He stood up, shoulders sagged round. He turned tiredly, inspecting the hills, the flat graze land, the wild mountains and the ranges lost in the blue haze. And this was when he heard the drone of another plane motor.

A shudder racked his body.

He was too tired to feel fear, or even rage. He toppled against the jeep, staring into the bleached sky.

It came racing toward him. The motor was different and he recognized that it was a helicopter. It could still chase him like a fox through this rocky country.

"Somebody's trying to tell me something," he said. He sighed and opened the overnight bag again. He'd have to have his answer ready. They were persistent.

But he was stubborn.

ACT II—THE SUMMONS TO DEATH

ILLYA KURYAKIN slapped the Special together again and snapped the telescopic sight into place.

He straightened then, standing braced with his legs apart. Around him the rocks glinted back at the sun and his damaged jeep leaked it's gasoline into the sand.

The copter engine rattled and reverberated in the rocks, drowning out everything except the rage that gorged up in Kuryakin.

He tightened his grip on the gun, ready to slap it into place against his shoulder for a steady brace.

"Go ahead! Start it!" Illya raged, his voice lost and puny in the thunder of the chopper motors.

He shook his fist. The helicopter circled him. It whipped around him as if battering at him with its shadow. Then it side-slipped, flying out over the burned Cessna.

Gun ready, Illya awaited the first move from the men he could see in the plastic bubble.

The chopper returned to the rocks where Illya waited in impotent rage for the first attack. Suddenly it climbed, going almost vertically above him.

"Come back and fight, you finks!" Illya raged, shaking his weapon at the climbing copter.

The chopper continued upward, its engines quieting in the distance.

Illya didn't relax because it was going straight up, not leaving.

Suddenly the sun glinted as a plastic door was opened up there. A man hung balanced for a moment and then plunged suddenly outward.

Illya held the gun forgotten in his arms, watching. The jumper tumbled, one, two, three.

Suddenly parachute ropes popped free from the falling figure. The brilliantly colored chute budded and then blossomed like an air plant.

The figure dangled on the end of its strings and then floated toward Illya in the rocks.

Illya exhaled expansively, recognizing Napoleon Solo, even in the distance, even in a jump suit.

Solo struck the shale outcropping hard and was bobbled along like a cork for a few seconds be fore the chute deflated.

Illya remained where he was in the rocks. Solo unfastened the chute, loosened the bulky jump suit and walked toward Illya, pushing his dark hair back from his face.

Illya flinched slightly at the sight of Solo's battered face. He looked as if he'd gone a few rounds with a meat grinder.

But Solo grinned, bowing slightly. "Howdy, partner. They sent me looking for you."

Illya Kuryakin remained tense, holding the light gun across his chest.

Solo laughed. "What's the matter? Don't you trust anybody anymore?"

Illya exhaled and lowered the Special. He said, still raging, "I'd tell you just some of the violent things that have happened to me since I arrived in Big Belt this morning, but I can see by the condition of your face that you don't really care."

Solo nodded, touching gingerly at his bruised face with the back of his hand. "Right. You don't tell me your woes, I won't tell you mine."

Illya nodded in agreement and sagged against a boulder.

Solo strode past him, going toward the jeep.

"Where you going?" Illya asked mildly.

"Come on. Let's get out of here."

Illya shook his head. "Not in the jeep. That's one of my woes that I won't tell you about."

TWO

IT WAS late afternoon.

Footsore, sweated and thirsty, Solo and Kuryakin climbed an escarpment in the east range of the Big Belt mountains.

They stood on the brown rock ledge. All man's evil for that instant seemed dwarfed by the purpled majesty of the late afternoon mountain ranges. The peaks jutted upward toward the darkening sky, and beyond them higher peaks, capped with snow were yellow and ash gray far in the distance.

"One thing wrong with the world," Solo mused. "People."

Illya nodded. "Funny. Greedy men won't stop long enough to look around and see what they've got."

"Well, because they won't, we've got to get to work," Solo said. He unpacked the kit he'd carried strapped to his back, setting up a range-scanner like the one he'd used in the tropics.

When the instrument was set up, he said across his shoulder, "Just better warn you, Don Sayres was using one of these things when he was killed—mysteriously, instantly."

Illya shrugged. "One way is like another."

"Pleased you feel that way."

Illya sank to a small boulder. He removed his dust-caked shoes. "Right now I feel nothing but tired and hungry. Let's find out what's going on and get out of here."

Solo nodded in silent assent. He worked some moments in silence and deep concentration.

Suddenly Napoleon Solo whistled.

Illya got up from the rock in his bare feet. Napoleon Solo moved aside.

Illya studied the pictures jumping darkly on the six-inch dial face, or screen, a scene picked up as sound and transmitted as light, reproduced as photographs through any obstructions, even mountains.

Illya was silent a long time. At last he shook his head, "I see it. But I don't believe it. Tropical plants don't grow in Montana."

"I believe it," Solo said. "I know where those plants came from."

"What's the point of growing tropical plants in this part of the world?"

"There's a point to it, all right. Those plants are growing even larger and greener and wilder than they did down in that damned rain forest."

Illya shook his head. "What's the exact distance and range reading?"

Solo checked the readings. "Four miles, due west."

"That could be a long walk."

"Yes. That four miles is as the scanner and the crow flies."

Illya Kuryakin pushed his feet back into his shoes. "Much as I don't want to, we've got to get closer. We've got to get in there."

Solo checked the flickering pictures reproduced on the tiny screen another few moments. Illya Kuryakin sank to the rock and tied his shoes.

They both heard the noise from the rocks behind them at the same instant.

They moved as one man. Illya came up from the rock and Solo spun around, .38 U.N.C.L.E. Special drawn.

They stared down the barrel of a waiting rifle.

Tense, they gazed at the girl holding that gun. The first thing they saw was that she was extraordinarily beautifully, unspeakably frightened.

She trembled, barely able to hold the rifle fixed on them. This made her triply dangerous because her finger on the trigger quavered, too.

Her voice shook. "Don't move, either one of you, or I'll kill you."

Solo gave the quivering girl his blandest smile. "I wasn't planning any move."

"Nor me," Illya said. "Matter of fact, we were just sitting here, waiting for you to come along."

"Go ahead. Laugh," the girl said on the verge of tears. "I hope you can laugh as easily with a bullet in you."

"That's the hard way, all right," Solo agreed.

THREE

"WHO ARE YOU?" Napoleon Solo kept his voice level, afraid any undue excitement might drive her into hysterical use of that gun. Her voice slashed at him, quavering, but the rage riding it. "Never mind that. I'll ask the questions."