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look for wreckage and, possibly, a signal emitting life raft, Captain Pantano was sitting comfortably in the captain’s cabin of a small freighter, two hundred miles off the coast of his own country, Spain.
    The freighter was registered in Oporto, Portugal. Indeed, Oporto, the harbour city famous for that most clubbable of wines, was where she was headed, and she sported the name Estado Novo on bows and stern.
    Low in the water, the Estado Novo obviously carried a heavy cargo in her hold and a large container secured forward taking up the bulk of her deck space. On the ship’s manifest, the container showed as engineering equipment destined for Gibraltar, from a well-known British firm, and would not be subject to any customs scrutiny in Oporto where they would only stop for twenty-four hours to refuel.
    Sitting opposite Pantano in the cabin was not the captain but Abou Hamarik, the strategist of BAST, who sat smiling and nodding as the swarthy little pilot told of how well the plan had gone.
    “I’m sure nobody noticed that I had gone off the plot,” Pantano spoke in rapid Spanish, “and your people were waiting right on time.
    It took less than five minutes.” He had taken off as number two in the quartet of Harriers, climbed to the correct height and had been careful to continue on the obligatory course.
    The operation had been set up only ten days before, even though there was already a plan to filch the Harrier: in fact that was originally the reason for Pantano being sent on the course. For weeks, through their carefully planted penetration agents within the Spanish Navy, BAST had forced Pantano onto the Harrier course with the elegant expertise of a theatrical magician making a member of the audience take the Ace of Spades from a clean deck of cards. The unscheduled addition, to destroy Captain Bond, had only been slipped into place when another of their agents had confirmed what that officer’s role was to be during the all-important Landsea “89 exercise.
    Just north of Shrewsbury, over a densely wooded area, Pantano had literally dropped his Harrier from the sky, using the vectored thrust of his engine and coming down vertically like an express lift. No pilot would have faulted his skill, for the Harrier had dropped at the exact, planned point, into a small clearing of trees. Pantano had only to make minor adjustments - moving forward and sideways - to slow down and gently bring the Harrier to rest in the clearing. There was a Land Rover parked nearby, and four men waiting for him. As Pantano had already suggested, the work of wiring up, fusing and fitting the Sidewinder AIM-qj missile (one of three stolen some four months earlier from an RAF base in West Germany) to the starboard outer pylon, would only take a very short time. Five minutes twenty seconds later Pantano’s Sea Harrier was rising fast from the trees, putting on forward speed and climbing away, back on course, but increasing his airspeed, going flat out. It was essential for him to catch up with the lead aircraft, piloted by Bond, and stay well ahead of the number three.
    “I think we’d have heard if the radar at Yeovilton actually lost me at any point,” he smiled confidently at Hamarik who gave a gentle nod.
    The Spaniard’s Harrier had come within three miles of Bond just as the latter was making his bombing run. “I locked on to him, and let the missile go,” he told Hamarik. “After that I was busy with my own bombing run, and the little bit of deviousness which followed.” Hamarik shrugged, making an open-handed gesture. “I fear friend Bond escaped,” he smiled, as if to say “it is difficult to win every battle.
    Pantano gave a heavy sigh, obviously annoyed with himself.
    “I’m sorry. I did all I could. Damn. Damn the man.”
    “Please do not concern yourself. There is plenty of time for us to deal with Captain Bond. A pity we could not combine two birds with the one proverbial stone. But, I promise you, Felipe, he will