Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

After a moment or two Tarrant gestured and managed to mutter. "Yes, please sit down."

Willie set down the tray, held a chair for Modesty, drew up one for himself facing her, and gestured politely for the others to sit. Modesty opened her little carton of cream and poured it in her coffee, opened the packet of sugar and tipped it in, all without haste. She stirred the coffee thoughtfully, laid down the spoon, and looked at the American for the first time. "Well, who are you, Gus?"

He spoke in the voice of an educated man and with a milder southern accent, a voice deeply troubled. "The name's right, ma'am, and my friends do call me Gus. The rest was lies."

"You don't own a string of supermarkets in America?"

He shook his head. "I own a small hardware store in Montana."

"So how did you get into this?"

"I was with the CIA for twentyodd years, ma'am. Did a lot of undercover work. Seems they owed your friend Sir Gerald a favour, and when he told them what he wanted they remembered I retired a few years back and they gave him my name. Said I might fit the bill and go along with it. So the stories about the big supermarket tycoon were planted, then I came over, and… we set you up."

"Yes, I know that bit now, and I know the reason why my—what did you call him?—my friend Sir Gerald did it. But you were there with us, up the sharp end with three very smart killers gunning for you. Why did you do it, please?"

"Me? Well, I did it for fifty thousand pounds sterling."

"That's just money. There has to be a reason behind the money."

"I did it, ma'am, that's all. No excuses."

Tarrant coughed and said diffidently, "I feel bound to reveal that Mr Keyes had a wife who was in a local hospice for three years before she died. The hospice now has to raise substantial funds for refurbishment or it will close. Mr Keyes asked that the consideration due to him for his services be paid to the hospice."

After a moment Willie said, "Post 'umously if necessary?"

Tarrant smiled a small grey smile. "Of course. But thankfully that doesn't arise."

Gus Keyes said sombrely, "We've been sitting here arguing about which of us hates himself most. We could have got you killed, ma'am. Oh, Willie too," he added hastily.

Willie grinned and said, "Thanks."

Modesty drank some coffee, gazing reflectively from one man to the other. At last she said, "Where did the Jumpin' Jehoshaphat character come from?"

The American gave her a hesitant smile. "He was easy for me. That Gus was my grandfather, and I can conjure him up any time."

She looked at Willie. "He was a nice man, wasn't he, Willie? We liked Gus."

"They don't make 'em like him any more, Princess."

Gus Keyes flinched. "Sure. I don't think he'd like his grandson too much."

Still speaking to Willie she said, "On the other hand lives have been saved, killers put away, and our Gus would certainly have wanted to do his best for the hospice, wouldn't he?"

"I just 'ad the same thought. He'd even 'ave done it for the measly fifty grand."

She frowned. "It was a hundred grand, Willie. You can't have been listening properly." She looked at Tarrant. "That's right, isn't it, a hundred thousand sterling?"

Tarrant sighed. "Yes, of course." He looked at Willie and said severely, "Do listen more attentively, please."

After a short silence Gus Keyes said, "You're heaping coals of fire on my head. I don't know what to say."

"You can tell me why you ran out on me this morning."

He met her gaze with troubled eyes. "For shame, ma'am, you must know that. For shame. The longer it went on, you and me and Willie, the worse I felt."

"But you agreed to spend a week with us down at the cottage before you went back. A week with no worries."

He shook his head. "I couldn't do it, living lies for another week. I couldn't."

"Well, that won't apply now, will it? The invitation still stands." She smiled suddenly, and it was a smile that warmed his heart and made him catch his breath as she said, "But I won't be offended if you turn me down. I know you have a store to run."

He sighed, and tension seemed to drain out of him. "The store can wait," he said. "You're a very generous lady and I'm deeply beholden to you, ma'am."

"Good. Now you can stop calling me that." She looked across the table. "Will you take care of Gus and his luggage please, Willie? I'll join you at the car in a couple of minutes. I just want a quick word with Sir Gerald."

"Sure, Princess." Willie rose and picked up the suitcase beside Gus. "Come on, oldtimer, let's get them oxen harnessed."

When they had moved away Tarrant said, "I'd rather you were angry with me than hurt."

She looked at him, puzzled. "I'm neither. I was annoyed with myself for being suckered, but that'll help keep me on my toes. Why didn't you simply ask me?"

"You mean tell you the full story and ask you to take part, knowing Gus was a fake? I couldn't believe you'd agree. Why on earth should you?"

She sat thinking for a few moments, then said slowly, "Yes, you could be right. There had to be someone I cared about involved." She shook her head and laughed. "You'd better remember that another time."

Tarrant looked away. "My dear," he said gently, "I remembered it this time, didn't I? There'll never be another."

On her tenth day in the cave Modesty Blaise roused as usual an hour after dawn from the comatose state in which her life processes were slowed to the essential minimum. She made no attempt to test her condition or remaining strength, for to do so would serve no purpose but would consume a few scruples of precious energy.

She had been walking in the Pyrenees, in the remote area west of the department of Ariege, when she heard the soft report and felt the sharp pain in the back of her thigh as the dart struck. She turned quickly, seeking her attacker, but within seconds she knew what had happened and that she had little hope of defence. Yet still the ferocious instinct for survival that had been bred in her throughout her childhood made her sink to the ground and slump as if unconscious before the tranquilliser had in fact taken hold.

She lay very still, slowing her heartbeat to lengthen the time it would take for blood carrying the drug to reach her brain. She had worked with a vet on a game reserve in East Africa, and knew that if the dart carried imobilon she was dead. Imobilon was for elephants and rhino. More likely it carried a mix of meditomidine and ketamine. Whoever had fired it, he or they would come to complete whatever their purpose might be, no doubt carrying the tranquilliser gun but perhaps a handgun also, and perhaps… perhaps she could…

Her senses were swimming, and she fought to hold back oblivion. Perhaps she could… do something…

But there was no sound, no rustle of sundried grass beneath approaching feet before darkness closed about her.

When she roused from a stupor her reliable internal clock told her that some three hours had passed. She was lying in a cave, a small cave some twelve feet deep and with a ragged arch of an opening no more than half the size of an average door. But this opening was blocked by a boulder rolled hard against it, a boulder that would have required mechanical aid or at least two men with crowbars to manoeuvre it into position. Outside it was still day, but the only light in the cave came through a few narrow gaps at one or two points round the edge of the opening where the boulder did not quite fit.

She waited until her senses were clear, then sat with her back to the cave wall near the boulder to assess her situation. Three days ago she had set out on this walkabout. It was something she still did from time to time, an escape from ease and comfort, a reminder of the childhood years when she had wandered for thousands of miles through the Middle East and North Africa. Sometimes now she joined Aborigine friends in the Australian outback, but usually she went alone, walking barefoot, wearing only a cotton dress, carrying a small pack with a bottle of water, some packets of dates and nuts as emergency food, a few toiletries and a change of underwear—a luxury compared with the wardrobe of her early days.