Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

Charles sniffed. "It's all relative," he said surprisingly, and went out.

The walls of the passage leading off the cellar were rendered with concrete. With Modesty leading, they moved slowly forward. Twice in the twentyyard length she halted to listen. The only sound was that of their own breathing. When they came to the rightangle turn she moved swiftly across the width of the passage, shining the light on the inside corner while Willie stepped quickly into the centre of the new passage with his back to the wall.

Nobody was lying in wait. Modesty said, "We'd better follow this through anyway." She turned the beam along the passage and heard Willie mutter an oath. Twelve feet from where they stood, the light shone on a solid wall. The passage had been bricked up.

Willie was racing back the way they had come, and she was on his heels. A second before they reached the cellar there came the crash of the trap falling shut and the lesser sound of bolts scraping home. The ladder was gone.

Modesty exhaled and said quietly, "I wasn't too clever, calling you down."

Willie shrugged, gazing up at the trap. "He 'ad me fooled, Princess. Worth an Oscar, that was."

They were both staring up, gauging the height. She said, "I think you named it, Willie. They're on to us, God knows how. But they didn't work this just to shake us off. I think this may be how they nailed Johnny Nash."

Willie's head snapped round to stare at her in the gloom. "Those crates we saw upstairs?"

"I think they expect to use a couple of them for us. We'd better not hang around."

"I'll vote for that. Seeing what's 'appened so far I reckon they've got some hired muscle pretty close. Probably on its way to get us crated."

As he spoke she handed him the small torch and her handbag, and unfastened her skirt. "What about the Oscar winner, Willie?"

"Off to the pub till it's all over. He wouldn't want to see the nasty bits."

"Are you carrying anything?"

He opened his jacket to show the twin knives sheathed on the inside left breast. "You?"

She threw the skirt aside. "Just the kongo on the handbag."

He put the torch in his breast pocket so that the beam shone up, and together they moved to stand beneath the foreedge of the trap, facing each other. She kicked off her shoes and put her hands on his shoulders. He reached out to grip her arms above the biceps and bent one leg slightly to offer her a knee to step on. Her foot was there for less than a second before she was gone with a little spring, doubling her body at the waist then extending her legs upwards so that she was standing on her hands on his shoulders, well supported by his grip on her upper arms.

Their combined height in this position was a fraction under twelve feet, but her legs were bent with the trapdoor only six inches above her feet. She drew in a deep breath and smashed her feet against the trap in the area she had judged one of the bolts to be. These were feet unshod for most of her childhood years, feet on which she could still walk unshod for any distance over any terrain.

The door lifted slightly and shuddered. Her head almost touched the top of Willie's head with the recoil, but then their arms straightened and she kicked again. On the third strike she felt something give, and one corner of the trap lifted an inch or two. Willie said a little breathlessly, "That bolt's gone, Princess. Ripped the screws out of the keeper section." He moved sideways a little, and again she launched a hammerblow with the flat of her feet against the position of the other bolt. It gave on the second strike, and she kicked the door back to rest against the storeroom wall above. Doubling at the waist, she lowered her feet to Willie's shoulders, straightened up, and with her back to the foreedge reached up to hook fingers over the edge before lifting her legs to circle her body up and over on to the storeroom floor.

The metal ladder, in two short sections, lay near the trap. As she got to her feet her handbag and skirt were tossed up from below. She said, "The ladder's here, Willie. Won't be a moment, it's in two bits."

She was bending to bring the two sections together when the door opened and a man stepped into the storeroom, a thin, neatly dressed man with dark hair sleeked back, a long jaw and watery eyes. He stopped short, staring at her, and the three men who were following crowded in the doorway behind him. Two were of medium build, the third a big man, all hardfaced and wellmuscled, with the confident air of experienced minders.

The big man gave a sudden laugh and said, "Well there's a turnup. Nice legs, eh Tabby?"

Tabby moved aside, blinked watery eyes and said, "Get her, Dave. Quick."

As the man moved towards her she spread her hands and said ruefully, "Okay, there's four of you, so let's not get heavy about this." On the last word, timing his pace accurately, she spun round and delivered a vicious backheel to his crotch. He squealed, staggered sideways, and sank down against the wall, panting and clutching himself, face pale with shock.

Tabby said in a voice suddenly shrill, "Christ! Get the bitch!" One of his two remaining companions was dark and stocky, the other was younger with a shaven head. A half section of the ladder was in her hands as they moved forward together. With one end of it she hooked the ladderback chair to send it skidding across the floor and down through the open trap. Continuing the swing, she dropped the two furthermost rungs over the shaven head and sent the man cannoning sideways into his companion. They fell in a tangle together, and she snatched up her handbag, clutching the kongo that formed part of the clasp, jerking it free.

In the cellar, Willie held the chair by its topmost rail, the legs pointing upwards. She had let him know that there were four men to cope with and in one brilliant stroke had given him the way out. The sounds from above suggested that she was managing so far, but he was well aware that in such a confined space she would be at a great disadvantage. He bent at the knees, concentrated for a second, then jumped. The seat of the inverted chair hooked over the edge of the trap, and at once he began to haul himself up the ladderback.

As his head cleared the opening he saw a big man clutching his crotch and trying painfully to get to his feet. A second man sat with his neck trapped between the rungs of the ladder and his head covered by the galvanised iron bucket. Its handle was caught over one of the projecting ends, making it very difficult for him to get the bucket off. Modesty, kongo in hand, faced a dark stocky man with a knife and was using all her footwork skill to keep him between her and a thin man by the door who held a gun.

Halfway out of the trap, knife in hand, left forearm braced on the floor for support, Willie threw. The blade sliced across the top of the gunhand, and the weapon flew wide with the violent reaction of the nerves. The man gave a muffled scream, clutched his gashed hand, and started forward as if to recover the gun.

Willie held his second knife poised. He said briskly, "Leave it, Tabby, or this one goes right through your puddingchute."

The stocky man was distracted. Modesty stepped inside an illjudged thrust and dropped him with a strike from the kongo. Tabby focused on the figure climbing out from below, and the blood drained from his face. He backed against the door, wounded hand clutched under his armpit now, trying desperately to force a smile.

"Oh Jesus, I didn't know it was you, Willie!" he croaked. "I mean, we were just doing a job for someone, that's all. I'd never 've touched it if I'd know it was you! I mean, would I?"

The man with the bucket over his head gave up trying to remove it and sat very still. Modesty moved to pick up the fallen gun and the stocky man's knife. Evidently Willie and the man he called Tabby had met in the past. Tabby was plunging on now, trying to be jocular. "It's a real turnup, this, isn't it, Willie? I mean, with you down the 'ole I couldn't know who it was, could I? I mean, I never seen Modesty before—"