What was the big hold-up, anyway?  Gary could see the agents through the open blinds of the office window, arguing, discussing, paging through his paper.  Absorbed in something he found there, Agent Mulder didn't seem to notice when his partner winced and rubbed her temple.  As soon as Mulder looked up, Agent Scully dropped her hand back to her side and squared her shoulders.

Gary frowned, wondering what that was all about.  He'd noticed, now that he'd seen them both in the light of day for more than a few minutes, that despite Agent Scully’s strong personality and obvious competence, she didn't look exactly healthy.  Her face was too thin, and her skin had a pallor to it that made her look, well, ill.

After another exchange, the agents went off in different directions.  What now?  Checking his watch, Gary decided that they had fifteen minutes before he tried to make a break for it.  Past that, it would be way too late to help Elizabeth Barnett.  He drummed his hands on the table, trying to keep his trepidation in check.  If only they'd left him the paper, even part of it, something to go on...

But he hadn't wanted responsibility for the damn paper in the first place, had he?  Why worry about it now?

Because, like it or not, it was his responsibility--no one else's.  It wasn't a matter of having control issues, it was just the way things were.  Maybe he shouldn't have let the FBI in on his little secret, but he hadn't had much choice.  Still, he couldn't help but worry.  This revelation was bound to make the whole situation even more uneasy and strange.

On the other hand, things couldn't be much stranger than they already were, could they?  The way Gary had it figured, Agents Mulder and Scully were in nearly as much trouble as he, if that front-page story was correct.  Puffing out his cheeks and then letting the air out slow, he got up to pace.  There wasn't much room to maneuver in, but at least it was movement, something to do while he second-guessed himself--again.

It wasn't as if he had told just anyone, was it?  From what he could see, these were not run-of-the-mill agents, hunting bad guys because it was their job, or because they got some kind of charge out of it.  That much was obvious from the way they reacted, and the way they interacted.  This mattered to them; it mattered deeply.  This was, on some level he didn't completely understand, personal.

Well, it was pretty darn personal to him, too.  After all, he was the one being treated like a prisoner--heck, he was the one who was going to die if something didn't change!  Seething with impatience, Gary paused in front of the window and ventured a glance between the slats.  Mulder and Scully were nowhere in sight.  As he paced around the table once more, he checked his watch, and bumped into his own chair.  Rubbing his shin, he flopped down on the black vinyl seat again.  Okay, nine more minutes.  Then what?

He knew the paper was right about two things.  If he couldn't change the future, he would be dead by late that evening, and Elizabeth Barnett would be gone.  He was equally certain that neither event would happen the way the paper said it would.  Mulder and Scully weren't about to kill him, and Elizabeth Barnett was not going to be abducted by aliens.  The man who'd tried to attack him at the house hadn't been an alien, of that much he was certain--as certain as he could be, anyway.  He didn't know what an alien was supposed to look like, and, of course, no one else had seen the guy.  That was the problem with stopping things from happening.  No one believed you afterward, because they had no reason to.  Like everything else that had happened in the past couple of days, the more he thought about it, the less sense it made.

He devoutly wished that he had an actual clue about what was going on.

"Help me out here," he muttered to no one in particular.  Talking to himself was a new habit, born out of frustration with the games the paper played with his life.  Sometimes, it actually worked.

Meow.

Gary stared in shock at the familiar orange form that had jumped onto the table from the floor.

Oh, boy.

* * * * *

Sitting at the borrowed desk while Mulder went off in search of another phone book, Scully made the call.  She had to push away the beginnings of another headache and the feeling, unsubstantiated but present nevertheless, that this was a waste of time; that they should just trust Hobson and go with the story.

Surprisingly enough, ridiculous as his story was, there was part of her that wanted to trust him.  He seemed like a nice guy--delusional, of course, but nice.  Additionally, he had at least one friend whom Scully trusted, and the grudging admiration of Detective Crumb, who didn't seem likely to be anybody's fool.  Magic newspaper aside, Gary Hobson was the one element in this whole equation that seemed anywhere near normal.

And yet, if Mulder was willing to spend a few minutes looking for actual proof, well--who was she to say no?  When the switchboard operator put her through to Roger Ebert and she posed the question, he was surprisingly obliging, and far less curious than she would have been, had their roles been reversed.  Oh, he did ask why, but when she snapped, "Need to know basis," acutely aware that she sounded like a stereotypical Man In Black--Woman In Black--whatever--he'd read it to her with no further prying.

It matched what was in Hobson's paper--both times.

She followed along as Ebert read his lead: “Despite the fact that Fran Drescher's voice is like fingernails on a chalkboard, there's something appealing about her.”  It was exactly what was in the review in front of her.  Of course, Scully thought, frowning as she caught sight of Mulder across the room, his gestures and body posture animated as he spoke into another phone, that didn't mean it had been put there by some magic paper genie.

Then, just when she was about to thank Ebert and get off the line, he stopped her.  "Wait, that doesn't sound right.  Make it:  'Her speaking voice is like having ear wax removed with a small dental drill.  And yet, doggone it, there's something lovable about her.'  That sounds better, don't you think?"

"Sure," Scully agreed, thinking she finally had it, had Hobson and Mulder and the clairvoyant paper theory dead to rights.  She looked back down at the paper, and was surprised to see that it matched Ebert’s corrected version--word for word.

Scully blinked.  That couldn't be right.  But there it was.  "Could you repeat that, please?"

He read it again, every word that he said laid out before her in black and white.  With a brief, befuddled, "Thanks", Scully ended the call, scanning the desk and the room for the mechanism that could have caused the change.  No one was near her desk; they were all absorbed in their own work.  Even Agent Donner was doing paperwork as he kept an obliging eye on the conference room where they'd stashed Hobson.

So how the hell had it changed?  She knew what she had seen when she sat down at this desk, and it wasn't what she was seeing now.

Absorbed in her thoughts and the article she held, she wandered back to the conference room.  She was certain it had changed, of course it had changed, obviously it had changed...but it had been right there in front of her--how was that possible?  Power of suggestion?  Trick ink?

One hand on the doorknob, she glanced up from the paper, first to check on Mulder, who was still on the phone across the bullpen, and then to see what Hobson was up to.  She was greeted with the last thing she would have expected.

Well, maybe not the last thing.  Maybe she should stop not expecting things.

A cat--the cat--stood on the table, alert, back slightly arched, tail straight up in the air.  Hobson stared at it as if he'd never seen it before, until the tabby turned its gaze to the office window and considered Scully with its distinctly cat-ish intelligence.  Then Hobson, too, saw that she was there.  His hazel eyes grew even wider.

No one could possibly be that innocent.

She checked the door, but it was still locked.  From the outside.

There had been no cat when they arrived.  Surely they would have seen it.  It wasn't as if Hobson could have stored it anywhere on him--it wasn't that small.  The room had no windows that opened, no uncovered vents.   She whirled to confront Agent Donner, who was passing by with his arms full of files.

"No one came into or out of that room in the last ten minutes, right?" she asked abruptly.

"No, Agent Scully."  Blue eyes puzzled, Donner shook his head.  "No one but you guys has been around this part of the bullpen at all."

"And Agent Mulder hasn’t been back yet?"

"Nope."  He shifted the pile in his right arm so that he could point.  "He's been over there the whole time."

Mulder was going to love this.  "Thank you," she said shortly, opening the door and slipping inside.

Planting herself before the door, arms crossed, Scully shook her head slowly from side to side.  So much for Mr. Normal.

"Look, I don't know how it got here, either," Hobson told her.  He pointed at the cat with two fingers of his right hand.  "It just...showed up.  Like it always does."

"With your newspaper."

"Yeah, with the paper.  Usually.  But, of course, not this time, because--because you have the paper."  He was eyeing the page she held in her hand with curiosity and trepidation.  The cat turned all the way around and walked across the table, closer to Scully.

She sighed, dropping the newspaper on the table.  "So, Roger Ebert’s in on this, too?" she asked wryly.

He blinked.  "What?"

She nodded at the page, pointed at Ebert's column.  "The movie review seems to match what he's going to print in tomorrow's edition.  Of course, we won't know until tomorrow if it's true or not."

"Tomorrow?"  Hobson pushed back his chair and stood, his palms flat on the table.  The cat turned to watch him.  "Agent Scully, you can't keep me here that long.  If we don't do something Elizabeth Barnett is--someone's going to take her away.  She might even die."  His voice had risen to a higher register, cracking on the last word.  There was no trace of madness in his eyes, just sincere belief in a premise that was, in and of itself, completely mad.

"And so are you, apparently?"

He swallowed, looked down at the table with a hangdog expression that engendered a pang of sympathy in Scully.

"Yeah.  So am I."

Did he really believe that they would do this to him?  Nothing about his behavior was leading her to the conclusion that this was some kind of act.  But...how was she to believe all this nonsense about a prescient newspaper?  Even with what she'd seen, it wasn't enough to convince her that the tragic events outlined in Hobson's copy of the Sun-Times were going to happen.

"Is this what happened when you met J. T. Marley?" Scully asked quietly.  Hobson started, backed up against the wall, and stared at her.

"I--uh--"

At that moment Mulder pushed the door open and walked in, an eager light in his eyes.  "Okay, Scully," he said, not even noticing the cat, "Straight off the wire.  Tommy Moe just won the downhill in the  Australian Alpine Cup."  He paused for a response.

Caught between Hobson's apprehension and Mulder's enthusiasm, Scully had to blink while she mentally shifted gears.  "And...this is good because...what, Mulder, you're betting with Danny on downhill skiing?"  Arms akimbo, she focused all her skepticism on her partner, ignoring Hobson's exasperated sigh.

"He won with the exact time that's printed here."  Mulder waved the sports page in her face.  "It just now happened, and yet the time was printed on this page at least ten minutes before."  He handed her up a fax printout from a sports wire service, and Scully compared the times--which were exactly the same, down to a thousandth of a second.  She thought about the change in the story she had looked into, but didn't want to say anything, not without proof, a control condition--the original article.

"So, what did you find out from--" Mulder began, but Hobson, animated again, interrupted.

"I don't believe this!  Someone's life is in danger and you're worried about ski races and movie reviews?"

"Mr. Hobson--Gary--we're trying to substantiate your story," Scully pointed out as she gestured at the pages Mulder held.  'The only evidence we seem to have right now is your word, and this newspaper.  After all, no one else saw the prowler that you say attacked you."

"But--"

"There's an FBI agent at the Barnett home and an APB out for the man you said you saw--"  She broke off when Mulder nudged her, nodding at the cat.

"What the hell is that doing here?"

"This," Scully told him, "is Mr. Hobson's cat."

"It's not really my cat--" he began, but she silenced him with a look.

"It's his cat, which appeared in this room while we were making our calls.  I have yet to hear a satisfactory explanation as to where it came from or why it's here."

"Maybe it wants the paper back?" Mulder speculated, only half joking.

"Or maybe I do," Gary snapped.  "Look, you don't seem to need me here anymore, so if you don't mind I'll just--"

"Sit," they both commanded automatically, but he didn't.

"You two just don't get it, do you?"  There was frustration outlined in the set of his jaw.  "It's almost one o'clock.  In one hour Elizabeth Barnett is going to be gone, one way or the other.  It's right here--or wherever you put it," he corrected, paging though the sections of the paper that Mulder had tossed haphazardly on the table.  "Right here in black and white," he added, finally fishing page six out of the pile.

They didn't say anything, and he seemed to read doubt in their silence.  "Look, whether or not you believe me, isn't it better to go with this for now?  To make sure?  I swear to you, I am not making this up.  Unless I do something, she's not going to be around to be your witness or whatever it is you want her for."

"And you have to be the one to do help her?"  Scully wondered if this was the gist of the situation.  As hero complexes went, this was a doozie.

"Well, I don't know.  Most of the time, yes, but not always.  She's your witness.  You're the ones who went to her.  If she means anything to you, you have to do something about this."

"And what about you?" Mulder asked, covering the distance between the table and the door in one step--half a step, for him.

Gary froze.  "Me?"

"What do you think we should do with you?  Besides shoot you and dump you over by Comiskey, that is, because right now I don't think I have the time.  Maybe later."

The cat arched its back and hissed.  Hobson's jaw clenched.

"Mulder," Scully chided quietly.  She motioned him to the corner furthest away from the table.

"Look, I can't believe I'm saying this, but maybe it would be a good idea to go check up on her," she murmured.

"I agree, Scully," he said, and they looked at each other, a bit surprised.  "But what about him, in the meantime?  If there's anything to what he says--"

"We can leave him here.  Agent Donner can keep an eye on him.  What could happen?"

They both turned and looked at Hobson, who was straightening the scattered sections of the paper while he muttered something at the cat.  The cat actually seemed to be listening.

"You're right," Mulder said, "better keep him out of your line of fire."

"Mulder, I am not going to shoot him!"  Hobson jumped and shot a wary glance in their direction.  The poor guy was going to be a basket case if this kept up.  Scully lowered her voice even further.  "You can't believe that one of us would--"

"Well, you shot me, didn't you?" Mulder asked, and this time he was much louder than he needed to be, probably on purpose.

"That was different, Mulder; you were delusional," she pointed out with a smug grin.

"Oh, and you think he isn't?"

"Newspaper or not, he seems to have his heart in the right place," Scully pointed out, more serious now.  "So let's check it out and go from there."  Mulder nodded, and they both stepped back over to the table.

Hobson was eyeing them with an expression that was equal parts fear and hope.  "So, we're going to go make sure she's okay?"

"No," said Mulder, "we are.  You're going to stay right here until we figure out what's going on.  That make you happy?"

"But I'm supposed to be the one there.  Why d'ya think the paper comes to me?"

"You've done enough, Hobson.  Besides, you don't know the first thing about disarming aliens.  Wouldn't want to see you end up as a puddle of green--"

"Mulder."  Scully gave her partner a shove toward the door, then turned to Hobson, hoping to soothe him.  "You'll be safe here."  He was obviously too strung out to realize that most of the preceding exchange hadn't been serious.  But the idea of them leaving without him seemed to upset him even more than their questions.

"Hey, wait, you can't take--" Hobson started as she pulled the paper out from under his hand.

"We want to see how that thing works-- if it works," Mulder told him.  "Besides, if we're going to be implicated in the murder of a civilian, we'll be too busy to read the funnies tomorrow, and I'm just dying to know whether Cathy's going to find the perfect bathing suit."

Hobson set his jaw, but didn't take the bait.

"Make yourself at home," Mulder added as he strode out the door, singing tonelessly.  "Dinner's at six, wear your cement shoes..."

Scully hesitated before following him.  "Look, let's get one thing straight, all right?  We're trying to protect you, Mr. Hobson."

"Gary," he corrected, but the worried creases didn't leave his brow.

"Gary.  No one wants to see you get hurt.  You're here because you have a habit of showing up in the wrong place at the wrong time, and we're still not sure why, but we want you out of the way on this case."

"Out of the way?  But you need me, the paper needs me--Agent Scully, if it wasn't for me, your partner would have been dead two days ago, or you both would have, or he would have had a broken leg--"

"Maybe," she said noncommittally.  "I guess we'll know more when we check on Ms. Barnett, won't we?  In the meantime, wait here--your cat, too," she added as she shut the door behind her, checking to make sure it locked again before hurrying to catch up with her partner.  Mulder had picked up their coats from the hook on the wall near the conference room, and he pulled a bag of sunflower seeds out of his trench coat pocket with a triumphant grin.

"You just had to bring up aliens, didn't you?" Scully asked as they waited for an elevator.  He popped a couple seeds in his mouth before holding out her coat.  "What is it about him that's bringing out the worst in you?"

"I don't know Scully, he's just so too-good-to-be-true."  He dropped the empty shells into the ash can under the call button.  "No one involved in everything he's supposed to have been involved in could still be that naive."

"I would have thought you'd be intrigued by the paranormal aspects of all this."

"The newspaper might be paranormal, but that guy isn't.  I don't think he's all that important; he's just a cog in some cosmic machine."

She shook her head.  "I don't know, Mulder.  I think you just like the fact that you can get a reaction out of him.  I did try to ask him about Marley," she added as the elevator arrived.

"And?"

"And then you came in."

"Well, I guess we can save that part for later.  Now that ought to be fun."  Mulder's grin turned positively feral as he punched the button for the parking garage.

* * * * *

As he watched them disappear into the maze of desks and dividers, Gary wasn't quite sure what to do.  It wasn't as if he had a huge number of options.

Stay here, he thought, looking around the tiny, anonymous room, or...

stay here.

Yep, that was about the size of his to-do list, at least at the moment.  He ran a hand through his hair and scratched the back of his neck, where the hairs had been standing up since Cat appeared.  It was all too frustrating--he didn't even know how Mulder and Scully were going to handle the situation, and without the paper he wouldn't know the outcome until they came back.

Unless someone else came.  Someone who...

How had she known about Marley?

Even though he'd been rescued from that disconcerting line of questioning by the arrival of Agent Mulder, Gary couldn't shake the creepy sense of deja-vu that had come over him with that one simple inquiry.  What if there were more people like Marley running around, people who knew about him?  What if--

No.  Better not go there.

Sighing heavily as he sat back down, he decided that he was an  idiot.  Never should have shown them the paper.  Never should have even mentioned it.

But if he hadn't, no one would have gone to help Elizabeth Barnett at all, because he would have been stuck here anyway, and Mulder and Scully wouldn't have believed him without seeing the article themselves.  He leaned back in the chair until its front legs left the ground, his hands on the armrest for balance.  Tilting until the top of the chair touched the wall behind him, Gary stared out at the busy bullpen and rocked back and forth, maintaining a precarious balance.

At least this way he wasn't faced with more questions that he either couldn't answer or didn't want to.

On the other hand, he now had no idea what was happening with that other headline, either.  If he thought he'd been without choices before, he'd been wrong--this was what it was like to be completely clueless.

It was hard to admit, after all the complaining he'd done, but without the paper he felt as if he were missing an appendage.  The cat didn't seem to mind, though--maybe that was a good sign.  It curled up on the table and went to sleep.  Bringing the front legs of his chair down to the floor with a "bang", Gary stood and tried to pace again.  The room didn't even have an outside window to stare out--just the table, a few chairs, a filing cabinet, and--

Oh.  And the phone.

"What do you think?" Gary asked the cat in a conspiratorial whisper.  "Should we call Chuck and Marissa?"

The cat opened one sleepy eye and then closed it, but it didn't answer.

"You're a big help."  He checked the window one more time.  There were agents scurrying around the bullpen, but no one was paying any attention to him.  Turning his back to the glass, he lifted the receiver and dialed Chuck's cell phone.

The first ring wasn't even complete when Chuck picked it up.  "Fishman."

"That's how you're answering your phone these days?  'Fishman'?"

"Gar?  What's going on?  Where are you, man?"  Chuck's voice, while agitated, was at least a bit of normality in the middle of this nightmare.

"Still at the FBI.  Where are you guys?"  He could hear traffic and an El train rattling in the background.

"Us?  Oh, we're still at the coffee shop, just waiting for our favorite super-hero," Chuck lied breezily.

Gary could hear Marissa in the background.  "Chuck, cut it out.  Give me the phone."

"Sure thing, Ms. Bossy.  Hey, Gar, while you're there, see if they can do anything about traffic tickets, will ya?"

"Chuck!"

"Ow!  That was my ear, Marissa."

"You'll get over it.  Gary?"  Her voice was now coming directly through the phone, while Chuck muttered incoherently in the background.

"Uh, yeah, hey, Marissa."

"Are you all right?"

"I'm fine, I'm just--"  Gary looked around the room again.  "I'm kinda stuck here."  He lowered his voice.  "Marissa, the story changed."

"The one about you?  Gary, that's--"

"No, the one about that woman, Elizabeth Barnett.  Look, now she's gonna be kidnapped or abducted or something, and according to Agent Mulder, it has something to do with--"  He could hardly believe he was saying it.  "--with aliens."

"Little green men?" Marissa asked, perplexed.

Gary could hear Chuck's "What?!" loud and clear.  So could half of Chicago, no doubt.

"I don't know, Marissa, but the paper said she thinks that's whose, um, taken her in the past, I guess, and somehow she's going to go missing and there's all kinds of evidence of foul play and an FBI agent's gonna get shot, so Agents Mulder and Scully are on their way to the house right now."

There was a sharp intake of breath.  "You mean they believed you?  You told them she was in trouble and they believed you?"

"Well, not exactly..."  Gary twisted the phone cord around the fingers of his left hand.

"What do you mean, 'not exactly'?" she asked, an ominous note in her voice.

"I told them about the paper.  I--I showed it to them, Marissa, I couldn't think of what else to do, especially after they heard Chuck the last time."

After a moment of silence, Marissa breathed, "Oh my God."

"What did he mean, 'not exactly'?  'Oh, my God,' what?" Chuck asked in the background.  Marissa shushed him.

"What did they say?"

"They don't really believe me, but they don't disbelieve me completely, either.  I think they still suspect I might be in on all this."

"But they still let you call?  What about the other headline, Gary; what about you?"

"'Not exactly'?  What's going on?" Chuck demanded again.

"It hasn't changed--"

"Oh, no--"

"--and I'm calling because they just kind of left me in this room and it had a phone and--uh-oh."  Gary froze as he heard the door open behind him.

"Gary, what is it?"

"What the hell are you doing?" demanded a deeper voice.

Gary turned.  One of the other agents, the short blonde guy, was standing in the doorway, looking mightily displeased.  "Marissa, I--I gotta go," he stammered.

"Gary, no, wait, what did you mean, 'Uh-oh'?"

"It's okay.  I just gotta get off the phone now."

"Damn straight you do," said the agent, reaching Gary's side in two strides and yanking the handset away.

"Gary?"  Marissa's voice, tense with concern, called one last time before the phone was slammed into its cradle.

"Look, I'm not a suspect--well, I mean, I haven't been formally charged, and you can't--" Gary began, wishing he had paid more attention when Marcia was studying for the bar.

"Who were you talking to?"

"Just my friends, I wanted to let them know I was okay.  Is that a crime?"

"Depends on who your friends are."  The agent disconnected the phone from the wall, giving the cat a look of disgust as he did so.  "Look, this isn't the Hilton.  Your job is to sit tight and not make trouble.  My job is to make sure you do it.  So sit."  He took the phone and shut the door firmly behind him.

Ree-oow, Cat commented.

"I agree," said Gary glumly as he sank back into the chair.

* * * * * * * * * *
 

Part 23

Can we meet
Can we meet again
At the crossroads of disaster
     ~ Dar Williams, "The Blessings"
 

An ambulance was double parked outside Elizabeth Barnett's home when they arrived.

"Mulder, what--?"  Scully began.

"Action Ambulance," he read off the side.  "Either it's some private company or--"

Before he could complete the thought, Scully brought the Cavalier to a screeching halt behind the car--now empty--from which Agent Janski had been keeping an eye on the Barnett home.  She was out of the car, gun drawn, and headed for the ambulance before there was even time to think.

They were too late.

The ambulance's engines roared to life as soon as Scully cleared the rental car, and it tore off down the street.  She was about to jump back in and follow it when Mulder shouted, "There!"

Turning her steps in the direction he pointed, Scully took off after the man who was running through the backyard.  Usually in these situations she was the one backing Mulder up, but today he was a step behind.  Shouting the standard, "Stop right there!  FBI!" didn't slow the suspect down a bit.

It didn't slow Scully, either.  She caught up with him in a neighbor's yard when he had to dodge a sandbox.  Diving for his legs, she used her full body weight and just the right angle on the jump to bring him down along with her, and they landed with a "thump" on the cold brown grass.

Knowing physics did come in handy sometimes, even in the field.

Mulder was there before Scully could be thrown off, pinning the suspect with one knee on his back.  He cuffed the man while Scully got to her feet, keeping her gun trained on him as she tried to catch her breath.

Blue jeans, black shoes, navy windbreaker, dark hair--the description matched what little Hobson had been able to tell them about his attacker.

"Where did they take her?"

The suspect turned his face from the dirt to stare at her.  His dark eyes flashed defiance, but he had no idea what he was up against.

"Where is she?" Scully demanded again, her voice rising and taking on a hard edge.  She shifted her stance so that the gun was now pointed directly at the man's head.  Off to their right, a door banged open and an elderly man stepped onto his back porch, staring at the spectacle taking place in his neighbor's yard.

"C'mon."  Mulder hauled the suspect to his feet and propelled him toward the car.

"You all right?" Scully asked him, noticing that his limp was even worse.

"Yeah, I'm fine," Mulder told her, his mouth twisted into a sarcastic grimace.  "You?"

"I'll check out the house," she told him, ignoring the question in his eyes.  "Call for backup."

The back door had been kicked in; the frame around the lock was splintered.  Letting her training take over, Scully went back on automatic pilot.  Her gun came up, then out in front of her as she rounded the corner into the kitchen.  Very little was disturbed there, except for a chair that had been knocked over.

She bent down and saw a butcher knife and a used syringe under the table.  Great.

"Ms. Barnett?" she called, not really expecting an answer.  "Elizabeth?  Agent Janski?"

A soft moan sent her hurrying to the foyer, where Janski lay sprawled on his stomach.  He'd been shot in the leg, just above the knee, and there was a spreading bruise on his temple.

Shoulders sagging in defeat, Scully stepped around him, over the growing pool of blood on the carpet runner, and out to the front steps.  She holstered her gun as she called, "Mulder!  Call an ambulance!  Janski's down."

There wasn't time to wait for his response.  Back into the kitchen to grab a towel; out into the living room again and she was kneeling next to the barely-conscious Janski.  "I almost had 'em," he mumbled.

Ascertaining that there were no other wounds or injuries, she rolled him over on his back, applying pressure and elevating his leg as best she could.  Closing her eyes for a brief moment, Scully tried to ignore the pounding in her own head, the sick feeling of regret washing over her, and Ahab's voice chastising her, as he had so often when she was young.

"Remember, Dana, close only counts in horse shoes and hand grenades."

* * * * *

"Up."

Scully burst through the door without any preamble.  Gary, who had been resting his head in his hands, looked up, startled, and saw an agent transformed.  Radiating command, her spine so stiff she seemed to have grown a couple of feet since he'd last seen her, Scully was nobody's ally right now.

"Get up," she repeated as Mulder followed her into the room, towing another man along--a man who was handcuffed and scowling.  Gary got to his feet, moved around the table to stand near the door; he was right next to Agent Scully, but her focus wasn't on him.

"Is this the man?" Scully demanded.

Gary stared at her, taking in the dried blood on her sleeves, the tight set of her jaw, the dark anger in her eyes.  "Wha-what?" he gulped.

"Is this the man who threatened you at the Barnett residence?" she asked impatiently.  Mulder half-guided, half-shoved the unfortunate target of Agent Scully's ire into the chair Gary had just vacated.

"Well, I--I don't know, I mean, I didn't get a good look--" Gary stopped, bent over to peer under the table, and recognized the shoes.  The guy was glaring at him, but, emboldened by the presence of the FBI agents, Gary leaned a little closer and took a good sniff.  Cigarette smoke.  He remembered that.

"Yeah--I mean, I think it is," he corrected himself.  "Those are the shoes, anyway.  Black Nike hightops."

Scully pointed at the door.  "Agent Donner will take your statement."

Even as he moved to obey, Gary had to ask.  "What happened?"

"Out."

"But--what about--did you--?"

"Out.  Wait."

One step out of the room, he turned back to ask, "Where's my pa--?"

She shut the door in his face.

Mulder hadn't even looked at him, Gary realized as he turned away.  The agents' intensity had been focused on the man in the chair.  From the way they were acting, Gary was afraid to ask whether they had found Elizabeth or prevented the shooting of the FBI agent who was guarding her.

He had a pretty good idea what the answer would be.

The agent who had kicked him off the phone noticed him standing outside the door to the conference room.  "Over here," he said, pointing with his black Bic pen at the chair next to his desk.  "Wait.  I have to get the forms."

The noise and bustle of the bullpen was jarring after sitting alone in that room for so long; in fact, it almost seemed worse than it had before.  People were shouting into phones, jogging between desks, and hurrying for elevators, as if--cringing, Gary rested his elbows on his knees, his forehead in his hands.

Of course there was more activity.  One of their own had been shot.

He fervently hoped that this wasn't his fault, but of course he had to take some of the blame.  If he had been more effective that morning; if he had been able to convince them that he was telling the truth sooner; if he had--well, what he wasn't quite sure, but something had gone wrong at that house and he knew it was partly his fault.

Resting his chin on his interlaced fingers, Gary checked around; Agent Donner was nowhere in sight.  In all probability, he could walk to the stairs and escape without anyone being the wiser.  But what good would that do him, without the paper?  What good was he without the paper?

Which reminded him...where was Cat, anyway?  He stood, checking the tops of file cabinets, and bent down to peer under desks, but he saw nothing other than potted plants and loafers, respectively.

This was getting old.  Flopping back into his assigned chair with a sigh, Gary tapped a rhythm on the armrest with stiff, tense fingers.  He'd been trapped here, doing nothing, while some yet-to-be-revealed catastrophe had occurred, and now he was supposed to keep sitting here while events spun themselves out toward their apparently inevitable conclusion.

He ventured a glance over at the small room: the agents' postures were tense, and he could even hear the timber of their voices, though he couldn't make out any words.  They were really hot and bothered about this guy.  Gary jumped when the blinds were snapped closed.  Okay, so he wasn't supposed to know about that, either.

Not that he blamed them, not if what he thought had happened really had happened.  It was just, well, if they weren't careful, they--all of them, including Gary--were going to end up just as trapped by tomorrow's headlines as that suspect was in that little room.

* * * * *

"So, you're telling me that you know nothing about this abduction?  That you just happened to wander into that house as the ambulance was taking the woman away?"  While Scully closed the blinds, Mulder paced from one end of the table to the other, then fixed his prey with a steely glare.  "Let's try this again, shall we?"

"I'm not saying nothin' 'til I talk to a lawyer," the man repeated.  Eyes down, he shifted in his chair, flexing his still-cuffed hands behind his back.

They had found only one piece of ID on him, a security pass for the Andrews Medical Research Institute, issued to a Raymond Lutz.  Mulder held it in his face.  "Ray?  This is you, right?"

He shrugged.

Leaning even closer, Mulder shook the pass until he caught the man's gaze.

"Do you know what this is?  This is proof, Ray.  We know who's connected with that institute and we know what they've been doing to people, people like Elizabeth Barnett, people who have done nothing to deserve what you do to them except be in the wrong place at the wrong time."  He dropped the pass on the table with a flourish that was meant to convey disgust.  "And now, Ray, we know that you are connected to those people, too."  Bent slightly forward, arms akimbo--a pose that made him feel like a vulture spreading its wings prior to a kill--Mulder waited for a response.

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Scully standing almost in the corner, a little bit in shadow.  Even though she'd fallen silent, Mulder could feel the force of the gathering storm.  She regarded Lutz as if he was a piece of dog shit that had somehow found its way onto the soles of her Gucci pumps.

Having been on the receiving end of that look once or twice, Mulder knew how effective it could be.  There would be no good cop, bad cop routine for Raymond Lutz; the news for this guy was all bad.  Mulder had seen his partner angry before, but he knew that there were many degrees of her anger, and when it turned this frosty, someone was bound to get freezer burn.  One step out of the shadows, and she had Lutz's full attention.

"Tell us where she is."  There was no harsh accusation in her voice, no raging Irish temper, just ice and obsidian.  The occupants of the room now formed a triangle--it wasn't planned, it was never talked about, but it was a technique Mulder and his partner had developed in the time they'd worked together for guys like Lutz; suspects who thought they were tough guys and wouldn't give any information until they felt well and truly trapped.

With her arms folded across her chest, feet a little apart, Scully used those laser-blue eyes to pin Lutz like a dead cricket.  "Where did your accomplice take her?"  Each word had a weight and edge of its own.  "What were you planning?"

Still defiant, Lutz stuck his chin out and turned his gaze from her, toward Mulder.  "I ain't saying nothing 'til I talk to a lawyer."

"Lawyer?" Mulder snorted as Scully's arms came down to her sides in a gesture of exasperation.  He spread his hands on the table, fingers splayed, and pushed his face closer to Lutz's.  "You're going to need a lawyer all right.  But let me tell you, we've got you, with federal agents as eyewitnesses, on charges of shooting an FBI officer, kidnapping, assault, and resisting arrest."  He pointed toward the door.  "You think anybody out there is going to care what happens to you, now that you've shot one of their own?  If you think some court appointed lawyer is going to do anything more than stand by you while you enter a plea, you're dead wrong."

Lutz was shifting around again, trying to back away from Mulder, but the chair was already up against the wall.  He his attempt at sincerity, at looking Mulder in the eye, didn't quite succeed; his eyes were as shifty as the rest of him.  "I didn't shoot nobody!  You didn't even find a gun on me."

"Doesn't matter, Ray.  You're an accessory.  You think anyone out there is going to care whether you actually pulled the trigger on their buddy, or just stood by while someone else did it?"  Mulder pulled back a little, to give him room to think about that.  "And what about Gary Hobson?"

"Who?"

"Someone else who wouldn't mind throwing in some charges of his own--assault, maybe even attempted murder."

"What, that guy who was in here before?  I never even heard of him!"

"But you've seen him before, haven't you?"

"I know my rights, man.  I want to--"

"Talk to a lawyer.  We know."  Mulder tilted his head so that his eyes were more directly in Lutz's line of sight.  "The point is, Ray, that lawyer or not, you don't have a chance of getting out of here scot-free."

"Well, then if I don't have a chance, why should I tell you anything?"

"Because," Scully told him, "we're the only ones around here who really care about whose orders you were following, and why."  Lutz's attention shifted to her, and Mulder stood up straight, pulling back from the suspect to give her room.

"Everyone else is ready to lock you up and throw away the key," she continued, her voice dangerously calm.  "Don't you think the people who told you to do this deserve to be punished at least as much as you?"

He stared at her petulantly for a moment, his eyes hooded.

With a barely concealed sigh that may or may not have been part of her technique, Scully stepped around the table, closing the distance between herself and the suspect as she spoke.  "Okay, Mr. Lutz, let's get one thing straight.  You're going to talk whether you want to or not.  You and I both know that the people you work for aren't going to let you come back, not after this.  As far as they're concerned, you're a dead man.  You became one the second that ambulance pulled away from the curb without you."  She stopped less than a yard away from Lutz, and Mulder could see the suspect starting to crumble.  He didn't say anything, but there was fear in his eyes now instead of defiance as he absorbed what she was saying.  Mulder had to bite back the urge to tell Scully to reel him in.  She didn't need prompting.

"There's only one thing that will prevent that from becoming literally true, and that's if you tell us what's going on.  You're not getting off, but if you know your bosses you shouldn't want to get off."  One more step and she was in Lutz's face, one hand on the back of his chair and the other on the table.  The guy was trapped.  "You don't want us releasing you because you'll fall into their hands the minute you walk out the door."  She paused, then finished, "Tell us what you need to know, and we'll put you into protective custody, and make sure you live long enough to go to trial.  You could bring them all down, Ray."

"I don't know where she is," Lutz said again, but his shoulders were sagging and his voice was quieter now.  One hurdle crossed.  Scully watched the suspect for a half second, lips pursed, then straightened up, folding her arms across her chest.

Mulder took point.

"What do you know?"

Lutz snorted.  "Well, for one thing, I know that she was ready for us, not like last time."  Twisting in the chair, he stuck out his elbow to reveal a sliced opening in the sleeve of his black denim jacket.  "Cut right through my coat, scraped my arm.  Good thing we got the drugs in her right away.  That bitch was insane."

"Drugs?"  Scully flashed a questioning look at Mulder.  "What drugs?" she pressed.

Lutz shrugged.  "I ain't no doctor.  Something that knocks 'em out, makes them go limp, gives them these hallucinations....like, we can talk to them and tell them stuff that ain't really happening, and when they come to they believe it's real.  At least," he added, "that's what the docs told me.  I ain't never watched the tests and stuff.  I just load 'em and drop 'em off wherever they tell me to.  Then I got other business."

"So where were they taking her?" Mulder asked.  As he pulled out the chair across from Lutz and sat down, Scully paced back around the table.  "Surely you must know."

"No, man, I don't.  I wasn't the driver, just the muscle."

"How was it that you were left in the house when your cohorts took off?"

"I was s'pposed to clean up a little, make it look like...well, like she done the fed and took off."  Another elaborate shrug, the only gesture Lutz was really capable of at the moment--but it was starting to annoy Mulder.  "Look, you ain't gonna find them.  They take these gals to a different place every time.  Railroad cars, warehouses, sometimes even a barn or a house.  I never know where we'll end up.  They got it all planned though.  We just drop 'em off and never see them again.  I guess they figure it won't be as easy to find them if a schlep like me doesn't know what's going on when he gets caught."

Fighting an urge to shake the man out of his indifference toward the women he'd had a hand in abducting, Mulder forced himself to speak clearly, almost casually.  "What about this morning?  What were you trying to do to Hobson?"

"I was just trying to get him out of the way.  What, does he work for someone else who wants that broad?  After what she did to me, they can have her."

Lacing his fingers together on the table, Mulder tapped his thumbs together.  "Tell me more about what's going on here, Ray.  How many times have you done this?"

Another goddamn shrug.  "Five, maybe six.  I ain't been countin' nothing but the money, you know?"

"Names, Ray, I need--"

"I told you man, we don't know their names!"

"All right."  Mulder let out a slow breath.  This was going to take a while.  "Tell me again, Ray, what's the procedure?"  As Lutz repeated what he'd said before, Mulder snuck a glance behind him, where Scully leaned against the window sill.  What Lutz was describing couldn't be all that different from what had happened to her two and a half years ago.  They were getting close to the place she had to fear more than any other, to the memories she had spent so much time and so many psychological resources avoiding.  He knew how important the facts were to her, but he also feared that the sum of those facts, the truth, would be nearly unbearable, and he wanted to keep a close eye on her reaction.

Her eyes were open wide, and her face was pale, but so far her technique, her voice, and her control of the situation had been rock steady.  Had their roles been reversed, Mulder wasn't sure he could have been so composed.  Hoping that she would forgive him for what she might learn next, for what had happened to her, for everything, Mulder refocused on their suspect and posed another question.  "Ray, surely you've picked up some clues, something that will help us out.  What kinds of tests are they performing?  What's the purpose of all this?"

"Got me.  All I know is that they pay me good--or at least they did--and they said this was for the betterment of the country."

"You believed that?" Scully asked.  Drawing herself up to her full height and then some, she stepped closer to the table.  She avoided making any eye contact with her partner; he could almost feel her willing him to keep his concern to himself.

Not much chance of that.

"Sure, why not?  It's a living."

Before Mulder could react to that little gem, Scully was at the table, slamming her hands flat down on its surface and demanding, "Who, Ray?  Who has her?"

Mulder saw Lutz jump a little--hell, he had to hide his own surprise--but Scully's microburst had the opposite effect of the one she'd intended.

"You think they tell me their names?  You gotta be nuts.  I told you everything I know."

She turned her head away, almost imperceptibly, and bit her lip for a split second.  Anyone else might not have noticed it, but Mulder did.  Dana Scully didn't lose control very often, not without some serious regrets--and not without a pretty serious cause.  He knew that making an issue out of it now would be a big mistake, so, by unspoken agreement, they resumed the interview as though nothing had happened.  To an outsider, the whole thing probably wouldn't have even registered as an aberration.

They tried more questions, but the callous bravado asserted itself again and Lutz clammed up.  Finally, Mulder motioned Scully out of the conference room, and they huddled near the closed door.  It was a lot harder to keep their conversation private now; the other agents were fully aware of who was in that conference room and what he had done, and they wanted details.  No one had the nerve to come right up and ask, but they were moving around a lot more than they had in the past two days, circling, waiting, watching.  With a sigh, Mulder leaned down a little closer to his partner.  "I don't know how much more we're going to get out of him right now."

"And at the moment, our first concern has to be to find Elizabeth Barnett," Scully concluded.  She was leaning against the door frame, arms folded as if to contain herself, and she looked more weary than she'd been since she'd left the hospital in Allentown.

"Scully..."  He hated to ask it, but damn it, somebody had to look out for her.  "Scully, are you okay?  Maybe you need to take a--"

Her head snapped up; her arms came down to her sides and she stared up at him with flashing eyes.  "Don't even start, Mulder, don't you dare."

Reaching out, he put one hand lightly on her shoulder.  "I just want what's best for you, Scully, and right now you look a little tired.  I thought--"

"You thought I couldn't handle this?"  She forced his hand off her shoulder with an angry shrug.

"No, I didn't say that."  He hadn't thought that, either.  Of course she was capable, he just didn't want her wearing herself out.  Why had he opened his big mouth?

Scully shook her head as if she could shake away his concern.  Raising her voice, she turned to Agent Donner, who was pretending to scribble important information on a green Post-It note at his desk three yards away.  "Any word on the APB on that ambulance?"

"Nope, not yet."  Donner got to his feet.  "But CPD called; that guy you brought in has a record a mile long.  Did he give you anything?"

"Nothing useful," Mulder muttered.

Donner gestured with his head at the tall, lone figure slouching by the window across the office.  "What do you want to do with him?"

Shrugging once more, Scully turned on her heel and grasped the door handle.  "I'm going to get a list of past locations from Lutz.  At least that'll give us a place to start."  Mulder opened his mouth and took a step to follow, but she fixed him with a look that spoke volumes.  "Why don't you wrap up things with Mr. Hobson?"  The door clicked shut behind her.

"Agent Mulder?  Should I tell Mr. Hobson he's free to go?"

Tearing his gaze from the door to the conference room, Mulder pulled a rolled-up, somewhat worse-for-the-wear copy of the Chicago Sun Times from the pocket of his trench coat.  "No, that's okay.  I'll talk to him."

* * * * *

Gary leaned against a windowsill, a Styrofoam cup of coffee in hand.  It wasn't as bad as hospital coffee, but it was close.  At least Agent Donner had been nice enough to offer it; he'd stopped looking at Gary as if he were a punk off the street once he'd taken statement, even going so far as to give him a brief rundown of what had happened.  Being shoved against a wall by the man who'd been involved in the shooting of an FBI agent had apparently changed Gary's status from scum of the earth to mildly tolerable.

He wasn't feeling all that great about himself, however.  The situation had gone from bad to worse; not only was Elizabeth Barnett missing and possibly dead, but an FBI agent was in the hospital.  For the life of him, he wasn't sure what else he could have done, but that was the whole problem, wasn't it?  He should have known what to do.  The paper was his, and taking care of the problems it presented was no one's responsibility but his own.

Down on the plaza he could see pigeons scattering up from their perches on the Picasso sculpture as people walked by.  The birds moved in startled flocks, as if they'd never seen pedestrians before.

"It's a long way down.  You want a ladder?"

Gary jumped and turned to find Agent Mulder standing behind him.  "What?" he asked, wiping ineffectively at the coffee that he'd spilled on his jeans.  He set the almost-empty cup on the window sill.

Mulder inclined his head back toward the bullpen and the conference room.  "Did you give your statement to Donner?  About Lutz, the guy in there?"  His heretofore intense scrutiny of Gary was gone; he was preoccupied with something else.

"Yeah. I--I did."

"Well, then--" Mulder nodded at the elevator.  "You can go.  You're off the hook."

Gary didn't move.  "You want me to leave?"

"We've got bigger fish to fry right now," Mulder explained.  "We're sure you weren't involved--well, at least, that you weren't responsible, or trying to hurt her.  You just need to stay here in town so we can find you if we need to."  Blinking, he finally looked right at Gary, and asked, "Do you really live in a hotel?"

"Uh, yeah."  Gary wasn't sure how to react.  It wasn't as if he wanted to spend more time here, but there was still the matter of his--well, of his life.  "What about my paper?"

Mulder looked down at the roll of newsprint in he held as if he wasn't quite sure how to let it go.  He started to hand it over, but hesitated.

"You know, if this case wasn't so pressing--"

Gary snatched the paper out of Mulder's hands before he could finish, and turned the front headline so that the agent could read it.  "What am I supposed to do about this, huh?  I mean, what, is that it, 'Thanks for saving my life, guess I'll see you in the morgue'?"

Mulder actually looked surprised; most people were, when Gary got sarcastic.  At least it got him the agent's attention.

"Look, if you really believe that story," he told Gary, "the best thing to do is to get as far away from us as possible."

"What if I want to stay here?"

Shaking his head with a faint trace of wry amusement, as if this was all some kind of joke, Mulder said, "No chance, Hobson.  This isn't Little League anymore, okay?  The major players are on the field now; you'd just be in the way."

"In the--I risked my life for you!  I got shot at for you.  So you wanna tell me how you can just walk away from--from this?"  Gary rattled the paper at him again.

"I'm not walking away from anything, Hobson."

"But the paper says I'm--"

"The paper says you're going to die.  Well, if you believe that, why haven't you hightailed it out of here sooner?  Why do you want to stick around with the people who are supposed to kill you?"

"I don't believe that.  You said it yourself, the people you're involved with, they have ways of manipulating the media, and I--I just don't think it's you."

"So?"

"So, if it's not you, then maybe I'd be safer with you.  This--" Gary broke off as he shoved the paper in Mulder's face.  "This hasn't changed."  He was going to show Mulder the article again, but the sections had just been shoved together, and when he shook it, several pages slipped out and fluttered to the floor.  Glaring in disgust at the implacable agent, Gary bent to retrieve them.  If they were going to send him out on his own to face his fate, the least they could do was take care of--he froze halfway up.

"Why don't you just go home and relax?"  Mulder threw the advice over his shoulder as he started back across the bullpen.  "Maybe switch to decaf."

"I don't think I can do that," Gary told him quietly, transfixed by the story he held in his hand.  That was enough to stop Mulder in his tracks; the agent turned, head cocked to one side.  Thinking fast, Gary weighed his options.  If Mulder saw this, he'd go running off without him again, and Gary was sure that wouldn't be good.  Folding the page shut and backing two steps away from Mulder, he gulped hard before he said, "What if I know where Elizabeth Barnett is?  Or, at least, where she's going to be found?"

"What?"  Now he had Mulder's full attention.  Alert once more, the agent peered closely at Gary.

"It's--it's in the paper.  I'll take you there."  He held his breath, not sure if this would work.

Narrowing the space between them in one long stride, Mulder narrowed his eyes.  "You can't do that.  This case is--"

"I know.  It's official FBI business," Gary singsonged.

"Well, yes, but it's also, as you've no doubt noticed, dangerous."

"As dangerous as getting shot in the head and left in a trash dumpster?  Frankly, that should be official FBI business, too.  Look at it this way," he continued when Mulder didn't appear to be relenting, "You're getting two for the price of one."

Hands in his pockets, Mulder fixed him with an inscrutable stare.  "This is also known as extortion, Hobson."

"Does it matter, if it gets you what you want?"

"Well, it certainly gets you what you want.  How do I know you're telling the truth?"

Gary opened the paper enough for Mulder to read the headline.  "Missing Woman Found Wandering Empty Field," he recited quickly, then pulled it away again.  The fact that the field was familiar territory for both of them wasn't something he wanted to divulge right now, nor was it something about which he wanted to think too hard.

"Look, Agent Mulder, this thing usually only works for me, anyway.  It's like...it's like I have to be the one to change things, that's why it comes to me."

"Got a pretty inflated idea of your own importance, don't you Hobson?"

"It's not that, it's just...experience.  I mean, look at today.  You weren't able to stop it, were you?"

"No, but we got the suspect."

"And if he was so helpful, then why are you talking to me instead of to him?  I told you I should have gone with you.  Look, I'm trying to help you, here."

"So you keep saying.  But it's never quite enough, is it?  I still ended up in the hospital, and I don't think that librarian would have said that you were effective in stopping the fight last night.  And then today--never quite good enough, are you, Hobson?  It isn't you that's special, it's your paper."

Mulder's words were like a knife to the gut, and Gary didn't stop to think before he lashed back.  "It's not my fault you didn't want to believe me.  It's not my fault you were too late."

At the guilty look that flashed in Mulder's eyes, Gary was instantly sorry for his words, but not as sorry as he would have been if they hadn't worked.  Mulder chewed on his lip and looked back over at the room where Agent Scully was talking to the suspect.  Gary could feel the shift start to happen, could feel things start to go his way.

"All right," Mulder finally said, "Let's go."

"Really?"  That was fast.  Mulder started for the elevators, ignoring curious looks from Donner and the other agents as they passed.  Gary hurried to catch up.  "What about your partner?"

"She'll handle the suspect here."  Mulder glanced back at the room again.  A tiny doubt flitted through Gary's mind.  Should he go off with Mulder alone?  What if this was just a prelude to--?

No, he told himself, stick to your guns.  If there was one thing he'd learned in the months with the paper, it was that once he'd made a choice it was best to stay with it; to move forward instead of looking back.

Right now, both directions seemed equally dark.

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 24

Great occasions do not make heroes or cowards; they simply
unveil them to the eyes of men.  Silently and imperceptibly,
as we wake or sleep, we grow strong or weak; and at last
some crisis shows what we have become.
     ~ Brooke Foss Westcott
 

"He needs your help..."

"Sir?"

"...after all he's done..."

"Detective?"

Crumb started, turning from the window and his view of downtown Chicago to face the desk clerk who stood in his doorway.

"Yeah, what?" he snapped, completely failing to wipe the hesitant smile from her face.  Most of the staff had learned by now that Crumb's bark was far worse than his bite.

"The mayor called to confirm your meeting tomorrow.  He said to be sure to bring the files on the Dorchez case.  He wants to--"  She read the rest from the pink slip of paper in her hand.  "--'have all the pertinent facts, so that the truth can be brought to light'."

"What he wants," Crumb groused, moving to his desk, "is to tell me how to handle my case.  What he wants is to make sure all of his cronies stay lily-white.  What a crock.  Politicians!  We'd be better off without the lot of 'em."  While the clerk ducked her head to hide a smirk, he took a swig of cold coffee, then added, "Tell him I'll be there."

"Yes sir," she said, and backed out, closing the door behind her.

Crumb heaved a heavy sigh as he lowered his bulk into the chair.  He was getting too old for this.  He was losing his edge.  How else to explain the fact that he had been sidetracked from an important case by a phone call from a woman he'd only met a couple of times before?

But it was Hobson she'd called about, and for some reason Crumb himself didn't understand, that made a difference.  After a couple of weeks without the Jean Dixon act popping up in his office, Crumb had begun to hope he'd gone away.  Then a visit from the FBI and a call like that--what the hell was he supposed to believe now?

Trouble was, the kid was starting to get under his skin.  As much as he hated to admit it, Hobson reminded Crumb of himself, thirty years ago.  However he knew what he knew, his main goal was to help people, plus he couldn't seem to let go of a problem once he knew it was there--or, in Hobson's case, about to be there.  The guy cared about doing what he thought was right, no matter who he butted heads with in the process.  Those were the same qualities that had made Crumb a good cop--a damn good cop, he thought, with no small measure of satisfaction--for so many years.

So, yeah, what he had told the FBI agent yesterday was true.  He was starting to like the kid.  Didn't mean he wanted to play his guardian angel, though.  Once had been enough.

Crumb looked down at the desk top, surprised to see himself clicking the cheap ball-point in his hand with ferocious intensity.  That whole thing with Dobbs--no, Marley--still gave him nightmares, most of which included the betrayed, deer-in-the-headlights look he'd seen on Hobson's face every time he'd tried to apprehend him.  The fact that Crumb had placed his trust, for however short a time, in a man who would had dispassionately killed a secret service agent and a newspaper editor as part of a plot to assassinate the president, all the while planning to lay the blame at the feet of an innocent like Hobson--well, it galled him.  It was nearly enough to drive him to an early retirement.

Heck, if it hadn't been for Hobson's friends convincing him that Marley was Marley and not Dobbs, Crumb wouldn't have had a career left from which to retire.  He might have even gone up in the explosion that had torn his office apart, and spared the mayor the trouble of firing him.

Sometimes knowing what the past could have been was as spooky as knowing the future.

"Sir?"  Officer Sanchez poked his head in the office without knocking, as usual.  Crumb dropped the pen.  "There's been a shooting over in the Gold Coast.  Not our territory, I know, but there was an FBI agent wounded and a woman kidnapped.  Feds put out an APB on the getaway vehicle.  Just thought you'd want to know."

Crumb narrowed his eyes.  "The Gold Coast, eh?"  Hadn't that Clark woman said something about that neighborhood?

"Yes, sir."

"How's the agent?"

"He'll pull through.  Are you ready to go over the evidence in the Dorchez case?  The team's in the meeting room."

"Yeah, yeah, give me another minute."  Crumb rummaged around his desk until he found the business card.  "I gotta make a phone call first."

* * * * *

Frustrated beyond all telling at the lack of information she'd been able to glean from Lutz, Scully stared at the sparse list she held in her hand.  Two railroad yards, a deserted warehouse, and a barn out in the middle of nowhere.  Agents had been dispatched to check all the locations, but so far nothing had turned up, and Lutz either couldn't or wouldn't remember anything else of use.  She had just sent him downstairs for processing and gone in search of the nearest coffee pot when her cell phone trilled.

"Scully."  Stretching her back as she poured the thick black liquid into a Styrofoam cup, Scully scanned the bullpen for her partner.  She tried to ignore a faint hammering in her skull, directly over her left eye.

"Agent Scully, Zeke Crumb, Chicago PD."

She blinked and set the coffee down, untouched.  "Detective Crumb?"

"Yeah, look, I'm sorry to bother you, but I--well, I got kind of a strange phone call a while ago and I wanted to check up on something.  Have you--"  He paused and said the next part as if he really didn't quite believe what he was asking.  "Have you run into Gary Hobson today?  His friends called me with some cockamamie story about him getting killed and I just--aw, this is nuts.  I'm sorry to bother you."

"No," Scully said, her mind racing as she tried to incorporate this new development.  Did Crumb know anything about Hobson's so-called magic newspaper?  "It's no bother.  Actually, he's here.  He was present at an arrest earlier today, and we're taking his statement."  A frown creased her forehead as she realized she didn't see Hobson anywhere in the bullpen, either.  He wouldn't be with Mulder, would he?  A worm of doubt wiggled in her stomach.

"He bothering you?  Stickin' his nose in where it doesn't belong?"

"No, not anymore."  She hoped not, anyway.  Still searching the outer offices for any sign of her partner or their witness, she noticed that it was already late afternoon; the light outside was starting to wane.

Crumb snorted again.  "And he's not in some kind of trouble?  He's okay, right?--well, 'okay' being a relative term in Hobson's case."

"He's fine," Scully assured the detective.  After all his bluster yesterday about Hobson being a wacko, Crumb's current attitude struck her as particularly--well, protective.

"That's good--that he's not inconveniencing you, I mean.  Sorry to bother you, I just...well, I wanted to make sure, that's all.  Say, I heard about what happened earlier--was that your case? How's the agent who was wounded, how's he doing?  You caught the guy who did it yet?"

Marveling at the speed with which news traveled the law enforcement grapevine, Scully gave Crumb the same information the press was getting, hoping it would be enough to satisfy his well-intentioned curiosity.  She left out a lot of details.  The alien abduction theory.  The magic newspaper theory.  The conspiracy theory.  The harvesting women's ova for genetic research and/or hybridization theory.

Minor details.  Theories.

Inside her skull, the little man with the hammer was joined by a couple dozen friends.

Crumb thanked her for the information, but couldn't resist one parting salvo.  "Look, about Hobson, just make sure the kid doesn't get in over his head, okay?"

Scully was about to dismiss the comment and get off the phone, but the fumbling concern in his voice gave her pause.  How much had Hobson's friends told him?  Remembering the front-page article he'd been so worried about, she felt the worm of doubt turn into a snake.

"He's kinda--he gets into these situations without thinking sometimes, ya know?"

"Like he did with J. T. Marley?"

She could almost hear Crumb wincing through the phone.  He recovered his composure enough to ask, "Who?", but his momentary silence was enough to confirm her suspicion, and another piece of the puzzle slipped into place.  Too bad it wasn't the one she was most interested in at the moment.  She filed it away for Mulder and said good-bye to the detective, disconnecting the call before he had a chance to ask any more questions.

Where was Mulder, anyway?  Yes, she'd needed some time away from him after he pulled the big brother act earlier, but surely he hadn't gone too far.

Heading back out into the bullpen, she pinched the bridge of her nose and tried to will the headache away.  Just this once, she pleaded silently, not today, hold off for one more day.

She said the same prayer every day.

"Agent Scully, I'm glad you're back, there's someone downstairs--"

"Back?"  She turned to see Donner coming toward her, dodging file cabinets and the groups of workers and agents who stood in the corridors formed by low cubicle walls, consulting in hushed tones.

"Well, yeah."  His voice was hesitant as he reached her side.  "I thought you went with Agent Mulder."

Every muscle in her body tensed.  No.  Absolutely not.  Not again.

"And where, exactly, would that be?"

"Well, I don't--I mean I don't know, it's just that when he left with that witness--"  Hands shoved in the pockets of his black Dockers, Donner shifted from one foot to the other, sensing her building irritation.

"Mr. Hobson?"

"Yeah.  they were reading some newspaper and they got on the elevator...you didn't know they were leaving?"  Donner's eyes were wide with genuine surprise.  "When I couldn't find you a couple minutes ago, I thought you'd gone to meet them."

Dead.  Mulder was going to be dead if she ever found him again.  "I just want what's best for you, Scully"--what a crock of shit.  As if she needed his protection.  He was the one running off with a civilian at the behest of some clairvoyant newspaper; off to get framed for murder, if that paper could be believed; off to fall into some trap, if it couldn't.

The little men in her skull traded their hammers for pickaxes.

"Did they say where they were going?  How long ago was this?"  Scully was already dialing her cell phone as she pressed Donner for answers.

"No, they didn't say.  It was about twenty ago minutes, I think."  He checked his watch.  "Maybe half an hour."

After waiting through ten rings, Scully snapped her unit shut.  Mulder wasn't answering--either his phone was turned off, or he hadn't taken it with him.  Both were equally likely.  He was still dead.

She just had to make sure that she was the one who had the pleasure of making it happen.

"Agent Scully?"  Donner's nervous voice claimed her attention again.  "What do you want me to do about your visitors?"

* * * * *

"You gonna answer that?"  The cell phone in Mulder's pocket rang a fourth time, a fifth, a sixth.

Mulder looked over at Gary with hooded eyes, then turned his attention back to the road.

"Guess not."  It was all Gary could do not to yank it out of the agent's coat pocket and call for help himself.  He stared at Mulder for another moment, then out the window when the phone finally stopped shrilling.  "Next left."

"This is starting to look awfully damn familiar, Hobson."

Gary didn't answer.  He still wasn't one hundred percent sure what they were doing.  Just following the paper's lead, as usual, back to the beginning.  Back to the muddy, empty fields and abandoned buildings.  Coming full circle, he'd been lured by the paper's beckoning, like a puppet on a string, like a moth to a--

No.  Not that.

Anything but that.  It had taken him a couple weeks of practice, but he'd been able to shut Marley's smooth-as-steel voice out of his thoughts and his nightmares.  He wasn't going to let it start again.

Night was descending swiftly as clouds moved in from the west, hiding the sunset.  Mulder had already turned on the car's headlights.  Off to the side of the road, shadows of buildings and trees were fading, pooling and leaking across the fields while the little light that was left turned grey.

"So," Gary began, wanting to ask but not quite sure how to do so, or what the reaction would be, "You're not going to tell her what's going on?"

Mulder blinked once, but kept his gaze focused on the road.  "No," he said after a moment.

Gary didn't like the possible implications of that, not one bit.  Would the two of them be able to stop what was happening?  What if they needed help?  What if they were outnumbered?  He didn't want to get Mulder pissed off at him by asking the obvious question, but hell, it was his life, too; he had a right to know.

"Why not?"

Still focused on the road, Mulder didn't answer at first.  Gary turned to stare out the window again and was startled when Mulder finally said, "It's easier this way."

Easier?

"Less complicated," Mulder continued before Gary had time to voice the question.  "I'm sure a guy like you, in your line of--"  He lifted one hand off the steering wheel and waved it toward the paper in Gary's lap.  "--in your line of work can understand.  I don't see your friends around, now that things have turned serious."

"But that's--that's different."  Gary squirmed a little at the counter-accusation, but he knew he'd done the right thing in keeping Chuck and Marissa out of this.

"So is this, though maybe not in the same way."  Mulder had dropped the edgy, cutting attitude he'd been displaying toward Gary all afternoon.  He seemed to be explaining it as much to himself as to anyone else.  "There are certain aspects of this case that are extremely sensitive.  We're going to find Elizabeth Barnett alive and, according to you, better than ever; there's no reason to bother Scully with this."

None of those reasons seemed valid.  In the first place, Agent Scully would be a pretty valuable asset in any kind of confrontation.  She could handle a gun, she was authoritative, and she seemed to be remarkably clear-headed.  Why would Mulder not want his partner along?

In the second place, if what Mulder was saying was true, why was Gary here at all--aside from the fact that, due to an almost blind faith in the paper, he had insisted on coming, "extorted" his way into it?  If this was really so sensitive, then surely Mulder would have found some other way to get the information out of him.

Unless Mulder had let Gary think that he didn't know where to go because this was all some kind of setup...

No.  Not gonna go there, either.  Mulder was an enigma, but not in the way Marley had been.  There was something genuine about his drive, his concern for his partner--that was it, wasn't it?  It was clear that Mulder cared so much about what he was doing--whatever the reason--that he couldn't be dissuaded from what he thought was the correct course of action.  He was passionately committed to a cause, whereas Marley had been cool and calculating about his mission, a mission that might not have even been his own.  Mulder was on a mission, too, but it was of his own choosing.  He was doing this for himself, and--a piece of the puzzle, a big piece, fell into place--for his partner.

Gary looked down at the paper in his lap, open to the article they were tracking.  The print was hard to read in the fading light, but he knew the story by heart now; it only took the headline to spark the unfolding of events in his mind's eye.  The silence in the car gave him time to replay it as he put two and two together.

"Doctors at County General Hospital confirm that Ms. Barnett, who claims to have been abducted by extraterrestrials a number of times in the past year, shows no trace of the cancer that was diagnosed several weeks ago.  They are at a loss to explain this apparent cure."

Gary sat up a little straighter, and before he realized he was asking it, the question was out of his mouth.  "Is your partner--Agent Scully, is she sick?  The same way Elizabeth Barnett is sick?"

Mulder's posture went stiff, and his mouth hardened into a thin line.  Gary gulped.  Well, at least he hadn't asked something truly ridiculous, like, "Does Agent Scully believe she was abducted by aliens?"  The impact of the question he had asked was obvious enough.

His expression having closed up, Mulder ran a hand over his mouth before he said, "What the hell makes you think that?"  His gaze never left the road.

"The way she looks," Gary said simply, though he clutched the edges of the newspaper tighter than was necessary.  "The way you look at her.  The way this case obviously means more to you both than just catching bad guys."

Mulder raised his eyebrows.  "It does?"

"That whole thing with throwing away your wallet the first day, what was that all about?" Gary asked before he could lose his nerve.  He really did want to know the answers.  "And you've let me go a couple of times when other guys might not have--you act one minute like you have more important fish to fry than me, and then when I bring up something about this Barnett woman you're all over my case.  And now I'm in a car with you, but you're partner isn't, and we're headed toward I'm-not-sure-what, no backup or anything, and I may not be an FBI agent, but I'm not stupid and I'm pretty damn sure this isn't standard procedure."  Pausing for breath, he tapped the article.  "If I'm going to die because of all this, can't you at least tell me why?"

Mulder glanced over at the article, then at Gary, as if trying to measure something in the man sitting next to him.  Turning his attention back to the road, he said, "There are a lot of people who've become sick because of what the men I'm tracking are doing, and there may be more soon if they aren't stopped."

That didn't answer Gary's question.  "This article says that Elizabeth Barnett has--had--will have had--cancer."

"Verbs are a bitch when you're changing the future, huh?"

This wasn't the time for Strunk and White.  "Does Agent Scully have cancer?"

Mulder checked his watch.  "Yes."

"An incurable cancer?"

"Yes."

"But that would mean--"  The enormity of the implication was almost too much to absorb.  "Are you trying to tell me that these, these people, they did this to other people?  They gave them cancer?  On purpose?"

Mulder shot him a sideways look and nodded, once, twice.

A cold wave of revulsion washed over Gary.  He felt sick.  Again.  It was probably a good thing that he hadn't eaten today, after all.  He didn't need to ask any more questions about Agent Scully; he knew, and he wasn't sure he wanted to hear the rest said out loud.  Rolling the paper up tightly, Gary shoved it into his inner coat pocket, where he couldn't see it.

But he couldn't turn away from the truth now, could he?  At least this went a long way toward explaining Mulder's behavior.  After a moment of thought, he broke the silence with what seemed, ironically, to be the most innocuous question of all.  "What does that have to do with aliens?"

Mulder shook his head.  "I'm not really sure.  I'll have to get back to you on that one."

"Do you think they're real?"

"I think they're a possibility."  The look Mulder gave him this time was pure Sphinx.  There was more, a great deal more, going on here than even the few, impossibly overwhelming facts that Mulder had given him, and Gary didn't think he was going to get a whole bunch more.

"What about Agent Scully?"

"Agent Scully is trying to keep an open mind."

That wasn't really what Gary had meant.  "You don't think we're going to run into aliens out here, do you?"  He tried to laugh, but it sounded more like choking.

Mulder, on the other hand, took his question seriously.  "No.  No, I think that if you're on the level and if your paper is right, we're just going to find a field and a barn, and a woman in trouble, and, possibly, the same people we've been running into all week."  He looked as if he were about to say something more, then closed his mouth, evidently changing his mind.

"Oh."  Somehow it wasn't as comforting as Gary had hoped.  "Just the guys with the guns, then."

"Just the guys with the guns."

"And the cancer."

"And the cancer, yes."

No, it wasn't comforting at all.

* * * * * * * * * *

Part 25

"Hush!" said Christopher Robin, turning round to
Pooh, "we're just coming to a Dangerous Place."
     ~ A. A. Milne, Winnie the Pooh
 

Its shocks gone, the car bounced and jolted down the gravel road.  Peer as he might through the murky evening light, Gary could make out no signs of life.

"I think this is it."  He pointed at a deserted barn that was, if he hadn't lost his bearings in the wash of revelations, about two miles northwest of the field where he had first found Mulder.  "She's found in one of the fields that adjoins this property."  As they made the turn, Gary could see the serious determination in Mulder's expression become even more intense.  "At--at least we know she's going to be okay, right?"

"I suppose that depends on us."  Mulder's jaw was set, his mouth a grim line as he parked the car near the barn.  "And on whoever else is here."

Patting his jacket just to make sure the paper was still there, Gary climbed out of the car and had a look around.  The barn's wide doors were hanging loosely on their hinges, and only a few flecks of red paint remained here and there on the greying wooden exterior.  Out front, an abandoned tractor, long rusted and missing two of its wheels, sagged in the mud and frozen pools of water.

The barn was at the top of a small rise; from here they could see other buildings, houses, and farms, none of them closer than a couple of miles.  Between them were nothing but mud and corn stubble and ditches, and roads that led to more of the same.

Exiting the car, Mulder surveyed the barnyard with his hands on his hips.  "This is the place?" he asked, completing a circle as he turned to stare at Gary.

"Uh...yeah."  Gary looked around, still unsure.  He knew that, according to the paper, he'd brought them to the right place; it was the paper he wasn't certain of anymore.  After all, it had been slightly off the past couple of days.

The place was deserted.  There wasn't a car in sight, not even any tracks in the stiff mud, and aside from the barn itself, the area provided few hiding spots.  If Elizabeth Barnett was here, she wasn't going to be easy to find in the gathering dark.  "What next?" he asked.

Mulder started to say something; his jaw worked for a moment, and then he headed for the trunk of the car.  "Which field?"

"The paper says it's the one that borders County Road 72."  Gary pointed at the faint ribbon of concrete half a mile to the north, marked by a lone set of headlights traveling away from their location.  "I guess we just go out there and start looking, right?"  Pulling his penlight out of the pocket of his bomber jacket, he started past the car, but Mulder stopped him, a hand on his arm.

"What do you think you're doing?"

"I'm going out there to look for Elizabeth Barnett," Gary explained, as if that wasn't patently obvious.

"With that thing?"

"My flashlight?"  Gary blinked down at it; he wasn't quite sure what Mulder was getting at.

"You call that a flashlight?" Mulder scoffed.

"What's wrong with it?"

"Kinda small, isn't it?"

"It works okay."  With a shrug, Gary watched as Mulder pulled binoculars and a black object the size of a tackle box out of the trunk.  "What's that?"

"This?" asked Mulder, flicking a switch and illuminating half the countryside with a beam brighter than a halogen headlight, "This is a flashlight."  He turned the beam on Gary.  "That is--shit, Hobson, that thing's pathetic."

"Yeah, well, I didn't know we had to send out the Bat signal, here," Gary couldn't believe they were arguing over tools.  "What about keeping a low profile?"

"Mm..." Mulder grunted.  He walked around the car, shining his contraption into the deepening shadows that surrounded them.  "Might be a good idea for you.  Trouble seems to find me no matter what."  He turned serious all over again.  "When?"

"Huh?"

"When does your crystal ball there say she's found?"

Gary didn't even have to pull it out of his jacket.  "Seven forty-five; she wanders over to the highway and a bunch of teenagers pick her up and call the cops."  He waved toward the road that ran parallel to their position, half a mile away.  "She tells them that she woke up in the field and doesn't remember much of what happened."

"Which means that whoever took her may not even have let her go yet," Mulder concluded, checking his watch.

"You don't think she just escaped?"

"From these people?  No."  There was no room for that hope in Mulder's voice.  "She's probably dropped off, all evidence wiped clean, left out here so she can be found and--look, there won't be any point in my being here if all we find is her.  I want the people who are doing this, so that's what we're trying to do; find them when they bring her here."  He pointed toward the field behind the barn with his light.  "Why don't you take that area, go down to the tree line and back, and see what you see?  I'll check down toward the other road."

After a brief moment of hesitation, Gary nodded, sure he was being sent out of the way but not willing to start another debate.  He'd just have to keep his eyes and ears open.  "What if I find something?"

"If you see anyone, anything, you come and get me.  If you can't, stay out of the way.  Hide.  The last thing I need is to be pulling your ass out of the mud tonight."

Considering what had gone on the past three days, that statement struck Gary as particularly ludicrous.  Still, he turned and started into the field, waiting until he was out of earshot before muttering, "I was just thinking the same thing about you."

* * * * *

Scully fished a bottle of Motrin out of her briefcase and swallowed two pills dry before taking the stairs down to the reception area.  Waiting for the elevator would have been beyond her limited capacity for patience at this point.

Given Donner's description, it had to be Hobson's friends who were waiting for her.  First Crumb's call, now this: tag-team annoyance.  How much did they know, anyway?  Donner had told her he'd caught Hobson making a phone call earlier.

What was she supposed to tell them?  She'd checked the ASAC's office, the break room, even pounded on the door of the men's restroom: no Mulder.  No Gary Hobson, either.  They were out there, somewhere, and she was stuck here,  uninformed, fielding questions like a press secretary.  It was beyond infuriating.

She pushed open the stairwell door, hearing Chuck Fishman's strident voice even before she spotted him.  "You have to let me talk to them.  Let me talk to someone."

He was speaking to the guard who manned the metal detectors at the building's entrance.  The guard was trying to keep a perturbed Fishman from getting to the elevators, while the building receptionist watched from her desk in the entryway.  None of them noticed Scully's approach.  Marissa Clark stood off to one side with her guide dog, listening intently.

"You'll have to wait, sir, I've told you--"  In the high-ceilinged reception area, the guard's voice became a hollow echo.  The woman at the desk rolled her eyes when she caught Scully's questioning gaze.

"And I keep telling you, this is important," Fishman insisted.

"It had better be," Scully commented; he started and whirled.  For the few seconds it took her to reach the group, there was no sound except the tap of her heels on the polished marble floor.  When he saw the badge clipped to her lapel, the guard heaved a sigh of relief.

"Thanks," Scully told him, and he withdrew to his post at the metal detector.  There was no place to sit in the lobby and she wasn't about to take the two visitors to the offices, so Scully nodded toward the wall near the elevators.  Fishman followed  her there.

"Where's Gary?" he demanded, his blue eyes so wide they really did seem fish-like.  "What did you do with him?"

Scully bristled at the accusation in his voice, but kept her own response low.  The last thing she needed was for anyone else to get an earful of alien abductions and magic papers.  "Mr. Fishman, we haven't done anything to your friend."

"Then where is he?  What's going on?"  Arms stiff at his sides, he leaned slightly forward.

Good question, Scully thought.  Marissa took a few tentative steps closer, tugging at her dog's leash.  The guard shot a questioning look at Scully, who nodded to let him know it was okay.

"Mr. Hobson," she said with a faint sigh, "was a material witness to a crime--"

"Crime?  What crime?"  Fishman stiffened.  "He didn't say anything about a crime.  What happened?"

"Sir, this isn't your--"

"Don't tell me this isn't any of my business."  His voice rose, bouncing off the walls.  "He's my friend.  What did you do to him?"

Under the man's bluster, Scully recognized genuine concern.  She just wasn't sure what to do about it.  Marissa's scrutiny, though silent, was something Scully could feel a dozen feet away.  She felt like a string on a guitar that was too tightly wound and ready to snap.  How long before the Motrin kicked in, anyway?

"We took his statement--strange though it might have been."

Fishman gulped, and then nodded.  "He said he'd told you about the paper.  And?"

"And, that's all, as far as I know."  Of course it wasn't all, but what else could she tell them?  She had no idea, but Fishman's persistence saved her from having to finish the thought.

"So why don' t you let him go?  What are you going to do about the paper?  And that headline?  Gary's not--he isn't going to die."  It was a statement of fact, but it was also a plea.

"Of course he's not," Scully said, as evenly as she could.  The sharp pain in her head had finally, mercifully, subsided to a dull throb.

"He's right, you have to do something."  Marissa finally spoke up, following her dog until she was standing right next to Scully.

"Ms. Clark--" Scully began.

"It's Marissa, and don't patronize me and send me away."  There was an angry edge to her voice, an anger born of fear; Scully knew because she'd heard it in her own more than once.  "Agent Scully, we have a friend--a friend who believes--knows--that he's in trouble.  A friend who needs help.  A friend that we can't find.  Surely you know something about that; you can guess how we feel."

Scully wondered if she had any idea just how close to home she'd hit.  "No one here wants to hurt your friend, Marissa," she told her.  "You spoke with him yourself.  He was just talking with us.  He even gave us some information that may have saved an agent's life, and thanks to him we apprehended one of the men responsible.  We appreciate that.  He must have told you that he wasn't in any danger from us."

"He did," Marissa said gravely, "but that was quite some time ago, and we haven't heard from him since."

"You've taken him somewhere, haven't you?"  Fishman stepped between the two women, gesticulating wildly--as if pointing out all the places his friend could possibly be.  "Are you going to turn him into some kind of a...a lab rat?"

"Chuck!" Marissa hissed.  He looked from her back to Scully, who narrowed her eyes at his unfortunate choice of words.

"What are you talking about?" she demanded, her voice going stone cold.  Her empty stomach coalesced into a tight knot.

Shifting uneasily, he persisted: "Well, since you guys investigate this kind of stuff, I figured you'd want to, you know, put Gary under a microscope, look into this whole paper thing, make him one of your test subjects..."  He trailed off when he finally read the rock-hard light in her eyes.

"Mr. Fishman, I think you've watched one too many B movies.  The FBI is not in the business of toying with the lives of private citizens, no matter how odd, unless a crime has been committed.  Even then, we most assuredly would not use anyone as a 'lab rat'."  Scully drew herself up to her full height, shoulders back.  "I think you'd better leave."

"But it isn't fair--"

Fair?  He expected fair?  Scully could have told him a thing or two about fair.  "Now," she insisted instead, pointing at the nearest exit.

As if by magic, the guard appeared at her side.  "Everything okay here?"

"Mr. Fishman was just leaving."  At the tone of command in Scully's voice, the guard grabbed Fishman by the elbow and propelled him toward the door.

"Hey, I'm a taxpayer, I have rights!" he protested.

"No, wait," Marissa said as the guard brushed past her, Fishman in tow.  Something in her voice made him hesitate.  He looked back at Scully, while Fishman held his breath.  As if she were working it out while she spoke, Marissa said hesitantly, "Agent Scully, if Gary told you about the paper, it's because he trusts you.  For that to happen, after what he's been through--that's as much a miracle as--"  She paused as Fishman cleared his throat, no doubt a reminder of the fourth party listening in.  "--as knowing the future ahead of time.  You--we--can't just let him--"  Pausing, she bit her lip, then finished, "Part of the reason he trusted you, I think, is because I do.  If anything happens to him--"

"It's all right," Scully tried to assure her.  "As I've told you--"

"But you haven't told us anything we don't already know.  You say Gary's all right, but you won't tell us where he is and--"  She stiffened and gripped her dog's harness tightly.  "You don't know where he is, do you?  Oh, my God..."

She was trying valiantly to stay calm, Scully saw, but her voice was rising in pitch and she turned her head wildly in Fishman's direction.  Shaking off the guard's arm, he stepped over and placed one hand on her shoulder.

"Hey--"  The guard started after Fishman, but Scully caught his eye with a barely perceptible shake of her head.  He backed off as she moved closer.

The pair faced Scully, expectant, worried, waiting for her to tell them that Marissa had guessed wrong.  She couldn't do it, couldn't lie--but she had no truth to give them, because she didn't know what it was, any more than they did.

Desertion, she thought.  There's your truth, Mulder; that's what this is.

What was she supposed to do now?

* * * * *

There were at least three cars parked at the house, a farmhouse that Mulder remembered as boarded up and deserted from his reconnaissance of the area his first day in Chicago.  Now there were lights and activity and, from what he could see at this distance, signs of something that had little to do with milking cows and barn dances.

He pulled the binoculars away from his face and started back for the car.  In the past half hour, darkness had fallen and the chances of finding anything of use out here had fallen to almost zero.  It was more important to get to that house; he just hoped he could do it without interference.  That meant getting Hobson out of the way.

It hadn't been all that long since Mulder had been Hobson's age, but somehow he felt a great deal older.  Hobson was all naiveté and dogged determination, not the best combination for keeping one's guard up around manipulators, liars, and conspirators.  It wasn't himself the man reminded Mulder of, it was Scully.  Oregon, 1992.

Well, he knew how that had turned out in the end, didn't he?

The little Mulder had let slip in the car had been enough to knock Hobson's world off its axis, and the guy wasn't going to be much help if he didn't understand how far these people would go to promote their cause and hide the truth.  Furthermore, there was no way Mulder going to take responsibility for another innocent bystander.

His dark musings were interrupted by the sound of muffled footsteps.  Whirling, he identified the approaching man by the tiny beam of light that preceded him.  "Anything?" he asked softly.  Hobson shook his head.

"Wild goose chases and snipe hunts aren't exactly my specialty," he muttered, shoving the penlight in his jacket pocket.  "You knew I wouldn't find anything didn't you?"

Ignoring the question, Mulder picked up his flashlight before trudging back through the mud toward the car.  Hobson followed, tense and quiet.  They'd just rounded the corner of the barn when Mulder halted and turned to his companion, holding out his hand.  "Let me see the paper."

"I don't know if that's a good idea, it's--"

"Let me see it," he insisted.  When Hobson reluctantly handed it over, those hazel eyes of his searching Mulder's for any clue at all, Mulder snatched it out of his hand and went with the first idea that came into his head.  "There's nothing out here at all.  This is a dead end."  He waved the paper at Hobson.  "A set-up."

"Oh, c'mon, you don't really believe that anymore, do you?"

"I'm not saying that you're involved; I don't think you are.  But we've been set up here; you, me, all of us."  Inclining his head toward the other man, Mulder added, more quietly, "Someone's using you to play me for a fool, Hobson."

"No, Agent Mulder, that's not--"  He shook his head, one hand making little sweeps as he tried to deny the idea.  "I mean, nobody controls what's in the paper, not in the way you're saying.  In order to do that, they'd have to know about it, and the only ones who do are Chuck and Marissa.  You can't think that they--"  Faltering, he stopped to give Mulder another searching gaze.

"Hardly." Mulder snorted, then played his trump card.  "But they aren't the only ones who know about the paper, are they?  Someone else found out.  Someone else used you."  He waited for his words to sink in; it didn't take long.  Hobson took a step back, his eyes huge.

"Marley's dead," he whispered.  "I saw him die, he's--this isn't like that, it can't be."

"Why not?"  Mulder shrugged, tucking his flashlight under one arm so that he could roll the paper into a long tube.  For the moment, he kept his gaze discreet; he knew what this was doing to Hobson, and, despite what Scully might think, he didn't like doing it, even if it was for the best.  "You've been used once before, why not again?  You don't seriously think that this Marley planned those assassinations on his own, do you?"  He advanced one step; Hobson backed up, dry grass and cornstalks crackling under his boots.  "I've known people like that.  Assassins.  Marley didn't care who he killed, and he didn't care who he used; he only cared about doing the job exactly right--a job he was probably paid to do."

Hands clenched into fists at his sides, Hobson opened his mouth, but no sound came out.  Mulder felt a sly smile trying to escape, and banished it.  Okay, maybe Scully had been right. There actually was some demented part of him that was enjoying the reaction created by his words, that was getting a kick out of seeing Hobson dumbstruck as the BSU's wunderkind pulled all the pieces of his secret puzzle together, seemingly out of thin air.  But that was part of what had made Mulder such a good profiler; he could think like a criminal, even enjoyed it once in a while.  And, enjoyable or not, he could use it when he had to.

"He must have been working for someone, and there's a very good chance that someone knows about you, too," he continued, driving the point home with added seriousness in his voice.  "If that someone is in the government, if your Mr. Marley was associated with the people I think he was, then they could very well have connections to my investigation.  What better way to keep me off track than to throw a little paranormal bone my way?"

The arrow struck its target; Hobson closed his eyes tight for a second before he asked, "If that's true, then what do we do about it?"

"We do the last thing they expect."  Mulder put the newspaper in his coat pocket and pulled out the car keys.  "We stop following their lead."

Hobson's eyes flew open in surprise.  "I don't know if that's such a good idea, if we should leave--"

"We're not going anywhere," Mulder said simply.  "I am.  You're staying here."

Glancing around the dark, deserted farmyard, the younger man gave an audible gulp.  "You--you can't be serious."

"No one's really after you," Mulder said, starting toward the car.  He was running out of time and impatient to be away.  "It's me they want, me and Scully.  They want to get us off track, to keep us away from the truth, and I am not about to let that happen again."

"But--"  Even with Mulder's ankle injured, Hobson had to hurry to keep up with him.  "But you can't just leave me here."

"Sure I can.  Look, Hobson, if you don't want to be a puppet, you gotta cut the strings."

"What about Elizabeth Barnett?" he demanded as they came to a stop several feet away from the woebegone Cavalier.  One hand came out as if to detain Mulder, but apparently he thought the better of it, and withdrew it before making contact.

Shrugging, Mulder said, "If you want to look for her, be my guest, but according to your paper she's going to be okay.  Let me repeat: it's the men who've taken her that I'm after."  He jabbed one finger at the younger man's chest.  "As for you, Hobson, yeah, you've been used, but if your usefulness is over they'll leave you alone."  He reached over and gave the poor, befuddled guy a careless pat on the shoulder.  "Just stay here.  Relax.  It'll be over before you know it."

Hobson was not about to take that advice.  His voice tight, he protested, waving his arm toward the highway: "This isn't right, this is where she'll be, right over there, you can't--that front page hasn't changed and--"

Mulder ignored him and opened the driver's side door.  Hobson hurried to the other door, but skidded to a stop when the barrel of Mulder's gun glinted across the top of the car in the faint gleam of starlight.

"Back off," Mulder growled.  The safety was still on, but the kid didn't know that.

"You-you're bluffing."

"Do you really want to find out?"  Mulder dropped his voice to the low, silken purr of a tiger.  "Maybe this is how it happens, that front page story of yours.  You have no idea what I'm like when I'm truly pissed off, Hobson, and you don't want to find out.  This is for your own good."

Hobson swallowed and extended one hand across the roof of the car.  "At least let me have my paper back."

"Not a chance.  Something happens, it changes, and you'll know where to come after me."  Mulder slid into the driver's seat, the gun still in his hand.  Hobson stuck his head through the open window.

"Your cell phone, then.  You're not using it."

"And you're not going to call Scully, or the police.  Don't worry; I'll come back for you.  I hardly ever forget where I've left my witnesses."  Mulder pulled his door closed and holstered his gun, ignoring the twinges of guilt.  Better those than another soul added to the roster of his failures.  He started the engine, threw the car into drive, and gunned the gas as he headed back down the gravel road.  In his rearview mirror he could see Hobson throw his arms up in exasperation.

It was better this way.  He'd left him with a place to hide and the cover of darkness, and he would come back, eventually.

As he turned onto the highway, Mulder belatedly remembered to fasten his seat belt.  The buckle caught on the rolled-up newspaper protruding from his trench coat.  Pulling it out of the pocket, he drove one-handed, considering it, and then tossed it into the back seat.  Forget the thing.  He wasn't about to be led around like a dog on a leash, not anymore.  He already had the information he needed.  This time, there would be evidence.  This time, he was going to find out if they had really cured Elizabeth Barnett, and if so, how.

And then he was going to do the same for Scully.

* * * * * * * * * *

Continued in Installment 6 

Don't forget to feed the author!   peregrin_anna@hotmail.com

Return to GTA's EE Crossover Index