He felt the great roar in his ears, the pounding of blood, then the sensation that his skull was riddled with holes. Fire poured through the holes, from his ears and nostrils, then his mouth. James Bond jerked awake, realising several things at once. The roar came from two Soviet jets, afterburners guzzling fuel as they passed overhead. He recalled that, at the briefing, they had said military jets often flew low over the mountains heading back to their base near Russia’s oldest sea port, Archangel. He also cursed himself for falling from a doze into a deep sleep. He stretched, trying to ease his aching muscles, then moved very slowly to glance at his watch. It was nearly time to go and he was cold and suffering from cramps. He listened and could still hear the jets receding but no sound of the spotter aircraft which used the airfield far below. The spotter plane was over sixty years old - a Fiesler Storch captured at Stalingrad from Hitler’s Luftwaffe. To watch it would be like seeing an old Roman ballista on the electronic battlefield of the 1980’s.
