Illya lunged upward, flinging himself across the darkness.
At that instant, the guard realized he'd been fooled. He straightened, trying to turn.
He was too late. The garrote was clamped about his throat, and Illya thrust his fists past each other with all his strength, pulling it tight.
The gun clattered to the stone floor. The guard followed it, like a toppling tree. He sank to his knees and fell over to his side.
Illya waited no longer. He grabbed up the gun, ran through the door. He closed the cell, locking it. He threw the keys into an empty cell, ran.
He almost ran into another guard at the first turn of the cell block.
The heavy tread of the soldier warned him.
Very slowly, barefooted, Illya inched his way to the corner, peered around it.
The prisoners in the cell block shouted, aware that one of them had broken loose.
Illya saw the guard come alert, shift his gun ready. He pressed back against the wall.
As the guard came racing around the corner, Illya stuck out the butt of his gun. The soldier tripped on it and went sprawling forward on his face.
His gun clattered far out of his reach ahead of him. He shook himself and came up on his knees, trying to turn around.
"I wish I didn't hate violence so," Illya said, clobbering him with his gun butt.
The prisoners in the cells were hysterical now. They ran to the bars, chanting, hooting, yelling, scraping tin cups on the iron bars.
In the distance Illya Kuryakin heard the booted guard detail alerted, running toward the cell-block.
He glanced around at the wailing prisoners.
'Thanks a whole bunch, fellows," he said in sarcasm.
He stood in the middle of the corridor, gazing around helplessly.
A voice shouted at him from a cell. "Mister! Through that narrow passage. It leads to the kitchen, the garbage. There is only one guard there. Hurry. And Allah go with you!"
Illya didn't waste time in thanks. As the first wave of the guard detail clattered off the wide stone steps and into the corridor, he slipped into the dark passage.
He ran along it. The inmate had not lied about the garbage at least. The sick-sweet smell of it almost suffocated him.
He saw the door at the top of a small stairs. He raced up it.
He heard boots behind him in the darkness. The opening door would silhouette him in light. Yet he could not hurry. He had to know where that guard was out there.
Just slitting the door, Illya peered out. A rifle was fired from behind him. The bullet splintered the door inches from his head. This made the decision for him. He thrust the door wide and lunged through it.
The guard on duty was entangled with a scullery maid in the deepest shadows.
He wheeled around, grabbing for his gun. Illya swung the barrel of his gun, stunning the soldier. The maid screamed, her mouth wide. And screamed again until the garden rang with her screaming.
Illya gazed around in panic. There was the kitchen garden and beyond it a gate in the four-foot wall. The gate stood open. Beyond it lay freedom. All he had to do was make it across that garden.
The maid screamed louder, hysterical. He heard the heavy-booted soldiers approaching in the narrow passage. Lights flared on in the lower windows of the palace. Suddenly, police dogs yowled near by, and a siren screeched frantically from a minaret.
Illya sprinted across the garden. The soldiers had reached the door and thrust it open, but he had made the gate. He grabbed the heavy wooden gate and swung it closed behind him. It slammed into place, locking.
Illya whirled around, ready to run.
He almost plowed into a soldier, standing ready, gun fixed on him, bayonet gleaming in the darkness.
Illya stopped instantly. He straightened, feeling rage and frustration that he'd failed after all this.
"Hold!" the soldier ordered.
Illya's heart leaped. He recognized the voice. It was Aly David, off-duty, on his way to the bar racks.
"Aly David!" he said. "Don't shoot, it's me! Illya Kuryakin. We're friends. I waited, so you wouldn't have to be hurt when I broke out. Let me go! It's me, Aly David. Illya!"
"I know who it is," Aly David said. "You're a fine fellow, and I like you. My country hasn't treated me fairly, and you have. Still it is my country. And you are my prisoner. If you do not drop that gun and return quietly to your cell, I'll have to kill you."
* * *
THE HIGHWAY was lonely, empty, untraveled.
Solo, watching the headlamps bore holes in the desert darkness, wondered how many dozen automobiles in the entire country of Zabir used this sleek modern highway?
He held the gun ready, fixed on his prisoners stacked in the tonneau of the big car. He saw one of the younger detectives stir.
He glanced at a sign post: "OMAR 25 kilometers."
He spoke to Wanda, who clutched the wheel with both hands, her whole body tense in concentration. "This is far enough. Stop here."
Wanda removed her foot from the accelerator, allowing the Rolls to glide to a stop on the rocky high way shoulder.
Solo told her, "You keep your mouth shut. No matter what happens."
Wanda drew a deep breath. "You can trust me, boss, from now on. I'll die before I betray you."
"Promises. Promises," Solo said, getting out of the car. He opened the rear door. First, he propped the stocky Ordwell up on the back seat, secured with handcuffs he found among the detective's gear.
"You won't need these," he said amiably to the double agent, "but it will look better."
He helped the struggling Piebr from the car. The young detective staggered, drawing his hand across his eyes. His dark face was gray from the lingering effects of the gas.
"What happened?" he asked, staring into the plastic mask, and evidently accepting Solo as his superior.
Solo jerked his Kiell-appearing head toward the handcuffed double agent. "This man tried to kill us all with a small nerve-gas bomb. I managed to overcome him."
Piebr recovered slowly, his wits sharpening. He scowled, staring at Ordwell's ruddy face. "But he's not the same man at all!"
"Of course not!" Solo snapped. "After I had overpowered him, I realized something was wrong. This man was wearing a plastic mask."
He heard Wanda's sharp intake of breath, but didn't glance her way.
"When I ripped the mask away," Solo said, "I finally got down to his real face—though it's nothing to boast about, eh?"
Piebr grinned weakly. "You are very clever, Chief."
"That's why I am your superior," Solo said in an arrogant tone. "Help your partner to his feet, and the driver. Get them out in the fresh air. Everything is under control now, and we'll be able to deliver this infidel Napoleon Solo—" he inclined his masked head toward Ordwell—"to the King of the Lions."
"Zud will be eternally indebted, Chief," Piebr said. He aided the two men from the car.
"Exactly," Solo said with just the correct inflection of arrogance. "Perhaps now he will listen to our suggestions for his own safety."
"I hope so, Brilliant One," Piebr said humbly.
The masked Solo glanced toward Wanda and said directly toward her, "Too bad our enemies do not train their subordinates to have such loyalty to their superiors."
He saw Wanda wince.