Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

She laughed shortly. "After all you've said so far I'm hardly likely to decline."

"It's of little importance really, but should you survive Skendi's attentions, as I sincerely hope, I recommend a substantial purchase of Bearstead Holdings. There will be an agreed takeover in about six weeks and the shares will double in value."

He nodded, stepped into the lift, and the door closed after him. Weng, who was probably the world's richest houseboy, said thoughtfully, "Bearstead Holdings."

Willie sat down on the chesterfield, leaned back and closed his eyes. Modesty joined him and followed suit. A long minute later Willie said, "I just 'ad a very funny dream, Princess."

"So did I. This man called, and sat there chatting about various people he'd had killed. Then he got us to listen while he killed off some more over the phone, his colleagues actually. Oh, before that he thanked me for discovering his father, lost for fifty years, and got tearful about how ashamed his father would be of him—"

She broke off at the sound of Weng setting a tray down on the low table. When they opened their eyes they saw that he had brought a halfbottle of champagne in an icebucket, and two glasses. As he poured, Willie said, "You have great perception, Weng. We needed a pickmeup."

"Thank you, Mr Garvin. The bit I liked best," Weng had to pause, struggling to contain his mirth, "was when he said he had retired from… from alternative business. "

He choked on the last word, overwhelmed, and fled from the room with a wailing cry of apology. Following the tensions of the past twenty minutes it was infectious. Modesty collapsed against Willie, beating a hand against his chest as he heaved with laughter.

After a little while, breathless, they picked up their drinks. Modesty said, "Well… at least he's saved us some agonising decisions over what to do about Salamander Four. We've never gone in for assassinations, but I wasn't going to wait around to be killed."

Willie said soberly, "There's still Skendi."

She nodded. "He's very good, very careful, but he doesn't hang about on a contract. If he's taken it we can expect something within ten days or so."

"He'll know he's got to get both of us," said Willie. " Whoever's left 'll go after 'im." He thought for a moment. "Small chance of taking us together, though. He'll settle for one at a time if he has to."

"We'll set it up that way." She drained her glass and put it down. "He's wanted for murder in New York, isn't he?"

"They've 'ad special agents trying to nail him for a couple of years since he shot that Sanford heiress and then 'er husband made a deathbed confession soon after, saying he'd paid for the hit."

"Well… as I said, I'm not standing still for it. We'd better do something about him." She sat gazing into space, and after a while gave a little sigh.

Willie looked at her curiously. "What was that for, Princess?"

She halflaughed and gave him a wry look. "Just a silly moment, Willie love, and it's McBeal's fault. I've never thought of it before, but I was just wondering if my father, whoever he was, would be ashamed of me."

Willie Garvin flew to Paris the next day. He then disappeared and was not to be found at any of his usual haunts. In Hyde Park the following day Modesty Blaise took a fall from her horse. She happened to be riding with a police surgeon of recent acquaintance, supplied by Inspector Harry Lomax. The surgeon had her taken to the hospital at which he was a consultant and she was discharged that evening with one leg in plaster, Weng pushing her in a wheelchair.

Next morning her friend Dinah Collier came to look after her, and it was then decided that Weng should drive them both down to Modesty's cottage near the village of Benildon in Wiltshire. Stephen Collier was reluctantly absent for his own sake. Willie Garvin, speaking on the phone from wherever he was, had said, "Modesty won't 'ave you near the cottage, Steve. We reckon Skendi might think you're me at long range, even with a sniperscope, and we don't want you knocked off. Dinah thinks there's a bit of mileage in you yet."

"Jesus, Willie, how the hell could anyone take me for you? I'm handsome and debonair, with opposed thumbs, and I move beautifully—"

"I know, Steve, I know. But Skendi might go in for a bit of wishful thinking, because he'd love it to be me. Or he might blow your 'ead off out of sheer male jealousy."

Collier had laughed. "There's always that. But Dinah's safe?"

"Skendi's a pro. He'll only kill the girl in the wheelchair."

Morning and afternoon at the cottage in the valley Weng pushed the wheelchair with its passenger out into the garden for an hour to doze in the sun. Sometimes Dinah would emerge to sit with her for a while or to see that she was comfortable, adjusting the pillow on the stool supporting her hurt leg. Sometimes Weng emerged to speak with her briefly, but for the most part she seemed content to sit and read, or doze, or watch the occasional hangglider that floated lazily across the sky between Furze Hill and Benildon.

Skendi came after dark on the fourth night. He left his hired car at a garage miles away and hired a mountain bike which he hid in thick woods near the ridge that ran north of the cottage. At first light he lay within the edge of the woods and studied the lie of the land and the position of the cottage in the valley below. He had brought food and water in a haversack with him, and throughout the morning he watched through binoculars.

Once or twice he saw the houseboy and the fairhaired girl he had been told about by his advance team watching the London penthouse, but it was not until eleven that the subject of his mission was pushed out in her wheelchair to sit in the garden. She was facing south, towards the ridge on the far side of the valley which was pasture land and offered no cover for him. A hangglider was moving out from the hill beyond, and Skendi noted that he would need overhead concealment in choosing his position for putting a bullet through the subject's head.

After studying the terrain for half an hour he made his choice. There was a place where the ground rose in a little hummock to a broad hedge fronted by a patch of tall nettles. He could not check it out in daylight, but could do so shortly after dusk with little chance of being seen, for after crossing an area of pasture he would enter a field of corn on the other side of the hedge, and he could approach under cover of that.

He wriggled back deeper into the woods, then rose and walked to where he had left his mountain bike with its pannier containing a small bivouac. Skendi was a wiry man of less than medium height, in his late thirties and with thinning hair, a forgettable appearance and a phlegmatic manner. He felt no pride at knowing he was considered the best in the world at his job. He was interested only in the money. He sat reading a paperback till dusk, occasionally eating a sandwich from some packets bought earlier, and drinking water, then he walked back through the woods, crossed the pasture and crawled through the cornfield to reach the spot he had chosen. With secateurs he cut a narrow hole through the base of the hedge and lay within it, looking over the hummock at the lights of the cottage below, three hundred yards away.

For ten minutes he remained there, getting the feel of the position and making a thin mattress of straw to lie on. There had been no wind worth mentioning today, and the forecast was settled. It would be an easy killing. He moved back through the cornfield and the woods, set up his tent, climbed into a sleepingbag, set a small travelling alarm clock near his head, and went to sleep.

Half an hour before first light he roused, packed the tent, put it in the pannier of his bike, and picked up a flat box he had brought with him strapped to his back, a wooden box perhaps onethird the size of a cardtable. Fifteen minutes later he was crouched by the hedge, hidden by the corn as he carefully assembled the parts of his custommade rifle with its telescopic sight. He slid an expanding bullet into the breech, then crawled into the hole beneath the hedge.