Hollis glanced out the window and saw the smokescreen beginning to dissipate. He rummaged through the leather bag and found the last smoke grenade and the last of the CS riot gas. He pulled both pins and flung the grenades out the door. There was still some firing directed toward them, but the predominant sound now was of vomiting and swearing. He said to Alevy, “So, the State Department and the White House got their way. This place never existed. And you went along with it?”
Alevy glanced at his watch. “Go on, Sam. I’m not asking you to die here.”
“Are you going to die here?”
Alevy did not reply directly, but said, “I’m about to murder a thousand people.” He looked at Hollis. “It was my idea. The poison gas. It’s good for the country.”
“How is it good for the country?”
“It’s a compromise. In exchange for the CIA and the Pentagon not wrecking the peace initiatives and all that crap, we can keep as many as we want of the three thousand or so graduates of the Charm School that we’ll eventually round up in America. The rest we can dispose of without benefit of trial. That was made possible by you and General Surikov’s files. That’s what broke the deadlock. We’re starting our own Charm School in America. Get it?”
“I’m afraid so.”
“Don’t be a goddamned Boy Scout. We’re turning their intelligence offensive against them on this one. We’ll have a class A school for our agents, and Burov and Dodson will be sort of deans of students. Pretty neat, don’t you think?”
“Your idea?”
“Of course.” Alevy added, “But I’ll tell you something else that wasn’t my idea. Neither you nor Lisa were supposed to leave here alive. Your own people in Defense Intelligence, including your boss, General Vandermullen, agreed to that, though somewhat reluctantly, I’ll admit.”
“Then why—?”
“Oh, I’m not that inhuman, Sam. Could I really leave her here to die?”
“Nothing you do would surprise me anymore, Seth.”
“Thank you. But that I couldn’t do. As for you… well, I like you, so I’m giving you a chance to get out.”
Hollis listened to the sounds of the helicopter’s turbines running up. He said to Alevy, “How about Surikov and his granddaughter, Seth? Did you lie to me?”
“I’m afraid so. They’ll stay in Moscow awhile longer. They have to or the KGB will know that Surikov blew the Charm School graduates. We can’t have that until the FBI is ready to round them all up. You know that.”
“You’re a bastard.”
“I’m a patriot.”
Bullets began slapping into the log walls again, and Hollis could now hear the deep chatter of a heavy machine gun. The walls began to splinter, and Hollis lay prone on the floor. “Get down.”
Several rounds hit the radios, and they disintegrated. The porcelain stove shattered, and smoke and ash billowed out of it. The three corpses on the far wall took some hits, and Hollis could hear the sound of popping body gases and smelled death. Hollis reached out and pulled an AK-47 toward him, then rolled to the door and fired at some nearby muzzle flashes. “They’re here, at the front of the cabin now.”
Alevy didn’t seem interested. He remained sitting with his back to the wall. He remarked, “And to add insult to injury, Sam, my people are going to smuggle the Kellums out. They’ll get teaching positions in our American Charm School. They’re quite bright as it turns out and willing to cooperate in exchange for not being thrown in the Moskva.”
Hollis reloaded another magazine. “What a fucking mess. The people you were supposed to rescue here are going to die—”
“Right. Quite painless though. Sarin is quick.”
“And Lisa and I were supposed to die. And Burov the sadist lives, and the fucking Kellums live, and Surikov and his granddaughter who risked their lives for us are stuck here, and Dodson whom you all wanted to kill to shut him up is going from a living death here to another living death in your goddamned new Charm School—”
“That’s about it. Except taking Dodson was your idea. I wanted the general. Anyway, Charlie Banks and his crowd are quite pleased. Your people are sort of pleased because the honor of the missing airmen remains unblighted. It would be hard to explain all those traitors—”
“They weren’t—”
“They were. And needless to say, the CIA got what it wanted.”
“And you? Did you get what you wanted, Seth?”
“I guess. Maybe I just got what I had coming.”
Hollis looked at Alevy in the dim light. “Do you understand how monstrous this is?”
“Absolutely. But do you realize how brilliant it is? This is a classic turnaround of a massive espionage offensive against us into an unmitigated disaster for them. We’ve bought a little more time for the fat, decadent West to consume more designer jeans, play at democracy, talk about peace and understanding, write diet books—”
Hollis sprang across the room and knocked Alevy over. He pinned his shoulders against the floor and put his face near Alevy’s. “Do you know what you’ve done? Has everyone in Washington gone stark fucking crazy?”
Alevy shouted, “They’re scared shitless is what they are! Get off your high horse, General Hollis. This is bottom-line survival.” He pushed Hollis away and sat up.
“Then you’re all missing the goddamned point!” Hollis shouted, “We can’t survive by becoming like them. People like Surikov and his granddaughter… we’re their light in this darkness… don’t you understand, Seth? I’ve just gone through two fucking weeks of totalitarianism. You and I lived here for two years, Seth. Jesus Christ, man, haven’t you learned anything—?”
Alevy pulled his pistol and pointed it at Hollis’ face. “I don’t want a goddamned lecture. I know what the hell I did. At least admit that it had to be done. Or just shut up.”
Hollis lay prone on the floor and listened to the gunfire getting closer. He could hear men shouting orders and guessed they were getting their nerve up for the final assault across the open space between the road and the cabin. He took a deep breath and said to Alevy, “All right… I understand.” He thought of Jane Landis, then of Tim Landis and their little boy. He recalled the quiet suffering of General Austin, the understated bravery of Lewis Poole, and the tragedy of all the Americans he’d met here and their Russian wives and their children. He remembered the female doctor who had checked him over and remembered the other political prisoners who were victims of this madness. He even had a passing thought about the students, especially those who had raised their voices at the VFW hall. And there were the five or six hundred Border Guards, who to some extent were blameless, and there was Burov’s wife, his mother, and his daughter. “Damn it!”
Alevy threw away his pistol and grabbed one of the AK-47’s from the floor. He stood at the window and fired a continuous stream of bullets until the rifle overheated and jammed. He threw it down and stooped for another rifle as a burst of bullets tore at the shards of glass and window frame.
Hollis picked up the remaining AK-47 and moved to the window that faced away from the gunfire. He raised the butt of the rifle and smashed away the glass and wood.
Alevy looked up at him. “Where are you going?”
“Home.”
“No, you’re not.” Alevy swung his rifle around and aimed it at Hollis. “You know too much now.”
“That’s why I’m going home.” Hollis lifted himself into the window. “Let’s go.”
Alevy fired a burst of rounds into the wall above Hollis’ head. “Stop!”