Chapter Two
"April," Illya's soft voice came through the hospital door before it opened. The room was dark with only a side lamp on. Looking around the sparse room, he had to smile to the comment Paul had made about medical rooms and detention cells looking the same.
He silently drifted over to the bed and noticed that dyed haired blond was sleeping softly. An IV bag of saline dripped slowly next to the bed, but nothing else. He hated to have to wake her from what was probably the first restful sleep in a long time.
Looking, at April's pale and bruised face, he saw the stress of dreams and conditioning still had their claws in her. Illya cringed, knowing how that felt. So many real and made up demons to conquer. It's the price to pay for the life they lead; the darker half of service.
"April," Illya spoke slightly louder into her ear while he bent down to her side. "I need to talk to you."
"Humm…Illya." April first smiled seductively before she began to rustle when she heard his low, deep voice. Like a cat curled up in a ball, she twisted and stretched with artful grace and was instantly awake. "Illya!"
"Are you feeling better?" he asked, ignoring her startled voice after she recognized him and stiffening her body in defense. "I need to talk to you about what happened."
"Do you believe me that he isn't Napoleon and that he's the one that killed Lexi?" Her eyes were piercing a hole right through him. She was upset with him for even questioning her further about this subject.
"Yes, he's not Napoleon and Medical confirmed it," he said and watched her physically relax a little. "What happened?"
"Lexi and I had gained one of the boss's right hand man's acceptance into their group. We search his office where we found the hidden files were kept. I was the one who reported what we found to Napoleon on a nightly basis when he would request one of us for a business call.
"Lexi had found out something in the boss's office and she'd made plans to search it while I distracted the guards. She got caught and I…I…was told to quit playing around with the men and go meet a john. That, I was requested personally."
"Who was this 'John'?" he asked gently. He ignored her stuttering as if she hadn't paused in her story.
"I don't know!" she said in a shrill voice that made Illya blink at her increasing agitation, but didn't stop her. "Some guy whom I used one of Lexi's formulas on, took his money, and then went home for a bath and a good night's sleep. The next day I was called into a meeting at the downtown strip club."
"Do you remember where that club was or it's name?" Illya patiently asked, so not to increase the level of her stress. "Where downtown is it?"
"I…I…can't remember…three blocks southwest of the Rockefeller Center." April said in a huff. "Can we stop now? I'm so… tired and I don't want to relive what that bastard did to Lexi."
"I understand, but I just need to know a few more things and then I'll let you sleep, I promise." Illya tried to take her hand into his, but she pulled it roughly away. Puzzled by the action, he thought maybe it was the drugs still in her system that was causing this odd behavior. "Did you see where Lexi was shot?"
"In the back and tossed off the edge of the stage." April had closed her eyes and curled back into a ball. "Her body was rolled up in a sheet of plastic and taken outside. I don't know anything else. I was drugged and couldn't blow my cover. I had to wait a few hours to talk with Napoleon to ask him why he did what he did. He hit me and forced me to into a car with him and then we were thrown out in front of UNCLE. I don't even know what she'd found out."
"It's all right, April," Illya reassuringly said before she suddenly turned to face him with anger and disgust written plainly on her face.
"I did what Waverly and Napoleon told me to do to get rid of the ones threatening UNCLE. I've done what I was told to do to secure those computer codes; the rest is now up to Napoleon. I know where my loyalties lie, do you?"
"My loyalties?" taken aback, he repeated her question, but didn't understand what she was accusing him of. "They have always been to UNCLE and my friends."
"Then you better go find Napoleon so you can help him finish his part of the mission or all of this will be for nothing," April shouted out. She glared at the Russian agent and then turned away from him in the bed. "I need to rest now; go away."
"I'm going," he said softly. "Get some rest and I'll talk to you later when you're feeling better."
With another problem added to his growing list, Illya left April to rest and walked out of the room. He headed to the end of the plain, grey hallway to lean heavily against the wall while running his hands through his long bangs to calm his racing thoughts. Seeing a phone on the wall, he picked it up, rang Mr. Waverly's office, and reported his strange interview with April to him.
MFU/MFU
"Illya," George said breathlessly, He'd caught the Section Two agent's image at the end of the hall, hanging up the phone. "She's finally here."
Without a word between them, they quickly walked down the other hallway and around the corner to the treatment area of Medical. Illya took it for granted that Paul told George what had happened to Lexi and he didn't mind; glad actually. Dr. George Thompson was her chosen partner, shared a lab with her, and was a good friend to both of them.
Illya knew that the good doctor was here to help protect Lexi while he was gone and she wasn't out on a mission. While on missions, everyone watched over everyone, but something went wrong; now Napoleon was missing and both April and Lexi were hurt.
When the two men, one short and blond and the other tall with sandy brown hair, were at the doors to the main monitored hospital room, Dr. Robert Allen walked out of the door to stand in front of them to block their path.
"I need to tell you what's happened to her and what you can expect before you see her. I'll not have you two tromp around in there and ask a lot of questions," Allen warned both men looking specifically at Illya. "She's just recovering from surgery and drifting in and out of the effects of anesthesia. Don't tax her too much. She'll be fuzzy on what she can remember for a while."
"I promise." Illya said softly, knowing the hoops he had to jump through to make Allen happy. He looked and acted like an old English bulldog with his gruff demeanor and bulky, compact body. Illya had to give up some control to him and allow him to set the rules on how Section Two agents were to act in his Medical ward. "What are her injuries?"
"From head to toe," Allen began with a professional calm. "She's got a concussion that will leave her with a pounding headache; a broken jaw that has been wired shut; bruising in the shape of fingerprints on her upper arms and neck; a spiral fracture on the right wrist; and a few vaginal lacerations that required stitching. Add a bevy of scrapes and bruises on the rest of her body."
"You left out where she was shot and how bad is it."
"In the back, right next her shoulder blade and it should have killed her, but for one thing that she may have to thank the KGB for someday."
Allen registered the look of surprise on both Illya and George's faces with a snort and he held up a small bag that contained a bloody device with a bullet deeply imbedded in it.
"Her old KGB homing device stopped the bullet from passing through to her heart and saved her life. The surgeon was able to remove it from her without too much distress. She'll mostly be stiff and sore."
"Can I see her now?" Illya asked. He began to shift back and forth, anxious to really see if she was truly alive or not.
Since coming to work for UNCLE, Lexi was never injured to this extent. She was mostly the hidden, secret assassin working for the KGB. Illya wondered how Lexi took it so gracefully knowing that he was hurt and couldn't be there for him. Having her here, made it harder for him to think like a detached agent. It was the same with Napoleon, like brothers so in tune with each other, it was hard to not think of him hurt and captured while he tried to find out what was going on.
"Yes," Allen said softly, seeing Illya's determined look. "I've her on a heavy dose of pain killers and she won't be able to talk clearly until I unwire her jaw, but let her hear your voice. She's been searching for your hand to hold for quite a while."
Illya only responded with a nod of his head after Allen let him and George pass through the doors. If Allen hadn't warned him what to expect, his heart would have sunk even lower than it already was.
Lexi looked so frail lying on the hospital bed with its head cranked up slightly and oxygen running in her nose. Her dyed blond hair pushed roughly back away from her pale face that was distorted with a swollen jaw, blooming with a purplish color joining the finger marks that danced around her neck and arms. The nail marks jumped out at the edges of the stark-white, oversized hospital gown.
Delicate fingers were the only things obtruding out of the cast on her right arm that rested on a pillow at her side. Lexi's lower body was covered by a thin, white blanket, which was tucked tightly around her. The heart monitor's beeped softly in the background.
Even with her eyes closed, a grimace of pain peppered her face and her left hand twitched. Two large bore IVs were taped firmly in place to prevent them from falling out with this movement.
George held back while he watched Illya trot around the bed to sit on the edge, by her seemingly searching hand, to take it in his. The twitching instantly stopped, because she knew who it was, without opening her eyes.
Illya leaned forward to say something to her in their special language, smiling when she squeezed his hand, bending down to kiss hers gently. "I even brought George with me."
Lexi tried to smile, but brought her hand up to her cheek from the pain it caused her and then reached out for George's hand, which he took and stepped up closer to the bed.
"Hey, sunshine, see what you get when you don't come to the lab everyday to work with me?" George smiled after she angrily pointed her index finger at him in a scolding motion. She opened her eyes up a fraction to look at him. "I know, Section Two first, then the lab."
Taking a haggard breath in, Lexi grabbed at the oxygen tubing while trying to focus her blurry eyes on Illya and George. A dry cough choked in her throat when she tried to swallow, but the movement was uncoordinated. She held her throat to try and ease the sharp pain it caused.
. "No," Illya said patiently while he replaced the nasal canula to its proper place. "You need to leave it on. I'll check with the doctors to see if you can have something to drink to ease your throat…"
Angry, Lexi weakly pushed Illya's hands away from her face and tried to shake her head no. A wave of dizziness must have followed, because she stopped what she doing to close her eyes and grabbed the bedrail. Her white lips quivered; forcibly shutting them in an attempt not to throw up through her nose.
After a few tense moments, Lexi let out a breath of relief and opened her eyes. Silently, she mouthed the name," Napoleon".
"Yes, we have the imposter here in one of detention cells. Is he the one that hurt you?" Illya asked.
Lexi nodded with a look of relief on her face and then mouthed the name "April".
"She's here and safe in medical," Illya said. He gently brushed her hair behind her ear.
"I gave her some of our specially mixed batch of antidotes to help her with the chemical conditioning they gave her," George interrupted proudly, causing Lexi to shift her tense eyes to him and then relaxed a little. "She should be over the most of it by now. This reminds me, I have to draw her blood to run a tox-screen in five minutes. I'll let you two alone for a while."
"George," Illya walked from the bed, with him to the door of the room. "Are you familiar with our interrogation protocols?"
"Yes." George hesitantly nodded and he swallowed nervously. "But, I've never helped out in one."
"Meet me in the detention cell in ten minutes. Bring the medications listed. All you need to do is follow my lead, do as I say, and don't get upset by whatever he says. If he thinks that he's gotten to you, especially since you're so connected with Lexi, you'll loose your edge. He doesn't know that's she's still alive. Can I trust you to help me with this?"
"I'll try to do my best," George said, pulled his thoughts together, and flicked a quick glance to the person in the bed. "In ten minutes, your lab."
Illya pushed the hospital door shut and turned back to look at Lexi, who was watching him in return. Her glassy eyes tracked him as he walked back to her side and took her hand again.
"I have to go find Napoleon." He felt her hand squeeze his tightly. Her eyes weren't bright like they were before and her lids began to droop. He lightly shook her hand to keep her awake. "What can you tell me? Can you tell me who they are or where they might have him?"
He watched her slowly move her head from side to side. She tried to focus on what he was asking. Frustration and the need for sleep furled Lexi's eyebrows while she attempted to find and say the words he wanted. Her hand shook in his. She pantomimed the need for a pen. Looking around, Illya found her chart, tore off a piece, and grabbed a pen from his black jacket.
Laying the scrap of paper under her hand, she fumbled to grip the pen. Illya hoped that she'd be able to write what she couldn't say. Helping her by holding the paper still on the metal clipboard she wrote. He made out the first letter scribbled unseen by Lexi.
"T?" The question got a nod and moved the paper over slightly for her to draw the next letter.
"R or A?" he asked, it was hard to tell, but she raised her hand up once to tell him it was the first choice. "R. You think it's a trap?"
Lexi closed her eyes, nodded, and dropped the pen while pointing at him.
"All this to set a trap for me, why?" he asked in surprise. "I've been gone, working on a project for UNCLE. I can't believe that this was all for me."
With a turn and wave of her wrist and her index finger out, she motioned the letter c to get him to look at her hand and grunted out a bark.
"C? O. O or D? D. E. Code?" Illya looked up to her eyes for confirmation and she gave the smallest nod of her head, then closed her eyes after her strength had reached its limit, and her hand dropped down on the bed.
Illya watched her sleep for a moment while he thought to himself. She must have found out that they had wanted the computer codes the he was spearheading for UNCLE's new international computer data base. THRUSH and any other groups were bent on corrupting their system by to getting their hands on those codes. He wondered how they found out about it and that he was their lead agent.
Looking back at Lexi's hand, he gently placed it under the blanket, kissed her forehead, and left the bare hospital room. Illya knew that she would want him to go find Napoleon and that she would be fine here in Medical to wait for him. She couldn't help him any more for now and went to take care of his next problem; interrogating the imposter to hopefully find out more about this trap.
MFU/MFU
Kuryakin walked into the detention cell with a foam cup of hot tea in his hand and his lab coat on. His anxiety over his lost partner was slowly eating away at his impregnable veneer and the thought of having to walk into a trap to save him made his nerves jump. He'd taken several deep breaths to calm his himself down the hallway before he would have his "friendly" talk with the Solo look-alike.
Quietly, he walked to the foot of the bed and watched the man in the bed lightly sleep off the effects of the anesthesia and pain medication. He wasn't restrained, but it didn't matter to Illya. Security was right outside the door and he had his gun next to his body under his coat. The imposter was searched thoroughly while unconscious and found to have little to defend himself.
Picking up the medical chart hooked on the bed, Illya scanned it while he waited for the stranger to notice him. He had instructed George to wait in the monitoring room until he gave him the signal to come into the room.
"Are you going to stand there all sulky, Illya, or are you going to talk to me," the man said calmly in his partner's voice.
It was startling to hear how perfectly this imposter had mastered Napoleon's tone and mannerisms. All Illya could do was to look up and smirk slightly as if he was glad to see him healthy again. "Well, you know me…"
"Have you found her yet? I mean her body yet?" A tight, upset voice resonated throughout the room and leveled a concerned eye to Illya's deceptively depressed movements around the room. The blond agent was trying to avoid eye contact, because of Lexi's falsified death.
"I don't know where to look, do you?" Illya asked the imposter, sat close to him on the bed, his holstered gun away from him, and began playing with the edge of the blanket to prevent him from looking into his eyes and to keep his nervous fingers busy. "Did you see her get killed? Can you tell me what happened?"
"No, I only know what April said about her getting caught and being shot. The thugs in the car confirmed it. April was the one who reported mostly to me in the hotel room. Lexi was the one who seemed to be getting real friendly with one of the boss man's head men until they found her searching his office and he made an example of her to the rest of the call girls.
"I didn't get involved until I got a frantic message from April to pick her up and I was met at the door of the gentlemen's club by the hired help. During the struggle I was shot, dragged to the car, and thrown out just outside of headquarters."
"Do you know who they are?" Illya asked quietly, using his vision of what Lexi looked like laying in Medical, to convey his pain and anxiety, as he feigned sorrow for her death.
"No," he said, his arms dropped to his sides with a bounce of clinched fists. "All I heard them call him was 'Mr. X".
Illya slowly raised his eyes to the imposter and held them quietly for a moment before he nodded. The man's brown eyes had the same green flecks shine in his eyes, but didn't convey the warmth and true caring for him or the woman he hurt like Napoleon's did. His pupils weren't dilated like they should and they shifted too much.
"Mr. X," Illya repeated softly, looking back down at the blanket that he was toying with.
"You don't believe me." The man stated and sat up in the hospital bed, leaning toward him.
Illya hadn't moved back from this sudden shift in space between them, but struck out like a rattlesnake and had his gun out of his holster and in the face of the imposter.
What was impressive to Illya was that the dark haired man didn't even flinch at the gun being shoved in his face. He didn't even focus on the gun, but only smiled and maintained his eye contact with the true UNCLE agent.
"No, I don't believe you." A stone hard face met the imposter's with a cold, icy voice that was agreeing with the man. "You're not Napoleon Solo. Medical confirmed it while you were in surgery. Your likeness to him is impressive. Specimens were taken to determine if you're the one who beat and raped her."
"Ah, yes. You did find her body. Your girlfriend," the man evilly smiled, but didn't move and practically sat nose to gun to nose with Kuryakin. "She's a good lay. Although, I did give her a real bad beating for that foul mouth of hers. That slut's too smart for her own good; snooping around, playing the dumb blond to attract the bosses, and then turn around to talk with one of the other sluts in French and another in Spanish."
"Is that all?" Illya asked in calm control. Telling the Section Two agent intimate details of how Lexi suffered was not going to make him loose his concentration.
"No," he said and his smile turned to a smirk. "I broke her jaw with some brass knuckles so that it wouldn't leave marks on my hands just before I shot her in the back. Right where her heart should've been, because I had to look pristine for you."
"Me?" Illya asked.
The imposter decided to stop trying to get a reaction from Kuryakin over Lexi's painful death. His gun remained firm and steady in his hand.
"Yes, obviously know by now, I'm not quite done yet." The man laughed in a bone-chilling likeness of Solo. He even had Napoleon's little head shake down to a tee. "I was meant to replace Solo at a later date; then that got pushed up with UNCLE's presence in our actions. We didn't know that cunt worked for Waverly until that other whore, Dancer, came running to me after the big show. I was offered as a sacrifice to get to you."
"Where is he?" Illya asked about his partner.
"Oh, he's fine, for now." The man smiled and continued on in a hushed voice so the sensors couldn't pick up what was said. "I'm here to talk with you for my employer, Mr. X."
"I have a job and a partner." Illya kept his answers and responses short to betray nothing.
"Yes," he sighed in boredom. "What we can offer is so much more. Look, you get me out of UNCLE headquarters and come talk with my boss at his place. See what he's got planned for you and this world. Behave yourself and Solo'll be let go."
"If I don't," Illya asked with a raised eyebrow.
"That is what you won't know. We could just simply kill him, brainwash him to destroy UNCLE from the inside out, or send him to THRUSH to be tortured and let them do our work for us. You know what he is capable of."
"Why not keep him? Why me?"
"You offer more of what we want," he leaned in closer. "You're fluent in multiple languages, you create weapons and blow things up. Your use of accents and slim body build allows you to infiltrate many cultures to seek required information, even under a heavy custom.
"Gymnastic gives you an edge to escape most traps, along with you ability to pick locks. You're a crack shot with both hands and just as deadly with a knife. Finally, you're the only one left from General Boris Kuryakin's experiment to create a super spy and assassin."
"I should be flattered." Illya eyes slightly widened with the impostor's knowledge of his hidden past.
"We have quite an extensive file on you: the KGB, GRU, UNCLE, CIA, FBI, and THRUSH have brought us bits of information that we now have enough to put it all together. We even know that you descend from Viking nobility."
"Impressive, but if I go, will I be able to leave?"
"That'll be up to you and Mr. X, of course," the man smiled darkly again. "The longer it takes you to get me out of here, the shorter Solo's life will be."