Teal'C pulled the SUV to the edge of the building's parking garage exit. The driving lessons had 'paid off' as O'Neill had said. He sat, watching the van, in total darkness. Truth be told, he would have felt more comfortable approaching the van and taking its occupants by surprise in order to persuade them to return the boy, but O'Neill had said that if it were the kidnappers and if they didn't have Chase with them, then catching them now would do little good. Teal'C had straightened to his full 6'4" and quoted a movie they had recently watched.
"We have ways of making them talk."
DanielJackson and O'Neill exchanged amused looks in spite of themselves. ElizabethMcReynolds patted his arm and nodded.
"Good," she commented. "We may need it later."
Now he and she sat silently in her Explorer at the exit of the parking garage, waiting.
Daniel looked out of the balcony, then to his watch. Almost 0200. He frowned. "I wish you hadn't let her go with Teal'C."
"The kidnappers aren't going to expect her to leave with us. If they are watching, they know that Sam left already. They might become suspicious if they saw her climbing into the truck with us. Besides," Jack opened his cell phone. "Who better to keep her safe?" He dialed as Daniel nodded. "Sam, time's up…yeah? Nice. Are you sure they won't know the difference?"
Daniel watched as Jack listened to Sam and noticed that, for once, his friend's eyes did not glaze over.
"Okay, okay, Sam, just pack it up and get to your car…okay, your bike then…of all the days for you ride…yeah, Sam, just get up there and wait for my call."
The Daniel's phone rang. Jack hung up on Sam and picked up the headphones, then nodded for Daniel to pick up.
"This is Daniel Jackson."
"Dr. Jackson, were you able to procure the item?"
"I have someone getting it. We will deliver it when and where you say."
"Very good, Dr. Jackson. Now you will take it out to where North Cheyenne Canyon Road meets Gold Camp Road and High. There will be Detour sign that you will follow down a dirt road exactly 2 miles. There, you will leave the package and head back to the detour sign. After the drop has been confirmed, a vehicle will stop and the boy will be released. Go alone. Do not think about involving the police or the military any further."
Daniel looked at Jack who was making a motion of driving and then a slashing motion. "Uh, okay, but I don't have car. Can I bring one person who drives?"
The voice seemed to smile. "You may bring Jack O'Neill, but he is to remain behind the wheel of the car at all times."
Daniel looked at Jack and mouthed "How?"
Jack shook his head.
"I suggest you get moving, Dr. Jackson. You have one hour." The line went dead.
"How does this person know us?" Daniel stood. "What the hell, Jack?"
Jack smirked at his friend's use of language. Jack pulled out his cell phone and touched the Push To Talk. "Teal'C."
"Go ahead, O'Neill"
"Watch the van. We're heading out to Gold Camp Road."
In the elevator, Jack called Sam and gave her a meeting place on the way.
Teal'C watched the van, as instructed.
"There they go," Liz breathed. She pointed to Jack and Daniel moving out to Jack's truck. They got in and drove off. The van suddenly came to life and followed. "Go."
Teal'C put the SUV in gear and slowly pulled out into the road, his lights still off.
"Uh, Murray," Liz said. "I appreciate the need to be stealthy, but we're still inside the city. If a cop sees us driving with no head lights, we'll get pulled over."
"I will turn them on at the next intersection," Teal'C said, calmly. "To do so sooner will likely alert the van to our presence and cause suspicion."
Liz nodded. She looked down at her lap, where she had opened a map of Colorado Springs that she'd kept in her glove compartment. She was found Gold Camp Road and swore. "This road goes into the mountains forever!"
Teal'C handed the cell phone to her.
She hit the Push To Talk. "Jack, Daniel," she said.
"What is it, Liz?" Daniel's voice was on edge.
"Where on Gold Camp Road is the location? That road goes into the mountains…"
"Gold Camp Road and North Cheyenne Canyon Road"
Liz put the phone in the cup holder of the center console and looked at the map using only the passing street lights. "Crap," she said, suddenly.
"What is?"
She looked at Murray, whom Jack called "Teelk", and frowned. "Those two roads meet out in the middle of nowhere. It's not like here in the city. If they picked an intersection in town, we might have been able to come at it from a different direction, but this…" she shook her head. "Damn it."
"I suspect that O'Neill may have a plan."
They drove in silence for a long way. "Look, they're turning off," Liz picked up the phone. "They've stopped following you. It looks like they're heading to the reservoir."
Daniel's voice came back. "Jack says to keep following them. We're meeting with Sam up ahead in a few minutes, then we're going on to the drop. Let us know what you see."
Liz looked at Murray, who nodded. "Understood."
Jack pulled over and got out of the truck.
Sam was standing next to her motorcycle looking nervous. "Please, sir, just be careful."
"I've ridden a motorcycle before, Sam."
Sam pursed her lips. "In the dark and off-road? But I'm not as worried about your riding ability as I am about their shooting…"
Jack nodded. "You're driving the truck. Stay in the truck. You're supposed to be me. You and Daniel are following the instructions to the T. Teal'C is following the van and I'll meet you out there." He straddled the bike. "Hopefully, we can nail these bastards."
Sam nodded and quickly jumped into the truck. Daniel nodded at her and she thought that he looked exactly like the time when they thought they'd lost Jack on Edora. There was tightness around his eyes and his lips were set in firm line. She reached over and grasped his arm for just a second before putting the truck in drive and pulling out.
Teal'C had turned the lights off again as soon as they followed the van off the main road. He and Liz drove in silence nearer to the reservoir.
"If they go all the way there, we're going to either have to stop or lose them," she commented. "There are too many lights up there and we'll be spotted for sure."
Teal'C made no comment. Instead, he concentrated on the van ahead and the possible routes it might take as they approached each turn. The van finally turned and approached a small building. The van backed up to it and a man got out. They watched as the man unlocked the building from the outside and an adult carrying a child came out and got into the back of the van.
"Oh, my God, Chase!" Liz breathed. "Murray!"
Teal'C did not take his eyes off of the van. "We can do nothing at this moment, ElizabethMcReynolds. There are at least three men in that van and one can assume they are armed. Even against our zat'ni'katels, it would not be impossible for one of them to kill your son before we could free him."
Liz closed her eyes. "I know, but…oh, God!"
Teal'C put the car in drive and followed after the van pulled out. "Indeed."
Without looking away from the van, Liz frowned. "By the way, what is a zat-ni-katel?"
Daniel put the phone down after receiving the information about the van from Liz. Her voice had sounded as tight as his chest felt. He could only try to imagine what she was going through, knowing her son was inside the van in front of her and not being able to do anything about it. He wished she was where he could hold her.
Sam looked over at him, concerned.
"I wish this was over," Daniel confessed. "I wouldn't wish this kind of agony on anyone."
Sam nodded. "I know. The Colonel has a plan, Daniel," She said, confidently. "He won't let anything happen to the boy."
"Chase," Daniel corrected. "His name is Chase. He's four and he loves anything that goes: cars, trucks, planes, trains…" Daniel examined the phone. "He thinks I'm a paleontologist, even though Liz and I have told him…" He smiled through his agony. "He wants me to get him a dinosaur bone or a mummy."
Sam felt her emotions well up as she heard the pain in her friend's voice. She swallowed the lump in her throat and concentrated on the road. "He sounds wonderful," she said, finally.
Daniel nodded. "Yeah," he said softly. He looked out the passenger window.
Liz felt as if her chest were in a vice. Every nerve in her body was screaming. Her baby was in danger and she was helpless to do anything about it.
"Do you have any children, Murray?" she choked.
Teal'C inclined his head. "I have a son."
"How old is he?"
Teal'C had never thought of his son's age in terms of earth years. He thought of an appropriate age. "He is a teenager," he said, confident that this would cover it.
She smiled, half-heartedly. "I'll bet he is the image of you," she said. "Tall and strong."
"He is becoming strong and tall," Teal'C nodded. "But he is more the image of his mother."
"Are you still together? His mother and you?"
"We are not. He lives with her."
She nodded. "But you try to see him when you can?"
Teal'C glanced over to her. "I do. They live very far from here, but when I have opportunity," he trailed off.
She nodded. Tears sprang to her eyes. "I knew you were a good person," she choked. "Chase has never known his father. I – " she stopped and rubbed her face with her hands.
Teal'C took a deep breath and grasped the wheel of the SUV a bit harder. "The van is turning."
Liz nodded. She took a deep breath and brought the phone to her lips. "Daniel, the van is back on Cheyenne Canyon."
"We're at Gold Camp and High…I see the detour sign. We're going to make the drop."
Liz closed her eyes and held the phone to her chest. After a moment, it chirruped. Jack's voice came over it. "T," he said.
Liz held the phone up to Murray and pushed the button.
"I am here, O'Neill."
"Hey, I want you to wait off-road by the detour sign if you can. Hopefully, we can overwhelm the van when they release the boy."
"Understood," Teal'C answered as Liz held the phone.
Liz looked at Murray, squinting her eyes in a frown of confusion. "What the hell is Jack doing? Why did it sound like he was shouting over a racecar engine?"
Teal'C merely looked down the road. "I do not know."
Jack was far enough ahead of Sam and Daniel that when they called to tell him that they'd found the detour sign, he was waiting at the drop. He'd driven past it like he was on his way somewhere, then he doubled back off-road, killing the engine and walking the bike a quarter of a mile. He had picked an outcropping of rocks above the area, parked Sam's motorcycle, and was on his belly with his zat in his hand waiting patiently.
The zat would give him an advantage the P-90 couldn't: shock value and no percussive noise to alert the bad guys to his location. Jack couldn't help a tight grin at the thought "Shock value," he muttered. "Gotta remember that one."
He dropped lower as he saw Sam and Daniel arrive in his pick-up. Daniel got out of the truck and took the case of a mineral Sam had engineered to look like naquadah in the same way that pyrite looks like gold and put it down in the middle of the dirt road. Then he got back into the car, looking around, as Sam turned the truck around and headed back.
"I didn't see anyone," Daniel frowned.
"I'm sure the Colonel was there somewhere."
Daniel's eyebrows came together and he narrowed his eyes. "Yeah," he said, slowly. "Maybe we should go back."
Sam shook her head. "No. We're following the instructions. If the kidnappers are, somehow, watching us, we want them to feel at ease and release Chase to us."
"What do you think Jack is planning?"
Sam had no idea, but she desperately wanted to put her friend at ease. "I'm sure he's just going to get the license plate and descriptions of the car and driver so that we can track them later."
Daniel looked at her with his eyebrows raised, and lips pursed. "You're sure?"
Sam looked at him and nodded. Then she tilted her head as she returned her eyes to the road. "Reasonably sure."
Daniel looked forward. "Uh-Huh." He didn't sound sure at all.
"Okay, no. I'm hopeful."
"But it does seem likely for Jack, does it?"
She grinned. "Not at all."
Daniel looked at Sam. "Maybe we should go back."
"Colonel O'Neill will be fine. Remember he's got a lot of experience in 'special' situations." Sam mentally crossed her fingers and hoped.
Teal'C and Liz sat off the road. They'd pulled over and stopped as soon as the van did. They had no way of knowing if this was where the exchange would take place since they never saw the detour sign. Liz was getting more and more anxious.
"It's two," she announced. "Daniel and Jack should have made the drop and be on their way, now." Liz jumped as the phone on her lap chirped.
"T" Jack's voice filtered through. There were no longer loud noises behind him and he sounded like he was whispering. "Daniel and Sam just made the drop and they're headed back to the detour sign. What's your status?"
As Murray took the phone, Liz shook her head and asked. "Daniel and Sam? What is Jack doing, then?"
Instead of answering, he depressed the button. "I am stopped on the side of road behind the van. I do not believe they are aware of our presence. We have not seen the detour sign."
"Got it. Daniel's supposed to call when they get back to the detour sign. Keep your eyes open."
Murray/Teal'C handed Liz back the phone and she looked at him. "You're going to have to tell me why he calls you 'T'."
He looked out at the van. "I believe he thinks I look like a television character."
Liz's head turned slowly from the van to look at him. The look on her face was one of frank disbelief. She raised an eyebrow, then the other. "He thinks you look like MR. T? Have you ever seen Mr. T? Jack's lost his mind."
Teal'C suddenly worried that the usual way of covering for Jack's slip was not going to work, but Liz did not push the matter, other than to shake her head and mutter. "Just don't see it."
"Look," Teal'C pointed. The van was moving. Teal'C put the SUV into gear and inched it forward.
As soon as Sam stopped, Daniel got out of the car. He went to stand at the front of it with the headlights illuminating him. He waited, hoping someone, other than Jack or Teal'C, would come soon. At this point his biggest fear was that the kidnappers wouldn't show and they'd find Chase…somewhere else. He felt his chest tighten again as the thought crossed his mind. He shoved his hands into his pockets, leaned against the bumper of the truck and waited.
Jack watched an All Terrain Vehicle come to a stop.
The man on it, dismounted, approached the case and knelt down to inspect it. He opened it, closed it again, and lifted a walkie-talkie to his face. Then he pocketed the walkie-talkie, picked up the case and jumped back onto the ATV.
That's when Jack shot him with the zat.
Jack moved cautiously toward the unconscious figure slumped almost off of the ATV. When he finally reached the side of the vehicle, he pushed on the man's shoulder. When there was no motion, he nodded and reached into his pocket for a plastic tie that Carter had thought to bring. He quickly tied the man to the front tire of the three-wheeled vehicle and took the case of "fool's naquada" and ran back to Sam's motorcycle to go help the rest of his team.
