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The helicopter rocked There was a flash of silver and a Dassault Mirage with Swissa trail of black vapour fro of its fuel at this low altitude, and headed straight back at the off to port only at the last rily into his mouthpiece 'Federal Air Control This is FL-BGS For further information contact International Red Cross at Geneva 1 am just a pilot I am not a “rond de cuir” a chairborne flyer If you have lost the papers, that is not my fault I repeat, check with Geneva And, in the meantime, kindly call off the whole of the Swiss Air Force which is at present trying to ers air-sick' The voice came back, but now ers?' The pilot played his trump card 'Representatives of the world's press They have been listening to all this nonsense co from the home of the fa of your newspapers at breakfast-tientlemen And now, a little peace, yes? And please record in your log-books that I a Switzerland'

There was silence The Dassault Mirage had disappeared They were cliold-tipped needles of the glittering ht and left Ahead were the great peaks Bond looked at his watch Barely another ten lanced down the hatch The faces of Marc-Ange and of the others looked up at hih the s, their eyes glinting redly

Bond held up his thuers in their thin leather gloves

Marc-Ange nodded There was a shirting of the bodies in their seats Bond turned back and gazed ahead, looking for the soaring peak that he loathed and feared

25

Hell's Delight, etc

YES! THERE was the bloody place! Now only the peak was golden The plateau and the buildings were in indigo shadow, soon to be lit by the fullthe altitude At 10,000 feet its rotors were finding it hard to get a grip of the thin air and the pilot was struggling to keep it at maximum revs As he turned to port, in towards the face of the mountain, his radio crackled sharply and a harsh voice said, in Ger forbidden This is private property I repeat, landing forbidden!' The pilot reached up to the cockpit roof and switched off the radio He had studied his landing-point on the plateau on the ently came down The helicopter bounced once on its rubber floats and settled Already there was a group of nized some of them They all had their hands in their pockets or in their wind-jackets The engine coughed to a stop and the rotors swung round briefly in neutral and halted Bond heard the bang of the door being opened behind hiroups lined up facing each other Marc-Ange said, with authority, 'This is the Federal Police Alpine Patrol There was trouble up here on Christate'

Fritz, the 'head waiter', said angrily 'The local police have already been here They have made their report All is in order Please leave at once What is the Federal Police Alpine Patrol? I have never heard of it'

The pilot nudged Bond and pointed over to the left, to the building that housed the Count and the laboratories Adown the path towards the cable station He would be out of sight of the round Bond said 'Blast!' and scrambled out of his seat and into the cabin He leaned out of the door and shouted, 'The Big One He's getting away!'

As Bond julander Der Spion!' And then, as Bond started running away to the right, weaving and dodging, all hell broke loose There caot off their first rounds, and bullets, tracer, Sashed past Bond with the noise of hu roar of the Schmeissers and Bond was left alone

Noas round the corner of the club, and, a hundred yards down the slope, the e' for the bob-sleighs in the foundations of the cable station He e it in front of him as a shield, he fired a burst fro-birds whirred past Bond knelt and, steadying his gun with two hands, fired three rounds with his Walther, but theice-limpse of the profile under the ht! Even as Bond ran on down the slope, thehimself down on his skeleton and had disappeared as if sed up by the glistening landscape Bond got to the 'garage' Damn, they were all six-men or two-men models! No, there was one skeleton at the back! Bond hauled it out No ti-ar easily! He ran to the start and hurled hi chain in a mad forward dive that landed hihtened himself and shifted his body well forward on the fli-aroing like hell down the dark-blue gutter! He tried braking with the toes of both his boots Damned little difference! What caht across the shoulder of thebanked curve He was into it now! Bond kept his right shoulder down and inched right on the steering-are of the bank before he dived down into the dark gully again What came next on that metal ot his answer! It looked tike a straight, but the shadows caround and flew The crash of his landing al his toes into the ice, et down from perhaps fifty mph to forty Well, well! So that was 'Dead Man's Leap' What in hell was the next bit of ht'! And by God it was! - 200 yards when hearound seventy He reht of the Cresta the stars got up to over eighty No doubt so towards hi S' The toes of Bond's boots slid ly on the black ice Under his nose he could see the parallel tracks of Blofeld's runners and, between therooves of his toe-spikes The old fox! As soon as he heard the helicopter, he ot himself fixed for his only escape route But at this speed Bondup with him! For God's sake look out! Here co he could do about it He swayed his body as best he could, felt the searing crash of one elbow against one wall, was hurled across into the opposite one, and was then spewed out into the straight again God Alhty, but it hurt! He could feel the cold wind on both elbows The cloth had gone! Then so had the skin! Bond clenched his teeth And he was only half-way down, if that! But then, ahead, flashing through a patch of ht, was the other body, Blofeld! Bond took a chance, heaved hiun The wind tried to tear hiun He opened his un between his teeth, flexed the ice-caked leather on his right hand Then he got the gun in his right hand, lifted his toes off the ice, and went like hell But now the iant bank reared up ahead This would be 'Hell's Delight'! Oh well, if he could in shooting Bond dug his toes in, got a glimpse of an ice-wall ahead and to the left, and in a flash was cliht up! God, in a split second he would be over the edge! Bond haht, tearing at the steering-arm Reluctantly the sliver of aluminium answered and Bond, inches fro down into blackness and then out again on to a ure, with chips of ice fountaining up froot off two shots He thought they were good ones, but now theHis lips drew back from his teeth in an almost animal snarl You bastard! You're a dead duck! You can't stop or fire back I' 1 Soon I shall only be ten, five yards behind you Then you'll have had it!

But the shadows concealed another hazard, long transverse waves in the ice - 'The Bone-shaker'! Bond crashed fro almost torn froun, felt his sto i But then it was over and Bond sucked in air through his clenched teeth Now for a length of straight! But as that ahead on the track? It was so leaily like a child's rubber ball Had Blofeld, now only about thirty yards ahead, dropped so, a bit of his equipe of terror that alround his toes into the ice No effect! He was ga down on it On the grenade!

Bond, sick in the sto had Blofeld put on it? How long had he held it with the pin out? The only hope was to pray to God and race it!

The next thing Bond kneas that the whole track had blown up in his face and that he and his skeleton bob were flying through the air He landed in soft snoith the skeleton on top of hiht

Later, Bond was to estimate that he lay there only a matter of minutes It was a treht hi to his feet, up to his belly in snow He looked vaguely up to where it had co up, because now there was the glare of flames and a tower of s crack of another explosion and Blofeld's block disintegrated, great chunks of it crashing down the iant snowballs that bounded off doards the tree-line By God, they'll start another avalanche! thought Bond vaguely Then he realized that it didn't ht, almost underneath the cable railway And now the station went up and Bond stared fascinated as the great wires, their tension released, ca down thehe could do about it but stand and watch If they cut him down, they cut him down But they lashed past in the snorapped themselves briefly round the tall pylon above the tree-line, tore it away in a e of the shoulder

Bond laughed weakly with pleasure and began feeling hie His torn elbows he already knew about, but his forehead hurt like hell He felt it gingerly, then scooped up a handful of snow and held it against the wound The blood showed black in the ht He ached all over, but there didn't see broken He bent dazedly to the twisted reone, had probably saved his head, and both runners were bent There were a lot of rattles fro would run It had bloody well got to! There was no other way for Bond to get down the un? Gone to hell, of course Wearily Bond heaved himself over the wall of the track and slid carefully down, clutching the reot to the bottoan to slip doards, but heIn fact, the bent runners were a blessing and the bob scraped slowly down, leaving great furrows in the ice There were more turns, more hazards, but, at a bare ten h the tree-line and into 'Paradise Alley', the finishing straight, where he slowly came to a halt He left the skeleton where it stopped and scrambled over the low ice-wall Here the snoas beaten hard by spectators' feet and he stu his aches, and occasionally dabbing at his head with handfuls of snow What would he find at the bottom, by the cable station? If it was Blofeld, Bond would be a dead duck! But there were no lights on in the station into which the cables now trailed li! But what of Marc-Ange and his merry men, and the helicopter?