The laundry room was deserted except for one lone soul doing some last
minute, before graduation, washing. The slender figure, clad in sweats, lay
across the top of the washers, a newspaper over her face, oblivious to her
surroundings. It was a pity she was so unaware.

The gun under his nose let him know she was not nearly as sound asleep as he
had thought. “I am so tired of people fucking with my laundry and my beauty
sleep,” she grumbled as she pulled the paper away from her face. Recognition
set in. She came to a seated position, the gun never wavering for a moment.
“What do you want? How much more badly can I screw up my graduation review?”

Illya smiled at her. “I was unaware your review was in question, Ms.
Yuconovich.” His assurance did not make her relax, any more than his smile
managed to touch his arctic gaze.

“Pull the other one.” She did make the gun disappear as she waited to see
what he had to say.

“You’re too good to be true,” he said in Russian.

“That’s crap,” she responded in the same language. “I’m very, very good, but
too good to be true would be 100 percent in everything. I am far from that
average.”

“Who did you study with?”

“Kung fu?” She shrugged her shoulders. “I never knew his name. I called him
Master. He called me Student. It was all very peculiarly formal.”

“Convenient.”

“His death wasn’t.” She met his gaze head on.

“How do I know you’re not lying?”

Her eyes crinkled up as she grinned. “Part of the problem with hanging
around with spies is that the truth is never close to the surface,” she shot
back in English. “What do you want?”

“Perhaps you should answer the question, Miss Yuconovich.”

“What do I want? I want to help. I want to put my talents to use where they’
ll do the most good. I’m not a sit at home type. I’m not very good as a
secretary. I am very good at facing problems and solving them.”

“Have you killed?”

“Nowhere the US laws can object about it, never where it wasn’t the only
answer, and nothing that can be proved anywhere.” She prayed he could read
the honesty in that answer. It was all true. For a long moment he regarded
her with that peculiarly Kuryakin stare. A small nod was his only
acknowledgement.

“You will be watched.”

“Well, duh!” Oh, how easily that tripped off her tongue. She could have
kicked herself a moment later, but nothing of that read in her face. She
smiled brightly and turned to deal with moving her laundry from the washer
to one of the nearby dryers. She berated herself mentally as she did so. The
last thing that man needed was unnecessary ammunition.

She heard him move away as she twirled the dial setting the dryer for time
and heat. As the unit came on, she risked a peek past her arm in time to see
him vanish out the door. Nothing as obvious as a sigh of relief escaped her.
She hadn’t come this far to do herself in now.

---

This page is an unofficial site that exists only for the fun of it. All characters and situations from the television show "The Man from U.N.C.L.E." are property of Norman Felton and Warner Bros. Nothing ill is intended by this use of any television characters in these amateur efforts. Any fiction linked to these pages is the intellectual property of the amateur author who created it and is not presented here for profit.