section7mfu | When Plans Don't Go To Plan

llya's carefully made plans don't quite go right!

Link to Part Six (A): http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/221830.html
Link to Part Six (B): http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/222061.html

Part Seven Below The Cut.

Chapter 7:

The engines, once again, whined into life. Clearance was obtained and special permission granted to fly over County Clare and around Killeagy.

Settled in his seat, Napoleon opened communications; first to London to request an escort team for their captive, then to Mr. Waverly to apprise him of what had been happening ,and their intentions to discover and neutralise the new satrapy.

“Thank you for your report Mr. Solo. It looks like your break has come to an end prematurely, if it really started in the first place. I will treat this as an assignment and re-arrange your rest days for you all. Keep me informed please.”

“Yes sir, and thank you it's much appreciated. I'll let the others know. Solo out.” Closing his communicator, he placed in back in his pocket.

“Do you think there'll be many of them in this new base they're constructing?” Lizzie asked, snuggling up to Napoleon while she could, trying to calm her nerves.

Unlike him, she didn't work in the field, so she was feeling a little excited, and at the same time apprehensive at being involved.

Putting his arm around her and feeling her uneasiness, he pulled her closer.

“Oh, I don’t think so. It sounds like it's in the early stages, so hopefully, it'll mainly be construction workers with just a few guards,” he said trying to sooth her.

Rebecca studied the map as Illya was taxiing to the runway.

“Killeagy is about twelve miles North East of us and there's roughly four square miles of open ground to search,” she informed him, and grinned, "that's going to be fun."

Smiling, he glanced over and indicated a group of switches and a small LCD screen above them on a part of the flight panel nearest to her.

“Those are the ground penetrating radar controls. That should make our job of searching a bit easier, but it will need to warm up first. That switch there will activate it; no, not that one, the one to the left, yes, that one.”

She flicked the switch and a low humming started as the radar went through its startup routine.

“We should be there in under five minutes once we get airborne," Becca stated.

"We are ready to go, do you want to take control ljubónvik?"

"Not this time, I think I'll leave it to you."

He smiled. "Here we go again, time to put a stop to our feathered friends plans."

Within minutes they were hurtling down the runway before becoming airborne once more.

By the time they reached Killeagy the equipment was ready. Illya reduced the jets speed to just above stalling, giving the radar the best possible chance of finding anything.

"There's few small villages, but it's mostly open hilly ground and rocky outcroppings, a good place to hide," she commented looking out the window as they flew to their destination.

"Mmm, it will not be easy to find them, they are usually quite good at covering their tracks."

Arriving at the indicated area they circled a couple of times looking for any obvious evidence and finding none, though they didn't really expect to.

Illya then flew the jet back and forth in a grid pattern and slowly an underground picture began to emerge on the small screen located in the flight deck.

Napoleon came into the cockpit and stood behind Becca, studying the radar readout.

“Hmm, that's starting to look interesting there," he pointed to an area on the screen, "Illya try a bit further to your left on your next sweep.”

“This would be so much easier in a helicopter,” the Russian grumbled.

“We have to be grateful for what we’ve got, Tovarisch, it’s better than nothing.”

“I hope they do not realise that we are on to them, they must be able to hear us flying around.”

“Just hope they don’t shoot at us if they do, The Old Man doesn’t want the paintwork to get scratched.”

Illya glanced at his partner incredulously, “This is no time to joke.”

He looked at the Russian and replied, straight faced, “Who says I'm joking? Waverly’s deadly serious,” he said before breaking into a grin.

The American studied the image again then looked out the cockpit window.

“Over there, near that rocky outcropping, can you see anything?”

“I can not see much from this height. If we fly a bit lower, we may be able to get a better look." Illya replied.

“It's a real maze down there according to this radar image,” Rebecca said, “It definitely looks like there's a tunnel, but it’s hard to tell if it ends below ground or not.”

lllya lowered the altitude, and it was then Rebecca spoke first.

“Yes, I think there's something there by that stand of trees.”

“I will find a suitable place to land, the ground looks firm enough.”

The Russian silently thanked the UNCLE techs for thinking of fitting the modified landing gear; without it, landing on the soft ground would not be possible.

“I think it is time for you to get strapped in Napoleon. I do not know how rough landing on this surface will be.”

Napoleon put his hand on his partner's shoulder and gave a slight squeeze. Illya knew its meaning. ‘I have faith in you’.

He turned the aircraft around and lowered the landing gear, hoping that he had chosen well and it would be firm enough for the jet to land on.

They touched down and immediately he put the engines in reverse to bring the aircraft to a halt as quickly as possible; breathing a sigh of relief as it came to a stop with about 50 ft. to spare of his impromptu runway.

"We will not shut everything down Becca, I want to keep most of the flight systems live in case we need to make a quick getaway."

"Okay, that's a good idea, tell me which ones you want left."

After shutting down the non-essential equipment, they went through to the cabin and discussed how to go about destroying this new satrapy.

"We've weapons in a locker in the back, I'll see what's there," Napoleon said.

He returned with explosives, a couple of high powered rifles and several clips of ammunition and darts for their specials.

"Someone needs to stay with the plane, I'll stop here with Penny and keep a lookout while you go, this place could be crawling for all we know."

"Okay, thanks Mark. Right, time to see if we can eradicate this new feathered nest," Napoleon said.

They left the jet and headed towards a small copse of trees and bushes on a rocky outcropping.

"There's a path here, quite worn too," Becca called.

As they got nearer they could see the mouth of what looked like a small natural cave, partly obscured by the bushes and trees.

When they entered, it was bigger than they realised and looked more like a tunnel with the walls and ceiling supported by thick oak beams four foot apart; it was an old mine.

"I suggest we check for booby traps as we go, don't want to alert them to our presence if they don't already know we're here," April advised.

"No sign of any guards yet anyway, though I'm not sure if that's good or bad," Rebecca said.

They followed the tunnel, watching out for anything suspicious when it curved to the left.

"Stay here, I will take a look," Illya said.

He could just about see with what light was coming in from the entrance, but still took a moment to let his eyes adjust.

He caught his breath as there was a guard about twenty feet away. llya carefully aimed at the man, darting him easily and he crumpled to the floor, out like a light.

"Only one, and he will be sleeping peacefully for a few hours,” the Russian told the others when he returned.

"Lets see where this tunnel leads us to then," Rebecca suggested.

They carried on down the tunnel as quickly and silently as they could, all the while going deeper and deeper underground, stopping at every corner and checking to see if the coast was clear. They didn’t come across any more guards.

“It seems no one's at home,” Napoleon commented quietly as he turned another corner before stopping suddenly.

“Then again maybe I spoke too soon.”

The tunnel opened out to a large lit cavern, three more tunnels leading from it, these also lit up by lights attached to the ceiling. They were all connected by a thick cable which disappeared down a tunnel from where a humming sound emanated.

Around the circumference of the walls were banks of computers, lights flashing on their surfaces. Illya put on his glasses and began examining the machines.

“Nothing special happening, I think they are synchronising with their main computer, I do not think they have been online long.”

Napoleon went down one of the other tunnels, gun at the ready returning in a few scant minutes.

"It branches off into more tunnels down there. This place is a warren, it would take us months to find out how far it all goes. I think the best thing we can do is to set them back a bit and wait for reinforcements."

The humming became louder as Illya and Rebecca explored the tunnel, following where the cables disappeared. They came to a room with a monstrous looking generator.

“It looks like they are planning a major base here, seeing the size of this, I think we may need to do something about it,” he whispered with a glint in his eye.

He proceeded to attach some explosives to it, adding a time delay detonator and setting it for twelve minutes, giving them enough time to leave and some to spare in case they met with any resistence.

He planned to destroy the power source and some of the cavern, but aimed to leave the tunnel intact to enable them to make their escape. He knew they would need to come back with more equipment to be able to completely destroy the facility.

They jogged back down the tunnel and into the cavern. Just as they emerged and joined the others, three THRUSH agents came from one of the other tunnels in deep discussion with each other followed by two guards.

They all became aware of each other at about the same time.

Napoleon and the others had a slight advantage as they had their weapons ready and they fired off the first shots. One dart hit its mark and a guard fell, the other guard fired, narrowly missing the American.

Their rivals now had their guns in hand and were firing, one shot grazed Illya’s arm, but was just a flesh wound. He returned the compliment and another guard went down.

Looking to see how Napoleon and the others were doing, he saw Becca first, she was throwing some punches at her attacker and within seconds, managed to stun him with a blow to his head and he fell to the ground. That was three down.

Lizzie was with Napoleon, they were fighting off one of the other goons who had him held in a headlock. Managing to get behind the assailant, she swiftly kicked him between the legs. Letting Napoleon go, he crumpled to the ground groaning and holding his groin.

"Thank you, ma chérie, you certainly showed him who was boss," he grinned as he grabbed her hand and ran towards the Russian who was yelling something.

There was one left now and April was dealing with him.

“We need to get out of here,” Illya yelled, panting slightly after the fight, "The generator will go off in about four minutes.”

Upon hearing his warning, they all ran for the safety of the cave at the end of the tunnel, hoping the fight hadn't cost them too much time.

When Plans Don't Go To Plan - Part Seven

no subject