Mulder walked cautiously into the dining room and placed his bags of food and rented videos on the table. He saw a thin cloud of smoke wafting its way towards him, and spotted a tiny, orange glow in a corner of the darkened living room. Mulder stepped to the doorway and reached his hand in to turn on the dimmer switch. Two light sconces on the wall nearest him richly illuminated the room and his uninvited guest seated comfortably in his leather recliner. The place was in total disarray as though someone had been carelessly searching for something.
"What, you don't have a date tonight either?" Mulder asked.
"You've been a busy man, Dr. Mulder," were the mystery man's first words.
"I know there's no sign posted, but I don't allow smoking in my house. And don't put it out on my carpet," he warned.
The man took one final drag, then leaned forward and smashed the cigarette butt out on the ballerina statue on the coffee table in front of him. That was it. Mulder decided not to play placid anymore. He started in a threatening manner towards the bastard, but stopped dead in his tracks when he heard a single click from the staircase. He looked up to see the barrel of a gun covered with a silencer, pointed directly at him. A cross between a man and a gorilla was the one doing the pointing.
"As I was saying, Dr. Mulder," said the smoker, to grab the young doctor's attention again, "you've been a busy little fellow. Where are the documents?"
"I'm sorry, but I don't know what you're talking about."
"Oh, I think you do. I want to know who gave you the directions and the entrance codes to the complex."
"I'm still not following," said Mulder, feigning ignorance.
"And of course I want to know who else you've told."
"Look, I've got some Chinese takeout and a couple of movies if you and your friend would like to just kick back for a while."
A second man, looking to be a close relative to the gunman appeared from out of one of the upstairs rooms. "No trace," was his only comment as he descended the stairs.
"Dr. Mulder is being uncooperative," the smoker told his men. "See what you can do about it."
Mulder didn't wait around to see how they planned to carry out that order. He whirled about and made a dash for the kitchen. Before he was able to reach the back door, he felt a pair of iron arms embracing him tightly from behind. They locked around his chest, pinning his arms to his sides and began to squeeze the air from his lungs. The arms lifted him and spun him about to face a huge pair of fists that took turns plowing first into his gut, then into his face. He tasted blood as it dripped from his nose to blend with what was oozing from the split in his lower lip. The barrage of furious fists stopped abruptly just before he was about to pass out from the assault. He was half-walked, half-dragged into the dining room and sat down in a chair at the table. The smell of the Sweet & Sour chicken and egg drop soup in the bag on the table made him nauseous. Somehow he managed to fight back the urge to spew what little he'd eaten that day. An arm was wrapped snugly about his neck and it was all he could do to get a little air through to his lungs.
The smoker came forward and stood at the opposite end of the table. "Are you feeling more cooperative now, Dr. Mulder?"
Mulder looked at the man with tears forming in his eyes. He was ashamed of himself for crying like a schoolboy getting beat up by the school bullies. But he had never been beat up before. He had always been popular in school and his worst confrontation had only been a shoving match which he luckily won. But he hurt now, really hurt, and the tears came automatically.
"Where are the documents?" the man across from him asked once more.
The grip about his neck was loosened in order for him to reply. After a brief bout of coughing and sniffling, he wiped the blood from his lips and responded in a raspy voice. "I... I destroyed them."
"And why would you do that?"
"I was... I was afraid I'd get in trouble if someone found them in my possession."
"Who gave you the directions and the access code?"
"I don't know. Someone left an envelope on my car windshield. The information and a plane ticket were inside."
"You're very impulsive then, Dr. Mulder. Someone leaves you a plane ticket and an address, and you're on your merry way. How did you know that I didn't leave them for you?"
"I don't," said Mulder quickly. "A note promised answers about some of my patients. My curiosity got the better of me." So far, so good, he thought. The asshole seemed to be buying his story.
"Who else have you told?"
Mulder considered how much of the truth he should tell. The man had to have known that Dana Scully knew. He had to have known about the FBI investigation. Hopefully, his knowledge extended no further. "I told Agent Scully about her sister and five of my patients. I was thinking about telling those five patients, but I changed my mind. I think it might be somewhat detrimental to their mental health."
"Who else did you tell, Dr. Mulder?"
"No one. No one else."
Once again, his answer was questioned as the smoker repeated himself. "Who else did you tell, Dr. Mulder?"
"I didn't tell anybody else," Mulder reiterated, raising his voice.
The smoker lit up another cigarette and blew the smoke purposely in Mulder's direction. His eyes lifted upwards towards the man with his arm about Mulder's neck. He gave the slightest of nods and Mulder felt the iron grip tighten around his Adam's apple. He struggled helplessly to pry the arm away, but it held on, applying even more pressure against his windpipe. He was seconds away from losing consciousness when the pressure suddenly disappeared and air began gushing back into his lungs. The smoke he was forced to inhale did little to ease his coughing. His adversary took pity on him to a degree, blowing his smoke in another direction and requesting a glass of water be given to the doctor.
"You passed on the information to a computer hacker," the smoker stated casually, as Mulder nursed his water. "Several federal computers were breached and information on a number of individuals was downloaded. Would you care to change your story now?"
"Okay. I didn't destroy the documents. I was going to. I had them in my briefcase... which was stolen when I stopped at a red light and some punk came to my window and pointed a gun in my face demanding money. He took the briefcase, thinking that something valuable was in it."
He knew it was the worst lie he'd ever told and he knew it would not be given consideration. His eyes flashed fearfully from the remaining contents in his glass to the man across from him. The man wore an unreadable expression. He wasn't even looking at Mulder, but instead had found interest in a picture frame on the wall. It was a large frame with a mat of a dozen different shaped cutouts. Each cutout held a separate photograph. The smoker stood and moved closer to view the pictures. They were all family pictures, mostly of Mulder and his sister from babyhood to adulthood. Samantha had put it together and given it to him for his thirtieth birthday.
"I can tell by these pictures that you love your sister very much, Dr. Mulder."
A new fear grew in Mulder's heart. "Damn you, don't you touch her!" he screamed and attempted to lunge himself at his foe. A hand effortlessly pushed him back down in the chair and held him pinned by the shoulder.
"Oh, I won't touch her," the man assured him. "But the boys here...." He gave a nod towards the two gorillas passing as humans. "I understand she's gone out on a date now. We could all go on over there and wait for her to return."
"Please," Mulder begged. "Leave her out of this. She has nothing to do with this."
"Then it's up to you to keep her out. Tell me what I want to know."
He had no other choice. He would not place his sister's life on the line. "You were right. I gave the documents to a computer hacker and I asked him to check out all the people on the list. He said he found out that they are either all dead or gone missing."
"What else?"
Mulder was hesitant, but he knew the man would settle for nothing less than the complete truth. "He said that the people were test subjects. There wasn't enough info to say what kind of testing was performed, but that the majority of the people were servicemen or government employees and their family members. He speculated it was probably because it was easier for the government to keep track of the medical records of its own employees. That's all he found out. I swear that's all."
"Where can we find him?"
"Why, so you can kill him? Look, he's no threat to you. I can tell him to trash the files, to forget the whole thing."
"All right," the smoker responded a bit too quickly. He instructed one of his apes to go get the cordless phone from the living room. When it was placed in his hand, he brought the kitchen phone in and set it before Mulder. "Call him. Ask him to come over. I'd like to meet him and decide for myself if he can be trusted."
"It doesn't work like that."
"No?"
"He would never come straight to my house. I call him and ask for a meeting. If he agrees to meet, he sets the time and place."
"Ask to meet within the hour. Your hands look a bit shaky. Just tell me the number and I'll do the dialing."
Mulder reluctantly called out the seven digits, as the smoker pushed the buttons on the cordless phone. When it started to ring, he gave a nod to Mulder. "No, chit-chat and no codes."
The doctor nodded his understanding, then lifted the receiver to his ear just as the barrel of a gun pressed against his temple in warning. On the third ring, he heard Frohike's voice announcing, "Lone Gunman."
"Hey, Marty, it's me, Dr. Mulder."
"Hey, Doc, what's shaking?"
"I need to arrange a meeting as soon as possible. Say in an hour?"
"No can do, Doc. Pamela Anderson's giving a chat on AOL at nine, complete with GIFs."
"How about afterwards?"
"Sure. Ten-thirty good enough?"
"Yeah. Where?"
"Let's try the bench in front of the Reflecting Pool this time."
"See you then." Mulder hung up the phone, feeling a sick tightness in his chest. He had just betrayed a friend; no matter it was for a good cause. He could only pray that now his sister would be spared from harm. He no longer had much confidence that he would see the light of day himself, and he sorely regretted having to expose the Gunmen to the same fate. The gun had been pulled away from his temple though it continued to point in his direction. He looked to his captor, just barely able to keep the tears at bay. "Now what?"
"Now, we put you to bed."
The smoker gave another nod to his men. The trench coat that Mulder had never had a chance to remove, was pulled down his arms by a set of large, hairy hands, and slipped off to fall in a bunch behind his back on the chair. His suit jacket received the same treatment. He was afraid to ask what they were going to do to him now. He really didn't want to know. He just hoped that it would be swift and rather painless. His tie was loosened and his shirt was ripped open without care. He heard a button as it landed on the floor and spun itself into a corner somewhere. His shirt and tie were removed and tossed on the table, and there the undressing stopped.
He had been staring down at the high gloss of the black lacquer table and at the reflected distorted images of the figures hovering above him. It wasn't until one of the images grabbed his left arm and began wrapping something about it, that he thought to look up. A tourniquet was being fastened about his biceps and that told him one of two things: he was about to donate some blood or he was about to receive an injection. Someone placed a capped hypothermic needle on the table in front of him. After briefly studying the pale green liquid inside, his eyes lifted to those of the smoker, standing against the wall, a hint of an malevolent smile on his face.
Mulder's entire body trembled in fear as he sat passively awaiting his fate. He gave a fleeting thought to putting up a struggle, but he knew he didn't stand a chance against King Kong and Mighty Joe Young. Begging was a conceivable option, seeing that his pride had left the party some time ago, but the smoker's stark expression gave him no reason to hope for mercy. So he watched as placidly as an unwanted pet being put to sleep, as the point of the needle was shoved into his arm and the contents burned its way into his flesh. He was now a dead man, and those whom he had pulled into this hellhole with him were probably as well.
Copyright © 2019 · All Rights Reserved · Fran Glass