This story is intended as a follow-on to my story "A Long Time In Coming", from my Katiya series.
THE WIRE
He remembered the wire.
He still dreamed about the wire, almost every night. Barbed wire fences used to keep in people as well as animals. The animals knew no better, of course. They had no idea what was coming, but the people knew very well what was in store once they found themselves on the wrong side of the barbed wire fences.
Some tried to climb the wire, but the soldiers had made sure it was high enough and sharp enough to make it impossible to climb over. Always the guards were there. Always they were spotted. Those who had climbed too high to return to the ground quickly were shot down. No one ever escaped over the wire. Those who survived the attempt were punished severely. No one ever tried a second time.
He remembered climbing the wire, certain of his own strength. Certain of his own agility. Certain that his determination, his desperate need to escape would be enough to carry him through.
He had almost made it. They didn't want him dead, though. He had information that they wanted, and they were determined to break him to get it. In his case they electrified the wire, just for an instant, but it was enough. The burns on his body, his face, hands, knees, thighs and feet…every part of him that touched the wire, then the jolt that threw him off and tossed him like a rag doll into the mud.
That was when they decided he was too great a liability and he was chained to a wall in a deep, dank underground room where they saved him for the interrogators.
They fed him only when they remembered, watered him just once per day. He was interrogated for hours every day. No rest, no sleep, no break even to use a toilet. Always in his mind loomed the wire that had prevented his escape.
The other prisoners died or were killed off sooner or later, but not him. He was too valuable. He had information vital to the future of his country, they said. Vital to the future of his people, they said. They had called him a traitor to his people, ordered him to speak, beat him when he refused. They had tried to brainwash him, but his obstinacy and his UNCLE training undermined their efforts. Finally, they left him to rot. Sooner later he would break.
Illya Nikovitch Kuryakin did not break. He remembered his duty to UNCLE, and refused to talk. He remembered his best friend and partner, Napoleon Solo. Napoleon would find a way to get him out, he knew. He refused to cooperate. Finally, he thought about his little Katiya back in New York. His brother's little girl whom he loved as though she were his own, and thinking of her gave him strength and determination.
He would not break. He would not give in. UNCLE would not forget him. They would get him out. All he had to do was be patient, and wait, and keep refusing to give in.
Then, more than eleven months after his imprisonment, UNCLE found him. They destroyed the compound and killed the KGB officers running it. They fed him, cleaned him up and gave him clean clothes to wear. They put him on a plane. That was when he knew he was no longer dreaming.
Napoleon was there.
Napoleon welcomed him and gave him a hug and a shot of vodka.
Napoleon opened a door and for the first time in almost a year, Illya's dreams came true. UNCLE had rescued him, reunited him with his partner, and given him back his little girl.
Reunited, he hugged his little Katiya, and he thought once again of the wire.
Even the wire was not enough for UNCLE.
He still remembered the wire. He still dreamed about the wire, but he did not mind. Not anymore, because always the dream ended with a hug.