"Agents Solo and Kuryakin, I'd like you to meet our latest recruit, May Walker," Alexander Waverly told Napoleon and Illya. "I know she'll be a valuable asset to our organization."
Illya felt an immediate distaste when he looked at May. The woman had light brown hair that was cut very short, like a man's, and piercing blue eyes that surveyed him suspiciously. To the UNCLE agent, she looked so distinctly unfeminine that he wondered whether she was a lesbian. His native country's culture had always abhorred homosexuality.
"You're from some other country." May's words to Illya following his obligatory greeting sounded cold and almost accusatory.
"Yes," he said curtly.
"Are you a Communist?"
"What if I am?" Illya realized that his tone was brusque, but he didn't care. He resented the fact that this woman he'd just met was already asking him personal questions.
May seemed so totally the opposite of his beloved Trina, who to him had always seemed the epitome of femininity. Illya smiled fondly as he returned home that evening. Trina had been out of town helping to care for her sick father, and she was due home in only a couple of days. Illya couldn't wait to hold her in his arms again and tell her how much he loved her.
"You've been so much help, Trina," Julie Adams told her daughter. "I don't know how I ever could have made it without you. I know Lydia and Dominik will be so happy to see their mother again."
"I can't wait to see them again...and their father." It wasn't lost on Trina that her mother had failed to mention Illya. She knew how her parents felt about the fact that she was married to a Soviet citizen, and a Communist. It was the one major sore spot in her relationship with them.
"Well, good-bye, dear, and I hope you have a safe trip home," Julie told her daughter. "Be sure and let me know when you get there."
"I will, Mom," Trina promised.
Reinhardt Gutmann felt smug and self-assured as he boarded the airplane. In the attache case he carried were secrets, documents he planned to sell to UNCLE headquarters in New York City. After years of working for THRUSH and never having received the promotions, glory and accolades he felt he deserved, he'd decided that the organization had been taking him for granted the entire time he'd been with them, that they'd never truly appreciated him, that it was time he switched sides, for a price, of course.
After finding his seat, Reinhardt noticed that he was seated beside an attractive brunette. A quick glance at her left hand revealed that she was wearing a wedding ring, not that that fact had ever deterred Reinhardt in the least in similar encounters in the past. He turned to the young woman and gave her his most charming smile.
"How do you do?" he asked her. "My name is Franz."
"It's nice to meet you," she replied. "I'm Trina."
"You have such a lovely voice," Reinhardt replied. "I hope to enjoy listening to it on our way to New York."
"Thank you." Trina blushed.
"So what does your husband do?" asked Reinhardt.
"He works for an international news agency. He's a photographer. Are you married?"
Reinhardt shook his head. "Too many women, too little time." He chuckled. "Any kids?"
"I have a five-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. Lydia and Dominik."
Reinhardt nodded silently. Trina, Lydia, and Dominik. Yes, he'd heard those names before.
"No! Want Mama!" Dominik screamed, pushing Illya away.
The flustered father gave a weary sigh. Almost two weeks of being the one to put his son to bed every night had strained his patience. "I want her too, malyutka, but until she gets back from visiting your grandparents, you are stuck with me," he told his son. "Would you like for me to sing the song about the little grey wolf to you again?"
"Nyet!" the bilingual toddler howled, throwing his teddy bear out of his crib. Illya shook his head helplessly as he bent to retrieve it. It was going to be a long night.
