Outside in the square the situation was different. No sooner clear of the puzzled onlookers and scarcely less confused carabinieri than Gray launched into the attack. He ignored Bond and addressed himself solely to M. ‘That was the greatest humiliation of my life,’ he hissed. ‘I ask you to put your best man on this case and what do I get? A paranoid lunatic who has apparently committed a murder. Not only that, he drags us out of bed to become accessories I’ The voice was approaching breaking point. ‘I want him replaced immediately! The man needs a medical report. God knows what the outcome of this affair is going to be.’
M listened stoically until Gray had exhausted himself and stalked off across the square, detonating clouds of pigeons. He watched him go and then crossed to Bond’s side. He felt in his pocket and withdrew his pipe. ‘What the hell is going on, 007? Have they got at you with drugs again?’
Bond shook his head. ‘No, sir. There was a laboratory there. Drax is a damned clever operator, that’s all.’
M looked sceptical. ‘He must be if he can remove all traces of the structure you described in a few hours.’
Bond felt inside his jacket. ‘He couldn’t remove this, Sir.’ He produced the phial and handed it to M. ‘This is what they were distilling. I’d like Q to analyse it. But exercising extreme caution. It killed two men.’
‘One more than you,’ said M drily. He closed his hand around the phial and looked up at Bond. ‘What am I going to do with you, James? You heard what Gray said. You’ve got to come off the assignment.’
Bond’s eyes twinkled. ‘Compassionate leave, sir?’
M looked from his beloved pipe to the phial and pocketed the former. ‘Where did you have in mind?’
Bond’s voice was level. ‘I’ve always had a hankering to visit Rio de Janeiro, sir.’
M nodded. ‘Oh, yes. I recall you mentioning it on the way from the airport.’ His voice suddenly took on a harsh edge. ‘Very well. But no slip-ups, 007. Otherwise we’re both in trouble.’
From the first floor of the Venini Glass shop, Drax watched Bond and M walk away across the square. A thin but triumphant smile played around his ugly mouth. To see the proud English picking at a dish of humble pie was always a pleasing sight. Drax crossed to a telephone and punched out thirteen numbers authoritatively. There was a pause and then the ringing phone was answered. Drax quickly announced himself and dealt with the worried inquiries. ‘Yes, yes. There is no further cause for alarm. I have taken care of everything. A minor crisis has been averted.’ His tone became urgent. ‘But, one important thing: as from now, all merchandise must be re-routed. It is possible that you may be receiving visitors. Nosey visitors. Have no qualms about disposing of them.’ There was a spurt of acquiescence from the other end of the line. Drax waited for it to expend itself. ‘There is also the matter of a replacement for Chang. What have you achieved?’ Drax listened and showed his uneven teeth in a smile. ‘Excellent. If you can get him, I will be well pleased.’ More assurances flooded his ears. ‘You’ve got him on the next flight? Splendid. Most gratifying. You have done well.’ Drax replaced the receiver on the sound.of thanks being expressed for gratitude and stretched back in his chair until the joints creaked. In a few hours he had retrieved the work of a lifetime. Now the future — his future — seemed assured.
The high-pitched electronic screech cut through the voice of the flight announcer and the security guard sprang forward. The giant figure was almost wedged in the electronic arch, the shoulders braced against the sides and the head stooped. A quick search revealed nothing that might have triggered off a reaction, and yet the ear-splitting racket continued. Another security guard hurried up and a crowd began to form. It was at this point that the man’s mouth broke open and he showed his teeth in a terrifying glare.
Two rows of shiny, jagged steel teeth.
The alarm note rose to an even higher and more frantic pitch and the last call for the flight to Rio de Janeiro was completely blotted out.
11
STEEL TEETH IN RIO
Bond decided that the most beautiful views in Rio de Janeiro were looking out to sea; from the Copacabana beach to the Ponto de Leme and the Ilha de Contunduba with the uneven brown and green heights of Niterói in the background. All that and the beach itself, a magnificent sweep of sand like a great playing field speckled with football pitches and volley ball courts, where all colours of skin from honey to jet black twisted, turned, dived and leapt to steer balls over nets or between posts, and where to lie still beneath the tropical sun and listen to the Atlantic waves thump against the flattened strand was a confession of apathy tolerated only in tourists and exceptionally beautiful girls. Behind the beach and the broad divided highway the unremarkable hotels and apartment blocks stood shoulder to shoulder like white pickets in a fence. Held back behind them was the jungle. Two and a half thousand miles of it, stretching to the Pacific cordillera, and still within the boundaries of Brazil.
Bond pressed a button and the window of the Rolls-Royce purred down to bury itself in the coachwork. It seemed amazing that in only five and a half hours’ flying time Concorde had borne him from Europe to half-way down the coast of South America. The mist-shrouded Charles de Gaulle Airport belonged not only to another continent but to another season. Here the air was warm, balmy with fragrance; the light, lucid and clear. In Paris the lights of cars had shone dully through an opaque screen; people walked in a cloud of their own breath.
The Rolls came to another halt in the slowly moving procession of traffic and Bond sniffed the smell of freshly roasted coffee and watched the ebb and flow of humanity scurrying about him. The soft drinks and hot dog vendors, the shoe-shine boys darting between the pavement cafés. The fat American tourists with their cameras wobbling on their bellies like an extra roll of fat. A gaggle of sweating workmen hoisting carnival decorations into the air. A small boy chasing an errant football amongst the slow-turning wheels.
The traffic began to move again and Bond glanced behind him with the wariness born of a hundred missions. A Ferrari Dino was threading through the pursuing automobiles at a speed that invited disaster. As he watched it nearly mounted the centre section and attracted a blare of horns before nipping into a space three automobiles behind.
Bond smelt danger. ‘Take the next right!’
Bond saw the chauffeur’s eyebrows rise as he glanced in the rear-view mirror. ‘Sim, senhor.’
The Rolls pulled out and with a discreet squeal of tyres cut across the oncoming traffic and accelerated into a defile between apartment blocks. A tumultuous volley of motor horns informed Bond that the Ferrari was on his heels. He glanced back and had an impression of a pretty dark-haired girl wearing a headscarf. Her expression was determined as she leant forward over the wheel. Bond’s was grim as he leant forward to the driver. ‘Lose her.’ This time the reply was given by the limousine. Before Bond had time to brace himself, the wheel was flung over and the Rolls careered up a private driveway between two blocks of apartments, swerving past the entrance to an underground garage. The driver of a family saloon prepared to meet his maker as the Rolls bounded towards him — and opened his eyes to see it transformed into a Ferrari. There was a squeal of brakes and both automobiles screeched nose to tail into a narrow tree-lined street. Traffic was building up at an intersection and there was a further flurry of horns as the Rolls jumped the queue, narrowly avoiding the oncoming traffic and a lorry which was swinging in from the left. Coming down a steep incline to the right was a tram, the rear platform crowded with passengers, some clinging to its sides like refugees.
Bond watched the Ferrari streaking up behind him and called out fresh instructions to the driver. The Rolls bounded across the tram lines and then accelerated up the road which the tram had descended. The Ferrari skidded to a halt as the tram momentarily blocked its path, and then roared off in pursuit.
Hanging on to the side of the tram, the middle-aged unshaven man with the ragged trousers ending just below the knees watched the Ferrari disap
pear and wondered why the impeccably dressed foreigner wearing a light-weight tropical suit had leapt from a Rolls-Royce to take up a position beside him. Bond smiled sociably, but said nothing.
At first glance Number 1784 did not look any different to the other apartment blocks facing Copacabana Beach. It was slightly taller, perhaps, and the architecture more discreet than that of the newer hotels, but there was nothing to mark it out as one of the most valuable pieces of real estate in the world. Bond climbed the steps past the carefully tended pots of shrubs and inserted the thin platinuin key he had been given into the signed slot at the entrance. The glass doors slid open obediently and he walked into the air-conditioned coolness of the hall. His eyes took a few seconds to get used to the restrained half-light, and it was in this brief period that a swarthy besuited figure materialized beside him.
‘Mr Bond? We have been expecting you.’ He looked beyond Bond to the glass doors. ‘Your luggage?’
‘Coming.’ Bond smiled his agreeable smile. ‘It was so pleasant I thought I’d walk.’
‘Of course.’ It was clearly policy not to argue with clients. ‘My name is Alvarez. Should there be anything you wish while you are staying with us — anything at all — it will be my pleasure to procure it for you.’
‘Thank you’ was almost too short a reply with which to greet such munificence, but Bond uttered it, whereupon he was conducted to an elevator the size of a miniature ballroom. No sooner had the door closed than it seemed to open again, and Senhor Alvarez announced that they were on the twenty-first and top floor of the building. He led the way across a mahogany floor polished to the sheen of turtle shell and respectfully withdrew Bond’s key from his fingers.
‘The locks have been reprogrammed to receive your personal key, Mr Bond.’
Bond nodded and watched as the sliver of platinum was inserted in one of a pair of doors that could have received a grand piano without the jambs coming within a couple of feet of scratching the varnish. With an impresario’s panache, Alvarez flung open the door and extended a hand. The penthouse seemed to stop just short of the African coast.
‘The President’s suite!’
Bond looked about him. ‘You must have a lot of presidents.’
The remark seemed to nonplus Alvarez, who hesitated uneasily.
Bond reclaimed his key and guided the startled manager back towards the door. ‘Don’t bother to show me round. If I get lost I’ll call a cab.’ He closed the door with a polite smile.
Bond’s first estimate of the size of the suite had been exaggerated, but the living room was still the size of a hotel lounge. Furnished in the same way as well. Pillars, arches, scattered groups of low furniture and tall potted plants brushing against a roof that showed more glass than plaster.
It was an impersonal room. Opulent certainly, but not a place to curl up with a good book. The sheets of coloured glass that formed one long wall had been pulled back to give the effect of a Mondrian painting. Bond walked through to. the terrace. beyond. The view was impressive but not quite in the way that he had anticipated. Certainly the near-Olympic sized swimming pool was a revelation and the view of Rio from the Sugar Loaf to Ipanema a tourist brochure writer’s dream. What was unexpected was that the pool had an occupant. She was swimming with a lazy crawl, her slim honey-brown body carving a shallow furroW through the crystal water. It was the stroke of someone who swam a lot, economical, unhurried, the feet drumming up a small wake of froth. The back was bare and there was no white line across the tan. A compressed triangle of faded blue half covered_ the neat buttocks. Bond watched the girl’s shoulder muscles ripple as she pulled herself out of the water and turned to face him. She sat on the edge of the pool and shook out her wet hair, seemingly impervious to the fact that her breasts were uncovered. Taking her time, she stretched out a hand and hooked on a bikini top as Bond had seen men slip into a shoulder holster. She fastened the bikini under her breasts and stood up. Bond started to walk round the pool. The girl surveyed him haughtily. He might have been the postman arriving with a buff envelope.
‘Do you come with the apartment?’
The girl finished patting her face with a large white towel and looked at Bond through deep brown eyes. ‘It depends who’s renting it.’ She laid the towel on a reclining seat and moved to a drinks trolley that was positioned beneath a wide sun umbrella. The canvas flapped in the breeze. ‘Vodka martini, isn’t it?’
‘With very little martini, thank you.’ Bond watched his drink being made and approved of the eyelash thickness of lemon peel that scythed its way to the bottom of the chilled glass. ‘You drive well.’
The girl’s face suddenly lit up in a smile. ‘Not usually as fast. My old instructor at Hendon would have burst a blood vessel. I’m sorry I missed you at the airport.’ The girl handed him his drink. ‘By the way, my name is Manuela. I work for Station VH. We’ve been asked to assist you.’
Bond smiled. ‘M thinks of everything.’ Apparently including girls who were taught to drive at the police driving school at Hendon.
Manuela nodded towards the penthouse. ‘Do you think you’re going to be comfortable?’
‘I don’t suffer from vertigo or agoraphobia, so I should be all right.’ He sipped his drink. ‘You mix a very good martini.’
‘Thank you.’ She looked about her. ‘Don’t you think that this must be some of the most palatial accommodation the service has to offer anywhere in the world?’
‘I’ve slept in beds that were less comfortable than the carpet,’ said Bond. ‘How did we get our hands on it? I feel I ought to write to my M.P. about squandering public funds.’
‘You’ve no need to bother. It used to belong to a German war criminal. He left it to us in his will just before he died.’
‘Oh, yes,’ said Bond, ‘I think I remember reading something about it. He fell to his death, didn’t he?’
‘From this balcony actually,’ said Manuela. She stretched out a hand. ‘Can I refill your glass?’
Bond held up a restraining hand. ‘No thanks. Something about this place preaches temperance. Tell me, Manuela, do the initials C and W mean anything to you?’
Manuela thought for a moment and nodded. ‘If you’re referring to Rio, most certainly. There is a firm here called Carlos and Wilmsberg. They are very big in the import-export business. They are a subsidiary of the Drax Corporation, I think.’
‘Where are they based?’
‘They have a big warehouse and offices in Carioca Avenue.’
Bond’s eyes. narrowed. ‘Good. I want to pay them a discreet visit tonight.’
Manuela shook her head and smiled. ‘I think you may find that a little difficult.’
Bond’s jaw set in a determined line. ‘Nevertheless, I want to do it.’
Manuela held his glance for a moment and then turned away to pick up an aerosol can of suntan lotion. ‘Very well. We can try.’ She squirted some cream against her calf and leant forward to start massaging it. Bond transferred his gaze to his watch with difficulty. It was just after three o’clock. His hand stretched out and started to massage just above Manuela’s fingers. She raised her head to look into his eyes and her lower lip hung forward temptingly. The merest tremor ran through it as Bond’s fingertips touched hers. Bond’s mouth parted slowly. ‘Tell me one thing, Manuela — how do you kill five hours in Rio if you don’t samba?’ Her lips had formed half a smile when Bond’s hungry mouth obliterated it.
By eight o’clock the noise on Carioca Avenue could have been used to disguise the Salerno landings. Fireworks, samba bands, cheering crowds, celebrating groups, happy individuals. All the sounds of a Latin people enjoying carnival as if the other 364 days of the year were expendable inches on a slowly burning fuse wire. Bond looked up at the packed grandstands and the mile-long procession of floats and extravagantly dressed samba schools receding into the neon distance and marvelled at the irrepressible energy that was erupting all about him. The samba rhythm was like a never-ending line of breakers pound
ing at his eardrums. The perfervid throbbing was an extension of his pulse. Nobody seemed to be capable of standing still. Everywhere was bobbing, weaving, lifting, jumping, bumping movement. With hardly a drop of liquor in his body, Bond could imagine that he was drunk on colour and sound. Carmen Miranda danced by with Charlie Chaplin, and a black girl, glistening naked beneath a wind of fisherman’s netting, draped an inviting arm across his chest. Almost instantly she had disappeared behind a wall of waddling egg-shaped clowns who in turn gave way to coffee-coloured girls in silver lamé sheaths and tight-fitting bonnets whirling like dervishes.
Bond turned to make sure that Manuela had not been swept away by the crowd. Her own costume plunged almost to the waist at the front, and lower at the back. She had big puffed sleeves on her arms and a petticoat effect of overlapping polka-dotted skirts that sprang out from the clinging garment at knee level. Large circular ear rings dangled to her shoulders and her black hair curled back from a semicircle of beaten gold. Dressed in his black dinner jacket, Bond felt that he was hardly exhibiting the abandon that the occasion demanded. Manuela fought her way to his side. ‘That’s the warehouse on the next corner.’
Bond looked over the heads of the milling crowd and smiled ruefully. ‘And not a soul about. Next time I’ll pay more attention to what you say.’
Manuela looked up at him reproachfully. ‘You’re too impetuous, James. We could easily have waited until tomorrow.’
Bond appeared not to hear her. His face set quickly into a hard, determined mask as he dropped his shoulder into the mob of revellers and bore remorselessly forward. Manuela shrugged and followed him. She could no more understand this man than she could the reason she had so suddenly given herself to him. It was not the way she normally behaved. Still, as her still quivering body could easily bear witness, this was no ordinary man.
Twenty yards away in the main stream of the carnival procession, the movement of Bond and his companion attracted interested eyes. They rolled inquisitively from the holes in the face mask of a grotesque carnival figure towering several feet above the other revellers. Half clown, half giant robot, the figure seemed to suffer from a crisis of identity. Or at least from a lack of preparation in comparison with the other carnival figures, whose lustre reflected nearly a year’s work. As Bond and Manuela entered a narrow alley, so the figure in its turn veered to the left and started to move clumsily against the tide, in pursuit.
James Bond and Moonraker Page 10