Goldfinger wiped the breezy expression off his face, handed over the microphone and came back into the cabin. He braced his legs and stood looking down at his passengers. ‘Well, gentlemen and madam, do you think you’ve seen enough? I think you’ll agree it’s all pretty clear and conforms with your copies of the town plan. I don’t want to go much lower than six thousand. Perhaps we could make one more circuit and be off. Oddjob, get out the refreshments.’
There was a mumble of comment and questions which Goldfinger dealt with one by one. Oddjob got up from Bond’s side and walked down to the rear. Bond followed him and, under his hard, suspicious stare, went into the little lavatory and locked the door.
He sat down calmly and thought. There hadn’t been a chance on the way down to La Guardia. He had sat with Oddjob in the back of an unobtrusive Buick saloon. The doors had been locked on them by the driver and the windows tightly closed. Goldfinger had ridden in front, the partition closed behind him. Oddjob had sat slightly sideways, his horn-ridged hands held ready on his thighs like heavy tools. He had not taken his eyes off Bond until the car had driven round the boundary to the charter hangars and come up alongside the private plane. Sandwiched between Goldfinger and Oddjob, Bond had had no alternative but to climb up the steps into the plane and take his seat with Oddjob beside him. Ten minutes later, the others had arrived. There was no communication with them except an exchange of curt greetings. They were all different now – no smart remarks, no unnecessary talk. These were men who had gone to war. Even Pussy Galore, in a black Dacron macintosh with a black leather belt, looked like some young S.S. guardsman. Once or twice in the plane she had turned and looked at Bond rather thoughtfully. But she hadn’t answered his smile. Perhaps she just couldn’t understand where Bond fitted in, who he was. When they got back to La Guardia there would be the same routine. It was now or never. But where? Among the leaves of lavatory paper? But they might be disturbed too soon or not for weeks. Would the ash-tray be emptied? Possibly not. But one thing would.
There was a rattle at the door-handle. Oddjob was getting restless. Perhaps Bond was setting fire to the plane. Bond called, ‘Coming, ape.’ He got up and lifted the seat. He tore the little package off the inside of his thigh and transferred it to the underside of the fore-edge of the seat. The seat would have to be lifted to get at the Elsan and that would certainly be looked to as soon as the plane got back to the hangar. The $5000 reward stared back at him boldly. Not even the most hasty cleaner could miss it. So long as no one preceded the cleaner. But Bond didn’t think any of the passengers would lift the seat. The little compartment was too cramped to stand comfortably in. He softly put the seat down, ran some water in the basin, washed his face and smoothed his hair and walked out.
Oddjob was waiting angrily. He pushed past Bond, looked carefully round the lavatory and came out again, shutting the door. Bond walked back to his seat. Now the S.O.S. was in the bottle and the bottle had been committed to the waves. Who would be the finder? How soon?
Everyone, down to the pilot and co-pilot, went to the blasted little lavatory before they got back on the ground. As each one came out, Bond expected to feel the cold nose of a gun in his neck, the harsh suspicious words, the crackle of the paper being unfolded. But at last they were back in the Buick and speeding over the Triborough into uptown Manhattan and then down the river on the parkway and in through the well-guarded doors of the warehouse and back to work.
Now it was a race – a race between Goldfinger’s calm, unhurried, efficient machine and the tiny gunpowder trail Bond had lit. What was going on outside? During every hour of the next three days Bond’s imagination followed what might be happening – Leiter telling his chief, the conference, the quick flight down to Washington, the F.B.I. and Hoover, the Army, the President. Leiter insisting that Bond’s conditions be adhered to, that no suspicious moves be made, no inquiries started, that no one moved an inch except according to some master plan that would operate on the day and get the whole gang into the bag so that not one of them escaped. Would they accept Bond’s conditions or would they not dare take the chance? Had they talked across the Atlantic with M.? Had M. insisted that Bond should be somehow pulled out? No, M. would see the point. He would agree that Bond’s life must be disregarded. That nothing must jeopardize the big clean-up. They would have to get the two ‘Japanese’, of course, somehow beat out of them the code message Goldfinger would be waiting for on D – 1.
