Sacrifices for the Greater Good

Mission III

The first two weeks of the mission were mind-numbingly dull. The novelty of being a housewife wore off very quickly after only a few days, and Gaby could tell that Illya felt similarly about his own job. He worked long and strenuous hours, returning each day exhausted and famished. He ate everything she made without complaint, something she gave him a decent amount of credit for since she thought it was all barely edible. Her days were different but not much better than his, she had little to do other than cook or clean, and the monotony of it all was driving her slowly insane. She couldn't even leave the house to find something to entertain herself since the budget for the mission was really only for food expenses, and she hadn't realised how used she had become to going out for drinks or entertainment. The only time in her days that she really enjoyed were mornings, Illya still woke up much earlier than was necessary and she began to make a conscious effort to try to get up at the same time. He was refreshed in the morning, and capable of holding a decent conversation with her, as well as having the energy for other activities she wanted to enjoy with him while they had the opportunity.

"Some progress finally." Illya had solemnly announced, one day after returning from work. "Waverly has given you permission to make an approach. One of his mechanics will be sabotaging Rose Russell's car tomorrow, she makes the same journey every Tuesday along some winding roads and they expect that her car will break down once she is in an isolated area. You are to drive past the area, find her and offer your help." She almost cheered at the idea that she would finally have something useful to do.

"Is this the route she's taking?" Gaby asked when he handed her a small map on which red marker pen had been used to trace a path. He nodded. "It's quite out of the way, where does it lead to?"

"It eventually reconnects to some main roads which lead to the town. The road is mostly disused now, but it's where her mother met her death in a car accident. That's probably why she drives down it."

"We're still new here, it would make sense if I got lost while driving around." She suggested as an excuse for why she too would end up down those roads.

"Good idea." He approved, he looked so confident in her abilities that she suddenly began to doubt whether she would be able to uphold her part of the plan. Gaby had done honeypots before, those were easy enough. Flash a little cleavage or leg, giggle at the right times. It helped also that all the men she was told to bait were usual serial adulterers or notorious playboys, hardly difficult to attract. This was a different kettle of fish altogether.

"I don't know if I can do this." She admitted. "What if she doesn't like me?"

"Why wouldn't she?" He asked. "You should be fine, just be nice to her. Try to find things you have in common, or shared interests. She has a nice car, you could start with that." His calmly delivered advice did wonders to soothe her sudden burst of self-doubt.

"Have you ever had to befriend someone for a mission?" She questioned.

"Once." His response was oddly sombre. "It is different from honeypot, with a honeypot it is easier to keep your feelings separate and focussed on the mission. When you have to get close to someone, you have to give away more of yourself. It is difficult."

"What was your mission?" She had to admit to being very curious, he rarely talked about non-UNCLE related missions.

"There was a man, part of a group that was planning an assault on a gulag to help some political prisoners escape." Illya told her pensively "I had to infiltrate the group, I pretended to sympathise with their cause which was not difficult since my own father is in a similar place."

"Your father's still alive?" Gaby was astonished. She knew that his father had been sent to a gulag, but she had thought he was long dead. He nodded absently, showing surprisingly little emotion about the fate of the man who had given him life.

"I think they are keeping him alive, so they can throw what I have become into his face. I imagine they did something similar when my mother was still living."

"I'm sorry." She didn't know what else to say, he had said it all without any emotional attachment to it, as though he was talking about someone else's family and their problems.

"Anyway," he returned the subject to his mission, clearly uncomfortable with discussing his father any further, "I infiltrated the group quite easily. I befriended the leader to discover the details of their plans, and delivered the information to the KGB."

"Oh, it ended that easily?" It sounded very clean and neat, her own past missions had never been that clear cut.

"Not quite." He said with a wince. When she continued looking at him expectantly, he eventually stopped delaying. "He was nice, but young and stupid. He liked chess. We could have been actual friends, if circumstances were different. But he figured out that I was the traitor, and he pulled a gun." Illya hesitated a little. "I killed him."

"He was going to shoot you, you didn't have a choice." His guilt was clearly written on his face and she did her best to comfort him.

"I know. I just wish I hadn't needed to."

The next morning, Gaby drove slowly along the route that had been marked on the map. Illya had briefed her more thoroughly after their conversation, but she still felt a niggling sense of worry that something would go wrong. Waverly had been reasonably confident that the woman wasn't involved in her father's business, but Illya was more sceptical. She half-thought his distrust may still be a lingering doubt left over from her betrayal of them in Rome.

When she saw the expensive red car by the side of the road she was driving on, she felt equal amounts of relief and pressure at the same time. The plan could go ahead, but now everything relied on her. She knew Waverly had probably told Napoleon to prepare for a honeypot with the secondary target should she fail, but she was damned if she was going to let herself be the reason for a Plan B to take over. The woman, Rose Russell, was standing by the car, looking under the hood as though an answer would suddenly appear out of the smoke.

"Car trouble?" Gaby called out as she pulled her own car over to the side. Rose looked up in relief, she had been so distracted that she hadn't even notice Gaby's approach.

"Yes, I don't know what's wrong with it." Her face scrunched up in confusion. "It was fine yesterday."

"Sometimes faults can build up over time, I am-" Gaby paused to correct herself wrily, "I used to be a car mechanic. I could look at it if you would like?" The woman's face brightened considerably at the offer of help.

"Yes please, that is very kind of you." She moved away to allow Gaby access to the car's guts. After about ten minutes of examination, she identified the problem and barely stopped herself from letting out a low whistle of admiration. Whoever had sabotaged the car had done a brilliant job, better than perhaps even she could have done. It was a subtle thing, and something that could easily have occurred with this make and model of car.

"Unfortunately the damage isn't simple enough for me to fix it here," she told Rose as she shut the hood, "your garage will need to order in a new part. If you would like I can drive you home, or to wherever it was you were going?"

"That's very generous, but are you not going somewhere?" Rose said, eyes drifting from her expensive and luxurious vehicle to the old and scratched but functional car behind it.

"No, I was just driving for the sake of driving. I've been stuck in the house all day for the past week, I wanted to escape for a couple of hours." Gaby managed to end the lie with a friendly smile, which the girl returned without hesitation, her own beam by far outshining Gaby's more subdued expression.

"My name is Rose." She introduced herself brightly as she climbed into the car.

"Gabriella." She responded. "Gaby for short. Where would you like to go?"

"Could you take me home please?" Rose listed off a few locations which Gaby was vaguely familiar with. She turned the car around to face the direction they had both come from.

"I've only just moved here, you will have to direct me."

"That's fine. Where did you move from?" Rose asked.

"West Germany." Gaby said, thinking back to the file she had studied on the plane. "My husband is American, he was stationed there." When delivering a cover story, there was always the impulse to start giving away too much information too quickly, and it was this impulse that Gaby clamped down on.

"Is your husband the reason you're no longer a mechanic?" There was pity in Rose's eyes that Gaby tried not to react to.

"Yes, he is very traditional." She almost left it there until she remembered Illya's advice that she should stick to the truth and be open where possible. "He's lucky I love him so much, I wouldn't have quit my job for anyone else." In her little fantasies of a happily ever after for them, she would like to think that she would give up a career for him, but she would also like to think that he wouldn't ever ask her to. "Are you married?"

"No. Never met the right guy." Rose didn't elaborate further, and Gaby thought that there might be a little more to her story but knew that they were nowhere near the right stage in their friendship to pry further. Silence reigned for quite a long time, and as time passed the MI6 agent started to panic. By the end of this drive, she needed to secure at the very least a phone number, and preferably an invitation to meet again. Since it seemed unlikely Rose was going to start another conversation, she decided to change tactic slightly.

"I have to say, I'm quite glad I met you." Gaby admitted. "It's been such a long time since I've had a conversation with someone who isn't a big burly construction worker." Rose took the bait.

"You don't have any friends?" She asked, eyes wide with surprise.

"I left them all behind in West Germany. I haven't really met anyone apart from my husband's colleagues since we moved here." It was a bit of a white lie, she did have friends before she had left East Berlin, but they were all men she had worked with. She hadn't really ever had female friends, and even when she had the opportunity to branch out a little in London, she had still preferred to spend her free time with Illya and/or Napoleon.

"I don't have any friends either. I don't have the excuse of having moved though." She said it so quietly that Gaby barely heard her, and she felt a sudden twinge of guilt that she would be abusing this girl's loneliness in order to try to imprison her father. She pushed aside the unpleasant feeling and made an effort to start a conversation on the dress Rose was wearing, it was a pretty thing of purple fabric. It looked expensive, and the slightly longing lilt to Gaby's voice as she praised it was not even faked. Illya had predicted that Rose would have a fondness for cars, but it was fashion the girl seemed to love. The car was just something she wore the dresses and outfits in while travelling around. Before too long, they arrived at the large manor house the Russells owned, Rose still speaking rapturously about Channel's new line between directions.

"Is this your house?" Gaby said in manufactured awe.

"It is." Rose said, looking slightly put out that she had run out of time to talk. "Thank you for driving me. I'm really glad we met, Gaby."

"Me too." She replied with a smile. Rose gathered her coat and bag, and paused for a moment before exiting the car.

"Gaby…"

"Yes?" She could feel the anticipation build as she wondered whether the next words from the other woman's mouth would cement her success in this first phase of the mission.

"I was wondering if you would like to meet again. I could show you around the shops, and the nice cafés. You said you haven't been here long, I could be your guide if you wanted."

"That sounds wonderful." Gaby said, a genuine smile lighting up her face, Rose grinned back equally pleased.

"Why don't you give me your phone number, and I can call you tomorrow in the evening?"

They exchanged details, and after a brief goodbye Gaby set off again. She was a little disappointed that she had not had the chance to see the primary target of the mission, but hopefully that would come up soon. She had at least planted the seed that her husband was military, if she and Rose became better friends there was a chance that she might mention the couple to her father. When she arrived back at the house, Illya was waiting for her with an expectant look in his eyes.

"Hi honey." She said and began to strip that day's outfit.

"Did you have a nice day?" He asked as he methodically began to check the blouse and skirt for any bugs. He had warned her that morning not to say anything out of character when she returned to the house in case Rose had bugged her.

"Yes, much better than I was expecting. I think I've made a new friend." He caught her eye as he rose again from his inspection and began to carefully examine her, gently frisking her in her remaining clothes for any device attached to her person. She was once again glad that Illya had switched places with Napoleon, this whole scenario might have felt considerably more uncomfortable otherwise.

"Oh, how did that happen?"

"Her car broke down, I gave her a ride home. She seemed nice." She closed her eyes and sighed as he carefully ran his fingers through her hair. "She's going to call tomorrow evening, to arrange another get-together."

"All clear." He said finally, removing his hands off her to her disappointment. "What did you think of her, honestly?"

"She seemed nice." Gaby repeated. "A little too innocent perhaps, sheltered definitely. And lonely, she's desperate for a friend." She felt another twinge of guilt.

"Good, that will make this all easier. Did she mention anything about her father?" Now that they had established that she wasn't bugged he felt comfortable speaking openly about the mission. She shook her head, not bothering to hide her disappointment.

"No, but I didn't ask. I thought it better to use the time to establish a friendship." She explained.

"That is fine, the important part is done. You did really well, all that worrying over nothing." He held out her clothes to her, she took each item and dressed again.

"And now we wait."

Author's Note: Mission is now underway.