Its orange light illuminated the office. Pretty Wilde gazed around in panic.

"They're attacking. Kill these three people and let's get out of here," she shouted at her bodyguard.

But Illya Kuryakin shook his arm and let a hand grenade roll from the folds of his silk robe. "Here's one they missed!" He jerked out the pin. "Now. Pretty Wilde, your men can shoot me, but we'll all go up in the biggest holocaust this part of the world has seen since Gomorrah burned."

"Hold your fire!" Pretty Wilde screamed in panic.

Illya Kuryakin jerked his head toward the doors. Distantly they heard gunfire. It grew louder as Aly David's men approached, full speed.

Solo leaped into the jeep, started the engine. Wanda dove into the rear, head first, striking the seat and lying there, face down.

Solo had the car in motion as Illya sprang into the other seat. All over the refinery, mercenaries were running to their battle stations.

Solo shouted at Illya. "You're still carrying that grenade!"

"Why waste it on her?" Illya shouted.

As they roared past a huge storage tank, Illya lobbed the grenade toward it. For an instant, breathless silence hung over the desert.

"Faster! Faster!" Illya Kuryakin shouted.

At that instant, the grenade exploded. Solo pressed harder on the gas. The exploding grenade burst the seam of the tank, and the second explosion followed immediately. The earth rumbled, shivering. The jeep danced wildly, turning all the way around before Napoleon Solo could right it.

He straightened the jeep in the road again, fixed a course on the gate, pressed the accelerator as a second tank exploded, turning the sky white and the world a fiery crimson.

The jeep danced, bounced, lurched around. Solo fought the wheel, straightening it. The outward blast of air, the savage pull of the vacuum held the car, trembling.

"Faster!" Illya shouted in Solo's ears, hanging on to the windshield with all his strength. The heat was intense, unbearable. Ahead of them stretched the dark empty desert, so close, but suddenly an eternity removed beyond the peri meter of the exploding refinery. "Can't you go faster?"

"I've got the pedal on the floor now!" Napoleon Solo shouted.

But Illya Kuryakin couldn't even hear him above the scream of the flames, the roar of chain explosions. The fire reached out after them. Solo thrust down on the gas as hard as he could, looking back across his shoulder.

They'd get away, by a whisker. No one else would, barring a miracle. That hell of solid flame was too pulverizing in its intensity to offer any chance for survival.

Solo sighed. Pretty Wilde had been a lot of woman. It was hard to think of her charred and dead. What a waste of loveliness!

But there was new work to be done, new girls to meet. He nodded, forced the car forward into the night, smiling.