James Bond and Moonraker (15 page)

Bond had just scrambled on to the swaying roof and was reaching down for the length of chain when there was a crack like an ice floe breaking up. The cable car tilted sharply sideways and a hissing cobra of cable serpentined backwards to snap at the air above his head and fall limply into the valley. Bond slid down the roof and was just able to grasp one of the cable guides. His feet dangled in space. A wind had blown up from nowhere and whistled eerily through the wires. Holly’s worried face appeared through the hatch. ‘Hang on!’

Bond closed his eyes and felt his feet kicking against empty air. He spoke through clenched teeth. ‘The thought had occurred to me.’ He waited until the pendulum swing of the unbalanced cable car had become less manic and chose his moment to lunge upwards for the edge of the opening, drawing his legs after him. After two tries he was able to press against the top of the cable car as if balancing precariously on the side of a steep roof. One glance at what lay below was enough to make him feel physically sick. The ground dissolved into a mist and the pattern of the wind racing through the grass transferred itself to the inside of his brain. He closed his eyes tight and clung like a bur until the nausea had passed.

‘James!’ Holly’s voice intimated further disasters. ‘He’s getting into the other car.’

Bond twisted his head and looked down. He had expected that at any second the remaining cable would snap and the car plunge into the gully. What he saw was scarcely less alarming: Jaws hauling himself on to the roof of the lower cable car. He must have swung out like a giant gibbon from the station. It could only mean that he had an accomplice in the control room. As if to prove the surmise, Jaws made a clumsy backwards gesture with his arm, and the two cars began to jerk towards each other. Once again, Bond was forced to cling on for his life. Suspended by only one cable, the upper car was swinging like a lantern. Bond pulled himself into the roof opening and eased out his Walther PPK. ‘I think we’re going to have a visitor.’

Holly clung tight-lipped to one of the rails as the car swayed. ‘How are you going to use that thing?’

It was a question Bond chose not to answer. Reeling from side to side at a crazy angle, there was no chance of getting off a well-aimed shot. He would have to wait until Jaws was on top of theia. That was not going to take long. As a gust of wind made the car shudder, the lower car planed remorselessly towards them. Jaws knelt on the roof, his steel teeth glinting in the sunlight.

‘Hang on to that chain,’ said Bond. He drew himself up out of the sloping hatch and tried to aim at the approaching car. Suddenly there was a puff of smoke and one of the windows below him shattered. Jaws had fired first. Instantly he heard Holly choking and a thick pall of yellow smoke swirled up through the hatch. Bond’s eyes began to pour water and he felt his fingers tensing. In a desperate effort to breathe and cling on, he let the pistol slip from his fingers. It slid down the roof and dropped into space. Now the lower car was abreast of them and the two red boxes jerked to a halt, swinging like heavy fruit. Across the space that separated them Jaws, grinning malevolently, towered scarcely less dramatically than the Corcovado behind him. As Bond struggled to clear his head, Jaws launched himself through the air and landed with a metallic thud on the roof of Bond’s car. The cable screeched under the impact and the whole structure shuddered. Bond tried to rise, and a huge boot sailed past his head and dented the roof housing. Jaws crouched, riding out the motion of his arrival and preparing to deliver the
coup de grâce
. Bond edged sideways, with another glimpse at the terrifying drop beneath him, and then saw an arm appearing over the far-side of the car. It was Holly who had scrambled out of the shattered window. Her lips were pressed together in concentration and fear, and there was something gripped in her left hand. Bond recognized the scent atomizer he had found in Venice. Jaws turned to meet almost scornfully the new challenge. Drawing himself up, he took a careful step forward like a spider closing in on a helpless prey. Holly raised her hand and —
whooosh!
a fine jet of flame hit Jaw’s steel teeth. With a bellow of pain and rage he backed away, almost losing his balance. One huge foot pressed down and stumbled. The other met empty air as it disappeared through the - open hatch. With a cry of alarm, Jaws toppled backwards and dropped inside the car. Bond threw himself forward and pressed down the hatch. He lay across it and within seconds felt himself being lifted into the air as if he was no more than a layer of dust. Holly directed a second tongue of flame into the opining and there was a scream of response. The pressure against the hatch disappeared.

‘God bless America,’ said Bond. He took the chain from Holly’s shoulders and swung it round the cable. The sound of breaking glass below told him that Jaws was following Holly’s route. ‘Come on!’ Bond insinuated himself into the linked halter and stretched out his arms to Holly. ‘Cling on to me!’ Holly looked past Bond to the fearful abyss and the distant cable car station. ‘Come on! It’s our only chance.’ Still Holly hesitated. Behind her there was a roar and Jaws’s raw red features appeared over the side of the car. Holly launched herself forward and threw her arms around Bond’s neck. He pushed with his legs and suddenly they were dangling in space and the cable cars receding behind them. Bond heard Holly cry out in fear and she clung to him as if wishing to squeeze the life from his body. The wind plucked at their clothes and the speed of their descent built up with the wild screech of the chain against the cable. Bond felt the steel links cutting towards his bones and looked up through watery eyes to see a new source of terror. The cable car was descending after them. Whoever was in the control room had seen what was happening and was determined that they would not escape. If the cable car caught up with them they would be battered to death before Jaws got his revenge-crazed hands on them. And the car was catching up. There was a new throbbing through the wire as it closed the distance. Bond twisted his head and looked down towards the bottom station. It was now so near that he could see the silhouette of the man at the controls and people pointing skywards. Behind them Jaw’s malevolent face was pressed against the glass, eager for the moment of impact. He loomed up like a tram driver staring down from his cab.

Bond saw a green hillside falling away in uneven steps and shouted in Holly’s ear. ‘You’ve got to jump!’ Her grip did not slacken. ‘Now!’ The wires were screaming, the ground below a kaleidoscope. He broke Holly’s grip and let her drop. The chain seemed to have bitten so deep into his flesh that he could not escape from it. Desperately he twisted as the wind tore at him Twenty feet before the concrete chasm, he wriggled free and let himself drop. He felt himself falling faster than ever until his legs hit the steep slope and his shoulder crashed against the side of the ravine. He rolled over half a dozen times and ended up embedded in a clump of cane with a small landslide of stones following the path his bruised and battered body had taken. Above him there was the sound of a violent impact and a continuing angry roar like a house falling down. A further avalanche of stones and fragments of brick and concrete chased each other down the hillside. Bond’s mind cleared fast as he realized what must have happened. Operating on only one cable, the car with Jaws in it had failed to stop and had crashed into the station. Any normal man would have been killed immediately but Bond thought back to the sinking of Atlantis and was not sure that Jaws would have perished. If he could survive that, he could survive anything.

‘James!’ The voice coming from farther down the steep hillside was distraught. Bond expelled a sigh of relief at the cost of considerable pain to the right-hand side of his rib cage. Holly sounded plaintive but peripatetic.

‘Over here.’ Bond had pulled himself into an uncomfortable sitting position when Holly scrambled round the bamboo to his side. Her eyes quickly registered the hand pressed to the torn lapel of his dinner jacket.

‘James! Have you broken something?’

Bond smiled ruefully. ‘Only my tailor’s heart.’ He stretched out his arms in an attempt to rise and suddenly found that Holly was inside them. Her mouth came on to his, warm, moist and strong. Bond enjoyed it, then twisted his head aside. ‘What was that for?’

Holly’s eyes shone into his. ‘For saving my life.’

‘Remind me to do it more often.’ They kissed again and the embrace was orchestrated by the sound of an approaching ambulance siren which stopped as they separated. ‘They must have private medicine in Brazil,’ said Bond. He leant forward to kiss Holly again and saw her mouth wrinkle in pain. ‘What’s the matter?’

Holly winced again. ‘My ankle.’

‘Let me take a look.’ Bond squeezed her arm sympathetically and drew back. Holly braced herself stoically and looked heavenwards. After a few seconds her eyes returned to earth. ‘That’s not my ankle, James.’

Bond advanced up her body and took her in his arms. His lips brushed against hers. ‘You’re such a stickler for detail.’ They kissed hungrily as a fresh fall of shale announced that someone was approaching down the hillside. Bond looked up to see two squat, dark-skinned men approaching, carrying a folding stretcher. They wore white tunics and trousers. Once again he marvelled at the speed and precision of the Brazilian health service. The larger of the two men stopped beside him and started to unroll his stretcher.

‘I’m sorry,’ said Bond, ‘I don’t think we need you. We’re all right.’

The man beamed down at Bond with a smile that had been dipped in arsenic. ‘No you’re not.’ The handle of the stretcher came away in his hand to become a cosh, and Bond moved too late. The blow struck him on the side of the temple and the light went out.

A fuzzy grey image before Bond’s eyes deepened to black and then throbbed into a noncommittal brown. A face appeared, bobbing up and down with the motion of a vehicle moving over rough ground and Bond recognized the man dressed as a medical orderly who had struck him down on the hillside. Bond closed his eyes again and tried to move his hands. They were tied with cord and resting on his stomach. His legs seemed to be secured with a strap. Something pressed down on his forearms. He opened his eyes slightly and saw that a second strap around his chest was holding him down on a stretcher. He was in the back of an ambulance and beside him was Holly, similarly bound to another stretcher. Between them, with his back to the doors, was seated the complacent bulk of their guard, with eyes like bloodshot marbles. They bulged out of his face as if likely to slide down his cheeks with the next jolt of the ambulance. A small wet tongue washed the man’s lips and Bond realized that he was looking into the face of a psychopath. He tried again to separate his hands but without success. Whoever had tied him up had been a professional.

As Bond watched, the guard ran his eyes over Holly from head to toe and rinsed his lips again. Bond knew what he was thinking. He turned his head slightly and saw that Holly knew as well. Her eyes were wide open with wary fear and she was concentrating on the man as if trying to hold him at arm’s length.

Bond saw that there was no more point in feigning unconsciousness, so he opened his eyes. The throbbing behind his left temple was like an ice-pick hitting at his brain. A wave of pain like a meths drinker’s hangover swirled through his head.

Like a child in a strange nursery, the guard felt in one of the pockets alongside the bunks and withdrew a slim leather case. He clicked it open and a glint of steel matched the crazed light that came into his eyes. The bitten fingers delved into the case and emerged with a long-bladed scalpel. Bond saw Holly flinch.

‘Don’t cut yourself.’

Bond’s remark was intended to divert attention to himself but it did not succeed. The guard scowled at him and then glanced lovingly at the blade before returning his attention to Holly. Bond looked about him desperately. Just above his feet, in the corner by the door, was an upright fire extinguisher clipped to the wall. Bond wondered if he could reach it with his feet. Before him the guard bathed his shiny lips and leant forward to Holly with the scalpel in his outstretched hand. She twisted her head to one side and tensed her body in terror as the blade slipped beneath one of the straps of her evening gown and severed it with a swift movement.

Bond jerked his body forward and drove upwards with his feet. A toe collided with the base of the fire extinguisher and the plunger was depressed. With a noise like an egg being broken, a miniature volcano of foam erupted to splash off the ceiling and over the occupants of the ambulance. The guard swung round to see what had happened and then, too late, spun back again. He turned just in time to see Bond’s feet driving for his face. The blow connected with the side of his jaw and he crashed backwards against the doors, dropping the scalpel on the floor. As it slithered towards Holly, she withdrew her bound hands from beneath the restraining strap and twisted with all her strength to pick it up. Her fingers closed about the handle and she held it out desperately towards Bond. He reached out his tied hands, and with two slashes from Holly his arms were free at the cost of a nicked wrist. As the stunned guard launched himself forward again; Bond stopped him with a vicious right jab and tore at the strap that held him to the stretcher. He freed himself and joined battle with the guard as Holly swung wildly but unavailingly with the scalpel. Bond’s ankles were still bound but he struggled upright and pinned the guard against the swaying wall of the ambulance. As the man drove his knee up, Bond parried the blow and connected with a short left to the jaw that spun him round.

At that instant the ambulance jolted over a pothole and the guard plunged backwards on to the stretcher, with all Bond’s weight on him. With a sharp crack the stretcher broke free from its moorings and crashed against the doors. As Holly screamed they burst open and the stretcher carrying both men plunged out into-a cloud of dust. Bond felt the breath leave the guard’s body as it absorbed the impact, and he rolled sideways to end up lying by the side of a dirt road. When he stood up the ambulance had disappeared and there was no sign of the stretcher. The dust began to clear and he took a few faltering steps down the road. A hillside became visible, falling away to the left, and half-way down it, facing a main road from which the track had branched off, was a large advertising hoarding. The back of the stretcher projected from a hole in the bottom of the hoarding. The poster showed a pretty stewardess and the words: ‘British Airways. We’ll take more care of you’.