Part One

"Such a splendid specimen…."

It had taken Napoleon Solo a good while to work his way back through the labyrinth of air shafts and down the narrow maintenance access ladders to reach the laboratory in the basement level of the fortress. He was exhausted and covered in dirt, feeling like a human dust rag; but a lot more was at stake than his own discomfort. He had a Nazi war criminal to kill and his partner to rescue.

Illya lay motionless on a polished metal examining table in the center of a stark white, brightly-lit room that smelled strongly of medicines and chemicals. Cabinets filled with vials and jars of colored liquids lined the stark walls. It looked like a laboratory but Solo now knew it wasn't the one he and Kuryakin had been sent there to destroy.

He could see his friend's chest rising and falling rapidly and hear the young man's ragged breathing, which told him Illya had broken ribs and possibly a punctured lung as well.

A tall rail-thin woman with graying light-colored hair pinned into a large neat bun on top of her head and dressed in a pristine white lab coat with matching pants and shoes stood staring down at Illya. The planes of her face were sharp and her eyes were a pale blue. Recognizing her from her U.N.C.L.E. dossier photos Solo knew she was in her late 50s and that her name was Dr. Sonja Dressler. He also knew she was their quarry, the other reason beside her lab that had brought the two U.N.C.L.E. agents to this remote mountainous region of Bolivia—and that she was extremely cunning and dangerous.

Uneasily he watched her hover over his inert partner.

Thinking she was alone the woman was gazing with open appreciation at her unconscious captive, admiring the abundant wealth of streaked golden hair fanned out around his head, the fair complexion, and the dark gold lashes and almost delicate features of the otherwise male face. She leaned down, and with long tapering fingers carefully pried open one of Illya's closed eyelids.

"Wunderbar, einfach wunderbar!" ("Wonderful, simply/just wonderful"), she muttered with satisfaction when she saw the pure blue brilliance of the iris. She touched Illya's pale cheek briefly then reached for a pair of surgical scissors laying among other implements neatly arranged on a portable lab cart she'd pulled up to the table earlier.

Pulling out his gun Napoleon watched tensely as one of Nazi Germany's most notorious female war criminals picked up the gleaming scissors and turned back to his partner.

He steadied his weapon and attempted to get a clear line of shot at the woman's head, but the design of the grating cover and placement of the air vent provided obstacles to his aim. If he missed he likely would be captured, even killed, and that would do Illya no good.

The only saving grace for the moment was that he could now tell that the notorious Nazi scientist did not mean to further harm her captive, at least not right now.

Dressler called out a name that Solo did not catch and immediately he heard a door open and another white-coated woman, this one in her 40s with short-cropped raven hair and deeply tanned skin, moved into view.

"You have need of me, Dock-tor?" she asked in English with a Spanish accent.

"Ja, help me remove his clothing so I might assess ze full extent of his injuries," Dressler also replied in accented English.

The Nazi doctor handed her the scissors then picked up a second pair from the instrument tray. "We shall start with his sweater first and then tend to ze damaged arm," she said, and together the two women began cutting off Illya's black turtleneck.

As the material fell away from his arms and torso Solo also had a better look at how badly the Russian's right arm was damaged. It lay by his side, twisted grotesquely, its coloring unnatural. It was apparent, even from that distance, that the arm had been wrenched from its socket as well as broken. Now seeing the badly-maimed limb Solo cringed inwardly at the recollection of Illya's gut-wrenching cry of agony earlier.

Once they'd finished the women put the scissors aside and proceeded to address the injured arm.

"We must first snap it back into ze shoulder socket. Then we will see to ze break," Dressler told the medical assistant, and together the two of them worked over Illya until the limb went back into its socket with a sharp snap.

A low moan escaped from the young man and his panting breaths grew more rapid. Yet Illya still remained unconscious, which Solo was grateful for given what the women were putting him through.

The Nazi doctor said, "Now help me set and put a cast on ze arm which Bruno in his dummkopf zeal has broken."

When that was finally finished Dressler used her hands to feel carefully along Illya's lean rib cage. She then picked up a stethoscope from the cart tray and listened intently to his ragged breathing for a few moments.

Removing the stethoscope and setting it back on the cart tray Dressler told the aide, "Our young intruder also has some cracked ribs, as you can see from ze swelling and bruising. But I do not believe any are fully broken nor has a lung been punctured, which is gut. We will lightly bind his ribs and that should help ease his breathing along with the pain medications I will give him.

At least they're giving him some help, Solo thought bleakly. But then what will she do with Illya? He had little doubt that the infamous Nazi doctor had no intention of releasing her captive.

When the two women finished stabilizing the arm and binding Illya's ribs** they turned their attention to his lower body. The gun holster belt had already been removed, confiscated along with his weapon and the identification he'd been carrying. The THRUSH communicator they had not found because Illya had hidden that in a safe place before his capture to conceal the fact he was in contact with someone else.

At Dressler's request the lab aide removed Illya's shoes and socks while the Nazi doctor unfastened his pants, then the two women slipped those off, leaving him clad only in his white Lycra cotton briefs.

While the aide set the clothing aside Sonja Dressler proceeded to run her hands slowly down along each of the insensible young man's bare legs, noting, "He has no injuries on these lower limbs other than bruising, so that is also gut." Straightening she turned to the aid: "Thank you, Mavra, that will be all for now. I will call if I have need of you again."

Nodding, the lab aide moved out of sight and Solo heard the soft click of a door closing…and Illya was left alone with the infamous Nazi doctor once more.

Sonja Dressler stuck her hands in her lab coat pockets as she swept her pale-eyed gaze appraisingly over her mostly-unclad captive, noting with approval how well-toned and formed his athletic body was, studying the tightly-muscled flesh with avid interest.

"Eine so perfekte muster!," ("Such a splendid specimen!"), she breathed aloud, sounding almost giddy.

As if responding to her strange observation and intense scrutiny, Illya stirred restlessly and began to open his eyes, giving a moan of pain as awareness slowly returned. But Sonja Dressler immediately picked up a syringe from the lab cart, filled it with a clear fluid, and injected its contents into a vein in his left arm.

(In German) "There, mein Schatz (my treasure), you will continue to rest pain-free for several hours more." As she spoke she began stroking his hair and face, and almost immediately he quieted again, falling into drugged oblivion.

Hidden in the airshaft above Solo grimaced with distaste for his partner's sake. But the Nazi doctor's intimate words and almost-loving caresses she was giving the unconscious young man lying before her told Solo she may have taken the bait—and if so, Plan B was now in effect.

But at what ultimate cost to Illya?

Satisfied that her charge was now heavily sedated, Sonja Dressler moved away from him and rolled the instrument cart back to its niche alongside one of the cabinets. She then went back to the examining table and reached below it, pulling up large leather straps which she crossed over Illya's upper chest and legs and then fastened them securely. She covered the youthful Russian with a white sheet, and then moved out of sight until Solo heard the door click open and close once again.

So what was she now planning to do with Illya? he worried. Keep him as a drugged, unwilling boy-toy? he thought with a flash of dark humor. It was more than apparent she was already taken with him by his appearance alone.

No, Solo's instincts told him it was far more sinister than that, knowing Sonja Dressler's infamous reputation for horrific and unethical experimentation on human subjects, both male and female.

Then he recalled she had used the words "splendid specimen" to describe his unconscious partner in a way that gave even Solo, a hardened agent, the willies.

**A couple of side notes: at the time this story takes place (the 1960s), binding cracked ribs like Illya's was a common practice. However, today that is seldom done as constricting the chest and ribs can lead to shallow breathing, thereby increasing the risk for lung infections like pneumonia. Pain meds are generally all the treatment given to help a patient deal with the discomfort of injured ribs until they heal.

I was shocked and sickened while doing research for this story at how many women willingly participated in the most horrendous of Nazi war crimes; and many of those women were later hanged as war criminals.