Christopher Wood - James Bond and Moonraker

Bond paused at the foot of the stairway and listened. He could hear a clock ticking, but nothing else. The hall was lit by moonlight and the busts in the niches peered out like spies. Bond crossed to the door of Drax’s study. No light shone from beneath it. No sound came from within. Bond closed his fingers around the handle and pushed down. There was a soft click and the door opened. Bond paused for a moment and listened again. If by some chance the Dobermann pinschers were still in residence he wanted to give them time to announce their presence. Satisfied that there was no one there, Bond slipped into the room and closed the door behind him. The task before him was daunting. He had no idea what he was looking for and there was enough furniture there to stock an auction room. He crossed to a Louis Quinze escritoire and found it locked. This was not surprising. Neither, after what he had discovered in his room, were the two thin wires running down its back and along the top of the skirting board. The piece was either booby-trapped or attached to an alarm which would go off if anybody tampered with it.

Bond was pondering the alternatives when the door opened quickly behind him. He had hardly sunk to the floor when Trudi came in wearing a long white silk robe and a worried expression. ‘James?’

Bond rose to his feet and Trudi shrank back. Bond quickly placed a finger to his lips. ‘You whetted my appetite.’ She looked puzzled. ‘For information. Is there a safe in here?’

Trudi’s eyes widened. ‘You must be nuts!’

‘Possibly.’ Bond glanced round the room. A handsome gilt wall clock was flanked by two lights. Their position seemed incongruous in terms of the total layout of the room. The clock was not a work of art that cried out for illumination. Bond approached the clock and listened. It was not working.

Trudi watched him like someone who has hidden the object in a game of hunt the thimble. Her face was drawn with anxiety. ‘James -’

‘Would you say I was getting warm?’

‘James! You’ve got to leave.’

Bond reached up and opened the glass front of the face. The face swung with it to reveal that it was no more than a façade. Behind lay the round door of a small safe with a combination dial in the middle of it.

‘So far, so promising,’ said Bond. ‘I don’t imagine you know the combination?’

Trudi shook her head slowly. She was almost hypnotized by fear. ‘I wouldn’t tell you if I did.’

Bond looked at the graceful figure silhouetted against the moonlight and felt a quick pang of sexual hunger. What was it that made a frightened woman so desirable? Psychologists would probably be able to furnish an unflattering reason. He slipped his hand into the pocket of his trousers. ‘All right. I won’t press you.’ A slim rectangular shape had appeared in his right hand and was positioned against the side of the face next to the dial. Trudi saw something glowing and had an impression of superimposed fluorescent lines. It was like looking at an X-ray plate. Bond began to manipulate the dial with his fingertips and the pattern changed. Trudi looked round the room trying to establish that she really was in Hugo Drax’s study and not asleep in her bed dreaming some strange dream. There was a click and the safe door jumped open. Trudi did not wake up. She was still in Drax’s study. She looked at the object in Bond’s hand. ‘That’s amazing.’

Bond pressed it against her left breast and narrowed his eyes as the rectangle glowed. ‘You have a heart of gold.’

Trudi smiled nervously. ‘You won’t need an X-ray machine to see it if Mr Drax catches us here.’

Bond thought that she was probably right. He swung open the door of the safe and peered inside. At first glance it appeared to be empty and his heart sank. Then his probing fingers felt the back wall give and he exerted sideways pressure. The back of the safe slid open to reveal another space behind. It was a clever ruse reminiscent of the secret compartments built into the backs of drawers in period furniture. Bond extended his arm and withdrew a sheet of design paper folded into four.

Trudi was now trembling. ‘For God’s sake, James!’

‘All right.’ Bond’s voice was cold and hard as he shouldered her aside. It was the expression his face had worn at the most passionate moments of their lovemaking. She felt again that there was something frightening about the way in which his mood could suddenly change. To cross this man would be dangerous.

Bond quickly spread the engineering drawing on the nearest flat surface and his eyes sped over it. It showed a sectionalized drawing of a globe with a complicated section around its equator. Alongside was a drawing of a small cylindrical object with a glass phial enclosed in it. ‘Do you know what this is?’

Trudi shook her head. ‘No.’

Bond believed her. He quickly raised something to his eye, and there was a click and a small flash. Almost before Trudi had finished blinking, the drawing was being returned to the safe and the front of the clock swung shut. Bond returned the miniature camera to his pocket. ‘Right. Let’s go.’

‘You go first,’ said Trudi.

Bond hesitated for a moment and then kissed her lightly on the cheek.

‘All right. Look after yourself.’

‘And you.’

Bond moved swiftly to the door and opened it a couple of inches. He paused, listening, and then slipped out. Trudi waited for the sound of his footsteps but heard nothing. Behind her, a clock wound itself up to strike and her heart jumped at the unexpected noise. She looked warily round the moonlit room and crossed to the door. Bond had left it slightly ajar. Taking a deep breath and hearing her pulse thumping, she stepped outside and reached behind her to close the door. She was mere frightened than she had ever been in her life. The door clicked to and the sound seemed to echo through the vast vaulted hall like a pistol shot. Trudi waited for a reciprocal sound, a light to come on, but there was nothing. She stepped away from the incriminating door and almost ran to the foot of the stairs. Like a child playing a game, she told herself that everything would be all right if she could reach the first landing without being seen. She climbed two steps at a time, the weight on her heart lifting with every step. Ahead of her, like a timekeeper on the finishing line, stood a suit of armour, a mace clasped in one of its mailed fists. Trudi swept past it and moved down the long corridor.

Beneath the stairs, Chang emerged from the shadows and looked up before moving ponderously and purposefully towards the door of the study.

8

DEATH IN VENICE?

The gondola moved smoothly across the Canale di San Marco, and Bond let his gaze drift to the Isola di San Giorgio and the imposing colonnade of its beautiful white Palladian church. On all sides was beauty and a quality of light that Bond only found in Venice. A water bus went by and the waves of its wake made the gondola pitch and toss through the broken reflections of the tall buildings. Bond’s thoughts turned from beauty to duty.

A blow-up of the photograph taken of the blueprint in Drax’s safe had revealed the words VENINI GLASS printed in one corner. It had taken little effort to discover that a company trading under that name owned a shop in St Mark’s Square. Considerably more energy had been expended in trying to find out what the object depicted in the blueprint was, but without result. That it was some kind of small satellite was the considered opinion of Q’s department, but the purpose for which it had been designed remained obscure. It was unlike anything currently being used in space for research or relay purposes.

The jetties of the Piazzetta loomed up and Bond’s gondolier skilfully brought his craft in between the weed-encrusted piles. Bond stood up and stepped on to the planks. ‘Wait for me here, Franco.’