Illya was moving through the underground corridors with a steely determination. His gun drawn, his senses on alert. He knew somewhere, deep in this complex was his partner. He had not heard from the ever engaging agent for three days. No one had heard from him. Napoleon knew better than to go silent and yet he had remained silent for over seventy-two hours. A silence which had brought Illya from half a world away to find the man who was not talking.
Reaching an intersection, he halted before the corner. Wary of what he could not see, he listened intently for any movement, using his ears to tell him what his eyes could not. He could hear nothing to give him pause and so he continued on. The corridors all looked the same but he was not confused by the unending uniformity. He knew the route he needed to follow and was no less certain of his way back.
He was making for the heart of the complex. In the centre of this whitewashed labyrinth were holding cells. Stark unforgiving places where THRUSH imprisoned and tormented those who fell into its clutches. Illya was not unacquainted with cells like these. Napoleon too had seen his full share of them. You did not leave a friend in a place like this. You found him and you brought him into the light. As he would find you. This was what it meant to be partners. It was the knowledge that held you together when you were alone in a place like this. Knowing that whatever THRUSH did, whatever they threatened to do, someone was coming for you.
Illya followed the corridors with grim resolve until they brought him to the deserted cells. There were no guards. THRUSH did not expect intruders to get this far and the imprisoned were rarely in such rude health that escape seemed plausible to the demented minds in charge of such things. Minds which remained uncomprehending of what it meant to have a partner. A friend who would cross an ocean to find you. A man who would fight with the snarling ferocity of a tiger to reclaim what was held.
Methodically the son of the Soviets checked each cell in turn, finding each locked but none occupied. Undeterred, he continued searching until his patience was at last rewarded. Napoleon was crumpled in the far corner of his prison. Silent and unheeding. His dark head hanging down, his face obscured from view.
Illya put his hand in his pocket and drew out a small wrap of material. He knelt on one knee. He did not holster his gun; he left it on the floor, within lightening strike of his fingers. Then he deftly unfurled the wrap to reveal a set of lock picks. He needed both hands to manipulate the tools in the lock until it gave, opening for him. He put the lock picks back in their wrap and the wrap back in his pocket. Then he picked up the gun and pushed at the door.
It swung open and he slipped into the cell, creeping the few steps across it to crouch by Napoleon. Gently lifting his partner's head he said ''Napoleon, it's me. Illya. Are you still with us?''
The dark eyes looked at him blankly, trying to comprehend what they saw. The light and the nonchalant confidence entirely gone from them. Finally they struggled to realisation ''Illya?''
''Yes it's me. Can you walk?'' said Illya.
He studied every flicker and nuance of Napoleon's expression as the American struggled with this second question, until finally finding an answer ''I think so.''
''Good, that's good Napoleon, we're getting out of here and you will get help. This I swear my friend'' Illya vowed, ruthlessly quelling the cold swell of his anger. Napoleon was incapable of being this lost, surety was hard wired in the man. For the malevolence who had wrought this change there now awaited a profoundly Russian reckoning.
''Help?'' echoed Napoleon distantly.
Illya's eyes narrowed, the clever and darkly pragmatic brain behind them evaluating just how much the wreckage of his friend and partner could currently be relied upon. He trusted Napoleon without question, but just how much of Napoleon was there left to trust? ''Just follow me and do as I do'' he instructed.
Illya moved back out into the corridor, Napoleon followed as a shadow, matching Illya's stealth. Having Napoleon follow him, matching movement for movement, silent and watchful felt almost right, almost as it should be. Whatever they had done to the thinking man, the instinctual Napoleon was intact and undamaged, following Illya's lead as he had done countless times before. As Illya had followed his. Almost as if they were still a team. Napoleon stayed with him as Illya led the way back, threading his way through the corridors, retracing the convoluted path by which he had found the American.
They were half way to freedom when the alarm sounded. A raucous klaxon shredding the air with its fury. ''We have to get out of here. And quickly'' ordered Illya. He began to run. Speed would now serve them better than subtlety. Illya could hear the sound of heavy booted feet echoing down the corridors behind them. ''C'mon Napoleon. Move'' he urged his partner.
Napoleon's body was running but only to keep pace with him, it had no urgency of its own. Illya knew if the jackboots behind them caught him they would have Napoleon too, the American would simply stop when Illya was stopped. Doing as he did.
''Napoleon whatever they did to you, you have to keep fighting'' the Russian commanded as they raced through the corridors, his attention now divided between distancing themselves from their pursuers and ensuring Napoleon was still with him.
Illya had found his way into the subterranean maze by means of a forgotten access concealed within a disused well. Rusted iron rungs descending to an opening from which a narrow spiral of stairs led into the heart of the underground complex. It was his intention to exit the same way. He had practised his lock picking skills earlier that morning on the solidly panelled door between the bottom of the stairs and the corridors through which they were now racing for their lives.
Skidding to a halt, he barrelled through the unlocked door with Napoleon hard on his heels. Illya sprinted up the corkscrew of stairs until he reached the top, Napoleon barely a breath behind him. Then he began to climb up the rotting iron rungs set in the slime coated bricks. He could sense Napoleon behind him. He hauled himself over the lip of the well and turned to help Napoleon. He held out his hand as Napoleon neared the top of the iron rungs. Napoleon froze, staring at the hand as if it was a cobra poised to strike.
''Napoleon, we don't have time to waste'' he chastised. Napoleon didn't move. Illya could hear the boots of their pursuers echoing out into the well from the spiral staircase below. He drew back his hand. Napoleon hesitated, still uncertain, his dark eyes clouded by some unknowable battle raging within him. Then he seemed to regain something of himself and launched himself over the rim of the well. Illya grabbed him to steady him as he landed. Napoleon was trembling. Illya let go instantly, partly because he didn't want Napoleon to freeze on him again and partly because something in him was shaken by the fear still evident in his partner. ''I have a boat waiting'' he said evenly, betraying none of his unease.
This was Napoleon, whatever they had done to him, this was still Napoleon. This was still the one man he had come to trust completely, but he was no longer certain. The man who had his trust would not be trembling now and he wasn't sure how far he could trust the man who was trembling.
The sound of booted feet on the iron rungs made the matter academic and Illya took off in the direction of the waiting speedboat, Napoleon instantly with him, only a pace or two behind. They sped over the crumbling surface of the once well ordered harbour. THRUSH knew all the unloved places of the world. It hid itself away amongst the derelict and ruined.
Illya slid to a halt at the quayside sending a spray of fine gravel bouncing across the uneven ground. The speedboat was bobbing patiently a few feet below. He started down the stone steps leading to the water; Napoleon was inches behind him, waiting only enough time to allow him to clear the first few steps.
Abruptly the bitter rattle of a sub-machine gun assaulted his ears, he spun round just in time to see Napoleon fall. The broken and tormented American pitching into the gentle swell of the lapping waves, buoyed momentarily by the air trapped in his clothing, the water blossoming a gentle red around him.