Read Online James Bond and Moonraker by Christopher Wood - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Christopher Wood
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eyes, glued to the counter, suddenly saw the strap around his wrist. The strap that Q had given him in the Operations Room. The sleeve of his jacket had ridden half-way up his forearm and now clung like a second skin. Bond felt a stab of hope. If he could somehow jerk back his wrist...
Finger by finger, Bond broke apart his clenched fist and extended his hand along the arm of the seat. Every movement required a force that was borrowed from the will to survive rather than any strength that could escape the death hug of the centrifuge. If he could fire down the rotor arm it would be like striking at the head of the octopus. His teeth ground together so that he expected to feel slivers of enamel in his mouth. He fought the pain and the mind-splitting wail and strove to prize his fingers from the seat arm. As if held by adhesive, the fingers trembled and then snapped clear to rise half an inch in the air. The thumb lagged behind. Bond summoned up all his remaining strength of spirit and will for the supreme effort. The black curtain flecked with red was being drawn for the last time. He dragged down his eyelids and his wrist arched, fingers spread, like a maimed spider making its death stand.
Crack!
Bond’s eyes were closed, but the flash shone through the lids like torchlight playing on a blind. There was a deafening explosion and a crazed grinding noise that faded with the imperishable resonance of a steel heel being dragged across asphalt. As quickly as it had taken hold, Bond felt the grip loosening. His body detached itself from the seat and he came away like a sticky sweet from its wrapping. Sweat lathered his aching body. He was within half a breath of voiding the contents of his stomach. The hatch snapped open and hands tore at the straps that stopped him from slumping forward. He heard Holly’s voice above the others and pulled up his head to open his eyes.
Holly was looking at him, aghast. ‘What happened?’ It was difficult to doubt the concern on her face.
Difficult but not impossible. Bond opened his dry mouth and tried to find some saliva to lubricate his words.
‘Something must have gone wrong with the controls.’ Holly’s voice was incredulous. She stretched out a supporting hand as Bond started to pull himself out of the seat. ‘Let me help you.’
Bond brushed the hand aside. ‘No thanks, Doctor. I think I’ve had enough treatment for one day.’
6
BED AND BORED
Trudi Parker rested her beautiful blonde head against the pillow and sighed. It was eleven o’clock at night and the novel, closed, with Trudi’s finger inserted between pages 64 and 65, had long since failed to maintain its initial slender promise. It lay against the silk sheets with the author’s face on the back cover looking up at her sadly and reproachfully. In real life it was difficult to believe that any man finding himself where the author was would have had reason for either sadness or reproach. The sight of Trudi’s breasts inadequately concealed behind the fabric of her flesh-coloured silk nightdress might indeed have provided that vital fillip to the style which the book so desperately needed.
Trudi sighed again and wished that she did so because she was tired rather than bored. The writer’s style, though plodding, laboured and tortuous, fell just short of that exquisite tedium which can produce a printed soporific. On the contrary, it lumbered into the category of work that asks questions it cannot answer, raises expectations it can never fulfil and leaves the reader asking not for more, but something; in other words, unsatisfied.
Trudi stuck her tongue out at the lugubrious author and placed him face downwards on the marble-topped bedside table. What the hero’s philandering wife did when she found out that her philandering husband had fallen in love with his philandering secretary would never be revealed to her. The prospect of not sharing any more of their overlapping lives, which seemed to commute between
Finger by finger, Bond broke apart his clenched fist and extended his hand along the arm of the seat. Every movement required a force that was borrowed from the will to survive rather than any strength that could escape the death hug of the centrifuge. If he could fire down the rotor arm it would be like striking at the head of the octopus. His teeth ground together so that he expected to feel slivers of enamel in his mouth. He fought the pain and the mind-splitting wail and strove to prize his fingers from the seat arm. As if held by adhesive, the fingers trembled and then snapped clear to rise half an inch in the air. The thumb lagged behind. Bond summoned up all his remaining strength of spirit and will for the supreme effort. The black curtain flecked with red was being drawn for the last time. He dragged down his eyelids and his wrist arched, fingers spread, like a maimed spider making its death stand.
Crack!
Bond’s eyes were closed, but the flash shone through the lids like torchlight playing on a blind. There was a deafening explosion and a crazed grinding noise that faded with the imperishable resonance of a steel heel being dragged across asphalt. As quickly as it had taken hold, Bond felt the grip loosening. His body detached itself from the seat and he came away like a sticky sweet from its wrapping. Sweat lathered his aching body. He was within half a breath of voiding the contents of his stomach. The hatch snapped open and hands tore at the straps that stopped him from slumping forward. He heard Holly’s voice above the others and pulled up his head to open his eyes.
Holly was looking at him, aghast. ‘What happened?’ It was difficult to doubt the concern on her face.
Difficult but not impossible. Bond opened his dry mouth and tried to find some saliva to lubricate his words.
‘Something must have gone wrong with the controls.’ Holly’s voice was incredulous. She stretched out a supporting hand as Bond started to pull himself out of the seat. ‘Let me help you.’
Bond brushed the hand aside. ‘No thanks, Doctor. I think I’ve had enough treatment for one day.’
6
BED AND BORED
Trudi Parker rested her beautiful blonde head against the pillow and sighed. It was eleven o’clock at night and the novel, closed, with Trudi’s finger inserted between pages 64 and 65, had long since failed to maintain its initial slender promise. It lay against the silk sheets with the author’s face on the back cover looking up at her sadly and reproachfully. In real life it was difficult to believe that any man finding himself where the author was would have had reason for either sadness or reproach. The sight of Trudi’s breasts inadequately concealed behind the fabric of her flesh-coloured silk nightdress might indeed have provided that vital fillip to the style which the book so desperately needed.
Trudi sighed again and wished that she did so because she was tired rather than bored. The writer’s style, though plodding, laboured and tortuous, fell just short of that exquisite tedium which can produce a printed soporific. On the contrary, it lumbered into the category of work that asks questions it cannot answer, raises expectations it can never fulfil and leaves the reader asking not for more, but something; in other words, unsatisfied.
Trudi stuck her tongue out at the lugubrious author and placed him face downwards on the marble-topped bedside table. What the hero’s philandering wife did when she found out that her philandering husband had fallen in love with his philandering secretary would never be revealed to her. The prospect of not sharing any more of their overlapping lives, which seemed to commute between
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