James Bond Anthology (68 page)

He looked into her eyes. ‘What about it?’

Gala laughed abruptly. ‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ she said. ‘It’s what we’re paid for. Of course we’ll take them on. And I agree we’d get nowhere with London. We’d look absolutely ridiculous telephoning reports about cliffs falling on our heads. What are we doing down here anyway, fooling around without any clothes on instead of getting on with our jobs?’

Bond grinned. ‘We only lay down for ten minutes to get dry,’ he protested mildly. ‘How do you think we ought to have spent the afternoon? Taking everybody’s fingerprints all over again? That’s about all you police think about.’ He felt ashamed when he saw her stiffen. He held his hand up. ‘I didn’t really mean that,’ he said. ‘But can’t you see what we’ve done this afternoon? Just what had to be done. We’ve made the enemy show his hand. Now we’ve got to take the next step and find out who the enemy is and why he wanted us out of the way. And then if we’ve got enough evidence that someone’s trying to sabotage the Moonraker we’ll have the whole place turned inside out, the practice shoot postponed, and to hell with politics.’

She jumped to her feet. ‘Oh, of course you’re right,’ she said impatiently. ‘It’s just that I want to do something about it in a hurry.’ She looked for a moment out to sea, away from Bond. ‘You’ve only just come into the picture. I’ve been living with this rocket for more than a year and I can’t bear the idea that something may happen to it. So much seems to depend on it. For all of us. I want to get back there quickly and to find out who wanted to kill us. It may be nothing to do with the Moonraker, but I want to make sure.’

Bond stood up, showing nothing of the pain from the cuts and bruises on his back and legs. ‘Come on,’ he said, ‘it’s nearly six o’clock. The tide’s coming in fast but we can get to St. Margaret’s before it catches us. We’ll clean up at the Granville there and have a drink and some food and then we’ll go back to the house in the middle of dinner. I shall be interested to see what sort of a reception we get. After that we’ll have to concentrate on staying alive and seeing what we can see. Can you make it to St. Margaret’s?’

‘Don’t be silly,’ said Gala. ‘Policewomen aren’t made of gossamer.’ She gave a reluctant smile at Bond’s ironically respectful ‘Of course not’, and they turned towards the distant tower of the South Foreland lighthouse and set off through the shingle.

At half-past eight the taxi from St. Margaret’s dropped them at the second guard gate and they showed their passes and walked quietly up through the trees on to the expanse of concrete. They both felt keyed up and in high spirits. A hot bath and an hour’s rest at the accommodating Granville had been followed by two stiff brandies-and-sodas for Gala and three for Bond followed by delicious fried soles and Welsh rarebits and coffee. And now, as they confidently approached the house, it would have needed second sight to tell that they were both dead tired and that they were naked and bruised under their walking clothes.

They let themselves quietly in through the front door and stood for a moment in the lighted hall. A cheerful mumble of voices came from the dining-room. There was a pause followed by a burst of laughter which was dominated by the harsh bark of Sir Hugo Drax.

Bond’s mouth twisted wryly as he led the way across the hall to the door of the dining-room. Then he fixed a cheerful smile on his face and opened the door for Gala to pass through.

Drax sat at the head of the table, festive in his plum-coloured smoking-jacket. A forkful of food, halfway to his open mouth, had stopped in mid-air as they appeared in the doorway. Unnoticed, the food slid off the fork and fell with a soft, distinct ‘plep’ on to the edge of the table.

Krebs had been in the act of drinking a glass of red wine and the glass, frozen against his mouth, poured a thin trickle down his chin and thence on to his brown satin tie and yellow shirt.

Dr. Walter had had his back to the door and it was not until he observed the unusual behaviour of the others, the bulging eyes, the gape of the mouths, and the blood-drained faces, that he whipped his head round towards the door. His reactions, thought Bond, were slower than the others, or else his nerves were steadier. ‘
Ach so
,’ he said softly. ‘
Die Englander
.’

Drax was on his feet. ‘My dear chap,’ he said thickly. ‘My dear chap. We were really very worried. Just wondering whether to send out a search party. Few minutes ago one of the guards came in and reported there seemed to have been a cliff-fall.’ He came round towards them, his napkin in one hand and the fork still erect in the other.

With the movement the blood surged back into his face, which became first mottled and then its usual red. ‘You really might have let me know,’ he spoke to the girl, anger rising in his voice. ‘Most extraordinary behaviour.’

‘It was my fault,’ said Bond, moving forward into the room so that he could keep them all in view. ‘The walk was longer than I expected. I thought we might get caught by the tide so we went on to St. Margaret’s and had something to eat there and took a taxi. Miss Brand wanted to telephone but I thought we would be back before eight. You must put the blame on me. But please go ahead with your dinner. Perhaps I might join you for coffee and dessert. I expect Miss Brand would prefer to go to her room. She must be tired after her long day.’

Bond walked deliberately round the table and took the chair next to Krebs. Those pale eyes, he noticed, after the first shock, had been fixed firmly on his plate. As Bond came up behind him he was delighted to see a large mound of Elastoplast on the crown of Krebs’s head.

‘Yes, go to bed, Miss Brand, I will talk to you in the morning,’ said Drax testily. Gala obediently left the room and Drax went to his chair and sat heavily down.

‘Most remarkable those cliffs,’ said Bond blithely. ‘Quite awe-inspiring walking along wondering if they’re going to choose just that moment to collapse on one. Reminded me of Russian roulette. And yet one never reads of people being killed by cliffs falling on them. The odds against getting hurt must be terrific.’ He paused. ‘By the way, what was that you were saying about a cliff-fall just now?’

There was a faint groan on Bond’s right, followed by a crash of glass and china as Krebs’s head fell forward on to the table.

Bond looked at him with polite curiosity.

‘Walter,’ said Drax sharply. ‘Can’t you see that Krebs is ill? Take the man out and put him to bed. And don’t be too soft with him. The man drinks too much. Hurry up.’

Walter, his face crumpled and angry, strode round the table and jerked Krebs’s head out of the debris. He took him by his coat collar and hauled him to his feet and away from his chair.

‘
Du Scheisskerl,’
hissed Walter at the mottled, vacant face. ‘
Marsch
!’ He turned him round and hustled him to the swing door into the pantry and rammed him through. There were muffled sounds of stumbling and cursing and then a door banged and there was silence.

‘He must have had a heavy day,’ said Bond, looking at Drax.

The big man was sweating freely. He wiped his face with a circular sweep of his napkin. ‘Nonsense,’ he said shortly. ‘He drinks.’

The butler, erect and unperturbed by the apparition of Krebs and Walter in his pantry, brought in the coffee. Bond took some and sipped it. He waited for the pantry door to close again. Another German, he thought. He’ll already have passed the news back to the barracks. Or perhaps all the team weren’t involved. Perhaps there was a team within a team. And if so, did Drax know about it? His behaviour when Bond and Gala had come through the door had been inconclusive. Had part of his astonishment been affronted dignity, the shock of a vain man whose programme had been upset by a chit of a secretary? He had certainly covered up well. And all the afternoon he had been down the shaft supervising the fuelling. Bond decided to probe a little.

‘How did the fuelling go?’ he asked, his eyes fixed on the other man.

Drax was lighting a long cigar. He glanced up at Bond through the smoke and the flame of his match.

‘Excellently.’ He puffed at the cigar to get it going. ‘Everything is ready now. The guards are out. An hour or two clearing up down there in the morning and then the site will be closed. By the way,’ he added. ‘I shall be taking Miss Brand up to London in the car tomorrow afternoon. I shall need a secretary as well as Krebs. Have you got any plans?’

‘I have to go to London too,’ said Bond on an impulse. ‘I have my final report to make to the Ministry.’

‘Oh, really?’ said Drax casually. ‘What about? I thought you were satisfied with the arrangements.’

‘Yes,’ said Bond non-committally.

‘That’s all right then,’ said Drax breezily. ‘And now if you don’t mind,’ he got up from the table, ‘I’ve got some papers waiting for me in my study. So I’ll say good-night.’

‘Good-night,’ said Bond to the already retreating back.

Bond finished his coffee and went out into the hall and up to his bedroom. It was obvious that it had been searched again. He shrugged his shoulders. There was only the leather case. Its contents would show nothing except that he had come equipped with the tools of his trade.

His Beretta in its shoulder-holster was still where he had hidden it, in the empty leather case that belonged to Tallon’s night-glasses. He took the gun out and slipped it under his pillow.

He took a hot bath and used half a bottle of iodine on the cuts and bruises he could reach. Then he got into bed and turned out the light. His body hurt and he was exhausted.

For a moment he thought of Gala. He had told her to take a sleeping pill and lock her door, but otherwise not to worry about anything until the morning.

Before he emptied his mind for sleep he wondered uneasily about her trip with Drax the next day to London.

Uneasily, but not desperately. In due course many questions would have to be answered and many mysteries probed, but the basic facts seemed solid and unanswerable. This extraordinary millionaire had built this great weapon. The Ministry of Supply were pleased with it and considered it sound. The Prime Minister and Parliament thought so too. The rocket was to be fired in less than thirty-six hours under full supervision and the security arrangements were as strict as they could possibly be. Somebody, and probably several people, wanted him and the girl out of the way. Nerves were stretched down here. There was a lot of tension about. Perhaps there was jealousy. Perhaps some people actually suspected them of being saboteurs. But what would that matter so long as he and Gala kept their eyes open? Not much more than a day to go. They were right out in the open here, in May, in England, in peacetime. It was crazy to worry about a few lunatics so long as the Moonraker was out of danger.

And as for tomorrow, reflected Bond as sleep reached out for him, he would arrange to meet Gala in London and bring her back with him. Or she could even stay up in London for the night. Either way he would look after her until the Moonraker was safely fired and then, before work began on the Mark II weapon, there would have to be a very thorough clean-up indeed.

But these were treacherously comforting thoughts. There was danger about and Bond knew it.

He finally drifted into sleep with one small scene firmly fixed in his mind.

There had been something very disquieting about the dinner-table downstairs. It had been laid for only three people.

PART THREE | THURSDAY, FRIDAY

18 | BENEATH THE FLAT STONE

The Mercedes was a beautiful thing. Bond pulled his battered grey Bentley up alongside it and inspected it.

It was a Type 300 S, the sports model with a disappearing hood – one of only half a dozen in England, he reflected. Left-hand drive. Probably bought in Germany. He had seen a few of them over there. One had hissed by him on the Munich Autobahn the year before when he was doing a solid ninety in the Bentley. The body, too short and heavy to be graceful, was painted white, with red leather upholstery. Garish for England, but Bond guessed that Drax had chosen white in honour of the famous Mercedes-Benz racing colours that had already swept the board again since the war at Le Mans and the Nurburgring.

Typical of Drax to buy a Mercedes. There was something ruthless and majestic about the cars, he decided, remembering the years from 1934 to 1939 when they had completely dominated the Grand Prix scene, children of the famous Blitzen Benz that had captured the world’s speed record at 142 m.p.h. back in 1911. Bond recalled some of their famous drivers, Caracciola, Lang, Seaman, Brauchitsch, and the days when he had seen them drifting the fast sweeping bends of Tripoli at 190, or screaming along the tree-lined straight at Berne with the Auto Unions on their tails.

And yet, Bond looked across at his supercharged Bentley, nearly twenty-five years older than Drax’s car and still capable of beating 100, and yet when Bentleys were racing, before Rolls had tamed them into sedate town carriages, they had whipped the blown SS-K’s almost as they wished.

Bond had once dabbled on the fringe of the racing world and he was lost in his memories, hearing again the harsh scream of Caracciola’s great white beast of a car as it howled past the grandstands at Le Mans, when Drax came out of the house followed by Gala Brand and Krebs.

‘Fast car,’ said Drax, pleased with Bond’s look of admiration. He gestured towards the Bentley. ‘They used to be good in the old days,’ he added with a touch of patronage. ‘Now they’re only built for going to the theatre. Too well-mannered. Even the Continental. Now then you, get in the back.’