Moonraker (James Bond, #3)

by Ian Fleming

They passed the lorry at the top of the hill. It was stopped and there was no sign of the driver. Probably telephoning to the company, thought Drax, slowing up as they went round the first bend. There were lights on in the two or three houses and a group of people were standing round one of the rolls of newsprint that lay amongst the ruins of their front gate. There were more rolls in the hedge on the right side of the road. On the left a telegraph pole leant drunkenly, snapped in the middle. Then at the next bend was the beginning of a great confusion of paper stretching away down the long hill, festooning the hedges and the road like the sweepings of some elephantine fancy-dress ball.

With their guns out they walked cautiously over to the remains of the Bentley, their feet crunching the broken glass on the road. Deep furrows had been cut across the grass verge and there was a strong smell of petrol and burnt rubber in the air. The hot metal of the car ticked and crackled softly and steam was still fountaining from the shattered radiator.

As he turned through the doors of Drax’s office, he pulled himself together. Suddenly his mind was clear and all the lethargy and pain had left his body. Something, anything, must be done. Somehow he would find a way. His whole body and mind became focused and sharp as a blade. His eyes were alive again and defeat sloughed off him like the skin of a snake.

And, by a coincidence, in charge of them was a young man called Krebs who turned out to have certain gifts which qualified him for the post of executioner and “persuader” to our merry little band.’ Drax chuckled pleasantly.

Every day during the year of the rape and destruction of my country, my hatred and scorn for the English grew more bitter.’ The veins on Drax’s face started to swell and suddenly he pounded on the desk and shouted across at them, looking with bulging eyes from one to the other. ‘I loathe and despise you all. You swine! Useless, idle, decadent fools, hiding behind your bloody white cliffs while other people fight your battles. Too weak to defend your colonies, toadying to America with your hats in your hands. Stinking snobs who’ll do anything for money. Hah!’ he was triumphant, ‘I knew that all I needed was money and the façade of a gentleman. Gentleman! Pfui Teufel! To me a gentleman is just someone I can take advantage of. Those bloody fools in Blades for instance. Moneyed oafs. For months I took thousands of pounds off them, swindled them right under their noses until you came along and upset the apple-cart.’

‘And do you know what we shall do first when we go on board? We shall shave off those famous moustaches you were so interested in. You smelt a mouse, my dear Bond, where you ought to have smelt a rat. Those shaven heads and those moustaches we all cultivated so assiduously. Just a precaution, my dear fellow. Try shaving your own head and growing a big black moustache. Even your mother wouldn’t recognize you. It’s the combination that counts. Just a tiny refinement. Precision, my dear fellow. Precision in every detail. That has been my watchword.’ He chuckled fatly and puffed away at his cigar.

Bond paused and put all the scorn he could summon into his voice. ‘And now let’s get on with this farce, you great hairy-faced lunatic.’ It worked. With every word Drax’s face had become more contorted with rage, his eyes were red with it, the sweat of fury was dripping off his jowls on to his shirt, the lips were drawn back from the gaping teeth and a string of saliva had crept out of his mouth and was hanging down from his chin. Now, at the last private-school insult that must have awoken God knows what stinging memories, he leapt up from his chair and lunged round the desk at Bond, his hairy fists flailing. Bond gritted his teeth and took it.

THROUGH HALF-CLOSED eyes Bond looked intently at the torch while for a few precious seconds he sat and let life creep back into his body. His head felt as if it had been used as a football, but there was nothing broken. Drax had hit him unscientifically and with the welter of blows of a drunken man. Gala watched him anxiously. The eyes in the bloody face were almost shut, but the line of the jaw was taut with concentration and she could feel the effort of will he was making. He gave his head a shake and when he turned towards her she could see that his eyes were feverish with triumph.

‘The lighter,’ he said urgently. ‘I had to try and make him forget it.

Bond swayed his chair so that it leant against the edge of the desk and allowed his mouth to reach forward and grip the handle of the blowtorch between his teeth. Then he eased the torch towards him and after minutes of patient work he had the torch and the lighter arranged to his liking at the edge of the desk. After another rest he bent down, closed the valve of the torch with his teeth, and proceeded to get pressure back by slowly and repeatedly pulling up the plunger with his lips and pressing it back with his chin. His face could feel the warmth in the pre-heater and he could smell the remnants of gas in it. If only it hadn’t cooled off too much.

Slowly the sun came up behind the dome and the seagulls started to call in the cliffs and then suddenly there were the three figures walking towards them in the distance, passed by a fresh platoon of guards doubling, chins up, knees up, to relieve the night watch.

Now. Quick. Get it over, damn you. And suddenly there was a great pressure and heat and a roaring in the ears and a moment of blazing pain. Then dead silence, a mixture of sharp cold and fire on the ankles and hands, a feeling of soaking wet and a desperate, choking effort to get pure air into the lungs.

And the two bodies lay and waited, nursing their pain.

Gala looked at him. She smiled. ‘If you hold me it won’t be too bad,’ she said. ‘. . . and now Sir Hugo has his hand on the switch and he’s watching the chronometer.’ ‘TEN,’ broke in another voice, heavy and sonorous as the toll of a bell. Bond turned on the shower and the water hissed down on their clinging bodies. ‘NINE,’ tolled the voice of the time-keeper. ‘. . . the radar operators are watching the screens. Nothing but a mass of wavy lines . . .’ ‘EIGHT.’ ‘. . . all wearing ear-plugs. Blockhouse should be indestructible. Concrete walls are twelve feet thick. Pyramid roof, twenty-seven feet thick at the point . . .’ ‘SEVEN.’ ‘. . . first the radio beam will stop the time mechanism alongside the turbines. Set the pinwheel going. Flaming thing like a Catherine wheel . . .’ ‘SIX.’ ‘. . . valves will open. Liquid fuel. Secret formula. Terrific stuff. Dynamite. Pours down from the fuel tanks . . .’ ‘FIVE.’ ‘. . . ignited by the pinwheel when the fuel gets to the rocket motor . . .’ ‘FOUR.’ ‘. . . meanwhile the peroxide and permanganate have mixed, made steam and the turbine pumps begin to turn . . .’ ‘THREE.’ ‘. . . pumping the flaming fuel through the motor out of the stern of the rocket into the exhaust pit. Gigantic heat . . . 3,500 degrees . . .’ ‘TWO.’ ‘. . . Sir Hugo is about to press the switch. He’s staring out through the slit. Perspiration on his forehead. Absolute silence in here. Terrific tension.’ ‘ONE.’ Nothing but the noise of the water, steadily pouring down...

A soft thunder came to Bond and Gala. Louder. Louder. The tiled floor began to tremble under their feet. A hurricane scream. They were being pulverized by it. The walls were quaking, steaming. Their legs began going out of control under their teetering bodies. Hold her up. Hold her up. Stop it! Stop it!! STOP THAT NOISE!!!

And then there was silence. Silence you could feel, hold, squeeze.

Nothing but the pumping lungs showed that the two limp bodies in the creeping pool of water on the floor were still alive, but their battered ear-drums were desperately clinging to the crackle of static that came briefly from the blistered metal cabinet. Now for the verdict on their work.

The Russian’s well inside the danger zone. The radar operator’s holding up his hand. That means she’s due. She’s coming. She’s COMING . . . Whew! Not even a whisper. GOD! What’s that? Look out! Look out! Terrific explosion. Black cloud going up into the air. There’s a tidal wave coming at us. Great wall of water tearing down. There goes the submarine. God! Thrown out of the water upside down. It’s coming. It’s COMING . . .’

‘But what about the atomic explosion?’ asked Bond. ‘Radiation and atomic dust and all that. The famous mushroom-shaped cloud. Surely that’s going to be a bit of a problem.’ ‘Apparently it’s not worrying them too much,’ said M. ‘The cloud is going to be passed off as the normal formation after an explosion of that size.

But those people are trained to keep secrets. You won’t get a leak there. Naturally it’s going to be a risky business. The big lie always is. But what’s the alternative? Trouble with Germany? War with Russia? Lots of people on both sides of the Atlantic would be only too glad of an excuse.’

These politicians can’t see that the atomic age has created the most deadly saboteur in the history of the world – the little man with the heavy suitcase.’

All that would have come about but for a man who scornfully cheated at cards to feed the fires of his maniac ego; but for the stuffy chairman of Blades who detected him; but for M. who agreed to help an old friend; but for Bond’s half-remembered lessons from a card-sharper; but for Vallance’s precautions; but for Gala’s head for figures; but for a whole pattern of tiny circumstances, a whole pattern of chance. Whose pattern?

He was feeling tired. He knew he was going to feel tired for several days. He always got these reactions at the end of an ugly assignment, the aftermath of days of taut nerves, tension, fear.

Without waiting for a reply, he limped off with his stick through the dusty bars of evening sunlight that filtered down through the trees in the park.