Moonraker recap

M asks Bond to determine how national hero Sir Hugo Drax is cheating at cards, and Bond defeats him at his own method. When a security officer is murdered at Drax's Moonraker missile site, Bond joins the investigation beside undercover policewoman Gala Brand. Suspicious German staff, falsified survey information, and Drax's violence reveal that the project is not what it appears. Gala discovers that the missile is aimed at London and is captured; Bond is also seized after surviving an attempted killing. Drax admits he is a German revanchist and has armed the rocket with a Soviet nuclear warhead. Bond and Gala escape from beneath the launch mechanism, redirect the missile into the North Sea, and survive. The explosion destroys the submarine carrying Drax and his followers. Gala then tells Bond she is engaged, leaving him to return alone to ordinary service.

Bond expects a quiet week of headquarters duty until M asks for confidential help at Blades. Sir Hugo Drax, the industrialist financing Britain's Moonraker missile, has been winning heavily at bridge, and M believes he is cheating. Drax is publicly celebrated as a wartime survivor and self-made patriot, so a scandal would damage a project of national importance. Bond watches Drax and identifies his method. He then joins M at the table, provokes Drax into very high stakes, and uses the same advantage against him. Drax loses a substantial sum but leaves without public exposure, regarding Bond as a personal enemy rather than knowing his profession.

A security officer at the Moonraker site is shot before he can report serious concerns. Bond is assigned to replace him for the final days before the test launch and coordinates with police official Ronnie Vallance. At the coastal compound he meets Drax's secretary, Gala Brand, who is secretly gathering evidence for the police, and encounters Drax's insular German technical staff, including Krebs and Walter. Bond finds the atmosphere disciplined but hostile. Krebs searches rooms, Drax discourages questions, and apparently minor discrepancies around the site suggest that the murder concerns more than ordinary industrial security.

Bond and Gala compare suspicions while trying not to expose her covert role. Evidence connects the murdered officer's concerns to unusual activity near the coast and to the project's tightly controlled inner staff. Bond investigates the cliffs and survey points around the launch area. An engineered landslide nearly kills him, confirming that someone at the site is prepared to eliminate inquiry rather than merely conceal an administrative offence. He survives and continues working toward the launch deadline, increasingly convinced that Drax's public status and the Moonraker's stated test plan conceal a hostile purpose.

Gala obtains access to Drax's private information and realises that the guidance figures do not match the announced launch into the North Sea. Her attempt to preserve the evidence is discovered, and Drax's men capture and interrogate her. Bond follows the trail but is also taken. The investigators are now prisoners inside the project on the eve of the launch, while public officials outside still expect a triumphant test. Drax controls the compound, its communications, and a technical team personally loyal to him, leaving Bond and Gala little chance to warn London before the firing sequence begins.

Drax tells Bond and Gala that his British identity is false. A former German soldier, he has built his reputation and the Moonraker project as instruments of revenge. The missile is fitted with a Soviet-supplied nuclear warhead and targeted at London, where its destruction will be presented as a disastrous test accident. Bond and Gala are confined where the launch exhaust should kill them and erase evidence. They work free under extreme time pressure and reach the rocket's controls, but the launch sequence is already progressing and Drax's men are preparing to escape by sea.

Bond and Gala alter the Moonraker's guidance so that it returns to the North Sea instead of striking London, then escape the launch area before the blast. Drax and his German staff withdraw aboard a Soviet submarine. The redirected nuclear missile falls near the submarine and destroys it, killing Drax and his followers while London survives. Authorities issue a cover story for the explosion and the loss of the project. Bond anticipates that his closeness with Gala may continue, but she reveals that she is engaged to a fellow police officer and is due to marry him. Bond accepts the separation and returns to the solitary routine of his work.

Drax reveals that the Moonraker carries a nuclear warhead and is aimed at London, not the North Sea. His public British identity is a construction: he is a German former soldier seeking revenge, aided by Soviet matériel and a loyal German team. Bond and Gala escape confinement beneath the rocket's exhaust and alter its guidance so that it will fall into the sea. Drax and his men flee aboard a Soviet submarine, but the redirected missile detonates where the submarine is passing and destroys them. Britain receives a cover story that preserves confidence in the defence programme. Bond expects that his ordeal with Gala may lead to a relationship, but she tells him that she is already engaged to another police officer. They part after completing the mission, and Bond returns alone to his service life.