"Jane," Evan said, his voice cutting through the clatter of gear being stowed. "Moreau can die. Hell, I'll help you pull the trigger myself. But not now. We need the tail to lead us to the dog. Hendricks first, then the assassin. Clear?"
Jane didn't look up from her weapon, her jaw set in a hard line. After a beat, she gave a sharp, professional nod. "Clear. No problem."
The tension in the carriage eased, replaced by the mechanical rhythm of preparation. As the train rattled through the Russian outskirts, the team began the meticulous process of checking their kits. Evan watched Jane as she inspected her SIG-Sauer P226 SCT, her movements fluid and practiced.
Evan walked over, his reflection ghosting in the glass of a nearby equipment locker. "Jane, where are the rounds?"
He reached into the air—a subtle sleight of hand masking his use of the system's one-cubic-meter storage space—and produced two empty magazines. He gestured with them toward a crate of munitions.
Jane pulled open a heavy metal drawer, sliding two fully loaded, extended magazines across the table. "You'll have to strip the rounds and reload them yourself if you're picky; these are all pre-loaded with standard-issue hollow points."
She paused, her eyes lingering on the holster at Evan's shoulder. "By the way, can I see that? I've seen every service pistol from Langley to the Lubyanka, but I don't recognize that frame."
"It's a custom piece," Evan said, drawing the weapon with a slow, deliberate motion that emphasized he wasn't a threat. "Limited run. It hasn't officially hit the market yet."
He handed it to her grip-first. The pistol was a masterpiece of lethal engineering: a Combat Master 2011. The slide was a deep, matte black with aggressive cocking serrations and a striking inverted triangle logo engraved on the top. Beneath the slide, a polished bronze-colored barrel peeked through the ports. The grip was hand-stippled, designed to stick to the palm even when slick with sweat or blood.
Jane balanced the weight, testing the trigger reset with a dry fire. She handed it back, her eyes meeting his with a faint, dangerous spark of playfulness. "This gun is just like you, Cross. Dangerous, high-maintenance, and a little too handsome for its own good."
Evan caught the gun and holstered it in one smooth motion. "Thanks. I could say the same about you, though I'd probably leave out the 'high-maintenance' part to stay on your good side."
He gave her a small, knowing smile, then turned toward the gear piles. While the others were distracted, Evan began his own "shopping" trip. He pulled out a heavy duffel bag and began filling it with essentials: several sets of Kevlar soft body armor, ceramic strike plates, multi-functional contact lenses with built-in HUDs, and the high-tech suction gloves.
He moved with the efficiency of a shadow, slipping extra sets of gear into his storage space whenever the others turned their backs. He didn't know what the Burj Khalifa had in store, but he wasn't going in under-equipped. He even grabbed the 3D silicone mask printer—the cornerstone of IMF deception—and tucked it away.
Once the bag was packed, Evan climbed onto a narrow bunk on the second level of the carriage. He closed his eyes, his 8-point Constitution allowing him to drop into a deep, restorative sleep in seconds.
Dubai, he thought as the train's rhythm lulled him under. The city of gold. Let's see if it's as bright as they say.
The heat hit them like a physical blow.
After the freezing gloom of Moscow, the Dubai sun felt like a spotlight. Ethan had secured a black Jeep, and as it pulled up to the abandoned rail siding they'd used for cover, Evan moved with the practiced speed of a man who hated waiting.
"I get carsick," Evan lied effortlessly, sliding into the passenger seat and shutting the door before anyone else could claim it.
Jane rolled her eyes, hauling her gear into the back seat and squeezing in between a grinning Benji and a disgruntled Brandt.
As the Jeep roared onto the highway, Evan rolled down the window and pulled on a pair of dark aviators. The world outside was a stunning contrast of extremes—on one side, the endless, shimmering golden dunes of the Arabian Desert; on the other, the turquoise expanse of the Persian Gulf. Occasional oases flashed past like emeralds dropped in the sand.
For the first time since his "rebirth," Evan felt a genuine sense of exhilaration. This wasn't the crowded, rain-slicked streets of Chicago or the concrete canyons of New York. This was the front line of a world he'd only seen on a screen.
"Okay, walk me through the logic again," Brandt said from the back, clutching his backpack like a life preserver. "Even if we pull off the masks and impersonate Wistrom and Moreau... how do we keep them in two separate rooms while making them think they're in the same one?"
Ethan kept his eyes on the road, the towering needle of the Burj Khalifa already visible on the horizon. "We're going to give the hotel a facelift. Wistrom will think he's arrived at Moreau's suite, when in reality, he's entering a decoy room one floor away."
"I'll be waiting there, dressed as Moreau," Jane added, checking her reflection in a compact mirror.
"And I'll be downstairs, wearing a Wistrom mask to meet the real Moreau," Benji chimed in. He flashed a brilliant, eight-tooth grin through his sunglasses. "It's all about the hand-off."
Brandt went silent for a moment, processing the sheer insanity of the plan. "Right. So what do I do?"
"You?" Benji's grin widened. "You're the assistant."
"Assistant... great. Fantastic." Brandt sighed, then raised his voice. "Are we really doing this? We're going to the tallest building on the planet to fundamentally alter its architectural perception? To make two people think they've met when they're actually twenty feet of concrete apart?"
"Simply put? Yes," Evan said, leaning his head back and waving a hand lazily. "Benji hacks the elevators, we swap the room numbers on the digital displays, and we control the flow. It's just basic stage magic, Will. Just with higher stakes and more expensive suits."
Suddenly, Evan's eyes sharpened. "Hey—camel!"
He reached over and jerked the steering wheel to the left just as Ethan reacted. The Jeep swerved, narrowly missing a small herd of camels crossing the sun-baked tarmac.
The vehicle leveled out, and the Burj Khalifa loomed over them—828 meters of steel, glass, and ambition. It tapered to a slender tip that seemed to pierce the very sky.
They pulled up to the entrance, a palace of marble and gold. Ethan handed the keys to the valet, and the team moved through the lobby like a group of high-flying consultants. They checked in under assumed names, securing a base of operations on the 119th floor.
"Jane, hit the laundry room," Evan whispered as they entered the elevator. "Get a server's uniform. We'll meet you at the suite."
He took her bag, and as the elevator shot upward at stomach-turning speeds, the team went to work. Inside the suite, the atmosphere shifted instantly from tourists to technicians. They laid the gear out across the expensive mahogany furniture. Brandt set a countdown timer on his phone.
"Thirty-four minutes until the first knock," Brandt announced.
"Uh... guys? We have a bit of a situation," Benji said, his fingers flying across his laptop. "Don't panic, but there's a slight snag."
"What snag, Benji?" Ethan asked, his voice tight as he calibrated the 3D mask printer.
"The server room firewall is military-grade," Benji said, looking up with a helpless expression. "If we had the Langley mainframes, we'd be in. But we're currently ghosts. I can hack it, but it'll take hours. Hours we don't have."
Ethan and Brandt crowded around the screen.
"What about hardwiring?" Ethan asked.
Benji pulled up the blueprints. "The server room is a vault. Four layers of biometric security. There's no way in through the doors without alerting the entire hotel."
"If we can't get into that server, we can't loop the cameras or control the elevators," Brandt said. "The plan dies in the cradle."
Benji swallowed hard. "I didn't say we couldn't get in. I said we couldn't go through the doors."
"Then where?" Ethan asked.
Benji pointed at a small icon on the architectural map. "The server room has a dedicated cooling intake. It's accessible from the outside of the building."
The room went dead silent.
"Outside?" Ethan looked at the group.
"I... I have to stay here and run the bypass," Benji said quickly, holding up his hands.
"I'm the assistant," Brandt added, looking at Benji with a forced smile. "And apparently, I have a thing about falling to my death."
"Don't look at me," Evan shrugged, leaning back in a plush armchair. "I'm a red-blooded American; I have a constitutional right to be afraid of heights. Besides, I'm the Liaison—I oversee. I don't crawl on glass."
In truth, Evan knew his 8-point Constitution and Lv.3 Driving/Tracking skills would make the climb manageable, but he wasn't about to steal Ethan Hunt's thunder unless the System forced his hand.
Ethan walked to the floor-to-ceiling glass wall. He looked down. The cars below looked like ants. The wind whistled against the reinforced panes.
"What floor is the server room on?" Ethan asked, his voice low.
"130," Benji replied.
Ethan closed his eyes for a second. "The 130th floor. Right." He turned back, scanning the room. "Vents?"
"Pressure-sensitive," Benji said.
"Elevator shaft?"
"Infrared detectors," Brandt countered. "No time to bypass."
Ethan looked defeated for a split second, searching for a third option that didn't involve a 1,000-foot drop.
Evan reached into the duffel bag and pulled out a pair of heavy, high-tech gloves. He tossed them onto the table. They landed with a heavy thud, the six-bar signal lights on the wrists pulsing with a steady, electric blue glow.
"You only have one way, Ethan," Evan said, his eyes meeting Hunt's. "And these are it."
Ethan picked up the suction gloves, the blue lights reflecting in his pupils.
"They're experimental," Evan added with a dry smirk. "So, try not to let the blue light go red. Red is bad."
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