"He's unconscious."

Hallenberg gestured as if his point had been made. She said, "But he's still alive. In a few hours these men will kill you. Is that what you want?"

"No," he said patiently, "but I will not betray my beliefs. Are you so different from these men?"

"You see no difference between what they intend to do and what we're trying to do?"

Wearily patronising, Hallenberg said, "It is the means, young woman. The means. Do not confuse motive with means. Dear G.o.d, I have spent thirty years trying to make the world grasp that simple truth." He put bread and cheese in his mouth and began to munch.

Modesty wiped out the anger that was trying to possess her and made a swift appraisal. They had a genius to cope with. A genius with a ma.s.sive ego and all the common sense of a c.o.c.kroach. It was impossible even to admire his courage, for clearly he could not imagine that he was to be killed. It was simply unthinkable that this could happen to him. Mountjoy and company had been treating him well. He might even be rather enjoying the situation, convinced that either the ransom would be paid or that his captors would release him because he was so wonderful. Well, one way or another she intended to take the man out of Poldeacon, but perhaps...

Willie reached the same conclusion at the same moment and said in Arabic, "Easier if he comes quietly. Worth gambling a few minutes if you can talk him round."

She gave a little nod and said to Hallenberg, "I'm sorry the world hasn't grasped your simple truth, Mr Hallenberg, but there's another simple truth. The dead stay dead, and the world urgently needs Tor Hallenberg alive." She smiled respectfully at him, took the other chair to the table and sat down facing him. "Could we talk about your latest work, please?"

Willie opened the door quietly and went out, moving along the pa.s.sage to where a broad staircase led down to the ground floor. There he found a place in the shadows from which he could watch the empty entrance hall below and the two interior doors leading off the hall. Lovely job, that Hallenberg character, he told his second favourite female admiringly. Great fun. I don't know 'ow you come up with these ideas. You had to woo Lady Luck to win her favours, not whinge.

A hundred feet above the roof Lucy peered down in surprise. A scooter was chugging briskly up the track towards the house, an unmistakable figure in the saddle. She lifted her radio and said, "Excuse me, but there's a policeman coming towards the house on a motorscooter thing. I think he must have seen my balloon."

On the road through the woods Fraser said to the radio man, "b.l.o.o.d.y h.e.l.l! How did he get there? I thought your men had the road sealed off."

The radio man said, "They have, or he'd have come through here."

The jeep driver said, "There's a bridleway that cuts off the loop in the road. Maybe-"

Tarrant broke in sharply. "Never mind how. Tell the girl we have to get her away from the roof and we're letting the cable out."

The driver turned and hit the winch brake release. The cable raced out and they all heard Lucy's cry of protest over the radio. "I say! Steady!"

Fraser snarled, "Gently, you p.r.i.c.k!" He s.n.a.t.c.hed the radio as the driver eased on the brake. "Lucy? Lucy, are you all right?"

Tarrant unclenched his fists as her voice came through. "Well, golly, only just! I mean, there was a frightful lurch and I'm miles away from the roof now, well, not really miles away, but out over the sea actually, and I think the cable's got caught round something on the roof. Whatever's happening?"

Fraser said, "Sorry, but we had to get you away in a hurry, Lucy. Just stand by while we sort things out. If you're well away from the roof now you're quite safe." He released the switch and said grimly to Tarrant, "Or let's hope so. What now? That copper's going to blow the operation any minute and we can't give a warning. Willie's only got a matchbox transmitter for calling us. Oneway communication. Do we tell the weapons team to move in now?"

Tarrant shook his head. He had already calculated the pros and cons. "No. They don't appear to have found Hallenberg yet. That's the vital thing. They'll signal when he's safe in their hands."

"They can't get him out by the roof now."

"And we can't solve their problems for them," Tarrant said sourly. "She taught me that a long time ago. They don't expect a free ride. " He turned and walked away.

In the common room at Poldeacon Mountjoy had been playing chess with Simon Bird when the light began flashing in the alarm panel on the wall and a buzzer sounded. Mountjoy picked up the house phone at his elbow. "Yes?" A pause. "I see. Nothing else showing on the screen? Very well." He put down the phone. "A uniformed policeman is about to arrive. He's alone."

Bird stood up and reached under his jacket to feel the b.u.t.t of the gun he loved so dearly. Mountjoy said, "I'm sure that won't be needed. We'll stay in character, Simon."

Two minutes later Bird opened the front door. Mountjoy smiled benevolently at the police sergeant who had rung the bell at the outer gate. "Oh, good evening to you, officer. Can we be of help?"

The sergeant was a wellbuilt man with a brisk manner. "Evening, sir. I was pa.s.sing along the valley road and I saw this thing over your house. A balloon, sir." He waited, and when the two vicars stared at him blankly he added, "I mean a big balloon, with a basket."

Mountjoy blinked, then smiled in sudden comprehension. "Ah, the balloon. Yes, of course. I thought the local weather station would have informed you about it."

On the landing above, every word came clearly to Willie Garvin. He moved silently back as the policeman said, "I don't think we've had anything from them, sir."

"Really? Well, perhaps they didn't think it necessary. The experiment will only be lasting a few hours, I understand." A kindly smile. "But thank you for taking the trouble to call, sergeant."

In the room above, Hallenberg was pouring coffee for himself and saying, "Your argument has a false premise, young woman-" when the door opened and Willie said quietly, "We're blown. They're on to Lucy so the roof's no good. We've got a couple of minutes, with luck."

Modesty's hands shot across the small table to grip the collar of Hallenberg's jacket, wrists crossed, fists turning inwards to force knuckles into the jugulars. She stood as he half rose, his eyes bulging with shock and fear. One hand tugged feebly at her wrist, the other groped on the table, found a knife and raised it to strike. Willie took it from him a second before his body went limp.

"I must 'ave a chat with 'im sometime about opposing violence with violence, Princess."

"You're welcome," she said bleakly, and lowered Hallenberg to lie across the table. From her haversack she took a slim box containing a hypodermic and barbiturate ampoules. "Call in Tarrant's posse, Willie. We've got a busy ten minutes ahead, and the more distraction the better."

Willie took from his shirt pocket a piece of thick plastic. From one corner he drew out a short aerial, then spoke with the plastic close to his lips. "Bobeep calling. Move in now." He repeated the words three times, put the miniature transmitter away and grimaced. "Bobeep," he muttered in disgust.

In the hall Mountjoy pressed the remote control b.u.t.ton to close the big gates after the departing policeman. Two other men in clerical wear had now joined Bird. Mountjoy said, "You and I will start from the roof, Simon." He looked at one of the other men. "Alert the rest of our flock, Roger. Check Hallenberg's room first and leave a man with him if he's still there. If not, we search the house." He looked at the second man. "Patrol the courtyard, Terry. If we have visitors on the premises they can't be in the courtyard yet or they would have made contact with the policeman, so they're in the house. Kill anyone who tries to get out."

A minute later Mountjoy and Bird stepped on to the roof, Bird with a gun in his hand. The balloon cable was easy to see, glinting in the moonlight. It extended from the front of the house in one direction and towards the sea in the other, trapped under a heavy bracket that had once supported an aerial on the roof. Mountjoy pointed seaward, where the cable rose gradually for two or three hundred feet to a huge black balloon hanging above the sea.

Bird took up a stance with feet astride, both hands on the gun, taking careful aim, but Mountjoy laid a restraining hand on his arm. "No, Simon. Much more urgent to deal with any visitors who may have landed."

In the room where Hallenberg had been held, two of Mountjoy's vicars gazed at an overturned chair and the coffeepot spilled across the table. A minute later, on the floor above, they met Mountjoy and Bird returning from the roof. One of the men said, "They've got him. They've taken Hallenberg. Looks like he made trouble. There's been a rumpus and we found one of his shoes in the pa.s.sage." The man's voice was strained, and there was the dawning of fear in his eyes.

Mountjoy said without emphasis, "If you start running scared, Roger, I'll kill you. They haven't got him out yet, so let's find them, and fast. They probably have backup standing by, but once they're down the long chute with Hallenberg, and our guns, we can be singing hymns when the backup arrives."

On the last word there came a small sound of impact followed instantly by the rattle of leadshot falling to the floor. Roger's head jerked forward with the impact and he sagged to his knees before toppling sideways, unconscious.

Bird said, "Christ Almighty!" and fired into the shadows at the end of the corridor. On the floor below, Modesty heard the shot. It was not unexpected. She and Willie had split to wage guerrilla war against the enemy, and she guessed that Willie had just done a hitandrun job.

At this moment, here on the first floor, three men were working their way along the pa.s.sages which ran north and south between two wider ones running east and west. The men were calling to each other from time to time, and one was shortly due in the narrow arched pa.s.sage where Modesty was braced against the high ceiling, her feet against one wall, a shoulder against the other, her body curving up into the arch.

The man turned in from the wider pa.s.sage and she dropped as he pa.s.sed beneath her, catching him by the shoulder from behind to get her feet down first, and striking to his neck with the kongo as she landed, jerking him back towards her so that she was able to catch the gun as it fell from his hand. She laid him on his side, emptied the cylinder of the Smith and Wesson .38 Terrier, and put the cartridges in her haversack. Kneeling, she opened the man's jaws, slid the two-inch barrel into his mouth and closed it again, then moved to the wider pa.s.sage with her mirror to seek fresh prey. She had given Willie the remaining anaesthetic noseplugs, but thought he would be pleased with the gun-in-mouth tactic. It was weird and chilling, and would give a morale-crushing impression of superiority.

Four minutes later she joined Willie at an agreed point where back stairs led down to the ground floor. They spoke in whispers.

"We're keeping 'em busy, Princess. I've dropped a couple."

"Plus two for me. Where do these stairs go, apart from down?"

"Don't know, but we can-" He broke off at the sound of voices drawing closer. Two men, and no facility for taking them by surprise when they turned the corner twenty paces away. Modesty jerked her head and they moved quickly down the stairs.

At the bottom a well-lit pa.s.sage ran left and right. The voices were nearing the top of the stairs now. Modesty pointed and they ran to the right, pa.s.sing a door on one side before reaching a second door at the end of the pa.s.sage. Then they were through, closing the door behind them.

The light was on, revealing a large kitchen with tiled walls, well furnished and supplied but in a messy state. Unwashed crockery was piled in the sink. Jars, cans and bottles lay about on the units. The window was barred, the exterior shutters closed. There was no other door. They had reached a dead end.

Modesty said savagely, "What clown built this dump? All kitchens have back doors. You play dead, Willie." He nodded, picked up a bread knife, slipped the blade in the crack of a drawer and snapped it off an inch from the hilt. Stabbing what remained of the blade into a cake of soap on the draining board, he s.n.a.t.c.hed up a bottle of ketchup and splashed it on his shirtfront and neck. Modesty said, "Fine." She was still looking about her. Willie could play dead, but there was no place for her to hide unless...

She saw the mincer. It was of the kind that fixed to the surface of a work unit by the rubber suction disc forming its base. As she turned the lever to release it she heard faint sounds from along the pa.s.sage and guessed that the two men were checking the first room off it.

Willie saw the mincer in her hand and followed as she moved to the door. He still held the knife stuck in the cake of soap. She took his free hand, stepped up on his bent knee and swung round to step up again so that she was on his shoulders. Crouching there, she pressed the mincer against the tiled wall, close to the ceiling, and turned the lever to operate the suction disc.

Carefully she placed the edge of one foot on the edge of the doorframe lintel, lifted the other foot behind the first, and crouched there holding the mincer to prevent her toppling sideways.

It was less than a minute later that the door opened. Guns in hand, two vicars stopped short. Willie Garvin lay on his back by the sink. A breadknife, rising from the cake of soap b.u.t.toned beneath his shirt, appeared to be stuck deep in his chest. There was much blood on his shirt and neck, a trickle of it from one corner of his mouth. His halfopen eyes were glazed and still.

One man said, "Who's that? Who stuck him for Christ's sake?" He moved forward and bent to peer at Willie's face. A hand flashed up in a blur of speed and tore the gun away. The man screamed as a finger broke in the triggerguard. In the same instant Modesty dropped behind the second man from above the door and struck with the kongo to the nervecentre in the back of the neck. He was falling even before his brain had registered what was happening, and only milliseconds before his companion's scream was cut short by Willie's footstrike delivered from the floor.

Modesty began to empty cartridges from the two guns. Willie wiped his face and neck on a teatowel, and watched with pleased interest as she slid gunbarrels into mouths. "That'll spook 'em, Princess. I like it."

She said, "It may not matter much now, Tarrant's posse ought to be here any minute. I'm worried about Lucy, though. Let's go up and check." She paused, calculating. "Yes, the clerical brethren are down to seven now, so we shouldn't have too much trouble."

"I take it you didn't run into Mountjoy or Bird when we were keeping everyone busy?"

"No, G.o.ddammit and more's the pity. Not much chance now before Tarrant takes over."

They were on the roof, having met no opposition on the way, when the big wooden gates were smashed open by a bulldozer and a dozen men came running into the courtyard. A voice from a loudhailer announced the presence of armed police and began to give orders.

After a glance at the situation in front of the house Modesty and Willie moved to the back where the balloon cable ran over the edge of the low parapet and was now angled downwards, pa.s.sing over the outer wall and the clifftop to the sea beyond. The moon was brilliant, bathing the whole area in light that was enhanced by reflection from the sea. A hundred yards out, Lucy's balloon had descended and now hovered with the basket just above the surface, light glinting on the balloonwire cable that angled down above the edge of the cliff.

Willie said, "She'll be okay. She's a long-distance swimmer for sublimation purposes."

Modesty said, "There's a small door in that back wall and it's open." She touched Willie's arm and pointed to the right of the cable. Beyond the wall two figures were moving briskly towards the edge of the cliff where a simple wooden railing seemed to indicate the top of steps or a path leading down to the bay. Even in silhouette the figures were easy to recognise. One was a very big man, moonlight gleaming on his white hair. The other was small, wearing a flat clerical hat.

Willie said, "Mountjoy and Bird. They've done a runner. Must 'ave a boat down in the bay. I reckon we've lost 'em."

"No." Modesty bent to pull up one trouser leg and unzip the calflength boot. "You stay and cover Hallenberg. I'll see to these b.a.s.t.a.r.ds myself."

Her voice was quiet, but there was a metallic quality in it, a quality he had heard on very rare occasions before and which made the hairs on the back of his neck bristle, for he knew she was carrying the memory of Johnny Nash, horribly mutilated, in her mind, and was seeking a kill-or-be-killed opportunity to destroy. He said as she wrapped the leather upper of her boot round the balloon cable, "I was pretty close to them in London, Princess. Don't know about Mountjoy but I think Bird's carrying an armpit gun for a righthand draw, and I got the feeling he just might be a bit of an ace."

"Good. Thanks, Willie." She stood on the low parapet, both hands gripping the leather wrapping, and hooked the heel of her booted foot over the wire. It sagged only a little under her weight as she began to slide down the long slope. Willie turned and moved to the stairs bulkhead. He could now hear the loudhailer bellowing its warning somewhere within the house.

At the clifftop the cable ran only a few feet above the ground. Modesty touched down and surveyed the bay. A small landing-stage with a motorboat moored to it lay to her left. To the right she could see across the curve of the cliff to steps that wound down to the bay. Mountjoy and Bird were more than halfway down. Directly ahead, Lucy's basket was partly sunk in the sea now, with the balloon collapsing to one side of it. So much the better. It would provide a better anchor for the far end of the cable.

She tested the tension, decided it would do, and again began to slide down the wire, hanging by hands and one foot. This was a steeper angle, and the leather boot was smoking as she came to within a few yards of the sea's edge before dropping to the sand. Turning, she saw Mountjoy and Bird halt for a moment at sight of her, then they came on.

She lifted the hem of her tunic to clear the Colt .32 holstered beneath it on her right hip, and pulled the drawstring round the hem tight to hold it securely. Then the whole of her being focused on the approaching men, with no other thought or awareness intruding upon her concentration.

They halted six paces away. Mountjoy's hands were empty, his large face unreadable. Bird was smiling a little, a sparkle of eagerness in his eyes. Mountjoy said, "I have to point out that you are in our way."

She kept his hands within the cone of her vision, but her eyes were on Bird. She said, "Which of you is the expert with the boltcutters?"

Bird's smile widened. He lifted his right hand very slowly to take off his clerical hat, held it across his chest and said, "My pleasure."

Modesty said, "You're not fit to live, but they'll let you, of course. Just turn round now and we'll go back the way you came."

Bird gave a resigned shrug as if of compliance, then let the hat fall. His gun was out and the hat was at thigh height when her bullet grazed the thumbjoint and ripped his heart open. The impact rocked him back, and his gun fell to the sand as he went down. There were seconds of silence, then Mountjoy looked down at the dead man and said, "Poor Simon. It's just as well you killed him. His pride could never have survived defeat by a woman."

She studied Mountjoy for a few seconds, and knew the man carried no gun that he could reach swiftly. Bird's gun lay well away on the far side of his body. Stepping forward three paces, never taking her eyes off Mountjoy, she bent to lay the Colt on a small patch of flat rock showing through the sand.

"Or you can spend the next twenty years in gaol," she said, and stepped back, waiting.

The moonlight was on her face, and what Mountjoy saw in her eyes told him that if he moved he was a dead man, for she would be upon him long before he could reach the gun. He had male strength and was twice her weight, but he knew beyond doubt that she would be infinitely more skilled and carried death in her bare hands.

Mountjoy looked about him, at the sea, the cliffs, the sky, then at the woman before him. "Madam," he said, "will you permit me to see myself out?"

She looked at him without expression and said nothing. Very slowly he put thumb and finger into a waistcoat pocket and withdrew them pinched together. He put them to his lips, then lowered the hand with thumb and finger spread wide. For a moment he gazed at Modesty with open contempt. "I despise you, madam," he said. "Had the boot been on the other foot you would have died screaming."

His jaws clenched as if crunching something, then his head jerked back and his mouth gaped as he choked and panted convulsively. The big body crumpled to the sand facedown, twitched for perhaps ten seconds, then was still. Modesty moved forward, picking up the Colt. Gun aimed, she set her unshod foot on one of Mountjoy's wrists, then bent to feel with her free hand for the pulse in his neck.

There was nothing. The man was dead. She straightened up, bolstering the gun, then turned as she heard Lucy's voice calling, "I say...!" Lucy was wading in through the shallows, pushing wet hair back from her face. "I'm frightfully sorry not to be on the roof, Modesty, but they suddenly let the cable run and it must have got caught up there somewhere and I was absolutely stuck out over the sea, and then it sank, I mean the balloon did, so I thought I'd better swim ash.o.r.e."

She came splashing out on to the sand, water streaming from her clothes. Modesty said, "You're all right, Lucy?"

"Well, I'm a bit miffed about the balloon. I mean, I hope we can get it back, or I don't know what Daddy will say." She stared at the two bodies, frowning. "I say, was that a vicar I saw trying to shoot you just now?"

Modesty said gravely, "I don't think he'd actually been ordained."

"Well, I should jolly well hope not. I mean, it would be a bit much, wouldn't it?"

Modesty felt laughter and an unexpected affection for Lucy rising within her. She took the girl by the arm and began to move towards the cliff steps. "Come and tell Willie about it being a bit much," she said. "He'll love it."

Two men wearing flak-jackets and carrying guns came into the room where Willie Garvin sat on the window-seat facing the door, a knife in his hand. One of them turned and called down the pa.s.sage, "Here, sir!"

Tarrant appeared, followed by Fraser. The two armed men went out. Tarrant looked about the room, then at Willie. "We've found only two men capable of resistance," he said, "and they decided against it. Where's Modesty?"

Willie looked surprised. "I 'ad an idea you'd ask about Hallenberg first," he said, and slid the knife back into its sheath. "Mountjoy and his reverend brother did a bunk down to the bay. Modesty went after 'em."

Tarrant glared. "Then why the h.e.l.l aren't you with her?"

Willie stood up. "Because, my little old civil servant, she told me to stay and look after your goodies." He pushed the cushion off the window-seat and opened the lid. Tarrant and Fraser moved forward to look down on Hallenberg lying unconscious inside. "He wouldn't come quiet," said Willie. "She tried to persuade him but then we got blown, so we gave 'im a shot and dumped the silly b.u.g.g.e.r 'ere while we 'opped about creating diversions for you. We figured the last place they'd look for 'im was in 'is own room."

Fraser nodded approval. "Better than being lumbered with him while you were hopping about. Why has he only got one shoe on?"

Willie smiled. "We left it just along the pa.s.sage, where they'd find it and reckon it came off while we were taking 'im away- which they did." He shook his head. "That was the Princess. You can't believe 'ow fast she thinks when it's all 'appening." He looked down at Hallenberg and let the lid fall. "You're welcome to 'im."

It was just before dawn when Willie slowed the car to a halt outside the penthouse. Modesty was asleep beside him, her head on his shoulder. He patted her cheek and said, "You're 'ome, Princess."

She opened her eyes, yawned, sat up, reached for her handbag. She wore a duffel coat over her tunic now. Willie made a move to get out but she put a hand on his arm. "Thanks, Willie love. Don't get out." She turned to where Lucy sat sleepily in the back. "Bye, Lucy, and many thanks. We'll arrange about a new balloon and equipment."

"Well, jolly nice of you, Modesty. Thanks."

Modesty opened the door, paused, looked back. "Willie, I've got tickets for the Royal Ballet on Thursday if you're not doing anything."

He nodded. "That's great. I always 'ave a good laugh at the ballet."