Emma Peel
Tatiana RomanovaThe two spies had proven to be too perfectly matched for one to overwhelm the other, their battle raging around the otherwise empty country house from room to room. Both knew the stakes: if KGB sleeper agent Tatiana lost, she would be incarcerated by the British for a very long time. And if English agent Emma fell, she would be taken to Russia and brutally interrogated for what secrets she held. Thus, neither could afford to lose. In Mrs. Peel's instance, she regretted having worn a dress (now in tatters, as was Romanova's), rather than her usual leather cat suit...as the bruises and scratches which marred her alabaster skin attested.
Suddenly, the end seemed to loom for one beauty. Her back pressed against a wall, Peel found one hand of her rival grasping her throat, choking her, while the thumb of the other drilled into her carotid artery with an Oriental Spike, designed to cut the flow of blood to the brain and rapidly weaken the victim. Emma felt her knees begin to buckle as she gasped for air, and she knew she was on the verge of defeat.
So it was with more than a hint of desperation that she threw a knife hand finger thrust to her attacker's belly, stunning the Russian. The double ear clasp that followed caused Tatiana to groan loudly and stagger backward, releasing her victim as her hands covered her now-throbbing ears.
Peel moved quickly, pushing off of the wall and tacking her foe to the floor. The Brit's stocking and garter-clad legs snaked around Romanova's waist from behind, while her arms wrapped around her throat and head in a sleeper hold. Tatiana thrashed, but was unable to pry herself free, and soon enough her eyelids fluttered shut.
Taking remnants of her own torn skirt, Emma bound the slumbering double-agent's wrists and ankles, then located the telephone and called for back up. It was only then that she slumped into an overstuffed chair and rested.
