Napoleon and Illya were sitting behind the one – way glass watching the interrogation of the captured THRUSH being conducted by Agents Dancer and Slate. Darius Dobson had been the Second in Command of a large satrap that had been operating in a rural area of upstate New York until eight months earlier when UNCLE Intelligence had intercepted messages pointing to its existence. A Strike Team had effectively destroyed the location which was composed of a lab, its scientists, their support staff and security. The satrap's leader, Robert Daniels, had died during the assault. Dobson had escaped and kept one or two steps ahead of UNCLE's teams for weeks. Illya and Napoleon had come closest to catching him until Illya had been badly injured in the booby-trapped safe house he had just vacated, causing the Solo/Kuryakin team to drop the chase.* Slate and Dancer had finally run him to ground.
At first, when news of Dobson's capture had been reported, Illya wasn't sure it was a good idea for Napoleon and him to be in HQ while he was detained and questioned. Napoleon still felt a bit of Survivor's Guilt that Illya had been temporarily deafened and blinded while he had escaped relatively unscathed and Illya was quietly furious that he had lost so much time recuperating. It was when the bad bird finally began to crack under the administration of UNCLE's truth serum, Veritol 19, and the horror of what THRUSH's scientists had been doing began to come to light that Napoleon and Mr. Waverly decided it was important for them to bear witness to what Dobson had to say.
It had taken two days before Dobson admitted that the scientists had been experimenting with changing the DNA of the fish in the local ponds in hopes of creating larger, carnivorous versions of the yellow perch, sunnies and white crappies native to those waters. What they had succeeded in doing instead was turning fish that had been edible and popular gamefish into poisonous mutations of their former selves. When Dobson revealed that Robert Daniels had ordered the fish dumped back into three lakes instead of destroying them, Mr. Waverly immediately ordered Section VIII to dispatch teams to determine what if any long – term impact that action had caused and tasked Section IV with researching if there had been any immediate effect at the time of the fish dump.
Napoleon had a copy of their findings in front of him. Two of the lakes were out of the way and according to the locals, no one ever fished there. They found dead animals that necropsies showed had been poisoned by the fish, but that was all. Unfortunately, the third lake was the site of an annual children's fish – catching contest that had occurred five months ago. The biggest part of the festivities was a fish fry dinner featuring all the fish caught by the children.
Fifty – seven deaths, Napoleon thought as he hid his face in his hands, thirty – three of them children. The CDC surmised that some heretofore unknown parasite must have infected the fish and caused their agonizing deaths. The lake was shut down and declared contaminated. I remember Life magazine had a page or two about the "Mystery of Tompkins Lake" and the deaths associated with it. And now, to find out that it was THRUSH…
His thoughts were interrupted by Dobson yelling, "I'm not responsible! I'm not! I told you, Daniels gave the order for our soldiers to dump the fish into the waters, it had nothing to do with me! IT HAS NOTHING TO DO WITH ME!"
"What happened? What did I miss?" Napoleon asked when he turned to see his partner standing at the glass, fists clenched in anger. He got up from his seat and joined Illya at the window.
"April told him that UNCLE is finished with him and he, along with the survivors we captured, are being sent to Tartarus to pay for the heinous acts their satrap committed. He is begging for his life."
Napoleon was incensed. "How can he say he's not responsible? He sounds like the Nazis during the Nuremburg Trials: I was just following orders! Children died! Because of THRUSH! Because we found out too late that his satrap existed! Oh God, Illya, we're to blame, too!" He felt tears threatening to fall and turned away. He felt Illya's hand on his shoulder and shrugged it off.
"Do not dare to hide your tears from me, Napoleon. I have felt what you are feeling; I shed tears when I read the reports, but I say this is not our fault. This is what we fight against! These monstrous, diabolical plans to take over the world by these, these crackpots!"
He turned back toward Illya and allowed himself to be hugged briefly. Wiping his eyes he said, "It's bad enough when any innocents die, but children? It makes me feel like my life is meaningless."
"Your life is many things, Napoleon, but meaningless is not one of them." He tilted his head toward the man who was being dragged literally kicking and screaming from the room. "His life is worthless and is about to be treated as such. You and I, moy droog, will continue to fight the good fight."
Napoleon nodded, more to himself than to Illya. "Okay," he said as he moved to open the door to the hallway, "Let's go get 'em."
*ref. my story "Grateful"