section7mfu | HODOWE challenge - Looking Up (Reply)

Okay, this is the first time I've ever posted a story on LJ. It might be the last time!

LOOKING UP

He didn’t look particularly tough or even that strong in the photograph, in fact the first word that came into Napoleon’s mind was ‘beautiful’ disconcertingly.

‘He’s got himself dug in over there and he needs to make the choice between remaining in Europe for the foreseeable future or looking up and allowing this organisation to make a little more use of his considerable talents, despite what Beldon says’ Waverly muttered rather fiercely.

‘And he has a choice?’ Napoleon replied, putting down the image on the table, the man’s intense eyes seeming to follow him from the wooden surface, until Waverly spun him away back towards the file open in front of him.

‘I don’t think ordering him here is the solution’ he replied, ‘though of course he’s a man that’s used to taking orders, Mr Solo. No, we can afford to wait a few days and see if our Mr Kuryakin responds to the challenge.’

‘Or sees his own shadow and retreats rapidly’ Solo murmured, getting up.

He couldn’t work out whether they were pleased or disappointed that Kuryakin wasn’t around, he thought, gazing round the slightly battered offices of London HQ. For not the first time he decided that the English were an indecipherable race, masters of the understatement and reserved to the point of a kind of pompous frigidity that he just couldn’t fathom.

‘He’s not here, old man’ a Section Three agent drawled, hardly looking up. Someone from the back of the office shouted ‘he’s taken a few days off’ before a rather more friendly clerk going by the name of Julia pushed a note into his hand.

‘You’ll find him at home’ she said softly. ‘He doesn’t bother with this lot really.’ As he was going out, she added, ‘not taking him from us, are you, Mr Solo?’ with a look which reassured him that at least someone seemed to have noticed he existed.

The black cab driver had no problem with ‘128 Clapham Common North’ and with a u-turn which would have set a hundred horns blaring back in New York, set off at speed, crossing the river and heading south through the chaos of the evening rush hour traffic. As the South London suburbs flashed past him, Napoleon reflected on his own role in all this, but beyond just presenting this man with an airline ticket, it seemed to be nothing except playing a waiting game.

Illya turned away from the window frame slightly, before, with a rather obvious gesture, he closed the curtains with a decided swish. He looked at his watch. Whoever he was, the same man had passed by twice in a black cab about half an hour before, a rather handsome face with a puzzled expression looking upwards at the blank window. He now stood under the plane trees opposite the house, pretty well concealed, but looking increasingly uncomfortable in the steady downpour that was sweeping across the common.

He sat down on his one rather ancient armchair, and reaching down, turned on the gas fire, before leaning back nursing the cup of tea in his hands for warmth as much as for refreshment. He had lived in this house for two years now; two years of listening patiently and with compassion to Madame Horthy about the deportation to the camps, the Hungarian woman’s eyes filling with tears as she pored over the photograph of her family, her long fingers counting off those who gazed back at them, she the only one left to remember. Two years of sharing a bathroom with Mr Sanders of Burton and Sons, tailors, and Mr Hattersley, a music teacher at the local girls’ grammar school, both confirmed and long standing bachelors strongly disapproving of Janice and Madge, trainee hairdressers with whom Illya, once he had set the ground rules, enjoyed some riotous evenings of jive music together with Madge’s strange culinary concoctions she insisted on rustling up on his one ring stove in the corner.

They had all accepted the lie of his cover, and if they had even thought to follow him up to Charing Cross Road and into the bookshop he claimed to work in, the only thought that might cross their mind would be where he had disappeared off to, once he reached the ‘Classical literature’ section. He in turn had not hesitated to conduct a thorough search of their rooms and backgrounds, a necessary requisite to ensuring his continuing security in an insecure world.

‘I don’t really cook much but we could go out if you like.’ Napoleon forced himself not to jump forward in shock as the image he had last seen in Waverly’s office assumed human form in front of him.

He had followed Kuryakin into a café nearby predictably named ‘The Queen’s Restaurant’, large photographs of their majesties gazing down regally at them from either end of the room. The Russian seemed unperturbed by Solo’s presence, accepting a kiss from the Proprietress, a southern European looking woman with skin like leather and a wide gap between her large white teeth.

‘The Mikalides are Cypriots’ Kuryakin said, perusing the menu, ‘but the food is utterly British. I recommend Toad in the Hole, although you may prefer Shepherd’s Pie.’ He didn’t realise it then, but later Napoleon was to reflect that this was the first of many times he was to appreciate that this man would never be rushed.

It was difficult to tell from Kuryakin’s room whether any decision had been made. He seemed utterly immersed in the life of the house, his few belongings neatly arranged in the rather dismal surroundings he lived in. Napoleon had seen his desk at UNCLE, the same ordered, impersonal style.

‘Um, look is there anything stopping you coming?’ Solo finally blurted out, after they had spent some time talking about nothing in particular. He thrust the ticket down on the table, causing it to sway slightly. ‘I mean, do you have any, commitments?’ He saw the blond smile very slightly, as if he knew Solo’s life already.

‘No-one of importance’ he said, the image of Allegra suddenly pouring itself into his mind. But she was with John now, and despite the fact that he missed her so much it equated to near physical pain, it had been the right decision.

Before Napoleon could speak Kuryakin had opened the door.

‘Thank you for calling’ he said, as if Solo was a brush salesman. As the cab drew up, Napoleon looked up, but for now, the room was dark.

‘I’m not absolutely sure, to be honest sir. Um, I did give him the ticket, but I don’t think . . .’ He stopped, aware of Waverly’s voice but not able to respond. He could see him by the PanAm check-in; a small case about to go down the chute and the Russian turning away, the same calm expression on his face that Napoleon had seen the night before.

‘Oh hello. You’d better hurry up, I believe the flight is boarding.’ A disarming smile suddenly broke out on the Russian’s face. ‘I hear that spring has come early in New York.’ he said.