CHAPTER ONE
"Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't"
Illya strode purposely across the street toward Del Floria's. He glanced at his watch and quickened his pace and hurried down the steps leading to the entrance of the dry cleaners.
But when he entered the familiar establishment he simply went up to the counter and fished a receipt out of his jacket pocket and handed it to the short middle-aged clerk.
Looking at it, Del Floria shook his head and gave the fair-haired young man a slight disapproving frown.
"This was due for pick up two weeks ago, Mr. Kuryakin."
"I know and I deeply apologize. I've been away on business for my firm and shall gladly pay for any additional storage charges and inconvenience," Illya replied. "I am running a little behind today for a very important meeting with my district manager, who will be mad as a hatter if I don't show up on time. So if you would be so kind, Mr. Del Floria, as to find my item for me. As I said, I'm already running late…."
"What the devil is he doing and saying?! Why isn't he entering U.N.C.L.E. headquarters?" exclaimed a tall man with slicked backed silvered hair and a graying goatee. He sounded British, and he and two other people were standing around what appeared to be a narrow hospital bed.
An unconscious Illya Kuryakin lay strapped and manacled to it in a large room cluttered with an assortment of unusual machines and equipment. His street clothes had been removed and he was now wearing dark blue cotton pajamas. Electrodes were attached to his temples and across his forehead, their long narrow cords anchored to an ominous-looking device sitting near the bed on a table with wheels. Next to the device sat a viewing monitor which everyone had been watching intently.
On its screen they could see and hear the blond U.N.C.L.E. agent talking to Del Floria although Illya was not physically in the dry cleaners. This was a memory from his perspective, but not an accurate recalling.
Somehow he was resisting the potent drug dripping slowly through the IV attached to the back of his left hand and the subsequent suggestion he'd been given by his captors to show how he entered U.N.C.L.E. HQ—therefore thwarting those watching the monitor from learning the exact layout of the hidden agency and the specific location of Waverly's office, which had recently been renovated and relocated elsewhere within the vast complex for security reasons.
"Dr. Lewis, you s-said this would work, that you c-could retrieve whatever memories you wished from hi-him," a very short scrawny man with oddly bulging eyes commented. He spoke with a noticeable stutter in a thick Hungarian accent.
The third occupant, a stout woman in her 50s with short frizzy carrot-red hair stood staring intently at Illya. "Kuryakin is much cleverer than I was led to expect. Even in a drug-induced suggestive state he is recalling only an implanted false memory. It must be his U.N.C.L.E. training. Most remarkable," she replied. "But let us try another test."
She tweaked a few knobs on the machine and then leaned over Illya. "Mr. Kuryakin, I would like you to recall in detail the interior of Alexander Waverly's new office and its location within U.N.C.L.E. headquarters."
Illya's closed eyelids twitched a little, and on the monitor they could see the previous images change and morph into that of a waiting room.
A door opened and an older dark-haired woman holding a clipboard glanced about and then said, "Is Mr. Kuryakin here?"
From Illya's perspective he seemed to rise from a sitting position and walk across the waiting room to follow the woman down a narrow nondescript hallway. She stopped before an open doorway and waived him into what appeared to be a paper-cluttered paneled office with floor-to-ceiling bookcases lining the back wall.
"Just have a seat across from the desk, and Mr. Waverly, the tax consultant assigned to your case, will be with you shortly."
"Bah, this is useless! All he is giving us are these nonsensical false memories!" Leland Charles, the tall man with the goatee, fumed looking from the monitor to the unconscious U.N.C.L.E. agent with contempt. "Doctor, if your machine cannot extract even a simple accurate memory from him, how do you plan to get that formula he memorized and then destroyed along with our Malta research facility a few weeks ago?!"
THRUSH neuroscientist Carole Lewis replied tartly, "Let me try once more." Again she leaned over Illya. "Mr. Kuryakin, listen to me carefully. I want you to remember exactly the formula you stole recently of the neutralizing enzyme for THRUSH's biowarfare virus. Visualize it just as you saw and memorized it."
At first nothing happened, then on the monitor a scene appeared, again shown from Illya's viewpoint as he moved stealthily along a darkened corridor, flashlight in hand. He stopped before an unmarked metal door which was locked…and then the images faded.
"Why aren't we s-seeing more?" the diminutive Hungarian asked as they all stared in confusion at the now blank monitor screen.
Tuning and adjusting dials on her machine the scientist replied, "It seems the young man's memory has been swiped of his activities beyond that point."
"Then what good is this memory retrieval machine of yours, Doctor Lewis?!" Leland Charles snapped. "THRUSH has funded a fortune to create the blasted thing and it is proving as useless as Kuryakin!"
Carole Lewis gave him an indignant look. "Mr. Charles, if it is true that this young man has the rare gift of a true eidetic memory, nothing has been truly lost, but merely hidden. Therefore that formula is still there, just deeply buried within other forgotten memories. I assure you that I shall eventually be able to retrieve that formula by creating in Kuryakin's mind a reality apart from this one in order to extract the information that you are seeking. However, given today's unforeseen results, this will take a little longer than I initially anticipated."
"Eidetic memory? What is that?" Charles frowned.
"In laymen's terms…a photographic memory, although even that is a bit of a misnomer. In any case, Mr. Kuryakin is said to possess an unusual capacity for recalling details and events in their accuracy, which is why we are all here now."
"THRUSH Central will n-not be happy about th-this delay," the Hungarian noted.
"Tell them these things take a little time, Mr. Dodgson. They must be patient. Otherwise, I suggest they torture the information out of the young man."
Leland Charles shook his head. "Doctor, a top U.N.C.L.E. agent like Kuryakin is thoroughly trained to withstand torture without revealing anything of import, which is why THRUSH has invested so heavily in this new memory machine of yours. I strongly suggest you not disappoint them and get from Kuryakin that formula using whatever methods you deem best. Once we have what we want from him…everything we want from him…then he will be terminated."
"Then let me do my job as I see fit," Lewis replied irritably, reaching over and turning off the machine and monitor. In response, Illya moaned softly and stirred.
"Is he awaking?" Charles asked, and she shook her frizzy head.
"No, that sometimes occurs when the equipment is shut down." She pushed a hidden buzzer under the table and almost immediately the two men who had been in the front seat of the limousine when Illya was kidnapped appeared.
"I'll contact you when I have the information you want," she said. She glanced behind her guests. "Jenkins and Jackson will show you the way out. This complex has a confusing layout, as you may have noticed when you arrived."
Turning, the two THRUSH representatives saw their waiting escorts.
As Lewis began unhooking Illya from the machine, she added, "Boys, return here after you see our guests safely out. I want you to take Kuryakin to the cell that has been prepared for him."
After the four men had departed the THRUSH neuroscientist once more gazed down at the unconscious U.N.C.L.E. agent lying before her, thinking how much she was going to enjoy breaking him. However, for that she would need some additional help, including the Jabberwock's.