Napoleon made sure that the two in the back of the Land Rover were completely covered, then turned his attention back to the vehicle. He patted his breast pocket, checking that there were some kind of Thrush identification papers in there, then felt under the steering column before him, ripping out the ignition wires and touching them together so that the engine sparked into life. Quickly he got the thing into gear and pressed his foot down on the accelerator, taking the vehicle smoothly along the gravel drive at what felt like a painfully slow pace. But he didn't know where he was going and he was afraid that any sign of haste would be like a red flag. He could see Thrush men now, milling about, guns held ready, and a strafe from any one of those guns would pierce the panelling of the Land Rover like hot lead through butter.

His eyes lit on a gap in the high wall that surrounded this place. The gravel drive led straight towards it. Biting his lip into his mouth for a moment, he continued smoothly on, creeping closer and closer to that promise of escape. There was a barrier down across the gap, but no locked gates, thank god. A sentry box stood near by, with a guard who looked to be on high alert standing just outside. As Napoleon drew up the man jerked his gun a little, and Napoleon rolled to a halt, keeping the engine idling. He touched his hand to his cap.

'All right, mate,' he said in his most passable attempt at an English accent. 'Been sent out for supplies.'

'No one leaves the compound after eight,' the guard said suspiciously. 'Especially not during an alert. Let me see your papers.'

'Well, er, you know how Mr Fink likes his tea,' Napoleon said smoothly, feeling in his pocket for the papers. 'And he's run out of milk.'

He handed the papers out towards the man, but he knew he wouldn't pass close inspection. For a start, the man he had stolen them from had blond hair. Just before the man's fingers touched the folded documents Napoleon dropped them.

'Oh, I'm so sorry,' he said.

As the man bent, Napoleon shoved the car into reverse, backing off twenty yards before slamming it back into forward gear and screeching forwards, straight towards the guard who now had his gun raised. His body made a dull thunk as it hit the bonnet, and Napoleon slammed on through the barrier, smashing it apart as he accelerated onto the road beyond. He kept glancing in the rear view mirror, but there was no sign of pursuit as yet. As soon as there was a turning he sheered off onto a smaller lane, hoping they would assume that the escapees would have taken the most direct route possible.

There was noise in the back of the vehicle, and Illya and Miss Jones emerged from under the old tarpaulin.

'I'm impressed, Mr Solo,' Miss Jones said, grinning. Napoleon recognised that smile. He had seen it on agents' faces many times after making an incredible and daring escape.

'Don't be impressed yet,' he said cynically. 'We've still got to get away – and I have no idea where we are. Do you recognise anything?'

She shuffled forward to peer out through the windscreen. 'It's nowhere I've been before,' she shrugged.

Napoleon took another turning onto a slightly larger road that was banked with high hedges bursting with wild flowers. The rolling countryside seemed to be largely composed of small wheat fields – small to one used to American farmlands – separated by dark hedges and sporadic trees. There were no towns in sight.

'Well, I'll just keep driving,' he murmured. 'Does Illya need medical attention?'

'I'm fine,' Illya said from the back of the vehicle, sounding as if he were talking through gritted teeth.

'Miss Jones?' Napoleon asked.

'He needs medical attention, but it's not technically an emergency,' she promised Napoleon. 'His arm must hurt terribly, but if I can give him some – '

'I am not having any more morphine,' Illya grated out. As if to prove himself he shuffled himself up from between the boxes and worked himself back through into the front seats. Napoleon slowed a little to let him sit down, then sped up again. He deliberately didn't focus on his partner's face, because it was sheet white and made him want to hold Illya down and inject the morphine himself.

'We could do with finding a telephone,' he commented.

Illya looked around bleakly at the empty countryside. 'Good luck. Do you think the houses around here are even connected?'

Miss Jones scoffed. 'You're not in Outer Mongolia, gentlemen. I'm sure half of the farms have a telephone. They'd need one.'

'Still, we'd be better finding a call box than involving more civilians,' Napoleon muttered. 'We've got half a tank of gas but I don't know how far that'll take us...'

As they continued on through the narrow lanes the light began to fade into something more like evening and Illya slumped more in his seat. Napoleon glanced at him in worry. His face was paler still, looking even more starkly so against the green-yellow mottle of the bruise down one side. He knew that Illya had suffered a hellish two weeks, with capture, torture, escape, capture again, surgery, drugged interrogation, and not nearly enough to eat. He had shed fat and some muscle, and looked just about done in.

'Here, take a left,' Miss Jones said eventually as they came up to a crossroads marked with a white and black signpost. 'Kings Langley. That'll do. There's sure to be a phone box somewhere there.'

'You know where we are?' Napoleon asked, relief stealing through him.

'Well, I'm not intimately familiar, but I recognise the name,' she smiled. 'We're not too far out of London. Oh, look, there!'

Not far down the road was a layby, and in it was a red-painted telephone box. Napoleon pulled over and proffered his gun to Illya.

'Can you manage this?' he asked.

Illya grunted, and pulled the hand gun he'd acquired from his waistband. 'Better with this,' he said.

'Okay, then keep watch,' Napoleon told him. 'I'm going to make a phone call.'

He took the machine gun with him just in case, and jumped out of the vehicle. Pulling open the heavy door of the call box he slipped inside and lifted the receiver. He had the operator connect him with U.N.C.L.E. headquarters in London, and felt a surge of relief when a polished English accent said, 'U.N.C.L.E. London. How may I help you?'

Napoleon rested back against the glass in relief, trying to pull the name of the woman into his head. He was sure he recognised the voice from his time there looking for Illya. 'Ah – Sylvia – it's Napoleon Solo,' he said smoothly.

'Napoleon!' she exclaimed, and he grinned. He must have got her name right, and he must have made his usual impression on her. 'Where are you, Mr Solo?'

'I – er – I'm not exactly sure,' he said. 'Somewhere close to – um – Kings Langley. We've just escaped from what seems to be a large Thrush base about ten miles north-west of here. They'll be looking for us, and we need urgent extraction.'

'We can trace your location from the call,' the woman said swiftly. 'Hold tight, and we'll have someone with you very soon.'

'Mr Kuryakin needs medical attention,' Napoleon put in quickly. If they felt inclined to dawdle at all, hopefully that would speed them up. 'We'll be in a blue Land Rover, right next to the call box, licence plate – er – ' He craned his neck to look out at the car, then reeled off the registration number. 'If there are signs of any little birds sniffing about we'll move on. Clear?'

'Yes, that's quite clear, Mr Solo,' the cut-glass accent replied. 'Hold tight if you can, and I'm sure we'll get you out of there. We'll send a helicopter.'

Napoleon breathed another sigh of relief as he put the phone down. He went back to resume his place in the driving seat of the car, ready to go at the first sign of trouble. He hoped there would be none. Illya looked completely exhausted, and although Napoleon had left him supposedly on guard, he was sitting with his eyes closed and his head resting against the window. It was only the tightness around his mouth that showed Napoleon that his partner was still conscious.

'Miss Jones, that arm,' he said tentatively.

She leant through from the back to look more closely at Illya's arm. There was fresh blood seeping through the bandage over the surgery scar and blood where the pins went into his arm. The fact that the arm was no longer straight made it look all the more gruesome.

'I don't like the look of it, but it won't kill him,' she said quietly. 'I'd be much happier if he'd take a painkiller but – but I understand why he doesn't want one,' she said clearly as one blue eye opened to look at her balefully. 'No, Mr Kuryakin, I know that you want to be alert. I'm not going to slip you something against your will.'

'You'd better not,' Illya muttered.

'On the one hand you'd have a peeved Russian on your hands,' Napoleon said, 'but on the other hand you'd also have a very sleepy Russian.'

Illya favoured him with the same kind of look he had given Miss Jones, and he ruffled the golden hair, before slipping his hand across Illya's lap to take the Russian's good left hand in his.

'We're going to get you out of this,' he promised.

'Well, you're not doing too badly so far,' Illya replied, opening both eyes now and favouring Napoleon with a wan smile. His eyes flicked to the rear-view mirror as a car came along the road. Napoleon tensed, but it moved smoothly past and away around the next corner. His eyes started to drift closed again and Napoleon assured him, 'You relax, Illya. I can keep watch.'

'Better with two,' Illya murmured, dragging his eyes open again.

'There are three,' Miss Jones reminded him tartly.

Illya gave her a half smile. 'Oh, yes, I forgot that you have been initiated into the ranks of those who have killed their first Thrush.'

'Yes, well...' Miss Jones looked down at her hands as if she were expecting to still see blood there. 'I don't exactly feel good about that. And I'm more than a little frightened about the consequences.'

'There will be no legal consequences,' Napoleon assured her. 'U.N.C.L.E. will take care of that. I wouldn't advise speaking of it to anyone outside the organisation, though.'

He glanced in the mirror again as another car approached, relaxed again as it drifted past.

'Do you think they'll catch up with us?' Miss Jones asked, worried. 'We're a good way away now.'

'Well, they weren't following immediately behind but they're almost certainly out looking for us,' Napoleon said pensively. 'We're in one of their vehicles. It's even possible there might be a tracking device in it. I guess we're lucky they haven't branded it with a big white thrush with their usual bravado, but I can't say we're home and dry until that 'copter's landing beside us.'

He kept his eyes flicking between the mirrors and the front windscreen. He wanted nothing more than to succumb to tiredness but he was vibrantly aware of Illya next to him, struggling to remain alert against his own exhaustion and pain. No matter what Miss Jones said, he, Napoleon, was really the only able person in the car to look out for Thrush. They wouldn't necessarily come skidding in with guns blazing. It was just as likely they'd send an anonymous looking man in a car who would draw alongside ostensibly to ask for directions, and would then either gun them down or take them captive again.

'It must be time,' Illya muttered, and Napoleon glanced at his drawn face. He saw Miss Jones casting her eyes to the suitcase with its doses of morphine, but she resisted reaching out for it, and Napoleon was glad. He hated the thought of withholding painkillers from Illya if she insisted they were really necessary, but he wanted Illya to stay alert.

There was a drubbing in the sky, a noise that gradually grew louder, and he sat up straight.

'I think that's it,' he said, squeezing Illya's hand. 'Illya, I think that's it. Do you hear?'

'Sounds like an U.N.C.L.E. model,' Illya murmured, opening eyes which had drifted closed again.

'Yeah, I thought so. Let's stay in the car though until they land, just in case.'

'Coming closer,' Illya said, seeming more alert now.

'Yeah...'

Napoleon leant out of his window and looked up in the sky. The sun was lowering in the west and the east was growing dark, but he could see a speck against the sky.

'Looks like the real thing,' Napoleon said as the shape began to resolve. 'Yeah, that's it!'

The helicopter was closing rapidly now, beating down through the darkening sky to hover above the flattish wheat field just behind the layby. Napoleon flung open the door to the Land Rover and ran around to help Illya out while Miss Jones climbed out over the seats and followed them to the gate into the field. The wheat was flattened as the air blast of the rotors hit the field, and the helicopter set down on the golden crop.

'Come on, let's go!' Napoleon grinned. 'Keep down, Miss Jones.'

They ducked low beneath the wind from the rotors as the helicopter door was slid open. With more than a little relief Napoleon recognised the first face he saw, an agent named Hawking who was leaning out with an outstretched hand to help them in. They tumbled into the back and Illya collapsed onto one of the seats as the door was slammed closed. The helicopter rocked and lifted away from the ground.

'Now will you take some morphine?' Napoleon asked, kneeling close to Illya and shouting into his ear above the sound of the helicopter.

'Now I will take some morphine,' Illya said with great relief.