Odonnell peter modesty.., p.24
O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 09 - Dragon's claw, page 24
Condori said, “It will not be played badly, seńor. The men know they are to remain in pairs, and that they are to select suitable points for observation. Once in position they will not move unless they sight Garvin.”
Beauregard Browne nodded grudgingly. “It’s somewhat of a relief to find that the man’s soft,” he said, and looked at Clarissa. “Only a fool would fail to reduce the odds when the chance was there.”
Clarissa sighed, still subdued. “Yes, if he was going to escape it was jolly stupid of him not to kill me. I could hardly believe it at first, but he definitely didn’t want to kill me, Beau. He went to quite a lot of trouble not to, actually. It might be because I’m a girl and he’d just screwed me.” She gave an awkward laugh. “There are some funny people about.”
Beauregard Browne said, “You and I will sleep the rest of the night in Garvin’s cell. I’m not making the trip back to Dragon’s Heart till it’s light, not with Garvin lurking somewhere out there. And when I say you and I will sleep here, I mean I shall sleep on the bed and you in an armchair, Clarissa. I’m extremely annoyed with you.” He turned away. “But first a word with Blaise. Come with me, Condori.”
When Modesty Blaise failed to appear in peep-hole view on orders spoken through the speaker-grid, Condori went in first, very warily, gun in hand. It was not until he switched the light on in the smaller room that he saw her. She was lying in bed, but not pretending to be asleep. When Beauregard Browne came in she glanced round without moving her head and ran a thumb under the shoulder strap of her nightdress to adjust it. He said, “As you may have guessed, poppet, your friend Garvin has temporarily left us.”
“Why bother me with it?”
He smiled to hide his bafflement. Her question was one he found hard to answer, even for himself. Possibly he had simply wished to observe her reaction, but there was virtually no reaction to observe, which was highly disconcerting. He was distantly aware of a small but growing uneasiness that stemmed from a sense of having lost some measure of initiative. It was a feeling new to him, and absurd, for she was his captive and helpless.
He said brightly, “I’m tempted to spend the rest of the night here and give you a rather bad time, duckie.”
She looked at him levelly from dark blue eyes and said, “All right.”
“On second thoughts, you’ll keep.”
She said with a kind of irritable contempt, “You want to stop bluffing, Browne, you’re not very good at it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Willie’s been a fool. He can’t get away. But the fact is that Sam Solon wants us both alive and kicking tomorrow. I don’t know what for, but I know damn well that’s what he wants. And he’s your boss. Yes, sir. So you won’t do anything to Willie when you catch him tomorrow, and you won’t try giving me a bad time tonight, because if you did, Solon would have your guts for garters. Now piss off and let me get some sleep.”
She settled her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. Beauregard Browne stood gazing down at her, his pupils like pinpoints, one hand opening and closing, his face strangely pale. At last he turned and walked away without a word. Condori, the Star PD .45 still in his hand, followed slowly, a look of troubled uncertainty in his eyes.
Two hundred yards away, Willie Garvín drew himself silently on to the deck of the motor yacht. He had long since located the position of the two men watching the harbour, and had been careful to keep himself screened as he made his way from boat to boat. It was not easy, working in fitful moonlight, and he did not find what he was seeking on the boats, but an hour later, in one of the boat-houses on the west side of the harbour, his search was rewarded. Soon he was in the water again, occupied with the slow task of towing the equipment out to where he wanted it.
When he had finished he rested for a few minutes, reflecting philosophically that all he had done so far might well be wasted if they had to fall back on the alternative plan. The thought did not depress him. Modesty Blaise had launched him on the first moves of a counterstrike, and that was a stimulus of immeasurable potency.
In a hollow on a rocky slope, half a mile from the harbour, he wrung the remaining water from his shirt and trousers, put them on again damp, then sat down to check the Goff 180 rifle. Modesty had managed to secure it from America through John Dall only a few months ago. It was a .22 automatic rifle with a disc magazine fitting on top and a rate of fire of thirty rounds per second. Not that this mattered. The important thing was the laser sight. It threw a red dot which showed up plainly on the target. Where the red dot showed, that was where the bullet went with deadly accuracy, single shot or automatic burst. It was, as Modesty said, like playing golf with a homing golf-ball. A cheat. An affront to marksmanship. But it was a very good weapon if what you wanted to do was win.
Twenty minutes later Willie Garvin was on his stomach, reconnoitring Execution Square. When he had carried out his mission there he returned to the little hollow. His clothes had dried now, and he settled down cross-legged, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed. His breathing became very slow. In his mind a picture formed, a long rectangle divided into many small squares, nine in a horizontal row. Above the top row he mentally inscribed the word MAGNITUDE, and beneath each letter he visualised a number derived from the order in which the nine letters appeared in the alphabet.
Now, like the laser sight, his concentration narrowed to a fine point as he filled the squares with his message and etched the finished image firmly on his mind. This kind of ability was one of several he had learned under a very old man called Sivaji who lived in the Thar Desert and had been Modesty’s friend and mentor long ago. It was she who had sent Willie to spend many weeks with him after Willie had become her right-hand man in The Network. That time had been for him an experience which might truly be described as out of this world.
At last he stood up, checked the time from Clarissa’s watch, and began to move with all the caution of the expert poacher he was on the next part of his exacting night’s work. He was no longer thinking of messages or letters or numbers, but the image of the enciphering was tucked away in his mind like a card in a card-index, available at a few seconds’ notice.
*
At six a.m. the Gulfstream swept along the fifteen hundred metre runway built on the tail of Dragon’s Claw and slowed to a halt. Sam Solon was the only passenger. He came down the steps with his wide-brimmed felt hat tilted back on his head. The eyes in his weatherbeaten face grew sharp as he saw that there were four waiting to greet him, Beauregard Browne and the girl, Dr. Feng and the gun-crazy priest. He noticed also that there were several of Condori’s guards with guns spread about the top end of the airstrip by the hangar.
He said, “What’s wrong. Beau?”
“Hardly a thing, dear old sport.” The smile was easy and mischievous again. “In fact we have a slight additional morsel of excitement in having mislaid the preposterous Garvin.”
“You what?”
Beauregard Browne sketched the situation with amusement. “I was a tiny bit worried during the night, and in fact we’re missing three men this morning, and after strict orders to remain in pairs, too. So it really is time they were shaken up and taught a sharp lesson, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, wherever Garvin is at the moment, he’s not within shooting distance. I took the Teal up to look for him just before you came through for landing, and he’s nowhere on this section. Or anywhere covering the road up to Dragon’s Heart.”
Sam Solon stared at him without expression for several seconds, then took a strip of chewing gum from his pocket, tore the paper from it, and put it in his mouth. “Let’s all get up to the house,” he said. “We’ll talk there.”
On the way up in the jeep he was silent, but once in the long cool living room he tossed his hat on the table and said abruptly, “You bitched it up. Beau. You made a right bloody mess of this one.”
Beauregard Browne raised elegantly shaped eyebrows. “Now come on, dear old sport,” he said protestingly. “We’ve had a small contretemps, that’s true, but over the last few months I’ve run a fabulously complex and interlocking operation for you without putting a foot wrong. We’ve cleared the Fletcher affair, we’ve stopped Kingston, we’ve secured the Hsuan-te chair and the Jade Queen, and we’ve brought you two absolutely splendid candidates for your particular pleasure.”
Sam Solon stared out of the window. “They’re not art people.”
“You mean they’re not specialists, dear old sport, which is to say they don’t know everything about very little. But they do know quite a lot about quite a lot, which should make them rather more satisfying, I would say.”
Dr. Feng cleared his throat. “May I make a suggestion?”
Sam Solon looked at him. “Go ahead.”
“In the matter of securing Garvin quickly. He and Blaise have presented themselves as having fallen out, each blaming the other with some bitterness for their capture. My study of them leads me to believe that this is an act, a pretence. If so, then we can readily use Blaise to compel Garvin’s surrender.”
Sam Solon ran a hand impatiently through his hair. “An act? Christ, of course it’s an act. I don’t need to shrink heads to know that. They’d cut an arm off for each other, the bloody idiots.”
Beauregard Browne smoothed an eyebrow and said, “The aggravating Garvin is tucked away in hiding at the moment, somewhere in the rough. He can’t move without being seen, as we have spotters placed to cover the island. I think if Clarissa toured in a jeep with a loud-hailer he couldn’t fail to get the message.”
Solon nodded curtly. “Do it that way. I’m bringing the programme forward, and I want ‘em ready for me at ten o’clock. We’ll do the tour, then lunch, then that Jesus freak of yours can knock ‘em off afterwards.”
Beauregard Browne looked surprised. “It’s usually dinner, followed by execution in the a.m., old sport.”
“Sooner we get these two wrapped up the better. When they didn’t know what the hell was happening we could string ‘em along. Now they’re dangerous. You give ‘em long enough, they’ll beat you.”
Beauregard Browne spread a limp-wristed hand and gave a giggle of amusement. “But my dear old Esteemed Patron, they’ve lost, and they have no way back. You may safely leave everything to me.”
Sam Solon pointed a finger at him. “You do it the way I said, Beau. I want this finished today. And listen. Up to the Luke Fletcher job you did okay, you and the rest here. But by the bloody right, you’ve been paid for it. What did that chair-lift cost me, so you could grow your daisies up there? Seventy thousand? Fine. But Fletcher walked out, and now Garvin’s bust out. That’s two slips. You make one more cock-up, Beau, and I’ll find some other bloke to take your place. Right?”
There was a silence in the room. The golden head tilted back and the violet eyes studied the ceiling pensively. At last: “I hear you, dear old sport.”
“Good. I’m going to get some sleep. Is my suite ready?”
“As ever, Most Excellent Patron. Shall Clarissa join you?”
“I said sleep.” He glanced at her and relaxed a little. “Be around for tonight, eh? And Beau, you wake me at ten with Blaise and Garvin all ready for me.” He turned and walked away, out of the long room and down the broad corridor which led to his own suite.
After a moment Beauregard Browne said softly, “I feel unappreciated. Hurt. A tiny bit vicious, perhaps.”
The Reverend Uriah Crisp had been gazing blankly out of the window. “The man lacks respect,” he said, turning. “God will not allow His servant to be mocked.”
“Indeed not, Uriah. We must pray for guidance.” There was an ugly twist to Beauregard Browne’s mouth. “But first let us deal with our sinners-in-waiting.”
Half a mile away, in the radio hut which stood on a small peak between the airstrip and the harbour, Kerenyi was waiting to be relieved. Kerenyi had been on the night-shift, and was feeling troubled. At some time in the early hours he had been sitting before the radio, listening out on the usual frequency, and reading a girlie magazine. Then he had fallen asleep. At least, he thought that was the case, though in fact there was a curious gap in his memory. All he knew for certain was that he had woken up to find his head resting on his folded arms as he sat at the radio table. His neck felt stiff and his head ached.
For a moment he had felt panic, thinking that the escaped Englishman had attacked him, but everything was in order. His M-10 submachine-gun was there in its rack beside the table, the set was still tuned to the same frequency. He went out to find the guard Condori had sent up to keep watch on the radio hut when news of the break-out first came through. It was Regan, and he was dozing in the grassy hollow he had chosen for his position, leaning back against a boulder. It had been difficult to rouse him, and then he had been very bad-tempered and confused.
Kerenyi was a little perturbed by all this, but he had no intention of reporting that both he and Regan had fallen asleep while on duty, however briefly. That would be madness. In any event, it was probable that nothing out of the way had happened. If it had, there was no sign of it, and certainly no harm had been done.
The telephone rang, and Condori’s voice told him that when he was relieved he would be required at once for search or guard duties until the Englishman had been recaptured. Kerenyi thought, “What about my breakfast?” but he did not speak the question aloud. Condori would have considered it frivolous, and deserving of a painful answer.
*
Willie Garvin lay in a broad rut near the edge of the low cliff south of Execution Square. He had carried out his tasks for the night and even managed to get in two hours’ sleep. He had heard the Gulfstream land at first light, and take off again half an hour later. Evidently Sam Solon was staying for a while. Soon after the takeoff, searching guards had passed less than a stone’s throw from Willie’s hidey-hole without seeing him. Now he was listening to Clarissa’s voice, made metallic by the loud-hailer. He had heard the same warning three times before from different distances as she moved about the island, and he was thinking that Modesty would be pleased if she could hear the message.
“Willie Garvín. Attention Willie Garvín. If you fail to surrender, Modesty Blaise will be taken to Execution Square at nine o’clock for punishment which will begin with a flogging.”
Very nice. It saved him having to contrive his own discovery and capture. Another good point was that it had rained during the night, which provided an excellent excuse for the stained and crumpled state of his clothes. Absently he ran a hand along the length of copper tube he had found in the boat store. A short piece of wood and a big disc of insulating tape were now wired to it. Very nice.
All in all, these small advantages were not much to set against the mountainous odds stacked on the side of Sam Solon, but they were encouraging. It was a pity the Gulfstream and its crew had gone, but that was sound security and you couldn’t expect too much all at once. Long ago he had learnt from Modesty by observation that when you seized the initiative, no matter how hopeless the situation, the thing called luck would start edging your way, and Willie was confident that this had now begun. He looked at Clarissa’s watch and saw that it was eight-thirty. Putting it away, he decided that Modesty would want him to wait until the last moment. Her policy was to anger Beauregard Browne, to shake him, to disconcert him and pressure him in every possible way, for then his thinking and anticipation would lack edge. So it would be good to keep him sweating for a little longer.
Willie Garvin closed his eyes and allowed himself to doze.
At ten minutes to nine they brought Modesty from her cell, well guarded, and walked her up the long road to Execution Square. She had showered, her hair was tied back in a pony-tail, and she wore the same black shirt and slacks as before. Her face and eyes were without make-up. In the square, a rough triangle of six-by-three timbers had been set up. Beauregard Browne was there with Clarissa and Dr. Feng. Four guards were spread out well beyond the square to watch for any sign of attack by the missing prisoner, though Dr. Feng had insisted that this could not happen since it might bring immediate death to Modesty Blaise.
Condori stood holding a short piece of piping with six feet of insulated cable secured to one end. A makeshift whip. When her guards brought her along the path above the excavation on the east side of the square, Beauregard Browne said, “Our eloquent Dr. Feng has told you what is to happen, I understand?”
She nodded absently. “Yes, he was very graphic. First the whip and then some rape.”
“Isn’t it exciting, poppet? I’m so looking forward to the occasion.”
“Yes, I’m sure you would be, Bubbles. I expect you suffered from poor potty training as a baby. What do you think, doctor?”
Beauregard Browne’s smile was too bright and his laugh too casual. Before he could speak she said with a sudden grin, “I heard Solon come in this morning, and I bet he wasn’t too pleased with what his golden-haired lad had to tell him.”
After a moment he said thinly, “They’re going to strip you and tie you to the triangle now. Get on with it, Condori.” He turned and looked slowly about him, shading his eyes. Clarissa was also looking beyond the perimeter of guards, biting her lip. As Condori signalled two men to move upon her, Modesty lifted a hand and said, “I don’t need any help.” Without haste she unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, and tossed it to one of the men. She was stepping up to the triangle when there came the distant sound of a shrill whistle.
Every head turned. Three hundred yards away, near the edge of the low cliff, they saw a black-clad figure rise seemingly from the bare rock, both hands lifted high, the right hand waving the Goff rifle. Clarissa made a faint but audible sound of relief. Beauregard Browne said, “Watch him. He’s got that damn rifle.”
“He is holding it by the barrel, seńor,” said Condori.
In the distance, Willie Garvin slowly lowered his hands, took a firm grip, then spun like a hammer-thrower. They saw sunlight glint on metal as the weapon soared up and away from him.
Condori said, “He has thrown the rifle into the sea.”
Beauregard Browne nodded grudgingly. “It’s somewhat of a relief to find that the man’s soft,” he said, and looked at Clarissa. “Only a fool would fail to reduce the odds when the chance was there.”
Clarissa sighed, still subdued. “Yes, if he was going to escape it was jolly stupid of him not to kill me. I could hardly believe it at first, but he definitely didn’t want to kill me, Beau. He went to quite a lot of trouble not to, actually. It might be because I’m a girl and he’d just screwed me.” She gave an awkward laugh. “There are some funny people about.”
Beauregard Browne said, “You and I will sleep the rest of the night in Garvin’s cell. I’m not making the trip back to Dragon’s Heart till it’s light, not with Garvin lurking somewhere out there. And when I say you and I will sleep here, I mean I shall sleep on the bed and you in an armchair, Clarissa. I’m extremely annoyed with you.” He turned away. “But first a word with Blaise. Come with me, Condori.”
When Modesty Blaise failed to appear in peep-hole view on orders spoken through the speaker-grid, Condori went in first, very warily, gun in hand. It was not until he switched the light on in the smaller room that he saw her. She was lying in bed, but not pretending to be asleep. When Beauregard Browne came in she glanced round without moving her head and ran a thumb under the shoulder strap of her nightdress to adjust it. He said, “As you may have guessed, poppet, your friend Garvin has temporarily left us.”
“Why bother me with it?”
He smiled to hide his bafflement. Her question was one he found hard to answer, even for himself. Possibly he had simply wished to observe her reaction, but there was virtually no reaction to observe, which was highly disconcerting. He was distantly aware of a small but growing uneasiness that stemmed from a sense of having lost some measure of initiative. It was a feeling new to him, and absurd, for she was his captive and helpless.
He said brightly, “I’m tempted to spend the rest of the night here and give you a rather bad time, duckie.”
She looked at him levelly from dark blue eyes and said, “All right.”
“On second thoughts, you’ll keep.”
She said with a kind of irritable contempt, “You want to stop bluffing, Browne, you’re not very good at it.”
“I beg your pardon?”
“Willie’s been a fool. He can’t get away. But the fact is that Sam Solon wants us both alive and kicking tomorrow. I don’t know what for, but I know damn well that’s what he wants. And he’s your boss. Yes, sir. So you won’t do anything to Willie when you catch him tomorrow, and you won’t try giving me a bad time tonight, because if you did, Solon would have your guts for garters. Now piss off and let me get some sleep.”
She settled her head on the pillow and closed her eyes. Beauregard Browne stood gazing down at her, his pupils like pinpoints, one hand opening and closing, his face strangely pale. At last he turned and walked away without a word. Condori, the Star PD .45 still in his hand, followed slowly, a look of troubled uncertainty in his eyes.
Two hundred yards away, Willie Garvín drew himself silently on to the deck of the motor yacht. He had long since located the position of the two men watching the harbour, and had been careful to keep himself screened as he made his way from boat to boat. It was not easy, working in fitful moonlight, and he did not find what he was seeking on the boats, but an hour later, in one of the boat-houses on the west side of the harbour, his search was rewarded. Soon he was in the water again, occupied with the slow task of towing the equipment out to where he wanted it.
When he had finished he rested for a few minutes, reflecting philosophically that all he had done so far might well be wasted if they had to fall back on the alternative plan. The thought did not depress him. Modesty Blaise had launched him on the first moves of a counterstrike, and that was a stimulus of immeasurable potency.
In a hollow on a rocky slope, half a mile from the harbour, he wrung the remaining water from his shirt and trousers, put them on again damp, then sat down to check the Goff 180 rifle. Modesty had managed to secure it from America through John Dall only a few months ago. It was a .22 automatic rifle with a disc magazine fitting on top and a rate of fire of thirty rounds per second. Not that this mattered. The important thing was the laser sight. It threw a red dot which showed up plainly on the target. Where the red dot showed, that was where the bullet went with deadly accuracy, single shot or automatic burst. It was, as Modesty said, like playing golf with a homing golf-ball. A cheat. An affront to marksmanship. But it was a very good weapon if what you wanted to do was win.
Twenty minutes later Willie Garvin was on his stomach, reconnoitring Execution Square. When he had carried out his mission there he returned to the little hollow. His clothes had dried now, and he settled down cross-legged, hands resting on his knees, eyes closed. His breathing became very slow. In his mind a picture formed, a long rectangle divided into many small squares, nine in a horizontal row. Above the top row he mentally inscribed the word MAGNITUDE, and beneath each letter he visualised a number derived from the order in which the nine letters appeared in the alphabet.
Now, like the laser sight, his concentration narrowed to a fine point as he filled the squares with his message and etched the finished image firmly on his mind. This kind of ability was one of several he had learned under a very old man called Sivaji who lived in the Thar Desert and had been Modesty’s friend and mentor long ago. It was she who had sent Willie to spend many weeks with him after Willie had become her right-hand man in The Network. That time had been for him an experience which might truly be described as out of this world.
At last he stood up, checked the time from Clarissa’s watch, and began to move with all the caution of the expert poacher he was on the next part of his exacting night’s work. He was no longer thinking of messages or letters or numbers, but the image of the enciphering was tucked away in his mind like a card in a card-index, available at a few seconds’ notice.
*
At six a.m. the Gulfstream swept along the fifteen hundred metre runway built on the tail of Dragon’s Claw and slowed to a halt. Sam Solon was the only passenger. He came down the steps with his wide-brimmed felt hat tilted back on his head. The eyes in his weatherbeaten face grew sharp as he saw that there were four waiting to greet him, Beauregard Browne and the girl, Dr. Feng and the gun-crazy priest. He noticed also that there were several of Condori’s guards with guns spread about the top end of the airstrip by the hangar.
He said, “What’s wrong. Beau?”
“Hardly a thing, dear old sport.” The smile was easy and mischievous again. “In fact we have a slight additional morsel of excitement in having mislaid the preposterous Garvin.”
“You what?”
Beauregard Browne sketched the situation with amusement. “I was a tiny bit worried during the night, and in fact we’re missing three men this morning, and after strict orders to remain in pairs, too. So it really is time they were shaken up and taught a sharp lesson, wouldn’t you say? Anyway, wherever Garvin is at the moment, he’s not within shooting distance. I took the Teal up to look for him just before you came through for landing, and he’s nowhere on this section. Or anywhere covering the road up to Dragon’s Heart.”
Sam Solon stared at him without expression for several seconds, then took a strip of chewing gum from his pocket, tore the paper from it, and put it in his mouth. “Let’s all get up to the house,” he said. “We’ll talk there.”
On the way up in the jeep he was silent, but once in the long cool living room he tossed his hat on the table and said abruptly, “You bitched it up. Beau. You made a right bloody mess of this one.”
Beauregard Browne raised elegantly shaped eyebrows. “Now come on, dear old sport,” he said protestingly. “We’ve had a small contretemps, that’s true, but over the last few months I’ve run a fabulously complex and interlocking operation for you without putting a foot wrong. We’ve cleared the Fletcher affair, we’ve stopped Kingston, we’ve secured the Hsuan-te chair and the Jade Queen, and we’ve brought you two absolutely splendid candidates for your particular pleasure.”
Sam Solon stared out of the window. “They’re not art people.”
“You mean they’re not specialists, dear old sport, which is to say they don’t know everything about very little. But they do know quite a lot about quite a lot, which should make them rather more satisfying, I would say.”
Dr. Feng cleared his throat. “May I make a suggestion?”
Sam Solon looked at him. “Go ahead.”
“In the matter of securing Garvin quickly. He and Blaise have presented themselves as having fallen out, each blaming the other with some bitterness for their capture. My study of them leads me to believe that this is an act, a pretence. If so, then we can readily use Blaise to compel Garvin’s surrender.”
Sam Solon ran a hand impatiently through his hair. “An act? Christ, of course it’s an act. I don’t need to shrink heads to know that. They’d cut an arm off for each other, the bloody idiots.”
Beauregard Browne smoothed an eyebrow and said, “The aggravating Garvin is tucked away in hiding at the moment, somewhere in the rough. He can’t move without being seen, as we have spotters placed to cover the island. I think if Clarissa toured in a jeep with a loud-hailer he couldn’t fail to get the message.”
Solon nodded curtly. “Do it that way. I’m bringing the programme forward, and I want ‘em ready for me at ten o’clock. We’ll do the tour, then lunch, then that Jesus freak of yours can knock ‘em off afterwards.”
Beauregard Browne looked surprised. “It’s usually dinner, followed by execution in the a.m., old sport.”
“Sooner we get these two wrapped up the better. When they didn’t know what the hell was happening we could string ‘em along. Now they’re dangerous. You give ‘em long enough, they’ll beat you.”
Beauregard Browne spread a limp-wristed hand and gave a giggle of amusement. “But my dear old Esteemed Patron, they’ve lost, and they have no way back. You may safely leave everything to me.”
Sam Solon pointed a finger at him. “You do it the way I said, Beau. I want this finished today. And listen. Up to the Luke Fletcher job you did okay, you and the rest here. But by the bloody right, you’ve been paid for it. What did that chair-lift cost me, so you could grow your daisies up there? Seventy thousand? Fine. But Fletcher walked out, and now Garvin’s bust out. That’s two slips. You make one more cock-up, Beau, and I’ll find some other bloke to take your place. Right?”
There was a silence in the room. The golden head tilted back and the violet eyes studied the ceiling pensively. At last: “I hear you, dear old sport.”
“Good. I’m going to get some sleep. Is my suite ready?”
“As ever, Most Excellent Patron. Shall Clarissa join you?”
“I said sleep.” He glanced at her and relaxed a little. “Be around for tonight, eh? And Beau, you wake me at ten with Blaise and Garvin all ready for me.” He turned and walked away, out of the long room and down the broad corridor which led to his own suite.
After a moment Beauregard Browne said softly, “I feel unappreciated. Hurt. A tiny bit vicious, perhaps.”
The Reverend Uriah Crisp had been gazing blankly out of the window. “The man lacks respect,” he said, turning. “God will not allow His servant to be mocked.”
“Indeed not, Uriah. We must pray for guidance.” There was an ugly twist to Beauregard Browne’s mouth. “But first let us deal with our sinners-in-waiting.”
Half a mile away, in the radio hut which stood on a small peak between the airstrip and the harbour, Kerenyi was waiting to be relieved. Kerenyi had been on the night-shift, and was feeling troubled. At some time in the early hours he had been sitting before the radio, listening out on the usual frequency, and reading a girlie magazine. Then he had fallen asleep. At least, he thought that was the case, though in fact there was a curious gap in his memory. All he knew for certain was that he had woken up to find his head resting on his folded arms as he sat at the radio table. His neck felt stiff and his head ached.
For a moment he had felt panic, thinking that the escaped Englishman had attacked him, but everything was in order. His M-10 submachine-gun was there in its rack beside the table, the set was still tuned to the same frequency. He went out to find the guard Condori had sent up to keep watch on the radio hut when news of the break-out first came through. It was Regan, and he was dozing in the grassy hollow he had chosen for his position, leaning back against a boulder. It had been difficult to rouse him, and then he had been very bad-tempered and confused.
Kerenyi was a little perturbed by all this, but he had no intention of reporting that both he and Regan had fallen asleep while on duty, however briefly. That would be madness. In any event, it was probable that nothing out of the way had happened. If it had, there was no sign of it, and certainly no harm had been done.
The telephone rang, and Condori’s voice told him that when he was relieved he would be required at once for search or guard duties until the Englishman had been recaptured. Kerenyi thought, “What about my breakfast?” but he did not speak the question aloud. Condori would have considered it frivolous, and deserving of a painful answer.
*
Willie Garvin lay in a broad rut near the edge of the low cliff south of Execution Square. He had carried out his tasks for the night and even managed to get in two hours’ sleep. He had heard the Gulfstream land at first light, and take off again half an hour later. Evidently Sam Solon was staying for a while. Soon after the takeoff, searching guards had passed less than a stone’s throw from Willie’s hidey-hole without seeing him. Now he was listening to Clarissa’s voice, made metallic by the loud-hailer. He had heard the same warning three times before from different distances as she moved about the island, and he was thinking that Modesty would be pleased if she could hear the message.
“Willie Garvín. Attention Willie Garvín. If you fail to surrender, Modesty Blaise will be taken to Execution Square at nine o’clock for punishment which will begin with a flogging.”
Very nice. It saved him having to contrive his own discovery and capture. Another good point was that it had rained during the night, which provided an excellent excuse for the stained and crumpled state of his clothes. Absently he ran a hand along the length of copper tube he had found in the boat store. A short piece of wood and a big disc of insulating tape were now wired to it. Very nice.
All in all, these small advantages were not much to set against the mountainous odds stacked on the side of Sam Solon, but they were encouraging. It was a pity the Gulfstream and its crew had gone, but that was sound security and you couldn’t expect too much all at once. Long ago he had learnt from Modesty by observation that when you seized the initiative, no matter how hopeless the situation, the thing called luck would start edging your way, and Willie was confident that this had now begun. He looked at Clarissa’s watch and saw that it was eight-thirty. Putting it away, he decided that Modesty would want him to wait until the last moment. Her policy was to anger Beauregard Browne, to shake him, to disconcert him and pressure him in every possible way, for then his thinking and anticipation would lack edge. So it would be good to keep him sweating for a little longer.
Willie Garvin closed his eyes and allowed himself to doze.
At ten minutes to nine they brought Modesty from her cell, well guarded, and walked her up the long road to Execution Square. She had showered, her hair was tied back in a pony-tail, and she wore the same black shirt and slacks as before. Her face and eyes were without make-up. In the square, a rough triangle of six-by-three timbers had been set up. Beauregard Browne was there with Clarissa and Dr. Feng. Four guards were spread out well beyond the square to watch for any sign of attack by the missing prisoner, though Dr. Feng had insisted that this could not happen since it might bring immediate death to Modesty Blaise.
Condori stood holding a short piece of piping with six feet of insulated cable secured to one end. A makeshift whip. When her guards brought her along the path above the excavation on the east side of the square, Beauregard Browne said, “Our eloquent Dr. Feng has told you what is to happen, I understand?”
She nodded absently. “Yes, he was very graphic. First the whip and then some rape.”
“Isn’t it exciting, poppet? I’m so looking forward to the occasion.”
“Yes, I’m sure you would be, Bubbles. I expect you suffered from poor potty training as a baby. What do you think, doctor?”
Beauregard Browne’s smile was too bright and his laugh too casual. Before he could speak she said with a sudden grin, “I heard Solon come in this morning, and I bet he wasn’t too pleased with what his golden-haired lad had to tell him.”
After a moment he said thinly, “They’re going to strip you and tie you to the triangle now. Get on with it, Condori.” He turned and looked slowly about him, shading his eyes. Clarissa was also looking beyond the perimeter of guards, biting her lip. As Condori signalled two men to move upon her, Modesty lifted a hand and said, “I don’t need any help.” Without haste she unbuttoned her shirt, took it off, and tossed it to one of the men. She was stepping up to the triangle when there came the distant sound of a shrill whistle.
Every head turned. Three hundred yards away, near the edge of the low cliff, they saw a black-clad figure rise seemingly from the bare rock, both hands lifted high, the right hand waving the Goff rifle. Clarissa made a faint but audible sound of relief. Beauregard Browne said, “Watch him. He’s got that damn rifle.”
“He is holding it by the barrel, seńor,” said Condori.
In the distance, Willie Garvin slowly lowered his hands, took a firm grip, then spun like a hammer-thrower. They saw sunlight glint on metal as the weapon soared up and away from him.
Condori said, “He has thrown the rifle into the sea.”
