Waverly's expression became increasingly grim. "Sometimes it works perfectly for ten or twelve test runs and then breaks down completely. Or it may not work at all at first, and suddenly be just right."

"Then you're suggesting—" Solo paused, waiting for the older man to continue. He had spoken more to reassure his chief that he had been listening intently than because he was impatient to know what Waverly was going to say. He had very little doubt on that score.

"I'm almost certain that THRUSH'S new eavesdropping weapon is still in the experimental testing stage," Waverly went on earnestly. "Apparently they are having difficulties with it, despite the Newfoundland and Gobi telecasts. If it worked to perfection we'd know about it, because we'd be in immediate trouble on a global scale. That hasn't happened so far."

Waverly's expression made it plain that he shared their belief that U.N.C.L.E. had never before been confronted with quite so grave a peril.

He said: "I am advancing your departure by fifteen hours. Any further delay would be extremely unwise and there is no actual need for it. All of the arrangements which must be made can, I'm confident, be completed before you arrive in Tokyo."

FIVE

TOKYO BRIEFING

THE MAN WHO had met them at the Tokyo airport a half hour previously said: "Setting you down in the Gobi by helicopter will be no problem at all. You can forget all about the political hazards. You'll be nondescript Europeans on an archeological junket."

He was a small, gray man with a neatly trimmed Van Dyke and he displayed the kind of assurance that Napoleon Solo liked. His name was Roger Harris and he spoke with a slight Scottish accent.

"The Gobi has a way of making both Americans and Europeans invisible," he went on smilingly. "You'll be swallowed up in its vastness. Security barriers are practically nonexistent in the area where Blakeley vanished. A dozen 'copters could cross that area fifty times a week, and no one would be the wiser."

Solo nodded and looked around the steel-walled, soundproof room in which the briefing was taking place. "U.N.C.L.E. has few friends in that particular area," Harris went on, as if aware of Solo's thoughts. "But by the same token, few enemies to worry about. You can travel for miles and meet no one at all. The native guides and trackers don't give a hoot about politics. The camels probably know more about ideology than they do—because when some harsh little official has a mission to complete you can be sure he doesn't spare them."

"Planes haven't replaced camels to any extent, then?" Illya asked. "I thought perhaps tractors and even tanks had become quite common."

"Only in certain areas," Harris said. "In many parts of the desert the transportation system hasn't changed in four thousand years.

Harris glanced at his wrist-watch, set his steel-rimmed glasses a little more firmly on his nose and looked down at a paper on his desk.

"Everything has been arranged," he said. "Your itinerary will be a three-stage affair. You'll be flown by jet from Tokyo to a secret U.N.C.L.E. landing field in Inner Mongolia and from there by 'copter to the Gobi and northward to the area where Blakeley vanished. Then the 'copter will take off but remain on call, and you'll go on with the three desert guides we've engaged to help you make sure that nothing that would be invisible from the air escapes you.

"You'll have to circle around quite a bit and examine many landscape features at very close range—the slow, patient way. A 'copter would have to keep setting you down and taking you off, and even then—"

"Yes, I understand all that," Solo said, nodding. "Mr. Waverly explained it to us in New York, stressed just how important experienced trackers are. The natives know as much about the Gobi as they do about the lines on their palms. We, of course, are amateurs with a vengeance, as far as the Gobi is concerned."

"But not otherwise, Mr. Solo," Harris said, the smile returning to his lips. "Your desert accomplishments in other parts of the world would merit a double row of medals, if U.N.C.L.E. did not have a prejudice against rewarding merit in that way. It has always seemed to me a needless restriction."

His gaze passed to Illya. "You also, Mr. Kuryakin. Your reputation has gone before you, if you'll forgive my saying so." The levity went out of his eyes.

"The instant you leave this building you will be driven straight to the plane which will fly you to Inner Mongolia. Mr. Waverly felt no conversation should pass between us concerning the precise moment of your departure until I set the time myself at the end of your briefing. The pilots of the plane do not even know the exact time of your arrival. They have merely been instructed to be ready to take off the instant you appear at the airfield."

Harris restacked the papers on his desk into a slightly neater looking pile and arose. "Well then," he said. "I guess that takes care of everything. Good luck to both of you."

THE TWO GUARDS stationed at the high, mesh-wire gate of the airfield had apparently signaled the control tower that an authorized car was coming, for the gate swung slowly open as the limousine bearing the two U.N.C. L.E. agents approached.

As the car swept past the guards, who stood stiffly at attention, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin relaxed a little. They were certain that they had not been followed. The car continued on across the airfield toward the seven jets that stood at irregular intervals on the far side of the control tower. There were several empty runways and no stir or activity at all around the slender gray planes.

There could be no doubt that U.N.C.L.E.'s Tokyo unit had planned well. Careful timing could apparently work miracles.

In a competitive industrial set up, as Harris had explained to them before their departure, secrecy could be carried so far that the arrival and departure of planes adhered to no set schedule, and the customary activities of an airfield could slow, at times, to a standstill.

Government inspection was, of course, unavoidable. But it could be made infrequently by a scrupulous avoidance of flight requirement violations, and a little judicious wire-pulling.

Among the nondescript Japanese jets there would, Solo felt, be a plane of quite different character. Silk contracts and the discreet consignment of forbidden merchandise to the highest bidder would have nothing whatever to do with its swift takeoff. He was equally certain that the agent at the wheel of the limousine would be quick to recognize that particular jet.

He was not mistaken. But its distinguishing mark, a tiny glow-dot on one of its swept-back wings, was so inconspicuous that Solo would have failed to notice it if the driver hadn't halted the car and called it to his attention.

"Well, here's where we part," he said. "You'll be high in the sky in just about eight more minutes. Setting you down in Inner Mongolia will be no problem for Hart and Ovenden. They're not just competent pilots. There are none better anywhere."

Kuryakin said, "Just how top-echelon are the pilots who'll be waiting for us in the helicopter?"

"Just as experienced," the U.N.C.L.E. agent at the wheel said. "They made six flights over the Gobi before Blakeley' disappeared."

"There are a lot of things we don't know," Solo said wryly. "Including what the Gobi does to you when you look down on it from the air for the first time."

The agent at the wheel grinned. "Don't worry. The lads who'll meet you at sunrise survived it and are in the best of spirits. Good luck now. Success all the way."