Disclaimer: I didn't promise you a rose garden. I don't own these characters. If I did, I'd be someone else entirely and that would be weird.
My thanks to MacBedh for reassuring me that this was worth carrying on with. Alas, I didn't have the energy to incorporate the addition we discussed and still actually publish this, but I'm holding that thought for any other time it may come in handy. It's not like Illya doesn't get himself into trouble quite a bit.
-0-0-0-
One of the spongy ceiling tiles had a rust colored stain on it that looked like a misshapen hand. Something had leaked through and left its mark. It gave the room the faintest air of being a dank dungeon, not the utility room of an apartment tower.
THRUSH, when not operating in countries where crenellations and chains were the norm, had a pragmatic approach to location. The room that Illya sat in was lit with a fluorescent bulb. The floor was linoleum that had seen better days. At some point the pattern on it had been roses, but they looked more like moldy cabbages now. The pragmatism extended to lodging an important satrapy in a high-density residential area of the Bronx
That was why Illya was here. Of all the THRUSH locations in the Northeastern US region, this was the best choice for UNCLE's current operation. But civilian casualties were, would always be, unacceptable. The fine architecture of any operation had to balance the imperatives of world security with the ideals of local safety.
Illya stretched his right ankle, making small circles with it. He made five in each direction before switching to his left foot. He was shackled to a chair that was bolted to the floor. It was, conveniently, a secure arrangement.
His job was not to escape. Rather, it was to not escape in a fashion that did not arouse suspicion.
A metronome ticked in the back of Illya's head. Forty five minutes so far. They'd taken most of his clothes, leaving him only shorts. Doubtless that was meant to be humiliating or frightening. Actually, it was irritating. One of the baseboards wasn't sealed correctly. That would be useful if he were escaping. But since he was not, it just let in an unpleasant draft.
Illya turned his attention to his shackles, making another wholehearted attempt to remove them. His wrists were bruised and bloody. Would it be enough without a broken thumb? Oh well, when they came, they'd probably break his fingers anyway. He might as well.
Five more minutes passed after the sharp pain and calculated failure to slide his hand out of the shackle. THRUSH were making him wait. He would have plenty of time to anticipate the interrogation to come. Interrogation was a polite word for what would happen.
Illya and Napoleon had talked about it earlier, Sunday morning coffee growing cold in front of them. Napoleon could be cold blooded when he had to. But he had not enjoyed discussing how far Illya would have to go to sell his part in this operation.
The paper lay spread out in messy sections across Illya's kitchen counter when his communicator went off. Napoleon had reached for his, too, at first. It was inconvenient that they sounded the same. When he realized it was Illya's that was chirping he'd gone back to what he was doing until Illya's conversation with Mr. Waverly was over.
When they were both in town on a Sunday they'd catch up with what the world was saying, Illya starting with international, Napoleon grabbing the sports section but reading headlines over Illya's shoulders nevertheless.
"It's time." Illya had said after the call with Mr. Waverly ended.
"You're going in today?"
"Yes, THRUSH's big man has finally been sighted in the city. Intelligence has calculated that my capture will be sufficient to ensure his arrival and continued presence at the target location."
"Ensuring his continued presence means-"
"Yes, Napoleon."
They hadn't talked about the details of what that meant. Napoleon had pressed his lips together in a way that said that he was not impressed with the plan, but he didn't voice any objections. He left to join the team supporting the operation, and Illya had gone on his way to break in to the THRUSH facility and carelessly be caught at it.
He was prepared for this. For what would follow, prepared to be a tethered goat. The information in his head was the real bait. The difficulty in breaking him the hook to catch their big fish. It was vaguely insulting that THRUSH were commencing the engagement with this amateur psychological torture.
Squares on the ceiling. Forty eight tiles in total, seventeen without some sort of stain or damage.
This was the best chance for UNCLE to catch the up-and-coming leader of THRUSH in North America. Illya's job was to lure him and keep him in one place while the UNCLE forces moved stealthily to clear the area of civilians and set up a perimeter.
But still, Illya thought. But still, when the call came he had just started in on the Sunday crossword. When he was in Manhattan, it was his weekly indulgence. The American style of crossword was not quite like the quirky English style that he'd been familiar with at Cambridge. Nevertheless, it was an interesting mental exercise, an excuse for leisure that did not feel completely wasteful of his time.
The newsprint had been substantial under Illya's fingers. Some things hadn't changed when he left his home country. Izvestia might have quite different editorial constraints compared to the Times, but the ink had the same delicious tang to it that spoke of fresh information. It would have been nice to finish his Sunday puzzle before handing himself over like cheese for a mousetrap.
A close approximation to sixty minutes now. Out of the hour, Illya had spent fifteen minutes counting the tiles, assessing the walls, looking for weaknesses and passing time cataloging each detail of the room. Each crack in the linoleum, each square foot of ceiling learned and memorized by heart as a matter of discipline and as an exercise in calming familiarity. If he chose to, he could take this room apart and be out in less than ten minutes.
There was no point counting the tiles again, but there wasn't much else to do.
Did this wait mean that the leader was on his way already, prepared to take on the interrogation of a key UNCLE asset? That would spare Illya the attention of some less competent THRUSH minions. It should prove interesting to provide enough resistance to keep the leader occupied for as long as UNCLE needed.
Illya's performance would buy all the time that was required to usher the families living in this building away from their Sunday lunches without tell-tale fuss and furor.
Or was this delay just a useless tactic to put Illya on the back foot? Had the local THRUSH idiots not read his file? It was an elementary effort for Illya to distract his mind from things to come. They'd gain no advantage on him this way. Incompetence, though usually helpful, was sometimes frustrating. He imagined a conversation with a menial in a THRUSH uniform. "If you had bothered to read my dossier, you'd know quite well that this is a waste of everybody's time."
Most Sundays, when they were both in town, he and Napoleon could get the infernal puzzle done in less than sixty minutes. Napoleon could always help with answers to do with films or sporting records. They'd puzzle over anagrams and homonyms together, enjoying the vast pliability of the language.
This morning they'd run out of time. He'd just written the first few answers in, the ball-point ink a vivid blue against the grainy page, when their communicators sounded.
What was sixteen across, again? He pictured the layout of the puzzle. The radial symmetry, the way the black squares and white squares would make the same picture no matter how you turned the puzzle block, had a delicate art to it. Light and shadow in balance, the world of an agent who did what he must. That was being poetic. To be pragmatic, it was easier that way to remember the clues and how they were laid out. Ten across. Dame's Introduction. Five letters. He had a T in the third square, from six down, Opera set in Cyprus, which was, of course, OTELLO.
Napoleon had answered that one quickly, smugly. Not that Illya didn't know it, but sometimes completing the crossword puzzle together was like starring in their own version of a television quiz show. But neither of them could guess at the meaning of ten across.
The internal clock ticked on. A disciplined mind was a precious possession, but this situation was designed to wear down discipline with tedium and fear. Illya didn't really fear what was coming, but the tedium was its own thing, slowing down the passing of minutes like the crawling hands of a watch that needed winding.
Eighteen across crossed over the first L in OTELLO. It was nine letters, Gave safe harbor to. Safe harbor sounded pleasant. Once this wait was done, this trial of patience, there were things ahead that Illya would rather have avoided. In the usual line of things, avoiding unnecessary damage to an UNCLE operative was one of Illya's duties. Protecting innocents came first, completing the mission equal first. But one was not supposed to invite injury, invite uselessness. An incapacitated agent was deadweight until such time as he could circumscribe medical advice and return to active duty.
The clue for twelve down seemed simple enough. It can raise dough. Although it could be American slang, Napoleon had guessed that it was straightforward. But YEAST was five letters and the clue called for six.
Staring up at the ceiling tiles Illya filled the squares in. LEAVEN would fit. That gave him an E at the end of Dame's Introduction. Nothing made sense. Illya ran languages through his head, words for woman, words for greetings. The mental exercise was excellent, a great diversion from the slow passage of time, the enforced wait.
Dame - mother? Mater? Matre? Was that Catalan? Anyway, it didn't really seem to work. But - no, could it be? A moment of inspiration came to Illya. He laughed out loud, a sharp bark of amusement. If anyone was watching, let them think he'd cracked up. Napoleon would love that one. Dame's introduction? Notre! Like the great Cathedral or the midwestern university. Of course that had held them up. It was almost like a cryptic clue.
The rest of that corner of the grid was harder to remember. That was the section they'd been working on when the call came, but it wasn't as if Illya had been studying a briefing. The one that stuck was that eighteen across. Gave safe harbor to. Illya counted out the letters on the ceiling tiles. Nine letters.
Sheltered.
That cozy indulgence of morning coffee and the newspaper, and the solid presence of a friend. UNCLE had given Illya harbor on these distant shores. Napoleon, without effusive sentiment, made it safe.
The thought was warming. If Illya couldn't remember more clues or more squares on the grid, he could think of that. The psychologists behind UNCLE's resistance training said that it could help to create an image of somewhere safe when facing prolonged interrogation. Where was safer than a Sunday morning in his own little apartment?
Illya's nose itched. It was always the little things. Well, often it was the big things, too. But for this moment he really wished he could afford to get a hand free to scratch the persistent tickle.
How improbable was it that at the end of this affair, there was a home waiting for him? Some men might ask how their life had led to being shackled in a chair in a basement. For Illya, that path was more obvious than the one that led to this quite ridiculous sentimentality he had for his adopted city and the people in it.
That was why this job was worth the price of admission. If the price came out of Illya's pocket, it was worth it that this neighborhood would still be safe haven for the men who left every morning with their lunch pails for a long day of work, the little children who ran around the streets, the women hanging washing from fire escape to fire escape. They didn't deserve to be here while their homes were turned into a warzone between forces outside the ken of their everyday lives.
Illya rolled his head from side to side, stretching out the muscles of his neck. He wrinkled his nose, as if that could touch the annoying itchiness. There was a persistent trickling sound now, in the corner of the ceiling with the biggest sound. It was getting on his nerves. Couldn't THRUSH afford a plumber?
The draft from the loose baseboard had the hairs on Illya's legs goose-pimpling, and his hand was throbbing a reminder of his efforts to sell an escape attempt. Nothing was really wrong, but all the little things were piling up through the dragging minutes. One didn't have to be more than human to do this job. It wasn't that pain didn't hurt, or boredom didn't creep in and eat at one's resolve. It was that an UNCLE Agent felt those things and carried on regardless. You'd have to be stupid not to feel fear at what could be done to you, and UNCLE didn't hire stupid people. The organization hired and trained those who would not let that fear govern their actions. It would still be so easy to escape, right now. The drop ceiling, the loose baseboard - even the door was not that sturdy.
Surely this long of a delay meant that the target was on his way. It was foolish to be hopeful for something that there was no way to call odds on. Yes, Illya was a tempting target, but no, there was no guarantee that the local THRUSH boys wouldn't have first go at him before the target showed up. It was foolish to be hopeful, but it was the kind of foolish that helped with the slow movement of time. It helped to pretend that the wait was correlated to the better of two options to follow it.
There was a muffled sound that wasn't the dripping, or the creaking of the building's old bones. There. Footsteps coming. Someone was coming. This tedium would soon be over. Then there would be what was next, and then-.
After the pain, after the drugs and the physical hurt, the barrages of questions, after holding out and strategizing when and where to give in and give up the smallest amount of information to keep the fish on the hook. After the man that UNCLE was after came and Illya held his attention, after he'd endured, there'd be rescue.
The strategists had estimated that the neighborhood would be clear and main force would be ready to strike within two hours and seven minutes of the THRUSH leader entering the building. The timing was knife edge. If anyone noticed the evacuation of the area the whole thing would be blown to hell and innocent civilians would be right in the middle of the action.
If the footsteps approaching the door were those of the man UNCLE was waiting for, Illya would be out in approximately two hours and ten minutes. Maybe sooner, if the leader had been seen entering the building earlier and the count was already on. Or this could be nothing, a false alarm, and more to endure before their target was on the premises.
Sheltered. Eighteen across. What must happen would pass. Whatever would happen would pass, and rescue would come. Once it was clear that UNCLE had entered the fray, Illya could finally take steps to escape, assuming he was in a fit state to.
What would happen would happen, and UNCLE and Napoleon would not let Illya down. Then they could go home, back to Illya's small safe haven. Napoleon would help Illya to get discharged from medical, then they could go home and get the coffee pot brewing a dark witch's brew to chase sleep and nightmares out. The newspaper would still be waiting where he left it on the counter. They'd sit and lean against each other and not say the things that just didn't need saying, and fill in the spaces in smooth blue ink