BIG GAME HUNTING
Disclaimer: The Man from UNCLE does not belong to me and no infringement is intended.
Warnings: None
Feedback: please, please, please...!
Archive: MFUWWS; others, please ask first.
A/n This is my first fanfiction ever, so please let me know what you think of it!
"And all those pretty lights twinkling on the water!" the girl cooed "Don't they look like strings and strings of gems? Do you think it is Klagenfurt?"
"I'm not sure we could see Klagenfurt from here…" replied Napoleon Solo, absentmindedly enough for the girl to notice.
"You are not even looking, Napoleon!" she scolded, with a small pout. Clearly she had expected something more romantic than a doubtful lesson in Austrian geography.
Napoleon was quick to recover.
"Ah… no. -he lowered his voice to a velvety whisper "I have been… distracted." and the smile and matching look that went with the words dazzled the girl into a dizzy giggle.
She even blushed, and Napoleon wondered for the umpteenth time what where American mothers thinking, when they sent their daughters sauntering alone across Europe…
"Oh, Napoleon! It's just so perfect!" breathed Renee Gerson.
Napoleon smiled half-heartedly. Renee's mother had no reason to worry, not about tonight, not about him, since long before anything approaching bedtime, even by Austrian standards, he would be dead.
The buxom Fraulein of the lakeside braugarten came carrying two wonderful plates of Kaiserschmarren, and Napoleon thanked her, wishing that the time for his assassination had been set after dessert…
"Your German is so good!" sighed Renee.
"Well, you know, in my line of work one has to…" Napoleon shrugged dismissively, more pleased than he would ever admit. Renee's eyes twinkled in plain, unashamed adoration.
Now, if only Von Nadelmann had not been far too paranoid even for THRUSH, if only his even more paranoid aide had not spotted Napoleon covertly watching the whole crazy machination going by the Woerther See, if only Harry Beldon had not insisted so much that the New York agent had blown years of careful work on Nadelmann… Napoleon sighed inwardly, gave Renee a rueful grin and steeled himself for the blow, because he knew the Kaiserschmarren was the signal for the sniper.
"Will you excuse me, Renee…" he murmured, pushing back his chair.
Plop.
Napoleon had a glimpse of Renee's smile freezing on her lips before he brought his hand to his chest, spun around and fell, landing on his stomach.
Then the girl screamed and the whole braugarten exploded in a chaos of voices.
Napoleon felt himself turned face up and was startled by a squeal of relief from Renee.
"He was not hit!" she blurted "He wasn't…"
Damn! Where was the paint bullet?
Napoleon felt small trembling fingers groping his chest for a pulse.
" He's alive!" Renee again "Oh, Napoleon!" Various remarks of relief and wonder, as well as questions of a very pertinent nature, were beginning to flood from the crowd gathered all around.
"What's wrong with him? Napoleon!" wailed Renee, translating into English the question that must necessarily be puzzling everyone who had witnessed to his thespian performance and the sniper's obvious failure to place a paint-bullet anywhere on him.
So much for Beldon's plan to divert Nadelmann's suspicions by staging the murder of the UNCLE agent by THRUSH!
"Please, please, allow me. I'm a doctor."
Before Napoleon could decide whether to drop his dead act or not, someone else was kneeling by him, feeling for a pulse and behaving generally like a physician.
"Stand back everyone, please." the slightly accented voice commanded in German "Allow him to breathe. And call for an ambulance. And the Polizei."
"Doctor!" moaned Renee.
"American, are you?" asked Illya's voice, pitched low and gravelly for age effect "Don't worry, my dear. He is well enough, considering…"
"Butt he vas schott!" came the voice of the Fraulein.
"May be he was shot at," Illya's voice was full of brisk reasonableness "but he was not hit. No blood, no wound, see? "
Napoleon decided it was time to be back amongst the living, and made a great show of fluttering his eyes open. He moaned even a little: it could not hurt, and it might help Illya in whatever he meant to do to salvage the botched stage-play. He blinked against the golden light of the garden lamps and found himself staring at two faces: poor Renee's terrified one, and the one he knew must be his partner's, in spite of the net of age wrinkles, grey hair and grey goatee.
"There, he's coming to, see?" Illya pointed out "Easy, my young friend, easy. You have had a terrifying experience, but there's no damage done. Don't try to talk."
"What's wrong with him?" Renee asked
Illya raised his voice a notch, so that everyone would hear.
"Panic, my dear". he explained "He must have seen the shooter, or felt the bullet miss him by inches, and panic made him faint."
"Panic?" echoed Renee, in a voice of disgusted incredulity.
Napoleon made a strangled noise in his throat.
Illya rose to his feet and scowled down at the kneeling girl.
"Panic, my dear young lady, can be lethal to a weak heart!" he scolded, and then turned to instruct the crowd to make room for the personnel of the prearranged fake ambulance, actually an UNCLE vehicle. Two agents in orderlies' clothes bent to raise Napoleon on a stretcher.
"Renee…" he called feebly, but the girl gave him a shocked glare and turned to Illya.
" But doctor, he can't have a weak heart, can he? she protested "He told me he hunts big game in Africa for a living, and he does sky-diving and…"
Illya chuckled and patted her arm.
"With that heart?" Napoleon heard him ask, as he was hauled away "He is much more likely an over-imaginative salesman… Now, if you will excuse me, my dear…"
Napoleon could only glare at his poker-faced partner, as Illya followed the small procession to the waiting ambulance.
It wasn't until they were all settled in the old fashioned vehicle and ostensibly on their way to the Velden Krankenhaus that Napoleon lifted himself on his elbows and scowled murderously at his partner.
"Panic?" he asked in a tone of barely controlled fury
Illya shrugged.
"It's not my fault that Hansen missed you." he said in his own matter-of-fact voice.
Napoleon snorted.
"But a weak heart?" he insisted savagely "An over imaginative salesman?"
Illya looked totally innocent.
" Didn't I tell you that next time you would play dead and I 'd make up the reasons why?" he asked. Napoleon groaned and plopped back on the stretcher, and closed his eyes to avoid seeing the insufferably smug grin that, he had no doubt, was sure to be spreading on his partner's face.