Disclaimers in Discoveries-Prologue...

 

Chapter 6

Kingsboro Community College
11:15 p.m.
Organic Chemistry Annex Lab

"Lie back, Scully.  Try to relax."  Susanne, with a gentle firmness, eased the restless, irritable woman down onto the gurney she'd purloined from Introductory Pre-med storage.  The two-year-old wing, which housed the newer, more technical learning facilities, was only a corridor connection from the chem lab-office she shared with two other colleagues.  "With any luck, Langly'll return soon with the antigent precursor to have you yourself again."

"Where i-is Cutie--I wa-want Cutie!  Now!!"

Byers stepped away from the green blackboard where he'd been re-examining molecular formulae of the A-H, the initial antidote Scully'd been given, as well as cocaine in its purest form.  Once he was satisfied he understood, he came alongside Susanne and noted in sotto voce, "The simularity between your derivation and coke is astounding, and quite indicated."  Unpretentiously, he garnered Scully's hand carefully, holding it a few moments.  "Scully.  Everything's going to be all right, dear."  He gazed then at Susanne and she nodded, although, she felt less sanguine about any long-range predictions concerning curbing the subversives. He saw the worry crinkle her eyes.  His heartbeat went fluttery.  Seeking to reassure her, he encircled her waist with arms that'd yearned to hold her again, for so long.

The sight of their sudden closeness seemed to mollify Scully.  She calmed, the fretfulness dissipating, and studied them with a thoughtful, child-like expression mired in her face.  Byers, glad that Silvio had gone off to patronize the men's room, leaned into Susanne more so, upon which she allowed herself to relax in his reaffirming embrace.  "I've missed you so, sweetheart."

"I've missed you too, John.  I wish our reuniting were under more favorable circumstances."  She closed her eyes to savor what always had the feel of the fleeting.

"The point is, we're together once more, and if I let myself have my way, well never be separated again."

She permitted him to graze the nape of her neck with his lips, marveling at the tickly-prickly softness of his beard.  He felt like home to her as well, and although she'd never shared it with him, she too had dreamt an analogous dream of white picket fence domestic tranquility.  When she, however, would awaken from the fantasy, on more than one occasion, she'd wept.  The knowledge that it could never be had been too overwhelming.

"Let's just share now, John," she cautioned.  Her indulgent tone persisted.  "No one is guaranteed tomorrow.  No one." She felt his nod of agreement against her cheek, and she opened her heavy-lidded eyes, wondering if, had they been high school sweethearts, how different their lives would be this very moment.  Or would they?

"How long have you been teaching here?"  Byers pulled away so he could contemplate her doleful eyes.  What he saw in them made his heart ache.

"A little over a month as an adjunct prof.  As soon as I left you in Vegas, I headed east.  Since turncoat Timmy and his cohorts have a fair knowledge of my whereabouts, I don't think I'll be staying on much longer..."

"Then..." his beseeching eyes bored into her resigned-looking ones, "come with me...us.  Langly, Frohike.  Scully, Mulder...Back to D-C.  Go to the F-B-I.  Perhaps the government can arrange for witness protection when alerted to the clear and present danger the terrorists pose."

"The Bureau...I was branded a murderer.  Remember?  I only tr..."  Susanne filled her lungs to capacity and when she breathed out, Byers sensed her answer would not be to his acceptance.  "I only trust--"

"She's coming with US.  Agent Scully too."  The CIA renegade, flanked by two M-16-armed men strolled into the lab classroom with all the lackluster panache of the bad penny turning up. "How long did you think you could keep evading us, Modeski? And my, my, isn't this a touching reunion, or, perhaps, more fittingly put, parting of the ways...Byers.  I suppose it's fair to assume that where there's one of you, can the other two clowns be far away?  I owe you for Vegas.  Eh?"

Byers drew Susanne into himself closer, inveighing to interpose his body between the menacing interlopers and hers.

owe sparing an unsuspecting public from your neo-socialistic designs.  You owe me nothing...you--"

Sniffing at the latter, Timmy patronized, "Oh, but I do..." Overbearingly, he strolled up to the pair, and, with malevolence dripping from his eyes, smacked Byers full-force hard across the jaw with the butt of his high-caliber pistol, sending him reeling.

Hurtful shades of Vegas.  Susanne winced in acute pain, but possessed the wherewithal to depress the mike's 'on' button of the session recorder, inset within the under panel of the instructor's lab worktable.  "Let me help you," she choked out.  "Lean on me, John."  With stoic resolve, she mindfully aided an out-of-kilter Byers to his shaky feet and dished Timmy a generous helping of his own baleful look, back at him.  "You monster.  If you think I'm going with you, you, miscreant, think again!  I'll never help you and your coup of collusion."

Remorselessly, Timmy, his insipid smile never leaving his lips, grazed Byer's temple with the blunt pistol's muzzle, gluing it there.  His eyes fastened on the thin stream of blood seeping from the corner of his victim's mouth.  "Convinced you will?  The cat and mouse is over--don't let the last memory you have of him be seeing what his brain looks like splattered everywhere..."

Susanne clenched her teeth.  The sides of her mouth got caught in-between.  Her stomach lurched, and she grasped Byers' hand with an octopus' clutch.  She wished, with the sum total of her being, that she were the one grandstanding with the gun, and not this SOS.  "I'll go--just don't hurt him!"

"D...don't, Su--"  Byers swabbed away blood as though he was just realizing he was bleeding.

"There now.  See what a difference being reasonable makes?"  Timmy whipped the pistol away from Byers' head, never removing his eyes from Susanne's face of metamorphosis, a dark mask of pleading, but possessing a biting look of indomitability at the same time.

"You hurt him again--I swear--I'll NEVER cooperate!"

"You're hardly in any position to exact demands, dearie."

"Your febrile scheme will fail before its even begun."  Susanne pinned her arm around Byers' waist, making sure Timmy plainly saw.  "Without him, I'm useless to you..."  Impulsiveness was mashing most of her emotional buttons; desperation, the remainder.  "...If...if you harm John further in any way."

"Useless?"  The pudgy anarchist thought that over several seconds.  "Our little undertaking can't have that.  Ah, then.  It appears the equation has balanced out more in my favor, if I let you dictate to me.  Without you:  the objective's unrealized, but with your Johnnie boy thrown into the mix, your avid cooperation will be uncontested.  Am I right?  Very well.  Done.  Added he is, as compliance insurance."  Timmy sighed, sounding sated.  "Never let it be said I was a rigid man."

Susanne hung her head, cursing her out-of-control feelings besting her, and placing Byers in an untenable position; his being used as a puppet, with a sociopath pulling the strings.

"I-I wa-want Cu--Cutie--CUTIE!  CUTIE!  STOP IT YOU!"

"'Never...'" Byers muttered, as he rubbed his swelling, bruised jaw.  Helplessly, he watched the hooded duo prepare a writhing Scully by strapping her securely in the gurney; then tape her mouth shut.  He felt Susanne squeeze his waist again in reassurance, and the realization hit him unstintingly between the eyes that the expertise exigent for pole vaulting over a 'virtual' firewall was nothing compared to the savvy required to outwit a soulless madman.  He gulped a shallow swallow, devoid of saliva, and pondered the inherent shortcomings of a society capable of spawning such.

Must make him...tell, Susanne thought doggedly, keeping her furtive hand movements as minimal as possible beneath the under panel.  There...must...  "So, where's the party headed now, Timmy, or is that a deep, dark secret?  Always like to know where I'm headed, in life; in general.  And imagine how ungracious it would be as guests to show up empty-handed.  Maybe you'll allow us to stop off for refreshments?"

"Oh, there's no need to worry about that."  Timmy nodded to his subordinates, and they were on the move.  He nipped in closer again and placed his fleshy, heavy hand on Susanne's protesting shoulder.  "Where we're going, refreshments will be the least of your worries..."
 

Marine Park, Brooklyn
Near M.P. Junior High School
11:35 p.m.
 

"Where's he now?"

"Even with night vision, and the garish floodlighting from the school, if he ducks behind trees, seeing's impossible."  Frohike adjusted the magnification, but there was still no visual on Langly among the oak thickets.

"Let me get a looksee," Mulder demanded, already in the process of snagging the specs away from his current, anxiously vigilent partner in recline, crouching against the dashboard.  Once they were securely in viewing place, Mulder observed, "Does appear he's made himself one with nature.  Wonder if he's right about this still being a twenty-four/seven drug-buy hotspot?  School's been out nearly a good day now.  No kiddies around to ped...wait a min...ute.  He shifted in anticipation.  "It's goin' down, Frohike.  Our fair-haired boy's gettin' ready--"

Frohike re-claimed the visual aids with a snatch, clean off Mulder's animated face without so much as a, "if you please."

"Score," the diminutive associate rasped, sounding betwixt and between relieved and apprehensive, as he watched his closest friend, not more than twenty-five feet away, enact behavior from darker days.  Being out of earshot, hearing was beyond reach.  All the more reason to continue work on perfecting the miniature parabolic listening device.

"Yo, yo, so how much, man?"

"You look like someone who shouldn't haveta ask, dude," the dealer huffed at Langly, scowly, wagging the little vial-enclosing baggie at him like a tantalizing flag.  "You should know."

Langly shrugged and took tremulous hands out of his pants pockets.  Digging into his wallet, he clarified, "Everybody's got their own stipulations, my man.  Shoo...just booked inta town from D-C.  This better cover it."  He flashed the large denomination bill at the contraband supplier, pulling for its sufficing, since it was all the money he had left.

The grizzled, bearded man, who slurred his words when he spoke, cracked a jagged-toothed grin.  He practically ripped the money out of Langly's hand.  This loser is so new at this, he judged, with a chuckle.  "We have a buyer."

"Good," Langly hurled back, wheezily.  His heart was pounding so frantically, he was sure the dealer must be hearing its dull, erratic beat.  (Bam, am I outta practice.)  Once he had the bag of coke in his possession, he asked, realizing that after he had, he'd sounded sorely green, like one total rube, "It's pure, right?  It's rock?"

"Sure it's pure, man.  The rockiest.  I don't sell junk."

Langly smirked at that novel observation.  "Glad to hear it.  I'll tell my friends."

"Fine.  You do that..."  The dealer took a step back.  "And while you're at it, you can also tell them you're under arrest!"

When Langly saw the badge, he thought he was going to faint.  His first reaction was to drop the baggie and bolt, but he squelched that impulse fast.  The moment he saw the fuzz draw his gun, he froze.  The former junkie did as officiously advised.  He remained motionless, put his hands behind the back of his neck, and waited for cuffs. Back in the 'old days,' he'd never been busted.  Never.  At least not for buying or possessing drugs.  (Sorry, Scully, I tried...)

"God, man, Langly's goin' down," Frohike moaned.  He gaped at Mulder in shocked disbelief, looking as though Langly were being led off to face a firing squad.  "His arrest record can't take this!  Whaddawe gonna do?"

"Un-bust him," Mulder blared in crispy, crackly agitation.  "Hang back, but if you see I'm not gettin' over, make like Tonto and thinka something!"  Even before he'd exited the van, his I.D. was in his hand as he sprinted to the covert arrest scene.  Frohike straggled behind.

'Thinka something?' he thought.  Yeah, but like what, man?  Provide back-up for Mulder, just in case?  Ha!  That's a questionable hot one, the rotund well-meaning man considered.  Although...he was carrying...hmm...palm myself off as Mulder's A.D. with the fake I.D.?  Well, if need be--sure!  Here was a crack time it could really come in handy.  Frohike took up a hidden position behind a copse of foliage and waited for further proceedings.

Slowing his gallop, Mulder, sounding a shade winded, trumpeted, "Officer, hold off a moment."

The policeman, still engrossed in securing Langly in the cuffs, and reciting the Miranda incantation, looked a good deal taken aback by Mulder's gangbusters arrival.  Upon finishing the preliminary detail, he tersely barked, "Who the blazes are you?."  Langly was forced to his knees, with the arrester's, again, unholstered gun fixedly drawn on the bewildered malapert who felt like a wretch, at the moment, having failed abysmally to do a special friend a good turn, and now looked as though would have THIS added to his criminal record, as well.  A real were every loyal, 'enlightened' citizens' inalienable duty; Langly's Bill of Rights...Section I., Subnumeral 2a.  "This is an arrest.  I warn you, back off."

"Yes, I can see that."  Mulder snapped up his I.D., held it out, ventured closer, while thinking, flippin' the 'word,' how I love it.  "I'm Special Agent Fox Mulder, with the F-B-I.  You're in the process of arresting one of my best undercover attaches."  Hey, it worked before, hospital-side.  Worth another ploy run.  "The Bureau has taken more than a passing interest in the drug activity near this junior high.  This is Agent R-Langly.  We had him posing as a buyer for, what we thought, were dealers.  Namely--you.  Nature of the business mistake, eh?"

"Where's his I-D, Agent...A"

"Agent Mulder.  And you are?"

"Detective Morse with the Sixty-first Precinct; Narcotics."  Narcs, Langly grimaced, can't help wantin' ta smack 'em. The snug cuffs were doing nothing to even out his blustery disposition.  Morse spirited Mulder's I.D. away.  Grunting, but satisfied, he handed it back, but reiterated, "Agent Langly's I-D?"

"Right here!"  Frohike came running.

"And who the hel--who's dis?" Morse creaked in surprise as the scurrying dash of man popped himself into the picture.

"Uh...this."  Uh, oh, Mulder'd come to the end of his bogus roster.  "He's...he's--"

"I'm the big Cahoona, Morse.  I'm their Assistant Director.  Melvin Frohike at your service."  Mulder blinked, looking whoozy.  "I'm holding Langly's I-D.  Here's mine, Detective."  Frohike produced the phoney documentation, and Mulder heaved a sigh of relief then, realizing it was going to be all right, when he saw Morse nodding.  The Gunmen, few above them.  His nose wrinkled over the anemic assonance, but the Fed grinned wide anyway.

"Looks in order," the detective decreed.

"Can we have our man?" Mulder rejoined, in renewed confidence.

"Hey, sure, boys."  Morse made quick work of giving Langly his freedom.  "Sorry, pal," he directed to the sour-looking blond.  "All in the line of...right?"

Still massaging his somewhat swollen wrists, Langly mumbled, "Next time I'll wear a sign."

"No hard feelings.  Just doin' my--our--jobs.  We brethern in law enforcement gotta stick together."  Morse pulled the paisley, bright orangy bandana off his head, wiped his sweaty right palm, stuck it out to Langly, and waited for him.

Mulder shot Langly a look of, 'aw, go ahead, make a new friend.'  The men, about the same height, shook hands, but once Langly'd extracted his from, the bear trap the detective called his hand, the reprieved one's massaging now included his throbber.  "No hard feelings," Langly finally relented in glum resignation.  Morse even whammed his back then, nearly plunging Langly down to his knees a second time.  Shaking off the clobbering, Langly edged closer to Mulder after Morse slipped him back his bill.

"So, the F-B-I's keepin' tabs on the 'Marine,' or as we in local jurisdiction call the junior high, the kiddie pharm," he addressed to Frohike, since he was the most senior of the trio, 'now,' in another way other than the usual one.

"D-E-A too," he returned, playing his part over-compensatingly well, Mulder was quick to judge.  "Is that coke from a recent bust?"

"Yes indeedy, babe," Morse corroborated, "from a stash we confiscated last Saturday night.  We raided a warehouse in Sheesphead Bay, not far from the wharves."

"Mind if we take it along with us?" Frohike solicited.  "The Bureau's conducting random surveys of drug purities throughout the lower forty-eight.  South Brooklyn makes its debut.  This testing's being conducted on a strictly hush-hush need to know basis."

By fractional seconds, Mulder found himself soundly impressed.  (You go, boy--you got wicked game.)

Morse grinned, in full possession of his comport badge.  "Sure thing, A-D Frohike.  Your drift, I get."

"It's pronounced:  Fro-'hickey.'  Like the red mark; not a trek."

Mulder rolled his eyes though, to caution his bordering-on-the-overbearing friend.  Coupled with a brief scowl, his visage advised Frohike to stop laying it on so thick.  Mulder thanked the detective as he handed off the dope to him.

"Put in a good word for me to Miz Reno," Morse dangled in shameless good nature.  "I once nursed aspirations of being a G-man.  Couldn't cut it though.  Quantico kissed-me-off fast."

"Your mouth to her ears, Detective," Mulder reciprocated. They watched the undercover cop meander off to the playground, a scant thirty yards off.  Judging that Morse was far enough away, but feeling it to be the course of wisdom to do so anyway, Mulder whispered.  "Good goin', Frohike.  Being an eyewitness to that strain of quick thinkin' on your feet makes amends for the any number of times I've had my doubts about...well, let's just say doubts.  Let me get a good look at your bogus handiwork."  Following a moment of careful inspection, "These look better than my real McCoy.  I'm glad you guys are on my side."

"Your's and Scully's," Frohike reminded.

"Natch.  That's what I meant."

"Hey, Mulder," Langly spoke up then, as the absorbed agent inspected the fake I.D.s again, "uh, like thanks, man.  Thanks for savin' my sorry keister, major big time.  That narc had me goin'."  Clearing his throat further, keeping a bead on Morse until he saw him get into an unmarked car at curbside, and taking his time about meeting Mulder's gaze, he tacked on, "I owe ya a serious one."  And then, both to Frohike's and Mulder's tangible amazement, he concluded, "You too 'Hike...like, who'd've thought some of YOURS would actually fool somebody one of these days?..." 

"You're welcome, Langly."  Frohike faked backhanding his comrade.  "I think."  Needling him with his expression, he added, "Just don't come down with convenient amnesia next time *I* need the favor."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~
End

 

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