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Now nothing could surprise Bond. Goldfinger, in a B.O.A.C. captain’s uniform that was rather too large for him, the cap squarely on the centre of his head, closed the cockpit door behind him and came down the aisle.
He stood and looked grimly down at Bond. ‘Well, Mr Bond. So Fate wished us to play the game out. But this time, Mr Bond, there ca
Bond said equably, ‘We will have a talk, Goldfinger. And I will tell you certain things. But not until you have taken off these straps and brought me a bottle of bourbon, ice, soda water and a packet of Chesterfields. Then, when you have told me what I wish to know, I will decide what to tell you. As you say, my situation is not favourable, or at least it doesn’t appear to be. So I have nothing to lose and if you want to get something out of me it will be on my own terms.’
Goldfinger looked gravely down. ‘I have no objection to your conditions. Out of respect for your abilities as an opponent, you shall spend your last journey in comfort. Oddjob’ – the voice was sharp. ‘Ring the bell for Miss Galore and undo those straps. Get into the seat in front. There is no harm he can do at the rear of the plane but he is not to approach the cockpit door. If need be, kill him at once, but I prefer to get him to our destination alive. Understood?’
‘Arrgh.’
Five minutes later Bond had what he wanted. The tray in front of him was down and on it were his whisky and cigarettes. He poured himself a stiff bourbon. Goldfinger was seated in the chair across the aisle, waiting. Bond picked up his drink and sipped it. He was about to take a deeper drink when he saw something. He put the glass carefully down without disturbing the little round paper coaster that had stuck to the bottom of his glass. He lit a cigarette, picked up his drink again and removed the ice-cubes and put them back in the ice bucket. He drank the whisky down almost to the end. Now he could read the words through the bottom of the glass. He carefully put the glass down without disturbing the coaster. The message had read, ‘I’m with you. XXX. P.’
Bond turned and made himself comfortable. He said, ‘Now then, Goldfinger. First of all, what’s going on, how did you get this plane, where are we heading?’
Goldfinger crossed one leg over the other. He gazed away from Bond, up the aisle. He said in a relaxed, conversational tone, ‘I took three trucks and drove across country to the vicinity of Cape Hatteras. One of the trucks contained my personal hoard of gold bullion. The other two contained my drivers, spare perso
Goldfinger paused. He lifted a hand resignedly. ‘Of course there were small hitches. We were told to “follow taxiway Alpha to runway four”, and it was only by following a KLM plane that we were successful. The Idlewild routine was not easy to master and we must have seemed somewhat clumsy and inexperienced, but, Mr Bond, with assurance, strong nerves and a gruff, intimidating ma
To Bond there had been nothing fantastic, nothing impossible about Goldfinger since he had heard the details of Operation Grand Slam. The theft of a Stratocruiser, as Goldfinger had explained it, was preposterous, but no more so than his methods of smuggling gold, his purchase of an atomic warhead. When one examined these things, while they had a touch of magic, of genius even, they were logical exercises. They were bizarre only in their magnitude. Even the tiny manoeuvre of cheating Mr Du Pont had been quite brilliantly contrived. There was no doubt about it, Goldfinger was an artist – a scientist in crime as great in his field as Cellini or Einstein in theirs.
‘And now, Mr Bond of the British Secret Service, we made a bargain. What have you to tell me? Who put you on to me? What did they suspect? How did you manage to interfere with my plans?’ Goldfinger sat back, placed his hands across his stomach and looked at the ceiling.
Bond gave Goldfinger a censored version of the truth. He mentioned nothing about SMERSH or the location of the post-box and he said nothing about the secrets of the Homer, a device that might be new to the Russians. He concluded, ‘So you see, Goldfinger, you only just got away. But for Tilly Masterton’s intervention at Geneva, you’d have been in the bag by now. You’d be sitting picking your teeth in a Swiss prison waiting to be sent to England. You underestimate the English. They may be slow, but they get there. You think you’ll be pretty safe in Russia? I wouldn’t be too sure. We’ve got people even out of there before now. I’ll give you one last aphorism for your book, Goldfinger: “Never go a bear of England.”’