Chapter 17
Roanoke, Virginia
29 September 1995
The pulse was steady, the head wound superficial.
Satisfied that the fallen man wouldn't wake up anytime soon, Jack strode into the house again, not stopping until he found Reese in the kitchen, pressed against a wall in fear.
With a hand around Reese's neck, he drove the old man against the wall hard, revelling in the loud thud of the impact.
The old man struggled briefly, then stilled when Jack started to speak.
"I don't know what the hell you were thinking, Reese, but let me just say this," he warned, moving a finger slowly over a sensitive spot in the throat where he knew the application of a bit more pressure could choke the life out of a person. "If anything happens to Carter, I want you to know that I'll be back. And it won't be for a friendly visit. Now I'm going to take your car and the man outside –" he tilted his head slightly in the direction of the backyard, "will be out of your hair."
Released suddenly from Jack's iron grip, Reese doubled over the linoleum floor of the kitchen, coughing and spluttering as he struggled to get air into his lungs.
He looked up to see the younger man heading for the door.
"Don't call the cops, Reese," Jack said casually in farewell, briefly stopping at the doorway.
He grabbed some duct tape from the storage, swiped Reese's car keys, shouldered both his duffel and the one Carter had dropped in her struggle, then made his way outside.
Dragging the unconscious man into the trunk of Reese's car, he took off into the night.
Richmond, Virginia
30 September 1995
The soft sunlight filtering through the small, dirty window in a disused factory storeroom in Richmond was how Jack knew that morning had broken.
Still he worked on his laptop, grateful that Carter hadn't cannibalised its parts for her research, redirecting the DNA trace program that had been installed at the very start of his mission to predict the trajectory of the vehicle carrying her.
A soft beep sounded from the program, signalling the end of the hourly scan.
The red dot that was Carter showed that she was still in the state of Virginia, slowly heading north in the direction of Washington D.C.
He slammed the screen of the laptop shut, stowing it away in the shadows where his duffel was when he heard a slight stirring from the corner of the room.
Carter had to wait for just a while longer.
He stood and crossed to the chair in which the man sat.
An injection of Pentothal into his assailant's veins brought the unconscious man tied tightly to the chair closer to waking.
He took his place in a chair opposite him, positioned exactly a metre away.
"Rise and shine," he told the blinking man lazily, who stilled in his position as soon as he realised that he had been tied.
"Tell me your name," Jack ordered softly, knowing full well that his captive wouldn't break that easily.
He had expected the silence and the poker face.
Then he stood up, yanked hard on the man's hair so that his neck snapped back. He drove a fist into the man's face, splitting the nasal bone and the skin on his forehead. He repeated the action, bringing a spray of blood onto the walls and onto his shirt.
"I want to know who sent you and the others," Jack said again calmly.
Another hit followed in the ensuing silence. For an indeterminate amount of time, his desperate punches flew again and again when his questions were met with stony refusal.
Jack fought the urge to yell in frustration. He didn't have all day, not especially when Carter's life could be bleeding away in an unknown corner of the country.
"I want names."
Another hit, this time cracking the man's cheekbones. It drew an anguished shout from his victim, but Jack needed more than just screams of pain.
He circled his captive slowly, taking his time to observe the tiny details that were becoming apparent now that the other man was awake.
Seated in a way to resist torture for as long as possible. The constant wrist movement against the binds that aided circulation in that unforgiving position. So he seemed to know something about common Special Forces training.
"Give me names."
A bloodied face turned slowly and defiantly up at him. "Fuck you."
It was clear that the man wasn't going to talk.
This called for…greater inventiveness.
"I see." Jack raised a syringe in his right hand and gestured to the three syringe-bottles that sat next to his chair. "Do you see these bottles? The first one is Panthenol. Truth syrup. I gave you that."
He took his seat across the man, picked up the second empty bottle and held it out between his thumb and forefinger. "See the second one? It's another cocktail that gradually gets your nerves shot through. I gave you that two hours ago. You'll soon see how it works."
The third bottle was held out under his assailant's nose, the colourless liquid dull in the dimness of the small, confined space. "This one's potassium chloride. A lethal dose without the pain reliever. Your veins will burn as the poison gets to your heart. But the amount I'm going to give you to start with wouldn't be enough to stop your heart beating yet. It will take several more doses over the next few hours to do that. Or even the next few days. And if you think it's going to be fast and painless, think again."
The man's eyes widened and his mouth opened in panic, he observed in satisfaction.
They were getting somewhere.
"So would you like to think about my questions again?"
Jack was getting tired of the man's reticence. Piercing the thin metal top of the bottle with the syringe needle, he watched his former assailant wide-eyed stare at the clear liquid steadily filling the syringe's plastic barrel.
With a ready thumb on the plunger, he moved closer. The needle had just pierced the man's jugular when he let out a panicked shout of acquiescence.
"I'll talk! I'll talk!" The man burst out in terror, panting hard.
Jack leaned back in the chair, carefully setting down the syringe and the bottle on the floor. "So talk. Let's start with your name." He gestured amiably to the man.
"Nicholas Thompson."
"And?"
"We were hand-picked by General Peter Vandenburg," Thompson said in consternation, his words tumbling out. "We were told that there were military fugitives who gave the MPs the slip and that they needed our skills. That we had to get them because they were enemies of the state."
"I want more names."
"The others are named Tommy Creech, Derek Wallace, Lionel Tennyson, Robert Slate," he rattled off hurriedly, stripped of his inhibitions. "General Vandenburg gave us our assignment and told us that Slate was going to be the leader in this. But I think there were two other men there, at the back of the room when we were told about this assignment. They were having a conversation and I just heard names when they talked. Something about a Senator William Curtis and another General Thomas Baker. I swear, that's all I know! Me and four others. We don't know each other, never met before until this."
Thompson closed his eyes briefly and took a deep breath, the air whistling noisily in his throat as he tried to inhale.
"What do they want with Carter?"
"They were supposed to get any sort of information that she was carrying around and not kill her. Baker said that she was still useful for future projects."
"What sort of information?"
"Anything to do with a top secret project in Cheyenne Mountain."
"Where is she?"
"I..I don't know," he stammered.
"Bullshit," Jack said succinctly, then moved to pick up the syringe.
"Alexandria! They're going to Alexandria!"
He set it down again with a deliberate motion. "Why?"
"I don't know! We were just supposed to deliver her to 203 Surrey Avenue in Alexandria at 2100 hours."
Satisfied that Thompson wasn't lying, Jack circled him once and leaned against the wall behind the slumped figure.
Thompson's words replayed in his mind. All it had taken was a decision taken to ensure Carter's survival to classify him as an enemy of the state. And what about Carter, who had, in all likelihood, gotten her shining career wrecked on the day that she had tried to escape her assailant?
Thompson had helpfully added another name to the list. Peter Vandenburg, and possibly, Winston Orville West. Now Thomas Baker. And that of their goons.
Jack was pretty sure that Thompson hadn't been lying. His own, original assignment was merely a piece in the whole jigsaw of political intrigue and only his conviction about Carter's innocence had led him to countermand his direct orders. The likelihood of these men knowing exactly or even questioning the motivations behind their orders was most probably negligible.
Jack considered the possibilities. Could it be an existing partnership of sorts that had the higher-ups in cahoots hiring former soldiers as mercenaries, picking out those still serving in the Special Forces branch of the military to do their dirty work for them? Or were they simply rogue operatives who saw the advantage in exploiting what the Stargate project would mean for their standings and careers?
Still facing Thompson's back, he asked, "What's your relationship with all of them? Subordinate officer?"
"There's no relationship! I'm an ex-Marine. Left in 1989, after Operation Classic Resolve and set up my own security business. Look, I don't know what the hell you want, but I'm just a gun for hire," Thompson pleaded. "Business is not doing too good lately. I placed an ad one day in the daily newspaper for security escort jobs and got this call from a mysterious man who asked for a meeting in Alexandria."
"How much did you ask for?"
"250,000 grand. They promised to wire the funds to me upon the successful delivery of the target. Just no questions asked. I'm really not your guy."
"Yeah, I believe you," Jack said and stood, gathering his things.
"Hey, you're leaving me here? Come on, man, I told you everything –"
Jack moved to the door and grinned humourlessly at the man's indignant yells. "You'll be okay." His voice dropped and though his tone remained casual, his meaning was unmistakable. "But if word gets out that you and I had a chat…"
He didn't even bother finishing the sentence.
The door slammed shut in his wake.
It was time to get Carter.
Alexandria, Virginia
1 October 1995
Sam was shoved into a windowless room.
Blindfolded, tied and gagged.
Tripping on her feet, she stumbled and nearly fell on her face.
By the time she'd regained her balance, the heavy door had slammed shut behind her leaving the sound of silence ringing in her ears. The faint sounds of voices came through a tiny gap somewhere and she strained to hear them, but the thick walls hid their words from her.
Left alone and no less disoriented than when she had been captured, Sam's thoughts were her only companions. They hovered at the already-frayed edges of her psyche like the malevolence whispers of ghosts, then turned terrifying, teasing and threatening her with the consequences of her actions, telling her how far gone she was with her once-stellar career and her familial relationships.
Before it had all gone to hell, the Stargate program had guaranteed her career prospects while marrying her aspirations in the military and her love of science. O'Neill's sudden presence in her life was both infuriating and reassuring; she had seen how he'd bent and twisted the rules, operating by a moral code that only he alone could decipher.
But being a target for reasons yet unclear had suddenly changed it all.
Her thoughts took a turn for the cynical. If the tactical, sometimes violent moves that O'Neill had executed without hesitation would have horrified her then, she was not entirely shocked to discover that his employment of them now didn't unseat her as it used to. Like O'Neill, she did what she could do to survive, fighting for the right for the both of them to live when others had deemed their lives forfeited.
While she couldn't quite cast away the regulations and the immaculate sense of military discipline that had been her inheritance from living in Jacob Carter's household, her respect for them now wavered after realising that her absolute obedience to them had merely led down a road where she – and O'Neill – were simply part of the collateral damage in a plot much larger than themselves. A plot in which corruption ran rife.
Her father would most likely have heard of her disappearance by now, having kept tabs on her whereabouts and assignments periodically. She knew that he would be sorely disappointed and quite possibly, outraged to the point where he wouldn't want to have anything to do with her. Mark Carter's estrangement of nearly a decade over the issue of her mother's death was not without good reason. Jacob Carter's unforgiving, hard personality had contributed to the widening gap between all of them and she was quite sure her actions wouldn't endear her anymore to him.
Sam's thoughts turned unwittingly to her partner-in-crime. Forced to work as a team, she privately thought that they had done pretty well together given their circumstances, their movements often and surprisingly in sync.
But it was the man himself who had unexpectedly reeled her in. The darkly attractive, enigmatic mystery that was Jack O'Neill, whose granite veneer had barely cracked to fleetingly reveal unfathomable depths in the days that she'd known and grown to trust him. He had turned his back on his orders because his personal convictions had been too strong to ignore in order to do what he felt was right.
How could she fault him for it when it was his persistent but innate sense of morality that had saved her life? Stripped of everything she had previously valued as solid constants in her life, the sudden, pervasive sense of ambivalence that had crept into her moral and emotional centre left her swaying precariously as an unanchored ship in a storm. And while it was painful to admit, O'Neill's practical stability was one of the few things that had kept her upright.
For the umpteenth time, she wondered how he kept it together…and if he was looking for her.
But what would he do if he were in her position right now? Probably find a way to torment his captors, or even break out, she thought wryly.
The creaking sound of the door swinging on its hinges stirred her out of her conflicted thoughts. She felt the displacement of air as someone walked in.
Her arm was roughly grabbed and a triangular shaped, plastic box was shoved into her open hand as her gag was roughly pulled down.
Sam recognised the shape of a sandwich pack.
So whoever wanted her needed her fed and alive. At least until she served her purpose.
A fuzzy, daring plan began to materialise in her head, its sheer audacity sending blood pumping into her veins, calling for her to gather her wits.
It was now or never.
She was going to need all the luck she had.
"Hey you!" She yelled hoarsely at the receding footsteps. "I need the toilet! You wouldn't want a mess here, would you?"
The footsteps stopped and she smiled inwardly in satisfaction. Then the door to her cell slammed shut and before she knew it, a fist in her shirt hauled her upright onto unsteady feet.
"You seem to be pushing your luck," a male voice growled in her ear.
Despite his words, he had apparently acquiesced, dragging her roughly across the room and out into a corridor that smelled musty. Being blindfolded had forced her to rely on her other senses and now, her nose and ears were constructing a mental picture of the location in which she was kept. The sonorous echoes of her captor's footsteps bounced off mutely against the thick concrete walls, suggesting that she was in some kind of barracks or secure storage area.
She stumbled unsteadily after him, cursing the fact that her hands had been tied at the back, greatly reducing her some mobility.
The fresher, outdoor air tingled her nostrils, tinged with a hint of ozone. Cold wind rustled her hair.
They must have left the building complex and were now walking across what seemed to be a quadrangle or a yard to where the toilets were housed. Obediently, she followed his lead until they were in an enclosed space once again.
He made a move to shove her in and sensing him standing just behind her, she struck out on instinct, headbutting him in the face, hoping that she had made a clean hit. The muffled groan told her that she had, but his recovery was swift, and he had the advantage of sight.
She risked a back kick.
Her foot made contact with air.
The sheer force of her captor's returning punch to her face threw her to the floor. She slammed onto the concrete ground and immediately tried to roll into a protective ball but he gave her no time. Vicious, hard kicks to her side made her try instinctively to curl into a ball, but they were coming too fast and too hard. A particularly painful blow to her exposed right rib forced a whimper from her.
The air was burning in her lungs. Then in the haze of pain she fuzzily realised that the kicking had suddenly stopped. The sounds of a brief struggle reached her ears but before she had any time to contemplate what had just happened, the blindfold was torn off her eyes.
Gentle hands helped her sit up as she tried to focus. It took her a while to realise that O'Neill was now untying her bindings.
"You look like hell Carter," he told her bluntly.
"No kidding. Attempting an escape will do that to you," she tried to joke weakly in a hoarse voice, and collapsed in a bout of coughing when she tried to take too deep a breath. "Where are we anyway?"
"Alexandria."
She was surprised. "We're still in Virginia?"
"Yeah. Got that information out of the guy whom they left behind."
"What happened to him?"
"Turns out that he's a hired gun. Doesn't know the rest. Took him somewhere safe. When we finished, I drove into down, dropped a note stating the factory address onto a police car's windscreen and left. Turns out he told the truth," he said, looking at her inscrutably.
Sam didn't need any help reading in between the lines. O'Neill had probably taken him somewhere and flayed the information out of him.
He finished cutting her loose then swung her arm around his shoulders, helping her to stand.
"OK?" He asked in concern when he saw her flinch.
The effort it took to stand up stole her breath. Taking short pants, she told him honestly, "Not really."
"Hate to rush you, Carter, but in about…" he took a quick glance at his watch, "forty-five minutes you were supposed to be picked up by someone else."
The thought both frightened and intrigued her. "Who?"
They made their way out slowly. She felt nothing when she saw the bodies of her captors lying lifeless in the corridor, perhaps only a vague sense of justice that O'Neill had descended on them like an avenging angel.
"That's what we're going to find out next." He eyed her hunched form, knowing there would be nasty and possibly, incapacitating bruises the next day. "You've got to hang on for a bit more, Carter."
She nodded stiffly. "I'll try."
Outside the compound, Sam took in her surroundings lit by the dim torchlight that O'Neill carried. They had brought her to a deserted part of town, to a disused prison site. The grass had grown untended for miles around, making it impossible for a body to found for days on end.
"How did you get here?"
"Tom's car," he replied without preamble and gestured vaguely behind her with his torch. "Hidden there."
O'Neill veered left and brought her to a hidden spot where the grass grew tall enough to hide the both of them. She looked behind and saw that the car had also been quite cleverly concealed in the undergrowth some distance away.
He pulled out a pair of binoculars and gestured for her to sit.
She sat back on her haunches in the damp grass when the headlights of several approaching cars cast illuminating beams onto the complex's facade.
She heard the sounds of their engines a few seconds later as two cars swung into view. Four figures alighted and walked into the complex. They returned only after a few minutes, climbed into the car and drove off.
Letting out a sigh of relief, she turned to O'Neill. "They're Jaguar XJ Sedans." Ignoring his raised eyebrow that was visible in the faint light, she continued, "I couldn't make out the license plates. I sure hope you did."
"Only caught the first car's number. The second parked too closely to the first for me to make out."
"Still, we have a lead," she said and smiled grimly.
"Right, Carter, I think it's now time we got you out of here," he ordered, stashing away his equipment.
"You won't be getting any argument from me there," she muttered.
It was freezing and her teeth had started chattering so loudly that she wondered if O'Neill could hear it, just at the same time he turned a critical gaze on her.
Then looking almost ashamed that he'd forgotten how the cold night air was affecting her, he shrugged off his jacket and placed it over her shoulders, helping her up and into the car.
She put a hand out, stopping him.
"Thank you for coming for me," she said sincerely.
He nodded slowly, then buckled himself in.
By the time he had reversed out of the undergrowth, she had fallen deeply asleep in the knowledge that she was safe again with him, her head resting on the window and her fingers tightly curled in her lap.
It was only then that he steeled himself to take a good look at her, whispering the word that he didn't quite dare to say to her yet.
"Always."