TITLE: Salvador 
AUTHOR: Elanor G
E-MAIL: ElanorG@yahoo.com
URL: http://www.geocities.com/ElanorG
DISTRIBUTION: I'd be thrilled - if you'd like, link to
http://www.geocities.com/ElanorG/salvador.html
SPOILERS: Set in season 7 - nothing after all things
RATING: R for violence, gore, disturbing subject
matter, and sex.
CLASSIFICATION: X-File
KEYWORDS: Mytharc, Angst, MSR

DISCLAIMER: The X-Files is the property of Chris
Carter, Fox, et al. I'm writing this simply to amuse
myself - and a few others, I hope.

SUMMARY: Five missing women, all Salvadoran
immigrants. A mass grave on the slope of a volcano,
the bodies burned beyond recognition. What's the
connection? An anonymous tip sends Mulder and Scully
on a dangerous search for the truth.

Notes and thanks at the end.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx


salvador : savior


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx


Prologue


The soldier stumbles through thick brambles, his eyes
on the muddy ground. Suddenly he stops and draws back.
Fear and disgust twist his features. "Aqui," he
shouts. "Aqui."

A woman strides across the clearing toward him,
followed by more men in uniform. Her thick muddy boots
contrast sharply with her elegant linen suit. The air
here is heavy and damp, and the men sweat, but she is
cool and crisp.

"Senorita Covarrubias. Mira. Mira aqui." She looks to
where he points. Beneath the foliage, the rains have
washed away layers of dark mud to reveal a blackened
skull staring up at them with its idiot death's head
smile. An arm is splayed awkwardly, as if trying to
ward off a final blow. Other skulls, other bones,
small and frail and exposed. The soldiers look on with
grim faces.

Marita Covarrubias turns away quickly without changing
her expression and walks back to the vehicles. Her
chiseled, patrician face, framed by yellow hair, is
calm and intent. But her eyes are full of faded
screams. 

One of the men helps her into a waiting Land Rover and
soon they are bumping away down the rough mud road.
She looks out unseeing at the passing scenery, at the
coconut trees and small homesteads. When she is sure
the driver and the guards are not paying attention,
she looks down at her hands. With detachment, she
watches them tremble.

After a moment, the trembling stops. Her expression
does not change as she picks up the satellite phone
resting on the seat next to her and begins to make a
call.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Two men sit on the patio, watching the late sun above
the lake. The black dome of the dormant volcano
dominates the view. Soft sounds of an impending
tropical evening fill the air. One man, silver haired
and elegant, swirls whiskey and ice in a glass. A thin
mustache covers his upper lip; his face is calm and
his black eyes are very far away. The other is of the
same age, but his haggard face makes him seem much
older. He holds his cigarette with a shaking gray
hand. He is hunched and frail now, but an inner
hardness still shows through his skin, traces of the
tall and strong man he once was.

The smoking man takes a long drag on his cigarette and
gives the other a tired frown. "Well," he says, "it
looks as if I'm come all this way for nothing. You
haven't listened to a single thing I've said."

"Surely the trip has done you some good. I would think
that the climate here would be most healthful to one
in your...condition," answers the silver-haired man in
a soft and refined voice. His Spanish accent is thick
but his words are quite clear.

His companion snorts. "Fresh air and sunshine? Please.
The sooner I leave this malarial hellhole the better."
He watches his cigarette smoke climb through the air.
"You are determined, then. You would attempt to
destroy everything we've built and ruin the Project
for good."

The silver-haired man laughs bitterly. "I no longer
work for you, my old friend. And there is no more
'Project.' Everything we built has already turned to
dust."

"Don't be so sure of that."

For a moment the dark eyes gleam and a faint madness
shows through, quickly suppressed. "Of course, you
could simply stop me by force, yes?"

The smoking man shrugs. "You know that I can't. And
anyway, why bother? You're bound to fail anyway.
You're the one who will suffer the most. To be
perfectly honest, I came here to stop this mad plan
for *your* sake. But, as I said, it was a wasted
effort. Your vision is narrow and your understanding
shockingly limited." He stubs out his cigarette in a
ceramic ashtray. "So be it. I wash my hands of this.
And you." He gestures, and a sharp-faced woman emerges
from the shadows. She helps the man to his feet and
helps him grasp a walker. "Thank you, Greta." Slowly
he begins to leave, but he looks back one last time.
"Thank you for your hospitality."

Outside the compound, his entourage waits. The woman
and a sturdy guard assist the old man into a Jeep, and
the procession moves off, his vehicle escorted in back
and in front. For a moment he rests, lulled by the
rhythm of the motor as they pass down the bumpy road,
and lets his gaze drift outside to the passing forest
and farmland. His eyes close briefly. Then he pulls
another cigarette from his shirt pocket and waits for
the woman to give him a light.

After his guest leaves, the silver-haired man leans
back in his rattan chair, sipping his whiskey
contemplatively. He picks up a folder and empties its
contents, a pile of photographs, on the table before
him. With great care he shuffles through them. He
keeps returning to one: a woman standing on a city
street, wearing dark clothes. She is speaking to
someone just out of the shot, a tall indistinct shape.
Her head is tilted up, her face intent. In her eyes,
an intriguing mixture of reserve and passion. Her skin
and her coppery hair are bright against the dull grays
and blacks of the city.

The man picks up the photo and tilts it toward the
fading light for a better look. He sits and drinks and
stares at it for some time, until the woman's image
dissolves in the dim twilight.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


"Do you think we should be worried?" asks Scully,
looking at the rear view mirror.

Mulder raises his head from the file on his lap and
takes a quick look himself. "Scully, if we got excited
about every car that followed us..."

She gives a dubious sigh. "That's not the right
attitude." She frowns and looks behind them once more.
"He's not very subtle. It's as if he *wanted* us to
notice him."

"That's why I'm not worried." He gives Scully an
encouraging grin. "Maybe it's a new reality TV game
show. Spot the Tail. That'd be pretty cool."

"I've had enough of reality TV to last a lifetime,
thanks."

They are parked on the street of a modest neighborhood
in suburban Maryland, not far from Silver Spring. On
one side is a row of tiny Cape Cod homes. On the other
side of the street lies Rock Creek Park. A little side
trail cuts through the thick woods to the jogging path
that runs along the creek. The trees, tinged with
spring green, tower over the little houses. One of
them belongs to the family of Irma Vasquez.

A gray Lincoln with tinted windows is parked a half
block behind them. It is a rental car, new and
gleaming and out of place in this neighborhood full of
aging Toyotas and rusting vans. It has followed them
all morning, almost as soon as they left the Bureau
parking garage. It simply keeps a respectful distance
and waits. And watches.

Scully sighs again. "Explain to me again why we're
here, Mulder," she says, losing patience with this
morning's mystery. She knows only that Irma Vasquez
was one of five young women, all Salvadoran
immigrants, reported missing in the summer of 1998. No
leads, no information. They simply vanished. The
investigations ran into dead ends and languished
since. No evidence of foul play, no photogenic family,
no Washington power players, and so the media - and
the police - have lost interest.
         
"Take a look at this, Scully." Mulder shows her a
thick report held together with a binder clip. "This
is a copy of a State Department report compiled in El
Salvador in 1989." Mulder tilts it toward Scully so
she can take a better look. The State Department logo
with its familiar eagle adorns the front page. "This
is what ties them together. All of these women were
abducted when they were children. All of them vanished
during the summer of 1986. All of them were the same
age - twelve, thirteen years old. Some were gone for a
few months. Some for as long as a year. All were
returned to their families with no explanations, no
clues, no memories of where they had been or what had
happened to them. They were apparently physically
unharmed."

Scully distantly watches his finger trace the names:
Rigoberta Garcia. Alicia Sandoval. Maria del Toro.
Marielena Ramos. And Irma Vasquez. "Where did you get
this report?" she asks.

"Someone e-mailed it to me. I printed it out at home."

"Wait a minute. 'Someone?' You don't know who?"

He looks a little embarrassed. "A. Nonymous. The e-
mail couldn't be traced."

Here we go again, Scully thinks. Are things ever going
to change? "Goddammit, Mulder - "

"Yeah, I know. I know," he answers, placating. "But
the evidence is here, Scully. We're onto something
important. I know it."

"I don't like this at all." Scully glances back
uneasily at the Lincoln waiting behind them, then back
at Mulder. "These initial abductions happened during
their civil war. In the middle of all that violence
there could be a hundred plausible explanations why
these girls disappeared."

"What better cover could there be?" asks Mulder. "Look
at this." Mulder points to a new page. "This is a
statement made by Irma's younger brother soon after
she went missing." Mulder points to a translated
paragraph.

Scully reads the short, painful, familiar narrative,
then looks back up at Mulder's face. He blinks and
looks away from her scrutiny. "Scully, I'm okay," he
murmurs.

She continues to study Mulder's face, looking for the
piercing desperation she knows too well. Like the look
on his face that terrible day when he kneeled in the
dirt and tried to dig up a grave with his bare hands.
Like the look he wore as he stood near a children's
petting zoo, in a clearing filled with tiny shallow
graves. 

Maybe he wore the same look when I was taken, she
thinks. 

All she can do now is look for the signs that he's
crossing over again, that he's taking this too
personally.

But all she sees in Mulder's face this morning is
Mulder - his normal, intense self. She hasn't seen
that old desperation for some time, not since his
acceptance of his sister's death on that quiet night.
After his initial false peace came grief, then
numbness, then a truer peace that she hopes will last. 

"Let's go," Mulder says, and she nods, and they leave
the car at the same time. Mulder waves cheerfully at
the Lincoln as they cross the street. 

The house sits on top of a small hill, tidy but
showing signs of age and disrepair. Mulder is already
ringing the doorbell as Scully climbs the steps after
him. Tense silence answers them. Mulder rings again.
Faint, tentative sounds, shuffling and whispering. At
last the door opens a crack and a small sharp face
peers out. Yes?" 

"Mrs. Vasquez? I'm Agent Mulder and this is my
partner, Agent Scully." They both show their badges,
giving her plenty of time to inspect them. "We were
hoping you could spare a few moments to speak - "

The little woman shakes her head. "Oh no. I am very
sorry, but it is time for me soon to go to work
please." The door begins to close.

"This is about your daughter Irma," says Scully.

The door shuts. More whispers, more footsteps. Mulder
and Scully wait patiently, faces neutral and body
language unthreatening.

Finally the door opens again, this time all the way.
Now a young man stands there, warily sizing them up.
He is maybe 25, shorter than Mulder, with powerful
arms and shoulders. His square face is impassive and
his eyes hard and uncommunicative. He wears heavy
boots and a Carmichael Construction t-shirt. "Can I
see your badges again?" he asks. Mrs. Vasquez peers
from behind his elbow.

They comply. He bends down slightly to inspect them,
then nods. "This is about Irma? What do you want?" His
heavily accented voice is surprisingly soft, almost
gentle.

"Are you her brother Emilio?" asks Mulder.

It takes a moment for the young man to decide if he
wants to respond. "Yeah. I'm Emilio. So what do you
want?"

"We'd like to talk to you about your sister's
disappearance. Some facts about the case have just
been brought to our attention," explains Scully.

A bitter smile briefly crosses Emilio's face before
his impassive mask falls back into place. "Nothing for
two years. No one cares. Now people wanna talk." He
shrugs. "Okay. Whatever. Come in." He gestures them
into the house. Mrs. Vasquez murmurs something to her
son in Spanish. "Ay mama, por favor," he answers.
"Espera en la cocina."

The living room is spotless even if the furniture is
shabby. A small Salvadoran flag adorns one wall. On
the opposite wall hangs a brightly painted wooden
crucifix. Next to it is a framed photo of a smiling
teenage girl, with a thin face like Mrs. Vasquez and
curly hair like Emilio. She is carefully decked out in
what must have been her best dress. A thick silver
cross, elaborately engraved, hangs from her neck.
Scully glances at it and her heart is briefly squeezed
with pity. She sits next to Mulder on the creaky
couch.

They watch as Mrs. Vasquez moves off to the kitchen,
the slippers on her feet shuffling across the
scratched floor. "Her English isn't too good," says
Emilio. He notices Scully looking at the photo. "They
took that one a long time ago. She changed a lot after
that." Again the hard mask briefly slips, then comes
back. "So what about Irma? Don't got much time. My
shift starts soon."

"Mr. Vasquez, what do you remember about Irma's
disappearance?" Mulder asks.

"Man, I been over this a hundred times." He runs his
hand though his thick hair. "Don't you got this down
in your file or something? You think I'm gonna
remember something new after two years?" He sighs, and
begins to recite. "It was night, like seven at night.
We were out of milk, so she left the house to go to
the corner store like she did all the time. She didn't
come back. And she didn't come back and she didn't
come back. And that's all." His eyes are hard. "Police
wouldn't listen. They didn't look for her for days.
Like she was the kind of woman who would run around
like that, like a whore or something. Like she would
just leave without telling us."

"We know about that night," says Mulder. "What we want
to know more about is the *first* time Irma
disappeared. When you were children in El Salvador and
you saw her taken."

Emilio looks quickly at Mulder, surprise and
trepidation in his face. "What?"

"In El Salvador, when you were about seven years old,
you were interviewed by some human rights workers
about the night you walked with your sister to the
market and you saw the lights. The night your sister
was taken."

The young man shifts uncomfortably. "This don't have
anything to do with that."

"I think it may," Mulder answers. He is entirely
focused on Emilio now, with that intense, empathic
listening expression Scully knows so well. She glances
between their faces, feeling suddenly uncomfortable.
"What happened to your sister back then may have
something to do with what happened to her two years
ago."

"I was just a little kid. I probably said all kinds of
stupid stuff."

"Mr. Vasquez, just try to tell us what you remember,"
Scully says. Her voice is encouraging and gentle.

Emilio looks at the floor for a moment, his face
reflecting some kind of private struggle. Finally he
releases a small, involuntary sigh. "Okay." His words
come out reluctantly at first, and slowly. "It's
weird...when you remember back to being a kid it's all
kinda...fuzzy, you know? But that night is real clear.
Real clear. I remember Irmita - Irma - holding my
hand. It was getting dark, and we were walking from
the market on the back road to our house." His face
softens. "Stupid what you remember. I was carrying
this bag of oranges and it was so heavy but I wanted
to be a good boy for my sister. Then there was bright,
bright light shining right in my eyes. It hurt. And
then all of a sudden I let go of the bag, and I saw
the oranges rolling on the dirt. But the worst part
was that I couldn't feel Irma's hand any more."

"You couldn't move," says Mulder, ignoring Scully's
sharp look.

"Yeah, it was like I was paralyzed," answers Emilio,
nodding. Suddenly his tough shell is gone and his face
is frightened and young. "And I remember shadows like
big men. But I couldn't see faces." His voice lowers
to a near whisper. "It was all real confusing. I was
real scared. I kept looking at the oranges on the dirt
because I couldn't move my head to see anything else.
And then I could move again and I saw Irma. She was in
the air. She was floating away in the light." He
shakes his head as if he's trying to dislodge the
memories. "The next thing I remember I'm at home. One
of our neighbors found me in the road and carried me
home. And my mother was crying and crying."

They sit in silence for a moment. Emilio bends his
head. "Irma came back a year later. She just came
walking up the road. She was even wearing the same
clothes. She still had on that cross." He nods at the
photo. "She couldn't say where she been or what
happened. We didn't wanna know what happened. Never
wanted to think about it. Just wanted to move on.
Guess you can't do that." He swallows, eyes focused on
the floor. "She wasn't...she wasn't *hurt*, you know? 
Not in her body. But she was always funny after that.
Always real sweet, but real quiet. Like she was far
away even when she was right with us. And she always
hated bright light. I wonder if she had what they talk
about on TV. You know, post...post..."

"Post-traumatic stress disorder?" asks Mulder quietly.

"Yeah."

"Mr. Vasquez, why didn't you mention any of this when
your sister disappeared two years ago?" asks Scully.

He looks surprised at her question. "You think anyone
but my mother would believe me?"

Mulder looks down at the report. "The people who
interviewed you believed that your sister was abducted
by renegade soldiers, or by rebels."

Emilio shrugs. "If they say so."

"Doesn't sound like you believe that."

"I don't know what happened. I don't know." He
struggles to keep his composure. "All I know is I
dream about that night all the time. The lights and
the shadows and the oranges and Irma going away and I
couldn't do anything to help her. And no one would
believe me."

Mulder leans forward. "Emilio. Listen to me." Emilio
looks up at him, his face flat with despair. "What
happened when you were a child is *not your fault.*
Never think that." His voice is firm and his eyes
bright with compassion. "Do you understand me?"

Emilio only shrugs.

When Mulder and Scully walk back to the car, the
afternoon has darkened. The gray Lincoln is gone.
"Guess we're not exciting enough," says Mulder.

Scully opens the passenger side door and slides in.
"Mulder, you asked Emilio leading questions." She
looks away from him, out the window at the gray trees
arching overhead. 

"No, I didn't."

"You wanted to hear him confirm your suspicions, and
so that's what he did. He told you what he thought you
wanted to hear."

"Scully..." says Mulder, shaking his head. "No. That's
not what's going on here. He was confirming his
earlier testimony."

"Testimony he gave when he was a child."

He touches her shoulder then and Scully turns to face
him. "Don't tell me you didn't believe him."

She meets his stare for only a moment before lowering
her eyes. "I'm not saying I didn't. But - "

His phone rings shrilly and they pull away from each
other. "Mulder." He listens, lips pursed. "All right."
He hangs up and takes a deep breath. "Skinner wants to
talk to us. He says it's related to this case."



XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx


"Agents, have a seat." Skinner does not look up from
the paperwork on his desk. Dim early evening light
filters in through his office blinds.

They sit. Mulder tries not to look dubious. Scully is
impassive.

Skinner finally raises his head. With the light behind
him, it's difficult to see his eyes. "What do you know
about the local Salvadoran immigrants, the women
who've been reported missing?"

Mulder is briefly startled. "Not much. But something
interesting just came to our attention today. There
are five known victims. All of them, it turns out,
were reported missing as children in El Salvador, all
within the same time period. Probably abducted. All of
them were returned to their families within a year.
The girls had no memories of what happened to them or
where they had been." He does not reveal how he knows
this. He keeps this to himself for now, especially the
part about the anonymous e-mail and the State
Department report.

"Then I think this is something you need to know
about." Skinner pulls out a file and hands it to
Scully. "Last week an anthropology student in eastern
El Salvador discovered a crude mass grave on the
slopes of a volcano. UN officials have confirmed the
discovery." 

Mulder looks over Scully's shoulder at the photos in
the file, and suddenly Skinner's voice seems very far
away. At first the blackened shapes are unrecognizable.
But soon patterns and forms emerge, twisted and
charred, but recognizable: a finger. A shoe. A gaping
jaw, open as if caught in the middle of a scream. "My
God," says Scully.

"All of the bodies were burned and thrown in a shallow
grave. The severity of the fire and the level of
decomposition makes identification extraordinarily
difficult. There may be as many as forty bodies. As of
now there is no way to know how these people actually
died. It was assumed at first that this dated back to
the civil war. But the evidence gathered so far points
to a much later date - perhaps as late at 1998." 

Mulder nods. Skinner seems to be avoiding their eyes.

"This is an ugly situation," Skinner continues. "El
Salvador is still recovering from civil war and
they're undergoing a serious crime wave. The political
situation is delicate. I don't think I need to point
out the...obvious similarities between this and the
incident in Kazakstan. And at Ruskin Dam. But a lot of
people in high places don't want to hear about that.
They want to put blame on leftover death squads, or on
the crime wave that's been sweeping El Salvador in the
last few years. This is where you come in." Acute
discomfort crosses Skinner's features. He pulls off
his glasses and polishes the lenses as he talks. "This
has overwhelmed the Salvadoran government's resources
and they've asked the UN for help. The United Nations
has in turn made a formal request to the United States
and the FBI for investigative support. And the FBI
will provide it."

"When do we leave?" asks Mulder.

"*You* don't, Agent Mulder. But Agent Scully may."

Scully looks sharply between the two men. "What do you
mean, sir?"

"The Bureau will deploy an Evidence Response Team to
excavate the site and recover the bodies. Many of the
team personnel are already committed to other
investigations, both here and abroad. The list of
qualified replacement personnel is short. And you,
Agent Scully, are on the top of that list." Skinner
replaces his glasses and looks at Scully, really looks
at her for the first time. "There's an open position
the team. It's yours if you want it."

Scully's eyebrows raise, very slightly. Mulder's face
goes blank. "This is an X-File," he says slowly. "This
is directly tied to a current investigation. Why only
Scully?"

"I agree that this is an X-File. I may be the only one
around here who does. That's why I tried to have you
brought in on this - I don't want to see this swept
under the rug any more than you. But this was the only
way I could do it. I had to push hard to bring you on
in any capacity at all. There are a lot of people
around here that frankly aren't very happy with you
right now, Agent Mulder."

"And let me guess, their initials are AK," mutters
Mulder.

"Agent Scully has the expertise they need and they
can't say no to that." Skinner turns back to Scully
and meets her gaze again, holding her there for a
moment before letting her go. "Agent Scully, the
decision is yours."

Mulder looks at the photos once more but he doesn't
see them. Instead he sees a lonely bridge under a gray
sky, dark churning water below. Row after row of
charred corpses. The sickening smell of burned human
flesh. A glimpse of bright hair, and a wave of horror
and grief hitting him like a fist in his gut.
Unspeakable relief when he saw her face for real. He
lays the photos aside. "No," he says.

Skinner squints at him. "I'm sorry, my hearing isn't
as good as it used to be. Did I just hear you say 'No'
to me, Agent Mulder?"

"This is unacceptable," says Mulder. "This is putting
Scully at too much risk. She shouldn't go there on her
own."

"I believe this is Agent Scully's decision to make,
not yours. If it helps, I don't like this any more
than you. Hell, I think it's risky too. But she won't
be alone. I've been assured that the security around
the site is very tight. No one can get in - or out -
without passing through a security checkpoint. They'll
be surrounded by UN peacekeepers, as well as
Salvadoran military."

"Gee, that makes me feel much better."

"Look Mulder - "

"The last time we saw anything like this we were
searching for Scully's body," says Mulder. That comes
out more brutally than he intended and inwardly he
cringes.

Skinner's eyes narrow even further. "I am aware of
that, Agent Mulder. I was there too."

At that Scully stands. "Sir. May I have a word with
Agent Mulder, in private?" Her voice and face will
tolerate no argument from either man.

A moment later and they are in the hall. They stand
only a few inches from each other, speaking in
frustrated whispers. "Dammit, Mulder, you do *not*
speak on my behalf as if I'm not in the room. I will
not be *discussed.* Just because the, the parameters
of our relationship have changed -"

"That is not what this is about and you know it." He
leans over her, resisting the urge to grab her by the
shoulders, to take her face in his hands.

"Then what *is* it about? It's all right for *you* to
take risks if it means getting closer to the truth,
but not me?"

The old argument. Mulder pinches the bridge of his
nose. "Scully, don't you see? This is just like Ruskin
Dam. Just like it."

"Yes. I thought that was the point." Her face is
resolute. It's impossible to argue with her when she's
like this, but he always insists on trying.

"You're too vulnerable. Those people, those bodies
could be you."

"All the more reason I need to go," she says, her
voice becoming even lower. "What do you want me to
say, Mulder? 'Sorry, this assignment is too traumatic
for me.' 'Sorry, I can't be trusted not to wander
off.' No. I refuse to spend my career like that. Or my
life. The truth is worth it. I thought we both agreed
on that."

Mulder shakes his head slightly. "I think you're too
close to this."

She fixes him with unflinching eyes. "I think *you're*
the one too close to this, Mulder." She looks briefly
at her watch. "I'm going. I need to get ready."

She turns and leaves Mulder out in the hallway,
propped against the wall. If only he could get that
smell out of his memory, the hideous smell of burnt
flesh. 

And he can't even think of a good retort, because he
knows ultimately that she's right.

He takes a deep breath and walks down the hall in the
opposite direction.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


A sharp knock interrupts Scully's packing. She pads to
the door in bare feet, still in her work blouse and
slacks. Frohike stands in the hallway, Mulder behind
him. "Good evening," Frohike says, wearing his most
ingratiating grin. "Frohike Electronics International
is pleased to inform you that you have been chosen as
a beta tester for our exciting new product - " 

Mulder shoulders past him into the apartment. "Where's
your notebook?" he asks without preamble. 

"On the coffee table," answers Scully, resigned.
Frohike takes off his hat, rolls his eyes, and follows
Mulder into the living room. He sits on the couch in
front of her notebook computer and pulls a CD-ROM from
his jacket pocket. "Are you going to tell me what
you're doing at some point?" Scully asks. She glances
at Mulder, but he does not return the look. He stands
stiffly behind the couch; his face is shut down,
remote. 

Frohike slips the disk into the laptop. "This is
something we've been working on for a while. After
the, um, difficulty with your e-mail a few months ago,
we decided to accelerate the pace of development."
Frohike pulls out what looks like a PDA and briefly
displays it to Scully before handing it to Mulder.
"Look at him. Just looks like another Palm or
something, doesn't it? If you saw Mulder on the Metro
with that thing, you'd just think he was another dot-
com idiot with all the right toys, right?"

Scully considers Mulder for a moment. "Yes. Yes I
would." Now it's Mulder's turn to roll his eyes.

"Ah, but appearances can be deceiving." Frohike nods
in satisfaction. "This nifty little utility I've just
installed on your notebook allows you to send and
receive e-mail anywhere in the world in complete
privacy and security, no matter what kind of Internet
connection you have. The e-mail is encrypted and then
it takes a piggyback ride on any available
transmission and frequency. It can only be decrypted
by someone with the correct reader, hidden in an
innocent Palm."

Scully sits on Frohike's left. "So I read and send the
mail from my notebook."

"And Mulder reads and sends from the Palm look-alike.
We considered giving you the PDA instead, but Mulder
said you'd be taking your own notebook into the field.
So we gave you the notebook version and gave the Palm
to Smiley over there." He points to a small icon on
her screen. "We've even developed a very nifty chat
feature. You'll have to give it a spin."

Scully raises an eyebrow. "Impressive."

"You can say that again, sister," Frohike says
modestly. "I did most of it myself. Don't let Langly
tell you otherwise. He may be Code Boy, but the idea
behind it is mine, all mine." After completing the
installation, Frohike walks Scully through the few
simple steps to use it. "And there you go. Guaranteed
results."

Scully gives Frohike a small, indulgent smile.
"Guaranteed? I thought you said we were the beta
testers."

"Ah. Well. Just a figure of speech."

She sees him to the door. "I appreciate this, Frohike.
Thank you."

"Your servant." He tips his hat. "Can't have you
running around the middle of nowhere completely out of
touch, can we?" He replaces his hat and then he is
gone.

Scully shuts the door softly and turns back to Mulder,
who is now slouching on the couch. Still the remote
face and distant eyes. I might as well be gone
already, she thinks. Well, I'm not. Enough of this.
"Look, Mulder...I have to do this. Not just for me,
but for all of the others. There's still too much we
don't know. I can make a difference this way."
Gingerly she sits down next to him. 

Mulder turns to face her, suddenly animated when he
feels her weight settle on the couch next to him. "I
just don't want anything to happen to you. Is that so
hard to understand?" he says, his voice hoarse.

"I know that."

"What if you..." He pauses and focuses on the floor.
"What if you lose control again. Like last time. And
you leave and something happens to you."

"That can happen here. That can happen anywhere. I'm
aware of the risks. I'm willing to take a chance if it
means getting closer to the truth."

"I should go too," he says helplessly.

"You know they won't allow that."

Mulder grins faintly. "This is me, Scully. When have I
ever waited around to be 'allowed' to do anything?"

"Mulder, no. I need you here." Scully can't explain
that she is more frightened for him than for herself.
The deep, gnawing fear has always been there to some
extent, impossible to describe. But it intensified a
few months ago when she saw him confined to a stark
white cell, pacing and howling in agony. When she
found him later, strapped to an operating table,
helpless and mutilated. 

So hard to take care of herself and worry about him at
the same time. 

Mulder nods and takes her hand. He presses her palm to
his lips, wordlessly asking for her permission. She
closes her eyes. They sit that way for a minute,
awkward with need.

Finally he sighs and brings her hand down, but does
not release it. "Who else is on the team?" He studies
her palm intently.

"I'll know when I get to Andrews," she answers.

He frowns at her life line. "Did you pack your
sunscreen?"

"Do you have to ask?" 

Mulder releases her hand and reaches for her, hands
circling her waist. He pulls her to him roughly and
she finds herself straddling his lap, her hands
pressing against his chest for balance. They are still
new at this, still trying to understand, and every
time is warm and strange and exciting and a little
awkward at first.

She looks into his warm changing eyes, dark greens and
golds in this light, and again the blind fear grips
her heart - both fear for him, and the fear of losing
him. This must be how he feels too, Scully thinks.
What a pair - both of us paralyzed with fear for each
other's sake. This is no way to live.

His lips join hers, and it's her last coherent thought
for some time.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Mulder watches as faint morning light begins to spill
around the edges of the blinds into Scully's bedroom.
He watches the impending day with a hard knot of dread
deep inside, somewhere around his chest. Not much time
left. He's been awake for a while now and he can tell
Scully isn't sleeping either.

He is wrapped around her, his chest to her back, his
hands protecting the smooth curves of her belly and
breasts. "Promise me," he murmurs into her ear.
"Promise me you'll be careful. Promise me you won't
take any unnecessary risks."

Silent for a moment, Scully pulls his arms more
tightly around her. "You know I can't," she says. "No
more than you can."

True enough, Mulder thinks. 

Over the years, especially this last year, everything
that ever mattered to him has been pared away.
Everything except for Scully. A slow and painful
process, culminating in an achingly wonderful night.
Was it just last month? That night, when she came for
tea and fell asleep on his couch. He turned from the
sink after rinsing the mugs and found she was awake
and in the kitchen with him. Startled, he dropped one
of the mugs into the sink and it broke with a crunch. 

And then everything else broke around them too.

All of his questions now lead back to Scully as the
answer. And sometimes it terrifies him. Some days
Mulder finds himself in the strange new position of
just wanting to stop and let it all go, to accept the
truth they've been given and be grateful. 

But there is still a truth to find. A truth in the
scar on Scully's neck that he can feel under his lips.
In the scars Mulder carries on his own scalp, hidden
just under his hairline. In the deaths of his family,
and Scully's. In the many other lives and families
destroyed. Still no answers, still no adequate
explanations. 

Still a truth to find.

"Use Frohike's thingy to e-mail me as soon as you get
there and get set up."

Scully turns her head slightly. "Frohike's thingy."
Her eyes are bright. "Is that the technical term for
it?"

"Sorry, my mistake." She feels so good pressed against
him like this, firm and warm and alive. He pulls her
even closer, breathing her in. "I meant to say
'widget.'"

"Oh well, that's different." She moves against him in
response.

"Scully," he whispers into her hair. He feels the wave
rise up in him like it did the night before, and he
reaches down to touch her, and he loses himself in
her, and for a short time they can forget about the
coming day.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Scully threads her way through the team gathered in
the hangar. She knows many of them, former colleagues
and classmates. She exchanges nods, a few tight
smiles, a few murmured greetings as she passes. On the
periphery, logistical support personnel scurry to load
boxes of equipment on the plane.

Scully lugs several bags of her own. In her head she
reviews their contents, some frantically thrown
together moments before leaving her apartment:
sensible clothes and shoes, her medical bag, her
notebook. Did she remember sunscreen after all? Her
normal trip routine has been thrown into complete
chaos, thanks to Mulder. Her neck is stiff from a long
slow night spent mostly on her couch, not moving to
her bed until late. The moments stay with her: Held
firmly in his lap, her back to his chest. His big
gentle hands, his fingers everywhere. His breath
desperate in her ear.

This isn't the time to think about that.

"Ladies and gentlemen." AD Kersh stands in front of
the small crowd and clears his throat, interrupting
Scully's reverie. He scans the group with flat eyes.
The low buzz of voices quiets, replaced by skeptical
silence. Kersh is not a popular figure. "Ladies and
gentlemen," he says again, "I don't have to remind you
of the sensitive nature of this mission."

"Oh, then please don't," whispers someone behind her.
Scully must press her lips together very tightly to
prevent a cynical smile. The group braces for a
lecture. 

"El Salvador is a nation still recovering from a long
civil war," Kersh says. "This incident threatens to
destabilize the country, possibly the entire region.
We are walking into a very sensitive situation."
Scully marvels at the bland words always chosen to
describe horror: the situation, the incident. Distant
and impersonal. "I expect, as always, your unwavering
commitment to excellence," continues Kersh. Scully
shifts restlessly from foot to foot and lets her heavy
bags fall from her shoulder. Kersh looks directly at
her. Unfazed, she returns the look. "The reputation of
the United States and its ongoing relations in Central
America are riding on this." He turns away and the
small speech is at an end. The group stirs. 

The cynical, quiet voice behind her again. "More like
*your reputation* is riding on this, pompous asshole.
Thanks for the fucking pep talk." Scully turns. The
source of the voice is a balding middle-aged man,
pudgy in a drooping Hawaiian shirt. He shakes his
head. "Can you believe this prick? I spent the past
few years in Bosnia and Kosovo digging up mass graves.
People in this room worked the embassy bombings in
Africa. The last goddamn thing I need to hear is some
little speech about my commitment to excellence.
Shit." Then to Scully's surprise he steps past her to
the front of the room to stand next to Kersh. Under
the lights his face comes back to her. 

"Okay people," he calls. "We don't have much time. I'm
Jacob Hershman. I think most of you know who I am. I'm
the Special Agent in Charge of the ERT and I'll be
your tour guide on this little expedition. I'm gonna
ask the nice tech guy to lower the lights and project
the site map onto the screen..."

The lights go out. A bright map of El Salvador
explodes onto the white screen. Kersh steps back,
watching and listening with folded arms. "Great,
thanks," says Hershman. He picks up a pointer and aims
its red pinprick light at the map. "The grave site was
found on the slope of Cerro Verde, here, south of the
city of Santa Ana. We'll be arriving at the national
airport, here, and traveling by ground to the site.
Next slide, please?"

A photo appears now on the screen, blue sky and low
trees. Two peaks rise high above the landscape. One is
rounded and green, the other stark and black. Hershman
points to the green shape first. "This forested peak
is Cerro Verde. This large lake at the base is
Coatepeque, a volcanic lake." He points to the black
shape. "And this is Izalco. The area at the top of
Cerro Verde is actually a government-run tourist
resort built back in the 1950s, back when Izalco was
still an active volcano and visitors wanted to enjoy
the view. Luckily for us, Izalco went dormant in the
'60s. The Salvadoran government is very graciously
allowing us to room in the hotel free of charge. A
pleasant change of pace from tents, I know, but don't
expect much privacy - it'll still be tight quarters."

Another slide, focusing closely on Izalco. To her own
surprise Scully feels a sharp pang of unease at the
dark forbidding shape, more than she felt upon seeing
the pictures of the charred skeletons. Where is this
feeling coming from? She pushes it back down,
resolving to analyze it later.

Hershman continues. "This is the view of Izalco from
Cerro Verde." Another click, revealing a rough
clearing, overwhelmed by the hulking volcano. "And
this is the site itself. Difficult to say with any
precision how big the site actually is, due to the
steep slope and the heavy vegetation. If it weren't
for this year's earthquakes and the mudslides
afterwards, these bodies may have never been exposed."
He steps back from the screen and sighs at the black
mud. "I'm not gonna lie to you. This won't be an easy
dig, my friends. Not in the least."

After the briefing, Scully kneels to inspect her
equipment one last time and label her bags. A well-
known voice makes her rise to her feet.

"Agent Scully."

She turns and faces Kersh's poker face, meets it with
her own. "Sir?" 

"I'm taking a risk with you and I expect results," he
says. Not one for wasting time. "You were assigned to
this team despite my misgivings. You and Agent Mulder
are both far too close to this."

Scully remembers that she was in awe of authority at
one point in her life. Now she has very little
patience left. "Is that why Agent Mulder is being kept
out of this, despite the fact that this is clearly
related to an X-File?"

Kersh is unruffled. "This is no X-File. A simple
question of proper allocation of resources. You have
skills to contribute to this team. I can't afford to
send a loose cannon like Mulder." He holds her in his
bland, unforgiving gaze. "Know this, Agent Scully.
This is no X-File," he repeats. "This no time for you
or your partner to indulge in your private...quests.
Am I understood?"

"You may rely on my unwavering commitment to
excellence. Sir. As always," she answers, matching his
tone. Kersh glares at her. "May I prepare for the
flight?" He dismisses her with a curt nod. Scully
turns her back on him and walks toward the plane
waiting outside.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx


Night, and the basement is silent and dark except for
a single reading lamp. Mulder folds his arms on his
desk and rests his head.

After dropping off Scully, Mulder has spent the day
trying to get in touch with the other women's
families, darting from Silver Spring to Arlington to
Adams Morgan. It was not easy - he was met mostly by
silence or resentment or buried grief, and it was
difficult to get anyone else to speak to him as openly
as Emilio Vasquez. 

He has spent the night combing through X-Files, MUFON
records, UN documents related to the Kazakstan
incident, autopsy reports from Ruskin Dam, missing
person reports, and lists of the vanished compiled by
human rights groups throughout Latin America. The
endless litanies of misery and grief makes his eyes
swim and his heart ache.

Just a few minutes of sleep, he thinks. That's all I
need. He tries to rest but his dark thoughts still
churn. Visions of girls and women, abducted and made
to suffer. Scully returned to him but dying, fading
while he watched. Searching through the rows of
charred corpses under a wet gray sky, looking for
Scully among them. Scully, gripping his hand, her face
strange while she told a nightmarish story of fire and
death.

No. He tries to control his racing thoughts and banish
the dark images. Instead he concentrates on the image
of Scully's face in another, better context. Maybe
frowning at him over coffee, squinting dubiously at
the screen while Mulder works the slide projector.
Maybe the way she looked when she fell asleep on his
couch. Maybe the way she looked later that night,
lying on his pillows, absently stroking her fingers on
his bare stomach...

A shrill noise wakes him up. He lifts his head with a
start. Frohike's device, propped up on the corner of
the desk, chirps at him. The chat icon flashes on the
tiny screen. Mulder picks it up and checks for the
incoming message:

___________________________

Mulder, 

It's me. I'm at the site. We've just
finished setting up now. Respond when
you get this. Try the chat thing.

Scully

___________________________


Hey Scully. Got it. Coming in loud and
clear. Flight okay?

You okay?

M
___________________________


I've had worse flights, I suppose. We
landed at 1500. The worst part was the
ride here from the airport over a series
of rough or nonexistent roads. We've
been setting up equipment and temporary
facilities. The real work starts
tomorrow.

___________________________


I repeat my question.

Are you okay?

___________________________


I'm fine, just hot and muscle sore.
Please don't worry about me.

___________________________


That's about the silliest thing you've
ever told me.

Interviewed more of the victims'
families today. No one has a story like
Emilio's, none that they'll share with
me, anyway. But still in other respects
their stories are remarkably similar. It
confirms the report. All of these women
were abducted as children within the
same time period. They were all nearly
the same age. All of them were returned
physically unharmed but with no memories
of what happened to them. All of them
were described by their families as odd,
withdrawn, troubled. All of them had
perfect health. And all of them left
their homes on innocuous errands in the
summer of 1998 and were never seen
again.

___________________________


Mulder,

None of this is proof of anything. This
could all be coincidence. They sound
like they were experiencing normal
reactions to a childhood trauma - PTSD,
like Emilio Vasquez thought. There could
be a hundred different explanations for
what happened to them as children - it
was during a war, after all, a lawless
environment.

___________________________


Again I say it's a perfect environment
for covering something up.

And everyone reacts differently to
trauma. We both know that.

Don't tell me you think this is all a
coincidence, Scully. If that's what you
really think, why did you sign up for
this little package tour?

___________________________


What I believe isn't important. I need
the tangible proof. I need something I
can bring back and hold in my hand. We
both do. Otherwise all we have is
supposition, no matter how plausible you
or I think it is. 

I think my Internet access time is about
up. They're rationing our dial-up time
pretty strictly. I'll e-mail you again
when I can.

I need to get some sleep. You need to do
the same.

Again, please don't worry about me.

Scully

___________________________


Mulder closes the last message. Then he sits back and
looks at the small device for a long time, sleep the
furthest thing from his mind.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Four Days Later


Too tired at first to dream, Scully instead processes
images and thoughts from the past few days: a long,
unpleasant flight passing in a haze. At the airport,
confusion. An unending procession of paperwork and
faces on top of uniforms, confused, hostile, friendly.
A constant whirl of Spanish, too fast for her to
catch. A long, rough ride through scrubby, heavily
deforested countryside. Small farms off the road,
their residents incuriously watching the passing line
of vehicles. Snatches of fitful sleep. The cone of
Izalco hulking over the landscape, the thick muggy
heat draped over everything like a blanket.

Mulder, that last time together on her couch.
Surrounding her, touching her with gentle, insistent
hands.

She veers off into dream, slipping deeper and deeper
under. Mulder's face melts in a nightmare of fire and
she is too horrified to even scream. She is lost in a
crowd of eyeless, faceless people - where does she
know them from, why are they so familiar? The fire
surrounds her, agonizingly bright, licking her face
but not burning. 

"Agent Scully?"

She knows then that she's in a dream. She struggles to
the waking surface as though swimming through dark
water.

"Dana?"

She awakes with a start and sits upright.

"Sorry, Dana. It's time. You asked me to wake you up."

Scully looks briefly at her watch and tries to shake
off the disorientation of sleep. Then she looks up to
see a short, sturdy woman leaning over her bed,
concern on her square face. Judy Janoski, one of the
senior members of the team. "Okay, Judy. Thanks."

Present reality rushes back in. A tile-floored hotel
room with a stone fireplace and misty sunshine
spilling in through large windows. Equipment and bags
stowed in the corner, small folding cots pushed
against the wall. Scully shares the room with the four
other women assigned to the team. 

"No problem," answers Judy apologetically as she lays
down in her own cot.

Scully rises with effort. After washing her face and
brushing her teeth, she steps out into the damp
morning. She shivers slightly - at this elevation the
nights are cool and damp, but later the heat will be
intense. She wears a light, long-sleeved cotton shirt
and slacks against the sun and insects, and sturdy
boots against the mud. Scully walks to the hotel
restaurant - it has been temporarily transformed into
the mess hall. The path leads among the single-story
brown buildings that make up the hotel complex,
through lush gardens full of calla lilies and
bougainvillea and bright nameless flowers that Scully
can't name.

She murmurs a few half-hearted good mornings as she
waits in line for breakfast. She can only get down a
few bites of food - eggs, hard salty cheese, black
beans cooked with a healthy dose of lard, fried
plantains. But she takes a second helping of the
strong local coffee. Cup in hand, she walks to the
wide picture window and surveys the view of the site
beneath. 

The heavy brush and trees have been ruthlessly cleared
away around the site. United Nations peacekeepers and
Salvadoran soldiers guard the perimeter; deep SUV
tracks mark the steep road to the top of Cerro Verde.
A cluster of white tents form a makeshift village
clinging to the fringe of the clearing.

In the center of the clearing is the pit.

The wide, shallow pit is separated into a grid with
twine and stakes. White tarps flutter above the
excavation to protect it from further damage by the
elements. People labor in the dark mud, wresting
secrets from it with shovels and picks and tiny
delicate instruments. The black, viscous mud is
everywhere. No matter how much she scrubs, Scully can
still imagine it under her nails. 

And over all hulks the lifeless black cone of Izalco.
Silver clouds obscure the view of the countryside far
below them, the lakes and villages. Soon these clouds
will burn off, but in the morning the effect is
isolating and disconcerting, like being on an island
surrounded by a glowing sea.

After breakfast, Scully and several other team members
are escorted down to the site by armed guards. They
make her uneasy with their youth, their flinty eyes,
their hands jittery and unsure on their weapons. Once
there, she heads toward a large tent in the middle of
the cluster. Here the remains are reconstructed,
sorted, and labeled. Scully has spent all of her days
and some of her nights in this tent ever since she
arrived.

Gloved and shielded, Scully leans over the fragmented
remains of the young woman laid on the steel surface -
she feels sure this *was* a woman, based on the size,
the bone structure, and the remnants of longish hair.
Her body has been burned by a fire so hot that most of
her bones are charred and brittle and terribly
fragile. But her skull and upper vertebrae are still
relatively intact.

Soon Scully is absorbed in the gruesome puzzle. And
for the first time since waking, she almost relaxes.
The methodical work is a refuge. This is the work that
she's best at. This is the work she loves. Death's
mute remains do not bother her - it's always been more
difficult to deal with the suffering living. For a
long time she harbored the idea that if it ever became
too much, she could somehow leave this work and return
to the world of medicine. But she knows now that she
is exactly where she is supposed to be. 

She remembers Mulder that night in his hallway, when
he exhorted her to "go be a doctor." She wonders if he
understands now that was never really a choice.

Carefully Scully pushes away the rotted hair to
examine the base of the skull and the delicate
vertebrae beneath. A voice intrudes upon the silence.
"Morning, Agent Scully. What we got here?"

"Good morning, Agent Hershman," says Scully without
looking up. "We have a youngish woman, maybe in her
20s or 30s. Like the others, no visible signs of
injury. No sign that she was killed by anything other
than the fire. Skull and upper vertebrae in better
condition that any of the other victims we've
uncovered so far." She frowns and picks up a
magnifying glass and continues to inspect the
vertebrae.

"What are you looking for?" asks Hershman. He comes to
stand next to her and watches as she peers through the
glass.

"I'm not sure," says Scully honestly. Then she starts.
"I - wait. Look at this." He bends over to get a
closer look.

On the bone are three gouge marks, short but deep. The
edges are ragged, as if made with a serrated blade.

As if someone had tried to dig something out of her
neck.

Hershman whistles. "What the hell is that about?"

"And nothing like this was found at Ruskin Dam or in
Kazakstan either," murmurs Scully. Her voice is low
and distracted. 

Hershman gives her a sharp look. "Were they tortured
before they were burned to death? Christ."

Scully says nothing but the back of her neck tingles
in sympathy, the tiny hairs rising, the souvenir
embedded under her skin itching.

Underneath the area of exposed bone is a black mass,
charred decayed flesh and clothing still clinging to
the bones. Scully continues to inspect the neck area,
gently probing until her small blade scrapes against
something hard and metallic. Working with single-
minded patience, she works to expose it. A chain of
some kind. She scrapes away some of the tarnish and
catches a glimpse of silver. "Help me with this," she
says.

Hershman helps her turn the fragile remains over, a
painstaking process. Working together, they extract
the chain with tiny blades and careful movements. Just
above the sternum Scully pries loose a larger piece of
metal, obviously the charm at the end of the chain.
Thick, but delicately marked. She recognizes it
immediately

The same cross around the neck of the smiling teenage
girl in the picture. Irma Vasquez.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


A sunny, treacherously cold spring morning. Mulder
sits in the car, consuming a nutritious meal of
sunflower seeds and bottled iced tea. He is running on
too many caffeinated soft drinks and not enough sleep.
In the back of his mind he recognizes this and knows
that he will crash soon and hard. Getting too old for
this, he thinks. His mind and his body do not respond
well to this kind of abuse any more. He awoke this
morning feeling refreshed after a vague, pleasant
dream about Scully - hazy impressions, something
shadowed and secret. But then he received Scully's e-
mail and learned that she had tentatively identified
one of the bodies.

Now comes the hardest part.

He is parked again in Silver Spring, across the street
from the Vasquez house. And again a block behind him
sits the gray rental Lincoln. Mulder can see it easily
in his rear view mirror as he eats. It has been
trailing him everywhere this morning: sitting in front
of his apartment, waiting on Pennsylvania Avenue as he
pulled out of the bureau parking garage, following him
as he drove to Silver Spring. Subtle, Mulder thinks.
He chews one last seed and decides to let Mr. Lincoln
sit for one more turn.

Mulder climbs the steps to the little house and
knocks. Mrs. Vasquez opens the door after a minute.
She looks up at him, nodding in recognition. "I get my
son," she says, opening the door for him. She shuffles
off and Mulder waits patiently in the living room,
hands folded in front him, eyes drawn to the photo of
the girl and her cross.

"You again," says Emilio, pulling on a shirt as he
walks barefoot into the room. Self-contained but
tentative, as if expecting ice to break under his
feet. Mrs. Vasquez goes to the kitchen. "You got more
questions for me? Mama, refresco por favor," he calls
after her. 

"No, that's okay, I don't need anything," says Mulder
Emilio sits on the worn couch, and Mulder takes the
chair opposite him. Mrs. Vasquez emerges from the
kitchen with a bottle of unfamiliar soda and two
glasses of ice. Unwilling to refuse the modest
hospitality, Mulder takes a sip and tries not to gag
on the sickly sweet orange soda. "Thank you," he says.
Mrs. Vasquez gives him a tiny smile and goes back to
the kitchen, letting her son take over the role of
family spokesman.

Emilio watches Mulder. "So what you wanna ask me? Or
you got something to tell me I don't already know?"

This young man is owed the truth. Mulder draws a deep
breath. "A mass grave has been found on the slope of
Izalco, in El Salvador. Maybe forty people, all very
badly burned. We believe that your sister Irma is one
of the victims."

"What the fuck?" Emilio's eyes widen in astonishment.
"In El Salvador? How'd she get..." He shakes his head
rapidly. "No. You gotta be wrong. Don't make sense. I
know she's alive. Like last time."

"We still have some tests to run," says Mulder. "But
the height and the build match, the blood type and
other samples match hers. And there's a piece of
jewelry - " 

"No. No. I don't wanna know any more. I don't wanna
know." Emilio stands, still shaking his head. Panic
and horror underneath. 

Mulder stands too. He remembers how it was for him,
how at first he was afraid to learn the truth. He
remembers talking to the father of a long-dead little
girl, just a few years before. "I always thought
missing was better than dead, because at least there
was hope," the man had said. 

Mulder was lucky - the truth was given to him gently
and the loss of hope was tempered with relief.

But for Emilio, the truth is not delivered by a vision
but by a stranger in a suit.

"You have to know," Mulder says. 

"No. Get out. Leave this house now." Emilio starts
toward the kitchen

"Emilio," says Mulder, and Emilio flinches at his
stern tone. "Listen to me. I know what it's like. I
know it's frightening. But you have to know the truth
about this, no matter how much it hurts. It will be
better when you know for sure. Believe me." Emilio
looks down at the linoleum floor, refusing to meet
Mulder's eyes. "Aren't you tired of being angry all
the time?" asks Mulder quietly. "And not knowing who
you should be angry at? Aren't you tired of
wondering?"

Emilio slumps back on the couch, suddenly drained.
"How did she get back to Salvador?" he whispers. "She
didn't have any money."

"That's what we want to find out." Mulder sighs to
himself, then sits back down. "I need to ask you some
questions, Emilio. They're important." Emilio nods
numbly. "Was your sister ever sick? Physically sick?"

Emilio looks up with wet unfocused eyes. "No. I don't
remember her being sick. Ever. She never even got a
cough."

"Okay. I need you to be honest with me. Did she ever
have memory lapses? Do you know if she ever went
anywhere, but couldn't remember how she got there?
Anything at all like that."

"Not that she told us. She kept...she always kept
everything to herself. Everything." He makes a choking
sound, something between a sigh and a sob, and runs
both hands through his hair. "I always thought she
would come back, you know? Like before. Just show up
one day. But I didn't wanna think about her hurt.
Didn't want to know where she was. Not really." A
sound of weeping from the kitchen, and Emilio looks
up. "My mother knew she wasn't coming back all along.
We argued about that. She thinks Irma was taken by
angels. Can you believe that?" He looks at Mulder with
wet eyes and breaks down. "Oh God, she is so fucking
ignorant. Angels."

Later, Mulder stands on the front stoop and looks up
at the sky for a moment, trying to compose himself.
These damaged people, this house of festering denial
and grief, a world away from his own home and family
but so familiar. Too familiar. Maybe now at least
these people can have time to heal. He looks up at the
tree branches laced across the sky, then lets his gaze
fall back to the street.

The gray Lincoln is still parked down the block.

Sudden anger swells in Mulder's throat and rings in
his ears. He's not in the mood for this game any more.
Purposefully he walks down the stairs and up the
street. Soon he comes up on the driver's side. He
gives the tinted window a brisk knock. The glass rolls
away and a scarred homely face stares up at him
impassively.

"Hey," says Mulder. "Where's my check?"

The man considers him for a moment. "What check?"

"My big check." Mulder spreads his hands out to
demonstrate. "I won the Publisher's Clearinghouse
Sweepstakes. And I get a big funny check, like in the
commercials. Isn't that why you've been following me?
To give me my check?"

"Oh." The man continues to study him with great
interest. "You're a pretty funny guy, huh?"

"A regular laugh riot."

"Too bad I don't have a sense of humor." The door
swings open and the man steps out. He stands several
inches taller than Mulder, with broad shoulders and
thick arms. His well-cut suit conceals his lack of a
neck. He leans into Mulder's space and Mulder does not
step back. "My employer is very interested in you and
your work," the man says. "She'd like to meet with
you." He hands Mulder a white card.

Mulder looks at the card but doesn't take it. "That's
nice. Tell your employer that I have three phone
numbers, two e-mail addresses, and a fax number. I
occasionally get snail mail too." He turns to go.

"I think you two might have something to talk about,
Agent Mulder," the big man calls as Mulder walks away.
"Something to do with the case you're investigating.
The missing Salvadoran women, right? The bodies on
Izalco?" 

Mulder stops, turns back. The man's shrewd dark eyes
reveal nothing. Was he the one who sent the anonymous
e-mail in the first place? I'm getting too old for
this, Mulder thinks. I'm getting tired of jumping
through endless hoops, lunging for every piece of bait
dangled in front of me. "Do you actually have anything
of value to tell me, or are you just dropping cryptic
hints to see what kind of an impact they make?"

"Talk to my employer, Agent Mulder. That's all I have
to say." At that he returns to his car and drives off. 

Mulder watches him go before walking back to his own
car. A small piece of white paper is lodged underneath
the driver side wiper. Another business card. He picks
it up and gets in the car. He starts the engine and
lets it idle as he turns the white card over in his
hand - quality linen paper, expensive black lettering.
Mendez Imports. Miami, Florida.

And he gets ready to jump through one more hoop.

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx


Late Miami afternoon, sticky and unpleasant. Mulder
drives from the airport on the Dolphin Expressway,
passing over low modest houses and subtropical trees
clustered beneath the elevated road. The traffic is
insane - every other car seems to be driven by a
homicidal maniac - and Mulder weaves in and out of
traffic with them.

Planes travel between Miami and Washington every hour,
and it will be easy to return home by nightfall.
Mulder feels only slightly guilty for not telling
Scully where he is. He decided on the plane to wait
until later to tell her. She has enough to worry
about, he thinks.

And if he's lucky, Skinner won't notice until he gets
back.

Eventually Mulder is on Brickell Avenue, parallel to
Biscayne Bay, and the breeze off the water comes as
relief. A line of high-rise condos separates the
avenue from the bay. He turns into the gate at an
impressive, palm-flanked sign for something called the
Isla Vizcaya. The guard inspects Mulder's badge and
rental car for an interminable time, then finally
opens the gate. After parking in the visitor's lot,
Mulder looks up at the Isla Vizcaya. About fifteen
stories, nestled in a neatly trimmed version of a
tropical paradise. Swank, he thinks.

In the lobby, a second guard nods at him, evidently
expecting his visit, and ushers him onto an elevator.
After a slow ride the doors open onto a small marbled
foyer. And the big man with the pitted face and dark
shrewd eyes is there standing in front of him. "Oh
Christ," says Mulder.

"Nice to see you changed your mind," the man replies.
"Where's Red?"

"Oh, that's very original," says Mulder. "Red. Good
one."

"Wait here, please." The big man leaves through
another door, leaving Mulder alone. He is in a
dazzling room, all tile and glass and mirror and white
upholstery. Feeling vaguely rumpled and unshaven,
Mulder moves to the big window and leans against it as
he looks out at Biscayne Bay sparkling below. 

The door opens and the big man comes back out,
accompanied by a woman. She is smaller and thinner
than Scully, with slim fragile arms and white skin.
She wears something crisp and linen with no sign of
wrinkles. Mulder judges her to be his age, but her
dark eyes seem older, much older. The thick black hair
bound up off her neck is shot with white. She crosses
over to Mulder and shakes his hand. "Agent Mulder.
Leda Mendez. I'm so glad to meet you. Please have a
seat." Mulder remains standing. She gives him a swift
appraising look and something about her face makes
Mulder start. The man leans against a wall and watches
them both.

A small bar stands in one corner of the room. She
fills a glass with crushed ice and pours Bacardi Anejo
on top. "Would you like a drink, Agent Mulder?" she
asks. 

The ice in her glass rattles invitingly. A drink would
taste very good right now. "No thank you," answers
Mulder.

Leda Mendez takes a swallow of the dark rum as if it
were iced tea. She examines Mulder with narrowed eyes.
"You're much better looking in person. Your photos
don't do you justice." 

"Yeah, I've been told I clean up well." She sits on
the gleaming white couch with her drink. Silence
follows, and Mulder's exhaustion and exasperation
bubble to the surface. "Look," he says. "If you've
gone through all this trouble to invite me up for
cocktails, I'm flattered. I really am. But I don't
think you sent no-necked goons to follow me just so
you could mix me a martini." If this hurts the big
man's feelings he gives no sign. "And I'm afraid the
charming pills I took this morning are starting to
wear off. So, if there is a point, perhaps we could
come to it."

She presses her lips together. "Yes, of course. I'm
sorry." She gestures to the big man standing silent
against the wall. He nods and disappears through the
same door again. "I've recently begun following your
work. You work with the people who think they've been
abducted." Another sip. "By aliens."

Always a treat to hear his life's work summarized.
"Something like that."

"So I think you're the only one who can understand my
story. And the only one who can help me." She sets the
glass down. "I want you to find my sister."

A lopsided smile crosses Mulder's face. "Ms. Mendez...
I'm a federal agent, not a private dick. I don't work
on commission. I'm here because I was led to
understand that you may have information relating to a
current investigation. If that's not the case..." He
starts toward the door.

"Wait." He stops and looks back her. "I'm sorry," she
says again. "I'm treating you like an employee. I
suppose I'm not used to dealing with people I don't
pay." The man comes back in the room with a thick file
and sets it on the table in front of her. "Thank you,
Octavio," she says. Octavio nods and goes back to lean
against the wall. She lights a cigarette and Mulder
notices for the first time how her hands shake. Her
mouth opens and closes several times, as if she's
trying to phrase something in just the right way.
"Agent Mulder, I know about the bodies on Izalco. And
I need to know...I need to know if my sister is one of
those bodies. Because I find it very likely she could
be."

Mulder sits in a chair opposite her, leaning forward.
"Why do you think she would be there?" he asks.

"I should tell you the whole thing, I suppose." She
pushes the file at Mulder and he picks it up. The
first thing he sees when he opens it is an old school
photo of a young girl, maybe ten. Fair haired, with
surprising light eyes. Again Mulder feels the same
strange pang. Leda Mendez is reflected on the young
face, but there is something else there, something
uneasily familiar.

"Iphigenia Maria Mendez," says Ms. Mendez. "I always
called her Iphi." She pauses. Underneath the small
school portrait Mulder finds a family photo, taken on
a beach. Black volcanic sand and crashing waves in the
background. A slim elegant man standing at a grill. A
blond woman with a square serene face sits at a picnic
table with her arms around two girls. Iphigenia,
smiling mischievously, and Leda, deep in the throes of
early teenage sullenness. "The blond woman is my
mother Maria. Here's Iphi again, and me, obviously.
And this is my father, Fernando. We're on the beach
near La Libertad, in El Salvador. This was taken in
1972. Right before...right before it happened." She
takes a long drag and puffs carefully from the side of
her mouth.

"What happened?" asks Mulder. Gently now, inviting her
confidence.

Abruptly she stubs the cigarette in an ashtray. "I
should tell you a bit about my family, to start with.
My father was an epidemiologist. He specialized in
tropical diseases. Back in Cuba, before Castro, he
taught at the medical school at the University of
Havana - very important, very well-known in the field.
Things got bad under the revolution and he defected to
the U.S. right around the time of the missile crisis.
The whole family escaped. I was too small to remember
this, of course, and my mother was pregnant with Iphi
at the time. My father went to work for the World
Health Organization. He consulted all over Latin
America - Peru, Panama, Nicaragua, Mexico. And El
Salvador. I grew up all over." She smiles a private,
bitter smile. "Do you know, when I was a child, I
thought my father was a hero. When I was in college, I
thought that the whole thing was a lie and my father
was a tool working for a CIA front, trying to win the
Cold War or something. Now...now I have no idea what
to think of him."

"This...incident happened when your family lived in El
Salvador," prompts Mulder.

"1972," she says, her voice low. "My sister and I both
went to the American School in San Salvador. It was
the Easter holiday and my parents borrowed a lake
house from one of my father's friends in the
government. The place had a high fence and guards all
around. There was an armed coup that year, El Salvador
had terrible problems. But at the time I was oblivious
to everything. I was angry because I wanted to stay in
the city with my friends. At the lake I had to babysit
Iphi all the time and I hated it." 

Her face is brittle like ice. She smokes and drinks
for a minute in silence. Mulder lets her take her
time. 

"I remember that day so clearly. That afternoon Iphi
and I walked to the lake to go swimming, like usual.
Our parents were entertaining friends back at the
house. There was a little path from the house to the
water that we walked on all the time, high bushes on
both sides. The sun was setting and it was time to go
back. But Iphi wasn't listening to me, as usual." She
stubs the cigarette in a crystal ashtray with sudden
violence. She stands up and begins to pace. 

"I had to yell and coax to get her to come out of the
water," she continues. "It was safe there, but we
still had to be inside before dark. And I would be the
one punished if we were late. Oh, she made me angry.
Finally she was dry and we were walking on the path
back to the house. It was getting dark, and we
couldn't see the lights from the house yet. Those
bushes just loomed over us. I remember how slowly she
was walking behind me, as if to spite me. I kept
turning back and yelling for her to hurry up. I turned
back one more time and I couldn't see her. I remember
turning back to go find her and a blinding light came
into my eyes. The next thing I remember I was being
carried into the house by one of the guards. My
parents and their friends were drinking cocktails on
the patio. They all stood and watched as I was brought
in, and then my mother started to scream. I remember
thinking she was probably more upset about her
precious Iphi than me."

"Where did they find you?"

She lights a fresh cigarette and walks to the window
overlooking Biscayne Bay. "They sent one of the guards
to look for us when we didn't come back. He said he
found me unconscious on the path. No one else saw
anything. Of course. None of the guards, none of the
guests. No one saw that light. It's all there in the
file. I've accumulated quite a bit of information
since then. Not that it's made any difference.
Everything I have is in that file. Those are all
copies for you."

Mulder looks through the file. Documents from the
State Department and INTERPOL. Long documents in
Spanish bearing the official crest of El Salvador.

"There are interviews with all the guards. They
thought it must have been an inside job. But that
didn't lead anywhere. They thought it might have been
terrorists, or just criminals looking for ransom
money. But no one ever asked for ransom. No one ever
made any demands for her."

More documents: photos of grave sites found during the
civil war, transcripts of interviews in Spanish and
English. He spends several minutes absorbing the
contents, then looks up. "Ms. Mendez..."

"Leda, please."

"Do you think your sister was abducted by aliens?"

"No. I don't know."

"Why do you think your sister is in that grave? Why
come to me? Why now?"

In answer she gestures for Octavio. He opens a drawer
in a side table and pulls out a thick stack of paper
held together with a binder clip. Wordlessly he hands
it to Mulder, who recognizes it immediately. It's the
same report that was e-mailed to him several days ago.
The same anonymous report that started it all.

"Did you send me this?" Mulder asks bluntly, looking
up at Leda.

For the first time, she seems at a loss. She frowns,
her face creased with confusion. "I...what? I haven't
sent you anything."

"Except for large men following me in rental cars. "

She ignores this entirely. "I didn't e-mail you that
document, or anything else," she says, regaining her
composure.

Mulder looks at Octavio. "Did you?" Octavio shakes his
head very slowly, as if conserving strength.

"I only received that document myself a few days ago,"
insists Leda. "It came in an unmarked package along
with this." She takes the report from Mulder and pulls
out two newspaper clippings. One is a Miami Herald
story about Izalco and the Bureau's ERT.

The other is a yellowed obituary for Fernando Mendez.

"After that, it was easy to find out more about you.
And your work. Someone seems to want to tell me about
those people in El Salvador. Why would they, if it
doesn't involve my sister in some way? And the article
about my father..." Her voice falters, lowers. "This
is the hardest part." She moves to the bar and pours
herself another drink. "It confirms something I've
half-believed for a long time, but I've never had any
proof. I think that my father was involved with my
sister's disappearance in some way."

Mulder feels his stomach bottom out somewhere around
his feet. "Why do you think that?"

"Look through that file more closely, Agent Mulder.
Everyone who was at that house that night is dead. My
parents' friends died in a car bombing. The
guards...they died during the war, or in more car
accidents, or from strange diseases. The police
officers who came. The servants too. No witnesses left
but me." Another long drink of rum, molasses dark in a
heavy expensive glass. "There are a thousand small
things too, things that never made sense that I can't
put into words. Over the years things have never quite
added up. Emotionally. That night, first of all. Why
didn't anyone see anything? My father's reaction. So
passive, so damn resigned. The silence. The anger and
blame that always seemed to come from my mother. The
search for my sister always had a perfunctory quality
that's been hard to explain, but I sensed it."

"Did you ever ask your father about any of this?"

She looks at him over the rim of her glass. "You know
how hard it is to get your parents to admit to a lie?"

Mulder can say nothing to this so he just nods.

"I couldn't ask now if I wanted to. Like I said, I'm
the only one left. My father and mother died eight
years ago. I hadn't really spoken to either of them
for years before that. We had a terrible argument when
I was in college," Leda says. "They say it was an
accident. Just here in Miami. My mother was driving.
She crossed the median somehow and was going the wrong
way on the expressway. Does that sound like an
accident to you? They crashed into a truck and they
were burned to nothing. My mother had stopped taking
her antidepressants. Some people said that's what made
her go over the edge, but I think she did it in a
moment of clarity. It was the only way she could
escape from her life and punish my father at the same
time." Mulder stares at his hands. "All these years I
threw myself into school, into work, into the company.
I thought that once I was older my questions would go
away. Maybe if I pushed them back far enough, they'd
vanish too, just like Iphi." She shakes her head.
"That's not the way it works. They just get stronger
as the time goes by. I have money now, and I'll use it
to get the answers I want."

"Just as long as you know how painful those answers
can be," say Mulder quietly. I always thought missing
was better than dead, he thinks. "You might not like
what you find."

"I'm prepared for that."

Of course you are, thinks Mulder, but doesn't say
that.

"I've been doing research on you. You're a very
unusual man, it seems. I think you you're the only one
that could understand." Her dark eyes focus on him
intensely over her drink. "Those missing Salvadoran
women in DC and the grave they found in El Salvador
and my sister and my father. It's all related somehow,
all of these things are connected, but I don't know
how. You've investigated these sorts of disappearances
before. You seem to see connections that no one else
does. You find the explanations that no one else will
even think about. I think you're the only one that can
make sense out of all this."

Mulder looks at her sharply. Does she know about his
own family history? He's getting tired of this, these
grieving angry families looking for answers, these
same sad stories.

He stands and gets ready to go, the file tucked under
his arm. He thanks her for her time, tells her he will
be in touch. As he walks toward the elevator, he feels
her hand light on his elbow.

Mulder looks down at her once more. Again he feels
that uneasy tug of familiarity with her. He wonders
now if he's just seeing his own life reflected in her
tired face. They all seem bound together: Emilio
Vasquez in the little house back in Maryland, Leda
Mendez in this glittering condo, Samantha and his own
family. All bound by lies and hope and grief.

Scully, bound in the same web. Mulder thinks of her
alone on her own search, and she seems terribly far
away and terribly vulnerable. 

"I meant what I said," Leda says. "I'm prepared for
the truth, no matter what."

The elevator doors slide open and Mulder steps in
gratefully, glad to leave.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Early evening and the setting sun casts long shadows
over Izalco, streaking it with black and gold. Scully
glances at her watch - past six and no word yet from
Mulder today.

She is sitting in the restaurant with Hershman,
Janoski, and Agent Phil Dunlap - the senior members of
the ERT. All three look at Scully with skeptical
expressions. 

"Dana," says Janoski apologetically. "I guess I just
don't understand where you're going with this.

That makes two of us, Scully thinks, but keeps this to
herself. "Look," she says, beginning to tick off her
points on her fingers. "We've tentatively identified
two of the bodies as women missing from the
Washington, DC area - Irma Vasquez and Amalia
Sandoval. From *Washington*," she emphasizes. "Both of
these women were abducted as children here in El
Salvador in the same time frame in the 1980s. Both
these women were reported missing again in 1998. Now,
we've gone back and looked at the other bodies we've
recovered here. Sure enough, they all have the same
cut marks on the back of their necks. As if someone
attempted to remove something. All of them were burned
by an incredibly intense fire, but none of the
surrounding terrain was burned and there's no other
evidence of fire."

"So what does that all mean?" asks Hershman.

Scully tries to keep the impatience out of her voice.
"It means we need to see if there are other people
reported missing within the same time period, here and
in the US. We need to look at people with a similar
history - a pattern of childhood abduction." She
swallows - this is the hard part. "And we need to take
a close look at the similarities between this incident
and these others in Kazakstan, and at Ruskin Dam in
the US Who were the victims there? Those victims all
shared certain...experiences. We have to look for
matches. We have to come up with a profile of the
victims. It's the only way we can identify these
bodies and get to the truth."

Phil Dunlap leans back in his chair, his arms folded.
He is a tall, heavyset man, his bald head badly
sunburned. His eyes hold a look a perpetual cynicism.
"So wait a sec," he says. "How do you know that Amalia
Sanoval and Irma Vasquez were abducted as children?"

"My partner and I have reopened the investigation into
their disappearances. The information about their
childhood abductions has only recently come to light."

Dunlap laughs. "Oh, okay. I think I understand now.
This is an X-File. This is good. I suppose next you'll
be telling us that these people were all alien
abductees or some shit. Guess the Martians left their
little implants in all the victims' necks."

"Now Phil," says Janoski.

Scully goes very still. He doesn't know that *she* was
at Ruskin Dam - none of them know about that, or about
the chip in her neck. None of them have heard the tape
of Scully under hypnosis, telling her fantastic story.

No one knows about her nightmares of faceless men and
blinding light and fire and screams.

"I'd be very interested to hear *your* interpretation
of the evidence, Agent Dunlap," Scully says blandly.

"I don't have one. But that doesn't mean I'll accept
this bullshit. You know, I was wondering when you'd
try to rope us in. When you'd try to twist the
evidence to fit your partner's crackpot theories."

"Phil, that's enough," says Hershman tiredly.

Dunlap shakes his head, disgust and pity mixing in his
face. "You've worked with the man so long that you've
totally soaked up his bizarre - "

"For fuck's sake Phil, I said that's enough!"

Shadows skim across the flagstone terrace just outside
the window. They all lift their eyes, briefly
distracted - a flitter of green across the evening
sky, a flock of parrots on their evening flight. When
Scully glances back down, Dunlap is looking away with
disgust on his face, his arms still folded. Hershman
looks at her, raises one hand in a placating gesture.
"Look. You're raising some excellent points. But this
kind of theorizing is beyond the scope of what we're
trying to accomplish here. We're here to present the
evidence and our recommendations to the UN. That's
all."

"Our recommendations don't exist in a vacuum," says
Scully. "I thought that we were here to make
connections, to put the evidence into some kind of a
context. And those connections are right there in
front of this," She pauses, marveling at her own
words. She can almost hear Mulder giving this same
speech a hundred times over the years. I sound more
like him every year, Scully thinks. Does he think he
sounds more like me? Whose quest am I on anyway - his
or mine?

Is there even a difference any more?

She turns briefly toward Izalco then and the setting
sun stains the lava with red light like blood. She
looks back to the faces of the small group gathered in
front of her. "Because if that's *not* why we're
here...then I don't see the point. I just don't."

XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx


Mulder knocks insistently, propping himself against
the hallway wall. After an interminable time, Skinner
opens the door. He stands in the doorway with his arms
folded. He wears gray sweatpants and a white t-shirt
but otherwise gives no sign of being roused from
sleep. "You have to get me to El Salvador," Mulder
says.

Skinner squints at him. "Mulder, do you have any idea
what time it is?" His tone indicates that this is a
theoretical question, the expected thing to say in
this situation.

"We need to talk," says Mulder, eyeing the hallway.

"Come in," says Skinner after a short pause. He stands
aside to let Mulder in, then gives the hallway a quick
scan of his own before closing the door.

Mulder stands in the middle of the living room,
momentarily struck by the view. Skinner long ago sold
the Crystal City place in exchange for the condo here
in Rosslyn, not far from the Iwo Jima memorial. From
here the monuments lie across the black Potomac in
perfect alignment, white alabaster glowing in the
night. Even at this hour a steady stream of traffic
winds along the parkway, a string of lights like
beads. 

Mulder hears Skinner moving around the small kitchen
and opening the fridge. "Beer?" he calls.

"No thanks," Mulder answers. Skinner comes out of the
kitchen with a bottle of Wild Goose. He pops the cap
and leans against the breakfast bar. "Nice view,"
Mulder says, nodding at the glass door and the city
spread beyond.

"Yeah, it's spectacular. And no one's even fallen off
the balcony yet. So you mind telling me what this is
about?"

Mulder turns toward him, away from the view. "We have
evidence now," he says. "It's all tied together - the
bodies in El Salvador, the missing women from our
area, Ruskin Dam. It's all there and it all points to
something bigger."

"All right, let's back up," says Skinner. "What
evidence do we have?"

Mulder tells him everything then - about the bodies
identified by Scully, about Leda Mendez, and about the
mysterious State Department document that no one will
admit to sending. Skinner listens in silence, sipping
his beer and studying the label with alarming
intensity. "This is an X-File, sir," says Mulder. "No
doubt about it any more."

Skinner finally looks up from his beer. "Would have
been nice if I had known about that State Department
report from the beginning, Mulder. It's pretty damn
hard to help you when I don't know the whole story."

Mulder shrugs apologetically. "I don't know if *I*
know the whole story. I didn't want to compromise
you."

"Little late for that. Does Scully know about it too?"
Mulder pauses before opening his mouth. Skinner
interrupts him. "I'll take that as a yes." He takes a
last, thoughtful drink and leaves the bottle on the
counter. Over the years Mulder has become modestly
proficient at reading the AD's facial expressions. He
can tell Skinner is turning the information over and
over in his mind, patiently looking for cracks or
flaws. "So according to that State Department
document," he says slowly, "these women were all
abducted as children in El Salvador during the same
rough time period. Years later, they've immigrated
here - and again they're all reported missing in the
same time frame. And now we find their bodies back in
El Salvador. But I don't see how this other case fits
in. This Iphigenia Mendez. She went missing a decade
before the others, and she was never returned. They
both happened in El Salvador, obviously, but other
than that I don't see how they tie together."

"Someone thinks they tie together, enough to send both
me and Leda Mendez that report."

"Or maybe someone knows how to get under your skin." 

You're making this personal. The constant refrain,
thinks Mulder wearily, stopping himself from rolling
his eyes. "Look," he says. "I know there's always the
possibility that someone's just yanking my chain. It's
happened before. But I think there are too many
coincidences to ignore. Too many unanswered questions.
And if someone's that eager to connect the
disappearance of Iphigenia Mendez with the
disappearance of these other women, then I'd like to
know why." Mulder steps closer, his hands on his hips.
"There's only so much more I can accomplish here. I
need to be down in El Salvador. I know the answers are
down there, and so does Scully. We need your help."

Skinner rubs his eyes. "Christ, Mulder, you know what
kind of position you're putting me in?"

"Yes. And I'm sorry."

"You realize that if you do this you'll have very
little support. If any. Maybe the embassy will assign
you a driver, someone to meet you at the airport. But
that's it. No one will be watching your back."

"I'm aware of that."

"Yeah, I'm sure you are." Skinner pauses and folds his
arms, staring at the floor again. "If you go down
there, you'll be making yourself vulnerable. Your very
presence could make Scully more vulnerable. Have you
thought about that?" He looks up then directly at
Mulder, the brown eyes behind the lenses probing.

And Mulder realizes that he is not just talking about
this case. Have I thought about that, he thinks. Only
when I wake up in the morning. And when I brush my
teeth. And when I'm running. And when I work. And when
I try to sleep. "Yes," he answers quietly.

Skinner studies him for a long time, then sighs.
"Okay. What the hell. Kersh is gunning for me anyway.
What difference does one more piece of ammo make?"

"Thank you, sir."

"Get the paperwork to me first thing in the morning.
And I mean first thing."

"Already started on it."

Skinner glares at him as they head toward the door.
"You're getting pretty damn cocky in your middle age,
Mulder, you know that?" 

"There are two parts of that statement I object to,"
says Mulder.

Skinner gives Mulder a curious look as he opens the
door. "Although I guess you have a pretty damn good
reason to be cocky."

This gives Mulder pause. What the hell is that
supposed to mean? Does he know about...

But Skinner is already closing the door. "First thing
in the morning, Agent Mulder," he says, leaving Mulder
puzzled in the hallway.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


Very early the next morning, Scully stands at the
washbasin, splashing cold water on her face and upper
body, hoping to shock herself awake. Coffee, she
thinks fuzzily. She at least has the room to herself
for the moment, the others are at breakfast or on
site.

>From across the room her notebook computer chimes.
Scully dries off hurriedly, then wraps the towel
around her and crosses over to the small wood table
that serves as a makeshift desk. She takes care not to
trip over the cables laid over the tile floor - the
hotel's simple phone system wasn't sufficient for the
team's Internet access needs.

"You have Mulder!" the screen chirps at Scully as she
sits. Nice touch Frohike, she thinks, and clicks on
the chat icon.

___________________________


Scully - 

I've had a very interesting day. And
night. I finally got to meet our friend
in the gray Lincoln. He works for a
woman in Miami named Leda Mendez. Her
sister was abducted in El Salvador in
1972 and never returned ...

___________________________


Scully reads the rest of the message, learning the
story of Iphigenia Mendez. She imagines Mulder's face
as he listened to Leda Mendez and her too familiar
story; she imagines his face as he typed this message.
She tucks damp hair behind her ear and composes her
response.

___________________________


Mulder,

I don't like this at all. Why should we
trust her? Why is she interested in you?
Who sent you that report? And what real
link do we have between her sister and
the other disappearances? Why would her
sister be here at Izalco? It doesn't fit
the pattern. It's a different time
period and very different stories. 

I hate to say this but it's as if
someone's trying to lure you with this.
They know that this hits close to home
for you. Too close.

___________________________


Dammit, why does everyone keep saying
that to me?

Is that all it takes to set off Spooky
Mulder, the mere mention of a missing
child? Am I that predictable? Is it so
hard to believe that I can be objective?

Okay. Don't answer that.

Look, Scully, I know this is a stretch,
but it's as if the disappearance of
Iphigenia Mendez precipitated these
other disappearances. Someone pointed
Leda Mendez at us. Someone thinks these
incidents are related, or wants us to
think so. I want to know why.

So I'm coming down to El Salvador on the
next flight. There's one a day from
Dulles to San Salvador. I can't
accomplish anything more here.

___________________________


Mulder, no. This isn't a good idea. It's
not safe. And Skinner will kick your
ass. To say nothing of Kersh.

___________________________


Skinner has reluctantly come around to
my point of view. Kersh is kinda being
sidestepped, if you catch my drift.

We both need the truth, Scully. We both
know the answers are down there. Isn't
that why you're there now? 

___________________________


All right.

E-mail me as soon as get to San
Salvador. And I want you to keep
e-mailing me. You're going to keep me in
the loop this time. I mean it.

___________________________


"This time?" Jeez, Scully, I'm hurt.
Really I am. When have I ever kept you
out of the loop?

Okay. Don't answer that one either.

Don't worry about me. You need to take
care of yourself.

Mulder

___________________________


And that's all then. Famous last lines - that's the
only expression for it, Scully thinks. She knows she
doesn't even have a good position to argue from. Here
she is in El Salvador, after all, trying to find
answers to questions she's had ever since that night at
Ruskin Dam, a terrible night that she still can't
remember with her conscious mind.

At point do we just stop, Mulder?

Scully tosses aside the towel and reaches for clean
clothes - comparatively clean, anyway. A long day's
work stretches in front of her. Before she leaves she
leans against the bureau and studies her face in the
mirror.

And she is afraid again - not for herself, never for
herself - but for Mulder.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


The Marine guard carefully checks Mulder's badge and
paperwork. Mulder folds his arms and takes in the
scenery while he waits. The sky is already a hard
cerulean blue. The American Embassy is a charmless,
fortress-like compound on the outskirts of San
Salvador. Mulder wears a gray cotton shirt with the
sleeves rolled up to his elbows, the fabric already
beginning to stick to his back. Once in a while he
casts an uneasy look at his phone and his gun, lying
on the table along with Frohike's device, waiting to
be inspected by the baby-faced Marine. Was Skinner
ever this young, wonders Mulder idly.

Last night Mulder stepped off the plane and into
chaos. The flight from DC was filled to capacity.
Through the crowd he saw a short young man holding a
small "Mulder" sign. Mulder learned quickly that his
name was Carlos, and that he was a driver for the
American Embassy. Hasty arrangements had been made by
fax - it was the typical courtesy extended to a
visiting federal employee.

On the long drive to the city, Mulder also learned
that Carlos had worked as an American Embassy driver
for three years, that he had two brothers living in
Alexandria, that he was thinking of dumping his
girlfriend, and that he held a variety of strong
opinions about the government and the national soccer
team. In the welcome quiet of his hotel room, Mulder
e-mailed Scully once more - I'm here, I'm safe - and
fell into heavy dreamless sleep as soon as he turned
off his bedside lamp.

Now Carlos sits in his Jeep parked somewhere in the
lot beside the embassy, flipping through a soccer
magazine. Mulder has been ferried from the Hilton to
the embassy this morning for a briefing with the
Department of Justice rep. Protocol requires this
visit, but maybe he will learn something useful here
today. Then later, the Ministry of Justice.

Finally the guard returns the phone, gun, and the
little handheld. Mulder is ushered in past the heavy
gates and long lines of locals applying for visas.
After a twisting maze of halls they reach the office
of Paul Fautz.

"Agent Mulder," he says, standing to shake his hand.
Lanky and mild-eyed, nearly as tall as Mulder.

"Mr. Fautz. Thanks for seeing me on such short
notice."

"Not a problem. Have a seat." Mulder feels the mild
brown eyes sizing him up. "I have to confess I'm a
little confused as to the purpose of your visit," says
Fautz, smiling. "The documents you faxed were a little
vague."

"It's related to the bodies found on Izalco. Where the
Bureau deployed an ERT to excavate the site."

"I know about that, but I didn't think the Bureau was
otherwise involved in the investigation. Way I
understand it, the Bureau's job is just to gather
physical evidence and turn it over to the UN and the
Salvadoran government."

"Things just got a little more complicated," answers
Mulder. "We've found ties to an ongoing investigation
back in the states. We've identified several of the
bodies as missing women from the DC area."

Fautz's eyes widen slightly. "Oh my."

Another case has come to our attention - it may be
related," says Mulder, studying Fautz's plain face.
"In 1972 the daughter of a UN official here in El
Salvador was presumably abducted. Her name was
Iphigenia Mendez. Her father was Fernando Mendez, an
official with the World Health Organization. Do those
names mean anything to you?"

Fautz looks around the room once, then smiles
pleasantly. "Let's take care of your gun permit
paperwork first," he says. "Then why don't we talk
about this other matter over lunch? My treat. You'll
love it. You ever had pupusas?"

"Never met a high-fat cuisine I didn't like," answers
Mulder.


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxX


The blades of the ceiling fan cut lazily through the
stifling air. The restaurant is nothing more than a
covered patio overlooking San Salvador, the early
lunch crowd not yet filling the wooden picnic tables.
The city lies below in the massive bowl of an ancient,
extinct volcano, covered by a thin shell of smog.

"Un plato de pupusas mixtas y un Pilsner," Fautz tells
the waitress, then looks quizzically at Mulder. "Sure
you won't change your mind? The local beer might be a
little easier on the stomach than the local water."

"Uh, cerveza, por favor. Pilsner. What he's having."
The waitress smiles indulgently at Mulder before
walking off. It's a little cooler up here but not
much, and the fan doesn't really help. He wonders if
it's this hot where Scully is - he hopes it's cooler
for her. And she's much better at tolerating the heat
than he is, anyway. He indulges himself for a moment
in a mental image of Scully's face flushed with heat,
maybe a thin trickle of sweat on the side of her face.
Then he comes back to the restaurant and Fautz sitting
across the wooden table. "About Dr. Mendez and his
daughter," says Mulder.

"Sad story," Fautz replies. "I wasn't here back in
'72, of course. But I know about it." The waitress
sets the beer bottles on the table and he pauses until
she walks away. "I've been the project manager here
for ICITAP since 1996." Mulder nods, familiar with the
acronym - the International Criminal Investigative
Training Assistance Program. "The goal is to work with
local civilian law enforcement in these developing
democracies, develop them, train them, raise the level
of professionalism. Not an easy job, especially
because sometimes the US doesn't exactly provide the
best kind of example. Do as we say, not as we do, I
guess. Anyway, it means I've been able to get to know
a pretty sizable chunk of the law enforcement
community here. And the Mendez case is a classic
example of how *not* to conduct a kidnapping
investigation. Corrupt and shoddy from beginning to
end."

Mulder raises the bottle to his lips. The beer tastes
clean and cold and good. "So what have you heard?"

"It was never solved, of course. She was never found.
No ransom demands, no signs of struggle, no real
clues. The sister was there but she saw nothing. Just
some crazy stuff about lights. And kids are
notoriously unreliable witnesses anyway."

"I don't know if I agree with that," says Mulder
quietly. "You'd be surprised at what they observe." He
watches the condensation form on the beer bottle like
sweat. In the brief silence that follows he lifts the
bottle to his lips, leaving a dark wet circle on the
unfinished wood table. "How do you explain what
happened then?"

"Violent country, violent times. Desperate people. A
botched kidnapping for politics or ransom. Same story
repeating itself all over the world." Fautz pauses,
swallowing more beer. "You've been talking to Leda
Mendez, haven't you?" he asks.

Mulder shrugs, makes a noncommittal sound around his
beer. "What makes you ask that?"

Fautz smiles. "Sounds like you have. I'd take her with
a grain of salt if I were you. She is a very...
single-minded lady."

"You've had contact with her?"

"She's the other reason I know about the case. I
represent the Justice Department here. Part of my job
is to help US citizens with concerns in El Salvador.
She keeps in pretty regular touch with me - phone, e-
mail." Fautz shakes his head, his smile turning
faintly exasperated. "Leda's persistent, I'll give her
that. She's a little like Columbo in those old TV
movies. She always just has one more question, always
just wants one last piece of information. And she's
never satisfied, of course. Paranoid too. She seems to
think there's some kind of big secret conspiracy thing
behind it all but she can't actually articulate any
kind of theory. You ask me, it's time for her to let
this one go. It's not helping anyone after all these
years. Comes a time you just have to toughen up, you
know? Accept your losses and move on, don't let them
cripple you."

Mulder doesn't say anything for a moment, just sips
his beer and watches the fan spin against the ceiling.
"Letting go might be easier said than done," he says.

"Hey, if she wants to use her money to run around
playing detective, that's her business." The waitress
returns and Fautz looks up. "Ah, here's lunch." She
sets a steaming plate of pupusas in front of them, fat
corn tortillas stuffed with beans and cheese and pork.
Hot sauce, bowls of slaw, and extra plates follow.

Mulder is momentarily transfixed by the sight. Then he
reaches for the slaw. "So you don't think there's
anything to her allegations."

"She doesn't have anything specific or coherent enough
to even be considered an allegation," Fautz replies
around a mouthful of pupusa.

They eat for a few moments in silence. The restaurant
is starting to fill up with the lunch crowd, a
cacophony of voices echoing off the concrete floor.
Mulder squints in pain after a too-generous dollop of
hot sauce. After chasing it down with the last of his
beer he says bluntly, "Everyone connected with the
case is dead. The guards, the local police, the
federal agents. The dinner guests at the house that
night. Even the maid. Even Dr. and Mrs. Mendez."

"Oh, you know about that too."

"Doesn't that all seem a little strange to you?"
persists Mulder.

"Like I said, Agent Mulder, violent country, violent
times. It's been nearly 30 years." Thoughtful chewing
for another minute. "And anyway, not everyone
connected with the case is dead."

"What do you mean?"

"In one of my seminars I met the lieutenant who ran
the Salvadoran side of the investigation back in '72."
He pulls a pen and a small notebook out of his shirt
pocket and begins to write. "Ramon Guerrero," he says,
tearing out the page and handing it to Mulder. "He has
a house here in the city. He's retired now, I think,
but I don't know why he wouldn't talk with you. Might
be more helpful than the Ministry of Justice. He was a
sharp guy, from what I remember. Give that address to
your driver, he should be able to find it pretty
easily."

Mulder studies the paper - the name is not familiar.
He glances in the direction of the parking lot. He can
see Carlos's blue Jeep, barely, behind some bushes -
he glimpses Carlos's dark head in the front. 

Then he turns back to study Fautz. Was he the one who
e-mailed Mulder the report to begin with? "I
appreciate your help," Mulder says.

"Sure, glad to. Just don't expect too much. Been a
long time, after all." He shakes his head, looking
bout over the city below them. "Sometimes it's just
better to let things go," Fautz says.

Later, Mulder crosses the restaurant parking lot, his
feet crunching on pebbles and gravel. Absently he runs
a hand on the back of his neck, gritty now as well as
sweaty. Fautz is already gone - Mulder watches his
truck pull out of the rough lot and onto the winding
road in a cloud of dust.

Lost in his own thoughts, Mulder pulls open the rear
passenger door of the blue Jeep. He slides into the
air conditioning with a sigh of relief. "Hey Carlos,
you have lunch yet?" No answer. Mulder picks up the
file on Iphigenia Mendez and begins to flip through
it. Without looking up he hands the scrap of paper
with Guerrero's address to the front seat. "Do you
know where this address is?" asks Mulder, preoccupied.
"Is it near..." The dark head in front seat turns
around to face him. Mulder looks up briefly and the
words fade in his throat because the dark head doesn't
belong to Carlos but to Octavio, the big ugly man from
the street in Silver Spring and the white apartment in
Miami.

"Yeah, I think I can find it," Octavio says.

"Shit." Mulder backs away to the opposite side of the
Jeep, his back pressed against the door, his gun in
his hand and pointed at Octavio's head. "You have 30
seconds to tell me what the fuck you're doing here."

Octavio looks at Mulder without emotion, except for a
slight curve in his lips. He wears a Tommy Hilfiger
polo shirt with a khaki military vest on top. "Nice to
see you again, Agent Mulder." He considers Mulder's
gun. "You allowed to carry that here?"

"You have 20 seconds."

"Relax. I'm on *your* side, believe it or not."

"That's a very interesting theory. Where's the driver?
What'd you do with him?"

"I didn't do anything with him," answers Octavio with
great patience. "Carlos is just having a nice
afternoon off with his family. I told him he was
relieved. I wouldn't worry about him." Mulder doesn't
move, keeps his weapon trained on the large, slightly
squarish head. "So where's Red?" Octavio asks.

"Are you gonna answer my questions?"

Octavio sighs. "Look. How far you think you're gonna
get on your own? The embassy won't help you worth
shit. Carlos seems like an okay guy but I don't think
he'll be much help if any bad shit goes down. You
don't have your partner, you don't speak Spanish, and
you don't know your way around."

"And I suppose you do. So you're volunteering to take
up the slack. That's swell. This your *employer's*
idea?"

"As a matter of fact, yes. Ms. Mendez likes to keep
track of things." His lips curve down. "And I think
I'd like it if you used a more respectful tone when
you talk about her."

"Sure. Whatever." Still he aims at Octavio's head, his
arms beginning to get sore. "Any reason why I should
trust you?"

Octavio thinks about this, his small eyes unreadable.
At last he says, "Because maybe I have my own reasons
for wanting to know the truth. Maybe I want to know
what happened even more than Ms. Mendez does." Their
eyes lock over the barrel of Mulder's gun. The parking
lot is strangely still in the midday heat, no one
wandering among the cars. "I'd like her to put this
all behind her, so she can move on. To something
else." He cocks his head. "You understand me?"

Mulder blinks. Despite himself, he does understand.
Thick waiting silence fills the Jeep. At times like
this, Mulder sees his whole life as one long chain of
bad decisions and misplaced trust - with Scully as the
shining exception - and he knows he is just about to
add another link to that chain. The feeling is
paralyzing.

"Okay," Mulder says. He holsters his weapon.

Now it's Octavio's turn to blink. "Okay."


XxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXxXx