Title: Rongbuk
Author: Ravenscion
E-mail: ravenscion@hotmail.com
Rating: R (language, violence, sex)
Category: XR
Keywords: Mulder/Scully romance, some angst
Spoilers: possible for seasons 1-5 and the movie.
Date of First Posting: 29 August 1998
Author's website: http://www.geocities.com/Area51/Dunes/6767/
Archiving: Please archive at Gossamer.  Others, please email for
permission.

Summary and notes: see chapter 1.

Disclaimer: Fox Mulder and Dana Scully, and all of the other characters
and situations related to the X-Files, belong to Chris Carter, 1013
Productions, and the FOX network.  I am using them without permission
but intend no copyright infringement.

[begin part 8 of 11]
************************************************************************

Book III -- Rongbuk

On the Friendship Highway, Tsang Province, Tibet
Friday, 2 October, 12:14 p.m.

Dana Scully stared out of the window of the Toyota Landcruiser at the
hard, hot light of Tibet.  Next to her in the rear seat, Mulder half-
reclined, leaning against the window in an attempt to sleep, while in
the front, their guide, Nawang Tsering, steered their vehicle along the
dusty Friendship Highway.  In the front passenger's seat, Diana Fowley
slept soundly, somehow managing to rest despite the jolts and bounces.

The countryside through which they traveled was grey and dry, stone and
sagebrush, uninhabited.  On the horizons, distant mountain ranges
marched in jagged array, dark peaks capped with glittering ice.  Scully
raised her eyes from the mountains to the cloudless, lapis sky and then
lowered them again, searching the land for...something.  She found that
she could not name what she sought, but its absence disturbed her in an
inexplicable way.  While Tibet might represent a mysterious Shangri-La
to some, she found it a vaguely depressing place, a harsh and almost
lifeless redoubt, cut off from the more inviting, lusher regions
southward beyond the Himalayas.  The thin, dry wind blew chill in
October, but the sun's rays baked the unprotected land.

The Landcruiser pounded through a particularly severe irregularity in
the road, which was nothing more than a rough dirt trail, despite its
name.  Mulder groaned and sat up.

Scully scrutinized him, trying to assess how badly his injuries were
hurting him.  "How are you doing?" she asked.

Mulder winced.  "You'd think someone would have bothered to pave this
road, considering it's the only one between the two largest cities in
the region."  He paused, his wry expression fading into neutrality.
"I'm okay."

Scully left her gaze on him a moment longer, finally deciding that the
healing of the injury in his left side had not regressed.

She leaned forward and spoke quietly to the driver.  "Be careful,
Nawang."  She had already asked him to keep the ride as smooth as
possible, but the Tibetan did not seem to really understand the concept
of using the steering wheel to avoid bumps.

Nawang turned back to her and grinned.  "We leave the highway soon,
ma'am.  The road gets rougher ahead."  He pronounced the words with the
exaggerated enunciation of one who had spoken most of his English in a
classroom.

"Well, make sure you don't miss any pot-holes," said Mulder.

"Okay," said Nawang, missing the sarcasm.  He made a 'thumbs-up' sign.

Scully smiled inwardly, momentarily cheered by the Tibetan's good-
natured eccentricity.  She found that she genuinely liked him, though
something about him struck her as odd.  She remembered the look of...
almost recognition...that he had given her and Mulder when they met at
his travel agency in Lhasa, asking him to secure permits and a vehicle
so they could travel to Rongbuk Monastery.

She hadn't yet had time to fully consider that.

The time in Lhasa had passed in a blur.  Worried that Krycek would have
too great a head start, Mulder had wanted to head west toward Rongbuk as
soon as possible, and somehow Nawang had managed to arrange matters in
only a day, an unusual development in Asia, she would have thought.
Thus, she and Mulder had not had much time to see the city -- she had
spent an afternoon in the dark and mysterious recesses of the Jokhang
Temple, but that was all -- before their guide had contacted them with
the news that all was ready.

Almost before Scully knew what was happening, she was giving the
unvisited Potala Palace a last wistful look through the rear window of
the Landcruiser as they rode west out of Lhasa.  It was almost as though
their guide had set up the trip in advance.

Something was up, she thought, but Nawang had evaded all of her attempts
to elicit it from him.  She had decided to let it ride for the time
being.  For some reason, almost against her better judgment she found
herself inclined to trust their guide's good nature.

Scully sobered again as she turned back to Mulder.  Though the injury to
his side had been dangerous, it had healed well and represented no
long-term problem.  Mulder could already walk fairly well, though his
side still pained him.

His hand, however, was another matter.

Scully sighed to herself.  She had urged Mulder to delay this trip and
allow his injuries time to heal properly, but he would have none of it.
As a result, he had no real use of his left hand and would probably
require extensive therapy later to recover it.  In the meantime, she
had been keeping a close eye on him, changing his bandages frequently
and watching for signs of infection.  Fortunately, that particular
problem had not manifested itself.

Other concerns continued to be an issue for them, though.

She looked out of the window again.  They had begun to descend, she
noticed, and in the distance ahead she could see a small town, situated
on the floor of the wide valley they had entered.  Scully looked forward
to moving down into relatively thicker air; they had been above 15,000
feet for some time, and she had suffered from a mild headache for
several hours.  Between the thin air and her frustration over the case,
she had found herself in a state of mild depression ever since they had
reached Lhasa a few days earlier.

Seldom had Scully felt as useless as she had during this investigation.
From the beginning, she and Mulder had been reacting to the
manipulations of others -- Alex Krycek, in Mulder's view, the smoking
man, in hers -- rather than taking the initiative.  And while she had
doubts about Mulder's hypotheses, doubts that Diana did not share,
naturally, she had even more about the motivations of the smoking man,
despite his insistence that their interests had aligned for this
mission.  On top of all that, she felt she had contributed nothing to
their investigation, such as it was.

And Mulder had not been himself either, for the past couple of weeks.
He had not been the partner that he had been for more than five years,
and he had not been the lover he had recently become.  Scully had been
debating the reasons for this ever since their conversation in the
hospital in Northampton, but she had come to no satisfactory
conclusions.

She tried to convince herself that they were doing the right thing, that
this mad dash across Tibet made sense because they had nothing else to
go on.  And the very real interest in Rongbuk of the smoking man and
Radu Florescu, if not Alex Krycek, suggested that Mulder's hunches were
not entirely baseless.

Unless, of course, Florescu was working for the smoking man, and unless
his interest was in Mulder himself, rather than the writings of a semi-
legendary explorer.

Scully rubbed her forehead, as though that might slow the thoughts that
spun in ever-tightening spirals in her mind.  She found herself in a
familiarly uncomfortable situation, following after her partner without
a chance to catch her breath and think the matter through.  As usual,
Mulder had a dozen reasons why everything had to be done in a rush.

That was the root of the problem: no matter how close she and Mulder
became, and no matter what assurances he gave her to the contrary,
as long she was not in immediate danger, the quest still came first.

Scully found that, deep within herself, her selfish side's resentment of
that had grown.

She was afraid, she realized, afraid of losing Mulder, afraid that their
work would demand she make one more sacrifice on top of all of the
others.  And she hated herself for that fear, for being weak.

So she had choked back her doubts and objections and lent her best
efforts to Mulder's endeavor, just as she always did.  It had not seemed
to help, though.  Mulder sensed that her heart wasn't in it.

Ever since Skinner had brought them copies of John Leslie's writings,
which the smoking man had provided, he had been both driven and distant.
Together, they had arranged travel first to Kathmandu and then Lhasa,
but she had felt a sense of separation from her partner during that
time, as though the more she tried to bring him close, the further he
slipped away.

It hadn't helped to have Diana there, nodding in uncritical agreement to
everything Mulder said.  Scully had felt more like a harpy with every
question she asked, every contrary statement she made.

Their lack of physical intimacy had undoubtedly also contributed to
their sense of distance.  Between Mulder's injuries and, lately, her own
lingering altitude sickness, they had not made love in more than two
weeks.  That was just one more frustration nagging at her, Scully
decided.

"Mulder, hand me those papers again, will you?"  She dug into one of her
own bags for a topographical map of the area around Rongbuk as her
partner produced the file containing Leslie's surveys.

Mulder handed her the file.  "Haven't got them memorized, yet?"

She shook her head.  "Something's been bothering me about these
documents.  I need to figure out what it is."  Perhaps if she could
gain some semblance of control over their investigation, other things
would fall into place as well.  Perhaps the sense of order she needed
would return.

"Knock yourself out," Mulder said, turning to contemplate the landscape
outside.

Scully lowered her gaze from his profile and opened the file for what
had to be the fifteenth time, pouring over its contents once again.
Leslie's maps of the area around Rongbuk for the most part matched the
modern map she had, but there seemed to be certain inconsistencies as
well.  Scully concentrated on matching up the two documents' salient
landmarks.

There was the monastery itself, not far from a village that lay at the
end of a remote roadway.  To the north lay a broad valley that rose in
elevation and stretched about 20 miles toward a range of hills.  Through
this valley ran a river that flowed from a second, higher range of
hills located another 10 miles or so to the north and cut through the
first range.

Leslie had evidently never added the alien facility -- assuming that's
what his and Sales' writings had actually described -- to his maps, but
according to the narrative, the site could be reached simply by
following the river northward to the first range of hills and locating a
cave mouth on the east side of the canyon through which the river
flowed.  Passing through the cave gave access to the facility itself.

He had also diagramed what appeared to be the facility's main gate,
along with several numerical sequences that Mulder had decided were
access codes, though there was no way to be certain of that until they
actually reached the site.

Leslie had sketched the river and cave mouth, as well as a crude map
through the cave.  Scully found herself returning to this sketch over
and over again.  Something about it seemed...strange.  She glanced back
at the topographical map, comparing the two.  A sudden thought struck
her.

She looked up.  "Mulder, I--"  She stopped, seeing that her partner was
staring at her with a look of appalled concern on his face.

At that moment, Scully felt the liquid warmth on her upper lip and
realized, with a shock, that her nose had begun to bleed.

************************************************************************

Near Rongbuk Monastery
12:30 p.m.

A Landcruiser roared to the top of a low hill, it's engine laboring in
the thin air, and stopped at the top.  A second vehicle soon joined it
there.

Alex Krycek, riding shotgun next to the Chinese driver of the first
Landcruiser, hopped out and strode ahead to the top of the hill's
northern slope.  He raised a pair of binoculars and scanned the vista
before him, moving the lenses from the monastery to the lands beyond,
tracing the river northward to the range of hills that was their goal.
He felt his excitement mounting; the object of years of thought and
planning, at times intense, at times speculative, now lay nearly within
reach.

Nothing would stop him this time, and if Rongbuk proved to be what he
suspected it might, well....

His partner, Radu Florescu, emerged from the second vehicle, accompanied
by Sun Wei-kuo, one of the triad gangsters whom Wu Tseng-li had sent to
accompany them.  Krycek had not really wanted Sun or any of the other
three gangsters to come on this expedition, but he had not had time to
argue with Wu Tseng-li about the matter.  Florescu had reported the
smoking bastard's interest in the affair, and that meant the time for
unhindered action would certainly be limited.  Krycek had accepted the
four tag-alongs as the price of Wu's help and resolved to deal with
them as necessary when the time came.

In the meantime, it was just possible that they would prove useful.

Still peering through the binoculars, Krycek addressed Florescu.  "We'll
be there within a few hours."  He spoke English.  He'd slipped back into
the habit in Hong Kong.

"This is dangerous," said Florescu.  "There are only six of us, and
these men are not trained."  Krycek heard him spit and resisted the
temptation to do the same.  The damned Tibetan dust had left his mouth
feeling gritty for days -- wretched country.  Florescu continued.  "If
there is resistance, it could be a problem."

Krycek lowered the field glasses and looked at his partner.  "We've been
over this before," he said.  "We've got the gear we need.  We have to go
with what we've got."  Each Landcruiser carried a flame-thrower set,
Chinese military 'surplus' that Wu had "liberated" from a garrison close
to Hong Kong.

Krycek gave Sun a hard look.  "Make sure your men are ready," he said.
"And when I give an order, it had best be obeyed at once."

Sun nodded, showing no emotion.  "Of course, Mr. Krycek.  It will be as
you wish."  His English was fluent and scarcely accented.

"Alright," said Krycek, stowing his binoculars and stepping back to the
vehicle in which he had been riding.  "Let's get moving."

************************************************************************

On the Friendship Highway
12:40

Scully dabbed at her nose one last time and then folded her
handkerchief.  It had taken a while, but the flow of blood had at last
stopped.

She gave Mulder what she hoped was a reassuring look.  "I'm okay," she
said.  "It's not a sign of...a problem."

An amalgam of concern and fear, and loneliness, emanated from Mulder's
eyes.  "How can you be certain?"

"It's too soon for the tumor to have returned, to have reached a size
that would cause this...symptom."  I'm almost certain of that, she
thought.  "It's just the dryness of the air; I'll always be prone to
nosebleeds."

Mulder nodded, but his expression of disquiet did not fade.

Scully reached out and placed her hand gently on his.  "I'll see the
oncologist when we get back, just to be safe.  But it's nothing.  I'll
be okay."  She willed him to accept that; the one thing that could put
her under more stress would be for Mulder to start obsessing over her
health again.

"Alright.  The *second* we get back."  He tried to appear reassured, for
her sake, she realized.

He does care about me, she thought.  In his own way, he does.

We have to find a way to love each other and continue to function.

"I promise," she said.

Nawang Tsering, who had been pointedly keeping his attention focused on
the road, now turned back to them.  "Ready for lunch?" he asked.

At the thought of food, Scully's stomach rumbled quietly.  She realized
they were approaching the town she had noticed earlier.  "I'm starving,"
she said.  Perhaps food would distract Mulder from his worries as well.

Nawang grinned and shook Diana, rousing her from her nap.  "Time to
eat," he said, beaming at her.  Diana did not speak, rubbing the sleep
from her eyes instead.  This seemed to amuse Nawang even more.

"So, is there a McDonald's in this town?" Mulder asked.

* * *

Twenty minutes later, Scully finished the last of the noodle soup and
yak butter tea that she and Mulder had identified as the restaurant's
safest offerings and opened up the file she'd consulted earlier.  Diana
rose from the table she had shared with Nawang and joined them, pulling
her chair across and crowding in next to Mulder.  Nawang drifted off to
chat with some of the locals at the other tables, evidently uninterested
in their discussion.

"This is what I meant to show you earlier," Scully began.  She pointed
to the sketch of the cave entrance that Leslie had made, then indicated
the same area on the topographical map.

"What is it?" asked Mulder.

"Look at the relief lines on the topo-map.  I knew something was wrong
about this, I just couldn't figure it out.  It finally hit me."

Mulder shook his head.  "I'm not seeing it."

"Nor am I," said Diana.

"Look at the line spacing on this map," Scully said.  "The relief lines
along the river are tight, but not enough for this to be a true canyon,
which is what Leslie sketched."

Mulder picked up the map and then the photocopy of the sketch,
scrutinizing each in turn.  "Are you certain?" he asked.

"Absolutely."

"She's right, Fox," said Diana.  She looked at Scully.  "So, what do you
think it means?"

"Three possibilities," Scully said.  "One, Leslie's sketch is not
accurate."

"I doubt that," said Mulder.  "He was a professional surveyor, after
all."

Scully nodded.  "I agree, and his drawings appear accurate enough in
other areas."  Assuming this is his work, she added to herself.

"So what are 'two' and 'three'?" Diana asked.

"Two, these journals have been faked."  Mulder looked dismayed, and
would have spoken, but Scully went on before he could do so.  "That was
my conclusion, until I noticed something about these photocopies that
opens up the third possibility."

She ran her fingernail along a set of very faint lines that traced the
edges of two of the sheets.

"Son of a bitch!" Mulder exclaimed.  "I'm impressed, Scully.  I'd have
never noticed it."  The lines Scully had spotted were extremely fine.
Even someone holding the actual journal might not notice that pages had
been removed.

"What?" asked Diana.  "I don't see it."

"These lines," said Mulder.  "There were pages here.  Someone cut them
out, with a razor or something."  Scully thought he looked as pleased as
he had in weeks, and for a moment she half-expected him to give her a
kiss, but he settled for squeezing her hand instead.  "This is great
news."

Light had finally dawned on Diana's features.  "Part of the narrative is
missing -- Krycek may be looking in the wrong place."

"Exactly," said Mulder.  "I was afraid we'd be too late, but the odds
have just shifted in our favor."

Scully wasn't entirely sure about that, but was grateful for Mulder's
happiness all the same.  Fear of being too late had been one of the many
concerns that had plagued him throughout the trip, and it would be good
for him to alleviate some of the stress he was under.  "Still, we're
going to have to figure out where the actual cave is," she said.

"Any ideas?" asked Mulder.

Diana pointed to the map.  "Perhaps the next range of hills," she said,
then shrugged.  "It's hard to know."

Mulder nodded.  "That seems likely, but it would be better to be sure."
He looked at Scully.  "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?"

Scully considered it.  If Mulder were correct and Leslie had recently
been returned to the site he had surveyed 64 years ago, it stood to
reason that he would have passed by Rongbuk on his way out of Tibet.

Scully met her partner's gaze.  "The monastery?" she asked.

Mulder nodded in satisfaction.  "I think we need to interview the good
monks of Rongbuk," he said.  He stood up, calling across the room.
"Nawang!  I think we're ready to go."

Their guide detached himself from the group of Tibetan truck drivers
whose conversation he had joined and hurried across the room, following
Mulder, who had already exited the restaurant.

Scully gathered the map and the contents of the file, waiting for her
sense of order to return, but it refused to do so.  As she followed
Mulder out of the restaurant and into the bright noonday sun, she sensed
that their investigation continued to follow its own course, unmoved by
their plans or desires to control it.

************************************************************************

Nepal-Tibet Border
Sunday, 4 October, 6:00 a.m.

When the smoking man had informed her that the Consortium would be
taking "active measures," Jill Whittaker had been impressed.  She knew
enough about him to recognize that whatever measures he had in mind
would be decisive.

Still, she had not expected the team that had arrived in Kathmandu on
October 1st.

Jill had been busy during the second half of September.  The smoking man
had given no explanation for the return of John Leslie to Kathmandu, and
simply ordered her to arrange his immediate transport to Dubay, just as
she had the first time.  Presumably, Leslie had found his way to Andrews
Air Force Base once more.

The smoking man had also not explained his instruction that, should
Leslie find his way into Kathmandu yet again, he was to be forwarded to
Dubay with alacrity.  Jill had decided that these things would make more
sense once her status in the Consortium hierarchy had risen.  In the
meantime, she had a new mission to complete.

Travel to Lhasa to meet with Mulder had been deferred so that she could
facilitate the transit of Colonel Calvin Henderson, a Consortium
operative, along with the squad that he led.  Their arrival in
Kathmandu's spacious and sleepy airport had been an eye-opener.

Colonel Henderson had quite a presence.  Middle-aged, supremely self-
confident, and clearly a long-time veteran of Special Forces Operations,
he had taken control of the situation from the moment he arrived,
relegating Jill almost to the role of an administrative assistant.

That did not exactly sit well with her, but Henderson was not the sort
of man who would have been interested in her complaints, had she chosen
to voice them.

He was the sort of man for whom action -- decisive action -- came as
second nature, and thus it hardly struck Jill as surprising that, just
a few days after the team's arrival in Kathmandu, she was now walking
away from the remote track that crossed the border between Nepal and
Tibet, looking for a shielded spot among the rocks in which to practice
the delicate art of relieving herself in the wilderness.

Jill sighed as she exposed herself to the chill air of the Himalayan
autumn and attempted to balance herself in a squatting position; this
was not her idea of rapid upward progress in the ranks of the
Consortium.  It was, however, Colonel Henderson's idea of covering all
of the bases.  The team had no intention of dealing with the authorities
in China -- the border crossing they were attempting was both covert and
highly illegal -- but in the event of trouble, Jill represented the best
local area knowledge readily available.

She patted herself down with a tissue and pulled up her trousers, then
made her way through the rocks and pre-dawn dark back to where the team
had stopped their Jeeps.  They had left the lush, semi-tropical slopes
of the Himalayan foothills behind them and crossed into that part of the
Tibetan Plateau that lay, on a political map, within the Kingdom of
Nepal.  Another hour or so would put them within Tibet proper.

Getting past the border patrols would not be easy, but perhaps the
Consortium had managed to arrange something.  Jill hoped so.  She did
not relish the thought of a Chinese prison.  She wasn't too worried,
however.  Corruption might have been the Consortium's greatest strength.

She returned to the team.  The soldiers, heavily armed and all Special
Operations types like their leader, had taken advantage of the break
much as she had and were now ready to press on.  Henderson snapped out a
few orders and at once engines were starting and Jill found herself
hustling to clamber back into one of the vehicles.  Within moments, the
little caravan had resumed its trek toward Rongbuk.

She contemplated her orders.  Though the overall plan had been almost
completely transformed, the matter of Agent Mulder remained open.  She
could still take action on that front if the opportunity should present
itself.

Jill was ambitious.  She sensed the smoking man's antipathy toward
Mulder and knew that he would be well pleased should she be able to
effect the one aspect of his original instructions concerning him.  And
she had every intention of doing so.

************************************************************************

First range of hills, north of Rongbuk Monastery
10:16 a.m.

Alex Krycek rode atop the Toyota and watched the ravine walls on either
side, shifting his gaze back and forth in search of any hint of a cave
entrance.  The Landcruiser splashed its way slowly through the river,
which was nothing more than a broad, shallow stream here.  It probably
ran higher at other times of the year, but now it was low and placid,
allowing them to simply use its bed for a roadway with no danger of
drowning the engine.

The sides of the ravine sloped upward from on either side, and were
largely free from vegetation.  Unfortunately, they were also free from
openings that might lead to John Leslie's discovery.  Krycek forced
himself to be patient, but the search had begun to drag out.  Since
Friday, they had already driven the length of the ravine twice, with no
result.

He consulted the copy of Leslie's journal he'd had made in Hong Kong,
staring at the sketch of the cave entrance.  He looked up again and then
kicked the roof of the Landcruiser.  The driver brought it to a halt in
response to his signal.

Radu Florescu clambered out.  "What is it?" he asked.

Krycek pointed up and to the right.  "Look there," he said.

Florescu complied, then turned back to him.  "I don't see anything."

"Look at that rock."

After a moment, Florescu shook his head.  "I don't think so."

"Bullshit.  We need to get closer."  Krycek leapt off the roof of the
Landcruiser and began climbing.  Florescu followed, as did one of the
triad men, responding to an order from Sun Wei-kuo.

Though not vertical, the slope was steep.  Reaching the rock required a
climb of a few minutes, and the effort in the oxygen-poor air left them
sweating and panting, but when they reached the rock, Krycek scrambled
on top of it and let out a muted exclamation of triumph.

Before him stood the cave, just as Leslie had described it.  Thank you,
Fox Mulder, you bewildered cock-sucker, he thought.  I couldn't have
done it without you.

"I'll be damned," said Florescu, next to him.  The entrance, large
enough that a man could stoop and walk inside, could not be seen from
below.  But atop the ledge, there was no missing it.

Krycek signaled to Sun Wei-kuo.  "Bring up lights, and the weapons."

He watched as Sun turned and began barking orders in Chinese to the two
other triad men who had remained with him below.

After a few more minutes of grunting and straining, the three had joined
Krycek and Florescu at the cave entrance.  Florescu and one of the
Chinese donned the flame-throwers.  Krycek settled for a 12-gauge
shotgun with a flashlight mounted atop it.  He faced the cave and
stepped in, followed closely by his cohorts.

The inside of the cave proved dry, a dusty, lifeless chamber.  Within
the entrance, it widened suddenly, its ceiling rising as high as 12
feet overhead at its highest point.  To either side, the walls spread
until a 30-foot wide chamber was formed, but ahead, a narrower passage
vanished into the darkness.

So far, so good, Krycek thought.  He looked for signs of passage in the
grit on the cave's floor, but saw nothing.  He worked the action of the
shotgun, readying a shell for discharge, and moved deeper into the cave,
the beam from his flashlight piercing the inky dark before him.

The passageway narrowed and began do descend, and the floor proved
treacherous, with oddly-spaced irregularities threatening to trip the
unwary.  Eventually, the party was forced to walk in single file, with
Krycek in the lead, followed closely by Florescu.

Suddenly, the passage widened again, opening into a roundish chamber.
Krycek swung his light around and settled on a figure directly in front
of him.

"Son of a bitch," he heard himself say.

************************************************************************

Tsang Province, southwest of Rongbuk Monastery
11:00 a.m.

Jill Whittaker pressed herself into the ground and tried to make herself
as small as possible.  Overhead, the roar of rotor blades swelled to
fill the world, as though the machine were directly overhead.

She knew this was not the case, but the Chinese military helicopter was
nonetheless far too close for comfort.

The border crossing had been deceptively easy, as had the morning's
drive toward Rongbuk.  Still, Colonel Henderson and his men had been
cautious.  One, a Mandarin-speaker, Jill had learned, had begun scanning
radio frequencies in hopes of monitoring Chinese military transmissions.
He had succeeded, and thus Henderson had been warned of the helicopter
reconnaissance patrol that now threatened to discover them.

Jill did not want to be discovered.  Far too much was riding on this
mission, and she had no illusions about the lengths the Consortium would
go to in order to recover her from Chinese custody, should she fall into
it.

She risked a glance to one side, seeking one of her companions, but she
found she could not see them.  When the team had first heard the sound
of the helicopter's rotors, they had stopped their Jeeps and remained
just long enough to through camouflage netting over them before they had
scattered into cover.  They had been lucky that they had been driving
through a canyon when they had been forced to abandon their vehicles, as
the rock-strewn and shadowed area provided some opportunity for
concealment.

The roar of the helicopter's engines grew to a crescendo and then began
to fade, and Jill allowed herself to hope they had been overlooked.
Still, she waited until long after the silence had returned before she
ventured to stir from her hiding place, arising at last in response to
Colonel Henderson's call.

She stood up, feeling a bit sheepish, and walked toward the Jeeps,
which Henderson's men had already begun to uncover.

"Give you a turn, Ms. Whittaker?" asked the Colonel, a look of cynical
amusement on his face.

"A little," Jill allowed.  She was too worn out from worry and travel to
keep up any pretenses.

Henderson nodded.  "Not to worry."  He jerked a thumb in the direction
of the vanished aircraft.  "Those guys, their hearts aren't in it.
They're too busy not putting it into a cliffside to pay attention to
their mission."  He flashed her a cocky grin.  "If we're on the ball,
they won't notice us."

Jill glanced around.  There seemed to be a lot of places from which a
helicopter could appear without warning, but Henderson's men seemed
unperturbed at the prospect.  They had already rolled up the netting and
started the engines of the Jeeps.

"Let's go," said Henderson, turning toward their vehicles.

Jill followed him, hoping with all sincerity that his skills matched his
self-confidence.

************************************************************************

Tsang Province, east of Rongbuk Monastery
1:00 p.m.

As their Landcruiser approached the checkpoint, Diana Fowley gave their
guide an appraising look.

Nawang Tsering seemed unworried, despite the serious mien of the Chinese
security official, who was evidently asking to see their travel permits.
The Tibetan produced a sheaf of forms filled out in scribbled ideographs
and stamped with numerous, important-looking red seals, which the guard
accepted with ceremony.  He scrutinized the documents, frowning and
and clucking to himself, as though they held the key to his nation's
destiny.  A few other guards stood by, their automatic rifles cradled
nonchalantly as they leaned against the concrete blockhouse by the road.

Diana knew she could bring Fox's operation to a complete halt with just
a single suspicious word or deed.  Even if the checkpoint guards did not
speak English, it was clear from their demeanor that any irregularity
would be greeted with the utmost suspicion.

Bored guards are dangerous guards, she mused.

At the moment, though, she could hardly expose Fox without exposing
herself as well, and whatever her feelings toward her ex-lover, she had
no interest in bringing herself down.

In any case, the smoking man's instructions had allowed her an escape
route.  She would just have to wait until they were closer to Rongbuk,
and then she could link up with the team that had been sent in.

And Krycek remained to be found and dealt with, before anything else was
done.  Diana was to make sure that Mulder made it to his objective prior
to secondary plans being initiated, which meant another couple of days
of awkward companionship, and not just between her and Fox, or her and
Scully.

The tension between Fox and his partner had not been lost on Diana.
The almost tangible connection between the pair had shown some signs of
wear of late, and for all their evident closeness, they seemed uncertain
how to cope with it.  Scully had withdrawn within herself, raising
protective walls, as though she feared hurt more than isolation, while
Fox seemed torn between the quest and his love, and ended up giving
neither the necessary attention.

He'd been flying blind ever since they had arrived in Tibet, and if it
had not been for Scully, they would have learned nothing since their
arrival.

No, Diana decided, it wasn't that simple.  Fox wasn't just missing the
obvious; he was actively pushing his partner away from him.  Diana
wasn't sure why, but Fox had seemingly made a point of brushing off
Scully's attempts to re-connect with him, and as she grew increasingly
wounded, those attempts grew less and less frequent.

As best he could, Diana realized, Fox was trying to end their
relationship.  That was something to ponder.

She stole a glance back at the woman who had ruined her last chance to
restore her love affair with Fox.  Scully wore a pensive mask, as she
had for most of the trip, and her introspection prevented her from
noting Diana's scrutiny.

It also prevented her from perceiving her partner, who brooded in his
own world next to her.  Fox may have been keeping Scully at arm's
length, but Diana wasn't fooled.  His heart wasn't in it.  For all his
distance, his affection was there to be seen.  It was just that Scully,
hurt by his efforts to drive her away, had stopped looking.

The situation had the potential to become downright unpleasant, Diana
mused.  She remembered her own break-up with Fox, years earlier.

Nawang was speaking to them, interrupting her train of thought.  "We'll
have to get out for a while.  They want to search the vehicle."

Mulder and Scully exited the Landcruiser without comment.  Fox slipped
away from his partner and walked off, ostensibly to stretch his legs,
leaving her standing with one hand raised where she had tried to touch
him.  Scully lowered her hand slowly and walked in a different
direction, eyes downcast.

Diana remained with Nawang by the guard station.  She was not perturbed
by the search.  Traveling as tourists, rather than FBI agents, their
group had perforce not brought any weapons with them, and the most
sensitive items they had carried into the country were the topographical
map, which was on Scully's person, and a Geiger counter, which the
Chinese guards likely wouldn't find if their search was not thorough.

And it wasn't.  A thorough search would have meant work, so the guards
settled for a perfunctory inspection and then allowed them to drive on.
Within minutes, Nawang had pointed the Landcruiser west toward Rongbuk
once more.

Fox and Scully resumed their meditations in the back seat, each taking a
profound interest on the landscape outside the vehicle.

Nawang took it upon himself to liven up the atmosphere.

"Have you ever heard of the yeti?" he asked.

That got Mulder's attention, drew him out of his gloom for a bit.  "Have
you ever seen one?" he asked.

"No, I have not," said Nawang, "but many people have.  Or they have
seen the tracks, or heard the sounds the creature makes."

"What does one look like?"  Diana did not really believe in yetis, but
it seemed a good tale might be in the offing, which could be reward
enough.

"My cousin saw one."  Nawang's eyes shifted back and forth, from the
road to his audience and back again.  "He said it was very large, with
a squarish head, and fur.  It had long arms."  The Tibetan wiggled his
eyebrows, enjoying his story.  "Of course, my cousin is unreliable.  I
think perhaps he saw a bear."

"A bear?" asked Diana.

"Yes, maybe a bear.  Or maybe nothing.  My cousin likes to tell stories
about what he has seen, especially the yeti."

"Who else has seen one?" asked Fox.  "Anyone you believe in?"

Nawang twisted to give him a look, prompting Diana to warn him to watch
the road.  He looked forward again before responding to the question.

"My uncle, Jamyang Dorje, is a lama at Rongbuk Monastery.  I believe in
him.  He saw something, years ago, but he did not say that it was a
yeti.  But it was something strange."

Scully had been listening quietly, and chose this moment to speak.
"What did your uncle say it was like?"

"Like a man, but not like a man.  It was tall, and thin, but had no
hair.  It's head and eyes were large.  My uncle said it was not a yeti."
He shrugged.  "I don't know what it was.  Maybe it was yeti, maybe not."

"Where did your uncle see it?" Scully asked.  Diana wondered what her
interest was.

"It was a long time ago, when he was younger.  He had traveled from the
monastery to a meditation cave that the monks used to go to.  It was
from there that he saw it, walking along the side of a river.  He said
it frightened him."

"Did it see him?"  Scully had begun to lean forward.  Fox was looking at
her, his expression unreadable.  She did not return his glance.

Nawang tossed another look over his shoulder.  "My uncle says not.  He
waited very quietly, and it passed by without noticing him."

"Where was this?" asked Mulder.

"North of the monastery, there is a range of hills.  That is where the
cave is.  The monks do not go there any more, and have not, for many
years.  No one goes there."

He slowed the vehicle to almost a stop and turned to look at Fox.  "That
is an evil place, now," he said.

************************************************************************
[end part 8 of 11]