The Assassin Brotherhood reached out to Svetlana Belikova, signaling goodwill to the East Slavic reformist leader and presenting a series of potential partnership proposals.
To insiders like Bella, the Brotherhood was riddled with holes—one wrong move and the Templars could wipe them out entirely. But outsiders didn't know that.
The Brotherhood wasn't about to advertise its own weakness. And the Templar Order, operating in equal secrecy, could hardly hold a press conference to announce their victory over the Brotherhood.
As far as the outside world was concerned, the Brotherhood's true strength was unknown. So the Brotherhood sent Shaun Hastings as their envoy. The man was a historian—sharp-tongued, silver-tongued, and completely unafraid. He could turn a tiny sliver of the truth into a grand tale, weaving together history and speculation, the Americas and Europe, until it sounded like a tenth of all humanity secretly owed allegiance to the Assassins.
Svetlana Belikova was left genuinely dazed. She needed support from multiple quarters, and this ambitious woman didn't deliberate for long before agreeing to a proper face-to-face meeting.
She wasn't willing to receive a group of unknowns on home soil, though. She named Dubai as the venue.
After receiving Shaun's message, Bella immediately flew to the Burj Khalifa with Gavin Banks, arriving a full day early. It was 828 meters (2,717 ft) tall, with 162 floors—the tallest man-made structure in the world.
The Brotherhood had quietly purchased 25 luxury apartments spread across the 95th, 98th, 99th, and 101st floors.
Three of the 95th-floor units sat adjacent to one another. The plan was to use this cluster for the meeting with Svetlana Belikova—one for negotiations, the other two for rest.
This was also, in its own quiet way, a display of strength.
These units were nearly impossible to buy at any price. Every residential apartment in the Burj Khalifa had sold out within eight hours of going on the market.
Bella had heard of the Burj Khalifa in her previous life but had never actually visited. In this timeline it had been completed nearly a decade earlier than she remembered. She didn't know anything about architectural style or artistic design—she just knew the building was tall. Absurdly, staggeringly tall.
"Dubai's policy is to stay neutral," Gavin remarked. "It'd be perfect if we could open a Continental Hotel here."
The idea tempted her for a moment, but she shook her head.
"Construction in the desert costs a fortune. We don't have that kind of money right now."
Money was a weight that never quite lifted from the Brotherhood's shoulders. Unlike the Templar Order—stuffed with nobles and billionaires—the Brotherhood was composed mostly of ordinary people. Not destitute, but far from wealthy.
Throughout history, the Brotherhood had never been rich. And the Brotherhood Bella had inherited had been gutted by the Purge, with numerous secret accounts exposed in the chaos—which made them even poorer.
She couldn't subsidize them out of her own pocket. But the Brotherhood had almost no income streams.
"I'll figure out the money situation," she told Gavin. "Don't worry about it for now."
The middle-aged man said he wasn't worried—and honestly meant it. He wasn't the Mentor. Why should he worry?
Bella stood at the window, turning the financial problem over in her mind, when her Eagle Vision caught something odd. She leaned toward the glass for a better look.
They were on the 95th floor. Even with her abilities, looking straight down from this height was dizzying—the cars and roads below looked like ants; the hot air off the Arabian Sea poured through the open window in waves. She checked below—nothing. Left and right—still nothing. Then she looked up.
Well. That was unexpected.
A man in a black tank top and shorts was scaling the outside of the tower at the 120th floor. No safety harness, no protective gear of any kind—just a pair of exceptionally high-grip climbing gloves.
From Bella's angle, she could mostly see his back. She had no idea who this lunatic was. She only knew one thing: he was brave. Terrifyingly brave. Without a flying carpet, she wouldn't have tried this herself.
"Old Gav, come take a look at this."
She waved her deputy over, and they both craned their necks upward.
"What is he doing?" Gavin asked, watching the figure inch slowly higher.
"How should I know? He's not seriously practicing our Leap of Faith up there, is he? If he jumps from that height, he'd genuinely be a legend."
Bella had once considered reviving the Leap of Faith as a Brotherhood tradition—good for building courage. William and Gavin had both shot it down immediately. Their reasoning was refreshingly candid: we're not young enough for that anymore. If you want to try it, Mentor, we'll personally buy you a hundred parachutes and you can jump to your heart's content.
Svetlana Belikova wasn't arriving until tomorrow. With nothing else demanding their attention, Bella and Gavin leaned against the window and watched the man in black climb.
Gavin counted quietly under his breath: "127th, 128th... 129th, still going... Oh! He went inside at the 130th. That should be... the mechanical room!"
Nothing good happened in there.
Not their business, though.
They decided there was nothing else worth watching and pulled away from the window to continue discussing the Brotherhood's funding problem.
Less than a minute passed before—crack—a sharp sound from above. Both of them looked up.
The man in black had a rope secured around his waist. He'd shattered a window and hurled himself from the 130th floor—660 meters (2,165 ft) above the ground—straight down.
"Oh, my God!" Gavin was speechless.
Even with the rope, this man looked more like an Assassin than any actual Assassin alive. What kind of spirit was this? The spirit of Altaïr—of Ezio.
"Can we recruit him?" He was practically vibrating.
"Impossible. He's CIA... and probably one that Russian intelligence is actively hunting."
Bella had caught a clear look at his face. She stared.
Seriously? Ethan Hunt? This guy was like a bad penny—Lanka Prison, the Kremlin, and now the Burj Khalifa? Was he following her?
And how had he even escaped the Kremlin?
Ethan spotted her at the same moment she spotted him.
Not that it changed anything—he was already falling. He could hardly climb back up.
He didn't recognize Bella anyway. In that split second, he registered there was someone watching from below. What they looked like, he had no time to process.
Feet braced against the glass, weight forward, body held at ninety degrees to the building, left hand gripping the rope at his waist for balance—he sprinted downward like he was running on flat ground. Nine floors in one burst. But the rope ran out of slack at the 121st floor, and his partner was on the 119th. Two floors short.