Copyright:  Thursday, March 10, 2005 07:21:09 PM         PARADISE ISLAND ATLANTIC OCEAN LATE AFTERNOON - DAY 5               "Freeze, Jimbo!" Paddy grabbed his partner’s muscular arm as their aging quarry suddenly melted into the deepening shadows. "Don’t let them see you!"           Hawkins was only a heartbeat behind him. Together they sank down between a huge tree’s gnarled roots, and peered through the gaps at the next slope.           "I think they heard us," Paddy whispered. "The Chief will have our hides for that!"           Hawkins shook his close-cropped dark head. "Maybe they heard something further ahead. More assassins." An eager grin curved his lips as he relished the gratifying prospect.           Physically the two men were total opposites. Paddy O’Reilly’s Gaelic ancestry was clearly visible in his bright red hair and compact, wiry frame. Jim Hawkins was huge, pitch-black, built like a wrestler. Yet the two men thought, reacted, fought as one. Mission after mission, they’d proved themselves an unbeatable team.           Paddy was a top-ranked scout, whose tracking and recon skills were praised throughout the Corps. Jimbo’s steady nerves and eagle-sharp eyes made him a deadly sniper, and a skilled medic. Together the two Marines had faced and defeated enemies on dozens of clandestine missions.           "Look, they’re moving again," Paddy whispered, as a flicker of motion ahead caught his attention. "They’re sharp, all right, look how they’re hugging the trees! Old man must’ve been military himself once."           Hawkins flashed his white teeth in a sardonic grin. "Hell, they’d be easy targets for anyone with modern training."           "Which is precisely why we’re protecting them," Paddy retorted. "They’re also eighty years older than God. Think your old grandma could do as well?"           Hawkins chuckled. "She’d take a spoon to you quick enough, see if she wouldn’t! She’s a feisty old gal."           Paddy grinned up at his huge partner. "Can’t imagine where you get it from. C’mon, let’s get going. Can’t let them have all the fun, it’s our turn to kick some butt!" • • • • • •           The cave still smelled like smoke, despite Penny’s best efforts to bury every fragment of charred firewood. "It’s no wonder they found us so fast," she sighed, shaking her head. "Even if we’d had hours to clean everything up, that smell just won’t go away!"           Max rubbed at a patch of dried mud on his forearm. The heavy muck was starting to itch. "You did the best you could," he consoled her. "I mean, think about it. If you hadn’t managed to hide the emergency kit so well, I’d never have been able to rescue you."           His warm praise made Penny blush with pleasure. But innate honesty compelled her to admit, "Well, it was Agent Mulder’s idea." Then a pensive frown lined her small forehead. "What’s going to happen to them, Max?" she whispered.           He covertly glanced back toward Reuben’s recessed larder, where the FBI agents had tied up their snarling prisoners with thick vines. Agent Mulder was leaning against the rocky wall, idly sharpening his bayonet on a flat stone. His indolent pose was deceptive; Max knew how quickly he’d react if their prisoners managed to struggle free.           "I don’t know," he admitted. "I guess we’ll have to keep guarding them until we get rescued. Once we get back home, they’ll probably go to jail."           Penny scowled. "I wish we could just leave them here forever!"           "They’d deserve it, all right." Max’s eyes glittered with suppressed hostility. But that wasn’t how an FBI agent was supposed to behave, he remembered with a guilty flush. An FBI agent was supposed to uphold the law, and do the right thing--even if he didn’t personally like doing it. "You know we can’t, though," he sighed. "That’d make us just as bad as them."           Mulder pretended not to overhear their whispered conversation. But he was heartened by Max’s judicious conclusion. This tousled, mud-spattered teenager bore little resemblance to the argumentative spoiled brat who’d boarded their charter plane four days ago. He sincerely hoped the changes would be permanent.           Straightening, he tucked the long blade into his leather belt, and appeared to notice them for the first time. "I imagine you’d like to get cleaned up, Max, now that all the excitement’s over," he commented with a wry grin.           The young man rolled his eyes in mute relief, and nodded vigorously. "You bet! But is it safe to go outside right now, with Krycek’s other men still running loose?"           Mulder hesitated briefly, and a faraway look clouded his jade-green eyes. "Scully’s been keeping guard. She’d have let us know if there was danger nearby." Then his voice dropped to a soft, bemused murmur. "I do think we’re going to have company soon--but not from Krycek’s men!"           Penny and Max exchanged nervous glances. "How do you know that?"           Quickly he recalled himself, and offered them a guarded smile. "There are many ways of keeping watch. Not all of them require eyesight," he hedged. "Out you go, now."           Scully glanced up as they cautiously emerged from the cave. He briskly motioned for the teens to continue down the slope, then hunched down beside her. "I’d better go retrieve Krycek, before the spore pollen wears off," he murmured. "Will you be all right here while I’m gone?"           She cast a jaundiced eye in Max’s direction. "Assuming no one pulls any more idiotic stunts. Mulder, letting those two wander around isn’t safe! We don’t know where Krycek’s other team is right now!"           The distant look returned to her partner’s eyes. "They’re not nearby," he finally decided. "It’s strange, I should be able to get a fix on them. But I can’t. I think something’s happened."           Mulder and his damned voices! Exasperated, she rose to her feet. "To them, or to you? Mulder, this ‘talent’ of yours is so erratic, they could be twenty yards away from us right now!"           He stifled the impulse to glance over his shoulder, and firmly shook his head. "If they were nearby, I’d know it," he insisted. "They simply aren’t here anymore! But I can sense someone else on the island, Scully--someone familiar!"           "Yeah? Who?" She glared down at him with narrowed eyes. "Reyes and Doggett leading a Marine rescue unit?"           Mulder ignored her sarcastic jibe. "Don’t forget to wash your hair, Max!" he called down the slope. "Right now your own father wouldn’t recognize you!"           "That is certainly an understatement!"           Max and Penny spun around in shocked disbelief as Alexander Stanwick suddenly emerged from the thick forest, a dismayed expression on his autocratic face. "What on earth happened to you, young Max?"           The millionaire’s unexpected arrival nearly earned him an early funeral. Mulder quickly deflected Scully’s gun, and laid a restraining hand on her tensed arm. Then a wide grin curved his lips. "You were saying?" he couldn’t resist taunting, as three more uniformed figures pushed free of the clinging branches.           "Father?" Max took an impulsive step forward, and numbly shook his head. "Senator Kensington? You’re here? How did you find us?"           "Daddy!" Penny’s piercing squeal of delight echoed down the beach as she careened into her father’s open arms.           Noisy confusion reigned as all four of them tried talking at once. Doggett and Reyes exchanged resigned looks. So much for maintaining a stealthy silence! If an enemy strike team was nearby, Penny’s delighted scream had just announced their location in brilliant star-studded fireworks.           "The reunion can wait," Doggett muttered, cocking an impatient thumb up the hillside. "Let’s get them out of sight."           Monica nodded, and deliberately caught Senator Kensington’s eye. "Who’s going to show me this marvelous cave you’ve been living in?" she demanded, feigning a bright smile.           Penny’s head snapped up, and she cut her jumbled monologue short. "Come on, Daddy!" she urged, grabbing her father’s big hand. "Wait until you see, it’s the best! You’re going to love it!"           Vibrant relief hadn’t dulled the politician’s keen mind. Nodding, he threw an arm around Max’s muddy shoulders, and herded both teens up the shallow slope. "This from the girl who has hysterics if her tennis shorts aren’t properly starched!" he quipped. "Coming, Alexander?"           Scully was still rooted in place, her mouth half-open in dazed shock. How had Mulder known they were coming? For that matter, how had she known? Because she had sensed Monica’s familiar presence nearby, like a warm security blanket, just an instant before they’d emerged from the underbrush!           What had those spores done to her? Was she becoming like Mulder, after all? Would she suffer the same debilitating sensory overload, as a million clamoring voices intruded on her shuddering mind? Already she could feel the darkness looming closer, blocking out the burning sunlight...           Monica scrabbled up the hillside and gripped her forearm in a buoyant greeting, while Doggett assumed an instinctive defensive position a few yards away. "Beautiful little spot you’ve discovered," she beamed. "Remind me to go on vacation with you next time!"           Soothing tranquility seemed to radiate from her fingertips, and Scully felt her tensed muscles relaxing. No, she wouldn’t suffer like Mulder had. She was already attuned to the spores. That monstrous darkness would never overwhelm her again.           The terrifying waking-nightmare slowly receded. She released a shuddering sigh of relief as golden light edged back into her awareness, and the world rotated into focus again.           Monica was watching her with unfathomable dark eyes. Scully mustered a wan smile, then turned as Mulder vigorously clapped Doggett on the back. "Never thought I’d be glad to see your ugly mug again!" he grinned.           "What makes you think we came all this way to rescue you?" Doggett chuckled, and returned the affectionate gesture hard enough to make Mulder stagger.           But his wry humor vanished like smoke when the stranded agents tersely described the charter’s crash, their discovery of the hidden island, the deadly strike team’s arrival.           "Krycek!" He grimly shook his head. "No wonder they knew how to find you so quickly!"           "Looks like we were right to bring a Marine fire team along," Monica interjected, glancing over her shoulder. "They’re sweeping the island right now. Krycek’s men don’t stand a chance against them."           "I told you so!" Mulder smirked, aiming a meaningful grin at Scully.           "What I can’t understand," the energetic brunette added, sweeping her arms in a wide circle, "is how you ended up here, nearly four hundred miles from that crash site!"           "Then I was right!" Excitement gleamed in Mulder’s eyes. "We did get bounced!"           "Right off every satellite screen," Doggett confirmed, scowling. "We had to enlist some extremely unorthodox help to find you."           Before Mulder could press for details, Monica whipped around and peered through the thick foliage. "Where’s Krycek now? Surely he isn’t still roaming free!"           "I left him in the spores’ cave." Briefly Mulder recounted the young assassin’s brutal ordeal at the Syndicate’s hands. "He believes that the spores can reverse what they did to him--and maybe even restore his severed arm. Considering what they did for me," and he glanced thoughtfully down at the long blood-stained tear in his jeans, "I’d say it’s a definite possibility."           "How long will he be incapacitated by the pollen?" Doggett demanded. "We should bring him down now, before he can slip away and cause more trouble."           "You said there’s a Marine squad combing the island?" Scully clarified, glancing up the mountainside. "I left Reuben and Esther in the eastern catacombs. They’ll be wondering what happened to us by now."           A devilish gleam lit Doggett’s dark eyes. "My old scout-partner is stationed on the U.S.S. Kennedy, so I was able to call in a few favors," he explained. "I think they may have already encountered Krycek’s other team--and my money’s on Kenny."           "Kenny, nothing!"           Stunned, all four agents spun around, their weapons half-drawn. Reuben waved a dismissive hand as he slithered down the steep hillside. "Esther and I set off that landslide! Took out both those sneaky bastards, too!"           "Reuben?" Weak with relief, Scully holstered her gun again. "You scared us half to death! Where’s Esther?"           The old man threw her a mocking grin, and hooked a gnarled thumb over his shoulder. "You didn’t really expect us to miss out on all the fun! She twisted her ankle up there. Nothing too serious, but it was slowing us down. Didn’t know how many other perps were oozing around, so I got her to the spores’ cave and told her to hide inside."           "Ohmigod!" Mulder and Scully exchanged a single horrified glance, then launched up the rocky slope.           "You stay here with Agents Doggett and Reyes!" Mulder yelled back over his shoulder as Reuben scrambled to follow. "We’ll bring Esther down!"           "Wait!" Scenting danger, the old man shook off Doggett’s restraining hand. "What’s wrong?"           Monica laid a supportive arm around his thin shoulders. She didn’t know whether the island’s unique properties were enhancing her innate empathic skills--but she’d felt something unexpected when she’d laid a calming hand on Scully’s tensed arm. Something she’d never felt before, something that had dispersed the massing shadows and eased the stark terror in her dear friend’s troubled mind.           She projected a wide array of comforting thoughts, and hoped one of them would penetrate Reuben’s rising panic. "Nothing’s wrong," she soothed with a warm smile. "She’ll be fine. Tell me about that landslide! We heard it, but didn’t know what caused it. You really triggered it yourself?"           His churning emotions were chaotic, easy to manipulate--now that she knew how. She allowed herself a quiet sigh of relief as his quivering shoulders relaxed. "Come on inside," she urged, leading him toward the low cave entrance. "Max and Penny will want to hear this, too!"