The Charm School

either.”
    “How long will it take you to get me to the West?”
    “It’s about a four-hour flight, General.” Hollis got a perverse pleasure in reminding Soviet officials of the kind of state they had created. He added, “You apply for a travel visa, and I’ll see to the Aeroflot reservation. One-way, correct?”
    “You mean to tell me you can’t get people out of here?”
    “It’s not real easy. You guys got a hell of a good police force.”
    “Don’t think that if you keep me here, I will continue to feed you secrets, my friend. If you can’t get me out, I am retiring from your service.”
    “I told you that was okay.”
    “I am going to the British.”
    Hollis wiped his hands on his napkin. Losing an agent who panicked and quit was one thing; losing him to another service was quite another. The new theory was to let a source leave anytime he wanted and not try to squeeze him as they’d done in the past. Squeezed agents inevitably got caught, and then the KGB found out everything he’d given away and took steps to fix things up. But if Surikov went to the Brits and got blown later, Hollis might never know that Surikov was singing in the Lubyanka.
    “Or the French,” the general said. “I speak passable French. I could live in Paris.”
    “If you go to the French, you might as well go right to the KGB and save time. They’re penetrated, General. Most of them hold secondary commissions in the KGB.”
    “Don’t try to frighten me. The Germans are my third choice. So now the choice is yours.”
    “Well, I’ll take it up with my people. It’s not that we don’t want to, it’s just that it’s dangerous. For you.” Actually, Hollis thought, it was more that they didn’t want to. Some politicians loved a high-ranking defector, but for intelligence people, a defecting spy told the KGB the same thing as a captured spy, namely that everything that had come across his desk was now in enemy hands. Surikov had either to go on spying for him or just retire and shut up. But since he seemed inclined to do neither, Hollis thought a car accident was what Surikov needed. Hollis, however, didn’t like that sort of thing and hoped he could think of something more creative. “We’ll think it over. You too. The West is not all it’s cracked up to be.”
    “Don’t joke with me, Colonel.” Surikov chain-lit his third or fourth cigarette.
    Hollis took a
Pravda
from his briefcase. He read modern Russian fairly well—bureaucratic Russian, journalese, communist Russian. But he had difficulty with Chekhov, Gogol, Tolstoy, and the like, and he thought he’d enjoy working on that someday if he lived long enough to sit in a rocking chair with Tolstoy.
    He stole a glance at Surikov, who seemed actually to be reading his
Pravda
, The Organ of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union. Reading it and believing it, in some monstrous display of triple-think. These people, Hollis decided, were hopeless. Hopeless while they were in country, childlike and bewildered when you got them out and gave them their first copy of
The Washington Post
or London
Times
. Hollis perused a piece under the headline:
Afghanistan Is Fighting and Building.
Hollis read:
Soviet-Afghan political and economic ties, which go back to V.I. Lenin, have a long history and serve as a vivid example of good-neighbor relations.
    Hollis glanced again at Surikov. The man had been fed empty calories for the brain all his life, and it was no wonder his intellect was malnourished. Hollis realized he had to be careful how he handled this man.
    Surikov said as he rustled a page, “You understand, Colonel, that if I give you what you are asking for, neither you nor I should remain in Russia.”
    “Is that so?” Hollis recalled the first time he had met General Surikov. Surikov had approached him directly a year ago at a reception given by the Yugoslav ambassador on the occasion of Yugoslav Independence Day. Surikov had said in English, “Colonel Hollis, my name is Valentin Surikov.” Surikov was wearing the uniform of a Red Air Force general, so Hollis had replied with the required military courtesy, “Pleasure meeting you, General.”
    Surikov had continued, almost matter-of-factly, “I wish to pass sensitive documents to your government. Tell whoever it is who handles such things to meet me at the Finnish ambassador’s reception next week.” Surikov had then walked away.
    Hollis himself had shown up at the Finnish