The Lions (S1E10): Episode Tag

Disclaimer:  I do not own either of the Mission: Impossible series or any of the characters therein.  I receive no compensation or any other tangible benefit from this story.  I am just a fan who enjoys taking the team out for an adventure every now and then.  🙂

 

This story is set in Season 1, between “The Lions” (Episode 10), and “The Greek” (Episode 11).  Episode references are made to “The Wall” (Episode 6), “The Cattle King” (Episode 7), and “The Haunting” (Episode 9). 

For some reason, Jeru’s death in “The Lions” always troubled me, so I projected my feelings onto my favorite character, and a story was born.)

*****

Jim Phelps watched, smiling slightly, as one by one his four junior team members filed into the briefing room. Max entered first, laughing heartily at something Grant had just said. The handsome Black agent followed close behind, his feigned innocence betrayed by the smirk on his face. Casey was next to appear, her shy and demure expression revealing nothing about her teammates’ humorous banter. Finally, there was Nicholas, looking pensive and wearing a slight frown. Jim chuckled to himself. That was Nicholas, all right – always pondering something. Absently, he wondered what was on the dark-haired agent’s mind this time.

He greeted his friends warmly, and they responded in turn and took their seats. Then the team settled as the mood grew serious.

“So, Jim, where are we off to this time?” Grant began.

“Greece,” Jim responded. “We’ll be going after a drug smuggling tycoon who’s taking life-saving medications meant for Third World countries and selling them off to international drug dealers.”

“Regular mercenaries,” Max scoffed.

“Yeah, kind of like us,” Nicholas muttered to himself, his voice barely above a whisper.

“I beg your pardon?” Jim questioned, as his eyebrows lifted, and all eyes turned toward Nicholas, who was sitting by himself on a couch.

Nicholas quickly looked around, then he smiled sheepishly. “Sorry,” he murmured. “I didn’t realize I’d spoken out loud.”

“Something on your mind, pal?” Grant asked pointedly.

“It’s not important,” Nicholas responded dismissively, forcing a smile. “Go on, Jim.”

Nicholas did not see the split-second glance that passed among the other three men in the room. Jim hesitated for just a moment, then sighed softly. “You know, it occurs to me that we didn’t have a formal debriefing after the last mission,” he said knowingly. “Would this have something to do with that?”

Nicholas’ eyes were cast downward, but at Jim’s words he raised his head. Immediately, he noticed that the eyes of his four friends were all fixed on him expectantly. There was no use trying to skirt the subject now, he realized; they weren’t going to let this go.

Nicholas sighed heavily and dropped his gaze. “I can’t stop thinking about Jeru,” he said quietly, “and how we set him up to die.”

There was an awkward silence that lasted a few seconds. Jim was the first to break it. “It was Ki who killed Jeru,” he disagreed gently.

“And we signed his death warrant,” Nicholas countered, getting to his feet and beginning to pace. “We set him up him so perfectly – staging that scene in the marketplace to make it look like he was being bribed, planting that fake remote control in his room, leaving that thread in the safe opening, and dropping his necklace in the temple.” Nicholas stopped pacing and looked directly at Jim. “We already knew that Ki was a murderer. How could we not have seen how that was going to end up once he found out?”

“We couldn’t get into the safe, Nicholas, remember?” advised Grant. “Framing Jeru was the only way to get Ki to switch back the golden lions.”

“I understand that,” responded Nicholas, his voice tense but deliberately calm. “That’s part of what we do. I just can’t help but wonder if somehow we could have prevented Ki from killing him.”

“This is hardly the first time someone’s been killed during a mission, Nicholas,” Jim reminded him.

“I know that,” the dark-haired agent answered. “But this one feels different, somehow.”

“What do you mean, buddy?” asked Max.

“Well, take Doctor Gerstner, in Berlin,” replied Nicholas, starting to pace again. “He took people’s money, promised them asylum, and knowingly led them to death or prison. It doesn’t really bother me that he died the same way as so many others had by his own hand. And Doug Matthews had no remorse for killing that innocent Aborigine or for putting those stingers into the hands of murderers. In my opinion, he got what was coming to him.”

Nicholas reclaimed his seat on the couch. “Even Ki’s death didn’t bother me as much. He knew full well what would happen if the balance of the lions was disrupted, yet he charged the font anyway. He was a murderer who died by his own stupidity.”

The dark-haired agent’s voice grew quiet. “Jeru was different. A co-conspirator, loyal to a killer, an accessory to murder. He was all these things. And we know that he would have had the Prince and his mother killed if they’d fled Bajan-Du. But Jeru killed no one. And he died knowing he’d been set up.”

“So an eye for an eye is okay, but everyone else is innocent. Is that what you’re saying?” Jim’s voice was mildly condescending.

Nicholas looked coldly at his team leader. “When you put it that way, it sounds wrong,” he said softly, a twinge of hurt in his voice.

“It’s really not that different from war, buddy,” offered Max. “You may eliminate the bad guys, but not without casualties.”

Nicholas smiled slightly at both the analogy and the realization that Max was thinking of his brother’s service in Vietnam. “So basically we’re playing God,” he observed, “arbitrarily deciding that someone’s life is worth more than someone else’s and acting accordingly.” Nicholas’ eyes met each of his teammates’ in turn. “Do we really have the right to do that?”

“I don’t think any of us set out to be vigilantes, Nicholas,” Grant disagreed mildly. “We don’t like the idea that people die during missions, and we certainly don’t try to orchestrate that. It just happens that way sometimes.”

“And it bothers all of us,” Max added. “Otherwise, we’d be sociopaths.”

“And go around killing chauffeurs for no reason,” Grant jibed, and Max laughed at the reference to a previous mission in which he was the sociopath and Grant the chauffeur he “killed.”

Jim chuckled softly before growing serious again. “In my long career with the IMF, I’ve witnessed the deaths of hundreds of people, criminals and innocent people alike. It never gets any easier, no matter who it is.”

“Then how do you cope with it?” demanded Nicholas. “How do you learn not to take it home with you?”

Jim glanced around at his other three teammates before responding. “I think each of us has found a way to put things in perspective. A context, so to speak.”

“A justification?” Nicholas challenged.

“If you want to call it that,” shrugged Jim. “Whatever label you use, it helps us sleep better at night.”

“What’s yours?”

Jim thought for a moment before answering.  “I think for me it’s focusing on what we’ve been able to stop or prevent from happening,” he finally replied. “Grant?”

“My father had a strong sense of justice that he passed on to me,” the Black agent answered, with a purposeful glance at his leader who’d spent many missions with Barney. At Jim’s nod of acknowledgment, he continued. “So for me it’s about bringing criminals to justice – whether that’s in this life or in the next one.”

Grant turned his head to look at Max, who took the cue. “My brother always talked about the balance of good and evil in the world,” the blond said wistfully. “He enlisted in order to be one of the good guys. So for me, every bad guy we put out of business tips the scale our way.”

Max looked at the only female member of the team, who up until this time hadn’t said a word. “You’ve been awfully quiet, Casey. What’s your perspective?”

Casey smiled slightly. “I joined the IMF because a group of terrorists killed my husband,” she answered. “On my first mission, I got to see them get what they had coming.”

The four men listened intently; they’d all known what had brought Casey to the IMF, but this was the first time she’d ever spoken openly about it. As they watched her, they saw her eyes darken and her expression change in a way that they had never seen from the normally reserved brunette. “Karma’s a bitch,” she said matter-of-factly, surprising her companions. “I just get to help it along.”

Jim smiled faintly at Casey before turning back to Nicholas. “From what you’ve told us, Nicholas, you probably see a little truth in each of these. At the end of the day, you have to ask yourself, is the work we do worth the price? And it’s a question nobody can answer for you.”

Jim walked over to the couch where Nicholas had been sitting quietly, taking everything in. He sat down on the arm of the couch and patted Nicholas’ shoulder fondly.

“The hardest part of my job is planning mission strategy,” he said softly, “and I second guess things more than you know. Maybe there was something different we could have done. Maybe Jeru didn’t have to die. We’ll never know. But I can sleep at night knowing that young Mikos will take care of the people of Bajan-Du, the way his father did, and that he will be an ally to democracy and to the countries of the West, rather than our enemy.”

Jim’s ice blue eyes caught Nicholas’ soft brown ones and held on. “Tomorrow, we’re scheduled to fly out to Greece. We’ll meet at eight o’clock sharp to gather our supplies. If you need some time… to think things over… we’ll understand.”

Nicholas stood up, suddenly feeling stifled and uncomfortable. He reached up to loosen his tie, then smiled faintly back at his team leader. “I’ll let you know,” he said, his voice barely audible, and he left the condo without another word.

*******

The next morning, at precisely eight o’clock, a black BMW pulled into the parking lot of Jim’s condo. As Nicholas exited the vehicle, Jim was waiting at the driver’s door.

“Are you sure you’re ready for this?” he asked, raising his eyebrows, a mild hint of concern in his voice.

“I’m sure, Jim,” Nicholas smiled, as he caught the elder man’s hand in a firm shake.

Nicholas went inside to grab some supplies, with Jim right behind him. As the dark-haired agent bent to pick up the suitcase that held the mask making kit, Jim laid a restraining hand on his shoulder.

“You won’t be needing that this time,” he advised.

Nicholas turned around and raised a single questioning eyebrow.

Jim sighed. “I made some alterations to the original plan,” he explained. “At first, I wanted you to disguise as one of the syndicate leaders.” Jim dropped his head. “But it would’ve been pretty tough to predict how that might have gone.”

When Jim looked up again, his blue eyes were shining. “So, new plan,” he smiled.

“Thanks, Jim,” Nicholas said warmly.

“Anytime. Speaking of time,” he added, glancing at his watch, “we’d better get moving.”

The agents threw the last of the supplies into the Land Rover. Nicholas opened the door and was about to climb into the back when Max came up beside him on his way to the driver’s seat. The blond thumped Nicholas’ shoulder fondly.

“It’s great to see you, buddy,” he grinned.

“Thanks, Max,” answered Nicholas. “I’m glad to be here.”

And with that, Max climbed into the Land Rover and the five team members headed for the airport.

The End 

(c) 2018