They beat Carter back to the cabin by a half hour. The clouds had moved away in search of better stomping grounds, leaving a cavalcade of stars above the tree-lined canopy. Teal'c joined O'Neill on the front porch, placing himself onto one of the wood-slatted Adirondack chairs to watch the numerous bugs and moths splat themselves against the light. A cloud of fireflies laid claim to the pier and surrounding beach.
Daniel had already crashed on one of the beds inside, asleep before his head hit the lumpy pillow. O'Neill couldn't sleep, and he suspected Teal'c wasn't in the mood for kel'no reem. It may have been three o'clock in the morning, but that was the best time of the day for the former Special Ops officer. He let Teal'c get comfortable before speaking what was on his mind. "So, what did those papers say?"
Teal'c frowned. "I do not know, ColonelO'Neill. Although I am fluent in speaking Goa'uld, it was not deemed important by Apophis that I learn to write it and so my abilities in understanding the written word are scanty. When I assist DanielJackson, he speaks the words aloud and I interpret them as I have heard them. I did, however, observe a number of symbols that refer to places and times. It will take more perusal to determine what they are."
"So you haven't a clue what's in those documents. It really could be somebody's favorite tabouleh recipe? With directions on where to get the ingredients?"
"Without further intervention by DanielJackson, that could indeed be the case."
"Great." O'Neill lapsed into silence. And, a couple of minutes later—"I'm not real fond of tabouleh, y'know?"
"I find it a delightful mixture of different textures, O'Neill, as well as capable of many variations in flavor, depending on who the preparer is. The final product declares much about the character of the chef."
O'Neill leaned back in his chair, deliberately unclenching the muscles in his neck. This wasn't turning out to be the peaceful vacation he'd envisioned: fishing, lazing around with a cold one, inhaling the mountain air. The last thing he would have expected was to be discussing Middle Eastern food prep at three o'clock in the morning while waiting for Carter to return from preventing a bomb from blowing up Duluth International. He looked automatically at his watch, thinking that they still had three days left before General Hammond expected them back at Cheyenne Mountain. Let's see: tomorrow would be taken up by a team of SGC's finest, come to investigate and clean up any traces of Goa'uld. The day after would be marked by Daniel creeping around and pretending he didn't feel banged up from rolling the car down into the ravine and the rest of us watching him like a flock of guilty hawks and wincing sympathetically every time he does. Well, maybe the last day would be worth getting to. He sighed.
Carter rolled up in yet another rental car, this one a much sportier model than the energy efficient selection Daniel had made. Getting out, she shrugged. "Choice of waiting till morning for LaPierre to give me a ride back, or picking up another rental." Translation: Carter too felt the need to get back to her team, to make sure that everyone was intact. She eyed the pair sitting on the porch, too keyed up to relax, and decided that sleep was also beyond her abilities at the present time. A faint smile played over her lips. "Another beer, anyone?"
O'Neill nodded yes. Teal'c favored her with an eyebrow: I do not imbibe. Carter shrugged, knowing that she'd dig out a flavored, colored water drink of some kind for him. She brought back a couple for herself and O'Neill, handing off the plastic bottle with green-flavored water inside to the Jaffa. Teal'c inclined his head in thanks. Carter dropped herself into the last chair. A hammock swung beside her with sympathetic motion. O'Neill glowered at it, and Carter empathized with that feeling. That hammock ought to contain a relaxing archeologist, forced to unwind and whining about wanting to return to his precious artifacts.
"Daniel okay?" she asked, already aware that had he not been the others would not have been sitting here calmly.
"A little bruised. Doc says he'll be fine in the morning. He's sleeping it off." O'Neill paused. Little red warning flags were running up and down his internal flag pole, screaming out 'Danger, Will Robinson!' Experience should have taught him to listen to those cautions, but far too frequently for his own comfort O'Neill required a reminder. Daniel had fallen asleep in the car on the way back, had only roused enough to stumble into the cabin and drop into the nearest bed. The archeologist hadn't even asked to look at the Goa'uld document on the drive back, and that was what was bugging O'Neill. Daniel had already demonstrated the ability to work under any and all circumstances. The presence of a current Goa'uld paper should have had the man begging to be allowed to stay up past his bedtime no matter how badly he felt.
The forensic specialist had said that Daniel would be fine. Daniel said that Daniel would be fine, but Daniel always said that Daniel was fine even when Daniel was not fine. O'Neill didn't think Daniel looked fine. O'Neill thought Daniel looked like the hunk of leftover chicken a la something-or-other in a doggie bag that had been sitting in O'Neill's fridge since before the mission to PSF-whatever. And considering that that mission had been in the neighborhood of four months ago… O'Neill rose smoothly to his feet. "I'm going to check on him. Just in case."
But Teal'c stopped him with an upraised hand and a frown. "What was that?"
Carter looked around. "What?"
The three listened intently. The crickets chirped, the breeze rustled through the trees—then O'Neill caught it. For him it wasn't the sound, but a shadow slipping from tree to tree.
O'Neill and his team went to alert status in nothing flat. Hand signals flashed: Teal'c, circle right. O'Neill to the left. Carter, secure the interior and make certain that there was no hostage situation. But first:
"I think it's time to turn in," O'Neill said clearly but not loudly. Make the unwelcome visitors work for it. "This day has been long enough."
"I concur, ColonelO'Neill. I too shall retire."
Carter yawned artistically. "Good night, all. See you in the morning." She carefully turned off the outside light, sending the flying things flitting away in search of more illumination, and just as carefully turned the inside light on. She pulled down the shades, so that no one outside would see that of the three, only Carter had actually entered the cabin. She carefully moved past a shaded window, allowing whoever it was outside to see vague movement within.
O'Neill slipped into the underbrush and held his stance, allowing the night's noises to filter in. Teal'c was right: there were the crickets and other nighttime bug life, and there was something else. Many something elses. O'Neill's eyes narrowed.
There was something close to a dozen men out and about, most of whom knew little to nothing of woodcraft. Sure, they'd all taken the mandatory wilderness survival course during G-man school, but only one or two appeared to have any practical experience that turned that education into something worth having. O'Neill sneaked up on one—and stared.
It was Micaletti. And he had a sniper rifle cradled in his arms, aimed in the general direction of the shaded cabin window.
And it was Frauhoffer. And Basehart. And a bunch of the other federal agents. And it was the remnants of the terrorist camp, the erstwhile terrorists still dressed in their camo's and all toting disgracefully new looking weaponry. It appeared to be a sudden alliance between the federal agents and the terrorists, all anti-SG-1. It didn't make sense. This was taking inter-departmental rivalry a mite too seriously.
Worse, it was way too many to take out by himself, even with a faithful Jaffa sidekick. He could do it, but there would be casualties. Unacceptable casualties, on both sides. He slipped back into the cabin, taking advantage of the meager starlight to avoid his newly acquired opponents.
Teal'c had come to the same conclusion, though he had slightly different reasoning: both O'Neill and General Hammond had taken some pains to instruct him that while killing others before they could kill you was desirable on other worlds, the American court system would have a difficult time justifying those same actions while taking a stroll down the back alleys of Denver, Colorado. Applying that concept to the current situation in the forests of Minnesota, Teal'c chose to request additional guidance as to whether that particular rule might be relaxed under the circumstances. It seemed like a good idea, but logic and sense weren't always what these Tau're demanded of their people. He joined O'Neill inside the cabin to make plans.
"I counted over a dozen," O'Neill whispered. Carter had turned on the tiny night light along an inner wall, and it cast just enough light to be able to make out vague features, giving the Jaffa a faintly Satanic look. "You?"
"The same." Teal'c paused, puzzlement in his voice. "ColonelO'Neill, I had believed that these federal agents were on our side. Why have they come upon us in stealth?"
"Sixty-four thousand dollar question, Teal'c. What say we ask one?"
The window shattered, courtesy of a silenced sniper bullet that dug a hole into the sofa that O'Neill had purchased a year ago and hadn't sat in enough. Stuffing fluffed out. Both men dove for the floor.
"Carter!" O'Neill hissed. "Get Daniel! Bring him in here!"
"Having some problems here, sir."
O'Neill cursed, and scuttled along the floor to the bedroom where they'd stashed the archeologist. He nudged the door open.
Carter had wrestled Daniel to the floor, but once there she was stuck. Daniel's head lolled to one side and O'Neill noted to his dismay that a trickle of blood was leaking out of the side of his mouth. The archeologist tried to help—lifting one hand to clutch at Carter's sleeve was the best he could do. "Carter?"
"Not good, Colonel. I think we need to get him to expert medical care soon. Whoever that doctor was," she growled, "he ought to go back to forensics. I think Daniel may be bleeding internally. And he drugged him!" she added indignantly.
"What are you talking about? He gave Daniel antibiotics. Said he was a natural for pneumonia, after a night in the creek." O'Neill took the other arm, tugging the archeologist back into the main room, staying low and ducking every time a bullet flew overhead. Teal'c too gave a hand.
Carter helped position Daniel behind the sofa with a new bullet hole in it, hoping that no stray projectiles would reach him. "Whatever he was given, he's drugged now. His pupils are pinpoint."
"Daniel?"
The man tried; he really did. All of Daniel's energy focused on responding to his friend. "Not too good right now, Jack." It was all he could manage, and he sank back into the pillows that Carter had pulled down from the sofa with the stuffing leaking out.
It all clicked for O'Neill, every stinking piece of it: the Goa'uld in the terrorist camp. A Goa'uld who in his cover as a dedicated terrorist volunteered to hunt down a few humans, probably as a lark, and then found himself face to face with a man who knew what he truly was. The Goa'uld must have panicked. It was only sheer luck that Teal'c had killed the host at that moment.
But it was not the end of the tale. Teal'c had instructed the federal agents not to touch the body, but the forensic specialist—the one with MD after his name—had listened only after the fact. By the time Teal'c had returned to the corpse he could no longer detect a Goa'uld because the Goa'uld had jumped into another host. A host that sensibly avoided the Jaffa to maintain the illusion that the snake was dead.
That new host had fed Daniel drugs and said that he was fine. O'Neill snarled silently to himself for being so trusting. He supposed he ought to be grateful that the Goa'uld hadn't killed Daniel on the spot. But that would have been too obvious, even for a Goa'uld. O'Neill should have picked up on the conversation with the forensics specialist, praising Serus. If that wasn't a give-away, then what was?
All right, time to take your brains off of vacation, O'Neill. That unholy alliance outside screamed of Goa'uld tricks. Somehow the Goa'uld had brainwashed both the federal agents and the terrorists into working together to eliminate SG-1. Why? It should have been an easy thing for the Goa'uld in its new host body to simply slip away and hide until it felt secure enough to try to take over the world again. So there was a reason that the snake believed that it had to take down SG-1. What was it?
O'Neill's eye fell on the documents that Micaletti had reluctantly given to him. That had to be it. There was nothing else. There had to be something written on those papers that the Goa'uld couldn't afford to leave lying around for someone smart like Daniel to translate. The Goa'uld must have been laughing as it wrote everything down, secure in the knowledge that only he, a Goa'uld, could read it. Laugh's on you, buddy.
He glanced at his watch. Four AM. An SGC Special Ops team would be here by eight o'clock sharp, and though they weren't expecting trouble any longer, all SG teams always expected trouble and came prepared. Which meant that all O'Neill and his team needed to do was to keep themselves alive for four more hours. He checked his ammo with a grimace. Gotta make these suckers last.
This felt like some of those old B Westerns, the ones where the heroes were holed up in a den somewhere, waiting for the cavalry to come over the hill. This had most of the elements of bad script writing: the hero, his faithful Jaffa side-kick, the man who'd die if they didn't get him to the town doctor. Carter didn't quite fit the bill as the damsel in distress but, hey, couldn't have everything. They'd have to settle for the sturdy frontierswoman with a sawed off shotgun in her hand ready to defend her home and her men folk.
Strong points: the people outside didn't know what they were doing. Well, maybe they did, but there was a long stretch between knowing what to do and having actually done it on a hundred different worlds for the last several years. Advantage: SG-1.
But the weak points were mounting: Daniel wasn't going anywhere fast. There wasn't more than a clip or two for a couple of handguns. O'Neill hadn't expected a shoot out at the OK Corral when he was planning this vacation. Food and water wouldn't matter for a mere four hours, but the bullets were in short supply. And the sun would be up in a couple of hours: any advantage that they'd had during the dark night would be lost. They'd be easy pickings for snipers. And while O'Neill didn't think much of their woodcraft, that didn't mean that he didn't have a healthy respect for their marksmanship. Even federal agents had target shooting contests among themselves and there would undoubtedly be one or two who could hit the broad side of a barn.
His team was looking to him for direction, and he gave it to them. "Teal'c, cover the right side of the house, and Carter the left. Don't let anyone within a dozen yards and especially not anyone with glowing eyes. Don't shoot to kill unless those afore-mentioned glowing eyes are coming at you. Just try to wing them—after all, most of 'em are supposed to be on our side. We'll keep them off until daybreak and reinforcements arrive."
"What about you, sir?"
O'Neill smiled tightly. "I'm going out through the attic and climb down through those damn trees that keep dumping leaves into the gutters. Maybe I can even the odds a little." He handed his revolver over to Carter. "Here. I won't need this. Use the bullets sparingly, and the last clip is in my kit."
Carter's baby blues flashed with alarm. She knew how dangerous that was. One man against a dozen, even a man as capable as O'Neill was, was an act of desperation and a measure of how serious O'Neill considered the situation. She said nothing and turned away to her assigned station.
"Me, Jack?"
It was Daniel. A dozen memories flashed across O'Neill's mind: Daniel, bleeding to death on a Goa'uld mother ship clutching his P-90 and protecting their six so that the rest of SG-1 could finish the job of saving Earth; Daniel caught in the grip of a Goa'uld ribbon device, screaming in agony but not giving up; Daniel facing O'Neill himself down over the ethics of backing one race against the other.
It was Daniel Jackson, the young man who consistently fooled everyone into thinking that he wasn't as capable, wasn't as good as everyone else when the chips were down. The man who wasn't military, who always needed looking after. 'A baby-sitter' was the derogatory term. 'Trouble magnet' also figured prominently.
O'Neill wasn't fooled. Daniel had earned his place on O'Neill's team and was as valuable to them all as Carter and Teal'c. He wasn't military, but O'Neill didn't need more military. He needed Daniel.
Daniel was asking for a gun. A stupid play, but very Jacksonian. O'Neill shook his head. "Got better plans for you, Daniel. You up for a bedtime story?"
Daniel's face went blank, not certain if O'Neill was playing some sort of joke on him and not up to figuring it out. "Give me a gun, Jack. I'll watch a window."
"Not in this lifetime, big guy." O'Neill helped the archeologist to attain a semi-reclining position, propped up on a few more pillows and grateful that the pillows were of the cheap dime-store variety. It wouldn't hurt so much to throw them away when Daniel started to bleed all over them, or throw up, or whatever an internally hemorrhaging archeologist was likely to do. Daniel bit his lip at the movement; that and an involuntary grabbing of O'Neill's arm was all that betrayed him. O'Neill wasn't fooled but forcing the man to admit his weakness would serve no purpose. "I've got something else for you. I need you to do some translating."
"Jack?" Unsaid: at a time like this?
"No, I haven't gone screaming yellow looney toons, although that may not be far off." O'Neill reached for the documents that he'd hijacked from Special Agent Micaletti, stretching until his fingertips could rustle the papers close enough to grab. He unrolled the sheaf and helped Daniel to hold it open. "There's a reason that snake is after you. The rest of us are just icing on the cake. I'm betting, Daniel, that this Goa'uld is scared shitless that you are going to translate these scribblings and find out something that the snake doesn't want us to know. So when I get back I want to know what little tidbit has old Gloweyes upset. Hop to it, Daniel."
"Right." Daniel's eyes began to glitter. O'Neill devoutly hoped that it was fervor for knowledge and not fever.
Chin-ups. O'Neill mentally altered his future work out regimen from more push ups and fewer chin-ups to fewer push-ups and more chin-ups. Of course, he'd probably never have to swing from tree branches again for the rest of his career, but it was a nice thought. He only wished that he'd had it before the current crisis.
And quietly. The cursing was limited to inside his head and a few gestures at a small twig that caught his jacket but for the most part he slithered down to the ground from the attic with little to no sound. No federal agents showed up to greet his arrival and no terrorist types blew him away upon landing, so he figured he made it past stage one.
On to stage two. He slipped up behind a terrorist type, one dressed in dirty and ragged clothing—smelled you from ten feet away, guy—and took him out without so much as a single noise. Tying him up took a bit more creativity. Rope was at a premium; it hadn't been among the things that O'Neill had anticipated needing for vacation—neither were bullets, for that matter—so O'Neill compromised by making certain that the man wouldn't wake up for a good long time. The head-ache wouldn't be pleasant to live with, but O'Neill consoled himself with the hope that when the man finally regained consciousness he would no longer be Goa'uld-controlled and would be thoroughly mortified by his incomprehensible actions.
Frauhoffer was next of the unfortunates to be found by O'Neill. It was time for a few answers, so O'Neill dragged the man far enough away so that they couldn't be heard. Frauhoffer's belt served as the rope to tie him up, and O'Neill sat back on his haunches to wait for consciousness to return.
It didn't take long. O'Neill had judged the blow very carefully, and the awakening followed the expected pattern: Frauhoffer's eyes flickered but never quite opened despite the still dark night. There was the slight movement of the head, during which time Frauhoffer discovered that he had the mother of all headaches. Next came the finding that his hands were tied, which meant that he couldn't rub his poor head to make the pain go away. O'Neill could almost see Frauhoffer's blood run cold as the man realized that he was a prisoner and helpless. The man stiffened in fear, trying to pretend that he was still out cold.
"Are you you?" O'Neill asked conversationally.
There was a pause of recognition; Frauhoffer realized who was sitting next to him. "Colonel O'Neill?"
"In the flesh," O'Neill returned genially. "Mind telling me what the hell you were doing?"
There was another pause, this one more dismayed. "Why are we out in the woods?"
"Because you and a lot of your friends were shooting at me and my friends. And our enemies were helping. A concept which I find a trifle unsettling."
Either Frauhoffer was feeling better, or he was beginning to accept that there was no rational explanation for what was going on, because the pauses were growing shorter. "Why?"
"I was hoping you could tell me. Still feel like shooting me?"
"No. Did I before?"
"Apparently. Got any more weapons on you?"
Frauhoffer did a mental inventory. "No." Then, "you got the little Beretta in my calf holster?"
"Yup."
"Then you got them all."
"Good." It meant that O'Neill hadn't lost his touch, frisking Frauhoffer to find all the weapons that the man carried. O'Neill now had another two revolvers and a Swiss Army knife to take back with him to the cabin.
"Why was I shooting at you?"
O'Neill grunted. "At least you remember doing it."
"I broke your window," Frauhoffer said ruefully. "And the second bullet is lodged in the wood beside the shutter."
"You knocked the stuffing out of my sofa, too," O'Neill added.
"No, I think that was Micaletti." Then, "Did I hit anybody?"
"Nope," O'Neill said cheerfully. "Not for lack of trying, I might add. You and all your buddies. I thought you were better shots than that."
"This doesn't make sense. Why was I shooting at you? Why were we shooting at you? And why are all the terrorists doing it with us? Is this some kind of mass hallucination?"
"Told you that you didn't want to get involved with us," O'Neill replied. "What's the last thing you remember?"
Frauhoffer thought. It was painful to watch, especially since O'Neill didn't dare untie his hands. "It was Baramian," he said finally.
"Who?"
"Our forensic specialist. Our doc," Frauhoffer explained.
"Ah. That's his name." That made sense. And it made O'Neill feel better as well. If the newly minted host could fool people that he'd worked with every day, how could O'Neill even hope to recognize the Goa'uld? The snake had worked fast, taking advantage of his new body's job description to drug Daniel. O'Neill supposed they could be grateful that the forensic specialist hadn't argued to take Daniel to the local hospital for surgery. O'Neill had no doubt that Daniel would have 'accidentally' died on the table. "And I don't suppose his eyes…kind of…glowed?"
Frauhoffer looked up sharply. "How did you know? I thought I was going crazy."
O'Neill shrugged, and started to pull the knots apart on Frauhoffer's hands. It was time, and he hoped that he was making the right call. "A lucky guess."
Frauhoffer was getting more and more unhappy, finally realizing just how in over his head he really was. "You're not just Air Force, are you, colonel?" he asked mournfully.
O'Neill opened his mouth, let it hang in the breeze, and then closed it again. This man didn't need to know. He finally came back with the hoary but fairly accurate line: "If I told you, I'd have to kill you."
Frauhoffer wouldn't meet his gaze. "Somehow I get the feeling that you mean that."
"Almost. Don't ask me any more questions."
"Just one more, colonel. What do you want me to do?"
O'Neill wasn't about to trust the terrorists, not after all the trouble he and Frauhoffer had been through to put them out of circulation, but the rest of the federal agents were persuaded rapidly enough to abandon their pot shots at O'Neill's cabin and team. All it took was an epidemic of mild concussions, the blows to the various hard heads reordering the thought processes and knocking out whatever Goa'uld whammy the snake had applied. Frauhoffer proved himself almost as adept as O'Neill when it came to tapping his companions on the back of their heads. O'Neill graciously allowed his new team member the pleasure of taking down Special Agent Micaletti—"obnoxious twerp. Thinks he wants my job. Wait 'till I get promoted; then I'll give it to him and ride his ass as much as he's irked mine."—and finally resolved the stand-off a short while before daybreak, much to Carter's relief since both the bullets and her patience were in short supply.
Which was when a legion of SG special forces appeared on the scene. Four squads of four had commandeered several jeeps from the local Air Force base and a local private for directions to O'Neill's lost cabin in the woods, a fact that was not lost on the major in charge of the detail when the private himself also got lost. A phone call or two resolved the matter even though O'Neill refused to budge from his post and Carter professed ignorance of the surrounding trails.
Which didn't mean that SG-1 wasn't pleased to see them. Four jeeps roared up, shoving dust up into the air as brakes squealed to a stop. Sixteen military types armed to the teeth jumped out and secured the area before the federal types could as much as squeak. The whole thing comforted O'Neill as much as anything could do despite the fact that the shoot out was over.
The major in charge of the detail presented himself to O'Neill. "Major Anthony Nelson, sir. Permission to take charge?"
Hammond had obviously told Nelson that O'Neill was on vacation. O'Neill grinned. Good ol' George. "Permission granted, major." Then it hit him. "Uh, Tony Nelson, as in 'I Dream of Jeannie' Tony Nelson?"
The major flushed. "Yes, sir. I try not to make a big deal of it, sir."
One corner of O'Neill's mouth quirked upward. "I understand completely, major. Carry on." And resisted the urge to fold his arms and bob his head.
"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Nelson went to work. "Knowles, Bridges: get Dr. Jackson to the nearest hospital, and don't leave him alone. Your orders are to stabilize and transport to Cheyenne ASAP. Chieslewski and Deseau, haul out the portable ultrasound and start checking these people for—" he paused, considering the listening ears—"contamination." Nelson continued to hand out the tasks, delegating a team to scour the erstwhile terrorist camp for any other signs of Goa'uld infestation and another to search for signs of the missing forensic specialist.
O'Neill nodded approvingly. "Thank you, major." A thought occurred to him. "Ah, you got anyone here who does any translating?"
He didn't need to tell Nelson which language needed the translating. The major shook his head ruefully. "Sorry, sir. Dr. Rothman is currently off—er, on a mission and Bergmeister is occupying the Jackson Memorial bed back home at the moment, which is why Dr. Frasier wasn't able to accompany us."
O'Neill grimaced. "They must be taking lessons from Daniel."
"Yes, sir, that's what General Hammond said. Any updates I should be aware of, sir?"
O'Neill cast a look around, reviewing the situation. Carter looked bushed after four hours of holding off assorted terrorist types and even Teal'c looked to be in need of some serious kel-no-reem. Daniel was being carted off toward a jeep between the bodies of two sturdy soldiers. His team was taken care of. "No, major. Just try to keep the noise level down. This is supposed to be our vacation."
"Some vacation," O'Neill complained. Even out in the boat he could still see three of Major Nelson's finest standing guard. They were on the edges of the woods, P-90's in hand and blending in with the trees, but to O'Neill they stood out like a sore thumb. A Goa'uld sore thumb, to be exact. O'Neill and team were here to get away from the little buggers, and they kept showing up. It was enough to be seriously annoying.
The rest of Nelson's squad had split themselves between searching the erstwhile terrorist camp and searching for traces of where the former Dr. Baramian had disappeared to. A minor squabble broke out between Special Agent Micaletti and Major Nelson over just who would be allowed to sift through the terrorist camp leavings, and O'Neill declined to get involved. He was, after all, on vacation. Micaletti's superior, Special Agent Frauhoffer, took one look and yanked Micaletti back on a very short leash. Special Agent Frauhoffer, unlike his sub-ordinate, possessed enough brains to know that he was out-classed. He could have blustered and waited for word to come from Washington, but was smart enough not to. And offered help in finding Baramian.
"Do you wish to return prematurely to the SGC, ColonelO'Neill?" Teal'c inquired. He too was growing dissatisfied with the excursion, more so after finding out that while the fish he was attempting to do battle with relied upon cleverness to avoid capture rather than any real show of skilled force. Should Teal'c and O'Neill fail in their endeavor there would be no significant consequence. SG-1 would not even go hungry that evening.
"Yes. No. Yes. Maybe."
Teal'c cocked his head, regarding his team leader and comrade. "Do you wish to participate in the search for Serus?"
"No!" Then—"yes," O'Neill admitted. "After all, I'm the one who let him slip through our fingers. He was that close to me, Teal'c," and O'Neill held up two fingers, a bare inch apart. "I could've nailed him right then and there, if only I had been smart enough to listen to what he was saying about himself. I knew there was a Goa'uld around, Teal'c, and I was too busy worrying about Daniel!" He leaned back in the boat. The bow rocked slightly with the movement. "Damn trouble magnet."
The fishing line jerked. O'Neill sat bolt up straight, setting the hook and easing out the line to play the fish.
"O'Neill?"
"Shh. I've got him!"
Ahh. A fish. Teal'c paid close attention; this, O'Neill had told him, was the part where skill mattered. Teal'c hoped that he would be up to the challenge should he be as fortunate as O'Neill.
"Colonel O'Neill!" The call came from the shore, from a certain slender blonde major. "Colonel O'Neill! It's Daniel!"
"What?" An injudicious yank, and the line went limp. "Damn!" O'Neill slammed the line down and snatched up the oars. "Damn trouble magnet!" He stroked.
"That's all? Daniel's coming home? Back to this cabin? He's supposed to be headed directly back to the base."
"Yes, sir." Carter frowned, cell phone clenched to her ear, trying to make up for the lack of a clear signal. "Apparently the local doctors are having as much trouble keeping Daniel in bed as Janet does, only Janet has a few more Marines at her disposal. Daniel's signed himself out, is what Sergeant Knowles told Major Nelson. They're on their way back here right now."
"The idiot," O'Neill snarled. "What does he think he's doing? The man think he's indestructible? He ought to know better by now. Wait 'til I get my hands on him—"
"Hold up, sir." Carter still had her ear glued to the phone. "Say again, Major?" She listened intently, plugging her other ear to hear more clearly. "Two attempts?" She whistled softly, clicking the phone off.
"Major?" O'Neill was all business. The vacation was over.
Carter wasted no time. "Serus has been a busy little boy, Colonel. There have been two attempts on Daniel's life. The hospital officials were glad to see him go."
"Two attempts?"
"Yes, sir. The first was a typical busting up the Emergency Room sort of brawl. Couple of gangs brought themselves in and started mixing it up. Got close to Daniel, but Knowles and Bridges took care of it. They thought that it was just coincidence, until a sniper put three holes through Daniel's window. Then one of the gang members talked, said they'd been paid to start a ruckus."
"Knowles and Bridges were supposed to transport Daniel back to Cheyenne."
"Yes, sir. Apparently Daniel figured out something about the papers that you retrieved from the terrorist camp. He thinks that you need to hear about it."
"There's the phone, Carter. I noticed you using it. Any reason Daniel couldn't?"
"Yes, sir, and that occurred to Sgt. Knowles. Daniel overruled him."
"Daniel overruled him? Since when does a civilian contradict a direct order in the chain of command?"
Teal'c raised a single eyebrow. "I have known DanielJackson to successfully contradict your orders, ColonelO'Neill, on many different occasions. I believe that you have remarked that it 'keeps you on your toes'."
"Ballerinas keep on their toes," O'Neill grumbled.
"Nevertheless, DanielJackson has demonstrated an ability to get his way with consistency. I do not believe it would be logical to fault the sergeant for failing where his superiors likewise have not succeeded."
O'Neill glared at the Jaffa. "I hate it when you go all Spock-ian on me. Gonna set that eyebrow on stun?"
Teal'c went blank. Another O'Neill-ism had just slipped by the alien.
That satisfied O'Neill. If he couldn't control Daniel, at least he could bewilder Teal'c. "I am thoroughly annoyed," he announced to the remnants of his team. "I come here for a vacation, and a snake shows up to ruin it for me. Next thing you know, the snake'll be wanting to go fishing with us. And that is so not going to happen."
"Colonel?" Carter asked, with an underlying What is going to happen?
"First, I am sending Daniel home. Home, meaning Cheyenne Mountain. Where there are a few hundred armed and trained soldiers all perfectly willing to take a crack at shooting up a snake-head or two. Two, I am going to find that damn Serious snake, or whatever he calls himself."
"Serus," Carter murmured.
"Whatever. Carter, see if you can persuade your cell phone to work in these mountains and call Nelson and his crew in. I want a briefing in two hours."