The Charm School (74 page)
Authors: Nelson Demille
Tags: #Fiction, #General, #Suspense, #Espionage, #Mystery fiction, #Fiction:Suspense, #Detective and mystery stories, #Soviet Union - Fiction, #Soviet Union
O’Shea let it rise, checking the torque gauge and the rpm as he held it steady in its vertical climb. The helicopter rose out of the pit and into the north wind.
Below, there was a flash of brilliant light as the phosphorus grenades exploded, consuming the pile of baggage and clothing.
O’Shea eased the cyclic forward, and the Mi-28 began a diagonal climb on a northerly heading. At eight hundred meters, O’Shea swung the nose west and adjusted the controls for a straight and level flight.
Alevy commented, “You’ve taken the excitement out of helicopter flying.”
O’Shea settled back in his seat. “I’ve got this thing tamed.”
“Glad to hear it.”
O’Shea said, “Bill and Bert, you spot for aircraft. They can’t see us without lights. Seth, find me the Minsk–Moscow highway or the Moskva River.”
Alevy looked out the windshield. The night had remained clear, and the starlight gave some illumination to the ground, though the moon was nearly set. Alevy scanned the terrain below, finally picking out the Moskva River, looking like a thin ribbon of tarnished pewter, winding through dark fields and forests. He said to O’Shea, “Slip south of the river.”
O’Shea turned to a southwest heading.
Alevy stared at the ground below, and within a few minutes he said, “There. The highway. See it?”
O’Shea craned forward. “Okay.” He swung the helicopter on a due west heading and followed the highway.
Mills called out, “Eleven o’clock, level.” To their front, coming toward them, they could see blinking navigation lights. The closing speed of the two craft was fast, and the lights were suddenly very near and coming toward them on a collision course. O’Shea banked the Mi-28 to the right, and the other craft, a mammoth Mi-8 cargo helicopter, shot past on their port side. O’Shea exclaimed, “Jesus . . .” He took a deep breath and said to Alevy, “If he spotted us without our lights, he’ll make a report. “We’d be less likely to arouse suspicion if we were running with our lights on.” He added, “If they’re looking for us, Seth, they’ll be using airborne radar anyway.”
Alevy replied, “I hope that where they’re looking for this helicopter is in the woods outside of Sheremetyevo. No lights.”
They continued west, land navigating between the Moskva and the highway, which ran roughly parallel to the river. Alevy looked at the airspeed indicator, which showed 120 kph. He said, “We should be seeing the lights of Mozhaisk soon.”
Brennan commented, “I don’t see
any
lights. Nobody lives down there.”
Mills leaned forward and pointed to the left. “There. Is that Mozhaisk?”
Alevy looked at the lights about five kilometers ahead. There weren’t many of them at this hour, but he could definitely pick out a string of lights that appeared to cross the Moskva River. That would be the Mozhaisk Bridge. Alevy replied, “There’s not much else around here, so that must be the town. Guide on that, Captain.”
“Right.” O’Shea corrected his heading and pointed the nose of the Mi-28 directly toward Mozhaisk.
Within a few minutes they could see the illuminated center of the small town where the two main streets crossed; the north-south street leading to the bridge and the east-west street, which was the old Minsk–Moscow road.
Alevy said, “Drop to about five hundred and follow the river.”
O’Shea descended toward the Moskva and passed over the bridge. At this altitude the river seemed more luminescent, reflecting the cold starlight and the last available moonlight. O’Shea commented, “I used to love river flying. Went up the Hudson in a Piper Cherokee once. Did the entire Colorado in a Cessna . . . now I’m doing the Moskva . . . in a borrowed Mi-28 . . . a Headstone.”
No one spoke for some minutes, then Alevy said, “Reduce airspeed.”
O’Shea brought the helicopter’s speed down to ninety kph.
Alevy looked at his watch, then at his aerial map and said, “Gentlemen, we’ll be landing very soon.”
No one responded. They were all professionals, Alevy reflected, and each of them had at one time or another pushed his luck to the limit in the performance of his respective profession. They were, each in their own way, cool, distant, and businesslike. They had calculated the odds and found them slightly better than Russian roulette with a five-chambered revolver. They were all damned scared but damned excited too. Alevy could almost feel the energy, the anticipation of actually seeing if a chalkboard play would work on the ground.
Alevy scanned the south bank of the Moskva River. “It’s somewhere in that pine forest there.” He said to O’Shea, “Lower and slower, Ed. Turn in over the forest.”
“Right.” O’Shea turned away from the river and cut his airspeed, dropping two hundred meters of altitude.
Alevy glanced into the rear and looked at Brennan and Mills sitting in the murky cabin, scanning the terrain from the side windows. He had never asked their motives for coming or given them any sort of recruiting pitch. He’d only outlined the plan and asked if they thought it was feasible and if they wanted to come along, and they said yes on both counts. And that was that.
Alevy looked out the windshield at the expanse of dark pine forest passing below. The forest ended, and he could see a broad rolling field, dotted with what he knew were stone monuments. Borodino Field. He said to O’Shea, “We’ve overshot it. Swing around.”
O’Shea brought the helicopter to a hover, then swung it around 180 degrees and made the transition back to forward flight. They passed again over the edge of the forest, and without Alevy’s saying anything, O’Shea cut the airspeed further and dropped to two hundred meters.
Mills saw it first. “There. Ten o’clock, one klick.”
They all looked to port and saw a cleared swatch of ground running through the thick, dark trees. Alevy caught a glimpse of a watchtower and noted there were no floodlights on the perimeter of the camp. This was the age of electronic motion sensors and sound detectors, personnel radar and night-seeing devices. Prison walls had gone high-tech, especially in the Soviet Union.
Alevy said to Brennan, “Let’s get the wind direction.”
“Right.” Brennan reached into the leather bag and found a smoke marker. He slid a section of the Plexiglas side window open, pulled the pin on the marker, and dropped it out the window.
O’Shea put the helicopter into a hover at two hundred meters’ altitude and watched the white smoke billowing through the trees below. O’Shea said, “Wind out of the north at about five knots. About eight kph.” O’Shea added, “The watchtowers may be able to hear the rotor blades now. If we’re going in, we have to be lit.”
“Right,” Alevy replied. He threw the switch for the navigation lights and the blinking boom light, then said to O’Shea, “You know what you have to do.”
“Right.” O’Shea went from hover to forward flight again, keeping the engine rpm up and the blades pitched at a high angle to obtain maximum lift at slow airspeed without stalling. He banked around to starboard, approaching the northern edge of the camp perimeter on a parallel run from west to east. They could all see the watchtowers now, spaced about two hundred meters apart along the edge of the cleared zone.
Alevy said to Brennan, “Hand me the canisters.”
“That’s all right. I can do it.”
“Hand them to me.”
Brennan took four unmarked metal canisters from Alevy’s overnight bag and passed them to Alevy. Alevy examined them a moment, then ripped a protective yellow plastic wrap off their top lids and turned a timing dial on each one. He slid open his vent window and dropped the first canister out, about five hundred meters outside the northern perimeter of the camp. He waited a few seconds, then dropped the second canister, followed by the third, then the last canister roughly opposite the northeast corner watchtower. He was sure no one in the towers could see anything falling from the helicopter. He said, “Okay, Captain O’Shea. Into the camp.”
O’Shea swung to starboard, and they came around, passing over the watchtowers and barbed wire at 150 meters’ altitude.
Alevy said, “The helipad is at the western end of the camp. Keep on this heading.” He hit the controllable landing light switch, and a bright beam projected from the underside of the fuselage. Alevy moved the lever that controlled the shaft of light, and the beam moved across the treetops. By now, Alevy thought, the Russians were trying to contact them by radio, but Alevy didn’t have their frequency. The Russians were very jumpy and deadly earnest about protecting restricted airspace, but here in the heart of Russia, Alevy hoped they would ask questions first and shoot you later. He hoped, too, if they had seen the smoke marker, they took it for what it was supposed to look like, a landing aid to determine wind direction, and not for what it actually was—a means to determine where to drop the four gas canisters so that the gas, when it was released, would blow over the camp. This was one case, Alevy thought, where their paranoia about being attacked by treacherous imperialist forces was not paranoia. He said to O’Shea, “We shouldn’t draw any ground-fire. But if someone down there gets trigger happy, be prepared to floor it.”
“I know.”
Suddenly a beam of light rose into the air about a hundred meters to their front, then passed slowly over the fuselage, illuminating the cabin and, Alevy hoped, the familiar Aeroflot logo. Aeroflot and the Red Air Force being about one and the same, Alevy thought, that should cause no suspicion. The beam held them as they dropped altitude. O’Shea said, “That’s probably the helipad light.”
“Okay.” Alevy moved his landing light beam toward the spotlight, and he could see now, not three hundred meters to their front, the large natural clearing in the forest. Alevy worked the landing light switch and flashed the international codes for “Radio malfunction, permission to land.” He said to O’Shea, “Okay, Ed, let’s take it in.”
O’Shea began a sloping descent toward the helipad. “This is it.”
The ground light moved away from them, and the beam dropped, sweeping back and forth over the grass clearing, showing them the way.
Brennan was scanning with the night scope on his rifle, and Bert Mills said to him, “Is there a welcoming committee waiting for us?”
Brennan replied, “There’s nobody on the field. I see a log cabin at the edge of the field. Guy there on a flatbed moving that spotlight. He’s got an AK-47 beside him. But I don’t see much else.”
O’Shea banked to the right so he could make his final approach into the wind.
Mills asked O’Shea dryly, “Is this going to be as exciting as the last one?”
“No.”
O’Shea reduced power and passed over the log cabin at fifty meters, heading for the center of the large clearing.
No one spoke.
Alevy felt his heart speeding up, and his mouth went dry. He cleared his throat and said, “There will be no money in this for you, gentlemen, no medals, no glory, no official recognition, no photo opportunities at the White House. There will just be a hell of a bad time down there and maybe an unmarked grave in this Russian forest. So I thank you again for volunteering.”
None of them responded.
Alevy looked at his watch. It was 2:03
A
.
M
. The camp would be sleeping, unaware that release from their long captivity was close at hand.
O’Shea pulled back on the cyclic stick, and the helicopter flared out, hung a moment, then settled softly onto the grass helipad of the Charm School. O’Shea said aloud but to himself, “Nice landing, Ed.”
40
The helicopter sat in the center of the field, its engines still turning. Brennan and Mills dropped down below the window.
Seth Alevy looked at his watch. It was just 2:05
A
.
M
. He said to O’Shea, “Captain, you will lift off not later than three forty-five, with or without passengers, and that includes any or all of the three of us. Understand?”
“Understood.”
“Shut it down.”
O’Shea shut off the engines, and the blades wound down.
The beam of light coming from the vicinity of the radio cabin about a hundred meters off played over the helicopter, picking out the cockpit, the cabin windows, the Aeroflot emblem, and finally the registration number, P-413, on the tail boom.
Alevy climbed back into the cabin and slid open the portside door. Brennan said, “Good luck.”
Mills added, “You look Russian.”
Alevy jumped down, put on his officer’s cap, and strode purposefully toward the searchlight and the log cabin. He said to himself, “I hope so.”
The man behind the light shut it off, came down from the flatbed, and walked toward Alevy. As he drew within ten meters, Alevy saw he was a young KGB Border Guard carrying an AK-47 at port arms. The KGB man stopped and issued a challenge. “Halt! Identify yourself.”
Alevy stopped and replied in brusk Russian, “I am Major Voronin.” Alevy strode up to the man, who had come to a position of attention, the AK-47 still at the ready across his chest, his finger on the trigger. Alevy stopped a few feet from him. “I’m here to see your colonel,” Alevy said, not knowing if Burov used that nom de guerre here or used Pavlichenko, which General Surikov had indicated was Burov’s real name. Alevy snapped, “Are you deaf, man? I’m here to see your colonel!”
“Yes, sir!”
“Has he sent a vehicle for me?”
“No, sir. And I have no instructions regarding your arrival, Major.”
“How unfortunate for you,” Alevy said, using a sarcasm favored by KGB officers. “What is your name, Private?”
“Frolev.”
“Well, Frolev, call and get me a vehicle.”
“Yes, sir.” Frolev did an about-face and marched back to the radio cabin.
Alevy followed.
Frolev walked past the spotlight’s flatbed, which Alevy noted had no vehicle attached to it. This
izba
was a simple structure of hewn logs and the ubiquitous sheet metal roof. There were some windows cut into the cabin, and from the roof protruded a stovepipe and two aerials. Two wires, electric and telephone, ran from the cabin to a nearby pine tree.
Frolev opened the door of the one-room
izba
and moved aside as Alevy entered. A bare lightbulb hung from the center rafter. Inside were two other men—one more than Alevy had figured on.
One man lay sleeping on a cot along the far wall, a hard-cover copy of Rybakov’s
The Children of the Arbat
on his rising and falling chest. The other man, a sergeant, sat at a field desk studying a game of chess that had neared its end. As Frolev pulled the door shut, he yelled, “Attention!”
The sergeant jumped to his feet, and the sleeping man stumbled out of the cot and stood to attention.
Alevy looked around the room. In the far corner was a ceramic tile stove atop which sat a steaming teakettle. Along the right wall was a long table on which were a VHF radio, a shortwave radio, and two telephones.
Alevy moved to the chessboard and examined the pieces. He said to Frolev, “Are you white? How did you get yourself into such a mess?”
The man laughed politely.
The middle-aged sergeant, standing at the desk, cleared his throat, “Excuse me, Major.”
Alevy looked at the man. “Yes, Sergeant?”
“Unfortunately I know nothing of your arrival.”
Frolev said quickly, “Sergeant, this is Major Voronin to see Colonel Burov. He requires a vehicle.”
The sergeant nodded and said to Alevy, “Sir, we were not able to raise you on the radio.”
“Nor was my pilot able to raise you. You’ll do a communications check with him. Have you called the duty officer regarding our landing?”
“No, sir, but I’ll do that now.” He said to the man near the cot, “Kanavsky, call Lieutenant Cheltsov.” Kanavsky moved quickly toward the field phones.
Alevy drew a short, discreet breath. Things were going well. Or perhaps his years in this country had given him some insight into how these people reacted to given situations. The sergeant hadn’t called the duty officer because he didn’t want to annoy an officer, who would only have snapped something like, “What the hell do you want me to do about it? Flap my wings and intercept the helicopter? Find out who he is and call me back.”
Alevy stepped casually off to the side so that he had the three men in his view. Kanavsky picked up the field phone and reached for the hand crank.
Without making an abrupt movement, Alevy drew his silenced automatic and put the first round through the chest of Frolev, still standing with the AK-47 at the door. Frolev gave a start but didn’t seem to know that he’d been shot. Alevy spun and put the second round into the side of Kanavsky. The man shouted in surprise, dropped the phone, and his hand went to his rib cage.
The sergeant reacted quickly, drawing his revolver from his holster. Alevy fired first, hitting the man in the midsection, causing him to double over and stagger back into the field desk, scattering the chess game. Alevy fired again into the crown of the sergeant’s head, and the man dropped to the floor.
Alevy walked to Kanavsky, who was still standing, and put a bullet into his head, then went to Frolev, who was trying to get to his feet. Alevy stood off a short distance so as not to get splattered and fired once into the side of Frolev’s head.
Alevy hung up the telephone and took the kettle off the wood stove. He found a wool glove warming by the stove and wiped the wetness from his gun hand, then cleaned the blood from his jackboots. He loaded a fresh magazine into the automatic, drew a deep breath, and reminded himself that several hundred Americans had lived and died in this place for nearly two decades. He composed himself and stepped outside.
Brennan and Mills were already there, Brennan with the Dragunov sniper rifle and Mills with the black leather overnight bag. Alevy said in a low voice, “Bill, you tidy up in there and stay put.”
Brennan asked, “Are you sure I can’t come along?”
Alevy liked Brennan, and Brennan was very brave and enthusiastic but had a short attention span. “As I told you, Captain O’Shea needs some advance warning if things start to come apart. Also we don’t know if these guys phone in scheduled sit reps to anyone or if anyone calls them periodically. So if somebody calls looking for a situation report, just say
nechevo
—there is nothing. That’s standard radio lingo for negative sit rep.
Nechevo.
”
“
Nechevo.
”
“Sound bored and tired. Yawn.”
Brennan yawned and said through his yawn, “
Nechevo.
”
“Good. If anyone gets chatty on the phone say it again with emphasis. Be rude and hang up.” Alevy added, “I’m assuming that calls originate from headquarters, so I’ll relieve the commo man there of his duties. I’ll call you from there—you answer the phone with
Da.
Not
Allo. Da.
”
“
Da. Nechevo.
”
“Fine. And if anyone comes around to check this post, let them in, but don’t let them out.”
Brennan smiled. “I’ll let the Dragunov talk Russian.”
Mills added, “Don’t hesitate to jump on that chopper if you hear all hell breaking loose.”
Brennan didn’t reply.
Alevy slapped him on the shoulder. “Good luck, Bill.”
“You too.”
Brennan took the leather bag inside the cabin. Alevy and Mills moved quickly up the narrow pine-covered lane that led away from the
izba
and the helicopter clearing. Alevy said, “You were supposed to wait for my signal before getting out of the chopper.”
“You were a long time in there. Did they call headquarters?”
“They said they didn’t.”
“Do you think Brennan will be all right on the telephone?”
“About as good as O’Shea was with the helicopter.”
Mills commented, “Sometimes you can overplan an operation. We don’t have that problem here.”
Alevy smiled grimly. They had a pilot who couldn’t fly his craft, a man on the telephone who couldn’t speak Russian, and Bert Mills, who didn’t look, act, or speak Russian. But it was the best Alevy could do, considering the problems inherent in mounting an operation in the heart of the Soviet Union. The word of the night was improvise. “Improvise.”
“And bluff,” Mills added.
They intersected the blacktopped main road of the camp, and Alevy took a compass from his greatcoat. To the right, he knew, should be the main camp gate, beyond which was Borodino Field. To the left should be the center of the camp. The satellite photographs had shown a large concrete building that Alevy hoped was the headquarters. They turned left and moved quickly along the edge of the tree-lined road.
Within a few minutes they saw the lights of a long wooden building that hadn’t appeared in the satellite photographs. They approached it cautiously. Alevy saw it had a porch out front, and as he got closer he heard music coming from the building. Alevy pointed to the sign above the door that read
VFW POST
000. Mills nodded and motioned to the Coke machine.
Alevy stepped up to the porch, followed by Mills. Through the window they could see a large recreation room in which were about twenty men and a few women, all in their mid-twenties. Alevy said, “Students.”
A group of men and women were watching Bela Lugosi’s
Dracula
on a seven-foot video screen. The rest of the students were sitting in a group of chairs, drinking and talking. There were Halloween decorations on the walls and a large coffin in the center of the floor.
Mills said, “Party. Halloween.”
Alevy nodded. He hadn’t thought of that, though it looked as if it were about over. He focused on the huge American flag on the opposite wall. “Bizarre.”
As they turned to leave, the front door opened, and a middle-aged man in a white ski jacket came out onto the porch and stopped short. He stared at Alevy and Mills.
Alevy and Mills looked back at him. No one spoke for a few seconds, then the man said in English, “You speak English?”
Alevy nodded.
The man cleared his throat and said in a drunken slur, “Well, go ahead and shoot.”
“Shoot?”
The door opened again, and a young man came out and said quickly in Russian, “I’ll take responsibility for this American, Major.”
Alevy tried to figure out what was going on and what language to reply in. Both men were clearly very drunk.
The young man spoke in Russian. “My name is Marty Bambach. This is Tim Landis. I board with him. I’ll take him home.”
Landis said in English, “I just lost track of time. No big fucking deal.”
Alevy began to understand. Landis was the American, probably violating a curfew, and Bambach was a Russian American. Alevy said to Marty in Russian, “I can overlook this man’s curfew violation if you take responsibility for him.”
Marty replied in Russian, “Thank you, Major.” He looked at Alevy in the dim light. “Are you new here?”
“Yes. Why don’t you go inside? I want to speak to this man a moment.”
Marty hesitated, then said, “He doesn’t speak Russian.”
“Go inside.”
“Yes, sir.” Marty turned to Landis and said in perfect English, which surprised Alevy and Mills, “It’s okay, Tim. He just wants to talk to you. I’ll take you home.” Marty turned and wove his way back into the building.
Landis staggered to the edge of the porch and leaned on the rail. He unzipped his fly and urinated. “Fuck this place.” He zipped himself up and wobbled back toward the door.
Alevy took his arm and said in accented English, “Have a seat there.”
“Let go of my arm.”
“Listen to me. Is Colonel Sam Hollis here?”
Landis looked at Alevy but said nothing.
“Hollis and Lisa Rhodes. Are they
here
?”
“Hollis . . . I felt sorry for him . . . he made it home.” Landis shook his head.
“Go on.”
“Plucked out of the drink . . . but here he is with us poor bastards . . . twenty years late . . . but here he is.” Landis suddenly attempted a salute. “Captain Timothy Landis, United States Air Force, at your service, Major. Hey, when is this fucking tour up?”
“Very soon.”
“Yeah? Best news.”
“Where is Hollis?”
“My wife Jane thinks he’s a hunk.”
“Wife?”
Landis went on, “But he’s got his woman with him. Fucking women. They’re going to shoot her. She talks too much.”
“Who? Who are they going to shoot?”
“Huh?”
“Lisa Rhodes? Are they going to shoot Lisa Rhodes?”
“Probably. She talks too much too. Her and my wife. Dynamic duo.” Landis fell into a rocking chair and stared at the porch ceiling.
“Where is Hollis?”
“Oh . . .” Landis looked around as though familiarizing himself with his surroundings. “Oh . . . they gave him Dodson’s place. Behind this building. Couple hundred yards.”
“And the woman with him? Lisa Rhodes?”
Landis looked at Alevy and Mills. “What you want to know for? Hey, those two been through enough of your shit.”
“What shit?”
“The fucking cooler. You’re all the fucking same. You and Burov and all the KGB shits.”
“Is Burov here?”
“Where the fuck else would he be?”
Mills put his hand on Alevy’s shoulder and whispered, “We have to get moving.”
“Hold on.” He said to Landis, “The woman. Lisa. Is she with Hollis? In Dodson’s place?”
Landis rose unsteadily to his feet. “Leave them alone.” Landis suddenly took a swing at Alevy, and Alevy stepped back. Landis shouted, “Go ahead, you bastard, shoot me! Shoot me! I want to die!” Landis staggered across the porch and fell against a post, covering his face with his hands. Alevy and Mills could hear him sobbing, and as they walked away, they heard him cry out, “My God, get me out of here!”