I did not write this.  Please send feedback to bonetree@aol.com

Disclaimer in chapter 0.  This is chapter 12a.
 

***********

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA
OUTPATIENT CLINIC
JANUARY 10
9:37 a.m.
 

Paul Granger sat in the waiting room of the outpatient clinic,
trying not to meet the gaze of the elderly man across from him who
was staring at him pointedly.  The man must have been in his 80s,
sitting up straight, his legs slightly splayed, a cane between his
knees that his large hands rested on.  He had a blank expression on
his face, which was as wide and as bland as a pumpkin.

Though the scrutiny seemed undirected and innocuous, it still made
Granger uptight. He was trying to just blend in with the ragged, poor
clientele of the teaching hospital's clinic -- he'd even dressed the
part.  Battered jeans and tennis shoes, an army surplus jacket he'd
picked up at the thrift store last evening after the dressing down
Padden had given he and Mulder.  He'd wanted to make sure that he at
least did THIS right.

Only his bright silver Armani glasses didn't mesh with his outfit,
but it wasn't as if he could go without them.  Their presence made
him feel conspicuous, however, and the old man's gauzy gaze wasn't
helping.

Granger crossed his legs so that his lap could cradle a copy of
Parents magazine. He flipped through it idly, feigning interest,
looking around every minute or so to see if anyone might be watching
him.  Just beneath his nervousness was a buzz of anticipation and
excitement, his heart racing in his chest.

Forcing himself to relax a bit, he returned his eyes to his lap.
There before him was a picture of a young black boy riding a red
bicycle across the page of the magazine. Smiling faintly, he
remembered how when he was a young boy, he would spend hours lying on
the bed in the tiny rowhouse he shared with his mother and think
about his father, Thomas, a man he knew only by name.

At that point he knew little about his father, but he would imagine
so much.  Lying there, he would look at the photograph of his father
on the wall in his Baltimore City Police uniform, a stiff smile on
his father's face and an American flag behind him. Granger would
stare at that picture and wonder about what his father's life must
have been like.  In his child's mind, he saw bank robberies, chases.
And in his most detailed imaginings he saw his father working
undercover, living incognito in some dark underworld.

Of course this was before he found out the truth -- that Thomas
Granger had been nothing more than a beat cop, one of hundreds of men
who walked the city's streets. His death had come from a startled
thief at a 7-11, while his father was off-duty buying diapers and a
six pack of beer.

The truth hadn't stopped him from wanting to follow in his father's
footsteps, however, to drive him to make those fantasies about his
father's life a reality for his own.  He had his mother, though, to
thank for actually making him into what he had become. From the
beginning, he had had to learn her moods, and he'd developed a
natural ability for reading people.

"Charles Fuller," the nurse called from where she'd appeared in the
corridor to the examining rooms.  Granger was relieved when a young
woman stood from the seat next to the old man, giving the man's arm a
gentle tug.

"Come on, Daddy," she said, and the man stood, his eyes never
wavering as he did so, now looking over Granger's head, his hand
fumbling on the cane.

Alzheimer's, Granger realized, and watched the man shuffle slowly
away, his daughter guiding him by the arm.

<<Some profiler,>> he thought, rolling his eyes at himself.  He
hated how his nerves jangled him.  Here he was, the top of his class
at the Agency's Behavioral Science Unit, and he was letting himself
get rattled by an old man who probably didn't know he was there at
all.

His mother had always chided him for his nervousness.  "You forget
who you are," she'd say kindly, her belief in who he was and what he
could accomplish so sure in her tone, her eyes.  He would hear that
and remember who he was, just by seeing how he looked in her eyes.
She'd done this for him all his life.

When he thought back on it, he realized that his mother had, in
fact, been his first profile.  An operator at the local phone
company, she had been a profile in hard work, strict discipline, and
lingering grief.

He still remembered the way she looked sometimes, staring out the
window of the kitchen as she washed their pair of dishes by hand,
Granger himself behind her, dutifully doing his homework at the table
in the waning light.  Sometimes he would catch the expression that
crossed her face, the faraway look of a loneliness that even he could
not penetrate, her eyes dark and sad as a swan's.

"James Griffin," another nurse called, and Granger stood instantly,
dropping the magazine onto the chair.  He made his way to the nurse,
who spared him a look of complete disinterest as she mumbled "follow
me" and turned down the long, sparse hallway.  He did as he was told.

His anxiousness was thick enough to cut. For starters, he was
undercover, finally making real one of those boyhood imaginings,
doing what his father could not.  And on his first major assignment
with the Agency, as well.

For another, he was meeting with Agent Scully, a person he found
more intimidating in some ways than he found Mulder.  And that was
saying a lot.

He followed the nurse, thinking about his "partner."  He'd left
Mulder behind a desk in the suite at the Jefferson, stiff in his suit
once again and buried under a pile of files. Granger had given him an
apologetic smile as he'd left after his morning briefing with Padden.

Mulder both intimidated and intrigued him.  He'd studied some of
Mulder's profiles during his first year in the CIA's Behavioral
Science Division and had grown to admire the man behind the brilliant
work immediately.  Mulder was a bit of wunderkind, as Granger was
considered to be, and in Mulder he'd found his first model of how a
profiler should work.  Before the age of 30, Mulder's work had
contributed to the capture of two serial killers, and Granger studied
these cases, looking to see what made the profiles and the profiler
tick.

That was one of the reasons he'd been so excited about working on
this case.  He'd been told immediately upon his assignment that he
would be working with Mulder, even before Mulder knew that he himself
was going to be on the case.  Granger had spent the time before their
meeting boning up on everything Mulder had done in his profiling
career.  He'd even looked at some of the X-Files, though he found the
work strange and an unfortunate departure from the work Mulder had
done earlier in his life.

Despite these feelings about the X-Files work, it still pained him
to see the derision that was heaped on Mulder every time his name was
mentioned.  Granger himself was chided at times by his coworkers for
checking into the work of "Spooky" Mulder and his chilly, composed
partner.

The nurse led him into an examining room, pulled open a drawer and
tossed two blue checked gowns onto the table against the wall.

"Down to your underwear and put these on. One open in the back and
one on you like a robe."  The nurse spoke as though she said the
words a hundred times a day. She probably did, he realized.

"But I'm only here for headaches," he protested mildly.

"Dr. Black will want to do a complete exam," the nurse responded.
"She always does."

With that, she left him alone in the room, closing the door behind
her.  Granger looked at the gowns, then at the door, uncertain of
what to do.

Finally, making a decision to preserve the integrity of his cover,
he peeled out of his jacket and began to strip down.

As he pulled the sweatshirt he was wearing over his head, his
thoughts returned to Mulder, to the memory of Mulder nodding to him
as he'd left the hotel room, a stern, worried expression on his face.
The nod's meaning was as clear as it would have been had Mulder
spoken it aloud.

<<Don't fuck up.>>

Mulder was having to trust him, and the profiler in Granger knew
what that meant. In just the short time he'd known Mulder, one of the
things he'd realized was that it was nearly impossible to earn the
man's trust.  That Agent Scully had managed to do this, and for so
many years, made her a force to be reckoned with as far as Granger
was concerned.  And the way she'd held her own against the entire
task force, smoothly accepting this dangerous assignment....

He had to admit that he'd grown to respect her almost as much as he
did Mulder. And he'd grown even more appreciative of their work
together as partners.

Which is one of the reasons he found his position at the moment a
bit nervewracking. He was going to try and take Mulder's place as
Scully's liaison with the task force.  And he felt ill-equipped to
fill that space, and uncomfortable with being thrust in between the
two of them.

He finished undressing, standing in the cold room in his white
cotton boxers and bare feet.  He pulled on the gowns quickly,
relieved to have been given two so that he could cover himself
completely.  He hopped up on the table.  Goosebumps raised up on the
skin of his legs.

He didn't have to wait but a few moments before there was a knock on
the door.  He started a bit at the sudden noise, but composed himself
quickly as the door opened, pressed his legs together, pulling the
gowns tightly around him for the sake of warmth and modesty.

Agent Scully entered the room, wearing a black turtleneck and black
pants beneath her white jacket.  She was looking down at the chart as
she closed the door behind her.

"Hello, Mr. Griffin," she said absently, then looked up at Granger.
Her eyes immediately widened with surprise.

"Agent Granger," she said now by way of greeting, suddenly smooth,
calm.  Granger still felt badly for initially rattling her.

The first thing he noticed was that she looked much more tired than
the last time he had seen her.

"I'm sorry, Agent Scully," he said, reaching a hand out to her. "I
know you weren't expecting to be contacted like this. The task force
thought it would be prudent to choose another cover name for me."

He could see the fake name typed neatly on a label on the chart she
held in her hand. She took his outstretched hand, shook it once
stiffly.

"That's quite all right," she replied, and attempted a smile, not
quite succeeding.  "I had wondered why I hadn't seen a George Hale on
my schedule.  I was worried that I wasn't going to be contacted today
after all."

"Agent Mulder couldn't be here, so they sent me in his place,"
Granger said, almost apologetically.  He suddenly felt very much
*out* of place.

"Is there something wrong?" Her brow had knitted at his tone.

He hesitated for a beat, saw her tense up as she noticed the awkward
silence.

"He's not hurt, is he?"

"No, no," he said quickly. "He's fine."

Now Scully leaned against the counter, tossing the chart onto it as
she crossed her arms over her chest. "What's he done?" It was meant
as a question, but came out as a resigned statement.

"Well," Granger began. "I'm afraid he's been pulled off
surveillance."

"Why?" she asked instantly.  He could hear an angry note entering
the even pitch of her voice.

Briefly, he retold the events that had transpired at the Grey Mouse.
Color rose in her cheeks as he spoke.

"Are you sure it was John Fagan that he followed inside?" she asked
when he'd finished.  She seemed genuinely distressed at the thought.

"Mulder thinks so," he replied. "Though he says that he just went to
the bathroom and saw him sitting at the bar."

"Damn it," Scully said under her breath, looking at the floor and
shaking her head. "Of all the people to follow! Fagan's the most
suspicious of them all."  She blew out a breath, ran a hand through
her hair, pushing it back from her face in frustration.

"I'm sorry I didn't stop him. I tried to, believe me."  He'd been
kicking himself since the task force meeting with Mulder for not
stopping him from going into the pub.  He felt somehow that he should
have found a way.

"It's not your fault," Scully replied, meeting his eyes.  Her tone
was frustrated, but also a bit sympathetic.  She paused.  "He hasn't
been pulled off the case completely, has he?"

"There was apparently some talk about it, but no, he hasn't,"
Granger said.  "They've got him doing work on the photographs that
we've been taking of people going into the Grey Mouse. He's looking
for matches with immigration and criminal files."

"I see," Scully replied, looking down at the floor.

Her voice was quiet, hard to read.  But he was watching her reaction
closely, reading her body language.  She looked as though she had
suddenly grown smaller, as though she were carrying a new, very heavy
burden.

He wondered about the sadness.  She and Mulder were even closer, he
realized, than he'd originally thought.

As if she could see him puzzling her out, she stood, stuffed her
hands in the pockets of her coat, suddenly all business. The view of
her that she'd given away so briefly slammed shut on him like an iron
door.

"Well," she said, as if to clear away the previous discussion. "I
did need to meet with someone. I've had a major break in the case."

"Really?" he replied, his excitement slipping into his voice.  He
leaned over, looting in his coat for his pocket notebook and pen.  He
nearly flashed her in the process, and felt his face heat up as he
sat back up quickly.  He appreciated that she had noticed but had
dutifully averted her eyes.
 

**************

End of chapter 12a.  Continued in 12b.

**************

ROUTE 3
SPOTSYLVANIA COUNTY, VIRGINIA
10:30 a.m.
 

The battered 26 foot U-Haul rattled its way down the winding country
road, stitched like a dark grey scar through the frozen Virginia
countryside.  John Fagan cracked the driver's side window as he
tapped out a cigarette on the steering wheel, pulled it from the pack
with his thin, pale lips.

"You want a cigarette, Mae?" he asked, offering the pack of
Marlboros across the bench seat of the truck's cabin.

"You know I've been trying to quit," Mae replied, ignoring the laugh
that Fagan barked out at her response. "What^^s so funny, then?"

"You," he replied, lit the cigarette with the lighter he kept in his
inside coat pocket. "You've been smoking as long as I've known. What
are you, on some sort of health spree all of a sudden?"

"It's a nasty habit, John," she replied peevishly, reaching in her
pockets and drawing out her gloves, pulling them on.  "And besides,
it's too cold out to have the windows open. You're freezing me to
death."

She watched him ignore her, as usual.  He pulled on the cigarette
and blew out a grey cloud of smoke. It immediately fled the cabin in
a stream out the window.

They'd been on the road for about an hour and half, heading deep
into the rural areas off Interstate 95, almost halfway to
Fredericksburg. She kept seeing historical markers along the
roadside, marking just about the entire area as a former Civil War
battlefield. She could see them as small gold triangles on the map
she had folded neatly on her lap, as well, and used them to mark
their progress.

"You're going to take left up here at Route 31," she said, her eyes
on the map.

"Are we getting close at least?" Fagan grumbled. She wasn't
surprised at his tone. She'd never known him to be particularly
patient. With anyone or anything.

"Aye, it's only about 15 more miles once we turn off." She could see
the turnoff looming in the distance, marked by flashing yellow lights
at the intersection of the two country roads.  As they slowed, she
gazed out the window.  A pair of black and white cows stared back
from over a barbed wire fence on the side of the road, their ears
pricked forward at the sound of the coughing, loud engine.

She looked out over the wide expanse of pastures, the soft hills in
the distance, the clusters of trees off in the distance. The view
made her somehow sad.

"If it was greener here, this would look like home," she murmured
wistfully, pushing her long hair behind her ear as Fagan made the
turn onto Route 31.  He gunned the engine and the truck lurched
forward once again.  He said nothing, the cigarette dangling from the
corner of his mouth, trickling smoke into the space between them.

"Do you ever miss it?"  She didn't know why she was asking John, of
all people, such a sentimental question, but she couldn't help
herself.  "Ireland, I mean."

"Nope," he replied simply.  He took the cigarette out of his mouth,
rolled the window down a bit more and spit out it.

"Not at all?"

Now he did look at her, a quick hard look out of the corner of his
eye before he returned his gaze to road ahead of them. "What would be
the point of that?" he replied, his voice gruff.

"I just think it's important to remember what it is we're doing this
for.  To keep in mind where home is." Her voice was quiet, earnest.
His indifference bothered her, though she couldn't quite name why.

"No point getting your knickers in a wad over missing it," he said,
pricking the sincerity of what she'd said with his words.  "It's a
bigger mess now than it was when we left it to do the work.  They
can't even remember what they're fighting for over there anymore.
Bunch of wankers at the peace table is what I say."

"If you have such a low opinion of the place," she asked, surprised
and hurt by his words. "Why is it you keep doing the work?"

"I believe in your brother's work, that's why.  When I look at what
Ireland could be I see it as he sees it.  No compromises.  No fucking
apologies or puppet Parliaments or any of the shit that they're
talking about over there now.  Owen knows how things should be. I
keep doing the work for him."

He looked at her again, slowing to move around a tractor crawling
near the shoulder, its hazards flashing.  He swerved around it, kept
going. "I'm surprised you have to ask me that, Mae. How is it YOU
keep doing the work then?"

She avoided his look, returned her eyes out the window, to the
morning sunlight streaming over the stubble of the fields.  "The same
reason as you, I guess," she replied softly.

"You ^^guess^^?" he parroted, and gave a short, brittle laugh. "That's
quite a testimonial, Mae Curran."

He was mocking her now, and she knew it was a mistake to say what
she had said. Especially to him.  Her face reddened.

"You know what I think," Fagan continued, his voice feigning a
conversational tone as he flicked the cigarette out the window.  "I
think you've been around Americans too long now." She saw him glance
over again, as though appraising her.  "You're getting soft, like
them."

"I've done more for the Cause than you have, John," she snapped.
"I've given my whole life to it. You know that."

"Yes, you and that American doctor, " he continued, as though she
hadn't spoken at all.  "I see you two at the pub, tucked back in a
corner like a couple of school girls."  He tsk tsked her softly.
"That's not the Mae I knew of a few years ago. THAT Mae would be in
the back room with Owen, doing what needed to be done, not chumming
around with her girlfriend, gossiping, dancing with any American
bloke who came up to ask her to the floor."

"I AM doing what needs to be done," she shot back, angry and more
than a little bit ashamed.  "Never question that. What do you think
I'm doing in this bloody truck with you then?"

He laughed at her now, right out loud. "Touchy touchy, Mae," he
said, and tsked her again.

"Go to hell, John," she said under her breath, which only made him
laugh harder, showing his teeth. She flushed even redder.

Part of her knew he was right. In the short time that she'd known
Katherine, she had gotten very much attached to her, to what she
represented more than anything else. She hadn't had a woman friend in
years.  She couldn't even remember when the last time was that she'd
had someone to talk to the way she felt she could talk to Katherine.
Though quiet and a bit cagey about her past, Katherine had proven
herself to be a good friend.  Staying up late with her at the pub,
listening to her endless stories with interest and patience.  It was
more than anyone else had done for her in years. Even Owen.

Fagan was still smirking, enjoying having gotten her goat.

She narrowed her eyes, shot him a look now.  She wanted to knock
that look right off his face.

"And as for Katherine," she said quietly, dangerously.  "You're just
pissed off because she won't give you the time of day and you moon
over her like bloody dog."

That did it. The smile melted off his face instantly.  His jaw
muscles squeezed his teeth together immediately.  She broke into a
scornful peal of laughter.

"Fuck you, Mae," he replied, and snapped on the truck's blinker
hard.  Mae laughed at him again.

Up ahead on the right was what they had come all this way for --
Taylor's Feed and Seed, a huge sprawling nursery and agricultural
supply store. Fagan downshifted, slowed as he maneuvered the truck
onto the shoulder, then into the wide driveway.  A sign pointed them
towards "Bulk Pick-Up." Fagan followed the sign, nosing the truck
through the peppering of cars and other trucks in the parking lot.

"You know what to say," Fagan said, stopping the truck and opening
the door, and it was clear from his voice that he was hanging on to
his anger.

"Aye, that I do." Mae smiled at his tone as she climbed down from
the passenger side.

They met in the front of the truck, walked together towards the
warehouse-like building. There were two doors -- one on the left
marked "Farming Seed" and one on the right marked "Farming
Fertilizers."  They disappeared into the one on the right, blending
in with a group of farmers moving inside, out of the cold.
 

****************

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA
OUTPATIENT CLINIC
12:18 p.m.
 

Scully popped open the microwave, pulled out the steaming cup of
soup, then got a spoon out of the dish rack beside the sink in the
small Doctor's Lounge.  She began to eat hurriedly, not even sitting
down as she did so.

Only halfway through the day and she was already exhausted.  She
hoped the soup would help her some.

She hadn't worked this hard since her residency, the clinic bringing
her and the other three doctors a non-stop stream of patients
throughout the day.  She was barely keeping up with it, barely able
to find time to eat before the next patient was there, waiting for
her in one of the examining rooms.  She wasn't used to the schedule,
and found it exhausting.  Not only because of the time it involved --
the consults with other doctors, the scrambling for information on
new drug therapies on the Internet, all to catch her up from her
years away from medical school -- but because the patients were real
people, with real illnesses, and they looked to her with an urgency
that she found tiring and unsettling.

The quiet geometry of her morgue, the solitude of it, was appealing
to her immensely. It was pressure, certainly, but of a different
kind.  One she was much more comfortable with.

She sighed.  If she cleared her mind of the clinic's pressures for a
moment, she knew the real reason behind the depth of her fatigue --
it was the blow she'd gotten that morning.

When she thought about the prospect of not seeing Mulder, possibly
for the duration of the assignment, it made her almost physically
ache.  And coupled with that feeling was a low-grade anger that was
gnawing at her, as though she'd swallowed a fist.  Anger at him for
following Fagan inside the pub, for wanting to take a direct part in
the case badly enough to risk blowing the lid off the whole thing.
For risking their meetings like that, for making it impossible for
him to see her now.

She felt her eyes beginning to burn and took another sip of her
soup, swallowing the emotions with the salty broth.  She knew that
wherever he was he now knew what a mistake he'd made.  She was just
glad he was still on the case at all. The thought of him sitting
alone in the basement office in the Hoover Building while she did her
work here...

But he was still close by.  She found at least that thought
comforting.

One of the nurses appeared in the doorway, catching her attention.
"Dr. Black? Your 12:30 is here already.  He's in six."

"Thank you, Shirley," Scully replied and put down the spoon, sipping
the soup straight out of the cup now to save time.

She sighed again.  Had it been any other patient she was expecting,
she most likely would have let him or her wait for a few moments so
she could catch her breath.  But this wasn't just any patient.  And
the more time she got to spend with him the better it would be.  She
had plans that would take some time.

Drinking back the rest of the soup quickly, she placed the cup and
spoon in the sink, pulling down a paper towel and dabbing at her
mouth, then tossed it haphazardly in the trash.  She picked up the
chart that she'd been reviewing, the folder stuffed full of lab
reports.  Pushing her hair back behind her ear, she strode from the
small room, following the corridor down to Examination Room #6.

She knocked twice, heard a small voice from inside the room and
opened the door.

Danny Conner stood leaning against the table, still in his coat as
before.  Her physician's eye appraised him quickly, finding the
hollows beneath his eyes more pronounced than they had been before,
his skin more pale.  He was trembling still, perhaps a bit more than
he had been when she'd seen him just a few days before.

In short, he looked worse.

She grew immediately concerned, closing the door behind her. She lay
the chart she was carrying down on the countertop, going toward him.

"Danny, have you slept yet?" she asked without preamble. Her
expression must have given her feelings away more than her words.  He
looked down as though ashamed.

"No, not yet," he replied.  His eyes darted along the floor, unable
to meet hers.

"How about food?  Anything?"

He simply shook his head to that.  She could see tears welling in
his eyes again. His emotions were so on edge, so close to the
surface.  She knew it was the physical strain on his body that must
be making him that way.  The lack of food and sleep.

"Go ahead and take off your coat and sweater," she said gently,
putting a hand on his arm and urging him up onto the table.  He did
as he was told, pushing the peacoat off his thin shoulders, peeling
the ragged sweater he wore up and over his head, exposing his bony
chest.  He smelled as though he hadn^^t bathed for a few days, either.

She reached for the blood pressure cuff, folded it over his upper
arm, then put her stethoscope in her ears. She inflated the cuff in
puffs, watching the readout.  She released the air with a hiss.

"Your pressure is still dangerously high, Danny," she said gravely
as she tore the cuff off and returned it to the wall, tugging the
stethoscope down to her neck, as well.

"Can you do something about it?" he asked, and his voice trembled a
bit.

She pursed her lips, considering.  "I don't want to start you on any
medications to lower it until I have a better handle on what this is
that you're taking." She returned to the countertop, picked up the
folder.  "I took that vial you gave me to the lab and I've got a
breakdown of what's in your bloodstream."

"What did you find?" he asked, and his eyes were very afraid.

She scanned the printout, trying to think of the best way to explain
it to him.  "Basically it's like this: someone is using those drugs
I'm getting for Owen Curran and compounding them so that they're
changing the chemical components of the drugs themselves."

"What does that mean?" he asked, clearly confused.

"Well," she said carefully.  "In essence, they're making a new drug
out of them, one I've never seen before.  It still has some of the
effects of the original drugs -- like the appetite suppressant, the
serotonin-inhibiting factors that will keep you from sleeping -- but
it could also be interacting with your body in ways I can't predict."

His eyes shot around the room again, a trembling hand coming up to
push the mussed hair out of his face.  "So you can^^t help me," he
said softly, and now the tears did come.

"No, no," she said, putting a hand on his arm again.  "I didn^^t say
that.  I just think we^^re going to have to run a lot of tests to make
sure we do the right things to help you with this."

He looked at her now, seeking the reassurance she tried to convey
with her eyes.  She smiled gently.

"Now you^^ve talked about these headaches you^^ve had when you tried
to stop taking this drug," she said softly.  "So the first thing I
want to do is take you downstairs and have an MRI done on your
brain."

She^^d already made the appointment for him to go down as soon as she
saw his name on her list of patients for the day.  She^^d told Granger
about the MRI, as well.  The drug was interacting some way --
physically, chemically, she didn^^t know which -- with these people^^s
brains.  The MRI was a way to find out exactly how.

"How am I going to pay for something like that?" he asked, stricken.
"I don^^t have any money--"

"Don^^t worry about that," she interrupted.  "You^^re a clinic
patient.  It^^s taken care of."

She handed him his sweater, gave him another reassuring smile.
"I^^ve already made the appointment. They^^re waiting for us.  Go ahead
and get dressed."

*************

Scully stood in the control room of the MRI suite, just over the
technician^^s shoulder,  her arms folded in front of her, her
expression grave.  Outside the window separating the room from the
machine itself, she could see Conner being settled onto the narrow
bed of the machine by one of the technicians.

She was just finishing helping him put soft plugs in his ears and
had settled his head in a small cage-like apparatus designed to hold
him still during the procedure.  On its front was a microphone, and
the room was filled with the sound of Conner^^s harsh breathing.

Scully leaned over, tapped the "talk" button on the two-way system.

"Try to relax, Danny," she said gently, but loud enough so that he
could hear her with his ears plugged.  "It^^s all right.  We^^re just
going to slide you into the machine and run the scan.  You^^ll hear
some loud knocking sounds, like a jackhammer.  Try to hold very
still."

"Okay," he called back, his voice trembling.  She could see from
where she was standing that his legs, bare below the hospital gown he
wore, were trembling.

"Should we give him a sedative?" the technician asked once she^^d
released the button.  "He^^s shaking like a leaf."

Scully shook her head regretfully.  "No, I^^m afraid it will affect
the scan," she replied.  "We^^ll just have to hope his shaking
doesn^^t."

Beside the machine, the technician finished securing his head,
handed him a small call button on a cord.

"If you start having any problems, just hit that call button," the
woman said to him softly.  They could hear her in the control room.
"The microphone will be turned off during the scan, but if you need
us, just hit that and we^^ll take you right out, okay?"

He jerked an awkward nod from inside the cage.

"Now try not to move your head at all," she said, and patted his
arm, then leaned to the side of the machine and pressed a button.
The narrow bed began to move, sliding into the tubular machine
slowly.

Scully watched him carefully for any signs of panic -- people
sometimes became terribly claustrophobic in the machines -- but found
none.  Once the bed had slid all the way in, when just his feet were
showing out the end of the tube, the female technician returned to
the control room, and the man behind the controls nodded to her.

"I^^m going to start the scan,"  he said, and when she nodded her
assent, he tapped the controls.  The machine whirred to life,
thumping loudly from the other room.  She saw Conner^^s feet twitch
with the onset of the noise.

After a few moments, the technician nodded.  "All right," he said.
"We^^re going to go for the first pass."

"Go ahead," Scully said, and focused her gaze on the readout screen.
The ratcheting sound began in earnest now.

In a few moments, the screen began to glow, the shape of Conner^^s
head and brain lighting up the screen in colors.  Scully watched the
form take shape.

And leaned forward, her breath catching.

The technician leaned forward as well, checking the resolution on
the machine, refining the image.

"What the hell?"  he said softly.  The readout resolved with even
more detail as the scan continued its pass.

Scully^^s mouth dropped open as she moved her face closer to the
screen, her eyes widening.  Her voice, when she spoke, was a hoarse
whisper.

"Oh my God...."
 

****************

END OF CHAPTER 12.  CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 13.

*********

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA HOSPITAL
2:28 p.m.
 

The world above him was like a film, a strobe of light and dark.

Around him, the echo of wheels, the sharp tapping of heeled shoes,
the occasional blurt of conversation of people that blurred out the
corner of his eye in streams of colors. And the sound of his
breathing, hoarse and loud and fast. He could feel his chest heaving
with it.

The brightness began to hurt his eyes, sharp white light stabbing at
him from the lamps suspended from the ceiling. The lights scrolled
overhead. From the rate at which he passed under them and into the
relative dimness that followed, he could tell he was moving quickly.

Craning his neck up, he saw the expressionless face of an orderly
whose arms bracketed his head and view.

"Hey," he called, and the man did not look down, or acknowledge him
in any other way. He repeated the call. Nothing.

He looked down toward his feet, saw another man off to his right.
The man's arm was on the railings of the gurney he was lying on,
guiding it down what looked to be a hallway with no end. A black line
bisected the floor into the distance. The man had likewise ignored
his call.

Maybe he was dreaming again. Maybe it was all a dream.

"What is it, Danny?"

He turned his head slowly in the direction of the sound, saw a hand
wrapped around the railing right near his shoulder. Prim, well-
manicured nails. A woman's hand. He followed the hand up, the white
sleeve of a lab coat, red hair, blue eyes looking down at him. Worry
there.

She looked familiar but he couldn't quite place her.

"What's happening to me?" His mouth was dry. The light hurt his eyes
so much. He put a hand up, shielding them.

"You're okay," the woman said. "You blacked out inside the MRI
machine. We're taking you up to a room. We talked about this a few
minutes ago, Danny. Do you remember?"

He shook his head dumbly, thinking. Wait, yes. He remembered being
inside the machine. A curve of white marred by the bars of something
in front of his face. It was like being inside a coffin. And that
noise, deafening pounding, like a hundred fists all around him.

He looked up into the face of the woman again. Dr. Black. Her name
was Dr. Black.

"I have to go," he said suddenly. "I have to get out of here...." He
reached out, grasped the bars on either side of him, pulling his head
off the pillow.

She reached down and put a hand on his forehead, gently but firmly
pushing him back down onto the pillow. "Just relax, Danny. Try to
relax." She kept her hand there for a moment. Her hand was cool to
the touch.

"No, you don't understand...." He could feel the familiar sting of
tears in his eyes, the emotion crawling up his throat, making his
voice sound shrill, even to his own ears. "I have to go home..."

The view spiraled and he choked down a throat full of bile, his head
swimming. They'd turned a corner. There were more people around now,
on all sides of him. The stretcher pulled up short. He gripped the
railings even tighter to halt the sudden sensation of falling.

"Just relax, Danny," Dr. Black was saying. He could feel his breath
coming in and out of his throat like fire.

People around him now. An elevator at his feet. He swung his head
from side to side, looking at the faces.

A woman stared down from beside Dr. Black, an old woman holding onto
the pole of an IV stand. He met her eyes. They were shocked eyes,
looking down at him. On the other side, a doctor in surgical scrubs,
his face craggy. Wax-like.

He turned back to the woman. Her face began to dissolve in front of
his eyes, melting. Her eyes grew in their sockets. Her mouth
disappeared.

"Wha--" He looked up at Dr. Black. She looked normal, worried lines
forming on her forehead. The world was a haze behind her. His breath
rasped, faster, hyperventilating...

"Danny, what is it?"

He turned to the doctor on the other side. His face was the same as
the woman's. All eyes. No mouth. The same with the orderly above him,
huge black orbs staring down....

"Danny!"

He clenched his eyes closed and began to scream.
 

***********
 

In her mind, Scully could still hear the screaming.

She reached up, put a hand over her mouth as she stood outside the
Critical Care Unit room, watching her patient through the glass wall
that separated them. A nurse was trying to insert an IV into the back
of Danny's hand. One of the orderlies was having to hold his
trembling arm steady, despite the heavy restraints she'd ordered him
to be placed in. It took the nurse several tries to get the needle
set. She hung the saline drip on a hook beside the bed as she
finished, adjusting the flow.

Danny was still trembling, even with the massive dose of thorazine
Scully had given him as soon as she could get her hands on it after
they'd arrived on the floor. He was conscious, as well, his face
turned towards the heart monitor, apparently mesmerized by the jump
of the red line across the screen. He seemed to be trying to ignore
the nurse, the orderly. He avoided looking at their faces.

She could only imagine what it was that he saw when he looked at
them. Whatever it was, it had terrified him enough to send him
scrambling from the gurney, fists swinging, screaming shrilly for
everyone to get away from him.

She'd caught the blow on the cheek and at the corner of her eye. It
was already beginning to swell, a slight pulse of pain when she
blinked. She touched it with her fingers self-consciously.

As the orderly and the nurse exited the room, Scully took a deep
breath, blew it out, steeling herself as the orderly stopped in front
of her.

"You want me to stick around, Doc?" he asked. "Just in case?"

"No, no, it will be fine," she said with conviction she didn't feel.
"Thank you for all your help."

It was this man who had wrestled Danny back onto the stretcher,
pinning him there with his superior strength and weight until they
could make it up to the unit. He had a cut on his swollen bottom lip.

"All right, then," he said kindly. "Take care of that eye." And with
that, he was gone.

Taking in another breath, she entered the glass-enclosed small room,
wishing there was a door to close behind her for the sake of Danny's
privacy. He was not taking all of the exposure, all of the attention
of the medical staff well at all.

"How are you feeling?" she asked softly as she stood at the foot of
the bed. He turned his face towards her, away from the machines that
sent his heartbeat ticking off in the room in eerie beeps. He seemed
relieved as he looked at her face, his lower lip trembling.

"I have to get out of here," he said quietly, his voice cracking. "I
can't stay here. You don't understand..."

She put a hand out, silencing him. "Danny, you blacked out in the
MRI machine and you've just had a major psychotic episode. You're
going to have to stay here for a little while." She hesitated. "Plus
that, I would want you to stay anyway after what we found on the
scan."

Something in her tone made him pause, though he still had the "fight
or flight" instinct in his eyes.

"What did you find then?" He seemed afraid but somehow resigned as
well.

She took a step closer, now next to the bed. "Let me begin by saying
I'm not entirely certain of everything I have to say to you. I've
never seen anything like this before, so I'm making the best
conclusions I can based on the findings at hand."

"I understand," he said softly.

She looked down, then up into his frightened eyes again. When she
spoke, she did so slowly.

"It appears that something in the drug you're taking is collecting
in the fatty tissues of your brain and being stored there. It shows
up on the scan as a plaque-like, chemically active residue on about
85% of the surfaces in your brain."

"A residue?"

"Yes," she replied quietly, her tone deathly serious. "It's
occluding the blood flow in your brain and causing swelling in an
area of your brain called the hypothalamus, where a substance called
serotonin is produced. This isn't surprising since the drugs that I
wrote out for Mr. Curran all affect serotonin production in the
brain. The drug seems to be going right to the source, affecting the
brain structurally in that area in addition to collecting in the
tissues surrounding it."

"^^Occluding the blood flow?'" he asked, his brow creased in
confusion. "I don't understand what you're saying to me."

She took a breath, tried again. "The drug's residue is partially
cutting off the blood flow to some parts of your brain. I'm assuming
this is why you're exhibiting so many neurological symptoms, like
your shaking."

"But you can cure all this, right?" His eyes were hopeful, though
they were again awash in tears.

For the first time in her life, Scully was completely sure she had
made the right choice in being a pathologist rather than a doctor.
Danny was her first real patient. Knowing how much in the dark she
was about what to do about his condition, and seeing the trust that
he had in her to repair the damage caused by it....the juxtaposition
of the two was too difficult to tolerate.

"I have a theory," she said, keeping her voice level, promising
nothing. "But first I need to ask you. You said that people had died."

"Yes," he replied softly. "Two people from the group here in
Richmond already."

"How did they die? Do you know?" She knew the answer already, of
course, but wanted to know what Danny knew of it.

"I don't know exactly," he replied. "They just disappeared, both of
them."

So he didn't know the method, she thought, pursing her lips. That
was probably a very good thing, for his sake.

"What did Mr. Curran say about it?" She had earned his trust at this
point -- she felt it was worth risking more by asking more.

"He said that they had decided not to be in the group anymore, and
that he didn't know what happened to them after they left his
^^protection.' We all knew what he meant by that, though -- we all
knew he had them killed." He looked at her sadly. "Nobody just leaves
the Path."

She nodded. Given what she'd seen, what she knew of these deaths,
she knew this was true. She looked at Danny solemnly.

"The drug must be what killed those people, Danny," she said. "Mr.
Curran is using it somehow to do this. I don't know if he's forcing
an overdose or if being on it for too long a period of time causes
it. But I'm not willing to risk that second option with you." She
paused.

"You're going to try and get me off the drug right away, aren't
you?" He was, once again, very afraid.

"Yes. I want to begin this afternoon. I want to monitor your blood
work and send you downstairs for MRIs every hour or so to see how
your body responds to the withdrawal. I want to try to contain the
withdrawal symptoms as you go through them. The key right now is to
get you off of this completely so that no more damage can be done to
your brain."

He shook his head, the words coming out of him in a rush. "I can't
stay here. I can't go missing for that long a period of time. I'm not
even supposed to be seeing you about this at all. You don't
understand how Owen and the others are."

"Danny," she said firmly, "You don't have a choice. Unless something
is done about the presence of this drug in your brain you are going
to die. The blood flow in your brain will become so blocked you'll
have a massive stroke and die."

He fell silent immediately. She blew out a frustrated breath, hating
to have to put it to him so bluntly. But she had to reach him somehow
with how serious all this was.

"All right," he murmured softly, the tears streaming down his
temples. "I'll stay for tonight. But I have to be out of here one way
or another by noon tomorrow. If I go missing any longer than that, if
I miss a meeting I'm supposed to be at tomorrow afternoon..." He
looked at her sadly. "It won't matter what the drug does to me."

She nodded, looked down again, accepting what he said grimly. "All
right."

There was a beat of silence between them.

"Hey," he said gently into the quiet, and raised his hand as far as
he could inside the restraint, pointing to her face. "I'm sorry I hit
you. I didn't mean to hit you. Sometimes I get these dreams, you
know? I can't help myself."

She touched the swollen spot again, forced a smile. "It's okay. Just
a bump. Nothing to worry about."

A labtech entered the room, carrying a box of tubes and needles.
Scully nodded to her and the woman placed the box on the table beside
Danny's bed, began pulling out the equipment she needed to draw his
blood.

"We're going to start off with a baseline, Danny. How long has it
been since your last dosage?"

He considered for a moment. "About two hours before I came in to see
you," he replied.

"So about 10 a.m."

He nodded. "I suppose so."

"And I assume you have more with you? In your clothes downstairs?
Just in case?"

He nodded again. "Four doses."

"All right, then," Scully replied. "I'm going to start a flow sheet.
We'll monitor what happens in your bloodstream as the day progresses.
I want you to let me know of any changes in how you feel, all right?
Anything at all. No matter how small."

The labtech was tying a rubber tourniquet to his arm, swiping the
well tracked inside of his arm with alcohol.

"I'm going to start with a drug to bring your blood pressure down,"
Scully continued, going back to the foot of the bed. "I'm going to go
write the order and then I'll be back with you, all right?"

Danny didn't even seem to notice as the woman slid the needle into
his vein, the glass tube gurgling full with blood. "I won't go
anywhere," he said, and a small smile came to his lips.

She smiled back, left the room, and the smile faded away, a heavy
feeling settling over her. They had a long, very uncertain day and
night ahead of them.

**********

THE FAN DISTRICT
3:59 p.m.
 

Mulder snapped on his turn signal, nosed the government-issue dark
sedan into the flow of traffic down Hanover Street, heading deeper
into the close, historic area on the outskirts of the high rises of
the city. Beside him, Granger sat silent, glancing over from time to
time, his expression clearly concerned and more than a little
perplexed. Mulder only paid him the slightest bit of mind, his
emotions simmering.

He had really wanted to go out alone, nursing his loneliness and his
disappointment and the worry he carried around like an iron chain, a
chain that had had about a hundred links added to it with the report
Granger had given Padden and the rest of the suits.

But there was another part of him that wanted Granger with him. He
was his closest link to Scully, and there were gaps in the
information Granger had given the task force that Mulder wanted
filled in, answers that only Granger could give him.

Plus that, he had something he needed Granger's help with, something
he didn't feel comfortable talking about at the hotel with everyone
else around him. This was the best way to handle it.

"So where are we going to eat?" Granger asked, his tone forced
casual.

"I can't remember what it's called," Mulder replied, monotone, his
eyes on the road ahead of him. He wasn't even looking at the houses,
the small restaurants they passed; he was simply driving for the sake
of driving for the moment. "I'll find it eventually."

Granger looked away, out the car window. Mulder watched him out of
the corner of his eye. It took about five more minutes for Granger to
begin to squirm visibly. Finally, he blew out a breath, put his hands
up in a gesture of surrender.

"Look, I can tell you're pissed off," Granger said finally, shifting
in his seat again. "If you're going to tear into me, go ahead and do
it."

"I'm not pissed off at you, Granger," Mulder replied quietly.

"Then what is it? You've been like a statue since we left the
meeting with Padden. I mean, come on, it's a major break in the case,
the potential for Scully to blow the lid off this whole thing.
Everyone was pleased with the report. More than pleased. Everyone but
you."

Mulder saw a turn coming up, edged over and took a right down the
small side street. He was looking for a place he'd passed the other
night on a run through this part of town, a little hole-in-the-wall
restaurant and tavern that had looked inviting.

"Granger, let me ask you something," Mulder began. "Don't you see it
as a little convenient that this guy just appears suddenly at the
clinic for Scully to examine?"

Mulder maneuvered the car slowly down the narrow street. Most of the
streets in this part of town had been build for carriages, and the
sedan was pressing close to the parked cars on both sides. He
continued, his eyes glued on the car's clearance. "I mean,
potentially. Don't you think there's an outside possibility this
could be something Curran's doing to set Scully up?"

"She thought you'd be worried about that," Granger replied gently.
"She said she thought he was legitimate. She said he seemed too
scared not to be."

Mulder nodded. Padden hadn't even seemed to care about this
possibility. He was just happy that the lead had come up, so there
had been little other discussion about what this Danny Conner could
represent. It had stuck in Mulder's craw, Padden's lack of concern
about Scully's welfare.

"Yeah, come to think of it, I noticed that Padden didn't seem too
worried that the guy could be a plant."

Mulder looked over at Granger now, surprised. Granger looked back, a
serious expression on his face.

"That's what you're thinking, isn't it?" Granger asked. "That's
what's got you upset. That Padden didn't seem to care."

Mulder looked out the window, away from Granger, concerned about
being so transparent. He locked his facial expression into an
unreadable mask. "That's something that concerned me, yes," he
replied flatly.

"I think the possibilities of what she could learn from him outweigh
the risk. I think Scully would agree with that, too. That seemed to
be her attitude when I spoke with her." Granger kept his eyes on him,
and Mulder could tell he was trying to be reassuring.

Mulder nodded again. "Yeah, she would think that," he said, and
perked up as he saw the restaurant coming up on the left, tucked
between a series of old Victorian houses. A neon sign announced
"Joe's Inn" into the gathering gloom. He saw a space up on the right
and pulled up to it, backing up and sloppily parallel parking, ending
up with one wheel up on the curb.

"This place looked good the other night," he said, turning the car
off.

Granger looked at it suspiciously, hesitating.

"Don't worry, Granger," Mulder grumbled. "I'm sure they have
something without meat in it."

They exited the car, Mulder pulling his coat tightly around him. The
night would be a very cold one.

They entered the small restaurant, which was just barely brighter
than it had been outside. There were wooden booths set into the wall
down one side, a long bar on the other side. The ceiling was pressed
tin, the wood dark and oiled throughout the place. Mulder pointed to
an empty booth and the bartender, a young woman in a sweatshirt,
nodded.

"Go ahead and seat yourself," she called. "Someone will be right
with you."

They slid into one of the booths, the menus already at the table,
tucked up against the wall. Mulder noted that the place's specialty
seemed to be spaghetti, which suited him just fine.

Granger was perusing the menu, and Mulder found himself looking at
him over his own menu, picturing him with Scully that morning. He
found himself thinking small, random thoughts. LIke he wondered what
she'd been wearing.

"So," he said into the quiet between them. "How did she seem? All
right?"

Granger looked up as the waitress appeared. "She seemed okay."

"What can I get you gents to drink?" she asked. She didn't have
anything to write on.

"A Rolling Rock," Mulder replied, and got a look from Granger. They
were technically still on duty, Mulder knew, but he didn't really
care at the moment.

"And you?" The waitress looked at Granger expectantly.

"Um...." Mulder watched him warring with himself, his eyes on the
menu. "I'll have...the same thing."

<>

"Coming right up." She went to the bar, ordered the beers. Granger
was watching her go.

"Just okay?" Mulder asked, returning his eyes to the menu.

"What?" Granger asked.

"Scully," Mulder replied. "She just seemed okay?"

Granger looked a little confused for a moment, as though he were
groping for the right words. "Um...yeah. She looked pretty tired. But
she seemed all right."

Mulder nodded, his worry prickling him a little bit with the words.
She'd seemed so tired when he last saw her. He wondered if she was
getting any rest at all, and it concerned him.

"I guess...." Mulder hesitated, closed the menu, forcing a little
smile. "I guess she was pretty pissed at me."

Granger gave him a lopsided smile back. "You could say that, yes."
he replied. "But she seemed relieved that you at least weren't off
the case."

Mulder nodded, as though they were discussing the weather, not the
most important person in his life. He felt that he'd given too much
away to Granger already today, and wanted to keep his feelings as
under wraps as he could. He decided not to push it any further.

The waitress brought the beers, setting them down on bar napkins
without glasses. Both he and Granger ordered a spaghetti, one dish
called "Spaghetti a la Joe" and one called "Spaghetti Albert." Then
the waitress left them alone again.

Mulder shifted in his seat, shifting the conversation, as well.

"Tell me something, Granger," he began. Granger took a pull from his
beer and looked at Mulder questioningly. "Did you get to look at any
of the information on Curran before I came on the case?"

Granger seemed puzzled. "No. They gave me the information at about
the same time they gave it to you," he replied. "Why?"

"Have you noticed," Mulder said, sipping from his own beer. "That
there's nothing in there at all about Sean's mother? Curran's wife or
lover?"

"Yeah, I did notice that," Granger said, leaning on the table on his
elbows. "I've wondered about that. I mean, we don't exactly have what
I'd call complete information on him, but it seems like there would
be some mention of her in the records somewhere. Or some photos of
him with her, or something."

Mulder smiled a little. Sometimes he found he actually almost liked
Granger. Despite himself, he mused.

"My thinking exactly," was what he said aloud. "I think someone must
know something about her. Someone at Scotland Yard or M16 or at
Immigration either here or in Britain."

Granger nodded. "It would seem if she was around him long enough to
have a child with him that there would be some record of her, yes.
Sean's birth certificate, perhaps. But why are you interested in her?
What's so important about her?"

"That's what I'm wondering," Mulder said. "I'm not sure, but one of
two things is true here. She's either so incidental in Curran's life
that she's beneath mention to the task force, or there's something
about her important enough for the task force to suppress." He took
another swig of his beer. "I'm not sure which it is."

Granger seemed to consider for a moment. "I guess you're right about
it being one of those two possibilities," he said.

Mulder sat back, rubbing absently at the condensation on his beer
bottle with his finger. He looked at Granger with a glint in his eye.
"It might be nothing, but how would you like to help me find out
which one of those possibilities it is?"

Across the table, Granger looked concerned. "But if it's something
they're suppressing about her, then it's something we're not supposed
to know."

"Right. And how the hell are we supposed to do a complete profile
without personal information like that?"

Granger shifted a little uncomfortably. "Well, I guess that's true,"
he said. "But won't we get in trouble if we go digging somewhere
we're not supposed to be like that?"

Mulder smiled. "Probably."

Granger hesitated a beat, then shook his head, a small laugh coming.
"You're committed to getting my ass in a sling on this assignment,
aren't you?"

"I just want to find out the truth, Granger," Mulder replied, still
smiling. "If I get your ass in a sling along the way, that's just
gravy."

And Granger laughed again.
 

*********

2601 PARK AVENUE
6:39 p.m.

John Fagan pulled up outside the huge brownstone building, stepping
out onto the frigid street. A light wind was coming down from the
cobalt sky, caressing the trees and sending the bare branches rubbing
against each other with a comforting sound.

He ignored it, pulling his coat up around his chin with his gloved
hands.

There was a short stairwell leading down to a small door on the side
of the building, an apartment door lit by a bare bulb in an ancient
fixture. Taking the steps down, he rapped smartly on the door, his
breath billowing out in front of his face.

He heard commotion inside, someone coughing. Then the door opened.

"Ian," John grunted by way of greeting, looking into the dim
apartment beyond. From the door he could see the mattresses and
blankets spread out on the floor, the dim light of a television
playing against the wall.

"John," the young man replied. "Do you want to come in then? It's
cold as a well digger's tail out there."

"No, I can't stay," John replied, as if he'd want to enter the
squalor of the apartment. "I've just come to fetch Danny for Owen. He
needs him tonight for an errand."

"He's not here," Ian replied, his voice lilting a bit with concern.
"He's not been home all day."

"You haven't seen him at all?"

"Aye, I saw him this morning, but not since. He went out about
eleven and hasn't been back." The young man shivered in the door.

"Where did he go this morning?" Fagan asked sharply, anger and
impatience creeping into his voice.

"He just said he was going out. He didn't say where." Ian squinted
against the bright light of the bulb. It was clear Fagan's tone made
him nervous. "You sure you won't come in, John? Have a smoke?"

Fagan shook his head. "No. I'm off to find Jimmy then. But you tell
Danny when he gets in I want a phone call. The instant he arrives."

"Aye, I'll do just that," Ian replied, nodding vigorously.

Fagan turned and left without another word, Ian closing the door
behind him. He stalked off into the street, back to the car. Climbing
into the driver's seat, he started the car, moved slowly off into the
deserted street.

He was, by nature, a suspicious man. It was what he got paid for.
And he was earning his money as he drove away into the night.
 

**********

END OF CHAPTER 13. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 14.

*********
 

HOLLYWOOD CEMETERY
JANUARY 11
3:32 p.m.

She was a lone figure in black, sheltered beneath a black umbrella,
walking slowly up the steep rise of the narrow road towards the
overlook of the James River. The nearly frozen rain fell over the
Civil War-era cemetery, putting a light glaze onto the faces of the
majestic angels that capped several of the graves in this, the oldest
part of the cemetery. Scully watched the face of one of them as she
passed, its face turned up, its smooth eyes staring away from her to
something beyond the cloudy sky. Its wings curved around its
shoulders as if for warmth, frozen in stained white stone that was
pitted with age.

The cab had dropped her off at the iron-gated entrance, as though
the driver was himself superstitious about entering. From the cab
window, Scully looked down the hill that marked the entrance to the
vast grounds, saw her first glimpse of the blankets of shade cast by
the huge holly trees that were the cemetery's namesake. Scully hadn't
protested that the man hadn't driven her in; she knew she could find
a map at the office just inside the gate and that the mausoleum would
be clearly marked on it. Besides, she was there well before the
appointed time to meet.

Plus, the nearly sleepless night at the hospital had left her
feeling cramped and buzzing with exhausted, nervous energy. The walk
through the beautiful, quiet grounds would do her good, even with the
rain.

The woman at the desk had even gone so far as to draw her a route
through the maze of roads that wound through the cemetery's various
sections, the red marker line stopping at the highest point of the
grounds. Scully had blushed as the woman stared at her face. She
couldn't blame her -- she knew how bad she looked, her right eye
nearly swollen shut at the corner from the blow Danny had dealt her
the previous afternoon, the plum-sized bruise an angry blue rimmed
with red. She found herself reaching up and touching it as she
walked, covering it with her black-gloved hand as though she meant to
wipe it away.

As she would wipe away the past day if she could.

Gripping the umbrella tighter, she breathed a billow of warm vapor
that lingered for an instant in front of her face. She shivered
inside her long coat, pulled it closer around her with the hand
inside her pocket. The map crinkled there softly, memorized and now
unheeded.

She passed another series of headstones, one of them a child angel
asleep on top of a white marble slab. It struck her in a strange-off
centered way, the face reminding her suddenly of Danny's as he'd
lain, drowsing, last night in the hospital, almost as white as the
sheets beneath him. She'd watched him from the window outside his
room, his eyelids fluttering like wings as his body fought off the
exhaustion that crashed into him as the drug receded from his
bloodstream. He mumbled softly to himself as his head turned slowly
on the pillow in the closest thing to sleep he'd had in weeks.

She'd taken his sleepiness as a good sign, as she'd taken the drug's
concentration dropping off on the hourly lab reports.

Her relief had been short lived, however.

By eight that evening, around the time she was hurriedly eating a
sandwich brought by one of the nurses from the hospital's closing
cafeteria, things with Danny began to take a strange turn.

First he reported the beginnings of a headache, and color began to
rise in his cheeks. Over the course of the next hour, his trembling
increased, until it appeared the he was shivering from intense cold.
Even his breath shook as he drew in sharp, short pants of air.

At a little after 9:30, she'd taken him down early for his MRI as
the headache grew gradually worse. She noted as they removed his
restraints to take him down to the machine that he had grown weaker,
his movements sluggish. He'd brought his arms up to cover his face as
they loaded him onto the stretcher, as though he were fending off a
rain of blows, quiet sobs wracking him. He had not acknowledged her
in any way as she'd accompanied him down to the MRI suite, though
she'd spoken softly to him the whole way, murmuring hopeful
assurances.

Grimly, Scully had watched the scan appear on the screen before her.
The chemical residue in his brain had grown more active, glowing in
vibrant gold and orange on the readout. It now covered more than 90%
of his brain and appeared to be continuing to spread.

When she'd returned him to his room after the scan, there had been
no need to put him back in restraints. He was too weak now to be any
sort of threat to anyone. She'd had to hold the cup of water for him
when he'd begged for something to drink.

His body, which had been warring against the Edecrin she'd been
giving him to lower his blood pressure, began to win the battle after
eleven. His blood pressure soared, his face flushing a deep red. She
switched him to another drug, a stronger one, but it had no effect at
all.

At around 11:45, his nose began to bleed, first from one nostril,
then, a few minutes later, from the other, as well. Scully and Ann,
one of the night nurses, put on gloves and cleaned it away, plugging
his nose with gauze, pinching the bridge to try and staunch the
bleeding. Despite their efforts, the blood soaked through the gauze
quickly, ended up in a narrow, thickening stream down the side of his
face and onto the white pillowcase. Every fifteen minutes or so
Scully came in with a small basin of water and a stack of gauze pads
and mopped at it, feeling helpless to do much else.

As she wiped at his face, his eyes stared at a spot just over her
shoulder, his mouth moving as though he were speaking silently to
someone she couldn't see. The gauze rasped on his week's worth of
beard. She'd watched his face, frowning, wondering who it was he was
talking to, what was going on in his mind.

She'd reached the center of the cemetery now, the rain still falling
steadily. Following the curve of the road around, she passed by the
grave of Jefferson Davis, the president of the Confederacy, and his
family. Tiny tombstones fanned out around a central statue of Davis
facing the city, all clearly the graves of infants. She paused for a
moment next to one that was simply marked "Daughter."

She remembered another time when she'd kept a vigil at a hospital,
helpless. And at this time of year, as well. Emily in the hospital in
San Diego, the way her small body had felt, hot as fire, as Scully
lay next to her deep into the night. Until her daughter had finally,
silently, slipped away.

Scully blinked back the frustrated tears and pushed the thought
down. She kept walking. He would be here by now and she didn't want
to keep him waiting.

Ann had come in just after midnight to hang another bag of saline to
keep Danny hydrated. Scully stood in the doorway, her eyes shifting
between Danny and the bag that held his clothes beside the bed. The
vials of drugs were there somewhere. She hung onto that knowledge
desperately.

On her way out, Ann paused beside Scully. "If you won't mind me
saying so..." Ann had begun hesitantly.

"I know," Scully replied quietly, halting what she knew Ann was
going to say. Ann was in her mid-fifties, a seasoned Critical Care
nurse and just old enough to act slightly maternal towards her.
Scully found her behavior simultaneously endearing and annoying. It
was Ann who had fetched her the sandwich for dinner.

And Scully did know. Danny was suffering terribly. She was close to
giving up.

Ann nodded and left the room without another word.

The image of Mary Rutherford's body had begun to occupy Scully's
thoughts, the reports from the scene of her death -- the terrible
pain she'd been in, the bleeding. She looked at Danny now, saw the
flush on his cheeks, his chest rising and falling unevenly, his
breath dry in his throat, stentorious.

She'd decided to wait until the next MRI, only fifteen minutes away.
Then she would make her decision about what to do.

As she stood there, Danny had roused from the distant place where
he'd been, his head turning slowly on the pillow until he faced her.
His hand rose up weakly, urging her forward.

"Come here," he said softly. "Come here. I want to tell you
something."

It was the first lucid reaction she'd had from him in at least an
hour, and she was relieved. She came forward, stood next to the bed
and leaned over him.

"What is it, Danny?" she asked, the heartbeat monitor skipping
quickly behind her, the only sound in the room besides his breathing.

His eyes lolled, then looked behind her once again, suddenly intent,
staring at a spot just over her shoulder. She found herself looking
over her shoulder, as well, just to make sure something wasn't there.
She swallowed nervously as she returned her gaze to him.

"What is it?" she repeated softly. "What do you see?"

His eyes focused on her again, his hand coming up. His fingers held
the sleeve of her coat lightly, his eyes very serious and intense on
hers.

"There are two worlds," he whispered.

Her brows squinted down in confusion. "^^Two worlds?'" she asked, her
puzzlement evident in her voice.

He swallowed with effort, his eyes closing for a beat. Then he
opened them and stared into her eyes again. "There are two worlds,"
he repeated quietly, regaining his voice. "This world...the one that
you and I live in here... and another world. A...secret world."

"I'm sorry, Danny, I don't understand what you're saying to me." She
remembered shaking her head, trying to make sense of it. To Danny, it
seemed very important, so she'd wanted to understand him.

"It exists..." he began, the words coming haltingly as he groped for
them. "...in the same place and time as the world we live in...but
it's different. Anything can happen there."

He swallowed, his throat clearly dry, then continued. "I see things
from it. Glimpses of it. People and things and sounds... Everyone
lives in it, too. They just don't know it. It's all around us..."

He'd stopped then, nodding as he gazed at her seriously. "You...you
have a secret. A secret world."

She'd frozen then. Was there some way he knew about her cover? Had
she given something away? She held her breath for a few seconds, her
eyes widening.

"What do you mean?" she asked finally, forcing her voice to be calm
and level.

"Everyone has one..." he continued, his eyes rolling back and then
focussing again. "A part of their life they keep hidden from
everyone...a place where memories are real. For me, they come
alive..."

She'd let out a breath, relief breaking over her. He was
hallucinating, that was all.

"I need some water..." Danny breathed, tears coming to his eyes. A
fresh line of blood had found its way down the side of his face from
his nose. "Please..."

She poured him a cup from the bedside table, placed the straw back
in it and leaned over to hold it close to his mouth. He drank slowly,
taking breaths between each swallow.

Though she knew she should dismiss what he'd said as being
irrational, she stood there and considered it as he drank. Some part
of what he'd said struck something in her.

She'd found herself thinking suddenly of Emily, of the apparition of
her that had appeared on Afton Mountain the year before. She had been
as clear to her senses as Danny was now. It was as though something --
the pain she'd been in, her closeness to death -- had allowed her to
punch a hole right into the world he spoke of. A world just out of
view of this one.

She then thought about her life with Mulder, how they had to keep
their relationship a secret from almost everyone in their lives. When
she was with him, in that space they'd created just for them, it did
feel sometimes like a separate world.

Danny had shaken his head, breaking her from her thoughts. His eyes
clenched closed. "No..." he'd said, his head turning away from her on
the pillow. "My head hurts so bad...it's bursting my ears..."

"I'm taking you down for another MRI in just a minute, Danny," she'd
replied, fresh worry washing over her. "Then we'll decide what to
do."

He looked at her earnestly, the tears flowing freely down his
flushed face. "I need....I need you to help me..."

Again she caught her breath, the vision of Mary Rutherford's body
coming into her mind again, the image of the still form on the table,
the sheet draped over her almost blue in the morgue's otherworldly
light. She remembered the words she'd said aloud, in answer to
Rutherford's own plea from the police reports.

She looked down at Danny, stricken. She put a hand on his forehead,
and she said the words again.

"I'll help you."

The bag of his clothes was right next to the bed. One way or the
other, she would fulfill that promise.

The rain was falling more heavily as she made her way along the road
that overlooked the rapids of the James, the water turned white as it
rushed over the rocky bottom, around the lip of Belle Isle visible on
the other side. A coal train came into view, pulling over a hundred
coal cars. She watched them go, black on gold on black. The sound of
the wheels on the tracks was soothing in the damp air.

The roof of the mausoleum was in view now, just over the rise. To
her right, a field of headstones spread across the ground as far as
she could see, a garden of white stone across the barren ground.
Every once in a while the bleak view was broken by a spray of
flowers, the deep green of boxwoods. Angels jutted from the ground
here and there, as though seeking escape from the earth, into the
grey sky above her.

The next MRI, at around 12:30, showed the drug had completely taken
over his brain and become more chemically active, the readout glowing
an angry red. She knew what would happen next, though she did not
know precisely how. It didn't matter that she know at that point.

When she took him back to the room, the latest lab reports were
waiting for her. The levels of the drug had begun to rise as the
collected residue came out of the tissues and recirculated through
his body. This explained his continued hallucinations.

He'd lain quietly as she explained it all to him, both of them
exhausted and resigned.

"I'm going to give you a dose of the drug, Danny," she said at a
little after one.

"No...." he breathed, his hand going to his head instantly, as
though speaking had shot something through his head. He whimpered,
his breath choking on a sob.

She reached out and gripped his arm. "Danny, you're dying. We're
going to have to go back to square one and find another way to do
this."

She let him cry for a moment, his hand going now to her forearm,
gripping as hard he could, his arm shaking with the effort.

"There's so many of us..." he whispered finally. "So many of my
friends like me....almost all of us..."

She grimaced at the thought of a whole group of people suffering
like this. And perhaps more to come.

Sensing the opening, she swallowed and looked at Danny grimly.
"Danny," she began carefully. "Is Curran manufacturing this drug as a
weapon? Using you all as guinea pigs for something he intends to use
in some other way? On more people?"

Danny had shaken his head, his eyes lolling again. He was having
trouble focussing on her again. "No..." he whispered finally. "It's
just us...just the people in The Path..."

"But WHY?" Scully asked, her horror over the thought of
intentionally exposing people to this making her voice angry, urgent.
"Why would he do this to you?"

"People..." He held his head again, releasing her arm. "People have
been leaving...going back to the IRA, to Ireland..." He closed his
eyes, his brow creasing in pain. "I think it's because....because he
needs us. Needs us to be...loyal...to stay. Because of the bomb."
 

***************

End of chapter 14a.  Continued in 14b.

************

She could still feel the chill that had run through her at those
words.

"What bomb?" she whispered.

His eyes shot open at her words, as though he hadn't realized what
he said and she was the one bringing the subject up. He shook his
head desperately, clearly realizing his misstep.

"No, no, I shouldn't have said that...not to you..." At that point
he had begun to cry again. "I didn't want you...to be involved..." He
turned his face towards the wall. His face flushed crimson, alarming
her.

She couldn't wait any longer.

At 1:16, she injected one of the doses from his jacket into the port
of his IV, praying that she hadn't waited too long.

She would never know how close they had come. But somehow, he had
survived the night. After two more MRIs, both showing the residue
losing its strength in his brain, becoming less active, she'd felt
safe enough to go to the Doctor's Lounge at the end of the hallway
and steal an hour of sleep just before dawn.

She reached the mausoleum, an elegant building in white marble with
open, iron gates at the arched entrance. A car was parked in front of
it, a black, empty sedan beaded with rain. Puffing out a tired
breath, she turned and entered the building, closing her dripping
umbrella as she did so.

There was another entrance at the other end of the small structure,
stained glass windows on either side. She could tell the view of the
river was lovely, even from where she stood. Dim light came in
through the doorways, shining on the black stone floor. Closer to the
other entrance, two marble benches were set into the floor.

On one, Walter Skinner sat, though he rose as she entered. She was
very relieved to see him, to see a familiar face. On the other was
Bob Padden, huddled into a black trench, a dark hat on his head. He
did not stand as she came forward.

"Agent Scully," he greeted somewhat flatly, nodding, but not looking
at her. "I must say when the phone rang in the hotel this morning,
you were the last person I expected it to be."

She sighed, suitably chastised. She'd expected this reaction from him.

"I'm sorry, sir," she replied, her tone tired but formal. "I know
it's very irregular for me to contact you directly, but I felt the
situation warranted it."

Skinner had reached her where she stood now, his face concerned as
he took in her appearance. She reached up and touched the bruise,
shaking her head.

"It's nothing," she murmured, so only he could hear her. He was
unconvinced, his jaw muscles working. He stepped aside, though, and
gestured her forward, toward Padden.

She walked to the empty bench across from Padden, sat, drawing her
coat around her legs for warmth. She shivered a bit. The mausoleum,
being open, was very cold. Skinner took up a place to Padden's right,
his arms crossed in front of his chest, his expression still creased
and worried.

Now Padden did look at her, his head cocking a bit as he did, though
he said nothing about her eye.

"I'm sorry for the morbid nature of the meeting place," he said,
nodding to the room around him. "But I thought this would be one of
the places where it would be most unlikely that we'd be seen."

Scully nodded in acknowledgement, and he continued.

"Now what have you got that was so important that it couldn't wait
for you to go through proper channels?"

She looked down, wishing he'd drop it. She was here now and there
was nothing to be done about it. When she looked back up him, her
eyes met the challenge in his tone.

"For starters, I've discovered the use and method of the compound
involved in the deaths of the Path members, as you assigned me to do
when I took this case."

He looked at her, clearly surprised. "Your contact in the Path?
This...Conner?"

Briefly, she recounted the events of the night before, how Danny had
reacted to the withdrawal, the actions of the drug that she observed,
what Danny had told her about its uses. Padden listened impassively.
Skinner stood stone still, though his eyes shifted between Scully and
Padden. He seemed to be gauging Padden's reaction to what she said.

"So it's the actual withdrawal from the drug that is causing these
deaths?" Padden said when she finished her synopsis.

Scully nodded. "Yes. My theory is that when someone does something
to displease Owen Curran in some way, he kills them by withholding
the drug from them, putting them in a circumstance where it is
impossible for them to obtain it. After several hours -- around 15
hours from the last dose, according to my calculations with Danny
Conner -- the drug, combined I believe with the incredibly high blood
pressure that the withdrawal causes, reacts chemically and
structurally with the brain tissue of the victims and results in the
effects that we've seen."

"With that kind of force?" Padden said, squinting at her
incredulously.

"There have been reports of victims of heart attacks being knocked
back by the force of the attacks hard enough to have broken the
chairs they were sitting in," Scully replied evenly. "I'm not certain
how this catastrophic event takes place in these victims, frankly. I
didn't wait around with Mr. Conner to find out. But I do know that it
is the withdrawal from this drug that is responsible for these
deaths. I'm certain of that."

Padden seemed to consider for a moment, then nodded. "I see," he
said. "And this information about the drug not being used as any sort
of weapon? Do you think this Conner is a reliable source for that
information?"

Scully nodded again. "I do, sir," she replied. "He has not lied to
me in my entire interaction with him, and he has no reason to lie to
me now. I believe I've gained his trust, and that what he tells me is
true."

It bothered her for Padden to distrust what Danny had to say for
some reason, and she felt the need to defend him. Probably, she
thought, because she'd spent so much time with him, knew what kind of
a man he was. And had witnessed so much of what he'd been through,
watched him suffer.

And she had another reason to believe him, as well.

She looked from Padden to Skinner and back again. "There's something
else," she began. Padden looked at her questioningly. "Danny told me
last night that Owen Curran is planning some sort of bombing."

"A bombing? Of what?" It was Skinner who spoke up immediately, his
voice on edge.

"I was unable to obtain that information," Scully replied. "He
simply mentioned something about Curran needing the drug to ensure
the loyalty of The Path members because he needed them for some sort
of bombing."

"He just TOLD you this?" Padden was clearly alarmed, but still
doubtful.

"He was fairly delirious at that point and not quite in control of
what he was saying. When he realized he had told me this information,
he was immediately remorseful and didn't speak of it anymore." She
looked at Padden, her expression grim. "But again, I believe he was
telling the truth."

Padden seemed to consider for a moment, then rose, walked a short
circle around the bench to the wall slowly. He stood in front of the
blocks, cut into the marble, that delineated the individual graves.
He seemed to be studying the engraving on one of the markers, deep in
thought.

"What's the status of your cover?" Skinner asked into the quiet.
"You've been spending a lot of time with Conner. Is Curran aware of
this?"

Scully shook her head. "No," she said softly. "I think that Danny
believes that his life would be in danger if Curran knew he was
contacting me about this. He seemed very afraid last night that
someone was going to wonder about his whereabouts. And he insisted on
leaving the hospital this morning, against my advice, because of a
meeting he had to make this afternoon."

"So your cover -- and possibly your life -- could be jeopardized if
Curran found out about this." Skinner was terse as he spoke, though
she knew it was concern that was making him sound angry.

"I believe that could very well be the case, yes," she said to them
both, then looked down. She felt for a moment that she might have
done something wrong, but shook the feeling off. "I believe that the
information that I was able to gain through my contact with him
warranted the risk."

"We need to get you out of there," Skinner replied, shaking his
head. He turned to Padden. "She's found out what you needed her to
find out. There must be another way to find out this information
about the bombing that doesn't involve Agent Scully remaining in such
a precarious position."

Padden turned, still looking down, considering. "Yes," he said, as
though to himself. "Your position has potentially been compromised,
that much is certain. But the information did warrant the risk. I
wonder how *much* it's been compromised, however."

Skinner shook his head again, looking at Padden. "Whatever the risk,
it's reached unacceptable levels, in my opinion," he said firmly.

"I didn't say I wanted out," Scully interjected, not liking the turn
of the conversation. "I still haven't found a way to get these people
off of this drug. I'd like to continue my work on that. And there's
this bombing to investigate now, as well."

Skinner shook his head. "Scully, that's outside the parameters of
what you were needed for operationally. Look, I know as a physician
you're concerned about these people, about Conner in particular, but
it's too dangerous. And the ATF is much better suited to following up
on this bombing lead. Finding that information out will simply put
you in more danger."

Scully started to respond, frustrated at being whipped around, being
talked about as though she had no control of what she did and how she
did it. But Padden interrupted her.

"I'm afraid AD Skinner is right," he said, and he seemed
disappointed to say it. "With you removed from the picture, and with
the information you've already provided to the task force about
Curran's activities, we could begin a full scale surveillance of
Curran and find the information we need out that way. With you in
place, we can't do that because it might arouse suspicion of your
cover. But with you gone, we could move forward on that
definitively."

"I'm not ready to come out," Scully protested. "There's still so
much to learn."

"It's not your choice to make, Agent," Padden replied gruffly. "We
have to think of the larger operation, and with this bombing plot in
the picture, time is of the essence. I want you to begin to
withdraw."

"I've only been here for two weeks. Don't you think that will look a
little suspicious?"

"We've had this planned all along," Padden replied. "You have a
family situation that requires you to return to Boston as soon as
possible, as soon as you can be replaced. Mr. Flaherty has had some
possibilities for your replacement in mind since the inception of the
operation, so he should be able to call in someone fairly quickly.
Your escape route is set. You just need to play it out, and wait it
out."

Skinner nodded. "It's for the best, Scully," he said quietly,
sensing her displeasure.

Scully's gaze dropped to the cold stone floor, her eyes closing for
a moment as she exhaled a tired breath. She didn't have the energy to
fight them. And plus, a part of her knew both of them were right. She
was in dangerous territory because of the work with Danny.

Now if she could just find a way to tell Danny she would be leaving.
A frigid, dull ache settled over her as she considered it.

********

2601 PARK AVENUE
5:34 p.m.

Danny lay on his back staring up at the exposed beams of the
ceiling, shivering beneath his thin blanket. The space heater sighed
beside him, the only heat in the tiny apartment. At his feet, the
television was on, playing some show about American doctors in Korea.
The room glowed, the relative quiet broken occasionally by canned
laughter leaking from the ancient set.

Leave it to the Americans to be able to laugh about a war, he
thought, turning onto his side to look at the clock.

It was almost time for him to go back to the clinic to be checked by
Dr. Black. Upset with him for leaving the hospital early that
morning, she'd insisted on seeing him again this evening before the
clinic closed at 6:30. He had to admit he didn't mind going in. He
still felt terrible, sluggish and weakened. The ordeal of the night
before had taken a powerful toll on him.

It had been all he could do to hide how he felt from Curran when
he'd met with him that afternoon. Curran had been unusually gruff
with him, Fagan standing over his shoulder silently, glaring a bit
more pointedly than usual. He'd retreated as quickly as he could,
trying not to be paranoid about the two men's reactions to him, and
then come home and collapsed onto this thin mattress on the floor,
resting as best he could.

Sighing, he pulled himself shakily into a sitting position, reached
for the same dingy sweater he'd been wearing for days now. It was the
only garment he had that was warm enough to fight off the persistent
chill. He rose slowly, reached for his jacket, jingling his pocket to
check for bus fare. He would have enough to get there and back.

Flicking off the television and the space heater, he shouldered into
his jacket and went out the door, locking the deadbolt behind him.
The rain was still falling, as it had been all day, though it seemed
to be turning to sleet now. He raised his face to it, letting the icy
drops hit his face. It felt good. He hoped it would snow.

He went to the corner, stood at the bus stop, waiting for the number
11 that would take him downtown. It chugged to a stop at the curb
after only a few minutes, for which he was grateful. Climbing on, he
paid his fare, then moved slowly to one of the back seats for the
short ride to the hospital. The bus engine coughed as it pulled away.

**

Right behind the bus, unseen, a dark car pulled out, tailing it.

John Fagan tapped out a cigarette as he and the bus pushed out into
the traffic on Broad Street, his eyes on Danny in the back seat just
as a light snow began to fall.

His face lit up in a seemingly angry flare as the lighter flamed the
cigarette to life. Then it blinked out, hiding him once again in the
shadows and the faint dashboard lights.
 

*********

END OF CHAPTER 14. CONTINUED IN CHAPTER 15.

***********

MEDICAL COLLEGE OF VIRGINIA HOSPITAL
OUTPATIENT CLINIC
6:20 p.m.

"Dr. Black?"

Scully turned as the only clinic nurse still on duty came around the
doorway to the small doctor's lounge. Scully held a cup of coffee,
which was very old and strong and black by necessity. She was
swallowing a long drink of it as she met the woman's gentle, almost
apologetic smile.

"What is it, Loretta?" she asked, and her voice was low and hoarse
with fatigue, as though she'd been talking nonstop for days. She
cleared her throat self-consciously as Loretta's smile crimped a bit
and her eyes grew vaguely concerned.

"That young English man, Bob Smith, just came in," Loretta replied.
"He doesn't have an appointment but he says that you were expecting
him today? I know it's late, so I didn't know if you'd want to see
him or not."

Scully dumped the rest of the bitter cup of coffee in the sink.
Thank God he's here, she thought. She had thought that he wasn't
going to come after all. And she'd been worrying about him all day,
wondering how he was.

"Yes, I'll see him," Scully replied, doing her level best to sound
nonchalant. "Go ahead and put him in a room." She flipped on the
water and started filling the cup to wash it.

"I'll put him in Two," Loretta replied, and hesitated, looking down
shyly, indecisively.

Noticing this, Scully asked: "Is there something else?" She turned
off the water now and faced Loretta once again.

"Well," Loretta shifted a little. "It's started to snow, and I was
wondering if it might be possible for me to go on and head home."

"Ah," Scully said. It was still strange to her to be in charge of
all these people, to have people asking *her* for permission to do
things. She stifled a smile at Loretta's discomfort with her.

"If you need me to stay, I'll be happy to, of course," Loretta
rushed on. "But I've cleaned up the waiting room and gotten all the
files put up and --"

"It's fine, Loretta," Scully interrupted. "Go ahead and go home. I
can handle Mr. Smith."

"You're sure?" the other woman asked hopefully.

Scully did smile now. "Of course. It's all right."

"Okay then," Loretta replied, returning the smile. "When you get
done with the file just go ahead and leave it on the nurses' station.
I'll update it and put it away for you in the morning."

"Okay. Go ahead and close the place down then, except for the
examination hallway."

"I will. I'll even put the lights out for you." Loretta started to
head down the hallway, but stopped, met Scully's eyes. "You seem so
tired, Dr. Black. I hope you get some rest tonight."

Scully looked down, the smile on her face growing a bit tepid. She
knew her exhaustion was showing, but it dismayed her a little to know
how much.

"I will," she replied quietly. "Thank you for your concern. I'll see
you in the morning."

Loretta nodded, smiled again. "Goodnight then, doctor."

"Goodnight."

And Loretta was gone, disappearing down the hallway towards the
waiting room.

Scully finished washing the mug she'd been drinking from, heard
Loretta come down the hallway with Danny, opening the door to the
examination room and urging Danny to put on a hospital gown, which
she knew he wouldn't do. When she heard the door close again and
footfalls fading down the hallway, she squared her shoulders, tucked
the mug into the drying rack, and headed towards the room herself.

She knew the minute she saw him that he must not be feeling much
better than he had early that morning. For one, he was out of his
coat and sweater, as though he was anxious to be examined. For
another, he was lying on the examination table, his hands rubbing his
temples, not standing nervously as he had been before. He turned to
look at her as she entered the room, closing the door behind her.

"Headache still?" she asked by way of greeting.

"Aye," he murmured, and returned his gaze to the ceiling. "I'm
having a bugger of a time shaking it off."

Scully nodded. "Go ahead and sit up for me," she said gently,
putting a hand on his shoulder and helping him up. His ribs jutted
out like long fingers beneath his skin, his thin arms bracing him on
the table. His arms shook hard as he pulled himself up, then settled
into their usual faint trembling.

She reached for the blood pressure cuff. "The residue is probably
still somewhat active in your brain, Danny," she said softly as she
wrapped the cuff around his arm. "You might have that headache for
awhile."

They sat in silence for a moment as she pumped up the cuff, released
it, her stethoscope in her ears. She shook her head as she pulled out
the earpieces, ripping open the cuff. "Your pressure is still
elevated. More than usual, that is. I think your body is still
readjusting to the drug being back into your system."

"Any idea of how long it will take for me to start feeling some
better then?" He looked at her with that same hopeful expression that
tugged at her when she saw it. He had so much faith in her.

She regretted the shake of her head. "We're in unknown territory
here, Danny," she replied. "I think you'll probably feel some effects
until the drug reaches an adequate saturation level in your blood
stream that the concentration of the residue in your brain
restabilizes. That could take several more doses -- a few days even."

"Should I take more of the drug? Would that speed this up a little
bit?"

"No, no." She shook her head again, reached up and cradled his head
between her hands, pulling his lower lids down with her thumbs. "I
don't want you to play around too much with that. I don't know if
it's possible to overdose on it, and I don't want to risk your body
any more than we have already." She studied him, noted how pale the
insides of his lids were, how bloodshot his eyes.

"All right," he replied softly. He was clearly disappointed that
there seemed to be nothing he could do to help this process along.
Scully sympathized with him on that front. She was feeling pretty
helpless and frustrated herself.

She replaced the stethoscope in her ears and listened to his heart
and breathing. Both were still fast. Too fast.

"The clinic lab has already closed down for the night," she said,
hanging the stethoscope around her neck once again. "I'd like you to
come in tomorrow to have some more blood drawn, to check the levels
of the drug in your system."

He hesitated, looked down, seemed to consider for a few beats. "I
can come tomorrow afternoon, after my roommate goes off on an errand.
That way I won't arouse any more suspicion than I might have
already."

Scully nodded. "Okay then. Come back tomorrow afternoon. I'll be
here and I'll check you out again here before you get your blood
drawn." She looked at him, worry creasing her face. "For now, I want
you to stay in bed, all right? I know you can't sleep, but I want you
to just rest as much as you can."

When he nodded, she picked up his sweater, proffered it to him. "Go
ahead and get dressed." Then she reached for his chart, began
recording his vital signs.

Her voice was more tired, more resigned, than she intended it to be.
He heard it, as well. She could tell by the silence that stretched
between them as he shrugged into the sweater, pulled on his dark
jacket. He sat still then, looked at her.

"Dr. Black?" he began, and she looked up at him.

"What is it, Danny?" she replied softly.

"You won't...well..." He looked down, his eyes shining with unshed
tears. "You're not going to give up on this are you? Because it
didn't work out last night?"

A heavy spot took up a place in her chest as she pictured telling
him that she was going to have to leave for Boston. The guilt she
felt was strong enough that she could taste it, a bitter stinging in
her throat.

She considered telling him right there that she would be going, but
thought better of it. They still would have a few weeks together,
most likely. She might still have time to help him before she was
forced to leave. There was no need to make him so upset now.

"No, I'm not giving up," she said quietly, and though she did mean
the words, she still felt bad for saying them. We have to think of
the larger operation... Padden had said. And Danny's needs weren't
part of that. Neither were hers.

Relief broke over his face, and he looked down again, nodded. She
went back to jotting down her notes, let the moment drift away.

"What's the next step then?" he asked after a beat of silence.

"The next step doesn't involve you right away," she said, still
scribbling. "I'm going to go into the lab and break down this drug
myself. See if there's some way to modify it and remove the
components individually so that I can make a different form of the
drug you're taking. My hope is that if I can make new forms by
removing components one at a time, forms that you can still tolerate,
we might be able to wean you off the drug that way."

He considered that for a moment. "That sounds complicated," he said,
and his voice was worried.

She looked at him now, nodded seriously. "Yes, it will be," she said
earnestly. "I want you to try not to worry about it, all right? Just
concentrate on taking care of yourself right now. I want you to make
sure you eat every day, too, even if you don't feel like it. Even a
little something."

"It's been a long time since I ate," he said doubtfully.

"Then start off slowly. Just some crackers or something. Some soup
if you can possibly do it."

He nodded. "All right. I'll try."

He slid off the table now, his legs shaking slightly as he put his
weight on them. The past 24 hours were showing on him badly. As they
were showing on her, as well. At least she would be able to go home
and fall asleep.

She finished her notes, closed the chart and studied him for a beat.
She was struck suddenly as she looked at him with how young he really
was. Were it not for his beard, he could have been a teenager, the
look accentuated by how thin and gangly he was.

She wanted to help him so much it hurt her. She *would* help him.

With this in mind, she reached into the chart, tore off a corner of
paper from one of the flow sheets. She began to write on it.

"This is the phone number of the clinic's emergency answering
service. I'm going to be on call for the next couple of nights, so
I'll have the beeper with me. I want you to call if you start feeling
any worse, all right?"

He took the number from her, looked at for a few seconds, then
folded it up and put it in his pocket. "All right," he replied, his
voice soft, tired.

Reaching out, she put a hand on his upper arm, gave it a reassuring
squeeze. "Go on home and go to bed," she said, and dropped her hand.
He had blushed when she touched him.

"Aye, I'll do that," he replied. Then he looked into her eyes, gave
her a shy, sad smile. "Thank you, Doctor. For everything."

She nodded, returned the small smile. "You're welcome, Danny. I'll
see you tomorrow."

"Goodnight then." With that he turned, went slowly out the door,
leaving her standing there.

A wave of emotion passed over her, a strange feeling of sadness. She
felt her eyes stinging with it, and she had no idea why. Maybe it was
the pressure of working with Danny that was finally getting to her,
the urgency that her leaving placed on her work with him. That was
probably it.

Or I'm just too damn tired, she thought, standing up straighter,
tucking the chart beneath her arm. She needed to go home, shower,
change her clothes from the day before. That was all she needed, she
thought.

And with that, she chased the odd feeling away.

***

The only light in the large room came from long desk lamp on the
nurses' station at the other end of the room. The waiting room itself
was bathed in darkness, every corner filled with it.

John Fagan sat in one of those corners, quiet as a tomb, his legs
crossed casually in front of him.

He was a patient man. Not jittery. If he moved, he did so with
purpose, like a spider does when something was caught in the gossamer
strands of its web. He was rarely driven to any sort of sudden
action. That is, unless he was driven the short distance to anger.

He wasn't angry now, though. Not yet.

He watched dispassionately as Danny Conner appeared from the
hallway, buttoning up his coat as he paused in front of the huge desk
on the other side of the room. Once he'd closed the coat all the way,
turned the broad collar up to protect his neck, he started forward
again, not even looking around the darkened room as he went out the
double doors to the clinic and out into the night beyond.

Again Fagan waited. A minute passed. Then two.

Katherine Black came out, already in her long black coat. She had a
chart in her hand, which she set on the counter of the desk neatly.
Like Conner, she busied herself for a moment with buttoning herself
up.

Fagan's gaze went slowly over her, watching how she moved. The way
her hair came forward slightly as she looked down at the front of the
coat. The nimble efficiency of her fingers as she buttoned, hiding
her small body from his sight. He studied the fine line of her
profile, her full lips.

She reminded him so much of Elisa.

When he looked at Katherine, he could almost see Elisa, sitting
across from him at Halloran's, back in Belfast. She had loved to
laugh so much, her bright eyes shining as she ribbed him again for
being so grim, so serious. She had always said if he didn't lighten
up, the work would carry off the best in him.

The memory surprised him by making him suddenly sad, even here where
he had his work to do. He made a small, unintentional noise in his
throat as, for an instant, what he was thinking got the better of
him.

Katherine's head shot up at the sound, scanning the black expanse of
the waiting room quickly. Her eyes were wide, her body poised.

"Is someone there?" she called, her voice strong. He admired that
she didn't let fear overwhelm her composure.

That's my Katie, he thought, pleased.

She looked around for a long moment more, then he saw her relax a
bit, shaking her head, clearly convincing herself that she was merely
hearing things. Then she reached down, picked up her briefcase,
pulled the strap over her shoulder. Moving to the door, she brought
out her keys from her pocket. She fingered for the right one.

Then, with one final look behind her, she went out the door. He
heard the lock click closed behind her, then her footsteps receding
down the hallway.

He waited another few moments to make sure she didn't return. Then
he drew himself up, walked slowly to the nurses' station. The chart
was there, bathed in the small circle of light that the desk lamp
cast. He reached out slowly, picked it up, opened it. He read,
turning pages. His jaw tightened as he did so.

Finally he closed the file. He'd seen enough.

He stood there for moment, his thoughts returning to Elisa in the
pub. The contagious sound of her laughter...

Katherine Black might resemble Elisa, but she was *not* Elisa. Could
not replace her. He knew that for certain now. He wondered if Owen
knew that, as well, if Owen would have shamed him in front of half
the pub if he knew what Fagan knew now of Katherine's deception.

He was glad to be the one to tell Owen about it. He and Owen's
friendship -- ten years of it -- had been strained since the arrival
of this woman. He hoped this would be the start of Owen not being so
preoccupied with her. So that things could be as they were once
again.

Tucking the chart under his arm, he went to the door to the clinic
himself, turned the butterfly handle to the lock on the door and
stepped out into the deserted hallway.

The snow was falling heavily as he went outside, dotting him with
quickly melting, heavy spots of white. He climbed into his car,
parked just off Broad, and started the engine up. He pulled off into
the shower of blue-white flakes.

Out in the night, Owen Curran sat in the Grey Mouse's back room.
Fagan drove intently, his expression grim, serious.

He would not keep Owen waiting for long.
 

************

End of chapter 15a.  Continued in 15b.

************

THE JEFFERSON HOTEL
JANUARY 12
9:36 a.m.

Mulder sat behind his makeshift desk in the task force headquarters,
files strewn haphazardly in front him, a cup of coffee in his left
hand. In his right, the file he'd been compiling on Danny Conner, the
young man's immigration photo paperclipped neatly to the corner of
the computer printouts and other materials.

He'd been staring at the photo for 15 minutes, since the task force
meeting had let out, the meeting in which the group had been told
that the "first phase" of the operation was coming to end, that
Scully was being withdrawn as soon as possible.

The news wasn't a surprise to him -- Skinner had come to his hotel
room last night to tell him. He'd known, he said, that Mulder would
want to know immediately.

Skinner had also told him about the night Scully had spent in the
hospital with Conner, what the man had been through. And he'd told
him about the bombing. Mulder had taken all of this news with great
distraction -- he found it difficult to get beyond the fact that
Scully would be coming home.

After Skinner had left, he had gotten himself back together a bit,
however, pulled out his material on Curran and begun to read over it
again. A little after 11, he called Granger in his room two floors
down and asked him to come up and join him in looking over the
materials. Granger had been awake, and had come right away.

"It wouldn't be a personal target," Mulder said later as the two of
them sat in the uncomfortable chairs from the room's table, both of
them drinking a beer they'd ordered from room service. "Them" was on
the television, one of Mulder's favorites, and the sound of women
screaming fell in as background noise as the two of them sat in the
dimness of the room, the snow falling steadily outside the window.

"Huh?" Granger said, looking up at him from the television, his eyes
wide.

"The bombing," Mulder had replied. "Curran wouldn't pick a personal
target, not based on what we know about him at this point. It would
have to be something with political significance."

Granger considered for a moment. "Do you think it's going to be here
in the U.S. or that he's planning something back in Ireland?"

"I'm not sure, but I would suspect it's going to be here somewhere,"
Mulder had replied. "He's got too much of a concentration of manpower
on the Eastern Seaboard, and remember what Padden said about there
being a lot of money being funnelled into the areas where Curran was?
I think he's planning something really close by."

Granger kept glancing at the television as the army of giant ants
stampeded across the screen, decimating everything in its path.

"I can't believe you haven't seen this movie," Mulder said, shaking
his head. "You need to get out more, Granger."

Granger looked down, smiled. "Now you sound like my mother," he
said, and Mulder laughed. Granger took a pull from his beer, looked
out the window for a moment.

"It would be a British target, I suspect," Granger said quietly. "I
don't think he's got enough of an ax to grind with anything American
at this point for it to be otherwise."

"Yes, I agree," Mulder had replied. "Bombing something on U.S. soil
would be enough of a statement, punishment for us being so involved
in the peace process. That would be a big enough of a ^^fuck you' to
the Americans."

"Well, that narrows it down a lot," Granger replied, watching as an
ant gored a soldier, his rifle tap tap tapping, to no avail.

"An embassy or Consulates' office," Mulder said immediately. "Either
in New York or D.C. would be my guess."

"I'd guess D.C.," Granger replied. "Considering he's set up shop
here in Richmond, only a couple of hours away. That would give him
adequate access to be able to check the place out as often as he
needed to."

"And close enough so that if he was going to do something like a
truck bomb or something, he'd be able to transport it easily." Mulder
took another pull of his beer, stared at the television.

"If I had to make a guess," he said, his eyes far away now as he
sifted through options. "I would say the British Embassy in D.C.
That's what I think."

Granger considered for a moment. "Yeah, I think you're right," he
said, a smile coming onto his face. Mulder had quirked a smile back
at him. Granger was so easily pleased. He envied him that.

That's what he had told the task force this morning at the meeting,
when he and Granger had given their report about the possible targets
for the bombing. Padden and the others had seemed surprised that the
two of them had been able to come up with something so quickly.

"We'll put the embassy in D.C. on full alert," Padden had said. "And
the one in New York, just as a precaution. Both Consulates' offices,
as well." He looked around the table. "Does anyone have any idea
about what method he might use?"

"Our guess," Mulder piped up immediately, "Is that it would be truck
bomb, a fertilizer bomb like the one we saw in the Oklahoma City
bombing."

"What makes you so sure?" Padden had replied, looking at Mulder over
his glasses. His tone was clearly dubious.

It was Granger who answered him. "We believe," he said, gesturing to
Mulder and himself, "That C4 would be too difficult to obtain in the
U.S., and too expensive. Plus, we believe that one of the reasons
Curran chose Virginia to settle in and not a larger metropolitan area
up north is so that he could be close to the tobacco farming country
around Richmond. Buying bulk amounts of fertilizer here would be
difficult to trace, considering the frequency of bulk purchases in
this area."

Padden looked from Granger to Mulder and back, considering. Finally
he nodded. "We'll go with that theory for now then. As a precaution,
we'll make sure that road blocks are set up around the entrances of
both embassies and Consulates' offices to keep deliveries away until
they can be thoroughly checked out."

Then he nodded, and added, somewhat begrudgingly, it seemed: "Good
work, Agent Mulder, Agent Granger."

Mulder smiled at the memory of that. Padden was still pissed off at
him for going into the pub, and it looked like it had hurt him to say
it.

He returned his attention to the picture of Conner in his hand,
studying the face for a long moment. God, the guy was young, he
thought. He was also struck by how little information there was on
him. He'd clearly just become involved with the Path recently.

Only six years ago, Conner had been an electrician, working for his
father's business outside Ballycastle in Northern Ireland. Then one
run-in with the British for purchasing detonating wire, which he had
said was needed for a mining company he was rigging up explosives
for. They'd let him go when the story checked out.

Then, like everyone else in the Path it seemed, he'd disappeared
from sight, reappearing only as he crossed in through U.S. Customs in
New York two years ago on a work visa for an electrical business in
Boston -- one of the Campaign for Northern Ireland's front
businesses, no doubt. Then nothing again.

He pictured Scully with Danny in the hospital. Skinner said it had
sounded like the guy had suffered a lot while trying to go through
the withdrawal from the drug. Mulder felt badly for him, but worse
for Scully. He knew how helpless she would feel in the face of
something like that. He knew she was deeply invested in helping
Conner out. Skinner had told him she'd been reluctant to come out
because of her dedication to helping him and the other people in the
Path exposed to this horrible drug.

He put the file down, took a sip of his coffee, leaned back and
looked at Granger across the room. Granger was intent on a computer
screen, the image of the screen reflected in his glasses. He glanced
up, nodded, put up a finger. Mulder nodded back.

Then he smiled again. Though it had taken some doing to get Granger
interested in the project, he was warming to it now. Mulder's little
side project to find out about Sean Curran's mother. Granger was
trying to scare up some information on her using the CIA database
computer station.

Finally Granger stood, going to the printer, standing there
nervously as whatever he'd sent came out of the machine. He pulled it
out, walked across the room towards Mulder, through the groups of
people clustered here and there at various work stations across the
room. Mulder put the coffee cup down as Granger got to the desk,
looking up at him expectantly.

"I've got a name," Granger said softly, pulling up a chair from a
nearby desk and laying the piece of paper in front of Mulder. It was
a copy of a birth certificate. Sean Owen Curran's birth certificate,
showing his birthdate as August 29th, seven years ago.

"Her name was Elisa O'Shea Curran," Granger said, his voice still
pitched so only Mulder could hear him. He pointed to the line where
it said ^^mother's name." Mulder nodded.

"Did you run her name through the database?"

Granger nodded. "Yeah, I did, and the weirdest thing happened. When
I enter her name, it tells me that I don't have ^^adequate security
clearance' to be able to access the information. All the stuff on
Curran comes up, but not his wife? It doesn't make any sense."

Mulder's brow furrowed. Granger was right. It didn't make any sense.

His feeling that something fishy was going on grew more acute. He
glanced across the room to where another computer sat, unoccupied.

"Let's check the FBI database," Mulder said, and stood, smoothing
down his tie as he did so. He and Granger made their way slowly
across the room to the machine. Mulder sat, Granger taking up a place
behind him, and logged into the system. The FBI shield lit up the
screen, a search prompt at the bottom of it.

He put in Elisa Curran's name, waited as the computer cycled,
searching.

"Access Denied," it said. "Level Seven security clearance or higher
required."

"Shit," Mulder said under his breath. That would require someone as
high up as Skinner to get the information. And he'd hoped to not
involve Skinner in this.

He didn't have a choice now. There was something important here, and
he needed to know what it was. He had a very bad feeling about the
whole thing.

"What do we do now?" Granger asked quietly behind him.

Mulder considered for a moment, coming to a decision. "AD Skinner's
been called away to D.C. for a couple of days," he said, looking up
at Granger. "We'll have to wait until he gets back."

"You think he'll do it for us?" Granger asked doubtfully. "He might
be involved in covering up the information himself."

Mulder considered that, shook his head. "No, not Skinner," he said.
"If there's some sort of cover-up going on, he's not a part of it. He
would never do anything to put Scully in harm's way. I really believe
that."

Granger looked around the room to see if anyone was looking at them.
No one seemed to be. He blew out a breath. "It's hard to know who to
trust," he said, clearly frustrated.

Mulder leaned back, nodded. "Welcome to my world, Granger."

He logged off hastily. The screen went dark, the FBI's shield
blinking out of sight.

**********

J&J WAREHOUSE
THE BANKS OF THE JAMES
3:34 p.m.

It had taken a little while, but Danny had gotten used to the strong
smell of the fertilizer heaped to the ceiling of the truck, the thick
odor of the diesel fuel. He was standing in the back of the truck,
surrounded by the drums of the thick smelling fuel. And he was
willing his hands to stop shaking enough for him to be able to twist
the wiring that connected the drums to the small detonator and timer
attached to the side of the truck.

Beside the truck, Owen Curran and John Fagan stood, joking about
something. Danny had been nervous when they'd called him that
morning, not wanting to have much contact with them until he was
feeling better. He still felt like what had been through at the
hospital two nights ago showed on him terribly, and he didn't want to
arouse any suspicion.

He reached for his wire cutters out his tool box, tried to get them
in his grip. He fumbled, his hand shaking, and the cutters clambered
to the floor, then down into the snow behind the truck. Curran came
forward, lifted them up and wiped them on his pants leg, handed them
up to Danny.

"You're getting clumsy in your old age, Danny," Curran said good-
naturedly. Danny could see Owen watching his hand shake as he took
the cutters. He laughed nervously.

"Aye, that I am," he agreed immediately, and laughed again, turning
to the detonator box once again.

"You all right to be doing what you're doing then?" Owen pressed.
John Fagan had come up to stand behind him, both of them looking up
at Danny intently.

"I'm fine to be doing it," Danny replied hastily, cutting and then
twisting the final bit of wiring to the battery that would run the
detonator. The display lit up with red numbers, all zeros.

"All right, I'll trust you on that," Owen said, and he saw Fagan
smile out of the corner of his eye. Fagan was such a strange one,
Danny thought, shaking it off. He'd always found amusement in the
oddest things.

He wound the wire with some black electrical tape for good measure.
He wanted it to be neat, despite the fact that it really didn't
matter. He did things the way his father had taught him.
Meticulously. Even this. Especially this.

It was hard considering how bad he felt.

"All right, it's ready to be set," he said finally, replacing the
cutters and tape in the box. "Just say the word when you want it
done."

"I want you to go ahead and set it," Owen replied, and Danny looked
at him, surprised.

"This early?" he asked.

"Aye, you can do that, can't you? It doesn't matter how many hours
it's set for, right?"

Danny looked at the detonator, then back at Curran and Fagan. "Well,
no, it doesn't matter, but I would think you wouldn't want it armed
until Friday morning."

"No, I want you to go ahead and do it and be done with it," Curran
replied evenly.

Danny hesitated a beat more. Something was off about the request, to
be sure. Then, as Curran and Fagan continued to stare up at him
expectantly, he nodded.

"All right then...I'll go ahead and set it." He began to turn the
small knob on the side of the detonator, counting out hours. "Let's
see, that's...." He counted in his head. Friday, four days from now.
3:00 p.m. Curran had wanted plenty of time to make the drive that
morning.

He continued to roll the dial. It was right on 4:00 p.m. now, the
sun waning. That would make it 95 hours. He went ahead and set the
display to that number.

It glowed red in the dimness of the inside of the truck. Hours,
minutes and seconds.

His hand shaking, Danny reached down, touched a button. The
detonator beeped softly, and the seconds began to count down.

"It's done then," Danny said, looked at Curran, who nodded, gave him
a wide smile.

"Good work, Danny," he said amiably. "Now let's get the hell out of
here. It smells like shit."

Danny smiled, some of his nervousness ebbing with Curran's laugh
that followed his words. Fagan laughed, too, a soft chuckle. Danny
sat on the edge of the truck, slid down, his feet crunching in the
snow and he landed. He and Curran pulled the back door of the truck
down and Curran put the padlock on it, gave the lock a satisfied tug.

"Let's go get a beer," Curran said as they shuffled back to Fagan's
car. "What do you say, Danny? A beer to celebrate your job being
done?"

"Yeah, sure," Danny replied, smiling a little at the thought. He
liked this particular job being done. "I'll have a pint with you."

"There's a good man," Fagan said, and gave Danny a slap on the back.
It was just a touch too hard and Danny had to struggle to hold his
balance on the slick ground. Curran and Fagan laughed as he stumbled.
Danny laughed, too. He really was getting clumsy.

They climbed into the car, Danny taking his place in the back seat
as Fagan drove and Curran took the passenger's seat. Fagan started up
the engine, turned the car around and headed up the snow-covered
access road carefully, then onto River Road that would take them back
towards the city. Curran turned on the radio, music lilting into the
car's cabin.

In the back seat, Danny felt himself beginning to relax, his fatigue
settling over him, let himself drift with the music, closing his eyes
for a few long moments.

The meeting had made him miss seeing Dr. Black today, but he could
always do that tomorrow. He should have a lot of free time now, time
to himself. He could concentrate on spending time with Black now,
working on getting himself off the drug.

Speaking of which, it was time for another dose. He'd used up
everything he'd had on him yesterday. But he could get more at the
pub when they got there. There was always plenty there.

He opened his eyes, looking out the window at the city in front of
him, at Curran and Fagan's silent forms in the front seat. They were
on Broad Street now, on the other side of the city fr