Collection 7 - The Northern Lights Affair Read online

  "Kuryakin! Shoot him! Or shoot me! But do something!" came the agonized bellow of the tied man.

  Illya raised the rifle, then lowered it, remembering it was empty. He looked back at the bear, then let out a yell, getting its attention away from the stranded man. Rostand was still Napoleon's cousin. They were family. Family counted.

  The bear paused, raising its head to get a look at this new creature, skidding down the hill toward it. But the other creatures were closer, so it ambled on to Rostand and Sinclair. Illya yelled again, and the bear turned, irritated. Raising the rifle like a club, Illya swung it as he neared the beast.

  On its hind legs now, the grizzly towered above him, its paws—a foot wide—swiping through the air. The bear moved quickly, roaring at him, then the rifle went spinning through the air as it was batted from Illya's hands.

  He heard the familiar ping of a mercy bullet whiz by him. Napoleon. The bear spun at the sharp pain of the bullet, then kept moving toward him as he staggered back away from it.

  Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping. Ping.

  Illya fell backwards, a shocked look on his face as the grizzly landed on top of him.

  * * * * *

  Solo skidded down the hill. "Illya? Illya!" As he moved, his eyes darted once to where Rostand was tied, but his cousin was staring wide-eyed to where the motionless grizzly had pushed Kuryakin into the snow drift, the Russian invisible under the bulky weight pinning him down.

  "Illya?" Solo pulled the gun from his holster again, holding it out before him as he approached the bear. The animal was lucky so far—it had been shot with sedative darts—but Solo had used up the entire clip trying to bring the large beast down. Napoleon slammed a fresh clip in, but these were real bullets. If that bear moved so much as an inch now, it was dead.

  Solo kicked at the grizzly, but it was obviously out cold. "Come on, Illya. Talk to me." He could hear his voice raise slightly in pitch and fought to stay calm.

  There was an answering groan that finally spurred him into holstering the gun, and he tugged at the huge insensate bear, trying to get to his partner buried beneath it. "Illya? Illya?"

  "Get this thing off me," came the muffled reply. "... can't breathe..."

  Solo found a human arm and pulled, dropping it when he heard a sharp cry. "Are you okay?" There was no response. "Illya?" His heart pounding, he found the strength to shove the immense animal enough to roll it to one side and drag out the trapped man. The bear still wasn't moving, but Kuryakin instantly began to gulp air into his lungs, his eyes opening after a moment.

  "Illya?" Solo checked him out, but miraculously, there was no blood, no rips or tears to the clothing, and no sign of any further injury to the young agent, besides the new stress on the torn shoulder muscles. The deep snow had cushioned the fall and prevented him from being crushed under the seven hundred pounds landing on top of him.

  Kuryakin rolled and sat up on his own, clutching his left arm tight against his side. "Thanks," he said, panting for breath. "Could you get here a little faster next time?" He twisted around to stare at the powerful, silver-tipped, brown bear, shuddering at the sight of it so close by. One massive paw rested near his leg and he scuttled back to get away from it.

  Twenty feet beyond them, Rostand hung white-faced from the tree, his legs obviously having given way, quite aware of how lucky he had been and willing to behave himself.

  Solo crouched beside Kuryakin, retrieved his weapon and checked it. As always, there was the awkwardness of what to say in the shakiness of post-adrenalin rush. "I've always wanted to wrestle a bear," he said lamely.

  Still pale, Kuryakin murmured, "I wouldn't recommend it. I could barely breathe."

  A chuckle worked its way to Solo's throat. "It must have been grisly for you, my friend."

  * * * * *

  Kuryakin frowned but said nothing as his partner clambered up the snowy slope to the truck to call in for help on the radio. Grisly... Grizzly... Bits and pieces of a conversation played through Illya's head. Napoleon and Rostand talking last night. The incredible Jim Brown again. Superagent.

  It took Kuryakin a few tries, but he got to his feet and stumbled over to where Sinclair lay, arms sprawled out, blood covering the top of his head and dripping into the snow. The man's eyes were still open, staring up at the gray clouds.

  Plop. Dead. Shot in the head.

  Kuryakin shivered abruptly and staggered back to Rostand. He stood staring down at the man, feeling the waves of anger wash over him. He found his voice. "Where I come from, we don't go by the rule 'eye for an eye.' More like a 'head for an eye.' It is what I was taught. Not fair, perhaps? I am not as refined as my partner. He is far more honorable than I am, which actually says very little. Are you ticklish, I wonder? I could let the bear find out. I might be able to talk Napoleon into leaving you here, since he owes me a big favor. If you thought the grizzly was in a bad mood before, wait until he wakes up. You wouldn't like that, would you? Oh, but it would be fair. You left me on track."

  Rostand stared at him, then over to Sinclair's lifeless body. The eyes pleaded silently as they returned to Kuryakin's face. Rostand cleared his throat, trying to find something to say to the open hostility. "You saved my life. Thank you."

  "You're right. I saved your life. But I didn't want to, so don't thank me."

  "Then why did you?" Rostand asked staring up at the cold face.

  "It's my job. And you're his cousin."

  * * * * *

  Solo watched them talking as he headed down the hill, wondering how Illya was handling it all.

  And surprised that he himself was handling it as well as he was. Or maybe it just hadn't hit him yet; maybe he just hadn't realized that his own cousin had tried to kill him. His childhood buddy.

  Kuryakin turned as Solo came up behind him. "I'm ready to be talked into a painkiller now."

  Napoleon opened his hand to reveal two pills in his palm. "I figured you might be." He watched as Illya took them and swallowed them, surprised he could actually see a slight tremble in his partner's hand. "Why don't you sit down?"

  "In the truck. Not here." Kuryakin stared back defiantly, as if Solo would argue the point.

  "Help will be here in about twenty minutes. They'll take care of the bear and him." Solo took a few steps toward Rostand. "I suppose the usual question is 'why?', but I'm really not interested. There would be no reason you could possibly give that would justify this."

  Rostand looked up, meeting the New York agent's steady gaze. "We're cousins, Napoleon. Doesn't that count for anything? You at least owe me the chance to explain. Shooting you was an accident. I wasn't expecting them to send you for the delivery. Not the high and mighty Napoleon Solo for a courier run. I was just trying to stop you—"

  "Sinclair requested me specifically. You tried to kill me and you left Illya for dead, and you would have killed him just now if you could. I don't owe you anything anymore." Solo gently pulled his partner in front of him so they both faced the tied man, his hands resting on Kuryakin's shoulders. "There are two things, Rostand, that I want to make perfectly clear. The first: if Illya's shoulder does not heal one hundred percent, quickly and cleanly, you will pay dearly. The second: this man is my friend and closer to me than any family ties I might have. Besides what you did to me, what you did to him on that bridge was unforgivable."

  "You think that I sold out?—I say that you're the one who sold out," Rostand snapped at him, any trace of pleading gone from his voice. "You say this—this—Soviet spy is closer to you than one of your own family? Well, you can have him! I want nothing more to do with you!" he spat. "You had more important things to do than listen when I wanted some help. Yeah, I asked for you to come to deliver the money. I asked for your partner to carry the money because I wanted to see who he was and then kill him. You were supposed to stay up on the road. Sinclair was supposed to kill him right away and take the money, and then I was going to show up and break the news of your partner's death to you. I was going to let you cry on my
shoulder, then convince you to work with me. Or else, they said, I was to shut you up, too."

  Napoleon felt the exhausted tremble ripple through Illya's body. "I'm going to leave you for someone else to interrogate, cousin. I don't trust myself right now." He turned Illya around, looking into the weary, pain-lined face. "It's cold here, Illya. Let's go up to the truck. My head hurts."

  They took a few steps in that direction, away from Rostand, until Kuryakin stopped and turned back to the man. "Where were you going down this road?"

  Rostand said nothing, but glared to Solo who looked up at the road, following it in his mind to the final destination. "At the end of the road is Uncle Pierre's lodge," Napoleon mused. "I assume you ended up with it when he died last year? Is it still called Mountainside Lodge, or does it go by a Thrush name?"

  "A year ago Christmas, I offered it to U.N.C.L.E. but they decided to stay with the Radium site."

  "Oh, it all makes sense to me now. U.N.C.L.E. couldn't use it, so, of course, you then offered it to Thrush. Whatever was I thinking? What were you doing now? Were you on your way to warn them that we were watching the town, waiting for you?"

  Rostand shrugged. "Something like that."

  Dropping the sarcastic bent, Solo felt his stomach turn in revulsion at the sight of the man he had thought he knew so well. Anger flared again, his words clipped. "For your information, we were able to get Nedstrom out; he's safe. He reported in to Waverly early this morning and Waverly called him in." Napoleon turned away and put Rostand out of his mind. He pointedly looked at the steep ridge, then back to Illya. "Want some help up to the truck?" he asked, keeping the question light.

  Kuryakin started to refuse, then seemed to think better of it and nodded. "Sure." As Solo moved to his side, the Russian shivered again, looked him square in the eye, and added softly so Rostand couldn't hear, "Could you get my hat for me? It's too cold to go bareheaded."

  Napoleon retrieved it and watched him put it on. Illya was staring at him, as though waiting for something. "What? Is something wrong?" he asked, keeping his voice low as well.

  Illya looked thoughtful, choosing his words carefully. "Bear with me on this, Napoleon. The bare bones of the problem is that I don't think that Rostand here will bear out any further information beyond the bare essentials as to what his involvement was with the satrapy. Our barricade is up so we should be able to capture a few other Thrush agents. We may have to take a different bearing with them." He cracked his knuckles dramatically, the sound loud enough to carry across to Rostand and make him squirm uncomfortably.

  Napoleon blinked, his mouth open, the tension draining from his body. "Illya, I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but you may be telling puns."

  "Would you find that unbearable?" the blond agent asked, innocently, a smile creeping onto his tired face as Solo stared at him in amazement.

  "You—I—I don't know what to say. You've got me this time. I'm speechless," Napoleon admitted, laughing, as he slipped one arm around the Russian's waist and supported his right side as they slowly made their way up the hill. "When did you learn to tell puns?"

  "Just now. Am I any good at it? It is kind of interesting." Illya stumbled, tired but seemingly happy, and Napoleon got a better grip on him. "No bear hugs please. I've had enough for one day," Illya managed to choke out.

  "Then you shouldn't have fought him bare-handed. If you had waited—"

  "If I had waited much longer, you would have had to bear me away on stretcher."

  "Okay, okay. You can tell puns. Enough, though. Give me time to adjust to this."

  "Napoleon, I've barely begun ..."

  Halfway up the hill, a rifle crack sounded, and Kuryakin knocked him to the snow, falling on top of him. For the first few seconds, Solo thought that either he or his partner had been hit, for Illya didn't move. Then he felt the Russian shift slowly, keeping Solo pinned while he raised his head to see where the shot had come from. Kuryakin rolled off him, Solo's own gun in his hand as he sat up and looked around. Then he groaned softly and pointed mutely down to their prisoner.

  Napoleon closed his eyes for a moment, then sat up to look, knowing already what he would see. Ned Rostand hung from where he was tied to the tree, blood dripping from the bullet hole in the center of his forehead.

  * * * * *

  Napoleon slid open the patio door and blinked as a blast of frigid air assaulted him. The snowstorm had hit with a fury late in the afternoon and they had decided to stay where they were until the roads were safe, before making the drive into Edmonton. Both were tired, finally admitting to themselves—and each other—the physical and mental strain of the past few days.

  From where he had stood motionless for the past hour at the balcony railing, Illya turned at the sound, meeting his partner's wordless question. With a brief smile, he shook the snow off his hair and clothes and followed Napoleon back into the warmth of their motel suite. The air had brought color to Illya's cheeks, but his eyes still held the melancholy sadness they had shown all week.

  "Did you reach his parents?" he asked now, accepting his partner's help out of the bulky jacket.

  "Yes."

  "How did they take the news?"

  "Much as I expected. Frank Rostand is a retired RCMP officer. He knows what it's like. I wouldn't be surprised if he hadn't already suspected Roz was double-dealing U.N.C.L.E. He was concerned about his son when I visited with them. I had promised I'd try to look Roz up and talk to him, which is why I had invited him to come over last night."

  "You told him everything? All of it?"

  "No." Napoleon looked past Illya to the swirling whiteness beyond the windows. He had found no way to tell his uncle that the man's son had tried to kill him. And his partner. "Not everything." He watched as Illya was drawn back to the patio door, the blowing snow and evening darkness obscuring the view but still demanding his attention. "What are you looking for out there?"

  "Nothing." Illya shrugged and leaned his cheek against the glass for a moment. "Have you noticed how the snow covers the dirt? It makes it all a bit easier to take. But the dirt's still there."

  "We're getting closer, though."

  "Are we?" Illya stared at Napoleon's reflection in the glass. "How much had your cousin already told them?"

  "I don't think we'll have any way of knowing. Mountainside Lodge is empty—It looks like they 'bugged out' yesterday or even overnight. Probably when they realized I was still alive and Roz hadn't killed me like he had promised."

  "Other than that, they got their money's worth from him."

  "Edmonton's starting to put the pieces together. We'll know more later." Napoleon sat down in an armchair by the fireplace, leaning forward to hold his hands before the flames. "We're getting closer," he repeated. "We'll go into Jasper tomorrow and look around, maybe head out to Mountainside Lodge and see what's there."

  "It's empty. Why bother?"

  "Is this the same person talking who found one little paperclip in an office in the Bronx and figured out that the satrap had moved to Queens?"

  "It was a lucky guess."

  "Still, it wouldn't hurt checking it out. We might pick up something that Edmonton has missed."

  "How do we know we can trust any of them?"

  Napoleon shrugged. "Montreal is sending some agents out to supervise the investigation. We still don't know how deep Roz was involved in all of this."

  "Napoleon, he owned the place where Thrush has their local satrap."

  "Well, Edmonton office will be calling us later tonight with any news on him. And Nedstrom is there and is being debriefed."

  "Rostand tried to kill you!" Illya grated, his emotions barely contained as he whirled around. "You're his own family and he tried to kill you. I'd say he was involved. Up to his neck." The sharp jab of Illya's hand at his own throat made Napoleon close his eyes again.

  "Maybe so. Maybe he just got in over his head. Someone's got to know what happened."

  Illya stood for a few moments, bouncing restl
essly on the balls of his feet, plagued with nervous energy. Finally it faded, draining him, and he sighed quietly. "I'm going to bed. We'll do what we have to in the morning."

  "We always do, don't we?" Napoleon said, his eyes still fixed on the flames.

  Chapter Eight

  January 1948

  Rotterdam, The Netherlands

  Alexander Waverly grabbed his suitcase and hurried through the hotel lobby. The Netherlands had recently joined the UN Security Council, the Linggadjati Accord had been confirmed aboard the USS Renville the week before, and now the Netherlands, as a member of the Benelux Nations, was about to join the Organization of European Economic Cooperation. His authorized cover, as a representative of the United Nations, had enabled him to put in a word here, change the topic there, and steer the debates away from the past and toward the future.

  But, the conference had dragged, and, as usual, he had been recalled to New York on the first available boat. The Rotterdam police were standing by, ready to whisk him through the streets to the port, where a coast guard cruiser waited to take him onto the freighter he was to travel on.

  "Alexander?"

  He froze unwillingly at the name, as it was not the one he had used on this trip. A sharp glance to one side, and he stopped suddenly, the police officer slamming into him from behind. "My God..."

  Antoine St. Laurent stood alone in the lobby, staring across the room at him as though he had seen a ghost. "It is you."

  "Yes. I'm Alexis Virtanen," Waverly said, seeing St. Laurent nod his head in understanding. He held out his hand and took St. Laurent's cold hands in his. "I had no idea you were still alive. It is so good to see you." His eyes traveled the once familiar face, seeing the dark rims beneath the man's eyes, the lost look so achingly visible. Rotterdam was filled with eyes like these.

  "It is good to see you, too." St. Laurent was well-dressed, his suit immaculate, his hair graying. "I still go by Antoine."