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.