UNREQUITED

The episode begins at the National Mall, where Major General Benjamin Bloch (Scott Hylands) gives a speech to a crowd of Vietnam War veterans. Fox Mulder (David Duchovny), Dana Scully (Gillian Anderson), and Walter Skinner (Mitch Pileggi) patrol the crowd, searching for a potential gunman. However, when the agents see the gunman, he repeatedly disappears and makes their efforts to track him difficult. Mulder finds himself aiming his gun towards the panicked crowd, desperately searching for the gunman, who has disappeared right in front of him.

Twelve hours earlier, at Fort Evanston, Maryland, Lieutenant General Peter MacDougal (Bill Agnew) is shot in his limousine by the gunman. Skinner briefs the agents on the killing, noting a king of hearts playing card—used by the soldiers in Vietnam to mark their kills—was left at the scene. The FBI suspects a far-right paramilitary group, the Right Hand, of killing MacDougal in an effort to stop an upcoming re-dedication of a Vietnam war memorial in Washington.

Mulder and Scully head to Virginia to question the Right Hand's leader, Denny Markham (Larry Musser). A search of his fenced-off cabin uncovers ammunition and a photograph showing him in the company of a Sergeant Nathaniel Teager (Peter LaCroix). After being arrested, Markham reveals that Teager was a soldier in Vietnam who was left for dead as a prisoner of war. Meanwhile, at the Vietnam memorial, Teager approaches a war widow and claims that her husband is still alive as a POW. After giving the woman her husband's dog tags, Teager mysteriously disappears.

Skinner informs the agents that Teager is officially dead, and that his remains are at the Army's forensics lab. However, Mulder learns that the lab only possesses Teager's dental remains, and that the cause of his death was recorded as "inconclusive". Mulder believes that General John Steffan (William Nunn), who signed Teager's death certificate, is his next target. Teager makes his way past Pentagon security and kills Steffan in his office. Upon seeing Teager on the Pentagon's surveillance tapes, Mulder notes the frequent unexplained appearances and disappearances of Viet Cong troops reported by POWs in Vietnam.

During a meeting with Marita Covarrubias (Laurie Holden), Mulder learns that Steffan, McDougal, and Bloch were all involved in negotiations concerning POWs. Meanwhile, as Bloch's motorcade makes its way to the Mall, Scully spots Teager in the crowd, only to see him vanish in an instant. Mulder tells Skinner and Scully that the government has arranged for their investigation to fail in an effort to cover up the truth about American POWs still being kept in Vietnam.

In the present, during the re-dedication ceremony, Mulder realizes that no one can see Teager if they are in his line of sight. Teager follows Skinner and Bloch to the motorcade, where he unsuccessfully shoots at the general and Skinner suffers a flesh wound. Teager is shot in turn by the agents as he tries to escape. As he succumbs to his wounds, Teager repeats his Army identification. Afterwards, the Pentagon states that the assassin was a different person—which Mulder denounces as a lie. He leaves Skinner to silently ponder his own service in the war as he looks upon Teager's name on the memorial wall

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