Author's Note: Oh my goodness! You guys are sooo bloodthirsty suddenly! Hehe, I love it!

OOOOOOOOOOO

The next hour was undoubtedly the roughest that Robert Kinsey had ever endured in his life. And it was just the beginning.

The first thing they did was ordered him to strip. There were several reasons behind this; a search for hidden weapons or other items, a definite intimidation factor, and the only one they told Kinsey – they hated the smell of urine before lunch. He blustered – trying more than once to intimidate the two with hollow threats and empty promises about how he was going to make sure they were both put in front of a firing squad for this, and then he tried bribing them – offering them an ungodly amount of money if they'd just let him go home.

Neither worked, of course. It's hard to intimidate men (or women) who had seen the horrors and atrocities that Jack and Nathan had seen in their days, and even harder to intimidate someone who hates your guts so much he'd risk his career rather than see you get away with something that you had no business doing. The two had eventually roughed him up a bit – nothing serious, unless you were a spineless jellyfish – but there were a few punches that landed, and the fists behind the punches were as unforgiving as the two fathers were. Bruised and slightly battered – with the promise of more to come – Kinsey found himself standing in nothing but his soiled boxers in the middle of the room.

"What a piece of shit..." Nathan Brooks said, scowling at the man. There were a few red marks on the Senator's sides that were already starting to bruise, and he had the beginnings of a fine shiner that was swelling his left eye closed, but really they hadn't even started, and the little blood that was seeping from Kinsey's nose wasn't enough to appease either man.

Jack nodded his agreement, anger burning through him more and more as he allowed his mind to go back over the events of the past night and morning, and what Kinsey had had planned for Shawn and the others. There would be no mercy. The more he thought about it, the less Jack wanted to let the Senator live. Alive he was always going to be a danger to Jack's family – and Jack had a baby on the way. God only knew what the sonofabitch would do then. Dead, he was no threat at all. Not to Jack. Not to Shawn or Sam, and not to the baby. That right there was reason enough to kill him.

Take into account the fact that there were two other families in danger – Ian's and River's – and that was even more of an argument to finish the threat here and now. Jack had never been one to leave an enemy behind if he could avoid it. And this time there was absolutely no doubt he could avoid it.

Kinsey wrapped his arms around his scrawny boy, hugging himself as he shivered – a mixture of the chill of the room and fear, no doubt – and watched the two, trying to see where the next blow was going to come from. Jack had a bit of interrogating he wanted to do first, though.

"How did you find out about Shawn?"

Kinsey paled, but didn't say anything.

Jack's temper flared at the silence, and he kicked out with his leg, crashing it into Kinsey's right knee. With a howl of pain the man went down.

"Tell me, Goddamn it!" He drew his leg back to kick him, and the Senator rolled away from him, right into Nathan Books' legs. Brooks stomped down on Kinsey's hand, eliciting another cry of pain. Then he drew his field knife – a fine piece of steel with a seven and a half inch blade that was razor sharp – and knelt down, his blue eyes completely merciless.

"You'd better tell him..."

Nathan didn't even need to make a threat concerning what he'd do with the knife if Kinsey didn't tell Jack what he wanted to know.

"I... it's a rumor...all... all around... Everyone knows about him!" Kinsey said, trying to scuttle away from the knife, only to find himself backing into O'Neill, who looked over at Brooks.

Nathan shook his head.

"I haven't heard anything about him."

"You're retired!" Kinsey cried desperately. "How would you hear about-"

"Shut up!"

Jack kicked him, hard, and Kinsey fell sideways, groaning and retching, his hand clutching his side as he tried to gather his breath, but O'Neill wasn't anywhere near done.

"Do you know what he is?" He asked.

"Wha- what?"

From the confused look in his eyes, Kinsey didn't have a clue what Jack meant – and that was good. If the Senator had known Shawn was a hybrid, he'd have shown panic the minute Jack said anything, and O'Neill knew it. Which meant that whatever the rumor was, it wasn't about that. Which meant that the Senator – and the NID – weren't after Shawn because of what he was. That made it entirely personal, and that was fine with Jack – although at that moment, he'd more than willingly have taken on anyone in the NID as well.

Nathan looked over at O'Neill with a slightly questioning look, but Jack pretended not to see it. Jaffer whined suddenly from where he'd been standing close to the door, and Jack looked over at him for the briefest of moments, feeling a sudden urge to go to the lab and wrap his arms around him and comfort him. He couldn't understand why he felt that way, but it was almost as if Jaffer was afraid, and Jack had never seen the lab so upset. He almost did it, but his anger overwhelmed him once more as he again thought back to what the man on the floor in front of him had almost gotten away with. He turned from Jaffer back to Kinsey.

"What were you planning on doing to them?" Jack asked.

"Nothing!"

"What were you going to do to them?"

"I was just going to scare you a bit – make you stop being such an arrogant bastard!" Kinsey said, ducking his head in his hands, defensively.

"Scare me by roughing up my son? He's fourteen years old for Christ's sake! You rotten piece of shit..."

"I wasn't going to kill him... just hurt him!"

"Yeah? And what if he saw you? What if he could identify you? What about the other two cadets? What if they saw you? Then what?"

"They wouldn't have."

"You were going to head right for the fucking basement you lousy fucking liar!" Nathan had heard plenty, and his temper – which had already exploded – was even hotter. He reached down and slapped Kinsey as hard as he could. "You were going to let them see you, and then you were going to kill them!"

"No!"

It was true, but there was absolutely no way Kinsey was going to admit to that!

Jack pulled out the Glock that he'd taken – there was no way he'd use Sam's Beretta to kill the man. No way he'd allow anything to trace back to her. He chambered a round, and the noise echoed through the room. He'd heard all he needed to hear. Nathan was right. Kinsey had been heading to the basement, and there was no doubt in Jack's mind that he'd had every intention of killing all three of those boys. Rage coursed through him, and all he could see was red. He pointed the gun at Kinsey.

"You're never going to threaten anyone again..." His finger tightened on the trigger.

"Jack! No."

All three men whirled at the sound of the voice – a decidedly female voice that only Jack recognized. Standing at the door, with Jaffer standing next to her, was the very last person Jack had expected to see.

"Dotty?"