Value & Honor by Forte (Forte1354@aol.com) Please see Chapter 1 for rating, summary, disclaimer, etc. Looking for prior chapters? They're available at http://www.thebasementoffice.com/. ******************************************************************** - Chapter 10 - ******************************************************************** Georgetown Washington, DC Saturday, 2:18 p.m. "What do you want, Diana?" Scully watched Mulder's body language as he responded to the call from Diana Fowley: tight, taut, curled inward. She was surprised by how much it pleased her that Mulder was so angry. Well, how about that? It was certainly turning out to be an... unusual day, even for them. Mysterious messages from Kurt Crawford, an early visit to the Gunmen, a wrenching morning finishing the Jack Morse case report, an emotional roller-coaster of a meeting with Mulder at the Potomac, declaring her loyalty to him and their work in ways that left him speechless -- twice in one hour. And, less than a minute earlier, she had been wrapped in Mulder's arms. She'd known that he would appreciate the poster, as well as the sentiment behind it, but... the embrace had been a surprise. The good kind, thankfully. God knew she -- =they= -- could use a few more pleasant surprises in their lives. Diana Fowley certainly had miserable timing, though. But... at least it was just a phone call and not a damn bee. Not a stupid little bee. Not a disease-carrying, miserable, interrupting little... Before her ruminations could go further, Scully caught movement out of the corner of her eye. Mulder had shifted position, leaning against one of the stuffed chairs of her living room, and now his frustrated gaze was lifted in her direction. She thought the frustration was due to his conversation, but gave him an apologetic grimace anyway and rebuked herself for daydreaming. -- her mental breath caught on the word -- Scully felt a chill and wrapped the coat she was still wearing around herself in a quick hug. She turned towards the kitchen, flushed with embarrassment at having been caught standing there, even though her rational mind told her that she was in her own home. If Mulder really =wanted= privacy he could have moved to another room. Besides, she hadn't been paying attention to what he'd been saying. Still, she felt like she was intruding; this was Mulder's conversation, not hers. The considerate thing would be to give him some solitude. Okay. So... Scully looked around the kitchen, regaining her composure, and spotted the phone on the wall. They were waiting for a call from the Gunmen... this would be a good time to check in with them. She'd use her bedroom phone, reinforcing her intent to give Mulder some privacy. She moved back into the living room. She thought she heard Mulder mutter, "I can't -- " before stopping abruptly, as though interrupted. He stood in profile: head bowed, jaw clenched, eyebrows arched, free hand poised on his hip. Apparently sensing her entrance, he looked toward Scully again; she gestured toward her bedroom with one hand and mimed holding a phone receiver with the other. Mulder managed to nod his understanding of intentions and shake his head at his cell phone in exasperation at the same time. As she walked down the hall toward her bedroom room she heard Mulder's voice, muffled but obviously irritated. Scully entered her bedroom and shut the door. She sat on the edge of the bed, sinking into the down comforter, and reached for the phone on the nightstand. Before she could lift the receiver, a muffled trilling came from her coat. She dug her hand into the pocket and pulled out her cell phone, bringing it to her ear and thumbing it on in one fluid motion. "Scully." "Agent Scully?" Frohike's voice over a speakerphone was unmistakable. "Is everything okay? We just tried Mulder and got his voicemail." "He's here, but he's on his cell phone." Scully's words came out in a rush; she felt her body tense in anticipation. "What's going on -- did you decipher the messages?" "Yes," Byers said, more emphatic than necessary. "Do you want them over the phone, or do you and Mulder want to come back here for them?" Scully paused, knowing that the cell phone wasn't secure. But without knowing what the messages were, she couldn't judge whether they could afford the extra time to go back to the Gunmen's. She glanced at the corded phone on the nightstand... a safer option, at least. "I'll call you right back," she stated, thumbing off the cell phone without waiting for a response. She shoved it back in her coat pocket, and punched in the Gunmen's number on the other phone. "Lone Gunmen," came Langly's voice, still through a speakerphone. "Yeah, it's me." Scully reached for the pad and pen next to the phone, then hesitated again. "Just a minute." Should she pull Mulder away from his call...? She reached behind the nightstand and pulled out the neatly coiled wire that connected the phone to the wall jack. She knew from experience that the extra-long wire would extend to the end of the hall. She tossed the coil on the floor, then picked up the phone from the table. "How were you able to break the encryption?" she asked, rising and moving towards the door she had just closed, feeling the jittery effect of adrenaline running through her bloodstream. "We'd been expecting something very sophisticated, but it wound up being simple -- so simple we never thought to try it earlier," Byers replied. "You recall that the encryption was a long string of letters -- some lower case, some upper case -- that appeared to be generated at random." Scully opened the bedroom door, stepped into the hallway and strode toward the living room. "It turned out that it wasn't the characters themselves that matter," Langly broke in, "it was whether they were lower case or upper case. We created binary strings by changing all of the lower case characters to zeros, and all the upper case characters to ones." At the end of the hall, Scully peered into the main room. Mulder was still on his cell phone, looking no less annoyed, speaking too low for her to judge how much longer he would be. He would probably welcome an excuse to end the call, but... Scully was loathe to interfere when her partner's attitude toward Fowley seemed one hundred percent negative. Decision made, she turned around to return down the hall. "We took those binary strings and converted them into new text," Frohike continued. "Then we had upper and lower case characters again, and some numbers. But now everything lower case is gibberish -- just filler -- and the numbers and upper case letters are the real message." Scully re-closed the bedroom door behind her and sat on the bed again as Langly finished the Gunmen's story. "Once we had one message broken, the rest were easy." Scully set the phone at the back of the nightstand and dragged the pad of paper and a pen toward her. She inked a test doodle on the pad. "All right, go ahead. What are the messages?" "The first message is a name, 'George T'," Byers reported. "The man's name, and then the letter 'T' like an initial." "George T," Scully repeated, recording the word on the pad. "The second is also one word: Saturday." Her pen scratched deeply into the paper. "Saturday." "The third message is a sequence of numbers," Frohike continued. "Actually, it's two identical sequences. The entire original message was duplicated, including the gibberish parts." He recited the numbers, Scully transcribing. When he was finished, she frowned at the numbers on the pad. 10301613 10301613 Langly interrupted her thoughts. "We assume that means ten thirty p.m. 'P' and 'm' are the sixteenth and thirteenth letters of the alphabet." Scully jotted '10:30 p.m.' next to the numbers but continued staring at them, searching for any additional, hidden meaning. "Why is it duplicated?" "We don't know that," Frohike admitted. "It's probably just a transmission glitch. Happens sometimes with e-mail." Her brow wrinkled. "All right. What's the last message?" "The last one made the least sense, at least to us," Byers responded. "It's three words: red, green, park." "Red, green, park?" Scully mused, copying the words to paper. "Does that mean anything to you?" Langly asked. "No, not in particular," she responded, tapping her pen on the pad like a metronome. "It could mean a lot of things." She shook her head slowly, as if trying to get the jumbled clues to fall into place. "Anything else?" "No, that was everything," Frohike responded. "All right." She pursed her lips, eyes narrowed, still staring at the writing on the pad. After several moments of silence, Byers spoke up with a gentle prompting. "Is there anything else we can help with, Agent Scully?" "No," Scully replied, startled out of her thoughts. "No, I don't think so. Thank you -- all of you -- for your help on this. We appreciate it." "Let us know if you need anything else," Langly spoke up. "We like a challenge." The corners of Scully's mouth turned up at the comment. "We'll be in touch," she assured them. "Thank you again." She heard their speakerphone click off and slid her own phone back onto its base. She sat another moment staring at the messages. Then she tossed the pen back on the nightstand, scooped up the pad, and hurried out of her bedroom. ******************************************************************** As she entered the living room Mulder was pacing in front of the fireplace, head bowed, both hands on his hips. A quick scan of the room told Scully that his cell phone was near his jacket on her couch, looking like it had been flung there carelessly. Mulder stopped pacing and turned her way when she walked in, his expression apologetic. "Sorry, Scully, I didn't mean to -- " "It's all right, Mulder." She cut him off in a rush of syllables, neither wanting nor needing the apology. She shoved the pad of paper into his hands and continued past him toward the computer on her desk. "The Gunmen broke the encryption." There was a pause before Mulder responded with a drawn out, "How?" Scully couldn't see his face as she knelt under the desk to flip on the PC's surge suppressor, but by his incredulous tone she knew his countenance had been replaced with a surprised but happy one. As she stood up, a corner of her mind realized with satisfaction that the look on his face wasn't nearly as priceless as the one he'd had when he opened his poster. She pushed the thought away -- later, she told herself -- as she booted up the computer and summarized how the Gunmen broke the encryption. "The first three messages -- they're fairly clear," she continued, turning to watch her partner's concentration as he scanned the writing on the pad. "The last one is less obvious." Mulder pointed to the pad in his hand. "This third message -- the ten thirty p.m. -- why are the numbers duplicated?" "Frohike thought it was just an error in the transmission." Mulder paused as he considered that information, then shrugged and looked up at her. "So we're supposed to meet someone named George T. at ten thirty p.m. Saturday -- meaning tonight. This last message -- red, green, park -- must be the 'where'. Any ideas?" "Nothing yet beyond the obvious -- the meeting place is a park. The red and green doesn't mean anything to me, though." She turned and sat at her computer, now ready, clicked the mouse a few times, then typed a few words. "Let's see what a search of the 'net turns up." She picked up her glasses from the desk and slipped them on. "We know we're looking for a location in the northeastern U.S., maybe southeastern Canada." Mulder moved to her right side, tossed the pad of paper onto the desk, and leaned over, forearm resting near the mouse pad. He draped his left arm across the back of Scully's chair. Was it her imagination, or was he invading her personal space more than usual? Before she could decide, the PC's screen filled with the search's first twenty matches. "I searched for a match on red, green, park -- all three words," Scully said, scanning the page, then flipping through the next few screens before returning to the first. "I didn't see anything relevant after the first screen; did you?" She turned her head toward Mulder, nearly bumping noses with him; he shook his head in answer to her question. "I saw three possibilities on this first screen in the geographic area we need," he commented, holding Scully's gaze for a split second before she cleared her throat and turned back to the screen. "And none of them are parks in the traditional sense," she added, silently damning her quickened pulse. Not now, not now... She clenched her jaw, determined to give her full attention to their search, and tapped the monitor twice with a slender index finger. "Red Beam Parking Garage at T.F. Green Airport in Warwick, Rhode Island. Baseball's Fenway Park, home of the Boston Red Sox and the Green Monster -- " "That's the wall out in left field," Mulder supplied, his tone helpful. Scully threw him a quick, exasperated 'yes Mulder, I knew that' look. "And the third," she gestured toward the screen with her chin, "the website for the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority. How does red, green, park fit in there?" she mused, clicking on the site's link. The top of the home page had "MBTA" in bold letters, the "T" black inside a white circle, the other three letters fire-engine red with a thin black outline. But what drew Scully's attention was what appeared to be part of a multi-colored subway map in the upper left-hand corner of the page. "Red and green," Mulder said, leaning close to Scully to jab at the corner of the screen. He pulled back his hand and placed it over Scully's on the mouse, guiding the cursor towards the 'schedules and maps' icon and clicking on it. A second click brought up a map of the subway system. Scully glanced down at her hand, hoping Mulder hadn't noticed her tiny, involuntary tensing at the pleasant warmth of his touch. She returned her eyes to the monitor -- pay attention, Dana! -- as Mulder removed his hand to poke at the screen again. "Boston's subway system has four color-coded lines," he said. "Red, green, blue, and orange -- " "And the Red and Green Lines intersect at a station called Park Street," Scully finished, following his gesture to the station name on the screen. Mulder nodded. "Park Street station is right at the edge of Boston Common. We used to go up to Boston sometimes when I was a kid. Last time I got to wander around there was in early ninety-five. Remember when I went up to Worcester for a couple days? For those follow-up interviews at Excelsius Dei?" Scully flicked her eyes from the map, to her partner, and back to the map. She had to stay focused on sorting out this red-green-park mystery, not think about... anything else. "Mmm, I remember. I had such a bad cold that week, I couldn't fly up with you." Out of the corner of her eye, Scully saw Mulder nod. "When I was done with the interviews I spent half a day in the Boston field office doing paperwork, making copies, that sort of thing." "No doubt endearing yourself to the local agents in the process," Scully said, turning toward her partner again with a small smile. "Scully, you wound me," Mulder replied, feigning hurt. "I'll have you know I bought two boxes of Girl Scout cookies and three raffle tickets while I was there. In fact, one of those raffles won me a pair of tickets to a Celtics playoff game. Pissed me off that we were on a case and couldn't use them -- I wound up giving them to one of the agents up there. So I made us quite a few friends in the Boston office." Scully gave him a small nod of approval. "I'll keep that in mind." She turned her attention back to the monitor. "So we have three possibilities," she mused. "A subway station, a parking garage, and a ball park. I'm sure Kurt has done his homework on us, so he'd know you're a sports fan. That would make Fenway Park the obvious choice." Mulder nodded again. "I would have thought of that eventually even without an Internet search." "Mmm." Scully pursed her lips, turning the idea around in her head. Something just didn't seem right. It shouldn't have been so easy. Mulder studied her look of concentration. "What is it, Scully?" Scully faced her partner again, frowning. "Fenway seems =too= obvious, doesn't it? The Gunmen said that the method of encryption was very simple... so simple that they hadn't thought of it earlier. Instead, they took the 'obvious' route, which was to look for a very sophisticated encryption method." She gestured toward the pad. "This red-green-park message could be similarly deceptive." "Deliberately obvious to mislead anyone who intercepted the messages," Mulder said slowly. "The answer is in front of us, but it's not the first one we think of." He grinned. "Scully, you're getting to be as paranoid as I am -- looking for subterfuge and hidden meanings in everything we see." Scully gave him a look of mock disapproval. "Paranoia has nothing to do with it, Mulder. I applied logic and reasoning to the evidence at hand." She paused for a moment. "So discarding Fenway as a meeting place, we have two remaining possibilities. Since you know the area, you can take the Park Street station; I can go to the parking garage in War -- " "No," Mulder cut in, climbing to his feet stiffly, hands on hips again. "We shouldn't -- " He stopped himself and paused. His posture softened as he looked down at the ground, then back up at his partner. His voice lowered in volume. "We shouldn't have to split up, Scully. Like I said, the answer is in front of us -- we just have to figure out what it is." He leaned over and snatched up the pad of paper from the desk, his other hand still on his hip, lower lip edged out in a frustrated pout. Scully stared back at him, head tilted a few degrees to the side, eyebrows raised. He'd all but whined that morning when she'd told him that she was going to the Hoover Building to finish the Morse report. But he'd retreated when she'd pushed back, explaining that she needed to work on it alone. Would a calm, rational dialogue once again win over her paranoid partner? She drew in a slow breath, glancing down at her watch then returning her gaze to him. "Mulder." She paused. Mulder didn't respond, seemingly absorbed in the words on the paper. A sigh of exasperation come from the back of her throat. "Mulder, it's twenty to three. We have to be in New England in less than eight hours. At this point, our only option is to fly -- " "Which gives us plenty of time to figure out what we're missing," Mulder interrupted, without looking at her. Scully had a vague sense that her partner was holding something back, but pressed forward with her argument. "If we wait too long the flights may be sold out." She gestured toward the kitchen table. "As good as those ID's that Frohike made are... the less time those phony names rattle around in a computer somewhere, the better." Scully paused again, and again got no reaction from her partner. She pressed her lips into a thin line before continuing. "Mulder, I think we should get to the airport as soon as possible. Buy tickets for the first flight to either Boston or Warwick. We can try to figure out where to meet this 'George T' en route." "And if we fly to the wrong place?" Mulder challenged, still not looking at her. "Boston and Warwick are only about an hour's drive apart," she replied, forcing a calm tone around her frustration. "And if we need to, we can still cover both locations at ten thirty." Mulder shook his head, making no attempt to hide his own frustration. <=What= is the problem, Mulder?> Scully re-phrased that thought, but still heard the exasperation spill out in her words. "Mulder, is there an issue with us covering different locations?" Mulder clenched and released his jaw. "Half an hour, Scully. Just give me that much time, okay?" Scully bit the inside of her lip to hold back a sharp response, watching him as he continued to stare at the words in front of him. He was concentrating, looking as determined as he had when he'd been working on the profile for Jack Morse. She watched him run down the list, mouthing the words as he read them. Trying to force them to fit together the way he'd tried to make sense of the senseless actions of a killer. Sometimes... Mulder's obsession with a goal could be utterly infuriating. Scully turned back to the PC and studied the subway map for a moment, taking a deep, quiet breath. She clicked on the "back" key to return to the MBTA's main page. "The only message that seems ambiguous is the red-green-park," she announced, matter-of-fact. "I'll see if I can find anything else on these sites." When he didn't acknowledge her olive branch, she looked over her shoulder, her frustration at his reticence growing anew. For a split second she saw him looking at her, but as she turned he shifted his gaze to the monitor, appearing... concerned? guilt-ridden? She wasn't sure. But then the look disappeared; his head cocked to one side and he blinked. "Scully... look at that." Scully followed his gaze to the screen. Mulder leaned over as he had earlier, one arm again across the back of her chair. He tapped at the MBTA lettering at the top of the screen with a knuckle, holding the pad of paper tucked in his palm. "That symbol, Scully -- the black 'T' in the white circle -- it's at the entrance of every subway station in Boston. The locals refer to the subway as the 'T'," he said, a spark to his voice. He straightened, standing the pad against the monitor, and pointed at the 'George T' Scully had transcribed. "The 'T' in this message -- it isn't part of the name. It's telling us where the meeting place is!" Scully felt Mulder's eyes on her as she looked at the messages on the pad, then up at the monitor, then back to the messages. "It fits," she agreed, nodding slowly. She turned back towards her partner, meeting his eyes. "Some of the best medical research facilities in the world are in Boston. It would be an ideal place for Scanlon, and the Kurts, to work." Mulder nodded, then looked at his watch, narrowing his eyes in thought. "Why don't you find out about flights to Boston," he said, moving towards the couch. "I'm going back to the office for a little while." Scully swung further around in her chair to track him with her eyes, brow creasing. "Why are you going back to the office?" Mulder picked up his cell phone and jacket, shoving the phone into one of the pockets, not looking at her. "That was Diana that called before." Scully stood, considered her response, nodded her head once. The adrenaline jitters were coming back, but she forced her voice to be even. "I heard that part." Mulder glanced up at her before turning his attention back to his jacket, pulling out a thick wad of cash. Scully tried to read his expression, but it was neutral. Although he couldn't see it, she arched her eyebrows. "She asked me to meet her." He moved to the kitchen table, Scully following until she was a few paces away from him. Mulder placed the money on the table, then looked at her again. "That's about half the cash I got from the Gunmen," he added, pulling on the jacket. Now he had that concerned/guilty look again, Scully noted. And if Mulder was going to delay their departure for Boston, something serious was going on. "Why does she want you to meet her?" He placed his hands on his hips. "She wouldn't give me details over the phone, but she said she received a disturbing e-mail at the office... something that indicates that lives may be in danger, and she thinks I'll know something about it." "Why you?" He shook his head. "She wouldn't say. She just said it was urgent that I come to see this e-mail she received." In the span of a few seconds, Scully waged an internal debate. one side of her demanded. The other side responded, "Look, Scully," Mulder spoke up, interrupting her thoughts. She met his gaze. "After..." He paused, looked at the ground, and then back up at her. "After yesterday... I know Diana isn't your favorite person right now. Believe me, she's not mine either. But you know I can't let my personal feelings interfere with responding to a potential threat." He paused again, as though waiting for her reaction. But she wanted to hear what else he had to say, so she out-waited him. "This won't take long," he continued, still looking her in the eye. "Diana knows damn well that she can't get me involved in anything, not in an official way, without going through Kersh first. So I'll look at whatever this thing is, give her my opinion, and get the hell out of there. I'll go home, I'll pack, and we'll still have plenty of time to get to Boston." Scully inhaled and nodded, but still needed to force calm into her voice. "Fine. I'll check out what flights are available and call you." Mulder half-smiled, half-grimaced and turned back to the kitchen table. Scully walked around to the opposite side, still trying to read him, and laid her hands on the top of one of the chairs. She watched Mulder scoop up his ID's, leaving hers on the table, and tuck them in an inside pocket of his jacket. Next he grabbed the paper sack with their lunches, removed a drink and a bag of chips, and deposited them on the table. Then he pulled out a wrapped sandwich and looked up at her. "Liverwurst." She stared at him. What...? "Joke. Turkey, lettuce, and tomato." He laid it on the table. Tucking her chin, Scully squeezed her eyes shut and bit back a smile, remembering the joke's grim origin. But she knew Mulder's attempt to break the tension between them was just a diversion; she still didn't know what was going on with him. And she didn't know how to ask without bringing up Diana Fowley -- the one subject she didn't trust herself to address calmly at the moment. They could talk about it later, maybe on the flight to Boston, she decided. She willed her clenched jaw to relax, then lifted her head and eyes. She found Mulder studying her again. She watched him shift his eyes down to the paper sack as he rolled the top closed. He picked up the bag, turned toward the door, then stopped as something on the table caught his eye. He picked up the rolled poster, flashing a full smile this time. "Thanks again, Scully." He turned to look at her, and she gave him a small smile in return. "You're welcome again." "I can't tell you..." he started, then faltered, and didn't continue. To Scully's amazement, his face flushed a pale shade of pink as his smile faded. He swallowed, but said nothing more. "I'll call you as soon as I've got the flight information," Scully said finally, voice gentle. Mulder hesitated, then nodded, and turned back toward the door. Then he looked down at the poster in his hand and slowed his step, stopping about three feet from the door. Growing concerned, Scully watched him, his back to her. But as she was about to speak his name he let himself out, not looking back, turning the deadbolt and doorknob awkwardly with the hand that held his lunch. Scully stared at the door for a few seconds, confused by the friction and awkwardness that had arisen between them. Was it Diana's call? The trip to Boston? Something else? Scully looked down at herself, realized she still had her coat on, and shrugged it off. She shivered at the early November chill in the air, draped the coat over the back of the kitchen chair, and went to the thermostat to push up the heat. Despite having no evidence that the timing of Agent Fowley's call was anything but a coincidence, Scully couldn't shake the feeling -- the same as she had had after the incident at that nuclear power plant in Arizona -- that something wasn't right. <"I hope you haven't been betrayed."> she'd said to Mulder, after Agent Fowley had submitted her report to OPR. He was convinced he hadn't been. Agent Fowley was protecting the X-Files, he'd said. Even Fowley's verbal attack on her the prior morning was, Fowley claimed, borne out of a desire to protect the work. Was her insistence on seeing Mulder more of the same -- whatever "same" really was? Scully returned to her desk and pulled up a website to check flights to Boston, still fighting the uneasy feeling. She felt the knots in her shoulders tightening again, and decided it was time for more Tylenol. She stood and moved toward the kitchen, lost in thought. <"You're not worth it."> She'd said that to Fowley the previous morning in the kitchen of the Hoover building, refusing to concern herself with the other Agent's pettiness. Was there something worthy of her concern after all? ******************************************************************** - end Chapter 10 - ******************************************************************** Author's note for Chapter 10: if you're interested in seeing it, the MBTA website that Mulder and Scully visited is at www.mbta.com. Feedback is cherished at Forte1354@aol.com or bjm1352@aol.com.