“James,” she cried. She stepped close to him. “Don’t go on. I know you’re going to say something dreadful. Please stop, James.”
“Come on, Gala,” said Bond roughly. “What the hell does it matter. It’s a bloody miracle we’ve got the chance.” He moved away from her. He walked to the doors leading out into the shaft.
“And then,” he said, and he held up the precious lighter in his right hand, “I shall walk out of here and shut the doors and go and light a last cigarette under the tail of the Moonraker.”
“God,” she whispered. “What are you saying? You’re mad.” She looked at him through eyes wide with horror.
“Don’t be ridiculous,” said Bond impatiently. “What the hell is there else to do? The explosion will be so terrific that one won’t feel anything. And it’s bound to work with all that fuel vapour hanging around. It’s me or a million people in London. The warhead won’t go off. Atom bombs don’t explode like that. It’ll be melted probably. There’s just a chance you may get away. Most of the explosion will take the line of least resistance through the roof-and down the exhaust pit, if I can work the machinery that opens up the floor.” He smiled. “Cheer up,” he said, walking over to her and taking one of her hands. “The boy stood on the burning deck. I’ve wanted to copy him since I was five.”
Gala pulled her hand away. “I don’t care what you say,” she said angrily. “We’ve got to think of something else. You don’t trust me to have any ideas. You just tell me what you think we’ve got to do.” She walked over to the wall map and pressed down the switch. “Of course if we have to use the lighter we have to.” She gazed at the map of the false flight plan, barely seeing it. “But the idea of you walking in there alone and standing in the middle of all those ghastly fumes from the fuel and calmly flicking that thing and then being blown to dust… And anyway, if we have to do it, we’ll do it together. I’d rather that than be burnt to death in here. And anyway,” she paused, “I’d like to go with you. We’re in this together.”
Bond’s eyes were tender as he walked towards her and put an arm round her waist and hugged her to him. “Gala, you’re a darling,” he said simply. “And if there’s any other way we’ll take it. But,” he looked at his watch, “it’s past midnight and we’ve to decide quickly. At any moment it may occur to Drax to send guards down to see that we’re all right, and God knows what time he’ll be coming down to set the gyros.”
Gala twisted her body round like a cat. She gazed at him with her mouth open, her face taut with excitement. “The gyros,” she whispered, “to set the gyros.” She leant weakly back again the wall, her eyes searching Bond’s face. “Don’t you see?” her voice was on the edge of hysteria. “After he’s gone, we could alter the gyros back, back to the old flight plan, then the rocket will simply fall into the North Sea where it’s supposed to go.”
She stepped away from the wall and seized his shirt in both hands and looked imploringly at him. “Can’t we?” she said. “Can’t we?”
“Do you know the other settings?” asked Bond sharply.
“Of course I do,” she said urgently. “I’ve been living with them for a year. We won’t have a weather report but we’ll just have to chance that. The forecast this morning said we would have the same conditions as today.”
“By God,” said Bond. “We might do it. If only we can hide somewhere and make Drax think we’ve escaped. What about the exhaust pit? If I can work the machine to open the floor.”
“It’s a straight hundred-foot drop,” said Gala, shaking her head. “And the walls are polished steel. Just like glass. And there’s no rope or anything down here. They cleared everything out of the workshop yesterday. And anyway there are guards on the beach.”