STARGATE SG-1: Operation Checkmate
Summary: When General O'Neill is incapacitated, Carter finds herself in over her head as the helpless puppet to a madman! ...
Season: 8
Pairing: Jack/Sam (suggested)
Spoilers: New Order, Lockdown
Disclaimer: I don't own any of the characters in Stargate SG-1. Please don't sue me for this story!
Author's Note: I have a little confession to make... I'm feeling a bit bad at the moment cause the plan was to let y'all know how The Bishop was controlling Jack in this chapter. Sorry. That kinda didn't happen. Only have to wait a few more chapters for that though. Anyway, R&R as always (and please don't hate me)! Thanx. Enjoy!
WARNING: Strong Language! (Also gets a little graphic in this one – don't worry it's not too bad, just thought I'd warn you).
Operation Checkmate: Chapter 6 – Zugzuwang
Despite the fact that Sam was still worried about Barrett's involvement in what was what going on, she found it reassuring to know she wasn't alone anymore. If anyone could keep a low profile on this, it was Barrett. She just hoped it would be low enough! Even so, the thought of back up gave her a well deserved confidence boost.
'Just don't let it go to your head, OK?' Barrett warned her as she handed over her computer hard drive.
'Please,' she said dismissively. 'With what's at stake, it's a wonder I've lasted this long. It's just nice to have an ally now.'
Barrett smiled. He understood. It had been an equally blessed relief when he had her help in taking down The Committee. There really was something to be said about combined resources.
'OK,' he conceded. 'Just watch your back, alright?'
Sam appreciated his concern. She smiled and left his office.
That had all been two days ago now, and Sam was beginning to feel just a little anxious that she had heard nothing from either him or The Bishop, giving her further instructions. Mind you, the added silence of not having the phone ringing off the hook was a relief, but she would rather bee doing something to help Jack than sitting around worrying about it.
Sam made her way cautiously through the hospital ward. She hadn't seen him since they transferred him here, and being here now made her stomach churn with guilt for everything that had been going on. His room was at the end of the hall. She could see his door open and the cleaner making her way around the room. Finally, she could actually se his bed. She hadn't realised just how many tubes and machines he was linked to. There was one to help him breath. One monitoring his heart. An IV line supplying some sort of nourishment to his inactive body. And then a few others beside that Sam couldn't be bothered to name. The others should have been enough. She hesitated at the door; saddened by the helpless sight of the General before her.
"You his wife?" the cleaning lady asked innocently.
It took a moment to register she was talking to her.
"Oh. No," she replied. "He's not married. I'm just a friend."
The cleaner nodded. "He's had a few visitors, this lad here," she said kindly.
"Who?" Sam asked, trying to hide the urgency in her tone. What if 'he' had been here messing with the machines?!
"Two men, I think. You might know them. They were work colleagues. Tall coloured guy. Wears a hat all the time. And a guy with glasses."
"Teal'c and Daniel," Sam informed her. "Has there been anyone else?"
"Only the nurses and the occasional doctor, dear."
Sam nodded. So, no tampering then. That was something, at least.
"You want a minute with him?" the lady asked.
Sam smiled and fully stepped into the room. She was soon left alone.
For a long while, she hovered at the end of his bed, unsure of what she was actually doing here.
"Hey sir," she said eventually, making her way to the chair by his bed. "Sorry I haven't been to visit. Things have been sort of crazy round here lately..."
She paused. She had always been told that comatose people could still hear everything around them, but sitting here talking to his motionless form seemed pointless.
If he really could hear her, then there was no way she was going to let him know anything about what was really going on. How could she anyway?
'Hey General, how's it going? By the way, there's a mad man who can kill you in an instant, but don't worry. I'm helping him in his sordid scheme to stop him from doing just that. So how's your week been so far?'
Even if he was conscious, she would have thought twice about telling him. There would be too many questions. Too many worried glances. She hated them the most. She was so used to him having the utmost confidence in her that she would have been mortified if he thought she was in over her head about something.
And in this matter, she was.
Sam leaned against the edge of the bed and idly traced her fingers down his arm and over his tube riddled elegant hand.
"God, Jack. I really need you here," she muttered helplessly. She didn't care if he had heard that or not.
She took hold of his hand, pained by the fact that the action merited no response from him. His fingers were limp in her grasp and their usual warmth was a mere fraction of its usual comforting presence. But it was enough for her mind to stop racing with panic. The warmth proved he was still alive (if barely). The Bishop hadn't beaten her. Not yet. And he wasn't going to. Not if she could help it. Not on her watch.
She sat clinging to his hand until her thoughts were interrupted.
"Excuse me, ma'am," said a nurse from the door. "There's a telephone call for you."
Slowly, Sam stood and made her way along the corridor to where the receiver was sat on the main desk waiting for her.
"Hello?" she said, hoping it would be Barrett.
"Hey sweetness!" replied that hateful, patronising, unnerving voice.
Sam's whole body tensed in fear and anticipation while her stomach and heart felt lie lead weights inside of her.
"Long time no hear," he continued. "How've you been?"
"Peachy," she answered monotonously.
He laughed. She winced and bit back the urge to throw up.
"So what is it this time? Want me to break into the White House?"
The Bishop was smiling at his end of the line, she could tell – she could always tell.
"No," he said coyly. "No. Nothing quite so adventurous. How's your marksmanship looking at the moment?"
Sam's heart began to beat painfully hard inside her chest. "Why?" she asked cautiously.
"Cause I got a little project for you. See, over in Massachusetts, there's this man – old man at that – and he's not what you'd call a, eh, 'Model Citizen', shall we say. I need you to kill him."
Sam froze solid. She literally couldn't move – not even if she had wanted to. She only hoped the nurses milling around her didn't notice. The last thing she needed was a scene.
"You want me to... what?!" she repeated slowly, hoping she had heard him wrong.
"Kill him."
It disgusted her at how laid back he was sounding about it all. Like he was asking her to pop down to the corner shop for a pint of milk or something.
"No," she said quietly.
"Excuse me?" His tone was still light. Not like the last time she had refused to comply. He had gotten angry then.
"NO!" she shouted. "I won't do it! There's no way!"
"Really? No way? You sure?"
Before she could reply and tell him where to shove it, there was an ear-splitting single tone emitting from the end of the corridor.
Doctors, nurses and orderlies dived for the room, wheeling all sorts of machines with them.
"No," Sam whispered, dropping the phone onto the desk. She walked down the corridor, picking up speed as she went, even though her legs felt like she was walking through molasses.
As she neared the open door, she could see the group of medics stood around Jack's bed.
"Clear!" one of them shouted. Followed by a thud as an electric charge was pumped into his chest, causing his torso to leap momentarily from the mattress.
"Charge 120!"
"NO!" Sam screamed, finally finding her voice in the confusion.
"Somebody get her out of here!" shouted the head doctor of the group.
One of the nurses peeled away and headed towards Sam.
"I'm sorry, ma'am, you can't be in here right now."
"No! I want to see him! Please, you don't understand!"
Sam tried to push past her but two men had caught her from behind and were pulling her away.
"No!" she protested. "Let me go! I have to see! I need to be in there!"
But no-one was listening to her. The door was closed.
All she could hear from within was the occasional "Clear!" followed by the 'Thud' of the paddles.
Sam slumped helplessly against the wall, not relying on her legs to hold her weight. He'd done it. The bastard had actually done it!
Then she remembered the phone. And his ridiculous demand. How the hell did he expect to get her to do it now? Jack was gone! Wasn't he?
She staggered back to the desk and with a shaking hand, she picked up the receiver.
"You fucking bastard!" she hissed.
"Thought you'd say that," he replied calmly. "Did I get your attention back?"
"You got yourself one less puppet, that's what you got, ass hole! Go to hell!" Tears streamed down her face as she thought of Jack's lifeless body in the next room.
"Now, now. Don't go leaping to irrational conclusions... How long do they usually pound on people's chest before they give up?" he asked.
"What do you mean?"
He was smiling again. She knew it.
"I mean, Samantha, you have a choice. Either let that crash team give up on our boy Jack and then get yourself ready for his funeral. Or, you can change your pretty little mind and there's another switch here that'll get his heart going again. What d'ya say?"
Sam screwed her eyes shut.
"It's quite simple, love. Only one person has to die here. Now will it be Jack, or Mr Criminal in Massachusetts?"
She could still hear them in his room: "Clear!" – Thud!
"Jack, Massachusetts. Massachusetts, Jack!"
"Clear!" – Thud!
"Alright," she said quietly, her voice wavering. "What do I have to do?"
As soon as she had said it, she heard the doctors announce "Normal Sinus Rhythm." The crash team emerged from his room looking worn, but relieved.
A feeling that Sam only half shared.
This is what she had been told: The target – he wouldn't give a name – lived on his own in Franklin, a small town just outside of Boston Massachusetts. Sam was to head for the Mikado Motel where a room had been reserved for her under the name of 'Samantha Bishop'. An alias that, frankly made her skin crawl just thinking about it. In the room would be everything she needed to know for 'the project', as he had so eloquently put it.
"Oh, and Sam," he said before hanging up. "There's another time limit on this, of course. I'll be calling your Motel room at sunset tomorrow. It had better be taken care of by then."
Just to be sure, Sam had checked on Jack before she left the hospital. He looked just as peaceful as he had been when she arrived that day. The machines he was connected to were all beeping away to themselves. He was still alive.
When she finally arrived home, she found airline tickets waiting for her on her door mat, along with a hire car contract and directions to the Motel. As she drove to the airport, her mobile phone rang.
"What is it now, as hole?!" she snapped.
"Colonel?" Barrett queried on the other end of the line.
"Sorry," she said quickly. "What have you got?" She hoped he had found the creep. That way she wouldn't have to go through with this 'project'.
"Not much I'm afraid," he said heavily. "We were able to retrieve the Security Virus from your hard drive, but as far as tracking it... It seems this guys using about every communication satellite we have up there – and some of the Russian's – to scramble his signal. We just can't get a lock on him."
Sam sighed heavily. She should have known this wouldn't be so simple. No such thing as a free lunch, and all that.
"What about your search of the NID files?" she asked, hoping for better news.
"Sorry. Nothing yet. I'll keep you posted though."
"Well, if you need me before tomorrow night, I'll be at the Mikado Motel, outside of Boston."
"Massachusetts?" Barrett said in disbelief. "What the hell's he got you going there for?"
"I'll explain later. I have a plane to catch right now."
And she was glad she really did as well. It was a convenient way to get out of telling him the whole truth. She just knew he'd try and talk her out of it. And under any other circumstances, she'd let him. But not today. Jack couldn't afford for her to chicken out now.
Barrett just wouldn't have understood it.
Heck! She barely understood it herself!
The instructions that awaited her at the motel room took the form of a tape and Dictaphone. She half expected it to self-destruct when it came to an end. He had used just about every other cliché there was, why not that one too? But he didn't.
"Hey beautiful!" it said. "Welcome to Your Project 101. In the second draw of the dresser, under the Gideons', in an envelope containing your target's address. At the moment, he's out of town, but should be getting home around 4pm today. Your prime shot at him, therefore, will be as he gets out of his car on arrival. The house opposite his is conveniently empty at the moment. For Sale sign just went up last week. Your weapon – and, of course, gloves – are in the upstairs bed room that looks over your target's drive. Take him out from there, and then run like hell before the cops arrive. Leave the weapon; take the weapon, its up to you. Just remember the gloves. I'll know if you fail on this one, princess, so make it a good shot."
The tape stopped abruptly. Sam's heart sank into her boots. She hated this prick more than she had hated anything else in the world. But there was no way out now. She knew everything she needed to about her target. She glanced at her watch. It was 2:30.
Reluctantly, she picked up her room key and jacket and headed for her hire car. She had just enough time to get over there and check it all out before 4pm.
It was all exactly as the tape has said. The house opposite had a brand new For Sale sign stood outside it and the back door was open, giving her easy access and also a quick escape route, given that the back of the house opened onto woodland. She could easily disappear in that lot.
She went inside. It was perfectly spotless; clearly the estate agent had spruced it up a bit for the big sell. There were new fittings in the kitchen. The hallway had been recently painted. And non-descript but pleasant pictures adorned the wall leading up the stairs. The top floor displayed a similar scene. Everything was bright and cheery, full of quirky little features that were a dream for Real Estate.
Through the open door of the second bedroom on the left, she could see the view of the window, looking down onto the street. She went inside.
Sat on the chair by the window was a case. Inside, she assumed, was her weapon. Hands shaking, she opened it and gazed at the many pieces of a Sound Suppressed Revolver Rifle.
Sam's heart began to beat double quick.
Was she actually going through with this?! Even as she arrived at the motel. She had harboured the hope that Barrett would contact her with the identity of this bastard. She even deluded herself into thinking that maybe it was all an elaborate test to see how far she'd go to save Jack. This notion was soon dismissed when she realised it just wasn't his MO. He hadn't been bluffing so far. Why start now?
She checked her watch.
3:30.
She had to get set up. Her 'target' would be arriving soon.
Sam mechanically began to fit the rifle together, piece by piece. Click by click. If she hadn't been so numbed by the task before her, she might have even stopped to admire how quickly she had assembled it. Any of her instructors at the Academy would have been proud of her efforts.
But this was no time for an ego trip.
Just as she loaded the gun and chambered the first – and hopefully only – bullet, she heard the scratching sound of gravel giving way to tires. She glanced out of the window. He was early. By her watch, she still had fifteen minutes before he was due back.
The car in the drive bellow slowly ground to a halt and shut down. The driver's side door opened out stepped – true to her instructions – an old-ish man, maybe in his late sixties (early seventies at the most). But contrary to what Sam had assumed, he wasn't elderly looking. He was still well toned and quite sprightly looking for his age. Most worrying of all, he didn't look criminal. They usually had a shifty sort of gait to their walk. This man was perfectly at ease.
As he removed his bag and slammed the boot shut, Sam took aim, sliding the window open slightly as she did. He was walking towards his front door, keys in one hand, bag in the other. She had a perfect shot.
OK. It was now or never, she told herself. Now. Or. Never.
'I've always preferred now to never,' she remembered the General saying once. Of course, that hadn't been over killing a man. Right now, she preferred never.
He was nearly at the door.
Now or never...
She squeezed the trigger.
The bullet hit him square between the shoulders. Perfect shot. But instead of just falling straight to the ground as they usually did, he stumbled, staggered for a bit and turned around.
He knew exactly where that bullet had come from. As he turned, Sam almost gagged at seeing half of his chest blown off by the force of the bullet ripping through him at unimaginable speed.
But that wasn't the worst of it.
He looked straight up at the window and saw her just before he finally collapsed on the driveway. Dead.
"Oh my god!" she exclaimed jumping away from the window.
The recognition in his eyes had said it all. He still remembered her. Not surprising, really, since he had been pretty close to her father before he joined the Tok'ra. Sam clasped her hand over her mouth, just in time to see the man's wife emerge from the house, screaming in horror at the sight of her husband.
"Someone help me!" she cried as people began to come out of their homes to see what the commotion was. "Call the police!"
As soon as she heard that, Sam turned tail and ran. She had just reached her car when blue lights and sirens began to wail down the street.
She took in a few steady breaths before she turned the key in the ignition. The last thing she needed was to speed away and draw attention to herself, although that's exactly what her instincts were telling her to do. Floor it. Get as far away as possible, as quickly as possible.
Her mind was racing as she drove. That man wasn't some old criminal. He was a three-star United States Air Force General! A good one at that. Not a blemish on his record (that she knew of at least). And he wasn't alone either. He had a wife. Three kids and goodness knows how many grandchildren by now. His youngest daughter had been Sam's age. They were really good friends until her mum had died and she began to hate everything Air Force for a while. They hadn't spoken in a long time, but still!
She arrived at her motel room and slammed the door shut behind her.
"Shit!" she screamed, throwing just about everything she could lay her hands on at the far wall. But it didn't help. The feeling of overwhelming guilt and self-loathing was already churning her stomach.
Finally, she retched. She felt as if her insides were trying to escape through her mouth, it was that violent. But soon it subsided to dry heaving before she was able to control herself at last.
Then came the shaking. And the tears. Tears that mixed with the sheen of cold sweat that clung to her paled face.
Unable to stop the tremor in her hands or the rest of her body, she reached for the phone by her bad and dialled.
He answered quickly.
"Barrett," she said pitifully, barely audible. "I need you here."
Author's Note: OK, that's enough cruelty for now. Hope no-one had a heart attack from that one! Don't forget to review! Thanx.