Sir Hugo Drax is a multi-millionaire tycoon and war hero, revered by the British public for his Moonraker missile defence programme. So why does he risk destroying his reputation and the future of the Moonraker programme by gambling millions of pounds at the card table, and is there something suspicious about his winning streak? As `the best card-player in the service', Bond is called in to uncover the answers. But as 007 probes deeper into the activities at the Moonraker base, he discovers that there is more to the mysterious Drax his project than simply cheating at cards...