Fox Mulder waited for his partner’s flight before getting a ticket for himself. The hope that he would see Dana with her red bobbing hair come strolling from the walkway was a predictable failure, but still, he waited until the plane landed and the people came and left. Scully had always teased that Fox’s paranoia was on the cutting edge of a neurosis and was probably the reason why he never could get a date. He always rebutted with the argument that just because your paranoid didn’t mean you weren’t being followed. Today, he was proved right.

He booked himself a ticket on the next plane and landed in Georgia at four that afternoon. He purposely traveled light bringing only a black, carryon duffel bag, his government id, and his gun which security kept in the pilot’s chambers until they landed. As he walked off the gateway, he was greeted with a crowd of busy travelers, airline personnel, and the neon signs of stores and restaurants. He brushed past them all and headed straight for the payphones clustered together off the side of the food court. He wished that the telephone booths of old with their glass, folding doors still existed instead of the opened corralled phones of today. The lack of privacy fed his paranoia. He pulled out his phone card, swiped it through the machine, and dialed a number that he knew by heart.

“Hello.”

“Langly? It’s Mulder.”

“Hey Sherlock!” Langly greeted cheerfully. “Making good on your promise to visit us tonight? Let me tell you, our good friend Frohike has just invented this sweet new piece of computer hardware that does wonders for unscrambling and pirating satellite transmissions! I’m picking up the BANDIT movies without any commercial interruptions!”

Mulder put his duffel bag down and quickly scanned the crowd for any interested eyeballs aimed at him. He shuffled to the corner and dropped his voice.

“Is your line clean of any taps?”

“Are you insulting me?” Langly playfully snapped back. “Of course it’s clean!”

Mulder dropped his voice further and turned his back to the crowds hiding his face from the public. “Langly, listen closely. I’m in Georgia.”

“What are you doing there? Oh oh oh! It get it! The FBI has a lead on the conspiracy! Am I right? Oh man, this is so exciting. I wish I was there with you. Anarchy rules!”

“Langly!” Fox barked stopping the man’s jubilant ranting. “I’m here because Scully was here and now she’s missing!”

“Scully?” Langly’s voice was full of concern.

“She came here about a week ago doing a favor for me. There was a report that u.f.o.s were seen flying around this area. I was busy at home, and she agreed to check it out for me. Yesterday, she left a message saying that her car broke down in Hazzard Georgia.”

“...No way.” Langly’s jubilant voice dropped into cold seriousness. “Mulder, isn’t that the place under the Ebola quarantine?”

“Yes.” Mulder felt a knot forming in the pit of his stomach.

“You think it’s a ruse?”

“Gives rise to suspicion, doesn’t it? A whole town is evacuated because one of the most dangerous diseases on the face of the earth has crossed its borders and infiltrated the United States. The newspapers and network television news shows blow it off to cover the fine details of President Bill Simpleton’s x-rated escapades in the Oval Office instead of the real important stuff. All of a sudden, all of these people...Scully included ... disappear without a trace, and nobody seems to care. And while all of this is going on, the net is booming with conspiracy theories. I’m sorry Langly. I should have listened to you last night.”

“Don’t worry about that. What do you need from me?”

“What’s the chatter about?”

Langly went silent for a few seconds hesitant to answer the question. “Mulder...the net is talking about human experimentation...with viruses.”

Mulder went quiet as the ominous chill of déjà vu swept over him. It couldn’t be happening again. Not again. He had lived through this nightmare twice before with Scully. The diseases almost killed her, and, for a little while, they broke him. He once watched Scully waste away in a hospital bed from a manmade cancer. From the corner of the white sterilized room, Fox gazed down upon Dana’s sickly gray toned skin and watched it grow black and blue from the needles of chemotherapy bags that punctured it. He was incapable of helping her, of alleviating her pain, and he couldn’t catch the people who did this her; he couldn’t avenge her. The face of Alex Krycek loomed in his mind. It was that worthless traitor who helped infect her, and Mulder couldn’t do anything about it. He simply stood in the hospital lost in a world of sorrow and rage ~ paralyzed and useless. And now, it was happening all over again.

“Mulder?”

Fox snapped out of his stupor. He took a breath, and his voice trembled. “What kind of virus, Langly?”

Langly heard Mulder’s shakiness and answered gingerly. “I don’t know, Fox. Something fresh out of the factory. Something new.”

“Who is feeding you this information?”

“I don’t know. It’s a bulletin board. The guy calls himself Deep Throat, but he’s not leaving an email address. I don’t know who he is.”

Fox picked up his duffel bag. “I’m heading for Hazzard.”

“Mulder, wait! If they have kidnapped a whole town, they must have a small army under their control! You can’t walk in there alone.”

“Watch me.”

“Wait!” Langly yelled. “At least call Skinner!”

“Langly, I have to see what’s going on first. I have to find the badguys before I send in the troops. Look, I will call you the second I find out what is going on.”

Langly sighed, and Mulder could tell that he didn’t like the plan. “Just be careful,” he said with pouting resignation.

“I will. Talk to you soon. Bye.”

Fox hung up and raced down the hallway to the rental cars sales booths. He needed something small and inconspicuous. He had to get to Hazzard before sundown, and he had a stop to make before leaving Atlanta.
 
 

Bobby Darnell of the Center for Disease Control was what you would call a character. With his ostentatious cowboy hat, ostrich boots and rattle skin belt, Darnell carried a personality that matched the outlandish western wear. He had the mood shifts of an Italian New Yorker coupled with southern charisma and hometown charm. Mulder could see himself actually going to a bar and having a drink with the guy had Darnell not been in such a bad mood. Today was not his best of days, and pissed off did not even begin to describe what he was.

Mulder sat on a leather chair opposite Darnell who had dinner, which consisted of tacos and enchiladas, spread across his desk. Darnell had been a long time friend of Scully’s , and when Fox called him from the airport, Bobby not only enthusiastically welcomed him, he offered to drive him over in a limousine service. He was anxious to see Fox, and he just wasn’t trying to be neighborly either. Behind his tough cowboy exterior, Mulder could see deep concern and confusion etched onto his weary face. As one of the main managers for the Center of Disease Control, the Ebola incident was wearing the gruff cowboy down, or so Mulder thought.

“It’s good to finally meet you, Mr. Mulder,” Darnell said shifting uneasily in his chair. “Dana has told me lots about ya. I must say, I’m a bit surprised to see ya so far away from home. Specially since you are both on vacation.”

Fox nodded. He hadn’t explained the situation with Dana yet, and he wasn’t sure if he should. “Yeah. She’s told me about you too. She holds you in real high regards. Look, I don’t mean to be unsociable, but I’m on a tight schedule, and I need to get straight to business with you.”

Darnell took a bite of his cheese enchilada and pointed his fork at Fox. “I didn’t think you came over for vacationing purposes. You’re here about the Ebola bit, ain’t ya?”

“Yes.”

“Did you come by way of Washington D.C., sir?”

“No, not this trip, but I have been there before.”

“You got contacts up in that nest of thieves?”

Mulder half-heartedly nodded and shrugged. “Yeah. Some. I guess.”

Darnell threw his fork on the desk and almost jumped out of his seat with angry frustration. “You mind tellin’ me what those lamebrain, God awful, stupid, asinine, bureaucrats in Washington are trying to do!”

Mulder’s eyebrow arched. “Excuse me?”

“They got me hog tied, Mr. Mulder! They got a noose around my neck that is tighter than Monica Bareallski’s lips around...”

“I get the picture,” Mulder quickly interrupted. “Slow down and start from the beginning. My investigation isn’t really official. I’m doing this on my own. I’m as much in the dark as you are. Not even my boss knows that I’m down here.”

Darnell calmed down and thoughtfully leaned back in his chair. “That was a wise move, sir.” He pushed his food aside and leaned forward giving his guest a very serious stare. “My boss has instructed me to keep my mouth shut on this matter. At first, she said if I told anyone, the press, the cops, whoever, that I’d lose my job. I didn’t take the warning well ‘cause I just don’t take kindly to being threatened. But when you start threatening my family, ...well, it’s a whole different story.”

Fox leaned so far forward in his chair he almost fell off. “She threatened your family!”

Darnell shook his head. “Not her. Someone above her. She was relaying a message from someone up higher on the food chain. She’s been threatened too. I’ll tell ya, Mr. Mulder, this thing’s got me angry! Angrier than a bull seeing red! So, because your Dana’s friend, I’ll tell ya everything I know, and then I’m going to ask you to forget that ya heard it from me. And, don’t get on the phone anywhere in this building to report to FBI central what ya know. They’ve tapped everything including the pay phones.”

Darnell picked up his cowboy hat from the edge of the desk and rose from his chair.

“Take a walk with me,” he said, and Mulder quickly followed him out the office door into an empty hallway. Mulder scanned the empty desks and offices and realized that he and the cowboy were the only two people in the building which struck him as odd considering that a potential plague was on the verge of exploding into the population. Darnell saw Mulder’s confusion as the agent trotted beside him.

“They were all put on vacation. At the same time, I might add.”

Mulder had to almost jog to keep up with Darnell’s pace. “They left you behind to tend shop?”

Darnell smiled. “Not really. I’m on vacation too. I just refuse to accept it.”

Bobby led Fox through two sliding metal doors. They walked down a long, white hallway that had a single door at its end. They passed through it and entered a room that looked like something you might find at college campuses. A hundred foldout seats arranged in a stadium fashion swung semicircle around a black, metallic desk. Behind the desk, a large glass window the size of the wall gave a view of a darkened room next door. Mulder shuffled close to the glass and tried to peer into the darkness but couldn’t see anything.

“They called me about three this morning and told me about the Ebola quarantine,” Darnell said grabbing Mulder’s attention.  “My first reaction after falling out of bed and nearly breaking my neck was to get a team down to the hot zone and seal it off. But, they told me not to do anything.”

Darnell circled the desk with visible agitation. As he told the story to Mulder, he relived the incident that set fire to his fury. “So, I decided that the next thing I had to do was get my butt down here and start doctoring to the people. Who was sick? Who wasn’t sick? A whole battalion of tests were needed to ensure the safety of a whole town. I walked into my office at four in the morning ready to do some serious work, and to my surprise, I found my workspace under siege! Soldiers were everywhere digging through my files and carting stuff away! I felt like a walked into a bunker!”

Mulder walked towards the desk and sat on its top listening astutely. “What kind of soldiers?”

“Army.” Darnell leaned on the edge of a chair trembling with rage at the memory. He was having a hard time restraining himself. “These holier than thou knuckleheads had the balls to tell me and my people to go home! We’re on a two week vacation, they said. The plague had been contained. Naturally, I cried foul! I told them to their faces that this was not how it worked! An Ebola breakout demanded our immediate medical attention! We have a potential time bomb on our hands that can be as devastating as a nuclear explosion if not handled correctly! Hundreds of lives are at risk! So I told them; Ain’t no way I’m going on no vacation!”

He went quiet all of a sudden and shook his head in frustrated disbelief, a feeling Mulder knew all too well. “Well, I must have raised a quite a ruckus. Sometimes I don’t know when to stop running my mouth. A few minutes later, my boss came down and told me to stop pestering these people and to leave for the day. I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, and I told her “no” to her face! What was she doing siding these morons? We had a potential outbreak of Ebola on our hands, for God’s sakes. Then, she looked me in the eye and told me these men want their way bad enough to hurt her, me, and our combined families. All of a sudden, my company, the police, and the mayor were taken out of the picture. Poof. Like magic, all local control was gone...history. One of the most deadly diseases crossed over into Georgia, and all the people responsible for protecting the public went deaf, dumb, and blind!”

Mulder leaned forward. “What about the people?”

“That’s what I asked them. What about the people? I told them that there was no way I was going home without knowing where the Hazzard residents were. Then this young guy, arrogant little cuss in his thirties, brought me here and showed me this.”

He flipped on a light switch next to the desk and the room behind the glass lit up. Fox’s mouth dropped wide open. He slid off the desk and stood in speechless shock.

Carcasses of dead farm animals filled the room from the floor to the ceiling. Horses, pigs, cattle and countless other animals lay clumsily tossed on one another with their heads and tails drooping like wilted flowers towards the floor. Decomposition had already ravaged their bodies. Chunks of flesh that looked like melted wax dissolved outward from the chest cavities of the various animals exposing discolored organs and brittle bones. Pools of dry, purplish blood circled the floor and spooled around their muzzles. Mulder stepped up towards the glass aghast at the horrifying scene.

“Are all these animals from Hazzard?”

Darnell silently nodded. “They said it was the disease that killed them. And, if I didn’t cooperate, they would lock me up in that room so that the disease can take me too."

Mulder turned towards Darnell with his mouth still agape. The cowboy’s tough and angry attitude melted away at the sight of the annihilation, and now, the only expression left on his face was one of absolute and utter fear.

“They told me that they would return,” Darnell continued with a slight tremble in his voice. “They needed a place to store the animals’ bodies until they could get their hands on equipment which would incinerate the carcasses.”

Mulder swallowed hard. “These animals must have been dead for days.”

“No sir.” The hue on Darnell’s face turned gray. “Half of them were alive this morning.”

“That’s impossible. The decomposition is too advanced! They’re decayed to the bone!”

“Some of them were alive this morning,” Darnell stated slowly reinforcing his earlier statement. “From what I could see, the animals seemed to be suffering from some kind of cold. They had chest congestion, excessive mucus flowing from their noses. A few hours later, the membranes in their sinuses must have broke. They all bled from their nostrils and mouths. Then they had tremors...and then violent muscle contractions in the abdomen area...then they died and are now decomposing into nothing in less than a day!”

From the corner of his eye, Mulder caught a glimpse of movement in the room. A small sparrow about two inches long fluttered desperately among its dead companions. Fox could tell right away that the little brown creature was in agony. The animal had its beak open gasping harshly for air. Its little chest rose and dropped fighting for each breath. It tried to stand but fell over again and again like a drunk acrobatic clown. Its wings beat frantically against the slick marble floor, and its feathers tattered as they brushed the horns of a dead cow nearby. Its neck turned and twisted unnaturally betraying the pain that racked its body. Fox watched in cold silence and wished he could go in there to put the helpless thing out of its misery. Darnell made his way to Mulder’s side, and the two beheld the grotesque death scene in hypnotic dread.

“I don’t know what is going on in there. I have never seen nothing like it before. All I know is, it ain’t Ebola. It is something much worse, and it is probably something manmade. Some very powerful people in the government are trying to cover it up, and from what I’ve seen, they are doing a really bad job of containing this crisis.” Darnell shook his head. “...God help us if this thing spreads into Atlanta.”

Mulder shut his eyes and turned away. He couldn’t bear to watch the sparrow die, and he wondered with frantic distress if Scully was alive and if she was suffering in this way.

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

Bo lay on his belly underneath the thick, intertwined branches of a mesquite tree. After a whole day of running and hiding, he finally reached one of the manmade clearings that sporadically dotted the woods. Ahead of him, the empty house of the Beaudry’s lay quietly in the center of the opening, and like bait to a hungry animal, tempted Bo to enter. He hadn’t had a thing to eat since Daisy’s casserole dinner yesterday, and by the position of the sun in the sky, he could tell that dusk was near. It was the first time in his life that he went a full day without food. Though periodic hunger pangs knocked against his stomach, the young farmer knew that he could probably go another day or two without anything to eat. But he needed water. His mouth was dry, and he was starting to feel the effects of dehydration. He couldn’t trust the various ponds he crossed while he fled. If he accidentally got his hands on bad water, he would get really sick and would for sure get caught. The enemy was never far away.

The people who were chasing him were not quiet hunters. From the noise they made and from the echo of their voices, Bo knew that there was a team of men chasing him. He guessed that there were probably five of them, and they were never far. They stuck to his trail with the tenacity of a pit bull terrier.

Bo realized just how desperate his predicament was when he decided to make a run to the Beaudry’s family house. The Beaudries and the Dukes had been feuding ever since Milo Beaudry, the family mutant who had the girth and brains of a bear, fell in puppy love with Daisy and tried to show his affection by kidnapping her. Bo and Luke barely arrived in time to save their cousin from a shotgun wedding, and relations between the two families were just plain awful ever since. Because they were never the social types, the Beaudry clan lived deep in the woods and surrounded their property with various traps to keep out strangers. Barely a week ago, Bo made fun of their fanatical militia/ white trash lifestyle. Now, he couldn’t be more thankful for their idiosyncrasies.

Since he knew what kinds of traps the clan laid out for unwary trespassers, Bo was able to avoid injury. The soldiers following him, however, were not so lucky. Throughout the day, the young farmer heard the sound of snapping metal from tripped bear traps and the yells of surprised soldiers falling into a camouflaged pit. The realization that the soldiers were getting their butts kicked gave Bo a sadistic sense of pleasure. The obstacle course revealed the enemy’s position and hindered their pursuit. It bought the young farmer time to escape, but he knew it didn’t stop the hunt. He couldn’t hide forever. He had to find help.

To make matters worse, he was getting sick with a cold. His nose ran, and his head ached from sinus congestion. By late afternoon, he was having spasms of coughing spells, and he struggled to muffle the sound.  He didn’t have a fever yet, but he was very sure that it was on its way. Bo was fighting himself. If he slowed down, the soldiers would have the upper hand. He refused to give into the flu-like ache that wrapped itself around his muscles. He couldn’t afford to give himself a break. He was determined to push past the Beaudry’s property in a blitzkrieg run for the county line into Tennessee. But when he reached the clan’s house, he had to stop. He just couldn’t go on without water.

From under the mesquite tree, he gave one last scan of the area. When he was sure that both the woods and the house were empty, he made a dash across the clearing to the front door. He muffled a surprise sneeze and fell prey to a spasm of coughs. He covered his mouth and angrily tried to stop the fit. He twisted the door handle, and it swung opened unlocked. He walked inside, pulled out his handkerchief, and wiped his nose which was now so clogged that it made his sinus headache pound. Lord, he was feeling bad. He locked the front door and walked to the back of the house searching for the kitchen and found it.

In the corner he found a large refrigerator attached to a generator. He trotted to it and tore the door open. There on the shelf among several stacks of beer stood a plastic, transparent pitcher full of clear water. Bo grabbed it with both hands, ripped the lid off and drank straight from the container. He swallowed in big greedy gulps stopping only to take a breath. After finishing about half the pitcher, he put the water aside and scrounged for food. His stomach growled as he dug through jars of pickled pig’s feet and other preserved vegetables. He didn’t want to eat any of them, but he would if he couldn’t find anything else.

He stood up and saw several pots on top of a cold wood burning stove. He ran to them and discovered an untouched batch of stale stew. The soldiers must have taken the Beaudries right before they had supper last night. He picked up the ladle and wolfed down the cold meat barely chewing what he was swallowing. He emptied the pot in minutes. With his stomach full, he searched the house for medicine to alleviate his cold as another wave of coughing fits hit him. He saw a tall set of drawers in one of the bedrooms. He quickly walked towards the furniture piece and opened it.

“Thank you,” he whispered to himself and to the fates.

A plethora of over the counter drugs for colds and flues were inside. He grabbed several packages and swallowed about ten different pills. Not necessarily a safe thing to do, but he needed results fast. He stuffed what was left in his back pocket.

Now that he was feeling better, Bo started feeling bad about raiding the house and taking everything he did. Uncle Jesse had ingrained into his mind that theft was wrong. Even though this was an emergency situation that demanded extreme actions and even though the Beaudries were missing like everyone else in Hazzard, Bo still felt guilty. He pulled out his wallet from his back jean pocket and took out all the money he had which wasn’t much. He walked over to the bed behind him and laid the wad of cash on the pillow. The Beaudries would get the cash when they came back home...when everyone came back home...after he got help.

He wished Luke were here. Luke could always think of a way out of any situation. Bo, on the other hand, had no idea what he should do. He could not remember a time when he felt as scared, confused and overwhelmed as he did today. He was sick with worry over his family and friends. Did the soldiers hurt them? Uncle Jesse was not a young man. Did the yellow dust do any permanent damage to him? Why did these men take everyone, and what were these soldiers doing to his family and friends now? Not knowing where his family was or what happened to them scared Bo more than the men chasing him outside. He sat down on the bed and rubbed his forehead which still ached from sinus congestion.
He racked his brain all day trying to figure out how to get control of the situation, but the only thing that he could think to do was to sneak out of Hazzard and get outside help.

He stood up and turned to walk out the door. As he did, his boot scraped against a small metal handle. He looked down and noticed something strange. A large portion of the wooden floor under the bed seemed to be a shade lighter than the rest of the bedroom. He looked closer and saw the fine outline of a hidden door. He grabbed the handle and pulled, but it was locked. He wondered what the Beaudries had hidden under the floorboard, but he didn’t get a chance to find out.

Bo heard the front door get kicked open by the force of a battering ram. He immediately jumped to his feet, his heart in his throat. The hurried footsteps of men pouring into the house echoed down the hallway and into the bedroom. The yell of a commander screaming orders to a troop of men blared.

“The tracks outside lead straight here, gentlemen! Search every room! Make sure this house is empty!”

Bo quietly ran to the door of the bedroom and locked it shut. He heard the crash of plates and furniture from the soldiers’ sweep in the far side of the house. He didn’t have much time. He frantically looked around for a weapon but didn’t see anything. He opened the closet next to the bed and found clothes, sports gear,...and a baseball bat! He grabbed it.

Suddenly, he heard someone from the hallway twist the locked doorknob. Bo dove into the closet. Seconds later, he heard wood shatter as a soldier kicked his way into the bedroom. He raised the bat ready to take a swing at the guy but hoped the soldier wouldn’t look in the closet. He didn’t get his wish. The door flung open, and Bo reacted instantly. He smashed the bat into a face he didn’t even get a chance to see. The camouflaged soldier fell backwards to the ground unconscious. The gun he carried flew out of his hand and under the bed where it knocked against the wall and went off.

The shot rang like an alarm. Bo fled out of the closet. He looked across and saw a window on the far side of the wall. He ran, covered his face with his arm, and jumped through it. Glass shattered spilling all over him as he hit the grass outside. Soldiers swarmed the bedroom immediately afterwards. Bo jumped to his feet and dashed around the corner of the house. Men spilled out of the window after him moments later. The soldiers ran around the corner after the fugitive; then stopped.

Ahead of them lay an empty pigpen and chicken coop with their gates wide open swinging in the breeze. There was no sign of life, and no sign of their runner.

“He can’t be far!” the commander yelled to his men. “You three go around the corner, and you two go to the front.”

The men departed and for about twenty seconds everything was surprisingly quiet until Bo shot up from the watering trough in the pigpen quietly gasping for air. He was actually amazed that he escaped by hiding on the bottom of a shallow box full of water. But he wasn’t out of danger yet. He heard the voices of the men in the far corner of the house ahead of him. He couldn’t stay where he was. He had to make a break for the trees.
 
He rolled out of the water container and crawled across the mud out of the pen and to the corner of the house. He suppressed a sneeze and bit his lower lip in concern as he stared at the clearing that placed itself between him and the trees. It was an ugly gauntlet. Running through the opening would give his position away and for a few seconds make him an easy target, but he had no choice.

He took a breath, gathered his courage, and sprinted out of his hiding place. The soldiers saw him immediately. Bo heard men scream his position to their snipers. Shots rang in the air. Bo weaved through the field and didn’t dare look back. He slid like a baseball player into a bush that marked the beginning of the tree line. Pellets exploded around him as snipers shot blindly into the foliage. Bo curled up in a ball trying to avoid getting hit. The soldiers made their way from the far side of the house to the clearing. The snipers lowered their guns and joined their companions for the chase into the woods.

Bo crawled through the low-lying bushes until he finally reached the trees. He leaped to his feet and ran blindly into the woods. He heard the crunch of leaves and branches behind him and knew the soldiers were not far. There was an unexpected sound of metal snapping shut, and the scream of a man who tripped another bear trap shrilled in the air.

The land suddenly sloped down into another dry riverbed. Bo raced through the tall weeds, pushed past a grove of cattails, and almost jumped into the silt when something caught his eye. He slid to stop before leaping into the winding ditch.

He almost didn’t see it! Because the trees dropped so many leaves and because it was dusk, the ground looked solid but...Then he smiled while muffling a cough. Will wonders never cease? He actually had a plan!

Three soldiers came crashing through the cattails and stopped momentarily at the edge of the riverbed. On the other side of the ditch, they saw a man in a yellow shirt pop up from behind a bush and dodge behind a large tree. The soldiers leapt into the channel after him but when their boots hit the ground, the ground gave way. They instantly sank to their chests in silt and realized to their horror that they just jumped into quicksand.  Bo peered from around the tree and watched the men scream for help and flail their arms. He couldn’t help but smile and chuckle at their well-deserved demise. He also couldn’t leave them there. They were sinking too fast and would soon be over their heads in mud.

“If y’all want to get out of there,” Bo muttered,  “throw me your guns and your belts!” He had a hard time spitting the words out. He really wasn’t in the mood to save these guys.

All three soldiers turned to Bo and furiously shouted various obscenities at him. Bo walked out from his hiding place and stood at the edge of the bank. The soldiers who were now up to their necks in mud looked up at him with angry, helpless gazes.

“If y’all want to drown in that mud, I’ll let ya! But if you want to live, throw me your guns and belts!”

An older man who looked like he was the leader gave Bo a defiant glare. He pulled his gun from his holster and in an act of rebellion threw the gun behind him away from the young farmer. The weapon hit the wet mud and instantly sank out of view. The other two soldiers did the same.

“We’d rather drown than get killed by our own guns!” the older soldier angrily yelled.

Bo looked down at the men and shook his head. Unbelievable. “I’m not the one trying to do the killing.” The young farmer went down on his haunches and looked the leader in the eye. “Don’t let your men die like this,” he said softly. “Toss me your belts, and I’ll fish you out.”

The soldier stared warily at Bo for a few seconds. Furious at being tricked, the commander looked like he would willingly sink to his death. But when the cold mud hit his ears and caressed his chin, his determination grew weak, and self-preservation won out over stubbornness. He hesitantly removed his nylon belt and tossed it to the bank. The two other soldiers followed his lead. Bo gathered the belts and removed his own. He quickly tied the nylons together and then tied a knot on the buckle of his leather belt. A small sapling stood near the edge of the riverbed. Bo secured his improvised lifeline to the trunk and threw the homemade rope out to the men. The soldiers grabbed the leather end and pulled against the suction of the mud. The leader was the first to reach solid ground. He went flat on his stomach and gave each man a hand to safety. Once they were free, they scampered out of the ditch onto the other side of the riverbed. There, they found themselves alone. Bo didn’t wait for them to get back on their feet and had already fled into the woods.

One of the mud covered soldiers turned to his commander. “Shall we follow him, sir?”

The commander looked at his man then turned to the sapling that served as his anchor to safety. He picked up the string of belts in his hand and quietly stared at it for a few seconds. He couldn’t believe that the farm boy actually took the time to save them. They spent the day trying to shoot this guy, and still he saved them.

“Sir?” the soldier asked again pressing his former question.

The commander gently laid the belts on the grass. “No.” he said sternly. “I’m afraid he got away from us.” With that, he turned his back to the woods. His men understood the hidden meaning of the statement, and the soldiers let the hunt end at that.

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

Fox ended up renting a small, black Volkswagen. It didn’t fly down the road from Atlanta to Hazzard, but it was great camouflage. Mulder was certain that no one would ever dream of looking for federal agents in a car like his.

He hit rush hour by the time he drove onto the Atlanta streets, and it was crowded and slow. But, as he doggedly got closer to his destination, the traffic thinned dramatically and the forest grew in size and density. At first, the gold and green trees were actually pleasing to the eye, but as soon as he drove a ways into Chickasaw County, signs of civilization stopped, paved road turned to dirt, and only the thick woods remained. It was an eerie sensation. He felt like Hansel and Gretal preparing to enter the witch’s house.

This wasn’t one of his most brilliant plans. He was going to walk into a potential biological Hot Zone with his bare skin and a smile on his face. If Langly and Darnell were right, the place would be crawling with men who had big guns and bad attitudes. All he was carrying was his magnum and sarcastic wit. It was not the best defense in the world, but he also knew that if he was going to find out what was going on, time was of the essence.

He was still a ways off from the county line when he faintly heard the choppers through his open window. He looked into his rearview mirror and saw a black Apache fly over his hood. When it finally passed out of sight, Mulder veered off the road and entered what looked like a crude bicycle path into the woods. He was very close. The helicopters were signs of border patrols, and it worried him. Apache helicopters were very big toys to be playing with. What other weapons were they carrying? He pulled a map from his duffel bag and spread it out along the dashboard. He was expecting more surprises, and he needed to get deep into the woods. His plan to sneak across the border required as little human contact as possible. Then, once he infiltrated the county line, he would sneak into downtown Hazzard and head straight for the Hazzard Hotel. Hopefully, the answer to this mess lay in Scully’s room. He started the car and followed the path into the trees.

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

“What do you mean he escaped!”

Commander Sean Charvez stood at attention with his platoon in front of the Hazzard Church pulpit and his superior, Alex Krycek. Krycek had taken his usual position behind the podium and angrily loomed over the mud covered troops looking like he was ready to give them all a beating. The calm exterior of the young leader’s persona dissipated the second Charvez told him that their runner disappeared into the woods without a trace. Charvez also told him that four of his men ended up in sick bay after setting off various traps and that he almost drowned in quicksand. He and his men were lucky they made it back alive. Krycek could have cared less which wasn’t surprising.

Krycek took a breath and struggled to regain his composure in front of the men. “You are all relieved. From now on you are assigned to guard, kitchen, and bathroom duties!”

“Thank you, sir!” Charvez said with a loud sarcastic smile. “We shall do our new duties with the same care and respect that you show us.” With that, the soldiers saluted to their frowning leader, turned, and marched down the aisle out the door. Krycek stood on his podium stewing in anger at their sarcasm and wondering whether or not to shoot the men. General Lewinski appeared from one of the church’s back doors in a hurry. He brushed past the choir chamber and jogged to Krycek with a mobile phone in his hand and a worried look on his face.

“Alex!”

“What?” Krycek replied irritably.

Lewinski handed Alex the phone. His eyes were dark with worry, and though the cigar was placed in his pocket, Krycek could see that it was gnawed down to the band. Something really was wrong.

“What is it?” Krycek asked again this time with concern.

“The president wants to talk to you.”

“Of the United States?”

“No, of the Men’s Club!” the general said sarcastically.

Krycek stared dumbly at the phone. How did he find out? Alex took great pains in keeping certain employers in the dark as much as possible. The one thing he hated about the Secret Society was that one way or another they always had an eye on what you did. Nothing in life was perfect. Little things, like this jackrabbit hunt, always came up in a mission like this. You just had to deal with the details that sprung up. But, the Society never saw things from his point of view. They demanded error free excellence, and when it came to American politics, mistakes always carried a very high cost. Krycek hesitantly took the phone from the general’s hand.

“This is Alex.”

“Is this line secure?” The low southern drawl of President Simpleton could barely be heard over the receiver.

“Yes, sir.” Alex replied preparing himself for yet another fight over the phone. His arguments with various members were always heated, but with this particular president, clashes were just downright ugly.

“Alex, I am looking at a satellite photograph of Georgia, and it looks like you’re getting ready to invade Tennessee! Why are all your helicopters and hummers lined up like ducks in a row at the border?”

Krycek licked his lips. “There is someone running around the woods down here who is not part of this operation and who has seen what we’re doing.”

The president was silent for a long time. “Who is he?” Bill finally asked.

Krycek made his way to the pews and sat down sighing. “We don’t have an official I.D. yet, but I think that...he is one of the locals.”

“What!”

“Sir, I...”

“Krycek, some very powerful people have donated some very large funds for the citizens of Hazzard. If they find merchandise missing, they will not be pleased and neither will I! You told me the head count was exact!”

“Sir,” Krycek said calmly hoping his cool talk would calm Simpleton down. “I am handling the situation. I am going to send a team in the field with instructions to eliminate this target. He will not be able to do any damage. I promise you that.”

“You don’t get it, do you Alex?” the president stated incredulously. “The money has already changed hands! Our customers want shipment delivered in full! I want this piece of redneck trash captured ALIVE and delivered to the pickup point!”

“Sir,” Krycek whined, “we should not get stuck on names and faces. I can find some homeless guy on the street in Atlanta, infect him with the disease, and have him shipped to the pickup point. No one will know the difference.”

“It’s not that easy, Alex. This town and the people in it were chosen on a face by face basis! Our customers handpicked each person. They will know if one item in a set is missing. Now I am telling you one last time. I want this man captured alive and delivered intact to the pick up point!”

Krycek swallowed hard and fought the urge to yell into the phone. “Yes, sir,” he muttered coldly.

The phone went dead, and Alex threw the unit on the pew in frustration. The phone hit the wood with a large bang then fell on the floor and slid. General Lewinski stood next to the pew watching the whole scene with worry. He grabbed his cigar and twiddled it between his fingers. The urge to chew was almost unbearable, but he restrained himself.

“What happened?” he asked Krycek not knowing if he wanted to know the answer.

“Life just got complicated. Has Private Ryan finished the head count of the population?”

“No. He’s verifying each face with a photo ID. It will take a little time.”

Krycek ran his fingers through his hair and took a breath. This loose end was beginning to worry him. He had to calm down and think this through. “Follow me,” he told Lewinski.

The two men walked to the back of the church. There, on the community bulletin board was pinned a detailed map of Georgia and Tennessee. Alex had already removed notes that the priest and other parishioners placed on the board for charities and community activities. He used drawings that young school kids made as scratch paper for his men. He grabbed a red marker and made a circle around Hazzard on the map.

“Lewinski, I believe that our boy is a local. He knows these woods too well to be an outsider. He knew about the traps in the woods, and he suckered our men into a gauntlet. We cannot afford to underestimate him again.” Krycek took a deep breath and thoughtfully stroked his chin. “We met him at the Chickasaw border, and we tailed him all the way up to the hillbilly’s psycho house with all the woodland traps. He’s heading north for the Tennessee border. He wants to find civilization and get help. It’s the reasonable thing to do.”

Krycek suddenly became whimsically philosophical. “In Asia, when local tribesmen want to flush a tiger out of the woods, the men form a human box around an area that they believe the tiger is hiding in. Once the box is formed, the perimeter is secured and the tiger is trapped in the middle. Then, like marching men in a band, the hunters walk towards each other, and the box closes in on itself eliminating places where the animal can hide. The tiger has nowhere to go and is eventually forced into the open.”

Lewinski nodded in agreement. “It’ll work, but there’s no way you can do it now. It’s already six and pitch dark out. We’ll never see him or those stupid forest traps.”

“We’ll just set the box up tonight,” Krycek replied. “Get the men into position. The hunt starts in the morning, and this time, you and I are joining the soldiers.”

Lewinsky’s eyebrows raised.

“Quality control,” Krycek explained. “I want to personally make sure nothing goes wrong.”

Lewinski pulled his cigar from his pocket and continued twiddling it nervously. Krycek saw his commander’s frustration and empathized. This inbred hick was driving everyone crazy, and the fact that he had to bring the little prick back alive irritated him even more.

“Don’t worry, general.” Krycek said trying to alleviate his partner’s mind. “Red cardinal six reported to me this afternoon. Remember him? He’s the guy that met our runner at the Chickasaw border and got his jaw broken? He told me that our rabbit was covered in yellow dust. Our runner is infected. Once the disease gets into gear, it will eat him from the inside out.” Krycek smiled. “He won’t go far.”

Lewinski reluctantly nodded then pulled a walkie-talkie from his belt and prepared to move operations into the Hazzard woods.

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

Bill Simpleton never liked being alone in a room with an extraterrestrial creature. It gave him the willies. Even though being a member of the shadow organization required that he work with the creatures constantly, he could never bring himself to trust them. They had not wronged him in anyway. In fact, they were the reason why he was the President of the United States, and they were even helping him now with the Monica Bareallski mess. Maybe it was the fact that they were so compliant and helpful that made Simpleton suspicious. World domination, like politics, was a GIVE ME game. No one ever gave without wanting something in return, and the aliens gave a lot.

From behind his oval office desk, the creature actually looked human. For this particular meeting, it chose the form of a balding, middle aged man in a drab business suit. Other times, it came as a young blonde woman in a hot red business dress. That was another thing Simpleton didn’t like about the creatures. When dealing with Shapeshifters who could alter their appearance through willpower, one was never quite sure that the people you dealt with on a daily basis were not aliens in disguise.

They had biological camouflage down to an art. They could change appearance, mannerisms, tone of voice, accents, and sex. Anything that physically made people stand out as individuals they copied without even breaking a sweat, if they sweated at all. And yet, when they sat down with Simpleton in a relaxed manner, when they didn’t have to put on a show, the president could not help but notice the bland almost robotic character of these creatures. It almost seemed to him that they copied the human race because they had no soul of their own.

It had watched him from the corner of the office as he held his conversation with Krycek. It gazed without blinking and without emotion studying Simpleton’s moves and characteristics. Simpleton did let his emotions run away with him, and he regretted that. These creatures were very astute when it came to studying personality. Without doubt, the president knew that they were trying to copy him just like they copied everyone else they dealt with in the Secret Society. He tried very hard to keep a distance with them. He didn’t want them to master his mannerisms. If they could pass for him, God only knew what kind of havoc they would wreak. These creatures were as ruthless as they were emotionless.

“Is there a problem?” the creature finally asked in a low toned voice.

Simpleton leaned back in his chair, gave his famous “awe shucks” grin, and shook his head. “Nothing that can’t be handled,” he said confidently with a deep southern drawl.

The creature’s eyes narrowed as he walked up towards the desk. “Mr. President, I hope you realize how important this mission is to my people.”

“I do. Believe me I do, and I feel your pain. This is just a little hitch in the road. Everything will be taken cared of, and everyone will be delivered on time. Just sit back and relax and let old Uncle Sam do the rest!” Simpleton smiled again, but he could tell the creature wasn’t buying it.

“I will leave this in your hands,” the creature replied flatly. “You are, after all, the most powerful man in the world,...theoretically speaking. If you need help, ask. I have many gifts that can be used to our mutual benefit.”

“Na,” Simpleton replied. “I’m sure we can handle it.”

The creature headed for the door. It reached for the doorknob then hesitated turning one last time to the president. “Bill, you and I are on the same team. When a situation is as grave as this, teamwork is essential. You don’t have to be afraid to ask for my help. But, if you fail us, then you will have every right to be terrified. Failure is unacceptable. We will kill you and those around you if we have to. And not even the Secret Society will be able to protect you from us!"

Simpleton’s smile disintegrated, and he didn’t say a word. The creature gave a shallow grin and walked out the door into the hall. The president leaned forward on his desk and picked up a satellite photograph that rested in a message box. The aerial shot of Hazzard with all the Hummers and helicopters circling the Tennessee border stuck out like black on white. It would not be long before his enemies figured out that something strange was taking place in the southern part of the United States. Bill was having bad dreams about Ken Stupidstar, a member of Congress, the CIA, or someone from the FBI finding out about the conspiracy and adding it to his long list of wrongdoings that was being aired in the nightly news. Hazzard County Georgia was turning into a nightmare, and it had the potential of being even more disastrous to his career and personal life than the little intern girl affair. Krycek had to find the runner, and he had to find him soon. Time was not on their side, and the clock was ticking.
 

Chapter 3