Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

For a few minutes he sighted on various targets at the range he would be using, then turned on his back, settled himself on the straw mattress with the rifle lying beside him, and took the paperback from his pocket.

Through the first hours of daylight he read and dozed. At ten o'clock he turned on his front and began to watch the cottage. It was shortly before eleven when the young oriental pushed the wheelchair into the garden accompanied by the fairhaired girl who spent some time making the subject comfortable. There seemed to be a suggestion that a sun umbrella be set up, but this was evidently declined and the two went back into the cottage.

Slowly Skendi lifted the rifle to his shoulder and sighted. He could see the back of the subject's head clearly above the top of the wheelchair. There was hardly any tension in him as he brought the crosshairs to the middle of the head and gently squeezed the trigger.

The report was not loud. Skendi saw the head burst open, spraying blood, then he was wriggling back, lying low in the corn, beginning smoothly and without haste to disassemble the rifle and pack the components in the padded box. Glancing up, he saw a hangglider drifting over the far ridge. No problem. He had only to crawl across the corner of the cornfield and the downslope would hide him as he moved over the pasture to the woods.

In the cottage Dinah and Weng had heard the report. Weng was sitting by the window, watching the dummy in the wheelchair. As the head shattered he noted the direction in which the fragments of plastic and sponge had been flung, and lifted a handradio to his lips. "From the north ridge, Miss Blaise. Go, go, go!"

Dinah, making coffee in the kitchen, called "Weng! Was that it?" She came hurrying through to where he sat, her face pale.

Weng stood up and said grimly, "He blew the head apart. I'm glad you did not see it, Mrs Collier-" He caught himself and winced at the gaffe. "Forgive me, please. You know what I meant."

"It's nothing." Her voice shook. "We're wound up so tight, waiting. Thank God it's over. Oh Weng, is it really over? Can we be sure?"

He looked out of the window again at the headless dummy and the fake blood spattered round it. "It is almost over, Mrs Collier," he said, "but I regret that Miss Blaise has to observe certain legalities." He sighed and shook his head. "A pity it could not be left to Mr Garvin to conclude the matter. He has a very positive way of dealing with people who try to kill ladies."

Remembering moments when men had sought her own death, Dinah said soberly, "Yes, Weng. Yes, I know."

Holding a handradio and sitting in the passenger seat of a car parked half a mile away in the layby off the road running along the ridge, Inspector Harry Lomax said to the driver beside him, "All right, Sergeant, let's go. It's the north ridge so we're nice and close."

Three days ago Lomax had taken a week's leave and was spending it at The Plough in Tunbury, a village two miles from Benildon. Most of each day was devoted to his favourite pastime of fishing, but for an hour every morning and afternoon he sat in this unmarked car with the Detective Sergeant from the local force, listening out on the radio and occasionally catching sight of a hangglider drifting high above the road leading to Benildon. His friend Inspector Brook had been going to carry out this surveillance, but in an act that Brook himself deemed the height of selflessness he had asked if Lomax might be invited to take his place.

A minute after Weng's message to Modesty came through on the radio the car drew up where a footpath led south through a tapering neck of woods. At that moment Skendi was emerging from the cornfield adjoining the wide pasture on the far side of the wooded area. Pausing to scan the ground ahead, and finding it empty, Skendi rose to his feet and began to walk towards the woods, carrying the case holding his rifle. He was halfway across the pasture when a cruciform shadow passed silently over him. His pulse quickened as he saw the hangglider less than a hundred feet up as it moved ahead of him, turned, then slanted down to land.

Shock hit him like a blow under the heart as the pilot touched down lightly, released the harness, moved clear of the wing and stood looking towards him, hands on hips. It was a woman, a darkhaired woman, and even at a distance of fifty yards or more he knew that this was Modesty Blaise, knew that his contract to kill had been blown, that he had walked into a wellplaced trap, and that he was nearer to sudden death at this moment than he had ever been.

He dropped to one knee, fighting to keep his hands steady as he opened the flat box and began to assemble the rifle. Sweat broke out on his brow as the chill of fear gripped him, for this was Modesty Blaise. When he glanced up he saw that she had started moving unhurriedly towards him. Breech and barrel were now fitted together. No need for the telescopic sight, for she would be at pointblank range. With new horror he realised that he also would be at pointblank range, for she wore a bolstered gun and it was said that she was lethally fast and accurate.

Such was Skendi's concentration on the rifle and the advancing figure that he was utterly unaware of the second hangglider dropping down fast from the thermal it had been riding, swooping round in a gentle curve to arrive directly behind him at fifty feet, drifting quietly towards him. Skendi had slipped a cartridge into the breech and was lifting the rifle to his shoulder when a blackjack thrown from only twenty feet hit him hard on the back of the skull and dropped him senseless.

Modesty relaxed, and lifted the hem of the hiplength dark tunic she wore to drop it over the Colt.32 bolstered at her hip. It would not be needed now. She had never known Willie to miss a throw, but the timing of his arrival had been critical and they both regarded the taking of unnecessary risks as bad practice.

He landed to one side of her and stepped clear of the wing, his face showing no pleasure. "I could've rigged it to look like an accident," he said plaintively. " He could've been hanggliding and got his neck broken when he crashed 'ere. No problem."

"Oh, shut up, Willie love," she said amiably, "we've been through all that." She lifted the radio hooked to her belt and spoke into it. "All over, Weng. Tell Mrs Collier we're fine except that Willie's having a bit of a sulk."

Weng's voice said, "Wilco, Miss Blaise. So am I."

Willie grinned and looked towards the woods. Two men were emerging from the trees. As they drew near, Inspector Lomax called, "Miss Blaise and Mr Garvin, I believe? The Sergeant here tells me you're the regular hanggliding folk locally." He produced his warrant card. "I'm Inspector Lomax and this is Detective Sergeant Baker. We saw you come down and thought you might be in trouble."

Modesty said, "Well, no, Inspector. We were gliding over the ridge and we saw that man lying there." She pointed. "He seemed to be unconscious, so we landed to see if we could help."

"Very kind of you, Miss. We'd better take a look."

Together they moved towards Skendi, and Lomax said, "My word! Just look at that, Sergeant it's a rifle!"

"And not a sporting rifle, sir," said Baker with the stilted air of a man remembering lines. He pointed to the weapon and then to the open box in which the telescopic sight and spare cartridges were clipped. "That's the sort of weapon assassins use!"

"So it is!" exclaimed Lomax. "Lucky you happened to bring that sheet with you, Sergeant. There'll be fingerprints all over the box and the rifle. Wrap them up carefully, then put your 'cuffs on this fellow."

"Right, sir," said Baker. "I wonder what he was doing here?"

"Practising, I'll be bound," said Lomax confidently. "But he must have tripped and hit his head on…" He looked about him and pointed to a huge flint a dozen yards away, "… on that rock. Staggered over here and collapsed." He fingered his chin thoughtfully. "You know, I've seen that face on some wanted pix that were circulated recently."