They stopped some yards away, and there were several seconds of silence. At last a voice said in English, "Come out, Mr. Solo, wherever you are."
Napoleon's stomach froze as he looked quickly around for an escape route. He eased his weight onto his other foot and started to move along the wall with infinite caution.
The voice spoke again. "Mr. Solo, your friends have been taken, but not harmed. We have neither need nor desire to harm any of you. I would much prefer that you come out peacefully, because otherwise I shall have to come in after you and I have no wish to be shot at."
Napoleon thought this was reasonable, and leveled his automatic at the entrance.
After a short wait, the voice continued, with a note of regret, "You're being coy, Mr. Solo. We could leave you in there until hunger brought you out, but we have a schedule to keep. Perhaps this will change your mind. Miss Eclary..."
There was a stifled scream which brought Napoleon a step towards the entrance before he stopped himself.
"I do regret the need for melodramatic methods, Mr. Solo. Please understand you can cause us no more than a temporary inconvenience, and under the circumstances we can afford to be most forgiving. Our work here is nearly done, and when we are through we will be far beyond your reach. You will merely be held prisoners for a few days and then released."
Napoleon strained his eyes against the darkness, but the light from the next cave revealed nothing more than stacks of something around the walls near the conveyor belt. He looked around his own position, and started nervously when he saw what looked like a human body. After a moment he realized it was something made out of metal. Were they constructing robots?
Then the voice came back again, and this time it seemed closer to the mouth of the cavern. It held a distinct note of patient regret. "All right, Mr. Solo—as you wish. We will come in and bring you out."
Napoleon was peering through the gloom at the glow of light from the other room, watching for the first sign of a silhouetted target, when there was a soft chuff from around the corner. And then there was a burst of incredible blinding actinic light which seared into his eyeballs even as he threw up his arm to protect his face.
In total blindness, he heard running footsteps and felt his gun wrested away from him before he could move. Then there were two strong arms on either side of him, pinioning his arms and hustling him along. As his sun-blaze-flecked vision began to clear, he heard the same voice again, beside him.
"Sorry; I suppose that was unsporting. But as I said, I don't like being shot at. And this way you were in no danger either."
Behind the purple ball that still floated in his sight, Napoleon could make out a man standing a few feet from him. The man was tall, thin-faced and cheerful. He had a familiar look about him which Napoleon couldn't quite place. Then his mind supplied a funereal pallor, a black cloak, fangs and a fiendish expression....
"Count Stobolzny!"
The man shrugged. "On occasion. I am modestly pleased that you found my performance convincing."
Napoleon scowled and looked around. Zoltan and Hilda were there, each held firmly by uniformed guards in the gray uniforms he had expected—but Illya was not in sight. Had he gotten away after all? If he had, he might be listening.
Zoltan had apparently given up struggling, but his face still showed anger. "You have masqueraded as my ancestor," he spat, "and brought disgrace on my family name. You are nothing more than a common criminal."
The target of this abuse arched one eyebrow. "On the contrary, my dear Count," he said. "I am quite a bit more than a common criminal—in fact, if I may say so, I am rather an uncommon one." He shifted his gaze to Napoleon. "Can it be possible that you have not told them who we are? You must have suspected."
Napoleon thought back. "No," he said finally. "I don't believe I did. Tell them, that is. If I hadn't been certain it was you, I wouldn't have come."
"You really should have given us more warning," said the false Count with mild reproof. "If we had known you were coming, we'd have wired a bomb."
Napoleon turned, as well as the firm grip of his guards allowed, and nodded at his friends as he introduced them. "Hilda Eclary, U.N.C.L.E. Technician from the Bucharest office. Zoltan Dracula-Stobolzny, the real Count of that title, whose ancestor you have been doing impressions of. And this is our host," he concluded, addressing the other two, "who also does a less successful imitation of a gentleman, as you see. Do you also do Jimmy Cagney?"
Their host permitted himself a slight smile. "I adopted the role of the Voivode Tsepesh because of an accidental physical resemblance and a well-developed sense of humor. My real name is unimportant—you may call me Peter."
"This," said Napoleon to his two fellow prisoners, "is Peter Unimportant, who in real life is apparently something fairly important in an organization known as Thrush."
"Thrush?" Hilda's face paled, but Zoltan looked puzzled.
"An international criminal conspiracy," said Napoleon by way of explanation.
"My, Mr. Solo, you are melodramatic," said Peter. "We prefer to think of ourselves as a highly independent organization of consulting technicians."
"Well, could you tell us exactly what you're consulting about right now? I seem to remember it's accepted practice to explain everything to the prisoners before you kill them."
Peter shook his head sadly. "Really, Mr. Solo. I said before that we don't need to kill you—you will simply be held prisoners and released when our work here is through. And we need have no secrets from our guests." He smiled. "Besides, releasing you afterwards will be so much more humiliating."
He raised an arm and touched a large switch-box. Immediately the next cave came ablaze with light.
"Here, my friends, you see the remains of a once-proud treasure trove which would have dazzled your eyes and staggered your imagination." He waved his arm, and they looked.
Now Napoleon could see what had been stacked around the walls of the cave. There were heaps of gold—literally heaps, almost as high as a man and twenty feet across at the base. The gold was formed into ornaments, some jewel-studded, some plain. Religious forms seemed to predominate; statues and crucifixes were most common. One life-sized figure of Christ seemed cast in solid gold.
When he was able to tear his eyes away from the sight, he looked around. There were more statues along the walls, some only of painted wood, some of stone. There were great gem-encrusted books a man would stagger under the weight of, and suits of ancient armor, one of which Napoleon had mistaken for a person in the darkness. There were no suits of full armor—only breast-plates, intricately inlaid and chased, some leg-pieces, shields, short-swords. None of the horde seemed to date from a time more recent than the late Roman period.
At last he looked back at Peter, who nodded. "Impressive, isn't it? When Attila the Hun sacked Europe in the tenth century, his base of operations was here in Rumania. He stripped the churches and palaces of more than half the continent, and carried his loot into what was then considered the far east. Twelve years ago some ancient manuscripts came to the attention of our research department in Paris—manuscripts which referred to Attila's Golden Horde in terms which implied it was his treasure store rather than his army which was referred to.