‘The flower is poisonous,’ said Bond.
‘In the long term, yes,’ said Drax. ‘Exposure to its pollen causes sterility. The unfortunate Mayas never realized that. Through every crisis of their dwindling civilization they turned to worship the flower that was responsible for its destruction. Poignant, is it not?’
‘But you’ve improved on sterility haven’t you, Drax?’
Drax smiled. ‘If you choose to employ such quaint phraseology. Yes, I have. As you probably observed in Venice, those same seeds now yield death.’
‘Except to animals.’
‘And plant life as well.’ Drax spread his hands. ‘One must preserve the balance of nature. Let no one say that at heart I am not an ecologist.’ His smile was like a crack on a gravestone.
‘Moonraker launch programme now commencing.’ The voice coming over the public address system temporarily drowned the babble of voices flooding the chamber.
Drax raised his eyes to one of the screens and Bond followed them. ‘You have arrived at a propitious moment, Mr Bond.’ The voice was a contented purr. Bond saw a wide expanse of Arctic ice-cap. There was no sign of a human presence.
Another voice cut in. ‘Moonraker One. Lift off!’ Immediately the ice-cap shattered and the screen flooded with light. Through the light appeared the nose-cone of a rocket and attached to it a Moonraker shuttle. The assembly rose slowly into the air and then roared skywards, leaving a dense trail of smoke and flames. The picture changed instantly to a barren stretch of desert.
‘Moonraker Two. Lift off!’ A chatter of technicians’ voices orchestrated the appearance of a second rocket and shuttle. The final stages of the countdown flashed up on the screen, and monitors around the chamber fed back changing temperatures and pressures. Bond glanced towards Jaws. He was watching the scene, round-eyed and open-mouthed, like a child looking up at an illuminated Christmas tree.
‘Moonraker Three. Lift off!’ Now the picture changed to a range of mountains and a third rocket and Moonraker soared into the air.
Bond’s awe was nearly the equal of Jaws’s, and coupled with it was a growing sense of alarm. Why were these shuttles being put into orbit? What was Drax planning to do? All the time, at the back of Bond’s mind was the image of what he had seen at the glassworks. The two scientists sliding to the floor, their hands clutching at their throats.
The rats squeaking in their cages...
Bond glanced about him and saw that both Jaws and Drax were absorbed by what was happening on the screens. He started to edge sideways and felt something hard press into his ribs. A guard with a sub-machine gun prodded him back banefully. Drax addressed Bond without turning his head. ‘I can understand your desire to leave us, Mr Bond. In fact, I endorse it. However, you will go when I wish it. My genius demands the respect of a little attention.’
Bond read the message on Jaws’s gleaming teeth and turned back to the screens. He was now looking at a Pacific atoll. Palm trees shuddered and then disappeared from view as a dazzling effulgence blazed across the monitors. Bond was reminded uneasily of another Pacific atoll. ‘We have lifted off,’ said a satisfied voice over the public address system, and the blazing tail of the rocket disappeared out of the top of the picture. A dense cloud of smoke began to clear and the agitated palms stopped having hysterics. The screen suddenly went blank.
‘Four shuttles in space?’ queried Bond.
‘Six,’ said Drax shortly. He turned towards a technician sitting before a cathode-ray tube on which circles of light were converging towards a glowing centre which throbbed at one-second intervals. The technician spoke into a chest microphone. ‘Moonraker Five on pre-set launch programme. Minus ten.’
The countdown began to be projected on to the console in electronic script as another technician spoke into his microphone.
‘Moonraker Six on pre-set launch programme. Minus two zero.’
Bond turned to Drax. ‘Tell me one thing. The Moonraker that was on its way to London and disappeared over Alaska. You hijacked that, didn’t you?’
Drax’s eyes roamed the monitors. ‘You use the language of the tabloids, Mr Bond. Let us say I repossessed my own property. It was a regrettable necessity. One of the Moonrakers I was intending to use in this programme developed a technical fault. I was not prepared to put the timing of the operation back.’ He looked at Bond and a quick dart of red flashed in his eyes. ‘As you know, I am not renowned for my patience.’
‘And what is the operation?’
Drax held Bond’s glance for a couple of seconds and then shook his head brusquely and dismissively. ‘No, Mr Bond. You have distracted me enough.’ He turned to Jaws. ‘Mr Bond must be cold after his swim. Place him where he can be assured of warmth.’
Jaws showed half an inch of grinning metal as if sharing a private joke and propelled Bond towards a ramp leading deeper into the pyramid. Bond turned to face his captor. ‘I’ll see you later, Drax.’
The voice was a razor wrapped in velvet. ‘Fleetingly perhaps, Mr Bond.’
At the end of the ramp was a network of dimly lit corridors, and Bond felt Jaws’s hand grasp his arm and force him towards a heavy. wooden door fortified by horizontal pieces of metal. The pressure of the grip told him that there was no point in trying to escape. Two bolts were slid back and the door opened just wide enough to receive Bond’s body. With a thrust of Jaws’s arm Bond was making acquaintance with the opposite wall while the door slammed behind him.
‘James!’
Bond turned to find Holly launching herself towards him. He caught her by the shoulders and looked into her eyes. ‘Thank God you’re all right. You are all right?’
‘Apart from a few bruises. And you?’
‘The same.’ He looked around the high, vaulted chamber furnished with a large circular table, surrounded by chairs. It looked like an executive boardroom, but without windows. ‘Where the hell are we?’
‘I don’t know. I haven’t moved since they brought me here.’
Bond looked up at the ceiling far above their heads. It was almost as if they were at the bottom of a well. ‘Drax is launching half a dozen Moonrakers. Four have gone already.’
‘Do you know why?’
‘I was going to ask you.’
Holly shook her head. ‘Where are the other two shuttles?’
Bond started to prowl round the room. ‘I think they must be near here somewhere. We’ve got to get out and locate them.’
‘Let me spare you the trouble, Mr Bond.’ The voice belonged to Drax and echoed down eerily from above. At the same instant, the ceiling above their heads split open and began to slide back. Bond sucked in his breath. He was looking into the menacing barrels of seven mighty rocket engines. A Moonraker space shuttle with its propellent tank and booster rockets was positioned vertically above their steep-walled prison supported by giant metal arms. Bond understood Drax’s remark to Jaws about putting him where he could be assured of warmth. Holly and he were inside the exhaust chamber for launch rockets. Enornious panels, in the roof of the pyramid, slid back to reveal the sky far above; distant as the hope of escape.
‘Even in death my munificence is boundless.’ Drax’s blunt silhouette loomed over the edge of the pit. His hands lathered air smugly. ‘When this rocket lifts off I shall be leaving you in your own private crematorium.’ He raised an arm and an elevator began to descend from the opening in the cabin of the Moonraker. ‘Dr Goodhead, Mr Bond, I bid you farewell.’ He delivered a mocking salute and climbed into the elevator. With a remote, whining whir it began to lift into the air. Bond looked at the rocket barrels of death, thinking of the billowing clouds of flame he had seen emerging from big rocket engines. When Moonraker Five lifted off with Drax in it they would be reduced to ashes within seconds.
‘Moonraker Five. Four minutes to lift-off.’ The technician’s voice rang out like that of a mortuary assistant.
Bond avoided Holly’s, desperate eyes and reverted to looking round the walls.of the chamber. The atmo
sphere was not stuffy despite the apparent lack of ventilation. He started to push a steel cabinet along the wall.
‘What is it?’ Holly looked at him keenly. ‘Do you think we can climb out?’
‘Not up that wall. I’m looking for an air shaft.’ He dropped to his knees as he found a square opening in the wall a foot from the floor. He squinted through a criss-cross of metal bars and saw that there was in fact a narrow shaft, perhaps thirty feet in length. Beyond it jungle foliage showed temptingly. Bond seized the bars and gritted his teeth. He strained until the sweat ran down his cheeks but the bars did not budge. Holly knelt beside him with hope dying in her eyes.
‘Three minutes to lift-off.’ Maybe it was Bond’s imagination, but there seemed to be an edge of mockery in the technician’s announcement over the public address system. The metal arms were drawing back one by one from the rocket and the elevator and its movable shaft had retreated out of view of the pit. Most sinister of all, thin wisps of gas were emerging from some of the rocket engines as if from the bowl of a pipe. The whole structure of the rockets began to hum with activity.
‘You can’t move it?’
Bond did not reply but pressed Holly back against the wall. His fingers fumbled with his watch and Holly saw what looked like the winding device being detached from its side. Behind it was drawn a thin thread as if a spider was descending from its web. Bond knelt and swiftly pressed the small circle of metal against the point at which one of the bars emerged from the wall. There was an almost imperceptible click. The metal roundel adhered. Bond waved Holly farther along the wall and moved to take up a position beside her. The watch was still playing out thread.
‘Two minutes to lift-off.’ The technician’s voice could now barely be heard above a low whining noise that was emanating from the rocket and increasing in intensity with every second. The stench of turbine exhaust fumes scraped at their throats.
Bond pressed his back against the wall and his hand moved to his watch.
Holly looked first at him with an ironic questioning in her eye, and then down to the thread. ‘Are we supposed to pull?’
‘Push.’ Bond’s finger jabbed against the watch and a pinpoint of red light flashed up the thread. There was a violent explosion and a cloud of smoke billowed from the mouth of the shaft. Bond started forward as the severed fuse retracted into his watch. The grille had been blasted aside. Only a few stubs of metal remained.
Bond gestured towards the opening. ‘Get in!’ His eyes were watering and he started to choke. Fumes swirled around him. The whole structure of the rocket was beginning to throb. The metal arms had swung back out of sight. The disembodied voices of the public address system intoned the critical stages of the countdown.
‘One minute to lift-off.’
The knell of doom rang in Bond’s ears as he scrambled into the shaft and started to crawl after Holly. In less than sixty seconds a merciless tongue of flame would be pursuing them, roasting them alive as if they were threaded on a spit. A stub of metal took a chunk out of his knee but he hardly noticed it. Behind him he could hear the noise building up towards ignition. The eldritch shriek developed into a giant roar. He blundered against Holly’s heels and shouted at her to go faster. His knuckles were bleeding. Holly’s body shut out air and light. He could see nothing before him. With a fresh pang of horror he realized that the shaft was narrowing. His shoulders brushed against rock on either side. There must be still another fifteen feet to go. At that moment he was convinced that they were never going to make it.
‘Ten... nine... eight...’ Somewhere behind them the referee was calling the count over a fallen fighter. Bond imagined the blowtorch of flame rushing up between his legs and wanted to cry out in horror. ‘Six... five...’ Ahead of him. Holly suddenly disappeared. He saw a square of green light and another shaft joining at right angles the one they were in. ‘Three... two... one... ignition... Lift off!’ Bond forced himself forward following Holly into the side tunnel. Barely had he pressed into the opening than a rush of orange flame roared past, making him scream with pain. He heard the noise of his hair singeing and smelt the scorched fabric of his clothing. The pain was agonizing and for several seconds he thought that he was going to die. Then the flame disappeared as suddenly as it had come and there was only a wisp of acrid smoke. Somewhere in the distance a great roar swelled and then died away. Bond touched his burnt flesh and winced. Pieces of charred material were sticking to him and he had no idea how badly he had been injured.
‘James!’
Bond urged Holly forward. ‘Keep going. I’m all right.’ He gritted his teeth against the pain and tried to find comfort in the fact that at the side of the shaft, somewhere near them, was a source of light and air. It was revealed as a grille giving on to a ledge of rock; the light was artificial and came from a lamp attached to. the rock beside the grille. Bond heard the sound of a motor vehicle going past, and then another. The public address system was’ barely audible in the distance. Bond surmised that they must be in some tunnel leading off the control chamber. Holly waited at the grille while Bond attacked it with his bleeding fingers. This one was a wire mesh construction that could be easily forced open. He crawled out on to the rock and lay still, feeling the unbelievable balm of cool air against his cheeks. Slowly, some semblance of life returned to his cramped limbs, and with it the responsibility of action. So far nothing had been achieved save the salvation of their own lives. But Bond had seen enough to know that many other lives were at stake.
‘Moonraker Six pre-set launch programme completed. Pilots proceed from base to launch area.’ The announcer’s voice was faint but distinct. Hardly had it finished speaking than an open vehicle came into view beneath Bond’s perch. In it, sitting back to back along the length of the vehicle, were twelve of the astronauts that Bond had seen being trained in California. Six men and six women. They were wearing white tunics and for an instant their faces showed grim and purposeful in the lamplight. The vehicle rolled on its way.
‘Come on.’ Bond forgot about the pain of his burns and scrambled down the side of the rock to the broad passageway. He held up a hand for Holly, but she was already beside him. From the direction from which the astronauts had come there was the sound of another vehicle approaching. Bond nudged Holly. ‘Stand by. We may be hitching a lift.’
A jeep appeared down the track and the sight of the two passengers sitting behind the driver made Bond’s heart skip a couple of beats. They were wearing the operational suits of astronaut pilots carrying helmets and vizors. Bond leapt in front of the vehicle and flung his arms wide. The amazed driver stood on the brake and the jeep skidded to a halt.
‘What the hell do you think you’re doing?’
The driver’s spontaneous reaction came split seconds before he realized that there was something wrong with Bond’s appearance. By that time Bond had walked calmly round to the side of the jeep and hit him on the point of the jaw. As he slumped backwards, Holly snatched up the sub-machine gun that lay beside him. The two pilots, handicapped by their cumbersome uniforms, hardly had time to get over their surprise before they were knocked senseless by a karate chop from Bond and an expertly aimed blow with the butt of the gun from Holly. Bond dragged the driver from the wheel and Holly jumped into his place to drive the vehicle into a dark alcove. She cut the engine and Bond looked at her admiringly. ‘Right,’ he said, ‘I estimate we have about five minutes.’
Four minutes later the jeep pulled out of the alcove with two figures in astronaut pilot uniform in the front seat. It trundled down the broad passageway and within the space of a few minutes, after a tiny hesitation at an intersection, emerged from the dark tunnel into a brightly lit chamber that throbbed with activity. At one end, rearing majestically, was Moonraker Six, with its attached fuel tank and rockets to take it into space. Resting against the structure like protective fingers were curved steel girders. They opened in unison as the jeep appeared from the tunnel. The huge rockets- were trembling and , beginning to m
ake the high-pitched whining noise that had characterized the pre-lift-off build-up of Moonraker Five. The mobile elevator, against the cabin entrance to the space shuttle, was beginning to make its descent. A door over the passenger hold slid closed and the vehicle that had been transporting the twelve astronauts reversed beneath the gantry.
Two armed guards stepped forward and one of them raised his arm as the jeep approached the descending elevator. He held out his hand and for a few seconds neither the driver nor his companion did anything. Then the driver raised his hand to the breast pocket of his uniform and produced an identity card with photograph attached. His companion followed suit. The guard glanced at the cards. ‘You guys cutting it fine, aren’t you? Did ya stop for a leak?’
The driver nodded and stretched out his hand for his card. The guard hesitated for a moment and then returned the cards. He stepped back and the jeep continued to the waiting elevator. Above it the combined structure of the spacecraft and its boosters towered into the air, almost scraping the ceiling of the chamber. There was a grinding noise and the roof opened to reveal a diamond-shaped patch of blue sky. The two pilots stepped from the jeep and entered the elevator. With a hiss of compressed air it left the ground. Two pairs of eyes looked about them warily. Behind the glass of the control room, monitors, screens and consoles flashed up pictures, figures and printout messages. The unceasing interplay of voices droned across the open space, to be heard even above the whining of the rocket turbine pumps which set the teeth on edge.
‘Four minutes to lift-off.’ This time the tone was calm and measured.
The elevator quivered to a halt before the open hatchway of the Moonraker control cabin and the two figures in pilot uniform raised an arm towards the control room like footballers acknowledging their supporters before the start of a game and ducked down to enter the shuttle.
‘Three minutes to lift-off.’
James Bond and Moonraker Page 15