CHAPTER 6

KEEN RESIDENCE

If even a year ago, Liz would've thought that she would not only be talking to her husband again, but actually having him help with the task force's current assignment - well, given everything that had happened before, she might not have been that shocked. Such was how their life seemed to be right now.

"I gotta tell you, Liz," Tom was saying as he looked through some of the photocopies of the files, "I knew that Reddington was into some crazy ass shit, but this seems beyond even him."

"He's gone to great lengths to say which part he believes and which he doesn't." Liz told them, as she took a sip of wine, "but even after everything that happened, I still don't trust him completely. My colleagues in the FBI sure as hell don't."

"Still, aliens? Little green men?"

"Gray. Scully said that they were gray." When Tom looked at her, she shrugged. "I get the feeling it's an inside joke. In any case, everybody connected to the X-Files says that whatever this part of the conspiracy their involved is more involved with biological testing."

Tom actually raised an eyebrow. "Oh, they go a lot farther than that." He handed a file over to her. "If Agent Scully's to be believed, someone in our government was running something one step short of a concentration camp."

Liz had heard about this, but it is was another thing to see in a 1995 file that Scully had actually visited one of those camps not long after what amounted to a mass execution. And if this file was correct, 'Cancer Man' - which seemed a lot more fitting a terminology than the one Reddington had given them - had been neck deep in it. "I'd arrange a firing squad, if I didn't know that most of the people involved were already dead."

"Except the man your chasing." Tom told her. "Look, I'm more than willing to try and help, but - and I really can't believe I'm about to say this - maybe you should let Mulder and the rest try and track him down."

Liz wasn't sure she'd heard right. "You don't think he deserves to die?" she asked. "You know better than most that justice doesn't work for men like him. And this man has been dodging it for decades" She hadn't mentioned yet how many times he'd supposedly dodged the Grim Reaper as well.

"Yeah, but you also know every time Reddington goes after somebody, he gets something from them before he kills them." Tom reminded her. "And whatever he gets from this bastard, it sure as shit won't be for the betterment of mankind. Anything he gets from this man..."

Tom was not a man who believed in leaving things by implication. The fact that he was choosing to do so now spoke volumes.

Liz thought for a moment. Something had just struck her. "Mulder and Scully both said that when they were on the X-Files, the Smoking Man was haunting the walls of the Bureau. Even after he left, he still had enough strings to pull to get his son a position of authority."

"What are you thinking?"

"Reddington said he knew of Mulder when he was in the Bureau. That he was a year ahead of him."

Click. "You think Spender, or whatever the hell his name is, knew Reddington then?" Tom told them.

"It would explain how Reddington knew him." Liz felt like slamming her hand on the table. "Christ, can't the guy ever be straight about anything?"

Tom had to struggle to suppress a grin. "You've known the man for three years. You can't tell me you're shocked by this."

Liz had to admit she'd have been an idiot to believe otherwise. "This is bigger than anything Reddington's handed us before" she told them. "It's probably the only thing keeping me from telling Cooper to rip up the immunity agreement."

Now Tom was concerned. "You're actually considering this?"

"These people are smart." Liz admitted. "As Mulder pointed out, he's been trying to bring down these people when I was still learning to walk. He's got far more in finding this bastard then I ever would. And right now, he's got far more credit in the Bureau than we do. If Reddington gets his hands on this bastard a microsecond before Mulder and the others do, they will torch this entire task force and fuck the consequences."

And Liz thought that might be the best case scenario. According to Aram, the man reason they were back in the Bureau was because of Tad O'Malley, a right-wing journalist who nonetheless shared many of Mulder's beliefs about government conspiracies. Mulder had been more than cheerful about being used as the tool of anonymous sources. Somehow, Liz didn't think he'd mind putting the shoe on the other foot. Even Justice would have a whole lot of trouble putting this particular cat back in the bag.

"He's not afraid what Reddington could do to him."

"You've read the file. He's been declared dead three times in his career. The last time, they actually stuck him in the ground for three months. And all that was before he and Scully spent five years on the run." Liz decided not to add what Mulder had said had happened before he had ended up in the coffin. She still wasn't willing to accept that part of the story. "There's nothing Reddington could do to him that's worse than that."

"I'm not entirely sure of that, but I'm not going to argue with those credentials." Tom told him. "How much of this do you want me to pass on to him?"

Given everything the two of them had been through together, Liz had still been amazed that Tom had been willing to act as a go-between for the taskforce and Reddington. Liz had deliberately left her husband out of the work she and the taskforce had been doing, knowing very well that there was a good chance that something like this might come up. Reddington and Tom still didn't have the best relationship - given everything that had happened just in the past few years, it was unlikely they'd ever be able to trust each other again - but both of them understood the necessity of the situation. Tom has also been willing to do some research from his own, based on some of the information from the other files that Mulder had been willing to pass on, most of it having to do with the Cold War experiments that had been part of the X-Files, and that Mulder had witnessed on a couple of occasions.

"You're assuming he doesn't already know must of this," Liz said resignedly. 'Tell him that we'll pursue the domestic ends of this. He can follow up on the foreign part. It would stun me if he didn't have some connections in Tunis that he hasn't told us about yet."

Tom seemed willing to accept this. "What about this stuff on the Russians?" he asked. "Alex Krycek seems like a cold lead."

"And there's a very good chance it is, considering he's been dead for fifteen years," Liz admitted. "But everybody on the X-Files is certain that he is the link between Jeffrey Spender, Covarrubias, and our Blacklister. He worked with all of them at one point, and the one thing they all agree on is that some part of his history connects with the former Soviet Union. He's the missing link. "

"You act as if he might pop up from behind the curtain at any moment." Tom pointed out.

"Mulder said that wasn't uncommon in their line of work. I'm inclined to believe him there." She handed her husband the file on him. "Be careful."

Tom gave a smile so sincere that she could almost see the man she had originally married. "I'll do my best," he told her. Then he leaned in. "How sure are you that we're being watched?" he whispered.

Liz had not been happy to reveal that, according to Scully, somebody had been looking into the Keen's bedroom. "I appreciate what you're trying to do, but it's futile. According to Scully, they were watching her all of her first stint at the Bureau. If anything, their equipment's probably even more sophisticated now."

Tom looked, if anything, even more hostile than he'd been when Liz had had him chained up in a boat. 'They spent their entire career in the Bureau sounding like paranoid loons," he said slowly.

"'Trust no one'. Mulder's motto." Liz shook her head. "It's the one thing everybody in this unit now agrees on."

In a warehouse in Georgetown, a man who had no official identity watched the scene with a slight amount of amusement They'd received a lot of pressure to close down monitoring the Keen household after Elizabeth had gone on the run. Orders from up on high had said that she wasn't to be touched. A week earlier, he had received countermanding orders.

Now, it was beginning to seem like this was going to pay off.

ROUSH PHARMACEUTICALS

WILKES-BARRE

9:07 A.M.

Monica Reyes could understand that the fact that she had the shortest stint on the X-Files was probably the best reason for her to be sent to this facility. Unfortunately, everything that she had learned in her year in the division ran pretty much counter to whatever it was she and Samar were chasing now.

In another sense, she felt a certain level of comfort being with the Mossad agent. Given what she had seen in the last couple of days, it was pretty clear that she was going to be the most skeptical of anybody in the taskforce. This was a position that she was more than used to.

"How sure are you that the man we're chasing will even be connected to this office?" Samar asked.

"Everything I know about the X-Files tells me that these men have shields backing up shields." Reyes admitted truthfully. "Agent Scully referred to her job as opening doors that lead to other doors. This bastard's bound to be behind one if we open enough."

"You sound awfully sure of yourself, considering you never even met the man we're looking for."

Reyes smiled. "Agent Mulder once told me that, if anything, I had to learn how to narrow my vision a little when it came to the paranormal. I've been doing that for the last thirteen years."

They went into the front door, where Monica got her first clue that this was not going to be easy. She knew that in the age of massive corporate litigation, it was very possible that even the most level-headed of them would not look kindly on the federal government trying to learn 'trade secrets'. But that still didn't explain the fact that the security for this 'pharmaceutical office' was heavier than that for the task force she'd just come from.

As she and Samar walked up to the front desk, they were greeted by three men in suits. Given everything that she had seen over the last few years, she couldn't help but try to examine the back of their necks.

"How may we help you?" the man in the blue suit said. He was at least ten years older than the other two.

The two of them identified themselves as federal agents and very politely recited their cover story - that they were following up on a supposed whistle-blower who said that there were rumors of violations of FDA protocols when it came to certain drug trials.

Blue-suit expressed admonitions of horror at the very suggestion of such a violations, but both agents had enough experience with liars to know that something was amiss here. The other two men's expressions didn't change at all.

"I realize how repugnant this idea is to you," Monica said slowly, "but the fact remains we are going to have access to your records pertaining to anything pertaining to fertility studies."

For the briefest of moments, a look of genuine alarm crossed Blue-Suit's face - who still hadn't bothered to identify himself. "I realize that you are doing important work, but we have to consider our corporate research, which would violate various confidentiality agreements."

"Of course we do. Which is why we're more than willing to come back here with a subpoena for everything you've done over the last ten years." Samar said sweetly. "Or we could just cut out the middleman. See what our colleagues at the IRS might think."

That clearly shook up the man. "Very well. I think that some accommodations might be made. What files are you looking for?"

"We're looking for a series of trials conducted by a consortium of men led by C.G.B. Spender." Monica told him.

A look of puzzlement crossed his face. "There must be some misunderstanding. There's never been any experiments led by a Dr. Spender."

"I never said he was a doctor, Mr.-" Monica trailed off.

"Calderon. Dr. Paul Calderon. And I've worked at this office for nearly fifteen years."

Monica was puzzled. Calderon's name sounded familiar, but she couldn't place it - it certainly hadn't been in any of the X-Files that she'd read.

"Mr. Spender's time at this office would pre-date yours." Samar told him. "By a considerable margin. And our informant was very clear that he's still working at this establishment."

Calderon was trying to keep a brave face, but he was clearly unsettled. "You don't happen to have any idea what kind of trials he was working with?"

"Fertility treatments. Mainly on women who couldn't conceive." Monica told him. "As for when he worked, start in the early 1990s, and work your way back."

Now Calderon looked like he wanted to bolt for the door. He invited them to go into a waiting room, and he'd come up with the information they needed. He clearly didn't want them going through Roush's files.

Up until this moment, the task force had been listening in, with Aram going through the names that they'd been given. However, the moment Calderon started to walk away, Scully turned to him. "Can you hack into the security feed inside that building?"

Aram looked at Cooper, who nodded. "The security's pretty tight, but it shouldn't take that much work."

"Follow Dr. Calderon. Don't let him out of your sight for a moment."

"Is this man connected to this conspiracy?" Ressler demanded.

"Eyeballs deep." Scully told him, with an anger, that nobody in the task force had heard her use yet. "Agent Reyes. Dr. Calderon is lying."

"About what?"

"Everything."

Mulder, meanwhile, was following the security footage on Calderon.

"His name isn't in any of the files you showed us." Cooper told them.

"Out of consideration for Scully, I never started one." Mulder told them grimly. "In 1997, Scully had occasion to meet the family of a three-year old girl named Emily Sim. Her parents were murdered, mainly to assure that she remained present in a clinical trial."

"What kind of trial?"

"She was dying of almost every form of cancer you can imagine." Scully's grimness had gone away. "We tried to treat her, but the suffering was so great..." She couldn't finish the sentence. "The doctor you're looking at was responsible for everything about this girl. Maybe even her being born."

A truly horrible idea had just occurred to Liz. Something that all of the agents of the X-Files had been avoiding mentioning. "You were her mother. Those tests that you said the Syndicate was working on in Philadelphia. She was one of the results."

These people were monsters, as if they needed any further proof of that.

"You're sure that's him?" Doggett said gently.

"There are some faces you never forget."

Calderon, in the meanwhile, was walking as fast as you possibly could without breaking into a run. As soon as he was on the next floor, he pulled out his cell.

"The FBI is here," he said in a voice that just barely masked panic.

"We knew they were coming."

"And you didn't bother to warn me?" The panic was out in force.

"Why should we? They're not looking for you, Dr. Calderon." Pause. "We've made sure of that."

There was clearly some part of this that they were all missing.

"They're demanding files looking on the work. They're asking for your boss."

"Christ, who is this guy? Voldemort?" Ressler said in frustration.

"Actually, I think Voldemort only wanted to control the world, not destroy it." Mulder reminded them. When everybody except Scully looked at him, he shrugged. "Just saying."

"The man we work for has always been able to take care of himself." the voice on the other end was saying. "I'd remind yourself of that."

"They know what questions to ask!"

"Well, in that case, Doctor, I strongly recommend that you deny everything."

"That means they're going to send somebody to kill him," Mulder told them. "Maybe even one of the thugs they have there right now." He got into Agent Reyes' ear. "Forget going through the files. Get to Calderon. I'll guide you there."

Monica had never heard the horror stories of Scully's other child - what had happened with William had been miserable enough for all concerned. But she knew with certainty that Calderon had been lying to them from the second that they had entered the building and was probably a far better chance of getting answers than anything else here.

With Mulder guiding her, she slowly walked out of the room, and started to head towards the elevator. She had just pushed the button for '10' - which is where the security feed told them he was - when he spoke up. "Don't turn around."

Monica remained still. "What?"

"Their assassin is coming up the stairs."

"How do you know?"

Now Mulder's eyes were fixed on a familiar man with gray hair. "Because twenty years ago, he tried to kill me in a place just like this. Christ, don't any of these bastards ever age?!"

A very plausible reason for that was going through Monica's head. She decided not to say what it was, though, because right now, she didn't want the 'A' word to get mentioned over the airwaves. Before she could say anything, though, the elevator opened. "Is Calderon still where you last saw him?" she asked instead.

"Yeah, and I suggest you hurry."

Monica didn't even have to ask why. Seconds later, the Grey-Haired Man emerged from the exit, a Baretta in his hand.

Monica wasn't even going to issue a word of warning. She may have had the least experience dealing with these government assassins, but she knew for damn sure that the letters 'FBI' weren't even going to make them slow down. So, she reached for her weapon, and pointed it at him.

He didn't even flinch, merely pointing and shooting. She barely had enough time to duck behind the wall before three bullets hit it. "Get me the quickest alternate route you can," she practically shouted into her earpiece.

She moved nearly as fast as the directions that Aram gave her to the room Calderon was still hiding in. Monica still didn't think it was going to make a difference. She had to have at least fifteen years on the Grey-Haired Man, but he had the single-minded determination that she had come to expect from these killers. He might not be a supersoldier - if he had been, he would have just charged right for her without the niceties of a gun - but he was surely trained well enough to kill Calderon and her, and not even think twice about it.

By the time she made it to the room, Calderon, nearly paralyzed with fear, was standing there. The Grey Haired Man kicked open the door to the room and fired twice.

Monica slammed Calderon to the ground and fired three times in response. By now, she was certain, if she'd had any doubts before, that this was a Syndicate holding. In any other building in the world, there would have been people filling the halls, screaming about the gunshots. There still wasn't a soul to be found anywhere, not so much as a disturbed janitor.

"Agent Navadi," she whispered into her shortwave. "I really hope you heard what the hell is happening."

She fired two more shots and looked at Calderon. "Your choices just got reduced from slim to none. You're coming with me. Now."

Calderon, who looked like he was a few moments away from losing control of his bladder, nodded with the enthusiasm of a marionette whose puppeteer has suffered a tic.

She and Calderon ran for the door, trying to dodge the shots from the Grey-Haired Man. But apparently, whoever was in charge wanted to make sure the job was done. Waiting on the other side of the entrance were two men with guns.

I've been back at the X-Files less than two days, and I'm probably going to die Monica thought, almost amused by what the concept. Mulder's never going to forgive himself.

And at that very moment, three shots rang out, and the two heavily armed men fell over.

Revealing Samar.

"I think we've found what we're looking for." she told her.

Monica didn't even bother to answer, just started running towards Samar and the elevator.

The people in the taskforce were watching this with varying degrees of concern, but it would've been clear to even the biggest novice that the X-Files crew were far more worried than the rest of them.

"What kind of flowers are Agent Navadi's favorite?" Mulder managed to get out. "I may want to send her a bouquet."

"Blooming jasmine." Everyone looked at Aram. "She, ah, told me once."

Mulder decided to save this for future efforts.

Cooper was far calmer. "Did either she or Agent Reyes download the files that they were going through to us?"

"Yes, sir. I'm going through a scan of them as we speak."

"It won't matter." Mulder told them. "By the time you manage to assemble a team there, the information will have been destroyed, all the people transferred, and there will be no record of Spender. Hell, it wouldn't surprise me if the whole building were destroyed in a suspicious 'gas leak'."

"Then why'd you tell us to go there in the first place?" Ressler demanded.

"Honestly, I was hoping that after fifteen years, the conspiracy had gotten a little less efficient at covering its tracks." Mulder admitted. "I'm still hoping to be proven wrong."

"Spender has to have known we were coming." It was not a question.

"He always did have powerful friends. I guess that's true no matter how many times you get killed."

Liz had no intention of arguing that point. "So what's the next step?"

"Where's the Bureau's closest safehouse?" Scully asked.

"There's one in Scranton. Used to be a warehouse for a paper manufacturing company." Aram told them.

"Tell Monica and Agent Navadi to take Dr. Calderon there, and begin questioning him, but to refrain from going hard after him." Mulder told them. "That's going to be our job."

Everyone looked up in surprise - except Scully. "You said that there's probably going to be an issue of time," Cooper began.

"There is. Which is why I didn't have you waste time going after one of the assassins." Mulder told them. "They never talk. Calderon will. Properly motivated."

That actually got a look of shock out of Scully. Liz understood why. Based on everything that was in their files, Fox Mulder had never had any use for the rendition or extreme interrogation techniques that had become de rigueur for almost every law enforcement agency since 9-11. Apparently, though, when you violated the people he loved - literally, in this case - he was willing to make an exception.

"Our people are more than qualified to get the answers we need." Cooper tried.

"You don't know the right questions to ask. I do. And you could definitely say that he owes me big time." Mulder was speaking in a tone that didn't bode well for anybody who tried to raise a counterargument.

"Look, you have every reason to be pissed at this guy," Ressler told him, "but this isn't about personal vendettas."

"You sure about that? I'm pretty sure that this entire taskforce is about settling scores." Mulder stopped just short of hitting Ressler.

"What Agent Ressler's saying -"

"No, you don't get it!" Mulder's patience had finally run out. "Get this, everybody. We don't work for you. You only found out Smoking Man existed a week ago. Calderon will lead us to this man, but the only people who know what questions to ask are us. You want to come along and get answers, fine. But this is our rodeo. Do not fuck with us on this issue."

They all looked at Scully. "Get us on a chopper to Scranton. Now." It was clearly taking every level of self-restraint she had, but Liz could tell that she was just as angry as her partner.

"I'll go with them." They looked at Liz. "Any objections?"

Mulder and Scully didn't raise any. Apparently, this was the rare occasion not being a member of the Bureau was going to work in her favor.

"No stops for your friend in the hat." was all Mulder would say.

FELLS POINT CHURCH

BALTIMORE, MARYLAND

Raymond Reddington had prided himself on being able to control everything. Ever since he had joined the taskforce, he had come across as the ultimate kingmaker, the man who was three steps ahead of everybody, who had connection with the people who had connections. It had come in very useful the months he and Liz were on the run together, and he had every intention of seeing that the people who had punished her got paid back in full.

Only a handful of people, Dembe and Mr. Kaplan among them, knew how illusory that control actually was. And for the first time in a while, he wondered if he might have made a major misjudgment.

While they had been on the run, he had learned that C.G.B. Spender, a man who knew where far more bodies were buried that Raymond ever had killed, was somehow still alive. He had heard of Spender's death in 2002, but considering that no body had been found, he had never been convinced of it. Then, as the years went by, and nothing was heard, he had assumed that old age or the three packs of Morleys a day the man had consumed had finally done their damage. Then he had gotten confirmation that somehow, the old bastard was alive.

Raymond was a rationalist. He had seen a lot of things in his life that staggered the imagination, but he was first and foremost, a realist. The main reason he had stayed clear of everything Spender and his crew had trafficked in was because, in his heart, he thought it was nonsense. When he'd been working in the Bureau, he'd had a relationship with a man named Kritschgau, who had told him, very clearly, that all of the conspiracies about aliens were part of a smokescreen for the military-industrial complex. He'd seen the documents. He'd met with some of the 'UFO' pilots. And on one occasion he'd never forget, he'd been to one of the mass graves of the testing sites. It was a lie meant to coverup an uglier truth, and he'd always thought that Spender had been a part of it, particularly when Kritschgau turned up dead in 1999.

Still, the fact that 'Spender' was alive was troubling. So was the fact that somehow the X-Files had gotten reopened in the first place. He knew enough about Fox Mulder to know that he would've been a wild card even if he hadn't been in the Bureau. Mulder had seen a lot, in and out, in the Bureau. His survival over the years was in many ways more remarkable then Raymond's. But he had figured that, particularly having been sentenced to death for his beliefs, Mulder would have been more than willing to be cautionary. However, now he had nothing left to lose, and certainly had no reason to deal with any of niceties like immunity agreements. If not for Scully's presence, Mulder might have shot him right there and then.

Yet even that would have been preferable to the condition that he found himself in now. It had been a week since the X-Files had joined up with the taskforce, and he knew nothing of what they had found. This was in itself not that odd, most of them barely tolerated him as it was. But Elizabeth hadn't responded to any of his attempts to contact him. It was as if all the ground he had gained over the past two and a half years had been shattered when Scully had revealed the lengths of the NSA's surveillance of her. Somehow, he didn't think the fact that the government had been watching almost every member of its bureaucracy in some form for the past twenty years would serve as much comfort to her. He knew how Elizabeth had reacted when she'd found out that he was spying on her. The time to tell her about what was going on had clearly presented itself. Why hadn't he? He'd justified it at the time by saying he needed to protect her. In his heart, however, he knew it was about control. If she knew the things he hadn't told her, it would all fall apart. (Had he known that Spender had used those exact same words when Mulder had stuck a gun in his face more than twenty years earlier, it would not have provided comfort.)

And now, he had put Elizabeth in contact with Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, two agents who had demanded answers at the cost of their careers and everything else they had cared about - except each other. They had already expressed outright hatred for him, if not everything the taskforce stood for. Raymond had no illusions. Given the chance to bring Spender to justice - and it was clear, even after everything, the agents still believed in that - they would gladly torch all that Raymond had done, and not think twice about it. He was in a more perilous position than he'd been in years.

And as if to prove that Tom Keen came walking up to meet him with a smile on his face that he wouldn't dare have worn even a few weeks ago.

"So I'm finally good enough to meet with again," Tom said with an irritating smugness. "And in broad daylight no less! "

"I realize that a lot has changed in the past six months," Raymond said slowly. "But, like it or not, we've always had similar interests, Tom."

"The main thing that's changed, Raymond, is that I'm in Liz's good graces and you're not." Tom told him. "And as for similar interests, I've only had one. You just couldn't accept that. If you had..."

He didn't finish his sentence. He didn't have to. "Can we get down to business?"

"I know that tone, Raymond." Tom was actually getting smugger. "The only time you don't prevaricate is when you know you're at a disadvantage."

"A year ago, Elizabeth wanted your head on a plate." Raymond was getting quieter, which Tom knew meant his patience was at an end. "I can arrange that to happen again very quickly, Thomas. You want to be the inside man? Fine. Tell me what I need to know."

Either Tom realized how thin the cover was getting or he'd decided he'd poked the bear enough, because he reached into his jacket, and removed a folder with the familiar headings of an X-File. "I realize this may be too old school for you, but most of the information is still being pulled from file cabinets."

Raymond looked through the files. Most of the information was twenty years old at least, but given what Mulder and Scully had been chasing, he would have been shocking if there had been any more recent data in there. And sure enough, there were some familiar names in there. One in particular. Though the context was something of a surprise.

"Covarrubias was one of Mulder's informants."

"Which would explain why she disappeared so suddenly." Tom was serious for once. "You're telling me you didn't know."

"She was one of Spender's closest allies. Admitting our relationship could've gotten her killed."

Tom clearly could her the subtext. He chose not to comment. "Mulder's last contact with her was in 2002. He believes that she was responsible for betraying Smoking Man, and possibly being complicit in an attempt on his life."

"If she worked with the Syndicate, she was complicit in at least two." He was still analyzing the file.

"Yeah, well this time, she actually pushed the old fart's wheelchair down a flight of stairs. That would kill most people, especially somebody with a foot in the grave already." Now Tom was starting to get impish. "How do you think he survived that?"

Raymond didn't even want to speculate as to that, yet. So he tried to change the subject. "Why's Alex Krycek so prominent here? He's been dead for over fourteen years."

"So you know the name." When Reddington was not more forthcoming, Tom went on. "Apparently, he and Covarrubias were lovers at one point. If Mulder is to be believed, he's the reason she became the victim of that 'biological test' on her."

"He's still dead."

"Mulder saw him take a bullet in the brain. Which is why it's rather strange that someone with his name has been making flights to Tunisia over the last few years."

Raymond had no intention of telling anybody that he'd actually known Alex Krycek. He had claimed both American and Russian citizenship, a skill that had been very useful at times. He had sold Raymond secrets off US files in the 1990s and Soviet files just a few years later. Which is why he knew damn well that the man in the photograph dated just six months ago, deformed though he might be, was not Krycek.

"Tell Elizabeth I'll be in touch."

"No." Tom told him. "She wanted to make it clear. Until this particular Blacklister is in custody, you're not to even try to make contact with her. She says it's because Mulder and Scully want your head on a plate, but since that's true of just about everybody you deal with, it might be something more personal."

He knew his relationship with Elizabeth, even when it was at its best, always hung by a slender thread. It now looked as if it was on the verge of snapping. Raymond figured that at this point, he was going to need to be more open than he had been. This was, of course, assuming that she was ever going to talk to him again - a possibility that he might now have to consider.

'I know you loathe me." Tom told him. "That you have no use for me, and that you have no reason to take me seriously. Nevertheless, here's some advice. You've put a target on your back. Bigger than usual. And Mulder and the rest, they're not going to take either a carrot or a stick from you. It may be in your best interest to disappear. For a while."

Tom obviously knew that he wasn't going to get an answer. So he walked away, telling Raymond he'd be in touch.

Dembe knew that he was probably the safer bet. "You've been in worse situations, Raymond. And it's not like any of these agents have even a clue of how your operations work."

Raymond took his hat off in contemplation for a moment. "I knew Fox Mulder could be a problem. He was the irritant to far bigger people than me when he was in the Bureau. But I never thought that they'd let him back in, much less start taking him seriously."

"The world has changed immensely in the last decade, Raymond." Now Renee was near him. "Far more people are willing to believe in lights in the sky. Maybe you should consider letting this go."

He took Renee's hand. "Even if I could, it's too late. You know what our former Eastern Bloc connections are saying. Spender's knows the wrong people are looking into him. If he gets even a hint of how to locate us, far worse things than anything the Cabal can do are possible."

"So what do you want to do?"

Raymond turned to Dembe. "Get in touch with our contacts in Tunisia. We're going to run to ground whoever this false Krycek is. In the meantime, Renee. I need you to make a side trip to Cheyenne."

Kaplan seemed a little perturbed. "What's there?"

"If I'm wrong, nothing. If I'm right, maybe the only thing in the world that Mulder and Scully will want more than me."