Chapter 7
"Caitlin."
A soft motherly voice called out to her while she tried to wake up from her dreamless haze, bringing her closer to consciousness, but not quite awake fully aware of her surroundings or who was talking to her.
"Hmm…"
"Caitlin." The voice persisted.
"Yes."
Words and thought finally came together enough for Caitlin to respond to the voice, yet her eyes wouldn't focus and were heavy. Too heavy to open as her body drifted in the clouds above the cushion recliner that she was laying on. Too heavy and drowsy to notice that she was secured at her waist and wrists with an intravenous line dripped into her arm; delivering a special concoction of sedative and hypnotic into her body.
"Do you know where you're at my dear?" The words drifted by.
"No." Caitlin frowned and then smiled as if all her cares were washed away in a single moment. She felt warm, soft, and safe wrapped in fuzzy blankets tucked around her like a cocoon.
"You're at Hillgate Hospital."
"Hillgate! No!" Thoughts of fear rose in her, but were blunted by the medication. "Napoleon…" Caitlin tried to control her thick tongue to call out for him. He would save her. All he had to do was find her body hovering in this room.
"I hate to have to tell you this, but you and your friend were in an accident on the way to see your Uncle Daniel. The cab you were riding in crashed. Mr. Solo is dead and you were hurt."
"Dead, No! Napoleon," Caitlin cried out despite the tranquilizer pulling her into a dark void free of feelings and concerns. "Not possible, I don't believe you. I don't remember…"
"That's because you hit your head. You're lucky to be alive."
"Need to call my friend…Craig Green…my lawyer."
"We have taken care of all that for you my dear. What you need now is rest." Caitlin watched through a gathering fog, but couldn't stop the blurry hands and arms put something into the tubing that hung by her. Her worries began to spin slowly into a soft white light.
"Must…go…" Caitlin struggled to break free from the weight of her own body holding her down. Her were arms and legs too heavy to move on command. She tasted the salty tears that dropped from her glazed over eyes on her lips while trying to swallow down the saliva that filled her mouth, threatening to spill out as drool.
"Rest my darling girl. You need sleep to heal. I will take care of you."
Mother G continued to gently talk to Caitlin and stroke her hair, watching her drift back into a drug-induced twilight. Once she was satisfied that Caitlin was back in a higher level of a suggestive state from an increase medication she'd just given her. The stout, older woman then lowered a large cylinder that looked like an oversized hairdryer to cover Caitlin's head and shoulders and turned it on.
Inside the cylinder were padded speakers that play soothing music and subliminal messages while a view screen rapidly flashed images too quick to see with the conscious mind, but easily read by the subject's subconscious. The rest of the room was a dull, warm, and white to block out external stimulation that could interfere with Mother G's conditioning treatments. Each tailored made to that test subject.
Mother G had spent a good deal of time on Caitlin's treatment plan and watched the beginning of it the make sure pictures of her son, Jordan, would appear frequent enough to implant an image into Caitlin's mind.
The crafty old lady smiled down at the young woman when she stood up to leave and felt very proud of her choice of one of her daughter-in-laws. She looked closely at Caitlin's face and body.
"You'll make a good addition to the family, Hillgate High Society Club, and now unknowingly, THRUSH." Mother G smiled now that one part of her master plan was gong according to plan.
"This first treatment should last about a few hours before it will start to take hold and then it will be played every hour on the hour." Mother G continued to talk to Caitlin even though she couldn't hear her or able to respond.
"Now, it's time to find the other one."
Mother G grinned and thought of what these two women would bring to her and THRUSH. Miss Delaney was part owner of the largest computer intelligence security systems for the major powers in the United Sates and Miss Roth, one of the biggest medical and pharmaceutical collection of companies in the Northern Hemisphere. Eventually, she could be more powerful than THRUSH and have them working for her.
"Now it's time to see what else Mr. Kuryakin can tell us about Christina. Christina? Such a formal name," Mother G spoke to herself. 'I'll think that I'll have her change it to Tina when she goes through her treatments."
Smiling at that last thought, Mother G hummed happily when she went to draw up more of her special drugs courtesy of her third, now dead-husband's life's work to be used on that obstinate blond Russian.
MFU/MFU
Napoleon Solo felt frustrated. He'd have to take his time trying to find out where they were keeping Caitlin and Illya. Once out of the locked ward, his first priority was to find a phone or his communicator to call UNCLE headquarters.
Not knowing initially where Dr. Heaford's office was, he went looking for a phone instead. To his luck, the psych ward he awoken up on was next to the visitor's entrance and the payphones were on the far wall of the big open room. Looking around, he cautiously walked up to the phone and picked up the receiver and dialed zero.
"Operator, I need an outside line," Solo calmly said, causally looking around the visitor's room in more detail and spotted a "You are here" map of the building on the wall by the help desk.
"Yes, sir, please give me the number and who you're calling. I'll dial the number and put you through." A disinterested voice said.
"555-4326 extension 781. I need to call my Uncle Alexander; he needs to pick me up after my shift today."
"Yes, sir," The voice on the other line didn't care what he needed and patched him to his party. "Here you go, sir."
"Ah, my dear nephew, what is it you need this time?" The stern voice of the director said a lot in those few words, knowing that the line wasn't secured.
"Uncle Alex. Are you still able to pick me up here at my new job here at Hillgate Sanitarium? My car broke down and I need a way home."
"And your roommates, how are they getting home from their jobs?"
"Ah, we are all struggling to get back home." Solo said with a slight lift in his voice.
"Understood, nephew, understood." Solo could hear Waverly puffing on his pipe in thought. "I will have one of your cousins over shortly and then we can see to that infernal car of yours."
"Thanks, uncle. My shift ends in an hour."
"See you in visitor parking then."
"Thank you, sir." Solo hung up the phone and walked to the help desk.
As he looked at the map of the building, he saw Trixie and Daniel Delaney walk out of the locked ward he had just come out of. They were walking arm and arm, passing without a second look, and kept walking.
"Hey, Sheila," Trixie waved to the receptionist. "Mr. Delaney and I are going for a walk. We'll be back in about half an hour."
"Sure thing, Trix. It's a beautiful day to walk around the grounds. Enjoy your walk Mr. Delaney." Then the receptionist noticed Napoleon looking at the map. "You're new here. What can I help you find, handsome?"
"Ah, the name is…Jones." Solo had almost forgotten the name on his identification tag pinned to his uniform and he gave the slightly older lady one of his disarming smiles. "And, yes I'm new. I need to find Dr. Heaford's office. I need to deliver a message to his secretary. Can you help me find my way there?"
"Oh, honey, I'll take you anywhere you want to go if you keep smiling at me like that, but unfortunately, I can't leave this desk. So, go down that hallway behind you, take the first right, the second left and continue all the way down to the end. It's the only office in that hallway."
"Thank you very much. It's nice to meet you, Sheila. I'll have to get lost again real soon."
"Anytime, sweetheart."
Sheila smiled and then turned to a visitor who walked up to the desk and greeted them. Solo took that as his cue to walk down the hall and turn down the first right hallway and then the second left. He could see the reception area from a distance and an intersecting hallway about half way down.
He guessed that locked ward he was on was to the right of the Heaford's office. As he traveled down the hall, he looked at the hallway to the left and noticed that it was blank except for a single door. It was the same on the right hand wall of the waiting room just before the nurse's desk that stood in front of the good doctor's office doors. Windows bathed the waiting room with the afternoon light.
To the left must be where the secret ward is, Solo thought, stopping at the intersecting hallway and took a left to look at the simple wood door marked "private". He gently tested the handle and found it locked.
Just as he was about to jiggle the lock, the handle began to twist. Napoleon jumped back into the corner behind the hinges and the door swung open to let out an older, plump nurse. Her dress bulged around her figure and he heard the swishing sound of her nylons covered thighs rub together.
Her feet pounded out her determination like a snare drum. She trotted down the short hallway and took a right without looking back to see if the door finished shutting.
Solo daftly caught the jam of the door before it could completely shut, spun around the door, and stepped into another short hallway when he heard the soft click of the outside lock engaging.
On one side of the hallway was a washroom with a shower. To the other side was a storage room that held a surprise for him; his gun, communicator, and Caitlin's purse. On the closet rod next to the door were their clothes and Illya's.
Two small, shiny object in the trash caught Solo's eyes when he looked around. It was Illya's lock pick and ring. Picking them up, he pocketed them along with his gun and communicator. He turned on the homing device and placed it back into his jacket's front pocket that hung on the pole.
Napoleon quietly and slowly walked to the unexplored door at the end of the small hall and opened it a crack as light streamed in from the bottom and the sides. It was an office befitting a clinical director of the sanitarium.
"So, that was the back entrance to Dr. Heaford's office," Solo quietly said and walked around the empty room, absently stepping on fallen chest pieced that were on the floor until he reached the desk . He stopped and looked at the papers and photos that littered it.
He sifted through the photos of Illya and Lexi at that party, then at the files. It was clear to him what Dr. Heaford and this Mother G were up to; they wanted Lexi and Caitlin's companies for THRUSH and their lives tied to the family.
Voices coming from behind him in the bookshelf caught Napoleon's attention. Quickly, he jumped up and ran to the back entrance and left it opened a crack to see who was behind hidden door number two.
Heaford and Graff walked into the office and the fake bookcase closed behind them. Graff flopped down in the chair behind the desk while Heaford went to the wet bar and poured a couple of drinks.
"Well, round two didn't go as well as I hoped." Graff sighed, took the offered glass, and then looked at Heaford with a jaundiced eye. "Vhat! Ver ist da Vodka Comrade?"
Heaford nearly choked on his drink when he laughed. He sat down at the edge on the desk. "Good one, brother."
"Brother?" Solo said softly, a strip of light ran down his face in the dark hallway.
"I particularly liked the part when he told us what he had promised his father when we got to round three. Very moving, too bad he won't be able to keep that promise either. How did he put it just before he screamed out in agony?"
"Ah yes, that just before his father left to fight the Nazis with her father; old Nicholi sat him down and made Illya promise him on his miserable little stinking life that he would protect "her" and her mother with his whole heart and soul. Failing to save her mother's life when they were growing up was his first true failure."
Napoleon shook his head in deep sorrow. He knew how dedicated Illya was in trying to keep his promises he had made to his beloved father. That's why he wanted to keep Lexi all to himself. She was his heart and soul. His only happiness from the past that was still alive. This revelation only angered him more, because of what those two had done to his partner.
"I just wish I knew if we can believe what he said about the different names this bird has. Other than Christina, the only full name was Janice Smyth and we already know that one, but who are Rachel, Gretchen, Monica, and Alexana? I don't know, but we will have to find out, won't we," Graff said deep in thought.
'Damn!' Solo silently cursed.
"Yeah," Heaford thought out loud about it for a moment. "Do you think that she could really have multiple personalities? His file mentioned that Alexana was his cousin and that she'd recently died. "
"You're the psychiatrist, Andy, you tell me." Graff sighed out loud and leaned back in the chair.
"Depends on what traumas she's suffered through her life and what she is trying to run away from." Heaford shrugged easily. "Don't worry though; we will make her forget all about being Russian and in love with that blue-eyed commie."
"I just wish we knew more about her. I mean, obviously she's smart enough to get Mother's attention, run a corporation without anyone really knowing who she is, where she lives, and be listed only as one of its chemist in one of the pharmaceutical labs under an alias. I wonder what she does for an encore. Why is she so hard to find?" Graff grimaced.
"That, dear brother, is why you are here from California to find out. Start with Alexana Kuryakin and how she died. The big bonus for you is that you get to torture it out of the man who got you kicked out of UNCLE."
"I do admit that it's been a dream come true to get another chance to break Kuryakin. He's a lot stronger than he was then. It's a welcome challenge and then I can really stick it to Napoleon Solo for attempting to keep Caitlin away from us. He heads off to THRUSH Central this evening by the way."
"Our THRUSH stock is rising for us and Mother G." Heaford said gleefully and through their plan. "First, we hand over Solo to keep our employers busy while we get rid of UNCLE when Kuryakin kills Waverly and blows up UNCLE, then we take control of THRUSH, and finally we take over the world."
The two men raised their glasses, clanked them together, and finished the last of their drinks.
After a few moments of Graff and Heaford savoring the taste of their last swallow of scotch, Graff looked around the room in deep concentration and then laughed impishly.
"What?" Heaford looked up, lost in his own thoughts, twirling the last drop of alcohol in the bottom of his glass.
"I was just thinking." Graff smiled at his own merriment dancing in his eyes. "What if Christina Roth was a spy too?"
"Ha! Funny!" Heaford laughed out and then the two eyed each other and curiously thought about it seriously. "You know that would make a lot of sense to why we're having so much trouble to find her and the different names. Have we checked to see if she's an UNCLE agent? Maybe them showing up at the charity event wasn't just a ruse to get us to chase the elusive Miss Roth? "
"No. I'll call THURSH Central right now." Graff stood up and went to a hidden phone in a book on the side of the fake bookshelf. "I can't believe that we've been following a fake ghost. Yes, records, please, UNCLE agent identification department."
"Following you train of thought, Jordan, if we can't find her in UNCLE, maybe she's working for the Motherland? Maybe that's why Kuryakin subconsciously couldn't betray her." Heaford brought his educational expertise to the table.
"Think about it, they grew up together during the war and he had promised his father to take care of her, but how? What we know from THRUSH, CIA, and the FBI is that Kuryakin was orphaned and placed in many government ran schools. I bet that she was right that with him, taking many of the same classes, learning to be a spy from an early age. Why wouldn't she be part of that political machine, working for the Soviet Union here in the United States? That's why she was so easily out of our grasp. She wasn't there to be had as the UNCLE man said."
Heaford smiled at his own cleverness. He picked up a photo of Lexi and studied it more intently. He was now glad that Mother G had picked him to have her as his wife. She would be just as interesting to dissect emotionally as Kuryakin was, but someone he could lust after in the bedroom.
He remembered how Christina smiled and moved in that black dress at the charity event. Images of seeing her lean seductively into Kuryakin brought the doctor closer to wanting Christina even more for his own pleasure, no matter what plans his mother had for this would be female spy.
"Well, that's going to take some time to flush out if we're on the right track." Graff turned back around to Heaford. "How much time before we have another go at our surly Russian?"
"Oh, about twenty minutes." Heaford sighed, looked at his watch, and then rerolled up his shirt cuffs. He repositioned his holstered gun and then went to pour them another drink. "Is the third time the charm? Will you break him?"
"He is a tough bastard! This one had better be the one that does it or he won't live to try to tell us where we can find Miss Roth. No one has lasted to have a fourth round completed on them. I think if we tell him our theory, he'll give in faster; knowing that he's about to betrayed her."
Solo looked up at that last comment, and swore to himself. He had to find out where they had his partner before they could continue again, but how to get around them to the rooms behind them.
MFU/MFU
Illya Kuryakin woke up with a raspy, ragged breath. He still lay restrained on the metal, exam table. He began to shiver as his sweat from the previous torture sessions pooled underneath him. He felt weak and dizzy, the overhead lights glared down at him. Illya knew that he had to get out of this room now before he becomes too weak to stay awake in between Mother G's "treatments".
His arms and legs weighed a ton each when he tested the restraints. The blood and sweat around his wrists had softened the leather slightly and made it slick. Taking a deep breath in, he started to twist his left arm, causing the rub marks and small cuts to bleed more.
Illya started to pant, trying to work past the pain while he pulled his chest as far to the right as possible.
Slowly, as he twisted his wrist while making his hand straight and narrow as possible, scraping his elbow against the padding of the arm support. With one last big rough breath in, Kuryakin pulled his hand out, but not without causing deep gouges on the top of it.
Pulling his left wrist to his chest, Illya had to take a moment to catch his breath and he flexed his arm, stiff from being so immobile so long. After a pause and check of any noise by the door, he felt the edge of the strap that held his chest down and traced it the side of the exam table to search for a release to loosen the strap.
More mobile, Kuryakin leaned over to release his other wrist and pulled out the IV. Sheer exhaustion hit him hard and he was unable to move for a moment.
"When I get out of here, I'm going to sleep for a month." Illya promised and forced himself to continue to move and then he let out a humorless chuckle. "No, two months."
Finally sitting up, Illya ran his hands through his damp hair and then proceeded to remove the rest of the restraints. Swallowing down the dryness his mouth, he swung off the edge the exam table and fell to the floor as his knees buckled. Resting on his knees with his face and arms on the table, he took a few deeper, full breaths before he tried to stand up.
Once on his feet, Illya grabbed the syringes on the counter that were meant for the next round of his interrogation, took the surgical knife off the tray of instruments, and stumble to the door. Quietly, he opened the door and look around. It was a hallway that had a door at each end with two other doors on the same side as his.
Seeing a wheelchair, Illya grabbed it to help support him move down the hall and threw the drugs and knife onto the seat. The biggest problem was to decide which way to go. Looking at the door to the right, it had a door handle that pushed open and closed shut by itself that you can't open from the other side. The door at the left end of the hall had an electronic switch that opened the metal door.
'I'll take the door on the right.' He thought, but first he needed to check on the other rooms to find anything to help him fight his way out. Going to the first door next to his, Illya found it emptied any useful items and then when to the final room.
In the room was a person in an all white room under what Illya thought looked like an enormous marshmallow sitting on top of their shoulders.
"You're wrapped in twenty blankets," Illya blurted out, looking at the saline bag, and then tried to figure out how to lift this contraption off the person's head.
"Miss Delaney!" Illya said in shock that he nearly fell over; barely able to stand himself when he pushed up the sensory perception hood.
Quickly, he clamped off the tubing, pulled the IV from her arm, and started to unwrap the blankets from around her; making Caitlin shiver.
"Come on, Caitlin! Time to wake up," Illya weakly growled and pushed her around until he got her to respond.
"No… I want to sleep. Napoleon is dead. I don't care anymore. Let them do what they want with me…"
"Napoleon dead? Is that what they told you? It's a lie!" At least that's what Illya hoped. "Come on, Caitlin wake up. We need to get out of here now. Before Mother G or her sons get back and put you back into this contraption. Get up and into this wheelchair."
Illya picked up the syringes and knife out of the chair, roughly pulled Caitlin up to stand without falling to the floor as well with the change in balance and his equilibrium, and pushed her into the wheelchair with a single shove.
"Here, hold on to these. Let's get out of here and go find Napoleon. I believe that he owes us a big meal for this and I intend to collect."
"How can you be hungry, when you're barely standing?"
"You'll get to know that I can eat anytime or anywhere," Illya said off-handedly.
"Right, home, James, to UNCLE." Caitlin laughed out with glassy eyes and pointed vaguely to the door after she placed her feet onto the pedals.
"Don't push it! Once you're awake, you'll have to push and I'll ride." Illya mumbled, first opened the door, looked out into the hall, grabbed wheelchair handles, and headed to the door on the right.
To his surprise, Illya and Caitlin found themselves in a main hallway, wondering again which way to go next.
"Do you every get the feeling that you're a mouse in a maze?" Caitlin asked the blond man who was leaning heavily onto the handles of the wheelchair.
"All the time," Illya sighed loudly. It took most of his energy to push the wheel chair in a straight line down the hall. "By the way, act insane if anyone tries to stop us."
"Gee, thanks!"
Caitlin rolled her eyes up at him, shaking her head and looked ahead of them to see where they might be going. They were heading for what looked like a reception area with an information desk half hidden by the side of double wide doors.
There was an older nurse standing at the desk, talking to someone behind the desk that Caitlin could only see an arm of. Behind the nurse stood a hulking orderly, looking right at them with a curious look on his face, not really seeing what he thought he saw. Then he turned to get the plump nurse's attention.
"Whoa!" Illya slowed down the wheelchair. "I don't think we'll go that way. Mother G is standing there with one of her friends who tried to drown me in the shower this morning. Hold on, we're taking the next corner."
Kuryakin grunted while he struggled to turn the wheelchair to the right and pushed it down the hallway. They both saw that there was a door at the end with light and shadows waving on the glass where the sunshine poured in through the trees just outside of it.
"Let's get you out of here and find a safe place to rest, and then we can look for Napoleon when you are more with it. The fresh air will wake us both up."
"Yes." Caitlin agreed; she was feeling a little less dizzy, but the fresh air would help immensely.
Caitlin pushed the door open and they both heard an alarm go off. Not stopping, Illya pushed, half rode, down the steep ramp into what appeared to be a courtyard between the buildings. It looked like a park with its well maintained grass, flower beds, and a central fountain. There was a single wide path of gravel that lead only in circles with no way out.
"Great, another maze," Illya growled out loud, gritting his teeth, and held onto the run away chair's arms for support as they picked up speed down the sidewalk.
MFU/MFU
Solo was deciding whether he should join the party in Heaford's office from his hiding spot when the buzzer sounded on the desk, making the two men jump in surprise and Napoleon hesitate.
"Dr. Heaford here," he punched the button as they leaned over the speaker.
"Is Jordan with you?" Mother G's stiff and formal voice asked, trying to keep her countenance in a public place at the reception area from where she was calling.
"Yes, Mother G," Graff said, straightening up in response to his mother's voice.
"We have a situation. Mr. Delaney and Trixie didn't come back from their walk and I'm going to check on our other patient on this ward. What is it, Frank? I'm busy talking… Who did you see? Where?"
The two men were intently listening to the action on the intercom when an alarm rang out throughout the building.
"What the…" Graff brought his hands up to cover his ears.
"It's the escape alarm. Someone who shouldn't be out of this building is outside," Heaford shouted to his brother to be heard and looked at him with shock to what he was thinking. "Do you think it's our little red friend?"
"It couldn't be! He's tied down and weak as a kitten, but I'll go check."
Graff pushed a button, the sliding door in the fake bookcase opened up, and he ran out into the back hallway with his gun drawn. In his haste to get to the last room, he didn't notice the drops of blood on the floor and slid on them as he tried to stop at the door to open it.
Kuryakin was gone! All that was left were open restraints with one of the wrist one's wet with blood and sweat. He looked for the syringes and they were gone too.
"Damn!" Graff swore out menacingly, but he didn't take too much time to look around and quickly went to check on Miss Delaney. Hoping that she would be there, although, he knew that somehow Kuryakin had taken her with him when he escaped.
"That Russian son of a bitch! I'm going to kill him!" Graff angrily spat out and promised to inflict as much pain as humanly possible on Kuryakin once they found him again. "I know that you can't have gone far and I will find you."