The Charm School

face and cover your hands.”
    Hollis pulled his knit cap down, and it became a ski mask. He put on black nylon gloves and waited. The half-track drew abreast of them on the other side of the wire, not fifteen feet away. Hollis assumed that the sound or motion sensors had picked up something and the patrol was sent to determine if it was a four- or two-legged animal. He could hear the men talking to one another, then heard a radio crackle in the truck’s cab. A transmitted voice said, “Well, are you all awake out there? What are you doing, Grechko?”
    The man sitting beside the driver responded into his handset, “
Khula grushi okolachivahu.
”
Whacking pears with my prick.
    The voice on the radio laughed, then said, “Shoot a bear for the colonel, and he will get you all laid in Moscow. Shoot a spy, and he will take the credit.”
    Grechko replied, “Then it’s bear we’re after.”
    The driver laughed as he hit the brakes and the half-track came to a halt opposite Hollis and Lisa. The searchlight snapped on, and a beam shot down the cleared area, then began sweeping the woods beyond the wire. The beam moved closer to Hollis and Lisa, illuminating the ferns and tree trunks along the ground in a bright bluish light. The beam came toward them, passed over, continued on, then came back quickly and stopped on the carcass of the deer ten yards down the fence. The beam swept away from the deer and continued on.
    Hollis felt Lisa shaking beside him. He found her hand under her body and squeezed it. They waited. After a minute the half-track moved on. They remained motionless, barely breathing.
    After five full minutes Hollis rose cautiously to one knee, keeping a hand on Lisa’s back. He peered intently into the darkness and listened closely, then helped her up. They turned away from the barbed wire, and Hollis saw, not ten feet into the trees, two KGB Border Guards moving toward them, carrying AK-47 rifles at the ready.
    In an instant Hollis realized Lisa had not seen them, and they had not seen him or her. Lisa moved toward him to say something. The KGB men saw the motion. Hollis, in a single movement, pushed Lisa to the ground, dropped into a crouch, and drew his Tokarev automatic. Hollis fired the silenced pistol and saw the first man slap his hand to his chest. The second man looked dumbstruck as he stared at his falling companion, then turned to Hollis and brought his rifle into the firing position. Hollis put two rounds into the man’s chest, then stepped the ten feet toward them. He saw they were both still alive, lying on their backs, blood bubbling at their lips. They were both very young, perhaps still in their teens. Hollis took both AK-47’s by their straps and slung them over his shoulder. As he threw pine branches over the two men, Lisa came up beside him. “Oh… oh, God… Sam!”
    “Quiet.” He slung a rifle over her shoulder, took her by the arm, and they moved in long rapid strides through the pine forest. Hollis was no longer concerned about the sensors since there were patrols out now, making their own noise.
    Within ten minutes they intersected the road some distance from the car. Hollis got his bearings and found the Zhiguli among the trees. They threw the AK-47’s into the back and jumped inside. Hollis started the engine and threw the car into gear, but instead of heading onto the road, turned and went deeper into the woods, maneuvering through the widely spaced tree trunks.
    “Sam, where are you going?”
    “Not back on the road, to be sure. You shine that red light ahead and find room.”
    She leaned out the window with the light.
    Hollis wove through the pine forest. Behind them they could hear a vehicle and see headlights on the road they’d come up. Lisa said, “These trees are getting closer. Watch out.”
    Hollis crushed both fenders between two tree trunks, and the Zhiguli got stuck. He tried to throw it into reverse but the linkage stuck. “Damned piece of junk.”
    Hollis got it into reverse, pulled out, and found another way through the trees. Low-lying boughs fanned the windshield, leaving sticky needles on the glass. Hollis knew that it was possible to get a vehicle through an evergreen forest, and in fact whole columns of trucks and armor passed through these Russian pine forests during the war without having to knock down a single tree. It was just a matter of finding the spaces. “Keep that light out there, Lisa.”
    “Okay. Look over there.” She pointed