by LRH Balzer
Solo said nothing for several moments. "And London?"
"I wasn't there. Perhaps you should ask Illya about that. Or Zadkine or Travkov."
"My partner doesn't seem to be here."
Graham rubbed at his forehead. "Bad wording. Sorry. Check with Zadkine about the London end of it. I led the team that met the U.N.C.L.E. jet as it arrived here from London. I do know that Illya was terrified; he had no idea who had taken him and had been sedated for the air flight. He awoke alone in the plane after it had landed and locked himself in the lavatory. It took awhile to reach him... I remember putting my U.N.C.L.E. ID under the door and he recognized my picture. We were able to get him out of the plane then, but he still was borderline hysterical."
Solo shook his head slowly. "I cannot imagine using the word hysterical with Illya."
"You didn't know him then. Life was a lot different for him."
His dark eyes unreadable, Solo looked up at the head of U.N.C.L.E. Washington. "So where is he, Norm?"
* **
In the darkness, time was blurring.
Illya had planned on talking to Komleva when he woke. He had lain in bed and remembered Napoleon and Mr. Waverly and the others and he had planned on talking to her. But she had come in and the thought wavered and slipped from his mind.
She had led him into the rehearsal hall and had been his eyes while he moved at the barre. Afterwards, she had insisted he eat, shower again, and then she massaged his back and legs to keep them from cramping. It was their usual routine when she coached him before. She had known what was best for him.
He fell asleep, awakening later to find her gone and the covers drawn up around him. It was still dark. Still. He slipped from the bed, his bare feet touching the cold, hardwood floor. He located the door and gently turned the knob, but it was locked.
So was the window. He didn't know what floor he was on, but pressing his ear to the glass, the traffic below sounded faint so he decided against forcing the window open and trying to escape that way. He could easily be ten or more stories high.
Escape? He leaned against the window, feeling the bitter cold beyond it and the vibration of the unknown world on the other side of the pane. He was tired again. The heater clanked and hissed, the room gradually warming up. He shivered and crawled back beneath the warm covers and let himself sleep, promising himself to talk with her in the morning.
Was it night now? It was impossible to tell.
Komleva was there when he woke and guided him to the bathroom. In his room, he ate some food and dressed again for class. There was no sign of anyone else.
She took her time with the barre exercises, demanding he repeat each step of the positions over and over until he could do them smoothly. They stopped to eat, sitting alone in the empty lunchroom several floors below. She read aloud from a book of Russian poems she treasured, powerful words about trees and snow and love and death.
He changed into fresh dance clothes and slippers, stepping out of the others and leaving them on the floor. The thought plucked at his mind that the clothes were never lying there when he returned. Who picked them up?
At his tentative suggestion, Komleva agreed to start the floor exercises with him. They had to be more careful here. Jumps were difficult when he couldn't see where he was. It took time to visualize what he was doing and they started with the first year steps and were at the third level when she insisted they stop.
Once more she had to help him down the hall as his legs could barely hold him once the music stopped. She steadied him as he stepped from the shower, dried him off, and insisted he eat in bed, bringing him a bowl of soup and some bread, feeding him spoonfuls of hot borscht while he chewed listlessly on the pumpernickel bread. He was tired.
He wondered fleetingly who had made the soup.
She seemed worried that they had done too much, that he was pushing himself too hard. Her voice was strained, anxious. When he could eat no more, she had him roll over and carefully massaged his legs and back humming the little folksong until he drifted toward sleep. It occurred to him that he hadn't talked to her.
He woke again and wondered where she was. The heat coming through the pipes clanked, an odd rumbling that was disturbing in its off-tempo beat. He could hear himself breathing, his body jumping, startled, as the heater sounds became louder. He stared at nothing and wondered if he should go look for her. What if she didn't come? How long had it been? Where was she? Where was Irina Yakovlevna? She had always been there when he awoke.
The door opened and he could not tell her why he fell into her arms, shaking.
Chapter Six
Wednesday, December 9
Outside, the temperature was dropping, already well below freezing. Napoleon Solo stood at the window in Waverly's office and stared down at the street, watching the pedestrians bundled in heavy overcoats moving through the crowds, many with parcels as the Christmas season approached. The workday had ended for them and they were scurrying to get home before the promised snowfall.
He glanced up, looking beyond the towering black highrises that had grown up around the block, to the darkening overcast evening sky. Above him, hundreds and thousands of miles overhead, were unseen satellites. So that's what you were after, Heatherly. That was why he was in Siberia. Zadkine said that he had heard two men talking at a party about a group that had approached the KGB wanting to sabotage an American surveillance satellite. Zadkine had further identified Jonathan Heatherly from a photograph as the foreigner he had seen at the same party in Moscow, with a well-known Soviet satellite technician.
"Do not believe him." Alexander Travkov sat perched on the corner of Waverly's desk, his long legs crossed. "He knows where Ilyusha is."
Solo stared at his own reflection in the glass, aware of the tired slump to his body. He straightened his shoulders before turning back slowly. "He said he didn't."
"He is lying."
The U.N.C.L.E. agent sighed, rubbing his forehead. Ever since Sasha Travkov had been contacted and brought to the U.N.C.L.E. headquarters late in the afternoon, the Soviet dancer had maintained Zadkine could not be trusted. Solo moved across to the coffee urn, refilling his cup again. His arm throbbed with the movement and he fished another mild painkiller from his pocket, washing it down with the scalding hot coffee. "His information has proved reliable so far."
They had only had the material for a day, but at this stage in the evaluation, Section Four's Research and Analysis Department also verified the other information as matching data retrieved from a Thrush microdot Solo had stolen in Eastern Europe a week before Zadkine had defected. For the most part, it merely paralleled some of the facts, and although they had hoped it would elaborate on a few points the microdot had been unclear on, it added little to what they actually already knew.
Nevertheless, the ramifications were immediate. Zadkine knew they had been talking about something that was to happen soon; unfortunately, he knew nothing about satellites and had been unable to provide further details. And neither the microdot nor Zadkine was able to say which satellite or how, but Research was leaning toward the theory that it had to do with the computerized security system. They had passed the information on to the National Security Agency, which was investigating from their angle.
In the morning, Solo would contact the Defense Department and arrange for U.N.C.L.E. to monitor their systems. Meanwhile...
"When Zadkine comes back in the morning, we'll question him further about Illya--"
"You released him?" Travkov interrupted.
"Yes. He said he would return tomorrow morning. We have an agent with him."
Travkov gripped the edge of the desk, trying to contain his frustration. "It is Wednesday night and Ilyusha has been gone four days. I should have stayed with you both. Perhaps then he would not have been taken."
Napoleon smiled in spite of himself. "Zadkine said much the same thing. Tell me, Travkov, this may be off subject but were you there in London when Illya defected? I am trying to g
et some information on this."
Travkov nodded. "I was there... You say he defected. For me, it is difficult to say he defected. In my mind still, he was murdered... But in truth, we killed him ourselves. Our own stupidity and selfishness and greed." Travkov ran a hand nervously through his straight blond hair and began to pace the long office.
"Grisha and his father had fought over Ilyusha since he was child. I was there; Grisha and I were friends and I knew little brother, at first, in Kiev, then later in Leningrad. It was no secret; they argued and plotted over his future. The boy bounced between them, trying to please them both, love them both, and live up to their dreams for him. He was a genius. They thought he could do anything. Be anything. So did KGB. So did GRU. And when he was old enough, they took over."
Solo settled in behind Waverly's desk. "And so he left?"
"If you saw look in his eyes when men grabbed him in London, you know he did not go willingly."
Napoleon Solo listened carefully, trying to match this angle with Graham's assertion that U.N.C.L.E. had been the ones to snatch his partner off the street. There may have been a complete record of it in Kuryakin's U.N.C.L.E. dossier, but when Solo had requested Kuryakin's personal file, he found it was restricted to Waverly's eyes only. "Do you remember what happened?"
"It is impossible to forget. Rudi had defected in Paris and when we arrived in London, reporters wanted to talk with us. My English was even worse then; they did not talk to me.
"We were unsure of what to do. The whole thing was very upsetting. I remember being in Grisha and Ilyusha's hotel room. Ilyusha was... depressed. Very. He would not get out of bed. Grisha took newspaper with big headlines from Ilyusha's hand, telling him it was not his fault. He had done what he had to. He had warned KGB that Rudi was unstable and might defect and he had, on his own, told Rudi he had done this. They failed in Paris to stop him. He was already on flight to London--what could he do to stop it?
"Ilyusha would say nothing. His face was in pain, with tears. Frustrated. He would point at ceiling and we knew he meant they were listening. Grisha insisted he get up and eat because we had rehearsal that evening. We were under close surveillance, every move analyzed and reported to authorities. The principal dancer of Kirov Ballet does not defect without ramifications to group. There were scheduling changes and Ilyusha was to dance Puss-in-Boots in Sleeping Beauty, so he had to go with us.
"We were afraid he would be in trouble and we knew he had to dance. We got him up and made him dress but he was clumsy. His brain was not... with us. I remember embracing him before we left their room and I could feel he was afraid but there was more that I did not understand. He had no will left to live. I felt he was dying.
"We had to keep him going. We knew he would be questioned, even though there was nothing he could have done--but as fear in his eyes said, there was never any certainty how they would respond.
"There never was certainty about anything for him.
"So, we told him to go with us to restaurant. If he went along, KGB would not complain, because he was still officially a mamka. We got several others and went."
June 18, 1961
"What's wrong, milochka?" As was their custom, they linked arms with each other walking three abreast, oblivious to the stares of the British passersby. "You are anxious. It is more than just yesterday in Paris? Tell us."
"I am tired." Illya stared at the sidewalk as they walked, not seeing the colors and sights around him. "I am just very tired, Sasha. I have other assignments here. There are… things I must do while we are here in London and..." his voice trailed off, his free hand wiping at his face. Suddenly he transformed, his back straightening, his face smooth of emotion. His voice hardened. "I must do it for them. They must know what they are doing, right?"
Sasha Travkov was afraid to ask, but he did anyway, his deep blue eyes searching the younger man's face. "What do they want you to do? Can it be so bad?"
"It is worse," Illya's voice dropped, "because it is nothing I have not done for them before." They walked in silence and suddenly he continued, speaking rapidly, "Do you know what the GRU say I am to do? I am to go to a certain barber shop, talk with the owner--he is a GRU agent--and I am to get his information. Then I am to kill him because he is no longer needed. I am to search his business and remove any trace that he was a Soviet agent. Then I am to go to his flat and search it. They feel he is of no value any longer. And I am to do this for them. And then I am expected to return in time to dance in the practice tomorrow morning. This was arranged two weeks ago."
They pulled away from him, looking at him in horror, but he kept walking and staring at the sidewalk and they knew he was not lying.
For a moment the facade wavered and he stopped and grabbed his brother's arms. "Grisha, I can never be like you. You are a marvelous dancer. Now that he is gone, you will be one of the stars. I will always be in the background. And they have other plans for me."
"It doesn't have to be that way," Grigory insisted. "Can you refuse... Or tell them you would rather... Is there no choice for you ever? You were charming as Puss-in-Boots. The critics in Paris loved you, milochka. I was proud of you. If you would spend more time with us--"
"They will never let me dance. For them it is only a convenience. A cover occupation. Only when it serves their purpose."
They pulled him along with them, trying to mask his depressed silence from anyone watching by laughing as though he had said something humorous. They followed the other dancers into the restaurant and conversation turned to other things. The group was afraid to talk about the defection, but one could still discuss the upcoming performance in London and the new stage they would work on. They took comfort in the familiar talk and for an hour the banter lifted their spirits.
Zadkine and Travkov watched the young man across the table from them. Only twenty-two years old, but already with the eyes of an old man. He had seen too much for one so young. And he never talked about his assignments for them. Why today?
Unlike a Soviet restaurant where dining was a leisurely event, the meal went quickly. The food was brought promptly, as was the bill, and within an hour they were back on the streets.
Travkov eased Illya from the circle of friends, hoping to resume their conversation. There was a nagging fear in his chest, a restless worry that the young man would break under the strain that showed in his face and in every movement of his body. If he danced with this much tension, he would injure himself. "We are with you, Ilyusha. Relax."
"Don't do anything foolish, little brother," Grigory added as he joined them, his voice registering his own concern.
Illya turned to him again, holding his arm. "Maybe if I talk to father when we return ." He let go, the idea already lost. "But he will not listen. He decided long ago what I was to do."
"Now that you are respectably married, maybe they will let you stay in Leningrad. Sasha tells me his sister told him she is pregnant." Grigory sounded hopeful, reaching for something to cheer his brother.
"Marya told me before I left." The pale face was unreadable.
Grigory stopped him, turning him slightly. "It is not your child?" He glanced over at Travkov, frowning.
"Of course not. You know I do not go to our apartment any longer. I am uncomfortable there. It was a foolish arrangement. She has her lover. I have my work." He turned to Sasha, apologetically. "Six months will soon be up and she can have her papers."
"You didn't have to do it," Travkov said, gently.
"I know. But was she to stay in Siberia? She is your sister and you are my friend." Illya looked up and across the street, frowning as they heard his name called.
Two men approached him, dodging the traffic and coming right up to him on either side, firmly pushing the other men aside. "Come with us, Zadkine." They did not identify themselves and their accent was British, possibly Irish--it was difficult for the Kirov dancers to determine.
"What do you want him for?" Travkov asked, in Russian, as they pulled at Illya's
arm, ignoring him. The other dancers had stopped on the sidewalk and were watching wide-eyed.
"Who are you? Stop!" Grigory yelled, in English, as one man took Illya's knapsack with his identification and the other roughly handcuffed his brother's hands behind his back. They saw the fear in his eyes and knew this was not arranged.
"We are tourists. We are with Soviet Ballet," Grigory pleaded. "Please...?" He grabbed at his brother's coat but they had pulled the smaller man out of his reach and out into the traffic.
The KGB men that had trailed them to the restaurant were moving in, pushing through the pedestrians and rounding up the dancers, including Grigory and Sasha, preventing them from following. The Soviet agents were unprepared for this, uncertain of what to do, asking each other for instructions. One tried to protest the arrest, but he was stopped when the British men pulled guns.
They watched as Illya was dragged across the road, fighting his captors. He looked back one last time, frantic, but then his head was forced down and he was pushed into the back of a large unmarked black van, followed by the two men who had arrested him. The doors closed, shutting him away from them.
Cars passed, and then there was no longer any traffic, only the van. Within seconds, the police arrived on foot as news of the scene reached them and they blocked off the street, preparing to rush the vehicle. But while the dancers tried to tell them what had happened, the van exploded.
From across the street, the blast knocked them over. Grigory and Travkov struggled to their feet, but the Soviet agents and the other danseurs held them back as they tried to cross over to the fiery wreck. Another explosion shot flames into the air.
In Waverly's office, Travkov sighed, shuddering from the vivid memory. "You say he defected. When I asked him Saturday night, he said only that he had wanted to come to New York, to his uncle, and they knew and had taken him. There had been an exit in the van, through the floor into a manhole in the street.
