Man from U.N.C.L.E. Section VII

Late Summer 1966

“Bah,” Illya pronounced in disgust. He ripped the page from the typewriter, then crushed it into a ball and hurled it into the waste bin.

Napoleon looked at the mound of discarded papers. “Get up on the wrong side of your bed this morning?” he asked. “Or maybe someone else’s?”

“What is that supposed to mean?”

“Just that you and that typewriter have gone ten rounds, and so far the typewriter is winning.”

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“Hey, you. Freeze!”

Three heads swung toward the adjacent passage. A Thrush henchman, lowly in rank and lengthy in weapon, stood beneath the Way Out lightbox, his rifle barrel thrust between the rails of the collapsible gate. Illya’s grunt of aggravation was overmatched by Faustina’s menacing growl. Eyes of molten pewter sought to incinerate the jumpsuited intruder.

The Thrushie pulled a radio from his belt and said, “Kuryakin’s in the station. There’s no sign of the Partridges.”

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Illya stood at the top of a stairwell, narrow and utilitarian. Hoping to jam the door, he pulled on the aluminum handrail, but it remained firmly anchored to the wall.

“Come on,” Faustina urged from several steps below him.

With a frown of regret, he abandoned the door and hurried after her. Their racing feet beat a steady tattoo down the stairs. “Where does this lead?”

“The Underground.”

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Faustina Pemberley rubbed absently at her tingling fingers. Her whole body tingled. To feel triumphant was foolish, unprofessional, and probably premature. Another successful honeypot was unlikely to garner attention or accolades. This time, however, her success was shared by one of UNCLE’s top agents. The report of this Affair would cross Waverly’s desk. He would read that she was making good, even if it was just as a femme fatale. She owed him that.

‘The Northern Dvina flowing beneath its blanket of ice.’ The phrase resurfaced in her mind, and a torrent of emotion overflowed her carefully erected embankments. Had it really been only hours since she had heard those words? He could not know what they had done to her. Her passions were in full bloom, her thoughts of him running tender and sensual and as red as the blood in her veins. Other words returned, this time from her grandmother. “Beware our hot blood, dushenka. Remember, all our novels end in catastrophe.”

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The narrow Georgian townhouse was for generations the London residence of the Cubbitt family, before two world wars rendered their line extinct. In honor of the building’s history, a portrait of the notorious Sir Charles Cubbitt, resplendent in powdered wig and scarlet satin, hung in the front hall of the Jacobite Club, which a Pathé newsreel had recently named ‘the current temple of the In.’ Sir Charles greeted the colorfully-arrayed guests much as he had done two centuries earlier, his raffish air exuding sympathetic vibes over the young mods, particularly toward the scantily-clad girls. The less sympathetic Victorian Cubbitts had been hung in the Ladies and Gents.

At her companion’s inquiring glance, Faustina Pemberley shook her head and gestured to the sign marked Casino. The arrow pointed up a deeply-carpeted staircase. She ascended, Donald Marsden close behind, his hand still rattling the pocket change remaining from what he had announced to be an ‘exorbitant’ entrance fee. “I should try to reach Louise,” he said. “I don’t understand why I haven’t been able to get through.”

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Early Summer 1966

Illya put on his tinted glasses, both to dampen the room’s opulence and to veil his stupefied reaction. From floor to ceiling, motifs from China, Japan, and India mingled with abandon. Gilded dragons ran riot about the space, shouldering the tables, undulating over the chairs, and pursuing each other across the papered walls. The décor was obtrusive, decadent, and audacious; yet, like the office’s occupant, it was surprisingly successful.

Harry Beldon tossed his coat onto a fretwork rack and took up a voluminous crimson choga edged in gold embroidery. As he slipped on the robe, he looked over his office like a maharajah surveying his state. “Well, Illya, what do you think of my changes?”

“They suit you.”

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