Archangel

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The Aeroflot was eighty minutes late.

For 'operational reasons', the girl at Information explained. Eighty minutes late out of Moscow, and she had that sweet Swiss haughty stare which seemed to say that he was lucky the damn thing was airborne at all.

Alan Millet stood close to a television monitor screen that would tell him when the Ilyushin was on final approach. He might seem calm, but it was a sham. He was nervous and excited.

The passenger would be in the back seat of the tourist section, in the centre of three, with Security on either side.

Sometimes the passenger was handcuffed for the length of the flight, sometimes only until it had left Soviet airspace, sometimes just up the aircraft steps at Sheremetyevo.

He looked at his watch. There was time for another coffee, but he had already been three times to the coffee shop. He would wait. He would watch the passengers as they came through the silent-opening glass doors. His passenger would not be delayed by baggage collection. Just a grip bag, a holdall, or a plastic sack. There wasn't much to bring, where this one was coming from. The Security men would stay on the aircraft, and there would be some insult or jibe, then their noses would be back into their magazines, the stewardesses would bring them another drink, and they would prepare themselves for four hours flying time back to Moscow.

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