Shut away behind tightly guarded borders was the Soviet Union, preparing for the showdown with capitalism.

Disrupting whale hunters in Japan one week, helping fugitives make their way across heavily guarded borders the next.

They distort trade figures, smuggle goods across ill- guarded borders, ignore international treaties and conventions and, in short, revive moribund economies.

The five had already reached the heavily guarded borders of the Hest Mountains when Pashtuk finally stopped to wake Borenson for dinner.