Once More

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Note: This story was written for the Crossovers 100 Challenge on LiveJournal in 2006.
Prompt - Circle

Rated: PG

Once More into the Breach

by Gyrfalcon

"What do you mean you've lost contact?" A small man with blond hair gone almost gray, glared at his cell-phone. He was handsome in a pretty sort of way; the kind of handsome that turned women's, and men's, heads thirty years ago and still warranted a second look today. Despite years of living in New York City, he still retained traces of the Russian accent of his youth.

His companion winced. Older by a few years, his hair had turned to a radiant silver that he wore slightly longer than the current dress code considered proper. A certain glint in his eyes suggested that he was looking forward to discussing the oversight with anyone who challenged him. To his disappointment, challengers so far had failed to materialize. Despite being impeccably dressed in a suit and tie, he gave the impression that he could be a dangerous man if pressed.

"Well find him. Out mutual uncle is not paying you to sightsee." The smaller man muttered something in Russian as he ended the call.

"Jovanski is supposed to be our best agent; at least that's the scuttlebutt," the older man offered in a dry tone that suggested he was considering disagreeing with the scuttlebutt.

"Been hanging around the secretaries' pool, again, Napoleon?" the smaller man retorted without humor.

"It's amazing what you can learn from secretaries, Ilya. People tend to forget that they have ears and say the most remarkable things," Napoleon replied with an amused smile.

"He's a grown man, Ilya. He can take care of himself. We managed and Alex is better trained and has better equipment than we ever did," he added. Napoleon had major disagreements with the current head of UNCLE, but he did acknowledge that Toliver spared no expense in training or equipping his agents.

"I'm well aware of his qualifications, Napoleon. It's the qualifications of the people hunting him that I'm worried about," Ilya grumbled.

"What happened? I know that the job went sour, but I thought we had it under control."

Napoleon busied himself with pouring more wine in their glasses as he glanced around the room for signs that anyone was paying attention to them, or looking too obvious about not paying attention. Old instincts were hard to lose and he made certain they stayed honed.

Rubio's was a favorite haunt. They were old, valued customers who always got the booth in the back with Rubio, himself, or his son, attending to their order and their privacy.

Once he was assured that they could talk in private, he gestured for Ilya to continue.

"Jovanski followed Alexi to the prison camp. They were supposed to meet today during the routine food delivery to arrange the escape of the special prisoner. Jovanski doesn't know how, but the prisoner apparently stole a truck and escaped on his own. Alexi was on the truck and hasn't been heard from since." Ilya seemed to achieve a measure of calmness in relating the foul-up. Napoleon remembered that he always had been the analytical side of their partnership.

"I warned Toliver that we were underestimating Agent Mulder. We should have brought him into the plan the day UNCLE assigned Alex to watch him." Napoleon grumbled under his breath about bureaucrats. Toliver was a pale imitation of Alexander Waverly, in his opinion. Toliver was obsessed with secrecy. Waverly had been more interested in results. Nor would he have sent a young agent undercover in a global conspiracy network without a backup.

Napoleon liked Agent Mulder. He had pressed UNCLE to give him more than an ambiguous contact whose double task was protection and misdirection. After the murder of this covert contact, Toliver had pursued a more ruthless covert operation designed to shackle the most persistent threat the Consortium faced. Toliver claimed that it was necessary to protect Agent Mulder, but Napoleon suspected that Toliver wanted the credit for the Consortium's collapse to belong to UNCLE.

Alex certainly had the ruthlessness Toliver considered essential for the job. What he hadn't counted on was Alex's penchant for following his own initiative. He also underestimated the impact of Mulder's hopeless crusade on a young agent. Instead of becoming the right-hand man of the head honcho of the Washington branch of the conspiracy, Alex had gone deeper into the Consortium to make contact with dissenting elements within the conspiracy. Obviously, Toliver hadn't done his homework on the man he chose to be UNCLE's spy. Napoleon gave Ilya a fond smile -- like father like son.

Now Mulder was loose in the hinterlands of Russia with Alex lost somewhere out there as well. Looking at Ilya's intent scowl, Napoleon wondered how long it would be before two "retired" UNCLE agents were on a plane to Russia. Toliver would be livid, but Napoleon was tired of riding herd on paperwork.

Ilya looked at his old friend and erstwhile partner. He knew the answer to his question before he asked, but he never wanted to take Napoleon's help for granted. They might be old warriors put out to pasture years ago, but his son, Napoleon's godson, was in trouble. Besides, he wanted to show Jovanski what UNCLE agents used to be made of.

"Once more into the breach, old friend?"

The End

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