'Let's take a stroll through Trafalgar Square,' Elidh said on impulse as they exited the small retail establishment that was the front for the entrance to U.N.C.L.E. London. 'It's on the way – it makes no odds whether we go that way or the other back to the hotel.'

Illya quirked a look at her. 'I expected you to insist on a cab,' he confessed.

She grinned. 'I thought of that. I expected you to refuse. I don't see the harm in a gentle walk as long as you rest afterwards. And I mean that. Your body was put through a lot, Illya, not to mention to two surgeries you've been through. You need to take care of it.'

'Hmm,' Illya muttered.

She was right. He would have refused a cab. Just being out of the slightly claustrophobic atmosphere of the London headquarters and out in the fresh air and sunshine was helping the aching tiredness.

Elidh looped her right arm through his left, and turned him to the right onto Charing Cross Road, where the pavement was thronged with pedestrians making the most of the glorious sun.

'Watch that arm,' she warned him, and Illya gave her a look implying that was an unnecessary instruction.

'Hey, watch it. What do you think you are? A blond Beatle?' a police officer asked as they nudged past him. 'Ruddy beatniks...'

Illya made as if to tip an imaginary cap, then flashed his U.N.C.L.E. ID at the man, and he flushed, backing off immediately.

'Well, that's useful,' Elidh said, impressed.

'It can be,' Illya shrugged.

She regarded him as they walked. She had not quite understood the ridiculous fuss about those four boys from Liverpool and the raucous music they made, but she could quite understand the attraction of the look, the slightly over-long hair and the ever-so-smart clothing. She had found herself gazing more than once at pictures of John in the record shops, and now she had a rather beautiful young specimen on her own arm. It was more than obvious to her that Illya was quite taken, and that she was hardly his type anyway, but it had been true what she had said to Mr Solo. It did feel good for her ego to be seen with someone like Illya; trim, mysterious, sleekly strong, and extremely good looking.

'I'm not sure I want to ask the meaning behind that look,' Illya commented, and she flushed, realising that she had been simply gazing at him without saying a word.

She patted his arm. 'Allow me a moment of fantasy, Illya,' she smiled. 'My biological clock is ticking, after all. I've never really given myself to much but nursing.'

'But you are considering an application to U.N.C.L.E.?' he asked her.

'That I am,' she sighed. 'Not in search of a handsome young spy, I must add, but I'd be lying if that wasn't a side benefit.'

'You might be better looking for someone who works internally,' Illya said, taking her words very seriously. 'Being an active agent hardly allows for personal relationships.'

'Unless – ' she began softly, but she saw colour flush into the Russian's fair cheeks, and understood that this was a subject he did not want to broach. 'There,' she said as Trafalgar Square opened up before them, and Illya seemed relieved at the change of subject.

Flocks of pigeons were rising and settling around tourists who were throwing breadcrumbs to encourage the pests. There were a number of policemen on duty, who mostly seemed to be employed in shouting at small boys who tried to mount the lions that stood around the base of Nelson's Column. Meanwhile the fountains disgorged water which sparkled in the summer sunlight, traffic moved slowly on the roads ringing the square, and there was an air of happy chaos to the place.

Illya looked uneasy at the large crowds.

'It's good they're planning their raid at night,' he muttered. 'Too many innocents.'

'Would they kill?' Elidh asked.

He met her eyes. 'In a heartbeat,' he nodded. 'What do Thrush care for happy families, for workers on their lunch breaks? Yes, they would kill.'

'And the guards in there at night?'

'They'll be our men,' Illya murmured, looking around first to be sure that no one was listening.

They sat down on the edge of the large pool in the square, the fountain playing lazily behind them, and gazed at the broad façade of the gallery before them.

'I do love these fountains,' Elidh commented, letting one hand drift in the water.

'They were welcomed by the establishment because they reduced the risk of riotous assembly,' Illya replied darkly, and she looked at him, startled.

'You live in a cynical world, Illya Kuryakin,' she said.

'I like to avail myself of the truth,' he said simply.

'Well, I still like the fountains,' she said staunchly. 'And I'm not so keen on riots. They create a lot of work for us nurses. Are you all right?' she added, casting a professional glance at his face.

'I welcome the opportunity to sit down,' Illya said.

'We can get a taxi from here.'

'Yes,' Illya murmured, his eyes still on the edifice before him.

The steps before the gallery were covered with people moving up and down, some in groups, some loners. Elidh idly watched a young woman who was carrying an easel in one hand and a rolled up painting in the other; a beatnik if ever she saw one, with her long straight hair, shades, and rather unusual clothes. The woman stumbled and dropped the painting, and it rolled and bounced down the steps, almost all the way to the street below.

Illya's eyes suddenly widened, his spine straightening as if he had been electrified.

'Yes,' he said. 'Yes!'

'What is it?' Elidh asked.

He looked at her, his eyes alight. 'They will roll the paintings up, yes? Slit them from their frames and roll them and put them in tubes?'

'Well – I expect so,' she nodded, looking back to the stairs, where the young beatnik was stumbling downward after her painting.

'And then all they must do is drive their trucks to the front of the gallery, back them up against the steps, and roll the paintings down. They will roll straight into the trucks. They can enter anywhere, but they will take the paintings out through the main entrance.'

'Can you be sure?' Elidh asked, looking between Illya and those broad, shallow steps.

'They are megalomaniacs, lovers of gimmicks. Barnabas Fink will be at the head of it all, with his waistcoat and his pipe and his delusions of grandeur. He won't sneak out through a side entrance. He will want to take his paintings in style. Elidh, we need to go back to HQ.'

She looked at him cynically. 'You mean this is a gem of information you can't trust to that communicator pen thing you have?'

He touched his pocket, prevaricating. 'Well...'

'Well,' she echoed. 'I'll get us a taxi. You can either call from there or from the hotel room. Your choice.'

He gave her a look of blue-eyed defeat, and then shrugged.

'Yes, miss,' he said deliberately. 'Anything you say.'

She would never confess to Illya the tingle that ran through her loins at those words. She envied Napoleon Solo more than she could express.

'Come on,' she said briskly to him, and Illya followed her through the thronging crowd to the road that ran between gallery and square, slipping into the taxi that stopped at her hail. As soon as they were settled in the back of the cab Illya got out his communicator pen and called Napoleon to tell him of his idea.

'That's good thinking, Illya,' Napoleon replied quickly. 'From what I've seen of Fink I think you're right. And I wouldn't mind betting they'll go in through the front too, so pleased with their knock out gas and the fact the whole place will be dead. It's not enough to steal those paintings. He'll want to own the place.'

'Have they found anything out about that gas from the people who were knocked out around Miss Jones' house?' Illya asked, his eyes on the buildings passing by outside the window as he talked.

'They're working on it,' Solo replied. 'They managed to extract just enough from the bloodstreams of the victims. I don't know if you can be of any help, Illya.'

Illya shook his head. 'I'm a physicist, not a chemist, Napoleon. Better leave that one to the experts. If they can't find any antidote to it we'll just all have to go in wearing gas masks.'

'Well, the positive is that no one affected by it has reported any lasting effects beyond a little extra tiredness.'

'That's one mercy,' Illya muttered. 'All right, that's all, Napoleon. We're almost back at the hotel now. I'll see you later.'

'Later, tovarisch.'

There were no explicit endearments in their signing off from the conversation, but Elidh was perfectly aware of the feeling between the pair, particularly from the look in Illya's eyes as he capped the communicator and put it back in his pocket.

'Do you mind my coming up to your room?' she asked the Russian, after the cab had dropped them off at the hotel.

'Oh – no, I suppose not,' Illya replied. He looked even more tired than earlier, and Elidh was sure that he just wanted to be left alone, but she wanted to be sure that he was going to rest, rather than sit up in his rooms working on something.

'Well, good,' she smiled. 'You know, it's not all secret agents who have their own private nurse,' she teased him.

'I have never had a nurse quite so diligent as you are,' Illya admitted.

'I bet you wish I were a little less diligent,' she grinned.

'You were diligent enough to make certain of our escape from Thrush headquarters,' Illya said as he let them into his room. 'You will always have our gratitude for that – both mine and Napoleon's.'

He sank into one of the large armchairs in the sitting room, and waved his hand idly at the other chair.

'Sit down, and feel free to order up tea if you want,' he told her with a wan smile.

'I would very much like some tea,' she said. 'But first – do you have painkillers prescribed for you, and have you taken them at any point today?'

'I do – and I have not,' he admitted. 'They are in the drawer by the bed,' he added, nodding towards the bedroom.

Elidh promptly went to fetch the tablets; codeine, she saw with approval; and brought him two pills and a small glass of water, standing by him until she was sure he had taken the tablets rather than simply palming them.

'Good,' she nodded. 'Now tea.'

She picked up the phone and put the order through, adding on as an afterthought a request for a proper English cream tea. Then she relaxed in her chair and regarded the Russian agent. He had donned his tinted reading glasses and was leafing through a magazine. He looked even smaller than he was, his body diminished by the large armchair. His face was very pale, and she thought he looked thinner than was healthy. She wasn't sure whether she wanted to mother him or love him. Perhaps it was a mixture of both, because she knew she was too old, he was too young, that he was entirely committed to his partner, that there were a raft of reasons why she could never go further than being a concerned friend.

She leant forward in the chair, feeling like she was taking a risk in broaching the subject, but also feeling very much that it was important that she did so.

'Did you know, Mr Kuryakin, how very close they are to legalising homosexuality in this country?' she asked him.

He seemed to freeze, and a flush reached his pale cheeks. He pushed his glasses more firmly onto his nose as if they would act as a shield.

'I don't know how relevant – '

'Now really, Illya,' she said with soft sternness. 'We both know it's extremely relevant. I know that you and Mr Solo are resident in the United States, but doesn't it help to feel that there are some places in the world that are becoming more open to the idea of love between consenting adults?'

He finally removed the reading glasses and fixed her with an intense gaze, his eyes seeming almost grey now. She hoped that the change wasn't a precursor to some kind of storm. Then he said, 'Miss Jones – Elidh – I do feel we have become friends, and I do very much appreciate what you are attempting to do. But this is not a subject I am comfortable discussing.' As she opened her mouth he held up his hand. 'I am Russian. I have lived in the United States for a long time, but I was born Russian, I grew up Russian, knowing that to survive I must be invisible, I must bury my feelings so deep that even I could hardly access them. In Russia I would be at risk of incarceration in a mental institution, or of imprisonment, or of being sent to a forced labour camp. The very likely alternative is that I would be shot and thrown into an unmarked grave. Your country is not tolerant to homosexuals. My country is worse. Do you know what forced labour does to men?'

She swallowed, dropping her gaze, unable to take the intensity of his eyes any longer. She had been caught up with her thoughts of how endearing was the obvious bond between Napoleon and Illya, and how delightful it would be if they could be open in their love. Now she looked at Illya and imagined him dressed in rags, greyed and bowed by interminable labour, held in a psychiatric hospital being treated for something which was not a sickness, or worse still, being shot over an open grave. The idea made her feel nauseous. And even with the change of law, she knew that society would not be so quick to change. Just for the couple to walk down the street hand in hand would open them to slurs of queer, faggot, shirt-lifter, and probably even to violence.

She reached out and put her hand over his. 'I am sorry,' she said, 'and I will not discuss it any more.'

She was saved by a subtle knock at the door, and she leapt up from her chair to let in the bellboy with his wheeled table of food.

'I thought you might enjoy this,' she said once the door was closed. 'I've noticed that you enjoy your food.'

Illya's eyes lit up at the sight of scones, cakes, and the great silver pot of tea.

'I haven't had something like this since I was at Cambridge, and then I didn't have enough money to do it more than once,' he said, leaning forward to the table. His smile was filled with all the relief at the change of subject, and it seemed to light the entire room.

She sat back and watched him attacking the plate of scones, wondering at this enigmatic man who must have come through so much to be where he was today. All in all, she thought, Napoleon Solo was very lucky to have him, both in his business life, and his personal. But she hoped Napoleon had sense enough never to get between the man and his food.