The deep voice swore. "Caslow's dead?"
"The programmed destruct device worked. He was about to talk," Maxine reported. "It seems he neglected to tell us that he had a girlfriend, and our agents failed to detect her."
"Someone will pay!" the deep voice snarled. "And Wozlak? What about him?"
"Escaped to New Mexico. With Solo on to Caslow, Wozlak was no more use here," Maxine said.
The voice cursed again. "Follow Napoleon Solo, alert our people at Noche Triste. The computer did not know about the girl."
"That's the trouble with machines," Maxine said. "They can't think."
"Let us see that you can, Agent Trent," the deep voice said. "Solo and the girl must be eliminated!"
"A pleasure," Maxine said, as she watched the small twin-engined plane take off.
Moments later she hung up and walked quickly to a second plane that waited on the runway.
* * *
ILLYA KURYAKIN awakened at the first light of dawn over the barren desert land of the Navaho Reservation. His hand on his U.N.C.L.E. special, he peered cautiously out of the culvert. There was nothing in sight. High up a golden eagle soared looking for food. The giant bird sailed high and undisturbed. Illya left his culvert, retrieved his four tiny warning cells, and began to crawl up to where he could look down into the long valley.
Nothing had changed. The long, narrow valley between the brown hills was as empty as ever. Nothing but rocks and dry ground, cactus and stunted trees gasping for life in the arid land. And yet . . .
Illya trained his binoculars on the bottom of the valley. Something was very peculiar. He studied the hills, and the distant ends of the valley.
Then he started his binoculars at the tops of the hills across the valley and worked slowly down to the bottom.
And he saw it.
The contour was wrong! The valley was too shallow!
The natural fall of the land should have made the valley deeper, narrower at the bottom. Now, studying the terrain carefully and knowing what he looked for, Illya saw the places where boulders seemed to suddenly bend in the middle and become flat, where trees on the slopes of the hills were too short. Camouflage!
Almost perfect, it was. From the air it would have been totally impossible to see. Even as close as he was he could not be absolutely certain. The entire bottom of the long valley was camouflage, and beneath the false bottom—?
Carefully, carrying his equipment, Illya began to work his way down toward the bottom of the valley. It was hard going, steep, and he noticed, now that he was farther down the side of the hill, the wide perimeter of completely open space, a wide lane, just before the apparent bottom of the valley.
Illya studied the situation from beneath his lowered brow. The sun was coming up over the rim of the hills and there was not much time. He searched for a better approach route to the bottom of the valley. There seemed to be no way. He would have to chance crossing the open area.
He crouched very low in the dawn light and stepped out from behind a boulder to start across the cleared area. He took two steps and stopped again, crouched like a small animal in the dawn. His eyes stared at a tiny projection in the ground.
He looked left and right. Caught by the first slanting rays of sun, the tiny projections stood a quarter of an inch out of the ground in a long and endless row all the way in either direction.
Illya studied the tiny projections. Mines? He reached into his small suitcase, laid carefully on the hard earth, and brought out his small explosives detector. He placed it beside the miniature projection in front of him. The detector did not register. The projection was not a mine.
He returned the explosives detector to his suitcase, and took out the flat, miniature electronic activator. He set the miniaturized instrument on detect and placed it next in the projection. The dial registered immediately. The small metal projections were the sensors of an alarm system.
Smiling grimly to himself, Illya returned his equipment to the briefcase, and crawled slowly backward until he was again in the shelter of the boulder. He crouched again and studied the terrain right and left. He could risk crossing the open space, but he could not risk triggering an electronic alarm system. There had to be another way down.
Carrying his equipment, Illya began to circle the area slowly, keeping out of sight above the cleared sector. He moved quickly and silently. At last he found what he wanted.
A natural gully-like arroyo cut into the side of the mountain and led all the way to the bottom. There was cover from view all the way. There would be the electronic sensors, but out of sight he could move slowly enough to avoid them. He smiled his quizzical smile—no system was perfect.
He moved down the arroyo, his eyes on the ground. He stepped carefully and lightly, avoiding the electronic sensors that stuck up from the ground almost invisible. He had moved halfway down to where a yawning shadow ahead showed where the space opened beneath the camouflage when he heard the noise.
He jumped.
His eyes on the yawning black opening ahead, aware of the alarm sensors, and yet hearing the noise of footsteps approaching, Illya leaped to a small boulder where there would be no sensors. On the boulder he saw an open space behind it, flat and smooth and hidden. He jumped down.
His feet struck—and sank.
In an instant he was up to his knees, halfway up to his waist from the force of his leap. His legs were under the smooth surface, held, immobile.
Quicksand.
Calmly, he laid his flat suitcase on the smooth surface and pressed against it to raise himself.
Nothing happened.
The suitcase pressed into the soft surface, but his legs did not budge. And slowly, very slowly, he was sinking. He tried to raise each leg separately. He could do nothing. He stopped struggling. The less he moved the slower he would sink. But he sank. Very slowly, almost imperceptibly, but he sank.
He heard a noise and looked up. A man stood on the rock above him. The man carried an ugly Thrush rifle.
The man stood there and looked down at him.
"Good morning, Mr. Kuryakin," the man said. "Are you comfortable?"
"Quite comfortable," Illya said.
"Good. Alas, I'm sorry you cannot swim in that sand, or stand either. Interesting material, quicksand. Too solid for swimming, too liquid for walking. You will have much time to consider the error of your associations before you die."
Illya watched the man. If he could shoot the man now, the man's body could fall across the sand and give him a hold to pull out on. The man laughed.
"No, don't try to shoot me. You'd never move fast enough," the man said. "You're a rather small man. It should take about ten hours to sink all the way. I'll be back for the final inch."
And the man was gone.
In the quicksand, helpless and sinking so slowly, Illya remained icily calm. Movement would only sink him faster. He knew now that it was all a trap. The entire security set-up had been designed to force him into the arroyo and, finally, into the quicksand. And he had followed the path like a stupid mule.
But there was no time to waste on his own stupidity. They had him, and there was only one way out. He opened the small suitcase and took out his pencil radio sender-receiver. He clocked it on.
"Sonny, this is Bubba. Red alert! I need help! Sonny? Come in, Sonny."
There was silence. The blazing sun was up above the edge of the arroyo now. As Illya Kuryakin slowly sank, the sun burned like a red-hot flame against his bare head. He continued to talk into his miniature radio as he slowly sank deeper and deeper.