There was nothing else as far as he could see except flat land—treeless, coverless, empty.
And he could guess that beneath the disguised mine shaft was the stronghold of Marcus Fitzhugh. Hidden in the bowels of a flat earth, with no clues as to its location from the land or sky—The Belly.
FOUR
To Illya Kuryakin, the desolate country looked like the arid deserts in the southern part of Siberia. He had been to that harsh area once on a job before he came to U.N.C.L.E., and he had thought then that there was no land on earth so abandoned, forgotten, like a piece of some distant and dead planet. But he had been wrong, this land was as utterly desolate and silent.
To follow them had been as difficult as it had been bizarre. First to the airport near Sydney, where he had managed to attach the directional signal device to the black car before it had been loaded into the giant cargo plane. Then, in the air, at the controls of the fast Beechcraft, maintaining contact by the directional signal and by radar.
Finally he had found a man at the bush airport, where they had landed, who had a battered jeep—for a price.
Now he drove along the dusty road, with the very faint cloud of dust from the black car far ahead. He drove much too far behind them to be detected, following his directional signal. Grimly he continued the long chase, awaiting only the chance to move in with some hope of success.
There had been time in Sydney only to report the description of the small man with the disfigured face. After Sydney, the distance had become too great, and there had been no time anyway. Only at the bush airport had he managed to leave a message-a carefully coded message locating where he was, that would be telephoned to U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters in Sydney.
There was nothing more he could do now but follow the black car, check his weapons, and hope.
The distant, faint dust cloud continued to move steadily across the vast and deserted land. The glare of the sun reflected as if from water. Nothing at all moved in the land, not an animal, not a lizard.
Illya had not seen a human being or a house since leaving the bush airport-and they had been driving all day. At least a hundred and fifty miles had been covered already without a trace of human life or habitation.
The sun itself was low in the sky when, at last, the signal on his direction finder told him that the black car had turned off the dusty main road. Illya slowed down. If they were looking for pursuers it would be now that they would leave a man to check. From the aspect of the countryside, he guessed that any vehicle would be suspect, it was that deserted.
He drove ahead very slowly, letting the car move on ahead of him. The beep of the direction signal showed that the car ahead was proceeding slowly and at right angles to the road they had been travelling. The only danger was that it would move out of range before he found the side road, but he did not think that was likely at the speed it was maintaining now.
Then the car ahead stopped.
Illya stopped, leaned down to listen closely to his direction finder. There was no doubt, the signal was no longer moving. The black car had stopped somewhere less than ten miles ahead. Illya started the jeep and moved on very slowly. Then he stopped again. There was no sense in taking chances by becoming too hasty. The sun was low; he could wait for night. And he would avoid the road ahead if he could.
He got out of the battered jeep. He took out the small box of the miniature direction finder all U.N.C.L.E. field agents carried disguised as a box of wooden matches. With the small box in his left hand and his U.N.C.L.E. Special, loaded, cocked and ready in his right hand, he left the jeep and the road and started out across the hot land.
There was no cover, but he did not think they would look for a man on foot. In any case, it was a chance he had to take. The open, completely empty aspect of the country worked for him as well as against him. There were no high hills, no trees, no cover of any kind for an observer. There were only low, flat rises bare on top, and shallow gullies that might once have contained water.
He moved ahead, taking advantage of every gully, every hollow. It was slow work, and the last rays of sun beat down on his bare head. Already the air was growing chill. He stumbled ahead, his head broiling in the sun, his body beginning to feel the chill of the approaching night.
The sun was like a copper disk sitting on the horizon of the yellow land when Illya topped a low rise and saw it ahead. He dropped to his face at once. Slowly, then, he raised his head to look again. He rolled behind a small boulder and looked.
It was a shaft-head, like all the others he had passed, but not quite like them. His trained eye detected the radio antenna, the radar disk, the solidity of the seemingly broken down building.
And the black car was parked in front.
As he watched, the man in the policeman's uniform appeared from out of the shaft-head and walked to the car. The car moved off and vanished behind the building. Illya waited for it to appear on the other side. It did not. He backed off down below the crest of the small rise, circled, and looked again.
There was nothing behind the shaft-head. The car had vanished.
Illya bent to his direction finder. It was still operating, the faint bee-beep-bee-beep showing that the car was close by, even though he could not see it. He crawled back down into the hollow behind the small rise to wait for the night.
Night came in this barren land as it came to all deserts, suddenly and completely. One moment there was light and the last heat of the day; the next instant there was only darkness and the rising cold chill of the night.
Illya checked his weapons; the Special, his small bombs, the camera, his tiny radio, the thermite foil in his shoe, the special belt, and all the other miniature devices that made all U.N.C.L.E. agents walking arsenals.
Then he stood up and moved off in the night.
He reached the shaft-head without incident. There was no guard above ground. He found the disguised elevator. It looked exactly like an abandoned shaft elevator, but Illya touched its walls and found them solid steel.
It was locked. In the night he considered. He could break into the elevator, but there were probably alarms. Anyway, the operation of the elevator would certainly be noticed.
He went back out of the shaft-head and began to search the area in a wide circle, his infra-red flashlight revealing the ground but not revealing his presence. At last he found what he wanted-a cleverly disguised inspection ladder which ran down the inside wall of the elevator shaft. With a deep breath, moving slowly, he started to climb down.
He lowered himself a long distance. At last he felt the in-rush of cool air. It was probably an air-conditioning intake, which meant that he had to leave the shaft before he reached the air conditioning unit, which evidently fed into the passage. At the first cross duct, he turned and crawled until he found a frill. He burned the grill off, and dropped down.
He stood in a darkened corridor of steel. Far off he heard the sound of machinery. He bent to his direction finder. The signal was strong from the left. He moved cautiously to his left. He heard and saw no one. Whoever operated this hidden center was highly confident.
Illya smiled. They would find that even here in the center of nowhere, they were not safe.
The signal grew stronger.
He rounded a corner carefully and saw an opening ahead. There was a faint light inside. The car must be inside the opening. Illya moved carefully. He reached the opening and looked in.