Illya pulled off the cap of his communicator and leaned tiredly up against a door. "Open Channel D please."

"Solo here," came the familiar voice.

"Kuryakin here."

"Illya where are you?"

"I'm standing in the lavatory of the Tolkerman Night Club."

"What are you doing in there?" Napoleon asked, puzzled.

"What does one usually do in a lavatory?" And before Napoleon could open his mouth and come back with a smart comment, he added, "I'm hiding from Thrush of course. It appears the Tolkerman Night Club is definitely a front for whatever nefarious schemes Thrush is up to this time."

Over his communicator, Napoleon could make out the sounds of running water.

"Illya you wouldn't?"

"Of course not, that's Mark."

"Oh." Napoleon could make out the sound of a muffled argument going on. Muffled no doubt because Illya had his hand over the speaker part of his communicator.

After a moment Napoleon heard the voices more clearly and could make out Mark speaking to Illya, "Tell him about April."

"What about April?" Napoleon asked becoming concerned, "She hasn't been taken by Thrush?"

"No of course not. She's just rather upset with you. It seems she was forced to go all the way through her striptease. Mark and I had difficulty locating the correct files and photographing them. We were able to catch the last couple of minutes of her act though. She was a great success. It would seem that if she wanted, Miss Dancer could make a generous living in this profession."

"Why is she upset with me?" Napoleon asked in confusion.

"As far as I can gather through the colourful language she's been using, she believes you should have taken into account any delays in obtaining the files and arranged for a better distraction."

"Where is April anyway?" A sudden toilet flush was his answer.

"She's in the men's room with us of course. After her excellent performance, we could hardly leave her out there by herself."

Illya watched April wash her hands and then slump herself into a chair.

"Hey if she's that good, she could do it for the Uncle Christmas Party."

Illya watched with a certain amount of amusement the strange look that appeared on April's face on hearing Napoleon's words. It was only Mark holding her back that stopped her from launching herself at the communicator to tell Napoleon exactly what she thought of that idea. "Somehow I very much doubt that that is going to happen." Illya said with a certain amount of understatement. "Well, enough of this small talk Napoleon, when can we expect a rescue?"

"Well that all depends…"

"On what?" Illya asked somewhat crossly.

"Well I'm just pulling up at the back of the Club now, so you can either be rescued now, or wait for reinforcements to arrive."

"If it's all the same to you, I'd rather be rescued now."

"Suit yourself."

"The men's room has a rather nice frosted glass window." Illya stated, "I could have blown it open myself except for somebody telling me not to take any plastic explosives or anything else that Thrush might detect as being of U.N.C.L.E. origin."

"Now, now Illya don't be like that, just because you can't do the explosion, you can still watch."

"No thank you, I think I'll pass. I'd feel like a voyeur watching while another man gets his kicks."

After Napoleon had blown open the window and everyone had escaped, Napoleon turned to Illya who was looking particularly sullen in the front seat of the car while Mark and April occupied the back.

"So how was it?"

"As usual you used a very short fuse and far too much plastic explosive. We were all knocked off our feet by the intensity of the explosion, and my ears are still ringing."

"You mean the earth moved for you?"

"Next time, you can be the man on the inside and then I'll be the one to implement the rescue and come up with the bad jokes."

The End

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