After a moment’s indecision, Scully picked the phone
back up and dialed a
second number. As she waited for an answer, she wondered how
Mulder had
made the connection to this particular subway station. She hoped he
hadn’t just
been guessing, or soon both of them were going to look awfully foolish.
“Brentwell.”
“Agent Brentwell, it’s Dana Scully. I just
got a message from Mulder. He
seems to think that our guy’s going to hit the Eastern Market station
tonight.
I’ve alerted Metro security there, but I thought maybe we should get
some
of our own team over there to check it out.”
“Mulder figured it out? How? What’s the connection
between these stations?”
“I don’t know. I haven’t been able to reach him
on his cellphone. His message
just said that he thought he’d figured out the pattern and he was going
down there
to look around.”
“Well, what do you think, Agent Scully?”
** I think I have a bad feeling about this, ** she
thought to herself. Out loud
she said, “If Mulder says this is the place, I think it’s in our best
interest to
assemble the team and get them down there. Maybe we can catch this
guy
tonight.”
A few minutes later, Scully hung up the phone feeling
slightly better about
the situation. At least now Mulder would have backup if he needed it,
regardless
of whether or not it was wanted. She headed towards what was now destined
to be her not-so-nice, not-so-long, tepid soak in a bubble-free tub.
Eastern Market Metro Station
Thursday
9:30pm
Scully strode into the Eastern Market subway station
forty-five minutes later,
her eyes scanning the throng of people for the tall form of her partner.
She didn’t
find Mulder, but did manage to pick out Agent Brentwell where he appeared
to
be briefing a combined group of FBI agents and Metro security officers.
“…and I want each team to check in with me via radio
every ten minutes.
Report any and all suspicious activity, no matter how insignificant
it may seem.
We still don’t know how this guy is making off with his victims, nor
do we know
where he takes them once they leave the train stations. It’s best to
err on the side
of caution, so I want to act first, and ask questions later. I want
to catch this psycho
tonight before he has the chance to hurt another innocent person. Good
luck!”
The group began to disperse, breaking up into smaller
teams of two before
heading to their assigned areas. Brentwell turned to Scully as she
approached.
“Everything seems pretty quiet here so far, but
we’re more than ready if he
shows up.”
“Where’s Agent Mulder?”
“According to the Officer in Charge here, Mulder
never showed up. Maybe
he decided this wasn’t the place after all.”
Scully frowned in concentration. Surely Mulder would
have called her back
by now if he’d discovered his hunch was incorrect?
“Is Officer Brown certain that Mulder was never
here? Maybe he came and
left without speaking to security.”
Brentwell gave her a puzzled look. “Who’s Officer
Brown?”
“Stuart Brown, the chief Metro security officer
on duty here tonight,” she answered
matter-of-factly. “I spoke with him earlier, right before I called
you.”
The other agent flipped open a small blue notebook
and scanned what he’d written
there. “No, it’s Johnson, not Brown. Keith Johnson. He’s right over
there.” Scully was
halfway to the man in question before Agent Brentwell had finished
speaking.
“Officer Johnson?” she queried. At his affirmative
nod, she continued. “I’m Special
Agent Dana Scully. Are you the officer in charge of this station this
evening?”
“Yes, I am. Can I help you with something?”
“I called here earlier and spoke with someone who
told me he was the commanding
security officer. Do you know a Stuart Brown?” Her no-nonsense tone
stated
clearly ‘someone here is lying, and I want to know who it is’.
Recognition lit the man’s features as he rushed
to clear up this slight misunderstanding.
“Yes ma’am, Stu is my superior, and if he were still
here, he would be the commanding
officer. He went home early tonight. He wasn’t feeling very well.”
“When was this? I spoke to him less than an hour
ago.”
“It was around five ‘til nine. Maybe ten or fifteen
minutes before Agent Brentwell and
his team arrived.”
“Are you certain? That’s only about ten minutes
after I talked to him. He didn’t mention
that he might be leaving early.”
“Yes ma’am, I’m sure of the time. It was about five
minutes after the false alarm, which
took place at approximately 8:50pm.”
“I’m sorry,” she answered, not understanding. “The
false alarm?”
“We got a call that someone had hit the panic button
in the elevator that goes up to
street level, at the same time that we temporarily lost the visual
surveillance system.
Thinking it may be our guy trying to make off with another victim,
we locked the elevator
down and rushed up there, but the car was empty. There must’ve been
a short or maybe
a power surge in the system.”
“Does that happen often? Losing the cameras like
that?”
“Often? No. But it’s not unheard of. The way everything
relies on computers so heavily
these days, you learn to expect a few technical difficulties from time
to time. We were lucky
tonight, though. Stu’s a computer wiz, and he got the cameras back
up in no time.”
“I see. So Officer Brown stayed behind to work on
the video problem while the rest of
you went up to check the elevator, is that correct?”
“Yes ma’am.”
“Did anyone stay behind with him?”
“No ma’am. He said he could handle it, and if that
nutcase was up in the elevator, we’d
need all the help we could get. May I ask, why are you so interested
in that incident? Like
I said, it turned out to be a false alarm.”
She gave the officer a reassuring half-smile. “It’s
nothing. This case is just getting to me,
I guess. Thank you for your time.”
As she was turning away from Officer Johnson, Brentwell
approached.
“I’m not sure he’s going to put in an appearance
tonight, but I’m going to keep some of
the team here anyway, just in case. You look exhausted, Scully. Why
don’t you go home
and get some sleep? We’ve got this covered, and I’ll call you if we
see any action.”
He noted her hesitation and tried to reassure her.
“I’m sure your partner is fine. He probably
figured out he had the wrong place and stopped on the way home for
a drink. Don’t worry.”
Dana Scully’s apartment
Friday
5:05am
Scully awoke with a start to find herself still on
her couch with the television on,
where she must have fallen asleep while waiting for Mulder to call.
She stumbled into the kitchen in search of caffeine,
hoping to clear away the fatigue
that only a night passed sleeping upright on a couch can produce. She
started a pot of
coffee brewing and decided to try her partner’s number once again.
It had now been eight and a half hours since she’d
received his message, and she
was finding it more and more difficult to contain her worry. Even if
he’d gotten in late,
he should have called by now. Mulder had absolutely no compunction
about calling
her in the middle of the night. His philosophy was, I’m up, so why
wouldn’t everyone
else be? And she had left a message on his machine telling him to call
when he got in,
no matter the hour.
Calls to both cell and home phones unsuccessful,
Scully decided to do what she
always ended up doing when Mulder ditched her. She got dressed, poured
herself a
cup of coffee for the road, and drove to her partner’s apartment to
try and figure out
where the hell he had gone this time.
Fox Mulder’s apartment
Friday
5:40am
Scully knocked on the door of apartment number 42
and then used her key to let
herself in without waiting for a response. She called out his name
softly, not at all
surprised by the lack of reply.
The coffee table in front of his couch bore the
evidence of the previous night’s
activities. The case file he’d taken from the Hoover building was spread
over its entire
surface, almost completely covering the pizza box, which contained
the remainder of his
dinner. A rolled up map of the subway system was being held open by
a half-consumed
can of Diet Coke.
Scully sat down on his couch, looking over the photos,
maps, and pages containing
Mulder’s notes, trying to decide which piece of paper was the one that
had prompted
him towards the Eastern Market metro station. Her eyes were drawn to
a yellow sheet
of legal paper in the center of the table that contained a list of
subway stops written in
her partner’s familiar handwriting:
Virginia Square-GMU Station – 05/16/00 – 6th stop orange line (VA)
– Allison Broomall taken
Arlington Cemetery – 05/19/00– 9th stop blue line (VA)
– Allison Broomall found – poison
Eisenhower Ave. – 05/20/00 – 20th stop blue/19th stop orange (DC)
– Mary Packman taken
Navy Yard Station – 05/23/00 – 15th stop green line (DC)
– Mary Packman found – gunshot
New Carrollton Station – 05/24/00 – last stop orange line (MD)
– Nancy Wright taken
College Park Station – 05/27/00 – 2nd stop green line (MD)
– Nancy Wright found – beaten
Glenmont Station – 05/28/00 – last stop red line (MD)
– John Jasen taken
East Falls Church Station – 05/31/00 – 4th stop orange line (VA)
– John Jasen found – eviscerated
This in itself led to no particular revelations.
Scully had been with Mulder
the previous day when he’d taken these notes. What drew her attention,
and
prompted a sudden gasp of awareness, was what he had written below
them.
Virginia Square – 1st abduction
Eisenhower Avenue – 2nd abduction
New Carrollton – 3rd abduction
Glenmont – 4th abduction
E -??? – 5th abduction
Arlington Cemetery – 1st body
Navy Yard – 2nd body
College Park – 3rd body
East Falls Church – 4th body
VENGEANCE
A quick glance at the list of subway stations confirmed
what Mulder had already
figured out. There were only three stops that began with the letter
‘E’, and two of
them had already been the scene of either an abduction or a body dump.
That left
one possible Metro station to fill in the missing ‘E’ stop. Eastern
Market.
Scully wondered briefly what the next station in
the sequence could possibly be
now that the word was completed, and then found herself hoping that
she wouldn’t
have to find out. If she did, that would mean her partner was lost
to her forever.
Using Mulder’s phone, she dialed the now-familiar
number and waited for a
response.
“Brentwell.”
“Agent Brentwell, it’s Agent Scully…”
“Agent Scully! I can’t say I’m sorry to inform you
that your partner must’ve
been wrong.”
The man sounded positively jovial. “We had a quiet
night here, and no one has
turned up missing as of yet. As a matter of fact, as far as we know,
no one’s been
reported missing from any of the stations. Maybe our killer decided
to give us a
break, and offed himself instead.”
“No,” she said quietly, “Mulder was right.”
“But I just told you, no one was taken last night.
If the killer were going to stick
to his established pattern, he would’ve taken his next victim sometime
last night.”
“I’m calling to tell you, Chris, that someone was
taken last night. And I’m willing
to bet that he was taken from Eastern Market.”
“Who?” the agent questioned, clearly confused.
“Mulder.”
After explaining to Brentwell the method by which
Mulder had determined where the killer
would show up next, Scully repeated the conversation she’d had with
Officer Johnson
the previous night regarding the so-called “false alarm” with the cameras
and the elevator.
“I know it’s a long shot, but I think we need to
take a look at the guard who went home
sick. Stuart Brown. I personally spoke to the man no more than ten
minutes before he
supposedly became too ill to remain at work, and let me tell you, he
didn’t sound sick to
me. And he certainly didn’t mention the possibility that he’d be leaving
anytime soon.
According to Officer Johnson, Brown is some kind of computer genius.
What if he created
the problems with the cameras and the elevator as a way of distracting
the other security
officers? What if – what if he knocked Mulder unconscious, as we believe
was done with
the other victims, took out the cameras and created a little diversion
for the other guards
so that he could get Mulder out of the building without being seen,
and then came back in
to “fix” the problem and save the day? Then, not wanting to leave his
prize alone for too long
lest he wake up, he suddenly develops a terrible case of the flu and
leaves.” Even as she
heard herself spouting the theory, Scully realized how farfetched it
sounded. But at the
same time, it felt right.
“That doesn’t explain how he got the other victims.
If he’d been working at each metro
station at the time they had an abduction, that would’ve come up during
the background
checks. And it certainly would’ve come up if there had been the same
sort of “distractions”
at the other stations prior to the other disappearances.”
Scully was starting to understand how Mulder felt
when she shot down one of his crazy
ideas.
“Look Brentwell, I don’t know what to tell you.
Maybe – maybe he takes them a
different way each time, in much the same way that each manner of death
is different.
Perhaps he has only worked at this station, and for that reason, saved
it last in this little
game of his. We did decide that our killer probably works for the Transit
Authority, right?
I’m only asking that you have him checked out. It may be a weak lead,
but right now it’s
the only lead we have.”
She heard the heavy sigh through the phone and knew
he was giving in. “Ok Scully,
you win. I’ll put somebody on it right away. I’ll tell you what though,
if Mulder turns up
safe and sound, I’m gonna have to hurt him.”
Scully smiled ruefully into the receiver. “You’d
have to get in line.”
Replacing the phone in its cradle, she noticed the
message light blinking on the attached
answering machine. Figuring that the messages were all from her, yet
willing to try anything
at this point to glean some clue as to his whereabouts, she hit the
playback button. As
predicted, a familiar feminine voice filled the room.
“Hey Mulder it’s me. Listen, we need to have
a talk about this nasty habit you’ve got
of running around with a dead cellphone battery. Call me when you
get in, ok? I don’t
care what time it is. Just call me.”
Beep.
The next voice was one Scully didn’t recognize,
and was decidedly masculine.
“Agent Mulder, this is, uh, never mind, you don’t
need to know who this is. I believe
we have a mutual acquaintance in Melvin Frohike? He gave me your
number. Anyway,
you can call me, uh, Wolf, yeah, call me The Wolf, and the reason
for my call is
something that I can’t get into over an unsecured line, but I believe
I have some
information that you will be interested in. I have in my possession
some documents
that prove without a doubt that the US Government has known for
years about the
existence of leprechauns and has been suppressing that information.
Oh shit,
unsecured line. Anyway…I guess you’re not there, so I’ll try to
reach you again
tomorrow…Oh yeah, destroy this tape as soon as you’re done listening
to it.”
Ordinarily Scully would’ve had a good laugh over
the paranoid musings of Mulder’s
mysterious “informant”, and would most certainly have teased him about
it mercilessly
in the future, but she found herself unable to focus on anything the
man said after the
words “call me The Wolf”. Scully was only dimly aware of hearing the
last two messages,
both her own, as she fought to bring the elusive memory that particular
moniker stirred to
the surface of her mind. Why was that so familiar? She spoke out loud,
testing the word
on her tongue. “Wolf, The Wolf…” Suddenly she had a flashback from
Saturday when
she had read aloud to Mulder the letter from Dorothy Williams. “I can
only pray that
when the wolf comes to call…”
She gasped as she was forced to confront the fear
that had gripped her ever since
receiving that letter. The fear that it was all true. If she believed
in the power of the
bracelet, then she’d have to believe Dorothy’s prediction that someone
she cared
about would be lost to her, perhaps forever.
Closing her eyes, she took several slow, deep breaths,
trying to calm the unsettled
feeling in the pit of her stomach. ** Get a grip, Dana. Tossing your
cookies all over
Mulder’s living room isn’t going to help get him back. ** Opening her
eyes and
strengthening her resolve, Scully decided it was time to face her fears
and go find
her partner.
End Chapter Six
On to Chapter Seven..
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