Author's Note: The mission detailed in this story takes place about six weeks after the MFU series' episode The Terbuf Affair, that originally aired in late December 1964.
You have enemies? Good.
That means you've stood up for something, sometime in your life.
~~~ Winston Churchill
Subrogation of the Soul
by LaH
Mid-February 1965
Slovak Karst in the Carpathians
"I understand you have indeed managed to capture Napoleon Solo," Ciriaco Uripides commented in grudging compliment to his first lieutenant within this particular Thrush satrapy.
That lieutenant, Budek Jahoda, smirked in obvious self-satisfaction. "Just as I vouched I would. Currently have him all snugly confined within one of the underground caves."
"Those caves are riddled with unexplored passages," Uripides cautioned pedantically. "You sure Waverly's golden boy won't simply find a way out?"
The Slav Jahoda bristled at the suggestion by his Greek superior he might be slipshod in his performance of his responsibilities. Truth was Budek had little liking for Uripides, accounting him a priggish elitist. He knew Ciriaco had reportedly earned every iota of his status in the organization through the merits of unique planning with regard to various Thrush ventures. Still, Budek himself was a hands-on, blood-under-the-fingernails type who much preferred to deal with men of his own ilk.
A hulking presence at least six-and-a-half feet tall with a physique literally bulging with muscles, Jahoda would be viewed by any adversary as an immediate bodily threat. As well he had a natural affinity to all modes of physical violence that had garnered him a grisly reputation unique even within the likes of Thrush. Uripides unspokenly considered the other man a tactless thug, someone who had no concept of the finer points of mental manipulation and thus not someone who would ever be of more than peripheral importance in the most sophisticated strategies of the supra-nation. Budek, in contrast, accounted the supra-nation's ultimate goal of world domination as something that in the end would only be achieved by the likes of men such as himself, men who didn't shrink from the most gruesome of ruthless physicalities.
"Napoleon Solo will not escape this time," Jahoda guaranteed.
"Napoleon Solo has made many who said the same eat their words. Those good looks of his are not what led to the achievement of his position as U.N.C.L.E.'s top man in enforcement in North America, you know. He has incalculable wit and guile, as well as skill and dedication well beyond the ordinary. And now that Thrush has solid reason to believe he is being groomed as Waverly's successor—"
"Waverly will soon need to have his throne-in-waiting fitted for a new backside," irritably asserted Budek.
"Solo undoubtedly has information the Council will want to extract," Ciriaco superfluously mused.
"There are many extraction methods with which I have intimate familiarity."
"All in good time." The Greek let his dismissive tone purposely rankle the Slav for, while he was aware Thrush had some interim need of men like Jahoda, Ciriaco personally found such brutes unimaginative annoyances. "A more delicate hand will initially be called for in this particular case."
Budek snorted. "A delicate hand?" Jahoda let his tone be just as dismissive of Uripides' idea of extraction methods as the other man had been of his. "With an U.N.C.L.E. agent of Solo's caliber?"
"Exactly so. Solo has been tortured more than once by those of our organization, many of them reputed as extraordinary technicians in such regard. Never has it gained Thrush so much as a single jot of useable information regarding U.N.C.L.E.," the Greek pointedly reminded his subordinate.
"This time will be different," stubbornly insisted Budek.
"While it is laudable you have such confidence in your own abilities," Ciriaco put that trivializing tone in his voice again as he spoke, "it is better I think to attempt something new and perhaps unexpected to get what we want from the man, something to stretch the limits of his psychological boundaries."
"And that would be?" Jahoda could not keep the derision out of his own voice.
Uripides rubbed his chin in seemingly idle thought for a moment, though idle thought was seldom something that honestly occurred with the man. Yet he could feign such remarkably well. "That girl, the hydrogeologist's daughter: she is still under house arrest here, yes?" he then asked.
"I know Solo is a noted Casanova, but that girl is just that: a girl, not a woman. I never heard tell of the man being attracted to adolescents."
Now it was Ciriaco's turn to project a very self-satisfied smirk. "Perhaps not, but innocents are always in such need of protection, at least according to those with lofty ideals."
"She's no innocent," refuted the Slav, practically spitting out the observation.
"In the eyes of our ever righteous though sometimes sentimental U.N.C.L.E. agent," proposed the Greek certainly, "we shall see."