He sat with his arms locked around a black nylon sports bag in the dull red glow of the aircraft interior, gripping it like he thought we were going to mug him. I probably would have done if I’d thought I could have got away with it. The bag contained Vladislav’s twenty thousand US dollars. It didn’t sound like a lot for a bit of top-secret kit, but it would have been a life-changing sum to me.

Tenny needn’t have worried. Dex ignored him. ‘“Bang, bang, Chitty Chitty Bang Bang…”’

Red Ken’s and Tenny’s shoulders heaved in unison.

Spag bellowed into his headset that nobody sang on his goddam watch.

Biggles segued straight into ‘Those Magnificent Men In Their Flying Machines’.

Odd smudges of very East German light appeared – dull and yellow, not the fairground stuff their Western mates went for a few thousand metres away. We called them nein-watt bulbs.

Red Ken cut in: ‘OK, that’s it, enough. Let’s switch on.’

3

The Dornier dropped the final couple of hundred feet. My head bounced off the steel as we hit the ground and bumped along the field.

When I sat up I could see a line of small fires through the windows. Benghazi burners – normally small pots of petrol and sand, but probably mud here. Everywhere east of the Wall was ankle-deep in the stuff. The burners would have been laid out in an L, Second-World-War SOE-style. The base of the L was the threshold; Dex needed to land as close to it as he could to ensure he had enough grass to rattle to a stop. The long stroke gave him wind direction.

Spag was already up on his knees, headphones cast aside as if he had to jump and run under fire. He struggled to keep his balance at the same time as he hugged the bag to his chest.

Red Ken waved him down. ‘The crap-hat has been watching too many war films.’

Tenny convulsed again with laughter.