by LRH Balzer
He nodded to himself, watching the flames, then turned to go back to the laboratory, when he stopped short and slowly raised his hands.
He had to admit, it was a more conventional weapon Permberton aimed at his gut. Still, it put him at a distinct disadvantage. He had nothing in his hands, and there was nothing around to use as a weapon, even if Pemberton let him live long enough to reach it. He'd already used up his grenade button.
Besides, this was one angry man facing him.
"Where's your buddy?" Pemberton barked at him, furious when he didn't answer immediately. "Hands up!"
He raised his hands higher, but gestured with his head toward the laboratory. "Very nice setup. Is it yours?"
"I prefer my weapons to use gunpowder. Those things give me the creeps. Kawali can mess with that stuff all he wants. Now move off—to your left."
Kuryakin stepped carefully, reluctantly turning his back to Pemberton. "Thrush can't be serious with using black widow venom for weapons. How practical is that?" he asked, turning back to look at his captor.
"It has its uses." Pemberton laughed at Kuryakin's dubious expression. "I'll demonstrate." They entered the lab and were immediately joined by Kawali.
"Peter, your young friend here wishes a demonstration of how effective your little pets can be." Pemberton jabbed Kuryakin in the back with the submachine gun, sending him sprawling across the clean laboratory floor.
"Why don't you see how the men are doing outside and I'll be happy to show him a further demonstration." Kawali waited until Pemberton had left the room before smiling down at Kuryakin. "So the darts weren't enough? You want more?"
Two guards entered the room, saluting at Kawali before standing before him, ready for his orders. Both looked as though they would kill him without a second thought, so Kuryakin stood to his feet when he was ordered to, and crossed to the indicated chair. He kept his face neutral as his hands were tied behind his back, the ropes burning into his skin, cutting the circulation.
"We're attacking you, you know," Kuryakin said. "U.N.C.L.E. troops are probably on the compound as we speak." As if confirming his words, the rapid rat-at-at of gunfire sounded outside the laboratory.
"Watch the doors," Kawali ordered the two guards. "They will be fighting for some time. Let me do my own interrogation, and then it will be your turn."
It was some kind of reward that worked well. Both guards, evil smiles on their faces, took up their spots at the door, totally focused on their job—and on whatever they would do to Kuryakin when Kawali was done.
* * * * *
Solo grinned when he heard, then saw, the ammunitions building blow up. Illya came through, as always. Solo took a step from his hiding area and peppered the guards around the gate, easily taking them down as they had all been staring over to where the explosion was. He ran to the gatehouse, grabbing one of the dead men's berets and donning it as he passed. Quickly scanned the boards, Solo released the gate lock. The generator was still running, powering the gate and probably an electrical field in the wire fencing.
He stepped from the gatehouse, a rather grand name for the tiny shed, and looked back at the chaos descending on the compound. There were additional men appearing on the scene, and he quickly estimated over sixty soldiers, more than they had anticipated.
Down the road, there were still no signs of the U.N.C.L.E. attack force, but they would have only been on route for a minute - still at least two minutes away. He had to keep the gate secured until then. He slung the machine gun around to his back, then pulled the three guards away from where they had fallen.
No one seemed to have noticed them yet, so better to move them out of sight then have someone wonder who had shot them and where that person currently was.
Kuryakin hadn't joined him yet, and that was beginning to worry him. Illya was supposed to go to the gatehouse immediately after setting up the explosion.
Another minute passed without him showing up, and Solo glanced out to the road to see the faint irregularity in the darkness that signaled the U.N.C.L.E. trucks moving without headlights. He timed it carefully, hauling open the gates just as they approached. U.N.C.L.E. agents spilled out the back of the trucks, the word UNCLE written across the back of their jackets in a fluorescent yellow that did double duty alerting the U.N.C.L.E. agents as to where their own men were, but also providing moving targets for the other side. It was always debatable whether to use the jackets or not, whether they proved effective in the long run, preventing friendly fire from taking casualties, or whether they simply alerted the enemy to shoot them.
Norm Graham met him at the gate, slapping his outstretched arm and handing him a jacket. "Where's Kuryakin?" Graham asked, looking around.
"I don't know. Give me his jacket. I'm going to go look for him."
"Did he blow the ammunitions pile?"
"Yes, he was going to meet me here at the gate afterward, but he hasn't showed up yet."
"Go ahead," Graham said. "I'll wait for him here." Graham put his hands over his ears as the harsh echo of gunfire sounded near them. He ducked into the gatehouse, moving out of sight while he radioed in the current situation to those waiting at Bondolo.
Solo melted back into the shadows, moving between the buildings to look at the situation. The fighting was escalating as the two sides clashed. There were twice as many Thrush agents as they had estimated, but they seemed unprepared for the attack and many among them were panicking and running through the open gate out into the desert.
Pemberton stepped from the building that looked like it was housing barracks, and strode across the center area toward the smaller of the three buildings they had seen initially, probably the communications area, by the radio antenna running up along the outside of one wall.
Solo paused, glancing around him as the sky lit up with a secondary explosion he quickly identified as one of the U.N.C.L.E. trucks. Pemberton stood at the entrance of the communications building, making his own assessment of the last explosion, then disappeared inside. A moment later, two guards exited, moving smartly past the fighting, almost as if it wasn't happening, and over to the barracks building. Solo's eyes narrowed as he followed their progress, noting the eager looks on their faces. They were older men than most of the Thrush soldiers. The vast majority of the men fighting were under age 25. These two were easily in their mid to late thirties, which put them in a different group altogether. Not raw recruits; seasoned men.
Seasoned at what, though? Various possibilities ran through his mind as he considered the training of the Kenyan soldiers. Ex-Mau Mau perhaps. If even a portion of the rumors were true about the Mau Mau warriors, they were dangerous men to deal with. Many had snapped psychologically from the lengthy stay in the caves, many were malnutritioned, some resorting to eat raw monkeys and others, or so the reports had read, turning to cannibalism. In attacks on the Kenyan people, often their own tribes people, women were disemboweled, bodies cut in half, men were sliced to pieces, decapitated with eyes and brains gouged out.
If not ex-Mau Mau, perhaps the shifta, the bandits who raided the northern part of Kenya. Some were from the Somali Republic, others from Ethiopia or Sudan. But it seemed unlikely that the shifta would band together for any purpose outside their own, especially not for an international group.
Pemberton was a member of the pseudo gang operation, and so was Kawali. The odds were, the two guards who just passed him were also once members of the so-called freedom fighters. But the cure had been almost as bad as the disease. The stories Paul Muliro, the Head of U.N.C.L.E. Kenya, had told him left him with a bad feeling, even days later. Members of the pseudo gangs had been found guilty of burning suspects' eardrums with cigarettes, castrating their suspects with a pair of pliers, killing and torturing their prisoners.
So where were they heading, their faces alive with anticipation as they headed away from the fighting? Probably wherever Illya was, Napoleon thought with a tired shiver.
* * * * *
"So you are inte
rested in spiders, Mr. Kuryakin... Black widows have a nice reputation with Americans, we have found. I have been working with Thrush for five years now, and have introduced them to the interrogator's arsenal of tools. Quite effective."
Kuryakin stared back at him, well aware of the eighteen wounds on his body, many of them still causing him great pain.
"But I'm sure you have received the antivenom for black widows, especially since our last test on you. Did you know that the antivenom for one type of spider bite does not necessarily work on another type of bite? That's why I am accumulating a variety of pets to use. U.N.C.L.E. cannot realistically offer protection from them all. Tell me, Kuryakin, have you heard of the Sydney Funnel Web spider?" Kawali crossed the room to stop in front of a small glass-walled container. "They are known to be extremely aggressive, will attack at the slightest provocation, and are usually successful in penetrating the skin."
Kuryakin followed his movements, but offered no comment.
"When I began to narrow my research to spiders and spider venom, the European university I was at sent me to Australia for a year. That's where I first encountered Thrush."
"Another type of venom for you to study."
"Yes," Kawali agreed, pleased that Kuryakin had spoken. "Yes, most satisfying. Australia has some of the world's most venomous spiders, and of them, the Sydney Funnel Web spider is considered the most dangerous." He lifted the glass box with the spider in it, turning it so the spider could clearly be seen crawling inside. "Funnel web spiders inject their venom in a way similar to Australian snakes. They use their hypodermic fangs to inject the venom below the surface of the skin into the tissues where it is immediately absorbed by the lymphatic system."
Kuryakin nodded that he understood the significance. The usual treatment for snakebite was cutting open the wound and attempted to suck the poison out, but that would have no effect with this type of bite.
An explosion rocked the building. Kawali strode to the doorway, peering out at the battle. The generator sputtered and died, leaving the building in darkness. One of the guards lit an oil lamp, then moved around the room lighting several more. Kawali returned to Kuryakin's side. "We don't need the generator. We've done without it before. So Mr. Kuryakin, tell me the outcome of the Enciente Conference. We know where it was in Switzerland, but we are not certain of the final decision regarding the African Delegate. Was Muki Bahati chosen as head of U.N.C.L.E. Africa?"
"I was not an attendee at the meeting. You must have me confused with someone else," Kuryakin said, then gasped as a vicious slap across his face threatened to snap his neck.
"Our sources tell us that Muki Bahati was elected Section One. If so, why has he not taken his position yet?"
"You'd have to ask someone who was there—" Another slap connected with his cheek, cutting into his bottom lip. Kuryakin could taste the blood. When he opened his eyes, one of the guards had moved closer, as though drawn by the scent, nostrils flaring slightly.
Kawali nodded to the man. "Take off his shirt, Nyeusi."
A large knife appeared in the guard's hands. He licked his lips slightly as he approached, then the knife appeared to be heading straight for Kuryakin's throat, before taking a downward plunge and slitting open his jacket and T-shirt.
Kuryakin jerked backwards as the knife sliced down along his chest toward his groin and had he moved at all, it would have emasculated him. His eyes flashed over to Kawali, but the man didn't seem the least bit bothered with any damage to prisoner as Nyeusi continued to cut off his shirt and jacket. The cut on his chest was not deep but it burned, drawing tears to his eyes. He blinked, startled as he felt the box pressed against his right shoulder. He could feel the faint tickle of the spider on his bare skin, then Kawali shook the box, attempting to scare the spider.
He was hardly aware of the bite, but Kawali must have seen it, for he removed the box and refastened the lid, taking a moment to study the spider. "There. Good." Kawali nodded, turning his attention to the site of the wound. "I assume, Mr. Kuryakin, that you are beginning to feel the bite? I don't think I need to tell you that, untreated, funnel web bites are often fatal."
At first he couldn't isolate the bite, the pain from the cut on his chest occupying his attention. Then it began, a fiery sting in his shoulder.
"What happened in Enciente?" Kawali asked, holding up a hypodermic needle that Kuryakin assumed contained antivenom. "Tell me and I'll keep you alive. We're not going to release you, of course, but we will certainly keep you alive. For a while longer."
"Go to hell," Kuryakin whispered, half under his breath.
"Too late," Kawali answered. "Have you looked outside recently? Hell has arrived." The tall thin Kenyan put down the hypodermic as Pemberton came to the door and motioned. "Well, Mr. Kuryakin, I'm off. Enjoy the show—I'm sure Nyeusi will have some fun before the night is over."
As though offered a pheasant under glass, Nyeusi's tongue darted out of his mouth, licking his chapped lips. Beside him, the other guard started to remove his gun holster, his eyes fastened on Illya’s chest and the blood still trickling down his skin.
Nyeusi's hands were in his hair, feeling the silky blond strands, so different from his own short wiry hair. The fingers tightened, threatening to pull the strands from his scalp, and Nyeusi tilted Kuryakin's head backward until Illya thought his neck would snap. Other hands, meanwhile, grabbed his belt, pulling the leather strap free from the buckle. He felt the blade of knife at his throat, shaving his beard as it scraped along his skin.
The pain in his shoulder from the spider bite was becoming more intense, and he could feel the chill of shock moving through his body. His vision blurred as he turned his face away from Nyeusi's hot breath.
He could hardly swallow with his neck arched backwards, and the saliva building fell from his mouth as his tongue seemed to thicken. He tried not to think about what the other guard was doing.
Things happened quickly then. It became difficult to breathe. The pain in his chest, shoulder, and neck became worse. He could feel his pulse racing. He couldn't see.
Were the two lights there or not? Were they going to hit him? Was this it? The dream happening?
No, there was only one light, then even that faded.
* * * * *
Solo watched Pemberton leave the communication's building and return to the barracks, open the door, then head over to a landrover waiting to the side of one building. A moment later, Kawali came out of the barracks, a machine gun over his shoulder, and joined Pemberton in the vehicle. Pemberton started the landrover and backed it away from the fighting, turning it around to head away from the main gate.
There must be a second exit, Solo thought, moving out of the shadows and aiming for the vehicle as it passed him. Two shots rang out. Two men slumped over the dash of the landrover, then crashed into the side of a camouflaged building. Pemberton raised his head, his gun firing twice in Solo's direction.
Solo fell backwards as the bullets whizzed past him and he took cover behind an abandoned truck. Leaning out, he fired again and Pemberton jerked as the U.N.C.L.E. Section Two chief hit him directly between his eyes.
Solo turned and made his way to the barracks. Two more shots and two more dead men. Neither even had time to reach for the weapons. He tried to walk across the laboratory, but it was hard to keep his balance, the light from the oil lamps casting strange shadows over the room. He went to raise his left arm to wipe the sweat from his face and almost blacked out from pain.
He grabbed hold of the counter, knocking glass boxes over as he stumbled and fell. Pulling himself upright, his flashlight lit up Illya's face, then travelled down to his throat, shoulder, and chest.
His partner was only a few feet away, motionless in the chair except for the steady stream of blood dripping to the floor from several different places on his body. His face was white in the dim light, his eyes open, sightless.
No... not again. Solo cursed as he fell a third time, but this time he didn't get back up.<
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* * * * *
Illya felt the hands on his face and pulled away, trying to escape.
"Easy, son. Lusha, it's me."
"Norm?" He opened his eyes, realizing this time that he wasn't in a hospital, at least not yet. He was in a truck, wrapped in blankets and stretched out on the floor, and the truck was going over some rough ground. "What's—what's happening?"
"What’s happening is that it's all over," Norm said, over the noise of the road. "We closed the nest down, and got the two leaders as well. Your partner took them both out, then killed the two men who were doing a number on you."
"Where is he?" Illya asked, feeling the words slur. "Napl'on."
"Lying beside you."
Illya turned his head slowly, amazed at the concentration he needed to do such a simple action.. "What's wrong?"
"With you or with him?" Norm asked, reaching over Illya to pull the blankets tighter around Napoleon.
"Both."
"You were bitten by a spider and our medic injected you with what we believe was the antivenom. You have a few cuts on different places of your anatomy, but none are too serious. The medics got the bleeding under control. You'll be fine in a day or two. Your partner meanwhile, was winged by bullet in his upper left arm, and is presently sleeping off the shots the medic gave him."
"He... okay?" Again the words were a struggle, but he had to know. Nothing made sense. He was still alive, it seemed. And Napoleon had once again played a part in keeping him that way.
"Napoleon will be fine." Graham smiled down at him. "You beat them. You made it, son. Whatever you've been dreaming about, it's over. You and your partner are still alive and the Thrush nest is gone, along with Pemberton and Kawali. We've rounded everyone else up. Just rest now."
Rest.
He lay for a while in the truck, feeling the shaking and jarring, trying to breathe around a whole new set of pain sites. He watched Napoleon, feeling his relief that the senior agent was still alive. Leopards and tigers are endangered species, he thought, his right arm slipping from beneath the blanket to hook on to Napoleon's left wrist. The pulse beat regularly, soothing his nerves.