A/N: Thanks to my reviewers, you are great! The specific commments are very helpful as I continue to work on this tale.
From Chapter 3:
Late that evening, Jack and Sam were staked out across the street from the Senator's residence, watching the lights in the spacious home go on and then off again, first in the downstairs rooms, and now the upstairs. After waiting a generous amount of time for all to get quiet and remain quiet, Jack got out of the SGC issue van and stretched.
"Ready," he keyed his radio. Jack vanished in a flash of light.
Within a few minutes, Jack and a groggy Senator Hansen had reappeared, this time inside the back of the black van, safe from accidental discovery.
"Go," Sam heard over her ear piece. She gunned the motor and sped off into the night.
Sam drove the van west on Route 7 in Virginia, passing through Arlington, Falls Church, and continuing on through the suburbs. She drove away from the city wondering all the while what Jack and Senator Hansen were talking about behind the van's privacy partition separating the front from the back. Once she had passed the small village of Round Hill, Sam began looking for the sign for Route 601 as she had been instructed to do by General Landry.
"Sam?" Jack's voice over the com startled her out of her concentration.
"Here," she replied tersely.
"How close are we?"
The 'are we there yet?' whine made her smile.
"Just turning off the main highway now. ETA ten minutes."
"Roger."
Sam could hear the raised voice of the Senator in the background as the radio cut off. She suspected that Jack was not having an easy time of it, and not for the first time she worried about the wisdom of kidnapping the influential man.
Sam drove carefully along Route 601. The winding road followed the ridge line of the low-lying mountain. It was narrow and not in good repair, requiring all her skill to stay on the road and out of the ditch running steeply along each side. The trees hung darkly over the already blackened road, sucking up what small amount of light was still available.
So it was a surprise when the road suddenly improved greatly, widening out and straightening. A tall, chain-link fence lined with blackout material sprang up on their left side.
They had arrived at Mount Weather.
The room which was their destination was buried deep within the facility under tons of the impenetrable granite that made up the mountain. Similar in many ways to Cheyenne Mountain, the underground expanse of the structure was astounding. Built during the Cold War to safely house important key players in the government in the event of a nuclear attack, the mountain complex even boasted its own underground reservoir. Sam half-expected to find another Stargate hidden down here somewhere.
The three were escorted into a conference room to find themselves in distinguished company. For the first time since they'd picked up the unwilling senator, he stopped his loud protesting and stared around the table, struck speechless by the guests already seated there. General Landry of the SGC was flanked by the U.S. Vice-President and the Director of the CIA. The FBI, NID, and DOJ all had high-ranking officials present. Senator Fisher was there also, and he stood as Hansen entered, indicating an empty seat for him to use. He and Hansen exchanged a leery glance, Hansen no doubt wondering what Fisher's role had been in his abduction.
Sam and Jack were glad to see Daniel and Teal'C were also present in the room and quickly sat themselves down with their former teammates.
"Welcome to Mount Weather, Senator Hansen," Landry began. "I apologize for the theatrics employed in getting you here, but we decided it was necessary to have this meeting as soon as possible to discuss your planned rally for tomorrow. I'm sure you see the need for this sensitive information to be presented to the public as gently as possible. You, Senator, would hate to be responsible for causing mass hysteria based on misinformation."
Hansen's eyes narrowed. "Of course I would. I don't plan to incite a riot; I merely think the public should know the truth. The whole truth. I will not be presenting misinformation, as you call it. My information is based on my own personal knowledge of the Stargate program."
"Where did you gain such knowledge if you have never been a part of the program?" General Landry posed the question.
Hansen was silent.
Sam stood up. "I believe his brother, Jonas Hansen, who ran an SG unit until his death a few years ago, is his source."
Hansen turned a knowing eye on her, having recognised his brother's former fiancee when they had come in, but still said nothing.
"We have a national security need to know what your brother told you about the Stargate program, Senator Hansen. I know you can appreciate the military's need to know about this breach of classified information so we can decide together how much information to make known to the press and which information would only serve to unduly concern the public and put servicemen at risk unnecessarily."
"What about the unnecessary risk into which servicemen are placed every time a team goes through that gate?" Hansen burst out vehemently.
"Senator, the loss of your brother is a tragedy. But you need to know that the circumstances leading up to his death were of his own doing." General Landry began.
"What circumstances?" Hansen barked. At least Hansen was asking now, instead of fighting.
Teal'C stood up, causing Senator Hansen to do a double-take when he realized the huge man was an alien.
"Jonas Hansen believed himself to be a god on a planet of primitive people. He was forcing them to work in dangerous conditions and many lost their life because of his orders. When SG1 was assigned to go in and find out where he and his team had disappeared to, he tried to kill us as well. Jonas Hansen was a dangerous man."
"So...you killed him?" Hansen responded hostilely, incredulously.
"Jonas Hansen jumped through the Stargate on his own volition without taking the precaution to send the code necessary to open the iris guarding the Earth Stargate. Jonas Hansen killed himself."
Hansen turned to O'Neill, shaken and white. "Is this true? Why was I not told the details of my brother's death when it happened?"
"I'm sorry, Senator. It's true. You know the drill with classified. It's unfortunate, but no specific information is given out that could compromise the security of the mission."
"O'Neill, Dr, Jackson, Teal'C, and Colonel Carter. Could you allow us some time with Senator Hansen?" The Vice-President addressed them.
"Yes, sir," they said, a bit stunned that they were being asked to leave. O'Neill had not been informed that the meeting would exclude them for any period of time. He gave Landry a quizzical look, and Landry's eyes confirmed the Vice-President's request.
The four reconvened in a VIP room down the hall from the main conference room. Sam flopped into a chair and sighed, while Daniel poured himself a glass of ice water, then, looking over at Sam, poured one for her as well.
"This was a bad idea," Jack muttered. He sat next to Sam, his head in his hands. She reached out and laid a hand on his shoulder. After a minute, he looked up at her, concern on his features.
"This has to be weird for you, Sam. You doing okay?"
"I guess so," she said tentatively, sipping the water. "Seeing Hansen has brought back a lot of unpleasant memories, that's all." She had a sad, faraway look in her eyes.
"I'm sorry," Jack whispered gently. He reached up and took her hand from his shoulder so he could hold it in his lap.
"I hope Landry knows what he's doing, ordering the kidnapping of a senator," Daniel said gravely.
"Will they forbid Senator Hansen from conducting the rally he has planned for tomorrow?" Teal'c asked.
"They can't forbid it, T," Jack answered morosely. "It has to do with a little something called 'Freedom of Speech' that's really important to our country."
"But, hopefully, they can talk him into being a bit less inflammatory," Daniel added.
"I think bringing the Senator here has just sprayed gasoline on the fire," Sam offered prophetically.
Daniel flipped on the television to the local news channel and the four gathered around to hear the latest. Several interviews of people on the street showed that most people fell into one of two categories of reactions. Either they didn't believe it at all, and couldn't account for why the government was lying blatantly, which left them disturbed, or they believed it and thought an alien invasion was immenent, and this was the reason the government had chosen this point in time to make the Stargate public, which left them disturbed.
In short, the disclosure had deeply upset almost everyone, although for varying reasons.
General Landry entered the room about an hour later.
"Looks like we talked him into tempering his approach somewhat," the General announced.
"But?"
"He's still stubbornly sticking to his belief that the Stargate program is a danger to keep in operation, and that's what his rally is going to be about. His brother told him how the Gate works, how many missions he'd been on, the aliens he'd encountered...basically, Jonas was a security breach as wide as a burst dam."
"Is he mad about being kidnapped?" Sam asked with trepidation.
"Actually, and this is one of the few good things, no. He says he understands why we did it. Oh, and here's something else interesting. This mountain facility is being prepped to house the government just like it was back in the sixties. It's being stocked and fortified for an extended stay for up to 100 people as we speak."
"Because of the disclosure? But that's ridiculous. They've known about the Stargate for as long as we have."
"You'd be surprised by how many of the top government people didn't know about it. They're all scared, and I haven't been able to talk much sense into them. Believe, me, I've tried. I've explained everything I can think of about the abilities and intentions of our allies but it hasn't helped. They want to take the precaution of having Mount Weather ready in case of alien attack."
Sam, Jack, Teal'C and Daniel just stared in utter shock at Landry.
The day of the rally came quickly. General Landry and the Vice-President had personally returned the Senator to his home in a limosine the night before. The rally was scheduled to begin at 1800 hours on the Mall, and General Landry was planning on being there along with the members of the former SG1.
They were driving there now, in a nondescript Ford Taurus with three men squeezed into the back seat. Jack was driving and Sam sat next to him in the passenger seat.
"Can we just duck into the grocery store and get some bottled water for the rally?" Sam asked, having spotted a Giant Foods on the side of the highway.
"Sure." Jack pulled in and all five of them got out, the three in the back stretching and moaning, enjoying the change of position for the moment. They walked into the store and headed for the drink aisle, only to find that the store had been completely cleaned out of bottled water. Sam frowned and went to the front of the store. She found a clerk and asked whether there was any more water in the back.
"Ma'am, people have been in here buying up water, canned food, matches and such, all day today and yesterday. I've never before seen the amount of empty shelves we have in here right now. I don't think you'll find bottled water anywhere around here."
Sam and Jack exchanged a look of bewilderment.
"Why?" Daniel asked.
"People are preparing in case there's an attack from space. I got my water and food at home, too, and my plastic sheeting."
"Huh? What for?"
"In case of those aliens try to poison us, I'm going to tape plastic around my house to keep it out."
"Oh, yeah, wish I'd thought of that," Daniel said sarcastically, only to be nudged in the ribs by Sam.
"Thanks," she answered politely, then looked around at her companions. "Let's go."
As they drove on towards town, all of them were now looking and observing that nearly every grocery store, hardware store, and pharmacy had their parking lots packed with people wandering around everywhere. Men carrying sheets of plywood were jostling with women lugging bags of canned food in the parking lots of every store they passed. The scene was almost apocalyptic.
Gas stations were similarly clogged with people filling their cars and various containers with gas.
"And this is before Hansen's rally," Sam observed. "What's going to happen now?"
"Nothing good," Jack offered morosely.
Hansen's rally was everything the SGC and the President had feared and more. Claiming that the government was still lying and hiding vital information, Hansen had regaled the crowds with stories of evil aliens just waiting to get a crack at Earth, and his belief that the Stargate had now given these evildoers that opportunity. He even revealed his whereabouts for the past twenty-four hours, viciously attacking his kidnappers and claiming he had been lucky to escape them alive, in spite of what he had privately told Landry. News crews were jammed around his podium, instantly beaming his words of accusation and condemnation to millions of households.
Around dusk, Jack and Sam, saddened and worn out, decided to leave and head back over to Andrews, bidding goodbye to Teal'C and Daniel on the lawn of the Mall, who were headed back to Colorado on a red eye flight out of National later that evening. As Sam and Jack made their way across the grass, they heard an outcry behind them and turned to see Teal'C, emblem in full view, being descended upon by a frightened, angry crowd. Someone close to him held his stocking cap high in the air, having moments before snatched it from his head.
Daniel was trying to keep the mob away from Teal'C, as much for their safety as Teal'C's. Jack and Sam turned and ran back to the scene, pushing their way through to their friends.
"He's an alien!"
"He's a spy for the invaders!"
"Stop it! I'm Air Force! No, he's friendly to Earth, now back off or I'll shoot!" Jack bellowed louder than Sam had ever heard him yell before and brandished a handgun. The crowd panicked and swept back away from the General. The four took the moment of opportunity to run from the group and made it onto the street before they heard the sound of many feet behind them.
"Where's the car, Carter?"
"Down that alley."
"Go! Go!"
They only just made it to the car and had all gotten safely inside when the most persistent of the protesters had reached them and begun jumping on the hood.
"Just gun it, Daniel."
Somehow, Daniel had gotten into the driver's seat, and with a fire in his eyes and a firmly set mouth, he rammed the stick into drive and began inching the car down the alley, bumping a few people in the process.
"I have lost my hat," Teal'C lamented shortsightedly.
"I'll buy you two new ones," Jack promised him, his eyes on the people trying to break into the car. "Daniel! Get us out of here."
"I'm trying, but I don't want to...woops, sorry, fella...kill anyone," Daniel replied through clenched teeth. At that moment, a police car pulled up next to them, and Daniel stopped. Sam rolled down her window. The presence of the trooper had magically caused the crowd to quickly dissipate.
"What's the problem?" the officer asked.
"We're members of Stargate Command, and the crowd recognized us and tried to jump us," Sam replied breathlessly.
The officer peered into the car, trying to see the four celebrities for himself.
"I'll give you a police escort, just follow me," he replied, finally sitting back. "Where to?"
"National Airport." Teal'C and Daniel were so going to miss their flight if they didn't get moving.
"Done."
TBC