Just slitting the door, Illya peered out. A rifle was fired from behind him. The bullet splintered the door inches from his head. This made the decision for him. He thrust the door wide and lunged through it.

The guard on duty was entangled with a scullery maid in the deepest shadows.

He wheeled around, grabbing for his gun. Illya swung the barrel of his gun, stunning the soldier. The maid screamed, her mouth wide. And screamed again until the garden rang with her screaming.

Illya gazed around in panic. There was the kitchen garden and beyond it a gate in the four-foot wall. The gate stood open. Beyond it lay freedom. All he had to do was make it across that garden.

The maid screamed louder, hysterical. He heard the heavy-booted soldiers approaching in the narrow passage. Lights flared on in the lower windows of the palace. Suddenly, police dogs yowled near by, and a siren screeched frantically from a minaret.

Illya sprinted across the garden. The soldiers had reached the door and thrust it open, but he had made the gate. He grabbed the heavy wooden gate and swung it closed behind him. It slammed into place, locking.

Illya whirled around, ready to run.

He almost plowed into a soldier, standing ready, gun fixed on him, bayonet gleaming in the darkness.

Illya stopped instantly. He straightened, feeling rage and frustration that he'd failed after all this.

"Hold!" the soldier ordered.

Illya's heart leaped. He recognized the voice. It was Aly David, off-duty, on his way to the bar racks.

"Aly David!" he said. "Don't shoot, it's me! Illya Kuryakin. We're friends. I waited, so you wouldn't have to be hurt when I broke out. Let me go! It's me, Aly David. Illya!"

"I know who it is," Aly David said. "You're a fine fellow, and I like you. My country hasn't treated me fairly, and you have. Still it is my country. And you are my prisoner. If you do not drop that gun and return quietly to your cell, I'll have to kill you."

* * *

THE HIGHWAY was lonely, empty, untraveled.

Solo, watching the headlamps bore holes in the desert darkness, wondered how many dozen automobiles in the entire country of Zabir used this sleek modern highway?

He held the gun ready, fixed on his prisoners stacked in the tonneau of the big car. He saw one of the younger detectives stir.

He glanced at a sign post: "OMAR 25 kilometers."

He spoke to Wanda, who clutched the wheel with both hands, her whole body tense in concentration. "This is far enough. Stop here."

Wanda removed her foot from the accelerator, allowing the Rolls to glide to a stop on the rocky high way shoulder.

Solo told her, "You keep your mouth shut. No matter what happens."

Wanda drew a deep breath. "You can trust me, boss, from now on. I'll die before I betray you."

"Promises. Promises," Solo said, getting out of the car. He opened the rear door. First, he propped the stocky Ordwell up on the back seat, secured with handcuffs he found among the detective's gear.

"You won't need these," he said amiably to the double agent, "but it will look better."

He helped the struggling Piebr from the car. The young detective staggered, drawing his hand across his eyes. His dark face was gray from the lingering effects of the gas.

"What happened?" he asked, staring into the plastic mask, and evidently accepting Solo as his superior.

Solo jerked his Kiell-appearing head toward the handcuffed double agent. "This man tried to kill us all with a small nerve-gas bomb. I managed to overcome him."

Piebr recovered slowly, his wits sharpening. He scowled, staring at Ordwell's ruddy face. "But he's not the same man at all!"

"Of course not!" Solo snapped. "After I had overpowered him, I realized something was wrong. This man was wearing a plastic mask."

He heard Wanda's sharp intake of breath, but didn't glance her way.

"When I ripped the mask away," Solo said, "I finally got down to his real face—though it's nothing to boast about, eh?"

Piebr grinned weakly. "You are very clever, Chief."

"That's why I am your superior," Solo said in an arrogant tone. "Help your partner to his feet, and the driver. Get them out in the fresh air. Everything is under control now, and we'll be able to deliver this infidel Napoleon Solo—" he inclined his masked head toward Ordwell—"to the King of the Lions."

"Zud will be eternally indebted, Chief," Piebr said. He aided the two men from the car.

"Exactly," Solo said with just the correct inflection of arrogance. "Perhaps now he will listen to our suggestions for his own safety."

"I hope so, Brilliant One," Piebr said humbly.

The masked Solo glanced toward Wanda and said directly toward her, "Too bad our enemies do not train their subordinates to have such loyalty to their superiors."

He saw Wanda wince.

When Frun and the driver had been sufficiently revived by the night air, Solo said in a sharp tone:

"Now, let's waste no more time." He faced the driver. "Get us to the palace at once."

"Yes, sire." The driver bowed low.

Solo looked at Frun and Piebr. "Guard this young woman. Keep her alive. I'll want to question her. Of course she's working with Napoleon Solo there."

Wanda's mouth sagged open.

Piebr spoke hesitantly. "Sire, our guns. They're gone."

"Of course they are," Solo said, voice rasping. "I wanted to demonstrate to you what can happen to you if you let down your vigil for one moment." He got the guns from the glove compartment, returned them to the three men.

Wanda's gasp was audible now, and when he looked at her, her astonished mouth gaped wide.

"And you, close your mouth, young woman!" he ordered. "Flies are very bad in this country."

ACT III

INCIDENT OF THE CATALYTIC AGENT

THE ROLLS ROYCE droned soothingly upon the slick highway, racing in the desert night. The closer they came to the capital City of Omar, the tighter Napoleon Solo found himself wound. On the front seat between him and the driver, Wanda was fighting increasing hysteria. He felt her leg pressed savagely against his, as if she hoped some of his courage might rub off on her.

In the dune-scalloped distance ahead, they saw the saffron glow of Omar's lights.

Suddenly, in an oasis as lush as a rainforest, the tall spires and minarets of the sheik's palace loomed against the star-laced heavens.

The driver dimmed his lights twice, and the wrought-iron gates, fifteen feet tall in a thick block-stone wall, swung back. The driver raced through without slowing. As they sped along the curving drive to the brilliantly illuminated chateau, Solo saw lines of green-garbed soldiers on guard, bayonets fixed.

Getting in was easy, he thought. The trick was in getting out.

Before the driver braked the Rolls before the wide, curving, forty marble steps leading upward to the columned portico at the palace entrance, a battalion of bowing servants had raced out. They spread themselves, fanlike down the steps, awaiting any commands of the illustrious arrivals.

Solo had to remind himself that all this display of humility was in his honor—as Kiell, head of Zabir's security, protector of Zud.

A servant raced forward, opening Solo's door first and prostrating himself on the marble as Solo stepped from the car.

Solo gave the servant no more than a glance; without even looking back, strode up the steps.

He wasn't sure where he was going, but he knew that asking questions now would be fatal.