Disclaimers in part 01
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"It's a sign of your own worth sometimes if you are hated by the right people."
~~Miles Franklin -- My Career Goes Bang~~
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FROHIKE:
We're headed for DuPont Circle and the Farragut Hotel. I happen to know this is one of his favorite watering holes. The problem is that he has almost as many favorite watering holes as he does women, which is to say, all of them.
"Would be nice if we had the night vision goggles," Mulder muses as we head into the city. It's not too bad; the Congresscritters have all left for summer vacation. We'll have to start pulling together material for that issue soon--every fall, we run a 'What I Did on My Summer Vacation' issue, illustrating some of the more dubious deeds of our 'elected' officials -- but needless to say, I think the one we're currently working on is somewhat important.
"Would be nice if you'd get around to returning them someday!" How many years has he had them now? It's got to be at least six. And those babies were expensive. Mulder's as efficient about returning our equipment as he is about giving me back my videos.
"Haven't got 'em."
"Oh, you've got 'em. You're the last person we lent them to." Hell, he's the only person we lent them to!
"Frohike, maybe you should try Metamucil."
"Listen, you may be driving, but I can still push your ass out on to the street. I doubt anyone would miss you."
"You would."
"Don't bet on it."
We hand our keys to the valet, who doesn't even look at us. Half the town tools about in government issued Tauruses in bland colors. We're hardly worth noting.
Well, maybe not for the valet, but the doorman certainly noticed. "There's a dress code here," he snaps at us.
"There's something in it for you if you drop it," Mulder smiles, pulling 2 crisp 100's from his wallet. I'm really worried now. I hope the cash works. Mulder certainly can't count on charm.
I guess times must be tough, since he motions us through.
"How much are you carrying? They might not be here."
"You said this was his favorite bar."
"This, and probably a dozen others."
"Hey, he's just a poor civil servant like me. Not like we can afford the Library Lounge or the Watergate on our salaries."
"He might not be as cheap as you are."
"I'm not cheap. I'm frugal."
"You're cheap."
The bartender is everything Bernie's not. He looks at us as though someone pulled us out of the dumpster out back, but he's happy to take our money. I order the Scotch so as not to piss off the bartender, but I stick to the water. What I wouldn't give for some Maalox about now.
"So are we just gonna barhop all night?" I growl at him. I'd really like to get home, thank you very much. Collecting intel is one thing. Getting work done is another.
"You have a better idea?"
We drink up. No Fletcher. I throw down a tip and we head out, this time for the Belmont.
"You don't think he'd be tacky enough for the Marriott?" Mulder asks.
"Tacky is what Fletcher's all about."
"Yeah, but what about the woman?"
"If I knew who it was, I'd have a better idea."
My stomach knots up as we head towards the Belmont. It was in this very bar that I was willingly seduced by Kate Sandridge. Needless to say, this does not hold warm fuzzy memories for me.
The doorman is about 18 if he's a day and stoned beyond belief. No wonder he doesn't mind wearing the stupid uniform. We pass him without incident. The Belmont actually offers self parking, as if they imagined such a thing would exist in DC, but it works for us. $9.00 for 24 hours. A bargain here.
"At least it was cheaper this time," Mulder muses.
The only problem with the Belmont is that it has not one, not two, but three lounges. This entails being seen by a lot more people.
No dice. No Fletcher in any of the bars.
"They've got two restaurants, too," Mulder observes.
"And a disco."
"They've got a disco here at the Belmont? The end of the civilization must be imminent."
We duck into the pay phone area while we work out whatever passes for a plan. We didn't exactly have one beyond jumping into the car and following Fletcher down.
"I'm thinking Fletcher's not the type to want to spend the bucks wining and dining the girl. He wants dessert as quickly as possible."
"And that's what you learned as a profiler? I could've told you that."
"I was just saying that checking out the restaurants is going to be a waste."
"I think we should find out where he's checked in. Hold on a moment." I dial one of the pay phones, using our illicit but oh-so-useful calling card. General Motors will never know the difference.
"Lone Gunmen, it's Saturday night, get a life already," Langly growls into the phone.
"Speak for yourself. Got a job for you."
"Byers is already cracking the fucking whip."
"Too bad. This is priority."
"Well, if it's so fucking important, spit it out already!"
"Find out where Fletcher's checked in."
"As in, what hotel?"
"Ding ding ding! The boy gets 5 points!"
"Aw, c'mon, man, database searching's a pain. And what if he's not checked in under his real name?"
Oh man, didn't think of that. However, I'm not sure he's all that clever.
"Just do it, and call back on Mulder's cell."
"Aww, what's wrong, Mel not here, so you gotta date Mulder?" His tone is that of a mocking 5 year old.
"Fuck you. And get busy." I like having the last word, so I hang up before he can slip in.
Mulder shakes his head. "Frohike, has anyone told you you're just a regular Mr. Warmth, Charm and Personality?"
"No."
"There's a reason for that, you know."
"Shut up, Mulder." And be happy I don't call you anything worse. I'm only being nice because he's my ride. "So what now, G-Man?"
"I think we should boogie like it's 1975."
Aargh!
***
I missed the disco years, and now that I've been immersed in them, I'm glad I did. How can anyone even think in here -- oh, wait, that's not the point. You wouldn't need to. The songs all have one line repeated 753 times with the same obnoxious bass that is only serving to enhance my headache.
Worst of all, though, is how not dressed we are for this gig. We stand out like supermutants amidst a sea of mutants.
How can anyone dance like this? It's completely undignified. No style, no grace, no class. Now the tango. There's a dance that takes real skill. People here are simply flapping their arms like pathetic penguins desperately seeking flight.
We take a table on the upper level. The better to see you with, Morris Fletcher. Unfortunately, it's not the better to hear anyone with.
I order a club soda and Mulder orders a Slow Comfortable Screw. I think he just likes the name.
"That's a girlie drink!" I yell to him.
"Do you see him?" I think is what he yelled back. I think he deliberately ignored the girlie drink slam.
I peer over the dance floor. The disco ball strobes the light. This is a marvelous place--if you're in the market for developing a migraine. Trying to pick out individual forms in this den of debauchery would be difficult enough without it.
"Hey cutie, wanna dance?" A twentysomething, made up to the gills and draped in the finest of polyester, has come over to our table. In view of the lighting, it's really hard to make out what she looks like, but I'm thinking a younger Tammy Faye Bakker. Mulder certainly knows how to attract 'em.
"Sure, why not--" Mulder begins to rise, but she holds up her hand.
"Not you, Ken doll. Your friend here." She points a lacquered nail at me.
"Uh...well..."
This is a child accustomed to getting her way as she drags me to my feet. "C'mon. All the other guys here are so plastic."
Mulder makes a face at me as I head, as though a lamb led to slaughter, to the dance floor.
This is not what I had in mind.
***
We dance on the upper level, which is a smaller floor, but I don't believe it's giving us any relief in terms of the music volume. My head pounds right along with the beat.
Fortunately, the next tune is 'The Hustle,' a dance that I actually know how to do. I attend the occasional wedding.
I'm trying to keep my eyes pasted on the other patrons which is no doubt annoying my dance partner. Not that I care. I'm here to work as opposed to flopping about and getting wasted. If I wanted to simply get wasted, I'd have stayed at the Limerick.
I want Fletcher's ass and I want it soon, or I'll go blind, deaf and insane in here.
I turn to see if Mulder's been hit on yet. There's a surprising number of unescorted women here, but none of them have approached him. Despite the fact that my partner is strictly third rate romance, low rent rendezvous, I at least got hit on. Maybe they can tell he has cooties. I smirk at him.
He's on the phone, but then he tries to catch my eye back. He's jabbing his finger down towards the other dance floor.
"Hey, where you going?" My partner shouts at me over the din.
"Sorry, I prefer boys." I rush back to our table, which is perched near the railing. I stare down in the mass of bodies swirling below.
Son of a bitch. It's him. It's got to be him. Doing a horrible imitation of John Travolta. The only thing he's missing is the white polyester leisure suit.
What's even more horrifying, however, is the woman he's dancing with.
It's none other than Kate Sandridge.
If we weren't in the situation we're in, I'd feel that there was some poetic justice in the world.
"Houston, we have a problem," Mulder says. "So now what?"
"Let's see if they get a room."
"Langly didn't find him checked in anywhere in town."
"So he's staying under an assumed name. We have his aliases on file. Call Langly back."
"Forget it. You deal with the little twerp. Just because he's not getting any this week doesn't mean he has to take it out on all of us."
"You should know, Mulder. You don't get it any week."
I dial while he comes up with a witty response. We leave the disco for the men's room off the lobby, where I never realized how peaceful the sound of running water actually was. It may be days before I lose the beat in my head, but at least the volume's down.
"I'm not sure how following them to their room is going to help," I remind him.
"What about your portable bugs? You don't leave home without them, right?"
"That's not the point! We have to get it into the room!" I shake my head. "You're an idiot, G-Man."
"That's the nicest thing anyone's said to me recently."
"Or maybe you could just try being clairvoyant, Mr. Supernatural."
"I study clairvoyance. I don't practice it."
"So what do we do now?" I groan, unhappy at how this night is turning out.
"I don't know about you, but I've had enough disco dollies for one night."
"For once, we both agree." This should be a national holiday.
"So let's wait outside here."
"Oh, that's delightful. What if he has to come in here?" Condoms. Only a buck at the vending machine in here. Then again, maybe he comes prepared. God knows he's got a new conquest each time he's in town.
"You got a better idea? We can hide in a hurry if we need to. We can catch him red-handed--"
"Listen, you've got a gun. I don't."
"Oh, I'm not looking to shoot ol' Morris. I just want to toy with him for a while." He wrinkles his brow. "You really think Sandridge would sleep with him?"
"If it means getting a story out of him? Count on it."
***
Two hours pass before we're kicked out for loitering. Even Mulder's FBI badge didn't help, especially when he said that he couldn't make that knowledge public and no, security could not call his supervisor.
"Why can't you call Skinner? He knows what's going on. More or less."
"This isn't really official business."
"That never stopped you before."
"I prefer to start Monday morning not getting my ass chewed out."
"Why make it different from any other Monday?"
"Look, we're wasting our time here."
"I think you're wrong about that," I assert.
"You wanna go back in the disco?"
About as much as I want to enter the seventh circle of hell. "Fuck. Let's go."
***
BYERS:
"What the hell's he doing wasting his time following Fletcher? I thought he was going to give him the disk if he saw him and be done with it!"
Frohike is really ticking me off. Why the hell is he tailing Fletcher? With Mulder? Nothing but trouble in that sort of sport, and right now, we have all the trouble we can use, thank you very much.
"Maybe Fletcher found him," Langly suggests. "Sounds like it to me."
"He should have given him the data and left well enough alone."
"I thought he was supposed to give us Monroe."
I can't believe I'm listening to this. "Langly, nobody is going to give us Monroe. Nobody. If we want him, we're going to have to go after him ourselves. And right now, I think that's a terrible plan."
"Byers, the only plan you think is a good plan is where everybody shakes hands and goes back and plays nice."
"I prefer negotiation to blood."
"Who doesn't, dude? Problem is, you don't like it, find another line of work. Like go back to the FCC."
Oh, as if they'd really have me. I've never been tried, never been convicted, but the fact of the matter is, in the eyes of the law, I'm a felon. This factoid bothers Langly and Frohike considerably less than it bothers me. But there's law, and there's what's right, and we're in business to do the right thing.
Right now, I'm not sure what the right thing is. I'm not even certain we should have taken it this far. I'm having a lot of misgivings about our involvement with this whole project. Needless to say, however, it's a little late for that. Once again, it's the difference between ham and eggs: the chicken is involved. The pig is committed. I think we're not only committed, we're eaten. Our friends and loved ones are certainly being devoured by this.
"It just keeps getting uglier," I groan.
"Speaking of ugly, check out the security cam. Guess who's back?"
"That is a horrifying sight." Mulder and Frohike in one shot. Both trundle down to the work area.
"Got any coffee working, Byers?" Frohike asks me.
"Screw the coffee! What the hell were you doing tailing Fletcher?"
"Hey, he found us first!"
Oh great.
"And guess who he's with?"
"Another high-priced DC bimbo," Langly offers up.
"Actually, she looks pretty cheap to me," Mulder chimes in.
"Shut up, Mulder. No, this one's as expensive as they get. Our old pal, Kate Sandridge."
Langly pounds the worktable. "Oh, fuck, that bitch is all over us! This is all your fucking fault, Frohike!"
"Excuse me, I was against this whole thing from the start!"
Okay, that changes things. For the worse.
"Where did he run into you?" I ask Frohike.
"Where I always go to collect intel. The Limerick, of course."
I glare at Mulder. "And you, of course, happened to just come along."
"Hey, nothing else to do on a Saturday night." He shrugs.
"Try a hand job," Langly suggests.
"You're probably getting plenty of practice," Frohike shoots back at him. "Maybe you can give him pointers."
"Shut up, this isn't helping!" Jesus, these guys can't stop their bickering long enough to let me think. Talk about migraine central. "Frohike, he knows we hang out at the Limerick. Some of us less than others," I add pointedly, which is childish, but right now, I'm feeling more than a bit infantile and irritable, not to mention terrified. To my intense surprise, they comply with my demand. I should mark this on the calendar, it happens so infrequently.
There's coffee, and everyone pours themselves a fresh cup. I haven't told them, but it's decaf. I think we're all sufficiently wired to stay awake as long as necessary.
It dawns on me too late that we've totally screwed this thing up. "We should have cooperated with Sandridge from the start."
"When pigs fly," Frohike snorts.
"All this time we're trying to keep her from scooping us, and in the end, we just end up biting off our noses to spite our faces. What if she's got stuff we could use? We could have exchanged information with her."
"You don't share meat with a piranha," Frohike points out. As if any rational argument would get him to change his mind.
"This is major stuff, though. It's not as if there wasn't enough to go around. And how do we know that the Post would even print it?" Their legal department would likely pitch a fit and keep the story from ever going public.
"Excuse me, but what's the first rule of investigative journalism?" Langly crosses his arms and pushes his long frame back in the chair.
"Get there first," I respond.
"Yeah, and we got there first, and we don't have to share. Like Sandridge'd ever help me find who shot Deb," Langly is completely irritated.
"She probably has all the data you gave him by now, " I mourn to Frohike.
"Au contraire. No data was exchanged in the making of this motion picture." Frohike looks triumphant for a moment. This, however, merely aggravates my indigestion.
"Frohike, that wasn't the deal!"
"Sure it was. He was to give us Monroe. He had nothing. So no Monroe, no data."
"Frohike, there was no way he could give us Monroe on a silver platter."
"Exactly. And if he knew that, then he shouldn't have expected us to come through on our end."
Playground games. That's what this is. Playground one-up-manship with potentially lethal consequences.
"He should know something about Monroe, though. Like where he is." Langly muses on this.
Mulder shakes his head. "Monroe's been a moving target for years. I somehow don't imagine that's changed in the last week. Besides, what if it was Fletcher, not Monroe, that was arranging the warning shots on Deborah and Kimmy?"
"I don't think Fletcher has the cojones," Frohike grumbles.
"Yeah, but he sure as hell knows somebody who does!" Langly is becoming very agitated.
"Hey, listen, we've had the best people in the Bureau on him for years and--"
"Spare me. We know all about your best people!" snaps Langly.
I look over at the screen that I've been working on, tiring of this exchange.
Wait a moment. Something's wrong here. The cookies have changed. I'm sure of it.
"Langly, you said we were offline!" I'm sure he said it. I was explicit about being offline while we were working.
"We are, dude. What kind of moron do you take me for?"
"I'm not going there," Mulder says.
"Shut up!" I sit back down at my workstation.
"Byers, what the hell's going on?" Frohike's voice rises from discontent to alarm.
I gulp. Tastes like bile. "Don't look now, guys, but we're being hacked." My hands race over the keyboard, trying every trick I know to stop our unwanted visitor in his tracks.
"Fuck, I'm on it," Langly is at his workstation, typing vigorously before I even finish my sentence, and Frohike joins in.
"Mulder, do us a favor and don't touch anything," Frohike reminds him.
"Hey, I'm not touching anything!"
"Just make sure it stays that way."
"Shit, I can't stop this asshole!" Langly shouts.
"Yeah, well, neither can I!" I yell back.
"What the fuck?!" Frohike shakes his head.
"Monroe's got us by the short and curlies, man," Langly moans.
"No. This isn't Monroe. Monroe would have burned the rig by now." Monroe's style isn't this elegant. He's got a slash and burn approach. This is a lot more like poison.
"Then who the fuck is it?" Frohike demands above the clatter of our keyboards.
"Frohike, go on the otaku boards. Find The Ferret. See if she knows anything about this." The Ferret is a fellow hacker, just about on par with the Thinker. Goddamn him for not being alive right now.
"The Ferret might not be on. She's usually not," Langly warns.
"Then see if you can get Amazon directly." Amazon has never been seen by anyone. Ever. For all I know, she could be about as human as HAL 9000. I don't care if she's an elephant with purple spots, just so long as she can give us our hacker.
"Amazon doesn't like anyone contacting her directly unless it's a life and death emergency." Mulder has made contact with Amazon over the years periodically, as have we, but never through direct request.
"I'd say this qualifies!" I retort.
"Forget it. We're shutting down!" Frohike yells.
"No way in hell, man, if this gets me to Deb's--" Langly butts in.
"This isn't about you!" I shout back.
"Then get out!" Frohike clamors.
"No way. I'm going to nail this bastard!"
"Guys, it's my professional opinion... " Mulder offers up in his calm psychologist voice.
"SHUT UP!" The three of us manage to be in unison that time.
"Byers, if this is one of Monroe's goons, it's not just our rig that's gonna get fried!" Frohike is almost pleading with me.
He can plead till pigs fly. I'm going to follow this down to the last. We've suffered enough. It's time to even the score...
"WHAT THE?!" The screen before me dies. Fades to black. Langly and I both swing around to glare at Frohike, standing there with a power cord in his hand. "What the hell do you think you're doing!"
"Keeping our asses from getting fried," Frohike snarls at me.
"You asshole, I was on him." Langly is about ready to throw a few punches. I could join him.
"You don't wanna be on him."
I'm really, really angry at Frohike. "Since you've appointed yourself Napoleon, what do you propose?"
"We feed the source text to The Ferret and Amazon."
"I tried raising The Ferret. She's not on."
"Well, get Amazon!"
"She's gonna be pissed," Langly warns.
"I don't give a flying fuck!" I can't recall the last time I shouted this much. This whole thing is turning me into a raving lunatic. If I follow this down, I'll be a maniac. If I don't follow it down, I'll be a maniac.
Not a hard choice.
***
It takes most of the night to retrieve the source code, and even longer to raise Amazon, who was, as expected, irritated to hear from us, but agreed to check it out.
"Think it was Sandridge?" Mulder asks.
Frohike snorts. "Sandridge has to have her assistant boot up her word processor. Fat chance of that."
"People like that are too stupid to live," Langly snarls.
Then it dawns on me. "Guys, if she's been with Fletcher, chances are she went back to her office and started typing."
"Thought you said she couldn't turn on her own equipment," Langly remarks snidely.
"Sandridge can do a lot of things when she wants something. Even turn on her computer," Frohike mutters.
"Or seduce losers," Langly chides back.
"Langly, button it." I can't believe that came from me instead of Frohike.
"Not your girl that got shot at!"
"If you don't knock it off--"
We're interrupted by the chime that indicates that Amazon is back with us. We all lean over our screens intently, reading her terse messages.
"Found your hacker."
I type back. "Who is he?"
"Not he. She."
"She?"
"Yves Adele Harlow."
"Never heard of her."
"You have now."
With that, she signs off. That's all we're going to get from Amazon.
We shake our heads. "A woman," Frohike muses. "Unbelievable. We're gonna be outnumbered."
"It's a good thing the women aren't here to hear that, or you'd have your testicles in your mouth," I snap. I turn to Mulder. "Go make yourself useful for a change and find out who this Yves Adele Harlow is."
He rises up. "Sure, why not? I never sleep anyway."
It may be awhile before we sleep again as well, so I'm not about to feel sorry for him.
End part 18