116
Bond left the workers to it and moved on to his last
port of call, the Façade factory. Asking the policeman to wait he got
out of the car and walked the length of the building. He still hadn’t put
his finger on what it was that was wrong with it. Seeing the factory again
reminded him of Professor Gonzales. He still hadn’t figured out where the
genetic engineer fitted into all this either. The last time Bond had come up
against him the brilliant bio chemist had been breeding giant rats, so whatever
he was doing in the shoe factory it certainly wasn’t anything to do with
shoes, unless Façade were planning to make seven league boots. Bond
reached the end of the Façade building. He looked back down the length
of it. And then out of the blue it hit him. It was the windows! At the far end
of the factory they were blacked out, as they had been on his previous two
visits. But when he had been in the factory, looking down onto the factory
floor, all the windows had been clear. There must be an interior wall
separating the part of the building with the blacked out windows from the main
factory floor. And I bet I know who works behind that wall, thought Bond. My
old friend Professor Gonzales.
Bond knew it was
essential that he got inside the factory somehow to see what was going on, and the sooner
the better. For something was going on, he was certain. Or why the blacked out
windows? He looked at his watch. Four-o-clock. The factory finished at five,
but it went dark about two hours later, around seven. But he would wait until
much later, this was a job for the night.
