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As Illya Kuryakin stepped from the steel gray corridor into the maze of desks that comprised UNCLE’s secretarial pool, he considered slipping on his dark rimmed glasses. But, no, the subtle camouflage wasn’t worth the risk of tripping over a misplaced package or handbag. Being only slightly far sighted, the thick lenses distorted his vision of everything much more than twelve inches beyond his nose, and this mission required cat-like steath.
The area was buzzing with excitement, most of the desks temporarily unoccupied and the girls huddled in small clusters. Most likely comparing their Valentine’s Day prizes, he decided. There didn’t seem to be any one girl getting more than her share of inquisitive interest, though, which was a good sign. Surely any young woman who had sugary evidence that the debonair Napoleon Solo had proposed to her would be the undisputed center of attention.
Illya had moved only a few feet into the room when a pretty brunette materialized at his side, studying him coyly from under long, dark lashes. Rose Taylor he remembered. And from her flirtatious smile, he could be certain she was not the recent recipient of a box of candy hearts, all of which were inscribed ‘Marry Me.’.
“Can I help you, Mr Kuryakin?” she asked in a tone more seductive than professional, glancing from his blond hair, down his muscular chest, to the file folder in his hands. “I’d be happy to handle anything you might need.”
“As much as I appreciate that, Miss Taylor,” he said with a smile far more practiced and charming than his norm, “I’m here on what you might call a rescue mission. And I’m afraid that the fewer people who are involved, the better things will turn out … for everyone.”
“Ohhh.” Excitement flickered in her soft brown eyes before she turned to scan the room curiously. “If there’s anything I can do…”
“I believe there might be,” Illya said with the merest twitch of his lips, dropping his voice to a secretive whisper. “It would help to have a co-conspirator, so to speak.” He paused to allow the offer to sink in, making good use of the blue eyes he knew many of the women at headquarters found puzzlingly irresistible. “The situation is this, Mr Solo has … most carelessly … left a confidential document between the pages of a report he sent down for typing. If anyone without the required security clearance should happen to get his … or her hands … on that document, Napoleon might find himself in a great deal of difficulty, so I’ve come down to try to locate the file before anyone else opens it.”
“Oh, no,” Rose said, covering her lips with the pink tipped fingers of her right hand. “I’d hate for Napoleon … Mr Solo, I mean … to get into trouble. What can I do?”
He allowed his brow to crinkle into a thoughtful frown and waited several beats before responding. “Perhaps you could distract your co-workers, to give me the opportunity to walk among the desks and try to spot the guilty file.” He slipped a large chocolate heart, appropriated from his partner’s desk, into Rose’s left hand and gave her fingers a gentle squeeze around it.
“I can do that,” she sighed, flushing a deep shade of pink to match her name and her fingernails.
A few moments after she trailed away, glancing longingly back over shoulder, Illya heard a chorus of feminine squeals, and most of the members of the secretarial staff gathered around Miss Taylor, leaving him free to quickly maneuver among the desks.
*********
Thirty minutes later, Illya strolled into his office carrying two cups of hot coffee. His partner was still fidgeting in his desk chair, nominally studying their last mission report. If the American was absorbing more than one word in fifty, though, Illya would eat his neck tie.
“I brought you coffee,” he said, setting one of the cups onto Napoleon’s desk but ignoring, for a moment, the hopeful expression in his friend’s dark eyes.
“Well, don’t keep me in suspense,” Napoleon finally said when Illya dropped silently into his own chair and picked up a fiie. “Did you find out … anything?”
“Of course,” he replied blandly. “I am a spy, you know. Not that this mission took a great deal of subterfuge.”
“So just tell me already.”
“You left the box of ‘Marry Me’ hearts on the desk of Mabel Jenkins,” Illya said, completely deadpan.
“Mabel ….” Napoleon turned a shade paler, something Illya would have thought impossible in the absence of serious blood loss. “Oh. My. God.”
“Miss Jenkins doesn’t seem your type,” Illya tilted his head as though studying an unusual lab specimen. It was an understatement by any standard. Mabel Jenkins was dowdy, homely and a little plump … rather the opposite of Napoleon’s usual romantic interest. “I am somewhat surprised you’ve dated her.”
“We only went out once,” Napoleon mumbled over his clenched hands. “It was an accident.”
“Another one?” Illya raised his brows dramatically. “Perhaps you should be more cautious in your dealings with Miss Jenkins if you become accident prone just at the thought of her.”
Napoleon opened his mouth and snapped it closed again. “Just … don’t, okay? This is serious,” he said after what appeared to be a supreme effort to pull himself together.
“Well, why did you take her out if you didn’t wish to do so?” Illya asked reasonably. “Surely there are enough women in the world who you find desirable that you needn’t resort to dating women you don’t.”
Napoleon huffed out a long suffering sigh. “It was on the Friday afternoon we got back to New York City from that mess in Columbia. We were a day earlier than expected, and you said you were going to be tied up in the lab, so I went down to the secretarial pool to see if I could find someone to keep me company for the evening.”
Illya crossed his arms and glared. “Do not blame this on me.”
“I’m not. I was just explaining the circumstances. When I got downstairs, it was just after quitting time. Mabel was wearing her coat and was turned away from me when I walked into the room. From behind, she looks a lot like Betsy Palmer … from the shoulders up anyway.”
Napoleon paused to take a long sip of his coffee before continuing, eyes haunted. “Anyway, I’d been out with Betsy a few times, and we had a good time. So I walked up behind her and asked her to join me for dinner … and then she turned around … and it was Mabel. There was no way to rescind the invitation.”
“Although doing so might have been easier than rescinding an offer of marriage,” Illya said thoughtfully. “I am guessing the date didn’t go well.”
“That’s an understatement. We have absolutely nothing in common. Although, I can work with that .… But dinner with Mabel Jenkins was a disaster from the outset. She’s an inveterate gossip … she has a tongue like a viper … and she has absolutely no sense of humor.”
“Perhaps she didn’t enjoy your company either and won’t wish to marry you.”
“I suppose that’s possible,” Napoleon said, brightening a bit although still looking distinctly nervous. As well he should. Mr Waverly had warned the CEA several times about the negative effects of his carousing on the function and reputation of the organization. Their boss would doubtless be far less than pleased by an acrimonious and ugly broken engagement.
“Well, I’ve done my part,” Illya said, refocusing on his file. “I’ve identified your prospective fiancé. Now you have to face her. You can’t hide in our office for the rest of your life.”
“I guess.” Napoleon rose from his chair, straightened his shoulders as though preparing to face a Thrush firing squad, and stepped toward the office door. Then he turned to shoot his partner a pleading look. “I don’t suppose you’d like to—”
“Just go. I’m sure the anticipation is far worse than the inevitable confrontation will be.”
“You’re right. I mean, what’s the worst that can happen? She can make a stink, but she can’t force me up the aisle”
“That’s the spirit,” Illya said bracingly. “Go forth and conquer.”
After the door slid closed behind his friend, Illya took a box of candy from his jacket pocket and shook a few colorful hearts into his hand. He looked down at the inscribed messages, a smile tugging at his lips, then popped them into his mouth.
Leaning back in his chair, he glanced at his wrist watch, wondering how long it would take for Napoleon to figure out that Mabel Jenkins had called in sick today.