The pretty young scientist was staring at Solo. The noise was coming from his suit-coat pocket.

"What are you, wired for sound?" Penny said.

Solo took out his radio and clicked it on.

"Sonny? Relay from Bubba. Acknowledge."

Solo bent to the instrument. "Sonny here, relay Bubba."

Illya's voice came on. A calm voice, yet Solo could hear the tension in the voice of his fellow agent and best friend. Illya was in deep double. Solo looked around. No one seemed to be watching.

"Go ahead, Illya," Solo said. The voice of the small, blond agent had a faint edge.

"I seem to be in a rather sticky situation, Napoleon," Illya's voice said. "Literally, I fear. Where are you?"

"Santa Fe," Solo said. "What's the trouble?"

"Quicksand. About chest high by now. They led me into it very nicely."

"How long do you have?"

"Perhaps four hours, even five. You say you're in Santa Fe?"

"Yes. Where are you?"

"A few miles from Noche Triste," Illya said calmly. "That's about two hundred miles from you."

"I'll get a helicopter," Solo said. Penny Parsons was staring at the sight of Solo bent over a shiny pencil and talking. The other small plane had landed and was taxiing up. Solo watched it from the corner of his eye. Two men had appeared in the Santa Fe Airport building. They were looking at him and the girl.

"No," Illya said. "One look at a helicopter and they would undoubtedly come back and do the job more quickly. You'll have to drive."

"It'll be close," Solo said. "I think I have company."

There was a silence from the other end, the distant spot where

Illya stood up to his chest and sinking in the blazing sun.

"We'll have to chance it, and come carefully."

"Roger, right now," Solo said.

"And Napoleon," Illya's voice said. "Bring a rope."

There was no more time. The two men were walking toward Solo and Penny Parsons. Solo clicked off his set. The other small plane was halted, and Solo saw the woman emerge. He smiled. Good old Maxine. He gripped the girl's arm. Penny stared at him.

"Now do just as I tell you," Solo whispered. "We're going on a drive, but first we have to get rid of some unwelcome friends."

"But I—" the girl began.

"Just do what I do," Solo said. Suddenly, his hand on the girl's arm, he began to walk toward the exit. The two men speeded up to cut him off. Behind him, Maxine and another man were in the door out to the field itself. Quickly, Solo doubled back and dragged Penny toward the baggage exit. The two men whirled to follow.

In the doorway to the field, Maxine sent the man with her to block the baggage exit from outside. Solo doubled back again and headed for the restroom area, pulling the protesting girl after him. He was watching his pursuers carefully.

He doubled back toward the street door once more. As he pulled the girl on this last maneuver, Maxine and his two other pursuers came after him on courses that converged. He hurried closer to them until he saw that in a few more steps they would all be at the same spot.

He dropped the smoke bomb at the exact spot they hurried toward.

Thick white smoke billowed up. People began to scream. A wild chaos filled the air terminal building. Solo gripped the girl and dashed straight through the smoke, exactly where his pursuers were struggling to break out of the smoke cloud. Maxine was shouting.

"The other door! Quickly, you fools!"

Solo and Penny Parsons brushed right past them in the smoke and emerged on the other side just at the exit. Solo grinned. He pushed the girl ahead of him through the exit and out into the driveway area. A taxi stood at the taxi stand. Solo and Penny hurried toward it.

The fourth pursuer, the one sent to guard the baggage exit, came running toward the cab, his gun out, all caution gone now. Solo dropped him with a single shot from his special, a shot with a sleep dart. Puh! The man fell and skidded four feet. Solo pushed Penny into the cab and jumped in.

"The nearest car rental agency, driver," Solo said, his pistol still in his hand. "I would suggest speed."

The driver needed no further urging. Maxine Trent and her two henchmen were already coming out of the terminal building. Solo waved to them as the taxi drove away.

* * *

ILLYA KURYAKIN watched the sun going down behind the opposite rim of the valley. The quicksand was up to his armpits now, and in the last hour he had begun to sink faster. He had been in the sand over twelve hours, and all that had saved him was his suitcase.

Flat, the suitcase presented a wider surface to the sand. Not enough to pull out against, it sank much more slowly and by hanging onto it Illya had slowed his descent. But soon the sand would reach his shoulders, and then his chin, and then—

Moving as slowly as possible, using one hand, he raised the pencil adio to his lips again.

"Sonny this is Bubba. How much farther do you have?"

The voice of Solo came in. "About thirty miles, Illya. We're driving as fast as possible."

Illya did not answer. He was saving his strength. Each time his foot moved it sank another fraction of an inch. He kept hoping to find some bottom. But there was no bottom. Soon the sand was at his shoulder, then his chin would he readied, and then . . .

NAPOLEON SOLO saw the car off the highway in the last rays of the sun. It was Illya's car, there was no doubt. A typical Thrush mistake, to leave the car. Solo stopped the car and looked out toward the low line of brown hills. On foot he would never make it.

"Hang on, Penny," he said grimly.

The girl blanched. "You're not! Oh no, the car can't make it!"

"Let's see if perhaps it can," Solo said, and turned the car off the highway.

He drove in the purple desert twilight, bumping and lurching across the barren land. Illya had said there was a tall peak, flat on top, directly behind where he was. Solo could see it clearly ahead against the purple twilight sky.

* * *

THE SAND reached his shoulder, flowed up toward his chin. Illya clung to the flat suitcase that was under the surface of the sand now.

It was dark.

The last purple rays had gone behind the hills, and now Illya sank alone in the pitch dark. His light was in his case under the sand. He had long ago dropped his pistol, it was no use in this battle. Even his pencil radio was gone, slipped into the sand and vanished.

With no radio he had lost contact. There was no one now to talk to, to help him remain sane, to keep up his faint last hopes. Was this, then, the end?

To vanish under a surface that was neither sand nor water?

Gone, and no trace to show where he had gone?

* * *

THE CAR gave out at the base of the first hill, its axle finally breaking under the strain of the impossible drive. Solo leaped out, took his briefcase and the rope, and motioned to Penny Parsons to follow him.

Silently they climbed the low hills. He was directly behind the tall, flat-topped hill, but he could see nothing in the dark.

He put on his infra-red goggles, took the girl's hand, and climbed.

At the crest he looked down at the long valley. The small arroyo was off to the left. Sliding in the dry dirt, he went down toward the dark arroyo.

He could see nothing.

Then he saw the boulder Illya Kuryakin had described. He motioned to the girl to stay where she was, and moved cautiously toward the boulder. He kept his eyes on the ground, stepping over the electronic sensors. He reached the boulder and looked down.