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"Pinkertons seem to have quite a lad e’re both out of here I used to think your gangsters were just a bunch of Italian grease-balls who filled themselves up with pizza pie and beer all the week and on Saturdays knocked off a garage or a drug store so as to pay their way at the races But they’ve certainly got plenty of violence on the payroll"

Tiffany Case laughed derisively "You ought to get your head examined," she said flatly "If we make the Lizzie all in one piece, it’ll be a ood they are Thanks to Captain Hook here we’ve got a chance, but it’s not more than that Greaseballs!"

Felix Leiter chuckled "Coht to get going I’ve got to get back to Vegas tonight and start looking for the skeleton of our old duot your plane to catch You can go on fighting at twenty thousand feet Get a better perspective from there May even decide to make up and be friends You kno they say" He beckoned to the waiter "Nothing pro-pinks like propinquity"

Leiter drove them out to the airport and dropped theure li warot yourself a good pal there," said the girl as they watched Leiter slam the door and heard the deep boo drive back into the desert

"Yes," said Bond "Felix is all right"

There was the glint of oodbye and then there was the dust settling on the road and the iron voice of the loudspeakers saying "Trans-World Airlines, Flight 93, now loading at Gate No5 for Chicago and New York All aboard, please," and they pushed their way through the glass doors and took the first steps of their long journey half way across the world to London

The new Super-G Constellation roared over the darkened continent and Bond lay in his co body and thinking of Tiffany, asleep in the bunk below, and of where he stood with his assignht of the lovely face cradled on the open hand below hione frorey eyes and the ironical droop from the corners of the passionatex in love with her And what about her? How strong was this ht in San Francisco when the men had broken into her room and taken her? Would the child and the woman ever come out froainst all the men in the world? Would she ever come out of the shell that had hardened with each year of solitude and withdrawal?

Bond remembered moments in the last twenty-four hours when he had known the answer, irl had looked out happily froler, the shill, the blackjack dealer, and had said : ‘Take ether into the sunshine Don’t worry I will keep step with you I have always been in step with the thought of you, but you didn’t co to a different druht That side of it But was he prepared for the consequences? Once he had taken her by the hand it would be for ever He would be in the role of the healer, the analyst, to whom the patient had transferred her love and trust on her way out of the illness There would be no cruelty equal to dropping her hand once he had taken it in his Was he ready for all that that meant in his life and his career?

Bond stirred in his bunk and put the proble too fast Wait and see One thing at a tihts to M and to the job which still had to be finished before he could spend ti about his private life

Well, part of the snake had been smashed Was it the head or the tail? Difficult to say, but Bond was inclined to think that Jack Spang and theracket and that Seraffi end Seraffimo could be replaced Tiffany could be discarded Shady Tree, who, would have to be got under cover until the stornal, had blown over But there was nothing to i or the House of Diamonds and the only clue to ABC was the London telephone nuirl as soon as possible That, and the ed directly the full facts of Tiffany’s defection and Bond’s escape had been communicated to London, presumably by Shady Tree So all this, reflected Bond, h hi of the pipeline in Africa, and that could only be reached through ABC Bond’s i sleep take him, was to report the whole situation to M as soon as possible after boarding the Queen Elizabeth, and let London take over Vallance’sThere wouldn’t be ot back A lot of reports to write The sas there would be Tiffany in the spare roos Road He would have to send a cable to May to get things fixed Let’s see-flowers, bath essence from Floris, air the sheets…

Just ten hours after leaving Los Angeles they roared over La Guardia and turned out at sea for the long run in

It was eight o’clock on Sundayand there were few people about at the airport, but an official stopped the in off the tar , one from Pinkertons and one frohts, their luggage was brought round and they were taken to a side door and out to where a s and the blinds in the rear pulled down

And then there were so to the Pinkerton man until, at around four in the afternoon, but with a quarter of an hour between thereat safe, black British belly of the Queen Elizabeth and were at last in their cabins on M deck with their doors locked against the world

But, as first Tiffany Case and then Jaway, a dockhand froshoreman’s Union had walked swiftly to a phone booth in the customs shed

And three hours later two American businessmen were dropped at the dockside by a black sedan and were just in tiway before the loudspeakers began calling for all visitors to leave the ship please