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

“I don’t see how they could.” Napoleon turned away from the watching monkeys and pushed through the tall switch grass back into the deep shadows of the jungle.

“So you’re saying every time we stop, it’s a different bunch of monkeys?”

“Troop.”

“Troop?”

“Yes, a group of monkeys is called a troop.” Napoleon gave Illya a smirk over his shoulder. It wasn’t often he caught the Russian making an error especially in English. He so enjoyed these opportunities for a little payback.

“And this is important because?”

“You want to speak the language like a native than a group of monkeys is a troop and a group of sheep is a flock and a group of ravens is an unkindness…”

“Now you are having me on it.”

Napoleon looked back at that comment, sure that this was one idiom Illya knew and he was about to be the subject of some snide Russian sarcasm. Unfortunately he looked back at the wrong time and almost caught a branch in the face.

“There they are again.” Illya stepped ahead of Napoleon still holding the branch he had grabbed just in time to save friend’s face yet another bruise. The two men stood on the edge of the small opening in the canopy, looking up at the group of golden monkeys in the trees.

“They look the same,” Illya said, softly.

“Yeah,” Napoleon agreed, wiping the sweat off his forehead with the cuff of his shirt. “Even if they are the same monkeys and THRUSH somehow trained them to follow us, what does it accomplish?”

“I could shoot them if I had my gun.” Illya offered his favorite solution for any THRUSH problem.

“I’m sure you could and bring the goons we know are working for THRUSH down on us.”

“I would use a silencer.” Illya said, a brightening smile on his face.

“You’re would kill Mr. Stubbs and his whole family on the off chance they are working for THRUSH?” Napoleon put his hand on Illya’s shoulder and turned him away from the clearing and the monkeys so they were facing each other. “How could you?”

“Mr. Stubbs? Who is Mr. Stubbs?”

“Toby Tyler’s monkey, you unread communist.”

Illya looked at him blankly for a long moment before turning towards the monkeys again. “Well, I think Mr. Stubbs is working for THRUSH and I think he is following us.”

Both men turned around as they heard something moving in the jungle near their back trail. Napoleon gave Illya a tap on the shoulder and they resumed walking, skirting the edge of the clearing.

Three hours later they stopped in the shade of an enormous tree that looked exactly like all of the other enormous trees in Brazil. Napoleon gave the roots a quick examination for anything poisonous he could recognize and sat down with a sigh. Illya trusted to his partner’s powers of observation and sat beside him, facing in the opposite direction.

“No monkeys,” Napoleon observed when he saw Illya, studying the canopy above them.

“None we can see.”

“Are you getting paranoid?”

“You can’t feel it?”

“Yeah,” Napoleon agreed. “I can feel it.”

“I think they are still watching us and I can’t see them.”

Napoleon smiled. “We are lost in the jungle, no guns, no communicators, hundreds of miles from anywhere, being chased by about twenty Thrushies who want our blood and your biggest worry is a few monkeys?”

“A troop of monkeys and if we are lost, how do you know we are hundreds of miles from anywhere? We could be right outside a big city.”

“A monkey city maybe and they’re the welcome committee?”

“There they are again.” Illya nodded his head off to their right. Napoleon had to look for a long time before he could pick the golden-bodied monkeys out from the foliage surrounding them.

“That is a bit… weird.” Now that he could see the monkeys more clearly they were standing on the branches, apparently watching him and Illya. “Shooting them is beginning to sound like a better and better idea.”

“You ready?”

“Yeah,” Napoleon agreed and took lead as they headed out again. “I don’t understand how someone could train a bunch of monkeys to follow us through the jungle.”

“Troop,” Illya lectured. “It is important to use the proper words if you are to sound like a native speaker.”

Napoleon made an inarticulate sound, but didn’t really have a retort for that one.

Two more hours of walking and Napoleon had tripped and fallen for about the twentieth time when Illya turned and stopped him.

“Listen.”

Now that he wasn’t fighting with the vegetation Napoleon could hear it, too.

“River, that way.” He gestured ahead and to the right.

Illya nodded and turned in the indicated direction. Napoleon started to follow only to trip again. As usual Illya caught him before he fell. “Be careful, Napoleon. You could sprain an ankle or something.”

Napoleon pushed his hands away. “I can’t see. It’s dark.”

“Huh. Must be all that decadent junk food you ate during your unfortunate capitalist youth.”

“You can see?”

“I am the product of a superior social system. We communists can see in the dark.”

“How lucky for me to have a super communist for a partner,” Napoleon mumbled as he followed Illya toward the sound of the running water.

“Actually, I believe your good fortune in this case is in having a blue-eyed Russian for a partner. Blue eyes take in more light and hence see better in the dark… they are there again.”

The two men stood on the edge of a steep bank above a fast flowing stream. Opposite them on the other side of the small river were four golden monkeys standing in the branches of the trees, their fur catching the last of the light in the canopy above the dark jungle floor. “Must be different monkeys. There must be a billion monkeys in this jungle.”

“There are four of them. Always the same number,” Illya replied evenly.

“We need to find a place to spend the night. We should get away from the river in case of alligators?” Napoleon looked around anxiously. It was so dark now they could be standing on one and not see it.

“No alligators in the Amazon.” Illya said and Napoleon didn’t need to see his partner’s face to know he was smirking. “There are caimans here. It is important to use the correct terms so….”

“I got it. I am heartily sorry for my earlier correction. I will say ten Hail Marys and never sin again.”

“No, no, Napoleon. It is important that we keep our language precise. I would not want either of us to make an error…”

“I am sorry, Illya.”

“Not as sorry as you are going to be.”

“Oh, God. That I believe.”

By this time they had moved inland fifty yards from the river. “This tree suit you?” Illya asked, sitting down on the root of an enormous Brazil nut tree. All Napoleon could see of his partner was the few remaining white bits of his shirt and his blond hair. Napoleon hoped there weren’t any deadly snakes on the tree root and sat down reluctantly, knowing no other way to find out. It was raining again. It was always either raining or about to rain.

“I guess this is why they call it a rain forest,” Napoleon sighed when a few moments of silence didn’t result in his being bitten by a deadly spider or snake.

“You sleep. I will take the first watch.”

“Lot of good I’m going to be I can’t see anything,” Napoleon said sourly as he squirmed around on the root until his back was against the tree and his shoulder against his partner.

“You can wake me if the monkeys try to carry me off to the Wicked Witch.”

“Ah, a western children’s book you did read,” Napoleon mumbled sleepily.

“Saw the movie. I can sing you Ding Dong, The Witch is Dead, if you like?”

“Good night, Illya.”

“Good night, Napoleon.”

^^^^^

“Would love a good wash,” Napoleon said, looking down at the river.

“That would not be a good wash,” Illya trudging past him to take the lead again. They were keeping the stream on their left seldom in sight but always within hearing. Walking next to the stream was too difficult and while progress was painfully slow in the jungle it was better than the slick riverbank and ever-present fear of caimans.

“Napoleon.”

Napoleon stopped at the soft sound of his name and followed Illya’s gaze to see their four monkeys. They were still on the far side of the river, still silent, still watching.

“They are seriously giving me a creepy feeling,” Napoleon gave an exaggerated shiver.

“At least if they are working for THRUSH they haven’t brought the hunters down on us,” Illya turned back into the forest, Napoleon two steps behind him.

“And they don’t seem to be working for the Wicked Witch of the East as they haven’t carried us away,” Napoleon replied, following him.

“Would you like a few verses of Over the Rainbow?”

“I’m just saying, it could be worse. They haven’t actually done anything.”

“They are closer though,” Illya had stopped and Napoleon stopped beside him. The monkeys had crossed the stream and were now moving around the trees fifty feet in front of the two men. Abruptly the monkeys ceased all their movement and returned to their eerily silent scrutiny of the two agents.

“Can’t tell me this is normal.”

“Me?” Illya said in an outraged tone of voice. “I am the one who has been trying to tell you. This troop,” he put a heavy emphasis on the word troop, “of monkeys is not… natural.”

“You still think they’re working for Thrush?”

“I think they are where I was going.”

Napoleon couldn’t argue with that, the four monkeys were low in the trees across the line of travel they’d been following parallel with the stream.

“We can cut over to the right?” He offered, glancing at Illya. His partner had that stubborn look he got on his face when he was preparing to shoot someone or blow something up. “What are you going to do?”

“I am not going to make a detour around four monkeys who collectively cannot weigh thirty pounds.”

“Don’t start a war with the monkeys,” Napoleon urged and grabbed for the back of Illya’s shirt.

“I am not starting anything. They are the ones in my way.”

“Oh, boy,” Napoleon mumbled as Illya easily eluded his hand and paced toward the monkeys.

What the outcome might have been had the monkeys held their ground Napoleon was relived to never know. Illya’s step toward the monkeys elicited the animal’s first sound. The four monkeys simultaneously began jumping from limb to limb making loud alarmed cries. The two men dropped to the ground as the monkeys disappeared into the foliage.

“Guess you scared them,” Napoleon scanned the forest to their right, as he knew Illya was scanning to their left.

“Shhh, eight o’clock, three men,” Illya replied. Napoleon trusted his partner to warn him if they needed to move and kept watch on his side. Illya had hold of his forearm and as his grip never tightened Napoleon knew the three men were not aware of their presence.

In spite of the nearly stifling heat, the mud of the forest floor was cold. Napoleon could feel the movement of he knew not what across his body as the jungle insects moved over the obstruction he had become on their way to wherever jungle bugs went. He allowed himself a small sigh as he waited for the all clear from his partner. He hated jungles. Half an hour later Illya released his hold.

“I think we will move further inland. They were headed toward the river.”

“Thrushies?”

“Had their rifles.”

“Guess the monkeys weren’t working for THRUSH then.”

“You suppose they work for U.N.C.L.E.?” Illya asked, giving Napoleon a quirk of the eyebrow.

“Could be local talent?”

They didn’t see the three men again but within twenty minutes the monkeys were back, still shadowing their passage through the jungle. Sometimes ahead of them more often, now, keeping pace with them far above in the canopy. Concerned about the three men, Napoleon and Illya walked without their previous casual conversation.

Late in the afternoon they came to the stream again and stopped on the edge of the wood with a good view both ways over the now considerably wider river. The monkeys perched in trees to their west, silent, watching.

“Bigger river more likely to be a settlement,” Napoleon offered.

“Right there,” Illya pointed down the river. Napoleon studied the direction the finger indicated and in a moment made out the vague shape of a structure two hundred yards downstream.

“Doesn’t look like much,” Napoleon smirked, knowing without looking that his partner was glaring at him. He reached over without taking his eyes off the distant structure to grip Illya’s shoulder. “Well spotted, Sharpeyes.”

“Sharpeyes?”

“Another character from my childhood, a silver fox, not that unlike you. Let’s go see if they have a phone.”

The cabin was empty. No sign of any recent habitation in the area.

“There is a piling in the river,” Illya said, joining Napoleon at the door of the cabin. “This might be a place that river transport stops and picks up cargo.”

“In that case there should be some sort of trail to a settlement.”

“Maybe, things grow pretty fast here.” Illya stepped back to allow Napoleon to pass him as they began to make a circle around the cabin. Two of the monkeys were perched on the dilapidated roof. The other two were on a tree ten feet away, standing together on the same branch.

“Illya,” Napoleon nodded toward the two monkeys. “I think they’ve found us a path.”

“If they’re working for U.N.C.L.E. why not just give us a communicator?”

“Local talent then, not sent by Mr. Waverly,” Napoleon said with conviction.

“Not Thrush at any rate, good enough for me.”

Napoleon laughed. “Yeah, good enough for me, too.”

Thirty minutes later, they were on the edge of a campsite, watching a group of people apparently preparing dinner. They spent ten minutes watching before Napoleon stood up and walked toward the tents.

“Hello there. You sure are a sight for sore eyes.” The occupants of the camp appeared gratifyingly pleased to welcome Napoleon.

Illya watched for half hour to ensure the camp wasn’t a devious THRUSH trap. When he saw Napoleon, sitting down to a cup of something, he decided that reasonable caution was satisfied and it was time to eat. Besides their monkeys had pointed them down this trail so it must be safe.

The German Capuchin Monkey Re-habitation Expedition was delighted to feed them dinner and allow them the use of their radio to contact U.N.C.L.E. Rio de Janeiro for pick up.

“I see you have found some of our former campmates,” Klaus Eberlein, the expedition’s leader said, pointing toward the four monkeys standing silently in the trees to the south of the camp.

Illya listened as Napoleon told them about the monkeys following them through the jungle for the last two days.

“We have a large farm about a hundred kilometers from here. We teach the monkeys to survive in the wild and then we return them to the jungle in small groups. They are primarily monkeys that were illegally captured for sale as pets, so most of them already know how to live in the wild. What we do is help them get comfortable in new groups so they can survive. The most difficult part of the program is teaching them not to go to people for free handouts. I hope you didn’t feed them?”

“Ah, no, no didn’t feed them. We were a little short on supplies. Can you tell us where you released this particular group?”

“Yes, let me go get my map.” Eberlein left the two agents and headed toward one of the big tents.

“Troop.” Illya leaned close to Napoleon to speak softly into his ear. “Help him with his English, Napoleon.”

“Would you like some more tea, Illya?” Napoleon asked, picking up the pot from the fire and turning toward his partner.

Illya held out his cup. “So what, am I the only one whose English you are trying to improve?”

“I’m having so little success with my current pupil that I don’t feel I’m ready to take on any new students at this time,” Napoleon said quickly before Eberlein got back from his tent.

Illya smirked, “Coward.”

****

“Excellent work, gentlemen. With the coordinates you provided, Rio de Janeiro was able to destroy the satrapy and put that particular group of THRUSHs out of business.”

“Flock?” Illya whispered in Napoleon’s ear as the two men left Waverly’s office.

“Huh?” Napoleon asked as he turned slightly to smile at the pretty brunette, passing them in doorway.

“A group of birds of a particular kind.”

“I am sorry I corrected your English. I will never do so again.

“I doubt that,” Illya mumbled as he grabbed Napoleon’s arm to pull him away before he could begin a prolonged flirtation. “Work: an activity involving mental or physical effort done in order to achieve a purpose or result. In this case the activity of writing our report.”

“I will buy you dinner if you will forgive me.” Napoleon pleaded as he followed Illya down the corridor.