The Charm School

was a good example of the New Soviet Man. “I don’t intend to cut him loose or to turn him over to you, if that’s what you’re getting at.”
    “I’m not suggesting that. He apparently wants to deal with a brother Air Force officer. I couldn’t run him. What’s he offering for the ticket West? The scoop on Borodino?”
    “Yes.”
    “Maybe you planted that in his head. Maybe he’ll make up a crock of shit just to get out of here.”
    “We’ll soon know.”
    “Are you meeting with him in person again?”
    “Yes.” Hollis put his beer bottle on the floor and wiped his hands on his trousers. “But I don’t want company.”
    “I want to talk to this joker myself.”
    Hollis said, “I don’t think it’s a good idea for the CIA station chief, the most important man in Western intelligence in the Soviet Union, to run around Moscow trying to rendezvous with Russian informers. Do you?”
    “Let me worry about my job description.”
    “Sure.” Hollis considered what little else he knew about Alevy. In Langley, he’d turned out to be a genius at political analysis, and his prophesies regarding Soviet intentions, particularly Gorbachev’s
glasnost
, had been so accurate that it seemed, some said, he had a friend in the Politboro. Alevy had arrived in Moscow about three years before as third deputy to the CIA station chief. Now he
was
the station chief. He was not allowed to leave the embassy compound without at least two security men and one cyanide pill. Hollis knew he left without the former but was sure he never left without the latter.
    Alevy’s official job with the diplomatic mission was that of political affairs officer, but the cover was thin, as it usually was with this sort of thing. The KGB knew who he was, and so did most of the senior American staff. “Maybe
that
is Ace’s scam,” Hollis said baitingly. “To draw you out so they can kill
you
.”
    “Even
they
don’t kill senior American diplomats.”
    “In your case they’d make an exception. Anyway, you’re not a diplomat.”
    “I am. I have a diplomatic passport. I go to all the receptions and talk like a diplomatic dork.”
    Hollis stood. “What were you doing in Sadovniki Friday night?”
    Alevy stood also. “A Sukkot party. The harvest festival. Sort of like Thanksgiving.”
    Hollis nodded. He had heard that Alevy once lived some months in the Russian Jewish community of Brooklyn’s Brighton Beach section. Thus he spoke his Russian with a Moscow-Leningrad accent and was perhaps the only man in the embassy who could actually pass for a Soviet citizen under close scrutiny. Hollis imagined that Alevy had also heard some firsthand accounts of religious persecution from his friends in Brighton Beach, and had also been given quite a few names to contact in Moscow, thus arriving in Moscow with assets no one else had.
    Alevy asked, “Do you know anything about Judaism?”
    “I know the Soviets aren’t too keen on it. I know that religious observances can attract the K-goons. I know the ambassador would not like you annoying our host government.”
    “Fuck his excellency.” Alevy added, “Jews are politically unreliable here, so you can fraternize with them.”
    Hollis considered the irony in this. American Jews were once thought politically unreliable by the CIA. Now Alevy was the CIA Moscow station chief partly
because
he was a Jew. Times change.
    As though Alevy had read Hollis’ mind, Alevy said, “Jewish dissidents are our potential fifth column here, Sam. We should build more bridges to that community.”
    “Should we?” But beyond all that, Hollis thought, Alevy was playing a dangerous game, dangerous because it had become a personal game with no official backing or backup. Someday Seth Alevy would find himself alone with his cyanide pill. Hollis found himself saying something he’d thought about in Pavel’s
izba
. “Those people have enough problems, Seth. They don’t need you hanging around making things worse.”
    “Bullshit. Things get worse for Jews only when they try to accommodate their persecutors.”
    “Maybe. Look, I don’t talk politics or religion—only sex and football. I’m just telling you as a colleague, and yes, you idiot, even as your friend, that the KGB will forgive your spying, but not your Judaism. We need you here, especially now, until this new thing is settled.”
    Alevy did not acknowledge Hollis’ words at all, but asked, “So, where and when are you meeting Ace?”
    Hollis