The target of their surveillance, Jacob Haley, arrives on a bus and joins another man on a park bench. Mulder pretends to being doing stretches as he keeps an eye on their prey. As everyone watches and prepares to move in, Haley hands his contact an envelope and within seconds the man is doubling over in convulsions. Scully jumps from the van in pursuit of Mulder to warn him. As Scully gains on the subject, she sees what appears to be Mulder intentionally allowing their target to escape. Haley is the right hand man of August Bremer, the leader of a group known as the New Spartans. The man he was contacting in the park was an arms dealer and there was supposed to be an exchange of money for weapons. They of course witnessed the deal though the arms dealer succumbed to what Scully calls "a highly toxic biological agent" or a "genetically engineered bio-weapon". Haley wants to know why he wasn't told about the surveillance and Mulder, clearly collaborating with Haley, tells him he himself knew nothing of the operation until a short time before it went down. Haley is not placated and Mulder says, "I've got as much to lose here as you do. They catch you, you'll flip me. Look, I believe in your ideals and your goals but the only reason I tolerate your methods is because the government's are worse." Two boys sneak inside [a movie theater] and are unfortunate enough to find all the patrons dead. They have succumbed to whatever the man in the park did, with their flesh eaten away. "What you've stumbled into is a classified action, a deep cover assignment." Mulder was originally approached by Haley after his participation at the UFO conference we saw in "Patient X". Since that contact, he's been involved in this assignment and was told to keep it secret, even from Scully. Scully is angry that this assignment and complicity has allowed Haley to get away with murder. Haley wants to know what happened in the park and Mulder reiterates what he already told him. Haley's associate, credited as Goatee Man, pulls back on Mulder's finger as Mulder screams in pain. Haley thinks he was set up and that Mulder is spying on them. Mulder relates his torturous evening and says that Haley didn't kill him because he probably still needs something. "I'm sensing there's someone Haley trusts even less. The man giving him his orders. Someone I haven't met yet. A guy named August Bremer." The lab doctor tells Scully the bacterium have a protective coat that has adhesive qualities giving the organism scratch and sniff properties. Dermal contact activates the contagion. He says it's too sophisticated to have been already developed by the Russians. Scully has found information in the CDC's database regarding a bacterium being developed by the Army's Pine Bluff Facility in the 1960's. The information on file indicates a primitive strain of the one they're seeing now. She believes that the bio-weapons program has continued in secret all these years and "that someone may be sending Agent Mulder on a suicide mission." After the robbery, we see the New Spartans burning the money they just stole. Mulder asks why they're doing this and Bremer says the bills could be traced. Mulder realizes the robbery was just a decoy and the real plan was to contaminate the money they left behind. Mulder is marched off to an abandoned lot and forced back down to his knees with his hands behind his back. When the shot rings out, Mulder flinches but GM is the one who drops dead to the ground. Bremer tells Mulder there is a car waiting for him just over the rise and gives him directions to the highway. Mulder asks Bremer who he is. "Go on. If they come out here and find us, they'll kill us both. Go." Mulder tells Scully that Bremer must be working with them, since he let him go. Before he can continue, Scully informs him that the bio-toxin was most likely engineered in US government labs. Mulder is furious that he was set up. As the car drifts off the road and into a ditch, the horn begins a steady blare. Inside, we see Haley laying dead against the steering wheel with his flesh eaten away. The camera focuses on the leather case holding the car keys as it dangles from the ignition; his parting gift from Bremer.

Pine Bluff Variant The episode opens with Mulder jogging through a DC area park. We see Scully and Skinner keeping tabs on him from inside a surveillance van. Mulder is part of a stake-out that includes several FBI agents scattered throughout the park. The target of their surveillance, Jacob Haley, arrives on a bus and joins another man on a park bench. Mulder pretends to being doing stretches as he keeps an eye on their prey. As everyone watches and prepares to move in, Haley hands his contact an envelope and within seconds the man is doubling over in convulsions to Haley's apparent surprise. All is confusion as Haley springs up seeking help for his companion then flees the scene. While agents converge on the dying man, Mulder is the only one who is in pursuit of their primary target. They find that the downed man was exposed to some sort of contact toxin from the envelope which has burned away the skin of his face and hands. When their radio communication is compromised, Scully jumps from the van in pursuit of Mulder to warn him. As Scully gains on the subject, she sees what appears to be Mulder intentionally allowing their target to escape. When Mulder sees Scully and approaches her, he tells her he lost the suspect. "What do you mean?" asks a confused, suspicious Scully. "He got away," Mulder replies as he walks away. This episode starts off promising and, in a similar position in the line-up as last season's "Demons", it appears that we might have another Mulder-off-his-rocker episode. But the truth is revealed too quickly to provide much tension and the episode proceeds to an ending with a mytharc/conspiracy flair. For this ending and its implications, I am forced to include this synopsis. I'll try to be brief, since it's not a true mytharc episode, but will probably drone on too long as is usually my bad habit and everyone's misfortune. When Scully reviews the surveillance videos the next day, she sees only confirmation of her fears. It appears that Mulder catches up to Haley, hands him something, then allows him to escape without capture. When Mulder joins her in the office, she asks him what happened out there but he won't meet her eye and claims to not know what she's talking about. He cuts her off by saying they're late for a hearing. The hearing is a joint meeting with the FBI and CIA as part of a counter terrorism task force. They are reviewing the case and the events from the previous day. Apparently, their target Haley is the right hand man of August Bremer, the leader of a group known as the New Spartans. The man he was contacting in the park was an arms dealer and there was supposed to be an exchange of money for weapons. They of course witnessed the deal though the arms dealer succumbed to what Scully calls "a highly toxic biological agent" or a "genetically engineered bio-weapon". The agent, they believe, was transmitted by contact only so the park is not a hazardous zone. But Haley apparently escaped and his group is now in possession of $50,000 worth of guns. When the question of how he escaped is broached, Skinner says he believes the man had an accomplice who was familiar with their procedures of surveillance. Mulder continues to avoid eye contact with Scully. As the meeting breaks up, Scully calls to Mulder but he walks from the room without acknowledging her. Skinner silently watches the exchange. We see the man known as August Bremer enter a movie theater in Ohio. He buys a ticket for a movie which is almost over but doesn't seem to mind. Asking the counterperson for some fresh popcorn, he waits until she's out of sight then puts on a pair of gloves and removes an aerosol can. Meanwhile, we see Mulder check into a motel in Delaware unaware that Scully has followed him and is watching his movements. Hours later, Mulder's phone rings and it's Haley on the other end. Haley thinks Mulder set him up but Mulder thinks he saved his ass. Haley wants to know why he wasn't told about the surveillance and Mulder, clearly collaborating with Haley, tells him he himself knew nothing of the operation until a short time before it went down. Haley is not placated and Mulder says, "I've got as much to lose here as you do. They catch you, you'll flip me. Look, I believe in your ideals and your goals but the only reason I tolerate your methods is because the government's are worse." Mulder says that Haley came to him and that he's risking everything. "My partner is seriously suspicious. If that's not enough for you, that's all I've got," Mulder says as he hangs up. Back at the movie theater, two boys sneak inside and are unfortunate enough to find all the patrons dead. They have succumbed to whatever the man in the park did, with their flesh eaten away. Scully enters the motel lobby and rings the bell for assistance. She tells the clerk, "There seems to be a problem. A man just told me you gave him keys to my room, room 130." When the clerk asks her who she is, she asks who the other man was and receives the name of Mr. Kaplan. As she starts to leave the office, the clerk asks if she's the wife to which she replies, "Not even close." Inside room 130, Mulder receives another call from Bremer who informs him that they'll proceed as planned. As he exits the motel room, Scully hides behind a car. She watches as a car pulls up and Mulder gets inside. In pursuit of Mulder, Scully follows the car with her headlights out. A car approaches from the opposite direction and flashes its lights at her. Ignoring it she tries to continue her pursuit but is forced off the road as she watches the car containing Mulder disappear down the road. Several men in suits emerge from the car and one of them raps on the window of her car and demands that she exit. Scully is taken to a building and escorted down a hallway by four men. She asks them what agency they work for and, with no answer forthcoming, replies that it must not be the Office of Information. As they stop at a room, the door is opened to reveal Skinner and the CIA agent in charge of the task force, Leamus. She demands to know what is going on and why she was driven off a road and brought here. Leamus apologizes for their methods and Skinner adds that their actions may have saved Mulder's life. Skinner asks her if she's suspicious that Mulder is betraying his country but Scully counters by saying she doesn't know what he's talking about. She is obviously withholding her real concerns but Leamus tells her that Mulder's actions are entirely honorable. "What you've stumbled into is a classified action, a deep cover assignment." Mulder was originally approached by Haley after his participation at the UFO conference we saw in "Patient X". Since that contact, he's been involved in this assignment and was told to keep it secret, even from Scully. Scully is angry that this assignment and complicity has allowed Haley to get away with murder, using his bio-weapon. Skinner says there is no other way to find out what the New Spartans want. Their discussion is interrupted by the arrival of an agent bearing the news of the latest victims of the bio-weapon at the theater. While Scully is finding out about Mulder's assignment, he is being escorted to a meeting with Haley. He is forced to wear a dark hood to disguise the meeting place and is taken into a warehouse where he is seated and his hands are strapped to the tabletop with restraints. Haley informs Mulder that this is a lie detector test of sorts and an associate grabs Mulder's little finger and prepares to apply pressure. Haley wants to know what happened in the park and Mulder reiterates what he already told him. Haley's associate, credited as Goatee Man, pulls back on Mulder's finger as Mulder screams in pain. Haley thinks he was set up and that Mulder is spying on them. Multiple denials only earn Mulder further pressure on his finger and he says, "You want me to lie and say yes?" The Mulder torture continues as he threatens to kill GM for inflicting this pain. "If I set you up do you think I'd get in the car with this Nazi piece of shit?!" Mulder tells Haley he risked everything and if he was lying the place would have been swarming with FBI already. Then to GM he says, "If you touch me again, you'd better kill me." GM doesn't let up as Haley says, "A war is going on, Agent Mulder. Either you're on the right side or the wrong." He takes out the aerosol can and points it at Mulder's face. Mulder recognizes the significance and doesn't want to experience the effects of the toxic agent first hand. He reiterates that he didn't set up Haley and that possibly it was one of his own men. This earns him a final, snapping twist of his finger and, as he drops his head to the table in agony, he is informed that Haley believes him. Scully and Skinner arrive at the theater in Ohio and are told that there are no hot zones and that they are cleared to enter. Everyone in the theater is dead except the boys who sneaked in late. As they enter the main auditorium, their flashlights pan over bodies covered with plastic still in their seats. The mode of transmission is still unknown but Scully thinks they'll know soon. "It's got to be something everybody touched," she says, as she picks up a patron's ticket with a gloved hand. Mulder returns to his darkened apartment to find Scully waiting for him. He tells her to leave and, when she tries to talk to him, he more angrily says, "Get out of here!" As she tries to tell him that Skinner told her everything, he continues to try to evade her by saying he doesn't know what she's talking about. He finally succumbs to her ministrations when she notices his hand and wants to have a look. Holding ice on his wounded finger, the writer's have Scully succumb to a heinous plot device as she begins to discuss Mulder's deep cover case right there in his apartment. Never mind that it should be conversationally off limits; never mind that they both know better; never mind that they are both more paranoid than this and would never make such a breach of protocol. Scully tells Mulder what she and Skinner found in the theater and they discuss how it could only be explained as some kind of test. He relates his torturous evening and says that Haley didn't kill him because he probably still needs something. "I'm sensing there's someone Haley trusts even less. The man giving him his orders. Someone I haven't met yet. A guy named August Bremer." As they continue to converse, we see Bremer sitting outside the apartment window in a van with a hand-held laser listening device pointed at Mulder's window. So much for deep cover. In the early hours of the morning, Mulder meets with Skinner and Leamus at the FBI building. He tells them that Haley wants documentation from the Federal Reserve Bank and fund transfer schedules for the eastern seaboard. Leamus thinks they're going to hit a bank or an armored car. Mulder also says that Haley is buying into his idea of a mole within his own organization and wants Mulder to review the FBI's surveillance tapes on the New Spartans. Skinner says they'll need time to "dummy something up" but Leamus says he anticipated this and pulls a briefcase out with ready to use files. Skinner says he wants a tail on Mulder but Leamus says no. "Once they've got what they want from Mulder, what's to keep them from killing him?" Skinner wants to know. Leamus says if they spot a tail he's dead anyway and this is the only way they'll find out about the big picture so the meeting can't be compromised. Mulder says, "If you don't hear from me by midnight, feed my fish." Scully is doing some research at the FBI's hot lab, trying to determine what was on the bearer bond that killed the arms dealer. They find an especially virulent bacterium but it was on the bond and not the ticket stubs. The bacterium is similar to streptococcus but has been genetically altered to be extraordinarily lethal. The lab doctor tells Scully the bacterium have a protective coat that has adhesive qualities giving the organism scratch and sniff properties. Dermal contact activates the contagion. He says it's too sophisticated to have been already developed by the Russians and has no idea where it came from. Mulder returns to his motel room in Delaware and finds Haley and Goatee Man waiting for him. Haley asks him if he has what they need and, after Mulder turns over the documents, he comments, "Lies within lies." Mulder is fitted with another hood and taken for a drive. Scully contacts Skinner in his office where he is sitting with Leamus. She asks if he's alone then requests that she be taken off the speaker phone before she tells Skinner what she's learned. She relates her findings regarding the bacterium and informs him that the CIA's information about a Russian origin is wrong and that it is most likely domestic. Skinner tells her the US hasn't made any bio-toxin since 1969 but Scully has found information in the CDC's database regarding a bacterium being developed by the Army's Pine Bluff Facility in the 1960's. The information on file indicates a primitive strain of the one they're seeing now. She believes that the bio-weapons program has continued in secret all these years and "that someone may be sending Agent Mulder on a suicide mission." As Skinner hangs up, Leamus wants to know what she said and Skinner tells him she's just concerned for her partner. Mulder is taken to a warehouse where Bremer and his men are inside checking out an arsenal of guns. Haley leads Mulder inside, removing the hood and Bremer says, "You put us all at risk bringing him here." Haley tells Bremer that Mulder came through with the information. Bremer asks Mulder if he's a believer and if he's willing to die for those beliefs. Mulder says he'd prefer it didn't come to that. Bremer tosses Mulder a rubber mask of Dracula and says they have a job to do. Scully heads to Mulder's motel meeting spot but he's not there. She has a sudden moment of clarity and realizes that the bio-toxin must have been on the money at the movie theater. The New Spartans, all wearing their rubber masks, head to a bank in an armored car. When they arrive at the loading dock, the truck is welcomed by the manager who is unaware of its true occupants. They rush out in their masks, Mulder along toting a gun, as they proceed to rob the bank on a three minute clock. While Bremer leads the manager into the back to open the main safe, one of the group sees a man reaching for an alarm button and shoots him. The man isn't dead and Mulder is told to finish him off. He points his gun at the man on the floor but can't do it. Haley yells at him to "finish him" but Mulder is frozen until Haley walks over and appears to do the job himself. As his minions grab the money from the vault, Bremer proceeds to spray the remaining money with the bio-toxin. After the robbery, we see the New Spartans burning the money they just stole. Mulder asks why they're doing this and Bremer says the bills could be traced. Mulder realizes the robbery was just a decoy and the real plan was to contaminate the money they left behind. Bremer then points a gun to Mulder's head and says, "This is the real deal. You've been a big help." Haley stops him and, when Bremer says Mulder's a liability, asks, "To who? You?" Haley thinks Bremer is the traitor within the group since he's discovered that Bremer is listed as an FBI informant under an old alias. Bremer counters this by playing the tape he made during his surveillance of Mulder's apartment. Haley turns to Mulder saying, "What the hell is this?" Haley knows he's in trouble since he brought Mulder into the group and spoke for him. Back at the FBI, Scully tells Skinner and Leamus about the money being the source of the bio-toxin and says they need to find the bank the group hit. She's even more concerned for Mulder's safety. They protest that contacting him would blow his cover but Scully says they have no choice. They have surveillance tapes from 27 robberies that took place that morning in seven eastern states under review. So far they haven't been able to spot Mulder. As they scan the tapes, Scully pauses over one that shows a robber with a Dracula mask on. We see Mulder and Haley kneeling on the ground in front of Bremer as Goatee Man stands guard. Bremer says, "We've made some decisions," as he places a set of keys in a leather case on Haley's head with a gloved hand. "Take it and get out of here. I don't ever want to see your face again." Haley quickly gets up and leaves. Mulder is ordered to his feet. Bremer informs GM that witnessing the murder of a federal agent will make him an accessory to the crime but GM says he wouldn't miss it for the world. Mulder is marched off to an abandoned lot and forced back down to his knees with his hands behind his back. When the shot rings out, Mulder flinches but GM is the one who drops dead to the ground. Bremer tells Mulder there is a car waiting for him just over the rise and gives him directions to the highway. Mulder asks Bremer who he is. "Go on. If they come out here and find us, they'll kill us both. Go." Without his answer, Mulder runs toward the direction of the car. Mulder heads directly to the bank they just robbed to try to warn people away from the contaminated money. Scully intercepts a frantic Mulder and tells him she figured out the method of transmission and that everyone is safe. The money wasn't touched and is being isolated as they speak. Mulder asks her how she knew which bank it was and Scully says she recognized him on the tape. An incredulous Mulder is wondering how with the Dracula mask, until she reveals her method of positive ID. His broken finger showed up on the bank's surveillance tape. Mulder tells Scully that Bremer must be working with them, since he let him go. Before he can continue, Scully informs him that the bio-toxin was most likely engineered in US government labs. Mulder is furious that he was set up but Skinner says there is no definitive proof of this. But Mulder won't calm down that easily and says he was used and what about all the people that died in that theater. Leamus arrives and tries to calm Mulder, saying, "Our government is not in the business of killing innocent civilians." Leamus says the bills have been analyzed and there is no trace of the bio-toxin. Scully is incensed, saying that Leamus knew about this the whole time. Mulder wants the money rechecked but Leamus says it's being used as evidence in a federal crime. "That money's as dirty as you are, isn't it?" Mulder accuses. "Say that were true," Leamus poses, "Then what do you hope to accomplish, Agent Mulder, as a whistle blower? To mobilize a civil rights action? To bring down the federal government? To do the very work that group you were a part of is so bent on doing? What do you want? Laws against those men, or laws protecting them?" "I want people to know the truth," Mulder insists. "Well sometimes our job is to protect those people from knowing it," Leamus replies as he excuses himself and leaves Scully, Skinner, and Mulder standing there. The final scene shows a car weaving its way down a rural two-lane highway. As the car drifts off the road and into a ditch, the horn begins a steady blare. Inside, we see Haley laying dead against the steering wheel with his flesh eaten away. The camera focuses on the leather case holding the car keys as it dangles from the ignition; his parting gift from Bremer.