X-Files: Trust No One

by Tim Lebbon

  “Assistant Director Skinner, how good of you to finally join us.” Tracy Malloy smiled up at him, the petite ash-blonde’s taut expression every bit as sharp-edged as his glare. “Please, have a seat.” Her tone sharpened like that of a schoolteacher finally past patience. “We’ll try not to take up too much of your time.”

  Skinner bit back an angry retort. It wouldn’t do any good. Though technically he outranked Malloy, who was only a Section Chief, when she was in pursuit of her duties she could compel obedience from anyone up to a Deputy Director. And right now, here in her office, he was in her bailiwick, not his own. If he refused, or even put up too much of a fight, she would simply go over his head to his superior, who would then order Skinner to do as he was told.

  It was ironic, Skinner admitted to himself as he sank onto the stiff-backed wooden chair across from Malloy. Most people didn’t much like the FBI. Most FBI agents didn’t much like their ADs and DDs. And those same Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors, in turn, didn’t much like Accounting. Especially during the annual budget reviews. Did that mean Accounting was as necessary in its way as the Bureau’s active field agents? Or was it just another case of “everyone has someone they’re afraid of”?

  “All right, Section Chief Malloy,” Skinner drawled, leaning back and making himself as comfortable as he could on the stiff furniture, deliberately dragging out her title to remind her of the difference in their ranks. “You got me here. What do you want?”

  Malloy studied him closely, not looking at all phased by his antics. “You know what I want, Assistant Director,” she replied. “A balanced budget, for the Bureau if nothing else. And I’ve come across a few things I’d like to discuss with you, if I might. Areas where I believe we can save substantial funds, freeing up that money for other, more vital programs and services.” There was a folder on her desk in front of her, right beside the coffee cup from some civilian accounting firm she had presumably worked at before joining the Bureau, and as Skinner watched she flicked it open and thumbed through the pages there, scanning them with a practiced eye as if speed-reading them. Skinner wasn’t fooled, however. He occasionally engaged in such theatrics himself, pretending to study a file in order to fluster an agent or look like he knew more than he did or simply to stall for time. In this case, he was absolutely certain Malloy already knew everything she wanted from this file. He also suspected, with a sinking feeling, that he knew exactly which file she was perusing.

  Sure enough, when she finally closed the file and glanced up at him again, she evoked the one name he had really hoped not to hear from her lips: “The X-Files. AD Skinner, this program has been running for several years now, with at best questionable results. Surely you’d agree that it is a waste of our time and resources, both of which are needed in dealing with actual cases?”

  Inwardly Skinner fumed, but outwardly he struggled to remain calm. “I disagree,” he declared, the words grating from between clenched teeth as he fought to keep his voice level. “That program is important, and needs to remain active.” Who put her up to this, he wondered as he studied the Section Chief. Was it the Cigarette-smoking Man? One of the others? They had always seemed content to let Mulder and Scully poke their noses into various cases around the country, presumably because none of those cases threatened them directly. Had something changed? Were the pair onto something that threatened one of those shadowy figures?

  “I see. Perhaps you can explain how it is important?” Malloy’s acerbic comment brought Skinner’s thoughts back to the present. She was watching him closely, gray eyes narrowed, and when she smiled after a moment the expression failed to soften her gaze. “I thought not.” She tapped the folder with a fingernail, which Skinner noticed was badly chewed. “In that case, we’ll expect the program to be shut down within the week and its assets reallocated.”

  What? No! Malloy was already turning to a different file, apparently considering the matter closed, when Skinner finally found his voice again. “I object,” he rasped out. “You can’t simply decide to close one of my projects just because you don’t see its worth.”

  Malloy glanced back up, frowning. “Actually, I can,” she corrected. “That’s my job.” She studied him a second longer, however, before sighing. “But if you feel strongly about it, I suppose you can argue for its continuance. I’ll need your explanation of its value, in writing. First thing in the morning.” Once again she glanced away to the stack of files waiting off to one side, and Skinner knew he’d just been dismissed as abruptly as any schoolboy. He rose to his feet, gave her a stiff nod, and turned toward the door, his mind already searching for ways to attack this new problem—and to deal with the secondary conflict it was sure to cause. It was already nearing the end of the day, the sky beginning to darken toward dusk. If he was going to come up with some sort of defense of the X-Files by tomorrow morning, he was going to be here very late indeed. And that wouldn’t make Sharon very happy.

  However, he knew there wasn’t much to be done about it—not if he wanted to protect the program and keep it running. And, although initially Skinner had considered the X-Files a strange, largely pointless, but also mostly harmless way to keep Mulder occupied, his opinion toward it had changed over the past few years. Now he recognized its value and its importance.

  The question was, how was he going to demonstrate those to Section Chief Malloy?

  *****

  KENSINGTON, MARYLAND

  THURSDAY, 7:53 p.m.

  Always the same, Malloy thought as she twisted to slip through the elevator’s still-opening doors while maintaining her grip on the stack of folders clutched in her arms. Buy an umbrella so you don’t get rained on, and the one time you forget to bring it is the time it pours. Buy a new briefcase because the old one’s handle finally fell to pieces, and the day you forget it at home is the day you’ve got to haul a metric assload of paperwork out of the office.

  She could have stayed and gone through everything at her desk, she knew. But then she’d have been here even later, with nothing to eat but another one of the granola bars she kept squirreled away in her desk. And, chances were, she’d have fallen asleep at her desk yet again, too, waking in the morning with a stiff neck and an aching back and the imprint of folders against her cheek. No, far better to bring the work home, where at least she could go through the files over Chinese take-out and a glass of wine, and then get a decent night’s sleep in her own bed before doing this all over again tomorrow.

  It was late enough that the roads were mostly empty, but Malloy kept her eyes open anyway, forcing herself to stay alert despite her fatigue as she pulled out of the parking lot, onto the highway, and toward Kensington. The Maryland suburb was quiet as she finally pulled onto her street and eased into her driveway, and the second she shut off her car, her surroundings went pitch dark. I really need to put in a light above the garage, she reminded herself again as she unbuckled, shoved the door open, hoisted the files, and began to lever herself out of the car. It was one of many things she’d wanted to do since she’d bought the house eight years ago, back when she was still at Rice & Sloan, but there just never seemed to be enough time to get around to it. Besides, at this point she was used to the dark.

  She’d hip-checked the car door shut again and was feeling her way along the short brick path to her front door when she felt the air around her change. “Hello?” she called out, trying to peer into the shadows. “Is somebody there?” No one answered, and of course she couldn’t see anything, but she couldn’t shake the feeling that she was no longer alone. It was as if the night itself had taken on shape, and that shape was a decidedly menacing one. She shivered despite the thick new leather jacket that had been an early holiday present from her sister, and tried to tell herself it was just from the cold.

  Trying to hurry, Malloy cursed as the tip of one shoe caught on a brick, twisting her ankle and sending a shock of pain up her leg. She wobbled a second, almost losing her balance, but managed to stay upright and keep hold of
the folders despite the pain. I’ll ice it once I get inside, she told herself. And now I’m definitely going to need that glass of wine.

  She was almost to the door when the darkness shifted again. It grew thicker, almost cloying, its impenetrability weighing her down. There was a sound somewhere nearby, echoing oddly through the shadows, a staccato of noise like a burst of rain hitting all at once—

  —and then the darkness came alive, a flash of light splitting it wide as pain lanced through Malloy again, this time not from her ankle but from her arm—

  —again she heard the rain, though she didn’t notice getting wet, and again there was pain, in her arm again but lower down, as she cried out and dropped the files, raising her hands to protect her face and neck from this strange, dark onslaught—

  —once more she heard the noise, the quick pattering all around her now, and this time the pain was across her chest, almost blinding in its intensity, and now Malloy did stumble, crashing to the ground with a scream that shattered against the hard bricks, to tumble weakly about her as she lay there, writhing and moaning, delirious in her agony—

  —and she thought the darkness leaned in and whispered in her ear, “in the kingdom of the blind, there are no kings” before it lashed out, its anger a palpable force that caught her at the temple and cheek and sent her consciousness winging away further into the dark, where the rest of her could not follow.

  *****

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  THURSDAY, 8:37 p.m.

  Sharon is going to kill me, Skinner thought as he finally slid into his car. By the time he’d gotten back to his own office in the Hoover building it had been nearly noon, and then he’d had to deal with the usual sorts of problems—a judge threatening to veto a wiretap and needing to be cajoled, flattered, and intimidated; a pair of agents whose bickering had come to blows and required disciplinary action but who were both too good to have their careers stalled over one incident; an inter-agency operation that required additional logistical details, some very firm rules for his people, and a few pointed reminders to the leaders of the other units so they didn’t try treating his agents like errand boys; and of course the usual update for his Deputy Director, which would then be compiled into the daily brief for the Director himself. Just the standard minutiae of running an FBI division, but the sun had already set before Skinner had cleared his plate of those tasks and could turn his attention to his latest crisis—finding a way to justify the X-Files.

  And the problem was, even after he’d retrieved some junk food and more coffee from the vending machine down the hall and sat back down at his desk, now fully ready to focus on this question, he was drawing a blank.

  It wasn’t that the X-Files didn’t have merit. He’d come to see that—though he still questioned Mulder’s methods, and even Scully’s at times, and didn’t always buy their fantastical explanations, he couldn’t argue that they often caught or at least stopped someone who had been responsible for multiple bizarre deaths. That made the program a good thing. But how did he go about explaining that? Especially to someone as numbers-driven as Section Chief Tracy Malloy? All she saw were the figures on a spreadsheet, and those figures told her that the actual number of arrests made by the X-Files unit was depressingly, almost laughably small. The spreadsheet couldn’t show that part of the reason for such a low number was that a startlingly large percentage of X-Files suspects wound up disintegrating or turning to solid stone or liquefying or being torn to pieces by wild animals or any of a thousand other bizarre deaths. And even if it had, Malloy would have laughed and told him she didn’t believe in fairy tales.

  No, to convince her that the X-Files should retain its funding he’d need to show her clear proof that it produced results.

  But proof was the one thing the X-Files never seemed to have.

  After beating his head against the proverbial wall for a few hours, Skinner had finally decided he’d had enough. He could be frustrated at home just as easily as at work, and the sooner he went home the less angry Sharon would be—it wasn’t a question of whether she’d be furious with him at this point, but just of how much of the potential eruption he could stave off. So he’d packed it in. Maybe the drive would give him a chance to come up with some miraculous solution.

  The ring of his cell phone interrupted his thoughts, however. “AD Skinner,” he answered, gripping the phone between chin and shoulder while he backed the car out of its parking space.

  “Sir, it’s Agent Hanson,” a vaguely familiar voice replied. “I’m night shift in Signals. Sorry to bother you so late, sir, but we just picked up a call from a local dispatch and thought you’d want to know. It’s Section Chief Malloy, sir. There’s been an... incident.”

  “What?” Skinner hit the brakes so he could focus on the conversation properly. “What happened? Where is she?”

  “George Washington, sir,” Hanson replied. “Ambulance just picked her up following a neighbor’s 911 call.”

  “Right. I’m en route,” Skinner barked, dropping the phone into his lap as he peeled out of the lot. He could be at George Washington in twenty minutes, maybe less. He had no idea what’d happened, but he planned to find out. Whether he liked Malloy or not, whether he was happy about what she was doing to his programs, she was still one of his.

  *****

  GEORGE WASHINGTON UNIVERSITY HOSPITAL

  WASHINGTON, D.C.

  THURSDAY, 9:06 p.m.

  “She’s in bad shape,” the doctor, a frighteningly young East Indian named Raj Palur, told Skinner a half hour later. “But she’s stable.”

  It had taken only fifteen minutes to reach the hospital, thanks to the lack of traffic, but Skinner had then been forced to spend another ten arguing with the hospital staff before they finally recognized his authority and let him up to see her. The good doctor had intercepted him on his way into her room, but that was fine because this way Skinner knew he was getting a full brief on her condition, direct from the expert.

  “What happened, exactly?” he demanded, trying not to loom over the doctor. Whatever it was, it wasn’t this man’s fault. He was the one trying to help. Unfortunately, he was also the only available outlet for Skinner’s rage at the moment, and so he had to resist the urge to grab the man and shake him to get answers more quickly.

  If Dr. Palur felt threatened at all, he didn’t show it. He was probably used to dealing with irate loved ones, Skinner realized. “She was beaten,” the doctor explained now. “Badly. With some kind of club or pipe, I would guess—the impacts were narrow but far too hard to be from flesh and blood.” He consulted the chart in his hands, though Skinner suspected that was just a prop—he was struck by the similarity to earlier today, when it had been Malloy pretending to read a file. Now it was her file that was being read. “Her right arm was fractured in two places, her rotator cuff torn in the process, and several ligaments torn or sprained as well. She took at least one blow to the chest, shattering two ribs and collapsing a lung, and a blow to the head that crushed part of her cheekbone.” He sighed and glanced up to meet Skinner’s glare. “She was lucky, however. Her coat was thick leather and helped absorb some of the impact. The broken ribs did not pierce any organs, and we were able to reinflate the lung. And the blow to the head did not fracture the skull or cause any damage to her brain, nor did it touch the eye socket or the eye itself. With time, rest, recuperation, and proper physical therapy, she should recover fully.”

  Skinner nodded. He could see Malloy in her room past the doctor, tubes snaking in and out of her, bandages wrapping her head, arm, and chest. He wasn’t sure if she was conscious or not. There was a uniformed cop sitting just outside the door, but no one in the room with her. “Has her family been notified yet?”

  “We left a message for her sister, who’s listed as her next of kin,” Dr. Palur confirmed. “No word from her yet, I believe.” He frowned up at Skinner. “If I may ask, how did you know she was here?”

  “We monitor calls for agents in distress,” S
kinner replied absently, scanning the area. Everything seemed quiet. “When her name came up on the 911 call, they called me.” He held out his hand. “Thank you, doctor. I may have more questions for you later, but right now I’d like to speak to the officer over there, and then to Ms. Malloy herself, if she’s up to it.”

  “She may be a little disconnected,” Palur warned, still frowning. “We have her on some fairly strong pain medication. But she’s mostly coherent, so I don’t see any reason you can’t speak to her.” He nodded and turned away, no doubt off to check on other patients, while Skinner made a beeline for the cop.

  “AD Skinner, FBI,” he introduced himself, displaying his badge and ID. “I’m her boss.” Which was close enough to being true—Malloy didn’t report to him, of course, but he did outrank her in the Bureau. “What can you tell me about what happened?”

  The cop, whose nametag revealed him to be Officer Severen, straightened in his chair at the sight of Skinner’s credentials. Heavyset and middle-aged, he had no doubt wanted to be a secret agent when he was younger. “Looks like a mugging gone bad,” he answered, his voice just as thick and rundown as the rest of him. “Neighbor heard her screams and called it in. By the time I was on the scene, she was out cold and nobody was around.” He shook his head. “Purse was right next to her, didn’t look like it’d been rifled, she still had her watch and earrings and necklace on, so most likely she got jumped but then something spooked the perp and he took off before he could get the goods. Either that or it was a failed home invasion, same thing—she showed up unexpectedly, startled the guy in the act of breaking in, he beat her down and then ran.”

  Skinner scowled and was pleased to see the cop’s face pale at the sight of it. A mugging gone bad? In quiet little Kensington? At her own front door? What kind of mugger was stupid enough to go after someone in their own driveway rather than targeting people coming out of the train station or walking to the store? And a home invasion? Really? If she’d startled a burglar on his way out there’d have been signs of a break-in. If she’d interrupted the thief on the way in, any halfway-intelligent crook would’ve just split before being seen. Why stay and beat her? It made no sense.