Agent of Chaos (The X-Files: Origins #1)(55)

“Agent of Chaos.” The name gave Mulder the creeps now.

The sound of five dead bolts unlocking one at a time was a relief.

The Major cracked the door open and peeked out. “Get in here before they see you.” He ushered Mulder inside.

Mulder wondered if by they he meant the government or the aliens.

“Thanks for letting me come over, sir.”

“So what’s on your mind, airman? Gary said you need my help.” He walked into the living room. The television was on, set to a local news channel. “I assume the conversation we’re about to have is classified?”

“Absolutely.” Mulder nodded and drifted toward the map on the Major’s wall. “I wanted to take another look at all the information you’ve collected.”

“Take a look, and I’ll get us something to drink.” The Major didn’t have to ask him twice.

Mulder looked up at the newspaper articles and grainy photos, and the larger crime scene photographs Sergio had stolen from the coroner’s office. He was instantly transfixed. The grisly photos drew him in, as if the images had their own gravitational pull. He had missed something the first time he stood in this spot. But that was before Earl Roy inadvertently revealed that he wasn’t the only killer. He heard the Major banging around in the kitchen. Mulder peeked in and watched Gimble’s dad remove the bicycle chain from the refrigerator door handles.

Mulder’s mom had never recovered from losing Samantha, but she was functional—burnt casseroles and kitchen fires aside. But the Major wasn’t burning dinner. Losing his wife had broken him.

Mulder went back to studying the crime scene photos and the map for clues, and the Major returned with two glass bottles of Perrier sparkling water.

Who drinks bottled water? Isn’t that a European thing?

He handed Mulder a bottle. “Check the seal,” the Major said, doing the same. “You can never be too careful.”

Mulder twisted it open and took a sip, his attention still focused on the wall.

“Are you in danger, son? Because you’ve got the look of a man obsessed.”

Mulder took a deep breath. “My sister disappeared when I was twelve. I was in the room with her, but I blacked out or something, and I don’t remember anything.” He wasn’t sure why he chose that moment to tell the Major, but he wanted Gimble’s dad to understand why this was so important to him.

“Sounds like a mind wipe. Advanced technology. Too advanced to be man-made. I was wiped back in 1973.”

“What happened?” Mulder was intrigued. Worst-case scenario, he could use the story for an English assignment.

The Major walked to the end of the room, where the subject matter on the wall shifted from adult murder victims to aliens. Images of UFOs and crop circles were taped beside magazine pages that featured interviews with scientists and alien “abductees.”

He touched a photo of himself standing next to a sign with the name of an air force base on it. “In October 1973, I was stationed at El Rico Air Force Base. It was a terrible assignment, on a nothing base, with civilian G-men wandering around, ‘assessing’ our performance. That was the story handed down to us, anyway.”

“Do you know what they were evaluating?”

The Major snorted. “Nothing. It was a cover story to keep officers like me out of their hair, while they screwed around in one of our hangars.” He frowned and his face clouded over. “I didn’t realize it back then, but the forces of Chaos and Law were in the middle of a dogfight right under our noses.”

He raked his fingers back and forth over his scalp, as if it was itching like crazy. “I should’ve known that every damn word my commanding officer was telling me was a lie. He was in on the whole operation. And the cover-up.”

“Do you know what they were hiding?”

The Major rushed to the bookshelves. “I didn’t at the time, but I figured it out later. My team had just completed a recon operation, and it hadn’t gone well. It was late, but I couldn’t sleep, so I decided to walk it off.” He flipped over the seat cushion of the recliner and slid a green paperback out from underneath it.

Another copy of Stormbringer. Seeing the name of the fictional sword that formed the basis for Earl Roy’s delusions sent bile crawling up Mulder’s throat.

The Major clutched the book against his chest like a security blanket. “I headed out to the hangar, the one that everyone on base was supposed to steer clear of, and I circled around to the back of the building.” He rubbed a hand over his face. “What I saw … I didn’t remember it for a long time. Then the mind wipe wore off enough for me to piece the memory together. The Cigarette Smoking Man’s face came back to me first. He was standing behind the hangar. I knew he was a government man. The tie and long black coat gave him away. He was holding a cigarette, waiting while a bunch of other suits went in. He took a folded American flag from one of them and followed the group inside.”

“Okay?” Mulder wasn’t sure where this was going.

“I snuck in behind them and stayed against the back wall, in the shadows. The men walked toward the center of the hangar and the far end of the building opened up, and a bright light shined in. The Cigarette Smoking Man stepped forward and set the flag down like an offering.…”

Mulder was so wrapped up in the story that he encouraged the Major to keep talking. “To who?”