Partners

By

Patricia J. Foley

“...To have and to hold from this day forward, for better, for worse, for richer, for poorer, in sickness and in health, to love and to cherish, till death do us part”

The Book of Common Prayer

“...Men of few words are the best men...” William Shakespeare

U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, NYC, 1970

“The mid-day mail and dispatches,” Heather announced, setting a respectable pile of paperwork on his desk.

Solo scowled at them, reaching for the ‘CONFIDENTIAL/URGENT” stack first. “Could you order me some lunch, Heather? Something light. Oh, and see if Illya is in the building and free.”

“He’ll just tell me ‘No man is free who must work for a living,” Heather replied dryly.

“Especially since he works for me,” Solo replied. “Ask him anyway.”

“Yes, Mr. Solo,” Heather said primly, leaving Solo smiling as he slit open the seals on the first packet. Ever since he had taken over for Waverly, Heather’s approach to him had been as decorous as if they had never dated. Not that he didn’t agree or approve. The only other option would have been a transfer, something neither had wanted. For his part, he genuinely liked Heather, and no one knew the old man’s filing system so well. On her part, she preferred being at the nexus of power and was as aware as himself of the impropriety of continuing their on-again, off-again relationship now. The result was a mutual agreement to move on. Heather was now happily dating a recent transfer to Section Two, a rising star in Enforcement, and they had both relegated their past history to the past. So everything had worked out well.

He’d always been lucky that most things worked out for him. He was also pragmatic enough not to overly dwell on past failures, and shrewd enough not to take future successes for granted. As a life’s philosophy, it worked for him. As the current Continental Chief for U.N.C.L.E. North America, it was the only sensible approach to a crushing load of responsibility, and he not even forty yet. Though that milestone was fast approaching. And judging by the rigors of his job, he wondered if he would be as fit handling it at eighty as the old man had been. At times, it made fieldwork look like a child’s game.

He sighed went through the documents, most of them from his fellow Continental Chiefs and not the least bit urgent or confidential. He stopped, frowning slightly, at one document from London HQ, confirming their approval and acceptance of the transfer of one Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin from Section One Security, North American HQ, New York Office to Section Two, Number Two, Western Europe HQ, London Office, subsequent to Solo’s authorization. He set that one aside, resolving to deal with that when Illya arrived. At the bottom of the pile was a envelope in rich cream linen paper that looked vaguely familiar. When he turned it over, he noticed a hammer and sickle burned into the red wax sealing the envelope. He slit it curiously. It only took a second to read the contents. He sat there, frowning, the opener in his hand like a dagger and said, “Damn,” very softly. The word echoed in the empty room, vibrating softly in the hum of electronic equipment and computer consoles. But suddenly the room was emptier than it had been only a moment ago.

Or was it half a lifetime ago. Or many lifetimes ago?

How many times had Illya pulled him out of danger and vice versa? Certainly far more than either of them had bothered counting. Each time they had cheated death; till sometimes Solo felt himself almost dangerously immortal. A sensation that didn’t last much longer than the next bitter crisis. Still, he’d managed a lifetime of critical saves in a career that depended upon such teamwork.

He hadn’t been willing to give that up for Illya’s misjudged sense of what was proper exile for extraneous partners, regardless of his ex-partner’s feelers to London. But the Soviet Union might be a bit harder to budge than it’s sole representative to North American HQ. And while Solo had been able to so far block or at least delay Kuryakin’s London move, sidestepping the Soviets might not be so easy.

He punched the intercom to Heather.

“Yes, sir?”

“Did you get in touch with Illya yet?” he queried.

“Mr. Kuryakin said he would be up as soon as he finished some arrangements with the fifth exit sir,” Heather replied. “You did say it wasn’t urgent.”

“Call him back and put him off,” Solo said. “Tell him something has come up. And bring me his file.”

“His complete file?” Heather said, not sounding at all surprised.

“That’s right. Including the charter documents Waverly signed to get him in here.”

“Right away.”

Solo stared at the blood red of the hammer and sickle, now broken along the lines of the envelope, blurred and cracked. Heather had known what he would want. She’d seen the envelope before she’d brought it in, had left it last in the pile, knowing his reaction. His musings were confirmed when Heather delivered the file, a full two minutes faster than she could have if his request had caught her off guard and she’d had to dig it out of the archive. She deposited it on his desk and left without comment. It stared up at him, across from the open envelope with its broken hammer and sickle seal. An ordinary manilla folder, with a name typed on the tab in courier script.

KURYAKIN, Illya N.

He’d never bothered to ask for it, not even when he subbed for Waverly and had the clearance for it. And when he’d taken over for the old man, he’d had a lot more on his mind. But now he reached for the folder, and opened it, spilling out ten years and more of history. Illya’s own and his intertwined. The dog-eared file displayed a mute contrast to the stern parchment document and stark black type:

It has come to our attention that the agent on temporary loan to the United Network Command has been transferred from the field. As this negates the contract which our agency has with the U.N.C.L.E., we are exercising our option to reclassify the status of said agent, pursuant to Clause 4B of Section 12.

Captain Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin is hereby recalled to active duty in Moscow by order of the First Directorate, and ordered to report for reassessment and reassignment at 14:00 hours, January 12, Staraye Square. An acknowledgment of these orders is required.

Yorkshire England, 1959

Illya Kuryakin finished his climb up the steep hillside in the high Pennines and dropped down to the turf, setting his back against a rock wall, displacing a number of small songbirds hunting for ants in the stone chinks. An lazy early morning wind cut around and through him, ruffling his hair and nipping his ears. He closed his eyes and ducked his head against it, turning up his collar, grateful he was still warm from the climb. Though only late summer, in the early morning the air was beginning to be nippy in these lonely stretches of high hills, a reminder that autumn and winter were not long off. Below, stretched out before him like a scene from an old English tapestry, rolled the sheep-nibbled turf, hummocks of heather and gorse bushes, a flock of heavily fleeced ewes and their well-grown lambs, the silver ripples of brooks and rills, and, snuggled against the side of a hill, his real purpose for being here, a Thrush lab.

He’d been watching it off and on for weeks, under the guise of a local farm-hand. He knew next to nothing about sheep, and thought little of creatures too stupid to take shelter at night without the prodding of the dogs. He cared even less for the sheep dogs that really guarded the flock, and they returned the suspicion. He hadn’t been bitten; the dogs were too well trained for that. But they weren’t above the occasional snarl if he got too close. That was fine with him; he was more than willing to keep his distance, content to affect the manner of a lackadaisical shepherd, going out every day behind the sheep dogs with a packet of sandwiches on coarse, home-made bread, and spending the day ostensibly watching the sheep and actually recording the coming and goings in the lab.

The wind nipped him again, and his shoulders flattened against the wall, rubbing its lichen-scarred surface. When the sun crested the surrounding hills later in the morning, this spot would be drenched with a clear, translucent light, and by noon he might find the basking rays too warm for comfort. But now it was a cold, damp, desolate spot. He reached for the thermos of hot tea he’d brought with him, and the packet of honey-laden bread he made for his breakfast. He’d just undone the thick oilcloth when he heard the familiar twitter of his communicator.

He glanced around the wind-swept hillside reflexively, then huddled further back against the wall and took out his cigarette case/transceiver. It was an incongruous device for a simple shepherd to have, not that anyone was close enough to see or care. Still he hunched into the wall and kept his voice muffled as he answered, “Kuryakin here.”

“Illya.”

Kuryakin sat up a little straighter at the sound of his superior’s voice. “Mr. Ireson. I wasn’t due to report in for another —” he checked his watch, “six hours, sir.”

“You’re going to have to cut short your assignment.” Ireson was an easy-going man with a broad North Country accent, a huge pipe, an affection for bitter, and a less standoffish manner than most area chiefs had for their field agents. Kuryakin knew he had to be exceptionally tolerant to have put up with the unexpected addition of a Soviet agent dumped into his division during the hot-potato shuffle that had so-far characterized Kuryakin’s U.N.C.L.E. career. Kuryakin liked Ireson, so far as he allowed himself to like anyone, and had condescended to take a pint or two of stout with him in the local pub when he met his chief for weekly reports. Ireson had actually apologized to him for the unprepossessing assignment, promising him something more exciting in the future. Kuryakin hadn’t commented, well aware from experience that the newest agent to any office got the worst jobs, and actually not too discontented with his lot. He was not ill-suited for solitude. By the time this job was over, he expected he would have picked up the local accent well enough to mesh more credibly with area operations. His proper Oxford British was acceptable in London, but it limited him severely here. The chief had agreed, and had amusedly coached him a bit in the broad Yorkshire that was the local exchange. But now Ireson’s strong, gruff voice was unusually tense, with no trace of camaraderie, either affected or real. “Something’s come up.”

Looking out over the peaceful countryside, Kuryakin happened to catch the eye of one of the border collies. It raised one lip over a gleaming set of incisors, lowered its head and growled low in its throat, perhaps reacting to his own subtle changes in body language. He shook his head slightly and deliberately relaxed, reminded of his cover as an indolent shepherd. “Yes, sir. Where do you want me to go?”

“One of the Pros from Dover is down,” Ireson said shortly.

Kuryakin’s breath caught in his throat. A golf madness affected many of his colleagues stationed this close to the sport’s birthplace. He never found any point to the game. Still, he did understand the current reference. Pros from Dover was the local office’s quasi-affectionate reference to the crack enforcement team flown in by Alexander Waverly as a whip against the regional Thrush satrap. Kuryakin was too lowly an operative to know the specifics, but he knew his own surveillance monitored part of the satrap’s outlying operations, and was passed onto New York’s enforcement group. Now it looked as if something in that operation had gone horribly wrong. Kuryakin noted that Ireson hadn’t said injured or hurt, but down. When an agent was down, it was a euphemism for a bad, generally fatal injury.

Kuryakin didn’t ask any details. It wasn’t his nature, and if he’d needed to know them, he’d be told. Pragmatic and practical as always, he cut to the chase. “What is my assignment?”

Ireson told him. Kuryakin noted the specifics while inconspicuously gathering up his few things. Within moments after Kuryakin signed off, the wind cut along the hills again, stirring the sun-warmed fleece on the sheep and ruffling the heather, but when it reached the intersection of turf and stone that formed the wall, it flowed, unobstructed, over it and the down the steep hillside toward the rills. Kuryakin was gone.

New York, 1969

Solo narrowed his eyes at the sight of the highway sign up ahead. 90 more miles to New York. Another hour and a half, he calculated automatically. Two hours if they ran into traffic, though that wasn’t likely so late at night. He looked across at Illya, behind the wheel as usual, giving him the same speculative glance he’d give a potentially serviceable weapon. But though a bit worse for wear, his partner seemed functional enough.

If you’re getting tired, I’ll take over for awhile,” Solo offered perfunctorily.

Kuryakin glanced at him, torn from whatever reverie he’d been lost in, then shrugged. “This keeps me awake.”

Solo found the knobs for the radio, and twisted the tuner till he found a station not too jarring to be raucous — his own head was aching too much for that — but not so soothing as to be sopophoric.

Kuryakin nodded approval, and they drove on silently for a while, the tires eating up the black ribbon of the road, the tinny sound of the rental car’s cheap AM radio a counterpoint to the steady drone of the engine. Solo leaned back in his seat, trying to stretch his legs as much as possible in the cramped space and looked out at the night sky. A thunderstorm was brewing; stars appeared and disappeared through the clouds and swatches of heat lightening crossed the sky. After a time, the radio signal faded and then broke up into static. Solo fiddled with the dial again, but the station was lost, leaving then a choice between a few jarring rock and roll stations or an evangelist interspersing messages of doom with requests for money. Either caused Solo’s headache to spiral.

“Don’t bother, Napoleon. It’s three in the morning,” Kuryakin noted, stretching as best he could from behind the wheel. “You’re not going to find much.”

“AM radio and rock and roll,” Solo shrugged and turned the radio off. “Sure you don’t want me to drive?”

“I’d rather not stop and switch,” Kuryakin said. “We’ll be there soon enough.” Thunder rumbled again and then crashed. Rain began to fall against the windshield, the first drops just creating enough liquid to smear the glass to an quasi-opaque shield. Kuryakin sprayed the windshield with fluid to clean it. Then the rain came on in earnest, and Kuryakin switched the wipers on high.

“We’ve only another hour or so.” The Soviet agent shifted again restlessly and resettled his shoulder holster. “Talk for a bit.”

Solo cast about in his mind for a subject. “What about?”

Kuryakin paused for a moment, then said diffidently, “How do you think the old man is doing?”

Solo shifted, trying to see his partner’s face in the darkened car. “That’s a strange question.”

“Not so strange. He didn’t look all that well before he saw us off on this one.”

Solo fumbled in his suit pocket for the cigarette case he still carried, and lit one, using the time to ponder Kuryakin’s question. By the glow of his lighter, Kuryakin’s expression was characteristically grim, but that meant little. The nicotine kicked in with the smoke he inhaled, sharpening his mind and chasing the cobwebs away. He wondered, not so much at the question, but at Kuryakin’s reason for bringing it up.

‘He’s due for a vacation,” Solo rationalized finally. “He’ll be better when he comes back from it.” He opened the window a crack to let the smoke out, then pulled back as rain slashed him across the face. He was now wide awake.

“He’s well due for retirement,” Illya said gently.

Solo ground out his cigarette, suddenly irritated by the harsh smoke. “That’s not my call.”

“I wondered if you were thinking about it,” Kuryakin prodded.

“As little as possible,” Solo assured him.

Kuryakin made a rude noise. “I know that’s not true. With all your faults, you’ve never been deliberately unprepared for anything. And you must see the danger.”

Solo turned. “Danger?”

The Soviet agent frowned at him across the darkened car. “With Waverly failing, taking out his successor would be a double blow to U.N.C.L.E. You’ll need to be extra careful now.”

“They’ve been trying to take me out for years,” Solo pointed out. “Without success.”

“Never-the-less.” Kuryakin frowned inexorably at the road ahead. “When you take over for Waverly during his leave, we’re going to guard you very well.”

Solo considered the meaning behind his partner’s words, the increased security, the lack of privacy and freedom, the constant hours, and shifted uncomfortably. Knowing he’d been tapped to be Waverly’s successor was at times a heady thought. There was a minus side to it as well that he preferred not to dwell on, but Illya, with his pragmatic nature, would naturally consider first. “This is too gloomy a conversation to have post-mission,” he commented, effectively closing the subject.

“When should we have it?” Kuryakin countered. “Obviously, not during a mission. Directly before a mission, there are more immediate concerns. In the interstices, you’re too busy chasing skirts.”

Whose fault is that? Solo wondered, then immediately buried that thought. “Skirt-chasing” as Illya so rudely called it, actually had begun to have less of an appeal for him. A bit surprising considering he was approaching his fortieth birthday, a time when even dedicated family men were supposed to resurrect the habit. But then, since he’d never dropped the habit, he supposed that approaching middle age wasn’t an excuse.

In quantity, he supposed, he’d hardly slacked off at all, but personally, the thrill of the chase had paled from him a little. Women seemed to still fall into his lap, perhaps because of his reputation. But he sought them less, his practiced charms were more ingrained habit than conscious effort, and as the chase grew less interesting, he occasionally yearned toward the idea of coming home to a familiar face and spending a quiet evening. But only briefly. As an agent, he still couldn’t seek any long term relationship with a woman. As Waverly’s successor, any wife he chose he’d put at significant risk. He found it rather irritating that his colleagues and even his superior commented derogatorily on his habits when his profession really only gave him a choice between playing the field or abstinence. He couldn’t imagine spending every night at home alone. But a glance at Illya reminded him that his partner managed abstinence rather well. Unlike his other detractors, Illya might be censorious, but at least he wasn’t a hypocrite. Solo struggled past his annoyance to concentrate on the actual subject.

“All right. Waverly doesn’t leave for two weeks. We’ll find time before then.”

“Morton will be here on Monday. We should be ready before then.”

Solo scowled at that. “I still don’t see the point in bringing Morton back from London.”

Kuryakin shrugged. “Section One didn’t take the problem with his fiancee very much to heart. We’re all vulnerable to such things. And once burned, twice shy, as they say. He won’t be making that mistake again.” The Soviet agent shifted his shoulders again.

“Is your shoulder bothering you again? Sure you don’t want me to take over?”

“I’m fine. Just give me one of those lemon drop things medical handed out.”

Solo rooted around in his pockets, found what his partner wanted and handed one over. He almost unfurled one for himself, then grimaced at the thought of the inevitable aftertaste and shoved it back in his pocket. The latest invention of the labs, the combination of C and B vitamins in a sugar base was supposed to give a field agent a boost of energy on a mission, or temporarily assuage thirst. Solo had found them a limited success. The strong citrus flavors didn’t entirely mask their essential ingredients, at least for him, and the vitamin had a tendency to turn his stomach. But they were light to carry and occasionally useful.

He shoved the wrapper in his pocket and continued. “I can see why they brought him back from Antarctica to London. He’d done his penance. But I don’t see the need for him in New York.”

Illya laughed softly . “For someone who is so canny, you can be blind, Napoleon.”

Solo scowled. “All right. I’ll take the bait. What am I being blind about?”

“It’s obvious — at least to me, anyway — that until the event of your succession occurs, Section One is going to try various candidates as North American CEA,” Kuryakin said seriously. “This is Morton’s shot at it. His little fiasco aside, he did well enough as CEA in the UK area. New York is a reasonable step up.”

“That’s your slot,” Solo said shortly. “And I don’t see what business it is of theirs. Waverly chose his own staff. So will I.”

“Waverly has a bit more power consolidated than you will, just coming into the job,” Kuryakin noted. “Anyway, we don’t know what conditions Waverly might have had to meet, to get the people he wanted in the slots he had for them.” His voice trailed off, brow furrowed as he no doubt considered what Waverly had done to get a Soviet agent in New. York. Then he shrugged philosophically, dismissing that ancient history. “Regardless, this is Morton’s chance.”

“Scuttlebutt around HQ says that he’s just temporary help while Waverly’s out,” Solo pointed out, curious where Kuryakin was getting his information from. “Not that we need foreign imports.”

Kuryakin cocked an eyebrow, willingly taking the bait. “I’ve heard roundabout from London that Masters has been tapped for a possible assumption of the number one slot there, given that Morton works out here. Morton’s been told to get his things in order for a long term move. And HQ here has been told to put him in a permanent residence here, not temp quarters.”

“Masters is already number two in London. That’s no scoop,” Solo pointed out. “As for putting Morton in permanent quarters, he’s a CEA. They wouldn’t be likely to put him in one of those flea-traps we call temporary housing for transient agents. Rank has some privileges, Illya, in spite of how it galls your socialist soul.”

“We socialists have no souls, Napoleon, but that’s hardly the point. You could be right about Morton,” Kuryakin crunched his candy thoughtfully, considering. “He’s good, but he has some strikes against him. It’s a toss up who’ll Section One will choose.”

“It’s your slot,” Solo repeated stubbornly. “You done CEA duties often enough to have proven yourself, and you are number two. They’d have to have a damn good reason to pass you by.”

“Napoleon, I don’t know whether to admire your lack of prejudice, or be appalled by how it’s blinded you,” Kuryakin shook his head indulgently. “I’m Soviet. Section One will never accept me being given New York.”

“We do have a charter,” Solo pointed out.

“And a very pretty document it is,” Kuryakin retorted ironically. “Be practical. It would create too many problems with the local agencies to make a Soviet agent permanent CEA in New York, and I wonder if the Soviet government would be entirely easy with it. Every one in U.N.C.L.E. seems to acknowledge that but you. They’ve tolerated me as Number Two because they couldn’t buck Waverly. And if I do say so myself, I am good,” he added, with mock modesty. “But with Waverly gone,” he continued, turning serious again, “I’ll be lucky to hold onto my current slot.” I’m wondering if I should even both to try, or if it wouldn’t just be better for me to switch HQ’s entirely. London would probably be willing to take me back, particularly with Morton gone. And France is relatively tolerant toward socialists, if not Russian Communists. I do speak fairly decent Japanese, though it would be hard for me to blend in there --”

“Illya,” Napoleon said slowly. “You can’t be serious.”

“I’m always serious.” Kuryakin squinted at him in the dim light. “Could you hand me another one of those candy things?”

“What, did you eat all your own?” Solo pulled his from an inside overcoat pocket and put the package on the dash before them. “You’ve confirmed your cast iron stomach. Just one of these turns mine.”

“You were dining in fancy banquet halls while I was camped out eating Sterno-heated reconstituted meals,” Illya retorted. “By comparison with those, they’re not bad.”

Solo absently picked one up, twirling the furled cellophane wrapper ends between his fingers without opening it. “You’re not going anywhere. Not if I have anything to say about it, and I will. I’d have to sign your transfer papers, remember? And unless you plan to forge my signature, that isn’t going to happen.”

Kuryakin was silent for a long moment, then he said. “It probably would be for the best. If I stay in Section Two, in New York, I’d have to get used to a new CEA. That would be... uncomfortable, both for the new person and myself. There would always be suspicions of favoritism from you, since we were partners for so long --”

Solo turned sharply. “What’s this ‘were’ stuff?”

“Once you move to Section One, it’s history,” Kuryakin pointed out. “And that move is coming soon.” Kuryakin sobered. “For my part, I’m not entirely sure how well I’d deal with being supplanted by another CEA in New York. Or even with the notion of you in Waverly’s chair.”

“Illya!” Solo said, stung this time.

“It’s not what your thinking. I think you’ll handle it fine, but I’m not sure I can treat you with the ...well, with the reverence we’ve had to give Waverly.”

Solo grinned, amused at the picture that created in his mind. “I’ll have to keep you around just to see you try.”

Across from him in the glow of a passing car’s headlights, he could see Kuryakin shaking his head in frustration. “Be serious.”

“Oh, I am.”

Kuryakin shrugged. “See what I mean? I’m afraid we’d fall into our usual banter.”

“So?”

“It would set a bad example for the rest of staff,” Kuryakin argued. “The Continental Chief is supposed to be infallible, omnipotent, immutable--”

“Who said I wasn’t?” Napoleon interrupted, with mock offense.

Kuryakin ignored him. “If I stay around, people will be reminded of when you were just CEA.”

“You won’t be the only agent there who will have known me as CEA,” Solo reminded him. “We’ll deal with it. I don’t expect the same respect Waverly got, anyway.”

Kuryakin’s jaw set stubbornly. “You’d better get it, if I have anything to say about it. That job is hard enough without kibitzing from the staff.”

“My hero,” Solo said, amused. “See, you really can’t even consider a transfer. Who’d defend my honor?”

“You have no honor,” Illya shot back, in the same tone, then sobered. “Really, Napoleon, I do think it’s for the best. I’ve been putting feelers out to London and --”

“I’m beginning to think I should be the last candidate for Waverly’s job.” Solo cut in sourly. “My own partner is making transfer noises to London, and no one tells me?”

“Very quietly.” Kuryakin assured him. “Very carefully --”

“I don’t care if you asked how the weather is there, I want to know about it before you do it!” Solo snapped. His vehemence rebounded in the close car, startling them both.

Illya was silent for a moment while he assimilated that, then he asked quietly, “Don’t you think you’re being a bit presumptive?”

“You’re my partner.”

“I was investigating something which has nothing to do with out partnership. Which in itself has a short future anyway,” he pointed out.

Solo was shaking his head in denial. “Illya, we will always be partners.”

Kuryakin didn’t answer for a moment, pondering that. Then he said. “That means a great deal to me. But surely you see the problem. You’d be assigning me cases. Do you think I’d leave you open to speculation of favoritism if it could be prevented? My transfer would easily solve those issues. And it’s not as if it has to be a permanent leave-taking. We could call it a long term loan — I’d go to London, while Morton comes to New York. After a while, when you’re well established in the chair, I could return.”

“No,” Solo was smiling, but there was a look in his eyes that said otherwise. “Never in a million years will I trade you for Morton, not even with Waverly’s chair thrown in as a sweetener.”

In the darkness of the car, Kuryakin couldn’t see that, he heard only the tone. “Napoleon, will you be serious? This is going to happen. It is happening, with your cooperation or without it. If you didn’t want it to happen, you should have done something years ago, before you became Waverly’s heir apparent. You could have refused the role then, you know. One word to him would have been sufficient. But you didn’t. So since it is your promotion, and will be your HQ, I’d think you’d have your own best interests in mind.”

“Believe me, I do. I’m not signing any transfer papers for you.”

Kuryakin shook his head in frustration, hands clenched on the steering wheel. “Then Waverly will sign them. He agrees --”

“Did he put you up to this?”

“No one ‘put me up’ to anything, Napoleon. We’re just thinking of the future, as you should be.”

“Never mind. I’ll deal with the old bastard and tell him myself that your staying in New York is part of the deal. We’ve been partners for too long to split up now.”

“You don’t need a partner as head of Section One.”

“Your wrong, my friend. I’ll need one more than ever.”

Kuryakin gritted his teeth. “You seem to forget the detail that this is my life. Perhaps I want to go to London or Paris. Perhaps I’m tired of New York.”

“Too bad,” Solo said, with a complete lack of sympathy.

“Perhaps I’m tired of you, dictating too many of the shots the last few years!”

Solo’s eyes narrowed, but he let that one pass. “Maybe I have a prerogative from having deflected more than a few of those shots from snuffing you out permanently.”

“And vice versa, as I recall,” Kuryakin retorted furiously. “The obligation is mutual.”

“If you didn’t like it, you should have said ‘one word’ to Waverly years ago. There were times when he would have welcomed an excuse to break up the partnership,” Solo countered ruthlessly. “Too late now.”

Kuryakin took his eyes off the road to stare a him a moment, then shook his head, “Napoleon --”

“You plotted behind my back with Waverly in this little scheme--” Solo said cooly, beginning to be outraged over this unlikely collaboration.

“I didn’t--” Kuryakin began to deny.

“Willingly or not. Now I’m going to pull my own strings. You see to have forgotten I always win at these games.”

The Soviet agent was glaring fixedly at the road. “Not with Waverly.”

“Especially there.” Solo fixed his partner with a cool look. “Do you think I became the top field agent, or Waverly’s chosen replacement, just by accident? You’ve just discovered for yourself that pure merit alone doesn’t guarantee anything.” He paused for effect then slid the words in as ruthlessly as a knife between the ribs. “Sometimes all it gets you is a shove downstairs and a plane ticket to London. Right, partner?”

Kuryakin drew back from that. However often he watched Solo wield his considerable talents to beguile, influence or otherwise manipulate the actions of others, it was always a sharp shock to have them used against himself, abruptly cast from the role of an amused and cynical co-conspirator or bystander to the one manipulated. His tongue momentarily tied, Solo glanced across at him with the briefest smile of triumph. But reality soon inserted itself . Until Waverly stepped down, he was Number One. Not even Solo could buck that immutable force. Nor should he risk trying, merely to keep hold of a now redundant colleague. After a moment, striving for a matter of fact tone, Illya said “Still --”

“Forget it. Unpack your books, Illya, and put your London Underground map back in storage. You’re staying.”

The Russian’s back went stiff, and his chin jutted out just a bit. Solo was CEA, but in all the years of their partnership, he rarely gave him orders, and certainly never in that tone of voice. “We’ll see.”

“Leave it to Uncle Napoleon,” Solo said wickedly. “I’ll make everything all right.”

Kuryakin didn’t dignify that with a reply.

New York Headquarters, 1970

Heather buzzed him around 3:00. “Mr. Thigpin is here, sir.”

“Send him in, Heather. Transfer field calls to Morton, please and hold all the others, unless it’s something urgent.

“Yes, sir.”

In between taking calls from field agents and dealing with day-to-day Headquarters issues, Solo had read and reread the contract between the GRU and U.N.C.L.E. After the second reading, he’d sent for Daniel Thigpin, U.N.C.L.E.’s chief counsel in New York.

Solo had dealt with him rarely; legal issues didn’t come to him unless they were particularly pressing. One of Thigpin’s virtues was that he ensured that few if any became so.

U.N.C.L.E. was rife with attorneys of every kind. Most of them settled simple cases of property damage. Others handled the onerous tasks of compensation where civilian lives were lost. Some were criminal attorneys who handled cases where local law enforcement agencies mistakenly filed charges against agents after the assault or death of Thrush operatives A very few handled international law. Daniel Thigpin specialized in the latter, and in particular oversaw U.N.C.L.E.’s charter and the agreements between its member nations.

Solo gestured his council to a chair at the round table, pushed the contract between U.N.C.L.E. and the GRU over to Thigpin, the recent letter on top. Raising curious eyebrows, Thigpin settled glasses on his nose and perused the first document, then read the letter slowly. Finishing, he took a glassine paper from a packet in his suitcoat and polished his glasses carefully before settling the glasses back on his nose. He read them a second time, shaking his head slightly as he reached the peremptory demands of the letter. Finishing, he looked up speculatively at Solo. “I take it you are not inclined to come into compliance with the demand?” he inquired.

“You must be joking.”

“Attorneys don’t have much of a sense of humor,” Thigpin regarded him gravely.

“No, of course not.” Solo sat up abruptly. “Do you know what they’d do to Illya if they got ahold of him?”

Thigpin blinked, taken aback. “Not in the slightest. I take it the end result would be unpleasant?”

“To put it mildly.” Solo rose, pacing a little. “I want to know what my options are. Legally that is.” He added as an afterthought.

“Before you decide to take your own?” Thigpin asked, with a shrewd look at Solo, who raised an eyebrow. He came back to his desk and sat back cooly.

“That’s not your concern.” Solo said, a trace of warning in his voice.

“Forgive me, but it is.” Thigpin said, a little painfully, but determined. “I am well aware of the risks field agents take, and the ... ingenuity...” he fumbled for the right word, “it can take to succeed in the field. And in Section One,” he added pointedly. “I served your predecessor as well, sir. Sometimes you don’t have the luxury to seek legal advice, and even then, sometimes you must act in spite of it. But to proceed without even seeking it when there is time,” he added firmly, “is folly, not virtue. If someone in the past had taken better care over this,” he raised the contract in his hand, “your friend might not be in the position he is in now.”

Solo sat back a trifle, cooly reevaluating the man before him. “That took some guts,” he commented. “For a briefcase-wielding paper-pusher, you seem to have some sense.” His voice was mild enough to take the worst of the sting out of his words, and Thigpin smiled painfully.

“And I’ve heard you don’t always settle things with your balls and your bullets.”

Solo laughed softly at that. “All right, Danny. We understand each other so far, I think. Know this, I’m not giving Illya back to the GRU. U.N.C.L.E. owes him more than a long painful interrogation and then a swift execution at the hands of his compatriots.”

Thigpin’s eyes widened slightly and then he shrugged. “I still sometimes am surprised by this business, and then I wonder why I should still be. I don’t understand why Kuryakin should get such a reception, but then, I know enough about foreign governments and agent contracts to realize these a maze of politics and rivalries caught up in each. This,” he held up the contract signed so long ago, “doesn’t give you many options. Basically, as long as Kuryakin stays an active field agent, we’ve kept the terms of the contract. They can still recall him; he’s a military officer under detached service and they can change his orders. But if he’s on a case, we can defer the recall temporarily until the termination of an active case and until we have another Soviet agent in trade. If we transfer him from the field or he leaves the field permanently through disability, the contract expires and they can recall him.” He raised his hands in a gesture of explanation. “Plain and simple, you want to keep him, you have to put him in the field.”

Maybe that was the reason for London, Solo thought. “Did Illya know about this?” he asked.

Thigpin shrugged. “His signature isn’t on it. No reason he should have seen it. He was the exchanged goods, not one of the agreeing parties. I doubt Waverly showed it to him; our old boss was close-handed. He might have told him.” The lawyer’s tone was edged with doubt.

“Hmm.” Solo said agreed skeptically. “Waverly was close-mouthed too, except when there was reason not to be.” He shifted in his seat, taking the contract in his hand. “All right, what happens if I refuse? Just on speculation, you understand. Illya has an U.N.C.L.E. passport. He’s not dependent on them for anything.”

Thigpin was shaking his head. “You can’t do that. For one thing, they’ll raise the issue in the U.N. that U.N.C.L.E. is refusing to honor agent agreements. That would be disastrous for us internationally.”

Solo scowled, his silence conceding that point.

“And second, he has a U.S. passport and green card based on U.N.C.L.E.’s charter with this country. They’ll take their argument to U.S. Immigration and Naturalization, who will revoke Kuryakin’s documents with due speed. You can well believe there are people in this government, highly placed at that, who would loved to see a Soviet national removed from U.N.C.L.E. New York. You may not be aware of this Solo, it’s hardly your purview, just standard operating procedure, but U.S. Immigration and Naturalization does a regular review of all the documents relating to our foreign agents residing in this country. Issues regarding your former partner come up regularly. His documents, up to now, were all in order. But if the Soviet government challenges his position here --” his voice trailed off meaningfully.

“Our friends in the U.S. government will be only too happy to deport Illya.”

“They won’t have a choice,” Thigpin added, in response to Solo’s scowl. “This is a legal issue and the terms of the agreement have to be honored on both sides. Ignoring that puts all our agent contracts in jeopardy. Unless we take other steps.” He looked quizzically at Solo.

“You’re saying the easiest solution is a transfer to Section Two,” Solo conceded. “Fine. I’ll do that. With the notice that he is pulling temporary duty in his current position. Will that do?”

“It will buy negotiating time,” Thigpin conceded. “And muddy the waters. Which always helps. But I imagine if he’s not an active field agent, it will be challenged, so you had better consider a defense. My office will as well, if we are so directed. But over the long run, there is a time limit to even that solution. If you are concerned about Mr. Kuryakin’s long term future --”

“Illya will be 38 in September,” Solo said absently. “He has a good two years and more before he’s permanently barred from fieldwork. But after that, he’ll be ineligible for the field. And according to this, vulnerable.”

“Then I suggest, Mr. Solo, that you consider what actions you plan to take to keep Mr. Kuryakin permanently safe from Soviet hospitality should we managed to keep him until then. Two years can pass quickly. And there will be no grace period then. Once he reaches forty, we will have to discharge him to Soviet custody.”

“Hell of a birthday present.” Solo said.

“Precisely.”

Solo smiled grimly. “In the field, we often just worried minute to minute about staying alive.”

“But not always, Mr. Solo. Or you wouldn’t be where you are now.”

The young Continental Chief nodded grimly. “All right, sort through that verbiage and see if you can come up with any legal loopholes. In the meantime, I’ll arrange with Morton to have Illya transferred to Section Two, on temporary assignment to Section One Security.” He sighed. “I certainly didn’t need this now.”

“Precisely. You must wonder, Mr. Solo, why someone would try and rob you of your Security Chief.” Thigpin asked delicately. “And so precipitously. Of course, you are fortunate that it didn’t happen before Mr. Kuryakin had the bulk of your security arrangements in place. But that delay also leaves some questions.”

“Why now and not before?” Solo echoed aloud.

“And what change in Soviet operations might have brought this about?”

“Good point.” Solo said, and gave the prim attorney a respectful glance. “You’re better at this then I thought you would be.”

“And you are more tractable than I had hoped.”

Solo laughed and stood. “Danny, we might just have a future together. Particularly if you can keep my partner permanently out of his antagonistic Soviet colleagues’ clutches.”

“I will do my best, sir.” Thigpin accepted the hand, and collected his briefcase. “I’ll have your secretary make a copy of this, with your permission.” He took the contract with him from the room. Solo sighed and punched the intercom to call Morton to his office. This was one interview he wasn’t relishing.

Yorkshire, England, 1959

Napoleon Solo, Chief Enforcement Agent for the North American branch of the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, had fallen into a confined and repetitive pattern that belied his lofty title and far-flung travels. His universe had shrunken to a tiny room, and a limited set of options. When he could sit no longer, he paced the narrow confines of the hospital waiting area. When he became dizzy from the restless pacing, he stared sightlessly out the window. The window faced the main road of a mid-size English market town. An ordinary, prosaic little burg that had rarely been guested with the exotic or the foreign. Local traffic flowed continuously past the window, car horns tooting in spite of the QUIET — HOSPITAL ZONE signs posted on the roadside verges. But he saw none of it, nor did he pay more than minimal attention to the traffic inside the hospital, scanning each fellow waiting room occupant briefly, almost automatically, searching for concealed weapons or a certain look that said Thrush Agent. But his transient waiting room companions all had the same abstracted look as himself, caught in the limbo between hope and despair, helplessly waiting for the verdict on what it was to be. There were two others beside himself: a woman whose husband had a foot injured in some farming implement, and the father of a boy who’d been injured in a accident with his scooter. Gradually even they disappeared, and he was left alone, the only person caught waiting for the fates to make their celestial decision. Solo was ambivalent about the outcome. Lady Luck had been kind to him in the past, but she had a reputation for being fickle as well.

He smoked until he ran out of cigarettes. When he emptied the pack, he crumpled it in a pocket and did without, oblivious to the vending machines that lined the walls of the tiny waiting room. He’d sit until the nagging adrenalin surge urging him to do something, do something, do something forced him into motion. Then he paced, stared, sat when exhausted, and paced again, a mindless routine that occupied his body while his mind revolved on a similarly circular track.

The last few minutes of the mission revolved in his mind in counterpoint to his own restless motion. The job had been routine, mundane almost, at least for U.N.C.L.E.’s new up and coming Chief Enforcement Agent. Infiltrate a Thrush installation, steal some information, get clear. Ever cautious, they’d reviewed the layouts, rehearsed the plan. Solo had felt as confident as anyone could get. He damned that confidence now, but even in hindsight, what had happened was pure accident.

They’d timed the mission precisely, for the lull between two shifts. The place was a lock down, ultra-secure lab. No one was supposed to be roaming around without clearance, and there was a monitoring system to make sure of that. Part of the mission had been to disable that monitoring system, to allow them to do their job. With that done, they should have been virtually undetectable.

That part had worked well. Thrush hadn’t even noticed the system was already down when they shut it down themselves to bring through the corridors the co-worker suddenly stricken with some serious illness. There had been guards escorting the gurney with the stretcher, of course.

They’d darted the first group, but not before a general alarm had been sounded. After that it had been a game of tag, with the U.N.C.L.E. agents as the target.

Still, they’d had a good head start, and their gear was ready. They’d almost finished repelling down the steep cliff that protected the seaward side of the lab, when his partner had been shot. Solo knew they’d been under fire, though the high pitched whine hadn’t had much chance to intrude on the necessary concentration he had to give his descent. One slip and a man could fall to a death as certain as that from a bullet.

Even now Solo’s mind replayed the sickening sight of his partner’s body falling before him, to land on the sea-foamed rocks below, their gray-green hues staining a rusty brown.

He’d more slid than rappel led down the last 50 yards, moving faster and more erratically than his pursuers’ aim expected. But his mind had been less on escape than on the thought that he was a lucky man, a lucky CEA, a man who’d never lost an U.N.C.L.E. agent during his tenure. He knew that record couldn’t last, but it was inconceivable that it should be broken by his own partner. The man had to have survived rifle and rocks. Solo needed to be there to save him from drowning.

But by the time he’d slid down, a team from the waiting speedboat, their pickup, had already retrieved his fallen comrade, and Solo had to do little more than hustle himself aboard, shielding himself from the spray as the fast craft kicked up a wake in the pursuing Thrush agents’ faces.

Then here. Waverly hadn’t yet complained about the compulsion that kept Solo tied to this run-down waiting room. That in itself was bad. If it were a minor injury, the old man would already have despatched his CEA to New York, convalescing partner be damned. But even Waverly was sensitive to a agent who’s partner had sustained near fatal injuries, and generally abated his near constant demands until the injured half of the team was pronounced stable. Or dead.

No, that couldn’t happen, Solo reminded himself. He was a lucky man, and he’d never lost an agent yet. Surely his luck would hold.

Anyway it had been too long. Hours. If he’d lived this long, survived the trip to the hospital, made it into surgery, he’d make it through. The odds were in favor of it, and he’d beaten worse odds than these.

But he had beaten them. It was his partner who hadn’t beaten them, who was fighting for his life, while Solo paced outside, free of even a scratch. He sank down, burying his head in his hands in pure weariness, then snapped alert at a soft footstep. This corridor leading to the operating room and the shabby room where Solo waited was now supposed to be off limits to all but hospital personnel, and that footfall had come from the wrong direction, not from the O.R., and a surgeon bearing news of his partner, but from the main body of the hospital.

He drew his gun on the man who put his hand on the door, and then lowered it slightly. He didn’t quite recall the name, but he remembered the face of the U.N.C.L.E. agent who paused in the doorway, a foreign agent who’d been stationed in New York briefly before being sent off to Survival School. Solo had thought him still based in Harry Selden’s Berlin HQ. His was the last face he’d expect to see in Gibralter.

“What are you doing here?” Solo asked, not caring if he sounded rude.

The agent was wary, his face as closed as Solo’s. “I was assigned as backup.”

Solo reached into his vest pocket for his cigarette case/transceiver, and soon verified the story was true.

“Obviously you are hardly at your best, Mr. Solo,” Waverly said. “I asked our U.K. office to detail someone to cover you and Mr. Wilkins.. Thrush may not know you’ve handed over the plans, and they may not care, if they’re out for revenge.”

What could he say to that? He hadn’t exactly done a smashing job as backup for his partner. Closing the cigarette case without comment, he did his best to ignore the man who seemed to take his silence as tacit acceptance of the assignment. The agent wove silently around Solo, their movements an odd point and counter point.

Kuryakin, for Solo recalled that was his name, took his guard duties seriously, pacing the corridor outside, surveying the view from the window when Solo gave way to it, always somewhere Solo wasn’t and always silent.

Solo took the agent’s presence as a giving him enough of a leave to buy a pack of cigarettes from the vending machine. He smoked one after another as the hours passed. He paced and smoked and looked out the window and paced again, not seeing the other agent in the room, not seeing the room, seeing only the replay in his mind of his partner’s body slipping from the ropes, falling to the sea, rocking on the waves.

He would see it in nightmares for years to come.

New York, 1969

Post-mission, he and Illya sitting in a Chinese restaurant. They’d indulged themselves with half-a-dozen dishes, and were “filling up the corners” as Illya put it, along with the last of what had been several pots of tea.

“You forgot your fortune cookie,” Solo said, tossing him one of the cellophane wrapped cookies.

Kuryakin good-naturedly obliged, breaking the cookie and unfolding the tiny strip. “You will travel far but leave your heart at home,” he said, and smiled faintly.

“They got the traveling right,” Solo observed. “How could they know you have no heart to leave or take?” he asked reasonably.

“Your turn,” Kuryakin said, pushing one toward him.

“Wealth and power you have attained, but you must work for happiness,” Solo read, and frowned slightly.

“Chinese fortune cookies are like horoscopes,” Kuryakin said, ignoring Solo’s discomfort and pouring himself more tea. “They’re generic enough to have some meaning for everyone.”

“Yeah, right,” Solo said absently, then straightened as his communicator began beeping.

Kuryakin made a face. “Can’t we have time to write up the reports from the last mission before going out again? He complained as Solo untwisted his pen.

“Solo here,” the CEA said, listened, and the color blanched from his face.

Kuryakin paused in sipping his tea. “Napoleon?

“On my way,” Solo said, tossing a twenty on the table in the same motion as he put the pen away. He tugged at Illya’s arm. “Waverly’s down.”

They rushed out of the restaurant, the wake of their passage stirring the fortunes, forgotten on the tabletop.

* * * * *

The funeral was large, if not elaborate, and the security arrangements were a nightmare. They put into place the elaborate system of deception to Thrush to make it seem that Waverly was still alive and running U.N.C.L.E., even as Solo stepped into his place trying not to miss a beat in North American operations. Taking over the reins of power permanently was more complex than substituting on a temporary basis. How many things he had passed over lightly when he had subbed, knowing that Waverly would handle them when he returned. But now Waverly would never return. Solo virtually lived in Waverly’s office while he got everything firmly in hand.

On a more prosaic front, half of Section Two, everyone not absolutely working on a case, was pulled into the security arrangements for Waverly’s funeral, with Kuryakin coordinating the efforts. With Solo’s eyes on North American operations, if not the world, and Kuryakin busy trying to make arrangements to get the remaining Continental Chiefs to New York for the funeral without losing another Continental Chief in the process, their paths seldom crossed.

It wasn’t until the actual funeral, his head bowed over the old man’s grave, that Napoleon had time to consider his grief. He thought of all the years sitting around the round conference table, watching Waverly fuss with his pipe, getting his pride abraded from the old man’s irascible temper, calling him in desperate straits, coming back to him flushed with triumph, bowed with failure, or weary from the efforts of just preserving the status quo. But always coming back, seeing him behind that console wreathed in pungent pipe smoke, sometimes avuncular, sometimes irritable, but always irreplaceable.

And he was that replacement.

It was painful and daunting. His eyes suspiciously moist, he looked by habit to his partner at his side, but Illya hadn’t been there for days. He glanced around, noticing the glare of disapproval from several dignitaries as he raised