01 - Goblins (14 page)

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 paint, 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.”

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.