Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

"Jesus, she wanted a Ladies Only Olympics! We can't use that."

"I wouldn't rule it out entirely. But in fact it made me think about the Greek-Albanian situation. There might be something for us in that."

"We've got another chat coming up," Bird murmured, watching the darkhaired girl approach. "Nice piece, too. She'd certainly give me a few ideas if I weren't a man of the cloth."

Lucy Fuller-Jones said, "Oh, do excuse me, but did you see where Mr Garvin went? He was with you a few moments ago, and then somebody spoke to me, and when I looked again he'd gone."

Mountjoy said slowly, "Mr Garvin?"

"That's right. The gentleman you were talking with just now. He told me his name was Willie Garvin."

Bird was staring at her fixedly. Mountjoy said, "Ah, yes. The gentleman who was with us just now. We must have failed to hear correctly when he introduced himself He spread his hands in a gesture of regret. "I'm afraid he's left, my dear. We had exchanged only a few words when he remembered he had an urgent appointment."

Lucy looked crestfallen. "Oh, what a pity. He's such a nice man. Well, thank you." She gave them a smile and moved away. Mountjoy and Bird looked at each other with no outward sign of agitation. Bird said in a whisper, " Garvin, by Christ! You know what that means?"

Mountjoy nodded and said without emotion, "Yes. It means Modesty Blaise is in the game. The authorities are playing their aces, and we must take immediate steps to trump them."

Together, inclining heads benevolently to any who caught their eye in passing, they made their way through the chattering throng to the door.

The rather elderly Rover moved at a rather elderly pace along the Cromwell Road. Eighty yards behind, with one car between, Modesty sat at the wheel of a Mercedes. Beside her Willie said, "Well, we shouldn't lose 'em, unless we get 'ad up for loitering."

She said, "I hope they're not going far. It's more difficult to make this sort of tail look natural than one at normal speed. Still, we didn't have to hang around for them till that cocktail do ended. They almost followed you out." After a few moments she said, "Was that just coincidence?"

"I don't see it could've been anything else, Princess."

"I suppose not. Still…" She let the nebulous thought fade unspoken, for the Rover had turned left down Earls Court Road. Five minutes later it drew up opposite a small and seedy hotel where no lights showed except for a dim lamp over the entrance. Mountjoy and Bird got out, crossed the road and went in by the front door.

In the Mercedes, halted well back from the hotel, Modesty said, "It looks deserted."

Willie unfastened his seatbelt. "We just passed a pub. I'll go and ask about it."

The hotel lobby was bare of furniture except for one shabby chair in which a man with thin sandy hair sat reading a tabloid newspaper and smoking. The remains of a takeaway meal lay on the counter. As Mountjoy and Bird entered, the man got hastily to his feet, stubbed out his cigarette in some tomato ketchup decorating a cardboard plate, and showed signs of ingratiating unease.

Mountjoy ignored him and moved to the counter. Picking up the phone there, he dialled a number. Bird stared at the caretaker without expression. After a few seconds Mountjoy said, "Tabby? Good. Now listen. I want four men at the contact point within twenty minutes." A brief pause. "No, don't tell me you'll try to fix it, Tabby. Not me. There'll be some merchandise to pick up for delivery as before. Two units of merchandise, and they'll need cautious handling, you understand? Good. Just don't make any mistakes, Tabby. Any at all."

He put the phone down and looked at the caretaker. "We shall leave at once by the back way, Charles. In a few minutes you'll almost certainly be having visitors. Now listen carefully while I tell you what to do. It's much the same as before."

A stone's throw from the entrance, Willie returned from the pub and spoke to Modesty through the open window of the Mercedes. "The 'otel's closed, Princess. Went bust. Empty now except for a caretaker to keep squatters away."

They both gazed along the road towards the dimly lit entrance, calculating possibilities. After a few seconds Modesty said, "I wouldn't think they'd keep Hallenberg there."

Willie nodded agreement. "Maybe they're on to us. Went in the front, out the back and took a cab."

She considered. "Hard to see how they could be on to us." For half a minute neither spoke, then she looked at her watch and opened the car door. "It's been ten minutes now. We're not going to find out anything like this. Let's go and take a look."

Charles the caretaker was reading his newspaper again when they came into the lobby. He glanced up briefly and said, "We're closed."

Willie moved towards him. Modesty stood in the middle of the lobby, looking about her. There was a lift with stairs running up beside it, a closed door opposite the lift, a partly open door to the left of the reception counter, a corridor leading off to the right.

Willie said to the caretaker, "I want a word with the two gents who came in a few minutes ago."

Charles returned to reading his newspaper. "What gents?" he said without interest.

Willie took a twentypound note from his wallet. "Clerical gents. Vicars. Remember?"

Charles looked at the note. "Who wants 'em?"

"Me and my auntie. We're in their confirmation class."

Charles reached out a grubby hand to grasp the note, but Willie didn't release it. "They've gone," said Charles impatiently. "Went down the 'ole."

"What 'ole?"

"The 'ole! What used to lead down to the subway. It was for airraids in the war."

Willie glanced at Modesty, then released the note. "Show me."

Charles scowled and got reluctantly to his feet. "Along 'ere," he said, moving into the corridor. "Down through the storeroom."

Less than a minute later he opened a door and put on the light in a large, windowless room. Empty steel shelving was fixed along two walls. The only furniture was a single ladderback chair with a hole in its cane seating. The floor was littered with rubbishbundles of newspapers, a galvanised iron bucket with a large dent in one side, a broken broom, and a cluster of small oddments and trash. Nothing was new except four large crates stacked in one corner. In the opposite corner lay a square of dirty threadbare carpet.

Willie stood by the door, watching the way they had come. Modesty was in the room, her eyes on the caretaker as he pulled the piece of carpet aside to reveal a large trapdoor secured by two coachbolts. He drew the bolts and lifted the trap, resting it back against the wall.

"There," he said with the air of a man who had performed far beyond the demands of duty. "You go down the 'ole, across the cellar, then through the passage, and you come out in a branch of the subway. Never used now, but there's only a rope across it." Modesty took a small torch from her handbag and flashed it down into the darkness. A lightweight metal ladder rested against the thick beam at the foreedge of the trap. She turned and began to go down, shining the beam about the empty square cellar below. Charles sighed resignedly and lit a cigarette.

The cellar was about twelve feet along each side, and ten or eleven in height. In one of the walls was an arched doorway. Modesty moved towards it and shone the torch along a passage that ended in a rightangle turn. She called softly, "All right, Willie."

In the storeroom above, Willie moved to the open trap. Charles shrugged and slouched towards the door. "I can't 'ang around all night," he said plaintively. "If you come back this way you shut it yourself."

Willie paused at the top of the ladder. "The rate you've been earning since we got 'ere works out at about two thousand quid a day," he pointed out.