ELS
Chapter 23
By Dawson E. Rambo

Disclaimer: Fox Mulder, Dana Scully, Walter Skinner and any other
tangentially mentioned characters created by Chris Carter remain
his copyrighted property, as well as the copyrighted property of 1013
productions and Fox Television, a unit of 20th Century Fox. No
infringement is intended.

Posting Date    : Unknown
Archive Entry	: "ELS" Chapter 23/?
Classification	: SRA MSR
Chapter Rating	: NC-17 (Adult Themes, Strong Language, Violence)
Story Rating	: NC-17 (Violence)
Missing Chapters: http://www.sonic.net/~drambo/els.htm
Casting		: Russell Crowe, "Mark Dupree"
		: Helen Hunt, "Deputy Inspector Alex Cahill"
		: Matthew Modine, "Detective Cross"
		: Garth Brooks, "Detective Hicks"
		: Danny Aiello, "Chief Zolinski"
                : Tamilyn Tomita, "Yuki Tanaka/Officer Chin"

Author's Note: Please see the End Note after reading this
chapter.
Enjoy!
+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	Mark Dupree closed the door and stood against it, glancing around
the room. The first thing he noticed is that housekeeping had already
visited for the day; the bed was made and turned down. Two small
foil-wrapped chocolates rested gently on the pillow. Two drinking
glasses rested next to a plastic ice bucket on a tray next to the
television.
	Good, he thought. Very good.
	He moved through the room slowly, his eyes drooping closed,
breathing in the scent of the woman, her presence, her energy.
He moved to the end of the Queen-sized bed and sat.
	He frowned.
	Something was wrong, out of place, odd.
	Pursing his lips, Dupree looked around again, searching this time
for what was missing instead of what was present.
	The room felt...abandoned.
	He looked at the bedside table. No pens or pencils, loose change,
no discarded receipts, none of the flotsam and jetsam that he would
have expected. Surely she couldn't be that obsessive-compulsive? Even
the most die-hard neatnik left _some_ sign of habitation.
	He moved to the bathroom.
	Leaning down over the tub, he examined the complimentary bar of
soap and tiny bottle of shampoo. Reaching out a finger, he wiped the
soap wrapper.
	His finger came back dusty.
	Something was going on.
	Dupree returned to the room and stood, his senses alert, trying to
feel if it was a trap.
	He spotted the connecting door and saw that it was slightly ajar.
	He walked over and stared at it.
	Drawing his pistol, Dupree used his free hand to gently nudge the
door open.
	The connecting door on the other side was wide open, revealing the
other room.
	And that was when Dupree put it all together.
	The other room was a shambles. Housekeeping had <not> been there
yet. The bed was mussed, there were clothes piled on the chair, and
most significantly, a simple cotton bra was lying in a soft fabric
ball at the foot of the bed.
	They were sleeping together, he realized.
	Lovers. Partners. Friends.
	How utterly perfect.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Staten Island

	The insertion was flawless. The USAF pilot came into a short hover
and deployed the STABO harness, gently placing Scully, Mulder,
Cahill and Chin in Tanaka's back yard. They hit the harness buckle
releases and the chopper quickly, silently pulled away, leaving them
alone.
	They moved into the house slowly, quietly, clearing it as quickly
as they could. When they were sure they were alone, Mulder used hand
signals to indicate what he wanted. Chin was to play the lady of the
house. Mulder would situate himself in the living room, Scully in the
bedroom, and Cahill in the upstairs hallway. They would only break
noise discipline if they had a confirmed sighting of the UNSUB. Mulder
had explained on the way over that it wasn't inconceivable that the
UNSUB had the house under audio surveillance.
	They settled in to wait.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	Dupree wondered where the hell Scully and Mulder were. It was past
midnight, and there had been no sign of them. His plan was simple yet
direct; when they entered the room, he would shoot Mulder with the
silenced ParaOrdnance, and then take Scully. She was small, petite,
and would probably go without much of a struggle.
	As the wait mounted, Dupree felt himself growing antsy. The
incomplete taking of Strimnovitch, and the bungled attempt on Tanaka
had shaken him badly, had thrown him off his game. He needed to take a
victim soon, and although the Scully woman was not a Chosen, she would
relieve some of the stress he felt. He needed her.
	Badly.
	And she was nowhere to be found.
	He began exploring.
	Starting with the closet, Dupree went through everything. He found
Scully's business suits hung neatly on the hotel hangers. Leaning
close, he breathed her scent, bathing himself in it. The process had
an unexpected effect; he was looking forward to taking the Scully woman
more than he would have thought. The fact that he was in her room,
touching her things, invading her space...it was arousing. He decided
then and there to change his method of operation; in the future, when
he picked a Chosen, he would get inside their houses, their apartments
first and wait for them. He would do what he was doing now, going
through their things, touching their clothes, running his fingers over
their possessions.
	It would make the Taking that much the better.
	He found Scully's underwear drawer and ran his fingers through the
silk and the lace, realizing with a thrill that these garments had
been next to her, next to her naked body, against her fair, pale skin,
touching the most intimate places she had. The image was wildly
exciting.
	He moved to the adjoining room, needing more. He found what he was
looking for in the bathroom, on the vanity next to the toilet. A
small, wispy pair of panties. With trembling fingers he lifted them to
his face, letting his breath out through his mouth before inhaling
deeply with his nose.
	Her scent, her raw, female scent filled his nostrils. She had worn
these recently, probably yesterday, and judging by the pungent odor,
she had been highly aroused at some point while wearing them.
	Without thinking, Dupree stuck them in his pocket. Later, after
the Taking, he could use the panties to remember this moment, this
delicious anticipation. He would also take the panties she was wearing
now.
	After all, he reasoned, she wouldn't be needing them anymore.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	The sun peeked over the East River and bathed Gotham with pale,
cold light. Mulder glanced at his watch and saw that it was just past
six in the morning.
	He'd been wrong, he realized. The UNSUB wouldn't come back to
Tanaka's house. He had sensed the trap, the danger, and had moved on
to greener pastures. He might have a next victim lined up, and he
might be stalking them now.
	He walked into the living room and called to Scully and Cahill.
"We're done here."
	"You sure?" Cahill called.
	"Quite sure," Mulder said. "I underestimated him. I overreacted.
I'm sorry."
	Cahill came down the stairs, cradling her MP5 carefully. "No
problem," she said. "It was worth a shot. What next?"
	"Lowry," Scully announced, joining Cahill and Mulder downstairs.
"That was Mulder's next choice for a victim."
	"Yeah," Mulder said. "But I may have been wrong about that."
	"Why? You were right on the money about Tanaka."
	He nodded. "Yes, but this asshole is so...good at what he does he
might have figured out how I figured it out and he might have changed
his selection process. That...or..." He trailed off, not wanting to
give voice to his deepest fear.
	"What?" Scully asked.
	"He's an animal, Scully. He's hungry. He needs to feed. He might
not be so discriminating for the next day or so. He may just take the
first victim he can find that he thinks is safe. He needs to relieve
the pressure."
	"Victim of opportunity," Cahill said.
	Mulder nodded. "It's possible. Hell, it's probable. And there's no
way to predict what kind of victim he would chose."
	"So what now?"
	"Sleep," Mulder said. "I need about six hours, and then it's back
to the files. I think you should get copies of the image Frohike
cracked ready to go for the four-to-midnight roll call. Don't
distribute them until I tell you to, but I think we may just have to
resort to good, old-fashioned police work and hope some lucky uniform
puts the arm on him."
	"You really think that's likely?" Scully asked.
	Mulder's expression answered her question.
	"Fine," she said, "let's go get some sleep."

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	Dupree sat on Scully's bed with a Bible he'd found in the bedside
table drawer. He had a highlighter he'd found in her briefcase in his
other hand, and was busy underlining specific passages.
	He glanced at his watch.
	He had no idea where they were, but he'd had enough of waiting
around. He needed to...
	Take someone.
	He felt the need, the hunger burning inside him and knew that if
he didn't take care of it soon, he'd go insane with wanting. There
would be time to take the Scully woman.
	He closed the bible and replaced it in the drawer, and then
carefully put the highlighter back where he found it. Stopping at the
door, he pressed his ear against it and listened for voices in the
hallway.
	Hearing none, he opened the door, exited the room, and shut it
carefully behind him. Turning right, he headed for the elevator.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
	Scully was incredibly tired. The adrenaline rush of being inside
Tanaka's house was wearing off, and fast. All she wanted to think
about was wrapping herself around Mulder for the next six hours and
sleeping.
	They exited the elevator and turned left, heading towards the
room.
	Scully stopped. Something was wrong.
	Mulder stopped beside her, his tired face asking the question he
was too exhausted to voice aloud.
	Scully held up a hand, asking for silence.
	What was it?
	She'd heard a door shut just as the elevator doors had slid open.
But...it was a hotel. Why would a shutting door set off her alarms?
	Because it didn't sound like a normal door, of course, she
thought. So what was different?
	She glanced down the hallway and realized that the door that she'd
heard shut was the door leading to the stairs.
	Why would someone use the stairs on the sixteenth floor?
	Shrugging, Scully continued walking towards Mulder's room.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	Dupree, gasping for breath, exploded through the door leading to
the lobby. He glanced around, wondering if anyone had noticed him. No
one seemed to pay him any attention, so he straightened his shoulders
and headed for the exit.
	That had been close, he thought.
	Very close.
	Sure, it might not have been them, but the odds that someone
returning to the hotel at that early hour being anyone but them were
too close to risk.
	Dammit!
	So close, he thought. If I'd waited another five minutes...
	He shuddered with the thought of what might have happened if he'd
been patient.
	Then he began to plan. What would they do next? Go to bed, get
some sleep. They'd obviously been up all night, and with a sudden
flash of insight, Dupree realized where they'd been.
	At Tanaka's. Waiting for him, probably with a decoy officer.
	Interesting.
	All sorts of interesting possibilities began running through his
mind.
	Dupree stepped outside, hailed a cab and gave the driver an
address six blocks from Tanaka's house.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	Scully stood under the shower, running her hands through her hair.
Mulder had declined her invitation to join her, and she was
feeling more than a little grouchy that he had chosen instead to slip
into bed instead of into the shower with her.
	Deciding that she was clean enough, Scully shut the water off and
got out, reaching for a towel.
	Again, she froze.
	Something was wrong.
	She stood on the bathmat, naked and dripping, her eyes darting
around.
	What was wrong?
	Her eyes rested on the vanity for a long, lingering moment.
	Nothing came to her.
	Shrugging, Scully realized that she was probably just tired, just
imagining things. She dried herself quickly and slipped naked into bed
with Mulder, gently curling herself around him. He mumbled in his
sleep and turned to face her.
	They slept.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Staten Island

	Dupree stood back from the wall and studied his handiwork.
	Perfect, he thought.
	The hooker hadn't been that hard to find, and she hadn't minded
accompanying Dupree to Tanaka's house. She had looked bored and
distracted as Dupree had picked the lock. He'd explained to her that
he'd lost his keys.
	She hadn't cared.
	But she had screamed.
	She was naked, tied to a chair in the living room.
@	She had been gutted from her throat to the arch of her pubis. Her
abdominal contents sat in a wet, bloody pile at her feet, the fat,
moist loops of her intestines trailing down one leg. Her throat had
been slashed from ear to ear. Had Dupree not been afraid of HIV and
AIDS, he would have taken great pleasure in raping her before he'd
killed her.												#
	Written in blood across the living room wall was the message he
wanted to send to the NYPD and FBI.
	It needed something more, Dupree decided.
	He stepped to the corpse and dipped his finger in her blood, then
moved to the wall.
	He touched the wall three times with his finger, making two eyes
and a nose. Then, dipping his finger again in her blood, Dupree drew a
half-moon shape beneath the nose.
	A perfect smiley face.
	Moving to the kitchen, Dupree washed his hands, checked his
clothes to make sure he didn't have any telltale bloodstains on them,
and left.
	Heading back to Manhattan.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
	Scully turned over in her sleep, casting one arm around Mulder's
back. He snuggled into her, mumbling in his sleep.
	Always a light sleeper, working on the X-Files had made that
condition slightly worse. Scully was sensitive to the smallest
sounds, and they always caused her to wake.
	Which is why she heard her hotel room door opening.
	Housekeeping, she thought, and sighed.
	She listened with half an ear, wondering what they were going to
do, since she hadn't slept in the room in days.
	Three minutes later, Scully woke up with a start. Something was
wrong. She realized two things almost simultaneously. First, what had
been wrong in the bathroom.
	Her panties.
	She had placed them there earlier yesterday, just before getting
into the shower with Mulder. They were gone. Mulder might have had a
lot of faults, but she thought stealing her panties was a bit beyond
him. And the second thought, right on the heels of the first, was that
the "housekeeper" next door was moving very quietly. Almost too
quietly. And there weren't any cleaning sounds; no vacuum cleaner, no
movement noises, no sound of the sheets being changed.
	Nothing.
	Scully rolled out of bed, took four steps to the dresser and
reached for her pistol. An odd thought ran through her mind. I'm going
to have to actually put in my report that I arrested a serial killer
stark naked after sliding out of my partner's bed.
	<That> should raise some eyebrows at the Hoover building.
	Scully took a step towards her room, and felt the hair on the back
of her neck standing up. Without knowing why, she threw herself down
and to the right, away from the door, towards the bed.
	Four shots exploded through the door.
	Forty-five, Scully thought. It's him.
	"FBI!" she called, popping up, bringing the front sight blade of
her pistol up and centering on the door. "Freeze!"
	Mulder was awake in an instant, rolling out of bed and reaching
for his own pistol at the same time.
	They heard the door to Scully's room slam shut.
	Scully had taken two steps towards Mulder's door before he caught
her. "Whoa.." he said. "You're not dressed."
	She looked down at herself and blushed. "Goddamit!"
	Mulder reached for the phone, punching "0."
	"Front desk," a voice answered.
	"Security, please. This is an emergency."
	"Sir, can you hold? I'm getting a lot of-"
	"Put me through to security, NOW!" Mulder demanded.
	"Yes, sir," the operator said, snippily.
	The phone rang seven times before a sleepy voice answered.
"Security."
	Mulder realized that there was nothing that Hotel Security could
do. If he gave them a description of the UNSUB, and they tried to put
the arm on him, the UNSUB wouldn't hesitate to shoot them dead.
	"Never mind," he said, reaching down and disconnecting the call.
He dialed Alex's home number from memory.
	"Cahill," she answered sleepily.
	"It's Mulder. Our UNSUB just paid Scully a visit."
	"WHAT THE FUCK?"
	"Calm down," Mulder said. "He didn't know that she was sleeping
with me in here. He shot through the connecting door. We're both fine.
We need a crime scene unit over here ASAP, and you might want to send
someone to Tanaka's house just to be sure he hasn't gone there."
	"What makes you think he has?"
	"I would," Mulder shrugged, and hung up.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=

	There is perhaps no finer forensics unit in the world than the
New York City Police Department's Crime Scene Unit. They went over
Scully's hotel room with the proverbial fine tooth comb, vacuum
cleaner, videotape camera, tweezers and magnifying glass. It took
them no time at all to find the Bible in her bedside table.
	Bagging it, they brought it into the next room where Mulder,
Scully and Cahill waited.
	"Did you underline these passages?" the technician asked, offering
the book to Scully.
	She took it and shook her head. "No, I haven't opened a Bible in
ages."
	"I need a breakdown of all passages highlighted, as soon as
possible. I want it by page number, line number, starting character
number, character widths minus spaces. Questions?" Mulder asked.
	"No, sir," the technician said. "It might take a while. It looks
like he did quite a bit."
	"Put as many men on it as you need," Cahill ordered.
	"Yes, ma'am," the CSU tech said, vanishing back into Scully's
room.
	Mulder grabbed his cellphone and dialed.
	"Yo," Frohike answered.
	"Start using Bibles against the ELS code," Mulder ordered. "Every
version you can lay your hands on. Other sacred texts, too, but only
the major ones. Get on it." He hung up without a further word.
	"You think he's using the bible?"
	Mulder nodded. "Religiously motivated murders are not exactly
unheard of as far as serial killers go. I think he may be using a..."
He trailed off.
	"Mulder?" Scully asked.
	"Bible code," Mulder said. He smacked his forehead. "I don't
fucking believe it!" he shouted.
	"What?" Cahill asked.
	"The Bible Code!" Mulder said, glancing between the two women.
"Don't you get it? The BIBLE CODE!"
	"What is the Bible Code?" Cahill asked.
	Mulder sat down on the bed, his mouth open in abject amazement.
"Ok. See, about five or six years ago these Israeli mathematicians
noticed that if you do an ELS search on the first five books of the
old Hebrew bible, certain...things appear. According to them,
predictions about the future were made in those books."
	"That's absurd," Scully said.
	"Well, no, Scully. This time I'll have to disagree."
	"This time?" Scully teased.
	"Anyway...here's the deal. See, the Bible we all use...or, anyway,
you Christens use...different churches use different versions,
different interpretations. And those have been edited, changed, updated
over the past few thousand years. But this is the important part, the
reason that makes the Bible Code so important...the first five books
of the Bible, in the original Hebrew...haven't changed for over six
thousand years. Every word, every character, every symbol is exactly
as it appeared from the beginning. Not a single word has been changed.
And according to the experts, it predicted Hitler and the Gulf War and
Nixon and all kinds of other things."
	"Predicted the Gulf War?" Scully asked.
	"Not by name, but by year."
	"Year?"
	"In Hebrew, numbers are...just like letters. They use words for
numbers in ancient Hebrew. The year and the location of the Gulf War
were predicted in the Hebrew Old Testament, Scully. I read the reports
myself."
	"And this is...accepted?"
	"A NSA cryptologist ran a statistical model against the logic that
the Israelis used. He wouldn't vouch for the accuracy of the
predictions, but he did say that the math was perfect. They weren't
cooking the books, pardon the pun, or playing with the numbers. The
math was solid."
	"Is it like a Magic Eight Ball?" Scully asked. "You know, like a
horoscope? Vague enough to be interpreted as you see fit?"
	"How about this?" Mulder said. "The fall of Russian communism was
predicted."
	"That's insane," Scully said. "There were no such things as
communists when the Bible was written."
	Mulder held up a finger. "Remember, Scully...ELS. The words were
encoded like a crossword-puzzle. The only time the word "Communist"
appears in the Bible, "the fall of" and "Russian" is encoded with it.
It's there. I've read the report."
	Scully frowned, obviously still needing convincing.
	"See," Mulder said, "Look at Jerusalem. The most fought-over city
in history, from the time King David conquered it and the Babylonians
burned it, and the Romans destroyed it, and Crusaders laid siege to it,
down through 3000 years of bloody history until Israel took it back in
1967.
	"Only one world capitol is encoded anywhere in the Bible with
either the words "World War" or "atomic holocaust." And that word is
"Jerusalem."
	"But-" Scully said.
	Mulder held up his hand. "The name of the city is hidden in a
single verse of the Bible. "Jerusalem" is encoded within God's threat
to punish Israel down through history."
	Mulder closed his eyes, remembering. "I, the Lord your God, am a
jealous God, punishing the children for the sins of the fathers to the
third and fourth generation of those who hate me."
	Impressed, Cahill watched as Mulder continued to explain.
	"Your city is to be destroyed by an act of terrorism" crosses
"atomic holocaust," Mulder said. "And the target is confirmed in an
ancient prophecy of the Apocalypse, one found intact in the Dead Sea
Scrolls."
	"The Dead Sea Scrolls are over twenty-five hundred years old!"
Scully protested.
	Mulder snapped his fingers. "Exactly, Scully. In the Book of
Isaiah, it says, "Woe to you, Ariel, Ariel, the city where David
settled!" Ariel is an old Biblical name for Jerusalem. The siege that
reduces that city to quote "dust" is pretty...extreme," Mulder said.
"Suddenly," he quoted from memory, "in an instant, the Lord Almighty
will come with thunder and earthquake and great noise, with windstorm
and tempest and flames of a devouring fire."
	"You...remember all that?" Cahill asked.
	Scully nodded. "Photographic memory," she said absently, studying
Mulder's face. "You're amazing," she announced.
	"Only if I'm right," Mulder replied.
	His phone chirped.
	"Mulder."
	"Frohike. You're amazing."
	"I keep hearing that," Mulder said. "You got a hit?"
	"Old Hebrew Bible. All five, although some are stretches. Tanaka
was a biiiig stretch. So was Strimnovitch, but not if you accept his
name as John, the Anglo version of Ivan. The rest...Mulder, more often
than not the ELS crosses the name of the victim with either "whore" or
some variant of it, like "harlot" or "prostitute" or "thief."
	Mulder closed his eyes.
	"I was right," he said softly, to the room. "The victim's names
are crossed with other words, significant words."
	Scully shook her head. My mother, she thought, always told me that
I'd meet and fall in love with an interesting man. If she only knew...
	"So now what?" Cahill asked, impatient. "How can we exploit this?"
	"Lowry," Mulder said. "Frohike, find the name "Crystal Lowry" in
the Bible and find me everything you can on it. Call me when you do."
	He hung up. "We're going to Lowry's house. We're going to get her
out of there, and then we're going to leave a message for our little
UNSUB."
	"Like what?"
	"We're going to leave his little ELS code on the wall with a print
of the image he sent us tacked right next to it."
	"Is that wise?" Scully asked, concerned.
	"It's our only move. And we're also going to leave another
message," he said, dialing the phone again. "Frohike, Mulder. I have a
big one for you. I want you to find an ELS in the bible that has my
name, or Scully's name, or Alex's name, and the message "KILLER" and
"CAPTURE" or "ARREST". Send me the ELS details when you do." He hung
up again.
	Cahill's radio came to life.
	"M-Mike ...Eight," she radioed back, still unaccustomed to her new
call sign.
	"M-Mike Two, Eight. You and your two friends need to respond here
forthwith. We have a...package."
	"Is it spoiled?" Alex asked, knowing that Cross would understand
what she meant.
	"Ten-Four on that, Eight. VERY spoiled."
	"We're on the way," Alex radioed back. "They found a body in the
Tanaka house," she explained.
	"Aw, shit," Mulder said.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Staten Island

	They surveyed the scene.
	"My God," Alex said softly. "He butchered her."
	Mulder nodded, distracted, reading the message on the wall.
	He dialed the phone. "Frohike, Mulder. Yeah, yeah, I know you're
working on it. Do you have a spare machine to run one through?"
	Mulder read the ELS code the UNSUB had written on the wall. A
moment later it came back.
	"MURDER" and "FOX" right off...and below that, on the right "RED
DEATH."
	"Thanks, Frohike," Mulder said, and hung up. "Well, he's obviously
pissed off, and that makes him even more dangerous."
	"More dangerous than this?" Alex said, indicating the victim.
	"Yeah, I'm sorry to say. He's...evolving." Mulder paced the living
room, taking care not to trample evidence. "He was obviously in
Scully's hotel room while we were at Tanaka's house. He...really
enjoyed being inside the kill zone before the victim arrived. I can
almost bet he's going to make a run at Crystal. If he feels it's safe,
he'll go in and take a look around. He's going to need a day, maybe
two or three, to get this killing through his system. He's going to
spend next twenty-four, forty-eight hours reliving this one. We don't
have a hell of a lot of time to prepare for him."
	"Prepare how?"
	"We're going to set a trap," Mulder said. "A series of traps,
actually."

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Interrogation Room "C"
Two Hours Later

	"See," Mulder explained, "this is what we're going to do. At
Lowry's house, we're going to leave an ELS that indicates that we've
broken his code. The picture will tell him that we know his face, if
not his identity. We're going to pull the remaining thirty possibles
from the City and move them. I've already alerted the Marshals to do
that. They're in the process of very, very quietly moving all of them
as we speak. Frohike is generating a series of ELS messages to this
asshole that we're going to leave at each house, apartment, whatever.
Every time he enters a place to find a victim, he's going to find a
note telling him that we were there first, and we took his toys away."
	"Goddamn, Mulder," Zolinski said, "You're playing a dangerous
game."
	"Sure am," Mulder said. "But number one, I'm fucking good at it.
And number two...I intend to win."
	"Then what?" Cahill prompted.
	"Towards the middle...around the seventh or eighth house, we're
going to start leaving clues of our own. Clues as to where Scully is
going to be. We're going to taunt him to come get her."
	Scully felt herself pale; Mulder hadn't mentioned his plans to
her. But then she saw his logic. There was no other way to approach
it. No other way to trap this bastard.
	She nodded, just as Mulder knew she would.
	"So how do we catch him?" Cahill insisted. "You're not going to
set Scully as bait for <real> are you?"
	"Yes," Scully said. "We are."
	"Just you and him? One on one?"
	"No," Mulder said. "Two on one. I'm going too."
	"But if he senses you in there-" Zolinski said.
	"He won't," Mulder said.
	"Why not?" Zolinski asked.
	"Because...I am him, Chief. Just as he's able to vanish without a
trace, just as he can slip in and out of buildings...so can I. I'll be
waiting for him, and when he moves on Scully, I'm going to take him
out."
	Zolinski and Cahill exchanged glances. "You mean-?"
	"Yes," Mulder said flatly. "The only way I can guarantee Scully's
safety is to...respond with terminal intensity."
	"That's murder," Zolinski observed.
	"What's your point?" Mulder asked.
	"You're depriving him of his due process," Cahill said.
	"Fuck that," Mulder said. "This asshole has butchered six people!
We know it's him. He's signed his own death warrant. If we arrest him,
he's going to spend the rest of his life behind bars, filing appeal
after appeal and jerking off to the crime scene photos that he has the
right to access by that same due process."
	"The NYPD cannot be a party to this," Zolinski said. "If the ACLU
got a hold of this...or, God forbid, the press...we'd all go down in
flames. No way."
	Mulder opened his mouth to speak, but Zolinski cut him off. "NO,
Agent Mulder! No goddamn way! Didn't you people learn anything from
Ruby Ridge? From Waco? You can't just deprive suspects of due process
because they're not nice people! We don't deal with bankers and
priests and choirboys in this profession, Mulder! We deal with the
scumbags and the assholes and the lowest, vilest scum on this planet!
But they have RIGHTS, Mulder. I know I sound like a goddamn preacher
right now, but I didn't go to Vietnam and back to protect the rights
of everyone in this room to have YOU put them asunder because YOU
don't want to deal with the paperwork or because of some personal
vendetta you have against this guy." Zolinski stood from his chair and
moved into Mulder's face.
	"Listen to me, you...fuck! We will use whatever plan you want.
You're the expert on tracking and arresting these assholes. I grant
you that point. But we WILL attempt to arrest him. If, and ONLY if he
leaves us no choice will we resort to deadly force."
	Zolinski paused. "Do you understand?" he asked quietly.
	"Chief," Mulder started.
	"DO YOU FUCKING UNDERSTAND?" Zolinski erupted.
	Mulder nodded. Zolinski stepped back. "Scully is my partner, and
my friend," Mulder said softly. "As you just said, I'm the expert on
these assholes. I know this guy, Chief. I know him better than you
ever will, better than you could ever understand. If he gets close
enough to Scully, close enough to hurt her, I will take him out. And
you know what, you sanctimonious son of a bitch? It will be perfectly
legal."
	Zolinski said nothing, waiting for Mulder to explain.
	"Presumption of Guilt in association with an overwhelming
evidentiary finding that he would assault and attempt to murder Scully.
If the life of a Federal Officer is in danger, I am authorized to use
deadly force to protect it, and use that force presumptively. The only
way anyone will enter any of these houses is if they break the ELS
code. And the only person besides the four of us and our three
assistants that knows the code is the killer.
	"Don't talk to me about due process. I'm giving him his due
process. He will know exactly what's going to happen if he shows up,
and he will show up because he wants to get caught. He wants to get
caught and go on TV and be a big, famous celebrity, the serial killer
of the week. He wants the books and the movies and all of it; he wants
the public to KNOW how he ran circles around the NYPD and the FBI. If
he surrenders, fine. If he gets to within ten feet of Scully, I'm
going to take that as a presumptive violent act and take him out. And
there's not a fucking thing you can do about it."
	Mulder spun on his heel and left the other three alone.
	"He's right," Alex said slowly, to Zolinski. "I remember the
entire Deadly Force lecture from the FBI Academy.
	"Fuck that. He'll have to federalize the investigation before I'll
let him do that, and if he does federalize it, I'll go public."
	"That would be the end of your career, Chief," Alex said.
"You'd resign in disgrace. Are you sure you want that?"
	Zolinski stood again. "No. But I don't want that fucking KILLER
operating with this department! He's talking about cold-blooded
MURDER!"
	"No," Alex said. "He's talking about the real world, Chief. We can
sit here and argue arcane legal theory all afternoon, we can argue
about due process and civil rights. But the Founding Fathers never
even considered a serial killer when they framed the Bill of Rights.
Times change, Chief-"
	"FUCK THAT!" Zolinski roared. "Don't talk to me about the Real
World, Alex. I like you. You're a good cop, and a great commander. But
you've never been in a war zone. You don't know DICK about the real
world."
	Alex stepped up to her boss, raising her chin. "As far as THAT
goes, Chief, FUCK THAT! I know about the Real World! I work for the
NYPD, in case you forgot! When's the last time you were on the street,
Chief? When's the last time you took a door down with your men? When's
the last time you held a crack baby in your arms, a baby that's
shaking so hard from cocaine withdrawal that it breaks its own NECK?
Don't FUCKING TALK to me about the REAL WORLD!"
	Zolinski held his hands shoulder high, palms facing Alex. "We
obviously disagree," he said gently. "But the fact remains that I am
your commanding officer."
	Alex stepped back, tossing her head. "Goddamn it, I knew that was
going to come up eventually. What is it, Chief? The fact that I happen
to possess a vagina? I can't make decisions because I'm a woman?"
	Zolinski's face showed confusion. "No, not at all, Alex. I'd say
the same thing about a male commander that was proposing what you are.
That has nothing to do with it. You know better than that."
	"Yeah," she said, nodding. "I do. Sorry." She sat. "But I agree
with Mulder. We can't let him get close to Scully. He's too quick with
the razor, too good."
	"Well, we have to come up with something we can both agree on, or
this isn't going to happen," Zolinski said.
	"I have an idea," Scully announced. Both NYPD officers swung on
her; they'd forgotten she was even in the room.
	"I'm listening," Zolinski said.
	And so Scully told him.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
Alex Cahill's Office

	Scully found Mulder in Alex's office, sitting behind her desk with
his legs up. Entering the office, she shut the door and leaned against
it.
	"You'd really do that?" she asked.
	"Do what?"
	"...kill him?"
	"In a heartbeat, Scully," he said, closing his eyes and leaning
back.
	"Why?"
	He shrugged. "Lots of reasons. It's what needs to be done. Don't
you get it yet? Part of ISU...part of VICAP is...cleaning these
scumbags out. Removing them from the herd. Did you ever take a look at
the mortality rates of suspects apprehended by VICAP? Christ, Scully,
it's less dangerous juggling sticks of dynamite with the fuses lit."
	She chuckled softly. "But you would have hated yourself," she said
softly. "Being forced to do...that."
	He nodded at the ceiling. "Yeah. I'd like to think I have what it
takes...but I'd have a problem killing the poor bastard unless he was
threatening someone directly."
	"So...?"
	"The thought of losing you overrides all normal control issues,"
he said softly. "The thought that this bastard was in your room, going
through your things, touching your stuff..."
	"I know," Scully said. "I want to burn all my clothes."
	"I can understand that," Mulder said. "And to think that he took
your panties...that he knows...." He trailed off, obviously
embarrassed.
	"Knows what?" Scully asked.
	"It's crude," Mulder hedged.
	Scully waited, her expression making it clear she expected an
answer.
	"The fact that he knows what you...smell like...bothers me a lot."
	Scully felt herself blushing. "God, this is just the strangest
case," she observed dryly, walking to the window and peering at the
city below. Quietly, more to the window than to Mulder, she said,
"Yeah. It bothers me, too. A lot. I haven't shared that particular
part of me with many people, and the fact that he...took what should
have been given...infuriates me."
	Mulder stood, joining her at the window.
	"If he makes a move towards you, I'll take him," he said quietly.
	"My hero," Scully said, meaning it.
	Mulder chuckled.
	"Let's get this bastard," he said.

+=+=+=+=+=+=+=+=
END CHAPTER 23

End Note: The material quoted in this chapter about the prediction
of Jerusalem being the target of a nuclear attack does appear in
the first five books of the Hebrew bible. I am greatly indebted to
author Michael Drosnin and his book "The Bible Code" for both the
original genesis of this novel (no pun intended,) and some of the
technical aspects of cryptography in general and ELSs specifically.

"The Bible Code" is a fascinating book. The author makes a very
strong argument that most of the significant historical events
over the last four thousand years were predicted in the Bible
via ELSs.

An NSA cryptanalyst did review the math used by the Israelis and
did announce publicly that the math itself was sound. However,
he, as I, do not claim any kind of subscription to the validity
of the discoveries, only because it is a mathematical certainty
that given a large enough sample text (say, "War and Peace,") almost
anything can be found within an ELS. What makes "The Bible Code"
so fascinating is the sheer <number> of coincidental predictions
with a level of detail that is truly staggering.

For more information, point yer handy-dandy Web browser at a
search engine such as Yahoo or Alta Vista and enter "bible code"
and click search.

Yahoo: http://www.yahoo.com
AV	 : http://www.altavista.digital.com

Dawson