Intentionally Misfiled Reports #4 – can be read independently

Illya was finally asleep when the mayday came from Gaby. After eighteen hours of listening to the background hum of static, and the infrequent conversations between Solo, Teller, and the researchers, he had finally lain down for a short nap after he was convinced his comrades were both snoring; not that Gaby would admit it. It had been difficult to fall asleep with the wind howling fiercely through the trees, and Illya could make out coyotes loudly playing, perhaps only two klicks away. Sound carried farther and clearer on cold nights. He lay down in his sleeping bag, headphones still on, the transmitters providing a static buzz interrupted by two sets of heavy breathing. The tones were so contrary he hardly could imagine resting at all, but he was the backup, the only extraction available if this mission went south, and he had to stay fit. Waverly was working on getting cooperation from the local air force, but due to the time sensitive nature of the mission, their British commander did not have time to arrange for all contingencies before he had had to deploy his agents. He stretched out as much as he could in the cramped tent, letting his mind drift.

He assembled his tent just inside the tree line of the forest that surrounded the research facility, while he waited and listened, his equipment running on battery power. Illya's large escape bag, and his outdoor gear were stashed at the entrance to the tent. Physical alarms had been wired around his campsite, set up to make noise if triggered, watching his back while he monitored his partners. For the two days he had been there it had grown more frigid, but he simply shrugged and wished he had brought more cocoa. Illya knew how to handle the cold. His tent was big enough for him to kneel and sleep, and he had spent time piling snow around and on it. Inside the tent, it was quite pleasant, warm enough that his equipment didn't freeze and he could to shed his parka and outer jacket. The to-go backpack held proper supplies for his partners, as well as an outdoor survival kit. He had a fancy gadget or two with him, more than the survival training had allowed with Special Forces; a high-powered laser to heat water with, and chemical warming packets for his gloves and boots if he needed to spend a longer time outdoors. In the nearest city, Waverly's card had paid for the snow machine currently tarped and hidden a mile south of his campsite, extra gas cans strapped to it. UNCLE had granted him a few luxuries.

Illya started awake the second time Gaby spoke. "Peril, they took Cowboy. I don't know what happened. I was asleep in my room, and they ripped him out of the bed. I think he's hurt, there's blood on the sheets. They locked me in here. Ill…Peril I hope you're reading me." Her voice was slightly garbled on the radio, but her message was unmistakable; his partners were compromised.

The team had managed a quick mission in New York once he and Solo had been out of the hospital that had gone smoothly. Solo had interrupted some local malcontents from selling illegally obtained weaponry stolen from a military base. Everyone had gotten home safely and only Solo and Gaby had been in the field, while Illya monitored his partners and several other bugs planted in the crime syndicate members homes and vehicles. That mission so far seemed the exception to the rule; they completed tasks, and the physical damage incurred was an unfortunate consequence. If Illya did not feel so much safer, "on thicker ice", as the metaphor went, with his handler at U.N.C.L.E., he would have pleaded to return to his KGB unit. He enjoyed being with Gaby, and Solo's style, so contradictory to his own, worked marvellously where his own might have been inadequate. But the U.N.C.L.E. unit was going to ruin his record. This was the third mission, if he included Rome, where he and his team had been forced to go in with guns blazing.

Illya huffed a quick breath and dressed, throwing the large pack over his shoulders. Patting his chest, he ensured his silenced pistol was secure and his spare ammunition was easy to reach. Illya clipped Solo's UZI to his chest, and slung his own modded AR-15 over his shoulder. After Illya tucked his rapid release blade up his left sleeve, he slipped in an earpiece, and pushed the surveillance equipment still set up into a bottom pocket on the pack. Gaby's voice buzzed his ear as he began jogging to the edge of the compound, a blind corner he'd scouted when he first arrived.

"Peril, I hear them talking in the hall. Some one leaked that Solo was CIA. I don't know where they took him. They're on their radio… sending men to look around, be careful. I've got my knife."

Illya cursed. "Not the time to fight back, little girl," but she could not hear him. So far, no one was dead yet, and the men had just ignored Gaby, so the stakes were not set. Her skills at fighting had improved with a few weeks of practice, from body checks to using pressure points and quick jabs, but she was yet not prepared to handle multiple enemies. They had guns. If the criminals already had Solo under control, they would not be easy on Gaby. If she caused them trouble, she would simply be shot. Illya hoped that Gaby did not act on whatever impulse had driven her to pull the knife. If it was her life, yes, but that's why Gaby had the hidden blades.

If everything remained quiet, Illya had a better chance of sneaking in undetected to extract his partners. It was well after midnight and most of the staff would be in their bunks. Only the immediate guards around his team would need to be dealt with; the fewer the bodies, the smaller chance of alerting the whole installation. And he needed things to stay calm if he was going to pull Solo and Gaby out safely. From the sound of it, Solo had been hurt, and until Illya could establish how badly, he had to assume Solo was out for the rest of the mission. Solo's transmitter had only static, but from the last look at their trackers, he knew relatively where both of them were, unluckily at opposite ends of the compound's main building.

It was more difficult making his way through the unbroken snow, and he was aware how obvious a trail he had made right back to his campsite. With the wind, it was possible that his tracks would be blown over before they were noticed, and Illya had obscured his trail from the snow machine, the new Ski-doo model. The wind whipped at his face, and he pulled his balaclava over it before he had the chance to get cold. It was a rotten night for this.

The research facility was not a well-kept secret since almost every local knew there was something back there in the privately owned woods. As the crow flew, it was twenty-five miles north of the nearest town, a small community built up from the families of the miners and loggers that worked in the area. When Illya had come into the small Canadian town in northern Ontario, his polite manners and large tip had garnered him the attention of the matron working the restaurant that morning. She guardedly asked him what he was doing around here, maybe visiting? Illya shook his head, and said he missed the Ukraine, his former home. He had spent too much time down in Ottawa, and had gotten away for some winter camping. He bragged about his new snow machine, and wondered where he was going to store it when he was done. She had even offered to put it up for him, for a little spending money as, she had extra space in her yard. So after that was fictitiously arranged, Illya asked what the waitress meant by "up there". And she had told him in hushed tones about the occasional passerby headed up to the building, she guessed. They were always rude, and tight-lipped, obviously rich. None of the folks in town knew who owned the land up there. Illya nodded at that, and had left soon after, with the promise of a warm meal when he returned.

Bracing against the chilled wind, Illya wished that last hot meal still warmed his belly as he dropped heavily over the wire fence that surrounded the compound. No shouts rose up at his landing since the guard on the perimeter did not watch this area in favour of standing out of the wind rather than patrolling effectively. If Illya had seen his army behaving with such inefficiency and carelessness, he would have them all on report and would have been happy to drill them himself. As an aggressor, Illya only appreciated how easy it was for him to move about, plant explosives, and plan his entry. Even as Illya observed the patterns of movement, each guard listened to their radios and scrambled, rousted from their spots.

"Peril, I think they mean to come in. What should I do?" Gaby asked, her voice tight. Illya cursed and wished he could be there, but moving faster meant sacrificing stealth. With the numbers of guards he saw outside, he needed to maintain his advantage. The Russian could too easily picture her standing there trembling. "I'm in the bedroom now." she grunted, and he could hear creaking. "The bed is in front of the door. It opens in."

"Good girl." He muttered to himself. Despite sounding flustered, she still used her head. Whispering was dangerous, as the sibilant sounds carried farther than quiet speech. "Until they unscrew door or break it. Will buy you time." Illya wished his words could carry to her.

When Illya came to the generator, he took time to ensure the demolition packs were well-placed to destroy it. He did not set a mechanism to interrupt for a select amount of time, he sabotaged it. It had been the secondary objective, assuming the original plan to quietly observe and gather data, posing as inspectors went badly. Illya had premade C4 blocks designed to respond to a radio detonator needed to dismantle the building, and ruin the prototypes inside; messy and unfortunate as the research held within was valuable.

Through the adjacent garage, Illya entered the research facility Solo and Teller had infiltrated. Racine Tech Inc. was working on producing a device producing an electrical wave that would disable all electrical technology within a specified radius. This phenomena was discovered with the testing of nuclear devices, and the scientists were trying to replicate that electromagnetic pulse, or EMP. Solo had also observed notes on how they planned to protect their own computers against an EMP. It was criminally funded, with ties to former Nazis, again playing with fissionable materials. All information had been cleverly funneled to him by his teammates asking pointed questions. Illya's own gadgets could all be affected by such a device And it could produce a large enough blast to cripple the defences of any secure headquarters, leaving them open to attack, and destroying the data held on computers.

The real inspectors had been held up in customs and then arrested by the Canadian agency when they proved suspicious. Waverly had jumped in on the operation and taken over, given the international nature of the allegations. Solo and Gaby had taken their places, and Illya had waited outside, recording what they fed him, and reported it back to Waverly.

Illya heard drilling, and a crash. Gaby spoke up defiantly. "I demand to know what you did with Mr. Gault. Our employer will not be happy with this rudeness. You can bet this will being going in my report. What are your names?" Illya nodded in appreciation of her efforts, as he set another brick of C4 into a cupboard. He ducked through a door that the hurrying guards had left open and was honing in on Gaby's location. If Solo was down for the count, Illya going to him first would only hinder his attempts to sabotage the building, and Illya's extraction of Gaby.

While the halls had been quiet thusfar, the poor illumination kept Illya on his toes. Someone dressed in dark colors could easily hide in a doorway, waiting for some unsuspecting fool to pass. The infrequent lighting in the windowless halls of the concrete building cast deep shadows. Illya used them as much as he could, but his ability to skulk was hindered with the large backpack. Noise alerted Illya as a lone scientist stepped out of another door in front of him, and the man did not even look to see who was behind.

Through Illya's headset, he could hear the men scrambling to answer Gaby, and calm down her fury. Obviously they had not been told the whole situation, or perhaps even the criminals were not sure who had come knocking on their door. For now Gaby was safe, as long she kept them talking. She shouted orders at the men, who clearly did not believe a captive would be asking for that, as no spy was that brazen. Perhaps the men were concerned she was really Lilly Andrews.

So he was listening to Gaby, smiling, as he snapped the neck of the scientist and pushed his body back in the room. Illya scanned it quickly and locked the door with the keys he pulled out the cooling hand. He left a block of C4 there in the room that held a lot of equipment, and wall of computer terminals. On the table, laid out like a gift, was a set of blueprints for a device. Illya folded them up and tucked them in his coat. It was a good find.

Around the next corner, Illya slammed his rifle butt across the back of another guard's head, indenting it, and pushed another man in a lab coat into the wall with his left hand and crushed his throat. The man sat choking as the cartilage to his trachea bled down his ruined airway, and he sputtered.

"You will die in four minutes, like this, panicking, and in pain. You hold up fingers if you know the room number of where you are holding Mr. Gault, and I kill you instantly. Dead anyway, but nicer." The man's eyes were growing large, and red. He struggled for ten more seconds than Illya had guessed he would and held up four fingers and three on his other hand. Illya nodded, and slipped his thin blade just under the base of the skull, then wiped it on the slack, motionless body.

Illya had guessed from Solo's description that was the head scientist for the project. Since Illya was going to blow the building anyway, any man that died before he did would have a kinder end, not that that figured into his plan. He had to be as restrained as possible until he had Solo and Gaby under his guard. Solo had once joked that Illya was no good at subtlety, and while Illya had no tolerance for being assaulted, he found that he enjoyed quiet work, using his hands. One did not need to be proficient in Sambo and Judo if he continually caused firefights.

Just as Illya rounded the corner to living quarters, he had to draw his silenced pistol, and put down a group of five guards facing him, standing 20 feet away. It was bad luck, and too many bodies to hide quickly. One guard had got half a yell out before a bullet had taken him in the chest. The silenced whine echoed down the concrete corridors, and the thump of five bodies hitting the ground in quick succession attracted the notice of one man who stepped from one room whose lights were on, and the door broken open.

"What the hell?" Was the guard's response, before Illya was there and pulled him from the doorway, putting his knife up under the ribs, into his heart. He let out a gurgled moan and Illya held his body in front of himself, walking man turning into deadweight backwards as Illya entered the room. Gunshots barked, and the shield Illya had in his arms danced twice, as three more bullets whizzed past him and bounced off the concrete. Illya pushed the dead man at the source of the gunfire and pulled his pistol, putting a round in the head of the second man, who was only now drawing a weapon. Before that man fell, Illya put one more in the head of the first man trapped on the floor under his dead associate. But the last man in the room stood directly in front of Gaby. Illya took one large leap to the side, and then rushed him. Illya heard the man's gun go off, and felt burned across the corner where his neck met his shoulder, then Illya slapped the man's gun. It bounced against the wall and skittered away. Illya's other arm flashed across the man's neck, again holding the small blade. His left hand came back up and tucked the man's chin down roughly by his hair, then Illya threw the man to the side, so that the blood did not spray back on him.

Gaby had her knife held carefully in her hand. "I could have handled him." Her pupils were blown, and she was flushed. Illya enjoyed hearing her regularly accented English, as up that point she had been using a strong posh London accent, and Solo, which Illya found unnatural, even if Solo's accent was downright eerie on how accurate it was.

"I'm glad you did not have to." Illya responded, but captured her look just then as something to revisit. She was lovely.

"I'm not. He shot you and you're bleeding on your coat." She ripped her pillow case off and reached, up to staunch the flow.

"Grazed, only. Experienced marksman would have made good shot. His grip was wrong. It was good gamble." He frowned, and pulled his balaclava away from the wound, off of his face smearing blood up into his hair. "Wrecked my jacket, maybe supplies. Hurry up and change, keep jacket unzipped for now, need to go get Solo." He turned away from Gaby after handing her the shrink-wrapped layered clothing, snow suit and boots. "Have not heard anything from Cowboy's tracker."

Illya used a bit of blackened duct tape over the holes in his jacket, and used a piece to tape gauze snugly to his neck. It was a deep gouge, but it was superficial, and did not even affect how he turned his head. He was more worried about the blood freezing, and damaging his surrounding skin on their trip back.

Gaby changed quickly into the outdoor gear Illya had packed for her. She had a pistol as well, and a few knives strapped to her. Illya guarded the door, noting with relief that no one else came. It looked like his strike had gone unremarked so far. Gaby stepped up beside him, her gun up and pointed down the hall, and Illya went back and shouldered the large bag.

"How heavy is that?" Gaby asked, as Illya did up the strap around his chest.

"About thirty-five kilograms now." Gaby shook her head, and followed him. Illya took up a point position, and led them to where he believed Solo to be held, planting more explosive charges from his jacket pockets as they went. They worked their way to a small office near the north wall, unfortunately distant from where Illya knew the garages were. And he would rather head back in one of the compound's vehicles than pile the three of them on to the Ski-Doo.

Illya grabbed a tall man wearing a suit from around the corner where he was hidden, and quickly slammed the man's head into his knee. The man flopped bonelessly to the ground, neck broken.

"Recognise him?" Illya said in a low voice.

Gaby mouthed no. Illya filed away the face to identify later, and slipped the dead man's wallet into a pouch in his jacket. It would be nice to learn the extent of who they were dealing with.

Illya looked around as they neared the room that Solo was likely being held in. Across from it was an office with a window. He forced the lock, and the room was empty. "Wait here. Watch my back. I can still hear you," he tapped his earbud again to turn it on, "so no need to shout."

Gaby instinctively grasped the the black pearl surrounded with small diamonds and the loud buzz of interference bounced harshly off of Illya's eardrum. One hand came up quickly to his ear. Gaby looked chastened at Illya's face pained expression. "Sorry."

"Is okay, will likely still hear you if you need me. Maybe." Illya offered her a small quirk of his lip and left her there, crouched, gun in her hand, peering through the cracks in the blinds, shielded by the concrete walls.

Illya entered the windowless room where seven heads swivelled at the sight of him. The eighth head, a messy mop of wavy black hair, did not move at all. Illya stepped up to the first man and put his knife into the man's throat, shot the last two bullets in his clip at the farthest man from him, who was moving to hide behind the still figure tied to a chair facing the back wall. Illya threw his knife into the next closest man's eye, and stepped behind the dying falling man for a bit of cover while he slapped a new magazine into the gun. Illya dropped to the floor to avoid the return fire, and his quick shots took out the rest and he replaced his magazine again.

"Not so pleased to see me this time, Cowboy?" Illya asked. The American did not move.

"Illya, two more coming up behind, and they have big guns." Illya quickly ran and stood behind the door that opened just as his back touched the concrete. Only one man entered the room. Illya grabbed him, and slammed his hand into the man's throat, kicking shut the door all in the space of a second. Gunfire opened up against the rapidly splintering door. Illya crouched, planning to shoot from a low position through the door, once it had broken. Solo was seated to the side of the room, and was so far out of the bullets' path.

Illya heard the twinkling of breaking glass and two high-pitched shots. The automatic gunfire ceased. "He's dead." Gaby sounded small when she said that, and Illya hurt for her. While Gaby had killed before, in Istanbul, she had been in the middle of an active firefight, hauling Solo over her shoulder and waiting for Illya to join them as he had separated to keep a group of targets from escaping. It was a fast-paced event, something that took consideration and conscience out of the equation. But her choices had weighed heavily later when the bullets stopped flying and she had time to reconcile her actions with the consequences. Illya had talked to her a bit about it, but it was Solo who told her of his time in the war and had eased her mind. Now, Gaby was not in immediate danger, and coldly shot a man in the back. No less necessary, but she was young, and not a hardened soldier or CIA agent like Solo, or the killer Illya was. Illya wondered if she even realized that by flipping the switch to explode the C4 charges, Illya would be murdering everyone inside at once, and not as cleanly as pulling a trigger.

Illya opened the wrecked door. "Stay there for now, hide again. I will get Solo." He looked up and caught her eyes. "Thank you." The words were inadequate to express how he felt, the pain and the bitter taste of the words on his lips, because what he really wanted to do was beg forgiveness for her soul.

Solo still had not moved when he returned. From the hands he could see tied to the arms of the chair, his color was too good to be dead, and the posture too stiff. Solo was pale, but not that greyish, orangey cast to the skin that a freshly dead man had, where it wasn't mottled in purple blotches. Illya bent to retrieve his knife from the man twitching on the floor, and pulled it from out of the man's eye, out of his brain. The man jerked at that, and Illya neatly put the knife in at the base of his skull.

Illya's focus was on Solo. "Cowboy, can you hear me?" And as he rounded the American and began cutting his bonds, Illya winced at the way blood ran down his bare chest and stained his boxers. A discarded robe lay on the floor. Most of the blood was drying to a tacky brown, but dark red still oozed from Solo's temple. Illya grabbed some more gauze from the extra in his pocket for his own cuts and pressed the wound edges back together on Solo's head. Solo's temple was split, and Illya prayed it was not his bone as well. The man's lack of consciousness was disturbing, until he saw empty syringes on a tray balanced on Solo's lap. Illya swore. He should have left someone alive to talk.

He guessed that it was likely a combination of sedation and stimulants, something to make a man more suggestible and keep him awake, but Solo was anything but pliable. The American had a livid head wound and the drugs had been too much for him. Illya had chosen to believe that, because the alternative meant he was down a partner. Men who suffered bad head injuries were rarely the same afterwards, if they survived at all.

Illya tied the gauze to Solo's head tightly to stop the bleeding, after tenderly feeling the skull under the wound. Nothing appeared to give, or felt rough, so Illya pulled the bandage tight, and was rewarded with a moan from Solo.

Illya raised his voice slightly as he took off the pack and began pulling out the winter gear for his partner. "Gaby, I'll need your help."

Gaby came in then, warily. She took in Solo, her eyes following the blood, and reached to stroke Solo's slack face. "He's hurt badly."

"They drugged him, likely just doped up. Scalp bleeds extra. Only looks bad," Illya tried to reassure her, and himself. "But leaving him like this, more of Cowboy than I ever wanted to see." Gaby rolled her eyes and pulled out a pair of thermal underwear.

Together they dressed Solo. It was hard work, the clothes not designed to be put on by a semiconscious and entirely uncooperative man. Solo had begun to move sluggishly, pulling away from them, his lashes flickering, and he grunted. In the time it took to clothe Solo, one more guard walked in on them and Illya added him to the pile of bodies in the corner. He looked at the large pack, and swore, removing the main section, and handing it to Gaby, who groaned as she slipped the straps over her shoulders.

A sharp whine filled his ears and Illya stumbled in surprise, and tore his earpiece off. He dropped to his knees to fish out the base control unit for his surveillance equipment and was dismayed to find it dead. "So their device works," Gaby said, her voice muted in Illya's ears. He frowned and asked Gaby to repeat herself at a normal volume. Gaby glared at him and made a motion like she was pushing the air down. "Quietly, Illya." He had to read her lips to understand that.

He removed the bottom section of the pack before crushing the surveillance equipment in it with his boot. Gaby's back straightened and she said something that Illya did not catch. He whipped his gun up to the door, but no one was there and Gaby looked at him strangely.

"The feedback from EMP, cannot hear, ears still sound like bells." Illya admitted, and Gaby's eyes rolled as her mouth pursed. "Going to pull him onto my back. Cannot walk like this." He crouched, scooping his arms under Solo's legs, and tightly tucking Solo's arms under his own. Illya believed he could manage to drop one of Solo's legs at a time if he needed to his fire his pistol, but would have to set him down in order to use the rifle. He hoped Solo woke up soon, or stayed limp, because the thought of the man starting to thrash around during combat was frightening. As it was Illya was not comforted by the head that lay across his shoulder, forehead managing to rest on Illya's bullet wound. The American always knew where to poke him. Solo had roused a bit from the stimulation of getting into winter gear on, but now he lay somnolent in Illya's arms.

Gaby led the way, the C4 trigger in her pocket, and she planted the last of the bricks. A quick scouting foray made it clear that leaving with one of the enemy vehicles was not an option. Too many men milled around the vehicles and Illya had already planted charges among them.

"We need to go quickly and set off explosion before anyone leaves. I have escape vehicle in woods." He told Gaby to fish out the CO2 laser from his pocket, and she quickly made a large hole in the fence for Illya and Solo to slip through. She looked up sharply and Illya turned in a quick circle seeing nothing. She pulled on his sleeve. Illya bent awkwardly, trying to accommodate the shifting weight of Napoleon. Gaby spoke directly into his ear. "Illya, I heard a small engine to the south."

Illya nodded. He dropped one of Solo's legs to hang, and the American shifted on his own, a puff of air expelling into Illya's neck. "Give me transmitter." Illya shook his hand for emphasis. "Now."

Gaby handed it to him, and he flipped the safety switch, and hit the trigger. Illya could feel the sound vibrating, surely deafening, and the building shuddered. Since the transmitter had been powered down until the safety switch was flipped, it had survived the EMP. They could not see the vehicles ignite, but the flames were spreading, and the area grew much lighter even as the power failed. Illya led the way out to where he had left his new Ski-doo, but stopped short as he noticed more tracks than just his in the fresh snow.

The guards had backtracked his own steps from his camp; they could not risk returning there. He circled widely to the east, adding an extra mile and a half to the walk. Nearly forty minutes into their march with only the moonlight reflecting of the snow to guide them, he saw fresh snowmobile tracks, and closed his eyes. That was the engine Gaby he had heard. Their only escape vehicle was stolen. They had no means of communication. Gaby stopped, noticing he had stalled, looking at him with eyes bright in the dark. She shivered. Solo remained restless, but not alert, and heavy on Illya's back. The wind whipped at him, and the snow continued to fall.

MFU

There we go, a whopping chapter one. It was more action focussed than my previous works, hope that translated well to the readers.

If you a have moment, kindly tell me how it went.