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section7mfu2014-09-23 03:54 pm
The Yellowstone Affair Chapter 10
Author's Note: This chapter contains some violence and rough language - THRUSH minions are such potty mouths.
To start at the beginning of the story go to: http://pactnmmt.livejournal.com/10718.html
Not long after the men left the supply shed, Kuryakin regained consciousness. He found himself sagging at the knees, his arms and wrists straining against the baling wire used to bind him to the pole. His breathing was labored, in part due to the position he was in, but he also figured he had a few bruised, possibly broken ribs.
Ignoring the discomfort, he lifted himself into a standing position. His limbs felt practically frozen. His teeth chattered a staccato rhythm as his body tried to keep itself warm. The shed provided little warmth.
His eyes slowly adjusted to the darkness enabling him to make out the outlines of shelving. He remembered, when they first brought him into the shed, seeing glass jars and some wire cutters laying on a shelf near him. If only he could reach the wire cutters with his feet. He strained for what he figured was about an hour, trying different maneuvers to increase his reach. All he accomplished was aggravating his ribs and straining his arms. He held still to catch his breath and regain his strength. As he stood contemplating his next move he heard approaching footsteps crunching in the snow.
Gene unlocked the door to the shed and stepped in quickly to get out of the wind. He played the flashlight’s beam over the UNCLE agent and saw that the blond had not moved since they left. His head was down and bloody drool fell from the slack mouth. Gene grabbed a handful of hair forcing Kuryakin to look up. The right side of his face was sporting some serious bruising and the man’s eyes were half open and glazed.
“Hey, Kuryakin, ya ready to talk, yet?”
A moan escaped from Illya’s lips.
“What’s that Mr. UNCLE Man? I din’t quite hear ya.” He gave the blond head a rough shaking.
“I…said….it…will be…a…cold day…in…hell.” A hoarse whisper was all the captive seemed to be able to manage, partly due to the beating he had received and mostly due to his teeth chattering hard from the cold, Gene guessed.
“Fine by me. Boss said to see if ya’r ready, if not just leave ya here for a while longer. Makes no difference to me if ya freeze to death.” He punctuated the last sentence with a swift punch to the agent’s face. “See ya later, asshole.” Gene turned to leave. As he opened the door he heard whimpering and turned to look at Kuryakin.
“Puh…puh…please, I’m so c…c…col’ ” Kuryakin moaned. “Please…d…don’ leave me here. I…I canna take much more.” His voice was beginning to slur.
“Well, hell! I thought ya were made of tougher stuff,” Gene snickered. “Sorry, if ya'r not ready to talk, ya get to stay here. Those rangers will find your rottin’ body come spring. See ya.”
“No! I…I’m sorry, please, I…I promise I’ll answer your questions. Just let…let me warm up in the cabin first.” Kuryakin began to slide back down the pole to sag against the shed’s floor.
Gene gave the man a long hard look. “Okay, tough guy, I’ll take ya to the cabin. If ya try anything or decide not to answer or cough up the information I’ll personally hog tie ya and leave ya in the snow to freeze to death. The coyotes and ravens will have a hey day scavenging the flesh off of yer scrawny body. Do ya understand me?”
He reached down and grabbed the agent’s hair again and forced the man to make eye contact with him. “I said, ‘Do ya understand?’ ” Kuryakin nodded yes.
Gene grabbed the wire cutters, lifted the man up, and cut the wire that bound Kuryakin’s hands. Immediately, the UNCLE agent started to sag again.
“Get up!” Gene snarled.
“I can not,” Kuryakin gasped, “my…my legs are n…numb.”
Letting out a string of oaths, Gene grabbed Kuryakin’s left arm and put it around his own shoulder to support him. Kuryakin sagged heavily against him for three steps before exploding into action. Suddenly supporting his own weight he reached with both arms around the THRUSH agent’s head and snapped his neck. Gene fell soundlessly to the floor.
“I told you it would be a cold day in hell!” Kuryakin picked up the flashlight and let its beam play along the shelves where he found his confiscated items. As he pocketed his tools and weapons, he tried to quiet his chattering teeth. He quickly donned his outerwear and made his way to the cabin.
In the time that Illya had been captured and left in the shed, the predicted blizzard had made its way into the mountains. It had already snowed about six inches and showed no signs of letting up. The wind soughed through the branches of the aspen grove joining the heavy snow in muting other sounds of a cold winter night. The lantern light that shown through the single window of the cabin cast a soft light on the flakes as they fell.
Illya eased up to the window. There he was able to hear the voices of the two men inside the cabin.
Ernie, do you think Kuryakin’ll talk?”
“Not likely, but I don’t really care. He’ll be dead by morning and we’ll be outta here. The worst of the winter snows have yet to come. When they do, no one will come up here until next spring and we’ll be long gone. All those rangers’ll find is his skeleton and the wild critters will have scattered his bones all over the area. They’ll be lucky if they can even identify the remains.”
“What about the plane wreck? Do you think the NTSB * will be able to determine what happened?
“Nah, that’s the beauty of the laser, Bill. It didn’t burn anything or break anything. The bright narrow light beam simply blinded the pilot or pilots temporarily disorienting them. Plus, it has the added benefit of altering their state of mind making them totally confused and impossible to fly the plane. Then gravity takes over.” He chuckled viciously. “I guess you could call it a ‘gravity proving’ machine.
“It also doesn't hurt there were no survivors. There’ll be over ten more feet of snow covering the crash site by February. No one will find the stiffs until April, maybe as late as May. By then their bodies will have met the same fate as Kuryakin’s.
Illya gasped as he felt his chest tighten upon hearing the news that there were no survivors. Napoleon! He took a few deep breaths and gathered his thoughts. He couldn't dwell on Napoleon’s fate just yet. He had to take care of the laser gun and the two remaining THRUSH agents first. Staying under the window, he formulated a plan for his next move. He didn’t have long to wait.
“Bill, Gene should have been back by now. I want you to go get him. The sadistic bastard is probably having a little too much fun with Kuryakin.” Both laughed.
Illya heard the sound of a chair scraping the floor as it was pushed back and knew that one of the men would soon be coming around the corner from the porch. Taking advantage of the trail of snowshoe tracks between the cabin and outbuildings to hide his own tracks, Illya moved behind the cabin and waited.
As Bill trudged past the back corner of the cabin he kept his head down to protect his face from the sting of the wind driven snow giving Kuryakin a chance to jump him and knock him down. The UNCLE agent had his gloved hand jammed into the man’s mouth to keep him from yelling as they struggled. His other hand wrapped around the goon’s neck. So intent was Illya on keeping the man quiet and trying to choke him, he never saw Bill’s hand holding the semi-automatic pistol until too late.
In one quick desperate motion, Illya’s adversary brought the side-arm up to Illya’s temple and pulled the trigger.
Nothing happened!
Not taking the time to ponder on his good luck, Illya quickly dispatched the equally surprised THRUSH then dragged him behind the cabin and covered him up with snow. He walked over to where the struggle had taken place, picked up the pistol and examined it…and smiled. The bitter cold weather had been in his favor tonight. The slide on the pistol and the trigger were frozen. Illya surmised that the men had not wiped down their weapons upon entering the cabin causing condensation from the warm air to form on the cold metal. When the man he just killed came back out into the cold air the condensation flash froze rendering the pistol useless.
Napoleon, I think you passed your luck on to me! Thank you, my friend.
The Russian reached the porch and crept across the boards to the door. He opened the door and saw that the leader, and the last survivor of the threesome, was sitting in front of the large radio with the headphones on and with his back to the door. Illya crossed the room in three large steps and launched himself at his target.
Ernie, sitting with his back to the door, had just finished talking with his superiors on the radio. The hairs on the back of his neck raised as he felt a cold breath of air from the opened door. He turned just as Kuryakin launched himself into the air and landed on him. Ernie threw his arms up to repel the attack, but Kuryakin’s momentum knocked him out of the chair, both landing on the floor near the fireplace. The element of surprise was in the UNCLE agent’s favor enabling him to put Ernie into a headlock. However, the THRUSH agent grabbed a three inch thick branch from the wood pile, brought it up to bash in Kuryakin’s head. Illya saw it coming, and turned his head in time to avoid anything more than a glancing blow. It still hurt like hell.
Illya let the man go and sat back gasping for air. His ribs were not happy with the night’s activities and were protesting loudly. Ernie took the opportunity to swing the branch again, but this time he aimed at Kuryakin’s solar plexus and ribs, knocking him backwards and stunning him. Ernie then grabbed his parka and mittens and headed out the door. Slipping his snowshoes on without tightening down the straps, he ran for the helicopter.
Slowly, Illya got to his feet. He saw the man leave and guessed that Ernie would attempt to escape by flying out. There was no way that Illya could catch up with him. He spied a rifle, his rifle, leaning against the cabin wall by the table. He grabbed it and worked the bolt action. It seemed okay. He found a cloth on the counter and used it to quickly wipe down the moving parts of the weapon, hoped it would be enough and chambered a round. As he ran out the door he could hear the rotors on the ‘copter revving up.
Illya didn’t bother with wasting time with snowshoes. He turned the corner of the cabin and saw the ‘copter begin to lift off. He raised the rifle and took aim. The scope was worthless because the eye piece was fogged up with condensation. He looked below the scope rings and found the iron sights. His first shot struck the gas tank. Quickly, he worked the bolt and fired again. The weapon did not fail in the cold. The second shot hit the pilot. The helicopter spun crazily, tilted and hit the ground, but not before crashing into the shed that held the laser gun. A mushroom shaped column of fire and smoke, exacerbated by the explosives Illya had left on the roof of the shed, reached a hundred feet into the air. Illya watched as the aircraft and shed burned to the ground.
When he returned to the cabin, Illya pulled out his communicator and checked in.
“Open channel D, Kuryakin reporting.”
“Good evening, Mr. Kuryakin, Mr. Waverly here. What is the status of the mission?”
“Mission accomplished, Sir. However, it appears that they were in the process of moving out in the near future. I do not know if there will be more THRUSH coming to help.”
“Did you happen to learn anything from the THRUSH agents you dispatched about the disposition of the Mr. Solo’s plane?”
Illya swallowed hard and kept his voice emotionless. “Yes, Sir, I overheard them say they flew over the sight and there were no survivors. Mr. Solo is dead.”
“I was afraid that might be the case. I’m sorry, Mr. Kuryakin. However, I have an important assignment for which I need you.”
“Sir, I would like to take some personal time to hunt for the wreck and find Napoleon and bring him and the others home. I…”
“No, Mr. Kuryakin. You will not take any personal time…”
“Mr. Waverly, please, I need to…”
“Please give me the courtesy of not interrupting, young man! You will not take personal time. Your search will be on company time. It is imperative that Mr. Solo’s body be found. It turns out he was carrying the actual micro dot, not a decoy. We must get that information.
“I am sending a helicopter to you Mr. Kuryakin. They won’t be able to fly in until the weather breaks, sometime tomorrow morning according to the weather reports. In the mean time, get some rest. You’ll need it for the search.”
“Yes, sir. Kuryakin out.”
Illya closed his communicator. He slouched in the chair, his very being numbed by the conversation. Finally, he got up and searched the shelves for food. He had not eaten anything since the gorp he had eaten midday. He found a can of baked beans and jerky as well as a jug of water. When he had eaten enough to assuage his hunger pangs, Illya stoked the fire, and thinking about Napoleon, laid down to a tortured sleep.
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