"Calling Aeroflot Flight 006 to Istanbul"
29 September 1999

It was a long and arduous flight for Matthew Dijon. It wasn't that his plane, a DC-8 (operated by Russia's internal security force), stopped a dozen times. It was due to the fact that for 37 of the 38 hours it took to get from Kathmandu to Istanbul Matthew had to stand. Aside from the two pilots and four security officers armed with a variety of lethal weapons, the cargo hold where Matthew was sequestered was completely full. Crate upon crate of unmarked inventory crowded him into a small standing-room-only corner where air itself was a commodity. A curious glance at a crate would earn him a glare from Ivan or Ivan's brother. If he accidentally bumped a crate too hard he noticed that their trigger fingers would twitch.

How Matthew boarded this plane must be chalked up to accidental fate. It had all the markings of the Aeroflot plane he was supposed to be on, and the attendant at the gate had clearly pointed to this plane. "Perhaps"; he thought to himself, "she mistook me for KGB. My hair is beginning to gray."

The terminal in Istanbul was as chaotic as the Russian security officers were stoic. The train station was worse; a quarter of the day passed before a ticket was purchased for Venice.

At four in the afternoon the train finally pulled out of the station leaving Matthew with a raw sense of panic as he read his ticket. There was a change of trains in Batak, Sarajevo, Belgrade, Zagreb, Ljubljana, and Trieste. "SARAJEVO!" he cried out loud. He immediately began slathering himself in that infamous Canadian cologne: Yukon Jack.

Meanwhile...

Sipping champagne, passing through the French countryside, Charles Dunn collects his thoughts.

the mad innkeeper
site design by WebDeck.net