Between Life and Death
by F. MacDonnell

You may be sure and certain that if you take my advice you will never be caught or treated ill. Please take this little ring of mine, which you will return when I shall have delivered you. ---- Lausine to Yvain, in "Le Chevalier au Lion" (12th Century)

Ecuador, 1966.

"My, my, Mr Glosecki, such fine hands. Artist's hands, in fact. Such an elegant counterpoint they make against that dark tabletop."

Illya Kuryakin resisted the temptation to ball his hands into fists. What Stevenson wanted more than anything was a reaction, a launch pad for this next verbal foray.

Kenneth Stevenson was an aging THRUSH operative with far too much time on his hands and rather too much intelligence for the job he was doing. In Illya's experience, he was the sort of man in whom boredom breeds sadism. He spoke with a polished English accent, a quality that was more studied than natural.

Kuryakin was seated at a small table in the back room of a dingy club on the outskirts of Quito. One of the guards had taken three nails and hammered them into the table through the chain that linked his cuffs so that now he sat with his hands chained to the tabletop in front of him. A solitary bulb hanging by a scrawny wire above his head cast a pool of yellow light around the table. It was very hot.

The affair at the club and gone horribly wrong. His cover had been blown, though not before he had accomplished what he came for. Napoleon, as usual, had been assigned the more glamourous side of the mission and was, no doubt, whispering sweet nothings to ambassador's wife at this very moment.

"But you're not Glosecki, are you?" Stevenson leaned in so close that Illya could almost taste the acid tang on his breath: cigar smoke and cheap wine. "The Glosecki I was told to expect was what they call a 'green' agent on a nice, gentle courier mission. Now, my friend, you may look as if butter wouldn't melt in that pretty mouth of yours, but the display you put up back at the club was much too effective for a Glosecki, no matter how precocious a Glosecki he was. A Glosecki couldn't have taken out five of my best men. No, I'm inclined to think Mr. Glosecki is lying dead in a roadside ditch somewhere with one of your bullets through what little brains he possessed."

He smiled. A slow, wide smile that lingered on his face after he drew back from Illya. A smile that wasn't just for dramatic effect. A smile of deep, sincere satisfaction.

"No, you're not Glosecki," Stevenson perched himself on the table and peered down at Illya through his rimless glasses. "I wonder who you are? Oh yes, I wonder. You see, I dearly love puzzles and the more knotty they are the more I enjoy them. The night is still young, my friend, we have a delightfully long time to unravel you."

He stroked his damp fingers along Illya's hand. The Russian felt an icy chill in the base of his spine but maintained his steady, expressionless gaze. He was backed into a corner, with no gun, no communicator and no obvious avenue of escape. Stranded in the bright pool of light cast by the lamp, he could discern only darkness in the room beyond. 'The cradle rocks above an abyss, and common sense tells us that our existence is but a brief crack of light between two eternities of darkness'. In his profession one hung upon the very edge of that blackness on a daily basis. It affected people in different ways. For a man like Napoleon the darkness existed to accentuate the light to which he always returned; for Illya it spoke of inevitable defeat, before which the only possible response was to set your gaze and wait. He was waiting now, though with resignation rather than in hope. It was well past the time they had agreed to rendez vous in the town centre and, although he had little doubt that Napoleon would come, he had no real expectation that he would come in time.

"My, my, this is pretty," Stevenson said suddenly, ceasing to paw for a moment. Illya glanced down. The man was running his finger along the ring on his left hand.

"Well, well, well, I wonder if she knows where her husband is? Dear little thing. Lying fast asleep in her warm, lonely bed somewhere, dreaming happily about her darling returning from his 'business trip'."

Illya made no response.

"Is she pretty? I'm sure she must be to have trapped so nice a husband as you. The neighbours must always be telling you what utterly charming children you will have. Are there children? A sweet, chubby little toddler perhaps, who still stumbles when she walks and calls you 'Dada'? Am I correct, Dada? How sad they will all be when Dada doesn't come home to them. If they are lucky whoever he works for may send them a telegram. Short and sweet: Regret to inform you etc. More likely Dada will just disappear. Poof! Like he'd never existed. Of course, she will call at that building he'd told her was his office. 'No we can't go in to visit darling, it's much too busy today. Another time darling.' And the secretary will say 'We don't have anyone by that name here, and anyway this is a catering company, we don't have 'salesmen' and we certainly don't send them to Ecuador!"'

Stevenson wriggled the ring a little and slowly drew it off Illya's finger. The skin under it felt oddly cold on exposure, depite the sweltering heat. The Englishman weighed the gold band in his palm experimentally before slipping it onto his own finger. He darted a look at his prisoner. A deep and penetrating look that was intended to give the impression that he had already uncovered nearly all the information he needed and any attempt to hold out any longer would be utterly futile. Kuryakin maintained his stony demeanour. Bluff for bluff.

The two guards standing in the gloom were getting impatient with their chief's finely poised little melodrama. In the silence of the midsummer night, Kuryakin could hear them shifting their feet and murmuring to each other. One of them yawned pointedly. Illya kept his gaze on Stevenson.

Stevenson drew back and his eyes widened with sudden inspiration.

"Or perhaps the dear little thing left you? How sad to drive her away with your silence, your lies and your obsession with work? 'I gave up everything for you and you took everything I had to give. But you've given me such a tiny part of yourself in return. How could I ever have been blind enough to have loved such a selfish, cold and unfeeling man?'"

Illya felt a trickle of sweat run down his brow. He cursed the heat of the Ecuadorian night. This was not the time to give the impression of weakness.

"Or," his lips twitched into a small smile, "Could your darling wife be dead? The victim of some tragic plot twist in the sad soap opera of your life? An accident perhaps? An oh-so-very-sad misadventure which none of your combat skills or sharpshooting could prevent. How did it make you feel? Did you weep your blue eyes out? I'm sure she loved those eyes. They are so very pretty. How many secrets did you hide behind them? How much pain and bitterness had your silky-tongued lies and evasions caused before she died?"

How could any room be so infernally hot? Illya could almost see the thick humidity in the air. He longed to lick his parched lips.

Stevenson slid off the table. He had a well-satisfied look to him. Like a cat who has not only got the cream but had also found it liberally laced with catnip. He dropped the ring into the inner pocket of his sports jacket and patted it contentedly.

"Such a delightful conversation," he twittered, "And such a receptive listener. Really, my friend, your combination of economy and clarity in your communication is quite remarkable. Perhaps we will continue with this later. I regret I shall have to defer to my colleagues now - the poor dears are getting restless for their turn. I'm afraid they have not quite our appreciation for the finer things in life. Still, what would the world be without some variety? And endless dialogue can get a tad dull for even the most interested of third-parties."

One of the men stepped forward into the pool of light in the centre of the room. Tall and dark-haired, he had a lean, hungry look about him and a dullness in his eyes that spoke of overwork and weariness. He scraped a chair across the floor to the table and sat himself opposite Kuryakin drawing a large pliers from his back pocket as he did so.

"We're going to start gently", crooned Stevenson from the shadows producing what looked like a travelling bag, "Too much blood too soon is so impersonal don't you think? Hold him still please." The other guard stepped forward and took hold of the U.N.C.L.E. agent's shoulders, pressing them against the back of the chair.

"Our equipment is not as fancy as you may be used to I imagine. You'll have to forgive us our backwardness. We can but make do with what we have."

He unfastened the bag and drew out a small electrician's saw, a screwdriver, a long butcher's knife and large corkscrew. One by one he laid them on the table before Kuryakin The care and deliberation with which he did it reminded the Russian of nothing so much as a nurse passing a doctor his surgical implements. He clenched his jaw and dismissed the thought. It was much too close to the truth.

Stevenson continued. "I hope you are sitting comfortably, we have quite a stimulating series of demonstrations with which to entertain you tonight. To start, Felix shall introduce you to some of the more interesting potentialities of the common pliers. He shall take each of your fingers in turn and fix his instrument onto the nail." Felix clasped the fingernail on Illya's left thumb in the pliers. The man behind him tightened his grip on his shoulders.

"Just a quick twist and pull is usually all it takes," Stevenson continued, "Felix is quite skilled you know. For such a small area of application the resulting pain is quite remarkable. Only last month we had a charming young visitor who fainted clean away by the time we had reached the middle finger of his left hand. A shame really, but I'm sure a man of your experience will have no such difficulties. No, I fully expect the demonstrations of all our instruments to command your full and undivided attention." He gestured theatrically at the tools laid out on the small table, "Shall we begin, Felix?"

But Felix did not begin. Suddenly, his expressionless face resolved itself into a mask of utter shock, his brow creased and his grip went slack as the sound of a gunshot splintered the night air. A dark, wet hole appeared in his forehead and he fell forward onto the table. Another bang followed immediately and Stevenson lay limp against the door. The final shot took out the man behind him and Kuryakin felt the warmth of splattered blood across his hair and on the back of his neck as the guard's hands slid from his shoulders.

"You're late." gasped Illya.

Solo dropped through the window and sent another bullet in the direction of the door, before setting to work on the cuffs with a pair of wire cutters. "Gee, why didn't you tell me you were getting a manicure? We could have booked a double appointment."

"It had occurred to me, but then I remembered: I like to be punctual."

"Sorry, rush hour traffic." The senior agent may have been smiling, but it was a smile partly of contrition and primarily of relief. "I've set charges under the wall outside. In precisely twenty-seven seconds, this place will go out with a bang. There!" Solo hacked through the last link and began to make for the window.

Illya hesitated. He had the odd sense that he had forgotten something.

"Quickly!"

Napoleon's voice reverberated around the little room and Illya remembered the charges. They dived out of the window together and had put twenty yards between themselves and the club before there was a blinding flash and they were flattened momentarily by what felt and sounded like an express train.

Ten minutes later they were in the waiting helicopter and rising rapidly into the night sky.

"Alright, my friend?" Solo swept some papers off a seat in the back and steered his partner towards it.

Kuryakin nodded and sank gratefully down. "Next time try to travel off-peak."

The American grinned and settled himself into his own seat, closing his eyes contentedly.

Illya took a long drink from a small flask of water that was perched between them and swilled the liquid around his dry mouth. It was over. Today he had evaded the waiting darkness one more time. Yes, it was merely a temporary victory, but it was a victory nonetheless and you embraced whatever small triumphs you could when they came your way. Leaning his forehead against the cool glass of the window, he watched the lights of Quito recede into the distance as the helicopter gained altitude. Exhaustion threatened to overwhelm him. He rubbed the base of his ring finger almost expecting to feel the familiar, comforting metal band he had worn for so long. It felt oddly exposed. It's just a ring he chided himself. Superstitions, he had always maintained, were a crutch and an impediment, but, before now, he had never thought of his attachment to his ring as superstition. Releasing his finger he regarded it carefully. He could almost feel the band's phantom presence. Like amputees who insist they can feel their toe, leg or hand even though it is gone. An involuntary shiver crept down his back as he recalled how close he had recently come to a first-hand experience of such a condition. Kenneth Stevenson had certainly meant business.

His mind was drifting. It was no loss, he told himself, just a plain, not very expensive, gold ring. It was not a weapon, an explosive or a tracking device. It had no practical value. An old story he had once heard about a wonder-working ring fluttered up from his memory. Chretien de Troyes wasn't it? The enigmatic French master of the Arthurian romance. He had heard the tale recited long ago on an otherwise forgettable pub night when he was a student in Cambridge. There was warmth and beer, and Philip Kearney from the medieval wing of the French department was waving his pint aloft as he recited great swathes of the text to an audience of faintly bemused physicists and engineers. Illya smiled slightly at the memory. Fragments of the tale still lingered in his mind. The ring was Laudine's gift to Sir Yvain to protect him from harm while he was away adventuring in the first year of their marriage. It never failed Yvain until he neglected to return to his wife on the day he had promised and proved himself untrue. How had the story ended? He couldn't recall. Probably happily. They usually did. He sighed and rubbed his weary eyes. His head hurt and he was still very thirsty. He took another gulp from the bottle by Napoleon's side. As soon as he got home he would order some of Donatti's best take-away, wash it down with some ice-cold beer, and, finally, have a very long and very deep sleep.

He closed his eyes and settled back into his seat. Le Chevalier au Lion. What had put him in mind of that story of all things? Ah yes, he remembered now. During Philip's oratorical tour de force all those years ago he had pondered with some amusement the parallel between Yvain's ring and those handy little explosive devices that rolled out of the U.N.C L.E. research labs. Even in his student days they had some lovely items at their disposal. And yet, on this occasion at least, his very ordinary ring had proved more useful than the most sophisticated weaponry. Napoleon had been very late. If Stevenson had not wasted so much time spinning stories around the object, he had little doubt that he would, at this very moment, be lying dead or dying in the humid back room of that bar.

As sleep began to overtake him he breathed a sigh of relief and no little gratitude. Unlike his partner he felt no sense of entitlement when it came to the operations of Chance. He knew he had no right to be returning from Quito alive and unharmed. By some strange quirk of fate, that old ring had been the difference between life and death for him tonight. And, although he had no very high opinion of his own merits, some long-submerged part of him dared to wonder if it was because, for all these years, he had somehow managed to be true.