Hydra Page 8

  Peterson blinked like Mendez had just slapped him across his face. It took him a few long seconds to collect himself. “I think that the problem here…” He peeled a hand away from the clipboard and waved vaguely in the direction of the lab. Piper noticed that his hand left a wet print behind. “What I mean is, I’m certain that the break — not a psychotic break, exactly, but something comparable — has entirely to do with the way we introduced the Goa’uld code. If we can make modifications in a more controlled way, progressively, we can avoid this kind of response.”

  “Response,” Mendez repeated. When he lifted his hand to rub it across his face, Piper was surprised to see that it was shaking.

  Down the hall, the marines had packed up their welding gear and were pulling back to the intersecting corridor. Inside the lab, the betas must’ve figured out what was up, because they were pounding on the door. More than human power in each blow of a fist made the blast doors ring.

  “Listen to me, Peterson,” Mendez said. “You are going to figure out how to make me a switch.”

  “Fire in the hole,” Siebert shouted.

  Mendez’s voice was barely a whisper. “I do not want to do this again.”

  Piper put his hands over his ears, but it didn’t matter; he could feel the blast through the concrete, in his bones. He couldn’t hear anybody screaming. Not really.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Colorado Springs

  October 30, 2002, one day after invasion of Eshet

  “We are being followed,” Teal’c said, his eyes hidden behind his shades.

  “Yeah, I see ‘em.”

  Jack kept his own eyes on the hot dog stand at the foot of the winding path, but part of his attention was on the two shapes ghosting along beside them, darting from bench to tree for cover. The park was busy for a weekday afternoon. Probably the unseasonable heat. He squinted through the mostly bare branches of the trees at the bright sun sliding fat and orange toward the roofs of the apartment buildings on the other side of the park. Even this late in the day it was warm enough to go in shirtsleeves, but he kept his jacket on to hide the holster on his shoulder and the 9mm snug in his armpit. There were kids in the park, which lay adjacent to an elementary school. After school day-care was still in full swing beyond the chain link fence. Thin screams of laughter scored the high, bright air. No way he wanted to get into a firefight here.

  Which was why Harry picked the spot, of course.

  The ghosts split up, one heading around the back side of a thick-trunked cedar, the other dashing across the path behind Jack and Teal’c to crouch behind a garbage can.

  Willing them away with his mind, Jack counted benches, found the third one down the path, two up from the hot dog stand, and sat down, just like he’d been instructed to do in the note he’d found on the windshield of his truck back at the mountain. There was no sign of Harry, but the two ghosts had joined up again and were now hunkered down together behind the garbage can, whispering.

  “This is inconvenient.” Instead of sitting, Teal’c strode to the near side of the garbage can and looked over it. Caught before the jig was up, the two ghosts made the best of it by leaping up in their bedsheet shrouds and, with widespread hands waving, shrieked, “BOO!”

  “Boo,” Teal’c said mildly, and the kids froze for one long second before screaming identical screams of terror and taking off at a run, their costumes whipping around their sneakers.

  When Jack turned back, Harry was next to him on the bench, smiling that infuriating smile.

  “Trick or treat,” he said, around a mouthful of what had to be half a hot dog.

  Jack cocked his head and contemplated him for a moment. He looked pretty good for a guy on the lam, smug and well dressed. “How ‘bout I just beat you to death instead?”

  Harry laughed, giving Jack a view of the hot dog that would make him lose his appetite for a year. “You could try, but then you wouldn’t hear what I have to tell you.” He craned his neck a little to look up at Teal’c, who had stepped back to the bench to block out the sun like an incoming space cruiser. Harry didn’t try a smile, but he said to Jack, “I had no idea you thought I was worthy of the serious muscle.”

  “You’re not. I bring him along to protect me from the fourth graders.” Jack shifted around so he could rest his elbow on the back of the bench. “C’mon, Harry. Spill it. I’m kind of in a hurry, in case you didn’t know.”

  “Hmm, I hear you’re having a little trouble.” He dabbed at a spot of mustard on his jacket. “Of the doppelganger kind.”

  “For a guy out of the loop, you sure seem in the loop.”

  “I hear things. Like to keep up, you know. Helps me know who’s likely to kill me this month.” He paused to watch the schoolyard on the other side of the fence, where there were children in costumes lining up by twos for early Halloween hijinks. Frankenstein was holding the hand of the princess, while Batman hooked up with SpongeBob. “You stop to wonder how those duplicate teams know where to go, Jack? How they’re avoiding crossing paths with your SGC teams?”

  “Actually, no,” Jack answered. “Been a little preoccupied with other things.”

  “Maybe you should start. The answer is closer than you think.”

  “A mole.”

  Harry aimed a finger gun at him. “Head of the class.”

  Jack scratched the back of his neck. “We shut down their off-world programs,” he said. “You admitted as much when they tried to get Hammond reassigned.”

  “Jack,” Harry said, reproachful. “Do you really think these people can be shut down? We’re talking about the best liars in the known universe. Half of everything they say is disinformation.”

  “By ‘they’ you of course mean ‘you.’”

  “There’s someone you could talk to,” Harry said. “Someone with more current information than mine.”

  “You mean Makepeace,” Jack said.

  “Very good, Jack. The more channels the NID has to off-world operations and technology, the better off they are. And I hear they’re flying in comfort these days.”

  “A ship,” Teal’c said. The rumble in his voice left no doubt about his opinion on that matter. Possibly the worst news Harry could have given them.

  “Amazing what you can get ahold of when you’ve got SG-1 working for you.”

  The kids were making their way toward them across the park now, two straggly lines of sparkles and spandex like party favors blown along by the late October wind. Jack looked away from them, turning his scowl on Maybourne. “Anything else you want to tell me to brighten my day?”

  “Just that the thought of unlimited duplicates of you out there frightens me.” He stood up and brushed crumbs off his pants. By the time he was done, the ranks of kids had broken down into a generally cohesive gaggle. Before Jack could even think about putting a hand to the gun in its holster, Harry was in their midst, shouting “Trick or treat!” and tossing candy at outstretched hands. The teacher was wading back toward Harry, but the momentum carried the group on down the path. Just before they turned the corner at the base of a knoll, Harry waved over his shoulder and grinned.

  Jack leaned his mouth close to his lapel mike to let his own ghosts know where to pick Harry up, but after a couple of minutes a voice came back informing him that the kids had left the park and there was no sign of Maybourne at all.

  “Of course not,” Jack muttered, and headed for his truck.

  While Jack was speed-dialing the mountain, Teal’c said, “It is two hours’ drive to Clearwater.”

  “Yeah, I know.” They didn’t have two hours to waste getting to Makepeace. He spoke into the phone. “General. Maybe he gave us something. Won’t know ‘til we go check it out. Think you can find us a chopper?”

  Jack pulled his sunglasses down over his eyes, the better to pretend he wasn’t spending this sunny day headed toward a maximum-security holding facility to interrogate a traitor. He tossed the keys to Teal’c. “You drive,” he said, climbing into the passenger seat.
Even though it was just a couple of miles to the rendezvous with the chopper, he never could resist a chance to watch Teal’c drive. Teal’c approached driving with the ease and determination of someone who’d flown spaceships through hostile space. Cars and freeways were just more of the same.

  In several ways, it was a relief to be doing this particular task with Teal’c, because Jack thought they were on the same page with it. Carter would have some issues with Jack’s planned approach, and Daniel…well, if Daniel had been assigned to this, he’d be wearing the reproachful look already, and there would be talking and reasoning and feelings and rights all the way to the prison, and that would only throw Jack off his game. Not because Daniel was right, but because he had an insidious way of making Jack ask the wrong kinds of questions. He couldn’t afford to question what he was about to do.

  Teal’c drove in silence for a while, and then defied Jack’s predictions by pitching an opening to a conversation Jack wasn’t sure he wanted to have. “You consider Colonel Makepeace a shol’va?”

  That brought Jack up a little straighter in the seat. He squinted out the window at the passing landscape. Some nice little irony, sending one civilization’s traitor to extract information from another’s. “It’s not the same,” he said finally.

  “Is it not?” Teal’c changed lanes, giving the words time to sink in like barbed hooks, and said, “He disobeyed orders in the hope that he could keep this world free.”

  “It’s different,” Jack said. He peeled off his shades. “You disobeyed orders to save your people. Because there wasn’t any other way.”

  “Do you not consider the NID’s mission to have been one with Earth’s protection as their foremost goal?”

  “No,” Jack said automatically, though he could already see where Teal’c was going with this. More than once, Teal’c had told Hammond the SGC wasn’t doing enough to secure Goa’uld technology, and he felt their methods were ineffective. Granted, he’d eased off on that after the first year, but sometimes Jack could still see it in his eyes.

  Jack knew how he felt. He’d been conflicted while he was undercover, and he was still a little conflicted now. It hadn’t been hard to steal technology from the Tollan people. He’d enjoyed it. He hadn’t had to act much.

  But unlike Makepeace, he knew a bad order was still an order and shadow ops never ended well, regardless of how well executed they were or what they managed to accomplish. Someone always paid; the cost was usually too high.

  He was thinking of platitudes about honorable methods, but honor wasn’t a word Teal’c took lightly, and he knew it was bullshit anyway. He was talking to a man who’d chosen betrayal himself, who’d chosen right over honor, and had redefined honor, given it new context.

  “You do not fault the motive,” Teal’c said, same question, different angle.

  “No,” Jack answered. “Not the motive.”

  No more was said on the matter as they secured themselves in the chopper for the short hop to Clearwater. Jack occupied himself by picking out landmarks below. By the time the chopper settled outside the gates of the facility, he’d put everything else aside and had his game face on.

  Teal’c scanned the fence as they walked through, eyed the guard towers. Jack had the distinct impression Teal’c found the security less than adequate. He kept the impression to himself, just as Teal’c kept his opinions quiet. Jack often wanted all the nonessential details Teal’c noticed, all the things he didn’t deem important enough to say, but he had to be content with those few things Teal’c felt were critical enough to pass the filter of his long decades as First Prime.

  Makepeace was housed in a cellblock with few windows. Interrogation rooms encircled the common visiting area, their windows darkened. Jack pushed open one of the unlocked doors; the light flickered on dimly overhead as if called into service by his presence alone. Two chairs on either side of a small table. Jack looked up at the ceiling, at the mirrored wall. “Couple beers, a jukebox, could be a popular vacation spot.”

  “How would you like to proceed?” Teal’c was watching him in that way he had of making Jack feel like a junior Jaffa.

  Jack sighed. “Let’s see what I can talk him into giving up.”

  “And if he will not comply?”

  Jack looked him in the eye. “Then I guess we’ll take it as it comes.”

  Teal’c inclined his head. Once, a long time ago, Jack had come close to asking Teal’c if he’d been an interrogator among the Jaffa, if he knew how to torture. He was pretty sure he knew the answer, and he hadn’t wanted to make Teal’c go back into those memories, but the curiosity nagged at him sometimes. He had the feeling if he and Teal’c ever compared notes, the black pages in their books would look pretty similar. He’d seen it in Teal’c’s posture, in the tilt of his head when he looked at some of those he’d left behind. He’d seen the way they backed away from him, old memories surfacing in their fear.

  Technically, they weren’t allowed to employ those methods to obtain information. Jack was pretty sure, however, that nobody would be watching. And if they were, they wouldn’t care. The only thing standing between Jack and that information would be…Well, ‘ethics’ was such a clear-cut word, and Jack hated to be boxed in.

  The door on the far end of the cell buzzed, calling to the guard behind, who pushed it open. Makepeace swaggered through with as much of an arrogant strut and turn of the hips as the belly chains would permit, looking just as military and self-possessed as Jack remembered. His hair was a little grayer, his frame thinner, but there were no other visible effects of almost two years of confinement. He dismissed Teal’c with a glance — Jack was sure he thought he’d figured out all there was to know about Teal’c in the time he’d supervised him, because Makepeace really was just that arrogant. He saved the full force of his attention for Jack.

  “I figured I’d be seeing you soon,” he said. “You run out of other sources to burn there, Jack?”

  Jack ignored the jab and gestured to the guard to remove the chains and cuffs. Makepeace made a show of rubbing his wrists and dropped his hands to his sides, though Jack knew he’d been through far worse.

  “So,” Jack said. He pointed to the chair on the opposite side of the table and pulled out his own. Teal’c put his hands behind his back and stood very still. “Keeping busy?”

  “Very funny.” Makepeace kicked the chair out from under the table and sat down, his posture braced, his body slightly turned toward Teal’c, who deliberately moved to place himself behind Makepeace. A strategic decision, one that would allow him to see Jack, read his intentions. Makepeace twisted in his chair, his level of discomfort increasing with every moment Teal’c stood behind him.

  From Jack’s perspective, Makepeace was right to be uncomfortable.

  “What do you want, Jack?” Makepeace glanced back at Teal’c, who had not moved. Jack could hear the determination in Makepeace’s voice, but there was a thread of something thinner, more fragile.

  “Rumor has it there are several versions of me running around the cosmos,” Jack said. He leaned back in the chair and crossed his arms over his chest. “Thought you could shed some light on things, seeing as how it’s your cronies from the NID who’re behind it.”

  “And why exactly would you think I could do that?” Makepeace leaned back, mirroring Jack’s position exactly. His lips twisted in a half-smile. “I’ve been out of commission for the better part of two years. You know that better than anyone.”

  “You put yourself here.” Jack kept his tone smooth, even.

  “Semantics.” Makepeace jabbed a finger at Jack and said, “If you think anything you’ve done since you locked me up has kept Earth safe, you’re delusional. You know damn well that procurement operation was both necessary and important. Shutting it down did nothing but leave Earth defenseless.”

  Jack’s lips thinned to a straight line. Never mind his own sympathy for the argument. He hated to hear it thrown back at him by Makepeace. “Whether I agree or not isn�
�t the point. We didn’t have a choice. You alienated our allies. Only someone as arrogant as Maybourne would think it’s possible to trick and steal from the most powerful races in the universe and get away with it. We needed their goodwill.”

  “Sure we did. Because they’ve given us so much, right?” Makepeace snorted. “Wake up, Jack.”

  “Come on, you can’t think everything the NID did was worthwhile.” Jack frowned. “Procurement, sure. But replication of human beings?”

  Makepeace looked away.

  Jack leaned across the table. “How long has this thing been in development?”

  “You’d love it if I gave everything up, wouldn’t you?” Makepeace turned his head to look Jack square in the eye. “But what are you going to give me in return?”

  “Nothing for nothing, Makepeace. You don’t get many chances to do the right thing anymore, do you? I don’t think you even recognize them when they come your way.”

  “I tried, once.” Makepeace looked away again.

  Jack stood up slowly, and as he did, Teal’c pressed in behind Makepeace, so close he was touching the back of the chair. Makepeace tried to shift away, but Teal’c’s hand landed on his shoulder, an iron anchor.

  “So this is how it is, now?” Makepeace shrugged, but the hand remained in place. “You gonna tear little pieces off me, make me beg?”

  “I will be considerably more efficient than what you describe,” Teal’c said, and even Jack could feel the chill behind the words. Teal’c’s fingers tightened, his grip bearing down on the muscle, then the bone. Makepeace gasped, face scrunched into a rictus, collarbone in danger of snapping under Teal’c’s relentless pressure.

  “I could offer you the same deal I gave Maybourne,” Jack said, as though Teal’c wasn’t presently engaged in his own kind of persuasion. “Life instead of death.”

  Makepeace said nothing. Jack shrugged, sat back down. Teal’c didn’t move. Only his hand shifted, and Jack couldn’t hear tendons snapping, but Makepeace turned white.