THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED AFFAIR

Rated -- PG -- intensity -- ANGST -- plot-lite

Comments -- send to: mfuff@crosswinds.net

Find more of my fanfiction at these sites:

Man from UNCLE - www.crosswinds.net/~mfuff

Hawaii Five-0 - www.qnet.com/~martin5

No copyright infringement intended

This is all for fun

THE DAY THE MUSIC DIED AFFAIR

By

GM

FOR JOHN --
You will never be forgotten



Breath condensed on the air and exploded in heavy, billowing puffs like a steam engine's labored revolutions. The shadowed figure leaned against a tree for support and fought to ease the ragged breath torn from his lungs, to control the runaway heartbeat tattooing like a trip hammer inside his chest.

Crouched at the base of the tree, he made himself as small a target as possible as he reloaded the eight-bullet clip in his Walther P-38. He cloaked the pistol with his trenchcoat to muffle the telltale click of the chamber as he pushed the release; the sound would have echoed forever in the chill, winter night and announced his position to the unseen assassins lurking in the darkness. The slide automatically snapped home and drove a 9mm bullet into the chamber. He was set for the next assault.

Frost lay strewn on the grass like feathered flakes of shaved ice in the raw, cold December of Central Park. His hands tingled with the glacial bite of night air, yet he never let it affect his steady grip on the gunstock. Adrenaline flowed through every cell and charged taut nerves. Every perception, including his well-honed sixth sense, was keenly aware as he listened for any careless sound. He waited to discern even the faintest silhouette form against the black shape of the trees. His entire body was as taut as a hunter who is aware he stalks a prey as dangerous as himself.

Sound traveled in crisp, lucid tones on the still, cold atmosphere. Somewhere nearby the wail of a siren stabbed the night. The warble of an ambulance melded into the grim chorus. Then both faded into the cloaked darkness and were absorbed by the distant susurrus of the city.

A faint crunch in the frosty grass to his left heralded a potential threat. The footfall was stealthy and slow. He tensed, his right hand tightened on the pistol, and he held his breath.

A man in a green fatigue jacket came into view. Napoleon Solo immediately categorized him as one of the enemy. In the same instant, he made the dangerous decision to take this bird of prey alive. He stepped forward. The man turned and brought his weapon up; clearly, he didn't understand Solo's good intentions. Solo pulled the trigger of the Walther.

The former man from U.N.C.L.E. paused only long enough to snatch up the man's pistol and verify death.

'Never stay where you're a certain target,' he recited to himself, even as the quiet was fractured by the crack of shots. Bullets whined past him and bright muzzle flashes strobed from the trees. He dove headfirst into a row of bushes, slid like a skate on the frozen ground and thudded ignobly into a tree stump.

It felt strange to be back in New York their old stomping grounds. Illya and Solo had 'retired' from UNCLE years before, turning to freelance information agents. The level of danger in their lives did not diminish, neither did their skills, fortunately. Bullets whistled above his head, and he kept low as he strove to locate the foxholes of the foe. His lungs ached from over-exertion in the frigid air.

He wondered where Illya was.

Solo and Kuryakin had gone to Central Park to rendezvous with an informant. There had been a double-cross and an ambush, which had left them with a dead snitch. The two former UNCLE agents had separated to pursue the elusive assassins. Thus, they had entered into this nocturnal game of cat-and-mouse. There had been sporadic gunfire, which echoed eerily and directionlessly in the empty park.

He wondered if Illya had managed to get himself into trouble again. There was no gunfire now from any quarter. The stillness sent an insidious chill through his bones that had nothing to do with the temperature. This was one time the silence worried Solo.

***

Illya Kuryakin slunk alongside a tree and waited for another telltale barrage of shots. The gunfire had been grouped in sets. Once, he identified a series of four or five shots, but discounted them as too distant to be involved with his own pursuit. Someone else's shootout, he quickly surmised. After all, this was New York.

A volley of shots reverberated from several hundred feet to his right. A few of those rounds were unmistakably coughs from a modified Walther, the distinct quiet of the UNCLE Special both men still used in the hazardous work. That was a good sign, an assurance his partner was still an active participant in the game.

He slipped from his concealment and edged closer to a row of bushes. He felt more than heard someone's presence. Both hands wrapped the butt of his pistol as he swung around the tall bush, his finger already tight on the trigger.

Sharp, instant reflex froze the finger muscles. Instinct and trained skill honed over years of deadly experience held his trigger finger in stasis. These subtle traits were all that saved his partner's life.

Illya lowered his pistol to his side and allowed the tension and fear to ebb gradually. The measurement of how close it had been was so infinitesimally small it could not be gauged. All he knew was it had been much too close. He was sure his heart had stopped. The weight of the weapon was overwhelmingly heavy in his limp hand.

"Didn't anyone ever warn you not to sneak up on a man in the dark?" Napoleon whispered as he drew a deep breath. The Walther he held was still aimed at Kuryakin's midriff, but the hand shook unsteadily. He dropped his arm to his side and inhaled deeply several times. "That was too close," he sighed as he noted Kuryakin's wan face reflected in the dim park lighting. He put a hand on the Russian's shoulder. "You okay?"

"I will be as soon as my heart starts again," his straw-haired companion returned glibly.

Solo felt the bullet pluck his forearm before he heard several reports echo in the blackness. Turning, he crouched and fired, his sixth sense pinpointing the assailant's position. A cry of pain from the dark line of trees rewarded his quick reactions. A moment later he felt Illya slump against him.

Solo spared a second to determine if he had successfully eliminated the opposition, then turned to his partner. The blond agent clutched his left shoulder as blood spread quickly in a dark patch over his navy peacoat.

"Bad?"

"I'll live," Illya retorted dryly. "You'd better check our friend over there."

Napoleon gave him a gentle pat of reassurance. "Took a bad fall, I'm afraid." He sprinted to the downed man and checked the body. After retrieving the man's weapon, he crossed back to his comrade, who was leaning against a tree in the absence of his partner's support. "Dead," he reported succinctly as he examined the Russian' s torn shoulder. He grimaced in distaste. "I think you need a doctor."

"Then we'd better get checked into the nearest ER."

"We?"

Illya reached over and tugged at the bullet hole in the right sleeve of Napoleon's trenchcoat. A streak of shiny red ran down the black material and trickled over Solo's hand to the ground.

"Yes, 'we' Kimosabe."

Solo sighed. "I hate hospital paperwork." He winced as he helped his partner up. "We'd better go. We can't have you lose much more of that staunch Russian blood."

Kuryakin nodded in agreement, but his calm reaction became academic when he fell against Solo. "Good idea, but I don't think I can walk too steadily."

"The lame leading the lame," Solo muttered as he hooked an arm under Kuryakin's good arm and led him toward their car.

***

Police cars stood like sentinels at the emergency room entrance. Their scarlet lights revolved brightly against the absorbing darkness. An ambulance's red strobe rotated and spilled a vermilion wash of color across the hospital wall. It reminded Solo unpleasantly of blood. He noted his partner had lost a precious lot of it on the trek to the hospital. No wonder he had such a morbid obsession with it.

The ER was a mass of confusion and suppressed tension as Solo supported Kuryakin through the electronic doors. They had been patients in far too many hospitals, emergency rooms, and trauma centers in their careers. He hated these places more each time he had to enter one.

Policemen, detectives in plain clothes, photographers, reporters, doctors and attendants crowded around the admission's desk. Several sobbing people lined the corridor walls. Another flew York circus tonight!

Solo wondered absently what tragedy had occurred but didn't spare more than a fleeting second on the thought. His friend was in immediate need of attention, and that was uppermost in his mind. For the moment, any other crisis didn't concern him.

"Hang on, son," he encouraged quietly when he saw his ashen companion was nearly sapped of strength. He didn't waste time at the desk. Instead, he commandeered the nearest doctor and quickly explained the emergency.

The young, harried physician spared a glance at the pale man slumped weakly on Solo's arm, dismissed him with a weary look and turned to leave.

"Look, my friend's been shot! He needs immediate attention!" The words snapped with all the authority of the former Chief Enforcement Agent of UNCLE. Napoleon didn't need the ubiquitous gold and black card to assert his supremacy. The doctor was jerked out of his preoccupation by Solo's grim visage, which brooked no argument.

"What a night," the doctor grumbled sourly. "All right, I'll fit him in. Let me get an attendant."

"Just point me in the right direction. I'll take him myself," Solo countered fiercely. He'd lost whatever vestige of patience he might have possessed.

"This way." The physician gestured and led the way down a long, whitewashed corridor. "He's not the only one to get shot tonight, you know," he snapped, matching Solo's forbidding glare. It was then that he noticed the blood-soaked sleeve of the trenchcoat.

"Tell me about it," Solo responded wryly at the look. "This is New York, remember."

Just inside the door of the treatment room, Illya's knees buckled. It was all Solo could do to cross the final few steps to the only empty examination table.

A nearby gurney was almost obscured by several anxious doctors hovering around it. Solo caught a glimpse of a middle-aged man with numerous chest wounds; his experience told him the man was beyond help. The sharp features were disturbingly familiar, but Solo couldn't immediately place the profile and couldn't spare the time right now.

With the help of the reluctant doctor, he maneuvered Illya onto the table. The blond agent was already unconscious and tuned out to the chaos around him. Solo held the limp wrist to find the pulse, then checked the bright blue eyes. "He's going into shock," he snapped urgently as he continued to check Kuryakin's vital signs.

"I'm the doctor," the physician commented acidly. "Diagnosis is my job, which is probably why you insisted on my presence." He shook his head in reluctant admiration for the dark, intense man who was so stubborn and abrupt. Yet, the bellicose fellow couldn't be faulted for loyalty and compassion for a wounded comrade. He none too gently hustled Solo to a nearby chair. "You are now declared a casualty, too, buddy. So stay put while I take care of your friend. Then I'll deal with you!"

A tired grin played on Solo's lips at the threat. He collapsed gladly into the proffered chair and suddenly realized how fatigued he felt. He was drained, weak, and content now to pass the torch for Illya's well being to the physician. His partner was in good hands. The tension slowly eased with the thought. He leaned back against the wall to rest his head and glanced toward the dead man. It was then that sudden recognition snapped into his numbed brain. He turned away and closed his eyes to blot out the scene, but the stabbing grief lingered, the regret-burning tears of sorrow dampening his face.

***


Illya felt detached. Through a sluggish chain of thought, he deduced it must be side effects from painkillers. Effective, because he didn't feel any pain; he couldn't feel his shoulder either. Furthermore, he wasn't sure he cared much...definitely the drugs.

The first true sensation to return to his numbed consciousness was sound: the anguished, convulsive weeping of a woman drifted to his ears. A desperate grief filled the echo and penetrated deeply into his unguarded emotions. Illya felt the agony as a tangible presence. The heartbreak and pain wrenched him with each terrible sob.

He opened his eyes to find the source of this compelling grief, but the first thing to come into focus was the nearby corpse. The aquiline profile and the long, dark hair struck a chord of familiarity...someone he'd met fleetingly once years before. It took an inordinately long time to identify the face. The drugs fogged his mind and dulled his usually acute wits. When the identity finally registered, something inside him seemed to wither and die.

He knew who it was, this creative genius who had chronicled with music, verse and philosophy the lives and times of a generation. The legend...the symbol of an era...a good man -- dead.

'All you need is love.'

Kuryakin couldn't account for the sudden rush of emotion, which washed through him. He was a tough, trained agent. He'd seen death in more variations than most people could imagine in their worst nightmares. The sudden depression amazed him, and he was at a loss to explain it. He sighed... it must be the medication.

'Give peace a chance.'

Two white-clad attendants arrived to cover the body and wheel it away. Illya shivered in the bone-chilling cold of the stark, lonely room. This moment, this night, would live forever, etched in his memory, the emotions engraved in the secret, private chambers of his rarely nostalgic heart.

It was the day the music died.

"I hope you've finally found your peace, John."

"What was that, Illya?"

The easy, familiar voice startled him into sharper awareness. He was surprised he'd spoken the thought aloud and turned to see Napoleon perched on the edge of the table. Solo's arm was bandaged, and the ex-agent appeared well enough despite the wound.

The suave spy leaned closer. "How are you feeling?" His expressive face was a study of puzzled anxiety scrutinizing him. Illya's azure eyes were unnaturally damp and blurry.

"Are you in pain?"

Illya shook his head. His tongue thick and numb. His mind felt confused and torpid, It was just as well, since it would never do to let Napoleon know the truth behind his sudden and uncharacteristic fervor of emotion.

The mahogany eyes brimmed with concern. "What's wrong?"

"An era has died." The words were flat and sprang unbidden

"Yes, I know," Solo responded gravely, looking distantly at the space where the body had been. When he turned back to Illya, there was a fleeting anguish in the brown eyes, a sorrow that didn't completely clear as he studied his friend. "He was too good for this," his voice thick. Solo pressed a cool hand on the Russian's fevered brow. "You'll be fine," he diagnosed kindly. "They'll be here in a minute to take you to a room."

Illya nodded as he felt the tug of unconsciousness again. He slipped into the comfortable void, and the last thing he saw was his friend's concerned face as it faded into a curtained mist. The reassurance in Napoleon's voice echoed a warm solace in the cushion of sleep.

Life would go on. Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin would return to the mainstream of their existences. Yet, the world had suffered a grievous wound and sustained a loss it could never replace.

The day the music died.

No, that was wrong. The music had not died. The man, regrettably, had died. But the music lived on. The legend, the ideas, the poetry and the song would live on in a legacy of his life. It was his gift to mankind.

Like the warm touch of a friend or a compassionate hand on the shoulder, the music and the spirit would always be there to comfort a grateful world.


JOHN LENNON

October 9, 1940 --- December 8, 1980