Sins of the Father

Somewhere in Chicago. Sometime in the not too distant past.

The restaurant was packed to its upscale rafters and that was good. It was the sort of dark wood and grained-leather establishment in which a woman alone stood out from the crowd, and that was good, too.

On the other hand, the maitre d' reacted to her name immediately, which meant that he and probably the rest of the staff were in league with the opposition, and that was bad. He led her to a corner booth, far to the rear of the restaurant where it was quiet and the patron traffic was sparse, and that was worse. As she eased herself into the booth, Allyson Solo felt grateful to have made it this far and still be alive.

The maitre d' didn't leave a menu or offer to fetch her a cocktail. He didn't bother to ask if she was expecting a companion to join her, either. He knew very well that she was.

Allyson folded her hands and resisted the temptation to toy with the cutlery. It was important to maintain the fiction of professional detachment. She had to appear composed and in control, if not of the situation, at least, of herself. Despite the hammering in her chest, she waited patiently, outwardly calm, fervently hoping she would not have to wait long.

She didn't. Behind her, a voice inquired, "Ms. Solo?"

The sibilant "s" whistled through her like a chill wind. It was a voice from beyond the grave. Allyson looked up at the stranger and felt her stomach drop straight through the floor. A hundred photographs couldn't have prepared her for this. She swallowed hard, repressing the recognition that welled up inside her, like a gag reflex.

"I'm Adrian Petersen," he said.

As soon as he slid into the opposite bench seat, a waiter appeared to take their order. "Would you like something to drink?" Petersen asked. His manner was businesslike, but impeccably polite.

"No. Thank you."

"Something to eat?"

"I've already had dinner," Allyson replied, not wanting to look at him. She scanned the restaurant deliberately, trying to avert her gaze, but it was no use.

"Coffee, then. And maybe dessert?" He smiled an all-too-familiar smile that made her nauseous. "They serve an excellent cheesecake here."

Allyson started to refuse once more, then thought better of it. Her instructions were to avoid any provocation at all costs. Besides, it would look better if she ate. She consented with a reluctant wave of a hand, allowing Petersen to order for both of them.

As soon as the waiter left, the Thrush chief turned to her and asked, "Do you have it?"

Carefully, so that he could see what she was doing, Allyson opened her purse and handed over the envelope. Without inspecting it, Petersen slipped it into his breast pocket. Then he palmed a transmitter the size of a credit card and said simply, "This is Petersen. Release the hostages."

On the other end, there was an affirmative grunt. Petersen switched off the transmitter and dropped it into his jacket pocket. Allyson estimated that his suit probably cost more than a week of her salary.

Their main business concluded, Petersen seemed to visibly relax. As the waiter returned with their cheesecake and coffee, Petersen lit a cigarette and observed conversationally, "This is a rather menial assignment for one of U.N.C.L.E.'s top agents."

"You requested me specifically, remember?"

Petersen smiled again, the same sardonic smile that had illuminated Allyson's childhood, greeting her small triumphs and soothing her tears. Now, without any of the attendant warmth behind it, it seemed unpleasantly slick, almost reptilian.

"Indeed I did. I'll confess to a certain perverse curiosity about meeting you." The Thrush chief settled back in his seat and exhaled a long stream of smoke. "So, tell me: do I really look like him?"

Petersen was taller and leaner than Napoleon Solo had been, and the eyes were slate gray instead of brown, but these were just refinements, variations on a basic theme. The general contours of the face — the slope of the nose, the shape of the lips, the cleft in the chin — were uncomfortably similar.

And then, of course, there was the voice. And the smile.

"Yeah," Allyson admitted. There was no reason to lie. "Quite a bit."

Petersen nodded to himself, satisfied. "You're telling the truth. I could see it in your face the moment you laid eyes on me. I've been hearing it for years. I suppose now, I must believe it."

"Apparently, it hasn't hurt your career," the U.N.C.L.E. agent commented, forcing down a bite of cheesecake. Still in his thirties, Petersen was already approaching the highest levels of Thrush. According to some unconfirmed reports, he currently served as first assistant to the council chairman — whoever that was — and was next in line for a seat on the council, itself.

Petersen cocked his head modestly, and Allyson thought to herself: Please, please, don't smile again. I can't bear it, anymore.

But he did smile, and she did bear it.

"I have done rather well, coming out of Nowhere as it were," he agreed. "My appearance tends to unnerve my elder colleagues which has proven to be a definite advantage to my career. On the other hand, if he had given me the benefit of his name as well, I might not have had a career at all."

"That was your mother's decision," Allyson reminded him. "I know. I read the file."

"My mother's decision —." Petersen snorted contemptuously, and for the first time, Allyson could see the bitterness percolating just below the surface, like the most poisonous toxic waste. "My mother was a scientist, completely dedicated to her work. What did she know about love? Or the crueler intrigues of espionage? He used her for his own purposes, as he used so many other women."

"Thrush used her first."

"Thrush gave her a life. He took it away, along with her memory. Him, and those damn amnesia pills."

Allyson shrugged as she sipped her coffee. "Again, that was your mother's choice. She wanted to start again with a clean slate."

Petersen's laugh came back dry, flat and humorless. He gestured with the cigarette. "Let me tell you something about those pills: they weren't as effective as your lab people claimed. After a few years, her memory began to return, only in fragments. Little bits and pieces, twisted, distorted, like the shards from a funhouse mirror. As time wore on, she found it increasingly difficult to discriminate between what was real and what was not."

"Did my father know about this?" Allyson asked softly.

"Probably not. He sent her checks in the beginning. I'm told he visited a couple of times before he drifted out of our lives, but I don't remember. The only thing I knew of him, was his signature. I still can forge it."

"But she was financially independent. According to our files, when the affair was over, U.N.C.L.E. awarded her a generous cash settlement."

"Blood money," Petersen spat. "I used it to pay off the bills for the psychiatric hospital where, incidentally, she died when I was nineteen. A suicide."

Allyson closed her eyes. "I'm sorry," she said, meaning it.

Petersen shrugged. "It was partly my fault. I should have chosen a madhouse with less than five floors."

"You mustn't blame yourself for what happened."

"Oh, I don't," Petersen chuckled, matter-of-factly. "I blame him."

The Thrush chief drained the last of his coffee. Allyson watched as he took his time to light another cigarette. It was as if a few cells from her father's dark side, the part of him she seldom saw, had been cloned and nurtured in a petri dish, with this cold-blooded, well-groomed monster the hideous result.

"As I was saying, by the time I entered grade school, we'd lost all track of him."

"That was about the same time Dad married my mother," Allyson murmured, performing a few quick mental calculations.

"Really? I'll bet she was blond. He had a thing for blondes, didn't he?"

Allyson declined to answer and Petersen went on. "When Thrush offered me a position, I thought I'd find him through them, but unfortunately, they'd lost track of him, too. Still, I was patient. The organization was rising again, like a phoenix from the ashes, and I was rising with it. I could afford to wait."

"And then the Hessenburg affair came along," Allyson guessed.

"Exactly. And I've kept tabs on him — and you — ever since."

Allyson sighed heavily. "Then you must be aware that he's gone now."

"Yes."

"And of course you probably know about the contract they placed on his head."

"Of course. I drew it up myself. Did he know that I was involved?"

"No, " she said, hiding her disgust, and left it at that.

"And after he was shot, did he suffer very much?"

"No," Allyson lied. "Not very much."

Petersen shook his head with genuine regret. "Too bad. I used to amuse myself with fantasies of him, imagining him paralyzed, helpless, impotent — the supreme irony! I was glad to hear he was finally dead. I'd considered trying to take him out myself, but after they put that bullet in his back, there was no point in taking the risk. Actually, it turned out better than I expected, all things considered."

Allyson shuddered. She could feel the cheesecake congealing into a sour lump in her stomach. "I'm sorry you feel that way. I'm sorry for everything that's happened to you. I wish I could make it up to you somehow, but I can't."

"No need, " Petersen reassured her, "but thank you for the concern, nevertheless." He sat back again and studied her thoughtfully.

"You know, when I learned of your existence, I was prepared to hate you. I intended to have you killed right after we completed our negotiations tonight, despite my orders to the contrary. I thought it would be like meeting him."

Allyson tensed. Petersen didn't seem to notice.

"But you're not him. Your death would serve no purpose. I can see that now. So, I'm going to let you walk away from here, unharmed."

He stubbed out his cigarette and added, "Mind you, don't mistake my ambivalence for the stirrings of fraternal love. I am Thrush and you are an U.N.C.L.E. agent. If we ever meet again, face-to-face like this, rest assured I will not hesitate to kill you. Nothing personal, you understand. It's only good business."

The Thrush chief tossed a ten dollar bill on the table to cover the check. "After all," he laughed jauntily, "we probably have the same blood type."

He slid smoothly out of the booth and turned back to Allyson. "Don't bother to get up, Ms. Solo. And please, count to three hundred before you attempt to leave — for your own safety."

But Allyson couldn't let their meeting end just yet, not like this. She leaned across the table.

"Look, Petersen, for what it's worth: Dad didn't know about me, either. Momma didn't even tell him. She married another guy. It was only by sheer chance that they ended up together. But after she died, he stuck around to raise me. He did care. He did love me. I wasn't abandoned."

The Thrush chief smiled thinly and said, "That's the difference between us, isn't it?"

And then he was gone. Allyson counted to three hundred and barely made it to the ladies room, where she promptly threw up the coffee, the cheesecake and her entire dinner.