Pretty Wilde jerked her head to ward the waiting technician. He turned knobs, pressed buttons. The hum deepened, then rose to a keening wail, gradually waned. Jagged lines on the picture-tube screen settled into the interior of the U.N.C.L.E. Command Room and then closed in on Alexander Waverly's face.

"Can you see us, Mr. Waverly?" Pretty asked, speaking into a microphone.

"Yes. You're coming in beautifully. Lovely girl. I hope you are friendly."

"That's up to you, Mr. Waverly," Pretty Wilde said. "We show you THRUSH'S latest prize."

Solo and Kuryakin were photographed by the machine camera. Waverly said, "Yes. Well, they're not nearly as eye-catching as you are. But I'm glad to see them."

"If you want them alive, you will agree to return the atom-separator to ten-twenty West Eight Street in Manhattan. It will do your agents no good to go there. It is merely a place for receiving this particular shipment."

"I was sure of that," Waverly said.

"Agree, we'll return Solo and Kuryakin. Refuse, and THRUSH will kill them. You'll agree, Mr. Waverly, that THRUSH has no compunctions about killing them THRUSH has many scores to settle with them. Since time is important, I'll give you one minute to make up your mind."

Waverly gave her his chilliest grin across the thousands of miles. "I cannot give you a direct answer. Since word came that both my agents had fallen into THRUSH'S hands, I've been expecting to get some sort of offer like this. We are prepared with a counter offer."

"Here's where we learn just how expendable we are," Illya whispered.

"We authorize Solo and Kuryakin to make the decision about returning the atom separator," Waverly said, "knowing what destruction such a lethal weapon could wreak in THRUSH'S conscienceless possession, the lives and property lost—"

"When he waves the flag," Illya said, "I'm walking out."

"—if they call back in one hour saying they want the machine returned to you, we will agree to do it. When they get in touch with our people at the air terminal at Kurbot, instant delivery of said machine will be made to the address here in Manhattan. Over and out."

The screen flickered, became a scrambled pattern of jagged lines, screeching interference.

"They've scrambled channel D out of existence," Illya said;

Solo nodded. "You know what that means, don't you?"

"I'm way ahead of you. It means we're expendable, that Waverly doesn't expect to hear from us again."

Pretty stared at them in frustration and rage. "How will you get in touch with him now?"

Solo gave her a pained smile. "That's it, Pretty. We can't get in touch with him now. Not through any of your infernal gadgets. The next move is up to THRUSH."

TWO

ILLYA PROWLED the impregnable cellar under Zud's oasis retreat like a lynx unable to believe a cage could hold him.

Along the walls, the chauffeur, Aly David, Frun and Piebr sat in round-shouldered dejection. Wanda slumped on a sack of grain, staring unseeingly at the floor.

Solo tested the walls, found no weakness, no object his ingenuity could convert to offensive weaponry. He leaned against the wall.

"We've got to agree to give THRUSH the machine, Illya," Solo decided. The other hostages glanced up, not daring to hope. "These people will die first, starting in less than an hour now. We don't have the right to sacrifice them."

"We voted," Aly David said. The others nodded in assent. "We are more fortunate than you and Kuryakin in that we die first."

"Yes," Piebr said. "The waiting is the worst."

"No!" Solo straightened. "We've got to get out of here. If we only had a gun."

Illya withdrew the automatic Solo had given him at the palace.

Solo stared at him. "How did they miss that?"

Illya shrugged. "Ordwell. Wasn't thinking straight. Never occurred to him you'd arm a prisoner—me."

Aly David came up off the floor without touching his hands to it. His dark face glowed.

"Give me one gun, and I'll turn it into an arsenal!" he shouted.

Solo nodded. Illya handed over the gun.

Aly hefted it a moment m his hand, grinning, then started toward the door.

"Hold it," Solo said.

Aly David paused. Solo ripped open the seed sack. "Everybody. Hands full of seed."

They all scooped up seed. Solo lined them on each side of the door. Aly David took aim on the lock, fired once. The thick door quivered, hung there, slightly ajar.

In that instant a heavy boot thrust it open and an armed guard burst through, rifle up.

Handfuls of seed struck him in the face, blinding him, stopping him for the fraction of a second. It was too long. Aly David struck him with the gun butt neatly behind the ear and he pitched face first to the floor.

Frun caught up the rifle before it struck the floor and Piebr knelt, taking the hand gun from the guard's holster.

At the open door, Aly David wheeled around and fired upward. A second guard toppled down the stone steps. Illya got the second guard's rifle, and Solo snatched the hand gun from his bolster. They were already moving up the long stairs.

Wanda wailed, "I still don't have a gun!"

Solo said, "You stay right here at the head of these stairs until we clear a way out of here. We'll come back for you." When she opened her mouth to protest, he rasped, "That's an order, Wanda!"

She nodded miserably.

He closed the stairwell door, leaving it slightly ajar. The sound of running men was heard from the corridors. Solo motioned his party to fan out.

As the men came through the door, the waiting men, crouched along the walls, shot them. They moved forward, room to room.

Illya scouted ahead. He saw movement in draperies, fired into it. Two snipers fell forward, ripping down the draperies with them.

They reached the front room. Solo jerked his head toward the radio room. Illya shot the door open, then emptied the rifle into the sending sets.

"I'll get Wanda," Solo said. The others crowded at the front door, waiting, alert as Solo turned.

Across the foyer, Pretty Wilde appeared. "I think you'll stay where you are, Mr. Solo."

Solo stared at her. Pretty gave him a cold smile. "Did you think I was a fool like those men, to run into your trap?" She motioned with the machine pistol. "Drop those guns. All of you. I can cut you down with this if you move."

"Drop the guns," Solo said, shrugging helplessly.

"You are wise, Mr. Solo," Pretty Wilde said. "Now if you'll be smart enough to tell your superiors we have run out of patience and want our machine." She lifted her voice. "Ordwell! Come down here and keep these prisoners covered."

A whisper of sound behind Pretty Wilde made her shiver. But she hesitated, afraid for the moment to take her gaze off the five prisoners. When she had to swing around, it was too late.

Wanda cracked her across the skull with the spiked heel of her slipper. Pretty Wilde crumpled to the floor. "I could have done so much better," Wanda wailed across the room at Solo, "if I'd just had a gun."

Piebr dropped to his knee, grabbed up an automatic as Ordwell ran out to the head of the stairs.

Aly and Illya, too, caught up guns as Ordwell jerked up a machine pistol, but Piebr screamed. "No! He's mine!"

Piebr fired. His bullet struck Ordwell cleanly in the solar plexus. In a slow movement, Ordwell Slybrough dropped the machine pistol and then toppled over and over down the wide stairway.