"Your task was a simple one, John. How could you have failed so miserably?"
John Smith scowled, fidgeting in the chair he was sitting in and looking across the desk at his immediate supervisor, Phillip Morgan. Morgan was in his early fifties, well built and good looking with a full head of dark hair and green eyes that were intelligent and alert. At the moment, however, his handsome face was marred with a frown as he regarded the man sitting across from him.
"He had a fucking gun, Phil," Smith said, crossly. "What the hell was I supposed to do?"
"Watch your language, John. You know I don't approve of that."
"Sorry." He wasn't, though. "He had a gun," he repeated. "What was I supposed to do about that? The kid as good as threatened to kneecap me if we didn't leave. Who carries a gun jogging?"
It was the same question he'd been asking himself the entire morning.
Morgan frowned.
"Did you even read the file I gave you?"
"Of course I did."
Opening the top drawer of his desk, Morgan pulled out a file and dropped in on the desk between the two of them.
"A few days after Thanksgiving, Ian Brooks was accosted in a schoolyard while he was out jogging. By five men. They shot him and left him for dead – after he crippled one of them and gave a fair showing of himself." Morgan hesitated for a moment, looking at Smith. "Can you tell me why Brooks might have been carrying a weapon while he was out jogging, and why he might have immediately gone on the defensive when he saw a small group of men coming towards him while he was out running?"
Smith scowled, and picked up the file that Morgan had thrown down on the desk.
"I didn't see that."
"I didn't think that you had."
"I don't think you really want this kid, Phillip," he said as he glanced in the file. "He's rude, and obnoxious, and-"
"He'll grow out of that. I want spirited young men who can handle themselves, and Ian Brooks appears to be exactly that."
"He's not going to come see you. He won't –"
"Because you botched it."
"I-"
"Never mind, John," Morgan said with a sigh. Almost as if he should have expected Smith to screw up the assignment – although he really hadn't, since Smith wasn't usually so inept when it came to completing assignments. If he were, he never would have been given one so important to the Trust, after all. "We'll just have to come up with another way to get young Mr. Brooks' attention."
The way he said it told Smith that Morgan already had something in mind.
"Like what?" He asked, curiously. "I don't think it's going to do any good to threaten him…"
"I don't want to threaten him, John. I want him to come willingly to work for me – and threatening him isn't the best way to win someone's loyalty."
"Threaten someone else?"
"No." Morgan reached over the desk and took the file back from Smith, and flipped through it. It didn't take long, since there were only a few pages, and a moment later he dropped it again, this time open to a couple of pictures. Two young men in Academy uniforms.
"Those are his roommates at the academy," John said, looking down. He had read the file, after all. He knew who the two were.
"Yes." Morgan smiled, leaning back in his chair and watching Smith. "We get one of them in the Trust, and half our work is done for us, I imagine. Brooks will listen to his friends long before he'd listen to us."
Smith looked up.
"Adams?"
"God, no. While I would love nothing more than to have him in the Organization, Shawn Adams is dangerous. Simply because of his father. There is no way Jack O'Neill would not find out."
"But the roommate is probably pretty close to Adams – and O'Neill. And Brooks works with-"
"But once we explain to them the benefits of working for us instead of the military, they'll understand the need for secrecy."
"And you think this Hayden kid will go for it? And bring Brooks in with him?"
Morgan smiled.
"If we handle him properly, yes."
"So what do you want me to do?"
"The first thing we need to do is separate him from Adams. I don't want this bungled, John. Handle River Hayden carefully, and don't for a minute allow him to feel threatened. Bring him to me, and I'll do the talking. If he balks, we've probably lost our last chance at Brooks, and Leaf really, really wants Brooks."
"I'll take care of it."
He stood up and left the office, his mind already filled with different plans as to how he could lure the cadet away from the Air Force academy long enough to have a chance to talk to him in private.
OOOOOOOOOOOOO
"I thought I told you to take the day off?"
Ian gave Jack a slight smile.
"As I recall, you didn't tell me anything. You were keeping it a secret, remember?"
"I don't remember that."
Jack was stretched out in one of the beds in the infirmary, his legs hidden by the blanket that had him covered to the waist, although one leg was elevated slightly by means of a pillow underneath it, and Ian knew it was the one that had been injured. Sprawled on his father's chest, drooling as he slept, Jake was the epitome of comfort, rivaled only to Jaffer, who was sprawled comfortably beside Jack, stretched almost the entire length of the bed as well, his tail thumping a happy greeting to Ian, who reached down and scratched the perpetually itchy spot behind his ears.
"How's the leg?"
"Fine. I'll be on it tomorrow – although it'll be another day or so before I'm allowed to do anything strenuous. You know how Fraiser is."
"Yeah."
Boy, did he ever.
"So what are you doing here?" Jack asked. "Just came to check on me? Or decided to help Sam?"
Ian hesitated. And decided he didn't need to bother Jack with the story of the three guys. It wasn't like there was anything he could do from his bed, anyways – or even if he wasn't in bed, really. The guys were gone, and the only name he had to go on was John Smith. Which had to be a fake name.
"I'm just slumming."
Jack smiled, and threw a pillow at Ian, careful not to jostle his son.
"Go pester Sam."
"Yes, sir, Colonel O'Neill, Sir."
Smiling, Ian left the infirmary. He might as well go help Sam, since it would be more interesting than hanging out in the infirmary until Fraiser kicked him out.