A/N: thanks to everyone who's commented.

Chapter 3

The boss wasted no time in answering. Swiftly he grabbed at the phone and calmly spoke into the receiver "we have hostages, if you come in here I can't guarantee their safety and the last thing you want is a room full of dead people." He listened for a few minutes, "well for starters we want a helicopter" the boss went quiet again as he continued to listen. "Not my problem, don't call again until you get me the man who can give me what I want" he said coldly and put the phone down then turned to his men "that must have bought us some time"

"We should just give ourselves up" argued robber number three. He's the weak link in the group, Sam thought.

"Do you wanna go to jail" the boss asked calmly.

"No" he replied sullenly.

"Cos that's what's gonna happen, for the rest of your miserable pathetic life. We killed a guy and we've got a room full of witnesses. Now trust me, I'll get us out of this."

"You'd better" said robber number one coldly as he walked away.

Jack entered his office and shut the door behind him firmly, finally a moment of peace. He had been in meetings all morning. He scrubbed his hand over his face and through his hair trying to shake the fatigue. Why did he have to come in on a Saturday? Oh yeah that's why. He thought as he eyed the stack of folders on his desk. He grabbed the report for his next meeting and sat down. He needed to focus, but all he wanted to do was go home and wait for his wife to get there. He had a little surprise waiting for her and he couldn't wait to see her face. He was pulling out all the stops. Flexing his romantic muscles and cooking her a special dinner, he'd even bought fancy champagne, flowers and chocolate. Yep he grinned, she's gonna be so surprised. He really just wanted to blow her socks off. Simple as that. Render her speechless for once, well, maybe just for a few minutes.

For Jack it wasn't just about having the women of his dreams, but keeping her his. It wasn't that he was insecure or anything but he saw the looks she got from the opposite sex, hell even the ladies looked. She barely noticed and after waiting so long to be together, and almost losing her to the cop, he wasn't about to let a moment go by without letting her know how much she meant to him . The phone on his desk rang. Jack sighed but dutifully reached over and pushed the talk button.

His assistant Dana's voice rang through the line "sir, I have a sheriff Woodward on the line from Colorado springs. He says it's urgent."

"Thanks Dana, you can patch him through," Jack sat down at his desk and lifted the receiver to his ear wondering idly why his old poker buddy was calling him. "Hey Andy, what's up? Everything alright with the kids?"

"Jack, it's not good" the serious tone of his friends voice immediately set his teeth on edge as he listened to the rest of what he had to say "we have a situation, and there's no easy way to say this." He heard the hesitation in his voice, it didn't sit well.

"Okay, I'm listening"

"We have a hostage situation at Chase bank in town and one of the hostages is Samantha Carter"

"Are you sure how do you know?"

"We've managed to get access to their security feed and I recognised her."

"How long?"

"3 hours, we've got a hostage negotiator here but it's been slow going" this was not the first time he had been informed of Sam being missing, injured or captured, either during or after the fact however, it was the first time it didn't have anything to do with the stargate.

"She's looking okay, Jack."

"She can handle herself" he said confidently.

"I thought you might want to know"

"Yeah thanks," Jack put the phone down. Then snatched it back up again as an idea occurred to him. "Dana, reschedule my next meeting, in fact clear the rest of the day."

….

Sherriff Andrew Woodward put his phone back in his pocket. That wasn't the reaction he was expecting from his friend but he was not your typical kinda guy. Back when he still lived in Colorado Springs they had a regular poker game every Thursday night. He worked under Cheyenne Mountain doing deep space telemetry.

Yeah right. With the amount of injuries the guy had over the years, not to mention sometimes going missing for months at a time, either he was just highly accident prone or it was a cover story. A pretty bad one.

He suspected Jack was black ops, though why they were based under the mountain he couldn't figure out,but he never asked and Jack never gave anything away. There was that one time he tried to set him up on a date but Jack flat out refused. It was only years later when he stopped by Jacks house unexpectedly, that he got introduced to his team and when you worked with a smart hot blond like that every day, every other women would pale in comparison. Poor guy, mooning over a girl he couldn't have, and if they were doing it on the sly they were doing a real good job of hiding it.

The FBI had stepped in as soon as he requested the hostage negotiator. They had a nice setup. They had hacked into the banks security cameras and so far the robbers hadn't realised they were being watched. Sam however, she was one smart cookie and every now and then she would look up at the cameras. That's what made him recognise her. Watching her on screen now she was keeping it cool, every now and then she'd whisper something to the teenage girls on her right. The guy on her left seemed agitated but he was calm for the most part. They switched between cameras and watched as one of the robbers, the big burley guy disappeared into the manager's office.

Robber number one walked up and down between the hostages .They instinctively shied away from him as he passed by. People were getting anxious. For the most part the robbers ignored them, which gave them hope that they'd be left alone. The pregnant girl and the older man had been allowed to sit on the couches again.

"Well I can get you all something to eat and drink. You must be getting hungry and thirsty in there" said the FBI hostage negotiator, "but you gotta give us something in return, a show of good faith." He paused as he listened, and then continued, "One of the hostages." He listened again. ", look you gotta throw me a bone here, we want a peaceful resolution for everybody. You gotta show us you're willing to work with us, so I can convince my bosses to get you your helicopter, and letting one of the hostages go is the way to do that" another pause as the FBI agent listened. "You can have some time to think it over; I'll call back in 10 minutes." He put the phone down and updated the room.

"If he agrees, we can get audio inside the bank. Right now he doesn't know that we've got eyes on them"

On screen, they watched as he said something to his comrades. It was clear that he was the leader. The boss of this little gang and he wasn't discussing anything with them. He was making decisions autonomously and his teammates seemed to follow his orders without question. Everything depended on him and Sheriff Woodward hoped the guy would do the right thing.

"Sir, this is a restricted area. You're not allowed back here" came the voice of one of his officers just outside their command post.

"Brigadier General Jack O'Neill" the man said as he barged into the tiny room. "Now who's going to give me an update on this situation?"

"With all due respect sir, this is a civilian matter" the hostage negotiator piped up. "You have no jurisdiction here. I'll have to ask you to leave."

"I know this guy, I'll take it from here" said the sheriff unbelievingly as he escorted Jack out.

"Jack, how the hell did you get here so fast?" he said confused.

"You can't just call me up, tell me Sam's in danger and not expect me to come down here"

"But how…" he stuttered, still a little shocked and a whole lot confused.

"Never mind that, it's classified. Now tell me you have a plan to get my wife out of there"

His wife…

Oh, shit.

….

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