He’d hated being confined to bed; Quinn had found him once collapsed on the floor of his room and trying to crawl out to the veranda.  In a rare instance of allowing physical closeness, he let the older man carry him outside, though he insisted on sitting unaided by Quinn’s support and alone.

As he grew stronger and more able to move about, he began to ask for work to do, saying he needed to start pulling his own weight.  He tottered out to the vegetable garden and asked to help with weeding, only to be picked up, carried back to his room and told he’d be severely sunburned if he spent more than a few minutes under the tropical sun.  He told Quinn he was bored silly and needed something to do, so the older man took him to the kitchen and told the cook to let him help.  She promptly set him to peeling and chopping vegetables, sitting him down by the table and giving him a bowl, a knife, and a large pile of carrots.

That night, after the house settled and went to bed, he slipped from his room and into the master bedroom.  Quinn woke as soon as he heard the doorknob start to turn, for he’d always been a light sleeper and had been expecting a nocturnal visitor for the past week.  He waited quietly as his visitor crept across the room and knelt, naked, by the bed.

“I’m strong enough now to be taken.  Isn’t that why you brought me here?  To share your bed?”

“Is that what you want?”

“What I want doesn’t matter; I am a whore; I’ve always been a whore, and I’ll always be a whore.  If you don’t want me, send me away and I’ll ply my trade elsewhere.”

“I don’t want you having sex with anyone unless you want to, or feeling you need to have sex with someone to survive.  You don’t need to sell yourself anymore; I’ll get you a job, send you to school, or have someone teach you a trade.  I can even teach you myself.”

“You’ve spent all this money on me, and offer to spend even more, and you want nothing in return?  Why?”

“Perhaps I see more in you than just a whore.  You have a quick mind, especially for languages.  You could make so much of yourself with a little help.”

“I am what I am.  Why should I be anything more?”  He lowered his head, not wanting to meet the other man’s eyes.

Quinn reached out and lifted his head, bringing his eyes back up.  “Do you really prefer to have people using your body with no consideration of your feelings?  Do you like being beaten bloody?  Do you want to end up dead in some alley with no one to love you?”

“Why would anyone want to love a whore like me?”

Quinn grabbed him by the head with both hands and shook firmly.  “Quit calling yourself a whore!  You want to know why someone would love you? Because you’re beautiful.  Because you’re intelligent.  Because you have an open heart and a generous spirit.  Even because you’re impossibly stubborn sometimes.”  He loosened his hold and smoothed his visitor’s hair.  'God knows that’s why I love you,' he thought.

“I . . . need to think about this.”  The young man rose, turned, and left the room.

“As do I,” Quinn murmured to himself.

U.N.C.L.E. Headquarters, New York, New York

Napoleon Solo stalked through the halls with a grim expression on his face and an angry gleam in his eyes.  He passed the desk of his superior’s secretary without sparing her a glance, let alone his usual flirting banter. He usually made time to at least smile at her no matter how rushed he was, but not today.  He stormed right past and through the doors.

Alexander Waverly had been expecting his visitor since the report from their Asian sector reached him.  The information was preliminary at best, but the idea they’d left one of their own to suffer, no matter how unwittingly, was deeply disturbing.  Particularly in this case.

He looked up from the folder he was holding.  “Come in, Mr. Solo, and sit down.”

Napoleon entered, standing behind the chair with his hands gripping the back tightly.  “I’d like to know,” he began, “why the Chief Enforcement Officer had to learn through the grapevine one of his best operatives, who had previously been reported dead, might in fact still be alive and in need of assistance?”

“Because the only thing we have to go on currently is the word of a captured THRUSH minion who might be making things up to save his miserable hide, or trying to lure us into a trap,” came the reply.  Waverly stared him down, and for a moment Solo saw all the pain and self-recrimination of a man who has to send others into mortal peril while keeping himself safe.  The moment passed, and the older man looked down at the folder in his hands.  “This is the preliminary interview with the man, whose name is recorded as Simon Greyson.  The details are quite graphic; I suggest you read it in the men’s room, without sitting down.”

Napoleon waited while the file swung around on the revolving table to the chair in front of him, picking it up when it arrived and starting to read immediately.  His face paled then turned gray as he read, and just as he reached for the back of the chair he felt an arm around his shoulders. Waverly closed the file with his other hand and whispered, “Men’s room.” Napoleon took his advice, taking deep breaths and splashing water on his face to control his nausea.  It was some little while before he regained enough composure to return to the office.

When he returned the file was nowhere in sight, and he didn’t ask where it had gone.  “Where do we go from here?”

“We don’t go anywhere, yet; especially you.”  He held up a hand to forestall whatever Napoleon was about to say.  “All our Asian bureaus have been alerted to keep an eye out for Mr. Kuryakin, and our people are checking out whatever leads they can find.  As I mentioned before, it could be a trap to lure you into their clutches.  Or an attempt to place one of their own
within our organization; either a double of your former partner or Mr. Kuryakin himself, after being properly conditioned to obey his new masters.”

He steepled his fingers and looked over them at his CEO.  “Men have been broken from experiencing far less torture than Greyson described in that report.  If he’s still alive, we must be absolutely certain he’s uncompromised, or he’ll never be effective as an operative, either in the field or in the lab.”

Before either man could say anything further, the overseas relay started to sound.  When Waverly answered, it was Hong Kong.  “We believe we’ve found him, sir!”

“Excellent work!  How soon can you send him to New York?”

“He’s not here in Hong Kong, sir.  He’s in Ceylon, sir, currently staying on a tea plantation owned by a man named John Quinn.”

“John Quinn?  Of Quinn International?”

“Yes, sir, we’ve just confirmed that.  Should we send a strike team?”

“That won’t be necessary.  Has Quinn himself been sighted?  He’s somewhat of a recluse.”

“My agent tells me Mr. Quinn took him out of Hong Kong personally in his private jet.  One moment, sir.”  There was a brief silence on the line. “Sir, we’ve just finished comparing blood work and X-rays from the clinic the person answering to Mr. Kuryakin’s description stayed at briefly before leaving to copies from his medical records.  Everything matches but the
dental work, which would be consistent with what we were told.”

“Good job!  We’ll handle retrieval from here.  Waverly out.”  He turned from the microphone grinning from ear to ear, and toggled open his intercom. “Sally, get in touch with Transportation.  I want two tickets to Colombo, Ceylon, on the first available flight.”  He beamed at Napoleon.  “I’ve been hoping John would crawl out of his hidey-hole before I had to step down.  I need to introduce the two of you.  I can give you the details later, but suffice it to say UNCLE wouldn’t exist without Mr. Quinn.”