Chapter Text
The New York sunshine was bright and clear. Napoleon Solo paused outside Del Floria’s to take in the air and to appreciate the passing hourglass figure of an attractive, oblivious blonde.
“She’s not your type.”
Napoleon turned his head to regard the sardonic smile of his partner, Illya Kuryakin. He raised an interrogative eyebrow.
“Her shoes,” Kuryakin explained, “They’re scuffed at the heels. They might be Roger Vivier but she doesn’t take care of them.”
“And you think this would offend my delicate sensibilities?” Napoleon responded, “Enough to prejudice me against a pretty face,” he looked back admiringly at the retreating girl, “and a beautiful derriere?”
Kuryakin shrugged as he turned towards the small tailor shop. “Possibly,” he replied over his shoulder, “if you knew how much shoes like that cost.”
“And you do?” Relinquishing the blonde with a wistful sigh, Napoleon followed Kuryakin down the stone steps, their arrival signalled by the tinkle of the shop door bell.
“Certainly, I do,” Kuryakin nodded to the elderly tailor at the counter as he and Napoleon passed by the counter on their way to the small fitting room, “Replacing them would make a serious dent, even in your salary, Napoleon; frankly, it would obliterate mine. I suggest you concentrate your attentions on ladies who are – how shall I put it? – slightly less high-maintenance.”
“I’ll bear it in mind,” Napoleon nodded thoughtfully, turning the coat peg.
As the two agents waited for Mr Del Floria to release the door mechanism, Napoleon reflected that no one looking at Illya Kuryakin now would realise that he had only been off the inactive list for three days. His movements were quick and fluid with no suggestion of stiffness from the gunshot wound that had immobilised him for a month. The enforced inactivity had soured Kuryakin’s already dour personality; this morning’s exchange of pleasantries was doubly welcome for having been absent for far too long.
Oblivious to his partner’s covert scrutiny, Kuryakin swung the fitting room wall silently inward, admitting the two agents into UNCLE reception.
“Geraldine, my dear, you are as welcome to my sight as this bright and sunny morning!” Napoleon turned warm, brown eyes and an even warmer smile on the front desk receptionist as he leaned into her personal space to receive his security badge.
Geraldine patted Napoleon’s lapel back into place with gentle fingers. She was a remarkably pretty brunette with large, green eyes who dimpled charmingly when she smiled. She was smiling at Napoleon now.
“Mr Waverly wants to see you in his office immediately,” she told him, “Both of you,” she added, nodding towards Kuryakin, who was affixing his own badge, but keeping her worshipful eyes on Napoleon.
Napoleon gave her a lazy salute. “Seven o’clock, don’t forget,” he told her, “and work up an appetite. I promised you a very special meal at a very special restaurant, and I intend to keep that promise.”
Geraldine giggled and simpered up at him from under her lashes. Napoleon gave her a jaunty salute and turned to follow his partner.
“Doesn’t it ever get old?”
Napoleon raised his eyebrows; his partner had the grace to flush slightly.
“I mean, this is scarcely your first date with her, Napoleon,” the younger man continued, moving swiftly down the main corridor, “Surely this particular mystery has now been made manifest at least twice to my knowledge. You can afford to turn down the wattage.”
“Jealous, my friend?” Napoleon held open a door for a smiling redhead, watching her shapely rear retreat down the corridor, UNCLE Special tucked into the small of her back.
Kuryakin snorted softly and punched the elevator button. “Geraldine’s okay, I suppose,” came the grudging response, “but I find it hard to take seriously someone whose hobby is collecting china dolls. Does she keep them in her bedroom?”
“A gentleman never tells, Illya,” Napoleon shrugged but his eyes twinkled.
Kuryakin shivered, “That’s žutkij, my friend,” he replied sombrely, “I would not wish for an audience of a thousand eyes. You have my sympathies.”
“Oh, I don’t know, Illya,” Napoleon reached for the door to Waverly’s office, “Some of my best work has been performed in front of, ah, spectators.”
“One or two THRUSH voyeurs, maybe,” Kuryakin replied following through into the Inner Sanctum, “but an audience the size of Carnegie Hall? It would be enough even for you to lose your, um, nerve.”
Napoleon blinked, surprised enough to be wrong-footed at Kuryakin’s uncharacteristic crudeness. He recovered quickly as they passed the threshold and adopted his usual urbane smile, inwardly wondering who had rattled Illya’s cage this morning. Make that this month.
“Ah, Mr Solo,” the cultured voice made gravel by years of pipe smoking sounded chipper despite the early hour, “and Mr Kuryakin. Good morning, gentlemen, sit down. You have a mission.”
Alexander Waverly gestured into one corner of the room and Napoleon quickly hooked a chair from under the round table, turning to face the screen already being revealed from behind a sliding panel.
A swift montage of photographs scrolled past. Napoleon closed his eyes at the suffering depicted therein, but Kuryakin sat forward in his chair.
“China, Nigeria,” he stated, “Indonesia, India, Pakistan…” He turned to stare at his chief. “These are all recent famine areas.”
“Indeed, Mr Kuryakin,” Waverly inclined his head, “and starvation remains a constant killer; fifteen million people died in China over two years of famine.”
“Sir, is UNCLE intending to tackle world poverty?” Kuryakin asked drily.
“In a way, yes,” Waverly replied, a small smile creasing his face.
He touched a button and a further montage of photographs appeared. These were more specific: a steam train in an Indian station, people on the roof, spilling out of the doors and windows; a street in China covered with steadily moving people, buses, rickshaws and bicycles; a shanty town in Morocco bursting with men, women and children living without sanitation or hope.
Waverly halted the pictures and turned to his agents. “The problem of world overpopulation,” he began, “if not addressed and solved in the very near future, will be the thing that eventually wipes out mankind. The earth’s resources are finite and once used they cannot be renewed. It is our duty as stewards on this planet to ensure that its precious resources are not squandered, and in order to do that we must make some urgent progress.”
Waverly pressed another button on his desk and the screen brightened to show a blurred photograph of a good looking man apparently in his early fifties, with sandy hair and a generous mouth. He was smiling faintly into the camera but it was clear that the image had been taken from some distance away with a telephoto lens.
Napoleon registered Kuryakin’s sudden immobility peripherally before his own eyes narrowed in suspicion. He frowned briefly then his eyes widened.
“Josef Mengele?” Napoleon said, disbelievingly, “’Uncle Mengele’? The Nazi doctor who butchered thousands of his so-called patients in Auschwitz? This is a recent photograph, I assume? The hair is different, of course, but… Sir, does this mean that he has finally surfaced somewhere within our reach?”
“No, Mr Solo, it does not,” the old man continued imperturbably. He gestured with his pipe. “This man is not Josef Mengele, although I admit the likeness is uncanny.”
Napoleon shook his head in confusion. “If not, then who?”
Kuryakin shifted in his seat but said nothing.
“This man goes by the name of Ernst Mengele,” Waverly began, “He claims to be a younger brother of Josef on the wrong side of the blanket. Josef always denied the relationship however, and there has apparently never been any contact between the brothers. So the legend goes.” His tone was dry.
“But you don’t agree, sir?” Napoleon raised his eyebrows.
Waverley fixed Napoleon with a gimlet-eyed stare. “Let’s just say there are grounds for doubt,” he replied.
“So,” Napoleon ventured slowly into the silence, “is UNCLE planning to use Ernst Mengele to lead us to Josef? Because if you don’t mind me saying so, sir, that’s a very big job. All anyone knows about Josef Mengele is that he quietly went to ground before the end of the War. No one knows where. No one’s been able to find any trace of him for years, despite some very determined efforts.” He pressed his lips together in a line. “There are many old scores to be settled with this man. If it were possible to find him, it would have been done by now.”
“Indeed, Mr Solo,” Waverly took up the narrative, “everything you say is true. Joseph Mengele was personally responsible for countless thousands of executions among prisoners at Auschwitz concentration camp during World War 2. Additionally, he was notorious for his extreme brutality in using human subjects for so-called scientific experimentation.”
Waverly glanced down at the table top. “Despite the most determined efforts to trace him by many interested parties, Mengele is still at large,” he continued, “However, I prefer to leave this kind of thing to the professionals, gentlemen. Simon Wiesenthal and his cohorts appear to be making steady progress in this area without our assistance. Now, the man in the photograph is a different matter; he interests us much more than his brother, believe me.”
Napoleon’s expression was one of polite puzzlement. Kuryakin uncrossed his legs and leaned his elbows on the table, eyes cast down. His face was expressionless.
“Ernst Mengele is also a scientist,” Waverly gestured at the screen with the stem of his pipe, “He qualified as a doctor and had a small practice in Berlin until 1937 when he and his wife were interned; his wife was Jewish, you see.”
“Indeed,” Napoleon’s eyebrows rose, “A very different prospect from his half-brother then?” Kuryakin shifted in his seat but did not look up.
“So it would seem,” Waverly replied, chewing on his pipe stem, “Ernst remained elusive for quite some years until recently when we received information that he was in your neck of the woods, Mr Kuryakin, ostensibly working for the KGB.”
Kuryakin did not respond so after a small pause, the older man continued.
“Mengele may have followed in the family footsteps insofar as his medical career is concerned,” Waverly said, chewing thoughtfully on his pipe stem, “but that is where the similarity ceases. Although Mengele’s position as a medical doctor gave him certain privileges, both he and his wife were arrested by the SS and sent to Buchenwald where he experienced life in a concentration camp from the other side. Although this was in 1944, quite late on in the war, Mrs Mengele died before the American army could liberate the camp. Ernst, however, survived. After a brief return to Germany where he worked for the pharmaceuticals company Chemie Grünenthal in Aachen, he made his way east into Russia.
“Once across the Iron Curtain,” Waverly continued, “our information on Ernst Mengele becomes necessarily rather sketchier. He appears to have been working in medical research for the Soviet State for a number of years. However, his breakthrough pharmaceutical work he considers to be his own property based on research done independently of his official position.”
Kuryakin’s eyes snapped up. “I’m fairly certain the Kremlin wouldn’t agree with him,” he added dryly, speaking for the first time.
“Indeed,” Waverly nodded, “They are very unhappy to lose him. So unhappy, in fact, that his impending departure for the West has sparked a serious split in the Russian administration.”
“Oh?” Napoleon tapped his index finger absently against his bottom lip and shot a quick glance at his partner. Kuryakin did not return it.
“We have received a communication from a source very close to the Premier,” Waverly continued gravely, “It seems that Dr Mengele’s research has very interesting ramifications…”
“Sir.”
Kuryakin rose to his feet. Waverly’s eyebrows nearly reached his hairline; he was entirely unaccustomed to being interrupted, particularly in his own office.
“Mr Kuryakin, do you have a problem?” he enquired formally.
“Yes, sir, I do,” Kuryakin straightened and looked his chief in the eye, “I do not feel comfortable with this assignment.”
Waverly stared. “Am I to take it that you feel you have a conflict of interest, Mr Kuryakin?” he demanded coolly.
Kuryakin nodded. “Yes, sir, you may,” he said firmly, “Whatever information you have received regarding Kremlin politics, I can neither confirm nor deny, nor do I expect you to put me in the position of having to do so.” His tone was flat, the words clipped.
Waverly’s frown deepened. He removed his pipe from his mouth and regarded his agent balefully; Kuryakin stared back, undaunted.
“Mr Kuryakin,” Waverly said soberly, “when you were first assigned to UNCLE, it was made very clear both to you and to your KGB superiors that although best efforts would be made to avoid putting you in an invidious position as regards your loyalties, the bottom line would have to be your allegiance to UNCLE. Am I to take it that you no longer feel able to fulfil your commitments?”
Kuryakin shook his head. He opened his mouth, sighed then tried again.
“Sir,” he began carefully, “it is difficult for me to explain the reasons for my misgivings without making them redundant. I must respectfully request that you send someone else on this mission. I can recommend…”
“And your request is denied,” Waverly’s sharp brown eyes flashed with anger. “Your specialist skills are absolutely paramount in this situation, and I cannot sanction any other agent. You have my word that you will not be required to betray any of your loyalties. Now sit down, Mr Kuryakin, and let us finish this briefing!”
Slowly, reluctantly Kuryakin resumed his chair but his expressionless face bothered Napoleon to the extent that he had to focus his attention at the double to avoid being called out by his chief for inattentiveness.
“Now,” continued Waverly, gesturing with his pipe as if nothing had happened, “UNCLE’s interest in Ernst Mengele stems from his ground-breaking research in the area of human birth control.”
There was a short silence, during which Napoleon gave a startled chuckle which he hastily morphed into a cough.
“Ahem! Well,” Napoleon covered his lapse by reaching for his pocket handkerchief, “it’s certainly a very worthwhile pursuit and I’m sure all the members of the Women’s Liberation Movement would be behind UNCLE’s interest one hundred per cent, but sir…”
“You’re missing the point, Napoleon, as usual,” Kuryakin interrupted tetchily, once again rising to his feet, “You hardly ever keep up with the latest scientific journals, nor do you read the reports we regularly receive from our assets all over the world.”
“That’s not true!” Napoleon protested hotly. Kuryakin raised an eyebrow.
Napoleon shrugged, deflating. “Well, I read some of them,” he muttered.
Kuryakin smiled wryly and shook his head.
“Very well, Mr Kuryakin,” Waverly gestured with the stem of his pipe, “Suppose you tell us what you know.”
Kuryakin paused for a moment then inclined his head and obediently rose to his feet, moving swiftly over to the screen.
“Ernst Mengele,” he began, gesturing to the smiling man on the screen, “has a first-class brain; he is a true scientist, unlike his brother who is a bungling amateur. What they both share is a healthy belief in their own superiority. Ernst Mengele has identified a worldwide problem and has dedicated himself to solving it – in his own way.”
Kuryakin paused to gather his thoughts.
“When the first contraceptive pill was released in America just a few years ago,” he continued, “it was hailed as the greatest breakthrough in womens’ autonomy ever created. Within one year, more than a million American women were using the new drug. European women were not far behind and very soon Australia and New Zealand followed suit. However, Third World women, who are looked on as most at risk from a spiralling birth rate, have always proved resistant both to the practice and, more importantly, to the idea of limiting their fertility.”
Napoleon stared at his partner in astonishment. Since when was Illya an expert on women’s health?
“However, Ernst Mengele looked at the twin Third World problems of an unsustainable birth rate and a shocking rate of infant mortality and decided that the problem was one born of ignorance rather than of poverty,” Kuryakin continued, “Many experts who have made any kind of study of the world’s poorest regions are now in agreement; a high birth rate amongst those in extreme poverty is not a cause but a response to that poverty. Families have eight, nine, ten or more children, fully half of whom regularly die in infancy. This is a human tragedy, but it is also a deliberate strategy to ensure the survival of the family. Unfortunately, the major governments of the world still cling to the outmoded theory that birth control will solve the problems of poverty. Ernst Mengele is one of a handful of scientists who is also of that opinion.”
Kuryakin paused for a moment then sighed.
“The contraceptive pill is designed for First World living,” Kuryakin told them, “It has to be prescribed by a licensed doctor and taken every day at the same time without fail. In a society where time is only approximate, privacy non-existent and the nearest medical facility three days’ walk away, this was never going to work. So Ernst Mengele developed a One-Time-Treatment.”
Napoleon’s eyes widened. “You mean just one injection and…?”
But Kuryakin was shaking his head. “No, Napoleon,” he said quietly, “not even an injection. Just one dose taken by mouth, period.”
“But…” Napoleon tried to wrap his head round that, “But – is that all? I mean, how…”
“Mr Kuryakin is correct,” Waverly interrupted, “and I congratulate him on his succinct and accurate presentation of the data. Now, Doktor Mengele has received permission to take a well-earned skiing holiday at a small resort in the Caucasus Mountains. Mr Kuryakin, you will conduct the good doctor from thence to the Black Sea coast where you will be met and conveyed by sea to the Turkish coast and from thence by air to UNCLE Istanbul; they have been fully briefed. Section 8 will issue you with details of your cover: your passport and travel documents have already been prepared. You are a sports teacher and skiing enthusiast from Moscow - neither of these factors should tax your skills too greatly. Your flight leaves at 0600 hours tomorrow morning by which time you will have absorbed the contents both of Mengele’s file and your own cover.” Waverly passed a slim folder across the table. Kuryakin stared at it but made no move to pick it up.
“Oh, and Mr Kuryakin,” Waverly regarded his agent speculatively. “You can work around your misgivings over this mission while you pack. I expect nothing but your fullest attention, is that clear?”
“Yes, sir.” Kuryakin swept up the folder from the desk and marched stiff-backed from the room.
“Mr Solo,” Waverly turned to his CEO, effectively dismissing Kuryakin, “You will liaise with UNCLE Istanbul and co-ordinate the mission from New York.”
“Sir, wouldn’t it be more effective if I were there on the ground?” Napoleon suggested mildly, watching the door close behind his partner.
Waverly removed his pipe from his mouth. “What is wrong with you young men this morning?” he demanded in exasperation, “I am unused to having my orders questioned. Mr Solo, you will coordinate this extraction with your opposite number in Turkey from your position in the New York office, and there will be an end to it!”
Napoleon found himself in the corridor outside his chief’s office almost without his own volition. He shook his head and turned on his heel, trying to rid himself of the distinct feeling that he had missed something. The feeling intensified half an hour later when, after tracking his partner through the commissary, the labs and the gym, he finally chased him down in their shared office.
To anyone unfamiliar with his ways, Kuryakin appeared to be working. He had spread a sheaf of papers over his desk in small piles, each of which he consulted periodically as he ploughed his way through a lengthy report held in his hands.
Napoleon was unmoved. He crossed the office floor and kicked his partner’s feet out from under him. Kuryakin, barely managing to prevent himself faceplanting into the desk, glared back at Napoleon.
“You were wanting something?” he growled, “Let me guess: coffee? Funds for your date tonight? Re-writing your last three mission reports?”
“A drink,” Napoleon told him firmly, “With you. Now. Somewhere that isn’t UNCLE HQ. Ready to go?”
Kuryakin frowned. “And if I don’t want a drink?” he responded sitting back in his chair, “I have the rest of this report to plough through, plus the cross-referencing with these five other papers…”
“That’s bull and you know it!” Napoleon dared to reach out and grab his partner’s arm. He forced his features into their customary good-humoured facade. “Time to call it quits for the evening, partner. I know a place where the Martinis are strong and cold, but the music is scorching.”
Kuryakin frowned up at him mutinously but Napoleon's smile did not waver.
“I could make that an order,” he added quietly.
Kuryakin’s full lips set in a thin line. Mutinously, he shoved the file he had been working on into a desk drawer, locked it and reached for his jacket.
The place turned out to be a tiny dive in the middle of the Italian quarter that had no name over the door and just a couple of peeling posters on the outer wall advertising household appliances and an expired off-Broadway show respectively. Accustomed to his partner’s idiosyncrasies, Kuryakin didn’t even blink but followed Napoleon downstairs, through a dark tunnel and out into a dimly lit room hazy with cigarette smoke and a hint of something less legal.
The place was clearly popular. More than half the tables were already occupied although the night was still very young, and the barkeep was doing brisk business. The room was not overly large with tables and chairs wedged into nooks and crannies around a small stage bare of everything except a battered baby grand piano, currently unoccupied.
Napoleon stood in the doorway and surveyed the scene for a moment before taking off towards an empty table in a shadowed corner. Following in his wake, Kuryakin glanced round casually and nodded, noting the service stairs, the fire escape and the incurious glances of the other patrons.
Almost as soon as they sat down, Napoleon flagged a passing waitress and ordered drinks for both of them without consultation. Kuryakin let him get on with it, keeping a weather eye on the bar for anything untoward.
“It’s okay, you can relax,” Napoleon said without looking up, “This is an occasional haunt of mine, it’s been checked out any number of times. It’s clean; it’s always clean.”
“Who did the checking?” Kuryakin retorted snidely, “You?”
“You wound me,” Napoleon reproached, clutching his chest briefly in the vicinity of his heart, “I’ll have you know I can be very thorough.”
“When you bother at all,” Kuryakin replied but the comment held no bite. He looked around him with interest. “How did you find it?”
“Luck and the right contacts,” Napoleon smiled winningly at the waitress as she delivered their drinks but she was clearly too busy to enjoy it. He made a moue of disappointment and raised the frosted glass. “Here’s to health,” he said whimsically, “wealth, truth and beauty.”
“The latter two concepts are synonymous,” Kuryakin remarked, “if we are to believe the poet John Keats.” But he drank his Martini with every indication of satisfaction.
Napoleon took his time, telling anecdotes, making amusing observations about the other patrons, the wait staff, the barkeep, all the time keeping a speculative eye on his partner. Kuryakin for his part waited him out, enjoying his drink and the surroundings.
Presently, a curvaceous woman with skin like satin and burnished auburn hair arranged in an artfully dishevelled chignon quietly ascended the stage and started to play the piano. The worn exterior of the old instrument belied its sweet, mellow tone and recent tuning. Kuryakin sat back in his chair and closed his eyes; presently the woman began to sing in a warm, throaty alto.
“Sooh,” Napoleon drawled the word, stroking over the vowel. Kuryakin opened one eye.
“Hmm?” he replied.
“What gives, Illya?” Napoleon finally came to the point.
Kuryakin sighed. He drew his legs under him and sat up in his chair, picking up his empty glass and signalling to the waitress.
“That depends,” he replied, twirling the stem between two fingers and thumb.
“On what?”
“On who is asking.”
Napoleon frowned. “What’s that supposed to mean?” he said sharply.
Kuryakin shrugged. “I mean,” he replied evenly, “are you asking as my friend, my partner or my superior?”
Napoleon blinked. “Does it matter?”
“I’m afraid it does,” Kuryakin stared into the bottom of his glass.
The waitress slid two fresh drinks onto the table; the singer crooned a slow blues version of ‘Do Nothing Till You Hear From Me.’
Napoleon sighed. “Alright,” he said, “I’ll lay it on the line. I think you’ve received some intel from your contacts in the KGB. I think you received it a little while ago and you’ve been mulling it around in that supercharged brain of yours until two and two makes infinity squared.”
Kuryakin didn’t even flinch. “Go on,” he said quietly.
Napoleon nodded. “I think that intel has something to do with this Ernst Mengele; maybe his past, maybe his current work in the Soviet Union, may be a bit of both but whatever it is, it’s got you tied up in knots, Illya.” His tone was gentle,
Kuryakin’s fingertip traced a thin line in the condensation on the outside of his glass.
“And if your surmise were true?” For the first time Kuryakin looked up and locked eyes with his partner. “If this were the case and if I were to tell you of this hypothetical information, Napoleon, what would you do with such knowledge?”
Napoleon held Kuryakin’s gaze for a few moments, then he sighed and looked away.
“I would have to report it to Mr Waverly,” he said gently, reluctantly, “You know that, Illya.”
“Yes, I do,” Kuryakin’s voice was resigned but not disappointed. He drained his glass in one swallow, replaced it on the table and stood, reaching for his wallet. Napoleon half rose from his chair in protest but Kuryakin ignored him and threw some bills onto the table.
“Thank you for the drink, and for the company, Napoleon,” he said, shunting his chair back under the table, “You will excuse me as I have an early flight and have yet to pack.”
Napoleon stood helplessly as his partner strode away from him towards the exit. Slickly done there, Napoleon, his inner voice sneered, if he comes back from this in one piece, he’ll be putting in for a new partner. Or returning to Russia. Napoleon considered his half-finished drink, sighed and sank down into his chair once again.
Turning back towards the stage he caught the eye of the jazz singer who smiled broadly, played a particularly showy improvisatory passage and finished it with a flourish and a wink. Napoleon felt his lips curve in a smile; perhaps the evening would not be a total bust after all.