by LRH Balzer
"How much longer will it take to get there, David?" the senior agent asked, hardly opening his eyes as they kept to the middle of the dirt road that ran through the savannah. The new crescent moon did little to light up their surroundings.
"Bado kidogo, John," Kwali said with an easy smile.
"In a little while... That seems to be the answer for everything around here." John Maxwell stretched as he walked.
"You are learning, then, my friend. Such is the way of all living things." David Kwali tilted his head, stopping Maxwell with a tug on the other man’s shirt. "Perhaps we will arrive sooner, than later."
A landrover thundered over the ridge, pulling up beside them for a moment, and they waited to see who had stopped, thinking someone was offering them a ride back to the compound. It was, after all, the only settlement in the area to which these people were heading.
As they approached the vehicle, half-blinded by the headlights, they saw light glinting off a weapon, pointed at them. They reached for their own guns, but it was too late; they were showered with tiny darts, biting into their exposed skin like a swarm of insects.
The landrover roared back into the darkness leaving behind the two men writhing on the ground.
They were quite dead by morning.
* * * * *
New York City
Tuesday, December 14,1965
"Napoleon, do you ever think about death?"
Straightening his bow tie in the mirror, Napoleon Solo froze at his partner's casual question. "What do you mean?" he asked carefully, deliberately keeping his focus on adjusting the lapels of his tuxedo.
The young man sat sprawled on the couch, absently paging through a boating magazine. He had appeared at Solo's apartment door a half hour earlier looking bored and tired, but it seemed he had wanted only to be alone with someone else around, atypically content to sit across the room and look at magazines about things he cared nothing for. He shrugged now at Solo's counter-question, unwilling to say more, his face reddening slightly that he had spoken at all, and immersed himself in an article about a new sail design for auxiliary luxury pleasure cruisers.
With a glance at the time, Napoleon did not pursue it. He was becoming used to the Russian's long silences, the stoic presence at his side that occasionally exploded. Eventually Illya would talk, when he was ready and had something to say, and it did no good to try to hurry him.
And with the curtain to the opera rising in ninety minutes, Napoleon had no desire to start a conversation he had no intention of finishing.
He fastened the cummerbund, slipping the opera tickets into the folds, and reached for his tuxedo jacket. There would be time for small talk later tonight. If he kept to his schedule, he would have time for the opera—in keeping with the season, Handel's Messiah —and time for a night cap with Barbara before rejoining his partner for an after-midnight search of a suspected Thrush warehouse in the Queens District.
He fumbled with the boutonnière, guilt annoyingly hampering his movements. What kind of a question is that to ask?—'Do you ever think about death?' We were together virtually all day long and just before I am ready to go out, you ask that? Are you baiting me or are you serious? Napoleon retreated to his bedroom for his communicator and wallet.
The Geneva assignment a few days before had been difficult. Although his partner had taken a rather severe lashing at the hands of Mother Fear, Illya had completed the case and had seemed oblivious to any discomfort—as long as no one patted him on the back. However, the bandages applied by the Switzerland U.N.C.L.E. infirmary were stained by the time they got off the plane in New York and Dr Sam Lawrence was able to examine him. The doctor had rebandaged his wounds and had reluctantly allowed Illya to keep working, providing he was able to cope with the pain. He didn't appear to be in pain. Of course, with him it was hard to tell.
Something was on Illya's mind, though.
Napoleon had stopped by his partner's apartment the night after they returned from Geneva. Illya hadn't answered the door, and when Napoleon let himself in, he found him sitting in the dark with an empty bottle of vodka and only marginally coherent. What he did in his own time was his own business—as Illya so blatantly pointed out to Napoleon the next morning, displaying no ill effects or hangover.
Illya was still doing his job with his usual remarkable competence. He had been at Napoleon's side through a fast car chase and a wild shootout the day before and had been fine. Perhaps too calm, too detached, Napoleon wondered now, remembering Illya’s breathtaking leap from a balcony railing to knock over the last stubborn gunman. Where was the boundary drawn between courage and reckless in their line of work?
And when did one start reading too much into isolated events?
When they start adding up, Solo thought with a rueful smile.
That afternoon, Kuryakin had stood silently in the U.N.C.L.E. basement shooting range staring at the target for over thirty minutes without moving, then he raised his gun and emptied it through the heart and brain of the target, repeating his actions with a second revolver. It unnerved the range attendant enough to report the unusual behavior to Waverly, who had then mentioned it to Solo.
With a sigh, Napoleon returned to the living room ready to talk, but Illya had fallen asleep, his head dropped to one side, the magazine against his chest. The Chief Enforcement Agent stood at the doorway and looked at the sleeping man sprawled motionless on the couch, with his brow furrowed, his chest barely rising and falling with each slow breath.
For one moment, Napoleon remembered the fear that had hit him when he walked into the cell and saw his partner on the cot, barely able to cope with the pain he was in. Knowing Illya's tolerance, anything that reduced him to feverish moans must have been phenomenal. Of course, the drugs in his system had not helped, and had further reduced his partner's resources, eroding the support mechanisms in place. Napoleon had spent that evening sitting by his side until the shock symptoms had worn off and the worst of the pain was controllable.
Mother Fear had been at the cell doors several times with Jenks, scoffing at Napoleon's gentle handling of his partner, and making snide remarks at Illya's tight grip on Solo's arm. Illya had stared back at her, eyes wide and blank, but he had not responded to her verbal taunts. Napoleon had eased his head back to the thin pillow, encouraging him to ignore her, and Illya had complied, even going as far as relaxing under Napoleon's calming massage of the tense shoulders.
Yet, somehow Napoleon felt she was behind whatever was bothering his partner now. He shook his head, puzzled, and dropped a blanket over Illya as he left the apartment.
* * * * *
"Latrodectus mactans mactans."
An unusual problem. But unusual problems landed on Alexander Waverly's desk every hour of every day. This time, someone wanted black widow spiders on the underground market, and they were willing to pay an exorbitant fee for them, dead or alive. Apparently, they had found a supplier, if this report was correct.
The spiders were not Waverly's immediate concern. He left the file open and moved back to another report on his desk as he considered the men he wanted to send on this case. Solo and Kuryakin.
Alexander Waverly knew it wasn't a recent horror that made Kuryakin's eyes cold and distant, it was what had been triggered within him by those events, the memories that should have remained buried. And forgotten.
The Geneva conference had been a nightmare, from the first stages of planning, to the deadly entertainment during dessert. As expected, Solo and Kuryakin's performance had vindicated him before the other Section One Chiefs—Carlo, in particular—but they had not walked away unscathed. In a closer examination of the events, the case report appeared vague about what had happened, about how exactly
Kuryakin had been hurt, but Solo had initialed his partner's account of the events, allowing it to pass without comment, and it had been submitted to Section One.
Waverly considered the report carefully. There really was no reason to pull Kuryakin. He had com
pleted the Figliano case without any apparent difficulty. In fact, Waverly had not known of the wounds, nor had been told that Kuryakin was presumably recuperating, until reading Dr Lawrence's report two days previous. But they had been back from Geneva for four days and there was no indication of trauma or any remote inability to carry out his duties.
Yet, there was something in his eyes...
Waverly was not a psychologist. He knew his limits, but he also knew his men—what they were capable of and how far he could push them. With Thrush on the move again, Solo and Kuryakin were still his best choices.
He would have to trust them to find their own answers to whatever was bothering the Russian.
* * * * *
He knew he was dreaming. There was a sense of unreality about it all. Angles were wrong. Colors were off. Events were not in sequence.
But then the dream would focus.
Twin lights. Far away. Small and wavering.
Eyes staring at him. Mocking him.
Twin lights. They disappeared and he would endeavor to relax, but couldn't. He stood waiting for them, knowing the lights would find him wherever he tried to hide. He had given up trying. They had found him every time.
Her voice laughed at him.
On schedule, the twin lights came out of the darkness, engines roaring, straight for him. He felt the impact, felt the agony shoot through his broken body as his feet left the ground and he sailed through the air, losing consciousness, knowing he would never wake up again.
* * * * *
Napoleon returned alone shortly before midnight, since the workday evening had precluded any other activity with Barbara. So had the uncertainty of having an empty apartment to bring her to.
Just as well, he sighed now. Illya had scarcely moved, curled slightly on his side now but still lost in deep sleep on the leather couch, his head at a painful angle. If a good rest was all he needed, it was hard to begrudge him that. They didn't have to leave for another two hours yet.
He put some water on for tea and returned to the living room, staring mystified at the blond agent. He moved closer to remove his yachting magazine from the clenched hand, adjusting the blanket with an annoyed shake of his head and an amused smile.
A man must die a little every day.
Solo straightened abruptly. When had Illya said that? He could hear the clear words, spoken with a shrug and a slight smile. In a profession where they faced death every day, it was a topic they avoided, skirted around.
'Do you ever think about death, Napoleon?' his partner had asked earlier.
Why are you thinking about death, Illya? What has spooked you?
'Watch him,' Waverly had cautioned that afternoon, choosing to leave him in the field, reluctant to pull him for what was probably a simple case of Russian melancholy. But it was Waverly's very nervousness about it that made Solo take his words seriously now. It was too easy to apply the stereotypical label of moodiness.
He pulled down an extra pillow from the hall closet and placed it beneath his partner's head, straightening the bent neck before it stiffened further. There was a deep furrow etched between Illya's eyebrows, the faint sheen of sweat on his forehead, but whether the pain was from his back or some other hidden injury he had chosen to remain silent about, or whether the pain was from whatever personal demons he was fighting, Napoleon had no idea.
He changed out of his tuxedo, set the alarm for two hours, and lay down, hoping to get a little sleep in before they had to leave. When the alarm went off, he was still awake.
* * * * *
Queens, New York
Wednesday, December 15,1965
At three o'clock in the morning, on an almost moonless December night, the indistinguishable form of Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin climbed up the side of the Queens textile warehouse. His rubber-soled shoes found a toe hold as he reached a band of boarded-up windows ringing the darkened building. Scowling, the slight, black-clad figure spotted an unbroken window to his left and pushed off from the wall, leaning into the rope and bouncing ten feet. He wrapped the rope around one elbow as he touched down and peered through the narrow, dirt-encrusted window.
His back was on fire. The rope bit into the not-yet-healed wounds, and he could feel the sticky warmth of blood across one spot in particular. Uncomfortable, yes, but not unworkable. He had seen worse.
His cigarette case/transceiver twittered and he sighed, grabbed the rope in his gloved left hand, planted his feet against the ledge, and fingered the send button on his transceiver. "Napoleon, give me a chance to get a look," he whispered, irritated. He flicked the transmitter off and leaned closer to the window, rubbing the glass with his right fist. Finally, he flipped the transceiver open again. "I don't see anyone in there. All the lights are out. I'll go in this way and meet you inside. It's not too long a drop."
"Get down here. You make me nervous up there. Hold on with both hands. Where's your safety line?" Solo's voice crackled over the small radio.
Kuryakin peered down to where his dark-clothed partner stood below, arms waving. "You forgot to pack it, remember?" The blond agent switched the transceiver off and slipped it into his pocket. One last look inside the warehouse, then he wrapped the rope loosely around one thigh, across his body, and over the opposite shoulder and rappelled down the two stories, free-falling almost to the ground and noting sardonically Solo's frantic run to catch him.
Solo scowled as he landed. "If you're quite finished, get inside. We only have a short time before the night watchman gets back from his regular coffee run." Solo shouldered their pack of tools and turned toward the warehouse.
His hair shining in the meager light reflected from the snow, Kuryakin shook the grappling hook loose from the top of the building. "I'll be right there, Napoleon," he murmured casually as the iron claw barely missed his own head as it fell to the ground.
"What was that all about?" Solo asked, turning, his darkened features almost invisible.
Kuryakin shrugged. "Nothing. Let's go." He wrapped the cord up and slipped it in his pack, heading for the side door.
Solo caught his arm, twisting him around. "You could have killed yourself. Or me, if it had swung the other way."
"You're invincible. It says so in your file. I read it."
"Keep your nose out of my file. We'll talk later."
Kuryakin shrugged again, moving ahead towards the door. He felt Napoleon's harsh stare at his back as he bent over to pick the lock and banished from his mind the twin lights and the dark melancholy creeping in on him. There was the job to do.
He had to watch himself, school himself from giving in to the seduction of oblivion. Napoleon was right. He was being careless, and he had no intention of getting his partner killed. With a light touch to Napoleon's back, hopefully conveying that he was there and focused and would be careful, his other hand pushed at the door.
It swung open and if there was an alarm, it was silent. They waited a moment, then walked in, the light from their flashlights darting across the cement floor. The silence hurt their ears as they strained to hear a footstep, a rustle, the sound of a hammer being drawn back.
But there was nothing except their soft steps.
He concentrated and the heavy mood lifted. He turned to meet his partner's dark eyes and nodded at the wordless request, turning again before the eyes asked more. He took the right side of the building as directed, glancing into the crates, checking out the contents. They knew it was a Thrush warehouse, but were unclear as to what was stored there.
Five minutes later, his flashlight lit up a sealed box, one of hundreds in the crate, simply labeled, "Spiders..."
"Where?" Solo asked, working his way through the boxes to his side.
"What would Thrush need with dead spiders?" Kuryakin lifted one box out and placed it on the top of the crate. He slid his knife along the seal, breaking it easily, then lifted the lid off the box. "Spiders. Black widows actually."
"Are you sure they're black widows?" Solo peered at the specimen
and wrinkled his nose at the sight.
"The size is right. Color, too—deep black with the red hour-glass on the abdomen. Latrodectus mactans is the Latin name for them."
"Why do you know that?"
"What?"
"Why do you know the Latin name of a black widow spider?"
Kuryakin shrugged. "I like to be properly briefed on anything that could potentially kill me. Besides, it was mentioned in a recent report from somewhere. Napoleon, isn't this cargo heading to Kenya according to the shipping labels?"
"They're supposed to be transferred to the airport tomorrow. Spiders, eh? Just as Waverly thought. What I can't figure out is why would somebody need ten thousand black widow spiders?"
"Ask Angelique next time you see her." Kuryakin snapped the lid shut and resealed the container as something his partner had just said registered.. "When did Waverly brief you on the case?" He glanced across the crate to Napoleon, watching the sudden uncomfortableness with interest. "No matter." He moved to another crate, noting the different numbering on the side. He broke the seal, pried open the lid, and lifted out another box.. He slid the flashlight's beam over the contents, and felt a cold shiver pass through his system.
"What? More black widows?"
"No. Sydney funnel web spiders. Probably the most venomous spider in the world. Native to Australia. Like our Thrush friends, they are very aggressive and will attack at the slightest provocation."
He opened a few more crates at random, peering into their contents. All were venomous spiders, from all over the world. Bush funnel web spiders. Brown recluse spiders. "We seem to have a theme here. Thrush seems to be gathering a rather spectacular collection of venomous arthropods. Curious, really. Unless the victim is overcome by multiple stings, or is allergic to the insect, death by envenomation is rare."
"En-what?'
"Envenomation. Poisoned by venom."
"Oh."
