Chapter 6 - 9
The Gunmen spent most of the day reviewing the videotapes from Saturday night. Byers was suspicious of the two drunks that were thrown off the grounds in the middle of the night. Everyone searched for images of the men on all of the tapes. There were hours of tape to go through so for once Emma got to help out. They worked in pairs for something like this and Frohike was busy taking apart one of the devices he found with the surveillance cameras. Byers and Jimmy worked together and Langly paired up with Emma. She took it very seriously and was even able to identify a couple of segments that showed the men.
In her excitement at being allowed to help she forgot about her argument with Langly from the previous day. While she was intently studying the video monitor, Langly exacted his revenge. She jumped and squealed when she felt his finger in her ear. This earned them an angry scowl from Frohike. "What are you two doing?"
"Nothing," they swore in unison.
"It doesn't sound like nothing. Knock it off."
Emma rubbed her ear and told Langly, "You're right. It is worse when you don't expect it."
"See, I told you. So, don't do it any more."
"Okay, I won't. But how can I get your attention if I really need it?"
"Oh, that's easy. Just call me by my first name. Then I'll know you're serious."
"You're sure that'll work?"
"Try it next time and find out."
"It's Richard, right?"
"Yup."
Emma started giggling.
"What's so funny?"
"You just don't look like a 'Richard'!"
Langly gave her a crooked smile. "Yeah, I know. That's why I used to tell people to call me 'Ringo'."
"You don't look like a 'Ringo' either."
"What do I look like?"
"You look like a…" Emma searched for a name. "You look like a 'Langly'."
"Well, I guess I was born into the right family then."
"Are you two going to sit there and chatter all day or do you plan on getting any work done?" Frohike asked.
Before Langly could come up with an angry retort, Emma assured her father, "We're going back to it right now." She didn't want to get fired from her new job. Langly hit the rewind button to catch everything they had missed while they were talking.
Yves came by in the early afternoon with copies of the security logs that noted the rousting of the two drunks, which included the names and identification that had been shown to security. She had checked and the identification they used was bogus. By running back the tapes and carefully observing their behavior, it soon became obvious that the men were not as drunk as they had seemed at first, if at all.
Frohike carefully studied the dismantled electronics he had found. It did appear to do what he first surmised. It not only blocked the signal from a video camera, it transmitted a looped image so that it wouldn't be obvious that the signal had been disrupted. He hooked up the undamaged device and tested it. He was impressed. It was an amazing piece of counter intelligence equipment. And it wouldn't be all that difficult to copy. This would come in handy but right now was not the time to extol its virtues.
He explained to the others how they had been fooled.
"But how did Harris know about our cameras?" Byers asked. "I can see him disrupting the ones security put up but ours were well hidden."
Yves was studying the one that Frohike had taken apart. "I told you he was good."
Langly took the piece of equipment from Yves. "This may explain how he switched the painting but how did he get it off the grounds? Nothing was removed during the night, security made sure of that." He looked at Yves, "You're positive he didn't take it out of the frame."
"I'm quite certain the frame was switched, too. Tiny flecks of chipped paint that probably flaked off when it was moved are now restored. That didn't happen by magic. They took the whole thing, frame and all."
Frohike offered his theory. "They used that," he pointed to the thing in Langly's hand, "to keep us complacent, moved the painting to a preselected spot during the early morning hours, then hauled it off in broad daylight probably safely crated and stashed under a pile of trash or something else that security would have taken no notice of."
Byers thought of something he had seen the previous day. "Langly, do you remember yesterday morning as we were entering the grounds, we had to wait for that truck, the one carrying the port-a-potties?"
"Yeah, I remember." He wrinkled his nose in disgust. "Man, did those things stink!"
"I thought it was odd at the time. Why would they be taking any of them away when the Games were still going on?"
"Maybe because they were too gross to use! I know they got my gag reflex working overtime."
"It doesn't take much to do that," Frohike said.
Byers continued, "But they usually pump them out and refill the blue chemicals for the new day. There would be no reason to take them away, unless there was something in one of them that they didn't want anyone to see."
Langly slammed his fist onto the tabletop making the coffee cups jump. "Oh, man, do you mean to tell me they drove off the grounds with the painting right in front of us?"
Yves looked thoughtful. "Byers is probably right. Security wouldn't think twice about the sanitation crew coming onto the grounds, refilling the portable toilets, and leaving again. If we had discovered earlier that the painting had been stolen, the guards would have searched anything that size. The painting would fit nicely into one of the larger units."
"This does give us a place to start, though." Yves continued, "The truck must still be around somewhere. It might give us vital clues, if we can track it down."
Emma had been very quiet during this whole discussion. She figured they had forgotten that she was right there but she knew there was something they were overlooking. "What about the port-a-potties? They may not be with the truck any more."
From the surprised reactions her statement elicited she knew she was right: they had forgotten about her.
She hurried on to make her point. "If they're not with the truck, if they dumped them somewhere, someone will complain."
Frohike frowned at her. "Why are you still here?"
"I was helping."
"You need to go up stairs."
"But I already know everything, why can't I stay? I might be able to help some more."
"I could use some assistance looking through the videos for shots of the truck," Langly said as he sorted through the tapes to find the ones of the gate where he and Byers had waited for the truck to pass.
"And she has a point about the portable toilets," Yves added. "No one else thought of that."
Frohike scowled at Yves then at Emma. Eventually he gave in and let Emma stay. "Go help Langly," he told her.
"Thank you, Dad," she said giving him a quick kiss on the cheek.
"Go on before I change my mind."
Langly moved to a computer and Byers, Jimmy and Emma watched the videos to find footage of the sanitation truck leaving the grounds. Byers found a good picture and froze it. They were able to get the name of the company off the driver's door of the truck but there was no clear picture of the driver.
"Frohike, the name on the truck is Port-O-Let/Sanikan, Portable Restrooms."
"Good, I'll call them and see if any of their trucks went missing this weekend."
Langly was scanning 911 calls to see if someone had reported missing flat bed trucks, port-a-potties, or the unexplained appearance of either in their near vicinity.
After numerous phone calls and a great deal of computer research, it was discovered that a truck had been stolen from the Port-O-Let company but more than a month previously. There had been two portable toilets on it at the time. The manager was surprised that anyone cared about the stolen truck and portable toilets. The police certainly didn't. The truck and both units had turned up the night before. He was about to go pick them up.
"We believe your truck was used during a crime," Frohike explained. "We would like to see if there is any evidence that may lead us to the perpetrator."
"Sure, come on out. I won't touch it until you get there."
"Thank you, we really appreciate it."
With the location of the truck in hand, almost everyone loaded in the van. Emma decided not to push her luck and didn't even ask to go with them. Langly stayed with her. He wanted to continue to check 911 calls for anything unusual. Emma kept out of the way, playing computer games or just wandering around. She couldn't settle on one thing.
It was very quiet in the warehouse and she jumped at every noise, wondering if the others had returned. She kept getting up and checking the monitor to see if they were at the door. Her restlessness got to Langly. He was keeping half an ear on her and it was easier to concentrate in a room full of people than one anxious 12 year old wandering aimlessly around the room.
"Hey, bratface, come here. I could use your help."
"Really?"
"Yes, I'm going buggo reading these 911 logs. I could use a fresh pair of eyes."
"Sure, no problem." She wheeled a chair up next to him and studied the screen. "So, what am I looking for?"
"Look here in the 'complaint' column. I'm checking for anything that looks weird: mentions sanitation trucks or abandoned outhouses, stuff like that."
That kept her busy so he could concentrate and it didn't hurt to have some extra help. Weird to one person may not be weird to another. She pointed out a couple he had missed. They didn't come up with anything really promising until shortly before the others came back.
When they did get back, Frohike, Byers, Jimmy and Yves were discouraged by what they had found and had not found. The truck was wiped clean. The manager from the portable toilet company said that it hadn't looked that good since it was new. Inside one of the port-a-potties, they found a crate the right size and shape to hold the painting. At first the Gunmen had been elated, then on closer inspection, they realized it had been built out of old shipping pallets. These could have been picked up anywhere and would give them no real clues.
"I'm sure Harris left it there to taunt us and the police," Yves said. They had called the cops when they were done with the truck. They would want to take a look at it, too. "He could've easily destroyed the crate or left it elsewhere."
"But now we know for sure how he did it," Jimmy was trying to lighten the mood.
"Tell them," Emma encouraged Langly, pulling on his sleeve to get his attention.
"Tell us what?" Byers asked.
Langly started to speak but Emma cut him off in her enthusiasm. "He found something: a real clue. Tell them," she repeated.
"I will if you'll give me a chance."
"Sorry. Go ahead."
Langly gave them the details of a 911 call he had found. "Someone called in to say that some kids were playing around in a warehouse out by Dulles."
Emma broke in, "The caller said they do it all the time."
Langly looked down at her. "Do you want to tell it or can I?"
"No, you tell it. You found it."
"Anyway, the police knew the warehouse was supposed to be empty but when they got there, instead of kids, they found that someone had been living there."
"That's why the caller thought that it was kids messing around, there shouldn't have been anyone in there," Emma couldn't help herself. He wasn't telling the story the way she would have.
Langly continued. "There was a full sized Chevy pickup parked inside. They also found a couple workman's coveralls." Emma started to interrupt him again but he put his arm around her, loosely covering her mouth with his hand. It was enough to shut her up but not suffocate her. "The coveralls had Port-O-Let's logo on the back."
"Did they happen to list the license plate number in the report?" Frohike asked.
"Got it and ran it. It belongs to Avis. The description of the truck in the police report matched Avis's records."
Byers scratched his beard thoughtfully. "They must have transferred the painting to the Chevy pickup to deliver it to the buyer. The sanitation truck would be too noticeable in a residential area. At the airport, no one would think twice about it. But I can't believe he would be careless enough to leave the original license plates on the rental truck."
"Maybe he didn't have a chance to change them yet," Jimmy said.
Yves agreed with Jimmy. "Harris probably figured he had plenty of time to do that after he had acquired the painting."
Frohike unwrapped Langly's arm from around Emma and had her sit near him to keep her out of trouble. "Were you able to find out who rented the truck?"
Langly grinned. "Yes, I did." He reached behind Yves to his workstation and picked up a piece of paper. He handed it to her.
Jimmy looked over her shoulder at the name, reading it out loud. "Wesley Thomason. Why does that sound familiar?"
Yves smiled at Langly. "Because it's one of Harris's aliases."
It was pretty late by the time they called it a night. Frohike and Emma had planned on staying at the warehouse for a while. Not wanting to miss out on anything, Emma stubbornly insisted that she was not tired even after a very busy weekend, getting up early several days in a row and being awakened twice in the middle of the night. Frohike found her with her head resting on a keyboard about an hour after she should have gone to bed.
He gently shook her shoulder, "Emma, wake up and go to bed before you get a permanent imprint of those keys on your face."
"Hey, I wasn't asleep. I was doing something."
"Yeah, you were drooling on my laptop," Langly fussed. He wiped off the keys with the bottom of his t-shirt.
"Well, it seriously needed cleaning anyway!"
"Don't take it out on Langly. Just go to bed."
The tired twelve year old looked up at her friend. "Sorry, Langly. That wasn't very nice of me." She decided to give it up and headed upstairs. "Good night." She called back at everyone.
"I'll be up in a few minutes to check on you. And don't forget to brush your teeth." Frohike reminded her.
She waved feebly at him as she trudged up the stairs. "I won't."
Too tired to worry about unexplained lights, Emma quickly dropped into a sound sleep not waking up until well into the next day. Turning to sit on the side of the bed she stretched, wondering if she had moved at all during the night. Her thoughts ran back to the previous day. She smiled remembering that for once they had really let her help on a case. And Langly had even allowed her to watch him hack into several computer systems. She wondered if her dad knew about it. She didn't see how he couldn't. John had told her once…
"John. Oh, my god, he had another date last night! I missed it!" Emma ran out of her room into the main living area.
"Hey, look who's finally awake!" Langly said with a laugh.
"Where's John?" Emma looked around the kitchen for him.
"Good morning, Dad. How are you today?" Frohike teased. "Did you sleep well? I did, thank you very much for asking."
"Hi, Dad. Is John up yet?" She was not going to be distracted.
"Yes, he's down stairs." Emma dashed off in that direction.
"Whoa!" Frohike said as she rushed past him. She stopped with a confused look on her face. He pointed at her bare feet. "You know you're not supposed to go down there without shoes." Although they tried to keep the floor in the work area clean, stray pieces of wire and other electronics debris were a hazard to unprotected skin. Frohike had to use a pocket knife to get a nasty bit of something out of her instep a couple of weeks earlier.
Heaving a big sign, Emma said, "Dad, I'll be careful." Frohike reached into his pocket, pulled out his penknife and waved it in front of her nose. She got the message and ran back to her room to slip on a pair of flip-flops.
She found Byers at his computer. "Morning, John." She figured it was worthless to launch right into it.
"Good morning, Doc." Byers replied with a grin, knowing what was coming next.
"How are you this morning?"
"I'm fine. How did you sleep? Did anything wake you up last night?" Emma wasn't surprised that John obviously knew what she had been going through. She knew her dad talked to Byers when something was on his mind.
"Nope, nothing," Emma said with some relief. She hadn't thought about it until he mentioned it. "I slept all night."
"Good. How come you're not dressed?" He frowned at her.
"I just got up," she said in her own defense.
"And you couldn't wait to come and say, 'Good morning' to me instead of having breakfast and getting dressed?" Sometimes it was just too easy to tease her.
"I wanted to find out how your date went," she said a little petulantly.
"Oh, is that it?" As if he didn't know. "It went fine." He turned back to his computer screen.
"That's it? It went fine?" Emma asked to try to get him to give her details.
"Yes, that's it. We had a good time. What did you do last night?" He tried to change the subject.
"I slept. We already talked about that." She was getting a little testy.
Frohike came down knowing that Emma would be nagging Byers. "Emma, go get dressed. Langly made you some breakfast."
"He did? I thought he couldn't cook." Emma was amazed.
"He's not as inept at it as he would like us to believe. Hurry up before it gets cold."
"Don't you mean soggy," Emma asked grinning.
"Go on!" Frohike said, taking a menacing step toward her. "Git!"
Giving a small squeak, Emma trotted up to her room to change out of her jammies.
Frohike waited until she was out of earshot. "Byers, thanks for being here when she woke up."
"You're welcome. Langly said you were worried about needing to have a little father/daughter talk."
"Yeah, I'm working up to it. Listen if you want me to keep her at the house overnight just let me know."
"No, need. Erynn left for home earlier this morning."
"Oh, no problem then. Say, you never said how you knew her," Frohike was curious.
"We dated for a few months. But then she moved away. We kept in touch for quite a while but eventually I lost track of her."
"And now?" He was almost as bad as his daughter.
"Got all the information and if Emma has her way, I may see her in December."
Frohike grinned and slapped his friend on the back. "Good idea!"
An hour and a half later, the buzzer went off breaking everyone's concentration. Emma ran to let the visitor in. "Check the monitor before you open the door!"
"Yes, Dad. You always say that and I always do." Emma looked down at the screen. Yves stood looking up at the camera. "It's Yves."
"Let her in."
Yves had a list of possible buyers for the painting. Some of these they had checked out earlier. But now that they had the description of the rental truck, they could interview the neighborhoods around the homes of the suspected stolen art collectors to see if anyone had seen the truck.
Byers, Yves and Jimmy went out to the Avis office that had rented the truck. It had been returned and they wanted to check it out. They didn't plan on finding much evidence but the mileage that had been put on the truck would help them narrow their search for the buyer. Yves wanted to talk to the clerk who had actually rented out the truck to see if she/he would recognize Harris.
These activities would take most of the day and probably well into the night. If they found a likely recipient of stolen artwork, they would check deeper. And if it came down to it, they would take appropriate action. Emma listened to the numerous discussions going on around her but no one would explain what 'appropriate action' meant. Frohike told her to stop asking. She finally did.
There was one question Emma wanted answered. At a break in all the activity, she decided to bring up the subject. "Yves, what about Colin Harris?"
"What about him, Emma?"
"Are you going to catch him?"
"Not this time." At Emma's disappointed look, Yves continued, "But I'm not giving up either. I have several contacts keeping their eyes open for me. He's going to show up somewhere and I'm very patient."
"Good!" Emma was pleased. "I know you'll get him."
As the day wore on, one particular art collector seemed to stand out as the most likely recipient of The Thin Red Line.
Neighbors reported seeing a truck that matched the description of the rental vehicle that the police had found in the warehouse. The two men who arrived in the truck had delivered a large armoire. The painting could have fit into the piece of furniture that was described by the neighbors.
At this point, Frohike made a phone call. Emma had agreed to baby-sit for Scully and Mulder that evening. This was something she had done a couple of times in the past. If she could spend the night there as well, it would solve quite a few problems. It would leave all the Gunmen free to try to get the painting back without having to leave someone behind with Emma in case they all got arrested for breaking and entering.
Scully was more than happy to have Emma overnight. To Frohike's surprise, Emma found this arrangement to be preferable to going home once her services were no longer needed.
"If I stay at their place, I can go to bed at a normal time instead of trying to stay awake until they get there. I always get too tired and late night TV is weird." She had no appreciation for Leno, Letterman, and infomercials.
Mulder showed up at about 6:00 PM to pick up Emma. She was ready to leave but Mulder had to poke around and see what the Gunmen were up to.
"Isn't Dana waiting for us?" Emma finally asked him after three false starts for the door.
Mulder shrugged, "She's a patient woman."
"With you around, she needs to be," she said with a sly smile.
"Emma!" Frohike shook his head at her. She was getting too sassy. He was going to have to do something about that. "That was disrespectful. You need to apologize."
"Sorry, Mulder," a red faced Emma said.
"That's okay, kid. Come on, let's go. Dana's patience does have its limits."
Scully was a little nervous about leaving Emma alone with William with no backup. Mulder told her she had been with the FBI too long.
"Mulder, you know what I mean." Scully said. "Her dad's usually available if she has a problem."
"I have your cell phone number and your mom's number and the number at the restaurant and all the emergency numbers." Emma was sitting on the floor with William sharing McDonald's french fries with him. "We'll be okay. Really."
Scully studied the self-assured girl deciding that she believed her. "All right, but don't hesitate to call me if you need me."
"I won't."
Little William and Emma spent a pleasant evening together. He didn't want to go to sleep but with a few more stories and some back rubbing he finally dropped off. Emma watched TV for a while until she fell asleep on the couch. She woke up around 11PM, brushed her teeth, changed her clothes, pulled William's blanket up over his shoulders and went to bed.
Mulder and Scully arrived home shortly after midnight. Scully went to check on the kids. Both were sound asleep in William's room. "See, I told you they'd be fine." Mulder didn't get to say 'I told you so' very often but he didn't rub it in either.
Something woke Mulder up in the middle of the night. It was the sound of talking in William's room. Figuring that the boy was awake and Emma was trying to get him to go back to sleep, Mulder went to help. Something made him pause just outside the door to the baby's room. Emma was talking but not to William.
"I know you need my help but I don't know what to do."
Mulder wondered if she was talking in her sleep. Stepping all the way into the room, he stopped in amazement. Emma was sitting up in bed. She seemed to be talking to several tiny moving lights that were in front of her and scattered around the room. She sounded desperate.
"I can't go with you. It's the middle of the night. I would get in so much trouble."
Mulder moved slowly across the room. He didn't want to startle her or scare off whatever the lights were. He spoke softly. "Emma, what are they?"
"Mulder," Emma also used a quiet voice, "you can see them?"
"Yes, what are they?" he repeated.
"They're faeries but you're the only other person who's been able to see them." She was relieved. It meant that she was not going crazy. This thought had tormented her making it difficult to accept what she was seeing.
"I see a lot of stuff other people don't see. What do they want?" He sat down at the foot of the bed trying to watch as many of the lights as he could.
"They want me to go with them. They want to show me something. But I can't, not now." She waved her arm towards the darkness out the window.
"What if I went with you?"
"You would? Yes, that'd be great. Thank you, Mulder."
"Get dressed. I'll be right back." He went to throw on some jeans and a sweat jacket. He hurried then realized he needed to give Emma time to dress, too. He stood in the hallway. Emerging from William's room, the lights swirled around Emma like dry leaves blowing around a courtyard on a windy day.
"Can you drive us? I think it's pretty far but they seem to understand that we can't walk all the way."
Mulder grabbed his keys from the desk. "Let's go."
Yves and the Lone Gunmen were parked a few houses away and across the street from the home of the suspected stolen art collector. Frohike had picked a parking spot in the darkest area between two streetlights. Langly located the blue prints for the palatial home and found that there was a very large vault in the basement: large enough to house an impressive collection of other people's art work. The five of them were sitting in the van debating their next move.
Frohike simply wanted to break in, get the painting and get the hell out of Dodge. Byers favored a much more cautious approach figuring that there was more inside than just The Thin Red Line. He thought they might as well check it out to see if there was anything else to recover.
"How much do you think we are going to get into this van with the five of us in here? The painting is barely going to fit. I'm telling you, Byers, let's just get what we came for. If there's anything else in there, we can alert the authorities and have them take care of it."
Byers wasn't convinced. "Once we take the painting, this guy is going to know that we're on to him. He'll hide or sell everything else and not pay for his crimes!"
"Look, can we just make a decision here," Langly said. "It's after 3:00 and we're running out of time."
"Hey, someone's coming," Jimmy called out. He was on lookout. Pointing the camera toward the approaching car, he zoomed in on it. The car stopped in front of the house they were interested in. Two people got out of the car and stood checking out the house: two very familiar looking people.
