by LRH Balzer
She met his challenge. However checkered a past, he had only a handful of years to her own, and he was not the only one who had lived through war and adversity. She was convinced that he needed a family, security, a home, but unless she was able to stir that desire in him, she would lose him. Mercer would win and Norm would be justified in moving Ilyusha away. He would become nothing more than a cog in Waverly's organization, until the day came when he once again felt he had nothing to live for. She knew what happened to defectors without a support network. Suicide was only too common and this young man had already come dangerously close to that decision once. Alone and friendless, with his only hope of redemption already used, what would he do? Move too slowly one day and let a Thrush bullet take him? Perhaps no one would even guess. Suicide without shame. No, she would not surrender him to that fate.
She held his gaze for uncounted moments before Illya's eyes finally wavered and then dropped, his shoulders falling in acknowledgment of his defeat. He shivered once, before his muscles tightened against the betraying weakness. His face turned from her, but she had seen the dejection painted there before he blanked his features.
She felt a moment's gratitude for the illness that had left him vulnerable enough to capitulate so quickly, and a touch of sorrow that she had caused him to lose another battle. But she also knew it was momentary. He would challenge them again and again, unless they were able to convince him of their sincerity.
Perhaps, now was a good time to bring up their shared past, to try and get past those barriers. "Would you like to see some pictures of your father from when I knew him?"
He blinked, caught off-guard by her question, and said nothing, but the blue eyes followed her from the room and were waiting for her when she returned a moment later. She brought the photo album over to the bed and set in on his lap. He kept his arms crossed, refusing to touch the book or hold it in place. She paged through the album, slowing down as she reached the first pages showing their arrival in New York.
Illya glanced from her to the album, scanned the photographs, then looked back at her. There was no one there he knew and a slight smirk pulled at one corner of his mouth. She turned the page and watched as his eyes fought to stay focused on her. Curiosity won, and he looked down at his father's face. She had hoped for some reaction, but he was in firm control. He nodded slightly and looked away. Each time she turned a page, he would glance down at the pictures, nod once, and return his gaze across the room.
His eyes were growing heavy, the effort of non-involvement draining him. She closed the book after the last page and helped him to lay back against the pillow. Feeling his eyes still on her, she closed the blinds, turned the vaporizer back on, and left the room.
When she checked on him next, after the family had eaten, the fever was back, his skin hot and dry. His eyes, when they opened, saw nothing. She stripped the blankets from the bed and bathed his skin with cool water, trying to drive the fever down, a fan forcing a cold breeze over him. Dr. Mercer was summoned and when he arrived, almost forty-five minutes later, the fever had already dropped a degree. In the next hour, it dropped further and by the time the doctor left, he felt confident the worst of the illness had passed.
*****
Tuesday, June 27
Through the night and the next morning, Illya dozed, the fever still down, but he said nothing to them, wanted nothing from them. Even in his delirium, his mouth had remained clamped shut, revealing nothing from his subconscious.
The perfect spy.
When Trish came upstairs, early in the afternoon, she found him out of bed and sitting at the far end of the landing in the halfwing chair, a quilt draped around him. Sunshine poured through the windows and warmed the spot. "I'm glad to see you up. You have a bit more color in your face, as well. I have some medication here for you."
He glanced up long enough to take the antibiotics from her hand and swallow them quickly, then turned his attention back to the albums on his lap.
"What are you studying so carefully?" She looked over his shoulder at the sun-lit photo album.
"Oh, the pictures of your father," she said softly, switching to Russian and kneeling down beside the chair.
The long-lashed blue eyes stared at her, then made their way back to one particular photograph of a much younger Tony sitting on Nikolai Kuryakin's shoulders, both smiling broadly into the camera. Illya didn't look back at her, but she could see a trace of anger in the cold blue. Did you never ride on his shoulders, love? "I think your father missed you when he was here. Tony remembers him talking about you. Kolya was kind to Tony; my little boy was only eight and his father had died two years before. Tony missed his father, and Kolya missed you."
"I do not remember Nico smiling. I knew nothing of this." His hand indicated the entire collection of photos. The words were clear, factual, with a slightly heavier accent than he usually showed.
"He never mentioned his time in New York?"
"I knew Nico was in America, trying to enlist workers for... his fight. It was important work he was doing." Illya slim fingers rested briefly on a studio photograph. "This does not look like him. I never saw him without his beard before."
Trish smiled at the picture, remembering the teasing dare she had made that prompted the shave. "He was a very handsome man. The women were all fascinated by him."
"He looks kind."
She studied Illya, uncomfortably aware that what should have been a compliment, sounded more like an insult from the young man's lips.
Illya turned the page to the picture of a once-again bearded Nikolai Kuryakin she had cut from the New York Times, taken a week before his death. The photographer had caught him in the middle of his speech, his fist raised in the air before him, flashing eyes showing the absolute passion the man had for what he believed in.
"You have your father's ring," Trish pointed out, showing Illya the faint outline of the ring on the yellowing newspaper photo.
"Alexander Waverly gave it to me after Nico was killed." Illya looked down at it, twisting it on his finger.
"Do you have any pictures of your father?"
"No."
"I'll pick some out and put them in an album for you. Tony has a small album of his father and you should have one of your father."
"What would I do with such a book?" he asked, his face still caught by the newspaper photo.
"What you are doing right now, just looking and remembering him."
"But I do not remember him."
"In Holland? Do you remember him in Holland?"
He shook his head a bit uncertainly. "I know he must have been there, and what he looked like, but there are no real memories of him. I was a child," he concluded.
"Do you remember your mother?" He shook his head.
"What about your adopted mother?" He looked at her blankly.
She tried again. "Mikhail Zadkine's wife? She took you in when you were two."
Illya's eyes unfocused, but he shook his head. "She died." His face was stony, remote. "I don't remember her, but I remember Grisha cried. He was big, but he cried and cried." The precise voice was faintly contemptuous of the child who had let such a loss upset him. "Then my father, my real father came -- I suppose I was four." He shrugged, and returned to her original question. "I don't remember her. I don't remember much of anything from that time. I was a child," he repeated.
Two maternal deaths in two years. A heavy burden for a little boy to bear, much less deal with. No wonder he mistrusted her, regarded her with such a jaundiced eye. He had no experience, at least in his own memory, of a mother's care, other than being consistently abandoned by them. There was nothing really for her to build on in the short time she had to reach him.
If not a mother, then a father. Kolya had been there; he hadn't been a perfect father, but he had done what he could. From what she could tell, Zadkine had later sheltered the boy and offered him some semblance of home life. Even Alexander had provided a father image for Illya, providing for his
needs in a few pivotal crisis points in the Russian's life.
Perhaps a father was what Illya needed now, but even with the young man's mask starting to slip, she knew Norm would only see Illya's resentment, his anger, his suspicion unveiled. It wouldn't be hard to guess her husband's reaction. Norm was still refusing to make a commitment to keep Illya, wanting to wait for the boy to come out of his illness and evaluate him then. But that might be too late. The mask would be bolted in place again, the memories pushed back before they could surface, before he could remember that someone had loved him once. And that he could be loved again.
She watched Illya staring silently at the studio photo of his father and wondered how to unlock the past for him. "Do you remember traveling to the Netherlands?"
"No." He didn't look up, but surprisingly volunteered more information before she could ask. "I remember the bombs. And the loud noises. And the other children crying."
She held her breath, seeing in his eyes the horrors of war that had dulled in her own mind over the years. "I remember those sounds as well," she said, feeling chilled by the memory. "I would go to Antosha -- Tony -- and would cover his ears with my hands. Did your father ever do that with you?"
Illya blinked once, staring at the photo, and then blinked rapidly, his mouth open slightly. "I remember... the noise... and I would run to him... He had big arms. He would hold me on his lap and did that... he covered my ears and my eyes with his hands... I remember sitting there feeling no bomb would ever touch me..."
"There. You do have a memory of him."
It brought Illya back with a start and he shut the album. "Yes. We shared a nightmare for a while. How pleasant." The cold eyes that frustrated her so, looked calmly at her, waiting.
"The war was not pleasant. But your memory of your father's love is. I'm glad Alexander Waverly --" she paused, curious that she had adopted his way of referring to the man, by both names, "I'm glad he gave you the ring. It must be nice to have something of your father's." There was no response, so she reached down and took his left hand, holding it lightly in hers. His hand was warm, despite his whole manner being so icy. "In America, wearing a ring on that finger means you're married. You may wish to wear it on your other hand."
He withdrew his hand from hers, once again absently rubbing the ring. "But I am..." he began, but his voice trailed off, his eyes glancing off to the side.
"You are what?"
A trace of emotion. He seemed uncertain for a moment, his low brows pulled forward in a frown. "I am married. Or I was married. Since I am now officially dead, I suppose I am no longer married and she is a widow." He looked up at the open shocked look on Trish's face.
She shook herself, trying to find something to say. "Did Alexander know about this? He never said anything... What is her name?"
"Marya. Marina Ivanova Travkova. I did not tell Alexander Waverly. It did not matter."
She stared, concerned again at his callousness. "How long were you married?'
"Five months. It was for her residency papers. I did not know her. She was my friend's sister. She did not know me. She wished to stay in Leningrad with her lover, but without papers, she would have had to leave and her lover could not help her because he had only temporary papers. At first, we lived with her brother. Then, she lived in my flat and I slept... elsewhere. It was the first time I had a place assigned to me. The KGB... The government gave me the small flat when I married. They were easier to deal with when they thought they controlled some reason for me return from each assignment.
"But it does not matter," he repeated. "In a few months, she would have had her own papers and we would have divorced. It was a small thing to do for my friend." He faltered for an instant on the word 'friend'.
She smiled a little, delighted that he had volunteered so much information and that she had found a touch of humanness in him. "What was your friend's name?"
Illya said nothing for a moment, then wrapped the quilt around himself like a shield and stood. "I am tired. I will sleep now." He walked a few steps toward Michael's bedroom, then turned back to face her. "Alexander Waverly told me that I am dead. Your husband told me that I am dead. The people I have known in my life have been told that I am dead. So I must be." He looked back at the child's room, then again to her. "Would it be better now for me to go to the other room? The boy has been deprived of his toys for two days and I am almost well."
"Yes, certainly, if you think you can manage the stairs. Do you need any help?" she asked, stunned by his previous words.
"No." Mindful that she watched his progress anxiously, he stopped again halfway down the broad winding staircase, still wrapped in the multi-colored quilt, and looked her directly in the eye. "I wish to thank you for your care. Your family has been kind."
"You're welcome, Ilyusha," she whispered.
*****
Wednesday, June 28
Castro and Kennedy and Khrushchev would have to wait. They had occupied his attention all day, but it was already three in the afternoon, and he had his own Cold War problem at home.
Graham reached for the files and set Kuryakin's records before him on his desk. There was Waverly's original dossier on Kuryakin, Mercer's assessment, and Lawrence's evaluation. Frustratingly, the three documents seemed to describe three different young men, but Graham had to make a decision on whether he would allow one young man to remain in his home.
The question was: Which of these young men was Kuryakin?
Waverly's dossier, the first set of documents he had read, was damning. Kept from the time Kuryakin was fifteen or sixteen, it held every fact Waverly had collected about Kuryakin's childhood, or lack thereof: his beginnings with the KGB; the training he had received at the Kiev Artillery School, where his 'adopted' father was the director; his course work at various Soviet and Soviet Bloc Universities; his records, many of them still unbroken, at U.N.C.L.E.'s Survival School; and any additional training he had taken, or colleges or universities he had attended.
In a separate section, there was a detailed account of Waverly's professional contacts with Kuryakin, as the young Russian became an undercover U.N.C.L.E. informant. There was a copy of every message Kuryakin had sent to Waverly, though classified information that might incriminate other undercover operatives had been censored.
Throughout the file, whenever Waverly had uncovered a new fact, whether it was a course taken, a skill acquired, a change in occupation or agency the Russian had worked for, it had been carefully documented in Waverly's spidery handwriting.
The last few weeks had seen the addition of Kuryakin's initial debriefing in Waverly's office following his defection, and no doubt the record had been added to since then.
Graham spent some time puzzling over the file, trying to deduce what his superior had been scheming. The entries themselves showed the current events were not a hastily made decision.
Alexander Waverly had been planning something for a long time. Odd for Waverly to send a Russian orphan to U.N.C.L.E.'s Survival School, then ship him back to the KGB. If he had wanted to, he could have arranged to have the boy remain in this country.
Had Illya wanted to return to the Soviet Union? That seemed unlikely. According to these records, the KGB had begun to control him from age ten, steering him to various studies. By twelve, he'd begun his training undercover, his handlers apparently taking advantage of his skills with languages, and his photographic memory. He was an experienced GRU assassin by fourteen or fifteen. There was nothing recorded to indicate that Waverly had given him any say in his fate.
Had Waverly made a calculated decision that a few more years in the KGB would be excellent training for a future U.N.C.L.E. agent? Or that, trained to U.N.C.L.E. standards, the teenager could be a useful plant in an organization impossible to infiltrate?
And was it a coincidence that when Kuryakin became legally of age to be an operative in America, he had an abduction arranged for him? But why should Waverly abduct a boy who had been his for the taking years
earlier?
Graham knew all about his superior's reputation as something of a manipulator, but it seemed too calculating, even for Waverly's reputation, to send the boy back to the Soviet Union knowing full well the hellish existence awaiting him. And yet Waverly had trained him. Had sent him back. And had used him to infiltrate that most difficult to infiltrate organization.
More than calculating. More like cruel.
Even more so now that Graham had met the subject of the dossier and had seen what those years had taken from the boy. And knowing how different his life could have been. We would have taken him then, Alexander. You called us quickly enough when it suited you this time. He could have had a home, a family, security, the kind of life children deserve.
Instead, from what I can see, you proved no better than the KGB; you used him for your own purposes when you should have been considering his best interests. This wasn't an U.N.C.L.E. agent. This wasn't even an adult you were dealing with. Whatever he might have told you, whatever agreements you two might have made, however intelligent he was, he was not competent to make those decisions.
Graham slammed shut the cover of the dossier, hating to read it. A long-term intelligence operative, he had no prejudices against his own career. But it was one thing to choose that career as a responsible adult, knowing the full scope of your choices. It was another to be forced into that line of work as a virtual child. And it appeared Kuryakin had been manipulated to that end on both sides of the Atlantic, by two very different organizations with very different goals.
At the very least, Waverly had a lot of explaining to do, but the person who most deserved those explanations would hardly ask for them. Currently, he had trouble asking for a glass of water, much less an accounting from the man who held not only his present existence but his future in his hands. And had quite effectively manipulated his past.
Graham turned to the next folder. Mercer's report. It was no better, rather worse. While the Washington U.N.C.L.E. physician did not have access to Kuryakin's entire file, he had known the young man was a former KGB agent and had been given a sketchy outline of his life. As a former CIA physician, Mercer's past experience in that agency colored his dealings with the boy. The CIA distrusted defectors, regarded them at best as spoiled children, social outcasts in their own country, or worse, as traitors to their own country, who would certainly be prone to betrayal of the United States.