Текст книги "The James Bond Anthology"

Автор книги: Ian Fleming

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Текущая страница: 37 (всего у книги 190 страниц)

Drax put the Luger down on the desk in front of him. He opened a drawer and took out a cigar and lit it from a Ronson desk lighter. Then he settled himself comfortably. There was silence in the room for several minutes while Drax puffed contentedly at his cigar. Then he seemed to make up his mind. He looked benevolently at Bond.

‘You don’t know how I have longed for an English audience,’ he said as if he was addressing a Press conference. ‘You don’t know how I have longed to tell my story. As a matter of fact, a full account of my operations is now in the hands of a very respectable firm of Edinburgh solicitors. I beg their pardon – Writers to the Signet. Well out of danger.’ He beamed from one to the other. ‘And these good folk have instructions to open the envelope on the completion of the first successful flight of the Moonraker. But you lucky people shall have a preview of what I have written and then, when tomorrow at noon you see through those open doors,’ he gestured to his right, ‘the first wisp of steam from the turbines and know that you are to be burnt alive in about half a second, you will have the momentary satisfaction of knowing what it is all in aid of, as,’ he grinned wolfishly, ‘we Englishmen say.’

‘You can spare us the jokes,’ said Bond roughly. ‘Get on with your story, Kraut.’

Drax’s eyes blazed momentarily. ‘A Kraut. Yes, I am indeed a Reichsdeutscher’ – the mouth beneath the red moustache savoured the fine word – ‘and even England will soon agree that they have been licked by just one single German. And then perhaps they’ll stop calling us Krauts – BY ORDER!’ The words were yelled out and the whole of Prussian militarism was in the parade-ground bellow.

Drax glowered across the desk at Bond, the great splayed teeth under the red moustache tearing nervously at one fingernail after another. Then, with an effort, he crammed his right hand into his trouser pocket, as if to put it out of temptation, and picked up his cigar with his left. He puffed at it for a moment and then, his voice still taut, he began.

22 | PANDORA’S BOX

‘My real name,’ said Drax, addressing himself to Bond, ‘is Graf Hugo von der Drache. My mother was English and because of her I was educated in England until I was twelve. Then I could stand this filthy country no longer and I completed my education in Berlin and Leipzig.’

Bond could imagine that the hulking body with the ogre’s teeth had not been very welcome at an English private school. And being a foreign count with a mouthful of names would not have helped much.

‘When I was twenty,’ Drax’s eyes glowed reminiscently, ‘I went to work in the family business. It was a subsidiary of the great steel combine Rheinmetal Börsig. Never heard of it, I suppose. Well, if you’d been hit by an 88 mm. shell during the war it would probably have been one of theirs. Our subsidiary were experts in special steels and I learned all about them and a lot about the aircraft industry. Our most exacting customers. That’s when I first heard about Columbite. Worth diamonds in those days. Then I joined the party and almost immediately we were at war. A wonderful time. I was twenty-eight and a lieutenant in the 140th Panzer Regiment. And we ran through the British Army and France like a knife through butter. Intoxicating.’

For a moment Drax puffed luxuriously at his cigar and Bond guessed that he was seeing the burning villages of Belgium in the smoke.

‘Those were great days, my dear Bond.’ Drax reached out a long arm and tapped the ash of his cigar off on to the floor. ‘But then I was picked out for the Brandenburg Division and I had to leave the girls and the champagne and go back to Germany and start training for the big water-jump to England. My English was needed in the Division. We were all going to be in English uniforms. It would have been fun, but the damned generals said it couldn’t be done and I was transferred to the Foreign Intelligence Service of the S.S. The R.S.H.A. it was called, and SS Obergruppenführer Kaltenbrunner had just taken over the command after Heydrich was assassinated in ’42. He was a good man and I was under the direct orders of a still better one, Obersturmbannführer,’ he rolled out the delicious title with relish, ‘Otto Skorzeny. His job in the R.S.H.A. was terrorism and sabotage. A pleasant interlude, my dear Bond, during which I was able to bring many an Englishman to book which,’ Drax beamed coldly at Bond, ‘gave me much pleasure. But then,’ Drax’s fist crashed down on the desk, ‘Hitler was betrayed again by those swinish generals and the English and Americans were allowed to land in France.’

‘Too bad,’ said Bond drily.

‘Yes, my dear Bond, it was indeed too bad.’ Drax chose to ignore the irony. ‘But for me it was the high-spot of the whole war. Skorzeny turned all his saboteurs and terrorists into SS Jagdverbänd for use behind the enemy lines. Each Jagdverbänd was divided into Streifkorps and then into Kommandos, each carrying the names of its commanding officer. With the rank of Oberleutnant,’ Drax swelled visibly, ‘at the head of Kommando “Drache” I went right through the American lines with the famous 150 Panzer Brigade in the Ardennes breakthrough in December ’44. No doubt you will remember the effect of this Brigade in its American uniforms and with its captured American tanks and vehicles. Kolossal! When the Brigade had to withdraw I stayed where I was and went to ground in the Forests of Ardennes, fifty miles behind the Allied lines. There were twenty of us, ten good men and ten Hitlerjugend Werewolves. In their teens, but good lads all of them. 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.

Bond licked his lips as he remembered the crack Krebs’s head had made against the dressing-table. Had he kicked him as hard as he possibly could? Yes, his memory reassured him, with every ounce of strength he could put into his shoe.

‘We stayed in those woods for six months,’ continued Drax proudly, ‘and all the time we reported back to the Fatherland by radio. The location vans never spotted us. Then one day disaster came.’ Drax shook his head at the memory. ‘There was a big farmhouse a mile away from our hideout in the forest. A lot of Nissen huts had been built round it and it was used as a rear headquarters for some sort of liaison group, English and Americans. A hopeless place. No discipline, no security, and full of hangers-on and shirkers from all over the place. We had kept an eye on it for some time and one day I decided to blow it up. It was a simple plan. In the evening, two of my men, one in American uniform and one in British, were to drive up in a captured scout car containing two tons of explosive. There was a car park – no sentries of course – near the mess hall and they were to run the car in as close to the mess hall as possible, time the fuse for the seven o’clock dinner hour, and then get away. All quite easy and I went off that morning on my own business and left the job to my second in command. I was dressed in the uniform of your Signal Corps and I set off on a captured British motor-cycle to shoot a dispatch rider from the same unit who made a daily run along a nearby road. Sure enough he came along dead on time and I went after him out of a side-road. I caught up with him,’ said Drax conversationally, ‘and shot him in the back, took his papers and put him on top of his machine in the woods and set fire to him.’

Drax saw the fury in Bond’s eyes and held up his hand. ‘Not very sporting? My dear chap, the man was already dead. However, to continue. I went on my way and then what should happen? One of our own planes coming back from a reconnaissance came after me down the road with his cannon. One of our own planes! Blasted me right off the road. God knows how long I lay in the ditch. Some time in the afternoon I came to for a bit and had the sense to hide my cap and jacket and the dispatches. In the hedge. They’re probably still there. I must go and collect them one day. Interesting souvenirs. Then I set fire to the remains of the motor-cycle and I must have fainted again because the next thing I knew I had been picked up by a British vehicle and we were driving into that damned liaison headquarters! Believe it or not! And there was the scout car, right up alongside the mess hall! It was too much for me. I was full of shell splinters and my leg was broken. Well, I fainted and when I came round there was half the hospital on top of me and I only had half a face.’ He put up his hand and stroked the shiny skin on his left temple and cheek. ‘After that it was just a question of acting a part. They had no idea who I was. The car that had picked me up had gone or been blown to pieces. I was just an Englishman in an English shirt and trousers who was nearly dead.’

Drax paused and took out another cigar and lit it. There was silence in the room save for the soft diminished roar of the blowtorch. Its threatening voice was quieter. Pressure running out, reflected Bond.

He turned his head and looked at Gala. For the first time he saw the ugly bruise behind her left ear. He gave her a smile of encouragement and she smiled wryly back.

Drax spoke through the cigar smoke: ‘There is not much more to tell,’ he said. ‘During the year that I was being pushed from one hospital to the next I made my plans down to the smallest detail. They consisted quite simply of revenge on England for what she had done to me and to my country. It gradually became an obsession. I admit it. 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.’

Drax’s eyes narrowed. ‘What put you on to the cigarette-case?’ he asked sharply.

Bond shrugged his shoulders. ‘My eyes,’ he said indifferently.

‘Ah well,’ said Drax, ‘perhaps I was a bit careless that night. But where was I? Ah yes, in hospital. And the good doctors were so anxious to help me find out who I really was.’ He let out a roar of laughter. ‘It was easy. So easy.’ His eyes became cunning. ‘From the identities they offered me so helpfully I came upon the name of Hugo Drax. What a coincidence! From Drache to Drax! Tentatively I thought it might be me. They were very proud. Yes, they said, of course it is you. The doctors triumphantly forced me into his shoes. I put them on and walked out of the hospital in them and I walked round London looking for someone to kill and rob. And one day, in a little office high above Piccadilly, a Jewish moneylender.’ (Now Drax was talking faster. The words poured excitedly from his lips. Bond watched a fleck of foam gather at one corner of his mouth and grow.) ‘Ha. It was easy. Crack on his bald skull. £15,000 in the safe. And then away and out of the country, Tangier – where you could do anything, buy anything, fix anything. Columbite. Rarer than platinum and everyone would want it. The Jet Age. I knew about these things. I had not forgotten my own profession. And then by God I worked. For five years I lived for money. And I was brave as a lion. I took terrible risks. And suddenly the first million was there. Then the second. Then the fifth. Then the twentieth. I came back to England. I spent a million of it and London was in my pocket. And then I went back to Germany. I found Krebs. I found fifty of them. Loyal Germans. Brilliant technicians. All living under false names like so many others of my old comrades. I gave them their orders and they waited, peacefully, innocently. And where was I?’ Drax stared across at Bond, his eyes wide. ‘I was in Moscow. Moscow! A man with Columbite to sell can go anywhere. I got to the right people. They listened to my plans. They gave me Walter, the new genius of their guided missile station at Peenemunde, and the good Russians started to build the atomic warhead,’ he gestured up to the ceiling, ‘that is now waiting up there. Then I came back to London.’ A pause. ‘The Coronation. My letter to the Palace. Triumph. Hooray for Drax,’ he burst into a roar of laughter. ‘England at my feet. Every bloody fool in the country! And then my men come over and we start. Under the very skirts of Britannia. On top of her famous cliffs. We work like devils. We built a jetty into your English Channel. For supplies! For supplies from my good friends the Russians that came in dead on time last Monday night. But then Tallon has to hear something. The old fool. He talks to the Ministry. But Krebs is listening. There were fifty volunteers to kill the man. Lots are drawn and Bartsch dies a hero’s death.’ Drax paused. ‘He will not be forgotten.’ Then he went on. ‘The new warhead is hoisted into place. It fits. A perfect piece of design. The same weight. Everything perfect, and the old one, the tin can full of the Ministry’s cherished instruments, is now in Stettin – behind the Iron Curtain. And the faithful submarine is on her way back here and will soon,’ he looked at his watch, ‘be creeping under the waters of the English Channel to take us all off at one minute past midday tomorrow.’

Drax wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and lay back in his chair gazing up at the ceiling, his eyes full of visions. Suddenly he chuckled and squinted quizzically down his nose at Bond.

‘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.

Suddenly he looked sharply, suspiciously up at Bond. ‘Well. Say something. Don’t sit there like a dummy. What do you think of my story? Don’t you think it’s extraordinary, remarkable? For one man to have done all that? Come on, come on.’ A hand came up to his mouth and he started tearing furiously at his nails. Then it was plunged back into his pocket and his eyes became cruel and cold. ‘Or do you want me to have to send for Krebs,’ he made a gesture towards the house telephone on his desk. ‘The Persuader. Poor Krebs. He’s like a child who’s had his toys taken away from him. Or perhaps Walter. He would give you both something to remember. There’s no softness in that one. Well?’

‘Yes,’ said Bond. He looked levelly at the great red face across the desk. ‘It’s a remarkable case-history. Galloping paranoia. Delusions of jealousy and persecution. Megalomaniac hatred and desire for revenge. Curiously enough,’ he went on conversationally, ‘it may have something to do with your teeth. Diastema, they call it. Comes from sucking your thumb when you’re a child. Yes. I expect that’s what the psychologists will say when they get you into the lunatic asylum. “Ogre’s teeth.” Being bullied at school and so on. Extraordinary the effect it has on a child. Then Nazism helped to fan the flames and then came the crack on your ugly head. The crack you engineered yourself. I expect that settled it. From then on you were really mad. Same sort of thing as people who think they’re God. Extraordinary what tenacity they have. Absolute fanatics. You’re almost a genius. Lombroso would have been delighted with you. As it is you’re just a mad dog that’ll have to be shot. Or else you’ll commit suicide. Paranoiacs generally do. Too bad. Sad business.’

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.

When Drax had twice had to pick the chair up with Bond in it, the tornado of rage suddenly passed. He took out his silk handkerchief and wiped his face and hands. Then he walked quietly to the door and spoke across the lolling head of Bond to the girl.

‘I don’t think you two will give me any more trouble,’ he said, and his voice was quite calm and certain. ‘Krebs never makes a mistake with his knots.’ He gesticulated towards the bloody figure in the other chair. ‘When he wakes up,’ he said, ‘you can tell him that these doors will open once more, just before noon tomorrow. A few minutes later there will be nothing left of either of you. Not even,’ he added as he wrenched open the inner door, ‘the stoppings in your teeth.’

The outer door slammed.

Bond slowly raised his head and grinned painfully at the girl with his bloodstained lips.

‘Had to get him mad,’ he said with difficulty. ‘Didn’t want to give him time to think. Had to work up a brainstorm.’

Gala looked at him uncomprehendingly, her eyes wide at the terrible mask of his face.

‘’S’all right,’ said Bond thickly. ‘Don’t worry. London’s okay. Got a plan.’

Over on the desk the blowtorch gave a quiet ‘plop’ and went out.

23 | ZERO MINUS

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.

He nodded towards the desk. ‘The lighter,’ he said urgently. ‘I had to try and make him forget it. Follow me. I’ll show you.’ He started to rock the light steel chair inch by inch towards the desk. ‘For God’s sake don’t tip over or we’ve had it. But make it fast or the blowlamp’ll get cold.’

Uncomprehendingly, and feeling almost as if they were playing some ghastly children’s game, Gala carefully rocked her way across the floor in his wake.

Seconds later Bond told her to stop beside the desk while he went rocking on round to Drax’s chair. Then he manoeuvred himself into position opposite his target and with a sudden lurch heaved himself and the chair forward so that his head came down.

There was a painful crack as the Ronson desk lighter connected with his teeth, but his lips held it and the top of it was in his mouth as he heaved the chair back with just enough force to prevent it spilling over. Then he started his patient journey back to where Gala was sitting at the corner of the desk on which Krebs had left the blowlamp.

He rested until his breath was steady again. ‘Now we come to the difficult part,’ he said grimly. ‘While I try to get this torch going, you get your chair round so that your right arm is as close in front of me as possible.’

Obediently she edged herself round while 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.

He straightened up.

‘Last lap, Gala,’ he said, smiling crookedly at her. ‘I may have to hurt you a bit. All right?’

‘Of course,’ said Gala.

‘Then here goes,’ said Bond, and he bent forward and released the safety valve on the left of the canister.

Then he quickly bent forward over the Ronson, which was standing at right angles and just below the neck of the torch, and with his two front teeth pressed down sharply on the ignition lever.

It was a horrible manoeuvre and though he whipped back his head with the speed of a snake he let out a gasp of pain as the jet of blue fire from the torch seared across his bruised cheek and the bridge of his nose.

But the vaporized paraffin was hissing out its vital tongue of flame and he shook the water out of his streaming eyes and bent his head almost at right angles and again got his teeth to the handle of the blowtorch.

He thought his jaw would break with the weight of the thing and the nerves of his front teeth screamed at him, but he swayed his chair carefully upright away from the desk and then strained his bent neck forward until the tip of blue fire from the torch was biting into the flex that bound Gala’s right wrist to the arm of her chair.

He tried desperately to keep the flame steady but the breath rasped through the girl’s teeth as the handle shifted between his jaws and the flame of the torch brushed her forearm.

But then it was over. Melted by the fierce heat, the copper strands parted one by one and suddenly Gala’s right arm was free and she was reaching to take the torch out of Bond’s mouth.

Bond’s head fell back on to his shoulders and he twisted his neck luxuriously to get the blood moving in the aching muscles.

Almost before he knew it, Gala was bending over his arms and legs and he too was free.

As he sat still for a moment, his eyes closed, waiting for the life to come back into his body, he suddenly, delightedly felt Gala’s soft lips on his mouth.

He opened his eyes. She was standing in front of him, her eyes shining. ‘That’s for what you did,’ she said seriously.

‘You’re a wonderful girl,’ he said simply.

But then, knowing what he was going to have to do, knowing that while she might conceivably survive, he had only another few minutes to live, he closed his eyes so that she should not see the hopelessness in them.

Gala saw the expression on his face and she turned away. She thought it was only exhaustion and the cumulative effect of what his body had suffered, and she suddenly remembered the peroxide in the washroom next to her office.

She went through the communicating door. How extraordinary it was to see her familiar things again. It must be someone else who had sat at that desk and typed letters and powdered her nose. She shrugged her shoulders and went into the little washroom. God what a sight and God how tired she felt! But first she took a wet towel and some peroxide and went back and spent ten minutes attending to the battlefield which was Bond’s face.

He sat silent, a hand resting on her waist, and watched her gratefully. Then when she had gone back into her room and he heard her shut the door of the washroom behind her he got up, turned off the still hissing blowtorch, and walked into Drax’s shower, stripped and stood for five minutes under the icy water. ‘Preparing the corpse!’ he reflected ruefully as he surveyed his battered face in the mirror.

He put on his clothes and went back to Drax’s desk which he searched methodically. It yielded only one prize, the ‘office bottle’, a half-full bottle of Haig and Haig. He fetched two glasses and some water and called to Gala.

He heard the door of the washroom open. ‘What is it?’

‘Whisky.’

‘You drink. I’ll be ready in a minute.’

Bond looked at the bottle and poured himself three-quarters of a toothglass and drank it straight down in two gulps. Then he gingerly lit a blessed cigarette and sat on the edge of the desk and felt the liquor burn down through his stomach into his legs.

He picked up the bottle again and looked at it. Plenty for Gala and a whole full glass for himself before he walked out through the door. Better than nothing. It wouldn’t be too bad with that inside him so long as he walked quickly out and shut the doors behind him. No looking back.

Gala came in, a transformed Gala, looking as beautiful as the night he had first seen her, except for the lines of exhaustion under the eyes that the powder could not quite conceal and the angry welts at her wrists and ankles.

Bond gave her a drink and took another one himself and their eyes smiled at each other over the rims of their glasses.

Then Bond stood up.

‘Listen, Gala,’ he said in a matter-of-fact voice. ‘We’ve got to face it and get it over so I’ll make it short and then we’ll have another drink.’ He heard her catch her breath, but he went on. ‘In ten minutes or so I’m going to shut you into Drax’s bathroom and put you under the shower and turn it full on.’

‘James,’ she cried. She stepped close to him. ‘Don’t go on. I know you’re going to say something dreadful. Please stop, James.’

‘Come on, Gala,’ said Bond roughly. ‘What the hell does it matter. It’s a bloody miracle we have got the chance.’ He moved away from her. He walked to the doors leading out into the shaft.

‘And then,’ he said, and he held up the precious lighter in his right hand, ‘I shall walk out of here and shut the doors and go and light a last cigarette under the tail of the Moonraker.’

‘God,’ she whispered. ‘What are you saying? You’re mad.’ She looked at him through eyes wide with horror.

‘Don’t be ridiculous,’ said Bond impatiently. ‘What the hell else is there to do? The explosion will be so terrific that one won’t feel anything. And it’s bound to work with all that fuel vapour hanging around. It’s me or a million people in London. The warhead won’t go off. Atom bombs don’t explode like that. It’ll be melted probably. There’s just a chance you may get away. Most of the explosion will take the line of least resistance through the roof – and down the exhaust pit, if I can work the machinery that opens up the floor.’ He smiled. ‘Cheer up,’ he said, walking over to her and taking one of her hands. ‘The boy stood on the burning deck. I’ve wanted to copy him since I was five.’

Gala pulled her hand away. ‘I don’t care what you say,’ she said angrily. ‘We’ve got to think of something else. You don’t trust me to have any ideas. You just tell me what you think we’ve got to do.’ She walked over to the wall map and pressed down the switch. ‘Of course if we have to use the lighter we have to.’ She gazed at the map of the false flight plan, barely seeing it. ‘But the idea of you walking in there alone and standing in the middle of all those ghastly fumes from the fuel and calmly flicking that thing and then being blown to dust … And anyway, if we have to do it, we’ll do it together. I’d rather that than be burnt to death in here. And anyway,’ she paused, ‘I’d like to go with you. We’re in this together.’

Bond’s eyes were tender as he walked towards her and put an arm round her waist and hugged her to him. ‘Gala, you’re a darling,’ he said simply. ‘And if there’s any other way we’ll take it. But,’ he looked at his watch, ‘it’s past midnight and we’ve got to decide quickly. At any moment it may occur to Drax to send guards down to see that we’re all right, and God knows what time he’ll be coming down to set the gyros.’

Gala twisted her body round like a cat. She gazed at him with her mouth open, her face taut with excitement. ‘The gyros,’ she whispered, ‘to set the gyros.’ She leant weakly back against the wall, her eyes searching Bond’s face. ‘Don’t you SEE?’ her voice was on the edge of hysteria. ‘After he’s gone, we could alter the gyros back, back to the old flight plan, then the rocket will simply fall into the North Sea where it’s supposed to go.’

She stepped away from the wall and seized his shirt in both hands and looked imploringly at him. ‘Can’t we?’ she said. ‘Can’t we?’

‘Do you know the other settings?’ asked Bond sharply.

‘Of course I do,’ she said urgently. ‘I’ve been living with them for a year. We won’t have a weather report but we’ll just have to chance that. The forecast this morning said we would have the same conditions as today.’

‘By God,’ said Bond. ‘We might do it. If only we can hide somewhere and make Drax think we’ve escaped. What about the exhaust pit? If I can work the machine to open the floor.’

‘It’s a straight hundred-foot drop,’ said Gala, shaking her head. ‘And the walls are polished steel. Just like glass. And there’s no rope or anything down here. They cleared everything out of the workshop yesterday. And anyway there are guards on the beach.’

Bond reflected. Then his eyes brightened. ‘I’ve got an idea,’ he said. ‘But first of all what about the radar, the homing device in London? Won’t that pull the rocket off its course and back on to London?’

Gala shook her head. ‘It’s only got a range of about a hundred miles,’ she said. ‘The rocket won’t even pick up its signal. If it’s aimed into the North Sea it will get into the orbit of the transmitter on the raft. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with my plans. But where can we hide?’