The Charm School

the light, and Hollis saw a wide opening toward which he headed. It was a game trail, like a tunnel through the boughs, the width and height of a good-sized buck. The Zhiguli fit into it nicely, and Hollis accelerated to five kph.
    Lisa glanced back. “I think I see lights in the woods.” She looked at him. “Are we going to make it?”
    “No problem.” Hollis guessed that the Russians didn’t know for sure if they were dealing with spies or bears. But if they found the two bodies, the whole countryside would be crawling with militia, Red Army, and KGB.
    The ground began to slope down at a steeper angle, and the Zhiguli started to slide, though Hollis was applying the brake. Suddenly the car broke out of the trees and began plunging headlong into a ravine. “Hold on!” The Zhiguli hit the trough of the ravine and splashed into a shallow stream, nearly overturning. Hollis cut the wheels hard right and accelerated through the streambed. He gave it more gas, pushing the battered car on downstream. The banks flattened, and the stream became wider and deeper. The Zhiguli’s engine began coughing. “Getting wet.” Hollis angled the car toward a low spot in the bank and pushed the gas pedal to the floor. The car went up the bank, faltered, then the engine roared, and the Zhiguli came out of the streambed. A blue half moon shone through the broken cloud cover, and they both looked through the windshield at Borodino Field spread out in front of them. Hollis said, “Good trail car.”
    Lisa lit a cigarette with shaking hands and drew in deeply. She exhaled a long stream of smoke. “Want one?”
    “No, you enjoy yourself.”
    She said, “This is not what I thought you meant by a drive in the country.”
    “Well,” Hollis replied, “this is the country, and we’re driving in it.” Hollis pulled the car into a copse of birches. He retrieved the two AK-47’s and threw them out the window into the high grass, then flung his pistol, ankle holster, and spare ammunition clips after them. “Burn the map.”
    Lisa hung the map out the window and touched it with her lighter. The map flashed and disappeared in a small puff of smoke. She said, “We’re out of the woods, but we’re not out of the woods.”
    “Getting there.” Hollis put the car in gear and moved out over the rolling fields of high yellow grass. From the crest of a hill they saw the road they’d taken into the forest. Hollis steered a course parallel to the road, cutting cross-country. They heard a helicopter overhead, and Hollis drove into the moonshadow on the dark side of a granite obelisk. The helicopter passed over, casting a moonshadow of its own. Hollis waited until the helicopter descended into the forest in the vicinity of the Charm School, then moved the car again.
    Lisa spoke as though she had just concluded a silent conversation with herself. “It wasn’t in cold blood.”
    Hollis glanced at her.
    She said, “I feel sick.”
    “It’s a sickening thing. Shooting people. I used to bomb people. Never saw them. Take a deep breath.”
    She put her head out the window, inhaled a long breath, and slumped back in her seat.
    Hollis drove the car hard over the grassy fields. He knew that time and place were critical. If they could get where they were supposed to be, at the morgue in Mozhaisk, they could bluff it. But if they were caught in the open country, the evidence would be strongly against them.
    They came upon a small dirt road that marked the boundary of the historic battlefield. On the other side of the road was furrowed farmland. Hollis didn’t think the Zhiguli had any more tolerance for abuse, so he cut onto the dirt tractor road and turned north toward the Moskva River. He accelerated up the straight road and hit ninety kph when the car started to shimmy. He eased off, and the Zhiguli settled down. The tractor road ended at the Moscow river road, and Hollis turned right, approaching Mozhaisk from the west, rather than from the Moscow road where they might be waiting for him. He turned on the headlights and threw his wool cap out the window. Lisa threw her scarf out and brushed herself off, then brushed pine needles off Hollis’ clothing as he drove. Hollis made a fast run into Mozhaisk without encountering another vehicle.
    The town seemed eerily deserted for an early Saturday evening. Hollis handed Lisa a piece of paper. “Directions to the morgue.”
    She read them, and at length they arrived in front of a squat white