This was new for the Angels, and intensely exciting. It also introduced an element of compet.i.tion, for each was eager to claim either Modesty Blaise or Willie Garvin as a victim, or better still both. One thing the novelty of the coming confrontation had not done was to diminish their confidence in the slightest degree, for it was established in their psyches that they were superior beings to whom defeat and death could not come.

One floor below where his quarry waited, Asmodeus stood by a stanchion rising from a nineinch Igirder and put miniature nightgla.s.ses to his eyes for the fourth time. After a few seconds he smiled, lowered the gla.s.ses, pulled goggles down over his eyes and took a small CS gas bomb from a pouch at his hip. It was a long throw across the angle between the east wing and the main span to the floor above, but Asmodeus felt no shred of selfdoubt as his arm swung.

The missile landed on the concrete platform a few paces from Gus and began vomiting gas. Within two seconds Willie was there, kicking it out over the edge. Gus was coughing, hands clutched over his eyes as Modesty reached him, holding her breath but with her own eyes streaming. Gripping his arm she hauled him across to the hoist platform, pushed him so that he sprawled on to it, then drew her Colt and knelt to press it into his hand as she whispered, choking a little, "When you get below find a hole and stay there, Gus, shoot anyone who gets in your way."

She groped for the switchbox, found the start b.u.t.ton, and felt the hoist sink away from her as the engine below came to life. When she turned away from the edge Willie was beside her, crouching, knuckling an eye, a knife held by the blade. She said. "Split. On the run till we can see straight."

They had both seen the canister hit the concrete and bounce, and could judge the direction from which it had been thrown. Together they moved the opposite way, diverging. Each carried an empty sack picked up from a pile at the foot of the hoist. Using her folded sack as protection for her hands, Modesty slid down two stanchions to a lower floor, gripping the f.l.a.n.g.e on each side of the stanchion to control the speed of her descent.

At the back of her mind she was very conscious that she and Willie had been prodded into action with no time for serious preparation, while their three opponents had taken whatever time they needed to choose the arena and equip themselves for the occasion. She had seen them only as dark figures at a distance when they landed, but knew they were very special operators, highly skilled and organised.

She sought to get closer to their minds, recalling that whoever had thrown the CS bomb must have located one of them, probably Gus himself judging by where the canister had landed, yet there had been no shot, no attempt to kill. Did this mean they carried no weapon to kill beyond arm's length? Or were they hoping to maintain their practice of faking an accident? Or were these men so sure of themselves that they felt able to play cat and mouse with their victims?

One floor down and in the west wing, Willie Garvin had an unhappy feeling that he was cornered. Somebody was stalking him, and his eyes were not yet working well enough to pick out a shape in the deceptive starlight. From where he stood a long scaffold pole extended across a corner formed by the inner side of the wing and the main span. It would take only four seconds to swing along that, he decided, and tucked under his belt the sack he carried.

Among other hobbies, Willie Garvin was part owner of a tenting circus that travelled Europe, and he would sometimes spend a few weeks with it, doing a knifethrowing act under the name of El Cazador and Conchita, who was his target. There were one or two occasions when Modesty had played Conchita, with Willie hamming outrageously in Mexican garb for the entertainment of friends in the audience. Willie had also been the standin catcher for a trapeze act, and to swing hand over hand along the scaffold pole was easy for him. He was halfway along when he saw the man appear at the end he was approaching, a tall man all in black and wearing a skimask. Where the mouth showed, the man was smiling. At the moment his arms were folded and he held no weapon.

Willie looked back and saw a duplicate figure at the end he had just left, again simply watching, seeing no cause for hurry to dispatch a helpless opponent. Willie looked down at the ground sixty feet below, then at the floor he was facing, one level down from where he hung. The man on his right spoke softly. "We are The Dark Angels. I am Belial."

The man on his left said, "I am Aruga. You will be the first of our victims ever to know who destroyed you."

Willie thought, They're psycho. I'm in with a chance. He began to swing back and forth, talking amiably. " 'Allo, I'm Willie Garvin. I've 'eard of Belial but I thought Aruga was one of those islands in the Dutch West Indies..." He went on talking as the man called Belial drew a knife from the back of his belt and flicked it over to catch it by the blade. By now Willie had increased his swing almost to the horizontal, and a glance the other way showed that the other man was also preparing to throw.

Willie made the final swing forward, putting all his strength into the move, turning in an open back somersault to land on the very edge of the floor below but with residual impetus, diving forward as two knives struck steel or concrete to either side of him. Next moment he had rolled on and come to his feet under the shelter of the floor above, out of sight of The Dark Angels.

Three floors higher, Modesty lay p.r.o.ne, looking down at the corner where Willie had vanished. She had heard his voice, and reached the edge of an unfinished floor just in time to see him escape the knives. Her gun was with Gus, or she could have brought down at least one of the men. Now they had gone, perhaps to follow Willie, perhaps to seek other quarry, herself or Gus. Later, if there was to be a later, she would be furiously scathing with herself for ineptness in approaching the challenge she had accepted, but this was not the moment for dwelling on it.

She edged back, slid down one floor and saw a mortar tray with a spade propped against a nearby stanchion. A length of rope was attached to the tray, perhaps for hauling it across the rough floor. She eyes the spade thoughtfully for a moment or two and decided to stay for a while.

Willie Garvin was also profoundly annoyed with himself and had decided it was high time to take some sort of initiative. To this end he was on the ground now, having slid down a succession of stanchions using the sack to protect his hands from friction. Knife in hand he moved towards the foot of the hoist, thankful that his vision was clear again. It was as he pa.s.sed the heap of sacks that he heard a soft "Pssst!" and dropped to one knee, turning ready to throw.

One of the top sacks was flipped back and Gus's head and shoulders emerged from the pile with a hand holding Modesty's gun. His voice held a tinge of disappointment as he whispered. "Only you. I hoped it was one o' them parachutin' critturs. How's it goin'?"

Willie breathed, "I rate three out often so far, but I'm 'oping to improve."

"Where's Miss Modesty?"

"Up top somewhere, I think."

"Then what the h.e.l.l you doin' down here? Let's git to helping her."

He started to clamber out of the pile, but Willie pushed him back and whispered fiercely, "You stay buried or I'll break your legs. You promised Modesty." He flipped a sack over Gus's scowling face and moved on to the foot of the hoist.

Several floors above, Belial moved like a shadow through a lattice of girders and stanchions to a section of concrete flooring. In one hand he held the b.u.t.t of a whip. Its thong was five feet long tipped with a further foot of razorwire. There came a slight sound ahead and to his right from behind one of the broad steel stanchions. He froze, then edged forward. The lash leapt out, curling round the stanchion at head height, and in the same instant two feet smashed into Belial's back as Modesty launched a high dropkick from behind.

He was flung forward, his head hitting the face of the unforgiving steel, and he slumped unconscious. Modesty listened for any hint of sound nearby, then moved forward. A spade lay behind the stanchion. It was attached to a length of rope she had used to create the small sound that had decoyed the man into position for her attack. She searched him for weapons, was disappointed to find no gun and only an empty knife sheath, then used the rope to tie his hands behind him with feet doubled back and lashed to the hands.

When she pulled off the skimask she saw the face of a man in his middle twenties with blood welling from a cut forehead. In the fall, a medallion on a chain round his neck had emerged from under his shirt. Using a pencil torch and carefully screening it she saw that the medallion bore a winged human figure. Arched above this were the words The Dark Angels, and below it the word Belial. She switched off the torch and knelt unmoving for a moment, marvelling as she thought, My G.o.d, they're fantasy roleplayers but for real!

She had just risen to her feet when there came from below the sound of the engine that drove the hoist. She moved quickly across the girders to a point where she would be able to watch its progress, not knowing who had started the hoist or what it signified, but with an instinctive feeling that this was probably a Willie Garvin initiative, which was comforting.

On a floor below, Aruga crouched with a dartgun aimed. The hoist ran in a framework of steel scaffolding and was located so that on each floor it could be halted at a point where a section of flooring had been run in. Aruga heard the engine note change as the platform came to a halt at each of the floors before moving on. Now it was approaching the floor where he waited only eight paces away. It came into view, halting just above the level of the floor, but the platform was empty except for one or two sacks lying on it.

Aruga stood up, moving forward to investigate. As he did so a man's head and shoulders rose from the farther edge of the platform and an arm swung. Startled, Aruga jerked the gun up, but even as he began the movement a knife drove into the muscle of his gunarm. The weapon fell. Aruga staggered with shock and dropped to his knees. Making a huge effort he rose and lurched forward, reaching towards the dartgun with his sound arm, but then the man was there, a big man with fair hair he had last seen hanging helpless from a scaffold pole. Now he was holding a second knife with its point touching Aruga's throat. A voice with a c.o.c.kney accent said softly, "You'll 'ave to tell me more about The Dark Angels... but not just now." A hand with an edge like teak struck behind Aruga's ear, and he fell sideways.

Willie Garvin felt slightly less annoyed with himself as he moved into some shadows and waited to see if any attention had been attracted. He had hung from the outer edge of the hoist with one foot in a loop of rope and with the control box detached from its mounting so that he was able to stop the platform at each floor in the hope that at some stage one of the unG.o.dly would approach to investigate. And one of them had.

Looking across from the corner of the east wing, Modesty had been able to make out enough of the scenario to feel that Willie had probably eliminated one opponent, which left only the third man in contention. She moved off, walking on one of the long girders, arms spread for balance, reflecting that the odds were more favourable now but there was still nothing to be complacent about. The last man had to be found and- He came from behind a stanchion ten paces ahead. She had moved from the girder on to a floored section when he emerged, his arm swinging horizontally in a throw, which told her the missile was not a knife, and as she ducked sideways she glimpsed the razorsharp ninja star flashing past, its steel edge slicing a shallow cut in her arm just below the shoulder instead of finding the intended target of her throat.

Then he was upon her with a karate attack and she was offbalance, blocking, backing, using all her combat skills to evade a crippling strike, but unable to use her unique ability to fight aggressively while in swift retreat, for the floor edge was behind her with an eightyfoot drop waiting below. Driving him back for a moment with a glancing footstrike she felt for the last stanchion behind her where the long girder began. By moving fast along it, by running along it, she would have the advantage at the far end if he followed.

She had taken only one stride when her foot slipped on a small pool of blood that had run down her arm from the cut in her shoulder and she sprawled forward, clutching at the girder as she fell, her legs slipping over the edge, their weight dragging her body over so that she hung only by the grasp of her two hands on the upper f.l.a.n.g.e of the girder.

The man moved forward on to the narrow steel, treading lightly and with perfect balance, halting near her right hand and looking down at her, teeth showing in a smile. "We are The Dark Angels," he said, "and I am Asmodeus, your destroyer."

He stamped at her fingers, but she s.n.a.t.c.hed the hand away and transferred her grip to the lower f.l.a.n.g.e of the girder, following suit with the other hand. Now if he tried to stamp on her fingers he would be unbalanced and vulnerable. He made no move to do so, but laughed and took a step forward, turning to stand with legs astride, firmly balanced as he looked down from directly above her.

" I am Asmodeus," he repeated, and slowly drew a knife from the sheath at the back of his belt.

She had been hoping for this, focusing energy on her stomach muscles, and now with explosive speed she chinned herself and brought her legs up behind him, thrusting her feet between his straddled legs, hooking her heels beneath his kneecaps, then pushing back. He swayed, uttered a wordless cry of shock, then fell, clutching futilely at s.p.a.ce. One of his feet caught her ankle, almost tearing her loose from the girder, then he was gone and she heard a scream cut short as he hit a girder, a voiceless impact as he struck another, and a soft sound from far below.

With a huge effort she dragged herself up and crawled to the safety of the flooring to sit with her back against a stanchion, a hand gripping her cut shoulder. It was perhaps a minute later that Willie's voice whispered from the shadows, "Princess...?"

She said, "Did you get any?"

"Only one."

She relaxed. "That's all right. We're clear. The one who just took a dive was my second."

He emerged from the shadows, peering at her. Even in the pale light he could see that her face was grazed, her shirt torn, her shoulder hurt. He said apologetically, "Sorry to lumber you with most of it. I made a right c.o.c.kup to start with."

"I made one both ends. Christ, Willie, we'd better get our act together. We walked into this as if it was going to be a teaparty."

He nodded. "I know. Too c.o.c.ky. But so were they, only worse. What 'appened 'ere, Princess?"

"I'll tell you while you get a dressing on this shoulder. It took a bit of a cut from a ninja star."

Fifteen minutes had gone by. A cement mixer was churning below. On a section of the fourth floor Aruga and Belial lay without masks, hands tied behind them, faces empty with shock. Aruga's right shirtsleeve had been cut away and there was an emergency dressing on his upper arm.

Using the hoist, Willie had just brought the two men here from where he and Modesty had left them bound. He had not been pleased to find the whip tipped with razorwire that Belial had used as a weapon. Modesty stood with arms folded, a bulge under the sleeve of her shirt just below the shoulder where Willie had fixed a dressing. Gus stood grimfaced, smoking the last of a cheroot having asked Modesty's permission.

Willie walked to where the concrete flooring ended and looked down through the steel skeleton of girders, then he moved to where the two Dark Angels lay and studied them as if trying to come to a decision. From the time he had brought the first of them here, Aruga, not a word had been spoken, and even now the ominous silence continued as Gus dropped his cigar b.u.t.t and trod it out while Willie adjusted his knives and b.u.t.toned his shirt over them.

Another full minute pa.s.sed before Modesty spoke. She said, "I'm going to keep this simple. We're going to a.s.sume you know who sent you to kill Mr Keyes. If you don't know, it's going to be hard luck."

Willie took Belial by the hair, hauled him to his feet and backed him to the edge of the unfinished floor. "We're mixing some concrete for the road," he said. "Asmodeus is already down there making a nice bit of 'ardcore foundation, and we thought you'd like to join 'im."

Modesty said without much interest, "Or you could just tell us the names."

There was a silence. Belial glared defiantly. Willie said, "He thinks we're bluffing, Princess," and hit Belial hard under the jaw with the heel of his hand. Unconscious, the man fell back limply into the darkness below.

Willie stepped to the edge and looked down. "That's amazing," he said with interest. "D'you know, he missed every girder going down. Didn't bounce once." He turned with a grin. " 'Yea, he did fly upon the wings of the wind.' Psalm eighteen, verse ten." He hauled Aruga to his feet and pushed him back to the edge. "Wonder if I can do it again?"

Modesty said, "Just the names."

Sweat was pouring down Aruga's face. He had suffered defeat, and a wound, and the world he lived in had been destroyed. Holding him by the throat Willie said, "I expect you and your dead mates were going to mix up a bit of concrete for us, eh? Still, you can't say we never gave you a chance." He lifted an eyebrow hopefully. "No? Well, you go and tell Belial 'ow brave you were."

He shaped for the blow, and Aruga broke. "Wait! His head sagged and he mumbled, "Sumner. Brigadier Sumner. Beckworth, Timmins... a woman, Harriet Welling... that's all I know." As Willie pulled him away from the edge his legs gave way and he collapsed.

Gus moved forward and looked down over the edge. Belial lay ten feet below in a heavy loading net spread between the girders. Gus sniffed. "The G.o.ddam net held," he said sourly, and moved away to face Modesty. Taking a handkerchief from his pocket he held it against the weeping graze on her cheek, and saw her skinned knuckles as she took it from him. "You took some bad lumps for me, Miss Modesty," he said in a low sad voice.

She smiled. "Fewer than I deserve. But we stomped 'em, didn't we?"

"Yeah. You an' Willie did. It all worked out okay." He turned from her and stood with hands thrust deep in his pockets, looking out at the night sky with forlorn eyes. "It worked out just fine."

Twelve hours later John Beckworth, OBE, was standing by the big fireplace in the lounge of his Pall Mall club, glancing at the Financial Times and expecting that at any moment a steward would tell him he was wanted on the phone. The caller would be Brigadier Sumner, who by now would have received a report from The Dark Angels.

Looking up from the newspaper he saw that a fellow member had risen from a nearby armchair, a member with whom he had only slight acquaintance. Beckworth nodded a greeting and said, "Morning, Tarrant. How's the Civil Service these days?"

"Oh, hoping to please, I think," said Tarrant.

"Glad to hear it." Beckworth frowned and stared past Tarrant with some annoyance. "Good G.o.d, there's a chap come into the club wearing a rollneck shirt under his jacket. Doesn't he know the rules?"

Tarrant said, "He's not a member. He's Chief Detective Inspector Finn, and he's with me, here on business."

Beckworth stood very still for a moment or two, then laid the newspaper down on a coffeetable. "Well... I'll let you get on with it."

Tarrant said quietly, "I'm afraid it's to your address, Beckworth. One of the Dark Angels is dead, the other two are in custody having talked. Sumner, Timmins and Mrs Welling were picked up an hour ago."

"Ah, I see." Beckworth stood in deep thought for a few moments, then managed a wry smile. "I sometimes wondered precisely what your job was, Tarrant. I'd be greatly obliged if we could go to the Secretary's office and then leave before your chap actually arrests me."

Tarrant's eyebrows lifted in query, and Beckworth went on anxiously, "I simply want to settle my bill and hand in my formal resignation. Better for the club that way, surely?"

At ten o'clock next morning Willie Garvin came into the penthouse kitchen where Weng was making bread. "Let's 'ave Miss Blaise's orange juice, Weng," he said.

The houseboy looked surprised. "But she told us she would sleep till noon and to h.e.l.l with it. She is restoring herself, Mr Garvin."

"I know." Willie waved a sheet of paper. "But this just came through on the fax. It's from Mr Chava.s.se. Take a look." There was nothing exceptional about his showing it to Weng, who handled all Modesty's affairs during any of her absences from home, which were sometimes quite long.

After fifteen seconds Weng blinked once then handed back the paper. Rolling the dough he had kneaded into a ball he wrapped it in plastic and put it in the freezer. "I will have her orange juice ready in a moment, Mr Garvin."

She roused when Willie tapped on her door and entered. "Hallo, Willie love. What is it?" She knew the time was well before the hour she had set herself to wake.

He handed her the orange juice as she sat up. "Tell you in a minute, Princess. How's the shoulder?"

She wore no nightdress, and looked down at the neat st.i.tches put in by a police surgeon in the small hours of the day before, following the night of The Dark Angels. "It's fine," she said. "I'll be ready for a workout with you in a week."

He waited until she had drunk the orange juice and set down the gla.s.s, then he said, "Gus has gone."

She stared. "Gone? You mean left?"

"Vanished. No note, nothing. Must 'ave slipped out before Weng was up. Weng told me when I came for breakfast, but I didn't see any point in waking you up."

"No. But..." she shook her head, bewildered, "it's out of character, Willie. Gus is so... courteous."

"That's what I thought too, Princess, and maybe he is, but d'you remember Danny Chava.s.se rang you from Boston soon after he got there, and you told him old Gus turned out to be Howard A. Keyes, supermarket tyc.o.o.n?" She nodded, and he handed her the sheet of paper, "Well, this fax just came through from Danny in Miami."

The fax read: I suppose it takes one to know one. Your friend Gus is a doublephoney. When he said 'Jumpin' Jehoshaphat' twice in ten minutes I felt I was watching an old Bpicture western. Didn 't mention any doubts then because it didn 't seem important, but when I rang from Boston you told me about Howard A. Keyes, so now I'm faxing you to say if Howard tries to sell you a gold brick, don't buy it. I 'II be on Paxero's yacht with my good friend Julie Bos...o...b.. when it sails tomorrow, and meantime I've been mixing with some of the top tyc.o.o.ns in the US of A. They a.s.sure me there ain 't no such person as Howard A. Keyes, owner of a vast supermarket chain and bits of Texas. The story fed to selected newspapers and magazines was a wellorganised ploy. My rich friends suspect connivance by more than one government, which I find puzzling, but there it is. Anyway, the Breguet is wonderful. You shouldn 't have, but thank you.

Love, Danny She laid the paper down on her lap and said, "Tarrant."

Willie nodded. "Who else? He set up that roadside fracas with n.o.ble old Gus standing by to do his stuff."

"Which is why he rang to find out which route I'd be taking."

"Adrian and Tarquin were phonies too. Tarrant's people. I like their choice of names though, Princess."

She had been sitting tightlipped, but now she suddenly grinned at him. "Yes. You can't help admiring the old b.a.s.t.a.r.d, Willie. It was brilliant. He hadn't got a lead on these dubious accidents the computers came up with, so he set up a stalking horse as bait, namely Gus. Then he suckered me into the game with Gus turning up as my defender, which meant getting you in on it because he knew that's how it would be. And we did the job for him."

Willie was happy to see her eyes sparkling with amus.e.m.e.nt. He said, "Crafty old sod. I wonder who Gus is?"

"Yes, that's a question. But whoever he is he's got guts, Willie. He's no chicken, but he was there with us when The Dark Angels came down out of the sky to kill him, and that took cold nerve." She thought for a moment. "I wonder why he's run away?" She picked up the bedside phone. "Let's see what Tarrant has to say."

She dialled and gave her name to the switchboard operator, but it was Tarrant's a.s.sistant, Fraser, who came on the line. "Sorry, Modesty, he's out of the office. Left for Heathrow ten minutes ago. Anything I can do?"

"I don't think so, thanks, Jack. Is he going abroad?"

"No, just seeing a VIP off."

"Like Mr Keyes, the phoney tyc.o.o.n?"

There were several seconds of silence, then Fraser sighed and said, "I won't ask how you found out. Tarrant's in mourning over conning you, but I'm not. We had lives to save, and we don't have people like you on our books to call on."

"Excuses, excuses. All right, Jack. Tell him I'll call tomorrow. Take care."

She put down the phone, threw off the bedclothes and made for the bathroom. "Two can play at withholding information, and I don't want him calling Tarrant to warn him. We're going to Heathrow, Willie. They have ten minutes start, but I'll be out of the shower in three and dressed by the time you've brought the Jensen round to the front, so we won't be far behind. Let's go."

Sir Gerald Tarrant and Howard A. Keyes sat with coffee at a table in the cafe area of London Airport's main concourse. They had been speaking occasionally but had now lapsed into an unhappy silence, each lost in his own thoughts.

A c.o.c.kney voice nearby said, "D'you mind if we join you?" Both men froze, then turned to see Willie Garvin with two coffees on a tray, Modesty Blaise beside him. They rose, their faces filled with dismay and apprehension.