CHAPTER 9

NEW YORK CITY

It was not tremendously comforting that everything Mulder had told them about what had happened after the assassination had turned out to be true. 'Timothy Rayburn' was a false name. From the second that he had been taken prisoner, he didn't say a single word.

Navadi had worked him over considerably, but before they could even begin to start work on him, two men with identification from the NSA had shown up demanded to take possession of Rayburn. Cooper had immediately put a call into Laurel Hitchin, only to learn that she was ordering him to surrender 'Rayburn'. When he had told her that this was a matter of national security, she had told him very simply that there were limits to her authority.

Cooper couldn't help himself. "You work for the White House!"

"I realize that Harold. But I am telling you with all sincerity that there are limits to my power." For the first time in their long relationship, Hitchin sounded incredibly nervous. And this was the woman who was probably the Cabal's mouthpiece.

Cooper had decided to let this go because, in true Fox Mulder tradition, there had been a piece of evidence that he had 'forgotten' to turn in. In the hour that they had possession of Rayburn, Aram had managed to clone his cell phone. As they had suspected, most of the numbers belonged to untraceable phones. However, there had been one number that Mulder had jumped on - one with a Manhattan area code.

They had back traced it to a high-rise on the Upper West Side. Mulder, with his eidetic memory, recognized it as one he had called before nearly twenty years earlier.

"Before they were burnt alive at El Rico, the Syndicate met regularly in New York," he had told them. "We were told about it by one of their members, a man who was summarily executed by them in 1998 for assisting me. By the time Scully and I tracked it down a year later, it was stripped bare of everything."

"What makes you think there'd be anything now?" Navadi had asked.

"For all intents and purposes, there shouldn't be," he'd admitted. "The second time I dialed this number, they told me it had been disconnected. So why would this lackey have it in his cell phone twenty years later? Did NYNEX run out of numbers?"

It said something for the general level of insanity that was going on that this sounded rational. So Doggett and Ressler decided to fly out there and see if they could find anything that might point them in the direction of their Blacklister. Mulder had approved because Doggett had never been a part of that particular investigation. "Maybe fresh eyes will pick up something that we missed," he admitted. 'Besides, NYPD holds more credibility than we ever did."

Aram hadn't been able to get much information on the address. The building had been rented out by various false fronts ever since 1973. There had been a gap from 1999 to 2002 where it had been completely vacant, but in a real estate market as vast as New York's, no one had even tried to make an offer on it. In 2004, the building had been rented out again, but Aram was still struggling to find out who the real owners were.

All the evidence had told Doggett that the building they were about to explore was completely deserted. Nevertheless, he had told Ressler that they should get a SWAT team from the local field office and search the place floor by floor. Ressler had been more than willing to agree.

They were surprised, however, to find that the building did have a super, who'd been watching the place since around the time George W. Bush had run for reelection. "Easiest job I've ever had." he told Doggett. "I come here every other weeks, clean the place up, make certain that there are no bums sleeping around. For that I get a paycheck three times what I could get for running a building half as larger in Brooklyn."

"You ever meet with any of the owners?"

"They only communicate with via email."

"What about your checks?"

The super had been more than willing to hand some of the stubs over to him. This didn't answer any questions, either. The checks were from a company called Pinck Pharmaceuticals, which as far as Doggett knew had no connection with anything relating to the conspiracy. Just for the hell of it, he told Aram to see if he could find any connections.

He joined Ressler on the ninth floor of the complex. So far, the team had searched the building from top to bottom and hadn't found a goddamn thing.

"Beginning to look like this is another one of those damn snipe hunts," Doggett told Ressler apologetically.

"I'm not so sure of that." Ressler looked around the building. "John, look around. What do you see?"

Doggett checked the interior for a full thirty seconds, not certain if Ressler was kidding. "Nothing."

"Exactly. It's pristine. If a building had been left empty for seventeen years, there'd be signs of shit. Graffiti, junkies crack pipes, blood stains. There doesn't even seem to be a speck of fly shit. In this city, hell, anywhere, how realistic does that sound?"

Doggett didn't even have to think twice about that. Three years on foot patrol had convinced him that nothing in New York remained clean for a period of more than five minutes. Someone was going to a great deal of trouble to make this building seem like no one using it. "Tell our people do another sweep. This time, I want them checking for anything that seems like it doesn't belong."

Just then, Aram got on the line. "We may be on the right track. There's a reference in the X-Files to Pinck Pharmaceuticals. I missed it because technically it has nothing to do with our Blacklister."

"What have you got?"

"In April of 1995, there was a breakout of an infectious disease from a South American bug called F. Emasculata. Held within a maximum security prison, thirty-three people died. Mulder and Scully were called in on a fugitive hunt. Two of the prisoners escaped right after the infection hit."

Doggett shuddered. They'd come dangerously close to a major outbreak. "Let me guess. Pinck Pharmaceuticals was behind it."

"They send the virus to the prison. Mulder and Scully tried, but the bastards covered their tracks. "

"You said Pinck technically had no connection." Doggett asked.

"No. But Mulder's very meticulous when it came to his encounters with the Smoking Man the first few years he was on the X-Files." Aram told them. "Mulder ran into him in the FBI when he was threatening to go public with the experiment. The Smoking Man basically implied it was for the greater good that this not happen."

Ressler was a little skeptical himself. "The man actually showed his face in the Bureau?"

This time Doggett answered. "According to Skinner, the guy was always in his office the first few years Scully was assigned to the X-Files. Even after Walter made it clear he wasn't welcome, he clearly had access from the higher echelon people."

"Start running a background check on Pinck. See if there's a connection between it and Roush, or anything else we can connect to this conspiracy." Ressler told Aram.

Just then, two of the agents came into the room. "Agent Ressler, I think we've got something."

Apparently, while looking at the blueprints for the building, they had found that on the fifth floor, there was an extra hundred square yards that weren't supposed to be there. After some negotiating, they had found a trap door that led to a room. The room wasn't particularly remarkable, but there was a cedar desk, several chairs, and a small TV screen in one of the walls.

"Isn't exactly Dr. Evil's lair, but it's definitely not normal," Doggett said as he looked around.

Ressler was examining the screen. There didn't seem to be any obvious way to turn it on. "Super tell you whether or not this place was wired?" he asked Doggett.

"No but given the fact that he didn't know about this place, I'm not certain how good his credibility is." Doggett pointed out.

Just then, Ressler's cell rang. He didn't recognize the number, which meant that he had a very good idea who was on the other end. "Give me a minute," he said cautiously.

He walked into the other room before answering. "Why are you calling me?"

"Donald, such hostility. I would think after the last few months a little cordiality would be merited."

"You know what Mulder and the rest of their unit have made clear. As long as their connected to this investigation, you are to stay away from then?"

"I believe what Tom told me was that I was to make no contact with Elizabeth." Reddington said coolly. "Unless you've undergone some kind of identity crisis that I'm unaware of, I'm not talking to her."

These were the kinds of manipulations that Ressler had become very used too over the past three years. From what he had come to know about Fox Mulder, he had done similar twisting of his superiors orders. It would have grated in Ressler's craw either way, but this was not the time to tell Reddington about that.

"I'd choose my next words very carefully," he said slowly. "Right now, I'm roughly ten feet away from someone who very cheerfully put a bullet between your eyes."

"Which makes him no different from half the world, Donald." Reddington reminded him. "In any case, as much as he'd like to I'm currently on a plane coming back from Africa, so unless he has those special bullets from Monaco, he has no chance of hitting me."

"What special bullets?" Ressler found himself asking.

"That's a Blacklister a little further down the list," Reddington said cheerfully.

I should've known better than to ask. "What do you want?"

"I've located Marita Covarrubias."

Reddington always did choose his words carefully. "Does that means she's bound and gagged to the roof of your limousine?'

That ingratiating laugh. "Donald, such imagery. I never considered you to be that much of a romantic. But no, I merely mean to say that she's currently in Turtle Bay."

It took Ressler a moment to make the connection. 'You mean to say she's working for the UN again?"

"She's at the UN. As I'm certain that Agent Mulder told you, her job at the UN was always a facade for far more insidious activities."

Indeed, Mulder had been very clear on who she had worked with before. "How long will she be there?"

"She's booked on a diplomatic flight to Kazakhstan at 6:30 p.m., your time." Reddington told them. "Coincidentally, my flight will get into LaGuardia at 7:05."

The implication was clear. "There's a very good chance that Mulder will beat you there." Ressler couldn't help but tell him. "And if he does, there may very well not be much of her left to work with."

"You are starting to grow out of that military persona. I'm impressed."

Indeed, Ressler wasn't certain what he was implying. He wasn't wild about the idea of letting anyone do what he was implying to anyone, much less someone who was no doubt protected by diplomatic immunity. But he had heard from Scully and Doggett what Covarrubias had done to Mulder.

She had tried to kill him. A couple of times. Granted, she hadn't held a gun or a knife on him, but she had set him up to die in very painful ways. Mulder didn't strike him as the kind of man who had wanted to wreak horrible vengeance on his enemies, but Ressler had a feeler that for this woman, he would be more than willing to make an exception.

"Thank you for your heads up," he told Reddington. "I'll be sure to pass on the information to the relevant people."

"I've gone to a lot of trouble to track this woman down." Reddington started.

"And as always, I'm sure you did it out of the goodness of your heart." Ressler told him. "But there have been some very clear instructions as to how we're supposed to handle you in this case. And that doesn't include you."

Reddington hesitated. He took this kind of abuse from everybody at the taskforce regularly. Hell, he had seen the man dealing with guns in his face so often, Ressler figured that this had to be like water off a duck's back. So why did this time seem to have gotten him more - worried?

"Donald, I realize that our relationship has undergone a fair amount of strain recently," he finally started. "I'm well aware that this is a thorny situation for you and the rest of the taskforce. But I would hope that our mutual interest would keep you from saying or doing anything drastic."

At this point, Ressler had gotten so used to holding back from unloading his feelings on to Reddington that it was just easier to do that. But perhaps working with Mulder had begun to make him find his inner rebel. Or maybe he was starting to get a grip on just how high the stakes were. Whatever it was, he decided not to bite back his usual retort.

"You must feel so helpless right now." he said suddenly. "Knowing everything you done, everything you've spent your entire career building up, could be utterly and completely destroyed because something far bigger will wipe it out without a moment's thought. Something that none of your power or money or fear makes a difference too."

"What are you implying, Donald?"

"Congratulations. Now you know what the rest of us are feeling." Then, before Reddington could respond. "My next call is going to be to Mulder. So, if you've got some kind of booster rocket on your jet, I suggest you use them. I can't guarantee what that crazy man will do. "

Then he hung up, and turned around to face Doggett, who had clearly overheard most of the conversation. "Call Mulder," he told him. "I'm going to issue a BOLO for our visitor from the UN."

"Does Reddington have some kind of booster rocket?"

"I wouldn't put it past him to have some form of warp drive." Ressler admitted. "But just once in my career, I would like to get to the truth about something without Reddington having to use pliers. So tell Mulder I'm willing to charter a jet for him to meet us as LaGuardia. Don't make me regret the expense."

Doggett reached for his phone. "You know, no one ever took Mulder seriously before. I knew him for two years, I saw a lot of the same shit he did, and I'm still not sure I believe him. I gotta ask, what's with the trust?"

"What can I say?" Ressler asked. "Maybe I'm starting to prefer batshit insane to utterly evil."

LAGUARDIA

PRIVATE HOLDING ZONE

6:18 P.M.

Mulder had known that everything had a risk. Ever since Deep Throat had died making a trade for his life, he'd known that the quest for the truth was going to leave casualties. Anyone who followed him was inevitably going to be at risk, and the body count hadn't gotten any lighter once he had left the FBI. Hell, he'd been a casualty himself along the way.

But he was a human being, and maybe part of it had come from being the ground for a quarter of a year. Then again, considering how willing he had been to kill after Scully had come back near death, maybe that darkness had always been inside him. Whatever the reason, the part of him that had wanted revenge over answers had been growing steadily ever since that mockery of a trial. And now, he was in the rare position of being able to exact both on someone who deserved it.

Doggett had admitted that Reddington had managed to give them a location on Covarrubias. Considering that the bastard probably wanted to get something out of her, he was going to squeeze every available drop of information out of her before Reddington arrived on the scene. Scully had been very understanding, even given what was coming tomorrow, that this was something he had to do. She probably had more of a reason to want her dead than Mulder did, but she'd always been the more detached one of their relationship and had managed to hold in her feelings to wait to let him do what he needed.

Now, as he walked towards the holding area that Ressler was waiting at, he wondered just how far he'd be willing to go for the truth. He'd been asked that question a lot over the years - X and Krycek had put it to him on more than one occasion - and he'd always thought that he'd answered unsatisfactorily. At the time, he'd thought that had been proof of his fundamental humanity. Now, Mulder was beginning to think it might have been a huge weakness.

"How long has she been in there?" he asked Ressler.

"Twenty minutes. We didn't tell her you were coming." Ressler paused. "You have every right to want to see the woman dead. But don't give in. That's their way."

"Their way has been working just fine for a very, very long time." Mulder told him. "No one comes into this room. No matter what you hear."

He opened the door, and for the first time in fourteen years, looked Marita Covarrubias in the face.

During their relationship, Marita had spent most of her time remaining icily impartial, if a little more honest than his first two informants had been. He had known very well that she had had her own agenda, that she had been in league with the Syndicate, but he had tried to use it to his advantage. That had come to an end at the CDC center when he found her wasted away from the tests that they had performed on her. He had always hoped that would make her see reason. He should've known better.

"All the way over here, I have been trying to figure out what question I should ask you," Mulder admitted as he pulled up one of the chairs. "About life, the universe, everything Douglas Adams ever wrote about, but frankly the one question I can't get out of my head is what the fuck did you ever see in Alex Krycek?'

Covarrubias managed to maintain her Hitchcock blonde stoicism, but he could tell that he'd struck a nerve. "There were times that he was useful. I'm sure that's the reason you kept him alive all those years."

"Yeah, but I never got desperate enough to fuck him." That registered. "I realize that neither one of you would stay on one side long enough, but you must've known better than to ever think he could be loyal."

"You've waited this long to see me? Why do you want to discuss Krycek?'

"When I was on trial for my life, and Skinner called you as a witness, didn't you think it the least bit odd that he stopped questioning you right before you could give something that might have saved me?" Mulder wasn't even going to give her a chance to answer. "I'd called him off. You know why? Alex told me that if you talked, they'd kill you."

Given everything about their relationship, it said a lot that Covarrubias was only puzzled by this for a few seconds. "Krycek was dead. Skinner killed him."

"I was going through a Haley Joel Osment phase at the time. But really that's not what bothered me. See, you and I both know that Krycek never cared about anything other than saving his own ass when he was alive." Mulder reminded her. "You know better than anyone that's true. So why the fuck would he want to keep you alive?"

Covarrubias didn't even know how to begin to answer that question. "Maybe he'd finally seen the error of his ways."

"Bullshit. If anything, he'd want someone to keep him company in hell." Mulder got up. "But I have a theory that somewhere down the line, he knew that you would be useful. That at some point, you would owe me a debt. One that only something really fucking big would be able to settle the account." He leaned in front of her. "It's time to collect, Marita."

Covarrubias seemed to realize just how limited her options were. "What do you want me to tell you?"

Mulder actually found himself laughing at this. "I finally get the real possibility to get a full explanation and I can't collect. Isn't that my life in a nutshell?"

"You always knew the restriction on who I worked for."

"That's not the problem for once. See, in roughly," he looked at his watch, "thirty minutes, Raymond Reddington is going to walk through that door, and probably demand your head on a plate. Given what the Syndicate put you through, that's far too neat an end for you, but the fact is you'll still be dead."

Covarrubias didn't seem remotely bothered at the idea of being tortured and killed by the Concierge of Crime. Mulder honestly considered capturing this moment on his smart-phone and sending with an appropriate meme to Reddington, but then sanity - or whatever passed for it in his mind - overcame him.

"I know you've been working with him. Believe it or not, I actually understand. Hell, given who your other employers have been, he may actually be the nicest ally you've ever had. But I still can't have him interact with you." Mulder told her. "I don't know why. God knows, the two of you deserve each other. But I'll be damned if I let that man getting anything he wants out of you."

"So what's the deal? What do I have to give you for my freedom?"

"I think you know. The only thing I've ever wanted." Mulder took out a pen. "I want every single detail you can give me on that Morley-smoking bastard. Aliases, where he's been hiding out, who he's been working with ever since the Syndicate bought the farm. You're going to finish up by given me his current location. And don't try to bullshit me by saying it's the morgue. You and I both know you can't kill the devil."

"You and I both know as soon as I tell you anything, he'll have me killed," Marita wasn't that panicked.

"What do you think he'll do when he learns of your deals with Reddington?" Mulder reminded her. "You're in a jackpot situation. I'd think you'd be used to them by now. How else would you have survived as long as you have?"

Covarrubias looked at him. "What do I get in exchange?"

"You get to walk out that door, and I make certain that Reddington doesn't get you." Mulder told her. "Of course, considering the length and breadth of Reddington's resources, there's an excellent chance he'll get to you anyway. But right now, your options are slim to none. Which one will you take?"

Mulder knew without having to think to hard what she would go for. He was frankly amazed that she spent a whole ten seconds before taking out a pen. "I don't know how he managed to survive the last attack on him," she told him. "But you know as well as I do that he's got powerful friends. Even with everything I know, there's no way you'll be able to get to him without a lot of help."

"That's for me to worry about. You'll have your own set of problems, which frankly, you deserve." Mulder told him. "Besides, if nothing else, we're both pretty nimble at eluding the reaper."

For the next couple of minutes, he allowed Marita to start writing. He had no idea how much of what she was going to give him was going to lead nowhere, but right now, all he cared about was a single good lead that allowed him to stick a gun right in the face of that bastard and actually pull the trigger.

When she finished writing, she got up. Mulder put his hand on his shoulder. "Where do you think you're going?" he demanded.

For the first time in this conversation, Marita actually looked worried. "You said when I helped you, you'd let me go."

"I said I'd let you walk out that door. I never said anything about letting you go. Not without making sure of one more thing."

Raymond Reddington didn't have booster rockets, but he did have connections that made getting through public airports in a way that would make first class passengers weep. He had managed to get to the waiting room a full fifteen minutes before he said he was. This was not going over particularly well with Agent Doggett, who was having the grave displeasure of running into him, and not being able to arrest him or punch him in the face, both of which he really wanted to do right now.

"I realize that I'm never going to make the top of your Christmas card list, Agent Doggett" he was telling him now. "But considering that we are in the middle of trying to track down the same man, I would hope for a little accommodation on your part."

Doggett kept looking around. "You had to pass through at least half a dozen security cameras to get here," he told him. "Now I know the Bureau isn't allowed to get its hands dirty, but how the fuck did you manage to get back the CIA, NSA, fuck Fish & Wildlife has a warrant for you."

"I swear, you attend one party where a Komodo dragon is being served for dinner, and the federal government never forgets." Reddington jovial mood was irritating him now. "What can I say. The 90s."

"In the 1990s, I was serving in the First Gulf War, and my four year old son was kidnapped by a pedophile and murdered by a hitman.' Doggett couldn't let this go. "You were in the middle of creating a massive criminal enterprise. Don't even try to bond with me. You're still just a thug with a cheap hat."

Raymond was beginning to regret that he'd decided to ask this man for assistance - he was so straight arrow he made Ressler look flexible. "We share common interests, Agent Doggett. I handed you this woman."

"And now, you want to question her." Doggett looked at him. "Well, who am I to stand in the great man's way? You want to talk her. She's right down that hall."

There was something far too sudden about Doggett's acquiescence. Raymond knew what was going to happen even before he and Dembe started heading to the very room that he had indicated.

Covarrubias wasn't there. But Mulder was. "I'd consider complaining to your travel agent," he said cheerfully.

"What did you do with her?"

"She's beyond your reach. And no, that's not one of those euphemism that people in your business use to mean dead." Mulder told him. "She was willing to bargain in order to get out of her with her life. You know what it's like to make those kinds of bargains, don't you, Mr. Reddington?"

"I've killed people for less, Mr. Mulder," Reddington told him.

"'Far, far less. After all I've given you'." Mulder shook his head. "You know, the informant who proceeded Marita, had exactly your kind of attitude, along with a similar bloodthirstiness. Were you one of his colleagues, too? Marita knew the consequences when she signed on. Now what does it say about her that she'd rather deal with a group of people who left her to die than with-"

Mulder never got to finish his sentence. Dembe had picked up by the scruff of his coat. "How far do you want to press your luck, Agent Mulder?" Reddington asked as he pulled out his gun.

"Oh joy. Now I'm being manhandled by an actual henchman. Something else to cross off my bucket list." Mulder was enjoying this far too much.

"You would never have found this man on your own," Reddington said as calmly as he could manage. "You spent decades chasing him and you never got as close as I've gotten you. I would think a little gratitude would be in order."

All of the faux bonhomie went out of Mulder's voice. "And what exactly have you given me? Nothing I couldn't have found out on my own, given enough time and resources, both of which I now have. Besides, if you really could've found him on your own, I would've been the last on your little parade in order to get help. You came to me when I needed you. Try and remember that, when you're circling the drain."

Almost as if that were a cue, the sirens in the airport started to blare. Raymond was now genuinely shocked. "I thought our people had disabled the cameras," he told Dembe.

"You're not the only with allegiances in the tech world," Mulder told him gleefully. "Your taskforce is good, I'll give them that much, but they're still only going to be able to buy you about ten minutes at most. Which means it's time for you to exit, stage right."

Reddington looked at Dembe, who dropped Mulder on the floor. "This isn't over by a long shot, Agent Mulder." Reddington told him, as he headed for the door.

"Actually, Raymond, the end is a lot closer than you'd think."

A minute after Reddington and Dembe had exited, Doggett was inside. "Do you know how goddamn cheesy that last line was?" he said, with a slight smile.

"Saying it to a supervillain was also on my bucket list," Mulder admitted.