Mission: Impossible Page #6

ETHAN and JIM PHELPS are in a heated conversation.

ETHAN:

Yeah, well, Jim, fact is I've got more

than ninety days leave coming.

PHELPS:

A hundred and sixty-seven, I think it is.

Take it all, if you want. After this one.

ETHAN:

I thought I'd take some now.

PHELPS:

(quietly, to Ethan)

What the hell's made you decide to take

your leave at the worst possible time?

Claire's in a weird mood too.

ETHAN:

Oh? What's the problem?

PHELPS:

I don't know, I had to go to Chicago

again. You were in Kiev. You tell me.

ETHAN:

Tell you what?

PHELPS:

When you started noticing your short term

memory loss. What the problem was you

and Claire had in Kiev?

ETHAN:

What problem?

PHELPS:

(laughs)

Ah, God, forget it. What are we talking

burnout here?

ETHAN:

I guess.

PHELPS:

Ethan, you can't burn out.

ETHAN:

Why not?

PHELPS:

Because I can't afford it. And because

you'd burn up before you'd burn out.

CLAIRE, who is at the computer behind them, somehow seems to

be the reference point in the following exchange:

ETHAN:

How was Chicago?

PHELPS:

Wonderful. Ran into a convention of auto

dealers at the Drake Hotel. You hear the

one about the astronaut who comes back

from the first manned flight to Mars

after two years? His wife's got a year

old kid. So he says "All right. Who was

it? My friend Harry?" She says no. "Oh,

it was my friend Sammy." She says it

wasn't Sammy. "Oh, I suppose it was my

friend Lou." "No, what's the matter,

don't you think I have any friends of my

own?!"

PHELPS laughs. ETHAN doesn't. The back of CLAIRE'S head is

in his line of sight.

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