3.
Jack went into the cabin, Sam was leant back on the sofa, listening to Madam Butterfly, the look on her face made Jack stop dead. She was totally relaxed, had a slight smile at the corners of her mouth, that he longed to kiss, her eyes were closed and the fire light made the hair resting against the sofa back look like it was moving under its own power, she looked angelic! No wonder that almost every man she met fell in love with her! No wonder that Shanahan was finding it hard to let go. If the man was that possessive of an "ordinary" woman, God alone knew what lengths he would go to for this one!
"Sam…love… can you call Mark please, you can guess how he reacted when Michaels told him who he was. He seems to have some strange ideas, and I could do with knowing what he knows." She had opened her eyes as soon as he started speaking, by the time he finished she was looking puzzled
"What do you mean strange ideas? And what could he know that you need to?"
"Please, love, just phone him, tell him what we are doing" he wiggled his eyebrows at her and smirked "not ALL the details, just that we are getting away for a few days, and ask him if he knows where Pete is"
"I have to get hold of Hank and Daniel, see what's happening back in the Springs"
"Ok," she said and got up to find her handbag, which had her cell phone in. She brought it back into the living room and sat on the sofa, watching as Jack dialled the SGC and walked back out the door, leaving it open behind him, so they could each hear the other if they wanted to.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
"Hiya Ellen, is our Mark in please?" Sam said as her sister-in-law answered the phone, she could hear the kids in the background arguing over something, but they were laughing as they were doing it and it made Sam smile to herself
"Sam! What the hell is the Airforce doing calling me about Pete?" Came the angry voice of her brother down the line, wiping the smile off her face straight away.
"We have a bit of a problem Mark, that's all, someone broke into my old house last night"
"And you thought it was Pete!!? For Christ's sake Sam! You're dating the guy! Why would he break in!?"
"I'm not dating Pete, Mark, I'm married to Jack, happily married"
"Pete rang here a couple of weeks ago, he told me he had had a short message from you that that bastard of a General of yours had hit you and he was going to pick you up, but you were so upset that you forgot to let him know where you were living, I told him that as far as I knew you were still at the same place, even though you had married Jack, thinking about it, Pete seem shocked at that actually!" he paused a second, then said "I even offered to come with him, but he said he could handle it, I tried calling the house but the number must have changed, I thought you had done it to stop HIM phoning you"
"Mark, Jack would NEVER hit me! And if I was in trouble with anyone I would call my team, not an ex boyfriend from 2 years ago! How could you think I would be weak enough to shout for help like that? I'm a Colonel in the Airforce for Gods sake!"
"Yeah and that man you married is a General and from what I gather from dad he used to be in Black Ops, not even you would be able to hold your own against him Sam" he had a point there, if Jack ever got angry enough to really use his training, even Teal'c would have a problem, never mind someone only 2/3 his weight.
"Anyway, Jack and I are happy, and at the moment are having a mid-week dirty-weekend away, it's hard enough managing 2 days together so we take what we can where we can"
"Where?"
"Oh, a little place in the back of beyond that Jack discovered a while ago" she didn't know why she wasn't telling him the truth, not too many people knew about the cabin, but it wasn't a secret either, and the last thing she wanted was their idyllic refuge tainted by Pete turning up! "Very romantic actually" she couldn't help a contented sigh coming out at the thought, this more than anything seemed to convince Mark that everything was fine with their marriage.
"Oh Sam, I'm so sorry, if I had known what would happen I would never have introduced him to you"
"You weren't to know Mark. So, where is he, do you think? Do you have a recent cell number for him? We can trace him through the tower network. I'm going to give you a phone number for a member of my team, if he gets in touch again, call Daniel and let him know, don't make him suspicious but try to find out where he is etcetera" She recited Daniels cell number, wrote down the number Pete had given Mark, and wishing him, Ellen and the kids the best, put the phone down and tried to hear if Jack had finished.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack had rung Daniel first, only to find him in Hanks office, so he rang Hanks number straight away so it could go on speaker phone
"So kids, what do we know?"
"No prints at the scene, no tool marks, no footprints, no clues, sorry Jack" Said Daniel
"SF Friar reports that nothing has been disturbed in the house, and there is nothing missing as far as he can tell" Teal'c reported.
"We haven't found any sign of Shanahan in the area, his credit cards and bank account show no transactions for the last 2 weeks, so how he is living I don't know," said Hank. "He didn't make any large withdrawals before dropping off the grid either, so it doesn't look as if he planned it in advance"
"There is a report of someone near your house last night Jack, but no sign of a break in or anyone there when the police get there, just the neighbours dog going wild."
Jacks neighbour an ex-gunny trained guard dogs since leaving the corps, it wasn't as if they would bark like mad at a rabbit or anything, if they were warning of someone around, then someone was around. Of course if it WAS Shanahan, Sam was away before he started prowling about, he may not realise she was living there. Jack had a thought and was just about to mention it when Teal'c said it for him
"O'Neill would it not be wise for myself to stay in the house until your holiday ends? That way if Shanahan does decide to pay a visit, we will be warned early, and maybe I could persuade him not to do it again" the way Teal'c put no inflection at all on the word 'persuade' made Jack smile, especially as he knew the Jaffa's way of persuasion was more likely to work than other peoples forms of torture! "I would, of course, detain him as well, so that you may have a chance of facing him"
"Hold on guys…" Jack could hear Sam shouting at her brother, something about him hitting her!! "Looks like Pete told Mark that I was hitting Sam, she's setting him straight right now! T, wonderful idea, I was about to suggest something like that, especially as he has seen the surveillance van, so we can't use that. Daniel, you can use the guest bedroom if you want to stay as well, Prometheus is in orbit for the next 24 or so, we could get you beamed in if you want, that way he won't be expecting anyone to be there, and I can call Derek and ask him to take the dogs inside for the night, make it more tempting, or even, if I can, ask him to take them off, as if to a show."
"Jack, if you want I can offer to put him up for a day or so somewhere, with the dogs, so it looks like he is at a show, he seemed a nice enough fellow when we met at the barbeque at your house last summer, I can always say it's to do with your job, he knows it's classified"
"I'll call him first Hank, then you can call him with the details, if we can get him out of the house first thing tomorrow, and we make sure we stay here another day, it should enable us to spring the trap…" He turned his head as he heard Sam coming out of the cabin, she gave him a slip of paper "Hank, here's Pete's cell number, get hold of the cell phone people and get a triangulation on it" He read it out, and then heard Hank shouting for Walter, explaining what he wanted.
"Ok people, I think that's all we can do for today, I'll call at 0730 tomorrow that's half an hour before I check in with Michaels. If this goes on much longer I'm going to start using Zulu time again, saves me working out the differences." He heard a chuckle in the background, had to be Hank, T wouldn't understand it and Daniel never did get the whole Zulu time thing, so he would still have to translate it for him if he went to UTC. "Ok goodnight folks, or afternoon as it is there. Time for me to feed this beautiful blonde dinner…" he was just about to hang up when he heard Walter come back into the room
"Sir! Report from the cell phone company, the phone was turned off about 30 minutes ago, its last location was somewhere on Cheyenne mountain. They report it has been in this area for at least 40 hours, before that it was in Denver, and it seems unusual for it to be turned off."
"Shit!" said Jack, Sam looked at him anxiously "He knows we have his number, he will dump the phone now and buy a disposable one"
"How can he know?" asked Daniel
"I guess that either Mark told him, or he has Marks phone bugged"
"Couldn't it be an insider at the phone company?"
"They wouldn't know we wanted to locate him 15 minutes before we asked them to, no the only place it could have leaked from in that time is Carters Brother" he shrugged at her in apology, she grimaced, glad now at what ever instinct made her not tell Mark where they were. "Walter, get hold of all cell phone companies and tell them under NO circumstances to allow a location on either Sams phone or mine, not even a court order, unless they check with the President first, I'll phone Henrys lead secret service man and get him to back me up with another call. I know that by now SOMEONE will be reporting to Hayes all about this" he sighed, when did his life become so complicated? And so important that he could call in favours like this without thinking about it? "Ok once again folks, I'll call you tomorrow, good night"
Variations on "goodnight" came down the phone line as he hung up. Sam told Jack about what she had told Mark, and that if it was a tap he should be expecting her home either tomorrow or the next day, they couldn't count on it if it was Mark repeating it to Pete though, everything in her was hoping it was the former, she didn't know what Jack would do to Mark if he had deliberately told Pete, he had been against the wedding to start with, and if he put her in what Jack viewed as danger, she wasn't sure she could stop him!
"Oh Sam," he hugged her close "why don't we ever get a break? I'm so, so sorry love" She pulled back a little in surprise, what had he got to be sorry for? It was HER ex that was causing the problems. She looked at him and saw the bone deep weariness that was showing on his face for the first time since he moved to DC.
"Hush love," she whispered "none of this is your fault, if anyone is to blame here it's me, I was the one who got engaged to a man I loved but wasn't in love with, I let it go too far, I broke his heart"
"No! It isn't your fault, you gave me a chance to stop you getting engaged, I was just too much of a coward to take it. None of that would have happened if I had just spoken up. He should never have had the chance of dating you, never mind getting engaged, I should have retired, or moved from SG1, or moved you to '51 earlier so we could have got together sooner, I could have moved you back as soon as you got insane enough over there to actually say 'Yes'." She put her hand on his cheek; once again he was telling her he didn't think he was good enough for her. She had threatened him with no sex for a year last time, so he had stopped saying it direct, not that she could have lasted a year, God if they were together she couldn't last a couple of hours! Now the thought was in her head, an early night didn't seem like a bad idea, she moved inside, taking Jack with her, shutting the door with a push as soon as he cleared it. Then, without breaking her almost full body contact with him, she slowly moved to the rear of the room, kissing him and nipping his neck and shoulders every step of the way.
"Wait Sam." Jack reluctantly stopped and pulled out of her embrace, "I have to call Derek, and ask him to take the dogs away tomorrow night" She hadn't heard all the plan as yet, but decided she could put enough together to work out what was happening. Jack checked his watch, 2045, still time to catch Derek before he took the dogs out for their evening exercise, he left at 2000 Springs time every day for a full 2 hours through the woods, he found Derek's number in the cells phone book and rang him up.
"Derek! Hear your boys got a bit loud last night, catch anyone?"
"Damn Jack, you must have good hearing to hear them barking all the way up in DC, I know the air is thin up there, but I didn't realise sound travelled THAT far" Jack grinned at that response, he knew that as a rule Derek didn't like officers, he seemed to think that they always sat safe behind their desks while the NCOs and 'grunts' did all the dirty work, but after years of seeing Jack, and his team, come back in all sorts of conditions, he extended the respect that jarheads tended only to give their own kind. "Anyway, aye the boys heard someone creeping about your house in the early hours, late first, early middle watch" Jack worked it out to being somewhere around midnight. "I couldn't see anyone, so I let Pup out, but whoever it was must have already scarpered 'cos he came back quickly" 'Pup' was Dereks first dog, given to him as a present when he retired from the corps, the one who all the others he trained and sold were fathered by, and at the grand old age of 14 was still as fit as ever and could look almost as mean as Teal'c!
"Need a favour off you Derek, and it's a biggie" Jack said
"What you need?"
"I need you and the boys to bugger off for a day or so, Hank Landry, you remember him?" he paused for agreement from his friend "He can arrange somewhere for you all to stay, probably just one day, but maybe a couple if that's ok by you?"
"You want me to leave? Why would you want that Jack? Especially as there could be someone about that's up to no good!" Jack could almost hear the wheels turning in Dereks head.
"We think that there may be someone up to no good hanging around, you're right there! But I'm stuck in DC, and I don't want to put Sam at risk, so she's here with me for a couple of days and we've laid a trap for whoever it is, we didn't expect your boys to start scaring him off! Sam only has a couple more days leave and then she will have to come back to the Springs, I'd like him behind bars before then, if possible." Ok so it wasn't the whole truth, but it was very VERY close, in fact much closer than he would have told many people.
Derek didn't take long thinking about it, he liked Sam, and more he respected her. He knew she was very clever, a doctor in some fancy space subject, but he had also seen her with bruises and slings, crutches and bandages, and she single handedly changed the 'old soldier' into the pro camp for women on the front lines. However he was still old fashioned enough to agree with Jack on wanting to keep his woman safe.
He also had nothing spoiling if he dropped everything and took a holiday, both he and his wife, Michelle worked with the dogs, his kids had families of their own and lived not too far away. He told Jack that there wasn't a problem, and that he would leave either as soon as Hank phoned, or first thing in the morning if it was tonight, it was a bit late to be packing up just now.
Jack agreed, anyway Teal'c wouldn't be in place until tomorrow, so if the boys could keep Pete away tonight, then he would be thinking that Sam was in the house, all T and Daniel had to do was make sure they weren't seen, and keep from between the windows and the light source once it got dark.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Jack had just one more call to make, and rather than call the secret service man that he was originally intending to, he decided to go straight to 'THE MAN'. Not surprisingly, the secretary put him through and the president seemed to be almost as up-to-date on the situation as Jack was himself, only bits with Mark Carter and the latest from Derek needed to be told, and he got the assurance he needed about the cell phone searches, having spoken to Hank not half an hour ago and put it all into motion.
"Now Jack, go get back to your wife and leave everything to us, you are supposed to be resting up, you're no good to us if you come back even crankier than when you left!" He heard the throaty chuckle come down the line, and was almost tempted to tell the POTUS not to giggle!
"Thank you once again, Sir" he said with feeling and put the phone down.
He turned around to find Sam just as he heard another beeping calling him, it wasn't his phone this time, he moved towards the bedroom, but the beep got fainter, and he realised what it was. He moved to the kitchen, where he had last used the communicator, and there it was, he picked it up "O'Neill"
"Prometheus here Sir, are you ready for your dinner to be transported?" Oh damn he had forgotten, "Give us 15 mins, and can I speak to the Captain please?"
"Colonel Pendergast here"
"O'Neill here, listen I don't know what your deployment orders are concerning the next few days, but I want you available at 1400 Zulu tomorrow for a transport of one or two people, point to point on earth, can you do that?" If not they could always try using the Sodon warrior cloaking devices, it just made it a bit harder to manage.
"Yes Sir, we have had our departure deferred for 72 hours to be on hand for transporting people and things for you, on order of the Joint Chiefs and President Hayes himself!"
To say Jack was shocked would be an understatement, but the more he thought about it, the more he realised that they couldn't risk losing Sam, it made sense to throw everything in the path of someone willing to harm her.
"Ok Colonel, I'll be in touch tomorrow, with details"
"Enjoy your dinner sir Pendergast out!"
Jack wasn't sure if he actually heard the slightly put out note in the Colonels voice, or if he imagined it, but if he did, he could hardly blame him, as far as Pendergast probably knew he was in orbit just to cater to the Generals appetite because he couldn't be bothered to cook for himself. Fine use of the tax payers dollars that was! NOT!
"Sam!" he shouted "Dinner in just over 10 minutes love!" no answer. Jack put down the communications stone, and his cell into his shorts pocket, and headed towards the master bedroom. Sam was stretched out on the bed, face down, taking the whole width of it. He was tempted to leave her, but she hadn't eaten since lunch, and the way she was laid, fully dressed, he could see that her shorts, which were usually skin tight (GOD he loved those shorts!) had an inch or so of extra material at the back. She needed food as much as she needed rest.
He sat beside her, and put the palm of his hand on the strip of skin visible between the top of the shorts and the bottom of her tank top, he stared a gentle rubbing in a circular motion "Saaammm…" he cooed "wake up love… Saaamm" she was totally out of it. It wasn't often that either of them slept this deep, he moved his hand from side to side now, pressing on a bit harder so he was actually shaking her gently "Sam," a bit louder, and still no response, he snickered "AIRMAN!" She jumped up off the bed straight away, almost knocking him off
"Yessir!" she was almost into a full salute when she realised who it was shouting her, and where she was. "JACK! I was just laid waiting for you, I wasn't aslee…" she stopped talking, she actually had been asleep, otherwise he wouldn't have shouted like that. "Sorry honey, I guess I'm a bit more tired than I thought"
"S'Ok, dinner will be here in about 5 mins, want to go splash some water on your face? Wake up a bit more?" he saw her look back at the bed, "I know you're tired love, but you have to eat, and then if you want we can either sit and listen to some music in front of the fire, or come straight to bed, to sleep. It looks like we have at least another couple of days here, and the ship is staying in orbit, so if you don't want to, we don't have to leave the cabin again until we head home."
"Ok, I'll go refresh myself, what's on the menu tonight?"
"Actually I don't know, but as they got last night spot on, I'm hoping for something good." * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
Once again the meal was perfect, the accompanying wine spot on and everything was even more relaxed than yesterday, as this time there were no secrets and nothing would happen until the next day anyway. They spent a couple of hours on the sofa, just listening to music and laying next to each other, comfortable in the silence between them, and then they went to bed. They didn't make love this time, just continued to hold each other, as they had been since the end of dinner, until they slipped into sleep together.
* * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * * *
This time Jack got up alone, slipping out of bed and heading for the kitchen to have a quick wash, so he didn't wake Sam up, he brushed his teeth and had a very awkward shave in the kitchen sink, and opened the box of fresh bagels and took a couple out. He made a single cup of instant coffee and quietly went out onto the dock, making sure he took both the phones and the communications stone with him.
He spent a couple of hours casting in the pond, smiling to himself when he remembered the trip with Teal'c when he had insisted that you had to be up at dawn for the best chance of catching anything, and they had spent the whole of the trip catching nothing at all. T's face had been carved in stone! How someone could radiate that much disgust without a real change of expression still cracked Jack up!
He looked at his watch, getting on for 0815 Time to start planning what to set in motion first.
He rang the Oval office first, thanking the president for keeping the ship in orbit, and mentioning that maybe they could move Sam up there if they didn't manage to trap him tonight, after all there was no point going to all this trouble and then letting her walk into danger if they couldn't neutralise the threat. Hayes spent a lot of his time on the phone with Jack shaking his head, the man had no idea that HE was just as important to the safety of the world as she was. However if he could make Jack grateful for protecting his wife, then he may just be a bit more able to control him once they had to put him back in harness (Fat chance! Hayes thought to himself).
Then at 0829 he rang Cheyenne, using the direct line into Hanks office.
"Anything new happening yet?" he said
"Ok, first, as you expected yesterday, there's been no activity on the cell phone Shanahan had, it hasn't been turned on, so I think we can safely say it's in the bottom of a ravine in bits or similar" Hank started. "I rang Derek last night and offered him and Michelle a week at a luxury villa down in San Diego that the NID had as a safe house, it has a private beach and the dogs will love it! I thought that a week was better as they would have to drive and it's about 18 hours each way. Michelle sounded pleased in the background from what I could hear, he said he will be setting off in about," he looked at his watch, "90 minutes. I thought we could send Teal'c and Daniel to your house at about the same time, that way if he is watching for the first opportunity to get in and lay in wait, we get there first"
"That OK with you two?" Asked Jack
"All ready here" said Daniel
"Indeed" said Teal'c
"Ok then, I'll get hold of Pendergast…"
"Don't bother Jack, we have it sorted here, the President was onto us first thing this morning, everything has been co-ordinated, the ship has the coordinates, and has also got a lock on both of YOU in case something unexpected happens."
"Both of us? They better not beam me out if he arrives here! Sam, yes, we don't have any weapons except my personal ones, which I am wearing, but if he turns up here I want to be left alone with him."
"That's a bit silly, even for you Jack, you don't know how he will be armed, he could have a high powered rifle, so we…well they… are also scanning the surrounding area, especially as it is all private land, and no-one but you two should be on it."
He signed off from the SGC and rang Michaels, nothing was happening much that he didn't already know, except that a unit of special forces was being dispatched to the ship in case someone was spotted close to the cabin, or even on their home at the Springs, they could intercept or neutralise any threat within a minute.
Jack was starting to think that maybe this was getting out of hand, then he remembered it was all for Sams safety, and nothing that kept her safe was too much.
Thinking of her, he turned his gaze towards the cabin, suddenly wanting to be next to her, he decided to wrap things up quickly and go put on the coffee machine, that was guaranteed to wake her, which was why he had had instant earlier. He had just turned it on when he heard Sam screaming from the bedroom!
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