In the event, our flight was delayed for nearly three hours by technical problems one aircraft went tits-up on the runway, and another had to be brought into service with the result that the whole day seemed to disappear, and dusk was already settling on the land by the time British Airways' flight 262 began its descent into Sheremetyevo.
In the distance and far below us on the starboard side of the plane, I saw lights glowing in the dark, and as we came closer I realised I could see the whole of Moscow enclosed within a single ring of illumination.
"Look at that," I said to Whinger.
"Ten million people inside that circle. Can you imagine it?"
"Yeah, and a couple of well-placed nukes would finish most of the bastards."
"Come on," I laughed.
"They're our friends now.
But there wasn't much sign of that when we landed. We were travelling on civilian passports made out in our own names, and so had to go through Immigration along with everyone else. The hall was hot and dimly lit. Everything looked dirty and dilapidated walls, doors, lights, the local staff Worst of all was the ceiling, close over our heads, which looked as if someone had nailed ten thousand copper saucepans to it, rims downward.
"Jesus!" I said quietly.
"This is worse than Africa."
For forty minutes we sweated shoulder-to-shoulder with passengers from other flights, shuffling forward like snails in queues that stretched towards the booths manned by the immigration officials. As we inched closer, I saw that the lady we were heading for could have walked straight off the set of a James Bond movie: grey uniform with lieutenant's bars on the shoulders, a mane of long, straight streaky blonde hair and hal finch false eyelashes.
Finally reaching her booth, I summoned up my best Russian and said, "Dobriye ve cher
She glared at me, glared at my passport, glared at her video monitor and punched my details into her computer terminal, then shoved my documents back across the shelf without a word. It was definitely the wrong time of the month for her.
"Friendly lot," Whinger observed as he came through behind me.
"Roll on the fucking Customs!"
To our surprise, they gave us no trouble. We took the green channel and nobody even looked in our direction. On the far side of the screen a swarm of taxi-drivers engulfed us, all shouting and trying to snatch our luggage; but through the middle of them came Sasha, dressed in civvies and smiling as he shouldered the mob aside. I recognised his shirt as one of the pair we'd bought in Hereford.
He greeted us warmly and led us out to a battered grey saloon which he'd parked on the pavement. We put our hold-alls into the boot and climbed aboard, myself in the front, the other guys in the back. Because the hinges had worked loose, it took three slams to make my door shut securely.
"I am sorry," Sasha said as he drove off "You are in Intourist Hotel."
"What's wrong with that?"
He let go of the wheel to spread his hands.
"Not nice. We wanted the Moskva, but no rooms.
"Oh, well. It's only two nights." To change the subject I asked, "What sort of a car is this?"
"It is Volga. Old, old. I would like to buy new one, something good. But that would be too dangerous. And why? Because the Mafia would take it. One day, in a traffic jam, my mother is driving it, she sees two gun-machines in her ears, this side and that side.
"Give me the keys." Finish."
"Can't the police do anything?"
"Police!" He shot me a hopeless look.
"They are worst. They are cowards. And anyway, half of them are paid by Mafia."
The highway into town was wide but rough: four lanes in each direction, treacherously pitted with dips and potholes. I realised that when Sasha had described the Russian roads as diabolical he hadn't been exaggerating. We were really getting thrown around and this on one of the main thoroughfares. We were also being overtaken on both sides simultaneously: anybody with a reasonably fast foreign car was weaving in and out of the traffic like a lunatic.
Set back on either side of the road were terrible, drab tower blocks of flats, nine or ten storeys tall. Closer to the road, oldfashioned hoardings carried advertisements, many for Western products. When I spotted some familiar red and yellow colours and slowly picked out the Cyrillic letters for McDonald's I couldn't help grinning at my own linguistic prowess.
It took us fifty minutes to reach the city centre, the traffic thickening all the time. I noticed several good-looking older buildings, mostly pale yellow with green copper roofs, but the general run of architecture was abysmal. Then, as we were crawling downhill along another broad street, Sasha pointed ahead and announced, "There is Kremlin."
I peered out through the relatively clean area of the windscreen and saw in the distance a red star glowing on top of a steeply pointed tower. Only that one corner of the citadel was in sight, but even so my neck prickled. Here was the centre of Russian power, the focal point of a vast country, the power-base that had dominated world politics for all our lifetimes. If ever there was to be a breakdown of relations between Russia and the West, this was where it would start.
A moment later Sasha pulled the car over in front of a tall, faceless, modern high-rise building on the right-hand side of the road, and parked end-on to the kerb.
"Hotel Intourist," he announced.
"I help you check in."
Outside the entrance a few rough-looking young men were standing around, all smoking; they were hard to see clearly, but whenever the glow of a cigarette lit up a face, I didn't like the look of it. They could have been taxi-drivers, yet their presence seemed vaguely threatening.
The little glass-walled lobby was full of security men half a dozen overweight, slovenly guys with pistols in holsters. The women staffing the reception desk were wearing bright red tunics pin-striped with white a cheerful touch which wasn't matched by any warmth of greeting. One of them gave us forms to complete and moved off towards her office without a word, carrying our passports.
"When do we get them back?" I asked.
"Tomorrow."
Her lack of common civility pissed me off I can't believe all the women in Moscow are having their periods right now, I thought. Then I heard Sasha saying, "Programme for tomorrow: eight-thirty, I collect you and drive to Balashika for inspection of camp. OK?"
I nodded.
"Four o'clock, visit to British Embassy. Meeting with Charge d'Affaires. Also meet your interpreter and liaison officer. At Embassy, same time."
"Fine."
I thanked him for collecting us, and he was gone.
Our rooms were on the fifteenth floor 1512, 1513 and 1514.
We went up in the lift, sharing it with a couple of overweight Yanks, a man and a woman, obviously on vacation.
"Been to the Kremlin yet?" the man asked in a southern accent.
I shook my head.
"Only just arrived."
"One helluva monument, that place. Sure is. How long are you guys here for?"
"Couple of days."
A quick inspection revealed that all our rooms were the same: small, hot and stuffy, without air-conditioning, and with only the small upper section of the windows op enable In the tiny bathrooms the tiles were cracked and yellowing, the grout between them black with grime. As Sasha had warned us, there were no plugs in the baths or basins… and suddenly fuck it — I realised I'd left mine behind. I took a quick look round the bedroom for signs of hidden microphones, and although I couldn't see anything I felt sure they were there. We'd already agreed that there'd be no shop talk in the hotel.
"Grotsville," exclaimed Rick as he emerged into the passage.
"You said it. Have you got your money on you? Don't leave it in there, whatever you do."
"Got it." He slapped his bum-bag which he had pulled round to the front, over his stomach.