"Where the hell is Carter?" Jack raged at the group surrounding them. "People don't just disappear!"
"If we could help you, Colonel, we would," Rina assured him, "but no one has seen her since you and I left. She must have wandered off of her own volition."
"Funny you felt the need to specify that last part," he snarled.
"Is that an accusation, Colonel?" Ambassador Ferin asked.
"You bet your ass it is. I want my teammate. Now."
"As I told you, Colonel-"
"You have no idea where she is," Daniel interrupted, waving a hand at Rina to cut her off. "Excuse me for being blunt, but that's a lie. There are cameras everywhere. You could find her if you wanted to. You could tell us exactly where she is, and you won't."
"My men have been sweeping the cameras," a uniformed officer told them. "Wherever she is, she's out of range."
"But you know where she was," Jack pressed. "You know where she was and you could follow her to where she is. I want to see that footage. I want to see Caten, and I want to see the tapes from Lab Four."
The ambassador shook his head. "As you can imagine, Colonel, there is highly sensitive work happening in these laboratories. I'm afraid that footage won't be made available."
"She was already in there!"
"O'Neill is correct," Teal'c spoke up. "Major Carter spent the majority of the day in Laboratory Four. You obviously did not care to keep that information 'sensitive' before. It is curious that you have changed your minds now that she is missing."
"You're welcome to look around that lab all you want," the cop told him with a shrug, "but you're not getting that footage."
"Why not?" Daniel asked.
"Policy," the ambassador said simply.
"Not good enough," Jack challenged.
"Colonel," Rina tried with that same patronizing smile he'd wanted to smack off her face for the last hour. "We have been most generous. We have shared our technology, our culture-"
"You've kidnapped a member of my team."
"Enough," Ferin snapped. "Intimations and allusions are one thing, but I will not stand for such outright accusations. Consider your welcome here outlived, Colonel. You will return to your world immediately. When Major Carter is located, she will be sent back to you."
Jack's Beretta was in his hand and leveled at the other man's forehead in a millisecond. Teal'c was only a blink behind. "I'm not leaving without my people," their leader growled. "All of them. Bring me Carter. Right now."
~/~
General Hammond frowned at the Stargate as Daniel Jackson stepped through with his hand in the air, as though signaling surrender. He dropped them immediately as he cleared the event horizon, turning back to watch the rest of SG-1 return. Teal'c was next, his hands behind him – and unless the general missed his guess, they were tied there. Then came Colonel O'Neill, stumbling as though he'd been shoved, and Jackson caught his arm to keep him from tripping and faceplanting on the ramp. The colonel's hands, too, were bound. And he was limping. And bleeding from one eye.
And the Gate shut off.
Hammond's hand was on the microphone switch immediately. "SG-1, where is Major Carter?"
Doctor Jackson's face was drawn. "About that…."