“Good choice.”
“Right. Problem is, the placement people here don’t think I could get a security clearance. I mean with my background. Born in Moscow, father a Party member, and all that.” Rooney laughed. “Well, I mean, I have to come up with a whole legend, of course. But it would be a hell of a coup if I could make it into American military intelligence. I took a few Air Force placement and aptitude exams — U.S. Air Force, I mean — and did pretty well. I think with your coaching, I could really do all right.”
Hollis cleared his throat. “Well, that’s very ambitious of you. I’d be surprised, though, if you could pass a background check. How would you do that?”
“Well, it’s getting a little easier now that we have all those other guys over there. I’d start off as an orphan, you see, and list a defunct orphanage, and a few dead foster parents. Birth certificates are no problem anymore. We got a few guys in the Bureau of Vital Statistics in some cities who can take care of all that.”
“But what about personal references?”
“Well, the program here goes back fifteen years, Colonel. So I can list guys whose own bona fides are pretty well established here. It’s like an old boys’ network already. School ties and all that. Us new guys go in there with a few beachheads already established.”
“It is my understanding that the graduates never come into contact with one another for security reasons.”
“Oh? Who told you that?”
“Can’t remember.”
Jeff Rooney shook his head. “There are small cells. Just like all over the world. That’s how we made a revolution here and other places. Cells, isolated from one another for security, but all working for the same thing. It was a novel concept back before the Revolution, and it still works. Makes it impossible to round up the whole organization. That’s the way I understand it is over there. Each cell works to enhance the professional life of its members.”
“That’s interesting.”
“Right. So, anyway, don’t worry about my security clearance, Colonel. Just give me some insights into the Air Force intelligence world and maybe some embassy jargon and how the politics work on getting these postings. I’ll do the rest. Okay?”
“Okay.”
Rooney added, “I wish I had an old man who was an Air Force general like you do. Well, someday I’ll be an American Air Force general, and my kids will have it easier. The great American dream — right, Colonel? Always a little harder for us immigrants.” He laughed. “Legal or illegal. But we’ll make it. We work harder.”
Hollis regarded Rooney closely. The Charm School, he thought, took the spycraft ideal of deep cover to its ultimate realization; it assaulted the very notion of identity that all human beings took for granted. Each man and woman on earth, Hollis reflected, was a complex matrix of language, habit, nuance, gesture, and shared mythology, the sum total of which identified them as members of a specific nation, culture, or society. And the thought that all of this could be replicated was a scary notion. But, Hollis thought, it was a very Russian notion. It was the old Russian nobility and upper classes speaking French, dressing English, and thinking German; it was the whole Russian obsession with trying to be something they were not. And this place, Hollis realized, was an advanced version of Stanislavsky’s method acting, a bizarre and grotesque stage where all the actors exited into the night and played their stage parts in the world. It was, Hollis understood, a place where the final curtain had to be drawn.
Rooney said, “Colonel? You there?”
Hollis focused on Rooney. “I’m here.”
Rooney smiled. “Well, you guys probably want to snoop around a little, so we won’t keep you. But we’re having a party Friday night. You’ll get a chance to meet a lot of the people here. See Chuck over at supply for a mask.”
“Mask?”
“Yeah. Halloween. Friday’s Halloween.”
“Right.”
Suzie looked at Lisa and said, “Smile. It’s not so bad here.”
Lisa didn’t smile or reply.
Jeff added, “No one will hassle you if you’re straight with us. Talk to the other instructors and you’ll see. See you at the Grand Sabbat.”
Suzie waved. “Nice meeting you both. Don’t get lost.”
“Welcome to the campus,” Jeff added. “Don’t get too close to the perimeter.”
They moved off down the path.
Neither Hollis nor Lisa spoke for a minute, then Hollis said dryly, “Nice kids. Lots of ambition.”
Lisa replied, “God forgive me, but I wanted to slit their throats.”
“And they may have wanted to cut ours.” Hollis thought a moment, then said, “Frightening.”
“Creepy,” Lisa agreed. She watched them disappear around the bend in the path and commented, “He’s a nearly finished product. She’s still very rough. I guess I’m supposed to polish her. I can’t believe this, Sam.”
“It is a bit surreal.” Hollis looked into the woods. Deep purple shadows lay in the ancient bor, and the worn wooden trail ran from nowhere to nowhere. The wind had died, and there was a stillness all around. Here I am, Hollis thought, in the heart of Russia, dead to the world, surrounded by barbed wire and engulfed in a mad experiment. Fifteen years late, but here at last.
They headed back the way they came, but took a cross path that cut east.
Lisa said, “Did I do all right? I mean with the ‘may’ and ‘can’?”
“Fine. But they didn’t believe for a minute that we were willing participants.”
“Good. I’m not much of a phony.”
“No, you’re not.”
They came to a ranch-style house set snugly among the pine trees. It was red brick with white trim and a green asphalt roof. A gravel driveway led to a one-car garage, but there was no sign that a car had ever driven over the gravel. On the right side of the garage was a man of about fifty, stacking a cord of firewood. A child of about five swung in a tire suspended by a rope from a tree limb. Hollis walked up the drive, followed by Lisa, and the man turned toward him. Hollis said, “Hello, I’m new in town.”
The man looked at him and at Lisa. “Sam Hollis! I heard you were here. And that must be Lisa Rhodes.” The man wiped his palms on his corduroy slacks and shook hands with Hollis. He spoke in a Texas twang. “I’m Tim Landis. I think we know each other, Sam.”
Hollis was momentarily taken aback. “Yes… by God, you were a flight commander in our fighter group.”
“Right. We attended some wild briefings together. I remember you used to give old General Fuller a hard time.” Landis said to Lisa, “Sam got ticked once at all the target restrictions and told Fuller we should drop water balloons so no one would get mad at us.”
Hollis introduced Lisa, and she shook hands with Landis. She asked, “Is this like dying and going to purgatory, or is it a living hell?”
Landis seemed to understand. “Well, that depends on how you wake up in the morning, what you dreamed about in the night.” Landis rubbed his forehead. “You see, I’ve been nearly twenty years here, and I don’t feel like it’s home, but I don’t know what home is supposed to feel like anymore.” He added, “Except sometimes when I wake in the night and can remember all of it and feel it again.”
No one spoke for a while, then Landis smiled at Hollis. “Hey, Sam, I’m glad you didn’t get downed.”
“Well, I did. Over Haiphong harbor. Last run of the war. But I got fished out of the drink.” Hollis hesitated a moment, then said, “My copilot was Ernie Simms. Is he here?”
Landis replied, “Not anymore.”
“He was here?”
“Yes.”