Fight the Future by Chris Carter Read Free Book Online Page A

our story about the Hanta virus." The Cigarette-Smoking Man pursed his lips and stared meditatively at the figure before him, as though seeing past it to the man it had once been.
    "You'll make sure the families are taken care of financially, along with a sizable donation to the community."
    He continued to gaze at the fireman. Finally he said, "Maybe a small roadside memo-rial." Then he turned, and without another word left the chamber.

CHAPTER 6
    BETHESDA NAVAL HOSPITAL BETHESDA, MARYLAND
    Inside Walter Reed it smelled like any other hospital, disinfectant and chemical lemon, alcohol swabs and air-conditioning. But the few people Mulder and Scully passed wore navy uni-forms, not standard-issue scrubs, and the shad-owy figure eating at the end of the hallway was not a nurse but a very young man in uniform, his head bent over the Washington Post . At the sound of their footsteps he looked up, alert as though it were not 3:30 in the morning.
    "ID and floor you're visiting?" he said.
    They flashed him their FBI IDs. "We're going down to the morgue," Mulder explained.
    The guard shook his head. "That area is currently off limits to anyone other than authorized medical personnel."
    Mulder eyed him coldly. "On whose orders?"
    "General McAddie's."
    Mulder didn't miss a beat. "General Mc-Addie is who requested our coming here. We were awakened at three A.M. and told to get down here immediately."
    "I don't know anything about that." The young naval guard frowned, glancing at the clipboard on his desk.
    "Well, call General McAddie." Mulder stared impatiently down the corridor.
    "I don't have his number."
    "They can patch you in through the switchboard."
    Next to Mulder, Scully stood and gazed dis-tractedly into space. The guard bit his lip and nervously checked his watch, then picked up the phone and began flipping through a huge directory. Mulder registered outraged disbelief.
    "You don't know the switchboard number?"
    "I'm calling my CO.—"
    With a stabbing motion, Mulder reached over and pressed his finger against the phone, disconnecting it. He glared at the guard.
    "Listen, son, we don't have time to dick around here, watching you demonstrate your ignorance in the chain of command. The order came direct from General McAddie. Call him . We'll conduct our business while you confirm authorization."
    Without looking back, Mulder steered Scully past the security desk. Behind them the fresh-faced young guard tentatively picked up the phone again.
    "Why don't you go on ahead down, and I'll confirm authorization," he called after them.
    Mulder nodded curtly. "Thank you."
    They walked briskly down the corridor, only relaxing their pose when they'd turned the corner into another, more dimly lit hall-way.
    "Why is a morgue suddenly off limits on orders of a general?"
    "Guess we'll find out," Scully replied, and pointed to the entrance to the morgue.
    Inside they were met by a blast of frigid air and the dank sour odors of formaldehyde and disinfectant.
    In the cold room, row after row of gurneys stretched in ominous formation, each holding the familiar alpine landscape of a body beneath a white sheet. Scully made her way quickly down first one row and then another, glancing at IDs and dangling clipboards until she found what they had come here to find.
    "This is one of the firemen who died in Dallas?" she asked, undoing the cat's cradle of roping that bound the still form on the gurney.
    Mulder nodded. "According to this tag."
    "And you're looking for?"
    "Cause of death."
    Scully gave him a long-suffering look. "I can tell you that without even looking at him. Concussive organ failure due to proximal expo-sure to source and flying debris—"
    She dropped the roping and pulled out the autopsy chart that she found on the gurney. "This body has already been autopsied, Mulder," she explained patiently. "You can tell from the way it's been wrapped and dressed."
    Undeterred, Mulder worked to remove the sheet from the body. The first thing they