"The Something's Rotten In Block Island Affair" chapter 9 for PicFic Tuesday 4/5/16

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Chapter 1, Chapter 2, Chapter 3, Chapter 4, Chapter 5, Chapter 6 (part 1), Chapter 6 (part 2), Chapter 7,
Chapter 8


The Prompt:

“What do you know about cooking Illya?” Maddy asked as she retrieved some containers from the large walk-in refrigerator.

“If we were cooking over a campfire and I had just killed and skinned a snake or a rabbit, then I would be fine. In a kitchen however, I can warm a can of condensed soup, and boil water for tea... oh yes, and I can make toast as well as cook eggs. That is the sumtotal of my home cooking skills.”

“So that’s all you eat?” Her look was priceless' she found it hard to believe what he was saying. He was awfully good at telling tales.

‘I order in a lot of take out Chinese food.”

The girl shook her head in disbelief. “Well let’s put you to work with what you know to do. You can poach up some eggs and handle the toast.” She set a carton of brown eggs in front of him and a loaf of Wonder bread, pointing out the toaster and the egg poacher to him.

“I’ll take care of the corned beef hash and the hash brown potatoes and hmmm... how about some asparagus with hollandaise sauce, that’ll do."

They had the meal ready in no time, and Illya reached round from behind the girl, wrapping his arms around her as he plated the eggs atop the hash, while she put the hash browns beside them. The asparagus were plated separately.

He couldn’t resist nuzzling her neck.

‘I like that,” she whispered. “So could I come up to your room again tonight?”

‘I was hoping you would ask, but I must make sure you understand something. I do not want to see you hurt; you need to realize there are no strings attached, yes?”

“I understand that. When this is all over you’ll be going back to New York or somewhere else around the world. I’ll be sorry to see you go, but you’ll be leaving me with some great memories.”

“Good, now that we have that straightened out…” he turned her around to face him and kissed her long and hard.

“Excuse me?” Napoleon peeked into the kitchen,” but you have three very hungry sailors home from the sea out here.”

“Coming right up Mr. Solo,” she giggled, and wiggled free of Illya’s arms.

“Madeleine I think you can call me Napoleon now, seeing as how you’re pretty friendly with my partner.”

Napoleon ducked as Kuryakin tossed a balled up dishrag at him, but it went flying past him, intentionally of course. Solo saluted before disappearing back to the dining room.

Illya and the girl carried the food out to the others, and Madeleine joined them as well. They avoided talking shop and instead Kitt and Mark managed to keep everyone amused with their joking as they all ate.

“Illya I think there’s hope for you yet with your cooking,” Napoleon said.

“Oh I only made the eggs and toast. Madeleine did the rest.”

After eating, one by one Napoleon, Mark and Kitt began stretching and yawning rather conspicuously, realizing that there were too many of them at the table. After helping to clear away the dishes, they sauntered off to their rooms, leaving Illya and Madeleine alone together.

“May I help do the dishes?” He asked.

“No silly, we’ll leave them for the morning crew to do. I’ll just let them soak here in the sink,” she stretched and yawned herself.

“Would you like to go upstairs or sit out on the porch for a bit?”

“Mmm, porch for a few minutes if you don’t mind?”

“Not at all.”

They walked out hand in hand, sitting again on the swing, and gazed up at the stars.

“So anything come of your trip today?” She wanted to ask earlier at dinner but sensed the men were avoiding the subject in front of her.

“We were unable to locate the boat you described but we do have a name. He is a possible suspect and we are convinced is involved with dumping chemicals in the water, causing the fish kills. Though we do not know why.”

“Someone’s doing it on purpose? Oh good Lord, chemicals?”

“Yes, we discovered a man named Eddie Thompson has been purchasing certain chemicals up and down the East coast.  When combined these chemicals make a very short lived but potent cocktail that is killing the fish. The chemical mixture has had to have been continually dumped in order to cause these on going fish kills as it loses its strength very quickly and simple dissipates.”

“Illya?”

“Yes Madeleine?”

“You know you can call me Maddie.”

“I prefer Madeleine if you do not mind; it is a very elegant name.”

“Gee elegant? I’ve never been called that before...well anyway, I wanted to tell you that name, Eddie Thompson, it rings a bell. I’m sure I recognize it.”

“You do? He sat up straight, turning and looking directly at her.

“He’s stayed here. It was about a month ago I think; let me go check the guest book.” She walked into the lobby followed by the Russian.

“Martin! Wake up,” she saw her cousin sleeping behind the desk.”

“Sorry Maddie, I was studying for a test all day.”

“Hand me the guest book please?”

“Sure,” he lifted the large ledger up from behind the desk, setting it on top, right in front of her.

Madeleine began to quickly thumb through the pages.

“Yes I was right, her it is. I remember him now and his friends. We kicked them out of the hotel because they kept coming in with mud covered boots, stinking of fish and they were always filthy, carrying shovels and buckets. They were pretty rude to the other guests, except for Mr. Thompson. He was quiet, mousy even. He seemed to be an educated man, though it was his friends who were very rough around the edges.”

“That description of Mr. Thompson rings true to what little we know of him. However, I have no information on any known associates. Shovels and buckets you say? I think we have seen these men trudging along the shoreline.” Illya tapped his index finger to his lips.

”The Chief of the Coast Guard station said they had to chase them away from a place called Settler’s Cove because of the rip tides there, though they seemed to have no interest in swimming. Captain Morton guessed they were…”

“Treasure hunters!” Madeleine blurted out. “That’s right, that’s what they were doing. We get them here sometimes, searching for Captain Kidd’s buried treasure.”

“Yeah,” Martin interrupted.”He was here on Block Island sometime in 1699, where he was supposedly supplied by a woman named Mercy Raymond, who was the daughter of the mariner James Sands. The story goes that for her hospitality, Mrs. Raymond was asked to hold out her apron, into which Kidd threw gold and jewels until it was full. After her husband died she left Block Island with her family, moving to Connecticut. There she bought a lot of land and her family was said family said to have been "enriched by the apron. It’s going to be on our history test next week.”

“That’s true, “Maddy said.”The rumors of Kidd having buried more of his treasure here still persist to this day. Gee, I remember as a kid, digging around the island with the daydream of finding gold doubloons.”

Illya smiled at their very interesting story. Although treasure hunting and chemicals being dumped in waters around the island made about as much sense to the Russian as 1+1 equalling 3. There had to be something else nefarious going on.

“If we could find these men, then would could at least question their involvement in the poisoning of the waters here. Perhaps their treasure hunting is simply a cover story for something else they are doing?”

“Illya, I know where they are right now.”

“Really and where is that?”

“I heard they were staying up at the old stone tower up on Beacon Hill. It’s the highest point on the island and used to be an observatory, but now it’s only rented out now and then. I’m pretty sure they’re still there as they haven’t checked into any of the other hotels here on the island, and as you said, they’ve been spotted by the Coast Guard recently.”

“And how would you know that Madeleine?”

“Hey we hotel people talk to one another you know.” She tapped her temple with her index finger.

“My dear, you are amazing.” He planted an excited kiss on her lips.

“I can show you where the tower is; it’s only a little over two miles from here. All we have to do is take Old Town Road straight up to Beacon Hill.”

“Come on then,” Illya grabbed her by the hand and led her out to his moped. She sat on the back behind him as he started it up and heading out onto Spring Street; she called out the directions to him from there.

It took all of five minutes to get to the house referred to as the tower, and it was as Madeleine had described it to him on the way there.

With the light from a full moon; Illya focused on the dark outline of stone house with a tower attached to it. A very simple structure, it reminded him of some homes he’d seen in areas of Pennsylvania. Beside it was parked a blue Rambler station wagon, the back loaded with shovels, pick axes and buckets.

No doubt they brought it over on the ferry from Point Judith located on the mainland.

He parked the moped far enough away, and told the girl to remain there with it while he went check out the house.

He didn’t want to frighten her and drew his Special from its his shoulder holster as he drew closer to the stone building. A light shown through an open window and Kuryakin crept close to it as he heard voices coming from inside.

“We need to finish up and get out of here. I heard tell there’s some sort of cops creeping around the island asking questions.”

“No not until we find more. I know we’re close. I can just feel it.”

“Eddie you been sayin’ that for weeks now. We’re runnin’ out of supplies and we’re only gonna keep people away for so long. It’s been a month already for Chrissakes.”

“Woodrow, I know I’m on the right trail to find Kidd’s treasure. My map indicates burial sites all along the coast of the island. Better we chased away the curious, and the insufferable tourists while we were doing our scouting and digging.”

“Don’t call me Woodrow  Eddie, my name is Sticks got it?”

“Woodrow is your given name and the name of one of the Presidents of our country. You should be proud to bear such an un grand nom.”

“Stop acting like you’re smarter than the rest of us Eddie.”

“Why should I when I am?”

“I ought beat the living crap outta you!”

“But you won’t because I’m the only one who can make sense of the map. Just be patient, and you’ll be richer than you could ever imagine. We have one more delivery of chemicals on the way, and the biggest one yet. It will drive everyone away as it’ll create the worse stench yet and will not only smell, but will make people sick. The island will shut down as people leave en masse to escape it. It’s the final stage of my plan.”

“Yeah about that stench Eddie,” one of the other said,” I can’t take much more of it myself. How are we gonna keep from getting sick from this ‘final stage bit?”

Eddie Thompson tossed a pile of gas masks on the table.

“This my friends will do the trick.”

That’s all Illya needed to hear and he stepped away away from the window. He had to get back and wake the others.

“Snap!” He froze, having stepped on a dry piece of wood that broke in half beneath his foot.

Illya backed away slowly, barely breathing and that’s when it happened. He was hit in the head with something hard, and he went down hard like a ton of bricks.

The sun was up, shining brightly through a window into Illya’s eyes when they finally opened. He found himself in a position with which sadly, he was all too familiar.

His wrists were bound with rope behind his back and his ankles wrapped in duct tape. He was sitting on the floor; a piece of the tape across his mouth.

As Illya turned his head he saw, much to his dismay, the girl was beside him,  bound and gagged as well. She appeared to be awake, and when she saw him looking at her, her tear-filled eyes went wide with desperation and fear.

“Hey Eddie, our visitor is awake,” a rather greasy, dark haired man spoke.  Behind him, sitting in an old arm chair sat the man Illya presumed was Eddie Thompson.

He rose from the chair, walking over to Kuryakin.

“So who the hell are you?”

Illya made a muffled noise before the dark haired one finally removed the gag, ripping the take painfully away.

“You should release me and surrender yourselves before you do any more damage to Block Island and its people, or you will suffer the consequences.”

Thompson broke out into a fit of laughter.

”Says who? A runt like you? So I’m going to ask you again, Mr. Illya Kuryakin who are you?  Eddie held up the agent’s gold ID card.

“What’s this U.N.C.L.E. some sort of club or are you one of the cops we heard were lurking about and asking questions?”

There was silence. Illya chose for once to keep his mouth shut and not antagonize the men anymore than he already had. He had to think of the innocent girl who was tied up beside him.

At that exact moment Illya’s communicator went off, chirping away where it was lying on the table along with his gun and wallet.

Comments

[jantojones.livejournal.com]

Ooohhh, another intriguing chapter. Napoleon isn't going to be pleased that Illya went off without back-up.

Ps. I love the way Illya insists on calling Maddie by her full name. It's very Ducky :-)

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

Exactly, though I think in IK's mind he's going to do some preliminary snooping...after all he has Maddie with him.

Thanks for reading and the comment. There's still a few more chapters left!

[lindafishes8.livejournal.com]

So I wasn't too far off base figuring out what's happening on Block Island. I like Madeleine and Illya as a couple. Hope a quick rescue is in order.

[mrua7.livejournal.com]

I can neither confirm or deny how close or far off the mark you are so far. (giggle) Thanks for catching up and commenting.