Chapter Two of The Centre of Lies
While Hammond and Janet were bringing Teal'c up to speed without giving him too much detail, Jack was driving back to his home. He could feel the anger building up, the cold fusion of rage in his stomach. The knowledge that he there were three possible scenarios; one would have him dead, two would have him on the run as a Pretender leaving all he knew behind; three, and the one he wanted most, was the Centre would go down. He'd go back to the SGC with only a handful of questions and only Hammond and Janet knowing his history. Of course, all of this would be accomplished with freeing Jarod as the main goal.
Jack admitted he had been an ass to think they, the Centre, would not make a try at him again. Jarod had been a fool to try to find him. It had endangered both of them. The drugs, that wonderful cocktail he had created while at the Centre, had only worked on him for a time, but with the reinforcement of self-hypnosis, he had managed to keep it a foggy memory. The training he had received from early childhood had been the only reason he had managed to survive Iraq. How ironic and cruel that was.
And now there was Jarod to consider.
The boy had slipped him the Swiss Army knife and had cut the restraints. He had crawled out of there the same way he had ten years earlier. The first time he had been a scared socially deprived teenager; the second time, a junkie hours away from breaking down, giving in. This time he resolved if he could not walk out on his own power he was going out in a body bag.
He was in his driveway and out of the truck in one fluid motion. The .9mm was out and ready, his trigger finger just outside of the guard. The house was just as he left it. The bed would still be tousled from the lovemaking session, red folders on his dining room table. Jack turned the key with his weak hand and stepped into his own house with the stealth of thief. The smell of cigarette smoke lingered in the air, but it was fresh.
"Hey handsome, drop it." A firm female alto commented as a .9mm was pressed into this back.
Jack spun around and swung out with a flying kick that had the woman sprawled out. He was on top of her before she could moan.
"Sorry, beautiful, but this is my house," Jack tossed at her as he used his own body weight to hold her down. Whoever she was, she still had a firm grip on her handgun. He had no choice. The punch connected solidly with her chin and dazed her enough to get control of the weapon and drag her into the living room. Jack tossed her down on the couch. He sat opposite her in the side chair, his weapon pointed at her and the other hand turning on the light.
"Who are you and why did they send you?"
Miss. Parker began to gather her senses, pulled herself up into a sitting position. Her face buried in her hands, her chestnut hair covering her face.
"Punched a woman, no officer, and a gentleman?" She spat blood on his rug defiantly, "No way to treat a lady."
"Provide me a lady and we'll see." Jack cocked the automatic.
"Bastard."
"Could possibly be. Answer the question."
Miss Parker wanted to look into his face when she refused. She directed her eyes blue eyes on him.
Recognition hit Jack with the punch of magnum load. The face was Catherine's, the only person who treated him with any decency, even showed him caring. Catherine, who was pregnant, had let him feel the baby kick, who had let him hold the baby when he was just a child himself. It was impossible to not react, his eyebrows marched up his forehead, and his lips formed the name.
It was nearly the same for Miss Parker. The face she remembered, perhaps a little tighter, the hair most definitely brown and not the salt and pepper it was now, but it was him. The soldier Sydney and Raines had tortured for weeks. The one they said was John Doe #1, the man who had interjected his body between Raines and herself when the oxygen-deprived bastard had tried to slap her for being where she shouldn't. The same battered sick and bleeding captive who had looked at Raines and named him a dead man, the same one.
"I know you, I remember you." She felt the angry pushed to one side as confusion took center stage.
"Where is Jarod?" Jack demanded almost calling her Catherine.
"You are him, John Doe #1. They've had me so busy looking for Jarod that they forgot about you." the acid was again beginning to flow in Miss Parker's veins. "You're practically a myth."
"Where is Jarod?" Jack repeated.
"How in the hell do I know, I was following him myself. How did they get to you first?" She paused and began to fumble of her cigarettes.
"Ahh ahhh ahhh!! Hands."
"Smokes." She pulled out one and lit it. "The poor stupid sentimental ass led them right to you, didn't he?" She asked on the exhale. "He had to meet the legend." Miss Parker shook her head in annoyance.
"They hurt a friend of mine. He's going to be okay but that is not what pissed me off."
"Your cover is blown? How many years? Over 25 years? Now, I see why they want you back." Her voice was velvet, edged in steel and wrapped with a bow of sarcasm. "You made quite a life for yourself, Colonel Jonathon Jarod O'Neill, United States Air Force, once retired and highly decorated."
"I'm going to get Jarod out. You can help or I will arrange for you to be put in lock up till I'm successful. Your choice. Got a name?"
"Miss Parker."
"Fine, Miss Parker. Now answer my question."
"Why should I help? They got Jarod. My job is done?"
"They want us both. They won't let either of us go again. There will be no exchange. Your job will be over and your usefulness will come to an end. No more mice, no pussy cat needed." Jack enjoyed waking her up to reality. It didn't matter whose daughter she was. The Centre's retirement plan was probably a .22 caliber round behind the ear and being dumped in some field. The beautiful woman would just become a sad victim of an unknown murder. He'd run that scenario for them in the early sixties, when the Centre was trying to figure out how to mimic a serial killer like DeSalvo or Speck and use the heinous crimes as a cover up for the real one murders. All the scenarios coming back, all the insight into the enemy he possessed on covert missions, how it was so easy to pull the trigger for real, no longer a simulation.
"Daddy won't let that happen." Miss Parker spat under her breath though she felt the cold finger of doubt run up her back.
"No, daddy will not save you. Besides he isn't in as much control as he once was, is he?" Jack asked though he knew that this question was also an admission to the truth.
"You really are John Doe #1." Miss Parker tried to spin it back on him and blew smoke into his face contemptuously.
There was a knock on his front door saving him from any further admissions. Jack rose and moved to the door keeping his weapon pointed at her.
"Colonel?" The gentle voice of Janet Fraiser asked through the door. "It's me and Teal'c."
Without turning on the light Jack opened the door for them. "How did you two get here?"
"The General provided us with a Hummer. Dr. Fraiser drove us here. We are parked in the next street." Teal'c explained, now dressed in the black fatigues of a covert mission, a black watch cap pulled down over his gold tattoo. Jack noticed Janet was dressed the same. Both came in holding large gym bags.
"Hammond sent along some party favors." Janet was eyeing the very attractive and tall dark haired woman who was smoking in Jack's living room.
"T, you got a zat on you?" He asked. The Jaffa dug into the bag and brought one out. "Good. Shoot her once if she tries anything. She is just a little less difficult than one of our snake friends, so watch her close."
"Indeed." Teal'c stood in front of the woman, the Goa'uld weapon directed right at her. He was scowling enough to even intimidate the Centre's supreme tracker.
Janet and Jack wandered out of the room with Jack carrying the two bags to his kitchen table. Once inside of the kitchen Janet reached out and touched Jack hesitantly. He answered her by taking her into his arms.
"Doc, what I have to do you may not want to be a part of. It's going to get ugly."
"They have to be stopped." Janet rested her head against his chest. She was sending her man off to war that had no name, to resolve inhumane wrongs that had been perpetrated against Jack and this Jarod that he and Daniel had spoken of.
"Jack, I would tell you that you are not responsible for everyone, but I know better. You wouldn't be true to yourself. If you can save the world and the universe you can do this, no matter what it costs you." Janet sheathed her inner feelings and spoke the words against his chest, listening to his heartbeat.
Her comment was why Jack had fallen in love with the petite physician. Janet understood and accepted him for all his secrets, scars, and failings.
Jack leaned down from his six foot two to her five foot two and kissed her full lips. He needed to know she was there for him and he could see in her eyes that she would no matter what he did. Janet was a healer, but she was more warrior that she knew, in another world she probably was a Valkryie. If she would carry him to Valhalla he would gladly go with her. Regrettably, she wasn't a Norse battle maiden and he was no great warrior like Baldr. He knew one thing; he wanted to live to be with Janet again.
Teal'c caught the embrace and kiss out of the corner of his eyes. In a time of great trouble it was good to know two people he respected and admired even loved were together.
Jack and Janet returned to the living room as the phone rang. Jack let the answering machine pick up.
"I know that you are there John. Please pick up the phone or put it on speaker. Your actions now will dictate what Jarod will have to endure until your arrival." The voice was almost hypnotic in its smoothness.
"Sydney." Jack thought. Yes, he knew the voice. He pressed the answering machine off and hit the speaker button.
"The name is O'Neill, and what do you want with me?"
"You can continue this pretense as along as you want John, but you and I know better. You need to come home. Jarod is waiting for you, as is another you may remember, Angelo."
Sydney might as well have kicked him in the heart, Angelo, oh g-d. Why bring up Angelo? Another one he had left behind. Angelo was special and he had left them in the hands of those bastards.
"You know the way home. Be there tomorrow morning, alone. We will know it we have very good Intel John; Miss Parker can track you through a hurricane once she is put on the scent. Her pursuit of you could make headlines. "
Miss Parker's head had snapped towards the phone when she heard her name mentioned. Jack looked at the phone strangely and then one corner of his mouth seemed to rise up. He knew something the others didn't. Jack had hope and he began to run new scenarios.
"I'll be there in four hours."
"It's only three hours by Gulf Stream. "The voice on the other of the phone chided.
"Can't get a plane that fast." Jack stalled.
"You are in the Air Force and you can not get a plane? Come now John, do not play me the fool."
"I'll be there in four." Jack clicked the phone off and turned back on the other three. "Miss Parker you take them to Delaware in your jet that is probably sitting at COS Airport, right?"
Miss Parker looked away and lit another cigarette.
"My friend, T here, is a very big, lonely, man. He likes to hurt people who hurt his friends. Daniel was hurt when you people nabbed Jarod. See how pissed off he is!" Jack motioned to T who only raised an eyebrow. "Vicious, cold blooded. And don't let her size bother you; Doc here knows how to deliver pain." He finished off pointing at Janet.
"Why should I help you?"
"Because, Miss Parker, you know it's over. Time to jump ship and earn some brownie points." Jack was smiling and winked to Janet. Besides, there was one thing that Sydney wasn't aware of- Miss Parker was in his living room and considering that working for Daddy might have been a serious vocational error.
Jarod felt the cold concrete against his face. He was in a cell, one of many in the Centre. He had to be in the Centre; he could smell it, almost taste it, like how salmon knew the way home tasting it in the water the spawning ground/home had a taste/scent that was recognized. Hope disappeared from his heart. Despair kept his eyes closed so he did not have to recognize his prison.
"Jarod, you will not be able to move. You have been given drugs to cause paralysis; struggling will only hurt you further," the voice said softly, a friendly voice, the voice of his childhood. "Mr. Lyle decided it was the best way to control you.
"Sydney." Jarod gasped, the more he became aware the more the pain began to return.
"I will give you something for pain. You are hurt badly. My. Lyle was not gentle with you." Sydney rested a hand on Jarod's bare shoulder. Jarod felt the sting of a hypodermic needle. "You have been beaten and may have internal injures but I am not permitted to provided you with medical attention, yet." Sydney's voice was a whisper.
"No treatment because we want John Doe #1 to see what he is responsible for." The new voice was that of Mr. Lyle. Jarod flinched involuntarily at the unwelcome sound of it. The drugs were making him groggy again. He didn't hear himself groan in pain as Lyle had his thugs toss him onto a bed. He was strapped down.
Sydney watched. His face was an unmoving mask yet inside he was screaming. He'd seen and caused too much pain. Forty years was enough. His only hope, and Jarod's, the one man who probably hated him the most, John Doe #1.
Mr. Lyle was waiting for Sydney as he stepped out of the cell.
"Nice touch, don't you think? Got Jarod staked out in the same cell we had John Doe 1 in that time you caught him before in the 80's. I think JD1 will find that amusing. This time we have a special room for him." Lyle was arrogant and condescending and was speaking of the room adjacent to Jarod's cell. He was having it specially prepared for JD1. The monitors were already hooked up so JD1 could watch every thing happening in Jarod's cell as well as Jarod would have the ability to see JD1.
"You better take some serious precautions, Mr. Lyle. John Doe #1 is not the same young man who we had almost twenty years ago or even when he was first brought here. Angelo has looked up his record; he is with the Air Force Special Forces and is high decorated for his bravery." Sydney warned.
"JD1 is a product of the Centre and you, Sydney. He is too moralist and compassionate. Besides, he's old. " Lyle sauntered off.
Sydney smiled. Lyle was an arrogant ass, and he was underestimating John. That was the biggest mistake of Lyle's life and perhaps the last. He glanced at his watch; John should be touching down within the next hour. He had much to do before that encounter.
"Sir, we just got a call from Peterson. Colonel O'Neill just took off in a T-38, and he's filed a flight plan to Washington D.C. He requested mid-air refueling." Gate Tech Davis announced to Hammond who had yet to leave the mountain. "I didn't know that the Colonel was a pilot."
"He's flying to the Pentagon on an urgent matter." Hammond invented a cover story instantaneously. "Does it really surprise you?" He added with a bite of sarcasm.
"No, no, it doesn't." Walter continued to nod his head as he turned and left the General alone.
What the hell was Jack up to? And flying? He knew the man could, or thought he could, do everything but Jack did not have a set of wings to affix to his uniform. But knowing the circumstances, there had to be a reason to it all. A T-38 could carry two so he hoped that Jack had Teal'c with him. The continued images from the DVD haunted him, but only because of other memories.
Hammond remembered a smart-ass officer with gray hair and three other companions from 1969 who were thought spies and he had helped escape. Then a few short years later, the younger version of that officer he had found nearly half dead. All this only to meet him again in 1997 when the Stargate was reopened from the wrong side. His life had been intertwined with the three of the members of SG1 for thirty years and he had not been able to tell anyone, for fear of changing even one thing, the Grandfather paradox Major Carter had explained to him, something he already knew.
He knew Jack was going back to this Centre or where ever those brigands were sending him. His Second in Command was going to do whatever it took to free the young man that had suffered a similar life that Jack had escaped from. He was not going to sit back and be idle. There was something he had to do; this time he would intervene. He just had to figure out how to arrange it. George Hammond began running through a mental checklist of every one who owed him a favor. Markers were going to be called in.
Jack massaged the control stick with familiarity. No pilot's wings officially, but both his "Pretender" abilities and Special Ops training allowed Jack to be able to pilot any thing up to a 747. Granted, he had not had much experience, but the T-38A Talon was like a long lost buddy. Alone at thirty thousand feet flying into a rising sun brought him a few moments of serenity. He was no one to everyone here, just him, who ever he was; all the layers, identities, facets of no concern to G-d, machine and man at just a tick under mach one.
He needed this time to consolidate his plans, run his scenarios, come up with contingencies; there was always a Plan B. But within him, he didn't figure it that way. Jack had no qualms about giving up his own life, though he would rather others did first. It was just time he did something about the guilt he had been carrying for nearly twenty years. He had left Jarod and Angelo behind though he had not know that the just before his escape two new boys had been taken. This would be the Alpha class after all the kinks had been worked out through him.
What had the Centre learned? Those beatings were not the way to get one of their Pretenders to willingly, if not eagerly, run one of their scenarios for them. It was hard to give one hundred percent when you had been beaten or in the early days been spanked like an unruly child.
Jack wondered why he had not, after all these years, come to hate Sydney with any great intensity. Sydney had been his teacher, the closest thing to a parent that he had known for his ten years at the Centre, and though he had been firm, he had never outwardly intentionally been cruel. Sydney had used physiology to secure his results, and that was more insidious.
And then there was the memories of Catherine Parker, the face identical to the woman who had broke into his home, her daughter. Catherine had always been kind to him, when they had let her. She had kept him from going mad, or at least not completely bat shit psycho. Somewhere in Miss Parker's heart, Jack prayed there was a modicum of the same humanity as possessed by her mother. It appeared, however, she had become her father's daughter, too bad because, if he ran into Mr. Parker, Miss Parker was going to be an orphan.
Jack had made a promise to himself when he still had two silver bars on his shoulder that if the chance ever arose, he would no longer deny what the Centre had perpetrated. This was going to be vengeance for more than himself, but for Jarod, Angelo, Catherine and her ice queen daughter.
A quick glance at his watch and he realized he was coming up the first of two mid air refueling. Jack was now just two thousand miles away from a return to the nightmare that had been his childhood.
It actually didn't take a lot of persuasion for Teal'c and Janet to convince Miss Parker to take them to her plane. She had foolishly tried to break from Teal'c supervision and was rewarded with one zat blast.
"Kind of makes a Tazer feel like a dead battery doesn't it?" Janet asked rhetorically as she helped the young woman up. "One more shot in quick succession kills."
"Who are you people?" The recovering Miss Parker snapped.
"We are people that it would be wise not to anger. You will now take us to your aircraft." Teal'c stood smugly with the Zat still extended at the cigarette smoking human.
She made her phone call to Broots and the cuckold responded to her every command, to get the plane ready, and alert the staff, she was coming home. Broots also confirmed the worse; Jarod had been captured and was now locked in a cell, trussed up as helpless bait.
"Is it true Miss Parker, there really was, I mean is a John Doe #1?" Broots had sputtered his question.
"Yes, you idiot there is and he's pissed," was her response.
While Miss Parker was making her phone call, Janet was reporting to Hammond over Jack's cell phone.
Miss Parker had become aware that the resources of the Centre were not prepared for what she was now facing. John Doe #1 had walked out of legend and become real in her reality, now in the guise of an Air Force Colonel with very strange friends. The tall body builder black guy was not from anywhere she could figure out. The weapon was something that Raines would give one of his shriveled testicles for and Lyle would use without compunction. The woman had military training but was a physician and so had the fault of compassion.
She fought to keep her thoughts from landing on Jarod. Their lives so twisted together from earliest childhood, almost playmates to adversaries, to hunter and prey. Yet, there was one facet of their relationship that she denied; her affection which she found was an affliction for Jarod. Was it love? She didn't know. Love did not have the same hearts and flowers and warm fuzzy feeling to her as it did to most people. The love of her mother, and when that was taken away had perverted her emotional images. Maybe that explained why when she finally caught Jarod, she had always secretly desired to keep him for herself. But she realized she would just as readily hand him over to Daddy to secure herself some morsel of his love and approval.
The fractured memories of John Doe #1 were piercing her gelid constitution. He had taken the blows rather than have her receive them, compassion she had seen into his eyes. As a child, she had been frightened by the darkness behind the soft chocolate eyes so much like a faithful hound. She had seen the eyes of one capable of killing. As an adult, she recognized it again polished with practice in his eyes. It even gave her pause.
She directed the woman JD1 had referred to as Doc towards the private hanger where her jet was waiting. They were aboard and airborne and were only a precious two hours behind JD1.
Jack's flight plan had him heading to D.C. and Andrews Air Force base. At the last moment he turned off his transponder and made the turn north towards Delaware and the Centre. He couldn't deny that his heart was beating a bit faster and there was a cold trickle of sweat rolling down his spine even in the confines of his flight suit. He dropped his altitude a bit at a time till he was flying low enough to be off radar. The hunt for his missing plane would begin in earnest soon; some busy traffic controller would notice his absence. Part one of his scenario had just gone into play.
They had taught him well and the Air Force had honed his skills beyond even the Centre's expectations. The attack on Jarod had awakened a sleep dog of war.
Jarod was fighting against the sedative effect of the drug. He had to play out the scenarios in his head. What was John going to do? How would he approach, walk in and hand himself over? Storm the Centre with a crack Special Ops team, a surgical insertion? Or order a full-scale attack? The drugs fogged his mind, but he clung instinctively to one course of action. John was coming in alone and he was walking into hell, Raines and Lyle would never let him leave again. They would see to it even if they had to cripple John or worse. The two were not good losers.
"Jarod, John should be here soon. He's coming to rescue you. Now how would he go about that?" The voice as always was soothing and persuasive and Sydney's.
"Guns blazing," Jarod chuckled weakly letting the drugs carry him into darkness. Better to be unconscious and not able to provide information, than awake and waiting for his theory to play out.
Sydney let him slip away. He had seen to it. The dosage higher than Lyle had ordered. Jarod could sleep and not feel the guilt that would consume him when John was brought in. It was better that it only be one of them. Unconsciously, he patted his inside jacket pocket. The envelope was there, and after nearly four decades, its contents would see the light of day.
Miss Parker's pilot only nodded and went back to the cockpit when she arrived with her two new companions. The cockpit door was closed and she flopped down in one of the leather-upholstered seats. The bar was open as far as she was concerned and she poured herself a stiff three fingers of Scotch neat.
"I don't expect you want a drink?" She asked sarcastically of the one addressed as T.
"I do not consume alcohol." Teal'c answered flatly sitting across from her.
"Well, too bad. We don't need a designated driver." Miss Parker lit up another cigarette and noticed how T reacted to the smoke. This was her playground now, her home field advantage and she planned on being a total pain in their collective asses as long as they invaded it.
"So, how long have you not known about this Jack person being who you didn't know he was?" Miss Parker turned her Janet, the cynicism of her remark grating on Janet's raw nerves.
"Colonel O'Neill is well known to me." The tone in Janet's voice a subtle acceptance of any challenge that the chain smoking bimbo had in mind.
"Do you even have an iota of a concept of what a "Pretender" is?" Miss Parker leaned back in her seat as the plane accelerated down the runway. Her glare was laser sharp and drilled into Janet.
"I don't care what a "Pretender" is. I know who and what kind of man the Colonel is. That is all that matters. "
"O'Neill is a warrior of great bravery and integrity. It is an honor to fight and serve at his side." Teal'c, who had been silent, thundered. He would not allow Jack to be disrespected by a female such as this dark haired woman.
"Well, your Colonel is a Pretender. The first one it seems. Pretender's have genius IQ's and can adapt themselves to any situation. They can put up a facade of what ever they need to be. They are chameleons."
Janet began to protest but halted herself there was no reason to begin an argument with this creature. She would not lower herself.
"He's only as good as his scenario; he's just played this one out too long." Parker continued to needle. "When he gets back to the Centre, they will never let him leave again. He's dead to you. They'll kill him rather than see him free again."
"I believe you are mistaken. O'Neill has faced greater foes than these you speak of. He will be victorious. It is your life that now hangs in a balance, for if you commit any acts that would endanger his life, yours is forfeit." Teal'c let his voice drop to a growl.
Janet refused to take the bait but in her heart, she panicked. It registered on her face for just a second but long enough for one woman to read another's face.
"Your lover will never be free again." The comment was accompanied by a vicious smile.
There was the distinct possibility that Miss Parker was right and Janet was unable to deny it. Jack was a prisoner of many ugly memories; a dead son, four months in Iraq, the damage that the Centre did to him. While all of these episodes had formed the man she knew, did she really know him? Or was he just pretending?
The next three hours were spent in silence as the Gulf Stream continued on its flight plan back to the Centre's private airstrip. In the cockpit, the pilot glanced over at the man in the co-pilot's seat. He was a stranger with a .45 caliber Colt pointing at him. They'd been hijacked and he could tell no one.
The landing was textbook, the runway private and Jack was back. The granite and steel building that had been a home for ten years was prominent. He climbed out of the cockpit and found he had a welcoming committee. One he recognized; the other looked at him with an arrogance that needed to be wiped from the face with hatchet. Raines and Lyle had come to meet him personally.
"Welcome home, John." Raines spoke with a thin oxygen starved voice. The pack of portable oxygen at his side and the canulus feeding its life sustaining gas into him.
"Mr. Raines." Jack acknowledged and stopped twenty-five feet away from them as he nonchalantly tossed his heavy flight gloves into his helmet. The Zat was there too. "And you must be Lyle?" Jack was continuing to fumble with the helmet trying to get the Zat in place.
"That's correct, JD1." Lyle smiled and before Jack could react, Lyle waved a single finger in the air.
The high velocity rifle round tore into Jack's upper thigh. He crumbled to the ground. He hadn't seen that one coming. The next round was not a bullet but a tranquilizer type dart. It hit Jack square in the shoulder injecting its contents into him before he could pull it out. There was a sickening second of clarity as Jack recognized the injected drug, his old friend, his old enemy Dilaudid. They meant to make him a junkie again.
"What are you doing?" A new voice yelled as Jack felt the full effects of the drug. Sydney. His mind connected somehow through the haze.
"Do you really think we lured him back here to keep him alive?" Raines gasped.
"He's only good to us as a tool to get Jarod to behave. I am going to kill him slowly. JD1, you are an embarrassment to the Centre and for that you get to pay with your life." Mister Lyle knelt next to Jack, who lay writhing in the combined throes of pain and drug euphoria. As Lyle stood up, he kicked Jack viciously in the ribs and then once in the face. Even through the miasma of the narcotic, Jack felt the pain and blacked out
End part two