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Passages of Time part 3

Passages of Time - Part Three:

Hammond knew he had no hope of sleeping, so he had returned to his
office in Cheyenne Mountain after his son's over exuberant family had
finally left late that evening. Now he sat in the dim light of his desk
lamp with his guilt ridden thoughts. The briefing room beyond his window
was dark and silent on this late Friday night.

The General was contemplating the consequences of action and inaction.
And of bowing to threats. When he had first received notification of
this operation he had argued strongly against it, through all the proper
channels. His complaints had been ineffective, he should have spoken
with the President then.

Instead he had listened to the reasoning of a young operational liaison,
Philip Marshall, who had told him in strictest confidence of the current
thinking of the Senate Committee for Special Activities, revealing that
not only was the future of the entire Stargate project under threat, but
equally was the continued freedom of certain non-military members of
Hammond's best team.

Marshall had told the General that if his co-operation was not
forthcoming and the loyalty of Doctor Jackson could not be proven to the
Senate Committee, even if they decided to keep the program open, Daniel
would be ousted, along with any other non-military members of active
teams. That meant the Jaffa Teal'c as well. Their privileged status
would be rescinded and they would be forced to vacate the SGC. Only, of
course, they would not be allowed to leave the planet because of what
they knew, instead they would be detained long term in a 'suitable
facility'. And since Daniel Jackson was officially declared dead after
his first mission, having decided to stay on Abydos, noone would be able
to do a thing about it without committing treason by revealing
classified secrets.

Hammond knew he should have contacted the President as soon as he had
heard of such a plan, even if only to verify its authenticity. After
all, how could it possibly have met with the Head of State's approval.
The General rubbed his weary face, sighing deeply. Wasn't hindsight a
wonderful thing? Maybe he had been in this job too long if he had been
so ready to believe such an immoral and unethical operation might have
received the approval of the United States President.

The way he saw it, he had one of two choices. He could attempt to wake
up the President in the middle of the night and risk him being too angry
to listen reasonably. Or he could attempt to verify Captain Carter's
theory first and then call up the President in the middle of the night,
but with some proof to support his story.

Hammond opened his desk drawer and found the telephone number he
required, picking up the grey handset to contact Philip Marshall.
Feeling very much like a fly trapped in a spider's web.

~~~~~~~~~~

The timing had to be perfect, Dmitri realised as he dragged the bundled
child down the tunnel from the Solar Bark entrance. It was most
fortunate they had been able to smuggle her in through the basement as a
blanket wrapped 'antiquity', the threat of harming her beloved Colonel
sufficient to keep her quiet and still. The Embassy worker's privileged
credentials never failed to help in such tricky situations, gaining them
unconditional access to the museum outside the normal Saturday opening
hours.

Now he would wait, the Colonel must be coherent, to fully understand
that the Russian had won. He glanced at his watch, a couple of hours
should do it, he estimated. That would be adequate time for the current
dose to wear off just enough for his new plan to be put into place. By
then Colonel O'Neill would be lucid, but powerless.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daniel and Janet spent the Saturday morning downloading a copy of the
pyramid blueprints from the museum's public database onto Jackson's
laptop and were now poring over the results in the privacy of the
Colonel's city centre hotel room.

"Okay, so there are only three possible places they could be holding him
in," Daniel concurred.

"Assuming that they are using an enclosed tomb and not one of the open
chambers," Janet reminded him.

"Yeah, but it makes sense, don't you think?" Jackson pointed out
reasonably, "It would be easier to guard and require less manpower if
they had a ready made cell that they could seal and unseal at will."

"Okay," Janet agreed, "But on that note, I still think we should
discount the third one, I mean if they want ease of entry, surely they
aren't going to use a room that is only accessible from above?"

"I disagree," Daniel was forcing himself to remain detached in his
analysis, "What better way to ensure no escape? There is no door to go
through, no partition wall to tunnel through. He would be surrounded by
tonnes of solid rock everywhere except up and the ceiling of that
chamber is too high to get out without a ladder or rope of some kind."

"Okay, so what we have to do is find someone who will take us inside.
Lose him somehow. Find the right room, get past any guards and rescue
the Colonel. Then we find a way out of the pyramid and get him back to
the hotel in Giza to fix him up, before going home!" Janet finished
breathlessly.

"Pretty much," Daniel winced at the list of endless ways that things
could go wrong.

Janet's attempted smile was grim, "Piece of cake!"

"I think we might need some guns," Jackson admitted.

~~~~~~~~~~

Jack came down to Earth slowly and painfully, taking a long moment to
orient himself, struggling to decide whether this was a continuation of
another horrifying hallucination. His head throbbed and his mouth felt
like it was filled with cotton. He was shivering in a pool of cold sweat
and his own stench was even worse than before.

He tried to sit up, but he was too weak. The chemical in his body left
him helpless, his function greatly impaired, out of control. Instead, he
settled for gradually rolling onto his less painful side, wondering how
much more he would have to take before the Russian finally gave in, or
made a mistake, and killed him.

Jack was ready to die, somewhere along the line he even vaguely recalled
praying for such blessed relief. Not that he ever expected one of his
prayers to be answered, he didn't believe in giving himself false hope.
He just wished the Russian would accidentally overdose him or something.
Admittedly, it was hardly one of the ways he had expected to die over
the years, but right now, any method would suffice. He just couldn't
take anymore, but he was too inherently stubborn to break.

Unfortunately, Jack knew this man was enjoying his work too much to put
his victim out of his misery before he had successfully completed his
task. And, despite everything the Russian had done to him, possibly even
because of everything the Russian had done to him, Jack had no intention
of giving him such satisfaction. He would rather die, the sooner the
better, than give in and reveal any information. He could only hope he
had not done so already. He had been hallucinating, out of his mind, how
could he possibly know what he had said? But he was still alive, surely
that must mean they had not finished with him yet?

As Jack's mind tried to process all possibilities, he heard a noise from
above. He looked up to see two guards returning down the ladder, unusual
in itself that one was not staying up top to act as backup. But the
reason soon became clear as one of them stopped part way down, waiting
for something to be passed through the hatch. Jack tried to focus on the
indistinct bundle to determine what fate held in store this time.

He was slow to recognise the truth, his mind refusing to accept even the
remote possibility that it was Cassie standing before him. Her mouth
smothered with tape, her slim wrists and ankles tightly bound, held
upright by the hands of his nemesis. It had to be another hallucination,
the product of Jack's increasing delirium.

The Russian reached down and tore off the tape, leaving a red mark on
her cheeks where the adhesive had been stuck. Her frightened eyes gazed
tearfully into his own and she opened her mouth to speak his name
pitifully, "Jack!"

The Colonel stared speechlessly, struggling to reconcile her presence
into this reality, unable to believe his eyes or trust his
interpretation of the vision before him. This was the image of a young
girl with long, light brown hair and a questioning smile in her eyes,
only now she looked different, terrified and distraught, trapped in here
like a cornered animal.

She studied him, the fear in her eyes replaced by anguish as she saw his
horrific condition. The injuries to his face and hand, the gaunt look in
his cheeks and the blood on his shirt. Her eyes blazed angrily and she
lifted her bound hands into fists beating them against the Russian's
chest as hard as she could. "What have you done to him?" She screamed,
"Why have you hurt him?"

And with those fiery words, Jack knew without a doubt that it was her.
Only Cassie would be so indignant in the face of such a terrifying
situation, completely unconcerned for her own safety. Her courage had
been proven many times in his eyes and now she was doing so again.

"Cassie!" He opened his mouth, his voice hoarse, showing his recognition
even as his mind raced to determine what she was doing here. But he
couldn't begin to imagine and it hurt too much to consider the
consequences of such a turn of events. What choice could he possibly
have now?

The Colonel tried to focus on the Russian, struggling to contain his
anger at the sight of the man's hand moving to Cassie's mouth to smother
her furious cries. "If you hurt her, I will kill you," Jack whispered.

The Russian laughed, purposely tightening his grip on the girl. "Tell me
what I want to know or you can watch her die now!" He pulled a syringe
from his top pocket. "It's your choice, Colonel."

"A dose that large will kill her," Jack objected feebly, knowing from
experience what it was doing to himself.

"Exactly!" The Russian grinned, "But first she will suffer terrible pain
and nightmare delusions." Suddenly his face screwed up in a grimace as
Cassie bit down hard on the hand he was using to cover her mouth,
forcing him to release her.

"Don't tell him anything, Jack!" She shouted, jumping away from the
Russian and trying to hop over to reach her friend.

One of the guards grabbed her, lifting her off her feet as she screamed
and struggled, kicking him firmly in the shins. He slapped her face hard
and Cassie's head snapped to one side, Jack cried out her name,
tormented by her suffering as he watched her eyes roll up into
unconsciousness.

Watching his reaction, a new idea sprang to the Russian's mind and his
sadistic smile grew even wider, "Alternatively, Colonel perhaps you
would prefer to suffer in her place?" Dmitri weighed up the advantages,
even a reduced dose of the drug was guaranteed to finish him off, break
down any remaining resolve he might have gathered at the unexpected
appearance of his young friend, he could just about push it given
O'Neill's current condition. And he was so enjoying the man's torment,
he wanted to prolong it as much as possible. The Russian knew he was
letting his enthusiasm get the better of him, but he was certain he
would meet his objective that day, he may as well make the most of his
fun while it lasted!

Jack gazed at the bruise already shadowing Cassie's unconscious face,
his eyes filled with guilt. He had failed to protect her, he had no
chance of getting her out of this. He could do nothing except to remove
any reason for her to suffer. If they were lucky, another dose would
kill him and then maybe, just maybe, Cassie might be released. He could
only hope and pray.

Taking a slow ragged breath, Jack reluctantly offered his arm to the
Russian, a gesture of defeated submission that the Russian relished with
a vengeance. Jack was vaguely aware of the pinprick in his arm as he
numbly gazed at his friend, watching her chest rise and fall steadily as
he waited for the chemical effects to hit him once more.

Glancing at his watch, Dmitri calculated the time delay until he could
commence the second part of his exciting little game. "Bring her with
you," he ordered the guards, "We've got awhile to wait and I need to
collect a weapon from the supply store." He stepped up to the rope
ladder and began climbing out of the tomb, leaving the Colonel to
succumb to the increasingly horrific effects of the powerful
hallucinogenic drug.

~~~~~~~~~~

Shortly after eleven that Saturday night, the last show crowds were
dispersing as three shadowy figures surreptitiously made their way along
the outside of Kheops Pyramid toward the widened entrance open for
tourists during certain months of the year. The fact that it had been
closed for several weeks, made the American couple's story all the more
convincing to the Egyptian they had persuaded to guide them inside. For
a satisfactory fee, of course.

Stooping low, her own flashlight matching the path of the one ahead,
Janet walked in front of Daniel along the sloping passages towards the
King's tomb, the normal pilgrimage for all pyramid visitors. The
uncomfortable weight of a SIG-Sauer P230 9mm auto-pistol pressed against
the small of her back, hidden below the loose denim shirt she wore over
her tank top. She had been amazed at the speed with which Daniel had
procured the illicit weaponry. It was incredible how far a familiarity
with the local language and customs got you in this bustling capital
city.

When they reached the vast royal burial chamber, Daniel pretended to be
absorbed in studying the graffiti on the walls. Janet perched on the
edge of the open sarcophagus, fanning her face with her hand and loudly
complaining how warm it was as she slipped off her overshirt to reveal
bare shoulders.

She leaned over to pull a bottle of water from her bag and attempted to
open it, "These things are so tight," she pouted, holding it out for the
Egyptian guide to try. He moved closer and reached for the container,
his eyes fixed on Janet's low cut tank top as she leaned back in what
she hoped was a seductive pose. Suddenly a look of startled surprise
crossed his face and he crumpled against her.

"That's enough of that, thank you very much!" Daniel exclaimed from
behind him, lowering his heavy flashlight again and hoping it hadn't
caved in the man's skull. He hauled the unconscious Egyptian off of
Doctor Fraiser and rolled him inside the ancient stone sarcophagus.

Janet stood up, brushing herself down reflexively and putting her denim
shirt back on. "The things I do for SG1," she muttered, pulling some
lengths of rope from her bag to tie up the guide. "God, I hope noone
else is planning on paying this place a visit tonight, or they'll be in
for a nasty surprise when they find the King's tomb is occupied again
after all these years!"

They headed back down the entranceway and took the first cross tunnel on
the right, matching the maze of corridors to the plans they had
memorised. They had to stoop low beneath the tight ceilings, Janet
remaining one turn behind Daniel at all times, both modifying their
flashlights to a short narrow beam, in case they met resistance along
the way.

They planned to check off the three possible rooms in order, on a
circuitous route that would require prolonged backtracking to return to
the entrance from the furthest chamber. Both could only pray they would
find their quarry in the first place they looked.

It was difficult to mark the passage of time in these confined tunnels,
but it seemed like an eternity before they eventually drew close to the
first room. Daniel slowed his pace and extinguished his torch, creeping
towards the final turn, peeking around the corner carefully to listen
for any human presence in the utter darkness. It was almost impossible
to hear anything over the sound of his own thudding heart, but as far as
he could tell, the corridor appeared empty.

Pulling out the Beretta 92F that he had armed himself with, he slowly
edged along the tunnel, weapon ready, making his way in the darkness all
the way to the end as they had agreed when planning their mission that
afternoon. If he found no obstacles along the way, he would shine his
flashlight back to the beginning to indicate to Janet that all was well.
She would then proceed along the tunnel and check out the room, which
should be located halfway down the passage, assuming they had not taken
a wrong turn somewhere in the confusing maze.

Predictably, since it was the first place they looked, the room was
unguarded and empty. With a deep breath, Daniel headed out to find the
next possibility. After the second one also proved vacant, the tension
was getting to them. They had been wandering these dark passages for
hours, stooping almost double in the tight confined spaces and beginning
to feel defeated and disoriented. So confused that they almost missed
the third room, its entrance hidden in the tunnel floor, until Janet
stubbed her toe against something.

"Daniel!" She hissed at the man already around the next corner, shining
her flashlight onto a half buried padlock concealed in the floor, before
training the beam around the walls.

Resting in an alcove on her left was what looked like an ancient bundle
of knotted rope, but lying next to it was a distinctly modern portable
battery pack connected to a powerful inspection lamp. Carefully placing
her flashlight on the sandy tunnel floor, Janet knelt down, her fingers
detecting the edge of a wooden trapdoor as Daniel reached her side.

"This has to be it, but why aren't there any guards?" She warned
meaningfully. If they found it empty, they had no fallback plan, all
would be lost. "Maybe we're too late."

Daniel regarded her silently, the same thought crossing his own mind,
but he had to know for sure. "Maybe they're just positive he has no way
to escape, after all it's a long way down," he shrugged uncertainly.
Then he pulled his Swiss army knife from his pocket and extracted a long
metal pin, working the lock skilfully until it popped open.

Janet stared at him in amazement, shaking her head and deciding that was
a conversation that would have to wait. She watched Daniel remove the
padlock and lift up the heavy trapdoor, a layer of sand drifted lazily
down the wood grooves, falling through the open metal grille embedded in
the centre as it raised. She stood to hold it steadily upright, whilst
Daniel laid down on the floor and shone his flashlight into the chamber
below, taking a deep breath before he scanned the room with some degree
of trepidation.

She knew his findings before he said anything, the colour draining from
his face. He flinched, turning away from the stench of death wafting on
the still air below. Swallowing bile, Daniel took another lungful of air
and mouthed a name, clearing his dry throat to repeat it. This time the
sound came out, "Jack?" Daniel whispered towards the indistinct heap,
curled up in a corner of the tomb, but there was no response.

He looked at the doctor worriedly and she quietly rested the wooden
cover all the way open before turning to the hidden alcove and gathering
the bundle of rope. One end was already anchored to the wall, so she
passed the rest to Daniel who untangled it to drop through the hatch,
watching as it unravelled in the form of a ladder down to the floor
several yards below.

Handing Janet his flashlight, Daniel began to descend into the tomb, his
path lit by combined beams as she trained them on the rope, keeping them
one step ahead of him all the way. At the base, he crossed the dirt
floor and crouched down, reaching out with a trembling hand to feel for
a pulse, reluctant to make any identification until he was sure the
captive was alive. He let out a breath when he felt a faint beat beneath
his fingers, rolling the body onto its back.

In the dim glow he could just make out the Colonel's face, a ghostly
pale visage marked with foreboding shadows that barely hinted at what
might have occurred in this terrible room, but still made Daniel realise
that perhaps poor lighting was a benefit for the moment, enabling him to
concentrate on the task at hand. "Jack?" Daniel whispered in his ear,
trying to wake him. "Come on, Jack, I need your help to get you out of
here," he urged hopelessly, but he knew that somehow he would have to
get them both up the ladder by himself.

Daniel glanced up at Janet, seeking suggestions, but the only method
they had time for was sheer brute strength. Carefully grasping Jack
under the arms, Daniel gently pulled him up over his shoulder in a
fireman's lift. The unconscious man felt lighter than he ought, but it
was still a tricky exercise to carry his body up the swinging rope
ladder, moving hand over hand until they were high enough for Janet to
help. Looping his arm through the rope Daniel pushed and Janet pulled,
guiding him through the narrow hatchway.

They tried not to bump or bash any part of him in case it damaged
whatever injuries he may already have suffered, but if their difficult
task did cause more harm, they could not tell. Jack did not groan or
stir the entire time, leaving Janet, especially, even more worried about
his possible state of health than she would care to reveal.

Twenty minutes later the padlock was replaced on the trapdoor and sand
covered their tracks as far as the first corner, trying to make it look
like nothing had changed. The three of them headed back the shortest
possible route, praying they would not make a wrong turn in the
confusing maze of passages. There was barely two hours left before dawn
arrived to take away their secure cover of darkness and replace it with
an incriminating daylight. It would be touch and go whether they made it
out in time.

Between them they carried Jack, one at either end. When the ceiling got
too low and the passages too narrow, Daniel had to drag him along the
base of the sandy tunnel, crouching within the confined spaces with
increasing exhaustion adding to their difficulties.

Daniel led the way until they neared the final tunnel, which had been
enlarged for tourist access several years before. "I can handle him from
here," he offered, panting for breath as he paused at the junction. "You
go on ahead and check the entrance is clear," he suggested, trying to
ensure their luck would not run out at this late stage.

Janet nodded, squeezing past him to duck right, grasping the wooden rail
of the main corridor. The passage began to descend into a pit before
climbing back up towards the exit, her flashlight shining a few feet
ahead into the darkness to mark the route.

At the bottom of the incline she heard a scuffling sound, swinging the
beam upwards to see one large, and extremely angry, Egyptian guide
diving towards her from the entrance. He had woken in the sarcophagus
with a pounding headache and it had taken him a couple of painful hours
to free himself from his bonds.

Eventually, he had made it outside the pyramid. With nothing better to
do, he had decided to wait in the hope that the culprits were still
somewhere within, plotting a vicious revenge that he prayed to Allah
would be made possible. His patience was now being repaid, as a
flashlight moved slowly along the passageway towards him.

Roaring a string of unintelligible obscenities he barrelled into the
shadowy figure, pleasantly surprised to find it was the woman and
wondering vaguely where her husband had disappeared to, hoping that he
was lost. Now perhaps there were other ways to extract his retribution
for their unprovoked attack.

He knocked the American female into a narrow side tunnel, thrusting the
length of rope he had loosened from his wrists against Janet's throat as
she screamed, choking off the sound in a strangled cry. She fought
surprisingly hard, struggling and writhing beneath him, until eventually
he punched her jaw, her head banging against the sandstone wall, leaving
her dazed.

Pressing in close to her soft, warm body, he leered at the western
woman's silky pale skin heaving above the neckline of her low cut top
and the Egyptian decided that having her would indeed be sweet revenge.
He began to pull at her clothing, pushing his knee up between her thighs
and pinning her against the wall as his hand groped beneath her tank
top.

Some distance behind, waiting for Doctor Fraiser's flashlight signal
before he began down the final tunnel, Daniel heard a muffled scream.
Pulling his 9mm Beretta from his belt, he rounded the corner and ran,
bent over, along the passageway towards the sound. Coming to a sudden
halt when he heard a shot ring out, a loud crack reverberating up and
down the low ceilinged corridor, Daniel shone his light down the tunnel,
raising his weapon beside it and releasing the safety. "Janet?" He
called nervously, cautiously edging nearer.

"I'm all right." The doctor's shaky response told him instinctively that
she wasn't. He reached the bottom of the incline, almost tripping over
the body of their Egyptian guide, and saw the look of dazed horror on
Janet's face. Her pistol was still held between nerveless fingers, her
dishevelled clothing giving him some clues as to what had happened.
Daniel eased in closer, taking the SIG-Sauer from her trembling hand and
pulling her towards him. Gently he turned her fixed gaze away from the
decidedly dead body, a point blank wound to the chest still smoking in
the beam of her dropped flashlight.

Janet clung to him shakily, burying her head in his chest for a moment,
then she took a deep shuddering breath and he could feel her physically
steeling herself, pulling from his grasp to turn towards the exit. "I'll
check outside," she said, buttoning her denim shirt around her before
tightly gripping the wooden handrail as she strode into the darkness,
not even stopping to retrieve her flashlight.

Daniel stared after her worriedly, then he stooped to drag the bloody
corpse several yards down the side tunnel, picked up her discarded light
and hurried back to where he had left Jack, praying nothing else would
go wrong.

Stepping from the close confines of the pyramid, the coolness of the
still night air left them gasping deep lungfuls in relief. Wordlessly,
they moved out across the open plateau, supporting Jack's body upright
between them as best they could. Each grasping one arm around their
shoulders, a quarter full bottle of whiskey in their spare hand, veering
in a drunken fashion down the dusty track and onto the main street a
mile away from the hotel. Fervently hoping that if anyone had been
watching, they would simply assume it was the same three emerging as had
gone inside the pyramid several hours earlier and that the one being
dragged between them simply couldn't hold his drink.

It became apparent that taxi cabs were non-existent in the area at that
time of the morning, so they were forced to walk, or at least stumble,
the whole mile. Dawn was rapidly creeping over the horizon, the skies
turning increasingly pale, by the time they reached the dimly lit side
entrance of the hotel. Renewing their sagging grip, they boldly
sauntered past the dozing security guard, pretending to swig alcohol
from the bottles as they entered the elevator to the third floor and
slumped into the corner exhaustedly.

Five minutes later they were inside Janet's hotel room, carefully
lowering the Colonel onto a bed in the grey light of dawn. Daniel
crossed to the window and ensured the curtains were closed before
walking back to the door for the main power switch. The room lit up
blindingly as four wall lamps and one overhead came on. He heard Janet
gasp and saw her horrified reflection in the mirror above the dressing
table before he turned around, a feeling of utter dread in the pit of
his stomach.

Instinctively, Jack had curled into a foetal ball, lying on his right
side. His left eye was forced shut, surrounded by a blackened bruise.
Dried blood marked the temple over a jagged cut, now almost obscured by
the dirt covering his body. He had several splits in his cracked lips,
bruises highlighted his jawline and he looked gaunt and pale. Hugged
across his chest protectively, he clutched his right arm, the fingers
splayed crookedly and misshapen.

Mentally Janet shook herself, drawing on her diminished reserves to bury
her personal feelings and take stock professionally. With as much
detachment as she could muster, the doctor felt for a pulse from the
carotid artery in the Colonel's neck before digging into her suitcase,
which lay open on the luggage rack in the hallway, still half packed.

Finding her medical kit, Janet pulled out a stethoscope and attempted to
hold it against Jack's chest. But he was curled so tightly, she couldn't
get near enough without touching his obviously damaged hand and his
filthy, blood stained t-shirt was muffling any sound she might pick up.
"Daniel, help me lay him on his back," the doctor requested, getting
scissors from her case.

Together they straightened him out and Daniel crouched beside the bed,
laying one arm across the Colonel's long legs, his other hand holding
down a shoulder to keep him still. Doctor Fraiser cut through the flimsy
cotton of his t-shirt to expose his chest, her hand froze in mid air
when she saw what lay beneath.

"God!" Daniel choked off a cry, his face contorted with grief and rage
as his eyes fixed on the livid welts and bruises covering Jack's torso.

Janet ignored the trembling of her hand to gently position her
stethoscope, concentrating on the sound of Jack's shallow breath.
Forcing herself to focus purely on assessing the patient, the doctor
began to check the rest of his body. His cheeks were sunken and gaunt,
at a guess he'd had no food, and little water, for several days at
least, leaving him malnourished and dangerously dehydrated, the shape of
his ribcage clearly defined where he had lost so much weight.

She found several puncture wounds inside his right elbow, bloody
pinpoints speckling the ghastly pale skin. Pulling up Jack's uninjured
eyelid, she shone a penlight at the pupil, getting little discernible
reaction, "I think he's been drugged," she stated, adding to the
expanding catalogue of apparent harm inflicted on the patient.
"Although, without a blood test, I can't tell what with."

The doctor began to check for broken bones, feeling across his chest
first, finding at least one probable cracked rib on his left side. The
point of impact of a boot, judging by the shape of the purple bruise.
She slowly worked her hands down his legs, finding rope burns around his
ankles, apparently he had been tied up at some point. Reaching his feet,
she noticed some discoloured wounds on his instep, almost obscured by
the dirt.

Janet leaned in closer, "Daniel, can you get me a wet cloth from the
bathroom please?" She looked up when he didn't react, his anguished eyes
still fixed on the multicoloured bruising, "Daniel?"

He finally looked at her and she repeated her request gently. He
released his grip from O'Neill's shoulder and moved away, leaving Janet
to watch Jack gradually roll back onto his uninjured right side and draw
his legs up to his chest. She could only imagine the psychological state
that provoked such a reaction even while he was still unconscious and
non responsive.

Daniel returned with a damp washcloth, silently handing it to her and
returning to crouch by the bed. He placed a hand on Jack's shoulder to
roll him back over. "It's okay," Janet said quietly, "You can leave him
where he is."

She cleaned the seeping wounds on the soles of Jack's feet as best she
could and then examined them more carefully, trying to determine their
nature. "They look like burns of some kind," she said almost to herself,
"And they're infected," she trailed off, her mind working overtime on
the possible cause. Finally, she looked up at Daniel, who was now
watching her closely, "I think they're electrical burns," she admitted
softly, a look of pain in her eyes. So far the Colonel showed
indications of having been badly beaten and ill treated, but this,
combined with the rope marks on his ankles, was the first conclusive
proof of something even more abhorrent, "Daniel, I think they tortured
him."

Janet saw him slowly absorb this new information as understanding
shadowed his overly bright blue eyes, but she was unprepared for his
startling reaction. Daniel leapt up with a roar of uncontrollable rage,
grabbing the nearest inanimate object, a low backed armchair. He smashed
it against the wall, busting a hole in the soft plasterboard, before
whirling around and throwing it at the standard lamp glowing brightly in
the corner of the room.

"Daniel!" Janet shouted, grasping his shoulder and nearly getting a
chair leg in the face, ducking just in time as it flew over her head. He
froze in shock when he realised he had almost injured her. She shook him
roughly, "Daniel, calm down or you'll bring every security guard in the
complex down on us!"

She gazed up into his face, the sight of his inconsolable grief
threatening to rip apart her own flimsy attempt at control. Janet
gripped his arms until he was forced to look at her, "Daniel, you have
to keep it together, Jack needs us. He needs you," she pleaded, adding
softly, "I need you. I can't do this on my own."

Daniel's pain filled eyes slowly focused on her, "This is all my fault."

"No it's not!" Janet said emphatically, "It's the Russian's fault. Along
with whoever sanctioned this."

"I'm going to kill them," he said with frightening calmness, his normal
wide eyed look of innocence completely absent from his features.

Janet stared at him for a moment. "I know," she nodded, turning them
back towards the occupied bed, "But first we still have to save him."

Daniel stared at his unconscious friend curled up on the bed, swallowing
painfully, his chest ached and he could barely breathe. "All that time,
we were so close to him," he eventually whispered, his voice choked with
emotion.

"I know," was all Janet could say, her throat constricting on the words,
her brown eyes shining.

Daniel rubbed his palms over his face and drew a deep breath, visibly
fighting to regain control. "What do we need to do?" He asked.

They were faced with the difficult conclusion that it was too risky to
take Jack to a hospital yet. The people who had taken him were powerful,
it would make it too easy for them to track him down and they might want
to finish their job. Instead, Janet made an extensive list of supplies
they would need, sending Daniel out to obtain them, anyway he could.

Suddenly alone with the Colonel, Janet began to wonder if they had been
presented with an impossible task. They desperately needed to restore
lost fluids into his system and he was practically comatose, injected
with an unknown quantity of drugs they had no means of identifying. She
had never treated a torture victim before, her medical training had
taught her what to expect from the psychological trauma, but the doctor
knew how difficult Jack's recovery had been after four months in an
Iraqi prison. She had no idea if she would be capable of helping him
through a second time, even if she could remain sufficiently detached,
he was a very good friend, after all.

She sighed and sat down on the edge of the bed, beside the curled up
body. Yes he is a very good friend, that's why you have to do everything
you can, Janet, she thought, patting Jack's arm to reassure herself more
than him. Her eyes fixed on his damaged right hand and with the greatest
of care, she began to examine it.

When Janet lifted his wrist, she felt his arm muscles tense, a soft moan
escaping his lips. She stared at him, relieved to hear the first sign
that he was still in there somewhere, watching for any reaction on his
face. The second she attempted to gently touch his index finger to check
for fractures, he began to resist, flinching, weakly struggling to pull
his wrist from her grasp and reaching out with his other hand to push
her away.

It was an unconscious reaction on his part, but an effective one. Jack
continued to fight against her, mumbling incoherently until she let go
altogether. Janet checked his pulse, detecting an increased rate.
Something had disturbed him, but she couldn't begin to imagine what, and
maybe didn't want to. Even so, she had to complete her examination, find
out how bad it really was.

"Jack, it's okay!" She softly tried to assure him, "You're safe now,
it's okay. It's Janet, remember me?" She said as brightly as she could.
"I need to examine your hand, I promise I'll be gentle, I don't mean to
hurt you. Trust me, Jack, please?" She waited as he settled down and
then tried again. This time she rested the back of his wrist on her open
palm, to show him he was not being held down. Constantly murmuring
soothing words to him, she worked her finger around his hand as gently
as she could.

Of the twenty seven bones making up the entire complex structure from
wrist onwards, the bulk of the damage appeared to be in the long
metacarpals of Jack's right hand and the proximal phalanges of his
fingers, especially at the base where they joined to form the knuckles.
Several of these longer bones showed signs of comminuted fractures that
the doctor could detect by feel alone, and an x-ray might reveal even
more of these fragmented breakages.

In addition, a couple of the distal and middle phalanges towards his
fingertips were also clearly broken. The overall effect leaving the
normally slim digits swollen and crooked, almost arthritically
misshapen. It would take a great deal of expert surgery, and a fair
amount of luck, if there was to be any chance of Jack being able to use
that hand again. If it wasn't already too late to repair it.

"Jack, what did they do to you?" Janet whispered in shock, resting her
head on his shoulder miserably, then she patted his arm once more and
stood up with an effort.

Rummaging in her medical bag, she found disinfectant and a cloth and
began to clean the cut above his left eye. She worked carefully at the
dried blood and dirt marking his pale face, unable to avoid reopening
the wound slightly to get it completely clear. She examined it for
infection, finding it in a better state than the injuries on his feet,
the cut was fairly clean, disinfectant would suffice.

Next she began to check for signs of a possible orbital fracture, gently
prodding the purple and black bruising. Janet winced, knowing how much
it had to hurt and wishing she had access to the far less painful method
of an x-ray machine. She froze, hearing a murmur of breath, Jack's
cracked and bloodied lips moving silently, unconsciously forming into
words. Janet leaned closer, "What, Jack?" She watched and listened, but
could understand nothing of the sound he was attempting.

Janet shrugged and returned to her task. Pulling the penlight from her
shirt pocket, she gradually raised his left eyelid and shone the beam
into his dark brown eye. Unused for over a week, the pupil dilated
slowly, almost imperceptibly, but there was definitely movement, a hope
to cling to. Satisfied that there was no fracture, maybe just a
concussion that he'd probably already suffered the pounding effects of.
The doctor applied a sterile dressing over the freshly cleaned cut,
pressing down as gently as possible to secure the adhesive. The painful
motion caused Jack to murmur again and this time she heard the word,
"Cassie!"

Janet jumped up, startled, wondering what she would say when she spoke
to her adopted daughter, how she could possibly break such news to the
young girl. She glanced at her watch, wanting desperately to call
Cassie, but it was still the middle of the night in Colorado, it would
have to wait. Instead, she sat down at the bottom of the bed and began
working on the burn wounds on Jack's feet, hoping Daniel would be able
to get hold of something stronger than disinfectant.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Doctor Jackson arrived back at the hotel room, Janet was
struggling to examine the patient for signs of internal injury. No easy
task when he kept curling into a ball every time she tried to lay him on
his back.

Janet opened the door in response to his coded knock, "Did you get
everything?" She asked, stepping aside to let him into the room.

"More or less," Daniel headed over to the spare bed and spread out the
results of the most important shopping trip of his life. "I went around
several different pharmacies and bought something in each, so they
couldn't tell what we were up to. I got a lot of stuff in the local
market too. I couldn't get any oral antibiotics over the counter, but I
got some topical ointment to treat the infection directly."

"Good, that'll have to do for now. You sure noone tailed you?" Janet
asked as she examined his purchases.

"Yes, I was really careful." Daniel looked at her quizzically, "So what
are we going to do with all this?"

"Well, first we need to boil some of that water over the camping stove
you bought," Janet gathered up several of the containers, "Then we mix
in quantities of sodium, potassium and calcium, setup a little do it
yourself intravenous drip and we've got a basic Ringer's solution to
treat dehydration."

"What about this other stuff?" Daniel asked, clearing a space on the
table to set up the gas stove.

"Dextrose, vitamins and electrolytes will help replace the nutrient
deficiency, but I think we should get him rehydrated first, we can't
risk too much too soon, we don't know what other chemicals he's already
got in his system. If he wakes up of his own accord, we can get some
proper food inside him," Janet explained.

When Daniel had the pan of water started, Janet got his help to finish
her earlier examination. "I need to see if there's any internal
injuries," she warned, "It's going to hurt him, so he'll probably moan
and flinch a bit, he did earlier."

"That's a good sign, right?" Daniel asked hopefully.

Janet nodded, focusing her mind on the task. She pressed her fingertips
against Jack's abdomen, working her way from one side to the other,
feeling for abnormalities and listening with her stethoscope. He groaned
softly, murmuring something unintelligible as he tried to roll onto his
side, but Daniel held his arm and shoulder until Janet was finished,
trying not to focus on the dreadful state of his battered chest.

When he released Jack's shoulder, Daniel watched him curl back into a
protective ball. His sight fell on the Colonel's damaged right hand,
"Anything?" He asked the doctor, wondering if she had found any sign of
internal bleeding, but unable to pull his gaze away from those crooked,
swollen fingers.

"No, seems to be okay, miraculously," she responded, swapping sides to
check Jack's exposed back.

"What about his hand?" Daniel asked with a wince.

Janet stopped to look at him, studying his earnest blue eyes for a
moment. "It's not great," she admitted, explaining it to him in layman's
terms, "There's a lot of damage, some of the longer bones in his hand
and fingers have several breakages." She shrugged frustratedly, "There's
twenty seven bones from wrist to fingertip, Daniel. I'd say there's a
good chance that at least a third are broken, some practically
shattered. It's going to take an expert surgeon to reconstruct it, but
without x-rays, I really don't know for sure," she grimaced unhappily,
preferring to concentrate on things she could do something about.

Daniel nodded silently, numbly accepting everything she had told him,
knowing there was absolutely nothing he could do right now that would
help the matter.

With no more she could say, the doctor bent down to continue her
examination, noticing an injury she had previously missed. Janet caught
her breath at the sight of a large boot shaped welt standing out in the
centre of his otherwise unmarked back. The single brutal point of impact
just to the lower left of his spine, causing her to contemplate a
possible bruised kidney to go with the rest of the damage as if there
wasn't enough already.

Temporarily as satisfied as she could be with his internal condition,
her examination limited by the lack of direct patient response to her
probing fingers, Janet moved to the next task of turning Daniel's
purchases into something usable. She picked up the rubber tubing,
normally used for home brew kits, along with one of the thick polythene
bags he had bought from the market and did the best job of sterilising
that she could. Then she put together a makeshift intravenous drip,
adding a hypodermic needle from her medical kit. "God, I feel like
MacGyver," Janet quipped grimly as she attached it all together with
some lengths of surgical tape.

"Yeah, now all we need is some fertiliser and lighter fluid and we could
construct a few home made bombs in case the bad guys come knocking!"
Daniel replied dourly.

Janet paled at the sudden thought, "You don't think.......?"

Daniel shook his head, "No, how would they find us? We left no clues,
noone knows where we are. We're safe here for as long as we need to
stay," he finished emphatically, praying he wouldn't turn out to be a
liar.

When they had mixed up the hydration solution and cooled it
sufficiently, Janet commenced the IV drip, hanging the bag from the
ornate metalwork of the wall light above the bed, then she sat back to
admire their handiwork.

"Now what?" Daniel asked.

"Now we wait," Janet shrugged, adding softly, "And pray it works." She
sat down in the armchair and gazed up at the young man, "Even if it does
work, what are we going to do then? Daniel, we need to get Jack to a
hospital to get that hand looked at, and we haven't any idea what his
mental state might be when he comes round. We don't even have a way to
determine what drugs are in his system. If we can't take him to an
Egyptian hospital, then somehow we have to get him out of the country,"
she argued reasonably.

Daniel stared at her for a long time, wishing he had an easy answer. "We
need to contact Sam, maybe she can find a safe place," he finally
decided, opening the drawer where he had stashed his laptop computer.
"There's some renovation work going on in the next wing, I'll use one of
the empty rooms there to dial out. It'll be safer in case anyone is
trying to trace the number." He paused by Jack's bed to look at the
unconscious figure, "Will you be all right here for awhile?"

Janet nodded, watching him leave before she rummaged through the rest of
the medical supplies he had bought to start treatment of the infected
second degree burns on the soles of Jack's feet. Finally, she took his
pulse, listened to his breath sounds and checked his pupil reaction
again, not really expecting, nor receiving, any noticeable change as yet
and wondering what was going on inside his head.

~~~~~~~~~~

Reunited with his young Abydonian friend, Colonel O'Neill was
desperately searching for a way out of the fortress where Apophis'
Serpent Guard had imprisoned his team. Their attention was drawn to the
deep rumbling of the entrance being unsealed to reveal a brightly
dressed parade of gods and servants. Apophis appeared with his bride,
smiling joyfully as he took her hand, their eyes glowing brightly with
the power of the Goa'uld controlling each host, body and soul.

Jack inhaled sharply, stunned by the appearance of Sara, her mind
overpowered by the larva within her. He fought the overwhelming urge to
lunge for Apophis' neck, to crush the vertebrae in his stranglehold
grip. But he still had a job to do, Skaara and the rest of SG1 were
relying on him to get them out of this mess.

Forced to their knees, O'Neill heard Skaara's hiss of revulsion as he
translated the declaration shouted forth by one of Apophis' group, "They
are here to select hosts for the Children of the Gods!"

Jack glanced around desperately, fear gripped him. He knew that
something terrible was about to happen, but he felt powerless to stop
it. At the edge of the crowd a young girl, with long light brown hair,
cried out as she was grabbed by a large Jaffa and carried towards the
waiting Goa'uld.

"Cassie!" Jack had no idea how she had even come to be in this place,
but that no longer mattered, she was about to be taken as a host if he
didn't stop them. He shouted again, leaping up to tackle the Jaffa who
held the struggling young girl in his grasp. Skaara followed to help,
his smaller frame rapidly overpowered by the hulking Serpent guard.

Jack was beaten down with a blow to the head from the barrel of a staff
weapon. He lay on the ground with its tip pressed into his chest, the
weapon primed, alight with energy, ready to fire a single fatal bolt if
he attempted to move, or if the Gods decreed.

Defeated, Jack could only look on helplessly as his two young friends
were carried away from him and paraded by the guards in front of their
new parents. Jack gasped in horror at the sight of the fair haired boy
who was performing the ritual presentation of the Goa'uld larvae to its
new hosts. Charlie turned around at the sound of his grief stricken cry,
eyes glowing cruelly in gleeful anticipation of the ultimate defeat of
his human father. With a theatrical flourish, he slowly placed a mature
larva onto the shoulder of each terrified child, the snakelike creatures
crawling around to the back of the neck to burrow inside, disappearing
with a final flick of the tail.

O'Neill was forced to watch as first Skaara and then Cassie succumbed to
the powers of the Goa'uld, until three children stood proudly before the
gathered prisoners, their eyes glowing brightly with the strength of
their new owners. But Jack could not bring himself to hate them, they
were only children, yet he knew he would never again be able to trust
any of them, now solely controlled by the power of evil.

He stared coldly at his nemesis. "I will kill you," Jack vowed.

Apophis laughed cruelly and clapped his hands to gather his wife and
children around him, together forming a family with which to conquer the
stars. With a final triumphant smile, he signalled the Serpent Guard,
still holding Jack captive at the point of a staff weapon, to finish the
job.

Knowing he was about to die anyway, Jack made one last desperate effort
to escape, with a kick of his legs he knocked the Jaffa off balance and
rolled sideways grabbing the tip of the staff weapon to shove it away
from his chest just as the bolt fired, blasting him straight in the
hand.

Jack shrieked at the intense pain in his fingers, squinting in agony and
shock at the hideous, burned mass at the end of his right wrist. He
passed out into a deep unconsciousness, his last recollection of
unspeakable loss. The bodies and minds of four people who had meant the
world to him were now occupied by the epitome of evil, the abhorrent
presence of the Goa'uld larva controlling their actions into eternity.

~~~~~~~~~~

By the time Daniel returned the second time, Janet had moved an armchair
next to the Colonel's bed and was sitting with her feet up on the seat,
hugging her knees to her chest and struggling to stay awake. When she
heard the soft knock at the door, she got up to let him in and then went
back to her seat, rocking to and fro, watching her patient, who had been
mumbling incoherently again until a short while before. She wasn't sure
if she preferred him moaning or deathly silent, either sight was equally
harrowing.

"You okay?" Daniel asked with concern, noting the paleness of her face
and the tiredness in her eyes. She turned to him slowly and he saw the
bruise standing out on the side of her jaw, captured in the glow of the
overhead light. He studied her closely, seeing the red raw marks around
her neck for the first time also. He had been so concerned with Jack's
condition, he had forgotten what the doctor had been through that day.

"Why don't you go and get cleaned up, Janet," Daniel suggested gently,
"I'll keep an eye on him for awhile."

Janet looked at him in confusion and he touched a finger to his jaw to
indicate the bruise, watching as the doctor moved a hand to her face in
a mimicking gesture. She winced when she found the forgotten injury, a
look of fearful recollection crossing her dark brown eyes. Without a
word, Janet nodded, vacating her seat and gathering some items from her
suitcase on the way to the bathroom.

Running hot water into the sink, Janet unbuttoned her shirt and slipped
it from her shoulders. She gasped as she caught her reflection in the
mirror. An exhausted and somewhat overwrought looking woman stared back
at her, a purple bruise marking her jaw, red rope burns on her neck, her
tank top stained with the blood of a man she had killed.

Janet reached for the washcloth and soap, her hands trembling
uncontrollably, unable to ignore the face watching her accusingly. The
face of someone who had taken a life, not a professional medical doctor
who was supposed to heal people. She had never even shot at, let alone
killed, another human being. Aliens, Goa'ulds, yeah sure, but not a
human being, she had sworn to save them.

Trying to combat the onset of shock as her body began to shake, Janet
reached for the shower controls and turned the taps on full. Hot steam
condensed on the mirror, obscuring her reflection. She pulled off her
clothes, throwing them into the bin beneath the sink and stepped into
the stream of cleansing water, the flow so hot and powerful it felt like
sharp pins hitting her head and back.

Slowly the tremors began to subside and Janet soaped herself down,
scrubbing her hands harder than necessary in what she knew was a mental
effort to cleanse herself of the action she was responsible for. When
the stream of water finally began to feel too hot, the doctor turned off
the taps and stepped from the shower. Drying off, she wound her wet hair
into a towel and pulled on a pair of sweat pants and a fleece pullover.

Taking a deep breath, she padded softly out of the damp bathroom,
shivering against the cooler air of the hotel room. She adjusted the air
conditioning controls, switching the thermostat all the way off and then
turned to Daniel, "Your turn!" She said as brightly as she could,
waiting for him to follow suit before she sat down in the vacant
armchair to stare at her patient. Jack had not moved, still curled up in
a foetal ball, protecting himself from what had gone before.

When Daniel emerged from the bathroom, clean and dry, two weeks worth of
beard finally removed from his chin, much to his relief, he found the
doctor curled up in the chair, dozing fitfully. She looked more fragile
and exhausted than he had ever seen her in their long two years of
working together. Instinctively, he knew it wasn't just the harrowing
discovery and treatment of Jack O'Neill that was having this effect. The
doctor had killed another human being and it was eating her up. He would
not easily forget the look on her face when he found her, smoking gun
still in her hand.

Daniel stared at Janet for a long time, someone was going to pay for all
this, he decided determinedly. Gathering up her sleeping form, he gently
placed her on the spare bed, covering her with a blanket, before taking
up vigil by Jack's bedside.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daniel had arranged to contact Sam again at mid afternoon the next day.
It would be six o'clock Monday morning in Colorado, over twenty four
hours since he first asked for her help and he was praying she had found
a way. They had used three full IVs on Jack and there was only a slight
sign of improvement that even Doctor Fraiser admitted could be wishful
thinking.

Doctor Jackson gathered his laptop and headed out of the room, checking
each way along the corridor before turning right and making for the
stairs. Janet tried to busy herself with tidying up some of the mess
they had left the day before, including shakily bagging up her bloody
clothes and stashing them into the back of her suitcase. It wouldn't do
for the housekeeper to find the items in the bin and report them to
hotel security. It was bad enough that they had to keep the 'do not
disturb' sign on the door at all times, arousing suspicion for anyone
who knew the room was supposedly only occupied by a single white
American female.

Her pistol was lying on the night stand between the beds where Daniel
had dropped it the previous morning. He had his Beretta on him, but
Janet was tempted to unload her own weapon and find a way to dispose of
it. She didn't have a clue if the body had been discovered yet, nor
whether it would be reported to the police. Worse still, perhaps the
Cairo mafia were already looking for the killer of one of their own
people. Gingerly she picked up the SIG-Sauer, turning it over in her
hands, feeling the light weight of a machine catastrophic in its effects
for anyone who got too close.

The silence was suddenly shattered by a terrifying crash. For a split
second, Janet stared at the weapon in confusion, then her gaze was
abruptly shifted as the hotel room door smashed open, the flimsy lock
snapping, splintering the wood. Two men burst in, waving their guns
threateningly as Janet screamed. A black haired man with dark,
pockmarked skin, pointed a 9mm Browning at her, followed close behind by
the blond, pale faced Russian whom she recognised from his meeting with
Philip Marshall at the Solar Bark.

Still holding her weapon, Janet levelled it at them in a two handed
grip, mentally forcing her hands to stop shaking. She released the
safety, but no matter how much she willed herself, she could not pull
the trigger, not again. With a frightened cry, Janet felt the pistol
slip from her nerveless fingers and drop lightly onto the bed, landing
harmlessly beside Jack's curled up body.

With a cruel smile, the dark haired Egyptian waved his semiautomatic at
her, signalling her away from the bed. "What do you want?" Janet finally
found her shaky voice as she protectively stepped into the gap between
them and the Colonel.

"You took something before we were finished with it. Now we want it
back," the Russian's heavily accented words announced chillingly as he
moved further into the room. His henchman grabbed a chair and carried it
to the door, jamming it beneath the handle to stop any attempt at entry.

"Why, so you can continue to torture him?" Janet exclaimed hotly, her
anger flaring now that she was face to face with the cause of all this
misery.

"On the contrary, I believe your Colonel was ready to answer our
questions, just as soon as we revived him," the Russian smiled coldly,
"We had done all the hard work." He began to move towards the bed, the
Egyptian following close behind.

"Why are you doing this?" Janet asked weakly, backing away from them,
knowing she had failed to protect her patient.

The Russian stopped and stared at her, as though she had asked the most
obvious question in the world. "You are a doctor, yes?" Janet nodded
cautiously, vaguely wondering how he knew. "Then you of all people must
understand the potential of your Stargate to discover new medicines, new
technology and, of course, new weaponry." The blond man smiled at the
shocked woman, "If your government does not wish to share these new
discoveries, we must take the information where we can get it."

"But you're supposed to be working for our Government!" Janet gasped as
everything suddenly slid into place, "This was never a US operation was
it?" She stared at him with wide eyes, her voice rising, "This whole
scenario, the Presidential approval, the Senate Committee mandate to
prove the security of the program.......it was all a setup, a front!
You've been playing both sides!"

"And now I have come home to Russia, back to work for my mother
country," Dmitri said with a satisfied smile.

"What about Philip Marshall?" Janet asked, thinking quickly, "He could
never have arranged all this alone. Who does he work for? Who gave him
the information on Doctor Jackson and Colonel O'Neill?"

"Questions, questions. My dear Doctor Fraiser, it would not do for me to
reveal those answers to you at such a crucial point in our plan. I have
my reputation to consider," his voice was laced with chilling charm as
he considered her thoughtfully, "In fact, I believe you might make a
valuable contribution to our strategy." The Russian nodded at his
colleague, the smile evaporating from his face, "Get him. I'll bring
her!"

"No! You can't move him!" Janet cried, desperately trying to think of a
suitably convincing lie, "He's bleeding internally, if you move him now,
he'll die before you ever get a chance to ask him anything."

The Russian considered her closely. Colonel O'Neill had taken a great
deal of punishment to the abdomen, internal injuries seemed plausible,
and she was his doctor. He shrugged, "I suppose, we can complete our
work here," he conceded, pulling a hypodermic needle and vial from his
pocket.

Janet's heart clenched painfully in her chest, shocked that he was
simply going to continue his work right there and then. She glanced at
the clock, praying for Daniel to return as she watched him fearfully,
"What is that?"

"A simple shot of adrenaline, my dear doctor," the Russian smiled. "Just
enough to wake him up, that's all. When he sees we also have you, he
will be most willing to talk to us, don't you think?"

Janet blanched, "You don't need that, I can wake him up for you," she
bluffed. She didn't know what they'd already been injecting the Colonel
with, but she knew she had to stop them from continuing. She held her
breath as he regarded her for a long moment, her confidence faltering
under his glare until he finally gestured for her to try.

Leaning across Jack's shoulder, trying to shield her patient from them,
she began to whisper in his ear, too low for the Russian to hear her,
"Jack, if there was ever a time you were thinking of waking up, now
would be good!"

~~~~~~~~~~

Somewhere deep in Jack's subconscious a horrifying scene was being
continually played out, inexorably closing towards the same dreadful
conclusion each time. "Cassie!" Jack heard his hoarse voice recognise
the girl standing before him, trapped in the clutches of his nemesis.
What choice did he have now?

He tried to focus on the leering smile, struggling to contain his anger.
"I will kill you," he promised coldly.

The evil man laughed, tightening his grip on the girl. "Tell me what I
want to know or you can watch her die now!" He threatened, holding the
power to take over her body and soul in his hand. "It's your choice,
Colonel."

~~~~~~~~~~

Slowly Jack became aware of a female voice close to his ear, wondering
hopefully if it could be Cassie. "Come on, Jack. You've got to wake up.
We need your help," Janet continued to whisper in his ear, "The Russian
is here and he's got a gun. But whatever you do, don't tell him a thing,
Jack," she said urgently, praying that somehow she would get through to
the unconscious man before Alesandrov grew impatient with her efforts
and dragged her away.

"God, Jack. Come on, wake up!" Desperately the doctor brushed a hand
against his broken fingers, "I'm sorry, Jack," she murmured
apologetically, knowing how much it would hurt him, but running out of
ideas. Jack moaned in pain and tried to shrink away from her touch.
Janet's eyes lit up. She turned to the Russian, "See! I can wake him,
just give me time."

"Your time is up, I'm afraid, dear doctor. Now perhaps you wouldn't mind
administering the dose," he smiled sadistically, challenging the woman
with the ultimate test. The Russian handed her the syringe and vial,
waving his other hand menacingly to indicate his fully loaded 9mm
Browning, accompanying the firepower of his Egyptian colleague. He
stepped back to watch, wondering which option she would choose. Would
the doctor prefer to sacrifice her patient or herself?

Jack was still trying hard to recognise the voice whispering into his
ear, when his blood froze at the unmistakable sound of a Russian accent.
His nemesis had returned once more. Jack tried to curl up even tighter,
to protect himself and his hand from that nightmare voice. Something
cold and hard dug into his bruised abdomen and he shifted slightly to
feel the smooth metal of a gun, his fingers tracing the form with a
sense of unreality. He knew this was just another hallucination, but it
was one in which he would gladly be a willing participant.

Janet stood between them, drawing their attention as her shaking fingers
slowly closed around the hypodermic. She inserted it into the vial,
dragging out the process of filling the syringe as long as she dared and
wondering for the umpteenth time where Daniel had got to.

Impatiently, the Egyptian made a move towards her. A shot rang out, the
noise shockingly loud in the close confines of the hotel room. Janet was
only just beginning to react when a second round fired, so close she
could feel the bullets whistling passed her deafened ear. She stood
paralysed, afraid to move. The dark skinned man toppled backwards, his
chest blossoming deep crimson, eyes suddenly lifeless. His body knocked
the Russian off balance as he hit the floor.

The blond man's face froze in shocked disbelief. He brought his own
weapon up to aim at the source of the bullets, reacting too slowly to
save himself from the point blank force of a round in the stomach.
Another hit his right shoulder and he fell to the floor in agony, the
Browning tumbling from his grip.

Janet became aware of movement behind her, turning in time to see the
Colonel raising up on the bed. His IV tube, stretched to the limit,
dragged the needle painfully from his arm. He raised her SIG-Sauer once
more, emptying the remaining five rounds into the heart of the already
dying Russian, killing him with the first shot. Jack's face contorted
with the need for vengeance, his finger pulling the trigger reflexively
even as the hammer began to fall on the empty chamber.

"Jack!" Janet stepped towards him, staring up into lifeless brown eyes.

Slowly he turned towards her, a look of bewildered recognition crossing
his tormented face, "Janet?" He murmured hoarsely, then his eyes rolled
and his outstretched left arm went limp. His strength dissolved as he
passed out onto the mattress.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daniel was nearing the corridor of Janet's room, when he heard shots
fired. His sauntering walk becoming a sprint at the first of the
distinctive sounds. Mentally counting the bullets, he cautiously drew
closer. Reaching the outer door, he dropped his laptop satchel onto the
floor and pulled his Beretta from where he'd jammed it into the small of
his back.

Noticing the splintered wood around the busted lock, Daniel took a deep
breath, his heart pounding as he gingerly pushed on the door, but it
wouldn't budge. He shoved his shoulder against it hard, all thought of
stealth gone from his mind. He felt the door give a little, but
something was jamming it.

He moved to the side, out of the firing line and reached across to rap
on the wood with his knuckles, "Hello, in there! Is everything okay?" He
paused, but there was no answering shot exploding through the wood, no
voices or any sound coming from inside. "Janet, open the door!" He
shouted more frantically, barely breathing as he waited tensely,
straining to hear any sign of life, his panic rising.

He was about to yell louder when he heard a muffled noise. Raising his
Beretta, Daniel pounded on the door again, "Janet, is that you? Let me
in, damnit!" Something moved inside and he heard a thud and the creak of
wood, holding his breath as the door slowly opened and the doctor stood
before him shakily, her face ghostly pale. Without a word, she turned
away and he followed her into the room his gun ready, unprepared for the
nightmarish scene that faced him.

Daniel gaped in shock at the blood soaked bodies. He recognised the
Russian intelligence agent, lying on the floor, beside what looked like
a native Egyptian with a 9mm Browning semiautomatic held in lifeless
fingers. With his heart in his mouth, he spotted Jack lying face down on
the bed. Steeling himself for the worst, he warily approached.

"Janet! What happened?" He crouched down beside the first corpse,
holding two fingers against the Russian's neck despite the obvious lack
of life and a gushing chest wound. Finding no pulse, he moved onto the
dark skinned man, making his futile check in the same way.

Both men were dead, which left Daniel the grim task of verifying the
state of the Colonel lying on the bed beside Janet. Instead he stood up
and touched her arm, feeling the doctor jump nervously. "Janet, what
happened?" He softly repeated his question.

She stared at him, her ears still ringing with the sound of gunfire. She
swallowed, raising her hand up to reveal the hypodermic needle still
inserted into a chemical vial. She handed Daniel the offending item,
ignoring the confused look on his face. Wiping a palm over her eyes as
if to restore her calm, she turned to her patient, checking his pulse
with fingers that shook uncontrollably.

"Help me move him," she quietly urged Daniel, who finally breathed again
in the knowledge that Jack was still alive. Placing his Beretta and the
syringe onto the night stand, together they turned the patient around,
resting his head gently against the pillow.

Noticing the SIG-Sauer still firmly gripped in Jack's left hand, the
slide locked open on the now empty weapon, Daniel began to form a
picture of the unbelievable events. Somehow his friend had exacted
revenge, saving himself and Doctor Fraiser in the process, but now he
was unconscious once more. Daniel swallowed, considering the probable
consequences of what had happened, knowing the police would arrive in
force at any minute.

Before he could even complete that thought, a commotion reached him from
outside, slowly drawing nearer in a clamour of shouts and running
footsteps. Daniel raced to the still open door, shouting in Egyptian for
them to hold their fire as he approached the entrance with his hands
held high above his head.

Fighting rising panic at the sight of a group of well armed Egyptian
police and hotel security heading towards him, their weapons drawn,
apparently ready to storm the room, Daniel's eyes sought out the leader.
He spotted a man at the front of the team, shouting commands and urging
the growing crowd of onlooking tourists and hotel workers to get out of
the way.

Daniel shouted again in Egyptian, exercising all of his linguistic
skills and knowledge of local customs to plead with the officer to
listen to his words. As the man drew close enough, Daniel read his name
badge, addressing him personally as he attempted to convince him that it
was under control. They would not need their weapons.

In the ensuing melee, Doctor Jackson eventually persuaded the sceptical
policeman, Sergeant Maged, that this had been an attempted kidnapping of
a Colonel in the US military. He argued the need to get Jack and the
doctor to hospital and to keep a security detail on them at all times.
It was probably the most difficult negotiation of his life, presenting a
convincing story to the Egyptian authorities and yet revealing nothing
of a sensitive nature.

While they waited for an ambulance, Daniel identified the Russian
intelligence officer and vaguely explained that he had been after state
secrets. Then he collected his laptop and led the doctor from the room,
following the paramedics down to their waiting vehicle. He breathed a
sigh of relief as they left the hotel grounds amidst a police escort.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was late that Monday night before the Egyptian authorities finally
had enough answers to satisfy their reports for the moment and allow
Daniel to return to the hospital room where Jack was being treated. The
Colonel was being watched closely, outside by three armed guards and
inside by a somewhat subdued Janet Fraiser, who had yet to give her
account of what had happened that afternoon.

Sergeant Maged was withholding their passports, pending verification of
their story, somewhat concerned by the absence of the Colonel's. He
currently had various departments checking the plethora of documentation
on Jack's movements since entering the country, to determine where they
had lost track of him. The Egyptian police, being very thorough in that
respect, liked to record everything that happened, from the number plate
of each tour bus passing a given checkpoint, to the number of tourists
who boarded and at which hotels. The fact that an American visitor had
suddenly gone missing, and they had not been alerted, revealed a gaping
hole in their effectiveness.

Daniel had managed to be sufficiently vague with his story that he had
not given away anything classified. At the same time, he was convincing
enough that the authorities believed him and were willing to aid their
safe return to the United States if it all checked out okay. However,
they still needed to file a thorough report, which included taking
extensive pictures of the Colonel's injuries, despite the objections and
discomfort of his two friends, who felt it an unnecessary violation,
knowing how closely Jack guarded his privacy.

They also insisted that Colonel O'Neill would not be allowed to leave
the country until he had been able to give a full account of what had
occurred, in his own words, so basically they were stuck there for a
while longer. Furthermore, the police had sent full copies of their
report to both the Colonel's commanding officer and the US Embassy in
Cairo, in order to substantiate Doctor Jackson's claims.

Daniel had so far avoided implicating Philip Marshall in events because
he knew it would cause the police to contact him, thus revealing the
fact that Jack was still alive. However, he had been unable to come up
with a good excuse why the Embassy itself should not be called, so now
he could only hope that the reach of Marshall's power did not stretch
within the Cairo police force.

In the meantime, he set to work on a contingency plan, sitting at a
table in the corner of Jack's hospital room. Janet was finally asleep in
an armchair beside the bed, a blanket wrapped around her shoulders.
Daniel opened up the laptop computer that the Egyptian police had almost
retained as evidence until he had managed to convince them otherwise. He
connected the modem into the nearby telephone socket and loaded up his
e-mail account, preparing a message to Sam to explain what he thought
had happened and what his report to the police had revealed.

"We still need some help here, Sam. Firstly, we need a way to keep
Philip Marshall off our backs. Secondly, the local doctor says that if
Jack doesn't get specialist surgery on his hand asap, he'll never regain
full function of it. Any ideas? DJ." Daniel completed the message and
sent it off, disconnecting the modem, knowing a request like that would
take some time to respond to. He would dial back on in a few hours to
see if Sam had come up with anything.

With nothing left to do but wait and worry, Daniel stood up and walked
over to Jack's bedside, staring at him for a long time, seeking any sign
of improvement. Since lapsing back into unconsciousness, having
dispensed with his torturers in what the Egyptian police were so far
recording as an act of self defence, Jack had remained completely non
responsive. However, the doctor at this private hospital was optimistic,
they were increasing his fluid intake intravenously and had begun a
nutrient drip. Doctor Halib believed it was only a matter of time before
he would awaken once more.

Daniel had been praying that were true ever since the initial prognosis
some hours earlier. There had been nothing to contradict it yet, since
they were still awaiting results of the blood tests to determine what
chemicals were in Jack's system. The worse news had come when the local
doctor admitted there was little he could do about the busted hand, it
was badly damaged and beyond their medical capabilities. It required an
experienced specialist and they, unfortunately, were few and far between
in this country.

The Egyptian doctor had shrugged as if to say that was the end of that,
but Daniel refused to accept it. He would find some way to repair the
damage, failure was not something he could contemplate. In his heart,
Daniel simply wanted everything back the way it had been before all this
began. He wanted things to return to normal. No more distrust of
superiors, no more looking over his shoulder, and no more lives
destroyed because of him. But he knew it was an impossible wish, no
matter what happened, some things could not be forgiven or even
momentarily ignored. And now that there was an official police report
with graphic photographs of the injuries inflicted, detailing the harm
done to the Colonel, how could it ever be forgotten?

Daniel rubbed his face wearily, trying not to think too far into the
future, trying not to imagine what would happen to their team. It was
all irrelevant until they knew for certain what would happen to Jack. He
slumped into a chair opposite Janet and sat back to wait.

~~~~~~~~~~

Sergeant Maged sat in his office late into the night, reading and
rereading the reports and evidence gathered from the investigation so
far. On a lined foolscap pad he had written down a series of questions
which remained unanswered, a list that grew each time he reviewed the
information now before him.

Several weapons had been recovered from the scene. A fully spent SIG-
Sauer P230 9mm auto-pistol appeared to be the weapon used to kill the
two men. Interestingly enough, at least to Maged who was a fervent fan
of gun facts and figures, that model was the standard issue handgun for
the US Federal Bureau of Investigation and was commonly available on the
black market in his and several other neighbouring countries.

Then there was a Beretta 92F, chosen weapon of the US military, which
seemed to have been unfired, along with two 9mm Browning semiautomatics,
at least one of which had been used quite recently. They had also
recovered a filled hypodermic syringe, containing an unknown drug. It
had been sent off for testing, but it could take a couple of days before
the results came back, in the meantime Maged hoped the female doctor
might be able to identify the contents once she was up to questioning.

The police officer considered the three Americans carefully. He had not
pushed the woman to talk so soon, she was obviously shocked by what had
occurred and in his experience any answers she might be able to give
would not necessarily be accurate or lucid at this stage. The questions
could wait until morning. After all, none of them were going anywhere,
that much was plainly clear in the way they were staying so close to
their unconscious friend.

Both Doctor Jackson and Doctor Fraiser had strongly objected to the
forensic team Maged had sent in to photograph and examine the Colonel's
body before the nurses had been allowed to clean him up. They had
strongly contended that it was an invasion of privacy, a feeble argument
considering the obvious criminal injury that had been inflicted on the
victim. Besides Maged had no choice, even if the chances of prosecuting
this case were slim, with the culprits already dead, the Sergeant still
required all evidence for his report, and the list of grievous bodily
harm done to the American formed a substantial part of that testimony.

As for the circumstances of the kidnapping, the police officer remained
suspicious. The victim was reportedly a Colonel in the US Air Force,
although his passport had not yet been unearthed, so this was still
unconfirmed. But such a role did not seem unusual enough for this man to
be singled out for such torturous treatment, there was definitely more
to this than met the eye, information that the younger American had
managed to withhold quite cleverly. He was apparently experienced in
negotiating his way out of difficult situations.

To Maged, Doctor Jackson was proving of equal curiosity as the Colonel.
He was an earnest scholarly man, fiercely protective towards O'Neill,
outwardly mild, yet strong willed enough to talk down a rushing force of
armed policemen, his calm voice cutting through the melee to directly
address the leader as Maged led his team in to storm the hotel room.
Jackson had argued for the care and security of his friends, unmindful
of his own well being, despite the fact that the man looked like he had
been running on nervous energy alone for days.

Doctor Jackson did not give the outward appearance of someone with a
military background, yet he was obviously more than just a good friend
to the Colonel. Sergeant Maged instinctively believed that all three had
some kind of working relationship. So what sort of state secrets could
they be hiding that warranted Colonel O'Neill's kidnapping by a Russian
intelligence officer? Wasn't all that Cold War stuff over and done with
years ago?

All speculation aside, the most difficult question still facing the head
of this investigation was how had the Colonel been spirited away from
beneath the eyes of a police force who prided themselves on being able
to keep track of all tourists wandering the length and breadth of the
country? How had he simply disappeared for more than a week in the first
place, without it coming to the notice of anyone in country? There were
definitely procedures that would need tightening up here.

Sergeant Maged sighed, deep worry lines creasing his forehead. So many
questions and so few lines of investigation to follow up on. At least
when the Colonel did finally awaken, that would certainly be an
interesting interrogation session, although given the circumstances,
perhaps the idea of an interrogation was somewhat heavy handed.

He looked at the photographs strewn loosely across the table amidst the
written reports. They were an exact copy of the ones sent to the
American Embassy in Cairo and to O'Neill's commanding officer reportedly
somewhere in the United States. The Sergeant could not tell whereabouts
from the official looking e-mail address he had forced out of Doctor
Jackson, who had been reluctant to involve the Colonel's superior for
some unknown reason. Maged wondered idly whether knowing the base where
the Colonel operated out of would give him any clues to what that
unconscious mind was hiding.

He picked up two of the photos, placing them side by side in front of
him. Without a doubt this was no ordinary kidnapping, the local doctor
had reported O'Neill as being stable, but added that the man was
probably only still alive because his original physical condition had
been way above average to start with. The Colonel had been starved,
drugged and severely beaten, the livid colours on his badly bruised
chest and face were captured all too clearly by the digital camera.

The damaged right hand was an even worse sight, mangled and swollen,
causing Maged to wonder whether there was any chance that O'Neill was
left handed. Somehow he didn't think that was likely and he had to feel
sympathy for the man. For a military Colonel to lose the use of one hand
would surely invalidate him from active service. Knowing how much he
valued his own position in the police community, the importance of the
work he was doing, Sergeant Maged would not wish that upon anyone. Maybe
he did not know who this Colonel Jack O'Neill really was, but he was
beginning to form a fairly good impression simply from the actions and
motivations of his two apparently honest and loyal friends and so far he
had not detected anything that deserved such punishment.

Rising from his chair and stretching his tired body, Maged gathered the
material and piled it together, crossing the room towards his office
safe to place it under lock and key before he retired for the night.
Although it seemed that the protagonists of this shocking affair had
already received just reward for their terrible acts, the Sergeant vowed
to ensure that the investigation remained thorough in its quest for
answers.

Under his guidance there would be a dogged search for the truth behind
this horrendous business and for the ways to prevent any possible
reoccurrence ever in his beloved country and certainly never again right
under his very own nose. If there was anyone left to catch, Maged would
personally see to it that the culprits were made to pay. He would ensure
redemption for his police force and for himself before this case would
be closed.

~~~~~~~~~~

It was late Monday afternoon in Cheyenne mountain when Captain Samantha
Carter received a telephone call from Natalie's mother, a woman whom she
had briefly met a couple of times at Janet's house.

"The school rang to see where Cassie was today," she explained, "I told
them she had gone to stay with you, but I didn't want to give them your
number. I know the work you do is, well, kind of secret."

"There must be some mistake, I thought she was staying with you until
Janet got back!" Sam said worriedly.

"No, Cassandra left here on Thursday evening after talking to Janet. She
said you had agreed to look after her over the weekend. Don't tell me
you haven't seen her!" She finished in a shocked voice.

"Don't worry, I'm sure it's just a misunderstanding," Sam covered
quickly, "I'll find out where she is and get back to you." The Captain
put the telephone down and dashed out of the laboratory. There was only
one person who could help track down Cassie rapidly enough and there was
no reason why he should be unwilling to help where the youngster was
concerned.

Carter knocked on General Hammond's office door and rushed in without
prompting, unprepared for the sight that met her. The General looked
positively ashen faced, staring at some photographic printouts in a
manila folder lying on his desk. He looked up as she came in, closing
the file hurriedly and clenching his hands together on top of it.

Sam stared at the desk, her brain still trying to register the fleeting
image, "General?"

"Yes, Captain, what do you want?" Hammond asked in a hoarse voice, his
gaze lowered.

"Sir, Cassandra's gone missing and I need your help to find her," Carter
blurted out quickly.

"What! How?" Hammond glanced up in startled surprise.

"Apparently, Cassie was issued with a passport, I believe she may have
used it. She may even have gone to Egypt. We have to check with the
airlines and immigration control to see if we can verify that, but I
can't do it without your authority," Sam explained.

The General stared at her with wide eyes, "What makes you think Cassie
is in Egypt?" He asked in a strangled voice.

"Because she knew Colonel O'Neill and Daniel were there and.......," Sam
hesitated to admit the truth, "And, I think she might have guessed that
Janet went to Cairo to help them," she finished in a burst, hating
herself for having to reveal where the doctor had gone.

Hammond nodded, seemingly unsurprised by the news that a member of the
SGC's medical staff was also in Egypt. Sam glanced quizzically at the
closed report folder on his desk, noticing that his hands, no longer
entwined together, were shaking slightly. "You already knew where Doctor
Fraiser was, didn't you Sir?" She asked quietly, "How?"

"It's in the police report," the General admitted after a long pause.

Sam considered his words for a moment, her brain finally reconciling the
images she had seen in that split second before he had closed the file,
"Oh, god!" She swallowed dryly, collapsing into the nearest chair,
"Colonel O'Neill! Is he.......?"

"He's alive, Captain," Hammond grimaced, his voice almost inaudible as
he murmured, "Barely. Lord, what have I done?"

Sam stared at him, then she reached across his desk for the manila
folder. The General stopped her, placing his hand firmly on her wrist.
He looked her in the eyes and shook his head, but she would not be
dissuaded, gripping the report with her fingers to pull it closer.

"Captain, I advise you not to," Hammond said more insistently, this was
one time he couldn't order her to obey.

"Why?" Sam asked heatedly, "So that I won't see what you've done?" His
shoulders slumped in defeat, powerless to stop her, knowing she had to
find out sooner or later.

The police report had been placed inside a file marked "top secret" as
befitted the shocking contents. Sam carefully ignored the photographs,
which had been left face down, and read the written text, relieved that
Colonel O'Neill, Doctor Fraiser and Doctor Jackson were all safely in a
Cairo hospital under police guard.

When she had contacted Daniel early that morning, he had not known how
they were going to get Jack to a medical facility despite the
recommendations Sam had made for a possible sanctuary. It now seemed
that circumstances had conspired to resolve that problem for them. The
Russian was dead and the police were trying to obtain verification of
their story before her friends would be allowed to leave the country.
For the meantime, at least, they were safe, but there was no mention of
Cassie. If she had gone to Egypt, surely she should have met up with
them by now?

"Will you help me find Cassandra?" Sam pleaded with the General again.

He nodded, reaching for the telephone as she continued to scan the
report. Daniel had not told her any details of Jack's injuries, he had
only said that the Colonel remained unconscious. Now she faced a medical
report listing every wound and Sam found herself drawn to the
photographs that had been included with the police report.

"Captain, don't!" Hammond urged her from across the desk, a telephone
receiver in his left hand as he waited for a response to his initial
enquiries.

Sam looked at him, "I have to know the truth, I have to see it for
myself."

"No you don't, not like this," he pleaded, wondering how many lives he
had destroyed by following orders.

Sam hesitated, but she knew if there was any chance she would ever be
able to trust Hammond again, she had to find out the whole truth of what
he had done. She could leave no stone, or photograph, unturned.

The pictures had been taken with a digital camera, downloaded onto
computer, attached to the Cairo police report and e-mailed to General
Hammond. Picked up by his assistant, they were automatically forwarded
for printing onto photo quality paper to ensure a perfect replication of
the image. The same machine had collated the written report, stored the
whole thing inside a top secret binder and sealed it. Thus the addressee
need be the only person ever to see the contents, until now.

Carter took a deep breath and turned over the first print. Stoically
absorbing each graphic image until she had completed the task. Ten
photographs in total, each showed a different part of the body or a
wider angle of the whole.

Finally, Sam closed the folder carefully and rose from her seat, vaguely
aware that Hammond had now finished his phone call. Her voice was cold,
shaking with barely controlled rage, "Tell me this was not sanctioned by
the US government!"

Hammond shrugged uncomfortably, "Captain, you know my orders said that
it was. But now I don't want to believe that anymore than you do."

"Then who is behind this?" Sam shook the manila folder in his face, her
voice rising, "Who are the people that caused this?" She yelled, "I need
to know!"

"Why? So that you can do to them what they did to Jack?" The General
shouted back, "Captain, don't you think I know how you feel? That is not
the way to deal with this."

"You have no idea how I feel, Sir," Carter spat the words bitterly.

"Yes, I do, Captain," Hammond said flatly, "You seem to be forgetting, I
was the one who allowed this to happen. I am to blame for what they did
to him. I made the choice whether to follow orders or not. The guilt is
all mine."

"And that's why you have no idea how I feel!" Sam screamed at him
ferociously. "I had no choice! I couldn't leave the country! You forced
me to sit here and wait, when all the time they were.......," the words
caught in her throat and she could only glare at him wildly.

Carter flung the file at him and hurriedly left the room, reaching the
nearest seclusion of Colonel O'Neill's office, locking the door behind
her, before she broke down. Leaning against the wall, she sank to the
floor and hugged her knees to her chest, shuddering with unreleased
sobs, silent tears forming trails down her cheeks.

Alone in his office, General Hammond slumped shakily into his chair. His
determined voice rang loud in the sudden silence, "I'm going to find out
who did this, if it's my last act as commander of the SGC."

The decision made, Hammond lifted the handset of the bright red
telephone residing on the corner of the desk. With no preamble, he spoke
into the receiver, his grim voice leaving no room for negotiation, "I
must speak with the President immediately. It's a matter of national
security."

~~~~~~~~~~

Jack was still in Iraq, still living the nightmare, of that much he was
certain. Only somehow it seemed different, the colours were vivid, a
word he never thought he would use to describe the desert scenery or the
mud brick prison camp filled with the dirt ground faces of his wretched
companions. It was rare to see them lined up in front of the barracks,
an uneven row of defeated soldiers, and Jack wondered why he was not
with them, why fate had singled him out this day.

With a feeling of numb detachment, he watched two guards and an officer
approach, preparing to face his death bravely as reality intervened to
erase any dreams of release he might once have harboured. Reluctantly,
Jack tried to force himself to accept that he would never be reunited
with his family and he ached at the loss. To never again feel Sara's
touch on his skin, or the soft kiss of her lips, for even one more
fleeting moment before he died.

Smiling cruelly, the blond officer stepped up and handed him a gun, "One
bullet, two choices," he leered, signalling for his men to drag the
victim forward. "Her or you!" He held out a single .45 calibre cartridge
between his fingers, "A shot to the head!"

He called his men closer and one of the guards pressed the barrel of his
Kalashnikov against Jack's head. There was no way out. The man in charge
handed him the smoothly crafted shell and Jack held it between shaking
fingers, clutching the ancient Colt to his chest as he attempted to
eject the clip, dropping the fiddly cartridge on the sandy ground twice
before he successfully loaded it.

Finally, slotting the clip back into the weapon, Jack fought to retract
the bolt with his weak grip before raising his gaze, reluctantly
studying his target, staring into watery eyes. He saw a fleeting glimpse
of something other than fear, a recognition in her face, and he recalled
another lifetime, a bright young girl whose name now escaped him.

But Jack knew this could not possibly be her, she was just an
hallucination of a different life. A world apart, freedom of choice
beyond his imagination. Such a thing did not exist and could not be
trusted.

The girl mouthed a word, but he could no longer hear, his mind once more
overpowered with vivid sound and light. It was hard to concentrate, to
focus on his objective, but Jack knew what he had to do. He was never
going back in that box again, he couldn't take it anymore. He would not
survive another day in such terrifying confinement, of that he was
certain. And he had to survive, he had to see Sara and Charlie again, no
matter what happened. He didn't want to die, not yet, not until he had
seen them one more time. He would do whatever it took to keep himself
out of that box.

Jack released the safety, the left handed motion felt awkward,
unnatural, but it had been a long time since he held a weapon in his
hand. Slowly his finger depressed the trigger and he saw tears fall down
the victim's cheeks. And in that final moment as the weapon fired, a
name came to mind.

"Cassie!" Jack heard himself scream over the loud gunshot in his ears.
He saw his young friend topple to the ground, eyes closed, a look of
anguish on her face, her body lifeless. He heard laughter, cold,
malevolent, chilling him to the bone. And in that brief moment of
clarity, Jack knew what he had done. He knew that he had lost. He opened
his trembling grip and let the still smoking weapon slip from his
nerveless fingers.

For a second, he stared in shock at his nemesis. The Russian held a
filled hypodermic ready in his hand, in case the last dose had worn off
too soon to complete the game. But the timing had proved perfect,
Colonel O'Neill knew he had committed a terrible act. He was finished,
defeated, a broken man, pliable and ready to do whatever was asked.

Jack lunged at the leering smile, surprising the Russian with the force
of his furious attack, a drug strengthened rage. Hands gripped Dmitri's
throat, cutting off his windpipe, broken fingers sharing the effort with
apparent ease. His assailant unmindful of the pain.

The guards raised their weapons, hesitant to disobey orders not to kill
the captive yet. The Russian spluttered, gasping for air. He raised his
right hand, still gripping the hypodermic tightly, and plunged the
needle into the back of Jack's neck. Depressing the syringe to inject
the full dose, he felt the grip loosen, heard the gasp of horror, and
stepped away to watch his victim suffer.

O'Neill held his head in his hands in excruciating pain, a renewed
crescendo assaulting all his senses. As the Russian watched with a
satisfied smile, the American screamed in anguish, his face contorting
horribly, then he toppled to the floor and lay silent. His ragged
breathing slowed almost to a halt as he slipped into a deep unconscious
state.

"Damn!" Dmitri muttered to himself as he checked the faint pulse of the
Colonel. Now he would have to wait. He could not risk an injection of
adrenaline to awaken the man in this dangerously weakened condition, it
could kill him and then all his work would be for nothing. Well not all
for nothing, he'd still have some extremely pleasant memories, but that
would hardly improve his future career prospects.

"Well, patience is a virtue, my friend," he patted the arm of his victim
almost fondly. It had been a long time since he had enjoyed his work so
profoundly.

~~~~~~~~~~

Daniel was woken by a blood curdling scream. At first he thought he had
imagined it in the depths of his nightmare, but when he opened his eyes
he saw Janet had also been startled awake and was staring at the source.

Jack was tossing and turning in his sleep, the first unprovoked movement
either of them had seen. It ought to have been a good sign if it wasn't
for the fact that he was crying out, softer than his initial shriek, but
spoken with such pure anguish that it gripped Daniel's heart like a
vice. He knew instinctively that something was very wrong, even though
he couldn't figure out what.

"Cassie!" Jack repeated the single word over and over in a voice as
terrified as it was plaintive.

Janet gazed at the Colonel with frightened eyes, before turning to
Daniel. "I have to talk to her," she said insistently.

Daniel nodded, knowing exactly how she felt. He went over to his laptop
and was about to disconnect the modem to plug back in the telephone when
he stopped. Looking at his watch, he realised it had been three hours
since he sent the e-mail to Carter. "Let me check my mail first," he
said, "There might be a message from Sam. It'll only take a second."

Working quickly, he logged onto his server and downloaded new mail,
relieved to find a note from the Captain's personal id. He double
clicked to open it, absorbing the contents in stunned disbelief.

"No! That can't be right! She wouldn't do a thing like that!" A
strangled whisper behind him was Daniel's first indication that Janet
had been looking over his shoulder.

The message from Sam simply read, "Be advised, Cassie flew to Egypt,
arrived Cairo Saturday morning. Have you seen her?"

Daniel looked from the computer display to the bed where Jack had
settled again, sleeping quietly once more. "Oh God!" He said with a
feeling of dreadful certainty, his mind assuming the worst and this time
positive he was right, "I think Jack might have!"

Janet stared at him as he voiced her deepest fear. Slowly putting the
pieces together and recalling Jack murmuring Cassie's name in the hotel
room when she was tending to his head wound. She stepped towards the bed
and bent down beside the unconscious man, whispering in his ear, the
same way she had done in the hotel earlier, "Jack, wake up! I need to
know what happened to Cassie!" Desperation grew in her voice and she
placed a hand on his chest without thinking, shaking him, pleading
anxiously for him to reveal where her daughter was, "Jack, come on, wake
up. Talk to me. Where's Cassie?"

The painful motion caused Jack to begin mumbling again, speaking the
young girl's name over and over. Daniel gripped the doctor's arm,
"Janet, stop it! Let him go! This isn't helping."

The woman looked startled, suddenly aware that she was pressing hard
against Jack's bruised chest. She gasped, removing her fingers as if
burnt, stepping away from the bed in bewilderment, not knowing what to
do next as panic threatened to overwhelm her. Daniel stepped across and
turned her towards him, wrapping her tightly in his arms, "We'll find
her," he whispered reassuringly, "It'll be okay, we'll find her."

~~~~~~~~~~
 

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