*****
Daniel had turned the ringer on his cell phone off but set it to vibrate. He had it in his pants' pocket when it startled him by buzzing against his leg. He jumped and grabbed at it. Jack noticed and gave him a questioning look.
"Dr. Jackson," he answered. He sat there quietly for a second and then excused himself from the room, wanting to be able to speak openly without disturbing Shaboni who was still sleeping on the couch in the living room.
When he was done he came back and stood in the doorway motioning Jack to follow him. They went into the kitchen where Jack could still keep an eye on the couch.
"That was Sam. She got in touch with someone at the Pentagon who apparently knew of an Israeli chemist working on a project in, guess where?"
"Utah?" Jack had already suspected that this would be what they would discover.
"You guessed it. They brought in four chemists from four different countries and had them all working at different facilities. One was in Arizona. One was in Washington. One was somewhere in Texas, and one was in Utah." Jack thought back to their little trip to Utah where they'd found the NID using the Stargate that was supposed to be in storage and posing as the SGC.
"So do we know if it was the NID or if it was the NID?" Jack asked holding up fingers and making quotes in the air around the latter "NID", referring to the faction within the NID that they'd had to deal with in Utah.
"Sam doesn't know anything beyond the chemists who were recruited and where they were located."
"Were located?" Jack asked.
"They're gone. All four of them apparently disappeared at the same time just after the Touchstone incident. The guy Sam talked with seemed to think there was someone who would know what happened to them."
"And I don't want to know who that would be, do I?"
"I don't have to tell you, if you'd prefer."
"Mayborne."
"Yup."
"Beautiful," he muttered sarcastically. "Does Hammond have this information?"
"He does. He has made a few calls on his own. I think he's trying to get in touch with Mayborne right now. We still don't know who all was actually invited to participate. The methods to recruit Shaboni's husband indicate that NID was claiming to be the SGC instead of presenting themselves as a civilian organization."
"There's a novel idea. So we wait."
"We wait."
"Beautiful," he said again.
No one noticed that Shaboni had awoken because she never opened her eyes. But if they'd been close enough they could have seen the involuntary clenching of her jaw when she heard them talking about an Israeli chemist and maybe they would have noticed the clenching of her fist when they spoke of her husband having gone missing after something called the "Touchstone incident". But they'd left the room and didn't notice. If they had they might have foreseen what she would do next.
The fact that Jack and Daniel had information about her husband at all would have been a good thing to her but for one terrible fact. The poisons in her blood were beginning to damage her brain and the reaction she had came from a hazy and turbulent sea of fear and suspicion that was the product of the early stages of a degenerative encephalopathy; her own mind was tearing itself apart. Not even she would have known that there would be moments where she would be perfectly fine cognitively, but then there'd be moments like these where she wasn't herself. She was suddenly certain that these two men had orchestrated the incident with the truck and that this was nothing more than a continuation of the attack that had left her running for her life back in Prague. Her heart was pounding and she knew that if she didn't get away quickly she would undoubtedly be killed. Perhaps they'd only kept her alive this long to discover how much she knew. Now that they had all the information she'd had they would surely kill her.
Something lucid within her warred with her paranoia insisting that for some reason Jack was trying to help her. That because he was an Air Force Colonel he would know people who could help her find out what happened. She had heard him say a name: Mayborne. This Mayborne must know something.
Jack and Daniel were still in the kitchen. She had to figure out how to find this Mayborne. She tried to think harder. She knew that all her training and experience should be directing her, telling her what to do, but it was like she was separated in two. One half of her knew that she had the knowledge to complete her mission. The other half she knew could act on that knowledge, but she couldn't make the two parts of herself connect so that she could work it out. Fearing her mind was failing her she decided she simply had to get away in case her life really was in danger here. She would sort it out better once she got alone.
Alone was safe. She started pushing herself up from the couch intending to make for the back door and head off into the woods. She noticed that it was lightning in the distance and made a mental note that she would need to find shelter before it rained.
Her movement caught Jack's eye and he walked back into the living room. "Hey, sleeping beauty!" he smiled warmly at her. She did not return his smile.
"You said we would go to my hotel." Something in her tone was off, way off.
Jack turned his head to the side slightly and said very slowly, "Yeah."
"I wish to be returning there now," she started to rise.
"Okay. Let me get Daniel and he can drive us," Jack said slowly and deliberately. He'd seen that look in her eyes. It was the same dissociated look she'd had when she'd woken up after he'd hit her. He suddenly wondered if she had a head injury that had been missed and now it was coming back to haunt them.
"No. I wish to return there alone." She stood up.
Jack was very alarmed. She didn't bear any resemblance to the woman who'd been dancing in this very same room earlier. She didn't bear any resemblance to the woman who'd been in his home these two days. He didn't need to be reminded that she was dangerous if she felt threatened. And he got the distinct feeling that she felt threatened. Jack stepped backwards from her to allow her some space.
"Shaboni, you don't seem to be feeling quite like your usual sweet self. What do you say we just let Daniel drive us all three to the hotel and you can get whatever you want?" He was trying to be casual, but the tension in the room stretched taut.
She regarded him suspiciously for a second and seemed to soften a bit. "Very well, I believe that would be acceptable. First I need to use the bathroom." She walked very guardedly and very lightly to the bathroom at the end of the hall. Jack listened but didn't hear the sound of the lock engaging.
"Daniel, come here!" Jack demanded as forcefully as he could without yelling it.
"What?" Daniel came into the room hurriedly.
"Something is up. Shaboni is acting like she's gone down the rabbit hole," Jack gestured toward the bathroom.
"What do you mean?"
Jack didn't know how to describe it. He just knew something was very wrong. "She wanted to go back to her hotel all of a sudden. She's in a big hurry and she doesn't want us to take her there."
"Do you think she heard us talking?"
"Possibly. But if she had I think she'd be more likely to be asking questions instead of trying to get out of here."
"How long has she been in there?" Daniel asked.
"Less than a minute." Jack stopped and listened intently. He heard nothing. He started walking towards the door. There was no sound of movement coming from inside the bathroom at all.
"Shaboni?" he called.
There was no answer.
"You ok?"
Jack motioned with his hands to Daniel to start going around the outside of the house through the back door. The bathroom was on the ground level of the house, but the layout would require Daniel to go down the deck steps and then climb back up a hill. Daniel took off swiftly and silently.
Jack knocked on the door to the bathroom. There was no answer. He tried the knob and found it locked. He'd listened for her to lock the door, but not heard it. His gut was a knotted with alarm. He kicked once and shattered the frame around the lock busting the wooden door open. She was not in the bathroom. He ran to the open window and looked out.
Daniel was lying face down in the leaves. A flash of lightning illuminated a shadowy figure running for the woods. Jack ran back through the house and down the steps. He turned towards the side of the house where Daniel was lying and stopped long enough to check that Daniel was only knocked out. Then he took off into the woods after Shaboni. He wasn't sure what he was going to do when he caught up with her, but he knew that if she kept going in the direction she was heading in the condition she was in she would probably head straight off the cliff in the darkness.
Lightning flashed regularly and a few cold raindrops began to splash his face. He slowed to an accelerated walk keeping an eye out around every tree for the blow intended to put him alongside Daniel. He could not see Shaboni but he would occasionally hear twigs snap directly ahead of him, so he knew he was going in the right direction. Soon the rain began to fall steadily and it was much harder to hear. The rain was cold, but the lightning flashed hot, angry streaks across the sky. Thunder rolled over the mountain like boulder striking boulder. He was losing her.
Something about that thought clenched in his gut in a most unexpected way. He pushed it aside so he could focus. He had slowed to a very careful advance and had lost all trace of her trail when he heard a cough ahead and slightly to his right. He turned to face the direction of the sound and took two steps when a flash of lightning illuminated not one but two figures standing directly ahead of him about thirty yards. The forking of light lasted long enough for him to see Shaboni drop into an attack-ready crouch as she squared off against the unknown man standing there.
Jack halted his approach. Keeping a bead on the two of them, he started to shift his position to give himself some cover. He had no weapon, Daniel was lying unconscious in the rain at the house, and Jack was certain that whoever this guy was, he was not alone. He started making a wide circle around to their position when he spotted vague movement out of the corner of his eye. He spun to defend against the blow, but it was too late. There was a crunching sound as something distinctly metal and heavy slammed against his skull. There was no pain and no sound. He could still see as he crashed to the ground. The rain was falling on his cheek and back in huge heavy drops. He could not hear what was happening, but he saw Shaboni illuminated once again by unearthly light flashing all around. She was now on the ground with the guy. They were grappling with something. There was another shorter flash and Jack saw Shaboni go very, very still. He tried to push himself up with his hands. There was a boot on his hand. 'OW!' he thought. Lightning flashed again and he could see a figure pulling Shaboni off the ground. Then the darkness fell. And when it fell it was thicker than the rain.
Daniel awoke with a start. The alarm he'd felt as he saw a man standing at the back of Jack's house was fresh and washed over him sending his stomach to his throat. He pushed himself to his knees and tried to sort out what he was doing laying on a carpet of dead leaves in the pouring rain. His glasses were nowhere to be seen. He started feeling around for them. He had been going to the window, he remembered. Shaboni, Jack said, had been acting funny. He thought she was going to climb out the bathroom window and take off. As he'd come around the corner he'd seen her dropping to the ground and then running for the woods, but before he could call out to her everything had gone sideways and then dark.
"Oh yeah," he muttered. He reached up and felt the back of his head. The rain had plastered his short hair to his head, which accentuated the rising linear welt across the right side of the back of his skull. He could tell when he touched it that there was a gash within it, but the rain and the dark made it impossible to see if he'd been bleeding. He tried to get to his feet. The pain that had been lurking at the edges of his awareness rushed forward to fill his consciousness with dizzying speed. He swayed and leaned out for the house. Propping himself against the solidity of the cabin he took a few deep breaths trying to clear his head. The dizziness and pain subsided enough and he resumed his search for his glasses. A flash of lightning illuminated the ground all around him and he saw they were lying about five feet away. He bent to retrieve them, staggered again by the intense pain in his head.
Daniel made his way slowly back to the house. He started to go inside but then thought better of it. Whoever had hit him was either still here or gone, but he didn't want to take the chance of going inside without a weapon. He fished around the underside of the deck for something, finding a baseball bat. He gripped it, feeling its weight and balance. He went back to the deck and slid the door open slowly. He walked from room to room carefully, noticing the smashed bathroom door and splintered wood on the floor. He checked the house thoroughly and found no one.
He grabbed a coat from the hall closet and started out the back door. He started into the woods, fishing in his pocket for his cell phone. He quickly called Sam.
"Carter," she answered.
"Sam, we need backup at Jack's house. I think it's the NID," he hissed as loudly into the phone as he dared.
"Daniel? What's happening?"
"I don't know for sure. I took a hit in the head and was a little unconscious. I don't know how long. I can't find Jack or Shaboni."
"Stay there. I'll call the general and we'll have someone out there as quickly as possible."
"Okay," he said and hung up. He had only been halfway paying attention to the conversation. If he had thought about it he would have realized that she had told him to stay put and he had said he would. As it was, he was moving into the woods in the direction he'd seen Shaboni running. He had no idea where he was going, but he was betting if Jack had seen Shaboni running he would have taken off after her. The big question was who had hit him and where was he now.
Daniel walked silently through the darkened woods in a zig-zag pattern for about several minutes, occasionally getting his bearings when lightning lashed the sky. The rain was coming down like it had been poured from a bucket right over his head. He was soaked to the bone and freezing, but not really feeling it with all fire of adrenalin fueling him. There was no sign of either Shaboni or Jack. He considered going back up to the house to see if he could find a flashlight, but he'd already come this far and didn't want to turn back yet. He continued on until he came suddenly to the end of the trail. The world dipped and swayed as a flash of lightning revealed that he was standing very close to the edge of a vast chasm. The drop-off was sudden and steep. If either of them had been running this direction in the dark it was entirely possible, Daniel realized, that they could have just run right off the edge of the world here. He tried to peer over the side in the hopes that he wouldn't see anyone. He was grateful that he did not. But the darkness was inky and there was little hope that he would be able to see that far anyway. Daniel finally decided to risk calling out, "Jack!" He waited and heard only the wind and rain in reply.
He finally turned and started back toward the house. He thought he could hear voices in the distance coming from the direction of the house. He skirted off to the side not knowing what he was hearing or who might be up there. The adrenalin in his body was subsiding and being replaced by a cold that hurt and tired that demanded stillness. Still holding the bat he put the end down on the ground and leaned on it with both hands. The rain had slicked his skin and his glasses slipped all the way to the end of his nose. He pushed them back up again.
Daniel picked up the bat and started making a wide circle to approach the house from a different angle when a sudden flash of lightning illuminated a prone figure about twenty yards from him to his far left.
"JACK!" Daniel ran to him. He has laying face down in the dirt. Daniel reached down and touched his neck feeling for a pulse. He let out a huge breath when he found it there beating strong and regular. "Jack! Can you hear me?" Daniel couldn't see anything in the darkness. He squinted and brought his face as close to Jack's body as he could trying to see if there were any visible injuries. He just couldn't see anything. Now he really wanted that flashlight.
He could hear a voice heading for the woods. A woman. "DANIEL?" she called.
"SAM! DOWN HERE!"
He saw a bobbing beam of light coming down a trail towards him. "Over here!" She shined her flashlight on him and hurried over.
"What happened?" She started examining the Colonel.
"I'm not sure. Jack said Shaboni was acting weird. She went into the bathroom and he wanted me to go to around to the outside window. As I came around the house someone hit me in the head. When I came to I started looking for them and I just now found Jack. I have no idea where Shaboni is." He ran his hands through his dripping hair.
Jack came to with a suddenness that startled them both. He went from limply unconscious to squatting with his feet underneath him in a motion so quick and fluid it knocked Sam backwards onto her rump. She made a splatting sound as she hit the wet ground.
"Jack!" Daniel exclaimed.
"He shot her," were the first words out of his mouth. He swayed a little on his feet and Daniel reached out an arm to steady him.
"Sir," Carter said getting to her feet and feebly trying to dust off her dirty and very wet backside, "lets go back to the house and get you checked out."
"I'm fine, Carter," he said testily. "I'm betting it was Mayborne's men who showed up and now they've got her."
Carter demonstratively took hold of her CO and pulled him to his feet. Then she held out another hand for Daniel who grabbed the bat and climbed to his feet. The colonel started to walk toward the house in a distinctly diagonal fashion, like a puppy whose backend got a little ahead of its front end. Daniel and Sam caught him quickly and quietly started leading him in a more direct route back to the house.
Once they got there Jack sank onto the couch shivering. Daniel went into the bathroom and retrieved a towel. He returned to the living room and handed it to Jack. Just then the general and two armed airmen appeared in the room.
"The perimeter is secure, Sir," one reported to the General.
"Very good. I want you to go back outside and make sure that it stays that way." He turned to Jack, "What happened?"
"Shaboni started to take off, but before she got very far a couple of goons attacked us. I'm fairly certain one of them shot her and I know that he took her." Jack said tiredly, rubbing his hair gingerly with the towel. Sam reappeared from re-checking all the rooms in the house and wrapped a blanket around the colonel's shoulders. "Thanks."
"Colonel, I was able to learn some new information this afternoon that I had not had the chance to share with the rest of SG1. Sit down." General Hammond indicated for Sam and Daniel to join Jack.
"I did some checking and found out that the man this woman met with in Prague was a chemical and biological weapons engineer. His name is Dr. Tolla Ben Jahadi. He was killed in his lab three weeks ago. The CIA was investigating him for allegedly penetrating a US intelligence network in Germany when they discovered that NID agents were following him, as well. Apparently he had gone to dinner with a female companion and was followed by two unknown agents interested in the weapon he was developing at the time of his death. The official CIA report of the incident states that they suspected the two men who broke into the lab were after the new weapon. They apparently shot Ben Jahadi and then intentionally exposed the woman to the agents that were being used in the new weapon. The lab was destroyed in an explosion, but we do not know who is responsible for that. The woman in the report was noted briefly at a Prague hospital suffering from what appeared to be some kind of poisoning. But before she could be adequately treated she checked herself out and disappeared." The general stopped for a moment to give them a moment to digest what he was telling them.
"Are you saying that Shaboni was exposed to some kind of chemical weapon?" Daniel asked.
"That is exactly what I'm saying, Dr. Jackson. The Pentagon is deeply troubled at her presence here, and there are some who consider her to be an unacceptable security risk."
Jack looked up at that point, distinctly perturbed. "Oh, please! It wasn't the SGC that recruited a bunch of international chemists. We didn't blow up a lab in Prague! The only thing we did was stumble across a woman trying to get to the bottom of her husband's disappearance in just enough time to keep her from finding out exactly what happened to him!"
"I agree, colonel, and I can assure you that the Joint Chiefs are going to understand it in just that light. But I can't ignore the fact that she is here and was extremely close to figuring out the existence of the Stargate program."
"You mean was here," Jack corrected him.
"Yes, and now we have to find her," the general informed them.
Daniel looked utterly perplexed. "I don't understand. Why does the SGC want to find her now?"
"Because the man who was killed in that lab had actually been working for the NID. They were behind the recruitment of foreign nationals posing as SGC, which exposed the Stargate program to an unknown number of scientists, not to mention how they made us look the last time they posed as us. And they were apparently developing a slow-acting chemical weapon meant for God only knows what. They were willing to kill the man they hired to create the thing."
"When are they not willing to kill for something they want?" Sam intoned.
Ignoring her, the general continued, "The weapon Ben Jahadi was working on was apparently utilizing two compounds that can not be found on Earth. One of which, we believe is Naquada. The other is something we had encountered before, on another mission and that was being investigated at Area 51. It is another heavy metal that has been tagged Sub Element 201 Beta. Apparently when combined and introduced into a living creature these two elements have a poisoning effect that is slow and extremely difficult to diagnose. The prototype weapon was destroyed and Captain Uziel is believed to have been exposed to it. I was unable to find out all of the specifics, but her records from Mercy hospital revealed that they believe she is suffering from Beryllium and Dimethyl-mercury poisoning. There were substances in her blood that they could not identify and were in the process of treating her when she checked herself out of the hospital against medical advice."
"Oh God," Sam's eyes went large as saucers and her voice took on a strangled quality. Daniel and Jack both looked at her. She addressed the colonel, "Sir, both of those substances are extremely toxic." She was thinking aloud, "The NID agents supposedly exposed her to the weapon intentionally when they just could have killed her along with Dr. Ben Jahadi. There must be something they were looking for that they could not get from his research." She paused to consider this possibility, "They must have been wanting to study the effects of the weapon. I mean, we know what Beryllium and Mercury do to the human body. It is possible that those were also somehow a part of this weapon, but there would be no reason to study their effects."
She paused and then added, "The NID want to study her death. That's why they came after her here. We started asking questions about her husband, they found out about the accident and then they knew where she was. No wonder she didn't want to stay at the hospital. She knew they'd find her there."
Jack felt his throat tighten. He simply hadn't realized the danger she was in. She'd mentioned something about being 'found', and she definitely didn't want to return to the hospital. All the clues he could have needed were there, but he hadn't seen them.
"I believe so, Major," General Hammond responded.
"What do you mean, 'study her death'?" Jack demanded.
"Sir, with the weapon that Dr. Ben Jahadi was working on destroyed, the NID wants the next best thing. That would be to study Shaboni's reaction to the heavy metals she's been exposed to. If she were poisoned with Naquada and this SE201b they would need to know its effects and how it actually kills someone. They could then extrapolate the best delivery system." She had that look on her face that said she was deep in thought. "Because at least one of the substances she's been exposed to is a heavy metal. It would be exceedingly difficult to aerosolize in an undetectable manner. If Dr. Ben Jahadi managed to find a way to accomplish this he would have a very lethal chemical weapon that works slowly enough that its use could only be detected long after the fact."
"If she was exposed three weeks ago, how much time does she have before it kills her?" Daniel asked.
"It depends, Daniel. We don't know if there really was mercury or beryllium in her blood. And we have no experience with Naquada poisoning, much less this SE201b. We don't know how much of any of it she was exposed to, and we don't know if she inhaled it or ingested it. I do know that Dimethyl-mercury is readily absorbed by the skin and through the mucous membranes. A chemist from Dartmouth spilled a few drops on the latex glove on her hand and slipped into a coma 6 months later. She died 10 months later. So it wouldn't take much of that. The Beryllium is more difficult to quantify. If inhaled, it can cause severe respiratory disease. It also can cause erosive damage to the lining of the lungs and gastrointestinal tract."
Daniel winced as the image of Shaboni vomiting blood flashed in his mind.
"So this is a weapon to be used when you want to kill someone, but don't want them to know they've been killed until they're so sick they would be dead soon," Jack commented.
"The practical uses for such a chemical weapon are very limited. But I can think of a few ways it could come in handy," Sam explained darkly.
"So the NID wanted some new kind of chemical weapon. They posed as the SGC and hired foreign chemists to work on it, presumably so that their actions would not come under scrutiny by Congressional oversight. They could try to claim that we had done it. Once they got their weapon built they went to retrieve it, but then they discovered that Shaboni knew of the program and decided to eliminate the security risk by killing their weapons designer and her. But just for kicks they exposed her to the weapon so that they wouldn't lose all the research." Daniel's tone expressed the frustration they were all starting to feeling.
"Sir, we have to find her. It is our fault that the NID knew where to look for her. We might not be able to fix anything in the long run, but we don't have to hang her out to dry. I'll be damned if she's going to spend her last days living like a lab rat in a cage," Jack demanded angrily.
"We are going to do just that, Colonel. But first, I want you to come back to the base and get checked out by Dr. Fraiser. I have sent word to Chulak for Teal'c to return and we expect him sometime in the next three hours. If Dr. Fraiser clears you for duty, you will lead SG1 on a rescue operation as soon as we have a location."
"How are we going to find out her location?" Daniel asked.
"Colonel Mayborne is going to tell us," the general said with a look that spoke of his confidence in their collective powers of persuasion. The fire in his eyes was unmistakable. "And if he doesn't know, he's going to find out. Let's go people."
They all stood up and headed for the door then jumped into their cars and the transport parked outside next to Daniel's car and headed for the base. Jack wished he'd had time to get some dry clothes and shoes, but he figured he could grab some from his locker. On the ride over, he was completely still and silent. They had all seen the look before. It was a cold and deadly stillness. A lack of movement and sound that said someone is going to die.
Jack was not thinking. His head was hurting, but he was roundly ignoring it. He was freezing, but that too did not matter. He wanted his gun. He needed his gun. He was imagining the sound of metal against metal as the clip slid into place, the weight of it in his hands, the smell of it after he fired it, and the smell of it after he cleaned it. He was not thinking because thinking would mean that he would be realizing that Shaboni was dying. And that right now she was dying in a place where men who were less than human were most likely conducting experiments on her as she suffered so that they could gauge the usefulness of some new way to kill someone. No, he was not thinking about that. He would not think about that. He would not think about how he'd known there would be a terrible price to pay exacted for a moment of pure joy. He would not think at all. He would just act. And his first action would be to take then men responsible for this malevolence in his hands and show them the degree of their error. He would show them in no uncertain terms.
They arrived at the base to find that Teal'c had already returned and was waiting for them. In the language of warriors, Teal'c and O'Neill exchanged silent acknowledgement of each other. Jack excused himself to the infirmary and waited for the good doctor to finish her examination of him so that he could go get cleaned up.
After she did as thorough an examination as she dared she declared him fit for duty. "You still have a nasty concussion from the accident, and the blow you received tonight didn't do you any favors, but it is mild by comparison. Your hand isn't broken, but it will probably be stiff."
He acted as though she was not talking to him, just sitting there quietly waiting for her to be finished.
"Tell Daniel to come in here. I want to have a look at him too." She dismissed the colonel, who walked away without a word. Janet felt a chill move up her spine. She knew the man was capable of things she would never have wanted to contemplate in the dark, but she'd never seen him in that particular mode herself. It was a frightening thing to behold. His dark eyes were like black ice that would burn you if you looked too long.
Daniel came in and she took a look at his head. He had a gash where he'd been struck, and the bruise surrounding it swelled pushing the edges of the cut apart. "Daniel you could use some stitches here," she pointed out. "How long were you unconscious?"
"I really don't know. I don't think it was more than a few minutes. Please no stitches." He winced and pulled away from her dabbing of antiseptic on the open wound. He'd not noticed that his shirt was wet with blood because it had been wet from the rain. "Ouch!"
"Sit still," she insisted.
"Janet," he said trying his best to be cooperative, "is Jack really okay?"
"Well, physically speaking he is fair, not great." She paused and debated whether to continue.
"Mentally?" Daniel pushed.
"Well, let's just say I wouldn't want to be the one he's angry with," she finished up. "Okay, I'm going to give you an antibiotic shot and I want you to come back tomorrow for another one. Let me put some Dermabond in the cut. I will be done in three minutes, and then you can go." Then they were done. Daniel went to the gear room and quickly dressed in some clean fatigues. Then he went to his office to wait for news.
The colonel went back to the general's office to find out if Mayborne had been located yet. As he approached he found the general was on the phone. General Hammond saw him approaching and motioned for him to come in.
"Thank you for your help," he said as Jack entered the room and then he hung up. "We found him."
"Well?" Jack said coolly.
"He is at Peterson. For some reason he's already in town," the general said dubiously.
"Permission to go to Peterson and kill Harry Mayborne, Sir," Jack said with a steel voice.
"Permission denied, Colonel. You will go to Peterson and question him and then you will report back here. If you are unable to get any information from him you are authorized to negotiate for the information you require. You will not, under any circumstances, lay a finger on him. Am I clear, Colonel?"
"And what am I supposed to use to negotiate, General?" Jack asked bitterly.
"Improvise, Jack. Just don't give away the store," General Hammond said softly.
"I am taking Teal'c," he informed his CO.
"Very well. Now, go. Before it gets any later."
With that, Jack went to Teal'c's quarters and suggested he grab a hat. They were going to Peterson Air Force Base.
*****
Teal'c noticed the mood that had settled over his friend. "Why are you troubled, O'Neill?"
"I'm not troubled."
"I believe you are."
"What you're seeing isn't troubled. It's pissed." Jack pulled at the strap on his watch.
"Something transpired while I was away on Chulak?" he questioned.
"You could say that."
Teal'c stared at Jack levelly. He waited for O'Neill to elaborate. Jack looked up at him and realized he was going to have to say a little more.
"Something definitely happened. And this woman, Shaboni, she was what made it happen." He did not want to say any more than that and was relieved when Teal'c recognized all he needed in those few words.
"We shall find her, O'Neill," Teal'c assured him.
"Maybe we will. But it's not going to matter. She's dying, Teal'c." And with that Jack slapped the strap on his wrist and turned away.
Teal'c had not realized the full extent of the connection that had been made between the woman they sought to rescue and his friend. He could see now that something more than a friendship had been forged between the two.
The car that was ferrying them to Peterson stopped at the gate and they presented their credentials. They were waved through, and the driver took them to a hangar on the far end of the base. Teal'c pulled his hat down over the golden tattoo on his forehead and pulled the collar of his jacket up to block the cold wind. The main lights of the base were far enough away from this particular building that everything was darker and the shadows were longer. 'An appropriate meeting place for this particular Tau'ri,' Teal'c thought.
The driver waited in the car, and the two men went inside the hangar. There was an HH60-G Pave Hawk helicopter parked near the opposite doors. Other than that the hangar appeared empty. Jack and Teal'c began making their way around the side of the building to where the apparently abandoned helicopter sat. Just as they were about to reach the bird a voice came from behind them.
"Hello, gentlemen. I understand you've been looking for me." Colonel Harry Mayborne stepped out of the shadows behind them. He was a short man with thin brown hair and a face like a weasel. Teal'c and Jack turned around. Jack did not return his overture of civilized greeting.
"I want to know where Captain Shaboni Uziel is being held," Jack said, his voice dangerously low.
"Why, Jack, I don't know who you're talking about." Mayborne grinned a nasty little grin.
"Harry, I don't have time to play your little games right now. Just tell me where she is and I won't hurt you."
"You won't do anything to me, Jack. I happen to know you're under orders not to lay a finger on me," the little man said haughtily.
Jack pulled out his Beretta and pulled the slide back to chamber a round. He pointed it at the little man and said, "I'm not going to lay a finger on you, Harry. I'm going to pump hot little bolts of lead into you. Tell me where Captain Uziel is. Now," His voice was deadly steady.
"I don't know where she is at the moment, Jack. Some of our more militant members have managed to get their hands on her. If you want to find her you're going to need my help."
"I'm about to get your help. As much help as I want from you. If you don't know where she is in less than ten minutes you're going to become intimately acquainted with those little bolts of lead I was mentioning a moment ago. Now where do we need to go for you to obtain this information that is going to take you less than ten minutes to obtain?"
Mayborne considered his options for a moment. Jack knew full well that Mayborne couldn't do anything to him because of his position within the SGC. He enjoyed a certain degree of latitude. And most men who knew him deeply respected him as a leader because he rarely ever took advantage of that latitude. He treated those under him with respect and commanded that in return. But right now his actions went far outside the purview of that sweet little degree of latitude he enjoyed. He knew that if he shot Mayborne there'd be hell to pay, but right now he didn't care.
That made it much more than an idle threat and Mayborne knew it. He'd seen Jack's personnel file. The complete file. He knew that the man was capable of emptying his clip into Mayborne's gut, come what may. But if he let on that he knew that there would be no holding back the tide of this Colonel's ire in the future. And, oh, what a future he had planned! There was going to come a day when he would need this man, for one reason or another, and this was not a battle worth winning at the expense of his long-range goals.
Mayborne reached into his pocket. Jack's eyes sharpened and he held the gun up a little higher, "Ah, ah, ah. Two fingers," he said waving the M9 in the direction of Mayborne's pocket. Colonel Mayborne held up his hands to indicate he was not intending to threaten and reached with two fingers for his cell phone.
"You'll excuse me while I make a quick call," he quipped.
"You'll stay right the hell where you are or," and he wiggled the gun indicating his intentions to fire.
Mayborne acquiesced and dialed a number on his phone. He held it to his face and Teal'c could make out the sound of the line connecting. He could not hear the words being spoken on the other end, but Mayborne had, indeed, made a connecting call.
"This is Mayborne. I need to know what you've done with the Mossad woman." He didn't take his eyes of Jack. There was a moment of silence and then Mayborne added, "Because I'm ordering you to tell me where she's been taken." And again he waited a moment. Mayborne shifted his gaze from Jack's eyes to Teal'c's and then back again. The he said, "Thank you," and he hung up.
"Well?" Jack demanded impatiently.
"She has been taken to a warehouse in the Security-Widefield area. It is at Little Johnson Reservoir off Bradley Rd. There is an empty cul-de-sac one block before the building where they have her and development on the next lot."
Jack turned to Teal'c, "That is less than five minutes from here." Jack tucked his gun away, turned, and started toward the door of the hangar.
"You're most welcome, Colonel O'Neill," Mayborne called to them as they were leaving. Jack simply didn't care enough to turn around.
They got back to the car and the driver was gone. Jack got out of the car and whistled loudly, hoping to get his attention in the event that he'd walked off to use the latrine. No one came. He started to get frustrated. "We're practically around the freakin' corner!"
"O'Neill, would not Daniel Jackson and Major Carter wish to be with us? We must return to Cheyenne Mountain and inform General Hammond before attempting a rescue."
Jack didn't say anything right away. He noticed that the keys to the car were still in the ignition. He didn't want to wait another minute. He had no idea what was happening at that warehouse, but he was sure it bad. And he was sure that he didn't want her to have to suffer one more minute. So if he was going to have to go all the way back to the base before returning to get her, he was not going to wait one more second to leave. He jumped in the front seat and started the ignition.
Jack drove towards the Peterson Air Force Base front gate with all the reserve he had within him. He did not speed. He did not call attention to them. He had not waited for their driver, but he outranked the man anyway. At the gate he was waved on through. Teal'c sat stoically in the front passenger's seat, unmoving, and unwavering in his unquestioning support of the colonel. As soon as Jack was out of sight of the guard at the front gate he pressed the accelerator to the floor of the Chevy and raced for the mountain.