The agents fled. Bolting out of sight just as the helicopters blasted over the spot where they had stood seconds before. They headed for the cornfields, darting in between the towering rows and knocking away any stalks or leaves that blocked their way. Directly overhead the choppers swooped, searchlights cutting through the cornrows like twin lasers. Mulder and Scully ran in and out of the rows, barely managing to avoid the beams. The helicopters crisscrossed the air above them, like two great insects escaped from that other swarm, banking sharply as they searched the fields below. The wash from their propeller blades ripped through the cornstalks like a tornado, revealing anything that might be hidden within.
In the field Mulder gasped for breath as dust and pollen coated his mouth and nostrils. He staggered down another row, ducking as the searchlight beam swept just overhead but escaping detection—for the moment. He drew up beneath a broken cornstalk and coughed, covering his mouth, then looked around for Scully.
She was gone. Desperation edged out fear as he plunged back into the row, shielding his eyes as he peered between the endless lines of corn.
'Mulder!"
She was somewhere ahead of him. Mulder crashed through the field, gasping when he saw one of the choppers hovering into view. "Scully!" he yelled. "Scully!" He kept calling her name as he ran. The chopper hung in the air for a moment as though considering which way to go, then swung around and quickly, relentlessly, beared down upon him.
Before him the ranks of cornstalks thinned. A black ridge appeared, untouched by the heli-copter's beams: the edge of the field. His heart pounded as he made a final effort, racing toward open ground.
Behind him the chopper roared, cornstalks crashing in its wake. Mulder reached the end of the field and crashed out into the night.
He staggered to a halt, breathing in huge gulps of air. For a moment he could think of nothing else, but then another helicopter thundered up from behind him. He turned, and saw Scully a few feet away.
"Scully?"
"Mulder!" she said, sprinting toward him. "Let's go—"
They broke into a run, racing side by side toward the hillside that hid their car. When they reached the hill, they climbed, frantically, loose stones and dirt streaming down behind them. It was only when they reached the sum-mit that they slowed and looked at each other in the darkness.
Real darkness, starlit and ominously quiet. The helicopters had disappeared.
"Where'd they go?" Scully coughed, wiping her eyes.
"I don't know." Mulder stood for a moment, surveying the plateau below them: the weirdly glowing domes and acres of ravaged corn. Then he turned and continued running, back to the bluff where their car was parked. Scully followed.
The desert's uncanny silence hung over them as they finally reached the car. They rushed to it and jumped inside, Mulder twisting the ignition and pounding on the gas.
It didn't start.
"Shit," he groaned. He turned the key again—nothing. Waited and did the same— still nothing. Again and again he tried, franti-cally now, while Scully looked back through the rear window.
"Mulder!"
From behind the bluff rose one of the black helicopters. Suddenly the car's engine roared to life.
Mulder threw it into gear and spun out, tires screaming as he turned the car and sent it churning back down the hillside without turn-ing on the lights. Scully stared back breath-lessly, waiting for the helicopter to give chase.
It did not. It hovered for a few seconds, then, as silently as it had appeared, it banked and flew off into the night.
CHAPTER 10
FBI HEADQUARTERS
J. EDGAR HOOVER BUILDING
WASHINGTON, D.C.
Assistant Director Jana Cassidy did not like to be kept waiting. For the tenth time she rifled through the papers on the table before her, glancing tight-lipped at the closed door to the hearing room. At the table alongside her the other panel members made a point of avoiding her eyes. Cassidy sighed impatiently and looked at her watch, then up again as the door swung open.
Assistant Director Walter Skinner stuck his head in. "She's coming in," he said wearily.
Skinner withdrew to let Scully pass. She had on the same clothes she'd been wearing for two days now, and she brushed surreptitiously at the stubborn bits of cornstalk and pollen that clung burrlike to her jacket. As she entered she dipped her head, smoothing out her hair as she approached the table; then looked up to give the hearing committee a chastened look as she took her seat. Skinner came in behind her and joined the others at the table.
"Special Agent Scully," Cassidy began, reshuffling her papers.
"I apologize for making you wait," Scully broke in. She shot Assistant Director Cassidy a polite look.
"But I've brought some new evi-dence with me—"
"Evidence of what?" Cassidy asked sharply.
Scully reached into the satchel at her feet and pulled out a vinyl evidence bag. She gazed at it reluctantly. When she finally spoke, her tone was anything but confident.
"These are fossilized bone fragments I've been able to study, gathered from the bomb site in Dallas…"
Cassidy scrutinized her coolly, but she didn't take note of the other thing Scully had brought back with her from Texas. Beneath the young agent's mass of auburn hair a bee crawled, as though stretching its legs from the long journey. It hovered momentarily against the navy fabric.
"You've been to Dallas?"
Scully met the other woman's challenging gaze. "Yes."
"Are you going to let us in on what, exactly, you're trying to prove?"
"That the bombing in Dallas may have been arranged to destroy the bodies of those firemen, so that their deaths and the reason for them wouldn't have to be explained—"
Unnoticed, the bee disappeared from sight again beneath the collar of Scully's suit jacket.
Cassidy's eyes narrowed. "Those are very serious allegations, Agent Scully."
Scully stared at her hands. "Yes, I know."
There was a hush of murmured responses to this, the panel members turning to confer with each other in low voices. In his chair, Assistant Director Skinner shifted uneasily, watching Scully and trying to figure out just what the hell she'd come up with this time.
Cassidy leaned back and regarded Scully. "And you have conclusive evidence of this? Something to tie this claim of yours to the crime?"
Scully met her gaze, then dropped her eyes, "Nothing completely conclusive," she admitted grudgingly. "But I hope to. We're working to develop this evidence—"
"Working with?"
Scully hesitated. "Agent Mulder."
At Jana Cassidy's knowing nod, the other panel members all shifted again in their chairs. The assistant director looked at Scully, then indicated the door.
"Will you wait outside for a moment, Agent Scully? We need to discuss this matter."
Very slowly Scully stood. She picked up her satchel and walked to the door, glancing back in time to see the look Skinner gave her, a look compounded equally of sympathy and disap-pointment.
• • •
CASEY'S BAR
SOUTHEAST WASHINGTON, D.C.
It was late afternoon when Fox Mulder pushed open the door to Casey's. Inside, it might have been the middle of the night. The same few, bleary-eyed regulars sat and talked. Mulder ignored them all, scanning the back of the room, where a Budweiser sign blinked fitfully above a lone figure slumped in a high-backed wooden booth. When Mulder sat down next to him the man jumped, then quickly leaned over to grab the agent's hand.