< . . . Solo watched
as the man squealed away from the curb. Once the car
had disappeared down the street, he leapt out of his
own car and rushed to Illya's apartment, hoping not to
hear a big BOOM! before he got there.>

Meanwhile, he spoke into the communicator:
"Illya, he's gone - stay away from the door - I'll be
right there. I'm calling the bomb squad now." With
that he readjusted his communicator setting, "Mitzi,
send the UNCLE bomb squad to Kuryakin's apartment."

By this time he had reached Kuryakin's apartment door,
approaching carefully not sure what he would find.
The device was indeed attached to the outside doorknob
with a fine trip wire extending to the doorjamb. Had
Illya opened the door he would have triggered the bomb.

The bomb squad arrived promptly and defused the device.
Napoleon keeping Illya informed of their progress by
communicator. As the squad removed the device, Solo
asked for their assessment of its efficacy. The
assessment - small but powerful enough to be fatal to
anyone on either side of the door.

------------------
When Napoleon notified him that the bomb squad had
been summoned, Illya retreated to the most remote part
of his apartment taking cover in case of an inadvertent
detonation and waited, pondering what had just transpired.

He tried to make sense of the contradictory information
available to him.

The KGB agent had come to see him and instructed him to
try to bring Napoleon into the fold through seduction.
Yet he had left a bomb on Illya's door. If the KGB agent
wanted to kill Illya, why bother issuing him instructions
first? Why expose himself as a Russian agent to Napoleon
in an effort to discredit Illya - whatever incriminating
photos he had could have sent to Napoleon anonymously.
If Illya were to be killed by the bomb, there would be
no reason to discredit him first at the risk of
his own exposure as a mole. And having discredited
Illya with incriminating photos how could Illya be
expected to recruit Napoleon?

Why kill or discredit him in the first place, they were
both Soviet agents and therefore supposedly countrymen
and allies? Illya had not exposed him to UNCLE so why
attack him? Or was the rivalry between KGB and his own
service, the GRU, so strong that the KGB would do anything
to stop him.

Could it be that the upcoming Mission to the Conference
of Applied Physics to foil a suspected Thrush kidnap
was so important to the Soviets that they would deliberately
blow the cover of both of their UNCLE agents - both the
mole and their official representative - and discredit
themselves just to stop Kuryakin and Solo from attending
the conference?

Why did the agent plant a bomb and then promptly inform
Napoleon that it was there? Was it some kind of test of
Napoleon - would he save Illya or let the supposedly
unsuspecting agent blow himself to bits?

It all made no sense to Illya. Perhaps there was some
justification in the Machiavellian machinations of Soviet
policy makers, but it sure was not apparent to this pawn
in the game.

His communicator beeped, Napoleon informed him that the
bomb had been defused. Illya walked slowly to the door,
wondering what would happen now. Napoleon, his UNCLE
superior and the man he had begun to think of as a
potential friend or more, now had seen some incriminating
photos of him and knew that he had had contact with the
KGB. The bomb had not killed him but did he have any
future with UNCLE or Napoleon? And why did he even
think of it that way - as a future with Napoleon?

------
As the bomb squad departed, Illya appeared in the doorway.
His face was shuttered and closed, his eyes were downcast
and did not meet Napoleon's inquiring gaze. "We need to
talk," Napoleon said.

---

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