Collection 9 - The Changeling

by LRH Balzer

  Napoleon Solo glanced at his watch. It wasn't even five-thirty in the evening yet; with any luck, they should have time to make their reports and still get home before midnight. He concentrated on the curves of the unfamiliar road. The darkness had settled on them quickly; any trace of light in the mountain range had disappeared shortly after the chase began, despite the promise of a full moon rising later. They might even get back on time for him to phone Evelyn and confirm their dinner engagement the next evening.

  Solo looked smoothly from the road to the rear view mirror and back again. "Another curve, Illya. Hang on."

  Illya Nickovetch Kuryakin ducked back into the speeding vehicle and warmed his freezing hands under his armpits. The thin suit jacket was little protection against the weather, but upon their arrival back in North America, they had been rerouted to meet the courier and had not had time to locate more appropriate clothing. The weather on the Mediterranean island of Circe had been much milder than the New England, January chill.

  Kuryakin gave a short laugh. "Persistent bunch, aren't they? For what it's worth, the lead car has Quebec license plates." He peered out the front window, rubbing absently at the dark bruise on his jaw from an encounter with a fist in Circe two days previous. The unexpected blow had sent him over the edge of a cliff into the warm water below, the first of several dunkings he and his dark suit had withstood while on assignment.

  Kuryakin readied his gun while his partner made the dangerous curve and then disappeared back out the window and resumed firing. Ten minutes later, the drone of helicopters filled the frosty air and he slid back into the car coughing. "We've got company. Tell them we're in the lead so they know which car not to hit."

  "Open Channel H." The receiver crackled in Solo's hand, then resounded with the noise from the helicopter above.

  "Grayson here. That you, Solo?"

  "Yes. We're in number one position. Two and Three are the unwanted guests tagging along."

  "Gotcha." The miniature radio transceiver went silent and Solo pocketed it awkwardly, sliding it in next to the bulky cigarette package. Whatever the microfiched documents contained in the third cigarette from the back left-hand side were, he had not been made privy to. And, as usual, whether or not Thrush knew what they were, they knew Solo and Kuryakin had something and they wanted it badly enough to risk the treacherous mountain roads.

  Kuryakin resumed his uncomfortable window seat as the helicopters lit up the side of the mountain with their search beams. "Napoleon, can you speed up a bit? We have a visitor almost on our tail. No sense getting caught by whatever the helicopters dump on them."

  "I can't go too much faster. The road isn't great through here."

  Kuryakin leaned out, took a few shots at the still-approaching car behind them, and then paused to stare as the vehicle's front hood slowly lifted a few inches. "I don't like the look of this. Step on it!"

  "What is it?" Solo asked, but managed to push the speed on a straighter stretch of road the high beams revealed.

  Kuryakin pressed off some more quick shots, frowning as a dark cylinder rose out of the front of the Thrush car. "I don't know what it is. I can't see it clearly enough. They've got a gadget of some kind lifting from in the hood of the car. Where's the engine and how can they see where they're going?"

  "A weapon?" With the speed he was traveling at, Solo had no wish to take his eyes off the road, but he wanted a look at the object. The disquiet in his partner’s voice had said volumes. "Describe it."

  "Obviously a weapon, but I'm not sure what it is. If it's a machine gun, we're in trouble. They are still gaining on us. And from this distance, they have a good chance of hitting us with whatever it's firing." He glared up at the helicopters circling above. "What are they waiting for? Take them out, fools!"

  The wind whipped Kuryakin's words away as he pushed his body out the window again, clung to the top of the door frame, and fired at the tires, the driver, and the gas line of the car behind them. He ducked down long enough to change guns and to yell, "Swerve right, Napoleon!" before resuming his target practice.

  Gas pedal pressed almost to the floor, the car streaked along the winding highway. Solo frowned, his instinct to immediately follow Illya's demand warring with the unknown darkness beyond the shoulder of the road hiding anything from a sharp drop-off to equally dangerous trees. Swerve right? Are you kidding?

  He heard Kuryakin yell again, heard the back window shatter behind him as a ghastly green ray lit up the road. Something slammed into his shoulder, followed by a blinding sting, and he began to fight the car in earnest as it veered out of control. The brakes failed as the car fishtailed on black ice patches; they spun a full 360 degrees to break through the loose gravel and snow piled at the side of the road.

  The car's speed slowed rapidly as it went over the short embankment and tore through the brush. At least there was no cliff. Solo tried to steer—short jabs left and right to miss trees and rocks—but the uneven terrain, hidden by the light covering of snow, disappeared from sight altogether when the car's headlights and power cut off. Solo braced himself as they bounced off something and dropped through the air to the shallow creek several feet below.

  The sedan came to an abrupt halt, lodged between two boulders. The mountain stream babbled loudly around him, overpowering the hiss from the car's engine. As Solo tried to pry his hands from his death grip on the steering wheel, his attention was shifted to the road above, where first one, then another, fiery explosion lit up the night sky.

  The first shock of the accident fading, Solo looked away from the hypnotic fireballs and, still dazed, realized he was alone in the car. He tried to open the driver-side door, but found it wedged closed. He slid down the seat and painfully pulled himself through the passenger window and out of the hissing car.

  "Illya? Illya, where are you?" Cold mountain air binned his lungs, and he leaned back against a boulder, coughing and trying not to move his shoulder. He dug into his suit jacket and pulled out the pen transceiver. "Open Channel H."

  His transceiver remained silent for several seconds before sputtering to life. "Solo? Glad you made it, old boy. Grayson here again. We got them both."

  "I can see that. Unfortunately, they also got us. Can you shine a light down here? I'm missing a partner somewhere in the vicinity, and he's not answering."

  "Sure thing. Set your pen to broadcast your location, and I’ll get Griffith and Anders to shine the beams. I'm coming down to help you look. There's a place up ahead I can put this girl down."

  Kuryakin was wandering up near the burning wreckage when they found him, trying to wipe the blood from his face as he stared at the Thrush weapon in the midst of the fire. The heat from the flames seemed to have little deterring effect; he was far more interested in getting at the canon than dealing with his head injury and keeping back from the deadly fire. "What is this thing?" Kuryakin asked eagerly of no one in particular. "Get these flames out so I can take a closer look at it—Any fire extinguishers?” he called out to Grayson, spotting him approaching.

  "We'll put it out. Just come back here," Grayson said, taking a firm grip on the smaller agent's arm.

  Kuryakin pulled away easily and was back to the wreckage site, as close as the heat would let him. "Napoleon, you should have seen this thing. I've never seen anything like it. What came at us was a laser ray of some kind and—" He swayed, one hand moving to his forehead. "And it—it—

  Grayson caught him as his knees buckled. "Steady, there."

  "I'm all right." Kuryakin pushed at the restraining arms, trying to get back to the site.

  "That car isn't going anywhere yet, Illya. And neither are you until we look at that head wound," Grayson said, with a patience born of dealing with stubborn enforcement agents.

  Solo watched blearily, unable to do much more than clutch his injured arm against the pain as Grayson steered his partner away from the flames to sit next to him on a large rock at the side of the road. Blinking back the grit in his eyes, he coul
dn't make anything out in the blaze other than the nebulous shapes of what had once been a car and two passengers.

  Kuryakin sat heavily beside him, momentarily in shock. "The baby is in the fire," he whispered, in Russian, staring at the roaring flames. His head lolled forward as consciousness faded, his determination fighting his body's desire to shut down.

  "That's it. Just sit down there and don't move," the pilot said.

  Kuryakin's head snapped up, disobeying his order. "Karl, can you arrange for an U.N.C.L.E. semi to transport the car back to New York? I want to have a good look at it. Tell them to be careful in moving it—Have a boffin come along and check it out first. That laser may not be secured now." Kuryakin turned back to look at the burning cars, but the movement was enough to topple him forward against Grayson.

  The pilot quickly checked him and seeing as Kuryakin was in no condition to complain, then lifted the limp Russian and hoisted him over one shoulder. "Don’t you worry none, Solo, old boy. Yer little friend is fine. He just bumped his head when he fell out of the car when you went over the bank. He'll be okay. Just be glad he didn't spend more time in that creek he fell into. Hypothermia is no fun."

  "I'm well aware of that," Solo said, trying to keep his shivering under control.

  "We'll get both of you taken care of before we leave. You have a nasty scratch there yourself. Let's head to my bird and we'll go back to the shop, PDQ."

  *****

  Despite reaching the helicopter quickly, it was still twenty minutes later before they finally left. Solo leaned back against a stack of canvas bags and tried not to move his left shoulder. Grayson had removed the chief enforcement agent's shoulder harness—which had actually protected him from more serious injury—then the helicopter pilot expertly extracted the glass from Solo's shoulder, bandaged him, and shot him full of painkiller before giving a cheery, "Chin up, bucko," and lifting the helicopter to join the others hovering above.

  Kuryakin lay sprawled next to him, his breathing shallow and labored, drifting in and out of consciousness, and Solo shakily held a compress against his partner's head wound, trying to breathe carefully around his own injuries. He had his right arm through the loop of his shoulder harness, keeping the weapon close enough to grab if needed.

  It was cold in the back of the unheated helicopter, and Solo awkwardly drew his partner a little closer, hoping to share a little body heat before Kuryakin came fully to his senses and decided the situation didn't warrant it. Illya had no trouble with the practical concept of sharing body heat in freezing temperatures, but he would likely not consider this an extreme enough situation to necessitate it. It was okay if he was doing the sharing, as he had done on their first assignment together, but not if he was the one needing it.

  Irritating at times, yes, Solo thought with a longsuffering sigh

  Baffin Bay had been different. April and Napoleon had kept Illya alive when he was suffering from hypothermia a few months before. Solo was certainly aware of how close they had come to losing him to the bitter cold of the far north.

  With another shiver, Napoleon reached over again and tugged the Russian agent closer yet. He was cold, Illya was feverish, a perfect match. Illya could complain all he wanted to later, but by then, with any luck, Napoleon would be warmer. It was all in the wording.

  The radio voices echoed back and forth in the cargo area as the U.N.C.L.E. agent tried to calculate how much blood they were losing. Neither wound was life-threatening, but the potential inconvenience was enough to be irritating. Not to mention hampering his date with Evelyn. He could feel some blood trickling down his back from his shoulder injury and the cloth beneath his left hand was already damp from Illya's scalp wound. Head wounds bleed a lot, he reminded himself. Besides a multitude of other bumps and bruises, Solo had an aching knee and his right wrist ached from where it hit the dashboard when the car had finally ground to a halt.

  When the car had... Shit... Solo patted his left jacket pocket, relieved that the package was still there and amazed that he hadn't thought to check it earlier. He had gotten shaken up. Well, he wouldn't mention in his report that his initial concern had been for his partner's whereabouts and not the package's. Mr. Waverly tended to disapprove of such things.

  Lately, it seemed, Waverly also tended to pride himself on his unpredictability. And on more than one occasion of late, they had witnessed their boss's temper unleashed—not at them directly, but it was disturbing to see Waverly lose control, even for a moment.

  Considering their situation, they were safe from any recriminations from Waverly. They had the package, the Thrush tails had been eliminated, and Grayson was an excellent pilot and was winging them back to New York on schedule. He'd get them where they needed to go. Another hour and they would be landing on the U.N.C.L.E. HQ building and Napoleon could turn the package over to Section One, get their injuries dealt with, and go home.

  Solo rummaged through his inside suit pocket and came up with the dented but otherwise intact radio transceiver. He twisted open the pen housing the powerful transmitter and thumbed on the controls. "Open Channel D. Mr. Waverly's office."

  There was no response, but the noise in the helicopter and their location in the mountain range would easily account for them not making the connection. The pen transmitters were marvelous pieces of equipment, courtesy of his partner's ingenuity, but they had not be designed for such use. When they got closer to New York City, he would try again.

  Medical help would be required, but in all likelihood, Illya would be awake by the time they arrived at Headquarters. As Grayson had said, neither of them were injured seriously. Illya's suit pants were wet from walking across the creek. Both were tired, of course, even before the assignment. Trips through multiple time changes drained one. In their case, the last few weeks had taken them from the Yukon to the Caribbean, back to New York, only to head out the next day to Circe in the Mediterranean, before returning them to New England in time to be rerouted to act as couriers for whatever package had come down from Canada earlier in the day.

  Thrush activity continued to take hold in the country of his birth, despite their destroying one Northern base the previous fall, and routing out the hidden Soviet submarine from the waters near Baffin Island. The success of the mission in Canada had only been partial. Another base existed, one they had little firm information on. With a land mass as vast as Canada's was, and largely unpopulated, there was ample space for Thrush to pick an out-of-the-way area and set up shop.

  Quebec license plates, Illya had said. Solo made a mental note to contact John McGlouster, the head of Section Two in Canada, in the morning and see if he had any information on the laser weapon. It might be something the Canadian office was tracking.

  Solo's head whirled as he fought the drugs to stay awake, his vision blurring in the dim light, wondering what exactly was in the shot Grayson had given him. The pilot's control board, visible from where Solo sat, swam in a whirl of bright colors. Noises echoed and reechoed, static mixed with hints of voice, an isolated phrase of distant speech, harsh crackles that teased his understanding.

  The helicopter shifted and he tightened his grip on his partner, wishing they weren't in the back cargo area of the helicopter, but safely strapped in the front seats. Grayson wanted Illya to stay horizontal, propped on his side, as long as he was unconscious. The chopper wasn't heated, other than the feeble vents in the cockpit, and the cold metal beneath them was chilling the chief enforcement agent to the bone. Napoleon's eyes ached from the bitter chill, the pain in his arm throbbing rhythmically with the steady hammering of the helicopter's engines. Considering the drop in temperature, and he wondered if it was snowing in New York City. He'd leave his car at home, then, and take a cab to his date with Evelyn.

  Red lights flashed on the control board, the radio chattered static above the sound of the copter. It was getting colder; Napoleon could see his breath in the darkness. There was a tremble beneath his hands, and Illya struggled upright, pushing away from
him and moving clumsily to sit next to him. Illya's pale eyes were round and hollow in the red-lit dimness, staring ahead sightlessly. The senior agent put the cloth in his partner's hand, and Illya nodded after a moment and moved it to his forehead.

  It was impossible to talk in the loud droning roar of the helicopter. Grayson's voice carried back, though, cursing about something, struggling with the controls as the helicopter dipped and shifted in the air currents.

  Then everything settled back into place. The ride leveled, Illya's eyes shut, and the noise faded out, the static dying. It didn't seem as cold. Napoleon felt exhaustion stealing over him.

  He was dimly aware that the helicopter touched down at a dark airfield and refueled, then he blinked his eyes open and realized they were in the air again. Beside him, Illya's head had fallen forward, his chin on his chest.

  The sway of the helicopter was lulling, rocking them. Napoleon closed his eyes, surrendering to the numbness of sleep.

  *****

  New York City, 6:50 p.m.

  Solo's eyes snapped open at the rapid burst of gunfire and Grayson loudly swearing. It took a few seconds to get his bearing, then he yelled up to the pilot, "What's happening?"

  "I don't know. The lights in the city are out," Grayson yelled back.

  "What? Again? Is this another blackout?" New York City had lost all power just two months previous.

  "New York's lights are out. I can't raise HQ; static is interfering with the line."

  Solo swore softly. "Even if the power is out, the emergency generators should have kicked in. Where are we?"

  "This is bloody dangerous." Grayson peered out his side window, searching the building roofs below them. "As far as I can tell, we’re coming in over Brooklyn and drawing fire. I can't see from where."