Daniel glanced around for the hundredth time as Sam tried to jimmy the back door of Stephan Selig’s house outside of Washington DC. His car was gone from the driveway where it had stood the night before, so they felt safe for the time being. Just in case they got any unexpected visitors, Teal’c was keeping watch in the front of the house.

"Sam?" Daniel asked, his voice showing his impatience.

"I’m working as quickly as I can, Daniel," Sam said testily. Apparently, Daniel had asked the question one time too many.

"Sorry," he said, grimacing slightly, and looking away again toward the adjacent house. Annoying Sam would not get her to work quicker—that he knew from countless off-world missions.

"Yes," Sam exclaimed quietly, her voice barely above a whisper as the door swung open. "We’re in."

Daniel nodded and followed her into the kitchen, surprised that there was no alarm. Sam claimed she had checked last night after they’d gone to bed and Selig had no accounts with any of the local security companies. It had just made their job a little easier this morning.

The house was strangely silent as they stepped through, Sam quickly scouted ahead, looking for the office where they suspected Selig’s paperwork would be kept. Daniel went directly to the front door, opened it, and gestured Teal’c inside. They hadn’t brought their radios so Daniel was relegated to doing everything the old-fashioned way. Although, it did help him to appreciate the modern technology that he had access to on a daily basis if needed.

Who would have thought they’d be skulking through someone’s house in the middle of a Virginia suburb?

Teal’c saw Daniel’s gesture and quickly walked toward the house, joining Daniel in the foyer a few minutes later. By the time Teal’c arrived, Sam’s excited voice floated down from the second floor of the house. "Hey guys, I think I found something."

Daniel sent Teal’c a quick glance before they headed up the stairs, following the sound of shuffling papers. They entered Selig’s office—a study in chaos—to find Sam reclining in his desk chair a manila folder open in her lap.

Glancing up, Sam offered a bemused grimace. "If anything, I think we need to get Selig working for the SGC. He has more information here on the Colonel than even we know." She leaned forward, laid the folder on top of the piles of paper in front of her, and started flipping through the contents of the folder. "There are records in here that go back to the early 1980s. Selig’s thorough, I’ll give him that."

"So, we know he lied about not knowing about Jack," Daniel said, leaning against the desk and crossing his arms over his chest. "We’d guessed as much. But, where is Jack? Can you find anything else?"

Sam shook her head, her fingers quickly paging through the documents. "It looks like this is all background information of what the Colonel’s done, where he’s been stationed, personal information…there’s even some clippings of Charlie’s obituary."

Daniel could see Sam pause, her eyes staring at the newsprint between her fingers. As much as they knew about the death of Jack’s son, it was another story to see it written down so plainly—the last item on record for a little boy who died too young. Daniel took a deep breath, steadying his emotions and saw Sam do the same.

She raised her head, her wide blue eyes glassy from unshed tears, to met Daniel’s. Her voice was rough when she spoke. "Maybe I can find something on his computer."

"But Sam," Daniel asked, picking up the file and leafing through it, "why would he leave this kind of stuff just lying around?"

"Who knows, Daniel?" Sam said, her mind already intent on the computer before her. A quick search of the hard drive hadn’t pulled up anything, so she has trying to hack her way into his email program. "Damn," she said, quietly as another password algorithm refused to bring her the desired results.

"Sam," Daniel said, fingering the small post-it note on the side of the computer. "Try rache."

"What?" Sam asked, turning her head in confusion.

"Try rache, Sam. I think it might work." Daniel’s eyes were thoughtful, his gaze never wavering from the handwritten word.

"I’m in," Sam said, surprise coloring her voice. "How’d you know that it would work?"

Daniel was silent for a moment, before replying, his tone somber. "It means vengeance in German."

"Oh," Sam said, turning back to the computer and the multitude of email messages cluttering his inbox. Glancing over Sam’s shoulder, Daniel could see various spam emails and a number of e-newsletters, but his attention was drawn to a number of untitled emails from one address.

Pointing at the screen, Daniel asked, "What about these?"

"I was just going to look at them," Sam said, opening the first of several, dated for Sunday night.

The message was brief, but to the point.

"Please find attached to this message pictures and a daily report. They should be to your liking." There was no signature or salutation. As indicated, four files were attached: three images and a word processing document.

Sam clicked on the first of the three images, allowing the computer to open it. The room was tense as the image software loaded, finally opening the picture to fill the screen.

In high-fidelity color was the picture of one Jack O’Neill lying obviously unconscious beside his truck. The time-stamp on the image was dated for Friday night, only a few hours after Jack had left Daniel’s apartment.

Daniel thought he was going to be sick.

Without a word, Sam reached forward, flicking the switch on the desktop color printer. Waiting a beat, she sent the file to the printer spool before closing it and moving to the next image.

The second image was not much better. Jack—down to his short sleeve black shirt and missing his boots—was bound, gagged, and blindfolded in the trunk of a car.

The third image showed Jack—still bound and gagged—lying on a mattress in an unidentifiable room.

As the third image was printing, Sam looked up to meet Daniel and Teal’c’s eyes. Her eyes were filled with unshed tears and rage burned deep within them. "I have to call General Hammond."

Daniel nodded silently, sliding into the chair that she vacated, his hand immediately going to the mouse and closing out the last image, wiping it from his vision. Those images, though, were burned into his mind.

Sam, on the other side of the room, was speaking softly into her cell phone. Daniel could only catch one word out of ten, but he knew what she was going to say.

Daniel quickly hit the forward button and entered General Hammond’s personal email address, clicking send and watching as the files were sent.

"Sam," Daniel said turning in the chair. "Tell General Hammond to look at the email from…ah…." Daniel searched quickly for the account name, finally finding it. "sselig. I forwarded him the message."

Sam nodded, acknowledging Daniel’s request before turning her back to gaze out of the window.

Teal’c hovered behind him, his face an unreadable mask, but his eyes; those were filled with a fury like Daniel had never seen. It probably matched the anger in Daniel’s own eyes.

Daniel closed the window, scrolling up to find a second email dated on Tuesday afternoon from the same sender, user144001@yahoo.com. It was similar to the first message in its bluntness.

"The requested images and report is attached."

The images did not get any better. One by one Daniel opened each and printed them. He could feel Sam’s stunned presence behind him. She had hung up her cell phone a few moments before.

Jack—his arms still bound behind him—lying naked on the floor as water trickled down his chin, his brown eyes open wide.

Daniel was disgusted at what he saw, at the utter disregard someone could show to another human being—his friend. Bile threatened to rise into his throat, but he pushed it down as best he could. He could hear Sam’s ragged breathing behind him and he knew that these images disturbed her deeply—not only was Jack her commanding officer, but he was also her friend. Teal’c was quiet, but the air around him shimmered with a suppressed rage and anger.

Jack lying limply against a metal wall, obviously unconscious.

Jack, now clothed in a pair of tight black boxers—asleep or unconscious, Daniel couldn’t tell—his head nestled in the crook of his arms, his ankles manacled together and fastened to the floor, his wrists similarly bound, but hanging in the air by a cord of some type.

Jack screaming in agony—the lines of pain etched deep in his exhausted face, a dark bruise on his chin.

He heard rather than saw, Sam turn away, taking a few steps back, distancing herself a little both emotionally and physically. This was far from over and would probably only get worse—although Daniel could not imagine how.

Daniel glanced up at Teal’c standing beside him, unashamed at the tears running silently down his face. Teal’c’s hands were tightly balled into fists, his eyes narrow and cold. Daniel knew that if Selig were in the room, Teal’c would have dismembered him piece by piece.

Daniel closed the last image and silently forwarded the email message to General Hammond before moving back to Selig’s inbox. There was one other message from user144001.

This one was dated from late last night.

Daniel hesitated before opening it. His stomach was already doing summersaults, his breakfast threatening to reappear in a most fantastic way. Teal’c’s hand on his shoulder urged him to continue.

As with the other two messages, there was no salutation or signature, just a one-line message regarding the attached files. Taking a deep breath, Daniel clicked on the first of three images.

It wasn’t pretty.

Blood running down both of his arms, Jack was suspended from the ceiling by his bound wrists, his body a mass of welts and bruises, his face caught in a grimace of pain.

The second image was very similar to the first, Jack flinching in pain, biting his bottom lip in a gesture Daniel had seen many times—Jack trying to hold in a cry of pain.

The last image was a close up. Jack’s familiar visage filled the screen. Daniel’s heart dropped neatly into his shoes, disturbed by the intimate and distressing nature of the picture. He’d never seen Jack so vulnerable.

A thick leather gag covered half of Jack’s face, digging deeply into his flesh. Jack’s brown eyes were open, but filled with tears of pain and something else that Daniel found difficult to place. Only after staring at the obscene image for a few seconds did he realize what he saw—helplessness and fear.
Jack O’Neill was scared.

That was what frightened Daniel the most.

With trembling hands, Daniel Jackson sent the third message to General Hammond and closed down the computer. Samantha Carter had stepped away to the window once again, her phone pressed to her ear.

During his life, Teal’c had seen many acts of terror and violence, but none of them touched him as deeply as the images he had just observed.
For this act, someone would have to answer.

O’Neill would be avenged.

General Hammond hung up his phone and immediately switched over to his email program, signing on to retrieve the message coming from his flagship team. He wasn’t pleased with their actions—breaking and entering was still against the law—but he was disturbed by the sound of Major Carter’s voice. She sounded shaken.

As promised, there was an email waiting. It was only one of several that required his attention, but the rest he ignored. They could wait.

Downloading the images and the text file to his computer’s hard drive, he quickly switched to his image viewer and let the three images load.

His breath stuck in his throat.

He didn’t know how long he stared at those pictures, but when he went back into his email account, he had two more messages waiting. He downloaded those as well, and swallowing a wave of nausea, opened them.

Trying to control the swell of emotions running through his heart and mind, he placed two phone calls: one to Doctor Janet Fraiser, the other to a computer tech. Hammond needed to track down the origin of these email messages quickly. It didn’t look like his second-in-command—and his friend—had much time left.

Major Carter called back moments later.

"Sir," she said without preamble, "we need to find out where this user144001 is."

"I know that, Major. I already have someone looking into it. What is your plan?"

"I’m not sure, Sir," Carter admitted, somewhat hesitatingly. "We need to find Selig, but I think more importantly at this point, we need to find Colonel O’Neill."

"I agree," Hammond nodded, gesturing for Doctor Fraiser to enter his office. He spun his laptop around so it faced her and indicated that she should look at the open image files. The color in her face dropped drastically when the first image appeared. After her initial shock, she leaned in, trying to see details. Hammond needed to know what to expect when they finally found the Colonel and Doctor Fraiser was the best person to do that. "We’re working as quickly as we can on this end to find the origin point. How long will it take you to reach Andrews?"

Carter paused before replying. "It’s still early, but it’ll probably take us an hour or so, even in good traffic."

"Very well. Report in when you reach Andrews. Hopefully, we’ll have more information for you then."

"Yes, Sir. Thank you. Talk to you soon."

Janet Fraiser raised her eyes to meet Hammond’s over the top of the laptop screen as he hung up the phone. "Well, Doctor?"

"I can’t even begin to imagine the bruising and contusions he’s received over the past several days," Fraiser said, her eyes wide. Hammond knew that she was trying to control her emotions, but it was hard. Colonel O’Neill was a close friend to many on base and had developed a special relationship with several—Hammond and Fraiser included.

"And, from the looks of things, it appears as if he had numerous electrical burns and welts, but from what, I don’t know," Fraiser said, shrugging slightly. "It’s hard to tell from the pictures, Sir, but one thing is abundantly clear: we need to find him quickly."

"We’re working on it," Hammond said, offering a grim smile. "We don’t have any information yet as to who is holding him, but we’re getting closer."

Fraiser nodded briskly, her eyes going back to the final image still displayed on the laptop’s screen. "Just tell me where, and I’ll be there."

"I know, Doctor," Hammond said, his eyes softening a little. "We’re going to get him back. That I guarantee."