The X-Files: Goblins

TWO

The afternoon was pleasantly warm, the sky a sharp and cloudless blue. The sounds of Thursday traffic were muted by the trees carrying their new leaves, although the cherry trees hadn’t yet sprung all their blossoms. The tourists were few at the Jefferson Memorial, mostly older people with cameras around their necks or camcorders in their hands, moving slowly, taking their time. A handful of joggers followed the Tidal Basin rim; two paddle boats glided over the water, seemingly in a clumsy, not very earnest race.

That’s why Fox Mulder preferred this place over the others when he wanted time to think. He could sit undisturbed on the steps, off to one side, without having to listen to terminally bored tour guides chattering like robots, or schoolkids laughing and horsing around, or any of the rest of the circus that Old Abe or the Washington Monument managed to attract.

His dark blue suit jacket was folded on the marble step beside him. His tie was pulled, down and his collar unbuttoned. He looked much younger than his years, his face as yet unlined, his brown hair unruly in the light breeze that slipped over the water. Those who bothered to look in his direction figured, he supposed, that he was some kind of academic.

That was all right with him.

His sandwich was almost done, a plastic cup of soda just about empty, when he saw a tall man in a dark brown suit moving around the edge of the Basin, staring at those he passed as if expecting to discover someone he knew. Mulder looked quickly from side to side, but there was no way he could duck around the building or into the trees without being seen.

“Hey!” the man called, catching sight of him and waving.

Mulder smiled politely, but he didn’t stand.

This was not what he needed on a great day like this. What he needed was his sandwich, his soda — although he’d prefer a cold beer in a bottle, preferably sitting in a booth at Ripley’s, in Alexandria — and maybe that short brunette over there, taking slow tight circles on a pair of in-line skates, earphones attached to a Walkman at her waist. He supposed maintaining balance was a lot like being on ice skates; it seemed to be the same principle. Not that he was all that good when roller skates had wheels at the corners, spending, as he had done, more time on his rump than attaining great speeds.

The skater shifted suddenly, and he blinked, realizing for the first time how tan she was, and how snug her red satin shorts and red T-shirt were.

Then a shadow blocked his view.

It was the redhead.

“Mulder,” the man said, standing two steps below him, grinning like an idiot, “where the hell have you been?”

“Right here, Hank.”

Special Agent Hank Webber stared over Mulder’s head at the daylit figure of Thomas Jefferson standing tall beneath the dome. A puzzled frown came and went. “Never did see this place, you know what I mean?” He shook his head, scratched through his dark red hair. “What do you want to come to a place like this for?”

Mulder shrugged. “It’s nice. It’s quiet.” He deepened his voice. “It’s not the office.”

Webber didn’t take the hint. “So, did you hear what came in?”

Mulder just looked at him.

“Oh.” The younger man grinned sheepishly. “Sorry. Of course you wouldn’t hear. You were here.”

“Hank, your powers of deduction have never failed to give me a shiver.” He smiled when the younger man sputtered, telling him with a gesture that it was only a stupid joke. Hank was a good man, but there were times when Mulder thought him dense as a post. “Hear what?”

“Helevito.”

He sat up slowly, lunch momentarily forgotten. “What about him?”

“They got him.”

He didn’t know whether to laugh, cheer, shock the kid with a victory dance, or play it the Bureau way by simply nodding, as if the outcome of a three-month manhunt for a kidnapper had never been in doubt, especially since the kidnapped child had already been recovered safely. What he decided to do was take another bite of his sandwich.

Webber hooked a thumb in his belt. “Yep. Not two hours ago. You figured it right, Mulder. They staked out his cousin’s place in Biloxi, and sure enough, he comes strolling in this morning all by his lonesome. Spent most of the night on one of those new riverboats, pissing away half the ransom money at roulette. Most of the rest evidently went to some blonde.” He laughed and shook his head. “I heard the first thing he said was, ‘I knew I should’ve played thirty-six and red.’”

He nodded.

Mulder took another bite, another sip, and waited.

“So.” Webber squinted as he checked out the memorial again.

A quartet of nuns chattered past, smiling at him, smiling at Mulder.

The skater left, not even a glance in their direction.

Webber sniffed, and fussed with his tie. “So.”

“Hank, I am eating my lunch. I am enjoying the fresh air, the sunshine… and I am especially enjoying the peace and quiet that comes with not being at the Bureau for a while. I’m not sure what you want me to say.”

The younger man seemed bewildered. “But… but if it hadn’t been for you, they never would’ve gotten him, right? I mean, nobody else figured out his gambling problem, right? Nobody else knew about that cousin. So…” He spread his hands. “So aren’t you glad?”

“Overjoyed,” he answered flatly.

And instantly regretted it when Webber’s expression sagged into youthful disappointment. He knew the kid believed that every bust was righteous, every arrest an occasion for celebration, every crook large or small put behind bars a reason to dance. What he hadn’t figured on was, between the first bust and the fourth and the fiftieth and the millionth, the exhilaration was always there. Always. And the feeling that finally one of the bad guys lost.

But the good agents, the best ones, never forgot that on the far side of that exhilaration there was always someone else waiting in line.

It never ended.

It just never ended.

That fact alone sometimes turned a perfectly good agent into a cynic who made mistakes. And it sometimes got him killed.

Mulder didn’t want that to happen to him.

He had too much to do.

He had too much yet left undone.

On the other hand, he also hadn’t finished his lunch, and there were still five other folders waiting on his desk in varying stages of investigation. He wasn’t the primary agent on any of them, but he had been asked to take a look, to see if he could spot something the others had missed.

It was what he was good at; very good, if you paid attention to some of the talk around the office. Although he really didn’t see it that way. It was, simply, what he did, and he had never really bothered to analyze it.

When the younger man finally looked as if he were either going to cry or scream, Mulder swallowed, touched his chin with a finger, and pointed. “If I remember, Hank, you were the one who came up with the Biloxi connection. We all missed it. You got it.”

Webber blushed.

He couldn’t believe it — the kid actually blushed, ducked his head, scuffed his shoe on the step. Mulder decided that if he said, “Aw, shucks,” he would have to be killed.

“Thanks,” he said instead, fighting hard not to grin. “That… well, that means a lot.” He gestured vaguely. “I didn’t mean to interrupt but…” He gestured again. “I thought you’d want to know.”

“I did. Honestly. Thanks.”

“So.” Webber backed away, and almost toppled off the step. He laughed self-consciously, his right arm flapping. “So, I guess I’ll get back, okay?”

“Sure.”

“You’ll be—”

Mulder held up what was left of the sandwich.

“Right. Sure.” He waved, reached into his jacket pocket, pulled out a pair of sunglasses, and slipped them on.

Suddenly he wasn’t a kid named Hank Webber anymore.

Suddenly he was a man in a suit too dark for the weather, wearing sunglasses too dark for the sun. Suddenly he wasn’t a part of the scene anymore. If he had painted a sign on his back, he couldn’t have said FBI any better.

Mulder smiled to himself as Webber walked off, practically marching, and washed the last of his lunch down with the soda. Then he glanced around, not really seeing anything, before hooking his jacket with a forefinger, draping it over his shoulder, and moving into the memorial itself.

He liked it in here, especially now, when there was no one else around. It didn’t feel like a cathedral, the way Old Abe’s place did, yet he was in awe just the same of the man who rose above him. Jefferson wasn’t a god. He had his faults. But those faults only made his accomplishments all the more remarkable.

This was where he liked to work puzzles out, following crooked mental paths to see where they led, maybe hoping some of the third president’s genius would rub off on him.

In here he couldn’t hear the traffic, the tourists, nothing but the sound of his shoes on the polished marble floor.

What he had to consider today was a case in Louisiana that involved at least one brutal murder, one daylight robbery of $25,000, and witnesses who swore on every Bible handed to them that the person who had done it had vanished into thin air. In the middle of a circus tent. While wearing the costume of a hobo clown.

His instincts were usually pretty reliable. This time they suggested this had nothing to do with an X-File, those cases he specialized in, that had about them an air of the bizarre, the inexplicable.

The paranormal.

The kind of cases the Bureau officially frowned upon, but couldn’t always ignore.

Which was why he had been shown this one. This kind of thing, whether the upper echelon liked it or not — and they usually didn’t — was his specialty.

Louisiana just didn’t have that X-File scent.

Still, there was always a chance he was wrong. It wouldn’t be the first time. His usual partner, Dana Scully, had told him that so often, he had finally suggested she print up cards: Mulder, this is an ordinary case, only with weird stuff; aliens, monsters, and UFOs need not apply. Whenever he began to think that X the unknown was actually something they should look into, she was supposed to hand him a card, or staple it to his forehead, and get on with it.

She hadn’t thought that very funny.

Except for the stapling part.

Still, he had been right often enough in the past, even if she was too stubborn to admit it.

What he was afraid of now, what always kept him alert, was that every case with supposed “weird stuff” in it would make him jump before he thought, and thus bring down the wrath of his superiors, forcing the X-File Section closed.

It had already happened once.

He didn’t want it to happen again.

Especially when he had been so close to final proof that the Earth wasn’t alone… so close…

Too close for some.

Others would call that paranoia; he called it simply watching his back. Not for the knife. For the razor.

The fact that he tended to elaborate on or improvise on the Bureau’s standard operating procedures also hadn’t made him many friends in high places.

That the Section had been reinstated was a stroke of good fortune, but he never gloated.

He did his job.

Looking.

Always looking.

Following the crooked path.

He wandered around to the back of the statue, tracing his fingers along the marble base.

What he wanted to do now was make sure that this Louisiana thing was weird stuff, nothing more.

He had to be sure that he wasn’t so desperate that he saw only what he wanted to see, not what was really there.

Not so easy to do these days, when he had been so close.

So damn close.

He stepped back as he slipped into his jacket and looked up at the president, dark bronze and gleaming, towering above him.

“So what do you think?” he said quietly. “You bought the stupid place, is there anything out there?”

A hand gripped his shoulder.

When he tried to turn, the grip tightened, ordering him to stay where he was.

His throat dried instantly, but he did as he was bidden. He wasn’t afraid, just wary.

He lowered his head slowly to keep his neck from cramping.

The hand didn’t move, nor did it relax its grip.

“Well?” he asked mildly.

Mint; he smelled an aftershave or cologne with a faint touch of mint, and the warmth of the sun on someone’s clothes, as if he’d walked a long way to reach him. The hand was strong, but he couldn’t see it without turning his head.

“Mr. Mulder.” A smooth voice, not very deep.

He nodded. He was patient. Not often, however; both his temper and his temperament never had liked short leashes. He tried to adjust his shoulder, but the fingers wouldn’t let him.

“Louisiana,” the voice said, fading slightly, telling him the man had turned his head. “It’s not what you hope, but you shouldn’t ignore it.”

“Mind if I ask who you are?” Still mild, still calm.

“Yes.”

“Mind if I ask if—”

“Yes.”

The grip tightened, pinching a nerve that made Mulder’s eyes close briefly. He nodded, once. He understood—keep your mouth shut, ask no questions, pay attention.

Voices approached outside — children, for a change sounding respectful, not rowdy.

A car’s horn blared.

“The fact, Mr. Mulder, that your Section has been reactivated does not mean there still aren’t those who would like to make sure you stay out of their way. Permanently.” A shift of cloth, and the voice was closer, a harsh whisper in his left ear. “You’re still not protected, Mr. Mulder, but you’re not in chains, either. Remember that. You’ll have to.”

The grip tightened again, abruptly, just as the voices entered the memorial and turned to echoes. His eyes instantly filled with tears, and his knees buckled as he cried out softly. A lunge with his arm couldn’t prevent his forehead from slamming against the pedestal as he went down. By the time his vision cleared, no more than a few seconds, he was kneeling, head down, and when he looked to his right, grimacing, the only person he saw was a little girl with an ice cream cone, braids, and a vivid blue jumper.

“Are you okay, Mister?” she asked, licking at the cone.

He touched his shoulder gingerly, swallowed a curse, and managed a nod while taking several deep breaths.

A woman appeared behind the girl, gently easing her away. “Sir, do you need help?”

He looked up at her and smiled. “Just felt a little dizzy, that’s all.” Bracing one hand against the pedestal got him to his feet. The woman and the girl, and about a dozen others, backed away warily as he moved. “Thanks,” he said to the woman.

She nodded politely.

He stepped outside.

The breeze attacked his forelock, and he swiped at it absently. His shoulder stung, but he barely noticed it. What he did notice was the breath of ice across the back of his neck.

Whoever the man was, there had been no threats, but there had been no promises either.

And for the first time in a long time, he felt that tiny rush of excitement that told him the hunt was on again.

Not the hunt for the bad guys.

The hunt for the truth.