The helicopter rose through the snowstorm as if it had a personal bone to pick with gravity.
Below them, the Hart Chalet slowly vanished into the white. At first, the windows were still visible, warm and golden amongst the fir trees. Then just a pale speck. Then nothing but snow, night and the dull thud of the rotors.
Jennifer and Jonathan sat up front, wearing headphones, close enough together on the fur-lined seats that, despite the noise and seatbelts, they looked like a married couple who could weather even turbulence with social grace. Behind them sat Dana and Fox. Dana had her hands folded in her lap, but her eyes were open. Fox looked out of the side window as if he could make out government shadows amongst the snowflakes.
“Toolidle isn’t with the police anymore,” Dana said, raising her voice against the noise of the rotors.
Fox didn’t turn to her. “No.”
“And you didn’t even try to look surprised.”
The helicopter dipped briefly, then steadied itself. Jennifer looked back over her shoulder, smiled reassuringly, and then turned back to Jonathan. The Harts had the rare gift of appearing, even in a turbulent helicopter, as though they were merely on their way to a somewhat taxing reception.
Dana pulled her coat tighter. “A man dies on the ice. A tournament doctor with links to old sports programmes flees, is caught, talks about Langley, and then disappears into the hands of men whom no one officially claims to have seen.”
“That’s the neat summary.”
“Quicksand,” said Scully. “That’s the summary where I still pretend there’s a file we’re allowed to write.”
Fox looked at her now. “So you also believe that Toolidle wasn’t just a doctor with a poor sense of when to run.”
“I believe he was protected for years. Perhaps by several parties. Franklin used to be Frantzusov, the man who sold us Soviet sports secrets. If Toolidle really did work for an American agency, then Franklin wasn’t his victim, but an accomplice.”
“And risks are managed.”
“Or eliminated.”
Fox didn’t smile. “You sound almost like me today.”
Dana looked out of the window. Outside, there was nothing but white and darkness. “Sometimes I think it would be nice just to head south. Somewhere without snow, without halls, without old men with files, and without government agencies that make corpses vanish before the coffee goes cold.”
“Buchanan,” Fox said immediately.
Dana slowly turned her head towards him. “What?”
“Liberia. Buchanan. There’s an X-File there.”
“Are you making that up on the spot?”
“Mutant mangrove lizards.”
Dana stared at him.
“You said ‘south’.”
“I meant ‘sun’.”
“Mangroves need sun.”
“Mulder.”
“There are reports of amphibious reptiles with unusual regenerative behaviour in coastal mangroves. Several fishermen claim the animals have changed after injuries, becoming more aggressive and venomous. One says they’ve learnt to avoid boats.”
“That sounds like a very sensible fisherman.”
“Or like an evolutionary response to illegally dumped chemical waste from a major construction site for some news studio.”
Dana closed her eyes briefly. “And of course we’re getting the business trip to Buchanan so our colleagues in Indianapolis can have some peace from us again?”
“Either by ship or airship, depending on the financial situation.”
“Airship?”
“Only if we’re very well-behaved; after all, it costs twice as much as the boat trip across the Atlantic.”
Fox’s phone rang.
In the enclosed noise of the helicopter, the ring was barely audible, but both reacted immediately. Fox looked at the device: no number.
Dana looked at him.
Fox picked up the receiver, put on the headset and listened. “Mulder.”
His expression didn’t change much. But enough for Dana to sit up. A voice on the other end spoke without a greeting.
“Is Agent Scully out of earshot?”
“She’s sitting next to me in the helicopter, but the noise should shield our conversation,” said Fox.
A pause. Dana turned her face towards the other window.
Then the voice, cool, dry, almost disappointed: “Helicopter? So you’re travelling with the Harts? I thought,” said the Cancer Candidate, “that after this long evening, you deserved at least a little reassurance, Agent Mulder. Dr Toolidle will do no more harm. Neither to people nor to the state.”
Fox kept his eyes on Dana, who was looking out of the other window. “That sounds less like justice and more like a stock-take.”
“Justice is for rooms with protocols. Tonight we were dealing with stability.”
“Where is he?”
“No longer under your jurisdiction.”
“He was never under my jurisdiction, was he?”
There was a brief gasp on the other end, probably smoke.
“Franklin was an old weakness. Toolidle an old carelessness. Both have been corrected.”
The voice remained calm. “Agent Mulder, don’t tell Agent Scully anything that will force her to scratch at the wrong door.”
Fox said, “You know that won’t work; Dr Scully does what she thinks is right—Catholic private school, you know.”
Fox looked out of the window. Snow was pelting against the glass. “What was on the microfilm in the trophy?”
A pause.
“You won’t get a report. No names of the Soviet collaborators or our buyers. Don’t be childish! You’ll get what constitutes the maximum mercy in your position: the result.”
“Toolidle is dead?”
The helicopter vibrated. For a moment, there was only the noise of the rotors. At the other end, the man with cancer said: “The matter is closed. And you’d do well to be satisfied with this rare form of closure.”
“Franklin too? Was that a correction too?”
“Franklin was too talkative, too desperate and too poor. A dangerous combination.”
“You’re letting Toolidle take the blame and burning the rest.”
“You like to demand the truth when stability would have sufficed. That is both your greatest flaw and your most likeable trait.”
“I didn’t know you had any likes.”
“I don’t collect them. I just recognise them occasionally.”
Fox looked at Dana. She hadn’t understood a word, but she realised it was the Cancer Candidate.
The voice grew colder. “There’s been enough pain tonight. Consider it an unusual gesture that there isn’t any more left.”
Fox said quickly, “Who picked up Toolidle?”
“Someone who solved a problem calmly and coolly.”
“Alex Krycek?”
Then the Cancer Candidate hung up. Fox held the phone to his ear for a moment longer. Then he let it drop.
Scully said very quietly: “Toolidle’s dead?”
“Yes.”
“Extrajudicially?”
“Put out of action, he called it.”
“And you?”
Fox looked at her. “Murdered. They probably froze him alive in a block of ice right there in the ice rink.”
Dana leaned back. Her face was calm, but her eyes were not. “And the microfilm from the trophy that Franklin was going to use to blackmail Toolidle?”
“Destroyed, I suppose.”
“Along with everything else Franklin might have been able to prove.”
“Perhaps not everything.”
“Mulder.”
“I know.”
She was silent for a moment. Then she looked forward at Jennifer and Jonathan. Jonathan was holding her hand.
Dana said to Jennifer, “She’s just provided Shane and Ilya with a public alibi. And in the meantime, the only living suspect has been removed from the case.”
“That’s the difference between glamour and government,” said Fox. “Glamour at least sometimes saves the wrong people for the right reasons.”
“And government?”
“Saves the files.”
Dana looked out into the storm again. “This isn’t going to be an X-File.”
Fox slipped the phone back into his coat pocket. “No. Not officially.”
“And Buchanan?”
“Mutant mangrove lizards rarely wait for official authorisation.”
Dana exhaled.
“Fox.”
He paused. It was rare for her to say his first name in that tone.
“What?”
“If Toolidle is dead, then Franklin might not be the last victim of the evening.”
Fox looked ahead, towards the Harts. Then back into the night, towards the chalet that had long since vanished into the snow.
“No,” he said. “But perhaps Jennifer prevented the next two on the list from being killed.”
Dana said nothing more.
The helicopter continued flying through the snow towards Springfield.
Volume 1: Ice, Blood and Old Debts
Following
Table of Contents
Black Reef in the light of the chandelier Dutch tea from yesterday Frozen masks from Cartagena The trophy with the boar's heads Shanes misunderstanding Ilyas misunderstanding Two minutes of Hart-escape Brothers in the corridor A timetable under the spotlight It all comes down to the ice The Fall After the stretcher Four captains and their stories A quadrille against the panic The table of suspects Two half-brothers with three motives Rozanov under suspicion Almost the truth Trophies of past guilt A better decision Snow on the files Departure through White The south awaits Honest tea for tomorrowDeparture through White
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by 3 Armored Kittens · Prodromos v.1.1 - World Anvil 0.9.15.049 © 2017-2025 [en] | Anvil Time: 01:43, May 16 2026