He had been here a dozen, perhaps twenty times, and the city of great domes and mammoth buildings, the city where Christian and Muslim seemed to meet together and yet where all were infidels. Moscow had always looked impressive, the area near the Kremlin and Red Square especially so. But he had never come so soon after dawn, never seen it so resplendent. For a few minutes, he forgot even what he had come for; and then he marvelled. Suddenly, he sensed a difference. He was aware of silence, and realised on that instant that the noise of the engines had cut out. Yet the plane was flying normally, and he could see the exhaust coming from the engine on his right, nearest him, and the flashes of flame which came all the time. There was a longer stab of flame than most; then, with awful suddenness, flame engulfed the engine and hid it, and seemed to turn the wing into which it was built into white-hot metal. He gripped the arm of his seat as the co-pilot came from the cabin, a stocky man in uniform, with smoothed down black hair which reminded Palfrey vaguely of Philip Carr.
