Napoleon didn't know why he hadn't seen it coming when it finally hit. He walked back to his office carrying a familiar dossier and trying to find a way to gently break it to his partner that they were going to be saddled with New York's newest field agent. As he walked in the door of the office they shared, it became obvious that there wasn't a gentle way to break the news and it was no longer news.
His eyes slid appreciatively over the black cashmere hugged slender figure of Agent Yuconovich. She was seated on the couch, her legs crossed at the knee. Black suede leather boots clung to her calves, stopping just short of the hem of her skirt. Unlike the last time he saw her, the silken blue-black hair was caught back in a simple silver clasp. On the whole, he liked what he saw.
It was obvious from the poker face his partner wore that he was unimpressed with the lady's looks. Illya was steadfastly working on the pile of reports on his desk and ignoring his company. A part of his mind was berating the rest of it for not seeing this complication coming. It was difficult enough keeping up with Napoleon when the lures were on the opposition side or were innocently enough entangled in the situation. Having this woman here, in their midst, so to speak …. Bah. Napoleon would be impossible.
Cheri rose to shake hands with Napoleon, casting a curious look over to the taciturn Russian who remained immersed in his work. She turned back to New York's CEO and smiled. "Mr. Solo," she finished greeting him and retrieved her hand. "Mr. Kuryakin seems less than pleased with my assignment to your partnership." Better to face the issue now than to let it build up steam.
"All new agents are assigned to partners," Napoleon assured her, ignoring the fact that normally it was one seasoned agent to one rookie, not two to one.
"So I understand. This should be interesting. Anything I can do to help?" She gestured to the pile of folders on his desk and managed to include the ones Illya was working on.
"Can you type?"
She swallowed the instant retort that rose to her lips. Asking the CEO if he ever actually read the dossiers on his desk was a bit too insulting for now. "Yes. I'm too cheap to pay someone to type my papers so I learned how. Mind you, if there aren't any notes to work from, my fingers tend to invent flights of fancy …" She let the thought trail off. If he was willing to take a chance on letting her type the reports, then any embellishments, or omissions, were his responsibility.
"Dictation?"
"If you mean shorthand, no. Never interested. I was definitely the "go in the field and dig the mummy out of its grave" type as opposed to the "oh, here, let me fetch coffee and type up your notes" sort. Didn't make me a lot of friends among the big names at the university, of course, but it kept my ego in tact."
"You certainly seem to have that," Napoleon shot back a little more sharply than intended. He tried one of his warm smiles to counteract his comment and received a gleaming one in return. Good, the lady didn't take umbrage at blunt comments. "I know everything's in your dossier, but I'd like answers for myself. Why UNCLE?"
"It's international. Actions are judged on …. good and evil seems a little basic, but the organization doesn't let ideology get in the way of common sense… most of the time."
"You think it does sometimes?"
"How the hell do I answer that?" She shook her head slightly and gave a half grin. "No one is perfect. No matter how much you believe in an ideal, sometimes your background is going to get the better of you. I suspect that not everyone in this office is happy to have Mr. Kuryakin here … or wasn't in the beginning. I've heard the rumors of KGB background. I know there are some people even in the UNCLE who are phobic … Russian phobic, Communist phobic, because they were raised to be that way. That's hard to put aside, even with the best will in the world." She stopped for breath. "Of course, my dad was 1st generation Russian emigrant, so they're not quite so alien where I'm concerned." She looked down at her feet for a moment and shook her head before miming kicking something out from under them, then peeped back up at Napoleon before lifting her head. "Sorry, I occasionally develop a soapbox at the oddest moments."
Without meaning to, Napoleon found he responded to her devastating directness. He wasn't sold on her by any means, but he also wasn't as inclined to condemn as he might have been earlier. "So we're not perfect."
"No. We're not."
He noted the slight emphasis on the "we" as she agreed with him. "Pull up a chair, pick a file, start asking questions."
The morning passed swiftly as Cheri asked astute questions and developed a knack for knowing where more detail was needed and where "the usual" could be filled in on the report. By noon the pile of files on both desks was minimized. Napoleon signed off on all the finished reports, which would then be typed up by the typing pool rather than the new kid on the field agent block.
Ever the debonair and thoughtful, Napoleon suggested a shared lunch. He wasn't surprised when Illya demurred, noting the last couple of files on his desk. Cheri's "thanks, but no thanks" did surprise him. "Turning down your superior?" The words and tone were mild, but the dark eyes were sharp.
"Shopping. I have a new loft to outfit and time has not been something I have a great deal of, Mr. Solo. I would at least like drapes on the windows, so I'm off and running."
"Hold on a minute."
"Yes?" He handed her a note card with a name and address on it. Her eyebrows rose in inquiry. "This is?"
"The place I purchased my last set of drapes for my apartment. Reasonable prices. Good quality. Worth taking a look."
She regarded him thoughtfully, weighing the pros and cons of accepting his help in this matter. "Thank you."
Interlude
"Still suspicious?"
"Of course."
Napoleon laughed. "Good. She's a hard worker." He nodded to his nearly pristine desk.
"She is … what's the word?"
"Brown-nosing?"
Illya snorted in response. "Not that bad. But knows which side the bread has been buttered."
"That's an odd observation."
The Russian's frown deepened, then faded. "She is … adaptable."
"You don't trust her." Napoleon was trying hard to fathom what Illya perceived about the new agent that he did not.
The younger man leaned back in his chair with a shake of his head and relaxed. "I don't know. All I know is that she is not what she says. There is not just – just the case of who and what we are, but something more?" He knew he wasn't making a lot of sense to his partner. Still, Cheri put him on edge and he wasn't certain he wished to know enough to find out whether he should accept her or not. He struggled with that very confused thought, translated it into his mother tongue and was no more satisfied with that than with the English. "Maybe I'm seeing things where there is nothing to see."
"And maybe you're seeing things no one else is," Napoleon countered. "You frequently do, my friend."
'My friend.' The words distracted Illya from his quandary over Cheri. There was no accounting for how much that simple phrase from his partner made his life warmer. He hadn't come to the US looking for friends. Caring made life so much more dangerous- and so much more worth living.
Round FourNapoleon entered his office the next day to find a single outstanding deep indigo Dutch Iris in a crystal bud vase and a thank you note neatly on the corner of his desk. He cocked an eyebrow at his partner who actually smiled.
"She said your information was excellent and while it would be a week before the drapes are delivered, they are exactly as she desired them." This was accompanied by a delicate snort. "Drapes."
Napoleon smiled at that. Illya's apartment was almost as Spartan as his outlook on life could be. Food was fuel, an apartment was someplace to be between assignments and interesting things going on in R draperies for the windows were decadent and bourgeois when dime store curtains would do as well. Illya only had two windows to worry about in his apartment. Napoleon suspected that bricks over the one in his bedroom would have suited him just as well, eliminating a point of intrusion.
"Some of us like the view from our windows, but don't necessarily want to look at it all the time."
"Some of you are decadent, capitalist …"
"… Bourgeois, rising on the backs of the downtrodden proletariat," Cheri's lighter voice finished the sentence, if not necessarily his teasing thoughts.
"Da," he agreed, mentally frowning at himself for playing along.
Cheri's chuckle was almost contagious. "Then again, when you have floor to ceiling windows some artist wanted for good Eastern morning light, you have to do something, and wasting perfectly good sheets on a window is not my idea of wonderful. Good morning, gentlemen. What's on the agenda for today?"
Napoleon answered the intercom, which answered Cheri's question. Mr. Waverly's secretary requested their presence in Waverly's office.
Cheri followed her supervisors into the deep-carpeted office. It was high tech and something of a let down at the same time. Nothing of this showed in her face as she took a seat slightly away from Napoleon and Illya who were both all business. Waverly briefly outlined odd sightings on the Maine coast. The small, abandoned town of Innsmouth was the sight of some strange lights in the sky, odd malodorous clouds that rolled across the countryside heading inland and a great deal of truck activity. All of this pointed to something that needed investigating.
"It should not be too difficult to determine whether THRUSH is involved. Do not hesitate to call for back up if you find the need, gentlemen. The natives are reclusive in this area, and sometimes hostile."
As they walked back to the office with the two men discussing the assignment, Cheri was very silent. As the rookie on the case, this was not unusual. On the other hand, Illya noticed what he thought was a look of concern.
"Problem?" he asked.
"Uhm, probably not. I probably just read too much weird fiction."
That got a look of enquiry from Napoleon. "Weird fiction?"
"Lovecraft. Wrote for Weird Tales and other sort of pulp strange fiction presses in the '30's. A lot of his stuff is set in Maine. I didn't think there was a real Innsmouth."
"What's wrong with it?"
"Probably nothing." The response was too swift and too bright, accompanied with one of those looks that said 'I hope."
Napoleon decided to dig deeper. Not that he thought there was anything to her concerns. "What did this Lovecraft write?"
"Well, that depended. Specific to Innsmouth: odd South Pacific cults worshipping ancient inhuman sea deities. Rumors of extreme miscegenation. Sacrifices of various sorts. The usual."
"We win?" he asked with a knowing quirk of a grin.
"No." Her response was matter-of-fact. She met his eyes and then Illya's with a shrug and grin of her own. "Like I said, too much weird fiction. Town's probably just in an area that's fished out." Or not, she added mentally. "So, fly into Bangor and motor down? Or take the train? Or …"
"Research first, Miss Yuconovich," the CEO chided gently.
She saluted. "What do you need?"
It was nice having a personal go-for.
