Chapter Text
Å
FBI Special Agent-in-Charge Don Eppes slowly rose to his feet, glaring down at the woman slumped dead over her desk. The EMTs who had arrived on the scene first had made a mess of the door on this home office, locked from the inside, sending wood splinters all over the otherwise immaculate room. The only window was not just locked and bolted, but hermetically sealed for the sake of the air conditioning system, and there were no cracks or holes in the double-paned glass. The air return grate was tiny. Strange, then, that there should be such a reek of ozone in the air. There didn’t seem to be any other way in or out. As for the body, there were no marks to be seen on her at all, without removing clothing. Even the woman’s dark brown hair (showing grey at the roots) was still in place, scraped painfully tight into a bun at the base of her neck. To all appearances, she had just fallen forward, dead. It might be heart attack, of course… although a fit and healthy non-smoker in her mid forties... that seemed unlikely.
Even with the use of his… *special* talents, the only additional clue he could detect was a vague waft of Axe aftershave… not something the woman’s husband used. Or her lover. Or any of the EMTs and LEOs who had been in and out. But, unfortunately, it wasn’t anything he could submit as evidence, not even with the most sensitive CSI equipment. The shadowy moose peering over his shoulder huffed out a frustrated breath, then vanished, back wherever it came from. And really, a moose? What the hell was that about?
Agent Eppes recognized her at once, of course, with the amount of noise she had been making lately in the local media. Dr. Susan Calloway (doctor of what, no one seemed to know) had recently started up a grass-roots militantly anti-zed movement she named Pure Humanity Organized for Youth. Or PHOeY as it was jokingly referred to. Seemingly overnight, her group had gained support and a *lot* of funding from unknown sources. They seemed geared to throw their political weight around southern California. Their candidate of choice was a member of the state assembly they were touting as the next governor. The formerly obscure political player, Assemblyman Marvin Williams, was said to be having an affair with Dr. Calloway, both of whom were married, to other people.
Agent David Sinclair, the team 2IC, was just clicking shut his cell phone as he joined Don. “Colby’s got his hands full with his case. LAPD is doing their best to contain the scene, but it’s the middle of Manhattan Beach, and there was already a hell of a crowd when someone realised he was dead.”
“Another one like this, no marks?”
“Oh, there’s a mark. Single high-calibre bullet, middle of his forehead. Sniper shot, from a hell of a distance. Our buddy Ian Edgerton might have been able to make the shot, but… not too many others, outside trained military snipers. Colby’s already got a call in to Ian, see if he can give us an assist on this one.”
Don sighed, hating this already. The body on the beach was… yes, Assemblyman Marvin Williams, who probably would have taken up a career as a beach bum, if his family hadn’t pushed him into politics.
“There was another assassination this morning, in DC, right? Couple of hours ago? High calibre sniper shot?”
David nodded, and he stiffened as he realised what Don already suspected. “Yeah. Marine general, wants all zeds legally barred from any military service. Been protesting O’Neill’s allowing zeds in the HomeWorld organization. I think NCIS took over that investigation. You think there’s a link?”
“I know damn well there’s a link. Zeds. Probably HomeWorld, too. Okay. I want to check the current where-abouts and status of… two more people. A businessman, probably somewhere in New York City, named Anthony D. DiNozzo Senior. And just about any former members of the IOA, but particularly the Russian rep, somewhere in Russia or maybe Europe, Arseny Ivanov. Get Liz and Nikki on it. And I want to know *yesterday*.”
David nodded. “You think they’re already dead.”
“Yeah, and if they are…”
“The prime suspects are all members of HomeWorld Security. The first and biggest supporter of zed rights, world-wide.”
“Plus their friends and families. And that’s gonna look really convenient when the media jumps on this with both feet. And that’s going to happen any moment now. David, we need to keep a lid on this as long as possible. I want the whole team to move into the SCIF, and stay there for the duration of the investigation. We can’t just assume we’re on our own, not now. Colby’s on the beach?”
“Yeah.”
“Okay. You both know what you’re going to find, what it’s been made to look like, but I need you to go beyond that and find the truth.”
“If there’s anything to find. If you ask me, they had help that was… ‘out of this world’. And whoever it is also has some impressive skills.”
“Yeah, well, so do we. Tell Colby… he might be looking for someone who likes Axe body spray a little too much.” Colby Granger, former military intelligence, also had some… sensitive senses to call up. And the shadow of a big cat of some kind at his back, so much cooler than a damn moose.
Don was thinking madly as he made his way out of the Calloway house into the bright Los Angeles morning sunshine. David followed him, warily looking around for surveillance they no doubt had on them, and had no hope of detecting, no matter how good the senses.
“What are you going to be doing?”
“Something that’s going to put me in a very deep hole.”
“Want company?”
“Hell, no. I want you in place to take over the team. You know how much I hate conspiracy theories, but…”
“Yeah. This is just step one.”
“Even if we can keep this secret, they’ll be ready to leak it any time they’re ready. And by that time it might already be too late to stop whatever else is going down. Keep the home fires burning, David. Don’t let the assholes win.”
“Good luck, boss. Catch you on the other side.”
Å
Don bypassed their own department SUV, slowing just long enough to ditch his radio and cell inside it, and grabbed keys from a startled LEO to a random squad car. That was just to get him to the nearest subway access point. He had stopped briefly in one of the station platform shops to buy himself a new cell. He sent a brief text to Charlie, and waited for the number to come back. He made a quick pay-phone call to David to get an update… about what he thought he would hear. Then he found himself a deserted subway platform, and prayed he could get reception with all the concrete and steel around him. He had to walk around a bit, before he found a hot spot with three bars. Then he dialed the very private number.
“Agent Hetty Lange? I’m FBI Agent Don Eppes, Charlie Eppes’s brother. We met…”
“Agent Eppes. Yes, we’ve met, and locked horns, on any number of cases. What can I do for you?”
“Yeah. I’m about to do something grossly illegal and inappropriate, that will probably get my ass canned for the rest of time. And that is to reveal the details of a highly sensitive ongoing murder investigation well within FBI jurisdiction to an outside federal agency. I believe my present location and communications to be secure, but that won’t last long.
“Within the past twelve hours, there have been at least five high-profile deaths under suspicious circumstances. You heard about Marine General Joseph Schmidt, killed this morning on the front steps of his Arlington home? I was called to the Calloway house less than an hour ago to find Dr. Susan Calloway, director of Pure Humanity Organized for Youth, dead, in a locked room, with no visible signs of struggle or injury. The easiest explanation is that someone with access to advanced and highly restricted alien technology beamed in, double-zatted her, and beamed out again. While at the scene, we had word of another victim, of a sniper, at Manhattan Beach. Assemblyman Marvin Williams, vocal supporter of PHOeY. I had my people check on a couple of others… after our call, LEO’s in Amagansett Long Island found Anthony D. DiNozzo Senior dead on the beach near his cottage, another sniper shot. And, ma’am… A former member of the IOA, currently supposed to be in hiding, Arseny Ivanov, is also dead, in a home in Toulouse, France, where he was hiding out under an assumed name. When the local gendarme checked at the house, he found the staff in an up-roar. Ivanov was found dead on the carpet in the library. They had to break the door down to get in, just like Calloway. They think it was a heart attack, but we both know the autopsy will reveal something more sinister.”
“Oh bugger.”
“Yeah, what you said.”
“A locked-door mystery? A body in the library? Someone out there has a very sick sense of humor.”
“Yes, ma’am. This smells to high heaven, but I don’t know if my team will be able to get past the set dressing to the real perpetrators. And we’re the best there is. You can trust my team to find anything they can. But... Certainly not before *someone* leaks it to the press. Then we’ve got a shit-storm of monumental proportions headed our way. You might want to check on other high-profile enemies of either the HWS in particular, or zeds in general, and it looks like it’s going to be global, rather than just here in the US. I doubt these five will be the only ones. They’re just the ones I knew of and could check in the past hour. And once the ball starts rolling…”
“It’ll take the SGC and HomeWorld Security with it.”
“That’s my thinking, ma’am. I’m guessing HWS is the primary target, but they seem to be aiming at zeds, as well. Whoever ‘they’ are… They’ve got a pretty narrow window. Now that the Shield is up and the weapons platforms deployed, they’re trapped, and once Atlantis gets back… they’ve only got a few short months to bring the whole shooting match down and take command. This will just be the first step.”
Hetty sighed. “Yes, that’s what I’m thinking… thank you for the heads-up, agent. By the way… why did you call me, specifically, me?”
“I know you’ve been keeping a watch on high profile zed assets on the west coast, having my brother Charlie tailed. I haven’t called you on it because I figure you have your reasons, probably on orders from HWS. I need all the help I can get protecting my brother, especially in light of the mass zed abductions. Best not tell Charlie, but there will *never* come a time when I object to more help wrangling my little brother. The guy may be a genius, but he’s also a goddamned trouble magnet.”
“No need to say more, agent. I am familiar with the breed.”
“Yeah, I guess you are at that. So, anyway, I figured you have a direct line to the appropriate people at HWS. They need to know, soonest.”
“And… how do you know they *aren’t* the ones behind these crimes?”
“Please,” Don sounded pained. “There’s no way O’Neill, or any of his people, are stupid enough to leave bodies behind.”
“I keep underestimating you Eppes boys, and it bites me in the ass every time.” Hetty sighed. “Yes, agent, I’ve been directed by my contacts at HWS to keep an eye on the zed situation. I’m going to have to take action on this latest wrinkle, and if anyone finds out you spilled to me…”
Don huffed. “You think that’s going to matter in a few hours, maybe sooner? They’re gonna blow this sky-high exactly when they want to, and there’s nothing either of us can do to stop it. Whoever ‘they’ are. But it’s time to circle the wagons and go to Plan B.”
“You have a Plan B?”
Don huffed again. “I may not be the genius in my family, but I’m not a complete boob. Even I can add up this equation. Zeds have been on the firing line since Sulfur Springs. You bet I have a Plan B. Not to mention Plan C-thru-Z. I just hope HWS is ready, too.”
Hetty chuckled. “Oh, I’m certain they are. Good luck then, agent.”
Don signed off, stepped on the cell, and tossed its shards on the tracks, ready to catch the next train.
Å
As soon as Hetty hung up on the call from Agent Eppes, she called Vice Admiral (retired) AJ Chegwidden, on duty at his office at the SGC.
“AJ? That wily Reid kid was right again. You’re going to need to implement Red Sea.”
“Hell. You sure?”
Hetty filled in her old partner in crime. “Now, AJ. They won’t give us much time.”
Hetty looked up to find her team gathering around her desk, looking concerned. She sighed and took a deep breath, then a long sip of that precious Athosian tea Jack supplied her. Then she closed her eyes, said a quick calming mantra, and briefed her people on this current drama, then set them to work.
“Eric, Nell, call up all the information you can on murders, world-wide, with some connection either to anti-zed sentiments, or directly with HWS, its agencies and personnel. Callen, Sam, get on the phone to our other offices… Dwayne Pride, Balboa at the Navy Yard…”
Callen gave her a raised brow. “Not Director Vance?”
“Hell no. He’s already in charge of investigating suspicious deaths in Washington, and I don’t want to distract him from… whatever mess he’s got himself into. Let’s give him all the rope he needs. I’m trying to get Owen on the line, but he’s out of country. Kenzie, call your buddies in Honolulu. Steve McGarrett needs a heads-up too, because the world is about to go ape-shit, and they’ll want to take it all out on zeds. He can expect a flood of refugees any time now. Deeks, you have FBI contacts. Call them. Tobias Fornell, Aaron Hotchner, Sam Cooper, Jack Garrett… No need to call Don Eppes, he already knows. But anyone else you can think of that you can trust. I have a list myself, most of a rather higher security level, including CIA Director Pamela Landy. I’ll send you all a list of more contacts, we’ll divide it up, make sure we get as many as possible alerted. I’ll call Clyde Easter and Emily Prentiss at Interpol myself. Everyone clear? Then get busy. Once the avalanche begins, it’ll only gather speed and destructive potential.”
Å
By the time Agent Don Eppes hit daylight, TV monitors tuned to ZNN were already splashing the faces of Calloway and Williams across their screens, with teletype information on their deaths no reporter should have. Hell, even Don didn’t have some of it! Their reports included the underline of the victims’ connection to the anti-zed movement.
He used a pay phone to call for transport. David showed up soon after with his SUV and official cell phone.
“It didn’t take them long,” David grimaced. “The Assistant Director wants you in his office, like, yesterday.”
Don nodded. He checked his voice mail, and there were frantic calls from Charlie and his father. On the way back to headquarters, he called them both, gave his father meaningless phrases of reassurance, but to Charlie...
“Time to get with your Blue Jungle pals, Charlie. It may be time to get people on yellow alert, at least.”
“What? Don, how do you know...”
“Come on, Charlie. No time to waste. We won’t know how bad this is going to get until it’s too late, and you need your analyst guys to figure out when to push the panic button. Right?”
“Right. Right... I’ll... get on that now.”
Half an hour later, Don emerged from the Assistant Director’s office, without his badge or gun, fired to hell and back, although they were calling it ‘administrative suspension pending investigation’ for now. Agent Colby Granger was still at the beach with an investigation team and Agent Ian Edgerton, an FBI ‘retrieval specialist’ and expert on snipers. So it was just David, with agents Liz Warner and Nikki Betancourt to say good bye. He shook hands solemnly, and said only, “Keep your heads, and don’t get stupid. Don’t let the ass-holes win.”
Å
Don headed straight for his father’s house, and then the two of them sprawled on the couch to watch the on-rushing current events on Alan’s big-screen TV, with beers in hand, and a huge pot of three-alarm chili cooking away in the kitchen. Charlie, Larry and Amita joined them after classes ended. Charlie, of course, was trailed by his constant companion, a black-and-white tuxedo cat he named Pythagoras, who had just… showed up one day, and never left. Larry brought more beer, Amita thought to bring wine, rice, cheese, and French loaves for the chili. She made a big salad, too. They were expecting the FBI crowd to arrive soon. Sure enough, Don’s ex-team mates weren’t long in arriving with more alcohol, beer and snacks, Colby dragging Ian Edgerton with him.
It was going to be a memorable wake… with history playing before them on the big screen.
Names and pictures of the dead flooded past, some infamous, some obscure.
USMC Brigadier General Joseph Schmidt, who had been lobbying for all zeds to be legally barred from any and all military service, and protested O’Neill’s recruitment of zeds to HomeWorld. He was hit by a sniper shot, on the front steps if his Arlington home.
Dr. Susan Calloway, head of the anti-zed Pure Humanity Organized for Youth. California state legislature assemblyman Marvin Williams, PHOeY supporter and having an affair with Calloway, although no one thought adultery was the reason for their deaths.
Anthony D. DiNozzo Senior, shot at his Hamptons retreat.
A New York City cable TV shock-jock who had made himself a name for his ultra-conservative and virulent anti-zed sentiments. He broke the story on the numbers of zeds recently released from prisons with full pardons. He was quoted as calling it a ‘national disgrace and gross miscarriage of justice, letting those mutant degenerate animals loose among decent people’.
Arseny Ivanov, former member of the International Oversight Advisory board that used to oversee HomeWorld, and was responsible for leaking the details of Project Bluebook, found dead in a house in Toulouse France, under an assumed name. Other individuals connected to the IOA were also among the dead. Antoine DuPont, IOA French rep and Chairman. Crispin Paddington, a former IOA accountant (and first cousin to one Anthony D. DiNozzo *Junior*), Aviv Charnas, IOA Israeli liaison.
Ex-Air Force Master Sergeant Donnetti, in Leavenworth, a former *Daedalus* quartermaster dishonorably discharged for smuggling. Ex-airman Albert Sawyer, in Leavenworth, also former *Daedalus* crew, also dishonorably discharged for smuggling…
The list went on, and on.
Leonard Burkhart… Leonard who, Don wondered? Only to have the teletype obligingly fill him in. Burkhart was a prison guard with a long list of complaints against him for excessive force used against minorities, but particularly brutal with zeds. He had been implicated in no less than seven suspicious deaths of zed prisoners in the various institutions he had worked over the years. He was currently the subject of a Department of Justice inquiry, launched since the Sulfur Springs cases. Before that he was an Air Force captain, cashiered out decades ago as ‘other than honorable’, for what reasons, ZNN didn’t know.
It was about the only detail they didn’t have conveniently served to them on a platter. And what they didn’t know, they were wildly speculating about.
All victims dead in the past twenty-four hours, all in highly suspicious circumstances, and all with some manner of hostile relationship to the SGC or HomeWorld Sec, or known anti-zed sympathizers.
Charlie could only sit and gape, dazed by the onrush of revelations over the TV screen. His right hand tightened around his wife’s, while his left obsessively stroked the purring cat in his lap.
Then there came word of the death or disappearance of key members of the Pentagon, Congress, the Senate, even the Judiciary…
Shit, it was going to look like a full-blown coup attempt…
By the time rice, chili and salad was dished up and passed around, ZNN already had a banner title for it all: ‘Night of the Long Knives’. Only thing they got wrong was who was doing the cutting.
Teams of federal agents had deployed all over the country… FBI, Secret Service, Homeland Sec, and, for reasons no one was quite sure, in Washington DC, the investigations were being led by NCIS. That was a small and obscure federal agency that usually only had jurisdiction over crimes directly involving Navy or Marine personnel or their dependants. But the first casualty in DC had been a USMC General, so yeah, NCIS got the call. Everybody, it seemed, was getting in on the fun, pounding on doors with arrest warrants. Camera crews caught close-ups of a number of agents in charge striding up various front walks in Washington DC, Groom Lake Nevada and Colorado Springs. The audience at the Eppes house cheered and jeered the faces they knew…
Don groaned particularly loudly at one familiar agent. “Oh no, not that asshole! Ron Sacks is a nincompoop. Always was. Bottom of his class at Quantico. But he’s got a highly placed ‘uncle’. He’s had it in for Tony DiNozzo since he tried, *three times* to arrest the guy for murder, three separate cases. It’s FBI legend, what a fool he made of himself over those… there’s jokes about him accusing DiNozzo of the Marie Celeste, DB Cooper and Jimmy Hoffa... and every murder that comes across his desk, they say he looks at DiNozzo first.”
Funny thing, though, they weren’t finding too many people at home.
“No kidding,” Don scoffed. “Nobody’s there.”
“You sure, Don?” Alan Eppes asked anxiously.
“Absolutely positive. They were ready for something like this. I guarantee it.”
Colby gave him a sharp look. “Because you would be.”
“Damn straight. Just like you and your Blue Jungle friends, Charlie. And maybe it’s time to make that call for emergency prep. I don’t like the way they seem to be setting up not just the HWS, but zeds, too. In fact… Amita, this is the perfect time to go visit your parents in India. Charlie, you should go too. Larry, it’s time for another walk-about. Maybe go bunk with Megan for a while, if you don’t have other plans in place.”
Charlie blinked. “Don? Surely we’ll have at least a few days before we need to leave… That’s what our people are telling us, although they agree we should start with a yellow alert, pack a go-bag to leave at the door... What are you thinking?”
“I’m thinking that by the time the eleven o’clock news rolls around, we’re going to find ourselves with a new, un-elected provisional government. They’re going to tell us that everything is under control, but believe me, they won’t have the first fucking clue. They’ll want to get at the ships, the Orbital Weapons Platforms, the Planetary Shield, a few other critical things… but if I’m right, it’ll all be locked down tight, and any scientists who might be able to help them will be long gone, probably on one of our ships in orbit right now. So they’re going to have to go looking for the next best thing. You three will be at the top of their list, too high profile to ignore. Larry, you actually have alien tech experience. Charlie, not just because you’re a genius, but you’re also a zed, and that certainly won’t help your case with these people. Once they declare Martial Law, it may be too late for any of you to hide. They’ll be stupid not to lock it all up, that’s where this whole thing is headed. Once they do, we won’t have a lot of choice in anything that happens the next few months.”
“Until Atlantis returns,” Larry mused.
Don nodded. “I think all three of you need to disappear. Like… tonight. Don’t wait for tomorrow, you can’t take the chance. And pass the word to your zeds. And… You might want to alert your math and science colleagues as well. They’ll be grabbing all the egg-heads they can get their hands on, under the excuse of eminent domain.”
Charlie began to get a stubborn set to his chin, but Don held up a hand. “It’s not just you, Charlie. Amita is two months pregnant. You don’t want her in harm’s way, and you don’t want her going anywhere without you. Right?”
Charlie thought about that, wavering. Then he began to laugh, “You can’t be serious about all of this! A military coup? Martial Law? Here? In the United States?”
For the very *very* smart man he knew his little brother to be, Don could only sigh. For months, Charlie and his Blue Jungle crew had been working on contingencies and emergency preparations for just this kind of crisis. But now that it was here… Charlie was in pretty deep denial about the whole thing. He only hoped others weren’t as intractable.
That’s when ZNN threw up the Presidential Seal, and announced an emergency press conference, direct from the White House.
It wasn’t President Henry Hayes standing at the podium, however, but a four-star Air Force General. He had thinning hair an unlikely shade of brown, bushy eyebrows, a bit of a paunch, and a folksy good ‘ol boy smile that reminded Don of a big friendly dog. It was enough to make any seasoned agent shudder in horror. The teleprompt title below him identified USAF General ‘Hank’ Landry, Pentagon Joint Chiefs of Staff.
“My fellow Americans. It is my sad duty at this time to tell you that an illegal attempt to over-throw our elected government by force was launched earlier today. Key members of the government, military and private sector have been assassinated, others have disappeared, still others we believe have been kidnapped. President Hayes was severely wounded in a cowardly attack on the Oval Office itself. This attack was prevented, but President Hayes is unable, at this time, to take command of the government and stem this tide. Accordingly, myself and other members of the Joint Chiefs have taken the initiative to combat this clear and present danger, and are declaring Martial Law over these United States of America.
“We believe the source of the attempted coup to be HomeWorld Security and its agencies, including Stargate Command. I assure you, every asset at our disposal is being employed to track down and bring these cowardly traitors to our planet to justice.
“At this time, we ask the citizens of our great nation to be patient and cooperate in every way with local authorities, both military and civilian. A strict curfew will be enforced. Travel in and out of the country will be, for the time being, restricted. Stock Trading and Banking institutions have been – for the moment - shut down. More information will be made available in due course.
“I urge each and every one of you to remain calm. The immediate danger is over. Rest assured that we have the matter well in hand, and control will be returned to the proper civilian authorities as soon as is possible. In the meantime, I give you my personal promise that every one of you, man, woman and child, can sleep safe and secure in your beds, with the knowledge that a great and terrible evil has been rooted out of our nation this day.”
With a sigh, Larry whispered, “I don’t believe he included dual-gendered people in that promise.”
“Now…” and Landry raised his hands in the face of a forest of reporters rushing to get in his face, smiling like a kindly grandfather, with a wealth of home-spun wisdom at his disposal. “I’m sure you can all understand that we will not be taking questions at this time. Press releases and more announcements will be forth-coming over the next few days, I assure you.”
With that, Landry stepped away, and another man in uniform stepped up. According to the title below, this was ‘USAF Col. Robert Samuels, newly appointed director of the National Intelligence Division (NID)’.
Everyone in the Eppes household took a deep breath.
“Restricted travel,” Alan said. “Is it already too late, Donny?”
“Amita is a foreign national,” Charlie said. “Sweetheart, you may have to go on your own. Can you do that?” Charlie grimaced, standing and taking his new wife in his arms.
“I… I don’t want to leave you!”
Don went to them, rubbing his sister-in-law soothingly on the back. “Look, it may not play out the way I think it will…”
“It has so far,” Colby commented sourly.
Nikki gave him a clout on the arm. “So-oo not helpful.”
“Amita, please,” Don said. “It’ll only be for a few months, even if worst comes to worse. And it’s only a precaution, just in case, worst case scenario stuff. Your maiden name won’t be on a watch list yet. You’re not registered as a zed, you’re not a primary, or even secondary target, and you are an Indian national. And if this thing stretches out for months… India doesn’t brand zed babies. They may not treat zeds all that well, but they don’t brand them. Think about that for a second. You can’t do any good here, and if these new jokers want to get Charlie to work for them, you’d make a perfect hostage for his good behavior. You know what I’m saying?”
Behind them, phrases like ‘suspension of civil liberties’, ‘detention without cause’ and ‘search and seizure without warrant’, flashed across the screen, an unfolding nightmare.
Å
Hank Landry strode into the Oval Office, and made a bee-line for the chair behind the desk. He slowly lowered himself into its executive cushions, and then eased back, even tipping ever-so-slightly, with an immensely satisfied look upon his homey, wholesome face. He’d been dreaming of this moment for a very long time. He had worked, schemed and sacrificed for it. And maybe his own plans hadn’t quite worked out as he wanted, but nevertheless, here he was finally. He deserved this.
He permitted himself that moment of victory.
Then he eyed the collection of men who had followed him. They were still standing. He found it interesting to catch some un-guarded expressions. Some of distaste, some of envy… more than a few full of worry.
Only one man actually took a seat, and it was the closest guest chair to the President’s desk. The most privileged position in the room, beyond Hank’s own. His expression was neutral, carefully controlled, as he looked Hank dead in the eye. Secretary of Defense Raphael Dante had clearly thought he should be the one to take command after the fall of the elected government of the United States of America. Landry was well aware that Dante was easily the most intelligent man in the room – apart from himself. In the past few months, he had also discovered Dante was one of the most street-savvy and ruthless men Hank had ever encountered. All traits that made him as dangerous an ally as enemy.
“Please be seated, gentlemen. We have a lot of work to do. Let’s get to it, shall we?
“First off, let’s put our cards on the table, here. Yes, I was approached by the Trust. Yes, it’s full of damn goa’uld, aliens and traitors, but none of them are here right now. And, if I have my way, they won’t be. My Colonels here, Samuels and Makepeace, are with me on this. So is General Stahl over there, our brand new Secretary of the Navy. We were all just waiting, biding our time, letting the Trust do the heavy lifting for us, so we could take advantage, when the time was right. Well, that time is now. And, the good news? We know *exactly* who the enemy is, with names and addresses. Director Vance, Deputy Director Fitzgerald, I’ll pass this information to you both as soon as this meet is over, so you can round their asses up and get them behind iron bars. We are Patriots, not traitors, and your only choice right now is to help us keep control and share in the benefits, or to hand the whole damned thing to O’Neill and his lackey Hayes, without so much as a whimper. Since you’re all here… I’ll just assume it’s the former, shall I? Okay, then. So, where do we stand, Robert?”
Colonel Samuels stood at his side and read from a thick report, each page heavily edited in pen.
“Yes, Mr. President. We have Hayes and members of his Cabinet under lock and key in the basement. It’s a little crowded down there, as we also have several less-than-cooperative generals from the Joint Chiefs, and the Directors of those federal agencies unwilling to play ball with us at this time. We were unable to locate the VP, Secretary of State, Chief of the JCS, O’Neill, Morrow or Chegwidden. We suspect they were ready for us.”
“How the hell did that happen!” demanded Vice Admiral Roger Bonneville.
Since he actually *was* Navy, he thought he should have been the one to take over as SecNav when Sarah Porter (a civilian and a *woman* for God’s sake!) had her attack of conscience and declined to join the coup. Instead, he had been passed over, *again*. That plum had gone to an Army two star. How was that supposed to make any sense? Who would they promote next, a Russian? A fucking fuck’em, maybe? He knew that his ultra-conservative politics had made him unpopular with the Hayes crowd, and he was considered, at best, hide-bound and old-fashioned… but in *his* Navy there was no room for women or sexual deviants of any kind, be they gay or effem. That was just *asking* for trouble on the ships. He had nothing against any of them personally… but he wouldn’t want his daughter marrying one, either. All of which meant that his influence at the Pentagon had been minimal… until now. And he was hell bent on taking advantage of this opportunity. When that over-ambitious bully Stahl shoved his way into some higher position, surely *then* Roger would get the SecNav big chair.
Samuels shrugged. “Once we put our plans in place to frame our Primaries for multiple counts of murder and treason, it must have been painfully obvious that they were targets. We did all we could to shorten the time-line, but some advance notice was unavoidable. I think they were prepared for something just like this. They intended to beam Hayes out as well, but he refused. Probably some misguided notion of a captain on a sinking ship.”
Landry smirked. The Navy, represented in the room by Bonneville, grimaced, uncomfortable with that level of mockery of Naval honor. He was no friend to the Hayes government or HomeWorld, and resented the association.
“It was probably that bastard McKay. He’s a devious fucker,” muttered General Ulysses S. Stahl, late a member of the Trust Triad, now something of a second-string ‘Patriot’, judging by his less-than-critical SecNav posting.
“No doubt,” Samuels agreed dryly.
“And the Primaries themselves?” prompted the Secretary of Defense.
Landry and Samuels traded looks. This was not going to go down well with their associates.
“Gone,” said Samuels. “Stargate Command was totally deserted when our forces arrived. There’s the NORAD staff upstairs at Cheyenne, that’s all. Same with HomeWorld Sec. Their offices here in DC and at Cheyenne Mountain are empty. Half the staff from Area 51 are also missing – witnesses report a series of white lights. None of the missing are our people. We haven’t been able to raise anyone at the Ancient Outpost. The Trust had three agents there, hoping to get them transferred in to the SGC, but we’ve been unable to contact any of them. If they were beamed to the ships, we may yet have a horse in this race, because I’m certain we can convince them to switch loyalty to us. For now, we have to presume all Outpost staff are gone, too.”
“Presume?” Dante wondered, voice dangerously low and eyebrow raised.
Samuels winced. “We have no way to get to them at the moment. We have no beaming capabilities, no F-302’s—“
“No what!” shouted several voices.
“And there’s a blizzard grounding all air travel from McMurdo. It’ll be an estimated ten to twenty-four hours before they can get a search and rescue flight to the Outpost.”
Dante tapped his fingers on his arm rests. “So. They beamed out. To the ships. You can’t raise the ships? We have no one up there loyal to us?”
“That’s been the Trust priority for years, and the closest they ever got was when they managed to infect Caldwell with his symbiote ‘guest’, a few years back. If you read any of the Declassification briefing notes, you know how that turned out. Otherwise, they’ve been unsuccessful. The ships are no longer in orbit over Earth. We don’t know where they’ve gone.”
“And they took the F-302’s with them,” Dante guessed with a small nod.
“That is our information at the present time, sir, yes,” Samuels agreed. “And all of the Jumpers we had on loan from Atlantis.”
“And you said we have no beaming tech?” Dante continued. “I thought we did. That’s what you told us at the last briefing, when we signed off on this cluster-fuck. Beaming tech at an authorized site, so the Shield would recognize it as friendly, and a way to counter the Shield, were two critical components in our plan, so we *could* get someone on the ships. Not to mention the Orbital Weapons Platforms and the Shield Satellites. You must have had something this morning, because half the people on the hit list were zatted by teams who beamed in, correct? So why the fucking hell don’t we have beaming capabilities now?”
Samuels stood even stiffer at attention. “Our hit teams were deployed from Area 51, which has since experienced… thefts of critical tech.”
“I thought you had everything you needed at your Utah labs.”
“Yes, well… I was… mis-informed by my staff. Apparently, what they meant was, with the appropriate Asgard crystals, we had everything *else* we needed for beaming. They were… confident, that the crystals they were growing would work, and would be ready in time. However…”
“They weren’t confident so much as over-confident?” Dante questioned.
“That would seem to be the case, yes sir.”
Landry sighed and said, “Go on, Robert.”
“Wait a minute,” Bonneville interrupted. “All you need is crystals for the beaming stations, right? Well, there must be scads of them lying around at the SGC or Area 51…”
Dante closed his eyes and shook his head a little. Landry could only agree. That guy was a twit. No wonder no one had ever let him near the SecNav chair.
“Yes,” Samuels agreed slowly, “We *did* think of that, sir. Unfortunately, during their evacuation, the staff of those bases cleared out every useful or portable piece of tech to take with them, and locked down every computer system behind them. We’ve got a few weapons from the armories, zats and staff weapons, that kind of thing, but not a single Asgard or Goa’uld data or control crystal. There were a few naquadah generators left, connected to systems they either couldn’t or didn’t want to power down or remove. No doubt when we finally get to the Ancient Outpost, we’ll find it has been cleared out too.”
“And ZPM’s?” someone asked.
“Apart from the ones powering the Shield and weapons platforms, including Antarctica, which we can’t get to at this time, there are no ZPM’s left on Earth.”
“Crap,” someone muttered, and Landry had to agree.
Samuels looked to him, and Landry nodded for him to continue.
“The Planetary Shield they left alone. It’s fully operational and at full power, on stand-by mode. With the ZPM and at conservative estimates, once deployed, we have at least thirty days of protection under full bombardment from Goa’uld or Ori weapons systems. Double that for a Wraith attack. The OWPs are also fully operational and deployed, they still have their power sources plugged in, but are… deserted. The platforms require personnel to be beamed aboard to be operational, and we are unable to access them for the moment. Once my teams have finished growing the necessary crystals, we should be able to get up there.”
“How long for that?” General Stahl wanted to know.
“Not more than a month.”
“You know we’re going to have to have the OWP before Atlantis gets back. As far as we know, McKay’s space guns are the only things that stand a chance of stopping Atlantis. And as soon as they hear we’ve taken over, they’ll be hot-footing it back to us. That means weeks, doesn’t it? The city’s star-drive is faster than our BC-304s, right?”
“I am well aware of that, General. So is my staff.”
“Do we have a contingency plan in place?” Dante asked.
“We have several,” Samuels answered, looking a little relieved not to have to give any more bad news… for now. “My Utah teams are already installed at the SGC to attempt to unlock the password protocols on their data, computer and other systems. They will also make it a priority to get the Stargate up and running…”
“Of course the Stargate is down,” Bonneville grumbled.
“Pardon my French,” Stahl joined in, “but your Utah staff suck the big one, Robert. You do realize every one of them have already been fired by Carter or McKay for being fucking incompetents? Or worse, never good enough to make it to their radar. If they were any good, they’d already be working at the Mountain or Atlantis.”
Landry interrupted in defense of his second in command. “Come on, guys, be reasonable. If we could have got McKay, Carter or Zelenka to join us, don’t you think we would have? No one has their expertise or familiarity with the systems they actually designed and built. And, okay, most of those guys in Utah are, at best, the C-Team. In the past, we’ve been limited in who we could recruit, people who wouldn’t have to start from square one when it came to this stuff. That pretty much meant Carter and McKay’s rejects. But, you might have noticed, we aren’t limited any more. So no one can really compare with Carter or McKay and their A-Teams. But there are some people out there who are close, and we can pretty much have our pick. Fleinhardt from CalSci actually has Asgard tech experience, from that sabbatical he took to serve on the *Apollo*. Charles Eppes may need some time to get up to speed, but he’s just as brilliant as Carter and McKay. Then there’s Dr. Malcolm Tunney, Dr. Nicholas Rush in Scotland, Dr. Svetlana Markov in Russia… Both of those last two have actual SGC experience. With the proper incentives, we can get anyone we want. So let’s leave the science team staffing problems for Robert to sort out. Okay?”
Samuels took a deep breath and plowed on ahead.
“The Trust here does still have contact with the Lucian Alliance, and those guys have a few agents operating here too, most of them working with the Bratva. It won’t be long before the Lucians hear what’s happening. We might be able to talk them into getting us a space-ready ship, or the crystals we need, but we’re avoiding the Lucian Alliance as much as we can… even the remaining Trust won’t trust those fuckers. Pardon my French. That’s just a hornet’s nest we don’t need to kick over right now. But if the situation should… change, that is an option we may have to revisit.”
Samuels pressed on, “With ships and crystals, our access problems for the Shield and OWP will be resolved, in case the crystals we’re growing aren’t suitable. We may also need the Lucians to keep an eye out for any of our missing Primary and Secondary Targets. We suspect they’ll go first to the Alpha Site, maybe to the Free Jaffa on Chulak. After that, they’ll want to keep a low profile until Atlantis returns. They won’t want anyone out there to know about their current political situation, or how vulnerable they are. It shouldn’t be too hard to find them. We’re going to need hostages, sooner or later.
“We’ve contacted NASA and ordered them to pull one of the shuttles out of moth-balls and prepare for a launch, soonest. It isn’t common knowledge, but the Shield has software to recognize and allow NASA orbital vehicles safe passage in and out. That’s our best bet to get to the OWPs. They estimate six to twelve months for that, however, so we aren’t going to rely on them for transport to the Shield or OWP. That’s our worst-case failsafe. But it also might be possible for us to clone their Shield bypass. We have our people looking into that.”
“You said something about hostages?” Stahl seemed interested.
Landry smiled. “We don’t intend to just sit and wait for Atlantis to return and kick our asses. The plan was always to make sure we had the means to force Sheppard to surrender the city as soon as they got back. One of the Primaries would have been ideal, but we can make do with lesser targets. For one thing, we have Hayes and his loyalists under lock and key.”
NCIS Director Leon Vance said, “We’re still trying to compile a complete list of who’s missing. On Col. Samuels’ advice, we’ve been attempting to track down tertiary targets, close relatives of our Primaries and Secondaries, for use as hostages. Bottom line, it now seems they took spouses, parents, siblings and children with them. We’re widening the net, at this point, to a list of… er… quaternary targets… but it’s going to take us some time.”
“Meanwhile,” Dante said with deceptive calmness, “We’ll just have to sit tight until Atlantis returns, and make sure the public never finds out how little control we have over the Stargate, OWP and Shield. Bluff, bluster, obfuscate and entrench our position, and plan for worst-case scenarios.”
“That’s about the size of it,” Landry declared, with an outwardly cheerful smile as he leaned casually back in his chair, and looked Dante straight in the eye. The god-damned spic preferred the Machiavellian Godfather routine, but Landry himself favored the home-spun L’il Abner façade. If he had a straw, he’d be chewing it. “What, Rafe, you thought it was going to be easy, taking over the world?”
“Yeah, what about the world?” Stahl demanded. “What do they think of all this? And where’s Pamela Landy? Don’t tell me the Director of the CIA decamped with HomeWorld?”
“Pamela’s got some thinking to do, along with Sarah Porter and Walter Skinner of the FBI,” Landry reassured, “and they’re all doing it downstairs at the moment. When we’re through here, Robert will bring them up individually for a little chat. They can either head back downstairs, or join us. I believe they’ll make the correct choice.”
“I don’t know,” FBI Deputy Director Victor Fitzgerald warned, waggling his hand. “Skinner’s a boy scout. Not so good at playing the game. He might prove to be too stubborn for his own good. Not to mention he’s a damn fuck ‘em sympathizer.”
Hank shrugged. “So then you’ve got the FBI all to yourself, just like you always wanted, Victor. Poor you.”
Vance added, “Landy might be a problem too. She’s pretty tight with O’Neill and McKay. Both have worked with her on covert ops in the past.”
“Nobody’s tight with McKay, apart from Sheppard,” Landry scoffed. “That’s out-and-out fear you see. As long as we can prove to Landy that McKay will no longer be an issue, she’ll fall in line.”
“And the rest of the world?” Stahl insisted. He was the one man in the room with the most information on the Trust operations world-wide, and the efforts of foreign branches to take over their own governments. He knew France and Russia, in particular, were vulnerable right now. While China didn’t have much of a Trust presence, they were pragmatic and ambitious enough to be willing to play ball with the Patriots, as they would have been with a Trust takeover. They were certainly no fans of O’Neill’s iron grip on HWS.
“At the risk of quoting a notorious pedophile and fag, we *are* the world,” Landry smirked. “I’m not concerned.”
Robert Samuels explained, “Canada and the UK have broken all diplomatic ties. Small loss there – neither of them are a true military power, and trade sanctions will hurt them more than us. The UN is trying madly to intercede, but we’re not taking their calls. China is waiting to see how the chips fall, but they’re already making overtures. After being shut out for so long by O’Neill, they see this as a positive step. Russia and France are torn. They’ve got their own problem with rogue elements seeking a power grab, as we well know. Our friends over there are asking us for assistance with coups of their own, but we aren’t taking their calls for the time being, either. Everyone else is confused, out of the loop of what’s really going on. We have the OWP, and everyone knows it. That should keep even the most militant in line, so long as no one knows it’s not operational at the moment. But we have nothing to fear from any of them.”
What Hank and his two pet colonels weren’t saying to this crowd, was that they hoped to catch ‘Lord’ Baal and ‘Lord’ Nun with their pants down, and scoop up the *Nala* for themselves. Maybe the cargo ship wouldn’t be able to pass through the Shield, but it had cloak, shields of its own, weapons, and beaming tech that would certainly work within the confines of the Shield. With that they could easily evacuate the Ancient Outpost in Antarctica... if they chose. But why would they, and reveal their ace in the hole? Because if this whole gig went down the crapper, they would need a way out. *Nala* would be that exit plan.
“So,” Landry finished, rubbing his hands, his smile growing ever wider. “Not so bad for our first day’s work, hunh boys? What say we order in pizza, and get down to the nitty-gritty of planning our next moves?”
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*~ A cat has nine lives; for three he plays, for three he strays, and for three he stays. ~ English proverb*
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