When Plans Don't Go To Plan - Part Ten

[avrovulcan.livejournal.com]

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

Link to Part Nine: http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/231148.html

Part Ten Below The Cut.

Napoleon understood his partners need to do something, he felt the same way. Destroying the facility completely, now they had access to the equipment needed, would help them both. He looked to Lizzie, “Will you stay for Rebecca?”

“Yes, of course. I can help look after her when she comes out from the operating theatre.”

Penny offered to stay as well with Lizzie and Rebecca.

Illya, Napoleon, Mark and April took the car they arrived in, heading back to the jet, quickly dealing with the ground checks before boarding. Within minutes they were in the air and heading back to Shannon.

Arriving there, they went to find Cormac and see if the helicopter was flyable.

He’d heard the jet arrive and came out to greet them.

“Word is that you had to go straight to London, I’m sorry to hear that your friend got hurt,” Cormac said sympathetically, "I hope she'll be okay."

Illya let Napoleon do the talking, not in the mood to have to say anything.

“Yes, thank you. I presume the prisoner has been taken back to London already?”

“Yeah, we had no problem with him.”

“Cormac, is the chopper flyable?” Mark asked.

“It was just serviced and is ready for action. All fueled up too.”

“We need to get back to Kileagy and finish what was started.”

“I’ll go and get the tow truck for it," Cormac replied as he disappeared out the door.

Once the truck had been unhitched and the aircraft checked over, the four agents climbed in and took off, Illya piloting it. Within ten minutes they landed outside the fledgling base after circling around to check for any resistance.

They left the chopper and made their way into the tunnel; passing by the blood stained area where Rebecca had been only hours before.

Trying not to dwell on what had happened to her, they hurried past and down to the cavern. It was harder going this time because of the debris in the tunnel from the earlier explosion.

As they neared the main cavern, there was a rock fall creating another barrier, and after crawling over it, Illya signaled the others to stop and keep quiet.  He saw light and thought he heard something up ahead; his partner quietly crept to his side.

“What's the problem, tovarisch?” He whispered.

“I heard voices ahead and it looks like they have power again,” the Russian whispered back. They both lay still, straining their ears to listen.

“Yup, I can hear voices now,” Napoleon said. 

The partners both reached for their specials, edging forward until they could see into the cavern.

The aftermath of the earlier explosion was visible, but disappointingly, the cavern itself was largely intact.

"It must be substantially reinforced, not to have suffered more damage." Napoleon said.

"Mmm, more than I estimated anyway."

There were signs of any collapse in only a few places with the rock fall they were currently laying on being one of them.

The American silently pointed out a small generator in the cavern that was powering some temporary lighting. "That didn’t take them long, and I spy little birdies over there."

There were three men standing in a group and seemed to be coordinating the clean up with four unfamiliar men joining them; how they escaped the explosion relatively unscathed was unknown.

Napoleon and Illya could only assume they had taken refuge in the maze of tunnels.

Staying and observing for a while to see if there were any more, they were about to contact the others on their communicator and apprise them of the situation, when two figures walked into the cavern.

“Well, just look who the cat's dragged in,” Napoleon whispered, as one of the two, was none other than Paul Vicary himself.

"Cat?" Illya asked confused, wondering why a cat would be dragging a person, or if it was even possible.

"Never mind."

They contacted the rest of their small group via their communicator, telling them to join them now and informed them of their findings.

"Just to let you know, so it's not a shock, April, but Paul's down here,” Napoleon said.

Concerned, Mark looked to his partner, but she showed no emotion as they crawled over the rock fall to join Illya and Napoleon.

"So what's the plan then fella's?" She asked.

"We're outnumbered, there's at least nine of them.

"It has never stopped us before, has it not? I feel up for a fight," Illya commented.

"I can believe it, partner mine. The only good thing is they don't know we're here."

"We can to use this to our advantage then, mates," Mark added.

"Do you think there'll be more down there?" April asked.

"I would at least hope not, since the base is still being set up, though more reinforcements could be on their way," the Russian answered.

"We've got to get this done as quickly as possible, we should be able to dart a few before they know what's hit them, as long as we fire at the same time."

"Four against five, that'll even the odds a bit, mates." Mark grinned.

All four agents silently and carefully crawled to the top of the rock fall; each giving hand signals as to whom they were aiming for. Just as they prepared to fire simultaneously, with Napoleon about to give the signal; he dislodged some of the rocks.

The people below looked up towards the noise and started to draw their guns.

"There's someone there.” One pointed to the noise.

"UNCLE again I bet, don't let them get away," said another.

Cursing his clumsiness Napoleon fired quickly and managed to dart one of them in the shoulder. The man spun around colliding with one of the others as he fell to the floor clutching his shoulder.

Mark fired, darting another one.

Illya yelled, “Cover me,” as he rolled down the rocks into the cavern, landing on his feet firing and dodging the return shots.

“Illya, on your left,” Napoleon called out.

Kuryakin hit another THRUSH in the leg, but as he went down the man managed to hit the Russian in the arm. 

Mark and his partner came down next, closely followed by Napoleon.

"Leave Paul to me, he's mine; I owe him one." April growled through clenched teeth.

They gave her no argument as they advanced farther into the cavern,  dodging bullets and returning fire.

The first THRUSH that was hit in the shoulder was up again; he was a huge character, more like a slab of muscle, than a man. Staggering from the effects of the first dart, he went for Mark, but his aim was off and it hit the wall. Mark returned fire and he was finally taken care of with a shot in the thigh, and he fell unconscious to the ground. 

"Blimey, how much sleeping drug did he need?" Mark said bewildered; as one was usually enough, but this guy was so monstrous and muscular he'd needed extra.

Napoleon was grappling with one of the guards; the goon kicking Solo's legs out from under him, knocking him face down. He was about to shoot Solo in the back when the American rolled over and managed to dart him, and he collapsed to the floor unconscious.

There were now three left. April had used up her darts, and after replacing them with a clip of live ammo, she approached Vicary; her gun aimed at his chest.

“I owe you one Paul, I only wish I had seen through you earlier.”

“It was good while it lasted though, don’t you think?”

“For you maybe. I don’t know how you managed to keep your true identity a secret from us; though you must have been with THRUSH for a while for you to be put in charge of creating this base.”

“Yeah, well we took a risk there. It's all down to a new drug that would suppress everything that would have given me away, and you see, Paul isn't my real name; that's why nothing showed up in my background checks. Didn’t you ever wonder why I was on ‘medication’?

"My assignment, and the reason for being with you, was to get close enough to find a way of eliminating one of Central’s greatest threats, Solo and Kuryakin. Those two have caused us trouble too many times.”

“So when you found out about their vacation…”

“It was too good an opportunity to miss; especially when I realised they would have to land at Shannon to refuel, and we could get an operative in place to dart them quite easily.”

“So, the only thing you didn’t bank on, was Rebecca being able to fly the jet.”

“Yeah, that was one thing we didn’t plan for; we thought that with Solo and Kuryakin out cold, the plane would crash. If the rest of you died, all the better.”

Paul moved closer to April as he spoke planning to make a grab for her weapon, but she anticipated his move and shot him in the leg.

“We're going to destroy this place. So, if I were you, you and what remains of your group should get out while you still can." she said, making him a generous offer, and one he didn’t deserve.

"Our reinforcements are on their way and will be more than willing to take you all back to UNCLE headquarters.” She smiled with satisfaction.

April started to walked away, but after a few paces she stopped and turned round to face him one last time.

“Goodbye Paul, in a way I hope you escape, because what THRUSH will do to you would be far worse than anything we would do.”

The others had dispatched the two remaining goons with darts while April had been talking to Paul.

Illya was favouring his left arm and Napoleon was trying to get the Russian to let him examine the wound.

“I am fine Napoleon, just leave it.”

“Your ‘fine’ is not the same as my ‘fine,’my friend.”

“The bullet has passed through and I will be fine.” Illya kept pressure on the wound, fixing his eyes with an icy stare at his partner. “We need to destroy this place.”

“Yes we do, but I don’t need my partner passing out due to loss of blood. Now, let- me- look.”

Knowing Napoleon would not let it rest, Illya finally allowed the examination and let him bind the wound.

“Now that wasn’t hard was it?”

The Russian grumbled something under his breath before continuing. “I need to set the explosives, the sooner we finish, the sooner I can get back to Becca.”

He instructed the others where to place the explosives to cause the most damage.

"The tunnels need to be sealed, it should be easy enough as they are not reinforced, the cavern is a different story," he said, "I need a drill of some sort."

"Okay, partner mine, let's go hunting," Solo replied.

"Yeah, I'm sure we'll be able to find something suitable here, mate," Mark added.

They searched down the tunnels and found some construction tools, among them was a power drill.

Illya connected the drill to the generator, and climbing atop some scaffolding that was still in place, he proceeded to make a series of holes around the ceiling. Napoleon and Mark climbed up after him, filling the holes with the explosives.

April attached fuses to each packed hole and linked them together like a chain.

Once the first one detonated the rest would follow suit and continue travelling along the ceiling, bringing the whole lot down.

"We need to do the tunnels now, I suggest we each take a tunnel and set the charges as I have shown you," Illya told the others.

"Right oh, mate, I'll take this one then." Mark said pointing to the tunnel on the right, making his way down it.

Lastly explosives were placed around the generator and the already damaged computers ensuring they would all be completely destroyed.

"You all need to leave now.  I will set the remote detonators and join you shortly," Illya said.

"Just make sure you do, tovarisch," Napoleon replied.

While they had been working inside, their backup had arrived, removing the unconscious bodies of the Thrush agents and the guards. By now it was dark and using powerful spotlights; they gathered Vicary and his associates into their larger helicopters.

Napoleon, Mark and April emerged from the tunnel and climbed into their own helo, starting it up and waiting for the Russian to join them.

"There he is, c'mon Illya." April called over the noise of the whirling blades and the engine.

As soon as he was in he spoke to Mark. “Get this in the air."

The Brit gave no argument and did as he was told, taking off and hovering at a safe distance from the mine to watch the results of their handiwork.

Illya looked down at the remote unit he held in his hands and caressed it gently while his partner looked at him, giving his right arm a squeeze in support.

Illya smiled slightly.  “This is for you, Rebecca." He pressed the button with deliberation.

A loud boom was heard for miles around, followed by a cloud of dust and debris billowing into the air.

Mark kept the chopper steady as the shockwave buffeted it. When the dust settled a new landscape appeared, what had been a rocky outcropping was now a crater as the cavern had collapsed, destroying everything that had been inside.

Satisfied the job was done; they flew back to Shannon to retrieve the jet and return to London.

Comments

[avrovulcan.livejournal.com]

Yes, I thought April handled Vicary quite well. Thanks for commenting.