I rolled underneath the plane and then scrambled desperately to my feet, not caring where Haslam and Philips might be. I caught a glimpse of a great bloom of flame with Frank in the heart of it, and I felt a wave of heat propelling me towards the hangar door. As I sprinted away, the fireball enveloped the nose of the Lear, and streamers of flame ran along the starboard wing.

Then I was out of the hangar and running for the darkness. Someone shot at me but the bullet went wide and I heard Leotta shouting my name, away to my right. I veered towards the sound and finally flung myself flat on the ground beside her.

There was a dull thud as the Lear went up and I looked back. A wall of flame thundered out of the hangar door. It boiled out for perhaps a hundred feet and then licked towards the sky, and the whole airfield was lit up as though a giant photographer had set off a massive flash gun.

Haslam had been right about the dangerous properties of avgas.

Hanna found us still sitting on the ground. I was rubbing a bullet burn on my shoulder. Leotta’s trouser suit was destroyed where she’d torn off a leg to create the makeshift fuse for her bomb. The runway was alive with police and troops and already the passengers were being taken from the Boeing and shepherded away. Hanna looked down at me and said, ‘What happened?’

‘Someone lit the blue touchpaper.’

He sighed. ‘I had a navy, an army and an air force. I forgot the fire brigade.’

Beside me on the grass, Leotta shivered and I realised the night had turned cool. Hanna slipped off his uniform jacket and draped it onto her shoulders.

‘How did you pull it off?’ he asked.

‘That’s something I’d like to know too,’ I said.

Leotta shrugged. ‘Nothing much to it. The hardest part was getting down the ladder with this arm. I had a nasty moment when the tractor came out of the hangar, but then the driver disappeared again and his friend was too busy watching the fun and games on the runway to notice me coming up behind him.’

Hanna said, ‘What did you hit him with? You made quite a dent in the back of his skull.’

‘A wrench that Captain Dehn gave me on the plane. Did I kill him?’

‘Oh no. I’d say he’ll be ready to face the music after a bit of a hospital stay.’

I said, ‘And the tractor?’

Leotta smiled. ‘One of those opportunities that are too good to turn down. It was just sitting there. I improvised a fuse and used the wrench to jam the gas pedal and – voilà! – a mobile bomb.’

Hanna blew out a breath. ‘A bit risky, wasn’t it, especially with Kemp inside the hangar?’