Chapter 7
Area 51, Department of Science and Engineering
South Nevada
12 September 1995
Programmed to avoid asteroid belts and electromagnetic emissions, the small vessel emerged out of a hyperspace jump and glided through the vacuum of space, set for the last course in its database of locations.
Directly ahead, a blue-green planet hung in inky darkness within the vast spiral of the Milky Way.
The search droid built into its engines started a scanning sequence and found a match. Locking in the co-ordinates, the interstellar craft accelerated towards its target.
190,000 km beneath the small space vessel, dawn was creeping across the North-American continent. In Nevada, an orange sun was about to peek above the desert horizon, already tingeing the dawn sky with a red hue over the arid landscape.
Entering Earth's atmosphere from the Northern Pole, it plunged towards the Arctic Ocean, levelling off in the Bering Sea and rushed towards the Mojave Desert, making an arc around Nevada's bordering states of Utah and Idaho. It moved to hover over the perimeter of the no-fly zone in the Groom Lake facility, beginning a scan over the area that seemed to send out a signal not found in these parts of the universe.
Its presence, now uncloaked, triggered the motions sensors liberally dotting the perimeter of the military base, setting off shrill alarms that sounded through the facility.
The film grain from Area 51's security feed was fuzzy but unmistakably showed a flat octagonal shape barely two metres in length that bore no resemblance to any military or civilian craft.
The graveyard shift was nearly over, the hallways soon filling with somnolent employees as they waited for their military transport out of the base. A young scientist picked his way through the crowd as he hurried to the General's office.
"Sir, security cameras have detected an unidentified flying object that has landed on the south shore of Groom Lake. We believe that it has some kind of cloaking technology that has prevented Earth's satellites and telescopes from detecting it."
The General hurried after the scientist, quickening his steps to match the younger man's unusually long strides.
By the time the hastily assembled reconnaissance team had reached the base's south shore, the craft had vanished, leaving no trace of its presence in the lightening sky.
Cheyenne Mountain Complex
Colorado Springs
15 September 1995
The first thing that Sam did when she reached her lab was to pull out her collection of high-resolution photographs of all the constellation patterns carved on the Stargate, lining them out across the length of her lab bench. Drawing out Daniel Jackson's crumpled reproduction of the cartouche and its seventh, incongruous glyph, she methodically compared the last symbol with each of the photos, slowly rotating it clockwise.
Earth – the point of origin. Its moon, shining its light on the pyramids of Egypt, as the kneeling figures bowed in supplication on either side. The landscape, the circle, the moonlight. A single circle…could it be the Earth's moon? The lay of the land. The land of Ancient Egypt. The Great Pyramids framed against a moonlit sky.
The symbol of Ancient Egypt.
To the ancient dwellers in Egypt, that would have been their entire world.
World.
Earth.
Where it all started.
The point of origin.
Impatiently, Sam chucked out the irregular patterns of the star constellations, looking for any glyph that would resemble pyramid and its moon.
And there it was.
She picked out the photograph of a glyph that resembled an inverted 'V', capped by a perfect circle on its apex. With unsteady hands, she picked up a marker and drew the praying stick figures on either side of the downward slope.
The Stargate had given up its last secret. The sequence was at last complete.
Quickly documenting and encrypting her report on the process of acquiring the seventh symbol, she felt a growing exhilaration that she thought had been snuffed out since Catherine's sudden and tragic demise.
In her enthusiasm, Sam pushed off her lab chair and gathered the photos of the glyphs and the drawings of the cartouche. She couldn't remember running to the General's office, nor could she remember her pounding footsteps up the metal staircase into the briefing room, nor the names of the unusually chatty technicians on duty. Walter had cheerfully informed her that the General was in his office, having come out of a budget meeting with the General a few minutes ago.
Seeing that West's door was open and she rushed in breathlessly after a quick knock.
"General, Sir, are you -," she started, and realised that she was addressing an empty chair.
Looking around and seeing the spread of papers that had been scattered on the ground, she knew that he had left his desk only a while ago and probably for a short time, but had done so hastily enough to displace some of his documents.
A sharp wave of disappointment overtook her. It always seemed as though the timing was never right. With a sigh, she bent over and picked up the stray sheets on the ground, intending to put it back on the table, but the letterheads of the companies on them caught her eye.
The tablatures, headings and bulleted paragraphs suggested that these were bookkeeping receipts and contracts – hadn't Walter just finished a budgeting review?
She risked a quick glance down.
Frontiers Aeronautical Engineering Inc.
This TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AGREEMENT between FRONTIERS AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING INC. and WINSTON ORVILLE WEST is made and entered into on this 4th day of February 1995 and effective immediately.
WHEREAS, THE CHEYENNE MOUNTAIN PROJECT under GENERAL WINSTON ORVILLE WEST has developed technology under the jurisdiction of the military of the UNITED STATES OF AMERICA.
For the amount of USD 3,000,000 paid to GENERAL WINSTON ORVILLE WEST in the first quarter of 1995, FRONTIERS AERONAUTICAL ENGINEERING INC. will acquire, every fortnightly, progress reports of the scientific and engineering departments and details of the projects' Standard Operating Procedures.
In consideration of the technology transfer, the Purchaser shall pay WINSTON ORVILLE WEST AS FOLLOWS:
Documents delivery: USD $[CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OMITTED AND FILED SEPARATELY]
Operating Procedures: USD $[CONFIDENTIAL INFORMATION OMITTED AND FILED SEPARATELY]
Total Amount: USD 12,000,000, payable in quarterly instalments of USD 3,000,000
IN WITNESS WHEREOF, the parties herein have caused this Agreement to be executed by duly authorized representatives of both parties on the day and date shown below to be effective on the day and year first above written.
CERTAIN PORTIONS OF THIS AGREEMENT HAVE BEEN OMITTED AND FILED SEPARATELY, IN CONNECTION WITH A REQUEST FOR CONFIDENTIAL TREATMENT PURSUANT TO RULE 156 PROMULGATED UNDER THE SECURITIES ACT OF 1934, AS AMENDED.
SIGNED: _
DATED: _
The shock of this discovery caused her stumble; a quick flick through the other print-outs showed that there were similar contracts signed with a variety of different private but well-known aerospace companies located in different parts of the world.
T.U.C. Systems
This TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AGREEMENT between T.U.C SYSTEMS and WINSTON ORVILLE WEST is made and entered into on this 20th day of November 1994 and effective on this 1st day of January 1995.
United Engineering Corporation
This TECHNOLOGY TRANSFER AGREEMENT between UNITED ENGINEERING CORPORATION and WINSTON ORVILLE WEST….
She'd seen enough. Reflex action made her want to put the papers back on the general's desk, but on second thought, she left the papers scattered as they were, exiting the room the moment the sound of heavy pounding footsteps was heard coming up the stairs.
Sam made it as far as the corner of the briefing room table before the General's head appeared at the top of the stairs.
"Captain, Sergeant Harriman was telling me you were looking for me," West greeted. "What can I do for you?"
Her mind fumbled for an excuse – any excuse – to tell him something.
"Sir, I wanted to get your permission to run a diagnostic on the dialling program," she improvised quickly, hoping the General would fall for her subterfuge. "I realise that there might have been a margin of instability in the search algorithms that could have led to –"
West held up his hand, grimacing slightly, clearly unwilling to hear any more of the technical explanation that she knew made absolutely no sense.
"Granted, Captain. You have twenty-four hours."
"Yes, Sir. Thank you, Sir," she managed, watching him enter his office and close the door.
Motel 6
Colorado Springs
17 September 1995
Jack O'Neill waded through the recently decrypted files, reading for the tenth time about an alien device that had been uncovered from the Giza Plateau in 1928, coming into the possession of the Air Force decades later, forming a top-secret project even more classified – if that were even possible – than research projects and aircraft test flights at Area 51. Led by civilian archaeologist Dr. Catherine Langford and policed by Air Force military scientists, they were on the verge of getting it functional through a series of translations and pattern recognitions.
The more he'd thought about it, the more it was unsurprising to learn that this was the Air Force's most closely guarded secret. Langford's recent death had however, left a vacuum in the civilian command structure and he knew that it was only a matter of time before the Air Force muscled in and asserted its military foothold on the project.
Captain Dr. Samantha Carter, it seemed, had a pivotal role in getting it operational, her knowledge in astrophysics quickly putting her in pole-position as an expert in this device. After her meeting with Daniel Jackson a few days ago, she had driven maniacally back to the base, from which she had not emerged until twenty-four hours later. He'd tailed her as discreetly as he could, watching her long, purposeful strides taking her past the checkpoints from a distance.
The latest documents download from Carter's personal systems had told him that the grey ring – or the Stargate as she'd now taken to calling it – had a dialling program had thus far only encoded six chevrons, the seventh unknown symbol only recently discovered. In it, she had postulated the formation of a stable wormhole containing sufficient energy to dial any particular point in the known galaxy, de-molecularising any substance that passed through it, only re-molecularising into its original form as it emerged on the other side.
Her explanations were concise, the documentation reading like a partial, personal diary that recounted her meeting with Daniel Jackson, Langford's subterfuge and Jackson's explanations that had given her the last push to discover what the point of origin really was. But yet, she had kept that discovery to herself, encrypting the file heavily on her own laptop without disclosing anything to the commander of the base.
Carter had kept regular hours since getting back from the base and his digital surveillance of her online activities surprisingly revealed discreet background checks on various aeronautical companies that were strategically positioned in several large cities on all continents.
Had she been thinking of resigning and joining the private sector instead? He wouldn't put it past her, given the tumultuous activities of the last week. Without Langford, she had appeared lost and confused, the misery on her face evident for all to see when she thought she was alone. Coupled with her erratic schedule and the pressure of searching for the seventh glyph, it looked as though Carter was inevitably headed for a rather spectacular burnout.
There was much to think about, and the work was far from over. Over the past few days, he had contacted his base only once more, sending through selective findings on the target. The mission deadline was fast approaching, and strangely, he had felt an unfamiliar, disquieting uncertainty so completely foreign that it had stopped him in his tracks. The tension of the past few days had tightened the muscles in his shoulders considerably, coupled with the severe lack of sleep during his intensive surveillance of Carter and the activities going on in the mountain, he was on edge, only going on adrenaline and constant bursts of caffeine. In truth, physically, he was not doing much better than Carter herself, having chased after several leads that were in all probability, above and beyond his call of duty – leads which might have been better left alone. But Jack O'Neill treaded many thin lines in the course of his career, and this one was just another one in a long, long list missions of which he'd already lost count.
He had been given his orders to neutralise Carter, orders given in such unusual circumstances that he was starting to have serious doubts about its validity. Carter, on the other hand, had shown no sign of duplicitous behaviour in the days that he watched her. Her supposed breach of security protocols had simply not existed. The lengths to which she went to meticulously catalogue and encrypt her documents had attested to it; her solitary lifestyle simply pointed to a workaholic – and possibly a lonely woman – who kept building on a stellar academic and professional career while neglecting anything that lay outside those spheres. While her flawless record logically pointed to a soldier who worked her way up, there wasn't any way to know the woman behind the military persona that he'd been shallowly acquainted with, on paper, least of all, over the past week and a half.
More importantly, he was fully aware that he had bypassed several opportunities that would have given him a clear shot at Carter. Had those failed, there were other, covert ways that could take a man down.
All of which he also hadn't taken for reasons that he couldn't quite yet articulate.
Langford's death had already complicated the legitimacy of his mission; what was a tragic and unfortunate event in Carter's life had in fact, given him the impetus to yet delay his hand, playing perhaps, a pivotal role in convincing him that the task was at best, misguided.
Wrestling with his conflicting thoughts, he turned to his laptop, logging into the command centre for another mission update. Faced with a black, blue screen, he growled in frustration, retyping his passwords, and created a different bypass that made a few connections to other several military databases to get him where he wanted to be.
All to no avail. He was well and truly locked out.
After a moment's contemplation, he dug out the satellite phone and dialled, knowing it was the last resort of means he would ever use.
"This is Timberwolf. I need to speak to Asterisk," he grated out, pacing the floor in agitation.
A pause.
The line went dead, leaving him staring at the phone in disbelief.
Goddammit, Jack thought, frantically processing what had happened.
His redialling attempts hadn't even brought him close to a ringtone.
Cut off from his sources of information, he was now flying blind, left with a growing dread that he had been entirely too naïve in accepting this mission. He was all too aware that there were big things going on that weren't his place to understand, boundaries not to trespass and some lines not to cross – yet he did those anyway.
And now it seemed that these indiscretions were coming back to bite him in his ass. Jack didn't like this one bit. Ten days after being given that dubious assignment, he was already being written off.
It was time to go.
Anywhere.
As long as it hid him from sight until he figured out what the hell was going on.
Throwing everything in his duffels, Jack checked his weapon and opened the door slowly, the evening's fading light making it harder to see anything. Leaving the key in the lock, he closed the door and headed for the back stairwell. Lit by flickering fluorescent lamps, the steps cast magnified shadows of themselves on the yellowed and mildewed walls, shading the whole area in a sharp contrast of black and white.
The dark cast of the flight of steps morphed into an advancing figure. Before he knew it, an elbow had connected his side and a fist to his face made him fall over. Rolling over quickly but before he could scramble to his feet in a crouch on the stair landing, a black-clad figure had a gun pointed at his chest. Grunting in pain, he acted on impulse, reaching out immediately to grab his attacker's hand and twist until he heard a crack in the other man's wrist. The shock of the blow allowed him to pull the man to the floor, wrestling for the firearm as they rolled precariously towards the edge of the flight of steps. His duffels fell off his shoulder and hung awkward off his arms, their weight now an excruciating burden in the crease of his elbows.
A hand gripped his throat. He tried pulling the hand free, digging his fingers of his free hand into the hair of his attacker.
Short of breath, he mustered the strength to slam the man's head once on the hard concrete. His weight, already leaning at an awkward angle over the stairs, eventually pulled both of them over the steep incline. They tumbled down the hard, unforgiving planes, landing with the firearm carelessly tossed in a corner.
Jack got to his feet in a hurry, shrugging off the bags that had cut into his arms and ignoring the alarming tilt of the room as he stared at the scene of the struggle. His would-be assassin lay slack and unmoving on the ground, blood pouring from one side of his head as a result of their fall. He fingered his throat gently, certain of the bruises that would form the day after. He was sure that his nose was just as bloodied, and his sides ached like hell.
Muttering an expletive, he bent down and checked the pulse of the downed man.
Alive and kicking.
Picking up the .22 LRS from the other end of the landing, he flicked its safety on, recognising the build and type of the gun – and its legendary shot placement – that was favoured in several covert operations, particularly in the Middle East.
Jack shouldered his bags, tucking the weapon into one of them.
There must be more of these hitmen, he concluded grimly. The near-simultaneous events of the past evening couldn't have been a mere coincidence, not especially now since he had become one of the hunted along with Samantha Carter. Jack tallied his information mentally, weighing it against what he knew of the entire situation – a situation that had become too messy for him to handle. There were bigger things at work here, and he had seen only the tip of the iceberg, perhaps already involving himself without meaning to.
His assignment had been terminated, but left unfinished. They – whoever they were – would probably want to finish his job for him, and most probably, finish him too.
Slipping out the exit door quietly, he noticed two vehicles parked in the lots – one being his rental and the other, belonging to a family staying in the motel's only suite across the quadrangle. Their window blinds were drawn, and from a distance, he saw them sitting down to dinner, oblivious to the struggle that had just taken place in a disused stairwell.
So the hitman had some form of transport, a partner or even partners who were going to come back for him. Or perhaps they were simultaneously taking out the other target – Carter.
Decision made, he got into his rental and floored the accelerator, pulling out of the motel lot, speeding towards the Captain's house.
Carter had kept regular hours the last few days and he hoped to heaven that she had gone back early today.
He could only hope that he wasn't too late.