Two minutes later, the three Pumas lifted up into the sky. I looked down at the stubble of the cornfield, at the great silver bird with the red-star markings and the hammer and sickle on its tailplane, and the crowd of people standing, looking like bewildered ants, a few hundred yards off from the Illushyn. Suddenly the plane produced two orange bursts, followed by two thick puffs of black smoke, then a massive flame ripped down its entire length like a knife-blade, before turning into a blazing ball of fire that enveloped the plane completely. I looked across at the man who sat in the seat opposite me: a large, portly man, with nine days’ stubble on his chin, crumpled clothes on his body, and confusion in his eyes.

‘Don’t worry, Sir Isaac,’ I said cheerfully, ‘you’ll be back home within a few hours.’

Quoit smiled feebly. He would smile even more feebly when the news was broken to him that he was officially dead, and was going to have to stay dead for a considerable time to come.

One Puma peeled off and headed down towards the centre of France. The second peeled off and headed east towards Germany. We headed north, out towards the Channel. A long way west, down the Channel, beyond the control of the French coastguards, a Special Boat Service high-powered launch awaited us. Heli-Transport France would eventually get back two of its Pumas. One would be found abandoned in Germany, the other abandoned in central France. The third wouldn’t be found until the day the English Channel was drained.

The French coast slipped away beneath us. I looked at my watch: it was eight minutes to twelve, British time. At the switchboard of the France-Soir newspaper, one telephone line in particular would be engaged: the caller was telling the news editor about the successful hijack and the destruction of the Illushyn by the Israeli Freedom Front, a new faction whose aim was to rain blows upon the Soviet Union until every last Jew in Russia had either been released or was granted full rights as a citizen. Their first blow had just been dealt.

As the world read its papers, and heard its news, during the next twenty-four hours, I wondered how many people would ever guess that the Israeli Freedom Front’s name had been dreamed up on the fifth floor of MI5’s Carlton House Terrace headquarters, and that the group in question were not an assortment of fanatical Jews, but fourteen professional soldiers from a regiment of the British Army called the SAS, and one, not entirely unhappy, very hungry, and exceedingly smelly spy.

Chapter 10

10