Tandem
Chapter 2
Manhattan, 1994
1 Hogan Place
"Now we're reduced to being assistants to the FBI," Detective Mike Logan grumbled.
Detective Lennie Briscoe nodded in agreement; insulted that the Fucking Big Idiots apparently didn't trust the 27th to locate one little serial killer.
At least the FBI Agent-In-Charge sounds like an interesting guy…
Briscoe snorted.
Interesting…
Fox William Mulder…
Scuttlebutt said the man didn't like people calling him by his first name; and Lennie didn't blame him.
What kind of parents name their kid Fox?
Scuttlebutt also had just a little bit more to say on Agent Mulder.
"Apparently, Agent Mulder believes in Little Green Men," Briscoe chuckled.
"No kidding…" Logan scoffed. "We're being bossed by a nut-case?"
"Looks that way…" Lennie took a swig of cold coffee.
"Gee…" Logan muttered softly. "Now I know why my Spidey Sense is tingling…"
Lennie tuned him out, looking at their designated target.
Albert Koster, suspect in a series of killings, starting in Alabama, and working his way up to here.
Seven people dead, four men, three woman, no common pattern linking them together, and not enough physical evidence to justify an arrest…
Here he is, sitting on a bench in front of 1 Hogan Place. Does his next victim work here?
Albert Koster was thirty three years old, and he looked like a college professor, not a serial killer; tall, slender of build, with wide-rimmed glasses.
But Briscoe could see him rocking slightly on that bench, rocking back and forth, and lips moving as he rocked.
Lennie's earwig buzzed, Agent Mulder's voice sounding in his ear.
"What's he doing?" the FBI Agent asked. "I don't have a clear view."
"He's rocking, and talking to himself," Briscoe said. "Why don't we just take him in?"
"We don't know who his intended victim is," Mulder explained. "We need to learn that too, to see if we can uncover the pattern that links the victims together."
"The guy's a loon," Lennie snapped. "Let's just get him off the street, save his would-be victim a whole lot of worry."
"Uh…Lennie…" Mike Logan spoke up. "Our boy is on the move."
Koster was standing now, hands thrust into jacket pockets, his muttering even more frenzied as he stared at…
The new Executive Assistant DA, Ben Stone's replacement, Jack McCoy…
McCoy's pace was brisk as he left the building. Koster, still muttering, began to move too…
That's it, Lennie decided.
"Take Koster down now," he spoke into his earwig. "Move it!"
It happened quickly; several plains-clothes officers converging on Albert Koster, bringing him down, wrists cuffed behind his back, right in front of a perplexed Jack McCoy.
Fox Mulder took a chair in one of the 27th's Interrogation Chambers, sitting across from Albert Koster. Koster's eyes were fixed on Mulder.
"Hello, Albert," he said. "I'd like to talk to you, maybe even help you, if I can."
"Help me?" Koster cocked his head, blinking oddly. "Let me see Jack…"
"Jack…Jack who?"
Koster hissed in frustration, cuffed hands thumping the table.
"Jack…Jack…Jack!" he spat the words out, making the name sound like a curse.
"Jack!" he continued. "He's here now, but he was there! I saw him there!"
"Like these people?" Mulder brought out a sheaf of photographs, laid them, face up, on the table.
"Were they there too?"
"Won't say…" Koster turned away from the photographs. "Want to see Jack first. Won't say until then…"
Mulder sighed, looking back at the mirror.
Agent Dana Katherine Scully echoed Mulder's sigh. Only a little over a month had passed since she had awakened from the coma following her abduction by Duane Barry, and she still felt a little raw about it…
Mulder stepped outside the Interrogation Chamber.
"He's not going to give us what we want until we give him what he wants," he sighed.
"Why should we give him what he wants?" Scully demanded. "It's pretty clear he was planning to kill Jack McCoy. He can't possibly believe we would give him another crack at him."
"The seven other victims…Scully, five of them were identified by MUFON as repeat alien abductees. The other two weren't identified as such, but showed clear patterns of disappearances that could indicate multiple abductions over several years."
"So…ipse facto that means EADA Jack McCoy must be a victim of alien abduction?"
Sometimes Mulder's fixation on Alien Abduction made Scully want to scream.
"Just see if you can get him to come over, Scully. We need him to get Koster to open up."
Scully put the momentary surge of irritation down.
What does he think I've got…a magic wand?
"Scully?"
"All right," she sighed. "I'll see if I can get Mr. McCoy to come over."
1 Hogan Place
"Are you…serious?" Jack McCoy stared incredulously at the petite redhead. "Agent Mulder says he wants me to have a little chat with the man who wanted to kill me?"
Agent Scully had the decency to blush, an apologetic smile gracing her features.
"Albert Koster," she said. "He made seeing you part of his price for cooperation..."
"That's your problem, not mine," McCoy busied himself with folders and files, stuffing a select few into his briefcase as he continued to speak.
"Besides, I've heard of his reputation, and have no desire to get caught up in…Alien Mysteries."
Scully nodded resignedly.
"It doesn't help that he can be a bit of an ass about it," she muttered.
McCoy heard a chuckle at the door, quickly smothered.
Adam Schiff…
"Agent Mulder isn't the only one who can be an ass at times," Schiff was smiling openly now. "It wouldn't hurt for us to cooperate with the FBI every once in a while."
"Adam…"
"Quit being a putz, Jack, and help the young lady do her job," Schiff regarded him sternly. "Your Second Chair can handle the caseload while you go out and do your civic duty."
McCoy put the legal briefs down on his desk.
I guess it's decided… he sighed.
Mulder turned to see Scully enter, followed by a clearly unwilling Jack McCoy. The man leveled a hawk glare at him.
"You wanted me to see your guy?" McCoy demanded.
"Actually…he wanted to see you," Mulder explained. "You won't be alone. I'll be there with you. You ready?"
McCoy glanced at the man in the Interrogation Chamber, rocking, and muttering softly to himself.
"Let's just get this over with," the EADA grumbled.
Mulder entered the chamber, heard McCoy following just behind.
Mulder sat, McCoy remained standing, and Koster looked up, eyes fixing on McCoy.
"Jack…"
Koster continued to stare at McCoy, eyes intent, the focus almost frightening.
Jack McCoy looked back at him, blandly; the expressionless gaze of a seasoned poker player.
Or one hell of a prosecutor…
"I'm here," Jack McCoy spoke. "What was it you wanted from me?"
Koster looked up at him.
"Cassandra…Duane…and Max…" he closed his eyes as he recited the names.
McCoy frowned.
"I don't know those names," he said at last.
But Mulder did.
Two of them, at least…
Duane Barry and Max Fenig…
Duane Barry was dead, murdered by Alex Krycek, in order to keep the Consortium's secrets; and Max Fenig…
Mulder hoped Fenig was dead too.
The alternative was just too painful to contemplate.
"Cassandra…Duane…and Max…" Koster repeated the names like a mantra.
McCoy shook his head impatiently.
"I don't know them," he snapped. "What are you trying to tell me?"
Koster sat there, hands cuffed in front. Then, he moved…
He jumped, chair flying backward. He leaped over the table, hurling himself at the attorney, pinning him to the wall, cuffed hands at his throat, shrieking the names in his ear.
Cassandra…Duane…and Max…
Over and over again, Koster screamed the names right in McCoy's face, spittle spraying…
He couldn't breathe. Paralyzed by sudden terror, Jack McCoy couldn't even bring his hands up to fight the man off.
"Cassandra…Duane…and Max!"
Those names shrieked into his ear as his breath was throttled right out of him. Then, someone pulled Koster off…
Back against the wall, McCoy slid to the floor, heart hammering in his chest. He was vaguely aware of the scuffle occurring just a few feet away. Red hair, and very blue eyes hove into his field of view, strong fingers gripping his wrist to take his pulse, the other hand settling on his forehead.
A mother's touch… McCoy thought dazedly.
He pulled her fingers from his wrist.
"I'm fine, Agent Scully," he tried to pull himself back to his feet, didn't quite succeed.
"Give yourself time to catch your breath, at least," Scully snapped as she eased him back to the floor, muttering imprecations at the mule-headed stubbornness of men in general.
Ten minutes later, Albert Koster was placed in Solitary Confinement, pending a Psychiatric Evaluation by Dr. Emil Skoda, and Jack McCoy was back on his feet; Mulder and Scully both looking apologetic.
"I'm sorry," Mulder began. "I just didn't expect him to-"
"Don't," Suddenly, McCoy was…furious. "I did my bit. You're on your own with Koster."
He straightened his collar and tie, then stormed out of the 27th's Holding Area…
Two hours later, jack McCoy was back at court; Claire Kincaid sitting Second Chair. The case was murder; a man accused of killing his unfaithful wife…
An open-and-shut case, it looked like. Both the Defense and Prosecution had rested their cases.
"You okay?" Claire whispered. "I heard you had an adventure today…"
"An adventure…" McCoy scoffed. "I got screamed at by a lunatic. That sound like an adventure to you?"
Judge Harrow entered the court-room.
Now, it was time to proceed with the Summation…
After the Defense attorney said his piece, Jack McCoy stood, ready to face the jury.
"The Defense alleges that the Defendant was moved by rage," he said. "Rage at the infidelities of his wife, that he was so profoundly enraged by his spouse's cheating, that the only recourse left to him was murder. But the Law offers remedies for marital infidelity. That remedy is called…Divorce."
He turned to face the jury as he spoke; twelve men and women. A thirteenth stood there, just off to the right.
A man, slender, blond and fuzzy; his mother would have called him a wooly lamb…
McCoy collected himself, continued with the Summation.
"The People grant that Mrs. Stowe cheated on her husband. But, male pride notwithstanding, that didn't give Mr. Stowe the right to take her life…"
That thin, blond man was…right there…in front of him, blood on his face, terror in his eyes…
A name floated up from nowhere…
Max..?
Chills creeping up McCoy's spine…
"Mr. McCoy?" he barely heard Judge Harrow's voice.
Max…
The young man's eyes were agonized, the eyes of a dying man, blood from nose and mouth staining everything.
Jack McCoy looked down, at his own hands, at the bloodstains there…
His ears were buzzing, the throbbing sound erasing all other sound, the world going gray and sparkly.
He didn't feel it when he hit the floor…
He's kneeling by Max Fenig's body, trying to stop the bleeding, or-failing that-to give whatever comfort he can. Hands pull him away, hurling him back to the floor, with almost contemptuous ease.
Those hands…not human…
Suddenly, he can't move, arms and legs turned to jelly. They stand over him now; heads overlarge, mouths tiny, noses nonexistent, eyes…huge…huge depthless black eyes with no white in them at all…
Jack McCoy jerked upright, to a sitting position.
Where…
It wasn't the courthouse…
A hospital?
Claire Kincaid's hand on his shoulder; he looked down at himself.
Shirt open, undershirt cut open too, electrodes on his bare chest, itchy cannulas in his nose…
What happened?
"Lie down, Jack," Claire sounded shaken.
"Why am I here?"
"You fainted, Jack" her grip on his arm tightened. "You were out for more than thirty minutes."
"I'm…fine," McCoy grumbled, pulling the cannulas out of his nose.
"People who are fine don't generally curl their toes in courthouses," Adam Schiff's hands on his shoulders, forcing Jack McCoy to lie down again as Claire put those cannulas back into his nose.
Trapped…
"What happened to the trial?" McCoy feared a mistrial might be in the offing. It wasn't every day the EADA keeled over…
"It will resume tomorrow," Schiff assured him. "With Claire sitting in your place."
A woman entered the room.
"Dr. Brady," Claire stood. "What's the news?"
"His heart's fine," Brady said.
"Good," McCoy sat up again, pulled those blasted cannulas out. "I can get out of here."
"Jack…" Claire began.
Dr. Brady wasn't finished.
"Your blood sugar levels are another matter entirely, Mr. McCoy," she said. "Did you remember to eat breakfast or lunch today?"
"Of course not…" Schiff's sigh was exasperated; and McCoy could only bow his head.
"Guilty as charged," he sighed too.
Well…that's embarrassing…
"Am I free to go?" McCoy didn't even bother to fight the blush that was warming his cheeks.
"If you have someone who will take you home," Brady nodded. "And make sure you eat something and get some rest."
Schiff nodded too; gave McCoy a pointed glare.
"I thought you had grown out of that when you were my Second Chair," he scolded.
McCoy winced at Schiff's tone.
"Sorry," he muttered. "It's been…a bad day."
"All right," Schiff sighed. "Let's get you home. What's in your kitchen, by the way?"
Not much…
Jack McCoy had never been much of a cook…
"We can stop at a restaurant first," Claire suggested.
"Yes," Schiff sent a piercing glare in McCoy's direction.
Again, Jack McCoy winced.
The ride home wasn't going to be fun at all…