CHAPTER THREE
Fifteen hours later, General O'Neill was gone. The responsible Air Force officer was nowhere to be found. In his place was Jack. Just Jack. A man with a missing family.
Appointments had been missed, questions were being raised, and there were no answers to be found. General O'Neill seemed to have dropped off the earth.
In reality, he hadn't. At least not yet.
At a small cabin in northwest Minnesota, a rented red SUV pulled up a long dirt drive. The cabin had been vacant a long time. It was far enough back in the woods that the few people who lived in these parts had forgotten about it and assumed it was unowned and falling down.
It wasn't.
Jack O'Neill stepped out of the SUV and looked around. There were fresh tire tracks leading to a small shed out behind the cabin, and he knew someone else was there. He walked around the cabin, ensuring nothing else was amiss, and then slowly opened the back door.
"Burke?" He called experimentally through the small house.
"Yep! Right here, Jack-o!"
Jack's old friend and occasional helper popped his head up from the other side of a short couch in the main room of the cabin. God, how Jack both hated and loved this man.
"I see you understood the message."
"Please. Like there was any other choice. You think I'd head to your cabin up here? Seriously, what do you think I am? Stupid? You called me for help, so something big must be going down. That means something that needs to be kept quiet. So, here we are."
"Here we are." Jack laughed a little at the understatement of his friend.
"So, what's the deal, Jack?", Burke asked nervously. He was still a little leery of O'Neill, even after their last job together, and was more comfortable with work than small talk, so he wasted no time in cutting to the chase. "Shall we get down to business? It's colder than a witch's tit out there. Snow's coming. If we're going somewhere, let's get this show on the road."
"Burke, shut up and listen to me." The tone of O'Neill's voice left no room for argument.
Burke shut up.
Jack rubbed his hands together nervously for a second, then sat down across from the slightly younger man and took a deep breath, in preparation for a speech. "I'm going to tell you a story, Burke. It's a long one, but I'll make it as short as I can. Don't interrupt me, don't ask stupid questions, and just trust me that I'm not making it up, ok?"
Burke just looked at his friend with an odd, worried expression and nodded.
"Ok. You remember the 'Evil Dead' guy from Nicaragua?"
At Burke's continued nodding, Jack went on.
"Well, he was just the tip of the iceberg."
For the next three hours, Jack filled Burke in on everything he would need to know about the Stargate program to complete this mission. He knew he was breaking about a thousand rules, but he didn't care. Burke was his best chance to get his team back, so this had to be done. For his part, Burke was surprisingly quiet. So much so, that O'Neill wondered if he was even listening sometimes. When the General was finished, Burke just sat and stared for about a half a second. Then he broke into a huge grin and laughed out loud.
"I knew you were into some crazy crap, man!!!"
O'Neill stood in frustration. "Burke! I'm serious! I need you to be ok with this one!"
Burke put his hands in front of his body and waved them a bit in a placating gesture.
"Hey, man, I never said you weren't. As far as I'm concerned, a rescue op's a rescue op. It doesn't matter if it's halfway around the world or halfway around the galaxy. If you can get me there and back, I'll help, no matter how we have to do it. Let's get our boys back."
Jack sighed. "Carter's a woman, Burke."
Burke leered mockingly. "Even better, Jack, even better."
O'Neill sighed again and rolled his eyes. Burke was shameless, but at least he was willing to help, no matter the cost. All that mattered to Jack was getting his friends back, and he'd take all the help he could get.
Burke suddenly stood and marched away, and it took Jack a second to realize he'd left the room. Jack followed him into the back bedroom of the cabin and found him kneeling by an old hope chest. Jack watched as Burke pushed the hope chest aside and pulled up a hinged panel in the old dusty floorboards.
Burke noticed the taller man looking down on him and shot a rakish grin upwards.
"So, Jack…what do we need? Identities? Weapons? Supplies? Got it all right here."
O'Neill shook his head in wonder. "You still keep this place stocked?"
Burke looked offended. "Of course. Never know when you might need this stuff."
Jack just laughed and sat down, joining Burke as he rifled through the contents of the hidden compartment. Before long, the afternoon sun began to slit through the windows.
Time to get this show on the road.
XXX
That night, one Jeffrey McAllister and his friend Sean Johnson boarded a small chartered jet for Colorado. There were still a lot of backwoods pilots in northwestern Minnesota, and for the right amount of cash, they'd fly anywhere, no questions asked. Each passenger carried one small bag, and no one asked what was in them. Jeff and Sean liked these arrangements just fine.