By A. Z. Isz
AZIsz@aol.com
 

Rating: R

Category: X

Spoilers: None

Date: Tue, 21 Jul 1998

Plot summary:  Scully and Mulder and their recently
assigned new partner investigate a series of grisly
murders on the West Coast and find a link to
government conspiracy.
 

Disclaimers, etc.

The following work of fanfic is intended
for the enjoyment of the fans of the
X-Files and no commercial purpose or
copyright infringement is intended.  Those
of you who enjoyed the Fifth Season
episode Killswitch might want to check out
my earlier story on this board, entitled
Netmare, which predated that episode by
about two years.  There you may find
similarities of concept and plot that make
you a believer in coincidence, or perhaps
put you in mind of Dorothy Parker's
observation about the belief systems of
Hollywood.

The characters Mulder and Scully, as well
as the X-Files television series are the
creation and property of Chris Carter and
Fox Television.  The original characters,
concepts and story in the work that
follows are the creation and property of
AZ Isz, and are not to be used without his
permission by anyone, especially if their
initials happen to be W.G. or T.M.  Anyone
who does so can bite my poisoned apple.

Comments are welcome.  E-mail to AZ
Isz@aol.com.
 

                     ATOMIC BUM
 

Mulder shifted uncomfortably in his metal
folding chair and thought, not for the
first time that afternoon, that the
pathologist from the San Francisco Medical
Examiner's office had brought rather more
slides with him than were really needed to
make the point.

"So, we see the same pattern of wounds in
John Doe #147, dumped on North Beach June
16, 1995.  An initial vertical incision
from the sternal notch to the pubic
symphysis, superficial over the upper
thorax, then deepening into the abdominal
cavity, probably immediately followed by
the removal of the liver and kidneys, then
the small intestine from the pyloric valve
to the ileocecal.  Blood vessels were
clamped and tied off, probably indicating
an intention to avoid the victim dying
from blood loss before the climax of the
ritual, the removal of the beating heart
from the chest of the presumably still
conscious victim.  A second  incision was
then made transversely just below the
nipple line, completing the ritual cross,
and the heart was taken out. Tissue
sections of the incision lines indicate
the victim was alive up until the great
vessels were severed.  Considerable pains
were  taken to achieve this state,
apparently including the infusion of
intravenous fluids during the ritual, as
evidenced by the puncture wounds in both
antecubital fossae.  The removal of the
eyes and the draining of the body of blood
were probably accomplished post-mortem."

Scully was industriously taking notes, but
the third member of their team, Agent
Broderick, had turned a shade of green
most unbecoming to a federal agent.
Mulder wondered, also not for the first
time, why someone with a nice cushy desk
job at Bureau headquarters would decide to
request a transfer to field work after
eleven years with the Bureau.  Especially
someone on the -sure, if not fast, track
to promotion like Broderick had been.
Especially when your assignment turned out
to be the promotional dead end of
Spookyville.  Especially when finding your
own buttocks required both hands and a
map, not a great handicap at headquarters,
but deadly in the field.

Dr. Desmond droned on, moving to the next
victim.  "Victim number six, also from San
Francisco, is one of the few in this
series that we have a positive ID on.
This is William Buskind, a transient who
panhandled in Golden Gate Park from the
late 1980's until his recent death.  His
prints were on file from an arrest in 1993
for harassing a tourist for money a bit
too aggressively.  Buskind was a
well-known police character whose age is
not definitely known, but appears to have
been about the mid to late twenties.  He
was reputed to have been a very heavy
drinker, which got him into frequent
brushes with the law.  Surprisingly, his
autopsy revealed none of the findings
usually associated with chronic
alcoholism, even in such a young
individual."

Several slides of the victim's nude and
mutilated body flashed past to illustrate
Desmond's points."It is suspected that
'William Buskind' is a street name, since
no records of that name exist with Social
Security or any other government agency.
The ritualistic aspects of his killing are
also apparent: Ligature marks at the
wrists and ankles, the cruciform incision,
the stereotypical mutilations and the
final disposal of the body around dawn on
the beach, this time at Muir Beach, April
18, 1995."

"In summary, there have been four killings
that fit this pattern here in San
Francisco and at least another nine in
other states, including Oregon, Washington
and Nevada.  The victims have all been
homeless men in their twenties, with no
identifiable ties to family or community,
most of them with no known identity at
all.  There have probably been other
victims that were more discreetly disposed
of, since men like this are unlikely to be
missed at all if they disappear, much less
be reported missing."

Dr. Desmond collapsed his pointer and put
it in his shirt pocket.  He folded his
arms across his chest and wordlessly
invited comment.  He had an obvious, if
misplaced, confidence that he was the sole
exception to the universal law that nobody
looks good in a yellow bow tie.

"You seem to have quite an enthusiasm for
this case, Dr. Desmond," commented Mulder.

"Satanic ritual murder is a special
interest of mine, Agent Mulder," he
replied, "I investigated some of the
earliest instances here in California back
in the late sixties and have followed the
genre since then.  Most have been isolated
instances perpetrated by very sick
individuals who are too dysfunctional to
get away with even one killing.  I'm
convinced, though, that there's an
undercurrent of organized Satanic religion
at work in some of the series that have
occurred over the past three decades, a
group of relentless, vicious fanatics who
really believe that human sacrifice is
central to their religious practice.  My
belief is that this group is at work here
and that they are growing bolder.  There's
never been a series like this, nothing
like these numbers in such a short time.
I think we have an opportunity to finally
solve the serial killing of the century if
they get just a little bolder."

"There are certainly striking similarities
between these murders and some of the
previous satanic ritual killings the
Bureau has investigated," said Scully,
"but I don't think this particular MO has
been seen before.  The meticulous sadism
of keeping the victim alive while he's
being eviscerated is wholly unprecedented,
to my knowledge."

"There are also some striking parallels to
the mutilation patterns that we've seen in
cattle mutilations.  I don't think we can
rule out extraterrestrial involvement,"
said Mulder.

"Abductee reports uniformly describe
aliens as being motivated by curiosity,
not sadism.  Anyway, why would a UFO dump
a body on a beach, even supposing aliens
had some reason to vivisect a human?  It's
uncharacteristically untidy."

Broderick, who'd been sitting in ashen
silence, blurted out "This is horrible,
just horrible.  Who'd do something like
this?"

Through a supreme effort of will, Mulder
did not roll his eyes.  He just said
patiently, "Don, that's why we're here,
that's our job.  Not just to figure out
who would do such a thing but to find them
and arrest them so they don't do it to
anyone else. That's the essence of field
work."

"Look, Don," he continued, "I know this is
all new to you and pretty strong stuff,
but you'll get used to it if you keep at
it.  Why don't you go back to the hotel
room and pull yourself together a little,
then maybe start on our preliminary
report.  You'll feel better if you're
occupied."

As they watched Broderick walk unsteadily
away, Mulder murmured, "Scully, if you
should ever take up partner-shooting
again, I'd like to nominate Donnie
Broderick."
 

                          2

The case petered out for a while after
that, the few leads they had leading
nowhere.  The perpetrators obviously had
chosen their victims well, men with no
identifiable past and certainly no future,
whose comings and goings simply weren't
noticed. It didn't help matters that
Broderick was as inept at interrogating
witnesses as he was at every other aspect
of field work. The first break came around
three months later, when another mutilated
body turned up on North Beach in San
Francisco.  This was the first victim that
Scully would get to see the actual body
of, rather than being limited to reading
the reports of other pathologists and she
clearly looked forward to the chance to
see the evidence first hand.

The autopsy room of the San Francisco
Medical Examiner's Office was cold and
well-lit, as required by tradition. The
body lying on the perforated stainless
steel table in the center of the room fit
the profile of the other victims: a white
male in his mid-twenties.  This one had
black hair and a two-day growth of
stubble.  The eyelids sagged into the
empty eye sockets and the familiar
cruciform incision was centered on his
breastbone.

Dr. Desmond stepped forward to greet them,
obviously eager to show off his expertise.
He was living proof that however you might
look in a yellow bowtie, you can look
worse in a purple one.
 
 
"Not much for the pathologist to do on
these poor fellows, I'm afraid.  They've
already been eviscerated and it's rare
that much can be learned from them
identity-wise, since most of them spend a
lot of energy avoiding contact with
authority."

"What about the tatoos?" asked Scully, "It
looks as though he should have some
military records...fingerprints or dental
records at least."

There was a tattoo on each forearm, an
eagle, globe and anchor on the right with
the letters "USMC" under it and a brunette
in a red bathing suit looking over her
shoulder in the classic Betty Grable pose
on the left.

"No, we checked."  said Desmond, "The
Marines came up with no match on either
fingerprints or teeth."

"That's not that uncommon, by the way," he
continued.  "A number of the men you see
begging on the streets with signs that say
'Please help a homeless veteran' have
never spent a day in the service.  They
just get the tattoos to make themselves
more authentic."

"How far back in the records did they
look?" asked Scully.

"I really don't know," said Desmond,
frowning slightly, "They have the records
computerized back to about 1982, when this
man would have been about twelve years
old, so I suspect they checked those but
not any of the older paper or microfilmed
records.  There would hardly have been any
point.  Why do you ask?"
 

"Because the bathing beauty on his left
arm is a 1940's tattoo." she replied.
 

"So he was into retro style," commented
Mulder, "What does that prove?"

Scully shook her head and peered closer at
the tattoo.  "Not a 1940's style tattoo,
Mulder, a 1940's tattoo.  Or at least done
sometime before 1954 when that particular
mercuric red dye was banned because it was
found to cause skin cancer.  The reds in
tattoos have never been quite as bright
since."

Mulder thought she sounded a little
wistful about that.

"That's hardly possible, Dr. Scully," said
Desmond, "This man is obviously no older
than thirty, at the outside. He couldn't
have been born before the mid-sixties."
 

Scully lifted the body by the right
shoulder and looked at the back a moment.
"Smallpox vaccination scar in the
interscapular region," she said in a
dictational voice, then,  "Try the Marines
again, Dr. Desmond.  Ask them to run the
search back at least to 1940."

Mulder regarded the body as he did the
mental arithmetic for a date of birth in
the twenties or thirties.  He found it
impossible to reconcile that with the
unlined face, jet-black hair and firm
muscles of the dead man.

"I suppose it couldn't hurt," was his only
comment.
 
 

                          3
 

Mulder squinted into the too-bright
microfilm reader's screen and recited:

"David Allen Willis.  Born March 4, 1922,
Marietta, Georgia.  Enlisted United States
Marines in Savannah, 8 December 1941."

"What took you so long, Dave?" he
murmured, before continuing:

"Boot training Parris Island 15 December,
1941- 31 January 1942.  Assigned First
Battalion, First Marines 9 February 1942.
Landed Guadalcanal 7 August 1942. Promoted
Private First Class 24 August 1942. Cited
for valor 13 September 1942.  Landed
Gloucester Beach, New Britain 26 December
1943."

He skipped down a few lines.  "Landed
Volupai 3 March 1944.  Promoted Corporal
14 March 1944.  Wounded by shell fragment,
left thigh, 24 March 1944 on New Britain.
Returned to duty 20 April 1944. Landed
Peleliu 15 September 1944."

Skipping more lines, "Reassigned to U.S.
Army 28 October 1944.  Honorable
discharge, San Diego, 8 August 1945."

"Discovered Fountain of Youth, date
uncertain, 1942-1945," he added. "They
left that out."

"That's not all they left out either.
Does it strike anyone else as odd," he
mused, "that everything that David Allen
Willis did from December 9, 1941 until
January 28, 1945 is detailed in these
records, practically down to each visit to
the latrine, and then he gets transferred
to the Army and disappears for over nine
months?"

"What did the Army have on him, Dr.
Desmond?"

"I did in fact check with the Army, Agent
Mulder. Officially, at least, they never
heard of him. They have no records on him.
His discharge was from the Marines, not
the Army."

"So we have this WW II hero living as a
bum in Golden Gate park, dying very
unpleasantly, ending up on North Beach as
an eviscerated twenty year old,"  said
Mulder. "Could he have been a member of
the cult that killed him?  Could they have
somehow discovered how to reverse the
aging process and granted that secret to
those in the cult judged worthy to receive
it?"

"If what you're postulating is true and he
was so favored, then why was he homeless?"
asked Scully, "More to the point, why
would they kill him?"

"Maybe he did something that really pissed
them off.  Maybe he was in hiding from
them.  In any event, we know from
eyewitness testimony that he was camped
out in Golden Gate Park.  That was  Bill
Buskind's last known address as well.  It
might not be a bad idea to call out one of
the special ops teams and get them to
discreetly comb the park for clues. They
might just find something the police
investigation missed."
 
 

                          4

Desmond was as excited as a kid with a new
bike.

"Exactly as I thought.  Satanic runes and
symbols scrawled under an overhang out
behind the restrooms where only someone
looking for them would notice.  We're
close, so close to finding these people.
All we have to do is interpret them
properly and I'll bet anything they'll
lead us to the perpetrators of these
murders."

The four of them stood around a small
square table in the morgue, studying the
photographs taken by the special ops team
just the day before.  A string of symbols
had been painted in black matte paint on a
board left almost invisible behind weeds
against a rock outcrop.  They looked
totally incomprehensible at first, but had
a creepy familiarity when looked at more
closely.

Broderick was the first to speak.

"They're not Satanic symbols," he said
flatly, "they're hobo signs."

Mulder, and probably the rest of them,
could hardly have been more surprised if
one of the bodies lying on the autopsy
tables had spoken those words.

"You don't know what you're talking
about," said Desmond, "those are typical
cabalic magical symbols used by Satanists
in their rituals."

"Well, I'm sure you know your Satanists,
Dr. Desmond," he replied, "but I know my
hoboes, and those are hobo signs. They
used to leave those on walls of houses,
under railroad bridges, on mailboxes,
where ever they might be useful."

He pointed at one of the symbols in the
photographs and said, "This means it's
safe here, the police won't bother you if
you don't make trouble.  This one means
the panhandling is good.  This one means
little boy."

"How do you know all this, Agent
Broderick?" asked Desmond.

"My grandfather was a hobo during the
Depression, not a tramp or a bum, but the
genuine article, a 'Knight of the Road'.
He always made sure I knew the difference.
He used to tell me stories about hobo camp
life and he taught me some of the ins and
outs of living on the road.  He also used
to show me hobo signs."

"I can understand the significance of
things like safety and police attitude and
the general level of public altruism for
someone living by his wits, and why hoboes
would have signs for those things," said
Mulder, "but why should they have a sign
for 'little boy'?"

Broderick blushed and the confidence with
which he had addressed a familiar,
comfortable subject vanished.  He looked
at the floor as he replied, "Some hoboes,
not my grandfather of course, were on the
road because they weren't welcome at home.
Some of them were pedophiles, for
instance.  They had this sign that meant a
little boy lives here, the implication
being he could be had for bribery or
treats.  I only learned about that when I
started studying hoboes more seriously."

"So this is like a hobby for you, studying
hoboes?" asked Scully.

"Yeah, something like that, a special
interest.  You need things like that at
headquarters, to keep from going
completely crazy.  Sometimes there's not
that much useful to do there.  That's why
I put in for the field."

For the first time since the Bureau's
Oddball Disposal Chute had deposited
Broderick on his doorstep, Mulder felt
what might be termed a mild liking for his
new partner.  He immediately quashed it.

"If this isn't satanic scribblings, then
does it have any bearing on the case?  If
it's just a hobo version of 'For a good
time call...' then it would seem to me
that we just spent several hundred
thousands of dollars worth of effort to
find out where to get a good handout and a
compliant boy and we're no closer to
finding out who killed David Willis than
we were three days ago."

"No, Mulder, I don't think so," said
Broderick, "Nobody has used hobo signs for
over forty years, and this thing wasn't
painted that long ago.  It's definitely
out of place in 1995."

"If it is hobo signs, then it belongs to
Willis' era, not ours," added Scully, "We
can't ignore the possibility of a
connection."

"What does the whole message mean, Don?"
she asked.

Broderick looked more sheepish.

"Actually, I couldn't tell you.  There's
signs in there I don't recognize.  Hobo
signs usually weren't more than one or two
in a row, and this has more than twenty,
most of which are new to me.  I don't know
that there's anyone alive who could
decipher that board."

"If there is, the Bureau will know where
to find him or her," said Scully firmly.
 
 

                          5

As it turned out, the Smithsonian had an
folklorist whose specialty was hobo
culture.  It took headquarters two days to
find her and get the pictures to her.
When she had taken her first look at the
photographs of the board, Deanna Weeks
knew she had to see it up close and touch
it for herself and had taken the first
available flight to San Francisco.  She
picked the board up and held it up to the
light.

"This is absolutely fascinating," she
began, "I've never encountered anything
like this before. It's a combination of
hobo signs and distorted letters which
spell things in a very nonstandard but
perfectly decipherable way, for someone
willing to spend the time to sort it out."

"Besides the usual hobo sign advisories
about police and public attitudes, it has
a very unusual message at the end,
something unlike any hobo signage I've
never seen before. It reads, as best as I
can render it: 'If you knew the little
boy's daddy, meet me here at dawn, third
Thursday.'  Third Thursday is rendered,
rather charmingly I think, as 'terd
tersday'."

"Sounds almost like an attempt to extort
something from a kidnapper," commented
Mulder, "Are there any kidnap cases this
might apply to?"

There weren't, as it turned out, but
within a week of the special ops sweep of
the park something did turn up.

"The board's been replaced.  Someone
slipped in last night and put up a new one
just about a hundred yards from the first
one, in an even more inconspicuous place,"
said Mulder.  "One of the special ops
people decided to give the park one more
look and found this this morning. He took
some discreet photos, but left it in
place.  As near as I can tell with a
side-by- side comparison of the pictures,
it's identical to the first board."
 

"Sounds to me like whoever left the first
one thinks it was just picked up by
someone out of curiosity and decided he
still wants to get his message across. I
think we should stake this site out round
the clock find out who's trying to find
this kid's father," said Scully.

"I don't think round the clock is
necessary," he replied, "just next
Thursday at dawn."
 

                          6

Thursday dawned cold but only mildly
foggy, which relieved them all.  Scully
and Mulder lingered on a bench near the
new board's location posing as a couple
from late night who just couldn't bring
themselves to part and go home.
Broderick, dressed in sweats, was doing an
elaborate series of stretches on the east
side of the board site, close to the
jogging path.  Even in the dim light, the
puffy and clumsy Broderick made a less
convincing jogger than, say, Boris Yeltsin
would have.

Nonetheless, he was the first to see the
newcomer who was warily approaching the
cove of trees that held the board from the
direction of the rising sun.  He was a
young homeless man of less than medium
height and slim build who just fell short
of looking purposeless as he worked his
way toward the site, keeping his attention
mostly on Scully and Mulder on the bench.
Broderick windmilled his arms in a jumping
jack without the jump, the pre-arranged
"heads-up" signal, and began a slow trot
that would take him on the opposite side
of the copse from his fellow agents.
Satisfied that the jogger was departing
and that Scully and Mulder were completely
absorbed in each other, the man walked
quickly into the trees as if to find a
place to relieve himself.  He was quickly
followed by Scully, Mulder circling to the
west to cut off any escape in that
direction.  As they slowly closed on the
grove,  they heard Broderick call out
"Freeze!" in a voice that was shaky enough
to alarm them both.  They converged,
running, in the direction of the shout.

They heard an astonished "whoa" from
Broderick, followed by a thud that could
only have been Broderick hitting the
ground.  Mulder came through the thicket
to find Broderick struggling to his feet,
trying to hold the much smaller suspect
and keep him from running away.
Broderick's size and dead weight told, but
the suspect was quick and incredibly
strong for his size.  To his dismay,
Mulder saw that Broderick was going to
attempt a textbook Academy takedown on the
man, knowing that most of that Combat
Secrets of the FBI crap they taught you
there was useless against a really
determined alley fighter, which this man
looked to be.  Sure enough, as Broderick
got behind him and brought his arm down in
front of the man's face to apply a
choke-hold, the suspect ducked his head to
get his chin between the crook of
Broderick's elbow and his own throat, then
bit into Broderick's forearm with
desperate force.  He easily dodged
Broderick's leg whip, which was supposed
to knock him off his feet as the
choke-hold was applied, then wrenched free
enough of Broderick's grip as the pain of
the bite loosened his hold to knee
Broderick viciously in the crotch.
Broderick yelped and started to go down
again.  Not daring to try to shoot the
man, both for fear of hitting Broderick
and not wanting to lose the chance to
question the only suspect they'd had so
far in this case, Mulder plunged toward
them as the suspect pulled free of
Broderick.  The man ran straight for
Mulder, ducked under his attempt to grab
him and rammed his shoulder into Mulder's
belly, knocking the wind out of him and
putting him in the dirt.  He started to
run for the park only to find his way
blocked by Scully in combat stance, .357
drawn and aimed unwaveringly at his chest
.

"Don't make me shoot you."

The man hesitated a moment before darting
to his left to try to make it back to the
shelter of the trees, but that was long
enough for Mulder to tackle him from
behind and pin his arms well enough to
handcuff him.  Mulder put his knee in the
struggling man's back as he lay face down
in the grass.

"FBI!" he got out between gasps for
breath, "You're under arrest!"

Although the man continued to writhe and
try to kick him, Mulder saw he had control
of the situation.

"Stop that, dammit," he said, "you've got
three armed Federal Agents covering you
and you're not going anywhere.  Now I'm
going to read you your rights and then
you're going to answer some questions.
You have the right to remain silent...."

As Mulder began the familiar litany, the
suspect, who had been struggling with the
desperate strength of the cornered,
suddenly went limp.  Then, incredibly, he
began to laugh.

"What's so damned funny?" Mulder had to
ask.

"You, fed," the man answered.  "I guess if
you're going to read me my rights, you're
not intending to kill me right away.  Let
me up, I'll cooperate."

Mulder took his knee off the man's back
and regarded him as he stood up.  He
looked far too slight to have put up
anything like the fight that he had.

"Name?" he asked the man.

"Dorsey Palmer."

"What were you doing in that grove this
morning?"

"I come to see a man about a horse."

"Bullshit," said Mulder, "nobody fights
like that over being interrupted taking a
leak.  What were you really here for?"

Palmer shrugged.  "I had reason to think
I'd meet somebody I knew a long time ago."

"That wouldn't be a certain little boy's
father, would it?"

Palmer looked startled, then brightened a
little.  "Depends on who's asking.  Did
you know him?"

The Alice-in-Wonderland quality of the
conversation was getting on Mulder's
nerves.  He was about to bore in on the
man when Broderick interrupted him.

Broderick had decided that it was more
politic to rub his bitten arm than to
massage his aching groin.  Following that
momentous decision, his mind had
apparently turned to the question of how a
scrawny homeless guy half his size could
have whipped him so soundly one-on- one.

"Jesus, Palmer, where did you learn to
fight like that?"

"The South Pacific, 1942 to '44," he
replied.
 

                          7
 
 

"One morning on Saipan during muster, one
of the announcements was that a medical
team from the states was looking for
volunteers with certain blood types to
participate in a research project.
Volunteers would be repatriated to the
states and be relieved of further combat
duties.  The only blood type I can
remember they wanted was mine, AB.  After
the Saipan landing I was ready to
volunteer to eat a gallon of pigshit with
a teaspoon if it meant I never had to go
into combat again."

"My little brother Luther and me had
joined up together in '42, right after
Mama died, and we managed to stay together
through the war up until Saipan. We were
in the first wave at Saipan, and our
platoon took hellacious machine gun and
mortar fire from the time the ramp dropped
on the boat.  Luther had a mortar round
land right at his feet that tore him to
rags.  He died whimpering no more than 10
feet away from me, and there wasn't shit I
could do about it but lie on my belly and
try and sink into the sand under the
machine gun fire.  After that landing, I
had no more family left in the world and I
was the last guy in my original platoon
who hadn't died or been evacuated for
wounds."

Palmer's elbows rested on his knees, his
head down as he slumped forward in the
chair.  His voice was almost without
emotion and Mulder couldn't see his face
well enough to see if it betrayed any.

"The rest of Saipan was pretty much a blur
to me.  I fought, I didn't try to keep
from fighting, I didn't let the other guys
down, but I was as sick as a man can be of
war and still be fighting in one.  By the
time that medical team came around, I knew
I couldn't take anymore.  I'd been
thinking about shooting myself in the foot
so I could get evacuated home, so the
chance to get out of there without the
shame of that was like manna from heaven
for me."

He looked up at Mulder and Scully, and
suddenly he didn't look twenty-five
anymore.  His eyes, though the face around
them was unlined, looked every minute of
seventy-six.

"I volunteered for the research and after
they made sure I was really an AB, they
flew me off the island to an Army base on
another island.  They didn't say where it
was, but I think it might have been
somewhere in the Philippines.  They told
me that this project had the highest level
of security and they made me sign papers
that transferred me from the Marines to
the Army.  The papers also said I'd never
discuss it with anyone not connected with
the project, and right there in bold type
it said any breach of security was
punishable by death.  I went ahead and
signed, anyway, since staying in combat
was punishable by death, too."

"They flew me back to the states and put
me in a compound out in the desert with
about three hundred other guys who'd also
volunteered.  They didn't tell us where it
was, but we later figured out it had to be
New Mexico.  We weren't supposed to tell
anyone our real names or where we came
from and they gave us these silly-assed
movie star names we were supposed to go
by.  Mine was Ronald Coleman.  Ronald
Reagan was in the bunk across from mine in
the Quonset hut there and Wallace Beery
was next bunk over.  Roll call in the
morning was kind of a hoot:"

"Cagney?"

"Here."

"Bogart?"

"Here."

"Gable?"

"Here."

"Like that.  It was about the only thing
funny in that whole deal.  The rest of the
time there was unbelievable pointless Army
crap to put up with, what used to be
called chickenshit back then, worse than
in basic training.  We had PT, drill,
inspections, forced marches and that kind
of crap from reveille until lights out.  I
figure it was to keep us so busy we didn't
have time to think too much.  It got to
some of the guys, since we were all combat
veterans who thought we'd left that stuff
behind us. I didn't care, as long as they
didn't send me back to the Pacific."

"And there was all the needles.  They gave
us shots in the butt and drew blood out of
our arms two or three times a week and
once in a while when they were in a really
good mood, they'd drill this big needle
into your breastbone.  They never told us
what they were giving or taking and we
pretty well knew not to ask.  Sometimes
the stuff would make you sick, but most of
the time the shots didn't seem to do
anything.  They were just one more pain in
the ass, so to speak."

"One day Gable couldn't take it anymore.
He was a big Georgia cracker who just
didn't go for taking shit and one day he
hauled off and punched out this sergeant
who'd been riding his ass all day about
something.  Four MP's just came out of
nowhere and clubbed him down right in
front of all of us.  Then they dragged him
away and we never saw him again.  The
sergeant just rubbed his chin and grinned
while the MP's worked Gable over.  After
they took him away, he told us 'One step
out of line, gentlemen, just one step out
of line is all it takes.'  He grinned
broader and ran his finger across his
throat."

"That little business put an end to any
public griping and there was damned little
opportunity to talk among ourselves in
private. Finally, after about six weeks of
this crap, they got us up way before dawn
and drove us way out into the desert in
six-by trucks.  For all we knew they were
taking us away to be shot, but they
finally stopped the trucks and told us to
get out and form line facing east.  We
stood there for what seemed like hours,
then suddenly there was a flash of bright
light, so bright we all threw up our arms
to shield our eyes.  Then came a
tremendous explosion and a hot wind
whipped our clothes around us.  Then we
saw something we had never seen before,
hell nobody'd seen it before, but we sure
saw it plenty of times after that.  A big
column of smoke rose up out of the desert,
slowly turning into the first mushroom
cloud I ever saw."

"After the explosion, they took us back to
the compound and gave us a head to toe
medical exam and drew more blood than
they'd ever taken before.  They kept
taking blood every day, and gave us extra
rations to help us build it back up.  Some
of the guys got sick over the next few
days with vomiting and diarrhea, but it
passed.  The doctors hovered over them,
giving them more shots and other kinds of
medicine till they were well.  After a few
days, you could tell by the way they
looked at us and talked to each other that
things hadn't worked out the way they had
expected.  They were disappointed as hell
about something, and I overheard some of
them talking in the hospital hut when I
was there to mop the floor when it was my
turn for that, about how the project would
have to be abandoned now.  One of them
argued that they just needed more time and
the doctor who looked to be in charge told
him to shut up, that it didn't take a
genius or ten years to know when failure
was staring you in the face."

"Anyway, a few weeks after that they took
us one by one into the headquarters hut
and gave us a lecture about how we had
done more for our country than we'd ever
know and that we were going to be given
honorable discharges with bonus money, but
that we were never to discuss the project
and what we had seen there with anybody.
They reminded us about the papers we had
signed and that the business about breach
of security still held and always would.
They told us we would be called back from
time to time for more medical testing and
that failing to appear would be considered
a breach of security."

"I took my discharge in  Albuquerque.  It
just didn't seem to be any point in going
back to Tulsa, and I figured I could find
work in Albuquerque and I did.  I got work
fixing cars, something I was always good
at, and pretty soon I had my own garage.
I met Sarah in '47 and in not so long I
had a wife and three kids.  The war and
the strange business at the end of it kind
of faded out of my memory until I got a
letter from the Army around 1951, telling
me I should show up in Alamagordo at a
certain corner at a certain time.
Remembering the bit about not showing
being a breach of security, I went.  Some
MP's picked me up in a jeep and took me
back to the compound I'd been in in '44
and '45, and there were some of the same
docs who'd been there then, looking a lot
older than they should have.  They took
more of my blood, then told me I'd have to
stay another week.  I raised hell, because
that meant no business at the garage for
that time, and I just flat couldn't afford
it.  They just asked me if it was better
if I was gone for a week or forever, so I
stayed.  The same guys who'd been there in
'45 were there, just about all of them,
still going by the same movie star names.
 

"They drew more blood and gave us more
shots and then they trucked us out into
the desert again and we watched another
bomb test.  This time they gave us goggles
to protect our eyes and we were a lot
farther away from the bomb.  I guess they
learned stuff from that first test and the
ones that came after that made them a
little more cautious with it.  It must
have worked, because nobody got sick this
time.  A few days after the test they drew
more blood and then took us back to
Alamagordo after the usual crap about
service to our country and what happened
if we breached security.  I was just glad
to get the hell out of there.  Truth to
tell, I wouldn't have told anybody about
any of that stuff, because nobody would
have believed me anyhow.  I thought this
crap would go on for years, that I'd keep
getting called back for tests, but once I
got back home I never heard from the army
again.  It was like they just forgot about
me. Fact is, you're the first people I've
ever told any of this stuff to."

"I thought it was all over and I tried to
put it behind me.  I was doing great
business at the garage and in '52 I opened
another one.  Hell, I was doing great.  I
could work from sunup till late at night
and never get tired.  Never got sick,
either.  Here I was, almost thirty-five,
and I had more energy than I had when I
was twenty.  I never thought anything
about that until my boy got hit by a car
while he was riding his bike in '55.  He
was bleeding internally and they had to do
surgery to take his spleen out.  He was
low sick after the operation, and it
looked like he might not make it.  He
needed a blood transfusion, but he was AB,
just like me, that's the rarest type, if
you didn't know, and they flat didn't have
any to give him.  I went down to the blood
bank and gave them two pints for him.
They didn't want to take but one, but I
raised enough hell about it that they took
the two."

"They tried to give me some crap about how
they couldn't quite get a match between my
blood and his, and how they shouldn't do
the transfusion, but I raised more hell
and finally got them to  give it to him.
He was real sick, you could tell he was in
trouble, real pale, just lying there not
wanting to move, and I wouldn't just let
him go.  After Luther died, I was all
there was that was left of my family.
Mama and Papa had died young, and all I
had for family in '55 was my wife and
kids.  I wasn't about to just let my boy
go, not after what I'd gone through.  They
gave him the blood, and after just a few
minutes, he started to pick up.  He
started to run a fever toward the end of
the first pint, and they wouldn't give him
the other one.  But it was alright,
anyhow, he sat up in bed and asked for
something to eat and I knew he'd be okay."

"He left the hospital the next day,
looking as good as he'd ever looked, all
full of piss and vinegar.  Only thing was,
he never grew any for the next two years.
He stayed healthy, did good in school, was
fine as could be except for not growing.
We were worried about him until he hit
seven, then he shot up like a weed, grew
three inches in four months, and we quit
worrying."

"Life was pretty good for quite a while,
business was going great, the family was
fine, and I didn't have a care in the
world.  It took some time before I noticed
anything was out of line, but it came to
me after a while.  Customers started
talking about how young I looked for my
age, and I started to think about how old
they were looking.  Twenty-five years went
by and I never got a wrinkle or a gray
hair on my head.  My kids grew up, and
more than once people who didn't know us
asked if I was my son or daughter's
brother.  People started treating me
different, like they were scared of me.  A
man that doesn't age makes people nervous,
and I began to feel out of place in my own
home town.  My friends and family were all
getting older and I wasn't.

"I think it got to my wife the worst.  We
had such a strong love between us when we
were young together, raising the kids and
all, but then she gradually got older and
older and I just didn't.  She got more and
more aches and pains and felt tired all
the time and she could see I felt good as
ever.  In the end, I think she started to
hate me for it.  She left me in '82, just
up and left without even a word or a note.
After that my life started falling apart,
piece by piece.  I kept running the garage
for a while, tried to stay interested in
it, but there was less and less there for
me.  My kids had long since moved away and
didn't seem to like having me come around,
my friends were either dead or so nervous
around me that we couldn't be comfortable
together.  It kept getting harder to feel
like I belonged in Albuquerque, or
anywhere else, except maybe a sideshow.
People started coming into the garage just
to gawk at me. Sometimes they brought
their cars, sometimes they pretended they
wanted to use the phone or the john or
whatever, but really they just wanted to
get a look at the seventy year-old kid.  I
didn't fit with people my age and I sure
didn't fit with people the age I felt.  It
was like I'd lost my place in line, and
there was no way to get it back."

"Early in '84, I just woke up one morning
and decided to hell with it, if I looked
and felt twenty-five, I might as well live
twenty-five.  I gathered up a few clothes
and other crap, what little I really
wanted and could put in a back-pack, went
to the bank and picked up five grand in
cash, which was all I felt safe carrying,
and hit the road.  I felt really free for
the first time since the war, and that
felt real good.  I drifted down to Deeming
and took a mechanic job under a false
name, more for something to do than for
anything else.  I had to find a guy who'd
pay cash and not sweat withholding and all
that, but I did good work and I worked
cheap, so it worked out.  I was happy
there for a couple of years, but it got
harder and harder to duck stuff like
social security numbers, income tax, and
all that crap.  Life was a lot more
complicated than it was the first time  I
was young."

"Around the spring of '86, I began to get
the feeling I was being watched. At first
it was just that feeling that eyes were on
me, like I used to get out on jungle
patrol during the war, just before the
shit would hit the fan.  Then it got more
obvious, like when this van would park
across the street from my house, or up the
block and stay there a day or two, always
the same tan Econoline van, a custom job
with a raised roof and windows tinted so
black they couldn't be legal.  Sometimes a
guy with no particular business you could
see would hang out in the neighborhood of
the garage, never coming in or moving on,
but always watching.  Then I began to get
nervous.  I remembered all the crap about
highest security levels and any breach of
security being punishable by death.  I had
had a feeling for a long time that my not
getting older had something to do with
Summer Wind, which was the damnfool name
they gave that project, because nobody in
my family, the men at least, had ever
lived much past fifty or so. Maybe staying
young forty years after the war was over
was the kind of thing they considered a
breach of security."

"Anyway, one night I woke up from a dream
of being back in a foxhole on Guadalcanal,
just before the last Jap banzai charge.
The feeling of eyes on me was stronger
than ever, so I crept quietly over to my
bedroom window and looked out, and saw the
same guy that had been hanging around the
garage across the street from my house.
He was standing under a street light
smoking a cigarette, like what the hell
else do you do at two in the morning in
Deming.  The van was parked up the street.
When the van's engine started, and it came
toward my house with the lights off,  it
came to me that they were making their
move, and the only thing I could think of
was that I had to get the hell out of
there as fast as I could.  I pulled on
some clothes and slipped down the stairs
and was going out the side door when I
heard the front door open.  I moved as
fast and quiet as I could and slid on my
butt down the arroyo that ran between my
house and the next development over.  I
could see them shining little muffled-down
flashlights inside my house, and I heard
them break my bedroom door down.  They did
it real quiet, for that kind of thing, but
I heard it and it pissed me off. I was
proud of that house. It wasn't much to
look at, a dump really, if you compared it
to my place in Albuquerque, but I bought
it strictly with cash out of my own pocket
and it made me mad for them to be trashing
it like that."
"I eased further down the arroyo and got
behind some rocks, and it was a good thing
I did, because they came out of the back
of the house looking for me.  They didn't
use their lights, I guess because they
didn't want to be seen, but they split up
and worked their way up and down the
arroyo looking for me.  They should have
found me, but I found out in combat that
if you hold still enough, you're as good
as invisible at night.  Finally, they
heard something down the arroyo away from
me and they all went that way.  I slipped
off down the other end of the draw and
worked my way out into the desert.
Really, those guys were amateurs compared
to the people I'd been in combat with, but
I knew they had the government behind them
and I couldn't afford to ignore them.  I
knew I'd have to keep my head down from
then on, because they weren't about to
quit looking for me. I wasn't about to let
them catch me either, because I had a
pretty good idea of what they'd do if they
got their hands on me."

"I hitch-hiked out to California and just
sort of got used to living on the street.
I felt safe here.  I figured that if you
dropped down low enough on the social
scale, you eventually got below the line
of sight of the rest of the world.  If
you're just a bum out on the street,
people don't really care about your social
security number or what your name really
is or where you came from."

"After a while I got restless.  I began to
wonder if any of the other guys from
Summer Wind were still around, and whether
they didn't age, either.  I mean, I was
pretty damned lonely out there, with no
family or friends and I wondered if
anybody else was in the same fix.  A few
of us had swapped real names and where we
were from back in '45, and I thought I
might be able to find one of those guys if
I looked.  I went to one of the homeless
shelters and told them I wanted to clean
up and get off the street so I could try
to find work somewhere.  I got shaved and
bathed and got decent clothes and they
even gave me a bus ticket to San Luis
Obispo, where I told them I had an uncle
that would give me a job.  I figured San
Luis was my best bet to find one of the
Summer Wind guys, because it was small and
because this guy Brian Kinchloe had always
talked about how he couldn't wait to get
back there after the war.  I'd seen him
when they called us back in '51, but I
didn't get to talk to him then.  It wasn't
that much to go on, but it was all I had."

"I looked in the phone book as soon as I
got to San Luis, and sure enough, there
were three Kinchloe listings, but none of
them was Brian.  What the hell, I called
up William Kinchloe and asked him if he
was any relation to Brian.  Turned out to
be his nephew, so I told him I had known
his uncle during the war and I had
something to give him that was very
important.  There was this long silence
and I started to get a little nervous, but
finally he said, 'Uncle Brian just sort of
disappeared back around 1989, not long
after Aunt Martha died.  Nobody knows what
happened to him, but he was pretty
depressed, and we think he just decided to
end it all up along the coast highway.
You're the first person to mention his
name to me for at least three years.'

"'I don't want to seem pushy,' I said,
'but Brian and me were pretty close back
during the war and I made a promise to him
I'd sure like to keep if I could.  If
there's any way I could find him, I'd like
to.'"

"He got kind of pissed about that, and I
don't suppose I can blame him.  'Mr.
Palmer, if you think Uncle Brian just
wandered into the sunset and nobody even
bothered to ask after him, you've got
another think coming.  My dad died in the
war before I was born and Uncle Brian took
it on himself to be a father to me.  I
looked for him for weeks after the police
gave up, even hired detectives to look for
him.  He just couldn't be found.  They
found his station wagon parked on an
overlook on the coast highway.  I'm
finally satisfied he just vaulted over the
guardrail and let the surf take him out.'"

"'I'm sorry if it sounded that way, Bill,
I didn't mean it to.  I just know some of
the guys I was in the war with got, well,
a little weird, even after all those
years.  Some of them couldn't handle some
of the stuff we had to deal with and just
took off.'"
 

"There was another silence at that, even
longer than the first one, and I started
to get nervous again.  What he said next
really got my heart racing: 'You didn't
know Uncle Brian from the war, Mr. Palmer,
at least not the shooting part of it.  You
don't sound like any seventy year-old man
I ever heard.  You either didn't know him
at all or you knew him from somewhere
else, and I have a pretty good idea where
that might have been.  Please describe him
to me.'"

"'Well, he wasn't a very tall guy, maybe
five- nine or so, but built really solid,
he probably went close to two hundred
pounds, none of it fat.  He had sandy hair
and brown eyes and a funny lopsided set to
his mouth when he smiled.  His nose was a
little crooked like maybe it had been
broken sometime.'"

"'That's Uncle Brian, alright.  Mr.
Palmer, I have some things I want to tell
you, but not over the phone.  Please come
to my house,' and he gave me directions."

"He was waiting on the porch when I got
there and motioned me inside.  'Well, I
can't really claim to be surprised at the
fact that you don't look like any
seventy-something man I ever saw either.
You were in that project with Uncle Brian,
Sudden Wind or whatever, weren't you?'"

"'He told you about that?'"

"'Not very much, and not really
voluntarily, Mr. Palmer.  I'll tell you
what I know and hope you're willing to
tell me what you know.'"

"'When Aunt Martha got sick and it became
plain she wasn't going to make it, Uncle
Brian slid into a depression, and to make
it worse, he started drinking heavily.
One night he came to visit at the hospital
so drunk he could hardly stand up.  I
didn't want Aunt Martha to see him that
way, for both their sakes, so I drove him
around town until he was sober enough to
be presentable'"

"Uncle Brian was like you by that time,
that is he was in his  seventies, but for
all intents and purposes he was the same
age he'd been since the end of the war.
He started crying during that trip and
said that never getting old was something
everybody thought would be the greatest
thing in the world but that when it
happened to you, you found out it was a
curse you wouldn't wish on your worst
enemy.  He told me about the atom bomb
test business and said he was sure that
was why he couldn't age.  He told me about
how they would kill him if they knew he
had told anyone but that he didn't care
anymore.  The next morning he called and
thanked me for sparing Martha and him from
that drunken visit and then asked me in a
begging kind of way not to tell anybody
what he'd told me.'"

"'Aunt Martha died just a couple of days
later, and after that Uncle Brian began to
get more withdrawn and depressed.
Paranoid, too.  He thought people from the
government were following him around,that
they were watching him through his
windows. I don't think any of us was
really surprised when he walked out."

"He stopped talking, just sat there in his
porch swing looking at me for a while.
Then he said, 'That's my story, Mr.
Palmer, what's yours?'"
 
 

"I told him as much as I could about
Summer Wind, but I left out more than I
put in.  I'm sorry to say this, but I made
out to him like there was a hell of a lot
less guys involved in it than there really
were.  I don't know why, but I really
didn't want to make any more of a deal out
of it than I had to. I got the hell out of
there as fast as I could and headed up the
coast highway by thumb's mare."

"I didn't buy that Brian went over that
guardrail, not for a minute.  I could see
him parking the car just sloppy enough,
leaving the door open so whoever came
along would think he'd taken that leap,
then walking down the trail to the highway
like he'd blown a radiator hose or
something and catching a ride to wherever
came along.  I knew just how desperate he
felt to do that, and how free he felt once
he did it, because I'd been through it
myself."

"I knew he'd gone the other way, north,
away from San Luis, and that's the way I
went.  I tracked him north, by asking
around, by looking out for the little
things, until I got to San Fran.  Along
the way I started noticing the signs, the
ones the hoboes used to leave for each
other.  I used to see them when I was a
kid and I didn't know a damned thing about
what they meant, but I knew anyone leaving
them around had to be at least as old as I
was, and if they were that old and on the
road, they might just be Summer Wind guys.
I went to the library and read up on the
signs and learned to read them. I kept
following them wherever I found them and
eventually they led me here to the park.
When I saw that message on the board, I
just knew Brian or one of the other guys
had left it there.  I was surprised as
hell when you showed up, to tell the
truth."
 

                          8

Mulder looked up from the screen of the
laptop on which he was composing the
arrest report on Dorsey Palmer.

"What's your take on all this, Scully?" he
asked.

"I think Mr. Palmer is telling the truth,
at least as he perceives it.  Apart from
the fact that his story is consistent and
that he has nothing to gain from lying, we
have the physical evidence of David Willis
to back it up.  I'm sure that as soon as
the Marines send us their records on
Palmer we'll find they corroborate his
story."

"They'll check out up to the spring of
'45, that is," replied Mulder.  "After
that, they'll just say 'Transferred to US
Army' and lose all further interest in PFC
Palmer. If we get them at all."

"This thing is huge, Scully, just
enormous," he continued, "Much bigger than
anything that's ever come to light about
Government atomic experimentation on
unknowing American servicemen."

Scully gave a small sigh.  "And I'll have
to admit it's not that much of an
extension beyond what we already know
about. The question is what the Bureau
will do with this information.  And what
they'll do with Palmer."

"That's not that tough to figure out, I'd
say," replied Mulder,  "They'll bury the
report and assign us to another case.
They'll suddenly discover that these
murders really aren't in Bureau
jurisdiction after all and wash their
hands of this investigation.  The
Illuminati will take charge and Dorsey
Palmer will end up in the tender care of
the gentlemen in the Econoline.  Only this
time they won't dump the remains on a
beach, they'll realize the cover's been
blown on that one.  They'll toss him in
the Pacific or cremate him."

"We've stumbled into something no one was
supposed to ever know about, the final
stage of Summer Wind.  It's harvest time,
reaping the Wind, making the final tests
on those who gave their less than totally
free assent to participate in this project
fifty years ago.  I'll be damned if I'll
go along with it."

"Meaning?"

"Meaning the Bureau doesn't have a
monopoly on sitting on information.  As
far as my report is concerned, the
stakeout in Golden Gate park yielded
exactly one twenty-five year old homeless
person whose only transgression was
attempted public urination, which is not
as yet a federal offense.  The
investigation of the West Coast transient
killings is still at a dead end."

"So what do we do with the case in the
meantime? More to the point, what do we do
with Palmer?"

"We'll put him up in a motel room and ask
him to stay put for a while.  The Bureau
won't even notice another bill for a
cheesy motel room if I do the expense
report carefully.  Then we keep trying for
a link to the guys in the Econoline.  I
may have to outsource that little chore."

"Outsource?  To whom?"

"Frohike and his pals would be the logical
choice.  If they don't already have
something on Summer Wind, they'll either
be able to find it or will know someone
who can.  That should put us on the trail
of the cheerful harvesters of the
survivors."

Mulder leaned back in his chair and peered
at the laptop's screen for a few seconds.
Then he looked up at Scully and smiled
impishly.

"By the way, what kind of an arrest line
is that for a hardboiled G-person to use?
'Please don't make me shoot you?' Sounds
like 'Mr. Rogers makes a collar.'"

Scully smiled back.  "It might not be up
to your macho standards, but it worked.
An old proverb has it that he who was on
his butt making hairball expelling noises
at the time doesn't have much room to
criticize.  Let me know what the
Lone-for-good-reason Gunmen come up with."
 
 

                          9

"Nada. Zilch. Zippo......,"

Mulder lifted the receiver away from his
head to stare at it incredulously.  He
didn't really want to hear Frohike's
entire repertoire of synonyms and he
couldn't bring himself to believe what he
was hearing. He was sitting in one of the
few remaining closed door phone booths in
America, a wood-paneled job in the lobby
of the St. Francis hotel, talking to
Frohike sitting in a motel room in DC.
The arrangement wasn't totally tap-proof,
but what were the odds.

"How can you be sure of that after only
three days?" he broke in.

"Mulder, it's been done, " said Frohike,
"Every document relating to atomic testing
and radiation experimentation on humans
available under the Freedom of Information
Act has been scrutinized, every possible
witness has been questioned, every bit of
physical evidence examined by attorneys
for the Atomic Veterans and civilian
survivors.  These are big firms with big
resources, driven by hungry lawyers hot on
the scent of money  ....."

"Frohike, you know the real down and dirty
stuff wouldn't be available through those
channels.  These guys cover their tracks
too...."

"Let me finish, chrissakes.  We've been
digging in that dirt for years, and so
have a lot of others.  I've checked all
our pertinent files, I've called other
conspiracy buffs, I've talked to hackers
who've rummaged through just about every
item in the Pentagon's dirty cyber-
laundry bin.  There's stuff there that
makes Joe Mengele look like a model of
medical ethics, but there's no Summer
Wind.  If it were, it'd have been found by
now. Period."

"Dammit, I've seen living proof, and dead
proof for that matter.  Two guys born in
the nineteen twenties who'd probably be
carded if they tried to buy a six-pack
down at the Seven-Eleven.  The dead one's
dental records check out with the Pentagon
and they support the live one's story
about an Army project starting in 1944.
Don't tell me there's nothing that might
give us some insight into this thing."

There was a long pause, then Frohike said,
"Well, there is one rumor out there that
might have some bearing on it, but I
hesitate to even bring it up."

"Why?"

"Because it's so preposterous that it's
considered fringey even in the circles I
frequent.  About the only thing to
recommend it is persistence....it's been
around since the late forties, but no
one's ever been able to find a shred of
evidence to back it up.  Nevertheless, it
hangs in there."

"Don't be coy, Frohike, I'm ready to grasp
at any straw you can give me."

"Okay, just keep in mind I'm not vouching
for it, just passing it on."

"Understood. Give."

"If you read the history books, they'll
tell you there was only one nuclear test
at the Trinity site before Hiroshima and
Nagasaki were nuked.  That was the
plutonium bomb, the Fat Man, in March of
'45.  The official line is that the
nuclear scientists were so sure that the
uranium bomb, Little Boy, would work that
it was never tested."

"This rumor has it," Frohike continued,
"that there was a test of Little Boy,
before that, and that it went wrong.  Very
wrong.  Depending on which version you
hear, they either badly underestimated the
power of the explosion or the bomb went
off prematurely, and a couple of hundred
people were killed.  Somehow Oppenheimer
managed to cover the whole thing up, not
just from the public, but from the
government as well."

"Well, you were right," said Mulder, "it
does sound pretty far-fetched."

"To play devil's advocate, though, it does
have a little more plausibility if you
consider it in the context of the times.
The Manhattan Project had consumed
millions of dollars and the efforts of
some of the best scientists in the world,
and in early '45 they had very little to
show for it.  There was some significant
grumbling about that back in Washington,
so the pressure to make something go boom
in the desert was tremendous.  Little Boy
was a lot simpler than Fat Man and could
have been ready sooner."

"Yeah, but still, how could they have kept
something as big as that quiet?  There
would have been hundreds if not thousands
of witnesses and physical evidence, too."

"That's the problem everyone has with it,
Mulder, it's just too much to swallow.  On
the other hand, the scientists and
technicians involved would have had a very
strong motive to keep quiet and eliminate
the traces: covering their asses to
protect their jobs and reputations.  And
the guy running the show was Robert
Oppenheimer, one of the most brilliant
minds in history."

"Well, it's not much," said Mulder, "but
it's something.  That would fit with the
bit about 'the little boy's daddy'.
Doesn't help with finding the guys who're
hunting down the survivors of Summer Wind,
though."

"This business is hot, Mulder, the biggest
damn thing I've heard of in a long time.
There's never been so much as a whisper
about it before.  Please let me know all
you find out about it, I'm dying to know
more."

"Frohike," said Mulder sternly, "not a
word of this to anyone.  Not one word.
There's too much riding on this to blow
it."

Back in his motel room, Mulder told
Scully, "I've got them this time, Scully,
got them.  I've got them by the short
hairs, and I'm going to twist for all I'm
worth."

"How have you got them?  We've got two
victims we can identify and no
perpetrators.  The perpetrators would
appear to be beyond our reach since
they're higher governmental authority. I'm
sorry, I know it's not right, but you know
our track record with them, we're oh for
all.  Mulder, I feel for the Summer Wind
survivors as much as you do, but aside
from giving them shelter and warning them,
what can we do?"

"We go public.  We call a press conference
and have Dorsey tell his story, give them
the supporting evidence and let modern
journalism take its course.  It's the end
of my career with the Bureau of course,
but I could care less about that.  It's
time the lid was blown off this and the
rest of the whole stinking mess.  If you'd
rather stay out of this, I'll understand.
I'll assign you and Broderick to check out
that rumor about the thing in the sewers,
and you can give the rest of it a miss."

"Don't be absurd, Mulder, I'm not about to
let you go this one alone.  But how do you
propose to go about it?"

"We have to get one more survivor.  Palmer
alone could be dismissed as just a loco
homeless guy. Willis' body and Willis and
Palmer's service  records could disappear
if that were convenient for the
Illuminati, and I'd just be ol' Spooky
trying to sell my pet conspiracy.  Going
public with another survivor, though, one
with people who remember him and a
documentable history, the whole thing
would be blown.  There'd be no denying
that there were some very dirty doings in
New Mexico in '45 and that it's still
going on.  We just have to get to him
ahead of the guys in the Econoline."

"Mulder, just think about this for a
moment.  If we accept your premises, we
have an almost impossible task.  We start
with a few hundred men, most of whom have
probably made an effort to disappear from
society, who could be anywhere in the
country or, for that matter the world.  We
have a group of thoroughly ruthless men
privy to all the government's information
on these survivors who have been
methodically killing them for at least the
last ten years trying to get to those
remaining before we do, who are probably
also watching every move we make.  How do
we pull this off?"

"Not as hard as it might look.  I would
bet most of the survivors have ended up in
big cities and I'd also bet that most of
them are where the climate for street
people is benign, both the meteorological
kind and the public variety.  That means
the West Coast in general and California
in particular.  Don't forget the hobo
signs, either, Scully.  If we take what
Palmer tells us at face value, at least
some of the Summer Wind survivors have
been funneled to San Francisco by those
signs.  My hunch is we can find at least
one other survivor here on our doorstep if
we try."

"Even given that, I still don't see how we
find them.  We can't exactly set up a
stand in Golden Gate Park with a "Summer
Wind Veterans Sign in Here" placard on it,
and even if we try quietly looking for
them, how would we ever know them?  They
look for all the world like any other
twenty-something homeless person."

"Exactly right.  To you and me and to the
cleanup crew in the Econoline they do.
But we have a resource they don't have.
We've got Dorsey Palmer.  I'd bet he'd
recognize a fellow Summer Wind guy if he
saw one, and I'd like to ask him if he'd
be willing to look for them."

"Mulder, is that ethical?  Consider the
fact that he's a protected witness under
our jurisdiction, even if the Bureau
doesn't know that.  Consider that the
hard-handed men in the Econoline want him
both for the information he might reveal
and for his scientific value as a
specimen.  How can we put him at that kind
of risk?"

"Ethical?  What really ethical choice do
we have?  We can pull out, go back to HQ,
write a see-no-evil report and go on with
our lives, and let the harvest continue.
We can blunder around trying to find SW
survivors on our own, with little or no
chance of doing anything but alerting
their pursuers.  Or, we can ask the best
resource we have to help put an end to
this crazy business.  I emphasize ask,
Scully, he can always say no."

In the event, Palmer was all too willing
to be asked.  Mulder had found him bent
over the open engine compartment of a late
model Accord parked in front of the office
of the motel Mulder had parked him in two
weeks before.

"Manager's car," Palmer said off-handedly
"Stalls when the engine's hot.  Think I
know what the problem is."

"Palmer, you're supposed to be laying
low," replied Mulder, "you shouldn't be
out here working on a car in plain sight."

Palmer glanced up and replied "Fed, I've
about had it with hiding.  It ain't my
nature.  If I have to sit in that damned
room and watch one more tv show about 'My
Mama Dresses Like a Hooker', I'll
volunteer to let them Army doctors slice
me up."

Mulder noted that although Palmer's manner
was completely casual he had done at least
three 360 degree scans of the motel
grounds since their conversation had
started.  He had known Mulder was coming
as soon as his Taurus had rounded the turn
off of Manning Avenue and looked ready to
sprint whichever direction was called for
within a millisecond.  It occurred to
Mulder that if there were such a thing as
a feral human, Palmer qualified.

"What brings you here, Fed?  I'd bet it's
not my sparkling conversation."

"Okay Palmer, I won't beat around the
bush.  I need something from you.  I need
help finding another survivor of Summer
Wind so we can go public and blow the lid
off this thing.  So guys like you can get
their lives back."
 

"Get our lives back?" snorted Palmer,
"Fed, we had our lives.  We just hung
around too long after the party was over
for us.  Anyway, I wouldn't mind finding
another guy who went through that crap,
just to talk to him, to prove to myself
I'm not crazy if nothing else."

"Okay, deal.  How do you think we should
go about it?"

"Hell, that's what I was trying to do when
you jumped on my back.  I'd go to Golden
Gate Park or one of the other homeless
hangouts, look for young-looking guys with
something behind their eyes besides dope
or the crazies.  I could probably still
recognize some of the guys from back then
by sight if I had the chance."
 

"Look, don't just jump into this," said
Mulder, "There's a lot at stake here.
There are some very determined and very
capable people who would like very much to
kill you out there."

Palmer laughed.  "Hell, Fed, there's been
people trying to kill me since way before
you were born.  Just about all of them are
dead and I'm still here.  Jumping at the
right time is what's kept it that way."
 

                         10
 

The next several days had been an exercise
in frustration. Mulder and Palmer had
toured the homeless shelters and hangouts
by car and on foot, trying to be
unobtrusive as possible while Palmer
peered into the faces of youngish men and
Mulder kept a lookout for anyone who might
be scrutinizing them.

Finally, after being flipped off by a
scruffy looking slacker type who snarled
"Get lost, faggots!" at them when Palmer
had let his gaze linger on the young man's
face too long, Palmer exploded.

"Dammit, Mulder, this is a crock of shit.
Let's just go to Golden Gate and get this
over with.  The signs all pointed there
and that's where any Summer Wind guys are
going to go if they make it to San Fran."

"That's just why I'd rather stay away from
there if at all possible.  Golden Gate is
totally compromised and we're both in
danger if we go there, because that's
where the mop-up crew for Summer Wind will
be looking for us."

"Screw that.  If that's true, then we're
letting down any of the guys who turn up
there, and we can't do that, least I
can't.  If you don't want to go there,
that's fine, but I'm on my way."

"Okay, okay.  But we do it right.  We
don't just go barging in, we keep a very
low profile."

"You might be okay, Mulder, for a fed.
I'll lead, you follow, we'll be fine.
Except for one thing we need to clear up."

"Being?"

"I don't like this last names stuff.  Too
much like the goddam Army.  I'm Dorsey,
not Palmer. You're.... you've got a first
name don't you, Mulder?"

"Yeah. Fox."

"Fox?"

"Fox."

"Okay, Mulder it is, then.  Let's go
Mulder."
 
 
 

                         11

They found what they were looking for the
second day in Golden Gate, or more
accurately, he found them.  Mulder had
been sitting on a bench studying a tourist
map of the park when he saw the shadow of
someone standing behind him leaning out
onto the grass.  He twisted his neck
uncomfortably and shaded his eyes to look
up at a scruffy young man in greasy chinos
with his fists clenched in the pockets of
someone's old red and white high school
letter jacket.

"You're with them, aren't you?"  he said.

"We're all with somebody, bud.  Who do you
think I'm with?"

"The damn government, of course. You stink
with it, you should know that."

The menace in the man's voice made Mulder
stand up and turn to face him, the better
to reach his .357, if it came to that.

"You're not one of those doing the taking,
though.  I know them, know 'em too well,"
he continued.

  Mulder sized the man up. He didn't
really seem crazy, just intense as hell.
He was dirty blond, taller than average,
had about a three- day growth of beard and
hadn't seen the inside of a barbershop for
a while.  Under his grunge, the young man
was strikingly handsome, with looks
reminiscent of both Tom Cruise and Charlie
Sheen, with maybe just a touch of David
Duchovny thrown in.  His eyes, an unusual
shade of emerald green, bored into
Mulder's. He had the most intense stare
Mulder had ever seen, always excepting
Scully when he'd really put his foot into
something.

"What's your game, feddie, what's in this
one for you, bo?"

Mulder felt considerable relief when he
saw Palmer, who'd been scouting the east
side of the botanical gardens, gliding
soundlessly toward the young man's back
from about a hundred yards to the left.
He wondered irrelevantly how the hell he
did that.

"I'm trying to help some people whose
lives are in danger.  Some guys who
volunteered, if you want to call it that,
for a government project a long time ago.
Something called 'Summer Wind'.  That mean
anything to you?"

"You trying to bait me, feddie?  Get me to
say something I wish't I hadn't?  That
might work for the usual run of scumbag
you deal with but it won't work with old
Ron...."

The young man stiffened as Palmer clasped
his left shoulder from behind and shoved
what must have felt more like a gun barrel
than any other index finger in Golden Gate
park that day into his spine. To give him
credit, he didn't try to fight or run
away, he just looked calmly at Mulder and
awaited the next development.

"Easy bro, we're not out to hurt you or
anyone else, we're just looking for a few
answers," said Palmer.  "Why don't you
tell Mulder here what he asked you for?"

"Why don't you ask, since you've got the
gun?  I don't have a whole lot of use for
feddie here. You know what Summer Wind
means, gun boy?"

"Yeah, I was there, '45, B Barracks.  What
do you know about it?"

"Plenty, I was there, from the start in
'44. Tell me more."

"Hell, you tell me. For instance, how come
I don't know you?  I'd know anybody from
any of the barracks, any of the noncoms
and officers, too."

"I worked in the infirmary, mostly with
Davies himself.  If you saw me, you
probably wouldn't know me.  I was just one
of the guys filling out forms and labeling
syringes."

"Marine?"

"Corpsman."

"Outfit?"

"Second of the Fourth. With them from day
one."

Palmer let go of the man's shoulder,
walked in front of him and shook his hand.
Then he embraced him.

"Damn, I was beginning to think I dreamed
the whole thing up.  You remember, though.
You remember Summer Wind, you remember
Davies, you remember those stinking
barracks and the stupid drills....."

"Well, I didn't have to run the drills,
but sure, I remember you guys running
them, and I remember taking your blood
after them.  Davies had his eye on me all
the time, making sure I didn't screw up.
They took my blood, too, and gave me the
shots."

"Enough with Ron and Dorsey's Excellent
Reunion," interrupted  Mulder, "you two
make the pair I've been looking for to ice
this  thing.  I don't want to take any
chances with what the guys in the van
might do if they see you, so let's get the
hell out of here."
 

                         12

Ron Hatton, as his name turned out to be,
was if anything even edgier than Dorsey
Palmer.  He paced Palmer's cramped and
darkened motel room with his hands jammed
into the pockets of his jacket so tightly
that Mulder thought he would split the
back of it.

"Dammit, I just don't know what to do.
You people seem okay, but I've been
through so much crap and seen so many guys
get taken in, I don't trust anybody.
Especially not any damn government people.
There's just too much at stake if I trust
you and it turns out I'm wrong."

"Slow down a minute," said Scully,  "What
do you mean you've seen too many taken in?
Did you know other Summer Wind survivors?"

Hatton stopped, closed his eyes and turned
his face toward the ceiling.  He took a
deep breath, blew it between clenched
teeth, looked at Palmer.

"How sure are you about these guys?"

"Sure as I am about anything, but that's
not saying much.  They've taken good care
of me, hiding me here, and they've been
real straight with me so far.  They could
have turned me over to the Army anytime,
but they haven't."

Hatton considered this for a moment and
looked toward the ceiling again, rocking
back and forth on his heels.

"Okay, okay.  This crap has to stop
somewhere, sometime.  I just can't live
like this much longer," he said finally.
"You have to understand it's not just me.
There are others I have to look out for."

"Who?" asked Scully.

"Four other guys.  All of 'em from the
project, all guys who haven't aged a day
since 1945. Them, Dorsey here and me,
we're all that's left of the guys.  The
rest are gone, as far as I can tell.  You
people are the first shred of hope we've
had in all these years, and I hope to hell
I'm right in telling you this stuff."

"I know this is tough for you, but we're
on your side," replied Mulder.  "The
government's tried to kill both me and
Scully and there's no love lost there.
Tell us where your friends are and we'll
take you and them and Palmer public.  Then
they won't dare do anything to any of
you."

"You have to look at your options, Ron,"
added Scully.  "What other choices do you
have?  Living on the run, never daring to
trust anyone, waiting for them to find
you?  Tell us where to find the rest of
the survivors, and we'll bring an end to
all that."

"Yeah, yeah, I see your point, lady.  I'm
just scared.  See, I don't know exactly
where these guys are, or even if they're
for real.  I found a board in the park
about six months back, like the one you
showed me the pictures of.  Led me to a
note buried in a jar, told about their
camp somewhere in the woods north of the
city.  They've been there for a couple of
years, hiding.  I bet it's not much of a
life, but it's got to be better than
getting caught."

He pulled a sheaf of dirty pages, folded
many times, from his pocket.

"Here, make what you can out of it.  I can
read most of it, but not enough to tell
where they are exactly.  I've been too
damned scared to try to get help with it.
Maybe you can help."  He handed the papers
to Mulder, who passed it on to Broderick
and Palmer.

They scrutinized the papers, covered in
the same screwy signs and letters the
board had had.

"Big Rock," said Broderick after a minute.
"Mendo...."

"Mendocino Forest," said Palmer
confidently.  "Big Rock camp.  End of an
old logging road off a dirt road off of
State 20.  Bet I can find it if I try."

"We have to.  We have to before someone
else does." said Mulder.

"Scully, you and Broderick rent a van, get
some camping gear, take Palmer and find
those guys.  I'll stay here with Hatton.
We can't risk both he and Palmer going
together, and Palmer will be able to read
the signs better.  Besides, the survivors,
if they're there will probably recognize
him but might not know Hatton."

"Whether you find more survivors or not,
we'll go public as soon as you're back.
Hatton and Palmer will be proof enough
even with out the ones still out there.
We owe it to them to try to bring them in,
but don't waste time, just get back here.
I want to hold that press conference
within 48 hours.

 
                         13

"One more thing I should tell you,
though," said Hatton, about half an hour
after the others had left.

Mulder turned around, smiling, and found
himself looking down the barrel of a large
caliber autopistol.

"Surprise," said Hatton "rules all change
now.  You know the drill, fed. Turn
around, spread those legs, hands up high
and flat on the wall.  Chop-chop."

Mulder complied and Hatton reached around
his back to pluck his weapon from his
shoulder holster.  Then he patted Mulder's
waistband and ankles.

"No backup gun, Mulder?  I'm shocked.
What if you were to lose your main piece?
Not that that would ever happen to Jack
Armstrong here."

"Huh?"

"Pardon the anachronism.  James Bond, if
you'd prefer."  He continued, "You screwed
up big time, Mulder, but I figured you
would.  I read your profile right out of
the Bureau database. 'I want to believe'
sort of sums it all up for you, doesn't
it."

"Maybe.  Maybe I believe more than I
should.  I feel sorry for a guy screwed
over by the system and he pulls a gun on
me.  Also he breaks into my personnel
file.  Who are you anyway?  You're name's
not really Ron Hatton, and you were never
in the project, right?"

"Oh, I'm a bona fide alumnus of Summer
Wind, alright Mr. Mulder, just a little
smarter than most.  I'd sing you the camp
song, but it's rather coarse and we really
don't have time. I was there from the
beginning when we were out there living in
tents in the desert.  I was Dr. Davies'
right hand man in the infirmary and in the
lab.  He recruited me for that because of
my background."

"So you really were a Corpsman, then?"

"More than that.  I dropped out of Yale
Medical School my senior year in '41 to
join the Navy because I was afraid I'd
miss the war if I waited for graduation.
Pretty funny in retrospect, wouldn't you
say?"
 

"Yeah, I'm laughing.  So who was this
Davies? More to the point, who are you,
really? Your name has this familiarly
phony ring to it."

"To answer the last question first, none
of your damned business.  Rondo Hatton was
my project name.  The name of a very
obscure B picture star.  He had a
condition called acromegaly which made him
very big and very ugly, perfect for
playing heavies.  A bored sergeant's idea
of a joke: give the pretty boy the ugly
man's name.  I kept it because I like it.
The real Hatton took a bad card life dealt
him and turned to his advantage.  I like
to think I'm doing the same thing."

"As for Davies, just the brains of Summer
Wind, and the heart and soul.  He
conceived and designed the project,
niggled the funds from the Army,
personally did the hands-on research and
kept all the records.  Summer Wind was a
flea riding on the back of the Manhattan
Project elephant, and Davies put it there
and kept it in place in the face of all
odds."

"Sounds like quite a guy."

"Yes, Thomas Jackson Davies, MD was out of
place in the Regular Army Medical Corps.
Not your fair-to-middler sawbones with a
knack for knocking off early to keep a
date with the bottle.  He got his PhD and
MD from Johns Hopkins in just six years
and did some very impressive cellular
biology research along the way.  His
papers from that time are still worth
reading, advancing views that didn't
become generally accepted until just a few
years ago.  Very much ahead of his time."

"So then he got drafted."

"No, not at all.  The Davies' were an Army
family from colonial times in North
Carolina and in that time and place, if
your grandfather had done something and
your father had done it, then you did it,
as natural and unquestioned as breathing.
He volunteered right out of internship in
'38."

"What was he doing in New Mexico in '44?"

"Protecting national security, of course.
He was convinced he had hit on a way of
protecting troops from the effects of
ionizing radiation at a cellular level.
He had studied smuggled records of some of
the Nazi experiments in human radiation
exposure and he thought he had hit on a
way to overcome the damage to the cell.
He was wrong about that, and he had no
idea he was on to something a hell of a
lot bigger."

"Eternal youth," said Mulder.

"So it would seem," replied Hatton, "But
of course the experiment's not finished."

"So you're finishing it then.  Rounding up
the survivors and gathering the data.
Dissecting them is just part of the job."
 

"No, no my dear Mulder, you've got me all
wrong.  I'm no scientist, I'm just a
simple businessman. Once I realized what
the real legacy of Summer Wind was, I saw
a market niche and moved in to fill it."

"And what niche might that be, Mr. Hatton?
I have a queasy feeling I know the answer
to that one, but I want to hear it from
you."

"Catering to the medical needs of a select
few, Mr. Mulder.  Do you have any idea
what a really rich person will pay to go
on living?  Not just living, but to go on
enjoying life and wealth?  What do you
think an oil sheikh will pay for a kidney
for his dying and hard-to-crossmatch son,
what a newly rich Russian mafioso will pay
for a new liver to replace his old
vodka-fried model, or what a Hollywood
actress will pay for a little transfusion
that will let her keep getting babe parts
for another few years?  You won't see that
in the fan mags, 'My Beauty Secret:
Derelict's Blood', but it happens, trust
me, it happens."

"The answer, Mr. Mulder, is this: Whatever
I ask.  I've never been turned down,
because my product is unique.  My organs
are never rejected, they always work and
they have certain life-enhancing
properties.  I have quite a reputation for
quality in certain circles.  I've worked
hard to get it and I'll do what I have to
to protect it."

"So you sell out your fellow survivors,
part them out to the highest bidder, do it
with no anesthesia to boot.  How the hell
do you live with yourself?"

"Quite comfortably, thank you.  Please,
Mr. Mulder, spare me the lecture.  These
men would be dying now in the natural
course of things anyway.  One by one, time
would pick them off. It's better I do what
I do, because they've just never adjusted
to immortality."

Hatton paused, waved his gun
conversationally, then pointed it back to
Mulder's chest.

"Look at it this way.  These men have
nothing to live for.  If you look at the
records, Summer Wind selected for orphans,
for people with no ties.  Most of these
guys have just drifted since the war,
never getting closure.  They're the Lost
Battalion, they're like that last Jap to
surrender on that island back in the
seventies, still waiting for the war to
end.  I'm just here to bring them home."

"You're quite the humanitarian, Ron.
Besides, there's no records to look at. As
far as official federal records are
concerned, there was never any such thing
as Summer Wind.  How did you pull that
off?"

"Davies did most of that for me.  In 1959,
he was faced with a choice of resignation
or demotion, in one of the Army's
peacetime downsizings.  The kind of work
he'd done for Summer Wind was discredited
in scientific circles and an embarrassment
to the Army. He had no future in the Army
and none anywhere else, for that matter.
He got a detail of soldiers to load the 20
or so filing cabinets worth of Summer Wind
documents onto a train and took them all
back home to Chapel Hill."
 

"On the night of April 19, he made a pile
of them in his backyard, doused them in
gasoline and set them on fire.  I looked
up the weather for that night in the NWS
records.  It was warm, even for North
Carolina and there was a full moon.  I
think of him sometimes, standing there,
watching his life's work burn, probably
humming 'Carolina Moon' the way he used to
do when he was working late in the
infirmary."

"As the papers burned down, he undressed
and added his Army uniform to the fire.
He stood there naked in the warm Carolina
night, watching the fire burn itself out,
the firelight reflecting off his glasses.
Davies wore wire-rim glasses and had a
little pencil mustache that made him look
like Himmler if you saw him from the right
angle, and I can see the flames in those
glasses."

"Yes...Himmler had something similar..,"
Hatton smiled.

"When it was all burned out, Davies
scattered the ashes. Then he put the
muzzle of his Army .45 in his mouth and
pulled the trigger.  Summer Wind ceased to
exist at that moment, as far as the record
was concerned.  But I had the most
valuable record, right here."  Hatton
tapped the side of his head.  "Names and
home towns, all memorized.  Invaluable in
finding them."
 

"What about computer records?  The
government never destroys records, just
makes them more and more secret if they
don't want anyone finding them, and damn
near everything they've ever done since
the early forties is referenced somewhere
in the database.  I've had the best
hackers there are comb those files and
Summer Wind just isn't there.  Why?"

Hatton smiled his tight, superior little
sneering smile again.

"Oh, I took care of that a few years ago.
Since the melt-down of the Soviet empire,
lots of smart, well-educated computer
people in Eastern Europe have been out of
work, living from hand-to-mouth.  They
will do damn near anything for the right
amount of money, and erasing all the
little left-over Summer Wind references
was child's play for them.  Your friends
undoubtedly had intelligence, zeal and
dedication to the cause.  I had money.  It
was no contest, really."

"So now what do you do, Hatton?  It looks
to me like a Mexican standoff.  You can
shoot me or keep holding that gun on me
until my partners get back. Either way
you're screwed, because both Scully and
Broderick know you now, and believe me,
they'll find  you."

"Oh, really Mulder, I expected better.
The wild goose chase you sent Missy and
Bozo on will take them right into the care
of the good Doctor Abatis and his
Traveling Operating Theater.  I don't
worry overmuch about them showing up."

"Okay, I'll bite," sighed Mulder, "Who's
Dr. Abatis?"

"The former head of Rumania's transplant
program and a firm believer in preventive
medicine.  When the government changed in
Rumania, he saw that staying there wasn't
conducive to his long-term good health.
All that unpleasantness about AIDS in
transplant recipients, you know.  Now he
works for me, harvesting and
transplanting.  He's the one who convinced
me that chemical anesthetics and
mechanical perfusion only detracted from
the quality of my product."

"The fact that he's a sadistic bastard
presumably has nothing to do with it."

"Be nice Mulder, you wouldn't want to
offend Dr. A.  You'll be meeting him soon
and he'll be getting to know you on a very
intimate basis."

"I don't think I want to know what you
mean by that."

"There's room for seconds in any market,
Mulder.  I can't sell your organs for what
I get for my usual merchandise, but
they'll bring in around a couple of
hundred grand or so when all is said and
done, and every little bit helps.  Most of
the Summer Wind guys have disappeared from
view by dropping below the public's line
of sight.  I've chosen to rise above it.
After all, I have a very long retirement
to plan for."

Hatton's smirk got bigger. "Who knows how
long I might have, feddie? A hundred
years? Two hundred? A thousand?"

"Try ten seconds, asswipe."
 

Scully stepped out of the motel's bathroom
with her .357 leveled on a spot in the
center of Hatton's chest.  "Unless, of
course, you put the gun on the floor right
now, and join it, face down and
spreadeagled."

Though it wasn't true, Mulder would later
say that the look of pure dumbfounded
amazement on Hatton's face when he saw
Scully emerge into the room was worth the
terror he went through to get to that
moment.
 

"Jesus, Scully," he said, when he'd
recovered the power of speech "You were
there all the time.  How the hell did you
know?"

"Details, Mulder, details.  That's what
the whole game is about, whether it's an
autopsy or knowing a hosebag like this guy
for what he is when you see him.  He's too
damn cocky for one, for a guy who's down
and out and in fear of his life.  Then
there's his nails.  The rest of his
homeless drag is perfect, but his
fingernails have obviously been manicured
sometime in the last month, complete with
clear polish.  He's obvious enough, at
least to anyone willing to take a close
look."

"Okay, Sherlock, you win.  What's it going
to cost me?" Hatton muttered into the
motel carpet.

"Twenty to life is my best guess," replied
Scully, "though we might get really lucky
and get you into the Federal Death Penalty
Program."

"No, I mean really,"  Hatton said
disgustedly, "Agent Scully, Agent Mulder,
I can make you richer than you can
imagine.  Five million bucks apiece, new
identities, whatever you want.  Just say
the word and it's done.  What does putting
me away do for you anyway?"

"Satisfaction, scumbag, satisfaction,"
replied Mulder.  "About the only thing
more satisfying I can think of would be
turning you over to a certain group of
dimly-lit people I know.  They'd get a
kick out of you, I just know they would.
They don't like for anyone besides them to
have secrets.  Federal prison would seem a
paradise you could only distantly aspire
to.  If you don't shut the hell up, we
might do just that."

Mulder pointed the toe of his wing-tip
suggestively at Hatton's temple.  "You
will keep quiet, now won't you?", he
smiled.  Hatton clenched his eyes shut and
gave a short nod.

"Scully, when you threw down on Ronnie
boy, what you said to him,....."

"Why?  Do you think it wasn't an accurate
assessment of his character?"

"Unh-unh, dead on.  I've just never heard
you talk that way before."

"'Though Agents are always expected to
maintain the highest level of
professionalism in both action and words,
the shock value of a taboo word for
throwing a suspect off guard in a
confrontation situation should not be
overlooked,'"  she quoted primly.
"Besides, I don't care for Missy."

"I'll keep that in mind. Where's Palmer?"

"Back in our hotel room with Bozo, waiting
for us."

Mulder nodded satisfaction, then paused.

"Seconds?  I'm still relatively young, I
stay in shape, no bad habits.  Seconds?
What am I, anyway, chopped liver?"

"Almost, Mulder," she smiled sweetly,
"almost."