A Vacation at Jack's Place

"This is the life," announced Colonel Jack O’Neill, leaning back in the row boat, Panama hat over his eyes and feet propped up on the side of the little craft. A slender fishing rod dangled over the side, his hands just barely keeping contact. No fish were biting, but that wasn’t the point; there were a few frozen steaks in the ice box back at the cabin for just that eventuality.

The lake itself wasn’t all that large—the shoreline could be seen in all directions—and from experience O’Neill knew that it wasn’t terribly deep as Minnesota lakes went. But the surrounding trees hid all the other cabins on the opposite shores, and the rest of the cabin-owners were just as chary of other people as he was, and all in all it made for a fine retreat from reality.

"Indeed," said the other inhabitant of the boat. Warm and expressive brown eyes surveyed his companion from underneath a similar Panama hat, only this hat covered a singular mark not found anywhere else on Earth. This was a rare trip outside the Cheyenne Mountain base for the Jaffa, and he intended to make the most of it. With no one else present Teal’c could have done without the disguise, but the Jaffa had not lived this long by being careless. The hat remained.

So instead he gloried in the sunshine, the fresh air that was not automatically tainted with the need for caution, enjoying the company of his friend and commander, the human O’Neill.

Teal’c also attempted to emulate the human, assuming his relaxed posture and placing his own feet upon the edges of the rowboat. The Jaffa did not see the benefit in attempting to capture piscine foodstuffs while in a reclining position but O’Neill had assured him that it was the best technique for this particular activity. Teal’c furthermore did not understand why O’Neill referred to the task as an ‘activity’ for little movement took place. Indeed, at one point Teal’c suspected O’Neill of having fallen asleep in the heat of the rising sun. O’Neill denied it vehemently, leading Teal’c to understand that falling asleep while ‘fishing’ was inappropriate. Or, at least, inappropriate to admit to.

"Think we ought’a head back?" O’Neill finally asked, glancing at his watch. "What time are Carter and Daniel supposed to get here?"

Teal’c looked up at the sky; the sun was slightly past its zenith. "They should arrive within a short period of time, O’Neill. I agree, to meet them at the cabin we should conclude our fishing expedition. I regret not being successful in the hunt."

"Wouldn’t say that," O’Neill mused. He pulled his feet back into the boat, sitting up and unlimbering the oars. "Don’t know about you, Teal’c, but I was out here to relax."

"Indeed." It was as Teal’c had suspected, that this so-called ‘activity’ was merely a ruse to appear productive while resting. Although pleased to be here with O’Neill, Teal’c was also slightly disappointed. He had looked forward to the contest of skill between himself and an indigenous species of his adopted home world. No matter; he would explain his dilemma to DanielJackson and MajorCarter, and one or both of them would assist him to successfully battle a fish. Cunning creatures, clearly; he wondered what other attributes they possessed with which to defend themselves, such as claws or teeth.

"Yeah, better head in," O’Neill decided. "I can set out the steaks to thaw and put a six-pack in the fridge." He snorted. "Knowing Carter, they’ll call when they’re an hour out to let us know where they are. Knowing Daniel, they’ll get lost despite Carter’s best efforts and get here in two." He set the oars into the locks and gave a lazy stroke.

* * *

Carter looked at the map, then at the meager excuse for civilization before them. She grinned. She could just bet that this was the way that the colonel liked it: few people, and even fewer that cared about progress. "This is the town Colonel O’Neill mentioned. It shouldn’t be too much farther."

Daniel looked at the gauges on the dashboard of the car they had rented at Duluth International, then at the strip of mom-and-pop businesses that dotted one side of the meandering roadway. How small is this town? It’s so small that they can’t afford to have stores on both sides of the street. "I’m going to pull in and get some gas. We’re down to a quarter of a tank, and getting stuck out here means walking a wee bit further than a mile to fill up a gas can. I can use a short break."

"Me, too," Carter agreed, running a hand through her short blonde hair. "Teal’c will have to wait a bit longer to get the Three Stooges tapes we packed. Cup of coffee?"

"Anytime," Daniel grinned. His addiction to caffeine was well-known and joked about. He pulled into the gas station, a diner down the street beckoning the pair with a tired sign proclaiming, ‘Eat at Charlene’s’.

The diner looked much as the sign did, mostly clean and certainly worn with use. There were five or six parties of two and three inside, a couple of singletons and one party of giggling teenagers trying to make two ice cream sodas last as long as possible. Carter and Daniel slid into a booth.

Carter eyed a menu, then her watch. "Lunch? It’s one o’clock."

"Anything, as long as coffee is part of it."

"Good. Order me the salad, French dressing, and I’ll be right back." Carter headed for the rest rooms. Daniel leaned back in the booth, stretching to get the stiffness out of muscles kept in the same position too long. Idly, he surveyed the patrons. The trucker types were easy to catalog: big and burly, trying to make time with the waitress who looked like she’d cut school to make tips. There was an elderly couple holding hands—cute, Daniel thought, reminds me of Catherine and Ernest—and a pair of dark-haired swarthy skinned men in the booth behind them.

They were speaking in another language, and Daniel tried not to eavesdrop. One of the Farsi dialects, he immediately identified, and turned away.

But a word caught his ear: bomb. Then, railroad depot. Daniel stopped trying not to eavesdrop and concentrated on listening and not getting caught. The pair clearly didn’t expect anyone to be able to understand Farsi, not in this tiny little hamlet in the middle of mid-western America, and Daniel would take advantage of their error.

"Two days," said the first quietly. "Then Ahmad will be in place. He will be able to place the bomb in the depot and be well away from it when we detonate. The infidels and their dog children will shriek and perish on that day. Allah is great!"

"Allah is great," the other echoed. "Does Ahmad know what to do?"

"If he does not, he will die with the infidels," came the answer. "We can mourn him as a martyr to the cause."

"First, finish your apple pie," the second man advised. "Then let us be on our way."

Daniel could hardly contain himself when Carter returned.

"Sam, without being noticed, I need you to memorize what the pair of men behind me look like," he directed quietly.

"Daniel?"

"Just do it, Sam," he said with some force, still just as quietly. "And get the license plate of their car."

Carter watched as the pair paid for their meal, got into their car and drove off. She turned back from the window. "Want to tell me what that was about?"

"Would you believe that I think we just saw a couple of terrorists?"

Carter’s shoulders drooped. "Here? In the middle of nowhere? Not possible, Daniel." Then she frowned. "Colonel O’Neill is right. You are a trouble magnet. You really heard them talking about blowing up a train station?"

"Wish I could say no. What’s next?"

"We notify the local police," Carter said. "This is their jurisdiction. If those two are planning some sort of terrorist activity, the police can call in the FBI. C’mon, let’s find the local precinct house. I’ll get the check; you bring the car around."

* * *

"They’re going to be late," O’Neill reported, sticking his cell phone back onto its charger and glaring at it as if the techno-toy were responsible for the problem. "It’s Daniel again."

Teal’c sat up swiftly. "He is unharmed?"

"Only until I get my hands on him. Only Daniel could find trouble on a road trip up to the most peaceful place on Earth." O’Neill filled him in. "I could’a been out fishing some more. I knew this was gonna happen. Can’t take ‘em anywhere, not Daniel, not Carter…" He eyed the refrigerator. "Think the beer is cold yet?"

* * *

"This is a very odd feeling," Daniel complained, walking into the building carefully labeled ‘Police Station.’ The massive bricks that made up the station were as worn down as the diner had been, but the front steps were swept and 90% of the debris had managed to make it inside the trash can thoughtfully placed out front. The large ashtray next to the trash was filled with both sand for dousing butts and a large quantity of burned out stubs. There were obviously a large number of smokers who frequented the police station. Daniel sneezed.

"What’s odd about it?"

"Turning this problem over to someone else," Daniel complained. "How often do we do that? I mean, usually we’re running from something, with Jack yelling ‘dial us home, Daniel’ at the top of his lungs. Seriously, Sam, when was the last time that we walked politely up to the local magistrate and said, ‘here, sir, with our compliments’?"

Samantha Carter stared at him, and broke into a grin. "Colonel O’Neill was right, Daniel. You truly need a vacation. I’m glad he made me drag you away from your office." She took his arm. "Now, let’s go inside and talk to the nice policeman and tell him all your troubles."

* * *

The interior of the police station was similar to the outside: clean but well-worn. Utilitarian metal desks created a multitude of islands in the large squad room with one computer for every two desks—local budgetary restraints at work—and a basket of papers graced every possible spot on each and every desk. The pair had been ushered into the sole office, thin walls having been erected a decade ago in a vain attempt to provide some aura of authority to be bestowed upon the chief of police. The rest of the authority, it was clear, had to be earned by the inhabitant of that office.

And he had.

"What are you, some kind of crank tourists?" Chief Holloway wanted to know. He leaned pudgy hands on the top of his desk, barely able to reach it beyond his extensive expanse of a belly. "Maybe you think it’s amusing to see what kind of joke you can play on a small town? Let me tell you, it won’t be very funny from in there." He jerked a fleshy thumb toward the prison cell on the other side of the large room. It was empty, except for a broken down copier that took up most of the free walking space inside the holding cell. And the dust.

"This is not a joke," Daniel said for what felt like the fiftieth time. "I overheard two men discussing a plan to blow up a nearby train station. If it’s a joke, it’s from them and not me."

Holloway glared at him. "How do you know what they said? You don’t look like no A-rab."

"It wasn’t Arabic, it was Farsi," Dr. Jackson corrected, trying to keep his impatience in check. "I have worked overseas, and I have a passing familiarity with several Middle Eastern languages. And I’m telling you that those men were discussing plans to blow up a train station. I’ve come to you as a good citizen, trying to prevent a terrorist plot. Are you going to listen to me or not?"

"You know what the federal government men do to people like you, son?" Holloway started to say when Carter broke in.

"I’ve had enough of this," she snapped. Daniel looked up in surprise; he rarely heard Carter with that tone in her voice, and it was easy to forget—with all of her degrees in the hard sciences—that Samantha Carter was also in the military. She flashed her identification in front of Holloway’s face, two inches from his nose. "Major Samantha Carter, United States Air Force, currently assigned to Cheyenne Mountain Air Force Base in Colorado. And I am telling you that if this man says he heard two men talking about a terrorist plot, then he did. At this point you have two choices: you can call in the FBI and look like the hero, or I will call them myself and expose you as the small town bumbling idiot that you are pretending to be. Which will it be?"

For the first time some doubt crossed Holloway’s face. He eyed Carter suspiciously, as if she’d suddenly turned into a rattler about to strike. For all he knew, she had. He leaned over and cautiously asked Daniel, "she for real?"

"Real enough to have flown fighter jets," Daniel said, wondering if it was true. He’d never flown with her, but from the way she talked and all the things he knew that she could do…

Another long moment lagged, while Holloway shifted his gaze from one to the other, then back again. The carefully rehearsed look of stupidity departed from his face. Then he tapped the intercom. "Jennie, get me the FBI." He leaned back again in his chair, the springs creaking in protest. "You folks better be right about this."

* * *

"You made it," O’Neill greeted them, taking Carter’s bag from her and relieving Daniel of his backpack, ushering the pair into the cabin. The sun had gone down long ago, and the crickets were filling the air with their symphony. Fireflies were the sole source of light outside of what was sliding out through the cabin windows around the curtains. "I was beginning to wonder. Daniel, what have you got in here? Bricks?"

"Books," Daniel responded. He trudged in past O’Neill, clearly worn out. The drive from the airport should have only taken three hours. The stopover in town had been more than twice that. Carter too was looking less chipper than usual, with an I’m-finished-dealing-with-idiots look on her face.

"Which you are so not going to look at," O’Neill told him. "This is a vacation, Daniel. Ever hear of that? Va-ca-tion," and he drawled out the word. "As in, no work. No reading, no translating, nothing but relaxation."

"Which I can really use about now." Daniel allowed Teal’c to relieve him of the rest of his luggage and dropped into an overstuffed chair in front of the cold fireplace. On a hot summer night like this, heat wasn’t needed. He looked around at the small cabin. It was furnished in Early O’Neill, with several similar overstuffed chairs, a tacky fake moose head over the fireplace wearing mouse-ears between its antlers and Ray-bans over its eyes, and a woven rug sitting squarely in front of the fireplace waiting for someone to sit on it when in need of additional warmth and comfort. In a better place the décor would have clashed. "This is nice."

"Thanks. It’s been in the family for years."

Carter looked up, startled. "I though you said you bought it a couple of years ago."

"I did. Three, to be exact. It’s been in the family for three years. You hungry?"

"Not after all that," Daniel grumbled. "The local police made us wait for the FBI and insisted on going over our story over and over until the FBI arrived. Then the FBI guys needed to hear the same thing a few dozen times. That’s what made us so late. You’d’ve thought that we were the terrorists instead of those men that I overheard." He sighed, and sank back further into the chair.

O’Neill handed the man a beer, not taking no for an answer, and offered the same to Carter. "Relax, kids. The worst is over. They always say that the drive is the worst part of the vacation."

"You got that part right." Daniel sipped at the brew, making a face. "Whew. This stuff always tastes incredibly bland after drinking the Abydonian version of ale."

"What can I say? It’s the best that Minnesota has to offer. The feds going to need the two of you any more?"

"Hopefully not," Carter said. "They’ve got all we had for them: descriptions, license plates, the works. That was the easy part. Finding those guys might be a bit harder."

"Better not," was O’Neill’s opinion. "There’s an enclave of them about two lakes over. They moved in about a year ago. Keep to themselves, but every now and again I hear them crashing through the bushes."

"Indeed," Teal’c agreed. "I heard them attempting to remain silent in the undergrowth just yesterday. They toddle about as loudly as children in need of toilet training."

"The local police know about them?" Daniel wanted to know.

O’Neill shrugged. "Haven’t the foggiest. Not my problem. When I’m up here, I’m off duty. If they get in my way, I’ll do something about it. Until then, let the local police earn their pay."

* * *

All right, so Carter in a bathing suit looked spectacular. Sure, the tank suit covered a fair amount of skin, but the long legs made up for it. O’Neill firmly squashed his un-military thoughts and tried to concentrate on anything but the sight of his second in command taking a shallow dive off the pier into the cold waters of Lake Menthawatha. Even being on vacation wouldn’t excuse that breach of military protocol.

And it didn’t help when Daniel commented, "beautiful."

O’Neill turned to glare, and had to choke down his words when Daniel blithely continued, "I’ve always admired really overgrown forests on a mountainside. I guess it’s because I grew up in the Egyptian desert. There’s just nothing like a wide expanse of tree after tree after tree. It’s really peaceful up here, Jack. Thanks for letting me come."

"We all needed the time off," O’Neill responded. There was no need to say more. Their last mission had been a hairy one, with O’Neill’s boots getting scorched on the soles as he dove head first through the Stargate. They’d been lucky to escape intact, although Carter was still disappointed that they hadn’t been able to bring home the souvenir fusion reactor that she wanted. She’d had to be satisfied with bringing home her own skin, was O’Neill’s retort.

Bad O’Neill! Bad! Mustn’t think about the lovely white skin, glistening with droplets of lake water, more droplets being shaken from short blonde locks. O’Neill swallowed hard and sternly commanded parts of himself to behave.

"I’m going for a dip," he said, pulling off his sweat-drenched tee shirt and hoping that the lake water was as cold as it looked. "Coming?"

Daniel looked longingly back at the house. "I should catch up on my journals…"

"Later," O’Neill told him firmly. "Swim. You need the exercise." Which wasn’t true, but hauling Daniel along beside him would look less obvious. "See? Teal’c knows how to relax."

Daniel looked doubtfully at the figure in the rowboat in the middle of the lake, feet planted on the side of the boat unwavering, fishing pole clenched firmly in two massive fists, determined to subdue the fearsome creature known as a ‘fish’. "Right, Jack." He glanced down the road that led away from the cabin with an almost guilty look. "I wonder if I should offer to help the FBI."

"Nope," O’Neill said, loudly and clearly and distinctly. "I repeat, this is a vacation. No work. All play. Why else are you wearing a pair of swim trunks? Besides, if you offer to help that will lead to unpleasant conversations about what you do for a living and then we’ll have to kill the entire town to keep the secret from getting out. That, or send them all to live on PX3-whatever."

But O’Neill’s plans were doomed to failure. Even as he spoke he heard the crunching sounds of a large and well-tuned engine pushing tires over gravel. A large black sedan, ill-suited to travel over dirt roads, inched into view and three business-suited men stepped out.

O’Neill closed his eyes briefly in an unspoken plea for patience. "Now would be a really good time for a swim while I get rid of your unwanted visitors, Daniel. Tell Carter to start swimming toward Teal’c. He can pick you both up in the middle of the lake."

"Don’t be ridiculous, Jack. They’ll just come after us."

"In those three piece, double breasted suits? I don’t think so, Daniel."

"They’ll wait until we come back," Daniel said in exasperation. "I’ll see what they want, they’ll leave with or without it, and we won’t see them again."

O’Neill grunted disgustedly. "All because you had to go listening in on a private conversation. Didn’t anyone ever teach you not to eavesdrop?"

"Sure, but hanging around you cured me of it."

The three men approached along the dirt path, gravel grating beneath expensive shoes not made for anything rougher than marble tile, eyeing one man to the other, not knowing which one to address or which one they had been sent to fetch. The older one cleared his throat, and settled on O’Neill in desperation. "Dr. Jackson?"

"I’m Dr. Jackson." Daniel stepped forward, hand outstretched, seemingly unaffected by the disparity in clothing. "What can I do for you?"

The man’s instant of puzzlement turned into urbane good manners, also ignoring the fact that Daniel was clad in trunks, hat, and sandals, and nothing else. "Good afternoon, Dr. Jackson. I’m Special Agent Turner, with the FBI. I understand that you’re the man who heard the terrorists yesterday?"

"I overheard two men speaking about blowing up a train station yesterday," Daniel corrected. "I’m not about to call them terrorists. They could have been discussing the latest best-selling novel."

Turner dismissed that proviso. "The point is, you heard and understood them. Dr. Jackson, your country needs you. Will you help us with these terrorists?"

"His country has already been using him for a good long time now," O’Neill butted in. "In fact, he’s here right now because his country has over-used him, and he needs a rest. A vacation; ever hear of that?"

Turner ignored O’Neill. "Dr. Jackson, your country needs you to come down to the precinct house. We have some tapes that we’d like you to listen to."

O’Neill wasn’t about to be pushed aside. "Country-western, or classical? Why do you need Daniel? Your people told him yesterday that you had your own interpreter flying in."

Turner finally deigned to acknowledge O’Neill. "I don’t see that this is any of your business, Mr….?"

"Colonel," O’Neill corrected frostily, marking his territory. "Colonel O’Neill, Air Force. And Dr. Jackson is attached to my unit, which makes this my business, Special Agent Turner."

To his credit, Turner backed down but only part way. "We require Dr. Jackson’s services, Colonel O’Neill. I apologize for the intrusion on your leave time but we have taped conversations that require translating immediately."

O’Neill wasn’t about to give in. "I thought you had a translator coming with you."

"It’s not any Arabic dialect that I’ve ever heard," one of the other men broke in, the young-looking one. O’Neill hid a grin. The kid looked barely old enough to shave the golden peach fuzz off of his face. "I can’t figure out what they’re saying."

Daniel too kept the smile off of his face. "That’s because it’s not Arabic. It’s Farsi, an entirely different language spoken higher up in the Crescent. Where did you learn Arabic?"

"At the Bureau," the kid said proudly. "I know three different dialects. And I’m working on a fourth," he added.

"That’s nice," O’Neill said, trying to keep the sarcasm out of his voice. "So, bottom line, you brought the wrong man for the job, is that it, Turner?"

Turner had the grace to flush. Rallying, he turned back to Daniel. "Will you come with us, Dr. Jackson?"

Daniel sighed. "Let me change first."

"Daniel—"

"Jack, we might as well get it over with. It’ll take another day to get somebody out from Washington to translate, and if those people are terrorists we may not have that kind of time. I’ll go, listen to a few tapes, and be back within a few hours. Keep dinner warm for me. I like my steaks well-done."

The third agent spoke up. "Don’t think that your friend out there will catch any fish?"

O’Neill had had enough. "We come prepared for life’s little disappointments. You had to ask for help." He crossed his arms. "Have Daniel back by dark, or I’ll come after him."

* * *

Teal’c pulled the boat back in to the pier after the three federal agents had departed, Daniel in tow. He stared after the retreating cars, following their passage down the dirt road down the mountainside, features impassive. "What has transpired, O’Neill?"

"Federal screw up," O’Neill told him, "again." He helped Teal’c tug the boat higher on the shoreline, snapping the line onto the bow. "Daniel’ll be back in a few hours."

"Indeed." Teal’c’s own doubt was reflected from O’Neill’s tones.

Carter too padded up, dripping lake water and toweling her hair. "Where’s Daniel going?"

"Into town," O’Neill said again.

"No translator?"

"Wrong type. Wrong language."

Carter frowned. "More than one way to screw up communication. When’s he getting back? Or shouldn’t I ask?"

"Not gonna be too late, or someone’s gonna be an unhappy camper." O’Neill glared off in the direction of the two cars heading down the slope. He’d insisted that Daniel take his own vehicle, so as not to be at the mercy of any government types. He wouldn’t put it past Special Agent Turner to somehow not be able to spare a driver until this mess was over with. Which meant that Daniel could be stuck there translating an interrogation while he ought to be relaxing on vacation.

O’Neill didn’t take kindly to other SG teams borrowing his civilian, and looked even less favorably on outside agencies trying to do the same. The man needed a vacation as much as any of the rest of his teammates, and O’Neill was determined to force Daniel into it no matter what. The world could be coming to an end, for all he cared, but Daniel Jackson would spend several hours on top of Lake Menthawatha or Mrs. O’Neill’s little boy would know the reason why. "C’mon," he told Carter and Teal’c. "We’ve got some fish to catch for dinner."

* * *

Was I ever that young and stupid?

Daniel Jackson was no stranger to youthful idealism, but Agent Fiedler put him to shame. Within ten minutes Jackson knew that Fiedler had graduated in the middle of his class from one of the various campuses of the University of New York with a degree in political science, had found no work related to his major, but was fortunate enough to get a job with a translating firm because he had three semesters of French and one in Russian. From there, he confided to Jackson, it was an easy transition to the FBI who had sent him back to school to learn Arabic. Did Dr. Jackson also speak Arabic? Great; would Dr. Jackson mind conducting the conversation in Arabic, so that Agent Fiedler could practice?

After all of three minutes, Daniel regretted saying yes. The kid’s accent was bad enough that it was painful—his Brooklyn accent grated against the flowery phrases. Daniel hoped that the kid didn’t notice all the wincing he was doing.

"Ever been to that museum in New York, the one with the Egyptian exhibit?" Fiedler babbled. "I went last year. It was pretty interesting. Dedicated to some old archeologists about twenty years ago. They died getting it over here, the plaque said. You ever take the time to see it? Looks pretty neat."

"I’ve seen it." Daniel tried not to sound short. I’ve seen it over and over in my nightmares, the heavy stone slab crashing down on top of my parents. I was all of eight.

"Anyways, that was when I decided that I wanted to become an archeologist," Fiedler confided.

If I say anything, it will only encourage him.

"How long have you been with the Bureau?" Jackson asked, changing the subject.

"Two years," Fiedler said proudly. "They had a job fair, so I applied."

Good. I’d hate to think that my government actively sought your help.

"I’ve been working on the Middle East stuff," Fiedler told him. "I’ve got Montana and both Dakotas to monitor as well as Minnesota. I translate for all the underground cells in these parts."

Hotbeds of terrorist activity, all of them. Right.

"How about you? Where’d you learn to speak Arabic?"

"I grew up in Egypt," Daniel said easily. "Picked up a little here and there." Won’t tell this kid about Abdullah, who scandalized my mother by teaching me how to pick pockets. Or Youssef, who was herding camels before age seven. He changed the subject yet again. "How far has Turner gotten with the suspects?"

"Not very," Fiedler replied, not realizing that Turner would have sent him back to the home office for discussing the case with an ‘outsider’. "The license plate that Mrs. Carter gave us is registered to someone on the ‘watch but do not apprehend’ list from out of state but Chief Holloway said that the car was headed up to that bunch of crazies in the back woods. He got the local judge to issue a wire tap—never would’ve gotten it in a municipal Duluth court, that’s one for the boonies—and we got a lot of tapes of stuff that I’ve never heard before. We figured it was that stuff that you and the wife heard on your way through town."

"Ah…" Daniel tried to figure out how to phrase it delicately. He settled for shifting back into English. "You do realize that it’s Major Carter, not Mrs.?"

"Oh, that’s what the M stands for. I didn’t realize. She’s a major? I thought she was that colonel guy’s wife. You know, some women aren’t changing their names anymore when they get married."

"So I’ve heard," Daniel said wryly.

"How about you? You’re attached to the Air Force as a civilian? What do you do there? Why does the Air Force need an archeologist? I mean, that doesn’t make a whole lot of sense, does it?"

Daniel temporized by saying, "I do something like what you do. I translate stuff." Things that are written in Goa’uld, and Ancient, and stuff written by the Asgard, among others.

"Yeah, but mine is classified." Fiedler tried to puff out his chest. "A terrorist even tried to kill my old boss once, a year ago. We caught him red-handed, and even during the interrogation the guy jumped up and tried to strangle Gary."

"Pretty scary." Now if the terrorist had been an Unas… "Hey, what’s up ahead?" Daniel took his foot off of the gas.

The car ahead of them, the black sedan with Special Agent Turner and the other who hadn’t identified himself, was weaving back and forth. They could see Turner hauling frantically at the steering wheel, trying to keep the car from plunging down the incline. There was a sharp retort, and Daniel realized what was going on.

"Someone’s shooting at us! Get down!"

Fiedler didn’t need a second invitation. He ducked beneath the dash as far as the seat belt would let him. Daniel clutched the wheel, watching as the black sedan slewed around and wrapped itself around a tree.

Another shot, and Daniel’s rental car bucked. The tire, he realized. They’ve shot it out. He fought the steering wheel, trying to keep the wildly bucking car on the dirt road, trying to prevent it from tipping over the side into the ravine below.

The windshield shattered; another round had taken it out. Daniel flinched, throwing up an arm to protect his eyes from the glass shrapnel. Fiedler screeched in terror, the sound lost when the little rental knocked against a tree too big for it to crush. Branches whipped into Daniel’s face through the broken windshield.

Then there was the sickening sensation of free fall. Daniel had experienced it only once, one time caught on a Goa’uld mother ship in mid-destruct sequence, but the feeling was unmistakable. The little car teetered on the edge, then tipped over. The ravine beckoned. The river in the ravine called.

* * *

Teal’c was presiding over the grill, baseball cap firmly over his head to cover his emblem of shame. The largest fish caught was his, and he claimed the honor of cleaning and cooking it. Both O’Neill and Carter graciously allowed him to proceed, even bestowing the three others that they had caught upon him for additional glory. O’Neill pulled a bottom of lemon mustard marinade out for Teal’c to experiment with, then left the Jaffa to his task though not without his doubts.

O’Neill lounged on the deck, feet up on the rail, Carter beside him in a hammock, both looking out over the lake. He glanced at his watch, then at the sky. They both said the same thing. O’Neill put it into words: "Daniel should be getting back soon. It’s almost dark."

"You know Daniel," Carter offered, "always forgetting the time. They probably had several tapes that they needed him to listen to."

"Not an excuse," O’Neill grumbled, then brightened. "That him? I hear a car coming up the dirt." He frowned again. "That doesn’t look like the rental. Didn’t you two get a little compact job?"

"Not my choice," Carter said quickly. "Daniel’s name is on the rental agreement."

"Yeah." O’Neill continued to look down the road. "Whatever. But it wasn’t a black Ford Taurus, was it?"

"No, sir. It was a little Chevy something." Now Carter sat up. "What happened? Why isn’t Daniel driving the rental? Why isn’t that Daniel?"

"We’re about to find out." O’Neill kept his tone mild. "But it had better not be an FBI agent coming to tell me that Daniel’s spending another day or two in town. If they are, that sedan should morph into a tank. One with a rocket launcher in the turret. They’re going to need it."

Carter didn’t envy the two men who approached the cabin. Like the previous set, they were dressed in business suits, and Carter spotted carefully crafted leather holsters each loaded with a sleek dark pistol under their arm. But there the similarity to the previous agents ended. These were upper level agents, possibly the ones in charge of this case. But Daniel wasn’t with them, and O’Neill had had lots of experience in dealing with upper class government officials of many different governments both on and off world. Carter steeled herself. This wouldn’t move into a fight, not a physical one, but words would be exchanged and they wouldn’t be pleasant.

This pair had been better briefed on the personnel they were dealing with, or so it seemed. They glanced from O’Neill to Carter to Teal’c, clearly understanding who was the senior officer but uncertain as to who Teal’c was. Their briefing hadn’t extended that far, and Carter would have been surprised if it had. The gray-haired one cleared his throat. "Major Carter?"

"Can I help you gentlemen?"

"Special Agent Frauhoffer, Agent Micaletti, FBI." The feds didn’t offer to shake hands. Frauhoffer turned to O’Neill. "And you are—?" Just to make certain.

"Colonel O’Neill, USAF," O’Neill replied, allowing a hint of irritation to leak through. "Where’s Dr. Jackson?"

"We’d like to ask you the same thing," Frauhoffer said grimly. "None of our people arrived back in town."

A cold feeling seeped into Carter. "What do you mean? They left here hours ago."

"Did they?" Frauhoffer challenged. "We have only your word for that, Major. What kind of stunt are you pulling, first coming up with this wild tail of terrorists in the wilderness and then federal agents disappear without a trace after coming to speak with your partner. I think you’d better come into town with us. We have a few more questions for you. As well as a little fingerprinting, to make sure you are who you say you are."

"What?" Carter couldn’t believe what she was hearing.

"Hold on," O’Neill said, frost covering each and every word. "You’d better explain that, Frauhoffer."

"I don’t need to, O’Neill. This is my jurisdiction. Federal agents are missing, and they went missing after coming up here. Hold it!" Frauhoffer snarled. Both he and Micaletti drew their weapons, aiming them at Teal’c who was advancing on them with annoyance in every step. "I said, stop right there or I’ll shoot!"

"Back off, T," O’Neill said, cooling himself down. "Frauhoffer, I strongly recommend that you put those popguns away. If you shoot, you’ll only make him angry."

"Tell him to stand down." Frauhoffer didn’t budge.

"Keep cool, T. These boys aren’t the ones who took Daniel. I think." O’Neill looked back at the federal agents, deliberately folding his arms. "He’s unarmed, Frauhoffer. Going to shoot an unarmed man? Even your bosses won’t be able to cover that one up. Especially when at the top we all have the same boss." He held his hands up in the air, to show that he himself was unarmed as well. "We are now going to clear this up and get down to business. Take out your cell phone, check to see that you can get reception around here, and dial this number." O’Neill recited a number he knew by heart. "Ask to speak to General Hammond. And if you don’t believe me, call your superiors and have them get in touch with him. But if you don’t use the direct line that I just gave you, it’ll take you all night. And I have no intention of waiting that long to go after my man." He gestured to the door of the cabin. "I’m going to go inside to begin dinner preparations and to wait. And after you finish hearing how stupid you were from your bosses for annoying me, I am going to go look for Dr. Jackson. Oh, and don’t take too long. Much more than an hour, and I’m going to go without you. And if you get in my way, you will regret it. Have I made myself understood?"

* * *

The seatbelt failed. Daniel knew that because he had sailed headfirst through the broken windshield, bounced several times, and rolled to a stop on the ground next to Turner’s previously pristine sedan.

Both Turner and the un-named agent were dead. No one could survive for more than seconds with a neck at that angle. Daniel pulled himself up hand over hand and peered inside the sedan to make that gruesome discovery.

No time for more. Whoever was shooting at them was likely to be on their way down the slope to investigate and to make certain of any survivors. Speaking of which, Daniel needed to check on young Agent Fiedler. He staggered away from the sedan, hoping that the suspiciously jiggly feeling inside his chest wasn’t anything serious. Even if it was, it would have to wait for a better time to be dealt with.

He found Fiedler in the ruined hulk of the rental car, still jammed down underneath the dash where he hid to avoid the bullets. The kid was only semi-conscious—lucky bastard!—and moaned in response to Daniel’s calls.

"You’ve…got to…get out…of…there," Daniel panted. He pulled at the door handle. It was stuck, the dent in the side freezing the locking mechanism in place. "Dammit, Fiedler, give me a hand here! I’m trying to save your life!" Something broken jabbed into his side, sending him to his knees. He refused to look, fearing that the broken part was internal and not a branch cracked by the headlong plunge of the rental car.

Fiedler wiggled out from under the dash, whimpering. He banged helplessly at the door. "Get me out! Get me out! The car’s going to blow up!"

"That’s only in badly written movies," Daniel snarled, his patience gone. "But those gunmen are up on the hill, and they really will be coming down to kill us if you don’t get moving!" He steeled himself. A mighty yank accompanied by an involuntary moan—how and when did I land on the dirt?—and Fiedler was out of the car. But—

"I can’t see!" was Fiedler’s next despairing cry.

Daniel felt like crying with him. To his shame, he even considered leaving him behind. Colonel Manheim of SG-12 would have; would have considered it from the strategic point of view, to cut his losses and get out with as little damage as possible with the intent of sending back help. But leaving people behind, even as miserable an excuse for a human being as Fiedler was, was not in Daniel’s make up. Fiedler should have known the risks of his job—and did, to hear him tell it—but that was a far cry from a kid facing death for the first time in his young life.

"C’mon," he said roughly, suppressing the urge to whimper himself. Daniel used the car to haul himself into an upright position. "Hang onto me. We’ve got to get away from here as quickly as possible."

* * *

"You have twelve hours to solve this, Frauhoffer," O’Neill said, making a point of checking his watch. "That gives you until first thing tomorrow morning. I will be calling my superiors to let them know what I already know: that you are thoroughly out-classed by a cell of outcast terrorists so stupid that their superiors stationed them out in the middle of nowhere. As soon as I make that call, a platoon of highly motivated and enthusiastic Air Force Special Ops are going to descend on this sleepy town and give it a thorough wake-up call. And the only reason is will take twelve hours is because they have to fill out the damn paperwork to requisition a car to drive up here after they requisition a jet to land at the nearest air force base. But if I find something that I find alarming, Agent Frauhoffer, then the call I make will be a little more pungent, in which case the Special Ops squad is going to use the requisition paperwork for target practice and parachute their way down in a matter of minutes. Do I make myself clear?"

Frauhoffer didn’t look happy, and his five o’clock shadow was working on nine PM. "Dr. Jackson is that important?"

"Dr. Jackson is that important," O’Neill affirmed. "In fact, he’s so important that I’m not going to wait for tomorrow morning to begin my own search. I’m going to start right now, and you’re going to give me what you’ve got. Talk."

"This is my investigation—"

"And my man is missing, after yours took him away. I know my team, Special Agent Frauhoffer. How well do you know yours?"

"Special Agent Turner comes with a fine record—"

"Translation: you’ve never met him before in your life. For all you know, he could be a secret member of the little cult in the woods a few miles away across the lake." O’Neill could have made it much more cutting. But he was just getting started. Carter estimated that the really good stuff wouldn’t flow until close to the morning. "How many field operations in the back country have you conducted?"

"I’ve been with the FBI for over six years—"

O’Neill cut him off. "That’s not what I asked, which means you don’t have much of a record. You’ve handled investigations in cities where there are stoolies and teams of forensic specialists to tell you what to do." He uncrossed his arms to point a finger at Frauhoffer. "Here’s what’s going to happen. You and your team are going to scour the roads between here and town, and you are going to find out where and how and who took out a crack team"—the sarcasm flowed a little more heavily—"of FBI agents and one national treasure."

"And what are you going to be doing?" Frauhoffer asked, outclassed and knowing it and resenting it.

O’Neill looked over at Carter, who didn’t know whether to smile at O’Neill’s tactics or bite her lip with worry. "You remember, Major, when I said that as long as that group across the lake didn’t bother me, that I wasn’t about to bother them?"

"Yes, sir."

"They are now bothering me."

* * *

Fiedler fell for what seemed like the one hundredth time. The only good part about it was that the kid was able to pick himself up, because Daniel himself was having difficulty staying on his feet. And if Daniel went down, he wasn’t certain that getting up was within his abilities.

Night had recently fallen, which meant that it was now somewhere in the vicinity of ten o’clock at night. Fiedler’s sight had not returned. Daniel had washed away some of the blood on the kid’s forehead when they forded the stream a while back, and more blood had oozed out to form a ragged-looking covering on a nasty gash. Daniel seriously wished for some medical attention for Fiedler; it didn’t take a brain surgeon to tell that the head wound was affecting the kid’s vision. Daniel devoutly hoped that it wasn’t permanent, and that medical care could fix what was wrong. And he wouldn’t mind some of that medical care for himself, someone armed with some heavy duty pain-killers. The stitch in his side was rapidly turning from a slender needle to a heavy duty power drill.

Their pursuers were gaining on them. Daniel had put a fair distance between them in their first frantic flight from the smashed vehicles but between his own injuries and Fiedler’s loss of vision, that space was closing. Every tree that they passed seemed to have it in for Daniel, whipping back a branch to hit him in the face or whatever bruise was closest. Little gullies in the trail they were following shifted over to either catch his foot or grab Fiedler’s, sending the kid careening into him. And Daniel was certain that the pair sounded like a pair of rampaging elephants. Teal’c would be ashamed, Daniel thought. All the work he did, trying to teach me to move silently in the brush.

This couldn’t go on. All too soon the terrorists would catch up with them, and it would be the end of one very young FBI agent and one hapless civilian archeologist, recently attached to the Air Force. O’Neill’s voice floated annoyingly through his mind: what’sa matter, Daniel? Giving up already?

Yeah, Jack, it would be a lot easier to simply lie down and let them shoot me.

But there were texts still left to be translated back in his office in Cheyenne Mountain, and new worlds to explore, and people to meet. And, illogical as it sounded, he didn’t think he could look Jack O’Neill in the face if he took the easy way out. Easy had never been the Jackson technique.

Plan A—lose ‘em—wasn’t particularly effective. Time to move on to Plan B. Daniel spotted what he was looking for: a thick set of bushes. He guided Fiedler to them.

"Crawl under there and keep quiet," he ordered in a harsh whisper.

"But they’ll find me. They’ll shoot me."

"Not if you keep quiet."

"But how will I get out of here?"

"Just keep quiet for at least two hours," Daniel told him, "then crawl up hill. There’s a road up there. You’ll feel it with your hands."

"But how will I know which way to go? How will I know when two hours is up?"

"Would you rather stay here with me and get shot?" It came out more harshly than Daniel had intended. The kid’s face fell. Daniel relented. "I’m going to draw them away from you. After you hear them pass, wait at least another half an hour, then go up to the road. Hopefully by now your people and mine are looking for us. If we’re lucky, they’ll find us before our friends with the pistols do." Daniel tried to put hope into his voice. "Just keep quiet. I’ve been in lots of situations like this. It’ll all work out."

"You’ve been in spots like this? You’re an archeologist."

"Yeah, it’s pretty amazing what can happen when you study old civilizations. We’ll be laughing about this in another week." I hope.

* * *

O’Neill dumped another unconscious body onto the rapidly growing pile behind the woodshed. He wiped his hand across the camouflage colored kerchief that he tied over silver hair, knowing that the black dirt he’d rubbed across his face made him difficult to see in the deteriorating light. He deliberately ignored Frauhoffer’s wide-eyed stare. "Any of ‘em move?"

Audible gulp. "No, sir."

O’Neill had reluctantly allowed Special Agent Frauhoffer to accompany him to the camp across the lake. There really wasn’t a better option: he’d sent Carter and Teal’c to canvas the road along with the federal agents, to see if they could track down where the terrorists had taken out the mini-convoy—Teal’c to do the tracking, and Carter to keep the Jaffa from collecting too many wondering stares. Frauhoffer’s team might not be up to O’Neill’s standards, but that didn’t mean that they were stupid. A gaff here, a mistake there, and Teal’c would be facing an inquiring public and O’Neill a highly annoyed General Hammond.

But that didn’t mean that O’Neill was about to trust Frauhoffer on his six. Better not to rely on anyone than to rely on a leg likely to break. So he put Frauhoffer in charge of the terrorists that he took down, to keep them quiet and to keep everyone out of his way as he went about the chore of taking out the terrorist camp that was causing all the trouble.

It wasn’t a tough task, at least not at first. O’Neill took them through the barbed wire fence with barely a pause to cut the wires. The sentry he took out next, tying the man up and selecting the woodshed as the place to dump him, with Frauhoffer assigned to guard the terrorists as the heap of bodies grew larger. O’Neill doubted that the silencer on the federal gun was standard issue, and his opinion of Special Agent Frauhoffer rose just slightly. Frauhoffer’s own opinion of O’Neill, the colonel suspected, had risen substantially.

A quick scan of the compound was next: twelve men, two women, no dogs. O’Neill smiled tightly to himself. No dogs to bark made his life easier. But also no Daniel or any sign of the three federal agents who had also gone missing. Likewise worrisome was the fact that the camp appeared to hold some four other people of whom there was no sign.

There was, however, a table filled with plans. Some of it O’Neill could understand. He had learned a great deal about simple and straightforward explosives, and he could read the chart with the various wires and electrical impulses leading to a black box which presumably went boom in response to the appropriate stimuli. The flowing script around it was more daunting, but O’Neill had no doubt but that Daniel could read it without blinking. Hence the need for the terrorists to eliminate him. It made sense.

Which brought up another concern, one that had been niggling at him ever since Frauhoffer had arrived on his doorstep: how had the terrorists known about Daniel in the first place? Second, how had the terrorists known when and where to take Daniel and his escort down? Both suggested a mole somewhere in the works and since O’Neill was completely confident in the security of his own team, that left only the federal agents as suspects. Okay, maybe one of the locals, but since the feds were treating the locals only slightly better than the SGC…

Well, Frauhoffer hadn’t tried to shoot him in the back, so that gave the Special Agent a mark on the plus side. O’Neill confiscated the plans to show to Frauhoffer.

Frauhoffer had as much training in explosives as O’Neill. His eyes widened when O’Neill unrolled the documents, and he swallowed hard. "When they sent me out here, Colonel O’Neill, this was supposed to be another false alarm by overly concerned citizens. A nice, simple, straight-forward mission where we pat the locals on the head, thank the responsible tourists for being so patriotic, and go home to collect another paycheck."

O’Neill gave a tight, sympathetic smile. "Instead, you’ve got three missing agents, a missing civilian, and blueprints for a bomb that will take out the train station as well as half of Duluth. Assuming that’s where the terrorists are headed."

Frauhoffer snorted, and grinned gamely. "You forgot to mention running up against a pissed off team of Air Force Special Ops on vacation." He gestured at the still unconscious men on the ground. "I’ve already called Washington for back up, colonel, but in the meantime I’d appreciate any help you and your people could offer. My investigation is your investigation."

* * *

Cold and wet. That wasn’t a new sensation for Daniel Jackson but he still didn’t like it. After hiding Fiedler in the brush, he’d taken off at as fast a clip as he could manage, trying to put as much distance between himself and the terrorists as he could.

Hiding his trail was also not in the game plan. He wanted to lead the terrorists away from the young federal agent, so he made certain that there were a lot of tracks for them to see even at night. The shout that came out when he slipped and rolled down a slope into the shallow creek below wasn’t intended, but certainly didn’t hurt.

Yes, it did. It hurt like hell, waking up the stitch in his side. Daniel spent a precious few moments writhing on the ground, praying for the pain to go away before the terrorists arrived.

Prayers answered. He crept gingerly to his feet, vowing not to fall down again, and scuttled away into the night.

* * *

"Here." Teal’c rose smoothly from where he had examined the ground. Carter could hear the contempt in the Jaffa’s voice as he continued, though the federal agents were oblivious to the tones as they had been to the evidence that they’d driven past several times. "Even in the dark, the markings are clear. The lead car containing Turner and the other one was struck here, swerved to strike this tree, and stopped. The second car likewise was struck, the tires damaged, and it plunged over the forest edge into this ravine. The attackers approached, examined the car below from this vantage point, then pushed the lead car over the edge as well. I will investigate the ravine," he said, tension putting a knife edge to his voice. "Major Carter, will you accompany me?"

"Undomesticated equines," Carter murmured, holding onto a slender sapling to start her descent. "Lead on. Are they down there?"

"I’ll lead," Micaletti said. "This is a federal investigation."

"Then hustle it up, Micaletti," Carter snapped. "They could be hurt down there, or dying."

"Doubtful, Major Carter." Teal’c sounded as unperturbed as ever despite the seriousness of the matter. "The attackers also descended this route. They would have dealt with any survivors. After this much of a delay," and he paused to glare balefully at Special Agent Micaletti, "there will be no one to rescue. Only bodies to recover."

They found the two dead federal agents still in their ruined car. The FBI doctor that Micaletti had brought along—"forensics," he’d explained—opined that both had been killed instantly in the crash.

"So where’s Fiedler and your man?" Micaletti asked rhetorically, annoyance in every syllable.

Teal’c did not recognize the statement as rhetorical. "Unknown. However, it does not appear that the miscreants apprehended them. I see blood here and here, tracked over by footprints. The likely scenario is that both DanielJackson and AgentFiedler extricated themselves from the rental car and fled on foot. The terrorists descended as we did, observed that they had been successful with the other two agents, and are currently pursuing their quarry." Teal’c gazed off into the distance, seeing little but hearing much. "I believe they went in that direction."

"You hear them?" asked Micaletti.

"No. But both I and Colonel O’Neill have taught DanielJackson to go downstream when attempting to avoid capture. In addition, the patterns of the sounds of the insects at night are consistent with the passage of several large creatures not long ago. From both facts I surmise that DanielJackson and AgentFiedler have traveled in that direction." Teal’c pointed down stream. "Therefore I shall also go in that direction."

But there was a shout from up above. "Agent Micaletti! Agent Micaletti!"

"Now what?" Micaletti pulled out his cell to talk to the agents left up on the road. "Micaletti. This better be good."

"Breakthrough, Micaletti. Duluth International Airport security spotted the pair that the Air Force guys saw, recognized ‘em from the pictures we’ve been floating around. They’re holding them at the airport. They’re calling for a positive ID."

Micaletti cursed. "Damn. We were supposed to have Jackson back at the local police precinct by now. He could’ve identified the terrorists, then we could have sweated the location of the bomb out of ‘em." He focused on the distaff member of SG-1. "Major Carter, you’re the only other person who knows what they look like. I need you to go to the airport. Schneider will take you."

Carter frowned but pulled out her own cell, knowing that O’Neill had turned his off while infiltrating the terrorist camp. She filled him in on voice mail, letting him know that Teal’c was on his own among the federal agents looking for Daniel. O’Neill would read between the lines, would return as soon as humanly possible. Leaving Teal’c alone among these suspicious men was not a good idea, but turning Micaletti down on his high-handed demand for her to identify the men at the airport was worse, not to mention hard on the train depot the terrorists were planning to bomb. They would have to let things play out and hope for the best. She gave Teal’c a meaning-filled look before allowing one of Micaletti’s people to escort her away. Low profile, Teal’c.

Teal’c inclined his head in acknowledgment, watching her go with misgivings. He had had no chance to discuss his own concerns with her, but Teal’c was convinced that there was a traitor among the federal agents. There was nothing he could put a finger on—to borrow the Tau’re phrase—nothing that he could point to as evidence that he was correct, but this splitting of his team was dangerous.

However, as MajorCarter had pointed out, there was no better option. ColonelO’Neill was a capable warrior, as was MajorCarter. And as for DanielJackson, he had proven himself on many occasions, to the dismay of his enemies. Teal’c would persevere, and O’Neill would return shortly to assist him in his search for the missing archeologist. Given the man’s history as a survivor, Teal’c was convinced that he would eventually find his comrade. Teal’c returned to his perusal of the trail left by DanielJackson and the terrorists.

* * *

"That’s all of ‘em." O’Neill dumped the last terrorist into the pile. "Are the locals on the way?"

"They had to call in the day shift to help out, but ninety percent of the force is on their way here," Frauhoffer reported, "all six of them. They left Chief Holloway to hold down the fort."

"Good. They can take possession of the three crates of automatic weapons in the far bunk house," O’Neill said. "There’s another crate of grenades as well, and I didn’t bother going into any of the other boxes. They’re not going anywhere. Illegal possession of firearms will be enough for now if charges are needed. Hear anything from the search party?" Which was what O’Neill really wanted to know about.

"Nothing. We’ll join them as soon as the locals arrive to take over." Frauhoffer unrolled the plans to the bomb that O’Neill found. "Have you ever seen writing like that? Must be that Farsi stuff that Dr. Jackson was talking about."

"Um." The scribblings on the plans for the bomb looked unnervingly familiar, as though O’Neill had seen it before, and not in the too distant past. I’ve been hanging around Daniel too much, O’Neill thought. Next thing you know, he’ll be teaching me to read Goa’uld. He pulled out his cell phone to call Carter and saw the little envelope I’ve-got-a-message sign in the corner. He dialed in.

"Colonel, Carter here. No luck yet finding Daniel and Fiedler, but Teal’c’s tracking them right now, and he says the trail is pretty hot, not more than a couple of hours ahead of us. Duluth International has picked up a couple of men they say fit the description of the terrorists that Daniel and I overheard, so I’m going to ID them now before they can get to the train station from the airport. If we can stop them before they have a chance to plant the bomb we’ll prevent a lot of misery. I’m giving Teal’c my cell so that you can contact him. The feds are escorting me to the airport; you can get hold of me through them. Carter out."

O’Neill felt a cold seep into his gut. There was no doubt that what Carter did was the right thing—aside from Daniel, she was the only person who could identify the pair of terrorists—but leaving Teal’c alone among a team of highly trained federal agents was not his idea of a vacation for the top level security risk. Trying to call the Jaffa’s mark on his forehead a tattoo was like waving a red flag at a bull and whistling, "here, kitty, kitty."

Not the time for second thoughts; what was done was done. But it did mean that O’Neill needed to hustle back to the other side of the lake to keep a handle on a certain team member in a potentially volatile situation. And it was clear that Daniel wasn’t among the sleeping bodies in this camp, so the next place to go look for him would be at Teal’c’s side.

He tried to sound calm, and thought that he succeeded admirably. He traded on his rapidly growing reputation with Frauhoffer. "Carter says that they’re closing in. Listen, Frauhoffer, you’re the one with the federal authority here. I’m just a military grunt on vacation, and I’d rather keep our names out of this, if you know what I mean. If it’s okay with you, I’ll borrow your car and head back to the search. You handle things here, and tell the newspapers that they’ve got a fine team of Homeland Security folks working for ‘em. Make sure they get you in a good light when they snap your picture."

Frauhoffer eyed him narrowly, not missing a speck of the camo clothing, the way O’Neill casually strapped a knife to his calf, the comfort level with the automatic tucked into his belt. "You don’t have to answer this if you don’t want to, colonel, but—are you Black Ops?"

O’Neill smiled weakly. "Something like that."

Frauhoffer nodded, satisfied. "I won’t ask you for any more information. Wouldn’t want your job for all the planets in the sky." He handed the plans to the bomb back to O’Neill. "Take these with you. If you find your man, we’ll need a fast translation of these squiggles. I wouldn’t put it past these guys to have already planted the device, and being able to tell which wire is which will mean a lot. Maybe the writing will even tell us where they’re going to stick the bomb." He stuck out his hand. "Pleasure working with you, Colonel O’Neill. Don’t take this the wrong way, but I hope to never work with you again. You guys scare me."

"Pleasure," O’Neill echoed, shaking hands. He accepted the car keys from Frauhoffer and headed off for the agent’s car.

A quiet murmur followed O’Neill. "Civilian archeologist—hah!"

* * *

He must have fallen again, and this time into the creek because water splashed into his face. He choked and coughed, wondering if it might not just be better to lie here and drown.

Survival instincts kicked in, and Daniel Jackson crawled back onto his feet, swaying unsteadily and dripping fat droplets of cold mountain spring water. People pay good money to drink this wove crazily through his soaked brains.

The stitch in his side pinched at him, and he clutched at a sapling. It bent but gave him just enough stability to keep from pitching over onto his face again. Daniel shuffled forward through the water. He was far enough away from Fiedler, he reasoned, that he could afford to try to lose his pursuers. If they hadn’t found the kid by now, chances were that they weren’t going to. Which was a good thing, because the parting instructions he gave Fiedler were to crawl blindly up to the road and go for help. With luck, Fiedler’s vision would have returned. With even more luck, Fiedler would do as he was told.

He heard rustling several hundred yards away, and peered through the midnight blackness. Daniel snorted silently. It didn’t matter whether or not Fiedler could see. There was enough cloud cover to make perfect eyesight useless.

* * *

The Jaffa held up his hand to halt his followers. "There."

All six stopped, and Teal’c was morosely pleased that not one bumped into the man in front of him in the fashion of The Three Stooges, a Tau’re entertainment group that elicited laughter from its audience by treating each other in a fashion that would get them killed in short order should they attempt such antics on Chulak. Teal’c had persuaded ColonelO’Neill to obtain several disks of these ‘movies’ and was studying them diligently in an attempt to understand this adopted home world of his. It was discouraging, and he made frequent mistakes. For example, Teal’c had learned that poking a team member in the eye was unacceptable behavior but emulating the nonverbal noises such as ‘nyuck, nyuck, nyuck’ was. And when he had requested an explanation from DanielJackson, the archeologist had launched into a lecture that even MajorCarter would have found difficult to fathom.

Nevertheless, now was not the time to explore those customs, not for him and neither for the group behind him. He listened carefully, his own hearing demonstrably more acute than that of the Tau’re. There was a single being stumbling through the undergrowth, stopping frequently as if to listen. The being did not move purposefully but in random fits and starts. Teal’c was uncertain; evidence at the crash site showed that both DanielJackson and the federal agent had left together. Teal’c could only hear one.

The sounds did not suggest a being in any great control of his actions, and Teal’c elected to take a chance. He raised his voice. "DanielJackson?"

A sudden hush, then—"Help!"

"Fiedler?" Micaletti pushed past Teal’c. "Fiedler, that you?"

"Agent Micaletti!" The relief in the agent’s voice was palpable. "I thought you’d never find me! Help me; I can’t see!"

Micaletti grabbed Fiedler by the shoulders, easing the man down to the ground. Even in the pallid moonlight Teal’c could tell that the young agent was pale, blood painting his face. His clothes were torn and leaves dotted the holes. Micaletti settled him on the cold ground. "What happened? Where are the terrorists?"

"Where is DanielJackson?" Teal’c added.

The shakes had started. The forensics specialist eased into the group, shining a pencil flash at Fiedler’s face, dabbing at the encrusted blood while Fiedler babbled out an account of what happened. Teal’c listened in stony silence, his features giving away nothing in the dark night.

"He left me there, and drew the terrorists off," Fiedler finished. "I never saw them. I heard them speak as they passed me by—it was Farsi. Dr. Jackson was right. I don’t understand it myself, but I recognized some of the words."

"Was he injured?" Teal’c demanded.

"I don’t think so. If he was, I couldn’t tell. He helped get me out of the car when I was stuck, and then he ran off into the night to lead them away. They would have killed me like Turner and Lee if I had been left in the car."

The forensics specialist butted in. "I need to get this man out of here so that I can properly treat him. Somebody give me a hand."

Had this been one of the Three Stooges movies, Teal’c reflected, someone would have clapped, and the audience would have roared with laughter. Instead, Micaletti gestured to another agent who helped hoist Fiedler to his feet and guided him up the slope to the cars above. Teal’c could hear all three of them stumble their way through the dark, and gave fervent thanks that his own team did not contain any as clumsy as these federal agents. He struck out onto the trail once more, leading the remainder toward DanielJackson. There was little time.

* * *

I really don’t feel good, Daniel reflected. Is this where the phrase ‘spilling your guts’ came from? It was a good thing that it was so dark; from the taste of it he suspected that what had just been ejected from his stomach contained a large quantity of blood. No matter; the mess was rapidly being washed away downstream where he could ignore it and pretend that the delay never happened. He rinsed his mouth out, now grateful that the water was so cold, and staggered back to his feet. His pursuers were close behind.

He had to keep moving, he reminded himself. Far from losing them, the terrorists instead were catching up. It was difficult to gauge from the sounds but they could be as close as a few hundred yards away or less. Maybe it was time to find a hiding spot? That sounded like an excellent idea: no more running, just crawl into a hole somewhere, wake me up when it’s over. The dark night would help cover his tracks and let the men pursuing him pass on by.

There were no good places to hide, so he settled for a copse of bushes that had grown up and around a fallen tree trunk. He crawled underneath the tree, biting back a curse as no less than three branches struck him across the face, and pulled the rest of the shrubbery in after him.

In bare seconds the terrorists were there, and Daniel blessed his luck. Had he tried to stumble on, they would have been on him by now and he would be a dead man. He breathed through his mouth, trying to keep silent, keeping inside the little whimper that wanted to escape as the stitch in his side escalated into a full-blown jack hammer. The pair moved on.

Only to double back as they realized that they’d lost the trail. Daniel’s heart sank.

* * *

O’Neill paused before getting into Frauhoffer’s car to leave the terrorist camp, spotting something glittery on the ground. There was something familiar about the shape. It caught his eye, triggered an unpleasant memory.

Naw. It couldn’t be. This was good ol’ Earth. He was seeing things. O’Neill really didn’t recognize it, he just thought that he did. All he saw was an idle piece of scrap metal. He was on vacation, and things like this didn’t happen on vacation. It was why he was on vacation in the first place, so that things like this would stop happening to him at work.

But it nagged at him. Red flags were running up the flagpole, screaming out alarm klaxons. And if he didn’t take the two seconds to pick up that supposed piece of metallic trash, he’d be thinking about it the rest of the trip back to haul Daniel out of the mess he’d gotten himself into, and that would interfere with O’Neill’s flawless driving technique and then wouldn’t Daniel be sorry if O’Neill got there too late to save him? And after that O’Neill would have to drive all the way back over here to the terrorists’ camp after the whole affair was over just to satisfy his curiosity. Better just to bend down and get it over with, and then he could get on with this business of saving Daniel from himself. Damn linguist, always listening when he ought to have been on vacation from everything associated with work. This was all Daniel’s fault.

Nestling the car keys in his hand he darted over to pick up the offending piece of trivia—and froze. He wasn’t wrong. Colonel Jack O’Neill wasn’t seeing things. He wasn’t merely jumping at shadows.

What the hell was a Goa’uld arm band doing in a terrorist compound? Even an arm band as badly mangled as this one?

Things suddenly got a whole lot more serious, and they were serious enough already. O’Neill considered; he was certain that the Goa’uld wasn’t present here in this compound. O’Neill was good, but a Goa’uld symbiote was a lot stronger than it looked, and the thing in human form would have gotten up and made mincemeat of O’Neill and Frauhoffer and then calmly finished its tea and crumpets. Therefore the Goa’uld had left the camp. Which meant that it was on its way somewhere else, say to a train depot to plant a bomb. That sounded like a Goa’uld modus operandi: cause chaos and strife, then step in to rule the world.

If the Goa’uld wasn’t present, then Frauhoffer was safe enough for the time being. There was still the option of containment, of not letting this information leak out to the general public. But in order to contain it, they needed to find the damn snake. There were four empty bunks, therefore four missing terrorists. Two were waiting for Carter at the airport, therefore two were hunting Daniel. This whole scenario was starting to make a little more sense. Terrorists wouldn’t care about tracking down one of the elite few humans on this planet who could read Goa’uld, but a Goa’uld sure would. And if there was a mole or two among the Federal agents as Teal’c suspected, then information about a certain civilian specialist would have flowed like water down hill. The Goa’uld would be on Daniel’s tail before he could bark, "Kree!"

Goa’uld liked to hunt humans. O’Neill was betting on Daniel. He had to bet on Daniel. Any other gamble was unacceptable.

He pulled out his cell. Call number one went to General Hammond. Despite it being nearly two AM he got the general, groggy and tired. Within seconds the general was no longer groggy, and a crack team was on its way to Minnesota, twelve hours be damned, armed and ready for anything that a Goa’uld could dish out. Call number two went to Carter through a federal agent’s cell phone.

"Colonel? Have you found Daniel yet?"

"Not yet, Carter. I’m on my way there now. But we’ve got problems with eyes glowing in the dark." He filled her in, keeping the details sufficiently vague so that anyone listening in wouldn’t understand. "I don’t think they’re on your end, Carter, but keep your eyes peeled. One of your boys might be more than he seems. How soon before you get to the airport?"

"Another half an hour."

"Stall as much as you can. Don’t take chances. General Hammond is sending back up; I want you to wait until some of that firepower is at your disposal. We can always send ‘em back for a Frasier special to check ‘em out. O’Neill out."

Never could get used to cell phones, O’Neill mused, punching in the speed dial. ‘O’Neill out’ was what he used on radio communications. This was a cell phone; he should have simply said ‘good-bye’ or ‘dismissed’ or some such military crap. Amazing the foolish thoughts that went through the mind under stress. He dialed again, this time to Carter’s cell that she had loaned to Teal’c. The cell jingled electronically in his ear, and O’Neill waited, cursing, for Teal’c to answer.

The Jaffa didn’t. The call switched over into the voicemail after four rings, with Carter’s chirpy voice inviting the caller to leave a message. O’Neill declined. This didn’t sound good. O’Neill hated being left out of the loop.

He put his foot on the gas pedal, pushing the fed’s car as fast as it would go over pock-marked dirt roads.

* * *

Daniel held his breath, willing the terrorists to move on. I’ve gone downstream, he thought as hard as he could, wishing that telepathy was a reality here and now, that’s why you can’t find any tracks. Go!

Reverse telepathy in action. They saw where he’d fallen to his knees in the creek, playing a pencil flash over the sight and noting the disturbed branches and underbrush. They circled closer and closer, looking over the area, eliminating any open spot. They tore apart the first grouping of bushes that Daniel had seen and bypassed as too sparse. They approached the second where he lay hidden and pulled back the branches.

Daniel briefly considering springing to his feet and dashing away. His legs vetoed the idea in no uncertain terms.

It was over. They had found him.

And, to his horror, one set of eyes glowed inhumanly with mocking satisfaction.

* * *

Teal’c moved swiftly through the night. The tracks he followed grew more obvious, as though the makers knew that the end game was near. There was no point to subtlety any longer. The federal agents were left behind, but Teal’c did not care. Micaletti called to him, anger in his voice at this challenge to his federal authority. Teal’c moved on; he had no time for this petty bureaucratic hustling for power.

There, up ahead. He saw them: two men standing over a small stand of shrubbery, each with a gun in their hand. Though Teal’c could not see what they were aiming at, there was no doubt in his mind that he had found his missing team mate.

There was no time. Teal’c carried no weapon; his preferred staff weapon was safely stowed away in the Cheyenne Mountain Base where unauthorized personnel never knew it existed. But a weaponless Teal’c was not a powerless Jaffa. Seizing a hand-sized rock, he flung it at the nearest of the two terrorists.

His aim was true. The rock struck the man squarely above the ear, caving in the skull. The terrorist dropped to the forest floor, gun rolling free from suddenly nerveless hands. The other man whirled around in shock.

Teal’c was already half-way across the clearing. He launched himself into the air with the speed and grace of a diver, knocking the second man off of his feet. The man shrieked, and his pistol went off.

In the bushes, Daniel froze. Who had been hit?

Then Teal’c picked himself up off of the man, grabbing the terrorist by the shirt and shaking him. His black stocking cap rolled up, and the golden symbol of First Prime gleamed in the meager starlight. Teal’c pulled back his fist and let fly. The terrorist’s eyes rolled back up in his head, and he went limp in Teal’c’s grasp.

Teal’c met Daniel’s terrified stare. He raised one eyebrow and allowed the corner of his mouth to quirk upward just slightly as he indicated the trunk of the tree behind Daniel. Daniel chanced a quick look: the tree had taken the bullet just six inches above Daniel’s own head. The cloud cover above chose that moment to clear and to show the image in clearer detail than any had seen all night. Daniel felt queasy.

No time for that now. "Teal’c," Daniel gasped out, "the other one. He’s a Goa’uld!"

Teal’c stiffened. "You are certain?" He let the second terrorist slide to the ground.

Daniel nodded, the movement shakier than he thought it would be. "I saw his eyes glow. He knew who I was, that I knew who he was."

"Then we must exercise extreme caution," Teal’c said. He stepped over to the man he’d thrown the rock at and felt for a pulse. "He appears to be dead. But I will not allow this body to be taken anywhere but the Cheyenne Mountain Base." The juvenile symbiote inside him squirmed irritably in such close proximity to a mature Goa’uld, confirming Daniel’s words. He frowned.

"Good." Daniel closed his eyes briefly. Then he opened them, determined to crawl out from his inadequate hiding place. Two unsuccessful attempts later, and he felt Teal’c’s strong arms gripping his, gently hauling him out through the bushes. He clung to the Jaffa, not at all certain that his own legs would support him. A gentle summer breeze attacked, sending shivers up and down to start him shaking, the water-soaked clothing leaching heat.

Micaletti dashed into sight, sending up a shout to alert the others. "You found him."

"That is obvious," Teal’c stated. "Fetch blankets, and quickly. I believe that DanielJackson is in shock."

Micaletti stared at the two bodies sprawled in the dirt, barely visible in the dim starlight. "What the hell happened here?"

"I subdued them." Teal’c allowed a hint of annoyance to tinge his voice. The federal agent was wasting time with foolish questions. "Fetch blankets. This man has been injured, and requires assistance, as does one of these attackers. The other is dead."

Micaletti finally jumped into action. "Yo, doc! Basehart, you too! Get over here! We got ‘em!"

The other five hustled into view, the forensics specialist going automatically to the terrorists on the ground. "Dead," he pronounced the Goa’uld without a second thought. The other was coming around, and the doctor produced an ampoule that he snapped underneath the man’s nose. The terrorist’s head jerked back with full and unwelcome consciousness, and his eyes widened as he realized who was surrounding him. Two federal agents secured his arms, and another stood back with his service revolver aimed loosely at the terrorist. There was no way this one was escaping.

"Blankets," Teal’c insisted. Daniel’s shivering was becoming more pronounced.

Micaletti flicked them an irritated look that clearly said that he had better things to do. "Basehart, give the Air Force guys a hand, then get back down here." He turned away. "Doc, give me a cause of death."

Basehart was low man on Micaletti’s totem pole, but Teal’c was not displeased. As long as Teal’c received the assistance he required, Micaletti could do what he liked with the others. Basehart shouldered one of Daniel’s arms, helping Teal’c to raise the archeologist to his feet and stagger up the slope.

"I’ve got a wilderness pack in the back of the SUV," Basehart volunteered, pulling the car keys out of his pocket. "Hang on; I’ll get it. You start getting that wet shirt off of him. I’ve also got something liquid that I’ll heat from the cigarette lighter."

"Coffee," Daniel murmured, hungry for the warmth. He didn’t seem to have any strength left, only realized after the fact that Teal’c had pulled the sodden shirt over his head and was wrapping him in a silvery survival blanket. The Jaffa let his team mate rest bonelessly against his chest, offering his own body heat. Then there was a hot mug in Daniel’s grasp, two large Jaffa hands steadying his own and guiding them to his lips.

He sipped, and sputtered. "This isn’t coffee!"

"Nope. It’s tea." Basehart was unapologetic. "Hot, herbal, and de-caffeinated. Caffeine is the last thing you need right now, Dr. Jackson." He glanced down the slope. "I gotta get back there. You need anything more before I go?"

"Warn the others to exercise extreme caution when approaching the ‘dead’ body," Teal’c instructed swiftly. "In fact, it would be prudent for you to leave it as it is until others with more knowledge can collect it."

Basehart frowned. "You mean, he’s a plague carrier? He seemed healthy enough to track you cross country."

"Something like that." Daniel let Teal’c help him with another sip of the hot liquid. Basehart was right; it did help. Daniel felt as if he could almost open his eyes unassisted. And the shivering had gone from a seven on the Richter scale to a mere five. He took another sip, adding, "Just leave the body alone. Stay ten feet away at all times. Our people will be by to take care of it shortly."

* * *

Carter looked at the two suspects that Duluth International had collected through the one way mirror. The glass on the other side fooled no one, least of all the two men who were glaring at her from beneath beetled and bushy black eyebrows. Both were swarthy in complexion with short black hair topping off liquid brown eyes that smoldered with unsuppressed anger.

They had each dressed casually, trying avoid notice, both in chinos and polo shirts, clean shaven and unremarkable. The contents of their pockets had been taken from them, and now lay in neat lines across the table in the center of the room. They had little with them: wallets that contained less than ten dollars between them, no pictures of loved ones, no credit cards, only a small paper that contained flowing Arabic script. Copies of the script had already been faxed to Washington for translation, and the drivers’ licenses were being run through databases in an effort to verify identity. Carter’s federal escort, a man named LaPierre, was betting that the licenses were fake.

"That’s them." There was no doubt in her mind. "That’s the two men that Dr. Jackson overheard in the diner."

The head of Duluth International security nodded grimly. "We’ve already pulled their luggage off of the plane, and we’re going through it right now." He accepted a message handed to him from a runner. "And this confirms it. There’s a small explosive inside of the carry-on that one was holding. There’ll be an investigation as to how the carry-on got this far into the airport." He indicated one of the terrorists, and cocked his head at LaPierre. "This is your territory, Agent LaPierre. You want custody?"

"Sure," LaPierre started to say when Carter interrupted.

"You said a small explosive?"

"Yes. What’s wrong?"

"Plenty," Carter said grimly. "From what I know, these guys don’t do anything in a small way. The plans that Colonel O’Neill saw indicate a bomb that could take out half of this airport. And Dr. Jackson overheard them talking about a railroad depot, not an airport."

"Which means we’re missing a lot of information," LaPierre realized. He turned to the Duluth security chief. "Ground the planes. Start an orderly evacuation. I’ll call Washington."

The man paled. "You can’t be serious. I’ll have the airlines screaming at me."

Major Carter backed LaPierre up. "You’ll have a squadron of jet fighters screaming at you from overhead if you don’t comply, buster. Notify your flight tower that it’s time to shut down. Nobody takes off, and nobody lands."

* * *

Daniel tugged on Teal’c’s sleeve, and the Jaffa bent to listen. "Go and watch the body," he instructed. "I’m all right here. But if that Goa’uld jumps into another body, we may never find it."

Teal’c surveyed Daniel doubtfully. He and Agent Basehart had set Daniel up in the back seat of the SUV with enough survival blankets wrapped over and around him so that he could pass for a hermit dispensing wisdom on a cold mountaintop. That and two cups of tea had already put color back into the archeologist’s face, and the shivering had abated to a mere tremble every now and again. Daniel was even able to hold his own mug now, instead of needing help to prevent spillage. He sat there, a huddling lump of flesh, perched sideways on the SUV car seat so that he could watch the flashlighted scene below.

But if DanielJackson was right, if the Goa’uld had not been damaged beyond its own healing powers, if it slid unnoticed into another of the humans here present, then that would be a greater calamity than one man dumping tea upon himself. Teal’c bowed to the necessity, and inclined his head. "ColonelO’Neill will arrive presently."

Teal’c found to his dismay that the federal agents had placed the corpse of the Goa’uld into a dark plastic body bag. Teal’c would have preferred that they had left it strictly alone, that none had approached, but Micaletti assured him that they had taken all precautions against plague. This puzzled Teal’c, for his team members had told him over and over again that no one outside of the Cheyenne Mountain Base knew of the Goa’uld threat but he supposed that there were standard control measures that all Tau’re knew of. That should be sufficient, but Teal’c resolved to discuss the issue with ColonelO’Neill at the earliest convenient opportunity. If the Jaffa were wrong, it could have dire consequences for his adopted home world.

He approached the plastic-wrapped corpse. This time his immature symbiote was still, indicating that the Goa’uld inside was dead. Teal’c felt relief. These plague precautions that Micaletti had spoken of were unnecessary. This Goa’uld would trouble no more beings. Its recuperative powers had not been up to the task of reviving the host.

Basehart caught up with him. "I got hold of the doc, and sent him on to Dr. Jackson. Good man, the doc, but tends to forget that sometimes living people need care before looking at a crime scene."

"Thank you," Teal’c returned. "DanielJackson is an important member of our team."

Basehart gave him an odd look. "Yeah, I kinda figured that. No, don’t tell me any more. You’d probably have to kill me."

Teal’c lifted one eyebrow. "Why would I do that?" Perhaps this would be an opportune time to put the lessons that I have learned into action. He added, "Nyuck, nyuck, nyuck."

* * *

O’Neill pulled the car in behind the others on the dirt road high above the ravine, jumping out and leaving the keys behind in the ignition. It’s a federal vehicle, let them keep watch over it. "Teal’c?" he called. "Daniel?"

"Colonel O’Neill? Over here." It was an unfamiliar voice, but it knew his name. O’Neill didn’t waste any time in responding. He headed for the SUV that had called his name.

O’Neill found them in the lead SUV, Daniel propped up in one of the back seats swathed in blankets with one of the federal agents patiently waiting to push more hot tea at him. The back of the seat was tilted back as far as it would go and a second agent was putting a stethoscope away, by which O’Neill deduced that agent number two was the forensic specialist that Frauhoffer had called in, doubling by actually using the medical skills he had acquired a decade ago on a breathing human. O’Neill only had eyes for the civilian member of his team. "Daniel?"

"I’m okay, Jack," Daniel reassured him tiredly. "Just a little dented. Did you get them?"

"Got a lot more than a few terrorists." O’Neill tried to grin. Mindful of the pair of federal agents, he pulled out the plans to the bomb that he had recovered from the compound. "Carter called me, told me that they got the other two in custody, the pair that you overheard. They’ve also found a small bomb in their carry-on luggage, which pretty much nails their sorry hides to the prison wall for the next several decades. With those two, what Frauhoffer and I have found in the compound, and your friends below in the ravine trying to kill you and a bunch of federal types, we’ve wiped out this particular cell of nastiness."

"You don’t appear particularly satisfied," the forensic specialist observed dryly.

"I’m not." O’Neill unrolled the plans under Daniel’s nose. Both federal agents peered interestedly at them, elbowing each other for a better view. "The bomb Carter described looks too small to be the one in these plans. And, as Carter so clearly pointed out, Duluth International is an airport, not a train station. Care to explain, Daniel?"

Daniel perched his glasses more firmly on his nose, wincing as he took the plans from O’Neill, trying to read them from his reclining position in the dim overhead light from the SUV. O’Neill watched his archeologist closely, not liking the gray cast to the man’s face. But the doctor didn’t seem especially concerned, and Basehart too paid more attention to the papers than to Daniel. And where the hell was Teal’c? If there were anything seriously wrong with Daniel, no one would have been able to tear the Jaffa away from his side. Putting a lid on his worry, O’Neill turned his attention back to Daniel perusing the writing. Daniel’s eyes flickered up and down the entire length of the page.

"Daniel?"

"There are two sets of writings here, Jack. One is Farsi."

"Don’t tell me; let me guess. The other is that unusual subset of ancient Egyptian that you’ve been working on." O’Neill kept his voice awesomely casual for the federal agents present.

"You nailed it, Jack. Just a line or two. Nothing much; a rough translation would be I will conquer this world as is my right. Another couple of flowery descriptive phrases about a god called Serus."

"Serus?" The doctor poked his head up. "Don’t think I’ve heard of that one, and I thought I knew most of the ancient Egyptian gods. Hobby of mine."

Daniel shrugged as casually as O’Neill had, then grimaced as the movement pulled on sore muscles. "I’m in the field, and even I keep learning about new ones. Just when you thought you’ve heard them all, another one rises to take his or her place. Sometimes I think they’ll never run out."

"Must be a pretty powerful god, putting out compliments like that," the doctor offered.

O’Neill snorted. "Heard that one before. Wouldn’t call ‘em compliments, doc. More like boasting." Basehart snickered, and even Daniel cracked a distracted smile. O’Neill moved on. "Daniel, what about the rest of it? Anything useful, like the master plans to this bomb that may or may not be in the airport?"

Daniel frowned. "It’s Farsi, but in code. This is going to take me a few minutes." He struggled to sit up, the better to concentrate, not even realizing that O’Neill had automatically reached to support him. He did feel it when the blood drained out of his head, and Daniel slumped into O’Neill’s arms. "Dammit," he moaned, the shakes coming back. The plans dropped to the floor of the SUV. Basehart scrambled to collect them.

"Steady, big guy." O’Neill eased the man back as far as he could. "It’s gonna be hard to translate this stuff with you passing out on me. Why don’t you just stay flat here, Daniel?" It wasn’t a request, and Daniel was in no condition to argue. "Doc, a little help over here?"

"Just a little dehydrated, that’s all. He’s had a rough night." The forensic specialist shone a pencil light into Daniel’s eyes. "Keep pushing the tea, colonel, and keep the blankets around him. Hang on; chug these down." He held out a couple of white pills.

"What are they?" That was O’Neill. Daniel didn’t feel up to asking.

"Antibiotics. Anyone out in the forest trying to drink down the entire creek is a natural for pneumonia." The specialist dropped the pills into O’Neill’s hand. "As they say, take two of these and call me in the morning. On second thought, don’t bother. You’ll feel a lot better by then, and I’ll probably be up all night processing this scene. Your man did a pretty thorough job on that terrorist. Nothing much left to him."

"Yeah, well, that’s our T-man. Thorough." O’Neill helped Daniel swallow the pills, holding the mug of now lukewarm tea to his lips and determined to get a fresh cup. "You heard the doctor, Daniel. Chug ‘em down."

"This stuff tastes vile," Daniel complained. "Coffee would be better."

Basehart winked at O’Neill. "I’ll get some more tea, hot so you can’t taste it past the burned taste buds. And some decent light to see these plans with, since I don’t see anyone else in the vicinity who knows Farsi. And that includes Fiedler, even if his eyes were working."

"Works for me. If you see him, send Teal’c up this way." Best to keep the Jaffa close at hand where O’Neill could keep an eye on him.

Daniel could barely wait until both the forensic specialist and Basehart disappeared from view. He clutched O’Neill’s arm. "Jack, the Goa’uld is here!"

"What?" O’Neill did a swift 3600. No one was in earshot. He put his ear close to Daniel’s mouth. "Talk, Daniel. Fast and quiet."

"It was one of the terrorists, one of the ones trailing me and Fiedler. I don’t think anyone else knows. Teal’c killed the host. It’s the one in the body bag. I sent Teal’c to keep an eye on the body."

"Good thought, Daniel. Wouldn’t want the snake crawling into anyone else before it croaked. Any other glowing eyes?" And that explained why the Jaffa wasn’t hovering. Priorities, colonel.

"Not that I’ve seen," Daniel muttered, trying not to yawn. "God, I’m exhausted."

"Can’t imagine why. You’ve only been up all night, running for your life."

"Swimming, more like it," Daniel grumbled. O’Neill tucked the covers further up under the man’s chin. "Give me the plans. You need to know what they say."

O’Neill eyed his civilian team member. Daniel really did look pale and sweating, thoroughly uncomfortable. But Carter too was sitting on a powder keg, literally. They needed the terrorist plans translated and needed them now.

Teal’c padded up, a corner of his mouth quirking up in greeting. "ColonelO’Neill. Were you successful in your foray to the terrorist compound?"

O’Neill nodded, relief spreading through him. Teal’c wouldn’t be so calm if there were a Goa’uld lurking about. "Got the results right there in Daniel’s hands. You?"

"I believe the Goa’uld is no more. I killed the host while rescuing DanielJackson, not knowing that he was Goa’uld. Once informed, the federal agents instituted precautions against plague. None approached the body."

"Works for me," O’Neill said. "And now?"

"I have examined the remains," Teal’c continued. "My symbiote does not detect the presence of a mature Goa’uld within the corpse, therefore I believe the symbiote died with the host. The threat is ended."

"One threat," O’Neill reminded him. "Carter is still sitting on a pair of terrorists. Not Goa’uld, but still plenty dangerous. Speaking of which…" He pulled out his cell and got through to his second in command. "Carter?"

"Good timing, sir. I was just about to call you." There was no pleasure in her voice. "We pulled these guys’ luggage off of the plane. There wasn’t very much inside. Pretty empty, in fact."

"But—?"

"We did find traces of C4."

There was dead silence across the air waves while O’Neill unhappily digested that fact. Then—"That’s a military explosive, Carter. How did a couple of terrorists get their hands on it?" The question was rhetorical. "More to the point, where is it now?"

"Good question, sir. I was hoping that some of the people you apprehended might talk. This pair won’t even admit to speaking English."

"Jack." Daniel was listening in. "Tell her to look in Terminal C, in the baggage area next to…" he trailed off as the words didn’t translate properly. He rustled the plans, trying to get them into better light, as if that would help him to decipher the meaning.

"Where in the baggage area?" Carter wanted to know. "Details, Daniel. It’s a big baggage area."

"Can’t be too many places to hide six kilos of C4," Daniel grumbled.

O’Neill jerked his head up in alarm. "Six kilos? That’s enough to take out the entire airport!"

"And not very large in terms of sheer size, Daniel," Carter admonished. "We’re talking no bigger than a bread box."

"Bread box?" Daniel caught that one over the phone. "I didn’t realize it could be so small. Or so scary." He tried to focus on the plans, trying to translate the coded phrases, and yawned. "Dammit, Jack, I need some coffee with a double dose of caffeine. I can’t concentrate!"

O’Neill eyed the archeologist doubtfully. The man truly didn’t appear healthy. But six kilos of C4 would make a whole lot of other people even more unhealthy, not to mention the mess to clean up. And the doc did say that Daniel would be fine in the morning…He made his decision. "Teal’c, get some high octane stuff."

They could see the color steep back into Daniel’s cheeks as the caffeine took effect. His eyes got brighter, his gestures more animated, and the translation flowed. He took another healthy swig of coffee and spoke. "Sam, look in the fourth carrier from the back, the one that isn’t scheduled to be loaded until four AM. Look for a suitcase with black sides, silver molding, hard plastic body, ticketed to go to Atlanta."

"Hang on. Going to the fourth carrier, opening the carrier door. Boy, what some people take on planes! Heaven only knows what’s in that over-sized package." She continued the running commentary, keeping the rest of her team appraised of her progress. "Wait a minute. That looks like it." Then— "Got it."

"Don’t open it!" O’Neill found himself saying. "The lock could be booby-trapped!"

"It is," Daniel confirmed. "Says so right on the plans."

"How do I get inside to disarm it?"

Daniel studied the papers in front of him. "It doesn’t say. It just says that the lock is hooked up to the explosive. Pressure sensitive lock."

"Where’s the Duluth bomb expert?" O’Neill demanded. His second in command was good, but defusing explosives was a job for professionals—the young and stupid ones, because all of the old, smart ones were smart enough to retire with all of their body parts intact. O’Neill needed Carter in one piece.

"Sick in bed," came the response. "He’s down with the flu. There isn’t anyone else, Colonel." Carter kept her voice light. "Want to talk me through this?"

"Not a chance, Carter." O’Neill knew better. "Have one of the baggage jockeys take one of the tug boats on wheels and haul the baggage container out to an open field. Have them divert all air traffic."

"Ahead of you there, sir. The airport’s been evacuated, and all the incoming flights have been turned away."

"Good." Finally, something going right. This whole vacation had been one disaster after another. It was enough to make O’Neill want to go back to PS-whatever, the one with the squadron of Jaffa. At least there he could shoot someone without his own side getting upset with him. "Then get someone to bring the baggage container out to one of the runways."

There was a pause. Carter came back on. "The airport supervisor is objecting, sir. He’s worried that the runways will be blown up."

O’Neill said a bad word. "Tell him that a runway is easier to replace than the whole airport."

"Yes, sir."

"And then tell him that if he doesn’t get that baggage container out into the open where it can do the least damage, I will personally tell the flock of F-8’s that are on their way here to bomb the hell out of his airport."

Pause. Then, in amusement—"Yes, sir."

"Jack." It was Daniel, hunched over the plans to the bomb. "Jack, this stuff that I’m reading doesn’t sound very good."

"Don’t think they were much into plot development, Daniel."

"No, I mean they designed the bomb so that it couldn’t be defused."

"Most terrorists try to do that. It’s the concept behind the whole I’m-going-blow-myself-up-and-be-a-martyr idea." O’Neill came over to look. "What does that say?" He pointed at a phrase which appeared to be attached to the detonation device.

"Grace be to Allah."

"Besides that."

"All glory be unto him. Rough translation, of course. It’s nicer in the original. Farsi really is a lovely sounding language."

"Of course. Anything about how this bomb works?"

"Not unless ‘Serus’ is code for ‘bomb’. ‘Almighty’ would work, and I could even push for ‘glorious ball of fire across the sky’ but ‘he spread his hand, and the crops came forth’ just doesn’t cut it." Daniel sighed, closing his eyes. "Don’t think there’s anything here that will help Sam, Jack."

Crap! Into the cell: "You got that baggage container out in the open yet, Carter?"

"Just now, sir. Good news, sir," she added. "Duluth has a robotic device for the police bomb squad. It’s arriving now. We’re going to use it to remove all the other luggage from around the bomb."

"Good. Keep me posted on your progress. O’Neill out." O’Neill clicked off the cell. He eyed Daniel worriedly. The man didn’t look well, looked uncomfortable in the extreme. The caffeine fix appeared to be wearing off. "Are you sure you’re all right, Daniel?"

"Fine." Daniel winced, laying back against the car seat, the blankets in disarray. Teal’c automatically went to straighten them out. "I just need a little rest. The doctor said I’d be fine in the morning."

"That’s assuming you get some sleep," O’Neill grumbled, turning away just in time for Micaletti to come rushing up, a sheaf of papers in his hand and excited.

"O’Neill! O’Neill!"

"Right here," O’Neill returned testily. "Haven’t gone anywhere yet. Planning on going home soon," he added in warning. "I’ve got a civilian who needs a good night’s sleep."

"You can’t," Micaletti said in no uncertain terms. "Look what we found in the terrorists’ car."

‘This’ turned out to be the papers that Micaletti was waving about, four photocopied sheets containing a large amount of undecipherable writing. Undecipherable to O’Neill, certainly, but Teal’c’s eyes narrowed. And even O’Neill recognized the flowing script as Goa’uld at its finest.

"You have to have your man translate this now," Micaletti insisted. "Who knows what it could be saying? This could contain the names and places of terrorist cells across America."

"Or it could contain Bin Laden’s favorite recipe for falafel," O’Neill returned testily. Whatever information the papers held, it certainly wasn’t terrorist-related—at least, not Middle East type terrorists, or home-grown type terrorists. Those papers that Micaletti was waving about would certainly end up in SGC hands where Daniel could translate them at his leisure and find out what the dead Goa’uld had been writing in his memoirs. Emphasis on dead Goa’uld. Those papers weren’t to communicate information to the terrorist cell that O’Neill and Frauhoffer had taken out, because O’Neill highly doubted that the hidden Goa’uld would have taught the terrorists to speak Goa’uld. O’Neill added, "You never know when Bin Laden might be coming to inspect the barracks, and a good terrorist cell is always prepared."

"Not funny, O’Neill," Micaletti snarled. "We have a situation here, and you’re sitting in the middle of it about to get run over. Let’s have a little cooperation, here. Trot your boy out now."

O’Neill’s eyes narrowed, and he stiffened his spine just enough to let Micaletti know that he’d gone too far. "Cooperation, Special Agent Micaletti? I think your department and the armed forces of this country may have a different definition of the word ‘cooperation.’ As in, ‘Dr. Jackson and Major Carter reported suspicious activities when they could have simply driven on to enjoy a peaceful vacation.’ And, ‘Dr. Jackson went to help out your people with a translation when your people screwed up by sending the wrong expert, and nearly lost his life when your people couldn’t get themselves out of an ambush.’ And, ‘Colonel O’Neill assisted Special Agent Frauhoffer to take out a terrorist cell in the woods.’ And ‘Major Carter is currently defusing a bomb at a large airport because your people don’t know how to do it.’" O’Neill folded his arms. "Just what part of cooperation were you referring to, Micaletti?"

Micaletti didn’t know when to quit. "The part where Dr. Jackson translates this document, Colonel O’Neill. The part where he tells us the names and aliases of two dozen terrorists hiding in America, and we take them out without a single shot fired. The part where a grateful country thanks him for cooperation."

"Fine." O’Neill took the papers from Micaletti, and had to tug to get them from the agent’s hand. Might as well start SGC’s part in this mess right now. "He’ll do it in the morning. I very much doubt that the two hours between now and daylight will make any difference in the terrorists’ plans. Right now I’m taking my people home and I’m instructing Major Carter to return as soon as that bomb is no longer a threat." There was a single, long, loud boom from somewhere to the south, and it felt as though a triple decker Mack truck had just rumbled by on the dirt road. O’Neill cocked his head. "And I would say that that situation is now a reality." He pulled out his cell phone and dialed the last number. "Carter?"

"There’s a pretty big crater in the middle of runway D and I think there’s a few sets of Canadian geese who aren’t particularly pleased with having their sleep disturbed, but beyond that everything’s fine, sir. No one injured, and we even managed to get the tug far enough away."

"Good work, Carter."

"I could have defused it, sir."

"Possibly. But I like having things go boom. You know that, Major. And Daniel’s translation suggested otherwise. Meet us back at the cabin, because the three of us are headed there now. O’Neill out." O’Neill turned back to Micaletti. "Your bomb is no longer a threat. The terrorists are either dead or in custody. I am getting into my car," and he jerked his thumb at the rental he’d picked up when driving Teal’c and himself out from Duluth International how many days ago?, "and taking my people back home to try to enjoy the rest of our leave time. In the morning Dr. Jackson will look at these documents and inform you if there is anything pertinent to your investigation or to national security." And I already know that there won’t be, so don’t hold your breath. This ain’t national security, it’s planetary. "I suggest you get the bodies to the morgue, Special Agent. They won’t look like much in the morning if you don’t." And I’m not going to tell you that the terrorist’s body containing traces of a dead Goa’uld is going to mysteriously get diverted to Cheyenne Mountain where SG personnel can do a proper job of an autopsy. "Is there any more ‘cooperation’ that you think you need, Special Agent Micaletti?"

Micaletti scowled, wanting to object more but not able to think of anything on the spot. Daniel eased himself out of the SUV, leaving the mug and the blankets behind, listing to one side until Teal’c moved in to shore him up. O’Neill scowled himself, half-tempted to call a halt and drag over that forensic specialist with an MD behind his name one last time, but Daniel gave an imperceptible shake of his head. Just tired, Jack. Need a soft bed.

* * *

They beat Carter back to the cabin by a half hour. The clouds had moved away in search of better stomping grounds, leaving a cavalcade of stars above the tree-lined canopy. Teal’c joined O’Neill on the front porch, placing himself onto one of the wood-slatted Adirondack chairs to watch the numerous bugs and moths splat themselves against the light. A cloud of fireflies laid claim to the pier and surrounding beach.

Daniel had already crashed on one of the beds inside, asleep before his head hit the lumpy pillow. O’Neill couldn’t sleep, and he suspected Teal’c wasn’t in the mood for kel’no reem. It may have been three o’clock in the morning, but that was the best time of the day for the former Special Ops officer. He let Teal’c get comfortable before speaking what was on his mind. "So, what did those papers say?"

Teal’c frowned. "I do not know, ColonelO’Neill. Although I am fluent in speaking Goa’uld, it was not deemed important by Apophis that I learn to write it and so my abilities in understanding the written word are scanty. When I assist DanielJackson, he speaks the words aloud and I interpret them as I have heard them. I did, however, observe a number of symbols that refer to places and times. It will take more perusal to determine what they are."

"So you haven’t a clue what’s in those documents. It really could be somebody’s favorite tabouleh recipe? With directions on where to get the ingredients?"

"Without further intervention by DanielJackson, that could indeed be the case."

"Great." O’Neill lapsed into silence. And, a couple of minutes later—"I’m not real fond of tabouleh, y’know?"

"I find it a delightful mixture of different textures, O’Neill, as well as capable of many variations in flavor, depending on who the preparer is. The final product declares much about the character of the chef."

O’Neill leaned back in his chair, deliberately unclenching the muscles in his neck. This wasn’t turning out to be the peaceful vacation he’d envisioned: fishing, lazing around with a cold one, inhaling the mountain air. The last thing he would have expected was to be discussing Middle Eastern food prep at three o’clock in the morning while waiting for Carter to return from preventing a bomb from blowing up Duluth International. He looked automatically at his watch, thinking that they still had three days left before General Hammond expected them back at Cheyenne Mountain. Let’s see: tomorrow would be taken up by a team of SGC’s finest, come to investigate and clean up any traces of Goa’uld. The day after would be marked by Daniel creeping around and pretending he didn’t feel banged up from rolling the car down into the ravine and the rest of us watching him like a flock of guilty hawks and wincing sympathetically every time he does. Well, maybe the last day would be worth getting to. He sighed.

Carter rolled up in yet another rental car, this one a much sportier model than the energy efficient selection Daniel had made. Getting out, she shrugged. "Choice of waiting till morning for LaPierre to give me a ride back, or picking up another rental." Translation: Carter too felt the need to get back to her team, to make sure that everyone was intact. She eyed the pair sitting on the porch, too keyed up to relax, and decided that sleep was also beyond her abilities at the present time. A faint smile played over her lips. "Another beer, anyone?"

O’Neill nodded yes. Teal’c favored her with an eyebrow: I do not imbibe. Carter shrugged, knowing that she’d dig out a flavored, colored water drink of some kind for him. She brought back a couple for herself and O’Neill, handing off the plastic bottle with green-flavored water inside to the Jaffa. Teal’c inclined his head in thanks. Carter dropped herself into the last chair. A hammock swung beside her with sympathetic motion. O’Neill glowered at it, and Carter empathized with that feeling. That hammock ought to contain a relaxing archeologist, forced to unwind and whining about wanting to return to his precious artifacts.

"Daniel okay?" she asked, already aware that had he not been the others would not have been sitting here calmly.

"A little bruised. Doc says he’ll be fine in the morning. He’s sleeping it off." O’Neill paused. Little red warning flags were running up and down his internal flag pole, screaming out ‘Danger, Will Robinson!’ Experience should have taught him to listen to those cautions, but far too frequently for his own comfort O’Neill required a reminder. Daniel had fallen asleep in the car on the way back, had only roused enough to stumble into the cabin and drop into the nearest bed. The archeologist hadn’t even asked to look at the Goa’uld document on the drive back, and that was what was bugging O’Neill. Daniel had already demonstrated the ability to work under any and all circumstances. The presence of a current Goa’uld paper should have had the man begging to be allowed to stay up past his bedtime no matter how badly he felt.

The forensic specialist had said that Daniel would be fine. Daniel said that Daniel would be fine, but Daniel always said that Daniel was fine even when Daniel was not fine. O’Neill didn’t think Daniel looked fine. O’Neill thought Daniel looked like the hunk of leftover chicken a la something-or-other in a doggie bag that had been sitting in O’Neill’s fridge since before the mission to PSF-whatever. And considering that that mission had been in the neighborhood of four months ago… O’Neill rose smoothly to his feet. "I’m going to check on him. Just in case."

But Teal’c stopped him with an upraised hand and a frown. "What was that?"

Carter looked around. "What?"

The three listened intently. The crickets chirped, the breeze rustled through the trees—then O’Neill caught it. For him it wasn’t the sound, but a shadow slipping from tree to tree.

O’Neill and his team went to alert status in nothing flat. Hand signals flashed: Teal’c, circle right. O’Neill to the left. Carter, secure the interior and make certain that there was no hostage situation. But first:

"I think it’s time to turn in," O’Neill said clearly but not loudly. Make the unwelcome visitors work for it. "This day has been long enough."

"I concur, ColonelO’Neill. I too shall retire."

Carter yawned artistically. "Good night, all. See you in the morning." She carefully turned off the outside light, sending the flying things flitting away in search of more illumination, and just as carefully turned the inside light on. She pulled down the shades, so that no one outside would see that of the three, only Carter had actually entered the cabin. She carefully moved past a shaded window, allowing whoever it was outside to see vague movement within.

O’Neill slipped into the underbrush and held his stance, allowing the night’s noises to filter in. Teal’c was right: there were the crickets and other nighttime bug life, and there was something else. Many something elses. O’Neill’s eyes narrowed.

There was something close to a dozen men out and about, most of whom knew little to nothing of woodcraft. Sure, they’d all taken the mandatory wilderness survival course during G-man school, but only one or two appeared to have any practical experience that turned that education into something worth having. O’Neill sneaked up on one—and stared.

It was Micaletti. And he had a sniper rifle cradled in his arms, aimed in the general direction of the shaded cabin window.

And it was Frauhoffer. And Basehart. And a bunch of the other federal agents. And it was the remnants of the terrorist camp, the erstwhile terrorists still dressed in their camo’s and all toting disgracefully new looking weaponry. It appeared to be a sudden alliance between the federal agents and the terrorists, all anti-SG-1. It didn’t make sense. This was taking inter-departmental rivalry a mite too seriously.

Worse, it was way too many to take out by himself, even with a faithful Jaffa sidekick. He could do it, but there would be casualties. Unacceptable casualties, on both sides. He slipped back into the cabin, taking advantage of the meager starlight to avoid his newly acquired opponents.

Teal’c had come to the same conclusion, though he had slightly different reasoning: both O’Neill and General Hammond had taken some pains to instruct him that while killing others before they could kill you was desirable on other worlds, the American court system would have a difficult time justifying those same actions while taking a stroll down the back alleys of Denver, Colorado. Applying that concept to the current situation in the forests of Minnesota, Teal’c chose to request additional guidance as to whether that particular rule might be relaxed under the circumstances. It seemed like a good idea, but logic and sense weren’t always what these Tau’re demanded of their people. He joined O’Neill inside the cabin to make plans.

"I counted over a dozen," O’Neill whispered. Carter had turned on the tiny night light along an inner wall, and it cast just enough light to be able to make out vague features, giving the Jaffa a faintly Satanic look. "You?"

"The same." Teal’c paused, puzzlement in his voice. "ColonelO’Neill, I had believed that these federal agents were on our side. Why have they come upon us in stealth?"

"Sixty-four thousand dollar question, Teal’c. What say we ask one?"

The window shattered, courtesy of a silenced sniper bullet that dug a hole into the sofa that O’Neill had purchased a year ago and hadn’t sat in enough. Stuffing fluffed out. Both men dove for the floor.

"Carter!" O’Neill hissed. "Get Daniel! Bring him in here!"

"Having some problems here, sir."

O’Neill cursed, and scuttled along the floor to the bedroom where they’d stashed the archeologist. He nudged the door open.

Carter had wrestled Daniel to the floor, but once there she was stuck. Daniel’s head lolled to one side and O’Neill noted to his dismay that a trickle of blood was leaking out of the side of his mouth. The archeologist tried to help—lifting one hand to clutch at Carter’s sleeve was the best he could do. "Carter?"

"Not good, Colonel. I think we need to get him to expert medical care soon. Whoever that doctor was," she growled, "he ought to go back to forensics. I think Daniel may be bleeding internally. And he drugged him!" she added indignantly.

"What are you talking about? He gave Daniel antibiotics. Said he was a natural for pneumonia, after a night in the creek." O’Neill took the other arm, tugging the archeologist back into the main room, staying low and ducking every time a bullet flew overhead. Teal’c too gave a hand.

Carter helped position Daniel behind the sofa with a new bullet hole in it, hoping that no stray projectiles would reach him. "Whatever he was given, he’s drugged now. His pupils are pinpoint."

"Daniel?"

The man tried; he really did. All of Daniel’s energy focused on responding to his friend. "Not too good right now, Jack." It was all he could manage, and he sank back into the pillows that Carter had pulled down from the sofa with the stuffing leaking out.

It all clicked for O’Neill, every stinking piece of it: the Goa’uld in the terrorist camp. A Goa’uld who in his cover as a dedicated terrorist volunteered to hunt down a few humans, probably as a lark, and then found himself face to face with a man who knew what he truly was. The Goa’uld must have panicked. It was only sheer luck that Teal’c had killed the host at that moment.

But it was not the end of the tale. Teal’c had instructed the federal agents not to touch the body, but the forensic specialist—the one with MD after his name—had listened only after the fact. By the time Teal’c had returned to the corpse he could no longer detect a Goa’uld because the Goa’uld had jumped into another host. A host that sensibly avoided the Jaffa to maintain the illusion that the snake was dead.

That new host had fed Daniel drugs and said that he was fine. O’Neill snarled silently to himself for being so trusting. He supposed he ought to be grateful that the Goa’uld hadn’t killed Daniel on the spot. But that would have been too obvious, even for a Goa’uld. O’Neill should have picked up on the conversation with the forensics specialist, praising Serus. If that wasn’t a give-away, then what was?

All right, time to take your brains off of vacation, O’Neill. That unholy alliance outside screamed of Goa’uld tricks. Somehow the Goa’uld had brainwashed both the federal agents and the terrorists into working together to eliminate SG-1. Why? It should have been an easy thing for the Goa’uld in its new host body to simply slip away and hide until it felt secure enough to try to take over the world again. So there was a reason that the snake believed that it had to take down SG-1. What was it?

O’Neill’s eye fell on the documents that Micaletti had reluctantly given to him. That had to be it. There was nothing else. There had to be something written on those papers that the Goa’uld couldn’t afford to leave lying around for someone smart like Daniel to translate. The Goa’uld must have been laughing as it wrote everything down, secure in the knowledge that only he, a Goa’uld, could read it. Laugh’s on you, buddy.

He glanced at his watch. Four AM. An SGC Special Ops team would be here by eight o’clock sharp, and though they weren’t expecting trouble any longer, all SG teams always expected trouble and came prepared. Which meant that all O’Neill and his team needed to do was to keep themselves alive for four more hours. He checked his ammo with a grimace. Gotta make these suckers last.

This felt like some of those old B Westerns, the ones where the heroes were holed up in a den somewhere, waiting for the cavalry to come over the hill. This had most of the elements of bad script writing: the hero, his faithful Jaffa side-kick, the man who’d die if they didn’t get him to the town doctor. Carter didn’t quite fit the bill as the damsel in distress but, hey, couldn’t have everything. They’d have to settle for the sturdy frontierswoman with a sawed off shotgun in her hand ready to defend her home and her men folk.

Strong points: the people outside didn’t know what they were doing. Well, maybe they did, but there was a long stretch between knowing what to do and having actually done it on a hundred different worlds for the last several years. Advantage: SG-1.

But the weak points were mounting: Daniel wasn’t going anywhere fast. There wasn’t more than a clip or two for a couple of handguns. O’Neill hadn’t expected a shoot out at the OK Corral when he was planning this vacation. Food and water wouldn’t matter for a mere four hours, but the bullets were in short supply. And the sun would be up in a couple of hours: any advantage that they’d had during the dark night would be lost. They’d be easy pickings for snipers. And while O’Neill didn’t think much of their woodcraft, that didn’t mean that he didn’t have a healthy respect for their marksmanship. Even federal agents had target shooting contests among themselves and there would undoubtedly be one or two who could hit the broad side of a barn.

His team was looking to him for direction, and he gave it to them. "Teal’c, cover the right side of the house, and Carter the left. Don’t let anyone within a dozen yards and especially not anyone with glowing eyes. Don’t shoot to kill unless those afore-mentioned glowing eyes are coming at you. Just try to wing them—after all, most of ‘em are supposed to be on our side. We’ll keep them off until daybreak and reinforcements arrive."

"What about you, sir?"

O’Neill smiled tightly. "I’m going out through the attic and climb down through those damn trees that keep dumping leaves into the gutters. Maybe I can even the odds a little." He handed his revolver over to Carter. "Here. I won’t need this. Use the bullets sparingly, and the last clip is in my kit."

Carter’s baby blues flashed with alarm. She knew how dangerous that was. One man against a dozen, even a man as capable as O’Neill was, was an act of desperation and a measure of how serious O’Neill considered the situation. She said nothing and turned away to her assigned station.

"Me, Jack?"

It was Daniel. A dozen memories flashed across O’Neill’s mind: Daniel, bleeding to death on a Goa’uld mother ship clutching his P-90 and protecting their six so that the rest of SG-1 could finish the job of saving Earth; Daniel caught in the grip of a Goa’uld ribbon device, screaming in agony but not giving up; Daniel facing O’Neill himself down over the ethics of backing one race against the other.

It was Daniel Jackson, the young man who consistently fooled everyone into thinking that he wasn’t as capable, wasn’t as good as everyone else when the chips were down. The man who wasn’t military, who always needed looking after. ‘A baby-sitter’ was the derogatory term. ‘Trouble magnet’ also figured prominently.

O’Neill wasn’t fooled. Daniel had earned his place on O’Neill’s team and was as valuable to them all as Carter and Teal’c. He wasn’t military, but O’Neill didn’t need more military. He needed Daniel.

Daniel was asking for a gun. A stupid play, but very Jacksonian. O’Neill shook his head. "Got better plans for you, Daniel. You up for a bedtime story?"

Daniel’s face went blank, not certain if O’Neill was playing some sort of joke on him and not up to figuring it out. "Give me a gun, Jack. I’ll watch a window."

"Not in this lifetime, big guy." O’Neill helped the archeologist to attain a semi-reclining position, propped up on a few more pillows and grateful that the pillows were of the cheap dime-store variety. It wouldn’t hurt so much to throw them away when Daniel started to bleed all over them, or throw up, or whatever an internally hemorrhaging archeologist was likely to do. Daniel bit his lip at the movement; that and an involuntary grabbing of O’Neill’s arm was all that betrayed him. O’Neill wasn’t fooled but forcing the man to admit his weakness would serve no purpose. "I’ve got something else for you. I need you to do some translating."

"Jack?" Unsaid: at a time like this?

"No, I haven’t gone screaming yellow looney toons, although that may not be far off." O’Neill reached for the documents that he’d hijacked from Special Agent Micaletti, stretching until his fingertips could rustle the papers close enough to grab. He unrolled the sheaf and helped Daniel to hold it open. "There’s a reason that snake is after you. The rest of us are just icing on the cake. I’m betting, Daniel, that this Goa’uld is scared that you are going to translate these scribblings and find out something that the snake doesn’t want us to know. So when I get back I want to know what little tidbit has old Gloweyes upset. Hop to it, Daniel."

"Right." Daniel’s eyes began to glitter. O’Neill devoutly hoped that it was fervor for knowledge and not fever.

* * *

Chin-ups. O’Neill mentally altered his future work out regimen from more push ups and fewer chin-ups to fewer push-ups and more chin-ups. Of course, he’d probably never have to swing from tree branches again for the rest of his career, but it was a nice thought. He only wished that he’d had it before the current crisis.

And quietly. The cursing was limited to inside his head and a few gestures at a small twig that caught his jacket but for the most part he slithered down to the ground from the attic with little to no sound. No federal agents showed up to greet his arrival and no terrorist types blew him away upon landing, so he figured he made it past stage one.

On to stage two. He slipped up behind a terrorist type, one dressed in dirty and ragged clothing—smelled you from ten feet away, guy—and took him out without so much as a single noise. Tying him up took a bit more creativity. Rope was at a premium; it hadn’t been among the things that O’Neill had anticipated needing for vacation—neither were bullets, for that matter—so O’Neill compromised by making certain that the man wouldn’t wake up for a good long time. The head-ache wouldn’t be pleasant to live with, but O’Neill consoled himself with the hope that when the man finally regained consciousness he would no longer be Goa’uld-controlled and would be thoroughly mortified by his incomprehensible actions.

Frauhoffer was next of the unfortunates to be found by O’Neill. It was time for a few answers, so O’Neill dragged the man far enough away so that they couldn’t be heard. Frauhoffer’s belt served as the rope to tie him up, and O’Neill sat back on his haunches to wait for consciousness to return.

It didn’t take long. O’Neill had judged the blow very carefully, and the awakening followed the expected pattern: Frauhoffer’s eyes flickered but never quite opened despite the still dark night. There was the slight movement of the head, during which time Frauhoffer discovered that he had the mother of all headaches. Next came the finding that his hands were tied, which meant that he couldn’t rub his poor head to make the pain go away. O’Neill could almost see Frauhoffer’s blood run cold as the man realized that he was a prisoner and helpless. The man stiffened in fear, trying to pretend that he was still out cold.

"Are you you?" O’Neill asked conversationally.

There was a pause of recognition; Frauhoffer realized who was sitting next to him. "Colonel O’Neill?"

"In the flesh," O’Neill returned genially. "Mind telling me what the hell you were doing?"

There was another pause, this one more dismayed. "Why are we out in the woods?"

"Because you and a lot of your friends were shooting at me and my friends. And our enemies were helping. A concept which I find a trifle unsettling."

Either Frauhoffer was feeling better, or he was beginning to accept that there was no rational explanation for what was going on, because the pauses were growing shorter. "Why?"

"I was hoping you could tell me. Still feel like shooting me?"

"No. Did I before?"

"Apparently. Got any more weapons on you?"

Frauhoffer did a mental inventory. "No." Then, "you got the little Beretta in my calf holster?"

"Yup."

"Then you got them all."

"Good." It meant that O’Neill hadn’t lost his touch, frisking Frauhoffer to find all the weapons that the man carried. O’Neill now had another two revolvers and a Swiss Army knife to take back him to the cabin.

"Why was I shooting at you?"

O’Neill grunted. "At least you remember doing it."

"I broke your window," Frauhoffer said ruefully. "And the second bullet is lodged in the wood beside the shutter."

"You knocked the stuffing out of my sofa, too," O’Neill added.

"No, I think that was Micaletti." Then, "Did I hit anybody?"

"Nope," O’Neill said cheerfully. "Not for lack of trying, I might add. You and all your buddies. I thought you were better shots than that."

"This doesn’t make sense. Why was I shooting at you? Why were we shooting at you? And why are all the terrorists doing it with us? Is this some kind of mass hallucination?"

"Told you that you didn’t want to get involved with us," O’Neill replied. "What’s the last thing you remember?"

Frauhoffer thought. It was painful to watch, especially since O’Neill didn’t dare untie his hands. "It was Baramian," he said finally.

"Who?"

"Our forensic specialist. Our doc," Frauhoffer explained.

"Ah. That’s his name." That made sense. And it made O’Neill feel better as well. If the newly minted host could fool people that he’d worked with every day, how could O’Neill even hope to recognize the Goa’uld? The snake had worked fast, taking advantage of his new body’s job description to drug Daniel. O’Neill supposed they could be grateful that the forensic specialist hadn’t argued to take Daniel to the local hospital for surgery. O’Neill had no doubt that Daniel would have ‘accidentally’ died on the table. "And I don’t suppose his eyes…kind of…glowed?"

Frauhoffer looked up sharply. "How did you know? I thought I was going crazy."

O’Neill shrugged, and started to pull the knots apart on Frauhoffer’s hands. It was time, and he hoped that he was making the right call. "A lucky guess."

Frauhoffer was getting more and more unhappy, finally realizing just how in over his head he really was. "You’re not just Air Force, are you, colonel?" he asked mournfully.

O’Neill opened his mouth, let it hang in the breeze, and then closed it again. This man didn’t need to know. He finally came back with the hoary but fairly accurate line: "If I told you, I’d have to kill you."

Frauhoffer wouldn’t meet his gaze. "Somehow I get the feeling that you mean that."

"Almost. Don’t ask me any more questions."

"Just one more, colonel. What do you want me to do?"

* * *

O’Neill wasn’t about to trust the terrorists, not after all the trouble he and Frauhoffer had been through to put them out of circulation, but the rest of the federal agents were persuaded rapidly enough to abandon their pot shots at O’Neill’s cabin and team. All it took was an epidemic of mild concussions, the blows to the various hard heads reordering the thought processes and knocking out whatever Goa’uld whammy the snake had applied. Frauhoffer proved himself almost as adept as O’Neill when it came to tapping his companions on the back of their heads. O’Neill graciously allowed his new team member the pleasure of taking down Special Agent Micaletti—"obnoxious twerp. Thinks he wants my job. Wait ‘till I get promoted; then I’ll give it to him and ride his ass as much as he’s irked mine."—and finally resolved the stand-off a short while before daybreak, much to Carter’s relief since both the bullets and her patience were in short supply.

Which was when a legion of SG special forces appeared on the scene. Four squads of four had commandeered several jeeps from the local Air Force base and a local private for directions to O’Neill’s lost cabin in the woods, a fact that was not lost on the major in charge of the detail when the private himself also got lost. A phone call or two resolved the matter even though O’Neill refused to budge from his post and Carter professed ignorance of the surrounding trails.

Which didn’t mean that SG-1 wasn’t pleased to see them. Four jeeps roared up, shoving dust up into the air as brakes squealed to a stop. Sixteen military types armed to the teeth jumped out and secured the area before the federal types could as much as squeak. The whole thing comforted O’Neill as much as anything could do despite the fact that the shoot out was over.

The major in charge of the detail presented himself to O’Neill. "Major Anthony Nelson, sir. Permission to take charge?"

Hammond had obviously told Nelson that O’Neill was on vacation. O’Neill grinned. Good ol’ George. "Permission granted, major." Then it hit him. "Uh, Tony Nelson, as in ‘I Dream of Jeannie’ Tony Nelson?"

The major flushed. "Yes, sir. I try not to make a big deal of it, sir."

One corner of O’Neill’s mouth quirked upward. "I understand completely, major. Carry on." And resisted the urge to fold his arms and bob his head.

"Yes, sir. Thank you, sir." Nelson went to work. "Knowles, Bridges: get Dr. Jackson to the nearest hospital, and don’t leave him alone. Your orders are to stabilize and transport to Cheyenne ASAP. Chieslewski and Deseau, haul out the portable ultrasound and start checking these people for—" he paused, considering the listening ears—"contamination." Nelson continued to hand out the tasks, delegating a team to scour the erstwhile terrorist camp for any other signs of Goa’uld infestation and another to search for signs of the missing forensic specialist.

O’Neill nodded approvingly. "Thank you, major." A thought occurred to him. "Ah, you got anyone here who does any translating?"

He didn’t need to tell Nelson which language needed the translating. The major shook his head ruefully. "Sorry, sir. Dr. Rothman is currently off—er, on a mission and Bergmeister is occupying the Jackson Memorial bed back home at the moment, which is why Dr. Frasier wasn’t able to accompany us."

O’Neill grimaced. "They must be taking lessons from Daniel."

"Yes, sir, that’s what General Hammond said. Any updates I should be aware of, sir?"

O’Neill cast a look around, reviewing the situation. Carter looked bushed after four hours of holding off assorted terrorist types and even Teal’c looked to be in need of some serious kel-no-reem. Daniel was being carted off toward a jeep between the bodies of two sturdy soldiers. His team was taken care of. "No, major. Just try to keep the noise level down. This is supposed to be our vacation."

* * *

"Some vacation," O’Neill complained. Even out in the boat he could still see three of Major Nelson’s finest standing guard. They were on the edges of the woods, P-90’s in hand and blending in with the trees, but to O’Neill they stood out like a sore thumb. A Goa’uld sore thumb, to be exact. O’Neill and team were here to get away from the little buggers, and they kept showing up. It was enough to be seriously annoying.

The rest of Nelson’s squad had split themselves between searching the erstwhile terrorist camp and searching for traces of where the former Dr. Baramian had disappeared to. A minor squabble broke out between Special Agent Micaletti and Major Nelson over just who would be allowed to sift through the terrorist camp leavings, and O’Neill declined to get involved. He was, after all, on vacation. Micaletti’s superior, Special Agent Frauhoffer, took one look and yanked Micaletti back on a very short leash. Special Agent Frauhoffer, unlike his sub-ordinate, possessed enough brains to know that he was out-classed. He could have blustered and waited for word to come from Washington, but was smart enough not to. And offered help in finding Baramian.

"Do you wish to return prematurely to the SGC, ColonelO’Neill?" Teal’c inquired. He too was growing dissatisfied with the excursion, more so after finding out that while the fish he was attempting to do battle with relied upon cleverness to avoid capture rather than any real show of skilled force. Should Teal’c and O’Neill fail in their endeavor there would be no significant consequence. SG-1 would not even go hungry that evening.

"Yes. No. Yes. Maybe."

Teal’c cocked his head, regarding his team leader and comrade. "Do you wish to participate in the search for Serus?"

"No!" Then—"yes," O’Neill admitted. "After all, I’m the one who let him slip through our fingers. He was that close to me, Teal’c," and O’Neill held up two fingers, a bare inch apart. "I could’ve nailed him right then and there, if only I had been smart enough to listen to what he was saying about himself. I knew there was a Goa’uld around, Teal’c, and I was too busy worrying about Daniel!" He leaned back in the boat. The bow rocked slightly with the movement. "Damn trouble magnet."

The fishing line jerked. O’Neill sat bolt up straight, setting the hook and easing out the line to play the fish.

"O’Neill?"

"Shh. I’ve got him!"

Ahh. A fish. Teal’c paid close attention; this, O’Neill had told him, was the part where skill mattered. Teal’c hoped that he would be up to the challenge should he be as fortunate as O’Neill.

"Colonel O’Neill!" The call came from the shore, from a certain slender blonde major. "Colonel O’Neill! It’s Daniel!"

"What?" An injudicious yank, and the line went limp. "Damn!" O’Neill slammed the line down and snatched up the oars. "Damn trouble magnet!" He stroked.

* * *

"That’s all? Daniel’s coming home? Back to this cabin? He’s supposed to be headed back to the base."

"Yes, sir." Carter frowned, cell phone clenched to her ear, trying to make up for the lack of a clear signal. "Apparently the local doctors are having as much trouble keeping Daniel in bed as Janet does, only Janet has a few more Marines at her disposal. Daniel’s signed himself out, is what Sergeant Knowles told Major Nelson. They’re on their way back here right now."

"The idiot," O’Neill snarled. "What does he think he’s doing? The man think he’s indestructible? He ought to know better by now. Wait ‘til I get my hands on him—"

"Hold up, sir." Carter still had her ear glued to the phone. "Say again, Major?" She listened intently, plugging her other ear to hear more clearly. "Two attempts?" She whistled softly, clicking the phone off.

"Major?" O’Neill was all business. The vacation was over.

Carter wasted no time. "Serus has been a busy little boy, Colonel. There have been two attempts on Daniel’s life. The hospital officials were glad to see him go."

"Two attempts?"

"Yes, sir. The first was a typical busting up the Emergency Room sort of brawl. Couple of gangs brought themselves in and started mixing it up. Got close to Daniel, but Knowles and Bridges took care of it. They thought that it was just coincidence, until a sniper put three holes through Daniel’s window. Then one of the gang members talked, said they’d been paid to start a ruckus."

"Knowles and Bridges were supposed to transport Daniel back to Cheyenne."

"Yes, sir. Apparently Daniel figured out something about the papers that you retrieved from the terrorist camp. He thinks that you need to hear about it."

"There’s the phone, Carter. I noticed you using it. Any reason Daniel couldn’t?"

"Yes, sir, and that occurred to Sgt. Knowles. Daniel overruled him."

"Daniel overruled him? Since when does a civilian contradict a direct order in the chain of command?"

Teal’c raised a single eyebrow. "I have known DanielJackson to successfully contradict your orders, ColonelO’Neill, on many different occasions. I believe that you have remarked that it ‘keeps you on your toes’."

"Ballerina’s keep on their toes," O’Neill grumbled.

"Nevertheless, DanielJackson has demonstrated an ability to get his way with consistency. I do not believe it would be logical to fault the sergeant for failing where his superiors likewise have not succeeded."

O’Neill glared at the Jaffa. "I hate it when you go all Spock-ian on me. Gonna set that eyebrow on stun?"

Teal’c went blank. Another O’Neill-ism had just slipped by the alien.

That satisfied O’Neill. If he couldn’t control Daniel, at least he could bewilder Teal’c. "I am thoroughly annoyed," he announced to the remnants of his team. "I come here for a vacation, and a snake shows up to ruin it for me. Next thing you know, the snake’ll be wanting to go fishing with us. And that is so not going to happen."

"Colonel?" Carter asked, with an underlying What is going to happen?

"First, I am sending Daniel home. Home, meaning Cheyenne Mountain. Where there are a few hundred armed and trained soldiers all perfectly willing to take a crack at shooting up a snake-head or two. Two, I am going to find that damn Serious snake, or whatever he calls himself."

"Serus," Carter murmured.

"Whatever. Carter, see if you can persuade your cell phone to work in these mountains and call Nelson and his crew in. I want a briefing in two hours."

* * *

"Do you mean to tell me, Major Nelson," and O’Neill deliberately folded his arms, "that this snake has disappeared like a genie in a bottle?"

Fortunately for the major, he was wearing his camo’s. Cringing didn’t ruin the creases because there were no creases to be ruined. The tips of his ears did flame, and Carter suppressed a sympathetic moue. She hadn’t often been on the receiving end of the colonel’s displeasure, but she’d had ample opportunity to observe him in action. It was one of the reasons why she tried to avoid being on the receiving end.

They were inside the cabin: SG-1, Nelson, and three of his men. O’Neill had pointedly dis-invited Frauhoffer and his people for the time being. Micaletti wanted to complain but Frauhoffer acquiesced with a single request: "Just tell me what you want to go in my report, Colonel. Wouldn’t want people to go nosing about later. Isn’t that right, Agent Micaletti?" And then Frauhoffer dragged his subordinate out.

Which left Nelson. "Sir, we’ve sealed off the area. The feds helped to set up roadblocks, so we know he’s still in the area."

"Oh, really? I could bypass those roadblocks without thinking twice, Major."

More reddening. "Yes, sir. We’re running down the leads that those kids gave us, the ones that tried to bust up the Emergency Room."

"And the sniper?"

"Better luck there, colonel. We found the gun that the sniper used. The fingerprints matched the host Dr. Barsamian."

"Wonderful. Where is he?"

"Sir?"

"Barsamian. Where is he?"

"Still working on it, sir."

"Work harder, Nelson. Pretend this is a TV sitcom. You have to wrap it up in half an hour, minus the commercials." O’Neill caught sight a jeep pulling in with three people in it, two looking grimly determined and the third looking uncomfortable yet equally determined. "Dismissed, Nelson. Oh, and get those men of yours who are tearing apart the terrorist camp in here. As long as he’s here, I want Dr. Jackson to hear what they’ve found so far. Daniel," O’Neill greeted the man walking up the dirt path who was trying to pretend that he was as healthy as a horse.

"Jack." Daniel beamed. "Sam. Teal’c."

"You can stop pretending now, Daniel," O’Neill returned acidly. "First, sit down before you fall down. Second, you can tell me why you are here in a difficult to defend cabin"—and he gestured at the three holes leaking stuffing in the sofa—"and not winging your way back to Cheyenne Mountain on an Air Force special, first class, with a couple of F-16’s flying escort."

"I couldn’t, Jack," Daniel said as if it were the most natural thing. Carter took his arm and guided him to the wounded sofa, encouraging the archeologist to sit. Daniel sat, his knees collapsing him just a trace faster than usual. Daniel ignored that as well. "I think I’ve almost figured out what that paper with the Goa’uld writing says. I just need to look at it a little more."

"I sent that back to Cheyenne," O’Neill lied. Daniel just looked at him. "Oh, all right, I didn’t. But there’s no reason why you can’t study it there as well as here."

"Yes, there is. I need a map."

"There are maps in Colorado, Daniel."

"But not local ones."

"I can get you some of those. We’ll pick some up in town on the way back." O’Neill was losing the battle, and he knew it.

Daniel knew it, too. "The clue came to me in the hospital. The stuff on that paper is directions, instructions on how to find something. The system lord Serus must have hidden something around here and written a cheat sheet for himself so that he wouldn’t forget where he hid it. Something important, Jack. Something that he needs. Something that he needs right now." Daniel leaned forward. "Now just what do you think a Goa’uld might want to get out of hiding? Could it possibly be something that we might like as well? Hm?"

"Sir, Daniel may be right." Carter was hooked as surely as the fish on the end of Teal’c’s line. "Why else would this Goa’uld be so intent on retrieving a single piece of paper?"

"Assuming that’s what he wants," O’Neill grumbled. "All right, all right! Lemme get the papers." He crossed the room, stopping in front of a carefully dilapidated old safe, twisting the dials until it opened with a creak. The safe looked old, but the innards looked shiny new and resistant to breakage. He drew out the curled up document, handing it to Daniel. "And it says—?"

"Give me a minute." Daniel was lost within an instant. Then: "Map," he requested, stretching a hand out and not looking up.

Moments later a dog-eared ratty old map was spread out across the dining table, Daniel pouring over it and referring back to the papers that Micaletti had retrieved from the terrorists’ vehicle. O’Neill could almost see the neurons firing in rapid order as the linguist’s brain worked in hyper-drive, translating the Goa’uld symbols faster than O’Neill could read English. He traced a finger along the mountain ridge on the map, keeping the other hand on the document to keep his place, faltering once or twice but never stopping.

They watched him slide a finger along the route one more time, just to be certain in his own mind that he hadn’t erred. Then he slowed, stopped, made a false start, and stopped again.

"Daniel?"

Daniel dropped heavily into the chair that Nelson shoved behind him, still keeping his finger on the map so as not to lose his place. "This map isn’t good enough."

"The newer ones aren’t any better," O’Neill informed him. "Cleaner, yes, but the roads around here haven’t changed any and progress has fortunately forgotten this neck of the woods. What are you looking for?"

Daniel sighed. "Then I need a topographical map. Or I need to go to here," and he stabbed his finger on the map hopefully, "to see what this Goa’uld is talking about."

O’Neill surveyed his civilian archeologist doubtfully, not liking the color—or lack thereof—in the man’s face. "You’re not up to a hike in the woods, Daniel. Can’t you just tell us where this doohickey is? Or even what it is?"

"I’d kind of like to know that," Carter put in. She’d been having a hard time keeping quiet while Daniel worked.

One corner of Daniel’s mouth quirked up. "Would you believe a Goa’uld Daughter Ship?"

"A Daughter Ship? What’s that, beside the obvious?" O’Neill rocked back expectantly on his heels, Carter salivating behind him with tech-lust.

Even Teal’c was taken aback by that one. "Those particular vessels, ColonelO’Neill, have not been in use for as long as my father’s father could remember. They fell out of favor as the Goa’uld Mother Ships became faster and more luxurious; there was no need for a small and fast vessel to traverse the stars. I did not realize that any still existed."

"And his life span was a wee bit longer than ours," O’Neill reminded Daniel. "Are you sure?"

"No," Daniel admitted cheerfully. "But the dates seem about right. This thing has been covered over for at least a few centuries. Serus buried it over a millennium ago when he thought he wouldn’t need it. He had gotten himself a brand new Mother Ship and decided to put the Daughter Ship in the proverbial mothballs. Things went wrong, he was forced into hiding on the wrong continent, and it’s only been in the last century that transportation here on Earth has improved enough for him to feel safe to try and retrieve it. At least, that’s my guess."

"Wait a minute," Carter said. "You’re saying that this Goa’uld was here on North America a thousand years ago? Wouldn’t he have left some trace? Something to say that a Goa’uld masquerading as a god was here?"

Daniel shrugged. "A whole bunch of tribes were wiped out or assimilated into other tribes long before the white man came. The American Indians have their spirit world, and those legends are as complete as any I’ve seen in Egypt or elsewhere. Who’s to say that one or two of them weren’t Goa’uld? Maybe the legends involving Serus died out a few centuries ago."

"Bet that pissed Serus off," O’Neill commented. "They’re bad enough when people are worshiping them, but they’re ten times worse when they’re being ignored." He peered intently at the documents and the map, the Colonel O’Neill in command coming into action. "This should be enough to go on. They may not be as big as a Mother Ship, but it ought to be big enough to be noticeable. Major Nelson, get your people in here. You and I are going to conduct an impromptu mission. Leave two people here with Daniel—"

"Hey!"

"—and the rest of us will go to the point that Daniel has deciphered."

"Jack!"

"Carter, I realize that I specifically told you to leave all of your gadgets and doohickeys at home, that this was a vacation. Am I correct in thinking that you did not follow that order to the letter?"

Carter pinked. "Uh, yes, sir. Sorry, sir."

"I’m not. As of now, you are back on the clock and we will hit up General Hammond for more leave time so that we can get a proper vacation. Actually," and he looked at his watch, "make that as of yesterday evening. Tracking down a team member who was taken out by a Goa’uld in hiding and his lackeys fits my idea of work. Teal’c, see what you can come up with around here for low tech weapons, in case this Serus character has scrounged up a shield device as well. Major Nelson, did you bring any extra weapons for us grunts on supposed vacation?"

"Yes, sir." Nelson snapped off a salute. "And I took the liberty of bringing Teal’c’s staff weapon along. With General Hammond’s compliments, sir." Nelson gave a crooked grin. "I believe his exact words were, ‘only Jack O’Neill could find a Goa’uld in Minnesota."

O’Neill allowed a faintly annoyed look to cross his face. "Wasn’t me, major. It was Daniel."

The archeologist took advantage of his name to re-insert himself into the conversation. "I’m coming along, Jack. You need me."

But the colonel wasn’t about to be swayed on this one. "Yes, Daniel, I do. But this is going to be twenty miles of jouncing over unpaved road and back country. You signed yourself out of the hospital against medical advice. You are going to stay here and rest so that I don’t have to spare any men to haul your ass back to the hospital, or Doc Frasier will have my liver for breakfast." He gathered up both the map and the documents with the Goa’uld writing on it. "And I’m taking all of these things along with me so that you won’t be tempted to work any more on them."

"But, Jack, I didn’t finish translating the document. There’s still more to figure out."

"You have perfect recall, Daniel. Use it instead of the document. Better still, take a nap until we arrive at the target."

"Jack—!"

"And when we get to where you’ve pointed out, I will personally call you for more instructions. But for now, Daniel, you’re grounded. See? I’m taking lessons from the doc. If you’re not careful, I’ll show you what else she taught me." O’Neill turned to Major Nelson. "If you brought a zat gun along, leave it here with your men. It may be the only way to keep Dr. Jackson out of our hair."

* * *

They ditched the jeeps after two hours of slow driving, mostly uphill and through several morasses of trees, and pulled their backpacks out to hoof it into the area where four-wheeled vehicles wouldn’t fit no matter how determined the drivers. The trees grew close enough together so that the wooded paths demanded that they proceed single file, and several times O’Neill lost the trail altogether. Both he and Teal’c cast about more than once before regaining the thread of the destination that Daniel had won for them.

O’Neill looked around. There were trees as far as the eye could see, but nothing that looked anything like what Teal’c had described as a Daughter Ship. Trees, he thought. It’s always trees. Blue ones, pink ones, leaves in magenta stripes. These just happen to be trees with green leaves. On good ol’ Earth.

"Larger than a Death Glider," the Jaffa had said, "yet significantly smaller than a Goa’uld Mother Ship. Its purpose was to ferry the system lords from one planet to the next in a timely fashion with enough amenities so they would not be discommoded. It contained a ring transport for easy travel back and forth to the surface as well as a small but devastating array of weaponry. A crew of ten was recommended, with sparse accommodations for an additional ten warriors. The largest room, of course, was adorned for the comfort of the system lord."

"Of course," O’Neill echoed. "Mustn’t allow the snake to be uncomfortable."

"No, indeed, O’Neill." The Jaffa’s eyes twinkled wickedly. "For that would result in the rest of the Jaffa being uncomfortable. Or dead."

So O’Neill surveyed the area, looking for something bigger than a bread box. Substantially bigger than a bread box.

Carter came up to him. "Daniel said there was just a little further to go, once we got to this point, sir."

"I know that, Carter. Which way?"

"He said to look for a large boulder, something that looked like a brindit." Carter stumbled over the word.

"What’s a brindit?"

"Beats me, sir."

"Teal’c!"

"Yes, ColonelO’Neill?"

"What’s a brindit?"

"I do not know, O’Neill. The creature died out many years before I was born."

O’Neill gritted his teeth. "Now we know that it’s fauna. Two feet, or four?"

"Six, with a long tail."

"Big?"

Teal’c cocked his head. "Actually, I believe that it was no larger than the housecat. The teeth, however, were sharp and poison-filled."

"And we’re looking for a huge boulder type thing. I think we can ignore the poison part. As well as the size." O’Neill sighed. "Damn Goa’uld can’t make anything easy, can he? Major Nelson," he called. "Have your men look for a large boulder. Any large boulder," he clarified, glaring at Carter as a substitute for the missing archeologist. "We’ll decide later if it looks like a brindit-thing." He pulled out his radio, the only communication device that worked reliably in these mountains and that only because his cabin where the others were staying was only a few miles away . "O’Neill here. Daniel?"

"Sergeant Reynolds, sir. Dr. Jackson is asleep. Do you want me to wake him? We persuaded him to take a couple of pain-killers just an hour ago."

O’Neill grimaced. Decisions, decisions. Doc Frasier would have insisted on sleep, and Daniel—notorious for not wanting narcotics of any kind, said they clouded his mind—must have been a hurting puppy to agree to Reynolds’ suggestion. On the other hand, Frasier wasn’t here. And involving the linguist would go a long way toward forgiveness from Daniel for not allowing the man to come with. "Wake him."

Silence.

O’Neill tabbed the radio again. "Sergeant? You there?"

Nelson exchanged a worried look with Col. O’Neill and tapped at his own radio. "Reynolds? Come in, Reynolds."

More silence. It was deafening. The entire squad held their collective breath.

"Sergeant Reynolds? Daniel? Anybody there?" Colonel O’Neill came to the grim conclusion that they weren’t. He glanced at his watch. "Over an hour away. It’ll be a cold site by the time we get back there. Nelson, take four men and head back. Check in when you get there, let me know the story. The rest of you, you’re with me." There was no need to say it, but he said it anyway. "That Goa’uld will be going for that ship somewhere in these hills. We need to get there first. With luck, Major Nelson will find everyone alive and well and in need of a fresh set of batteries for their radio. Without luck, we need to secure that ship before the Goa’uld does and there’s nothing that the rest of us can do back at the cabin. Questions?"

There were none.

* * *

All right, it was official: topping the list of the ten worst ways to be woken up from a drugged sleep was to have a Goa’uld grab you by the throat and squeeze.

Daniel recognized the features of Dr. Barsamian, the forensic specialist, from earlier when the newly minted Goa’uld had seen him at the scene of the car crash. The glowing eyes were new, but the hand around the windpipe felt disturbingly commonplace. Pretty sad, Jackson, when you can describe being choked to death as normal. Says something about the changes that you ought to make in your lifestyle.

"Where is my map?" the Goa’uld roared.

Which was also pretty sad, Daniel wanted to say. Hard to talk when you’re being strangled.

But, hey, this Goa’uld was no dummy. Shortly after realizing his error, Serus flung Daniel to the wooden floor in disgust. Daniel coughed, gasping for breath, trying to scrabble away. Door: blocked by angry Goa’uld. Window: small and several feet off the floor and Daniel didn’t think that standing up was one of his strong points at the moment. Not when the world was spinning on an out-of-control merry-go-round right now. Escape? Maybe in the next life. Maybe to the next life. Jack? You somewhere close, I hope?

"My map!" the Goa’uld snarled.

"I don’t have it," Daniel told him, never so grateful that the statement was true. "The others took it with them."

Serus said something unprintable in Goa’uld that Daniel understood perfectly well. Uh-oh. I don’t like where this is going…

He was right. Serus possessed a hand jewel, and knew how to use it. The light flashed out from the Goa’uld’s palm and tore into Daniel’s brain, dragging out the information that Serus sought without regard for his captive. Agony flashed through Daniel’s head, blocking out all light, pushing away all sound except for the roaring in his ears that signified the fading away of consciousness…

* * *

"I have never seen a brindit—"

"but—?"

"The tales that I have been told as a child suggest that that particular boulder over there," and Teal’c pointed grimly, "would come close to demonstrating the shape of the creature. That may be the rock that DanielJackson told us to look for."

"Which means that we’re getting closer," Carter agreed. "It’s around here somewhere. This is the place where a little more input from Daniel would be a good thing."

"Which we don’t have. Fan out," O’Neill ordered. "Carter, left, Teal’c, right. Split the men up. Take a spiral pattern, see what you can find." He unlimbered his radio again, not objecting when both Carter and Teal’c elected to pause while he spoke on the radio. "Major Nelson?"

"Nelson here, colonel. Just coming in view of the cabin. It looks deserted…" The transmission trailed off.
"Major?"

This time the radio didn’t stay silent. "Oppenheimer’s down. Looks like a sniper, from a distance. He never knew what hit him." Nelson’s voice was bleak. "Reynolds is alive, but unconscious. Torres is contacting the authorities to get some medical help in here."

"And Daniel?" O’Neill didn’t look at the other two.

"Missing. No sign of him, colonel. The room is trashed; he put up a fight. The Goa’uld dragged him out the front door and drove off. One set of tire tracks unaccounted for."

Just what O’Neill had feared, when Reynolds stopped talking on the radio. Dammit, they were supposed to be trained soldiers, ready for anything. Damn Goa’uld must have cased the area, and taken out the guards one by one. Whoever this Serus was, he was no dummy. "Take care of your men, major. Notify General Hammond of the situation on a secure line. Get more teams up here ASAP. I’ll handle operations from up here on the mountain, since that Goa’uld is most likely on his way to where we are. There’s only one reason the snake needs Daniel, and that reason is hidden around here somewhere. O’Neill out."

"Colonel?" Carter asked the question with big blue eyes.

"Fan out, major," was all O’Neill could tell her. "Find it first."

* * *

Don’t throw up. That would be bad. His insides didn’t care; they threatened him with intense agony should he try to move.

And since the jeep that was being driven at breakneck speed by the Goa’uld was jouncing him up and down with little regard for such niceties as internal hemorrhaging, intense agony was a reality. The only good thing about his situation is that the pain kept him from thinking, and thinking would lead to guilt over being in the clutches of Serus who showed no hesitation in ripping the knowledge that he needed from Daniel’s brain. He’d been able to withhold the last part, the part that was a little fuzzy because he didn’t have the document in front of him, but with just a little more time and effort—and pain on Daniel’s part—Daniel knew that Serus would be able to drill that out of him as well.

The jeep jerked to a halt, and Serus hopped out. He reached back and dragged Daniel out by his shirt. "Come," he barked. Daniel staggered to his feet, only to find himself on his knees. How did I get here?

Serus didn’t care. He yanked Daniel back upright, shoving him forward. "The rock, Tau're," he insisted. "Find it!"

"I don’t know where it is," Daniel yelled back, frustrated. "You wrote the map! You find it!"

"If I remembered where it was, I wouldn’t need the map," Serus returned. "Think, Tau're! Or must I pull it from between your ears?" He raised his hand threateningly, the one with the jewel on the palm.

"That way!" Daniel pointed in desperation. He didn’t know whether that was right but one thing that Jack had taught him: when in a desperate situation, stall. Stall for time, hope that Jack and the rest of SG-1 would find him.

"Climb," Serus ordered.

Daniel climbed. Maybe I can fall down this slope. That’s one way to escape. He looked again at the sharp rocks that littered the mountainside, interspersed with a large number of sturdy trees. That looks exceedingly painful.

"There it is!" Serus crowed. "The rock that looks like a brindit! It is there!"

So that’s what a brindit looks like, Daniel thought wearily. And here I thought it looked like a tabby cat.

Serus dragged his captive along toward the boulder. "Hurry. We must get inside before the Tau're find us."

"You don’t need me any more," Daniel said tiredly. "Just kill me and get it over." At least then I won’t hurt.

Serus stared at the archeologist with disdain. "You will serve me, Tau're."

"Not a chance." It wasn’t an argument, just a statement of fact.

"I am your god!" Serus glared as only a Goa’uld could, the glowing eyes flashing drawing himself up to Barsamian’s full height. "You will serve me!"

"Whatever." Daniel could feel the darkness finally creeping in around the edges. It had been threatening him ever since crawling out of the jeep. Now it was time to give in. There was more than one way to stall.

"Find the entrance!" Serus thundered. "Find it!"

"What?" Despite the fleeing consciousness, the patterns clicked. That was what the document was saying, the part that he was having trouble translating. It was no longer a location that the Goa’uld had written down, it was instructions on how to open the door. The door in the boulder…

The Goa’uld slammed him into the rock, the sharp edges cutting another gouge into his cheek. The rock felt cold, the high mountain sun declining to share its heat even through the summer season. Daniel slid down the rock face, ending up on his knees beside the boulder, the Goa’uld looming over him.

"Now," Serus said, lifting his hand, the one with the jewel, "you will open the gate."

* * *

Binoculars had their disadvantages, the chief one being the time needed to get to the site visualized once it was realized that the shit was hitting the fan. O’Neill came to that conclusion mere nanoseconds after putting the lenses to his eyes and spotting the pair outlined against the boulder that they’d found.

No time for delay. He handed off the field glasses to Carter. "Fan out and move in," he ordered tersely. "Take two teams and hit him from both sides. Fast and hard, major."

"And you, sir?"

O’Neill unlimbered the large bore rifle that he’d brought with him. It was good for hunting, good for defense, and now it was going to be good for taking out a certain unsuspecting Goa’uld who happened to be sucking the brains out of his civilian archeologist with a damned hand jewel thing. No one was entitled to the intelligence lurking behind those glasses except the SGC, and definitely not a damn snake. "Just stay out of my line of fire, Carter. Move out."

Both Carter and Teal’c ghosted off in either direction, each taking half a dozen of SGC’s finest in their wake. Teal’c sent a grimly satisfied smile toward O’Neill before he disappeared into the trees. O’Neill could do considerably better than hitting the broad side of a barn, and the Jaffa expected that the colonel would change the scenario ahead of them in a most desirable fashion.

This would be a tricky shot. O’Neill rested his elbow on top of a sturdy branch, relying on the trees around him to keep himself unnoticed by the Goa’uld. That wouldn’t be a problem; the Goa’uld was intent on his victim. Daniel was already on his knees, and the brief view that O’Neill had of him through the telescopic sites said that O’Neill had better hurry if he wanted the archeologist back intact. He swiveled the sight onto the Goa’uld, trying to decide which spot to aim for: the head or a broad chest shot? It was for damn sure that he’d only have one crack at this. A clean miss, and that Goa’uld would be off and running, a dead linguist in his wake.

The chest, then. Enough to set the Goa’uld off, disable him enough so that the rest of the SG teams could move in and neutralize. O’Neill moved the sight slightly lower, wishing that the host body was not positioned sideways to him, wishing that he could have a bit larger target. At this distance, with this much riding on a single shot, one little uncalled for finger twitch would have fatal consequences.

He could see Teal’c in position with his squad, deliberately exposing himself to O’Neill’s view but not to the Goa’uld so that O’Neill would know that it was time to take his shot; Teal’c would be ready. Carter he couldn’t see but he had no doubt that she too had her people in place.

Caress of the trigger. Puff of smoke. Jerk of the rifle against his cheek.

The Goa’uld staggered and went down. Yes! O’Neill slammed on the safety, tossing the rifle onto his back and dashing for the boulder in the clearing, knees be damned. Teal’c burst forth with a roar, his men yodeling behind him and Carter’s a bare half-second away.

The Goa’uld was far from finished. Faster than any creature had a right to, let alone one who had just taken a bullet to the chest, he sprang back up, slamming his hand onto the boulder.

The boulder split into two, revealing an entrance into the dark interior. It was no boulder that Daniel had led them to, but the covering to a centuries-old Goa’uld Daughter Ship. The last piece of the puzzle, the last part of the document to be translated wasn’t another direction to the ship but instructions on how the enter. The Goa’uld, snarling, flung a meager blast of energy in Teal’c’s path and vanished into the interior, the rock face closing behind him. Daniel sagged against the cold stone, sinking to the cold moss-covered earth.

O’Neill reached him mere seconds after Teal’c and Carter, saw that the man was still breathing. Good enough for government work. "Daniel! How do we get in?"

But—

"Booby trap!" Daniel gasped, clutching at Teal’c, trying to get his feet underneath him. "Run!"

O’Neill wasted no time. He grabbed one armful of archeologist, Teal’c the other, and they ran.

The resulting explosion behind them didn’t quite turn the mountainside into a level baseball field, but it came close.

* * *

Daniel accepted the glass of water that O’Neill pushed on him, glaring. Not coffee, Jack?

O’Neill returned the glare with an unrepentant look of his own. His civilian specialist now boasted several angry red burns on his temple, courtesy of an over-used hand jewel, and the man had to have a headache the size of Cheyenne Mountain. "How’s the head?"

Daniel grimaced. "Let’s not talk of unpleasant things. And let me recommend that from now on, vacation gear will contain as much morphine as field packs. I could use some right about now." He closed his eyes wearily, rubbing the bridge of his nose. "Have I told you recently how much I appreciated the rescue?"

"It would have gone better if we could have taken the snake down and spared the ship," O’Neill complained. "Washington is not going to be pleased."

"Sam is not pleased," Daniel pointed out, keeping his eyes closed. "Think of all the technology we could have gotten our hands on." He grimaced. "If only I could’ve held out just another moment or two."

"I think you’re a little more important than a Daughter Ship," Carter replied, the tone in her voice implying that she was annoyed that Daniel could have thought otherwise.

"You have nothing to be ashamed of," Teal’c rumbled. "A Jaffa warrior could not have resisted the hand jewel."

"Yes, how did this all go down?" O’Neill asked. "Why didn’t the snake know about the booby-trap?"

Daniel shrugged, regretted the action when it pulled on muscles best left alone. "Not something that I’d like to make a habit of, but I think I’m getting used to the hand jewel." He rubbed at the reddened burns on his forehead, pulling his hand back down when he found out—again—that it hurt even more to be touched. "It took a while for Serus to get all the information he needed from my brain, and he didn’t have time to dig for that last little speck."

"Ah. The speck that talked about the booby trap." O’Neill nodded sagely. "Good work, Daniel."

"Though it would really fun to come home from our vacation in a Goa’uld Daughter ship," Carter sighed. "Wouldn’t that have been a feather in our cap?" She looked sideways at Daniel, mirth lurking there. "Much better than a little rental job."

"Speaking of which, where’s the ride back? The regular, jounce over the dirt roads type." O’Neill raised his voice, taking on that little edge of command with the unspoken I want it now tone. "Major Nelson?"

No translation needed. The major hung up his phone, turning around to face a Colonel O’Neill who hadn’t been on his well-deserved vacation for more than twenty-four hours. "The local base says that they’ll have a chopper land in town in three hours. They’re clearing a space for it in the parking lot of the local grocer’s."

"A jet would be faster," O’Neill griped, knowing what the only response could be. Nelson didn’t disappoint him.

"Yes, sir, but there’s no place to put a bird down in these hills." Nelson glanced pointedly at his watch. "That gives us just enough time to get Dr. Jackson down the mountain and into town. If you wouldn’t mind, sir?"

O’Neill sighed. "C’mon, Daniel. Vacation time’s over." He frowned at his pair of science geeks. "Did it ever begin for you two?"