water became lighter, and he could see its texture now, the rising swells picking up the new sunlight. At least, he thought, he’d seen the dawn, and regardless of what happened, it was a better dawn than it would have been in the Charm School.
    O’Shea announced, “It’s seven twenty-seven. Elapsed flight time since the lighthouse is now ten minutes.”
    Lisa said, “I don’t see it.”
    Brennan said, “I guess they’ve shut off their landing lights. Maybe we should just put it down on any ship. You see that big tanker out there? About ten o’clock, half a klick.”
    Hollis could see the massive flat deck in the grey morning light. It was inviting, but like a woman beckoning from a dark doorway, it was not necessarily a safe bet. Hollis said, “It may be a Soviet or East Bloc ship. We can’t tell.”
    Mills concurred. “We agreed that we wouldn’t fall into their hands. We owe that to our country as well as to ourselves.”
    Brennan nodded. “You’re right. It could be a commie ship. I guess you find a lot of those here. I’d rather drown.”
    Burov spoke. “You can’t be serious. Wouldn’t you all rather live than die horribly in the cold water?”
    Lisa replied, “No.”
    Brennan turned and said to Burov, “I don’t want to hear your voice again.”
    Another few minutes passed, and the sky went from grey dawn to morning nautical light. Hollis could see the heavy cloud bank overhead now and the gulf mist below. Sea gulls and terns circled over the water, and in the distance he saw a rain squall. A typical dreary day in the Gulf of Finland.
    Mills said, “Well, he’s killed the lights by now. He won’t risk a Soviet ship seeing an Aeroflot helicopter land on his deck. I can’t say I blame him.”
    Lisa said, “But I don’t see anything that even looks like a freighter. I see a few tankers and a few fishing ships. I saw one warship with guns back there. We’ve missed him.”
    O’Shea said, “Maybe he’s still in Leningrad, trying to clear red tape. Maybe he’s off course or we’re off course. An air-sea rendezvous with radio silence is hit or miss.”
    Hollis looked at his flight instruments. The Mi-28 had been pushed beyond its limits, and he found it ironic that the last Soviet product he would ever use was the best. Every component had performed admirably except the fuel gauge. He said to O’Shea, “You were right about the fuel.”
    “I figured that the gauge was an extension of Soviet life. They don’t trust people to make rational choices, so they lie to them for their own good.” O’Shea smiled, then added without humor, “But I think by now that empty means empty.”
    Mills stopped looking out the window and sat back on the floor between the seats. “Well, good try though.” He produced the flask, took a swig, and handed it to Brennan. Brennan drank and gave it to Lisa. She offered it to Hollis and O’Shea, who declined, O’Shea saying, “I’m flying.” Lisa, Brennan, and Mills finished the flask.
    Hollis looked out at the water below. The seas were high, and he could see white curling breakers rolling from north to south. At two hundred meters’ altitude, his range of vision encompassed an area large enough to insure that he wouldn’t miss the freighter even if he was two or three kilometers off course. Something was very wrong, and the thought crossed his mind that this was yet another Alevy double cross, a joke from the grave. But even if Alevy had wanted O’Shea, Brennan, and Mills silenced, he had apparently promised to deliver Burov and one American, so it couldn’t be that. Hollis realized just how much Alevy’s thinking had affected
his
thinking for him to even consider such a thing. Yet, he would wager that the same thought had passed through everyone’s mind.
    O’Shea said, “See those buoys? We’ve crossed out of the shipping lane.”
    Hollis nodded. He suddenly