Chapter 11

CHICAGO

2:32 pm

Kara Danvers had dealt with some truly horrendous people in both of her worlds. The knowledge of the conspiracy had not affected her opinions of the greater evil of both mankind and aliens. But when she learned what Amanda Waller and Monica Reyes had done involving Oliver's son, it hit home in a way that so much of plots involving the abduction and experimentations of innocents for decades just hadn't.

She had maintained a code of ethics since she had put on the costume of Supergirl. But her reaction to William's kidnapping was pretty much the same as Oliver's – the main difference, of course, that she could physically do more damage to Waller in less time than he could. She was trying to fight off that urge, so she offered to search Chicago to see if she could find any trace of what had happened to William.

She knew, of course, that these people were smart and that the Syndicate personally hadn't been anywhere near Oliver's son when he'd been kidnapped. The files were full of henchmen and assassins who'd been hired to take care of errands like this one, and that when they found them, there would be no direct link. So rather then waste time on that, she decided to try and pick up the trail where William had last been seen.

"These people were smart," Winn said into her earpiece. "They walked William into an area where there were no security footage and no traffic cameras."

"Chicago police have anything useful?" Oliver wasn't going to make William's connection to him public, but this was still an Amber Alert situation. His mother had reported him missing when he hadn't come home from school, and the police and the Chicago field office of the Bureau had been called in.

"The last person who saw William was a security guard," Winn told her. "He said that he saw William get into a car about 4pm yesterday. License plate was a dead end, but the make was a black Lincoln."

"Well, they had to use that car for a bit before they dumped it," Kara said slowly. "Find anything approaching that with the license plate?"

"I'm going through all the footage within a ten block radius," Winn said. "But there's a lot of apartment buildings and a lot of warehouses."

"We know the resources these people have. They don't necessarily need either." Kara said to herself.

"Hold on. I may have something." Winn paused. "Damn, these guys are good."

"Meaning?"

"Black Lincoln with the plates driving near an apartment building. Woman is getting out of the car, she presses some device, and all the cameras in that area got go black for ten seconds. By the time they're back on, cars gone."

"So there's no chance of finding them."

"You doubt me? These guys are good. I'm better." Winn told them. "I have deresolution monitors set up for just these occasions. Twenty minutes and I'll have every pixel visible. In the meantime, get yourself over there and pick up the trail. Street signs had the car at Avenue X and Cicero."

She'd get there nineteen minutes before Wynn had this decrypted and there was almost no chance that anybody from the conspiracy was still there, but she got in the air anyway. It made her feel better.

STAR CITY MAYOR'S OFFICE

"Part of me wants to go on TV, tell the world who has William, put a bounty on their heads, and see what happens."

It was the first time Oliver had spoken in nearly an hour. Everyone knew that he was a man of action, so being told that he had to stay put for this part of the plan had to be one of the hardest he'd ever done.

"I didn't know anyone your age had seen that movie," Mulder said lightly.

"What movie?" Oliver replied grimly.

Mulder knew that Oliver had to be in a hundred kinds of pain, all of them worse than the time he'd inflicted on so many others. And there was nothing he could personally say to make him feel better – he'd been on both sides of this, and he knew every possible way this could go wrong. Hell, given everything that had happened involving Church the last couple of days, he couldn't even assure Oliver that with Supergirl on the case, things would be resolved quickly and positively.

So everybody said nothing.

"How's Samantha doing?" Oliver asked a moment later.

"Wishing she had a costume of her own," Felicity said slowly.

"She's a mother," Diggle told them. "She doesn't need superpowers to want to protect her kid."

"I should never have sent them away," Oliver said slowly. "It was my job to protect my son. Why the hell did I think I could keep him safe away from me?"

"Because sometimes you think it's the best thing you can do."

Scully had been very quiet ever since she had learned Oliver's son had been kidnapped, not speaking to anybody. Mulder knew how much pain this was causing her.

"Our son was taken from me when he was just a few months old," Scully began slowly. "They thought he was…special. I did everything in my power to bring him back, but I only managed to rescue him through blind chance."

"Scully."

"A few months after that, they came for him again." Mulder didn't like the detached way Scully was speaking. To everyone else, it probably sounded as clinical as a lot of what she said. Mulder knew her too well to not notice that there was a note in it that he really didn't like.

"I thought the best way to protect him was to send him to live with strangers. That no one could know where he lived, not even me." Scully's voice was starting to rise. "You send him away, but there is no away anymore. No safe…"

She trailed off. "Scully?" Mulder asked gingerly.

'There is no middle of nowhere any more.' "Scully said thoughtfully. Suddenly she turned to Felicity. "How much of an effort would it take for you to hack the NSA?"

"Um, aside from the fact that just talking about such an idea is the equivalent of treason according to the government?" Felicity asked.

"You're talking to people who work for several branches of that same government." Scully wasn't hysterical any more. She was thinking very clearly. "Let's just say we could get you permission."

Felicity thought for about 3.14 seconds. "Five minutes, give or take. Why the NSA?"

"The shadow government is spying on us every minute of every day," Scully told them. "I think it's time we return the favor."

Mulder cursed himself for not thinking of this first, then remembered that Scully had a very specific reason for knowing this.

"The DEO is already using every available camera they have to search for William Clayton." Diggle said calmly.

"Exactly. Every camera they know about. Mulder and I happen to know for a fact that the shadow government has cameras that are completely that are only available to them." Scully sounded triumphant. "How do you think they found William in the first place?"

Oliver slowly got to his feet. "Amanda Waller must've known. Hell, that's how she knew how to find my family and put pressure on them when I was working for her."

"She probably knew about him even then," Diggle said slowly. "Probably was going to use that as either a carrot or a stick to get you to work for her later on."

"So I think we return the favor," Oliver said. He sounded more like himself since William had been abducted. "They said there were no cameras where they took him. I think we need to find out where those 'no cameras' were."

"So I'm hacking into a top secret agency for cameras that don't exist," Felicity said. "Is it Wednesday all ready?"

CHICAGO

"How sure are you that Monica Reyes was on our side?" Winn asked.

"I never said she was," Kara reminded Winn. "I said she was playing both sides against the middle – a theme that was pretty common to those in the Syndicate."

"Well, she sure seems to be working it hard," Winn said grimly. "I just decrypted the footage. Reyes is handing off William to two men in this building."

"Well, we knew she was involved. But still, calling Mulder trying to get him to press Oliver to help even though she's just forced his hand? That's cold even by their standards." Kara shook her head. "You get any fix on the location of these two kidnappers?"

"I'm running them through DEO and every other data base we have," Winn told her. "Still, it doesn't track. Why take your leverage and just hand it off to random thugs?"

"I'm guessing because they don't think Reyes could be trusted to hold on to it the whole time," Kara said. She took a deep breath. "Plus, I'm guessing those two are dead the minute the exercise is finishing, one way or the other. Reyes, at least, they still have a use for."

DEO HEADQUARTERS

Winn had been out to answer when he'd gotten a text from Felicity. It included a link. "Our new tech squad in Star City just earned a bonus," he said casually. "They just managed to hack into the footage of William Clayton being kidnapped."

"You just told me there was none," Kara said slowly.

"I said that we didn't have any footage. 'They' did." Winn shook his head. "I felt a little guilty taking this job because I thought I was becoming Big Brother. I'd forgotten that someone watches the watchers."

Kara remembered the story that Mulder and Scully had told them about government agencies watching everybody on Earth. Even after hearing it from a more reliable source that Edward Snowden, some part of her had really hoped that they were misled. She should've known better than to doubt them.

"Kara?"

"Just when I though the Syndicate couldn't get anymore repulsive," she said slowly. "When this is over…"

"At the rate we're going, you're assuming it ever will be." Winn sounded a lot grimmer than he usually did. "Okay, once we've stopped the shadow government from leading a colonization of this planet, I will personally make sure every single camera is taken out of every bedroom they are in. But one crisis at a time."

"Have you got any footage on where they have taken William?" she asked resignedly.

"Tracking it now. From where you're going, starting flying east."

Kara took to the skies.

STAR CITY

Winn and Supergirl were currently tracking the path William's kidnappers were on. He'd asked them to see if they could track down the identities of the two men who had taken him prisoner. So far, they were drawing a blank. Criminal databases, FBI, CIA, even ARGUS files were coming up empty.

"They're probably spooks," Diggle was saying. "Those are the only kind of people Amanda Waller would trust with that kind of operation."

Mulder had been looking closely at one of the men for the last couple of moments. "Can you get a close look at the one with the mustache?" he asked Felicity.

"You think you know him?" Felicity asked.

"Conspiracy does like to use the same henchmen over and over," Mulder said slowly. "I don't want to think what the dental plan must be. " He thought for a second. "This may be a long shot, but I'd like to go through an NTSB file. March of 1997, Flight Number 549."

Scully knew Mulder had some weird hunches before, but this was one of his biggest long shots. "You do know how impossible this is?"

"And how many impossible things did we typically do before breakfast on the X-Files?" Mulder asked rhetorically. "Go through the investigators. Slowly."

Felicity decided that she would follow any lead Mulder had. It took her a couple of minutes to find what he was looking for.

"Stop." Mulder said. "You got some program that could age him about twenty years?"

"No, but ARGUS does. Seems fitting." It took her about a minute to get what Mulder probably wanted.

"I'd say they could be twins, but given everything you've gone through, it's just as likely they're clones." Felicity said slowly.

"No. He's human, if you can call anyone who works for the conspirators that."

"How did you come across him?" Diggle asked.

"In March of 1997, Flight 549 fell from the sky. One of the passengers on that flight was a man named Max Fenig." Mulder said slowly. "Scully and I met him early on her turn on the X-Files. He was an alien abductee. He'd been taken multiple times, and he was coming to DC to meet with me about something that he'd found that had something to do between aliens and the government."

"And the government shot down the plane," Diggle said.

"Not intentionally, but that was the end result." Mulder then explained his theory that while the plane was in the air, Max had been taken, and while it was gone the government had shot down that craft, which had brought Flight 549 down with it.

"I don't remember reading this case in the file," Felicity said.

Scully and Mulder exchanged a glance. "Strictly speaking, it didn't qualify." Scully said. "It involved aliens, and it involved a conspiracy, but it wasn't necessarily part of the bigger picture. Which didn't make it any less personal to us."

"This guy in the mustache, he did the government's dirty work," Oliver said.

"Very much so. I was protecting someone who could put the pieces together in a D.C. bar," Scully said. "The man tried to kill me. He hit a friend of ours instead."

"I didn't think you had many friends in the Bureau," Oliver said.

"Agent Pendrell was a special case," Mulder said fondly. "Hell, I didn't even mind he had a crush on Scully. He was a good guy and he deserved better than he got."

"Field agent?" Diggle asked.

"Crime lab. Basically, he was the 1990s equivalent of Felicity or Winn," Scully said.

"And the guy who killed him could never be brought to justice," Oliver said.

"Honestly, I thought he had been." Mulder told them about what Max had been bringing to see him, that it had been divided into three parts, and he was flying the third to D.C. when that same man had sat beside him on his flight, and demanded the package.

"I locked him in the bathroom, and called the Bureau for help. Then my watch stopped. I had an idea what was going to happen, and the guy came out of the bathroom with a weird looking gun and demanded the bag. Lights started flashing, he grabbed the bag, and that was all I remembered. I came to nine minutes later, the bag was gone, and so was he. I had made the assumption – hell, given the man's nature – that he'd spent the last of his life being subject of the same kind of experiments Max had undergone much of his life. Failing that, I figured if he'd resurfaced, the conspiracy would've shot him for failing in his mission. The idea that he might still be alive, much less still working for the Syndicate twenty years later, never even occurred to me."

"Considering the people you're now working with, you might want to widen your horizons a bit more," Diggle said. He turned to Felicity. 'I don't suppose there's a name to go with this."

"Well, big surprise, Scott Garrett, the name he gave to the FAA, is a phony name," Felicity told them. "But given that and his picture, I think I can do some backtracking of my own. See if I can figure out known associates."

Mulder looked at Oliver. "This is going to be hard for you to hear, but if we find this guy after we get your son back, we're going to need him alive."

"I understand your reasoning, but he's probably just a flunky."

"He was with the government in '97, which means he must know a lot of the old regime's secrets. It's the only reason I can think people like Waller and Covarrubias would've kept him alive all these years." Mulder told him. "I know better than you how big a monster this man is. Forget what he did to Pendrell; the way he justified his actions to me shows that he is as immoral and ruthless as the higher-ups are. Men like him have no problem justifying the deaths of innocents, which is what he'll do here if we don't get to him in time."

"You're not making a great argument for letting him live," Oliver said.

"I said we're going to need him alive." Mulder paused. "Unhurt is a completely different story."

Scully was a little shaken to hear this. Mulder had spent much of the last several years saying he was against any form of torture, not just from a political perspective but from a very personal one. Then she remembered the last few days before they'd gone on the run. Maybe it was because of the personal aspect he was suggested.

After all, just because something was immoral didn't necessarily mean it wasn't effective.

DEO HEADQUARTERS

"I think we might have something."

"You get something on one of the pictures they sent us?" Jonn asked.

"I don't think it should surprise any more, but Mulder and Scully recognized one of William's abductors," Winn said. "I ran his photo and alias through our databases. It made the bells ring."

"What do you have?" Alex asked. By now, she was feeling pretty much back to normal.

"Among whatever duties he carries out for the conspiracy, he also did a couple of black bag jobs for the NSA," Winn told them. "He just used one of them to set up tickets on a flight to Tunis leaving O'Hare at 1:05 tonight."

"So we know who he is, and that he's got a gateway out of Chicago tonight," Jonn said. "Now all we have to do is find him."

"Surely he wasn't dumb enough to pay with his own credit card," Alex said.

"No. But Garrett or whoever he actually is made the purchase exactly eight hours ago." Winn started tapping keys. "I'm going to track it from the cell tower; see where it last pinged."

"Supergirl," Alex said into her earpiece. "Stand by. We may have a fix on at least one of the kidnapper's location any minute."

There was a hesitation on the other end. "If I get him, what are my orders as to how to get him to talk?" Kara asked slowly.

Everybody was stunned at this. Supergirl had a very strict set of orders, paramount of which was; don't start teeing off on human beings. It was something that had gone without saying the last year because she'd barely had any interaction with the human element, and she'd made it clear, she was going to hurt them.

It now appeared that she was asking for permission to go all Jack Bauer on their asses – something the DEO understandably couldn't authorize even for terrestrial criminals.

"Kara, listen to me," Alex said slowly. "Trust me when I tell you. You really don't want to go down this road."

"Believe me, I don't either," Kara said as calmly as she could. "Problem is, if he's working for Waller and the Syndicate, he knows about our code. Knowing that, he's not going to be inclined to be helpful when I burst in the front door."

"I heard the story Mulder told me about these kinds of people," Alex told her "They go into these jobs with their affairs put in order, and they get killed just for failing. He's not going to be inclined to listen if you did do what we're discussing."

Kara hesitated for a long time. "You know, I'm beginning to be amazed at how Mulder managed to stay on his path for such a long time. For years, decades, he went after these people believing that if he pursued his path of righteousness, the truth would out. These guys don't even pretend to have a code of ethics. How the hell are we supposed to compete against that? It's bad enough that their lies cover up everything. How are we supposed to win if we don't have ethics either?"

"I have a feeling that's exactly how Amanda Waller ended up on their side in the first place," Alex said. "We end up stretching the rules just enough, the victory will be meaningless."

Another long pause. "This is what you got from binge-watching the last season of Homeland?"

Alex smiled. Her sister sounded a little more like herself.

And right on cue, Winn spoke up. "Got something." He told them. "Last known location for the phone, 250 52nd Street!"

"I'm on my way."

Chicago

250 52ND Street

5:56 PM

The building was a warehouse with drums everywhere and two men inside. She didn't see anybody that looked like he was being held against his will. She used her hearing, and heard one person talking.

"We did our jobs. What the fuck are we still doing here?" This voice sounded antsy.

"We have orders to follow, and you know the consequences if we don't follow them to the letter." This voice was calm and collected.

"I didn't sign up to be the plaything of some kind of vigilante!"

"Then leave. I'll just tell our bosses that you don't want to be any more involved." Perfectly calm, as if he were discussing the weather. Kara had a feeling that the man talking was Scott Garrett. "I'm sure that'll end much better for you."

Little point in waiting any longer. She smashed the doors open.

Garrett didn't look phased. Hell, he looked bored. "You're running behind schedule," he said looking at his watch.

Kara suddenly decided that she was going to break at least some of her rules. She flew up to Garrett…

…and stopped five feet away.

"It's not a Timex, of course, but it does have a very unique crystal." Garrett said calmly. "You know, I wouldn't have thought Luthorcorp would've done well with watches. Hold her, please."

The other henchman looked a little nervous at approaching the Girl of Steel. "I didn't think there was a lower form of life on this planet than the people at the top of the food chain," Kara found herself snarling.

"You know how your cousin said he stands for Truth, justice and the American Way," Garrett said calmly. "All three of them are in the eye of the beholder. There are quite a few people out there – more than you'd like to admit – who consider you and your kind a threat to these values, and would be more than happy to see you hanging from a post."

"I'm pretty sure those same people wouldn't object to being slaves of an alien race."

"People are more concerned with the weddings of the Kardashians than the warming of the Earth. They care more about what happens on YouTube than on CSPAN. They'd rather vote for the next American Idol than the next president. They're slaves already."

This man had the exact same cynicism about how the people thought that Mulder did. This was not encouraging at all.

"You came here looking for the son of Oliver Queen," Garrett said calmly. "Let me tell what you already know. He's not within a hundred miles of this place. Now you and your colleagues have caused a lot of trouble for my superiors the last few days. Despite that, they're going to make one last offer."

"You must be a lot dumber than you look if you think I'm going to believe one word out of your mouth," Kara said angrily.

"The thought never occurred to me." He walked behind a drum, and took out a laptop, and pressed a button.

And there she was, in all her glory.

"I guess you don't have the guts to stand in the same room as me," Kara said to Amanda Waller.

"My experience with Oliver has taught me you don't stand in the same place with people in costumes." Waller said calmly. "But let's not stand on ceremony, Miss Danvers."

Ever since she had learned about the kill list, Kara had been prepared for the possibility that the Syndicate knew her true identity. It was still shocking, however, to hear one of its head use her name so matter-of-factly.

"Is this where you try to level a threat of blackmail over my head? Force me to surrender to you?"

"I never make threats. And you're going to surrender. Because despite having a sobriquet with 'steel' in it, you're weak."

"You had a twelve year old boy who had nothing to do with this abducted from his school yesterday. Don't try to seize the moral high ground."

Waller shook her head. "That's the same problem that Queen has."

"He has the high ground."

"There's no high ground in this. And morals are for people who don't understand that our enemy has none."

"You're collaborating with the enemy, Waller. Don't try to play with words."

"I didn't arrange this to have a debate over semantics," Waller said. "You work for an agency that is supposed to look at the bigger picture. This is the bigger picture. This is going to happen, and you and Queen and his friends, and all your pathetic allies at the Bureau can't do anything to stop it."

Kara found herself laughing. "You know, they told me that you were one of the strongest willed women they'd ever met. Someone who under other circumstances could be an inspiration to millions. And look at you. You've been with them less than a year, and you've already drunk the Kool-Aid of those old white men you spent so much time fighting."

"You don't understand reality."

"What reality?" Supergirl screamed at her. "I and my friends stopped an alien invasion last year with less manpower than you ever had access too! You built one of the greatest security forces on this planet. Dictators trembled at your name. Now there's an outside threat that you've only heard about in the vaguest of terms, and you just surrender to it?"

"It's not an outside threat, and you know it." Amanda Waller said patiently. "They've been here for years. Everything that this planet has done has been under their auspices. Our freedom continues only because they let us. There might have been a chance at one point to fight them. But its years too late. The only move left is to find whatever positions we can to remain in control."

Kara couldn't believe what she was hearing. "Congratulations, Amanda. You've finally proved that there is true equality. A black woman in power is just as capable of making as stupid and blind a decision as white men are."

"I didn't expect you to be reasonable." Waller said slowly. "So I'm going to put it as bluntly as I can. You are going to let events unfold the way my colleagues and I have arranged it, or you will suffer intensely."

"I can handle the kryptonite presents," Kara said.

"I'm not talking about physical pain. You saw how easily we could get to the DEO yesterday afternoon. It'll be a lot easier when they go home."

Even knowing this was how Amanda Waller operated, it was still sickening to hear her put it this way. "My friends are capable of handling themselves in a fight."

"Could they survive a drone strike?" Amanda asked casually. "For that matter, Catherine Grant is one of the most visible women in the world. She has more than her share of enemies. Maybe she'll get a package from one of them."

"Cat Grant has more security surrounding her than some elected officials."

"Does your mother? By the way, rest assured these plans are ready to be activated should something happen to me or my friends. Killing me won't stop them from being put into motion."

This wasn't going mad with power. This was just plain insanity. And there was only one way to deal with madness.

"Twenty years ago, a man you may well have had dealings with, a man who some thought was all powerful but was really just a small guy with a little power came to an Assistant Director of the FBI. At the time, his intention was to utterly destroy Mulder and Scully. This Assistant Director, who probably didn't think he was a brave man, tried to outmaneuver him. This man took out his cigarette and threatened his life – subtly, of course. This AD has spent a lot of time in the Bureau and he knew that there were times for subtlety and for bluntness. So he turned to this chain-smoking bureaucrat, and told him: 'This is where you pucker up and kiss my ass.'"

Amanda's face remained unchanged. Maybe she didn't know this story, but she knew who she was talking about. Hell, maybe she even knew the son-of-a-bitch's real name.

"Now, this cost this AD a lot. The Syndicate tried to kill him, and then tried to frame him for murder, and he did spend a lot of time trying to stay a center course. He didn't think he was the ally that Mulder and Scully thought he could be. But he went to bat for his colleagues. For his friends." Kara told him. "You're right. I have superpowers but I'm not God. If you're going to kill my friends and family, I might not be able to stop you. But they have proven over and over that they would die for me. Not because they're afraid of me, like the people you surround yourself with, but because they care about me. And they'd be ashamed of me if they thought I would make a deal with the devil to save them. Has anyone ever cared about you enough that they'd be willing to sacrifice themselves for you?" Before Waller could answer, she said; "You know what, I don't really care. Because attempting to reason with you would be futile. So I'll express it in terms you can understand. Pucker up and kiss my ass."

Amanda Waller's image seemed to shrug. "I suppose it was too much to expect an alien to understand our logic. Let me just assure you once our business is concluded, I'm going to tell my people to not do anything as clean as a drone strike. They're going to have a lot of fun before they're finished."

"You probably shouldn't have told me that," Kara said calmly.

"I know what happens when you're affected by kryptonite. It'll be at least three minutes before you can do anything to my men."

"That's true. But the guy on my left, he's terrified of me. So much so, that he did a piss-poor job of tying me down."

Summoning a level of strength that she managed for things like this, she managed to push her chair back far enough to knock the guy back. And while she didn't have superspeed any more, she was still fast enough to grab the weapon from his holster.

"Now I can tell you from past experience that while Kryptonite weakens me a little, your bullets won't hurt me," Kara said calmly. "And while I may not have heat vision, I still can see well enough to put a bullet between your eyes. So put the gun down."

Garrett looked at her calmly. Then he shrugged, and took the weapon out of his holster. "I have no intention of telling you anything."

"And that would bother me if I had any intention of making you talk," Kara said, walking over to him. "Give me your phone."

For the first time since she'd entered the building, Garrett actually looked concerned. His eyes flashed towards the laptop.

Kara put a bullet in the screen. "She wasn't going to help you anyway. You'd already failed in your task. I'm not going to ask again."

Garrett removed his phone from his coat pocket. "You have a flight to catch," she said calmly. "I suggest you be on it. Because if any of my colleagues catch up with you, they'll be even less charitable than Amanda Waller would be."

By now, she had recovered enough of her strength to run out of the building, faster than any speeding bullet.

"Kara what the hell happened in there?" Alex shouted into her earpiece.

"I just had a conversation with the Devil," Kara said. "And she's as crazy as a shithouse rat."

"She drop any hints as to what's going to happen next?"

"Said she was going to kill all of you. Slowly and painfully."

"Can't they come up with anything original?" Alex asked casually. "Got anything that might tell us how to find William Clayton?"

"I'm bringing in a cell phone for you guys to chase down. Not that it matters. I know exactly where he is." Kara told them. "Where it started. Star City."