"O'Donnell, Peter - Modesty Blaise 09 - Dragon's claw" - читать интересную книгу автора (O'Donnell Peter)
Peter O'Donnell
CHAPTER 1
They brought Barboza to the place of execution at a few minutes before nine in the morning, loaded his own revolver with a single cartridge, showed him that it was in the correct chamber, and placed the gun in the holster at his hip. He stood blinking in the sunlight, trying to control his fear.
Barboza had deserted from the Cuban forces in Angola more than two years ago, but it was not for this that he was about to die on a small island in the Tasman Sea. He was to die because he had omitted to bar a door, and had fallen asleep.
Condori, the big Mexican in charge of the permanent guards, had said Barboza could die by the noose or the gun, and he had chosen the gun, but not because he thought it a better way to die, for he was a dull-witted man of stunted imagination. His choice sprang from the sullen resentment he felt towards the people who had ordered his death, the people who lived in the white house on the hill. With the gun, he thought, it was possible ... well, just barely possible, that he might manage to take his executioner with him. To do so would be very satisfying, for Barboza hated priests.
The gun at his hip was a Smith & Wesson .41 Magnum. Hit a man almost anywhere with a bullet from that six-inch barrel, and the large flat soft-point nose would knock him down as surely as a blow from a sledge-hammer. The thought brought a measure of comfort to Barboza in the last minutes of his life, and helped to channel his fear into a taut readiness that was strangely clear-headed and far beyond his normal capacity.
Unshaven, still wearing the rumpled shirt and trousers he had been wearing when his fellow guards had bundled him into a cell two days earlier, he stood facing across the big patio to steps which zig-zagged in several flights up the green hill to the white walls of Dragon's Heart. Squinting against the sun, he could make out three figures on the long balcony. They would be the red-haired girl with big breasts, the Chinaman, and the tall man with a halo of tight golden curls, who moved and spoke like a fairy but who made your stomach twist with quick fear when he looked at you in a particular way.
In the two years that Barboza had been on the island, he had barely exchanged a word with any of the people who lived in the white house. They came and went, occasionally using the yacht which lay in the natural harbour on the far side of the hill, but more often using the twin jet Grumman Gulfstream. When they were away, Condori was in charge of the island with his seventeen guards. At this moment five were on duty, one each on the switchboard, the radio station, and airstrip control, and two at the harbour. The rest were spread along the strip of coarse grass edging the patio on Barboza's right, with the new excavation for the sunken garden behind them.
He turned his head a little to watch them, some standing, some sprawled on the grass, and he hated them because in an hour's time they would still be alive. Barboza had no enemies among them, and no friends. His natural surliness had made him an outsider, a position in which he had taken vague pride. His execution today would cause no grief among his recent colleagues. For them it would perhaps be a stimulating event in their rather tedious lives.
Regan, the Irishman, sat astride his motorcycle smoking absently. The narrow lightweight trailer was hooked behind, ready to carry Barboza's body down to East Point to be weighted and sunk. Chater, the Australian, and Li Gomm, the chigro from Macau, were still taking bets on the outcome; not on the simple issue of whether Barboza would die, for nobody doubted that, but on finer points such as whether he would succeed in drawing his gun, or actually getting a shot off.
Barboza remembered the execution of the Italian woman six months before, when bets had been laid on how she would react when the time came. She had made no attempt even to lift the gun which had been put in her plump hand, but had thrown it aside, folded her arms, turned her back, and waited a full four minutes for the vituperative obsequies to end with the shot that pierced her head. It had been disappointing, except for Tan Sin, the shrewd Malayan, who had won a month's money on her that day.
From a few paces behind Barboza, and a little to one side, Condori said, "He comes." Barboza's muscles twitched and his heart hammered suddenly as fresh adrenalin was pumped into his bloodstream. He lifted his head, and saw the figure moving down the steps from the white house. The guards on the grass fell silent. Those who had been sitting got to their feet.
The Reverend Uriah Crisp was dressed completely in black except for his white collar. His spidery legs, enclosed in drainpipe trousers, moved rhythmically as he descended step after step, turning at the end of each zig-zag, never needing to glance at the open Prayer Book in his hands as he began to recite in a high, piercing voice which carried easily to those watching from the balcony above.
"I will take heed to my ways, that I offend not in my tongue. I will keep my mouth as it were with a bridle, while the ungodly is in my sight."
The voice rose and fell, but there was nothing unctuous in the manner of delivery, only a controlled yet ever increasing fury. "Forget not the voice oн thine enemies, O Lord! Thou smotest the heads oн Leviathan in pieces, and gavest him to be meat for the people in the wilderness." The voice quivered with terrible passion. "Lift up thy feet that thou mayest destroy every enemy!"
The Reverend Uriah Crisp's face was thin and hollow-cheeked. As he lifted his head to cry to the heavens the men below could see the fringe of gingery hair protruding from beneath the round black low-crowned hat he wore. "For now is the axe put unto the root of the tree, so that every tree that bringeth not forthgood fruit is hewn down and cast into the fire ..."
Barboza drew in a deep breath and released it slowly. Now that it had begun, he felt almost calm. He knew that when the priest came down the last of the steps on to the patio he would halt there, facing Barboza and about ten paces away. Holding the Prayer Book in his left hand, he would take off his hat with his right, and hold it over his chest, almost as if offering a target. The harangue against sinners would continue for several minutes ... unless Barboza tried to draw his gun.
It was not a matter of deciding whether to take the initiative; only a fool would throw away such a substantial advantage. It was a matter of deciding the precise moment to act, to make the utmost of that advantage.
"Make thine enemies as stubble before the wind, O Lord, like as the fire that burneth up the wood, and as the flame that consumeth the mountains. Persecute them with thy tempest and make them afraid with thy storm. Let them be put to shame, and perish." The last word was a spluttering shriek of fury, then the voice dropped to a low fierce tone and began slowly to rise again.
The Reverend Uriah Crisp came down the last twelve steps to the patio, still reciting, and slowly took off his hat. Pale grey eyes, red-rimmed, stared fixedly at Barboza over the top of the Prayer Book. "Man that is born of woman hath but a short time to live, and is full oн misery. He cometh up and is cut down like a flower ..."
Barboza screwed up his eyes in concentration, taking great care not to let his right hand make any unintentional movement. Some of his recent colleagues were good with a handgun. In the small cinema attached to the guards' quarters, blue films came first in popularity but Westerns came a close second, and among the guards there was keen interest in target shooting, varieties of holster, and quick draws, no doubt stimulated by the remarkable demonstrations of the Reverend Uriah Crisp. Barboza was not among the enthusiasts. His training enabled him to shoot reasonably accurately with a handgun, and for him the rest of it seemed childish, like playing at cowboys.
His lack of interest in such diversions was to be regretted now. He could never get the .41 Magnum out really fast, there was no hope of that. But if he could just manage to get it out fast enough ...
"Forasmuch as it hath pleased Almighty God of his great mercy to be about to take unto Himself the soul of our dear brother, here about to depart, let us remember the anger and judgments of the Most High. For the living God shall pour down rain upon the sinner; snares, fire and brimstone, storm and tempest. He will burn the chaft with the unquenchable fire. Up, Lord, and cast them down!" Again the hard, penetrating voice rose to a peak of frenzy before dropping to a lower pitch, grieving and regretful. "So shall the sorrows of death encompass him ..."
"... So shall the pains of hell come upon him ..." The man in black made no move until Barboza touched the butt of the revolver. Then the flat round hat dropped from where the Reverend Uriah Crisp's right hand held it in front of his chest. The hand blurred. A shot clipped the peak of the spinning cap and continued on its way into Barboza's brain, on through the back of the skull, a flattened slug of lead now, to drop at last some way short of where the ground fell away sheer to the sea in a low cliff. Barboza's half-drawn gun slid back into its holster and he fell, his shoulders hitting the white paving stones of the patio with a solid thump.
"... for the Lord shall thunder out of heaven with hailstones and coals of fire," continued the Reverend Uriah Crisp, "sending forth his arrows to scatter them, and casting forth lightnings to destroy them." His voice had flowed on without pause or falter during the brief moment of action. The open Prayer Book was still held in front of him, level with his chin. Beneath it, his right hand now held an automatic, a Colt Commander with a lightweight alloy steel frame and chequered walnut grips.
"Amen," said the Reverend Uriah Crisp. He closed the Prayer Book and put it into the pocket of his jacket, applied the safety catch on the automatic and pushed it back into the armpit holster, a modified Berns-Martin transverse holster with a friction screw, strapped beneath the left breast of the jacket. Bending to pick up his hat, he dusted it with a large yet strangely elegant hand, and set it carefully on his head.
"I am the Hammer of the Lord," he said humbly, "an unworthy instrument of His hand. By His will has the sinner died, and of His mercy have I been spared this day." He turned away and began to mount the first flight of steps.
The guards stirred. Chater said resentfully, "I never reckoned Barboza had the bloody sense to try a trick. All right, I'm paying threes on that, and evens on the half-draw. All other bets lose."
Condori moved to look down at the dead man, lit a thin cigar, then raised his eyes to follow the Hammer of the Lord. Condori could not remember being afraid of any man, but that one made him feel uneasy. If he ever had to kill the crazy priest, Condori thought, he would go about it by night and by stealth rather than by any sort of confrontation. He exhaled smoke and called, "You two. Riza and Fuzuli. Get this on Regan's trailer." He touched the body with his toe. "Check the gun into the armoury, and bring his personal effects to my office."
On the long balcony of the white house two men and a girl watched the spidery black figure mounting the steps. Beauregard Browne shook his golden head and laughed. "Isn't he superb? I mean, really. Isn't he?"
Dr. Feng Hsi-shan considered the question. He was a psychiatrist, specialising in mind-bending, who had left the People's Liberation Army of the People's Republic of China because he had diagnosed a political condition in which it seemed probable that his own mind might be severely bent. He had been here on Dragon's Claw island with his new employers for only four weeks, and would have found them as incomprehensible as aliens from another galaxy if he had not spent three years dealing with American prisoners during the Korean War, and another two in New York keeping a psychiatric eye on the Chinese delegation to the United Nations. He spoke perfect if rather stilted English.
Now he said, "Superb? Yes. Mr. Crisp is certainly very efficient at his job, which I assume to be that of killing undesirable persons. He is also, of course, a schizophrenic paranoid, and quite incurable. Naturally I have not said this to him."
"But my dear old prudent medico, he wouldn't be in the least perturbed," said Beauregard Browne, flapping a hand vaguely in the direction of the man climbing the steps. "He really wouldn't. Clarissa will tell you."
Dr. Feng looked at the striking red-haired girl in the white dress, and waited inquiringly for her to speak. She was gazing absently down the hill, very gently touching her breasts with her palms, the fine large eyes a little glazed. Dr. Feng had discovered that Clarissa de Courtney-Scott, who held the position of Beauregard Browne's secretary, was a young woman of great administrative ability who virtually ran the island in matters of everyday organisation. He had also discovered that she was a nymphomaniac who served all males in Dragon's Heart with immense enthusiasm, including The Patron when he was in residence, but excluding the guards.
Dr. Feng said, "Do you agree, Miss de Courtney-Scott?"
She came out of her daydream and gave him a smile showing large white teeth. "About Uriah? Oh God, yes, you can't possibly offend him, in fact it's sometimes frightfully funny with him, isn't it, Beau?"
"Delirious." Beauregard Browne turned his gaze on Dr. Feng, who wished he wouldn't. Perhaps it was the very slight cast in the deep violet eyes which made this young man's stare so chilling, for the effect was the same whether he was in an angry or light-hearted mood.
"I remember saying a dreadful thing to him one night," Clarissa went on. She gave a smile of self-deprecation. "It really was rather unkind of me, but he'd been rambling on for ages about the holiness of the gun as an instrument of God's judgment. Then he went into a long sort of hypothesis that he might actually have saved Jesus if only he'd been there at Calvary with his Colt. It really was too much, even for Uriah, because he was screwing me at the time, and he kept stopping at just the wrong moment to rave about how he would have destroyed all the sinners."
Beauregard Browne said, "Darling, you're putting us on."
"No, honestly, Beau. I was thinking that if he didn't get me over the hump soon I'd go out of my mind, but completely. So I absolutely screeched at him: 'I know you can't help being a raving lunatic' I yelled, 'but if you don't stop acting like one and get moving, Uriah, I'll bloody ruin you before you get off this bed!'" She gave a half-laugh and looked slightly ashamed.
"What happened?" asked Dr. Feng, fascinated.
"Oh, he just heaved up a bit and looked down at me with a sad smile and said something like: 'I am Uriah, which means Fire of the Lord. I am the Hammer of God. It was prophesied that His servants should be mocked and reviled, but I glory in it, for the Lord is with me.' Then he set his teeth in my shoulder and went at it hammer and tongs." Clarissa sighed and ran a hand sensuously over a scroll topping the wrought iron balustrade. "It was rather good," she added wistfully.
Beauregard Browne giggled. "He won't be rather good for the next few days, poppet. Dispatching a sinner always quietens him down for a while."
"There's no need to laugh about it, Beau," said Miss de Courtney-Scott plaintively. "It's jolly rotten for me, being a man short. I mean, it's not awfully funny to be insatiable, you know. People don't understand. Gosh, I remember when I was young how Daddy used to fly into a simply colossal temper when I tried to explain."
Beauregard Browne rolled up his eyes. "Your Daddy. Now there was a pain in the arse. You should have let me attend to him."
"Well ... it would have seemed a bit mouldy, Beau. After all, he wasn't too bad, and anyway it would have looked frightfully suspicious so soon after what happened to your parents."
Dr. Feng made a mental note. He had started a dossier on each of his colleagues out of long habit, and was slowly adding little pieces of information as they came his way. He knew, not in detail but in vague outline, that years ago Beauregard Browne and Clarissa de Courtney-Scott had lived next door to each other in detached houses in Buckinghamshire. He knew that Browne's father had been a prosperous solicitor, his mother French and alcoholic. Clarissa's father had been a top surgeon who had died of a massive heart attack while in harness, in fact while operating on a patient for hernia. In his collapse he had made a large, accidental and fatal incision, an event which was still a standing joke between his daughter and Beauregard Browne.
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