Reviewing their practically non-existent leads, Peter heaved a sigh and rubbed his forehead. At least Neal had abandoned his intense scrutiny of the missing vase in order to make a coffee run. It was still a bit of a mystery where Neal found the excellent coffee he would return with, but Peter wasn't going to push the issue. He was fairly certain even Neal couldn't find an illegal coffee shop…and if he had, Peter didn't want to know. It was really good coffee.

Cruz and Jones were occupied making dead end calls, but the rare piece had yet to show up on the usual black market venues for such items. And, if Neal's hunch was right (as they so often and annoyingly were), it wouldn't. There was something fishy about this thing.

A knock on the open door frame of his office drew Peter's attention, as someone asked, "Agent Burke?"

A pair of men were standing just outside his office, peering in at him. The man who had spoken was the shorter of the two, trim, broad shouldered with dark brown, nearly black hair, fair skin and blue eyes. He wore jeans, a white button down shirt and a weathered black leather jacket. His companion was about 6', equally fit and blue eyed but with glasses, sun darkened skin and golden brown hair. He too wore jeans, but had a black t-shirt under a battered brown jacket.

As a trained observer, Peter took all this in, even noted something oddly familiar about the first man, as he replied, "Yes?"

The smaller man stepped forward, extending an ID. "Major Evan Lorne, Dr. Daniel Jackson…we're here about a query someone from your office ran about a particular ancient artifact."

What the heck did the Air Force have to do with their missing vase? "How did you find out about that?" Peter asked, curiosity spiked as he wracked his brain for why Lorne's name was so familiar to him.

Eye's narrowing slightly, the major replied, "Your inquiry included a picture that tripped some alarms. We can't go into too much detail…our project is classified." He paused and pulled a small stack of papers from his jacket and handed them over to Peter. "The general sent us to assist with the recovery of the artifact and to asses it's…danger or lack there of."

Peter flicked through the papers, grimacing as he saw they were authorized by some general out of the Pentagon. That could mean only one thing. This case was going to be a hell of a lot more trouble than originally anticipated.

While he perused the documents, he was aware of the doctor drifting towards a photo enlargement of the missing vase, small note pad in hand, scribbling away as he muttered to himself.

Not liking their arrival one bit but more or less without option due to their authorizations, Peter looked from Lorne to Jackson then back. "Translator?" he asked Lorne, not wanting to disturb the other's work.

"Among other things," was the quiet reply and before Peter could ask anything else they were interrupted.

"Evan?"

Neal had returned, large cardboard tray of steaming coffee cups in hand, but instead of passing them out, he made a beeline for the office's new arrivals.

Lorne grinned, dimpling as his eyes twinkled and nose scrunched, and replied, "Hey, Neal. Good to see you."

As Peter watched, Neal placed the tray on the desk and embraced the stockier man, laughing, "Long time no see…Oh, does our mysterious missing urn have something to do with your 'project'?"

The older man huffed a laugh and thumped Neal gently on the back. "Something like that."

Seemingly sensing, Peter's eyes on him, Neal turned to face him and grinned. "Come on, Peter…All those years you spent chasing me, you had to have interviewed my cousin!"

The missing pieces clicked into place. He had spoken with Major Lorne, Neal's cousin on his mother's side, who was career Air Force with degrees in geology and art. It was the art degree that peaked Peter's interest. After months of trying to get the Air Force to produce the man for an interview, he had arrived with a broken nose and two black eyes and had not been very helpful. In fact, the longest sentence Peter had gotten out of the laconic man had been an explanation of his injuries. "Didn't duck quick enough."

Now Peter felt his headache rearing up to full force as two pairs of blue eyes regarded him, Neal's bright, curious and happy to see his cousin, Evan's as bright, but with an amused, tolerant undercurrent. Something told him letting the two of them loose together was not going to be a restful or mundane experience.

"Kuk."

Jackson spoke without turning to look at the little reunion happening in the room. Actually, Peter was pretty sure he had no idea anything had happened since he fixed his eyes on the images he was translating…Not that Kuk made a lot of sense.

Lorne heaved a sigh. "Bad or Really bad?"

Turning to face him, Jackson frowned, "What's worse than really bad?"

"FUBAR."

"That's it." Pointing to the picture, the doctor informed Peter, "The inscription identifies the canopic jar as the resting place of Kuk."

"As in the frog headed deification of the primordial concept of darkness in Egyptian mythology?" Neal asked lightly, then whistled in admiration. "An ancient holy relic…no wonder someone wanted it."

"A symbol of darkness, Kuk also represented obscurity and the unknown, and thus chaos," Jackson said, casting a worried look at Lorne, who nodded as though that meant something.

Whatever was going on, it was not going to be good.

TBC

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