Chapter Text
January, 1974
New York City
Napoleon Solo said to the lawyer, “Thank you, Abby. Is there anything else?”
“That’s all, Napoleon.” She rose and shook his hand. “I’m sorry it’s taken so long, but you understand we had to abide by the conditions of your grandmother’s will.”
“Yes. Of course.” Napoleon felt numb. Grandma Devlin had been the one remaining relative on whom he could count. Losing her nine months ago had been unbearable. Or would have been had the truly unbearable not already happened four months before that. And yet, he’d borne it. All of it.
That was all that was left to him, now. Except for his job.
He tucked his copy of the estate settlement papers into his briefcase, shook Abigail Cassidy’s hand again, and left through the side door of the office to hurry down to the garage below. He was going to have to hustle to make it to his next meeting on time.
His car refused to start. He banged his hand against the steering wheel, turned the key in the ignition again, and succeeded in getting the damn thing to start this time. He accelerated out of the garage and onto Fifty-Seventh Street. Ignoring all available traffic rules—if he was going to break the law he might as well break all of them—he roared along the street, took a racing turn, and zipped down to Forty-Second in what would have been record time had anyone been keeping records.
I have to be on time for this meeting.
He zipped up to Del Floria’s shop, jammed on the brakes, and hopped out of the car. He tossed the keys to Floria’s assistant and said, “Park that, can you? I’ll be back down when I can.”
The boy nodded. Napoleon went through to the hidden entrance to UNCLE Headquarters, got his badge from Susie, and jogged on into the depths of the building. He did make it up to the Boss’s office in time—with about three minutes to spare.
Shameful. I should be able to do better. Maybe I should get back in training a bit.
The Old Man’s secretary, Heather MacAvoy, said, “Just a few minutes, Napoleon, if you don’t mind waiting.”
He didn’t mind. He didn’t care. He waited a bit, gazing out the windows onto Forty-Second Street in the late-afternoon gloom and snow. So little left to matter to him. No grandmother. No Kathleen. And truth be told, he didn’t even care that much about the job. It was just that he wouldn’t know what else to do with himself.
The inner door opened. Napoleon’s partner and trainer, Ron Thorn, came through and brightened upon seeing him. “There you are, dear boy! Just in time. May I ask how it went with your solicitor?”
“Fine,” Napoleon said. “Just fine.”
“That well?” Thorn said dryly. “Dear boy, if you want to be angry—”
“I’m not angry. I’m in mourning.”
Thorn looked uncomfortable, but only sighed. “Come along, Napoleon. We can argue about your anger later. We have an appointment with Mr. Waverly.”
Napoleon was well aware of the appointment and of his anger. He said nothing.
The Old Man’s office door opened again. A small, slight man, well-dressed and dapper, emerged. The door closed; the mystery man said to Heather, “I am pleased to ‘ave met you, Mam’selle MacAvoy. I ‘ope we may meet again.”
“Thank you, sir, and I also.”
The unidentified visitor nodded courteously; Napoleon involuntarily nodded back. Then the Frenchman disappeared down the corridor, whistling tunelessly. Napoleon looked at Thorn. Thorn was pretending to see nothing. Not pretending very well…
“Ron, who was that?”
“I’m not to tell you.”
Fine. Whatever you like, Ron. Just fine. But Napoleon’s curiosity was piqued. He marked this seen-not-seen man as something to ask Heather about later.
Heather’s buzzer went off. She picked up her phone, said, “Yes, sir,” and told Napoleon and Thorn, “You can go in now.” Napoleon left his briefcase with her—if it wasn’t safe with the Old Man’s secretary, it wouldn’t be safe anywhere.
In the big office with its revolving table and huge freestanding globe, Mr. Waverly invited them to sit down. Elizabeth Davidich, Chief of Enforcement, was also present—Thorn and Napoleon’s immediate boss. There was an uncomfortable silence.
Napoleon’s interest was piqued again, his long-suppressed interest coming to the fore. He squashed it. He didn’t care what was going on. He really didn’t…
He did.
He squashed it again just as Mr. Waverly cleared his throat.
“Well, Mr. Thorn? We agreed you had the right to inform Mr. Solo of your decision.”
“Yes, sir.” Thorn was from England, and had an accent that Napoleon—when he was bothering to care about anything—found delightful. “Dear boy—I’ve some bad news to give you, I’m afraid. You see I’ve had this offer from the office back home—London Headquarters. They need a new Chief of Enforcement. They’ve offered it to me. And I’m rather afraid I’ve accepted.”
Napoleon sat silent for a full minute.
“Dear boy—”
“Yes,” Napoleon said numbly. “You’re going home. I understand.”
“I’m not sure you do. I should explain the situation. There’s been an emergency. You won’t have read your dispatches yet?”
“No,” Napoleon said. “I came right here from Floria’s. You asked me to. And you know I was with the lawyer this afternoon. What dispatches?”
Davidich intervened. “Ron’s talking about the news we got from London HQ yesterday. They had a large operation go very, very wrong. Seven dead on our side, including the Chief, so they need both replacements and leadership.”
“Yes.”
Thorn looked uncomfortable. Well, Napoleon didn’t care. Thorn was his partner. His training officer. His friend. Or so he’d thought. You didn’t do this to your partner: depart on less than an hour’s notice. But Napoleon didn’t care.
But he did, damn it. “Ron, if you have to go, you have to go.”
“You’re angry. I understand. And I am extremely sorry to place this on you, after all you’ve been through—”
“Don’t.”
“Napoleon,” said Lizzy Davidich, “we’re aware of the difficulties involved in this. And don’t be angry at Ron.”
“Why the hell not?”
Waverly intervened. “Mr. Solo, we are aware. This is very short notice, and you have suffered losses enough in the last year.”
Grandma in April last year. Kathleen four months beforehand, on Christmas Eve, 1972. Napoleon didn’t care for the reminders. But you didn’t say “Shut up” to the Boss.
The best he could manage was, “Yes, sir.”
“Mr. Solo, we believe we can offer some options to you, to offset Mr. Thorn’s abrupt departure. Are you prepared to listen?”
“Yes, sir,” Napoleon said woodenly.
“Number one: you could accompany Mr. Thorn to London. He’s assured us he would be more than happy to have you. Although, being still in training, you could not be named his Number Two, this would be excellent experience for you. What do you think?”
Napoleon at this point did have to make some answer, and one that was phrased professionally. London? He’d wanted to get away for a while… but that was too far. He couldn’t leave Kathleen’s grave behind. He’d moved from Long Island, where they’d been happy, into his grandmother’s apartment on Central Park West; but that was far enough. He found himself saying, “I think not, sir, if you’re offering me the option to stay here.”
“Very well. Option two: as you know, an Enforcement agent normally spends two years in junior status. You, my dear Mr. Solo, have had a splendid record throughout your first eighteen months and we think it is only fair to give you your full credentials now. That of course comes with a certain salary increase…”
“Yes, sir.” Napoleon didn’t care. Well, sort of. He wasn’t going to need money ever again—not money he had to earn. Grandma Devlin had left her entire estate to him. “There was more?”
“There are other factors involved. There are no agents currently in need of partners. However, if you are willing to take on someone who is just graduating from Training School—early, due to on-the-job experience elsewhere—we can offer you the option of becoming his trainer as well as his senior partner. Needless to say, this involves another pay raise for you.”
“I don’t care about the raise.” He swallowed and attempted to amend his rudeness. “Sir.”
“What do you think, Mr. Solo?”
He cudgeled his tired brain into thinking. “I think that what I have to say, sir, is ‘what’s the catch?’”
“Ah. Miss Davidich?”
Davidich slid a green-jacketed Personnel file across the table. “Napoleon, that’s your prospective partner’s file. Read the first page or so.”
Napoleon flipped open the file and scanned the first few lines. It was the standard Personnel file that all agency employees had, whether they were Enforcement, Scientific Investigations, or Janitorial. He prepared himself for something dull.
Name: Illya Nickovitch Kuryakin
Birthdate: September 22, 1950
Birthplace: Kiev, Ukrainian SSR, USSR
Father: Nicko Armanovitch Kuryakin. Occupation: bus driver. Deceased.
Mother: Maria Maximova Kuryakina, n ée Danylenko. Occupation: clothing factory forewoman.
Education:
Heroes-of-the-Revolution Elementary School, Kiev
Dumanov Middle School, Kiev
Kiev Military Academy, Kiev
Columbia University, BS awarded by examination
Columbia University, PhD in mathematics
Columbia University, PhD in physics
Napoleon’s eyebrows went up. This Kuryakin—not even Napoleon’s own age yet—had just waltzed onto the Columbia campus and people had awarded him an undergraduate degree without any classwork? And at age 23 he had completed two doctorates? Christ on a crutch…
There was more.
Prior employment: KGB, three years
Citizenship status: permanent resident (defected from USSR November, 1969)
Oh.
Oh, and oh, and oh.
Napoleon closed the file and turned politely to Davidich. “Yes, ma’am?”
“You don’t find any catch?” she said.
“No. Why, is there one?”
She cast a sidelong glance at Waverly, then turned back to Napoleon. “You didn’t notice that he’s Russian?”
“I noticed that he’s Ukrainian, Lizzy, if that’s what you mean, that being the location of Kiev. I concede that Ukraine is at present part of the Soviet Union.”
“And you don’t have any problems with that?”
“Should I?” Damn it, he was interested in this Kuryakin despite himself. “I mean to say, no, I don’t.”
“Why not, Mr. Solo?” said Mr. Waverly. “We’re an international agency, but some of our American employees still harbor prejudice against the Soviets. I must try again to stamp that out,” he said thoughtfully to himself. “At any rate, yes, we’ve had KGB agents on loan before, but none recently. How did you come to your position on the Soviet Union?”
“Sir, my father was the Ambassador to the Kremlin when I was young. Only for six months, but still. My… my sister and I…”—the matter of Sarah was a sensitive one—“we never joined him, but we learned Russian from him when he came home, and practiced it with our neighbor, who had come over when she was young herself. Dr. Vera, as we call her.”
“Yes, your facility with the language was part of our decision.”
“Russia’s never seemed like a foreign place to me, sir, is what I meant to say. So if there aren’t any other issues…”
“His previous employers, that doesn’t bother you, Mr. Solo?”
“Why would it? I’m more interested in why he left them.”
Davidich’s smile broke out in full. Mr. Waverly said, “Well, Mr. Solo? What would you like to do?”
“I would like to sit down and read the rest of it. Where is he in the pipeline?”
“I knew we could count on you, Mr. Solo. Today is Friday. Take the rest of it off, read up on your new partner, and meet him on Monday, when he starts work. You’ll have the weekend to prepare.”
Napoleon felt he could afford a small amount of sass now. “I was a Boy Scout, sir. I’m always prepared.”
“Very good.” Mr. Waverly stood up; so did Napoleon and Davidich and Thorn. “Then I think we can count this as settled.”
A clear dismissal. In the outer office, with Heather MacAvoy blandly pretending not to listen, Napoleon said, “Ron, I’m sorry, but…”
“But you don’t want to leave home. I understand. I’ll be glad to be going to my home—but I shall miss you.” Thorn sighed. “You’ll know how to reach me. Now I’m afraid I must be going. We’ll speak again before I go, but I must go home and help Simon pack house. Dear boy, I knew I could count on you.”
Thorn left with a smile. Davidich said, “Anything you need, Napoleon?”
“I think I’m fine, Lizzy. I’ll let you know.”
“The lawyer today…?”
“I haven’t really looked at the papers. But my grandmother left the apartment to me.”
“So you won’t have to move. That’s good to hear.” Davidich clapped him on the shoulder and took her leave.
Napoleon was alone with Heather and his new partner’s Personnel file. He started out the door, then swung back in. “Heather…”
“Yes?”
“Who was that, the French man, before?”
“If I told you, they’d have to kill me.”
“Aw, c’mon. Give a guy a break.”
She grinned. “You didn’t hear this from me.”
“I didn’t hear a thing. Who the hell is he?”
“That,” she said, “that, my friend, is Pierre de Chatenay. The High Commissioner.”
Napoleon was less startled than he might have been. Understandable that the agency’s ultimate boss should have been in on the conversation about the response to the London debacle. He said, “Thank you. I should go.”
“Wait! Your briefcase.”
He took it from her, enjoying the brief contact with her hand. That did startle him, and he took his leave distractedly, coming to himself only in the corridor.
He collected the dispatches from the office he’d shared with Thorn and retrieved his car keys in Floria’s shop. He had a phone call to make.
Only when he got home to Grandma Devlin’s apartment—his, now—did he look at the legal papers and realize just how startlingly wealthy he had just become.