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And his left hand, outflung in the surrender of death, rested on the floor and would provide upward leverage when the , cavernous yawn The brown toecaps shifted Bond watched the shoe-leather strain as Nash stood up In a ht hand, Nash would clih the curtain of hair for the base of the girl's neck Then the snout of the Beretta would nuzzle in after the probing fingers Nash would press the trigger The roar of the train would cover theBond desperately tried to remember simple anatomy Where were the mortal places in the lower body of a man? Where did the h And the External Iliac, or whatever it was called, that becaroin If he missed both, it would be bad Bond had no illusions about being able to beat this terrific man in unarmed combat

The first violent stab of his knife had to be decisive

The brown toecaps ? There was no sound except the hollow iron clang as the great train tore through the Sih the heart of the Wasenhorn and Monte Leone The toothglass tinkled The ork creaked comfortably For a hundred yards on both sides of the little death cell rows of people were sleeping, or lying awake, thinking of their lives and loves,ouldthe corridor, death was riding with thereat Diesel, on the same hot rails

One brown shoe left the floor It would have stepped half across Bond The vulnerable arch would be open above Bond's head

Bond's ht hand flickered a few centie of the case Pressed sideways Felt the narrow shaft of the knife Drew it softly half way out without round The toe bent and took the weight Now the second foot had gone

Softly rasp the knife hard so that it wouldn't turn on a bone, and then

In one violent corkscrew of motion, Bond's body twisted up from the floor The knife flashed

The fist with the long steel finger, and all Bond's ared upwards Bond's knuckles felt flannel He held the knife in, forcing it further

A ghastly wailing cry came down to him The Beretta clattered to the floor Then the knife renched froave a convulsive twist and crashed down

Bond had planned for the fall, but, as he sidestepped towards the , a flailing hand caught hi on to the lower bunk Before he could recover himself, up fro violet, the violet teeth bared Slowly, agonizingly, the two huge hands groped for him

Bond, half on his back, kicked out blindly His shoe connected; but then his foot was held and twisted and he felt hiers scrabbled for a hold in the stuff of the bunk Now the other hand had hi into hi twisted and pulled down Soon the teeth would be at hi It

Suddenly Bond's scrabbling fingers felt so? Which way up was it? Would it shoot hireat sweating face He pressed at the base of the cloth spine

'Click!' Bond felt the recoil 'Click-click-click-click' Now Bond felt the heat under his fingers The hands on his legs were going li back A noise ca

noise Then, with a slither and a crack, the body fell forward on to the floor and the head crashed back against the ork

Bond lay and panted through clenched teeth He stared up at the violet light above the door He noticed that the loop of the filament waxed and waned It crossed his e htHe lay still, doing nothing about it

The galloping booe It sounded hollower With a final echoing roar, the Orient Express sped out into the ht and slackened speed

Bond lazily reached up and pulled at the edge of the blind He saarehouses and sidings Lights shone brightly, cleanly on the rails Good, powerful lights The lights of Switzerland

The train slid quietly to a stop

In a steady, singing silence, a small noise caHe held the book forward at the ready, just in case No ular vein No pulse The

Bond sat back and waited iain There was a lot to be done Even before he could see to Tatiana, there would have to be the cleaning up

With a jerk the long express started softly rolling Soon the train would be slaloh the foothills of the Alps into the Canton Valais Already there was a new sound in the wheels–a hurrying lilt, as if they were glad the tunnel was past

Bond got to his feet and stepped over the sprawling legs of the dead ht

What a shambles! The place looked like a butcher's shop How much blood did the body contain? He re as it didn't spread into the passage! Bond stripped the bedclothes off the bottom bunk and set to work

At last the job was done–the walls swabbed down around the covered bulk on the floor, the suitcases piled ready for the getaway at Dijon

Bond drank dohole carafe of water Then he stepped up and gently shook the shoulder of fur