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10 X 2: RECLAMATION |
In 1921, the
Danish explorer Knud Rasmussen arrived among the
Iglulik Eskimos to discover a culture that revolved
around unseen beings and spirits that inhabited nearly every person, animal,
and object. Rasmussen met an Iglulik shaman named
Anarqaq, who recalled many of these beings,
even sketching them for his European visitor.
Anarqaq claimed to be aided by “helping spirits” who periodically
invaded his body or called his name to offer their assistance. When he answered
their call, their power became his. Many kind spirits appeared initially
to Anarqaq as horrific monsters or ferocious
animals that first had to be conquered. But once these helping spirits were
won over, they were fiercely loyal and readily available to the shaman.
In one vision that
came to Anarqaq, a female spirit named
Qungiaruvlik attempted to steal a child and conceal it inside her
parka. But before she could accomplish her evil deed, two well-armed helping
spirits came to the child’s rescue and killed the spirit...
Monica Reyes
“She was right
over there,” Anita Yoruba recounted, her long index finger wavering as she
indicated a spot near a glossy black grand piano. “It was almost as if I
were watching Melinda on the television, except without a set. She would
occasionally start to fade, and then come back into full view. She said
she had friends who were helping her contact me, and that she was all right.
For now.”
Melinda’s mother
looked quickly to Doggett, Reyes, and her brother-in-law, but, perhaps significantly,
she avoided eye contact with her husband, Enrique, who sat neutrally on
the couch beside her. Ramon glanced at his brother, who looked toward a
bay window and the expansive, flawlessly manicured lawn beyond it.
“I know it sounds
mad,” Anita murmured, her fingers playing at the hem of her blouse. “But
it was no dream. My little girl was standing there, talking to me. She said
they were giving her some kind of shots that they said wouldn’t harm her,
except that she was beginning to get hives or something.”
“Warts?” Doggett
asked. The brothers Yoruba looked up simultaneously. Anita appeared more
distracted than surprised.
“I don’t know.
But I think she’d in danger, Agent Doggett. She said one of her friends,
Martin, Marlon– I assume another victim -- told her something bad was going
to happen, but she didn’t know what.” Anita began to tremble uncontrollably,
and tears spilled from her sleep-deprived eyes.
“I think that’s
more than enough,” Rick Yoruba announced. “She’s clearly distraught, and this
whole thing has her reacting hysterically.”
“Enrique,” Ramon
Yoruba implored.
“No, Ramon,” his brother stated, flatly. “I’m not going to indulge this delusion any longer. For years, she’s told everyone she encounters about these visions, these messages from Melinda. I’ll admit I
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haven’t been the most interactive father to Melinda, and I suppose I must
shoulder a share of the blame both for Melinda’s behavioral problems and
Anita’s emotional issues. But Melinda’s gone, most likely dead – I’m sorry,
Anita – and it’s time for us to begin to deal with reality. Agents.”
Doggett jumped
to his feet as Enrique moved to help his wife from the couch. “Just two
more questions, and then we’ll get out of your hair.”
Enrique stared
at him, at Reyes. “Two. And then I call our attorney.”
Doggett sat beside
Anita. “Mrs. Yoruba, do you have any idea when your daughter appeared to
you. Precisely?”
Her eyes flicked
toward her husband and back to the agent. “It was
Reyes’ brows rose.
Doggett nodded. “All right. And ma’am, do you know who Bruce Springsteen
is?”
A bewildered smile
played at Anita Yoruba’s lips. “Yes, of course. I’m somewhat sheltered,
but not to that extent.”
“Have you ever
dreamed about him? I mean, like the dream about the horse or the yellow
flowers? Does he have any special significance to you or your family?”
She shook her head.
“No. I’m quite certain.”
“All right, that
should do,” Enrique ordered. “Come along, Anita. Ramon, you can see the
agents out, can’t you?”
On the cobblestone
walk, Ramon Yoruba placed a hand on Doggett’s shoulder. “I know my brother
seems a bit, ah, cold, I guess. But you have to know Melinda’s disappearance
is affecting him, as well as Anita.”
“We understand,”
Reyes offered.
“It’s just they
never got along, he and Melinda. Rick is very right-brained, very pragmatic,
and his whole life with Anita has been about providing a good home, security.
Melinda never understood that. She always spoke of him as if he were some
kind of CEO or something, rather than her father. He probably feels a little
guilt, I don’t know.” The transportation secretary sighed. “Look, John,
do you believe that somehow Melinda actually contacted Anita, psychically,
I mean?”
“I don’t know,”
the agent said. “But we had two other similar ‘contacts’ last night – Monica
and the mother of another suspected abductee
. Both happened right at about
“My God,” Yoruba
whispered. “This is too much for me to take in.”
“If it helps at
all, me too,” Doggett said.
"What do you mean she's dead? When did she die?" Scully's eyes had gone
wide at the news.
Mulder placed a calming hand
on Scully's shoulder as he watched the woman who wasn't Sandra Bateman move
closer to them, away from the tourists who were watching the sun set over
the reflecting pool. She tucked her sunglasses into the front breast pocket
of her blouse and looked at them nervously. She was thin, perhaps too thin,
and her mouse-brown hair seemed scraggly underneath the scarf she used to
tie it back. Mulder thought she probably looked
too old for her age, whatever that was, but she tried to hide it with well-placed
makeup and some distracting attire. Still, she
couldn't have been more than twenty-five.
"She died early this morning. You still have time." The woman's words
were cryptic, and Scully felt her irritation grow at the lack of proper communication.
Mulder's fingers gripped her shoulder briefly
and Scully took a calming breath.
"Please," she said, "tell us what you know." Scully held out her hand
in indication for the woman to sit on the bench they had just vacated.
The three of them moved to it and sat down, Scully between
Mulder and the haggard-looking stranger. "What's your name?" Scully
asked, her voice softening from its earlier frenzied pitch.
The young woman sighed and looked down at her empty hands. "My name is
Molly Cantwell... I have a story to tell, and," she looked up, her gaze passing
between Mulder and Scully before returning to
her hands, "it may sound strange, maybe even a little crazy. But I hope
that you'll believe me."
When she glanced back up at them, the nervous expression had returned to
her face, making her light brown irises seem lost in the whites of her eyes.
There was such a sadness in this woman's voice,
Scully couldn't help but feel sympathy for her. Whatever she had been through,
it had been terrible, and it had led her here to them, led her to information
about their baby. Scully reached out to take the girl's hand, feeling a
sudden affection for her and…was that recognition? For a second the girl
looked so familiar, Scully could have sworn she'd seen her before, maybe
even more than once.
"Have I seen you before?" Scully asked finally, the notion becoming too
overwhelming to ignore.
The woman smirked and nodded slightly. "Probably," she said. Her eyes
flicked over Mulder then back to Scully. "Agent
Scully, my mother and I lived in the apartment above yours for almost nine
years."
That was it then, Scully thought, realization finally dawning on her.
She had passed the girl maybe a hundred times coming in or out of her building,
maybe more than that, but she'd never taken enough notice to commit the
girl's face to memory. Perhaps Molly Cantwell took the elevator every day
while Scully had only to take the short flight of stairs to her apartment.
Perhaps their schedules had varied too greatly for them to pass each other
often. Perhaps Scully had simply been away so much over the past nine years,
she hadn't even bothered to learn the name of her next door neighbor, much
less the families who lived above her.
She chastised herself now for not taking more notice, for not paying attention
to the other lives that had been buzzing around in the building she called
home.
How many potentially dangerous people could have taken up residency just
a few feet away from her? How many times could she have gone to sleep with
a murderer on the other side of the wall? She thought briefly of the surveillance
taken of Mulder from the apartment above his
so many years ago, of Phillip Padget moving in
next door to watch her come and go, and shuddered.
"I promise my motives are pure," Molly said reassuringly. "It was accidental,
really, that any of this happened."
Mulder and Scully looked
at each other. If only they could believe in accidents, Scully thought.
There had been too much evidence over the years to think that this could
be simply a coincidence. For good or for bad, fate had proved to them that
nothing happened without a reason. Scully only hoped that this time it
was for good.
"Tell us your story," Mulder said, his voice
encouraging, his eyes imploring.
Molly's mouth twitched into a momentary smile as she began her tale. "My
mother and I moved into the apartment building at the end of my junior year
in high school. I was a loner in high school, without much of a social
life. I studied a lot, to get into
"The building is old, and I think the first ventilation system must have
run between floors without any barriers, because I can hear everything that
goes on in the floor below me." She blushed as she looked up at Scully.
"I wasn't trying to listen, but I could hear people talking sometimes, while
I was working. I heard arguments about 'evidence' and suspects and crime
scenes. I figured you must have been a cop. Eventually I heard enough
to piece together that you were an F.B.I. agent, that your last name was
Scully, and that Mulder was your partner.
"Anyway, I heard things, mostly because I couldn't help but hear, but sometimes
because it was too interesting not to listen. Sometimes the phone would
ring in the middle of the night, and the sound would carry up into my room
and wake me up."
Molly's expression changed, drew up and became sad. "I remember other
things too. Gunshots, cries for help, doors busting open, a window breaking..."
She looked Scully in the eye. "I called the police that time, when I heard
you calling out for Mulder into the phone, telling
him that you needed help."
"I wondered," Mulder said,
a hint of sadness in his voice.
"Anyway," Molly said, "there's a reason for this story, and I don't know
how much time you have. I want you to trust me, to know that I came by
this information with only your interest and safety in mind." She looked
back and forth between them, meeting their eyes and asking for their trust.
Mulder liked this girl, was
glad that there was someone else on their side, someone who understood what
both he and Scully had been through. He gave her a brief smile and nodded
for her to continue.
"Over the years, I came to feel like I knew you, and I got an idea about
how... awful things were in the last two years." The girl swallowed thickly,
as if it was her own pain she was trying to put behind her. "When the baby,
William, was put up for adoption, I felt so terrible for you, Agent Scully,
because I'd come to know how much you loved him. But by some miracle which
I still don't understand, the case came through the agency where I work.
I'd been an intern there during my years at
"You see," she explained, "Sandra Bateman was my boss. I filed the paperwork
for your case." Molly looked back and forth between the ex-F.B.I agents.
"So you knew," Scully breathed out. Tears were
beginning to well in her eyes at the thought that this girl had known
all along where her baby had been. "You knew where he went, where he is."
Molly nodded her head. "Yes. I flew with her to deliver William to the
couple who adopted him. Only Sandra and I knew who
they were, where they lived." Molly reached into a side pocket of
her purse and pulled out a small slip of paper. "No one else was allowed
to know, not even anyone at the agency, as you had requested. But last week,
some men began coming into the offices, asking about your case."
Molly looked between the two of them, the frightened expression returning
to her face. "I knew about mysterious men in suits; I'd heard so much of
your story... I didn't trust them, not at all. I told them that your case
was sealed, that everything was supposed to be anonymous, but they demanded
to speak to Sandra. They came back, every day demanding to speak with her,
and I got so scared. I told her what I knew about you, and she gave me
the passwords to her computer, to her email account."
The small woman was actually shaking now as she held the paper out to Scully.
"She was murdered this morning for what she knew. At first, when she didn't
show up, I thought she was just late...then the news came in at lunch time.
Apparently, she'd been... tortured. Probably to get
the information that I had all along. If you hadn't sent that email
when you did..." Molly shook her head. "The men came back just before we
closed for the evening...walked right past me and left with her computer.
They must have flashed badges or something, because no one tried to stop
them."
"God," Mulder said,
his eyes wide with fear. "Do you think they've already found him?"
"I don't know." Molly shook her head again; she was still trembling.
"I deleted your email, so they won't find us here... but it's only a matter
of time before they get into that computer and find out what they need to
know."
Calvin
Welles had always been an early riser, even as a young boy. Then,
it merely had seemed the best way to avoid a pre-breakfast ass-kicking delivered
by his father. Donnie Welles always found some
rationale (Calvin had always liked that word, ever since the first time
it emerged from the prissy mouth of that tight-assed prison shrink. And
tight-assed was the best way to be in maximum security, even if you got
to wear civvies, Calvin mused) to deliver a good ass-
whuppin’ to his wife or children. Never needed a compelling motivation
(damn, that shrink talked pretty), just a sound rationale, like his eggs
being too runny or his brother Frank showing the bad grace to complain about
his lack of a winter coat or one of the litter having to be rousted out of
bed for the Sunday service Donnie Welles insisted
they all attend. Religiously, that is, he told anyone who would listen or
was afraid not to. As he wielded his belt or a stick or whatever just happened
to be within reach of his calloused hand, Old Donnie preached the righteous
wrath of God and the fires below that awaited disobedient spouses and recalcitrant
children (no wonder that shrink raked in the big bucks).
And when one of
them flinched, Donnie would smile meanly down at them. “Know you have it
comin’, huh?” Funny thing was, Calvin actually knew when it was coming,
had known since about age seven. Donnie would come home from a deacon’s meeting
or the local hole – didn’t much matter – and he’d be glowing blue like the
bug zapper at the back of the Galveston Denny’s. Shoulda
been red, made more sense, but whenever Donnie started flashing blue neon,
Calvin knew to make himself scarce.
The younger ones
were too little to know when to lay low, and his elder sister made too easy
– and, as she developed – too appealing a target for the old man. And so,
when he was 14, Calvin Welles decided Donnie
was done preaching and laying hands on the family. The boy had what for him
would have been an elaborate plot: He’d go to bed early next night the deacons
didn’t meet and Donnie got a thirst. Then he’d wait in the thicket near the
Highway 67 Tavern where Donnie was known to empty his bladder of excess Bud
and do a little batting practice. A missing wallet and the old man’s reputation
for making friends, and nobody’d suspect.
Well, that night,
Donnie came home from the plant where he practiced his hobby by bashing
cows in the head. He chewed his meat loaf and mashed potatoes as he glared
around the table for any sign of disrespect or mischief. And Calvin put
his elaborate plan aside.
For his father
sat there shoving beef and potatoes in his mouth as a fuzzy black aura swirled
about him where the blue glow of violence normally was. Somehow, don’t ask
how, Calvin knew he wouldn’t have to lift a finger that night, that Fate
was about to take care of his family’s domestic abuse issues (God, he loved
that one). And sure enough, one of the county deputies showed up after lights
out (Calvin’s mother always felt it was better to be unconscious before Donnie
could come home and do it for her), and informed them Donnie had had a meeting
of the minds with a group of transient bikers and had been given the final
rebuttal with a tire iron.
That night, Calvin
heard his mother praying and crying through the paper-thin bedroom wall.
But best as he could make out, it was a prayer of deliverance, and the tears
were those of joy.
And that should’ve
been that. Texas redneck happy ending: Momma waits tables ‘til her anklebones
fuse, kids drift off to drink and screw and drop more
Welleses across the countryside to live The Dream anew, but at least
no more broken bones or busted skulls.
But, gradually,
Calvin came to a realization: Fate had screwed him over. He’d had his shot
at evening the score with Old Donnie, and he’d let some drunk Hell’s Angel
take it from him. The revelation and the bubbling resentment within his gut
led him into fight after brawl after riot, but eventually, he managed to hold
down a job at a fabrication plant at the edge of town.
Until the day Calvin
went to his truck at lunch, fished through the glove compartment of his
Ford pickup for Donnie’s old .38, and picked off three co-workers and that
prick foreman Mike Seebold. When the Galveston
P.D. swarmed the place, they found him in the breakroom
, calming sipping a Coke and polishing off a bag of Cool Ranch Doritos.
Calvin never told the cops or the judge or anybody else what he’d seen in
the plant that morning to make him launch his downsizing program.
Even if it hadn’t
happened in Texas, Calvin wouldn’t have escaped Death Row. For nearly five
years, he watched the blue auras of the brutal men around him shift to a
swirling black. Finally, he shared his secret with the prison shrink, half
just to mess with the little shit’s mind. The doc eventually brought in all
kinds of cards and tests, and Calvin went along, ‘cause in max, you took
advantage of any diversion you could get.
When the time came
for Calvin’s lethal cocktail, he turned down the priest, devoured a blood-red
T-bone with three Supersize Mickey D’s fries
and a Wendy’s Frosty, and settled in for the injection studying the bleacher
crowd as if they were the ones on display instead of him. When the Mai Tai
of death sizzled through his system and he felt his insides grow cold and
numb, he was astonished to note his own aura remained a vibrant cerulean
blue.
And instead of
Hell (where Calvin had hoped for a second shot at Old Donnie), he woke up
here, in this whitewashed nuthouse with a bunch of egghead queers. The blonde
babe he’d’ve liked to have taken for a mattress
ride, but the rest of ‘em he’d gladly run through
the carcass plant.
Including Clyde
Crashcup, the tall one Calvin had named after
the puffed-up ‘60s cartoon scientist who relentlessly screwed up any experiment
he attempted. Calvin could’ve (and would’ve enjoyed) snapping
“Sleep OK last
night?”
“Just about your
buddy or boss or whatever she is,” Calvin grinned.
“Any aches or pains, headaches, anything new?”
“Right as rain,
Doc,” Calvin chirped. “What’d you give me there, Doc? Little shot of Viagra
for the next time the Ice Queen stops by.”
“Yeah, hey, just
what was that, anyway? Felt like I was dying?”
“It just played
a little havoc with your nervous system, slowed your heart rate to a near
stoppage. We had to fake the effects of a lethal injection. So you’re feeling
OK?”
Calvin displayed
his arms. “Could do without the skin condition, Doc.”
“That’s just a
mild side-effect of the treatment,”
“
Breakfast’ll be up in a minute or two,”
“Yummy,” Calvin
nodded.
“Strikes me as
hinky,” Doggett muttered, leaning back in the
precarious chair he’d inherited with a handshake from Fox
Mulder. It had been one of the few accessories of the X-Files office
that had survived the investigation into Mulder’s
disappearance. The files had been returned to spanking new file cabinets
– no sense in destroying Doggett and Reyes’ official distraction – but the
walls were now clean of Mulder’s collection
of paranormal clippings and the fuzzy UFO poster that had pledged, “I Want
to Believe.” Monica had found a site on the Internet where they could find
a fresh copy, but Doggett had suggested they locate a nice landscape or
some Ansel Adams photos or something else.
“I mean, your daughter’s
missing, maybe dead somewhere, and you’re more upset about your wife sounding
like some kinda Art Bell lunatic? Didn’t you
find that strange?”
Monica looked up
from the virology text she’d been studying. She and her partner had developed
a working hypothesis (according to Doggett, a non-working hypothesis) about
the nature of Melinda Yoruba and the other kids’ abductions and the murder
of Rob Halverson, the young Wisconsin pyrokinetic
who’d been covered with warts. Warts caused by what the CDC in
“What are you suggesting,
John?” she asked, placing the book on her desk. “That Enrique Yoruba’s somehow
involved in his daughter’s disappearance? What we saw was probably just
a CEO’s instinctive reaction to a crisis – a cool head, damage control.”
“I
dunno,” Doggett persisted. “Seemed like Ramon was trying a little
too hard to convince us his brother was distraught. Like it was something
he does a lot.” His computer chimed as the results he was awaiting processed.
“OK, here we go. National Missing Persons Registry kicks out Brian Yuan,
22,
Monica frowned.
“
Doggett started
his printer. “Sounds like a plan. First, though, I gotta
see if my pictures are ready.”
**
“It’s him,” Skinner
confirmed grimly as he rapped the sketch Doggett’s description had yielded.
He sighed, leaning back and templing his fingers.
“Mulder called him the Bounty Hunter. He reportedly
is a sort of alien cop, mercenary, whatever – a clean-up man who retrieves
stray extraterrestrial rebels, assassinates people who are too close to
the aliens’ plan...”
“Whoa,” Doggett
breathed. “You’re telling me this guy is E.T.’s
evil brother. You sound like you believe this shit now.”
Skinner looked
at the agent, neither embarrassed nor offended. “Agent Doggett, John, I
don’t precisely know what I believe any more. I don’t even know if there’s
any real basis for defining what’s possible and what isn’t. Whatever may
be true, I know this man’s a multiple killer and extremely dangerous.”
Doggett rubbed
his face. “All right, say this guy is an alien. Then do we assume that he
killed Lower because whatever he was doing was against the alien, how would
Mulder say it?”
“Colonists,” Skinner
stated gravely, causing Doggett to pause.
“Yeah,” the agent
sighed. “So why doesn’t he kill me? I mean, he had the chance, and I’m not
exactly part of the alien Welcome Wagon.”
Skinner was silent
for a moment. “What are you doing, John? What’s this case about to you,
personally?”
“Saving Gibson,
Yoruba, the others,” Doggett responded without skipping a beat.
The assistant director
nodded. “And to do that, you know what you’re going to have to do?”
Doggett’s mouth
opened, then shut. His face grew dark. “I’m gonna
have to shut ‘em down. Even if they’re working
against the aliens. Even if...” He stopped.
Skinner nodded.
Undisclosed location
The Suited Man stepped into the room and was greeted by several similarly-dressed
men who regarded him expectantly. Some were seated, others stood, but all
wore the same expressions of demanding curiosity, poised in a silent tableau
around the room. The Suited Man's blue eyes gave nothing away.
Finally, a man with a gray mustache and a thick German accent spoke up.
"Have you located the child?"
The Suited Man's jaw clenched in frustration.
He had hoped to bring better news to the group, but the woman at the
adoption agency had done a good job of burying the important files. Everything
on her computer was password protected. "I have located the information
that will lead us to the child. It's only a matter of time before that
information is brought to light."
Another man set down his glass of brandy with a loud
thunk. "We are running out of time!"
"I know that." His voice was stiff but calm, covering his frustration
well.
"And what of Mulder and Scully?"
It was the German-accented man again. Strughold
, his name was, the oldest of the men in the room, the most powerful.
"Have you discovered any more leads as to their whereabouts?"
The Suited Man shook his head. "No. The smuggler told us nothing." There
was bitterness in his voice as he spoke the words. José's unscrupulous
business had made it impossible to trace the vehicle
Mulder and Scully had traded for. "However, we're quite certain
that locating William will bring them out of hiding. Once the child is
in our custody, they will stop at nothing to protect him."
A shadow of doubt crossed the face of the group's leader. "And if they
remain in hiding?"
Icy blue eyes locked onto Strughold's. "They
won't."
“Did she have what?”
Beth Petrie asked softly, as if she had misunderstood Monica’s question
but assumed the agent could not possibly have uttered such a thing.
Tim Petrie had
heard it clearly. “What the hell is this?”
Mr. Petrie was
a firefighter with the City of
“I know this sounds
odd, to say the least,” Monica admitted. “But we believe Iris may have been
abducted by the same people who have kidnapped several persons with unusual
psychic abilities.”
“You’ll pardon
me, but this is fucking nuts,” Tim said, running a rough hand through thinning
black hair. “How did you come up with this?”
“We’re not currently
at liberty to say,” Doggett informed him, holding up a hand to stave off
an anticipated outburst. “Please, give us the benefit of the doubt for a
minute, OK? Did Iris ever exhibit any unusual behavior, know things she shouldn’t
have, seem to be able to affect objects without touching them?”
“For God sake...”
Tim began anew.
“I think so,” Beth
said, barely audible.
Monica leaned in.
“How do you mean, you think so, Mrs. Petrie?”
Tim sank back into
their neat but well-worn couch, staring at his wife. Beth looked apologetically
back, then turned to Monica.
“We had some reports
from the school – Iris’ school – oh, about a year ago,” she related. “Things
were...disappearing. Small things, school supplies, objects from teacher’s
purses, even pockets. I’ve had kids steal from me for attention, because
of emotional disorders, bad home environments. But this wasn’t like that.
The objects would turn up near where they disappeared. And the common denominator
for all the thefts was that Iris was around when they happened.”
Tim sat up. “Why
didn’t you tell me about this? You think I would’ve blown up or something?”
Beth shrugged.
“I wanted to get to the bottom of things before we took any action. And
then, after Mr. Tisdale’s wallet disappeared, I began to wonder if there
wasn’t something going on with Iris.”
“Tisdale?” Tim
asked. “He was her math teacher, right?”
She nodded. “Remember
when he let Iris take that test over after school, to make up for that half-week
she was out with the flu? Well, they were alone in the classroom, Iris seated
at her desk 10 feet away from Tisdale, the whole time she took the test.
Tisdale said he’d checked to make sure he hadn’t lost a credit card right
before Iris showed up, but that it wasn’t in his pocket after she left. He
found it the next day.” Beth stopped, inhaled. “In a locked fire hose case
in the hallway, wrapped inside some 30 feet of hose. He insisted Iris was
the only person who could’ve taken it, but even he admitted it was impossible.”
“What are you saying?”
Tim demanded. “That she moved those things mentally?”
“I don’t know,”
Beth whispered. “I don’t know.”
“Did you tell anybody
else about this?” Doggett inquired.
Beth shook her
head, then frowned. “Just her pediatrician, Dr. Yontz
. Mr. Tisdale thought it was suspicious. And it was the principal who contacted
me after the wallet disappeared, Mrs. Dellums
– Meredith Dellums, I believe.”
“Would your daughter
have confided in anyone at the school about any concerns she had, anything
strange she was doing or that was happening to her?” Monica urged.
“Well,” Beth considered,
“she did have a sort of favorite teacher. Ms. Margolis. Nancy Margolis.
Iris liked bugs, butterflies, things like that, and Mrs. Margolis was her
science teacher.”
Monica glanced
at Doggett.
“Will any of this
help get her back?” Beth asked before burying her face in her hands. Tim
leapt up and sat on the arm of her chair, squeezing her shoulder. He looked
up expectantly at the agents, eyes full.
“We’ll try,” Doggett said.
“Shit,” Tim muttered, rubbing his eyes. “Sorry, but it’s killing us not
knowing what’s happened to Iris. I even had this funky nightmare about her
last night, her and some scary-looking guy...”
**
“Miss Margolis
said she was gonna drive up and visit some family,
might be gone a few weeks,” the old woman told Doggett and Reyes. They sat
on the apartment house stoop, a few blocks from Wrigley Field and a few
doors down from a neighborhood coffee shop.
“You think we could
maybe look at her apartment?” Doggett asked.
The broad, squat
building manager sized him up. “Don’t you need one of those, what, warrants,
before bustin’ in on somebody? This
ain’t
Doggett grinned.
“We weren’t proposing to ‘bust in,’ ma’am. We’re looking for a missing girl
who was friends with Mrs. Margolis. We hoped she’d be in to talk to us,
but since she’s not, I’d like to see maybe if there was some kind of indication
where she might have gone, some family number we can reach her.”
The manager glanced
from agent to agent, then shrugged. “Oh, hell, if you’re looking for some
missing kid, I guess she wouldn’t mind. ‘Sides, I don’t want my taxes et
audited, right?”
Margolis’ apartment
was tidy and spare, feminine but not frilly. As soon as they persuaded the
manager to vacate the premises, Doggett and Monica began a stringent visual
search that bruised but did not violate Nancy Margolis’ civil rights.
“Who do you think
the guy is?” Doggett asked.
“Guy?” Reyes questioned.
“Oh, you mean in the visions last night.” Tim Petrie’s “dream” had been
nearly identical to that of Monica’s, Yoruba’s, and Miller’s. “I’d say either
another abductee or maybe one of the kidnappers.
Thing is, though, if he was being held like the others, why would he interfere
with Gibson’s transmission? And why wouldn’t Gibson mention him with the
others?”
“Less he was
Petrovsky.” Doggett glanced over a computer workstation in the corner
of the front room. “Bingo.” He nudged a hardback book from beside the printer.
“The Psi Factor: Case Studies in Paranormal
Phenomena . Coincidence? I don’t think so.” The agent tapped the black
case of Margolis’ PC. “Wonder what’s in this baby.”
Monica shook her
head. “John, this is already a marginally illegal search...”
“Hey, let’s find
the kids now and worry about getting a conviction later.” Doggett inspected
the tower next to the monitor; a green crescent moon glowed. “Ah, I think
it’s merely sleeping. We’re not breaking and entering; we’re just making
a wakeup call.”
Monica smirked
as her partner pressed the moon button and the machine came to life with
a faint electronic pop and a scattering of desktop icons.
“Windows ’98,”
he said, nodding in approval. Doggett launched Windows Explorer and located
the My Document folder. He studied its contents. “Lotta
stuff about tests and curriculum. OK, gimme
some keywords. Something you’d say if you were part of a nationwide psychic-napping
ring.”
“Well, psychic...the
names of the victims, of course...and Lower and Caswell.”
Doggett fed each
into the Find File function of Explorer. After about five minutes, he shook
his head and closed Explorer. “Nada. OK, onto the Outlook Express. Let’s
hope she has her dial-up password saved. Great.” The modem whined, and when
the connection was made, Doggett started Outlook. “Hmm, she’s cleared everything
out of the Inbox. However, lotta folks, they
don’t realize when they throw their mail in the Trash, it isn’t gone ‘til
they purge it...” He sighed. “Of course, Margolis isn’t one of those people.
Let’ check the Address Book...Ah, here we go – glower@msu.edu.
Wanna bet that’s Gale Lower’s address?”
Doggett’s eyes then locked on the screen. “Well, look at this.”
“What,” Monica
asked, craning over his shoulder. “Oh, my God.”
Doggett’s eyes
narrowed. MCovarubias@dcnet.com. Margolis has some interesting pen pals...
The blonde woman reached out one well manicured hand to knock loudly on
the screen door. The sound of a baby crying could clearly be heard over the
rattling of pots on the stove and a televised baseball game. The black-haired
man and the blonde woman glanced at each other briefly. It appeared this
was the right place. A few seconds later a voice called out.
"Just a minute!"
They waited while more pots rattled and female voice commanded someone
to “turn that thing down.” Finally, a woman wearing a long sun dress appeared
in front of the open door holding the still-crying baby. "Can I help you?"
she asked.
"Yes, I believe you can," the blonde woman responded. "Are you Mrs. Van
de Kamp?" At the other woman's nod, she continued.
"My name is Dana Scully, this is Fox Mulder."
She indicated the tall man beside her. "We don't want to frighten you,
but we think that William is in danger."
The woman gasped, and involuntarily gripped the baby in her arms more tightly,
causing him to wail even louder. "Why on earth would you think that? Who
are you?"
The two people before her sighed and looked at each other. "We're William's
birth parents." The woman said. "We have all the paperwork to show you,
if you want to see."
"Oh, God..." Mrs. Van de Kamp muttered. "I
was so afraid of this..."
**
"But I don't understand," Jim Van de Kamp declared.
"I thought his mother was a single parent. That's what the adoption agency
told us."
The blonde woman nodded, changed her expression from 'explanatory' to 'understanding'.
"At the time he was put up for adoption, that
was true." She looked at the man who had come in with her, reached out
for his hand and gave it a convincing squeeze as she feigned saddened remembrance.
"Fox was missing. I didn't know if I'd ever see him again, and William's
life had already been threatened more than once. I sent him away because
I thought I could protect him this way... but I haven't. The people who
kidnapped him before, the ones who are after him again... we think they've
found out where he is."
There were tears in her voice now, as she told the tale of a life she hadn't
lived.
Both of the Van de Kamp's were horrified by
the story these two people had woven in front of them. Three months ago,
they never could have imagined that William's past involved kidnapping and
danger, F.B.I. agents and near-death experiences. It was almost too much
to listen to all at once.
Mr. Van de Kamp stood up from the couch angrily
and began pacing in front of the coffee table. "How do we know that you'll
be able to protect him? How do we even know that you are who you say you
are?"
"Please," the man who was not Fox Mulder said,
"we can show you his birth certificate, photographs of him. We can show
you our ID, and all of the adoption papers." He looked at the baby who sat
on the floor playing with blocks, picking them up and smacking them together
to make a satisfying 'crack,' before returning his gaze to the frightened
man that paced the floor. "We know what these people are like," he explained
easily-- that much at least was true. "We've dealt with them before. They
will destroy your lives if you let them."
Mr. Van de Kamp continued his nervous tromping
loop about the living room while his wife clutched her hands together, wringing
them fretfully and glancing back and forth between the two men with a terrified
expression on her face. It was a stereotype brought to life, the black-haired
man thought. All they needed was a vocabulary that included the words 'golly
gee.'
He shook his head, bringing his mind back into the conversation. He needed
to be persuasive. He needed this to be voluntary. "Our lives have already
been damaged by the men who want to harm William. If he comes back with
us... maybe we can stop them from ruining your lives too." The sincerity
in his voice was so convincing, he almost believed it himself.
Mrs. Van de Kamp stood up and placed a hand
on her husband's arm, stopping his pacing. She had grown to love this child,
and it would break her heart to see him go, but these people had known him
first, loved him first, and if they could help protect William from harm,
she knew she needed to let them.
"Jim, please. I love him too, but we're not prepared for this." She looked
at the couple on the couch who were holding hands again in a subtle yet
clever gesture that spoke of a loving relationship. "Put yourself in their
shoes." She met her husband's eyes again. "What would you do?"
With a final sigh, Mr. Van de Kamp looked over
the couple again. A few moments later, he made his decision, nodded, and
walked up the stairs to pack some things for the baby.
The students disbursed
quickly as Albert Caswell completed his admonishments, and Doggett and Reyes
moved downstream through a stream of denim and flannel. Caswell, wiping
notes from a marker board at the bottom of the small auditorium, started
as he spotted the agents. His surprise quickly reverted into annoyance.
“What now?” the
professor snapped, watching as the last of the stragglers wandered out into
the night. He threw his text and papers into a beaten leather briefcase and
slammed it shut. “I told you everything I knew about Miller.”
“How about Gale
Lower, Doc?” Doggett posed.
Caswell skipped
only a quarter beat. “Who?”
“Gale Lower, anthropologist
at the
“It’s a rather
large world, though my seeing you twice in two days would seem to cast doubt
on that premise. What are you getting at?”
“How about
Marita Covarubias?” Monica asked, leaning
on a front row seat.
Caswell blinked.
“No idea. I haven’t eaten yet...”
Doggett stepped
in front of the virologist. “Try again, Doc.” The agent reached into his inside
jacket pocket and removed a sheaf of papers he’d printed out at the Chicago
Public Library. “Got this off the Internet. Third Annual World Sustainable
Productivity Conference,
“I meet a lot of
people,” Caswell huffed.
“That
would’vebeen the perfect answer to the last question,” Monica smiled.
“Doctor, I don’t know if you’ve heard, but Gale Lower, who we believe is
involved with Covarubias in some kind of criminal
activity, was killed last night.”
“And the guy who did it
ain’t real easy to stop once he gets going,”
Doggett added. “What’s up, Doc?”
Caswell edged past
the agent. “This is exactly the kind of high-handed, fascistic approach
I’d expect from the FBI. Good evening.”
Doggett watched
the professor storm up the steps and out of the auditorium. “That was worth
four hours of talk radio and a couple cold burgers.” Monica followed him up
the auditorium steps and into the warm, overcast summer evening.
“Let’s find a hotel
near the airport,” she yawned. “I just want to get my shoes off and watch
Letterman.”
“Yeah, we’ll--”
Doggett was interrupted by a piercing scream across the campus quad. He spotted
two silhouettes near a fountain, one small and one huge. The larger figure
suddenly lifted the more petite man off the ground, and Doggett and Reyes
pulled their weapons.
“Put him down,
NOW!” Doggett roared, advancing on the pair. The larger man jerked the smaller
around like dog with a rag doll, and dropped him to the sidewalk. He ran
off into the darkness.
Monica dropped
to her knees and inspected Caswell. “He’s got a very weak pulse, John, but
I think his neck is broken.”
Doggett yanked
out his cell phone and program-dialed 911. Caswell’s pale lips began to
move, and Monica bent to hear him.
“Murder?” she repeated.
The professor shuddered and went limp. Monica felt his throat and wrist,
and sat back on the grass.
“He’s dead,” she
murmured.
“You better forget
your date with Dave,” Doggett said grimly.
Gibson Praise glanced
up 20 seconds before The Tall Man’s footsteps sounded down the corridor.
The scientist eyed the boy warily as he entered his room.
“Calvin
Welles is dangerous,” Praise said. The Tall Man’s eyes widened,
and he sat down abruptly at Praise’s small table.
None of the subjects
were to know of the others’ existence, especially that of
Welles, who was kept under particularly high security.
Covarubias had told The Tall Man Praise was special, perhaps the
key to the entire project, and he now regarded the young man with new respect
– and fear.
“How much do you
know about...us?” the scientist asked.
“You hope to fight
the colonization,” Praise stated, without emotion. “You’re trying to rebuild
man’s genetic structure, restore ‘obsolete’ human DNA. If we can develop
our psychic abilities as a species, then we can anticipate what the aliens
are planning, maybe even gain mental dominance over them. You’re scared,
because you think the aliens are already on to you and this project.”
The Tall Man had
been abjectly terrified since learning of Dr. Lower’s
death in
He looked up, and
realized from the look on his face that Praise had read the questions in
his mind. Of course, the boy said nothing. The aliens, the military, now
the scientists who would enslave those whose genetics could save mankind
– The Tall Man still possessed enough humanity to recognize that to Praise,
there wouldn’t be much difference between them.
“At any rate, have
you noticed any difference, any improvement in your abilities since yesterday’s
vaccination?” he asked, adopting the matter-of-fact tone that masked his
constant anxiety. His blasé expression vanished as an alarm sounded through
the halls outside. The last time that alarm sounded, Gibson had sensed seared
flesh nearby...
Maggie Isaacs sent
water splashing onto the black-and-white tile as she heard the loud thud
through the wall. She’d had a long day at the restaurant, and the previous
evening’s event had her wondering if her sanity was slipping.
Brian Yuan was a straight arrow, an architecture student with an uncanny,
almost supernatural ability to capture in his designs the nuances of far-off
capitals and dusty villages without ever visiting them. They’d been dating
for about a year before he’d just vanished one night two weeks or so ago.
Yuan’s family, an old-fashioned clan steeped in Chinatown culture, had been
cool when Maggie had called to check on his well-being, but they clearly
were disturbed. The police as yet had found no leads to Brian’s whereabouts.
Maggie’s heart was now pounding as she sat in lukewarm, shoulder-depth
water. She knew she had triple-locked the doors when she’d come home an
hour ago, and her fourth-floor windows were on the street side and inaccessible
by fire escape. She rose slowly, and halted, dripping, as she heard the first
agonized moan.
Maggie reached for a towel, wrapping it around her and venturing into her
bedroom. She’d left the light on out of urban paranoia and childhood fear
combined, and she scanned the room for an intruder.
Just the TV downstairs again, she laughed. The people on 3 always played
the set too loud.
She turned back toward the bathroom door, and that’s when Maggie saw the
arm, sticking out of the wall next to her Ansel
Adams print, fingers waggling feebly in an apparent death throe.
And Maggie began to shriek...
Scully clutched the paper Molly had given her tightly in her left hand.
She had already memorized the names and address on the sheet, but kept it
with her anyway as if it had the power to bring
William back on its own.
She had a bad feeling, sitting in the small airport lobby while they waited
for their late-night flight, but she refused to let herself become too paranoid.
This was the only logical course of action, she told herself, the only way
they knew of to get their son back.
Mulder had suggested flying
out from the smaller airport; anywhere close to D.C. was far too dangerous,
and driving would take too long. It was a race now, to get to their son
before anyone else, and the thrill of fear and excitement that coursed through
Mulder's veins was like an old friend. So many
times he had sat in an airport or on a plane beside Scully, rushing to save
lives, to stop the bad guys, to save the world.
Never before had so much been at stake.
"Hey," he whispered, reaching out to brush a hand against Scully's cheek.
She turned to look at him, smiling weakly. "We'll get there. We'll find
him."
The paper still clutched firmly in her hand, Scully nodded and
lay her head against Mulder's shoulder.
She needed his strength now to help her get through this, to keep her sane
when she wanted nothing more than to scream at the top of her lungs at the
injustice of giving up a son to protect him, only to have him put in more
danger than he'd been in to start with. She couldn't bear to lose William
again.
Mulder's arm came up around
her shoulders and squeezed her gently. She felt his lips press a kiss against
the top of her head.
"I miss him," she said softly.
"I know."
Scully sighed. "If...when
we find him, we'll be in more danger than ever." Mulder
squeezed her tighter.
"I know," he said again. "But it will be worth it. We'll be all right."
She nodded against his shoulder, glad that Mulder
was here to reassure her. So many months she had spent on her own, trying
to be strong. It felt good to share her fears again, to let him allay her
concerns with comforting words. She believed him when she spoke, more than
she believed herself.
Scully took a deep breath and sat up straight, ready to face the danger
that lay ahead of them. She took one of Mulder's
hands in her own and gave it a squeeze as she waited in silence for their
flight to be called.
Luke Doggett was
wobbling on his bike down the Long Island sidewalk under the proud eye of
his father. His mother was still in bed, and he’d wanted his dad to witness
his mastery of a new skill.
They both glanced
to the sky as the air sirens begin to sound, shrill, portending danger and
possibly death...
Doggett awoke,
dry-mouthed, sweaty, chest palpitating, and he fumbled for his jacket on
the chair next to his bed. He quickly located his screaming cell phone and
instinctively punched the button to silence it. “Yeah?”
“Forgot how late
it is out there,” a vaguely familiar voice said, stating a fact without
regret or apology. “Agent Doggett, this is Inspector Ed Brown with the San
Francisco P.D. We talked this morning about Brian Yuan, that missing student
you were interested in? Well, he’s not missing any more.”
Doggett felt for
and switched on the bedside lamp. “You wouldn’t be calling this late if
he’d come home after a week of backpacking in the
“I’m afraid you’re
right. He’s dead, and in a rather gruesome and, um, unusual way?”
“What do you mean?”
“We’re still trying
to work it out,” Brown said, “but his girlfriend found him in her wall.
And I mean in her wall. Not plastered up in there, between the studs, but
in the wall. Like he was a part of it. Boards, plaster, wiring all through
him, fused into his body. You ever see anything like that?”
“It was probably
only a matter of time,” Doggett moaned, rubbing grit from his eyes. “Oh,
hey, Inspector – I got a kinda weird question
for you. They take the body away yet?”
“I’m calling from
the scene,” Brown related. “We’ll probably be here a while: Removing Yuan’s
body and preserving the ‘evidence’ looks to be a tricky proposition. What
do you want to know?”
“Can you check
and see if he has warts?”
“Warts?”
“Warts.”
“Whatever. Hold
on.”
Doggett pondered
Yuan’s strange fate as he waited, wondered if Kersh
would authorize yet one more flight for he and Monica.
“Agent Doggett?”
“Yeah.”
“Best as we can
tell right now, warts all over him. What’s up, Agent? This some kind of
bioterrorism thing? Are my guys at risk?”
“I don’t believe
so,” Doggett assured him. “But maybe you want to wear gloves when you handle
the body, anyway.”
“
“Can’t right now. You’ll be
first when, though.”
“From a fed, that’s
practically a marriage proposal.
Take it you want the M.E. to do a complete workup and ship you the results?”
“You read my mind,”
Doggett responded, wishing Scully was around to do the post-mortem.
“That’s what they
pay me to do,” Brown said. “Night.”
“Night. And thanks.”
Doggett ended the
call and placed the phone on the bedside table. Then he picked up the hotel
phone.
Ten minutes later,
Monica was sitting in her running outfit in Doggett’s room, absorbing Insp.
Brown’s fantastic tale.
“OK,” she drawled
finally. “We can assume Yuan was kidnapped, like the others, for his psychic
abilities.”
“You can assume
that,” Doggett said.
Monica crossed
her eyes in mock irritation. “You ever hear about the Soviet experiments
with remote viewing back in the ‘60s and ‘70s. They found people who could
see events happening thousands of miles away, hoping to use them in intelligence
work. What if that was his special ability? Remote viewing?”
Doggett gave her
a look. “Go on.”
“All right, so
what if this gene therapy or whatever they’re doing to Gibson and the rest
of them somehow amps them up, completes the circuit, so they’re at full psychic
power.”
“What’re you saying? That instead of merely seeing things long distance,
Yuan could actually, what, transport himself there?”
Monica leaned forward in the hotel armchair, clasping her hands.
“Look where Yuan wound up – in his girlfriend’s apartment. I don’t think
this is like Rob Halverson’s death, a cover-up to avoid discovery. It’s too
weird for anybody to buy as an accident or murder. I think maybe Yuan tried
to escape from wherever they were keeping him, but he just didn’t have the
control he needed to teleport himself into an empty field or the street.
If Gale Lower’s theories are correct, we haven’t
been using our minds to full capacity for hundreds of thousands of years.”
“It’s a terrible
thing to waste,” Doggett yawned.
**
“Still no Jon
Petrovsky,” Doggett reported as he stowed his cell phone. “At least
not among the missing or dead.”
Monica, searching
fervently for the exit for
“Who is he?” Monica
asked for the 13th time in three days. She located the ramp and steered
the rental car into the merge lane, between a semi and a pickup. Doggett
turned on the radio, to be blasted with a wave of static.
“
Yoicks,” he said. “It was coming in good last night, though I was
kinda surprised a
Monica grinned.
“You’re a city boy. It was overcast across most of
“Fascinating,”
Doggett mumbled, smiling nevertheless at Monica’s
growing repository of knowledge. She deftly crossed three lanes for the
rental car dropoff, leaving the hardened ex-Marine
and NYPD detective pale and breathless. Doggett braced his feet against
the floorboard as she careened up the garage drive into the rental parking
area and blinked as she made a graceful swing into a narrow space.
As Monica handed
the keys to an awestruck attendant, she noted her partner was still belted.
She leaned into his window and waved a hand before his face. “C’mon, John;
it wasn’t that bad. You can drive the next—”
“No,” Doggett shook
his head. “It isn’t that. What you just told me.”
“I know, fascinating,”
she rolled her eyes.
Doggett looked
up with a long-lost look of hope in his eyes. “More than that. It may be
a lifesaver.”
Mulder drove the rented car
along the seemingly endless driveway until eventually he came to a stop
in front of a nice looking farmhouse. The monotony of the flat roads had
been dangerously mind-numbing after so many hours awake, but they had arrived
finally at their destination, at the house of James and Karen Van de
Kamp.
Mulder was so
nervous, he found he had to force himself to open the car door with
shaking hands. When he looked over at the passenger side of the rental,
he saw Scully was fighting a similar difficulty. He flashed
her what he hoped was a reassuring smile. "Here goes nothing,"
he said, stepping out onto the gray gravel.
A blue pick-up truck sat on the other side of the driveway, pointed in
the opposite direction of their rented minivan. It was old, but it had
character, like the house in front of them. Mulder
hoped the couple inside was friendly, that they had been kind parents to
William in the time they'd spent with him.
Loose stones crunched beneath their feet as Mulder
and Scully marched across the wide driveway and up to the porch. As they
headed up the wooden steps, Mulder placed a
hand on Scully's back, guiding her to the top. He had no idea what they
were going to say to this couple to make them release their child into the
arms of strangers. All he had was a handful of documents printed out by
Molly Cantwell and a hell of a story to tell them. He hoped it was enough.
When they reached the front door, Mulder froze.
Something was not right. The door stood ajar at an awkward angle, and the
place was deadly silent. Scully caught the not-quite-right vibe and reached
around her back to put her hand on her gun.
"Mr. and Mrs. Van de Kamp?"
She called out, but there was no response. She slid her weapon out of
its holster and Mulder did the same, watching
her back as she pulled open the screen door and stepped silently inside
the house.
The first floor was surprisingly open and spacious, allowing them to see
everything on the downstairs level but the kitchen and bathroom, including
the two bodies sprawled across the living room floor.
"Oh God," Scully whispered, rushing to the two figures.
Mulder kept a close watch for anyone else in the house as she felt
for a pulse. "They're dead."
He nodded. He'd expected as much when he heard the empty silence of the
house.
Suddenly, Scully jerked up from the floor and darted toward the stairs
they had passed on their way in. "William," she said absently, not even
pausing as Mulder held out an arm to stop her.
"Scully," he said in a cautionary tone, but it was useless; she was headed
up the steps with a desperate quality to her
step and nothing was going to stop her. Mulder
followed quickly on her heels, his gun drawn, ready.
There were four doors along the hallway at the top of the stairs. The
first contained a master bedroom, which Scully only spared a cursory glance.
The second was an office, empty but for a desk and a silent computer. The
third was a bathroom, also empty. Scully didn't even bother to turn on
the light before she ran for the last room. She shoved the fourth door
open and found herself staring into the room she'd been both hoping and
dreading to find.
It was a nursery, painted a pale blue with stenciled buffalos all along
the wall. A crib stood in the center of the room, surrounded by several toys
scattered about the floor. A rocking chair, draped with a soft-cotton blanket,
sat in the corner. Scully was beside the crib in seconds, checking its contents
frantically. The last of her concern for her own safety was long gone; she
hadn't even bothered to check that the room was clear before rushing to the
tiny bed.
It was empty, like the rest of the house, like the eyes of the couple downstairs.
William was gone.
"No," she whispered. "God, no." She had been
clinging to the last vestiges of hope even after finding the couple dead,
but now the reality of the situation was settling in. William was gone.
They had gotten to him first. Her face fell, dissolved into tears, as she
let her gun fall to the floor.
Mulder holstered his own
weapon and moved to put his arms around her, holding her tightly against
him as she shook with anger and defeat. "We were too late."
He only nodded, finding himself unable to give her any words of comfort,
not after what they had just been through. Tears were welling up in
his own throat but Mulder forced them
back. One of them needed to be strong. One of them needed to drive them
out of here and back to a motel. Alone.
Realization hit him then. They were back where they started with nothing
to show for their wild goose chase but more disappointment. All the running
they had done, all the sleep they had given up, all that worry, the rushing,
the danger of exposure... and they had been too late to save him. His thoughts
were cruelly masochistic. Where was William now? In
a sterile room with men in dark suits? Being experimented on? Poked?
Prodded? How would he and Scully ever find him now?
Mulder steeled himself against
the wave of guilt and grief, squeezing Scully more tightly to him. He fought
against his tears, but lost the battle in the end.
Then, a noise from the closet startled them both.
Mulder spun around quickly,
releasing Scully from his grasp and pulling his gun quickly from his back
holster. "Who's there?" he asked, his sig pointed
at the center of the closet door. He surprised himself with how quickly
he'd made the transformation, from grief to fierce defense. He cocked the
gun and held it steady.
"Come out now, or I'll start firing, and that closet's not big enough for
me to miss."
There was a momentary pause and then slowly, the door began to slide open.
**
From between the slats in the closet door, the blonde woman watched
Mulder and Scully clinging to each other, crying for the loss of
their son. They didn't know, she realized. No one had reached them to tell
them the truth. She sighed heavily, unsure of how to announce her presence
without being shot. The problem was solved for her though when she shifted
her weight to the left and caused the floorboards to squeak loudly beneath
her feet.
Mulder's response was instantaneous,
whirling around and pulling out his gun in one fluid movement. He shouted
nervously in the woman's direction, demanding that she identify herself
and to come out, threatening with gunfire if she refused. Ever so slowly,
the woman pushed open the door, not wanting to startle him into firing.
"Don't shoot!" She begged. "I'm unarmed. I'm only here to help you."
Mulder looked disbelievingly
at his partner who had retrieved her own gun and also held it poised to
fire at the closet. Finally, the door opened all the way and the blonde
woman who had earlier claimed to be Dana Scully stood in the half light
from the window on the other side of the room. She held up her arms in
surrender and took a cautious step forward.
"I know where your son is," she stated flatly. "He's not in any danger."
Mulder and Scully looked
at each other again for a brief second before Scully turned back to the
woman, gun still held steadily pointed at her head. "Prove it."
“I don’t know,
guys,” Chuck Burks murmured. “Since we don’t even know if
psi waves even exist, I don’t know how easily you’d be able to identify
them.”
“But, look, Doc,”
Doggett protested. “Infrared and ultraviolet light can be detected, right?
So why not this?”
The bespectacled
scientist blinked. “Though the best guess is that psi
energy may fall somewhere below radiowaves
on the electromagnetic spectrum, it would travel in instantaneous bursts
that would scarcely register unless you knew precisely what you were monitoring
for and were continuously monitoring for it.”
Doggett sighed.
“But,” Monica piped
up, “what if the transmission were sustained for at least five minutes,
and had traveled possibly across country?”
Burks’ eyes popped
open. “That actually happened?”
“And the transmissions
reached at least two major cities, including D.C.? And we have a reasonably
precise time for that transmission? And we have reason to believe that the
sustained signal was jammed by an even stronger psi
wave? Wouldn’t that have left a fairly distinct signature?”
Chuck Burks dropped
onto a nearby stool. “I may be in love.”
Monica beamed,
then arched her brows challengingly at Doggett. He looked quickly away,
an embarrassed smile cracking his reddening face.
“Oh, and we had
a second transmission last night,” she suggested. “Again, with a precise time
window.”
Burks nodded eagerly.
“That would provide a benchmark, of course. My God, to think we could quantify
psi waves...” His round face then darkened.
“Of course, there’s the problem of finding any record of atmospheric electromagnetic
activity during the period of time you’re talking about.”
“Well, that’s
kinda how you’re supposed to fit in,” Doggett interjected. “You
used to help Mulder a lot, you
kinda travel in the same group of, ah...”
“Flakes,” Burks
supplied, grinning with what appeared to be pride. “You’re thinking arrays,
dishes to detect any extraterrestrial transmissions or communications, Sure
I know a lot of UFO network people, and even a few with the resources to monitor
radiowaves. But I think you’re looking for a
peashooter to kill an elephant when you have an, um, elephant gun already
at your disposal.”
“What?” Doggett
asked.
“September 11,
Agent Doggett,” the scientist pronounced. “Ever since the
I-85 South: Outside
The woman's name was Julia Hall. She'd been working out of a base in
"I never agreed with Their practices," Julia
stated firmly, "but when I threatened to quit because of what I believed in,
They threatened my life. I was grateful for that fire at El Rico," she admitted.
"It set me free."
She gazed out the window at the flat passing landscape, up at the enormous
western sky, and for a moment, she let herself get lost in it. "There are
others like me." One finger drew lazily across the cool glass, marking
the line of the horizon.
Mulder's interest was piqued--
he had wondered often about the consequences of the massacre at El Rico,
about what had happened to all the levels of power. Still, he knew better
than to trust anyone who knew about the project, whether they had been liberated
from it or not.
"Did you kill that couple? The Van de Kamps
?" he asked.
In the back seat, Julia shook her head. "No. They were killed by a group
of men similar to the ones I worked for-- maybe even some of the same men,
I don't know anymore. I was sent back to wait for you, to bring you to
William. I wasn't expecting... I didn't think anyone else knew where he
was. Apparently I was wrong."
The guilt in the woman's voice was not lost on either
Mulder or Scully. Had she gotten the couple killed? Led them to
William's adoptive parents?
"They're looking for you," she said after a moment. "They want to kill
you."
Julia watched Scully's head fall wearily against the headrest as
Mulder nodded. They knew this already then, that they were being
hunted. She wondered if they knew how close they had come to being found.
"It's their primary concern now, to find you. That's why they went after
William, why they killed the Van de Kamps to
get information they didn't have. We're not sure how much they know about
our operation, but they're certain that if you get William back, you'll become
practically untraceable, unreachable. People with nothing to lose have
no leverage to be held against them."
Scully sighed heavily in the front seat. "Where are
your interests now?" Her voice was tired, wary.
Julia met Scully's eyes in the rearview mirror. "In
saving the world."
“This can’t leave
the room, John, goddamnit, I mean it,” Col.
Randolph Hervey said, low and emphatically.
“Absolutely,” Doggett
vowed.
“I mean, I know
I owe you from
“Randy, you don’t
owe me crap. We did what we did back then, and you were watching my back,
too. I just need some help. There’s lives at stake, maybe a half dozen,
maybe dozens, I don’t know. Just tell me, can you do it?”
Doggett’s former
Marine buddy rubbed his smooth-shaven face. “We’ve been monitoring electromagnetic
frequencies ever since 9-11, in D.C.,
“Could you or your
guys single out any weird signals at a specific time – I mean, something
totally different from radiowaves, radar, anything
like that.”
“What’s this ‘weird
signal’?” Hervey said.
Doggett sighed.
“First of all, could you do it?”
The colonel leaned
back in his chair, intrigued now. “My guys can pick up a fart at a Marilyn
Manson concert. Spill.”
“
Psi waves. Electromagnetic energy created by psychic activity. I
need to know if you can track it back to its source. One pulse somewhere around
11:45 p.m. night before last, here in
Hervey froze; his right eyebrow was the first part of his face to
thaw. “You know, John, I’ve kept up with the guys in the company, and I’ve
kept up with your career in the Bureau. They told me the brass’s had it
in for you, and now you’re stuck in some basement office doing some
crazyass supernatural shitwork.”
Doggett smiled.
“Yeah, that’s about right. What’s your point, Randy?”
“Just that you
sound like you’re gunning for a Section Eight, John. Psychic activity? C’mon.
You gotta pull out of this nosedive, buddy.
You want, I’ll see what strings I can pull...”
“Look, you can’t
help me, I’ll let myself out.” The agent headed for the door.
Randy held up a
hand. “OK, OK, just hold your ass. Didn’t question you when you saved my ass
in
Doggett grinned.
“Semper fi, Randy.”
“
Semper fi.”
“You owe me one,”
Monica waggled a finger at Doggett. “That was Leyla
. Nothing more on Jon Petrovsky – the most
interesting match was a Department of Corrections employee in my old home
state of
“Or warming up Old Sparky for tomorrow’s high-voltage
hijinks,” Doggett suggested. “Who is this
Petrovsky? I wish we could send a signal in to Gibson and find out.
Meanwhile, let’s hope we hear from Randy. I gotta
admit, I don’t like the odds.”
“‘
Once there was a little old ant, tried to move a rubber tree plant
...’” Monica begin to sing. Her partner pulled open a drawer of
Mulder’s old desk and pulled out his sidearm.
“Keep that up,
and you’ll be pushin’ up daisies,” Doggett warned
in a fairly creditable John Wayne. Monica laughed, then suddenly stopped.
“What?”
“Oh, nothing, Just...”
“Just what? C’mon,
Monica.”
Monica frowned.
“I guess I was just thinking about Anita Yoruba’s ‘dream’ about her daughter,
after Melinda disappeared. Remember, she saw a field full of yellow flowers?
People trying to dig their way out? Melinda’s psychic messages usually come
across in some subconscious dream language, but what if that field of flowers
were real? What if it’s a clue to her location?”
Doggett leaned
back. “Great, so all we have to do is pinpoint
and search every field of daisies in the continental
Monica shook her
head. “Daisies are white, aren’t they? No, I’ve got another idea that might
at least give us a region to focus on. You still got the card for that
“Pike,” Doggett
corrected. “Carter Pike.” He dug in his jacket pockets and emerged with a
business card. He frisbeed it to Monica’s desk.
She went to work on the phone.
“Yes, Agent Reyes,”
Pike recalled, in a schoolboy voice she didn’t entirely like. “I was going
to call you – and your partner, of course, I mean whoever answered first
– but we had a double homicide yesterday. I heard back from the Wisconsin
Horticultural Society about that pollen we took from Rob Halverson’s body.”
Monica flashed
an excited look to Doggett, who was still baffled. “What’d you find?”
“Sunflowers,” Pike
announced importantly.
“Sunflowers,” Monica
whispered to Doggett.
“Sunflowers,” Doggett
mumbled, to no one in particular.
“But not just your
garden-variety sunflowers, Agent,” Pike hastened. “The guy at the Society
was able to isolate the sunflower pollen to a commercial cultivar – a type
they grow for sunflower oil. Now, there are other production areas, but
North and
“We will, Carter,”
Monica promised. “Thank you so much. You may have given us a tremendous
break.”
The line was silent.
“Gee, really? You mean, an actual break? Hey, could you hold on for a second.
I think Jimmy’s still in.”
“Carter, I have
to pursue this lead. Thanks.” Monica cradled the phone as Pike began to sputter.
She smiled at Doggett with a look of affectionate triumph. “City boy. I
think wherever they’ve got Gibson and Melinda is somewhere near a commercial
sunflower farm, probably in North or
Doggett nodded
appreciatively, a facetious smirk on his face. “That
oughtta narrow things down. You wanna
be the one asks Kersh if we can borrow a few
thousand agents to scour the
“I can tell you
what the answer to that request would be, already,” a coolly disapproving
voice interrupted. Doggett and Reyes looked up to see Deputy Director
Kersh in the doorway, briefcase in hand. He walked in, scanning
the office. “Well, this is an improvement. Looks more like an FBI office
and less like the adolescent clubhouse your predecessor
Mulder used to keep.”
“I’m happy you
approve,” Monica said, unsmiling.
Kersh regarded her mildly. “I can see your partner is having an
attitudinal influence on you, Agent Reyes. It’s neither very becoming nor
terribly productive for your professional image. I was headed out for the
evening, John, when I realized you never did give me an answer regarding
that opportunity at advancement we discussed. You ready to beam back to Earth
yet?”
Doggett glanced
at Monica, who stared back expectantly. “I’m in the middle of a case, sir.
I’d like to wrap it up before I give you an answer.”
“Yes, your ‘case,’”
Kersh savored. “I received a very interesting
call about a half-hour ago from a friend of mine at the Pentagon. He’s worked
with us on a few cases involving you, and he was extremely curious about
why one of my agents was closeted with one of his colonels. Would you care
to illuminate me on the connection between your missing persons case and
the military?”
Doggett struggled
to remain blasé. “I’m just following up a few leads. Probably lead nowhere.”
Kersh nodded. “As I assumed. However, John, you might be advised
of this: As a member of the anti-terrorism task force, you would be working
closely with our military counterparts. Credibility is crucial to that relationship,
and I’d hope you’d do nothing to damage that credibility. The clock’s ticking,
John. Train’s leaving the station. You know, the one that gets your life
back on track. Good night, agents.”
The office was
silent for nearly a minute after the director left, as Doggett stared at
his desktop. When he broke the spell, he caught Monica’s eye, and the look
there made him look quickly away.
**
“Agent Doggett,”
Jimmy Bond grinned, as he swung the metal warehouse door open. “How you
been?”
“Fine, Jimmy,”
Doggett said, pumping the young man’s hand. The agent had been concerned
about Bond in the weeks following the death of Byers,
Langly , and Frohike. The Lone Gunmen
had been Jimmy’s heroes, and had awakened a crusading spirit in him. While
they hadn’t necessarily been Doggett’s idea of a Sunday
Superbowl party, the trio had lost their lives in the service of
their country and humanity, and he had hoped the kid would somehow keep
their spirit alive.
“C’mon in, man,”
Jimmy said, ushering the agent into the Gunmen’s warehouse/editorial office/command
center he had inherited. Doggett was gratified to see a crew of mostly college-aged
kids toiling at computers. “Yeah, it’ll never be what the guys had
goin’, but after we decided to put
The Lone Gunman on the web, we started getting all kinds of calls from
fans of the guys who wanted to help.”
“We?” Doggett asked,
as one of Jimmy’s “staff” stared suspiciously at the
narc-like agent.
“Oh my, the gendarmes,”
a familiarly sardonic British voice materialized. Doggett looked to the
end of the bank of computers, where Yves Adele Harlow was leaning on a monitor.
“What brings the intrepid John Doggett to
The Lone Gunman?”
“Ms. Harlow,” Doggett
returned, knowing the name was an alias he’d probably never crack or even
have the desire to. He hadn’t seen the exotically lovely adventuress since
the guys’ service at
“I’m
kinda jammed up on the case I’m working,” Doggett said. “I wanted
to check and see if maybe your had any underground intelligence on some
kind of conspiracy involving a group of scientists and psychic research.
It looks like they may be into human experimentation, including a couple
of kids. I’m guessing there must be some money behind it, but I’m not sure
where to start.”
“Follow the money,”
“So far, two university
profs and, weird enough, a high school science
teacher.”
Jimmy winced. “Yeah,
Kimmy.”
“What?” a thin,
bespectacled man peeked from behind a nearby terminal. Doggett recognized
him as an unpleasant young man nicknamed Kimmy
the Geek who’d assisted the Gunmen a few times. “You two talking about
me again? I didn’t owe Frohike and the guys
big-time, I’d be outta here like a tachyon out
of an electron field.”
“Kimmy, we need you do some deep background,”
Jimmy said.
“Oh, yeah, when
we need a little cyberpower, you don’t mind having
me around,” he sneered.
“Oh, hell, Jimmy,”
Yves breathed, reaching for a keyboard behind her. “I’ll do it myself.”
“Please,”
Kimmy sneered, falling for the bait. “Lara Croft here couldn’t crack
the word jumbles in the Post. What’s your dad need,
Jimbo?”
Yves walked over and
put a hand on Kimmy’s neck. She squeezed slightly,
and the computer nerd grimaced. “Maybe he needs to know who hacked into the
700 Club site last week and made Pamela Anderson Praymate
of the Month? Maybe he needs to know who arranged for $40,000 to be electronically
transferred from the National Rifle Association’s bank account to the People
for the Ethical Treatment of Animals’ anti-fur campaign a few months ago.
What we want is for you to find any connection between the three names Agent
Doggett’s about to give you. Probably corporate or federal grant awards.”
Kimmy snorted. “Why don’t you send me for some Starbuck’s? It would
be tougheraaahhhh!” His face contorted as Yves’s
fingers tightened. “OK, man, comin’ right up.”
Yves looked to Doggett,
who named the dead scientists and the missing teacher.
“You say these guys
are experimenting on kids?” Jimmy asked, indignantly.
“Kids, a few adults,”
Doggett supplied. “They all seem to have some sort of psychic abilities,
and we think maybe this conspiracy thinks it may have the key to, I don’t
know, boosting their powers.”
“Well, we
gotta get ‘em outta
there,” Jimmy said fervently.
“Jimmy,” Yves sighed.
“That would be Agent Doggett’s job.”
“The guys would’ve helped
him.”
“Ah, ha,
Kimmy comes through again,” their noxious colleague crowed.
“What do you have,
Kimmy?” Yves demanded.
“Gale Lower and Albert
Caswell have both gotten as assload of grant
money from World Enrichment – that’s a non-profit foundation some big energy
company started back in the ‘80s to buy off its corporate guilt--”
“Boycott Nike tomorrow,”
Yves suggested.
“Anyway,”
Kimmy continued, looking nervously at the dark and potentially lethal
beauty, “I was a little thrown off about the Margolis woman, the teacher,
but then I ran across a Joseph Margolis who got a $1.2 million World Enrichment
grant in ’98 for some research on electromagnetic anomalies. My bet he’s
her old man.”
Doggett looked
up sharply. “She lives alone; maybe her ex. Any way you can find me a list
of all the World Enrichment grant recipients for the last five or so years?”
Kimmy grinned smugly and punched a key. A sheet of paper fed into
a nearby deskjet printer. “One step ahead of
you, Commissar.”
“Thanks,” Doggett said, hopping up and heading for the printer. He stopped
halfway there, and turned to the hacker. “Did you say World Enrichment is
run by an energy company? Which one?”
Kimmy told him with disdain,
either for the company or the FBI man. But Doggett was too dazed to notice.
William was tired and cranky, sitting alone in a small playpen filled with
toys, but he was not uncomfortable. His surroundings were strange, and
they smelled funny, different from home, but the strangers he had met here
kept him well fed, kept his diaper changed, and gave him plenty of toys
to play with.
They all seemed to know his name, reassuring him with friendly coos and
tickles and tweaks of his nose. Still, he wanted to climb out of his little
playpen. He wanted to go exploring in this new place.
He was entertaining himself by pressing the keys of a tiny, brightly colored
electric piano when the sound of the door opening startled him. He looked
up to see the face of one of the strangers approaching him with a smile.
William was about to turn back to his piano, when he spotted someone else
entering the room, someone he recognized... someone he hadn't seen in a
long time.
William grinned at the familiar face, showing off all seven of his teeth,
and raised his arms to be lifted from the tiny closed off area.
Scully rushed over to scoop up her son, swinging him up and into her arms.
He was smiling brightly at her, a sight that brought tears to her eyes.
"Oh, William," she whispered, clutching him to her tightly, "I've missed
you so much." She placed a kiss on the top of his head before pulling back
to look at him. "You've gotten so big!"
The baby continued to smile at her, smacking her shoulder with a fat palm,
a sign of greeting, of recognition. He didn't understand the words she
spoke, but he knew his own name, and he knew the sound of her voice when
she said it. This was mommy, he realized, the one from before, the one
he had been missing.
Behind her there was another stranger, but one who looked at him differently
than the others. He watched William with a look of such awe, radiating
love in thick rolling waves.
"Hi William," Mulder whispered, holding his
arms out to the little boy. Scully smiled through her tears and passed the
baby to his father. He went willingly, happy to rest in the arms of the stranger
that already seemed to know and love him. "I'm your dad,"
Mulder said, pointing to himself with the arm not clutching the
child. "Daddy." He tapped his chest twice,
once for each syllable.
William beamed up at him, making a gurgling noise and smacking his father
chest with his flattened palm, the same gesture he'd used on Scully's shoulder.
Mulder laughed, tickling the baby.
"Guess he can't talk yet," Mulder said as an
aside to Scully. She smirked and tucked herself into his side so that she
too could tickle and touch their son.
Then, as if on cue, William piped up. "
Mamama." He reached out and smacked his mother on the shoulder
again.
Scully's eyes went as wide as saucers; she looked up at
Mulder to see if what he had said was real. He was looking back
at her with the same astonished expression she wore.
"That'll teach me to speak too soon."
They both laughed then, out of relief, out of joy out of sheer happiness
at seeing their son again, and though he couldn't know what they were laughing
at, William joined them in their giggles.
“North by northwest,”
Doggett repeated as he steered onto the Yorubas
’ street.
“Like the Hitchcock
movie,” Monica confirmed. Doggett’s Marine buddy had called the office while
Doggett was out to report that several unidentifiable frequencies – possibly
the mythical psi waves – had been intercepted
in
Col.
Hervey reported his men were still analyzing the
“Maybe just like
the Hitchcock movie,” Doggett said. “Remember where Cary Grant and James
Mason wound up at the end of the movie?
Monica looked puzzled.
“You’re not going to tell me, are you?”
Doggett turned
the car into the Yoruba’s long drive. “It’s just a hunch, Monica, and if
I’m wrong, this’ll blow up in my face. I don’t want it to take you, too.”
“We’re partners,
John. At least, for now.”
“You
gotta just trust me,” Doggett implored. But Monica said nothing
more until they reached the Yorubas’ front door.
Enrique Yoruba
was coldly silent as Monica settled in the living room with his wife and
a guide to North American flowers. When he and Doggett reached his den,
the CEO brusquely indicated a leather chair and stepped behind his desk.
“I guess you know
we wouldn’t be talking right now if Anita didn’t believe this bullshit psychic
witchcraft you and your partner have been babbling, and my brother weren’t
so insistent,” Yoruba said resentfully.
“I’d think you’d
be eager to explore any avenue, no matter how ridiculous, if there might
be a chance we’ll find Melinda.” Doggett took a breath and leapt in. “Unless
you don’t care if we find her.”
Yoruba was stunned. “What the hell are you getting at, Agent?”
“It just seems you’ve have a very obstructive attitude in a case where
I’d expect your full cooperation, and I had to wonder why. Then I thought
about a dream one of Melinda’s professors had. One a lot like the dreams
your wife claims your daughter have transmitted through her. You know a
Gale Lower, got himself killed a few nights ago?”
Yoruba blinked quickly and rallied hastily enough for Doggett to know he
was lying. “Never heard of him. Melinda never mentioned her professors.”
“Funny, cause Lower got a grant a few years back from World Enrichment,
your company’s research foundation. You’re on the board of the foundation,
aren’t you?”
“I’m chairman,” he said evenly. “What of it?”
“This Lower, I think he’s responsible for your daughter’s disappearance.
But until now, I thought Melinda’s boyfriend, Steve Griggs, unintentionally
fingered her to Lower, identified her psychic abilities. Now I wonder if
you didn’t see a way to kill two birds with one stone.”
Yoruba’s eyes were ablaze.
“I’m about two seconds away from throwing your ass out of this house, FBI
or no FBI.”
“Your wife always received Melinda’s messages of threats or danger,” Doggett
noted. “She seemed to be very close to her, even on a subconscious level.
So why, after years of communicating psychically only with Mrs. Yoruba,
why would Melinda send one of her messages to a guy she’d only known a few
months? It’s not distance, ‘cause after she was kidnapped, it was your wife
she ‘contacted.’ This dream Lower had was very disturbing. Melinda was assaulted,
sexually, by Bruce Springsteen.”
“That was why you wanted to know if Anita knew Springsteen,” Yoruba laughed
harshly. “You’re absolutely insane, Agent.”
“Know what Springsteen’s nickname is? The Boss. All your daughter’s dreams
were full of symbolism, puns, just like regular dreams. Your brother tells
me you and Melinda were never real close, that she always joked that you
were more like the CEO, the boss of the family.” Doggett looked Yoruba directly
in the eye. “Only reason I can think of why Melinda shared that dream with
a stranger, a guy she was beginning to trust, in authority, was because
she couldn’t tell Mrs. Yoruba. Melinda loved her, and she knew the truth
would destroy her. I don’t know when, I don’t know for how long, but I think
you abused your daughter.”
Yoruba’s face was red, his breathing ragged. “You get the fuck out of my
house!”
“When Lower found out about your daughter’s abilities, he called you. You’ve
probably been worried half to death Melinda would speak up one day. Maybe
she’s even repressed the memory, and you figured she’d remember. But you
decided this was a way to permanently get rid of the threat. You gave them
your child. If what I think is going on, you probably even told yourself
you were doing it for humanity.”
Yoruba sat down behind his desk, a decision worrying his features. Finally,
he made it. “You think you can prove any of that with a dead man’s nightmare?”
Doggett rose, grinning mirthlessly. “It’s a line of investigation, Mr.
Yoruba. I can push and pull at the seams, ask a question here, another there.
And when I find your daughter – and I intend to find her – I think a shrink
can get at all the Goth lifestyle and the drinking and the depression. Or...”
“Or?” Yoruba echoed.
“Or you tell me where they took those kids, those people. You tell me who’s
involved in this, and how we get Melinda and the rest of them back. And
maybe I let you walk away from this with the promise that Melinda gets the
best psychiatric treatment you can buy and that you don’t ever look fucking
cross-eyed at her again.”
Yoruba’s eyes narrowed. “That’s what this is all about, isn’t it, Doggett?
You don’t think a man like me can get your file with a snap of his fingers?
You were asleep at the wheel, and some pervert took your kid, and he wound
up dead. That what this is? You trying to absolve yourself of the guilt?”
Doggett looked down at the multimillionaire for an eternal moment. “OK.
Why don’t we just ask Mrs. Yoruba if she ever saw anything out of whack between
you and Melinda? Any awkward silences at the breakfast table? Any long absences
in the middle of the night? Let’s have a family pow
-wow.”
“You bring Anita into this, and I’ll see you dead,” Yoruba said so softly
that Doggett had to strain. “Your job. Your reputation. Your life. All dead.
Now you get out.”
Doggett nodded. “You got ‘til 9 tomorrow to give me a call. Then I start
pushing and pulling.” The agent strode out of the den.
Monica and Anita Yoruba were sipping coffee, the flower guide on the coffee
table before them. “They’re sunflowers, John,” Monica announced, excited.
“Do you really think this could help?” Anita asked. “Agent Reyes was telling
me what you’ve managed to work out, and although it seems incredible, I’m
willing to believe. I have to believe, Agent Doggett.”
“I hope we can live up to your faith,” Doggett said, trying to inject a
true note of confidence and feeling somehow guilty for the confidence he was
keeping to extort Enrique Yoruba.
A plump older woman in a black house dress appeared behind Doggett’s shoulder.
The Yorubas’ housekeeper handed the agent a
manila envelope. “Mr. Yoruba said he forgot to give this to you. He said
he didn’t know where to use it, but that it ought to help you find what
you want.”
Doggett, confused, opened the envelope flap and pulled out a thick plastic
card. It took him only a split second to recognize it as a magnetized security
pass. To the place where his daughter was being held prisoner? But
Yoruba’d been so adamant just a few minutes before...
“Monica,” he said urgently, rushing back down the hall toward the den.
Doggett was less than three feet from the heavy oak door when the shot
rang out...
**
“I blew it,” Doggett
muttered after they were back in the car and the locals had left the scene.
Enrique Yoruba’s body had been removed, and Anita Yoruba was under heavy
sedation. “I pushed him too far, and he didn’t see any way out.”
“John,” Monica
murmured, taking his hand. “You couldn’t have anticipated his reaction.
Yoruba’s been living with what he did to Melinda for years. Maybe he just
couldn’t any more. His last act – giving you that key – was his penance.
You did what you did to save that girl. What Yoruba did was what he felt
he had to do.”
“And what do we
have to show for it all, Monica?” he asked, looking her in the eye. “A key
to a door we may never find. More questions and not enough answers. That’s
all we do, Monica: Answer one question and find two more. And that,” Doggett
said, pointing to the Yoruba’s home, “is the result.
Mulder loved the chase; I need the answers. Well, I’m sorry, but
I’m done chasing my tail.”
“John...”
“No,” he said,
gently but firmly. “No, Monica. Let’s go.”
8:01 a.m.
Calvin felt refreshed
when he came back, which was strange, because he hadn’t physically left
the premises. But just the same, he’d learned under the unwitting tutelage
of Clyde Crashcup that even mentally stretching
his legs now and then was a nice change.
Of course, his
new mental freedom meant nothing in terms of physical freedom. The place
he had been, of course, did exist on another physical plane, but there was
but one door in and one door back out, and neither was located outside this
prison or hospital or guinea pig farm or wherever they were keeping him.
Calvin in his latest “trip” had discovered at last where death had taken
at least some of the millions, billions of humans who’d ceased to exist
on this plane over the species’ history. That insight might have provided
some solace to the folks in the plant where Calvin
Welles had dealt out death like teenagers handed out
Chik-Fil-A nuggets at the mall. It might have given old Donnie
Welles something moist and meaty to chew on. But to Calvin
Welles, the revelation that death didn’t end in icy, cold nothingness
was slightly disappointing. It made murder meaningless, and took a lot of
the fun out of what he planned to do...
Undisclosed location
"What has happened?"
Strughold stood in the center
of the room, demanding answers from the Suited Man.
"We failed," was the only reply he had to offer.
"And why is that?" The older man's cigar was burning away, forming a long
cylindrical ash which threatened to drop at any second to the finely carpeted
floor.
"Someone else arrived before us. The child was gone by the time we put
together the information." The Suited Man kept one hand in his pocket, nervously
flipping his silver dollar between his shaking fingers. He risked his life
in returning to the group with such news, despite the fact that it could
not have been prevented.
"Who?" Anger was seething
in Strughold's eyes. Failure was not an option
when it came to Mulder and Scully-- their lives
were too valuable, too dangerous to be left alone with the knowledge they
held.
The Suited Man just shook his head before looking up to meet
Strughold's eyes. "It appears we have a new enemy."
There was a rustle of movement in the room as the other men shifted uncomfortably
in their seats, turning to look at one another, as if someone might know
to what party the Suited Man was referring.
"Do we know who is among them? Where they are located?"
Again the Suited Man's eyes fell to the floor and he shook his head. "No."
4:14 p.m.
“John Doggett,
you son of a bitch!” Sal Comatello exclaimed,
engulfing Doggett in his burly arms. He squeezed the agent, making Doggett’s
eyes almost bug.
“Skipper, you’re
bustin’ a couple ribs here,” Doggett protested,
laughing and slapping his former captain on the back. Sal released him.
“Hey, you
gotta see Gina,” the gray-haired block of a man exclaimed, grabbing
Doggett’s arm and tugging him inside their two-story brick. The
Comatellos had lived a half-mile from John and Barbara Doggett when
John was on The Job, and Sal and Gina had been their surrogate parents when
Luke’s disappearance and subsequent murder had virtually paralyzed them.
The Doggetts’ marriage hadn’t survived the tragedy,
but Doggett’s bond with the Comatellos had remained
strong even after he’d left the force for the Bureau.
“God, Johnny Baby,”
Gina shrieked, emerging from the kitchen and crushing him against the torso
that had been the talk of the precinct 20 years ago. “You’re finally filling
out a little. Sal, doesn’t he look like he’s filling out?”
“What, I’m Jenny
Craig now?” Sal snorted. “He looks good, is all I know. Gina’s been
lookin’ forward to fillin’ you up ever
since you called this morning. I told her make the
saltimbucco you love so much, but she’s been
watchin’ the Food Network 24/7 and she wanted to try some dish she
saw that Emory guy make.”
“
Emeril,” Gina scolded, very likely for the hundredth time. Sal was
too sharp not to know the famed chef, and Gina knew it, but this was their
ritual, the banter that cemented their familiarity and love. Doggett felt
his chest loosening already.
A half-hour later,
Gina set platters of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and cream gravy before
Doggett. “You’re servin’ him the Colonel’s,”
Sal stated blankly. “He drives all the way from D.C., and you’re
givin’ him Colonel Frickin’ Sanders.
This is what the Great Emory taught you, huh?”
“
Emeril was cooking southern that night, which is almost like French
or Thai around here,” Gina replied with dignity. She turned to Doggett.
“It ain’t covered in tomato sauce and peppers,
he won’t say boo to it.”
Sal studied Doggett
curiously as his wife selected a thigh and a breast for their guest. As
the agent tucked into his mashed potatoes (Gina had improved on
Emeril’s recipe with a healthy dose of garlic and oregano), the
retired cop coughed loudly.
“So what’s the
story, John?” he asked. “I ain’t
complainin’, you want to visit your old skipper. But something’s
gnawin’ at your gut beside Gina’s gravy.”
Doggett swallowed
his potatoes. He mulled the possibility of telling the
Comatellos about the case, then sighed at the picture of Sal calling
Bellevue to cart him off. “Just thinkin’ about
a change of career, I guess. Just doesn’t feel like I can get a solid grip
on anything any more.”
“Ha. You felt like
you had a grip on things at the precinct, in the Marines? Man, you
musta known somethin’ I didn’t.” Sal
ripped a piece of breaded skin from his chicken and popped it into his shadowed
jowls. “Thing made you a great cop, John, was that you couldn’t get a grip
on somethin’, you kept
feelin ’ all around, peekin’ under its
belly until you found a soft place to dig your fingers in up to the last
knuckle.”
Gina made a “Please;
we’re eating” face, but remained silent. They’d worked up a good rhythm
over nearly 50 years of marriage.
Sal poured a river
of gravy over his potatoes. “You know, I heard about you at the Bureau.
You been doin’ your job too well without
kissin’ the right asses, and they wanna
give you the brown stick. Same old story – shit floats. I had a lieutenant
maybe 40 years ago had a real hard-on for me. Didn’t like wops. But he couldn’t
get nothin’ on me, so he starts
givin’ me every shit job in the precinct, every lowdown, dead-end,
malodorous case he could find. You know what I did? I cleared every one
of those fuckin’ dead-end cases, and Lt.
Melman got his nuts caught in a vice raid about a year later. You
know the rest.
The old cop waggled
a drumstick at Doggett. “What I’m sayin’ is,
you get buried up to your eyebrows in shit, it begins to affect your vision
– unless you make up your mind to dig in and make the best of it. Life hands
you shit, make fertilizer.”
“Sal,” Gina finally interrupted. “You maybe
wanna save the philosophy until after the cannoli
?”
Doggett grinned,
then remembered. “Hey, before we dig into those cannoli
, can I use the phone? I forgot my cell, and I was
gonna call Mon--, my partner after I got here.”
“Sure, Sweetie,”
Gina said, flashing a smile at Sal in recognition of Doggett’s slip. “Use
the kitchen phone, Johnny – Bill Gates here won’t replace the old portable.
It’s one of those antique models – the people across the street keep picking
up the signal on their radio. One time, I come home from shopping, and I
thought Sal had finally called into one of those talk radio shows he likes.
‘ Til I realized they wouldn’t let him say shit
– whoops, stuff – like that on the radio.”
Doggett located the wall-mounted
phone as Sal’s loud laughter began to fade. After punching in his calling
card numbers, he finally connected to Monica’s machine.
“It’s John; I got
here OK,” he said following the beep. “I’m having dinner with Sal and Gina,
and they’ll probably ask me to stay here for the night. So if you need anything,
just call he--” Doggett stopped dead as something Gina had said hit him.
He stared at the phone for several seconds, until the terminal beep of Monica’s
answering tape broke the spell.
He pulled the calling
card back out of his wallet and rapidly punched his codes in. Monica’s warm
voice informed him that he was free to leave another message.
“Yeah, Monica.
I think I might have an idea how to find the kids. I’m
headin’ back as soon as dinner’s over. Meantime, if you could start
checking on the Internet, all the South Dakota newspaper sites...”
7:08 a.m.
“
Murdo, South Dakota,” Monica told Doggett as he walked into the
basement office. “Five fires of unexplained origin, all reported within
an hour. All but one was relatively minor – a grain elevator was totaled.
The fires occurred two days before Rob Halverson’s body was found in Rome.
When Caswell was dying, I thought he was trying to tell me he’d been murdered,
which I thought was pretty obvious. He actually must’ve been trying to say
‘ Murdo.’” She leaned back and smiled curiously
at her partner. “So, give. How’d you know?”
Doggett sat on
the edge of his desk. “We’re goin’ on the premise
this psychic energy Gibson and the rest of them give off is like
radiowaves. But some radiowaves go off
target, right? Like the way the car radio picks up a station 200 miles away
on a stormy night. Or the way a radio picks up conversation from a cheap
portable phone.
“So if Halverson
had one of his little pyrokinetic fits with
his kidnappers – I mean, why else would they kill him, right? – why couldn’t
some of his psi waves go wild, start bouncing
around the immediate area, maybe start a few fires? Well, this
Murdo sounds like a hole in the road – can’t be too big. We
gotta assume they’re operating either in a rural area near the town,
or in a facility big and secure enough to keep a half-dozen, maybe a dozen
prisoners.”
Monica held up
a slip she had scribbled in her research. “I think I may have a starting
point. A former distribution center, closed about five years ago, just five
miles outside Murdo. The owner is
SynerCom Inc.”
“CEO, the late
Enrique Yoruba,” Doggett completed, astonished. He grinned sheepishly. “You
know, Monica, I think you’re beginning to get the hang of this job.”
**
“And on the basis
of this report,” Kersh murmured, tapping the
folder with his index finger, “you seriously expect me to authorize the manpower
and resources you’re requesting? Do you have any evidence, physical evidence,
to indicate these people are being held in this...Murdo
?”
Reyes set her jaw.
“I believe we’ve created a logical chain.”
“Do you?”
Kersh inquired. “I see nothing here but science fiction and wild
theories. I don’t even see a concrete link between the victims. You both know
how many hundreds of individuals go missing each day in this country. Your
suppositions might appear to suggest a desperate bid to salvage the X-Files.”
“You know better than that!”
Doggett snapped.
The deputy director
eyed him calmly. “Unfortunately, I do. You know, I could understand motives
such as self-preservation or ambition. This is sheer rudderless, reckless
fishing, and it demonstrates that we’ve allowed you two to nurse this obsession
of yours for too long. Well, Agent Doggett, news of your role in Rick Yoruba’s
death has persuaded the director that the X-Files is far more harmful to
the Bureau than anyone had ever imagined. It’s only a matter of time ‘til
word comes down and you two are reassigned.
“And Agent Doggett? I’m afraid the director also has decided that you would
be a liability rather than an asset to the anti-terrorism task force. Train’s
left the station, John, and you’re left standing on the tracks.”
“You’re just going to let those people—” Doggett yelled.
“That’s all,” Kersh said, his eyes frosting
over.
“You officious--”
Kersh’s chair banged into his credenza as he leapt from it. “If
you harbor any hope of saving your career, any hope at all, you and your
partner will get the hell out of my office. You hear me?”
Doggett stood silently
as Kersh’s chest heaved, as his fingers curled
into fists. The agent finally nodded and strode out the door with Monica
in tow.
Doggett leaned
back against the corridor wall and closed his eyes.
“What now?” Monica
asked, arms crossed. “We going to save those people?”
Doggett’s eyes
popped open, and he regarded his partner with a weary smile. “Bet your ass.”
Boulder, Colorado
Their new friends had provided Mulder and Scully
with food and shelter for the evening, along with toys and additional supplies
for William. What they hadn't yet provided were answers.
So far, they had only been assured that "in time" their questions would
be addressed. Mulder was beginning to get antsy,
pacing back and forth across the small motel-style room.
Scully placed William, who now slept soundly, onto the bed and
surrounded him with pillows so he would not roll off. She stood, crossing
the room to stand in Mulder's path. He stopped
when he got to her, crossed his arms over his chest.
"I don't like this," he said. They had heard nothing from anyone in nearly
two hours and silence made Mulder nervous.
Scully reached out and put one hand on each of his biceps.
"Mulder, calm down. They're probably
just giving us some time." She gave his arms a gentle squeeze and begged
him with her eyes not to worry too much. This was the first time the three
of them had been together in more than a year.
Mulder's eyes drifted over
to the bed where William slept. "I know..." It didn't mean he appreciated
this odd silent treatment they were receiving. When he felt Scully's arms
slide up his shoulders to wrap around his neck, he turned his head back
to face her.
Her expression spoke to him without words. 'Don't worry. They wouldn't
have given us William back if they'd meant to hurt us. Someone will explain
soon.'
Mulder was eternally grateful
for her rationale in times like these. Without it, he surely would have
gone mad years ago. He bent to give her a kiss in thanks, uncrossing his
arms to wrap them around her back.
Just then, there was a knock at the door. Mulder
and Scully stepped back from each other.
"Come in," Scully called.
When the door opened, Jeffrey Spender stepped cautiously into the room.
He looked the same as he had at Mulder's trial,
but the sight of him was still shocking, even with prosthetic skin and a
wig.
"I heard you were looking for answers," he said, his voice rough.
Neither Mulder nor Scully moved an inch.
**
It was Mulder who finally broke the awkward
silence that had settled over the small room. "It was you. You ordered that
William be taken back from the Van de Kamp's ."
Jeffrey stood straight, unwavering. "Yes. I had reason to believe that
he was in danger."
Scully glanced at Mulder before addressing
the disfigured man. "In danger from whom? The
woman that led us here...she implied that it was your actions that alerted
the other men."
He shook his head and gestured that they all sit down at the small table
inside the room. "Please, let me explain."
Scully checked on William before sitting down at the small table beside
Mulder. Jeffrey sat across from them.
"My actions may have inadvertently sped up the process that led the other
men to the Van de Kamps, but the men who killed
them would surely have gotten there on their own. Once they had William,
there would have been no stopping them. They would have used him to get
to you, and all three of you would have died."
Scully's face paled at his words. "But why help us?" There was no doubt
in her mind that what he said was true. What she didn't understand was
why Spender had risked his life and those of his co-workers to save the
three of them.
"Because," he said, "unlike the men who would have killed you, our motives
here are not always entirely selfish..." He looked up into the disbelieving
faces before him, and nodded. "Also, we need your help. You have the final
piece of the puzzle, the key that will put everything into place."
"What key is that?" Mulder sounded skeptical.
"The date."
Mulder understood then.
They needed a timeframe for this anti-apocalyptic scheme they were working
on, a goal, a clock to measure their work by. They needed to know what
they were up against. He nodded as the motives of his half-brother came
together to form a coherent picture.
"What will you give us in return? Anonymity?
Immunity?" Selfish desires were not usually
Mulder's concern, but now there was so much more
at stake. Now there was a family involved.
Jeffrey seemed to understand. "We will do all that we can to protect you,
all of you."
Mulder thought for a moment,
looked at Scully and saw her thoughts reflected in her eyes. Protection
against the men who would destroy them was their top most priority. "Okay,"
he said. "We'll help you."
At that, Jeffrey seemed to relax a great deal. He sighed in relief and
sat back in his chair. "Good. I'm glad we can help each other. There are
too many enemies for either of us to stand alone."
A thought struck Mulder then, something he
hadn't considered before. "How did you know?" he asked. "How did you know
that they would go after William?"
Jeffrey offered him a cryptic smile. "Sometimes the dead speak to us,"
was all he said. It was all Mulder needed to
hear.
Murdo, South Dakota
11 a.m.
The Tall Man deposited
a drop of Calvin Welles’ blood on a slide and
slipped the sandwiched sample under the electron microscope
SynerCom and its project partners had provided. It was state-of-the-art,
as was everything in the Murdo facility – The
Board, as it was called, had spared no expense in the quest for the answers
need to preserve the species.
Of course, the researcher knew from years of scrounging for basic research
grants that these rich and powerful men were somewhat less interested in
the preservation of the species than in the preservation of a customer base,
of a planet’s resources that could be processed and polished into profit.
He recognized as well that man’s survival was secondary to the collection
of scientists The Board had recruited: The almost sexual excitement of unlocking
mankind’s hidden abilities, of opening the doorway to new dimensions, had
eclipsed the life-or-death urgency of their mission.
No one was going to step up and claim a Nobel Prize for the work that had
been done here, tainted as it was by kidnapping and at least one murder.
The Tall Man knew and was deeply disturbed by the realization that none of
these subjects would be leaving the facility. What he and the others dreamed
of was a greater immortality, as the saviors of the human race, the future
engineers of the species.
Covarubias very likely was
the only member of the project team single-mindedly committed to the task
at hand. She was the only one of the group who’d encountered the aliens,
and she had submitted herself to the “black oil” – the alien virus that was
to be the vehicle for subjugating the planet. To Marita
, opening this Pandora’s box was simply the last, best hope Man had to
continue to exist.
The Tall Man’s
fingers shook slightly as he typed in the computer commands to bring
Welles’ leucocytes, erythrocytes, and platelets into view. Of all
the ivory tower academics gathered here in this warehouse in the middle
of nowhere, he was the only one who truly grasped how monumental and monstrous
this work was, and that, once opened, this Pandora’s box could never again
be closed.
The scientist rubbed
his weary eyes and looked at the screen. And gasped. For the next nearly
10 minutes, he sat transfixed, staring at the data Calvin
Welles had made to appear in the cells of his own vital fluid, in
the images that now filled his senses with first depthless horror and then
infinite wonder.
“Ha,” the Tall
Man murmured, finally understanding it all. “Ha.”
**
Marlon Miller rocked
on his cot, sweat pouring from his massive forehead, his fingers tugging
at the edge of his mattress.
It was beginning.
**
It looked like
what it was supposed to be – a sprawling concrete shell, a monument to the
once-again dashed hopes of the citizens of Murdo
, one more industrialized blemish left on the rural landscape after corporate
beancounters had decided that, oops, they’d
made another error in judgment. The SynerCom
North Central Distribution Center facility now sat apparently vacant behind
barbed wire, office windows board, trespassing signs screaming warnings
at the road in black and red san serif lettering.
Fifty feet away,
providing sharp contrast to the gray monotony of the plant, was a massive
field of yellow sunflowers, waving gently under a cloudless cerulean sky.
“So that’s it,”
Doggett said, adjusting his sunglasses as he steered the RV up the isolated
state road toward the building. “How long you need, Chuck?”
“A few minutes,
and I ought to be able to get a reading,” Chuck Burks responded from the trailer
behind the cab, balancing his laptop and a parabolic receiver. The scientist
seldom ventured far beyond his lab, and anxiety tinged his words.
“Glad I had that
extra Pepsi back at the truck stop,” the agent said, yanking the huge vehicle
onto the berm 30 feet from the edge of the
SynerCom lot.
“You know I’d do
it if I could,” Monica told her partner with mock gravity as he turned off
the engine.
Doggett grinned
as he grasped the door handle. “I’m better equipped for a hasty exit.” He
jumped out of the cab, heels crunching into the gravel.
Monica watched
him in the side mirror as he approached the sunflowers. She turned her head
quickly away as he turned his back to the road, looked both ways in the
universal sign language of the public urinator
, and unzipped.
A minute later,
he was back behind the wheel. “I was you, I’d use olive oil or Crisco for
a few months,” Doggett advised Monica as he started the engine and rolled
back onto the blacktop. “They must put something in the pop here. What’d you
get, Chuck?”
“It’s hot, big-time,”
Burks reported, excitedly. “The place is buzzing with juice. I’d say enough
high-tech equipment to stock a Circuit City. I think you got the right address,
Agent.”
“I didn’t see any
obvious surveillance cameras,” Yves Harlow sounded from the back of the
RV. “The place is probably designed more to keep anyone from getting out
than to keep people out, and a lot of outside security might be a
tipoff something funny’s going on.”
“Probably figure
they’re well-enough hidden out here in the wastelands,” Doggett grunted.
“City boy,” Monica
retorted.
“Well, this city
boy could use some country-fried steak,” he said, as the
Murdo exit loomed. “Let’s refuel and reconnoiter.”
**
“Hey, Ben,” the
technician greeted, without energy. Like people crowded together in any closed,
lightless environment for any appreciable length of time, the project’s scientists,
technicians, support personnel, and security force all had become pretty
tired of each other. The technician was poking at the pre-prepared meal the
project had provided – contact with the nearby community was discouraged
(the Board had foreseen the possibility some horny and dejected geneticist
with a few Buds under his belt might start talking shop with some young thing
in a tank top), and thus a Chalupa or BK Broiler
generally was out of the question.
The Tall Man dropped
into the seat opposite the technician, although they were the only two in
the spacious project lounge. The technician stopped masticating for a moment,
then shrugged and continued chewing.
“Ever wonder where
the dead people go?” the scientist queried.
The technician’s
jaws worked a piece of gristle. “Not real religious, Ben.”
“I know,” the scientist
grinned, like a child with a dirty magazine.
The technician
swallowed, eyes immobile. “OK,” he finally sighed. “I’ll bite. Where do
all the dead people go?”
The gun appeared
above the table as if from nowhere.
“Here,” the Tall
Man said, and fired. The technician and his chair flew back. The scientist
waited to see what happened next, and when nothing did, he felt disappointed.
However, they’d
soon find the technician and the body of the guard from whom he had lifted
the gun, and he had a lot to accomplish before the day was done.
**
“Well, the odds
on my surviving my court-martial trial appear to be improving,” Col.
Hervey crackled over the secured line. “The satellite shots show
some steady if not bustling activity inside your ‘abandoned’ facility.”
Doggett’s heart
rate increased. Armed with the global positioning coordinates his old Marine
buddy had supplied courtesy of Chuck Burks, Hervey
had agreed to take an infrared satellite read of the
SynerCom distribution center. What favors the colonel had had to
cash in and excuses he’d had to make to access the classified satellite feed,
Doggett didn’t know. But Hervey seemed oddly
unconcerned.
“How many bodies?”
Doggett asked. Monica and Skinner looked alert, and even the customarily
blasé Harlow raised a brow from her seat by the hotel window.
“I count fourteen.
Two near the front entrance; I’m guessing security. Seven bodies moving
around the facility freely – staff, extra security? Five stationary figures
– didn’t budge over a half hour’s surveillance. Maybe your hostages?”
Doggett frowned.
“Praise, Yoruba, Miller, Petrie, and Petrovsky
. Yeah, that’d be right.”
“So what’s your
plan, John?” Hervey asked, seriously. “I mean,
this is as far as I can go. What’re you thinking?”
“I appreciate the help – I know it was beyond the call,”
the agent said. “But I think I’ll give you a little plausible deniability
here, in case all shit cuts loose.”
“Look, I don’t
give a flying rat’s ass about deniability or culpability or any of that
other Nixonese. But you don’t have near enough
reliable intelligence to launch some, what, two-person operation?”
“We got five, Randy.
And besides, I think we can count on local law enforcement for a little
extra support.”
“Whether they know
it or not,” Hervey murmured
drily.
“Something like
that,” Doggett said.
**
The Tall Man managed
to take out one security guard, two techs, and a geneticist before the facility
went to full alert. The rest would be harder to round up, but survival was
crucial to the scientist solely with regard to his mission to spread enlightenment.
The newly enlightened certainly couldn’t be expected to be grateful in this
life, but he knew that ultimately, they’d appreciate it.
He wished
Covarubias had been on-site. Given the obsessions that now ruled
her young life, the Tall Man believed Marita might
take comfort in the awareness Calvin Welles
had bestowed upon him.
The culture lab
was seemingly empty when he entered, but a Decaf Pepsi can, still frosted
and sweaty, sat on a fluorescent-lit table, and he took a chance.
Mark, a biochemist
who’d had a pleasant, if somewhat retentive personality, crouched in the
space under the table, staring up in horror as the Tall Man pulled aside
the stool he’d foolishly tried to hide behind.
“There’s really
no need for that,” the man with the gun said.
**
Jimmy Bond took
a breath and punched in the local sheriff’s number. He looked apprehensively
at Doggett as he waited for a connection, and the agent patted him reassuringly
on the arm.
“Yeah,” Bond blurted
into the cell phone Kimmy the Geek had programmed
for one-time, untraceable use. “I just thought you
oughtta know, my brother-in-law is gonna
blow up the old SynerCom building out on the
highway. He had a few beers last night, and he started yelling about how
they left him and the town high and dry when they closed...Oh, yeah. He did
a stint in the Gulf, and he knows how to use C-4...Yeah, he bought some from
some militia guy in Montana one time. Anyway, he left the house about a
half-hour ago with the truck loaded up. Uh, I’d rather not say – I don’t
wanna get Sis in trouble. Bye.”
It was similar
to the call Bond had made to Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms 10 minutes earlier
and the South Dakota State Police five minutes ago, except he’d played up
the militia element. The rented van was in a tractor turnaround off the
highway, about a mile from the SynerCom plant.
Skinner, Reyes, Skinner, Harlow, and Bond wore Kevlar vests; Chuck Burks
had agreed to stay back at the hotel, without any coaxing.
“OK, now the fire
department,” Doggett instructed. Jimmy sighed, and began dialing.
**
Calvin
Welles laid back on his cot, chuckling gently as he heard the fifth
shot and regretting only that he was not in on the fun. But after the Tall
Man took out the eggheads and, hopefully, the two main security goons who
no doubt were now stalking him, Calvin would have his own party taking out
the Children of the Damned, which is how he thought of his fellow captives.
He’d seen the movie one time, late at night, as he listened to old Donnie
whaling the shit out of his brother, and it seemed an appropriate label
for the little goody-two-shoes (well, size 13 shoes, in Big Marlon’s case)
who dared to compare their skills with his’. He’d dealt with their type
before: Schoolmates from the “good” side of town, supervisors who thought
because he didn’t speak as well (see?) as them that his skull must be full
of shit.
Especially the
ringleader, Praise. Though he’d successfully blocked Praise’s attempt to
get word to the outside world, Calvin had picked up a weird vibe about the
kid, and he had to admit he was a little frightened of him. If the Psychic
Gatorade the eggheads had shot into Praise worked like it had on him, the
boy could be a real threat to his long-term plans.
A sixth shot rang
out. Calvin rested his head on his pillow and planned his party.
**
Three sheriff’s
cruisers shot past the turnaround, sirens shrieking into the dusk. A fire
engine screamed past seconds later, and Doggett shifted into drive.
“Only problem I
see here might be ATF,” Skinner said as the group pulled out. “They always
want to run the show, and our Bureau credentials might not mean much.”
“My concern is
that they might decide to kill your friend and the rest of their prisoners,”
Yves suggested. “They might decide it’s worth multiple homicide charges
to keep their work a secret.”
“I don’t think
they’d risk killing the golden goose,” Monica said. “Gibson appears to have
advanced abilities, and I doubt they could find another subject like him.”
When they arrived
at the facility, the front facade was lit up with police halogens and colored
in emergency reds and blues. Doggett pulled into the gravel before the lot,
and a bulky man in county brown crunched up to the driver’s window.
“You can’t—” the
sheriff growled, halting as Doggett flashed his ID. The agents and Gunmen
disembarked. “Well, you sure got here in a hell of a hurry. Guy call you,
too?”
“Yup,” Doggett
said, drawing his weapon. “Thought maybe you could use a little assistance,
Sheriff...?”
“
Neidermann. Walt Neidermann.”
“John Doggett.
Agents Reyes and Skinner, Bond and Harlow.” Doggett told himself he hadn’t
misrepresented the two civilians, just provided some incomplete introductions.
“What’ve you got? I heard possibly some military-issue explosives?”
“
Ain’t the least of it,” the lawman said. “Shots fired inside. Sounds
almost like a firefight.”
Doggett looked
quickly at Skinner and his partner. “Your guys get in yet?”
“I don’t want my
deputies just walking into a shooting gallery ‘til we got a better idea
what’s up. Got a call into SynerCom, Cedar Rapids
office. Meanwhile, the state boys ought to be here any minute, then we can
get in without our asses flappin’ in the wind.”
A muffled gunshot
sounded from inside the huge structure. “I think we need to get inside,
now,” Skinner said. “Your men have protection?”
“Got two vests
– town council hopes to get one more next fiscal year,”
Neidermann said with the dry resignation of a local cop used to
getting outdrawn. “Lemme go slip one on.” He
paused, looking somewhat suspiciously at the group. “Looks like you folks
came prepared for a hot date.”
“All we heard was
militia,” Doggett supplied quickly. “Didn’t want to get caught in an ambush.”
The sheriff nodded
silently and trotted back to his cruiser.
“He knows something’s
screwy,” Jimmy fretted.
“Well, hopefully,
we can get in and out before he can prove his diagnosis,” Skinner said.
Neidermann returned after signaling his deputies. One took out the
chains and the bolts on the front doors, and another two brought up a metal
battering ram with handholds. Three swings and the doors flew in, revealing
a well-lit interior. The deputies flanked the entry, guns aloft, as the
sheriff and his five guests approached cautiously.
“What the hell
is this?” Neidermann whispered as he spotted
the first body. The corpse was wearing military-type fatigues, a Kevlar
vest, and a scorched hole in the precise center of his forehead. An automatic
weapon lay at his side. “That’s one of those Russian jobs,” the sheriff
drawled. “Just what the Sam Hill is going on here?”
He went unanswered
as the agents, Harlow, and Bond proceeded into the interior. The inside
of what had previously been a large open warehouse space had been walled
into labs, communications rooms, and living quarters. In one such quarters,
a middle-aged woman in a white smock lie on her back, eyes open and a gaping
hole exposing her brains.
“My god, it’s a
massacre,” Reyes breathed as she located another body curled under a lab table.
“What were they
doing here?” the sheriff demanded of no one in particular. “Don’t look like
any meth lab I’ve ever seen, and these don’t look
like druggies.”
A shot rang from
further into the building, and Doggett and Co. raced toward the sound. As
they turned a corridor into a large exam room, a tall figure in a lab coat
pivoted from the security guard he’d just killed. The man smiled. “Well.
Company.”
“Drop it!” Doggett
yelled. “Drop the weapon, now!”
The smile grew
wider. “Did you come for the children and Calvin? Well, I have business
with them, after I finish here.”
“Where are they?”
Doggett barked, wondering vaguely who Calvin was.
“Oh, they’re fine,”
the Tall Man assured them. “I’m saving my conversation with them for last.
I’ve discovered so much in so short a time, and I want to compare notes
with them. They’re very special. Like you,” he told Reyes. Reyes’ eyes widened.
“I’m sure you’ve been told that many times, in many times, I should say.”
He chuckled at his own cryptic joke.
“Why don’t you
take us to the children?” Skinner suggested.
“No,” the Tall
Man shook his head. “I want to share something with all of you. I know all
the answers now, and I want to share them with you.” He raised the gun,
taking a bead on Doggett’s forehead. “You’re first.”
An explosion rocked
the room, and the Tall Man grinned. Then he slumped to the concrete floor,
blood quickly spreading around him.
“No,” Yves Harlow
murmured. “You, by all means.”
**
Doggett found what
appeared to be the sole survivor among the “staff” crouching in a small
restroom behind one of the labs. He was pale and his lab coat was covered
in sweat. The man’s heavy features failed to mask his fear.
“Thank
God,”the man said in a quiet, cultivated voice. He shoved a pair
of wire rimmed glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Ben just went insane, started
shooting everyone and babbling nonsense. I was afraid...” The scientist stopped,
eyeing Doggett.
“Afraid he might
kill your lab rats?” the agent challenged. “You want to take me to them,
Doctor...”
“
Petrovsky,” the man said.
Doggett looked
into the craggy face. “Let’s go, Petrovsky.”
The scientist sighed
and led Doggett into the corridor. “I can imagine what you’re thinking,
Agent. Dr. Mengele, Nazi atrocities. You have
to understand -- we were doing what we had to to
save the species from extinction.”
“Spoken like a
good Nazi,” Doggett said. “Just what is your area of study, Doc?”
“Psychiatry,”
Petrovsky replied. “I specialize in the aberrant mind – individuals
with supposed paranormal abilities, pathological criminals, obsessive personalities.”
“Ever work in Texas?”
Doggett asked. Petrovsky stopped and turned
to find the agent’s gun leveled at his head.
“My God,” the man
gasped. “Don’t. I’ll take you to them.”
“Who are you?”
Doggett asked slowly.
“Jon
Petrovsky,” the homely man said, holding his long fingers up as
if to ward off a bullet. Doggett then spotted the warts spotting the back
of his hands, his palms, the wrists sticking out of the too-small lab coat.
“I’m a scientist here, assigned to analyze the subjects here. And yes, I
worked in Texas for a while, with the Department of Corrections. Fascinating
men, the inmates...”
“John,” a stunned
voice sounded from down the corridor. Monica’s eyes were wide, and her gun
hung limply at her side. “That’s him, John – the man I saw in my vision.”
Doggett’s attention
was diverted for just a second, and “Petrovsky
” plowed into him. The agent scrambled for his gun, which had skittered
across the floor, and Monica brought up her weapon.
Petrovsky’s facial features and posture shifted as he glared at
Monica. Then he smiled meanly, lips curling back and his eyes glinting in
a look of animalistic heat that caused Monica’s weapon to waiver.
“See you around,
honeypie,” he leered in a thick Texas accent.
Then he turned and seemed to just slip into a hole in the air.
Doggett stumbled
back against the wall as Monica merely stared at the spot where the man
had been. “John, the kids,” she finally exhaled, and the spell was broken.
They rushed further into the bowels of the facility.
A deep, childlike
moaning behind a plain, locked door caught Doggett’s attention. With one
kick, he brought the door down, revealing a very frightened, very large young
African-American. John Doggett gaped at him for a moment.
“Marlon?” the agent
finally managed.
The young man’s
lips quivered. “I knew you was coming – I saw it. Take...take me home, please.”
Then he lunged from his cot and clamped Doggett in a crushing hug, sobbing.
As his own eyes
blurred, Doggett dimly heard Monica down the hall.
“It’s all right,
baby,” his partner cooed. Iris, Doggett thought. “Can you watch her while
I check the other rooms? Good girl.” Melinda. “Gibson? GIBSON!”
Only silence followed,
and when Monica appeared in the doorway to Marlon Miller’s “cell,” her face
stricken, Doggett hugged the young man that much tighter.
**
“What the hell
are you doing?” a sturdy young man in a black suit, regulation Fed, demanded.
Doggett lowered
his cell phone and regarded the man’s face, bathed in police flashers and
spotlight. The sheriff and his men were attending to an hysterical Iris Petrie,
a shocked Melinda Yoruba, and a now cheerful and talkative Marlon Miller.
“Who’re you?”
“National Security
Agency,” he said. “What’s your story?”
“FBI. Special Agent
John Doggett. Now excuse me.” Doggett thumbed the number he’d scrawled on
an
“Uh
uh,” the NSA agent said, reaching for the phone. “Instructions are
to secure the site. No communications in or out.”
Doggett reached
into his jacket and brought out his weapon. “I’m making a call. You want to
get out of my breathing space for a few minutes?”
The young man glanced
with mingled respect and resentment at Doggett’s gun. “Just what the hell
do you do with the FBI, anyway?”
Doggett paused,
as if the question raised others. Then he smiled and pointed toward the huddled
trio of young people nearby. “That’s what I do. Yeah, Mrs. Miller...”
One week later
Molly Cantwell sat down at her computer to check her email, deleting the
spam that had piled up since the last time she had bothered to get online.
She was about to delete the last unrecognized message in her box, when the
sender's name caught her eye.
From: MRandMRSSpooky@hotmail.com
Subject: Stayin' Alive
..
Curious, she double clicked on the subject and opened the email. The text
box was blank, but the file contained an attachment, a photo. She clicked
"download now" and waited for the picture to appear on her screen.
When it did, she began laughing.
The photo was of Mulder and Scully, sitting
beside a pool. Baby William sat across Scully's lap, naked as the day he
was born but for two inflatable swimmers attached to his arms. All three
were soaking wet and laughing hysterically, looking at each other
..
Across the bottom, in carefully printed letters, someone had written "Diapers
don't float."
**
“Direct disregard
of a superior’s orders, recruitment of civilians into a Bureau operation,
threatening an NSA agent, suspicion of fraudulent bomb threats to several
law enforcement agencies,” Kersh mused, unsmiling,
surveying the stack of reports on his desk. “Once again, you both have acquitted
yourselves with glory.”
“First of all,
you merely refused to authorize extra manpower,” Doggett responded. “You
never said we couldn’t go to
“And this Mr. Bond and Ms. Harlow? They just wanted to see the
“They helped rescue
three people in imminent danger from a psychopathic killer,” Monica said
evenly.
Kersh did not look up. “Which is the only reason you two remain
among the general populace. Given the media coverage surrounding the ‘
Murdo Lab,’ the Bureau can’t afford to admit your cowboy antics
were unauthorized, in fact against orders.”
Several indictments
already had been issued for SynerCom executives
and directors amid the suicide of the company’s CEO and the discovery of
experimentation on kidnap victims and a slaughterhouse at its
“All of that aside,”
Kersh continued coolly, “the X-Files would appear
to have a very influential friend within the Cabinet. The director himself
has determined there is ‘compelling need to continue the branch’s investigations.’
So you may both consider yourselves as living under a lucky star. That idea
should appeal to your sense of superstition and mumbo jumbo.”
Reyes and Doggett
exchanged looks. “That’s it?” Doggett asked.
“Is there anything
else?” Kersh inquired, looking blandly at the
pair.
Doggett, speechless,
shook his head. Monica rose, and he followed her, robotlike
, to the basement.
**
Doggett had not
expected to find Ramon Yoruba waiting for them. For one, a man of Yoruba’s
position no doubt could’ve summoned them, or bought them a couple plates of
coq au vin. And Doggett still felt somewhat responsible
for Enrique Yoruba’s death.
“You never send
a staffer or an e-mail to repay your debts,” Yoruba said, as if reading Doggett’s
thoughts. The agent shuddered at the idea. “I owe you a huge one, as do
Melinda and Anita. What you did...”
“You don’t owe
me anything,” Doggett said quietly. “God, you sure don’t owe me anything.”
The transportation
secretary held up a hand. “Ricky’s demons were his own, and although he’ll
always be my brother, he must take responsibility for his actions. This
experience has changed Melinda, and she’s told my sister-in-law everything.
Everything both before and after she was abducted. I don’t know who’s going
to need counseling the worst, Anita or Melinda.”
Yoruba pushed himself
from the corner of the desk. “Anyway, you and Agent Reyes have my eternal
gratitude, and any assistance you ever need from my agency or my colleagues,
it will be there. I promise.
“
“Alvin
Kersh,” the well-kept man supplied as he headed for the hallway.
“He and I go way back.” Yoruba halted at the doorway. “Probably wouldn’t want
me to tell you, but Alvin said you were exactly the right man to help me.”
Doggett grew even
quieter a half-hour later, when The Director himself called to congratulate
the agents on their role in “Assistant Director Skinner’s operation.” “The
deputy director said you’re turning down a position on the terrorism task
force,” The Director added. “I guess that’s our loss.”
Monica meanwhile
continued to meditate silently on the disappearance of Gibson Praise and
Calvin Welles. An investigation had revealed
that Jon Petrovich, the real one, the prison
shrink, had been a conspirator in the Murdo Project.
After turning on a half-dozen colleagues at universities and think tanks
across the U.S., Petrovich had indicated his
special interest in Welles.
“He had at least
three disassociated personalities that emerged given his mood and the situation,”
Petrovich had told Monica with inappropriate
enthusiasm. “We wanted to see if his psychic abilities and multiple personalities
were linked. Interesting thing: The third personality emerged after we began
our sessions. It was kind of disconcerting trying to interview myself.”
The fate of William Scully was an even more perplexing dilemma. Monica and Doggett had received the news via Mulder and Scully’s underground grapevine that the couple with whom the child had been placed had been murdered and William missing. Monica’s belief system had taken quite a beating over the past few years, but she did the one thing she could do for the time being, at least in this case: She prayed for the safety and health of her friends, lost temporarily somewhere out there.
Monica had some
errands to run at lunch, so she left Doggett to his ruminations. When she
returned little more than an hour later, the door to the office was locked,
and a yellow sticky note was secured to it.
“Got something
you might like,” Doggett had written. Monica scrambled for her key.
After finding nothing
on her desk or his’, she finally spotted it on the wall. It covered precisely
the discolored rectangle that had appeared on the wall after
Mulder’s files were sacked and his belongings vandalized. Monica
smiled as she studied Doggett’s contribution to office décor.
It was a very likely
cheap, unmatted, unframed poster – Doggett probably
had purchased it at some art shop, head store, or off the Internet. The
photography was impromptu and grainy and blurred: A flying saucer floating
above a distinctly rural landscape. The wording was profound in its simplicity:
“I want to believe.”