Date sent:        Mon, 3 Nov 1997 19:41:04 -0600
Subject:          Absalom III: Cry Havoc
From:             griffin100@juno.com


TITLE: Absalom III: Cry Havoc
AUTHOR: Joyce McKibben  (griffin100@juno.com)
DATE: November 1997

DISTRIBUTION: Please post to ATXC and the archives.  Thank you.

RATING: PG-13  (some profanity)
CLASSIFICATION: A,S

SUMMARY:   I would suggest that you read "Absalom" I&II before 
    reading this part.  This is part 3 of a developing serial.  With 
    the beginning of Season 5, this series should be considered to 
    be taking place in an alternate universe.
    Jason begins to craft a plan to draw Mulder into the Project.

DISCLAIMER:  FM and CSM belong to CC and Fox Broadcasting and 
       I am only borrowing them for a moment and will 
       return them.  No infringement is intended. Lord
       knows, I'm not making any money off of this and 
       have no intentions of making any money from it.  

FEEDBACK: Always welcome.  Send to: mckibben@msuvx1.memphis.edu

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS: I would like to thank my editors, Miki and KL, 
    for keeping me on the straight and narrow path.  I would be 
    quite lost without them.

==================================

Absalom III: Cry Havoc


	"...a king shall appear, harsh and grim, a master of
	 stratagem.  His power shall be great, he shall work
	 havoc untold..."                     (Daniel 8:23-24)


"We have miscalculated."  Jason let his words fall into the silence,
sending ripples of unease into the dark paneled room.   Decaying
cloudss of smoke eddied and swirled around him as he stepped into 
the inner sanctum of his friend's lair.  A touch of fear exhilarated 
his soul.  His friend was as dangerous as the Oracle at Delphi and 
nearly as mysterious.  He wondered if the ancient Greeks kept the 
Oracle for the sheer thrill of trying to outwit the fates it 
prescribed for them.

Reclining in a nest of writhing smoke tendrils, the smoker looked 
up at Jason, "Really?"  He paused to blow another thin twisting 
line of smoke to replace one that was fading into nothingness.  
"And exactly how did we manage this?"  A dry smile twisted his 
lips for an instant and was gone as another serpent of smoke 
rose to join its brethren.

Jason ignored the question and walked over to the small table 
in the corner of the room just to the right and behind the 
smoker's desk.  Ebony and ivory chessmen stood in staggered 
array upon a mahogany and oak chessboard.

This had been Jonathan's pride and joy, Jason reflected sadly, 
a specially commissioned work of art.  The chessmen were 
exquisitely carved down to the finest detail of robes and 
swords and staves of power.  So like Jonathan to transform the 
ivory pieces into a fantasy kingdom ruled by a philosopher king 
and his warrior queen facing the dark hordes opposing them.  

"I remember Jonathan telling us that comparing Fox Mulder to an 
errant sun hurtling across our heaven pulling allies into his 
orbit was only part of the greater truth," Jason mused aloud, 
his voice soft with memory.

The smoker swiveled in his chair to give Jason his full 
attention.  Idle smoke-rings, disturbed by his movement swirled 
about his head like striking serpents.  He said nothing, letting 
his silence compel Jason to continue.  Jason felt the pressure 
against his will.  His friend used silence like other men used a 
knife.  It was an extremely useful tactic with lesser men, but 
Jason was not so easy to manipulate.  

Jason smiled and considered extending the silence to heighten the 
tension in the room.  His friend was not the only one who 
appreciated the exhilarating rush that came from pitting his will 
against an equally dangerous opponent.  The Others, those old men 
of the Consortium, were too impatient with any threat to their 
perceived power.  Their only answer to opposition was to 
eliminate the threat; alpha sheep content to rule other sheep.

"I remember when Jonathan commissioned this set," Jason 
continued, slyly noting the slight sigh of contentment from his 
friend.  "He said we needed something to remind us who of the 
real players were."

The smoker nodded, allowing Jason to draw him into this game of 
reminiscence.  With a sudden breath he scattered the obscuring 
smoke and leaned back to indicate that Jason had his undivided 
attention, for now.

Jason lightly brushed the crown of the ivory king-piece with 
his fingers, lingering for a moment on the fluted scroll held 
in one hand in place of a scepter.   He didn't need to pick up 
the piece to see the portrait of Fox Mulder carved into the 
ivory nor did he need to examine the queen whose resemblance to 
Dana Scully was more than a passing coincidence.  Jonathan had 
been a master of many games.  Jason wished he knew how many 
gambits his old friend had actually set in motion before his 
death and whether they would be a help or a hindrance to his 
current plans.

"Jonathan warned us that we did not know all of the pieces on 
Mulder's side of the board.  The white queen was our gift to him 
and our first, perhaps our greatest mistake."

"Old news, Jason.  You said there was a new miscalculation," the 
smoker prompted.  A vexed sigh escaped him as he realized he had 
played into Jason's ploy.  He gave Jason a brief nod of 
acknowledgment to indicate that the score was now even.  

"We incorrectly identified a player who is not the pawn we took 
him to be.  Jonathan selected many players for this game.  Some 
we know about, most we do not.  Mulder has strange allies in 
strange places.  Those who follow him for their own reasons, 
while dangerous, are reasonable risks.  But Jonathan set into 
motion another player under our very noses and we did not even 
notice," Jason nodded towards the framed picture on the mantel.  
Three young men, faces afire with intense ambition and passion, 
stared back at him in frozen images now lost in history.

"And this unknown player is?" the smoker asked with a touch of 
frost chilling his tone.  Jason understood the anger and touch of 
fear that chilled the air.  Ignorance of who was what in this 
game was tantamount to death.  His friend prided himself on 
knowing to the nth degree who the players were and what role they 
played or even what role they thought they played.  The idea that 
there was another serious player on Mulder's side that they had 
overlooked was cause for alarm.  Mulder's moves were calculated 
on known variables.  A rogue piece could destroy everything.

"The King's bishop."  Jason picked up the ivory bishop, dressed 
like a warrior mage wielding a heavy staff pointed out across 
the board at the opposing ebony army.  He stared at the piece, 
trying to see if Jonathan had left them a clue to his intrigue.  
A rueful smile twitched across his lips for an instant as he 
realized that under the great miter, the bishop was bald.  

"Damn you, Jonathan.  Even in the grave, you move us around 
like your damn chessmen," Jason muttered to himself.

"Apparently our newest recruit is one of Jonathan's players.  
Assistant Director Walter S. Skinner is more important than we 
realized."

"Nonsense.  He is a petty bureaucrat with delusions of 
importance," the smoker snarled.  

"Delusions or not, he is vital to our purpose.  He is a key to 
Fox Mulder's soul," Jason continued evenly, ignoring his friend's 
rising irritation.  It was difficult to argue when he wasn't 
entirely sure himself of the reasons for his sudden insight, but 
he felt the impact of his revelation redefine the game.

With an effort, the smoker restrained an angry dismissal of 
Jason's theory.  Pride warred with dispassionate assessment of 
Jason's skills and lost.  Better to concede the pride than to 
risk losing everything.  Unwilling to trust his voice not to 
betray his irritation, the smoker waved at Jason to continue.

"Skinner has protected Mulder at every turn, even beyond all 
reason unless he was specifically set in place for that very 
reason.  I doubt if he is even cognizant of his purpose.  
Jonathan was a genius.  He could read men's inner motivations 
and what drove them to certain actions and knew exactly where 
to place them so they would be of most use to us at a later 
date."

"So you are saying Skinner was put into place by Jonathan in 
order to protect Mulder?  Rather far-sighted of him.  Still....  
It would explain much."  The smoker smiled.  "How delightful 
that our upright assistant director should owe his present 
position to the very people he holds in contempt, but how is 
this useful to us?"

"Simple.  We have merely forgotten one of the basic laws of 
physics - objects in motion affect each other.  Mulder attracts 
allies who are pulled into his orbit and follow his path.  What 
we forgot is that he is also affected by them.  We have seen 
his devotion to Agent Scully, calculated it, depended on it 
until Skinner stepped in."  Jason paused and carefully placed 
the bishop in front of the ivory king-piece, blocking the check 
threatened by the black knight.

The smoker followed the movement on the chessboard with interest, 
his eyes flicking over the new arrangement, calculating actions 
and reactions of all the various pieces with the intense 
concentration of a chess master.

Jason moved a rook to threaten the bishop.  He gave his friend an 
apologetic glance and shrugged.  The entire incident with the 
bees had been badly handled.  His friend had been too intent on 
inflicting a humiliating lesson on Skinner, and Jason's own 
underlings had mishandled the cleanup operation by using their 
own initiative to frame the Assistant Director.  That particular 
act of sheer stupidity had cost them their lives.  Jason made 
their deaths an object lesson to his other operatives - 
initiative was fine, if it worked.  If it didn't, then expect no 
mercy.

The smoker acknowledged Jason's apology and his own folly in 
allowing a personal vendetta to interfere in his long-term 
objectives.  He had come perilously close to losing ground with 
the Consortium elders, but a quick cleanup and an absolute
blackout on information disseminated to the public eased them 
back into placid self-satisfaction.

Trusting in his instincts that his reading of the subsequent 
puzzling events was true, Jason picked up the ivory king-piece 
and took out the rook threatening the bishop.  His shoulders 
set in faint lines of tension, Jason turned to face the arguments 
he sensed were building.

To his surprise, his friend was nodding with sudden 
understanding.  "I did wonder why nothing came of that particular 
ploy.  I merely assumed Skinner had added one more act of 
sabotage to his repertoire.  Interesting.  And how do you propose 
that we use this bit of insight?"

"My sources report that Agent Mulder went to Assistant Director 
Skinner's apartment that night.  Due to the oversight of my 
agent," Jason winced as he accepted responsibility for the 
stupidity of that fool, "no listening devices were placed in the 
Assistant Director's apartment.  An oversight, I might add, that 
has been corrected", Jason added with a deadly cold tone.  "Still 
I can speculate.  An hour later the murder weapon was tested at 
the FBI Crime Lab, but no identifying marks were found on the 
weapon.  The Assistant Director did not have time to destroy the 
evidence before Mulder showed up.  Therefore, our very own Fox 
Mulder conspired with his superior to destroy vital evidence in 
an ongoing investigation of a policeman's murder."

Jason let his friend absorb the speculation in silence.  His own 
mind was churning out stratagems and maneuvers designed to take 
advantage of this new information.

"Then you are proposing that for some reason Mulder is willing 
to put his honor and career at risk for Skinner?" the smoker 
asked with a slight incredulous lilt to his voice.

"What I am saying is that we have been focusing on Agent Scully 
to the possible detriment of other targets.  Perhaps we should 
give the Assistant Director some reward for being such a good 
dog - perhaps a milk-bone biscuit in the form of a slight 
remission in Agent Scully's condition.  Draw the man deeper in 
until his soul cannot twitch without our permission."  Jason's 
voice was cold as death.  He had been ordered to damn Fox 
Mulder's soul.  If the way to that damnation was through the 
souls of everyone close to him, then at least Mulder would have 
company in hell.

"Do as you please, Jason.  Just bring Mulder to me."  The smoker 
blew a haze of smoke over the chessboard obscuring the pieces 
before leaning back in obvious dismissal of his lieutenant.  

Jason inclined his head in a slight bow then left the room.  With 
the proper care and precision to details, Skinner would make the 
perfect lure to draw Mulder into the shadows.  Jason relished the 
exhilaration of facing an opponent worthy of his personal 
attention.  It was always entertaining to corrupt the soul of an 
honorable man, almost as entertaining as drawing men burdened by 
a conscience into the abyss.  Damnation was a tricky game, but 
the rewards were exquisitely satisfying.  

====================

Mulder's Room
George Washington Medical Center
4 days after the attack


The sound of someone entering his room stirred Mulder reluctantly 
from a hazy dream where he drifted among chartreuse drug-laced 
clouds.  He lay still, eyes closed, trying to determine if it was 
worth the effort to open his eyes.  For three days he had 
ruthlessly ignored everyone.  The only exceptions he had made 
were for Scully and his doctor.  Now, only Scully could pull him 
out of his isolation.  He was mortally tired of hearing his 
doctor repeat the same tired platitudes: 'you're doing as well as 
can be expected, Mr. Mulder.  These things take time and 
patience.'  Well, time he had, but he was fresh out of patience.

The steady thrum of the pump on the respirator was a constant 
reminder that his progress was being measured in inches.  Lava 
still burned in his throat, held at bay by the drugs, but 
lurking, waiting for a cue to take the stage again.  The sound of 
the respirator was becoming more familiar to him than his own 
heartbeat.  He was tired of the restraints that held his arms 
down.  Scully had explained the reasons for them and, 
intellectually, he understood those reasons, but he wondered if 
she understood how desperately he hated being restrained.  

Soft sounds rustled in his ears as the visitor settled into the 
chair beside his bed.  It had to be Scully.  None of the 
hospital personnel had reason to move that quietly.  Not that 
they exactly made a lot of noise, they moved quietly and 
efficiently around the machines that hooked him to life, but 
they did so with a brisk efficiency rather than a careful 
consideration not to disturb him.

He started to sigh against the rhythm of the machine and felt 
his chest tighten in protest.  For a moment he panicked as he 
fought the machine.  The lava rose up to choke him and his 
hands curled into claws fighting the restraints, striving to 
reach up and tear the tube out of his throat before he choked 
to death.

"Shush, Mulder.  It's alright.  Just relax.  The more you 
fight, the harder it is to breathe," Scully's voice, slow, 
steady, and calm, gentled him out of his panic.  One small 
hand brushed his hair away from his forehead in long, slow 
sweeps.  Unconsciously he moved his head into her hand, like a 
cat arching into the hand that stroked its back.  Her other 
hand reached down to slip into his much larger one.  Gradually 
Mulder relaxed into the rhythm of the respirator.  He gave 
Scully's hand a gentle squeeze to let her know he was alright 
and opened his eyes.

"God, Mulder, you've got to stop doing that," Scully admonished 
him with a shaky smile.  Her eyes were clouded with worry.  He 
hated the machine and the restraints, hated the dependency they 
forced on him.  His pleas notwithstanding, the doctors were 
adamant - until his throat healed enough to withstand the 
pressure of breathing, he was going to remain hooked up to the 
respirator.

Mulder gave an almost imperceptible shrug of his shoulders, 
part apology, part resigned resentment at his imprisonment.  
Scully gave him another smile and watched as his eyes responded.  
She never ceased to be amazed at how responsive his eyes were.  
Over the past three days, his eyes had spoken volumes of his 
pain, his anger and above all his abiding concern for her.  If he 
was thrall to her smile, then she was indentured to his eyes.  

Mulder made a tapping motion with his right hand, indicating he 
wanted the chalkboard they used when a shrug and a glance wasn't 
enough to convey his meaning.  Scully undid the restraints and 
handed him the board.  She wished she could make the nurses 
understand that when he was completely awake and aware, Mulder 
didn't need the restraints.  It was only when he came awake and 
tried to breathe against the rhythm of the machines that he tried 
to free himself of the tracheotomy tube running into the base of 
his throat.  After one such incident when he came close to 
succeeding, the word had come down from on high - he would remain 
in wrist restraints until the respirator was no longer necessary.

Freed of the straps, Mulder flexed his arms and indulged in the 
sensuous luxury of raising his arms over his head and stretching 
like a cat.  His shoulders protested the sudden change in 
position with audible creaks and snaps.  Catching sight of Scully 
smothering a laugh at the cacophony of sounds, Mulder smiled and 
snapped a few of his upper vertebrae in a loud rejoinder.

Scully tried to turn her smile into a censuring look, but failed.  
This was no cure for Mulder's anxiety about his future, but, like 
him, she had learned to seize these moments and hold onto them.  
Without a word, she handed him the chalk.  

	Any leads? 

Scully shook her head.  Mulder had told her about a disk he had 
retrieved from one of his insane marauding ventures.  When she 
went to check on it, there was no disk.  To add insult to 
injury, his hard drive had been systematically trashed.  Byers 
had been quite profane about the damage.  To the best of her 
knowledge, Scully had never really heard Byers swear before.  
He did so in a hushed mutter of highly literate, yet highly profane 
terms that amused and entertained her, almost as much as the flush 
of embarrassment when he realized she had overheard him.  Frohike's 
comments had been simple, earthy and to the point.  

"No, Mulder.  No one saw anyone enter your apartment.  No one 
heard anyone moving around," Scully sighed.  "Skinner suspects 
the assault on you was more than a simple random attack, but 
his team of experts says otherwise and we have no evidence to 
force them to keep the investigation open.  The D.C. police are 
in charge now."

Mulder almost yielded to the temptation to hurl the chalkboard 
against the wall, but realized that would only bring in the 
nurses and Scully would be hastily evicted while they put him 
back in restraints.  Damn Cancer Man.  He was so close.  The disk 
was his best hope of getting enough information to deal with that 
SOB.  Now it was gone, along with his hard drive, like all the other 
evidence he ever managed to lay his hands on.  Torn out of his hands, 
just as Scully was being ripped from his life.

"Whatever was on that disk, Mulder.  Whatever you found or 
think you found, it's not worth your life," Scully pleaded 
against the angry familiar despair she saw in the back of his 
eyes.  She had so little time to make sure Mulder would commit to 
life.  Her own doctors were grimly honest with her about her 
dwindling health, just as Mulder's was bluntly optimistic about 
the excellent chance he had of speaking again and returning to a 
normal life.  How strange, she thought, that she could accept her 
sentence of death while Mulder regarded his sentence of life as 
simply one more burden to bear.

	It was worth your life

Mulder didn't look at her as he handed her the chalkboard with 
the words of his confession plain to see.  He had failed.  

Scully took the chalkboard in silence.  Mulder lay still, his 
head turned away, his hands clenched at his sides.  This was no 
boyish pout, this was the despair of a man who had seen his 
last hope ripped from his hands.  She didn't know what to say, 
what she could say to ease his pain.  She had no hope to spare 
him.  His fierce hope had warmed her soul these past few weeks 
when her own hope had dwindled into darkness.  

Perhaps, though, she could still give him something of herself 
to rekindle his inexorable hope.  If her soul was dry, was there 
not yet a part of her heart still burning?  

"I'm still here, Mulder.  As long as I know you believe, I can 
believe that somehow, together, we can come through this," Scully 
whispered softly as she leaned down and returned the kiss he had 
given her in the hospital outside Penny's room.  Her lips brushed 
his forehead, sending fire cascading through the cold ashes of 
his soul, igniting hope and passion in a bonfire of resolve.

Mulder grabbed her hand and held it to his lips in a kiss at 
once both chaste and passionate; a knight re-pledging himself 
to his lady.  Round one might belong to the dragon, but he was 
not going to concede round two without a fight.  Mulder 
released her hand and smiled; a smile peculiarly his own - part 
mischief, part simmering passion, part quixotic madman. 

	I believe.

Scully smiled at his simple proclamation of trust and hope.  He 
never ceased to amaze her.  Resilient beyond all reason.  Capable 
of a simple faith in the truth that even the blackest despair 
could not quench.  She fought against the temptation to hate the 
men who were trying to destroy that faith.  Her own faith, 
overshadowed by her science for so many years, was returning as 
she journeyed deeper into the mysteries of death.  Soon she would 
travel where Mulder could not follow, must not follow until his 
journey was complete.  She prayed that she could leave him enough 
faith to survive her death and continue the search for their 
truths without her.

Scully started to answer him when she saw Mulder's eyes grow wild 
and he began struggling to sit up.  Tubes strained and tangled as 
he thrashed about.  A horrid ragged croak followed by a trickle 
of blood burst from his throat.  One arm tried to thrust her 
aside while the other hand stabbed at the doorway.  For an 
instant, as she fought to restrain him, Scully thought she saw a 
shadow in the doorway.  When she turned her head a moment later, 
no one was there.  

Mulder collapsed against the pillows, spewing blood from his 
mouth, his eyes furious and frightened as he tried to make her 
understand what he had seen.  Still furious he fought the drugs 
and the restraints until he was pulled back into the drug-
induced netherworld.  Scully had to be warned.  That thought 
accompanied him into the haze until more drugs sapped all 
conscious thought away and he was left floating in a world where 
time coiled around him in an endless loop with no beginning or 
end until the memory of the event flowed into the memory of the 
attack and was lost.

Jason moved swiftly away from the door as nurses poured into the 
room in response to the alarms.  The risk was minimal, but had to 
be taken.  So, Mulder could identify him as his assailant.  
Interesting.  Possibly even useful.  Not as useful as confirming 
that the unique bond Mulder shared with his partner was as strong 
as ever, however.  

**************

Later that night


"It's not your place to question, doctor.  You have the vial?" 
Jason's voice was cold and dry as an Arctic breeze.

"Yes, but...  I can't just administer this to a patient without 
knowing what is in it."  Protests, feeble and uncertain, like the 
final struggles of a fly sensing the imminent arrival of the 
spider.

"It's rather late for an attack of conscience, doctor. Perhaps 
you would prefer explaining to the medical board exactly why you 
have been systematically administering experimental drugs to your 
patients without FDA approval?"  Jason paused, counted slowly to 
twenty-five, listening to the doctor's panicked breathing.  Such 
a foolish man to believe the Consortium's promises of immunity.  
He was a useful man only as long as he cooperated.  

"I thought not.  Just administer the contents of the vial in her 
regular vitamin supplement treatments.  I think you will be 
pleased by the results.  That is what you want, isn't it doctor?  
The well-being of your patients?"  Jason mocked the doctor who 
had his breathing under control and was waiting in silence to 
hear his instructions like the obedient servant he was.  Jason 
despised him.  So eager to be on the cutting-edge, so greedy for 
personal aggrandizement that he failed to see the sword that hung 
over his head.

"Oh, and by the way, doctor, you will be mystified by the 
improvement.  If I hear one word from you that suggests you claim 
any responsibility for the improvement . . .  You have, I believe 
a two-year-old son. . ."  Jason tried to keep from laughing at 
the use of such tired, old threats, but this doctor seemed overly 
impressed by the melodramatic.  It was all he could do to avoid 
lapsing into an imitation of Edward G. Robinson.  

"Yes, I understand," came the bitter reply.  "She is due in 
tomorrow for her weekly checkup.  I'll administer the dose then.  
Is that all?" 

"For now."  Jason hung up the phone content with the doctor's 
struggles against the web that bound him to Jason's purpose.  
Little men with grand ambitions were so useful to the Project.

Now it was time to set the middle game in motion.  With the white 
queen occupied and the white king momentarily in check, it was 
time to test the white king's bishop in battle.  A certain 
Assistant Director Walter Skinner was about to learn the price of 
a soul.  

Jason sat in the darkness and smiled.


The End


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