Episode One: Killer

Chapter One

"Hey Jim," Tom said casually.

"Tom? How have you been? It's been a month since I last heard from you."

"If I didn't know better, Jim, I'd say you sound like you've been worried."

"I was." The silence on the other end of the phone convinced Jim that Tom hadn't been prepared for such an honest answer, but he didn't dwell on that long. "You've been working solo again, or so I heard."

"Just some minor matters. I've been hearing a few things. I needed to get information that only one man could get."

"Oh?" Jim tried not to sound criticizing. Tom was a brilliant agent and a brilliant team leader and Jim was confident in his abilities. He couldn't expect, and didn't want, Tom to be like him, but he wished Tom would finally choose a solid team—a solid, interconnected team like he'd had. Jim considered it one of Tom's few flaws.

He understood Tom not wanting to get too attached to a set group of people, but also knew that the attachment and concern felt for that set group of people was balanced by the safety net of trust and reliance they built with each other. A trusted team tempered and balanced the stress of their missions. They were more cohesive, more unified, more solid. They set a standard that temporary teams couldn't always match. Though Jim had led missions with various agents, he preferred someone he knew standing at his shoulder—preferred it for Tom as well.

Today, however, he wouldn't lecture Tom on working alone, or working with yet another new set of operatives. Firstly, Tom had heard it all from Jim before. Secondly, they tried to never get specific about work over the telephone, more so since Jim had retired. So "oh" would have to suffice.

"Come on, Jim, don't give me that. I'm serious."

"What have you found?" Jim conceded, picturing Tom's head angled sideways in protest of his tone.

"A trail of breadcrumbs—big white ones." Tom's voice was focused, but there was something else there as well, something that made the job sound personal. Tom sounded… confident and excited. He sounded determined and maybe… bitter?

"Leading where?" Jim asked. He wasn't sure if Tom would tell him—Tom never expounded on his information until he was certain of it.

"I'll let you know when I get there," he said, predictably. Blatantly enigmatic.

"Be careful," Jim said, feeling foreboding in his own words, and a twist in his gut.

"Aren't I always?"

Jim Phelps was asleep and dreaming when the call came.

A dream like memory. One of those dreams where the sounds and motions of the outside world merge so completely with the images of the mind that the line separating truth and fiction is temporarily erased.

He blinked, repeatedly, listening to the ring, slowly realizing that the sound was not part of his dream. When he did finally wake fully, the phone was already on the sixth or seventh buzz. He sat up roughly, feeling unsettled and unfinished, like his dream wasn't ready to let him go, and for some reason, he wanted to fall back asleep just so he could follow it through to the end.

That unsettled desire remained mulishly with him through the drudgery of that first day and seemed only to stick more solemnly to him in the days that followed. But even when Jim convinced himself to try to rest, the elusive dream refused to stay in his memory and—even more frustrating—to complete itself.

It wasn't really the dream that was bothering him though, Jim reminded himself on occasion. He didn't need a psychologist to explain to him how death and grief could play games with the soul. Jim wasn't superstitious, but it still felt like Tom Copperfield was haunting him.

And Tom would continue to do so until Jim had finished his job. Maybe then the loss of Tom would settle, and the sense of mental stickiness spinning through his dreams would finally go away.

"In time, your grief will change into fond and loving memories. Although we are here to say goodbye to Tom Copperfield's body in this world, the one thing Christians have is eternal life. We believe that when God gives life he gives it forever. Even though they are no longer with us in this physical realm, they are here with us, at all times, in the hearts and minds of those left behind. May God give Tom life forever. May the perpetual light shine upon him…"

Jim watched Tom's funeral from a distance, appearing, to any outside observer, calm and unmoved. He watched and listed as the preacher's platitudes receded and Tom's family and friends eventually stepped back from the casket, clearing his view.

"Jim? What are you thinking about?" asked Tom.

The question shook Jim from his thoughts. The coolness of the evening had descended around him without his notice. The lights of the marina were blinking on, mingling with the barely appearing stars above them. He sighed. "Retirement," he admitted casually and couldn't help but laugh a little at Tom's horrified expression.

"Why?" said Tom. "There's no reason for you to retire."

"Maybe," he shrugged back, "or maybe so."

"Like what? You can't claim you're too old for this because I'm fairly certain you're still in your early hundreds." Tom waited for Jim's obligatory laugh, and Jim noted Tom's typical resort to sarcasm. It was deflection, but it was also a part of Tom's personality he really enjoyed. It reminded him of the dry banter Barney and Rollin liked to engage in.

"Your last four missions have gone off exactly as you planned. You're at the top of your game. Furthermore, you are this job, Jim. It's in your blood. It wouldn't be the same without you."

"It's not supposed to be the same, Tom. As a team leader you already know that when things change, you have to adapt. And you know that what works for me, isn't always going to work for you."

Tom was shaking his head in denial.

"It's not about how many of your plans work to perfection," Jim tried to explain. His auspicious success had never been about perfection. But Tom was still shaking his head, words hovering just behind his lips, ready to deny the validity of any explanation Jim could come up with.

Jim decided to move to the heart of the matter. "Tom, my team has already moved on. They're out of this—for the most part." He felt compelled to clarify. None of his old teammates had allowed themselves to completely leave. All continued to serve IMF in one form or another. He was as sure of that as he was of them. But they were done with the heavy missions. They'd moved on. He felt their absence in his missions, in his life, and knew, "It's time I joined them."

"Oh, the team, the team! Jim, you can work with anyone—I've seen you."

"It isn't the same, Tom. I wish I could say it was, but it isn't."

"So adapt—isn't that what you've been telling me?"

"This is adapting," he countered carefully. "Tom, at the very least, I'm ready for a break."

"Not yet, Jim. You can't go just yet."

Jim read the hesitation in Tom's voice though his eyes were kept carefully blank. "Tom, I'm not what's made you a good team leader—you are."

Tom let the blankness dissipate, chin tipping towards his chest. "That may be. But you're still the one I go to when I can't see how to finish something I've started. You may think that I won't—but I know the time will come when I'll need you here again."

"If you need that, I'll be here—just no more missions for a while."

Tom sighed, a long-suffering sigh. "I suppose then I shall have to grant you permission to retire." Imperious words, said with sarcasm, but a tiny speck of denial lingered in his gaze.

"Oh, thanks," said Jim in equal tone.

"Any final advice?"

"Final advice? I'm only in my early hundreds. I'm not dead. If you want advice, you can call me."

Tom smiled. "Just making sure you plan to pick up the phone."

The memory of Tom's voice in Jim's head was so clear he wanted to turn around to make sure Tom wasn't—in actuality—standing behind him, waiting to tell him he'd faked his death for his mission or something else equally outrageous. But Jim kept his face forward. He knew he'd find only empty space.

He gave a tight, determined nod toward Tom's casket, where it waited to be lowered into the ground. A nod both acknowledgement and promise. Whatever mourning Jim still had to do for Tom would be done later. Right now he had a mission to complete. When he saw Tom again—that mission would be finished.

Retired or not, Jim wouldn't let this one pass and the IMF would welcome him back. This wasn't the only time he'd broken his retirement.

But maybe, when the exertion and wrestle of this nightmare was over, Jim would finally move on for good. Tom was his last real emotional tie to IMF. As he'd told Tom years ago, all his truly trusted teammates were already out. Jim would finish this, and then go somewhere obscure, somewhere the IMF didn't care about. He would live in peace and involve himself only in activities where he didn't feel inclined to build strong attachments to those who could be lost.

If such a place existed.

The thoughts weren't very realistic, but Jim believed, in reality, almost nothing was impossible.

tbc