MUSINGS OF A CIGARETTE SMOKING MAN

                                  Life is like a box of chocolates. A cheap, thoughtless, perfunctory

                                 gift that nobody ever asks for.

The Cigarette Smoking Man, with a sniper rifle and surveillance equipment, spies on a meeting between Mulder, Scully, and the Lone Gunmen. Frohike claims to have found out everything about the Cigarette Smoking Man's past, saying that he was born in 1940, that his father was an executed communist spy, and that his mother died of lung cancer, causing him to be raised in various Midwest orphanages.

The narrative changes to 1962. The Cigarette Smoking Man is an army captain stationed at Fort Bragg in North Carolina. He talks to his colleague, Bill Mulder, who shows him a photo of his baby, Fox. The Cigarette Smoking Man goes to see a general, accompanied by several strange men in suits. They offer him the assignment of assassinating President John F. Kennedy, to which he agrees. Thirteen months later, posing as a "Mr. Hunt", the Cigarette Smoking Man sets up Lee Harvey Oswald and kills Kennedy with a rifle while hiding in a storm drain. He starts smoking shortly afterwards.

The narrative moves forward to 1967, where the Cigarette Smoking Man writes a novel titled, Take a Chance: A Jack Colquitt Adventure, using the pseudonym "Raul Bloodworth (nom de plume)". After hearing Martin Luther King, Jr. giving a speech criticizing America's attitude towards communism, the Cigarette Smoking Man meets with a group of unidentified men, and convinces them that King must be assassinated. The Cigarette Smoking Man volunteers to perform the task. In April 1968, he frames James Earl Ray and shoots King while at the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, Tennessee. Thereafter, he receives a rejection letter for his novel.

The narrative again changes to 1991. The Cigarette Smoking Man attends a meeting with various other men, discussing things like Gorbachev's resignation, the Anita Hill controversy, the Rodney King trial, and his insistence that the Buffalo Bills must not win the Super Bowl. When Mulder - who recently opened the X-Files - comes up, the Cigarette Smoking Man says he'll keep an eye on him.

At home, he works on his novel and is called by Deep Throat. The two meet near the site of a U.F.O. crash, which leaves them in possession of a critically wounded alien. They flip a coin over who is tasked to kill it. Deep Throat loses, and shoots the alien shortly afterwards. Months later, the Cigarette Smoking Man attends a meeting where Dana Scully is assigned to the X-Files, and listens in as Mulder and Scully meet for the first time.

The Cigarette Smoking Man receives a letter, telling him that his novel will be serialized in the magazine Roman a Clef. He types up a resignation letter, and excitedly finds the magazine at a newsstand, only to find that the ending has been changed. He tears up his resignation letter and leaves.

Back in the present, Frohike tells Mulder and Scully that what he's told them is based on a story he found in a magazine subscription he has. He leaves to check with a hacker who may be able to provide him with definite proof that the story is about the Cigarette Smoking Man. As he leaves the building, the Cigarette Smoking Man aims at him with his sniper rifle but decides to spare him, quoting the last line from his novel: "I can kill you whenever I please, but not today."

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