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"I had a word with him before lunch," said Bond. "Gave him Krebs's knife and keys as proof. He was furious and went
straight off to see the man, muttering with rage. When he came back he said that Krebs seemed to be in a pretty bad way and
was I satisfied that he'd been punished enough? All that business about not wanting to upset the team at the last moment and so
forth. So I agreed that he'd be sent back to Germany next week and that meanwhile he would consider himself under open
arrest only allowed out of his room under surveillance."
They scrambled down a steep cliff-path to the beach and turned to the right beside the deserted small-arms range of the
Royal Marine Garrison at Deal. They walked along in silence until they came to the two-mile stretch of shingle that runs at low
tide beneath the towering white cliffs to St Margaret's Bay.
As they trudged slowly through the deep smooth pebbles Bond told her of all that had gone through his mind since the
previous day. He held nothing back and he showed each false hare as it had been started and finally run to earth, leaving
nothing but a thin scent of ill-founded suspicions and a muddle of clues that all ended in the same question mark& where was
a pattern? Where was a plan into which the clues would fit? And always the same answer, that nothing Bond knew or
suspected seemed to have any conceivable bearing on the security from sabotage of the Moonraker. And that, when all was
said and done, was the only matter with which he and the girl were concerned. Not with the death of Tallon and Bartsch, not
with the egregious Krebs, but only with the protection of the whole Moonraker project from its possible enemies.
"Isn't that so?" Bond concluded.
Gala stopped and stood for a moment looking out across the tumbled rocks and seaweed towards the quiet glimmering swell
of the sea. She was hot and out of breath from the hard going through the shingle and she thought how wonderful it would be
to bathe to step back for a moment into those childish days beside the sea before her life had been caught up in this strange
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cold profession with its tensions and hollow thrills. She glanced at the ruthless brown face of the man beside her. Did he
have moments of longing for the peaceful simple things of life? Of course not. He liked Paris and Berlin and New York and
trains and aeroplanes and expensive food, and, yes certainly, expensive women.
"Well?" said Bond, wondering if she was going to come out with some piece of evidence that he had overlooked. "What do
you think?"
"I'm sorry," said Gala. "I was dreaming. No," she answered his question. "I think you're right. I've been down here since the
beginning and although there've been odd little things from time to time, and of course the shooting, I've seen absolutely
nothing wrong. Every one of the team, from Sir Hugo down, is heart and soul behind the rocket. It's all they live for and it's
been wonderful to see the whole thing grow. The Germans are terrific workers and I can quite believe that Bartsch broke
under the strain and they love being driven by Sir Hugo and he loves driving them. They worship him. And as for security,
the place is solid with it and I'm sure that anyone who tried to get near the Moonraker would be torn to pieces. I agree with you
about Krebs and that he was probably working under Drax's orders. It was because I believed that, that I didn't bother to report
him when he went through my things. There was nothing for him to find, of course. Just private letters and so on. It would be
typical of Sir Hugo to make absolutely sure. And I must say," she said candidly, "that I admire him for it. He's a ruthless man
with deplorable manners and not a very nice face under all that red hair, but I love working for him and I'm longing for the
Moonraker to be a success. Living with it for so long has made me feel just like his men do about it."
She looked up to see his reactions.
He nodded. "After only a day I can understand that," he said. "And I suppose I agree with you. There's nothing to go on
except my intuition and that will have to look after itself. The main thing is that the Moonraker looks as safe as the Crown
Jewels, and probably safer." He shrugged his shoulders impatiently, dissatisfied with himself for disowning the intuitions that
were so much of his trade. "Come on," he said, almost roughly. "We're wasting time."
Understanding, she smiled to herself and followed.
Round the next bend of the cliff they came up with the base of the hoist, encrusted with seaweed and barnacles. Fifty yards
further on they reached the jetty, a strong tubular iron frame paved with latticed iron strips that ran out over the rocks and
beyond.
Between the two, and perhaps twenty feet up the cliff face, yawned the wide black mouth of the exhaust tunnel which
slanted up inside the cliff to the steel floor beneath the stern of the rocket. From the under-lip of the cave melted chalk drooled
like lava and there were splashes of the stuff all over the pebbles and rocks below. In his mind's eye Bond could see the blazing
white shaft of flame come howling out of the face of the cliff and he could hear the sea hiss and bubble as the liquid chalk
poured into the water.
He looked up at the narrow section of the launching dome that showed above the edge of the cliff two hundred feet up in the
sky, and imagined the four men in their gas-masks and asbestos suits watching the gauges as the terrible liquid explosive
pulsed down the black rubber tube into the stomach of the rocket. He suddenly realized that they were in range if anything
went wrong with the fuelling.
"Let's get away from here," he said to the girl.
When they had put a hundred yards between themselves and the cave Bond stopped and looked back. He imagined himself
with six tough men and all the right gear, and he wondered how he would set about attacking the site from the sea kyaks to
the jetty at low tide; a ladder to the lip of the cave? and then what? Impossible to climb the polished steel walls of the exhaust
tunnel. It would be a question of firing an anti-tank weapon through the steel floor beneath the rocket, following up with some
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