Chapter 6
Trixie walked into the nurse's station on her ward to get report from the charge nurse to the status of the patients while she was at lunch. It had been an interesting morning with John Doe number one-o-five in room ten. It took her and housekeeping a while to get rid of the smell of vomit from the room. She hated it when Mother G used her homemade concoctions on the patients.
Now, all the pretty, young black girl wanted was a quiet afternoon, get home, and watch her favorite television show. She'd eaten in the lounge with one of her current patients, Danny Delaney. Although, he smiled and talked pleasantly, there was a vacant look about him, trying to remember something lost and he didn't talk of his niece or work. Not like he did prior to staying in that other ward for the last two days.
Trixie shrugged as she wondered why Mr. Danny so interesting to her. He'd been here less than most of her patients and now she'll have some time to get to know him since he was back from treatment. The chart said that he would be here for at least another month; maybe more.
"Hey, Trixie," a nurse called out to her when she turned the corner and interrupted her thoughts. "We have another one. Came in while you were at lunch; a real hottie this one."
"Well, so much for a quiet afternoon. What's his deal?" She said with a loud sigh and picked up the chart while she pulled up a rolling chair to sit down by the counter.
"Oh, he's coming down from a manic episode. Tried breaking into a med room in the main hospital looking for the fun, illegal medications. Either to take or sell; got caught red handed it seems. Very delusional the chart says and is to be sedated at all times until he's transferred out of here either tonight or in the morning. He's just great to look at. Better than the one you took care of this morning. We got the note saying that John Doe's to stay in Dr. Heaford's special ward from now on which is fine with me after all that smell of puke."
Trixie took in all this information in stride while continuing to look over the new patient's slim chart. At least this patient had a name. A Mr. Napoleon Solo and he's due for his tranquilizing shot in ten minutes if the calculations were right.
"Why did the name sound so familiar?" A mumble escaped her lips after she stood up and went to the med room.
"Well, with you, and Clay and Frank back from break, I'm going to lunch. I'm taking a full hour to meet up with the husband in the main cafeteria. He's driving his truck to North Carolina this afternoon and I want to see him off. Everyone else is tucked in their rooms or in the lounge. Mr. Solo is in the restraints room and his shot is ready to go for you. It shouldn't take you more than a few minutes to check up on him every so often to make sure he's snoozing..."
"Not a problem, Carol. Say goodbye to your hubby for me," Trixie said off handedly to her coworker through the closing door of the nurse's station, who was already out the door and around the counter with her coat and purse in her hands. The nurse simply waved her goodbye back and kept going.
"Well, Mr. Solo. It's time to meet you and give you something that will make you dream your afternoon away. Napoleon Solo… Napoleon Solo. Why does that name sound so familiar?"
MFU/MFU
Napoleon Solo had woke up with his eyes unable to focus and his mouth feeling like cotton batting. The first thing he realized was that he couldn't move. He was on some sort of cot with a thin mattress, feeling the metal mesh give around his body. His arms and legs were restrained in padded leather restraints and he tugged on them experimentally before sighing in frustration.
"Caitlin!" His mind shouted out at him. "Where's Caitlin?"
Napoleon snapped his eyes open with a start and tried to look around the room with his vision clearing. It was a padded room with nothing in it, but him; tied down on the cot and a light bulb dangling from a single wire.
Anger filled his mind in how easy it had been for whomever to kidnap him and Caitlin. He had remembered that they had climbed into the back of the cab to go to the Sanitarium and then there was smoke from the cabbie's cigar blown at them as the man turned back for a destination. The rest was a blank.
Looking down, he had been stripped of his clothes. Why do they always take his clothes? Napoleon thought when he noticed an identification band on his wrist next to the wrist restraint and read his name on it.
"Ah, I must be at Hillgate Sanitarium."
The door to Napoleon's room opened up with a loud click of the lock as the med aid come into the room with a tray that had the syringe on it and an alcohol swab.
"Hello Mr. Solo, you're awake. My name is…"
"Trixie, yes I know." Solo beamed up at the lovely woman that he knew from her other line of work. "Good old Trixie Brenner, my love from 38th Street. I haven't seen you for a long time. So, this where you've been hiding yourself, in a mental ward fleecing the rich Johns? Well, you'd certainly have a captive audience."
"Napoleon Solo, baby, those days are long gone for me now. I haven't visited to my usual street corner for over two years. I gave up all rights to it. Someone else must certainly have it now."
"Has it really been that long? Your rival Coco has it now. I exchange pleasantries with her now and then. I must say that she doesn't pull off the stilettos and fishnets like you did." Napoleon lustfully thought to when he saw her last and then pushed it to the back of his mind.
"Napoleon, you can make even a professional blush." Trixie smiled with pieces of her buried past started to emerge. "So Lovely, what did you really do to get put in here and in restraints no less? Did you really try to break into the drug lock up? I always had you pegged for vice cop working downtown. You don't seem like the druggy type."
"I'm not. All of this is a misunderstanding. Revenge for being a cop, I was on the trail to bust the real drug dealers and wound up here by mistake. I was undercover.
"Can you be a sweet heart and help me out of here, Trixie baby?" Napoleon smiled, trying to get her to help him out of the padded restraints. He let her believe that he was a regular cop and not an UNCLE agent.
"I don't know Napoleon. I could get fired if I let you go." She was weighing what she should do. "I agree that a lot of strange things have been going on here lately, but I don't want to get into trouble. Most of the people here are really decent and don't want them to know what I use to do for a living before coming here."
"They wouldn't have to know. All you would have to do is loosen these buckles and leave the door unlocked. I'd do the rest. I've to go find my partner. I think that he's around here somewhere."
"I don't know?" Trixie repeated again and started to wring her hands while pacing around the room. She thought about what he was really asking her to do.
"Trixie please, I have to help the lady who was with me."
"Who was that?"
"Caitlin Delaney. She's Daniel Delaney's niece and I promised to keep her safe. We were coming to see her Uncle Danny. Do you know him?"
"Yes, I do. He's told me about his niece, Caitlin once and how scared he was for her."
She looked at him for a moment and then made a quick decision to help him.
"Napoleon, if I help you get free from this room and get Danny out of Hillgate; will you protect me from Mother G's clutches and find me another place to work? I always thought that you had connections by the way you dressed and treated us girls on the corner."
"I promise you that I will take care of you. Help me out of here and I'll tell you where you can take Mr. Delaney. Once this is all over, I'll even arrange it so that you can go back to school to be a proper nurse if you want instead of an aid. Is it a deal?"
"You have a deal. I have always wanted to go back to school to become a nurse, but I couldn't afford it." Trixie walked over to Solo and started to unloosen the restraints.
"I knew that I could always count on you Trixie my love." Napoleon smiled as he waited for her to unbuckle his arms and legs. "Now, I will give you an address to take Danny while I try to find where they are hiding Caitlin."
"Dr. Heaford has a special ward for some of his patients, but I don't know where it is. All I do know is that most of the patients start off in his office and then they don't come back here until after treatment. I would guess it's around there. It's been recently remodeled,"
Trixie said all that in a quick breath as if she was going to lose her nerve and back down; not quite believing what she is about do. She gave him pen and scratch paper from the pocket of her uniform.
Napoleon quickly scribbled down a phone number and address, handed back the paper and pen, grabbed the syringe from the tray by the cot, rearrange the cover and pillow on the bed to make it look like someone sleeping on their side, and gave her a quick hug.
"I won't forget this Trixie. My partner, Illya and I thank you."
"Did you say your partner's name was Illya?" Trixie stiffened up and asked him in shock when he held her at arm's length.
"Yes, Illya Kuryakin."
"You wouldn't work for a place named UNCLE, would you Napoleon? Work for world peace?" Trixie brought her eyebrow up in astonishment.
"Something like that. Why?" He asked suspiciously.
"Oh, I just met your partner this morning. A manic schizophrenic who believes that he is a Russian living in New York working for UNCLE."
"That would be him, the crazy, smart Russian." Solo smiled warmly, thinking of his friend.
"Now I know I really do need another job. I'm starting to believe and help crazy people escape from a mental hospital. I might as well move in myself," Trixie sighed to herself and Solo gave her shoulders a final squeeze for encouragement.
"After you get Danny out of here, then I'll take you to any mental facility you want to go to."
"Oh! Ha, ha!" Trixie laughed out loud and pointed him to the door. "Go save your friends and I'll meet up with you later. Good luck, Napoleon."
"Good Luck to you to, darling."
With that, Napoleon quietly opened the door, looked up and down the hallway and stealthily crept out into the hallway with no one the wiser at this point. Then Trixie left the door and headed towards Daniel Delaney's room.
MFU/MFU
Illya woke up with a start, looked around enough to see and feel that he was lying on a metal examination table; strapped down with restraints over his feet, legs, and chest. His arms were out on supports perpendicular to his body and secured at the wrists. An intravenous line had been started in his right arm and a saline bag hung near the table dripping every few seconds.
Groaning in frustration to finding himself drugged and restrained yet again when he awoke. At least this time he wasn't nauseous, he thought, but his head started to begin to pound when he moved his eyes back and forth. He lifted them upwards to see a bright and unforgiving procedural overhead light glaring down at him.
The rest of the room looked like a mini surgical suite. X-ray screen on one wall, equipment sitting in the corner, a counter with various unlabeled drawers underneath it, a sink with boxes of gloves, an anesthesia machine, and a tray of surgical instruments.
"Good, you're finally awake, young man." Mother G said from the hallway when she peered into the room
She walked towards him with a tray of syringes in her hands and set it on the counter. Mother G looked the same as the first time he met her; her bright white, overstuffed nurse's dress, starched nurse's cap, and those black horn-rimmed glasses that didn't hide the evilness behind them with her eyes boring into him. "It's such a shame that you will not cooperate with us. This could all go easier if only you would try."
"Most people find me difficult without even trying to get information from me," Kuryakin softly said, tracking her around the room with his eyes.
"Yes, Jordan has told me all about you and what you did to him. That was very unkind of you. The plan for him was to get a job with UNCLE just as Andrew was to get into the FBI after his time in the Navy Seals ended. Now, both of them have no other choice than to join me and THRUSH to achieve our goals. Too bad their fathers weren't more successful in THRUSH to make our working relationship with them easier to obtain."
"Fathers," he suspiciously asked, silently, but intently watching her walk around the room; turning on the anesthesia machine, attaching EKG monitor leads to his bare chest, and bringing the overhead light in closer blinding him even more.
"Oh, yes, I'm on my fourth husband right now. My other husbands' were sloppy and killed for it. It was me who thought of a way to condition people into giving us their money and started the Hillgate High Society Club to fund my plans. My boys just improved upon it. And you, Mr. Kuryakin, are not going to stop me."
"UNCLE knows all about what you are doing here. You will be stopped." His calm sure voice raised barely above a whisper as his body tensed with determined resolve.
"I hardly think that you are in a position to stop us. In fact, once we have the information on Christina Roth whereabouts when my sons break you, I've decided that you will be my new project."
"I'm flattered." Illya let out a well-practiced yawn.
"I'll send you back to UNCLE to destroy it once and for all. You will kill that old goat, Mr. Waverly and blow up UNCLE headquarters here in New York. I hear that you are very handy with explosives." Mother G continued on, ignoring his sarcasm.
"I know why you fit in so well here at the sanitarium, because you and your sons are insane if you think that I'll help you," the blond man stated in the same calm voice as he tried to swallow the dryness in his throat.
"Charming to the last, I see. Jordan said that you were quite colorful in your comments." The stern older lady had stopped what she was doing to lean over him and glare at him, challenging for him to look away.
"I'm glad you think so. I do try," Kuryakin said, lightly with a dark smile, not breaking her eye contact.
"Well, we shall see, young man." Mother G cleared her throat. She was the first to look away. Illya could sense a touch of nervousness in her voice and arrogantly grinned.
Mother G. hotly went to the counter, picked up a syringe filed with an amber fluid and turned back to the supine UNCLE agent. "Shall we begin?"
"I thought that this was a family affair. Wouldn't your sons be upset that you started without them?" The secured agent asked, trying to stall the inevitable.
"Oh, they'll be here. I'm just here to do the prep work and this is the last step." Mother G waved the shot in her hand. "It takes about ten minutes to get its full effect. I think that you'll like this one." She smiled as she took the IV line into her plump hands and injected the medication in. "I'll give you a few minutes to enjoy its effects while I get my boys. Jordan's been looking forward to this for a very long time."
"I'm sure he has." Illya said drily. He was still trying to forget the first time Graft tried to get him to confess he was a traitor for the Soviet Union many years ago at Survival School. A long couple of days in the infirmary may have help him physically, but didn't stop the nightmares that still pop up from time to time.
MFU/MFU
Napoleon Solo stealthily walked down the hallway of a locked ward with a syringe full of tranquilizer in it for his only defense. It didn't help that he was dressed as a patient including an identification band. For all he know it could trace him and set off an alarm if he should leave this ward.
Spotting an orderly about his size in the corner of the lounge, Solo gestured to him and began to act nervous as the man came towards him. Napoleon started to wring his hands and look around as if he was being followed.
"You look upset. Are you new here? I haven't seen you here in the lounge before. Can I help you with something?" The orderly asked in a non-threatening voice.
Solo stood next to him for a moment before letting the orderly draw him away from the other patients in fear that his behavior may cause an outburst.
"I need help. I'm so confused. I don't know where I am and why I'm here," Napoleon whimpered to the man and allowed him to direct the CEA into an empty hallway.
Just as they got past a locked door labeled "staff bathroom", Solo struck and hit the orderly with a karate chop and caught him before he hit the floor. Quickly he grabbed the man's waist and at pulled the cord where the keys were attached on the orderly's belt and swiftly unlocked the door.
Once in the bathroom, Napoleon pulled out the syringe and gave the orderly a small amount of sedative just to make his escape plan to last a little longer. Then he started to strip the man and search his pocket for anything that could help with his mission.
All he found was a small pocket knife and a couple of dollars. He used the knife to cut off the ID bracelet and threw it into the trash.
"Well, you're not very helpful. Didn't you know you should have a knife on a mental ward?" Solo told the unresponsive orderly when he finished pulling on the man's shoes. "At least the clothes fit, now, to go and find Caitlin and Illya."
Smoothing back his hair with his hands to mentally prepare Solo then opened the door and cautiously walked out as he looked to see where the closest exit was. He softly closed the door to the bathroom and made sure the lock clicked before he tested it.
Satisfied that his plan of escape from this ward was off to a good start, Napoleon passed through the first secured door out of the ward with the orderly's identification badge and had to decide his next move was to find Heaford's office or the hidden ward.
MFU/MFU
Illya Kuryakin lay wide awake, pulling on the tight restraints, and waiting for something to happen after Mother G left him alone. At first, he felt his dull headache go away and then a giddy feeling, almost euphoria of sorts, began fill his body. A dizziness of thoughts and ideas jumped into his mind so quickly that all he could do was laugh out loud in wonderment.
Illya's body began to shake uncontrollably from the surges of adrenaline. If he hadn't been secured to the table he would have fallen off as his body began to jerk violently.
A silly smile touched his lips and the overhead light began to give off colorful hues that vibrated with his rapidly beating heart. He couldn't think clearly when things began to go out of focus.
"Ah, Illya," the voice of Jordan Graff filtered through to his ears, but in a muffled manner. Like talking to someone on an apartment intercom with the half broken speaker. "I see that the medication is taken effect. How are you feeling?"
Kuryakin was too distracted to answer in English. He began to babble in multiple languages and laugh at the faces that encircled him, changing shape and turning different colors. He didn't even feel the pain of the restraints even after they started to cut into his wrists and ankles, causing them to bleed as he continued to fight them.
"I think he is ready for the next step."
Dr Heaford checked Kuryakin's eyes to see how dilated they were and their reaction to his penlight. Satisfied in their lack of constriction, he placed oxygen tubing in the spy's nose and turned on an inhalation gas.
"I'll start with a mixture of 20 percent of Mother's secret blend and oxygen to see how he does."
"What is he saying?" Mother G asked, watching the slim, blond man closely.
"You didn't read his file, Mom?" Jordan rolled his eyes at his mother when she gave him a shrugged, wasn't important to her. "He knows a gazillion different languages, has a doctorate in Quantum Mechanics, and a top spy for UNCLE. He's not your run of the mill subject."
Andrew looked from his brother to his mother and snickered. He had read the files on Kuryakin as well and knew who they were dealing with even if his mother didn't.
"Do you have anything to add, Andrew?" Mother G's eyes flashed to her second man in question to see if he was going to add to her other son's comment. Heaford straightened up and continued to watch the test subject, waiting for the next phase.
"No, Mother," he quietly said and then winked at his brother who brightly smiled. They all became quiet while they waited for Kuryakin to stop shaking after his mother gave Heaford a stern "no nonsense" look that she had mastered so well.
Slowly, Illya's body began to still, his breathing and heartbeat began to slow back to normal. His hearing started to improve and he was able to distract himself from the lights and colors to listen to what Graff had said about him. But as quickly as that ability came, it flew away, making him hysterically laugh out again.
"I think he's ready." Heaford checked Kuryakin's eyes again, nodding for Graff to begin. "Try something basic."
"Illya." Graff stepped closer to the UNCLE agent, leaning close to his left ear.
"Da…Ja…Oui…Si…" Illya's mind still whirled in wonderment of seeing the written words of what everyone said to him splash before his eyes. He chuckled at his own game of how many different ways he knew to say yes.
"I want you to speak in only English. Will you do that for me?" Jordan simply asked.
"Oh, why don't you want to speak German or French like we did at Survival School?" Kuryakin offered and began to sing a lusty drinking song in German and just as easily switch it to French.
"No." Graff laughed at Kuryakin's inhibitions that he never showed, even when they had gotten very drunk one night at the beginning of Survival School where Illya had easily won the drinking contest. That was when they were trying to make the best of their new assigned partnership that had soured in the end. "Mother only knows English and you wouldn't want to be rude to her."
"No, no, forgive me, Madam." Kuryakin shook his head, trying to focus his eyes on Mother G. "I've had too much to drink and need to sleep now."
All the stress on his body and lack of sleep started to drag him down, lessening his ability to resist what they were asking him to do. He was weary and wanted to rest.
"No, not until you tell us about Christina Roth." Graff smiled darkly, beginning his interrogation.
"She's not here. Flew the coop!" Illya laughed at the expression seeing a plane take off that took Lexi away to Survival School in his head with a chicken on it. "Won't be back for a long, long time."
"Where did she go?" Graff asked
"Nope, can't tell, top secret." The Section Two agent shook his head slightly. "All of it a secret between her and me, no one else is allowed to know."
"How long have you known her?" Graff tried to change his train of thought and tactic.
"Most of my life." Illya's silly smile brightened and his mind played a memory from their childhood, before their fathers' had died. It was at a picnic in the country where they were climbing fences and practicing their gymnastics. He laughed out and shouted for Lexi to watch what he can do in Russian.
"Illya, is Christina Russian?" Heaford asked in his other ear.
"No. That was a silly question. Look, the light is glowing again." Kuryakin sighed, his thoughts spun like a top with the overhead light starting to fascinate him again. He was resisting their questions.
"I think we need to increase the gas." Heaford observed. "His heart rate is starting to pick up again. I'll go to thirty percent."
"No." Graff call out to his brother. "I think now is the time to swing into the next phase."
"You're the boss, brother." Heaford said and he turned off the gas, but left the oxygen on to run through the nasal tubing.
Mother G simply nodded, picked the next syringe from her tray, walked over to the struggling Kuryakin, grabbed his IV tubing, and injected a clear liquid into the line. She increased the flow rate of the saline.
Quickly, the euphoria that Kuryakin was feeling began to fade. The smile on his face vanished as furrows across his brows started to deepen. His went still, stiff, and a small tremor ran through his body.
Fear and pain replaced the happy drunkenness he was feeling. The overhead light no longer held his attention, but glared down at him, burning his eyes and face. His heart started to race and he started to breath heavy.
Illya squeezed his eye shut. He was hit in the side with an intense pain that made him groan, pulling on the restraints, wanting to curl up in a ball, but couldn't.
"He's ready." Heaford nodded after he checked Kuryakin's eyes. They were constricted to pinpoints. Illya had to clinch his teeth from screaming out when Heaford flashed the penlight in them.
"We want to know where Christina Roth is. What name is she using? Do you want this pain to go away?" Graff's voice sneered into Kuryakin's ears.
"I…would rather…take this…than tell you where…she is." Illya said through gritted teeth as he tried to slow his breathing to tolerate the pain while trying not to give into them. "Or her other… names… I promised… my father."
"Other names?" Graff looked up at his mother and then to his brother in surprise. They looked back down at the pale, panting, sweating agent.
Mother G stood by Kuryakin's other ear and loudly whispered. "Is she here in New York?"
"No, and you won't be able to find her," The slight man said in a harsh, raspy voice and then screamed out when the intense pain ravaged his body with a muscle spasm.
"Damn." Mother G cursed to herself, crossed her arms and grunted. She was ignoring the seizing agent as she thought out loud. "That's not a lot to go on. It's going to take a longer to find her than I want. I've already wasted a year as it is."
"I think that we need to stop for now," Heaford said casually while watching Kuryakin struggle for breath and his heart rate skyrocketed. "Or he won't be good to anyone."
"Do what you need to do." Mother G said deep in thought, waving nonchalantly at Kuryakin and paced the one side of the room. Heaford grabbed the mask from the anesthesia cart and started to help Kuryakin breath with an ambu bag.
"His airway is obstructed and he's not moving air. Jordan, give that last syringe now!"
Graff jumped up from the other side of the exam table, practically pushed his mother out of the way, grabbed the syringe, and plunged it into Kuryakin's neck, right into his external carotid that was quivering.
After a few tense moments, Kuryakin's airway started to relax. Heaford could see his lips start to pink up and his heart rate slow down.
"How long before we can start again?" Mother G looked seriously at her sons and then at her watch. Both of her sons looked up with awe and nervousness at the same time.
"Mother, you're cold, methodical, and will make one hell of a THRUSH agent." Jordan smiled at her with the same cruel look in his eye. "This is just the beginning for him. One or two more sessions and he will be ours. Andy, when will he be strong enough to have another go around?"
Heaford shrugged, stopped pushing air into Kuryakin's lungs, and removed the oxygen mask, but kept the nose tubing on. "A couple of hours at the most. He's tough and recovery will be quicker. He lasted longer than any other test of our subjects in the final phase without killing them in this first round."
"We'll leave him for now. Give him an hour while I go check on Miss Delaney. I'll start her initial conditioning. Boys, I want Miss Christina Roth. You get him to tell you where in this country or the world she is. I don't care if she's under the name Snow White or one of the Dwarfs, I want her. She is going to be your wife, Andy, by the end of this year. Find her or there will be hell to pay."
Mother G swept out of the room; leaving her sons to look each other in frustration. They knew what hell meant from their mother and then they looked down at Kuryakin who was still struggling to control his breathing.