by LRH Balzer
He pulled out his transceiver and called into Headquarters, numbly reciting facts to Waverly. There was a wait of five minutes while something was arranged from the New York office, then his superior's voice came back on to reluctantly agree to supply transportation from the hotel to the Atlanta U.N.C.L.E. office and to preserve the CIA agents' cover, even while allowing them access to the agency's facilities.
That accomplished, Solo returned to the bedroom, laid down on one of the beds, and stared up at the ceiling, waiting. Waiting for two o'clock when the Atlanta office would smuggle Illya and Scotty from the hotel. Waiting for the drugs to mask his headache. Waiting for Illya, shivering in the other bed, to wake up. Waiting to find out the extent of his partner's injuries. Waiting to find out who had done this. Waiting for the answers to fall into place.
And trying hard not to think about her.
His thoughts spun in endless circles, sleep denied. Why now? Why, after all these years, am I thinking about her?
There was no way that she could possibly have been involved in all of this. The dates were wrong. The times were wrong. It was inconceivable that Morgan would have known of her existence. It was inconceivable that...
Well, this was inconceivable. That two separate groups—or was it only one group?––would have found Illya's name on the French police report and traced him back to New York. That they would have connected him with Zadkine.
Could Morgan actually have known about her? What had been said twelve years before? What information had he given, however innocently?
No, it had been an accident. The Korean police report said it had been an accident.
Morgan had stolen the scepter... an artifact...
It was twelve years ago.
She was dead.
It was a coincidence.
But... Morgan had stolen a scepter three months ago.
Chapter 5
South Korea, 1952
The body had frozen, the eyes locked in a grimace of exhausted agony. It was twisted on the ice-covered river, half-buried beneath the clouded surface, as though struggling to escape from death's clutching hands. The tattered clothing, what was left of it, identified him as a poor farmer from the North, driven into the city by the bombs and tanks and fires that had destroyed his home and his crops.
He was just another dead body. There would be no proper burial, no family left to treat his ashes with respect, to light the incense, and chant the prayers.
It was just another dead body. And not alone. Many had died that night. And were dying around them now.
At the edge of the river, two young men stood, their own hearts as heavy and frozen as the dead man, for they, too, were alone and frightened and far from home, caught in a war—a police action—that they didn't understand, either.
"Come on, Tommy. We've got to get going," the taller man whispered, willing his voice not to crack. "We have a long way to go."
"I want to go home. I hate this place." Tommy's face had drained to the color of the corpse, gray and bloodless.
"I hate it, too," Napoleon said, turning away.
"No, you don 't. It's not the same for you. You like it here. You go and help that old coot in the city and you enjoy it. You got nothin' back home in Canada. You said so yourself Well, I do. I got something." Tommy wiped his runny nose with the back of his hand, and Napoleon awkwardly passed him a handkerchief. Tommy blew his nose and dabbed at his eyes. "I get scared, Lee... What if I don't make it back? What if I never see my gal and my family again? What if I never find out what it's like to have a wife and kids? You've got a reason to care about these people—I don 't. I don't care about their war. Not at all. I want to go home. I don't want to die. I want to turn around and go back to the Cayuga and stay there. It's safer."
"I wish I could send you back, but I can 't. I don't have that kind of authority. We've got to get going, Tommy. We have our orders and we have a long way to go."
Tommy stared at the old man in the river, hating him, then followed Napoleon back to the jeep.
Sunday, May 9, 1965
8:00 a.m.
Illya Kuryakin opened his eyes slowly, allowing time for the blurry images to begin to take shape. He knew where he was immediately, long before the room emerged through his nebulous vision. The age-old infirmary smell of antiseptics and sweat. Napoleon was nearby. He could tell without moving, without actually seeing his partner, for, as always, the aftershave gave him away. World War Three could be about to unleash, but Napoleon Solo would always have time to put on his aftershave.
And with the faint scent came the welcome assurance that Napoleon was alive. Half-remembered bits of reality and dreams—and nightmares––were shelved until they could be verified; it was enough, for now, that Napoleon was alive.
As the overhead fluorescent light began to burn his eyes, he saw that the ceiling tiles were different from those he was accustomed to. So, then, he was not in Washington or in New York. Not the smooth white rectangles or the multi-spotted squares. Somewhere else's ceiling tiles. If I stay in U.N.C.L.E. much longer, I will know every office's infirmary by their choice of ceiling tiles.
Sensations began to accompany the smell and sight, registering almost overwhelmingly on his scarcely-awake mind. He knew abruptly that he was in pain, and that he was drugged against it. His head pounded abominably, a steady hammering of pressure, but the rest of his body felt strangely absent. He could feel the throbbing, the faint hint across ribs and feet, yet the numbing cloud he was floating in was keeping it back.
Then came the feel of sheets and blanket, and a pillow beneath his head. He saw the 1V and the shiny needle in the back of his hand. He blinked the crustiness from his eyes and turned his head.
When the room stopped spinning, he opened his eyes again to see Napoleon quietly sitting on a chair drawn up to the edge of the infirmary bed, lost in thought, unfocused eyes staring fixedly at something on the night stand. It was Napoleon, but it was also a stranger, the look in the haunted eyes belonging to a different man than the one he had known for the last two years. It was the same stranger he had seen in New York, in Napoleon's apartment, when the telegram had come.
The fear began then, sliding out from beneath the drugs.
"Napoleon?"
There was no answer and Illya wondered if he had actually said it out loud or if he had only imagined he had. Either way, the man beside him had not heard.
"Napoleon?" he said again, and this time there was some response as Solo's eyes tracked automatically over to him. Several seconds passed before there was recognition, then the journey back from wherever his partner had been, and only then did the familiar smile decide to cross Napoleon's pale face.
"How are you feeling?" Solo asked. His voice was calm enough, but...
But either I am more seriously injured than I feel, or there is something wrong with him. "Drugged. How about... you? What were you... thinking about?" Sentences fractured as he tried to talk. It was an effort to form the words clearly.
Solo smiled distantly again, but this time it was pasted on and then discarded for lack of attention. "I'm sorry you got dragged into this."
"If I recall the... sequence of events correctly, I brought most of this... on myself."
"How so?" There was quiet disbelief in Napoleon's eyes.
"I have become... too confident... that in the apartment building... I am safe. A timely lesson." It was a lot of words to say when his head was still whirling. And it was having no effect on his partner. "Napoleon?"
Solo started to turn away, then paused, assessing his partner's condition before asking, "Do you know his name? The man who did this?"
"Carter. There were others, too." Kuryakin watched carefully as dangerous emotions played over the other's face.
"Carter." Solo nodded after a moment, apparently satisfied with the answer.
"He knows you. He knows we are U.N.C.L.E.," Kuryakin said, feeling the fear again as the drugs pulled him back There were things he had to put in
to words before he faded out. "He was involved with Morgan. He kept asking about the scepter. He thinks you have it."
"I figured that was what he wanted. I just didn't know who. What did you tell him?"
"That we gave it back."
"Good. Who else was there besides Carter? How many?"
"Three guards... Clay, Freddy... Sty. I think his name was Sty."
"Impressions?"
"First two were hired. Just kids... Sty was different... ex-football player type... same age as Carter. Possible business partners, though Carter was... in charge."
"What about him? How did he seem?"
Who is he, Napoleon? How well do you know him? There was no answer to his silent question. Illya sighed, fumbling for words. "Hard to say. A man used to having his own way... Needs the scepter... to stay alive... Confident... There is a power about him that is dangerous, Napoleon... because it has no real basis other than in his own mind... Brilliant, but just a little bit mad." He looked back at his partner. Solo was unreadable. Distant "Napoleon?"
Solo stood and reached for a buzzer on the end of a cord. "I'll be back. I have to go out. If you need anything, press this and someone will come right away. A nurse will be in to check on you periodically. Some friends of mine, Alexander Scott and Kelly Robinson, are sleeping in one of the guest rooms. They'll probably come down when they wake up. Trust them. They're CIA."
It wasn't too reassuring a comment. "What are they doing here? Why are they involved?" Trust the CIA? He didn't have much experience trusting that particular agency.
"I've known Kelly since Korea. Scotty's his partner."
"Oh." A face appeared in his mind. "Negro?"
"Scotty is, yes." Solo paused at the door, looking back at him. "Why?".
Kuryakin tried to raise his head, but he paled as a wave of dizziness swept over him. "I— I have a vague memory of someone helping me in the corridor." He gasped as the feeling intensified, one hand grasping the bed rail to steady the sensation, as the other rose to massage a growing pounding in his temples. "What time is it? Where... ?" He wanted to ask something, to say something, that would delay Napoleon's exit, but he couldn't make his mouth form the words.
"You're in the Atlanta office infirmary. Among other things, you have a concussion." Solo pressed the buzzer, summoning a nurse. "Get some rest. I'll come back as soon as I can." The nurse came into the room, and with no further words, Solo was gone, the door closing behind him.
8:45 a.m.
Jud Wilcox Carter briskly entered the hotel suite and stopped at the doorway, sharp eyes darting around the area, taking in the scene and understanding at once the implications. He calmly put his briefcase on the empty bed and stared across the room at his sister's husband. "Where is he?"
Jackson toed the young man they had left as guard, now lying on the floor, unmoving, beaten. "From what I got, Freddy claimed he didn't know. Said Zadkine tried to escape, put up a fight, and he almost had the Red back in the room before some Negro showed up from nowhere and interfered."
Carter paced to the window, stepped over the body, and looked down at the early morning traffic. "Lee Solo will be waiting for me in a few minutes."
"What are you going to tell him?"
"I don't know."
Jackson sat at the desk and waited. The telephone rang and he picked it up, then held it out to Carter. "It's Clay. Solo's in the restaurant. No one else is around."
Carter glanced to the empty bed, then to his briefcase and back to the window. "Cancel the meeting."
"What?"
"I said to cancel it."
"But what about the—?"
"CANCEL IT!" Carter's voice switched volume, lowering dangerously. "Use your brain. I have nothing for leverage. Tommy's gone."
"But does Solo know that? What if he doesn't know that Zadkine isn't here? We've invested too much to back out now!"
"I am not prepared to play bluff. He will ultimately call my hand and I have no cards right now." Carter tore his eyes from the empty bed, meeting his brother-in-law's incredulous face. "Cancel the meeting," he said calmly. "I'll find another way to do this. And there's something I have to see to right away."
*****
9:00a.m.
Napoleon Solo sat in the hotel restaurant, absently picking at the danish he had ordered with his coffee, the Sunday newspaper laid out on the table before him. Every few minutes he would turn the page, but his mind was elsewhere. Elsewhen.
So it was Jud Carter. They had had dinner with him. Sat across the table from him. Played golf with him. Anger rose like bile at what Carter had done to his partner, and Solo turned it off. He pushed back his own headache and concentrated on the name and what he could remember of Carter while they were in Korea. Carter and Morgan. Carter had been—what? The driver—No, he had been in charge of the motor pool of the unit. The jeeps and trucks. Who took what vehicle when, and why.
If Morgan had been in business in Korea, Carter would have proven a valuable accomplice.
He realized finally that he had little memory of Carter at all. The American soldier had been one of the prisoners who escaped... actually, Carter was the one who had led them to safety, since he was familiar with the territory. Did that mean something?
Possibly. It was another piece, at least.
Carter had been there for the infamous tape session, but had participated little and had left before they really got going. Carter had always been there, yet not a real part of the unit. He didn't socialize with the others.
And... when Napoleon had been summoned to Seoul, Carter had been away and his replacement had refused to sign out a jeep to the newcomer. But how could that possibly fit?
A waitress at his elbow jostled Solo back to the present. "Yes?"
"Mr. Solo? Message for you, sir. They brought it over from the front desk."
He accepted it with a polite smile, but ignored her curved figure as it moved from sight, his concentration focused on the brief note. The meeting was canceled. He had half-suspected it would be, since Illya was no longer a hostage. Solo tucked the note in his pocket and paid his bill.
The hotel clerk had no idea who had left the note to be delivered to him. She smiled apologetically, "I am sorry, Mistah Solo. A man brought it to me and said it was for you and that you were in the restaurant. I had LeRoy, one of our bellhops, take it to you, 'cause he said it was real important."
"Thank you. I appreciate your promptness, Miss... Chariton, is it? May I ask if some of my friends have left yet? I meant to exchange business cards with them and I'm afraid I may have missed them. Bob Laurier, Jud Carter, or Dick Powhatan?" He smiled at her and pressed a five dollar bill into her hand.
"Oh, you don't have to do that, Mistah Solo." She checked her books. "Well, I don't have a room in a Mistah Carter's name, but those other two gentlemen, Mistah Laurier and Mistah Powhatan, they're still registered. Do you want for me to page them for you?"
"No, I'll find them, thank you. What about Thomas McGuire or Karl Opperdorff?"
Again she consulted the register. "Mistah Opperdorff— Oh, you just missed him. He left not ten minutes ago. And I know that Mistah McGuire is still in his suite. He called down to the front desk for the morning paper, oh, almost twenty minutes ago and Franklin took it up."
Thanking her, Solo stopped and chatted to a few men on their way to the front desk to check out, then he headed back to the elevators to do what he felt he should have done the previous evening: Talk to McGuire and find out what his role in this had been. The elevator let him off on the top floor and he found the suite easily enough. His sharp rap unlatched the door and set it swinging inward. Not a good sign. Neither was the blare of noise from the television. Nor the body as he came into view.
Apparently McGuire had already had a visitor this morning besides the bellboy who had delivered the newspaper. The first section of the paper was still clutched in McGuire's hand as he sat at his breakfast table. His coffee cup was on its side, the dark liquid spilled to the f
loor, and a second cup was half poured. For whom? Someone he knew well enough to invite them to sit down and have a cup of coffee. Someone he didn't know well enough to anticipate them putting a bullet through his skull.
The Walther slipped from Solo's holster noiselessly. Holding it in front of him, close to his body, Napoleon moved further into the room. The only other door, besides the one he had entered through, was the bathroom and a quick check, and peek behind the curtain, confirmed the room was empty. Still keeping the weapon ready, he moved soundlessly through the suite, sharp eyes cataloguing the scene, recording angles, and listening for any indication of the murderer returning. He found the location where the gunman must have stood, at the far end of the round table, but a sweep of the floor revealed no spent ammo on the thick carpet. The murderer must have cleaned up after himself.
Solo took a quick look around the rest of the suite, then let himself out of the room, gently closing the door with his elbow.
*****
10:00 am.
Kuryakin woke to the sound of voices arguing and dragged himself upward out of the fog his brain was swimming in. Two men stood near the foot of his bed, and as he focused on their faces, he could see they were not angry with each other. There did seem to be some difference of opinion about something, though.
"So what do we do? Should we call in and see if we can swing some more time?"
"That's an idea. Do you think they'll go for it?"
"I dunno, man. They've been tight lately. It would help if we knew what we were heading into."
"You took the call, Kelly. How did he sound?"
The tall, sandy-brown haired man laughed, "That guy would sound the same if we were off to babysit a turtle or if we were expected to blow up the Kremlin."
"Seriously, Kell. Did you tell them where we were?"
"Yeah."
