"It was a deadly virus spread by deer mice in the Southwest U.S. several years ago."

"And are you familiar with FEMA? What the Federal Emergency Management Agency's real power is?"

Mulder raised his eyebrows, waiting to hear how this was all going to fit. Kurtzweil went on quickly,

"FEMA allows the White House to suspend constitutional government upon dec-laration of a national emergency. It allows the creation of a non-elected government. Think about that, Agent Mulder."

Mulder thought. Kurtzweil's voice rose slightly, knowing he finally had an audience. "What is an agency with such broad sweeping power doing managing a small viral outbreak in suburban Texas?"

"Are you saying," Mulder said slowly, "that it wasn't a small outbreak?"

Kurtzweil's expression looked positively feverish. "I'm saying it wasn't the Hanta virus."

From the street came the sudden yo<wp of a siren. The two men started, then backed more tightly against the damp brick walls as a police car cruised slowly down the street. When it was gone, Mulder hissed, "What was it?"

Kurtzweil stared at his hands, finally said, "When we were young men in the military, your father and I were recruited for a project. They told us it was biological warfare. A virus. There were… rumors…

about its origins."

Mulder shook his head impatiently. "What killed those men?"

"What killed them I won't even write about," Kurtzweil exploded. "I tell you, they'd do more than just harass me. They have the future to protect."

Mulder regarded him coolly. "I'll know soon enough."

But Kurtzweil was too worked up to hear him. "What killed those men can't be identified in simple medical terms," he went on heatedly. "My god, we can't even wrap our minds around something as obvious as HIV! We have no con-text for what killed those men, or any apprecia-tion of the scale in which it will be unleashed in the future. Of how it will be transmitted, of the environmental factors involved…"

"A plague?"

"The plague to end all plagues, Agent Mulder," whispered Kurtzweil. "A silent weapon for a quiet war. The systematic release of an indiscriminate organism for which the men who bring it on still have no cure. They've been working on this for fifty years—" He punched the air for emphasis. "—while the rest of the world was fighting gooks and commies, these men have been secretly negotiating a planned Arma-geddon."

Mulder frowned. "Negotiating with whom?"

"I think you know." Kurtzweil's mouth grew tight. "The timetable has been set. It will hap-pen on a holiday, when people are away from their homes. When our elected officials are at their resorts or out of the country. The President will declare a state of emergency, at which time all federal agencies, all govern-ment, will come under the power of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.

"FEMA, Agent Mulder. The secret govern-ment."

Mulder whistled. "And they tell me I'm paranoid."

Kurtzweil shook his head fiercely. "Some-thing's gone wrong—something unanticipated. Go back to Dallas and dig, Agent Mulder. Or we're only going to find out like the rest of the country—when it's too late."

The older man shoved his hands into his pockets, turned, and walked quickly down the alley. Mulder stared after him, torn between annoyance, disbelief, and his own suspicions that Kurtzweil might well be on to something. Finally he called, "How can I reach you?"

"You can't," Kurtzweil replied without looking back. Mulder ran to catch up with him, pulling out his cell phone.

"Here—" he said breathlessly. Kurtzweil halted and stared at him. His eyes were wide, and for the first time Mulder recognized in the doctor's face that blend of fanaticism and fear that marked true and intense paranoia. He forced the cell phone into Kurtzweil's hand, then shook a finger at him.

"No calling Hawaii."

Mulder made his way in silence back to the leaden expanse of Connecticut Avenue.

BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL BETHESDA. MARYLAND

Dana Scully was so involved with her autopsy of the fireman that she almost didn't hear the brisk tread in the hallway and, moments later, the ominous click of a door opening. She whipped around, eyes wide above her surgical mask. Vague figures moved behind a frosted glass window: she recognized the young guard she and Mulder had scammed in the hallway, and two others wearing the uniform of military police. Without a sound she yanked the sheet back over the fireman's corpse, then darted across the laboratory to the freezer door.

She opened it as quickly and quietly as she could, slipped inside the frigid room, and shut the heavy metal door behind her. She winced as it clicked shut. Faint voices rose in the next room and she tensed, holding her breath as she tried to hear what they were saying.

"… said they had clearance from General McAddie …"

Abruptly the cloistered quiet of the freezer was broken by the chirping of her cell phone. Scully patted frantically at her coat, trying to silence it before it rang again. Before it could ring a second time she palmed the phone and hit the ON button.

"Scully… ?"

She crouched behind the door, her breath-ing quick and shallow, terrified that the guard was about to burst in. Mulder's voice came again from the phone. "Scully?"

She drew it slowly to her face. "Yeah," she said in a hoarse whisper.

"Why are you whispering?" Behind him she could hear the sounds of intermittent traffic, the bleat of a passing radio; he was at a pay phone.

"I can't really talk right now," she said, star-ing up at the door.

"What did you find?"

She took a breath. "Evidence of a massive infection."

"What kind of infection."

"I don't know."

Near silence in which she could hear static, the roar of a bus. Finally Mulder said, "Scully. Listen to me. I'm going home, then I'm booking a flight to Dallas. I'm getting you a ticket, top."

" Mulder—"

"I need you there with me," he went on quickly, not giving her the chance to argue. "I need your expertise on this. The bomb we found was meant to destroy those bodies and whatever they were infected by."

She shook her head. "I've got a hearing tomorrow—"

"I'll have you back for it, Scully, I promise. Maybe with evidence that could blow your hearing away."

"Mulder, I can't," Scully's voice rose. She bit her lip, angry and fearful of discovery. "I'm already way past the point of common sense here—"

Sudden voices sounded from the other side of the door. Without a "good-bye," Scully punched the phone off and shoved it into a pocket. Then she slid across the floor, ducking beneath one of the gurneys.

She pressed herself back as far as she could go and held her breath as the door to the freezer opened.

Footsteps. From where she was hidden Scully could see the guard's carefully buffed regulation-issue shoes pass within inches of her face. Two other pairs of feet followed, as the MPs crossed the freezer room, their steps echo-ing loudly on the linoleum floor. It was cold enough that Scully's entire body began to shake. She gritted her teeth, the gurney's metal shelf pressing against her back like a blade.

At the far wall the MPs hesitated. Scully watched as first one and then another stood on tiptoe. There was the bang of a steel cabinet being opened and closed; then the MPs turned and went back to the door, the naval guard behind them. He had just passed the gurney where she huddled when abruptly he stopped. Scully held her breath, heart pounding; she could have grabbed him by the ankle if she wanted to.