The voice at the other end sounded just like every sound bite it had ever made.
“Mr. President,” General Hammond said, “we have a situation…”
“Don’t blame this on us,” Pace said crisply, quite some time later. “Bert Samuels has always had full access to your area. His visit was properly cleared, and he observed all the protocols. Under our agreement, you’re responsible for your own bailiwick, George.”
“And that gentleman who took him hostage was one of yours, too,” Cassidy said genteelly. The speakerphone made his voice sound a bit tinny, but Hammond could hear the distinct click of a cup being placed on a saucer. “Seems you might have a bit of cleaning up to do in your own house, George. In fact, we might have some questions about the threat your people pose to our security. Do they go crazy a lot in your patch?”
“Thank you, gentlemen,” Hammond grated.
He paused for a long moment, trying to think of something else to say, before giving up and replacing the telephone gently in its cradle. It wasn’t hard to detect a certain so-there tone in Pace’s voice—resentment, probably, that a mere lieutenant colonel could go places that were barred to the ostensible CinC of the Cheyenne Mountain Complex. Pace could be justified—barely—in believing that Samuels had obtained the proper .clearances to allow his guest into Stargate Command, just as he had in order to allow Kinsey into the Complex to begin with. It certainly wasn’t Pace’s problem, or Cassidy’s.
Of course, it had to be Cassidy who pointed out exactly which emperor was naked. Hammond hoped the Canadian got tea leaves stuck in his very proper mustache.
His eyes moved over the stack of printouts that Major Rusalka and Captain Randolph had produced, with brief summaries.
“Get me Jack O’Neill,” he said into the empty air.
Silence answered.
Snarling, Hammond slapped an intercom key on his phone and repeated the order.
CHAPTER TEN
“So this is what you were trying to maneuver me into seeing,” Kinsey said absentmindedly, mentally trying on leads for size. He couldn’t dictate how the headlines would read, of course, but he could certainly make suggestions. “The Real Secrets of Space Defense”—nah, too tabloid. “The Ring of Death”—oh, forget it, let the editors worry about it. He’d just write the story. The story of a lifetime. He wondered briefly if his father had known, and then smirked. Of course the old man had known. He wanted this cover blown. Well, he was going to get his wish. There’s never been a story like this one before, never.
Of course, he’d have to get more information. “What is that thing? A transdimensional portal?” Nobody would go for that. He needed pictures. No, he needed somebody to come forward and swear to it under oath; pictures were too easy to fake, even motion pictures could be altered with special effects.
“No,” Samuels said. “That is, I can’t confirm or deny that. Or anything. Oh God. I need to talk to the senator. To General Wickersham. Somebody.”
“Wickersham? Oh yeah, your boss at the Pentagon. Doe he know about this?” Kinsey was making a mental list of potential interviewees. This one could go all the way to the top. “Dad, of course. He knew about this all along. He cooked this up just so I could see what was going on—does he have something against these guys or something? It’s a great story—”
“It’s not a story, it’s classified, you can’t publish anything,” Samuels babbled. “No. No. You’ll go to jail. I’ll go to jail!”
“What, not even how I spent a lazy afternoon at the Cheyenne Mountain Complex looking over the latest stuff at U.S. Space Command?” Kinsey’s gaze sharpened. “It’ll knock the transportation industry right on its ass;—Oh will you just shut up about the going-to-jail part? You wanted me to see this stuff, right? That’s why you brought me here to begin with!”
“You weren’t supposed to actually see—we just thought you’d be curious, scare Hammond—”
Kinsey snorted. “Hammond? This is George Hammond, right? I thought I recognized him. From what I’ve heard, it would take more than one reporter to scare George Hammond. Hmmmmm. I should go back and take another look at his service record. I wonder how long this has been going on…”
“Let me out of here!” Samuels yelled, pounding on the door. “I want to talk to General Wickersham! It wasn’t my fault!”
Jack O’Neill sat across the table from his commanding officer, staring at a point just past Hammond’s right ear.
“If you have any suggestions, Colonel, I’m open to hearing them,” Hammond was saying.
There’s always an “accident”, O’Neill thought, but quashed that idea immediately. He respected Hammond more than any other commanding officer he’d ever had, not least because the general made it very clear that he was always, no matter what, an instrument of legal, constitutionally authorized policy. George Hammond would have no part of assassination. It wasn’t in the nature of the man, and O’Neill had always considered himself a good judge of character.
Still, he couldn’t forget the look in the eyes of another reporter, dying on a Washington street, telling him with his last breath that his death was O’Neill’s fault. Hammond would not countenance such action, but someone would. There were too many people out there who appealed to a “higher moral position” and used it as an excuse for lying, stealing, even murder.
O’Neill knew with gut certainty that he had to find a way to shut Kinsey up.
“I don’t know, sir,” he said slowly. “What’s the senator trying to do, play chicken with us? I didn’t think he was on good terms with his son. Why send him to uncover something about the Stargate project and publish it?”
“Senator Kinsey still thinks God is on our side,” Hammond muttered. “Using his own son that way would appeal to his twisted little mind.”
O’Neill’s lips twisted, remembering the Mom-and-apple-pie speech that the senator had used to try to deny the imminent threat of the Goa’uld.
“God’s on the side of the heavy artillery, and at the moment that’s Goa’uld,” he responded, and he and the general shared a wry smile. “But he couldn’t predict Morley’s going Section Eight.”
“The trouble is, we can’t arrest him for violating the Official Secrets Act until he actually does it. Too many people would want to know why.” Hammond scanned the articles and summaries one more time.
“If he’s anything like his father—”
“He’s not,” the general interrupted. “He and his father are usually, very publicly, on the outs as far as politics goes, and the man’s reporting on other subjects has been fairly balanced. Maybe he could be convinced.” His fingers brushed the sheaf of papers before him, and his eyes narrowed thoughtfully. “He did some nice work on Kosovo. He’s done a spy story, too, about the damage done by some of the DOE leaks to the Chinese. He doesn’t seem to represent his father’s views at all.”
O’Neill nodded. “But there’s that article about secrecy—he’s for more declassification, not less. And he actually saw the casualties, General. We lost three men from SG-3, and six more are in at least serious condition. He’s going to want some explanation.” He shook his head as another thought occurred to him. “If Kinsey and his father aren’t on good terms, why would the senator send him here?”
“Peace offering, maybe. Tantalize him with a good story. Who knows.” Hammond stared at the papers again. Nope, not what it was cracked up to be—and he’d better be right this time.
He’d liked the young man. He’d handled being a hostage well; no automatic threats to sue, just an endless need to know. Rather like Carter’s, or Dr. Jackson’s.
Which was not at all the military need to know, of course.
But the decision was his to make. His and no one else’s.
“This Frank Kinsey has been in a war zone,” he said slowly. “He seems to understand what war is about. He’s against unnecessary secrets, but maybe he understands the necessary ones.
“Colonel, perhaps you ought to show him what
this war is all about.”
“Sir?”
It did give Hammond an unholy pleasure to know that he could still catch his maverick officer totally off guard.
“You heard me. We don’t want him to write about us, but if we don’t give him something he’s never going to leave us alone. I know the type. So let’s show him what we’re up against and try to convince him we’ve got a legitimate need to slap ‘Top Secret’ all over it. I know you’re not happy with Morley’s story about what happened on Etaa. Neither am I. But whatever it was, the Jaffa ought to be gone by now. It should be safe. Take him through, Jack.”
O’Neill, still flummoxed, stood up. His expression made it clear he thought his commander had completely lost his mind. “Ohhhhh-kay. I’ll go talk to him. Maybe that will give me some ideas. But I really don’t think this is a good idea, sir.”
Hammond smiled, as if being a general gave him a special insight and certainty that everything would work out just fine.
“Just don’t let him get bruised, all right? I’d rather not explain that to his father.” He was already beginning to wonder the same thing his subordinate was, but he wasn’t going to back down now. He gave the orders, by God. He made the decisions, right or wrong. That was what he was paid for.
“Oh, no. This is a very, very, very bad idea.” Jackson was shaking his head adamantly.
It wasn’t necessarily the reaction O’Neill had expected from the scientist. “Not that I’m arguing with you, but why?” He’d called his team together in his office; Devorah Randolph was standing by, listening, making lists.
Sam Carter was still pale and shaking from the incident with the grenade. “You know what will happen if he publishes!”
“If we release the information that there’s a genuine alien threat out there, the world’s gonna go crazy. You’ll have cultists worshiping the Goa’uld, you’ll have the idiots who think we’ve already sold out, you’ll have the worst idiots like the senator thinking we can beat them with one hand tied behind our back, you’ll have the ones who actually are trying to sell out—” Jackson leaned back in his chair, ticking off the world’s responses on his fingers.
Teal’C was listening, fascinated. “You are saying that your world would not immediately unite to defeat an alien threat that intends to destroy you all?”
The rest of the team just stared at him.
“You can take that as a ‘no’, Teal’C,” O’Neill said dryly. “I think what Hammond wants is for us to try to convince Frank Kinsey of that.”
“Do you think we can?” Carter wanted to know.
“We’re going to give it our best shot. And if we take any reporter anywhere, it’s probably better that it be Etaa, because once the Jaffa set their trap and collected the people there, there’s no reason for them to hang around. At least we won’t have to worry about the senator’s little boy getting himself killed.”
Randolph, sitting in a corner, listened hard and added “vests, bulletproof, five (5) ea.”, to her list.
O’Neill barely noticed the decor of the small office currently serving as a holding room for Samuels and Kinsey. He’d spent his adult life in the military version of interior decorating, and it held no particular horrors for him.
It was clear that Frank Kinsey didn’t share that sentiment. The reporter was on his feet immediately as O’Neill came into the room. The door was shut firmly behind the colonel by an armed airman, and the reporter’s eyes widened at the sight. Obviously he’d known the door was locked, but that was all.
Samuels, on the other hand, wasn’t surprised in the least. He too was on his feet and talking. “Look, O’Neill, you’ve got to let me talk to General Wickersham. This situation isn’t my fault—who was that madman, anyway? I demand you let me out of here.”
O’Neill gave him a withering glance. “Sit down and shut up, Bert. That’s an order, in case you’ve forgotten.”
Samuels opened his mouth to continue talking, and O’Neill tilted his head inquiringly. “You didn’t hear me?”
Mouth shut, Samuels sank into a chair and began wringing his hands. Silently.
“Don’t try that with me, Colonel,” Kinsey said. “I’m not in your chain of command.”
“I’m aware of that, Mr. Kinsey.” O’Neill studied the other man, looking for resemblances to his father. Thankfully, they were few. Kinsey was in his late twenties or early thirties, in good physical condition but with a hairline already receding. He stood well balanced on the balls of his feet, as if ready to move in any direction. Some martial arts training, O’Neill diagnosed. But no signs of the family insanity. Yet.
“Why don’t you sit down and tell me what you think you saw today, Mr. Kinsey?” he invited, seating himself on the edge of a desk.
“Stick around and you’ll read it in the Sunday paper.”
O’Neill allowed himself a small smile. “Maybe. But you want to make sure you’ve got the story straight, don’t you? I’m sure you’ve got questions.”
Samuels squeaked. O’Neill pointedly ignored him.
“I’m sure you wouldn’t answer those questions with a gun to your head,” Kinsey replied, but he took a chair and swiveled around to study the colonel. “O’Neill. Jack O’Neill. I remember hearing about you. You’ve seen some action, haven’t you?”
“Here and there.” Combat fatigues didn’t lend themselves to the ribbons, medals, and lettuce of honors and commendations, thank God.
“You were a POW for a while, weren’t you?”
O’Neill shrugged. “Neither here nor there, is it?”
“Maybe. I heard you retired some time ago—after your kid died—”
O’Neill controlled the muscles of his jaw with an effort, but Kinsey must have seen something anyway. “I’m sorry about that, by the way.”
O’Neill acknowledged the condolence with an infinitesimal tilt of the head.
“So why’d you unretire? Or did you ever retire in the first place?”
“There was some work to do,” O’Neill said vaguely.
“Work here?”
“Among other places. It’s not a perfect—world.”
Kinsey laughed. “Okay. You want questions, real questions? How’s this for starters?
“Who’s the nutcase who grabbed me?
“Where’d he take me?
“What’s that ring thing?
“Where’d those people come from?
“What happened to them?
“That’s a good start, I think.”
O’Neill crossed one leg over the other and drummed his fingers lightly against the desk. “Yeah, I’d call that a pretty good start.” After a moment to organize his thoughts, he went on, “The man who took you hostage is Major David Morley. Major Morley has served with distinction for several years, but has had some—difficult—experiences. He was suffering a flashback. We failed to recognize the full extent of the stress he was under, and we offer you our sincere apologies.”
“You grabbed that grenade, didn’t you?” Kinsey said thoughtfully. “I guess I should thank you. You saved my life.”
“Mine too,” O’Neill pointed out. “And I think somebody else actually grabbed the weapon, I just knocked it out of his hand.” Thank God for Carter, he told himself.
“Still.” Kinsey drew a deep breath. “Okay, I’ll accept that for the time being. Now what about the rest of my questions?”
O’Neill sighed. “I’m afraid you’ve inadvertently stumbled on a highly classified location, Mr. Kinsey—”
“Call me Frank,” the reporter invited, smiling.
Sure, we’ll just be buddies! O’Neill thought. “Okay, Frank.” At least I won’t have to gag over that last name. “And you can call me Jack.” He smiled as if the two of them really were on the way to becoming friends. “Nonetheless. I’m afraid I can’t reveal classified information.”
“Oh, come on, jack. I know what I saw. That ring thing spun around and something came out of it, and then people came out of it. Troops. And ther
e wasn’t anyplace for them to come from. So what is it, a portal of some kind? Where did those guys come from? What happened to them? They saw some action somewhere.”
“You were under considerable stress,” O’Neill suggested gently. “You may have misinterpreted what you thought you saw.”
“Bull puckey,” Kinsey snapped. “I know what I saw. I’ve seen troops coming out of combat—I was in Chechnya and Iraq and Kosovo. If you’ve got a way to transport men and materiel through some kind of ring thing, the people have a right to know. This could revolutionize trade, transportation, war—” He stopped, looking at the other man appraisingly. “You can even use it to go into space, can’t you? We don’t have to worry about shuttles blowing up anymore. My God, O’Neill, what are you people doing here? And how long have you been doing it?”
There was a very long pause indeed as O’Neill studied Kinsey, looking hard for whatever it was that Hammond had seen in him. “We’re fighting a war,” he said at last. “And we can’t tell anyone, for the same reason that you can’t yell ‘fire’ in a crowded theater. What do you think would happen if you published an article about what you saw here?
Where do you think you could publish it—News of the World? Either your credibility would be destroyed, or even worse—”
“People might believe me.” Kinsey studied him in return. “War? With aliens?”
“Yep.”
There was a small, deep silence. Not even Samuels made a sound.
“Shouldn’t you have notified every government in the world? What makes you think you can do this all by yourself?”
O’Neill smiled. “What do you think would happen? Extrapolate, Frank. Let’s say you personally notify the governments of China, Russia, Iraq, North Korea, France, and Argentina that the U.S. has managed to contact hostile aliens? What are they going to say?”
Kinsey thought about that, imagined the response. Outright disbelief. And if they could convince the world that it was actually true, the accusations that the U.S. had sold out the rest of the planet. The attempts to make advantageous deals for single countries. The hysteria and panic. The skeptics versus the converted. “Ouch,” he murmured.
[Stargate SG-1 03] - The First Amendment Page 10
