"Yeah," Skinner said, and pivoted on his heel to open the cabinet
before Krycek could see his grin. "I've got some Campbell's. Milk or
water?"

"Milk."

Skinner dragged another saucepan onto the stove, searched his
cabinets, and cracked open the requested can of soup. "You don't have
to tell me, but how'd you end up working undercover for MJ-12?" he
asked as he retrieved the milk.

Krycek sighed noisily, but, for some reason he couldn't explain and
didn't want to examine too closely, Skinner's sympathetic mien made
him want to open up, tell all, and be understood, if not forgiven.

"When the folks were killed, Irene phoned me...I filed for custody
straight away --without consulting Kevin --Kevin Krycek, my boyfriend
at the time. We had been living together for over a year, by then. I
was going to Princeton, had a regular job as a sales clerk in a video
store. Only, when Kevin came home and I told him what I'd done, he hit
the roof. Told me he didn't want kids. Told me Jack and Irene weren't
my real kin, anyway, and Mikey hated my faggot guts, so why the hell
should I ruin our life together on their account? But I couldn't let
the kids be condemned to some scummy juvenile warehouse. So,...I left
him.

"Only, he was right about Mikey. Ever since I'd been tossed out of the
Wintersoul's, any time he saw me he'd say hateful things. When the
judge granted me guardianship, there was no way *he* was taking orders
from some fag whore. It didn't help that, in order to make ends meet,
I was hustling, again.

"One day, after a big score, Mikey and his pals jumped me. Beat me so
badly I ended up in the hospital. Took my money --five Gs!-- and
split. I never saw him again. Never wanted to. I was a couple payments
behind in the mortgage, already had hospital bills and funeral
expenses, tuition, utilities, the kids' clothing and school supplies,
and food to worry about --and he went and laid me up for a week,
robbed me of every cent I had, left me unable to work, and piled on 
another hospital bill on top of it all! I coulda killed him! I needed
big bucks, and I needed it fast --before they took the house away. I
couldn't go to Kevin--"

"--Why not?" Skinner interrupted as he stirred the soup.

"What's the difference between raising a kid and paying to have him
raised? Kevin had made it real plain he didn't want to mess with kids.
I couldn't take advantage of our past relationship to coerce him into
sacrificing his hard earned dough for the kids' sakes. Besides, he was
only a cop. He didn't have all that much money to spare to begin
with....Smoky, on the other hand, had oodles of cash....so I put
together the little bits and pieces I'd heard through the years, and
went to New York and tracked him down --or so I thought. I'd actually
lucked onto the location of the Consortium's New York Headquarters.

"Smoky wasn't even there --irony of ironies..., but Mr. Ellis
Brind-Hythe --Well Manicured Man, to you--  *was.* He said he liked my
initiative. Promised me all the money I needed and more, in exchange
for some favors once I healed and could 'work' again. I agreed, of
course, no questions asked. I thought --well, 'that's what thoughts
done,' as my high school coach used to say.

"So, rather than working parties with lots of prospective clients, I
started doing one-on-ones where the sex was a diversion for ferreting
out information, planting bugs, hiding cameras so incriminating
pictures could be taken for blackmail purposes, stealing stuff out of
briefcases, computers, safes, and the like.

"I may have been off the streets, but I sure wasn't lacking for
clients! *And* I was getting an education in black bag ops on top of
it! You get a few dozen of *those* kinds of jobs on your resume, and
there's just no turning back. I'd do it all again, though, to keep
Jack and Irene out of the system."

"What happened to them?"

"Oh, Irene got married right out of high school and took Jack to live
with her...I haven't seen *them* since, either," he said wistfully.

"Why not?"

Krycek shrugged. "My F.B.I. personnel file says I spent three years in
the N.Y.P.D. before getting accepted to Quantico, but I was never a
cop. I was working for the Consortium the whole time. When I wasn't
doing church and field work--"

"--'church and field?'" Skinner repeated, his question in his tone.

"Blow jobs are called 'going to church' --'cause you do it on your
knees, and 'fields' get plowed," Krycek explained.

"I see.... Very colorful."

Krycek blushed. "So, when I wasn't whoring for my country, I was
learning how to handle all kinds of gadgets, honing my hand-to-hand
combat techniques, learning how to operate all classes and kinds of
vehicles, broadening my language skills to include technical jargon.
Making myself more useful to the Elders. Thing is, once I figured out
what was really going on, I didn't want my family anywhere near me."

"God!" Skinner shook his head. "It's hard enough losing your family to
a job you love, but to lose them to a job you'd only taken in order to
keep them together in the first place...that's rough. In a better
world, Kevin would have seen the error of his ways and begged you to
take him back and let him raise your siblings, real or not, and well,
you'd have lived happily ever after. I'm sorry it didn't work out."

Krycek bit his lip and shook his head. "Even if he had, nothing would
have changed.... He was K.I.A. three years later, so I'd've probably
gone back to hustling, anyway.... It's like...I was destined to end up
fighting alien invaders.... When I'm not kicking myself over the
things I've fucked up, I figure that's really not such a bad fate:
trying to save the world."

Skinner snorted. Funny, how he himself could be coerced into working
for the Consortium, yet never once wonder how Krycek had gotten sucked
into the organization. He'd always assumed it was greed and power lust
that had attracted The Rat, when it was actually family and
desperation. Funny how their loved ones made them the most vulnerable
to evil.

However, while Skinner would have dearly loved to have gone back in
time and changed the past, Krycek seemed reconciled with his lot.
Fatalistic, even. Skinner wondered if that was the Russian in Krycek,
coming to the fore. Then wondered, in light of what he'd found out
about Krycek, whether he was really Russian, and if Krycek even knew.

"Coffee's ready.... Skinner?"

"Hm? Oh, sorry."

"You've been apologizing all night," Krycek noted.

"Yeah. Sorry about that." There was a pause, while Skinner's newest
apology was digested, then Skinner chuckled and Krycek grinned. "You
must be due," Skinner explained.

The off-hand remark struck Krycek more deeply than he could have
thought possible, and he dipped his head down, so Skinner couldn't see
the emotions blazing in his eyes.

Skinner, noticing Krycek's reaction, busied himself, lading one tray
with coffee pot and cups, creamer, sugar, spoons, and napkins, another
with mugs filled with soup, Tabasco sauce and spoons. "Come on and
help me carry this out," Skinner said, and he set the soup tray onto
Krycek's out-stretched hands.

Krycek maneuvered his real hand so he could grip the tray, leaving his
artificial hand under the tray to prop it up, and backed out the
swinging door, followed by Skinner, who carried in the coffee service.

Mulder and Scully fell upon the coffee. Krycek had his fill of soup,
then, after a bathroom break, curled into his chair and fell asleep.

Around midnight, Mulder stopped shuffling files, and started lining
them up on the livingroom floor.

"What is it, Mulder?" Skinner rasped.

Krycek blinked at the sudden noise, instantly alert. 

"This is how it lays out: The first two rape victims were transsexuals
--technically speaking medical hermaphrodites, with real, hormonally
augmented breasts, and working penises. They were made up, and were
wearing women's clothing when Kapustcha picked them up, specifically
black fishnet hose and red stiletto heeled pumps --the only items of
clothing that were identical. Neither were prostitutes. Both were
picked up in gay bars known to be major tranny meat markets. The first
vic was blond, blue eyed, 5'8", 130 lbs, 32 years old, with a size 9 D
shoe. The second vic was brunet, brown eyed, 5'10", 160 lbs, 24 years
old, with a size 11 C shoe.

"The third vic  --also not a prosty-- was brunet, blue eyed, 5'9" 145
lbs, 29 years old with a size 12 D shoe, and strictly transvestite,
not transsexual, who was wearing women's clothing, but no signature
items at the time of his disappearance. According to his statement,
Kapustcha and he met on the dance floor of a local gay club, they
danced a few numbers, and paired up. Once they were in Kapustcha's
apartment, Kapustcha persuaded him to change into the signature items.

"All three vics were dancing when they were approached, and all danced
with the perp before leaving with him. They all danced with the perp
at his place while wearing the signature clothing. They all performed
fellatio on him, did a strip tease for him, were sodomized, then
beaten, tied to the bed, bitten, licked, fisted, and manually rended
internally.

"It was this final act which forced all three to seek medical help,
where the rapes were reported to the authorities, so there could be
dozens of incidents prior to this where Kapustcha did not do the final
fisting and/or maiming, where the unlucky participants chalked it up
to a walk on the wild side and went on with their lives.

"Krycek was rape victim number four. At the time, he was six feet
even, 140 lbs, 16 actual years old, with a size 11 D shoe. He was the
first prostitute, albeit a freebie, as he was paid by a third party.
He was the *only* vic taken in a private home, rather than a public
establishment.

"He was the youngest vic at a stated age of 18. He was the first vic
*not* wearing women's clothing when Kapustcha chose him. He was the
first vic with green eyes. He was the only vic paid to keep quiet
--twice.

"Every victim *after* Krycek was a prostitute. Every victim *after*
Krycek was a brunet with green eyes, who weighed between 140 and 220
lbs, wore a size 12 D shoe, and was neither a cross dresser nor a
transsexual.

"Here's the interesting part: the victims before Krycek ranged in age
from 24 to 32. He did Krycek in 1982. After Krycek, from '83 to '86,
his vics ranged in age from 18 to 20. From '87 to 94, his vics were 22
to 25. From '95 to February '99, his vics were 29 to 32. But in
October of '99, to the last case in Frisco, his vics were 29, 34 and
36, respectively.

"How old are you, now, Krycek?" Mulder asked the spy.

"Thirty-four," Krycek said.

Mulder looked pleased with himself. "The victims are aging along with
Krycek."

"But-- that's not normal serial killer behavior," Skinner observed.

"True, but most serial killers don't meet up with the object of their
obsessions every couple of years. 

"I'll bet, since the last rape, you've run into Kapustcha twice in 
the performance of your Consortium duties, right?"

"Um...yeah," Krycek confirmed.

"In '94 or '95?" Mulder probed.

"'95."

"And again between February and October of '99."

"Yeah," Krycek bleakly confirmed.

"Every time he sees Krycek, he readjusts his age preferences --and
approximate weight, as well, by the way," Mulder said casually.

"Which brings us back to 1987, and the second rape. At this time he
was 6'1", 150 lbs, and 21 years old, wearing a size 12 D shoe. He was
the only abductee --snatched off the street in plain daylight with
witnesses. He was the only escapee. He was the first victim tortured
over a multi-day span. He was the last surviving victim.

"He was the first victim Kapustcha acknowledges as being male --the
first victim Kapustcha doesn't keep the male genitalia hidden
throughout the ordeal. He's the first vic who is isolated in a
specially prepared 'dungeon' rather than being tortured in Kapustcha's
actual bedroom.

"He was the only repeat victim. He was the only vic who was eventually
hired by the Consortium to perform...other duties, which occasionally
brought him into contact with Kapustcha on a business basis --and, by
the way, Krycek was not considered 'expendable' on either of those
occasions, or his masters would have turned him over to Kapustcha to
keep their boy scientist happy.

"And last, but not least, he's the only victim --that we know of-- who
has managed to physically hurt Kapustcha.

"My guess is Kapustcha started off with a strict belief of the
hierarchy of male over female and of distinct delineations between the
sexes. Then he was fooled by a transsexual so thoroughly the deception
was undiscovered until they doffed their clothes in the throes of
passion.

"Kapustcha was horrified. Shocked that he could have been deceived,
even more shocked that his sexual attraction to the she-male increased
after the 'truth' was revealed. He needed some kind of rationalization
to preserve his masculinity and, thus, his innate belief in his own
superiority.

"Kapustcha considers himself to be a man's man, would be incensed to
be called bi-sexual or gay. He was used to charming and dominating
docile women, had sex with women regularly, but could never sustain a
long term relationship.

"His ability to be sexually aroused and satisfied by the transsexual
confused and panicked him, inflaming his sexual insecurities. It
challenged his strict sexual tenets, while stirring his libido at the
same time.

"He began to seek out transsexuals, and began to play rough to assert
his dominance over them and quell his self-disgust at his homosexual
urges. Unfortunately, he began to be attracted to more masculine men.
He tried to suppress it by having them strip themselves of their
power, ie, their masculinity, by dressing and having them behave like
subservient women.

"But his resentment of them escalated till he began to seek absolution
in blood sports. He sees his victims' blood as an elixir of power, and
he literally feeds on them in order to rob them of their power to
attract him.

"Then, with Krycek, he found himself attracted to a man with merely
fine features, who was biddable only because he was paid. At this
point, Kapustcha decided it was his mission in life to reveal these
'latent women' for the liars they are. He thus gets to enjoy fucking
them, while proving to himself that they're inferior to a 'real man'
like him.

"Then his idealized 'woman man,' Krycek, out-witted him, hurt him
physically, and escaped his control --while dressed and playing the
role of the woman. Suddenly, all his fears of sexual ambiguity and
inferiority crystalized into one form, one competitor: Krycek.

"He began to seek out Krycek look-a-likes in order dominate them, win
back his honor, impress them with his sexual prowess, and recover his
lost superiority. And to insure he never lost the upper hand once he
're-conquered' them, he killed them.

"He has, in effect, been killing Krycek for the last thirteen years,
in order to retain ultimate control over him."

Mulder and the others stared at Krycek, to observe his reaction to
Mulder's profile, but, while Krycek paled visibly, he said and did
nothing, maintaining a perfectly flat affect.

"None of the eighteen victims had semen in their stomachs," Scully
said. "So, Kapustcha must have stopped having oral sex with his
victims, no doubt so they wouldn't have a chance to bite his penis and
escape, like Krycek did."

"Or, he has fellatio with them before he 'captures' them, " Mulder
amended. "I can't see a guy who gets as big a charge out of having
lipstick smeared on his penis giving it up for good. He does keep them
alive for several days, so maybe the semen is digested before the
autopsy can find it."

Scully shrugged in concession. She wasn't a profiler, after all. 

Mulder continued. "In 1993, in Boca Raton, the police entered the
picture. Bite marks connected him to the victim, and only his ties to
the Consortium freed him. He now had a perceived bastion of 'real men'
to spar with, to assert his superiority over, to cross wits with, and
to fear, for he does fear exposure and being caught even though,
because of his importance to the Consortium, he knows he will never
actually lose a battle with the police, so it's also a built-in ego
boost. Still, he modified his signature: he stopped biting them and
started cutting them with knives instead. Knives are easy to come by,
and just as easily disposed of after the fact.

"In El Paso, it was fiber evidence that gave him away, so now he
disposes his victims in watery places: rivers, storm drains, ponds,
sewers, public fountains, down spouts during rainstorms, to wash away
the evidence. He stopped using his own residence to torture the
victims, and stopped using his own car to further reduce direct trace
evidence.

"Of course, unless he takes *himself* out of the crime, there will
always be *some* evidence. It's like that old story about the mouse
who thought he was clever because he could always steal the cheese out
of the trap --until the day the trap snapped. Moral: a really smart
mouse would have gotten his cheese somewhere else. Kapustcha thinks
he's being clever, but, like all serial killers, he's trapped by his
own sick fantasies."

"And his ex-wife," Krycek grinned.

"Ex-wife?" Mulder echoed stupidly. "Sociopaths aren't supposed to have
wives, damnit! They can't sustain emotional relationships. It's beyond
them."

Krycek smirked. "Tell that to Robert Yates: married twenty-six years,
father of five --murderer of at least fourteen. Pity the poor
profilers, having to eat their words," he leered. "It really is just a
tap dance, after all."

Mulder sighed and rubbed his forehead wearily. He had, of course,
heard of the *married* serial killer --the whole BSU was abuzz with
the news-- but, like the rest of his fellow profilers, he considered
it an aberrant fluke. "So, how'd Kapustcha land a wife?"

"He was a rich American traveling with impunity through the eastern
bloc countries," Krycek said simply.

"OK," Mulder demurred, "I get it: she gets a ticket to the Free World.
But what does *he* get? Sociopaths don't do favors for anybody but
themselves."

"Well, he gets to fool his bosses into thinking he's straightened up
after they read him the riot act for having to pay me off for the
second time, for one thing. And, if they're not paying too much
attention, he gets to pretend that they don't know he's offing fag
whores in his off hours, for another."

"One more authority figure he thinks he's fooling with his cleverness,
not to mention what having a wife does for his own sense of manhood,"
Mulder mulled it over. "Yeah, OK. So, what happened?"

Krycek grinned. "Well, after the first three years, they stopped
living together. She had to stick by him up till then for immigration
purposes, but once the INS lost interest in her case, she settled into
a 'main residence' and stopped travelling with him. Then, once she got
her citizenship, seven years into the marriage,...well...rumor has it
*she* was the one who dropped the dime on him in Boca Raton!" He
giggled. "He got hauled off to jail and she served him with divorce
papers the next afternoon."

"Oh, man! I bet that pissed him off!" Mulder exclaimed.

"He was spitting venom from Florida to Belgium!" Krycek concurred. 

"So, his up-till-then docile, subservient doormat of a wife expressed
her inner contempt and disgust for him by serving him up on a platter
to the cops *and* divorcing him...that *must* be what triggered his
escalation. Wow! Hope she has good bodyguards.

"Hmm.... So, now he's got no wife to use as camouflage, and he's way
past maintaining a long-term relationship with anyone, let alone a
woman, but he has to at least go through the motions of courtship in
order to convince himself that he really isn't gay, that his need to
rape and kill men is less about salving his own insecurities and more
about ridding society of its genetic
mistakes."

"Shifting the blame to make himself out to be a hero?" Skinner
ventured. Mulder nodded.

"But the profile isn't the real problem," Scully said. "Keeping
Kapustcha behind bars is. We could give the Frisco PD his name, rank,
and serial number, he'd still get out of jail. So, what does it
prove?"

Skinner glanced guiltily over to Krycek, who was chewing his lower
lip.

"Unless his masters finally tire of cleaning up after him, and throw
him to the wolves," Krycek ventured.

Scully turned a jaundiced eye in his direction. "But they haven't,
have they, or you wouldn't have snuck the information to us --they'd
have just told you to kill him and have done with it."

Krycek nodded. "Yeah. But if there was a way to maneuver him into
doing something on the job that even they couldn't forgive...."

Scully pursed her lips. "Like?"

Krycek looked irritated. "If I'd figured that out, I wouldn't need
you!