Gift for ML: Threat Assessment
Title: Threat Assessment
Author: wendelah1
Fandom: The X-Files/Fringe
Rating: Gen
Warning: none
Gift for: zinnia03
Summary: Post-ep for "One Night in October." Hired as a consultant, Mulder meets with Special Agent Olivia Dunham to get some answers about John McClennan.
During all the years Mulder had worked cases for the FBI, he'd never been given a briefing packet as useless as this one. There were ten pages of text, nearly all of it blacked out. Of course, now that he was only a "consultant," he didn't see many classified files. Maybe they were all like this now.
Mulder tossed the folder onto Skinner's dining table. "You want to tell what this is really about. Because I can't see anything there that makes me think you need my skills, as a PI, a profiler, or a babysitter."
"I can't tell you anything more. The case was highly classified. They wanted eyes on the guy but he's smart. After he spotted the agents who were sitting on him, he got a lawyer. We had to call off surveillance." Skinner frowned and looked away.
"It says here he was consulting for the FBI, and got injured during the investigation. Suffered a brain injury resulting in memory loss."
"That's correct."
A bump on the head didn't normally buy someone this kind of attention. "Someone must have vetted him before he was asked to consult. What has he done since being released from the hospital that warranted this level of surveillance?"
"Nothing, at least as far as we know. I can't tell you anything more than that," Skinner said steadily.
"Well, can I at least speak with the SAC?"
Skinner hesitated. "I might be able to arrange that. Her name is Dunham. Olivia Dunham. She works out of Boston."
Boston. And this guy, Professor Whoever was in Connecticut. He'd better tell Scully he wouldn't be home for dinner. Or breakfast.
"Okay, I'm going to head out. Call me as soon as you get in touch with Agent Dunham. Tell her I'll meet her..."
"Mulder, this is off the books. You can't meet her at the field office."
"Fine. She can pick a place. Assuming I get a flight, tell her I should be there by lunchtime."
~/~/~
"The Charles Hotel?" What the heck is she doing in Cambridge? "I thought your field office was in the financial district." Mulder knew he was supposed to be discreet, but meeting several miles from her office? "I know where it is. Fine. I'll see you there." He was going to regret renting the car at the airport. Parking in that neighborhood was the worst in the city.
Before walking into the dimly lit bar, Mulder paused to observe Special Agent Olivia Dunham. She was a tall woman in her mid-thirties, pretty, with straight blond hair, wearing a dark pantsuit, immaculate white shirt, the tailored jacket buttoned up tight. She probably had a closet full of identical outfits. Her no nonsense demeanor could give Scully a run for her money.
She was sitting at the bar, nursing what looked like Scotch whiskey. A drinking lunch on a school day.
He pulled out a stool and sat down. "I'm Fox Mulder. You must be Agent Dunham."
She acknowledged him and shook his hand with a firm grip. An awkward silence ensued, interrupted by the bartender's arrival. Mulder noticed Olivia studying him covertly.
"Just a club soda for me," Mulder told the bartender. "Should we get a table?" he asked.
"Fine," she shrugged.
They moved to a small table in the back. Mulder was hungry but he had the feeling he wasn't going to be there long and his per diem would go a lot further at a McDonald's on the drive up to Danbury.
Mulder pulled the file Skinner'd given him out of his briefcase, and set it on the table in front of her. "I've read through Professor McClennan's file, what's left of it. There isn't anything here that indicates why you had him under surveillance-illegally--or why you asked for my help when you were forced to call it off."
Olivia nudged the folder back over to his side of the table, which rocked slightly from the motion. "The surveillance wasn't my idea." She took a slow sip of her whiskey.
That was interesting. "Then whose was it?"
She looked at him. "What makes you so sure the operation was illegal?"
"Because of how quickly you pulled it once he got a lawyer."
She stared down at her drink, then picked up her cocktail napkin and started twisting it.
Okay. "You did get a judge to approve it but you backed off because you didn't want to risk public exposure of whatever is hiding behind all that black ink." Mulder should have known Skinner would insist on doing it by the book. He studied her face. "You're worried I'm going to try to expose you, too."
Olivia gave him a look. "Shouldn't I be? I've read your file."
Fair enough. He'd read hers, too, what he could get access to. He knew she had started with the Marine Core Special Investigation Division right out of school, then applied to the FBI. Her career was going well until 2009; after that, it was as though she'd been sucked into a black hole.
"Then why ask me to profile this guy in the first place? And why not let me have the information I need--I have the same security clearance you do. Otherwise Skinner wouldn't have been able to let me anywhere near your case."
She shook her head. "You don't. And you don't understand. AD Skinner didn't ask for you. I did."
Now Mulder was confused. "Why? Why me?"
"Because they didn't believe me when I told them that Professor McClennan wasn't a threat. I thought they might believe you."
"I thought you said you'd read my file," Mulder said. No one believed Spooky Mulder.
"I did. I read them all, actually. The very first year I started working for this...project, I had them bring me all of the case files we had in our database, concerning incidents connected to science, biology, or unexplained phenomena."
Mulder sat back in his chair, and stared at Olivia, dumbfounded.
He tried to keep listening, but the phrases, "bring me all of the case files" and "unexplained phenomena" were now running through his brain. They'd reopened the X-Files. His life's work was taken away. He was effectively shut out, possibly forever. What was worse, colonization was still coming. He had done nothing effective to stop it. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. The date was set. He was trapped in the tower watching the sand running through the hourglass, while the winged monkeys ran amok.
Olivia was still talking. "I knew it was risky, bringing you in, but what happened to John McClennan was my fault. I was responsible for his safety. I couldn't give back what he'd lost, but at least..."
The table wobbled again, thump-thump. Mulder thought he might have kicked one of the legs accidentally. He made himself straighten up and open his eyes.
She gave her head a little shake. "...at least I could give him some peace of mind."
Mulder tried to refocus on the case. It was his turn but he couldn't find the words.
Instead he watched as Olivia studied him again, her face changing to indicate empathy in response to his obvious discomfort. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Sorry. She was sorry. He was one who'd failed. Now the whole world was going to pay the price for that failure. Fox, that's sounding a little megalomaniacal, even for you.
Mulder shook his head. "You have nothing to apologize for, I'm sure you were, are, just doing your job." He picked up his briefcase from the floor, opened it with his fingerprint and with more deliberation than necessary slipped the file folder into it.
"Aren't you afraid if they want it bad enough, someone will just take your finger along with the briefcase?" Olivia said in a deadpan tone.
Mulder narrowed his eyes a little. "You're good. In my case, they'd have an evil twin or maybe a clone waiting in the wings." That got a reaction, though not the one he was expecting. Just for a split-second, Olivia Dunham looked...haunted.
He didn't want to say the wrong thing. Whether she realized it or not, this woman and whatever government entity she was working for were all that stood between humanity and Armageddon.
"Mr. Mulder. Please wait. While I can't divulge the specifics, I do want to reassure you that the Consortium's plan, and their collusion with the alien colonists, is no longer a pressing concern."
Mulder sat back and waited. "I'm listening." Maybe stopping colonization was no longer "a pressing concern" to the FBI, but then, when was it ever?
"There isn't anything more to say. Not about that." Olivia tossed back the rest of her scotch. "Professor McClennan is another matter. Off the record, my supervisors feel they have good reason to believe that because of his injury, he may be unable to control certain...impulses."
She paused, a bit theatrically. "They're afraid he may be driven by these impulses to hurt people, even to murder."
"Wait. I know this movie. Tom Cruise. Minority Report. The three psychics floating in your swimming pool can predict who's going to commit a crime." Mulder finished his drink and grabbed his leather jacket.
Olivia put her hand on his forearm. "Please, listen to this before you decide there's no basis." She pulled out a small recorder and pressed play. John McClennan began speaking.
"I keep having this dream. I'm in a room, watching a woman who is strapped into a chair, hooked up to machinery. A man is there, he's making her tell about her happiest memories. He looks just like me. He hates her, hates that she's happy and he isn't. He plans to kill her, to kill her happiness. The thing is, I think he's really me! I'm the one who wants to kill people's happiness."
Mulder reached over and shut it off. They'd obviously intercepted a phone call-- or twenty--before they'd pulled the plug. Hell, he wouldn't put it past them to stick cameras in the guy's ceiling, though he still wasn't getting why they'd be wasting the resources. What was she holding back? "So what if he's having dreams. That's not a crime. By sharing them with his friend or therapist, he's diminishing their power over his conscious life."
"I agree with you. But there are those who feel we've already made a terrible mistake in letting this man go free. There are arguments being made that he should be locked up, put away so he can't hurt anyone."
"They can't lock someone up for a crime they might commit!" Mulder said.
"Can't they?" Olivia replied. "What about the men who've been held for years at Guantanamo Bay?"
That was just the latest abuse of government power. The Eurisko case, back when Scully first started working with him. After Brad Wickzek was taken into federal custody and "disappeared," Deep Throat had warned him. They can do anything they want. Deep Throat was right. Everywhere Mulder looked he found evidence of government corruption, their complicity in the most heinous of acts. Ordinary citizens, men, women and children, taken against their will and experimented on, like Scully and Samantha. The children created to be lab rats, to be born, to suffer and to die. Emily, and who knows how many more just like her. He'd spent years in the trenches, fighting this same battle, over and over again.
"You can help clear John McClennan," Olivia insisted.
She sounded so sure of herself. Is that how he'd sounded fifteen years ago? How many had he really saved? Not Wickzek, not the Mufon women, not even Samantha.
Only Scully.
"You're the best-and they all know that, Mr. Mulder. If you say he's not a risk, they'll believe you."
Mulder wanted to believe her, wanted to believe he could still make a difference. "Don't call me Mister. It's just Mulder. You're making me feel like an old man."
"Mulder," she agreed. Olivia frowned and began rubbing her temples.
"Are you okay?" Mulder asked.
"Yeah, it's just a headache. Migraine. I've been getting them a lot lately, even waking up with them." She grimaced.
Mulder tapped on her tumbler. "That isn't going to make the problem go away."
"I know, I know."
Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder watched her push her hair back and massage her neck. Stress, guilt, more than a little anger in the mix, and it wasn't just about McClennan. Well. He'd wasted enough time here. She wasn't going to tell him the truth. Reluctantly, he reached for his briefcase. "I'd better get on the road. I'm hoping to catch McClennan during his office hours today. Three to six p.m., and he only holds them once a week."
Olivia looked surprised. "You're going to his office to talk to him?"
"Why not? I think John and I have a lot in common. We've both made a living studying serial killers. And we've both been subjected to government surveillance, despite being innocent."
There wasn't much she could say to counter that.
Mulder stood up. "Thank you for your time, Agent Dunham. At least now I know what I'm looking for, even if I don't know why. I'll fax you the profile when it's done." He hesitated. "I know what you're hoping for, but what if I see something else. What if I think he is a threat?"
"You'll have to convince me of that. But I think we want the same thing."
Maybe. Maybe not. It was too soon to tell.
Olivia Dunham was on his radar now and once this assignment was completed, she would be seeing him again.
Author: wendelah1
Fandom: The X-Files/Fringe
Rating: Gen
Warning: none
Gift for: zinnia03
Summary: Post-ep for "One Night in October." Hired as a consultant, Mulder meets with Special Agent Olivia Dunham to get some answers about John McClennan.
During all the years Mulder had worked cases for the FBI, he'd never been given a briefing packet as useless as this one. There were ten pages of text, nearly all of it blacked out. Of course, now that he was only a "consultant," he didn't see many classified files. Maybe they were all like this now.
Mulder tossed the folder onto Skinner's dining table. "You want to tell what this is really about. Because I can't see anything there that makes me think you need my skills, as a PI, a profiler, or a babysitter."
"I can't tell you anything more. The case was highly classified. They wanted eyes on the guy but he's smart. After he spotted the agents who were sitting on him, he got a lawyer. We had to call off surveillance." Skinner frowned and looked away.
"It says here he was consulting for the FBI, and got injured during the investigation. Suffered a brain injury resulting in memory loss."
"That's correct."
A bump on the head didn't normally buy someone this kind of attention. "Someone must have vetted him before he was asked to consult. What has he done since being released from the hospital that warranted this level of surveillance?"
"Nothing, at least as far as we know. I can't tell you anything more than that," Skinner said steadily.
"Well, can I at least speak with the SAC?"
Skinner hesitated. "I might be able to arrange that. Her name is Dunham. Olivia Dunham. She works out of Boston."
Boston. And this guy, Professor Whoever was in Connecticut. He'd better tell Scully he wouldn't be home for dinner. Or breakfast.
"Okay, I'm going to head out. Call me as soon as you get in touch with Agent Dunham. Tell her I'll meet her..."
"Mulder, this is off the books. You can't meet her at the field office."
"Fine. She can pick a place. Assuming I get a flight, tell her I should be there by lunchtime."
~/~/~
"The Charles Hotel?" What the heck is she doing in Cambridge? "I thought your field office was in the financial district." Mulder knew he was supposed to be discreet, but meeting several miles from her office? "I know where it is. Fine. I'll see you there." He was going to regret renting the car at the airport. Parking in that neighborhood was the worst in the city.
Before walking into the dimly lit bar, Mulder paused to observe Special Agent Olivia Dunham. She was a tall woman in her mid-thirties, pretty, with straight blond hair, wearing a dark pantsuit, immaculate white shirt, the tailored jacket buttoned up tight. She probably had a closet full of identical outfits. Her no nonsense demeanor could give Scully a run for her money.
She was sitting at the bar, nursing what looked like Scotch whiskey. A drinking lunch on a school day.
He pulled out a stool and sat down. "I'm Fox Mulder. You must be Agent Dunham."
She acknowledged him and shook his hand with a firm grip. An awkward silence ensued, interrupted by the bartender's arrival. Mulder noticed Olivia studying him covertly.
"Just a club soda for me," Mulder told the bartender. "Should we get a table?" he asked.
"Fine," she shrugged.
They moved to a small table in the back. Mulder was hungry but he had the feeling he wasn't going to be there long and his per diem would go a lot further at a McDonald's on the drive up to Danbury.
Mulder pulled the file Skinner'd given him out of his briefcase, and set it on the table in front of her. "I've read through Professor McClennan's file, what's left of it. There isn't anything here that indicates why you had him under surveillance-illegally--or why you asked for my help when you were forced to call it off."
Olivia nudged the folder back over to his side of the table, which rocked slightly from the motion. "The surveillance wasn't my idea." She took a slow sip of her whiskey.
That was interesting. "Then whose was it?"
She looked at him. "What makes you so sure the operation was illegal?"
"Because of how quickly you pulled it once he got a lawyer."
She stared down at her drink, then picked up her cocktail napkin and started twisting it.
Okay. "You did get a judge to approve it but you backed off because you didn't want to risk public exposure of whatever is hiding behind all that black ink." Mulder should have known Skinner would insist on doing it by the book. He studied her face. "You're worried I'm going to try to expose you, too."
Olivia gave him a look. "Shouldn't I be? I've read your file."
Fair enough. He'd read hers, too, what he could get access to. He knew she had started with the Marine Core Special Investigation Division right out of school, then applied to the FBI. Her career was going well until 2009; after that, it was as though she'd been sucked into a black hole.
"Then why ask me to profile this guy in the first place? And why not let me have the information I need--I have the same security clearance you do. Otherwise Skinner wouldn't have been able to let me anywhere near your case."
She shook her head. "You don't. And you don't understand. AD Skinner didn't ask for you. I did."
Now Mulder was confused. "Why? Why me?"
"Because they didn't believe me when I told them that Professor McClennan wasn't a threat. I thought they might believe you."
"I thought you said you'd read my file," Mulder said. No one believed Spooky Mulder.
"I did. I read them all, actually. The very first year I started working for this...project, I had them bring me all of the case files we had in our database, concerning incidents connected to science, biology, or unexplained phenomena."
Mulder sat back in his chair, and stared at Olivia, dumbfounded.
He tried to keep listening, but the phrases, "bring me all of the case files" and "unexplained phenomena" were now running through his brain. They'd reopened the X-Files. His life's work was taken away. He was effectively shut out, possibly forever. What was worse, colonization was still coming. He had done nothing effective to stop it. He leaned his head back against the wall and closed his eyes. The date was set. He was trapped in the tower watching the sand running through the hourglass, while the winged monkeys ran amok.
Olivia was still talking. "I knew it was risky, bringing you in, but what happened to John McClennan was my fault. I was responsible for his safety. I couldn't give back what he'd lost, but at least..."
The table wobbled again, thump-thump. Mulder thought he might have kicked one of the legs accidentally. He made himself straighten up and open his eyes.
She gave her head a little shake. "...at least I could give him some peace of mind."
Mulder tried to refocus on the case. It was his turn but he couldn't find the words.
Instead he watched as Olivia studied him again, her face changing to indicate empathy in response to his obvious discomfort. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean..."
Sorry. She was sorry. He was one who'd failed. Now the whole world was going to pay the price for that failure. Fox, that's sounding a little megalomaniacal, even for you.
Mulder shook his head. "You have nothing to apologize for, I'm sure you were, are, just doing your job." He picked up his briefcase from the floor, opened it with his fingerprint and with more deliberation than necessary slipped the file folder into it.
"Aren't you afraid if they want it bad enough, someone will just take your finger along with the briefcase?" Olivia said in a deadpan tone.
Mulder narrowed his eyes a little. "You're good. In my case, they'd have an evil twin or maybe a clone waiting in the wings." That got a reaction, though not the one he was expecting. Just for a split-second, Olivia Dunham looked...haunted.
He didn't want to say the wrong thing. Whether she realized it or not, this woman and whatever government entity she was working for were all that stood between humanity and Armageddon.
"Mr. Mulder. Please wait. While I can't divulge the specifics, I do want to reassure you that the Consortium's plan, and their collusion with the alien colonists, is no longer a pressing concern."
Mulder sat back and waited. "I'm listening." Maybe stopping colonization was no longer "a pressing concern" to the FBI, but then, when was it ever?
"There isn't anything more to say. Not about that." Olivia tossed back the rest of her scotch. "Professor McClennan is another matter. Off the record, my supervisors feel they have good reason to believe that because of his injury, he may be unable to control certain...impulses."
She paused, a bit theatrically. "They're afraid he may be driven by these impulses to hurt people, even to murder."
"Wait. I know this movie. Tom Cruise. Minority Report. The three psychics floating in your swimming pool can predict who's going to commit a crime." Mulder finished his drink and grabbed his leather jacket.
Olivia put her hand on his forearm. "Please, listen to this before you decide there's no basis." She pulled out a small recorder and pressed play. John McClennan began speaking.
"I keep having this dream. I'm in a room, watching a woman who is strapped into a chair, hooked up to machinery. A man is there, he's making her tell about her happiest memories. He looks just like me. He hates her, hates that she's happy and he isn't. He plans to kill her, to kill her happiness. The thing is, I think he's really me! I'm the one who wants to kill people's happiness."
Mulder reached over and shut it off. They'd obviously intercepted a phone call-- or twenty--before they'd pulled the plug. Hell, he wouldn't put it past them to stick cameras in the guy's ceiling, though he still wasn't getting why they'd be wasting the resources. What was she holding back? "So what if he's having dreams. That's not a crime. By sharing them with his friend or therapist, he's diminishing their power over his conscious life."
"I agree with you. But there are those who feel we've already made a terrible mistake in letting this man go free. There are arguments being made that he should be locked up, put away so he can't hurt anyone."
"They can't lock someone up for a crime they might commit!" Mulder said.
"Can't they?" Olivia replied. "What about the men who've been held for years at Guantanamo Bay?"
That was just the latest abuse of government power. The Eurisko case, back when Scully first started working with him. After Brad Wickzek was taken into federal custody and "disappeared," Deep Throat had warned him. They can do anything they want. Deep Throat was right. Everywhere Mulder looked he found evidence of government corruption, their complicity in the most heinous of acts. Ordinary citizens, men, women and children, taken against their will and experimented on, like Scully and Samantha. The children created to be lab rats, to be born, to suffer and to die. Emily, and who knows how many more just like her. He'd spent years in the trenches, fighting this same battle, over and over again.
"You can help clear John McClennan," Olivia insisted.
She sounded so sure of herself. Is that how he'd sounded fifteen years ago? How many had he really saved? Not Wickzek, not the Mufon women, not even Samantha.
Only Scully.
"You're the best-and they all know that, Mr. Mulder. If you say he's not a risk, they'll believe you."
Mulder wanted to believe her, wanted to believe he could still make a difference. "Don't call me Mister. It's just Mulder. You're making me feel like an old man."
"Mulder," she agreed. Olivia frowned and began rubbing her temples.
"Are you okay?" Mulder asked.
"Yeah, it's just a headache. Migraine. I've been getting them a lot lately, even waking up with them." She grimaced.
Mulder tapped on her tumbler. "That isn't going to make the problem go away."
"I know, I know."
Out of the corner of his eye, Mulder watched her push her hair back and massage her neck. Stress, guilt, more than a little anger in the mix, and it wasn't just about McClennan. Well. He'd wasted enough time here. She wasn't going to tell him the truth. Reluctantly, he reached for his briefcase. "I'd better get on the road. I'm hoping to catch McClennan during his office hours today. Three to six p.m., and he only holds them once a week."
Olivia looked surprised. "You're going to his office to talk to him?"
"Why not? I think John and I have a lot in common. We've both made a living studying serial killers. And we've both been subjected to government surveillance, despite being innocent."
There wasn't much she could say to counter that.
Mulder stood up. "Thank you for your time, Agent Dunham. At least now I know what I'm looking for, even if I don't know why. I'll fax you the profile when it's done." He hesitated. "I know what you're hoping for, but what if I see something else. What if I think he is a threat?"
"You'll have to convince me of that. But I think we want the same thing."
Maybe. Maybe not. It was too soon to tell.
Olivia Dunham was on his radar now and once this assignment was completed, she would be seeing him again.