A Simple Request
By
M. Klindt
I do not own the characters of Man from UNCLE, but like to borrow them to play with the ones I've created. I thank all who have helped me. A tale in the "Lexi" series
Chapter 1
"Promise me, George," A small weak voice said barely above a whisper. "Go get my travel kit and I'll tell you what to do. I ask this one last thing of you. Not for me, but for him. He will die shortly after me and take many people with him if I don't."
George Thompson nodded sadly, stood up, released Lexi's hand, and left the room. He was too upset to talk. His voice was lost to his quivering heart. A flash explosion and a rain of shrapnel had caught everyone off guard and now she was going to pay the price of loving a top Section Two UNCLE agent.
Napoleon Solo nearly had to drag his partner out of the room let her to talk with her lab partner alone for a moment. Everyone was scared that she would pass without him by her side in the last moments. The doctors told him what he already knew and time was precious.
Illya couldn't take it anymore and ran back into the hospital room. George moved out of the way of the doorframe and grabbed Napoleon's arm. "We have a mission to save Illya. Come with me. We need to get to the lab."
"What about Lexi?" Napoleon noisily asked in confusion, but continued to put one foot in front of the other with George in the lead. "Why aren't you trying to save her?"
"She made me promise," George hushed him in a thin, tight voice. "She knows what she has to do to help him. It's the only way to keep him and us safe. You've got to help me. We need to get Mark."
"Tell me what I need to do," Napoleon said with a fierce determination not to lose another friend and agent today.
MFU/MFU
Illya sat next to the bed and gently held Lexi's hand as she drifted in and out of consciousness. They would smile at each other while he stroked her hand. Each time she would take a raspy breath in, he would cringe in fear of the number she had left.
George, Mark, and Napoleon quietly entered the room to stand behind Illya. Napoleon's hand rested upon his shoulder and felt the knotted bundles of muscles that were ready to spring out.
"What is going on?" A suspicious voice started to rise.
"Do it." The soft command slipped from her lips and she turned to the blond man. "I'm sorry. I asked them to do this for me."
Mark and Napoleon each grabbed an arm and wrestled the over-wrought and exhausted blond man to the floor face down. "What are you doing? Let go of me!"
Despite his best efforts, they held Illya down when George straddled his body and exposed his neck. Mark forcibly held his head still.
"Cervical spine space between the vertebrae 1-2, is that right?" George repeated the instructions to the still figure in the bed.
"Yes," Lexi chocked out softly. "Just a little to the right of center; into the sensory nerve, yes."
He nodded when he found the spot. "Now, hold still Illya! I only have enough to try this once."
"What are you giving me? No!" He cried out, the needled plunged into his neck. "Ahhh…the pain, it's so cold it burns."
Just as quick as the attack was, it was over. The hands that held Illya down, now gently pulled him up, off the floor and back down into the chair. Confusion and anger colored the Russian's face. He turned away from his friends and looked at the pale figure in the bed. She stared at him with wide blue eyes and dry lips that were slightly parted in an effort to breathe easier.
"Why?" he quietly asked. "Why did you have them do that to me?"
"Come lay by me." Lexi suddenly jerked and a grimace of pain crossed her face. "I want you next to me."
Illya slowly got up from the chair, shaking his head trying to clear it, and his body trembled when he carefully worked his way onto the bed to lie beside her. The others in the room were quiet and they waited for what she would say.
Lexi's voice was weak and wavered while she spoke to Illya in Russian. Mark leaned close to Napoleon and George to tell them what she was saying.
"I have two regrets in my life. One is not being able to spend more time with you and the other is not being able to give you a child. I will love you with my last breath, but you must continue on. That is why I'm doing this.
"My mother wanted you to have this drug before she died so you would take care of me for the rest of your life and I said no, because I knew that you would love me all of my life. It only works once on a person and you must live on without me. Now is the opportunity for me to give you this one gift."
Lexi continued to talk low tones to Illya, but Mark had stopped the running commentary. George looked at Mark. "What is she saying now?"
"I don't know." Mark shrugged. "It's not Russian."
"It's their own special language," Napoleon finished, watching his partner's pinched, tired face start to relax and appeared to be resting. He was listening to every word she was struggling to say in between pants.
After a few minutes of soft murmurs, Illya nodded with a smile as he drifted in to light sleep "A good friend; like cousins."
"Yes, cousins, you're burning up with fever, and need…to go back to you hospital room and get some rest…from your wounds."
"Wounds," an almost boyish smile formed on his lips.
"Yes, the one on your right arm from the…explosion." Lexi swallowed, raising her hand to Mark to take him away. "Get some sleep; you'll need it for later on."
"Come on, old man, you heard the lady." Mark leaned forward to take Illya by his good arm and pulled him gently from the bed.
"Mark," Lexi quickly said and she surprisingly grasped his arm. "Tell April that I understand that she couldn't make it in time. Take care of her, she'll need you."
"I know, Luv." Mark swallowed sadly and then finished taking a drowsy Illya from the room, before his resolve crumbled.
After a few moments to catch her breath, Lexi looked at George and smiled. Her eyes began to pool with tears. "Thank you and Cassidy for taking me in. In the top drawer of my desk, in the back, a present, and all my formulas are there. I give them to you."
"I would rather have you working with me instead of trying to figure out those silly formulas without you." George pouted, took her hand, and gave it a squeeze. His face registered a look of shock to feel how cold and fragile it was. He tried to warm it with his.
"I know, so do I," Lexi sighed wistfully. "Can you give Napoleon and me a moment, partner?"
"Of course, partner." George nodded, cleared his throat, and left the room.
"Lexi," Napoleon walked up to the bed, stopped, and crossed his arms over his chest, trying to look and sound braver than he felt. "It's just like you to leave just when things were just getting interesting."
Lexi nodded when her body jerked again and she swallowed hard. She gasped a painful intake of precious air.
"Lexi," Napoleon asked and straightened up with sheer terror of what was to come. "Are you still with me?"
"Take care of them."
The words were barely audible as her eyes glazed over and the heart monitor stopped beating and began blaring. A single tear ran down her cheek.
"I will, sweetheart," Napoleon said kissing her forehead and closing her vacant eyes with his fingers and his tears joined hers. "You certainly are a piece of work."
He turned to the monitors and shut them off.
MFU/MFU
"Damn fool!" Geerson swore harshly while kicking the crumpled and newly dead body of the man he assigned to kill Illya Kuryakin.
It was a simple plan to distract Waverly and Section Two with the murder of that Russian bastard so they could infiltrate UNCLE headquarters in New York and steal the formulas that their chemistry labs were making. Kuryakin was too knowledgeable in that field to be fooled with false chemical concoctions.
Geerson was surprised that the one they were really seeking was dating the slippery agent or that was what the rumors from his informants said were circulating around headquarters.
The Russian and new Section Eight chemist were dating until she disappeared for a long time and then, she magically showed up again. Another rumor had it that she was at Survival School during her extended disappearance. Apparently, Dr. Lane was said to have dated several of the men in UNCLE headquarters in her short time there.
This all had started when the now-dead agent, Jordan Gaff, was trying to save his own life from the mess he and his family had cost THRUSH Central. They had lost the Hillgate Sanitarium satrapy, an experimental hypnotic drug program, and a significant amount of funds. Graff had even failed to bring Kuryakin and Solo in when they had briefly captured them.
THRUSH Central had given Graff one more chance by trying to find this mysterious person, who he insisted was a new UNCLE agent and was the girlfriend of that murderous Number Two agent of Section Two.
She, herself, was a Russian assassin and spy that had left the Soviet Union to become a part of UNCLE, or that's what Graff said. What surprised Geerson was that Central allowed him to check it out this theory before they decided to pass the usual death sentence on him for his recent failures while working for THRUSH.
After several weeks of searching, Graff came back to New York to tell his bosses that he was wrong and there was no connection between Kuryakin and this ghost of a person. Oh, there was a cousin with the same last name, but she had recently died back in Kiev.
What concerned Central was how drastically Graff had changed his story and that he was seen in the company of a female at the airport just before he met up with Geerson and another agent. He was so adamant in his convictions, that they took Graff immediately to the infirmary to be checked out. He was found to have been drugged with an unknown chemical. They still killed Graff anyway, but it got Geerson to thinking.
Pierre Geerson was one of THRUSH's top agents currently at Central in New York. He normally dealt with recovery investigations in the botched missions of fellow agents within THRUSH. He was an internal affairs guy, but he had recently been ordered to report to Enemy Recognition Division, because his counter-part, who had been running it, was eliminated. Such was life within THRUSH.
One of his first assignments was to get someone or some ones into UNCLE's headquarters. Then he had to filter out what was gossip and noteworthy for THRUSH to act upon without getting their informants caught or killed. It was a tricky business and to play in the mole game between spy groups took nerves of steel.
"Is there any other report from Informant Twelve?" Geerson asked one of the subordinates as they watch the dead man being hauled away.
"The last message received states that Dr. Lane is to die at any time and her lab partner never leaves her side in medical. Many of the Section Two agent filter in as well, Kuryakin especially. His right arm wound from the explosion is infected and causing a mild fever, but nothing more."
"Yes…now it's just a waiting game," Geerson nodded. He blandly stared toward at floor and his plain, non-descript shoes. "Has Informant Six reported in?"
"Only to report that security at headquarters has been tightened around medical and all entrances."
"Good," Geerson said with a menacing smile and lifted his head up. "Let them stew for awhile. Report to me immediately if any of the informants call in, I'll be in my office's file room. I just had a thought."
"Yes sir."
MFU/MFU
George Thompson and Monica Lane's lab was quiet and empty when the janitor came in to sweep the floor. Aware that he was being watched by the surveillance camera, he turned his back to it and pulled a photograph out of his pocket that was on a telescoping arm with a magnet attached on one end.
Sweeping backwards towards the camera, the housekeeper glided under it, reached up, under it to place the photo in front of the lens, and then quickly put the broom against the wall.
Without a word, he instantly went to Lane's desk and started to search for a list of formulas that were supposed to be in there. Informant Twelve had mentioned in the message where the dying chemist had her papers hidden. She would know, Informant Twelve was watching her death from the two-way mirror in medical.
He wordlessly snorted at the thought of Informant Twelve's tight, quivering voice as if she had been crying for the woman. That must have been quite a scene to behold. No one deserved it more than Kuryakin to suffer the death of a loved one, he thought. He single-handedly had foiled THRUSH efforts in so many ways. He'd also murdered his brother in an escape attempt last year. Solo with Kuryakin were more than a deadly pair, they were practically unbeatable.
"THRUSH will get its revenge today," he murmured to himself. "First, Kuryakin's girlfriend is dead and then her formulas were going to be taken to THRUSH Central."
Running his hands under the top flat drawer of the desk, he felt a small catch and smiled. A tray click open and two manila envelopes fall down into his eager hands. Quickly, he inspected the contents of each package and found what he was looking for. Several sheets of paper stapled together with notations and formulas that proved to be beyond his basic comprehension of chemistry, all in a neat hand-written script.
The other packet included a savings bond and architectural plans to a townhouse with a certain room highlighted. "A baby's room…"
The man whistled softly out in shock. Was Lane pregnant with Kuryakin's baby? Revenge was even sweeter if it was, thought the traitor, as he would certainly get a bonus for that little tid bit from Geerson.
The janitor pulled out the notes, stuffed them into his shirt under his jumpsuit, put everything back where he found them, went to pick up his broom, and removed the photo from the camera's view. This made it to have appeared he had swept the other room first. He finished the lab's floor and then left the room.
All of this action was caught on a second, concealed camera strategically placed on the opposite side of the lab that was unknown to the spy. The cable that fed to that hidden camera ran right up to Mr. Waverly's office. He silently watched the action before him, but didn't stop it.
"Open Channel D," Waverly said in a strong, assured voice. "Miss Dancer."
"Yes sir." April Dancer's voice rang through the secure office.
"The bait has been taken. Follow him to see where he goes. We want him to get all the way home. Don't let him see you or all of this will have been for nothing." Waverly flipped another switch to signal Mr. Solo that part one of getting rid of this kind of vermin was over with. "Let's hope that there is only one this time."
"Yes sir, Dancer out." The channel clicked closed.
MFU/MFU
Napoleon Solo walked behind the orderly that was pushing the cart with Lexi's lifeless body to the building's morgue. His face was drawn and tight from the tears that had dried on it. Blood-shot eyes completed the look of sorrow on his face and those who shared the elevator with them looked away out respect for the dead.
The morgue was situated on the ground level, in the rear of UNCLE headquarters, by the underground level of the public parking garage. It made it easier to get bodies in and out without too much suspicion.
Once in the main room of the morgue, Solo relieved the orderly of his duty of waiting for the Medical Examiner to check the body in. He told the man that he wanted to say his final goodbyes. Already nervous being in the morgue and in the CEA's presence, the young man awkwardly nodded his relief and hastily left the room.
Napoleon scanned the room causally. He looked for the security camera that he knew was in every room of headquarters and then looked at his watch. Everything was running on time.
Just as he straightened his cuffs and put his hands in the pockets of his jacket, a small chirp rang out from his pen communicator. He watched the light on the camera shut off. "Showtime, Lexi."
Drawing back the sheet from over her body, he turned her head and plugged a small hypodermic needle into the nape of her ghostly pale neck.
After a few tense seconds of watching Lexi's motionless body, he wondered if the drug that slowed her heart rate and blood pressure way down was working too well. Napoleon went to feel for a pulse in her cold, limp arm and called softly to her. "Lexi, come on sweetheart. Tell me we haven't screwed this all up. Show me a sign. You know that I'll be in deep shit with Illya if you don't rise and shine. How can we run away together it you're already rigid?"
Napoleon tried to wake her up with his voice. He then started to rub her arms to encourage circulation. Slowly, Lexi's skin began to pink up and her breathing became more noticeable.
"I thought it was "frigid' and 'bitch' went after it?" Lexi breathed out heavily after she opened her eyes only to close them quickly in a grimace of pain from her chest injury. "I think that you just don't want to face the Nordic Ice Prince on your own."
"Not without his Nordic Ice Princess, I don't," Napoleon said with relief and concern at the same time. "How's your side feeling? Can you do this?"
"I'm fine," Lexi said through gritted teeth and she held out a hand for Napoleon to help her sit up, using her other one to help protect her chest from the movement. She was trying hard to get her head to stop spinning around the room like a top.
"Where have I heard that before?" Napoleon rolled his eyes while he let her get her bearings after she sat up, and then helped her stand. She was leaning rather heavily on him for support.
Lexi wavered, stood, and then started to untie the strings of the hospital gown at her front. Napoleon still kept his hand firmly around her waist to keep her upright.
"Where are my clothes, Napoleon?" she asked in a strong French accent to emphasize his name. It sent seductive chills down his back every time she said it that way and she knew it.
"They're hidden where the bodies are kept." He smiled at her. "Can I trust you not to fall over if I let you go and get them from cold storage?"
"I'll put you into cold storage it you don't get them now," she growled out in frustration of having to have his help to stand, and from the pain that ripped throughout her side when she lifted one of her arms slowly up to loosen the gown ties at her neck. Lexi grabbed the gurney to prevent herself from falling.
Napoleon laughed at her gruffness and only released her once he knew that she could stand, even though she was leaning heavily to one side. He went to get her clothes, purse, and a long blond wig. "You know, you're lucky I like Russians…"
"Napoleon, you like females of all nationalities. Now give me those clothes before I freeze to death." Lexi stripped off the gown to reveal an injured naked body with only an id band on her wrist.
Even though she had lost her tan, pale from the blood loss, had a dressing on her left chest wall, and bruising that spread over her torso and random areas around her body, Napoleon took a breath in at her beauty. He held out her clothes to her and smiled at her tart remarks. She wasn't a bit concerned that he was taking in her naked form.
"You're a cad, Napoleon," Lexi said, grabbed the clothes and started to dress quickly as she could with her injuries. "You could at least act a little embarrassed for my sake and help me before Waverly turns that camera back on and he gets a show, Cossack!"
Napoleon just shook his head and helped her finish getting her sweater and wig on to walk out of headquarters on her own as if she were just another secretary from a downtown office going to lunch. He silently worried that she looked too fragile and weak to walk a straight line or down the street to a taxi stop. He remembered the last time that she looked this bad off and had threatened to pass out in front of Waverly.
"Do I look presentable?" she asked him, placing the purse over her arm, wetted her newly applied lipstick, and had a badge on the pocket of her cardigan sweater.
"Only thing I can think of is a sack lunch to eat," Napoleon said and stressed the need. "When was the last time you had something to eat?"
"Napoleon," Lexi said. She gave him a hard stare he was used to getting from his partner, which he chose to ignore. "It's hard to eat when you're playing dead, but I promise to let Caitlin wine and dine me while we stay up all night and talk about you, your huge ego, and other, smaller body parts."
"What ever gets you to rest, and without the wine, if you don't mind? Remember, you're on restricted duty," Napoleon said casually with a smile, but then gave her a scolding look. "And that's an order. Waverly would be upset if we had another agent who didn't listen…"
"I don't know who you are talking about," Lexi said and merely shrugged, watching Napoleon stow the cart into a cold storage unit, and then pointing to the opposite entrance of the morgue before he took the handle of the door they had come through. "Just keep me informed as to when I can come back to my lab and Illya."
"I will. Stay safe," Napoleon softly said from across the cold sterile room. "Caitlin will call and tell me that you got there safely. Please, eat something, you look like shit."
"I, myself, prefer death warmed over," Lexi said with a little mirth and then became serious. "I will, Napoleon."
After a silent moment of looking at each other and receiving a small nod, they each left through their respective doors.