"Blood Moon"~ part 3

[mlaw]

 link to part 1: http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/582662.html
link to part 2: http://section7mfu.livejournal.com/589643.html

                          

Solo and Kuryakin approached the three story building that had been the site of their last assignment.  The cleanup crew had come and gone, with everyone from addicts to the stable of prostitutes, with the exception of Stefano Ferrero being taken into custody. Somehow he alone had managed to escape.

The agents hesitated as the yellow caution tape in front of the entrance to the building was broken and the door wide open.

 

 

They immediately drew their weapons, cautiously entering and splitting up to search the first floor. Finding nothing they proceeded onto the second floor, going from room to room.  Finally the climbed the stairs to the upper floor, and there at the end of the hall they heard voices.

Napoleon and Illya positioned themselves on either side of the door, thick with aged layers of cracked and peeling black paint.

Solo gave a silent count of three, and together he and Illya kicked in the door; Napoleon charging in his aimed low while his partner kept his gun aimed high.

There was a dark-haired man in a tan trench coat hovering over none other than Stefano Ferrero, whose face was bruised and bloody.

Solo called out, stopping the next blow from being delivered.

“Hold it right there buddy. Who are you and what are you doing here?” He flashed his gold ID card.

“Whoa, wait a second,” the dark haired man said, raising his hands above his head and letting Ferraro slump to the floor. “You’re the U.N.C.L.E. agents I was told who’d be assisting in the investigation.”

“And you are?” Illya asked.

He reached for his breast pocket.

“No nooo,” Solo stopped him, reaching in and first removing a snubnose revolver from a shoulder holster and secondly the man’s wallet.

He thumbed through it, finding a driver’s license and an F.B.I. identification card and badge.

“And you are?” Illya repeated more emphatically this time.

“Agent John Uriel,” the man confirmed,” F.B.I. and you must be the Russian.”

“What is that supposed to mean?”Kuryakin asked, suddenly feeling defensive.

“Nothing, I just meant that your reputation precedes you. So if you’re Kuyakin, then you must be Solo.”

“Yes Napoleon Solo. Now are you going to answer my other question...what are you doing here?”

“Just conducting my investigation,” Uriel coldly answered.”Questioning a suspect. One I might add that you agents managed to let get away.”

Napoleon eyed the still form of Stephano, who looked to be in pretty bad shape.

“Well we’ll just take him off your hands and get him to our medical division for treatment before we continue with his interrogation.”

“Oh no Solo, he’s mine now,” Uriel sneered.”There’ll be information sharing at a later date, as per our agreement with Alexander Waverly. So might I ask the same of you? What are you doing here?”

Napoleon knew it was no point arguing with the man on either count.

“Conducting a less violent investigation.”

They backed off, leaving Uriel to his own devises and continued to search the rest of the building for anything that might have been missed.

Coming up empty handed; they were about to leave when Solo spotted something in the ashes of a fireplace on the first floor.  He dug it out with a poker and discovered a small half-burned black leather notebook.

He thumbed through it, finding page after page of what looked like formulas, though it was the equivalent of reading Martian to him.

“Illya take a look at this?” He handed the book to his partner who studied it carefully.

“I am well versed in mathematical formulas but these are the most complicated things I have ever seen. Nothing that I can decipher on my own. Research and Development will have to…”

“So what have you got there?” Uriel asked, walking up behind them.

“Oh nothing that should interest you,” Napoleon sniped.

“Yes, there will be information sharing at a later date, as per our agreement with the F.B.I.” Illya parrotted back at him, tucking the black book into his suit pocket.”

“Where’s Stefano?” Solo asked.

“He’s dead,” Uriel said coldly.

“Why you bastard…” Napoleon started to charge him, but Illya held him back.

“Take it easy Solo. I didn’t kill him. He was riding the White Horse and it finally did him in. Trust me, I wanted him alive as much as you.”

“Did he talk?”

“You already know my answer to that Kuryakin, right?”

“We’re getting nowhere. Davayte ubirat'sya otsyuda partners shakhty. On ne stoit nashe vremya_let's get out of here partner mine. He's not worth our time,” Solo spoke in Russian just to piss off Uriel.

“Vy nikogda ne dolzhny schitat', o kom-to , poka vy ne poznakomit'sya s nimi luchshe Solo_you should never assume about someone until you get to know them better Mr. Solo,” Uriel shot back, speaking Russian as well.

.

Six months later  New York city was like a ghost town. The drug now known exclusively as White Rider had hit like a plague of biblical proportions, sending the crime rate out of control. People were terrified as addicts were doing anything to get more of the drug, even resorting to kidnapping and murder.

Fear kept ordinary people at home, affecting commerce at every level, including the stock market. It controlled not only New York but every major city throughout the United States, Canada, as well as Central and  South America. The White Rider had travelled that far and now the drug was beginning to infiltrate Europe as well.

It’s use knew no boundaries, spreading from big cities to little towns, inundating populations and killing them off like an angel of death; except there was no lambs blood to paint on the door lentils that would work to ward off this killer as the Hebrews in Egypt had done to protect themselves from the last of the great plagues sent by God…

The nearby United Nations was half empty, with those brave enough to remain under private security from their countries.

U.N.C.L.E. headquarters was now like a military fortress, with  round the clock security details on the roofs of the entire block of buildings that encompassed the complex.  they were armed to the hilt and ready to shoot...no sleep darts this time. The Mask Club had been closed down. Del Floria’s windows were boarded up, that was pretty much the case for every window at ground level all around the city.

Non-essential personnel had been given the option to go home to their families, yet many volunteered to stay, doing what they could to offer support to the agents still out there in the field.

Waverly’s wife, children and grandchildren had been moved to their summer home and had a security detail with them twenty-four-seven.

Kuryakin and Solo had taken up residence in guest quarters, though they were there barely long enough for their heads to hit the pillows. When they weren’t there sleeping, someone else was,as space being at a premium, it was shared by all.

Alexander Waverly spent most of his waking hours in his conference room, taking and answering communiqués from around the globe. If everyone thought he never slept, now was proof in the pudding that he rarely did.

Few saw him now days, with the exception of his number one and two agents and his assistant Lisa Rogers.

She above everyone else knew the man well and her concern for his health was increasing. He wasn’t a young man, and the on-going crisis was taking it’s toll on him… it was taking a toll on everyone

No leads, no one person or group could linked to the distribution of this  destructive drug. Pushers claimed they got their their stash from a friend of a friend, who somehow got lucky and found a supply left on his door step. An incongruous story that was heard time after time, yet it had a ring of truth in it.  Someone wanted this drug out there.

It wasn’t T.H.R.U.S.H. or any other nefarious organization that U.N.C.L.E. or their security counterparts across the world had dealt with in the past. No, the source was a great unknown.

The little black book had proven difficult to decipher. The formulas were not surprising in the end, but there were portions of them that made no sense,; referencing things that were unidentifiable.  So in essence the book became worthless until these mysterious elements could be determined.

Finally came the whisperings from Marseille, one name, one single man was being pointed to as the orchestrator of this global epidemic.

Kuryakin told himself it was not possible. It could not be the same man as he had killed Rasputin  in Marseilles fourteen months ago...though the body had been burned beyond recognition. The death of this man had allowed the Russian agent  to assume his identity in that assignment in New York that seemed as though it had happened so long ago now.

“Rasputin,”Illya whispered the name in disbelief.

Could it be at all possible he was indeed alive? Was the man,  like his name sake of old, who after being poisoned, shot three times and finally thrown in the Volga river and drowned, still have survived?

The original Rasputin’s body was supposedly buried in secret to avoid desecration but that only created the myth that he was undying and immortal. To this day the stories were pervasive and since no one had ever seen the corpse, or knew it’s location. it was thought Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin  lived after all the attempts to kill him had failed?

Was this other Rasputin the same? Undying and immortal?

Kuryakin was too much of a realist to accept this was the fate of the man he’d sworn he’d eliminated. Illya was the eternal realist, but yet this time he might have to force himself question his own judgement and to believe the unbelievable; Rasputin was somehow alive.

Not the original one of course, that would be ridiculous, but Rasputin the drug king...