SG-13: Chapter 7 Secret Meetings Part 1

Chapter 7: Secret Meetings Part 1

Looking around the area, Vansen noticed a woman in her mid-fifties wearing a navy business suit with a pink blouse sitting on the bench. The woman carried a black briefcase and was reading the Wall Street Journal. She had a pink carnation sitting on top of the briefcase. Taking a last look around the area to make sure she wasn't being followed, 'well--not by anyone who wasn't supposed to be following me' she thought to herself, she sat down next to the woman and picked up the carnation.

"Ah carnations! My favorite flowers." Vansen said as she raised the flower to her nose and took a deep breath and smelled the perfume emanating from it.

The woman smiled at her, folded her paper and put it in the briefcase. "Why are carnations your favorite?" She asked as she stood up and started walking towards the parking lot.

Vansen stood up again and followed after the woman, keeping the carnation close to her face and periodically inhaling its scent. "Because they're sturdy. They will last up to two weeks after they've been cut if you give them what they need to survive. Fresh cut of the stems, a little food in the water, and put them in a room that has plenty of light but remains at a constant temperature. Plus--I just love the light scent that they have. It's not too heavy or spicy, it's like the flower has been laughing." She took another deep breath of the flower's scent.

"If you say so. I prefer the rose myself but to each their own." They had arrived in the parking lot and the woman got into a black limousine. Vansen followed her in and was quickly followed by the security detail that had been following them. The limousine pulled out of the parking lot and was followed by three black cars.

Coming out from behind the van he was using as cover, Colonel O'Neill watched the group of vehicles leave. He had run into Vansen here in D.C. by chance. He was coming from another meeting and was taking a short cut back to his car when he had spotted her. But before he could get to her, she had started talking to this woman and then left with her. He was bothered by this turn of events. First off, he hadn't even known that anyone from the SGC was going to be off base let alone in D.C. at the same time he was here. Secondly, whoever the woman was, it was clear that she had money and in this town, that meant that she or her husband held some power. Since it was the woman who met with Vansen, he assumed that she was the one with the power. Third, they didn't hug or even act like friends or family so that ruled out any personal reasons why she would be here. Fourth, the new members came in right after the whole rogue SGC group had been revealed and Makepeace found to be a part of them. He was getting a sinking feeling in his gut. And he didn't like that feeling for one second. Getting into his rented car, he drove off and thought about how to best handle this situation.

That night....

"Just a minute...." Vansen called out to her door while she got her money out of her wallet. The pizza delivery boy had definitely taken his sweet time in getting to her hotel room. She wasn't going to give him a tip.

"You're late and...." Her voice trailed off as she finally realized that it wasn't the pizza boy who knocked on her door. "Colonel O'Neill! I didn't realize you were in town sir."

"Can I come in?" He asked her. He didn't want to have to force his way into her room but he would do it if she didn't let him in.

"Ah yes! Sorry, where are my manners. Please come in." She said as she opened the door to allow him to enter her room, she quickly shut the door behind him. "What can I do for you Colonel?"

"Aren't you going to offer to pay for the pizza?" He asked her as he put the pizza on the table.

"You mugged the pizza boy for me? I should be flattered." She said as she handed him the money for the pizza. "But you're late so you're not getting a tip. Want some?" She pointed to the pizza as she turned off the radio.

"Actually I was going to see if you wanted to go out to dinner." He had to really keep from laughing at the quizzical look that crossed her face.

"How did you know I was here?" She still had that disbelieving look on her face.

"Well, I called back to the base to give Hammond a report from my meeting and then I talked to Isis and she said you were here and told me where to find you. So I thought I would see if you wanted to go out to eat and get to know each other. No harm in that is there? I mean after all, I'm going to be trusting you to guard my back so we should get to know each other shouldn't we?" He was rocking back and forth on his feet with his hands stuck in his jeans, waiting for her to answer. "So--do you want to get something other than pizza to eat or do you really want to eat that cardboard pizza box?"

"Cardboard pizza box?" She lifted the cover of the box up and started to laugh. "I guess I'm going out to eat."

"Good!" He clapped his hands together. "Grab your jacket and let's head out. I know this great place that serves Italian food. What?" He stopped when he realized that she was still laughing.

"What did you do with the pizza?" She asked as they left the room and headed for his car.

"When the delivery guy showed up, I was in the lobby asking where your room was and he asked the same question. So I paid for the pizza and I gave it to the guy working the front desk. I told him you wouldn't be needing it tonight." He held the door open for her as she got into the passenger seat.

At the restaurant...

"Didn't I tell you this was good food?" He said as the waiter removed his plate from the table.

"Yes you did and it was excellent." She leaned back in her chair so the waiter could take her plate. "I can't believe I ate the whole thing." She laughed.

"Why are you laughing?" He knew that she was feeling more relaxed now and not on guard with him anymore. He needed to find out what she was doing here and just who she was working for. Isis wouldn't tell him anything since she had arrived.

"Here I am, in a town known for its sharks and piranhas and here you show up at my doorstep and invite me to a quiet Italian restaurant with candle light and wine and strolling musicians. And I can't help but wonder if you're going to do this to all of the members of the team. If you are, I'd suggest that you skip the ambiance with the guys. They might not like it like I do." She couldn't stop laughing. She looked up and noticed that he was laughing too.

"You don't think that if I wine'd and dine'd them that I'd be able to get them to bed?" He knew it was crude but he had to find a way to get the information he wanted to know. So he let her think that he wanted to sleep with her. He'd make his excuses and slip out before anything happened. However, Vansen erupted into a fit of laughter.

"I can....I can....I can just see it now. That'd get the whole base talking!" She was resting her head on her hands as she laughed. "Oh boy!" She shook her head. "So, is that what this is about? Sharing a bed?" She had stopped laughing and was looking straight at him but her eyes still gleamed with laughter in them.

Taking a deep breath, he chuckled to himself. "Ah, no actually, it's not. Not offended I hope but I had to find some way to make you stop laughing." He smiled at her. He silently said a prayer of thanks that he had dodged that bullet without even having to make an excuse.

"Have a thing against laughing sir?" She asked tilting her head to one side as she looked at him.

"Not at all. But I wanted to ask you some questions about what you guys did before you came to be with us." He leaned over towards her.

"Ah..I, ah, we shouldn't discuss that here sir. Perhaps somewhere more private would be better." She gave a nervous glance around the room and quickly looked at him and smiled and raised her eyebrows quickly.

"Sure. Just let me pay the check and we'll be out of here." He motioned for the waiter and paid the check. Leaving a tip at the table, they walked out of the restaurant and drove to a local bar.

"What do you want to drink?" He said as they sat down at a table.

"Just water please." She said as she looked around the bar.

"Everything okay?" He asked as he returned with the drinks. She still appeared nervous.

"Yes, I have an early flight back tomorrow. Don't want to miss my flight." She smiled at him.

"Really? What time? Which one you flying out on?" He knew the answers to these questions already. He had already changed his flight so he could sit next to her. What was the saying? Keep your friends close but your enemies closer? Was she an enemy? Was all of SG-13 an enemy?

Later on that night....

"Thank you for the dinner and drinks Colonel O'Neill, but you really didn't need to walk me to my hotel room." She hoped he wouldn't want to come in.

"Well, it's no problem really. I hate being in this town and when I heard you were here I figured we could get out and enjoy our brief respite from the normal day back in Colorado." She wasn't inviting him back inside and she still hadn't told him about how her team had come to be stationed at the SGC.

He wasn't leaving. She was standing at her door and he wasn't leaving. 'Damn! He's not going to leave without me telling him.' She thought to herself. 'Oh well. Might as well bite the bullet.' She decided. "Would you like to come inside Colonel?" She held the door open for him.

"Ah--yeah--sure! Thanks." He walked past her into the room. Taking a seat at the table, he picked up the empty pizza box and started playing with it.

Taking a seat across from him, she leaned back in the seat and propped her legs up on the table. She closed her eyes. "So? I assume you want to know about our past since that's the one question I didn't answer tonight and we already cleared up the whole sleeping with each other thing. Or was there something else you wanted to know?"

"How you came to be in the SGC would be a good place to start." He decided to put his feet up on the bed and lean back in the chair.

"Short or long version."

"Short to begin with and we'll play by ear after that."

"Okay. Short version first. Our job was to track down illegal traders/dealers of arms and drugs and put them out of business. We have a pretty long list of people who'd like to see us dead and they almost succeeded in killing all of us four months ago. We were becoming too popular among those we were supposed to capture and therefore ineffective in our given role. The attack that left some of us dead and many more wounded finally convinced the head honchos that they needed to pull us out and find somewhere else for us to be where we wouldn't come under attack from them. Since we had managed to make enemies in literally every part of the world, well, not Tibet, but every other part of the world, that left them with one place left to put us." She stood up and walked over to the mini-bar and got a bottle of water out. "You want a drink?"

"No thank you. So you guys are here because you can no longer operate on the planet without getting attacked?"

"Yeah. Sad to say but true." She sat down on the bed.

"Who attacked you and how did they do it?" He could see that she didn't want to talk about it but he knew if he just pressed her a little more, then she would tell him.

Taking a deep breath, she dredged the nightmare from her memory. 'So much for forgetting the past.' She sighed to herself. "A group of us were suppose to be meeting with an arms dealer. Black market. Top of the line products. We had a secondary team standing by but to keep us safe, we had to keep them 2 miles away from the site. Any closer and they would have been spotted. The deal went south quickly and for a while, we thought that the secondary team had caused the deal to go south. I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me back up a little. We were basically sent in to inventory and start a dialogue. However, someone told the dealer who we were. They waited for us and when we arrived, all hell broke loose. Machine gun fire was coming at us from everywhere and they made sure we didn't have anyplace to hide."

She had been looking at the wall while she recalled the memories. Her voice held no emotion at the beginning; however now a terrible sadness could be heard in it. "We were calling for our back-up and trying to find cover when our hummer was hit by a rocket. It exploded and two teammates who had made it to the hummer were instantly killed. We were scrambling for any cover we could find when the ground suddenly shifted. It was another rocket. We didn't even hear the helicopter approach. It became a nightmare. My friends lying on the ground, bleeding from gunshot wounds. Our only source of transportation was already blown apart and body parts were lying all around. The back-up team arrived and drove the rest of attackers away. But it was too late. We laid there dying or already dead."

Tears filled her eyes as she continued. "Originally we thought they had spotted our second team but we later learned that that wasn't the case. We never found out who was responsible for the attack. The man in charge of the meeting was the first one killed so we never found out who it was that gave the order."

"But you suspect someone on the inside?" He saw her head nod yes. "And you have no idea who it could have been?"

"We have a good idea of who we just can't prove it. So the rest of the head honchos didn't want to waste all that money that they had invested in us so they shipped us to Colorado." She drank the rest of her bottled water and looked at him. "So now we get to go across the galaxy and back and still get paid for it while we meet new people and forge new alliances."

"And fight the enemy. We're not exactly loved throughout the galaxy ya know." He interrupted her.

"At least it's a new enemy. Someone who doesn't know what I personally look like no matter the clothing I happen to be wearing." She pulled on her shirt sleeve to emphasize her point.

"Give it time Captain, they will soon enough. And you'll even have a price on your head if you hang around SG-1 long enough." He joked.

"Oh boy--can't wait." She smirked.

"Well, I need to get outta here and back to my own room. Shall I pick you up tomorrow?" He stretched as he stood and started heading towards the door.

"That will be fine Colonel. Thanks for tonight."

"Not a problem. I rather enjoyed it myself." He reached for the door handle.

"Do you trust us now Colonel, now that you know why we're here?"

He stopped and turned to face her. "I trust you. I just wondered why you were here in D.C.?" He knew he was treading on thin ice here.

"Tying up loose ends Colonel." She yawned and looked at the clock. She was slightly amused to see it read 2 am.

"Good-night Captain. I'll pick you up at 0630." He walked out and closed the door the behind him.

He went to the next room and put his key in the door and entered his room. Quickly walking over to his surveillance equipment, he waited to see if she was going to call anyone. She didn't. He went to bed and heard her yell out several times during the night. "Damn paper thin walls!" He quietly cursed. His questions had caused her nightmares. It was going to be a long flight back to Colorado. He didn't get much sleep that night.