Marion looked thoughtfully at the wide assortment of bridal displays at Vanya's. "Something old, something new, something borrowed, and something..."

Illya grinned and held a pair of sapphire earrings out to her.

"They're lovely," she agreed. "But will they match the dress?"

"Any color matches white," he pointed out.

"I know, but would they look as good as the pearls? Or what about the diamonds?"

"Decisions, decisions," Illya said wryly. In all the years he'd worked as an UNCLE agent, he'd been subjected to various forms of torture, and what he was obliged to go through now seemed to be merely a new and different form.

He didn't really mind, however, since it was for the sake of Marion's happiness. Understandably, she wanted everything to be absolutely perfect. In the eight and a half months since she'd returned to New York City from the Virgin Islands bearing the evidence that he was now a father, the tenderness he'd felt for her ever since their first meeting had blossomed into true love. He'd enjoyed watching Elijah grow from a tiny infant to the active little boy he was now, and he looked forward to watching him mature to adulthood.

Suddenly the telephone rang, and Illya hurried to answer it. He heard the panicked voice of Elijah's babysitter, Bonita. The woman was near tears.

"He's gone, Mr. Kuryakin!" she cried. "He woke up and started crying, so I went into the kitchen for just a minute to warm up a bottle for him, and when I got back, he was gone!"

"What do you mean, 'gone'?" Illya demanded. "He could not have simply disappeared! There would have been signs of forced entry!"

"But there aren't any! I would have heard an intruder, or the sound of breaking glass, but I heard nothing at all!"

"Stay right where you are," Illya instructed her. "Marion and I will be there as quickly as possible!"

When Marion saw how pale Illya's face was, she knew right away that something was terribly wrong. She felt the cold hand of fear grip her heart. "It's Elijah, isn't it?" she asked.

"We must return to your apartment right away," he replied gruffly.

"What's wrong? Is he ill?"

Illya didn't answer right away. Knowing how badly it would upset her, he wanted to put off telling her as long as possible, but by the time they reached her apartment, she was near hysterics.

As Bonita had said, there was no evidence whatsoever of forced entry into the apartment. The door was still locked, and the window hadn't been broken. The crib's side had been lowered, and Elijah's blue blanket was missing, as was his teddy bear.

"My baby!" Marion collapsed to the floor in sobs. Illya knelt beside her and put his arms around her.

"I am sure that he will be found quickly," he told her. "The police are already combing the city, and I have notified Napoleon as well. They are not going to get very far."

Despite his efforts to comfort Marion, Illya was badly shaken himself. New York City was huge, and the abductor could have gone in any direction. Chances of apprehending him soon seemed slim.

Before being recruited by THRUSH, Willie Sanderson had been a small-time crook whose repertoire consisted mainly of random pocket pickings, purse snatchings, and petty shopliftings. The young man's nimbleness, his swiftness, and his ability to move with lightning speed without making any sound at all had attracted the attention of a recruiter for THRUSH who'd made Willie an offer he couldn't refuse. His cleverness in being able to successfully tamper with the locks on the windows of Elijah's nursery without being detected had led to the successful kidnapping of the child.

Now he entered the small apartment currently occupied by Kurt Holden and his wife Elsa, carrying his prize, young Elijah Kuryakin. The child had been given a sedative to ensure that he would remain drowsy, and his blue eyes peeked at the Holdens with mild curiosity from within the security of the blue blanket. He clutched his teddy bear tightly.

"Oh, isn't he a sweetheart!" Elsa exclaimed, taking the warm bundle from Willie. "Oh, Kurt, I don't think I'm going to be able to go through with this after all!"

"Don't be a fool, darling," her husband reproved her. "You know that this is Troy's only hope for survival, and the other child won't truly be harmed at all. He'll be fully anesthetized for the entire procedure, and afterwards, he'll be able to function just as well with one kidney as with two."

"But still..." Elsa thought about how much she loved her son, how terrified she was at the thought of losing him. Yet she knew that this other little boy had parents who loved him as well, who were undoubtedly heartbroken right now. How would she feel if little Troy suddenly went missing? As hard as she tried, she simply couldn't push the thought from her mind.