THE COUNTDOWN TO ANNIHILATION AFFAIR

Chapter 5

"Revenge…is a dish best served fast"

After holstering their Walther P38s and gathering up the Russian sniper rifle, the three exited the post-Soviet apartment amidst apologies, in Russian from Illya, in regards to the intrusion.

Then all three proceeded down the same stairs taken by Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo minutes earlier…

"So," began Illya, "you're an agent with the Russian Presidential Security Service. And why were you sent here with a sniper's rifle again?"

As the three neared the ground floor's door, Dmitrij Zhamanklov said, "I vas sent to make absolutely certain that no more U.N.C.L.E. agents vent 'missing' vhile attempting to do vhat ve could not: get inside THRUSH and recover the veapons-grade plutonium before they use it to make small, but wery powerful, nuclear devices. Vhich they could easily transport and use anyvhere in the vorld. Something vhich those of us serving the Russian President believe vould inevitably be thought to be the vork of Russian dissidents attempting to bring the Vest to its knees. Therefore, inwiting a nuclear response from your country."

"President Vladimir Putin sent you here?" asked Napoleon as the three paused just this side of the door leading from stairwell into ground floor, his lined, yet still handsome, face forming a suspicious scowl.

"Da," said Dmitrij. "Here is my official identification."

Having just pulled a battered wallet from the depths of his warm-but-worn coat's pocket, Napoleon took possession and opened it so that both men from U.N.C.L.E. could see what one would expect an operative of the Russian Federation to carry: A coat of arms that had a blood red background with double-headed, spread-winged eagle clutching a scepter in one talon-clawed foot and a royal globe of sorts in the other, as a central shield bore an all-white man, with short blue cape, riding a large all-white horse while the spear he carried apparently pierced a dragon-like beast trampled beneath the horse's hooves.

"Looks legit," said Napoleon, before handing the wallet back to Dmitrij. "Let's see if we can work together to stop THRUSH."

After cautiously crossing the street to enter the U.N.C.L.E. safe house, carefully sidestepping a drying river of dark red blood while dragging the dead body inside…

"What do ve do now, comrades?"

"First we contact our respective 'Uncles"," said Napoleon with a skewed smile, "Then we break out the vodka and toast to our continued good health."

"Huh?" puzzled Dmitrij Zhamanklov long after the three, and a dead body of a THRUSH-controlled potential assassin, disappeared into said safe house.

"So…they are still alive," said the man sitting in shadow behind an elegant oaken desk. His eerie tone enough to freeze the blood of the reporting operative, in plain-clothes dress rather than the more typical jumpsuit-and-beret togs usually worn by agents of THRUSH. "That is most …unfortunate."

Speaking in a thick Russian accent, this plain-clothes THRUSH operative stammered, "S-sir, if you vould g-give me another chance, I c-can guarantee that both U.N.C.L.E. agents vill be killed…just like the first two. You have the vord of Ivan Pontekomavik, former officer of the KGB and…"

"I don't think you understand, Mr. Pontekomavik. I have much more than your 'word'," said the shadowed man as he slowly stood and walked around to the front of his desk, whereupon the lighting fell upon a face that was heavily scarred, over exactly one-half of the ruined countenance, due to this THRUSH chief narrowly escaping the destruction of their Canadian installation a week or so earlier. "I have your life."

Darien Driscoll, former lieutenant to the resurrected via cybernetics, and now truly dead, Andrew Vulcan, who'd finally risen to stand as a THRUSH commander-in-chief.

Darien's position within the evil organization's hierarchy was such that, combined with the fact the left side of his face was so much melted flesh and his equally ruined left hand was hidden from view in a single shiny black leather glove, it easily sent wave after wave of dread down this Russian THRUSH hoodlum's shivering spine.

The half-faced Darien Driscoll gave a single curt nod to the two jumpsuit-and-beret wearing THRUSH thugs, both toting Heckler-and-Koch XM8 full-auto rifles, who promptly dragged the kicking-and-screaming, in Russian, Ivan Pontekomavik from the somewhat opulent office.

The final slamming of a bulletproof metal door suddenly silencing the man's terrified screams as if someone had simply thrown an "off" switch…

As the devilish nature of the situation wormed its way through the malignant labyrinth that was Darien's mind, one half of his face, the half that was not a melted mass of flesh, forming a depraved grin.

Perhaps it is best that the assassin failed to kill Illya Kuryakin and Napoleon Solo. In truth, I wish to see both die a much slower, more agonizing death. To make up for…this.

Darien reached up to the ruined side of his face with an equally ruined, gloved hand. Thinking better of it, he used the fingertips of his unharmed hand to explore what remained as a reminder of what two over-the-hill U.N.C.L.E. agents had, indeed, done.

Darien sardonically said, "Revenge…is a dish best served fast."

END OF CHAPTER 5