Morin glanced at it, then stopped paying attention.
He was only here to confirm one thing-whether Ethan Hunt was carrying out a mission today. As for getting involved?
That would come later.
At this point in time, Ethan was still just an ordinary CIA agent. He hadn't yet reached the level where he could independently plan and execute large-scale missions, let alone lead one.
This operation had been assigned to their team leader, an agent named Jim. According to the briefing, the mission objective was to steal a list of agents from the consulate.
That was why Jim had brought the team here, preparing for a stealth infiltration.
But Morin knew the truth.
The list was fake.
The real purpose of this mission had never been to steal intelligence-it was a trap.
The CIA had discovered that there was a mole inside Ethan's team. To flush them out, they deliberately fabricated a mission and planted a fake list as bait.
And the mole?
It was Jim himself.
Jim was extremely cunning. Even though he didn't know the mission itself was a setup, he was fully prepared for betrayal. He staged his own death-and that of his wife, Claire-while orchestrating the deaths of the other team members, leaving only Ethan alive.
Then, everything was neatly reversed.
Ethan became the sole survivor.
And therefore, the sole suspect.
After that, Jim arranged for his wife, Claire-who had supposedly "died"-to stay close to Ethan, feeding him information and subtly guiding him, all while secretly passing everything back to Jim.
And as expected, Ethan and Claire...
Morin shook his head.
He had to admit, he admired people like this.
To voluntarily cuckold yourself for a plan?
That was... beyond human comprehension.
But then again, Morin imagined that plenty of people would be perfectly willing to call Jim a "friend."
Morin had no intention of directly interfering.
Something about that just felt wrong.
He wasn't a saint. If he could save someone easily, he might. But in this situation, there was no way to save Ethan's teammates without exposing abilities that didn't belong in this world.
More importantly, this was an internal CIA operation.
Another team was already watching them from the shadows.
Morin had no interest in inserting himself into someone else's internal purge.
And if he did act, there was a high chance he'd expose himself.
Morin had absolutely no desire to become a research subject.
At least not yet.
Before he reached the point where he was completely invincible-say, capable of tanking a nuclear blast-he had only two rules to live by:
First: avoid exposure as much as possible.
Second: if exposure was unavoidable, make sure no witnesses survived and no evidence remained.
Discretion was the foundation of longevity.
Even if his usual behavior didn't exactly scream "low profile," given the power he possessed, Morin was already being extremely cautious.
He finished his drink, placed the glass back onto the waiter's tray, and calmly walked out.
Now that he had confirmed what he needed to know, it was time to make some preparations.
...
Ethan stared blankly at the computer screen, his mind in complete disarray.
They were all dead.
Everyone was dead.
At the safe house earlier, after hearing his superior speak, Ethan had begun to understand some things-but at the same time, even more questions had surfaced.
His entire team had been wiped out.
Yet in Eugene Kittridge's eyes, Ethan was the culprit.
The mole.
The traitor.
The one who leaked the intelligence.
Even now, Ethan could clearly recall every word of his conversation with Eugene.
After Ethan exposed the fact that headquarters had secretly arranged another team to monitor them at the consulate-clearly showing a lack of trust-Eugene stopped pretending.
He laid everything out.
The mission objective had been fake from the start.
The list had never mattered.
The real goal was to identify the mole inside the team.
And now-
A massive, untraceable sum of money had appeared in his parents' bank account.
Everyone else was dead.
And he was the only one who had survived without a single scratch.
Ethan didn't need anyone to spell it out for him. In this situation, it was only natural for Eugene to suspect him.
And worse-Ethan knew he had no way to prove his innocence.
He knew he wasn't the mole.
He knew he had been framed.
But without solid evidence exposing the real traitor, his guilt was already decided.
Ethan also knew one thing for certain.
He couldn't go back to CIA headquarters with Eugene.
As an agent, he was painfully familiar with their interrogation methods. He had no desire to test whether he could endure torture without confessing to a crime he hadn't committed.
So he acted.
A chewing-gum bomb.
An explosion.
Chaos.
Escape.
Now, he was hiding in this temporary safe location, desperately searching for clues.
Knock. Knock. Knock.
The sudden sound made Ethan's pupils constrict instantly.
Every nerve in his body went taut.
A place like this was supposed to be known only to team members-but with a mole involved, even that guarantee was meaningless.
Ethan had expected to be found.
But before entering, he had deliberately unscrewed the lightbulb in the stairwell.
He had shattered the glass and scattered the shards across the floor.
Anyone approaching the door should have stepped on the glass.
There should have been noise.
So why-
Why had he heard knocking, but no sound of crunching glass?
Ethan frowned.
He grabbed the pistol at his side and positioned himself behind the wall next to the door.
If the person outside was listening for his position, he wouldn't give them a clear shot.
"It's me," the voice outside said calmly, as if it already knew what Ethan was doing.
"...It's me?" Ethan frowned.
He stayed behind cover and spoke without exposing himself.
"Who are you?"
"I'm a special agent from the IRS," the voice replied evenly. "Ethan Hunt, you're involved in a tax evasion case. I need your cooperation to investigate a CIA mole who received illegal income and failed to pay taxes on it."
Ethan: "???"
An IRS special agent.
Tracking a CIA mole.
Because of tax evasion.
For a moment, Ethan didn't know whether to laugh or draw his gun.
"Can you come up with a slightly more believable excuse?" he said dryly.
Despite himself, he almost found it funny.
Did this guy think he was stupid?
"Heh," the man outside chuckled. "Believe it or not, Ethan..."
"Our goals are the same."