"The BOO from UNCLE" part 2 of Chapter 14 and the conclusion of the Halloween Round Robin

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The BOO from UNCLE -part 2 of Chapter 14 and the CONCLUSION of the Halloween Round-Robin



“Mr. Waverly sir,” Solo’s voice, clearly recognizable, came over a bullhorn.”We’re here to rescue you.”

Illya miraculously maneuvered the helicopter, landing in the trash-filled but thankfully large open space of the lot, though it wasn’t an easy task in the dark.

A small crowd had gathered, drawn to the chopper and its spotlights.

“Nothing here to see!” Slate waved them off as Napoleon helped the Old Man into the helicopter.

The seating was meant for four, and Mark volunteered to remain behind.

“Nonsense,” Waverly harrumphed. “I think Miss Dancer is light enough to temporarily sit on a lap.”

Napoleon smiled, expecting to have the honor but he watched as Mr. Waverly slapped his knee with a wink, and a playful smile, inviting Dancer to sit there.

“Mr. Waverly sir, that’s the nicest invitation I’ve had in awhile,” she returned his smile.

Flying by the seat of his pants, Illya managed to get the chopper back to the roof of UNCLE headquarters. There was an emergency beacon shining to help guide him now as the backup generators must have finally kicked in.

After a flawless landing they disembarked the helicopter and took the stairs, rather than the elevator; not trusting the power just yet. They made their way to Waverly’s conference room where they left him in the capable hands of young Agent Randy Kovacs who’d see to the boss’s every need, including getting him a good strong pot of tea. He was an assistant in training, as Lisa Rogers couldn't be here 24/7.

An hour later, Solo and Kuryakin were called back to the conference room to give a verbal report as to what had happened here at headquarters. Waverly had heard a few things from Kovacs, but now was the time for the details.

“Please be seated gentlemen.” The Old Man was now dressed in his own familiar tweed jacket and wool trousers; he was puffing away on his Briar pipe looking none the worse for wear.“Would either of you gentlemen care for a cup of tea?”

Both declined as they seated themselves at the table.

"Now is the time for your report."

“Well it’s hard to exactly say what happened sir,” Napoleon said.

“Then I suggest you begin at the beginning young man.”

Solo bit his lower lip when he heard that, but still he decided to leave out a few of the initial details like the ghost telling stories with the secretaries at the beginning of the night.

“Well it started when the lights here at headquarters were seemingly affected by a violent thunderstorm last night. Mr. Kuryakin had just returned from his assignment and we were walking down the stairs heading to the Commissary for something to eat when the lights and then the backup lights went out. I tripped on the stairs, spraining my ankle. I thought he’d grabbed my arm to catch me but apparently Mr. Kuryakin hadn’t and I was bruised with a hand mark from a very powerful grip. Though I swore I saw a shadow, no one else was there."

"Subsequently we found one of the female employees had been pushed inside an elevator, after we pried open the doors and freed her. She had the same dark angry marks on her arm as were on mine. We discovered jagged letters scratched into the metal wall of the elevator…’ Boo! You're dead!’

“At first we thought it a ridiculous joke someone was playing, given it was All Hallow's Eve,” Illya finally spoke up.” I checked the security cameras for the elevator but saw nothing, but upon viewing the tapes of the stairwell where Mr. Solo twisted his ankle, I discovered a surprising and disturbing image.” He hesitated.

“Get on with it man,” Waverly set his pipe in his crystal ashtray.

“The shadow Mr. Solo saw was not a trick of the light, and after making a  painstaking examination of each frame, adjusting the horizontal to slow... I saw a face. It was Riley, the Detection expert.”

“What the devil? He’s dead, and he also might have been a traitor."

“Exactly,”Napoleon said. “ Riley was a victim of Dr. Egret’s minion who was a mole here at U.N.C.L.E. and murdered him.”

“Yes I recall...but a ghost?”

“That is what I thought,” Illya nodded.

Napoleon jumped in. “The telephones lines went dead, as did all communications. Throughout the evening, other so-called spirits appeared to us. Mr. Ecks, you recall we killed him him during the Odd Man Affair; he gave us a rather ominous warning. He said we’d be be seeing a lot of strange things tonight, All of us would. We would be visited by an entire rogue’s gallery of people connected to Illya and myself who died. Fellow agents, enemy agents, innocents. Some of them he told us we were responsible for their deaths, though  that didn’t mean we were being blamed, no. It was merely because the veil between the planes was very thin, as I’d mentioned in a conversation before all this had begun.”

“Ecks said they were out for blood,” Illya added,” though as I had already said that I did not believe in ghosts. However my non-belief was shaken when I was accosted and knocked unconscious by Colonel Nexor.”

“Good gracious me. And who else dare I ask made an appearance?” Waverly cleared his throat.

“I ordered all personnel with the exception of Security to the Commissary. Eventually we ended up holding a seance here in your office and …”

“Though I thought it ridiculous,” Illya interrupted.

Waverly raised a bushy brow as a warning.”Please continue Mr. Solo. Who else appeared?”

“Harry Beldon, and he claimed during his ghostly rant to be responsible for all this. He asked a chilling question, wanting to know the last time we had seen you sir. We eventually heard from Nazarone, and even Count Zark and they gave their own personal twists on threats against the Command and yourself.”

“There were words, referring to a mask that Zark had said that gave a clue,”Illya said.”It was then I knew something was off, and that perhaps it was not Harry Beldon at all. I eventually discovered an electrical field in this very room. To make a long story short, we deduced that it was Dr. Egret who was at the bottom of this supposed haunting; it was her plan to seek revenge by kidnapping you.”

“Still I was then chased by the likes of the late Viktor Karmak, and his jaguar,Ving,” Napoleon added.

“Do not forget Mother Fear,” Illya shifted his position in his chair as if his back were bothering him, or perhaps it was the memories of his treatment at the hands of Mother Fear and Nazarone tonight that was rising to the surface. His hand went absentmindedly to his hip as he recalled the pain.

“I finally realized,”Illya said.”The ghost nonsense was to throw us off the track and keep us distracted. I had read in a science journal about Dr. Emmett Brown and his device called a Flux Capacitor; I was able to modify it to become a flash capacitor and disrupt the electrical field with an electromagnetic pulse to stop the apparitions, open communications and enable us to get a signal in order find your location.”

"Marvelous Mr. Kuryakin!"

"Thank you sir, but there was an unforseen complication..."

“Yes sir, unfortunately,” Napoleon interrupted, trying to hold off the inevtable regarding the blackout of the entire
eastern seaboard,” I did contact Mrs. Waverly to discreetly check upon your whereabouts and verify you were indeed missing. She suspected nothing, as far as I could tell.”

“On the contrary Mr. Solo; I spoke to my wife after my return here and she was quite concerned after noting certain clues that I had never been home...your questioning got the wheels turning in her head, as it were. Mrs. Waverly is quite a clever and resourceful woman and I suggest you never underestimate her again, that’s for your own self preservation,” Waverly chuckled.

“Yes sir, I’ll remember that," Solo cringed." Eventually we were able to make contact with Dancer and Slate who had been prevented from entering headquarters. THRUSH disguised their people as police and firemen, and were outside Del Floria’s, having sealed off the entire block.

“After one more ghostly apparition with Lucia Belmont, I with the help of Mr. Solo, were able to bring our plan to fruition. I was able to emit with what I called the Flash Capacitor, an electromagnetic pulse, thereby diabling the device that THRUSH was using to control us, and what we saw, as we had been unable to locate it."

It was Solo’s turn to speak now. “Once doing so, limited emergency power was restored and we were able to pick up the homing signal from your ring sir...and well the rest you know.”

“Well done gentlemen, though I am sad to say that the UNCLE team dispatched to pick up Dr. Egret and her lackeys after the fact found she had again escaped. That was quite a story of ghosts and goblins considering it's..."he looked at the clock on the wall."Halloween."

"You do not believe in ghosts do you Mr. Waverly?" Illya asked.

'Come come, young man I'm from the U.K. where every pub and castle has its own ghosts. Why you lived there for three years, did you never see a spirit yourself?"

"No sir." If he had, Kuryakin was unwiling to admit it. Not only was he a pragmatist, but he was ever the skeptic.

"More's the pity, now as to the matter of the blackout."

Illya blushed before responding.”My apologies sir as I am aware the electromagnetic pulse that the Flash Capacitor emitted may have...ummm, caused that. I had no idea as to the area it would encompass. Given the time constraints we were under to prevent your demise at the hands of Dr. Egret, I had to proceed. I will take full responsibility for my actions, as well as any punishment to be administered.”

“Balderdash young man. You did what was necessary, and I will say that it was a timely warning to the power companies along the east coast as to the vulnerability of the power grids against any sort of future attack. Let’s say we’ll keep this our secret, as it were. Now I’m sure you’re both tired from your night’s misadventures, go get yourselves cleaned up and have something to eat...oh nevermind that. It’s my understanding that the food in the Commissary has spoiled. Well, you’ll manage something, I’m sure. Dismissed."

“Not so much as a thank you for saving his life, just back to business,” Napoleon thought to himself.

“Oh and gentleman,” he called to them before they exited. “Thank you to you both, as well as Miss Dancer and Mr. Slate for coming to my rescue.”

“Our pleasure sir,” Napoleon nodded with an appreciative smile.

***

Solo, Kuryakin, Dancer and Slate sat together in the Bullpen at headquarters, slumping in their chairs from exhaustion. The rest of the staff, and other agents were tidying up, getting ready to end their shifts as the sun would soon be rising. It would be the start of another workday.

The power still hadn’t been restored outside, and would take a while, no doubt. Still evil wouldn’t wait, like time and tide waits for no man. U.N.C.L.E. had to be ready for whatever was thrown at them, last night was an excellent example of that.

It was still dark inside most of headquarters; the maintenance crew was trying not to stress the emergency generators since some of them had sustained damage from Kuryakin’s electromagnetic pulse; the ones that were running at the time the signal was emitted.

At the moment the four Section II agents were relaxing by candlelight, half dozing and not saying much of anything. The sun would be a welcome sight when it rose, to say the least, if they could remain awake long enough to see it.

“Well Merry Christmas to us, each and everyone,” Mark suddenly announced.

“Darling, you’re getting your holidays a little mixed up,”April laughed.

“Well weren’t we visited by ghosts just like in ‘A Christmas Carol,’ and didn’t they accomplish all their doings in a single night?”

Napoleon looked up; his interest piqued by the analogy.“Yes they did, didn’t they?”

“If anything just to merely distract us,” Illya added. “In a Christmas Carol the visiting spirits appeared to teach Ebenezer Scrooge a lesson. Though that was not THRUSH’s intent in this case, I think we still learned a lesson as well.”

“And that lesson is?” Napoleon asked. He absentmindedly rubbed his ankle. Once he’d stopped moving, he finally remembered the pain.

“There are no such things as ghosts,”Illya half-smiled.

“I wouldn’t be so quick to come to that conclusion goose,” April pointed. “You better look behind you.”

As Illya turned round; he and the others saw a barely visible apparition in the darkest corner of the room.

It was Riley and he was smiling at them, giving a thumbs up before he faded away.

“What the bloody hell did that mean?” Mark blurted out.

Solo grinned. “And you were saying tovarisch, there’s no such things as ghosts?”

Illya clicked his tongue. “How are we to know that was not a residual effect of THRUSH’s device? I have no hard facts, no empirical evidence to prove that ghosts are real.”

“Isn’t observation part of empiricism,”Napoleon asked.

“It is, but I prefer good hard facts, since we all know the eyes and mind can be easily tricked,”Illya replied.

The lights inside headquarters finally flickered on, hopefully to stay that way.

“Ah the miracle of technology saves the day,” Mark said.”And since I was corrected, I’d like to wish everyone a Happy Halloween. Now let’s go find some breakfast, I’m starved with the hunger right now.”

“As am I,”Illya stood, wincing as he put weight on his ankle. Like his partner, he’d forgotten about it; the increased adrenaline most likely had something to do with that. Now that the adrenaline rush was gone, the pain was back.

He and Solo limped out the door side by side like the walking wounded, followed by Dancer and Slate.

Behind them drifted a barely visible mist.

Riley figured he’d tag along for fun; they might not be able to see or hear him anymore but he could listen in on the conversation.

He missed being an UNCLE agent and he supposed he’d spend eternity doing that...

Comments

[insaneladybug.livejournal.com]

Naturally I'd never dream of trying to get an extra segment into the RR, since you're right, that wouldn't be fair for me to have a extra turn at it. My epilogues are never meant to officially be part of the stories. They're just "fanfictions of fanfictions", since I had so much fun I wanted to celebrate the fun some more. I guess I didn't see it as any different than writing stories related to specific episodes. But naturally I wouldn't post them any more, then.