Wanda squealed again and waved something in her hand above her head.

Solo set the coffee cup down, afraid he would drop it.

Mouth sagging open, he stared across the lounge toward where Wanda stood, crying out frantically.

Sick, Solo saw her heel around, still waving the square card above her head.

The ambassador put his hand on her arm, but she shook it away. She broke free of the knot of people around the caskets and ran across the room toward him.

Swallowing the bile that gagged him, Solo shook his head at her. But she was like an unruly puppy, frenzied with delight, and nothing was going to stop her. Except a bullet, Solo thought in anguish.

"Solo!" she screamed. "Mister Solo! Look what I've got!"

"Young lady!" Solo said sharply. "I don't know you! I don't want to know you! Get away from me! What are you talking about?"

Everyone on the mezzanine stared at them, Solo saw. He sweated, shaking his head at Wanda.

Her mind could encompass only her joy. She could not think of any thing except the triumph she felt at finding the plastic card among Illya's effects.

"It's his Old-Timer Key Club card!" she cried exultantly.

"Don't know what you're talking about!" Solo protested, retreating.

She followed, shaking the plastic card in front of his face. "The X across it, Mr. Solo! Illya made that. It's our code, don't you remember?"

"I remember!" Solo said under his breath, in raging agony.

"But Mr. Solo! This means Illya is alive! He's alive!"

"Well, you may have fixed that— for all of us!" Solo told her coldly, discarding any attempt to go on with his disguise. Through a red cloud of rage, he saw Zouida and his retinue bearing down on them.

Wanda sagged, finally realizing what she had done. She'd broken silence, betrayed him.

She gasped out in anguish. "But he's alive! I didn't think it mattered after we found he was alive."

He gazed at her. "Finding Illya alive was part of it, Wanda. I could have done that without you. The rest of it was finding out what they wanted, what's behind this plot. But that doesn't matter now."

Wanda sagged against the coffee bar, weeping.

Solo didn't even look at her. He set himself to receive his old friend Zouida in a disguise he had hoped would deceive him.

He wondered what he would find to say that Zouida would accept?

He didn't have to find out, because in a thunder of heavy boots and rattle of weaponry six green-clad soldiers and three black-suited civilians strode off the stairs and surrounded Wanda and Solo before Zouida reached them.

Solo recognized the man in the lead even before the head of Zabir's secret police introduced himself. Kiell was as Zouida had described him, stocky of body, balding, with a high forehead, a ring of thick black curly hair and a walrus moustache.

The thing about Kiell that attracted Solo's especial notice was the thickness of his neck, so that his shirt collar bulged out of shape.

"I am Kiell," the stocky man announced. "Director of Zabir security. Lord protector of His Highness, the King of Lions, the Sultan of the deserts, Sheik Ali Zud of Zabir. In his name, I arrest you as unregistered enemy aliens."

Solo merely nodded, knowing that after Wanda's performance there was nothing he could say. She sagged against him, chewing at her underlip.

"Wait a minute!" From beyond the ring of Kiell's soldier guard, Solo heard Zouida calling. "Kiell, let me talk to you!"

Kiell straightened. His voice lashed out. "Piebr! Frun!" The two black-suited secret police snapped to attention, drawing guns from shoulder holsters. The two detectives were much younger than Kiell—in their early twenties, slender, dark.

Piebr and Frun pushed back, making a double line of the soldiers, three on each side. The twelve casket guards stopped, standing at attention when Kiell barked commands at them in Arabic.

Piebr and Frun stood with hand guns against their chests, staring straight ahead, making a path from Ambassador Zouida in to where Kiell waited, unbending.

Frowning, Zouida walked slowly, staring at Kiell and shaking his head. When he reached the place where the two younger detectives stood, Zouida paused, looking at one of them in anguish. He whispered, "Piebr—"

The young detective merely straightened his shoulders, stood more rigidly, staring across the top of the older man's head.

Zouida exhaled audibly, his body sagging.

Kiell spoke in English, his lips oddly immobile, as if he hated the words he was forced to speak. "If you would discuss your betrayal of our lord the king, speak to me! Piebr has nothing to say to a traitor!"

"Traitor?" Zouida quivered visibly. H shook his head, tears brimming his anguished eyes. "I am no traitor. My whole soul belongs to my king and my country."

"Your lies won't do you any good now, old goat," Kiell said between taut lips.

Zouida stared at Kiell for a long time, then finally shrugged, as if admitting to himself that there was no realism in appealing for mercy from Kiell. It was like asking water from the desert sands.

He drew a deep breath and turned to face Solo.

"I am sorry, my old friend." he said. "I am sorry about all of this. But I can only say to you, I have been double-crossed, too."

"Enough!" Kiell said in cold rage. He drew a gun from his shoulder holster, thrust it close to Zouida's solar plexus and pressed the trigger.

The report of the handgun was muffled by Zouida's clothing and his body. The ambassador was driven backward by the impact of the bullet. He staggered, toppled against Piebr. The young detective chewed on his mouth, staring straight ahead.

Slowly Zouida crumpled to the floor at the feet of Piebr and the green-clad soldiers. He whispered. "May Allah—have mercy on my poor—poor country."

He sagged heavily then, a rattle working up through his throat, and he was dead.

Kiell gave the dead man the merest glance. He turned the gun on Wanda and Solo. Wanda cried out involuntarily.

Kiell spoke coldly. "If the two of you do not wish to join that traitor, you will come quietly."

Kiell jerked his head. The six soldiers moved in prodding Wanda and Solo toward the stairs.

Kiell strode to the center of the mezzanine. He gestured toward the slain ambassador.

"A traitor to our country has been slain!" he shouted. "Slain in the name of King Zud! Long live Zud!"

"Long live Zud!" the soldiers shouted in reply. The guards on the floor below took up the cry and it rattled against the high-domed ceiling. "Long live Zud!"

TWO

ILLYA KURYAKIN worked swiftly, plaiting a yard-long rope. The strips of cloth he used came from the lower hem of the filthy burnoose he wore. All other clothing had been stripped away from him. He was barefooted; he no longer had even a watch.

He supposed time wasn't too urgent here in the dungeon under Sheik Zud's castle. Still, he hoped by now that Solo had been sent to collect his belongings. Zud had told him that Solo had been sent for. What Zud didn't know was about the X mark on the face of the Key Club card, the code which said to an alert agent like Solo, I'm alive. Danger. Proceed with caution.

Zud had been throwing nothing but curves at him since his arrival in Zabir a month ago. He had come here as a technical adviser to Zud's spy system.

And he'd ended up here in this dank cell.

Illya's blue eyes darkened. He ran his hand through his Slavic corn-colored hair.

He straightened, hearing sporadic gunfire from the streets outside the castle. Zud had plenty of woes at home. What was this deal of holding him and trying to lure Solo into the same trap?