BELLMANN
It was a warm day in Tangier, but Willie Garvin was very comfortable in the discreet grey summerweight suit he wore as he crossed the reception hall of the Hotel Malaurak to the lift marked Private-Staff Only, This gave access to offices on the top floor of the hotel, which was owned by The Network. Willie pressed the callbutton and maintained the air of a serious young executive until he was in the lift with the doors closed. Then he allowed himself a grin.
Being a criminal organisation The Network did not advertise its name or activities, but these were well known to the Tangier police, and Inspector Hassan was more than content with the situation. So he ought to be, Willie reflected. Since the war of the four gangs which had followed the creation of The Network by Modesty Blaise three years ago, Tangier had become noticeably more lawabiding.
When the lift stopped on the fifth floor Willie got out and walked along the corridor to Garcia's office, thinking about Modesty Blaise. As always when he thought about her, which was often, he felt a touch of awe. At no more than seventeen she had taken over the smalltime Louche group, saved it from destruction by more powerful gangs, and begun the setting up of an organisation that now operated on a near worldwide basis. In doing so she had wiped out several dealers in drugs and vice from Tangier to the Levant, and had established herself as an invaluable source of the kind of information that enabled Inspector Hassan to take preventive measures against crime on his own patch.
She had also won the respect of certain intelligence authorities in a number of countries and established a useful relationship with them. Like Inspector Hassan, they were well aware that she was herself making a fortune from a variety of ingenious rackets on an international scale, but it seemed they could live with that, perhaps because The Network was run under her own strange but rigid rules and these were found acceptable by those whose position allowed them to be more concerned with justice than with laws.
Willie recalled a conversation with Inspector Hassan at the conclusion of an unpleasant matter Modesty Blaise had instructed Willie to deal with because it was beyond Hassan's legal writ. ›There are three kinds of crime, Mr Garvin,‹ the inspector had said. ›There are dirty crimes, very dirty crimes, and fairly clean crimes. As a policeman I disapprove of all categories. As a citizen and a father I have some respect for any person who assists in reducing the first two, even if sheeven if that person is professionally engaged in the third. Thank you for your assistance these past two days, Mr Garvin.‹
›I'll tell Miss Blaise. I'm acting on 'er behalf, Inspector.‹
›That is understood. And I imagine you are happy in her employ?‹
Willie had smiled at the impossibility of finding an adequate answer. Then he had just said, ›Yes, I'm 'appy.‹
But now he felt a touch of unease as he tapped on Garcia's door and entered, for he had sensed something unusually troubled in Garcia's manner when he phoned for Willie to call at the office. Garcia had been with Modesty Blaise from the first day and was her righthand man, yet like the rest of her lieutenants he never failed to behave towards her with deference. No man addressed her or referred to her other than as 'Mam'selle' or 'Mam'selle Blaise' except Willie Garvin, who had come to The Network in circumstances so remarkable that she had allowed him the cachet of addressing her in the way he had first used on the day she bought him out of a gaol in the Far East. It was then he had addressed her as Princess.
Garcia closed a file on his desk and nodded. "Sit down, Willie. What are you doing about that pimp and his minders who've been bothering Claudine?"
Willie took a chair. "I'm sorting that out today, Mr Garcia. Can I 'ave Sammy Wan and draw a thousand dollars for expenses? It's a bit expensive, but worth it longterm I reckon."
"What have you got in mind?"
Willie told him, and Garcia's chuckle became a fullthroated laugh. "Marvellous. We'll see the story gets around, it'll discourage others from taking liberties with our people." Garcia got up and moved to the window, his smile fading. There he turned and looked at Willie soberly. "Now I've got something difficult to say."
Willie froze. "I 'aven't stepped out of line, Mr Garcia? Mam'selle's not giving me the elbow?"
"Good God, no." Garcia's expression softened. Being dismissed by Modesty Blaise was the one thing in the world that frightened Willie Garvin. "Look, I'll leave the difficult part to the end and deal with the good bit. You know this is an anniversary?"
Willie hesitated. "Well, it's a year today since Mam'selle took me on, but I didn't think anyone else would remember."
Garcia gave a short laugh. "All her top men do. It was a very good day for The Network."
Willie relaxed, exhaling a long breath. "It was an even better day for me, Mr Garcia."
"I know. But you've done well, Willie. A damn sight better than well, and Mam'selle knows it. You're right up there in her class when it comes to action, but like her you've got muscles in your head, too, and that's where it counts." He studied Willie curiously for a few seconds. "It's strange. I thought when you started making your mark that some of her top men might get jealous, men who've been with her from the start - Krolli, Nedic, Sammy Wan."
Garcia shook his head. "But it didn't happen. They respect you, Willie, but they like you, too, and we're men who are pretty choosy about who we like." He shrugged and made a small gesture with an open hand. "Maybe it's because you respected them and never got pushy, never traded on that time you dropped Saafi during the fracas with his mob down in El Golea when he was set to blast her with a Uzi. Or maybe it's because they know you're her man, just like they are. That's important to us, Willie."
Garcia moved to his desk and sat down. He said gently, "I guess that's why she's given orders that you're to work in tandem with me from now on. We're her right hand now, you and me."
Willie stared. "Me? With you, Mr Garcia?"
"That's what she said, and that's what I want. And you stop calling me Mister. My name's Rafael. Rafa to you, okay?"
Willie ran a hand through his hair. "You reckon I'm up to it?"
"Yes. What's more important, Mam'selle does, so you'd bloody well better be, hadn't you?"
"Well... yes, if she says so. What about Krolli and the others?"
"They have no say in it, Willie. But I've told them, and they're pleased. It's good for The Network, and they're all in favour of that. It's our living, isn't it? Oh, and don't worry about the paperwork." Garcia gestured around the office. "I take care of all administration and office staff. You'll be in charge of training, planning and operations all under Mam'selle's supervision, of course."
Willie got up, pacing across the big office and back to the desk. "Rafa...?"
"That's me. Go ahead."
"I reckon you put in a good word for me. Thanks."
Garcia grinned. "Selfinterest. I confirmed her opinion, that's all." The grin faded. "Now let's get to the difficult bit, and for that we go back a couple of years. Did you know that Moulay used to have a daughter?"
Moulay was the man in charge of Modesty Blaise's house, Pendragon, among the hills west of Tangier, a combination of chef, butler and general factotum, with two or three staff who lived out. Willie shook his head, surprised by Garcia's question. "I didn't even know Moulay was married."
"His wife died some years ago. When Mam'selle bought Pendragon and engaged Moulay she took his daughter on as a personal maid. Her name was Lisette, and she was sixteen." Garcia gave a wry smile. "I suppose about three years younger than Mam'selle herself at the time, but I think Mam'selle sometimes felt as old as God in comparison. You wouldn't wonder. Anyway, Lisette was a really nice kid, and Mam'selle liked her a lot."
Willie said, "That figures. She 'as to come on like 'ickory and steel to run us lot, but she's still feminine gender. Needs someone to relax with sometimes, who doesn't? Be nice if she could let 'er hair down with another girl once in a while. Can't do it with us."
Garcia regarded him with interest. "I thought I was the only one who could see that. But maybe you're only almost right, Willie." He seemed about to follow the trend of his last words, then frowned and said briskly, "Anyway, the girl meant a lot to Mam'selle, and one afternoon in the Rue Picard she was stabbed to death by a couple of junkies for the few francs in her purse."
Willie said, "Oh, Jesus. Then what?"
"Two policemen chased and cornered them. One of the junkies went for the policemen with a knife, and they shot him dead. The other's in gaol for ever. But they were nothing, Willie. Even victims, maybe. Bellman was the real killer."
"Bellman? The Port Said drug pedlar? But I 'eard Mam'selle took Krolli and a task force there to sort 'im out just before I joined."
Garcia said, "She did. And the year before that he was operating out of Tangier. He specialises in organising teams to get young kids hooked, and he had a monopoly at this end of the Mediterranean. So Mam'selle smashed the whole setup. It wasn't easy, and she had to kid herself a little. I mean she won't risk Network people unless it's for the safety or benefit of the organisation- which was true concerning Bellman because it gave us a healthy credit with Inspector Hassan. Anyway, Bellman moved to Port Said and in about a year he'd got a new organisation running. So like you heard, she took a team and smashed that too."
Willie smiled. "Safety of The Network."
Garcia looked hard at him. "We have an office there, and if she did have to kid herself a little more, so what? Isn't she entitled to a few little whims, for Christ's sake?"
Willie said, "I wasn't knocking 'er, Rafa. I was enjoying what you told me. Whatever whims she's got, I love 'em. I wouldn't want 'er different."
Garcia relaxed. "Okay, then. So she's chased Bellman out of North Africa and Middle Eastern territory, but he's still alive and you haven't asked why."
Willie scratched his cheek thoughtfully. "Well, we don't do assassinations. She wouldn't mind putting the bastard down if he came at 'er, but she wouldn't do a cold killing and she wouldn't order one. So I suppose Bellman left 'is muscle to fight it out, and when they cracked he just 'ad it away on 'is toes."
"Right," said Garcia. "Bellman probably kills a few thousand people a year with drugs, but he doesn't get his hands dirty. And now he's moved to new territory where we can't as yet claim to have an interest. He's settled in Peru, operating from a base near Lima, and next week Mam'selle is going after him again. Solo."
Willie stiffened, the normally amiable blue eyes suddenly hard and alert. "To do what?"
Garcia spread his hands. "God knows. She says it's a personal matter. I'd guess she means to force him to come at her somehow, and then put him away, but I don't know how, and I'm worried sick. So I'm relying on you, Willie. I want you to see her and persuade her to take you with her."
"Me persuade 'er?" Willie shook his head anxiously. "I'll go with 'er all right, but you'll 'ave to fix it. You can't let 'er go solo on this, Rafa, we could lose 'er."
"I've tried", Garcia said quietly, "and she won't listen." He moved round the desk to face Willie, looking at him intently. "There's something special about you, young Garvin. Something she can see in you. I can't name it, maybe neither can she. It's not your bright blue eyes and manly figure but it's there. I think you're the only one who can do this for us, and you've got to try. I can't tell you how, just go away and figure it. You've got an instinct, so use it."
Willie Garvin opened his mouth to speak, then closed it again. Garcia went back to his chair. A minute passed in silence, then Willie said in a low voice, "Christ, we mustn't loose 'er."
He moved to the door, and as he reached it Garcia said, "Willie." When he turned, waiting, Garcia went on, "I wasn't going to say this now, but I will. If she lives, The Network will thrive. We'll all get richer than we've ever dreamt of. But sometime in the next ten years, maybe less, she'll close this organisation down. Between now and then she's going to need a friend, a close friend. It can't be me or any of the others. Our relationship is set. But it could be you. It could well be you because your relationship is developing. She does combat workouts with you, and I think the chemistry's right." He glared suddenly, chin thrust forward. "Don't read anything bloody stupid into what I'm saying. Don't start getting fancy ideas. She's untouchable. You understand me?"
Willie was looking at him, openmouthed. "Me? Jesus, Rafa, you gone off your trolley? I couldn't even think of 'er like that." His shock became tinged with anger. "What she's done for me, she's given me a life to live. She's... I mean, she's... you know." He gestured helplessly.
"She's the Princess," Garcia said softly. "That's fine, Willie. Keep it so, and remember what I said. The Princess needs a friend."

* * *

The villa stood on a hillside, facing down a pineclad slope to the sea. When Modesty Blaise bought it she had renamed it Pendragon, a name from the Arthurian legends. This was in memory of Lob, the old Jewish professor from Budapest, a refugee with whom she had roamed the Middle East throughout her teens, protecting him, providing for him, and being educated by him.
She was thinking of him now as she rose from the desk in her study and moved to the window overlooking the gardens and the pool. Three years and more since she had buried him in the desert, but she still missed him, for since losing Lob she had been without a companion. For a female of her age to create and control The Network had called for a rigid distancing of herself from the men who served her. This was the price of survival and she had paid it willingly, but there were times when she would have been deeply thankful for a chance to relax, to talk easily and without having to maintain her Network persona, as she had talked with Lob throughout the long days and nights of their wanderings.
It was early evening, the air was warm and the pool inviting. Weary of the paperwork on her desk, she was tempted to forget it and spend half an hour in the pool when she saw a small car take the curve in the road that ran past the gates of Pendragon. It was Willie Garvin's car, and she felt surprise tinged with pleasure at the sight of it. He had made no appointment to see her here at the villa, yet she found herself hoping that he was not just passing but in fact had some reason to call.
She was at her desk when the intercom buzzed a minute later and Moulay's voice said, "Mr Garvin is here, Mam'selle. He apologises for the intrusion but would be grateful if you could spare him a few minutes on an urgent matter."
She decided that a pretence of annoyance was unnecessary, and said, "All right, Moulay. Send him up, please."
While she waited it occurred to her that Garcia would have told him of his promotion and he might wish to thank her... but no, Willie Garvin was far too intelligent to describe that as urgent. There came a tap on the door, and when he entered in response to her call she once again found herself marvelling at the difference between this man and the man he had been when she bought him out of a Thai gaol only a year ago. Despair had been replaced by zestful confidence, and he had given her brilliant service in a variety of Network operations.
She nodded to the easy chair facing her desk and said, "Hallo, Willie. Sit down."
"Thanks, Princess. I 'ope this isn't putting you out."
"Well, not so far. I like dealing with urgent matters before they get worse." She studied him, intrigued to see that he was nervous, as he had not been from that moment a year ago when she had given him a place in The Network. "I take it Garcia's told you you're to run in tandem with him from now on?"
"He told me this morning. I'm really grateful."
"You've more than earned it. Now what's come up to bring you here in a hurry?"
He rubbed a hand across his mouth in a troubled gesture. "It's difficult. I don't know 'ow to..." he broke off, shaking his head. "Well, I need a favour, Princess. A big one."
She felt surprise and disappointment. "Money?"
"Oh blimey, no. You pay me 'andsomely, and then there's the bonuses, and I don't spend a lot. I'm well, I need your permission for something."
She leaned back in her chair, not allowing her puzzlement to show. So it wasn't money. Good. But what then? An idea for a Network job? If so, why the obvious unease? She said, "Permission for what?"
He started to speak, stopped, looked away, then sat in troubled silence. After a while she said, "Willie?"
He sighed, and looked at her again. "It's no good, Princess. I'd better leave it." He got to his feet. "I shouldn't 'ave come. I'm sorry."
She said sharply, "Sit down, please." When he slowly obeyed she sat looking past him, her mind racing as she sought a decision. Impossible to guess what the favour he wanted might be, but of two things she was utterly certain. First, that it would not be to her personal detriment, and second, that it would not be to the detriment of The Network. After thirty seconds she came to a conclusion and said, "All right, you've got your favour. Now what is it?"
He seemed taken aback for a moment, then said quickly, "I just want to go to Lima with you to sort out this creep Bellman."
For a brief instant she was simply a very young woman suddenly startled and indignant, then Modesty Blaise of The Network was back, staring at him, tightlipped and narroweyed. "You conned me, Garvin!"
He made an apologetic gesture. "No. I would've done, but I couldn't figure a way. Honest."
"Did Garcia put you up to this?"
"He just told me the Bellman story."
"And you decided to interfere in my personal affairs?"
Willie Garvin drew in a long breath, as a man might do before throwing dice on which his life depended. He said doggedly, "I just think it's barmy for you to go after Bellman on your own, saying it's personal and not Network business. If you get signed off The Network dies. Worse than that, it turns bad because you're not there to set guidelines." His words came ever more quickly as if he feared she might stop him. "Look, it's important to a lot of people that you stay alive, and that's why I wanted a favour so I can be there with you in Lima for backup."
Modesty Blaise stood up, and he was immediately on his feet as she moved to the window and stood there with her back to him, holding her elbows, a posture he had often seen when she was thinking intensely. Watching her now, he closed his mind to the dread that she might send him away, he simply stood watching her for the pleasure of it, a pleasure that held not the slightest shadow of desire.
She wore a pale yellow blouse, a denim skirt, and sandals, her legs bare. The ravenblack hair was coiled in a chignon to reveal the splendid column of her neck, and her only jewellery was an amethyst pendant. She was not particularly tall, perhaps five feet six, but he knew the elegant proportions of her body for she wore a leotard when they met twice a week for a technical combat workout in the gym attached to The Network's small private hospital. The workout was an hour long and very businesslike affair, greatly intriguing to her frontline men such as Krolli, Nedic and Sammy Wan, who often found excuses to be in the gym at those times.
Remembering, Willie marvelled again at her speed and mastery of timing, above all at her unique combat ability while in retreat. This was a gift acquired during her childhood struggles no doubt, but one that made her as dangerous an opponent as any he had faced.
Two minutes had passed when she said, "Were you faking when you got up to go without telling me the favour you wanted?"
"No, Princess. I just realised I couldn't expect you to make a blind promise, that's all. It was genuine."
"So you were giving up?"
"Well, not exactly. I reckoned on tailing you to Lima so I'd be on hand for when you tackled Bellman. Or maybe I'd get to 'im first."
"Keeping me alive for the good of The Network?"
A pause. Then, "No. For my own sake. You're my lifeline."
There was another long silence. At last, without turning, she said, "Have you any Network business to attend to this evening? Garcia mentioned a job he wanted done."
"Oh, that was sorting out a couple of heavies working for a pimp who was trying to get Claudine on his books, but I cleared that up this afternoon."
"Young Claudine? One of our couriers?"
"Yes."
"What did you do?"
"Picked up the heavies and the pimp, then hired a plane and flew them down to Tahala. Old man Saad's got 'em, and he's leaving them to Fuad's tribe for six months. Some of those nomads 'ave unusual tastes, so they'll find out what it's like. I told Saad you weren't asking for any commission."
She turned to stare at him, and he saw amusement in her eyes. "Danny Chavasse is always telling me that you have style, not that I need much telling. But I didn't know you were licensed to fly."
"Five years ago, Princess. An American lady financed it so I could spring 'er useless son who was doing fifteen years in a slammer north of Duranzo, in Uruguay. She picked me up when-" he broke off. "No, it's a long story. Sorry. Anyway, that's 'ow I got licensed, and I've done cropdusting and a bit of gunrunning since."
She moved to the desk and said, "Do you have anything personal on this evening?"
He smiled. "Any time you want anything done I'm free, Princess."
"Well... there seems to be a lot I don't know about you, Willie Garvin, because you haven't been handing it out. Useful stuff, maybe. I'd like you to have dinner with me here this evening so we can talk. Nothing special. Just talk as it comes." For a moment he thought he saw her almost smile for the first time. "I don't get much chance for that, I'm afraid," she said, and lifted a hand as he started to speak, "but this isn't an order. I don't give orders outside Network business." A dark eyebrow lifted in query above a midnight blue eye. "Well?"
For a moment he stared in blank incomprehension, then gave a shaky laugh. "When I came 'ere just now I thought I might end up getting the elbow, and I'll never be more scared. Now this. I don't know what to say, Princess, except yes please. It'll be a privilege."
She pressed the intercom on her desk, and when Moulay answered she said, "Two for dinner, Moulay. Mr Garvin is joining me."
"Very well, Mam'selle. In half an hour?"
"That's fine."
As she released the button Willie said with a touch of anxiety, "And it's all right about me coming to Lima with you?"
There was a hint of warmth in her voice, something he had never detected before, as she said, "It's very much all right. You've put a new perspective on it, and I'll be glad of your company. Now let's walk in the garden and talk till Moulay's ready for us."

* * *

At ninethirty Modesty Blaise poured fresh coffee and passed Willie his cup. She noted with satisfaction that throughout the leisurely meal he had drunk only two glasses of wine and that his manner had been as she would have wished, increasingly at ease but with no hint of presumption. A few moments ago, when Moulay had brought in a large envelope and a pair of surgical gloves, Willie had shown a touch of surprise but asked no questions.
Now she said, "When you're ready I want you to put the gloves on and take out the report you'll find in that envelope. It's about fifteen pages long, and I don't want any fingerprints on it. Not yet."
The document was in Spanish, but she already knew that he spoke four languages, including Arabic, with fair fluency and had a useful smattering of two more. With only an orphanage education he was remarkably knowledgeable in a wide variety of fields. ›I seem to pick things up fast,‹ he had said almost apologetically, ›and they stick. I don't forget anything.‹
She knew this was true. In the middle of a largescale Network battle with the Saafi mob she had heard him deliver an entertainingly appropriate quote from the Psalms, giving chapter and verse. The insouciance of it had inspired confidence at a critical moment. Later she learned from Danny Chavasse that in his youth Willie Garvin had spent several months in a Calcutta gaol with only a psalter to read. He knew the Psalms by heart, and could produce a quotation for every occasion. The humour of his choice was much appreciated by his peers in The Network.
Now he finished his coffee without haste, then put on the gloves and took the stapled sheaf of paper from the envelope. Modesty said, "Take your time. I'm going to phone Garcia."
He rose with her, waited till she had left the room, then sat down and began to read. Twenty minutes passed before she returned, and he was standing by the French windows, looking out over the moonlit gardens. The envelope lay on the table. She gestured for him to take one of the two armchairs that stood on either side of the windows, and seated herself facing him in the other chair.
"I've decided," she said, "that I can't tempt Bellman into trying to kill me. If he did try I could react and put him down, but I've been through that scenario before and he just runs. So now I'm hoping to get him put away officially for a long stretch. It's too good for a mass murderer like Bellman, who specialises in getting children hooked, but it'll have to do." She paused, and when he made no comment she went on, "I was waiting for you to say that someone else will take his place."
Willie shrugged. "It doesn't need saying, Princess. You know it, I know it, but I'm all for putting Bellman away so I'm not coming up with arguments against it."
"Good. Well, let's suppose you're an area chief of police in the Lima Department, where Bellman now lives. You're no doubt on the take from various racketeers, including him, so you won't put him away for any ordinary criminal offence. But you're under a strict military government, so what would you think if you read that document?"
Willie said, "It's a lovely job. I'd think Bellman was the key man in a powerful underground movement dedicated to overthrowing the government in a lightning coup. I'd see a realistic scenario with a network of thirty odd cells funded by Bellman. If I was chief of police there I'd run to the military boss of the area fast as I could go, and I'd reckon on Bellman being arrested within an hour of the military seeing that document. If he's lucky he'll end up in a labour squad."
She said, "No questions?"
"Well, I take it the paper's of local manufacture and you've got the typewriter. You'll be aiming to plant them both on Bellman with 'is prints on 'em. I don't know 'ow, but you must've 'ad someone out there to do a close recce of the setup for you."
She nodded. "Danny Chavasse has been working on one of the maids. You'll like his report, it's a masterpiece of detail." Willie grinned. Danny Chavasse was a genius with women and had been away for the past six weeks. Deservedly he ranked high in The Network, and he had been a good friend to Willie.
Modesty said, "I plan to leave next week, so we'll spend quite a bit of time going over Danny's report and working out our options. Are you clear for that?"
"Yes, Princess. You spoke about maids just now. Do they live in?"
She looked at him with approval. "Right. We don't scare women if we can help it, but in fact there's no livein female staff. However, there is a female, a girl about nineteen called Sandra. She's been with Bellman for years now, but according to Danny she's not his mistress. The maids assume she's his daughter, so maybe she is, except there's no record of his ever having been married."
Willie said, "What do we do about 'er?"
"We'll just try to leave her out of any activity, but whatever her status she's connected to Bellman, so if she gets a fright, tough. We won't harm her, but we can't pussyfoot around." Modesty got to her feet. "Time you went home, Willie. Collect a copy of Danny's report from my office first thing in the morning, start thinking, and I'd like you to be here tomorrow evening, same time."
"Sure, Princess." He had risen with her. "One thing. You wouldn't use Network people but you put Danny Chavasse in."
For a second time she almost smiled. "Danny was never at risk, never even in the house. He's a bedroom warrior, and there's nobody can match him in that. I would never have put in a combat man, well, not till you twisted my arm this evening."
"I was worried," Willie said gently. "Really worried." He stood looking at her uncertainly for a moment, then, "Thanks very much for 'aving me to dinner. It's been great."
She inclined her head in acknowledgement, then moved with him to the hall and the front door.
"Goodnight, Willie."
"'Night, Princess. Thanks again." She watched till he had moved out of sight on the way to his car, then closed the door and stood holding her elbows, gazing absently across the hall. Moulay, passing through to the diningroom, glanced at her but did not speak. He knew she might stand lost in thought for ten minutes or more.
She was still there and he was unloading a second tray of crockery and glasses in the kitchen when she roused from her reverie at last. "And thank you, Willie Garvin," she murmured thoughtfully.

* * *

The house stood four miles from the centre of Lima. It had been built only a hundred years ago but was in Spanish Colonial style with large grounds and a high perimeter wall pierced only by heavy wroughtiron gates opening on to a drive. A strong chain secured the gates. At three in the morning security lights on the walls would normally have reacted to any movement, but Willie Garvin had shorted out the circuit activating the sensors. Now, with rope and grapnel, he and Modesty were on the balcony that ran round three sides of the house. Both were in black combat rig, wearing a small backpack and skimask. Neither had spoken since coming over the wall. They knew the layout of the house and grounds, knew the security system and the guard arrangements, knew that Bellman and the girl who might be his daughter were in the house. They also knew that situations could change and that in spite of careful preparation there could always be unforeseen problems.
One had already arisen. It was routine for a man to patrol the grounds and another to patrol the balcony. Tonight, for whatever reason, both men were on the long balcony at this time, and one had turned a corner just as Modesty was climbing over the balustrade in the belief that a single guard was at the far corner as she did so. Because she had abnormal speed of reaction she had reached him before he could cry out or draw his gun, dropping him with a strike from the kongo, the small mushroomshaped piece of hardwood gripped in her fist, a weapon Willie had made for her that was devastatingly effective used against nervecentres.
She was giving the man a shot of barbiturate that would keep him asleep for an hour as Willie came up the rope to join her. Together they moved to the corner where the balcony turned and peered warily round. The second guard was twenty paces away, leaning on the long balustrade, smoking. Willie touched Modesty's shoulder and gestured to something he held, something dark and limp hanging from cords or thongs. He stepped back and began to twirl it round his head very fast, then stepped out from the shelter of the wall. The limp object seemed to double in size with a thong flying free. Willie nodded to her, and she moved out to see the guard lying unconscious on the balcony floor.
Understanding dawned, and she whispered, "Sling?" He nodded again, his voice low. "Leadshot moulded in a ball of wax. It's quiet and doesn't kill."
Together they moved to where the man lay. She knelt, opening the little leather box holding halfadozen charged syringes, wondering at what she had just seen. A sling? She knew his ability with a thrown knife and with the little wooden clubs he sometimes used, but in the year since he joined The Network he had never spoken of being skilled with a sling. This was something new to intrigue Krolli and his men.
A minute later they were at the French windows of a spare bedroom according to Danny Chavasse's plan. Bellman appeared to place great reliance on his guards, for the windows simply had interior bolts and these caused no delay when Willie had cut a small quadrant from the glass. Using a pencil torch, Modesty led the way across the room and out into a corridor where a low-wattage wall-lamp burned. She halted, handed a syringe to Willie, and moved off to the right, towards the bedroom used by the girl called Sandra. Willie moved left towards Bellman's room. She had given him the job of dealing with Bellman because a glimpse of a female figure, though masked, would identify Modesty Blaise for Bellman, and this was better avoided.
Willie paused at the door and very carefully eased the handle round. As he inched the door open a hinge squeaked. He stopped, waited, then began again. As he crossed the threshold the light went on, and he was gazing at a girl with luxuriant dark brown hair who lay in a double bed. Her feet were towards him and she was almost prone, but with her head turned to look over her shoulder towards him, one arm reaching out to a lightswitch set in the bedhead.
Her eyes were wide and startled as she stared for a bare moment at the masked figure, a moment in which Willie knew that Danny's information regarding the bedrooms was wrong, or there had been some change. This was the bedroom of Bellman's girl. She had woken at the creak of the hinge and now she was flinging aside the bedclothes to free herself as she lunged towards the bedside cabinet where an automatic lay.
Evidently Bellman's reliance on his guards was less than total after all, and the girl's hand was almost on the gun when Willie's forward dive brought him within reach of her foot and he hauled her back across the bed on her stomach, the nightdress rucking up to her waist.
He pushed the ankle he held down behind the knee of her other leg, bending that leg back towards her buttocks so the ankle was trapped in the crotch of the kneejoint and he could hold her in position with one hand. She was struggling and panting now as he said quietly in Spanish, "Do not be afraid, senorita. You will not be hurt."
The needle went into her buttock and she gasped, head turned to glare back at him with mingled rage and shock, both transformed to bewilderment as he went on reassuringly, "Let us count backwards from ten to one, senorita. It prevents insomnia." She began to struggle again as he started counting, but then her eyes glazed, her head drooped to rest on the bed, her body went limp.
Willie heaved a sigh of relief, pulled her nightdress down, eased her to a sleeping position in the bed, and drew the bedclothes up about her. He put out the light and went from the room, closing the door after him. She would sleep for a full two hours, perhaps longer.
The door of a room along the corridor was open and the light was on. When Willie entered he found Modesty putting away a hypodermic. She had taken off her skimask, and now he pulled off his own. A man in his middle forties lay unconscious on the bed, a goodlooking man with dark hair and a strong square face. Willie said, "Did he see you, Princess?"
She shook her head. "I woke him up with the torch shining in his eyes and put him out with the kongo when he lifted his head." She put the syringecase away in her small pack. "Not that it really matters. He'll guess." She stood looking down at Bellman. "It was a surprise finding him here. Danny got the rooms wrong."
"Well, making sense of what a Spanish maid says when you can't ask straight questions..."
He let the words fade as she gave him a look that seemed almost to hold a touch of affection. "I know that, Willie. You don't have to defend him. How did you manage with the girl?"
"Okay, but I gave 'er a fright. The door creaked and woke 'er up, then the light went on and she saw me and dived for a gun, but I got to 'er in time and hauled 'er back before she could reach it."
"She's all right?"
"Asleep, but fine." He thought for a moment. "Got a nice bottom."
She looked at him, amusement sparkling in her eyes, and for a moment he thought he might see her laugh for the first time. Then she shook her head, patted his arm and said, "Let's get on with it."
Ten minutes later Bellman lay on the floor in his study. He now wore a dressinggown over his pyjamas and a slipper on one foot. Another slipper lay nearby as if it had fallen off. He was close to one end of a pedestal desk, an arm outstretched with the hand hidden beneath the pedestal. Clutched in the hand was a slightly crumpled document of fifteen pages. A portable typewriter, carried in Willie's backpack and now bearing Bellman's fingerprints, stood on a side table.
Modesty watched as Willie crouched by the big safe set in one wall of the room, securing a thick ring of plastic explosive round the lock. When he was satisfied he inserted a small detonator and unreeled thin flex across the room to a power point, plugging the transformer at the end of the flex into the socket. Modesty rolled up the thick rug by the fireplace and together they arranged it carefully over the safe. Willie moved a heavy filing cabinet across the study and stood it against the rug.
When he switched on at the power point the explosion was surprisingly muffled and undramatic. He moved the filing cabinet away, the rug fell to the floor, and the safe door opened easily when he pulled on the handle. "We're in luck," he said. "Can't always get it right first time."
"You earn your luck," she said. "Nice work, Willie."
"My pleasure."
They went quickly through the contents of the safe, taking the few thousand American dollars and a number of significant records, scattering other material between the safe and where Bellman lay. Modesty crouched to put the selected papers in her pack. "I'll pass these on to a man called Tarrant I've done business with," she said. "He can circulate the drug enforcement agencies, maybe nail some other distributors."
She looked round the study. All was arranged as planned. She and Willie had worn surgical gloves and left no fingerprints. An observer of the scene would readily deduce that Bellman had been attacked and robbed, and that he had been trying to hide an important document when he passed out. She said, "All right, make the call now. Here's Captain Candela's home number." She passed him the telephone pad on the desk.
Two nights earlier Willie had climbed a telegraph pole fifty yards from the western wall of the grounds and fixed a radio bug to the wires serving Bellman's house. For several hours next day he and Modesty had lain hidden with a small receiver in woods bordering the road. Bellman had made several calls out, giving Willie an opportunity to listen carefully to his voice. As an unexpected bonus, one of the calls had been to Captain Candela, the area Chief of Police, revealing that Bellman addressed him by his Christian name.
Captain Candela was sound asleep when his bedside phone rang. He stirred irritably, and his wife jabbed him with an elbow. "It's the phone, Javier."
"I know, I know." He rolled on his side and groped for the instrument. "Candela here. What is it?"
A voice he recognized, urgent with panic, said, "It's Bellman... there's been a raid, Javier... they've blown my safe, taken papers-" the voice dropped to a shocked whisper, "Oh God, they're still here! I'll try to-"
Captain Candela, wide awake now, heard a clattering medley of sound, a hoarse cry, then the line went dead. He rattled the cradle without effect, then threw back the bedclothes, put on the bedside light and began to dress. If somebody had taken papers from Bellman's safe, Candela was extremely anxious to know if his name appeared in any stolen document.
Four miles away Willie dropped the phone on the floor near Bellman. Modesty knelt to fix a bug on the underside of the desk, then stood up to survey the scene. Willie said, "I reckon he'll be along with a posse in about fifteen minutes. He'll be sweating cobs about there being anything in that safe to compromise 'im."
She nodded. And when Candela saw the subversion document he would surely jump at the chance to distance himself from Bellman and gain kudos by shopping him. She said, "Let's go and listen, Willie. We'll leave the front door open." They were in the woods with the small receiver when three police cars drew up at the gates. Boltcutters severed the chain and the cars moved on up the drive. Soon they heard a medley of voices from the study where Bellman lay. At first there was a confusion of overlapping dialogue, but then a voice other than Candela's, from a man who must have been standing close to the desk, said, "He had papers in his hand, Captain. It is as if he took them from all the rest scattered here and was trying to hide them when he passed out."
Candela's thin, distinctive voice said, "Let me see." There was a long silence. Rustling. Heavy breathing. Background sounds. Then, "Is the telephone working, Sergeant?"
"Yes, Captain."
"Clear this room. I must call Colonel Turina at once on a confidential matter of state security."
Colonel Turina was the area Military Commander, and on Candela's mention of his name Modesty switched off the receiver. "It seems to be working," she said, "and there's nothing more we can do. Thanks Willie. Let's go home."

* * *

The seasons turned, The Network thrived. There were many and varied operations. Some were troublefree, some proved highly dangerous. Neither Modesty Blaise nor Willie Garvin came through unscathed, for there were times when rival gangs, dealing in what Inspector Hassan called very dirty crimes, dealing in death and drugs and flesh, tried to move in on The Network. It was then that Modesty Blaise led her people to war, with no quarter asked or given, and in those times she and Willie Garvin were The Network's most deadly weapons.
During those years there were changes in Willie Garvin. There were changes in Modesty Blaise. A strange and rich companionship developed between them, incomprehensible to many. Garcia, who had been with her from the first day and loved her like a daughter, understood completely and was a very happy man.
At last there came a time, as Garcia had predicted, when she wound up The Network and retired to England to a penthouse in London and a cottage in Wiltshire. Willie Garvin bought a pub called The Treadmill on the Thames near Maidenhead, "My favourite name for a town," he had announced, and watched the laughlines crinkle at the corners of her eyes, the laughlines that were his gift to her. But to live without risk was not long endured, and within a year they had been willingly coaxed into an unofficial mission for the head of a British Intelligence department, a mission that came close to costing their lives, and in which Willie had been wounded.
Sir Gerald Tarrant was thinking of that occasion, concluded only a few weeks ago now, as he stood with binoculars to his eyes, gazing down from the stand at Epsom. Willie Garvin was walking towards the paddock with an elegant auburn-haired girl in a green dress. He moved easily, so it seemed the fleshwound in his thigh had healed quickly, as Modesty had said it would. Tarrant lowered the glasses and made his way down the steps.
Leaning on the paddock rail, watching the horses parade round, Willie said to his companion, "They call it the sport of kings, but the truth is if they stopped all the betting today there'd be a glut of cat's meat tomorrow and you could build a supermarket 'ere."
The girl smiled. "I believe you. Do you usually win?"
"Only the bookies usually win. I sometimes get lucky, though. Mind you, it 'elps if you can read the tictac, but I mainly come for the day out... and because you can get talking to people easily."
"As you've shown. And I won fifteen pounds on the last race, so thanks for the tip."
"My pleasure," said Willie, then looked past her with mild surprise. "Allo, Sir G. Didn't expect to see you at the Spring Meeting."
"I have my vices, Willie. Am I intruding?"
"No, we just got chatting." Willie looked at the girl. "This is a friend of mine, Sir Gerald Tarrant, and you're Sandra...?"
"Thorne."
"Sandra Thome."
Tarrant raised his hat to her. "Good afternoon."
She smiled politely and inclined her head. "A very good one at the moment. Will you excuse me while I go and see a man about some money?" She looked at Willie. "Don't go away, I owe you a drink."
She moved off, and both men watched her go, then Willie took out his programme and began to study it. "I don't wonder the country's in a bad way," he said, "people taking a day off work to go racing."
"It's a disgrace," Tarrant agreed. "Have you backed a winner today?"
"I'm not sure yet, but I'm 'opeful."
"She's very attractive." Tarrant gazed idly about him, then said quietly, "I'd like to find a man called Bellman."
"Look in Peru," said Willie, still engrossed in his programme. "Political prisoner with a labour squad in the emerald mines. Been there six years."
Tarrant said, "He got out last year when the government fell. I'm looking for him closer to home."
"Not your field is it, Sir G.?"
"There's a lot of overlapping these days. My minister has asked me to give all possible help to the Drug Enforcement Agency, which I'm glad to do."
"Well, if Bellman's out, the sooner you find 'im the better. He's quite a genius in 'is own nasty line."
"Indeed. I was wondering if you might help."
Willie looked up and grinned. "Talk to my agent."
"You no longer work for Modesty, she's made that very clear. Why refer me to her?"
"Up till she found me," Willie said amiably, leaning back against the rail, "I was a loser. From then on I got lucky. Okay, we're retired now, but I'd like to stay lucky, see?"
Tarrant sighed. "I take the point. She's your talisman. All right, perhaps I'll talk to her but I doubt that she'll be helpful." He saluted with his rolled umbrella and turned to move away.
Willie said, "Try Sammy's Star in the fifth if you want a flutter."
Three minutes later, when Sandra Thorne returned, she said, "I see your friend's gone. Are you ready for that drink?"
"Parched." He put the programme away and studied her curiously. "Funny... I just 'ad a feeling I'd run into you before somewhere."
"It must have been in another life." She took his arm and they began to walk towards the bar.

* * *

It was the next day when Modesty stood with a gun to her shoulder and called "Pull!" The voiceoperated trap Willie Garvin had devised for her threw two clay pigeons at a diverging angle of forty degrees. The gun sounded twice and the clays shattered. She lowered the gun, opened it, and turned to the man who stood a little behind her on the clay pigeon layout.
Her cottage lay a hundred yards away across pasture she owned. Beyond was a winding lane that led to the nearby village of Benildon. She was casually dressed for shooting, as was her companion, Paul Crichton, a ruggedly impressive man in his late thirties with the look of one who had lived much in the sun. His gun, open, hung over one arm.
Modesty said, "We're still level. Would you like another dozen each?"
He halfsmiled and shook his head. "I might find it more interesting if the clays could hit back."
"Ah. Big white bwana prefer charging lion?"
He shrugged. "Just something that adds a little spice to the game."
She looked towards the cottage. "Then let's go. You won't find much in Wiltshire to give you an interesting hunt."
He surveyed her with raised eyebrows. "No?"
She did not react, and they moved away together in silence.
Unseen beyond a tall hedge, a car was halted on the road bordering the pasture. A driver sat at the wheel, and Sir Gerald Tarrant stood by a fivebarred gate that was flanked on each side by the hedge. Again he was using binoculars, focusing on the man and woman moving towards the cottage from the clay pigeon shoot. He adjusted the focus, studied the two faces and muttered an oath. Lowering the glasses he returned to the car and got in the back. The chauffeur said, "You're not calling on the lady then, sir?"
"No. I've changed my mind." Or had it changed for me, he thought unhappily. "Back to London, Reilly."
As Modesty and Crichton reached the stables and outbuildings she said, "I'll fix an early lunch before we leave for town."
Crichton said pleasantly, "Fine. It'll save having to stop on the way." When they came to the cottage he left her to go to his car, opened the boot and put his twelvebore in its case. Closing the boot, he glanced towards the cottage to check that she had gone in, then opened the offside front door and leaned across to run the palm of his hand over the surface of the passenger seat. Reaching under the dashboard he threw a small switch, then pressed a button set in the fascia. A fine needle sprang up through a minute hole in one of the leather seams, ejected a clear liquid, then vanished. Crichton wiped the seat dry with a clean rag, closed the door and walked towards the cottage.
As he entered by the kitchen door he made an effort to maintain an amiable demeanour and avoid showing anger at her Big White Bwana remark. It had affronted Paul Crichton's macho selfimage and he would very much have enjoyed hitting her, but took comfort in the reflection that a far more permanent and profitable revenge lay ahead.
Three hours later Sir Gerald Tarrant sat at his desk looking at two photographs lying side by side, one of a man, the other of an attractive young woman. His assistant, Fraser, stood watching him, a file under his arm. Fraser was a small vinegary man in his early fifties who had two personas, a false one as an ingratiating wimp, a true one as a casehardened cynic. The combination had made him a very dangerous operative during his active years as an agent in the field. At this moment he was in his second persona, gazing sourly at his chief.
"So you went down there and didn't see Modesty Blaise after all?" he said.
"Only at a distance. I changed my mind about speaking to her, Jack. Now observe a curious fact." Tarrant touched one of the photographs. "We know that Paul Crichton has had recent contact with the elusive Bellman. We also know that Miss Sandra Thorne, as she now calls herself, has a connection with Bellman going back many years. And at this moment Crichton is squiring Modesty Blaise and Miss Thorne is being squired by Willie Garvin."
Fraser grunted assent. "Which means?"
"Which means our friends Modesty and Willie don't know it, but they're in trouble. Bellman is after them for some reason. He's setting them up."
Fraser sniffed. "You're suggesting we warn them?"
Tarrant kept his eyes on the photographs. "For anybody with an ounce of decency and selfrespect it's the only course." He looked up and shook his head irritably. "I wish we could afford such luxuries, but I want Bellman. If he's going for our friends Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin he might well run into problems that force him into the open. Have a close watch kept on them, Jack. Put it in hand right away."
"Will do." Fraser moved to the door leading into his own office. "If it's not too late," he added.
Tarrant put the photographs aside, wishing he didn't dislike himself so much at this moment. "There's always that possibility," he said bleakly. "In which case we can only hope they survive Bellman's attentions."
Fraser opened his door. "That's their problem."
Next morning found Tarrant in the foyer of a penthouse overlooking Hyde Park, speaking to Modesty Blaise's houseboy, Weng, who was also her chef and chauffeur. It was Tarrant's opinion that the young oriental could well have become a captain of industry had he so wished, and had he not so clearly preferred to remain in service to his highly unusual employer who trusted him with many large and demanding responsibilities.
"No, Sir Gerald," Weng was saying politely, "Miss Blaise was due home last night but did not arrive. May I take your hat and umbrella, sir? Miss Blaise would wish me to offer you coffee, tea, or perhaps-"
"No, no thank you," Tarrant broke in hastily. "Have you rung her at the cottage?"
"Yes, but she is not there, sir. I have also rung Mr Garvin, but it seems he did not return home to The Treadmill last night, as expected."
"I see." Tarrant hesitated. "Iumthink they may have some trouble on their hands, Weng."
"So I assumed, sir. It is not the first time. I shall wait, and listen out."
"Listen out?"
"We have radio communication here, sir."
Tarrant said unhappily, "I feel their chances of calling you on it may be rather slight."
"It is the routine laid down by Miss Blaise, sir."
Tarrant gazed at the houseboy with some annoyance. "You don't seem particularly worried, Weng."
A bland, expressionless look. "Certainly I am worried, Sir Gerald, but I am also inscrutable. I do not allow my manner or my expression to reveal that I believe you have dropped them in it again."
Tarrant stared, then nodded and put on his hat, turning to the private lift which would carry him down to the reception hall of the block. "How considerate of you, Weng," he said.

* * *

Willie Garvin opened his eyes warily, then lifted hands to his aching head, discovering by so doing that his wrists were in handcuffs. Slowly he sat up on the bunk where he had been lying. Looking down at his much rumpled clothes he noted that he was still wearing the dress shirt and dinner jacket he had been wearing when he called to take Sandra Thorne to a charity film premiere followed by a dinner and dance. He had a feeling that this had been quite a long time ago now.
As the muzziness in his head began to clear he realised that the room was rising and falling very gently. Not a room, then, but a small cabin, dimly lit and well below luxury class. On first sitting up he had registered that Modesty Blaise lay sprawled on her back on another bunk barely an arm's length away across the cabin. She wore a grey skirt with a tartan shirt under a soft leather jerkin, flat shoes and dark tights. In view of his own situation Willie felt little surprise at seeing her. Clearly they were jointly in trouble. Sandra Thorne had arranged his own transfer to wherever he was now, but he had no idea who had done the same for Modesty.
Quietly he got to his feet and thumbed open one of her eyelids. He checked her breathing, felt her pulse, straightened the skirt rucked at her thighs, then looked about him. The cabin contained a small washbasin, lockers, a door and a porthole. He moved to the porthole and looked out across a calm grey sea. It was a little before dawn, he judged, with a thin overcast of broken cloud. He could make out land no more than a few hundred yards from the anchored ship. No lights gleamed from the shore, and the line of land seemed to terminate when he peered to the right. An island, perhaps.
There came the sound of a key being put into the lock of the door, and in a moment he was back on the bunk, sprawled as if unconscious. Somebody opened the door and entered. He caught a hint of perfume, and knew it was Sandra Thorne. Then she spoke to somebody outside. "Tell Mr Bellman they're still asleep."
The door closed and he heard her move to Modesty's bunk. A few seconds passed, then her hand touched his face as she made to lift an eyelid. He caught her wrist, jerked hard so that she fell towards him, and chopped with the edge of his handcuffed hands to a point just behind her ear. Her sudden indrawn breath was exhaled with a barely audible grunt and her body went limp upon him.
He rolled her over on the bunk, got to his feet, lifted Modesty and put her over one shoulder, then moved to the door and opened it carefully. Best move was to get ashore for a start. Not much chance of being able to launch a dinghy, but if he could get overboard with Modesty she would soon revive in the sea. Once on land they could try to deal with the 'cuffs. She might have something to use as a lockpick. Even a hairgrip might do.
He had barely stepped into the passage when a man came down a companionway ten paces away, a man with long dark hair and a band round his forehead, darkeyed, with deepbronze skin. He wore a grey shirt, jeans, and soft leather boots. There was a knife in a sheath at his belt, and he carried a carbine levelled from the hip. Willie nodded a casual greeting and turned to look the other way. A second man had emerged from round the corner of the passage, a bigger man, perhaps forty, with cold unblinking eyes. He wore a camouflage tunic and a baseball cap, and carried a 9mm Uzi submachine gun with a folding stock, slung so that it rested at his hip for immediate use.
Willie gave him a friendly smile and went back into the cabin, emerging a few seconds later with Sandra cradled in his arms and muttering dazedly. With great care he propped her against the passage bulkhead. She gazed at him with bleary, uncomprehending eyes while he held her until her straddled legs gathered enough strength to support her. Then he let her go and smiled winningly at the big man with the Uzi.
"She 'ad one of her turns," he explained, and went back into the cabin, closing the door. Seconds later he heard the key turn in the lock. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket he soaked it at the washbasin, hauled Modesty into a sitting position on her bunk, and slapped the wet pad on the back of her neck. Then, awkwardly because his hands were 'cuffed, he began alternately to shake her and pat her face quite sharply.
"Come on, Princess," he said firmly, "this is no time to sleep it off. We've got to 'ave a talk. Wake up, there's a good girl." Her eyelids flickered and she began to turn her head feebly to avoid his pats. "Come on, where are we?" he demanded. "Let's see you do your 'uman compass trick. Where's north?" She muttered something, and moved her 'cuffed hands to indicate a direction.
"There's a clever girl. Now tell Willie where you went to sleep." He gave her a shake. Eyes half open now, frowning irritably, she pointed.
"Southeast?" She muttered assent. "So we could be somewhere off the west coast of Scotland? Is that what it feels like?"
She stiffened slowly in his grasp, drew in a long breath and opened her eyes wide. She looked at Willie, at her 'cuffed hands, then round the small cabin. He watched her begin controlled breathing as she drew on her deeper energies to bring her to full alertness, and a minute later she said in her normal voice, "Yes, that's about what it feels like. How did we get here?"
"Don't know about you, Princess. I got picked up by a girl called Sandra who slipped me a mickey in a drink she gave me at 'er flat."
Modesty said slowly, "Paul Crichton... I was in his car, and... oh God, yes." She winced at the memory and tried to feel her buttock. "Needle in my backside. Last thing I remember is thinking I'd sat on a wasp." She got to her feet and moved to the porthole. "This was planned well in advance and with no expense spared, Willie. I'd say we're on a motor fishing vessel somewhere north of Glasgow, and they brought us up here by helicopter under sedation." She turned to look at him, and he was glad to see that her colour was good and her eyes clear as she said, "Do you know who they are?"
He.nodded. "It's Bellman."
She stared. "Lima? Six years ago?"
"That's the one. He got out of the mines when the government fell. Tarrant's looking for 'im, and I just 'eard my friend Sandra say 'is name."
"You've seen her, then?"
"Yes, she came in to check 'ow we were doing."
"Did she say anything?"
"Not to me. I'd been awake a couple of minutes, but I made like I was out and gave 'er a chop. Then I was carrying you out to see if I could find a dinghy, or if not make a swim for it, but I ran into a Red Indian with a carbine and a mercenary type with a Uzi, so I brought you back in and took Sandra out."
She smiled and moved to sit beside him, giving him a pat on the knee. "You've been a busy lad, Willie love."
"And stupid, too, letting myself get picked up at Epsom." He frowned. "Who's Paul Crichton? I don't remember you mentioning 'im."
"I met him only a few days ago. And don't brag, I'm just as stupid as you are. He's from Kenya. I asked him to come to the cottage, then wondered why. He's very macho. A hunter-" She broke off.
Willie said, "A hunter?" They looked at each other with new speculation.
After a while Modesty said, "Well, I don't suppose it'll be long before we find out."

* * *

Crichton sat at the wardroom table polishing the steel buttplate of a hunting rifle, already burnished by years of use. A little way from him sat the big man with the Uzi, smoking, his gun lying on the table in front of him. Occasionally he glanced at Crichton with a shade of contempt. On the port side of the wardroom was a man in a wheelchair with a blanket over his knees. His hair was white, his face lined and the colour of putty. He sat with hands clasped in front of him, sunken eyes fixed on the door.
It opened, and Modesty Blaise came into the wardroom followed by Willie Garvin with a carbine at his back. The redskin moved to one side and stood watching them, the carbine at his hip. Modesty and Willie surveyed the wardroom thoughtfully, then stood with eyes on the man in the wheelchair. After a moment or two he said in a throaty voice, "Well...?"
Realisation came with a shock. They looked at each other, then at the man again, and Willie said cheerfully, "'Allo, Bellman. How's your luck?"
Bellman spoke in a voice that was shaken by weakness and passion. "Hard to recognise me, is it? A few years of hell in the mines and I'm an old man. An old man."
Modesty said, "I've seen junkies a lot younger who looked worse. Your clients."
For all the reaction he showed, Bellman might not have heard. He said hoarsely, "I've waited a long time for this. It was all that kept me alive. Now you're going to die, God damn you!"
He did not take his eyes from Modesty as he went on, "These are your hunters. Charlie Brightstar, Choctaw Indian. Best hunter in the States. Sooner kill a paleface than a bear. Van Rutte. Seven years a mercenary in black Africa. Good killing machine. Crichton... big game. A hunter with all the trophies except a man or a woman."
The door opened and Sandra came in. Bellman said in a gentle voice, "Are you all right now, darling?"
"Just a headache." She moved to face Willie, her eyes hostile. "You still don't recognize me?"
He looked at her searchingly. "Wait a minute... ah, yes, you've changed your hair colour. Lima, wasn't it? The girl on the bed." He smiled apologetically. "I didn't get much of a look at you that night. Not your face, anyway."
She looked at him coldly, then turned away and moved across the wardroom to stand beside Bellman, a hand on his shoulder. He reached up to rest a hand on her own, eyes dark with hate as he stared at Modesty. "You hunted me," he said with bitter rage. "You hounded me across the world... and then you framed me! I was innocent!"
"Innocent?" Modesty shook her head. "You want us to bleed for you, Bellman? You handled threequarters of a ton of heroin every year. You ran a training school, teaching your pushers how to get the kids hooked." Willie saw Sandra stiffen, and it seemed to him that fury and shock were at odds within her as she looked uncertainly down at Bellman, then at Modesty again as she went on: "You've killed them by the thousand, Bellman... but slowly. You rotted their souls. But you wouldn't ever see that end of it. You were just the big supplier. You didn't see the kids crawling to your pushers for a fix, ready to lick boots, steal, kill, anything-"
"Stop the bitch!" cried Bellman in a quavering scream, and Crichton came out of his chair fast, hitting Modesty hard across the mouth with the back of his hand, eyes alight with pleasure. Her lip was cut, and she lifted her hands, pressing the back of a wrist against her mouth to stem the bleeding.
Willie looked at Crichton and said mildly, "What was the name again?" In contrast to the voice there was something so truly chilling in his eyes that Crichton stepped quickly back. Then he recovered and forced a laugh. "You won't come looking for me, Garvin. I'll soon be looking for you."
Van Rutte said, "And he won't be the only one. Here's your gear." He picked up a haversack beside his chair and emptied it on to the table: a colt .32, a bowie knife, a waterbottle, and handcuff keys on a string.
In a voice trembling with malice and selfpity Bellman said, "You hunted me! Now you'll learn what it feels like. You'll be put ashore on an island at ten. It's small, nobody lives there. You'll have your favourite weapons, Colt thirtytwo for you, Blaise, a knife for Garvin. A bottle of water. Keys for the handcuffs." Van Rutte put the items back in the haversack as they were named, and Bellman went on, "You'll have two hours, then they'll be coming to hunt you down... and kill you!" His voice cracked on the last words and he swayed in his chair, panting, looking about him with crazed eyes. Sandra held his shoulder to steady him, deeply troubled.
Modesty said quietly, "It wasn't the labour squad that ruined you, Bellman. It was having no guts. You just gave up, because you're a whinger and a quitter."
Bellman tried to speak, but no word emerged. Sandra looked at the two captives with savage anger, then at Charlie Brightstar. "Take them away," she said. "I don't want to hear any more lies."

* * *

Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin stood on a flat stretch of rock that made a natural landing place, watching the small launch as it headed back towards the ship anchored offshore. On leaving her they had noted that she carried a Panamanian flag and was called Ambato. They were still handcuffed, and Willie was carrying the haversack. For a few seconds they studied their surroundings, noting the lie of the land, the distance to the ship, the set of the current, and estimating the time it would take to swim to the Ambato if at some stage they so decided.
Modesty gave a little nod, and together they turned and moved inland, up a short rocky slope then down into a hollow where they would be hidden from anyone watching with fieldglasses from the ship. Willie took keys from the haversack and unlocked Modesty's 'cuffs, eyebrows lifting with a touch of surprise. "I thought Bellman might be 'aving us on," he said. "Wrong keys."
"They could well have been." Modesty took them from him and freed his wrists. "Bellman's half crazy. Eaten away inside."
"Like a few thousand of 'is old customers, if they're still alive." Willie took out the Colt and passed it to Modesty. As she checked the cylinder to see that it was loaded he rested the bowie knife across one finger to assess the balance. "How d'you want to play it, Princess?" he asked.
"The long way, I think. Find a hole and disappear, maybe for a couple of days while they get swiveleyed and impatient. Alternatively, we might swim to the ship after dark and take it over, leaving the Three Musketeers on the island. We don't want to prove anything, do we?"
"Well... not exactly."
He spoke reluctantly, and when she saw him glance at her badly swollen mouth she knew his mind and said, "Well, let's find a hole first, then see how things go."
"Okay. We've got the best part of two hours." He put the handcuffs in the haversack, the keys in a pocket of his dinner jacket.
Modesty said, "We can pick up a little food to keep us going. Just easy stuff. Rock seaweed, shellfish, and maybe some nettles or dandelions."
Willie grimaced. "I might go on a fast. I was the least squeamish kid in the orphanage, but I wish I 'ad your stomach."
She smiled and picked up the hem of her skirt. "I had early training in diet. Hack this off short for me, Willie. It's a pity I wasn't wearing slacks."
He dropped to one knee and began to cut the skirt to above midthigh. There might be no immediate need for this if they were going to ground, but she was taking nothing for granted, and if action came sooner than expected she wanted no skirt to hamper her movements. When he had finished Willie put the cut fabric in his haversack on the principle that it might be useful. In circumstances like these, you could never tell.

* * *

At noon the ship's launch headed for the shore, an Asiatic seaman at the tiller. Brightstar sat with the carbine across his knees, silent and impassive. Crichton carried his hunting rifle and wore a widebrimmed hat with a strip of leopard skin round the crown. Van Rutte nursed his Uzi and had changed his baseball cap for a camouflaged steel helmet.
On the deck of the Ambato Bellman sat in his wheelchair with Sandra beside him. A pace or two away, watching them uneasily, was the ship's master. Captain Ricco Burrera was a worried man with an ingratiating manner. He was well aware that whatever was about to happen was entirely illegal, in fact that it almost certainly involved a double killing, and he was concerned that this might, if discovered, be held against him.
He cleared his throat noisily to make his presence known and said, "I hope there will be no troubles afterwards, senor."
Bellman did not put himself out to turn and look at the man as he said, "I own you, Burrera. You and your miserable ship. Go away and don't bother me."
"Of course, senor. Thank you." Burrera made a placating gesture and moved unhappily away.
Gazing towards the island, Bellman said, "Soon be over now, my darling. Do you think I'm a wicked man to take revenge like this?"
"No!" She took his hand and spoke fiercely. "You've been good to me since the day I came to you all those years ago, and they did this to you. They destroyed you. They're evil, and I hate them." She hesitated, then went on with fading vehemence. "I want them to know how it feels. I want them hunted and destroyed."
There was a silence, and Bellman reached out to pat her hand. After a moment she said, "It wasn't true, was it? I mean, what they said about you. About drugs."
He turned his head to look at her, smiling a little. "Can you even begin to believe it of me?"
She leaned over to rest her cheek against his. "Oh, I'm sorry, please forgive me. It was just... he seemed not the way I'd always imagined. Willie Garvin, I mean. Well, both of them."
He nodded and squeezed her hand. "Yes. They're very clever, you know."
She straightened up and sighed. "Of course. I was being stupid."

* * *

Only by courtesy could the hideaway be called a cave. It was a broad, tapering slot running through a low spur of rock that projected into a valley bottom. The entrance was perhaps three feet high and twice as wide. Within, the roof rose briefly to five feet, then sloped down, and the width gradually narrowed to a smaller opening into the valley some twenty feet away on the far side of the spur.
Willie Garvin lay asleep, head pillowed on his folded dinner jacket. Modesty sat crosslegged near the mouth of the cave, holding the Colt in her lap, the haversack and bottle of water beside her. Willie stirred, opened his eyes and was immediately awake. He sat up and straightened his bowtie. "I feel a bit overdressed for this caper," he remarked. "You fancy another little catnap for 'alfanhour, Princess?"
"No, I'm well rested now, thanks. Have you got a comb, Willie?"
He produced one from his jacket and crawled forward to sit beside her. She took the comb, pulled pins from her chignon and began to comb out her hair. "Where had you been in that rig?"
"The dinner jacket? Oh, I bought a couple of tickets for us. That charity film premiere you fancied, with the dinner and dance after."
She looked puzzled. "You didn't tell me."
"No, I rang Weng and he said you'd got a gentleman in the offing so I left it. Then when Sandra cropped up, I asked 'er along." He grinned suddenly. "Did Weng mean Crichton?"
Modesty frowned, tugging hard at her hair. "I suppose so. Yes."
Willie chuckled, and she said, "Ha! Big joke! You got conned by Sandra, anyway."
"Don't remind me. And I'd seen 'er before. Well, back view."
Modesty sighed and began to plait her hair in two short pigtails behind her ears. "I met Crichton three nights ago at a party and he made himself pleasant. He came to the cottage for some shooting yesterday morning, and by the time we left for town I was off him."
Willie moved to kneel behind her. "I'll do it, Princess. You 'ang on to the gun."
She felt him take over the combing and plaiting, and remembered the first time he had done this for her, years ago in The Network days when she had been wounded and he had sicknursed her. She said, "Bellman's destroyed himself with hating us. It would have been better to put him down."
"Much. Better for 'is customers and for us, too. But he wouldn't fight."
"That was the trouble." She was silent for a few moments, then, "We never did find out who that girl is. It's just a feeling, but I don't think she was for sleeping with."
"I 'ad the same notion." He completed a plait and tied it with a thin strip from the offcut of her skirt. "D'you mind if I cut your jerkin up?"
She looked surprised for a moment, then understanding dawned. "No, it's a good idea."
A quarter of a mile away Crichton moved along the foot of a low ridge, rifle under his arm. Binoculars hung from his belt, and an object like a small radio was suspended from his neck so that it rested on his chest. From the top of it a twelveinch loop aerial projected. Crichton halted and turned the aerial slowly, watching a dial set in the chassis beside it. A needle moved up the dial to a midpoint on it, began to fall, then rose again as he finetuned the direction of the loop. He looked up, sighted along the loop, then moved on.
In the cave, her plaits completed, Modesty sat watching from just within the entrance. Willie had cut a triangle and several thin thongs from the soft leather of her jerkin and was fashioning a sling. She said, "I think we can have a mouthful of water each now," and reached for the waterbottle. She uncorked it, moistened two fingers and tasted, then corked the bottle again. "Willie, he's given us strong salt water."
Willie knotted a final thong to a corner of the leather triangle. "Well, if he's playing it that way..."
"Yes." She broke open the Colt, shook out the cartridges and passed one to him. As he examined it she lifted the gun to look down the barrel. "Don't bother, Willie, they'll be live all right. The barrel's blocked solid halfway down. He was hoping I'd blow a few fingers off."
Willie started to speak, but she stopped him with a quick hand on his knee, then edged back and lay on her stomach. He eased down beside her, looking out into the sunshine. A hundred yards away at the top of a slight incline Crichton stood fiddling with a small black object that hung from his neck. After a few moments he took binoculars from his belt and looked directly towards the cave entrance.
They lay still, using material cut from her skirt as cowls to mask their faces, confident that they could not be detected in the deep shadows. Modesty whispered, "He's using some sort of gadget and he's found us much too damn quickly."
"Could be a little directionfinder. But we'd 'ave to be carrying something for it to home in on."
She said, "The water was salt, the gun was boobytrapped. That leaves the knife."
He looked at the bowie knife, in his hand now. "A homer, fixed inside the 'ilt."
"And big white bloody Crichton didn't fancy clay pigeons because they can't hit back," she said, tightlipped. "Don't throw that knife, you might break the homer and it's too useful to waste."
"That's what I was thinking." He laid the knife on the ground. At the top of the slope Crichton had put down the mini d.f. He checked his rifle carefully, then began to move towards the cave, crouching, taking cover behind a boulder or in a shallow gully of the seamed ground as he moved.
Modesty said, "He's putting on a nice act. Wants me to take a shot when he's close."
"Then you get your 'and blown apart and he comes in quick over the last bit and blasts us while we're wondering what 'appened."
She said softly, "I really hate that bastard. All right, I'll play bait. You slip out the back way and take him from the flank."
Crichton lay behind a low outcrop of rock, enjoying himself as he visualised what would be happening in the cave. They would have seen him, of course, but she was far too smart to use the Colt at long range. They would be watching his approach, confident that she could drop him before he could sight her, and then they would have his rifle to use against Brightstar and Van Rutte. He peered round one end of the outcrop, the binoculars to his eyes. Adrenalin was pumped into his bloodstream as he saw her hand and forearm resting on the ground fifty yards away, just clear of the cave's shadows. The Colt was in her hand, aimed in his general direction, but she would not fire yet.
He prepared for a quick dash forward to the next piece of cover, a low hump in the ground, then set off at a crouching run. This would bring him to within a dozen paces of the cave, and when he made the next dash she would surely fire. This would leave her hand shattered and Garvin briefly frozen by shock. Then it would be easy-
Crichton's thought ceased abruptly, for his senses were splintered and he was sent sprawling to the ground, stupefied by a savage blow from nowhere. Watching from the cave, Modesty caught her breath in surprise as she saw the missile that fell with him - not a pebble from a sling, but the full and heavy waterbottle, which had hit him squarely on the side of the head. Willie Garvin's accuracy in throwing was not confined to knife or club. He was equally capable with anything from a coin to a fellingaxe.
The waterbottle was less damaging, less potentially lethal than a pebble slingshot, and as Willie came into her field of vision, running hard, she knew he had chosen it simply to disarm Crichton for long enough to reach him. Yes, she thought, touching fingers to her bruised and swollen mouth, that figures.
Crichton had got to his knees and was peering about for his fallen rifle when a hand of frightening strength took him by the back of the neck. He was hauled to his feet and spun round to face a man in a stained and crumpled dress shirt, looking at him with blistering blue eyes.
Willie Garvin said, "The name's Crichton, I believe?" Then his arm swung in a shattering backhand blow across Crichton's mouth and the man was flung sideways as if by a silent bomb blast, unconscious before he hit the ground. Willie heard Modesty's approach and turned to face her, palms raised in placatory protest. "Don't go on at me, Princess. The bastard 'it you while you were 'cuffed. I 'ad to get that off me chest."
"You could always have had counselling," she said solemnly, then smiled. "I know, Willie love, and I'd smile more if it didn't hurt. You're so oldfashioned." She looked at Crichton. "D'you think his neck's broken?"
"Well, I wasn't trying for that, but I wouldn't shed tears." Willie moved to examine the limp form. "No, he's okay. Might need a bit of dentistry sometime, that's all."
"Some people have all the luck. Let's get him into the cave."
Two minutes later the bowie knife lay near the top of the slope where Crichton had first appeared. In the cave, Modesty lay with Crichton's rifle covering the area where the knife with its concealed homer had been planted. Behind her Crichton lay facedown, still unconscious, wrists handcuffed behind him. Willie sat beside her studying a handdrawn map he had found in a pocket of Crichton's bushjacket.
"It's a nice map," said Willie. "Relief shading and contour lines, but three straight lines dividing the island into three separate sections marked B, C and V. I reckon that means separate 'unting grounds for Brightstar, Crichton and Van Rutte, with us in Crichton's patch."
Modesty relaxed slightly but kept her eyes on the ridge. "That figures," she said. "We have to assume that Brightstar and Van Rutte also have d.f. gadgets, so they'd have been here by now if there were no restrictions. But why set it up like this?"
Willie frowned at the map. "I wish we knew. It could be a big 'elp."
Crichton groaned faintly and began to stir. Modesty turned her head to look back at him thoughtfully. "Willie," she said, "I've just had a bit of an idea."
A little under a mile away, Bellman sat in his wheelchair staring towards the island. Sandra came from the galley with a tray of cold meats and salad, setting it down on the small table beside him. He shook his head impatiently and lifted binoculars to his eyes.
Sandra shivered. "I wish it was over," she said in a low voice, and seated herself in the canvas chair beside him. After a brief silence she went on, "May I ask you a question? It's strange, but I've never asked you this over all the years."
Bellman lowered the glasses. "What is it, darling?"
She gazed out over the sea, eyes focused on memories. "I was... how old? Eleven, I think, when you bought me on the virgin market in Buenos Aires, child of an Englishborn prostitute recently murdered, father unknown." She shook her head. "I was so scared, but you never touched me. You just treated me as if I were your own daughter. Educated me, looked after me. And when I grew up you were never jealous about men, only caring and protective. Even while you were in the mines you made sure I was in safe hands with a good family. All the time you just gave, and you seemed to want nothing in return. Can you tell me why?"
Bellman gazed blankly at the far horizon. "I suppose," he said slowly, "... I suppose I needed somebody. Needed a friend."
"You?" She was bewildered.
He smiled weakly. "Somebody to care for. Somebody who would care about me, as you have done."
"But you know hundreds of people. All kinds, all over the world. I don't understand."
"All business acquaintances, Sandra. It isn't the same, you know."
She bit her lip, looking towards the island with a troubled air as she put a hand on his. "Do you have to go through with... what you're doing? Is it too late to stop? I just feel it isn't the kind of thing you've taught me. Oh, I thought I wanted it too, but now that it's real I feel different. This thing... it isn't like you."
"Sandra, look at me." His voice was ragged. "Look at me and remember. I'm not like me any more, am I? Remember how I was? Do you want them to have done this to me and go laughing on their way?"
After a little while she said wearily, "No. I hate them for it. But then I hate them all... Charlie Brightstar and Van Rutte and that Crichton creature." She closed her eyes and leaned back in the chair. "Maybe myself, too."

* * *

Crichton was conscious again, and very unhappy. The fact that his face hurt intolerably was overshadowed by apprehension of worse to come. He had been searched by Willie Garvin who had taken his pipe, matches, wallet, keys, tobacco pouch and handkerchief. He lay on his front now, wrists handcuffed behind him, head turned to watch Willie's hands as they used one end of a thin leather thong to form a small slipnoose round the trigger and triggerguard of the Colt, drawing the noose almost tight so that any further pressure would pull the trigger.
"Interesting, isn't it?" said Willie. He laid down the Colt, grasped Crichton's left ankle and bent the leg so that from knee to foot it was vertical. Craning his neck, Crichton saw him tie the other end of the thong round the raised ankle. He picked up the gun, thumbed back the trigger, and next moment Crichton felt the weapon being pushed down his back under the bushjacket he wore. There was very little slack between the ankle and the point where the thong disappeared over Crichton's collar.
Willie turned to Modesty. "The gun's not much cop for shooting," he said, "but it makes a ducky little bomb." He smiled cheerfully at Crichton. "You know something, bwana? You're definitely on our side now, because if we don't come back your leg's going to get tired and the gun'll go bang and you'll get a slipped disc or something."
Sweat beaded Crichton's face as he croaked, "For God's sake...!"
"Just don't wriggle," Willie advised earnestly, adjusting his bowtie, "and keep your fingers crossed for us." He picked up the map and haversack. "It might 'elp if we knew how your mates are working, but I wouldn't ask you to grass on 'em." He moved at a crouch towards the cave entrance. "All set, Princess?"
"Let's get on with it." Holding the rifle, Modesty made as if to leave the cave.
Crichton said desperately, "Wait!" She paused, looking back at him impatiently, and he hurried on. "We surveyed the island last week. Split it in three sections. We hunt independently, Bellman's orders. No poaching. You're in my area."
Modesty gave him a hostile glare. "He's playing for time, Willie. Use that knife to gut the bastard and let's get going."
Willie nodded. "Okay, I'll just disconnect the gun first-"
"For Christ's sake it's true!" Crichton broke in, his voice a screaming whisper. "It's bloody true! We're being paid all expenses and five thousand each for the job. There's a bonus of another five thousand for whoever makes a kill. Each kill."
Modesty said, "Anything else?"
He gave a very minimal shake of the head, terrified to move. "Nothing, I swear! But watch out for Brightstar."
Willie said, "There. I knew you wanted us to come back." Modesty turned, crouching, and moved out of the cave.
Crichton panted, "Oh Jesus, don't leave me like this!"
From the entrance, Willie looked back at him. "Like this you've got a chance," he said grimly. "And you were set to kill us. Don't tempt me."
Outside the cave Modesty was squatting on her haunches studying the map. As Willie joined her she put a finger on it and said, "Suppose we plant the knifehomer there?"
"Let's 'ave a look. Ah, yes. Just where Charlie Brightstar's shooting rights join Van Rutte's. Seems to be a long gully running across the demarcation line there."
She nodded. "So they should come from opposite directions, north and south, and we can lay for them."
"Sounds fine." They stood up and he said casually, "I'll take Brightstar, then?"
"Willie, we're on a caper," she said gently. "That's when you stop being a courteous and protective gentleman. You've done enough of that for today. We think Brightstar is the sneaky one, and we have a rifle and sling between us. I can't use a sling or throw rocks. Whoever has the rifle must take Brightstar."
Willie sighed. "You're right," he acknowledged. "Sorry."
"That's better. But let's not rush this. We're safe here in Crichton's territory so we'll let the others tramp about their patches for a few hours while we relax and they get frustrated."
Willie grinned. "You're a hard-'earted lady. But I'd better take that bomb off Crichton's back until we're ready to go."

* * *

Van Rutte sat with his back to a rock in a shallow basin on a hilltop. The directionfinder stood beside him, the Uzi rested on his knees. He stubbed out a cigarette, adding to the six or seven butts scattered nearby. Van Rutte felt he was close to losing a bonus of five or possibly ten thousand pounds, and he was not pleased.
Two minutes later he reached out again for the hundredth time to swivel the aerial, but this time his eyes widened as the needle on the dial suddenly kicked. He picked up the instrument and stood carefully adjusting the aerial for maximum response, then moved off along the line indicated.
Almost half a mile away, Charlie Brightstar showed no sign of emotion as the needle on his d.f. moved for the first time since he had come ashore long hours ago. Without haste he adjusted the aerial, studying first the dial and then the map that lay to one side of the instrument. A few moments later he rose to his feet and moved without a sound from the patch of dry brown grass in which he had lain perfectly camouflaged for the past hour.
Van Rutte was moving warily along a broad gully some ten paces wide and with walls rising almost vertically to well above the height of a man. Its sides were seamed and broken, with many niches and crevices. A few minutes ago his d.f. had given such a strong signal that he was sure the homer Garvin carried could be no more than a hundred and fifty yards away.
Van Rutte moved warily, keeping close to one side, his Uzi cocked. Rounding a slight bend, he froze at sight of something lying in the middle of the gully, something black and fawn with... his eyes narrowed in puzzlement. That was the dinner jacket Garvin had been wearing, and on top of it was Crichton's bushhat with the leopardskin band.
Crichton? Was that bastard poaching? Surely not. That was a nopay offence, and there had been no shot. But could he have taken Garvin silently? Riflebutt at close quarters? Van Rutte edged slowly forward, the Uzi poised.
Lying prone amid low scrub on top of the gully wall, Willie Garvin frowned. It was, he felt, inconsiderate of Van Rutte to have changed his baseball cap for a steel helmet. It may well have been that he did not wholeheartedly trust his colleagues, but the effect was to disrupt Willie's plan of taking Van Rutte out with a slingshot from above, for the helmet protected him from a downwardangled missile.
In the past, studying Modesty Blaise and her ways with great intensity when he first came to The Network, Willie Garvin had acquired a quality he lacked before. He had discovered, with much pleasure, the virtues of forethought. Today, as he moved into position for tackling Van Rutte, he had pondered the various options that might confront him. His quarry had lethal firepower, and it might well be necessary to improvise some means of distracting his attention in order to get into slingshot range.
The lure of the jacket and hat was a move in that direction, but Willie had not relied on that alone. Wriggling back from the edge he took Crichton's handkerchief from his pocket. The four corners of this were now attached to thin leather thongs cut from Modesty's jerkin to form a crude parachute. With some reluctance Willie unfastened his bowtie, saddened to lose it, for till now he had felt that the black tie and dinner jacket gave a rare touch of style to recent events. It wasn't often these days, he reflected, that one could smite the ungodly while attired in faultless evening dress. Well, not exactly faultless, perhaps...
He attached one end of the tie to where the thongs of the parachute joined, held a match to the other end until it was smouldering nicely, then clipped that end in Crichton's box of matches so that it rested halfway down with the tie covering the heads. Carefully he rolled the matchbox and two pebbles in the handkerchief, then wriggled back to the edge of the gully. Van Rutte was standing by the jacket and bushhat now, peering down at them, his back to Willie. After a moment or two he kicked the hat aside and stared north along the gully.
Willie stood up and hurled his little package high in the air beyond Van Rutte, then dropped amid the scrub again, watching. He had achieved a good height with the parachute, and as soon as it began to fall it opened nicely, the tie dangling from it with the matchbox attached. The two pebbles dropped to the ground, and at the small sound Van Rutte froze, head cocked as he tried to locate the source. The parachute drifted slowly down at an angle and was within twenty feet of the ground when Van Rutte saw it. The Uzi came up, covering the far wall of the gully beyond the parachute's descent. He was nailed, and Willie lowered himself quietly down to the valley floor.
Be nice if the matches lit now... he thought, and began to whirl the sling. Another quality he had long ago acquired from Modesty Blaise was a belief in the idea that inanimate objects could be perverse or cooperative according to one's attitude towards them. Don't curse the recalcitrant screw, give it a little affection. In consequence he had fashioned his parachute contraption with benign care and good vibes. If it failed him he would not complain, but he was cheerfully hopeful... and cheerfully grateful when the matchbox erupted in flame, engulfing the parachute as it fell the last ten feet, and holding Van Rutte's baffled attention.
During that time Willie walked steadily towards him as he stared at the dying flames, and was within five paces when the spell broke suddenly and Van Rutte swung round as if at some slight sound. He had barely completed the turn when a stone the size of a tomato struck like an iron fist to the solar plexus. The Uzi dropped and he doubled forward, mouth agape as he fought for breath. Willie reached over his back, grasped him round the waist, hoisted him up headdown, then dropped to his knees.
Van Rutte's steelhelmeted head hit the ground with considerable force, wiping out his already blurred senses and ramming the helmet down crushingly round his brow.

* * *

The homerknife lay some three hundred yards north along the gully. About the same distance further on was a short broad branch running off the main gully, blind after twenty paces. The bottom was thinly grassed and surrounded on three sides by shoulderhigh rock, opening into the main gully on the fourth side. Here Modesty Blaise stood close against the rock wall near the junction, Crichton's rifle held in the port position. She hoped Brightstar's d.f. had picked up the homer and that he would now be moving down the gully from the north, just as Van Rutte should be moving up from the south to where Willie lay in wait. She stood relaxed, her mind empty except for tight focus on sight and hearing for the first hint of approach. She did not distract herself by speculating on what might be happening with Willie, and she knew he would not be wondering about her own task. For the time being her whole world consisted of waiting for Brightstar to appear. He would surely come along the valley bottom, for he was a hunter and would never move along the top, where he could so easily be seen.
Seconds later shock sent her pulserate leaping as a flat, unemphatic voice from somewhere behind and above her said, "Freeze, lady. Twitch and you're dead."
Brightstar. She stood very still, using all her mental techniques to subdue the selfcontempt that welled within her and to waste no energy wondering how he had located her. The unasked question was answered as the voice murmured, "I'm Choctaw. Picked up your smell at twenty yards. Where's Garvin? Just breathe it, lady."
"He's around." She spoke barely above a whisper.
There was a tinge of satisfaction in the flat voice as Brightstar said, "That gives me head money on the two of you." A brief pause. "Okay, we don't want any noise, so keep hold of the butt and just lower the barrel. Easy now. Right down till it's touching the ground. Don't let that rifle fall."
She obeyed, holding the weapon at an angle with her hand on the butt, the barrel resting on the ground. There came a faint sound behind her and she knew that Brightstar had dropped down from the gully wall. By moving the angle of the rifle fractionally she was able to pick up his reflection in the polished steel buttplate. He was halfadozen paces away, his carbine aimed from the hip. In a low voice she said, "I'll double Bellman's price. Ten thousand."
He was edging slowly forward. "For you and Garvin I get that anyway."
Watching the reflection she said, "You haven't got him yet, and I'm offering ten thousand each."
"Cash? Now?" A hint of mockery.
"You'll get it. I keep a promise." He was within two paces now, changing his grip on the carbine, lifting it horizontally to smash the butt against her head.
He said, "I'm a redskin, lady. We had too many promises."
"I know. I saw the movie-" She ducked as he took the final step and swung the carbine in a crushing hook to her head. The butt skimmed her hair as she let the rifle fall and stepped back, twisting to drive an elbow into Brightstar's stomach. He gasped, losing his grip on the carbine, and she thrust backwards into him as he doubled forward, reaching over her shoulder to hook a hand round his neck, then jackknifing forward to bring him over her shoulder with a head mare.
His speed of recovery was astonishing, for he twisted like a cat, landing on one foot, staggering, then snatching a knife from the sheath at the back of his belt. She had been lunging for the fallen carbine but glimpsed the move and flung herself sideways and down, the thrown knife passing above her neck to hit the rock wall behind her.
Brightstar dived at her as she started to come to her feet, his hands reaching for her throat. She fell back, feet lifted and crossed at the calves, catching him by the neck in the V between her ankles, twisting her feet to hold him, straightening her legs to thrust him back and in the same instant turning on her front with hands on the ground, pushing down to lift her body, then using her arms like legs to run forward in the way that children used to play wheelbarrow racing, pulling Brightstar offbalance behind her, his neck locked between her ankles.
In a second she was close to the gully wall, ducking head and shoulders in a forward roll, heaving Brightstar over her doubledup body to ram the wall with the crown of his head. He fell limply on top of her and she pushed him aside, panting as she extricated herself and got slowly to her feet, lips compressed now as she allowed selfrecrimination to flare within her.
There came a polite cough from above and she whirled to see Willie Garvin looking down. Beside him was Van Rutte, handcuffs on his wrists, a steel helmet jammed down so low on his brow that he could barely open his eyes. Willie was holding the Uzi. Nodding towards the sprawled figure of Brightstar he said, "I just caught the end bit. You ruined a good scalp there, Princess."
She sniffed, looked at a badly grazed elbow, flexed the arm and winced. Moving to Brightstar she checked that he was breathing, then turned and picked up the carbine, limping a little. Willie said, "You all right?"
She looked up at him and grimaced. "A lot better than I deserve. He had me cold but he got greedy. Wanted to sign me off without shooting so he could nail you for your head money too."
Willie turned to speak to Van Rutte, emphasising his words with rhythmic raps of the Uzi on the steel helmet. "There. D'you 'ear that, Van Rutte? Let the wicked fall into their own nets. Psalm 'undred and fortyone, verse ten."
Modesty looked up at the sky. "Sundown in halfanhour. Let Bellman hear what he's waiting for."
Willie thought for a moment, then switched the Uzi to singleshot and fired once. He returned to automatic, counted to ten, and fired two short bursts in the air. Modesty was on one knee, tying Brightstar's hands with his headband. Looking down from above, Willie felt a touch of concern. From the set of her shoulders he could tell there was something amiss. Tentatively he said, "You really okay, Princess?"
She stood, turning her head to glower up at him. "No I'm bloody not!" She pointed to the unconscious redskin. "He said he could smell me at twenty yards!"
Willie suppressed a grin and gazed down at her with infinite affection, vastly entertained by her outraged femininity and knowing it would never have surfaced for a millisecond if the caper had still been running. "Why shouldn't he, Princess?" he said. "It's peaches and pomegranates warm in the sun, rose petals and the bouquet of Chateau d'Yquem, honey and exotic spices."
She laughed, all tension gone. "That's lovely, Willie. Who said it?"
Willie looked hurt. "I just did," he said.

* * *

On the deck of the Ambato Sandra had jumped at the sound of the shots. Beside her, Bellman tensed for a moment, uttering a wordless sound, then relaxed as if all energy were draining out of him.
She said, "Is it over? Both of them?"
He nodded slowly and it seemed an effort for him to speak. "Both. They wouldn't have split up, not those two. They must have been on Van Rutte's patch. The gun blew up in her hand, then he finished them off."
Two large canvas sacks, heavily weighted, now lay on the deck. Sandra looked at them and shivered. "Are you really going to have them put in those sacks?"
"I thought of coffins..." his voice was dreamy, faraway, "beautifully polished... brass handles, and plates with their names. Too good, though. Over the side in sacks. Much better. The sea shall have them..."
Captain Ricco Burrera came along the deck and saluted. "I heard the - ah - noise from the island, senor. When do you wish for me to send the launch for your friends?"
Bellman gazed absently through him, and it was Sandra who eventually answered. "In an hour. They'll need time to assemble and they have... things to carry."
The captain inclined his head in acknowledgement, and as he did so Bellman suddenly focused upon him and spoke briskly. "Ah, there you are, Salzedo. How did it go in London and Amsterdam?"
Bewildered, Burrera glanced at Sandra but she was looking anxiously at Bellman, a hand to her lips. Burrera cleared his throat and said, "Excuse me, senor. I am not Salzedo and I have not been to London or Amsterdam. I am Captain Ricco Burrera- you know me well."
Bellman's head began to nod foolishly. "Good. Good," he said, slurring the words. "I'll see the supplies keep coming. Your job is to get them hooked, Salzedo. Get them hooked... what was I saying? Yes, always the young ones, the children, that's our basic training. Easy to get them on the needle... and they last longer as customers... as customers..." His voice faded and the nodding head became still as he sat gazing with empty eyes.
Burrera looked at Sandra, baffled. She was trembling. With an effort she took a grip on herself and said, "He's been under a big strain. Help me take him to his cabin."

* * *

An hour later Modesty stood by a low crag near the landing point, Brightstar's carbine cradled in one arm. The sun had set and a deep twilight lay over the sea. From where she stood she could see the lights of the Ambato at anchor and the shape of the launch creaming through the water towards her. A few paces away Willie stood facing Crichton, Van Rutte and Brightstar. The two pairs of handcuffs had been used to link the three men together with Brightstar in the middle. Van Rutte's head was still jammed in his helmet. Half Crichton's face was one huge bruise.
"Remember that cave where we picked you up, Crichton?" Willie said conversationally. "I left the 'andcuff keys on the ground there somewhere. You'd better all go and 'ave a look." He smiled a cheery smile. "Might as well say our goodbyes now. We'll 'ave the ship under way long before you're back."
Crichton tried to hold his voice steady as he said indistinctly from swollen lips, "What happens to us?"
Willie said disapprovingly, "Well, Miss Blaise 'as got a nicer nature than me, and she says we'll leave you the ship's dinghy and a couple of oars. The rest's your problem." He moved closer to them, lowering his voice, and the humour was suddenly wiped from his face. "By Christ, you're lucky. Any of you come near 'er again and I'll rip your guts out, no messing."

* * *

Sandra was sitting at the table in Bellman's cabin, her head in her hands, her back to the door, when there came a polite tap and Ricco Burrera entered. "The launch is on its way back, senorita," he said. "Shall I instruct the gentlemen to report to Senor Bellman here?"
She said wearily, "Get out, Burrera. Just get out." Offended, Burrera looked across the cabin to where Bellman lay on a low bunk, a blanket covering him to the shoulders. For a moment the captain considered putting the question to Bellman, then decided against it and went out. Moving along the deck he muttered to himself indignantly. "I am the captain of this ship. One does not say get out to the captain of a ship. It is a position of great authority. If I was not a man of iron control I would have-"
He stopped short, his stomach contracting with fear, for onturning a corner of the deckhousing he found the barrel of a carbine close to his nose, held by the woman he believed dead. Even in the dusk her eyes were very frightening. Beyond her was the big fair man who should also have been dead but who had a hunting rifle slung and was holding a submachine gun aimed at two seamen who were standing very still with their hands in the air.
Burrera drew in a deep breath, conjured up a sickly smile and spread his hands in a gracious gesture. "Welcome back, senorita, senor. I am Captain Ricco Burrera at your service. If you wish to charter my ship it will be a pleasure to arrange most economical terms."
Modesty said softly, "The terms are that if you put a foot wrong you go over the side."
The smile was maintained but became even more sickly. "I am not a man to haggle, senorita. Agreed."
"You've made a wise decision. How many crew?"
"Eleven, apart from myself."
"Your men or Bellman's?"
"Mine, senorita, and cowards to a man. You need have no worry."
"I haven't. What's your ship's radio?"
"A one kilowatt Telefunken."
"Where are Bellman and the girl?"
"In his cabin. He is unwell."
She glanced at Willie. "We'll deal with them when we've got things moving." Then to Burrera, "Put a dinghy ashore with oars, and as soon as your men return you get under way for Greenock. That's the nearest port?"
"It is, senorita." Burrera drew himself up and saluted. "I will give orders at once."
Twenty minutes later, when the engines began to throb, the girl in Bellman's cabin was sitting at the table with head pillowed on her arms, halfasleep, emotionally drained. As the ship stirred she lifted her head then let it fall again, unable to care what was happening. Behind her the door opened and closed. She said dully, "What is it now, Burrera?"
A man's voice with a Cockney accent said, "Nothing special."
She sat up slowly, turning to see Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin. Both were dishevelled and incongruous, she with her skirt hacked off to well above midthigh, he in his oncewhite shirt and soiled dinner jacket. Both were armed with the weapons of the men who had been sent to kill them. Already numb from shock, Sandra could feel only feeble surprise. She looked from one to the other, then said slowly, "You won't believe me, and it doesn't matter anyway, but I'm... relieved."
Modesty nodded towards the figure on the bunk. "Does that go for Bellman?"
"No. It was being glad that killed him."
Modesty and Willie exchanged a look, then he moved to the bunk and rested two fingers on the side of Bellman's neck. After a moment or two he pulled the blanket up over the man's face.
Sandra said, "He thought you were dead when he heard the shots. Then he died happy."
Modesty moved to the table and sat down, rubbing a bruised knee. The sleeve of her shirt was torn and there was blood on her arm. "I wouldn't begrudge anyone that," she said. "Not even him."
Sandra said, "The others... did you kill them?"
"No. We've left a dinghy. If they row east they'll hit Scotland."
Sandra absorbed this slowly, trying to comprehend, but the effort was too great and she let it go. Not looking towards the bunk where Bellman lay she said, "His mind slipped at the end. He babbled things... about getting the young ones hooked on the needle." She shivered, and tears began to run down her cheeks. "It was true, then? He... he really did those things?"
Willie said, "They don't come any worse than Bellman in that game. It's why we put 'im away."
For a moment resentment flared in her. "Who gave you the right?"
Modesty said without heat, "About ten thousand junkies in general and a teenage girl murdered by two of them in particular."
The spark of anger died, and Sandra wiped tears from her cheeks with her fingers. "I didn't know," she said in a whisper. "He was always so good to me. Always."
Modesty gave a tired shrug. "Maybe when you're destroying people at the rate he was, you need something or someone to keep your mind off it."
Sandra drew in a deep breath, trying to steady herself. "Yes. He said something like that himself." She looked from one to the other of them. "What happens now? To me?"
Modesty stood up with the carbine and moved a little stiffly to the door. There she paused to look back at the girl with something of compassion. "What happens now is your problem, isn't it? We have nothing against you. Might be a good idea to go away for a while. Lie in the sun and think about how you start a new life. Not easy, but at least Bellman will have left you well provided for." She looked at Willie. "I'll go and call Weng. He can sort out some clothes for us and fly up to Glasgow, meet us in Greenock."
She flexed her grazed arm gingerly. "Sometimes I get sick of losing skin. Still, we can't blame Tarrant this time." She opened the cabin door. "Look after her, Willie."
When the door closed there was silence for a while. Sandra sat with knuckles pressed to her cheeks, trembling a little, shaken by moments of weeping but trying to suppress it. Willie picked up a spare blanket and put it round her shoulders. She muttered a word of thanks but did not move. He said, "Come on, Sandra, you can't stop 'ere. Let's get you to your cabin, then I'll rustle up some brandy and 'ot coffee."
She rested her hands on the table and gazed down at them, perplexed. "Nothing against me?" Her voice still wavered from shock. "What did she mean? I was part of it, wasn't I? Part of having you killed?"
Very gently Willie took her arm and helped her to her feet. "It's past, Sandra. All over."
At the door she stopped, turning her head to look at him. "I did. I took part in trying to kill her. Kill you both. And she just says go away and start a new life. Don't you hate me? Don't you want to do something... for revenge?"
Willie scratched his ear, searching for an answer. Then he glanced towards the bunk where Bellman lay. "No," he said. "Look where it gets you."