The next day, the IMF moved in on Ellingson Mineral Company.
By mid-morning, agents had seized servers, imaged drives, and locked down staff.
Preliminary numbers made the room go quiet: over the years, Eugene "The Plague" Belford had siphoned approximately $4.4 billion through a salami-slicing worm—the kind that skimmed cents from every transaction and parked them in a shielded account in the Bahamas.
The scale stunned everyone; warrants for Belford were pushed nationwide.
The only body recovered at his home was Ellingson's administrative secretary.
The working theory around Langley was simple and ugly: Belford took the money and ran, and anyone in his way was collateral.
At IMF Headquarters, Director Theodore Brassel read the updates John Musgrave brought in and his expression cooled by degrees.
"This 'Da Vinci'—is it real? Are we certain?" Brassel asked.
Musgrave nodded.
"Confirmed. The 'Da Vinci' virus was implanted inside Ellingson's systems last night. At 07:30 this morning it began its timed sequence.
If we don't secure the original media, five Ellingson tankers carrying petroleum fuels are at risk when their control systems are forced to crash."
The implications were catastrophic—thousands of lives, a coastline, and Brassel's own head on the block if this spiralled—exactly the kind of leverage "Da Vinci" was designed to create in the first place.
"Any lead on the floppy?" Brassel asked.
Musgrave answered, "Belford used 'Da Vinci' to flush out the intruder who hit Ellingson—name's Joey.
Yesterday Belford met with a young man, Dade.
A guard swears Belford left the building with Dade last night.
But here's the hitch—Belford also 'appeared' at Ellingson at the same time."
That told Brassel what he needed.
"Then the 'Belford' at Ellingson wasn't Belford.
Whoever sent me last night's evidence isn't our enemy.
The real Belford is either dead or in someone else's custody."
Musgrave had to concede the logic.
A new line bloomed on Brassel's monitor:
"Come to XXX at 12:00. Only I can save you."
Staring at the screen, Brassel's face went hard.
If the virus wasn't stopped, the worst fallout would land on him.
Time to meet the man behind the curtain.
⸻⸻
At noon, a warehouse on the outskirts of New York City stood quiet in the summer glare.
Inside, Cole and Dade waited with the original Da Vinci disk on the table.
Eugene Belford slumped unconscious in a chair, wrists taped.
Cole had planned to route this through his mother's contacts, but the morning's detonation schedule forced his hand—this had to be a direct deal with the man who could actually pull the brake: the IMF's director.
They were eating a quick lunch when a car rolled to a stop outside.
Theodore Brassel opened the door and walked in. He'd brought no one; he knew the sender wanted a deal, not a kill.
Inside, Brassel saw Belford tied to the chair.
"Dade 'Zero' Murphy—the world-class prodigy who hacked the FBI at eleven. I didn't think you could punch into my machine," he said evenly. "And you are?"
"Cole Shaw. Looks like you're the one in charge this time, Director Brassel," Cole said.
He recognised the man at a glance—the IMF director from Mission: Impossible III.
That meant Ethan Hunt existed in this world.
Which also meant the Berlin name—Owen Davian—was the arms-dealer thread from Mission: Impossible III.
Yes, that connected.
The "Rabbit's Foot" that Jason Tate and his mentor had developed mapped to the MI:3 codename device; John—Brassel's subordinate now—was the one who leaked it so the Rabbit's Foot would fall into Davian's hands.
If that blew open, Brassel would be crucified.
In MI:3, John Musgrave was an extremist who couldn't stand taking orders from a Black director; he intended to use Davian to sell the Rabbit's Foot to Middle Eastern buyers, then justify an intervention on WMD grounds and topple a regime.
Brassel sent Lindsey—Ethan's protégé—to look into Davian, and she nearly unraveled it.
Musgrave leaked her status as an IMF plant; she wound up implanted with a micro-bomb.
He fed her disinformation to make her think Brassel had betrayed IMF, forcing her to call Ethan for a rescue.
If Lindsey had lived to testify against Brassel, Brassel would have been forced out—and Musgrave would have had his shot at power.
But Lindsey died, and before she did, she got a sealed document to Ethan.
Musgrave panicked that her file might implicate him.
That's what ignited the rest.
Layer by layer, things that seemed unconnected were, in fact, wired together.
Cole stepped back from the mental web, feeling his brain heat.