Dr. Heron pulled her lab notes and a few personal belongings into her bags before setting the internal destruct system to eradicate the building. "You're certain we need to abandon this facility?"
"Too close to the water. There's no way of knowing whether our new opposition can get to the facility from beneath."
"But security …"
"Is only as good as its weakest link. Maisie was the weakest link. These things are … we're the bad guys and they're evil. Real evil."
Taakin nodded sagely at Cheri's words. "It has taken me some time to understand that the things my … that Professor Ayala wished to bring forth are completely inimical to human life. We are food. And playthings to be tortured and fed upon in our agonies." Her accent deepened as she spoke, memories of her tribe coloring her thoughts. She shook off the depressed mood and looked Heron in the eye. "You're desire to control others has caught their attention. What they do with their minds, you seek to do with a virus. Their control is limited to a few, comparatively."
"They want the research."
"Exactly," Cheri agreed. "So we're fighting on two fronts, UNCLE wants to stop the research for obvious reasons; and the others want to further their own ends."
"They want to rule the world," Heron concluded with a smile. "I take it the concept of sharing is not in their vocabulary."
"Let's say they make Bailey look like Prince Charming."
Heron shuddered. Cowl and Oxblood exchanged a look that said they would be looking up the late, unlamented Bailey.
The establishment detonated appropriately. Cheri tsked lightly. "Gas mains, what would we do without them to explain our destruction?" Her look invited those around her to join in her amusement. "No?" She heaved a sigh of disappointment. "Sometimes I feel like the Goblin King …" she made a reference so oblique no one got it. Tossing car keys to Cowl, she herded Heron and Taakin toward the helicopter still waiting for them.
"'Old on."
Radiant green eyes focused on the suddenly cockney accented man. "Yes, Mr. Oxblood."
"W'y should we let you get away? After all, it were a temp'rary truce."
"Because I have a gun in my hand, aimed at your partner; and you are relatively unarmed. That concoction in your hand will not do anything more than annoy the piss out of me," she ended sharply. Where the hell the gun had materialized from, neither UNCLE agent could have said. "Toodle-oo."
"Uhm, Craw."
"What?" he answered in a disgusted voice.
"Well, we do seem to have a half dozen lab personnel." Del nodded to the unconscious bodies strewn about the lawn at a safe distance from the merrily burning building.
MFUMFUMFUMFUMFU
Solo and Kuryakin were invited to the debriefing of the two London agents. Neither seemed happy that the Yuconovich woman escaped, even if she had offered a truce to deal with the peculiar threat offered by the woman they were dubbing Medusa. A watch would be kept on Blackpool until UNCLE could determine whether Medusa and her people were an avoided threat or just an incident. Unfortunately, no one had thought to retrieve the remains of the unfortunate young woman who was killed by Medusa.
"That was … unsettling," Oxblood admitted in private conversation with the two New York agents. "Understand you've had some peculiar run ins of your own."
"Perhaps an exchange of information over drinks?" Napoleon offered.
That got a snort from Cowl which elicited a raised eyebrow of inquiry from the dark haired agent, albeit a friendly one. "Oh, come on, Mr. Solo. Your reputation precedes you."
Solo's smile became a little fixed at that. "My dear, Agent Cowl, I never seduce field agents; they're entirely too inclined to be violent when you dump them."
Oxblood's crack of laughter distracted his partner for a moment. "OK, I deserved that … Maybe." She glared at Solo's innocent look. "And a drink would be appreciated. Several drinks." Her look lightened as an impish smile curved her lips. "You're buying. After all," she practically purred. "The Solo expense account is a well-established fact," she added with a laugh.
It was agreed they'd meet at the hotel bar rather than at a local pub, after all four had time to freshen up and change clothes. The American, admittedly something of a cosmopolitan snob, was delighted when their English counterparts showed up in after 5 dress; Oxblood leaning heavily on the growing Carnaby Street couture while Cowl wore the quintessential 'little black dress' and pearls.
"Yes, they're real and yes, they were inherited. Snob."
Solo laughed as he held her chair for her and they relaxed, as much as any agent ever does, for a while. The New York agents opened up about the incidents at Innsmouth and on Angel Island while the London duo did their best to scrape up every observation they could about the virus installation.
"Mind you, it doesn't help when they've been filling you full of whatever noxious concoction they've been working on," Cowl supplied. "And who the hell is this Yuconovich woman?"
"Actually, maybe what we should be asking," Oxblood cut in, his accent completely innocuous, "is what happened to Bailey. I looked him up. Nasty piece of work, but mostly US."
"She tossed him out a tenth floor window … yesterday?" Solo looked to his partner who nodded.
"She apparently decided she'd had enough of him."
"And she's still alive?" Cowl sounded amazed, then caught the look between the two men across the table from her. "Give. What? What do you know?"
"She's … dangerous," Solo hedged. His partner snorted and took a pull from his lager. "She was UNCLE. She was at Innsmouth and Angel Island."
"She's not part of … of whatever it was." Oxblood was certain of that, wasn't he? "She had this white blonde bird with her."
"Taakin?" The two men spoke in unison.
Cowl nodded. "I think that was her name. She was … chanting something?"
The Russian nodded. "She was adopted by Professor Ayala. She is Romany by birth, apparently gifted," he said seriously. "She discovered that the man she followed without question destroyed her entire family, her tribe, to get his hands on her; that her sacrifice would not be for a glorious new world, but an ancient evil. I did not know she had survived."
"She seemed on an equal footing with this Yuconovich woman."
"Miss Taakin would be a potent weapon should she desire to fight the beings she once followed," Solo gave his opinion. "I think I'm glad she's getting the chance, even if it is under THRUSH's auspices."
The London agents exchanged a glance. Cowl cleared her throat and told them she wasn't certain that Taakin was THRUSH. "It seemed more like a perso0nal favor to Yuconovich than a working relationship?"
"We should probably have your people investigate to see exactly where she stands in all this."
Illya nodded his agreement. "There is reference material," he offered suddenly. "A historian. Lovecraft. His works document much that we have not seen, but Innsmouth and the things we encountered there and on Angel Island were touched on in his documentation."
They drank in silence for a few minutes, Napoleon remembering that Cheri had called Lovecraft a writer of weird fiction. He suspected Illya was thinking of this as well. There were so many things about that woman that just did not add up.
MFUMFUMFU
Chang D'Antonini stared at the test tube in his hand, his face alight with discovery, devastatingly sensual lips curved in a smile that was making his assistant desperately in need of a seat and a cold shower, not necessarily in that order. The scientist's Byzantine eyes caught the young man's rapt look and completely misinterpreted the cause. "I believe we have a 'Eureka' moment here, David. The technology and the virus have melded. We can take over any technology in the world," he crooned softly, totally unaware of what his voice was doing to the bones of his listeners.
David tried not to laugh as the female lab technician behind Dr. D'Antonini grabbed the edge of the table she was standing next to so she wouldn't just sit on the floor suddenly. How anyone could be that attractive to everyone and be so completely oblivious. Wait, had he just said they could take over any technology in the world?
"I really must let Dr. Heron know how well this worked." He rotated the tube in his elegantly long fingered hand once more before replacing it in the rack with several others which he then secured in a locked cooler. Beaming at his subordinates, he walked out of the lab leaving the two of them regarding each other in a somewhat feverish manner.
"Pheromones," the woman moaned as they came together and plunged to the floor, hands busily divesting each other of clothing. "It's got to be pheromones. He's … Oh God!"
"Brilliant!" came David's muffled comment as he buried his face in her breasts.