01 - Goblins by Charles Grant - (ebook by Undead) Read Free Book Online Page B

shuddered to prove her
point. “I am a doctor, Mulder. I know secret doctor things. If I’m forced to, if
he lays one more paw on me, I swear I’m going to make sure he never touches
another woman again.”
    Mulder held up a hand. “Okay, okay. I didn’t think he’d be that bad. Honest.”
He frowned. “I guess this thing about his cousin’s boyfriend shook him up more
than I thought.”
    Angrily she told him that was no excuse. It was perhaps understandable, but
it was still no excuse. When he apologized again, she allowed herself a moment
to calm down, then took the other chair and hauled her briefcase onto her lap.
    “What’s the other news?” he wanted to know, eyeing the case suspiciously.
    “Good news and bad news, actually.”
    He stared at her for so long, she thought he hadn’t heard. Then he slumped a
little in resignation and gave her his full attention.
    “The good news is, you don’t have to go to Louisiana. You can’t find the file
because Bette took it back just a few minutes ago.”
    He barely reacted, little more than a blink.
    “The other good news is, you’re still stuck with me.”
    A lopsided smile flared and vanished. “The bad news is,” he said dryly,
“we’re going to North Dakota, no bathrooms, and we have to live in a tent.”
    “Not quite.” If it wasn’t so infuriating, this whole thing would have been
laughable. “Actually, it’s New Jersey.”
    “What?”
    She looked up without raising her head. “New Jersey.”
    He frowned his puzzlement. “Why New Jersey? What—” His eyes widened in
dismay. “Oh, God, Scully, please, not the Invisible Man.”
    She unsnapped the briefcase flaps and pulled out a folder marked with a red
tab, set the case on the floor and the folder on her lap. She flipped it open
and picked up the top sheet. Only then did she nod, and waited patiently until
he had stopped muttering to himself and grunted for her to continue.
    “The—”
    “Hold it,” he said. “Wait a minute. What changed the mighty Douglas’ mind?
Yesterday it was disappearing clowns, today it’s Claude Rains. I don’t get it.
Does he really think this is an X-File?”
    Scully smiled. “I don’t know. But it seems your friend has a friend.”
    “Carl? The sports reporter Carl?” He didn’t believe it. “Carl Barelli has
friends in high places?” He shook his head slowly; wonders never ceased.
    “Not quite,” she admitted. “Angie Tonero, his cousin, has a brother. The one
who tried to dismember her soon-to-be boyfriend, remember? The brother’s name is
Major Joseph Tonero. Air Force. Temporarily attached to Medical. You’ll never
guess where he’s currently stationed.”
    Mulder didn’t bother. His expression was enough; he knew that McGuire Air
Force Base was adjacent to Fort Dix. “And Major Tonero is… ?”
    “Apparently, a very good, dear, close personal friend of the Garden State’s
junior United States senator, John Carmen.”
    Mulder clearly couldn’t decide whether to be amused or angry, and at the
moment she wasn’t inclined to give him a hand. She only nodded when he said,
“Whose office just happened to call the Director, right? Probably in the middle
of the night. Probably causing the Director to be not all that happy, which
means that when he called the mighty Douglas, our supposedly temporary Section
Head lost a lot of sleep. Which, I suppose, means he’s really pissed off.”
    “To put it mildly.” She fussed with her skirt, her hair again. “Now, granted,
we’re not supposed to be at the beck and call of individual members of Congress,
but there are budgets and there are appropriations. And the senator is a ranking
member of a couple of pretty important committees.”
    “I love this town,” Mulder groused.
    She handed over the paper. “This is the report on Frank Ulman.”
    He took it; he didn’t look at it until she stared him into it. When he was
finished, no more than a cursory glance at best, she handed him the