II

11:21 P.M., George Washington Parkway

The red Lexus Scully'd checked out from the FBI's fleet bounced over
potholes in the road along the Potomac. Fucking cell phone jammed against
her ear with each bump as she listened to it ring. Finally, a voice.
"Acres."
"Sergeant Acres, this is Special Agent Scully. I'm on my way to Poolesville
now. What've you found?"
"Well, we checked the Parsons' house. Nobody home." The male voice on the
other end was curdled by a Western Maryland accent and fuzzed by RF
distortion. "Got no visible cause to go in. There's a car in the driveway
but the plates are missing. It's a white Lincoln, though, and it's got the
ID number DMV says it should."
"Start working on a warrant. I want to get into that house." Pressed the
disconnect and threw the phone on the seat beside her, pushing air loud out
her nose. Tried to shake the image of her partner gagged and bound, tried
just to see the dark and fog off the river cut by headlights. Suddenly, a
red deer dashed from the woods into the middle of Scully's lane and froze.
"Shit, shit, shit!" She swerved to avoid the paralyzed creature; her bones
jarred and the top of her head thumped the ceiling as the car ran up over
the shoulder into the brush just before the precipitous drop into Dead Run.
"Oh Jesus." She looked down into freefall as the Lexus stalled with a
grumble. "Goddamnsonofabitch!" Scully's temples pounded and fingers
couldn't stop squeezing the leather-covered steering wheel.
Scully drew a deep breath and informed the Lexus with metal-slick
certainty, "Start or I'm going to get out and push you over the brink. And
you're way too young to die, right?" Turned the ignition key and received a
submissive purr. Good girl.
Scully pulled the car back onto the road and increased speed slowly, eyes
following the black-velvet treeline for other stupid, suicidal deer. The
sign for the Maryland Beltway reflected metallic green as the cell phone
warbled. Her heart jumped and she fumbled for it--found it on the
floorboard behind her right heel. Teeth fixed around the antenna's terminal
knob--pulled to unsheathe it. Tucked the little phone under her chin.
The oncoming hi-beams of another asshole driver made her wince. "Scully."
"Dana? It's Anderson--ASAC Vanderbilt, you know." The soft Georgia voice
conjured a gentle, ebony face. "I'm running...I was running the search for
your partner."
"Was?" Her neck nerves twanged. She shifted, almost dropped the phone.
"Mulder called in. He said he was safe--headed out on vacation. Whatever
you saw was some kind of joke."
"That's bullshit." Her teeth snapped together on the final consonant,
killing a moment of relief. "Who did he call?"
"Assistant Director Skinner."
"Put me through to him, please, Andy?"
"Sure. Sure....Hang on, Dana." An accidental beep as he hit the zero
instead of the pound sign.
One dozen trills in her ear before Kimberly Cooke answered for Skinner. The
woman's clipped staccato was yet another wire brush stroke. "The Assistant
Director is occupied."
"This is Agent Scully." She didn't need to make herself sound implacable.
"It's an emergency. Put me through to him now."
Silence, then just a few bars of Muzak before the secretary returned. "AD
Skinner is in a meeting. He says can't be disturbed."
"Pissed about working late again tonight, Kim? Next time, at least let me
hang long enough to believe you really talked to him."
"Agent Scully--"
"No. No more crap. Tell Skinner I'll join his meeting in twenty
minutes--no, make it fifteen. Got it, Kimberly?" She poked the cell phone's
off button, pretending it was a spot right between the secretary's eyes,
then hung a U-turn across the grass median and stepped on the gas.
The river sparkled beneath city lights as the car sped over Key Bridge,
then squealed to a stop and inched its way up M Street through the late
night crowds and traffic. Scully frowned at Christmas lights around pub
windows and illuminated candy canes fixed to lamp posts. She floored the
car through the last yellow light of Georgetown and headed into the empty
office district where the fronts of squat but streamlined federal offices
were guarded by bronze statutes of American proletariat. Not bothering to
signal, Scully swung left at a green light, heading down streets bordered
by dark concrete boxes born in decades after the banks reopened and the WPA
went home.
There it was, straight ahead, at least half the windows still lit. The J.
Edgar Hoover Building--another tasteless, square worker hive born in the
Seventies, a decade when--what had Mulder said in that e-mail once?--a
decade when "One-third of the Earth's population succumbed to the Moronic
Plague." Scully smiled faintly as she palmed the steering wheel to turn
down the ramp for the underground garage. Goddamned Mulder.
No parking spaces. Never enough. She circled round and round descending
levels. Finally found a lonely slot in the depths, slammed the car door
with a satisfying wham, and headed for the elevators.
Kimberly Cooke might be an alpha-prime telephone bitch, but there was
nothing the little shit could do to keep her from seeing Skinner. She was
gratified that Kim typed in steadfast accompaniment to her Dictaphone and
never once met her eyes.
Scully pushed hard against the smooth, wooden door with its brass plaque
and swept into the AD's office. Lungs convulsed as she inhaled cigarette
smoke that curled in the air like tendrils. Scully coughed, waved her hand
in front of her face as she walked the deep-pile carpet. That man was
there--behind her--venting toxicological air. Her wide, angry gaze stayed
on Skinner--bent over his desk writing on a legal pad; lamp casting a
yellow glow on his forehead and reflecting off his glasses. "What is it,
Agent Scully?" He didn't look up.
"Why did you cancel the search for Agent Mulder, sir?"
"Because it was bogus." Her mouth knotted as Skinner flipped the page and
immediately put his pen back to work. "Mulder is on his way to Key West. He
said what you saw was a prank staged by some friends. He's getting a
written reprimand when he gets back."
"But it's not true, sir," Scully contradicted, chin lifting. "Mulder was
abducted. It was not a joke."
The moldy voice from behind made her shiver. "Agent Scully, you're
overwrought. Maybe you need a vacation, too." She threw a glance over her
shoulder--not seeing the smoker, but sure the smile in his voice translated
to his face with the prettiness of an oozing wound.
"Mulder didn't have a reservation at any area airport, sir. I've checked."
She blotted out indignation, focused hard on Skinner. "Mulder told me his
suitcase was in his trunk, but earlier I talked to one of the toss team who
said there was no luggage. We know Mulder didn't come back to get his bag,
sir, so he lied. Or if Mulder did go to Key West, he left without anything
except the suit he was wearing."
"I spoke to Mulder directly," Skinner was brusque. "He said he was all
right, on his way to Florida, and was sorry about his friends' poor
judgment."
"Was the tape run through the stress analyzer?"
"Yes. The results were inconclusive, but that seems appropriate under the
circumstances."
"Sir," her rebuttal began more softly, "I know Mulder better than anyone. I
think you can agree with that--"
From behind her, bemused: "No argument here."
There was heat in her stomach as she tried again to catch Skinner's gaze.
"Frankly, sir, Mulder doesn't have any friends--well, not many, and I know
them all. Those men weren't friends. Mulder wasn't annoyed or amused, he
was afraid. He was more than afraid." Scully stepped in closer, her hands
becoming fists at her side. "He told me, too, that nothing was happening
against his will, but I don't think--I don't...." Words trailed off as she
scented failure. Scully stiffened with resolve. "Listen to me, sir. I've
been with Mulder in some bad situations. Situations where he should have
been afraid, but wasn't because--because he's Mulder. Tonight he tried to
hide it, sir, but he was terrified."
Skinner raised his eyes from the bureaucratic pile, his chair squeaking as
he turned to face her directly. Blinked a few times and seemed to be
considering. "Scully, we traced the number. Mulder was on a pay phone at
National. Why would an abductor drive him there and force Mulder to call
me? Just to throw us off?"
National. National....? She took a sudden, deep breath. "Sir, you say he
called from National Airport?"
Skinner nodded.
"You verified it?"
"Yes. He was on a pay phone in the new terminal."
"Mulder told me he was leaving from Dulles."
"You're sure?"
"I offered to drive him there but he said it was too far out of my way. He
must have hoped I would notice the discrepancy. Sir, please don't drop the
search. I know my partner. I--" She had to pause and breathe more slowly.
"Sir, we're wasting a lot of valuable time that could save him."
She watched the AD put down his pen and look briefly into the cigarette
haze. Felt her muscles loosen when he picked up the telephone and punched a
few buttons. "Vanderbilt, don't bail out of Ops two yet. Get that search
for Mulder going again."
When the phone clattered into its cradle, Scully grabbed Skinner's gaze
back for an instant. "Thank you, sir. I'm sorry to have disturbed your
meeting."
"Get out of here, Scully." The AD looked back down to his work. "Go do the
composites."

III

Tuesday, 12/5/95, 12:15 A.M.

Mulder paced back and forth, hugging himself. He had already inspected
every cranny of the small, empty basement room, intent on keeping his mind
occupied, keeping his fear a bearable chill in his gut, not a moving
current that froze his heart and his throat and flooded his brain with cold
blue.
No window in his cell, just dirty white-washed walls and a poorly leveled
concrete floor below a glaring 100-watt bulb. Cobwebs draped the corners
and swayed from the exposed joists of the ceiling. The door was strong--he
couldn't break it. Panic had made him try. Cross-bolted on the outside,
probably.
God, there was nothing left to do but pace.
His stomach grew tighter and colder, pushing the flood of fear up into his
brain. He clung to his anger. Fucking jerks. Fucking Interrogation 101.
Give the prisoner time to invent horrors, to prime himself with terror. Why
the hell did he need to invent? His own memories were enough.
His memories were at hand: Dad, young and glacial, with his long leather
belt; himself--trapped in a little boy's body and a stuffed bear shield
that the belt snapped from his hands; Mom, already shorter than him,
slapping his face again and again while he saw stars and tasted copper,
accepting his punishment for losing Samantha. For hurting Mom so bad.
Mulder stopped and curled over himself, his fingers clawing his own
shoulders. He saw again the wooded lot behind the high school where all the
geeks got what they deserved. He remembered their tight grip on his wrists
and ankles--holding him to the ground, to the fallen golden leaves.
Slanting autumn sun in his eyes as the blows came down and the kicks caught
him in the ribs. And he remembered the old grounds maintenance man rousing
him out of the peace of unconsciousness and the sobs that racked his aching
body when he realized he was still alive and he was still Fox Mulder.
Tears tracked down his face now. He hated himself for weeping. Mulder wiped
his eyes with his hands. "Come on, you bastards!" he shouted at the
ceiling. "Get this over with!"
-Lisby
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
"Somebody back East is wonderin' 'Why don't she write?'"
-wagon driver, 'Dances with Wolves'
---------------------------------------------------------------------------