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Knight, Scully, and Mulder arrived breathlessly at the 96th Precinct. Knight
was acting cordial enough towards them, but there was a slight remoteness in his demeanor
that suggested to Scully that Mulder had gotten on his nerves. After all, who (except
perhaps for some troubled Goth teenager) would welcome an accusation of being a
blood-sucking creature of the night?
Schanke was already at the station and greeted the group as they entered the
squadroom.
"Skank," Knight asked, "What's going on?"
"They're not talking until we're all there. But I tell ya this -- the Frog James Bond
is pouting and snorting even more than usual."
"What about Pussy Galore?" Mulder asked.
"Yes, how is Secret Agent Barbie?" Scully asked acridly.
"Meow," Schanke teased. "Well, let's just go in and find out." He led them to
the interrogation room they were using as an impromptu briefing room.
There was Agent Nikita, wearing an incredibly well-tailored stylish pantsuit.
It was made entirely of shiny white leather. Agent Michael brooded next to her, in a
similarly well-tailored pantsuit of black leather. They looked, Scully decided in disgust,
like something that belonged on top of a sadomasochist's wedding cake. Next to them,
Scully noticed gratefully, Captain Amanda Cohen sat, wearing a sensible, conservative
and elegant business suit -- of nice, normal black wool.
"So, here we are," Mulder announced to the gathered group. "What have you
got?"
"We've received some intel from one of our remote operatives," Michael replied.
"We found a picture of the guy from Casa Loma from our files," Nikita amended.
She turned around her little computer, which had been sitting on the table. "This picture
was taken three weeks ago in Tashkent, Uzbekhistan." In the photo on the screen, the
black Casa Loma man, alive and well and dressed in a long dark coat, was talking to a
scruffy-looking man with shaggy hair and an unkempt beard.
"So, who is Casa Loma Guy?" Mulder asked.
Nikita sighed. "We don't have an ID on him specifically. We think he may
belong to a secretive group that turns up very infrequently -- it can be decades between
incidents traceable to them. They have no established base of recruitment or training,
and what we do know about them comes from their occasional involvement with other
terrorist groups. In this picture, the other man is a known operative for Red Cell."
"Red Cell?" Knight asked. "You mentioned them before. I know they're a
large, well-funded terrorist organization that operates mostly in Eastern Europe and the
Near East."
Nikita nodded. "This agent is named Vasiliy Radiczek. He's got a reputation
as a go-between for renegade nuclear scientists who used to work for the Soviet Union.
We've traced the transaction in this picture -- the Casa Loma Man was buying fissionable
plutonium."
"Holy shit!" Schanke cried. "Nukes! These terrorists are building nukes!"
Michael pursed his lips. "The fissionable material that was sold is not of a high
enough grade to create an atom bomb. However, it is still highly radioactive and toxic."
Scully's eyes flew open as she recalled the anti-terrorism seminars she and
Mulder had been required to attend lately. "A dirty bomb," she said aloud.
"A what?" Schanke asked.
"A dirty bomb." Scully heard Mulder's sharp intake of breath as he caught on
to what she was saying. "It's based on conventional explosive. You know how they put
nails in a pipe bomb, just to create shrapnel that can fly everywhere and do damage when
the bomb explodes? Well, the idea here is that you seed the conventional bomb with
particles of radioactive matter. When the bomb goes off, the radioactive fallout is
dispersed by the explosion, contaminating the area."
"Exactly," Nikita said.
Cohen spoke up. "Good God," she said. "With the winds blowing in off the
lake, any bomb like that going off in downtown Toronto could spread fallout across half
the city!"
Mulder said, "And plutonium is the most toxic stuff you could spread around."
"This is a high-crisis situation," Michael pronounced in his usual monotone.
Captain Cohen rose to her feet. "This is now officially beyond a homicide
investigation. Knight, Schanke, I'm afraid I'm going to have to cede this case to higher
authorities."
"Captain!" Schanke whined. "We're in too deep to quit now!"
Mulder stepped in. "Captain -- my partner and I have benefited greatly from
the local expertise and contacts your detectives have provided. I would like to officially
deputize them in our investigation."
Scully gave Mulder an admiring look -- until she realized, with a frown, that
Mulder just wanted to keep Knight close by so he could feed his fixation on Knight being
a vampire. Then again, she did like Knight and Schanke, and deputizing them was
actually a useful thing...
Cohen sighed. "All right, then. Knight, Schanke, you can be the FBI's deputies."
She turned to Scully and Mulder. "Anything they do is now your responsibility. Don't
make them do anything stupid. They're two of my best men."
"Aww, Cap'n," Schanke said. "I didn't know you cared!"
Cohen shot him one of her withering looks. Schanke sucked in his breath and
squared his shoulders.
"So," Scully said. "We have a potential bomb situation, but we have no time
or place for a possible strike. Or do you have any leads on that, Agent Nikita?"
The blonde bombshell smiled sheepishly. "Um, no. Not at the moment."
"Well, then," Mulder said, rubbing his hands together. "Looks like we have to
resort to good old footwork. We need to compile a list of all the possible political or
cultural events taking place in the city in the near future, and try to figure out which is the
most likely target."
Michael made some guttural French noise in the back of his throat. Scully
deduced he was a man of action who didn't like poring through paperwork.
"Schanke and I can work our contacts," Knight offered. "We can talk to our
people on the streets."
His partner shook his head. "I don't know, Nick. This seems a little bigger
than the usual stuff my crowd knows about."
"Try your luck anyway, Skank. Things get noised about. I'll talk to my
people, too."
"Your people always seem to know what's going on. I don't get it. You're
always working that weird Goth club on Queen West..."
"What can I say? It's a more diverse crowd than you think. They have their
fingers on the pulse of the city."
"I can never get anything out of that bunch. They're too hip for me!"
Mulder turned to Scully and raised one eyebrow significantly. "He hangs out
in a Goth club?"
Scully bared her teeth. "Not now, Mulder." she hissed. "Nuclear fallout
threatening city trumps Van Helsing Vampire hunt!"
"We'll keep sweeping our intel net," Nikita said. "Maybe someone in Red Cell
knows what the plan is."
Michael said, "I'll ask Madeline if we have any Red Cell captives back at base."
Nikita nodded.
"Well, looks like you're all organized here," Cohen said. "I'm getting on the
phone with the mayor." She got up and ambled out.
Schanke shook his head. "I can't believe it. Toronto threatened by nuclear
terrorists. And I thought this sort of craziness only went on in the States."
"Terrorism is everywhere," Nikita said sadly, folding up her little computer and
stashing it in a white leather Gucci bag.
"So are we," Michael intoned, taking her by the arm. "We'll rendezvous back
here at dawn to pool our intel." He led her out.
"I'd better go warm up my stool at The Raven," Nick said brightly and exited
behind them.
"The Raven?" Mulder said incredulously as he sat at the conference table and
pulled out his own computer. He shook his head in bemusement.
"I know," Schanke said sympathetically. "It's too hip for words. You should
go there sometime just to see the place. They have chains hanging from the ceilings! And
the owner...she's beautiful, but..." he shuddered. "She can be a little creepy. Reminds me
of Cruella de Ville sometimes. I think she's an old girlfriend of Nick's. She must have
really cracked the whip when they were together, if you know what I mean!"
Scully tried to ignore the "I told you so" look on her partner's face.
Schanke blathered on. He jammed his hands into his pockets and said,
"Yeah...Nick has some wild sources. Not even I know that many of them. But they do
lead to a lot of arrests."
"Detective Schanke," Scully said with some irritation, "Do you want to help us
compile this list through the computer, or do you have some sources of your own you'd
like to talk to?"
"Oh, yeah...good idea. I'll start with my friends down at the Danforth -- and I
can pick up some souvlaki, too. Then I'll move on to Little Italy -- I have some paisans
there, in this great little bakery with the best canoli..." Smacking his lips, the hungry
detective departed enthusiastically.
Mulder remarked, "That's an unusual approach. Eating your way through an
investigation."
Scully rubbed her temples. "Let's just fire up the computer and see what we can
find. Oh, and tomorrow, we should go to City Hall -- the mayor's people will be keeping
track of political speeches and so forth..."
"Right. You realize, though...we still haven't solved the beheadings. This has
turned into a preemptive strike, but we still have no clue what's behind the actual murders."
"Well, avoiding the nuclear contamination of Toronto kind of has priority, don't
you think?"
"But solving the beheadings could lead us to the terrorists, too. Let's talk to
the Cold Squad again. Maybe they've turned something up in their investigation."
"Mulder -- tell me the truth right now. You're not going to accuse Inspector
Simon Ross of being a vampire, too, are you?"
"No!" Mulder retorted. "Besides, he's not a vampire...he's just a Horseman
of the Apocalypse."
Scully banged her forehead in frustration against the tabletop.
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