"What about–?"

  "Waverly? We'll think of something to say to him. Maybe even the truth."

  "But–"

  "The truth goes a long way, my friend. It is my responsibility to advise him of any misgivings I might have about the carrying out of my mission. The very nature of this, the shred of doubt this casts over the assignment, is reason enough to rethink the action, regardless of the mechanics of how you came up with the information." He smiled. "They say that 'fools rush in where angels fear to tread.' Now are you going to help me, or not?"

  * * * * *

  5:45 a.m.

  "So what's the rest of the story?"

  Illya looked up through the mild vodka haze, his eyes finally settling on his partner comfortably seated in the room's overstuffed armchair and seemingly oblivious to the evening's heat. "I tol' you everythin' already," he said, his words merging together into a stream of overlapping syllables. "Ten times. Mebbe more."

  "You told me about Michael's visit and what he told you, you told me about the name he called you, your father's private name for you, and you told me about how you came to the decision to try to remove the bomb. Now I want to hear the other story."

  "What other story?"

  "When did you have something happen to you, and no one believed you?"

  Wolf eyes reflected in the semi-dark apartment. Alert, suddenly. Wary. Careful. The alcohol in his system relegated elsewhere. "What do you mean?"

  Napoleon raised his glass to his lips, the fiery potency of the expensive brandy mellowing him after the tedious retrieval of the explosives and the past hour of dissecting his partner's memories. "I think it's time you told someone what happened before."

  "How do you know something happened?"

  "Because I know you, Illya Kuryakin. And this isn't like you. This isn't how you normally react to a problem. So then I have to ask myself, what is different about this? And I come up with the fact that it is something that cannot be explained. No proof, as you put it. Whatever or whoever that was in your apartment yesterday, we may never know. So then I ask myself, what happened to you before that was without explanation, something no one believed when you told them and, as a result, something bad happened to you. Something you have carried with you for a long time."

  Illya looked down, his fingers wrapped around the neck of the Stolichnaya vodka bottle. The alcohol seemed to evaporate from his system. He was suddenly alert, cautious. "There is nothing."

  "It won't leave this room."

  "Does not matter. There is nothing to tell you. You are mistaken."

  Napoleon leaned forward. "I'll believe you."

  Illya lifted the bottle to his mouth, then pulled it away without drinking from it. He carefully set the bottle on the coffee table, and then shifted it to another spot. His hand stayed on the cool glass, as though reluctantly to part from it, from the comfort it represented. "Why?" he asked. "Why would you believe me?" he whispered, as the years fell backwards.

  Igor Raskachevskiy did not believe him.

  The room was cold. The rough unvarnished floorboards creaked as Raskachevskiy paced, his gleaming black boots grinding into the wooden slats with each turn. On the walls, shadowed faces looked down at him from disturbing pictures, all frowning, all with a faint madness about the eyes.

  Illya sat stiffly in his chair, stubbornly staring at his handwritten report lying isolated on the scarred surface of the GRU colonel's desk. He refused to look at Raskachevskiy, just as he refused to acknowledge Mikhail Zadkine's presence standing inside the door of the starkly-furnished office.

  The pacing stopped. Hands stretched out to the rust-streaked radiator beneath the window, Raskachevskiy stood regarding the gray November snow falling on the rebuilt city of Kiev. The ice blue eyes finally turned, fixing on Illya, and then looking away. "You will not leave here until you rewrite this."

  "I do not understand what is wrong with it. It is the truth." Illya's soft voice, cracked from tension, was lost in the echoing room.

  Zadkine moved forward into the scene. He was equal in presence to the broad-shouldered Raskachevskiy; the two men had battled for control of power since the meeting began, one fiery KGB, one steely GRU, fighting against a slightly-built determined teenager. "Comrade, let me speak to him alone. I will convince him."

  Mikhail Zadkine grabbed the hair on the back of Illya's head, dragging him from his chair. "Do as Comrade Raskachevskiy says. It is late. We are tired of this foolishness!"

  "I will not change what I wrote! It is the truth." Illya tried to free his hair, the tears in his eyes showing the pain it caused. "Why are you afraid of the truth?"

  Raskachevskiy reached into a desk drawer and pulled a Cuban cigar from its depths. He did not offer one to Zadkine. He bit the end off the cigar, spitting it into the trash can. "Sit your son down."

  Illya was dropped into the chair, raw hatred in his eyes flashing at his foster father Zadkine. "I saw it! I saw the corn stalks die before my eyes. I saw the shadow fall over the field and the crops die as it touched them. Why would I make this up? Why do you not believe me?"

  "This was not what you were sent to do! Comrade Raskachevskiy sent you to watch the Pioneers' camp. To observe the workers who watched the children. Nothing else. What were you doing in the cornfield? Is this how you were trained? To go off on your own without permission?"

  "I saw something strange in the sky and I thought–"

  "You were not asked to think!" Raskachevskiy thundered. He picked up the neatly written papers on his desk and shook them in the air. "What am I to do with this? What proof do you have that this is true? They will say this is the deluded rambling of an idiot. A shadow caused the burned crops? Nonsense—it was simply the carelessness of the farmers. They will be dealt with. Such delinquencies will not be tolerated."

  "There was no fire," Illya insisted. "There was a large, oval, metallic object that hovered like a helicopter over the field. I saw nothing come from it—no spray or gas—yet the shadow of it caused the corn to– " He leaped off his chair before Zadkine's blow hit him.

  "Enough. Enough. Leave. I will speak to the boy alone." Raskachevskiy waited until Zadkine had left the room before sitting down at his desk and turning back to Illya. His voice, when he spoke, was as icy as the room. "Change this report. You will say you made a mistake. Now that two months have gone by, you realize that you mistook a helicopter from a nearby airfield as this 'alien aircraft'. You wish to ask for pardon for your presumptuousness and for your stupidity."

  Illya stared back at him, pale eyes narrowing, even as he shook in his boots. "Why should I lie? There is no airfield nearby. Everyone knows that. I saw this thing with my own eyes. Why do you not believe me?"

  "It does not matter whether I believe you or not, little one. If you are concerned about this, then I will tell you that I do not believe you. You did not want to go to the Pioneers' camp and you have had your revenge by making this up to make a fool of me. I am now telling you what you will write in your report. You are fifteen years old. You will do as I tell you."

  "I did not make it up. I will not write that," he whispered, unable to voice the refusal louder.

  "You will do it before you leave this room. That idiot who is your father will not survive the purge if you do not prove to be more useful. I assure you it is within my power to arrange this. He can obviously no longer control you. What use is he to us if he cannot control you? There are those who will listen to my advice. We will find another keeper for you."

  Illya glanced to the closed doorway beyond which the sound of Zadkine's boots could be heard pacing in the narrow hallway. Since he was ten years old, he had been paraded before the authorities by the head of the Kiev Military College, Mikhail Zadkine. Without Zadkine's claim that he was his son, Illya would have been placed in an orphanage, where crueler fates awaited him than even Zadkine could imagine. Zadkine had manipulated and flaunted his son, using the boy's intelligence and skill as a stepping-stone through the early 1950s, and now through the post- Stalin purge.

  But that, too, was a lie, Illya thought, because I am not his son. I am no one's son. His real father had been dead for a long time.

  Survival. He had to survive.

  The truth was not what the government wanted to hear. The truth had already been decided. The farmers had been careless and burned their own fields, causing cruel penalties to be levied against them. It was simpler. Cleaner. No messy ends. It made people feel shame at their countrymen.

  There was no truth. Only survival. Not without proof.

  If they had been there and seen it with their own eyes... No, if they had been there and seen it with their own eyes, they would have agreed they had seen nothing, for no one would want to sign a document reporting the phenomenon.

  Raskachevskiy took a gun from his drawer and laid it on the desk. "You will change this report. And then I have an assignment for you. If you do not complete it, do not expect to ever leave this country again. There will be no more university programs in Berlin, no more special privileges. You have been enrolled in the 5th Directorate School for Saboteurs. You can be unenrolled with one telephone call. Tonight, Demichev will take you by train to Kharkov and then to the village in the morning. You will kill the farmer responsible for this disaster; his name is on this piece of paper. You will make it look like one of their own townspeople has done this as an outrage against the man's carelessness."

  "I will not kill an innocent– "

  "Tomorrow evening, this man must be dead. Or your father must be dead. That is your choice. You will kill one of them."

  Illya stared at him, unblinking. "My father?"

  "To protect Mikhail Zadkine, you must remove this farmer. If you do not care enough for Zadkine to do this, then you must kill Zadkine." Raskachevskiy set a pad of paper and a fountain pen on the desk, turning them to face the boy. "If you choose to kill yourself, I will have both men killed. Do not think death will save your decision. Three dead. Or one dead. It is your choice. It matters little to me. Now, write your retraction. When you are finished, you may return to your home with Zadkine and extinguish him, or you may leave with Demichev."

  "I do not want to go with Comrade Demichev. I do not like him looking at me."

  "I did not ask your opinion. You are a spoiled liar. Dernichev is a respected officer. He is the brother-in-law of the head of the Communist Party in Kiev."

  "He is a pervert," Illya hissed, even as he protected his head from the blow leveled at it.

  "Everyone tells me what a brilliant mind you have. You should know how to handle yourself appropriately by now. But do not make him angry."

  Illya glared at Raskachevskiy, biting back the retort that would only place him in a worse position.

  "See? You have learned already. Do as I tell you. Write the report. I will return to the room in fifteen minutes. Be finished." He held out the pen. The sudden slump in the teenager's shoulders showed him he had won. The boy would choose to survive. And he would survive, for a while, anyway. Until they no longer needed him. Raskachevskiy stood and walked to the door.

  Illya leaned forward his hands resting on the edge of the desk, the pen held in one hand as though it were contaminating him by its very presence against his skin.

  "Comrade Colonel," he called out after Raskachevskiy, without turning his head, "what if what I saw was true? What will happen when whatever it was that I saw comes back and no one knows about it? There will be no plan of action. You cannot hide the truth."

  "I do it all the time." Raskachevskiy shut the door firmly behind him as he left.

  Napoleon's glass was empty. "So what did you do?"

  Illya shrugged. "I'm here, aren't I?"

  "Did you write the retraction?" Napoleon waited for his faint nod. "What about the other thing? The farmer?"

  His blue eyes closed. His tired body turned away from his partner, one arm flung across his forehead. "What do you think I did?"

  "Survived."

  Illya gave a laugh, the bitter sound distinctly unpleasant as it caught his throat. "I survived. Yes. Because I was a coward, a liar, and a fool."

  "You were a child. They gave you no options, no reason to trust them. They had no love for truth."

  The two partners sat in silence for several minutes, then Illya spoke finally. "I'm tired, Napoleon, and I'm hot. I want to take a shower. This telling has not been easy. What I did then is not something I am proud of. It has haunted me."

  Napoleon stood up, waiting until his legs steadied before walking to the door. "Sleep in tomorrow. I'll come down around ten o'clock. We don't have to see Waverly until noon."

  "What are you going to tell him?" There was no fear in the eyes any longer, whether from exhaustion or trust, Solo didn't know.

  "I'll think of something. In a pinch, we'll use the truth. It would be worth it just to see his reaction."

  Illya clambered to his feet and went to lock the door after Napoleon. "Thank you."

  Napoleon turned in the hallway. "For–?"

  He shrugged. "Listening. Not laughing. Acting like you believed me."

  "I'm not that good an actor, Illya."

  "You aren't; that's true." They shared a smile. "So you really do believe I saw an angel? And I saw a UFO in the farmlands of the Ukraine?" He leaned against the doorjamb, wearily.

  "I believe you wouldn't make something like that up. I don't know what I'm prepared to call whatever it was you saw the other day, or ten years ago, but I know you haven't lied to me."

  "That is enough." Illya watched him walk away, then shut the door, turned the deadbolt, and set the security system. He felt a private surge of emotion, a sensation that startled him from its strangeness, even when he finally found a word to describe it.

  Joy.

  He pulled off the bandages from around his feet, dragged the polo shirt over his head and dropped it to the floor, and then moved to the bathroom to prepare for the night. Mechanically he brushed his teeth, then aimed his exhausted body toward his bed. Relaxing into the mattress, he surrendered to the comfort, sinking into sleep.

  "Nikosha."

  In his dream, Illya opened his eyes at the too-familiar Russian voice, but there was nothing to see, or, at least, nothing concrete to see. He knew there was a presence in the room, however, and could smell the scent of Sandalwood and the sands of the desert. He heard words murmured over him—and incantation or a prayer––but he did not understand them. "What? Mikhail?" he heard himself mumble.

  "You have done well," the voice said gently, the temperature in his room falling to a comfortable level.

  The throbbing in Illya's heels faded. He smiled as the thin sheet was adjusted on his shoulders. "Goodbye," he responded, and the dream merged into sleep.

  He slept soundly all night. He woke at his usual time, and went through the motions of showering, soaping his body and hair, rinsing, then toweling himself off quickly. He found himself whistling an old song a folk singer had sung one evening a few weeks ago when he stopped in a Greenwich Village night spot for a Turkish coffee. He wondered for a moment about this feeling of lightness, and he remembered his conversation with Napoleon the evening before.

  As he left the bathroom, he caught his reflection in the full length mirror a previous tenant had screwed onto the wall. He stopped, staring. Something was not quite right.

  He stared at his skin. His fingers traced where a bullet had gone through his shoulder, where a knife had pierced his side. The skin was smooth. Unblemished. Leaning against the wall, he looked at the sole of first one foot, then the other. Both were unmarked and whole. His scars were gone.

  Gone.

  Impossible.

  Scars did not disappear. Scars within or without.

  "You have done well." Mikhail's words in the night, in the dream.

  Or had it been a dream?

  For a long moment he stood there, staring, then slowly he started getting dressed. There was a knock at the door, Napoleon's familiar rat-a-tat-tat. His shirt unbuttoned, he crossed to the door, opening it.

  "Good morning. Ready to—What?" Napoleon asked, when he saw his face. "What happened?"

  "I don't know."

  Napoleon stepped into the room, glancing around quickly. "You look like you're going to pass out." Strong arms grabbed him and steered him to the chair.

  He did feel curiously faint, and leaned forward, feeling his muscles trembling.

  Napoleon crouched in front of him, his hand on his shoulder. "Are you not well?"

  He shook his head. "Fine, actually," he got out. "Too fine."

  "What?"

  Illya sat up slowly, his eyes locked with Napoleon's. Carefully he pulled his shirt off.

  Napoleon glanced down at his chest, obviously not sure what he was supposed to do. Then he saw the Chief Enforcement Agent's eyes widen. "Where's your..."

  "They're gone. All of them. My scars are gone," Illya whispered.

  "Mikhail?"

  "I think so. I think he was here last night. Saying thank you."

  "This is one amazing thank you gift," Napoleon said, dumbfounded. "This is a whole new start."

  "But how do I explain it?" Illya asked, feeling the desperation well within him. "What possible explanation is there for this?"

  Napoleon got up and shifted Illya so he could see his back. "Gone there, too."

  "All of them. My feet, too, I think. What am I going to do?" He could feel his heart beating faster, the fear rising.

  "Nothing. Not yet. We'll find a way to explain it," Napoleon promised, fervently, and his conviction made Illya's tension lessen.

  "But how? Why would he do this to me?"

  "Because you deserved it. You earned it. It puts your past where it belongs—in your past."

  "I can't pretend those things never happened to me, though. That I was never shot, or whipped, or— any of it."

  "You don't forget it, you just don't have to carry the scars. Inside or out."

  "What will I say to Alexander Waverly," Illya persisted.