The Archivist, a man from uncle fanfic

The Archivist

by Victoria Martin

Summary: Everything you need to know for The Return of the Man from UNCLE to make sense.

Warnings: This one's got it all – angst, hurt, sex and death (although these last two are firmly canon-based, so if you know the show, you'll know who gets laid and who's for the chop).

Archive department. Yes, this is the archivist speaking. Oh yes, of course, I've been expecting you, do come down. The receptionist will arrange for someone to bring you – yes, it is rather inconvenient, but we've had to tighten security after that unfortunate incident with the Bronsky file. Can't have these things falling into the wrong hands, can we? Oh, here you are already, well, I must say those receptionists are splendidly efficient. Now then, what can I do for you? Really? Yes, well, that sounds like a most interesting research topic. Yes, yes, of course I knew Solo and Kuryakin personally. Well, as good as personally. I know every record in File 40 inside and out, and I think you could fairly say I'm a world expert on UNCLE's history and its personnel. Equipment? You mean cars and guns and so forth? Doesn't interest me as much, truth to tell. I'm more one for the wetware, ha ha ha! No, no, I'd be delighted to assist you in any way I can. Read your introduction? Certainly. Goodness me, what a pile of notes! Another damn thick book, always scribble scribble scribble, eh, Mr Johnson? No, that was a quotation; I do know you're not actually Samuel Johnson. Oh, never mind, just show me the thing. Hang on, where did I put my reading glasses? Oh yes, thank you so much. Now then.

Certain of the historical documents relating to the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement are tantalizingly inexplicit, and none more so than those dedicated to the Fifteen Years Later Affair. Indeed, the first question they raise is "Fifteen years later than what?" Close analysis of the files leads to the conclusion that the event referred to is the departure of Mr Napoleon Solo, then CEA of North America, from the ranks of UNCLE. This may make for a strange code name for an official mission, but it suggests that someone in the filing department had, if not a sense of humor, then at least a sense of history. But no amount of analysis of the documentation provides an answer to the question of why Solo chose to leave. We know that his departure constituted an irrevocable breach (irrevocable, at least, for 15 years) not only with UNCLE but also with his then partner, Mr Illya Kuryakin. We also know that they parted on terms so bad that neither subsequently attempted to contact the other, although both continued to live in New York City. Nevertheless, the files do not reveal how the rift occurred.

Yes, yes, I see. A very interesting question. Very interesting indeed. You have to understand that Napoleon Solo was a man who craved excitement. He craved it as an addict craves heroin, as a pregnant woman craves cabbage soup, as a Finn craves sunlight, as a starving supermodel craves chocolate, as – oh, yes, I do beg your pardon. Where was I? Ahem. Well, in the search for that "kick", as I believe you young people call it, he at times behaved in ways that a sane man would frankly call crazy. And, as he approached forty, he grew increasingly concerned that his future at UNCLE would contain nothing more adrenaline-inducing than his pen running out of cartridges, or his secretary forgetting the sugar for his coffee. In consequence, when an acquaintance approached him with an extremely risky business proposition, for a venture that might make him a millionaire several times over, but was more likely to leave him personally bankrupt and a long term resident of Skid Row, he jumped at the chance. Risk, you see. He had had enough experience of computers to have a hunch that they might not only be of use to international criminal masterminds and mad scientists; and he had enough contacts in the world of Swiss banking to make funding his hunch a realistic proposition. The only difficulty was in deciding when and how to break the news to Kuryakin. I believe you will find that this file here fills in the blanks nicely. It's called The Clean Break Affair...

Napoleon knew what Illya's reaction would be, and so he made a policy decision to reveal the information only on a need-to-know basis. His conscience occasionally pricked him about this, but Napoleon was generally on good terms with his conscience – in that he generally listened to it and it generally approved of his actions – so the argument remained at the level of polite discourse and never descended into mud-wrestling. Napoleon pointed out that it was his life and therefore the decision was entirely up to him; Illya would only disapprove if he knew; Illya disapproved of many things about Napoleon, but that didn't mean Napoleon had to agree with him. For example, there was the issue of how far Napoleon's sex life interfered with his ability to do his job. Illya was all too vocal in expressing his opinion about this, which was annoying and tedious and fundamentally pointless, since he wasn't going to change Napoleon's behavior. It would be much better to avoid this sort of inconvenience altogether. Napoleon's conscience protested feebly that this was different, but Napoleon begged to differ, and the matter was shelved between them. In later years, Napoleon would become briefly involved with an actress who was appearing in a play in which a man carried his conscience around with him in a suitcase, only getting it out when needed. The romance left no lasting impression, but the play did - Napoleon would subsequently think of himself as having been, in that period of his life, very like that man, but at the time he was pleased that he and his conscience were getting along so well over what was, he might as well admit it, rather a tricky moral issue where dissent might have been expected. In fact, he was pleased all round with how things were progressing, and at how quickly, and with how little regret, he was able to make arrangements. It was, after all, his life, and only he could know what was best for him.

The sole point of unclarity was exactly when the need-to-know requirement would be fulfilled. Napoleon found himself postponing it longer than he had originally anticipated – although there had never been a set date as such – and in the end it seemed most sensible to present Illya with a fait accompli. Here, however, his conscience put up unexpectedly stiff resistance and insisted that Illya should know before Napoleon handed in his resignation papers to Waverly. Napoleon felt it might be better to ask Waverly to treat the resignation as confidential for the three months' notice period in order not to interrupt their working partnership, but his conscience pointed out that Waverly was most unlikely to assign him to active fieldwork in that time anyway. That meant there was no practical reason for the delaying the revelation, but given the likelihood of an atmosphere clouding their last three months of partnership, Napoleon felt that he was being generous to a fault in not waiting till the last possible moment. Really, it would be so much pleasanter for both of them to make it a clean break, with no time for recriminations – unjustified though they would be, of course – or lingering unpleasantness.

When the moment came, there was no easy way of working up to it – Napoleon had run through a variety of possible scenarios in the weeks, and especially the nights, leading up to this point – so he resolved to cut straight to the chase. He walked into the office that morning in the grip of a strange mix of feelings, part elation at the prospect of freedom, part thrill at standing on the threshold of an irrevocable decision, and part sheer, annoying nervousness. He covered the latter by whistling merrily, something by Sinatra that he had heard on the radio recently and that wouldn't get out of his head.

Illya was in his office, typing up the report on the mission they had just completed. Napoleon came in feeling unexpectedly awkward and endeavored to take a seat with casual elegance.

"Illya," he began, "there's something I've been meaning to tell you -"

"One moment, Napoleon." Illya didn't look up from his typewriter. "I'm having trouble phrasing this. Unless you have a suggestion for how I can make 'The Thrush witness managed to escape while Mr Solo was flirting with his nurse' sound like it was part of a clever plan?"

Napoleon winced. "Hey, we recaptured him," he protested. "Besides, I was only temporarily distracted, it could have happened to anybody."

"Of course," said Illya drily. "Then I shall write 'Whilst engaged in rendering a second Thrush operative harmless, Mr Solo was temporarily unable to give his full attention to the witness'." He banged away at the typewriter keys for a few moments, then looked up and rubbed his eyes. "What was it you wanted, Napoleon?"

Napoleon's conscience most inconveniently chose this moment to burst from its suitcase like a jack-in-a-box. Illya looked tired and there was a bruise on his temple where a piece of exploding diamond had struck him. He didn't look like a man in the mood to embrace the possibilities offered by a major upheaval in his life. Luckily, Napoleon had trained reflexes. He jumped on his conscience and thrust it back into the box, then sat himself firmly on the lid.

"I'm quitting UNCLE," he said.

Illya stared. "What?"

"I'm sure I spoke quite distinctly. I'm quitting."

There was a long silence. Illya was good at those. Although he could complain for Russia in the world grumbling Olympics, he could also hold an awkward silence longer than any man Napoleon had ever met. This time, however, Napoleon had the drop on him. He was quite happy to put up with silence, since it was infinitely better than a protracted and painful argument.

But there was to be no avoiding it. Eventually Illya figured out that Napoleon had no intention of being embarrassed into speech and said acidly "I don't suppose you'd care to tell me why?"

"For several very good reasons, Illya." This part went smoothly, Napoleon had prepared his lines well in the uneasy nights. "The main one is, I need a new challenge. I've got a desk job looming in my near future and with the best will in the world, I can't see that giving me job satisfaction."

"Not in your immediate future," was supposed to be Illya's next line, to which Napoleon would have responded with soothing words about time to prepare, but instead he said "What's job satisfaction got to do with it? You work for UNCLE."

"Well, I know that," said Napoleon, knocked onto the wrong foot, "But don't tell me you don't enjoy fieldwork. All that running around and hitting people, it's right up your alley."

Illya glared at him. "That's not the point," he said. "I could run around and hit people for Thrush. Or I could not run around for UNCLE and work in R&D instead. It makes no difference what I do, the point is that I'm doing it for UNCLE." He looked at Napoleon expectantly and then, when no response was forthcoming, sighed irritably and said "I save the world. We save the world. What does it matter if you do that in the field or behind a desk?"

"It matters to me. I need to get some satisfaction out of what I'm doing, and not just in the virtue-is-its-own-reward sense. I'm part of the world too, you know. I'm entitled to some quality of life."

Illya glowered. "You're impossibly egotistical."

"And you can't shake off your Soviet training. If you want to be a good little cog in the machine, Illya, that's your prerogative, but I'm making my own choices."

There was no point in staying after that, so Napoleon left. He resisted the temptation to slam the door on his way out, and instead paused to say as silkily as possible "Perhaps you'd better rephrase that last sentence so it more accurately reflects my decadent Western selfishness."

As he sauntered out the door he had the satisfaction of hearing Illya slam his fists down on the typewriter. Time to go and see Waverly. He continued to saunter, through the chrome, yet somehow homely corridors of UNCLE, still whistling that tune that wouldn't get out of his head. I'm packing my bags. I'm leaving today. Gonna make a brand new start of it...

That didn't go quite as you expected, said his conscience, putting in a sudden appearance.

"No," Napoleon conceded. "I didn't think he'd be so cranky about it. All that holier-than-thou stuff. It gets my back up."

It would have been nice to part on a friendlier note.

"What do you mean, part? I've got three months' notice to serve, there'll be plenty of opportunities to sort things out. He's just mad because he's upset."

Exactly, said his conscience, retreating back inside its suitcase.

Regrettably, Waverly didn't take the news any better than Illya.

"This looks like a resignation, Mr Solo," he said, frowning at Napoleon from across the table.

"Well, sir, that's because it, ah, is," said Napoleon. "You see, it says right there just above my signature 'I hereby tender my resignation'."

"Well, you can't do that."

Napoleon raised an eyebrow. "I can't?"

"No, it would be most inconvenient."

"Well, I'm sorry to hear that, sir, but as you always say, no one is indispensable. And I'm as expendable as everyone else."

Waverly favored him with a bloodhound-on-the-scent stare. "Mr Solo, if you're worried about a lack of excitement once you turn forty, I can assure you that won't be an issue. I expect you to move into Section One as soon as your contract with Enforcement ends."

"Thank you, sir. I'm flattered that you think so highly of me. But no, thank you. I believe the time has come for me to take an entirely new direction. I need new challenges. And frankly, sir, I'm not getting any younger, and although the UNCLE pension plan is undoubtedly an improvement on the Thrush one, it's hardly going to keep me in the luxury to which I'd like to become accustomed."

"Isn't that rather a selfish attitude, Mr Solo?"

Napoleon was entirely fed up with people assuming an attitude of moral superiority over him.

"Sir, I've been shot, beaten, tortured, sexually assaulted" - Waverly raised an eyebrow - "ah, in a manner of speaking – drugged, and subjected to experimental interrogation techniques by my own side. I hardly think I need to prove my dedication to UNCLE. But the time has come to move on."

"I see. Well, since you feel that way I'll sign your release forms immediately. You can hand your badge and your gun to security personnel on your way out."

Napoleon felt the blood rush to his face. It was infuriating. He couldn't lose his cool now, of all times.

"Immediately, Mr Waverly?"

"I see no point in keeping you on if you don't want to be here. I can't afford to work with agents who are less than fully committed. Thank you for all you've done for us, Mr Solo, and I wish you all the best with your future enterprises. By the way, what are you planning to do?"

"I'd rather not say, sir, except that I have every reason to believe it's a job with a future."

With that, Napoleon turned on his heel and stalked out, with the strong suspicion that his cheeks were flaming. He was furious. Furious with Waverly for treating him – him! The top UNCLE agent in North America! - like an unsatisfactory employee, and furious with Illya for trying to assume the moral high ground. As if everything he had done, all the sacrifices he had made for UNCLE, counted for nothing. This lot didn't just regard your body as being entirely at their service, they thought they owned your soul as well. He detoured briefly into the men's washroom to splash cold water on his face and ensure that his hair and tie were perfectly in place, then sauntered down to the exit. He was doing a lot of sauntering today.

"Goodbye, Wanda," he said to the young woman on duty, making absolutely sure he'd put the right name to the face, then tossed his badge and gun onto the desk in front of her and walked briskly out, drawing a pathetic little glow of satisfaction from her look of astonishment. UNCLE, he knew, would regret severing its association with him so precipitously. Waverly would find the transition to a Section 2 that wasn't headed by Napoleon Solo more difficult than he expected, and Illya would find being CEA wasn't all violins and roses either. They would be back in touch with him. After all, hadn't Waverly told him to hand in his badge and gun but left him his communicator?

All the more reason, then, to make sure that he sank without trace.

Illya was still staring at the typewriter, signally failing to find the combination of letters that would adequately sum up his and Napoleon's most recent mission, when the phone rang. It was Waverly.

"Mr Kuryakin, did you know Mr Solo was planning to resign?" he said without preamble.

"Yes sir," said Illya, feeling absurdly grateful that he didn't have to say no.

"Well, why didn't you tell me?"

"Um, it didn't seem any of my business, sir. It was Napoleon's decision to take."

"Well, I'm very disappointed in you, Mr Kuryakin, very disappointed indeed. Personal loyalty between agents is most desirable, of course, but in this instance it was misplaced. It's going to take weeks to induct you as a replacement for Mr Solo and it would have been very helpful to have his input. However it can't be helped."

"I'm sorry, sir, but do you – do you mean Napoleon has left UNCLE already? I thought he had to give three months' notice."

"Yes, well, he's gone. And you'd better come up to my office so we can start sorting out this mess as soon as possible."

"Yes, sir." Illya put down the phone and stared for a moment into space. Then he pulled the half-written report out of the typewriter, crumpled it up and threw it in the bin. He could write it later, when he'd had a chance to talk to Napoleon...

What? Oh yes, the report was eventually filed six months later. But by then, of course, Kuryakin knew, or thought he knew, that Solo had no desire to talk to him ever again. And Solo was right, of course, computing was indeed a job with a future, and within a very few years he'd made fantastic amounts of money. The excitements of the free market are, in the nature of things, less physical than those of Enforcement, but they are no less - how shall I put it? - visceral, and it has to be said that Solo thoroughly enjoyed not being beaten, shot at, drugged or experimented on. At least at first. Gradually, though, the thrill began to pall, as thrills do, and the more successful his company became, the less it interested him. Getting is better than having, as Calvin would say. Sorry? No, not John Calvin, the other fellow, little cartoon boy. Stuffed tiger. You know the one. Anyway, for a while Solo found playing the stock exchange an adequate substitute, but then that thrill, too, started to wear off, and he turned to gambling. Cards are so much better than investments, you see. The payoff of profit or loss is immediate, concentration has to be total, and there is even the remote chance that some outraged opponent will try to shoot you. Solo had no regrets about leaving UNCLE, except, we may assume, a measure of corrosive bitterness at the way he had been discarded, but the evidence suggests that he found life outside the organization at times a little tedious. And, very occasionally, he remembered a detail from one of his missions and felt a tweak of nostalgia which explains why UNCLE was able to reach him when they finally woke up and realized he was indispensable. Of course it wasn't logical for him to have kept the communicator when he walked out of UNCLE, vowing never to darken its doors again, and even less logical for him to have kept it switched on, but when have human beings ever been logical creatures? And Napoleon Solo had more reason than most to trust his instincts rather than his intellect, they having served him in excellent stead over the years. The file you want is only a slim one, I keep it under J for Je ne regrette rien...

On the day Napoleon pulled off an astonishing deal, exporting mainframe computers to a China that was just emerging from the throes of the Cultural Revolution, he came back to his penthouse apartment and wondered why he wasn't feeling exhilarated. He was due that evening at a ball at the Chinese embassy, for which he was planning to dress with care (elegantly – the Chinese liked their capitalist pigs to look like capitalists – but not flamboyantly, expressing sophisticated taste without crossing the line into decadence) but halfway through tying his bow tie, and before he had donned his tuxedo, he found himself reaching for the whiskey bottle he kept in the drawer of his bedside table. The truth was, he had absolutely no desire to go to the ball. Oh, he was pleased, of course, to have pulled off such an impossible deal, to have proved once again that Napoleon Solo was unique in his combination of intelligence, charm and political savvy, but for some reason it didn't bring him any satisfaction. And the ball… the ball would not exactly be a glittering affair (Chairman Mao hadn't approved of glitter) but there would be excellent food and exotically beautiful women, and the Chinese Ambassador served the best champagne in the whole of New York, it being the belief of the People's Republic that nothing oiled the wheels of diplomacy like getting your opponents sloshed. And yet he felt no particular desire to go. Annoyed with himself, he drained the glass, and then another, in the hopes of generating a better mood. After all, these sorts of things – women, travel, excitement, glamor – were the frosting on the cake of life, they were what made it all worthwhile. Of course he wanted to go!

Refilling the glass seemed like a waste of time. Napoleon put the bottle directly to his lips and was about to take a slug, when it struck him with horrible clarity what he must look like: alone in his bedroom, half-dressed, drinking whiskey straight from the bottle. "Perhaps," said a small voice from somewhere within him, "man cannot live by frosting alone." A good point, a very good point. Illya had been right, he reflected, the observation taking him by surprise. Doing what you enjoyed wasn't what counted. You had to know that what you were doing served a higher purpose. He put the bottle down and, in a haze of nostalgia and sentiment, retrieved his communicator pen from his personal safe. It would be dead, of course. Nonetheless, he put it to his lips and said, only half-jokingly, "Open Channel D." Nothing. Obviously. Just as he had expected. He installed a new battery and tried again. "Illya, come in little friend." Still nothing. It didn't look as if anything had corroded or worn out, so he presumed UNCLE had simply stopped using those channels. He wondered briefly if it were possible – in theory, of course - to reconfigure the communicator so that it could pick up on the conversations, commands, requests, reports, and all the other staples of UNCLE business that must still be whizzing through the ether. Illya could have done it, he thought, but hardware had never been Napoleon's thing. Not that there was anything wrong with that, you had to play to your strengths, and Napoleon's gift had always been for dealing with people rather than things. It had made them a good team, each supplying what the other had lacked.

He shook his head abruptly, tired of wallowing in a past that was no longer relevant, and was turning back to the mirror, when a fragment of verse came unbidden into his mind. It was something Illya had been fond of quoting when missions went wrong, and although Napoleon had found it annoying at times, eventually it had stuck.

If you can make one heap of all your winnings
And risk it on one turn of pitch-and-toss,
And lose, and start again at your beginnings,
And never breathe a word about your loss...

"And never breathe a word about your loss," Napoleon repeated softly. "I guess that's as good a creed as any for a man to live by."

He wrapped the black silk of his bow tie neatly round itself, turned down the starched wings of his dress shirt and shrugged his way into his tuxedo. The white of the shirt glowed softly against the black of the tux, his cuff-links adding the occasional gleam of gold where the light caught them. There was a touch of gray in his hair, but, he told himself, it was a distinguished gray. All in all he looked impeccable, imperturbable, like Napoleon Solo. On impulse he tucked the communicator into his inside pocket, exactly as if it were the sterling silver pen it pretended to be. From then on he carried it with him, switched on and supplied with fresh batteries. He thought of it as a kind of lucky charm, an amusing accessory and, in moments of honesty, a talisman, to keep him away from the abyss...

You see, it all makes perfect sense, really. Next question? Ah, Mr Kuryakin and that unlikely-seeming fashion house. That certainly came out of nowhere, didn't it? But then the official files are tantalisingly laconic on the subject of Kuryakin's past - let me fill you in on a few details that expand on what you'll find in them. This is the one you want, The Fretful Porpentine Affair...

The night Janet Jarret became a star she ended up, not entirely unpredictably, in Napoleon's bed, where she once again disappointed that indefatigable lover by her inability to put Amor before Thespia. In spite of all the delightful distractions he offered her, she was unable to put the evening's triumph out of her head, and kept surfacing between kisses to analyze which scenes had worked and which had not, and which elements might prove to be recreatable and which had owed their impact entirely to their spontaneity. Napoleon tried his best to seem interested, for sheer politeness' sake, but his tastes in theater ran to the conservative and classical and he could not for the life of him see why Janet could think anything at all about In & Out had been any good. Eventually they reached some kind of compromise of interests and climax was achieved, but as Napoleon rolled off, thinking longingly of sleep (for it was by then approaching six in the morning), Janet caught him by surprise by asking "Which stage school did Illya go to?"

"Stage school? He didn't. You must be thinking of Survival School," said Napoleon and yawned heavily, in a hinting kind of way.

"Sure he went to stage school," said Janet, equally surprised.

"Janet, Illya is an UNCLE agent, not an actor," said Napoleon as patiently as he could, given how fed up he was getting with the way her head, undeniably pretty though it was, could encompass nothing beyond theater.

"I know that," said Janet, "but he's still had theater training. You saw his Man Is A Horn number."

"Mmmm," said Napoleon politely.

"You can't tell me UNCLE teaches you guys to act like that, with the accents and all," Janet persisted.

"That doesn't require any special talent," said Napoleon, slightly miffed. "I myself pretended to be a talent scout - for Mr Whatshisface - Sternmacher, remember him?"

To his annoyance, Janet started to giggle.

"What's so funny?" he demanded. "Your horn player bought it."

"Oh, Napoleon darling, your face! I'm sure you do a wonderful job of pretending to be a talent scout, but that's not the same as being on stage in front of an audience. I could see you squirming when you guys took your bows at the end, and Illya was right at home. "

With considerable reluctance, Napoleon thought back to Illya's "performance." Perhaps Janet had a point – the mere thought of prancing about in public in those ridiculous black tights made him shudder, let alone having to chant that – thing (Napoleon refused to dignify it with the name "poem," and a song required a tune). It was true that Illya had learned the choreography, such as it was, surprisingly quickly. And, come to think of it, he'd been positively eager to get on stage when Napoleon had rescued him from the tunnel – in fact, he'd been in such a hurry, he'd even left blowing up the computer to Napoleon, which was unprecedented. The more Napoleon dwelt on it, the more suspicious incidents he recalled, like Illya leading the way through the stage entrance when they arrived, and asking Blinz, or Linz, or whatever his name was, how he was going to stage the new Act II. At the time Napoleon had assumed he was being sarcastic, but Linz, or Blinz, had given the question a serious answer. Hmm, this was food for thought indeed. After the rigors and disappointments of the day, Napoleon finally dropped off to sleep with the gratifying prospect of acquiring entirely fresh ammunition with which to annoy Illya.

The next day, in spite of a severe shortage of sleep, he set about his research project. As he had thought, there was nothing in Illya's file about drama school, but then then was nothing about anything, apart from his parents' names and his place and date of birth, until he started military service in the Soviet navy. Napoleon had wondered about this when he first saw the file, but his natural tact had prevented him from raising the issue with his partner. After all, anyone growing up in a country that had been occupied first by the Soviets and then by the Nazis might have had experiences they didn't wish to become public knowledge. The stint in the navy was followed, in remarkably quick succession, by the Sorbonne, Cambridge and then UNCLE. Napoleon found it difficult to see how Illya could have crammed drama school in there on top of everything else, but in spite of this he had a hunch that Janet was on the right track. The answer must lie in those intriguingly blank years. Presumably Waverly knew the details and had seen fit to keep the information from prying eyes – and at that moment a memory popped into Napoleon's head, of Mr Waverly saying enthusiastically "I'm looking forward to Mr Kuryakin's performance." Waverly, who didn't usually turn up personally for a front line operation, and who had seemed genuinely disappointed that Thrush had interrupted the play before Illya's ghastly Horny Man number started. Napoleon tapped his pencil thoughtfully against the edge of his desk. The Old Man definitely knew more than he was letting on – but how to winkle that knowledge out of him? Bare-faced cheek, he decided, was the best approach, and so he headed up to Waverly's office.

"Good morning, sir," he said breezily, "I'm sorry you missed Illya's performance yesterday, it was quite remarkable. You'd think he'd have forgotten all his training by now, but not a bit of it."

"Ah!" Waverly exhaled heavily and sat back in his chair. "I was sorry to miss that, it must have been quite something. His Little Eyolf is still a byword amongst the cognoscenti of Soviet theatre, you know."

"Little Eyolf?"

"Yes, Ibsen. Oh come, Mr Solo, I know you don't frequent the theatre much, but you must have heard of Ibsen? It was a ground-breaking production, you know."

"Er, what production would that be, sir?"

"The Moscow Art Theatre, 1946."

"The Moscow Art Theater?"

"Yes, one of the most important theatres in the world. Founded by the great Stanislavsky. Now don't tell me you haven't heard of Stanislavsky? I thought method acting was all the rage these days."

"Oh, ah, yes, of course. I just didn't realize Illya had started when he was quite so young."

"Well, he comes from an old Moscow theatre family, and his father was in the ensemble. As a matter of fact, I saw Kuryakin père in Uncle Vanya when the MAT toured Europe in 1922. All in Russian of course, but absolutely unforgettable."

"Illya's file is strangely silent on this subject, sir."

Waverly's eyes twinkled. "Ah well, we have Jules Cutter to thank for that. I knew he was going to have a hard enough time of it dealing with a godless Communist without telling him the chap was a luvvy as well. Jules never could see the appeal of theatre. I dragged him off to see Olivier in Hamlet once and all he could say was 'Bunch of pansies'. Fellow's a complete philistine."

"I didn't realize you were a keen theater-goer, sir."

"Oh, I trod the boards myself in my young days, on a strictly amateur basis. I believe my Richard III is still spoken of at Oriel – I based him on the Master, caused a great scandal in the SCR. But it's not the sort of thing one wants to make a career of. Far too trivial, when there's real work to be done. Speaking of which, we've just received this report from Geneva..."

Napoleon was excessively pleased with the results of his research. That Illya, who was notoriously close-mouthed about his past, should turn out to have been some kind of child star was a gift of a discovery. This would put an end to caustic comments about admirals and ambassadors and being born with a silver spoon in various orifices (sometimes Napoleon suspected that Illya's failure to get to grips with English idioms was entirely deliberate). And as an added bonus, he had uncovered potential blackmail material about his boss, although the pleasure of digging up a photo of Mr Waverly in hunchback and tights would have to wait. His immediate goal was to find a suitably provocative way of raising the subject with Illya.

He didn't have to wait long. Illya had had an off-day on the shooting range and came into the office disgusted with his scores.

"Perhaps it's time to give up the day job?" Napoleon suggested, his voice oozing sympathy. "I'm sure they'd welcome you back to In & Out with open arms. Blinz was practically swooning over your performance."

"It was crap," said Illya dispassionately.

"I find it hard to disagree with that assessment, but aren't you tempted? You could rename the show Don't Put Your Agents On the Stage, Mr Waverly. Or is that beneath you?"

"How do you mean?"

"Well, it's not exactly Chekhov is it? Stanislavsky must have been spinning in his grave."

"What are you talking about?

"Come on, Illya, don't play the innocent with me. Waverly told me all about your family heritage and your extraordinary performance as Little Eeyore. Gee, I bet you were the cutest thing!"

Illya stared at him in astonishment. "Mr Waverly told you this?" Seeing Napoleon's answering grin, he fell silent for a moment, just long enough for a gleeful "Gotcha!" to pass through Napoleon's head, and then said seriously "Much as I appreciate Mr Waverly's determination to protect my privacy, he shouldn't have lied to you. You're my partner, you have a right to know."

"Know what?"

Illya fixed him with soulful blue eyes. "I – I can't really find the words," he said softly. "It was – we were – you know I grew up in the Ukraine?"

"Er, yes," said Napoleon uncomfortably. He wasn't used to Illya in full-on confessional mode and it made him embarrassed.

Illya was staring into space now, one hand clenching a pencil, the other rubbing abstractedly against his knee.

"I ought to have told you," he said finally. "My parents – when the Germans came – I was seven - " The pencil in his hand snapped in half. One piece flew across the room and caught Napoleon just above the eye. Illya flinched, like a child expecting a blow. Napoleon felt like the worst kind of cad.

"God, Illya, please, you don't have to talk about it. And don't blame Waverly, I pushed him and he covered up for you, that's all. There's no hard feelings."

"I should have told you," said Illya again, "But finding the words, it's so hard - 'I could a tale unfold whose lightest word Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood'. Funny how Shakespeare always knows, isn't it?" He smiled weakly.

"Please, Illya, forget I ever mentioned it. After all, I'm not exactly forthcoming about my own previous lives."

Feeling truly horrible, Napoleon left the room, grimly determined never to raise the subject with his friend again. So preoccupied was he with berating himself for his insensitivity, however, that he failed to hear Illya's voice on the other side of the wall, shaking with rather exaggerated emotion:

"I could a tale unfold whose lightest word
Would harrow up thy soul, freeze thy young blood,
Make thy two eyes like stars start from their spheres,
Thy knotted and combinèd locks to part,
And each particular hair to stand on end
Like quills upon the fretful porpentine."

After all, every actor may dream of playing Hamlet, but the Ghost isn't a bad part either...

I leave it to you to determine whether Waverly or Kuryakin was telling the truth here. Suffice it to say that Waverly was the only UNCLE employee in the northern hemisphere who was not particularly surprised when Kuryakin, on leaving the organisation, opted for a profession dominated by raging egos and questionable aesthetic values. But if Kuryakin's eventual choice of occupation requires no more explanation than this, the steps by which he came to leave UNCLE in the first place are less easy to reconstruct. When we last saw him, after all, he was expounding to Solo a moral principle that bound him to the service of UNCLE no matter how personally unsatisfactory he might find the work. Indeed, his decision not to try to track down his former friend and partner had much to do with a revulsion at Solo's betrayal of precisely this idea. How, then, did he come to abandon it himself? No, no, that was a rhetorical question – yes, I'm sure you have notes - oh, bullet points (or should that be sleep dart points, ha ha?). How exceptionally well-organised of you. Let's see if you've missed anything, shall we?

Mission to Yugoslavia

Yes, it was Croatia, as a matter of fact. Dubrovnik. To collect a microdot. What was on it? Oh, plans of some kind. A Thrush installation in Albania, I believe. Frankly, it's not that important, you'll see why.

Janus, a double agent

Mmm, you could call him that. (Kuryakin to Waverly: "Janus? Isn't that rather an obvious code name for a double agent?" Waverly: "Nothing is obvious in this business. I would have thought you'd have realised that by now.")

Janus betrays Kuryakin

They met for no more than a few minutes, you know, and yet both carried such scars away from that meeting that years later each would recognize the other at a single glance.

Girl in Kuryakin's charge killed

Yes, he took that awfully personally, didn't he? Decked his old friend Napoleon a decade later for daring even to bring up the subject.

Kuryakin blames UNCLE

Ah, now we come to the crunch. Although Janus was a double agent working for Thrush, it was UNCLE Kuryakin blamed for the failure of the mission and the death of the girl, blamed so thoroughly, in fact, that he walked out on it and Waverly and all that his life had stood for for so long. All very odd, isn't it?

All right, I see you've got all the facts down. Let's see if we can do a little reverse engineering on them, shall we? How do we get from there – loyal employee of UNCLE who regards his service as a moral duty – to here – disgusted refusenik, conscientious objector. Ex-UNCLE at all events. There's one particular document I think you'll find very helpful - dear me, where did I file the wretched thing? - It's not under Janus - it's not under Betrayal - ah, here it is, yes of course, The Turning of the Tide. From Shakespeare, you know. Henry V...

03.25pm, New York

It was at times like this that Waverly wished the clock in his office didn't tick so maddeningly; when this was over he would contact Development and insist they do something about it. For the moment, though, there was nothing he could do but sit and wait. And listen to that damnable clock. The drop was supposed to take place at 03.10pm New York time. It was 03.25 now and Kuryakin still hadn't called in.

The minutes slid past with nerve-wracking slowness. 03.26. Tick... Tick... Tick... 03.27. He could hear Miss Rogers breathing, slightly faster than usual, and his own heart beating, also a touch faster than usual, but it wasn't enough to cover the ticking. 03.28. Still no shrill from the communications console. 03.29. Tick... Tick... Still nothing... 03.30. At last! Still, he would wait another couple of minutes – wouldn't do to have the staff thinking he was rattled. And a couple of minutes couldn't make any difference at this point, could they? 03.31. Tick... Dear me, he ought to have got used to this by now... Tick... 03.32!

"Miss Rogers, get me Janus on the line. Use the scrambler. And block all other calls."

"Yes, sir!" Lisa bent over the console, then hesitated. "Uh, what if Mr Kuryakin tries to call in, sir?"

Waverly let his features settle into their best impersonation of a cliff face. "If he was going to call in, he would have done so by now."

"Yes, sir."

And now there was a voice on the line, a cautious voice, male, speaking Croatian.

"Da?"

"Oh now, who will behold the royal captain of this ruined band?" intoned Waverly sonorously. He'd always been a bit of a Shakespeare buff. There was a pause at the other end, then the voice said hesitantly, and in English, "Henry V. First folio?"

"Quite right, Janus," said Waverly. "Now listen, this is an emergency. One of our agents, Illya Kuryakin, is in Dubrovnik. He was supposed to pick up a microdot – no, never mind what was on it – but he hasn't called in and he may need help getting out of the country. If he contacts you, you are to assist him in any way possible. This overrides all other priorities. Do you understand?"

"I understand," said the voice, "but I'm not too happy about this, sir. It's putting my cover in serious jeopardy. Is the microdot really so important?"

"It's not the microdot we're worried about," said Waverly impatiently. "That's just something that came up unexpectedly; we put Mr Kuryakin on it since he had a stopover in Dubrovnik anyway. No, what concerns us is the information Mr Kuryakin is carrying. He was on his way to Moscow with a list of the names of all 23 UNCLE agents who have successfully infiltrated Thrush satrapies around the world – including yours, I might add – and until the proper debriefing procedure is carried out, he's got all that information inside his head. I hardly need tell you that it would be catastrophic if Thrush got their hands on that list."

"No sir, I see that. All right, I'll give it top priority, even if it means putting my cover at risk."

"Good man. You know I wouldn't ask you to do this if we had anyone else on the ground." Waverly switched off the communicator and took a deep breath. His palms, he realised, were slightly sweaty. Well, he had done everything he could, and Kuryakin was an exceptionally able agent. There was every chance that he would make it out of this alive.

09.30pm, Dubrovnik Old Town

It was at times like this that Illya wished he wasn't a spy. It was raining like the clappers and a brutal wind had stripped the hat from his head and bowled it out to sea. Now his hair was plastered to his scalp and what felt like a small waterfall was dripping down the back of his neck. As if that wasn't enough, his arm was bleeding where a bullet had snagged it; a bullet, moreover, which had frightened off his contact before she could hand over the microdot, and had brought half the Yugoslavian police force down around his ears - the same police force that was now in possession of his wallet, his passport and his gun. It had been a bad day, and the only bright spot was the fact that he couldn't contact Waverly to tell him how utterly things had gone pear-shaped, because Tito's finest also had his communicator. Still, at least they no longer had him.

He probably should have touched wood while thinking that; or maybe he had been jinxed by the sodden black cat that had slunk across the street a few moments ago - it had certainly given him an unusually reproachful look before scurrying off into the rainy shadows. Whatever the reason, his unlucky streak seemed to be holding fast, for the unmistakable sound of the Law could be heard advancing with inexorable tread up the street. He glanced quickly into one of the side alleys – Dubrovnik 's Old Town was full of them, like a Turkish souk, but damper – afraid he would find himself trapped in a dead end if he darted down there, but grimly aware of the absolute necessity of darting somewhere. Suddenly a voice hissed from the shadows "Get in here, mister, quick!" and a car door swung open. Illya had no time to carry out a risk assessment; the policija were too close for that. He hopped into the car and pulled the door shut behind him as quietly as possible.

From underneath the steering wheel a dark little face grinned at him. "Get down on the floor!" it said in a penetrating whisper. Illya squeezed himself in as best he could, wincing as the contortions twisted his injured arm, and crouched there in the darkness, waiting. The little car did not appear to be very robustly built and it certainly wasn't soundproof. He could hear the thud of boots hurrying along the road well before he saw the beam of the flashlight, and ducked down lower still, trying to fold himself into a shape with as little surface area as possible. It was hard to breathe, squashed in on himself like that; whoever was curled up in the space next to him must be quite a bit smaller than he was, given the quietness of their breathing.

Outside, the police were calling to each other.

"I'm telling you, he went this way."

"Oh, he did, did he? Then why's there no sign of him? Disappeared into thin air, I suppose?"

"And I'm telling you, it was the next alley."

"Come on then! He'll be at the waterfront if we don't get after him!"

The boots clattered back the way they had come and Illya uncurled with a sigh of relief. His feet had gone to sleep while he crouched on them, and the blood flowing back in gave him a pins and needles feeling, though it was nowhere near as bad as the throbbing in his upper arm. He hoped it wouldn't slow him down.

"Where're you going?" demanded the person under the steering wheel indignantly, crawling out to join him. It was a child - a girl, apparently, judging by the skirt – with the dark face of a gypsy and the manners to match.

"I have to get out of here," said Illya, by way of explanation. "Thanks for the help," he added as an afterthought.

"What you done then, mister?" the girl asked with interest.

"It's a long story," said Illya firmly and slid out of the car. His companion, however, had no intention of letting him get away that easily.

"Wait for us!" she said shrilly, and grinned when Illya turned round and glared at her. "You want me to keep quiet, you gotta let me come with you," she said.

Illya sighed. Of all the complications this night had inflicted on him, this was the kind he had least patience for.

"Chey," he said, dragging up what little Romany he could remember, "little girl, I have things to do. Big, important things. Dangerous things." Finding his vocabulary inadequate, he switched back to Croatian. "Things I can't do with a child tagging along."

The girl, whose eyes had widened in astonishment when he began to speak her language, now sniffed scornfully. Illya could sense his temporary advantage slipping away.

"Oh yeah, you're gonna do big dangerous things," she said, tossing her head. "You'll be lucky if you make it as far as the corner before the garda catch you."

"And you're going to help them, are you? By screaming?"

The kid wiped a fierce hand across her nose. "I don't help the bi-lacho garda," she said, and spat expressively.

"Good," said Illya, and began to walk cautiously up the street. The girl ran after him. "You're bleeding," she said in conversational tones.

"Yes," said Illya flatly.

"I can help. Really. Look." She tore a dirty strip off the edge of her already ragged skirt and held it up triumphantly. "I'm good at healing wounds, my bebee taught me."

"No offence to your aunt, but no, thank you," said Illya, eying the filthy rag with distaste. Then a thought struck him. "Look, if you really want to help, give me a few dinar. I need to make a telephone call."

The child's dirty face lit up. "Sure, I can get you money! Wait here!" She ran off up the alley. Illya, slightly bewildered, nonetheless seized the opportunity to escape. The pain in his arm receded slightly as he walked, movement as always doing him good, but he had barely covered a hundred yards when he heard the heavy thump of booted feet and was obliged to duck down the next alley and take cover in a puddle behind a dustbin. It wasn't very good cover, and it was very wet, two facts he had plenty of time to reflect on, as three of the less dutiful of his pursuers chose that very alley to pop into for a quick smoke, but at last the nerve-wracking wait ended and he crawled out, only to find the girl waiting for him, with an expression of I-told-you-so smugness on her face.

"I got you your money," she said, holding out a handful of coins.

Illya frowned. "Did you steal these?" he asked severely.

The girl grinned. "Course I did," she said happily, "I'm good at picking pockets, my -"

"bebee taught you," finished Illya. "Oh well, I suppose it's in a good cause. As an old man once said to me, May mishto phabol o kasht o chordano - stolen wood burns better for being stolen. Hand them over."

"I keep half," said the girl, picking out a few, "you won't need more than that for a phone call. Unless you're going to call Russia?" she added with interest.

Illya groaned. "Is my accent that bad? No, I'm not going to call Russia."

"That'll be enough, then. My name's Kizzy. Who are you?"

"Illya." He held out his left hand, wary of allowing his right arm to be jolted, and for a moment she looked insulted, then nodded in understanding and shook the proffered hand solemnly.

"Where's the nearest phone box, Kizzy?"

At times like this, Illya grudgingly admitted to himself, local knowledge was undeniably useful, even if it came in the form of foul-mouthed gypsy kid with the clinging power of an octopus. Kizzy took him, not to the nearest phone box, but to the one in the darkest corner of the Old Town, following obscure routes through courtyards and back alleys to avoid the garda, and she kept watch outside while he rang his back-up. He still wasn't sure why she was so insistent on helping him - probably the usual gypsy delight in putting one over the authorities, and heaven knew, they had reason enough for it - but right now he was in no position to look a gift horse in the mouth. He didn't like calling a field agent on a public line either, but without his communicator, he didn't have much choice.

The phone rang only once before it was picked up at the other end, and a male voice said in Croatian "Aleksej's Bookshop."

"Our gayness and our gilt are all besmirched with rainy marching in the painful fields," said Illya, inwardly cursing Waverly's predilection for Shakespeare. There was a moment's silence and then the voice said "Henry V. Bad quarto?"

"Dreadful," Illya agreed. "Do you have anything on border crossings, Janus?"

Again, there was a moment's silence and then Janus said "Where are you?"

"In Dubrovnik, the Old Town. With half the local constabulary at my heels."

"I can't get you out of the Old Town, there'll be guards at every gate. You'll have to manage that for yourself. I'll meet you outside the North Gate, Gorni konjo Street, top end. You've got one hour." There was a click and the dialling tone resumed.

"Helpful chap," muttered Illya. He leaned his head against the cool of the glass and tried to think. The historic city walls – vast and smooth and, despite their historic-ness, regrettably intact - formed an irregular parallelogram around the Old Town, with a fortress at each corner and, currently, a guard at every gate. There was no way of scaling the walls without equipment, even if his arm hadn't been playing up. Much as he hated the thought of getting Kizzy further involved, it looked as if she was going to have to back him up for a while longer. Until the list was safely delivered to Moscow, the stakes were simply too high for him to be overly scrupulous about ethics. He took a moment to summon up the energy, then stuck his head out of the phone booth.

"Kizzy, can you steal me a hat and an umbrella? A big umbrella?"

Kizzy beamed. "Give me five minutes," she said proudly, jerking her thumb at the lights of a coffee shop further down the street.

The guard at the North Gate was cold and bored. He had had high hopes of this evening, for word had gone out shortly after nine that there was an American spy loose in the Old Town, but though his colleagues had been kept busy running up and down through the rainswept streets, there was no sign of the spy. He shivered and drew the collar of his rain cape tighter round his neck. Probably even spies wouldn't be about in this filthy weather, but he nonetheless peered conscientiously up at the streaming walls, just in case anyone was trying to sneak up them.

At that moment a voice cut through the rain. A loud, angry voice.

"Stop, thief! Give me back my hat! Sergeant, stop that girl!"

Right on cue, a gypsy kid came racing towards the gate, a hat in her hand. Puffing along behind her came what looked like a large green umbrella on legs, from which the outraged voice was issuing.

"I said stop her! Can't you see she's got my hat? Wait till I catch you, you little street rat!"

The gypsy spun round and thumbed her nose at the umbrella, then pulled the hat firmly down onto her own head and darted round past the guard's outstretched arm and out of the gate.

"Don't just stand there!" bellowed the umbrella and might have said more, had a gust of wind not seized it and sent it bowling out of the gate after the thief.

It was an amusing incident and the guard was still chuckling some quarter of an hour later, when an indignant German tourist came up to him and began to complain.

"Officer, I've been robbed! I was sitting in a coffee house just down the road and somebody took my umbrella and my best hat! I'm sure it was those gypsies, one of them came in not ten minutes before I left, and when I paid my bill my things were gone! I don't know why you allow that scum in the city. It's very bad for tourism. Yes, a green umbrella, and what I want to know is, what are you going to do about it? Oh, a walky talky? Are you calling for reinforcements? Well, I must say, you take crime very seriously in this country, that's most reassuring. Hey, where are you going? Don't you want to take a statement...?"

Around the corner and out of sight of the gate, Illya slowed to a stagger. Wrestling the wind for control of the umbrella hadn't done his arm any good at all, any more than the mad sprint through the streets. There was no time to rest, though. Somewhere amidst this maze of cobbled streets and higgledy piggledy housing was his meeting point with Janus. Kizzy saw him hesitate and came and pushed under his good arm. "It's that way," she said, pointing up a steep alley.

"When this man shows up," said Illya, treading with painful caution so as not to jolt his injury, "I'm going with him, but I'm afraid you'll have to stay here."

"I'm coming with you to America," said Kizzy, with a glare the equal of any of his own.

"America? What makes you think I'm going to America?"

Kizzy shrugged. "The garda said you were Amerikanc," she said, "and you don't dress like a Russian."

"I can't take you with me," said Illya patiently. "You're a child, it would be kidnapping."

"I'm fourteen," said Kizzy sullenly.

Illya would have pegged her at around ten, but she had the scrawny look that comes with undernourishment, and he was inclined to believe her.

"I'm sorry," he said helplessly. Pain was digging its teeth into his arm and making it hard to concentrate. He was sure there was an unassailable argument for why Kizzy couldn't come with him, he just couldn't remember what it was.

"I helped you," said Kizzy.

At that moment a car shot round the corner and screeched to a halt opposite them. A man leaned out of the window.

"Looking for your uncle?" he snapped.

"Janus?"

"Get in the car. Who's that?"

"She's not - ," Illya began, when for the umpteenth time that night he heard the sound of boots on cobbles and the baying of the Dubrovnik police. "She's with me," he finished, and pushed Kizzy into the car. Janus put his foot on the gas and the car leaped forward before Illya had even had a chance to shut the door, rattling over cobbles and around impossible corners and once even up a flight of steps, until the wet roofs of the city gave way to the dark and stillness of the hills.

10.55 pm, somewhere in the hills above Dubrovnik

Somewhere on the mountainside the car came to a halt. Illya, who had drifted off into a light-headed state somewhere between a doze and delirium, forced his eyes open and found himself, rather confusingly, looking down the barrel of a gun.

"This is the end of the line," said Janus, who for some reason was now speaking English. "Out you get, Kuryakin."

Illya stared at him blearily. He had a feeling he was missing some crucial piece of information, a quantity in the formula that would allow two and two to equal five, but he wasn't sure what it was.

"Open the door," repeated Janus, in the tones of someone addressing a slightly backward five year old. Illya obediently reached for the handle, and as he pulled it, he heard the other door swing open and the squelch of running feet in mud. Unfortunately, these encouraging sounds were immediately followed by a scream of rage, as Kizzy ran headlong into an approaching Thrush guard. Clambering out of the car, Illya saw her wriggling in his arms, hissing and spitting like an enraged cat in a vet's embrace. A sudden yell indicated that she had managed to sink her teeth into some part of his anatomy, at which point the guard lost patience. He struck her with full force across the face, and then dragged her over to Illya - who now noticed for the first time that there were five other guards surrounding the car - where she hung back, snivelling aggressively and pulling faces at anyone who dared look at her.

Illya looked over at Janus, having finally found the missing quantity in his formula. "I haven't got the microdot," he said, with a certain grim satisfaction. "I never made the contact. The police interrupted. That's how I got into this mess in the first place."

Janus grinned.

"Oh never mind the microdot, Kuryakin," he said. "What interests me is that list of names you've got in your head."

Illya started, knocked completely off balance, and panic screamed at him that flight was now the only option. Panic quite often made these suicidal suggestions. Janus must have seen the thought flit across his face, for he said grimly "Don't think about making a run for it, Kuryakin. I shoot real straight." Without shifting his eyes from Illya's face, he raised his pistol and fired. Illya, braced for a warning shot, managed not to flinch, but could not repress the reflex to turn his head when he heard a soft splash behind him. Kizzy was lying on her back in a puddle, staring at the sky, a neat black hole just above her nose. Raindrops trickled down her cheeks. They looked like tears.

"Drago, toss the kid into the ravine," ordered Janus, his gaze still locked on Illya. He had a fashionable felt hat on, Illya noticed, and rain was running off the brim, just like the drops running down Kizzy's face. "No one'll come looking for gyppo trash like that."

Anger was an old friend to Illya. He relied on it to get him out of tight spots, when he was outnumbered, or outweighed, and needed the adrenaline surge to pack power into his punch and drive out rational fear. But he had never experienced anything like the shock wave of aggression that crashed through him as he saw Janus holster his gun and turn away. His vision narrowed to a tunnel, wiping out the hill, the muddy track, the six men with guns aimed at him; all he could see was the tiny figure of Janus, half a lifetime away and getting smaller, and he launched himself at him with a snarl that would have shocked him in its animality, had he been able to hear it. But he couldn't hear it, any more than he could feel the pain in his arm. He flung himself low in a flying tackle and cannoned into the back of Janus's knees, pinioning them so that the man couldn't save himself from pitching to the ground. The force of the impact jolted his shoulder and lost him a few precious seconds, but Janus seemed equally winded and only began to react as he felt Illya heave him onto his back and scrabble for his gun. But by then it was too late. Illya pulled the pistol out of the holster and in one smooth movement put it to Janus's head and pulled the trigger, the explosion splattering blood and brains and bits of bone over the muddy ground.

Except that the movement wasn't smooth. The pistol caught on the holster as it came out and the tug hurt his arm. He could not suppress a gasp of pain that hunched his shoulders forward, interrupting the pistol's trajectory, but by then he was already pressing the trigger. Janus yanked his head to the side and the shot missed him by a fraction of inch.

For a moment the two men locked eyes - Janus's pupils wide with terror; Illya struggling to understand why the eyes were still looking at him when half the head should have been smeared across the track. Then the guards grabbed him from behind and pulled him off their boss's body.

Janus scrambled to his feet, his face as red as sunset, his eyes blazing dully. His face and jacket were smeared with mud where he had hit the ground, and his upper lip was bleeding and puffy; he looked like a little boy who has lost a playground fight. One of the guards sniggered, and cut it off instantly as Janus's eyes flicked in his direction. Illya knew that this was a dangerous time. He had humiliated Janus in front of his subordinates, and the man would be desperate to reassert his status. Through the haze of pain he groped for a new solution – if he could provoke Janus into killing him? The list would be safe at least. He wouldn't have been a complete failure. He managed a weak grin.

"That mudpack'll do wonders for your complexion, Janus. You should have tried it before."

Janus's fist clenched, and then relaxed. "Pity you're such a bad shot, Kuryakin," he said. "Maybe you should get shooting lessons?"

The guards laughed, tickled by their leader's joke, and the tension drained out of Janus's shoulders. He was top dog again. "Get him into the lab," he said, "and get Dr Radčič down there. I want this guy ready for questioning in half an hour."

It was at times like this that Illya's stubborn streak demonstrated that it was inscribed deep in his DNA. He had encountered Thrush truth drugs before and knew there was no point in fighting them. Sooner or later, no matter how determined you were to resist, your will was ground down and you found yourself humiliated, helpless, blabbing like a baby. Resistance was, as the saying went, useless, but Illya was incapable of giving in without a fight. "And so hold on when there is nothing in you, Except the Will which says to them: 'Hold on!'" he muttered through gritted teeth, while the drugs sent their tendrils spiraling through him and his vision began to fog. As the familiar woozy feeling spread through his limbs, he heard a voice beside him say "Illya! Don't give in! Think of girls!"

"Girls," Illya grumbled, as his head started to unscrew, "Like that's going to help, Napoleon."

A different voice echoed through the lab, a voice with no visible source. "The names of the UNCLE double agents, Kuryakin. What's the first one on the list?"

Illya shook his head, but the movement took forever. He was trapped in slow motion. Even his tongue could barely move. An old sentence stirred in the depths of his brain, one that always surfaced on these occasions, and he hid behind it gratefully.

"I was... I was betrayed... betrayed by... by...Vlad-Vladimir Petkovic, Belgrade."

No, that was wrong. Not Petkovic. Someone else. M, something beginning with M. Mikhal.

"Mikhal Jurisic, Dubrovnik."

That was wrong, too. He shifted uncomfortably in his bonds, and through the fog a sensation stabbed at him. A pain. In his shoulder. He grabbed hold of the feeling, trying to clear his head.

"Next?"

By an enormous effort of will, he managed to waggle his elbow slightly. The stabbing pain intensified. Now he knew what he had to do.

"The next name, Kuryakin! What is it?"

"Arsène Martin, Paris... Jawaharlal Kaul, New Delhi... Gabriel Arroya y Ramirez, Buenos Ares..." The names were coming faster now. "Voltan Bajuk, Tallinn... Chiang Yat-sen, Peking." The names were rolling off his tongue ..."David Wurawa, Harare. David Maayan, Jerusalem..."... rolling, rolling, but he could roll too. He rolled his right shoulder up towards his ear, then slammed his elbow down into the arm of the chair. A fist of nausea slammed him in the gut. The room turned upside down and for a moment he hung there, suspended from the ceiling, then toppled out of the chair and into unconsciousness.

Behind the two-way mirror Janus started to his feet. "What's going on, Doctor?" he shouted into the microphone. "That's not supposed to happen! Did you give him an overdose?"

Dr Radčič looked up from his examination of the prisoner. "It is most certainly not an overdose! He's probably just passed out from blood loss."

"Well, do something! Patch him up, get him back on his feet! There are another six names we need!"

"I can give him an infusion. It'll be about half an hour before we can continue, though."

Janus thought of himself as a patient man, a man who played the long game. You had to be, when your business was playing both ends against the middle. It was bad enough that Kuryakin had got to him before, had made him lose his cool, but he had no intention of allowing himself to be provoked again. He pressed the button on the mike and said "Okay, okay, I'll go get a coffee. Just make sure you've got him all bright-eyed and bushy-tailed for me when I get back."

Dr Radčič resented aspersions being cast at his professional skills - and he could have done with a cup of coffee himself - but he sublimated his annoyance by taking his own sweet time about selecting the type of catheter, the size of the needle and the particular combination of drugs and plasma to make up the infusion – no point in overstraining the prisoner's heart. Then he unstrapped the UNCLE agent's left wrist, rolled up his sleeve and turned his arm over to insert the needle.

Illya was looking down a tunnel again, but this time it was a long telescope with nothing at the end of it but an endless ocean. Not the black and battered waters of Dubrovnik harbour, but an azure ocean, sparkling in the sunshine. The waves rocked him rather nauseatingly, but they were a beautiful blue. Then, in the middle of the blue, a tiny black spot appeared and grew and grew. Napoleon. Napoleon, and he was heading straight for the sonic beam that would destroy the boat and him and all Illya's hopes of rescue. The boat grew larger and larger; he could make out Napoleon's shape now, soon he would be able to see his face, would have to watch him be blown to bits. He jerked his head away from the eyepiece and forced his eyes open. There was a man in a white coat bending over him, holding a needle. And his own hand was untied. He thrust it upward out of the man's grip, seized him by the hair, and smashed his face into the arm-rest. Blood poured out of the man's nose, and he lifted his hands with an odd strangled squawk to check if it was broken. Illya struggled frantically with the other strap, time slipping beneath his fingers, and surged out of the chair.

"Guards! Guards! Help!" screamed the man in white, still clutching his nose, and staring wildly at Illya as if all his nightmares had come true at once. The cry gave Illya a moment's warning, so that the entering guard ran straight into a neck chop and collapsed on the floor. The man in white tried to shout for help again, but choked on the blood in his throat and started to cough instead.

There would be more here any minute. What to do? What to do? Illya's head was still too muzzy from the drugs for him to think clearly, but even if he had been on top intellectual form, he had always been the type to react rather than think ahead. He needed Napoleon. Napoleon was the man with the plan. But Napoleon had been blown to bits in a little boat, or maybe not in a boat, but something had happened to him, something terrible, and he wasn't here. He would never be here again. Illya was going to have to do it alone. When in doubt, cause an explosion. Yes, an explosion! It was the best idea he could come up with. It was the only idea he could come up with. He snatched up the guard's machine gun with his left hand and waved it threateningly at the man in the white coat, who cowered behind the dentist's chair in the middle of the room. Perhaps he was a dentist? Dentists would have chemicals around. He began searching through the cabinets, pulling out all manner of solutions and powders and bottles and flinging them into a heap on the floor. Then he glanced over at the dentist.

"You wouldn't happen to have a light?"

With trembling fingers the dentist pulled out a lighter and passed it to him. Illya felt oddly exhilarated at seeing one of those drill-wielders on the receiving end of fear for a change. "Boo!" he said suddenly, and grinned as the man jumped. He followed it up with a ferocious glare that made the dentist cringe a few steps backwards, while Illya set fire to a sheet of paper and dropped it onto his home-made bonfire.

What now? Escape, he thought gleefully. What would Napoleon have done? That was easy. Lying on the floor was an unconscious guard in a Thrush uniform and Napoleon, for all his fastidiousness in matters of fashion, had never been able to resist the opportunity to don a Thrush uniform. Still keeping a careful eye on the dentist, Illya started wriggling gingerly into the jacket. He had successfully manoeuvred one arm through, when the door burst open. It was Janus. It seemed that sometimes the universe did provide second chances, and this time, Illya wasn't going to miss.

"What the - " Janus began, and flung himself to the side as Illya opened fire.

To Illya's dismay, the shots went wide. In spite of appearances, it was an unequal fight, for Illya's injured arm prevented him from aiming his gun properly, and Janus was in peak condition. To cries of encouragement from the dentist, Janus hit the floor in a roll, came to his feet, and launched himself at Illya, who cried out in pain and toppled over backwards. Janus scrambled on top of him – the dentist clapped delightedly - and hissed "Told you should learn to shoot straight!" before banging Illya's head against the floor, once, twice – and then the whole room exploded in a roar of flame.

It was not, as it turned out, the whole room that had exploded, merely the pile of chemicals that Illya had assembled. The ceiling was blackened and one of the computers slightly singed, but there was no irreparable damage. It did, however, briefly stun the human occupants of the room, all except Illya, who had been shielded by Janus's body from the full force of the explosion. By the time the others had recovered their senses, and succeeded in putting out the fire, he was gone. So, it turned out, was the helicopter.

It was, Janus considered, a fair exchange. He didn't really mind too much whether Kuryakin lived or died as long as he had the list of names, and 17 out of 23 wasn't bad. With that list, if he acted fast enough, he could set UNCLE operations back by at least a decade and buy his way into the top ranks of the Hierarchy. He wasn't a man given to flights of fancy, but as he took orders direct from Central to begin the purges he thought he could feel the wheels of history turning. Waverly had picked the wrong bit of Shakespeare for his password, he thought smugly. There is a tide in the affairs of men, Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune.

11.45am, Vienna

It was Käthe Kirchmayr's first day on the job as receptionist at UNCLE HQ, but she had been well trained and so did not scream or otherwise panic when the agents' entrance swung suddenly open and a man lurched in, covered from head to foot in soot and bloodstains. He was so filthy that it was not until he had staggered to the desk and grabbed her lower arm that she noticed the little Thrush logo on the pocket of his jacket, but still she did not panic. Instead she slid one immaculate fingernail under the desk and pushed a discreet button.

"Kuryakin," the man said, in the rasping voice of one who has inhaled too much smoke, "New York. I need to speak to - ". He swayed abruptly and appeared to lose track of what he was saying.

Käthe put out her hand and steadied him.

"We've been expecting you, Mr Kuryakin," she said, forcing all surprise from her voice. "I'll get someone to take you up to Mr Waverly right away. Perhaps you'd take a seat in the interim and I'll get you a glass of water?"

The apparition nodded vaguely and sank into a chair. Käthe glanced down at the black smudge on her sleeve and wondered for the first time if UNCLE expenses covered the costs of cleaning.

Illya was too close to collapse to be especially surprised to find Waverly waiting for him in Vienna, but finding the right words to convey the horror of the situation seemed to be beyond him. Whatever he said didn't seem to get through.

"Janus is a triple agent. He was working for Thrush all along."

"Ah yes, I suspected as much."

"Sir, you don't understand, I gave him the list. The list of UNCLE double agents."

"Well, of course you did, Mr Kuryakin, we had to have a way of making sure Janus was the traitor if you didn't come back to confirm it. Don't worry, with any luck Thrush will have taken out several of their own people before they find out they've been double-crossed. And after that I daresay we can rely on them to take care of Janus for us."

Illya felt a pit open up beneath his feet. Waverly had known Janus was a traitor? But that meant – he swallowed convulsively - that meant he had been sent deliberately into the lion's den. A sacrificial goat to lure the tiger into the open. No back-up at all.

"You mean you knew all along?" he asked, as if the answer could somehow be no; as if the bottom could be reinstalled in the world. "Those names were fake? And the botched drop – that was a set-up too?"

"Of course, Mr Kuryakin. I'm sorry you couldn't be briefed about the plan beforehand, but it was essential that you not be able to give anything away under interrogation. Apart from the names, naturally."

An image forced itself uninvited into Illya's mind. A face beneath a dark hat, raindrops dripping from the brim. Oh never mind the microdot, Kuryakin. What interests me is that list of names you've got in your head. He shook himself involuntarily, trying to evict the memory, and in its place a gun fired and a child fell backwards into a puddle, a bullet hole between her eyes.

"Mr Waverly," he said, "A girl died. A girl in my charge."

Waverly sighed. "I'm very sorry to hear that. We do try to avoid civilian casualties, as you well know. But it was essential to our operations in the Eastern bloc to establish if Janus was the mole. And, most regrettably, in cases like this innocent victims sometimes have to pay the price of freedom."

"So she was expendable," said Illya. "Just like me."

"I'm afraid those are the harsh realities of our profession."

"And what happened to 'Preserve innocent lives at all costs'?"

"Times are changing, Mr Kuryakin, however much we may dislike that fact. Thrush is gaining ground. We can't afford to be a lot of sentimental grandmothers."

"Is that our new slogan? ''UNCLE: less sentimental than Thrush!' Or how about 'Sacrificing innocent lives to achieve our goals'? Or 'Whatever the cost, it's worth it'?"

"Do please calm down. You've just come back from a very difficult mission and you're understandably overwrought. Take two days' leave and report -"

"I'm not overwrought!" snapped Illya, "I'm raising a considered objection to UNCLE policy!"

"Then put it in writing. And you're now on leave. That's an order."

At times like this – except there never had been times like this. Always before, Illya had had the certainty that he worked for an organisation that served the cause of good; that whatever his private doubts or uncertainties, what UNCLE asked of him was right. "Ours not to reason why," he thought bitterly, as he made his way to the med unit, "Ours but to do and die." Napoleon, it seemed, had been right after all. He had been too much the Soviet, never questioning Waverly's decisions, never thinking for himself. It wasn't enough to serve a higher power, not even one like UNCLE. You had to make your own choices. Once this was over, once he had got himself patched up and had a decent night's sleep, he would go on leave, as ordered.

And it would be the last order he would ever follow.

So there we have it. The stage is set for your Fifteen Years Later Affair, the actors are in place and the camera can roll. Oh, my dear girl, no need to thank me! It's simply a matter of filling in the blanks. Good luck with your thesis, eh? Nice to have met you, Brown here will show you out. Dos vidanya!