5X15 Gute Patrioten (englisches Transkript)
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Die Charaktere, Handlungen, Zitate usw., die im folgenden Transkript Erwähnung finden sind © Chris Carter/1013/Fox Entertainment und (in der deutschen Fassung) Cinephon Synchron/ProSieben, sofern es nicht dabei um eine Übersetzung des englischen Transkripts handelt. Diese Abschrift ist ohne explizite Erlaubnis von den Rechtehaltern von Fans für Fans als Hommage an Akte X erstellt worden und dürfen nur nicht-kommerziell verwendet werden. Und dienen zur Zugänglichmachung zugunsten behinderter Menschen sowie zur Verwendung als Zitat. Wir verfolgen keinerlei finanzielle Absichten. Die Texte selbst sind Eigentum des jeweiligen Autors. |
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Transcribed by Al Ruffinelli
Edited by Libby, Used with kind permission from Libby (www.chelonium.plus.com) |
Caledonia, Wisconsin
Nov 17, 1990
A police car draws up to a dilapidated farmhouse. He gets out, as does his passenger, the owner of the property.
SHERIFF: Looks like nobody's home.
They are being watched by someone inside the house.
LANDLORD: Oh, he's here. he knows the minute he steps out I'm changing the locks on him.
SHERIFF: He's an old guy, huh? I don't much enjoy evicting old folks.
LANDLORD: This particular one will change your way of thinking.
The Sheriff goes up to the front door which has an eviction notice pinned to it. He knocks on the door.
SHERIFF: Mr. Skur? It's the sheriff. Will you open up, please?
Mr. Skur is inside the house, but doesn't respond. The Sheriff takes out his gun.
SHERIFF: Go ahead and open it up.
The landlord unlocks the door and opens it.
LANDLORD: Ugh! God almighty! What the hell's he got in here?
SHERIFF: Smells like a whole lot of something went bad. Mr. Skur? I'm armed. You're going to want to come out now.
LANDLORD: The bedroom's back that way.
The Sheriff and the landlord make their way through the house. There are cockroaches on the floor.
SHERIFF: Mr. Skur?
They climb up some stairs. The Sheriff opens the bedroom door, gun aimed. The landlord looks through an open door into another room, then gasps and turns away. He staggers forward and vomits.
SHERIFF: What is it?
But the landlord just runs down the stairs. The Sheriff peers round the door and sees something on the rim of the bathtub.
SHERIFF: Ain't nothing but a glove. No reason to ...
He looks closer and sees it is the hand of a mummified body in the tub.
SHERIFF: Oh, my god!
Suddenly, someone pulls him from behind and he falls to the ground. Shots are fired. The person who grabbed him runs downstairs and the Sheriff gets to his feet and follows. The person who grabbed him as fallen and as the Sheriff goes down to the stairs. The man, Edward Skur, is muttering a name.
SKUR: Mulder ... Mulder ...
Washington, D.C.
Nov 21, 1990
Mulder drives up in his car and parks outside a row of shops. He enters the door to the apartments above. It's a somewhat seedy building. He walks along a corridor and knocks on a door. The door is opened on the security chain by a man in his 60s.
MULDER: Arthur Dales?
ARTHUR DALES: Who's asking?
MULDER: I'm a-a profiler with the Behavioral Science Unit. You are Arthur Dales, former special agent with the Bureau? I need to ask you some questions about a man named Edward Skur. You opened a-a file on him in 1952.
ARTHUR DALES: I don't recall.
MULDER: I-I brought the case file here with me.
ARTHUR DALES: How long have you been in the bureau? Do you know what an X file is?
MULDER: It's, uh ... it's an unsolved case.
ARTHUR DALES: No. it's a case that's been designated unsolved.
MULDER: Mr. Dales, most of your report has been censored ... as you can see. Now, if somebody's trying to bury this case. I'd like to know why. According to your report, Edward Skur disappeared 38 years ago, before you had a chance to arrest him for a series of stranger killings in which the victims' internal organs had all been removed.
ARTHUR DALES: And now you've found him?
MULDER: Yes. last week. Shot to death by a sheriff serving an eviction notice. A man was also found in his bathroom with all his soft tissue removed.
ARTHUR DALES: Well, if he's dead there's nothing you need from me.
Dales goes to close the door, but Mulder pushes on it.
MULDER: Sir, sir, m-my name is Mulder. You know that name ... and so did Edward Skur. How?
ARTHUR DALES: Have you ever heard of HUAC, Agent Mulder--the House Un-American Activities Committee? No, no, no, it was before your time. You wouldn't know. They hunted communists in America in the '40s and '50s. They found ... practically nothing. Do you think they would have found nothing unless nothing was what they wanted to find? Hmm?
MULDER: Uh ... I'm sorry, sir. I-I, uh ... I don't, I don't see the connection.
ARTHUR DALES: Maybe you're not supposed to.
Dales slams the door shut. Mulder walks away.
Evening. Mulder's apartment. Mulder is watching a video tape of the McCarthy hearings and eating sunflower seeds.
TV ANNOUNCER: The nation's chief red hunters, senator Joseph McCarthy and FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover, join forces. Working through congress, the senator from Wisconsin and the legendary lawman, vow to wipe out the red menace within our own federal government. Roy Cohn, chief counsel at the McCarthy hearings, warns communist mind control can strike anywhere, at any time. It is those Americans sympathetic to the communist cause-- the so-called "fellow travelers"--who pose the greatest threat to our national security.
Mulder opens the case file. Much of the text has been blacked out, some of the words that can be read are "George Gissing. Edward Skur or Terrill Oberman" . Mulder looks at and old card for the Communist Party bearing Skur's name, address, Leesburg VA, 11-5-47, signed by "W. Schneidermann". Then there is something on the video tape that catches Mulder's attention.
TV ANNOUNCER: So says the young U.S. attorney--and he should know. It was Mr. Cohn that brought those atomic spies, the Rosenbergs, to justice. It was his staunch defense of the American way of life, that first brought Roy Cohn to the attention of senator McCarthy. With the support of the FBI, Mr. Cohn and Mr. McCarthy vow to work tirelessly to root out the more than 70 suspected communist spies, and the untold numbers of fellow travelers working in our own state department.
He grabs the remote and rewinds the tape.
TV ANNOUNCER: ... tirelessly to root out the more than 70 suspected communist spies and the untold numbers of fellow travelers working in our own state ...
He rewinds again focusing on one man in the hearing.
TV ANNOUNCER: ... and the untold numbers of fellow travelers working in our own state ...
Mulder stops the tape, having recognized the man. He speaks softly.
MULDER: Dad.
Outside Dales' door. Mulder knocks and Dales opens door with chain still on. Mulder is holding Styrofoam cup.
MULDER: Good morning, Mr. Dales. I brought you some coffee.
ARTHUR DALES: Speak.
MULDER: Edward Skur died saying a name--my name. My father's name.
ARTHUR DALES: Go ask your father.
MULDER: My father and I don't really speak.
ARTHUR DALES: I told you I can't help you.
He shuts the door. Mulder shouts.
MULDER: Mr. Dales, I want the truth, and I will subpoena you to get it, if I have to.
Dales opens the door again. Mulder smiles apologetically. Dales clears his throat.
ARTHUR DALES: Before his disappearance, Skur worked for the state department, just like your old man did. You had to have suspected the connection before you came here yesterday, but you said nothing.
MULDER: The man that Edward Skur killed 38 years ago--was my father involved?
Dales sighs and nods.
MULDER: How?
Later, they sit talking. Dales looks at a picture of the body found in Skur's bath.
ARTHUR DALES: Skur killed this man the way he did all the others. All the soft tissue, internal organs, ligature--all were removed ... without tearing the skin.
Mulder puts out his cigarette.
MULDER: The coroner wasn't able to determine how.
ARTHUR DALES: Oh, I can tell you ... how. What I can't tell you ... is why.
MULDER: You said in your report that uh, Skur was suspected of being a communist?
ARTHUR DALES: Well, that's what they said he was. That's what they said they all were.
Leesburg, VA
June 24, 1952
A small suburban house. An American flag flies outside it. Dales speaks as the scene begins.
AGENT DALES: To us, Skur was just another name on a list, another Communist spy at the state department. We had no idea who--or what-- Edward Skur really was.
1950's Dales and his partner, Agent Michel, approach the house. Dales knocks at the door. Mrs Skur, 30's, answers.
MRS SKUR: May I help you?
AGENT DALES: My name's Arthur Dales, ma'am. I'm with the Federal Bureau of Investigation. This is my partner, Agent Michel. Is your husband in?
MRS SKUR: What do you want with him?
Skur approaches the front door.
SKUR: Supper's getting cold, sweetheart. I'll take care of this.
Mrs. Skur walks toward the back of the house.
AGENT DALES: Edward Skur?
SKUR: Yes.
Agent Michel enters and pushes Skur against the wall and begins handcuffing him roughly.
MICHEL: You're under arrest for contempt of Congress--failure to appear before the committee.
SKUR: I'm a family man, for God's sake!
MICHEL: You should have thought of that before you decided to betray your country, Red.
MRS SKUR: Edward?
AGENT DALES: Let's go.
MICHEL: Look what I found.
Michel hands Dales the same Communist Party card that Mulder looks at 38 years in the future.
SKUR: You planted that.
MICHEL: I'll plant one in your keister, Bolshevik, you don't watch your mouth.
Michel leads Skur out of the house. Younger Dales looks at Mrs Skur and her three children.
AGENT DALES: I'm sorry. I ...
MRS SKUR: Get out.
Dales leaves.
A bar, "Hoot Owl", evening. It's raining heavily. Dales enters and sits at the bar.
BARTENDER: Geez, Louise, what did you do--take a swim in the Potomac?
AGENT DALES: I'd probably be drier if I had. Got something to warm me up?
BARTENDER: Where's your partner?
AGENT DALES: He's processing a prisoner.
BARTENDER: You guys, uh, still busting Reds?
AGENT DALES: Till Mr. Hoover tells us different.
BARTENDER: Good for you, Mr. Dales.
He hands him a drink. The phone at the bar rings and the bartender answers it.
BARTENDER: Yeah? Mr. Dales? For you.
He hands Younger Dales the phone.
AGENT DALES: Yeah?
It's his partner.
MICHEL: You try to reach me?
AGENT DALES: No, why?
MICHEL: I thought maybe you heard about Skur.
AGENT DALES: What about him?
MICHEL: He's dead. He hung himself in his cell. The guards found him about 20 minutes ago. You figure commie central command tells these mopes to snuff themselves in the event of capture?
AGENT DALES: I got to go.
Dales hangs up, obviously upset.
BARTENDER: Everything okay?
AGENT DALES: Oh, nothing a little bourbon won't cure.
10:54 p.m.
Night, outside the Dales residence. Dales sits in his car drinking from a liquor bottle. Dales speaks over the beginning of the scene.
ARTHUR DALES: I didn't know what I should say to her. "I'm sorry about your loss, Mrs. Skur. If there's anything I can do ... " The words sounded hollow. No matter what I said, I was the man who'd busted her husband--turned her life upside down. I sat there for over an hour trying to find my courage in a bottle. And then, and then I saw someone I shouldn't - I couldn't - have seen. Now it was my life that would be turned upside down.
Younger Dales sees a man get out of a car and walk toward the house.
AGENT DALES: Edward Skur!
The man begins running. Dales pursues him down the side of the house into an area where there are several metal garbage cans. Dales gets out his gun but sees no sign of Skur. Suddenly, Skur launches himself on Dales out of the shadows and pushes him into the metal cans. Skur has Dales pinned to the ground and Dales struggles to get free. Then Skur's mouth opens and tentacles emerge. Dales, understandably, is a little freaked out. A neighbor, disturbed by the noise, calls out of his window.
NEIGHBOR: Hey! who's down there?!
Skur runs off. Dales catches his breath.
FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
A TV showing a report of the Rosenburg trial.
1950'S TV: Dateline, Washington--the Justice Department vows no mercy for A-bomb spies. Julius and Ethel Rosenberg once again manage to delay their date with the electric chair. Prosecutors say they are confident Judge Kaufman's death sentence will be upheld by the highest court in the land.
Dales continues his story.
ARTHUR DALES: The world still seemed clear to me that morning, Despite what I'd seen the night before. I still thought I knew who the bad guys and the good guys were. But that was all about to change.
FBI Headquarters, interior. Dales is on the phone. Michel comes up to him.
MICHEL: Hang up.
AGENT DALES: Let me call you back.
He hangs up and follows Michel to a water cooler where the two speak quietly.
MICHEL: What did the watch commander say?
AGENT DALES: They're still going door-to-door in the neighborhood. There's no sign of him yet.
MICHEL: They're not going to find him, Artie. Open it up.
Dales opens Michel's folder to see picture of a dead looking Skur in his jail cell.
AGENT DALES: It's Skur.
MICHEL: Maybe you want to change your description of the suspect who assaulted you.
AGENT DALES: When were these taken?
MICHEL: Last night. Two hours before you say Skur attacked you. You had a few. You were feeling bad about what happened. It's understandable.
AGENT DALES: I ... I didn't have that much to drink.
MICHEL: Just leave Skur's name out of your report. Nobody else has to know.
AGENT DALES: I already filed my report. An hour ago.
AGENT: Dales. Call for you.
Dales goes back to his desk and picks up the phone.
AGENT DALES: Yes. I'll be right there.
He speaks to Michel who has joined him.
AGENT DALES: It's the Justice Department. They want to talk to me.
Dales walks down a hall and opens a door labeled Roy M Cohn, Special Assistant to the Attorney General, Internal Security Section. An aide gets up from his desk and ushers Dales into Cohn's office.
COHN: Agent Dales, have a seat.
Dales sits and Cohn comes round from his desk and sits on a nearby chair. The aide stands to one side, elbow resting on a filing cabinet.
COHN: You know who I am?
AGENT DALES: You prosecuted the Rosenbergs. Now you're working with Mr. Hoover and, uh, Senator McCarthy.
COHN: Then you know how important my work is--how vital it is to the future of this country that these rats, these vermin, who dare call themselves Americans, be exposed as the traitors they are.
AGENT DALES: I don't interest myself in politics, Mr. Cohn.
Cohn casts a look at his aide.
COHN: Everything is political, Agent Dales. Like this report you filed this morning. We've spoken to Mrs. Skur and the neighbors. You seem to be the only person who can identify that man as Edward Skur.
AGENT DALES: Do you believe me, then?
COHN: We are fighting a powerful enemy in a war of ideology. In any war there are secrets--truths that must be kept from the public in order to serve the greater good.
There's a pause while Dales thinks.
AGENT DALES: You want me to amend my report? Take out any reference to Edward Skur? I don't understand ...
COHN: You're not supposed to understand. You're supposed to follow orders.
FBI bullpen, Dales is typing his report, suspect Unknown. Dorothy Bahnsen, clerk, approaches with a cartful of files.
BAHNSEN: Agent Dales?
AGENT DALES: Yeah.
BAHNSEN: I pulled that file.
AGENT DALES: Oh, right. Thank you.
She puts a file on his desk. It is the same blacked out X-File that Mulder has 38 years from now mentioning Gissing, Skur and Obermann. Agent Michel comes over to Dales' desk.
MICHEL: Dales.
Michel nods for Dales to follow him. Dales does so, leaving the file behind.
Chevy Chase, Maryland
2:04 p.m.
Dales resumes his story.
ARTHUR DALES: I'd never so much as faked an expense report or used a Bureau car to drive home, so lying didn't sit well with me, even if I was under orders. I wanted to leave behind the business of Edward Skur and never hear that name again. But it was too late. By then, Skur had already become a murderer.
Michel and Dales drive up to a nice-looking house and get out of the car.
MICHEL: Homicide call came in from Chevy Chase PD. Advise and assist.
AGENT DALES: Well, where are they?
MICHEL: Must have come and gone.
They approach the front door, which is open. They enter. A well-known German song, "Lili Marleen", is playing on a record player. Dales stops the record.
AGENT DALES: I know this song. They were playing it the day my unit rolled into Berlin.
MICHEL: The guy must be a Kraut.
AGENT DALES: Yeah.
He looks at a photograph on the wall.
AGENT DALES: Well-connected Kraut.
MICHEL: There you go. I got six ounces of German shrapnel in my can and this Kraut got to shake hands with the president?
AGENT DALES: What's that? You smell that?
MICHEL: Yeah. Kinda. Hospital smell. Formaldehyde, maybe?
Dales and Michel walk through the house. They find a badly decomposed body.
MICHEL: Well-connected dead Kraut.
AGENT DALES: What the hell happened to him?
Two police officers burst into the room, guns pointing at them.
OFFICER 1: Hands in the air! Over there! Come on! Now!
AGENT DALES: Whoa, fellas, FBI.
MICHEL: Credentials in my front coat pocket. Hey, easy on the material. I'm Agent Michel. This is my partner, Agent Dales.
OFFICER 1: Who called you guys out here?
MICHEL: You did, you mope. We got the call from your department.
OFFICER 2: We don't know nothing about that.
Dales picks up a bar coaster from a side bar.
MICHEL: Then who brought you guys out here?
Dales looks at bar coaster. It says "Come alone."
OFFICER 1: One of his nurses called in. Said the doc didn't show up for surgery this morning.
MICHEL: Well, something tells me he ain't going to make it.
Later. A bar. Arthur Dales continues his story.
ARTHUR DALES: I was summoned to the bar by a man who'd already been to the doctor's house that morning. It was the man, Agent Mulder, you came here to ask me about.
Dales enters the bar, goes into a private booth and sits down.
AGENT DALES: Skur?
BILL MULDER: No. But I came here to warn you about him.
AGENT DALES: Like you warned that doctor you murdered in Chevy Chase?
BILL MULDER: I tried to save that man, but I was too late.
AGENT DALES: Skur killed him?
BILL MULDER: He'll kill you, too.
Michel's apartment. Michel enters with a bag of groceries. He picks up a bottle of beer, then sees an open window. He calls out the open window for his cat.
MICHEL: Myrtle?
The cat meows and stretches out on the couch. Michel smiles and closes the window.
Back in the bar.
AGENT DALES: What are you talking about? what is this, some kind of communist plot?
BILL MULDER: Skur's not a communist. He's a patriot. All of these men are patriots.
AGENT DALES: What are you talking about? What men?
BILL MULDER: There were three men--veterans--working at the State Department. Skur, Gissing and Oberman.
AGENT DALES: Gissing and Oberman. I read those names on a censored report.
BILL MULDER: They're dead now.
AGENT DALES: Murdered?
BILL MULDER: No. Dead by their own hand. They couldn't live with what they'd become--what they'd been turned into--and Skur's the last.
AGENT DALES: Why did they put out that story about him hanging himself?
BILL MULDER: Because they had to do something to cover up what they'd done to him. Label him a communist--say he killed himself and put him up someplace where no one's even going to look for him. But his escape threatens everything.
AGENT DALES: Threatens what? What did they do to him?
Bill Mulder hesitates.
AGENT DALES: Look ... you asked me here.
BILL MULDER: And I risked my career and my family by coming here. But the crimes these men have committed against innocent people ... I can't have that on my conscience anymore. Someone needs to know the truth.
AGENT DALES: Who are you?
BILL MULDER: My name is Mulder. I work at the State Department.
Michel's apartment. Michel is watching McCarthy on TV.
MICHEL: Mmm ... attaboy, tail gunner. Give 'em hell.
The cat screeches and knocks over a beer bottle.
MICHEL: Ah, Myrtle. Dumb cat.
He opens the beer bottle and the beer fizzes out.
MICHEL: Damn it! Damn it, Myrtle!
Back in the bar.
AGENT DALES: All right, then, Mr. Mulder. Who is this "they" you want me to arrest?
BILL MULDER: You can't arrest these men.
AGENT DALES: Why not?
BILL MULDER: It's ... political.
AGENT DALES: What are you telling me? Are you telling me that Mr. Cohn and Senator McCarthy are involved in this? Is Skur after them, too?
BILL MULDER: Skur wants vengeance for what they did to him. He's a killer now. He can only guess at the dimensions of this conspiracy. But he thinks you're part of it. You and your partner.
Dales gets up and walks quickly toward the Bartender.
AGENT DALES: Your phone.
The bartender hands over the phone to him.
BARTENDER: What's the number?
AGENT DALES: Klondike 5-0133.
Michel's apartment. Michel is brushing down his shirt, trying to get rid of the beer.
MICHEL: I knew I should have got a dog.
He sets down his gun and badge. In the bar, Dales listens to the phone ringing
AGENT DALES: Come on. Come on.
Inside Michel's apartment, the phone is not ringing because the line has been cut. Suddenly, Skur attacks Michel, pinning him to the floor. A tentacled creature come out of Skur's mouth and goes into Michel's mouth. Michel screams.
Next day. Michel's apartment. Crime lab team is on the scene.
CORONER: Are you, um ... are you sure a man did this? Uh, I suppose, um, he could have force-fed him a ... corrosive agent of some kind, an acid maybe ... except I-I don't know why it wouldn't have, uh, burned to the skin.
AGENT DALES: That account for the smell?
CORONER: Maybe. We won't know for sure until we get a toxology report. Hopefully, we'll have an answer for you in six to eight weeks. Meanwhile, we can, uh, at least start on a physical exam of the body ... Such as it is.
COHN: Agent Dales.
Cohn speaks to the coroner.
COHN: Hey, hey, where do you think you're taking that? This man's a veteran. The body goes to Bethesda. Howard, take care of this.
AGENT DALES: Mr. Cohn, these men are going to the county morgue. An autopsy needs to be performed.
COHN: Come here.
Cohn wants Dales to follow him out of the room, but Dales doesn't move. Cohn speaks to the others in the room.
COHN: Give us a minute.
The others leave. Cohn walks over to Dales.
COHN: You wanna to test me--see how fast I can pull the chain and flush you. You want to see your name on a list? Are you now, or have you ever been ... ?
AGENT DALES: What are you talking about? I'm no communist.
COHN: You are, if I say you are.
Dales doesn't respond. Cohn calls to the people outside the room.
COHN: This is a matter of national security. Take this body out of here. Get it out.
The coroner's men come back into the room. Cohn speaks to Dales, smug.
COHN: See? You're a patriot again.
Dales continues his story. Younger Dales goes back to the FBI bullpen. He looks at Michel's nameplate.
ARTHUR DALES: When your partner dies, a piece of you dies with him. I'd been threatened by Mr. Cohn, but I couldn't leave it alone, not while Michel's killer was still out there. Not if I wanted to live with myself. I knew Skur had killed Michel out of vengeance for what had been done to him--your father had told me as much--but your father also said that there were two other men who'd had the same thing done to them. Men who were already dead. Finding out what happened to them, at least might help me understand what Skur had become ... understand how my partner was killed.
Younger Dales picks up the case file.
A little later, Dales and Bahnsen are looking at the blacked out report.
AGENT DALES: What is this?
BAHNSEN: The deposition that names Edward Skur and these other two men as communists.
AGENT DALES: It's all censored.
BAHNSEN: By the committee, to protect the identity of the witness.
AGENT DALES: There was no witness. This whole thing's been manufactured. Edward Skur is no communist. Neither are these other two men, Gissing and Oberman. I wanna see their files, Gissing and Oberman.
BAHNSEN: I already checked. They're missing but I recognize one of these names. It's in an X-file.
AGENT DALES: An "X-file"?
BAHNSEN: Yes, unsolved cases. I file them under "X."
She goes to a file cabinet.
AGENT DALES: Why don't you file them under "U" for "unsolved"?
BAHNSEN: That's what I did until I ran out of room. Plenty of room in the "X"s.
AGENT DALES: Who decides when a case gets an "X"?
BAHNSEN: The director's office. It's, uh ... it's kind of a dead end. No one's supposed to see them, but it makes for interesting reading. Here it is. A German émigré, Dr. Strohman patriated here after the war. He was found dead in his office last week at the VA.
AGENT DALES: Let me guess. They weren't able to explain how his body just kind of collapsed, right?
BAHNSEN: Yes.
AGENT DALES: Gissing? His name's in this file, somewhere?
BAHNSEN: Yes. He was a patient. Found dead on the scene. Suicide. I guess he didn't much care for his treatment.
AGENT DALES: They think he killed his doctor and then killed himself? How did Gissing kill this man?
BAHNSEN: That's why it's an X-file. They don't know.
Autopsy room. The coroner pulls out Gissing's body.
CORONER: Gissing's body's still here. The VA's been trying to have it transferred.
AGENT DALES: Why haven't they?
CORONER: Well, this fella's a bigwig in the State Department. His family's been kicking up a stink.
The coroner pulls down the sheet covering the body. Dales looks at a scar line on the body.
AGENT DALES: What is this?
CORONER: Well, looks like he had some surgery. Judging by the color of the scar, I'd say it was fairly recent.
AGENT DALES: I want you to cut this man open.
CORONER: No, I-I can't do that. His family will have my head.
AGENT DALES: Gissing and a man named Skur were patients of the same doctors. I think whatever was done to this man was also done to the man who killed my partner. It may be the only way we have to explain how he died.
Later. The coroner opens up Gissing's chest while Dales watches. They see something odd.
AGENT DALES: What's that? What is that?
CORONER: I don't know. It, uh ... looks like it's lodged into his esophagus. Wait a minute. Those are sutures. Whatever this is, someone put it there. Oh, geez. Whoa.
A crablike thing crawls around in the corpse's innards.
CORONER: Oh ... Oh, my god.
The Skur's home. Dales knocks on the door and Mrs Skur opens it.
AGENT DALES: Mrs. Skur, I hope I'm not disturbing you.
MRS SKUR: You have a lot of nerve coming here.
AGENT DALES: Your husband ... You know he's not dead.
MRS SKUR: How dare you?
AGENT DALES: Your husband was discredited in order to cover up a crime, Mrs. Skur. A crime that was committed upon him, against his will.
MRS SKUR: Whatever was done to my husband, you're part of it.
She tries to close the door, but Dales stops her.
AGENT DALES: According to VA Records, your husband underwent surgery for war injuries. So did two other men that he worked with at the state department. But the surgeries that they received, it wasn't what they thought it was. It had nothing to do with their war injuries.
MRS SKUR: Then what was it?
AGENT DALES: It's called xenotransplantation. It's, uh, the grafting of another species into the human body. It's a procedure that Nazi doctors experimented with during the war, and I believe that they continued their work here, using your husband and these other two men as unwitting test subjects. I want to expose what was done to your husband, Mrs. Skur. I can't do that unless I have his help.
Dales hands her the "Hoot Owl" coaster. As Dales walks away from the house, a car pulls up. Cohn gets out the back seat and confronts Dales.
COHN: Get in. Just get in.
Dales gets in the car and it drives off.
Later. Mrs Skur leaves the house and climbs down a ladder into a nuclear bomb shelter in the garden.
MRS SKUR: Ed? Oh, god. Are you all right?
Skur is in corner of shelter gasping, obviously in distress.
SKUR: I told you not to come down here.
MRS SKUR: That FBI Agent came back.
SKUR: I'm getting worse.
MRS SKUR: He says he wants to help you.
SKUR: It's too late to help me. I can't help myself anymore.
He starts gagging. Mrs Skur screams.
FBI Headquarters
Washington, D.C.
A dimly-lit boardroom. Dales enters, accompanied by Cohn and his aide.
COHN: You sit there.
Dales sits, and Cohn and his aide are about to do the same when a voice speaks from the shadows at the other end of the room.
HOOVER: Leave us alone.
COHN: Mr. Director ...
HOOVER: Leave us.
Cohn and his aide leave. Hoover speaks to Dales
HOOVER: In 1945, at the time of the first conference to map out the peace after the second world war, there lived within the Soviet orbit 180 million people. Lined up on the anti-totalitarian side at that time were one billion, 625 million people. Today, Mr. Dales, just seven years later, there are 800 million people under the absolute domination of Soviet Russia--an increase of over 400 percent. On our side the figure has shrunk to around 500 million. In other words ... in less than seven years the odds have changed from nine to one in our favor, to eight to five against us. The threat of global communist domination is a reality that can be ignored only at the risk of our own annihilation.
AGENT DALES: The men we arrested weren't communists.
HOOVER: If we are to defeat the enemy, we must use their tools. We must go further. We must do those things which even our enemies would be ashamed to do. It is only through strength that we can make our enemies fear us, and thereby ensure our own survival. You have one chance, Mr. Dales, to save yourself--to demonstrate that you have the strength to serve your country.
Night. A car pulls up in front of the "Hoot Owl" bar. Bill Mulder and Dales are inside the car.
BILL MULDER: Make your meeting with Skur. Let him think you're alone. Put him at ease. We'll be in when the time is right.
AGENT DALES: Is this why you came to see me, Mr. Mulder? Make me your stalking horse?
BILL MULDER: I follow my orders.
Bill Mulder takes Dales' gun.
AGENT DALES: I might need that.
BILL MULDER: We want him alive.
Dales enters the bar.
AGENT DALES: Here you go.
He hands bartender a wad of money. The bar is empty.
BARTENDER: I turned the lights off out front. Just pull the door shut when you go.
AGENT DALES: Thanks for your help.
BARTENDER: Anything to help out the Bureau.
The bartender leaves. Dales pours a drink. Skur enters the bar.
SKUR: Did you come here to kill me or save me?
AGENT DALES: I'm here to help you, just like I told your wife.
SKUR: My wife is dead. I'm dead, too, inside ...
Bill Mulder is listening to the conversation out in the car.
SKUR: ..because of this thing they put in me. For what? To turn me into some kind of killing machine, or just to see what would happen? They're not coming, you know. They wanted me to kill you, or you wouldn't be here. You're part of their test now, too.
AGENT DALES: I don't want to kill you.
SKUR: I know.
Skur attacks Dales. Bill Mulder, hearing the noise, goes to get out of the car, but the other man stops him. Inside the bar, Skur has pinned Dales down on the floor. Tentacles comes out of Skur's mouth. Dales handcuffs Skur to the bar rail. The creature is almost out of Skur's mouth. In the car, Bill Mulder and the other man hear that the sounds of the attack have stopped. They get out of the car and run into the bar. They find Skur handcuffed, twitching and gasping. Bill Mulder looks at Dales.
Present day. Dales' apartment.
MULDER: I can't believe my father threw in with these men. He let them dictate his conscience.
ARTHUR DALES: Oh, don't fool yourself. None of us are free to choose. I was ruined for my insubordination. You keep digging through the ... The X-Files and they'll bury you, too.
MULDER: Skur died saying my father's name. Why?
ARTHUR DALES: I haven't the faintest idea.
Mulder gets up and puts on his jacket and coat.
MULDER: Well, there was, um ... there was one thing you didn't explain. It was, uh ... how Skur was able to get away ... how he was able to live in obscurity for the last 38 years.
ARTHUR DALES: 38 years? My God. Well, I kept hearing things through the years, you know. Uh, people tell me things. I heard that he was dead-- that he'd been kept in some secret lab while they finished up the, uh, experiment. I even thought that maybe ... maybe some poor innocent bastard, somebody with a conscience, might have let him go.
Flashback. 1950's car on a deserted rural road. A man gets out of the driver's side. It is Bill Mulder. He tosses keys to a surprised Skur who is handcuffed to the window, and walks away.
Mulder and Dales speak over the scene.
MULDER: Why would anyone do that? Why let a killer go free?
ARTHUR DALES: In the hope that by letting him live, the truth of the crimes that were committed against him and the others might someday be exposed.
The car drives away as Bill Mulder walks down the road in the opposite direction.
