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They ended up seeing Zia safely settled in for the night in a suite at the Hotel Le Quai, a discreet distance away from Morgan’s last bolthole on the Rue de Lorraine. Eschewing their company, she had chosen to mourn the loss of her idealized hero and their shared nation-building dreams in private. Funny thing, Napoleon understood how that felt.
U.N.C.L.E. New York’s de facto C.E.A. had chosen to do his mourning over a glass of decent scotch at the hotel bar. He could have opted for privacy, or gone looking for a local mademoiselle eager to help him lick his wounds, but, in the moment, he discovered what he really wanted to do was get drunk with the man who had dropped everything to come with him to Raqqa on this non-U.N.C.L.E.-sanctioned mission. A mission that had almost turned into an international disaster, thanks to his own blind, pig-headed trust in his former C.O. Napoleon wouldn’t say it, because his partner’s ego didn’t need any more inflating, but Illya had saved the day.
Illya had been the one to take Zia’s bags to her room. Napoleon had the slivovitz waiting for him when he returned to the bar, ill-fitting jacket hanging on his lithe shoulders, blond head shining under the cheap lights.
“Is she all right?”
Illya shrugged as he took his seat at the counter beside Napoleon. “As one would expect. Didn’t she say she’d been with Morgan for years, since her parents were killed in the revolution? It must be devastating to discover one’s commander and father figure had become a traitor and a thief.”
He eyed Napoleon meaningfully as he said it. Napoleon felt that gaze, and those words, pierce him like a devastatingly well-placed blade; he had to look away. “Don’t you know it,” he muttered and clinked his glass against Illya’s. “Drink up, I.K., you’ve got some catching up to do.”
“With you? Easily,” Illya scoffed, tossing down his drink with careless ease. The bartender brought him another, which gave him the licence to ask, “So, like Zia, you had also first known Morgan when you were a young recruit?”
Napoleon nodded, reaching for his own refill. “1952, with the First Marine Division, holding up the Jamestown line from Pyongyang. I was barely 20; younger than Zia is now. The Colonel was a father figure to the whole regiment.”
What Napoleon didn’t say was that was before the man who had served his country on battlefields in Spain and Ethiopia and Vietnam had somehow changed into the self-serving turncoat Illya had just had to put down.
As Napoleon worked whiskey past the sudden tightness in his throat, Illya continued, “What was Morgan like in those early days?”
“Smart. Fearless. The Army gave him a commendation for his actions at the First Battle of the Hook. He saved our unit when we were pinned down by the P.V.A.’s 65th. Saved my life twice over, at that.”
Napoleon let himself see it: the desperate battle for Outpost Detroit on the southern end of the Jamestown trenchline, artillery fire rattling all around them, showered by fragments of the live shells that burst overhead. Their six-man unit digging in, Morgan taking an automatic rifle from one of their more badly-injured fellows and keeping up a steady barrage of fire to keep the enemy from overrunning their position, until finally reinforcements from Company J arrived to pull off a last-minute rescue.
“As I recall from office gossip, you received a Korean War commendation as well,” Illya murmured, and Napoleon forced a smile.
“Same battle. The Colonel said I saved his life, too.” That night on the borders of the 38th Parallel had been a blur of gunfire and cordite, the grim despair of kill-or-be-killed. Bitterly, Napoleon remembered being grateful that he was shooting P.V.A. soldiers and not the North Korean guerrillas who were just defending their homes.
Illya asked, with uncharacteristic gentleness: “You stayed with Morgan’s unit until the Armistice?”
Napoleon nodded. He’d remained in the Marines until the end of the Korean War out of loyalty to Morgan and his men, but Korea had taught him he wasn’t cut out to be a soldier, fighting in petty territorial wars, not when there was so much need that should have united and not divided the world. “I went back to college to finish my degree, while my unit went on to Indochina.”
And had all died there, even big Jack Rourke, who had shared Napoleon’s bunk at the Hook. Morgan had known about Jack and him, had kept the secret for them, at a time when that secret could have seen them court-martialed under the Uniform Code of Military Justice. It was one more thing he’d been grateful to the Colonel for; despite everything that had just happened today, he was still grateful.
If Illya noticed how red Napoleon’s eyes had suddenly gotten, he tactfully didn’t mention it. He remarked, “I remember Morgan talking about Điện Biên Phủ. Nasty business. Americans weren’t party to that war, but your lot were there in stealth, anyway.”
“And we were cut down, too, alongside the French.” Morgan had written to him with the news, had told him he’d buried all of them near the French bunker at Thanh Truong. Maybe it had been losing them like that, in someone else’s senseless war, that had made the Colonel snap suddenly? No way now for Napoleon to tell.
With some effort, he continued, “You’re right, it wasn’t our fight, and I was glad to be out of it, though I was sorry for the Colonel and the men. I wasn’t a soldier.”
Napoleon set aside his memories of Jack, of the others, how it had felt when he’d gotten that letter from Morgan. Instead, he refocused his attention on his partner. The Soviet Union had been aligned with America’s adversaries in both the wars they’d been discussing, and Illya Nikolaievitch Kuryakin, before his posting to the United Network Command for Law and Enforcement, had himself served in its military. In a very real sense, they’d once fought on opposite sides before U.N.C.L.E. had brought them together.
Leaving that thorny topic for another day, he asked his partner, instead: “How about you, do you miss the Navy, or are you glad to be out of it as well?”
Illya inclined his head. In the lights of the bar, his eyes shone Arctic blue.
“Like you, I’m glad my soldiering days are over. I wasn’t Navy material, though I miss my unit. I had some good friends there.”
Napoleon was surprised despite himself. Illya had come from U.N.C.L.E. London to New York two years ago; last year he’d been promoted to Section Two, Number Two. Multi-talented, multilingual, a demolitions expert and an expert in a variety of martial arts disciplines, he’d proved himself worthy of the position, at least to Waverly and his C.E.A. But to most of his other New York colleagues, Agent Kuryakin, envoy from a communist regime with which America was at war in all but name, would always be an outsider; as far as Napoleon knew, he wasn’t on friendly terms with anyone except for Napoleon himself. Hearing Illya now speak of the friends in his old unit - - and in such warm, almost affectionate tones - - was mildly disorientating.
For the first time, Napoleon found himself wondering about Illya’s old friends. Did Illya have a former mentor whom he looked up to in the same way as Napoleon had, misguidedly, idealized Ian Morgan? Or perhaps there’d been a fellow recruit with whom Illya had gotten close when he couldn’t very well impose on the local women - - someone like Jack Rourke, who’d been comfort and support to Napoleon under fire in a strange land?
Napoleon realized he had no idea how likely that was. Illya was a successful seducer when the mission called for it, but off the clock, his sexual preferences were an enigma, even though the girls in the typing pool (and young Felix from Section 8) sighed over his golden crop and blue eyes. Napoleon had never seen him show any extracurricular interest in men. But then again, indulging in same-sex relations on Soviet soil would have meant a one-way ticket to the gulag.
Napoleon asked, impulsively, “Do you still keep in touch with your old unit?”
“Not really. The K.G.B. doesn’t encourage it, for one.” Illya shrugged, his shoulders graceful under the unshapely jacket. “Not that I was prime K.G.B. material, either, you understand.”
That definitely sounded like an understatement; Napoleon had seen his partner’s faux-casual expression too many times to be fooled by it. In all likelihood, Illya was, in his own way, as familiar with a soldier’s kill-or-be-killed dilemma as Napoleon was, to say nothing of what orders he’d been asked to carry out by the K.G.B. His files hadn’t mentioned his kills pre-U.N.C.L.E., but the steely-eyed coldness with which he cut down his enemies - - that he’d displayed tonight when he’d gunned Morgan down - - left his senior agent in no doubt as to Illya’s familiarity with state-sanctioned violence.
Illya’s expression was still imperturbable, but there was a flicker in those blue eyes when he said, deliberately offhand, “And now I am here, halfway around the world.”
Napoleon was strangely moved. He was aware of some things about Illya Kuryakin that maybe no one in the world knew: like what his real drink of choice was, like what terrified him into a near-catatonic state - - but he’d not known Illya had been missing home. On the countertop, his fingers prickled; it took a moment for Napoleon to realize it was out of an instinct to take Illya’s hand, as if he was a girl Napoleon was comforting.
Napoleon quashed that instinct: he didn’t want Illya to flinch from his touch, or drop-kick him into next Sunday. “You could always visit. Your mother still lives in Kyiv, doesn’t she?”
Surprise flashed across Illya’s face before it was quickly masked. “I could visit indeed,” he agreed, slowly. He finished his drink, and, looking Napoleon dead-on, ventured further: “Would you come with me?”
Well, this was a night for firsts! Napoleon asked, stalling for time, staring into his partner’s eyes, “Would you want me to?”
Illya shrugged again, but now his nonchalant expression admitted a small, barely-concealed smile. “As I said to Morgan, a man must die a little every day. Besides, while I have no traitorous father figures still alive in Kyiv, I cannot vouch that all my old Navy friends would remember me fondly. Not to mention my former K.G.B. handlers.”
Napoleon found himself, uncharacteristically, at a loss for words. Of course he’d been gratified that Illya had agreed to come to the Middle East with him on this personal mission, to watch his back in what had turned out to be a death-trap, and not just for Napoleon. But this - - following Illya home to the Soviet Union, watching over him as he navigated the complex dynamics of the Russian Navy and that of the more complicated and infinitely more paranoid K.G.B. - - was taking personal to a different level.
Then again, there was no denying that his relationship with Illya had become just that. They’d spent weeks living in each other’s pockets and sleeping in the same room, watching each other’s backs in the field and saving each other’s lives time and again. He and Illya had recently established a practice of Thursday dinners together, provided they were both in New York and didn’t have a date; they’d even started spending Sunday afternoons at Napoleon’s place catching up on the New York Times crossword.
Field agents couldn’t afford close relationships. Napoleon had many acquaintances, but few close friends; Illya had become one of them. And more: even more than he had with Jack, or afterwards with Joan and with Clara, Napoleon had come to trust his partner with his life, had let that partner into the center of that life.
Illya still held his gaze; Napoleon found he couldn’t look away. Slowly, he said, “Then I’m happy to come along for the ride. In case it’s your turn to need protecting from murderous old friends.”
Illya broke into a real smile - - the one the girls in the typing pool never got to see - - before quickly quenching it. Its warmth lingered, though, and Napoleon didn’t think that was just because of the effects of the whiskey pooling in his stomach.
Napoleon summoned another round of drinks. As the barman filled their glasses, he couldn’t help but notice how his partner seemed to glow under the lights of the bar - - almost as if he was an angel in disguise; which was ironic, given how ruthless and deadly he really was.
“By the way, thanks for saving my life back there. You know, I should have suspected Morgan the second he asked me to leave you behind.”
There had never been a question of Napoleon doing that, of course. What had he said to Premier Karim? You have something that belongs to me. It had just popped out in the moment. Now Napoleon examined it, the phrase took on nuances he hadn’t at first realized, as to how he really felt about Illya.
You’d risk the mission just to save one man? Zia had asked. The answer, of course, was that he would only have risked it for this man.
“Luckily for you, I was quicker off the mark than you were,” Illya sniffed, but his eyes shone, and once again he favored Napoleon with that toe-warming smile.
Napoleon smiled back, feeling the weight of the last mission finally lift from him. In its place was a warm certainty that anchored him: both on the clock, and off it, Illya would always be there, as he had been there earlier that night, to save Napoleon from himself.
“You were indeed in good time, as always,” he said, lifting his glass to Illya’s. “Let’s drink to that.”
