From: "JHumby" <shumby@terra.es>
Date: Fri, 29 Nov 2002 01:23:58 +0100
Subject: Cold Cuts - 1 of 18 - by Joann Humby
Source: xff


TITLE: Cold Cuts
RATING: R (language, violence, adult themes - see content warning)
CLASSIFICATION: X A
DATE: November 2002
SPOILERS: Set in S6
ARCHIVE: Gossamer, Ephemeral - yes, others please ask
AUTHOR: Joann Humby - jhumby@lineone.net

SUMMARY:
When Kersh adds Mulder and Scully to the hunt for a serial killer,
everyone's life gets a little more complicated. Friends, allies and
enemies can make for a dangerous team.

TIMELINE:
Mid-S6, and creating a couple of minor continuity ripples as it
goes!

CONTENT WARNING:
Descriptions of violence and sexual assault have been kept as
non-graphic as possible but please treat as NC17 if you feel that
you might find them distressing. Story also includes references
to consensual same sex relationships.

LEGALLY:
Legally these characters belong to some combination of 1013, Chris
Carter and Fox. Mulder's soul belongs to DD, for which I'm truly
thankful.

With grateful thanks to my trusty beta team. DJ, Sana, Anne, Ann
Foxfire and I'm bound to have forgotten someone else too...

Written and edited August-November 2002

=========


"It's not a job, it's punishment," he growled, flicking a single
sunflower husk through the car's open window. The pack that he'd
taken it from was now empty, even that relief denied. Three hundred
miles and they'd be home, and in Mulder's present mood that sounded
like a punishment, too.

Scully was in no better spirits, but after a day spent trudging
between farms debating their need for big piles of manure, she'd run
out of energy, not even enough to indulge herself in another round
of complaints. "What options have we got?"

The knuckles of his left hand tapped restlessly against the steering
wheel, while his right paid attention to the road. Virginia was
green, the road was empty, night was falling, and they had no
options. Mulder sighed and glanced at the dial, automatically
obeying its silent reminder to slow down. No option there, either.

------

"We have a potential situation," Assistant Director Cassidy offered.

The other ADs and their section chiefs looked at their agendas and
evaded her eyes. They always had a potential situation. Potential
situation of the week was?

Cassidy ignored the indifferent slump of her colleagues; rituals had
a natural rhythm and she had her role as high priestess to fulfil.
"DC and Baltimore PD have requested support. Homicides. Their
cases have already been reviewed by the ISU."

Kersh shifted in his chair, struck by a sudden bolt of recognition
as his brain read between the lines. Great, all they needed, a
serial killer on the loose, here in DC. What do you get when you
throw jurisdiction wars, politics and a serial killer into the
barrel? He could almost smell the crap as it started to fly. He was
just glad that it wasn't his fan that it was heading towards.

Cassidy glanced over in Assistant Director Skinner's direction.
"Perhaps you could fill us in."

Skinner nodded, unnecessarily straightening the notes in front of
him as he spoke. "We have five deaths with a strong correlation in
MO and victimology. One of the victims worked on a community
newspaper. The speculation's already started."

Politics, Kersh noted, grateful that Skinner had this particular
time-bomb to defuse.

"We've already had inquiries from the press. Suggestions that the
deaths may be related. I need to put a team together. The key people
are in place, Martin Neill is the Agent in Charge, but I need
bodies. If we need to up the tempo..." Skinner paused, confident
that silence would convey the appropriate message and unwilling to
make any demands until the others had been given at least a few
seconds to get past their in-built knee-jerk zero response.

Cassidy completed the request. "Part time. I don't want active cases
crippled to do the work. We already have the core team. But we need
experienced people, preferably people with credentials in this area.
I'm expecting you to give me the names; I don't want to impose a
solution."

Kersh looked at the yellow pad on the table and scribbled himself a
reminder note. Cassidy needed names to put on inter-office memos;
bodies to show up at briefings; impressive numbers of concerned
agents to demonstrate the Bureau's commitment to the press. And she
wanted it not to affect anything. He sensed rather than saw her
looking in his direction.

The question progressed steadily, counter-clockwise around the
table, maybes offered and names volunteered. It arrived at Kersh and
his even less enthusiastic section chiefs. "Agent Jackson would
benefit from the experience," suggested one. Actually, based on what
Kersh was hearing, Jackson would benefit from being a little less
wet behind the ears. Kersh hated it when they held back allegedly
prime-cut rookies to stay in DC rather than making them serve their
time pushing paper and making coffee in Nebraska.

Skinner tried not to look too disgusted. Cassidy chose not to sigh.
Beggars can't be choosers.

Kersh knew they were waiting for more, so he threw them a bone.
"Agent Scully may be able to assist on forensic liaison."

Cassidy raised her eyebrows. "Good thought." She paused, dug around
for the rest of the jigsaw puzzle that Scully's name triggered. "And
wasn't Agent Mulder in the ISU at one time?"

Kersh hesitated, but decided to show willing despite his qualms. "I
believe so."

Cassidy waited expectantly.

Well, if it was bodies they wanted. Kersh rolled his pen between
thumb and forefinger. The thought of Mulder on a team of any sort,
indeed, the idea of him being out of his line of sight for any
reason, did not fill him with confidence.

Skinner had already lost his sense of perspective and much of his
credibility while managing Mulder. It was a mistake that Kersh
didn't plan to make. But if they just needed someone to make up the
numbers? Kersh nodded reluctantly. "I could make him available."

By the time the meeting closed, Agent Neill's team of six had
become a team of twenty, a figure suitable for proving serious
intent to all but the most dubious press man.

------

Scully found Mulder glowering at a vending machine, where he was
cautiously sniffing an anemic-looking cup of alleged coffee. "Kersh
wants us."

Mulder turned the glare for use on her. "Right."

"Now," she added.

He tipped out the contents of the cup, and allowed at least the
appearance of irritation to discharge with it, following her without
further argument or agreement.

Kersh's assistant announced them as soon as they arrived. "Agents
Mulder and Scully to see you, sir."

The introduction was clearly unnecessary. Much as Mulder liked to
fantasize about disappearing from Kersh's radar, he was well aware
that the Assistant Director didn't need anyone to remind him of
their names.

Kersh glanced up briefly to dismiss his secretary from the room,
and then opted to ignore the new arrivals by studying the papers
on his desk.

Mulder's glare was back with a vengeance, and it was only a sharp
shake of the head from Scully that stopped him from opening his
mouth.

After much refiling of papers and flourishes of his pen Kersh
looked up again, finally satisfied that territories had been defined
and pecking orders established. "Sit," he commanded.

Mulder did as he was told, slouching in the chair. If Kersh was
going to be so blatant in his attempt to play the high school
principal, then Mulder could reward him by playing the ill-humored
adolescent. Scully looked professionally polite but decidedly
remote, determined to emphasize that she, at least, was above such
macho posturing.

Kersh frowned. "I've been asked to supply personnel for a task
force. It'll be in addition to your normal duties."

"Task force, sir?" Scully's voice was bright and intent.

"Homicides, clustering round the DC area. A possibility that they
are linked. Martin Neill is Agent in Charge."

Mulder cut in before Scully got the chance to reply. "Prostitutes
or ethnic minorities?" Even Scully winced.

Kersh's hand drifted to adjust his glasses. Maybe he should have
stuck to his guns in the management meeting and kept Mulder out of
this. "Meaning, Agent Mulder?"

"The victims. It's not in the press. I assume the victims aren't
white, middle class males." Kersh twitched a little. Mulder studied
him, curious now. "They are?" He paused for an instant, then caught
on. "Gays."

"Are as entitled to the Bureau's protection as anyone else."

"Which is why we can work on the task force in addition to our
normal duties."

Kersh growled. "Use your best judgement to prioritize. I'll be
watching."

Mulder summarized, just for the sake of clarity. "So, window-
dressing, sir?"

"I'm sure you'll get the chance to supply your insight, Agent
Mulder." He paused, switching his attention to Scully's carefully
composed features. "Agent Scully - Agent Neill is looking forward to
working with you. If you need additional time for task force duties,
please keep me informed." Having confirmed the division in the
partners' status on the case, he looked down at the papers on his
desk again, before adding a final, "I believe Agent Neill is holding
a 3pm briefing."

"Sir," barked Scully, and Mulder wondered for an instant if she was
going to salute. Kersh nodded and Mulder took that as a dismissal.

Dana Scully didn't follow her partner from the room. She waited
until he closed the door before speaking. "I'm sure Agent Mulder
doesn't wish his comments to be construed as dismissive of the
victims."

"So long as you and Agent Mulder do the job your AIC needs, I won't
have a problem."

Scully swallowed and her boss found himself awkwardly grateful that
she took his briskness as an instruction that the meeting was now
most definitely over.

With the room to himself, Kersh could admit that while Mulder's
dismissal of the work as "window-dressing" had grated, it had also
been apposite. Mulder might be a pain in the ass to work with and an
embarrassment to the Bureau, but he was undeniably astute. Perhaps a
little too astute for his own good at times.

Rising to his feet Kersh decided to work off the excess energy
by pacing, circling the territory a couple of times before finally
coming to a rest in front of the window. Mulder could give a saint
a migraine. Rubbing carefully at his temples he wished Neill
and the task force luck.

-----------

Back at their desks, Scully read the email from Agent Neill
detailing the meeting scheduled for later that afternoon out loud
to Mulder. She spoke with emphasis as if he should find it
newsworthy, despite the fact he was on the same mailing list
and presumably had by now read the same letter.

Mulder shuffled his feet along the desk, rearranging himself so that
Scully could see his computer screen. "Messy work."

Scully stared at the bloody images, whispering her reply. "Where did
you get the pictures from?"

"The ISU. They've already taken a shot at it."

"Neill wanted us to come in fresh, without preconceptions."

"Neill thinks he's the ringmaster and I'm the resident clown."

"You don't even know him."

He didn't reply instantly, just switched between windows on the
screen to bring up another mass of words. "You think?"

She moved quickly from her seat, almost knocking Mulder off balance
in her anxiety to get to the monitor. She switched it off, hissing
into his ear, "Personnel records are confidential. Aren't you in
enough trouble?"

Mulder removed his feet from the desk and sat up straight, surveying
the room in a quick sweep that instantly confirmed his expectations
- the place was silent because everyone was watching them. He made
sure his whispered response was theatrically loud. "Mea culpa. I got
the full latte, not the low fat. Forgive?"

---------

The meeting room was already half full when Mulder and Scully
arrived. Neill broke away from the cluster of agents he was talking
with to greet them, intercepting them as they headed towards the
chairs that offered the best view of the door.

Neill stretched out a hand in welcome and Scully accepted the
warmth. "Dana Scully. Long time no see. I thought I'd never get the
chance to work with you. And you must be -"

"Mulder," her partner replied, not even pausing on his way to the
seat that he'd already picked out from across the room.

"Mulder," repeated Neill quietly, supplying a brief shrug and a
smile to Scully as he did.

Scully glanced at Mulder's fast retreating form and then back to
Neill.

"We should talk," suggested Neill cheerily, "It'll be great to catch
up."

Scully smiled and found it hard not to break into a full-blown
grin at his enthusiasm; all these years and some things hadn't
changed.

The task force was ninety minutes into its two hour meeting before
Mulder said anything. Late enough that the other agents had already
been lulled into a happy consensus of mutual agreement.

"You're assuming the profile is correct."

Neill rested the pen against the chart and stared down at the source
of the interruption. He'd been warned to keep an eye on Mulder, not
to give him an inch. "We haven't got any reason to believe otherwise,
Agent Mulder."

"So you'll automatically discard any evidence that runs counter to
its assumptions," suggested Mulder.

"Nothing will be discarded. But we can't commit precious resources
to wild goose chases. Focus is our key word."

Scully's hand shifted, she tapped Mulder's arm to try and get his
attention. It didn't work, Mulder continued his attack. "Focus isn't
achieved by failing to gather all relevant information."

The looks from around the table ranged from the long-sufferingly
tolerant to the outright hostile. Neill seemed to gain extra
confidence from their approval. "I appreciate that you *were*
a profiler, but Agent Burton has more recent relevant experience
in this field. He consults on literally hundreds of cases per year."

"Which is exactly why he has to assume that the information he is
fed is both accurate and complete."

"What are you getting at?"

"He has to make assumptions, we don't."

"I'm not making assumptions."

"You're assuming the victims are gay?"

"The victimology, as you know, is one of the factors that links the
killings."

"You assume that the attacker is also homosexual?"

"The profile says..."

"That the attacker picked them up, probably on some promise of sex.
I read the profile. Two of the victims had live-in partners."

"It's known that..."

"Queers aren't monogamous?"

The sharp intakes of breath and barely controlled sniggers from
around the table underscored the lack of political correctness in
Mulder's comment. There was no question about it - Mulder had just
pointed out the elephant in the dining room which the others had
been so carefully pretending to ignore.

Neill took it as the opportunity to close the discussion down.
"Agent Mulder, can I remind you that I asked for sensitivity and
discretion on this team."

Mulder ignored the complaint and turned it into one of his own. "Can
I remind you that people are dying?"

Somewhere along the way battle lines had already been drawn
and sides taken; long suffering had turned to horrified, and hostile
had turned into angry. Scully's hands were clenched together on
the table in front of her, unwilling to be drawn into a war and
uncomfortable to find it happening despite her wishes. Only
Mulder looked utterly relaxed.

Neill's fingers tightened on the marker pen as he turned away from
the conflict and back to the board, where he proceeded to press the
pen so hard that he almost tore through the paper. < Don't assume. >

By the time the words were on the sheet, Neill had pulled himself
back under the tightest control. Brainstorming sessions always had
the potential to be a hazard, and Mulder was a prime example of why.
Neill was on the fast-track, racing his way up the Bureau hierarchy.
What he didn't need was a Mulder trying to push him off course.

Neill straightened his shoulders as if Mulder's interruption had
been dealt with and therefore could now be forgotten

When the meeting finally closed, Mulder could describe his partner's
demeanor in one word - why? Her facial expression mirrored her body
language as she shrugged apologetically towards her colleagues. She
zealously refiled the papers in her briefcase, and avoided looking
at Mulder.

"Scully," his vocal chords froze as he spoke, as if he himself was
unsure exactly what intonation to use. Was he trying to soothe her,
win her round, or question her?

"It's not our case," she mumbled, a quiet, deep grumble of a reply.

"So why invite us to the meeting?"

"To help Agent Neill get his investigation on track."

"Focused?"

"Is that such a dirty word?"

"If it's on the wrong thing."

"If you haven't got anything positive to say."

"Why don't I keep my mouth shut?"

Scully didn't reply, deciding that keeping her own mouth shut was
the most expedient way of handling Mulder. "I'm going to start
reviewing the forensics." Then she was gone.




END of Part 1

==============

As afternoon drifted into evening drifted into night, so
Mulder's thoughts had drifted deeper into the case. Something
had felt wrong enough about the profile to make him argue with
it at first sight. Despite the fact that they didn't want his
opinions. And, as Scully had correctly observed, despite the
fact that he had nothing positive to offer as an alternative.

Leaning dangerously far back in his chair, he studied the
ceiling, squinting to try to get enough lubrication into his
eyes to let him blink again. Adjusting his gaze he attempted
to focus on something in the distance, before concluding that
even now that it was almost empty of people, the bullpen of an
office had no distance, only a claustrophobic clutter of desks
and computer screens.

The muscles in his neck chose that moment to protest about him
putting too much weight on them. Reluctantly, he pushed
himself back upright. There was definitely something wrong
with the case and despite Scully's remark, it wasn't just that
somebody else was in charge of it.

Mulder closed his eyes, just to let them rest. Maybe he did
resent Martin Neill. Perhaps it was just that the walls of
this office had now closed in so tight that anything, X-File
or not, anything that looked like daylight seemed to be
appealing.

No way did he envy Neill. Neill was racing up the Bureau,
gathering commendations and brownie points as he rose. Been
there, seen it, done that.

So, did he envy Neill, then? Did he wish it was him and not
Neill, standing up there with his marker pen and the big pad
of paper? Did he want to be the one dutifully writing up the
negative and unhelpful heckling, and brushing it off as a
minor irritation before returning to the focused actions?

Did it anger him that Neill, who'd gone through Quantico with
Scully and had only occasionally matched and never bettered
her scores, was now giving them orders?

Had be become that petty?

Suddenly too tired to try to analyze his own motives, he tried
to drum up a little energy by turning his focus back onto the
outside world.

Clicking the button on the mouse, he set back in motion his
own, personal, bloody slideshow packed full of the images of
death. Picking up the hard copy photographs from the desk, he
started to catalogue them again. Time of death; dumpsite; last
sighting of victim; murder weapon; torture method.

The murder weapon was ultimately always the same, a bandana
tied to form a garrote around the victim's neck. Only the
duration of the suffering they'd gone through before that
point and the degree of torture inflicted seemed to vary.

Such a sexually charged crime, yet the posing of the bodies,
and the bodies had certainly been posed after their deaths,
suggested nothing sexual. Or perhaps he was misreading it.
Maybe after the death, the victim was no longer considered to
be a sexual object? Except there was evidence that at least
the third victim had been raped only after his death.

Maybe there was some kind of apology in the posing. Did the
killer feel guilty? About the kill, or about the torture that
had preceded it?

There was definitely something wrong with the pictures. The
jigsaw didn't fit nearly so neatly as his colleagues wanted to
believe. Did it?

Going back to the computer, he changed the slide show again,
lining up the pictures that the team had gathered from the
friends and families of the men, the ones that showed the
victims before they became victims. He set them to appear on
the screen one after another, and as one loop finished, he
ordered it to repeat.

A sea of happy faces, of people who had loved and who were
loved in return. He let the soft  tide of their smiles wash
over him and settled back to read the printouts of interviews
with their families, friends and colleagues.

He switched on the tape recorder, hugging the headphones to
his ears as he listened to a radio interview given by one of
the victims. A redundant little non-news story about the
regeneration of urban centers. The man's voice had been alive
with fun and determination, and with a firm belief that the
world could be a better place, and that the better place could
start right here in DC.

Mulder sighed. He could almost believe in that voice, in its
softness and generosity. Self-assured, yet giving. Not hard to
empathize with a voice like that. He took off the headset and
stretched, yawning as the tiredness tried to take control of
his body.

The room felt suddenly warmer, the hum of the screens oddly
hypnotic. His skin tingled with macabre fascination as the
images playing in his mind shifted from the death and
lifelessness of still photographs to create a sudden cacophony
of sound and moving pictures.

The New York accent of the third victim came into sudden focus
as it asked him "who?" The delicate Georgian drawl of the
second dead man asked "why?" He listened to them and heard
their voices mingle and rise until all that existed was a
cloud of demands for understanding and retribution.

Scully was wrong. It was his case. All of them were his
victims.

----------

The first thing that Dana Scully noticed when she got into the
office the following morning was Mulder's jacket decorating
the back of his empty chair. It was a bad sign; the office
wasn't warm enough to provoke that reaction this early in the
day.

He could be sick and feverish. He could have slipped out of
his normal routine and gone for a run immediately before work
rather than before breakfast and the adrenaline rush might
still be keeping him warm. Maybe he didn't get much sleep last
night and was running hot because he was tired. Her bets were
on the last option.

The empty coffee cups seemed to confirm her deduction. If he
needed that much coffee this early in the day, something was
amiss. She frowned, uncomfortable with the train of thought.
She was neither his mother nor his doctor, and if this was the
best thing she could do with her expensively acquired
investigative skills then it was going to be an unrewarding
day.

When Mulder returned a few moments later, it was with another
cup of coffee and a video tape. He nodded a quick greeting and
slipped back behind his desk.

Scully leaned forwards and experimented with her partner's
mood. "If that's yours, I wouldn't risk playing it with all
these other agents around."

Mulder turned, half smiled as he shook his head. "It's pretty
tame."

She reached out a hand and Mulder politely supplied her with
the tape. She read the label - Copy 2 of Evidence Tape 1 -
Apache Club - Halloween Party.

"The Bandana murder case?"

"One of the victims is on it, with his lover."

"You think maybe the killer was there?"

"Unlikely. The people look too comfortable, too much at home."

"But the profile says..."

The openness in Mulder's eyes shut down fast. His voice had a
hard edge when he continued. "The profile says what people
expect it to say - like killed like."

Scully looked away, determined not to spoil the day by getting
into a fight this early. "I've started looking at the
forensics."

"Yeah?"

"Too soon to say. Too many different approaches. Different
MEs, labs, detectives. I'll need to spend a few hours getting
them into a standard form before I can really see what I'm
looking at."

Mulder nodded, recovered the video from her hand and tucked it
into his desk drawer. He shifted back to face his desk, picked
up the first file from the stack of background checks that
Kersh had allocated and tried to look busy, telling her more
effectively than any words that her comments had been noted,
but that the conversation was now officially over.

What now? Was she supposed to just leave him to it? Scully
couldn't tell. Maybe the right thing would be to bring it out
into the open and actually ask him why he was so damned sure
that everyone else who worked for the Bureau was incompetent?

More especially, why he was so determined to dislike Marty
Neill. Neill had been one of the good guys at Quantico, sweet
and charming and without most of the usual sexist hang-ups
that often infested even the best of them. The fact that
people like Colton had rather cruelly dubbed him J. Edgar Jr.
hadn't been fair and Scully now felt a little guilty about
playing along with the tease.

She shivered at the sudden deja vu, shocked and even a little
amused at the idea that she'd once joked about "Spooky" Mulder
in front of the cancerman and Blevins. It all seemed like a
lifetime ago now.

The only action Mulder had been asked to carry out as a result
of the meeting was to examine the background checks on the
victims. Multiple police authorities and a myriad of
detectives could mean that links between the victims were
being ignored, details of shared locations and acquaintances
could be slipping through the net. It was exactly the reason
why the FBI team had been formed. Moreover it also fitted
neatly inside Kersh's guideline that it should not interfere
with his other work.

Scully was less confident that the same was true for her role.
Cross-referencing the forensic and autopsy reports for
consistency and variation sounded easy until actually faced
with the mish-mash of paperwork and computer records that
comprised the evidence.

It would take hours, days even, to make sense of it. It was
important that Kersh knew just how much work was needed. The
stakes here were high. It wasn't as if she was engaged in some
personal campaign for a promotion.

She wanted her old job back. She wanted them both to get their
jobs back. And if that meant clocking up the hours of overtime
and playing nice with the rest of the Bandana killer team, she
would do it. She would prove that she had lost nothing and
learned a lot since she'd started working with Mulder.

She looked across to Mulder. He continued talking into the
phone, working his way, robot fashion, through that same old
list of questions about another potential Federal employee
that had been their main official duty in recent weeks.

If only she could convince him that they could achieve
something positive on this case and that they didn't have to
go to war with Marty Neill to do so. Nor did they need to turn
it into some great mystery to make their marks.

-------

FBI - meeting room

Mulder's attempt to unravel the connections between his
victims was at best frustrating, at worst pointless. There
were matches of course, but none that would offer AIC Martin
Neill that focus he was looking for.

A couple of the men were known to visit clubs or make the
occasional foray to gay bars, though one of them now had a
live-in partner. One of the others had been effectively
"married" for the last five years. And the idea that the other
two were homosexual at all had been met by a mix of disbelief
and sudden recognition by the majority of their friends and
family.

A couple had associations with political lobbyists, one
supplying research on global warming for a renewable energy
campaign. The other was the man on Mulder's radio recording, a
reporter for a local gay weekly newspaper who was also an
evangelist for urban renewal. But even these two men appeared
to have no organizations, no obvious events, and no favorite
watering holes in common.

So far as Mulder could tell, their lifestyles and
personalities were as different as any other five middle-aged,
middle-class white males living in the area.

Those links that he had identified between the men were
through their jobs or their political activism, not their
sexuality. The notion that the killer was picking them up on
some promise of casual sex with a hint of brutality was, in
Mulder's opinion, not only wrong, it was also an extremely
crass piece of sexual stereotyping. Apparently, the team's
political correctness only applied to linguistics.

Three of the men had disappeared overnight, two had vanished
during weekends. None had complained of a stalker, there had
been no odd phone calls at home or work. There were no
mysterious appointments in their diaries. No common phone
numbers or names in their address books.

In short, the common links, such as they were, would not
supply the FBI with a short-list of suspects or even offer
them a filter should a suspect actually fall into their laps.

Which news, at the next team meeting, was greeted by little
more than amusement.

"Thank you for your contribution, Agent Mulder." Neill gave
the briefest of smirks to clue in the twenty other agents in
the room, just in case they'd missed the light-hearted tone in
his voice.

Mulder ignored the ripple of laughter that rolled around the
table, it wasn't the first time he'd faced that kind of
reaction and doubtless it wouldn't be the last. "I might get
more if I re-interview some of their friends and family."

"That work has already been assigned. You're collating."

"I think -"

"Agent Mulder - I hope you aren't going to insult your
colleagues by suggesting that they're not capable of
performing background checks on the victims?"

Actually, Mulder would have cheerfully suggested exactly that
except for Scully's unspoken but obvious request that he play
nice.

He changed tack, reopening the same argument that had been
underway since the first meeting. "The lack of solid leads
makes the behavioral profile all the more critical."

"Which is why we're using it. We're already interviewing
people in the broader gay community."

"To what end?"

"If you'd been listening," Neill insisted, before taking a
deep breath and continuing at a faster pace. "We're asking
about the people who've set alarm bells ringing. We're going
back through the records looking at men with a history of
sexual violence."

"Which will get you nowhere."

By now the amusement had turned to groans.

>From the moment he'd joined the team, Mulder had challenged
every detail and every action raised by the ISU's behavioral
profile. Indeed, it had soon became clear to everyone in the
room that the only thing he agreed with was the bullet point
that the killer was white, male and over 25.

But this time, as Mulder attempted to revisit the argument,
Martin Neill was better prepared. He stopped Mulder in his
tracks by announcing that Scully's preliminary report was the
next item on the agenda and insisting that he would be happy
to discuss enhancements to the profile, but only in the
presence of the ISU profiler who'd written it. "I prefer to
leave the psychology to the pros."

Neill, having made his point, and before Mulder started to
argue again, turned his attention back to the agenda. "Agent
Scully?"

Scully turned to look at Mulder as if waiting for his
permission to continue, or at least apologizing for doing so.
When he blinked, she rose to her feet.

Whereas Mulder had arrived bearing only dissent, bad news and
no news, Scully had something positive to offer, if only in
the form of a list of what she was planning to do. She also
quickly advised them on what kind of information was missing
from the original autopsies and what their chances were of
filling in the blanks.

Running swiftly through her timetable for the work, she
promised that all the autopsy evidence, other than the full
DNA workups and some other new lab work she'd ordered, would
be available at the next meeting. The team was suitably
appreciative. Moreover, she already had new insight to offer.
"Based on the preliminary analysis of hairs and fibers found
across the five crime scenes it looks as if our UNSUB is
either bald or he wears a different wig each time."

Mulder doodled as he spoke. "Any pubic hairs found?"

"We're awaiting DNA tests, but again, visual analysis suggests
that we don't have any matches."

Mulder was impressed by both the information and her
certainty. He knew how long each report must already have
taken, especially given the need to clarify details with
multiple investigative teams and four different MEs. She had
to be running double shifts to do it. Even then, it was
impressive.

When the meeting finally broke up, Neill waved for Mulder to
stay behind, obviously not ready to leave the psychology
completely to the pros, despite his earlier claim.

Scully looked down at her partner, who nodded briefly to
encourage her to leave.

>From Mulder's perspective, Neill was of no consequence. Mulder
had recognized the type as soon as he saw the personnel file.
Neill was competent at everything, and might even be good at
some things. Mulder also knew that the grapevine proclaimed
him as the hot prospect to become the youngest assistant
director in the Bureau.

Reading between the lines had filled in the blanks. Mulder
could only assume that Neill was both lucky and a great
politician. Offending no one, impressing some, always
apparently ready and willing, and never putting a foot wrong,
even if that meant not putting a foot anywhere.

He'd been promoted to a supervisory special agent role in the
New York City Bureau when he was still in his 20s. Just about
the same age as Mulder had been when he'd gone through
hypnotic regression and his career took a sudden sharp turn
towards the basement.

Consequently, there was no point in arguing about any of this
with Neill. There were just no points of contact.

Neill raced through Mulder's arguments as documented in the
notes that he himself had scribbled over the course of the
meeting, dismissing each in turn as not grounded in fact or
for failing to meet the latest standards for psychologically
rigorous assessment.

Which brought it all back to where it started when Mulder
first looked at the photographs. There was something phony
about the crimes. Maybe in the way that the swift efficiency
of the deaths failed to reflect the brutal torture of the
assaults. Or perhaps in the way the body was posed to lie face
down, legs together - as discreet a presentation as possible
for a corpse left naked and brutalized - as if the killer
himself was denying the overtly sexual nature of the crime.

"No, you look at the photos, Mulder. Look what the bastard
did. The profile calls him a sexual sadist, I call him a
fucking psycho."

"He might well be a sexual sadist, but that is not his
motive," insisted Mulder.

Neill threw up his hands in disbelief. "So what is?"

It was a valid point, but hardly a fair question. Once he knew
that answer, Mulder was confident that he'd be well on his way
to cracking the case. "I don't know -yet."

"Fine. Call me when you do."

Mulder didn't bother to argue. The arrangement suited him
perfectly - he had no desire to talk to Neill either.

--------

The Eat Well Store

To the uninitiated, shopping for food every day might seem
like a chore. But if there was a record for fastest "real"
shopper, then Peter Hughes felt sure that he'd be in with a
chance of claiming it.

The near-nightly visit to the wonderfully well-stocked store,
ideally placed on his route home from work and which always
seemed to have at least one convenient parking space left, had
become something of a ritual over the years. With a busy job,
and a preference for fresh produce and home-cooking, Pete
needed his errands to be efficient, and they were.

In the last few weeks, it had stopped seeming like a ritual or
even an indulgence. It had started to seem like this was just
what life was made for. Cooking for two might only look like a
symptom of the changes that Daniel had made to his life, but
the idea that Daniel's presence made everything taste better
was more than just a poetic thought, it was a fact.

The melon glowed with sunshine and the fish smelled only of
salty sea. Perfect. An ideal dinner for two. Fast food but
real food. He grinned as he loaded the bags into the trunk;
there seemed something almost decadent about enjoying it this
much. It had been years since it felt so good to shop.




---------
END of Part 2

============


A Starbucks near the Hoover Building

Scully shook her head, dismayed and amused, as Marty Neill recounted
the story he'd heard about Tom Colton's misadventures while on
assignment to one of the white collar crime teams.

"So he manages to arrest an undercover agent for using a Bureau
credit card!"

Despite her amusement, she couldn't help but feel a little sympathy.
"Easily done though. Relocation to Nebraska's quite a penalty for
one mistake."

"One mistake! Dana! You always were too generous. The agent only
used the Bureau card to phone his reports in to the office. He only
had to look at the number on the bills."

"Ouch."

"Besides, if he'd actually asked his boss he'd have heard the whole
story, but not Tom, he was so determined to get the glory."

Neill was grinning, and Scully found his mood infectious as they
raced through the list of old Quantico classmates, and their current
status both personal and professional.

"Of course," continued Neill, his smile softening to something
gentler and more intent, "the real enigma is you. It's like you left
Quantico one day and fell off the planet."

She smiled, surprised not to feel angry at the comment, and even a
little embarrassed to be reminded of just how far outside the
mainstream of Bureau life she'd drifted.

Neill picked up on her reticence. "Sorry. I'm just nosey."

"No, it's fine. I did five years on the X-Files. I kind of lost
touch. We were always busy."

"But, now you're working for Kersh. Doing background checks." There
was a question in his tone. "I don't get it. I thought you'd be up
for an AD job by now."

"It's a long story."

"With Fox Mulder in every scene?"

She tensed, preparing to go on the defensive, but Neill raised his
hands in a plea for forgiveness, or at least for understanding.

He shrugged. "I'm sorry, I don't really get Mulder. When I heard you
two were coming into the team I thought it was great. Even the
Behavioral guys said he was special back then. And your solve rate,
it speaks for itself."

"Mulder is special."

"I'll take your word for it. God knows, I can't reach him. Anybody
else, I'd have asked for him to be pulled off the team after the
first meeting. *Queers*? Has he even been on an awareness seminar or
a training course in the last ten years? You can't get away with
that kind of thing, we're talking about the new Bureau."

"That's not how he thinks. He just wanted to get a reaction."

Neill shrugged. "One of these days he'll get a reaction all right,
but it'll be from OPR. I'd hate to see you get dragged down with
him. You can't tell me you enjoy being stuck on background checks.
You must want more."

"I want the X-Files back."

Neill smiled. "Whatever I can do. I've already told Kersh you're
great. And Skinner, but I guess he knows. So, spill - what makes
working on the X-Files so good? And please - don't tell me that it's
Mulder."

Scully tongue stabbed at her lower lip, uncertain how to begin.

Neill suddenly exhaled, gabbling out his next words in an
embarrassed rush. "Oh God, I'm such a jerk. You two are -?"

She shook her head. "No. We've been through a lot together. We work
well together. But, no. We're not."

-----------

Mulder's Apartment

The knock was instantly recognizable; Mulder paused the Apache Club
Halloween Party video and opened the door to welcome her inside.

Scully took a couple of steps into the room and stopped, exhaling
sharply. Mulder, who'd already reached the kitchen door before he
realized that she was no longer following, decided to act as if he
didn't see the problem. Which, in truth, was a fair response,
because he didn't see that there was one.

"Mulder?"

"Coffee?" he suggested brightly.

"I think you've had enough already."

He smiled half-heartedly, not bothering to argue. "You don't like
the new decor?"

The walls were festooned with pictures. Corpses of every age, sex
and race frozen for posterity in glorious technicolor, or stark
black and white. Crime scene photos, autopsy sketches, courtroom
diagrams.

The common element - death by garroting.

The coffee table was covered in crime scene reports from the Bandana
investigation.

"What are you looking for?" She carefully cleared a space on the
couch so that there was enough room to sit.

He let his eyes follow the same path that hers had done. "I don't
know." He would know it when he saw it, assuming that there was
something there to see. And he knew that there was. He didn't sigh,
not wanting to admit the level of frustration he was already
feeling. After all, he was only a couple of days into the case; a
lot of people were way ahead of him. Or at least they should have
been.

Scully sank down a little further into the couch. "I spoke to Marty
Neill."

Marty? Of course she'd call him Marty, they'd been classmates.
"And?"

"He's concerned. Says he doesn't know how to reach you."

Good, Mulder shrugged; he had no desire to be reached by Neill.

Scully folded her arms, irritated to have to spell it out. "Neill
wants you pulled off the team."

"What did you say?"

"That you're good at what you do."

Mulder didn't respond, which left Scully with no option except to
make the threat even more explicit. "If Neill makes his objection
official, Skinner'll have to act. Kersh didn't want you on the team
in the first place." Her voice was an entreaty. "This is our best
chance."

Mulder chose to ignore the pleading tone, and allowed most of the
words to fly straight past him, leaving only the puzzle behind.
"*Our* best chance? Why would Neill want to remove you?"

She sighed, frustrated. "He doesn't, I'm not talking about *me*, I'm
talking about us."

Finally hearing her, Mulder swallowed, shocked by her honesty but
uncertain how to respond to it. "You want me to play nice?" His
voice fell to a whisper. "I don't know if I can."

---------

Baltimore PD

When Daniel James reported Peter Hughes as a missing person, he was
greeted by a desk sergeant dispensing one part sympathy, nine parts
amusement, and ninety parts by-the-book efficiency.

"He's been missing for six hours?" checked the sergeant, apparently
incredulous that anyone would come in after so short a time.

"As I told you. We'd arranged to eat at 8. When he wasn't at his
apartment, I started trying to call him."

"So, he's actually been *missing* for four hours! Like I say, it's
too early to file a report. He could just be working late."

"I tried his office, he left at 5:30. I get a machine when I call
his house. No answer on his cell phone."

"So call his family - maybe there's been an emergency."

Dan James was losing his air of certainty, uncomfortable at having
to admit how little he really knew about his friend. "I can't. I
only know they live somewhere in the Midwest. Can you trace them?"

"Not until he's officially missing. I've got people waiting here,"
the sergeant added, pointedly scanning down the others waiting their
turn, who obligingly muttered their discontent in response.

James kept his eyes down and his voice soft, leaning as far forward
as he dare so he wouldn't need to shout. "Mr. Hughes is gay. Look -
I read the papers, I'm worried."

The desk sergeant sighed; newspapers warnings about serial killers
were a distinctly mixed blessing. Sure, they might warn some
potential victim not to go baring his ass to the next stranger he
met, but it was also an open invitation to every fruit in town whose
date stood him up to come in here looking for sympathy. "Fill in the
form. Leave anything you don't know blank. If a detective needs to
speak with you, we'll be in touch. If your boyfriend shows up, let
us know." And with that, he turned away, booming out a "Next," to
someone in the room.

--------

Next day - FBI

Scully's explanation to the team meeting was met with interest. With
the facts laid out this systematically and the key points
underlined, it was easier to follow the trail.

She summarized her message. "We don't have enough forensic evidence
to lead us to him - which in itself tells us quite a lot. He must
have used gloves He wore a condom. Further analysis of hairs and
fibers may give us something, but based on the preliminary results
the odds are against us and..."

"We're waiting for another corpse?" Mulder suggested.

Scully nodded, her jaw tightening, uncomfortable at being placed on
the spot by her own partner and in the process having her efforts
dismissed as effectively worthless.

"Dana - thank you. Agent Scully has given us an excellent
foundation. Are there any questions? Does anyone have anything
*positive* to add?" encouraged Neill.

Mulder was first again, though not with anything that Neill would
consider positive. "The reports on all victims suggest anal
penetration?"

"There's evidence of rectal trauma."

"But not object rape?"

"There are traces of rubber from the condom."

"Which could be covering an object rather than a penis?"

Neill answered before Scully got the chance. "Why would anyone do
that?"

"I'm just asking," pushed Mulder.

Neill was becoming impatient. "Just where are you going with this,
Mulder?"

Mulder raised his hands to proclaim his innocence. "I just want to
understand. Was there any evidence, say, of the use of lubricants?"

Scully stepped in quickly with her answer. "Only the type and
quantity that might have been on a pre-lubed condom."

Neill's impatience gave way to a kind of angry amusement as he
followed up Scully's reply. "He tortured them, raped them and killed
them - you think he would care about their comfort?"

"No. I think he would care about his own. The severity of tearing
says that the men weren't receptive. He won't have enjoyed it."

Neill bounced it back. "The sicko was out of control, he'd have
enjoyed it if it had left him limping. He wasn't thinking that far
ahead."

Mulder shook his head. "No."

"No what, Agent Mulder?"

"No. He wasn't out of control."

Neill just wanted the conversation over. He looked pointedly away
from Mulder. "Are there any other questions?"

Mulder ignored the dismissal. "Could it have been object rape?" he
asked again.

Scully's professionalism overrode her frustration at being forced to
play pig in the middle of the fight between the two men. "It could."

Mulder spent the rest of the meeting doodling silently on the yellow
pad in front of him, showing interest only when he heard Scully
confirm her willingness to take on extra actions. He could only
assume that she'd made some kind of deal with Kersh to get the time.

When the meeting finally broke up, Scully waved for Mulder to stay
behind in the room. "What was that about?"

"Just making sure that I understood the evidence."

"If that was all, you'd have asked me about it before the meeting."

"It was important that they heard the answer."

"Because you already knew the answer, didn't you?"

He shrugged, unwilling to lie to her.

She shook her head. "We're a team, Mulder. If you wanted to make
sure they heard it, I could have made it explicit it in my report."

"Because they listen to you?"

"You," she paused, looking for the right words, "You rub them the
wrong way." She returned to her packing, carefully re-sequencing her
notes and slides, and avoiding his eyes, making it obvious that the
discussion was now officially closed.

Sighing in agreement, though not actually accepting the implicit
advice, he started to head for the door, pausing a few feet away
from it as he heard Neill joking in the corridor with one of the
other agents. "Trust Spooky to worry about the fucker's cock getting
bruised."

"Well, I guess he'd know."

"Hey, look on the bright side, if we need someone to go undercover,
he'll fit right in."

The agent gasped out an amused breath. "*Dana'd* rip you a new one
if she heard you."

"Now that does sound like fun."

The guffaws turned to raucous laughter, and if looks could kill,
then both men would have been dead as Mulder walked past them.



END of Part 3

=========


FBI - next day

Mulder skimmed quickly though the "potential employee" background
checks on his desk, dotting the Is and crossing the Ts, and making
sure the signatures were in all the right places.

Content that he'd done enough to keep Kersh off his back, he turned
his attention to the ever-expanding pile of background checks of his
own choosing.

As a weapon, the garrote had some nice features, not least its
ability to slip suspicion-free into a pocket and the way it could be
improvised at a moment's notice. It was not, however, perfect.

It might improve the ease with which a strangler could kill, but it
couldn't be used to subdue or threaten until the victim was already
in a choke-hold. It might be silent, but only if the attacker was
quick enough to stop the victim from screaming.

In ruthlessly experienced and powerful hands, it might make a good
sneak weapon for an assault from behind. Or even for sudden
asphyxiation after some particularly rough game that had been
planned to stop just short of permanent harm.

It was this last possibility that the ISU profiler, Dave Burton, had
supplied. A game that got out of hand, that led to a desire for
more, until now there was no game left. Consequently, the eyes of
the optimists were locked firmly on the computer records of known
sexual offenders and reports of overenthusiastic sexual partners.

And then there was the "weapon" itself, the use of a bandana in each
case suggested more than mere utility, it suggested a message.

It had been Mulder's experience that killers seldom left messages
about anything other than their own psychoses. Furthermore, when a
killer so neat and tidy, who left no significant forensic evidence
left something so blatant at every site then it had to be
intentional. As a distraction, or as a signature? Either way, it
meant something.

Something about the victims or something about the killer? He made a
mental note to get the photo lab to do a few manipulated pictures of
the victims as they might look wearing such an item. A vague hope
that they might ring some witness's bell.

Not that he was going to be allowed to get anywhere near a witness.
Neill didn't know how to reach him? Well, Neill certainly knew how
to get in his way.

Which was why Mulder was already in the mood to argue when Martin
Neill called him to ask for his urgent attendance at an impromptu
meeting.

Special Agent Dave Burton on the other hand seemed rather less
comfortable about having to explain himself to Mulder, though he was
clearly trying to keep the feeling firmly under wraps. Explaining a
profile to a "legend" was a little intimidating, but avoidance
wasn't an option. Skinner had insisted to Neill, and consequently to
Burton, that this was really the only way of settling the matter
"once and for all."

The AIC was to sit in judgment over the proceedings, which meant
that Mulder already knew the verdict even before they started. Not
that Martin Neill's verdict was of any interest to Mulder.

"I know you were in the ISU, back in Patterson's day, but things
have moved on," suggested Burton in a cautious but stubborn tone
that probably meant that he'd rehearsed his words in the car on the
way over.

Which amused Mulder more than it should. "You mean because it's not
just white males who go psycho anymore? How long ago do you imagine
I left?"

"Just that we've got a lot more statistical data now and by
systematic analysis we see patterns, and with the kind of damage
being done to these men, we're looking fairly and squarely at a
sexual sadist. I'd stake my reputation on it."

Reputation? Mulder had no idea that Burton had one. No matter. "Then
you'll accept that the human mind is programmed to find familiar
patterns, even if that means ignoring data to do so?"

It was Neill who snapped at that. "I didn't ask Agent Burton to come
over here so you could deliver a lecture."

Mulder didn't even glance at Neill. He just kept his eyes locked on
Burton, and silently demanded an answer to his question.

Burton shook his head. "There's always an element of doubt. Any
profile. Any profiler. But this... Just look at the bodies. What
kind of man could inflict that kind of damage? Your own work's
confirmed it - these men haven't been killed by some insanely
jealous ex in a frenzy. As far as we can tell they've been killed by
a complete stranger who'd planned the action in detail."

The profiler glanced across at Neill and took confidence from the
certainty that he saw in the Bandana AIC's eyes. He turned his
attention back to Mulder. "I've talked with my boss. When I heard
you'd challenged it, I put the profile through a peer-group review.
Don't get me wrong - there are people in the ISU who think that
you're wasted over here. But the bottom line is - if we're ALL
supposed to be wrong, just who do YOU think we should be looking
for?"

But Mulder wasn't ready to reply. It was early days and he wanted to
at least bounce his theories off Scully before he went public. "Look
at the pictures, Dave. Look how tidy the actual killing is, look how
careful he is in how he poses them." He pushed his favorite photos,
now dog-eared from too many hours in his pockets, across the desk.

Burton waved his hands to stop Mulder. "So he doesn't want to kill
them. The sexual thrill is in the torture. The murder's a necessity
because they've seen him. The posing's a kind of apology for having
to kill them."

"No. He's careful about not leaving evidence, he could disguise his
appearance too, unless the kill's important. There would be
survivors as well as bodies and I've been going back through the
files..."

"They're bound to see him because they go with him, Mulder. They're
willing to go with him. Then he turns on them."

And there was the real heart of the disagreement. "You haven't got
any evidence for that."

"Alastair Dale Falmer - last seen alive, The Sepulchre - it's a
well-known pick-up bar."

"Which he left alone."

Neill had grown tired of playing at impartial observer, and decided
that it was time to end the discussion. "No one saw who Falmer left
with - there's a difference."

Mulder shook his head. "In the specific question asked by the agent,
not in the evidence in the eye-witness report."

"Agent Burton - thanks for your time, I know you're a busy man."
Neill paused, adopted an altogether lighter tone for his next words.
"Agent Mulder - I guess you've got some more background checks to
run."

The meeting closed, Neill quickly ushering Burton out for a "quick
chat" with AD Skinner. Mulder chose not to protest. He could talk to
Burton any time he wanted and Neill wouldn't be there to play
chaperone if he did.

--------

The conference table in Skinner's office supplied a suitable place
to display the photographs that, according to Dave Burton, were at
the heart of Mulder's disagreement. Martin Neill was leaning against
the wall, close enough to appear involved in the action and yet not
quite looking at the bloody display.

Skinner found himself cursing again the hands-off advice that he'd
been given. "Remember, Walter - you're not their manager now,"
Cassidy had told him. The warning had scarcely seemed necessary at
the time.

Time, however, had moved on, whereas the order had remained in
exactly the same place.

With Burton carefully reorganizing the photo sequence and preparing
to act simultaneously as the chief witness for the prosecution and
the sole representative of the defense, it didn't seem right that
this discussion should be going on without Mulder.

"Mulder's worried by the efficiency of the kills. He says they're
too fast for the level of damage inflicted beforehand."

Skinner frowned, trying not to find the subject distasteful or at
least trying not to admit to it. "What was he expecting?"

"Maybe something that links more to the beatings or the knife wounds
we see, or just more bruising to the neck. Perhaps that he'd choke
them until they pass out a few times before actually strangling
them."

Neill swallowed, his face whitening as Burton illustrated the point
by suggesting which cuts needed only to go a little deeper, or which
hammer blow needed only to be aimed a few inches higher. Skinner
could only assume that it was the profiler's casual delivery rather
than the images themselves, which must have been old news, that was
so disturbing to Neill. Or perhaps it was just that the AIC had
never actually considered the story behind the photos until now.

Not that Skinner actually blamed him for his reaction. The only
reason he wasn't flinching away as Burton enthusiastically
reshuffled the photos to illustrate the posing of the bodies was
experience. Too much experience. "So how do you explain it, Agent
Burton?"

"There's remorse in the death. It's a necessity, but not the
objective."

"And what does Mulder say?"

"He hasn't really said anything."

Which brought Neill round from his slightly dazed condition. "My
point exactly, sir. Criticism and no contribution. It's morale
sapping and damages -"

"- the team focus," Skinner supplied, knowing this bit of the
conversation by heart.

"It distracts people and it drains their energy."

"And you haven't been able to make this clear to him?"

Neill flinched a little, clearly unhappy to hear it thrown back at
him as if his management skills were being challenged and found
lacking. "Agent Scully understands. I don't think Agent Mulder wants
to."

Skinner nodded, letting Neill off the hook. Making Mulder understand
something he didn't want to hear wasn't his idea of an easy ride
either. "Agent Burton, thank you for the update."

Burton quickly gathered together the photos and headed for the door,
looking relieved to be on his way back to his Quantico colleagues.

As soon as the door closed behind Burton, Neill said the words that
Skinner had been anticipating from the start. "I want Agent Mulder
removed from the task force. He's completed his assigned work."

"And you don't intend to assign him any more." It was more a
statement than a question.

"I don't see the point, sir. I'd only have to ask someone else to
cover it, too. Unless, perhaps if you were to have a word with him?
He knows you, I'm sure he respects you, sir."

Skinner tensed, somewhere between amused and angered by Neill's
obsequious tone, before identifying it as the careful phrasing of
someone who liked to keep his bosses sweet. No wonder he didn't hit
it off with Mulder. "If you can't handle it, I'll discuss the
situation with Assistant Director Kersh." Neill winced at the
impact. Skinner hadn't intended it to sound like a rebuke, but his
tone reflected his frustration with Cassidy's guidelines, and his
distaste at having to hand off the problem to Kersh.

It only took a few seconds for the agent to recover his poise, and
when he did, he brought out the big guns. "I can handle it, sir. But
if we have another incident, like the one I mentioned after the
first meeting, when he started talking about *queers* then I think
people will expect me to take it to OPR."

They had discussed it before and it was a painful reminder of how
just how thin the ice that Mulder was skating on had become. Mulder,
according to Scully, had done it to provoke a reaction, and to test
the other agents perhaps. Though what exactly such a test might
prove was as lost on Skinner as it would doubtless be on any formal
meeting of the Office of Professional Responsibility. Sure, saints
were in short supply. But not many would slip up like that in a
formal meeting full of agents. And who, apart from Mulder, would do
it as an experiment?

Skinner nodded. "I wouldn't expect anything less, Agent Neill."

---------

The Sepulchre

The bar was so dark that Mulder was tempted to switch on his
flashlight, resisting only because he didn't want to attract that
much attention. Not for the first time he caught himself looking
around for Scully to share the moment.

Scully, of course, wasn't there. He hadn't invited her. It would
have been nice to claim that it was due to the practicalities of the
situation. FBI rules and regulations said that he shouldn't be here.
If he got caught, Neill would have a field day in front of the OPR
enquiry and Kersh would make sure he paid in full for the folly. No
need to involve Scully in that kind of career suicide. Besides,
Scully was not the ideal candidate to inconspicuously watch his back
on an incognito mission to a gay pick-up bar.

Either reason sounded plausible, but actually both were just
excuses. Scully wasn't here because Mulder hadn't told her his
plans. He hadn't told her because they hadn't really talked since
the case started. Which gave Mulder another problem to brood over,
because he wasn't sure why they hadn't.

Scully seemed to be thriving on Neill's team, just as Neill seemed
to be relishing "Dana's" skills.

No matter. Neill's team was so far off track on this case that only
sheer luck would bring them any rewards. Sheer luck or Scully's
forensic expertise. Neill was right to fawn over her, she was the
best chance they had.

They? He stared into his near empty glass. They? Not a good sign to
be thinking of his own colleagues as "them" especially when he
wasn't quite sure if there was an "us" to pitch an alternative.

Scully's work was vital. And if that meant she was working for both
sides of the argument, didn't that just offer her twice as good a
chance of making it count? In any case, wasn't that what scientists
were supposed to do - extract all salient information and deliver
the facts without personal bias?

It was fine; it was all he needed.

"Penny for 'em?" the voice at his side offered. "Can I buy you a
drink?" the voice added as Mulder looked up.

"I doubt they're worth it. And I'll buy." Mulder looked across at
the bartender, and waved a single finger over the two drinks on the
table. The man nodded.

"New here?"

"New anywhere. Is it always this quiet?"

"On a Tuesday? There should be a few more people later, but yeah,
pretty much."

"You're a regular then?"

"Could say that, I own the place."

"And you let me buy the drinks!"

"Hey, I offered."

The drinks arrived, the muscle-bound blond bartender winking at his
boss as he delivered them. The owner made the introductions, "The
Arnie wannabe's Jim, I'm Paul and -"

"Marty," supplied Mulder, vaguely amused at the idea that Neill
might add his choice of alias to the list of charges for OPR if he
did get caught in here.

Arnold's body double slipped back to his place behind the bar and
Paul picked up the conversation. "So," he suggested, eyeing his new
customer with interest, and smiling as he spoke, "man trouble?"

"Partner trouble."

"Shit." He shook his head sympathetically. "To partners," he
offered, clinking his glass lightly against Mulder's.

"To partners," Mulder agreed, saluting him with his drink as he took
a first swig of beer.

--------

FBI Forensics Lab

While Mulder was definitely out of bounds for Skinner, the guidance
regarding Scully was not nearly so clear cut. Scully was not
considered to be a problem, not even by Kersh who was actually on
the look out for better opportunities for her. "Rehab," her new boss
had joked. A joke that hadn't sounded quite so funny when Scully was
hospitalized a week later with a bullet wound to the stomach,
courtesy of her new partner's gun.

Catching up with her in the bay of the forensics lab was therefore
well within the norms of professional conduct. Advising her that her
contribution was warmly welcomed by Neill was giving away no
secrets. Warning her that Mulder needed to learn a few manners if he
was going to be taken seriously, was at least a tiptoe from going
too far.

"Agent Neill's delighted to have you working with him."

Scully nodded, non-committal, taking advantage of the pause from re-
reading autopsy and forensics reports to rest her eyes for an
instant before blinking back to a coolly attentive perusal of the
AD's features.

Skinner refused to squirm under the scrutiny though he heard her
unspoken, "What are you doing here?" coming in loud and clear. He
chose to approach with caution. "Do you think he's slipped up? The
UNSUB," he added quickly, and then felt immediately embarrassed to
have admitted that the question might be seen as being just as
applicable to Mulder.

"They always make mistakes. Somewhere."

Skinner noted the slight note of resignation in her voice, she
didn't sound hopeful. He quickly surveyed the work area that Scully
had carved out for herself, automatically counting up the lab
reports, the photographs, and the evidence notes that were carefully
stacked around her. If this was the level of attention that she
would give when not feeling optimistic, how far would she go if she
felt that she was onto something? He smiled a little at the idea,
this case needed that. These victims needed her. And Mulder.

"The dump sites?" Skinner queried, knowing that they were part of
the reason why the forensics were so tough to gather. Dumpsters with
easy access, and a landfill site had supplied the venues for the
killer's disposal of the bodies. Easy to find the victims. Much
harder to find anything that could be considered significant with
those opportunities for contamination.

"Not just that," Scully noted, relaxing back in her chair, allowing
a little of her tiredness to be exposed for an instant, clearly
comfortable with Skinner's question perhaps having feared something
worse. "He's killing them somewhere clean - a private place, maybe a
van or something similar. He's hosing them down afterwards, handling
them in plastic bags when he moves them. He's careful."

"Yet the attacks are frenzied?"

" Vicious, sadistic - certainly. But it's measured and it's
sustained, maybe as long as an hour, and the victims are screaming
through most of it."

Skinner tilted his head, demanding clarification of the final
observation.

"Their throats - raw from screaming."

"The third victim died of a heart attack," Skinner noted.

"He was dead through most of the torture and through the," she
hesitated before supplying the missing word, "rape."

"So, no screaming."

Scully nodded. "Yet still he went through the motions of the
torture. It's... " Her voice trailed off.

"It's why Mulder's so bothered by the profile?"

She shrugged, almost imperceptible except to someone who'd seen her
under pressure and knew what to look for. "I think it runs deeper
than that. He doesn't like the idea that the killer's homosexual,
and that the men go willingly."

Skinner nodded, noted the slight edge to her voice. It sounded
almost as if she was apologizing for her partner's theories, or was
she apologizing for not going along with them? "And what do you
think?"

"They don't struggle. There are no defense wounds. They allow
themselves to be restrained and they get -" she stopped abruptly,
unwilling to deliver the final verdict.

"- more than they bargained for?"




END of Part 4

==========


Daniel James was back in the same police station, with what looked
to be the same line of complainants both ahead of him and behind as
two days before. The only thing that appeared to have changed was
the desk sergeant, but that change proved to be superficial, too.

"I reported someone missing two nights ago, Peter Hughes. The
sergeant said a detective would be in touch."

The duty officer raised an eyebrow at that; it didn't sound likely.
Unless he'd just wanted to get the man out of his hair. He dug
around the records for a moment. The initial report had come in when
this Hughes character had only been "missing" for four hours. That
only qualified as a minor traffic delay so far as most people were
concerned. "You've tried to reach him?"

Daniel, nerves already stretched to breaking point, was getting
dangerously close to detonation. He'd been trying to keep it low key
but if they kept treating him like some sort of idiot... "He hasn't
been home. He hasn't been to work."

Which was another thing that Daniel was now boiling about. He'd
called Pete's office the first day that he was missing and been
given a dismissive, "He's not available right now." A comment that
he'd stupidly accepted as a summary brush-off. Only when some
nagging fear made him call again a day later, and push far harder,
had Pete's secretary grudgingly admitted that, "not right now,"
actually meant, "not for the last two days," and that they didn't
know why.

"Have you spoken with his family?"

"I told the other officer. I don't know his family. Can't you trace
them?"

"A lot of people go away for a couple of days."

"I want to talk to someone in authority."

"I am the authority here."

"If something's happened to him and you do nothing I will make the
worst sort of trouble. You would not believe how bad I can make
things."

"Are you threatening me?"

Daniel sighed. The whole name-dropping thing really wasn't his
style, but he couldn't let them just walk all over him - Pete's life
could be in danger. He'd already let this drag on for longer than it
should. "I know people at CNN, NBC, the Post - for starters. How
many threats do you suppose it'll need before you can get someone to
help me?"

-----------

AD Skinner's Office

The phone buzzed for attention and Skinner's secretary came on the
line. "Outside call for you, sir. Daniel James - he says it's
personal."

It was a surprise to hear that name here in the office. Skinner
wasn't sure whether to be pleased or alarmed. "Put him through."

"Walter?"

"Dan, it's been a while. How are you?"

"I've been better."

That got Skinner's attention straight away. Dan seldom complained,
even when he had reason to. "What's wrong?"

"I'm told you're heading up a team looking for a serial killer in
DC?"

"Are you planning on writing a piece about it?"

"No. This, it's personal. I need help."

"What's the problem?"

"A friend of mine is missing."

"How long?"

"Two days."

"Dan, I know what you're thinking but so far with this killer - we
always find the bodies the next working day." He took in a quick
breath as he realized just how cold that must have sounded. It was
exactly the kind of thing an FBI Assistant Director might say to the
people in this office, but not the kind of thing that an old friend
needed to hear. "Sorry, sorry, that was supposed to sound
reassuring."

"I know that Walt. But the PD doesn't want to know. Grown man with
no family ties goes missing for a couple of days..."

"Have you spoken to his relatives?"

"I don't have their details."

"How long have you known him?"

"We've been together just over a month. I know, I know. But, Walt -
I feel like I've known him for years. He wouldn't just vanish
without calling me." Dan waited for Skinner's reaction but soon
decided that the silence was reply enough. "You're going to say the
same thing as the police."

"No. I'll ask one of the team to contact you. Where did you file the
report?"

--------------

Kersh's order to report to his office and to come alone didn't
disturb Mulder so much as surprise him. Kersh had always preferred
to keep as much distance as possible between them, and to use Scully
as a buffer zone when he couldn't. It was an arrangement that Mulder
had approved of, too.

"I wanted to talk to you about your work for Domestic Terrorism."

Mulder nodded, not trusting his voice even enough to say, "Yes,
sir," without giving the game away. He'd tried to keep the Bandana
case out of office hours and to keep up to date with the background
checks and the rest of the necessary but unfulfilling duties that
Kersh assigned.

He actually had tried, because he really didn't want to give Kersh
an excuse to pull him from the task force. Apparently he'd failed;
he sat up straight to await the news.

"You finally seem to have understood what's expected from you."

Revising fast, Mulder tested the words for sarcasm but couldn't hear
it even when he carefully reran Kersh's voice through his head. "Is
that a problem?"

"Why now?"

Mulder didn't respond, just continued studying Kersh, trying to tune
into what the AD was really saying. The man's face was giving him
nothing to go on, permanently pissed off was a state of mind. The
uncomfortable set of his boss's shoulders suggested that there was
more to it than that. He decided to go back to basics - after three
months in Kersh's division he'd started to file reports on time, in
the correct format and with all the right information. No wonder the
Assistant Director was suspicious.

Tired of waiting for a reply, Kersh moved on. "Agent Scully has
asked me for more time to pursue the Bandana killer investigation.
I'm a little surprised not to have heard the same request from you."

"I'm not sure that Agent Neill would appreciate that."

"Since when have you paid attention to the chain of command?"

"Why did you really ask to see me?"

Mulder was pleased to see that the question put Kersh on the
defensive, he preferred it that way around.

Kersh didn't respond, just looked at Mulder in silent contemplation
before finally shaking his head as if saddened or at least
disappointed. "You're dismissed."

"Sir."

Mulder wandered back to the bullpen, puzzled by how to interpret
Kersh's reactions and carefully replaying the conversation in the
hopes of understanding what had really just happened in Kersh's
office.

Scully soon supplied another piece of the jigsaw. "Kersh is taking
over the Bandana killer investigation."

"Why?"

"Rumor says," Scully whispered, well aware that half the bullpen
were now trying to lock onto their conversation. "Neill told Skinner
that he wanted you removed. Skinner said no."

Mulder shook his head, momentarily lost for words. Skinner hadn't
said anything to him about it. Actually he hadn't spoken with
Skinner in weeks, not since his old boss had helped Scully to rescue
him from that ghost ship in the Bermuda Triangle. "Why?" he said
finally.

Scully shrugged, a tight gesture, somewhere beyond bewildered and
perhaps closer to angry at her partner's reactions or more
accurately at his lack of any. "Maybe he thinks you're worth it?"

-------

It was past 8 o'clock when Skinner left work for the day. He wasn't
too surprised to see Mulder waiting by the elevators, though he
didn't really want to think about how long the agent must have been
lurking there in order to catch him.

"Good evening, sir."

"Loitering, Agent Mulder?"

"Parking level 2, sir?"

Skinner nodded, and Mulder pressed the button.

As soon as the doors closed, Mulder started talking. "Why did you
leave the case?"

"That's confidential."

"Was it because of me?"

"What would you like me to say?"

"So, that's a yes. Why?"

"Just do your job, Mulder."

"I'm trying to."

The blood rose under Skinner's skin. "Neill wanted to haul you in
front of OPR on charges - derogatory and offensive language? Ring
any bells?"

Mulder shook his head, then froze. They couldn't mean? "I wanted to
get their reactions."

"Congratulations." Skinner was standing up straight and proud,
fighting tall now, bristling with frustration and making sure Mulder
knew it before leaning in towards the agent and invading the space.
"How could be you be so," he paused, searching for the right word,
"careless?"

"They're way out of line."

"So are you." The elevator doors opened, and this time it was
Skinner who pressed the button, reaching past Mulder to hold the
door open. His face so close to Mulder's now that he was practically
whispering and yet still coming in loud and clear. "And if you've
actually got a contribution to make, then don't make it so damned
easy for them to go after you."

Skinner turned and walked briskly toward his car, the tense set of
the muscles in his neck and back telling Mulder better than any
words that his old boss would not welcome further discussion
tonight.

Skinner's righteous indignation and Kersh's cautious probing had
left Mulder floundering. The political sensitivity of the case and
the fact that the victims were not only close to home in the
geographical sense but were also on the fringes of DC power was
bound to make the Bureau's management twitchy.

Were they worried that the next target might be on some senator's
staff? Was there some other agenda at work here, some other
connection not yet revealed to the team?

Yet that wouldn't explain Skinner stepping back from the case, in
fact it should make him want to stay even closer to it. Mulder
glanced across at the retreating lights of Skinner's car noting the
way the man took the corner a little too fast. Skinner was obviously
angry. Disappointed that he couldn't do more?

Perhaps Scully was right, maybe Skinner had left the case so that
Mulder could stay on it, because it needed him. Because the victims
needed him. No other explanation made sense

--------

Slumped on the couch and with the TV humming as background noise,
Mulder scanned the walls of his apartment looking for revelation and
finding none.

All the men were broadly similar in age, education and professional
status. In their thirties or forties, in good jobs. A freelance
reporter, a financial analyst, a lawyer turned environmental
activist, an importer of wine, a banker.

And now all of them were the victims of a sadistic serial killer
who'd apparently used their sexuality to lure them into a trap?

It didn't feel right.

He let his head rock back against the couch, rubbing his neck as he
did in an attempt to unclench the muscles that were already
threatening a change from discomfort to full-blown headache. He was
missing something, they were all missing something.

A consistent MO was one thing and the killer had that in spades. The
men were being taken without anyone witnessing their disappearance,
driven to a quiet place where they could be tortured at the killer's
leisure, killed swiftly and dumped in a location suitable for early
but not instantaneous discovery.

An organized killer? Yet also a torturer?

It nagged at Mulder because of its very neatness. The killer's
signature lacked the bloody jagged edges of a sexual sadist.

There should be more differences between the murders. An escalation
of violence, of boldness. Yet that was lacking. The third victim had
died of a heart attack before the rape, yet still the rape had gone
ahead. Did the killer really get the same thing from a dead body as
from a live one?

Their mouths had been left untouched - an anomaly in such a sexually
charged crime, a discrepancy when it came to the work of a sexually
driven killer across multiple murders.

If the killer had a checklist of tasks to fulfil, then the script
could not have been more closely followed.

Was that it then? Was he looking at a fantasy being acted out over
and over? A reconstruction of some incident in the killer's own
past?

For every piece of evidence there were at least two explanations.
Mulder's and the ISU's.

And despite his efforts, Mulder was having a hard time explaining,
even to himself, the absolute certainty he felt that Dave Burton and
the Behavioral team were wrong.

The problem was easy enough to define. The only real evidence in the
case came from the photos of the dead men and the interviews with
the victims' families and friends. Interpreting the witness
statements without the opportunity to talk to them was like doing
brain surgery while wearing mittens.

The level of violence, the pain inflicted, and the duration of the
attack all suggested such anger that it could only be personal. The
men had been chosen and targeted. The decision to torture, humiliate
and kill had been made and then the act itself had been so clinical,
so professional, that the anger somehow didn't mean anything
anymore.

Mulder had known killers that cold - but they were executioners, not
opportunist sex attackers.

Which led him back to exactly the same place as he'd started. The
key to these murders lay in the men who'd died, not in the kinks of
their killer. Which meant that what he really needed was the chance
to interview the people closest to them. The banker's ex-wife for
example. The analyst's lover. The friends of the political lobbyist.
The business partner who'd dismissed the idea that the wine importer
was gay.

Of course, Neill wouldn't allow him anywhere near the witnesses.

What about Kersh? What was it he'd been saying about ignoring "the
chain of command?" Was there a message in there? What was Skinner
hoping to see happen?

As if it wasn't bad enough trying to profile a serial killer with
one hand tied behind his back, now he was supposed to analyze his
bosses as well?

He poked a finger at the greasy cardboard mush formerly known as
microwave pizza on the plate in front of him. What he needed was
some real food, some better than barely edible food.

What was it Paul had said about The Sepulchre evolving without
conscious thought from pick-up palace to comfortably discreet bar
with cozily successful restaurant? "It grew up, just like me. Or got
old and boring. Take your pick."

Mulder shrugged into his leather jacket and headed out.

---------



END of Part 5
---------

Skinner's Apartment

Sitting alone in his apartment watching the city lights change from
working day to sleepless night, Kersh's parting words in the office
from earlier that day were still ringing in Skinner's ears. "You
seriously believe that Mulder's onto something?"

The meeting had been uncomfortable, but Kersh had accepted the
mandate to take over the task force without comment. Since Bill
Patterson's "unfortunate" stumble into insanity, Bureau management
had been asked to be sensitive and non-judgmental about appeals for
help from colleagues, however cautiously they were couched. Besides,
maybe some day someone would have to do the same for them and it was
best if it all stayed in the family.

"I may be getting too involved in the details," Skinner had
suggested, non-committal, hoping that Kersh would rise to the bait.

Kersh hadn't disappointed, he'd simply nodded, his expression
unchanged. "Neill could report in to me on it. I know him from his
days in the New York office."

Skinner sipped at the glass of whisky in his hand, still wondering
if he'd taken the right decision by handing over the case, reworking
the possibilities to see how he could have played it better.

It was hard to walk away, but better that than to be thrown off the
case later for personal involvement. And surely it was better to let
Kersh force Neill and Mulder into some kind of truce than to allow
Neill to win by default?

The confrontation with Mulder that had taken place in the elevator a
few hours later had helped to reassure him. Mulder clearly meant
business, which meant that he needed to be on the case. And that
couldn't happen unless someone could placate Neill by sitting on
Mulder.

Surely it was for the best? Kersh might be an ass, but he was also a
complete professional. The task force would be in safe hands, and
would not be allowed to fail due to neglect or lack of resources.

It could however fail for a completely different reason. Skinner had
built up to the idea gradually, briefing Kersh about the ISU's
involvement and the benefits of Scully's forensic skills before even
mentioning Mulder's name.

"Agent Mulder may be preparing an alternate profile."

"May be?"

"I haven't discussed it with him."

"Has Neill?"

"Neill wants Mulder removed from the case."

Kersh had nodded, but Skinner found the gesture oddly reassuring.
Kersh wasn't surprised to hear that Neill hadn't hit it off with
Mulder, but that didn't necessarily mean that Kersh assumed that
Neill was right. Acknowledgment arrived swiftly in the form of
Kersh's very next question. "You want me to smooth things over with
Neill?"

Skinner felt his lips twitch in a brief gesture of triumph as he
remembered Kersh's words. A man didn't get to be an Assistant
Director of the FBI without reading between the lines, and Kersh,
for all his faults, was a quick reader.

----------------

FBI

The team meetings were only days old and yet were already falling
into a pattern. A room full of people convinced by a theory about
the killer and as a result focused on a set of actions that could be
embellished and added to, but which would permit no deviation.

Today's meeting had the novelty of an Assistant Director sitting in
the back row with the avowed aim of "getting up to speed."

The consequence was that the meeting was now stuck in an even deeper
set of well-worn ruts than usual. People were outdoing themselves to
sound enthusiastic and willing. Agents were falling over one another
to congratulate a colleague on his efforts and assert optimism that
the light at the end of the tunnel, if not actually visible yet,
would be found shining brightly, around the very next corner.

Even Scully found the mood contagious. An analysis of stomach
contents and other data suggested that death was at least six hours
and possibly as long as ten hours after the last known sighting.
"Which would put the time of death at being between 2am and 6, so
the UNSUB's not just taking his time, he's out overnight, in the
middle of the week," she asserted, triumphant.

"We're talking about the meal Alastair Dale Falmer ate at The
Sepulchre?" questioned Mulder.

Scully nodded. "The timing comes from his credit card voucher there
and was confirmed by the owner."

"Who also confirmed that Falmer left alone?"

Neill moved in to correct Mulder's statement. "The owner didn't see
anyone leave with Falmer."

"There was another man at Falmer's table that night," Mulder added.

"Who has been cleared," insisted the AIC.

"But who says that Falmer planned to go directly home, alone?"

"He didn't see him leave the building, just the restaurant area.
Falmer went down into the bar."

"Where he had another drink and left."

"This is all in the notes, Agent Mulder. Why waste our time
rehashing this?"

"Because Falmer died six hours later?" Mulder snapped. "And you
think he went willingly with his attacker, a man he hadn't even met
at that point, and who he had no plans to meet."

"No plans that he'd admit to his *blind date*."

"Right. And you know a lot of men who set up a second date just in
case the first one flunks out?"

"I don't know many men who go on blind dates with other men. Maybe
you can advise me on the etiquette?"

"And maybe you should stop making assumptions."

Another team member decided to help Neill out. "So they'd had a
lovers' tiff in the bar - maybe he just made a phone call or hit
another bar?"

"But didn't make the call from his own phone? Do you even know how
many assumptions you're making?"

Neill kept his voice rock steady, determined to leave no room for
argument. "Judgments, Agent Mulder. Based on professional input from
people who have to make these judgments every day. We can't all
spend our time on wild goose chases."

"Or little green men." Neill's sidekick provided the stage whisper.

Scully's face went white as she struggled to block her reaction. The
other agents at the table exchanged fast looks, keeping their eyes
sheepishly away from Mulder and trying not to let the guilty
laughter escape. The other elephant in the dining room had now been
unmasked.

Mulder had nothing more to say so he simply resumed his original
posture, slumped back in his seat, features impassive, eyes locked
on the notes that Scully had written on the white board. He glanced
briefly at his partner, wishing that he was sitting close enough to
touch her, just to reconnect.

At the end of the meeting, Scully carefully packed her files away
and headed towards Mulder, who still hadn't moved. Unfortunately
Kersh had reached him first and was showing no signs of going away.

Neill intercepted Scully and drew her into discussion on the other
side of the room. "I hope Agent Clarke's comment didn't offend you.
I'll be having a word with him after the meeting."

"I'm sure we all sometimes make remarks that we regret."

"Not you, Dana. I've never heard you put a foot wrong. I guess
that's why it's hard..."

"To understand why I stuck with the X-Files?"

"No. No. Hell, no. If you thought the work was valid then I'm sure
you're right. It's just hard to see how you worked with Mulder."

"He's a good agent."

"I'm sure he was." Neill sounded almost apologetic.

------

Mulder didn't bother trying to make conversation with Kersh until
they were safely in the Assistant Director's office. Instead he
watched carefully for clues and saw a man uncomfortable to be
carrying out orders. Welcome to the club, sir.

Kersh remained standing, leaning his weight back on the edge of his
desk and folding his arms, forcing Mulder who'd been ordered to sit
down as soon as they arrived, to look up at him as he spoke. "Why do
you let them treat you like that?"

"Sir?"

"Neill. His gopher. Why do you let them get away with it?"

"Neill's the AIC."

"And I'm an Assistant Director!"

Mulder paused to get his bearings back, then half smiled as he
finally understood what Kersh was getting at. "Neill's opinions
don't matter - he doesn't have any. Whichever way the wind blows,
he'll go along with it. When he realizes that I'm right, he'll do
what it takes."

--------

When Mulder got back to the bullpen, Scully was waiting for him,
stopping him from returning to his desk with an insistent shake of
the head as she rose smoothly from her own chair. He followed her
obediently from the office and into the empty corridor by the water
cooler.

"So?"

Mulder considered feigning confusion at the question but decided
that it wouldn't help. Instead he opted to divert attention from his
meeting with Kersh by asking a question of his own. "We haven't
found any drugs in the victims?"

Her raised eyebrows betrayed her frustration with the answer he'd
skipped, but also her curiosity about the question asked. "Nothing
significant, yet."

"Would we pick up things like rohypnol if he's taking that long to
kill them?"

"Not on the standard tests. I'm waiting for some other lab work, but
I'm not hopeful."

"Alcohol?"

"Not enough to be incapacitated."

"Or sedated?"

"You're worried by the lack of defense wounds, aren't you?"

Mulder shrugged.

"They're restrained, there's damage to the upper arms where they've
been pulled behind their backs and taped. We've found pieces of the
tape. He removes the tape post-mortem. It's all in the report."

"But to do that to a conscious man without him fighting back in any
major way?"

She responded in a flash. "Is part of the supporting evidence for
the ISU profile."

"But only because of the apparently sexual motivation of the crime."

Scully sighed, and it occurred to Mulder that the only reason she
was still standing here and talking to him was because he was the
one doing the talking. He'd earned a hearing at least, and there was
some satisfaction in that. It tempted him into speculation. "If the
men weren't sexually assaulted, then we'd be looking for a
completely different kind of attacker."

Her mouth drifted open, disbelief tugging a couple of rapid blinks
from her eyes. "Sure, and if they weren't tortured, raped and left
naked..."

Mulder chose to ignore the sarcastic undertone to her words, added
his own condition to the list instead. "And if they weren't gay men,
then no one would assume that it was a willing game turned bad.
Imagine five women, one happily married, another living with
someone, no history of this kind of sexual play - just disappearing
the way these men do. Turning up dead with these kind of injuries.
What would the profile be then?"

"But they aren't, that's the point, Mulder. You can't just ignore
the victimology."

"I'm ignoring the victimology? Take a look at the men who've
actually been killed. What would it really take to capture a man on
his way home to his family?"

Scully didn't respond quickly enough for Mulder's taste so he kept
on talking, moving in, hovering so close that she was reduced to
staring into his chest rather than looking at his face. "We'd be
looking for drugs. Or a massively strong attacker and a surprise
attack. Or some kind of trick."

Scully shook her head, her teeth nipping at her lower lip. "These
aren't small men."

"Two attackers, then?" Mulder suggested, on a roll now and talking a
little too fast and too quietly for comfortable listening, so even
though Scully's ear was just inches from his mouth she was having to
strain to hear him.

"Agent Mulder! Agent Scully?" Martin Neill announced his presence
even though he was still several yards away.

Riding in like the cavalry to save the fair maiden, Mulder noted.
Scully retreated to the correct distance to demonstrate
appropriately professional respect for personal space. This
discussion should not have taken place here. Without the basement
office, exchanges like this had, by mutual but unspoken agreement,
been confined to car journeys, motel rooms and their apartments. The
corridor outside the bullpen was not a suitable venue.

"Dana?" Neill added, close enough to her side by now to touch her.

"Agent Neill?"

"Is everything OK?" Neill asked, sounding genuinely concerned for
her well-being.

"Mulder and I were just discussing the Bandana killer."

"Is that right, Agent Mulder?"

The tone of voice made Mulder's nerves jangle, and threatened to
blow the pressure relief valve sky high. He bit it back, merely
snarling his answer. "Yeah. After all, we can't waste time
discussing the killer in the meetings."

"Agent Mulder?"

"I've got some background checks to run." Mulder declared the
conversation over by walking back into the office.

"Dana?" Neill questioned, still sympathetic, still hoping for more.

"It's fine."

"So, that's... what... normal? I don't get it, Dana. Why do you let
him get away with it?"

She shook her head, frustrated to have been pushed onto the
defensive by Mulder but almost ashamed to have had the scene
witnessed by another agent. Another agent who was now talking to her
as if she was some kind of battered wife. Why did she let him treat
her like that? "Because he's usually right."

"It's not good enough."

Mustering reserves of energy from somewhere deep inside, she looked
directly into Neill's eyes, and let him see some fraction of the
turmoil and the steel. "You," she paused for an instant, "don't know
what you're talking about."

What she needed right now was some fresh air; she turned sharply on
her heel and walked away. Neill's closing comment of, "Don't I?" was
still ringing in her ears as she vanished from view.



---------

END of Part 6

----------------------

Mulder reread the email and was convinced that, despite the fact
that there were more than twenty names on the recipient list, it was
written solely for him.

If Skinner had just wanted it to go to some amorphous entity known
as the Bandana team, then he'd have sent it to Neill or maybe even
just to Kersh for onward transmission. A nice clean use of the chain
of command and good protocol. Sending it to everyone on the task
force was simply not standard operating procedure.

More ruthless still, Skinner had used Kim to obtain the Baltimore PD
record numbers and to send out the email. A nice vague instruction
like, "Make sure the Bandana team gets it," and Skinner's ass would
be covered.

Accident could be discounted without any time being wasted in
consideration. This was Skinner's query and Skinner had wanted
Mulder to see it. Mulder recognized the arrogance of the assumption
that he was making, but if he was right then wasn't he just being
realistic?

The only question in Mulder's mind was whether or not anyone else
would respond. When the follow-up message arrived from Martin Neill
announcing that he, "had it in hand," but didn't mention any
specific action, or name the agent assigned to interview Daniel
James, Mulder knew that nothing was actually going to happen.

Martin Neill, mindful of he fact that the instigator of the request
was an Assistant Director, would phone the PD himself. He might even
talk to Daniel James in his most reassuringly "doing everything we
can" FBI bedside manner tones. But no actual investigative work
would be done, because Neill couldn't possibly delegate an AD's
query to someone capable of investigating it.

Reassured that he was going to get a free run, Mulder printed out
the details.

-------

Scully's breath of fresh air had turned into a long lunch hour or
two of reflection. Something about Marty Neill had tripped the
oddest sensation of deja vu and she was struggling to pin down
exactly who or what Marty had reminded her of.

There were many things that she had learned to handle from Mulder.
Whether the challenge came in the form of theories that demanded she
put her scientific knowledge on the back burner in favor of his
intuition, or his dismay at her own forays into the unknowns of God
and angels, or even in a drugged declaration of love. Whatever he
threw, she could catch, and it was worth it because he would always
do the same for her.

The thing that she'd never been able to deal with from Mulder was
his penchant for public confrontation and confession. "Sometimes the
need to mess with their heads outweighs the millstone of
humiliation." He had warned her about that, right back at the start
of their work together.

Mulder was her one weakness. Listening to him talk was a private
pleasure. The joy, in the adrenaline rush of being sucked along by
his energy and forced to open doors that reason said should stay
closed, was her guilty secret.

Even that little scene at the office this morning as he hovered over
her, talking in whispers, had made her shiver a little. It was, in
its way, as intimate as a lover's embrace and even after all these
years, her blood still surged in response.

Which meant that Marty's intrusion had felt like a violation.

Neill knew nothing; he wasn't allowed to have an opinion on her
relationship with Mulder. No more than big brother Bill Scully was
entitled to one. Yet, they both did. And in their opinion she was
the victim of abuse.

Head held high, she walked briskly back into the Hoover Building,
ignoring both friend and foe along the way. She permitted no detour
in action or thought as she returned to the bullpen.

When she arrived, Mulder's chair was already empty, his desk clear
and his computer screen blank.

---------

Daniel James' secretary led Mulder directly to her boss who shook
the agent's hand with a grip that suggested both relief and
gratitude that he'd arrived.

"Fox Mulder," he repeated unnecessarily, James' secretary had
already announced him as soon as he walked in.

"Aren't you the UFO guy?"

Mulder smiled, more from shock than any kind of pleasure.

"Sorry, the name's unusual, I tend to remember the unusual. Someone
told me they'd heard about you on Springer or something. I asked
Walter if he'd mind me doing an interview."

"I've read some of your articles. I read your book on recovered
memory."

James raised a questioning eyebrow. "And?"

"These situations don't always feel the same when you're on the
inside."

James nodded, sober now, all thought of small-talk or literature
gone. "Yeah."

"May I ask you some questions about Mr. Hughes?"

"My lover."

"I guess that's the first question answered."

They were half an hour into the conversation when Mulder's phone
rang. He glanced down at the caller ID window which told him only
that the call was from someone at the FBI; he hastily switched it
off.

When he looked back up, James appeared to have a speech ready.
Mulder encouraged him to deliver it.

"He couldn't be a victim of your killer though, could he? The more I
think about it. I've been reading all the back issues of the papers.
Everything the police said, everything the Bureau's said. I'm just
being stupid."

"I doubt that you've ever been stupid, sir."

"Dan. Please, call me... It makes it easier to talk. Peter wasn't...
isn't the kind of man to go with some thug on a sex trip."

"And you'd arranged to meet for dinner that night?"

"Meet? I was practically living with him. When he wasn't home, I
just sat outside his apartment waiting for him. He had one of those
electronic keys; he was getting it copied for me. I know how it
sounds. We'd only been together for a month. But..."

Mulder sighed, wanting so badly to be wrong, wanting both of them to
be wrong. If Peter Hughes hadn't been taken by their UNSUB then he
could be happily enjoying a couple of nights in Vegas losing a few
coins, or else holed up in a log cabin in the woods, clearing his
head. He could be preparing to return better able to move on with
his life, confident of his new relationship. He might be getting
ready to walk sheepishly through that door anytime now.

It was true, people disappeared all the time, and so far Mulder's
inquiries had been cursory at best. Still, with no credit card
transactions against his name since the morning of his disappearance
it wasn't easy to feel optimistic. His parents didn't know that he'd
left Washington or even his apartment, and could offer no clues on
why he might want to.

"I've spent my life writing about crime, about law. I've walked into
police stations with victims' families demanding that they get
attention. And the first time I've needed to use it myself, I
couldn't do... anything... I felt so... helpless."

"Because it's personal, Dan. That never gets any easier."

Dan pushed his fingers back through his hair, shaking his head
against the emotions that were rising and making his throat
constrict. "Jesus, Mulder. Couldn't you just have told me the
fucking aliens had taken him away?"

Mulder almost turned down James' offer to help but was met by such
insistence in the man's eyes that he couldn't say no. Dan James
wanted something to do. Something positive preferably, but anything
that would take him mind off his missing friend would do.

Despite Mulder's misgivings, Mulder recognized that in purely
practical terms Daniel James was a good companion for an evening
spent touring some of DC's classier gay hotspots. He also knew
everybody, which smoothed over most of the introductions.

The people who knew Peter Hughes were worried about him, though they
mostly kept their fears under wraps, perhaps out of respect for Dan
James who was still trying to sound optimistic despite the way he
felt. Even so, it looked to Mulder as if within seconds of hearing
the word "missing" they were preparing for the worst.

There was also a distinct but unstated undercurrent to their words -
if Hughes was a target then who next?

If Hughes was into anything more exotic on his nights out than
wining and dining then none of them knew, or at least none of them
were saying.

Of course there would be time enough to follow up on those kind of
questions if Hughes really had become the latest victim and Dan
James would certainly not be allowed to witness those conversations.
It was enough for Mulder that he knew who to talk to and that the
first flavor of the man, his lover and his friends was now firmly
established in his head.

The background to the case, that had been filled only with murky
shadows before, was now starting to form into a picture.

The killer on the other hand was not.

Neither the choice of men, nor the actual crime made much sense to
Mulder.

The rape was clearly an essential element. Based on the bruising
patterns it looked as if it occurred after the torture and
immediately before the strangulation. It even occurred when the man
was already dead.

Yet was it even a rape? Penetration certainly, but would the killer
really have deliberately repeated the act without preparation in
each case? A killer who took his time, who was almost prissily
careful about details, control and cleanliness and yet who didn't
choose to prepare his victim for the assault?

It was certainly supposed to look like rape. If an object was being
used, as Mulder suspected and as the absence of contradictory
forensics evidence made possible, then it was of relatively normal
size, not the comically exaggerated sex toy of fantasy. And it was
covered by a condom.

Of course, he could be just plain wrong. The simplest explanation
was rape and indifference not only to the victim's pain but to his
own. The simplest explanation - but wrong?

Mulder opted to play just suppose, to follow the wild idea down its
almost logical track to wherever it took him.

Even if he was wrong then the detour might lead him towards some
other source of inspiration.

Just suppose then, that it was an assault with some inanimate object
but supposed to look like rape, then why would a killer do such a
thing? A sexual sadist wouldn't.

Unhappy to be gay and hoping to purge some sexual need without the
actual sex - getting his thrills afterwards as he fantasized about
the man's screams? A possibility, he'd certainly kept them
screaming. Did he tape-record the attacks?

Regretful about his acts of torture and so incapable of the rape?
Too fanciful, surely. A possibility if he'd killed once, but not
after five murders. Or was it now six? Was Peter Hughes dead?

Was some religious or moral lesson being delivered?

Was their UNSUB once a victim himself? Abused as a child perhaps and
killing "daddy aged" men now. Yet the choices seemed wrong for that.
They couldn't all look or sound like daddy. And from the background
information Mulder had already obtained they didn't seem to be a
random selection of men of approximately the right age who were
simply targeted as they walked out of a bar one night.

What if the UNSUB was impotent? Psychologically or physically
incapable of the rape yet determined that it should happen despite
that, or maybe even because of that? An injury, an illness, someone
who'd undergone a chemical or surgical castration, a transsexual, a
woman?

Strangest of all, how had the killer developed the MO so rapidly?
How could a serial be "perfect" from victim number one? Unless of
course, victim one hadn't been his first victim. Yet nothing on the
VCS computers seemed to be building up to this, neither in the
records of those who'd used garrotes or strangulation nor in the
reports of sexually motivated attacks on adult men.

Which led Mulder to a conclusion of sorts. The killer had killed
before, but not in this way and not for this reason.

--------

Scully's attempt to call Mulder met failure. She heard his phone
ring once and then nothing more. When she called it again all she
got was a synthesized voice telling her that the phone was switched
off and offering her the chance to leave a message.

Checking her watch she realized just how late she'd returned this
afternoon. There was even a possibility that rather than the late
lunch she'd imagined him taking, he'd actually left early. An event
almost unheard of during their years on the X-Files, but not nearly
so uncommon now.

She logged into the computer and read her email.

One message stood out from all the others. Knowing just what to
expect she picked up the phone and called Baltimore PD. The voice at
the other end of the line confirmed that an officer had spoken to
Agent Mulder by phone but that no one had actually seen him.

She dialed another number and got an assurance from Mr. James'
secretary that Agent Mulder had just left, accompanied by her boss.

Not sure whether to be furious or impressed, she opted for
resignation. She checked the time again, another hour at her desk
and then she'd leave for the day. They would talk about this.

When she got to his apartment two hours later it was deserted. She
walked into the kitchen. The coffeemaker was empty, the kettle cold,
the dishes had dripped dry from breakfast and there were no new
items waiting to be cleaned. It was pretty clear that he hadn't
returned home.

A phone call to his cell phone drew another blank, appeasing Scully
only to the extent that it would mean that when he did finally
switch the phone back on he would see a call missed from his own
home and ought to react to that as serious. She considered calling
him from her phone as well but decided that would just be paranoia.

Instead she settled down to wait, whiling away the time by rifling
his kitchen and finding sufficient supplies to at least make herself
a coffee.

Miraculously, almost as soon as she started to sip her drink, her
phone rang. "Scully."

"Hi, it's me. I was in a meeting."

"I know."

"I think I'm finally getting a handle on the killer. I'm almost
close enough to write a preliminary profile now."

They already had a profile. No matter. "Do you want me to help?"

"No, I'll be back late, it'll be the middle of the night."

"Fine," she said tersely, because it wasn't fine at all. "Call me if
you need me."

She pressed the red button to close the call. What had he once told
her? That she'd saved him? Kept him honest? Made him a whole person?

Maybe this was how it felt to be a one in five billion?




---------
 END of Part 7

--------------

FBI - next day

"The current profile is not only wrong, it's dangerous because it's
leading us to give the wrong message to potential victims and
witnesses."

"And what message would that be, Agent Mulder?"

"That it's the victims' own faults - implying that it's something in
their conduct that incites the killer."

Martin Neill was coolly professional. "No one's blaming anyone.
We're just offering positive advice, unlike some."

"Some? Is that code? OK - you want to know what the press releases
should be saying? That these men are being specifically targeted,
that we don't yet know what connects them and we need to. These
aren't random assaults. There is a link, we just haven't seen it
yet. We need to hear from friends, colleagues, family. We
particularly need to hear from anyone who knew more than one of the
victims, either now or in the past."

"That's self-evident, Agent Mulder. People aren't stupid."

"You've disguised it by making it sound like it's all about a
victim's current sexual preferences and conduct - it scares off the
men who played baseball with them or met them at a comedy club."

"It is all about their sexual preferences, that's why it'd be
dangerous to dilute the warnings."

"What? Don't play at rough sex with strange men? You still haven't
got any evidence for that. Meanwhile victims are getting ambushed on
their way home from work."

"Where do you get that idea?"

Mulder frowned. "Peter Hughes."

"Is a missing person. And there's a hell of a leap from that to
evidence for your theory."

There was, but that didn't mean that he was wrong about Hughes or
the rest of it. "The point is - theories are all we've got."

Neill nodded slowly and checked the other faces around the table.
"Then we go with the best theory we've got."

"Criteria?" pressed Mulder.

Neill sounded long-sufferingly polite, though the message was clear
enough. "I guess we'll just have to go with a source that we can
trust, Agent Mulder. Someone who's actually got as far as supplying
a working profile that we can use."

Mulder started talking immediately, crashing straight through
Neill's attempt to shut him up, cold and precise and without even a
glance at his notes, his eyes never leaving Neill's face. "The UNSUB
is white, male, probably aged between 30 and 40, with at least a
college degree. He may have recent law enforcement experience. He
was promoted fast and early but has already risen beyond his level
of competence and the cracks are showing. He's experienced in hand
to hand combat but not so confident that he'd rely on it."

"In daily life he exhibits a homophobic reaction exemplified by
simplistic generalizations about the lifestyle and sexual habits of
gay men." Mulder kept his voice level and his gaze firm as Neill
started to squirm away. "This feeds from his own insecurities about
sex and sexuality. He probably deals with these fears by making
jokes about other men's sexual preferences - though actually he'd be
too gutless just to ask the target directly."

Neill's intervention was delivered through gritted teeth. "Agent
Mulder, you're walking a dangerous line."

"In the context of the killing - he's obeying orders and will use
that to excuse any act, however foolish or barbaric. The automaton-
like process of slashing at the skin and beating the already
restrained man offers some gratuitous pleasure. However even though
rape is mandatory to make the scene work and the victim is powerless
- he can't get it up." Mulder looked across at Agent Clarke, the man
Kersh had so uncharitably described as Neill's gopher. "He's forced
to rely on a dildo to do the job for him."

The silence went on for just a little too long before Neill finally
worked out what he was supposed to say. "That's enough, Agent
Mulder. I've told you before - I refuse to discuss changes to the
profile without a member of the ISU present."

Scully ignored the attempt to close the discussion. "When you talk
about obeying orders - do you mean he thinks he's carrying out God's
work?"

Mulder was thrown for an instant, though he'd meant every word that
he'd said he'd forgotten that not only would Scully take him
literally, she might also make that link.

He could remember her words back on a case where she'd found herself
"chosen" to witness the death of young girls at the hands of some
unknown someone or something. "I was raised to believe that God has
His reasons, however mysterious." And his own less than gentle
reply, "He may well have His reasons but He seems to use a lot of
psychotics to carry out His job orders."

It was possible, a killer made afraid of his sexuality by his own
religious beliefs, whose fear had turned to righteous anger. Or else
some dark experience giving birth to a need for personal vengeance
against an abuser, and then catching hold of some religious precept
and mutating it into a hate for complete strangers.

Yet still, despite the appeal of the idea, something said no. A lack
of passion perhaps? The same lack of passion that was telling him
that this was not an act of sexual frenzy.

Mulder shook his head. "No, I'm sure this is strictly man to man."

---------

Mulder's phone call to Dave Burton found the ISU man subdued. In
fact he sounded almost relieved to hear Mulder's voice. Encouraged
by that idea, Mulder went straight to the point. "When can we meet?"

"I'm in DC at the moment. I'm expecting to get done here about five.
If you want, I can drop by your office later. "

"That's a little awkward, I'm not actually there." Which was
accurate mentally, if not strictly true physically He'd far rather
have had this discussion take place at Quantico, which would also
have given him a good excuse to get out of the building. Not that he
needed one, mostly no one noticed if he was in here or not. Perhaps
they could try neutral territory? "Could we meet up somewhere? Do
you have time this evening?"

"What are you thinking?"

"The Sepulchre - a bit of mood wallpaper?"

Mulder could almost hear the profiler's wheels turning. Hell, he'd
been there himself - torn between proper procedures and doing
whatever it took to get the job done. It felt almost heartless to
dangle temptation in front of the man like this. As if he was
corrupting an innocent. An utterly wrong analysis given Dave's
qualifications in law and psychology, his ten years as an agent
working in violent crimes, his time as a profile coordinator in
Chicago, and finally his move to the Behavioral Unit.

"Come on, Dave. You'd only be watching. Where's the harm?"

"You know damn well where's the harm."

"Of course I do. So, are you up for it?"

"If Neill finds out...."

"I'll defend your honor."

Burton was almost laughing when he replied. "Six thirty, the subway
station, if we're going in, we're going in together."

"That's the nicest thing anyone's ever said to me. See you at six
thirty."

Work dragged, Mulder found himself checking the clock every few
minutes, which of course made it drag even more. Concentration,
which had always been a strength in his work, was in too short
supply now to waste on Kersh's background checks. All those good
resolutions about not supplying Kersh with excuses seemed to have
gone by the wayside in the last couple of days.

He'd left early yesterday. Visited a potential witness without
getting permission or even informing his colleagues. Went with said
witness to a couple of bars and chatted to a variety of other people
before finally "outing" himself to Paul, the owner of The Sepulchre.

Paul had been surprisingly unshocked by the revelation, to the point
of grinning evilly at Dan James. "Oh man - why are the cute ones
always straight?"

"I should have told you that I was with the FBI."

Paul had shrugged. "I'm just pleased they sent a looker. Shows
proper respect!"

"They didn't send me, that's the point."

"What? You think I'm going to rat you out to your bosses?"

Mulder stifled a laugh at the memory and came back to earth with a
bang as Scully hissed, "What?" in reaction.

"Nothing." Hell, it wasn't nothing. They deserved better than that.
Suddenly resolute, he closed down the computer, swept most of the
desktop into his drawer and prepared to leave.

"Do you want me to come?"

Outed or not, Scully was not a suitable companion for tonight's
excursions. He shook his head.

"Are you going to see Daniel James again?"

Again? How did she know? Hell, of course she knew, she was Scully.
His partner. His friend. The most significant other he'd ever had.
"Let's go."

It didn't take a second invitation.

The office and corridors having now been declared effectively out of
bounds for conversation, they were forced to wait until they reached
Scully's car before speaking. "I didn't bring my car in," offered
Mulder, skipping over the request that she drive him home as too
obvious.

As soon as Scully pulled out of the parking bay she started to talk.
"So - Peter Hughes?"

Mulder took a deep breath. "Is probably dead."

"How do you know?"

"He fits the victim profile. The real victim profile, not the thing
they're fantasizing over in the men's room."

"Go on," she prodded, her words oddly echoing her own action as she
prepared to tug the car into the traffic.

"The victims. They're boring, Scully. White bread, nice guys with
mortgages and comfortable shoes and SUVs they bought because they
were worried about safety or else sub-compacts they bought because
they were bothered by the environment."

"Which doesn't preclude an interest in extreme sexual practices."

"It's their boyfriends who preclude that."

"Married couples don't always know everything about each other."

"Sure. But we wouldn't even be having this conversation if they were
married."

She concentrated on maneuvering the car safely into position in the
stream of slow moving cars before finally adding, "There's other
evidence."

"The lack of defense wounds?"

"Yes."

"A gun to the head? An accomplice? A drug we've not identified yet?
He was fast enough to cuff them and then he taped them up
afterwards?"

"It just seems as if you never even considered the ISU profile."

Mulder shifted his gaze from the road outside to his partner. "I
didn't."

Her lips opened on a brief exclamation of surprise, then slowly
relaxed into a gentle smile. "Marty Neill doesn't know why I put up
with you."

"Do you?"

"I've just remembered."

---------

Daniel James' apartment was a quietly eclectic blend of Scandinavian
modernism, ethnic art and Shaker simplicity. The main ornamentation
was supplied by the rows of books on every topic from the art of
sandwich making to the sexual politics of ancient Rome.

Skinner nodded his thanks as he accepted the coffee that Dan had
prepared. There was no easy way to talk about this. He decided that
it was best to get the business side over and done with as quickly
as possible. "Did Agent Neill contact you?"

"Sure, he was most reassuring," supplied Dan, in a voice that
guaranteed that Skinner would know that he was anything but
reassured.

"But?"

"Then I met Agent Mulder."

"Hmmm."

"He wasn't reassuring."

Skinner nodded, moved to sip at the coffee but found it way too hot
to do more than make the gesture. "What did Mulder say?"

"Not much." Dan gasped out a humorless sad grumble of a laugh. "We
talked for a couple of hours and he hardly said a word. Can you
imagine?"

Of course Skinner could imagine that. "What did you talk about?"

"Pete. Friends. The scene. I introduced him to a few people." Dan
looked away from Skinner, hesitant. "Is it going to create a problem
for you? Will he get curious about us?"

"Mulder gets curious about everything. It won't be a problem."



END of Part 8

"Mulder gets curious about everything. It won't be a problem."


----------

Scully's 6am phone call was depressingly predictable. A man's body
had been found floating in the Potomac. Dead for several days. Nude.
With injuries that might suggest a crime had been committed.

Whereas Scully had been invited, Mulder was definitely an unwelcome
gatecrasher at this party.

Neill kept it simple. "You're not needed here, Agent Mulder. We have
a specialist forensics crew working on the recovery."

"Is it Peter Hughes?"

"It's far too soon to start jumping to conclusions."

Mulder ignored the restraining hand Neill placed on his shoulder. If
Neill had a point to make then he'd better be ready to follow
through. It was Mulder's betting that he didn't have the guts.

Mulder headed directly to Scully's side, Martin Neill trailing in
his wake. "Scully?" She glanced up to give him permission to keep
talking. "Peter Hughes - 38, 5'10", 170 pounds, brown hair, dime-
sized mole on left shoulder blade."

"Difficult to tell with this kind of water bloating - but, yes,
first pass, he could match the description."

It was an hour or so before they took the body away to Quantico for
the autopsy. An hour that Mulder mostly spent gossiping with the
technicians who'd been sent on what looked to him like a futile
errand to collect trace evidence, and the police who routinely
patrolled the river and for whom another bloated corpse was all in
day's work.

"They get carried miles sometimes."

"So if this one was in the water for five days..." prompted Mulder.

"Could have started anywhere."

"That's what I thought."

"He's dragged some weed with him though - don't get that kind
everywhere."

The cop's partner soon put a damper on that. "You've been watching
too much Discovery Channel. It doesn't grow everywhere, but you get
rafts of it break off - boats, debris, floaters, it's not that tough
to find."

Mulder nodded, confident that if there was something tangible to be
found, then Scully would find it, but unwilling to discard the
possibility that these men might have something more to offer. If
not for today, then for one day. He shuddered a little at that, the
thought that he might take pleasure or pride in knowing something
that only mattered if someone else died.

Still - that was his job. And such knowledge defined him just as
effectively as his FBI badge or his Spooky label.

Mulder ignored Neill's explanations of why he was unnecessary and,
when that failed to get the desired response, Neill's explanation of
why he was definitely unwelcome at the autopsy.

"Agent Mulder, I will be reporting this to the Assistant Director."

Mulder shrugged, a gesture designed primarily to infuriate and
succeeding in its mission.

Scully frowned at the men but said nothing. Mulder recognized how
hard an act that was for her to maintain. Territorial warfare was
being waged on her turf and she didn't like it one little bit.

Establishing her authority as soon as she was safely wearing her
armor of scrubs and boots, she announced that she was now switching
on the recording equipment and she would be grateful if everyone
else would remain silent.

Mulder broke the vow of silence less than two minutes after the
autopsy commenced. "Same cause of death?"

"Looks that way."

"And the mole?"

She waved him forward. "There, left shoulder blade."

"Thanks. See you later." And with that Mulder walked out, not
bothering to offer even the most cursory of goodbyes to Neill,
though he did try not to gloat too obviously over the fact that he'd
effectively forced Neill to sit through the rest of what was going
to be a rather ugly post mortem examination.

Ugly and most likely futile. The decision to dump the body in the
water could mean only one thing. Their UNSUB, knowing that the FBI
would have a top team at the recovery of the body, had chosen to
complicate the process of finding evidence even further. It was a
mark of respect. Mulder wondered briefly if he should offer it to
Scully as a compliment, but then concluded that she must already
know.

As soon as he left the autopsy bay he was on the phone to Skinner.
"You've heard that they found a body, sir?"

"Yes."

"There's a strong probability that it's Peter Hughes."

"I see. Thank you, Agent Mulder."

-----------

To Scully an autopsy was a journey of discovery. The corpse was her
guide, and her hands, eyes and brain the tools for telling the
story.

Which made today's examination painfully frustrating. The previous
autopsies had all been performed by competent professionals and
they'd found little to work with. Yet still there had always been
the unadmitted hope, that if there had to be another body on this
case, then at least she would have the chance to be there first and
gain more.

Five days in the water was the killer's way of shifting the odds
even further in his favor and it looked as if he had succeeded in
obliterating the evidence again.

The stomach was almost empty, consistent with the idea that Hughes
was returning home from work when he was taken. The pattern of
wounds, though confused by water damage and by the violence of a
naked journey downstream said that the killer's MO hadn't changed.

She didn't bother to suppress the sigh as she paused to stretch
tired and cramping muscles in her back and neck, wincing slightly as
she felt the tightness in her abdomen reminding her that she still
wasn't a hundred percent fit. Her recovery after being accidentally
shot by another agent had gone well, but it could be months before
the after-effects faded, and despite the neat work of the hospital's
surgeon the scar would always be there.

"Are you OK, Dana? Can I get you something?"

She'd almost forgotten the man's presence in the room. Neill had sat
down at the end of the bay as soon as she made her first cut, and
unlike Mulder who would oscillate between quietly reading files and
sudden animated questioning when he stayed with her during an
autopsy, Neill had remained silent and still throughout.

"No, I'm fine." She paused, swallowing the frustration that was
threatening to escape. "I don't think we're going to get anything
new from the examination itself. Maybe from the tissue samples." She
shrugged, making it clear that she wasn't expecting much from that
source either.

"You think it's this Peter Hughes guy that Mulder keeps talking
about?"

"We'll need confirmation from the lab, but it's highly likely."

"How did Mulder know?"

Scully balked at the question, hearing something in Neill's tone
that sounded almost like an accusation. She quickly dismissed that
thought as paranoid, or at least as oversensitive. Neill's question
might be an absolutely genuine attempt to understand. "He said that
Hughes matched the victim profile."

"Skinner mentions that someone's missing and it turns out that he's
the next victim. I guess Mulder's lucky."

She shook her head. Lucky?

------------

Eight hours later and Walter Skinner was at Daniel James' side as
they walked in to see the body. The formal identification would need
to be done by the family who would be flying in the following
morning, but Dan had wanted to do this and Skinner couldn't say no.

When they came out from the viewing, James was ghost white and
shaking. Mulder handed him a cup of water without asking and guided
him to a chair at the table on which he'd already discreetly placed
a box of kleenex.

Mulder immediately withdrew a few paces and Skinner followed him,
allowing Dan a couple of moments with the illusion of privacy to get
his bearings back.

"You haven't asked me," murmured Skinner.

"What?"

"How I know Daniel."

"Law school."

Skinner sighed. "Ah. I was forgetting, the I in FBI. We were the
only ones who never fantasized about private practice and plush
offices."

"Never?"

"Seldom."

Martin Neill chose that moment to arrive in the room. Mulder stepped
forward automatically to block not only his access but even his view
of Dan James.

Neill stopped as ordered by Mulder's body language but pretended to
ignore Mulder, turning instead to the AD. "I'm here to interview Mr.
James."

"It's not necessary." Mulder spoke quietly. "I've already got what
we need for now."

Neill continued to direct his words only at Skinner. "Sir. Mr. James
may have key information on the movements of the victim and on his
habits and associates."

"I've got what we need," repeated Mulder firmly, but just as quietly
as before.

"I've got to insist."

This time it was Skinner who spoke, his face coloring red with
sudden fury. "Agent Mulder says he already has the information."

Neill ignored the warning in Skinner's voice. "He had no right to
interview that man. No authority."

"Not right now. I'm sure Mr. James will be happy to speak to you.
Tomorrow. But not - right -  now." Neill's acknowledgement didn't
come quickly enough, so Skinner increased the urgency, hissing the
words through clenched teeth. "Get out. Now."

This time the agent seemed to get the message.

Soon after Neill left the room, Mulder turned to check on their
witness. Some change in his posture told him that the man was ready
for company. Mulder edged back towards the table. "Dan?"

James waved a hand at a chair, giving Mulder permission to join him.
Skinner, not yet cool enough following his brief blow-up with Neill
to sit down, decided to play for time by retreating to the soda
machine.

"He was still alive."

Mulder frowned at that, puzzling over the words. The body had
already been dead when it hit the water. The autopsy had proven it.
"What do you mean?"

"When I reported him missing."

"Ahh." Mulder hesitated, knowing just what the man was getting at,
but wanting to find exactly the right words to respond. "They
wouldn't have been able to do anything, we didn't have any solid
leads on the vehicles or locations that might have been used."

"Not the point. I did nothing. I just stood there and let them blow
me off with excuses."

"Don't do this. It won't help."

"The fuck it won't. I spend my life telling people how to stand up
for their rights. Playing at advocacy. And the one time Pete needed
me to go in to bat for him..."

"You did. You are."

"I betrayed him. And myself. A roomful of strangers and I just
froze, as if I was ashamed of saying that he was gay, that I was his
lover."

"Don't. You couldn't stop this happening. The Baltimore PD couldn't
have stopped it." Mulder snorted in a fast gasp of air, recognizing
the implications of these truths or at least finally acknowledging
them. The only person who could stop these killings was him.

Skinner returned with an assortment of bitingly cold cans of soda,
well aware that playing at normality by offering a choice of brands
was a redundant gesture. The only thing any of them would taste of
was bile.

-------

The following morning all hell broke loose. The press was not only
carrying the story of the latest murder on the front pages, they
were also explaining that there were rumblings of discontent in the
FBI camp.

In particular, they noted that Special Agent Fox Mulder, once a
profiler himself, was now a dissenting voice on the team. That he
had rejected every major detail of the profile in favor of the idea
that the sexual assault had been manufactured at least partly to
sensationalize the crime and desensitize both the law enforcement
officers working the case and the potential victims and witnesses.

"Agent Mulder. Can you explain this?"

"It's accurate, so far as it goes."

"Then you admit that this is your work?" continued Neill.

"The leak to the press, or its contents?"

"The leak," Neill emphasized, for the sake of the twenty agents
sitting intently at the table.

"No. The only people I've discussed this with are other agents."

"What about Daniel James?"

"I didn't talk with him about any of this."

Even Scully looked doubtful.

"You expect us to believe that, Agent Mulder?"

"I expect you'll believe what you want to believe, Agent Neill."

-----------

The call to report to Kersh's office came sooner rather than later.
Martin Neill was already there and clearly buoyed up by a heady
mixture of rage and cheerful conviction that Mulder was finally
about to get what he so richly deserved.

Kersh got straight to the point. "Did you communicate with the press
in any way?"

"No."

"Have you discussed your theories on this case with anyone outside
the task force?"

"Assistant Director Skinner and Agent Burton from the ISU."

"Do you know how this information was obtained by the press?"

"No." Mulder swallowed, and prepared to go from defense to attack.
"I'm glad the information is out. But I did not release it."

Kersh nodded and leaned back in his chair locking his fingers as he
spoke. "But you did speak to Daniel James without authorization and
without briefing Agent Neill on the results."

"Agent Neill's email made it clear that he had the matter in hand."

"Don't try and bullshit me, Agent Mulder."

"I was using the interview purely as background for a profile."

"Background?"

Why get hung for a lamb when there was a whole flock of sheep
available? "I also visited The Sepulchre, it's a bar and restaurant,
the last known location we have for one of the victims."

"Anything else?"

Confession on this scale just had to be good for the soul. "I met
Agent Burton at the same location. My responsibility entirely."

"When?"

"The night before last."

"The night before the body was found. Could anyone have overheard
your conversation?"

"No, sir."

"You're certain. No one sitting close? No mikes?"

"Not unless Dave Burton was wearing a wire."

Kersh pushed forward in his seat, folding his arms as he did. "There
will be no communication with journalists or any other civilian
regarding this case unless it has been explicitly authorized by the
press office, Agent Neill, or myself. If you have any, and I do mean
any, information relevant to this case you will inform Agent Neill
of all the details immediately after this meeting. Is that clear?"

"Crystal."

"Agent Neill, if you'll excuse us."

Neill flinched upright - obviously startled to hear words being
directed at him and more than a little unnerved to find that it was
he who was now being dismissed. He relaxed only as the realization
dawned that Kersh would most likely want to keep any disciplinary
action private, at least initially. "Yes, sir," he managed as he
left the room.

Kersh started talking only once the door was firmly closed. "There's
surveillance at The Sepulchre."

Mulder nodded. "I know. Gray Ford two nights ago. Green one the
night I went there with Dan James."

"Is that why you told the truth?"

"Why would I want to lie about it?"

"OPR, professional misconduct - ring any bells?"

"Lack of respect for the chain of command?"

"Did you talk to the press?"

"No." Mulder raised his hands, acknowledging the contradiction. "If
I couldn't get a hearing and we were still giving out the wrong
messages then I might have been tempted. Fact is, I hadn't reached
that point."

"The Director feels that your presence on the team may allay fears."

Funny, that was the first time anyone had suggested to Mulder that
he had a future as a tranquilizer. "Because of the nature of the
victims?"

"You are known in certain circles."

Mulder sat up a little straighter. Known to who? And why? And as
what? "How so?"

"As a man who won't be taken in by surface phenomena." Kersh pause,
took a couple of slow breaths, kept his eyes locked on Mulder as if
expecting some further confession. When none arrived, he continued
his explanation. "That's the only reason you're still on this team.
Neill told me about your conduct at the body retrieval, the autopsy,
his attempt to interview the witness."

"I didn't have any choice."

Kersh nodded, thoughtful. "You'd better be right about this UNSUB,
Agent Mulder. It's the only thing that'll save you."

"Sir."

"I'll look forward to seeing that profile you're writing."




END of Part 9