"How's that?" asked Mulder cautiously.
"Standing around holding your yank while bombs are exploding."
The stranger laughed as Mulder turned and eyed him. "Do I know you?"
"No. But I've been watching your career for a good while. Back when you were just a promising young agent. Before that…"
"You follow me out here for a reason?"
"Yeah. I did." The man turned so that his back was to Mulder and unzipped his own pants. "My name's Kurtzweil. Dr. Alvin Kurtzweil."
Mulder frowned, trying to ignore the intru-sion. He zipped himself up and turned around, ready to leave.
"Old friend of your father's." Kurtzweil looked over his shoulder and smiled at Mulder's bewil-dered expression. "Back at the Department of State. We were what you might call fellow travel-ers, but his disenchantment outlasted mine." Kurtzweil waited, as though giving Mulder the chance to let this all sink in.
Mulder's expression grew stony. Quickly he took the last few steps to the door and jerked it open.
Kurtzweil finished heeding nature's call, zipped up, and followed Mulder inside. He caught up with him at the coat rack by the door, where the younger man was fumbling with his jacket.
"How'd you find me?" Mulder asked. He sounded more weary than angry.
Kurtzweil shrugged. "Heard you come here now and again. Figured you'd be needing a lit-tle drinky tonight…"
"You a reporter?"
Kurtzweil shook his head and took his own raincoat from the rack. "I'm a doctor, but I think I mentioned that. OB-GYN."
"Who sent you?"
"I came on my own. After reading about the bombing in Dallas."
Mulder stared at him measuringly, taking in Kurtzweil's rheumy, intelligent eyes and wry mouth. "Well, if you've got something to tell me, you've got as long as it takes for me to hail a cab," he said, and started out the door.
Before he could hit the sidewalk, Kurtzweil grabbed his arm. "They're going to pin Dallas on you, Agent Mulder." His tone was not accusatory. If anything, he sounded apologetic, even sorrowful—the trusted family retainer bringing news of a death. "But there was nothing you could've done. Nothing any-one could've done to prevent that bomb from going off—
"Because the truth is something you'd never have guessed. Never even have pre-dicted."
Mulder stared at him, his face twisting into rage. He pulled away and stormed down the sidewalk as Kurtzweil followed him doggedly. "And what's that?" Mulder snapped.
Kurtzweil hurried until he was alongside him. "S.A.C. Darius Michaud never tried or intended to defuse the bomb."
Mulder paused, teetering on the edge of the curb. Around them L'Enfant Plaza was a wasteland of rain-slicked streets and empty newspaper machines. In the near-distance ugly government buildings loomed, and a few Yellow Cabs hopefully trolled Constitution Avenue for customers. Mulder looked around in disgust, turned to Kurtzweil, and said in rhetorical disbelief, "He just let it explode."
Kurtzweil tugged at the collar of his rain-coat. "What's the question nobody's asking? Why that building? Why not the federal build-ing?"
Mulder looked pained. "The federal build-ing was too well guarded—"
" No." Kurtzweil's voice grew agitated as Mulder stepped into the street, raising his hand to hail a cab.
"They put the bomb in the build-ing across the street because it did have federal offices. The Federal Emergency Management Agency had a provisional medical quarantine office there. Which is where the bodies were found. But that's the thing—"
The taxi pulled over. Kurtzweil sidestepped a puddle as he followed Mulder to its side. "—the thing you didn't know. That you'd never think to check."