‘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.’
12
SUGAR LOAF — ONE LUMP OR TWO?
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 cafe 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
