Lee Cheng's body thudded to the sand and turned over three times. Each turn brought him nearer to the flames and suddenly he was swallowed up in a roaring inferno that swept across the desert for two hundred feet in both directions, blotting most of the ruins from view.
"That was the last thing—" Illya began, but stopped when he saw the look in Solo's eyes.
"Come on," Solo said, in a voice that was oddly toneless. "We've got to keep moving. Lhasa will have to be taken into custody eventually, but that's not important now. With her fear of THRUSH she'll stay where she is—an isolated survivor with all hope of escape blocked. U.N.C.L.E will have no problem there, if we are lucky enough to succeed in destroying Lee Cheng's electronic giant."
THIRTEEN
THE DESERT TARGET
THE HELICOPTER CAME sweeping down toward them over the desert, descending quite low before it began its hovering vertical descent.
Five minutes later they were in the cockpit, watching the wide waste of sand two hundred feet below vanish in the wake of the plane.
The pilots were both youngsters in their early twenties. But they were good at their job. It was evidenced not only by the assured way they handled the controls, but by the skill and precision of their landing and takeoff and the look of alert appraisal in their eyes as they gazed out across the miles of desert that separated the crumbling ruin from a target marked now for total destruction.
Quick and total destruction— nothing else would do. An immobilized giant of metal and glass with the lightning at its fingertips could, at any moment, be aroused from its mechanical slumber.
In London, Paris, Tokyo more than one THRUSH finger might be capable of reactivating by remote control the complex stimulus-response circuits which had enabled the gigantic mechanism to both eavesdrop and bring a plane down in flames. If the giant could be saved from destruction there was nothing to prevent THRUSH from mastering all of those complexities eliminating every flaw in its functioning.
There was a strained uneasiness in Solo's voice when he spoke to the tight-lipped young pilot. "A few miles at the most now," he said. "Keep a sharp lookout for a sudden rise in the sand. We could be over it so fast we'd just catch the glint of sunlight on metal."
"We can always circle around and go back," the pilot said. "But I doubt if we'll miss it."
The grim possibility that it might be the 'copter which would be missing before its target swept into view flashed across Solo's mind. But he dismissed it.
That all four men shared the mounting tension became apparent when the pilot sitting next to Illya Kuryakin said something that was totally irrelevant.
"The Sahara can't hold a candle to the Gobi as a trouble spot this time of year. The sandstorms are blinding and can rip you apart or bury you easily in less than ten minutes."
"I should think giant-size deserts would be about the same in that respect," Solo said, to keep his own tension from rising. "But the Gobi is special in other ways, as it didn't take us long to discover."
"Anything that THRUSH takes an interest in is likely to be special," the pilot next to Solo said.
It was then that they saw it. It lay sprawled out in a hundred foot hollow in the sand, glittering and immense and startlingly manlike, with a great bulbous head encased in a web of metal beneath which colored lights were blinking on and off. Its arms were segmented, its legs cylindrical.
Solo could see at a glance why in his first glimpse of it its resemblance to a Chinese fire demon had been so pronounced. To an unbelievably complex assemblage of scientific mechanisms Lee Cheng had attached ornamental embellishments which were unmistakably far Eastern in motif, perhaps because his ancestral heritage had made it impossible for him to resist an unconscious impulse to mock all Western science while making use of it to achieve his purpose. Or perhaps—and that seemed more likely—he had made the gigantic Frankenstein monster of technology resemble a fire demon to awe any Gobi native who chanced to encounter it.
For an instant, as the 'copter swept over the hollow, there was no movement visible below except the lights blinking on and off. That was startling and unexpected enough, however, and it caused the four men in the cockpit to exchange apprehensive glances.
Their alarm increased when the 'copter circled about and recrossed the hollow at a lower altitude, for by then the giant had begun to stir and raise itself from the sand.
Solo's voice rang out sharply. "The bombs! Circle back once more and drop all-three of them the instant you're over the hollow. Don't try for a hovering position. There isn't time."
The two pilots leaned sharply forward and jerked at the controls. The whirlybird circled about, more widely this time and sank lower, returning toward the hollow with in creasing speed.
It was almost at the hollow's rim when the jolt came, throwing both pilots violently forward and causing the 'copter to sway and vibrate. Illya Kuryakin was hurled to his knees, but Napoleon Solo managed to remain in his seat despite the swaying, by bending instantly backwards and tightening his grip on the metal arms of the chair.
Instantly he realized that he must do more. Lowering himself quickly he succeeded from a kneeling position in getting at the bomb release. The 'copter continued on across the hollow and was directly over the rising giant when three small black eggs dropped from its belly.
It was fifty feet beyond the hollow when the explosions came, in one continuous, deafening roar that lasted for a full minute.
When the din subsided the 'copter was two hundred feet beyond the hollow, much higher in the air and no longer swaying.
Kuryakin had climbed back into his seat, looking a little shaken, and the two pilots were once more in full control.
It was Solo who was the first to speak. "It should take a few minutes for the smoke to clear. We may as well go a little higher before we circle back."
When the 'copter finally returned to go into a hovering position directly above the hollow, they discovered the shattering damage which had taken place.
Hardly anything was left of Lee Cheng's electronic, eavesdropping giant. A few scattered fragments of metal, a splintered breastplate from which all the antenna had been ripped—it was just a hollow shell—and some smoke-blackened tangles of wire were strewn across the hollow at uneven intervals. Almost all of the glass had disappeared. Here and there were a few crystalline lumps that glittered in the harsh, downstreaming sunlight.
Napoleon Solo grunted. "If THRUSH can make anything out of that they're welcome to it. It's a relief to know that we can now talk our heads off without the slightest danger of being over heard. The Gobi may be a trouble spot this time of year. But New York is at its best now—crisp autumn weather, banners unfurled, Fifth Avenue bright with clicking heels."
"Or blondes, brunettes and red heads," Illya Kuryakin said. "Mr. Waverly is going to be very happy, Napoleon, and that's not entirely incidental. Or is it?"
"I guess not entirely," Solo said.
Ten minutes later the whirlybird was winging its way south.