"This man's still alive," he said. He stared at the body before him. The skin was nearly translucent, a clear gray aspic of tissue and muscle fibers. Beneath the surface, veins and capillaries were clearly visible, pulsing slightly, blue and crimson strands threading along arms, legs, and thickening like rope at the man's neck. "This man's still alive…."

Dr. Bronschweig shrugged. "Technically and biologically. But he'll never recover."

The Cigarette-Smoking Man shook his head. "How can this be?"

"The developing organism is using his life energy, digesting bone and tissue. We've just slowed the process." He reached to grasp the swivel neck of a lamp, redirecting it so that it shone directly on the fireman's torso. Beneath the smooth spongy planes of his chest, some-thing moved.

The Cigarette-Smoking Man grimaced.

On the gurney, the body of the fireman shud-dered. A ripple seemed to race through it, the glistening translucent skin shuddering the way a sea nettle does when it flounders upon a beach. The chest heaved gently, as though something inside had moved and stretched. A closer look revealed a hand attached to what had to be an organism.

Then the darkness blinked. Just once, very slowly; and resolved itself into an eye, almond-shaped, watchful.

The Cigarette-Smoking Man gazed at it, his mind working frantically as he measured all the possibilities of what was before him, all the consequences…

"Do you want us to destroy this one, too?" Dr. Bronschweig was asking. "Before it ges-tates?"

The Cigarette-Smoking Man waited before replying. "No," he said at last. "No… we need to try out the vaccine on it."

"And if it's unsuccessful?"

"Burn it. Like the others."

Dr. Bronschweig frowned. "This man's fam-ily will want to see the body laid to rest."

The Cigarette-Smoking Man made a dis-missive gesture. "Tell them he was trying to save the young boy's life. That he died hero-ically, like the other firemen."

"Of what?"

"They seemed to buy our story about the Hanta virus." The Cigarette-Smoking Man pursed his lips and stared meditatively at the figure before him, as though seeing past it to the man it had once been.

"You'll make sure the families are taken care of financially, along with a sizable donation to the community."

He continued to gaze at the fireman. Finally he said, "Maybe a small roadside memo-rial." Then he turned, and without another word left the chamber.

CHAPTER 6

BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL BETHESDA, MARYLAND

Inside Walter Reed it smelled like any other hospital, disinfectant and chemical lemon, alcohol swabs and air-conditioning. But the few people Mulder and Scully passed wore navy uni-forms, not standard-issue scrubs, and the shad-owy figure eating at the end of the hallway was not a nurse but a very young man in uniform, his head bent over the Washington Post. At the sound of their footsteps he looked up, alert as though it were not 3:30 in the morning.

"ID and floor you're visiting?" he said.

They flashed him their FBI IDs. "We're going down to the morgue," Mulder explained.

The guard shook his head. "That area is currently off limits to anyone other than authorized medical personnel."

Mulder eyed him coldly. "On whose orders?"

"General McAddie's."

Mulder didn't miss a beat. "General Mc-Addie is who requested our coming here. We were awakened at three A.M. and told to get down here immediately."

"I don't know anything about that." The young naval guard frowned, glancing at the clipboard on his desk.

"Well, call General McAddie." Mulder stared impatiently down the corridor.

"I don't have his number."

"They can patch you in through the switchboard."

Next to Mulder, Scully stood and gazed dis-tractedly into space. The guard bit his lip and nervously checked his watch, then picked up the phone and began flipping through a huge directory. Mulder registered outraged disbelief.

"You don't know the switchboard number?"

"I'm calling my CO.—"

With a stabbing motion, Mulder reached over and pressed his finger against the phone, disconnecting it. He glared at the guard.

"Listen, son, we don't have time to dick around here, watching you demonstrate your ignorance in the chain of command. The order came direct from General McAddie. Call him. We'll conduct our business while you confirm authorization."

Without looking back, Mulder steered Scully past the security desk. Behind them the fresh-faced young guard tentatively picked up the phone again.

"Why don't you go on ahead down, and I'll confirm authorization," he called after them.

Mulder nodded curtly. "Thank you."

They walked briskly down the corridor, only relaxing their pose when they'd turned the corner into another, more dimly lit hall-way.

"Why is a morgue suddenly off limits on orders of a general?"

"Guess we'll find out," Scully replied, and pointed to the entrance to the morgue.

Inside they were met by a blast of frigid air and the dank sour odors of formaldehyde and disinfectant.

In the cold room, row after row of gurneys stretched in ominous formation, each holding the familiar alpine landscape of a body beneath a white sheet. Scully made her way quickly down first one row and then another, glancing at IDs and dangling clipboards until she found what they had come here to find.

"This is one of the firemen who died in Dallas?" she asked, undoing the cat's cradle of roping that bound the still form on the gurney.

Mulder nodded. "According to this tag."

"And you're looking for?"

"Cause of death."

Scully gave him a long-suffering look. "I can tell you that without even looking at him. Concussive organ failure due to proximal expo-sure to source and flying debris—"

She dropped the roping and pulled out the autopsy chart that she found on the gurney. "This body has already been autopsied, Mulder," she explained patiently. "You can tell from the way it's been wrapped and dressed."

Undeterred, Mulder worked to remove the sheet from the body. The first thing they saw was that it was still clad in its fireman's uni-form. One sleeve lay empty alongside the torso, and where the chest had been the uniform sank until it grazed the bottom of the gurney.

"Does this fit the description you just read me, Scully?" Mulder asked softly, as his partner circled the gurney to join him.

"Oh my god. This man's tissue—" She reached into her pocket, withdrew a pair of latex gloves, and quickly slid them on. Then she leaned and with one latex-clad finger gently pal-pated the man's chest.

"It's—it's like jelly."

She moved to gingerly touch the man's face and neck, carefully unbuttoning his uniform. "There's some kind of cellular breakdown. It's completely edematous."

Her hands expertly checked for lesions, burns, anything she might normally have found on the victim of a bombing. She peeled aside the man's shirt, shaking her head. "Mulder, there's been no autopsy performed. There's no Y incision here, no internal exam."

Mulder picked up the autopsy report and shook it. "You're telling me the cause of death on this report is false. That this man didn't die from an explosion, or from flying debris."

She took a step back from the gurney. "I don't know what killed this man. I'm not sure if anybody else could claim to, either."