Página PrincipalInternal dating: No real date stamp in this episode. A file arrest photo of Jacob Haley is dated April 7, 1998, so this episode takes place sometime after that.
Mulder races after the target. Scully, realizing that the dying man has been exposed to a toxin by the target, tries to warn Mulder. When their radio doesn't work, Scully leaves the van and chases after Mulder, much to Skinner's dismay. The target escapes before Scully can catch up. Mulder, however, looks like he watched Haley leave and ran in the wrong direction. He tells a surprised Scully that he lost the target.
The Credits Roll: The Truth is out There.
The following morning, Scully is in the basement reviewing surveillance video. She sees what looks like Mulder, on tape, helping the suspect flee. She confronts him asking for the truth. Mulder blows her off, claiming they are late for a hearing. Mulder is barely able to look her in the eye.
At the FBI Briefing Room, Scully, Skinner, Mulder and an FBI task force review the prior day's events. With the FBI at one table and the CIA at another, Skinner recaps for a joint FBI/CIA task force the prior day's efforts. They were working to capture the #2 man in a militia group called the New Spartans -- Jacob Haley. Haley was supposed to pass a $50,000.00 bearer's bond to an arms dealer named Cadre for a supply of automatic weapons. That deal obviously went wrong when Cadre was killed. Scully explains the cause of death "by means of a highly toxic biological agent". It is "genetically engineered, a bio-weapon".
An Agent from the CIA explains that Haley probably got it from the Soviet Union, where bio-weapons are sold easily. Scully explains that all proper precautions were taken after the arms dealer was exposed. When Leamus, the head of the CIA end of the operation, questions her on how she knows that, Mulder says somewhat inappropriately "We're not all dead". Scully, bothered by Mulder's interruption guesses that the bio-weapon can only be transmitted by touch or injection.
Haley's escape is the next topic. Skinner believes Haley had an accomplice, someone familiar with the task force's surveillance set up. He explains that the FBI/CIA task force was put together with people who do not work in terrorism, so Skinner was surprised they were made by Haley. Mulder guesses that Haley is extremely suspicious "to the point of paranoia" and his military background helped him.
Skinner shows the task force the one may who may be more paranoid than Haley, an August Bremer. Bremer and Haley are vying for control inside the group. The CIA wants to clamp down on info to the public. If the press finds out, the task force will deny any knowledge until they close the terrorists down and they will close them down.
Scully tries to talk to Mulder as the meeting breaks up, but he just blows her off. Skinner notices the agents' behavior.
August Bremer, meanwhile, goes to the movies in Gables Corner, Ohio. He buys a ticket for Die Hard: With a Vengeance. He orders some fresh popcorn, which the Usherette has to make for him. Bremer puts on a pair of heavy leather gloves and pulls out an unmarked aerosol can.
That evening, Mulder rents a cheap motel room in the Aaron Burr Motor Court in Angola, Delaware. Scully, without Mulder's knowledge, is tailing him.
In his room -- 130, Mulder gets a call from Haley. He accuses Mulder of setting him up in the park. Mulder disagrees, telling Haley that while they share the same ideals and goals, Mulder is unhappy with Haley's methods. "The only reason I tolerate your methods is because the government's are worse", Mulder tells Haley. When Haley takes offense, Mulder reminds him that "you came to me, remember?". Mulder adds that the has given Haley all sorts of information, risked his career and has his partner "seriously suspicious". If this isn't enough, Mulder feels he's done with the organization and hangs up.
Back in Ohio, two young boys sneak into the movie theater where August Bremer was a few hours ago. They make a horrifying discovery. Their fellow patrons are fleshless like the arms dealer in Folger's Park..
Scully scams the hotel clerk into giving her the name of Mulder's alias. He rented the room as a "Mr. Kaplan". When the clerk asks if Scully is Mr. Kaplan's wife, she replies "Not even close."
Haley calls Mulder again to announce their plans are back on. Mulder leaves in a car with a group of Haley's men as Scully tries to hide in the parking lot. Scully, with her car lights off, tries to follow but is intercepted by several men in suits.
Scully is escorted to an unmarked building. As she is walked to an office with four large men surrounding her she asks, "So what agency are you guys from?". When they don't reply, she dead pans "Obviously not the Office of Information.". In room 809, she is confronted by Skinner and Leamus.
Scully is angry that she was driven off the road and was dragged to them against her will. Skinner asks her if she is "suspicious Agent Mulder's betrayed his country". Scully tells them she doesn't know what they are talking about but Leamus assures her that Mulder's actions are "entirely honorable".
Mulder, they explain, was approached by Haley at the UFO convention in Boston (Patient X continuity!) where he ranted about the government's involvement in conspiracies. He is in a deep cover operation, one where Skinner told Mulder not to tell Scully what was going on. As Mulder's true role in the investigation is being explained and Scully airs her concerns for his safety, the meeting is interrupted with the news of what the boys found in the Ohio theater.
A hooded Mulder, meanwhile, is also being escorted by two men to a meeting with Haley. He is forced into a chair, his arms retrained by belts on the table infront of him by Goatee Man (his actual credit). Joking, Mulder asks, "Is this the Pepsi Challenge? How about some Fresh Air boys?". Mulder's hood is removed. Trying to keep things light, Mulder says "OK, deal me in."
Haley explains that he has a lie detector test planned for Mulder. Goatee Man grabs Mulder's left pinky and starts to pull on it:
M: You might want to put that hood back on me unless you want to see a grown man cry.
H: What happened in the park.
M: I told you on the phone
Goatee Man bends Mulder's pinky backwards. Mulder grunts in pain.
H: I was set up.
M: I'm telling the truth. (Mulder is in obvious pain and is afraid Goatee Man plans on inflicting more) Wait. Wait. Wait. I let you go.
H: You're a spy aren't you?
M: No, no, no.
Goatee Man bends Mulder's finger in another unnatural direction. Mulder screams in agony and grunts.
M: you want me to lie and say yes.
Goatee Man bends Mulder's finger yet another way. In obvious agony, Mulder goes off at Haley: "I'm going to kill you, you son of a bitch". Goatee Man continues to work Mulder's finger, "I'm going to kill you", Mulder continues, "If I set you up do you even thing I'd get in the car with this Nazi piece of shi...".
Before Mulder can finish his insult aimed at the Goatee Man, his finger makes a sickening snap. Screaming in agony, Mulder headbutts the Goatee Man, who collapses on the floor. Mulder screams at Haley, "I risked everything. If I was lying there would be Federal Agents descending on this place like the wrath of God right now."
Goatee Man recovers and starts toward Mulder. Mulder warns him "If you touch me again, you better kill me.".
Mulder and Goatee Man fight for Mulder's badly damaged pinky. Mulder has it hiding in a fist while Goatee Man pulls at his hand. Haley takes this moment to pull out the same type of aerosol can Bremer had in the theater. He threatens Mulder with it, but Mulder stands his ground, even suggesting that Haley was set up by one of his own men.
As things quiet down, Goatee Man takes the lull in the action to break Mulder's finger again. Haley expresses his confidence in Mulder's loyalty. Mulder is barely conscious.
In Ohio, Scully and Skinner enter the theater with the permission of the biohazard team. There was no toxin in the air. The Usherette, the projectionist and all 12 paying patrons are dead. The only survivors are the boys who snuck in. Scully thinks that is the answer to what killed the theater victims. Scully, retrieving a ticket from the floor, things "it's gotta be something everybody touched.".
Mulder returns to his dark apartment. Scully is there.
S: Don't be alarmed
M: Scully, get out of here (tired)
S: Mulder (almost pleading)
M: Get out of here (yelling)
S: I know what you're doing. Skinner told me everything.
M: I don't know what you're talking about.
S: What happened to your hand?
M: Nothing (sounding like a kid who got caught doing something naughty).
S: Oh Mulder, what did they do to you? (quiet, very concerned, looking at his hand) God, this has to be set. You're in pain.
M: Yeh, well, you're pulling them around like that.
Without turning on a light, Scully goes to the kitchen while Mulder plops down on his couch. She returns with an ice pack, telling Mulder that the New Spartans killed again. Mulder doesn't think this makes sense, but Scully wonders if it was a test. Mulder tells Scully that he was tested by Haley, "I was sure he was going to kill me." When Scully asks what stopped Haley, Mulder tells her "He still needs something from me though and I'm sensing there's someone Haley trusts even less. The man giving him his orders, someone I haven't met yet...a guy named August Bremer.
August Bremer is listening in on this conversation through a long range microphone pointed through Mulder's window.
At 3:14am that night, Mulder meets with Skinner and Leamus at the FBI conference room. Haley wants information on Federal Reserve fund transfer schedules on the eastern seaboard. Leamus thinks the New Spartans want to rob a bank. Haley also wants Mulder to turn over the FBI surveillance tapes to find out who Haley thinks blew the deal in the park. Skinner says they need time to put this info together, but Leamus, conveniently, has it all in his brief case.
After trading looks with Mulder, a suspicious Skinner decides Mulder needs to be tailed for his safety. Leamus refuses. Skinner pushes that once Mulder gives them the info, he is a liability to the terrorists. Leamus won't budge. "If you don't hear from me by midnight", Mulder tells Skinner, "feed my fish".
Scully is at the Level Four Hot Lab where the bio-toxin from the bearer's bond is being examined. The doctor running the tests explains to Scully that it is a particularly virulent stain of a bacteria on the bonds, but there were not traces on the ticket stubs. Scully learns from the doctor that the bacteria is far to sophisticated to have come from the Russian arsenal for weapons. The streptococcus has been genetically engineered to attach to its victims and hold on -- not fall apart in a normal environment.
Back at the Aaron Burr, Mulder, Haley and Goatee man meet. Mulder turns over the requested documents. Forced to wear yet another hood, Mulder is taken for a ride.
Scully calls Skinner, who is sitting in his office with Leamus. On the speaker phone, he asks her if she ID'd the toxin. Scully asks to be taken off the speaker. Scully tells Skinner that the CIA's intelligence is wrong, it is a U.S. created bio-toxin. Skinner explains that no bio- toxin has been made in the U.S. since 1969. Scully is aware of that but the CDC has been working in an old Army lab in Pine Bluff in the '60's. Scully thinks that the bioweapon program has been continued and Mulder has been set up, "someone may be sending Agent Mulder on a suicide mission."
Skinner ends the conversation, which has caught Leamus's ear. When he pushes Skinner on what was Scully's problem, Skinner tells him "She's just concerned for her partner."
Mulder is driven to an abandoned warehouse where August Bremer is check out some high powered guns.
B: You're a believer?
M: I have my beliefs.
B: You willing to die for them?
M: I'd prefer it didn't come to that.
B: We have a job to do.
Bremer tosses Mulder a Dracula mask.
Scully tries to find Mulder at the Aaron Burr, but he's not there. It suddenly dawns on her that the bio-toxin is on the money at the movie theater.
Mulder is forced to join the New Spartans as they rob the First Sovereign Bank of Pennsylvania. During the robbery, Mulder is ordered to execute a guard. He is unable, so Haley appears to. While the New Spartans take some money, Bremer stays in the vault, spraying the bio-toxin on the remaining money.
At their compound, the Spartans burn the money they took. Bremer decides to kill Mulder, since he is of no use to them, but Haley intervenes. Haley accuses Bremer of being the traitor in the organization. In the documents that Mulder gave Haley, Bremer is listed as an FBI informant under an old alias. Bremer defends himself by exposing Mulder as the traitor -- he plays the tape of Mulder and Scully in Mulder's apartment. Haley is now in as much trouble as Mulder for bringing the traitor to the group.
Scully finds Skinner and Leamus in the FBI conference room. She explains the connection with the money and voices her concerns for Mulder's safety. Leamus tells her there were 27 bank robberies in 7 eastern states that morning and he is getting satellite footage of all of them.
Scully helps analyze the tapes and picks out Mulder in his Dracula mask.
A kneeling Mulder and Haley are waiting for execution. Goatee Man is their guard. Bremer, wearing gloves, gives Haley his car keys in a leather key wallet and tells him to get lost, he's out of the New Spartans. Haley grabs the key wallet and runs.
Bremer orders Goatee Man away from Mulder's execution, since Goatee Man will be an accessory to Mulder's murder. Goatee Man considers it an honor, "Wouldn't miss it for the world". Forcing Mulder to walk to a covered area, Bremer then makes Mulder kneel and aims his gun. A shot is fired, startling Mulder -- startling, but not killing him. Bremer executed the bald man. He frees a shocked Mulder who runs.
Mulder races to the bank he robbed. Scully intercepts him as he tries to warn folks about the money. Scully assures Mulder that the money has been isolated and is locked down in the vault.
Mulder asks how she knew it was the Pennsylvania bank, "I recognized you from the surveillance tapes. Your finger.". Mulder tells Scully that Bremer was working with them. Scully tells him the bio-toxin was made by the U.S. government.
This upsets Mulder, "You're saying I was set up?"
Skinner arrives and tries to defuse the situation, "There is no proof."
M: I was used? This operation, the people who died in that theater?
Approaching the two, Leamus tries to calm Mulder down, "Agent Mulder, our government is not in the business of killing innocent civilians".
M: The hell they aren't. Those were tests, on us, to be used on someone else.
CIA: Those bill have been analyzed. The money in the vault gave no readings, there's absolutely no evidence of any bio-toxins. So before you climb on any bandwagon....
Scully joins the fight: You know about this all along (furious). You know about this the whole time.
M: I want that money rechecked.
L: That money has been cleared. It's being used as evidence in a federal crime.
M: That money's as dirty as you are, isn't it? Isn't it?
L: Say that were true, then what do you hope to accomplish, Agent Mulder, as a whistle blower? To mobilize a civil rights action? To bring down the Federal Government? To do the very work that group you were a part of was so bent on doing? What do you want? Laws against those me or laws protecting them?
M: I want people to know the truth.
L: Sometimes our job is to protect those people from knowing it.
Leamus walks away from a disgusted Mulder, Scully and Skinner.
On a road, Haley's car weaves across a two lane highway, landing in a ditch. Haley is slumped over the wheel, dying of the toxin that Bremer put on his keys.
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