STARGATE SG-1 Transitions by Transitions (SG1–18)

Author:Transitions (SG1–18) [Retail]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Fandemonium Books
Published: 2020-06-29T11:45:35+00:00

Chapter Twenty-three

The call came in just before twenty-three hundred. Not that it mattered, because her Pentagon office was a windowless closet that encouraged long working hours simply because its occupant was unable to register the passage of day into night.

The call came in on the secure phone. She’d had it installed months ago, on the pretext that, given the increased terrorist threat, it was better to be safe than sorry. It probably had garnered her points for diligence with her superiors. Fact of the matter was, though, that only a very select handful actually had access to this extension.

She picked up the receiver. “Yes.”

“We have a problem,” said the voice at the other end.

Who did he think she was? Houston? “What?”

“The site was compromised.”

“Compromised?”

“Destroyed.”

She felt an icy knot forming somewhere beneath her breastbone. She was safer than the messenger, for sure, but she was nowhere near high enough up in the pecking order to be immune. There would be repercussions.

“How?” she asked hoarsely.

“Current best guess, an explosion of some sort that resulted in an extremely hot fire.”

“What about the find?”

“No trace. The pod’s still recognizable, but it looks empty. We found no organic matter in there. So the assumption is that they managed to open it. As for the contents, we simply don’t know for certain.”

“Destroyed in the fire?”

“Possibly. As far as we can tell there are the remains of three people at the site. Apparently our men took the girl up there. They never made it back.”

“Where is the girl?”

“Beats me. However…”

“However?”

“There were tracks.”

“Tracks?”

“On some derelict trail that leads to a neighboring cove. Tracks in and out. More out than in.”

“Terrific. I suppose that, on the strength of your assessment of the trail as derelict, you never bothered to secure it.”

“It’s a dead end!”

“Obviously not.”

“It is. Well, unless you’ve got a boat.”

“And there are so very few of those around, given that the damn place is an island.” She didn’t bother to filter the acid from her tone. All this smacked of pure and arrogant laziness, and ultimately she would be the one to pay for it. But not before she’d seen this cretin pulverized. “Presumably I shouldn’t ask if you actually ran a check of who was out there at the time.”

“As a matter of fact, we did check. We’re not completely stupid, you know.” His voice went tight with the effort to control his temper.

“Oh, really?”

“Mostly fishing boats. Which isn’t anything to get excited about. The natives have to eat, after all. Notably, though, there were several leisure crafts absent from their moorings last night. Among them the Jenny III, big motor yacht. Wanna guess who she’s registered to?”

“I don’t have time for your crap!”

“Our most generous benefactor. And wouldn’t you know it, nobody’s seen hide nor hair of him at the office since day before yesterday. We checked that, too.”

“How thorough of you. What do you want? A pat on the back for adroitly shutting the stable door after the horse has bolted?”

“I’m just saying. Looks like our friend may have had a change of heart.

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