‘Haven’t we met before somewhere?’ He placed a hand gently on hers.
Holly scowled up- at him. ‘The face is familiar —’ she withdrew her hand ‘— as is the manner.’
Bond raised an eyebrow. ‘You didn’t seem to object too much in Venice.’
‘That was before you walked out on me.’
‘Nearly tripping over your suitcase.’ Bond laughed scornfully. ‘Come on, Holly. You weren’t planning to stay around to see if I ate muffins for breakfast.’
Holly banished the fifth carbon of a smile. ‘So?’
Bond placed an avuncular arm beneath Holly’s elbow and began to lead her towards the cable car station. ‘So don’t let’s waste any more time working against each other. I’m quite happy to share everything I’ve found with you.’
‘Which presumably means you haven’t found very much.’
Bond shook his head. ‘Such cynicism is an unattractive trait in one so young and lovely. Let me supply evidence of my good intent. I’ve checked Drax’s warehouse in town and it’s empty. He’s obviously moving everything out.’
Holly’s eyes were cool. ‘That comes as no surprise. Six of those planes have taken off since I’ve been here.’
‘And do you know where they’re going?’ Bond watched Holly’s expression carefully as she replied.
‘Do you think I’d still be here if I did?’ The answer made sense and her eyes did not flicker. Bond was inclined to believe her.
‘Probably not. Right,’ he nodded towards the open door of the cable car, ‘we’d better find out.’
Holly paused warily. ‘I’m not certain if I really trust you.’
Bond shrugged and stepped into the cable car. ‘I’m not certain if I really trust you. It makes it more exciting, doesn’t it?’
Holly hesitated and then stepped into the car. The door slammed shut behind her and the car jerked forward into space. She and Bond were the only people aboard. Bond looked up to the glass windows of the docking station but could see no one. There was something about their situation, isolated in space, that scared him. A sudden premonition of evil in the surrounding air.
‘Where do you suggest we start?’
Bond had no time to reply to Holly’s question before the car suddenly jerked to a halt. She fell against him and quickly transferred her weight to a rail. The car swung in the air disconcertingly. ‘What’s happened?’
Bond reached out a hand. ‘Give me your binoculars.’ Holly handed them to him and Bond turned them on the lower cable car station. As he focussed the glasses a door opened in the side of the engine room and a stooped figure emerged and unwound to its full awesome height. An icicle of terror buried itself in Bond’s stomach. He reached up and pulled down the steel ladder that was attached to the roof of the cable car.
‘What’s wrong?’ Holly’s voice was tense.
Bond handed her the binoculars. ‘We’ve got a problem. Take a look at him.’
Holly focussed the glasses. ‘The giant? Do you know him?’
‘Not socially. His name’s Jaws. He kills people.’
Holly’s voice mixed fear and disbelief. ‘It’s not possible. He’s pulling down the cable!’
Bond was already scaling the ladder and forcing open the trapdoor in the roof. ‘With Jaws, anything is possible. Come on!’ He thrust his shoulder into space and turned to indicate a length of chain hooked across the door opposite to the one by which they had entered. ‘And bring that chain.’
On the platform of the lower cable car station, Jaws saw Bond emerging from the top of the car and smiled to himself. The thick oil on the cable squeezed between his fingers and the tight plait of reinforced steel fibres descended under the impetus of his bulging arms until it was level with his bared teeth. Jaws opened his mouth wide and clamped the two rows of serrated steel around the cable. Exerting enough pressure to open a locked gate, he bit deep into the metal fibres, feeling the strands part as if they were decoration on a candy bar.
Bond had just scrambled on to the swaying roof and was reaching down for the length of chain when there was a crack like an ice floe breaking up. The cable car tilted sharply sideways and a hissing cobra of cable serpentined backwards to snap at the air above his head and fall limply into the valley. Bond slid down the roof and was just able to grasp one of the cable guides. His feet dangled in space. A wind had blown up from nowhere and whistled eerily through the wires. Holly’s worried face appeared through the hatch. ‘Hang on!’
Bond closed his eyes and felt his feet kicking against empty air. He spoke through clenched teeth. ‘The thought had occurred to me.’ He waited until the pendulum swing of the unbalanced cable car had become less manic and chose his moment to lunge upwards for the edge of the opening, drawing his legs after him. After two tries he was able to press against the top of the cable car as if balancing precariously on the side of a steep roof. One glance at what lay below was enough to make him feel physically sick. The ground dissolved into a mist and the pattern of the wind racing through the grass transferred itself to the inside of his brain. He closed his eyes tight and clung like a bur until the nausea had passed.
‘James!’ Holly’s voice intimated further disasters. ‘He’s getting into the other car.’
Bond twisted his head and looked down. He had expected that at any second the remaining cable would snap and the car plunge into the gully. What he saw was scarcely less alarming: Jaws hauling himself on to the roof of the lower cable car. He must have swung out like a giant gibbon from the station. It could only mean that he had an accomplice in the control room. As if to prove the surmise, Jaws made a clumsy backwards gesture with his arm, and the two cars began to jerk towards each other. Once again, Bond was forced to cling on for his life. Suspended by only one cable, the upper car was swinging like a lantern. Bond pulled himself into the roof opening and eased out his Walther PPK. ‘I think we’re going to have a visitor.’
Holly clung tight-lipped to one of the rails as the car swayed. ‘How are you going to use that thing?’
It was a question Bond chose not to answer. Reeling from side to side at a crazy angle, there was no chance of getting off a well-aimed shot. He would have to wait until Jaws was on top of theia. That was not going to take long. As a gust of wind made the car shudder, the lower car planed remorselessly towards them. Jaws knelt on the roof, his steel teeth glinting in the sunlight.