The Aeroflot plane from Vladivostok touched down at Moscow’s Domodyedovo Airport on a moonless, dark November evening. The pilot rolled up next to an outer arm of the main terminal building and put on the brakes, and everyone started unloading after the ten hour flight. As the passengers pressed through the lobby towards the terminal doors, we were met by Russian taxi drivers, mixed in with “gypsy cab” drivers, all holding up homemade signs and asking if anyone needed a ride to town. The “gypsy” cabs were private citizens using their personal cars as taxis. The practice was not officially sanctioned, but was tolerated by the authorities. Everyone had to do something in the new Russia to make money, now that communism had collapsed and many of the state jobs with it.

You couldn’t be sure from looking, which were the “gypsy” drivers and which were regular taxi drivers. The general policy was to take official taxis only, if they were available, waiting till you got outside to the taxi queue to be sure. But, with the crowds and the cold night, it looked like I’d better take a chance and grab a ride from one of the solicitors. There might not be enough cabs to go around. It was also late, the last flights in.  I had taken gypsy cabs before.

I nodded to one of the men soliciting fares in the lobby. He quickly asked where I was going, and we settled on a price, not too steep, and he took my suitcase. I followed him outside, and only then realized for sure that his was indeed a “gypsy” cab rather than regular taxi. We walked out to the vast parking lot, which was dark, with only a few lamp posts illuminating circles of asphalt here and there. There was an orange glow in the sky coming from the direction of Moscow, twenty minutes away.

The driver led me down to a row of cars on the right edge of the lot near the mesh fence, where his car, a small Fiat imitation “Zhiguli,” was parked. He opened the trunk and put my suitcase and attache case inside. It was rather dark in that area, and only after he closed the trunk did I realize there was another rider already sitting in the back seat. I didn’t feel particularly like sharing a taxi.

“Who is the other rider?” I asked.

“Brother in law, who works here. If okay, I can drop him of in Moscow after I take you to Leninsky Prospect.”

He acted as if it were a normal practice, although I knew it was a bit unusual to share a cab. On occasion, however, I had done so, and brothers-in-law were always needing help in Russia. Still, I didn’t like the idea of another passenger, since you never knew what kind of people were driving the gypsy cabs. The Embassy had warned us to be careful of taking these cabs, since there were reports of Asian businessmen whose bodies had been found stripped of their wallets, on side roads leading off the airport highway. I slipped into the passenger seat in front as the driver held the door for me. When the interior light came on, I said hello to the passenger in the back seat, noticing that he looked a bit tough. I began to doubt the wisdom of taking this “cab,” and thought about backing out, but by then the driver was in the car and we were speeding through the parking lot to the exit, the Russian muffler reverberating. At least, the passenger in back was not sitting directly behind me.

It was a rather silent ride into town at first as we pulled onto the main highway towards Moscow. I gave the driver a closer look, and he appeared normal, but there was an unusual silence in the cab. Usually, gypsy drivers like to talk. I decided to make conversation with the two, giving me the opportunity to turn around sideways to talk to the fellow in back as a way of keeping an eye on him. At least, I could face him partially. I would mention that I was an American diplomat. Criminals in Russia knew there would be ramifications if anything happened to me. There was probably nothing to worry about, but I had learned overseas to be alert and cautious in potentially dicey situations.

“What a flight. Nine hours,” I said.

“Where from?” the driver asked.  At least he seemed relaxed.

“Vladivostok.”

“On vacation?” he asked.

The question, for some reason, didn’t seem like an innocent inquiry. The guy in the back wasn’t saying anything. By this time, we were on the main four lane highway to Moscow, a dark road, lit only every mile of so. There wasn’t much traffic on the highway, which was unusual. We were passing through wooded countryside, with occasional exits to side roads. I knew that the distance to Moscow’s outskirts was about 12 miles, and that we would pass a highway police checkpoint about 10 miles down the road. For anything to happen, it would happen before then.  I noticed, while continuing to make small talk and keeping a partial eye on the fellow in back, that there was occasional eye communication between the two through the rear view mirror. The driver seemed a bit more fidgety.

“No, I’m the American Consul General there. Consultations.”

I noticed the driver glance up in the mirror at the passenger in the rear. The driver reached down and turned up the car heater a slight bit. It was winter and Russian cars sometimes could not keep up with the cold. I had not unbuttoned my coat.

“You’re diplomat?”, the driver asked.

“Yes, It’s a nice time to be an American diplomat, now that relations are good,” I chuckled. “We hope to make some improvements,” I added.

I regretted the last comment. It sounded phony to a Russian. Nor should I have said “consultations” earlier. To Russians, diplomats don’t talk about their work with strangers. Russians have a built in phony detector after living with lies for so long.  They might wonder if I was real.

“Would be good,” said the driver without enthusiasm after a pause.

His thoughts had obviously been elsewhere. I saw him glance in the mirror again, giving some kind of look, a bit anxious perhaps, to the man in back. The passenger in the back didn’t seem to be making any unusual moves and didn’t have his hands in his pockets. He looked out the window when I swiveled around to make small talk with him. I lightened the subject a bit, feeling I was overreacting.

“Have you been to Vladivostok?” I asked the driver.”

“No. Been to Irkutsk. Very nice. Lake Baikal. Taiga,” the driver answered. The man in back didn’t say anything.

“Irkutsk is a three hour flight from Vladivostok,” I said. “Alaska Airlines is flying tourists there. Vladivostok is also beautiful, seven hills.” I was going to add that the local Governor was a good friend, but decided against it.

The driver didn’t seem to notice what I had said.

“High level meetings?” he asked, responding to my earlier comment about “consultations” in Moscow. “Da,” I said, waving my hand away, as if something routine. The fellow in the back was not impressed. He was looking at me with those perceptive Russian eyes, pulling out a pack of cigarettes, and asking if I wanted one, as he lit his. I declined. Looking at those eyes, I decided I had been right to be concerned.

“Amazing thing,” I said, again turning to Vladivostok, “is that our best friend in Vladivostok is the Russian Pacific Fleet.” Lots of U.S. ship visits.” I gave an ironic laugh and an anecdote: “When I ask the Russian admirals how they can get along so well with the former enemy, they tell me with pride, ‘LeCocq, we and the Seventh Fleet were opponents, but professional opponents. Nothing ever got out of control.’ There is now real camaraderie between our navies.” I wanted them to think I was close to the admiral, and of the consequences of angering the Russian Defense Ministry on top of the Foreign Ministry.

The passenger in the back seat exhaled and stuffed out his cigarette. We sat in silence for a while. Then after a mile or so, he said to the driver up front in his husky voice, “it’s a bit cold, should we turn up the heat?” This came out as two words, “holodna,” for cold, and “tepleetsa,” to heat.

The driver quickly answered “no need.”

The passenger leaned back and took out another cigarette, relaxing back in the seat as he lit it. Maybe he really just wanted to turn up the heat, but maybe” turning up the heat” had been a signal for something else. The driver then asked quickly for directions to my apartment, perhaps making clear to the guy in back that they were going to deliver me home. Or, did he just want to clarify?

“Take Leninsky Prospect to No. 45, then turn right into the diplomatic compound parking lot please,” I said.

We drove in silence for five more minutes until we reached the Moscow suburbs and encountered normal city traffic. We had passed the police checkpoint, which meant that their car, like all others, would have been photographed. I relaxed a bit, and feeling a bit silly for perhaps over-dramatizing the situation, made some legitimate conversation, turning around fully to face the front. The fellow in the back even laughed at one of the driver’s jokes. The atmosphere was certainly a lot lighter, and we were all laughing. The passenger was beginning, in the city light, to look more like a worker than a gangster. When we got to my wife’s apartment building, the driver pulled through the archway into the back courtyard entrance, next to the parking lot, where there was a Russian border guard sentry box. The border guards were a branch of the KGB assigned to protect foreign diplomats. The driver didn’t’ try to avoid the sentry by letting me off outside, on the street.

I recognized the particular guard on duty this night. He was typical, young, tall and correct, wearing a light blue, heavy felt winter coat and matching fur hat, with brown leather Sam Brown Belt across the chest, and revolver holster at his side. His was part of a 24 hour watch on the diplomatic compound. I had paid the driver before we pulled up, since gypsy cabs were technically illegal.

The driver got out and lifted my suitcase out of the trunk, setting it down and shaking hands as we bid each other farewell. The sentry watched on, standing near his post, but giving a long hard look at the driver and passenger. The passenger in back gave a dismissive look at the guard. As the “cab” pulled out through the archway and drove off, I picked up the suitcase and started for the door to the building.

The sentry, who had gone back into his shack for a few seconds, perhaps to record the car license, stepped back out and called my name. It was interesting, but not surprising, that he remembered I was the husband of Mrs. Sprigg in Apartment 10, even though I was seldom in town. I had only exchanged greetings with him a couple times in the past.

“Its Sprigg, yes?” he said in Russian, polite and friendly, showing some glimmer of emotion, which was unusual.

“Yes, LeCocq, husband. Nice to meet you.”

He nodded his head in the direction of the cab which had departed.

“Gypsy Cab?” he asked.

“Yes” I said resignedly, shrugging the ‘what can one do’ gesture.

“From airport? I could see from his manner that he was being helpful, not interrogating?

“Yes, Domodyedova.”

He paused a moment, thinking, then said in English: “Mr. LeCocq, you should be careful. Not take gypsy cab, perhaps. Those men who drive you, I think they maybe not so good.”  I smiled and said “thank you” and gave him a grateful look. He saluted and I went upstairs.