The Charm School

doubt.”
    “Will he try to kill us for that?”
    Hollis considered a moment before replying, “No, not for that. Burov understands that.”
    “But for what we saw.”
    “Perhaps,” Hollis replied. “Anyway, I told you in Moscow, these people are unpredictable. Our best defense is to be as unpredictable.”
    “Meaning we shouldn’t go to the state farm.”
    “Precisely.”
    “Can we get back to Moscow?”
    “Not a chance.” Hollis glanced in his rearview mirror again. “We have company, as we say.”
    Lisa nodded. “Then let’s go someplace where we can be alone.”
    Hollis smiled. He entered the center of town, a collection of two-story wood and stucco buildings around a traffic circle. There was streetlighting but not much other evidence that the town was inhabited. The main street of Mozhaisk was the old Minsk–Moscow road, and Hollis headed west on it toward the state farm. The Chaika followed. Hollis wondered if it was Boris and Igor in the car.
    The road curved away from the Moskva River, and soon they found themselves traveling a very dark stretch of bad pavement, utterly alone on the vast Russian plain. Hollis could not see a single light from a dwelling, only the headlights of the Chaika in his mirror.
    “What’s faster,” Lisa asked, “a Chaika or a Zhiguli?”
    “Don’t ask.”
    “You don’t have any more guns on you, do you?”
    “No.”
    “They could kill us pretty easily out here.”
    “Not that easily.”
    “Maybe they just want to see that we get to the state farm.”
    “Probably.” Hollis, in fact, couldn’t determine what they were up to. He was sorry he’d thrown away the pistol, but in the Soviet Union he was a criminal, and criminals ditched the evidence. And in truth, if the people in the Chaika pulled him over and found the Tokarev pistol, the least they would do is charge him with murder, diplomatic immunity notwithstanding. More likely they’d kill him. On the other hand, if he had the Tokarev, he could eliminate the men in the Chaika.
    Lisa looked through the envelope stuffed with papers and traveler’s checks that Burov had given them. “Even if they did murder that boy, they
are
very correct when it comes to legalities.”
    “When it suits them. Did you get the impression Colonel Burov was worried about Major Jack Dodson?”
    “Oh, yes. Major Dodson is still out there somewhere with Gregory Fisher’s rubles and maps.”
    “That’s right. And if Dodson makes it to the embassy, which is where I suppose he’s heading,” Hollis added, “then tons of shit will hit the fan and splatter everything from here to Washington. We’ll all be home in a week, leaving the night porter as chargé d’affaires.”
    Lisa didn’t respond.
    Three kilometers out of town, Hollis and Lisa spotted the huge wooden sign set on two poles over the entrance road to the
sovkhoz
—the state farm. Beneath the name of the
sovkhoz
was the inspirational message:
We will strive to meet the quotas of the Central Committee.
    Lisa said, “Well, pardner, welcome to the Lazy Red Revolution October Ranch.”
    Hollis managed a smile and turned into the gravel road, then proceeded toward the state farm. They could make out a large group of stark wooden farm buildings, corrugated metal sheds, and a three-story concrete building that Hollis took to be the commune, which housed the salaried workers of the state farms and their families, the single and transient workers, and the technicians, all under one roof. There were individual sitting rooms and bedrooms in the apartments, but the kitchens, dining rooms, and bathrooms were communal. It seemed to Hollis that there was something of
Brave New World
in those prefab apartment blocks rising out of the farmland, something unnatural about people who worked the soil having no yard and garden of their own, climbing stairs to their apartment.
    Lisa looked back and announced, “I see the Chaika’s headlights turning onto this road… he just killed his lights.”
    Hollis drove on past the commune and spotted the small brick structure that Burov told them was the administration building. There was a single light in one window. Hollis shut off his headlights, drove past the building, and continued on.
    Lisa said, “You think it’s a setup?”
    “Quite possibly.”
    “What are we going to do now?”
    Hollis replied, “Our little Zhiguli didn’t have much chance on the main road, but back here on the farm lanes we can give the Chaika a