“Then what about the spray paint?”
Junis watched another truck pass. “Because she believes it, Agent Scully. She believes it as sure as you believe there ain’t no such thing. That doesn’t mean she’s certifiable.”
Scully wasn’t so sure about that, but she didn’t know enough to pursue it. Instead she asked about the other witness.
“Fran?” Junis lowered his gaze to the garden. “I can take you to her, if you want, but she won’t do you a whole lot of good.”
“Why not?”
His expression hardened. “The heroin she took that night was damn close to an overdose. I brought her to a facility up near Princeton.” He paused. “A mental rehab, by the way, we don’t have anything like that around here. She was pretty far gone.” He lit another cigarette and blew smoke into the wind. “She’ll recover from the overdose most likely, but as for the other… she isn’t going to be released for a long, long time.”
Swell, she thought; just what I need—an addict who probably can’t even recognize her own reflection. Interviewing Fran Kuyser quickly dropped toward the bottom of her list.
“Do you sit out here a lot?” Andrews asked then, not bothering to look at him.
He nodded to Dana, not at all fazed by the sudden change of subject. “Guess I do, come to think of it. I like to watch the world drive by, see who’s going where. People around here, those that work on post or at McGuire, they have their military doctors, and the others…” He shrugged. “Not a lot left, but I guess you already noticed that.”
Scully also noticed that he didn’t seem to mind. Although he was too young to step down yet, he appeared to be resigned that this practice wasn’t going to get him a retirement home in a better location, and that, for whatever reason, was all right with him.
“Oh, we have our moments,” he said, startling her. “And it beats all to hell working an ER.”
She wasn’t inclined to disagree, thanked him for his time, and told him where she was staying in case he thought of something else.
“I already know that,” he said. And grinned.
Back in the car, Andrews shook her head in disbelief. “You know, you can’t breathe around here without somebody knowing it. Hardly any privacy at all.” She forced herself to shudder. “That’s too weird for me.”
Dana grunted, but she wasn’t really listening. There was something not quite right here, something she and the others had missed. She didn’t think it was tied directly to the killings, but it was, somehow, important. Small, but important. She knew Mulder felt it as well. In spite of the afternoon’s attack, she knew it bothered him, and maybe by the time they returned to the hotel and he had rested, he would know what it was.
As long, she added glumly, as he doesn’t call it a damn goblin.
The motel lights were all on when they returned, highlighting the crown facade, flooding the parking lot with dull silver, making the clouds seem even lower and thicker than they were. After sending Andrews to fetch her interview notes, she pushed through Mulder’s door just in time to hear him say, “…a multitude of sins.”
“What sins?” she demanded. “And why aren’t you in bed?”
He sat in shirtsleeves at the room’s tiny table, his back to the wall, papers spread in front of him. Webber was on the bed, propped up by pillows, knees drawn up to serve as a rest for a legal pad.
“Hi, Scully,” Mulder said. “I’m cured.”
Webber refused to meet the rebuke in her eyes as she dropped into the chair across the table. “You’re not cured, and you’ve been working.” But the scolding was, as always, a waste of time; he would only give her one of two looks—the hurt little boy, or the sly-fox, lopsided grin—and do what he wanted anyway.
He settled for the grin. “We’ve been checking up on Major Tonero.”
“It’s weird,” Webber commented from the bed. “His office confirms he’s head of Air Force Special Projects, like he told us, but they wouldn’t explain what that means.”
“Which,” Mulder continued, “covers a multitude of sins.” He shook his head slowly. “Curiouser and curiouser. Why would an Air Force major, who isn’t even medical personnel, be assigned to an Air Force hospital on an Army post? Which, for the most part, is used as training for reservists, and a jumping-off point when troops have to get overseas in a hurry.” Then he pointed at her before she could answer. “And don’t tell me there’s a perfectly rational explanation.”
Oh, Lord, she thought; he’s in one of his moods.
“And,” Webber added eagerly, “why would he be so interested in the ambush? And why were his people there, too? Those two doctors, scientists, whatever.”
Scully stared at him for so long, he began to look embarrassed. “Well… it’s a good question, isn’t it?” He scratched the back of his head. “I mean, isn’t it?”
“Yes, Hank, it is,” Mulder said when Scully didn’t answer. “And I’ll bet I have a possible answer.”
“Mulder,” Scully said, her voice low and warning. “Do not read into this more than there is.”
“Oh, I’m not,” he protested lightly. “I’m not even going to begin to suggest that maybe these goblins have something to do with the major.” He leaned back in his chair. “I wouldn’t think of it.”
“Of course you wouldn’t,” she said. “Because you already have. Now look, we’ve got a—”
Andrews walked in then, smiled a not very sincere apology for being late, took a reluctant seat on the bed, and said, “So now what?”
Dana checked her watch; it was after five. “So now I think we’d better break for a while and have something to eat.” A look shut Mulder up. “There’s been too damn much excitement around here, and I want us to cool down for a while before we end up on horses.”
“What?” Hank said.
“A definition of confusion,” Mulder explained, hands clasped behind his head. “He jumped up on his horse and rode off in all directions.” He winked. “Scully likes wise sayings like that. She hordes fortune cookies, you know.”
Hank laughed; Andrews only snorted and shook her head.
Dana, for her part, did her best not to react, because she recognized the signs—he was high on an idea, the bits and pieces of the puzzle beginning to give him some kind of picture. The problem with him was, that picture was often one no one else saw but him.
It was what made working with him at once so fascinating and so damn exasperating.
Rather than try to derail him, however, it was better to give him his head and go along for the ride. For a while.
So she suggested they clean up and meet in the restaurant in half an hour or so for coffee. Her tone brooked no argument. When Andrews left without a word, Scully’s expression sent Hank along as well, deciding it would be a good thing to take a walk around the building.
When they were alone, Mulder’s expression sobered. “I saw it, Scully. I’m not kidding, I really saw it.”
“Mulder, don’t start.”
He spread his hands on the table. “It’s not like I’m the only one, you know. Even Chief Hawks admitted there were others.” He held up a palm to keep her quiet. “I saw it—okay, just a glimpse—but I also touched it. It wasn’t my imagination, it wasn’t wishful thinking. I touched it, Scully. It was real.”
She leaned away from him, thinking. Then: “I’ll grant you it was real. He was real. But it wasn’t any goblin, no supernatural creature.”
“The skin—”
“Camouflage. Come on, Mulder, Fort Dix is a training base. That means there are personnel who are experts in all sorts of weaponry… and camouflage. God knows how elaborate they can be, but it’s probably a lot more now than just smearing greasepaint on your face.”
He tried to stand, grimaced, and sagged back. “My jacket.”
It had been tossed on the dresser. She fetched it and looked it over.
“I hit it twice, once pretty hard.” He leaned forward under the light. “There’s nothing there, Scully. No p
aint, no oil, no nothing.”
She dropped the jacket onto the bed. “A suit, that’s all. Skin-tight, latex, who knows? No goblins, Mulder. Just people in disguise.” She pointed at the bed. “Lie down.”
She knew he still wasn’t feeling well when he made no cracks, just nodded wearily and shifted stiffly to the mattress. As he settled down, she brought him a glass of water and aspirin and watched him drink.
“What about the major and his people?” he asked. His eyelids fluttered. “Hank’s right, that’s kind of fishy.”
“Later,” she ordered. “You’re not doing anybody any good, least of all yourself, when you can’t think straight.” Her frown deepened. “Get some rest. I’m not kidding. I’ll drop by later to see how you’re doing.”
“What about the others?”
She smiled prettily and headed for the door. “Oh, I think we’ll manage. We’ll muddle through somehow.”
She opened the door and looked over her shoulder. He hadn’t closed his eyes; he was staring at the ceiling.
Then his gaze shifted. “Scully, what if I’m right?”
“Rest.”
“What if I’m right? What if they’re out there?”
She stepped out, the door closing behind her. “They’re not, Mulder. For God’s sake, rest, before I—”
“How do you know they’re not? You can’t see them, Scully. They’re out there, somewhere, and you can’t see them.”
FOURTEEN
The room was empty.
Rosemary didn’t really expect to find anyone there; it was too soon after the woodland incident, and it also wasn’t easy for it to get away without being noticed.
What she hadn’t expected, however, and what frightened her, was the destruction.
She stood on the threshold, one hand absently rubbing her arm, a faint chill slipping across the back of her back. Although she couldn’t hear it, she swore she could feel the wind pummeling the hospital, could feel the building’s weight settling on her shoulders.
The notion made her angry, but she couldn’t shake it off.
Damn, she thought, and passed a weary hand over her eyes.
The mattress had been sliced open in a score of places, the stuffing strewn across the floor; the desk was overturned, one leg snapped off; the chair was little more than splinters.
The Blue Boy had been yanked off the wall and shredded.
In its place, scrawled in black letters:
I’m looking for you.
Major Tonero sat at his desk, hands folded on the blotter, staring at the telephone.
He was neither panicked nor overconfident, but since leaving the site of the shooting, he had begun to review his options. By the time he had stopped pacing the office, he knew what had to be done. And it galled him. Not that he considered the Project a failure; too much had been learned from it, too much progress gained. No, what galled him was—
The telephone rang.
He listened to it without moving.
At the seventh ring he cleared his throat and picked up the receiver.
“Good afternoon, sir,” was followed without prompting by a detailed summary of what had happened that afternoon, and what connection he suspected it had with the two incidents he had previously reported to those in charge. He spoke crisply and flatly, no emotion at all. When he finished, he listened.
He did not interrupt, speaking only when asked a question, his spine rigid, his free hand still flat on the blotter.
The voice at the other end was calm, a good sign, but he did not, could not, put himself at ease.
When the conversation arrived at the crux, thirty minutes had passed.
The last question was asked.
Tonero nodded. “Yes, sir, I do, with your permission.” He inhaled slowly. “I believe it’s time to explore other venues; there are several mentioned in my December report. This one, through no fault of ours, has been contaminated. I also believe the additional personnel now on site will not be put off, most especially after this afternoon’s incident. That they are from the Bureau means we can neither control nor contain them with any true degree of effectiveness or guarantee of success. However, I have no doubt we can make the transfer without discovery, and then the Bureau people can investigate all they want. They won’t find a thing.”
He listened again, and for the first time, he smiled.
“Yes, sir, I do believe you’re right—sometimes you win, sometimes you lose. But we are still light years ahead of where we were the last time. This, I think, argues well for our eventual success.”
His smile broadened.
“Thank you, sir, I appreciate that.”
The smile vanished.
“Indispensable? No, sir, to be honest, he is not. His objectivity and full commitment have been lost, I believe, and, frankly, his nerves are shot. I do not believe another relocation would be in the Project’s best interest. Dr. Elkhart, however, has been most helpful. It would be a severe loss if she were not to remain.”
He waited.
He listened.
“Forty-eight hours, sir.”
He nodded.
He replaced the receiver and for several long seconds sat without moving.
Then, as if he’d been struck across the shoulders, he sagged, and whispered, “Jesus!”
His hands began to tremble, and there was sweat on his brow.
Barelli sat at a window table in the diner, beginning to wonder if he had, in fact, wasted his time. Not that he didn’t doubt his reporter’s skills; that he was good was a given. But after nearly an hour with that police sergeant, with some comments from the others as they drifted in and out of the station, he had learned practically nothing he hadn’t known before—Frankie was dead, the killer was still out there, and nobody had a clue what the hell was going on.
And that goblin shit—Jesus Christ, what the hell did they think he was?
A round-faced wall clock over the register ticked closer to six as he sipped at cold coffee and stared at the traffic. The weather hadn’t discouraged anyone, it seemed. Men in uniform, soldiers in civilian clothes trying not to look like soldiers, strolled or drove past, filling the diner, moving into the bars that served food, lingering in front of the movie theater a block west of the police station.
Friday night in the middle of nowhere.
His stomach complained of all the caffeine he had drunk, and he popped an antacid tablet into his mouth, chewed it absently, and wondered what the hell he was going to do now. Of course, there was still that “date” with Babs Radnor to keep. If he wanted to. And right about now, it looked as if it was the only game in town.
Another antacid, another scan of the street, and he dropped a few bills onto the table and went outside.
He scowled at the overcast. He hated this kind of day. If it was going to rain, he wished it would do it and be done with it; otherwise, why the hell didn’t those clouds just blow away?
He headed for the corner; his car was still parked in front of the police station.
Along the way he passed an old woman dressed in black from a heavy topcoat to a long scarf wrapped around her head. She held a large purse close to her chest, and an idle glance there made him stop and turn slowly.
What he had seen was the orange top of a spray paint can, and it didn’t take a genius to figure out who she was.
He hurried after her, came abreast and said, “Miss Lang?”
She stopped and glared up at him. “Ms. Lang, if you don’t mind. Who are you?”
“I’m a reporter,” he explained, best smile, best voice. “I’m looking into the …” He lowered his voice, slipping her into his confidence. “Into the goblin affair.”
He waited patiently, watching her debate both the truth and the sincerity of what he had said.
A bus coughed past them.
Three young airmen on the corner broke into song.
Elly Lang eyed him suspiciously. “You think I’m a nut?”
“He killed a friend
of mine. That’s not crazy at all.” When she didn’t walk away, he touched her arm lightly. “I’d be pleased if you’d join me for dinner.”
“And pump me, right?” she snapped.
The smile turned up a notch. “That, and for the company.”
She shook her head. “You’re full of it, mister, but I’m not going to pass up a free meal.” She took his arm and led him up the street. “You going to be cheap, or are we going someplace good?”
He didn’t laugh, but he wanted to; instead, he promised her the best meal this town could provide, which seemed, for the moment, to satisfy her. And as long as he didn’t run into Mulder or Scully, he had a feeling this was going to be a most informative, and lucrative, night.
Tonero wasn’t in his office, wasn’t anywhere on post that she could tell, but Rosemary ordered herself not to panic. There was still time to make corrections. There was still time to salvage something of the years she had put in.
She returned to the hospital, nodding silently to the receptionist and making her way down a corridor to an elevator stenciled authorized personnel only. From her pocket she took a small key ring and inserted a silver key into a vertical slot where, ordinarily, a summons button would be. When the door slid aside, she checked the hall and stepped in.
The key took her down.
She didn’t bother to watch the floor indicator; the elevator only stopped at three levels—the second floor, where the major’s office was, the main floor, and a subbasement.
The car stuttered to a halt and the door opened; she stared uneasily down the length of the dimly lighted corridor.
It seemed a lot longer tonight, and her heels a lot louder on the concrete floor.
[X-Files 01] - Goblins Page 11