But now he felt that the question could be safely asked.
"Where is Kuryakin?" he said. "You haven't told me how we got here. If anything has happened to him—"
"I told you that I wished only to set your mind at rest," the woman at his side said, before he could go on. "My father found you both wandering in the desert and had you brought here. You were delirious, raving, barely able to drag yourselves along. It was my father who directed the attack which brought the helicopter which came to your rescue down in flames, from here by remote control. The electronic eavesdropping machine is equipped also with electronic weapons of deadly accuracy and range.
"You would have been killed if it had not stopped functioning shortly after it brought the plane down. That is one of the defects which my father is working night and day to overcome."
Lhasa paused, to stare at him steadily for a moment. "Your friend is safe," she said. "My father is not being too kind to him, because he does not wish to displease THRUSH at this point. There are certain questions he must ask the very stubborn Mr. Kuryakin. But I have protected you from all that, and I intend to go on doing so. My father, whatever he may believe, is not yet all-powerful here." She continued to stare at him steadily, her eyes seeming to veil more than they revealed.
"I said there were three things, Napoleon Solo, that made it necessary for me to take drastic measures to oppose both THRUSH and my father's secret plans. You know now what two of them are. But you have not questioned me about the third."
"And what is the third?" Solo asked.
"I told you that I have watched you often through the all-seeing eyes of the machine, Napoleon Solo. Despite myself I have come to respect and admire you. I will strike a bargain with you. If I can find a way that will enable both you and Mr. Kuryakin to escape from the ruins before it is too late—will you promise me that you will not forget what I have just told you? THRUSH has become my father's enemy? At any moment the blow may fall. The instant they cease to need him he will be destroyed. Only you can save him. If U.N. C.L.E. can strike first my father's life may be spared. Surely if I help you to escape, U.N.C.L.E., out of gratitude alone, would rest content with so shattering a blow to THRUSH."
The proposal was so unexpected that Solo remained for an instant silent, turning it over in his mind. Such a promise, he knew, would have to be conditional. Lee Cheng could not possibly escape the exaction which justice would demand—life imprisonment, at the very least. The frail little man's Frankenstein monster had been used as an instrument of death, and while justice could be tempered with mercy it could not be toppled from its pedestal by bargaining on any level.
Neither was it anything that Solo would have cared to attempt. Lee Cheng's guilt would not be lessened by the repentance of his daughter—if her repentance was genuine—or by her offer of help.
He was very careful to make his answer noncommittal and reassuring. "I'll do my best," he said.
"Then I will do my best," the woman at his side said quickly, a gleam of relief coming into her eyes, "to arrange for your escape. It will be difficult and may take a little time."
Solo was far from sharing her relief. What she had said about Illya was causing him increasing concern. "My father is not being too kind to him" could have meant more than the words suggested. It could have veiled an ordeal by torture that Illya might not be able to withstand.
"There should be no conditions attached to the kind of bargain we have just made," Solo said. "Kuryakin has risked his life more than once to save mine. You can hardly expect me to be unconcerned as to his safety."
"I know," Lhasa said, meeting his gaze with more understanding than he had dared to hope he would see in her eyes. "But what would you have me do? Take you to him? It would be difficult and dangerous. He is under constant guard."
"But you could do it, I think," Solo said. "I would just exchange a few words with him. It's important to me. I must be absolutely sure that he is all right. You just said—"
"I know what I said. But that does not mean that all of the guards will obey me, or even that I can trust more than three of four of them not to betray me. Why can't you believe me when I tell you that Kuryakin is in no immediate danger?"
"That depends on what you mean by danger," Solo said. "He may be in more danger than you know. Not of losing his life perhaps, but—" He let what he could have said remain unspoken.
For an instant Lhasa returned his stare almost defiantly. Then she shrugged. "All right," she said. "I'll take you to him."
ELEVEN
GOBI SOS
IN AMERICA it would not have been thought of as a room, but as a warehouse interior of an arsenal supply depot.
The walls were of stone, but they had an almost metallic sheen and they towered up into shadows. Long benches stood against the walls and one stood a little out from the wall and extended from the doorway to a far corner where a huge pile of miscellaneous objects lay scattered—steel helmets, gun belts, canteens and what looked like a collapsed parachute.
On all of the benches there were metallically gleaming instruments of science. Their technological configuration was apparent at a glance, although some were much larger than others.
But it wasn't the instruments of science, nor the scattered objects of desert warfare equipment that were half-obscured by the shadows that caused Solo to come to an abrupt halt just inside the doorway and draw in his breath sharply. The woman at his side had shut the door firmly behind them and was watching his face intently, as if she feared that just the sight of the half-naked man strapped from his waist to his shoulders by leather thongs to one of the benches might cause Solo to turn upon her in rage.
Illya Kuryakin's back was crisscrossed with swelling welts, and he was moving his shoulders about, as far as the thongs would permit, as if to ease the pain of what could only have been recently applied lashes.
"You lied to me!" Solo breathed. "You said that no harm would come to him."
"I did not know," she said, "that my father would—"
Lhasa straightened abruptly, a look of alarm coming into her eyes. They had both heard it, a sudden, clattering sound just outside the door that had barely closed behind them.
"That guard!" she said. "I'm not sure I can trust him. I did not like the look he gave me when I ordered him to leave. He may be waiting just outside. I'd better make sure—"
She had opened the door again and was gone before Napoleon Solo could move across the enormous room toward Illya Kuryakin.
"There's a bolt on that door!" Illya cried out sharply. "Lower it into place. Don't let her come back. Hurry! We'll never get another chance."
It seemed sheer madness to Solo, for what chance could two unarmed men possibly have in a room that was securely bolted? But he turned, grasped the bolt firmly and let it clatter into place, then crossed the enormous room in ten swift strides to Illya's side.
"Unbind me," Illya said, ignoring the appalled look on Solo's face as his eyes came to rest on the ten or twelve long red welts that crisscrossed the younger agent's back. They had cut deeply into the flesh, and it was easy to see from the tight set of Illya's lips that the pain was still agonizing.