The Other Side of the Story: John's Point of View
Interlude 5: You're not gonna believe this
Everything inside me was screaming "hurry - it's already been too long" and still we were forced to wait for action. Rodney had managed to track Rogers' phone to a remote server. It was supposed to be completely untraceable – would have been for anyone without Rodney's experience at hacking into systems much tougher than this one. As it was Rodney had worked out a way to trace the untraceable just as soon as the next call came through.
All the players were gathered in the main conference room a few minutes before Roger's contact was due. We'd come up with a plan ... the kind that could be toppled with one false move ... and I admit I was nervous because I knew we wouldn't get a second chance if everything went pear shaped.
"I'm good to go," Rodney announced confidently, fingers poised as we waited for the phone to ring. Rogers' had agreed to cooperate after I'd promised we'd talk about a deal if everything went well. Since I fully intended to take out everyone remotely connected to Sabina's disappearance I didn't think much else would be required. And talking didn't necessarily equate with doing, something Rogers was going to find out to his detriment.
Rogers sat nervously at the conference table, biting his nails and generally convincing me relying on this guy was a disaster waiting to happen. Rodney had assured me it wouldn't matter – that he'd be able to get what he needed within seconds. I'd worked out a scenario for Rogers that should convince his boss the nervousness was natural.
The phone rang dead on the two hour mark.
"Here we go," I muttered, motioning for Rogers to pick it up like usual.
"Rogers," our guy spoke first. We had it connected to speaker phone so the rest of us could hear the other side of the conversation. Rodney tapped away in the background, already doing his thing as the rest of us sat silently listening.
"Have you managed to find out anything Jason?" a surprisingly cultured male voice enquired.
"No," Rogers said defensively. "This place is like a fortress – I can't get closer and I think they're getting suspicious."
"You are simply not trying hard enough," cultured voice admonished. "I pay you a considerable retainer for your services Jason."
"I ah ... I don't think I can do this anymore," Rogers said weakly. "They're gonna catch me and then I'll end up in prison and all the money you're paying me won't mean shit."
"But at least you'll be alive Mr Rogers," the threat in that was evident to all of us. Rogers gulped nervously, shooting an uncertain glance my way. I circled my hand in the air, motioning for him to continue as rehearsed.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Rogers demanded, voice shaking with real nerves. "Are you gonna send your goons after me now?"
"Your lack of imagination disappoints me," the other man replied.
"Yeah well you can't do anything because you need me – how else are you gonna get the kind of information I can provide?" Rogers turned slightly avaricious as we'd agreed.
"Now the real motives become clear," cultured voice said with amusement. "You want more money."
"I think I deserve it," Rogers whined. "This place is getting more and more risky ... I need a nice little nest egg, just in case I have to retire suddenly."
"Get me the information I need and you'll get double your normal fee," the other guy replied. "And Jason – this time, don't let me down."
"I won't," Rogers promised.
"In two hours then," cultured voice agreed, hanging up without warning.
Rogers slumped back in his chair, cringing when Ronon pinned him with the silent, threatening stare. I could see him about to speak, probably wanting to talk deal, but Ronon's hand squeezing his shoulder was an effective deterrent.
"Well?" I looked at Rodney hopefully.
"I got it," Rodney said triumphantly. "You're not gonna believe this – she's practically still in Colorado!" I looked over Rodney's shoulder as he pointed to a section of the map he had on screen. "The signal's coming from a ranch here – just outside of Shiprock, New Mexico - halfway between us and Vegas. That's about 7 hours by car but you can get us there much faster right? This is the air force after all."
"I'll speak to General Landry - take Rogers back to the Brig." I ran from the room, barrelling down the corridor and then skidding to a stop outside the General's door.
"We have a location Sir, 380 miles south east of here," I announced. "If you can hook me up with transportation we can be there inside of three hours."
"Walter, get someone from Peterson on the line," Landry ordered. Turning back to me he added another order. "Get your team on the road Colonel. I'll have something waiting at the base, along with suitable backup, when you arrive."
"Thank you Sir."
oOo
Forty five minutes later I found myself behind the controls of a HH-60G Pave Hawk, the air force's multipurpose combat search and rescue helicopter. Teyla was beside me in the co pilots chair, her face filled with a combination of apprehension and wonder because this was a lot different from being a passenger in a Puddle Jumper. Rodney had reluctantly seated himself at flight engineering, leaving the gunners spot for Ronon. We even had back up, two teams of marines in the back section ready to assist once we landed. Daniel had wanted to come too – only my request he stay in case we needed more information from Rogers and my promise that I'd have Sabina call him once we'd rescued her convinced him to stay at the SGC.
It occurred to me as I took the most direct heading that I'd never actually flown any of my team in a conventional aircraft before. Rodney had done that mad dash in the F302 when we were being chased by the Wraith virus but that was an alien enhanced inertial dampened vehicle. This was loud and ... real - you could feel the motion all the way down to your stomach. I glanced back quickly and noted that Rodney actually looked a bit green around the gills. Ronon on the other hand looked like he was having the time of his life, despite the slightly ridiculous edge the radio headphones gave him.
"You okay McKay?" I asked over the radio everyone was tuned into.
"We're doing close to 200 miles per hour in a giant tin can without inertial dampeners," Rodney retorted sarcastically. "So no, I'm not okay."
"Sabina will appreciate the sacrifice," I said softly.
"Yeah, well she better," Rodney muttered back.
"Can you get me any information on what we're heading into?" I got us back to business abruptly.
"It's a cattle ranch registered to Doctor Ethan Walker," Rodney reported. "The ranch is pretty high tech but it looks like more of a hobby than a profitable business concern. Turns out Walker owns a number of enterprises, including BioGen – a company that specialises in genetic engineering which coincidentally happens to be one of the companies in Agent Barrett's list."
"I remember that one," Ronon revealed. "They worked on another Trust project a while back. Barrett crossed them off the list because of some screw up with that. There was no mention of this Walker guy."
"That's because he's quite good at altering his paper trail to hide himself," Rodney replied. "Luckily not as good as me. Once I had Shiprock as the destination it wasn't hard to find the owner – linking that back to BioGen? Now that was hard!"
Rodney glanced at me after he'd finished patting himself on the back. "You know, without you catching Rogers red handed selling information we wouldn't have made Walker. Without the direct link to him, BioGen doesn't look like a likely suspect. We'd never have come out here to look for Sabina."
"I'll thank Rogers for being a big mouth later," I promised mockingly. "Do we know anything else about Walker?"
"Just that he's a fully qualified medical doctor who specialises in genetics," Rodney admitted. "According to Barrett's contacts he's ruthless and driven – the NID didn't know about the connection between Walker and BioGen but they still had him on their watch list for Trust contracts dealing with genetics. Presumably this time Walker promised the Trust something the competition couldn't match."
"Access to Wraith enhanced human DNA," I concluded. "Listen McKay, we won't get any intel on this place before we get there so things could get a little rough. I'll understand if you want to wait it out in here."
"I'm good," Rodney countered just as I'd expected. "Besides you might need me to help you break in. This guy's the type to have a state of the art security system."
"How long will it take to reach our destination?" Teyla asked.
"Sunset ETA is seventeen fifteen hours – about twenty minutes from now," I reported. "Our ETA at Shiprock is nineteen hundred hours."
"Isn't that a kind of disadvantage for us?" Rodney asked worriedly.
"What – that it'll be dark?" I queried. "Not really – we've got forward looking infrared night vision – should help us locate enemy positions before we get on the ground."
"Do we have a plan?" Ronon asked.
"Depends on numbers," I admitted. "We'll do what we can to target specific positions from the air but in the end it's probably gonna be a run and gun approach until we can get inside."
"So pretty much business as usual then," Rodney quipped. "Except we're back on Earth and the enemy isn't Wraith ... which is an advantage because once they're down they'll stay down."
"Yeah, except for that," I agreed.
oOo
"What was the purpose of the special IOA meeting?" Teyla's question fell into the silent darkness when we were still about half an hour out from Shiprock.
"Huh?" I glanced across at her curiously before turning my gaze back to my instruments, suddenly even more grateful it was dark.
"When you were questioning Jason Rogers," Teyla clarified. "He mentioned a special meeting Mr Woolsey was calling – you seemed to already know what it was about."
"This'll be good," Rodney muttered that under his breath but it came through loud and clear over the radio. I glanced back, meeting his eyes as he looked up from his laptop in anticipation.
"Does it matter?" I asked dismissively, turning back to Teyla.
"It is clear that you do not wish to tell us," Teyla replied. "For that reason alone it does matter."
"It's not like that Teyla," I protested. "It was just a ... personal matter I needed to talk to Woolsey about. Clearly he can't make even a simple decision without checking it with the IOA first!"
"A personal matter?" Rodney laughed. "That's a good way of describing it."
"McKay," I grumbled warningly.
"What?" Rodney protested. "It's not like you're not gonna tell them anyway!"
"Yeah but I'd prefer it is Sabina wasn't the last to know!" I pointed out irritably.
"Oh - right," Rodney said weakly. "I didn't think of that."
"You were gonna ask her to marry you?" Ronon made the connection a few seconds before Teyla, probably because he'd asked me when I was getting married months ago. He'd worked it out without an actual response from me.
"Maybe ... yeah," I kept my eyes fixed firmly in front of me – didn't need them to know the others were all exchanging sympathetic looks and thinking 'Poor John' right about then.
"I am sorry," Teyla put a hand on my arm consolingly.
"Me too," I shot a quick glance at her before looking away again. "Doesn't matter – we'll rescue Sabina and then be back on track – just a couple of days behind schedule."
"Yes we will," Teyla said reassuringly, squeezing my arm before letting me go.
oOo
As soon as we got there I flew the helicopter over Walker's ranch in a wide sweep, checking the layout and getting a reading on infrared. There were about twenty signals down there, more than I would have liked but not enough to have me looking for a different plan. I decided to land right in the front yard, ordering our marine backup to be ready to make positions as soon as the doors opened. Hopefully the blatant arrival of the Marines would be intimidating enough to put most of the hired guns off trying anything stupid.
"You guys ready?" I made eye contact with each of my team, seeing what I needed in each set of eyes. We were ready. "Okay, Ronon you cover me. Teyla, wait until we've made it to the porch – we'll cover you and Rodney. McKay, stay behind Teyla – I need you to open that door. Let's do this."
Authors Note:
My information about the locations for everything, including distance, directions, and how long it would take to get places by car came from Google Maps (I LOVE them – you should have seen me mapping out routes and looking for interesting land marks and plausible farming locations etc – it was way cool!). The helicopter John used is hopefully appropriate for their mission – my information came from the www dot af dot mil factsheet on the HH-60G pave hawk, which said it was used often for civil search and rescue. I even went so far as to take note of its top speed and factor that into my calculations on how long it would have taken to get from the SGC to Sabina's location. The only thing I couldn't confirm was how many people you might get in the back – hence my kind of vague description of two teams of marines.
Weather information came from www dot wunderground dot com historical records. Sunset information came from www dot timeanddate dot com – again their historic records. I used them to work out when it would be dark for the helicopter flight. Arriving in the dark just appealed to me for some reason.
Hope you enjoyed the bonus two chapters in one day ... I think we all know what's coming next ... grins!
Next Up? Fortunate Journey Season 4 Chapters 7