Chapter 5
After what seemed like only a few seconds to Illya, the lock on the door clicked and the door flew open. Very weak from vomiting and still dizzy, he decided not to move as he listened to the soft, sneakered footsteps enter the room. The person placed a tray on the chair and walked over to stand next to the cot.
After a few seconds of quiet, Illya opened his eye to see the bottom half of a white uniform skirt in his blurred line of vision. Sheer white tights covered the slim dark brown legs connected to two feet standing in white nurse's shoes.
All this white attire was blinding to Illya. His headache began to pound even more when he rolled on his side to get a better look.
The young lady smiled down at him with her arms at her sides. She was a nice looking black woman with a patient look on her face. Her hair was short and styled in the lasted mod style. Luminous brown eye with golden flecks danced out at him.
Illya looked at her suspiciously while he swallowed a mouthful of burning stomach juices, not having enough energy to get off the bed to reach the toilet.
"Hi, my name is Trixie." Her light voice fortunately didn't add to his monstrous headache. "If you listen to what I say, I can give you this shot that I'm told will make you feel better, because Mr. John Doe, number one oh five, you look like shit. So, if you play nice? I'll play nice, but if you don't, I'll send in the thug brothers in here to hold you down and they love a good fight."
Illya blinked his eyes at her New York toughness and he smiled weakly at her pretty face. "I will behave."
"Good. Turn back over." She twisted her hand in a circle to indicate that he should lie back onto his stomach so she could have access to his backside, but he had other ideas.
"Nurse..." Illya started, trying to keep his voice sounding calm and not trembling.
"No nurse, just Trixie. Miss Teresa Brenner, if you don't do what I tell you. Now, turn."
"Miss Brenner, if you would take off this straight jacket, I can…."
"Oh, no you don't, Jonny Doe. I can't trust you that far yet. It's in the butt, take it or leave it!" Trixie started to walk away from the bed towards the door. "I guess that I have to get the boys…"
"No, please!" Illya sighed and turned back on his stomach. "The butt will be fine. Please don't get the boys."
"That's a good guy, Jonny Doe." She smiled in triumph when grabbed an alcohol wipe from her tray, came over to the side of the bed, and tugged at his pajama bottoms to get decent exposure.
Illya felt the cold swipe of cotton and then a stinging jab in his butt. The shot itself wasn't the worse part; it was the burning of the antidote that was pushed into his body. All he could do was to wince and squeeze his eyes shut to prevent from swearing out a stream of words inappropriate to say in front of Trixie. He'd promised to behave while she was in the room after all.
"There, that should help you out." Trixie straightened up, placed the used syringe back on the tray, and stood to regard her unusual patient quietly as she heavily leaned against the door.
A strange warm feeling began to run through him. Illya's body functions were slowly starting to return back to his control. He didn't feel as weak and his stomach's churning was loosening its knot; not there was anything left in it to work with anyway. Slowly, his head was clearing from the pounding it had been receiving and he let out an audible sigh of relief.
A dark smile crossed his lips, because now he could start to plan for a way out of this place. The UNCLE agent gracefully stretched his body out as much as the straight jacket would allow and rolled up to a sitting position. Illya was about to try and escape from the jacket by first checking to see how tightly the arms were secured in the back with an experimental tug and shift of his hands. This wasn't the first time he was in a straight jacket and probably not the last he thought to himself.
"Well that was impressive." Trixie's voice echoed, surprising Illya that she was still there. Thinking that she'd left the room and served her the look of pure innocence, hoping she couldn't guess what he was planning to do.
"Pardon me, Miss Brenner," Kuryakin said sweetly and cleared his throat. Swallowing the last of the bitter taste in his mouth and smiled warmly at her. "I thought that you had left. I'm feeling much better now. Thank you for helping me, I'm a rather tired and would like to rest…"
"You're not like the other ones who come in here." Trixie was not be put off so easily and chose to stay across the room from Kuryakin while she talked to him. "Do you know your name? Jonny Doe doesn't quite seem to fit you or your accent. You're not acting all that surprised to be in a straight jacket and in a mental hospital. Most people would be screaming and carrying on, but you're not. You are way too calm."
"My name is Illya Kuryakin."
Illya stopped for a second to think if he should tell her who he was and shrugged. She was clever enough to either help him, help Mother G find out who he really was, or think that he's really was crazy. So far, this place didn't seem to be involved with THRUSH, yet. That brought the main question back to the front of his mind, why did they want Lexi?
"Well, Illeeya Kuryackin, if I didn't know better, I'd say that you have a look that my former employer had when he knew that he was about to be cheated by one of his working girls. He too, was slim and wiry.
"Stupid Johns would under-estimated his smarts and strength all the time. I didn't, because if I made him mad, he'd show me "the error of my wicked ways" right across my back side."
"How did you finally get away?" Illya asked and continued his intense blue-eyed gaze on her with new respect for this former street-wise prostitute, intently listening to her rarely told story.
"Old Jethro was shot by a customer during an argument over me and the John won. The mister then took me to Mother G, because he did know what to do with me and the rest is history.
"She trained me to work here as an aid and gave me a place to sleep. Been two years now," Trixie said shrugging. "Mostly, I take care of blue bloods that are used to being looked after, but there's really nothing wrong with them. All they wanted is a little extra attention. Like Mr. Danny in room 6. He's just likes to play with those on the same team or at least he did before they took him to the other ward for treatment."
Kuryakin took in this information with a small nod. Trixie turned her head slightly to the side and half closed her eyes in self reflection, but still didn't take her eyes from him. He hadn't moved or tried to get her to come closer when he heard her loudly sigh.
"I don't know why I'm telling you all this?" Trixie said in tired resignation. "I must need to take a vacation or get another job. This place is getting way out of hand."
"How so?" Kuryakin encouragingly asked with interest.
"Oh, I don't know." She huffed in frustration that danced in her eyes. "Patients are being transferred to a new ward for treatment. And, I don't even know where it is in this place. More and more unidentifiable Johnnies and Janes showing up and running around this joint than I can count, Mother G is personally running this ward, and now you. I'm having a personal conversation about working here with a patient whose chart says that you're a dangerous manic schizophrenic. That you have manic delusions that you're from an Eastern European country, have been kidnapped, and a spy for some fictitious organization called UNCLE. What does UNCLE stand for?"
"United Network of Criminal Law and Enforcement, world peace, and I am Russian."
"A communist, Russian spy working for world peace and living here, in New York City? Okay. That's a good one. So why were you kidnapped and brought here?" Trixie looked at the calm blond man with deep blue eyes in wonderment and then laughed at the hilarity of the situation.
"That I don't know yet, but I don't think it was because of my job. I was asked to betray a friend. That's something I cannot do."
"Betray him for what?" Her interest was piqued. It didn't mean that she believed this slim blond man, but the conversation had caught her attention. He was so serious and never wavered.
"Betray her." The painful looks in his eyes made her swallow nervously, making her question if he was really insane or not.
"I can't do that. I care for her too much." Illya reactively cleared his throat. "For a short time, she was in your former line of work, but was taken away just like you. I wouldn't like to see her back there again or manipulated by others. That, I promised her mother and my father."
"Does she have a name?"
"Yes and Mother G knows it. Christina Roth."
"So why does she want her?"
"I don't know." His tight voice told her he knew more that he willing to tell her.
Trixie scrutinized him for a moment, not knowing if she could believe him or not. This could only be part of his manic fantasy and she was being lead down a phony path. With another sigh of frustration, she looked at her watch and had to deal with the realities of her job.
"As much as I would like to entertain this line of thought with you, it's about time to get you something to eat and a good washing. You smell of throw up and sweat."
With that comment, she knocked on the heavy wood door and it swung open to admit two hulking orderlies. "Clay, you and Frank take Mr. John Doe one-oh-five to the showers for a good hose down. I'll have clean clothes for him and a new jacket. You can feed him in the dining hall in one of our special chairs. It should be empty by now. Dr. Heaford wants to see him in half an hour for psychiatric evaluation in his office. Then we can find out just how really crazy he is."
"Thank you for your help, Miss Brenner. I hope to talk to you again in the near future, but I don't think that I'll be allowed to stay in this room or ward after I see Dr. Heaford." Kuryakin nodded to the lady before the two orderlies lumbered up to him with mischievous smiles on their faces as each took an arm and dragged him out of the door.
"All I can say to you is to remember to hold your breath and behave yourself with the boys and Dr. Heaford. Behaving and doing what you are told is the only way out of here. Good luck in the world peace department, comrade," Trixie said smugly and saluted the Russian when they dragged Illya past her and out of the door.
"Da!" Illya remarked in a sarcastic tone that lightly touched her ears, making her laugh out loud with its pitch of black humor.
Napoleon and Caitlin opened to door to Lexi's apartment and peered inside. The Chief Enforcement Agent had his gun drawn while he kept Caitlin right behind him as they walked through the entry way.
Several little lights were blinking in each room. Checking all of the rooms and finding nothing, Napoleon lowered his gun and turned off the alarms which started to pulse with urgency.
With no one in the place, Napoleon holstered his gun and started to look around. The bedroom window was opened a crack; Illya's jacket was on the chair with his communicator in it; and his wallet and keys on the table where he had left them.
The pillow on the couch was leaned to one side and dented to where a head might have lain. Napoleon ran his hands under the cushion and found Illya's gun. Sitting down in frustration on the couch, he looked at the P-38 UNCLE special and pulled out his communicator. Caitlin came to sit down by him.
"Open channel D, Mr. Waverly please," Napoleon said, smoothing his hair down and straightened up to report in.
"Waverly here, Mr. Solo. What have you to report about your mission? Have you found out any information on Mr. Kuryakin whereabouts? What about Mr. Delaney?"
"Well, sir, I am at Agent Lane's apartment where we found Mr. Kuryakin's gun, communicator, wallet, and keys, but no Kuryakin. All the alarms were functioning except for the window in the bedroom by the fire escape, which is still open. I don't see any signs of a struggle or detect any odors, but a knock out gas could easily evaporated by now."
"Do you believe it's connected to what happened to Mr. Delaney?" Solo's boss asked in a strong still voice.
"I don't know yet, sir," Solo said, thinking about his conversation with his partner last night. "I know that Mr. Kuryakin hadn't planned to investigate Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium until tonight. He and a team did sweep Miss Delaney's house last night and found listening devices, but not THRUSH connected. He was going to look into to who made them today and then visit the sanitarium's offices."
"Yes, his completed report from inspecting Miss Delaney's house and grounds was logged in before he left last night. I haven't had any other communiqués from him since." Solo could hear his boss puffing on his pipe in concentration. "What have you heard from Hillgate regarding Mr. Delaney?"
"We've met with Hillgate's lawyer, Jordan Graff, and have been allowed access to Mr. Delaney's files and the facility had agreed to a visit today at one this afternoon. We're planning to go there after we checked out this place."
"We, Mr. Solo?"
"Ah, Miss Delaney and me, sir." Solo said with a quick look over to Caitlin as she sat quietly listening to the conversation next to him, trying not to distract him. "She insisted on accompanying me here to help find clues. She's willing to help at Hillgate as well, because I don't think that they would let me see him without her."
Solo could just about imagine the amount of smoke that was filling Waverly's inner office, waiting for his response. They could hear him talk to his assistant to get him information on this lawyer person.
"Keep Miss Delaney safe, that's an order Mr. Solo. Keep me updated, Waverly out."
Napoleon closed the channel and looked at Caitlin who was intently staring right back at him.
"Are you ready for all of this," he asked her softly, laying his hand on her thigh lightly.
"Do I have much of a choice? Your friend and my Uncle Danny are in trouble." Caitlin calmly said and placed her hand on his.
"Then it's time to go and see your Uncle Danny." Napoleon got up from the couch, pocketed his communicator, and extended a hand to Caitlin to help her up. "Give me your purse."
"Please." She smiled and handed it over.
"Please and thank you," Napoleon said with a nod, putting Illya's gun and communicating pen in her purse, and zipped it closed. "Yours for safe keeping and could come in handy if you should need it."
"I'll make sure he gets these back." Caitlin agreed only holding them for safe keeping.
Napoleon smiled, tapping her nose with his finger and then gestured for her to precede him out of the apartment and down the stairs.
"Now all we have to do is find a cab."
Kuryakin was glad that Trixie had warned him to hold his breath, because the two bulking orderlies had made it their mission to try and drown him in the shower by pouring buckets of lukewarm soapy water over his head only to be followed by a stream of cold clear water from a hose. He was watched constantly, even in the bathroom as he tried to shave with a dull safety razor with a shaky hand.
Being in the dining hall was not much better. The "special chair" that she had mentioned was a simple armed chair where he was tied to with a sleeveless shirt that had straps attached in the back. The giant mountain of a man named Frank called it poesy or something like that.
Thanks to Mother G's prior administrations, all he could eat was a bit of dry bread with butter to soften it and a few sips of a yellow soup that he hoped was a chicken broth to settle his empty, aching stomach before he was pulled and shoved down the hallway to Dr. Heaford's office.
This part of the sanitarium was professionally decorated to reflect the status of clinical director by the cream colored walls and big urns of tall potted plants that brought a calming feeling to those who enter seeking help here. The simple wood secretary's desk was directly set in front of the doors to the doctor's office. Overstuffed chairs and benches of soft leather were scattered about to give patients a sense privacy and security while they waited.
Big windows brought in the natural light into the room, telling Illya that it was around noon time by the way the shadows of a large fern fell across the granite floors. He looked around the atrium and had to admit that it was an impressive space when he finally set his gaze on to the nurse sitting at the desk.
"Frank. Clay. So, this is Dr. Heaford's twelve o'clock evaluation?" The stern woman in a crisp, white uniform addressed the orderlies before looking up from her desk. When she did, she focused her eyes intently on the blond man in the straightjacket jammed between the two men. "Is he so dangerous that it requires both of you to escort him here?"
Kuryakin didn't let go of the nurse's stare once he had gotten a hold of it. His ice-blue penetrating gaze that he reserved for his worse enemies bore into her with a lethal twitch touched his lips. The nurse shivered, unable to break free from the chilling face of a deadly predator that was ready to strike.
"Dr. Heaford and Mother G ordered it, Peggy," Frank said, not noticing the exchange of looks between the patient and the nurse when she was finally able to break free from his simple control. "I don't see why, he's been no trouble to me and Clay. I was hoping for a little action from this one. It's been a little too quiet around here from me. Is the boss man in?"
"I don't know. He hasn't answered his intercom, but that's not unusual. He may have used his personal entrance to check on his other patients. I was told to leave this John Doe in his office and you two to stand guard of the door. While you two are here, I going to my lunch break. He said that it would be all right for me to take off."
"You hear that, little man? Into his office you go, but remember that we can hear what's going on and if you try anything, we'll come running."
Before Kuryakin could say a word in retort that had came to his mind, he was grabbed again by the men, hauled into Heaford's office, thrown into a chair, and left with a strong bang of the door.
Again, the first thing Illya did was to quietly and quickly look around. The room itself was just as polished and ornate as the waiting room, but with a few more personal touches like a table with an inlayed chess squares and frosted glass pieces arranged to start a game. An invitation?
On the massive, opulent desk, were files laid open for him to see. Another invitation or challenge? Kuryakin wondered if now was the time to give Dr. Heaford and whomever a show of some of his special abilities. Why else would they have left him alone in this office with so many enticements?
With astonishing skill, the Section Two agent pulled his arms up, twisted the inner arm over his head followed by a turn of the outer one, and then he pulled the straight jacket over his head. Throwing the unfashionable suit down on the floor, Illya leaned forward, ran his hands through his damp hair, and then stood up with a soft groan as his stomach growled out in hunger.
He first walked over to the chess table, made an opening move, and then went behind the desk to sit down in the good doctor's chair. The slight man had to stop a minute to check out the chair.
"I wish that I had a chair in my office that was this comfortable." He said to himself and then smiled at comparing his cramped metal chair with a broken wheel and desk to Heaford's. He smirked at the thought to what Napoleon would say if he knew that his partner was lusting over silly office furniture instead of a beautiful woman. It did swivel without squeaking.
The thought of Napoleon and how he was doing in his part of the mission, brought Illya back to looking at the files before him on the desk. The first one to his surprise was on him from the FBI; not the usual THRUSH file of him that he knew all too well. As he leafed through the packet, most of the information was correct, but they were missing several key items of his most life in Russia and the Ukraine. It did mention the resent death of his cousin, Alexana Kuryakin though.
The next few files were of Caitlin and Daniel Delaney. Great care was taken in assessing their house and business in these reports along with pictures on each of them and a list of Caitlin's hobbies and routine. The last file was small, thin, and of Christina Roth. Not information was listed on her personally. What they did have came from her CEO in a transcribed session with Dr. Heaford. The report read as if the man was under hypnosis.
All that was stated was that she let her CEO run the companies, but he couldn't offer up a contact number. She always called him. She had a job as a chemist in the company under the name of Janice Smyth, but that was reported was another dead end, because she didn't exist either except for a bank account to deposit her rather hefty paycheck. A list of all the companies ran by Roth industries were categorized by their impressive net worth.
The last thing on the desk was a manila envelope in which he opened to discover photographs of the party they were at two nights before. Christina a.k.a. Lexi was pictured with her CEO and his wife looking up at the room's decor, them hugging just after he had given her ring and necklace back. Another had them at the charity event hand-in-hand just about to leave the building into the night, but the last picture made him the most concerned. It was of them walking into her apartment building with the street numbers in plain sight.
Putting down the final photo, he knew that Lexi would not be happy with him now knowing that she would have move again so soon, but she would understand. Thoughts of her made him glad that she was safety tucked away at survival school instead of here and in danger. At least all they had to worry about in Caitlin right now, he thought as a door clicked open.
"Dr. Heaford, I presume?" Kuryakin asked quietly without looking up from arranging the files in a more comprehensive manner.
"Dr. Kuryakin." The tall, wiry doctor greeted the man in his chair. "It is an honor to meet you. I have to say that you have impressed me."
"Impressed, how so?" Illya asked and looked up with interest and folded his hands together over the desktop as if he were the psychiatrist and Heaford the patient.
"Well." Heaford cleared his throat and tried to not appear nervous or aware that he was already at a disadvantage by allowing the UNCLE agent to sit in his chair. "When I was first watching you and Miss Roth at the party and in her apartment, I thought that you would be easy to manipulate. Skinny, quiet, and overly devoted to the person you were with to the point of harmful distraction.
"Then, I thought that you may have been a hired gun to protect her and it had gotten personal. The heightened security measures, different identities, and the gun holster I found draped over your coat, but no gun in it. That's when it became much more."
"More?" Kuryakin asked with a calm look on his face encouraging for the doctor to proceed in his reflection.
"Yes, Dr. Kuryakin, I went through your wallet and found you identification card from UNCLE. That's when I became nervous with who I had been ordered to take last night to reach my objective."
"Your objective? Kidnapping is hardly the activity of a well respected psychiatrist. If I didn't know better from the file I have on you, Dr. Heaford, I would've not guessed that you had it in you to abduct me."
"Your file on me?"
"Yes, Andrew Walker Heaford. Who started out with a promising career first as a medic and then trauma surgeon and psychiatrist for the Navy Seals just after the Korean War, but was discharged over a botched mission that left you black listed from any governmental service career that would have you and had to fall back on running Hillgate Hospital and Sanitarium. But now, that isn't the only group you are working for, is it?"
"Like I said, you're very impressive person, Kuryakin," Heaford said, scrutinizing the man further and dropping the doctor part of his name in a show of disrespect that the agent simply blinked at and smiled. "We did acquire a new backer just recently to help us with our endeavors and they sent me another, more complete file on your unique skills, but I don't think that our new friendship with THRUSH will be stopped by you, your partner Mr. Solo, or UNCLE. In fact, you will be a bonus to our little program as we go regionally and then take over the rest of the world."
"We?" Kuryakin raised an eyebrow when Heaford stood up, tossed the THRUSH file of him onto the desk in front of Illya, walked over to the chess board, sat down and played his first move.
"Yes, Mother G and now my brother, who is anxious to meet you by the way, he ran a THRUSH satrapy in California and just recently just got transferred here to help with the family business. It's all in the family you see.
Illya go up from behind the desk, strolled to the other side of the chess board, and sat down across from Heaford. Without hesitating, he picked up a pawn and completed his second move.
"I'm shivering with excitement, but tell me something, Dr. Heaford?" The UNCLE agent asked off handedly, appearing to be concentrating more on the chess game before him than the conversation.
"What, Illya?" Heaford tried to pull the man off balance with an arrogant tone of informality.
"I prefer Mr. Kuryakin. If Miss Roth was so hard to you to find, why try now? What do you want from her?"
"Weren't the files obvious for you?" Heaford scolded Illya for not getting the whole picture, smiled, and arrogantly took his opponent's rook.
"Yes, they were actually, but incomplete. You want to control two, apparently single and vulnerable people, take their companies from them. To use them as your pawns in your little chess game, so to speak, your move."
"Very good, Illya, but we want more than that." Steady eyes regarded Kuryakin as he took Heaford's bishop. "We want to prove to THRUSH that we can control anyone with our latest techniques of hypnosis and pharmaceutical treatment depending on the level of cohesion needed to achieve our goals. The funding from those companies will help considerably. That's what makes in vitally important to find your Miss Roth."
"My, Miss Roth?" Illya's face remained calm when Heaford tried to take his queen, not only in the game, but in real life.
"Yes, my mother wants her as a prize for her mantel, so to speak. She met your girlfriend over a year ago when she started to broker a deal with THRUSH. We were making significant progress with controlling several of our test subjects and now ready for a bigger fish one could say. Miss Roth seemed to have slipped through Mother G's fingers to disappear into the night and that didn't sit well with her."
"Yes, I had my own run in with Mother G. Not a very pleasant experience."
"It's not nice to mess with my mother." Heaford smiled knowingly, waiting for his next turn to finish the chess game with an evil gleam in his eyes. "Now, I need to know where she is, have you bring her here to us, and then we can start your treatment so we can hand you over to our new employers. Nice and neat, don't you think?"
With a quick and decisive stroke, Illya made his move and set back in his chair. "I'm afraid that I can't tell you what you want or be willing to help. Oh, by the way, Dr. Heaford, check mate."
Anger colored the doctor's face as he lost the game just when he was winning a move before. He stared at Illya's passive face whose eyes sparkled in the unspoken triumph the blond man had over him.
Instantly, Heaford balled up his fist, and tried to strike the agent's face while jumping out of his chair. Illya was ready for him and pulled back just far enough to miss the swing.
In a flash, Illya grabbed the doctor's wrist and gave it an expert twist and then he followed through with the forward motion; pinned the doctor onto the chest table under his weight. Game pieces went scattering all over the floor.
"Come now, Dr. Heaford, don't tell me that you don't know how to lose gracefully? I thought that by now you would be an expert. You may have tried to take my queen in this game, but you will not have my…girlfriend as you seem to put it so eloquently." Illya whispered harshly into Heaford's ear and he increased the pressure on his bent back arm. "She's no where you can touch her and I will be leaving…now!"
"I wouldn't be so sure about that, old friend."
Illya felt and heard a gun being pressed into the back of his neck with a click of the safety off. Letting go of the embarrassed and furious Heaford; Kuryakin merely sighed, straightened up, and put his hands over his head. Why did that voice sound familiar?
"You'll change your mind once we get through with you, I promise you that. I almost broke you once, Illya. My brother was given his turn, as was our mother, now it's my turn again after all these years."
"Well, so far the percentages haven't worked in your family's favor. I suggest we all call it quits, I walk out of here, and save you the trouble of trying."
"Oh, very good, Illya," the voice behind him laughed brightly. "How I've missed your comments and challenges. It's just like the olden days. Well, almost. You see Mother G threatened and weakened you for me with her poison. My brother here gave you an idea of what is going on to distract you once we found out that UNCLE was involved with Miss Roth and Miss Delaney, and I'm here to get you to cooperate with us by giving you one of our new mind conditioning treatment once we find out where Miss Roth is."
"It won't work on me. I'll never give you what you want."
"You will, I promise you," the unseen man sneered back.
Kuryakin sighed audibly as he turned around and his eyes grew big in surprise. Illya was speechless for the first time today.
"Illya, do you remember my brother now?" Heaford smugly looked down at the blond agent's back while he put his hand in his pocket to draw something out of it.
"Yes, I do, Dr. Heaford. Jordan Graff, he was my partner in UNCLE Survival School. You got dismissed from UNCLE for unethical practices."
"No, I was kicked out because of you! I wanted to show the instructors I could defeat the number one person in our class and one of the top five agents in the history of UNCLE and I'm going to do it right this time."
"A first for everything," with that last comment, Kuryakin felt a needle poke the back of the neck and his vision darkened before he hit the floor.