Moonraker (james Bond, #3)

The third novel in Ian Fleming's James Bond series opens on a routine Monday at the headquarters of the British Secret Service near Regent's Park in London. James Bond, designated 007 and the senior member of the elite Double Zero Section (agents licensed to kill), finishes a practice shoot and settles into paperwork until the red telephone connecting him to M, the head of the Service, rings.

M is uncharacteristically awkward. He asks Bond what he knows about Sir Hugo Drax, a national hero and multimillionaire. Bond recounts Drax's story: during the German Ardennes offensive of winter 1944, a sabotage team blew up an Allied liaison headquarters. Among the wounded was an unidentified man with half his face destroyed and total amnesia. He was eventually matched to the records of Hugo Drax, a no-next-of-kin orphan from Liverpool. After disappearing for three years, Drax resurfaced as a commodity trader operating from Tangier who had cornered the market on Columbite, a rare ore essential for jet engines. He built a fortune, returned to England, and became a beloved public figure whose crowning act was offering to fund the Moonraker, a super-atomic rocket with a range covering every European capital. The Queen knighted him, and the rocket is nearly ready.

M reveals the real reason for the meeting: Drax cheats at cards. Lord Basildon, Chairman of Blades, an exclusive London gambling club, has noticed Drax's improbable winning at bridge and fears a scandal. M enlists Bond, who once trained with an American card-sharp expert, to identify Drax's method. That evening at Blades, Bond identifies the cheat: a polished silver cigarette case on the table that functions as a shiner, a reflective surface that mirrors every card Drax deals.

Bond proposes to beat Drax at his own game. He takes Benzedrine dissolved in champagne to stay sharp while appearing drunk, then escalates the stakes to ruinous heights with apparent recklessness. When the cards are cut to him, he swaps the legitimate pack for a pre-stacked deck. Bond deals Drax an apparently unbeatable hand of aces and honors, knowing Drax will see them in the shiner and be unable to resist. Bond bids a grand slam in clubs and redoubles. The hand is a lay-down victory that renders Drax's high cards worthless. Humiliated and owing roughly fifteen thousand pounds, Drax delivers a chilling parting line: "I should spend the money quickly, Commander Bond" (85).

The next morning, M summons Bond again. Major Tallon, the security officer at the Moonraker site, was shot dead in a pub by Egon Bartsch, a German electronics expert who then killed himself. Tallon had reported something suspicious to the Ministry of Supply the previous afternoon but was killed before he could elaborate. The practice launch is scheduled for noon on Friday, less than four days away. Of the 53 people on the coastal site between Dover and Deal, 50 are German guided-missile experts recruited by Drax. The Cabinet insists the launch proceed unless concrete evidence of sabotage emerges, and M assigns Bond as Tallon's replacement.

Bond consults Assistant Commissioner Vallance of Scotland Yard's Special Branch, who reveals that Gala Brand, Drax's private secretary, is actually an undercover Special Branch agent. At the Ministry of Supply, Professor Train explains the rocket's specifications and acknowledges that sabotage would be devastatingly simple.

At the site, Bond meets Drax's inner circle: Gala, who is cool and hostile; Dr. Walter, an elderly German rocket scientist; and Willy Krebs, Drax's aide-de-camp, whom Bond instinctively distrusts. The fifty-foot rocket stands inside a deep shaft beneath the launching dome. All the German technicians wear close-shaven heads paired with luxuriant moustaches, a combination Bond finds suspicious. That night, Bond discovers an Admiralty chart in Tallon's filing cabinet with two nearly invisible lines forming a cross-bearing at a point in the sea. He finds two sets of fingerprints on the chart and later matches one to Krebs.

Gala warms to Bond after he reveals he has noticed her spyhole into Drax's office. Together they explore the seaward defenses; Bond confirms the waters off the jetty could accommodate a submarine. As they rest beneath the cliffs, a deliberate dynamite explosion brings tons of chalk crashing down on them. Bond shields Gala, and they narrowly survive. When they return to the house, Drax, Krebs, and Walter are visibly shocked. Bond notices the dinner table was set for only three.

During a drive to London the next day, Gala pickpockets Drax's personal notebook. She has long been suspicious of Drax and Walter, who secretly recalculate her flight-plan figures. In a hotel bathroom, she discovers Drax's gyro settings diverge from hers by roughly 90 degrees, meaning they would aim the Moonraker directly at London. As she tries to return the notebook, Krebs catches her hand and declares, "Miss Brand is a spy" (212). Drax strikes her and knocks her unconscious. She wakes tied to a chair in a house near Buckingham Palace, where Krebs addresses Drax as mein Kapitän over a radar homing device aimed at the city. Gala realizes the warhead is atomic and that Drax intends to destroy London at noon the next day.

Bond, waiting in London when Gala fails to appear, stakes out Drax's car and sees Krebs bundling her inside. He gives chase in his Bentley, but Drax forces another vehicle off the road and sends newsprint rolls cascading from a lorry into Bond's path. The Bentley crashes, and Drax retrieves the unconscious Bond.

At the site, Drax holds them at gunpoint and reveals his true identity: Graf Hugo von der Drache, a German who served in the SS (the Nazi security and intelligence organization) under sabotage chief Otto Skorzeny. He led a commando unit during the Ardennes offensive and engineered his cover story by exploiting the hospital identity-matching system. After the war, he murdered and robbed to fund his start in Tangier, then sold his plan to Moscow. The Soviets provided Dr. Walter and an atomic warhead that has secretly replaced the Ministry's dummy. A Soviet submarine will evacuate Drax and his team after the launch.

Bond deliberately provokes Drax into a beating, distracting him from a blowtorch and desk lighter left on the desk. After Drax departs, Bond ignites the blowtorch with his teeth and burns through Gala's bonds. They fabricate a false escape trail and hide inside a ventilator shaft, enduring a superheated steam search that blisters their skin but fails to flush them out.

After Drax sets the false coordinates and locks the dome, Bond descends the shaft, reaches the gantry, and resets the gyroscopes to Gala's original North Sea flight plan. He and Gala seal themselves in Drax's bathroom as the countdown reaches zero. The rocket fires with a blast that buckles the walls. The BBC broadcast follows the Moonraker's trajectory into the North Sea, where Drax's escape submarine, having submerged after being challenged by a British patrol vessel, is capsized by the impact and destroyed.

The following afternoon, M debriefs Bond. The government covers up the story, mourning Drax as a patriot lost in a tragic accident. Gala receives the George Cross, and M orders both her and Bond abroad for a month before their injuries attract attention. Bond waits for Gala in St James's Park, planning a trip through France. When she arrives, she tells him she is marrying her fiancé, Detective-Inspector Vivian, the next afternoon. Bond absorbs the disappointment and makes a graceful exit as they part ways.