This won’t take long. Next stop, Sheremetyevo International Airport.”
Moscow, Beck thought.
His stomach lurched again, though this time not entirely because of the aerial maneuver. The only heartening aspect was a thin sliver in the darkness, still too weak to be called daylight, that was etching its faint line on the far horizon.
Mockba, it looked to Beck, the Cyrillic script disorienting in its dyslexic mix of forward and backward lettering. He remembered the sign on the main terminal, but much else had changed since his last visit. When the Eagle had nosed down into its prescribed landing pattern, his rear-seat vantage point had given him a panoramic view of the metropolis. Here, it was already late morning; sunlight reflecting from the streets and buildings made the city glitter.
Muscovites enjoy reminding their visitors that, like Rome, Moscow is built on seven hills. This is difficult to prove. Only the most expert eye can detect more than one or two of these, the topographical formations themselves having long ago surrendered to maniacally fanciful czarist architecture and the bleak geometric designs of socialist progressivism. Throughout much of the ’eighties, when every available ruble was being thrown into a desperate attempt to match Western arms expenditures, there had been little left over for construction. There was even less after the Soviet system skidded into virtual bankruptcy. Neither had the boom times of the ’nineties found its way into construction of anything except Mafiya -owned dachas and walled compounds. This had brought an exhausted monotony to the Moscow cityscape that Beck had found somehow comforting.
No longer.
To the north, urban sprawl had settled in; towns and what looked like private estates had sprung up in what had, the last time Beck had been there, been open fields. The activity showed no signs of slowing; in the distance, along the route to St. Petersburg, he could see bright yellow earthmoving vehicles scraping the curves of new residential roadways.
Beck also was surprised at the number of shopping malls; some of them were as large as their American counterparts, though with far fewer cars parked in far smaller lots. They flew over near the city’s center, above the open expanse that was still called Red Square, and Beck sighted the Golden Arches of McDonald’s. Just east of the triangular walls and minaret spires of the Kremlin, the F-15 had swept over what from the air looked like a Pizza Hut.
And in the final approach, as the F-15’s wheels thudded into lowered-and-locked position, Beck looked closer at the glut of billboards he had noted from high overhead. They were also new and prolific as mushrooms after a spring rain. They advertised a cornucopia of Korean electronics, American cigarettes and Western European consumer goods. Capitalism, in all its forms and variations, clearly had come to the former workers’ paradise.
By now, they had received instructions. Frankel taxied the fighter away from the main Sheremetyevo II terminal, bouncing over occasionally cracked or weed-tufted concrete toward a hangar undistinguished save for its sheer size. It was unmistakably military, and the ground personnel who swarmed around the Eagle as it braked were efficient as army ants, carrying tire chocks and wheeling out a green cherry picker. The latter had been spray-painted either inexpertly or carelessly; faintly, just below the fresher tricolor ensign of the Russian Federation, Beck could still discern the single red star.
Frankel opened the canopy. Beck caught the usual airport scents of scorched rubber and burned kerosene, and more: a smoky, earthy, semiacrid tang that his memory immediately recognized as uniquely Russian. While the Air Force major supervised the fighter’s shutdown, Beck submitted meekly as a blond man in military-style coveralls disentangled him from the straps and wires he had worn for hours.
Within moments, Beck found himself hustled
Moscow, Beck thought.
His stomach lurched again, though this time not entirely because of the aerial maneuver. The only heartening aspect was a thin sliver in the darkness, still too weak to be called daylight, that was etching its faint line on the far horizon.
Mockba, it looked to Beck, the Cyrillic script disorienting in its dyslexic mix of forward and backward lettering. He remembered the sign on the main terminal, but much else had changed since his last visit. When the Eagle had nosed down into its prescribed landing pattern, his rear-seat vantage point had given him a panoramic view of the metropolis. Here, it was already late morning; sunlight reflecting from the streets and buildings made the city glitter.
Muscovites enjoy reminding their visitors that, like Rome, Moscow is built on seven hills. This is difficult to prove. Only the most expert eye can detect more than one or two of these, the topographical formations themselves having long ago surrendered to maniacally fanciful czarist architecture and the bleak geometric designs of socialist progressivism. Throughout much of the ’eighties, when every available ruble was being thrown into a desperate attempt to match Western arms expenditures, there had been little left over for construction. There was even less after the Soviet system skidded into virtual bankruptcy. Neither had the boom times of the ’nineties found its way into construction of anything except Mafiya -owned dachas and walled compounds. This had brought an exhausted monotony to the Moscow cityscape that Beck had found somehow comforting.
No longer.
To the north, urban sprawl had settled in; towns and what looked like private estates had sprung up in what had, the last time Beck had been there, been open fields. The activity showed no signs of slowing; in the distance, along the route to St. Petersburg, he could see bright yellow earthmoving vehicles scraping the curves of new residential roadways.
Beck also was surprised at the number of shopping malls; some of them were as large as their American counterparts, though with far fewer cars parked in far smaller lots. They flew over near the city’s center, above the open expanse that was still called Red Square, and Beck sighted the Golden Arches of McDonald’s. Just east of the triangular walls and minaret spires of the Kremlin, the F-15 had swept over what from the air looked like a Pizza Hut.
And in the final approach, as the F-15’s wheels thudded into lowered-and-locked position, Beck looked closer at the glut of billboards he had noted from high overhead. They were also new and prolific as mushrooms after a spring rain. They advertised a cornucopia of Korean electronics, American cigarettes and Western European consumer goods. Capitalism, in all its forms and variations, clearly had come to the former workers’ paradise.
By now, they had received instructions. Frankel taxied the fighter away from the main Sheremetyevo II terminal, bouncing over occasionally cracked or weed-tufted concrete toward a hangar undistinguished save for its sheer size. It was unmistakably military, and the ground personnel who swarmed around the Eagle as it braked were efficient as army ants, carrying tire chocks and wheeling out a green cherry picker. The latter had been spray-painted either inexpertly or carelessly; faintly, just below the fresher tricolor ensign of the Russian Federation, Beck could still discern the single red star.
Frankel opened the canopy. Beck caught the usual airport scents of scorched rubber and burned kerosene, and more: a smoky, earthy, semiacrid tang that his memory immediately recognized as uniquely Russian. While the Air Force major supervised the fighter’s shutdown, Beck submitted meekly as a blond man in military-style coveralls disentangled him from the straps and wires he had worn for hours.
Within moments, Beck found himself hustled
Similar Books
