"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 12 - Cobra Trap" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)
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.
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."
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