"You can't be serious!"
"I've never been more serious."
"But...but you're implicating the President!"
"That's where the trail of evidence seems to lead..."
"Mulder, this is the most outrageous theory you've ever come up with!"
"You said that about my theory that aliens had placed mind-controlling microchips in the minds of television executives, forcing them to produce The Bachelorettesse, Survivor: Rwanda and other reality programmes."
"That was outrageous."
"It also turned out to be true."
Agents Mulder and Scully lean over a filing cabinet in a smoky, dimly lit office. They are whispering in urgent tones. From somewhere outside the office can be heard the strains of Middle Eastern muzak.
"Okay," Mulder says after a brief pause for dramatic effect, "let's look at what we've got so far. We know that a day or two after the terrorist attacks on New York and Washington, 140 Saudi Arabians, most connected to the royal family, vanished from American soil. At the time, all air traffic was grounded in case the terrorists had plans to use more planes as bombs."
"Right. Your initial theory was that they were abducted by aliens."
"Right. Maybe there was something about the Saudi royal family that was of interest to the aliens. Maybe they had specific markers in their DNA for hard asses to better ride camels. Maybe they had some genetic predisposition to eating humous. The possibilities were endless. Only, other information seemed to contradict the alien abduction theory."
"I can't believe you, of all people, are rejecting an alien abduction theory."
"I know. It sounds crazy. But, the fact of the matter is that people are starting to come forward - security guards, for example - who saw the Saudis boarding planes. The only conclusion I can come to is that planes were allowed to leave the country with Saudi Arabians on them!"
"But, at the time, the only people who could authorize any planes going into the air were in the White House."
"Exactly."
"Why? Why would the White House want to protect members of the Saudi Arabian royal family."
"It isn't the first time they've done it."
"Are you talking about the report from the first investigation into 9/11? The one where 28 pages of references to the Saudis were blacked out so the public wouldn't be able to read them?"
"Actually, I was thinking of the fact that even though 15 of the 19 airplane hijackers were Saudi Arabians, not to mention Osama bin Laden himself, the government doesn't seem to have investigated Saudi connections to terrorists, doesn't even seem to be interested in investigating the connections. Still, a pattern does seem to emerge, doesn't it?"
"But, Mulder, WHY WOULD THE GOVERNMENT PROTECT THE SAUDIS?"
Mulder holds up a placating hand. "Keep your voice down," he quietly commands.
"Why?" Scully replies. "We're in our own office."
"If this theory is true, the American security services - the FBI, the CIA - would have had to know about it. We can't be certain who we can trust."
"Sigh. Why does it always have to be this way?"
"Mmm...you're so hot when you're being resigned to difficult circumstances."
"Oh, knock it off. The episode we slept together, we lost a million viewers. We better not make that mistake again."
"It was worth a million viewers."
"Mulder! Why would the government protect the Saudi Arabian royal family?"
"Follow the money."
"Where?"
"Look, we know the Bush family has extensive business dealings with Saudi Arabia. Cheney, too. Possibly other members of the government. If the Saudi royal family was connected to the terrorist attack, we would have to stop trading with them. Bush and the people around him could lose hundreds of millions of dollars, possibly billions."
"Mulder, think of what you're saying! You're accusing the highest members of the government of subverting the course of justice in the case of a terrorist attack on American soil for their own private gain."
Mulder chuckles. "Did you hear a dramatic stab of music? That sounded like the kind of summation of the plot so far that usually takes us into a commercial break. Where is the dramatic stab of music?"
"You watch way too much TV," Scully tells him, shaking her head. "Look. If there is a conspiracy here, it isn't very impressive. All of this information has appeared in major newspapers - why hasn't there been a public uproar?"
"I wondered that myself. My best guess? The war on Iraq - a country that had nothing to do with 9/11 - distracted the public from the Saudi Arabian connection."
"Are you serious? You're accusing the highest members of the government of starting a war in order to cover up the fact that they subverted the course of justice in the case of a terrorist attack on American soil for their own private gain."
"I know it sounds cra -"
DRAMATIC STAB
"We'll continue this in another location after the commercials..."