Usual disclaimer: all theirs, nothing mine, get over it
A/N: previously published elsewhere, but this time some of the neat little sarcastic asides didn't get munched by the website. I hope!
A Vacation at Jack's Cabin
By OughtaKnowBetter
"This is the life," announced Colonel Jack O'Neill, leaning back in the row boat, Panama hat over his eyes and feet propped up on the side of the little craft. A slender fishing rod dangled over the side, his hands just barely keeping contact. No fish were biting, but that wasn't the point; there were a few frozen steaks in the ice box back at the cabin for just that eventuality.
The lake itself wasn't all that large—the shoreline could be seen in all directions—and from experience O'Neill knew that it wasn't terribly deep as Minnesota lakes went. But the surrounding trees hid all the other cabins on the opposite shores, and the rest of the cabin-owners were just as chary of other people as he was, and all in all it made for a fine retreat from reality.
"Indeed," said the other inhabitant of the boat. Warm and expressive brown eyes surveyed his companion from underneath a similar Panama hat, only this hat covered a singular mark not found anywhere else on Earth. This was a rare trip outside the Cheyenne Mountain base for the Jaffa, and he intended to make the most of it. With no one else present Teal'c could have done without the disguise, but the Jaffa had not lived this long by being careless. The hat remained.
So instead he gloried in the sunshine, the fresh air that was not automatically tainted with the need for caution, enjoying the company of his friend and commander, the human O'Neill.
Teal'c also attempted to emulate the human, assuming his relaxed posture and placing his own feet upon the edges of the rowboat. The Jaffa did not see the benefit in attempting to capture piscine foodstuffs while in a reclining position but O'Neill had assured him that it was the best technique for this particular activity. Teal'c furthermore did not understand why O'Neill referred to the task as an 'activity' for little movement took place. Indeed, at one point Teal'c suspected O'Neill of having fallen asleep in the heat of the rising sun. O'Neill denied it vehemently, leading Teal'c to understand that falling asleep while 'fishing' was inappropriate. Or, at least, inappropriate to admit to.
"Think we ought'a head back?" O'Neill finally asked, glancing at his watch. "What time are Carter and Daniel supposed to get here?"
Teal'c looked up at the sky; the sun was slightly past its zenith. "They should arrive within a short period of time, O'Neill. I agree, to meet them at the cabin we should conclude our fishing expedition. I regret not being successful in the hunt."
"Wouldn't say that," O'Neill mused. He pulled his feet back into the boat, sitting up and unlimbering the oars. "Don't know about you, Teal'c, but I was out here to relax."
"Indeed." It was as Teal'c had suspected, that this so-called 'activity' was merely a ruse to appear productive while resting. Although pleased to be here with O'Neill, Teal'c was also slightly disappointed. He had looked forward to the contest of skill between himself and an indigenous species of his adopted home world. No matter; he would explain his dilemma to DanielJackson and MajorCarter, and one or both of them would assist him to successfully battle a fish. Cunning creatures, clearly; he wondered what other attributes they possessed with which to defend themselves, such as claws or teeth.
"Yeah, better head in," O'Neill decided. "I can set out the steaks to thaw and put a six-pack in the fridge." He snorted. "Knowing Carter, they'll call when they're an hour out to let us know where they are. Knowing Daniel, they'll get lost despite Carter's best efforts and get here in two." He set the oars into the locks and gave a lazy stroke.
Carter looked at the map, then at the meager excuse for civilization before them. She grinned. She could just bet that this was the way that the colonel liked it: few people, and even fewer that cared about progress. "This is the town Colonel O'Neill mentioned. It shouldn't be too much farther."
Daniel looked at the gauges on the dashboard of the car they had rented at Duluth International, then at the strip of mom-and-pop businesses that dotted one side of the meandering roadway. How small is this town? It's so small that they can't afford to have stores on both sides of the street. "I'm going to pull in and get some gas. We're down to a quarter of a tank, and getting stuck out here means walking a wee bit further than a mile to fill up a gas can. I can use a short break."
"Me, too," Carter agreed, running a hand through her short blonde hair. "Teal'c will have to wait a bit longer to get the Three Stooges movies we packed. Cup of coffee?"
"Anytime," Daniel grinned. His addiction to caffeine was well-known and joked about. He pulled into the gas station, a diner down the street beckoning the pair with a tired sign proclaiming, 'Eat at Charlene's'.
The diner looked much as the sign did, mostly clean and certainly worn with use. There were five or six parties of two and three inside, a couple of singletons and one party of giggling teenagers trying to make two ice cream sodas last as long as possible. Carter and Daniel slid into a booth.
Carter eyed a menu, then her watch. "Lunch? It's one o'clock."
"Anything, as long as coffee is part of it."
"Good. Order me the salad, French dressing, and I'll be right back." Carter headed for the rest rooms. Daniel leaned back in the booth, stretching to get the stiffness out of muscles kept in the same position too long. Idly, he surveyed the patrons. The trucker types were easy to catalog: big and burly, trying to make time with the waitress who looked like she'd cut school to make tips. There was an elderly couple holding hands—cute, Daniel thought, reminds me of Catherine and Ernest—and a pair of dark-haired swarthy skinned men in the booth behind them.
They were speaking in another language, and Daniel tried not to eavesdrop. One of the Farsi dialects, he immediately identified, and turned away.
But a word caught his ear: bomb. Then, railroad depot. Daniel stopped trying not to eavesdrop and concentrated on listening and not getting caught. The pair clearly didn't expect anyone to be able to understand Farsi, not in this tiny little hamlet in the middle of mid-western America, and Daniel would take advantage of their error.
"Two days," said the first quietly. "Then Ahmad will be in place. He will be able to place the bomb in the depot and be well away from it when we detonate. The infidels and their dog children will shriek and perish on that day. Allah is great!"
"Allah is great," the other echoed. "Does Ahmad know what to do?"
"If he does not, he will die with the infidels," came the answer. "We can mourn him as a martyr to the cause."
"First, finish your apple pie," the second man advised. "Then let us be on our way."
Daniel could hardly contain himself when Carter returned.
"Sam, without being noticed, I need you to memorize what the pair of men behind me look like," he directed quietly.
"Daniel?"
"Just do it, Sam," he said with some force, still just as quietly. "And get the license plate of their car."
Carter watched as the pair paid for their meal, got into their car and drove off. She turned back from the window. "Want to tell me what that was about?"
"Would you believe that I think we just saw a couple of terrorists?"
Carter's shoulders drooped. "Here? In the middle of nowhere? Not possible, Daniel." Then she frowned. "Colonel O'Neill is right. You are a trouble magnet. You really heard them talking about blowing up a train station?"
"Wish I could say no. What's next?"
"We notify the local police," Carter said. "This is their jurisdiction. If those two are planning some sort of terrorist activity, the police can call in the FBI. C'mon, let's find the local precinct house. I'll get the check; you bring the car around."
"They're going to be late," O'Neill reported, sticking his cell phone back onto its charger and glaring at it as if the techno-toy were responsible for the problem. "It's Daniel again."
Teal'c sat up swiftly. "He is unharmed?"
"Only until I get my hands on him. Only Daniel could find trouble on a road trip up to the most peaceful place on Earth." O'Neill filled him in. "I could'a been out fishing some more. I knew this was gonna happen. Can't take 'em anywhere, not Daniel, not Carter…" He eyed the refrigerator. "Think the beer is cold yet?"
"This is a very odd feeling," Daniel complained, walking into the building carefully labeled 'Police Station.' The massive bricks that made up the station were as worn down as the diner had been, but the front steps were swept and ninety percent of the debris had managed to make it inside the trash can thoughtfully placed out front. The large ashtray next to the trash was filled with both sand for dousing butts and a large quantity of burned out stubs. There were obviously a large number of smokers who frequented the police station. Daniel sneezed.
"What's odd about it?"
"Turning this problem over to someone else," Daniel complained. "How often do we do that? I mean, usually we're running from something, with Jack yelling 'dial us home, Daniel' at the top of his lungs. Seriously, Sam, when was the last time that we walked politely up to the local magistrate and said, 'here, sir, with our compliments'?"
Samantha Carter stared at him, and broke into a grin. "Colonel O'Neill was right, Daniel. You truly need a vacation. I'm glad he made me drag you away from your office." She took his arm. "Now, let's go inside and talk to the nice policeman and tell him all your troubles."
The interior of the police station was similar to the outside: clean but well-worn. Utilitarian metal desks created a multitude of islands in the large squad room with one computer for every two desks—local budgetary restraints at work—and a basket of papers graced every possible spot on each and every desk. The pair had been ushered into the sole office, thin walls having been erected a decade ago in a vain attempt to provide some aura of authority to be bestowed upon the chief of police. The rest of the authority, it was clear, had to be earned by the inhabitant of that office.
And he had.
"What are you, some kind of crank tourists?" Chief Holloway wanted to know. He leaned pudgy hands on the top of his desk, barely able to reach it beyond his extensive expanse of a belly. "Maybe you think it's amusing to see what kind of joke you can play on a small town? Let me tell you, it won't be very funny from in there." He jerked a fleshy thumb toward the prison cell on the other side of the large room. It was empty, except for a broken down copier that took up most of the free walking space inside the holding cell. And the dust.
"This is not a joke," Daniel said for what felt like the fiftieth time. "I overheard two men discussing a plan to blow up a nearby train station. If it's a joke, it's from them and not me."
Holloway glared at him. "How do you know what they said? You don't look like no A-rab."
"It wasn't Arabic, it was Farsi," Dr. Jackson corrected, trying to keep his impatience in check. "I have worked overseas, and I have a passing familiarity with several Middle Eastern languages. And I'm telling you that those men were discussing plans to blow up a train station. I've come to you as a good citizen, trying to prevent a terrorist plot. Are you going to listen to me or not?"
"You know what the federal government men do to people like you, son?" Holloway started to say when Carter broke in.
"I've had enough of this," she snapped. Daniel looked up in surprise; he rarely heard Carter with that tone in her voice, and it was easy to forget—with all of her degrees in the hard sciences—that Samantha Carter was also in the military. She flashed her identification in front of Holloway's face, two inches from his nose. "Major Samantha Carter, United States Air Force, currently assigned to Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base in Colorado. And I am telling you that if this man says he heard two men talking about a terrorist plot, then he did. At this point you have two choices: you can call in the FBI and look like the hero, or I will call them myself and expose you as the small town bumbling idiot that you are pretending to be. Which will it be?"
For the first time some doubt crossed Holloway's face. He eyed Carter suspiciously, as if she'd suddenly turned into a rattler about to strike. For all he knew, she had. He leaned over and cautiously asked Daniel, "she for real?"
"Real enough to have flown fighter jets," Daniel said, wondering if it was true. He'd never flown with her, but from the way she talked and all the things he knew that she could do…
Another long moment lagged, while Holloway shifted his gaze from one to the other, then back again. The carefully rehearsed look of stupidity departed from his face. Then he tapped the intercom. "Jennie, get me the FBI." He leaned back again in his chair, the springs creaking in protest. "You folks better be right about this."
"You made it," O'Neill greeted them, taking Carter's bag from her and relieving Daniel of his backpack, ushering the pair into the cabin. The sun had gone down long ago, and the crickets were filling the air with their symphony. Fireflies were the sole source of light outside of what was sliding out through the cabin windows around the curtains. "I was beginning to wonder. Daniel, what have you got in here? Bricks?"
"Books," Daniel responded. He trudged in past O'Neill, clearly worn out. The drive from the airport should have only taken three hours. The stopover in town had been more than twice that. Carter too was looking less chipper than usual, with an I'm-finished-dealing-with-idiots look on her face.
"Which you are so not going to look at," O'Neill told him. "This is a vacation, Daniel. Ever hear of that? Va-ca-tion," and he drawled out the word. "As in, no work. No reading, no translating, nothing but relaxation."
"Which I can really use about now." Daniel allowed Teal'c to relieve him of the rest of his luggage and dropped into an overstuffed chair in front of the cold fireplace. On a hot summer night like this, heat wasn't needed. He looked around at the small cabin. It was furnished in Early O'Neill, with several similar overstuffed chairs, a tacky fake moose head over the fireplace wearing mouse-ears between its antlers and Ray-bans over its eyes, and a woven rug sitting squarely in front of the fireplace waiting for someone to sit on it when in need of additional warmth and comfort. In a better place the décor would have clashed. "This is nice."
"Thanks. It's been in the family for years."
Carter looked up, startled. "I though you said you bought it a couple of years ago."
"I did. Three, to be exact. It's been in the family for three years. You hungry?"
"Not after all that," Daniel grumbled. "The local police made us wait for the FBI and insisted on going over our story over and over until the FBI arrived. Then the FBI guys needed to hear the same thing a few dozen times. That's what made us so late. You'd've thought that we were the terrorists instead of those men that I overheard." He sighed, and sank back further into the chair.
O'Neill handed the man a beer, not taking no for an answer, and offered the same to Carter. "Relax, kids. The worst is over. They always say that the drive is the worst part of the vacation."
"You got that part right." Daniel sipped at the brew, making a face. "Whew. This stuff always tastes incredibly bland after drinking the Abydonian version of ale."
"What can I say? It's the best that Minnesota has to offer. The feds going to need the two of you any more?"
"Hopefully not," Carter said. "They've got all we had for them: descriptions, license plates, the works. That was the easy part. Finding those guys might be a bit harder."
"Better not," was O'Neill's opinion. "There's an enclave of them about two lakes over. They moved in about a year ago. Keep to themselves, but every now and again I hear them crashing through the bushes."
"Indeed," Teal'c agreed. "I heard them attempting to remain silent in the undergrowth just yesterday. They toddle about as loudly as children in need of toilet training."
"The local police know about them?" Daniel wanted to know.
O'Neill shrugged. "Haven't the foggiest. Not my problem. When I'm up here, I'm off duty. If they get in my way, I'll do something about it. Until then, let the local police earn their pay."
All right, so Carter in a bathing suit looked spectacular. Sure, the tank suit covered a fair amount of skin, but the long legs made up for it. O'Neill firmly squashed his un-military thoughts and tried to concentrate on anything but the sight of his second in command taking a shallow dive off the pier into the cold waters of Lake Menthawatha. Even being on vacation wouldn't excuse that breach of military protocol.
And it didn't help when Daniel commented, "beautiful."
O'Neill turned to glare, and had to choke down his words when Daniel blithely continued, "I've always admired really overgrown forests on a mountainside. I guess it's because I grew up in the Egyptian desert. There's just nothing like a wide expanse of tree after tree after tree. It's really peaceful up here, Jack. Thanks for letting me come."
"We all needed the time off," O'Neill responded. There was no need to say more. Their last mission had been a hairy one, with O'Neill's boots getting scorched on the soles as he dove head first through the Stargate. They'd been lucky to escape intact, although Carter was still disappointed that they hadn't been able to bring home the souvenir fusion reactor that she wanted. She'd had to be satisfied with bringing home her own skin, was O'Neill's retort.
Bad O'Neill! Bad! Mustn't think about the lovely white skin, glistening with droplets of lake water, more droplets being shaken from short blonde locks. O'Neill swallowed hard and sternly commanded parts of himself to behave.
"I'm going for a dip," he said, pulling off his sweat-drenched tee shirt and hoping that the lake water was as cold as it looked. "Coming?"
Daniel looked longingly back at the house. "I should catch up on my journals…"
"Later," O'Neill told him firmly. "Swim. You need the exercise." Which wasn't true, but hauling Daniel along beside him would look less obvious. "See? Teal'c knows how to relax."
Daniel looked doubtfully at the figure in the rowboat in the middle of the lake, feet planted on the side of the boat unwavering, fishing pole clenched firmly in two massive fists, determined to subdue the fearsome creature known as a 'fish'. "Right, Jack." He glanced down the road that led away from the cabin with an almost guilty look. "I wonder if I should offer to help the FBI."
"Nope," O'Neill said, loudly and clearly and distinctly. "I repeat, this is a vacation. No work. All play. Why else are you wearing a pair of swim trunks? Besides, if you offer to help that will lead to unpleasant conversations about what you do for a living and then we'll have to kill the entire town to keep the secret from getting out. That, or send them all to live on PX3-whatever."
But O'Neill's plans were doomed to failure. Even as he spoke he heard the crunching sounds of a large and well-tuned engine pushing tires over gravel. A massive black sedan, ill-suited to travel over dirt roads, inched into view and three business-suited men stepped out. The driver carefully activated the door locks. Why, O'Neill had no idea. It wasn't as though the moose around these parts were into car-jacking.
O'Neill closed his eyes briefly in an unspoken plea for patience. "Now would be a really good time for a swim while I get rid of your unwanted visitors, Daniel. Tell Carter to start swimming toward Teal'c. He can pick you both up in the middle of the lake."
"Don't be ridiculous, Jack. They'll just come after us."
"In those three piece, double breasted suits? I don't think so, Daniel."
"They'll wait until we come back," Daniel said in exasperation. "I'll see what they want, they'll leave with or without it, and we won't see them again."
O'Neill grunted disgustedly. "All because you had to go listening in on a private conversation. Didn't anyone ever teach you not to eavesdrop?"
"Sure, but hanging around you cured me of it."
The three men approached along the dirt path, gravel grating beneath expensive shoes not made for anything rougher than marble tile, eyeing one man to the other, not knowing which one to address or which one they had been sent to fetch. The older one cleared his throat, and settled on O'Neill in desperation. "Dr. Jackson?"
"I'm Dr. Jackson." Daniel stepped forward, hand outstretched, seemingly unaffected by the disparity in clothing. "What can I do for you?"
The man's instant of puzzlement turned into urbane good manners, also ignoring the fact that Daniel was clad in trunks, hat, and sandals, and nothing else. "Good afternoon, Dr. Jackson. I'm Special Agent Turner, with the FBI. I understand that you're the man who heard the terrorists yesterday?"
"I overheard two men speaking about blowing up a train station yesterday," Daniel corrected. "I'm not about to call them terrorists. They could have been discussing the latest best-selling novel."
Turner dismissed that proviso. "The point is, you heard and understood them. Dr. Jackson, your country needs you. Will you help us with these terrorists?"
"His country has already been using him for a good long time now," O'Neill butted in. "In fact, he's here right now because his country has over-used him, and he needs a rest. A vacation; ever hear of that?"
Turner ignored O'Neill. "Dr. Jackson, your country needs you to come down to the precinct house. We have some tapes that we'd like you to listen to."
O'Neill wasn't about to be pushed aside. "Country-western, or classical? Why do you need Daniel? Your people told him yesterday that you had your own interpreter flying in."
Turner finally deigned to acknowledge O'Neill. "I don't see that this is any of your business, Mr….?"
"Colonel," O'Neill corrected frostily, marking his territory. "Colonel O'Neill, Air Force. And Dr. Jackson is attached to my unit, which makes this my business, Special Agent Turner."
To his credit, Turner backed down but only part way. "We require Dr. Jackson's services, Colonel O'Neill. I apologize for the intrusion on your leave time but we have taped conversations that require translating immediately."
O'Neill wasn't about to give in. "I thought you had a translator coming with you."
"It's not any Arabic dialect that I've ever heard," one of the other men broke in, the young-looking one. O'Neill hid a grin. The kid looked barely old enough to shave the golden peach fuzz off of his face. "I can't figure out what they're saying."
Daniel too kept the smile off of his face. "That's because it's not Arabic. It's Farsi, an entirely different language spoken higher up in the Crescent. Where did you learn Arabic?"
"At the Bureau," the kid said proudly. "I know three different dialects. And I'm working on a fourth," he added.
"That's nice," O'Neill said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "So, bottom line, you brought the wrong man for the job, is that it, Turner?"
Turner had the grace to flush. Rallying, he turned back to Daniel. "Will you come with us, Dr. Jackson?"
Daniel sighed. "Let me change first."
"Daniel—"
"Jack, we might as well get it over with. It'll take another day to get somebody out from Washington to translate, and if those people are terrorists we may not have that kind of time. I'll go, listen to a few tapes, and be back within a few hours. Keep dinner warm for me. I like my steaks well-done."
The third agent spoke up. "Don't think that your friend out there will catch any fish?"
O'Neill had had enough. "We come prepared for life's little disappointments. You had to ask for help." He crossed his arms. "Have Daniel back by dark, or I'll come after him."
Teal'c pulled the boat back in to the pier after the three federal agents had departed, Daniel in tow. He stared after the retreating cars, following their passage down the dirt road down the mountainside, features impassive. "What has transpired, O'Neill?"
"Federal screw up," O'Neill told him, "again." He helped Teal'c tug the boat higher on the shoreline, snapping the line onto the bow. "Daniel'll be back in a few hours."
"Indeed." Teal'c's own doubt was reflected from O'Neill's tones.
Carter too padded up, dripping lake water and toweling her hair. "Where's Daniel going?"
"Into town," O'Neill said again.
"No translator?"
"Wrong type. Wrong language."
Carter frowned. "More than one way to screw up communication. When's he getting back? Or shouldn't I ask?"
"Not gonna be too late, or someone's gonna be an unhappy camper." O'Neill glared off in the direction of the two cars heading down the slope. He'd insisted that Daniel take his own vehicle, so as not to be at the mercy of any government types. He wouldn't put it past Special Agent Turner to somehow not be able to spare a driver until this mess was over with. Which meant that Daniel could be stuck there translating an interrogation while he ought to be relaxing on vacation.
O'Neill didn't take kindly to other SG teams borrowing his civilian, and looked even less favorably on outside agencies trying to do the same. The man needed a vacation as much as any of the rest of his teammates, and O'Neill was determined to force Daniel into it no matter what. The world could be coming to an end, for all he cared, but Daniel would spend several hours on top of Lake Menthawatha or Mrs. O'Neill's little boy would know the reason why. "C'mon," he told Carter and Teal'c. "We've got some fish to catch for dinner."
Was I ever that young and stupid?
Daniel Jackson was no stranger to youthful idealism, but Agent Fiedler put him to shame. Within ten minutes Jackson knew that Fiedler had graduated in the middle of his class from one of the various campuses of the University of New York with a degree in psychology, had found no work related to his major, but was fortunate enough to get a job with a translating firm because he had three semesters of French and one in Russian. From there, he confided to Jackson, it was an easy transition to the FBI who had sent him back to school to learn Arabic. Did Dr. Jackson also speak Arabic? Great; would Dr. Jackson mind conducting the conversation in Arabic, so that Agent Fiedler could practice?
After all of three minutes, Daniel regretted saying yes. The kid's accent was bad enough that it was painful—his Brooklyn accent grated against the flowery phrases. Daniel hoped that the kid didn't notice all the wincing he was doing.
"Ever been to that museum in New York, the one with the Egyptian exhibit?" Fiedler babbled. "I went last year. It was pretty interesting. Dedicated to some old archeologists about twenty years ago. They died getting it over here, the plaque said. You ever take the time to see it? Looks pretty neat."
"I've seen it." Daniel tried not to sound short. I've seen it over and over in my nightmares, the heavy stone slab crashing down on top of my parents. I was all of eight.
"Anyways, that was when I decided that I wanted to become an archeologist," Fiedler confided, "but the science stuff was pretty tough, so I went into psychology instead. Almost the same, just working with people instead of dead people."
If I say anything, it will only encourage him.
"How long have you been with the Bureau?" Daniel asked, changing the subject.
"Two years," Fiedler said proudly. "They had a job fair, so I applied."
Good. I'd hate to think that my government actively sought your help.
"I've been working on the Middle East stuff," Fiedler told him. "I've got Montana and both Dakotas to monitor as well as Minnesota. I translate for all the underground cells in these parts."
Hotbeds of terrorist activity, all of them. Right.
"How about you? Where'd you learn to speak Arabic?"
"I grew up in Egypt," Daniel said easily. "Picked up a little here and there." Won't tell this kid about Abdullah, who scandalized my mother by teaching me how to pick pockets. Or Youssef, who was herding camels before age seven. He changed the subject yet again. "How far has Turner gotten with the suspects?"
"Not very," Fiedler replied, not realizing that Turner would have sent him back to the home office for discussing the case with an 'outsider'. "The license plate that Mrs. Carter gave us is registered to someone on the 'watch but do not apprehend' list from out of state but Chief Holloway said that the car was headed up to that bunch of crazies in the back woods. He got the local judge to issue a wire tap—never would've gotten it in a municipal Duluth court, that's one for the boonies—and we got a lot of tapes of stuff that I've never heard before. We figured it was that stuff that you and the wife heard on your way through town."
"Ah…" Daniel tried to figure out how to phrase it delicately. He settled for shifting back into English. "You do realize that it's Major Carter, not Mrs.?"
"Oh, that's what the M stands for. I didn't realize. She's a major? I thought she was that colonel guy's wife. You know, a lot of women aren't changing their names anymore when they get married, even if they get married to somebody in the military."
"So I've heard," Daniel said wryly.
"How about you? You're attached to the Air Force as a civilian? What do you do there? Why does the Air Force need an archeologist? I mean, that doesn't make a whole lot of sense, does it?"
Daniel temporized by saying, "I do something like what you do. I translate stuff." Things that are written in Goa'uld, and Ancient, and stuff written by the Asgard, among others.
"Yeah, but mine is classified." Fiedler tried to puff out his chest. "A terrorist even tried to kill my old boss once, a year ago. We caught him red-handed, and even during the interrogation the guy jumped up and tried to strangle Gary."
"Pretty scary." Now if the terrorist had been an Unas… "Hey, what's up ahead?" Daniel took his foot off of the gas.
The car ahead of them, the black sedan with Special Agent Turner and the other who hadn't identified himself, was weaving back and forth. They could see Turner hauling frantically at the steering wheel, trying to keep the car from plunging down the incline. There was a sharp retort, and Daniel realized what was going on.
"Someone's shooting at us! Get down!"
Fiedler didn't need a second invitation. He ducked beneath the dash as far as the seat belt would let him. Daniel clutched the wheel, watching as the black sedan in front of them slewed around and wrapped itself around a tree.
Another shot, and Daniel's rental car bucked. The tire, he realized. They've shot it out. He fought the steering wheel, trying to keep the wildly bucking car on the dirt road, trying to prevent it from tipping over the side into the ravine below.
The windshield shattered; another round had taken it out. Daniel flinched, throwing up an arm to protect his eyes from the glass shrapnel. Fiedler screeched in terror, the sound lost when the little rental knocked against a tree too big for it to crush. Branches whipped into Daniel's face through the broken windshield.
Then there was the sickening sensation of free fall. Daniel had experienced it only once, one time caught on a Goa'uld mother ship in mid-destruct sequence, but the feeling was unmistakable. The little car teetered on the edge, then tipped over. The ravine beckoned. The river in the ravine called.