Sacrifices for the Greater Good
Mission I
Gaby's peaceful slumber was disturbed by a light touch tracing over her skin, from her bare shoulder to her waist. It wasn't quite enough to wake her up, so she snuggled deeper into the covers, still dreaming fragments of nothing. A solid warm shape settled on her hip, and was shortly followed by a light tugging on her hair as it was moved out of the way. The first kiss, placed at the junction between her neck and shoulder, caused her to stir slightly, and by the time he reached the space just below her ear she was half-awake.
"Five more minutes." She murmured sleepily, half-heartedly swatting Illya away.
"We have a mission briefing today." He said quietly, his accent thickened from sleep. "Cowboy will be here soon." She made a noise of complaint and wiggled around so she faced him. She took a moment to drink in his relaxed and open expression, he always looked like this in the mornings when the stress of their lives could momentarily be set aside for a brief time after waking. No masks, no lies. Just two people snatching desperately at small moments of normal domesticity.
"He can wait." She suggested, slipping a leg over his and pressing herself closer so not a single inch separated them. He gave her a look that suggested he knew exactly what her game was, but did not resist when she lazily pressed her mouth to his. He did however catch her wrist when her hand that had been resting innocently against his chest slowly started travelling downwards.
"No, Chop Shop." He said, ending the kiss. "Time to work." She gave up at that, they had been together long enough for her to know that when he said that he meant it.
He rose from the bed and went to the bathroom for his morning shower, and she clutched the sheets closer to her, trying to hold on to the residual heat for as long as possible. She had forgotten to turn on the heating the previous night so the whole flat was cold, a testament to the English weather and she was loathe to leave her comfortable little cocoon. Eventually though, the heat dissipated and she got up with an unhappy groan. On her bedside table was Illya's watch and the black pearl ring he had given her in Rome which now hung on pretty silver chain Solo had stolen for her. She slipped it over her neck as she did every morning.
Walking over to the wardrobe, Gaby flicked through the clothes, eventually throwing a dress and a suit onto the unmade bed. Right on time, she heard a faint knocking on the front door of the flat and quickly threw on a dressing gown, a pretty affair of red silk she had bought on a whim in Paris.
"I still have to shower." She said as she opened the door, revealing a grinning Napoleon.
"Your breakfast will go cold." He waved one of three wonderful-smelling brown paper wrapped packages. She snatched it out of his hands and immediately stuffed a still-warm pastry into her mouth.
"Any idea what the mission is going to be?" She asked around a mouth full food, eliciting a disgusted look from Napoleon.
"I have to check in with my handler, which means it is probably going to be in the US. I'm sure Peril will be thrilled."
"I will cope." Illya arrived at the front room, fully dressed, hands busy with his tie. With the bathroom free again, Gaby stepped out, already hearing Solo berating her Russian for his choice of suit.
A short while later, they were all bundled in Solo's car and heading for UNCLE headquarters, located just outside the centre of the city of London. The carpooling had become a regular occurrences after Illya had started spending more and more nights at her flat instead of his own, and they had both become concerned that Waverly would notice that they always arrived at the same time and come to the correct conclusion. Napoleon had not been difficult to convince, for all his jokes and sharp comments, he could appreciate the risk they were taking by being together and had been willing to help them keep their relationship discreet.
At the meeting room in headquarters, they played cards until Waverly arrived. Gaby didn't quite know why this was the activity they usually turned to as without fail Solo always won. Illya had caught him cheating in the past, and the American had merely shrugged and excused it as sleight of hand practice for missions.
"Hello team!" Waverly greeted them with his usual enthusiasm, accompanied by a woman carrying a small box of slides. She immediately stationed herself at the projector with her slides ready to go. Gaby was always amazed at the pinnacles of professionalism Waverly managed to find, it was particularly surprising since the man prided himself on having a small and diverse group of misfits for his top team.
"New mission from our American friends, specifically the FBI have asked for UNCLE's help in confirming the identity of the head of a crime syndicate. This is your target, George Russell." Waverly said. On cue, the woman pushed a slide into the projector revealing a black and white photo of two people. Father and daughter, from the looks of things. Despite the photo only showing heads and shoulders of the people in it, the father still managed to look huge and dominated the frame. The daughter, roughly around Gaby's age if slightly younger, barely took up any space and was surprisingly plain considering how attention-grabbing her father was.
"That's the head of a crime organisation?" Solo asked sceptically, she couldn't help but agree with the American's assessment. While most criminals didn't look like criminals, there was a certain degree of joviality to the man in the photo that seemed to defy the label.
"The FBI believe so. The organisation the target is suspected of running has ties to arms dealing, drugs and sex trafficking. The group has a rather interesting hierarchy system, there are several 'managers' that each control a portion of the business and all report to the target. The target and the managers are all considered equal partners, but the managers do not actually know each other. From what we understand, this is a system put into place by the target to prevent one of the managers being able to report to law enforcement the identity of the others."
"How does the FBI know all this?" Gaby asked.
"Because one of the managers did turn informant." The slide changed to reveal a different man, also heavyset. "This is Hector Smith, as you might be able to guess he ran the enforcement side of the organisation. It turns out, Mr Smith was not content with his portion of the takings and had been embezzling from the accounts. When he realised he was going to be caught, he offered the FBI information in exchange for assistance in escaping to South America."
"So he gave up the head of the group?" Napoleon guessed.
"Yes he did. But unfortunately, due to his admission of criminal activity the FBI cannot rely just on his testimony. They also cannot investigate Mr Russell, themselves because he has some friends in high places in the US government and if they start to make moves it is possible that a mole will leak enough information to render the entire operation pointless. These connections are likely why Mr Russell has evaded detection in the past and is why the FBI have asked for our help. Now, because of Mr Smith's escape there is an empty space within the organisation which needs to be filled quickly."
"And that's where we come in." Napoleon completed. "One question, they must have plenty of people lower down in the crime group, why don't they promote one of them?"
"Luckily for us, that's not how Mr Russell does business. There is limited promotion opportunities within the lower ranks, partly because they recruit common criminals for those positions. Everyone that worked for Mr Smith had a criminal record, but Mr Smith himself did not. By all accounts he was an upstanding citizen, well liked and wealthy, but before he joined the group he was an exceptionally unlucky gambler. From what Mr Smith has told the FBI, it appears that Mr Russell prefers his managers to be desperate for his help but still beyond suspicion."
"So what's the plan?"
"Solo and Teller, you will go undercover as a poor married couple moving to a nearby neighbourhood. Teller, you will befriend Mr Russell's daughter Rose, the FBI does not think she is involved in her father's business but be careful just in case. You will introduce her to your former US army soldier husband. Hopefully, this will lead Mr Russell into taking some interest in you both and offering Solo the position. The mission will be over once Solo has gathered enough concrete information to allow the FBI to convict Mr Russell. Kuryakin, you will be working surveillance and posing as a construction manager at the company Solo will be working at, you will be the main contact point between UNCLE and Solo."
"No disrespect, sir, but Solo does not exactly look like an enforcer." Illya spoke up for the first time, he was usually quiet during mission briefings.
"What's that supposed to mean, Peril?" Napoleon asked, sounding half-offended and half-amused. Had Waverly not been there, Gaby was sure he would have accused Illya of jealousy of the time he would get to spend with her.
"You are very good at a lot of undercover work, Cowboy. But you look like someone who wears a suit for a living, not someone that breaks bones. You look like CIA, if the target has any suspicions that someone informed on him, and he sees you? He will choose someone safer."
"Kuryakin is correct, ideally he would be the one performing Solo's job. But Russell apparently doesn't trust foreigners, so Solo is our only option."
"I can do an American accent." Illya said simply, causing Napoleon to choke violently on his coffee while Gaby and Waverly looked at him in bemused disbelief. "I can!" He insisted.
"I would need more than your word for it, Kuryakin." Waverly said.
"May I have a book?" Waverly handed an instruction manual to him, and Illya started to recite it. Somehow the walking Russian stereotype managed to deliver not just a reasonably competent performance, but a surprisingly convincing one. "It is a little rusty." He admits in his own voice again, missing their collective slack-jawed expressions. "But after a few days practice, it should be perfect." Napoleon was the first to recover.
"While that was very impressive, being able to speak like an American may not be enough. You would need to have some idea of the culture in order to be able to carry a casual conversation with the target."
"I spent a year in Los Angeles, not too long before Rome mission." Napoleon looked at him with a mixture of curiosity and outrage.
"What were you doing in Los Angeles for a year?" He demanded, but the giant only shrugged.
"Classified." Sensing that an argument was going to erupt, Waverly hastily intervened.
"I feel more confident about putting you in the main role, Kuryakin, but I would like you and Solo to work together for a few days before we fly you all out to the US. If Solo has any doubts about your performance, we put him in instead." This seemed to appease them both.
"Do I need to pretend to be American?" Gaby asked, the sudden importance placed on apparent nationality was making her question her own ability to perform in this elaborate plot.
"No, Teller. Russell's distrust of non-Americans does not extend to women, his wife was Italian."
This did not make sense to Gaby, she wondered if Waverly was trying to delicately tell her that their mark was a sexist who didn't think women had enough brains to follow or disrupt his business. Seeing that there was no further questions, Waverly rounded off the briefing.
"I'll have folders with your cover stories and further instructions sent to your homes. Solo and Kuryakin, I'll send each of you one copy of each the surveillance and undercover role folders. Kuryakin, do you have any other hidden talents I should be aware of?" The agent gave him a small smile.
"If it becomes relevant, I will let you know."
Author's Note: First chapter of proper content, yay! And we have the beginnings of the mission.