"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 11 - night of Morningstar" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)

THE NIGHT OF MORNINGSTAR
Peter O'Donnell

Chapter One
GARCIA was adjusting his tie when he heard the expected peep of the Mercedes horn. He put on the jacket of his pale grey suit, set the alarms, locked his flat, and went down into the street that ran north to Boulevard Mohammed-Cinq. Willie Garvin leaned across, opened the passenger door of the grey 450SL, and said, "Morning, Rafael."
"Thanks, Willie." Garcia climbed in and leaned back with a gentle sigh. "Am I getting old, do you think?"
Willie looked at him. "How old d'you feel?"
"I am not sure. But in the apartment next to mine lives a beautiful girl and a wealthy young lawyer."
"I know. We vetted them, and they're legitimate. So?"
"I saw them going in last night. You know. Laughing, eager for each other, he with his arm about her. But I was not envious of him. I did not even speculate as to what they would soon be doing together."
Willie wagged his head.

". . . What that is, 'oo can tell?
But I believe it was no more
Than thou and I 'ave done before
With Bridget and with Nell. "

Garcia frowned. "I don't remember them. Nell, you say?"
"It's the last lines of a poem, Rafa, you dope." Willie switched on the engine.
"Ah." Garcia thought about it. "Yes, I see now."
"And don't worry about failing to speculate on the couple next door. It just means you're not becoming a dirty old man."
"At my age, the idea has its attraction."
Willie smiled. The car moved off, shortly turning left to join the traffic moving west towards the centre of Tangier. After a few moments Garcia said, "When did Mam'selle tell you she was planning to wind up The Network?"
"About a month ago." There was a hint of apology in Willie Garvin's voice.
Garcia made a small dismissive gesture with a well kept hand. "It's all right, I don't mind."
"I just thought . . . well, you've been with 'er longer than anyone."
"Yes, by God, that is something. But I am glad she did not tell me till yesterday. With the Amsterdam negotiations to complete, I would not have wanted such a distraction on my mind, and she knew that. Look, Willie. Anything she does, any time, is good with me. That is how it has always been."
"Sure." Willie halted for traffic lights and glanced with affection at the man beside him, a man with a square brown face, thick greying hair, and a body now putting on a little fat.
Garcia said, "Ten years ago, what am I? I am number three in a smalltime mob here. Now I am top man with you in The Network and I have enough money to last me three lifetimes." He was silent for a moment, remembering. "Do you know how it was in those beginning days?"
Willie eased the car forward, crawling in the heavy morning traffic. "She doesn't talk much about the past, but I've picked up bits 'ere and there. I know she came out of the desert when she was about seventeen, as near as she can guess, and she got a job working in a casino run by the Louche gang."
Garcia nodded. "It was a time of gang war. They shot Louche and his number two. It was finish for us all, we thought, if we did not scatter and disappear. But then this young girl, with black hair and eyes as old as the eyes of God, she spoke words of fire, whipping us with them, calling us spineless sheep." He chuckled suddenly. "She was not yet fully grown then, and quite skinny. La Roche got mad and tried to slap her down, but she was quick as a snake. Dropped him with a kick in the balls."
Willie grinned. They were in Place de France now and traffic was picking up speed, but he kept a leisurely pace. They would be in plenty of time for the meeting she had called that morning in the big office suite above the Banque Populaire de Malaurak. He said, "That must've been before she was combat trained, but she's got natural speed."
"It was well before," Garcia agreed. "She did not go to Cambodia to train under Saragam until almost two years later." He chuckled again. "That was just before she bought a certain Englishman out of jail in an adjoining country, and put him to the test before taking him into The Network."
"I know that bit," said Willie.
"Of course. Well, like I was telling you, she picked up the pieces of the Louche mob, and she put some courage into us. When the hit-men came to clean up, we were ready with the tricks she had devised." Garcia rolled his eyes upward. "My God, when I think of all her tricks over the years. So there are five men, and when they come to the casino they find only a young girl, very frightened. She tells them we are holed up in one of the rooms above, and we are bad people, and she hates us, so she tells them they can come to the room by two ways, a staircase at the front and a smaller one at the back, which is true."
Garcia nodded solemnly. "It is perfectly true, and she takes two of the men to show them the back way, but when they are on the stairs she turns and Ч pam! pam! They finish at the bottom, one with a broken arm, and she has both their guns. She tells Krolli to watch them while she runs back to the front to warn the three men there to be careful that nobody fires down at them through a skylight in the landing passage. This means they must crouch together in a very short piece of passage while their two friends at the back are checking the roof, so they believe."
Garcia began to shake with silent laughter. When he could continue he said, "But we have worked five hours to her orders, cutting away the floorboards and the joists and the ceiling below, then replacing the boards in one piece, like the trap of a gallows. You get it, Willie?"
"Resting on a ledge at one end, and a vertical prop the other end?"
"So. " Garcia beamed. "I knocked the prop away myself with a sledgehammer, and down they came with five of us waiting for them in the passage below." He leaned back with a little sigh. "That was the beginning. Then for half a year was fought the war of the four gangs. It was not easy, Willie. Somehow, after that first day, I knew she would win, but it was not easy. Some of the men quit. Two were killed. But at the end there was only one gang, and from this came The Network. In two years we controlled eight areas covering the whole Mediterranean shore. Then she established links in the Americas and the Far East, and always, from the beginning, I was her number two."
"You earned it." Willie slowed for the turn at the end of Rue de Belgique. "You backed 'er when it looked like suicide. You and Krolli and Nedic. She's told me that."
Garcia lifted his shoulders slightly. "I could see the . . ." He groped for a word. "The force. I could see the force in her, Willie. Strange to say, it is something we did not speak about among ourselves, but I think the others saw what I saw."
"I can imagine." Willie's voice was soft. "When I got back from Hong Kong after running that test mission she sent me on, I was scared stiff she might not accept me for The Network." He glanced at his friend. "And scared you might speak against me."
Garcia shook his head. "I could see you were troubled about what I would say, but she always picked her own people."
"I didn't know that then. Anyway, you're a decent old sod, Rafa, so thanks. The way she moved me up the ladder, you could easily 'ave turned nasty with me."
"Willie, Willie my friend, I am fifty-seven years old. When she found you and gave you your chance I was already fifty-one. Too old for the job, and afraid that soon I would fail her in some important operation. From the beginning I thought you might be the one I was hoping for, and after six months I knew it. I knew that you would become her right arm in a way that I could never be, and I was glad as hell, Willie. You know something? I had already spoken to Mam'selle about retirement, but when she put you to run in tandem with me I was glad to stay on. It was good to have a younger man take over as ramrod in the field operations. Just what she needed. Just what Ineeded, by God."
"Well ... it worked out all right." Willie scratched his cheek speculatively. "It's going to feel weird when we all split up."
"She tells me it will take three months," said Garcia. "There is much to be made tidy. Area heads will be permitted to take over their own areas if they wish." He grimaced and shook his head. "Without her they will lose The Network style, and things will quickly go wrong. Better to retire."
"That's what you'll do?"
"Of course. I will go home to Uruguay, to San Tremino where I was born. I left there without a peso and I will go back with a million dollars. Not bad, Willie."
"Crime pays all right."