Being Sneaky

April Dancer sat in the back of her cab, rolling her eyes at the smart-aleck comments from the driver. It seemed to April that the man had watched too many spy movies. Finally, she huffed loudly.

"I'm not playing here. That woman stole my husband and I need to know where she lives, and I don't want to have a debate about it. Now I want you to follow that cab at a discreet distance if you can, and let me off when I tell you. I will leave your fare and a large tip here on the back seat when I get out. When I'm gone, don't hang around. Just be getting back to your work."

She hit on just the right tone of injured annoyance, and he stared at her in the mirror for a moment before nodding.

"Righto, I'll do what I can Miss…sorry, Mrs."

April sat tight as she watched the cab in the distance, barely a speck, but her cab driver still appeared to have a pretty good bead on him, and they followed Miss Linnet's cab as she headed over the bridge across the East River, and drove on, until they were on Long Island. April gazed around in surprise. Who could Emma Linnet know on Long Island? She had been born in Brooklyn and grown up within sight of the Brooklyn Bridge. In the distance Miss Linnet's cab had pulled to a halt at the side of the road.

"How close, Mrs.?"

"Right here will be good."

She pulled a wad of notes out of her purse and set them on the back seat, then slipped out of the cab. She was aware of the cabbie pulling a few hundred yards down the road, before stopping to retrieve his fare, then he sped away April swung her bag on to her shoulder and strolled nonchalantly down the road toward Emma's cab. He appeared to be waiting, but as April came near, it was clear that Emma had got out. She slowed her walk in order to look around. This part of the island appeared to be a millionaire's row, with large houses with walled premises and security guards or CCTV to keep out prowlers. Who could Emma be visiting out here? She caught the sound of a door opening and a glimpse of a lighted hallway that told her Emma had gone into number eighty-seven. April strolled on until she found a tree she could conveniently lean her back against, and look for something in her bag. Discreetly she withdrew her communicator.

"Open channel D."

"Channel D open."

"I need you to run a check on large house on Long Island for me, will you? Who lives there, anything of interest that comes up."

April gave the address and waited, getting out her Compaq and dabbing her nose with it. A few moments later, Headquarters called her back. She opened her communicator again.

"Dancer here."

"Miss Dancer, the house belongs to a Sidney Hallaway, aged 67, wealthy Industrialist with connections in the US, Canada, France, the Netherlands, Russia, China, India and Australia. He is suspected of having been an arms runner, or at least, the financier behind it, but no proof has ever been discovered to link him specifically with anything illegal. He is known to have an open purse and an open house to anyone with talent…muscles and Scientists for the most part."

"Any relations?"

"None known. He is a widower. His late wife had a brother called Antonio Del-Paglio who studied pathology in Rome, before moving to Britain to study medicine in Edinburgh. Del-Paglio had no children of his own but he and his wife Jean adopted a three-year old girl twenty-two years ago. Del-Paglio was interested in medical research, and moved his family around a lot until the child became thirteen whereupon they came to New York and settled in Brooklyn until the girl finished school. After that, there are no records of where they went."

"Hmm. Do me a favour will you? Can you print all that out and give it to Mark for me? Tell him I'm going to take a look inside. Thank you. Dancer out."

April strolled off down the street again, taking careful note of all the homes she passed until the next cross section. She followed the road around until she came to a large park, fenced off with large ornate iron railings. A private part for the residents of millionaire's row, she mused. Looking around, found a convenient tree to partially conceal herself, hoisted her skirt and swiftly climbed over the railings. Walking back along the row of houses, she found she had to count them carefully, as none of them were named or numbered at the rear, but she found number eighty-seven without too much difficulty and stood back amongst the bushes staring at the wall. Climbing it would not be too difficult a challenge, but in the middle of the day? Broad daylight, dressed like this? Who was she kidding? Shaking her head, she squatted beside the bush and opened her communicator.

"Open Channel D. Mark Slate please."

"Slate here. April, that you? How did you get on?"

"Too open Mark. I wanna go inside and check it out. Something smells wrong, but I'll give it an hour or so. It'll be dark by then and I can slip in and take a look around outside."

"I'm on watch for the next fifty minutes. When I'm relieved, I'll get out there and back you up. Be careful huh?"

"Already done." April smiled into her pen and disconnected. She got to her feet and felt something cold and hard sticking into the middle of her back.

"Do you know what we do to trespassers around here? Hmmm?"

Mfu mfu mfu

"Why are you following me Napoleon? This is something I have to do. No business of yours."

Napoleon flinched. That hit was below the belt. Illya looked immediately contrite.

"Forgive me my friend. I'm just…strung up."

"You have good reason to be, Illya. I just want to help, that's all. Besides, I'm no use to anyone else here am I? I am dead after all…as are you."

The corner of Illya's mouth quirked.

"So we are…Well I have a job to do whilst I am here, so being dead might even be an advantage."

"Are you going as a dead Illya, or as your brother?"

"I killed my disguise as Mikhail by saving you, Napoleon."

"Not necessarily. Those two idiots didn't see you hit them, all they will know now is that you ran away as ordered and then UNCLE invaded the house and took away their Colonel."

"You know, Moran wanted me to stage something in order to infiltrate the embassy disguised as Illya Kuryakin. He wanted me to find this KGB mole for THRUSH's sake. The chances are, Moran will say nothing about me in New York. What happened in the cell, he'll take it that Mikhail took him at his word and decided to make it look good. He is totally convinced about my being Mikhail, by the way. Set in stone. The only weak spot is Fyodor. He is incompetent, but he is not unobservant. Provided we covered ourselves sufficiently, and provided that Moran told him what we were apparently planning, my disguise might be secure. Perhaps I should go out as Mikhail after all, and we find a disguise for you to wear? My old aunt perhaps?"

"Don't you dare Kuryakin!"

Illya only grinned.

Down in Research, the girls took the details Illya gave them without blinking and started work straight away. Illya took Napoleon down to medical.

"Why are we here, Illya?"

"Best place for you to come and get a disguise."

"Medical?"

Illya grinned.

"Definitely. Nurse Berta Jedynak is an expert. Come along."

Reluctantly, Napoleon followed.

When they re-emerged sometime later, Illya looked much as he had before, except that he was wearing his green contact lenses and changed his clothes more in keeping with Mikhail's style.

Napoleon on the other hand…Illya's lips twitched as he looked at his partner. Napoleon grinned good naturedly. He was now wearing a fat suit, which made him look like he was at least half as large again as he really was. Nurse Berta had created a part mask for him to wear which was easy to put on and take off, unnoticeable unless you were looking for it at close quarters, and gave him the chubby faced, mottled complexion of a man whose main loves are beer and pies. His hair colour had been lightened by several shades and was now a light to mid brown colour, and trimmed expertly to make it look completely different.

"So who am I this time Illya? Or should I say Mikhail? And how are we to communicate? I don't speak Ukrainian, and even though I do speak Russian, it is clear that I am not a native speaker."

Illya nodded his agreement at that.

"Yes. Your Russian accent is terrible, Napoleon. You speak Russian, French, but your accent is always undeniably American."

"Well then I will have to be American."

"You could be a deaf mute."

"Or simply mute? Why not simply say this is my Russian friend who has not spoken a word since Korea? Let people think what they want about that?"

Illya nodded.

"Very well Napoleon. I will say `This is my friend Boris Abramovich Popov. He understands Russian, French and English, but he has not spoken a word since Korea.'"

"Boris Popov? Couldn't you come up with something better than that?"

Illya smirked as he shook his head.

"You need to remember it my friend, and if you ever manage to find your voice in the next few days, you need to be able to pronounce your own name believably."

"Thanks partner. What a great disguise. This will really set the ladies' hearts beating!"

Illya's smirk had widened into a grin. Napoleon, in spite of himself, was cheered to see it.

"I think you are enjoying this!"

"I don't know Napoleon. I still think I would have had more fun if you could have been my imaginary Aunt Larisa."

Napoleon laughed.

"Come on, let's see what we can do about finding your niece."

Mfu mfu mfu

April Dancer brought her elbows back and connected with the barrel of the gun, knocking it to the ground and turned in a flash, but was stopped in her tracks by two more guns pointing in her direction and well out of her reach.

"Please keep on resisting. I love gunning down people who pry and interfere in my affairs."

April glanced round, but quickly saw that neither fight nor flight were practicable at the moment. The four men facing her looked ugly and mean, the two carrying guns looked like they carried them only to make up for the lack of gleaming muscles possessed by their fellows. She had no real chance right now. Time would tell.

"Don't shoot. I wasn't doing any harm, honest."

"Spying?"

"Me? Do I really look like a spy?"

"No, but they tell me spies rarely do. All I know is you were trespassing on private property…this park in case you are wondering, you are staring at private property…this house…for all the world as though you were thinking of breaking in."

April chewed her lip.

"I had no choice. My boyfriend is pretty mean, and he wants to know what you keep in there…"

"He's a thief?"

"No but he knows some people who…anyway, he's pretty quick to retaliate if he doesn't get what he wants. I was just looking, mister, honest."

The four men exchanged glances, clearly debating whether or not to believe her story. April decided that her best bet was to put on a really good show for them. In her mind, the thought back a few days ago to a doctor's office where she and Mark had been officially informed that Napoleon and Illya were dead. She replayed that moment in her mind, and imagined that it had been true. Suddenly her throat closed up with emotion, she choked, and her eyes filled with tears. As she started to sob, she managed to gasp out;

"Please don't shoot me, I was only looking, I tell you, he's a mean one. You don't say no to him more than once."

She crumpled on the grass, keeping the mental image of Napoleon and Illya being dead well in the forefront of her mind. To her relief, and also somewhat to her chagrin, she found it relatively easy to keep the tears flowing. The men were looking at each other uncomfortably.

"Well do you still want to shoot her?"

"She was still spying round the place."

"But look at her though. She's obviously scared of this guy of hers. She quivers like a jellyfish."

"A gentleman would take her into the kitchens, get old Anna to give her a cup of something until she calms down, and then send her on her way."

"Yeah, great idea that. Bring a stranger in off the street. Good one."

"Well you were going to do that anyway weren't you?"

"Yeah, to lock her up and find out what she's after, who she is spying for. Not to invite her in for afternoon tea and cookies on the lawn. One sugar with that ma'am or two?"

April's sobs were starting to die down now and she raised a tear-stained face.

"Wh.. wh..what are you going to do with me?"

"What are you planning to tell that boyfriend of yours?"

"What can I tell him? That you guys caught me and threatened to shoot me if you saw me anywhere near here ever again."

"Will that make him beat up on you?"

April stood up and nodded, wiping her eyes dry with the back of her hand.

"Of course, but what else can I do?"

The men looked at each other.

"Are you just a painted doll, or do you actually work for a living?"

"Of course I work for a living. What do you take me for?"

"Well then? What do you do?"

"I'm a beautician."

"A what?"

"I cut and style hair, I do make up, I manicure nails and I even undertake a massage now and again if I think the rewards are worth it."

She opened her bag and fished around for her Compaq, and started to `fix' her face to drive home the point. She was aware of the sudden discussion going on between the men. The leader grabbed her elbow.

"All right, we have a proposal to make. We shoot you now for spying on us, or you come inside with us of your own free will and we will keep you safe. The rules, you don't leave the house without permission, you provide your professional services to everyone in the house free of charge in return for room and board. If after one month we decide we like you, and you are trustworthy, you will be offered a permanent position within our…company. If not, you see the inside of that cozy cell we were just discussing."

"Sounds like a pretty one sided bargain to me." April muttered, wiping her eyes with her handkerchief. The man shrugged.

"We are doing some pretty important work which we cannot afford to let anyone louse up."

"But what about my boyfriend?"

"You call him, and we listen in. You tell him its off between you and you have a better offer. If he comes around here after that we'll deal with him."

April thought once again of Napoleon and Illya, and imagined them lying side by side on a cold, lonely slab in someone's morgue. The image was enough to cause a tear to spill from her eye and down her cheek.

"Ok."

She was taken to the kitchen of the large house, through a side door where a little tubby woman was busily scraping potatoes. April was given a coffee, and led from there up two flights of stairs and into a study, that looked like anyone's study. A bright, airy room overlooking the back of the house. This was why she had been easily seen in that field out the back. From this room, the entire field and rear garden of the house could be viewed without anyone outside being aware of it. She was handed a telephone. She stared at it stupidly for a moment. She couldn't ring UNCLE's private number, that was top secret. If she rand their public number, these men would quickly put two and two together and learn she was an UNCLE agent. There would be no point in ringing Mark's home number, as he would be coming straight out here once he had finished his watch at headquarters. Who to ring? Suddenly it dawned on her. She dialed number.

William Del Floria jumped as his private telephone jangled out. He very seldom received a call on that line. Just family really. He picked it up. Knowing that whoever was ringing this number was not after the tailor's shop, he simply said

"Hello?"

"Uncle Bill! Hi! It's April!"

Del Floria was immediately aware that something important must be afoot. None of the agents would ring him on this number unless it was life and death. This was April Dancer. He guessed that she was not alone, or that this call was being monitored, so he determined to play along with whatever her scheme might be.

"Hello sweetheart. Are you all right?"

"Yeah, I'm great. I was wondering if Si is still with you? I need to speak to him urgently."

Del Floria had no idea who Si was, although he guessed it was probably April's partner Mark Slate.

"Can you hang on minute love? He's out the back. I'll have to go and fetch him in."

"Thanks Bill."

He swiftly locked the shop door, then entered his office where he knew he could speak on the UNCLE line without being overheard. He quickly got through to Waverly.

"Alexander? I have April Dancer on my private line. I think she is being monitored by someone. She needs to speak to Si urgently."

"I'll patch him through to your private line. Don't speak Bill, I'll warn Mark for you."

"Thanks Alex."

Waverly contacted Mark Slate swiftly and explained the setup. Mark picked up the phone and spoke as though he had been running.

"Hello darling."

"Si? It's me. It's no good Si, I can't come back to you anymore."

"Come again?" Mark asked, temporarily flummoxed.

"I'm tired of being your spy, and then being beaten up by you when your silly friends mess things up each time. It's not worth it Si. I got caught at that place you sent me to, but these guys have offered me a job and I've decided to take it. Free room and board in exchange for doing what I love, and no one will be beating up on me any longer."

Mark caught on.

"What makes you think I can't come over there and get you back?" he asked in a dangerous voice.

"You can try babe, but they'll be waiting for you with machine guns and bombs and lasers and everything. You'll be dead before you get two yards from the gate."

"So this is it is it? After all this time it comes to this? Not even a proper goodbye? Just a phone call and a veiled threat? You're my woman, don't ever forget that. I'll get you back somehow, see if I don't!"

"Look after yourself Si. You're good at that." April told her partner in a chilly tone of voice. "Give my love to Uncle Bill huh?"

She hung up.

At the dial tone, Mark replaced the receiver, and sat, staring at the phone for some time. As soon as he was free from watch duty, he needed to go and speak to Mister Waverly. Urgently. It seemed, however, that Mr. Waverly was already on his wavelength, for within a few minutes, Waverly himself came into the room. He locked the door behind himself, and turned facing the monitors.

"So Mr. Slate. Perhaps you will tell me what that call from Miss Dancer was all about."

Mark and April had already reported to their boss about their suspicions of a spy being within the building, and he now explained how he and April had begun to wonder a little about the nurse, Emma Linnet, and the reasons why. He explained how April had disguised herself in order to follow the young nurse, just to be on the safe side, and how April had then contacted him via communicator to explain that Miss Linnet had led her to a large property on Long Island, and that somehow April had become very uncomfortable about it. He had been planning to go down there later to join April and they had planned to check the place out properly, if only to exonerate Miss Linnet.

"Did you listen in on our call, sir?"

"Of course. How much information was she able to give you during the course of that conversation?"

Waverly was only too aware that section two agents generally developed their own private code-speak that they used when they needed to pass on vital information without an enemy knowing. Mark shrugged.

"High security set up on the grounds, laser sightings and everything. The men are armed with machine guns and explosives, and worse probably. She has been offered a job as a beautician and she has accepted. It's likely she had no choice but to accept."

"And you are her abusive lover? So if you do go in tonight, they'll be expecting you."

Mark nodded.

"They'll be waiting if I go tonight. If I go tomorrow night though…give her chance to find out whatever she needs to find out…"

Waverly nodded unhappily.

"A place of that nature with security that tight? It has to be…"

"THRUSH."

"Exactly."

Mark raised his eyes.

"Means that Emma Linnet is our mole after all."

"A mole…or a security leak anyway."

Mark frowned.

"You mean sir, that she might be going there without realizing it is THRUSH? She would have to be a fool not to realize it!"

Waverly grinned him.

"Not necessarily Mark. The girl is a nurse, after all. Not a trained spy and killer. Such a thing may not even have occurred to her. Just being there does not mean she is guilty. Miss Dancer will have to find the proof we need whilst she is in there. She has twenty-four hours, and then I am sending you and a small team in there to get her out."

Mark nodded unhappily. He knew April was perfectly capable of taking care of herself, but knowing that she was sitting literally in the lion's den, and doomed to remain there for another full day did not sit well with him. If she put one foot out of line whilst searching for their proof, THRUSH would instantly realize who she was, and then she really would be in danger. And Mark was not in any position to help her. He could not watch her back for another twenty-four hours. So much could happen in that time. Perhaps he could use his time profitably in the meantime. Perhaps now might be a good time to get to know Miss Linnet a bit better?

One hour later, Mark was three miles away, dressed in his best casual, armed with a bunch of flowers, and knocking at the door of apartment eighty-seven. Miss Linnet opened the door, wearing jeans and a sweatshirt. Her eyes popped out of her head when she saw the identity of her visitor.

"Mark Slate? What are you doing here?"

"You seemed really upset today. I thought I'd come by in the hope of trying to cheer you up a bit? These are for you. I was on my way to my favourite café. Great little place does great British food… fish and chips, bangers and mash…hot tea! You'd be welcome to join me for a bite. No strings, just good company."

"I'm not dressed for eating out." She commented, uncertainly. Mark grinned.

"S'alright, you look great as you are. They don't mind what you wear so long as you are wearing something. So, coming?" He smiled cheerily. Emma warmed to him. She smiled back.

"Okay, thanks. Let me put these lovely flowers in some water, and I'll be with you."