"Is Napoleon alive?" Illya interrupted.
Like all Thrush men, this one relished cruelty. He shrugged. "I can't say."
"Where is he?"
"Where you almost got to, before I chopped you down to size."
The dairyman jerked his head to indicate the green-dappled forest depths behind him, to the west.
With surprising agility for a man of his stature, the THRUSH operative jumped up onto the rear fender of the truck and balanced himself, the gun muzzle never wavering from Illya's chest.
The agent reached with his free hand and caught hold of the left horn of the bovine which was standing statue-still in the center of the other animals. It was standing statue-still because it was dead and stuffed, as was revealed when the agent snapped off its left horn and pulled it toward him.
A cable ran from the center of the horn back into the animal's head. The agent said, "I would have taken you when I passed you earlier on the highway, but we preferred to lay the trap this side of Ommenschnee. It's quieter. Sometimes that highway is heavily trafficked before dawn."
The agent thumbed a yellow spot on the horn and the eyes of the phony beef began to blink brightly, first one, then another.
This electrical display somewhat upset the other animals. They began to moo plaintively once more. Into the point of the horn the agent said cheerfully, "Achtung, sky one. Achtung! Gerhard speaking. No need for you to land with our little friends. I have Kuryakin prisoner.
"The plan is working perfectly, isn't it? They've gotten Solo and now his chum has come running right after him. I shall drive him on in. He's showing no fight. Gerhard signing off—"
Illya flung both handfuls of figurines at the THRUSH agent and dove for the dirt.
The figurines smacked Gerhard in the face sufficiently hard to cause him to lose his balance. He fell from the fender, cursing. As he fell he managed to twist and fire. Illya rolled desperately through the grass as the bullet whizzed by.
Gerhard hit the ground and shot twice more. Illya kept rolling, fighting to drag out his long-muzzled pistol as he rolled. Gerhard lumbered to his feet. He was standing now, had the right angle, could shoot downward at Illya, who was still scrabbling on the ground.
At the first shot, the animals in the truck had begun to moo more loudly, frightened. The electrified eyes of the false beef changed from white to red and flashed with a panicky speeded-up rhythm. The microphone on its cord had fallen over the side of the truck and had fallen down. From it crackled an anxious voice shooting questions in German.
On the ground Illya desperately tried to bring his right arm up in time to shoot. Gerhard had him centered in his sight.
The agent's cheeks worked puffily with hatred. Gerhard's index finger whitened on the trigger. Illya said a quick prayer—
From behind, Gerhard was stabbed in the neck by the tossing horns of a frantic steer lunging against the truck's staked side. Gerhard yowled. He stumbled off balance just as the gun exploded.
The shot winged past Illya's head by a fractional margin. His lips went white and he thumbed his weapon onto rapid-fire.
The gun's stuttering filled the sun-dappled roadside with thunder. Gerhard howled in rage, catapulting backward with holes in his belly.
He died as he hit the ground.
Panting, Illya whirled around. A shadow flickered over the roadway. The THRUSH helicopter was dropping fast, its rotors churning the air just above the treetops and lashing the leaves to a fury. Gerhard's sudden break in communication had alarmed the skyborne members of the trapping team. Sunlight flared on the 'copter's cockpit glass and on two brighter circles within—the lenses of field glasses watching him.
Sprinting, Illya reached the truck and leaped inside. He flicked over the key, hit the accelerator and slammed the shift rod practically simultaneously. The truck leaped ahead.
He fought to control it. The cattle, maddened, were lurching back and forth like juggernauts in the rear. In the side mirror Illya glimpsed the helicopter setting down in the center of the dirt track. Men leaped out, armed with machine pistols.
A metallic chatter racketed up behind him. Then came a soft, plopping explosion. Another.
The slugs fired by the THRUSH agents had blown the rear tires.
The truck veered wildly, seesawing from side to side along the track. The machine pistols continued to burp and chatter. Bullets pinged and whanged into the truck body. Ahead, a large and adamant oak tree loomed. The truck raced straight into it, out of control.
Illya levered open the left hand door and leaped out. The dairy truck slammed into the tree with a huge crash. The cattle battered against the slatted sides of the truck, smashing through them at last. All the beeves leaped down, tumbling over themselves and stampeded away into the forest.
All, that is, except the electronic marvel. It remained steadfastly behind, missing one horn and its light-bulb eyes now blinking green with alarmed rapidity.
The gasoline tank of the truck let loose. The whole vehicle went up in a boom and blast of fire.
Heat seared Illya's cheeks where he lay on the ground, his right leg bent under him. Instinctively he averted his face, came up coughing in a cloud of nauseous black smoke. The smoke screened his movements temporarily, allowed him to totter to his feet.
Abruptly his right leg went bad, jelly-like. He nearly fell.
He stumbled across a massive tree trunk, grimacing in pain. In the jump from the truck, he'd bunged up the leg. He started to hobble.
A new, terrifying sound split the morning air. Back along the road rose the frenzied yelping of dogs.
Illya lurched into a relatively shadowed area to one side of the dirt track. He risked a glance backward. What he saw chilled him clean through.
Down from the helicopter leaped three uniformed THRUSH officers in boots and gauntlets. Each man held a trio of leather leashes in his right hand. At the end of those leashes strained and slavered nine of the most murderous mastiffs Illya Kuryakin had ever seen.
The dogs yipped and bayed, eyes rolling, tongues lolling, vicious fangs dripping. The first officer released his leashes. The mastiffs shot ahead. The other six came right behind, a line of red maws and relentless teeth coming at Illya with rocket speed.
He lifted his long-muzzled pistol and squeezed off a shot. His vision was blurred from shock. He missed.
The dogs were halfway to the truck. Over the crackling of flames from the wrecked vehicle came the hoarse scream of the senior THRUSH officer:
"Kill!" he howled at his animals. "Kill, kill, kill!"
Sweat poured down Illya Kuryakin's forehead. He could never shoot all the dogs in time. He swung around and began to hobble through the forest. Pain beat unmercifully through his right leg.
Snap-and-yap, snarl-and-yelp, the dogs came on behind him. In seconds the chase assumed an eerie dream-like aura as Illya limped and dodged through sunshine and shadow-patches. He had no time to look around. The savage snapping of the killer jaws came closer. Closer—
A certain cold, emotionless professionalism swept over Illya then. Despite the pain and horror of the chase, he managed to pull out a small compass and hold it up in front of his eyes. The needle jiggled wildly, but its direction was still positive enough to show him that he was going the right way.
Well, he thought as he pelted ahead, this was the ultimate purpose for which he had been trained—to perish like a professional, not a dithering amateur.
Somewhere in the Black Forest to the west, Napoleon Solo was being held a prisoner.