I was imaging the administration trading Felix to Moscow for interrogation in return for political favors. The Aeroflot flight transferring Felix has a stop-over at Heathrow, and that’s when Bond goes rogue. He’s operating outside official channels, although sectretly he has the full support of M. The action centerpiece of the film is Bond bypassing airport security, infiltrating the flight as a steward and breaking the heavily-sedated Felix out of the plane while it’s takining off.
From there, the rest of the movie plays out basically like “Commando.”
