Peter O'Donnell - Cobra Trap

She put down the phone and stood up, gazing into nothingness with unfocused eyes, arms across her waist, holding her elbows. It was a posture Dall knew of old, and he also knew that for the moment he had ceased to exist for her, but the knowledge did not trouble him. This was an aspect of Modesty Blaise, and he would not have wished her different in any way. He was well content simply to look at her, remembering, and to marvel at how lightly the years had touched her.

She would be… about fiftytwo? Impossible to be sure, for all memory of her early childhood had been wiped clean, but today her body would have passed handsomely for thirty, her face for the early forties. The legs were still those beautiful dancer's legs, and she still moved like a dream. There were more lines at the corners of the eyes now, and the jawline was perhaps less lean, but the column of her throat held firm and never failed to draw his eye. Not only his, for in memory he could hear Willie Garvin's voice as he gazed upon the mahogany carving Dall had commissioned, "I told Alex Hemmer just before he finished it. I could look at 'er throat for hours."

Now, as he sat watching her, Dall saw the far look fade from the dark blue eyes to be replaced by a momentary expression he could not define for it was so full of contradictions: urchin humour and troubled concern, hope tinged with regret, eagerness temnered by uncertainty. This was a blend Dall had never seen in her before, but in a moment it was gone as if it had never been, and she was looking at him with wry apology. "I'm sorry, Johnny. Really I am."

He smiled. "I know." The smile faded. "And I know you have to… do whatever there is to be done, but for God's sake don't let yourself get hooked again. Hooked on risk and danger. Comebacks are stupid, Modesty. You're too old, for Christ's sake!"

She laughed and came to sit beside him. "Don't worry. This old broad isn't aiming for a comeback, I promise."

"Okay. So what's the situation? All I know about Montelero is that it's about the size of Wales with a population of less than half a million. The only reason neither Panama nor Colombia have taken it over is that it's a pretty useless chunk of real estate, mainly scrub and jungle, and the residents are sort of Central American Sicilians, never happy unless they're killing one another."

She nodded. "That's more or less what Miguel said. They have no airforce or airline, and the government's being evacuated by train because they want to bring out all records and documents to set up a government in exile. They can't do that using private light aircraft even if any were available. Miguel says this lot are pretty civilised, and he thinks they'll be back in control within a year as long as they get out before the other lot cut their throats."

"So he's on their side?"

"Up to a point. He knows a bit about the rebel leaders, and they're not nice. He says one or two villages have suffered total massacre."

"How does he justify having recce aircraft over Montelero territory?"

She smiled. "He claims it's in case missions of mercy are called for. If anybody objects, he'll take note of it. I hoped he could monitor the train that Willie and Dinah and Steve will be on, but he says he couldn't get that past his government colleagues." She shrugged. "Still, he's promised to meet us when we land in Panama and he'll help in any way he can."

"Like what?"

She hesitated. "Well, he said he'd have a light aircraft available for me to hire."

" So you can go train spotting and do whatever you think needs to be done?"

"Johnny, I can't help by just sitting in Panama City."

"So how can you help?"

"I've no idea. I just have to get there and find out."

He sat remembering other times when she had gone into situations blind, relying on her skills and experience to improvise whatever action might be demanded. There had been no guarantee of a safe outcome then, there could be none now.

Dall sighed and looked at his watch. "Three hours before the chopper comes for us. Do you have things to do, or am I going to take you to the cleaners at gin rummy?"

She was silent for a few seconds. Then: "There's nothing I have to do. We've eaten, and we can eat again in flight. Weng will deliver all the gear I want to take with us, and he's fully competent to handle any and all matters for me while I'm away." She stood up, took Ball's hands and drew him to his feet. "I thought we might go to bed, Johnny."

He took her gently by the waist, his strong face with its redskin ancestry sober as he regarded her. "I didn't come here just for that."

"I know you didn't. But it would be a happy thing for us to do, wouldn't it? Unless you've given up going to bed with old broads."

John Dall laughed and gathered her into his arms, his pulse quickening as if twenty years had been wiped away.

"When I was a temple virgin in Baalbek," said Professor Stephen Collier, "in the time of Antiochus the Third, the temple priests had a rather intriguing way of testing us for virginity."

They had been on the train for several hours now, moving at a crawl, drawn by an ancient locomotive through the thin jungle that characterised the northern part of Montelero. There were twentyeight government members aboard, with three times as many relatives including some thirty children. One of the three coaches carried luggage and government files. Ten soldiers provided the armed escort, some travelling on the roofs of the coaches. Progress was slow because the single track with passing places was in a poor state of repair and there were several long steep gradients to be overcome.

Willie and the Colliers had a compartment to themselves, with their luggage. This privilege had been secured by Willie's convincing claim that the influence of his powerful friends in the Panamanian diplomatic service could well affect the reception of the refugee government at the border.

Dinah sat in a corner with her back to the engine, facing Willie, her husband beside her. It was five in the morning, and they had been dozing through the night hours. For safety the train was showing no lights, but now the darkness was turning to grey with the coming of dawn. Because the others might be sleeping, none of them had spoken for the past few hours, but now Collier had broken the silence with his dubious reminiscence of a previous life.

Dinah lifted her head from his shoulder and said, "This temple virgin persona was one of your earlier incarnations, I guess."

Collier kissed her ear. "It's the first I can remember after spending a few brief years as Ug the Caveman before being eaten by a tyrannosaurus. There may have been other appearances in between."

"I'm going to regret asking this," said Dinah, "but what was intriguing about the way the priests tested you virgins for intacta?"

"I'm glad you asked, sweetheart," said Collier. "You never know when these scraps of useful information may prove to have some practical application. Once a year we virgins were required to sit on one of those large Ali Baba sort of containers half full of the local wine. Then the high priest would smell our breath, and if he could smell the wine we were fired. I mean fired like Joan of Arc. Exvirgins flambees, as you might say."

Willie said, "How did you make out?"

"Very well," said Collier. "The girls with the largest bottoms did best, because they sealed the perimeter of the container, and so prevented alcoholic fumes escaping. I was among those so blessed."

"You'd do pretty well today, porky," said his wife. Then, to Willie, "My God, where does he get these disgusting ideas?"

Willie said, "I hate to defend him, but according to legend that's just what the Baalbek priests used to do. I can't vouch for Steve being one of the virgins around at the time."