A decision had to be made, and time was ticking by faster then the UNCLE agent wanted to admit. If he went back to Waverly without the artifact there would be consequences.
As he peered into the darkness it was obvious: the passage was too narrow for him to slide through. He looked back at the new man from the Soviet Union. Kuryakin was slender, and shorter by a few inches; more than a few.
Okay comrade, here's your opportunity to prove just how valuable you are to the Command, how pink your blood runs.
He'd made no secret of his dislike of the man. Granted, his attitude was based solely on the man's point of origin, but his own family had been forced to flee from the oppression and violence of the USSR; he wasn't convinced yet that this agent was truly UNCLE material.
"Kuryakin, can you fit through that opening? The artifact is inside of …' Illya Kuryakin stopped him, his affect that of a man resigned to serve, even at the side of someone who was openly hostile.
"I was briefed, you may recall.' Illya rolled his eyes at the obvious lack of confidence in him, both as a person and an agent of the U.N.C.L.E. His reception in New York's Headquarters had been mostly accepting, but a few skeptics remained. He would forever be the man from behind the Iron Curtain, the enemy of the free world. He could understand it, but his own philosophies were not for public scrutiny, only his performance for the Command.
"I can fit through there. The chamber at the end of it should have another exit, if so I will use it as soon as I procure the coffin."
The coffin in question was a miniature, thought to be one belonging to a collection in the National Museum of Scotland. The story of seventeen miniature coffins, with bodies dressed in cotton, was an unsolved mystery. Another was purported to exist, and had been traced to this location through a series of interviews and the confession of a THRUSH whose job it had been to conceal it among other stolen artifacts in the possession of a satrap located outside of Edinburgh. The task of retrieving it had fallen to UNCLE when one of Waverly's many wartime brothers in arms contacted him with information of its existence.
"No, you need to come back through the tunnel. You could be seen exiting any other way." Thomas Wurmbrandt knew it could be risky, but he was senior agent and his orders would stand.
Kuryakin sighed in resignation. Ours is not to reason why… It had become a mantra of sorts for the Russian, apparently something he would live with indefinitely.
"Very well." With that he took a deep breath and began the slow journey, crawling on his belly with just enough room for his elbows to dig in and help to propel him along. Dust and small stones fell around him as he made his way towards what he hoped would be a larger portion of the tunnel. The minutes lagged, his breathing becoming more labored as the air seemed to thicken.
The tunnel was a peculiar aspect of this underground vault. After creating the space and filling it with ill gotten goods, the THRUSH satrap, a Scotsman named Angus McClish, had the tunnel dug out as a secondary means of escape, should one become necessary. As Illya struggled to make his journey, he wondered why it was so narrow. He envisioned McClish as a small man, more slender even than himself if the tunnel was any indication.
Finally, Illya came into a large chamber, the floor of it about four feet below the tunnel's opening. Because he had traveled head first through the tunnel, he literally fell into the chamber, an elegant dismount an impossible move for the former gymnast.
Illya took a small flashlight from his pocket, using the light to locate a door into the hidden storeroom. The decline had been gradual, but now Illya estimated that he was about twenty feet below the ground above him, and a grueling fifty feet from the opening where he had left Agent Wurmbrandt.
The metal door would need to be blown, as had been anticipated. A string of filament was placed, and Illya took as much of a protected stance as was possible. With a flick of his watch stem the chamber lit up with the small explosion, causing the door to fly open and the roof of the chamber to begin crumbling around the intruder. As quickly as possible, Illya ran into the storeroom as the antechamber and tunnel began to collapse in the aftermath of the explosion.
Outside, Wurmbrandt felt the earth rumble, then backed away as dust and debris began to blow out of the tunnel like a giant exhaling of breath. Panic ensued as he thought of the reprimand he would endure for losing Waverly's new pet project. If the Russian was dead, so might be his career.
Illya was safe inside the storeroom, his eyes filling with the array of artifacts and artwork. He supposed there would be no other way out now, so he wouldn't actually be disobeying an order if he exited through the door that, he presumed, led up to ground level. Perhaps the tunnel was a ruse, something to confound or kill an intruder such as himself.
After a thorough search as he was photographing the items on display, Illya found the little coffin in a box labeled Burke. He smiled at the reference, knowing a little about the mysterious coffins that remained on display in the National Museum of Scotland. He did not know where this one would end up, he wasn't privy to the client who had convinced Alexander Waverly to send his agents to a possible end in order to retrieve it.
Illya Kuryakin took a breath before opening the door to what he hoped would be an easy exit. To his relief, no one met him on the other side, and as he climbed the steps up to the surface, he wondered if Wurmbrandt had been silently thankful for what he imagined was the demise of the dreaded Russian. To his credit, Thomas Wurmbrandt had not been so heartless, combining his desire for Kuryakin's safety with his own need to return him to Waverly unharmed.
As for the miniature coffin, its story had another chapter not yet written.**
The Miniature Coffins of Edinburgh are on display at the National Museum of Scotland.