8031 E. River St.

5:26 p.m. March 17th, 1996

Sasha Khostov was a big man. Although he usually did his best to conceal his considerable bulk under tailor-made suits and expensive leather jackets, in the privacy of his own office and home he usually opted for jeans and sweatshirts. In a way it didn't really matter, considering that the blinds were always drawn and his bodyguards at the front door always let him know well in advance who was waiting for an audience. If it was someone who needed to be impressed by the way he dressed, his men could always tell the visitor that he'd just stepped out and would be back in an hour.

Khostov had done well since arriving in America some ten years earlier. Although the going hadn't always been easy and the outcome had at times been uncertain, Sasha had possessed the exact level of charm, savvy and brutality to ensure a quick rise to power here in Cleveland. When he had arrived in America a few years earlier he was just a poor immigrant with barely enough connections to land a job working at the docks. And now he had become what he always wanted to be ever since having left his mother country: the boyar, the lord of his domain.

Sasha was in the midst of his reflections, casually smoking a thick cigar and sipping at the glass of scotch on his desk when a knock at the door snapped him back to reality. That had to be Konstantin. Or perhaps maybe Misha. It was hard to keep track of who was on duty at what times these days. Clearing his throat, he said a single word: "Da." To say more would be to waste breath on his underlings and risk giving them an inflated sense of self-worth. To ignore them completely would be to risk missing out on an important meeting. The office door cracked open ever so slightly, spilling a thin strip of yellow light onto the luxurious burgundy rug.

"There's someone here to see you, boss." That was Konstantin. Despite the Russian name, he was pure Brooklyn, third generation. For that matter, Sasha didn't even think he was actually Russian, but perhaps Ukrainian. Just the same he was a loyal and capable soldier and that was enough. "It's Oleg."

Oleg. The name brought mixed reactions to Sasha. It was getting late and before long he would be going off to do his rounds in Little Odessa. He didn't really have much time to waste mingling with the little people who helped run his little empire. Usually a pat on the head and an extra hundred in the pocket was good enough for them. Then again, thought Sasha to himself, slowly puffing his cigar, it's the little people who make the show happen.

"Send him in," he said. Konstantin nodded and retreated back into the main room. "And close the door on the way out."

"So, what's on your mind, tovarish?" smiled Sasha a few minutes later after drinks and pleasantries had been exchanged. Of course neither man really cared about the other's personal life and family, but the ritual was observed just the same. Sasha supposed that proper decorum had to be observed one way or another in order to ensure a strong sense of community. And of course, to further emphasize his role as just another "little man" who had made good and was now giving it back to the community, not some pretentious blueblood who sneered at his less fortunate countrymen.

"Well..." began Oleg, avoiding Sasha's gaze. A heavy silence followed.

"...well?"

"Did you hear about Piotyr?" the spindly little man with bad teeth blurted out, finally wrenching his gaze up from the floor and laying it on Sasha's face. The emotions which fluttered across his face were indistinct but all carried the same odor: that of fear.

Sasha took a deep puff of his cigar, leaning back in his luxurious leather chair as he did so. The dim light in the room obscured many of his facial features, enwreathing him in shadows. How to proceed? He had, of course, been one of the first people to find out about the death. Gossip traveled fast in the neighborhood and it hadn't been long before the big man himself had been alerted to the news. He himself knew frustratingly little about the death itself, but at the same time knew better than to overplay his hand. He didn't want to appear ignorant before his boys, but at the same time didn't want to look stupid if he made something up now and was later proven wrong. One way or another, he wasn't at war with any particular group; the Jamaicans hadn't been causing trouble since October and the Italians had been pretty much shut down the year before in a major Department of Justice sting. There was no one stupid or strong enough to take on Sasha now.

"Yeah, I heard," he finally said, slowly exhaling a cloud of ruddy-colored smoke as he did so. "Damn shame, eh?" Oleg was back to studying his hands again, unable or unwilling to look the boss in the eye.

"Yeah..." he muttered, his voice little more than an unintelligible mumble.

"Did you hear any of the details?" Sasha kept his tone even but was being gnawed upon from the inside. There were plenty of chances that this was another one of those "accidental" deaths that seemed to have been cropping up in town, but if there was trouble brewing, he had to be in the know. No one got the drop on Sasha Khostov.

The weasely little man shook his head emphatically. To Sasha he looked like a dog trying to dry himself out. "Naw boss, naw. I didn't hear nothing about that. Just that he was dead is all."

"Is that what's bothering you?" asked Sasha, trying his best to appear magnanimous. "He was a friend of yours too, wasn't he?" He was trying to sound as much like a father figure as he could, but somehow he didn't think he was pulling it off very well. In any case the effort would be largely wasted on a little squirt like Oleg whose only father had probably been appointed by the state.

"Well...the thing is..." Oleg began again, scratching the back of his neck. Yes, though Sasha, definitely a weasel in his previous life. "It's just that...ya know...I was wondering if that might have had something to do with Lev."

Something to do with Lev. Those five words encapsulated the exact thoughts which had been running around in circles in Sasha's head since he had first heard of Piotyr's death earlier that morning. By God, if only he knew the answer to that question. Smiling uneasily, Oleg was studying Sasha's desk. At least he had grown a little more spine since he had last spoken.

Reaching into his bottom-most desk drawer, Sasha pulled out a second glass and the bottle which he had been working on ever so slowly since earlier in the week. Pouring himself another drink and then filling Oleg's glass, he replaced the cap on the bottle and set it down heavily on the desk. Oleg looked up at him with a mixture of tension and anxiety.

"Now Oleg," began Sasha again, snubbing his cigar out in the silver ashtray atop his desk. "You know that Lev's death was ruled accidental."

"Accidental how??" blurted out Oleg, cutting off his boss in mid-thought. "How did he die? They never gave us any details, just that he'd died and that he'd probably hurt himself falling down in his apartment." His claw-like hands were trembling, the glass threatening to spill at any moment. Normally Sasha would have crushed Oleg like a cockroach at the first sign of his disrespect, but instead he let it slide. In a way he understood the man's frustration and fear. He held nothing but contempt for both emotions, but at least he understood why Oleg felt the way he did.

"Oleg, Oleg, Oleg." Sasha turned the "caring father" routine up a notch. The man stared at him with sad, glum eyes. "What happened to Lev was an accident. We know that. He was a good guy and I miss him as much as you do. But trust me-" his voice had gone cold. "- if this was anything other than a freak accident, if anyone had decided to take it upon himself to hurt one of my boys, don't you think I'd come down on him hard? Don't you think I'd know? Don't you think I'd find the bastard who did it and bury him so deep and in so many places they'd never find him? Eh?" Oleg slowly nodded, seemingly calmed.

"That's right," resumed Sasha, his voice carefully normal again. "So, how are things up on your end? Business good?"

Nodding vigorously, the small man began rattling off a long list of who was doing what, who owed who how much and who he suspected of not paying up the full amount of protection money. Sasha pretended to listen carefully, but in truth he didn't really care. Oleg was a good worker and a stand-up guy, but at the same time it wouldn't help the business if he started getting soft or flaky. One way or another it was too early to tell.

Fifteen minutes later Oleg offered his excuses and went on his way, seemingly reassured. He wasn't really a bad guy Sasha mused to himself, finishing off his third drink and he stood up. It just wasn't like him to get so spooked about something. Of course, Oleg had gone through the same school of hard knocks as the rest of them, growing up on the streets and had proven to be a capable worker in the past. The death of a close friend and business associate could affect anyone. Now, if he could just fine out more about what had really happened to Piotyr and if there was trouble brewing again with the Jamaicans. Setting his glass back down on the table, he called for Konstantin. "Get the car," he muttered at the man when he stuck his head through the door a few seconds later. "Its time to go on our rounds."

- - - - -

City Coroner's Office- District 2

6:03 p.m. March 17th, 1996

The lighting in the room was harsh, but that was to be expected of such facilities. In all her years doing dissections and autopsies in two dozen various counties across the country, never once had Scully had the opportunity to work in a nice, comfortable room. Not that it really mattered too much. Autopsies were meant to be sanitary and sterile, not warm and comfy. It wasn't like the bodies on the slab and in the cooler would be filing complaints with the county anytime in the near future. As such, examination room B was prepared as best as could be hoped under the circumstances: well-lit, clean, and fairly new. She had seen far worse.

It had taken the better part of two hours to get the victim suitably thawed out so that he could be detached from the floor. The techs assisting her had seemed suitably unimpressed, but deep down Scully suspected they were being devoured by curiosity. She herself was intrigued by the frozen corpse seared to the kitchen floor, but like the rest of the police officers on the scene, kept her surprise to herself. Detective Preston had vanished soon after the operation had began, no doubt having more important business to attend to than watching some G-woman use a blow-drier on a corpse. Although they had gotten the body off the floor and to the morgue by 3:30 that afternoon, only now was the corpse sufficiently thawed to allow a detailed dissection and autopsy to begin.

Sliding on her blue latex gloves, Scully tested her tape recorder and placed it on the instrument table next to her, the red "Rec" light on the tape deck seemingly providing the only real color in the room. Reaching forward to the lumpy figure splayed out on the cold, metal table in front of her, she turned back the white sheet and got to work.

"Subject is Piotyr Yumashev, a twenty-seven year-old Caucasian male, approximately 5 foot 11 inches tall, weight indeterminate, 150 pounds according to the subject's driver's license." Reaching to the tools on the table, she grabbed the first of her implements (in this case a rather large scalpel) and began the delicate work of performing an autopsy, starting with the preliminary Y-cut which proceeded all explorations of the deeper body cavity.

It couldn't have been more than fifteen minutes when she was startled by a hand tapping her left shoulder. Spinning on her heel she found herself facing a tried-looking Mulder.

"Mulder," she began, hoping she didn't sound too startled. He simply looked at her. "Geez Mulder, you scared me. Don't sneak up on me like that."

"Yeah. Sorry about that." Mulder walked around the autopsy table, carefully surveying the body as he did so. Amazingly, he seemed to hold whatever smart-alec remarks he might have been brewing to himself. He'd had a long day and as such Scully was not particularly surprised.

"So..." he began again, seemingly feigning interest. "Whatcha got Scully?"

"Nothing yet Mulder. As a matter of fact I was just getting started here."

Mulder's eyebrows arched. "You mean you only just got to work?" Shrugging, Scully gesticulated to the fresh cuts on the body's chest. "Man, you weren't kidding when you said he was frozen solid. How long has it been?"

"Just a couple of hours." Looking down, she reached up and adjusted the light-stalk which hung from the ceiling to better direct the light on the rapidly-deepening incision into Piotyr Yumashev's body cavity. "I haven't found anything particularly interesting yet Mulder. As far as I can tell everything I'm seeing here is consistent with hypothermia: the frostbite, the damage to the extremities, the skin color, the massive amounts of tissue damage...not to mention the presence of ice particles in the blood vessels." She paused. Mulder appeared to be examining the body closely. "As far as I can tell," she resumed, "this man simply froze to death, pure and simple."

"Except for the fact that he was indoors with the heating turned up on a night where the mercury never dropped below 30 degrees." He looked up. "I'd say that's a little interesting, don't you think?" Scully audibly exhaled. She knew where this was going. It was showtime for Mulder's big theory and no matter how silly or ludicrous it might sound to her, she knew better than to try shutting him down in mid-conversation. No, she had found over the previous two and a half years that it was generally better just to let him get it off his chest and then try to burst his bubble with cold, hard facts than allow herself to get emotionally attached to the outcome and have it become a contest of wills between science and fantasy, Scully and Mulder.

"Ok Mulder," she began carefully, hoping to avoid setting him off or sounding overly dismissive. She'd had plenty of practice with situations such as these before, but she was still refining her approach to dealing with him. He was a tough guy to predict and prone to having his feelings hurt when she least expected it. "What do you think is going on?"

To her surprise, he didn't answer immediately. Instead he merely looked at the corpse on the table, seemingly examining the harsh play of white light interlacing with the shadows in the otherwise darkened room.

"I don't know what's going on Scully." Scully was perplexed. He gave her an amused look. "What? Do I have something crawling out of my ear that shouldn't be there?" In spite of herself, Scully chuckled.

"Mulder, it's just that we've been doing this for years and I can't ever recall a time when you haven't at least had a theory of some kind to explain an incredible occurrence."

"Oh, don't worry," he cut in, his eyes gleaming. "I said I don't know what's going on. That doesn't mean there aren't plenty of theories playing around in the attic there Scully."

"Did you get anything useful from your interviews this afternoon? I haven't seen you in a while."

"You mean besides a bruised foot and half a dozen Russian swear words?" This time it was Scully's turn to appear intrigued. Picking up on her he simply said "Long story. I'll tell you later. What do you think, Dr. Scully?" he asked, abruptly bringing them back on subject. "I just know you have some juicy, fact-filled theorem hiding on your clipboard there."

Scully began to raise her voice in protest but instead simply answered his question. "Mulder, there are plenty of possible explanations. I mean, he could have been frozen before in another location and moved to his apartment, he could have been killed as a result of a mob killing-"

"-which doesn't explain how he got stuck to the floor or how the door was locked and chained from the inside with no signs of forced entry other than that which the landlord made to get in." A triumphant little smile.

"If you would let me finish," a trace of annoyance passed over her face. Mulder raised his hands defensively.

"Sorry. Please continue."

"As I was saying, we also can't discount the possibility that this wasn't some sort of endothermic internal reaction or a freak accident. I 'd have to do some research but I do believe the Air Force did some studies back in the 1950s where they were able to cause spontaneous freezing in super cooled water droplets."

"Water droplets?" He looked amused.

"It's a long shot Mulder, but it makes a hell of a lot more sense than aliens or ghosts or-"

"-vengeful spirits?"

"Or that." Looking up at the clock on the far wall, Scully saw that it was nearly 7:00 p.m. It was getting late and she hadn't had lunch or dinner. "Mulder," she began, her voice beginning to wear thin, "it's been a long day and I have a hell of a lot more work to do before I can call this a night and I've got a million other things to take care of."

Straightening up, her partner nodded. "I hear ya Scully. Do you wanna take a break or something?"

"What? And get finished even later?" Scully hoped she didn't sound too impatient, but at this point the would just have to deal with it. He'd survived. Thankfully, Mulder seemed nonplussed.

"Ok Scully. I've got a lot of information to sift through tonight anyway, so why don't I meet you someplace whenever you get done? We can get coffee or something. Besides," his eyes flashed with a playful fire, "if your stomach growls any louder that guy on the slab is gonna sit up and ask for some ear plugs." Scully attempted to hide her smile, failed miserably, and instead gave up and merely chortled with laughter.

"Ah," her partner continued, grinning, "your sense of humor did in fact come along with her on this trip. I was starting to worry there for a while. See you in a while then Scully," he said, his voice slowly echoing slightly in the cold marble tiling of the examination room. And as his footsteps slowly faded away, Agent Scully picked up her scalpel and, keying the "Pause" button on her tape recorder, got back to work.