Taken
Closer
She'd never be able to listen to that song again with this sickness returning.
This horrid, dropping sensation in the pit of her stomach that signaled that she'd had done something horribly, terribly wrong.
And worse than losing the joy she'd once found in Claire de Lune was the knowledge that she had been the means of their being discovered. That their undoing had been encapsulated in the simple fact that she hadn't pressed that little button on the top right corner of her key pad. She'd merely flipped the phone shut rather than turning the power off completely.
As soon as she'd realized her mistake, she'd begun to fumble for the phone, but Sam had reached out and grabbed her arm. With a tiny, tight jerk of her head, the Colonel ordered her to stay still. Silent, petrified with fright, Glinda did nothing—simply sat there, her back butted against the trunk of the fallen tree, allowing the traitorous device to ring itself out.
Beyond the foliage, the men rallied. She could hear squeaking as they dismounted their beastly conveyances and neared the stump, their boots tromping on leaves, and undergrowth.
"I'm telling you, that wasn't my phone." Growly again. His voice closer now—louder and more distinct.
"Well, it wasn't mine—or any of the rest of ours." Whiny sounded further away, still, as if he hadn't yet dismounted his quad.
"Are you sure?" Growly obviously wanted absolution. "Carl used to have something stupid like that on his phone."
"Dude—shut up already. We know it wasn't you. Think, man. Who else would it be?"
One of the men made a sound that Glinda recognized as the dawning of understanding.
"That's right, dude—it's them. They have to be around here, somewhere."
"It sounded like it was coming from in here." Around a dozen feet away, branches shook, and Glinda caught a glimpse of their agitator, a bulky bald man, his face set in a question. Placing a voice to the location, she cemented him in her memory at Growly.
Carl's voice sounded nearest—as if he were right on top of the stump. "They're hiding somewhere in here. They must have just dived in."
Glinda surveyed her environs. The vegetation behind the stump, wherein she and Sam huddled, gathered closely around them—thick and dense. Barely enough room existed in their hollow to move, let alone attempt any sort of escape. A glance beside her showed the Colonel's face—tense, intense—her blue eyes closed tight.
Leaves crunched beyond the stump—the same leaves as those currently clinging stubbornly to Glinda's bare knee, the same leaves she felt sure had taken root in her hair. She didn't dare reach up to brush them out, however, and take the chance of alerting the goons beyond the stump to her precise location. So she stayed put, trying not to move.
Again, from a little further than before, Growly's voice reached her. "So they're in there somewhere."
Glinda hadn't seen how deep the thicket extended—she'd only seen the stump, and the tiny opening in the brush where she'd thrown herself. With a further sinking in her gullet, she wondered how large that opening was now—now that she'd passed through it, and then the Colonel. Surely they would see it.
"That's a lot of bushes." Carl made this astute observation, the wonder in his voice betraying the lackluster power of his cognitive abilities.
Footsteps crunched over the leaves. Glinda tried to slow her breathing, clamping her mouth tight and flaring her nostrils in an effort to gain enough oxygen. Something—or someone?—kicked the bottom of the bushes ten or so feet away, and light rippled through the hedge as one of the men ran his hand along the top edge directly above where she and Sam had crawled in. More noises to her far right indicated that one of the men circled the expanse of shrubbery, positioning himself on the opposite side.
"Carl!" This voice from the far left—the men surrounded them on all sides, now. "Go for it!"
"Okay, ladies!" Carl's voice held a modicum of patience, slathered over several deep veins of annoyance. "We know you're in there. Come on out, now."
Glinda passed another look at the Colonel, but she still sat in her same position, only she'd raised one hand, now, and pressed it to her lips. It wasn't possible to know if the green tinge on her cheeks resulted from light reflecting on the leaves around them, or from fear.
"Come on, now." Growly's voice had turned condescendingly sing-song, as if that might induce them to emerge.
"We know you're in there—you're not going to get out without us seeing you."
"Yeah—we've totally got you surrounded."
"What are you going to do now, Carl, tell them to come out with their hands up?" Whiny again, from even further, his voice a high pitched shout.
Another exasperated exhalation met this taunt. "Shut up, Dave."
Unbelievably, Glinda found herself pondering upon the hiring pool for thugs and villains. In an instant of inanity, she wondered how one went about advertising for such a position. Was there some sort of website for those desiring to take up occupations as mercenaries? Surely it couldn't be a very lucrative line of work—especially if they were like these five, with their bickering and complaining and whining.
None of them would have lasted a day under the command of General O'Neill, and Glinda felt certain that Colonel Carter, were she not currently hunched up in some sort of distress in the bushes, would have handily taken them all to task just for being idiots.
But still, they were idiots who wanted to take them captive. Idiots with weapons, she was certain, who were beholden for whatever reason to a couple of cloned Goa'ulds. If Glinda had told anyone at her Guild meeting the previous week that she would find herself in this predicament, they would have made a few phone calls to Shady Pines for the padded wagon and burly attendants to come and take her away.
Glinda frowned, her gaze caught by the pallor on the Colonel's face, the slight tremble of Sam's hand where it cupped her mouth.
Excruciatingly careful not to disturb any of the branches around her, she reached a hand out to touch the Colonel's arm. Her voice barely a whisper, she breathed a single word. "Ma'am?"
Sam shook her head again, her eyes cracking open, brows steepling together above the bridge of her nose. One hand still at her mouth, the other hand curved around her mid-section, the reason for her inaction suddenly became starkly clear. The enormity of the situation then hit Glinda like a flash from a zat—and no quantity of Paul Newmans would help make it better.
Because Glinda had actually seen Samantha Carter in this state before—sitting in a converted bathroom stall in the Pentagon, to be exact, holding a glossy ultrasound print-out.
Morning sickness. Right here, behind this stump, hidden under these bushes, the early day sun barely making it through the leaves and twigs to display the nausea wreathing the Colonel's visage. She swallowed convulsively, and her body shuddered once, then twice. Sam was trying not to—Glinda searched for an acceptable term for this particular unfortunate physical process—regurgitate.
"What should I do?" A bit louder, this time, she leaned closer, a twig raking the sleeve of her blouse.
But the Colonel only shook her head. Nothing. Nothing could be done.
"Ladies. My patience is wearing thin." Whiny spoke from Sam's direction, his words punctuated by a sharp shaking of the plants in that direction. Glinda could see him moving—his body little more than a shadow on the canopy of the shrubbery. "Pretty soon, I'm going to lose it. And you won't enjoy that, I assure you."
A snort from the far end of the thicket answered him, and the fifth man, previously unheard, laughed. "What are you, now, Dave, the Incredible Hulk?"
Dave prodded at the bushes again. "Shut up, Barry."
This time, Barry's voice came through mockingly—nasal, and with a great degree of mock-sincerity. "'I'm going to get angry—and you won't like me when I'm angry'."
"Barry, don't be an ass." Exasperation rode in Dave's tone.
"Seriously. You'd think that you were going to turn green here and start ripping of your clothes."
"Shut up, you guys!" Growly again. "Let's just find Thelma and Louise so we can get back to the house and out of all this stinking nature."
Glinda listened as they recouped, and then froze anew as all around them branches were being knocked to and fro. The sunlight glinted off the tool of the disturbance. Even though she hadn't fired a weapon in years, she still recognized the business end of a rifle when she saw one.
Hunkering down further, she looked up to see the Colonel somewhat recovered, her lips pursed tightly, raising the zat in readiness. In the hubbub created by the men above the canopy, Glinda leaned close to Sam. "What do we do?"
"I don't know, Glinda." Sam shook her head, clenching her jaw between words. "All I have is the zat. They all have semi-automatic weapons. We can't compete."
"They might not find us."
"Glinda." Sam's whisper had a hint of desperation in it. "They need me. The Goa'uld wants me to help him with the sarcophagus."
"Yes—and?" Glinda threw herself back against the trunk as a branch came perilously close to hitting her in the head. "We can't stay here. We'll be found. They're so close."
"I'm afraid that if we surrender—if I help them, they'll decide that they don't need you anymore." Sam's eyes narrowed, her face screwed in an expression of extreme disgust.
The implication of that statement took a second to sink in. Truly, Glinda herself had been a mistake. She obviously had not been the target. Her kidnapping had been an aberration to the plan that the Goa'uld had so determinedly enacted.
She, Glinda Baldrich, was completely superfluous in the matter.
Expendable. She would be collateral damage—nothing more.
Honestly, she'd never felt that way before. Always, throughout her life, she'd been necessary to the general good. Volunteering, working, caretaking—these had been her life, her entire focus on the success of her family, her job, and her activities. But in this particular circumstance, the Colonel's words rang with a horrific truth. Glinda had no ability or power which could possibly benefit their captors. Her expiration would not be a loss in any form.
And the face of her mother rose, unbidden, in her mind. Her mother, who, bless her soul, had merely accepted her fate for what it had been and let her illness dictate the rest of her life. Glinda's father's countenance joined hers—wasting away in his own despair, until the strokes had finally provided an excuse for his lethargy of will. Somehow, Glinda had always considered herself above that level of inaction—she'd done something with her life—filled it as much as possible with the opportunity to better herself and the world around her.
She would not quit now. And in a way, it felt liberating, this sense of finality. As if she had one last chance to do the right thing.
She schooled her own expression into one of defiance. Raising her eyes to the Colonel's, she reached out and grasped the zat. "I'll cover you."
But the men above the canopy had given up on searching for them, and had apparently decided to take the more direct approach. On one side of the shrubbery, the brisk raking stopped. "Screw this, you guys. I'm done with being nice."
At his words, the bushes stopped trembling, and slowly stilled. Glinda could hear a hasty, hushed conversation from her right side, but couldn't make out the words.
Glinda stalled, her attention drawn by the sudden quiet. She peeked at the Colonel, whose head was cocked towards the new sound, her lips white, her face pale.
"Come on, Carl." Barry's voice called from the other side of the hedge. "Decide already!"
Briefly, Carl paused. Then, his voice edged with frustration, he spoke. "Listen—if you two don't come out right now," with a harsh, metallic schick, he cocked his weapon. "I'm going to start shooting."
-OOOOOOO-
"So, did she answer?"
"No—it went to voice mail."
"Maybe she's turned the phone off to avoid detection?" Daniel's voice carried the tone of hope that Jack's had been lacking.
"Or perhaps it has been taken away from them by their captors." At this, Ba'al's eyes flashed, his expression smug. "To prevent them from calling for help."
"Shut up, Ba'al."
"It's what I would have ordered done." The Goa'uld's smug shrug rankled. And his well-groomed beard undulated as he tried—unsuccessfully—to keep from smiling.
Jack felt the corner of his eye twitch. "Shut up, Ba'al."
"I am just trying to aid you in your search, General O'Neill." Whole-cloth innocence dripped from the words.
It had, maddeningly, been the Goa'uld who had reminded them that they could try Glinda's cell phone. So intent had Daniel and Jack been on communicating with Sam that they'd forgotten that she wasn't alone in this predicament. After two hours of driving up and down roads that appeared to have been planned and engineered by random cows, Ba'al had tilted his head to one side, a single brow raised, and casually asked why they hadn't tried the secretary's number.
The General's trigger finger had literally jerked inwards towards his palm.
If a Goa'uld couldn't be dead, Jack thought, he ought to at least shut the hell up.
But Jack had still flipped his phone open and found the speed dial button for his secretary's cell. Glinda Baldrich apparently didn't believe in personalized greetings—a distinctly male voice had mechanically relayed the message that the number he'd reached wasn't available, and he should feel free to leave a message at the tone. Instead, he'd snapped the phone closed and dropped it into the cup holder in the center console.
His rough sigh had verbalized more than words would have. It had been both satisfying and infuriating to hear that message.
The infuriating part was obvious—another dead end on a road that seemed to be constructed of them. The satisfying part Jack would never had admitted for every ZPM in the universe—but it felt that good to have the snake be wrong.
On the seat behind him, Daniel shifted. "Jack—we still don't know anything."
"I know, Daniel."
"Although you would probably know more if Miss Baldrich had only answered her phone." The Goa'uld's manner suggested ease, and relaxation—an attitude directly at odds with the General's tense readiness. He made a show of adjusting his seat belt, and sighed, the exhalation loud in the cab of the SUV. "I can assure you that if she were my underling, she would have escaped by now and found her way back into my service."
"Ba'al, this really isn't helping." Daniel, again, from the back seat, his voice a mixture of resignation and annoyance.
"Doctor Jackson." Ba'al turned his head and caught the other man's eye. Cocking his head with a mountainous degree of arrogance, he lifted a brow. "Surely you know that it is my honest intention to be of service in this endeavor."
"And the fact that at the end of this jaunt there's a sarcophagus doesn't matter to you in the least, does it?"
"I have not denied that I could make good use of such a device." Ba'al turned his head back towards the front. "However, I am here on a mission of good will."
"Whose good will?" As usual, Daniel picked up on the pertinent point. "Ours or your own?"
"You have no use for the sarcophagus." The Goa'uld's voice had lowered a pitch—becoming more resonant as his ire rose. "I do. I have no use for the other clones, or for Miss Baldrich. You would like to have those safely back within your control. I believe that exchanging the spoils of the battle is customary when forming alliances."
"And what about Sam? You didn't include her on your little list, there." Daniel leaned forward again, resting a forearm on the back of the passenger seat.
"Ah." The dark head inclined again—ever so briefly. "Your Colonel Carter is something of a conundrum."
"A what?" Jack's head flashed to the side, his eyes narrowed at the Goa'uld.
"A conundrum. A problem to be sorted out."
"I know what a conundrum means, Ba'al." Jack glanced briefly at the narrow lane in front of him before glaring sideways again. "How in the name of holy hell does my wife become your conundrum?"
Ba'al took his own sweet time answering. He looked to his left briefly before leaning forward and pressing the button on the door that activated the window. Watching as it opened, he smiled into the breeze that blew gently in through the opening before turning his head back towards the man in the back seat. "For all that the First one derided this planet, I must admit that I have grown rather fond of it. It has its pleasant moments—and quite beautiful scenery."
"Yeah—it's swell." Jack fingers drummed a broken, impatient rhythm on the steering wheel. "Now get to the point."
But Ba'al ignored him. "And the people. My memories—my knowledge of the Tau'ri are that they are an annoyance. Little more than fodder for me and my kind." He turned his attention from the window and faced the General. "But also buried in the memory which I inherited is a grudging respect for your wife, Jack O'Neill."
"Just her?"
"Among others, I suppose." Ba'al grimaced, his attention flickering over his shoulder at where Daniel sat behind him. "But that which I have gained for Colonel Carter is greatest. She is both intelligent and pragmatic."
Jack found it difficult to answer around the tightness that suddenly constricted his throat. He swallowed—hard. "That she is."
"An odd mixture for a female of your race. Which brings to bear the question again." The Goa'uld lifted a finger at Jack. "Why you?"
Daniel groaned from the back seat. "Ba'al—if we could keep this on subject, please."
The Goa'uld tossed a look over his shoulder at Daniel. "As you desire, Doctor Jackson. I was only attempting to explain that in order to complete my objectives with the sarcophagus, I would need Colonel Carter's assistance in completing the device."
"You don't know how to connect to Telchak box?"
"The Telchak device is nothing—of itself it poses no problem." Ba'al's derisive snort punctuated his statement. "Forging a connection between the device and your limited Tau'ri technology is another issue, completely."
"Ba'al, I swear." Jack clamped his mouth shut, his jaw flexing.
Daniel poked the Goa'uld in his fine-tailored shoulder. "I'd go easy on the 'primitive' talk, if I were you."
Ba'al's only answer was a cocky upturn at the corner of his mouth.
"And besides, it's not going to matter anyway, if we can't find the farm." Daniel reached to his side and collected the laptop from the seat next to him. "It says we're close. But I haven't seen any roads."
"Perhaps the road has been obscured." The cloned Goa'uld indicated the surrounding brush with a nod of his head. "I can't imagine my erstwhile brother advertising his location. Neither of us can know how many more of us are out there."
"I still don't understand why you all just can't share the damned thing." The General threw a disgusted look to his right before returning his attention to the path ahead.
Daniel, unbelievably, chuckled. "Have you met the Goa'uld, Jack?"
The General made a rough sound in the back of his throat. Steering the SUV around a bend in the road, he slowed as the lane became little more than a collection of ruts. To his tactical eye, he could tell that no vehicle had passed there recently. He shifted the Expedition into 'reverse' and began to back up at an angle, preparing to turn around. Pulling back out into the road, he gunned the engine over a rough spot, then steered onto a wide clearing on the shoulder. With a sharp, brash exhalation, he twisted the keys in the ignition, and the motor cut off.
For a full minute, the only sound in the car came from the whirring of the fan in Daniel's computer. Here or there, a bird's song or the shushing of the trees wended their way through the open passenger side window.
In another set of circumstances, another time, this quiet would have been relaxing. It should have been soothing, this cool, fresh morning amidst the lush foliage of the Virginia wild.
But to the General, it was a tactical nightmare. Too much area to search, too little man power. Far, far too much at stake.
"We're not getting anywhere like this." He squinted into the early morning light, then suddenly reached for and grasped his sunglasses from the cubby in the dash. Slipping them on, his fingers found the door handle and, with a harsh sigh, he shoved it open.
"Jack—where are you going?" Daniel shut his laptop, setting it on the console between the two front seats. Automatically, his hand dug into the duffel bag and withdrew his holstered Glock. Gripping the confiscated Beretta in one hand, and the Glock in the other, he looked up for his friend. "Jack?"
But the General had slid out of the lifted SUV, slamming the door shut behind him. Adjusting his jacket as he went, he made his way to the back of the Expedition and popped open the back window, then each of the double doors that acted as a tail gate. Efficiently, as if he hadn't been stuck in an office for the past few years, he flipped open the toggles on a hard plastic gun case, withdrawing a vintage Winchester 42 from the molded foam within.
Daniel appeared at his side. "What's that?"
"It's a gun, Daniel."
"I can see that, Jack." Heavy in Daniel's right hand, the Beretta seemed tiny compared to the long gun. His eyes flickered between the two weapons. "It's a shotgun if I'm not mistaken. Not your normal MO."
Jack pulled a handful of shells out of an army surplus ammo can, pocketed them, and then did it again. "It's not like they let me keep the P-90, Daniel."
"Well, I know that." In a motion so practiced that it seemed innate, Daniel held out the Beretta to Jack, who stowed it in the holster at the back of his belt. Without even looking at his own holster, he fit it around his thigh and buckled it up. "I've just never seen that shotgun before. Hell, I've never seen you with a civilian weapon before."
Jack paused. Running a hand along the polished wood stock, he felt his body tighten. He regarded the finely honed steel of the barrel, the matching wood of the choke. "It was Jacob's. He'd inherited it from his father."
Daniel nodded. After a moment he spoke. "And Sam gave it to you."
"She trusted me with it."
"I'm surprised she didn't give it to Mark."
Just barely, Jack kept from snorting. "He wouldn't have known what to do with it."
"And you do?" Daniel's question hovered between them—heavy, and plain.
Jack looked up at his friend. Throughout the years he'd had many people he considered friends—mostly guys he'd fought beside in Iraq, Afghanistan, or any of the myriad other hell-holes into which he'd been sent. But none knew him so wholly as this man—this opinionated, obstinate scientist. The man to whom Jack owed too much to ever be repaid. Their eyes held for two breaths—three—far longer than was normal for them.
Longer than was comfortable.
"What's the plan, Jack?"
"We're going to get them back."
"That's really not much of a plan."
"Yeah, well." Eyes narrowed, lips thin, Jack looked away, off into the distance, through the deep, verdant green of seemingly endless vegetation. "It's the only one I have, Daniel."
"And how am I to defend myself?" Ba'al's voice intruded upon the moment. Turning, Jack looked at the Goa'uld. Jack himself had changed out of his military dress before leaving home. He'd thrown on the first clothing he'd pulled out of his drawers—khakis and a dark green t shirt under his haggard leather jacket. Daniel had come dressed for the ride, as well, in jeans and a black sweatshirt. The Goa'uld, however, stood resplendently ridiculous in his elegantly tailored clothing and polished Italian shoes.
Jack took in the vision with a single, impatient glance. "I'm not giving you a weapon."
"And why not?" The clone frowned. "Am I not an essential member of this team?"
"Not really." Jack turned back to the tailgate of his truck. Shoving the doors shut, he them slammed down the window. "But you're welcome to stay as out of the way as possible. Maybe then I won't give in to the overwhelming urge to shoot you."
"O'Neill—you are indeed a—"
But Daniel interrupted him before he could finish. With a quick hand, the archaelologist waved the Goa'uld quiet. "Shh—did you hear that?"
"What?"
"Just listen."
They fell silent, all three men standing perfectly still, heads cocked in the direction that Daniel had indicated.
And for a moment, all the sound that came to them was the breeze rifling the leaves in the trees, a bird calling from far away, a rodent of some sort scampering through the underbrush.
But just as Jack turned his head back towards Daniel, a single burst came through the forest—from the west, sharp, and as distinct as if it had been just on the other side of the Expedition.
"Did you hear that?" Glasses glinting in the sun, Daniel caught Jack's eye.
"I did." The General locked the vehicle and then shoved his keys into his pocket. "Let's move."
But the Goa'uld lagged behind, his face screwed into an expression of consternation. "What is it? What did you hear?"
Jack completely ignored him, but Daniel turned his head and raised a brow. "Come on, Ba'al. There's no time to waste."
"What was it?" The Goa'uld asked again.
Daniel sighed, jogging across the road and following Jack into the forest.
"Doctor Jackson?"
Within the safety of the woods, Daniel slowed and captured Ba'al's attention again. "I was sure you'd recognize it by now, Ba'al. That was gunfire."
