The Spider and the FBI: Part 3 "Without Ever Knowing the Way"
"Without Ever Knowing the Way"
Part III of "The Spider and the FBI"
by PR Chung
I-84
BFE, Wyoming
Friday, July 2nd
6:47 a.m.
"Shit! Piss! Damn it!"
This was not the usual manner in which Fox Mulder greeted the breaking dawn light, except when forced to the shoulder of the road by a knocking, failing rental car.
Steering the faltering vehicle to the side of the road he sat there watching the sunrise wondering if he should get out and look at the engine; he didn't know what good he could do, he wasn't much on mechanical tinkering. At least he had to try, it was the least he could do to maintain some sense of dignity for his gender, even if no one knew he had tried.
Shrouded in the saffron predawn light Mulder stood before the daunting spectacle of American engineering, feeling intimidated, incompetent, and doomed. Oxford had not offered a shop class, not that he would have taken it if they had, and his father hadn't been the type to pass down the traditional patriarchal knowledge of car mechanics either.
He glanced around at the nothingness- hills, mountains in the distance, deserted road to the right, deserted road to the left-- Squinting back and forth across the landscape and down the road again. He couldn’t help but wonder what the hell was he going to do?
Out of habit he had reached for his absent cell phone half a dozen times before spotting headlights on the western horizon. They grew closer, coming into view as a semi-trailer truck, then passed up the motioning federal agent like a speeding freight train.
Mulder coughed and hacked away the dust blown up into his face by the truck. Wiping his eyes he didn't see the car immediately behind the truck. It stopped a few yards ahead of him across the road, hesitating a long moment before it began backing up slowly.
He stifled his coughing, cautiously eyeing the car, expecting the unexpected as it stopped directly across from him.
It was an early model Mustang hard top with Idaho plates, maybe a 69', the blue body paint fading and the white vinyl top yellowing with age. The windows were rolled down, and he could see two young women smiling back at him.
The fare skinned redhead behind the wheel had her long curly hair pulled back into a loose, carefree bun and wore horn-rimmed glasses, while the lightly tanned brunette passenger's hair was bobbed and far too short to pull back except behind her ears.
"Are those Bugle Boy pants you're wearing?" The redhead called across the road to Mulder.
He glanced down briefly. "If I say no, are you going to drive off leaving me in a cloud of dust?"
The two women swapped playful grins.
"I won't let her." The brunette called back.
"You got help coming yet?" The redhead questioned him.
He glanced toward the open hood. "No, but after I set it on fire and make smoke signals help should come."
The two glanced at each other as if communicating telepathically.
The brunette leaned forward to look at him. "You're not a serial killer or something are you?"
Mulder laughed. "No. Are you?"
"I'm not, but I'm not too sure about her." She jabbed a thumb toward the driver grinning. Then, she called to him again, "you want to get breakfast?"
*******************************
The Chugwater Inn
Chugwater, Wyoming
7:15 a.m.
Feeling relatively restored, Dana Scully opened her motel room door to a crisp, bright morning. The air was cool and still fresh with the smell of the overnight storm. It had sounded like quite a violent storm in the distance, and probably had been rather severe to the west, but only a moderate amount of rain had fallen over the motel for half an hour or so, helping sooth her restlessness and lull her back to sleep.
Closing the door, she scanned the parking lot taking a deep breath of the clean air, noticing a couple packing up their car across the way. The man appeared older than the woman did, but not by a great deal Scully noted as she watched them exchanging chat and laughing briefly, working together loading bags and rearranging the miscellaneous necessities of road travel in their vehicle.
What was their story? She wondered for a moment, setting aside her instinctive deduction fine-tuned by so many years of analyzing and observing. How had they met, she wondered, through friends, relatives, perhaps a crowded bar had set the scene, or maybe a business meeting? Perhaps some peculiar incident in a park or along a busy street? Something common or the likes of a light-hearted comedy-romance film...?
After a few minutes, the couple took a step back to scrutinize their work then kissed as though rewarding one another for a job well done.
Scully lowered her eyes from the private scene, feeling a stitch of sadness as she started toward the next room.
Just a few feet before she reached the door of Skinner and Bernstein's room she stopped as it opened suddenly. Travel bags in hand Skinner came out, stopping when he saw her standing there.
They looked at each other as though silently asking just what the hell had occurred last night. Was he angry with her? Was she angry with him?
No, she thought. Irritated maybe, but not mad. There were more than a few times when she had truly hated him, but anymore she could remain angry with him only very briefly and even then, it was more hurt than anger.
"Good morning, sir." She greeted him quietly, taken back some by his attire; a navy pocket polo shirt, jeans and navy wind breaker were a striking contrast from the definitive FBI uniform of a starched shirt, suit and tie she was so accustomed to seeing him in.
Skinner dipped his head. "Scully," he replied and appeared to be appraising her clothing as well. She too had dressed more casually than she had been the last few days; navy slacks and a baby blue cotton knit blouse rather than the two suits she'd been alternating between since Tuesday.
"I guess I should have thought to bring something more casual myself." He commented finally then nodded toward the bag in her hand. "Packed and ready?"
"Yes, I was just coming over to get the car keys."
"Good," he grunted starting toward their rental car. "My assistant just sent information on the man Mulder has in custody to the Albany County Sheriff's department."
"She did?" She questioned following him, puzzled. "How did...?
"Mulder copied my office with what came back on the prints and photo," he explained popping the trunk open.
"Who is he?"
"Steven Machenko, an ex-cop out of Pittsburgh, wanted for the disappearance of four people in three states." He announced taking her bag and putting it in the trunk. "And currently running with one Lawrence Martin Gryzwac according to Mulder. He picked Gryzwac out of a group of mug shots of those Machenko had been associated with in the past as the man who got away."
"Gryzwac?" She repeated. "The same man under suspicion for the disappearance of a witness in the DiGiovanni trial last year?"
"The same. And also suspected of the disappearances of several other federal witnesses who choose not to take protection from the bureau." He shut the trunk and looked at her. "We've got to get off the open road with this guy, we're nothing but moving targets."
Scully glanced around their surroundings. thinking. "Perhaps we can persuade Bernstein to be sedated for air travel. Stressing the reality of his life being in immediate danger we can avoid the issue of infringing on his rights. "
"The only rights anyone's going to be concerned about are last rights if we don't do something and fast." Skinner declared. He took the eye drops from his jacket pocket he’d taken from Bernstein and handed them to her.
Scully frowned at the small half empty bottle he had just placed in the palm of her hand. "What's this for?"
"You're in charge of Bernstein's pharmaceutical needs from here on out."
"All right, but..."
"I have a feeling it wasn't a stomach virus Mulder picked up."
***********************************
Wet? Gooey? What was this...? What's that rushing sound? I'm moving. I'm in a vehicle, but I'm not driving. Scully?
With a thousand questions in his mind at once, Mulder awoke to find his cheek resting in a pool of his own saliva and a wicked wind whipping at his face and hair. Next he was aware of being on his side, lying on a vinyl bench seat and staring at the back of another, only this one was a bucket seat- the fading black vinyl covered in smudges of dirt, the sort of marks gone unnoticed and uncleaned by those who rarely got in the back seat of their own car.
Wiping his face, he pushed himself up slowly, seeing the back of two heads coming into view- chocolate and cinnamon tendrils swimming in the wind.
"Hey there, sleepy head," Sally driving said looking back at him through the rearview mirror.
The brunette twisted in her seat throwing an arm over the headrest gazing closely at Mulder.
He vaguely recalled the introductions that had been made once he'd crawled into the back seat... how long ago? Good God, hadn't they reached civilization yet? How long had he been asleep?
"Or should that be sleepy-fed, G-man?" The brunette playfully questioned him.
He offered a thin-lipped smile. "I must have dozed off, sorry about that."
"No problem." she said and mirrored his smile, her eyes flickering devilishly.
He glanced at his wrist to look at the time, but his watch was in his bag, and it didn't much matter because it wasn't working.
"Uh," he began, glancing around at the sun-drenched landscape rushing past the open windows. "How long have I been asleep?"
The brunette shrugged and looked at the driver.
"A little while." The redhead answered, grinning.
Mulder nodded, beginning to feel odd about his decision to accept the ride.
The two of them seemed harmless enough, coming from St. Anthony, Idaho on their first fledged road trip, heading to an Uncle's Fourth of July celebration in Cheyenne. They seemed like two free-spirited young women who enjoyed getting away just as much as the next guy... But Mulder wasn't that next guy, he had business to take care of.
Inconspicuously he pressed his arm against his side making sure his gun was still securely in place. Relieved, he felt the solid metal pressing between his arm and his ribs.
"Um," he racked his brain for the redhead's name, plucking it up out of a sleepy notch still lingering in his mind, "Mary... Lou, uh, how long until we get to... to the next town?"
"Not long," the brunette answered turning back to face forward in her seat. She bent forward and Mulder could hear her rummaging through what sounded like plastic cases. Tapes, he thought as she straightened and put a cassette into the player. "Maybe twenty minutes."
He nodded to himself, wondering if he'd gotten the names mixed up earlier. "Uh, Sally," he tested the name on the redhead, "what’s the next town?"
"Didn't the sign say something like Jacob's Notch?" Again, it was the brunette who responded to his question.
"Yeah, that's it. Jacob's Notch." Sally answered glancing back at him through the rear-view mirror, jade green eyes just visible over the top of her horn rims.
Mulder rolled the name over in his head a few times studying the roadside and expansive landscape. He didn't recall seeing a town with that name on his maps, how big-- or rather, how small- was this place? Would he be able to get another car there or would he have to make further arrangements to get to yet another town for a car?
"We're not on the interstate anymore." Mulder realized aloud. Neither of the women responded.
"Why did you leave the interstate?" He asked.
"Jacob's Notch was closer than anything on the interstate." Sally finally answered but Mulder knew that couldn't be true, but as long as they got into a town with a phone soon, he was fine with this little side trip.
***********************************
Jacob's Notch.
It wasn't quite what Mulder had hoped for; downtown consisted of two buildings on either side of a gravel covered road that was barely wide enough to fit two cars side by side. The post office, a tiny slat-board house to their left, was white-washed and startling bright set against the blue sky, while the general store, a slightly larger slat-board building to their right, was in varying states of disrepair.
Mulder noticed an old-style phone booth set away from the general store, a black cable running directly to it from a telephone pole along the road.
"Hey, look, they serve home style breakfasts," one of the women exclaimed as they pulled off the road into the parking lot.
"Jesus," the other replied, "what, do you have to eat standing up?"
Mulder didn't care if he had to eat standing on his head as long as he had some food in him and the use of a phone.
"How far back did you pick me up?" he asked as he climbed past the front seat and out into the blaze of daylight.
Marylou and Sally looked at each other over the top of the Mustang.
"Fifteen or twenty miles?" He asked. "I'll need to tell the rental agency so they can tow the car."
"Um," said Sally, or was she Marylou?
"Well, uh," said the other.
Mulder jutted his jaw out at them. "Thirty?"
Marylou opened her mouth, but the redhead spoke first. "I think it's closer to maybe ninety-five miles."
"Ninety-five? How long was I asleep?" He exclaimed.
"Well, I think it's really closer to about a hundred and twenty-five." Marylou adjusted the total mileage between him and his rental car.
Mulder pulled his mouth in tight against the volley of curses he was on the verge of shouting at them. Hands on hips he lowered his head shaking it. "I knew we were off the interstate," he told them after a second of composed consideration. "But how the hell far off the interstate did you take me?" His voice rose in volume as he brought his head up.
"Well, duh, I just told you,” Marylou rolled her eyes, "about a hundred and twenty-five miles."
"North? South? And why?"
The redhead shook her head then cocked it to the side. "Some thanks that is for picking your butt up off the road."
"You never said where exactly you were going, you know." The other one told him.
Mulder shook his head and focused on his shoes for a moment, collecting his thoughts. God help me, I hitched a ride with Romy and Michelle. "North or South, ladies?"
"North." The redhead answered, snatching her purse out of the car, and slinging it over one shoulder. "Highway 220."
"Just off of highway 287." The other one added.
"Thank you," he said with amazing control and started for the phone booth.
"Don't expect us to buy your breakfast now." The redhead yelled at him stomping toward the general store.
"I'll save you a seat." He heard Marylou call back to him before he shut the phone booth door.
He watched her trot off after her friend, unintentionally noticing the sway of her hips and the contours of her bare legs seeing how her cut-offs didn't leave a great deal to the imagination.
"No, no, no," he warned himself, and jerked the phone receiver up to his ear.
Silence.
“No, come on,” Mulder flipped the receiver tab several times and listened intently.
Silence.
The phone was dead. Beyond pissed, Mulder slammed the receiver down and tried to jerk the phone booth open. The door resisted, jammed, the hinges caked with ages of dirt. He fought with the door a second or two before he freed himself and started for the general store, having only more trouble with that door as well; pulling instead of pushing as the faded sign announced on the dusty glass.
Pushing through the door he immediately heard a crash, then saw a chaotic spill of cans at his feet, flowing from behind the door. He craned his head around seeing that he'd hit a shelf that was far too close to the door.
"Easy there," he heard someone warn. Turning his eyes up seeing Marylou coming through a jumble of shelves and barrels jamming the small confines of this store. "This place is even smaller on the inside than it looks on the outside."
"I had no idea..." he tried to explain kneeling to pick up the spill.
"We almost did it too," she told him kneeling as well.
"What in the hell is going on out there?!" It was like the voice of God raging from somewhere beyond the cluttered cracker box of a store.
Mulder, with his arms full of canned meats and soups, looked up to see a man who looked as old as God emerging from the clutter of shelves. He glared down at the two of them, and Mulder was convinced if the man had the power to smite them, he would have.
"Always in a damn hurry," he declared with a stereotypical grouchiness of a storeowner in a small town. "Never looking at what you're doing or where you're going."
"Okay, Yoda," Mulder mumbled then lifted his tone to be heard, "I'm sorry. I didn't realize the door... was so close to the shelves."
"We'll get all this back on the shelf for you, sir." Marylou assured the old man.
"Well, hell, that's fine and dandy but shut that damn door while you're at it," he reprimanded, "you think electricity grows on trees."
"Oh, not at all," she answered motioning Mulder to let the door shut.
Moving aside Mulder fumbled a few cans that hit the floor rolling. The old man looked at this and grunted disapprovingly before he turned to go back to what he'd been doing.
"That was a quick phone call," Marylou said helping pile cans into Mulder's arms.
"The phone doesn't work." He told her.
"None of the phones are working!" The old man's voice boomed from in the back. Apparently his hearing was in perfect, if not above average condition.
"The storm knocked them out last night." It was Sally. She was standing over the top of them, hands on hips, her mouth screwed up to one side derisively.
"The storm knocked them out last night." The old man repeated her. "Swoll up the river and knocked out the Battle Creek bridge, made a damn mess of everything all the way down to Laramie from what I heard on the radio."
Marylou looked at Mulder, her eyes etched with genuine sympathy. "We'll get you to a working phone, I promise."
*****************************
Route 34 North
Albany County, Wyoming
8:17 a.m.
"How long would the flight be?"
"Two and a half hours at the most," Scully assured Bernstein over the back of the seat. He looked pale, truly torn by the idea of being killed and flying on a plane. "With the sedative, I promise you'll be half asleep before we even get you on board."
"You know this is coercion, don't you?" The man told her nervously looking out the window.
"If that's the way you see it, then fine," she replied, tired of trying to be decent with him. She had been as easy about it as she could since they had put him in the car; gingerly working his confidence, being honest and patient. "We, as agents of federal government, are fully within our rights to do whatever is necessary to keep you out of immediate harm, and if that involves administering a sedative by force then that's what I'll have to do."
"Scully," Skinner said, his voice low, cautioning.
She glanced at her superior. His expression was tense-- not an unusual thing in its self-- but he was shifting his focus between the road ahead and the side view mirror guardedly, as though watching something.
"What is it?" she asked, checking her side view mirror.
Far back on the road she saw another car, its chrome bumper gleaming in the morning sunlight.
"What?" Bernstein demanded straightening in the set. "What's the matter? Why are you so quiet?"
"Sit back and be quiet." Skinner told him.
"No. No, I won't," he jerked around in the seat looking out the back window. "We're being followed, aren't we?"
"Sit back and shut up." Scully ordered him harshly, watching the car in the side mirror. "How long has it been back there?"
"I noticed about half an hour after we left the motel. It's pacing us." Skinner announced grimly.
"You're sure?"
"Yes, I'm sure." His voice was gruff, a tinge of indignantly thrown in with the growing tension.
She should have known better than to question him on something like observation, nothing quite like interrogating your boss while he was under pressure.
"They're coming closer!" Bernstein declared, still looking out the back window.
"Get out of that window." Skinner ordered him stepping hard on the gas pedal.
The car was close enough now that Scully could see it was a large early model American made vehicle- possibly a Lincoln or Cadillac, and likely with a massive engine that would overcome their gas efficient rental easily.
"Here it comes," she announced needlessly.
Skinner already saw the car surging forward, closing the gap between the two cars rapidly. He floored the gas and the engine roared, but the six cylinders were no match for the monster eight-cylinder car racing up on them.
Bernstein ducked down in his seat while Scully braced herself, just in time. Seconds later the rental car was violently rocked forward as the larger car deliberately rear-ended it, Skinner's hands grappled with the steering wheel his teeth gnashing.
A blast sounded and instantaneously the rear window exploded, glass rained down on Bernstein and flew into the front seat, tiny chunks skipping off Skinner's head, landing in Scully hair.
"Hold on," Skinner called out jerking the steering wheel to the left, taking the car onto a side road at a harrowing speed, the mid-sized rental car fishtailing wildly as the tires hit the unpaved surface.
Narrow and winding through brush and trees the road was muddied from the previous night's rain, riddled with potholes, and definitely not meant to be traveled on at any high rate of speed.
Struggling against the violent jolting, Scully turned to look for the pursuing car; it had gone sideways on the highway trying to duplicate the crazy turn Skinner had made but was quick righting itself and following them onto the road.
They hit another rough depression in the road, the car shuddered from the impact and Bernstein bounced off the rear seat and onto the transmission hump on the floorboard yelping miserably.
Skinner felt the car suddenly veering out of his control, the rear swinging in the opposite direction that he steered. Instantly, before they could react, the car pitched off the road, sliding down a muddy incline into a thick line of brush and trees leaving the car all but resting on its side.
Knowing it would be useless to try driving the car out of this situation, Skinner unbuckled his seatbelt quickly and drew his gun, ready for the driver of the sedan was undoubtedly above them on the road they'd just come off of by now.
Scully, fighting against the fun-house-like angle they'd been placed in, unbuckled herself and drew her gun, turning then to check Bernstein. He was pressed against the passenger’s rear door, shaking his head, his knees pulled up to his chest.
"You people are going to get me killed!” He yelped at her.
"A plane ride doesn't seem so bad now, does it?” Scully huffed as she rolled down her window.
Tree branches bowed toward her, threatening to spring inside the car through the window that had been holding them back. Scully turned, leaning with her back against Skinner's for leverage as she brought her feet up and began kicking at the branches, forcing her way through the window and brush.
"Follow her,” Skinner ordered Bernstein who refused to move until the rear driver’s side window exploded into a shower of glass.
"Knock, knock!” A man's voice shouted from out of sight. "I know you hear me down there!"
Bernstein had the other window down in a heartbeat, going out headfirst, Skinner following. The three of them, federal agents, and prisoner, crouched together in the thick tangle of branches and brambles, bullets zinging past them, pinging off the car.
"I hope you took the insurance on that rental,” Gryzwac yelled.
"I can't see him,” Skinner declared searching for the shooter.
"Boy, Chief, they are gonna' be pissed when they see what you did..."
"We've gotta' get out of here." Bernstein panted darting his eyes around the area desperately seeking passage through the brush. "We have gotta' get out of here now!"
"Shut up," Scully told him harshly after a bullet whistled past her head.
She too was searching both for the shooter and an escape route, but it was Bernstein who found the way-- or least what appeared to be. The man lunged away from the cover of the car headlong into the thicket, branches snapping and cracking as he trudged away like a spooked Bull Moose.
"Bernstein, stop!" Scully shouted after him.
"Damn it!" Skinner growled sparing only a glance back over his shoulder before he returned two more rounds at their unseen assailant.
Swatting at branches and bugs Bernstein crashed through the brush with Scully gaining on him despite the constant barrage of foliage slapping at her face and tangling her feet. Panting, near hyperventilation, he burst free of the second and third growth nearly stumbling straight into a swollen churning river. Wild with anxiety Bernstein started left then right, tramping along the soggy bank.
Scully stumbled free of the snarled grove stopping short of the river before spotting Bernstein.
"Stop!" She shouted and started to aim her gun at him but stopped. There was more gunfire from behind her, only closer now than where she had left Skinner at the car. She could see movement in the thicket and hoped it was Skinner.
"Bernstein, wait..."she turned and called after the frightened man trying to follow him down the slippery bank. She saw him stop and thought for an instant he had yielded but realized he had only stopped to fan something away from his face... and quite frantically.
"Watch out!" She called seeing him pitching too near the edge of the bank.
Bernstein was ducking and fanning at the wasp-like insect buzzing dangerously close to his face, only irritating it more by smacking it with the back of his hand.
"Bernstein?" Scully called out to him just as he shouted grabbing his face with both hands. "Bernstein! No!" She exclaimed sprinting toward the man, watching him stumble off the bank and into the river.
In the seconds he was still in view Scully saw Bernstein struggling against the strong current, handicapped by his cuffed hands. Reflexively she followed the man into the water, intending to help but only to quickly realize her own need of help.
She was a good swimmer, a strong swimmer, but the current was even stronger than it had appeared, and it was all she could do to keep her head above the torrent of muddy water.
Skinner stumbled out of the undergrowth firing back in the direction he'd come, just in time to see Scully dive off the bank into the raging river. His mind reeled for a second at the sight. Her action could only mean that Bernstein had gone in...
"Damn-" the curse was cut short as a bullet whizzed past his cheek. Ducking down Skinner heard a distant call, small and desperate.
"Help...!"
His hesitation was meteoric, a quick check of the woods to make sure the coast was clear. On the run he pulled his glasses off and shoved them as deep as he could into the pocket of his shirt—
better that they should break there than while wearing them, he thought briefly before heaving himself into the swirling river.
=========================================
Continued in part 4
