Stargate SG1: Suffer the Little Children (10/19)
All disclaimers, notes, warnings and summary are in the Master post: Suffer the Little Children
Chapter Ten
"I should thank you, Daniel." Phillips' voice veritably dripped with evil. "All these years, I've been looking for you, thinking of you, trying to find you. And now, you've saved me the trouble by coming to me. And you brought such a lovely little girl with you."
"No!" Daniel cried out, kicking his legs and trying to pull away from the car. His own fear was completely forgotten in the face of a very real threat to Cassie. "You leave her alone!"
Phillips' response was immediate and painful. He grabbed a handful of Daniel's hair, pulled back, and slammed Daniel's face into the trunk. "We've had this discussion before, Daniel. You know how much I hate it when you talk back to me."
Daniel took a deep breath, riding out the wave of pain and dizziness that crashed over him. He blinked away the blood that now dripped into his left eye and tried another approach. Keeping his voice as calm as possible, he said, "You said this was all about me, right? All this time, all the... " He paused to swallow the bile that rose in his throat. "All the others, you killed them because they weren't... because they weren't me." Daniel didn't even want to think about what that meant, but he had to keep Phillips talking. "Here I am, Michael. You've got me. You don't need Cassie."
Phillips leaned down, pressing hard against Daniel's twisted arm as he did so, and whispered in his ear. "You know it was an accident, don't you?"
Daniel turned his head as far as he could; he couldn't possibly answer Phillips' questions when he didn't have any idea what he was talking about. But still, the man had seemed almost happy that Daniel had "forgotten" whatever it was that Phillips thought he should remember. Maybe it would reassure him if Daniel asked for clarification. "What?"
Phillips pressed down harder with his body, pinning Daniel so hard against the car that the edge of the trunk dug in under his ribs. "Jenny!" he spat as he pulled Daniel's arm up even higher.
"Yes!" Daniel gasped out the first thing that popped into his head, his voice cracking with pain. His lower ribs felt as though they might snap at any second, if they hadn't already, and his shoulder felt like it was about to be ripped from its socket. "Yes, I know. I know, Agen… Michael. Jenny was an accident."
Jenny was the name that Jack had been asking him about for two days, the name that Jack had told him he kept repeating when he was asleep. He'd thought Jack had just misunderstood something he'd said, because he didn't know anyone named Jenny. But to hear Phillips say the name now, Daniel was quickly coming to the conclusion that there was a Jenny in his past somewhere. Now if he could just remember who the hell she was and what she had to do with Phillips.
"I wanted you."
Daniel tried not to shudder, tried not to show any fear, but this man - his voice and his face both eerily familiar in a nightmarish way - was terrifying. He closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as his tightly compressed lungs would allow. If he only had some idea of what was going on; if he could only get some sort of control over the situation.
But no matter how hard Daniel tried, none of this was making any sense. Daniel had only met him two days before, and Phillips was talking about things that had to have happened over years.
Phillips leaned down until his lips almost touched Daniel's ear, and whispered, "You were supposed to die. Not her."
Daniel's eyes opened wide and he swallowed hard; that was not what he was expecting to hear. "Oh."
Phillips didn't answer. Daniel realized that this was the best chance he was going to get to ensure Cassie's safety, and he forced himself speak again.
"I'm here now, Michael. If you want to kill me so badly, then do it. I won't stop you."
At that, Phillips smiled. It was truly the most evil thing Daniel thought he had ever seen.
He drew in another breath. "But... but Cassie, Michael. I know that Jenny was an accident, I know that, but you don't want... you don't want to have another one, do you?"
Phillips' grip was like a vise on Daniel's wrist - so tight that he felt his bones grinding together, feeling like they could break at any second. Phillips pushed forward once more, wrenching Daniel's shoulder hard, pushing the muscles and ligaments to the edge of their limits. Daniel clenched his teeth, hissing at the sudden pain, so lost in the fog that he almost didn't realize Phillips was speaking again.
"I'm better now than I was then. I've had practice. I don't make mistakes, and I don't have accidents. This is my game, Daniel - my game, played by my rules. I decide who lives and who dies. Not you. Is that clear?"
Daniel nodded his head quickly. Any doubt he'd had that Phillips wasn't completely and totally insane had dissolved entirely. There was no way that the man would ever let Cassie go, which meant that Daniel would have to find a way to get her out of this. It would be difficult enough to do with his left arm as damaged as he knew it was.
It would be impossible if he were dead.
"Yes!" he cried out again. "Yes, I understand. I understand, Michael, and I'm ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean ..."
Daniel's apology was cut short by Phillips turning his head quickly toward the side of the car and snapping out, "What the hell do you want?"
Daniel opened his eyes and focused immediately on Cassie's frightened, tear-stained face. She'd come back to the car at some point in the past few minutes, and was standing beside them, staring directly at Daniel.
"Get in my car, Cassandra!" Phillips ordered.
Cassie took a hesitant step back, but went no further. "D-Daniel?" she stuttered, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "He's... he's hurting you."
Daniel opened his mouth to try to reassure her that he was all right, but Phillips had other ideas. He shifted his weight on Daniel's back and pressed his elbow directly into Daniel's ravaged shoulder. What began as words of reassurance became a scream that continued until it dissolved into a wracking cough.
"Stop," Cassie begged as fresh tears streaked down her face. "Please, stop hurting him."
"You love Daniel, don't you, Cassie?"
Daniel wanted to stop that voice, wanted to tell Phillips to leave her alone and concentrate on him, but his throat was too hoarse from screaming. All he could do was press his forehead against the car and pray that the pain would go away.
"Yes," Cassie answered softly.
"You want me to stop hurting him?"
"Yes." The answer was much quicker this time.
When the elbow dug into his shoulder this time, Daniel's head came up with the force of the scream that ripped itself from him and tears flowed freely down his face.
"Then get in the damn car! Now!"
The small part of Daniel’s brain that was still functioning screamed at him not to let Cassie get in the car, but it didn’t seem to be communicating with his mouth very well, because he couldn’t make himself tell her to stop. If his shoulder hadn’t been enough to make him dizzy, the lack of oxygen in his tightly compressed lungs would have been. Together, however, they were making it almost impossible for him to concentrate on anything other than how much pain he was in.
He didn’t understand why no one was coming to investigate what was happening, especially after his screams, but he still held out hope that someone might. And even though he’d never seen who’d been calling his cellphone, he was convinced it had been Jack. There had to be an end to this - somehow - and hopefully it wouldn’t be with him and Cassie both dead.
Thinking of Cassie brought him back to the fact that he needed to keep her out of Phillips’ car, and he wondered how much longer he had to warn her.
Phillips abruptly stood up, pulling Daniel with him. The movement allowed Daniel to gasp a much needed breath of air, but his freedom was still limited. Phillips’ right arm was wrapped around his chest, pinning his right arm at his side and his left arm, still twisted, between them. With his left hand, Phillips seemed to be digging through his own pockets, though what he was looking for Daniel couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Phillips turned Daniel around roughly, facing him toward the street, and Daniel saw two things that simultaneously caused his heart to plummet. The first was that Cassie was already in the car, sitting in the front seat and staring out at him with red-rimmed eyes through the windshield. The second was that there was a red light on top of the car, spinning and flashing a warning to anyone who might venture too close.
Now he knew why no one was coming out to find out what was going on. And he knew that no one would.
His mind vaguely registered the fact that the arm was gone from around his chest and his left arm had fallen free, sending fresh tendrils of pain shooting from his shoulder all the way to his fingertips. He wondered if it might be possible to get away. But he knew that even if he could, there was no way he could get to Cassie and get her out of the car in time, and he wouldn’t go anywhere without her.
In all of the enemies he'd faced down over the past two years, in all of the battles he and SG1 had won against all odds, he had never felt so utterly hopeless. When Phillips’ hand wrapped around his right wrist, followed by the tightening of a plastic cuff, he closed his eyes in defeat. He couldn’t even summon the energy to sigh.
Phillips looped the other cuff around Daniel’s left wrist and pulled it tight, cuffing Daniel's hands securely behind his back before grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him toward the car. Daniel went along, hoping that he’d be able to reassure Cassie from the back seat without Phillips noticing that he was doing it. He was not entirely surprised when Phillips bypassed the back door entirely and instead steered him toward the rear of the car.
Daniel’s struggles were weak, a token protest only. He knew he had no hope of actually preventing Phillips from doing whatever he wanted, but he really didn’t want to get in that trunk. He’d be isolated, cut off from what was happening in the car, and Cassie would be alone with the man. He couldn't let that happen - he couldn't leave her alone.
“Don’t you worry about her, Daniel,” Phillips whispered in his ear. The suddenly Daniel was spun forcibly around to stand face-to-face with Phillips, his back toward the open trunk. “I won’t lay a hand on her. She’s only here because it’s her turn to watch you die.”
Again the voice seemed familiar, haunting, as though he'd been hearing this voice in his mind for years but didn't actually remember having heard it before. Faded memories of nightmares long forgotten started swirling around in his mind, shadows of childhood fears mixed with a clear and present danger, and he froze in terror. An evil laugh filled his ears, and an unseen fist landed, spinning him back around and sending his glasses flying from his face. Then the shadow pressed its hands against his back and shoved him forward, and he was falling, rolling, head-over-heels, down the side of the hill...
He landed in the trunk of a large black car, and the lid was slammed shut before he had time to figure out what the hell had just happened.
Jack slammed the car into park and exploded out the door before it had stopped moving completely. The engine was still running, and his door stood open, forgotten in the rush to find out what had happened to Daniel and Cassie. Jack was already jogging up the driveway, heading straight for Daniel's car, when he heard Teal'c close his door behind him.
"Daniel?" Jack called out hopefully. "Cassie? Daniel?"
"O'Neill."
Jack turned his head toward Teal'c's summons.
"The front door appears to be open."
Jack's hand automatically dropped to his hip and came to rest on the gun there. He slowly pulled it out of the holster, glad that he'd ordered the guard at the checkpoint to give him his weapon. He and Teal'c made their way carefully toward the door, giving Daniel's car only a passing glance, to make certain that no one was in it. A hundred thoughts flashed through Jack's mind, chief among them the possibility, however remote, that Daniel had managed to ward off his attacker and had taken refuge inside the house with Cassie.
Jack shook his head as he climbed the stairs to the door, his gun at the ready. If Daniel had taken Cassie and gone to hide in the house, he'd never have left the door standing wide open.
He nodded at Teal'c as they topped the stairs, and he stepped through the door with Teal'c right behind him. The house was silent - eerily so.
"Daniel?" Jack kept his gun up and level as he walked through the living room. "Cassie?"
Teal'c moved toward the back of the house, through the kitchen and the bedrooms, while Jack continued his visual assessment of the living room. He saw the phone on the end table and followed the cord with his eyes to where the receiver lay on the floor. Janet said that Cassie had dropped the phone to go outside because something was happening in the driveway.
Jack took a few steps forward and bent his knees, crouching down until his eyes were approximately where Cassie's would have been as she looked out the window from the living room. He could clearly see the back of Daniel's car where it sat in the driveway. If Cassie had been standing where he was, and if someone had approached Daniel in the driveway, she would have seen exactly who it was.
Teal'c returned from his exploration of the rest of the house and announced, "There is no one present."
Jack nodded his head as he stood slowly, ignoring the popping in his knees as they straightened. "Yeah, I know. They're not here."
Jack looked back down at the phone receiver and considered picking it up and hanging it back up, but he decided against it. There would be an investigation team here soon, he knew, and he didn't want to contaminate any evidence that might lead to, at the very least, a kidnapping conviction for whomever had done this. His gut was still telling him that it was Michael Phillips, but he knew there was absolutely no proof of that.
"For what reason did Cassandra Fraiser exit the house against the wishes of her mother?" Teal'c asked.
Jack pointed out the window. "Because she saw what was happening outside. And because she's twelve years old, and twelve year olds don't always listen to their mothers."
Teal'c stepped up beside him and looked out the window for himself. "Why would she not remain inside and hide?"
Jack shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe she thought she could help him. Maybe she thought Daniel could protect her. Maybe she was just so scared she wasn't really thinking straight. There's only one thing I do know for sure."
"What is that?"
Jack tilted his chin toward the window and the driveway beyond. "The guy never made it past the driveway; he didn't need to. Daniel was already out there, and apparently, Cassie came right to him. So any evidence we're going to find as to what happened is going to be out there."
Teal'c nodded once before turning silently on his heel and walking out the door. Jack sighed as he followed him out, returning his gun to his holster and glancing around the empty house one last time.
They walked to the car in silence, neither one wanting to say what they each knew the other was thinking. Something shining in the grass at the side of the driveway caught Jack's eye and he changed direction to investigate. Teal'c continued on to the car.
Jack recognized Daniel's car keys from a few feet away. He walked closer to them before crouching down and scanning the ground for some clue as to how they'd ended up there. His eyes fell on a pair of glasses lying just a few feet away, near the road, and he had to force himself not to walk over and pick them up. Neither of these things belonged here, lying discarded in the grass like unimportant bits of trash. It wasn't right - none of this was right.
"O'Neill," Teal'c said softly. "I have found something."
"Yeah," Jack answered has he stood. "Me too."
He walked toward the car slowly, glancing back at his discoveries, almost as though he were afraid that he'd lose them if he looked away, lose them like he'd obviously lost the rest of Daniel.
"Daniel's car keys and his glasses," he said, burying his hands in his pockets as he stopped beside the car. "Over in the grass. What have you got?"
"Blood."
Jack saw it then, on the trunk of Daniel's car - a darkening red smear against the light gray paint. It wasn't a large amount, most certainly not a fatal amount, but it didn't belong where it was. Jack didn't need any fancy scientific tests to tell him who it had belonged to, either; the location of Daniel's keys, combined with the blood, really left no doubt in Jack's mind as to what had happened in the driveway, what had sent Cassie running out the door of the house and straight into a missing person's report.
"He ambushed him," Jack said.
Teal'c nodded in agreement.
Jack pulled his cellphone from his pocket and started dialing. "I'm having Hammond call in an investigation team right now," Jack explained, backing away from the car and motioning for Teal'c to do the same. "Don't touch anything. We'll need every scrap of evidence they can find to nail this bastard."
The phone had barely started ringing when it was picked up and Jack heard, "Hammond," in his ear.
"General, we're..."
"Jack, I was just about to call you." Hammond's voice wasn't frantic or rushed, but the fact that he had interrupted before Jack had told him why he was calling spoke volumes.
"What's wrong, sir?"
"Your FBI friend contacted Captain Carter with some information he found in other files on Michael Phillips' computer. They've been working together since then, and they've both discovered quite a bit of information that, to put it mildly, disturbs me greatly."
"But you're not going to tell me what it is over the phone, are you?"
"No, Jack, I'm not."
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes. "Of course not."
"Plus, Colorado Springs PD just called Dr. Fraiser. Apparently, they received a phoned-in report of, and I quote, 'extreme police brutality' in her driveway."
Jack stopped in the middle of the driveway and turned slowly, letting his eyes take in everything. So Cassie hadn't been the only one who saw what happened to Daniel; one of Janet's neighbors had, too. Jack closed his eyes and let his mind imagine the scene - Daniel standing behind his car, maybe walking around to get Cassie or maybe going to the trunk to get something. Someone running up behind him, pushing him against the trunk or hitting him hard enough to draw blood. That same someone putting both Cassie and Daniel in...
Jack opened his eyes and walked to the end of the driveway, to where Daniel's glasses still lay. He looked down at the glasses and then back up at Daniel's car; they were too far apart. The only way his glasses could have gotten where they were was if Daniel had been very close to where Jack was standing now when they got knocked off. The three of them obviously hadn't walked away from the house, either, which meant only one thing.
"Jack? Are you still there?"
"Sir, we need to contact CSPD again and find out what kind of car Phillips has been driving since he's been in town."
"Jack, there's..."
"General." It was Jack's turn to interrupt. "There's blood all over the trunk of Daniel's car. The front door was standing wide-open when we got here, Daniel's keys and glasses are on the ground, and they're both gone, sir. Daniel and Cassie are gone. We need to get the cops to put an APB out on that car before he hurts either one of them."
Jack didn't feel the need to actually say what he was thinking - that Phillips intended to kill them both.
"There's already an APB out on Agent Phillips' car, Jack," Hammond answered softly. "I had them issue one immediately after Dr. Fraiser told me that someone apparently forced a young man into the trunk of an unmarked black police car at the end of her driveway."
Jack closed his eyes. He opened them again and looked straight into Teal'c's questioning eyes, and he just shook his head in response.
"There's a crime scene unit already on the way to Janet's house to secure the scene, Jack." Even as Hammond said the words, Jack heard the distant sirens as the police made their way to the scene. "Your FBI man is on his way here. There's a lot of information coming to light about this Agent Michael Phillips, and I need you and Teal'c back in the mountain, now."
"Yes, sir," Jack answered. Hammond had already hung up when Jack punched the disconnect button. He looked up at Teal'c again, but found that he still didn't have to words to express to him just exactly what he'd found out.
The wailing sirens were closer now, and the first of the cars had just turned the corner into the previously quiet cul-de-sac. Somewhere out there, Daniel and Cassie were alone with a psychopath, one who had already tried to kill Daniel once, one who had killed a thirteen-year-old girl while Daniel watched. Daniel was bleeding, his vision was questionable, and to top it all off, he was probably in the guy's trunk.
More police cars turned on to the street, screeching to a halt in front of Janet's house. Jack watched the first two arrived before tipping his head back to stare at the sky, wishing it could tell him where Daniel and Cassie were before it was too late.
"Damn it, Daniel."
Chapter Ten
"I should thank you, Daniel." Phillips' voice veritably dripped with evil. "All these years, I've been looking for you, thinking of you, trying to find you. And now, you've saved me the trouble by coming to me. And you brought such a lovely little girl with you."
"No!" Daniel cried out, kicking his legs and trying to pull away from the car. His own fear was completely forgotten in the face of a very real threat to Cassie. "You leave her alone!"
Phillips' response was immediate and painful. He grabbed a handful of Daniel's hair, pulled back, and slammed Daniel's face into the trunk. "We've had this discussion before, Daniel. You know how much I hate it when you talk back to me."
Daniel took a deep breath, riding out the wave of pain and dizziness that crashed over him. He blinked away the blood that now dripped into his left eye and tried another approach. Keeping his voice as calm as possible, he said, "You said this was all about me, right? All this time, all the... " He paused to swallow the bile that rose in his throat. "All the others, you killed them because they weren't... because they weren't me." Daniel didn't even want to think about what that meant, but he had to keep Phillips talking. "Here I am, Michael. You've got me. You don't need Cassie."
Phillips leaned down, pressing hard against Daniel's twisted arm as he did so, and whispered in his ear. "You know it was an accident, don't you?"
Daniel turned his head as far as he could; he couldn't possibly answer Phillips' questions when he didn't have any idea what he was talking about. But still, the man had seemed almost happy that Daniel had "forgotten" whatever it was that Phillips thought he should remember. Maybe it would reassure him if Daniel asked for clarification. "What?"
Phillips pressed down harder with his body, pinning Daniel so hard against the car that the edge of the trunk dug in under his ribs. "Jenny!" he spat as he pulled Daniel's arm up even higher.
"Yes!" Daniel gasped out the first thing that popped into his head, his voice cracking with pain. His lower ribs felt as though they might snap at any second, if they hadn't already, and his shoulder felt like it was about to be ripped from its socket. "Yes, I know. I know, Agen… Michael. Jenny was an accident."
Jenny was the name that Jack had been asking him about for two days, the name that Jack had told him he kept repeating when he was asleep. He'd thought Jack had just misunderstood something he'd said, because he didn't know anyone named Jenny. But to hear Phillips say the name now, Daniel was quickly coming to the conclusion that there was a Jenny in his past somewhere. Now if he could just remember who the hell she was and what she had to do with Phillips.
"I wanted you."
Daniel tried not to shudder, tried not to show any fear, but this man - his voice and his face both eerily familiar in a nightmarish way - was terrifying. He closed his eyes and breathed as deeply as his tightly compressed lungs would allow. If he only had some idea of what was going on; if he could only get some sort of control over the situation.
But no matter how hard Daniel tried, none of this was making any sense. Daniel had only met him two days before, and Phillips was talking about things that had to have happened over years.
Phillips leaned down until his lips almost touched Daniel's ear, and whispered, "You were supposed to die. Not her."
Daniel's eyes opened wide and he swallowed hard; that was not what he was expecting to hear. "Oh."
Phillips didn't answer. Daniel realized that this was the best chance he was going to get to ensure Cassie's safety, and he forced himself speak again.
"I'm here now, Michael. If you want to kill me so badly, then do it. I won't stop you."
At that, Phillips smiled. It was truly the most evil thing Daniel thought he had ever seen.
He drew in another breath. "But... but Cassie, Michael. I know that Jenny was an accident, I know that, but you don't want... you don't want to have another one, do you?"
Phillips' grip was like a vise on Daniel's wrist - so tight that he felt his bones grinding together, feeling like they could break at any second. Phillips pushed forward once more, wrenching Daniel's shoulder hard, pushing the muscles and ligaments to the edge of their limits. Daniel clenched his teeth, hissing at the sudden pain, so lost in the fog that he almost didn't realize Phillips was speaking again.
"I'm better now than I was then. I've had practice. I don't make mistakes, and I don't have accidents. This is my game, Daniel - my game, played by my rules. I decide who lives and who dies. Not you. Is that clear?"
Daniel nodded his head quickly. Any doubt he'd had that Phillips wasn't completely and totally insane had dissolved entirely. There was no way that the man would ever let Cassie go, which meant that Daniel would have to find a way to get her out of this. It would be difficult enough to do with his left arm as damaged as he knew it was.
It would be impossible if he were dead.
"Yes!" he cried out again. "Yes, I understand. I understand, Michael, and I'm ... I'm sorry. I didn't mean ..."
Daniel's apology was cut short by Phillips turning his head quickly toward the side of the car and snapping out, "What the hell do you want?"
Daniel opened his eyes and focused immediately on Cassie's frightened, tear-stained face. She'd come back to the car at some point in the past few minutes, and was standing beside them, staring directly at Daniel.
"Get in my car, Cassandra!" Phillips ordered.
Cassie took a hesitant step back, but went no further. "D-Daniel?" she stuttered, her shoulders shaking with sobs. "He's... he's hurting you."
Daniel opened his mouth to try to reassure her that he was all right, but Phillips had other ideas. He shifted his weight on Daniel's back and pressed his elbow directly into Daniel's ravaged shoulder. What began as words of reassurance became a scream that continued until it dissolved into a wracking cough.
"Stop," Cassie begged as fresh tears streaked down her face. "Please, stop hurting him."
"You love Daniel, don't you, Cassie?"
Daniel wanted to stop that voice, wanted to tell Phillips to leave her alone and concentrate on him, but his throat was too hoarse from screaming. All he could do was press his forehead against the car and pray that the pain would go away.
"Yes," Cassie answered softly.
"You want me to stop hurting him?"
"Yes." The answer was much quicker this time.
When the elbow dug into his shoulder this time, Daniel's head came up with the force of the scream that ripped itself from him and tears flowed freely down his face.
"Then get in the damn car! Now!"
The small part of Daniel’s brain that was still functioning screamed at him not to let Cassie get in the car, but it didn’t seem to be communicating with his mouth very well, because he couldn’t make himself tell her to stop. If his shoulder hadn’t been enough to make him dizzy, the lack of oxygen in his tightly compressed lungs would have been. Together, however, they were making it almost impossible for him to concentrate on anything other than how much pain he was in.
He didn’t understand why no one was coming to investigate what was happening, especially after his screams, but he still held out hope that someone might. And even though he’d never seen who’d been calling his cellphone, he was convinced it had been Jack. There had to be an end to this - somehow - and hopefully it wouldn’t be with him and Cassie both dead.
Thinking of Cassie brought him back to the fact that he needed to keep her out of Phillips’ car, and he wondered how much longer he had to warn her.
Phillips abruptly stood up, pulling Daniel with him. The movement allowed Daniel to gasp a much needed breath of air, but his freedom was still limited. Phillips’ right arm was wrapped around his chest, pinning his right arm at his side and his left arm, still twisted, between them. With his left hand, Phillips seemed to be digging through his own pockets, though what he was looking for Daniel couldn’t even begin to imagine.
Phillips turned Daniel around roughly, facing him toward the street, and Daniel saw two things that simultaneously caused his heart to plummet. The first was that Cassie was already in the car, sitting in the front seat and staring out at him with red-rimmed eyes through the windshield. The second was that there was a red light on top of the car, spinning and flashing a warning to anyone who might venture too close.
Now he knew why no one was coming out to find out what was going on. And he knew that no one would.
His mind vaguely registered the fact that the arm was gone from around his chest and his left arm had fallen free, sending fresh tendrils of pain shooting from his shoulder all the way to his fingertips. He wondered if it might be possible to get away. But he knew that even if he could, there was no way he could get to Cassie and get her out of the car in time, and he wouldn’t go anywhere without her.
In all of the enemies he'd faced down over the past two years, in all of the battles he and SG1 had won against all odds, he had never felt so utterly hopeless. When Phillips’ hand wrapped around his right wrist, followed by the tightening of a plastic cuff, he closed his eyes in defeat. He couldn’t even summon the energy to sigh.
Phillips looped the other cuff around Daniel’s left wrist and pulled it tight, cuffing Daniel's hands securely behind his back before grabbing him by the shoulders and pushing him toward the car. Daniel went along, hoping that he’d be able to reassure Cassie from the back seat without Phillips noticing that he was doing it. He was not entirely surprised when Phillips bypassed the back door entirely and instead steered him toward the rear of the car.
Daniel’s struggles were weak, a token protest only. He knew he had no hope of actually preventing Phillips from doing whatever he wanted, but he really didn’t want to get in that trunk. He’d be isolated, cut off from what was happening in the car, and Cassie would be alone with the man. He couldn't let that happen - he couldn't leave her alone.
“Don’t you worry about her, Daniel,” Phillips whispered in his ear. The suddenly Daniel was spun forcibly around to stand face-to-face with Phillips, his back toward the open trunk. “I won’t lay a hand on her. She’s only here because it’s her turn to watch you die.”
Again the voice seemed familiar, haunting, as though he'd been hearing this voice in his mind for years but didn't actually remember having heard it before. Faded memories of nightmares long forgotten started swirling around in his mind, shadows of childhood fears mixed with a clear and present danger, and he froze in terror. An evil laugh filled his ears, and an unseen fist landed, spinning him back around and sending his glasses flying from his face. Then the shadow pressed its hands against his back and shoved him forward, and he was falling, rolling, head-over-heels, down the side of the hill...
He landed in the trunk of a large black car, and the lid was slammed shut before he had time to figure out what the hell had just happened.
Jack slammed the car into park and exploded out the door before it had stopped moving completely. The engine was still running, and his door stood open, forgotten in the rush to find out what had happened to Daniel and Cassie. Jack was already jogging up the driveway, heading straight for Daniel's car, when he heard Teal'c close his door behind him.
"Daniel?" Jack called out hopefully. "Cassie? Daniel?"
"O'Neill."
Jack turned his head toward Teal'c's summons.
"The front door appears to be open."
Jack's hand automatically dropped to his hip and came to rest on the gun there. He slowly pulled it out of the holster, glad that he'd ordered the guard at the checkpoint to give him his weapon. He and Teal'c made their way carefully toward the door, giving Daniel's car only a passing glance, to make certain that no one was in it. A hundred thoughts flashed through Jack's mind, chief among them the possibility, however remote, that Daniel had managed to ward off his attacker and had taken refuge inside the house with Cassie.
Jack shook his head as he climbed the stairs to the door, his gun at the ready. If Daniel had taken Cassie and gone to hide in the house, he'd never have left the door standing wide open.
He nodded at Teal'c as they topped the stairs, and he stepped through the door with Teal'c right behind him. The house was silent - eerily so.
"Daniel?" Jack kept his gun up and level as he walked through the living room. "Cassie?"
Teal'c moved toward the back of the house, through the kitchen and the bedrooms, while Jack continued his visual assessment of the living room. He saw the phone on the end table and followed the cord with his eyes to where the receiver lay on the floor. Janet said that Cassie had dropped the phone to go outside because something was happening in the driveway.
Jack took a few steps forward and bent his knees, crouching down until his eyes were approximately where Cassie's would have been as she looked out the window from the living room. He could clearly see the back of Daniel's car where it sat in the driveway. If Cassie had been standing where he was, and if someone had approached Daniel in the driveway, she would have seen exactly who it was.
Teal'c returned from his exploration of the rest of the house and announced, "There is no one present."
Jack nodded his head as he stood slowly, ignoring the popping in his knees as they straightened. "Yeah, I know. They're not here."
Jack looked back down at the phone receiver and considered picking it up and hanging it back up, but he decided against it. There would be an investigation team here soon, he knew, and he didn't want to contaminate any evidence that might lead to, at the very least, a kidnapping conviction for whomever had done this. His gut was still telling him that it was Michael Phillips, but he knew there was absolutely no proof of that.
"For what reason did Cassandra Fraiser exit the house against the wishes of her mother?" Teal'c asked.
Jack pointed out the window. "Because she saw what was happening outside. And because she's twelve years old, and twelve year olds don't always listen to their mothers."
Teal'c stepped up beside him and looked out the window for himself. "Why would she not remain inside and hide?"
Jack shrugged. "Who knows? Maybe she thought she could help him. Maybe she thought Daniel could protect her. Maybe she was just so scared she wasn't really thinking straight. There's only one thing I do know for sure."
"What is that?"
Jack tilted his chin toward the window and the driveway beyond. "The guy never made it past the driveway; he didn't need to. Daniel was already out there, and apparently, Cassie came right to him. So any evidence we're going to find as to what happened is going to be out there."
Teal'c nodded once before turning silently on his heel and walking out the door. Jack sighed as he followed him out, returning his gun to his holster and glancing around the empty house one last time.
They walked to the car in silence, neither one wanting to say what they each knew the other was thinking. Something shining in the grass at the side of the driveway caught Jack's eye and he changed direction to investigate. Teal'c continued on to the car.
Jack recognized Daniel's car keys from a few feet away. He walked closer to them before crouching down and scanning the ground for some clue as to how they'd ended up there. His eyes fell on a pair of glasses lying just a few feet away, near the road, and he had to force himself not to walk over and pick them up. Neither of these things belonged here, lying discarded in the grass like unimportant bits of trash. It wasn't right - none of this was right.
"O'Neill," Teal'c said softly. "I have found something."
"Yeah," Jack answered has he stood. "Me too."
He walked toward the car slowly, glancing back at his discoveries, almost as though he were afraid that he'd lose them if he looked away, lose them like he'd obviously lost the rest of Daniel.
"Daniel's car keys and his glasses," he said, burying his hands in his pockets as he stopped beside the car. "Over in the grass. What have you got?"
"Blood."
Jack saw it then, on the trunk of Daniel's car - a darkening red smear against the light gray paint. It wasn't a large amount, most certainly not a fatal amount, but it didn't belong where it was. Jack didn't need any fancy scientific tests to tell him who it had belonged to, either; the location of Daniel's keys, combined with the blood, really left no doubt in Jack's mind as to what had happened in the driveway, what had sent Cassie running out the door of the house and straight into a missing person's report.
"He ambushed him," Jack said.
Teal'c nodded in agreement.
Jack pulled his cellphone from his pocket and started dialing. "I'm having Hammond call in an investigation team right now," Jack explained, backing away from the car and motioning for Teal'c to do the same. "Don't touch anything. We'll need every scrap of evidence they can find to nail this bastard."
The phone had barely started ringing when it was picked up and Jack heard, "Hammond," in his ear.
"General, we're..."
"Jack, I was just about to call you." Hammond's voice wasn't frantic or rushed, but the fact that he had interrupted before Jack had told him why he was calling spoke volumes.
"What's wrong, sir?"
"Your FBI friend contacted Captain Carter with some information he found in other files on Michael Phillips' computer. They've been working together since then, and they've both discovered quite a bit of information that, to put it mildly, disturbs me greatly."
"But you're not going to tell me what it is over the phone, are you?"
"No, Jack, I'm not."
Jack sighed and rolled his eyes. "Of course not."
"Plus, Colorado Springs PD just called Dr. Fraiser. Apparently, they received a phoned-in report of, and I quote, 'extreme police brutality' in her driveway."
Jack stopped in the middle of the driveway and turned slowly, letting his eyes take in everything. So Cassie hadn't been the only one who saw what happened to Daniel; one of Janet's neighbors had, too. Jack closed his eyes and let his mind imagine the scene - Daniel standing behind his car, maybe walking around to get Cassie or maybe going to the trunk to get something. Someone running up behind him, pushing him against the trunk or hitting him hard enough to draw blood. That same someone putting both Cassie and Daniel in...
Jack opened his eyes and walked to the end of the driveway, to where Daniel's glasses still lay. He looked down at the glasses and then back up at Daniel's car; they were too far apart. The only way his glasses could have gotten where they were was if Daniel had been very close to where Jack was standing now when they got knocked off. The three of them obviously hadn't walked away from the house, either, which meant only one thing.
"Jack? Are you still there?"
"Sir, we need to contact CSPD again and find out what kind of car Phillips has been driving since he's been in town."
"Jack, there's..."
"General." It was Jack's turn to interrupt. "There's blood all over the trunk of Daniel's car. The front door was standing wide-open when we got here, Daniel's keys and glasses are on the ground, and they're both gone, sir. Daniel and Cassie are gone. We need to get the cops to put an APB out on that car before he hurts either one of them."
Jack didn't feel the need to actually say what he was thinking - that Phillips intended to kill them both.
"There's already an APB out on Agent Phillips' car, Jack," Hammond answered softly. "I had them issue one immediately after Dr. Fraiser told me that someone apparently forced a young man into the trunk of an unmarked black police car at the end of her driveway."
Jack closed his eyes. He opened them again and looked straight into Teal'c's questioning eyes, and he just shook his head in response.
"There's a crime scene unit already on the way to Janet's house to secure the scene, Jack." Even as Hammond said the words, Jack heard the distant sirens as the police made their way to the scene. "Your FBI man is on his way here. There's a lot of information coming to light about this Agent Michael Phillips, and I need you and Teal'c back in the mountain, now."
"Yes, sir," Jack answered. Hammond had already hung up when Jack punched the disconnect button. He looked up at Teal'c again, but found that he still didn't have to words to express to him just exactly what he'd found out.
The wailing sirens were closer now, and the first of the cars had just turned the corner into the previously quiet cul-de-sac. Somewhere out there, Daniel and Cassie were alone with a psychopath, one who had already tried to kill Daniel once, one who had killed a thirteen-year-old girl while Daniel watched. Daniel was bleeding, his vision was questionable, and to top it all off, he was probably in the guy's trunk.
More police cars turned on to the street, screeching to a halt in front of Janet's house. Jack watched the first two arrived before tipping his head back to stare at the sky, wishing it could tell him where Daniel and Cassie were before it was too late.
"Damn it, Daniel."