Title:  Gutless (11/16)
Author:  Magdeleine
See Prologue for full headers; all posted chapters can be found at 
http://shannono.simplenet.com/gutless


GUTLESS

Chapter 11

Cooper County Sheriff's Department
10:28 A.M.


Mulder had finally figured it out.

It had taken him a while, but he was suddenly, giddily, completely
certain what was wrong with Scully.

He eyed her carefully, his gaze brushing the crown of her hair.  She was
so regal, so vibrantly dignified that in this dingy, badly lit hallway she
seemed to glow like an oil lamp.  If he didn't know her so well, he might
not have noticed that anything was wrong.  Hell, he almost hadn't noticed
anyway.

The slide and grit of their footsteps was very loud on the peeling
linoleum.  Granulated dirt was tucked into every crevice of the floor,
darkening the jagged edges where pieces of brittle linoleum had broken
off.  This building was new, as law-enforcement buildings went, but
shoddily constructed; for some indefinable reason it reminded Mulder of
the basement of the Hoover building.

The rhythmic click of Scully's heels echoed off the wooden paneling like
a metronome.  Mulder could feel the edge of her pancake holster under her
suit coat, brushing against one of his fingers as she walked.  He kept his
hand in gentle contact with her back, some half-forgotten part of his mind
glorying in this little secret that he and only he knew -- not just the
location of her weapon, but this other thing, too.

It was obvious.  She hadn't slept; she was touchy, antagonistic, even
more skeptical than normal; and, for the kicker, she'd been avoiding his
touch.  Now, Mulder had never claimed to be an expert on women, but in
this case the facts spoke for themselves.  Hell, they practically
*screamed*.

Mulder stole another look at her face.  From this angle, most of what he
could see was hair, but there was a sliver of pale cheek, waxing to a
crescent when she turned her head slightly.  A little paler than normal,
although heat came off her in waves, particularly where his hand brushed
the small of her back.

It all added up.

Scully was obviously coming down with the flu.

They hadn't fought in the car.  They had barely spoken.  The awkward
silence had draped over them like San Francisco fog, guilt and regret
occasionally flashing from their individual lighthouses.  

Mulder had let her choose their destination as a sort of peace offering. 
He'd expected her to opt for a quick tour of the two crime scenes they
hadn't already seen -- they could tramp around outside, check for any
signs of forced entry that the good sheriff and his men had missed, then
head inside and nose around the actual crime scenes, see if they could
sniff anything out.

Scully, however, had sat pale and serious with her hands neatly folded on
top of the folders on her lap.  She hadn't said much, but the words she
used were precise -- they were going to the sheriff's office.  They should
speak with Volney, find out exactly what they were missing, and coax the
missing statements and crime photos and files out of Volney's hands.

She hadn't looked at him.

Mulder had looked at her, though, his eyes tracing the cool lines of her
face, and at that moment the flu revelation had crept out of back of his
mind and tackled him, taking him completely by surprise as his eureka
moments often did.  He had blinked, and looked back at the road, and
driven to the sheriff's office in silence.

They were still in silence now.  And she was still pale.

His hand twitched involuntarily at her back as he thought protective
thoughts and entertained melodramatic visions of making it up to her --
the fight, the flu, everything.  He could get her back to the motel and
put her to bed, get a glimpse of those silky pajamas before he tucked the
sheets up around her chin.  He could find someplace in this town that made
good chicken-noodle soup, and feed it to her spoonful by steaming spoonful
... the heady image of Scully's lips closing around a spoon that *he* was
holding was enough to distract him from what had been a purely
humanitarian plan, and he guiltily squashed the thought.  

Then, of course, he could go off and take care of the case himself.  

Mulder let go of the daydream regretfully.  Take care of Scully?  Right. 
If he tried to take care of her, Scully would tie his hand to the parrot
cage and let Guido bite all his fingers off.  Wouldn't happen.  End of
story.

As they reached the end of the hall, there was a rush of cool air,
slipping deliciously through the overheated office atmosphere like vanilla
ice cream in hot chocolate.  Mulder spotted Volney in a corner next to a
rust-laced file cabinet, propping open a metal door with one big meaty
hand as he wrestled a chunk of limestone across the floor with his boot.  

"Hey there," Volney grunted in surprise, noticing the agents at almost
the same moment the limestone reached the door with a grinding *thunk*. 
"Didn't expect to see the two of you today."  He released the door
experimentally; it *thunk*ed back and forth between the wall and the
impromptu doorstop several times in swift succession and then hovered in
the middle.  Volney seemed satisfied.  "Sorry 'bout the cold, but some
damn fool burnt a bag of popcorn a while back and I can't stand the smell
any more."  He eyed the agents, scratching thoughtfully at the roots of
his moustache.  "Autopsy done?"

Scully nodded, her expression grave.

"You here about the results?" Volney asked hopefully, his copper eyes
sharp and curious.

"I have a few theories," Scully said.  She stood straight and tall, and
Mulder felt sudden pride sweep him like sheet lightning.  "If we could
step into your office to discuss them ...?"

Volney nodded curtly.  "Sure."  Another curl of cold air swept into the
room; the door bounced between the wall and the stone, *thunk-thunk,
thunk*.  Volney ambled through a door with the word 'SHERIFF' lettered on
it, not waiting to see if the agents would follow.

They followed.  Mulder let Scully pick the first of two square metal-
frame chairs, and sat in the other, noticing with a pang that she scooted
her chair a few discreet inches from his, sitting primly on the edge.  She
did that a lot, sitting half-off the chair, her back straight and
shoulders square; Mulder suspected that she only did so because otherwise
her feet would not reach the ground.  Today, though, the chair was low;
today, Scully was radiating ice-cold authority.

"They say it's gonna rain," Volney told them conversationally.  He
settled into the swivel chair behind his desk and shifted his weight
around until he got comfortable; the chair protested with a soprano shriek
of frustration.  "Not too much, I hope," he added.  "It'll be hell on the
farmers for planting."

Mulder watched Volney watch Scully, and he caught another glimpse of that
razor-sharp curiosity beneath the sheriff's easygoing veneer.  He felt a
familiar flash of triumph, the victory of a safecracker as a stubborn bank
vault finally clicks and cracks open, revealing a hint of the contents. 
Just a hint.

Volney had a personal stake in the results of this autopsy.  Mulder
couldn't tell what it was, but he was suddenly certain that the sheriff's
keen interest was more than professional.

The thought was unsettling.

"So," Volney said at last, "what'd you find on the Schmidt kid?"

"The results of Joshua's autopsy were consistent with the other three
victims."  Scully's chin tipped up with a touch of arrogance.  "The cause
of death in each case is unknown, but probably identical.  Some aspects of
the autopsies seem to point toward poisoning, but every tox screen has
come back negative."

Volney leaned back, stroking his moustache; the chair uttered another
angry squeal.  "So you're saying they *weren't* poisoned."

"Unless," Mulder said, unable to help himself, "they were poisoned with a
substance not known to medical science." 

Scully shot him a brief gunfire glare and turned her attention back to
Volney.  "It's far more likely that this is an enzyme that occurs
naturally in the body.  Potassium, for instance, causes heart failure in a
matter of seconds when it's injected into a vein, but a tox screen might
miss it because potassium is a normal part of our chemical makeup.  We
could attempt a more careful chemical analysis of the bodies but, frankly,
with the internal organs missing in each case I'm not sure how accurate it
would be."

"Couldn't you work backward?" Volney asked.  "Figure out what could do
this kind of damage?"

"Normally, yes."  Scully's tone was level but the twitch of her
fingertips was pure sour grapes.  "Except that I've never seen anything
like this before.  I've sent blood and tissue samples to our field office
in Kansas City, but they might not get back to us for several days."

Volney made a derisive noise as though he was in the mood to spit, but
was too polite to do so in the presence of a lady.  There was, briefly,
silence.  The humming of the wind returned, redoubled, gained harmonic
overtones.  *Thunk-thunk, thunk-thunk, thunk*.

"There's a possibility," Scully said at last, "that this could be a
binary poison -- two substances that are only lethal when they're
combined.  One component could be administered hours or even days before
the other, depending on the quantity and how it entered the bloodstream." 

Volney chewed viciously on his moustache.

"Perhaps," Scully continued, her eyes hooded, "a more expedient way of
going about this would be to determine a motive for these killings."  She
waited a beat, and casually let the penny drop.  "Which I believe would
require unrestricted access to the witness depositions, the remainder of
the crime scene photographs, and any other records you may have gathered."

Volney's face went hard.  He glowered at Scully for a long moment, then
switched his glare to Mulder as though somehow this was *his* idea, but
Mulder wisely did not make eye contact.  Volney's mouth twisted and he
scowled at Scully, attempting to intimidate her into dropping the subject.

Scully did not intimidate easily.  "Sheriff, we've been coming across
things that were not in your reports, evidence which you obviously have
not informed your own deputies of."  She looked Volney straight in the eye
and let him have it.  "I would like to request at this time that you share
whatever information you have been holding back."

Volney blew a frustrated breath through his moustache.  "Agent Scully,"
he said, "I have already briefed your partner on whatever trivial
information you may be missing."

"Agent Mulder has filled me in on the details which you gave him, sir,
but until we have every scrap of information, I believe that there will be
the continuing chance that we may be missing something important; trivial
though some of these small details may seem, one of them may turn out to
be a key piece of evidence or trigger some thought process that leads to
the identification of a suspect."

Volney's frown drew deep lines in his face.  "I understand your concern,
ma'am, but let me assure you that there's no reason to worry.  At the risk
of repeating myself, I already told you everything I know."

"It is very possible that you *think* you have told us everything, sir,"
Scully said with icy clarity, "but without the actual physical documents
in our hands there is always the chance that some piece of information has
slipped through the cracks."  

"Slip through the cracks?"  Volney snorted.  "Hell.  Did you see the news
this morning?"

No," Scully said dryly, folding her arms across her chest, "as a matter
of fact we missed it."

Volney leaned forward to rest his elbows on the desk, his hands clasped
together in a callused knot.  "Then I'll just have to fill you in.  This
morning the Channel Ten six o'clock news ran the murder of Joshua Schmidt
as their leading story.  Now, I'm already upset about the fact that I woke
up to an instant replay of one of the longest nights of my life, but when
I heard the nice lady on the news hand out a couple of quotes that she
said came from the FBI agents working the case ... well, that just ruined
my whole day."

Scully was unfazed.  "Neither Agent Mulder nor myself have made a habit
of chatting with representatives of the media, sir.  In our line of work
we find it somewhat inconvenient."

"I didn't say you had, ma'am, but it's a hell of a case in point.  There
is a leak, and it's a big one, and I don't know where it is.  I know it's
probably not the two of you because this was happening long before you
showed up, but the fact is I can't afford to let this information out of
my hands."

"I assure you," Scully said, etching her words in granite, "we are well
versed in taking extra security precautions for confidential documents."

Volney shook his head.  "I'm not letting those documents out of this
building," he announced.

Scully's chin went up another centimeter, her eyes like blued steel. 
"Sheriff Volney, I am qualified as a medical doctor as well as a federal
agent.  Agent Mulder has an Oxford education in psychology and was an
analyst with the Violent Crimes Unit for several years.  If you are
looking for someone more qualified to track down this killer, *sir*, you
may have to call Sherlock Holmes and see if he can catch the Concorde from
London.  As it is, I suggest that you cooperate and give us what we need
to do our job."

There was a long moment of silence.  The wind thrummed again, pulling
music from the door as though it was a bronze harp string, and the door
*thunka-thunka-thunka-thunk*ed several times before settling down.  Volney
-- this big, graying heap of a man who in another life might have been a
stoic bachelor farmer or an assistant director of the FBI -- turned his
attention inward, briefly, eyes narrowed as though consulting an inner set
of scales.

Scully studied the sheriff, her face thoughtful as she weighed her
options.  The pallor that Mulder had noticed when they were alone had
vanished; Scully was in full federal agent mode, suspending her private
weaknesses in the interests of What Must Be Done.  It was a breathtaking
sight, and Mulder was not immune.

Volney returned from his internal journey and focused on Scully.  The two
stared at each other in steely silence, the air tense with the clash of
wills.

When Scully spoke again, her voice came like a whip-crack.  "Sheriff,"
she said, tilting her head to the side the tiniest bit, "I would like to
suggest a compromise."

<X><X><X><X>

The pile of file folders was not very thick.  Scully had tried not to
exaggerate it in her mind, but nonetheless she'd expected ... well, more. 
Large, important-looking files that would correspond to the amount of
effort put into gaining access to them, not this scrawny bunch with
crumpled pages straggling out of the pale manila folders.

Mulder was more vocal about his disappointment.  "That's it?  All of it?"

"I told you there wasn't much to it," Volney said, laying one big,
callused hand on the little pile as though it were a favorite dog.  "Few
pictures, coupla depositions, some notes I typed up.  Logs from the crime
scenes.  Lists of items found at the scene, evidence reports, that sort of
thing."

"Nice," Mulder muttered.  Scully sighed, and turned away from him to
examine their impromptu library.  It seemed to be a conference room of
sorts -- tiny, square, paneled with the same faux wood that covered the
walls of the hallway.  The ceiling was low and reminiscent of an
elementary school, with a single row of recessed fluorescent lights,
slightly off-center; one of the rectangular plastic covers had apparently
fallen and was propped in a corner, looking isolated and forlorn.  An
oblong banquet table in the center was surrounded by a number of metal
folding chairs, each with "CC Sheriff's Dept." stenciled on the back in a
powdery blue.

Scully's gaze accidentally intersected with Mulder's; their eyes locked
for a brief second before she lifted a wry eyebrow and turned back to the
sheriff with a tight lipped smile.  "We appreciate this, sir."

Volney gave her a wry look.  "I'm glad to hear that."  He jerked a thumb
at the door.  "You remember our agreement, now.  These documents do not
leave this room.  When you go, they stay.  I'm not making any exceptions
to that."

Scully felt her smile fading, as though it were being erased.  "We
weren't asking for any.  Sir."


The sheriff nodded firmly.  "Just as long as it stays that way."  He
watched them for a moment.  "I'll be back down the hall.  You yell when
you're done."  He turned and unceremoniously walked out the door.

Scully glanced at Mulder.  He caught her look and tipped his head toward
the table, raising his eyebrows slightly in a silent question.  She
examined the selection of folding chairs and picked one, the legs clanging
dully against the chair next to it when she pulled it out and again when
she scooted back in after sitting.  Mulder sat on the other side of the
narrow table at a careful diagonal from her -- not directly across,
nothing confrontational.

Scully took out her notebook and a pencil and nudged the pile of files
across the table at Mulder.  He started to reach for one, but hesitated,
his eyes flickering up to her face.  She shrugged a little and gave the
files a harder push.  Mulder lifted his eyebrows, processing this.  He
sifted through the pile and selected one; after a thoughtful look at it,
he offered it to Scully.

She accepted it gingerly, with a little nod.  Silence fell in the little
room, broken only by the rustle of paper as the two agents perused the
files.

"Scully, could you pass me the --"

"This one?"

"Yeah.  Thanks."  

Another lull.  Mulder's chair squeaked as he shifted his weight, his knee
brushing Scully's under the narrow table.  She glanced up at him.

"Sorry."

"Mmhmm."

Silence.  The whispery scratch of Scully's pencil as she took careful
notes in her little notebook seemed abnormally loud.  The fluorescent
lights hummed like an old refrigerator.

Footsteps.  A skinny deputy glanced idly into the conference room, locked
eyes with Scully, and looked away, embarrassed.  He walked into the
darkened room directly across the hall and flipped on the light, revealing
a battered copier with a smudgy rosette of footprints near the paper tray.
The machine made loud groaning sounds; the deputy shifted back and forth
in a little waiting dance, his eyes fixed on the business end of the
copier.  A copy emerged; the deputy grabbed it, switched off the light,
and left, going to great lengths to avoid looking into the conference room.

Scully felt Mulder's eyes on her.  She glanced at him, but by that point
he was staring at the folder in front of him.  She shrugged it off and
went back to reading.  

A few moments later she could feel him looking at her again.  She set her
pencil down perfectly parallel to her notebook, *click*, and looked up. 
"Yes, Mulder?"

He slid a file across the table, pushing it cue-stick style with a single
finger.  "Evidence lists," he said shortly.

"What about them?"

Using the same finger, Mulder flicked the file open.  The finger ran
lightly down a column, seeming to read it by sense of touch, and tapped
significantly.  "Contents of the drawer of Lola Gruber's night table."

Scully read it out loud.  "One bottle of Tylenol.  Toenail clippers. 
Three paperback romance novels."  She raised an eyebrow.  "Sixty-seven
business cards from Taymor's Staffing services, tied with a red ... satin
... ribbon."

"Mmhmm."  He flicked the page over and tapped at a new spot.  "Lola
Gruber's desktop."

Scully humored him.  "Sixteen pencils.  Checkbook.  Calculator, broken. 
Three-hundred and ninety-four page handwritten manuscript of a lurid
romance, staring a heroine named Lena Grabel and the handsome owner of a
temp agency named John Taylor."

"With originality like that," Mulder deadpanned, "I'm sure she'll be
published posthumously."

"Mulder, does all this oblique hinting mean that you believe Lola Gruber
had a crush on Jim Taymor?"

"Not just her."  Mulder single-fingered another anemic file across the
table and flipped it open.  This time he stopped at a photograph, and
tapped it.  "Here.  This is the wall directly across from Greg Marks' bed."

The shot was in color, starkly lit -- a wall and a door which apparently
led to the hallway.  The door and door frame were unmarred; the wall next
to it was narrow, barely wide enough to accommodate the huge, unframed oil
painting.

It was abstract, in garish colors that reminded Scully of other crime
scene pictures, bloodier ones.  These colors, though, were blues and
purples and vivid greens all swirled together, a maelstrom with a man's
face leering out of it.  A stylized face with vivid blue eyes, in a
picture that somehow screamed sexuality without giving her the faintest
idea how it was accomplished.

Scully looked up at Mulder; their eyes met and locked.  "Jim Taymor," she
said, voicing the name hanging fire between them.

Mulder nodded, a feral smile lighting his eyes.

She examined the picture again.  "Greg painted this himself?"

"Bingo."

Scully considered it, shuffling ideas and laying them out like a game of
solitaire.  "Marjorie, Lola, Greg.  What about Joshua?"

"That one I don't know yet, but three out of four ain't bad."  Mulder
tapped his index finger on the file in front of Scully, his expression
dark and intent.  "Scully, is it just me, or were all of the victims
somewhat less than popular?"

She arched an eyebrow.  "Meaning ...?"

Mulder lifted his head and began ticking off points on his fingers.  "No
significant others.  Few, if any, friends.  And, judging from what we've
heard, all of them were pretty much on the bottom of the food chain in the
local dating scene.  Beyond the fact that none of them were nominated for
Prom Queen, I'm wondering if their common social status might point toward
a motive for their murders."

"Mulder, are you saying that what we have here is a serial killer who
targets the radically unpopular?"

He spread his hands casually.  "The weakest members of the herd are
easiest to pick off.  Even human predators seem to instinctively target
social outcasts -- prostitutes and hitchhikers are classic examples. 
These people may be the small-town equivalent."

"I don't think --"  Scully stopped, her mind whirring and clicking.  

Mulder looked at her warily.  "What?"

"Have you read Aimee Marks' statement?"

He snorted.  "Yeah.  Sounds like her brother was having a party for one
before he died."  He shook his head.  "Makes going blind look like a
preferable alternative, eh, Scully?"

She shot him a dirty look.  "This isn't funny, Mulder."

"I know."  For a moment there was something bleak behind his eyes that
she recognized from her mirror.  Gallows humor could only be bought with
the coin of sympathetic humanity -- every good cop worried about those
coins running out and leaving them empty.  Federal agents, too.

The recognition resonated between them, a single note plucked on the
violin string of their connection and radiating into the stillness. 
Scully looked away, something under her ribs vibrating sweetly with that
note; she was surprised to find the string had not been snapped by their
earlier battle.

"No witnesses have been found for Lola's murder, or Marjorie's," she
said, building a stone foundation with her words.  "Joshua's family went
to bed at nine and were only awakened an hour later by a scream from his
room.  Aimee's account is the only clue we have about what led up to these
deaths."

Mulder held up a finger, his brow furrowed.  His alarmed expression made
Scully think of cartoon gauges spinning wildly out of control, whistles
shrieking from their drama-frown openings.  "Are you going where I think
you're going with this?"

"In all four autopsies, there was an extreme congestion of blood in the
genital area," she informed him dispassionately.  "This may indicate a
high level of sexual arousal at the time of death.  All four corpses were
discovered lying on their backs, on their own beds, in the dark.  It may
point toward similar activities in the moments preceding their deaths."

Mulder stared at her in thunderstruck silence.  "Scully," he blurted at
last, "are you saying that these people *masturbated* themselves to death??"

She shrugged.

He gaped at her, hanging in suspended animation on the leading edge of
laughter.  "You know, I'm pretty sure the Surgeon General would disagree
with you.  Masturbation is guaranteed not to cause blindness, hairy palms,
insanity, or the disintegration of internal organs."

She waved it aside.  "You said it yourself, Mulder -- they were all
single, and at least three of them seem to have been enamored with Jim
Taymor.  A high level of sexual frustration requires some form of release,
and without a partner ..."  She trailed off.  There was a weird thrumming
in the air like someone bowing the lowest string of a cello, something
subliminal and frightening.  They were both acting remarkably professional
under the circumstances, but neither one was really looking at the other --
their gazes were stuttering, skidding off each other's faces.   

"If this is a binary poison," she continued stoically, "it's possible
that only the first component was actually administered by the murderer. 
The second component may be enzymes naturally created by the victims' own
bodies during a ... an instance of auto-erotic activity."

She should have known better than to try the more delicate term; the
tension in the room began to ripple and shift into an almost hysterical
comic atmosphere.  

Mulder's lips twitched as he obviously suppressed a grin.

"Oh, for God's sake," Scully exploded, "this is *not* funny."

"Scully, do me a favor," he said, eyes twinkling.  "Say 'auto-erotic
activity' again."

"*Mulder*."

He chuckled, crossed his arms on the table and hunched over, tilting his
head boyishly.  It was a normal gesture, the first truly normal moment
between them in an hour.  She felt relief swell up in her like a helium
balloon, buoyant and slightly ridiculous.  "Tell me something," he
demanded.  "We're finding new details in these files just based on what we
know *now*.  What happens tomorrow when we know more; do we come back here
and look through the files again?"

"I don't know."  She sighed, hunching forward in unconscious mimicry of
his posture.  "I'll try to talk Volney into letting us have copies."

He just looked at her.  He didn't have to say it; it was obvious that
Volney would never agree.

"I'll think of something," she insisted.

Footsteps rang out in the hallway; Scully looked up to see Volney himself
peek around the doorway, chewing on his moustache.  She straightened up,
feeling absurdly as though she'd been caught passing notes in study hall. 
"How're things coming?" Volney asked, that razor-edged curiosity glinting
through his casual air.  "About done?"

Scully reluctantly forced herself back into negotiating mode.  "Sheriff
Volney --"

A hand settled over Scully's knee.  Her head whipped around and she
stared wide-eyed at Mulder, who was looking at Volney and being very
casual about the fact that he only had one hand on the table.  As she
looked at him, Mulder's hand tightened, his thumb sliding neatly into the
sensitive notch along the edge of her kneecap.  Scully started to shake. 
It was nothing -- a silent suggestion to keep quiet, that was all -- but
the shock of feeling his hand on her body, and the irrepressible fantasy
of the places it could move from there, almost overwhelmed her.  

"We're fine, Sheriff," Mulder lied smoothly.

Volney did not appear convinced.  "Agent Scully?"

Mulder met her eyes across the table with a minute shake of his head. 
Oh, the bastard.  She'd kill him.  She'd kick his ass from here to next
Thursday, as soon as she could regroup from this watery weakness threading
through her veins.

"We're fine," she managed, sounding slightly strangled.  She frowned at
Mulder, a piercing no-nonsense stop-screwing-around look, and brushed at
him with a feeble hand, trying to shove him off.

"If you're sure --"

"We're sure," she lied through gritted teeth, and swatted at Mulder's
hand again.  This time he seemed to get the hint, and removed his hand
after one last squeeze.

Volney seemed mollified.  "Okay.  I'll be back in a few minutes."  And
with that, he departed.

Mulder was on his feet and gathering the files together almost before the
sheriff was completely out of the room.  "Run interference for me," he
hissed.

"*What*?"

He thumped the edges of the files against the table once in an effort to
straighten the pile.  "I'm gonna make some copies.  Keep an eye out for
Volney."

She gaped at him.  "Mulder, are you *crazy*?"

"Hey," he tossed back at her with that lopsided reynard grin, "that's
crazy like a Fox."

He was across the hall before she could gain her feet.

"Shit," she whispered furiously, and made her way to the door.  There was
nobody in sight; she let her eyes flick from one end of the hallway to the
other, like a woman trying to make a left-hand turn in heavy traffic.  Her
right hand itched for the weight of her weapon, a comfort that this level
of adrenaline demanded despite the circumstances.

The copy machine was a noisy sonovabitch, and slow.  It groaned and
complained as though it were in labor, ignoring the interesting little
rain dance that Mulder was doing in front of it.  Five copies, now.  Six. 
Seven.

Scully hated this kind of surveillance.  She associated it with Kevlar
vests and jumpy triggermen, hostage situations and bombs.  There were none
of the backhanded comforts of routine team surveillance, no cold French
fries to share with Mulder or bizarre conversations to stave off the
boredom.  This was all edge.

A deputy wandered across the glass door at one end of the hallway, in and
out of her vision in an instant, sending her heart rate into orbit.

"Hurry," she hissed.  Mulder waved impatiently at her and continued his
slow progress.

She could hear murmurs at the other end of the hallway, the one that
ended in the break room.  The wind-beaten door *thunk*ed rapidly a few
times; there was the scrape of limestone on concrete and then the door
slammed.  The conversation seemed to grow louder -- she couldn't make out
any words, but one of the voices was definitely Volney's.

"Mulder," she growled in warning.

"Almost done," he whispered back.  The copy machine groaned, as though in
denial.

Volney's voice was louder now, and Scully heard footsteps.  The hair on
the back of her neck stood up.  

"Mulder, will you MOVE YOUR ASS?"

Mulder came flying into the room at almost the same moment Volney
appeared at the end of the hallway.  Loud, measured footsteps ticked away
like the second hand on a stopwatch.  "Here," Mulder hissed, shoving half
the copies into her hands.

"What the hell am I supposed to --?"

Mulder made a frustrated noise as he tossed the originals haphazardly
onto the table.  "Like this --!"  He rucked up his suit coat and stuffed
his handful of copies half-down the back of his pants, draping his jacket
back over it.  Scully imitated him, furious, moving at light speed,
maneuvering around her holster.

She had barely put herself to rights when Volney appeared in the doorway,
looming larger than life.  There was so much adrenaline in the air, a
person could get high just from breathing.

Volney crossed to the table and thumbed through the files.  He looked up
suspiciously at the agents from beneath bushy brows.  "You folks done?"

Mulder smiled his best G-man smile.  "Oh yes, sir," he said sweetly, "we
have everything we need."

<X><X><X><X>

End of Chapter 11  (11/16)

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