Chapter 14
Des Moines, Iowa
25 September 1995
For at the past six days, O'Neill had been insisting that she rest her ankle. She had disagreed at first, wanting to make it to Des Moines as soon as they could, then later confessed that the additional rest was probably necessary when it got too painful to walk. But the sprain had gotten much better especially over the last two days and she found that her movements were almost back to normal.
The recuperation time had been much needed for the both of them, she thought; at least O'Neill's eyes were looking less shadowed and fatigued.
From Lexington, they'd gone north, then northeast, taking a zigzagging route into Iowa, stopping for a day or two at small towns like Norfolk and Spencer, before finally approaching Des Moines from the north. They avoided public contact as much as they could, spending the nights in the least-popular motels, often leaving before the dawn. They used their stash of cash prudently, buying their supplies from convenience stores and from the occasional takeout stand.
As an added security measure, they had ditched their transport at every junkyard they'd come across. She had hot-wired vehicles as he nodded his approval.
He had told her jokingly that they made a good team, despite the unusual circumstances that had pushed them together. In that light-hearted moment, she'd winked and called herself MacGyver's double. He had burst into surprised laughter, which had made her stop short at what she was doing for a few seconds.
Sam had never heard him laugh before, not in that way, not with that unrestrained, short burst of mirth that took the years from his face and added a glow in his brown eyes.
She regretted that it was hidden once more like the way the sun hid behind the clouds.
Sneaking a glance at him now, she saw that he was preoccupied with the traffic in Ankeny, looking into the rear view mirror every few seconds. He was changing lanes too frequently, his eyes darting everywhere.
A tendril of anxiety crawled up her back. Stealing a glance to the back, Sam could only make out the tail end of rush-hour traffic.
"What is it?" She asked worriedly.
"There's a green car on our six," he replied distractedly, pushing the car into a sudden burst of acceleration through a yellow light, rounding the left corner into a side street quickly.
Sam twisted as far as she could to look behind them, squinting in the bright sunlight despite the shades that covered her eyes.
A green car nipped around the right corner, in the opposite direction of where they were and accelerated on.
"Looks like no one's following us after all," she pointed out, heaving a sigh of relief.
"That looked too easy."
"If they followed us, why wait till all this time? Unless they wanted my ankle healed first," she said dryly. "I think you're seeing things that aren't there."
She had a point, he conceded grudgingly. He had been more paranoid than cautious the moment they'd left Nebraska, checking their motel several times, walking its perimeter, always going around with a cap pulled low over his eyes. Sam had not fared much better. His suspicions rubbed off her; she'd dressed in oversized jackets and sweaters, stuffing her hair under a cap that she'd made him purchase at a convenience store.
They had agreed that Colin's and Rosie Payner's deaths couldn't have been accidental. A crop fire in autumn wasn't a common occurrence in the Great Plains and the speed at which the acres had succumbed to the flames suggested that the presence of an accelerant.
The only recourse available to them was to continue to shake the trails of their pursuers, while trying to recover from their untimely injuries.
Jack knew just how much the loss of the Payners affected her. The horrifying story of her college date was proof enough that memories such as those never faded and were often accompanied by pain that still stung as fresh as the day the wound had been cut. It was the age-old story of loss, one with which he had recently become well-acquainted.
She had been rather sullen in the recovery period, talking only if he asked her something. Catherine Langford's demise had barely given Carter time to mourn, or to come to terms with the suspicious circumstances surrounding her accident. This guilt she carried because of the Payners – despite his fervent assurances that she wasn't to blame at all – had only served to increase the emotional burden.
Fleeing had become part of their lives so suddenly that it had been suffocating for her. But Carter still held up under the strain remarkably, for someone who was already convinced that she had lost everything. He'd seen men who had broken for less.
Instead, she held on. She didn't let go. She ran. With him. Not giving up on the truth, no matter how far away that was at the moment.
Admiration for Carter's resilience welled up inside him. And also grudging respect for the cool head that she'd kept during the last five minutes.
"Yeah," he grimaced, flushing slightly in embarrassment.
Then he realised that he had stopped the car completely on the small street, obstructing an outraged driver who had stopped behind him. Quickly steering to the side, he ignored the finger that was waved at him as the car behind squealed off.
He caught Carter's wry, amused look that she wiped off her face the second he caught her eye.
He narrowed his eyes. "So where to now, science babe?" And grinned when he saw her scowl.
"Let's get to a diner," she suggested. "I could go through the telephone directory. It might be best to call from a public location."
"Who are we looking for exactly?"
"Academy ex-classmates."
Ten minutes later, they had found a fairly large one that was located at the end of the main street, but not before he stopped to get the daily newspaper.
Walking into a corner where the public pay phone was, Sam saw O'Neill slide into a booth at the back and flip through the menu.
She hoped he ordered strong, black coffee. The routine cup of breakfast coffee was one of the things she missed the most, grateful for the small luxury when he'd brought her several cups as her leg and arms healed.
Turning back to the telephone stand, she pulled out the directory and turned to the letter 'N', running her fingers down the list of names as she scanned for the one she wanted.
Newman, Gary.
Newman, George.
Newman, Geoffrey.
Newman, Gideon. (515) 991-3158. 388 Woodlands Avenue.
Inserting a coin into the pay phone, Sam dialled the number quickly, impatiently tapping the phone book as she waited.
"Hi –" she started, only to be cut off by the beep of an answering machine. She listened to Gideon Newman's curt voice over the recording telling whoever called to leave a message. "Damn."
Frustrated, she slammed the receiver down hard. The telephone booth rattled with the force of her action.
She paged through the directory once more, flipping to the letter "E".
Elliot, Dalton.
Elliot, Damian.
Elliot, David. (515) 280-4050. 303 East Boulevard.
Elliot, David. (515) 483-4983. 1992 Porter Avenue.
Elliot, David. (515) 294-4220. 29 Scott Street.
There were too many damn David Elliots living in Des Moines that she would have liked.
Sam wound her way back to the back booth where O'Neill was sitting and seemingly absorbed in the papers, glad to see that he had ordered exactly what she'd wanted. In fact, he had gone overboard with the order. The coffee came accompanied with two plates of pancakes and waffles. She slid in next to him, and took a sip of the steaming cup that the waitress had just served, sighing softly in pleasure as the hot brew slid down her throat.
He shoved a plate piled high with pancakes at her.
She nodded her thanks and cut out a large piece. "I think I've found one," she informed him in low tones. "His name is Gideon Newman. But I got his answering machine."
"It's a work day," he pointed out. "If he keeps to a nine-to-five schedule, there's a chance we could meet him in the evening. Got the address?"
She nodded and said, "It's been a long time since we've seen each other. We've kept in contact from time to time, but…well, he's a curious guy."
He watched in growing horror as she shoved the cream on the pancakes to a corner of her plate. "Hey, give me that!" He scooped out the cream that she'd chucked aside and dumped the lot onto his own plate. Only when he was satisfied that he had taken all of it, he replied, "Not a good thing."
"Think about it. It could work for us."
"And also against us."
"Gideon knows the meaning of discretion, O'Neill."
He took a sip of his own black coffee. "We can't be taking chances."
She took a delicate bite of her pancakes. "I know. But we don't have that many options. I've used my father's military identity the past week to get to the military databases – breaking the encryption took a while, and when we got through, it wasn't as though we found out very much. At least not more than what Colin had already told you."
"It's still something," he argued. "We know that West has a dodgy record, but as far as those go, his dealings had not involved anyone else in the military. And that Vandenburg has been in Area 51 and in charge of evaluating foreign technology and engineering them in reverse."
"And that's where he spent fifteen years," she mused.
"A long time," he agreed. "So you think something's going on in there?"
She rolled her eyes and snorted. "Something's always going on there. It's Area 51. Test flights are what they do, though some insist more is being done there that only a select few know about. As a result, it's a place riddled with conspiracy theories, government cover-ups and politics. Nothing new in the military. And I know the military prefers to keep it that way."
"Never would have taken you for a cynic," he said quietly, inexplicably uncomfortable with the flippant, and – perhaps – falsely casual manner in which she had spoken her derision. Somehow, Carter was too young, and too unblemished to be feeling that way. He suddenly wished that she could have remained just that bit more idealistic.
"You know, neither would I, frankly," she admitted and looked at his squarely. "There was a time when the Air Force could do no wrong in my books. But that was a long time ago. Things have changed. I've changed."
"Yeah, haven't we all?" Jack muttered in response. He couldn't remember a time before the USAF. It had been and probably will be an integral part of his life and family. But he'd spent the better part of his life in service to his country and now, he didn't know if that faith in the military was misplaced.
"Gideon might be able to dig up something more specific," Carter said.
He recognised her change of subject and he gladly took her lead.
"Anyway, anyone else besides him?"
Sam huffed in irritation. "Yeah, but he's got a common name. There's got to be at least forty David Elliots in this city alone. There's no way we could call on every one of them here."
"Then your first guy might be our best bet today," he said and pushed the papers at her. "Here, look at this. Effects of apparent solar flares causing havoc across all continents."
She spared a glance at the images of the outages, then read the headlines.
Massive power cut affecting 38 million people across the Central Asian Plateau and Western China
An apparent flare event induced the collapse of the Min-Shao electrical plant in Inner Mongolia in seconds and left 3 million people without electricity for twenty hours. The geomagnetic current flowing through the Earth found the least resistant path along the 1,150 kV ultra-high voltage power lines that run through the sparsely populated region, causing jammed satellite communications to shut down.
Indications of solar flare activity however, remain unclear, an incongruous consequence of an apparent cause that, at the time of writing, cannot be confirmed by visual evidence of any flares. The Des Moines Register can confirm that NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory (SDO) has not commented on this incongruity.
Research is ongoing to produce a radio telescope that can monitor sunspot active regions (AR) and predict the trajectory of potentially damaging debris in a flare event, which will then allow the reorientation of satellites or the early shut down of communications systems that could be in its path.
"Solar flares without visual, tangible proof…?" She wondered aloud.
"You're the scientist. You tell me."
She leant low and looked around. The diner was thankfully empty save for an elderly couple at the end of the row.
"My research team had actually discovered unusual readings in the atmosphere a few weeks ago. Spikes of energy that don't compute with the usual composition of the cosmic dust that is found in our own atmosphere. Typical sources of solar system dust come from comet dust or even asteroidal dust. Now, I'm just not too sure what it really is after reading these newspaper reports," she paused, surprised that he hadn't yet demanded that he wanted more of a straight-forward response. "In fact, I was hoping to contact NASA in order to obtain decades worth of their atmospheric recordings when all of these –" she gestured in the air helplessly, "happened and everything went wrong."
O'Neill looked sceptical. "And that's somehow related to a flare? How?"
"Solar flares are caused when magnetic activity ramps up in sunspots on the surface of the sun. When flares happen, huge quantities of matter and electromagnetic radiation, also known as the coronal mass ejection, are hurled into space that, upon impacting Earth, can cause geomagnetic storms that disrupt radio communications and power grids," she started, running through the article again. "But more importantly, you can see flares happening. They can be captured by NASA's Solar Dynamics Observatory and the public gets very quick access to these pictures as soon as the newspapers obtain the copyright," she said, frowning. "Without much visual proof of these flares, I can't help but think that I couldn't have been looking at information related to them all along.
"Maybe because there just weren't any?" O'Neill suggested tentatively.
She shook her head, her certainty growing by the second.
They were looking at Occam's razor, counting on the simplest, most obvious explanation as the right one.
"No, I think you might be right. It takes a considerable amount of electromagnetic radiation in the atmosphere to cause such large-scale power outages. And if a series of flares didn't cause it, then what did? And what are the atmosphere reactive remnants that don't seem to be part of the interplanetary residue that seem to be present?"
"Carter, don't you think that…," he started, grimacing at what he was going to say.
"That what?"
"That things seem so coincidental?"
"What do you mean?"
"Look, I'm the last person to believe conspiracy theories, but don't you think that everything is happening at the same time? You made some…discoveries. I was sent to stop you, or rather, to stop those discoveries from being…used," he paused and mimicked her earlier action, looking around only to see the same elderly couple huddled in the corner. "Then the sky goes berserk, things happen around the world, we're being hunted – it's all too much of a coincidence, don't you think?
She thought for a moment and took a surreptitious glance around. "It never hurts to consider all possibilities. The presence of the…device has made me believe that there's more out there than just Earth's existence. And if what you've said had some truth in them…if these events are related in any way, then we're onto something very big that they're hiding."
He nodded and finished the last of his coffee and pancakes. "Let's go."
When they left the diner, it became clear that there wasn't too much they could do in town – not when they were lying low as possible.
There was nothing to do but wait.
Des Moines, Iowa
25 September 1995
They had not been parked a couple of blocks outside Newman's house for very long before they saw a portly man walk up his porch and unlock the door.
Apparently, he was coming home for lunch, before leaving for the base again.
"That's him," she pointed out. "I'll go and speak to him."
Without waiting for O'Neill's reply, Sam got out of the car and headed down the street, and through Gideon Newman's sparsely decorated front lawn. She sneaked a quick glance back at the car only to see O'Neill casually open the newspaper that he had bought from a side stall, looking like he was nonchalantly waiting for someone in the neighbourhood.
A quick knock on the front door brought the sound of running footsteps. The door creaked open and Sam saw his head peek around.
"Gideon?" She greeted hesitantly, wondering if he would even remember her. It had after all, been nearly close to a decade since they'd studied together, and nearly five years since she last saw him at a class reunion dinner. Even then, they'd only exchanged cursory greetings, made small talk about their various assignments and asked about each other's families.
The door opened fully to reveal a man with a high forehead, a receding hairline and a pinched expression on his face, still dressed in his uniform. That was what she remembered of Gideon. The man who stood in front of her hadn't changed in years, at least in the looks department.
"How...what…Samantha? Samantha Carter?" he stuttered, stunned at his visitor. A tentative smile split Newman's features, making him look younger than he did.
"Hi," she breathed in relief. "I'm so sorry for turning up at your door like that, Gideon. But I need your help."
Newman glanced behind him nervously before beckoning her in, leading her to the corner near the front door.
He'd not offered her a place to sit, nor any rudimentary comments to fill the sudden, tense silence.
Skipping the pleasantries.
She took the hint; she wasn't welcome here, nor could she really blame him for his frosty behaviour. Turning up at his doorstep after a period of radio silence wasn't the best way to rekindle any sort of friendship. Not that she had any close, real ones in years since her days at the academy…since…Catherine.
"So, why are you here, Samantha?" Newman asked, crossing his arms.
"Gideon, it's complicated," she started, wondering how it would sound like if she admitted that she was a fugitive. "I need your help, and firstly, I need you to not ask any questions. The less you know, the better it will be for you."
He looked at her suspiciously, as though contemplating his next words. "I get the feeling that you're asking for something difficult to get," he concluded in disbelief. "You were the ever-resourceful student back then, Sam."
"You might say that," she agreed.
"So what is it?"
"I need information about General Winston Orville West and General Peter Vandenburg. And anything else you know about them, or the people they work with," Sam told him. "You're the only one I know who has partial access to this sort of information."
Newman sighed. "Samantha."
"Gideon, please."
"Samantha," he said again, glancing up the stairwell for a few seconds. "I have a family. A wife and two children. My third one's on the way. They're upstairs and I don't want them to hear anything."
"Look, Gideon, I wouldn't have come to you if it hadn't –"
He held up a hand and looked at her shrewdly. "I don't know what it is that made you find me after all those years. But you were the smart one, I'd give you that. You came to me, probably knowing that I work in the systems security branch for the military."
"Yes," she admitted freely. "Yes I did. For this purpose."
"I can't get into the database without authorisation. Digging around is dangerous business and you know it."
She frowned and said, "So you won't do this?"
My family's safety is at stake here," Newman continued in low tones. "If what you're asking for is something sensitive, then guess who will deal with the fallout?"
"What exactly are you asking?"
He sighed but his stance did not falter. "The information is not for free, Sam. What I'm asking is, what's in it for me?"
"What exactly do you want?"
"There's a price for what you're asking, Sam. If we ever get caught, we'll need resources of our own to settle in some other city or even country if I get into trouble for it.
In hindsight, she shouldn't have been too surprised. Newman was an acquaintance, not a friend. And she had only known him as such – an albeit-friendly one who seemed eager to please – all those years ago. Coming here in the blind hope that he might bend over for an ex-classmate now seemed to be the action of an incredibly naïve debutante. But perhaps in her desperation to contribute to their attempts to clear their names, she had developed too great an expectation of their friends' charity. It was a sobering, chastising realisation that made her feel as though the clock had turned back a decade to when she was still the fresh-faced, and inexperienced cadet who still desired to think the best of everyone. In some ways, she thought regretfully, that hadn't changed.
Newman expected something in return that would guarantee the safety of his family in exchange for information that might or might not be useful, and while she understood his worry, the money that she and O'Neill had was sorely needed for their own supplies.
Sam sighed in frustration. This unexpected…roadblock had left her grasping at straws. "Gideon, I can't afford this now."
He shrugged apologetically; his tight jaw belied his own anxiety. "Then I'm sorry too."
As odds went, it sucked big time. What Sam had not expected was Gideon's calculative edge that had frankly, thrown a curveball their way.
As she made her way outside, she saw O'Neill leaning against the car door as he waited.
She gave him a minute shake of her head and saw his eyes harden. He nodded once in response and signalled that they should not spend a minute longer where they weren't wanted.
She climbed into the car and watched him accelerate out of the neighbourhood.
"No luck then?" O'Neill asked lightly, his fingers tapping the steering wheel to a rhythm that only he could hear.
"He was demanding half a million dollars in exchange for the information he was going to mine," she informed him quietly. "He had a family to take care of, so that amount of money was essential if he got caught for it. We don't have that sort of money to spare."
"Your guy's good," he replied without glancing her way, concentrating on the road ahead.
"Look," Sam replied in frustration. "It might have been a long shot but that at least gave us some direction for a while. I sure as hell didn't expect him to make such demands."
"Half a million?" He whistled softly. "Some friend he is, profiting from another friend's distress."
"To be fair, he's an ex-classmate. We weren't exactly best friends in the Academy," she admitted ruefully. "I'd go to David Elliot now, but we've got just too many of them here. Unless you're willing to -?"
"Not exactly," he grimaced. "We'll be wasting time doing that sort of search. If you could find some way to narrow it down, I'd go straight to someone else who will put us up for a while."
"Where?" And a bit more hesitantly, she asked, "And who?"
He ignored her second question for now. "The east coast. Virginia."
"Langley?" She hazarded a guess.
"No. Roanoke. Just a family friend who will help," he paused, hesitating. "After that, we'll look up Kerry Johnson."
Sam looked at the car's digital clock that had stopped functioning. It now registered permanently at 0258. "We could be chasing shadows again."
"Maybe. Maybe not," he began slowly. "It's a tough road, Carter, I warned you when we started this."
"Yeah, I know."
It was a few minutes before he spoke again. "Regrets?" He asked mildly.
She knew exactly what he was asking and snorted. "I'd be dead if you didn't show up. I'm still trying to come to terms with that."
Jack stopped at a red light and looked her over, seeing her stubbornly-set jaw and the steely gaze that she shot back at him. Not for the first time and despite their dire situation, a wave of admiration for the rogue Air Force Captain washed over him. When he'd set out with Carter over a week ago, her resourcefulness and foolhardiness had both impressed and exasperated him when she had proved to be more than a pretty face.
He'd learnt her habits and her way of thinking, learnt to recognise several classic Carter expressions that told him exactly what she was thinking. In many ways, she was an open book that he thought he'd read quite easily. But Carter was also so damn beautiful that he felt his breath was punched out of him each time she looked him square in the face or when – heaven forbid – she smiled at him.
And that was cause enough for him start panicking.