Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

"Sounds fine." They stood up and he said casually, "I'll take Brightstar, then?"

"Willie, we're on a caper," she said gently. "That's when you stop being a courteous and protective gentleman. You've done enough of that for today. We think Brightstar is the sneaky one, and we have a rifle and sling between us. I can't use a sling or throw rocks. Whoever has the rifle must take Brightstar."

Willie sighed. "You're right," he acknowledged. "Sorry."

"That's better. But let's not rush this. We're safe here in Crichton's territory so we'll let the others tramp about their patches for a few hours while we relax and they get frustrated."

Willie grinned. "You're a hard-'earted lady. But I'd better take that bomb off Crichton's back until we're ready to go."

Van Rutte sat with his back to a rock in a shallow basin on a hilltop. The directionfinder stood beside him, the Uzi rested on his knees. He stubbed out a cigarette, adding to the six or seven butts scattered nearby. Van Rutte felt he was close to losing a bonus of five or possibly ten thousand pounds, and he was not pleased.

Two minutes later he reached out again for the hundredth time to swivel the aerial, but this time his eyes widened as the needle on the dial suddenly kicked. He picked up the instrument and stood carefully adjusting the aerial for maximum response, then moved off along the line indicated.

Almost half a mile away, Charlie Brightstar showed no sign of emotion as the needle on his d.f. moved for the first time since he had come ashore long hours ago. Without haste he adjusted the aerial, studying first the dial and then the map that lay to one side of the instrument. A few moments later he rose to his feet and moved without a sound from the patch of dry brown grass in which he had lain perfectly camouflaged for the past hour.

Van Rutte was moving warily along a broad gully some ten paces wide and with walls rising almost vertically to well above the height of a man. Its sides were seamed and broken, with many niches and crevices. A few minutes ago his d.f. had given such a strong signal that he was sure the homer Garvin carried could be no more than a hundred and fifty yards away.

Van Rutte moved warily, keeping close to one side, his Uzi cocked. Rounding a slight bend, he froze at sight of something lying in the middle of the gully, something black and fawn with… his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. That was the dinner jacket Garvin had been wearing, and on top of it was Crichton's bushhat with the leopardskin band.

Crichton? Was that bastard poaching? Surely not. That was a nopay offence, and there had been no shot. But could he have taken Garvin silently? Riflebutt at close quarters? Van Rutte edged slowly forward, the Uzi poised.

Lying prone amid low scrub on top of the gully wall, Willie Garvin frowned. It was, he felt, inconsiderate of Van Rutte to have changed his baseball cap for a steel helmet. It may well have been that he did not wholeheartedly trust his colleagues, but the effect was to disrupt Willie's plan of taking Van Rutte out with a slingshot from above, for the helmet protected him from a downwardangled missile.

In the past, studying Modesty Blaise and her ways with great intensity when he first came to The Network, Willie Garvin had acquired a quality he lacked before. He had discovered, with much pleasure, the virtues of forethought. Today, as he moved into position for tackling Van Rutte, he had pondered the various options that might confront him. His quarry had lethal firepower, and it might well be necessary to improvise some means of distracting his attention in order to get into slingshot range.

The lure of the jacket and hat was a move in that direction, but Willie had not relied on that alone. Wriggling back from the edge he took Crichton's handkerchief from his pocket. The four corners of this were now attached to thin leather thongs cut from Modesty's jerkin to form a crude parachute. With some reluctance Willie unfastened his bowtie, saddened to lose it, for till now he had felt that the black tie and dinner jacket gave a rare touch of style to recent events. It wasn't often these days, he reflected, that one could smite the ungodly while attired in faultless evening dress. Well, not exactly faultless, perhaps…

He attached one end of the tie to where the thongs of the parachute joined, held a match to the other end until it was smouldering nicely, then clipped that end in Crichton's box of matches so that it rested halfway down with the tie covering the heads. Carefully he rolled the matchbox and two pebbles in the handkerchief, then wriggled back to the edge of the gully. Van Rutte was standing by the jacket and bushhat now, peering down at them, his back to Willie. After a moment or two he kicked the hat aside and stared north along the gully.

Willie stood up and hurled his little package high in the air beyond Van Rutte, then dropped amid the scrub again, watching. He had achieved a good height with the parachute, and as soon as it began to fall it opened nicely, the tie dangling from it with the matchbox attached. The two pebbles dropped to the ground, and at the small sound Van Rutte froze, head cocked as he tried to locate the source. The parachute drifted slowly down at an angle and was within twenty feet of the ground when Van Rutte saw it. The Uzi came up, covering the far wall of the gully beyond the parachute's descent. He was nailed, and Willie lowered himself quietly down to the valley floor.

Be nice if the matches lit now. .. he thought, and began to whirl the sling. Another quality he had long ago acquired from Modesty Blaise was a belief in the idea that inanimate objects could be perverse or cooperative according to one's attitude towards them. Don't curse the recalcitrant screw, give it a little affection. In consequence he had fashioned his parachute contraption with benign care and good vibes. If it failed him he would not complain, but he was cheerfully hopeful… and cheerfully grateful when the matchbox erupted in flame, engulfing the parachute as it fell the last ten feet, and holding Van Rutte's baffled attention.

During that time Willie walked steadily towards him as he stared at the dying flames, and was within five paces when the spell broke suddenly and Van Rutte swung round as if at some slight sound. He had barely completed the turn when a stone the size of a tomato struck like an iron fist to the solar plexus. The Uzi dropped and he doubled forward, mouth agape as he fought for breath. Willie reached over his back, grasped him round the waist, hoisted him up headdown, then dropped to his knees.

Van Rutte's steelhelmeted head hit the ground with considerable force, wiping out his already blurred senses and ramming the helmet down crushingly round his brow.

The homerknife lay some three hundred yards north along the gully. About the same distance further on was a short broad branch running off the main gully, blind after twenty paces. The bottom was thinly grassed and surrounded on three sides by shoulderhigh rock, opening into the main gully on the fourth side. Here Modesty Blaise stood close against the rock wall near the junction, Crichton's rifle held in the port position. She hoped Brightstar's d.f. had picked up the homer and that he would now be moving down the gully from the north, just as Van Rutte should be moving up from the south to where Willie lay in wait. She stood relaxed, her mind empty except for tight focus on sight and hearing for the first hint of approach. She did not distract herself by speculating on what might be happening with Willie, and she knew he would not be wondering about her own task. For the time being her whole world consisted of waiting for Brightstar to appear. He would surely come along the valley bottom, for he was a hunter and would never move along the top, where he could so easily be seen.