CHAPTER XIV ITCHING FINGERS

HALF AN hour before, Gala Brand had stubbed out her breakfast cigarette, swallowed the remains of her coffee, left her bedroom and walked across to the site, looking very much the private secretary in a spotless white shirt and dark blue pleated skirt.
Punctually at eight-thirty she was in her office. There was a sheaf of Air Ministry teleprints on her desk and her first action was to transfer a digest of their contents on to a weather map and walk through the communicating door into Drax's office and pin the map to the board that hung in the angle of the wall beside the blank glass wall. Then she pressed the switch that illuminated the wall map, made some Calculations based on the columns of figures revealed by the light, and entered the results on the diagram she had pinned to the board.
She had done this, with Air Ministry figures that became more and more precise as the practice shoot drew nearer, every day since the site was completed and the building of the rocket that had begun inside it, and she had become so expert that she now carried in her head the gyro settings for almost every variation in the weather at the different altitudes.
So it irritated her all the more that Drax did not seem to accept her figures. Every day when, punctually at nine, the warning bells clanged and he came down the steep iron stairway and into his office, his first action was to call for the insufferable Dr Walter and together they would work out all her figures afresh and transfer the results to the thin black notebook that Drax always carried in the hip pocket of his trousers. She knew that this was an invariable routine and she had become tired of watching it through an inconspicuous hole she had drilled, so as to be able to send Vallance a weekly record of Drax's visitors, in the thin wall between the two offices. The method was amateurish but effective and she had slowly built up a complete picture of the daily routine she came to find so irritating. It was irritating for two reasons.
It meant that Drax didn't trust her figures, and it undermined her chance of having some part, however modest, in the final launching of the rocket.
It was natural that over the months she should have become as immersed in her disguise as she was in her real profession It was fundamental to the thoroughness of her cover that her personality should be as truly split as possible. And now, while she spied and probed and sniffed the wind around Drax for her Chief in London, she was passionately concerned with the success of the Moonraker and had become as dedicated to its service as anyone else on the site.
And the rest of her duties as Drax's private secretary were insufferably dull. Every day there was a big post addressed to Drax in London and forwarded down by the Ministry, and that morning she had found the usual batch of about fifty letters waiting on her desk. They would be of three kinds. Begging letters, letters from rocket cranks, and business letters from Drax's stockbroker and from other commercial agents. To these Drax would dictate brief replies and the rest of her day would be occupied with typing and filing. So it was natural that her one duty connected with the operation of the rocket should bulk very large in the dull round, and that morning, as she checked and rechecked her flight-plan, she was more than ever determined that her figures should be accepted on The Day. And yet, as she often reminded herself, perhaps there was no question but that they would be. Perhaps the daily calculations of Drax and Walter for entry in the little black book were nothing but a recheck of her own figures. Certainly Drax had never queried either her weather plan or the gyro settings she calculated from them. And when one day she had asked straight out whether her figures were correct he had replied with evident sincerity, "Excellent, my dear. Most valuable. Couldn't manage without them."
Gala Brand walked back into her own office and started slitting open the letters. Only two more flight plans, for Thursday and Friday and then, on her figures or on a different set, the set in Drax's pocket, the gyros would be finally adjusted and the switch would be pulled in the firing point.
She absentmindedly looked at her finger-nails and then stretched her two hands out with their backs towards her. How often in the course of her training at the Police College had she been sent out among the other pupils and told not to come back without a pocketbook, a vanity case, a fountain pen, even a wristwatch? How often during the courses had the instructor whipped round and caught her wrist with a 'Now, now, Miss. That won't do at all. Might have been an elephant looking for sugar in the keeper's pocket. Try again.' Coolly she flexed her fingers and then, her mind made up, turned back to the pile of letters.
At a few minutes to nine the alarm bells rang and she heard Drax arrive in the office. A moment later she heard him open the double doors again and call for Walter. Then came the usual mumble of voices whose words were drowned by the soft whirr of the ventilators.
She arranged the letters in their three piles and sat forward relaxed, her elbows resting on the desk and her chin in her left hand.
Commander Bond. James Bond. Clearly a conceited young man like so many of them in the Secret Service. And why had he been sent down instead of somebody she could work with, one of her friends from the Special Branch, or even somebody from MI5? The message from the Assistant Commissioner had said that there was no one else available at short notice, that this was one of the stars of the Secret Service who had the complete confidence of the Special Branch and the blessings of MI5. Even the Prime Minister had had to give permission for him to operate, for just this one assignment, inside England. But what use could he be in the short time that was left? He could probably shoot all right and talk foreign languages and do a lot of tricks that might be useful abroad. But what good could he do down here without any beautiful spies to make love to. Because he was certainly good-looking. (Gala Brand automatically reached into her bag for her vanity case. She examined herself in the little mirror and dabbed at her nose with a powder puff.) Rather like Hoagy Carmichael in a way. That black hair falling down over the right eyebrow. Much the same bones. But there was something a bit cruel in the mouth, and the eyes were cold. Were they grey or blue? It had been difficult to say last night. Well, at any rate she had put him in his place and shown him that she wasn't impressed by dashing young men from the Secret Service, however romantic they might look. There were just as good-looking men in the Special
Branch, and they were real detectives, not just people that Phillips Oppenheim had dreamed up with fast cars and special cigarettes with gold bands on them and shoulder-holsters. Oh, she had spotted that all right and had even brushed against him to make sure. Ah well, she supposed she would have to make some sort of show of working along with him, though in what direction heaven only knew. If she had been down there ever since the place had been built without spotting anything, what could this Bond man hope to discover in a couple of days? And what was there to find out? Of course there were one or two things she couldn't understand. Should she tell him about Krebs, for instance? The first thing was to see that he didn't blow her cover by doing something stupid. She would have to be cool and firm and extremely careful. But that didn't mean, she decided, as the buzzer went and she collected her letters and her shorthand book, that she couldn't be friendly. Entirely on her own terms, of course.
Her second decision made, she opened the communicating door and walked into the office of Sir Hugo Drax.
When she came back into her room half an hour later she found Bond sitting back in her chair with Whitaker's Almanack open on the desk in front of him. She pursed her lips as Bond got up and wished her a cheerful good morning. She nodded briefly and walked round her desk and sat down. She moved the Whitaker's carefully aside and put her letters and notebook in its place.
"You might have a spare chair for visitors," said Bond with a grin which she defined as impertinent, "and something better to read than reference books."
She ignored him. "Sir Hugo wants you," said. "I was just going to see if you had got up yet."
"Liar," said Bond. "You heard me go by at half-past seven. I saw you peering out between the curtains."
"I did nothing of the sort," she said indignantly. "Why should I be interested in a car going by?"
"I told you you heard the car," said Bond. He pressed home his advantage. "And by the way," he said, "you shouldn't scratch your head with the blunt end of the pencil when you're taking dictation. None of the best private secretaries do."
Bond glanced significantly at a point against the jamb of the communicating door. He shrugged his shoulders.
Gala's defences dropped. Damn the man, she thought. She gave him a reluctant smile. "Oh, well," she said. "Come on. I can't spend all the morning playing guessing games. He wants both of us and he doesn't like being kept waiting." She rose and walked over to the communicating door and opened it. Bond followed her through and shut the door behind him.
Drax was standing looking at the illuminated wall map. He turned as they came in. "Ah, there you are," he said with a sharp glance at Bond. "Thought you might have left us. Guards reported you out at seven-thirty this morning."
"I had to make a telephone call," said Bond. "I hope I didn't disturb anyone."
"There's a telephone in my study," Drax said curtly. "Tallon found it good enough."
"Ah, poor Tallon," said Bond non-committally. There was a hectoring note in Drax's voice that he particularly disliked and that made him instinctively want to deflate the man. On this occasion he was successful.
Drax shot him a hard glance which he covered up with a short barking laugh and a shrug of the shoulders. "Do as you please," he said. "You've got your job to do. So long as you don't upset the routines down here. You must remember," he added more reasonably, "all my men are nervous as kittens just now and I can't have them upset by mysterious goings-on. I hope you're not wanting to ask them a lot of questions today. I'd rather they didn't have anything more to worry about. They haven't recovered from Monday yet. Miss Brand here can tell you all about them, and I believe all their files are in Tallon's room. Have you had a look at them yet?"
"No key to the filing cabinet," said Bond truthfully.
"Sorry, my fault," said Drax. He went to the desk and opened a drawer from which he took a small bunch of keys and handed them to Bond. "Should have given you these last night. The Inspector chap on the case asked me to hand them over to you. Sorry."
"Thanks very much," said Bond. He paused, "By the way, how long have you had Krebs?" He asked the question on an impulse. There was a moment's quiet in the room.
"Krebs?" repeated Drax thoughtfully. He walked over to his desk and sat down. He reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out a packet of his cork-tipped cigarettes. His blunt fingers scrabbled .with its cellophane wrapping. He extracted a cigarette and stuffed it into his mouth under the fringe of his reddish moustache and lit it.
Bond was surprised. "I didn't realize one could smoke down here," he said, taking out his own case.
Drax's cigarette, a tiny white faggot in the middle of the big red face, waggled up and down as he answered without taking it out of his mouth. "Quite all right in here," he said. "These rooms are air-tight. Doors lined with rubber. Separate ventilation. Have to keep the workshops and generators separate from the shaft and anyway," his lips grinned round the cigarette," I have to be able to smoke."
Drax took the cigarette out of his mouth and looked at it. He seemed to make up his mind. "You were asking about Krebs," he said. "Well," he looked meaningly up at Bond, "just between ourselves I don't entirely trust the fellow." He held up an admonitory hand. "Nothing definite, of course, or I'd have had him put away, but I've found him snooping about the house and once I caught him in my study going through my private papers. He had a perfectly good explanation and I let him off with a warning. But quite honestly I have my suspicions of the man. Of course, he can't do any harm. He's part of the household staff and none of them are allowed in here but," he looked candidly into Bond's eyes, "I would have said you ought to concentrate on him. Bright of you to have bowled him out so quickly," he added with respect. "What put you on to him?"
"Oh, nothing much," said Bond. "He's got a shifty look. But what you say's interesting and I'll certainly keep an eye on him."
He turned to Gala Brand who had remained silent ever since they had entered the room.
"And what do you think of Krebs, Miss Brand?" he asked politely.
The girl spoke to Drax. "I don't know much about these things, Sir Hugo," she said with a modesty and a touch of impulsiveness which Bond admired. "But I don't trust the man at all. I hadn't meant to tell you, but he's been poking around my room, opening letters and so forth. I know he has."
Drax was shocked. "Has he indeed?" he said. He bashed his cigarette out in the ashtray and killed the glowing fragments one by one. "So much for Krebs," he said, without looking up.