The communicator beeped into the night. Illya stirred first, reaching out muzzily, forgetting at first that he was in bed in his parents' apartment and not in his and Napoleon's broad bed in New York. Then the scents came to him, and the feeling of the bed around him, and then he nudged Napoleon in the side and said, 'Napoleon, communicator. Wake up.'

Napoleon grunted and shifted, and then the bed shook as he sat up suddenly, mumbling, 'I'm on it, Illya. Where's the light? Oh – ' There was a click and light flooded the room, and finally the beeping stopped.

'Mr Solo, this is Kobevko,' a voice spoke into the air. 'Do you have Tovarisch Kuryakin to translate?'

'Uh, yes, I'm here,' Illya said quickly, shifting closer. He switched to Ukrainian and asked, 'What is it?' He felt at his watch. It was almost one a.m..

'Tovarisch Kuryakin, we've discovered the source of the chemical manufactory. If Mr Solo wants to come along he should come to headquarters straight away. I'm assembling a team and I'd welcome his experience and assistance. There'll be a man on the team who can translate.'

'Oh. Yes, of course,' Illya replied. He put his hand on Napoleon's arm and said in English, 'Napoleon, they've found where they're making the chemical. Kobevko wants you in. They'll have an English speaker.'

'Oh, well – ' Napoleon still sounded half asleep. 'Yes, of course. I'll be down there right away.'

'He'll be there right away,' Illya relayed to Kobevko.

As Napoleon put away the communicator Illya sat up straighter in bed.

'Do you want me to come?' he asked, half hopeful even though the bed was very warm.

'No, you stay here, sleepy head,' Napoleon said as he swung his legs out of bed. 'It's not like you can come into the field with me anyway. You might as well get back to sleep.'

'Well, all right,' Illya murmured.

He could hear Napoleon hopping about the room pulling on his clothes. He felt a dull ache of disappointment but there was nothing to be done for it.

Napoleon deposited a kiss on his forehead and another on his lips, and said warmly, 'I'll call you. Wish me luck.'

'Good luck,' Illya said rather pensively. He did hate for Napoleon to be going out on missions without his backup. He always had.

As soon as Napoleon had crept out of the room he switched the little light off and settled back down in bed. The best way to pass this time waiting was to sleep, but he didn't feel sleepy now. He felt wide awake.

He sighed and felt down by the side of the bed for his book, then hauled it up and put it on the quilt. At least he could read while he waited.

((O))

He woke very suddenly, confused and muzzy headed. The book was still lying on top of him. He had fallen asleep reading. He grunted and pushed it aside and felt on the bedside table for his watch. It was almost nine.

He rubbed his eyes and swung his legs out of bed. He had expected Napoleon to have called by now. He picked up his communicator and toyed with it. It would be stupid to try to call Napoleon when he was in the middle of a mission, so he called the Kyiv headquarters instead and was answered by a soft voiced woman.

'I'm checking on last night's mission,' he said rather tersely. 'I expected to have heard from my partner by now.'

'We've had no contact since four a.m., Tovarisch Kuryakin,' the woman replied.

Illya chewed his lip pensively. 'Were you expecting another check in?' he asked.

'Not a timed check in. They were going to call when they'd destroyed the manufactory.'

'You sent an explosives expert?'

'Two team members hold level two explosives qualifications, including Mr Solo, but they were hoping to destroy the set up with sabotage rather than a big bang, Tovarisch Kuryakin,' she said, sounding as if she were smiling gently.

'Hmm,' Illya muttered. 'Well, all right. I'll call back later, unless you call me with news.'

He closed the communicator and put it back down with a clack on the night stand. He would have expected Napoleon to have called by now, if everything had gone as planned – whatever the plan had been. He hated this feeling of being outside the loop. He hated being so useless. At least if he had been in New York he would have had all of his adaptive equipment, and Sarah, and he would have been able to go in and work on the intelligence end of the problem even if he could do nothing in the field.

He sighed and pulled on a t-shirt and his underpants and ventured out into the apartment. He could hear someone in the living room, and he called out, 'Mama? Tato?'

'Good morning, Illyusha,' his father replied from the other side of the room. 'Your mother has already left for work. I will be leaving in a minute. Is Napoleon still asleep?'

Illya shook his head. His father's casual tone just made him feel more tense.

'No, Napoleon left in the early hours on a mission,' he said.

His father stopped in whatever he was doing. 'He is out, Illya? Well, I have to go to work, and you're going to be alone – '

'I can look after myself,' Illya said snappishly, then he held up his hand and smiled apologetically. 'I'm sorry, tato. But really, I am fine on my own. I don't need a sitter.'

'But you've had nothing to eat,' his father fussed. 'You've had no tea...'

'I can fix myself something to eat,' Illya promised.

He moved across the room to where his father was standing. It sounded as if he were putting papers into a case, and he put his hand out to feel the movement of his father's arm.

'Tato, really, I will be fine. I spend days, sometimes more than two weeks, living alone when Napoleon is away on missions. Once he was away for a month. I will be perfectly all right here on my own.'

His father made a non-committal noise, and the clasps snapped closed on his briefcase.

'I could boil the kettle before I leave?'

'Tato,' Illya said, trying to rein in his impatience.

'All right, Illyusha. All right. But here,' he said, pulling open a drawer and getting something jangling and metallic. 'Here is another spare key, Illya,' he said, pressing it into Illya's hand. 'Just in case you should have to leave for any reason. And please take care, won't you?'

'Of course I will take care,' Illya promised. He reached out to feel his father's shoulder, and hugged him briefly. 'Really, tato, I'm not a child any more. I have been in far more dangerous situations than staying alone at home. You don't have to worry about me.'

His father chuckled and then kissed him on the cheek. 'Of course I will always worry about you, Illyusha. You who have travelled around the world so many times and killed men and set explosions and broken into enemy installations. Of course I will always worry about you. Take care. I must go or I will be late. I will be back by six.'

Illya stood for a moment in the quiet of the apartment after the front door closed. It was rather odd being here alone. He stood very still and listened to the quiet sounds, the nothing sounds of the immediate space around him and the muffled and distant sounds from the rest of the building, the soft noise of traffic from outside, the occasional scuff of the wind against hard concrete edges and through the bare tree branches in the park. It sounded like a blustery day, but it was very still and peaceful in here.

He breathed out a long breath, then went to wash and shave. He got dressed and ventured into the kitchen, feeling for the kettle and wondering where his mother kept the matches. He felt over the surface by the stove and over the little shelf to the side. He felt on the narrow kitchen windowsill. He opened the food larder and felt in there. He ran his fingers over so many surfaces that they began to feel sticky and unpleasant.

This was utterly ridiculous. Of course he was completely capable of making himself tea, but not if the matches were nowhere to be found. In the kitchen at home he could put out his hand and what he wanted was always there. Napoleon was as religious about keeping things in their place as he was. Back in the early days there had been so many frustrating moments when Napoleon had forgotten to put something back, when various things didn't have rigid places to be kept, when Illya hadn't known the location of everything in the kitchen. But now everything had a place, and it was always in it. He relied on it.

He refused to be prevented from drinking tea by something so ridiculous. He went through into the living room and felt over the little desk in the corner. His father had always kept the matches for his cigarettes in the drawer there. But the drawer was locked. He almost growled in frustration. He ran his hands over the desk surface and lighted on a paper clip, which he straightened out and then bent into a lock pick. It had been a long time since he had needed to pick any locks but the skill hadn't died. He slipped the wire into the hole and probed with great delicacy until the lock clicked. He opened the drawer and felt inside. Paper, a few coins, a watch that didn't tick, but no matches.

He went back into the kitchen and tried again, opening cupboards, feeling right the way to the back, searching everywhere, but there were no matches. Finally, in utter frustration, he grabbed his cane and the spare key and went into the corridor outside. He walked with his hand on the wall, tracing his fingers lightly over the plaster until they hit a door frame and then a door. He rang the bell, and waited.

A minute later he heard footsteps. There was the sound of a crying baby, which grew louder as the door was opened, and a woman asked rather nervously, 'Yes?'

Illya smiled, holding his cane before him, trying to look suitably apologetic.

'I am sorry to disturb you,' he said. 'I am Illya Nikolayevich Kuryakin. I'm staying with my parents next door. I wonder if you could help me?'

'Help you?' she asked in a rather bewildered tone. She had the baby in her arms. The thing kept mewling and she was jogging it up and down.

'I'm blind, and I just need a little help,' he said. 'It's ridiculous really, but I can't find the matches in my parents' kitchen. They've gone out and there's no one else there, and – '

'Oh! Oh, well – Well, I have some matches,' she said quickly. It was obvious from the scent of her that she smoked. 'Um, let me – let me come around. I can help you.'

Illya smiled his most winning smile. He felt wretched inside for having to call on a neighbour for something like this, but it was better than trying to contact his mother at work and worrying her or letting his father know he had failed at this most simple task. It wasn't like he hadn't had to do it before. He had asked for a lot of help in the early days.

'Thank you,' he said, turning back towards his own door before she could start awkwardly offering to guide him. He preceded her all the way into the kitchen, where she said brightly, 'Oh, but the matches are just here.'

And she picked up a rattling box. Less than ten seconds in the kitchen and she had found the matches that he hadn't been able to find with a fingertip search.

'But – where were they?' he asked.

'Here, on the shelf,' she said, and she jogged the baby and spoke to it softly, then took Illya's hand and guided it to a narrow little shelf attached to the wall high above the stove. He hadn't even known it was there. There never had been a shelf there when he had lived here.

'I don't know how to thank you,' Illya said. He could feel his face growing red. How ridiculous it was to have made this woman go to all that trouble just to pick up a box of matches that had been in front of him all along. How stupid he felt. How blind. 'I'm sorry. I am home for a visit and I don't know the kitchen well enough. I'm so sorry to have troubled you.'

'It was no trouble at all,' she promised him. 'Can I – What were you trying to do? Can I help you at all?'

Illya smiled rather shamefacedly. 'I was just going to make some tea and buckwheat pancakes for breakfast. If I can find what I need, of course. I can cook very well at home, but here I don't know where everything is.'

'Well.' She stood silent for a moment, and the baby cooed and gurgled, sounding much happier now. 'I think a change of scenery has helped the baby. Tovarisch Kuryakin, if you can hold her for a minute I will find what you need to cook with. Will that help?'

Illya smiled. He felt so embarrassed at having to need this help, but it was wonderful that she was offering him just enough help, not too much.

'That would be very kind of you,' he said. He leant his cane up in the corner and opened his arms. 'Give me the child.'

So she handed him the child and he held her with great care, feeling the solid thickness of a nappy, cotton clothes, and fat limbs. She smelt very clean, a curious scent that only small children had, as if their cleanness was a result of their newness on this earth. He thought the girl must be about six months old. She made inarticulate noises and a soft hand touched his face, and he smiled, moving one hand up carefully to feel a round head with sparse silken hair and a soft fontanelle.

'What is she called?' he asked.

'Natalya,' the woman said fondly. He could hear her opening and closing cupboards and putting things out on the worksurface. 'Here,' she said as she worked. 'Here are your flour and your eggs and your milk. The tea tin I have pulled forward and put the teapot and a cup beside it. Now, the utensils are hanging on a rack to the left of the stove, some of them, and there is a drawer beneath the worksurface too. Will you be able to find everything?'

Illya handed the baby back with some relief and reached a hand out to feel what she had left on the surface.

'Yes, I think so,' he said. 'And – oh – the matches?'

She laughed. 'Well, that would be ridiculous, wouldn't it? I have put them back on the shelf above the stove. So now you know where they are. Will that be all right?'

'That will be perfect, thank you,' Illya said. 'It was very kind of you to help me.'

'Well, I will be in all day, if you need anything else,' she assured him. 'I have nothing to do but look after baby and wait for my husband to come home.'

She sounded rather mournful then, and Illya felt sorry for her.

It was quiet again once she had left, and Illya struck a match into the silence and lit a ring on the stove. As the kettle boiled he made up his pancake batter and tried not to think about Napoleon. Whatever was going on, there was nothing he could do but wait. Nothing to do but cook his breakfast and wait for his husband to come home, he thought rather ironically. At first he smiled at that thought, but then he felt a twist of pain. He immediately stamped down on it. Napoleon wasn't his husband and Illya certainly wasn't any kind of wife. At home he would not be floundering to look after himself. He only needed more time than sighted people to get familiar with a place. That was all. Just more time.

He sat down eventually with his tea and a stack of pancakes and steadily worked through them. He felt better with some food in his stomach, but still he worried about Napoleon. When he had finished eating he felt at a loss again. He went back to the kitchen and washed everything he had used and ran his hands over the knobs on the stove to be sure they were all off. He couldn't smell gas, anyway. Then he went back into the living room and sat there with his book, but he couldn't concentrate. Reading felt very laborious today and he yearned for the ease of sight reading. He yearned for the ease of sight.

Oh, this was ridiculous. He was tired of feeling so useless. He got to his feet very suddenly and went into the bedroom and packed his slate and some paper into a bag, then he found his shoes and overcoat and his cane and dark glasses, and he left the apartment. He was a man and this was his home territory, and if he wanted to leave, he would.

It was easy enough finding his way out to the street. He had walked that route so many times. And then he was on the pavement, and he turned to the right and started to walk towards the bus stop. He had done that so many times too. He closed his eyes and listened to the sounds. There was the wind in the trees across the road, and the occasional car. There was very little snow on the ground. He crossed the side street and carried on, sweeping his cane widely in the hope of finding the bus stop. And then the cane clattered into a pole, and he felt out with his hand, then stripped his glove off and felt more carefully. That was it. That was the side of the bus stop. So now he had to wait for a bus or marshrutka to come along.

Three buses stopped for him before he found the right one. The driver on the first was helpful enough to tell him which bus he would need and when it would be along, but he checked with each one that stopped. And then he was sitting in a seat right at the front, and the driver promised to tell him when he had reached his stop, and at that stop another passenger helped him to meet his connection. When he finally disembarked from the second bus he was only a few hundred yards away from the glass shop that was the front for U.N.C.L.E. Kyiv.

And there he stood, not knowing what to do. He was far from his old stomping grounds now. He had no mental image of his surroundings. He didn't even know which way to turn. He leant against the shelter feeling lost and weary. It was ridiculous to be so close but so unable to go any further. He would have to resort to calling out for help.

Oh, his communicator! How stupid he had been. He stripped his gloves off and took out his communicator and opened a channel to headquarters and asked for help. It wasn't long before he heard the sound of heeled shoes clacking towards him and a woman was saying, 'Tovarisch Kuryakin, we would have sent a car! You didn't need to come all this way alone!'

But he had, and he was proud that he had. In all this time he had really only navigated alone around New York, and here he was in Kyiv having handled two bus journeys alone. He needed help for the final step, but once he knew that route he would be able to do it again. He took the woman's arm and let her guide him along those last few hundred yards, taking note of the sounds around him and what his cane touched and how many streets they crossed, until they were walking in through the door of the glass shop and he was taken through into the rear and given his badge.

'But, Tovarisch Kuryakin, why did you come?' the woman asked him as she took him through the corridors. 'Where did you want me to take you?'

And there he was stumped. He had no office here, no equipment beyond the slate in his bag. So he said quickly, 'Take me to the labs. Is Dmitry Belousov in today?'

'Oh, yes, he's always in,' she said blithely. 'Well, then, a left here, and here we are.'

She opened a door in front of them and Illya tapped at the frame with his cane and followed her through.

'Dmitry, I've got a visitor for you,' the woman said brightly, and then Belousov was coming across the room saying heartily, 'Illya Nikolaich! You've come to find out about your partner, of course. Come over here. Come and have a seat while I finish off this little task.'

So Illya let Dmitry take him by the elbow and lead him to a lab stool, and he sat down.

'Listen, Dmitry, I came in because I want to find out what's going on,' he said without preamble. 'I may not be able to help much but I'm cut off from everything back at my parents' apartment. Do you know the details of this mission?'

There was a clinking of glass and Dmitry made a sound of concentration, but then he put whatever he was working with down and came and pulled up a stool near Illya's.

'I know that they discovered a place on the other side of the river, some old warehouse, I think. They tracked a known Thrush agent to this building and saw through the window that they had a whole manufacturing arrangement there, cooking up this drug and putting it into vials. I suppose they have people going about slipping it into water supplies. The indications are that they need a constant low-level dose for the subliminal suggestions to keep working. If a worker is home for the weekend, for example, the suggestions may have worn off by the start of the week and they need to be dosed again. So they sent in a team last night to see to it.'

'Numbers?' Illya asked. 'I mean, what was the suspected enemy headcount? What equipment did our men go in with? Has there been any contact since four a.m.?'

Dmitry laughed softly. 'Illya, I am a chemist, not an agent. I can tell you any number of things about the chemical itself, how they are manufacturing it, how they are getting it into people's systems. But I can't tell you the intimate details of an agents' raid. Now, let me take you up to the communications room, because there is always someone there who knows everything about everything.' He squeezed Illya's arm gently. 'And don't worry too much about your partner, eh? He's a grown man. He can look after himself.'

Illya grunted in acknowledgement, but he didn't stop worrying. Napoleon was not with a trusted, familiar team, and some of the agents were very new on the job. He followed Dmitry up to the communications room and sat there pensively listening to everything the girls in the office told him, noting down salient details with his slate. Then he sat there just listening to what was going on, running his fingers over the notes he had made, and waiting.