I had finally started pacing. Prowling the corridors of the SGC hadn't helped relax me. Actually, it made it worse since people kept talking to me about Danny, asking how things were going, expressing their personal belief that we'd find him. I finally couldn't take it anymore and escaped to my seldom-used office. And that's when the pacing began. I felt like hitting something. I felt like screaming. My head was full of horrid thoughts about what might be happening to Daniel. It was driving me crazy. I was probably halfway to getting an ulcer. Actually, thanks to Daniel, I've likely been on the verge of getting an ulcer for the past six plus years, minus that year he was ascended, that is. That was one good thing about Jonas Quinn. Potential ulcers were not an issue. Of course, if I had to choose between Jonas and no ulcer or Daniel and an ulcer, I'd take the latter every single time.
Suddenly, the door flew open. It was Carter.
"Sir, we've got something!"
I strode forward. "What?"
"Agent Barrett sent some men to the sections of Denver where Peckham and Whitlock get their mail delivered. They showed photos to the businesses and people in the area, hoping to find someone who recognized one of them. They lucked out. A bartender recognized Peckham. The thing is, though, that he knows Peckham by a different name, Carl Reed. I did some searching and found records of a Carl Reed living in a house just half a mile from the mailbox place. But it's even better than that, Colonel. He recently bought a new car equipped with OnStar. Sir, OnStar has GPS tracking. We've got a fix on his location! He's just outside of Denver."
Hope flared inside me. We were going to find him. We were going to find Danny.
"Let's go," I said.
A while later, Carter, Teal'c and I were boarding an armed military helicopter at Peterson, along with a force of three SG teams and four other Marines. There was a look of grim determination on every face there.
The flight to Denver seemed to take way longer than I know it actually did. It was late afternoon now, over a day since Daniel was taken, a day of being in the hands of people who would probably do whatever was necessary to get what they wanted from him.
Carter's eyes were glued to a device in her hands. It was a tracker, set to locate the GPS chip in the car belonging to Major Peckham, alias Carl Reed.
As we reached Denver, she began directing the pilot on which way to go. My teammates and I gathered in the cockpit.
"There!" Carter shouted into her helmet's microphone. "It's right up ahead!"
"We're coming up on a large structure, Colonel," the pilot said.
I looked out and saw a big building sitting near the edge of a forest.
"That's it," I said. "I'll bet my pension on it."
As we descended toward the building, I saw several armed men. A few of them opened fire on us with automatic weapons.
"Orders, sir?" the pilot asked.
"Give them a warning."
The fifty caliber guns mounted on the chopper spit out a hail of bullets, tearing up the ground and sending the men running for cover.
"Get us on the ground, then get back in the air," I ordered. "I want you to cover us. But do not, I repeat, do not fire at the building. There is a nine-year-old child in there somewhere."
"Yes, sir."
The helicopter descended to hover a couple of feet off the ground. The rescue force jumped out, then the chopper lifted back in the air.
We didn't make it far before we were under fire. We all took cover and returned fire. The helicopter swooped in and strafed the ground right in front of the men who were shooting at us from the shelter of the building. It allowed us to advance several yards.
A voice came over the radio. It was the pilot.
"Sir, several individuals are escaping out a back exit."
"Stop them, but don't hit them. One of them might have the boy."
The helicopter flew over the building, and I heard the sound of the fifty cals a few seconds later.
I won't go into details. All I'll say is that we made it inside. I sent two men around the building to secure the back exit and assigned the helicopter to the task of keeping an eye on everything and preventing anyone from escaping out a window or some other door.
We swept through the building, dealing with any resistance and looking in every room for Danny.
I brought one guy down with a shot to the knee. I hauled the man partway off the floor.
"Where is he?" I growled. When he didn't talk, I pressed my finger down hard on his shattered kneecap. He screamed. "I ask again. Where's Daniel?" When he still refused to talk, I turned to the man beside me. "Teal'c?"
With a murderous look on his face, the Jaffa came forward. He lifted the guy clear off the floor and put his lips up to the man's ear.
"I will now explain to you in great detail the methods of torture that the Jaffa use upon their most despised enemies," he said.
"He's gone!" the man cried.
I stepped forward. "What do you mean he's gone?"
"He escaped! Got away!"
"I don't believe you."
"I'm telling the truth! It's all on the tapes! He ran off into the forest. They sent teams out to look for him but haven't found him yet."
We learned the location of the room where we'd find the tape recordings. On the way there, we found another room with something in it that turned my blood to ice.
"Oh my God," Carter gasped, staring at the chair with the tie-down straps, headband and nasty-looking paraphernalia. Scattered on the floor were a tray and several syringes full of stuff that I didn't want to think about.
I was so enraged that I was almost shaking. "I swear to God, if they put him in that thing and injected him with any of that stuff, they are not going to live to see a trial."
"O'Neill, the two-way mirror is broken."
I followed Teal'c's gaze to a mirror across the room. Half of it was shattered, revealing the room beyond.
"What the hell happened in here?" I wondered.
We went on to the monitoring room. Carter found the recording for the room we'd just left.
"Holy crap," I said as we watched it, stunned at the sight of Daniel tossing objects and people about the room with his telekinetic ability. We then watched the recording from the cameras in the hallway and saw our little nine-year-old teammate barreling down the corridor, sending everyone who tried to stop him flying into walls or through doorways. He made short work of what I assumed was the back door. The last feed we looked at showed him running for the trees. And then it showed something else. Three men were chasing after him, but were stopped by four Rottweilers, who appeared to be hellbent on ripping them to pieces. Three of the dogs were shot dead, the fourth running away.
"Holy Hannah," Carter murmured.
"The power of Daniel Jackson's abilities has greatly increased," observed Teal'c.
"That's an understatement," said I.
Carter turned to me. "Sir, we need to find him. The temperature is dropping rapidly, and the sun will be down soon. According to the weather report, it's going to drop well below freezing tonight, and Daniel doesn't have a coat."
I got on the radio to the pilot and told him to start searching the forest for Daniel. I then contacted the SGC and filled Hammond in.
"Sir, we need a couple more choppers here, ones with search lights and infrared equipment. We need to find Danny as fast as possible. It's supposed to get below freezing tonight, and he's definitely not dressed for the weather."
"You'll have them, Colonel."
I disconnected the call and turned to Teal'c.
"Come on, T. We're gonna need your tracking skills."
I was so cold.
The sun was going down, and it was getting harder to see. I had tripped over a root and fell in the water, getting most of my shirt wet. It felt like it was made of ice. I wished I was in Egypt, the hot sun on my skin.
A while ago, I heard a helicopter. Then I heard what sounded like lots of guns firing. I hoped it was Jack, Sam and Teal'c coming to rescue me. But I didn't know what to do. Turn around and go back? Some of those men could still be out looking for me. A while before I fell in the water, I had to hide from some of them. I knew that, if any of them caught me, they'd take me away someplace else.
Just then, I heard another helicopter. Was it the people who kidnapped me or somebody trying to rescue me? I was afraid to show myself in case it was the kidnappers.
But I was so cold.
I heard something coming toward me. Then I saw a black dog. I was pretty sure it was one of the dogs that attacked the men. It might have even been one of the dogs that tried to get through the wall.
The dog came up to me and started licking my face. It was bleeding from a wound in its side.
I started moving again, but it was getting hard to walk, and I kept getting confused about which way to go. Then it began to snow. I stopped and looked around, not sure what I should do. First, I thought that I should keep walking, and then I thought that I should find someplace that I could get out of the snow. It took a while for me to make up my mind. It was so hard to think, like my brain was slowing down.
I left the stream and started looking around for someplace I could get under cover. The sun was almost gone now. I fell, and it was hard to get up. I felt really tired. I thought I heard something, far away voices calling my name. Were they real?
That's when I saw a dead tree still standing upright, with a big hole in its trunk. I tried to walk to it, but I fell again, and I couldn't get up. I crawled the rest of the way to it and got into the hole. The dog got in with me. Even though his fur was wet from the snow, he felt warm compared to me. I curled up next to him with my back against the tree and the dog between me and the hole.
It got darker and colder. It was weird, though, because I wasn't shivering anymore. When did I stop shivering? I didn't know. I felt really, really sleepy, and I wanted to just close my eyes and go to sleep. I decided that it would be okay if I took a nap.
Teal'c was able to pick up Danny's trail even in the rapidly darkening forest. We followed it to a large pine tree. Teal'c determined that Daniel climbed the tree, probably to hide from his pursuers.
"Good boy, Danny," I said.
The trail resumed in a northwest direction. After a little while, we came to a stream.
"Daniel Jackson is following the water downstream," Teal'c announced.
I smiled with pride. It was the right decision for Daniel to make. If the stream kept going in this direction, it would lead him to a residential area. But that was a good four miles away, an awfully long way for a child with no coat in freezing weather to walk.
We kept following the trail, calling out for Daniel repeatedly. I'm not sure how much time had passed when Teal'c stopped abruptly.
"Daniel Jackson tripped here and fell partly into the water."
Carter gasped. "Oh no. Colonel, if he got wet, hypothermia will set in even faster."
My stomach was a tight knot. "Yeah, I know."
We increased our pace, driven by the fear that Danny would die out there before we found him.
After a while, Teal'c stopped again. He knelt on the ground.
"Blood," he said.
That made me even more worried. "Daniel's?"
"No. There are dog tracks here. The dog appears to be following him. The blood belongs to it."
I recalled the tape showing the Rottweilers. One of them had escaped the fate of the other three. I had a sneaking suspicion that the tracks were made by that dog.
At that moment, the situation got a whole lot worse. It began to snow.
"Crap," I cursed. "This is really not good. We have to find Danny now." I looked around in the dim light. "Daniel! Daniel, it's Jack! Come on, Danny. Answer me!" There was no reply.
More yards were covered, Daniel's trail slowly getting covered by the snow. Hoping that he stuck to the stream, we kept to its bank, calling out frequently. We'd had to switch on our flashlights, the daylight all but gone.
Teal'c almost didn't notice when the trail left the stream. I know that I'd have missed it. We followed it just a few more yards and came to a spot where Daniel had apparently fallen again. And then we heard something, a low, menacing growl.
"The dog!" Carter cried. "It might be with Daniel!"
We swung our lights about. Mine caught the glow of a pair of eyes low to the ground. We hurried forward and came upon a sight that put my heart in my throat. Daniel was wedged inside the hollowed out truck of a dead tree, the dog lying beside him. His eyes were closed, and he wasn't moving.
"Daniel?" Sam called out in a trembling voice. She, Teal'c and I approached the tree. The dog snarled and bared its teeth. There was no doubt that it was seeking to protect Daniel, but its protection could kill him if it didn't allow us to reach him. Even if I'd wanted to, I couldn't shoot it. It was too close to Daniel. If we tried to get Daniel away from it, it would likely attack, and the last thing we needed was for one or more of us to get badly bitten.
"Hey, boy. It's okay," Carter said in a soft, soothing voice, taking a slow step forward and holding out her hand.
"That's right, boy," I said in the same tone. "We're friends. We want to help Daniel." I whistled softly, which made the dog's ears perk up. "Come on, boy. Good dog." I whistled again.
We cautiously moved toward the tree, continuing to talk to the dog. We were about eight feet away when I knelt and patted my leg.
"Come on, boy. Good dog!" The animal started to rise, then hesitated. "That's it! Good boy. Such a good dog!"
The dog got to its feet the rest of the way and slowly approached me. I kept encouraging it, holding my hand out to it. It sniffed my hand and drew closer. As soon as it was close enough, I started petting it.
"Good boy! That's a good dog." I received a tentative lick on the chin. "Carter, get to Daniel. Teal'c, take the dog. Talk nice and pet it."
I joined Carter at the tree, alarmed by Daniel's appearance.
"Sir, he's in bad shape," Carter said. "We need to get him warmed up fast."
We took Danny's wet shirt off, and I bundled him up in my coat, then lifted him up into my arms. His skin felt like ice.
"Carter, get on the radio and get one of those helicopters here. There might be a clear area nearby where it can land."
We headed in the direction of the complex, moving as fast as possible.
'Hang on, Danny,' I said silently. 'Hang on. Don't you leave us.'
By the time we got Daniel on the helicopter, he barely had a pulse. We tried everything we could to warm him. In the end, we stripped him down to his underwear, then I did the same and got under the blankets with him, trying to give my body heat to him. As I held him close, I feared that, at any moment, I'd feel his heart stop. I thought about Charlie, how I held his blood-covered body as he died. I didn't think I'd be able to take it if another child I cared so much about died in my arms.
The entire medical staff burst into a frenzy of activity the moment we arrived, all focused on the little boy whose life was hanging by a thread. Fraiser commanded her staff like a general, shooting off orders right and left. We heard terrifying things like ventricular fibrillation, fixed pupils, no brainwave pattern. When Janet began giving CPR, Carter started crying. I felt like every compression on Danny's chest was squeezing my heart. When they used the defibrillator on him, I couldn't breathe. After shocking him twice, Daniel's heart apparently returned to a steady rhythm.
We'd contacted the SGC ahead of time, so the infirmary had been prepared with everything they'd need to get Daniel's core temperature back up as quickly as they safely could. They put him in a tub of warm water, warm intravenous fluids running through his body and an oxygen mask giving him heated, humidified air.
"Is he going to be all right?" Carter asked Fraiser in a scared voice when the doctor took a moment to speak with us.
"It's too soon to tell, I'm afraid. His core temperature is down to seventy-six degrees. From what you've told me, it's a miracle he isn't dead. Getting wet like that would have dropped his temperature faster, and with his accelerated body functions, the cold would have set in even more quickly than it would in a normal person."
"I'm betting we have that dog to thank for Daniel being alive," I said. "It probably gave him enough warmth to keep him from freezing to death. And he kept his wits about him enough to find shelter."
"Well, we're trying our best to get his core temperature back up. I'm hoping that what we're doing will be enough. I'd rather not have to resort to more invasive procedures. Ironically, Daniel being a child is working in our favor. Children have a better chance at surviving hypothermia than adults do."
The minutes that passed were agonizing. We never left the infirmary, afraid to leave for even a second. Hammond joined us for a while. He told us that thirty-one men and women from the complex had been captured or killed. It looked like a few people might have gotten away. Among those captured was Peckham.
It appeared that the complex had been used for conducting various experiments. A team was now going through it, bagging and boxing stuff up for later examination. All the computers were being sent to the SGC so that we could go through them. That was Hammond's doing. The NID was going to take them, but he was concerned that if this group of rogue ex-NID operatives still had connections inside the NID, they'd manage to get someone in to destroy the data.
I was sitting in a chair, staring at the floor when Fraiser came up to us.
"He's going to be all right," she said with a smile. "We've managed to get his temperature back up to normal."
"Thank God," I said, finally letting my body relax.
"We're moving him into the ICU so that we can keep monitoring his heart, respiration and temperature and watch out for any complications."
"Has he woken up yet?" Carter asked.
"No, but he could at any time." She held up her hand before any of us could speak. "Yes, you can go sit with him."
We went to Danny's bed. He was under several blankets, looking so small and helpless. As I sat beside him, a tight lump formed in my throat. I could see that Carter was close to tears again.
"The men who are responsible for this must be punished," Teal'c stated.
"They will be, T," I assured him, "at least the ones we caught. Some of them may give us more information on this group. I'm going to do all I can to see it brought down."
We were with Daniel for just a few minutes when he let out a little whimper. "Jack, Sam, Teal'c," he murmured, moving restlessly, his face twisting into a look of fear.
I rested my hand on his head. "We're here, Danny. You're safe now."
Daniel's eyes blinked open and looked around in confusion. Then he saw us. He sat up and threw his arms around me, his body trembling.
"Shh. It's all right, Danny," I told him gently, rubbing his back. "You're in the mountain, safe and sound."
"I was so scared," he whispered.
"I know. But you're okay now, and those people will never come near you again. I swear it."
After a few more seconds, Daniel left my arms and went into Carter's. She began rocking him gently and whispering to him. It was Teal'c's turn next. The Jaffa's normally stoical face was full of emotion.
Hammond came in just then, and he got a long hug, too.
"How are you feeling, Daniel?" he asked in a gentle voice.
"Okay. I'm kind of tired, and I'm really hungry."
"I bet you are," I said. "It's pretty late, but how about if we get you a snack from the commissary?"
Daniel was all for that idea, and Fraiser said it was okay, so I got him a sandwich and some milk. He wolfed it down, barely pausing between bites.
Not long after every crumb was gone, Daniel's eyelids began to droop. A few minutes later, he was asleep.
"I'm sure he'll sleep through the night," the doc said, "though I suppose it's possible that he'll have a nightmare."
"One of us will sit with him," I told her.
Fraiser looked at us. "Sooner or later, we're going to have to discuss what Daniel did." She had been filled in on what we witnessed. "This isn't just a case of moving small objects about anymore. That kind of power under the control of a child is going to concern a lot of people."
I sighed. "Yeah. I'm betting that this is the end of Daniel's freedom. There's no way they'll let him out of here now, not until he's a whole lot older. I guess it's a good thing that Daniel won't be a child for very long."
The next morning, Fraiser ran Daniel through some scans, which revealed that activity in his brain had increased even more.
We took him to the briefing room, where he told us about his ordeal. I was so proud of him when he talked about standing up to the man that tried to 'recruit' him. That was our Daniel. Even at nine years old, he stuck to his principles.
When he told us about the dogs scratching at the wall, he suddenly stopped. "Where's the dog that found me? Is he okay?"
"He's just fine, Danny," I assured him. "One of the Marines is taking good care of him, probably treating him like a king. That dog probably saved your life."
"What about the other dogs? There were three more."
We all looked at each other, reluctant to tell him the truth.
"I'm afraid that they're dead, Daniel," I replied. "They were shot. The dog that found you was shot, too, but it was just a flesh wound."
Danny's eyes clouded up, and his head hung low. "They saved me from the men that were chasing me," he whispered.
Carter caressed his hair. "We know, Danny. We saw it on the tape. They were all very brave. We owe them a big thank you."
Daniel sniffled and wiped his eyes. Then he continued his narrative. My pride in him went up another notch when he told us about his escape plan and the way he slowly punched a hole through the wall. We were all concerned, however, when he revealed that doing it gave him a headache.
"It may be that using these abilities takes a physical toll on the body," Fraiser said. "This is something we're going to have to keep in mind."
We were silent during the moments that Daniel talked about what happened in that room with the chair. It was easy to see how scared he'd been. I guessed it was his fear that gave him the power to do what he did.
He recounted what he'd overheard while hiding from the men searching for him. Carter wrote down all the names. We were particularly interested in the man named Cavanaugh, who sounded like one of the people in charge. I figured that it was very possible that the man who talked to him was Cavanaugh and that Daniel might be able to identify the guy if we showed him some pictures.
We now knew what their plans had been for Danny. Brainwashing. Just the thought of someone brainwashing a child made me ill and so furious my blood boiled. A child wouldn't have had the ability to resist those kinds of procedures. They'd have turned Daniel into a slave to their will.
Despite the fact that he was here with us – safe, sound and healthy – it still chilled me to hear him talking about slowly freezing to death, getting sleepy and thinking it would be okay to take a nap. That was something we'd have to talk to him about, explain to him the dangers of hypothermia.
"I am so proud of you," I told Daniel after he finished. "This was a terrifying ordeal, but you handled it so well."
"Indeed you did," Hammond agreed.
Daniel's gaze fell to the table. "But I was scared."
Carter touched his arm. "Being scared doesn't mean that you're not brave, Daniel. Bravery is doing something in spite of being afraid. And you were very brave."
"You didn't give up, Daniel," I said. "You could have just sat there and done nothing. Or you could have given in and done what they wanted. Instead, you fought to escape."
"You showed great strength, determination and intelligence," Teal'c told him.
I smiled and tousled his hair. "Which is nothing less than what we'd expect from Doctor Daniel Jackson."
As we left the briefing room a while later, I thought about what was going to happen in the days ahead. I knew that the fallout from these events would be hitting us soon. I could only hope that it wasn't going to lead to big trouble.
THE END . . . until Part 7.