After all the Soviet!Illya talk recently...
...it struck me while watching HONG KONG SHILLING again tonight that particular mission could well have raised some... contrary thoughts for Illya.
Though of course having military secrets sold to the highest bidder would be something he wouldn't want to see happen necessarily, the secrets in question were particularly American and NATO military secrets. As a Soviet, how did he feel about having to protect those? And really weren't those folks bidding on those secrets simply spies themselves? Thrush isn't ever mentioned as being part of this operation.
I do think Illya had a definite loyalty to his native land. I do think he was -- as I noted in a Canteen discussion -- a good communist but not a blind communist. However, protecting those military secrets detailed in HONG KONG SHILLING kind of crossed the line between protecting humanity and "saving the world" to protecting the military machine of the U.S. and its allies. I can imagine that being frustrating for him.
It's an intriguing question to ponder. And I did notice that at the end he hands the shilling, which is supposedly made of the same material as the nosecones of U.S. missiles, to Napoleon with the comment: "A souvenir of Hong Kong. Take it home to your family." Perhaps it can be interpreted that he didn't want to be responsible in the end for restoring the coin to the hands of the U.S. military? And that by "your family" he really meant the United States government?
What do others think?