Chapter 3 – Opposition in Chaos

The next day started out normally. Daniel was nervous, and he was sure the others picked up on it, but no one said anything. Metzov hadn't seriously hurt him, but he could have if he'd chosen to. Daniel didn't like the game that was being played, and none of them had the smallest control over it.

Just after lunch, Stanislav showed up with several soldiers and Dr. Herszkowiczow. Daniel stiffened on seeing the man, but he didn't say anything. Stanislav said, "Colonel Sumner, I'm here to take you to see your female subordinates. These men will take Captain Myers and Lt. Harvester outside. Dr. Herszkowiczow wishes to speak with Dr. Jackson again."

"I don't want to leave Dr. Jackson alone," Sumner said. Daniel was all for that.

"Very well," Stanislav said. "We will return later to take your men outside." Herszkowiczow didn't look thrilled by the prospect of having to talk to Daniel in the company of two others, but he didn't make any objection.

Sumner gave Daniel a reassuring look and left. Herszkowiczow walked over and took the chair next to the chessboard. It was set for a game, but Daniel had been reading and Sumner had been playing cards with Andy and Harvester. "Good afternoon, Dr. Jackson," Herszkowiczow said. Daniel just smiled tightly at him without replying. "Have you given any thought to helping us out with that work?"

Daniel crossed his arms. "I'm not going to help you without permission. That's just the way it is. If you don't think you can get permission, then you'd better just accept that you won't get my help."

"Dr. Jackson, from everything I've read about you, you're not a man who takes well to idleness, and I very much doubt that your government would have any real problem with your giving us a little helping hand."

"If you're so certain of that, then why don't you ask them?"

Herszkowiczow gave him a conspiratorial look. "It's always easier to beg forgiveness than to ask permission."

Daniel shook his head. "I'm neither stupid nor gullible, doctor," he said. "I'm not going to fall for any of your ploys, so you might as well not bother."

Herszkowiczow stood up. "I'll be back to see you in a few days, Dr. Jackson. I have no idea how long this stay of yours is going to last, and it does seem a waste of time for you to sit here doing nothing. Maybe you should think about that."

"I think he's given you his answer," Dave Harvester said suddenly. "Why don't you just leave him alone?"

Herszkowiczow looked dourly at Harvester and Andy. "This is not your concern," he said. "I will see you later, Dr. Jackson."

Once he was gone, Daniel closed his eyes and thumped his head against the wall. Next time, the linguist would arrange some way of seeing him privately, he was sure of it. He wouldn't want the others to try and interfere.

"Damn it!" Harvester growled. "What do they think they're doing?"

"They're intimidating the civilian," Andy said, walking over. "Or at least they're trying to. The rules governing civilian detainees are a little different, and they probably figure he's a pushover. They just don't know our Dr. Jackson."

Daniel tried to smile at Andy, but he didn't have the energy to make it believable. "Thanks, guys. I appreciate your sticking up for me."

"I wish we could make him stop bugging you," Andy said, shrugging. "Want to play chess? I'm sure you'll toast me, but I've been wanting to improve my game."

"Sure," Daniel said. Harvester sat down to watch. Sumner came back about an hour later and seemed visibly relieved to see Daniel there. Stanislav personally supervised the trip outside, which surprised Daniel until he thought about it. Stanislav didn't believe the story he'd fed Sumner. He knew there was something odd going on, but there wasn't anything he could do about it but keep Daniel under someone's eye all the time.

This was both very reassuring and distinctly not. It meant that someone here did want to protect him from whatever it was Metzov wanted to do. But it also meant that the command structure wasn't entirely stable. That made him extremely uneasy.

Jack was glaring at a pair of young airmen that the general had sent to him for discipline. Their offense didn't even have anything to do with the stargate program, and at the moment it seemed petty and unimportant. For that reason, he was feeling particularly irritated with them, and had reduced the pair of them to silent apprehension with his words and manner.

He was about to pronounce his sentence on them, when the phone rang. He fixed them both with a glare, then picked up the receiver. "O'Neill," he said shortly.

"Hey, Jack!" exclaimed a familiar voice that made his hackles stand up.

"Maybourne?" he said. "What the hell do you want?" He reached out and grabbed a pen and a scrap of blank paper. He scribbled rapidly and handed the paper across to the nearer of the two airmen, who took it, read it hastily and rushed out of the room, dragging his partner in crime with him.

"You could start by saying 'hi,'" Maybourne said. "It's generally considered more polite."

"What do you want?" Jack repeated.

"I was just wondering if you'd lost anything recently," Maybourne said.

"Could you get to the point?" Jack asked. "I've got a lot on my plate right now." He couldn't imagine what Maybourne could be calling about.

"Well, I think this is probably pretty high on the menu, Jack," Maybourne replied. "I just . . . have you lost anything? Any toy soldiers? Say, five? And an archeologist?"

Jack stared at nothing in complete shock. "How do you know about that?" he asked, knowing as he spoke that he was giving away information, but unable to stop himself.

"I've seen them, Jack."

"How could you possibly have seen them?" Jack asked in angry incredulity. "What kind of a game are you playing at?"

"If you don't want to hear what I have to say, Jack, I could just hang up," Maybourne said.

Jack grimaced. It didn't make any sense, but he didn't want to take any chances. "No, go on. What do you know?"

"I know where they are."

"Where, damnit?"

"In Russia."

"Russia?" Jack exclaimed. "How could they be in Russia?"

"What goes up must come down," Maybourne said.

"Riddles? You're talking in riddles?" Hammond came in, looking startled and slightly annoyed, but Jack waved him to silence and gestured for the airmen who came in behind him to go. They went out and shut the door.

"Assuming that the spare gate was destroyed when the Asgard ship blew up and crashed was just as smart as assuming that the replicators were."

Jack blinked. "It wasn't destroyed?"

"No."

"The Russians salvaged it?"

"Yup."

"But . . . how could they have gotten a dialing computer together in this short a time?"

"They didn't need to. They have the DHD from Giza, and when the DHD is hooked in, their gate supercedes yours."

"So when Daniel dialed in –"

"I think you can work it out from there on your own," Maybourne said. "If you have trouble, though, you can always ask Major Carter to explain it to you." There was a click and the line went dead.

"What in the hell was that about?" Hammond demanded.

"That was Harry Maybourne," Jack said. "He says that the Russians have Daniel and SG-8."

"How could that be?"

"He says that they salvaged the gate that crashed with the Asgard ship and that they have a DHD."

"What?"

"And that when they hook up the DHD to their gate, it supercedes ours." Hammond's eyes went very round and he didn't speak. "So when Daniel dialed in, they must have had their DHD connected and the gate went to Russia instead of here."

"Then why haven't they contacted us?"

"I don't know, but wasn't there some way of detecting a gate in operation somewhere else on the planet? I seem to remember that in the debriefings about that whole Antarctic gate thing."

"Right. Let's go find Major Carter."

Jack followed the general out of his office. If the Russians had Daniel, Sumner and the others, and they hadn't let them know . . .

On the following day, they received food but no information, and no trip outside, and no one came to take Colonel Sumner to see Jones and Colfax. The tension in the little room built up as the day progressed, and even Andy didn't seem to be able to break it. That night, all four of them lay sleepless for awhile, not talking. Daniel heard it as each of the younger men dropped off. Their breathing shifted till it was clear that they were asleep.

Sumner was still awake when Daniel finally succumbed.

He awoke to the sound of the door to their prison opening. Food was delivered and the soldiers went out again. Daniel's stomach was roiling with tension, but he managed to force some food down despite that fact.

They all made the effort to appear calm. Daniel and Sumner played very bad chess, and the other two stared at cards without really seeing them.

Finally the door opened around ten-thirty in the morning. Stanislav stood there. "Colonel Sumner, please come with me."

Sumner rose silently and went out, leaving the other three of them zinging with nerves. Andy rounded Daniel up into their card game, so he played gin rummy with them till lunch. After lunch, he pled fatigue and tried to read. He hoped this was all a good sign. Sumner still hadn't returned, but that could mean almost anything.

About an hour after lunch, there was an odd sound outside the door. Andy got up and went to listen. After a moment, he started back, and the door slammed open. Metzov stood there with five or six others behind him. It was hard to tell through the doorway.

"That's Metzov," Daniel exclaimed.

"They knocked out our guards!" Andy yelled just before he launched himself at Metzov. One of the soldiers dragged Andy off the colonel, but Harvester leapt forward to join the fight. Daniel grabbed his new cane, delivered the previous day without explanation, and got off the bed.

Two soldiers pushed past the fights that were going on by the door, taking random blows from Harvester and Andy. Daniel struck at them with his cane and his fist, but he was no match for them. They seized him, throwing the cane aside. Daniel continued to struggle, but it was no use. He stomped on feet, he kicked, but all he was succeeding in was pissing off the guys who were holding onto him. One of them slapped cuffs around his wrists, and they wrestled him forward.

Harvester went down under two of the soldiers, and two more slammed Andy up against the wall. While both men were immobilized, Daniel's captors dragged him out of the room. A moment later, all of Metzov's force was out of the room and the door was shut behind them. Now that they were in public, Daniel started yelling for help, but one of the men gave him a stunning smack across the face and the other one stuffed a gag into his mouth.

They dragged him through hallways and out a door that led into a small courtyard. There was a van with painted windows idling outside, and they made him get into the back end of it. Four of them came in with him. They forced him to sit on one of the sideways facing benches with one of them on either side of him and the other two facing him, guns still out and ready. It seemed an awful lot of firepower to control one mild-mannered archeologist.

The van started moving and Daniel wondered where they were taking him. And why.

Jack glared angrily at the wall while he listened to Hammond. The Russians did indeed have an active gate program, and they'd had Daniel and SG-8 since Friday when they'd vanished from P(string). They just hadn't bothered to mention it to anybody for nearly a week. God knew how long they'd have waited if Maybourne hadn't given Jack the clue they'd needed to know what questions to ask.

Four out of the six were injured. Lt. Colfax had a serious stab wound, and the other three had burns of greater or lesser severity. Predictably enough, Daniel had the most serious burn. "So, when are they going to give them back?" he asked when Hammond paused.

The general looked around at the three of them. Carter's eyes were dark with fury, and Teal'c looked ready to rip some arms off. Jack was in a mood to let him, if anyone appropriate happened along. "Tomorrow they'll be flown to a base in Germany where they'll be checked out. Depending on the severity of their injuries, they'll probably come back to the States day after tomorrow."

"So the earliest we'll see them here is Saturday," Carter said, sounding disgusted. "I can't believe that they let us search for them off world for so long."

"What purpose could they have for keeping them?" Teal'c asked, his voice resonating with his anger. "It does not make sense."

"It's politics," Carter replied. "They wanted to keep their stargate a secret, so they couldn't tell us that someone had come through it. But if someone had died on the search –" She broke off, glaring down at her hands.

Jack cleared his throat. "I'd like to fly to Germany to greet them," he said.

Hammond blinked at him. "I think I can go along with that," the general replied. "I'll arrange for you to catch a flight. In the meantime, Major Carter, I'd like you to get me an idea of just how many times they've used their gate."

"Yes sir."

"Teal'c, you work with Major Carter." Hammond looked down at his papers. "Jack, get packed. I want you in Germany before they are if possible."

"Yes sir."

Hammond nodded and looked up. "All right, people, dismissed."

They left the room as a group. "Say hi to Daniel for us, sir," Carter said as he peeled off toward the locker room, and Teal'c nodded gravely.

"Will do," Jack said. He got himself packed, grabbed a few of Daniel's civvies, and headed back to the general's office.

Hammond shut the door behind him and gestured him to a seat. Sitting down himself, he gazed at Jack for a long moment without speaking. Then he leaned forward. "Jack, I want you to be diplomatic when you see the Russians. I know you want to pound some heads, I do, too, but that will be handled at higher levels."

Jack took a deep breath and let it out slowly. "I know that, sir. I will."

"Good." Hammond crossed his arms. "I've got a flight for you. You'd better leave now. They'll hold it for you, but you don't want to keep them waiting too long."

Jack nodded and rose, taking his bags. "I promise, general, I won't kill anyone."

"Glad to hear it," Hammond said. "Bring them back, colonel."

"Yes sir."

They were on the road for hours. Daniel's leg was aching, and he thought one or two of the remaining blisters might have popped. After awhile, they'd removed the gag and given him water, which he'd drunk awkwardly from a water bottle held by one of them. Then they put the gag back in. No one spoke to him, no names were offered. He had no guess where they were going, at least in part because he had no idea where they'd started out.

He couldn't imagine what they hoped to gain from this. His gut twisted with anxiety. He couldn't help thinking that Jack would have better luck finding him offworld than in another country on Earth, always assuming he even knew that's where Daniel was by now.

The van came to a smooth stop, and Daniel felt his back stiffen. After several moments, the van began to move again, slowly now. Then it stopped and the engine turned off. The rear doors opened and the men around him pulled him to his feet and outside. He looked around curiously to see where he was, and saw old stone walls and heavy wooden doors. There were steps down in the corner, and hard hands on his arms guided him towards them. At the bottom there was a door that led into a subterranean hallway. Barred windows at ceiling level let light in from outside, and stairs at the other end led into a broad stone hall. It was clearly a means of getting from the garage to the main building without going out into the weather. Or being seen by possible watchers, in this case.

Metzov was nowhere to be seen, and Daniel wondered where he was, and if he was just some kind of agent, not deeply involved in whatever scheme this was. The guards led him through another door into a corridor that was paneled with golden wood. At the end of this corridor there was another set of stairs, and Daniel was beginning to feel like he was going to drop. His leg ached, his arms were sore and the way they were gripping him wasn't helping that any.

Up three flights of stairs and into a narrow room, and it seemed they still weren't done. Daniel wondered where the hell they were. It was a huge building from the looks of it. A door at the end of the room led into a spiral staircase. They had to let go to take him up it, because there wasn't room for more than one person abreast, so Daniel's arms got a respite at least. Finally, they reached another door. Opening it, the man in front of him ushered him in, removed the cuffs and the gag, then left again. The door thunked shut behind him, and Daniel heard tumblers fall as it was locked.

The room was about fifteen feet square and contained a bathtub, a bed, a table and several bookcases. Investigation revealed that a small closet-like space in one corner was a water closet. The building was clearly old. All of the plumbing was retrofitted, and the walls were of stone with crumbling mortar. There were three windows. Rubbing at the indentations the cuffs had left on his wrists, Daniel walked to the nearest one and looked out. All he could see were trees, as far as the horizon. The next window looked down over an internal courtyard. He seemed to be in some kind of a late medieval fortress that had been adapted for modern use. The third window looked out over the forest in a different direction, but he could see what looked to be a town very far off, glass windows glinting in the late afternoon sunlight.

Despite the bright sunlight, the air in the room was chill. He turned the latch on one of the windows and opened it the scant four inches permitted by the bars outside, but the air outside was no warmer. Spring came late in the northern parts of the world, and though from the brilliant green of the leaves and the occasional spot of color from a flower or a bird, it was clear that spring was here, it was early yet.

At the foot of the bed there was a trunk. He opened it and found blankets and bedding. A chest of drawers stood under a window. It was empty, but Daniel had a sinking feeling that clothing would be brought to fill it up.

He pulled off his pants to take a look at his blisters. None of them had popped, but the skin was very tender. Sighing, he pulled his pants back up and looked around the room. It was really getting cold in here, but he liked the fresh air.

Walking back over to the bed, he pulled a blanket out of the chest, wrapped it around his shoulders and sat down. There were no books on the shelves, nothing to do but sit and think, and his thoughts weren't the best company at the moment.

He had to hope that the SGC and the American military had good contacts over here, because if they didn't, he didn't know how they were ever going to find him.

He'd been in the room for forty-five minutes or so when one of his four soldiers came in with a tray of food. There were pills in a little paper cup on the tray, presumably analgesics, but they weren't marked. Daniel ignored them. He wasn't going to take any medicine he couldn't identify.

After an hour, the soldier came back for the tray. He carried with him a pair of pajamas and a change of clothes. Putting them down on the dresser, he turned to the table for the tray. Looking at the cup with the pills, he pursed his lips and glanced over at Daniel. Picking the cup up, he walked over and held it out. Daniel shook his head, hoping that the guard didn't have orders to make him take it. Shrugging, the man dropped the cup back onto the tray and left the room again.

Twilight was finally fading, and Daniel turned on the overhead light. It was another retrofit, and the unshielded bulb threw a harsh white light over the room, throwing dark shadows into the corners. Daniel sighed and sat back down. He was tired, but he didn't really want to go to sleep. It was a lot early, for one thing.

Dropping the blanket on the bed, he went to the window that showed only trees. He hadn't shut the window, so he leaned as far out as he could and peered down towards the ground four stories below. All was shrouded in shadow as the sun settled behind the horizon. Not that it would help much to see what was down there. He couldn't get through the window, and even if he could, it was beyond his ability to scale a vertical wall four stories high.

With some luck he might be able to fall down it, but since that wouldn't gain him anything, he saw little point in attempting it. Still, it would be good to know what was down there in case he got an opportunity to make a break for it.

The pajamas looked like flannel. He picked them up and realized that they were probably a good deal warmer than the clothes he was wearing. Hurriedly, he changed into them, leaving his socks on, and went back to sit down on the bed with the blanket around his shoulders, mulling the situation over in his head.

There wasn't a damned thing he could have done differently. He'd dialed the gate for home, and from then on, events had been so far out of their control that he couldn't think of any way they could have changed it. So, despite the fact that he – and SG-8, for that matter – had done everything right, he was still stuck in a dangerous situation with no obvious way out.

And he had nothing whatsoever to do.

He wondered if they planned to keep him without activity for awhile, hoping that when they gave him something to do, he'd fall on it with relief and work despite his determination not to. He really hoped they hadn't decided to try that, because it might just work.

He focused his mind on a text he'd seen on the monument they'd uncovered on PNJ-439 and started trying to translate it in his head. Eventually, he grew tired enough that he thought he might be able to go to sleep. Pulling the covers back, he climbed in and lay down. Once he was flat, he fell asleep almost instantly.