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I returned home and made plans to go to Switzerland. There were two ways to do this. The first one would be to go to Waverly and tell him about my daughter. He would probably let me go get her and even take Napoleon with me. However, he would also demand I put her in a foster home of some kind or put her up for adoption.
Enforcement Agents are strongly discouraged from having families because of the stress inflicted on their wives and children by the constant unscheduled absences and risk of death or serious injury. An agent distracted by domestic strife is an agent who makes fatal mistakes. A transfer to an office job is the normal solution, but my contract requires returning me to Russia if I am no longer in Section II.
I was only allowed to join UNCLE as an Enforcement Agent while married in the first place because my government wouldn’t let any of their people work for UNCLE without family back home to hold hostage for their good behavior. The only unmarried candidate they offered was a widower who had two small daughters who would be placed a state boarding school while he was gone.
Nadiya had been married to spy for five years before my transfer to UNCLE and was already accustomed not having any word from me for up to a year at a time. Also the possibility of her being kidnapped and used against me was very slight since she lived and worked in a high security installation under constant KGB surveillance. Most other UNCLE employees from the Section One Area Chiefs down to the janitors had families who were much more vulnerable.
It is still possible that Waverly lied about Nadiya’s death to keep me from joining her in Israel. Or just because if Nadiya was “dead” then he had an unmarried agent less subject to outside control like he wanted.
No, I couldn’t involve Waverly and I wasn’t going give away my child. Nadya and I both grew up without any family and it wasn’t going to have my daughter do the same while I was alive. The only way to keep her safe was for me to make Illya Kuryakin disappear.
I packed the items I would need, and prepared a series of disguises to get me to Switzerland without being followed. Last of all, I wrote letters: breaking my lease, resigning from UNCLE, and saying a last goodbye to Napoleon.
I went out the front door, took a cab to the airport, bought a ticket to Switzerland under my own name, checked my larger suitcase through, then went to the men’s room. A few minutes later, a man with very short brown hair, glasses, dressed a maroon jacket, white shirt, and maroon tie, exited where a blond man in a black suit and black turtleneck had entered.
Making sure I wasn’t being followed, I got a cab to a hotel, and then out the service entrance and into another cab to the bus station. At the bus station, I went to a particular locker, exchanged my carry-on suitcase for a different one, and retired to another restroom. The man who left the restroom for the ticket office had black hair my usual length, dark olive skin, dark eyes, and a mustache. He was wearing a brown suit and fedora. He took a bus to Newark airport and bought a ticket to Lyon, France under the name of Pedro Condori.
In Lyon, Pedro Condori took a room at a small, undistinguished hotel and became blond, blue-eyed, clean shaven, glasses-wearing Niklas Eriksson, backpacking around Europe. Niklas took the train to Yverdon-les-Bains and found a small auberge near the Coq d’Or on Monday evening.
I had arrived in plenty of time to explore the area around the Coq d’Or and study the customers before I had to revert to Illya Kuryakin and meet my contact the following evening.