Collection 4 - Kolya's Son

  Prologue

  Tuesday, June 20, 1961

  Alexander Waverly, the man responsible for all United Network Command for Law and Enforcement operations in North America, and one of five men responsible for the conduct of U.N.C.L.E. operations worldwide, had a problem.

  His problem was sitting on the couch at the opposite end of his office, trying to disappear into the woodwork. And probably trying to get as far away from me as possible, Waverly mused. At least he was quiet. The day had been a roller coaster of emotions, wringing long buried fears and hopes from a young man who had forgotten what fear and hope was. Or what one did with them. That in itself was disturbing, raising more problems the U.N.C.L.E. chief could no longer ignore.

  The smell of cigarette smoke drifted across the room and, in response, Waverly reached for his pipe. The tobacco pouch in his top drawer was almost empty, he noted, as he filled the bowl and pressed it down with the tamper. The boy was a bad influence.

  The phone rang, but it wasn't the call he was waiting for and he dealt with it quickly, raising his voice to hurry on the police detective who had bothered him. "Deal with it yourself, Richards. I have vital world crises to attend to and have no time for your insignificant personal problems." He slammed the receiver down, then spoke to his secretary on the intercom, requesting she monitor his incoming calls.

  He looked up to see Illya, standing, staring at him across the darkening office. What now? Waverly thought, trying to read something on the blank face. He mentally replayed his telephone conversation, deduced the young man's uncertainty, and sighed. Realistically, taking into consideration the pressures of the past twenty-four hours, it was a wonder Illya was functioning at all. "Are you hungry?" Waverly asked, aloud.

  The pale face remained frozen for a moment longer before he shook his head, no, and sat down again, hugging his crumpled jacket against his chest in some sort of security.

  What am I going to do with you? Waverly wondered. Now that I've brought you here, what am I going to do with you?

  The paperwork for the boy -- the young man -- to remain in the States had arrived an hour before. They had signed the papers, he and the boy, and the government courier had left. At least he had accomplished that. The day was not a total waste. But it had not gone as planned, not one step.

  Like a gardener who plants a seed and gambles on a future harvest, he had kept an eye on this one over the years. They had first met by accident just days before the death of the child's father, when the boy was a mere nine-year-old. As a teenager, the boy had sought Waverly out, and the U.N.C.L.E. chief had evaluated him a little, helped him a little -- even trained him a little at the Survival School. But, ultimately, Waverly had been forced to send him on his way. However talented he was or useful Illya might become, U.N.C.L.E. wasn't in the practice of nurturing children. Waverly had trusted the KGB would quite effectively take that role.

  And so they had. Illya had been excellently trained. If his principles had been compromised in the process, if he had ultimately been forced to defect and seek refuge with Alexander Waverly, well, it was no more than the result of circumstances the U.N.C.L.E. chief had tacitly set into motion years ago. Waverly was not exactly proud of his actions, but he had no particular responsibility for the boy. He had been forced to abandon others to far worse fates than a KGB upbringing.

  True, the boy, now a young man, had been slightly battered by the experience, but he would be that much more indebted for the current change in his circumstances. Alexander Waverly was well experienced in the use of tools, but he was not unaware of how to make them, either.

  Now Illya was back, finally of an age to be useful, and as far as Waverly was concerned, the timing could not be better. The conflicts with the Soviet Union would only escalate with the instability in Berlin. The combination of Khrushchev and an inexperienced youthful American president promised to be volatile. While Illya had been valuable as an agent-in-place, Waverly was more than ready to put those skills and knowledge directly to use in his own organization.

  He had planned to put the young man to work immediately. Illya was already U.N.C.L.E. trained, courtesy of the sojourn on Survival School Island five years before. He was well experienced, courtesy of the KGB and the GRU. And he had Waverly's personal stamp of approval. Waverly had briefed the fellow heads of Section One, trusting that his recommendation and a skillful presentation of the boy's past would be sufficient to gain Illya access to the group Waverly had co-founded and built.

  But a creator of an agency loses control as it grows greater than himself, and Waverly's own organization had expanded beyond his ability to dictate its every aspect. He had long ago been forced to delegate some authority. Now that authority was being used against him as, one by one, the other four members of Section One reviewed the agent's dossier and balked at letting such a dangerous individual into the organization for which they had a shared responsibility.

  Waverly was irritated, but not daunted. He had lost a skirmish, but he had no doubts that he would win the ultimate battle. He had a use for this young man. After over a decade of playing the line, he had finally reeled in a valuable prize. Not only did he have his long-coveted Soviet agent, but it was a man of his own choosing and not a Kremlin stooge foisted on him for calculated political purposes.

  The U.N.C.L.E. chief had no intentions of allowing Illya Zadkine/Kuryakin to become someone else's tool, possibly to be used against himself. No, this young man's fate had long been destined to be intertwined with U.N.C.L.E.'s. And regardless of Section One's hesitation, Waverly had decided Illya future belonged to him.

  But at the end of it, what future did he have to offer?

  A new name. Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin, the young man had chosen. A variation of the name of his birth, but a far cry from the name he had had for the last twelve years, Illya Mikhaylovich Zadkine. It would do, and it had been recorded on the government paperwork.

  A new identity? Only a status that would slam doors in his face. Defector. But there was a value to that as well. Cast adrift from his own country, he would become that much more devoted to U.N.C.L.E.

  A new job? Waverly shut the desk drawer firmer than he needed to. Interesting. He nodded to himself in acknowledgment of his frustration. Interesting how he had misled himself about this particular situation. Perhaps he was feeling a greater sense of obligation to this boy than he would admit, and that in itself had misled him. He had thought it would be simple to procure the position, based on his personal recommendation. But when U.N.C.L.E. Section One had failed to back him up at the last moment, Waverly had had to go to the United States Government and draw on personal favors they owed him to even get the documents that would allow the boy to stay in the country temporarily.

  U.N.C.L.E. may not want him yet, but I'm bloody well not going to let anyone else get their hands on him. He's too valuable. They'll come around eventually.

  So what to do in the meantime? There would be a delay while the CIA passed judgment on his case and he convinced Section One to reconsider. As a last resort, he would get the young man into the Network temporarily, as a scientist perhaps.

  Ultimately though, he would be a field agent and would have to use his ability to infiltrate offices and groups in America.

  He would have to learn to think like an American.

  Waverly smiled.

  1

  Trish Graham tripped over a Tonka jeep as she snatched the phone on the fifth ring. She grabbed the edge of the counter with one hand, made sure both her feet were in contact with solid ground and said a breathless, "Hello, one moment please," before dropping the receiver and checking four-year-old Misha. Satisfied that the boy's squawk was not because he was inj
ured, but because he had been startled at her sudden appearance in the kitchen, she sent him on his way and tentatively reached for the telephone. "Hello?" she repeated, not sure if her caller had long ago decided they'd been abandoned.

  She heard a quiet chuckle in the phone and then the familiar voice of Alexander Waverly. "Quite all right, Trish. I have obviously made my call at an inconvenient time."

  The Head of U.N.C.L.E., North America Headquarters rarely had occasion to telephone their home -- why should he? Norman Graham was always available by communicator. Even though her husband had left active field work behind years ago to take the position of Chief Administrator of U.N.C.L.E.'s Washington, D.C., office, his work was still periodically dangerous. And while she knew Waverly would never give her bad news over the telephone, and certainly not after such an opening, she still asked cautiously, "Is everything all right?"

  There was a brief silence until he understood her question. "Oh... Yes, Norm is fine. His plane should have already arrived back in the Capital."

  Trish allowed herself to smile, and leaned back against the counter. "What can I do for you then, Alexander? I assume it must be something involving our home and Norm has passed the decision off on me. Do you want us to host a party? Some dignitaries flying in who need to be wined and dined by the local office?"

  "In a manner of speaking, yes."

  His hesitation was evident in the nervous clearing of his throat that followed and quite secured Trish's attention. The faintly-accented voice sounded tired and there was a thread of frustration beneath it that her ear, long accustomed to the nuances of political and social bureaucratese, easily detected. Alexander Waverly had a problem.

  "There is a young man here, in my office, who has recently defected from the Soviet Union and is in need of some temporary care. He's been quite useful to U.N.C.L.E. over the last few years and I hope to have him join us permanently as an agent here in our New York Headquarters... as soon as various technicalities are straightened out." There was a lapse while she heard the telltale scrape of a match. Waverly puffed on his pipe before continuing, "I need to find a place for him, just until he has acclimated himself sufficiently." Again, he paused, waiting now for her to respond.

  Trish looked down at the tow-headed boy who was staring up at her expectantly. "Just a moment, Alexander." She put down the receiver and crouched down to her son's level. "Misha, darling, I need to talk alone for a minute. Why don't you..." she glanced around quickly, until she spotted the oft-disputed container, "why don't you have a cookie and go watch TV downstairs? It's almost time for bed. And take your truck with you -- You know it doesn't belong in the kitchen."

  Misha grabbed the offered treat out of her hand, collected his toy, and scampered down the back stairs into the rec room.

  Trish sat at her kitchen table, returning the phone to her ear. "If I am understanding you correctly, you want him to stay here with us? Not in the Safe House?"

  "That was my thought. Of course, it's your decision."

  Trish frowned slightly. This was an unusual request from Alexander Waverly. Since they lived on the United Network Command's estate on the edge of the capital city, the Graham home was used for countless parties and receptions. Guests and dignitaries often stayed in special suites in the attached Safe House, enjoying the high security and "embassy" status of the property.

  But Waverly had never asked them to take someone into their own home.

  "Tell me about this man," she asked carefully. "You say he's worked for you as an agent for years? He can't be very young then."

  "That was perhaps misleading of me. He is twenty-two. The age of your oldest boy, I believe."

  "Yes, it is," she answered. And you did your homework, Alexander. Not only are you asking for a favor, you have checked up on the ages of my children. Who is this Russian, and why is he so important to you? "How long have you known him?"

  "I met him briefly when he was a young child and again in his mid-teens. His activities for U.N.C.L.E. followed the latter meeting. His name is Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin."

  "I won't ask for particulars on the phone, of course," Trish said, her eyes closing in concentration as she considered what type of background this boy would have needed, what environment he had to have been in, to be useful to the head of U.N.C.L.E. North America as a teenager.

  "That would be best. I will forward a report to the office there."

  "Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin," Trish mused. The impact of the name suddenly hit her. "'Nico's son'... Alexander, he couldn't be related to --"

  "As a matter of fact, he is the son of Nikolai Kuryakin. I believe you were acquainted with him while he was in New York?"

  "Kolya," Trish said slowly, her memory drifting back across the years. You know I knew Kolya Kuryakin, Alexander. What game are you playing now? She kept her voice offhand. "Yes, I knew him in New York. Kolya even mentioned a son then, but I had assumed the boy was living with relatives in the Soviet Union." She heard pages rustling as Waverly checked the file on his desk. Like the master chessman he was, the Section One chief would be planning his next few moves.

  "There was no other family. The boy's mother and brother were killed by the Nazis when he was a young child. He went with his father to Holland late in 1943. Nikolai Kuryakin was assassinated the day the boy arrived in New York, January 1948. That happened to be the occasion of our first meeting, on the trip from the Netherlands to America." Waverly cleared his throat slightly. "I had him returned to Rotterdam, to his father's contacts there, and they arranged for his passage to the Soviet Union."

  Trish knew too well the conditions in postwar Russia that had led to her emigrating to the United States. The pressures of food shortages, housing shortages, job shortages. Add that to Kolya's line of work -- the child may have been orphaned at nine, but in reality, he had been neglected long before that.

  She sent a silent 'thank-you' that Norm was out of active field work. "So, if he's Kolya's son, from the Soviet Union... I assume he was looked after by one of Kolya's old associates?"

  "Yes. He served in the particular organizations you would expect. Eventually, his situation became untenable. He requested my assistance and, fortunately, I was able to arrange an abduction."

  An abduction? The particular organizations remark was clear enough and Trish shook her head, her suspicions that this boy had KGB involvement confirmed. "Alexander, those are some technicalities."

  "Quite," Waverly said brusquely. "But, those are my problems. I have a certain obligation to this young man and I have every intention of seeing it fulfilled. In the interim, there is still the problem of a temporary lodging."

  "Kolya..." Trish felt her heart skip a beat -- amazing that after all these years, the name still had that effect on her. Here she was, mid-forties, her dark hair beginning to gray, happily married, and a name from the past was making her feel faint.

  If anyone could do it, it was Kolya, though. Nikolai Kuryakin. His image was still sharp in her mind. Dark hair and beard, intelligent haunting blue eyes that captured her attention, that made her forget what she wanted to say next. Fisherman cap perched on the top of his head. Dark suit pants, white shirt, and a heavy black wool jacket with a leather shawl collar. In the winter, a scarf his only concession to the cold. He had looked like a romantic Hollywood movie star to her -- and the mystery that hung about him only intensified it.

  Kolya Kuryakin had been a dedicated leader in the Nazi resistance effort and a Russian patriot. His code name in the Dutch Resistance Movement had been Nico. She had first met him in 1946, shortly after she had relocated to America, speaking to him following a lecture he gave to a gathering of Russian émigrés and then, later, over a bottle of vodka with a few others. He stayed in New York for several months and they had become... friends.

  Eventually, Kolya returned to Rotterdam and within the month she had met Norman Graham, fallen in love, and they were married by the time Kolya suddenly appeared back in New York a year later. Kolya had promptly bu
ried himself in his work and she, with her new family. Over the months that followed, Kolya had spent many evenings with them, apparently at ease in their company and not the least bit uncomfortable with the shift in their relationship.

  The last time she saw him was just a few days before his death. They had met for lunch in a crowded restaurant. She had felt awkward with six-month-old Tanya on her lap; he had talked only of his negotiations. No one could have failed to have been impressed with his commitment to his cause, but his personal life, if he had one, he had kept blank to her.

  Regardless, a child is not their parent and as Alexander had said, the child had barely known his father. "What's the boy like, Alexander?"

  This information came quicker. Waverly had obviously prepared his speech. "The present situation has somewhat overwhelmed him, but he is intelligent with quite a background in sciences, physics in particular. He's also something of an artist, having danced with several ballet companies. I have found him to be a trustworthy associate in my dealings with him. He knows how to defend himself, but otherwise, he seems a polite, generally tractable young man. I would never suggest this otherwise, knowing you have young children of your own."

  "And you have a special interest in him, Alexander," Trish added, surprised at the humanness of the revelation. Waverly was well known among his subordinates for avoiding any shows of favoritism. The lengths he was prepared to go for this particular young man, by asking for a personal favor, belied that pose.

  Waverly harrumphed. "I will thank you to keep such opinions to yourself." Trish bit back a smile. "More importantly," Waverly continued, decisively, "I am currently responsible for him. I could keep him here at our New York facilities for a short time, if necessary, but it might make things difficult for him when he is cleared to work out of Headquarters. He'll be much better off with a family. Your household, in particular, I thought would be well suited to him, considering your own background."