"DanielJackson! What has occurred? DanielJackson!"

"Teal'c?" Jack wrestled the car around another curve, taking it too fast for weather conditions.

"DanielJackson cried out, then fell silent."

"Can you tell what happened?"

"I listened closely to the cell phone device, O'Neill, and I believe that I heard footsteps. There was another voice, and only one man walking over snow."

"Deavers," O'Neill snarled, tapping the brake to fishtail around yet another corner.

"Any gunshots?" Sam couldn't help but ask.

"No, nor the sound of any blow." Teal'c hesitated. "How much longer, O'Neill?"

But it was Sam with the answer. "GPS says not more than a mile down this road."

"Assuming the SUV will keep going," Jack grunted. The snow on this back path was deeper, but the higher clearance of the vehicle was helping along with the four wheel drive.

"I will get out and run."

"We go any slower, I'll join you."

"Look, up ahead. Is that the cabin?" Sam pointed.

There were no lights on inside or out, but they could see the dark outlines of a small cabin nestled among the trees. There was a sedan in front, half-covered in newly fallen snow. A cord of wood stood to one side collecting its fair share of white. A small animal scurried in front of the SUV as they pulled to a halt and darted into the safety of the wood pile.

"It looks deserted," Sam said doubtfully. "You think he's in there?"

"No, I don't," Jack said. "Daniel said he was outside. But I damn well think we need to check it out before we trot off into the woods. Teal'c, you're with me. Carter, scout around outside. See what you can find. Don't take any chances, Carter. Deavers big, and smart, and I'm guessing that he's set up a few traps in the area. Go."

Carter ghosted off, a pale shadow in the meager moonlight.

The remaining two scuttled up to the cabin, keeping to the shadows. O'Neill listened; no noise, no talking, no sounds of anyone inside. He wasn't satisfied. He'd been fooled too many times to take a careless chance and right now he couldn't afford to be wrong. He pushed the door open with the butt of his revolver.

Still nothing. O'Neill gestured with his gun: go. Teal'c silently slipped inside, crouched and looking. O'Neill slid in behind him.

The place was deserted. There was no one home. O'Neill flicked on the light switch, and was mildly surprised that it worked.

This place was neater than Deavers' apartment, but far more rustic. There were only a few cupboards, the painted wood begging for another coat of paint and a tin can for a coffee pot on top of the tiny cooktop. A stray plate lay in the sink, but nothing near the quantity that Deavers had left behind in his town apartment. Two overstuffed chairs circled the stone fireplace; a stray ember snapped and gave up life, smoke wisping upward both through the chimney and out into the room itself with a pleasant hickory smell. There was a woven rug in front of the fireplace that a small table sat upon, and a single bed in the corner with rumpled sheets. Jack's heart skipped a beat; there was a smear of blood on those sheets. More than a smear; someone had done some serious bleeding, and recently.

"They have not been gone long," Teal'c stated, indicating the still warm coals in the fireplace.

"You got that right." Jack spotted a large and unmoving body just beyond the sofa, and his heart nearly stopped altogether until he saw who it was. Not Daniel! He squatted, felt for a pulse, careful to keep his hand away from the blood and feeling sick at where it seeped from. "Deavers is dead; someone broke his neck. But the body's still warm. And bleeding." Good. That probably wasn't Daniel's blood on the sheet.

Teal'c looked, concealing his emotions behind a careful façade. Jack could imagine what was going on in the Jaffa's mind: this man's death relieves me of the task of killing him for what he has done. Or, perhaps, the Jaffa felt cheated at not being able to do the deed himself. "We must proceed cautiously to apprehend his killer."

"Killers," Jack added. "Deavers is—was—big. The guy the state police saw was kind of scrawny, not likely to have been able to do this," he said, indicating the mess that had been made of Deavers' body. "There's probably at least two more, maybe three."

"I see no evidence of more than one additional person, O'Neill."

Jack put it to rest. They had more important things. "We'll keep our eyes open. Let's move out." He touched his radio. "Carter? Anything?"

"Not yet, sir. There are boot tracks in the back of the cabin, several sets. Last set is fresh. You?"

"Deavers is here. Dead. His neck's been snapped." He didn't mention the bleeding. The sordid details could wait for the report.

"Daniel?"

"Not in here. We're coming out. We'll join you and see where those tracks go."

"Shall I move ahead, take point? It will save time—"

"No!" O'Neill said, a little too quickly. "Wait for back up, Carter."

"Yes, sir." O'Neill didn't have to be a psychiatrist to recognize the annoyance in her voice: don't treat me like a girl, sir.

"Wait for back up, major. That's an order," O'Neill said quietly, adding, "Whoever is out there took down Deavers. Took him down easily, Carter, and I don't want to have to tote more than one of my team members through this snow. Got it?"

"Yes, sir." As long as you'd tell Teal'c the same thing, sir.

I would, Carter. O'Neill took point himself, calling on both rank and Special Ops training to award himself the position. The tracks were easy to follow; neither of the pair who made them was trying to hide. The deeper ones were made by Deavers and judging by the depth of the footprints, Deavers was carrying Daniel. The lighter tracks belonged to a smaller man. Probably the unknown passenger that the policeman saw in town. The small man had to be the one who killed Deavers; he must have taken Deavers by surprise. Deavers was too big and too well trained for any other explanation. Where were the other sets of tracks? This looked like there was only the two plus Daniel. Things weren't adding up.

He stopped short, holding up his hand to halt the others. There, at his feet, was a slender trip wire. It could have easily been missed in the dark until someone had brushed past it. The end, Jack had no doubt, would have been messy. Someone didn't want them getting to Daniel. O'Neill carefully cut the wire; the strands fell away and O'Neill paused only a short moment to look for more wires. Then he moved on. The clean up crew could look for the messy part later and make certain that it didn't take out any innocent hikers. SG-1 had a freezing archeologist to rescue.

The tracks led to a clearing, a clearing with a huddled dark mass at one end. Sam started to move forward, but Jack held her back. Hand signals flashed: secure the perimeter. She nodded, moving off in the opposite direction.

Teal'c was next: watch my six. Teal'c was already scanning the area, watching and listening. O'Neill crept forward.

"O'Neill!" Teal'c hissed.

O'Neill froze.

"Hold," Teal'c instructed. Moving to the left of O'Neill, he lifted a six inch wide branch and removed a slender wire. Had O'Neill taken one step further, he would have tripped the wire and the branch would have swung down and decapitated him.

"Got another one over here," Carter murmured into the radio. "Disabled, sir."

Damn, but he had a good team.

Daniel was unresponsive by the time Jack reached him. O'Neill's eyes narrowed. Daniel had struggled his way under this pile of rags to try to keep warm. O'Neill's knife came out to cut the ropes that had hog-tied the man into this awkwardly painful position, grateful that Daniel wasn't awake to feel the circulation seep back into his wrists and ankles. If Deavers had done this—the airman was lucky to be dead. Hell, there was a lot of bare flesh under these rags. More than there ought to be. Where were Daniel's clothes? Dammit, they'd left Daniel—

"Perimeter secure, sir. No one in the immediate area." Carter arrived back at his side. "Daniel—Holy Hannah," she breathed. "They tortured him! Is he alive?"

"Not by much. Get a fire going in the cabin, Carter. Teal'c and I'll bring him in. Hurry." Harshly.

"Yes, sir." Carter ran, slipping and sliding on the snow.

"O'Neill?" Teal'c was next at his side.

"Not good. Give me your coat." Jack's own coat was already off and wrapped around Daniel's shoulders. The cold bit deeply through his tee shirt, and he could only imagine how much worse it had been for Daniel. How long had the man been out here, naked and freezing?

"He will die without clothing. We must get him back to the cabin and out of this cold."

"Way ahead of you, Tea—"

Gunshots rang out.

"MajorCarter!" Teal'c sprang up.

Dammit, O'Neill had known that this place wasn't yet secure. They—whoever—were waiting for their chance. He assessed the situation rapidly and made decisions. "Teal'c, give me five, then get Daniel back to cabin. Let me clean it out first." He was going to do that damn fast. "Carter?" He tapped his radio.

Nothing. No answer. Which meant that Carter was down. Dammit, Carter! Half my team…

Swearing didn't help, and wasted seconds that Daniel didn't have. No more Mr. Nice Guy. It was time to take these bozos out. Jack looked at Daniel. Take them out permanently and without delay. "Keep him safe," he told Teal'c. What he meant was keep him alive.

He approached the cabin cautiously, silently, keeping to the bushes, careful not to let any snow fall from the branches to disclose his position. Not even the mice under the leaves of the forest floor could tell that he had passed. The area around the cabin was bare: no fallen bodies with blonde hair covered by a black knitted cap, no signs of a struggle. Someone rustled in the bushes; O'Neill swung to cover them with his revolver.

There was something familiar about the someone. "Carter?"

"Sir?"

"Why the hell didn't you answer your radio?"

For an answer, Sam pointed to her shoulder. O'Neill winced. The bullet had been stopped by her radio, and Carter's arm was paying the price, dangling at her side in an awkwardly painful position and her revolver now in her off hand. Doc Frasier would be picking pieces of plastic and wiring out for a good long time. But Carter was alive. O'Neill needed to make certain that they all stayed that way.

An engine roared. Tires squealed, and there was a crash. O'Neill darted around the perimeter of the cabin in time to see the sedan remove its tailpipe from the SUV's front end and whip down the path toward freedom. O'Neill took a few steps, raised the revolver to eye level before lowering it. The sedan had already disappeared beyond the trees. It was gone.

"Damn." He looked at the SUV. There was a large dent in the front, occasioned by the radiator hanging by a thread. The bumper was a lost cause, lost underneath the vehicle. "Double damn. Carter?"

Carter confirmed his diagnosis. "Your car isn't going anywhere, colonel."

"Call the SGC division of the Triple A, Carter. Tell 'em we need a lift." He tossed a look over his shoulder; Teal'c was coming in, a blue burden in his arms. "Fast."

More orders. "Teal'c, get Daniel onto the bed and under the covers. See if Deavers left any clothing behind and get it onto him. Carter, you see to the fire. Hot as you can get it, then I want you to crawl next to Daniel and rest that arm. Make sure he gets plenty of body heat." Modesty be damned.

"And you, sir?"

O'Neill tightened his jacket around his shoulders. "I'm going to make sure that there were only the two of them: Deavers here, and Bad Driver Guy. Keep your side arms at ready; if I'm not back in twenty minutes, hang tight and scream for Baker to get his tail over here."

He turned to leave, but was stopped by Teal'c. "O'Neill. DanielJackson awakens."

Jack hastened to the bed. Daniel was still blue but had achieved a quiet shiver. An improvement, Jack decided. "Daniel?"

"Cccold…" The chattering teeth got in the way of clear speech, but Daniel tried. "Jack… Tek…"

"Tech-what? Technology, Daniel?" That was the third time that Daniel had tried to tell them something about technology. It didn't make sense. "What kind of technology? What did Deavers and his little pals want from you?"

"Not…technology…" Daniel licked his lips.

"Get him something hot," Jack ordered. "Tea, or whatever."

Coffee? Daniel mutely begged.

Jack shook his head. "Tea," he ordered. "No caffeine, Daniel. Try again. Tech what? Technical? Taxonomy?"

"Tectonic?" Sam put in.

Daniel tried again, but this time he used a different word: "Goa'uld."

"What!"

Sam closed her eyes in dismay. "Teknet. The Goa'uld that we missed a few months ago. Woke up out of a sarcophagus in Egypt and disappeared. We never knew where he went, or even what kind of host he took."

"Well, damn." O'Neill rocked back on his heels. "This puts a different light on things."

"At least now we are aware of his current appearance," Teal'c rumbled.

"And what kind of car," Jack added. "A cruddy, beat up, smashed in sedan that my spinster Aunt Gladys wouldn't be caught dead in." He sighed. "And now we know how a single little scrawny guy could snap the neck of a giant like Deavers as though he were made of twigs. By the time Baker gets here that little snake'll be halfway through the next county. Damn."

"Can you hear me now, DanielJackson?"

"Yes, Teal'c, for the twentieth time, I can hear you just fine. Enough already."

Teal'c frowned. "Is the statement not humorous? I was informed that it would be so. In addition, ColonelO'Neill assured me that 'laughter is the best medicine.' Perhaps I should consult Dr.Frasier as to which 'laughs' are best for Tau're health: a hearty guffaw, a silly giggle, a belly laugh—"

"Jack?" Daniel turned a withering glare on his team commander, his gaze made all the more note-worthy by the dark hollows that still resided under his eyes. The white sheets of the infirmary bed accentuated his pale face, and the various wires and tubes hooked up to this and that kept him tied down. That, and the bulky white bandages that protected his hands from anything and everything up to and including lifting a spoon to his mouth.

"Jello?" Jack asked innocently. "Open wide for the little bitty choo-choo, Danny boy." He popped a spoonful of wriggling blue into the archeologist's mouth, ignoring the expostulations. He turned to Sam. "I'm enjoying this, major. I've finally found a way to shut Daniel up. Stuff his mouth with food when he can't fight back. Loving it," he confided to her, and beamed at Daniel. "Almost as good as Baker coming into that cabin and finding you naked in bed with Carter. Should'a seen his eyes bug out."

"I did see it. Sir," Carter tacked on, the smile on her face entirely false. "It was quite an experience."

"And one that has been told throughout all of Cheyenne Mountain," Teal'c assured her somberly. "MajorCarter, your complexion has turned red. Are you experiencing discomfort?"

Sam looked him straight in the eye. "No."

"Well, I am," Jack announced blithely. "I've never been so cold in all my life. So I've asked General Hammond to assign our next mission to some desert world where it's a hundred and ten in the shade." He pushed another spoonful of jello into the objection starting to come out of Daniel's mouth.

"Can you hear me now, Danny?"

"Mmph."

O'Neill grinned. "I'll take that as three bars of yes."