THE PROTECTING THE PAST AFFAIR
Chapter 5
"This…night belonged to…"
Having inevitably navigated through the downtown traffic of London, England, two men from U.N.C.L.E., decades older than originally so in 1964, from 43 years into a future Time…
"Take a left off Drury Lane onto Broad Court," instructed Illya Kuryakin while looking from paper map to extant surroundings as Napoleon Solo proceeded to take that turn.
"Go all the way to the end of Broad Court," continued Illya while folding, or at least trying, the low-tech item 1964 had forced the 21st Century secret agent to rely upon since initially landing, in a quad-prop plane, at a not quite completed Heathrow Airport. "We'll park the car there and walk to the apartment…uh, flats…building U.N.C.L.E. Intel stated was THRUSH's hidden headquarters."
"Sounds like a plan, my Russian friend," Napoleon Solo said with an excitement to both tone and facial affectation that clearly implied that this man from U.N.C.L.E. was genuinely glad to be back in the past. Back to the beginning.
But Illya couldn't help looking at Napoleon with a deeply puzzled expression, while sarcastically asking, "Is that all you have to say? Where's your usual smart-ass comment, my American friend?"
"Well," Napoleon heaved even as the English sedan he was driving proceeded down Broad Court at a steady, unsuspicious speed, "I was going to say something like 'Broad Court…I wouldn't mind being tried by broads', but I decided, somehow, it just sounded…nasty."
For the first time since assuming this first official mission since their return to the past, Illya brightened a bit, saying, "It would indeed seem, my dear Napoleon, that you have been suitably domesticated by the 21st Century. You would've never felt at all awkward at using such an extremely disparaging-to-women term before. There may yet be hope for you."
Before the still handsome, salt-and-pepper haired, hazel-eyed super-secret agent could come up with a clever comeback…
"We're here," Illya said gesturing straight ahead through the windshield, windscreen to the English!, adding, "park over there."
"Certainly Mr. Side-Seat Driver," quietly quipped Napoleon as he pulled into said position in the cul-de-sac end, even as Illya pulled out his extra-special Cross pen for one last pre-action communiqué prior to entering the pre-determined apartment, or flat, building.
Wherein, at that exact same moment, deep within said multistory structure secreted amongst a commonplace collection of buildings truly holding flats for person-occupation…
"Forget all your previous political loyalties, Sir Wilson," said the speaker-delivered voice of the masked Master of THRUSH, Darien Driscoll, via handheld microphone into the headphones-wearing, tightly restrained, Sir James Harold Wilson in the strangely experimental propagandizing device.
The device duly dubbed hypno-programmer.
Having already undergone a number of brutal beatings that inevitably led to periods of stupefaction, some for many minutes and some for scant seconds, Sir Wilson's stronger-than-expected will was, at last, starting to crack.
"M-my…l-loyalties…to…to…"
Finally, realized the extremely impatient man from a future time-period wearing a mask made of metal, gems, and ivory in order to permanently hide a hideous half-scarred countenance, Sir Wilson was losing his limpidity.
"Excellent, Doctor," said a half-smiling-inside-the-mask Darien to Dr. James D. Duncan, the head tech assigned to this English variant of the evil Technological Hierarchy for the Removal of Undesirables and the Subjugation of Humanity. "The device does indeed seem to be working perfectly. Soon Sir Wilson's will shall truly belong to us. Thus shall we set into motion something that should so alter my time-period that, just maybe, my eternal enemies, Napoleon Solo and Illya Kuryakin will completely cease to exist. Ha, hahahaha!"
However, even as such was taking place deep inside said UK headquarters for THRUSH…
"Once we enter," said the Russian-born aged agent to his equally old American-born partner and friend prior to stepping through the front doors of this faux flats building adjacent to Broad Street…
"We'll be in 'battle mode'?" Napoleon Solo questioningly completed with a smirking smile of rising excitement. "I wouldn't have it any other way, my friend."
It was then that both pulled their Glock 18s from hidden-under-coats shoulder holsters, then, from their attachment packs on the anchoring strap situated about their opposite shoulders, two silencers were pulled to magnetically attach onto the business ends of those partially plastic pistols.
Total time taken: 4.92 seconds.
"Let's do this," simultaneously said two smiling septuagenarians as violent intent was about to become fatalistic action.
Soon these two men from U.N.C.L.E., so hated by a half-faced Darien Driscoll, would use silencer-equipped Glocks to kill any and all THRUSH operatives, especially those dressed in standard jumpsuits-and-berets carrying augmented M-1 carbines touting night-vision sniper scopes…
Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft!
The aforementioned masked Master of THRUSH was quite literally on the brink of brainwashing the beaten and bleeding British Prime Minister via the overly elaborate audio-visual device provisionally called a hypno-programmer.
"Once again, Sir Wilson," sinisterly said Darien via handheld microphone while hidden behind the two-way mirror looking out into the semi-darkened room wherein Sir James Harold Wilson had been unbelievably battered by jumpsuit-and-bereted brutes still standing at its shadowy edges. "What will you do upon your first official presentation to Parliament as Prime Minister?"
"I…will…wear…," struggled a still-resistive recently-elected PM, not at all fully reprogrammed, mentally, by the devious device invariably force-feeding mind-altering auditory sounds and illusory images meant to twist his sensibilities inside-out. "…a…bomb…that…that…"
"Stop resisting, Mr. Prime Minister," snarled a restless past-and-future supreme ruler over all that was THRUSH. "You will wear a bomb into a full Parliament and explode it. Killing them all. Say it!"
While Sir Wilson struggled with every erg of will still extant within his head, heart, and especially his soul…
Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft!
Two out-of-retirement/out-of-Time U.N.C.L.E. super-spies, firing 9mm Parabellum bullets from drastically different handguns that such as they had originally carried their first time of actual life in the Sixties, were, at that exact instant, near the entrance to the torturous room within the faked flats building in London, England…
"I think this is it, Illya," Napoleon Solo said in certitude having arrived after firing their silenced Glocks at those THRUSH thugs standing between them and their target.
"Yes," Illya added, "assuming, of course, the information we forcefully extracted from that technician is at all accurate."
"Only one way to find out," Napoleon proffered before quite literally kicking in the locked door with one expensively-shoed, as expensive as was available in the Sixties!, foot.
Before even one THRUSH thug could grab nearby converted carbines in order to kill these two intruders…
Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft!
Multiple Thuds! resounded in the surrounding semi-darkness, even as Sir Wilson was literally teetering on the jagged edge of a psychological chasm, then…
"No! Not them! Not now!"
Even as such was angrily growled by the mini-speaker system of Darien's mask of metal, gems, and ivory…
Two silencer-affixed Glock 18s had been quickly reloaded via the expert ejection of clips while just as swiftly slapping in two more…
Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft! Pft!
After an authentic hail of bullets pierced the easily-shattered two-way mirror, killing all on the opposite side…
Save one.
"Dammit!" Napoleon Solo semi-swore the instant he and Illya looked inside and saw what they wished not to see.
"Darien Driscoll's not there," Illya Kuryakin commented in an anticipative tone and affectation. "That means only one thing."
Nodding deeply, as he and Illya reloaded in preparation for fighting their way out again, Napoleon promptly completed his Russian-born partner's explanation, "Our half-faced THRUSH chieftain has evidently developed a small 'recall' device so he can return to 2007 anytime there's trouble! Hope he pukes twice as hard returning as we all did upon appearing in the Sixties. Bastard."
Having very rapidly freed Sir James Harold Wilson from the strange apparatus and benumbing metal chair…
"Let's get out of here, Napoleon," insisted Illya, neither now needing the magnetically-attached silencer extension since such soundless shooting was unnecessary on their equally violent evasion. "We mustn't be cornered by carbine-carrying THRUSH 'soldiers'."
"Right with you, Illya," heavily heaved a still disappointed Napoleon, helping Illya lead Sir Wilson out. "Let's go, Sir Wilson. We need to get you into a hospital. You still have a lively political career ahead of you."
2007
Having already removed his mask in order to regurgitate via the physical ramifications of rapid-return time-travel…
A once again hidden behind a mask of metal, gems, and ivory tyrannical leader of THRUSH spewed words of rage.
"They cannot keep beating me! They must die! They must cease to exist! Removing them completely from the time-stream would liberate me from my hidden hideousness!"
Attempting to appease the less-than-sane chief of THRUSH, Dr. Mason Fallon foolishly proffered, "We can take some solace in the presumption that you can revisit 1964 as many times as it takes to succeed, sir."
Determinedly turning that single eye-within-single eyehole in the direction of the recently-promoted-by-Darien head tech, the masked menace snatched an MP7 A1 machinegun-capable assault weapon from the closest standing THRUSH thug…
Brrrrr-rrraaaattttaaaa-ratata-brraatt!
"You, my good dead Dr. Fallon," snarled the mini-speaker delivered voice of the sinister Master of THRUSH, while handing back the still-smoking automatic-semiautomatic firearm, "have just been retired."
1964
"Congratulations, gentlemen," said the pipe-smoking Alexander Waverly from his side of the oak-and-metal escritoire dominating this innermost office suite of the New York United Network Command for Law and Enforcement. "You foiled THRUSH's diabolical plans to brainwash the Prime Minister of England. Well done."
"Thank you, sir," said Illya Kuryakin almost passionlessly. "Shall we prepare ourselves for a non-THRUSH threat to…?"
"I've got a better idea, sir," quickly interjected the agent with the hazel eyes and salt-and-pepper hair. "Why not give Illya and I some downtime so we can 'reacquaint' ourselves with our new life in the Sixties?"
In a brief-but-hushed aside, Illya smilingly said, "Come now, Napoleon, what you wish to 'reacquaint' yourself with are the willing women of this less-complex period. Especially those listed in that little black book no doubt waiting at your apartment."
"Shhh!"
"Hm," hummed Mr. Waverly while seriously considering Napoleon Solo's duplicitous suggestion. "Very well, gentlemen. Enjoy the rest of the day. Report to me first thing in the morning for any new threats too potentially troublesome for ordinary operatives."
"Thank you, Mr. Waverly," said a half-smirking Napoleon while swiftly standing so as to exit and reestablish himself as a successful Ladies Man, as a still amused Illya also prepared to re-experience the Sixties lifestyle.
Just as the explosion-resistive double-dense door gradually began to open up…
"Try not to break too many female hearts, Mr. Solo," suddenly said Alexander Waverly in a deadpan demeanor while still looking over the variegation of important paperwork neatly littering his circular desktop. "At least leave something for the next time out."
Even as, for the first time in far too many years, Napoleon's face flushed fully, Illya, more amused now than a few seconds before, finally said with a spreading smirk, "With a poker face like that, Napoleon, you and I simply must play a few hands."
Suddenly stumped for a smart-aleck repartee, Napoleon made a mental note to needle Illya later.
For this quickly coming night belonged to an older lothario than had originally jumped into the jet-set scene.
Look out, ladies, thought this warmhearted womanizer with a self-ingratiating grin, Napoleon Solo is back with all new "tricks" from the future.
END