Caught in the Spider's Web - Part 5 - Short Affair 9th November

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

The problem with writing this short bits at a time is that sometimes bits just don't seem interesting. Sorry.

Prompt word - annoy
Prompt colour - grey

Napoleon has to admit, leaving the hospital might have been....not a mistake, exactly, because that would imply he could be happy in a world where he stayed tucked up safely in bed, leaving Illya missing and in trouble...but maybe a tad more of a rash decision than he'd first thought. There are grey dots swirling in front of his eyes. Doggedly, he looks past them and carries on moving through the thick bushes towards the back door of Fuller's mansion.

Really, he doesn't know for certain that Illya is in there. But it is the only lead he has and he can't let it pass. No one else is going to come rescue them. And it would be too farcical for Illya to believe him dead only to go and die himself before he found out the truth, and this mission has gone badly enough already. He stops for a moment, bracing himself against a tree, and he would swear he can feel his ribs grinding against one another. He takes slow, shallow breaths and tells himself he is imagining the metallic taste at the back of his throat. And that he is simply pausing here a moment to plan his way in.

He is injured and without his gun. The only advantage he has here is that they think he is dead. He presumes, anyway, there is surely no reason for Illya to believe he is dead unless Fuller thinks so too. The car he was in must have been destroyed – burned, or crushed, maybe – without anyone checking whether or not he was in it. Which fits in with everything he knows about Fuller; the man is an amateur. A dangerous amateur, yes, but an amateur nonetheless. Angelique should have known better though. The next time he is seized with the urge to annoy her, he will remind her of this...

Or perhaps not. He remembers her there, he thinks, if he squints, standing in the rain, her face chalk white. He doubts that she took his 'death' lightly.

There is a noise off to his side, as though someone is creeping through the undergrowth towards him and trying to be very quiet. Alright. He leans on the tree with both hands and waits, tracking the crunch of each footstep as they draw closer. He waits, until he can practically hear the man breathing before he snaps an elbow back, twisting round and driving the heel of his hand into his throat and then, as the man falls down to his knees, Napoleon calmly kicks him in the head.

He stands over him for a moment, breathing hard, and each breath hurts. At least he has a gun now. And a THRUSH guard uniform. Things are looking up.

*

Whatever it was that Angelique gave him seems to be doing the trick, for the moment at least. The pain is there, below the surface, but he can ignore it for now, even the constant rubbing of his shirt over the raw flesh of his back. If nothing else, he won't give Angelique the satisfaction of seeing him suffer.

He takes out the two guards outside the cell door easily enough. Leaving them unconscious and bleeding gives him scant satisfaction.

“You're not going to kill them?” Angelique asks with vague curiosity, stepping over the bodies fastidiously.

“No,” he says curtly.

She laughs scornfully. “And that is why UNCLE will always lose. You catch us and you imprison us and then you act surprised when we escape to win another day.”

He looks at her. “And how many times have we escaped from you?” he demands sharply. “Don't pretend it's any different. We're both looking for intelligence to win the war. Kill an enemy agent and all you have is a dead...”

He shuts his mouth quickly, a bitter lump in his throat. Napoleon....

Angelique turns away as if she can't stand to look at him anymore. “They'll die when we set off the explosives anyway,” she says coldly.

“I was going to set off the fire alarm,” he says. “To give them a chance to get out.”

“You're weak,” she says, like it's an obvious, observable fact. “Fuller is upstairs. Trying to find the courage to admit he might have lost the code machine. I hope you can kill him at least.”

Comments

[ssclassof56.livejournal.com]

The tension and suspense are killing me. I hope they last. :) Fastidiously is a great word. A lot of bang for the buck.

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

Angst upon angst upon angst. I'm loving this and did indeed find it interesting. I like the way you have both injured men heading towards each other, with neither knowing the other is their. Keep it up :-D

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Thanks! Yeah, rereading this chapter it's not as bad as I thought, but I'm still not completely happy with it.

[otherhawk.livejournal.com]

Oh, thank you. There's only a couple more chapters left of this.