Chapter 1 - Lighthouses In The Fog

Agent Mulder walked into the Augusta, Maine seafood restaurant. It was a wide-rowed diner-style place, which meant that anyone looking to silence him had a good chance of getting to him, but an equally good chance of being detected. By the standards of his chaotic life, that, then, was safety. In any event, it was a slow time of day, and Mulder could pick the seat he wanted-a corner booth backed by a brick wall. If one of the many interested parties wanted him here, they'd have to make it obvious-which meant, of course, they wouldn't do it there at all. He had left his name with the greeter; now all there was to do was wait. He wished Scully were there, instead of following up her part of the Immunita investigation in Seoul, South Korea. As he saw a man pushing 70 enter the restaurant, and then look over at him, he knew his wait was over. He sat down at Mulder's booth.

"Mulder, right. The FBI guy?" "That's me. Are you the individual that called me, requesting a meeting?" The man analyzed the obvious statement. "Well, I'm either that, or Daffy Duck. You decide, Agent. Max said you were a straight shooter, but he didn't say you had no sense of humor." Mulder sighed. Old Max, as he was called, had been head of maintenance when Mulder was at the FBI Academy. It was only out of affection for him that Mulder came to this place. "Sir, I don't have a lot of time. People are dying so that someone can find out how to cure other people. You've alleged that the US Army bombed a South Korean Village in 1951, and that long-term medical problems resulted for both villagers and GI's stationed nearby. You also state that you suspect early bio-weapons testing is the reason, and that your 1st commanding officer was killed to keep him silent. Is that correct, Doctor?" The man sighed. "I just want to know that we weren't hurting people we were trying to help-that we weren't part of this whole, sick thing. You understand?" Mulder smiled, just a little. "Better than you know, sir. But I might like to have your name. Not for listing, but so I don't feel so blind in this circumstance." "Well, having been blind, myself, once, I can tell you its no fun. My name is Ben, Agent Mulder. Ben Pierce. But back then, I went by the nickname Hawkeye."

Chapter 2- Bad News On The Doorstep

Note: Appearance of a certain familiar villain is non-canonical

"So, if they had you cornered, how did Stars+Stripes get to publish the Army's role in the bombing?" Mulder was relaxed, now. As relaxed as he ever got. Talking with Hawkeye Pierce helped him, and not just with this piece of the great puzzle he had put his life and his sanity on the line for. The talks gave him perspective. Maybe, he thought, if Yesterday wasn't so innocent, maybe today wasn't so riddled with sin, after all. Though he would never go so far as to actually say that. Hawkeye finally responded, in a voice that still sounded remarkably like the cocky young man in the old documentaries Mulder had dug up. "Well, Agent Mulder-Fox, I know,-at that particular moment, Frank Burns and Hot Lips walk in, carrying proof of the whole spiel to replace our missing proof, thinking they're going to be heroes. The General is quite ticked-" Pierce was now almost laughing at his own narrative -"And Trapper and I end up smooching them both!" Mulder was chuckling mildly, too, but was checking the hastily-prepared 4077th dossier he had brought with him. "Hot Lips-Hot Lips-ah, Colonel Houlihan's unwanted nickname during that period. You eventually dropped that, didn't you?" Pierce now looked wistful. "It was another dumb joke in an endless series of dumb jokes, when it came to Margaret and me. She still got the last laugh, though. Not a day goes by, I don't see her face." Mulder wanted to stay on target, but needed to be gentle, here. "You loved her very much, didn't you, Doctor?" Hawkeye cocked an eyebrow. "Well, its kind of an unavoidable hazard there, Fox. She was my wife for 20 years."

"All the time we spent dancing round one another-all the time she spent working her way up to Lt. Colonel. Me, with my big mouth on war, re-upping to be with her in Vietnam. Then-..." Mulder completed his thought for him "The Ultimate Insult." Hawkeye's head shifted furtively as he said, "Yes, you could call it that. And-you should. Insult. Injury. Criminal also comes to mind." Mulder was sympathetic, but, "Hawkeye, its always been a man's army. What they did to her was low, but unsurprising, given the times." Hawkeye now had a direct frown, but it wasn't directed at Fox Mulder. "One thing those times weren't, pal, was given." He breathed in, the injustice of it all requiring an effort from his aging but fit frame just to talk about it. "I mean, we get there, its 66', before Tet, before My Lai, when all that seemed like nothing more than Korea on the Mekong. The doctors are all kids, they lack the ability to know when to drink and when NOT to drink, and casualties are dizzying. The place was a meat grinder! It was as though any pretense of caring about the soldiers was gone-kaput, fini - dadadadae-That's All Folks! Gaining a new appreciation for Henry and Sherman, God rest their souls, I start running the place. I figure, soon the new head guy will arrive, right? Six months later, we're still waiting. They don't have anyone technically in charge, they don't even call it a MASH, just some doublespeak euphemism. Too many damned words for other words! Always has been! Makes me wish the thesaurus had died with the other dinosaurs." Mulder was enjoying this, despite the time he was wasting. Still, he would have to nudge Hawkeye back on track soon. Perhaps Pierce sensed this, and drew his tale towards a close.

"Sorry. 40 years on, and still the angry Mohican. Finally, someone arrives. Margaret, whose nurses would never dare get out of line, is, of course, appointed head nurse, and finally promoted to full colonel. I mean, right? She's only qualified from head to scrumptious toe. But that happens second. First, the new guy takes over." Hawkeye turned his towards himself, as though showing something off. "Meet the new guy. Colonel Benjamin Franklin Pierce. Promoted two seconds-on paper-before Margaret. Make no mistake, Fox. She may have married a Pierce, but she was all Houlihan. That means military. That means she worked off the cutest butt there ever was for over 20 years to be one of the few women at that time to be a full colonel. Me-I should have been a Captain again, maybe a Major. Who knows maybe LC, on the outside. But because of macho stupidity, a real Patriot is outdone by her goofball hubby, a guy Tail-Gunner Joe and the boys at HUAC would have loved to have barbecued slowly over a razored pit! I outranked Margaret! " Mulder knew he had to find something of use, soon, or gently ditch this fascinating older gentleman. But now was not that time. "How-did she take it?" Hawkeye started to calm down. "She?-Oh,well, fine. Of course, it was another six months before she spoke to me again, on anything but business. She just walked into my tent, sobbed, "Its Not Fair!" and collapsed in my arms, sobbing like a baby. We made love that night-I shouldn't talk about that, I know, but, she felt angry with me and angry with herself for being angry with me and it made things-memorable. When we came out the next day, everyone applauded." Mulder smiled. "Memorable and quite vocal, it would seem. LIsten, Hawkeye, its been great, but.." Pierce stopped him, bid him sit down. "No, no. I got way off track, and you need to justify coming all this way. Tally-ho, Fox!"

MASH 4077th-KTO-January 27, 1952

"Damn! DAmn! DAAAAMMN!" Hawkeye Pierce was livid with rage. Not his sarcastic, put-on, need-to-get-a-job-done rage, but the real red thing. The man who had built the 4077th was gone. Dead. Killed, not in action, but on his way home. Senseless death took on a whole new dictionary. "McIntyre, get him calmed down! Now! That's an order, mister! Please, Trapper? I think he might hit me!" Trapper looked over disgustedly at his new commanding officer. God had a twisted sense of humor, on occasion, thought Trapper John McIntyre. "Have a heart, Burns! We're all emotionally tapped out. A good man is gone for no reason anybody can figure, and Hawk's just takin' it worse than some. And you two stay away from Radar for a while! The kid's inconsolable. It was calming him down made Hawkeye this way!" Frank Burns straightened himself out, his composure coming and going as often as his marriage vows. He wasn't a bad man, just a very nervous one. Ofttimes, that nervousness came out as haughty arrogant indifference. This was one of those times. "First off, Commander, that's Captain Burns to you!" Margaret, by his side as always, elbowed him in it. "Ow, pussycat! Why'd you..." She whispered to him. "Ohhhh...Um..First off, like before, but I'm the Commander, you're the Captain." Trapper was still not impressed. "Are you sure, Margaret?" Frank opened his mouth, but it was Hot Lips who spoke. "We're sure, Captain. We all miss Henry Blake the man, I know I kissed him, when I Iearned he was gone." Margaret realized her mistake, remembering Henry's last-minute smacker, but trudged on. Frank gave her a quizzical look, but then, he was always doing that. Flustered, she continued. "My point is, the man was good, but the Commander was deplorable. I think, in this time of tragedy, we need to fully support our commanding officer, right, Major?" Frank nodded. "Oh, absolutely, Major. I support you..your notion, 145%." By this time, Hawkeye had stopped yelling. They all noticed a cleared compound. In it was themselves, and the odd young man who'd given Radar the tragic news.

He looked like a coiled spring, or cobra, if the light was correct. He just stood there, watching, as he had for hours. Hawkeye asked him, 'What're you still doing here? Surely the bad news pony express has other rounds to make?"

The young man never answered a question directly. "Pity about Colonel Blake, isn't it? They just bombed his plane right out of the sky." The coldness in his voice made everyone want to walk away. Who could discuss death so matter-of-factly? "Why don't run along for Grim Reaper training, kid? You bother us." Even Margaret and Frank wanted him out. There was a feeling of hope snuffed out that permeated the otherwise innocuous young man, and Trapper's urging to leave was shared by all. But still he didn't respond directly to them. "Planes get bombed, people get drunk and call it bombed, people get sick, say they feel like they've been bombed, sometimes-" a cold as ice chuckle followed- "even whole villages get bombed. Maybe, just maybe, if people didn't talk so much about it, they could get on with their lives, go home and call it a night." Hawkeye moved forward. "Are you talking about that village our guys accidentally bombed? Because there are people still getting sick there, and what I want..." The young iceman quickly cut Hawkeye off, "What you want is irrelevant, Captain. By the way-you're talking about it. No points. Sorry. Majors?" Frank spoke for them, for once. "If our top brass want this thing hush-hushed, then I see no reason not to give them all our sweat, blood, and fears!" Margaret did not agree. "Surely, if people are getting ill, the Army wants to..." Just as briskly, Houlihan was shushed by a man who could have been Radar's evil non-identical twin. "What the Army wants, is irrelevant, Major-and guess what-you're talking about it. Sorry-no points." Margaret yelled, "You Twerp, this isn't a quiz show!" The man cupped her face in his hand, and caressed her cheek. Margaret was revolted. "No, no, its not a quiz show, Major. But there are prizes. Don't you agree, Captain McIntyre?" Trapper shifted uncomfortably. "I got nothin to say to you". The young man nodded at Trapper, then at Frank. He then looked at Hawkeye and Margaret, shaking his index figure back and forth in a shaming motion. As he got back in his jeep to leave, Hawkeye grabbed the man-kid, really, and said "Boy, you're just a junior Colonel Flagg, aren't you, tough-guy?!" Calmly as ever, the code-talking officer pushed Hawkeye off him. With Pierce on the ground, in pain, he leaned over him, grasping him by the hair. "Don't touch me Pierce. I know exactly where you've been. As for Flagg, consider this: If you were head of the AMA, and you didn't want people to take you doctors seriously, you'd appoint someone like Burns as your spokesperson, am I right?" Hawkeye said Yes, and for once Frank abided the disparaging of his surgical abilities without comment. "Well, why do you think we have Colonel Flagg? If everyone thinks that Government Intelligence is an oxymoron, it serves our purposes nicely. A strutting poltroon like Sam Flagg is a godsend. If we hadn't found him, we'dve had to invent him. And that's always too much work. Major Burns, I think Captain Pierce could use two weeks R+R in Tokyo. What do you say...Sir? A little time to forget about Poor Henry Blake? He didn't get the points, either. Always talking, even in the hospital. Ooops, I forgot. No survivors. All dead on impact. I got to keep my facts straight." Burns acquiesced, and the cold young man left as quickly and as quietly as Colonel Flagg always claimed he could.

In the present, Hawkeye PIerce concluded his narrative to Fox Mulder. "So this guy goes. I get sent to Tokyo, where I do the geisha circuit. I really do forget, while I'm there. But not totally. I owed Henry that much." Mulder had heard quite a bit of trivia, but nothing to keep him there. He awaited the chance to exscuse himself again. "When you got back, Doctor McIntyre had left. Gotten sent home." Pierce nodded, and took a swig of wine. His throat was dry, and he needed to calm his nerves. To this day, he wanted to go back and wring that punk's neck. "It was odd. Trapper and I had arrived together, wined together, dined together, rampaged together,crusaded together, and nursed together. Other guys-like BJ Hunnicutt-had families, too, but Trap gets sent home, right before I come back. Like - he was trying to avoid me. When Frank leaves, he's promoted! Army thinking aside, it just didn't make sense! I'm not just olive-drab with envy here! That man barely deserved a medical license, let alone half-a-bird on his collar!" Pierce stopped, caught his breath again, then continued. Mulder slowly sipped from the bottom of his club soda. Now was the time to go. "But here's the kicker, Fox. Years on, on the day that Margaret and I became Colonels, there's that punk again! Says in a snide voice, 'I Guess You both finally got the Points!' " Mulder was now gulping the last of his soda. "He hadn't changed, much. He just looked more dangerous than ever. Well, that, and he had apparently taken up chain-smoking. Had a cigarrette in his mouth the whole time!" At that, a stunned Mulder spit his remaining drink all over Pierce. As Hawkeye wiped himself off, he quipped, "Well, Fox, if you don't like the Club Soda, you should've said something! Waitress! Some Grape Nehi...and an umbrella!" Mulder knew he was going to be there a while longer.