"I'm afraid you're stuck with me," Solo murmured.

  "Then shut up. Surveillance doesn't require a running commentary." Across the room, Solo saw Kuryakin shoulders tense at this rudeness to his partner and he jerked his chin from the physician's hand. The physician accepted the photos the nurse handed him and turned back to Kuryakin. "And you hold still." He raised Kuryakin's chin again and brushed shaggy bangs back from the wide forehead, studying the face critically. He motioned to the nurse and, turning the chin from side to side, compared the face in one hand to the photos in the other, murmuring notations which the nurse rapidly took down. Finishing finally, he let go of Kuryakin's jaw and gestured to him abruptly. "Lie down." Untying the single tape of the hospital gown, he pushed it aside and his eyes bulged. "Good god!"

  "I told you you'd want to see the file," Simons said curtly.

  "What the hell is all this, Lawrence? Burns? And does U.N.C.L.E. use him for target practice?"

  "No, but Thrush does, on occasion," Solo murmured to Baker, but the CIA agent was frowning, not listening, and approached the exam table.

  Lawrence was giving Tomlinson a running commentary. "Scar from a bullet on the right shoulder, another on the chest just below the right collarbone. Burns on the chest. Another bullet scar on the hip. Minor scar on right thigh. A .22 chipped his skull, but his hair hides that."

  Tomlinson jerked the sheet from Kuryakin's lower body and gestured abruptly. "Turn over." Kuryakin ignored the physician's earlier instruction to keep his face blank by scowling at him before rolling over. Tomlinson stopped him halfway, with surprisingly gentle hands, to explore the hip scar. Releasing him, he gestured Kuryakin to finish turning, and as Kuryakin did so, suddenly groaned. "No one told me about this!"

  "I told you to read the medical reports," Simons said again.

  "Baker!" Tomlinson expostulated. "What the hell do you expect me to do with this?"

  Kuryakin frowned, looking over his shoulder at the gathered physicians. Across those shoulders, from neck to ankles, the scars from various beatings, like pale silver ribbons, flowed and interwove. Plus several more bullet scars, some the larger ones from exit wounds.

  "This is not minor scar damage," Tomlinson accused Baker.

  "I didn't know." Baker tore his eyes from Kuryakin's back, apparently shaken, but it was hard to say whether it was the evidence of past injury or the possibility of losing his agent that upset him. "Are you saying we can't use him?"

  "He barely has an inch of whole skin on his back!"

  "Can you remove the scars or not?" Baker snapped, showing the first signs of impatience with the physician.

  Surprisingly, Tomlinson did not react, his concentration once again absorbed in examining his patient. "Most of this is recent?" He glanced over at Simons, who nodded.

  "Within the last two years."

  Tomlinson shrugged. "Removing scars from adult skin is one thing. Even bullet wounds, which are worse since they affect all the layers of the skin to the muscle beneath, even those I can get good results with. The burns will be harder. But they're recent, too, and recent scars are easier to remove. But these," he pointed to some of the ribbons. "See how these have spread and faded. These are old childhood scars, acquired before full growth. And this," he took Kuryakin's wrist in his hand and traced a long scar up toward the elbow, "these scars may be permanent. At best, my results will be incomplete." He looked at Kuryakin's chart for the first time. "The forearm scar was at age nine?"

  "Yes." Lawrence answered.

  "Obviously never tended to. I can improve it considerably. If it had been tended and was still scarred, I couldn't promise as much. But I can't guarantee to remove it." He tossed the chart down. "There's nothing here about the other childhood scars. He glanced at Kuryakin. "At what age were you first beaten as a child?"

  Solo froze, his glance meeting Sam Lawrence's before darting to Kuryakin's suddenly rigid form.

  Lawrence waited uneasily in case the Russian responded, then took a hesitant step closer. "Uh, Edgar..."

  "The younger the child, the more likely long-term damage can't be removed," Tomlinson explained, as if Lawrence had asked a question. "What age?" he shot impatiently at Kuryakin. "Five, eight, ten, twelve?"

  "Illya?" Lawrence said tentatively, touching his shoulder lightly.

  Solo couldn't see his partner's face, but Kuryakin's rigid shoulders suddenly relaxed. "About twelve," the Russian said evenly.

  "You weighed what, eighty, ninety pounds?"

  "I really have no idea," Illya said coldly, as if Tomlinson had asked him a flagrantly improper personal question.

  "Mmmm. You're small enough. More likely eighty. How long did it go on? Two years, three years, five years?"

  "I was fifteen," Kuryakin's voice was tight. With anger, Solo recognized, repressed but there. The whole room echoed with it.

  "Tomlinson, can you repair the scarring or not?" Baker suddenly exploded, slamming down the chart he'd been paging through.

  Tomlinson looked up coldly from his fingertip examination of the scars in question. "I'm not replacing a faulty carburetor, Baker. Nor were your reports anywhere close to describing this situation. But, yes, I can probably make some improvement to most of it. He won't be perfect, but with luck they'll have to look close to see them. An interesting case." He ran his finger down a scar tracing one calf and then pressed his palm lightly over the heel of the Russian's foot. "Barring this of course. This looks recent, but there's not much I can do here. My technique repairs fine tissue scars, not the calloused skin you find on the heels. A crude but effective technique to punish or prevent a runaway. Who whipped the skin off your feet, Kuryakin, Thrush or the KGB?"

  Solo held his breath as Kuryakin pulled his foot from Tomlinson's grasp and rolled over.

  I wouldn't blame you, Illya, if you changed your mind about this assignment. But please don't deck this pompous bastard. Let me kill him instead.

  But Illya's expression was cool, with the touch of amused wickedness Solo had learned to beware of. "Neither actually. It was a CIA doctor who caught me trying to escape his bedside manner."

  "Humph!" Tomlinson scowled a little, then the hint of a smile twisted one corner of his mouth before disappearing at an answering quirk in Kuryakin's. "Prep him," he ordered. "I want a full set of x-rays, blood work, tissue samples." His voice rose. "And a set of decent photos I can work from, damn it!"

  Kuryakin laid back wearily, to be caught by Lawrence's encompassing hands. "Is it too late to defect back to Russia?" he asked plaintively.

  "Sorry, buddy," Lawrence rubbed his shoulders lightly. "The CIA has you surrounded. Just relax and let the nice nurse take some blood. None of this will hurt. Much."

  "I know you're a secret vampire, Sam. Someday, you'll have all my high-test Russian blood and have to settle for Napoleon's poor low-grade Italian."

  Solo grinned, grateful his partner's sense of humor let him deal with Tomlinson's unpleasantness and took a step toward him, only to be stopped by a hand on his arm.

  Baker jerked his head toward the door. "Got a minute?"

  Solo looked back toward his partner. Illya's eyes were closed and a nurse was holding his arm, taking the first of what looked like a dozen vials of blood.

  Seeing Solo's questioning glance, Lawrence left Kuryakin's side and came over to them. "We're going to need him for a few hours, Napoleon. I'll be taking him to x-ray as soon as the blood work is done. He'll be tired when we're finished, but he might want your company then. Why don't I call you," Lawrence tapped the breast pocket where Solo kept his cigarette case/transceiver, "when he's free." Solo glanced at Baker and over to the CIA doctors arguing with Mercer. Understanding him, Lawrence smiled. "Don't worry. We won't leave him alone with the enemy."

  Baker stiffened, but Solo didn't care. It was how he felt. "All right." Lawrence turned back. Solo tried once again to catch his friend's eye, but Illya was turned away from him. "Let's go." He said to Baker.

  He followed the CIA agent through U.N.C.L.E.'s metal corridors, eyes narrowing when they arrived at the reception area. "Where are we going?"

  "To find a drink." Baker leaned over to let the receptionist remove his badge and Solo shrugged and followed in turn. "You must know somewhere around here."

  Solo led him around the corner to a bar, run by an ex-U.N.C.L.E. agent, that was kept reasonably safe, swept free of bugs twice daily. Baker ordered a scotch and stared into it. Solo glanced at the bartender, ordering 'his usual' with a raised eyebrow and was given a ginger ale with a disguising twist. If the CIA was going to get drunk, he wanted to be sober to take advantage of it.

  "What's the matter, Baker? Afraid you lost your pigeon?"

  "In spite of what you think, Solo, I am not your enemy. Nor am I Kuryakin's."

  "No. You'd just put out a contract on him if it was convenient."

  Baker said nothing, neither denying nor confirming Solo's assertion, his eyes still fixed on his drink. Solo sipped his ginger ale, grimaced, wishing for something stronger, and put it aside.

  "I was a field agent for 15 years. I've seen hundreds of field agents, some who've been in the business for fifty years. I've never seen anything like that." Baker looked at Solo, his face twisted with anger and Solo realized with a shock the anger was directed at him. "I saw Kuryakin's medical files from Langley, when he originally defected, and they didn't indicate anything like this. What the hell kind of an organization are you in, Solo, that let's its agents get torn up like that in two years?"

  Solo frowned, uncomfortably defensive. "Illya's seen a lot of action."

  "Seen, hell. I just read his damn medical chart. With U.N.C.L.E. for an employer, he doesn't need Thrush or the CIA for an enemy. I ought to recruit him for our organization. He'd have a better chance of making it past twenty-six."

  "You had no business reading his chart."

  Baker studied him, eyes narrowed. "I wondered at all that semi-paternal concern Waverly's shown about losing him. Kuryakin's his disposable, right? The one he sends when he has to risk losing an agent. As CEA, I suppose you have to play along. But how can you call yourself his partner with a straight face, knowing that? God, I don't know how you sleep at night."

  "You don't know what you're talking about."

  "Don't I? It must be nice to have a partner who takes all the heat and gives you all the credit. I guess being CEA has its advantages. Whose pigeon is he, Solo? Let's count your scars and see."

  Solo stood slowly, fury making his muscles rigid. "Excuse me. I suddenly remembered somewhere I have to be."

  He walked back to U.N.C.L.E. in a partial daze, wondering if Baker was trying to snow him. But the shock on his face in the exam room? The anger in the bar? How could the CIA not know the physical condition of the agent they'd tailed for months? But then why show any anger? Illya wasn't even aware of Baker's supposed concern. Was it for Solo's benefit then? To convince him that the CIA didn't consider his partner a 'disposable'. He'd never believe that. It would take more than a bit of acting in a bar to convince him of the purity of the CIA's motives regarding his partner.

  He entered the U.N.C.L.E. building, accepted his badge without a smile for the pretty receptionist, his feet winding their way automatically to his office. He wanted to talk to Waverly, tell him the CIA's accusations, but he felt a moment's unease. Suppose, just suppose, it was true. His mind denied it, but his gut twisted in unease. What if Waverly regarded his partner, even slightly, in some way as Baker implied? No, he didn't believe it.

  It was true that Waverly considered them all expendable. He told them so all the time. But he told them all that, indiscriminately. Waverly had read him the riot act a few times, chewed him out over his concern for his partner, but every partner heard that lecture from Waverly at times. Waverly didn't have pigeons, or disposables. U.N.C.L.E. didn't work that way. Kuryakin was Number Two, Section Two, in line for Solo's job. Waverly would never waste that spot, that training, on a 'disposable'. Baker was wrong.

  His phone rang and he answered it mechanically, his throat dry. He thought of the drink he had abandoned in the bar, looked over at his coffee pot, empty but for a scummy film and sighed. "Solo here."

  "Mr. Solo, Mr. Waverly wants you in his office immediately," said Heather McNabb, Waverly's assistant.

  "All right." He nabbed some coffee on the way and, before long, was standing before Waverly's conference table.

  "Ah, yes. I would like to hear your report on the progress of the Reactor Affair."

  "Um. Yes, sir." His thoughts whirled, unorganized. He was finding them hard to pin down.

  "Mr. Solo. Are you quite all right?"

  "Yes, sir. Well, sir." He paused, what he could say and what he wanted to ask raising conflicting words in his mind.

  "Have you suddenly lost your ability to communicate coherently?"

  Solo sighed. "No, sir. I'm not sure what you want to know. Illya has been briefed on the boy he's to impersonate. He's read all the AEC info already. I don't think there's anything in that area that will be a problem. The CIA physicians examined him today. They seemed a little ... surprised at his past injuries, but think they can remove most of his identifying scars. He's being prepped now for the surgery tomorrow."

  "I see. And you?"

  "Me, sir?"

  "What have your activities been?"

  "Illya briefed me on as much nuclear physics as I seem capable of comprehending. We've scheduled the reactor tours. I detailed Abronski to go along on the surveillance duty; Illya recommended him as our best physicist. I sat in on the medical consult."

  "What else?"

  Solo stared at him, confused and tired. "Else, sir?"

  "Have you studied the CIA's plans to extricate your partner? Have you reviewed the Soviet operation in detail?"

  "Not yet, sir."

  "Then do so. Your job has nothing to do with the technical aspects of this assignment, or with your partner's preparations for his impersonation. Your job is to see that he is retrieved after the CIA operation is over. See to that."

  He suddenly felt on safer ground. "Yes, sir." He decided to call Waverly on a subject that was never very safe to call him on. "Mr. Kuryakin is not expendable in this operation, is he, sir?"

  Waverly looked at him from under his bushy eyebrows. "You are all expendable."

  He sighed slightly. "Yes, sir."

  "But, as I said from the beginning, I am not sacrificing one of my agents to a CIA operation. Mr. Kuryakin is not expendable in this operation. Your responsibility is to ensure that he does not become so."

  "Yes, sir." Solo backed out of the room and then turned, absurdly grateful. "Thank you, sir."

  Waverly waited until the door closed behind him and humphed irritably, closing his transcript of the exchange in the U.N.C.L.E. bar. "CIA fodder, indeed."

  ***

  Solo entered the U.N.C.L.E. infirmary with a touch of trepidation, but the scene was innocuous enough. His partner sat half-propped up in bed against several pillows, surrounded by top secret AEC reports, scowling down at the one he was studying through his reading glasses. He was alone, or at least his only companions were routine security and medical surveillance monitors.

  "Don't frown. It'll spoil your youthful glow."

  Illya looked up and smiled in delight. "What did you bring me?"

  Solo froze in the doorway. "Bring you?"

  "Napoleon! You went out for dinner and you didn't bring me anything? A pizza, a pastrami sandwich, a milkshake? You left me here to starve on hospital food with doctors sucking my lifeblood away? I want a new partner."

  "For your information," the older agent said, entering the room, "I haven't had dinner yet myself. Even a hospital one."

  "Count yourself lucky. It'll take me hours to recover from mine."

  Solo grinned and sat down on the side of his partner's bed.

  Kuryakin winced. "Ow!"

  Solo stood up quickly. "Did I hurt you? Should I call someone?" He looked around for the call button.

  "Ha. Got you."

  "You crazy Russian."

  "All they took was blood and x-rays. How could you possibly hurt me by sitting even your enormous weight down."

  "Enormous weight my foot. You just kissed your second dinner good-bye."

  "I couldn't eat it anyway." Illya sighed. "I don't mind getting shot at as much as I mind starving for this stupid assignment. I'm hungry."

  "Good thing Thrush never discovered your most feared torture. I'll try not to let on the next time I'm under the electrodes."

  Kuryakin didn't respond, his fingers fiddling with his glasses.

  "You all right?"

  "Yes. Fine." He looked up at Solo and shrugged one shoulder slightly. His normally clear blue eyes had a cloudy, slightly unfocused look that suggested he hadn't succeeded in avoiding the usual pre-operative drugs, but were stubbornly narrowed as if he were trying to fight them. "Maybe a little tired."

  Solo stood. "Get some sleep, then."

  Kuryakin's eyes went from him to the clock on the wall. "It's not even nine o'clock."

  "So? Sleep when you're tired, not when the clock is, dummy. After all, you gave up quite a bit of blood today. And tomorrow is going to come early."

  "Napoleon?"

  Solo sat down again. "Yeah, partner?"

  "What do you think about this surgery?"

  "What do you mean?"

  "I know it has to be done. They might suspect something, do a physical exam, and at least the superficial scars should be gone."

  Solo was confused. "Superficial?"

  Kuryakin frowned at him, blinking owlishly. "If they take x-rays, nothing will disguise the bones I've broken."

  "Oh. Right."

  "Fortunately my blood type is the same. That's not unusual, considering I'm from the same part of Europe."

  "Right."

  "And they're not likely to have access to any more sophisticated tests."

  "True," Solo agreed, having no idea what Illya was talking about. He noticed his partner was running one hand up the old scar on his arm.

  "I've worn a lot of disguises, Napoleon. Here. Back there, too." Illya's voice was soft, meditative. Solo realized he was talking about his days in the KGB and GRU, something Illya had never discussed with him. "I've impersonated a lot of people, too." Kuryakin shrugged that one shoulder again, dismissively. "It's never bothered me. I've even enjoyed it, when I could." He rubbed the scar on his wrist slowly, repeatedly. "But I've never changed me before. When the assignment was over, I took the disguises off."