‘The shuttle ignition!’
‘There must be a fault in the system. Check the circuits!’
Before the first officer could obey the order there was a deafening roar and the 747 lurched as if swatted in mid-air by an invisible hand. The cabin trembled and the roar increased in intensity.
‘What the hell’s happening?’
‘The shuttle’s taking off!’
‘It can’t —’ The voice broke off as it was overtaken by the terrible reality. An eldritch wail nearly split their eardrums and a blinding light burned their staring eyes as if the door of a blast furnace had suddenly been wrenched open before their faces. The orbital engines of the Moonraker achieved full combustion and a ball of flame engulfed the cabin, scorching the screams out of the crew’s throats. Like an insect poised after delivering its deadly sting, the Moonraker shuddered in mid-air and the fiery exhaust from its tail continued to play on the cabin of the stricken 747.. Almost simultaneously it roared away in a steep climb. The nose of the 747 drooped and flames raced the length of the fuselage. Like a heavy cinder it started to fall out of the sky.
Admiral Sir Miles Messervy, K.C.M.G., alias M, gazed thoughtfully out of the window of his eighth floor office overlooking Regent’s Park. The office belonged to Trans-world Consortium but this was also an alias for an adjunct of the British Ministry of Defence which might have been termed—the Secret Service. ‘Might have been’ if M had nothing to do with the appellation. He would have found such terminology too showy and dramatic for his puritan, sea dog tastes. He preferred the obscurantism of Trans-world Consortium and had even regretted, though accepted the wisdom of, the change from the organization’s original title of Universal Export. He reached out across the redleather-topped desk and helped himself to a pipeful of tobacco from the polished brass fourteen-pounder shell base that served him as a memento of his naval days and a tobacco jar, in that order.
There was an atmosphere of brooding menace in the air that perhaps communicated itself from the clouds lowering over the park. Perhaps not. M was uneasy. He felt his eye drawn to the telephone on his desk as- if receiving some telepathic message that it was about to ring. Just below the receiver was a light that glowed red when a top secret call was being placed from the upper echelons of the Ministry of Defence. The light came on when kings died and presidents were assassinated.
As M watched, the telephone rang and the light glowed red.
M’s pulse did not change an iota. He held his half-filled pipe in his left hand and picked up the receiver. ‘M here.’ He listened to the urgent, harassed voice on the end of the telephone and the lines at the corner of his clear, grey eyes deepened. ‘Very well, Minister,’ he said finally. ‘We’ll get on to it.’ He replaced the receiver and paused to reflect for an instant before flicking up the switch on the intercom that connected him to his secretary.
Her voice came through immediately. ‘Yes, sir?’
M took a deep breath and spoke with a voice long since purged of all emotion. ‘Moneypenny. I want 007. As fast as you can get him.’
2
‘ENJOY YOUR FLIGHT’
The face was dark and clean-cut with a three-inch scar showing whitely down the right cheek. The eyes were wide and level under straight, rather long black brows. The hair was black, parted on the left, and brushed so that a thick black comma fell over the right eyebrow. The longish straight nose ran down to a narrow upper lip below which was a wide and finely drawn but cruel mouth. The line of the jaw was firm and ruthless.
The man was wearing a dark blue alpaca suit, a Sea Island cotton shirt and plain black shoes made for him by John Lobb of St James’s Street, London. His tie was black and hand-knitted and a trifle thinner than contemporary fashion dictated. But James Bond was impervious to the transient fads of the male fashion world. Such details were of no interest to him. He pulled out a gunmetal cigarette case and considered his fiftieth cigarette of the day. As he looked down at the scuffed metal he could almost see the report of his last medical check-up which M had slid across the desk, one eyebrow raised above those damnably clear grey eyes:
The officer admits to a daily consumption of alcohol in excess of half a bottle of spirits of seventy proof or above. He also smokes an average of sixty non-filter cigarettes per day. These cigarettes are specially made for him from a mixture of Turkish and Balkan tobaccos with a higher nicotine content than ordinary brands. On examination, this regimen [Bond smiled at the recollection of the word ‘regimen’] is beginning to have the expected effect. The tongue is furred. The blood pressure raised at 180/100. The liver is becoming palpable. There is no diminution in the frequency or severity of the occipital headaches referred to in a previous report. The spasm in the trapezius muscles has increased in intensity and the ‘fibrositis’ nodules are becoming more manifest.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that the health of the officer is being systematically undermined by his
Unequivocal. That was the least that could be said of the report. M had made no strictures but suggested that Bond consider the implications of his check-up. Seriously.
James Bond decided to do so as he smoked his fiftieth cigarette of the day. He slid it between his lips, snapped the gunmetal case shut and reached for his battered Ronson. The small, orgasmic flame flickered and he drew the smoke in greedily. He felt in perfect shape, and when he did not he would take whatever action he felt necessary of his own accord. Medicals were for overweight men who sat behind desks telling other people to do things. He wondered how most doctors would make out under their own stethoscopes.
Smoking was also, for Bond, part of the ritual of flying, and he enjoyed rituals. He enjoyed a well-made vodka martini too. He looked round the cabin of the eight-seater private jet that had been sent to speed him back from Dakar and located a small refrigerator that looked promising. It was tucked just behind the entrance to the cramped pilot’s cabin and below a rack of glossy magazines that Bond had already flicked through. With an intuition that Bond found wholly admirable the stewardess appeared through the opening and slid the door closed behind her. She was a tall girl with a wide, sensuous mouth and well-shaped breasts. Her smile had not been over-used flying the routes followed by the commercial airlines and it came across as a genuine expression of a desire to please. Her clothing was simple. A beautifully cut grey woollen skirt and a white silk shirt with matching stock.
‘Would you like a drink?’ she said.
Bond returned her smile. ‘I knew you were a mind reader. Do we have any Gordon’s gin or a grain-based vodka?’
