James Bond and Moonraker (14 page)

Bond reached the third floor of the warehouse and pocketed his pencil torch. No extra light was necessary to see that the chamber was empty save for a few broken packing cases and twists of binding wire strewn around like modern sculptures. Patterns in the dust and fresh footprints showed that materials had been moved out recently. Bond climbed to the fourth floor and the fifth. The picture was the same. The warehouse was empty. Bond was disappointed but hardly surprised. After Venice it was logical that Drax would take steps to cover his tracks. Bond reached the top of the warehouse and looked through the skylight. A.firework display was lighting up the sky like an aerial bombardment. Turning from the skylight, Bond saw something glinting on the floor. It was a label with a line drawing of an aeroplane taking off against the background of the Sugar Loaf. Along. the bottom in silver lettering were the words DRAX AIR FREIGHT and the Drax symbol. Bond pocketed the label and hurried down the stairs.

In the alley, Manuela turned from the entrance to the club to watch the firework display. All heads. were tilted towards the sky. All heads but one.

The giant carnival figure was watching Manuela. The heavy head sat square on the Frankenstein shoulders. The cold eyes took on a stone-like hardness. An enormous foot swung forward to close the distance to its prey. The stick of a spent rocket tumbled down into the basement with a shower of sparks and Manuela turned to see the figure nearly upon her. A huge hand rose to remove the headpiece and she was looking into a face more terrifying than any mask. It was as blunt and uncompromising as the blade of a shovel, with the features dragged down lugubriously to a bulging lantern jaw. The eyes stared down at her without expression and the wide mouth opened to reveal a nightmare. Two rows of jagged, stainless steel teeth parting like the jaws of a vice. Manuela started to scream, but what was one more scream in a night full of whoops, yelps, shrieks, hoots, cheers and unabating clamour? A hand spread round Manuela’s neck like the steel of a pitchfork and thrust her back towards- the railings. Fireworks exploded and a tidal wave of bodies surged from the club in a disjointed samba train. The alley was full of milling people. In their midst somebody was being murdered. Manuela gasped as her back was thrust against the railings with a force that drove the wind from her body. It seemed as though her attacker was trying to push her between them. His mouth opened wide and his head twisted to one side. With renewed horror, she realized what he was going to do. He was going to bite her with those obscene teeth. She kicked and clawed with all her might, but the expression in the man’s eyes did not change. He might have been programmed like the robot his costume made him resemble. A weight of dancing, laughing bodies thrust against them and she screamed for help. At least her mind told her that she screamed. But any sound was drowned the instant it left her mouth. Only the din of carnival hurled mocking laughter in her ears. Her head was bent back and she prepared to die.

Bond saw the puffed sleeve pressed through the railings as he emerged from the basement door. For a second he thought Manuela was dead, but then the arm moved feebly. He charged up the steps and saw the great head begin to drop as if stooping to drink from a trough. Spreading his shoulders against the wall he kicked through the railings with all his force. The steel-capped heel of his shoe struck sparks as it collided with the fearsome teeth and there was a grunt of surprise and pain. The figure loomed up as if from the undergrowth of some primordial jungle and eyes that had looked before on Bond did so again with the blazing intensity of deadly hatred. For a second the glance was held and then a catherine wheel exploded amongst the crowd and a great weight of fleeing bodies bore the snarling giant away as if he was some pebble joggled across the hissing shingle by a receding wave. Bond unhooked the padlock and a fresh swirl of revellers from the club filled the vacuum, forming another barrier against the man with murder in his mouth.

Bond dropped to his knees and took Manuela in his arms. Her throat was red and her dress torn from her shoulder, but there were no traces of blood. Bond looked about him warily; he watched the girl open her eyes: ‘Didn’t I tell you about talking to strangers?’

‘Oh, James —’ Words failed her, and she clung to his arm and started to cry. Bond drew her to her feet and away from the claustrophobic menace of the alley. Manuela rubbed a hand across her face but her eyes were still wide with terror. ‘Who was that — that man?’

‘His name’s Jaws,’ said Bond. ‘Don’t worry, you’re never going to see him again.’ He hoped that his voice carried more conviction than he felt.

Manuela tried to smile. ‘I was right. We should have stayed at home.’

Bond kissed her on the forehead. ‘You’re going to stay at home. I’ll drop you off.’

‘There’s no need. I’m all right.’ Manuela attempted to stand up by herself and started to waver. Bond caught her just before she fell.

‘You’re a marvel,’ said Bond, ‘but you’re still going home.’ Out of the corner of his eye he saw a battered taxi driven by a man wearing a skeleton costume; the driver seemed to have caught the atmosphere of the evening. He steered Manuela towards it. She put up no resistance.

‘What did you find in there?’

‘A lot of storage space. Everything has been moved out.’

‘So you’re no further forward?’

Bond signalled to the cab driver, who had just helped a couple of American tourists in petrol splash shirts to lose weight to the tune of twenty dollars. ‘Maybe, maybe not. Where does Drax Air Freight operate from?’

‘San Pietro Airport. Do you want me to take you there?’

‘Just point it out if it’s on the way home.’ Bond took a careful look round and helped Manuela into the cab. The driver in his skeleton costume was lighting a cigarette. ‘You want to give that up,’ said Bond. ‘They’re bad for your health.’

Carnival was dying as Bond took the cable car to the top of the Sugar Loaf. Drunks were finding that gutters no longer fitted as comfortably as they had a few hours before, and were beginning to limp home. The fires on the beaches were dying down to blackened embers and there was more litter on the streets than dancers. Even the unquenchable samba was a hydra-headed sound weaving from many different quarters rather than the blunt all-conquering rhythm that had once bludgeoned the eardrums with a single beat.

The cable car reached the first sharp prong of rock and the doors crashed open. Bond was alone save for two middle-aged men who stepped out and walked purposefully towards the boarded-up fronts of souvenir stalls situated below the steps that led from the cable car station. That these men were going to open the stalls in the hope that a few tourists remained sober enough to visit them was beyond doubt. They had not looked out of the windows once since entering the cable car. They had seen one of the most breathtaking views in the world a million times, going up and going down. It was wallpaper to them, their face in the shaving mirror, the wife’s head on the pillow. They did not see it any more.

Bond crossed to take the second cable car, looking up to the great slack weight of wire sagging above a thousand-foot drop. He was alone in the cable car and almost beyond the reach of the faint samba beat that eddied up from the streets and beaches and open places below. The doors closed and the wires began to hum. As the car jerked forward, so the twin car began its descent; a small red square that detached itself from the concrete mouth above like a bloody tooth. Bond looked down to the long grass and across to the skirt of foliage that clothed the side of the Sugar Loaf. Time and the elements had scored deep claw marks in its side and it looked easy enough to scale. To the right was the sea and to the left the peak of Corcovado, almost twice as high as the Sugar Loaf and with the statue of Christ at its summit, its arms spread wide, offering perpetual succour to the volatile city that sprawled beneath it. Bond decided he preferred Nelson’s Column, but his preference might have been either patriotism overcoming aesthetics or a pragmatic faith in secular saviours. Below and to the left was Botafogo Harbour affording snug retreat to some of the most expensive yachts in the world, and in the distance a glimpse of the freeway that swept impressively across the Bay of Guanabara. The sun had hauled itself up in the sky and was flooding distant peaks with dazzling light. The inside of the cable car was warm. All was there to content the soul of man, but Bond was uneasy. The beauty around him was no deeper than the surface of a maggot-eaten apple. Somewhere in the big city Jaws would be looking for him. Jaws, whose steel teeth he had believed to be rusting on the ocean bed. Jaws, who had apparently miraculously escaped the great white shark and the sinking tomb of Stromberg’s Atlantis. Was he now working for Drax? Time, Bond reflected ruefully, would probably find a way of answering that question.

The cable car docked and Bond walked out and down a flight of steps to a small tree-girt plateau. There was a café with outside tables and a scatter of gift shops, mostly shut. Bond resisted having his photograph taken to be superimposed on a plate and headed for a wide esplanade affording views of the boats at anchor in the harbour and the Copacabana and Flamengo beaches. Beyond the latter was a tongue of land jutting out into the sea which looked as if it had been manmade. On this were the familiar runway patterns of an airport. As Bond looked down, an aeroplane began to take off. It was taxiing slowly and Bond guessed that it was a cargo aircraft. Feeling in his pocket for a coin, he hurried forward and commandeered one of the telescopes at the edge of the esplanade. The coin dropped and a washed-out image of the airport swam before his eyes. Bond swung the telescope and picked up the aircraft just before it reached the end of the runway. It lifted into the air and began to fly on a course directly towards the Sugar Loaf. At the moment that he could make out two figures in the cockpit, it banked sharply and headed out to sea. Clearly visible on the fuselage as the aircraft came broadside to his position was the lettering DRAX AIR FREIGHT with the Drax symbol on either side of it. Bond let the telescope escape his grasp and rose thoughtfully. As he turned, it was to see that he was not alone on the esplanade. Standing twenty yards behind him and taking a pair of binoculars from her eyes was Holly Goodhead. Her expression, like his, was thoughtful. She was wearing a long white evening gown of becoming beauty and chasttness. The addition of the binoculars lent an incongruous note, as if she had chosen the wrong dress to go to a race meeting. Bond was unable to resist smiling as he approached her.

‘Haven’t we met before somewhere?’ He placed a hand gently on hers.

Holly scowled up- at him. ‘The face is familiar —’ she withdrew her hand ‘— as is the manner.’

Bond raised an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t seem to object too much in Venice.’

‘That was before you walked out on me.’

‘Nearly tripping over your suitcase.’ Bond laughed scornfully. ‘Come on, Holly. You weren’t planning to stay around to see if I ate muffins for breakfast.’

Holly banished the fifth carbon of a smile. ‘So?’

Bond placed an avuncular arm beneath Holly’s elbow and began to lead her towards the cable car station. ‘So don’t let’s waste any more time working against each other. I’m quite happy to share everything I’ve found with you.’

‘Which presumably means you haven’t found very much.’

Bond shook his head. ‘Such cynicism is an unattractive trait in one so young and lovely. Let me supply evidence of my good intent. I’ve checked Drax’s warehouse in town and it’s empty. He’s obviously moving everything out.’

Holly’s eyes were cool. ‘That comes as no surprise. Six of those planes have taken off since I’ve been here.’

‘And do you know where they’re going?’ Bond watched Holly’s expression carefully as she replied.

‘Do you think I’d still be here if I did?’ The answer made sense and her eyes did not flicker. Bond was inclined to believe her.

‘Probably not. Right,’ he nodded towards the open door of the cable car, ‘we’d better find out.’

Holly paused warily. ‘I’m not certain if I really trust you.’

Bond shrugged and stepped into the cable car. ‘I’m not certain if I really trust you. It makes it more exciting, doesn’t it?’

Holly hesitated and then stepped into the car. The door slammed shut behind her and the car jerked forward into space. She and Bond were the only people aboard. Bond looked up to the glass windows of the docking station but could see no one. There was something about their situation, isolated in space, that scared him. A sudden premonition of evil in the surrounding air.

‘Where do you suggest we start?’

Bond had no time to reply to Holly’s question before the car suddenly jerked to a halt. She fell against him and quickly transferred her weight to a rail. The car swung in the air disconcertingly. ‘What’s happened?’

Bond reached out a hand. ‘Give me your binoculars.’ Holly handed them to him and Bond turned them on the lower cable car station. As he focussed the glasses a door opened in the side of the engine room and a stooped figure emerged and unwound to its full awesome height. An icicle of terror buried itself in Bond’s stomach. He reached up and pulled down the steel ladder that was attached to the roof of the cable car.

‘What’s wrong?’ Holly’s voice was tense.

Bond handed her the binoculars. ‘We’ve got a problem. Take a look at him.’

Holly focussed the glasses. ‘The giant? Do you know him?’

‘Not socially. His name’s Jaws. He kills people.’

Holly’s voice mixed fear and disbelief. ‘It’s not possible. He’s pulling down the cable!’

Bond was already scaling the ladder and forcing open the trapdoor in the roof. ‘With Jaws, anything is possible. Come on!’ He thrust his shoulder into space and turned to indicate a length of chain hooked across the door opposite to the one by which they had entered. ‘And bring that chain.’

On the platform of the lower cable car station, Jaws saw Bond emerging from the top of the car and smiled to himself. The thick oil on the cable squeezed between his fingers and the tight plait of reinforced steel fibres descended under the impetus of his bulging arms until it was level with his bared teeth. Jaws opened his mouth wide and clamped the two rows of serrated steel around the cable. Exerting enough pressure to open a locked gate, he bit deep into the metal fibres, feeling the strands part as if they were decoration on a candy bar.