“How did the fuelling go?” he asked, his eyes fixed on the other man.
Drax was lighting a long cigar. He glanced up at Bond through the smoke and the flame of his match.
“Excellently.” He puffed at the cigar to get it going. “Everything is ready now. The guards are out. An hour or two clearing up down there in the morning and then the site will be closed. By the way,” he added. “I shall be taking Miss Brand up to London in the car tomorrow afternoon. I shall need a secretary as well as Krebs. Have you got any plans?”
“I have to go to London too,” said Bond on an impulse. “I have my final report to make to the Ministry.”
“Oh, really?” said Drax casually. “What about? I thought you were satisfied with the arrangements.”
“Yes,” said Bond non-committally.
“That’s all right then,” said Drax breezily. “And now if you don’t mind,” he got up from the table, “I’ve got some papers waiting for me in my study. So I’ll say good-night.”
“Good-night,” said Bond to the already retreating back.
Bond finished his coffee and went out into the hall and up to his bedroom. It was obvious that it had been searched again. He shrugged his shoulders. There was only the leather case. Its contents would show nothing except that he had come equipped with the tools of his trade.
His Beretta in its shoulder-holster was still where he had hidden it, in the empty leather case that belonged to Tallon’s night-glasses. He took the gun out and slipped it under his pillow.
He took a hot bath and used half a bottle of iodine on the cuts and bruises he could reach. Then he got into bed and turned out the light. His body hurt and he was exhausted.
For a moment he thought of Gala. He had told her to take a sleeping pill and lock her door, but otherwise not to worry about anything until the morning.
Before he emptied his mind for sleep he wondered uneasily about her trip with Drax the next day to London.
Uneasily, but not desperately. In due course many questions would have to be answered and many mysteries probed, but the basic facts seemed solid and unanswerable. This extraordinary millionaire had built this great weapon. The Ministry of Supply were pleased with it and considered it sound. The Prime Minister and Parliament thought so too. The rocket was to be fired in less than thirty-six hours under full supervision and the security arrangements were as strict as they could possibly be. Somebody, and probably several people, wanted him and the girl out of the way. Nerves were stretched down here. There was a lot of tension about. Perhaps there was jealousy. Perhaps some people actually suspected them of being saboteurs. But what would that matter so long as he and Gala kept their eyes open? Not much more than a day to go. They were right out in the open here, in May, in England, in peacetime. It was crazy to worry about a few lunatics so long as the Moonraker was out of danger. And as for tomorrow, reflected Bond as sleep reached out for him, he would arrange to meet Gala in London and bring her back with him. Or she could even stay up in London for the night. Either way he would look after her until the Moonraker was safely fired and then, before work began on the Mark II weapon, there would have to be a very thorough clean-up indeed.
But these were treacherously comforting thoughts. There was danger about and Bond knew it.
He finally drifted into sleep with one small scene firmly fixed in his mind.
There had been something very disquieting about the dinner-table downstairs. It had been laid for only three people.
PART THREE: THURSDAY, FRIDAY
CHAPTER XVIII
BENEATH THE FLAT STONE
THE MERCEDES was a beautiful thing. Bond pulled his 1 battered grey Bentley up alongside it and inspected it.
It was a Type 300 S, the sports model with a disappearing hood-one of only half a dozen in England, he reflected. Left-hand drive. Probably bought in Germany. He had seen a few of them over there. One had hissed by him on the Munich Autobahn the year before when he was doing a solid -ninety in the Bentley. The body, too short and heavy to be graceful, was painted white, with red leather upholstery. Garish for England, but Bond guessed that Drax had chosen white in honour of the famous Mercedes-Benz racing colours that had already swept the board again since the war at Le Mans and the Nurburgring.