Текст книги "[Magazine 1966-­03] - The Beauty and Beast Affair"

Автор книги: Robert Hart Davis

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WHEN THE servants parted the silk curtains at the innermost chambers of the sheik, Solo walked in and bowed low, going down to his knee, hoping this was the correct genuflection expected of a minister-level subject of Zud.

He saw there were two women with Zud. One sat on a recently installed throne that was slightly higher than Zud's. The other woman sat at the ruler's massive feet.

Zud spoke at Solo sharply. "Off your knee. I warned you about this false show of humility. You want me to start mistrusting you? I should never have permitted your going to Harvard for your education. You came back thinking you were just slightly better than any one except Allah himself. I should have sent you to West Point—there they would have taught you to respect your superiors. Off your knee, unless you make obeisance to our most exalted lady, Queen Soraya Haidar of Xanra."

"I pledge my life to both of you," Solo said hesitantly.

Zud threw his head back laughing. "You'd have a difficult time fulfilling such obligation, eh, Soraya? Eh? If he tried to give his life for both of us—since we are in enemy camps, eh?"

"We do not need to be, Zud," Soraya said. Solo saw she was of a loveliness that was breathtaking, a dark and splendid beauty. "We could do much together, you and I."

Zud raged. "Only I am too ugly for you, eh?"

"Only you have ever suggested such a false thing, Your Highness," Soraya said.

"Oh, I know!" Zud shouted. "You're too polite to laugh in my face as my mother did. How do you hold your laughter until you get back among your own ladies-in-waiting?"

"There is no laughter in my heart, except that I would share with you, O Mighty King, if you would let me."

Solo saw the pain in Soraya's black eyes, the love that shone there for the huge king. He decided that if the King of Lions couldn't see it, the beast was as blind as a bat.

"So you taunt me in a different way than my mother did;" Zud said. He leaped up, raging. "But in the end it is the same. I don't blame you, Queen of Xanra. I know that if I want your hand, I'd have to overthrow your country and enslave you, wouldn't I?"

"I am ready to join my country, and my heart with yours, when I hear it asked of me," the lovely queen answered.

Zud put back his head, laughing. "Well, it's good to have you visit me! It reminds me of the ugly brute I am. I had to enslave the women I made marry me. Perhaps in the end I shall force you to marry me, Soraya, unless your larger army is finally victorious over mine."

Xanra's Queen stood up. Her face was bleak. "I shall leave you now, Great Zud. I come to you no more to ask for peace. I am sorry. Good-by."

The great man sank to his knees and kissed the hem of her skirt. He looked up at her. "Despite my devotion, I pray you will marry a man good enough, handsome enough, great enough for you, O Queen."

"I hope I shall, too," Soraya answered, and Solo knew what she meant, even if the king were too blind to see.

Solo sighed. He reflected that if he'd grown up on his mother's taunts, instead of the love he'd longed for, he, too, might have grown to doubt that any woman could care for him.

He scowled. He had to quit finding excuses for the things Zud did. The sheik had already revealed that he was planning an alliance with THRUSH, that international conspiracy against which U.N.C.L.E. waged constant battle. He and Zud were deadly enemies. He had to remember that, every minute.

He stood, waiting, until Queen Soraya had walked out of the splendid chamber. For some moments after Xanra's ruler was gone, Zud stood immobile staring impatiently after her.

Finally, he turned. He glared at Kiell. "We must redouble our efforts, Kiell! I want to marry her. Whatever else I have on earth is as nothing unless she is mine."

"If you married her," Solo said, "you need not wage war against Xanra."

Zud oaths turned the air in the room a hazy blue. He looked as if he'd attack his security minister.

"So you think to taunt me, too, eh, my Harvard delinquent? Just because I let Soraya tease me about my ugliness, you think you can get away with it?"

"No one thinks you're ugly, Zud," said the woman on the floor.

She was in her late twenties, lovely, in spite of a certain prudishness about her that Solo associated with women who turn to religion to the exclusion of everything earthly. He caught his breath, knowing he was seeing Ann Nelson Wheat, the evangelist from Los Angeles.

"Except you yourself," she went on. "You torment yourself and hurt others, because you're still trying to get even with your foolish mother."

"Listen to the evangelist, Kiell! Oh, in America, they allow their women to speak right up, eh? Listen to me, Ann Wheat! Nobody thinks me ugly in this country because they don't dare to! They think I'm ugly. And my mirror swears to it that I resemble a great beast!"

"It's all in your own mind," Ann Wheat said. "Like many other of your wrong ideas."

"Listen to her!" Zud shouted. "Do you know what she has told me? That it is wrong to have more than one wife? What can be wrong? What would a man do with just one wife? Eh, Kiell?"

Solo shrugged, smiling behind his plastic mask.

Zud said, "Enough of this talk. You teach my wives any more of this equality of women, Ann Wheat, and I'll have you beheaded. This time for sure. Meantime, get out of here so I can talk to my minister of security—as though I had any security."

When the woman evangelist was gone, Solo said, "What do you plan to do with her?"

"When our war with Xanra is won, I'll let her go home, if she still wants to. She came here to convert us—perhaps she'll learn much here. But do not presume to ask explanations of your ruler, Zud. I have been too long patient with you."

"Too long, Zud." Solo bowed low.

"Now, we have promised to deliver Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo to THRUSH. What they do with them is THRUSH'S concern, not ours. We want only the aid THRUSH has promised in our battle with Xanra. I want you to deliver Illya Kuryakin, Napoleon Solo and the young Chinese doll as a bonus to THRUSH. Tonight."

Solo swallowed hard. He had no idea where the THRUSH agents were, or where they might be found. He waited, but Zud only stared at him.

"Well!" Zud shouted. "What are you waiting for? This Kuryakin has made one attempt already to escape. I want them delivered now. If they do escape, Kiell, do not dare to show your face to me again, or by Allah, I will lop off your head personally and feed it to the tigers."

"I will not fail you, King of Lions."

Zud's laughter shook the silk draperies at the windows. "For your own sake, Kiell," he roared, "I hope you don't."

His wild laughter followed Napoleon Solo from the chamber.

Solo walked back into the sumptuous chambers where Illya and Wanda were held prisoners.

He closed the door. A soldier came to attention at his side.

He gave the young soldier only a glance, seeing that he was youthful, his face serious, his black eyes lighted with the fires of the fanatic. He thought, a fitting subject to be ruled by Zud.

He saw that Illya, Piebr, Wanda and Frun were sitting on the pillows in a circle, laughing, chatting and eating from the bowls of food and fruit. Only Piebr laughed less than the others, seemed preoccupied.

Ordwell remained on the floor, in what seemed to be a catatonic trance.

"What's going on here!" Solo said. "Fraternizing with the enemy?"

"Your men have been working sixteen hours without food, Kiell," Illya said. "We're just feeding them."

"Suppose they poison your food!" Solo shouted.

Both Piebr and Frun leaped to theft feet.

Illya said, "Where could we get poison? They issued me these clothes. They brought the food themselves. And Aly David on guard over there should be promoted to general in your army, Kiell! He foiled my escape. You know why? Because though his friends mean much to him, his country means more."

Solo turned his back on the laughing Illya. He said, "Piebr!"

The young detective stepped forward, clicking his heels together.

"What's the matter with you, Piebr?" Solo said. "You act as if you had the weight of the world on your shoulders."

"No, Master, it is nothing." Piebr stared straight ahead. But tears brimmed his eyes.

Illya shouted. "He's afraid to say anything in your presence. But how can you be so unfeeling? It's his father you shot tonight—as you well know!" Illya's voice rose and hackles stood on Solo's neck. Zouida Berikeen. Piebr's father! "Yet you expect him to perform like a machine."

Solo exhaled heavily. He spoke without looking at the young detective. "Take the night off, Piebr."

"If you please, Master, I'd rather work. I think less, working, about my father. If he was a traitor, he had to die. It is just so hard to believe. But—I do believe you, Master! You would do nothing to harm this country or our ruler."

Solo winced, still unable to look at Piebr. He had not killed Piebr's father, but he wore the mask that Ordwell had used when Ordwell had killed the ambassador. He wondered, as he had wondered for a long time now, who had killed the real Kiell, and had this mask awaiting the arrival of Ordwell on the plane?

He tightened his hands into fists, knowing the answer to that question, even if he didn't know the names of the actual traitors who were double-crossing Zud and all of Zabir. His old friends THRUSH.

He said, voice cold, "Piebr, do you know where the agents of THRUSH await our delivery of these prisoners?"

Piebr nodded.

"Good," Solo said. "Then you will drive us there. Frun and this soldier will go along as guards. Our orders are to leave at once."

Piebr bowed and backed away. "I will arrange for a car right away, Master."

Wanda cried softly. Illya put his arm around her, whispered, "It is no time to think about safety, Wanda. We'll never be safe until we ferret out THRUSH—and destroy it, eh?"

Wanda nodded, understanding. She stood up, ready to go.

In a matter of minutes Piebr returned, saying a car and driver awaited them at a side exit.

Solo thanked him, nodded to ward Ordwell. "Take Solo out to the car, leave Frun to guard him and return for us."

He waited until Frun and Piebr struggled with the leg-dragging Ordwell through the door. Then he saw that the young soldier remained standing at attention just inside the room.

"Guard the hall," Solo ordered.

Aly David hesitated a moment, then nodded. "As you command, Master." He stepped through the door, closed it after him.

Solo went directly to Illya, gave him a loaded pistol to conceal in the folds of his linen robe.

"We've got to make at least the bluff of turning the three of you over to THRUSH," he said.

Illya hid the gun. "I understand. But tell me something. Where'd you get the mask? You know—on you it's an improvement."

"I'll worry about my looks when we learn what nonsense THRUSH is up to."

"Then let's get on the road," Illya said, moving toward the door.

"Don't I get a gun?" Wanda cried.

Solo stared at her. "I should get shot in the back? You hang close to Illya—and keep absolutely quiet, no matter what happens."

With Piebr leading them, and Aly David bringing up the rear, they went hurriedly through the brilliant halls to a waiting car.

The driver sped out a side gate, drove along the high wall to the four-lane highway and turned north toward Kurbot.

Solo, Illya, Piebr and run sat on the rear seat. Ordwell was sprawled across their feet. Solo could feel the stocky man stir as the effects of the neuroquixonal wore off.

"How much further?" he asked.

"Not many kilometers, Master. As you know, THRUSH'S agents have taken over Sheik Zud's retreat at Paradise Oasis."

"Yes, of course," Solo said. "So much on my mind."

They were silent for the rest of the drive through the desert night. The stillness pervaded everything, bearing down on the car like a tangible pressure.

Wanda sat huddled between the young driver and Aly David on the front seat. Solo wanted to say something to reassure her, but he could think of nothing. There were no words.

The car swung off the highway, going east on a secondary road over sand dunes in washboard monotony.

Suddenly ahead a splash of electric lights illuminated the sky-reaching date palms of Paradise Oasis. Beyond the twenty-room villa, stark oil derricks reared against the roof of heaven, their pumps pounding like the heart of parasites, sucking life from the earth.

Lights burned in every room of the retreat, a concrete and stucco mansion cresting a small hill above the pool of water in the heart of the oasis.

"Something is odd, Master," Piebr said. "There are no lights on the exterior of the house."

"Yes." Solo ordered the driver to slow the car. They peered into the darkness, seeing nothing moving in the deep shadows of oleander bushes, lemon trees, fig bushes. Still, Solo shared Piebr's instinct of something being wrong.

"Drive all the way to the front door," he told the chauffeur.

The chauffeur allowed the car to roll to the wide steps before the spacious veranda. The silence continued unbroken. The pumps throbbed away in the darkness.

"Leave your lights burning," Solo said.

Aly David got out of the car first. He walked up to the top step, stood looking around, gun at ready across his chest. Piebr opened one rear door and jumped out, gun in hand, Frun exited from the other. Still nothing happened.

Then Solo bent down, getting out of the car. As his head cleared the protection of the bullet proofed glass, guns erupted like orange flares in the Stygian darkness and the night went wild.

Solo hit the ground hard, looking around for a target. Piebr crouched in against the car, gun ready.

Above them, Aly David sank to his knee, gun against his shoulder.

Bullets screamed like raging hornets past them. Frun fired once, and there were dozens of answering shots, the bullets ripping into the car.

Suddenly a woman's voice broke across the sound of gun fire via a public address system. The guns were quieted, waiting.

"Solo," the voice said. "Tell the deluded men with you to lay down their arms, or they will be slain along with you. We have guns fixed on you from the darkness, and from all the windows on the lower floor behind you."

Solo glanced up at the lighted windows, saw the dark forms in them, guns held ready.

"Ordwell," the voice said. "Are you there?"

Solo watched the stocky man pull himself from the car. He managed to stand up, the effects of the neuroquixonal fading swiftly as he moved around.

"I'm here," Ordwell called.

"Then disarm them," the woman's voice ordered. "All of them. Then march them into the house." Her voice took on an air of contempt. "THRUSH hopes you can accomplish this."

Solo heard Orwell gasp in rage, but he made no reply. He moved, from Piebr to Aly David to Frun, gathering the weapons. A man appeared from the darkness and collected them. Then Ordwell came close to Solo.

"Your gun, Mr. Solo," he said.

Solo heard Piebr's sharp intake of breath. He did not glance toward the young detective.

Ordwell took the gun, barrel first, closed his fist over it and coldly back-handed Solo across the head with it.

Solo staggered to his knees, feeling the blood trickling from the cut down the inside of the plastic mask. For a moment all the date palms were strung with glittering stars of a million hues, and then darkness settled. He gritted his teeth, managed to hang on to consciousness.

He heard Ordwell snarling at him. "On your feet. Move, Solo. Or I'll kill you, just as I killed that fool ambassador in the airport terminal."

Solo managed to pull himself up slowly. Illya came out of the car, supported him. And after a moment, Piebr stepped close to him, lending the strength of his arm, Solo was thankful Piebr finally knew the truth about the senseless slaying of his father.

Piebr whispered savagely, "Somehow, by the grace of Allah, we will get out of this. I know now they slew not only my good and faithful father, but also the protector of my country, the real Kiell."

"Shut up!" Ordwell said. "Get him inside the house. Move. All of you."

They were herded into a living room, shut off from other rooms by silken draperies of bright colors. Solo staggered slightly as he walked. He would have fallen except that Piebr and Illya supported him. Objects and people in the room wavered before his eyes.

They stood some moments in this room, alone. Even Ordwell grew restive. He glared around at the silken draperies. "Well, what's wrong now? Here they are. THRUSH wanted Solo and Kuryakin delivered as hostages. Here they are!"

Ordwell Slybrough laughed in triumph. He gripped the plastic mask over Solo's face, slipped a knife blade under it and cut it away.

He jerked it off Solo's head. He stared a moment in sadistic satisfaction at the cut across Solo's temple, the blood streaming along his cheek.

"Here he is!" he shouted.

The silken drapes parted and Pretty Wilde came through them, followed by two scowling native gunmen.

Solo stared at her, the gash in his temple for the moment forgotten, or supplanted by a more poignant agony. Pretty Wilde was lovelier than ever in black blouse and black stretch pants which seemed annealed to her stockpiled elegance.

Even Illya Kuryakin whistled faintly between his teeth.

She smiled at Solo. "Well, Tiger. Here we are. We meet again."

Solo stared at her. "A THRUSH agent," he said.

"That's right, Tiger." She laughed. "I told you I was—Pretty Wilde."

"You really are," Solo said.

ACT IV

INCIDENT OF THE VOLATILE AGENT

AT GUNPOINT, Pretty Wilde and her silent executioners ushered Solo and Kuryakin through silken drapes into a smaller room, completely remodeled in electronic modern.

The men from U.N.C.L.E. stared in astonishment at this chamber banked with the sort of broadcasting and receiving equipment one might expect to find in the home plant of RCA.

Three men with headphones sat in chairs that glided silently on casters from one machine to the next. Bright eyes of varying colors flashed across the faces of the sets.

One of the technicians gave all of his attention to a complex rectangular box topped with a seventeen-inch television tube set at an angle. The metal machine hummed to life; the black eye of the screen lightened, brightened, and then held, as if waiting.

"All of this just for us, Pretty?" Solo said.

Pretty glanced at him along the nose of her gun. "You might say that. It offers you your only chance to leave here alive."

"I for one am almost morbidly interested in this idea," Solo said.

"And I," Kuryakin agreed.

"As you see, it's a suggestion that's caught right on with both of us," Solo said. "Please tell us more."

"It's very simple. One of our scientists, Dr. Polar Fuch, on the verge of a breakdown and suffering delusions, managed to steal a vital machine from us."

"Ah, yes. The atom separator," Solo said, recalling Waverly's demonstrating this weapon to him in United Network headquarters. "A machine that Dr. Fuch invented."

"A non-essential detail, since he was working for us, and all of his creations automatically became—"

"A machine he planned for peaceful analysis, which is not the use THRUSH planned for it," Solo persisted.

"Another quibbling detail," Pretty said, shrugging. "The important fact to us, and you two, is that the machine is ours, and we want it back. Now. We're willing to make a trade with United Net work Command. Your lives, and the bonus life of that girl in there, in exchange for our machine."

Solo shrugged. "We haven't the authority to—"

"Of course you haven't! But we can talk to Alexander Waverly via this sender-receiver. Give us the channel, and we'll discuss the trade with Waverly. If he agrees to deliver the machine to an address we'll give him in Manhattan, we will escort you safely to the air terminal at Kurbot."

"We couldn't do that," Solo said. "Breach of security."

"I forgot to tell you. You have five minutes to make up your minds."

"If you kill us, you won't have much bargaining power, will you?" Solo said.

Pretty Wilde gave him a twisted smile. "We'll keep the two of you alive only long enough to exhaust all means of making a trade. But that girl in there—the other people with you—they are expendable. They mean nothing to us. We will systematically kill them, starting with the girl, beginning in just five minutes."

Solo winced, glancing at Illya.

Pretty Wilde said, "Have you the authority to sentence that girl to certain death in—four and one–half minutes?"

"Time," Illya said, lifting his hand. "Maybe it's became I've been so close to death these past weeks. I think we ought to cooperate, Solo. Give them the channel. As soon as they contact Waverly this once, technicians will scramble the signals in that channel, change the wave-length. What can we lose, except our lives?"

After a second Napoleon Solo merely nodded, and Illya Kuryakin said smiling into Pretty Wilde's sardonic face: "Channel D, my pretty little cobra. And hurry, will you?"

Pretty Wilde jerked her head to ward the waiting technician. He turned knobs, pressed buttons. The hum deepened, then rose to a keening wail, gradually waned. Jagged lines on the picture-tube screen settled into the interior of the U.N.C.L.E. Command Room and then closed in on Alexander Waverly's face.

"Can you see us, Mr. Waverly?" Pretty asked, speaking into a microphone.

"Yes. You're coming in beautifully. Lovely girl. I hope you are friendly."

"That's up to you, Mr. Waverly," Pretty Wilde said. "We show you THRUSH'S latest prize."

Solo and Kuryakin were photographed by the machine camera. Waverly said, "Yes. Well, they're not nearly as eye-catching as you are. But I'm glad to see them."

"If you want them alive, you will agree to return the atom-separator to ten-twenty West Eight Street in Manhattan. It will do your agents no good to go there. It is merely a place for receiving this particular shipment."

"I was sure of that," Waverly said.

"Agree, we'll return Solo and Kuryakin. Refuse, and THRUSH will kill them. You'll agree, Mr. Waverly, that THRUSH has no compunctions about killing them THRUSH has many scores to settle with them. Since time is important, I'll give you one minute to make up your mind."

Waverly gave her his chilliest grin across the thousands of miles. "I cannot give you a direct answer. Since word came that both my agents had fallen into THRUSH'S hands, I've been expecting to get some sort of offer like this. We are prepared with a counter offer."

"Here's where we learn just how expendable we are," Illya whispered.

"We authorize Solo and Kuryakin to make the decision about returning the atom separator," Waverly said, "knowing what destruction such a lethal weapon could wreak in THRUSH'S conscienceless possession, the lives and property lost—"

"When he waves the flag," Illya said, "I'm walking out."

"—if they call back in one hour saying they want the machine returned to you, we will agree to do it. When they get in touch with our people at the air terminal at Kurbot, instant delivery of said machine will be made to the address here in Manhattan. Over and out."

The screen flickered, became a scrambled pattern of jagged lines, screeching interference.

"They've scrambled channel D out of existence," Illya said;

Solo nodded. "You know what that means, don't you?"

"I'm way ahead of you. It means we're expendable, that Waverly doesn't expect to hear from us again."

Pretty stared at them in frustration and rage. "How will you get in touch with him now?"

Solo gave her a pained smile. "That's it, Pretty. We can't get in touch with him now. Not through any of your infernal gadgets. The next move is up to THRUSH."

TWO

ILLYA PROWLED the impregnable cellar under Zud's oasis retreat like a lynx unable to believe a cage could hold him.

Along the walls, the chauffeur, Aly David, Frun and Piebr sat in round-shouldered dejection. Wanda slumped on a sack of grain, staring unseeingly at the floor.

Solo tested the walls, found no weakness, no object his ingenuity could convert to offensive weaponry. He leaned against the wall.

"We've got to agree to give THRUSH the machine, Illya," Solo decided. The other hostages glanced up, not daring to hope. "These people will die first, starting in less than an hour now. We don't have the right to sacrifice them."

"We voted," Aly David said. The others nodded in assent. "We are more fortunate than you and Kuryakin in that we die first."

"Yes," Piebr said. "The waiting is the worst."

"No!" Solo straightened. "We've got to get out of here. If we only had a gun."

Illya withdrew the automatic Solo had given him at the palace.

Solo stared at him. "How did they miss that?"

Illya shrugged. "Ordwell. Wasn't thinking straight. Never occurred to him you'd arm a prisoner—me."

Aly David came up off the floor without touching his hands to it. His dark face glowed.

"Give me one gun, and I'll turn it into an arsenal!" he shouted.

Solo nodded. Illya handed over the gun.

Aly hefted it a moment m his hand, grinning, then started toward the door.

"Hold it," Solo said.

Aly David paused. Solo ripped open the seed sack. "Everybody. Hands full of seed."

They all scooped up seed. Solo lined them on each side of the door. Aly David took aim on the lock, fired once. The thick door quivered, hung there, slightly ajar.

In that instant a heavy boot thrust it open and an armed guard burst through, rifle up.

Handfuls of seed struck him in the face, blinding him, stopping him for the fraction of a second. It was too long. Aly David struck him with the gun butt neatly behind the ear and he pitched face first to the floor.

Frun caught up the rifle before it struck the floor and Piebr knelt, taking the hand gun from the guard's holster.

At the open door, Aly David wheeled around and fired upward. A second guard toppled down the stone steps. Illya got the second guard's rifle, and Solo snatched the hand gun from his bolster. They were already moving up the long stairs.

Wanda wailed, "I still don't have a gun!"

Solo said, "You stay right here at the head of these stairs until we clear a way out of here. We'll come back for you." When she opened her mouth to protest, he rasped, "That's an order, Wanda!"

She nodded miserably.

He closed the stairwell door, leaving it slightly ajar. The sound of running men was heard from the corridors. Solo motioned his party to fan out.

As the men came through the door, the waiting men, crouched along the walls, shot them. They moved forward, room to room.

Illya scouted ahead. He saw movement in draperies, fired into it. Two snipers fell forward, ripping down the draperies with them.

They reached the front room. Solo jerked his head toward the radio room. Illya shot the door open, then emptied the rifle into the sending sets.

"I'll get Wanda," Solo said. The others crowded at the front door, waiting, alert as Solo turned.

Across the foyer, Pretty Wilde appeared. "I think you'll stay where you are, Mr. Solo."

Solo stared at her. Pretty gave him a cold smile. "Did you think I was a fool like those men, to run into your trap?" She motioned with the machine pistol. "Drop those guns. All of you. I can cut you down with this if you move."

"Drop the guns," Solo said, shrugging helplessly.

"You are wise, Mr. Solo," Pretty Wilde said. "Now if you'll be smart enough to tell your superiors we have run out of patience and want our machine." She lifted her voice. "Ordwell! Come down here and keep these prisoners covered."

A whisper of sound behind Pretty Wilde made her shiver. But she hesitated, afraid for the moment to take her gaze off the five prisoners. When she had to swing around, it was too late.

Wanda cracked her across the skull with the spiked heel of her slipper. Pretty Wilde crumpled to the floor. "I could have done so much better," Wanda wailed across the room at Solo, "if I'd just had a gun."

Piebr dropped to his knee, grabbed up an automatic as Ordwell ran out to the head of the stairs.

Aly and Illya, too, caught up guns as Ordwell jerked up a machine pistol, but Piebr screamed. "No! He's mine!"

Piebr fired. His bullet struck Ordwell cleanly in the solar plexus. In a slow movement, Ordwell Slybrough dropped the machine pistol and then toppled over and over down the wide stairway.

As he reached the landing, Piebr was there. Zouida's son emptied the gun into the body of his father's slayer. Then he threw the gun down upon the bullet-riddled killer.

When Piebr turned, his eyes were bright with tears, but his head tilted in triumph.

Solo caught Wanda in the circle of his arm. He laughed down into her face. "Come on, Agent Kim! You just became one of the boys! And now, in the name of Allah, let's get out of here."

* * *

THE BLACK CAR raced toward the iron gates in the palace wall.

The driver pressed the horn hard. After a moment the gates were shoved open and the car sped through.

Napoleon Solo whistled as their limousine was braked down at the base of the forty steps. There were no servants out to greet them to day, but from all sides green-suited soldiers converged on them, bayonets reflecting the sun blindingly.

"I knew we were heroes," Illya Kuryakin said in sarcasm, "but I never expected a greeting like this."

"Any twenty-one gun salutes we get will be in our backs," Solo agreed, watching the threatening faces of the soldiers.

A dark-skinned officer jerked the door open and screamed orders at them in a dialect.

Solo glanced helplessly at Piebr. "What'd he say?"

Aly David spoke over his shoulder. "We are to get out of the car slowly, with our hands locked on top of our heads."

Solo smiled weakly. "If this is a friendly greeting," he said, "it loses something in translation."

Sheik Zud padded about the eighty-by-fifty conference chamber. The huge council room looked too small to contain the huge man and his massive grief.

Half the room was in darkness.

When Solo, Kuryakin and the others were led into the council room, Zud let them stand for some moments while he strode back and forth, his lion's face contorted with a sadness that furrowed it from brow to jawline.

At last, he turned and faced them. "Piebr!"

Zouida's son stepped forward and knelt near the table in the center of the light near his ruler. "Your Majesty?" he said.