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His life was getting out of hand. He’d been tempting the gods for too long. Where had things gone wrong? How had they gone so wrong?If it wasn’t the demon drink, it was the demon poker. He was losing again. The play in this place was high, much too high. He’d been stupid to be persuaded. His bank balance – a misnomer if ever there was one – wouldn’t stand it this time. He stood up and bowed out of the game. He walked a little unsteadily back to his hotel, wondering how he was going to pay the bill there. Maybe he’d try again tomorrow; the famous Solo luck couldn’t desert him forever. After all, that luck held for some time when he left UNCLE. The computer business became very lucrative; he’d been on a roll. The temptation had been to use the money to live well. Well over his income as it turned out.Now he half wondered if UNCLE would have him back, but he was too proud – or too ashamed? – to make contact and find out. He could be useful to them, no question, but they might not see it that way.Unbidden, a face surfaced in his mind: what about Illya? Would he have him back? Would he be amused at Napoleon’s getting into such an unlikely business? And into such a mess… Probably… It would be good to see him, to see one of his rare smiles, even to be mocked by him. Was he still there? Most likely head of the Lab by now, blowing things up to his heart’s content without the restraining influence of his former partner.Or the restraining influence of Alexander Waverly, of course – he’d died… Pity. Illya wouldn’t have been in the running to take over from him – he wasn’t a leader of men. A lot of women would have followed him for ever, but possibly not for the right reasons. No, ordering people to do things didn’t necessarily make you a good leader, any more than a handsome face did. In any case, he was always happiest as one of the most effective seconds-in-command anyone could ever wish for…So, perhaps he’d left, too. He was surely qualified to go into university teaching or back into quantum theory research. There was that Cambridge University professor who was producing startling theories on the subject of black holes. Illya would have loved to be involved with that… but of course he’d been out of that game for far too long. No, he wouldn’t have gone back.It was always said that nothing could escape a black hole – although the Cambridge professor had a theory that they weren’t as black as painted and things could escape. Maybe Napoleon would be able to escape the black hole he was in. Print money, maybe. Hah.Illya used to lend him money… but not all Illya’s income and savings would be enough to get him out of this amount of debt. And again, Napoleon wondered if there was any possibility of contacting him – not to get him out of debt, just to see him again.It was his own fault that it was so remote a possibility. He had walked away; he had failed to keep in touch. By now, Illya would have forgotten him… or if not forgotten, maybe at least forgiven him. Napoleon sighed. Illya was loyal to a fault, but even he wouldn’t forgive betrayal.But they were both middle-aged now. No-one would bear a grudge for fifteen years, would they?Was it really fifteen years?The hotel foyer was bright and welcoming. Napoleon collected his key and went to his room, not daring to go to the bar where his tab was already nearly as much as the bill for his room. He was already a bit drunk… all right, very drunk.There was a new moon: he turned the money (what there was of it) in his pocket. Tomorrow his luck would turn.<><> Ever the cock-eyed optimist, Napoleon returned to the casino next day where the avenging goddess, Nemesis, fought with Fortuna, the goddess of luck, and threatened retribution for challenging fate. He found himself in the clutches of a player – a Russian, too! – who was determined to ruin him. Napoleon resigned himself to destitution and the debtors’ prison. But Fortuna escaped and came to the rescue in the form of UNCLE – or at least Sir John Raleigh. Nemesis was blindsided by the offer to pay his debt and it turned his luck at the card table.A further reward was to seek out his disaffected former partner and persuade him to return to the fold. Illya, it seemed, was the power behind Vanya’s fashion house; successful, wealthy, with salons all over. How on earth…? He wandered in and gazed around in amazement as he was taken backstage at the current show.A startlingly free-and-easy blonde model informed him that Mr Kuryakin was out pitching: stunning a new client – as he did everyone – with ‘those blue eyes of his’. Maybe he did, but when he found him, Napoleon discovered how different things were going to be. The blond hair was unchanged (and undyed - unlike Napoleon's) but the blue eyes were harder and more cynical; he remained unforgivingly angry with UNCLE for his betrayal. Winning him over wouldn’t be easy.In the end, it wasn’t the old partnership, the old friendship, (let alone UNCLE) that persuaded Illya – or if it was, he hid it well – rather, it was the chance to act as an agent of Nemesis and exact retribution for the double-agent’s betrayal of him so many years ago. Whether Napoleon’s betrayal of their partnership would be forgiven it was impossible to know. Illya remained the closed and sealed book he had always been and Nemesis was an implacable goddess.<><><><>