As soon as Sam was out of his sight, Jack regretted letting her go alone. She could barely walk and considering how many blows to the head she must have taken, there was a good chance she had a concussion as well.
The only thing he could do now was to get to Daniel and Teal'c. The sooner he neutralized the threat, the sooner he could get back to her.
He had circled the cabin, the opposite way from Sam, staying low and as close to the wall as he could. He didn't like going up against a hostile threat in nothing but his soaking wet pajamas and a stolen rifle, but there really was no choice. What he would have given for his old P90 back though.
Reaching his bedroom window yet again he was glad that he had left it open just a crack. He was able to wedge his thumb in and raise it up, ever so slowly, ears on high alert for any sign that he'd been detected.
He also wasn't crazy about the fact that he would be completely vulnerable for the few seconds it would take him to scramble up the rough log wall, but as with everything that had happened today, no one had asked his opinion.
Threading his arm through the strap on the rifle, Jack slung it onto his back, grabbed the window ledge in both hands and pulled himself up for a brief look inside. Blessedly the room was empty. Even better the door to the main room was almost completely closed, but just slightly ajar.
It was now or never he thought. He scrambled up as quickly as possible, squeezed through the open window and landed in an undignified, but at least silent, heap on the ground. He didn't give himself any time to recover and in a heartbeat had the rifle pulled tight into his shoulder and pointed at the door in case anyone heard something and came to investigate.
He lowered himself down to the ground and crawled towards the door, swinging wide to avoid the squeaky floorboard at the end of his bed. He finally reached the door and peered through the crack. He could just make out Teal'c and Daniel kneeling in front of the fireplace. By the look of them they hadn't fared any better than Sam. Daniel's left eye was almost completely swollen shut, and there was blood staining the front of Teal'c shirt. There were three men standing behind them and two more on the couch. That left three more that he couldn't see.
He decided to risk tipping them off. He waved his hands back and forth, and he was almost certain that Teal'c had caught sight of him out of the corner of his eye, but his impassive face gave away nothing. He pointed towards the front of the house, and mimed an explosion with his hands. Teal'c head inclined a fraction of an inch. Not much but hopefully he had gotten the message. He settled in to wait for Sam to get into position.
Sam leaned against the side of the cabin and took a deep breath, trying to keep her focus. She wasn't about to admit just how hard her head was pounding and how much her leg was throbbing. How all she wanted was a handful of painkillers and to sleep for a day. Preferably in Jack's arms.
He must have known, he knew her well enough. But he still let her go. He didn't want to, she had seen it in his eyes, she recalled wryly. Above everything else though he trusted her. And she was not about to let him, or Daniel and Teal'c down.
She slipped around the corner of the cabin, and lowered herself down onto the front porch. Her injured leg screamed in protest, but it was only a few feet to the broken window where the Trust agents had thrown in the smoke bombs what felt like days ago, even though she knew it had only been a couple hours.
Slowly she crawled, clenching her jaw to keep from yelling out. The whole porch threatened to upend her as she resolutely put one hand in front of the other. The distance had stretched out, she was never going to make it. The blackness at the edges of her vision started to close in and her stomach heaved.
No, she screamed in her mind. Almost there. She pushed back the darkness through sheer determination and finally, finally, hand over hand, she looked up to see that she was right underneath the window.
She sat upright and collapsed against the wall panting. She wanted to rest, just for a moment. But she was sure that it had already taken her much longer than it should have to cross the porch and the longer she waited, the greater chance Jack had of being discovered inside.
She pulled Malcolm's radio off her waistband and clicked it two times. She heard the sound echo inside as everyone's radio's went off at once. There was yelling but she didn't take the time to listen, pulling the pin out of the flash bang she tossed it in then hunched over, closed her eyes as tightly as possible, covered her ears and waited.
What was taking Sam so long? Jack thought, trying not to count the seconds since they had separated. It should only have taken a few minutes for her to cross the porch. With only one radio, they had settled on her taking it, and clicking in on the wide band frequency. With any luck, he'd be able to hear it from inside.
He knew all too well that this wasn't exactly a foolproof plan. Sam had a whole slew of injuries to contend with and he was still in his pajamas for crying out loud. He could feel the panic rising in his chest and he fought to shove it back down. There was no sounds or indication that she'd been recaptured. And it was Sam, she could handle herself. She had never let him down before.
He could hear sounds over the radio clearly from the other room, two clicks, just as they'd planned. Relief poured into him, as shouts broke out, but he'd told her not to wait, so he covered his head as he heard something clunk onto the floor in the other room.
He thought he heard Teal'c yell something just before it went off and light flooded through his closed lids and the sound sent his ears ringing loudly.
He gave it half a second before he was on his feet. He swung the door open and blazed into the room rifle sweeping wide, identifying hostiles as he went. They were still blinded and fumbling around and he dropped three before they even realized what was going on.
"Jack!" he heard Daniel yell, giving him just enough warning to drop to his knee behind the couch just a bullet flew past where his head had been a moment before. He heard a shot, and a grunt, before there was clatter and Jack popped his head up to see that Teal'c had wrestled the shooter down to the ground.
Four down, four to go, he thought to himself as he scanned the room. A shot came from the kitchen and he ducked back down again.
"Teal'c!" he yelled. There was the sickening crunch of what sounded suspiciously like bone being shattered.
"Yes, O'Neill?" Teal'c yelled back.
"Kitchen!" he yelled as another shot was fired his way. Two quick shots in quick succession followed by the sound of two dull thuds told him Teal'c had found a weapon and taken out two more assailants that were in the kitchen.
That just leaves two, he thought. He was beginning to think they were going to pull this off after all when out of nowhere one of the remaining agents popped up from the floor and began running towards the front door, firing wildly as he went. One of the bullets hit the remains of the already shattered front window and blew the remainder of the glass outwards, to where he knew Sam was concealed on the porch.
"No!" he yelled, standing up from behind the couch. He didn't care that he'd given up his cover, he didn't even think that there were still hostile forces in the room. He was terrified that Sam had gotten hit again and yet again it would be his fault.
He had to get to her, it was the only thought in his mind. He dropped the man right before he reached the door and was starting towards it when he felt the muzzle of a gun in his back.
Shit, he thought. One left.