An almighty scream terrorized the warehouse and sent every empty shelf into a death-rattle against the steel walls. In the center of the vast room lay a battered man curled in a fetal-position on the dirty floor, his assailant clad in a military dress uniform and already poised to offer him the next blow.

"Please," breathed the battered man heavily through gritted teeth. "Stop." Sweat mixed with blood and poured in streams down his face, matting his hair and stinging his eyes.

His torturer kicked the poor man in the ribs. "I will stop when you tell me what you know."

Again he cried out in pain. "I told you already, I don't know anything about the American!"

"Fool!" The torturer kicked him in every spot from head to toe and the man did his best to tuck himself in like a turtle to lessen the impact of the blows.

The soldier leered, "You can't expect us to believe you spent all this time in an Western organization with an American partner and come away knowing nothing?" He shook his head and clicked his tongue. "No, you may have fooled the capitalists, Illya Kuryakin, but you'll never fool us."

He produced a whip from behind his back and swung it at Illya. Illya tried to roll over to dodge the blow, but he was too slow and the whip caught him instead across the face. Illya groaned loudly.

"Hurts, doesn't it, Illya?" his interrogator jeered, a sadistic, yellow-toothed grin spreading across his lips. "It'll all stop when you stop being a fucking liar. Who is the American and what has he done?"

"I don't know!" Illya gasped, arms too weak from pain to even wipe the blood that was dripping into his eyes. "I don't know his name. We used code names. I called him Cowboy."

"Cowboy had a name though, what was it?" The interrogator kicked Illya again, this time in the head. "Perhaps that'll remind you."

The room was spinning and it had to stop before Illya could answer. He waited and waited, his entire body consumed in an aching fire but it still wouldn't come into focus.

"Answer me!" More kicking; the interrogator didn't understand that the room was spinning, did he?

"I have," Illya whispered. "I told you I don't know."

The room was beginning to calm, but Illya still couldn't see the interrogator take out the knife that was now cutting his side. He felt the thin undershirt he had been wearing being ripped from his body, and the searing pain of the blade slicing through his side.

Illya was screaming but his torturer yelled above him. "You liar! And the girl with your team, who is she?"

"Stop! Please, she was just my partner, we didn't talk. She spoke German. Please!" Tears squeezed at the corners of his eyes as he tried to gasp for ragged breaths. Each cut and each scream made it harder for his chest to contract around his broken ribs. He felt his chest fluttering open farther than it should be able to, as there was no unbroken bone to stop it.

Another kick to the chest and Illya began to cough up blood. "Illya Kuryakin, you fucking liar! Tell me who she is, we know you spoke together. We know she knows English."

Illya couldn't stop coughing to catch his breath let alone to answer. But it was only after he managed a couple rapid, shallow breaths that he realized he was being asked no further questions.

In addition to breathing, he was having trouble seeing as well. There appeared to be two blurry figures fighting, one smaller than the other. A gunshot left his ears ringing and he was able to make out the larger one sprawled on the ground not far from where Illya was crouched on hands and knees.

A muffled voice was speaking nonsensically. However, it's tone was urgent and Illya wished he could understand it. The blurry figure was coming into focus now, and Illya saw it's mouth moving. It was a man in a suit and the man was speaking to him.

Thoughts raced through Illya's clouded mind as he tried simultaneously to fight the urge to collapse as well as to decipher what was being said. It was all he could do to remain on his hands and knees and to keep looking at the man. Something about his face was familiar.

The man was helping Illya up to his feet and saying more. "Who did this?" Illya had cracked the code at last: English.

Though he tried Illya couldn't stay on his feet, and he dropped back to the floor again. The man picked Illya up and slung him over his shoulder. Illya coughed blood all over the man's suit as he began to drag Illya somewhere. He wanted to apologize but no sound came out of his mouth, just more blood.

"Peril." Illya heard the man's voice, soaked deeply with worry. Peril? What does that mean? Who was this man? Illya wanted to ask it all.

But all he could do before the world went black was croak out in English, "Help me."