Now outer space belongs to James Bond 007
A very regrettable incident has ocurred. A US MOONRAKER space shuttle, on loan to the British, has disappeared — apparently into thin air. Who has the spacecraft? The Russians? Hugo Drax, multi-millionaire supporter of the NASA space programme, thinks so. But Commander James Bond knows better.
Aided by the beautiful — and efficient — Dr Holly Goodhead, 007 embarks on his most dangerous mission yet. Objective: to prevent one of the most insane acts of human destruction ever contemplated. Destination: outer space. The stakes are high. Astronomical even. But only Bond could take the rough so smoothly. Even when he’s out of this world...
Christopher Wood
James Bond and
Moonraker
TRIAD PANTHER
Published in 1979 by Triad/Panther Books Frogmore, St Albans, Herts AL2 2NF
ISBN 0 586 05034 5
Triad Paperbacks Ltd is an imprint of Chatto, Bodley Head & Jonathan Cape Ltd and Granada Publishing Ltd
First published in Great Britain by
Jonathan Cape Ltd 1979
Copyright © Glidrose Publications as Trustee 1979
Made and printed in Great Britain by Richard Clay (The Chaucer Press) Ltd Bungay, Suffolk
Set in Linotype Plantin
This book is sold subject to the condition that it shall not, by way of trade or otherwise, be lent, re-sold, hired out or otherwise circulated without the publisher’s prior consent in any form of binding or cover other than that in which it is published and without a similar condition including this condition being imposed on the subsequent purchaser.
Contents
The End — and the Beginning
‘Enjoy Your Flight’
a.m. with M and Q
Hugo Drax At Home
A Whip-Round for Mr Bond
Bed and Bored
Behind the Clock
Death in Venice?
An Ear for Music
The Quickness of the Hand
Steel Teeth in Rio
Sugar Loaf — One Lump or Two?
The Hidden City
Rendezvous in Space
Can You See Me, Mother Earth?
Take the Weight off Your Feet
A Dream Dies Screaming
Destroy to Live
Coming Down to Earth
To Vernon Harris,
with affectionate gratitude
1
THE END — AND THE BEGINNING
The 747 was flying high, nosing aside wisps of cloud as a celebrity might brush past eager reporters. It was not alone. On its back was the squat outline of the space shuttle it was transporting, the word MOONRAKER distinctively lettered on its sides. Seen from afar, the shuttle looked like a giant fish riding on the back of a cruising whale.
Inside the control cabin the captain’s eyes flickered over the panels of instruments, the wavering needles, the banks of coloured lights. There was nothing abnormal. The 747 was flying itself. There appeared to be no adverse reaction to the unaccustomed load. The captain was surprised and relieved. It proved what a hell of a good aeroplane the 747 was. The captain indulged a twinge of patriotic pride and wondered, not for the first time, why the space shuttle was being lent to the British. Was it just for an air show? It seemed a gesture both expansive and expensive at a time when the Administration was cutting back savagely on overseas spending and when the space programme itself was being starved of funds to the point where there had been accusations in the Senate that space was being abandoned to the Russians.
Maybe the British boffins had come up with something that NASA could use. That seemed the most likely explanation. While the shuttle was in England, the British scientists could run their own tests and confer with their American colleagues. Despite limited resources it was difficult to believe that the British had not come up with something since Bluestreak, if only at the drawing board stage.
Beside the captain, the first officer glanced at his watch and moistened his lips. He was thinking of pleasure, not business; of an apartment off the Bayswater Road in London where a lady of his acquaintance would be checking that there was still enough Jack Daniels left in the bottle and that an extra towel hung in the bathroom. She would do this before she went to work in a library so that she could get home by six with any extra supplies that were necessary and take a bath and scent herself, and wait for him. He knew she would be waiting because he had telephoned her in the middle of the night before the trip. She was always waiting. Always glad to see him. She was a passionate girl but, like many English girls, ashamed of her carnality and inclined to cloak it in coyness. She would open the door to him in the most provocative underwear she possessed and complain that she had been expecting him an hour later. He would back her into the bedroom and make love to her and she would protest at the same instant as the dry nail varnish flaked off against his punctured back and her well-cleaned teeth bit into his shoulder.
He wondered what shape the evening would take. She did not always open the door in a neglige. Normally she would be waiting to receive him in a dress of becoming simplicity, perhaps adorned with a large antique brooch. She would take the flowers he proffered with small cries of joy and stand on tiptoe to push forward her cheek for a kiss. When it would be into the small sitting room and a vase for the flowers and a Jack Daniels on the rocks for him. And all the time a constant flow of questions that never waited for answers, and reminiscences about people he had never met. ‘You know, it was frightfully funny, but...’ It never was funny, or even interesting, but he would listen with a good-humoured expression on his face and sip his drink and let his eyes enjoy the breasts and the curve of the skilfully aligned legs that the rest of his body would be savouring in good time.
