DIAMONDS ARE FOREVER BY IAN FLEMING

Bond took the Beretta, feeling the warmth of her on the metal. He flicked out the magazine. Three rounds left. And one in the breach. He replaced the magazine, put the gun on safe and tucked it into the top of his trousers. For the first time he realized that his coat was gone. One of his shirt sleeves hung in tatters. He tore it off and threw it away. He felt for the cigarette case in his right-hand hip pocket. It was gone. But in the left-hand pocket there was still his passport and note-case. He pulled them out. By the light of the moon he could see that they were cracked arid dented. He felt for his money in the note-case. It was still there. He put the things back in his pocket.

For a while they drove on with only the purr of the little engine and the clickety-click of the wheels to break the looming silence of the night. For as far as they could see, the thin silver line of the rails spun on towards the horizon with only an occasional break, marked by a points lever, where a rusty branch line curved off into the dark mass of the Spectre Mountains on their right. To their left, there was nothing except the endless floor of the desert on which the hint of dawn was beginning to edge the writhing cactus clumps with blue, and, two miles away, the gun-metal shimmer of the moon on Highway 95.

The handcar sang happily on down the rails. There were no controls to bother with except a brake lever and a kind of joystick with a twist-grip accelerator which the girl held fully open with the speedometer steady at thirty. And the miles and the minutes clicked by, and every now and then Bond turned painfully in his seat and inspected the blossoming red glow in the sky behind them.

They had been going nearly an hour when a thin humming undertone in the air or on the rails made Bond stiffen. Again he looked back over his shoulder. Was there a tiny glow-worm glimmer between them and the false red dawn of the burning ghost town?

Bond’s scalp tingled. “D’you see anything back there?”

She turned her head. Then, without replying, she slowed the engine down so that they were coasting quietly.

They both listened. Yes. It was in the rails. A soft quivering, not more than a distant sigh.

“It’s The Cannonball,” said Tiffany flatly. She gave a sharp twist to the accelerator and the handcar sped on again.

“What can she do?” asked Bond.

“Maybe sixty.”

“How far to Rhyolite?”

“Around thirty.”

Bond worked on the figures for a moment in silence. “It’s going to be a near thing. Can’t tell how far away he is. Can you get anything more out of this?”

“Not a scrap,” she said grimly. “Even if my name was Casey Jones instead of Case.”

“We’ll be all right,” said Bond. “You keep her rolling. Maybe he’ll blow up or something.”

“Oh, sure,” she said. “Or maybe the spring’ll run down and he’s left the key of his engine at ‘home in his pants pocket.”

For fifteen minutes they sped along in silence and now Bond could clearly see the great pilot-light of the engine cutting through the night, not more than five miles away, and an angry fountain above it from the woodsparks flaming out of the great dome of the smoke-stack. The rails were trembling beneath them and what had been a distant sigh was a low threatening murmur.

Perhaps he’ll run out of wood, thought Bond. On an impulse he said casually to the girl, “I suppose we’re all right for gas?”

“Oh, sure,” said Tiffany. “Put in a whole can. There’s no indicator, but these things’ll run for ever on a gallon of gas.”

Almost before the words were out of her mouth, and as if to comment on them, the little engine gave a deprecating cough. ‘Put. Put-put.’ Then it ran merrily on.

“Christ,” said Tiffany. “D’you hear that?”

Bond said nothing. He felt the palms of his hands go wet.

And again. ‘Put. Put-put.”

Tiffany Case gingerly nursed the accelerator.

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