Ground Zero (The X-Files) (3 page)

Mulder parked the car and reached behind him to pull out his lightweight briefcase. Scully flicked down the mirror on the passenger side sun visor. She gave a quick glance at the lipstick on her full lips, checked the makeup on her large blue eyes, smoothed her light auburn hair. Despite her tiredness, everything seemed in place, professional. Mulder stepped out of the car and straightened his suit jacket, adjusted his maroon tie.

FBI agents, after all, had to appear suitable for the part.

“I need another cup of coffee,” Scully said, 13

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following him out of the car. “I want to be absolutely certain I can devote my full attention to the details of any case unusual enough to drag us three thousand miles across the country.”

Mulder held open the glass door for her to enter the Badge Office. “You mean that ‘gourmet’ brew on the airplane wasn’t up to your exacting standards?”

She favored him with raised eyebrows. “Let’s put it this way, Mulder—I haven’t heard of many flight attendants retiring to start their own espresso franchises.”

Mulder ran a hand quickly through his fluffy dark hair, ensuring that at least most of the strands fell into place. Then he trailed after her into the heavily air-conditioned building. The interior consisted primarily of a large, open area, a long counter that served as a barricade to a few back offices, and some small carrels that held televisions and videotape players. A row of blue padded chairs sat in front of a wall of windows that had been tinted to filter out the bright California sun, though patches of the modern brown-and-rust tweed carpet already looked faded. Several construction workers clad in overalls stood in line at the counter with hardhats tucked under their arms and folded pink forms in their hands. One at a time the workers handed their papers to the counter personnel, who checked IDs and exchanged the pink forms for temporary work permits.

A sign on the wall clearly listed all of the items that were not permitted inside the Teller Nuclear Research Facility: cameras, firearms, drugs, alcohol, personal recording devices, telescopes. Scully scanned the list. The items were familiar from her own experience at FBI Headquarters.

“I’ll check us in,” she said and flipped open a small notebook from the pocket of her forest-green 14

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suit. She took a place in line behind several large men in paint-spattered overalls. She felt extremely over-dressed. Another clerk opened a station at the end of the speckled counter and gestured Scully over.

“I suppose I must look out of place here,” Scully said and displayed her badge. “I’m Special Agent Dana Scully. My partner is Fox Mulder. We’re here to meet with—” she glanced down at her notebook, “a Department of Energy representative, a Ms. Rosabeth Carrera. She’s expecting us.”

The clerk straightened her gold-rimmed glasses and shuffled through some papers. She punched in Scully’s name on her computer terminal. “Yes, here you are, ‘Special Clearance Expedited.’ You’ll still need to be escorted everywhere until official approval comes through, but we can issue you badges to allow you access to certain areas in the meantime.”

Scully raised her eyebrows, keeping her best professional Meet-the-Public composure. “Is that really necessary? Agent Mulder and I already have full clearances with the FBI. You can—”

“Your FBI clearances don’t mean anything here, Ms. Scully,” the woman said. “This is a Department of Energy facility. We don’t even recognize Department of Defense clearances. Everybody’s got their own investigative procedures, and none of us talks to the other.”

“Government efficiency?” Scully said.

“Your tax dollars at work. Just be glad you don’t work for the Postal Service,” the woman said. “Who knows what sort of background check they’d do.”

Mulder came up beside Scully. He handed her a Styrofoam cup full of oily, bitter-smelling coffee he had taken from a pot on an end table piled high with flashy Teller Nuclear Research Facility technical reports and brochures about all the wonderful work the R&D lab was doing for humanity. 15

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“I paid ten cents for this,” he said, indicating the contributions cup, “and I’ll bet it’s worth every penny. Creamer, no sugar.”

Scully took a sip. “Tastes like it’s been on that warmer since the Manhattan Project,” she said, but grudgingly took another sip to show Mulder that she appreciated his gesture.

“Think of it as fine wine, Scully: perfectly aged.”

The clerk returned to the counter and handed Mulder and Scully each a laminated visitor’s badge. “Wear these at all times. Make sure they’re visible and above the waist,” she said. “And these.” She passed them each a blue plastic rectangle containing what looked like a strip of film and a computer chip. “Your radiation dosimeters. Clip them to your badges. Always keep them on your person.”

“Radiation dosimeters?” Scully asked, maintaining a calm tone, devoid of any obvious worry. “Is there some cause for concern here?”

“Just a precaution, Agent Scully. We are a
nuclear
research facility, you understand. Our orientation videotape should answer all your questions. Follow me, please.”

She set Scully and Mulder at one of the small carrels in front of a miniature television. She inserted the videotape and pushed PLAY, then went back to the counter to call Rosabeth Carrera. Mulder leaned over, watching the static on the leader before the tape began. “What do you think they’ll have, a cartoon or previews?” he said.

“Do you believe a cartoon designed by the government would be funny?” she asked.

Mulder shrugged. “Some people think Jerry Lewis is funny.”

The videotape ran for only four minutes. It was a sanitized description of the Teller Nuclear Research Facility, with a perky narrator explaining

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briefly what radiation is and what it can do
for
you, as well as
to
you. The program emphasized the medical uses and research applications of exotic isotopes, gave constant reassurances about the safeguards used by the facility, and made comparisons to background levels of radiation that one might receive taking a single cross-country flight or living a year in a high-altitude city such as Denver. After a final, brightly colored graph, the cheery voice told them both to have a nice, safe visit at the Teller Nuclear Research Facility. Mulder rewound the tape. “My heart’s just going all pitterpat,” he said. Together they made their way back to the badge counter. Most of the construction workers had already gone inside the chain-link fence to their work site. Mulder and Scully didn’t have long to wait before a petite Hispanic woman bustled in through the glass doors. She spotted the two FBI agents half a second later and came over, looking full of energy, eager to meet them. Scully immediately sized her up as she had been trained to do at Quantico, visually gathering facts to form an estimation of a person upon first glance. The woman held out her hand and quickly shook with the two FBI agents.

“I’m Rosabeth Carrera,” she said, “one of the DOE representatives here. I’m very pleased you could come out on such short notice. It is something of an emergency.”

Carrera wore a knee-length skirt and scarlet silk blouse that set off her dusky skin. Her lips were generous, embellished with a conservative lipstick. Her full head of rich brown hair, the color of dark chocolate, was pulled back on her head, held by several gold barrettes, and cascaded down her back in a glorious tumble of locks. She was built like a gymnast,

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filled with enthusiasm, not at all the type of dry bureaucrat Scully had expected.

Scully caught the look on Mulder’s face as he stared into the woman’s very dark eyes. Carrera laughed. “I could spot you two right away. This is California, you know. East Coasters and a few high management types are the only ones around here who wear monkey suits.”

Scully blinked. “Monkey suits?”

“Formal dress. The Teller Facility is pretty casual. Most of our researchers are Californians or transplants from Los Alamos, New Mexico. A suit and tie is a rarity here.”

“I always knew I was somebody special,” Mulder said. “I should have thought to wear my surfing tie.”

“If you’ll follow me,” Carrera said, “I’ll take you into the site and the scene of the…accident. We’ve left everything the way it was for the past eighteen hours. It’s so unusual, we wanted to give you a chance to look at it fresh. We’ll take my car.”

Scully and Mulder followed her out to a pale blue Ford Fairmont with government plates. Mulder caught his partner’s eye and scratched the side of his head in a chimpanzee imitation. Monkey suits.

“We keep the doors unlocked around here,” Carrera said, indicating the car doors as she slipped inside. “We figure nobody’d want to steal a government car.” Mulder climbed in back, while Scully took the seat next to the DOE representative.

“Can you give us any more details about this case, Ms. Carrera?” Scully asked. “We were pulled out of bed early and sent here with virtually no background. The only information we’ve been given is that an important nuclear researcher here died in some sort of freak accident in his lab.”

Carrera drove toward the guard gate. She 18

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flashed her badge and handed over the paperwork that would allow Scully and Mulder to enter the facility beyond the fence. Receiving the counter-signed papers, she drove on, biting her lip as if mulling over the details. “That’s the story we’ve released to the press, though it won’t hold up long. There are too many questions yet—but I didn’t want to prejudice you before you saw the scene yourself.”

“You certainly know how to build suspense,” Mulder said from the back seat.

Rosabeth Carrera kept her eyes on the road while they drove past office trailers, temporary buildings, a cluster of old dilapidated buildings with wooden siding that looked like something from an old military installation, and finally to the newer buildings that had been constructed during the large defense budgets of the Reagan administration.

“We called the FBI as a matter of course,” Carrera continued. “This is possibly a crime—a death, maybe murder—on federal property, so the FBI has automatic jurisdiction.”

“You could have worked through your local field office,”

Scully pointed out.

“We called them,” Carrera said. “One of the local agents, a Craig Kreident, came out for a first glance last night. Do you know him?”

Mulder touched his lips, as he searched his excellent memory. “Agent Kreident,” he said. “I believe he specializes in high-tech crimes out here.”

“That’s him,” Carrera said. “But Kreident took one look and said this one was out of his league. He said it looked more like an ‘X-File’…those were his words…and that it was probably a job for you, Agent Mulder. I don’t understand what an X-File is.”

“Amazing what a reputation can do for you,” Mulder murmured.

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Scully answered the question. “‘X-Files’ is a catchall term for investigations involving strange and unexplained phenomena. The Bureau has numerous records of unsolved cases dating as far back as the early days of J. Edgar Hoover. The two of us have had numerous…experiences looking into those unusual cases.”

Carrera parked in front of the large laboratory buildings and got out of the car. “Then I think you’ll find this one to be right up your alley.”

Carrera led them at a brisk pace through the building, up to the second floor. The dim echoing halls, lit by banks of fluorescent lights, reminded Scully of a high school. One of the tubes overhead was gray and flickering. Scully wondered how long it had needed to be replaced.

Cork bulletin boards lined the open spaces of cement-block walls, posted with colorful safety notices and signs for regular technical meetings. Handwritten index cards announced rental properties and time-share condos in Hawaii, cars for sale; one card offered “slightly used rock-climbing equipment.”

The ubiquitous security awareness posters seemed to be left over from World War II, though Scully found none that said

“Loose Lips Sink Ships.”

Up ahead an entire corridor had been blocked off with yellow barrier tape. Since the Teller Nuclear Research Facility couldn’t be expected to have CRIME SCENE barricades, they had settled for CONSTRUCTION AREA tape. Two lab security guards stood posted on either side of the corridor, looking uncomfortable with their assignment.

Carrera didn’t need to say a word to them. One guard stepped aside to let her pass. “Don’t worry,” she said to the man, “you’re on a short shift. Replacements are coming in a few minutes.” Then

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she gestured for Mulder and Scully to follow her as she ducked under the flimsy yellow tape.

Scully wondered why the guards should be so concerned. Was it the simple superstition of being too close to a possible murder scene? These guards probably had very little outright crime to investigate, especially not violent crime like murder. She supposed the body hadn’t been removed yet, which would be very unusual.

Down the hall beyond the yellow tape, all other offices stood empty, though their still-running computers and full bookshelves showed that the room had been occupied until recently. Coworkers of Dr. Emil Gregory’s? If so, they would have to be interviewed. No doubt all of the workers had been relocated, pending investigation of the accident. One office door, though, was tightly shut and sealed with more of the barrier tape. Rosabeth Carrera stood beside it and pulled off her laminated picture badge from which dangled a dosimeter and several keys. She searched for the key with the appropriate ID number and slipped it into the intimidating-looking lock in the doorknob.

“Take a quick look,” she said, pushing the door open and simultaneously turning her face away. “This is just first glance. You’ve got two minutes.”

Scully and Mulder stood beside each other at the threshold and peered inside.

It looked as if an incendiary bomb had gone off in Dr. Gregory’s lab office.

Every surface had been singed with a burst of heat so intense, yet so brief, it had curled and crisped the papers attached to Gregory’s bulletin board—
but had not ignited them
. His four computer terminals had melted at the edges and slumped in on themselves, the heavy glass cathode-ray tubes of the screens tilting cockeyed like the gaze of a dead 21