Thank you to everyone who has sent me feedback on the first four
chapters of Value & Honor. I'm thrilled that there are folks who
are enjoying this story.
Chapter 5b will be another day or two, but here's 5a. I hope you'll
be pleased with it. -- Forte
Value & Honor
by Forte
(Forte1354@aol.com)
Please see Chapter 1 for rating, summary, disclaimer, etc.
********************************************************************
- Chapter 5 -
********************************************************************
Georgetown
Washington, DC
Friday, 7:12 p.m.
"MULDER!"
No response.
Scully frantically stabbed the "flash" button on her cordless phone,
then speed-dialed Mulder's cell phone number again.
"The cellular customer you are trying to reach is not avail --"
"Flash" again, and then the speed-dial number for Mulder's home
phone.
Busy.
She tried again. Busy.
Scully grabbed her coat, keys, weapon, and cell phone, and bolted
out the door of her apartment.
********************************************************************
2630 Hegal Place
Apartment 42
Friday, 7:18 p.m.
Mulder groaned in response to the ache at the back of his head and
the pressure on the left side of his face. Disoriented, he reached
to the base of his skull with his right hand. For a dazed second he
tried to make sense of the dampness he found there, then felt the
throb of the gash.
"Shhhhhhhhhhiiiiiit..." he breathed.
Realization returned as the solidity under his face registered with
the rest of his body. He took a deep breath,
which only reinforced the throbbing in his head, and hissed in pain.
He took in another breath, shallow this time, and attempted to
figure out what the =hell= had happened to him by mentally retracing
his steps. He slowly pushed himself up onto his
side.
Mulder suddenly realized he wasn't alone.
Professional training and reflexes took over where his still-fuzzy
brain left off. He jerked his weapon from its holster and trained
it at the figure hovering near him. The intruder was barely visible
in the glow of a streetlight that filtered through the room's
window.
"Don't shoot, Agent Mulder."
The sight of the man before him, hands raised in obvious surrender,
made Mulder gasp.
"Kurt Crawford?"
Mulder gawked at the younger man -- -- before him. In one raised hand, Crawford held a gun.
In the other, he held an unsheathed gimlet, the kind Mulder had seen
too many times before. Stunned, he leaned back on his left elbow,
but kept his weapon pointed at the chest of his unexpected visitor.
Mulder gestured at Crawford's raised hands with his SIG. "Put them
on the floor, very slowly, then stand up with your hands on your
head and take three steps backwards."
Crawford complied.
Mulder climbed to his feet, struggling against a wave of dizziness.
After a moment's thought, he chose to leave the weapons on the
floor. That seemed less of a risk than kneeling to retrieve them,
when he might not be able to get up again.
"Kurt Crawford -- long time no see. Not since..." Mulder trailed
off, voice unsteady. At that moment, the pain in his head was
eclipsed by the memories of an evening of funky poaching with the
Lone Gunmen. That had been a far darker night, for reasons that
had nothing to do with the lack of illumination.
"Since the Lombard Research Facility, yes," Crawford finished, his
voice low. "I was there, Agent Mulder. I remember it well." He
paused. "I'm sorry about hitting you, Agent Mulder. I heard the
fumbling at the door and thought you were... one of them." He
paused again. "I couldn't be certain that I hadn't been followed.
When you came in, with your back to me, I could see your neck and
knew you weren't..." he trailed off again. "But I still wasn't sure
if it was you." He shrugged and gestured with his chin to the gun
on the floor. "Your hair is a lot shorter than it was the last time
we met. But once I saw your face..."
"So the dry cleaning didn't give it away?" Mulder asked. He waved
his left hand toward the garments now in a heap on the floor but did
not take his eyes off his visitor.
Crawford just stared back.
"What do you want?" Mulder asked, still wary and now much more
alert. "Why are you here? Where the hell have you been for the
past year and a half? What happened to everyone and everything that
I saw at Lombard?"
"I can explain everything, Agent Mulder -- "
"That's good, because I want to hear everything. Why don't you
start at the beginning?"
Crawford squared his shoulders and looked Mulder in the eye. "I'm
here because we need your help. We believe we know where Dr.
Scanlon is working."
Mulder's jaw twitched. "Where?" he demanded.
The hybrid swallowed and shifted his weight as though embarrassed.
"We don't know the precise location yet, just the city. And in any
case, that's not important right now." He took a slow breath.
"Even as I stand here, Agent Mulder, there are women finding and
removing chips from their necks. Those women will develop brain
cancer and die within a year. Dr. Scanlon's new research may help
us find a cure. Please believe me -- we're still trying to save
these women."
Mulder choked out a laugh. "I can't tell you how warm and fuzzy I
feel right now, Kurt. You break into my apartment, try to
re-arrange my skull, and expect me to trust you on nothing more than
a vague sob story? I don't even know if you're really who you
appear to be."
Crawford gave him a look that Mulder could only classify as
beseeching. "Agent Mulder, we... showed you where the ova were
kept. Told you that those women are our mothers. You took one of
the vials. How would I know that if I hadn't been there? We
couldn't disclose that information to anyone without risking the
destruction of our work to try to save these women. And if the work
were already destroyed, what point would there be in my being here
as an impostor? So I =must= be telling you the truth." Mulder's
stony face softened as the validity of the words sunk in. "And part
of that truth is that I need you and Agent Scully to come with me."
At the mention of his partner's name, Mulder's entire body tensed.
How scrambled were his brains that he'd forgotten he'd been talking
to her on the phone?
********************************************************************
On the road between Georgetown and Alexandria
7:26 p.m.
Scully held the steering wheel in a death grip as she drove toward
Mulder's apartment, breaking every driving law she could in her
haste. She'd made several more unsuccessful attempts at reaching
her partner, both at his cell phone (still unavailable) and his home
phone (still busy). Gritting her teeth, she punched <0> on her
cell phone and waited for what felt like a decade for the operator.
"This is Special Agent Dana Scully with the Federal Bureau of
Investigation. I have an emergency situation and need you to break
in on a line in use." She spit out Mulder's home phone number and
her own badge number. Although she knew the latter to be
unnecessary, it gave her a comforting sense of control to use it.
Seconds later electronic sounds crackled through the earpiece.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, but that line appears to be in use by a modem."
Scully thought. She ended
the call to the operator without a "thank you" or "goodbye".
She hit another speed dial on her cell phone and said a silent
prayer.
"Lone Gunmen."
"Turn off the tape," she snapped, sounding more angry than she'd
wanted to. "I need your help. Put me on speaker."
A few *clicks* and a muffled "Hey, get over here -- it's Scully"
told her that the bearded Gunman had complied with her request.
Frohike's voice, sounding distant through the speaker phone, wafted
to her ears. "Agent Scully, what a pleasant sur-- "
"Save it," Scully interrupted. "I'm on my way over to Mulder's. I
was talking to him when his cell went dead. His home phone is busy,
and the operator thinks it's hooked up to a modem. I need you to
verify that for me, tell me if the person using the modem is Mulder,
and tell me what number that modem dialed up. =Now.="
There was a stunned silence for a moment, and then Langly spoke up.
"Uh, sure -- just give us a couple minutes."
"Don't worry, Agent Scully," Frohike added, clearly nervous at
Scully's demanding tone. "Our kung fu can do."
"It better," she muttered.
She continued speeding towards Alexandria, growing more impatient
and anxious with each passing second. She could hear typing, and
the Gunmen talking to each other, but nothing to indicate that any
of them were approaching the phone again. "I'm running out of time,
guys," she asserted, raising her voice so they would hear her at
their distance from the speaker phone.
"Got something!" Scully heard, followed by the sounds of someone
approaching the phone.
"Mulder's phone is definitely in use by a modem," Byers reported,
almost breathless. "But he's not logged on -- at least not under
any of the names that we know him to use."
"So who's using his phone line?" Scully knew she was yelling, but
didn't care. Returning her attention to the road, she was startled
to realize that she was only two blocks from Mulder's apartment.
"Still working on that," came Langly's voice from the background.
"I'm nearly there, but keep looking," she commanded. This time she
remembered to breathe "we'llbeintouch" before thumbing off the
phone. She watched in amazement and relief as a car pulled away
>from the curb on the opposite side of the street, almost directly in
front of Mulder's building. Another car was waiting to back into
the space, but Scully spun the steering wheel and U-turned into the
spot, stopping at an odd angle to the curb. She scrambled out of
her car, flashing her badge at the enraged driver whose parking spot
she'd stolen, and sprinted into Mulder's apartment building.
********************************************************************
- continued in 5b -
********************************************************************
Feedback is cherished at Forte1354@aol.com or bjm1352@aol.com.
