"Umbra" 5/?
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, the property of 1013 Productions, and the property
of Fox Television, a unit of 20th Century Fox, Inc. The author believes
that the use of copyrighted characters in the forum known as "Fan
Fiction" is protected under the "Fair Use" statutes of US Copyright law.
No infringement of any copyright is intended.

Characters created by the author remain his property.

Original Post  :  May 2, 1997
Archive Entry  :  Book I, Chapter 5
Classification :  Action Adventure, Scully/Other, Scully/Mulder, Mythology
Rating         :  R (Adult Themes, Violence, Adult Language)

Enjoy!

See the end for definitions of words that I use herein.

-------------------------------------------------

                                      -5-

"In time of war the devil makes more room in hell."
        - German Proverb

"We vew, we happy few, we band of brothers;
 For he today that sheds his blood with me;
 Shall be my brother."
        - Shakespeare
          "Henry V"


National Reconnaissance Office
Vint Hill Station
0914

	"Heather," Matt said, opening his arms, "it's so good to see you." 
The tall, trim Army Major stepped into his arms and they hugged briefly. 
Pulling away only slightly, they looked deeply into each others' eyes 
for a long, pregnant moment, and then parted.
	"To what do I owe this pleasant surprise?" Heather inquired.
	Stone's expression went from happy to grim in the space between 
two heartbeats. "Heather, we need to talk," he said, and then added, 
"Privately."
	Heather looked at Matt for a long moment and then nodded. Tilting 
her head towards Scully, she asked, "Who's your new friend?"
	Matt started, as if he'd forgotten Scully was there. "Oh, Jesus! 
My manners! Major Heather Haynes, this is Special Agent Dana Scully, MD 
from the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Dana, this is Heather Haynes."
	"A pleasure," Heather said, obviously not meaning it, offering her 
hand. Scully took it, marveling at the strength she felt in Heather's 
hand. I bet she could crush rocks with that, Scully thought.
	"This way," Heather said, turning and walking back up the hall. 
Stone turned to Scully with a look of apology plastered on his face. 
"God, I'm sorry, Dana," he whispered.
	"I'm fine, Matt," Scully replied. She followed him up the hall, 
the both of them trailing Heather's retreating form. Inside, she was 
fuming at the man beside her, and the most confusing part was that she 
had no specific idea why. Yes, they had flirted. Yes, she found him 
attractive. Stone had as much as said that he found Scully attractive, 
and that's where it had ended. She glanced at him out of the corner of 
her eye and was dismayed to see that judging by the expression on his 
face, Commander Matthew Stone had put the entire incident out of his 
mind. She'd said she was fine, and for him, that was that.
	With a start Scully realized that Stone wasn't Mulder; he wouldn't 
immediately grasp the overwhelming implications of the phrase "I'm fine" 
for a few more years yet, Scully knew. Something else slowly wormed its' 
way into Scully's thoughts. Had Mulder committed such a social faux pas, 
he would spend the next three days with a hang-dog-sorry-puppy 
expression on his face, doing everything and anything in his power to 
make it up to her. Publicly, Scully hated it when he did that; 
privately, she was glad that her feelings meant that much to her 
partner. 
	Not enough to stop him from ditching me, Scully thought.
	But enough so that when I meet a man who can discard my feelings 
as easily as a used Kleenex, it hurts. It hurts a lot.
	Not to mention the fact that Heather Haynes looked like a 
candidate for the upcoming "Girls of the Armed Forces" issue of Playboy. 
She smiled; that was a remark Mulder would have made.
	Heather led them to an elevator. It was unlike any elevator that 
Scully had ever seen. There was no up or down button, just a metal slot 
about the width of a credit card. Her suspicions were confirmed when 
Heather produced an identification card and inserted it into the slot. 
With a satisfying `ding!' the doors opened and the trio stepped aboard.
	"Code word or just normal?" Heather asked.
	"Above code-word," Matt replied, referring to the sensitivity of 
the information he wished to discuss. 
	"Going down it is," Heather said, with a verbal wink in her voice 
that notched Scully's dislike for her up another notch. She felt the 
elevator descending, and once again she let her thoughts drift to her 
partner. Despite her attraction to this man, Scully knew that Mulder's 
first instincts about people was rarely wrong, and Mulder obviously 
hated Stone. But then again, she reasoned, Mulder had a very deeply-held 
hatred of anything relating to the military. His long-held belief that 
the military was the chief architect of the world-wide conspiracy to 
cover up anything having to do with extraterrestrial visitation might be 
clouding his thinking.
	Except for the fact that he liked Charles, Scully's brother, who 
was currently attending the US Naval Academy at Annapolis. She grunted; 
trying to figure out Mulder's thought patterns was like trying to peel 
an onion. Every layer removed only revealed another layer, one step 
closer to the center but never actually arriving there.
	And that's one of the reasons he's such an interesting, complex 
man.
	The doors opened and the trio exited into another hallway that 
looked much like the first, except for the fact that there was a Class-A 
uniformed Marine stationed approximately every fifty feet. They were all 
huge specimens, all with grim faces and serious expressions.
	"This way," Heather said, turning a corner and leading them ever 
deeper into the bowels of the NRO. They arrived at a door that looked a 
lot like the door to the NIS records room at the Pentagon. 
	"This is a SCIF," Stone explained to Scully. "It means Special 
Classified Intelligence Facility. This is as totally bugproof as the US 
government can make a room. It is actually a room that sits within a 
cement casing the size of a boxcar, and that cement casing is again 
cased in lead, and the entire thing sits on forty-six hydraulic springs. 
It's swept for bugs four times a day. Once we close this door, we can be 
assured that no one can hear our conversations. No one."
	Scully nodded her understanding and watched as Heather deftly 
worked the cipher lock. Scully noticed that Heather punched almost 
fifteen digits into the lock, about ten more than the one at the 
Pentagon. They obviously took their security a bit more seriously here.
	Once they were inside, Heather shut and sealed the door. There was 
a hissing sound, and a red light above the door blinked twice and then 
switched to green.
	"We're secure, Matt. Now...what was so important that you got me 
eleven stories below ground in an SCIF? You gonna propose again?"
	There was a sudden, totally awkward silence. Scully pretended to 
study the surface of the small conference table. 
	"Uh, no," Stone said, trying very hard not to look directly at 
Scully. Haynes was a highly trained, very capable intelligence officer. 
In fact, she was one of the very few, the very select that carried a 
small credit-card like identification in her wallet that certified her 
as a National Intelligence Officer, one of those selected from the cream 
of the intelligence crop to provide secure, classified briefings to the 
highest levels of government, including the National Security Advisor, 
the Secretaries of Defense and State, and on two occasions, POTUS 
himself.
	She had been the first woman so certified, and was proud of it. 
The downside was, she missed nothing and saw everything. If Matt so much 
as twitched an eyebrow, she'd know he was interested in Scully. And 
based on their past history, Heather Haynes didn't take the idea of 
competition very well. She was a first-class, government-certified mind 
fucker, and she would crush Scully, given half a chance.
	"We have something else to discuss," he said. "Something that 
involves you directly." He paused, and then did cast a glance at Scully. 
"Something that involves Iraq. The team."
	"What are you doing?" Heather hissed, looking at Scully, then back 
at Stone, her eyes wide. "That's classified!"
	"Yes," Scully said, "but I've been briefed in."
	Haynes scoffed. "I doubt that very much. You might have been told 
a very, very small part about a single operation, but I seriously doubt 
that you have been `briefed in' as you claim. I would have been told."
	Stone coughed into his fist. "We're telling you now, Heather."
	Slowly, Heather moved to take a chair opposite Stone and Scully. 
"Let me get this straight; she knows? She really, truly knows what the 
Goblin Teams were? Are?"
	"Yes," Stone said. 
	"She knows about the mission?"
	"No."
	Scully frowned. `The' mission?
	"So then, why are you here?"
	"They're dead, Heather. All of them. Calandra. O'Mally. Sanders. 
All of them. We're the only two left."
	That caught Heather's attention. "All of them?" she whispered.
	"Yes."
	"Murdered?"
	"Yes."
	"Do...do you know who?" she asked. Stone hesitated a moment. 
Something was wrong. Heather had automatically assumed it was a `who' 
and not a `them.' He shifted in his chair, preparing to reveal the 
fantastic information that he had shared with Scully and Mulder, and 
then he caught the motion. It was so subtle, so innocuous that he almost 
missed it. Scully's right hand was in her lap, and she was slowly 
crossing and uncrossing her fingers. Like a little girl about to tell a 
lie.
	Scully had caught it, too.
	She was telling him to lie.
	Without knowing why, Stone went along.
	"No," he said. "We have no idea who is behind it. But you and I 
are the only two left, and we think that you may be next. We came here 
to warn you and to ask your cooperation."
	Heather's eyes flashed. "With what? A stakeout? You don't think I 
can take care of myself, do you? It's Iraq all over again, Matt. I had 
to prove myself to you then, and I did...and now I have to do it all 
over again?" Her voice was rising with every word, and Scully and Stone 
had the same thought.
	She's overreacting. She knows something.
	"You have nothing to prove to me, Heather. You never did. I won't 
argue with you about this. I can make a single phone call and have your 
commanding officer, the General, order you to participate in this action 
with us. Make no mistake, we will do it, with or without your 
cooperation. I'd much rather have it, because I think it might save your 
life."
	"Bastard!" she hissed, pushing away from the table and standing. 
She walked to where the window would be in a normal conference room and 
crossed her arms, staring at the wall. Scully could see Heather's 
shoulders moving with the effort to control her emotions.
	"Don't let him sweet talk you, Scully," she finally said, turning 
to face them both. "He's the smoothest of the smooth talkers. He could 
sell snow to an Eskimo. Don't believe him, don't believe anything he 
says. Because of him, a good man died on a godforsaken chunk of desert. 
A man that I respected. A man that I loved. A man that was going to 
marry me. And because of that man," she said, pointing directly at Matt. 
"Because of that man, my Scott is dead. And when we got back from Iraq, 
that bastard convinced me that it was an accident, a casualty of war, 
sad, horrible, but expected when you do the kinds of things that we do."
	Trying to change the subject, Scully asked, "Speaking of that... 
exactly what was the mission in Iraq?"
	Stone and Heather exchanged a glance. She shook her head. He 
nodded. She shook it harder. "No," Stone said, softly, an edge in his 
voice, the command sound of I-will-not-be-denied clear in the small 
room. "We'll tell her. She's putting her life on the line, too."
	"Fine, Matt. Do whatever you want. I just want it on record that I 
was against this."
	"Fine," Matt said, turning to Scully. "This is highly classified, 
Dana." He immediately regretted his decision to use her first name. He 
felt Heather stiffen from across the table, and watched as her eyes 
narrowed, zooming in on the petite redhead.
	"Oh, `Dana' is it? That's comfy," she whispered.
	"My Goblin team was sent into Iraq with a very specific mission. 
Actually two missions. We were to locate the President of Iraq, Saddam 
Hussein, and use a laser target designator to illuminate his location so 
that the Air Force could drop a GBU-25 on him. Failing that, we were to 
assassinate him, by any means possible."
	Scully absorbed this without a word and without changing her 
expression. Such things were to be expected in war. Saddam, in addition 
to being the head of the government, was also the head of it's military, 
and thus a legitimate target for soldiers.
	Or, are you rationalizing, Dana? she asked herself.
	"What happened is that the team leader was killed in what can only 
be described as a tragic chain of events, and I decided, as executive 
officer, to abort the mission."
	"He's lying," Heather said, straightening in her chair. "Lying 
straight through his teeth. Don't believe a word he said."
	Stone gritted his teeth. "Fine, Heather. Give her your opinion of 
the events."
	"I have already stated that I won't be a party to revealing 
classified military operations to this...civilian."
	"Well then," Stone said, the shark's grin on his face once again, 
"then Special Agent Scully will only have my version of the truth to 
make her judgment from." Turning back to Scully, he continued with the 
story. "It took us eleven days to exfiltrate through Iraq to Kuwait, and 
then Saudi Arabia. By the time we reached Bahrain, we had been given up 
for dead."
	Scully felt something tugging at her mind, and she went after it. 
"What were the circumstances of Scott's death?"
	Stone and Heather exchanged a glance. "Go ahead, Matt. Tell her. 
But this time, have the balls to tell the truth."
	"It was an accident," he said softly. 
	"BULLSHIT!" Heather screamed, standing again. "Oh, fuck it, I'll 
tell her what really happened." Turning to Scully, Heather began pacing, 
waving her arms as she spoke. "Commander Stone here was, as he said, 
executive officer of our little merry band. We went to Iraq with a 
single mission - Kill Saddam. We had secure communications back to 
Bahrain. We knew what our job was. Wait for the signal on the secure 
satellite line, lase the target, and let the Air Farce handle the rest. 
And if something happened, two of our team members had carried sniper 
rifles into the desert. Not to mention other highly classified military 
hardware that I will not go into under any circumstances. Let's just say 
that we could reach out and touch Saddam any time we wanted to. We were 
just waiting for the word.
	"The ground offensive started. We got the word that we had 24 
hours to find and kill Saddam. We had him stacked, racked and packed. We 
knew exactly where he was, and...well, the Rules of Engagement for the 
mission clearly stated to continue radio silence for the last twelve 
hours leading up to the actual bomb release." Pointing a finger at 
Stone, she continued, her voice bitter and filled with hate. "This 
bastard decided to call for confirmation one last time, with an hour to 
go. He got a hold of some dickless wonder back at CENTCOM who 
countermanded the orders. Choir boy over here told Scott that the 
mission was off. Scott refused to accept the command because it was 
outside the parameters of the mission he'd been assigned. They were both 
good officers, Denise-"
	"Dana," Scully corrected.
	"Whatever," Heather replied dismissivly. "Matt and Scott were both 
good officers. They didn't want to have a fight in front of the men. 
They took it private." Her voice slowed down, became hushed, 
conspiratorial. "There was a single shot. When Matt came back, he 
explained that there had been an accident, and that Scott was wounded. 
We went to him. All of us. We went to him and saw that Matt had shot him 
like a dog, put him down like a rabid animal. He'd been shot in the 
stomach, the worst place you can get shot. Gut-shot. It took him almost 
twelve hours to die, Dana. I had to watch the man I love as he died from 
the actions of this...coward."
	She stopped talking, stopped walking, and collapsed into a chair. 
"And then...we buried Scott in the desert. His body is baking under the 
hot desert sun in an unmarked grave God only knows where. Stone orders 
us all to exfiltrate, and we do. The entire way back, he's moving in on 
me, getting closer, gaining my confidence. I'm a wreck. The man I love 
is dead, and this...this....this man is telling me how sorry he is, how 
terrible he feels. I fall for it. Don't blame yourself, I say. We get 
back to the states. The team is disbanded, and Stone is still `there for 
me,' still `helping me through the grief.'"
	She sighed. "We became lovers. I'll be the first to admit that I 
needed him, that I needed someone to hold onto. And he was there. He 
fucked me, all right. Six months, we were together. Then the Navy 
decides to award this asshole the Navy Cross for gallantry in action. 
This butthead knows that there's no way the Navy will ever court-martial 
a certified hero, so it doesn't matter if I go public with what I 
suspect. He drops me like a hot potato." She leaned across the table, 
punctuating her words with jabs of her fingers. "But I figured it out, 
hero-boy. You killed him. You murdered Scott."
	"We've been over this," Matt started, looking at Scully with an 
`isn't she crazy?' expression.
	"Why was your safety off, Matt? That's what you told us out there 
in the desert. You told us your safety was off and the weapon just 
discharged. Why was your safety off, you son of a bitch?"
	"It was a war zone," Stone explained. His voice sounded lame, even 
to his own ears.
	Scully was stunned. There was something going on here, something 
way, way above her level of experience and expertise. She doubted that 
even Mulder had the experience in the upper elechons of intelligence to 
handle <this> one. 
	Things were just not adding up, Scully thought. Heather had 
originally been obviously, visibly overjoyed to see Matt. Then, once she 
realized that...what? Matt had a `thing' for me, she loses it. She went 
from a dedicated professional to a howling shrew in the space of five 
seconds and started accusing Matt of murder on the field of battle. A 
charge she can't prove, and she knows she can't prove. Why?
	"Major Haynes, as you have so adroitly pointed out, I don't have 
the experience...or the clearances to discuss any of what you brought up 
outside this room. Frankly, I don't really care about what might or 
might not have happened on a classified mission behind enemy lines 
during a war that happened almost a decade ago. I am here to prevent a 
person, or persons unknown, from committing another in what appears to 
be a series of murders directed against the members of your team. That 
is my one interest in this matter, and to you, I put a question.
	"Will you cooperate?"
	Heather sighed, shuddering with the exhalation of breath. "Fine. 
Tell me what you need to do."
	Scully proceeded to explain what the FBI would need to set up a 
surveillance. Heather nodded and made small notes in a spiral pad she 
kept in the breast pocket of her Class-A uniform jacket.
	When Scully was finished, Heather nodded and replaced the notebook 
in her jacket. Pushing a button mounted into the surface of the table, 
she said, "Security, room six."
	A moment later, a uniformed Marine entered. "Take Commander Stone 
outside for a moment, please. I wish to have a word with Agent Scully."
	"Just a minute-" Matt said.
	The Marine's hand went to the holstered .45 M1911A1 on his hip. 
"Sir, come with me," he said stiffly. 
	"Heather!" Matt protested.
	"Sir," the Marine said, a bit more insistence in his voice. "You 
will come with me...now."
	Resigned, Stone stood and followed the Marine out. The door hissed 
shut. Scully sat, her arms crossed, waiting to hear what Heather had to 
say. She had an idea what was coming, and she wasn't disappointed.
	"Listen to me, Scully. Don't trust him. No matter what he's told 
you, I can promise you it's not the truth. It's half the truth, a part 
of the truth, a morsel of the truth surrounded by lies, lies and more 
lies. I'd never met a pathological liar before Matt Stone came into my 
life. He'll do anything he needs to protect his own hide."
	"Why are you telling me this?" Scully asked.
	Heather snorted. "Don't be coy with me, Scully. I can see it on 
your face. You forget: I study people for a living. And I'm not talking 
about all that gentle psychobabble your partner learned at Oxford, I'm 
talking about the real kind of psychology: Military psychology. I take 
people's heads apart for a <living,> Scully. And I can take one look at 
you and see that you have it bad for old Commander Stone out there in 
the hallway.
	"Don't get me wrong; he's good looking, and he's great in bed. 
Just don't ever place your life in his hands, or expect him to be there 
when you need him. He's the single most selfish person I've ever met, 
and I'm counting myself in that group, Scully. If you're looking for a 
casual roll in the hay, Matt's your man. And then some. He'll reduce you 
to a whimpering pile of goo over the course of a few hours, and then be 
ready to go again in the morning.
	"But don't trust him with any secrets, or most of all, with your 
life. He can't be trusted." She paused, and then said it again. "Matthew 
Stone can not be trusted, Scully."
	And with that, Major Heather Haynes stood up and worked the door 
again, throwing it open to reveal Commander Matthew Stone leaning 
against the opposite wall, his arms crossed. "Finished assassinating my 
character?" he asked.
	"You know all about assassination, Matt," Heather said, moving to 
turn up the hallway. Scully left the SCIF and followed Stone and Haynes 
to the elevator. It was only once the silver doors had dinged! shut and 
the car had started its ascent to street level that Scully felt her 
blood run cold. A single thought raced across her mind, a thundering 
freight train of fear and adrenaline. 
	How did Heather know Mulder went to Oxford?

***
Office of Special Agent Fox Mulder
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J Edgar Hoover Building
Washington, DC
1400 Hours

	Mulder punched the number for Scully's cellphone into his desk 
phone again and waited for the six rings and the voice. "I'm sorry, but 
the CellOne customer you are calling is not available or has left the 
calling area. Recording one six nine."
	Swearing, Mulder slammed the phone down and glanced at his watch. 
How long had they been gone? Over five hours. The thought that his 
partner, his best friend in the world was in the company of that... man, 
that killer! The Gunmen had really come up with the information this 
time. The deleted portions of Stone's service record were on Mulder's 
desk, and he reread them again, going over the words for the thirtieth 
or fortieth time that afternoon.
	Trained as a pilot. Pensacola, for PriFli, otherwise known as 
Primary Flight Training. Then off to Texas for jets. Then out to the 
fleet. The best of the best. Tomcats. F-14, the trouble-laden A model. 
Carrier Quals. Third in his nugget class. Over six hundred hours logged 
over two cruises in the F-14. Promoted rapidly from Lieutenant (j.g.) to 
Lieutenant, and then to Lieutenant Commander. And then the lovely year 
of 1982. The words jumped off the page at Mulder. "UNLAWFUL TAKING OF 
HUMAN LIFE" the report screamed. The details were sketchy. All that 
Mulder could discern was that Stone had transferred off the USS 
Enterprise for duty on the beach at NAS Mirimar. Assigned to something 
called Section 28. And then...Libya. Something in Libya. Mulder wracked 
his brain, trying to remember any international incidents that happened 
in Libya during 1982. Nothing came to mind, but something must have 
happened. Almost a year after returning to the States, Stone had been 
court-martialed.
	The transcript was classified, as were the charges and 
specifications. All Langley had managed to get out of the BUPERS 
computers was one of the original reported charges.
	Unlawful Taking of Human Life.
	That spelled one thing to Mulder: Murder.
	That was why he didn't wear his ring, or his `wings of gold.' They 
had probably yanked them right off his chest, Mulder thought with a 
grin. Probably made him participate in some arcane ritual where they 
drum them out of the aviator corps. 
	You're taking way too much glee in all this, he reminded himself. 
Scully could be in some real danger here, and you can't get a hold of 
her.
	Returning to the data Langley had provided, Mulder saw that as far 
as he could tell, Stone had never flown an airplane, military or 
otherwise, again. There was a notation that he was restricted from 
flight duty, as either a Pilot in Command, or as co-pilot, and that he 
was not qualified to receive flight pay anymore.
	That probably meant medical, Mulder thought. He busted his flight 
physical, and they took him off flight status. That means he was 
probably shot down.
	Libya. Shot down. Mulder wracked his brain. Nothing.
	He dialed. 
	"Lone Gunmen." It was Byers.
	"It's Mulder. Do you know of-"
	"Nope, we checked. We can't find a single issue in that part of 
the world at the time indicated. Sorry, Mulder."
	"You guys are reading my mind again."
	"The hell we are; this will make a great story for the next 
issue!"
	"Byers, do me a favor and hold it until next month, Ok?"
	There was silence on the line. "As a favor to me, Ok?" Mulder 
pleaded.
	"You have 30 days," Byers said, "and then we run it."
	"Thanks." Mulder noticed that his incoming line was blinking. 
"Gotta go, got another call." He punched the button. "Mulder."
	"Mulder, it's me," Scully said, her voice clear and loud in his 
ear.
	"Scully! Are you alone?"
	"Of course not. But we need to talk. Just you and I. I've called 
the Technical Services Group to set up the surveillance on Heather's 
place. Stone and I are going to take the first part of the first shift. 
He's got to leave around midnight. Do you want to spend the rest of the 
night with me?" Realizing what she'd said, Scully quickly added, "On the 
stakeout, I mean."
	Wherever you want, and whenever, Scully. "Of course. Where?"
	"I'll leave a message when we know for sure. Mulder... Stone's 
getting us lunch right now. This one is big, Mulder. Bigger than we've 
ever seen."
	"You have no idea, Scully. The Gunmen did some digging. I have a 
more...complete picture of what you're spending time with. It's 
interesting reading, Scully."
	"I'm sure it is, Mulder. Bring it along tonight."
	"Do you still trust him, Scully?"
	There was a very long pause. "I'm not sure, Mulder. But I will 
tell you this...you're the only person I trust unconditionally. You've 
never lied to me, have you?"
	"No, Scully. Never. Not once."
	"I know, Mulder. You're the only person I can think of in my life 
that can make that claim, and I want you to know...I appreciate it."
	That was odd, Mulder thought, but didn't say anything.
	"My pleasure, Scully."
	"Listen, Stone's coming back with the burgers and fries. Wait for 
my call. We have a lot of talking to do. Ok?" Mulder heard the sound of 
a car door opening in the background. "I love you," Scully said. 
Mulder's heart jumped into his throat.
	WHAT?!
	What had she just-
	"I'll see you this weekend, Mom."
	Mulder felt his heart returning to a normal rhythm. "See you too, 
sweetie," he said, disconnecting the call before Scully could reply.
	Sighing, Mulder opened the bottom drawer of his desk and carefully 
removed the hidden bottom. He had never, ever lied to Scully, he knew. 
But he had not told her everything. The Gunmen were good for more than 
just a laugh and the occasional cybersleuthing. The voice-activated 
micro cassette recorder was connected to the phone. Every call Mulder 
received was taped.
	Removing the small audio cassette, Mulder replaced it with a fresh 
one. Moving quickly, he reassembled his desk drawer. Taking the old 
tape, he opened his top left drawer and returned with a dictating 
recorder, a twin of the one in the bottom drawer. Inserting the tape, he 
rewound it for a second, and then pushed PLAY.
	"I love you," Scully's voice said.
	Mulder hit REWIND, and then PLAY.
	"I love you," she said again.
	For the next twenty minutes, Mulder's office was filled with the 
high-speed screech of the tape rewinding while against the heads, and 
then his partner's voice repeating those three words over and over 
again. 
	Finally, Mulder stopped playing the sound. He hit the EJECT button 
and the drawer snapped open. Reaching in, he pinched the tape out and 
turned it over in his fingers, holding it up to the light. He should 
toss it, he knew. It wasn't healthy to have that tape handy. It wasn't 
conducive to a stable, professional partnership. 
	I should throw it away, he thought.
	Instead, Mulder reached for his pen. Discarding the cap, he jammed 
the point into the protect-tab and forced it off. Then he dropped the 
tape in his shirt pocket.
	He glanced at his watch. Nine hours until he saw Scully again.
	Nine hours too long.

------------------------------------------------------------------
End Chapter 5


BUPERS - US Navy Bureau of Personnel
NAS    - Abbreviation for Naval Air Station
Nugget - Navy slang for a pilot on his first carrier cruise.
PriFli - Primary Flight Training, Pensacola NAS, Florida. The place 
         where all Naval Aviators (as pilots in the US Navy are
         called) attend basic flight training.
SCIF   - Special Classified Intelligence Facility - super bug-proof room.