Illya Kuryakin stared at the man watching a nearby chess game being played at the Chess & Checkers House in Central Park.

Illya stopped there sometimes to play a game or two and know the history of the place.

After the Park was opened in the 1860s, it was criticized by local newspapers for its lack of facilities for children and their caregivers. The commissioners responded by creating a Children's District in the southern part of the park. The features included the Dairy, the playground, a children's cottage, and the Kinderberg, or "children's mountain," where the Park's largest rustic shelter once stood. In 1952, private funds enabled construction of the Chess & Checkers House to replace the Kinderberg.

The Russian stared at the scarred face of the man who was older and white-haired; he couldn't believe his eyes. Illya thought he was dead, having been made a prisoner in the Solovki gulag, on an island that was part of the Solovetsky Archipelago. There was no way off, if you got out of the compound; you froze to death in the treacherous waters of the Onega Bay. Illya knew because he tried to escape himself.*

It was a the very place where Viktor Karkoff, his former GRU sponsor imprisoned Kuryakin as revenge for an incident that took place in France when Illya was but a young greenhorn agent with Soviet military intelligence. * That incident caused Karkoff to lose face at the Kremlin, and be demoted.* He left military intelligence and joined KGB.

Years later he had Kuryakin kidnapped and taken to the gulag, the same one where Illya's grandfather Count Alexander Sergeivich Kuryakin had been imprisoned, and where he died. **

However, Viktor's scheme of revenge was discovered and thwarted but it nearly cost Illya his life.

As punishment Karkoff was made a prisoner of the very gulag he once commanded, a gulag that wasn't supposed to exist. To the world the Solovki Monastery, that was once the mother of all gulags, had been closed and was being converted to a museum. **

The old man looked up, seeing Kuryakin's gaze and his eyes gave away his recognition of the UNCLE agent.

He walked slowly towards Illya, limping as he moved.

"Illyushenka, "Viktor whispered as he moved closer, speaking in Russian.

Kuryakin took a step back, reaching for his gun just in case, though this would be a terrible place for him to draw and shoot Karkoff...too many innocents, too many witnesses.

"I am unarmed, I assure you. Please may we talk?"

"I have nothing to say to you Viktor...how is it that you are alive?"

"The gulag was finally closed and all surviving prisoners were released, though you can see I am no longer the man I was."

"What do you want Viktor?" Illya's blue eyes grew cold as did his voice.

"I wish to tell you that I regret what I did to you. I am sorry."

Illya's face reddened, though he kept his voice low. He continued to speak in rapid fire Russian.

"You sorry? You kidnapped me, imprisoned me, had me tortured, starved me, let me be raped and I am supposed to accept an apology from a man who should be dead for what he did to me and the other prisoners?"

"I was hoping you could forgive me….son, for old time's sake. I did save you from State School, got you your education and training did I not? I regret what I did to you, it was so wrong, but I was foolish and angry back then." **

"Oh you left out that you tried to murder me! Not only do I not forgive you Viktor Karkoff, I hope you burn in hell someday! And do not call me son, you were never a father to me or the other boys you plucked from the orphanages...we were nothing but leverage to you so you could climb the ladder of success at Kremlin."

"Hell? You have found religion?"

"Yes I believe in God again and though Christianity preaches forgiveness, that is something I will never give you. Go away Victor, and stay away from me and mine or I guarantee your life will end sooner than you think."

"I will leave you Illyushenka and I give you old man's solemn promise to leave you alone. You will never see me again." Karkoff lowered his eyes as he turned and walked out of the Chess & Checkers House.

Illya left as well via another door, tears of anger filling his eyes. He would have to warn his family of Karkoff's presence, Napoleon and UNCLE as well.

Though Viktor gave his word, that meant nothing; he'd known the man too long to trust him.

A week later Napoleon walked into his partner's office, holding out a report. The humiliated former KGB agent Viktor Karkoff had been found dead. He'd committed suicide, having hung himself from a tree in Central Park.

"Good," the Russian sneered, "he deserved a lonely and painful death and I hope it took a long time for him to strangle."

"Illya, I've never heard you talk like this in all the years I've known you...well except when you shot that Nazi in South America." ***

"Napoleon, you know what I went through it the gulag, but knowing and experiencing are two different things my friend. Viktor asked for my forgiveness, but that was something he did not deserve. God will see to him for his evil ways. His apologizing for them would never be enough."

Solo let the subject go as it wasn't worth getting Illya worked up over it again.

An old chapter in Kuryakin's life had finally been closed and the page turned back to his life now. He had a wife and four beautiful children, the best thing that ever could have happened to him.

When Illya returned from the gulag, he was a broken man, but his young family, and a best friend named Napoleon became his salvation.

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*ref."The Gambit Affair" (an AU story) ** ref. "First Kill"

*** ref. "The Randomness of Life- Chapter 52