Chataqalan 6

Two hours later, having examined what seemed like every cut, scrape, and twisted ankle in the western hemisphere, Scully made her exhausted way back to their tent. She was ready for some food, a tepid shower, and about 48 hours continuous sleep, which, she thought, was starting to sound more like her motto than her desire. Instead, she found Monica with a boot raised over her head, with her intended target, the pysanky egg keyring, on the ground in front of her.

"Monica!"

Her assault interrupted, Monica looked up. "What?"

"'What!?'" Scully said. "Have you lost your mind?"

Monica shrugged. "It's possible."

"You said you were going to get that thing out of the camp," Scully admonished. "What the hell are you thinking?"

Monica scooped up the keyring and dropped down on to her cot, glaring at the object in her hand. "I've been abusing this thing for - " she glanced at her watch "- well over an hour. If it was going to do anything really interesting, I think it would have done it by now."

Scully felt herself gape at her friend. "Just how the hell hard did you hit your head?" she asked.

Monica shrugged again. "There's something in here, Dana," she said. She held keyring to her ear and shook it.

Despite herself, Scully flinched.

Oblivious to Scully's discomfort, Monica clarified, "It's some kind of liquid."

"Liquid explosive, maybe? For God's sake, I thought we established that that thing was dangerous and that we had to get it out of here."

"We did," Monica agreed. "Sort of."

Scully regularly found Monica frustrating, but she was beginning to think there was some sort of competition Monica was enrolled in, and her friend had decided she was flat-out going for the gold. "Sort of? What do you mean, sort of?"

Monica looked up. "Shhhh. Keep your voice down. You have your flashlight? Come look at this," she said, gesturing to the bruise on her arm.

Scully pulled the penlight from her pocket and peered at the spot on Monica's biceps. "What am I looking at?"

"I thought it was a bug bite, but since the swelling's started going down, it looks more like it was made by a needle."

Monica hissed as Scully probed the area. The skin around the injection site was mottled purple and blue, but clearly, it -was- an injection site. And a botched one, at that. "You're right," she agreed.

"A corpsman would have done a better job of giving a shot than this, right? Or one of the med techs?"

Scully nodded as she sat. "William would have done a better job of it."

"So Vetkova must have done it," Monica concluded. "When she grabbed my arm, somehow, Vetkova must have drugged me."

"I guess that makes sense."

Monica let out a long sigh. "Only, really, no, it doesn't make any sense. I mean, if she drugged me, why?"

"To get you out of the way, I assume."

"Out of the way of what, though?" Monica questioned. "If she knew her tent was going to explode and she wanted me gone, wouldn't she have been better off just letting me walk back into it?"

"Not if she didn't want you hurt," Scully countered. "Maybe, for some reason, she was trying to keep you out of harm's way."

"But if she didn't want to hurt me, why drug me? Why not just say, 'Hey Monica, don't go back in there, that's one of those tents that likes to blow up'?"

Scully considered the possibilities. "Maybe -- maybe she didn't know it was going to blow up," she said. "Maybe the two are unrelated. Maybe she was planning to drug you, say you'd fainted or fallen or something, and the tent blowing up was coincidental."

Monica's brows rose. "I thought we didn't believe in coincidences?"

Scully let out a long breath. "We don't," she said, massaging the back of her neck. "At the moment, however, that's all I have."

Monica looked down at the intricately decorated keyring in her palm. "I wish I knew what the hell was going on around here."

"Honestly," Scully said, "I am very very rapidly losing interest. I just want to go home, spend some time with Mulder and William, and take a long, hot bath or two."

Monica sighed. "That bath part sounds pretty good."

"Doesn't it?" Scully held out her hand, palm up. "In the meantime, we have to get that thing out of camp, Monica."

Monica nodded. "You're right." She handed it over and began putting her boot back on.

"I am," she agreed and slipped it in her pocket.

"Hello?" A voice called softly from outside their tent. "Agent Scully, Monica?"

"Hey Bobby," Monica called. "Come in."

"How you doing, Monica?" Bobby asked as entered and resealed the tent flap. "Agent Scully here told me you got banged up pretty good."

"Nah," she answered. "You should see the other guy."

"I was under the impression the other guy was a bomb," he said.

"It was." Monica gestured for him to sit in the camp chair opposite. "What's your point?"

Perez chuckled as he sat. "Good to see your sparkling wit survived intact."

"Good to see you survived at all," Monica said. "How'd the investigation go?"

Perez shrugged. "It wasn't much of an investigation. It was definitely an ambush. There were charges set in the road meant to act as landmines - hell, they might actually have been landmines, but no kind of landmines I've ever seen - but who or why, that I can't tell you from looking at a bunch of craters in a road."

"Was the site looted?" Scully asked.

"Med supplies were taken," Perez explained, "and the guns and ammo, of course. Beyond that, there wasn't much to see but a lot of twisted metal, a lot of flies and a lot of blood. It wasn't pretty."

"Did you have any trouble getting Dr. Vetkova through?" Scully asked.

Perez shook his head. "No. They'd sent a unit ahead to look for any more booby-traps, but the rest of the road was clear. Which is something, I guess."

"How is Irina?" Monica asked.

Perez sighed. "Massive trauma to the chest and abdomen, concussion, broken leg, a bunch of medical stuff I didn't quite catch. The prognosis, from what I understood, is not great."

Scully nodded. Perez's recitation of the diagnosis matched what she'd gathered from the med techs and corpsmen who'd worked on Vetkova in the camp.

Perez continued. "She regained consciousness briefly in the ambulance, then again briefly at the hospital before they took her into surgery. Which, in part, is why I'm here."

"How's that?" Monica asked.

"Both times," he explained, "she asked for you two by name."

"She did?" Monica asked, her surprise sounding genuine.

"Yes she did."

"Maybe she was just disoriented," Scully suggested. "She'd been with Monica right before the explosions began, and they had been coming to speak to me."

"I don't think so," Perez said. "She didn't say much of anything, granted, but the impression I got was that she had something important she wanted to talk to you two about. Something urgent. So, with that in mind, I've come to ask you two to come back to the hospital with me. "

"But-" Monica began her objection.

"I've already cleared it with DuFour and Castillo, and they both think it's a good idea, " he assured. "We've got an armored vehicle, two specially trained soldiers and a driver going with us. The route is as secure as it can be. And I can get you both body armor if you want it. In fact, scratch that, I'm getting you both body armor."

"You said she was in surgery, though." Scully said. "Considering her injuries, she's likely to be in there for hours."

"True," he said. "But given the fact that she was the only one who had her tent blown up, she might have some information that we could use. That we need. Since you two are the people she wants to talk to, I'd like to make that as easy as possible for her."

"Agent Perez -" Scully began.

"Please call me Bobby."

"Bobby then, we're supposed to ship out tomorrow," Scully said. "I have a family to get home to and it could be days before Dr Vetkova is fully conscious again."

"We're hoping that isn't the case," he answered. "The doctors treating her didn't think it would be. Either way, we'll fly you home at the Bureau's expense in forty-eight hours. How's that?"

"First class?" Monica asked.

"Business," he countered.

"Monica was injured in the explosion, too, " Scully reminded them. "It's probably best if she takes it easy."

"We'll put you up someplace decent in Veracruz," Perez said. "More than decent. Someplace where the beds don't need inflating. And if anything should go wrong, well, you'll be closer to the hospital, won't you?"

Monica dry scrubbed her face. "You really think she can tell us something vital?" she asked.

"I really do," Perez replied. "I don't want to order you, and I won't, but I'd really appreciate you both helping us out on this."

Monica turned to Scully. "What do you think?"

What did she think? Scully was so tired she wasn't sure she could think anymore. "I think anything that gets me one step closer to my own bed and my own bathtub is probably a good thing," she said. "I'm in."

"We're in," Monica said.

Perez smiled. "Terrific," he said, rising to his feet. "Pack your gear, since we won't be coming back."

"Right," Monica agreed.

"Our ride is up behind the mess tent," he said, unzipping the flap again. "And, oh, we should probably keep this quiet," he added. "People are jumpy enough around here without them getting some notion the rats are deserting the ship. See you shortly."

*******

Every time she wore it, Scully was reminded that, no matter what the manufacturers claimed, body armor had not been designed with the female physique in mind. Sandwiched between a sweaty slab of granite cleverly disguised as a UN peacekeeper on one side of her, and a sweaty Monica, in her own Kevlar straitjacket and with her own side-of-beef bookend on the other, Scully decided she was at least as uncomfortable as she'd ever been in any dark, full-clothed, non-life threatening situation.

"How you doing back there?" Perez called over his left shoulder.

"Swell," Monica answered. "We're just about fully marinated."

"Damned thing doesn't have any air conditioning," he said, stating the all-too-obvious. "Think we should ask for a refund at the rental desk?

The soldier next to Scully shifted in his seat, the movement underscoring how tightly the four of them were packed in. Scully tried to shift herself, but it was almost impossible, and she found she was pushed even closer to her friend. She and Monica exchanged a look, the same one, she thought, that the sardines probably exchanged as they went into the can.

"I've been wondering about something, Monica," Perez said a few moments later. "You said you and Vetkova were heading to talk to Agent Scully just before the explosions?"

"Right."

"What were you going to talk to her about?"

Monica was silent a moment. "Is this something we can discuss in mixed company?"

Perez nodded. "Absolutely."

"Oh. Okay, well, Irina had some theories about the missing evidence," she said. "About who might have been taking things, destroying things, like you and I had discussed. She wanted to discuss it with Dana."

"Did she?" he responded. "Do you know who she suspected?"

"She floated a couple of possibilities past me," Monica hedged.

"Like who?"

"Well," Monica hesitated, "Dr. DuFour, for one."

"DuFour? You're kidding."

"Nope."

"Did she say why she suspected him?"

Monica shook her head. "No. I think maybe that was what she wanted to discuss with Dana."

"Interesting."

The soldier next to Scully shifted again. She was about to explain to him, in no uncertain terms, that no one over the age of two was allowed to sit in her lap without an engraved invitation, when Perez addressed her. "You have any theories, Agent Scully?"

"About Dr. DuFour? No."

"About the sabotage," he corrected. "About who might be behind it."

"I don't have a lot of data to go on," she began. "There are forty-odd people in the camp, plus civilians, soldiers -"

"But if you had to hazard a guess?"

Scully didn't like hypothesizing ahead of evidence. And she didn't like discussing this matter in, as Monica had put it, mixed company. From what Monica had said, Bobby suspected simple sabotage. He didn't know the connection between the Qetual and the Huecha they'd made, or the significance of the Huecha in the work she and Mulder were involved in. But, then again, she and Monica had been about to bring Bobby into the inner circle when all hell broke loose. And Monica trusted Bobby implicitly, which was good enough for her. "If I had to hazard a guess, I'd have two contenders. Dr. Ng-"

"Who?"

"Drew Ng," Monica supplied. "He's from Australia but he's working with Scotland Yard."

"Ah, right, I think I know who you mean," Perez said. "And who's your other candidate?"

"Vetkova," Scully answered.

"Really?" Perez half-turned in his seat. "Isn't that Interesting," he said.

"Interesting how?" Monica asked.

The soldier moved again, effectively pinning Scully's arms to her sides.

"Well," he said, "for what it's worth, I'm pretty damned sure it's not DuFour, Monica. And, Agent Scully, I'm pretty damned sure it's not Ng or Vetkova, either."

"Why are you so sure?" Monica asked.

In unison, the soldiers flanking Scully and Monica moved. Before she could tell this guy to get off of her once and for all, Scully felt a sharp stinging pain in her thigh.

"Ow!" Monica yelped beside her. "What the fuck?"

"Monie, honey, I'm pretty damned sure the Qetual infiltrator everyone's been looking for isn't one of those three," Perez said just as Scully tasted metal in the back of her throat and was slammed with sudden, debilitating dizziness, "because I'm pretty damned sure it's me."