CHAPTER 24

THE FOLLOWING TAKES PLACE BETWEEN 8:00 A.M. AND 9:00 A.M.

Inside

"You do anything to hurt my wife-"

"Please, Agent Vaughn," Henderson barely even shrugged. "Presidents have threatened me today. You don't even rate."

Vaughn decided further rants were pointless; Henderson was too good at this to be swayed by emotional threats. He'd just have to hope for another opening.

And one came- from literally the last place he'd have looked.

"I've done my job," Sark replied. "At the very least, you could allow me to at least try and survive Mr. Bauer's bringing hell down upon us."

Henderson considered this for a moment. Then he waved his hand over to Vaughn's weapon. "Try not to forget which side you're on."

"I haven't," Sark replied, as he took the gun.

Two things happened simultaneously. The windows exploded inward, and Sark shot the assailant closest to Vaughn.

The next thirty seconds were absolute chaos, but since Henderson only had three other gunmen with him (and all of them human, apparently) CTU managed to win the day almost to easily.

When Jack finally made it through the front door, he have expected to see that Henderson had eaten his gun. Instead, he saw something that, even after everything that he had seen involving Syd and what he had learned about today, he would have never believed in a million years could happen. Sark was checking over Agent Vaughn, making sure he was all right, before handing over his weapon. (He was, however, smart enough to make sure that the clip was empty first.)

He barely had time to notice before he saw that Henderson, despite being surrounded by the corpses of his comrades, was not giving up yet. Only he wasn't holding a weapon, but rather a variation on a Palm Pilot. "One step further, and I turn Agent Bristow's brain into cabbage," he whispered.

Jack hesitated, but only for a moment. "I still don't believe that you could do something like that. Nothing involving the retrovirus would lead to this kind of effect."

"As Dr. Scully could easily tell you, one of the symptoms of this infection is the ability to reduce someone to a literal shell of your former self," Henderson replied slowly. "We've been working with these creatures for quite some time, Jack, and some of us are handy with technology ourselves. Push of a button," he lowered his hand right on top of a switch, "you want to see what nanite enhancement can do?"

From the way that Jack and Nadia were standing there, it was clear they desperately didn't want to believe what they were hearing, but weren't willing risk Syd's life on the remote possibility that Henderson was telling the truth

"Now, I'm going to walk out that door," Henderson indicated the back entrance, "and drive away. And if you and your friends are good little agents, Jack, maybe I'll turn the remote off in about thirty minutes." Now he gave a smile. "The President should be finishing his speech by then. I hear it's going to be a killer."

For the next five seconds, nobody did anything. Then Jack tapped his foot on the ground. Vaughn knew that there had to be some kind of signal, but he had no idea what it would be until a shot shattered the silence- and the Pilot that Henderson was carrying. Some of the glass on the computer screen lodged in Henderson's forehead, and he shrieked as he hit the ground.

Vaughn whirled around to see Mulder standing there, with an apologetic look on his face. "I was aiming for his shoulder," he replied.

"You idiot!" he shouted. "You've probably killed Sydney."

"Don't bet on it," Syd's voice was a lot weaker than it usually sounded, and there was blood streaming from her nose, but she was alive.

"Henderson, I've believed in a lot of crazy shit in my life," Mulder replied, "but even I'm not that gullible

Vaughn ran over to her. "Someone mind explaining to me what the fuck is going on here?" Nadia demanded.

"Credit the prodigal sister," Doggett replied, indicating Samantha Mulder. "I have no idea what kind of gizmo she told to your tech wizards, but whatever it was it worked fast."

"I'll be willing to explain, but we have to get to the U.N. now," Samantha reminded him. "Any minute the President's going to be starting his address. You are still interested in saving the world, right?"

Jack looked at Doggett. "How many people can you fit in your chopper?' he demanded.

8:05:17/8:05:18/8:05:19

U.N. GENERAL ASSEMBLY

The man who was calling himself James Prescott was being kept appraised of every action that was going on involving the agents that he had called in for this particular mission. He had doubts about almost everyone involved in this operation, and he was somewhat dismayed when the majority of the plans- plans that had been in the works for decades- had ended up failing, and in many cases, spectacularly so.

Prescott had always been wearing of using human collaborators for any part of this. They had demonstrated an enormous amount of patience in their plans for subjugation - hell, they had been willing to wait through a couple of ice ages. but now that they finally seemed to be near the conclusion, the well-executed plans that they developed kept falling apart. The problems with Matheson had been nearly the final straw- several of Prescott's colleagues had wanted to obliterate D.C. just to get there, but Logan, a nebbish little Napoleon, had talked them out of it. Logan wanted to go down in his as his country's greatest President; he had no idea that he would just be the last.

But now, everything seemed to be falling apart. He wasn't surprised Follmer's work was inaccurate- the man's entire career at the Bureau had been one filled of spectacular ineptitude glazed with corruption- but he was the best of a bad bunch. Henderson had been something of a disappointment - the man had real potential with single focus. Under other circumstances, he might have eventually been moved up higher in the totem pole. But he had developed one too many plans, and his overreaching had taken him too far.

The bigger concern were the rumors- for they had to be fiction- that CTU had dispatched at least half a dozen bounty hunters today. The FBI had known about them for far longer, and it had taken them eight years before they finally registered a kill. This was even bigger shock then the fact that the hybridized virus they had perfectly after half a century of work had failed its beta test. He felt vaguely like having Kelly Peyton skinned alive if this was the case, and he was supposed to be above such emotion, along with the assassin who had bungled the job killing Palmer.

Now Palmer was back in the game, and the bastard was naive enough to think that reclaiming his position as President would put an end to the terror. He might be back in office in three hours, but in ten minutes, he would finally be able to do what his 'colleagues' had waited so patiently for- ready half the Planet for colonization. Jack Bauer and Sydney Bristow might be formidable adversaries, but they were only two humans. What could they possibly do against the full force of their own military?

EN ROUTE TO THE U.N.

There wasn't enough room in the helicopter for all of them and the armaments they were going to need for their assault. (In all honesty, Jack thought that nothing short of a couple of tanks might make this doable, but you make do with what you have.) So they had loaded the chopper with weapons, and he, Nadia and Mulder took Henderson with them into one of the other Hummers.

"Please tell me that you have a plan," Mulder asked after a minute of quiet. "I don't mind the possibility of going to my death, but I'd at least like it to have a chance in hell of working."

Jack had one more conversation with the President before the move on Henderson - and it was no more encouraging than the last one. David Palmer explained that a goodly amount of his cabinet had found his actions questionable before the attempt on his life. If he put forth everything that Jack and Mulder were telling him as gospel, he might never get his Presidency back, and if what Prescott was planning did happen, they would just as easily be doing Logan's work for them. There was no way he could do anything to reduce the military presence or supply reinforcements to augment the mission. If he did, he would be laying groundwork for possible impeachment afterwards, and somebody had to think about the long run.

"So basically we're going in blind, just the eight of us?" Mulder replied. "Christ, even Lee Marvin got eleven other guys."

Nadia's phone chose that minute to ring. The caller on the other end was a surprise to her, and after less than ten seconds she put her on the speaker. "Go ahead, Kim," she said.

If Jack was surprised to hear from his daughter, he kept it hidden. "Kim, did something happen in LA?"

"Quite a bit, actually." Kim took a deep breath. "It's a long story, and even the Cliff Notes would take to long. The bottom line is, a few hours ago, I was infected with the alien virus."

It took a considerable amount of willpower for Jack to keep the car on the road after hearing that. "How badly?" he managed to ask with his tone only going up an octave.

"It was serious, Dad, but somehow I managed to overcome the effects of it, long enough for Marshall and some of the people at CTU to start working on a way to counter its effects."

Though it only lasted for a moment, Mulder could see a look of genuine shock pass over Henderson's face. Jack managed to hide it a little better. "How the hell did you do that?"

"The closest translation I was able to get from Marshall was that the virus gives off a very faint signal that can be countered using ultrasonic waves," Kim told them. "Can I get confirmation of that from your coast?"

"Possibly," Jack said carefully. "But Kim, the President's going to be addressing the U.N. any minute now. We don't have time to build one from scratch."

"You're not going to," Kim replied. "There are also a couple of wise men who, while they've been on the run, think they've found a way to reach out and touch someone. Care to listen?"

8:13:31/8:13:32/8:13:33/8:13:34

Air Space Approaching the UN

Neither Sydney or Vaughn was wild about riding in the same helicopter with Sark, but then, to be fair, Sark wasn't wild about the idea either. He kept looking around as if he expected one or both of them to open the door and shove him out of it. And while they might have been willing to let it go, Doggett thought that this helicopter was small enough without the added elephant as a passenger

"Sark, if you'd gone along with Henderson, you'd probably be halfway to the Caribbean by now," he finally asked. "Why the hell did you go along with this?"

Sark actually blinked a couple of times on this. "Like I told Agent Santos before, I am a man of my word," he finally said. "And frankly, given the choice between having Henderson trying to kill me or Agent Vaughn, I'd prefer the former. At least, Henderson would only kill me once."

Syd and Vaughn looked like they didn't know whether to laugh, cry or shoot someone at this. Fortunately, at that moment, the radio started to blare It was Jack.

"Change of plans," he told them. "I just got off the radio with my daughter. She had some ideas as to how we might be able to augment our assault."

Doggett actually managed to breath after. "Good, cause that whole 'Charge of the Light Brigade bit,' really didn't think we were going to pull it off."

"I wouldn't be too sure," Mulder's voice replied. "You haven't heard the new plan yet."

This didn't fill Doggett with confidence. And when Jack finished outlining what he wanted them to do now, he began to wonder if everybody in the extended family was as crazy as Mulder seemed to be at times.

Syd seemed to recover first. "You do realize that for this to work, this transmission that you're going to have to use will have to be bounced off almost every satellite in the Western Hemisphere?"

"You have doubts in Marshall and Edgar?" Nadia sounded like she was questioning gospel.

"The two of them can do just about anything, but asking them to do this much this fast-" Sydney replied.

"The Gunmen are willing to help." Mulder finished. "With that much brainpower, they could probably black out the entire country if we asked."

They all considered this. "For all of this to work, we're going to need a hell of a distraction," Vaughn countered.

"Is my sister in the helicopter?" Mulder asked. When Samantha answered, he asked. "You really want to prove you're on the side of the angels, now's the time."

By now, the front of Dag Hammarskjold plaza was visible over the river. "We've stalled as long as we can," Sydney replied. "This sounds like a suicide mission, but right now, it's all we got. And if it's going to have a chance of coming off at all, we need to get prepped."

"I hate to be anal about this, but are you really just going to do all this, and hope that our prisoners are just going to wait in the car?" Scully pointed out.

"I've every intention of helping." Before anyone could respond to this, Sark reiterated: "Hey, I've seen what you've fought against before, and you have the habit of drawing an inside straight on the weakest of hands. And I am a man of my word, whether you believe or not."

"And I wouldn't worry about Henderson," Jack replied. "He's going to be the one who gets us through the front door."

Henderson hadn't said a thing through this entire conversation, but Doggett didn't want to speculate as to how they were going to use him.

"It's still going to be just us charging up Little Bighorn?" he asked."

"Believe me, Agent Doggett," Sark replied. 'It should be more then enough."

This didn't seem to fill anybody else with confidence. Which led Doggett to think that Sark might know exactly what was coming.

Was, in fact, counting on it.

8:20:21/8:20:22/8:20:23/

Prescott had done a lot more than make sure that he would still be in power when he addressed the UN. He had dispatched two military platoons, along with half of the NYPD riot squad to maintain guard around the General Assembly building. Add to that the number of Secret Service and international police that would be guarding the place as a matter of course, and there were probably thousands of people would be defending the building. Jack had pulled off some miracles in the years that Sydney had known him (and some more before that), but even she wasn't sure if he'd be capable of masterminding this particular maneuver.

But time was essentially up. According to the radio, Prescott was already on his way to the General Assembly, which meant they had less than five minutes. He knew that even with the best case scenario, they had less than a ten percent chance of pulling this off even with all of this tech support.

"Jack," David Palmer told him. "I've seen you do some remarkable things, but even if by some miracle you pull all of this off, you will be branded by some people as a traitor, and not just by people in this country. I will do everything in my power to make sure the world knows why you're doing this, but you have to know, there are limitations even to my power. "

"I'm aware of that, sir."

"I just need you to know, whatever the outcome, this nation owes you a debt that it will probably never be able to repay. And I have been privileged to call you a friend."

"The honor has been all mine, Mr. President," Jack told him.

"Good luck, Jack. My prayers are with you." And with that David Palmer hung up

Jack got out of the car and walked towards the rendezvous point, hauling Henderson with him "He's not going take my call, you know," the ex-agent said. "When you're on the verge of the world domination, you tend to forget all of the little people who brought you there."

"All you have to do is make contact," Jack told him. "We'll handle the rest. Make the goddamn call."

Henderson mad a face, then took out the cell that he'd been using to keep in contact with Prescott, and dialed.

The second that the phone range, Edgar used the satellite to lock on to the exact position. On the other side of the continent, Marshall, Byers and Langley began to bounce an ultrasonic wave off half a dozen others to make sure the signal got there in the twenty seconds it took from the first ring until someone picked up the phone.

"You've chosen a very bad time to break radio silence, Christopher," James Prescott answered. Even angry his tone never went about moderate concern

"I haven't got much of a choice in the matter, sir."

"Do I have a problem?"

"Bauer's probably in his save-the-world from itself mode by now," Henderson countered.

"We're locked in," Marshall whispered on a separate line.

"Where do I need to position my people?"

'I'm going to transmit the coordinates now," Henderson seemed perfectly calm as he gave them a position on one side of the Plaza.

Of course, getting Prescott to shift only a small number of his troops wasn't going to be enough to get Sydney and her people where they needed to be. Even the strongest signal was bound to be broken up by the immense amount of interference that every media outlet, and half the phone lines on the East Coast were cutting them off. In order for this to have a chance of working, they needed a hell of a distraction.

Which was exactly what the resistance was about to provide.

Given the immense amount of military presence and the fact that so much that had happened today had gone wrong, one would have thought that Prescott would have tried to have as few members of the media on site as possible. But, while he had been goddamn sure to make certain that nobody in the press had access to the actual meeting, he wanted to make sure all media attention was focused on this conference. By doing so, he could keep David Palmer in check and getting any information on what was a huge story by keeping them covering a global one, if only for an extra few minutes. It was a calculated risk, but so far it had been working, and all he had to do was keep the bastards occupied for another ten minutes.

In doing so, the acting President was about to inadvertently create the biggest story since the crucifixion.

All of the media was doing what amounted to filling up airtime with speculation as to what was going to happen. Therefore, it was never quite clear which of the media outlets realized what was happening first. But because a lot of them couldn't get out of the way of their own technology.

Whatever the case, it took several seconds for the correspondents to realize that darkness was covering the immediate area. By the time they did, they realized that everybody was looking up.

It was one thing to be abducted by a flying saucer in the dark of night; it was another to see the fucking thing just hanging overhead. Christ, Syd couldn't help but think, when these guys decide to help, they don't fucking do it by halves.

Prescott might have the finest trained military in the world, but it was goddamn hard not to have your eyes drawn to it. And she knew for an absolute fact that there was no way you could just tear your eyes away from the sky. More than that, for ten long seconds, the craft had managed to block out communications- more than long enough for Marshall to send the ultrasonic message over the air.

They've done their job Sydney thought. Now we have to do ours.

8:28:43/8:28:44/8:28:45/8:28:46

Inside the General Assembly

. Every channel featured battle hardened news anchors voices breaking as they saw what the hell was going on outside.

Prescott knew that this wasn't his groups doing, which meant that it had to be the resistance. He turned to his nearest aide, and demanded access to a secure line..

"I'm trying, sir," the resolute aide said. "But the traffic is overwhelming. Everybody and his brother is trying to get a handle on what the hell is going on out there."

Suddenly, a monster migraine ran through Prescott's head. A body that was capable of being blasted to atoms and rebuilding itself was beginning to feel pain beyond imagining, which was saying something. One of the aides tried to help him, but despite this, he shook him off and demanded entry into the general assembly.

"Sir, the security forces locked the entire place down the minute that-" the aide struggled for the right word and couldn't come up with it. "that entered the UN's airspace."

Prescott realized he didn't have any time, and started bolting towards the door. The aide tried to stop him, and, half-mad with a headache, he practically threw the man into the wall.

The three members of Prescott's detail who were not human knew what was happening and started to run into position. But by then, it was already too late. The President let out a scream that was heard throughout the entire U.N.. Then a bizarre fluid- a mixture of black oil, silver metal, and a viscous red solution- began to flow out of both Henderson's ears. Something very similar was happening to certain members of the delegations that Prescott had met with a few hours earlier. Not even the aliens were quite sure what they were seeing; all they knew was, it meant death.

Their plans had been thwarted somehow. But there was still a chance that they could pull this off. One of them had to get inside the assembly, and finish the job that Prescott had been about to do.

The UFO that had hovered over the crowds below vanished in the blink of an eye. Samantha Mulder's friends clearly had better reflexes than your average cheetah.

This did nothing to quiet the crowd below; if anything, they got even louder. And why not? This kind of image was the kind of thing that the media would be playing over and over for years.

Now it was time for Sydney and her team to finish cleaning up the mess they had made. While everybody in the world had been watching the UFO, she, Scully, Doggett and Vaughn had gotten through the holes in security that Prescott had allowed minutes earlier. They had one objective- remove the alien threat.

The chaos that was unfolding on the ground was almost as bad as what had happened in Russia less than three years ago. But dealing with just this kind of chaos was exactly what Michael Vaughn had been trained to do, and when your instructors were the Agency, Jack Bristow, and Jack Bauer, you find that you can handle practically everything, even if you are still considered a 'boy scout'.

As soon as he hauled himself on to a slightly higher window ledge, he started to do what somebody in the military should have begun doing when this whole mess got started- dispersing the mob. He grabbed a couple of riot gas canisters that had been in one of the hummers, and threw them into the crowd. He waited several seconds, knowing that this action would probably remind the panicked troopers how to do their goddamned job, and that eventually the panic would burn itself out. Dozens of people would probably end up getting hurt or killed as a result, and there would be a hefty price for CTU to pay, but right now Vaughn was less concerned with that then living to fight another day.

Oh, and getting to the second part of his mission. Which he accomplished by taking a rock he had poached, and smashing the window in.

Scully's part in this little exercise was so risky that Mulder had tried really hard to persuade her to switch jobs with him. Scully had reminded him once again, a) no part of this job was particularly safe, and b) she was the better one at doing this particular job than Mulder had ever been. Reluctantly he had agreed with this part, but that didn't mean he liked it.

Scully's job was to approach the hallway from the northernmost entrance. Sydney would come from the south. Her signal had been to hear the shattering window, and wait for the riot gas to start seeping in. This took a very long minute.

Eventually, almost every man in the hallway doubled over or was on the ground. The key word- 'almost. Three didn't, and even the once-skeptical Scully knew why.

Another reason that Mulder had been nervous about this was that Scully had been tasked with an AK-47. This was the critical weapon for this to work, but she had next to no experience using one. Mulder would've thought that the recoil alone could drive her into the ground.

But Scully's aim, as always, was better than Mulder's, and in a matter of seconds, she had the back of the neck targeted. With two presses of the trigger, she had all but blown the alien's head off, causing it to explode in a sea of goo.

Doggett had more experience with advanced weaponry that the other agents on the X-Files, but he still hadn't used some of this weaponry until that day. Plus if you screwed up with a rocket launcher, there was a very good chance of collateral damage, and he had already killed enough people today.

These aliens were definitely smart. Only one came running after Scully, and that was the one he'd have to handle. Simple enough, if you were used to killing aliens.

Saying a silent prayer, he got the second alien in his crosshairs, and fired. A split second later, he realized the consequences if this thing exploded where it did, but it was too late.

The good news was that he had managed a clean strike. The rocket propelled grenade took off most of the alien's head, and he dissolved instantly. Unfortunately, Scully was within range, and almost instantly fell to the ground, as the virus began to burn her eyes.

His better instincts overcame him, and he started running to his ex-partner.

All that remained was one very determined creature And, because of the challenges of getting inside the building, Syd was without the heavy artillery that Jack had managed to make good use of killing the bastards in Central Park..

Fortunately, she had an ace in the hole. The question, of course, was whether this behemoth would give her enough of a chance to use it.

Come on, Sydney thought to herself how hard can this be? You managed to stop one yesterday.

By now, she had gotten enough adjusted to the maneuvers of these brutes that she was able to dodge when he began the bull charge that seemed to be these things stock and trade. The creature was not amused by this, and responded by yanking a fixture out of the wall, and heaved it at her. She dodged it, though it wasn't as easy as she made it look.

"That the best you can do?" she shouted. "My mother threw harder than that!"

The alien was not amused . He either didn't know who her mother had been or just didn't care. For that matter, Sydney should have known that taunting these creatures didn't make them mad, just more determined. But out of the corner of her eye, she could see that Prescott was looking like he was about to bolt, so she decided to cut this short.

"You're not the only one with fancy toys," she told him, as she pulled out the miniature flame thrower she'd copped when she was in the UFO earlier. "And I think you know how this one works."

Sydney wasn't sure if the creature was ever surprised, but she didn't wait to find out. Her one disappointment was that even in death, these creatures never so much as shouted. She'd been fighting these things all day; she wanted to know if they had any voice of their own.

Syd saw what was happening, and ran back over to Doggett. Before she did, she radioed to Jack. "Prescott's dead; the aliens have been neutralized," she paused. "One last thing to handle."

Doing this wouldn't help their side one bit. Hell, it would probably make things even worse without a sacrificial lamb. But even with all the blood that had been shed today, Jack just couldn't find it in him to keep Henderson alive.

He turned to his ex-mentor, who Nadia had locked up the second that he reached out and connected with Prescott, and removed his Glock. Henderson knew what was coming, but didn't avert his glance- if anything, he stared at him even harder. "Your problems aren't over, you know," he spat out. "If anything, this'll get you in even deeper shit with your superiors."

"Since when have I ever cared about what the powers that be thought?" Jack said quietly. "There's got to be some justice somewhere. And you are responsible for the deaths of Marcus Dixon and Mike Novick. They were my friends."

Henderson looked at him. "Well, what are you waiting for?" he whispered. "Do it." Then after long moment, he shouted out: "Do it!"

Jack fired twice, once at Henderson's head, once at his chest.

Nadia walked over to her husband, uncuffed Henderson's wrists, and took his weapon from him. "It didn't help, did it?" she asked.

"It never does," Jack said.

Doggett was never going to understand how this virus worked. Maybe because of her previous exposure, Scully didn't need much treatment. The burning in her eyes and skin began to go away as soon as they had left the building.

"I think it's over, Sydney," she said in a dull whisper.

Sydney shook her head. A few seconds later, several men wearing Homeland Security jackets came running in.. There were several seconds of "What the fuck?" and "What the hell happened?" before a man in a suit came running up to them. "Agent Bristow," he replied. "You and your people are being taken into custody."

"On what charge?" Scully demanded resolutely.

"High treason and plots against the Presidency." The tone brooked little argument.

Now it's over. "I want to talk to David Palmer," Sydney replied.

"Go ahead," the agent told them. "When this is all over, my guess is his ass will be sitting in the cell next to yours."

LOS ANGELES

The news that was coming out was sketchy and speculative, but in Los Angeles, there was at least one man who understood fully what had happened and what it would mean to the country. And he would be damned if he was going to face the music.

Senator Charles Logan had always been a prudent man, so he had been sure to make sure that a Magnum was at his home. Now, less than a minute after receiving a call from an aid at Homeland telling him that CTU was going to pull him in for questioning, he removed the weapon from the box, put it below his chin, and pulled the trigger.

Like almost everything else that was related to that horrible day, the Senator's action would never be fully understood by the general public. But not even in his final moments had Logan understood that all he been in this plot was a pawn, and never a player. All the real movers rested easy knowing that the last definite link to their culpability died with the Senator from California.

8:46:08/8:46:08/8:46:10/8:46:11

Jack wasn't surprised to hear that the FBI and Homeland had been called a full half hour before Jack's team had been on site. In a way, there was a very strange synchronicity to what had happened: the FBI had been cleaning up the mess when Sydney and Vaughn and thought that there had been a cover-up as to what had happened in the Hoover Building yesterday morning, and now they were doing the exact same thing here.

The fact that Jack's team might have prevented what might well have amounted to a global crisis would probably be irrelevant to those in higher authority. The fact that James Prescott had engaged in crimes that were far worse than the ones that they were facing wouldn't matter much either. Culpability was what mattered to the people who were in charge, and now that there was no real villains to blame, it was up to those higher up in the food chain to make sure that somebody's ox got gored.

Jack had known all this going into the final act. So did Sydney, Nadia and Vaughn. But Fox Mulder had been far more concerned that they were going out on a suicide mission than what the possible consequences would be. Then again, why should he have worried? He, Scully and Doggett had effectively nothing left to lose, career wise. But now that his friends were being faced with serious prison time, he was considerably outraged.

"So let me get this straight, for basically saving the world, we're all going to jail?" he demanded of Jack over their communicator.

"The President is a man of his word," Jack replied. "He'll do everything that he can to make sure that doesn't happen. Plus he knows that if the full extent of what Prescott and Logan were responsible for, the entire government might face even greater consequences."

"You say that like it's a bad thing."

Jack chose to ignore that remark. "Sydney and Vaughn will probably be cashiered out of the government. My guess is I'll be fired as well. As for you and your friends-"

"The X-Files have already been put on trial, Jack," Mulder interrupted. "That's the whole reason Scully and I were on the run in the first place."

"Would you relax?" Nadia told him.

"Hey, maybe you're used to walking away from charges of high treason. The last time I was, I was sentenced to death."

"You've got a reason to be worried," Jack replied. "But my friends and I are going to make sure that you walk away from this."

"And how exactly are you going to do that?" Mulder countered.

"Just listen."

INSIDE THE U.N.

Even the battled hardened veterans of domestic terrorist attacks were somewhat at a loss by what they were seeing. If Syd wasn't facing the most trumped up criminal charges for causing a lot of this messed, she might have been able to see things their way.

"You honestly expect me to believe this particular line of bullshit?" one of the agents demanded.

"And I suppose that you have a more logical explanation as to what's been happening today?" Sydney countered. "Did you put your head up your own ass voluntarily or did your boss shove it there?"

She half expected to get belted for that one, but they hadn't gotten all of the civilians out yet. "You honestly think that David Palmer's going to be able to save you and your friends this time?" the agent demanded. "The Cabinet is invoking Twenty-Five His political life is over and he won't be able to bail you out."

"Maybe, maybe not," Vaughn replied. "But I think that Congress will be just as interested to learn that everything that happened here- fuck, everything that's happened since yesterday morning was preventable, and that there is an explanation that could have sold them."

"More of this extra-terrestrial crap?"

The urge to kick this son of a bitch the balls was almost overwhelming Sydney. Instead, she decided to try and play on these people's weaker angels. "What exactly do you think that flew over the U.N. half an hour ago? It's a little early for the Northern Lights to be in season."

"Listen, Agent Bristow-"

"No, you listen," Sydney demanded. "This mess may read like a massive domestic terrorist attack to everybody else, but you people in the Bureau know that there's another word for it. And that's an X-File. For more than a decade, the people who we've been working with since yesterday have been trying to warn us about exactly what has been going on. It cost them their family, their friends, a loss of life almost unimaginable, but the bottom line is they were right. About alien conspiracies, monsters program to destroy life on this planet, people within our own government who have been working with them - all of it. You might be able to shut me and my family up-" she looked directly at them- "you can try to sell us as scapegoats, but it doesn't change the fact that there were people who could've stopped almost everything that happened if we'd let go of our limitations and just listened to them. You may think that you're going to get rid of your headache, but all you've done is triage. The infection is going to come back, and if you believe them- and I do- we don't have much time left." She hesitated, then went the rest of the way. "And you're talking to someone who knows about apocalypses."

There was a long silence. For a moment, Sydney actually allowed herself to think that she might have prevailed. "You're not in a position to be making any sorts of demand -" he started

"Oh, fuck the bureaucratic bullshit!" Vaughn demanded. "You want to throw me and my wife and my family to the wolves, go ahead! We both know you'll unleash fourteen kinds of holy hell with the government, but go ahead. But unless you put Mulder, Scully and Doggett back in charge of the X-Files - and give it some fucking teeth- job security is going to be the least of your fucking worries!"

And at that very moment one of the lower level lackeys came in looking royally worried. "Sir, we have a situation in Los Angeles," he told her.

"Go ahead," Sydney said. "I'd love to hear how this is our fault, too"

The bad news just kept on coming. The van that had been taking Payton back to CTU had been found overturned in a ditch en route. All the agents were dead, but there was no sign of Peyton. Then they told them that the people who had come to Charles Logan's residence had found he had taken his own life.

"They're cleaning house," Sydney told them. "Really think that you can handle this now? Think Congressional Oversight will think that you've done a heckuva job handling this crisis?"

Now the man in charge was starting to sweat a little. He turned to the lackey. "Get Karen Hayes on the phone. Tell her that we've found a wrinkle in the situation that needs to be handled."

"Sir, the Attorney General -"

"Do it." He turned back to Syd and Vaughn. "Take them back to Division for debriefing. Then I need you to get back to the FBI."

He walked out of the room, looking as dumbstruck as if Sydney had kicked him in the balls.

Then Sydney turned to Vaughn, and removed the miniature recorder from her shirt pocket. "You get all that, the three of you?"

Scully reacted first. "I don't know what to say."

"We basically just gambled everything we have left with the government on you," Vaughn replied. "Do not fuck this up."

Nadia had used her phone call to get back in touch with her daughter-in-law, and was getting the short version of what Kelly Payton had done to her. She had felt her husbands gut instinct to put her hands around her throat and start squeezing even though Kim seemed to be fine. She was just as sure Kim wanted to violate Henderson's corpse, even though she assured her that Jack was physically okay.

Kim had been okay for a moment, then turned reflective. "Do you think that we really accomplished anything today?" she asked.

Nadia had been considering this for quite some time. She'd heard a lot of talking about what was waiting for Earth from a lot of very unreliable sources. And even though they had managed to stop everything that had been planned for today, there was no guarantee that in three years they wouldn't be facing something a hundred times worse.

"I don't know, Kim," she finally admitted. "But you've seen some of the scenarios that my family and yours have had to deal with over the years We've been able to do the impossible before. I'd like to think that we can do it when the events are on a far larger scale."

"Can I talk to my father?"

"One minute," Nadia told her daughter-in-law. "I think he's got one last goodbye to say."

Mulder walked back over to Jack. "I owe you a great deal," he told him. "But you need to know. Every single person who has ever stuck their neck out for me, everyone who's tried to defend me- they've ended up dead."

Jack actually managed a smile at this. "You've seen my family; you honestly don't think we can't take care of ourselves?"

"They got to the President," Mulder reminded. "And they infected you with the virus. Your family, they're in yet another set of crosshairs now."

Jack knew this as well as anybody else how great the danger was. And he knew, even if they somehow managed to survive this with their jobs, the risks would be even greater. "You're not going to tell me to watch my back?" he tried to joke.

"It's the ones from your front that get you," Mulder responded deadpan. "Look, I know you've got a lot to worry about, but still, I just wanted to say- thank you."

He offered his hand, and Jack shook it. Then, as the people from Homeland came to take them in for their debriefing, he looked up at the bright new day that awaited him and his friend. "Maybe I was right," he said to himself.

Cloaked in an energy field, invisible to the radars that were looking for it, the alien ship took off. Mulder didn't know it, but on it, his sister was thinking the exact same thing as he was.

"Maybe there's hope."

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