Though they attempted to move quietly, Jack still heard the movements of someone climbing the ladder to his rooftop observatory. For the moment, Jack pretended to ignore them as he continued to look through the eye piece of the powerful telescope. With his left hand, he made minute adjustments to the telescope's focus while his right hand slowly reached out for the handgun kept within easy reach. At almost the same moment, his hand closed around his weapon and the head and shoulders of a teenage boy appeared over the top of the ladder.
"Colonel O'Neill? Are you Colonel O'Neill?" the boy demanded.
"Who's asking?" Jack asked admiring the kid's spunk for coming up here at this time of night.
"Doug Masters," the teenager introduced himself as he climbed the remaining rungs of the ladder. "I live down the street," Masters explained as he stood uncertainly shifting from foot to foot.
Jack grunted in reply but released his grip on the handgun and reached for his beer bottle instead.
"They say you were black ops before you retired," the boy continued.
Jack took a second look at the kid. His voice a slow drawl that was more warning than curiosity as he asked, "Really?"
"I need your help, sir" Masters told the man all but ignoring him. "My dad's been shot down over the Gulf."
Jack winced slightly and quickly took a long hard pull from the bottle in his hand as his mind flashed to memories of his captivity in Iraq. "And?" Jack demanded of the kid.
"They're going to execute him in three days," Doug told the older man. "The Air Force isn't doing anything, sir. Please, sir. Please help me rescue my dad. I've got all the intel. I've got access to anything you need. Please! He's only got three days."
Looking at the kid, Jack thought about it. He had nothing better to do. He had returned home from the mission through the Stargate to find his things packed and waiting for him in the front hall of his home. Sara had finally had enough. She wanted him out of the house and out of her life. She wasn't the only one though. The Air Force didn't want him back either. They had no use for suicidal colonels who couldn't even die when they were told to.
"Tell me what you've got," Jack told the teenager knowing he couldn't leave a fellow officer in enemy hands if there was even the possibility of freeing him and that it was a better way to die than from the boredom slowly killing him now.