Chapter 5
Early
Monday morning dressed in her uniform, Sam leaned against the doorway
of her husband's home office and sipped at the coffee in the mug she
held. They had a good hour before Jack's driver would arrive to
chauffeur them to the Pentagon, but Jack had been hard at work since
waking up, using every minute of the weekend tying up Gold and Mackay
who had been further tied to their four close friends: Wilson,
McAllister, Robertson, and Sharpe.
The traces for first Gold and
Mackay and then their club friends had quickly established familial
relationship with six former members of the Committee organization.
Searching into all six had revealed various interesting social and
political activities and financial transactions. It appeared those six
pampered young men were attempting to follow in their fathers' footsteps
by engaging in various shadowy antics.
Most evidence also pointed
to the fact that they were only on the fringes of their fathers' former
activities—otherwise why would they have engaged in the colossally
stupid activity of attempting to blackmail the director of the world's
most powerful and secret military department by using his wife?
Well,
that was the consensus the analysts had come up with and would stand
until evidence supporting or disproving the theory was found. Evidence
that would be secured with direct questioning following the six men's
arrests and in the searches of their homes, private club, and other
owned or frequented locations.
Various other individuals that were
either co-conspirators or blackmail victims themselves, like those that
had allowed Gold and Mackay to enter the highly restricted area housing
Jack's office were suspended from their duties and were under
investigation. The links to other, non-Stargate Program military
activities, but regular US military activities, also meant this was a
very national investigation officially under the auspices of Homeland
Security Department—which was really Homeworld Security. And unlike the
military officers, the Department had to walk a little more softly with
identified civilian victims but Jack hoped that with the threat of their
blackmailers removed they would be able to provide more information to
him.
The photographic studio responsible for the fabrication of
the photographs had also been located—via the financial transactions.
While the proprietor initially claimed client confidentiality, he had
become very cooperative when the entire Department started breathing
down his neck to explain that Wilson had given him the photographs with
the man and woman having sex, a remarkable look-alike, for the woman of
the photographs that Gold had supplied to him.
Considering the
woman's remarkable resemblance to his wife and that it actually was
Cameron Mitchell in the photographs had Jack
very interested in
locating the look-alike and learning the results of the Lt. Colonel's
questioning; who Landry had informed him a phone call ago, was sweating
buckets in one of the SGC's interrogation cells. Jack could well believe
it. Even if Mitchell was entirely innocent of the situation, there was
still the fact that he had had sex with a woman that looked like Sam and
all that could imply.
Ending his latest phone call, Jack hung up
the receiver and looked over the six dossiers on his desk that been
compiled over the weekend of the young men to his wife. Like her, he was
already dressed in most of his uniform and their jackets—his freshly
ironed—were waiting in the entrance way for when they departed for the
Pentagon.
"I made eggs if you are interested in more breakfast,"
Sam offered softly, knowing that as Jack had been up hours before she
had, he had already served himself a bowl of cereal.
"I would like
that," Jack pushed away from his desk and set his briefcase onto the
polished surface. He neatly stacked the six dossiers into the case and
shut the latches. The five by seven envelope with the manipulated
pornographic photographs was already sitting in the bottom of the
briefcase.
With briefcase in one hand, Jack picked up his
forgotten mug with its cold coffee, and after dropping the case in the
entrance way, made his way into the kitchen to find Sam had poured him a
fresh cup of coffee. Seating himself at the table he patted the chair
beside him and once Sam had taken a seat beside him, twined their
fingers together and showed off his dexterity by eating the eggs on the
plate before him with his other hand.
Holding hands was just one
such demonstration of affection that they had both showed, and needed,
this past weekend as they investigated the blackmailing scheme against
themselves. Those manipulated photographs had struck a solid blow, but
already they were rebuilding the foundations stronger.
. . .
Exchanging
smirks of accomplishment Harvey and Donald entered the section in the
Pentagon that housed presidential advisor General O'Neill's set of
offices again and were pleased when they were shown promptly into the
general's office by his aid Davis.
As formally dressed as he was
during their previous visit, the grey haired man once again looked up at
them over his reading glasses only now he sat slumped in his chair and a
defeated aura hung about him.
Hastily, and almost clumsily,
O'Neill hurried to his feet at the sight of them being ushered into his
office. "Mr Gold, Mr Mackay," he grovelled.
Harvey waved back the
general dismissingly and he and Donald confidently took seats. "I see
that the weekend to think things over has been good for you."
"Yes,
it would be most unfortunate if decisions made in haste were to damage
the career of yourself, your wife, or the president's term in office,"
Donald added pointedly.
"Yes, yes," O'Neill agreed with a cringe
before asking with timid hopefulness as he picked up and began worrying a
pen. "But certainly we can come to some… mutually beneficial
agreement?"
"I am sure you can help us," Harvey said superciliously.
O'Neill looked anxiously at them as he worried the pen harder. "Help you? How?"
"Certainly a man who has the president's ear would know how to help us."
"B-but… I… I can't, what I do is highly classified and…"
"Come now O'Neill," Harvey pressed with a glint in his eye, "we wouldn't want any tabloids to get those pictures would we?"
"Surely
what you do isn't worth the scandal—in fact it would certainly be
impinged by such a scandal wouldn't it?" Donald added. "I think we'll
start by reviewing your current projects."
The fingers worrying
the pen in his grip stilled and with the defeated air of a man walking
to his own execution, O'Neill reached forward to press the talk button
of his office telecom. "Bring in this weekend's project files Carter."
Harvey
noted that O'Neill had attempted to stall them and made a mental note
to exert a suitable punishment for it a little further into their
dealings.
The door behind them opened again and the brisk sound of
heels against wood echoed loudly in the enclosed space. The initially
dismissing glance at the entry of O'Neill's secretary turned to stares
as both young men suddenly realized that it was not the man that had
shown them into the office, but a blonde woman. A blonde woman who was
intimately familiar to them because of the pornographic photographs
they'd had made up. Her unexpected presence and current glacial
expression sent a trickle of worry down their spines.
Her heels
clicking together as she stood at attention beside the general's desk
and formally presented the clipboard to O'Neill. "The warrants as
requested Sir."
Harvey and Donald exchanged surprised looks—warrants? What was this old man playing at now?
"Thank
you Colonel," the general accepted the board and flipped through the
handful of pages clipped to its surface. After assuring that the last
signatures were all in their proper places the general set the clipboard
down. He then methodically took off his reading glasses, and with
measured deliberateness folded them, and placed them on top of the
search and arrest warrants.
Harvey and Donald stiffened in their
seats at the icy shudder that clawed down their spines as General
O'Neill suddenly seemed to change. Gone was the defeated oldness, in its
place was a lethal readiness as dark brown eyes pinned them with brutal
hardness to their seats.
They were unable to look away from his
hard gaze as more uniformed bodies began to enter from the open office
door. Only they were not the uniforms of officers, but uniforms of the
military police.
"You are under arrest for blackmail, attempted
blackmail, slander, and treason," Jack enumerated in a glacial voice
that had broken the will of alien warriors and had no problem breaking
the wills of Harvey and Donald and nearly had them pissing their pants.
"I want—I want my lawyer," Donald managed to whimper as he became aware of the MP hands closing around his arms.
"I don't think Mackay gets it, does he Colonel?" Jack asked rhetorically.
"No Sir," the blonde at his elbow replied crisply.
"Listen
up boys. I am only going to say this once. What I do does not
officially exist. If you can figure out how to get daddy's lawyers to
defend you against something that does not exist, let me know. Until
then, enjoy your cells."
As the MPs dragged the now whimpering and
blubbering young men from his office, Jack made a sound of disgust in
the back of his throat. Disgusted at their antics and the fact that
those weak young men had caused him and Sam so much pain.
Harvey
Gold, Donald Mackay, Marcus Wilson, James McAllister, Colton Robertson,
and Lucas Sharpe—the latter four were also in the process of being
arrested once located—were about to discover that they were guppies
pretending to be sharks and like any little fish that went swimming with
the big boys, they would get eaten.
Sam moved from her position
stiffly at attention beside her husband to close the door. Once the
wooden panel was shut she made her way back to her husband and took a
seat in the chair Gold had just been removed from.
Not liking that
she had put his desk between them, Jack got up from his chair and
rounded his desk to take a seat in the chair Mackay had been in. When he
reached out between the space that separated the two chairs and grasped
her hand, he was reassured when she twined their fingers together. Her
free hand came up to rub at the wedding ring on his hand that was laced
with hers.
"So, that's the beginning of the end of that?" Sam
asked softly as she looked at the polished band. She knew that while the
investigation would continue and the trials occur months down the line,
the outcome considering the secret nature of the program and Jack's
international authority would ensure that it was dealt with quickly,
quietly, and severely.
"It is," Jack affirmed as he lifted up his
other hand to cup her cheek. Sam gave a half-hearted and lopsided smile
and leaned her face against his touch.
"Just, no more getting yourself blackmailed okay?" she joked feebly.
"I can't promise you anything beyond the fact that no matter what is shown to me, I will always believe in you."
Seeing
the loving reassurance in his dark eyes Sam gave him one of her true,
light up the room smiles, and in that moment of suspended time they knew
that whatever else was thrown at them they were strong enough to stand
against it as long as they had each other, and believed in each other's
love.
-FINISHED
AN (Which really should have gone in the first chapter): The
purpose of this short story does not really do justice to the Byzantine
potential of the plot thread. The purpose was to prove to myself that I
was capable of writing to a self-imposed short story limit – five
chapters with each chapter not exceeding three typed pages in length.
So, if writers reading this feel they can write a far more satisfactory
story of the Byzantine plot I barely touched upon, please do so and tell
me about the story because I would love to read it!
Thanks for reading and to Jack O'Neill – Happy Birthday!
