A/N: Obviously, I don't own Modesty or Willie. It was Peter O'Donnell's stated intention that no one pick up the pen and continue to write their stories after his passing and I believe that should be honored. I'm not writing so much to continue their story, but rather to run off with a new character in the cool universe Mr. O'Donnell created. Modesty and Willie are as accurate to canon (using the strip canon, rather than the novel canon) as I can make them. Sammy Wan is also accurate, but I gave him a personality and backstory that never made it into canon. Peggy is all mine, though.

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Peggy McManus assumed that she had been hired as "eye candy," and she was okay with that. She knew that she was pretty, but she knew it in the same way that a tall man recognizes his height, as a description. If she thought about it much at all, she just thought she was lucky to have good genes. She had very blond hair coming a bit below her shoulders, a good smile and bright blue eyes. She had a sexy, fit body and dressed as well as her limited budget could afford. She didn't work too much on her looks, except her fitness, of course. She worked very hard at that, but she had always been athletic and exercise wasn't the torture for her that it was for some people.

Regardless of how she had gotten the receptionist job at Wan Security Network, she was happy to have it. Not only was the job market terrible and so many of her friends still waiting tables, but WSN was an exciting, growing company. She thought, 'it's a first step.' Certainly the reception area was impressive. On a high floor of the Time Warner Center, in New York's Columbus Circle, the space looked out over Central Park, which could be seen through the glass walls of the conference rooms behind her. Although her back was to the view, she knew it was spectacular.

There was a bing as an elevator arrived on the floor. Peggy looked up and watched the couple approach.

Peggy was immediately struck by the woman. She was stunning; a bit older than Peggy, maybe late twenties. She was tallish, with a light tan, dark blue eyes and jet black hair worn up in a bun. She was dressed in a forest green Givenchy dress that might have cost six months of Peggy's salary and she moved with the smooth athletic grace of a dancer. Her make-up was understated and her jewelry tasteful and obviously expensive. She was laughing at something the man had said.

The man was maybe in his mid-thirties, a few inches over six feet, big and powerfully built with a deep brown tan, tousled blond hair and blue eyes. He was too rugged to be handsome, but was certainly attractive. His face reminded her of a young Michael Caine. He was wearing a conservative blue business suit and a red tie. Whatever story he was telling, he was enjoying it as much as his companion and showed strong white teeth with his laughter. As they approached, Peggy heard him say with gravely voice and a pronounced cockney accent, "'Onest to God, Princess, the only thing I could think of was to say, 'but, where's the wallet?'" causing the woman to laugh again. He had an ease, self confidence, and good humor that Peggy felt wash over her.

Peggy smiled at them as the woman approached and said, with an English accent, "Good morning, is Mr. Wan in?"

Actually, Mr. Samuel Wan was in a meeting in the conference room behind her, clearly visible from the reception area. Knowing this, Peggy said, "I'm very sorry, Ma'am. Mr. Wan is in a meeting at the moment. Did you have an appointment?"

"No, no appointment, but perhaps you could tell him that Modesty Blaise and Willie Garvin are here," said Modesty Blaise.

"I'm afraid I can't interrupt him, but let me see how long his meeting will last. One moment, please." She picked up her phone and punched a few buttons. "Josie, do you know how long Mr. Wan's meeting is scheduled to last?...Oh, ok…no, it's just that some people have arrived without an appointment and I wanted to let them know how long he would be…a Ms. Blaise and a Mr. Garvin…Josie…Josie?" She tapped the phone switch, murmuring, "That's weird..." She began to redial Josie's number when Josie moved down the corridor on the side of the reception area toward the conference room.

Josie was moving as quickly as possible without actually running. She tapped quietly on the glass door of the conference room, but did not wait to be called in. She went directly to Mr. Wan and whispered in his ear. He instantly looked up and grinned with pleasure when he saw Ms. Blaise and Mr. Garvin. He said a few words to the men he had been meeting with as he was standing and moving to the door.

Mr. Wan was half Chinese, born and bred in New York's Chinatown. He was in his mid-thirties, six feet tall and very athletic. The rumor was that he was a master martial artist and Peggy believed it. He was always immaculately dressed. Today he wore a blue suit, gleaming white shirt and paisley tie. His shoes were perfectly shined and his cufflinks sparkled. He was the founder and President of WSN. He ran the company with old world, almost European, formality, but was well respected and liked by the employees. In the three weeks that she had worked for WSN she had never seen him smile, although he had invariably been pleasant and polite to her.

He walked quickly out to his new guests grinning like a little boy. He approached Modesty Blaise first, and taking her hand in both of his said, "Mam'selle." Peggy watched with fascination. Mr. Wan always had huge presence, as if he owned the world. But greeting Modesty Blaise today it seemed that he was merely borrowing it from her for a while. She smiled and, putting her hand on his arm, leaned forward to kiss his cheek "Hi, Sammy," said Ms. Blaise, "Sorry to drop in unannounced."

"Any time you drop in, Mam'selle, you are very welcome."

Mr. Wan released her hand and turned to Willie Garvin. He did not bother to even extend a hand to shake. He merely embraced Garvin in a huge hug, still grinning. Mr. Wan said, "Willie"

"'Ey, Sammy, 'ow's tricks?"

"Getting by, Willie, getting by. Please, Mam'selle, Willie, let's talk in my office." He led them out of the reception area.

Peggy was still trying to process what she had just seen when Jack Tilson's assistant, Ann, came to the desk. "Peggy, Mr. Tilson would like to talk to you a minute, please. I'll cover the desk."

"Thanks, Ann," said Peggy.

Jack Tilson was Mr. Wan's right hand man. He was African-American, in his early sixties, with graying hair and a significant belly. He handled the back office work for WSN and his office was a couple of doors away from Mr. Wan's office.

"Mr. Tilson, Ann said you wanted to talk to me?"

Tilson said, "Hey, Peggy. First off, you're not in trouble. Nobody told you, so exhale."

"Thank you."

"OK, so, please recognize these people from now on. They are special to us. When they show up here again, please keep that in mind. If they want to see Mr. Wan or me, just let us know. Actually, that's not quite right, don't let us know, just do whatever they ask whenever they ask no matter what."

"Yes, Mr. Tilson, I think I understood that already. I will do that from now on."

"Huh? Why did you understand that already?"

"I saw the way Mr. Wan greeted the woman. The Queen of England would not have gotten that reception from him. He was fond of the man, but the woman .. the woman,…was very, very special to him."

"May I ask you how you noticed that?

"Well," she said, thinking hard, "I guess it was his expression and body language. I heard him say a normal greeting, albeit in French, but his tone of voice, his expression, his demeanor, his body language…this was a very special person. I've sat at that desk now for weeks and seen him greet a dozen important people, but it was never like that. Not even close to that. And, for all the respect he showed her, he was clearly delighted to see them both."

"That's right. You are quite perceptive to have recognized what you did." He sat quietly for a few seconds, just watching her. The seconds stretched.

"Will that be all, Mr. Tilson?", she finally asked.

For the rest of his life, Jack Tilson would wonder what had led him to do what he did next, to take this risk. After all, this was the very moment when it all started. Why did he do it? Instinct? Hunch? Or did he see something he just couldn't name? Whatever motivated him, whatever triggered it, he and many, many other people in the coming decades would be very thankful that he did it.

"Peggy, please close the door and sit down. I have a story I want to tell you."

Once she had done so, he continued, "Other than Mr. Wan and me, you will be the only person in WSN who knows this, so please keep it to yourself. So far as I know, every word of this story is true.

"Twenty-something years ago there was one of those ugly wars in Eastern Europe. The kind with refugees, villages destroyed, ethnic cleansing, mass rape, that kind of thing. Ugly, bloody, brutal, and protracted. Anyway, in all that killing and chaos was a small child, a little girl. She was all alone. Family dead or just lost, who knows?" He shrugged. "The little girl survived. She stole and found food, begged sometimes, worked sometimes, fought when she had to, and she survived. She was barefoot and in rags, even in the cold, and she survived. She kept on the move, between refugee camps, never allowing herself to settle for very long. Eventually, after a few years, she found an old man."

Peggy said, "To take care of her?"

"Oh, no, no" he said. "You don't understand. The old man had been a professor and knew everything, except how to survive. She took care of him. She made sure he was fed and warm and safe. He began to teach her, but first he gave her something that no one had ever given her before. He gave her a name."

Peggy said, "What?! She didn't have a name? How could she not have a name?" Peggy was stunned.

"Who was there to give her a name? She had been all alone."

Suddenly, Peggy felt like she was going to cry. A barefoot girl with no name. No name! My God. She had never ever conceived of being that alone and was a little nauseous at the thought. And to be a child, a girl child, that alone through all that horror. Oh, my God.

"He named her Modesty." Peggy gasped loudly and, involuntarily, her head snapped towards the door leading to the reception area. The woman Mr. Wan had greeted with such tremendous respect. The beautiful, laughing, stylish woman was the little barefoot girl. 'Holy Crap!', she thought, 'Holy Crap!'. She turned her head back to Tilson with an almost comical expression of amazement on her face. Without realizing it, she was leaning forward in her seat.

"Oh, my God…how old?", Peggy asked in a small, dazed voice.

"Who knows?"

"Right," said Peggy, "if she didn't have a name she certainly didn't have a birthday."

Tilson continued, "Best guess, probably around eight. He taught her to read and write…in five or six languages." Peggy made a quiet noise like a whistle. "She gave herself her last name. Blaise."

"B-L-A-Z-E?", asked Peggy.

"No, B-L-A-I-S-E"

"King Arthur," said Peggy softly.

"What?", asked Tilson.

"King Arthur. His magician was Merlin and Merlin's tutor was Blaise. From the Knights of the Round Table stories."

Tilson stared at Peggy silently and expressionlessly for several seconds, then said, "I don't know, but it makes sense. Where did you learn that?"

"I guess I read it somewhere," said Peggy, with a shrug.

"Hunh. Anyway, Modesty Blaise and the old man kept walking. Always on the move. They were together for years and walked from Europe through the Middle East and all the way across North Africa. Eventually the old man died and she ended up alone again in Tangier. She got a job spinning a roulette wheel in a small casino owned by a local French mobster. She was, oh, about sixteen, I guess.

"A gang war started and the local mobster was killed. His gang was falling apart. But suddenly they found a leader. The sixteen year old girl took control of the Frenchman's gang. Modesty Blaise. Other men, other gangs, laughed at them for following a girl, ….but they didn't laugh for long. It took months, but eventually there was one mob left in Tangier, hers.

"She expanded. Morocco. North Africa. The Mediterranean. Then globally. Her outfit was known as the Network. It handled a variety of things." Peggy was breathing quickly with short, shallow breaths. Tilson continued, "Smuggling, art and jewelry theft, insurance fraud, currency manipulation, industrial espionage, sale of state or military secrets. Her jobs were carefully chosen, planned and controlled and the Network never hurt innocent people. A score of legitimate enterprises. A bank. A hotel. The two things she wouldn't touch were drugs or human trafficking - the sex slave rackets. She loathed those and, given the slightest excuse, or sometimes with no excuse at all, she would smash those operations without mercy."

"Given her background, I'm not surprised," said Peggy.

"I agree. Her leadership and management were brilliant and imaginative. The Network was an enormous success. And neither she, nor any other member of the Network was ever charged with a crime from its operations. Not one. In underworld circles, the Network developed a reputation. It was respected by all … and feared by many. Her lieutenants were quiet, serious, hard men, proud of their positions and proud of her. She did more than earn their respect; she earned their loyalty, and there wasn't one of them who would not have given his life for her. Every one of them called her …"

Peggy's eyes flew wide. "Mam'selle," she breathed.

"Yes," he said softly.

"Oh, my God…Oh, my God, 'Mam'selle'," Peggy said it and listened to the sound. "It only means 'Miss', but the way he said it…I don't know, I've never heard such a simple title carry such deep meaning. And if they all used it that way, it was special to all the Network people… Wow. …I'm just…. Please keep going." She was aware that he was still watching her closely, without expression, and some part of her mind wondered why.

"Sammy Wan had been a recruit to a Triad human trafficking operation from here in New York. Young women abducted for the brothels. He was young and stupid. When he realized what he was into, he rebelled. He refused an order to abduct a young girl in Marseille and you don't refuse orders in the Triad. He tried to run, but they caught him and almost, but not quite, beat him to death. They were getting ready to finish the job when Modesty Blaise arrived with a handful of Network heavies. It was soon after she had consolidated her hold on the crime in Morocco, very early in the Network days. They crushed the operation and, unwittingly, saved Sammy's life. She learned what he had done to earn his punishment and brought him to the hospital she ran for Network people, outside Tangier. When he had recovered sufficiently, she offered him a job. In time, he became one of her top men."

"A hospital? She ran a hospital?"

"Yes, sometimes her men were hurt on a job. She wanted to make sure they were well treated." He noticed Peggy's slight frown and her eyes go a little out of focus as she stared at nothing for several seconds. She was obviously thinking, and thinking hard.

When she came back, she had the look of someone who had solved a puzzle. "Mr. Tilson, she couldn't have so many men hurt on a consistent basis to run a full time hospital. Not without making regular headlines," Peggy was smiling a tiny smile, obviously heading somewhere. "What did she do with her hospital when it wasn't full of her men?"

"It served the local community. It was a charity hospital. That was a good cover for its real purpose."

Peggy started to laugh softly and shake her head. "Good cover? No, it wasn't, Mr. Tilson. I'm sorry, but you've got it backwards. Its real purpose was as a charity hospital. Treating her men was her excuse...maybe her justification."

Surprised, but fascinated, he said, "Why would you say that, Peggy?"

"Why, I'm just putting together everything you've told me, Mr. Tilson." She raised a finger, "At eight years old she took responsibility for the care and feeding of a helpless old man." She held up a second finger. "Her activities, as you've described them, although illegal, had one other thing in common. They were all victimless crimes." She raised a third finger, "She never hurt any innocent people." Peggy held up a fourth finger. "She spent her spare time destroying drug dealers and sex-slavers." She raised a fifth finger, and said, "And she ran a charity hospital outside Tangier.

"Mr. Tilson, she may have been a dangerous master criminal, but she was, she is, …good... a good person. I know it sounds stupid. It's a hopelessly naïve word to use, but it's the only one that makes any sense of what you've told me." And with that, Peggy realized, more than anything, she really, really, wanted to get to know Modesty Blaise.

"I guess I never looked at it that way, Peggy," said Tilson after a while. "All things considered, I guess you're probably right."

"Were you in the Network, Mr. Tilson?"

"No, Peggy. I was what you might call a contract employee. I was hired by Sammy - I had known him before he joined them - for a couple of Network jobs. I'm strictly back-office. I knew about them, but I wasn't in that line of work.

"Anyway, all of her men called her 'Mam'selle', except one. Not too long after the Network had gone global, Modesty Blaise found Willie Garvin in the Far East. Bangkok, I think, but I'm not sure. He was a loser, an ex-con, and a very unhappy man… a sour, bitter, twisted bum with an almost unbelievable set of skills and abilities. She offered him a job and he saw it as a lifeline. He, and he alone, calls her 'Princess'."

"'Princess'," said Peggy. She thought for a few moments, her face pensive. Tilson didn't hurry her, as if interested in what she might say. "That's more than respect, although respect is certainly there. It's beyond that. It sounds like … I don't know, devotion maybe? A courtier? … No, no, no… knight. Why was Mr. Garvin special?"

"First of all, he is one of the most intelligent, skilled and capable men you will ever meet. He is also, far, far and away, the most dangerous man you will ever meet in your whole life. But that's not it. For whatever reason, interpersonal chemistry, whatever, he and Modesty Blaise had almost from the beginning the closest of relationships. It's weird. Like one mind in two bodies. To say they can finish each other's sentences is only the simplest of it. I think that they just intuitively know what the other is thinking. In the Network days they planned, fought and bled together hundreds of times. It didn't take too long for Willie to become her right arm. Second in command. And he changed with her in his life, becoming the man you just met."

Peggy said, "And no wonder. He must consider himself the luckiest man in the world….no, no, no, that's not it. He would feel lucky, yes," she mused. "But he would feel …privileged."

Tilson continued to study her, and said, "Yes, that sounds about right. But there's something else. Willie has dozens, maybe hundreds, of girlfriends, but there's none of that with Modesty Blaise. As close as they are, there's no romance, no sex, nothing like that."

Peggy said, "No, no, no. Of course not. With the "Princess'? No, no, no. It wouldn't be right. No."

Tilson continued to watch her. "Most people don't get that. You understood immediately."

"Well, Mr. Tilson, I have the benefit of your explanations. That gives me a step up on most people. But you've been using the past tense. What happened to the Network?"

"She disbanded it a few years ago at the height of its success."

"Huh? Why would she do that?" asked Peggy.

"The simplest of reasons, Peggy. She had made enough money." He saw the expression on her face and almost laughed. "Like most of us, she was working for the money. She got rich. Very, very rich. Gloriously rich. So did all of her top men. She decided she was done. More was just more, at that point."

Peggy said, "Humh…well…that takes more than self-discipline, that takes…self-awareness." Her respect for Modesty Blaise climbed another notch, if that were at all possible. To her surprise, she found that she was in awe. She'd never been in awe of anyone before and the feeling was odd. It seemed to make her a little light headed.

"She shut the Network down and retired to London," Tilson continued. "Willie too. He has a pub on the Thames about twenty miles outside London. I'm told, though, that they travel more than they are home."

"She's keeping up the peripatetic ways of her youth," said Peggy.

"I guess." said Tilson, "So, anyway, Peggy, that's the story I wanted you to hear. Now you know why Mam'selle Blaise and Willie are special to Mr. Wan."

"Wow…Mr. Tilson, I think it will take me a while to process what you've told me…. I hope they're still here. I'd very much like to see them again now that I know their histories."

Tilson chuckled. "I'm sure you do."

Peggy started to stand up, but changed her mind, sat back down, and ran a hand over her face. She let out a long, slow breath and said, "Mr. Tilson, I … I understand why you haven't told others their story, Mr. Wan's story, and I don't know what I did to deserve this, I really don't, …but I want you to know that I will do everything I can to earn the trust you have just shown me."

"Thank you, Peggy."

She paused, and finally said, "Mr. Tilson, are you a betting man?"

"Sometimes."

"How much do you want to bet that the hospital outside of Tangier is still running? That she's keeping it open, even after the Network has shut down?"

He stared at her for long moments, his face unreadable, and said, "No bet." She smiled.

Now she stood up and began to open the door. She had it open a crack when she turned back with a peculiar expression on her face. "Hundreds of girlfriends?"

Now he really smiled. "Well, I never actually counted."

She grinned wickedly, looking extraordinarily attractive, and said, "Hunh". She walked away.

Tilson smiled slightly at that for a moment, but then his face quickly became somber again. He sat staring out the window for three or four minutes then he picked up the phone. "Phil, it's me. Hire a new receptionist for uptown." He listened, then spoke again, "Never mind about that, I'll take care of it….Yes, as soon as you can…OK. Bye….Oh, and Phil…make sure she's pretty."

Peggy walked back out to the reception desk. She said, "Ann, one more minute, please," as she grabbed her handbag from behind the desk. In the ladies' room she brushed her hair, applied fresh lipstick, and popped a breath mint. She made sure her blouse was tucked in and her skirt smoothed. She considered opening another button on her blouse, but decided against it. Then she walked back to reception and resumed her place at the desk.

And waited.