THE MILTON-FREEWATER AFFAIR
by ardavenport and tlneill
= = = Act 6 : "I think I prefer it to being turned into bags of onions."
Napoleon pulled the U.N.C.L.E. sports car off the road, out of casual sight. He and Illya began walking toward the barn.
They had called Mr. Waverly as soon as Bernie had dropped them off at the car and driven to his appointment with the two other Thrush. Waverly had been quite interested in their report concerning Bernie, Charlotte and, most especially, the Thrush terminal. Even without top clearance access, it could be quite an asset to U.N.C.L.E. He updated their orders to include securing the terminal, and left the entire matter in their capable hands. Personally, Napoleon was a bit tired of always having such capable hands.
The pair split up, Illya scouting outside the building while Napoleon took a look inside. Napoleon opened the door, a bit un-cautiously, as Boom-Boom and Marlowe were down by the high school. He saw a clutter of farm machinery, just before something hard hit him on the head. He pitched forward, unconscious.
= O = O = O = O =
Illya finished his circuit of the barn. Finding nothing, he entered the barn to help Napoleon set up their trap. All thoughts of that particular plan fled, as he came face to face with Napoleon's sparring partner from the night before. Napoleon was lying on a stack of hay bales. His hands were bound behind his back with baling wire. Hammond gestured significantly in Solo's direction with his pistol. Illya looked from his partner to the Thrush. He set his Special on the floor, kicked it slightly toward Hammond, and resignedly placed his hands on his head.
"Now," Boom-Boom told the Russian, "we're going to stay right here until Marlowe gets back with Skinner."
Marlowe arrived shortly thereafter herding Bernie, his hands tied behind his back, in front of him. Napoleon stirred as Bernie was pushed down next to him on the hay. Marlowe busied himself tying Illya's hands.
Of all the things Illya had been tied up with, he liked wire the least. Granted that baling wire was better than the barbed wire preferred by a certain Central American Satrap leader, but it ranked far far below rope in Illya's book. Rope was much easier to wriggle out of, easier to cut, and not nearly so painful. There were ways to get out of it, though, and Illya set immediately to work finding the end of the wire to untwist it.
"Ah, welcome back Mr. Solo," Boom-Boom greeted the groggy American. "I was afraid I had hit you too hard, and I didn't want you to miss the show."
"Your concern is touching," Napoleon said, struggling to sit up.
"Not at all. You have, as I said before, caused me a lot of trouble. But," he continued, "you will be happy to know that I have decided not to kill you. Thrush Central will be quite forgiving of my past failures if I can bring you in intact."
"I'm sure they would," Napoleon agreed.
"Our gratitude is unbounded," Illya added sarcastically.
"You needn't waste any of your so-called gratitude, Mr. Kuryakin, since you're not going. I only need Mr. Solo. You and our incompetent Mr. Skinner here will have to stay. Marlowe," he signaled to his companion. "Go ahead."
While Hammond kept his eye on Napoleon, Marlowe finished tying Illya and Bernie hand and foot and dumped them on an upward-sloping conveyer belt.
"I'm sure Mr. Skinner can identify this piece of machinery. I can't. But I think that when you get to the top of this thing and it dumps you in, you'll be processed into bags of onions or potatoes or something like that," Hammond gloated. He climbed up to the driver's seat and started the motor. After a minor search, he found the proper switch and turned on the machine. He then collected his partner who herded Napoleon out with them.
"Not very original," Illya muttered to himself. Then he turned his head to his fellow prisoner who'd been quietly panicking by himself. "Bernie!"
"Huh?"
"We're going to roll off the conveyer belt," Illya told him. The relative calm of the U.N.C.L.E. agent penetrated Bernie's brain and it suddenly dawned on him that Illya did not intend to die.
"Snap out of it Bernie. We're getting out of here."
"How?" Bernie was astounded. He'd seen people executed by Thrush before and no amount of begging or pleading had ever kept the ax from falling. The idea that he might escape on his own hadn't quite occurred to him.
"In case you hadn't noticed," Illya answered, "in order for us to be dumped off this thing, they couldn't tie us to the conveyer belt. We're going to roll off."
Bernie looked over the side. "We'll be killed!"
Illya looked over his side and saw lots of greasy, rusty, pointy machinery below. "It's not a very pleasant alternative," Illya agreed. "But I think I prefer it to being turned into bags of onions."
"It's a hay baler," Bernie told him.
"Hay bales then," Illya conceded. "All the more reason to get off." The flat part of the conveyer belt ended and the incline started to carry them higher.
"Bernie!" Charlotte cried, suddenly appearing from a side door and running over to turn the machine off.
"Charlotte?" Bernie whispered, astounded. Not quite as astounded as Illya, who distinctly remembered Napoleon ordering her and Mrs. Skinner to stay put at the house. But now was not the time to quibble about things like that.
"Legs first," the agent told Charlotte who was now engaged in clipping the wire that bound Bernie. "And make it fast," he added as she moved to Illya. "If I know our friend out there, he's likely to blow this whole barn apart in a few seconds."
They climbed down carefully, Charlotte carefully helping Bernie with his grandmother's supervision. Illya noted this a little disgustedly, scrambled down by himself, then hurried the two women to the exit. Illya paused at the door. "Scream," he told Bernie.
"What?"
"Scream like you're being turned into a bale of hay."
"Oh." Bernie's scream was weak and Illya nearly drowned him out, but it must have fooled Boom-Boom, because the barn blew up behind them just as they got clear. Illya ducked as a shingle flew by his shoulder.
The agent took the Thrush rifle that Charlotte carried. He wondered what Mrs. Skinner intended to do with the Tommy-gun she held. "Go get the truck," he told Bernie, "and block the road to the freeway." Bernie took off, wisely keeping the flaming barn between himself and the other Thrush. "You two stay here." Illya ran around to the front of the barn. Charlotte and Mrs. Skinner glanced at each other and started off in the opposite direction.
"Napoleon! Get down!" Illya opened fire in the general direction of the Thrush's car, before finding a convenient clump of bushes and settling down for more accurate shots.
= O = O = O = O =
Napoleon, seated in the back seat of the Thrush's car, watched the barn explode with a mixture of emotions. Baling wire would be extremely difficult and time-consuming for his partner to wriggle out of, but the scream from the barn had sounded a) unconvincing, and b) not very much like Illya. So he was not terribly surprised when he saw Illya come racing around the corner of the barn, hollering a warning to duck. Napoleon ducked, just in time. A hail of bullets whined through the air and struck the car.
The two Thrush dropped, pulled their guns out and returned fire.
Sporadic shooting followed for a few more seconds. Lovejoy gave a small cry and Napoleon saw him fall. Silence. Napoleon struggled to sit up far enough to see why Illya had stopped shooting.
Hammond crouched and bent over Lovejoy, who, in Napoleon's opinion, was far past caring. The remaining Thrush cast a wary glance to his right and stood up, facing the car. Napoleon again wondered why Illya wasn't shooting.
"Your partner's gone, Solo. Lovejoy got him, just before Kuryakin got him." He took a firm aim on the U.N.C.L.E. agent. "So it's just you and me now, Solo. There's just one more detail to take care of. If he," he motioned with his free hand to where Illya was, no doubt, lying, "got out, then Skinner's loose somewhere too.
"Now you can sit quietly while I tie your feet up so you don't go wandering off while I take care of Skinner. Or I can shoot you in the foot."
Napoleon sighed and shrugged as well as he could with his hands wired behind him. "Since you put it that way," he agreed and lamely offered his unresisting feet.
Hammond securely bound his ankles together with some rope from the front seat. Then he tied Napoleon's feet to the door handle of the car.
"You shouldn't be able to get out of that too quickly," Hammond said, holstering his gun. "I'll be back as soon as I can."
Napoleon looked out the still-open car door and then at his captor. "Good-bye," he said and dove for the floor of the car, just before Mrs. Skinner's erratic machine-gun fire cut Hammond down.
Charlotte came running up. "Are you all right?" she asked breathlessly, nervously skirting Hammond's body.
"I'm fine. Check Illya, He's been hit." Solo told her.
"Are you sure?" She climbed in and tried unsuccessfully to pull him up to a sitting position. With her help he sat up into a contorted 'V' with his feet still tied to the car door, his weight resting on his tail bone and his shoulders squashed between the front and back seat.
"Go. Help. Illya," Napoleon told her slowly and firmly.
"Uh, right." Charlotte left hastily before she did any more damage.
Napoleon tried twisting into an even semi-comfortable position and found that there just weren't any. He watched Mrs. Skinner, still carrying her sub-machine gun, approach the car. He supposed that now that Hammond and Lovejoy were dead, the affair was finally ended. But he didn't really feel as if anything was concluded. His twisted legs and shoulders ached. He sincerely hoped that Illya wasn't dead.
Mrs. Skinner finally made it to the car. She had an old woman's walk that favored her hips-not very fast.
"I really enjoyed that, Mr. Solo," she beamed, out of breath. Napoleon glanced down at Hammond's bullet-ridden corpse and wondered what the local sheriff was going to say.
"Uh, Mrs. Skinner, I'm a little tied up right now. Could you . . . ?"
"Oh, of course! How callous of me." She lowered herself to the car seat and began to fumble with the ropes. She had just managed to free his feet when Napoleon heard Bernie drive up in his truck. He jumped out and ran into and out of Napoleon's line of sight.
A moment later Charlotte and Bernie, supporting Illya, came up. Illya held a bloodied handkerchief to his temple and looked as if he didn't quite know where he was.
"I think we'd better get him to a doctor," Charlotte worried.
Napoleon sighed and let his feet drop.
= O = O = O = O =
"It has been nice." Mrs. Skinner patted Illya's hand. "We're going on to Boise with you; did Mr. Solo tell you?'
"Yes Ma'am. Mr. Solo, Mr. Wimser and Bernie are loading the terminal into the trailer right now." He sat back, resting his bandaged head on Mrs. Skinner's living room sofa.
"I'm so glad you've recovered." She uncovered his hand and patted him on the cheek. Illya sat quietly and endured. "Ah, it's such a pity. Moves like this aren't very easy at my age, you know."
"No, Ma'am. But U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters in Boise will be handling everything for you. You'll be given new identities and enough money to get started in another place."
"Yes." Mrs. Skinner smiled sentimentally. "Isn't it romantic. I eloped myself, with dear Eugene. That was when I joined Thrush. It was so exciting then."
"Eloped?" Illya questioned, a little confused.
"Well, Bernie and Charlotte, of course. Oh, Mr. Kuryakin, surely you know about that sort of thing." She indicated the wedding band on his left hand.
"I'm sure that U.N.C.L.E. Boise will be able to provide whatever services are required," he went on, going back to the earlier subject.
"That's quite alright, dear. I understand."
Illya wasn't entirely sure what she thought she understood but he decided not to delve into it.
"Grandma!" Bernie called. He entered with Charlotte and Napoleon, who was futilely trying to wipe a grease stain from his cuff.
"We're all packed up. Ready to go?" Napoleon asked.
"I suppose so." Mrs. Skinner looked about the house sadly. "It's such a shame to leave it all behind. Thrush was awfully good to us in its heyday."
"I'm sure U.N.C.L.E. can more than compensate you for your losses," Napoleon assured her.
"I suppose it'll have to do. Oh, please don't take anything I say personally, dears. You two have been absolutely charming. But I've just never cared for U.N.C.L.E.; it can be so pretentious. That General Eisenhower isn't still in charge, is he?"
"Ah, no Ma'am, he's dead," Napoleon answered.
"Well, there's one good thing to say about it at least."
"We'd better be going," Illya reminded them. They left the house, Mrs Skinner carefully locking the door behind them. Bob Wimser, one of the agents from Pendleton who was filling in for Charlotte Goldstein, waved them to the cars.
"You're all set to go. And don't worry about a thing, honey, I got everything covered here with the local Sheriff. The front office and me can take care of it."
"Thanks, Bob," Charlotte mumbled. She didn't care for the man very much.
"S'pity I wasn't here to see you boys operate. Must've been something." He opened a door for Illya, who rather looked (and felt) like a reject from a battlefield-forehead bandage and all.
"That's one way of putting it," Illya muttered, settling into the passenger seat. Napoleon finished his driving instructions to Bernie, sauntered back to the U.N.C.L.E car, and climbed into the driver's seat.
He headed for Boise with Bernie's truck close behind. Illya picked up a small stack of paper from the floor of the car and leafed through Charlotte's yearly report. It had survived the explosion of her trailer because she'd been doing it over at Bernie's house; after all, Bernie had had all the information she needed. It was titled All You Never Wanted to Know About Thrush-Sponsored Survivalists in Eastern Oregon.
"She is thorough, whatever else she may not be," Illya commented. "Mrs. Skinner told me that Bernie and Charlotte were eloping in Boise."
"I wonder if they know that," Napoleon answered.
Illya smiled briefly and put the report aside. He picked up the Thrush computer game manual and opened it to the page he wanted- 'Anarchy on the High Seas'-and began to read.
= = = END
Note:This story, by authors A.R. Davenport and T. L Neill, was first published in the print fanzine, '11 & 2' No. 1, in September 1986.
Disclaimer: All characters and the U.N.C.L.E. universe belong to Arena Productions and MGM Television. I am just playing in their sandbox.