Chapter 5 =======================================================
About Midnight, Napoleon started to hear the phone ringing. He'd been asleep for about an hour. He turned on the light and looked at the clock.
"Solo here…yes…yes. I'll be there in fifteen minutes. Nothing else can be done about it now, but I will expect a full report." Napoleon dropped the receiver down on its hooks and threw his covers off to get quickly dressed and return back to UNCLE headquarters. "Damn it, Lexi!"
Alexana's head swooned, trying to gain consciousness. She didn't know where she was as her eyes cleared. Her head was pounding out a common Ukrainian dirge that played at the General's funeral. It was what woke her up, that and throbbing from her left arm which was no longer in its cast, but taped tightly to her desk chair with duck tape along with the other one.
She lifted her head and realize that was in her apartment. How did I get here, she asked herself. Then a slap ripped across her face interrupting her scattered thoughts.
"Come on, sister dear, wake up!" Margaret growled, lifting her hand to strike Alexana again. She'd had lost her facade of barely knowing English as she began to rant at newly found family member. "Or do you want me to hit you again, only harder? Wake up!"
"Margaret?" Alexana asked in a surprise stupor, trying to move from the chair but couldn't. She had tape around her wrists, elbows, chest, knees, and ankles. She could barely breathe let alone move. "How did we get to my apartment? How did we get out of UNCLE headquarters? I promised Napoleon I would stay put. Why am I tied up like this?"
"Because, I made it happen thanks to some drugs I obtained from my new friends at THRUSH. One little injection from a hidden syringe, and it was so easy to overtake you in the bathroom at shift change. You acted like you're very drunk and went along so willingly to my room in UNCLE; falling for the idea that I knew something about your precious Illya. I had you tell where your apartment was. We rode over here in a cab and then you left yourself wide open for me to knock you unconscious once we got here. I brought you here to die. Well, after I kill Illya in front of you first."
"Why? You can't do this! You just found out that we're sisters. We have the same mother…" All of this was confusing to Alexana, feeling the fire rise in her redden cheek.
"And you took her away from me and the General! Oh! I knew who you were. Over the years, while you were running all over the world, I got to know my father and we would talk about mother's memory all the time and how you and Illya ruined all of our lives."
"Me? I didn't kill mother…I wasn't even allowed to be near her during…"
"It doesn't matter!" Margaret slapped Alexana again hard. "I'm here to complete what father couldn't finish."
"Which is?" Alexana sneered with her eyes full of hate for someone who thought that she was trying to help and as going to let "close" to her. Almost, as close to her as Illya, but never again will she ever trust her again.
"To kill the last two involved with father's experiment. His memory will live on in glory. Not marred by you and Illya. Not shamed by our mother's weakness. I'll be the one to bring his dream alive again and start up the program with me as its leader, the experiment will live on.
"UNCLE will prove that the old experiment it's ineffectual to TRUSH because of what you have done to it with the help from Illya and Mr. Waverly. I've already made inquiries within the Soviet Union to see if any of the other Generals are interested in supporting the project with the original formula I have hidden away without Napoleon even knowing it. You and Illya will be killed and Mr. Waverly will lose his footing with in the world arena with the Iron Curtain countries. All of this will turn into how I want it, not you."
"You won't get away with this, Maggie." Alexana said sarcastically slurring the nickname. "You've met Napoleon and you know that Illya won't help you…"
"I don't need his help!" The young woman spat out. "He only has to die in front of you to make my revenge complete. Sort of like Sasha. It wasn't too hard to get him to think that I was you, or to give him enough steroids that he was quite mad at the end."
"Yes, he was." Alexana said in agreement as she looked up at her from her chair. "You could've done something about his mother."
"Yes, she is a piece of work. She'll get hers, thanks to UNCLE' interference," Margaret reflected on that for a moment and then shrugged. "Oh well, Lexi, what do you want from your unique set of drugs you have in this case that I found while a searched your apartment? Although, I think that I should have you pick one just in case one of them is a poison, but I think I'll take my chances. You're still very capable, even when restrained and injured if I left you alone without some type of chemical restraint."
Margaret took out a syringe of fluid that Alexana knew all too well. She didn't even react as the needle hit her skin and the warmth started to spread up her arm. Her head dropped within two minutes.
"Excellent." Margaret smiled, checked for a pulse, and got ready to leave. "Now for Illya…"
Napoleon walked into the medical ward at UNCLE headquarters to see how an injured Russian spy got out of a room when it was constantly monitored. Never mind, he thought. She's good; too good for her own sake. She was going to ruin this whole operation. What made it worse is she promised him that she'd stay put and he believed her.
"Report," a despondent sigh erupted from his lips.
"Mr. Solo, during shift change and report, the patient had gotten out of her bed and went to the restroom. The monitors were tampered with in there. When it was noted that she was in there for a longer than usual time without pulling the call button, Nurse Kelly went to investigate. She got the door unlocked and found it was empty. We searched the entire ward and nothing was found missing except a badge, a set of work scrubs, and the nurse from the charge desk. She was found tied up in the treatment room unconscious, but not seriously hurt."
"Next," Napoleon said to the person in charge of in house security with a tolerant expression.
"Sir, we've tape of two females walking towards the monitored rooms. As you can see on the monitor, there is Margaret Dolchi and a female nurse in scrubs that has a badge on and was acting in a normal manner. There, they are laughing like they are old friends. Scanners picked up no weapons as they passed out of the main building to a less secure area."
"Look at her left arm." Napoleon pointed out to the group. "The cast is missing and see how it hangs awkwardly. What about leaving the secured apartment?'
"Again, they walked out of the secured area with the security not aware that the person with Dolchi wasn't Nurse Emery."
"What was found in the room?"
"Only, a tracer that had been embedded in a shredded cast, a set of hospital scrubs, and a ripped ID band, nothing else to tell us where they were going," the embarrassed security agent said, blushing.
"Thank you, Mr. Phillips. Finish the reports and have it on my desk in the morning."
"Sir," Another agent comes in to talk with Solo.
"There's a call for you. She says she'll only talk with you. She wavers between English and Russian..."
"I'll take it in Mr. Waverly's office." Napoleon made his way to the heart of the building while turning all the information around in his head. Things weren't making sense yet again. This whole affair didn't make sense, he grumbled to himself.
"Solo here," Napoleon said calmly even though he did feel like it on the inside.
"Napoleon, its Maggie," A familiar woman's voice cried out in a quiver as she sniffled. "It's Lexi…she made me help her get out of UNCLE headquarters and then left me here on the street. I don't know where I am! I'm so scared! I need you to find me. She needs our help and if we don't find her. I don't know what she will do. She was ranting about getting to Illya first and keeping him away for you…"
"Maggie… calm down." Napoleon interrupted. "Illya called and said that he would be arriving to New York at eight o'clock this morning. I'll pick you up and bring you back to headquarters. I need at least one of you at UNCLE before he gets here."
"No, I want to go to the airport with you." She begged. "I can keep an eye out for Lexi."
"Is that what you want to do," Napoleon asked with a strained voice. "We will leave it up to Mr. Waverly to decide. Where are you? Can you see any street signs?"
"I'm on the corner of eighth and… Forty-Second Street."
"That's not far from here. I'll be there in ten minutes. Stay where you are at. Don't talk to anyone."
Napoleon found a scared, but safe Margaret waiting for him in a doorway of a neighborhood restaurant. Once she spotted him, she quickly walked to his car and got in.
"Are you all right?" Napoleon asked her as he pulled away from the curb and headed back to UNCLE headquarters.
"Yes, now that you're here. Are we going back to UNCLE," she asked as if it was the safest, but furthest place she wanted to be right now.
"Ah, yes." Napoleon agreed thoughtfully. "That is the plan; to get you settled. I've already sent out some of our agents to find Lexi. All of this has to be kept quiet. No one is to know that she survived being shot and that fall from the bridge until we get Illya back. He won't be told about Lexi until he can be assessed and we find her. Maybe, he will be able to help us. He must know where she lives here in New York."
"I hope this all goes well." Margaret wished out loud. "I would hate to see anything happen to either one of them."
"Me too, Maggie," Napoleon agreed, pulling up to the back entrance of UNCLE Headquarters.
"Why does this feel like that I will be left behind when you go meet up with Illya?" Maggie asked in sheer frustration.
"Because, I'm doing just that and Waverly will agree." Napoleon smiled. "Now it's to bed, for all of us for now."
Napoleon waited patiently at the terminal's gate for Illya's plane to land. He was aware there were a lot of interested parties waiting for this plane's arrival from London. Napoleon could pick out at least two sets of New York THRUSH agents, a person who looked like they could be KGB or GRU from the Soviet Union, his American counterparts the CIA and Feds, and of course him.
Illya Kuryakin casually walked out of the door after the mad rush of passengers from the plane blocked his path. He scanned the gate area, not surprised to see all the usual players of the spy game watching him. His face remained blank, but his deep blue eyes sparkled with amusement and then he frowned.
What Napoleon noticed first off was how short his hair was. It had been literally shaved off to make it look like he had been in a concentration camp, looking like blond peach fuzz. It was all Napoleon could do not to laugh out loud as Illya came up to him.
"Laugh all you want," he said very tiredly, leaning very close his partner so no one else could hear. "I've just heard about every joke I care to and by the look on your face, you're going to make up more. I'm not in the mood. It was a gift from Naddya; revenge for her son's death, because she wasn't allowed to touch me."
"Took the hair and not the head?" Napoleon couldn't resist.
"Funny." Illya said in irritation. "Can we go now? I have to act like everything is fine for now. It would not be proper behavior for me to murder my partner right here in the airport for making a horrible joke…"
"Lead the way, baldy." Napoleon politely bowed as waved him ahead. Hi ignored the deadly look from Illya. "The car is by the baggage claim area."
Illya went ahead and unconsciously tried to run his fingers through his hair, but ended up only rubbing his head in embarrassment as they went to go get his bag and left everyone else behind to follow them.
Once in the car and out on the highway, Napoleon looked as his partner. He looked tired and sad. That was saying a lot about Illya, who usually looked bored and surly. Not many people knew the difference, but he did.
"Napoleon," Illya spoke up before Napoleon could ask. "I know that you have heard about Sasha and …Lexi's deaths."
"Illya, I saw them die." Napoleon searched his partner's face out of the corner of his eye while he drove. He hated to have to keep him thinking that she was dead, but the car or Illya could have been bugged. With Alexana missing, how was he going to explain all of what has been happening while he stayed back in Kiev. "Margaret and I were up the hill at the market reading the letters Lexi left for me and Margret, to get her civilian clothes.
"We saw her fall into the river and her body floating past the bridge. I knew that I couldn't help you without jeopardizing your life or the mission. I didn't know that you were on a mission until Mr. Waverly told me what was actually going on."
Illya nodded silently. His mouth clamped so tight that it formed a straight line as his jaw stiffened. That was the most common expression of emotional pain that his mute friend commonly gave him. Lexi was right, just knowing that the other was alive…but, now one wasn't. Half of him was lost. Napoleon hoped that he could change that soon. He knew that it would be up to him to keep the rest of him alive if it were really true.
"Not much was said about them to anyone. I was ordered to go on a naval ship in the Baltic Sea to assess an international problem with the Capitalist Americans, sorry, Napoleon. I wasn't much help and they sent me back to UNCLE."
"Yes," Napoleon said softly. "We were concerned for you safety.
"Well, then you won't mind that we make a stop before we go to headquarters?" Illya really didn't ask, but more or less told him; not caring if they were being bugged or have a homing device attached to the car or him. "I owe it to Lexi. She would do the same for me."
"We have orders to go straight away to UNCLE. Once we inform Mr. Waverly about your mission we can..."
"This is more important!" Illya shouted out suddenly. Napoleon jump back in surprise. Normally, his partner would have done his duty first before anything else. "You've met her. She helped me get here and I can't let her down…"
Napoleon remembered his conversation with Alexana and understood. He wished that he could tell him that he knew what they did for each other. What he and Illya did for each other in any given situation in their lives in and outside UNCLE.
"I need you to come with me." Illya said softly. "I do not want to do this alone."
"You won't" Napoleon glancing at Illya who didn't look back, but at the road ahead of them. "You'll have to lose your "watchers" first and check for tracers. Where are we going?"
"To her apartment, I have to get a few things and then we can go to headquarters."
The door the Alexana's apartment opened softly and then closed. She was in the same chair that Margaret had left her in several hours before. Her head was still dropped to her chest and eyes closed.
"Still sleeping I see."
Margaret Dolchi waltzed into the living room and gave Alexana's long hair a hard tug, pulling her head back, and waking her up momentarily with a groan. She was still only half-conscious from the medication that Maggie had given her earlier the night before.
"Illya's plane just landed, but he won't be back to UNCLE headquarters right away. He and Napoleon are coming here first. There are items of yours that he wants." She told the unresponsive Alexana as she started to sweep her hair in up a crude ponytail and secured it with a rubber band.
"How do I know this, you ask?" Margaret asked as she grabbed a knife from Alexana's kitchen drawer. "I bugged Napoleon's car just before he left for the airport. They did sweep for bugs after they said they were coming here. "
Margaret brings the knife up to Alexana's neck and cuts a thin line across it, causing a small red line of blood to appear. Then she chops Alexana's hair off roughly with the same knife just above the rubber band. With quivering eyes, Alexana grimaced, but made no response or movement to her actions.
"There, now you look more like me." Maggie said with an evil satisfaction. "We want them to think that you are me and that I was taken by you as I went to go look for you."
Margaret roughly mussed up Lexi's hair and looked back to inspect her handiwork before walking in front of her to gloat.
"While Illya and Napoleon try to free you, I will be behind them. I'll simply shoot Napoleon dead, shoot Illya in a strategic spot and then the fun and games begin."
"I must have given you too much." Maggie said as she pushed Alexana's head back and it easily fell forward to rest against her chest again. "The hardest thing is to wait."
About an hour later, there was a rustling by the door. A light flashed from the bedroom when someone was entering the apartment by not using the key. Margaret had closed all the blinds and turned all the lights off, but one by the desk and chair that Alexana was strapped to.
The door swung lightly open and Illya walked into the room, went over to a hidden panel behind a photo on the wall and turned off the alarm. Napoleon walked in more slowly, looked around the room, and instantly noticed a woman strapped to the chair that held a battered Maggie. She appeared unconscious and had been taped to the chair.
"Illya, it's Maggie," Napoleon started to rush to her side and began to remove the tape from one of her arms. Why wasn't she at UNCLE headquarters?
"It's a trap!" The woman sitting in the chair suddenly lifted her head and swing her body in the chair to tip it towards the table, knocking the lamp on the floor with sparks flying as it as the light bulb burst. "Get down! Margret's got a gun!"
"Damn you, Lexi!" A woman growled in the dark of the back of the apartment. Shots towards the chair rang out.
Napoleon and Illya both crouched down behind some furniture. Napoleon upholstered his gun as he tried to locate where the shots were coming from within the connecting pitch-black rooms of the apartment.
"Illya, grab Lexi and get her out of here! The chair, she's the one in the chair!"
Illya crept around the couch and tried to pull Alexana to the corner of the room. He felt the cool stickiness of blood soaking into her shirt by her left arm and onto the floor.
"Knives…under desk…one gun…one full clip…four shots counted…" Illya nodded and crawled silently to underneath the desk and grabbed two petite knives and a throwing star.
Everything in the room was deadly quiet except for occasional scraping on the carpet.
"Come out Maggie." Napoleon called out as he looked around into the darkness. "We don't want to kill you."
"You are the ones who will be killed. I've the advantage. You two are so heart sick over her that you didn't noticed that I had put explosives under her chair. All I have to do is press a button and you all will die!"
Margaret reached the door, turned, smiled, and opened it, bringing a bright light into the apartment, blinding Napoleon enough to not make the shot, but not for Illya. He threw two knives at the same time, both hitting their mark.
Maggie went down with a knife sticking out of her throat and chest. Illya and Napoleon reached her at the same time and grabbed her hands looking to a detonation device and took it out of her useless hands.
"Why, Maggie?" Napoleon asked with pity as he looked as the young woman's eyes, choking on her last breath as blood ran down her throat.
"For the glory of father and the Soviet Union…" She spat out, then her eyes glassed over and she died.
"To follow that man into glory leads only to one's death in the eyes of their family and country, his family dies with her." Illya said pointedly and then ran to be by Alexana's side as Napoleon flipped on the lights and checked the apartment.
Despite being mostly taped to a chair, bleeding, and having a broken arm, Alexana was already trying to free her right arm even further while this all of this was going on around her to fully recognize that Illya was at her side.
"Did you kill her?" Alexana asked through clinched teeth, not stopping what she was doing as it consumed her. She started to babble and thrash around just like before in Medical. "I'm fine! You've got to get me out of here! Where's Illya? Leave me alone, you're hurting me!"
"Lexi," Illya said softly, trying to calm her down as he used the throwing star to cut the duct tape. "Napoleon, what is wrong with her?"
When she was released from the chair, Alexana, push both men away and attempted to stand, but her legs buckled from being bond for so long and dropped hard to the floor.
"It's the antidote she gave us all. She's had a bad reaction when she fell off the bridge into the river and now it's happening again since she was drugged. Pick her up and let's get her to UNCLE headquarters. I think she's been shot again. I'll fill you in when we get there."
Illya awkwardly picked Alexana up as she continued to struggle and carried her to the car's backseat, all the while humming softly as he held her in a full body lock. Her apartment wasn't far from headquarters and she was rushed into Medical.
During that time, Illya and Napoleon sat in Waverly's office as each of them filled the other one in on their part of this mission and what had happen to Margaret Dolchi. A clean up team had been sent to the apartment and the rest would have to come from Alexana once she was out of surgery.
Illya was stressed and relieved at the same time. Word was already being sent out through the open spy network of UNCLE's ruse and that Illya had suffered no ill effects in THRUSH's attempt to use him in a mind control scheme. He was promptly sent to be deprogrammed once they partially filled him in on Lexi. Tests were done and all checked out negative. As usual, he played his part perfectly.
Finally, just when Illya had had enough for all of the poking and prodding, he was able to go see Alexana. She was resting comfortable for now and was under heavy sedation. Just as he was about to go into her room, Napoleon stopped him with a firm squeeze on his shoulder by his partner.
"Illya," Napoleon said simply. "I just wanted to tell you what she's been through here in Medical."
"What." He asked softly as he looked at her through the one-way mirror. Her body looked lost in the sheets and bandages.
Napoleon described what had been going on the first week with Alexana here in the infirmary before she had escaped with Margaret. The rest about her reaction to the antidote, the doctors and Lexi would have to tell him.
"Yes, I did talk to Thompson just before you came in." Illya said as he turned back to watching Alexana. "It was one of her hybrid hypnotics with muscle relaxation properties that lasted about four hours. He didn't know what residuals were left from her previous infection that the antidote was still attacking. He didn't know how much of her mental and physical status would be affected with the potential for a new infection from the wood that was imbedded in her left arm.
"Allen said the bullet hit the chair rail, shattering the wood, and then grazed her left side. Breaking two ribs and tearing a small artery at was easily repaired. The biggest concern was how many times that he had to reset her fractures on her left arm. He couldn't tell me if she will have permanent damage or not. Gymnastics are definitely out in the future for now. He says she needs rest, heavy sedation, and antibiotics for now."
"She won't like that." Illya continued on after Napoleon nodded. "You'd have to have cut her arms off before she'd willing give up gymnastics."
"She is a tough person, Illya." Napoleon added and smiled at Illya's comment. "Reminds me of another tough and cranky Russian who doesn't like to stay in Medical or be told they can't do something."
"Napoleon…" Illya started to say.
"I know what you are going to say, but save it." Napoleon cut him off with a hand raised between them. "Lexi is going to need you nearby when she's allowed to wake up. We'll monitor what is going on for now while she is resting and then you can take some time off to be with her. No use changing my mind. I owe it her, because she gave me a present while you were gone."
"What did she tell you?" Illya's eyebrow raised and looked glum knowing what she was capable of. "Oh, I'm going to kill her once she gets better. That's all I need is your silly grins. With both of you around, I'm never going to be left alone."
"That is the price you pay for keeping her from me all this time."
"What do you mean all this time?" Illya demanded in self defense. "Most of my time has been here with you and UNCLE while most of her time had been running around the world, killing for the Soviet Union. We never get to spend more than an afternoon together at a time for weeks to months at a time, but we made it work. More people in the mix would've limited that time even more. It was our little secret. Now I'll have to share."
"Being cousins and all…" Napoleon smiled smoothly, trying to get his friend to reveal just how involved they were with each other. "The incest…"
"We share the same name, Napoleon, but we are not cousins or related."
"Well, only to be fair, I should ask Lexi if she is willing to share her time with your partner. I could keep her busy while you are gone on single missions..."
"No, you won't, for right now," Illya said quickly with a smirk. "I'm going in there first and you can't come in. You can see her in a couple of minutes after that."
Illya walked into Alexana's hospital room and up to the bed. He lightly placed his hands on the rail as he looked down at her with his forehead folded into lines of concern. First she was flirting with Napoleon, forcibly taken by Sasha, shot, fell from a bridge, and left for dead. Then she was alive, tied to a chair, tortured, and shot again. Now she was lying in this bed, paler than ever. Connected to an IV line and unfortunately, had soft restraints around her arms and ankles. Her body jerked suddenly and her eyes fluttered, but didn't open as her head turned towards him.
"Am I going to be getting out of here soon?" A soft murmur came from the bed, barely audible in their special language from childhood.
"No." Illya replied back in the same hushed voice.
"I see that you still prefer Naddya's haircuts to mine."
"Yes."
"Will I ever get to play the violin again?"
"Perhaps, but your days tumbling may be over for now."
"Ah…thoughts worthy of nightmares as I sleep..." Alexana smiled weakly. "Will you be around?"
"Yes." Illya said softly and grabbed her right hand as she fell back asleep.
"Is she sleeping?" Napoleon asked, quietly coming into the room, Illya glancing at him, bobbing his head. "You should be familiar with this room, Illya. You've spend quite a lot of time here as do I. You know, I think that this the first time in a long time that neither you nor I have had to be in this bed."
"Yes, I do believe you are right," Illya said with a smiled, but didn't look away from Alexana's sleeping form; he'd have taken her spot anytime if he could.
"Let's let her sleep. I 've an assignment for you," Napoleon said that made Illya turned to him. "I picked up Lexi's little travel pack of medications, very unique looking concoctions, while we were leaving her apartment. I want you to help Thompson analyze them and find out what they do, all of them. Apparently, it looks as if she's developed quite an little arsenal."
"Small amounts of all her chemical creations and each of them lethal in some way. I don't think that she would like you taking them, Napoleon. She's very protective of her formulas. I don't always know what she's created. I vaguely remember where her lab might be. She frequently moves it to prevent attracting attention, mostly in industrial or commercial areas. I've been lucky that she didn't try out all her experiments on me. Others weren't as immune."
"Her perfume suggests that." Napoleon agreed. "I deal with her later about it."
Illya nodded, took a quick glance at Alexana, took the travel kit, and left the room. Napoleon watched him leave and then turned back to her as well. She was resting more calmly than the first time around and he knew that was because of Illya. He wondered how things were going to change for now on, put his hands in his pockets, and quietly left her room.