Hostage Situation
Part Four
When Sara Mulholland came into work this morning, it had been just another weekday. An hour later, it was anything but 'just another day.'
Now, around the time she would usually have been having lunch, she sat and watched Mike Stambaugh as he watched her.
He looked older than she remembered. Then again, she supposed with a hint of dry humour, she probably looked older than he remembered, too. Age was rarely kind to people after they turned thirty - and thirty was quite a number of years behind her now.
He looked harder, more bitter, though. She remembered hearing about his wife's death a few years ago, with a touch of regret. In the wake of Charlie's death and her subsequent separation and divorce from Jack, Sara had lost touch with a lot of friends who she'd known through the Air Force and Jack's career. Now, those people seemed to come from a different time and place, a different life - one that she no longer lived.
She'd never imagined that she would look at him and see the face of her captor.
"It's been several years," she said in as conversational a tone as she could manage.
"Yes. You haven't aged that much," he told her, lightly.
"It's nice of you to say so," she responded, just as lightly. "Not so nice to be cooped up."
"I know," he said, smiling slightly. "But more necessary than you can know."
Sara looked at him, "What do you want?"
His laugh was short and bitter. "What do I want? Too many things, Sara. Too many things that I will never have." He paused. "And some that I will." For a moment, she thought he might stop there, but he shrugged and continued. "I'm truly sorry to do this, but, if it's any consolation, you're just the bait and I don't intend to hurt you."
It wasn't much of a consolation, at least not from Sara's point of view. After all, she and six co-workers had spent the morning locked in a room full of office supplies. They'd heard gunfire before three living SWAT members and one dead one were dumped in with them. She'd spent a good half-hour after that comforting one of her panicking co-workers who was utterly convinced that they'd been herded in the storeroom to die.
Dying was definitely not on Sara's list of things to do today.
The first set of SWATs had only been able to tell them that both SWAT and the Denver Police were doing something about the situation. The second set of SWATs had been more informative - at least to Sara. They'd told the hostages of Stambaugh's demands: specifically, the one demanding the presence of Colonel Jack O'Neill of Cheyenne Mountain.
Jack O'Neill, whom Sara hadn't seen in years. She thought of him from time to time, usually when something reminded her specifically of him, but otherwise... Their paths never crossed, and there was little reason for them to see each other
You're just the bait...
"Why do you hate him?" She asked Mike, quietly.
He arched a brow at her, "You don't know?"
"I don't."
The thick lip curled, "Perhaps you don't at that. It's not exactly the kind of thing you tell your wife..." He paused as the building lights went off around them and the air conditioning died. "Ah. It seems the SWAT commander has decided to follow standard procedure in hostage situations. Turn off the electricity and air-conditioning with it, make things uncomfortable for the captor and give him something to think about." He smiled briefly at her, not unkindly, but certainly not nicely. "Shall we give them something to think about?"
Mike indicated the door, and Sara moved without protest, preceding him out of the office. She'd read somewhere that it was better to follow instructions of the captor when taken as a hostage. A person using violent force to achieve his means was probably mentally unstable. Outright denial of his demands would push such a person over the edge; and insanity was difficult to predict.
As she passed through the door, she heard him open a desk drawer and withdraw something metallic from it. She heard the scrape of the device against the table, something clattering with a slight metallic jingle; but while her curiosity was piqued, she didn't look around. Then she heard his voice, calm and matter-of-fact. "To the storeroom. We're going to collect one of our hostages."
Sara wasn't so sure about the 'our' part.
At the storeroom, she was instructed to open the door and call for the Captain of the first SWAT team. She hadn't had a chance to speak to him before, and read his concern in the glance he gave her as he walked past. A quick nod reassured him that she was fine.
"Shut the door, Sara," Mike told her.
As the door clicked shut behind her, she heard a crash and turned.
She wasn't sure of what she'd expected to see. The SWAT Captain was collapsed against one of the office desks, his hand gripping the edges with white-knuckled intensity. By contrast, Michael Stambaugh looked as casual as a man about to choose his lunch. He walked across to the SWAT Captain, and held his left hand - encased in some kind of golden glove-like thing - over the man's forehead.
Later, Sara was never sure quite what happened. There seemed to be some kind of light emitting from the palm of the glove. It was burning down onto the forehead of the hapless man, and yet, rather than push Mike's hand away, the Captain was just staring up at the light as though hypnotised.
"What...?" She never got past the first word. Without even looking behind him, Mike's other hand came up, pointing a gun at her.
"Shut up, Sara," he said, and his tone was still dangerously conversational, even as the Captain collapsed back against the desk. His lids drooped heavily over his eyes, but he was still alive at least.
That changed very quickly.
"Open the balcony door," Mike said, finally taking his eyes from the Captain and looking at Sara. "Nice and wide. And don't step out onto the balcony - unless you care to take a long trip down..."
She obeyed him. A part of her was screaming at her to rebel, to disobey, to protest - to do something and not just follow his orders like a meek little idiot. But another part of her asked if she was ready to die, and she wasn't. Not yet. So she opened the door, sliding it back and raising her eyes as far as she dared to see what was happening below. Somewhere down there, Jack was amidst the people congregating, working out the next move, how to get her and her co-workers free.
Something barrelled past her, out the door, nearly stumbling on the step. She had time for one moment of stunned realisation, and one inchoate cry of horror, and then the SWAT Captain vaulted over the edge of the balcony and was falling, falling, falling...
Her knuckles whitened on the cold, irregularly-shaped metal of the door handle, even before she heard the sickening thud of his landing.
"Shut the door, Sara," Mike said beside her. His voice was gentle, as if he was talking to a child.
She shut the door on automatic. Her senses were numb, even as she heard the alarm and shock reverberate up from below, a cacophony of human horror at his defenestration. "You..."
He was removing the glove-like thing from his arm, and looked utterly unrepentant at her revulsion. "I am what they made me, Sara," he told her calmly. "Just as Jack is what they made him." He looked her in the eye. "And Jack has done as bad, if not worse in his time."
She wasn't sure if she wanted to believe that. Jack had never told her what he'd had to do during his missions. So she had never asked beyond what she needed to know to ease his state of mind. And she had to admit that the ignorance had made things easier on her.
"You know they won't forgive you for that," she managed.
"I know," he said. "But Jack will rein them in."
He was putting a lot of trust in Jack's ability to placate the local law enforcement. Trust that Sara was not entirely sure was well-placed.
She pointed at the hand-glove device. "What's that?"
He smiled, a hollow, empty smile, as his hand slipped into his jacket and brought out the gun again. "Nothing that concerns you," he told her with soft menace. "And I think it's time we had a talk with Jack."
As Mike connected up to wherever Jack was, Sara watched him, trying to define what was bothering her about him. He moved differently now to the way he did in her memory, almost sinuous, with an arrogance that seemed a bit much - even for one of the men who'd worked with her husband.
The number was dialled and, a few moments later, he turned on the speakerphone. Jack's drawl echoed through the empty room.
"...have a bunch of worried people here. They don't know what you're planning next."
The sound of his voice made her heart skip a beat. Soft with pretended ease, tense with concern, it reminded her of over ten years of marriage and all the ups and downs therein. Sara Mulholland knew her ex-husband in all his moods and right now, he was worried and working hard to hide it.
"Of course they don't, Jack," Mike said, mild as a stranger in the street. "Telling you would spoil all the fun! Don't worry. If they don't escalate, I won't escalate. Remind them that I know the way the game works and if they keep following the track they're going, they won't like where they end up."
"Yeah, I told them that already."
"I'm a little surprised you didn't manage to hold them back earlier. Losing your charm?"
There was a pause at the other end of the line. "Mike, we'd like some assurance that the hostages are okay. Well, except for the one you tossed off the balcony ten minutes ago. Obviously he's not okay." Sara heard the bite of Jack's irritation. With Mike? Maybe with someone else?
"Yeah, that was a bummer. But you know, he threw himself off."
"Because people do that all the time." The sarcasm dripped from Jack's voice.
Mike looked at her, "No, really he did," he said, and his very earnestness was just as mocking as Jack's sarcasm. "Sara saw him jump, didn't you, Sara?"
"Sara's there?"
"Jack." She didn't know what to say. What did you say to your ex-husband when you hadn't talked for years? "We're all okay. The people up here, I mean. A little hungry, but we have bottled water that the SWAT guys figured would last us quite a while." She felt like an idiot, rambling away, but she didn't have any idea about what Michael wanted her to say. Her idea of what Jack needed to know was only slightly better, anyway.
"Okay, you're all good. That's good." It warmed her a little to hear the relief in his voice. Even if they were no longer in love, it was somehow comforting to know that she still mattered to him in a personal way. "Stay okay, and it'll be right. And tell Mike that the less people he kills, the more likely he'll get out of this in one piece."
Mike laughed, giving her no chance to answer him. "In one piece, Jack? Oh, that's rich, truly rich! You and I both know that you can't afford to let me 'get out of this in one piece' as you put it."
There was a telling silence on the other end of the line before Jack answered. "We might be able to offer you some things in exchange for certain pieces of information..."
"How many butts did you have to kiss to get that kind of concession, Jack?"
"You wouldn't believe me if I told you."
"Quite probably not. Speaking of telling people, Jack, did you ever tell Sara about Mary?" Mike's gaze fixed on her, dark eyes glittering oddly.
A frown appeared in his voice. "Depends exactly what you think I was supposed to tell her."
"What about the affair you started with Mary back in '86?"
As Sara's stomach turned leaden, her first instinct denial. Jack would never do that to her. But she was a military wife, and knew the liabilities of a husband who was far from home for many months of the year. She had heard of other wives dealing with their husband's infidelities, but she had never been faced with it in Jack before. If he had used prostitutes, or seen other women while he was working overseas, he never mentioned them to her, or asked her forgiveness.
"It would have been difficult to tell her that," Jack said, harshly, "Considering I never had an affair with Mary, then or ever."
His assertion was comforting. Jack didn't lie. He might not tell her the whole truth about himself and the work he did, but he didn't lie.
"Mary said you did."
"Then she lied."
"Ah. So these would be the lies she wrote about in her diaries running back as far as '86?"
"I can't speak for what she wrote in her diaries," Jack retorted. "But I can speak for myself."
"I'm sure you can, Jack. I'm sure you can." Mike drawled, but his eyes were ice-cold. "Denial, as they say, is not merely a river in Egypt." Sara tried not to shiver as he watched her; in that moment, they hardly seemed human.
"So this is revenge, then?"
Mike paused, "I prefer to think of it as justice."
"To involve someone who isn't a part of all this is justice? Exactly how do you figure that?"
"You know, Jack, you're not doing a very good job as negotiator. You shouldn't be aggravating me. I might throw more innocent SWATs off the balcony." The innuendo of the world 'innocent' made it quite clear Stambaugh considered the SWATs about as innocent as mass murderers.
"And here I thought you said he jumped," Jack said sharply.
"Not as stupid as you make yourself out to be, Colonel."
"But stupid enough to aggravate you." There was something in Jack's voice that Sara couldn't identify. She felt as thought the two men were holding a conversation over and above her head and she was just missing the point. "What do you really want, Stambaugh?"
"The world is not enough, Colonel. But it's a perfect place to start."
"Cute. If you think we're going to let you..."
"Colonel, Colonel, Colonel," Mike said, amusement in his voice as his hand hovered over the disconnect button of the phone. "Exactly how do you plan to stop me?" His hand descended and any reply Jack was going to make was cut off.
Sara stared at Mike. There had been a few seconds when he'd looked nothing like the man she used to know, strange and a stranger. Now he looked as usual.
The dark eyes stared at her with disconcerting intensity. "Are you afraid of me?"
"Should I be?"
"Tau'ri bravado," he said, or something that sounded like that. "You always try to make yourself more than what you are." As she looked at him in blank incomprehension, an expression of regretful finality crossed his face. "I think it's time you went back into the storeroom."
As he shut the door on her and her fellow captives, she watched. And saw his eyes flash an eerie gold in the second before the door closed.
But what that meant, she didn't know.
----
"Hey, Shanahan, what's the deal with your girlfriend and her crew?"
The question was soft and low, pitched to be inaudible to humans standing beyond a six yard range.
Teal'c was not human.
Without his primta, some of Teal'c's skills and abilities had remained, while others had fallen aside. He had learned to compensate for what he no longer had so as not to be a burden on his friends. And his hearing was still excellent.
As he stood out in the sun, perfectly still beneath the summer sky, Teal'c turned his bandanna-covered head slowly to the sky, angling his ear so he could better hear the conversation. He was not above eavesdropping where he considered it necessary, and since the matter pertained to his team, he saw no reason to make his awareness of the conversation known to the speakers.
"I don't know."
"Well, you should," said the first voice, peevishly. "They weren't even called in to look after the problem in the first place. They were supposed to advise on Stambaugh and his background - and the next minute they're running this op."
"It's bad enough that we had SWAT all over this," grumbled a second voice. "But at least they don't keep secrets like these guys."
Teal'c was very much aware of the disgruntlement of both SWAT and Police Department regarding the manner in which O'Neill had taken over the operations. He had overheard various comments throughout the morning, brief comments of irritation, sneering or annoyance.
Detective Shanahan became defensive, "Look, they work on a classified project..."
"Yeah. Classified against plebs like us," said the second voice with no small amount of resentment. "C'mon, Pete. You're sleeping with the chick, right? She doesn't tell you anything?"
"I'm not authorised to know about the work she does."
It appeared that Detective Shanahan had learned some form of discretion since his ill-advised attempt to follow Major Carter around in pursuit of the knowledge of what she did. O'Neill had been informed of the attempt via sources at the NID, and he had passed the information on to Teal'c with the injunction to keep his eyes open in case Detective Shanahan caused further trouble for the SGC. So far, there had been no trouble that Teal'c had discerned; however it was quite clear that Shanahan still smarted from the knowledge that he was not privy to the full secrets of the SGC.
"Right. What they really mean by 'you're not authorised' is, 'you're not worthy to be informed of what we're worthy to be informed of.'"
"Yep. Besides, how do we really know what's going on? I mean, this whole 'experimental technology' thing? Does it sound like a cover-up or what?"
"And your girlfriend? I mean, no offence, man, but...she's hot."
"Yeah. Have you seen the way that O'Neill looks at her?"
"It's not like that."
"Pete, use your big head to think for a minute, will you? The SWAT guys figure they're screwing - and these guys know body language."
"They don't have a lot of personal space around each other," said the second voice, almost apologetically.
"Yeah, didn't she shrug you off this morning, Shanahan?"
Silence. Teal'c risked a glance in the direction from which the voices were coming, and spotted Shanahan in the throes of a strong emotion. Anger, perhaps. It was little surprise, considering the provocation of his colleagues. The emotion was acceptable, however the expression of it was what concerned Teal'c. He did not consider Detective Shanahan to be a particularly self-controlled man.
"That was different," came the answer, but slowly and reluctantly. "She said she had her professional standing to think of..."
"Yeah. Sure. Professional standing? If you ask any of the Air Force personnel about the deal with O'Neill and her, they all hedge away from the subject. And the ones that will say anything all say that the two have 'the highest respect' for each other, but ask them anything more and they clam."
"Okay," Detective Shanahan interrupted. "Do you mind? This is my girlfriend you're talking about. Yeah, she and O'Neill are friends. They've worked together for seven years..."
"Seven years working with that body and not jump her?" The first speaker sniggered. "Sorry, man, but don't let the pretty face fool you. It's the lookers that screw you up, because they know they can."
"Johnson, if you go any further, you'll get a faceful of my fist."
"Easy, man, I'm just telling you..."
"And I'm just telling you to shut up."
There was a moment when Teal'c thought that a fight would break out over the matter, before the second man spoke again. This time, his tones were conciliatory. "Look, Shanahan, I'm not saying the girl is cheating on you, but at the least you should get her to tell you about the real deal of what's going with the hostage situation. Because we've been fed enough bullshit to make a mushroom choke."
Teal'c wondered how many other personnel present at the site felt the same incredulity as the two police officers; both regarding the situation and regarding O'Neill and Samantha Carter's relationship. He wondered what the officers would do if he went over to them and informed them that he had overheard their conversation. It would be most interesting to witness their responses.
However, he did had neither the time, nor the inclination to act in such a manner at this moment.
O'Neill had been called back into the community centre by the Goa'uld's second call, and many of the officers had followed him to hear what was to be said. Only the emergency medical teams remained on the street to collect and clean up the body of the SWAT officer who had died.
Instinctively, Teal'c knew the Goa'uld had striven to make a point; to show that it was ruthless and would not relent for anything or anyone. It did not expect mercy from the Tau'ri who besieged it, and it would not grant it to the Tau'ri it held in its grasp. Mercy was not a Goa'uld concept.
"...accused O'Neill of screwing with his wife." A third voice added itself to the three police officers who had been speaking before.
It took much of Teal'c's self-control not to turn and show he was listening. He did, however, shift slightly, the better to hear the nasal resonance of the speaker who was regaling his associates with the story.
"...the wife apparently kept diaries that detailed her affair with O'Neill..."
"Told you he was a dog," said the first voice with knowledgeable satisfaction.
"Winters..."
"Hey, I'm just saying..."
"We know what you're just saying," Detective Shanahan snapped. "Already heard it."
"Hey, I'm not suggesting that your girlfriend's cheating on you..."
"Oh really? Because it sounded like it to me."
"...I'm just suggesting that it wouldn't do to be too trusting of her around him. Isla from communications was nearly slavering when he sat down and asked her about the communications security."
"Isla's married, isn't she?"
"Well, she says she is. So if he has the happily married ones drooling over him..."
The conversation broke off as the doors opened and O'Neill strode out, his expression like a thundercloud, with the glint of dangerous lightning. Teal'c caught sight of Daniel Jackson briefly framed in the doorway before someone's hand came down on his shoulder, restraining him. The doors swung shut, cutting off all sight within.
O'Neill carefully avoided any personnel, sitting down amidst a set of children's equipment, his head in his hands.
Teal'c considered going to speak with his friend but, in the end, chose to leave him in the children's playground alone. There was nothing Teal'c could say to appease his friend. In holding back Daniel Jackson, someone else had recognised that O'Neill would not appreciate his company at this time.
"I wonder if it's true," muttered the newest addition to the quartet.
"She wrote it in her diary," noted one of the others.
"I dunno. He doesn't seem like the type..."
"He isn't."
"Is that a touch of wishful thinking I'm hearing, Shanahan?"
Someone else sniggered. "It may very well be. Look who's just come out of the centre."
Major Carter's blonde head was distinctive as she walked out the doors of the community centre. She glanced around, her gaze flickering over the groups of people when she spotted Teal'c. "Teal'c."
"Major Carter." Teal'c glanced beyond her to the distant playground where O'Neill sat. "You are certain you wish to go after O'Neill?"
Her eyes flickered towards the playground, but she didn't move from her spot. "I know where he's coming from," she said with a shrug of ruefulness. She didn't ask him how he knew what she was referring to; the assumption of understanding was implicit.
"Your standing has not been damaged among the personnel of the SGC. Neither will his."
Major Carter's smile was weary. "I don't know about that, Teal'c. Sleeping your way up the promotions ladder might be considered marginally better than adultery. Or maybe worse."
Teal'c's eyes narrowed. He had heard the rumours from the police officers, but he had not realised they had gone beyond mere talk. "Has someone offered you insult, Major Carter?"
She shook her head. "Not quite, Teal'c. Just..." She glanced around. "I think I'm just feeling a little...paranoid."
No good would come of telling her that her paranoia was justified. Samantha Carter was sensitive to rumours, even if she tried not to let them stick. As Teal'c knew well, damaging rumours could effectively stall an officer's career, and there was little way to counter such lies. "It is a difficult situation, Major Carter."
She flashed him a brief smile. "And the Colonel's having a bad day of it."
"Indeed." Teal'c inclined his head to her. "O'Neill will welcome your presence."
"Oh, I don't know about that," she dismissed, and lightly changed the topic to more serious matters. "Teal'c, I've reached the limit of the information I can gather about the technology Stambaugh's got. But I have a feeling the Colonel is going want us to go in there shortly, so we'll need a plan for getting in. I'd do it myself, but..." She indicated O'Neill's hunched form over in the playground.
"I shall endeavour to find us a way, Major Carter."
"Thanks, Teal'c." She looked over at the man who was sitting in one of the swings, facing away from them so he didn't have to see their expressions. "I'm not even sure I want to approach this..."
Aware that she was seeking approval or censure of her actions, Teal'c gave what little he could without effusion. "O'Neill will listen to you, Samantha Carter."
Her appreciation of his encouragement was no more than the briefest of smiles, but it lit up her face. And Teal'c was pleased to have boosted her self-confidence just a little. "Thanks, Teal'c." Her hand brushed by his arm, a brief touch of approbation before she walked off in the direction of the playground, the sunlight glinting across the gold highlights of her hair.
"Not even a second glance." The first voice murmured.
"Shut up, Winters."
Shanahan's companions watched him stalk off, in the opposite direction to O'Neill and Major Carter, and Teal'c heard someone ask something that sounded much like, "What's that about?"
He did not stay to hear any more.
Detective Shanahan would bear careful watching in the future, particularly after the rumours spread about by his colleagues. Teal'c would not interfere on the basis of rumour and uncertainty, but he would observe and watch; and if his observations warranted action, then he would act.
In the meantime, Major Carter had charged him with a task that he must undertake. From his study of the blueprints and the previous paths attempted by the SWAT teams, Teal'c had observed several possible points of entry for SG-1.
There was sense in SG-1 going in to confront Stambaugh. They could not afford the Goa'uld to escape, after all.
With one last glance at his team-mates, Teal'c strode towards the community centre.
End of Part Four
