I rinsed my rubber-gloved hands, and dried them carefully, then peeled the gloves off – I didn’t want slippery fingers right now. I pushed earplugs into my ears, and turned them until they were a snug fit, then I removed the two stun grenades that were clipped to my belt. With only a two-second fuse on each, I didn’t want to go dropping them under my feet. At the same time, I didn’t want to expose myself in the aisle of the aircraft for longer than was necessary. The armed guards on Aeroflot flights are instructed to shoot on sight anyone behaving suspiciously. Appearing from the lavatory in a wet-suit and gas mask, with a minor arsenal of weapons hanging from clips around my body, it was not unlikely I would have qualified under the category of ‘suspicious behaviour’.

I unlocked the door, pulled it back, placed a grenade in each hand, and stepped out. I pulled out the pin of the first one with my mouth, lobbed the grenade as far down the aisle as I could, pulled the second pin out with my hand, and lobbed that grenade down towards the middle of the aisle, retreated into the lavatory and pulled the door hard shut.

There were two muffled booms in rapid succession, and I now had exactly ten seconds. The stun grenade is a device that was originally dreamed up by the SAS and developed for them. Known as flash-bangs, they had been modified by the Playroom boffins so as not to be a fire risk. They produce a combined flash and explosion that completely deafens, and their effect in a closed environment is to paralyze totally, for a minimum of ten seconds, anyone in their vicinity. They will not cause any actual bodily damage, other than to eardrums, and therefore would not, in theory, damage the structure of the aircraft. For the next ten seconds, everyone in the passenger compartment of the aircraft, including the KGB vigilante, would be paralyzed. The flight crew in the cockpit would be unaffected. They would have heard the two bangs, muffled somewhat, and they would doubtless be wondering what on earth had happened.

By the time four of the ten seconds had elapsed, I had sprinted the length of the aisle, negotiated two rigid stewardesses in the process, and was pressing the intercom button to the cockpit: in what the lingo expert at Combined Central Intelligence had informed me was a perfect Muscovite accent, I yelled the rough Russian equivalent of ‘Don’t sit there, you dumb motherfuckers. Come back and help us!’