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The Sentinel Project Part 11
by Lianne Burwell
April 2003
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Key West certainly earned its reputation as the most 
beautiful, laid back parts of Florida. People traveled from 
around the world to vacation there, and not just the Jimmy 
Buffet fans, known as parrotheads. Artisans sold their 
wares, bars sold drinks, and nearly every part of the small 
island had beautiful views of the Gulf of Mexico or the 
Straits of Florida.

The three men who had checked into one of the local hotels, 
taking one of the small cabins, didn't attract a lot of 
attention, although the manager wondered why they had come 
south. All three were northerner pale, and they weren't 
really dressed for the climate. She hoped they wouldn't get 
heat stroke or anything, since the only cooling in the 
cabins were the ceiling fans that at least  kept the air 
moving. The men were already sweating and pasty looking.

They also had an awful lot of luggage for vacationers, 
including a couple cases that looked pretty damned heavy. 
Strangely, they'd turned down three offers to help carry 
the stuff, and rather curtly too. They didn't seem to 
understand that people around here just liked to be 
helpful.

She shook her head. It took all kinds.

>>>~~~<<<

Broots was getting closer to decrypting the Project 
Tezcatlipoca file, but while every layer he went through 
provided them with more information that the others read 
eagerly, the next layer used even more complicated 
encryption routines. At this rate he was going to be 
tearing his hair out by the roots by the time that he found 
the location. Unfortunately, the Doctor Malone who had 
written the reports was very careful about not putting in 
anything that would give away their location.

He had narrowed -- if you could call it that -- the 
possibilities down to the Yucatan peninsula, which wasn't 
too surprising. He'd seen 60 Minutes reports on the level 
of official corruption there. If you had enough money to 
pay the bribes, you could do anything you wanted. Any 
honest cop... well, from the sound of it, an honest cop had 
the life span of a fruit fly in that part of Mexico. Or so 
he'd heard.

But he was getting there. He'd been putting the entire 
database through another search cycle, this time looking 
just for the project name, while he continued to work on 
the decryption. As an intellectual exercise, it was turning 
out to be almost enjoyable. It wasn't often he could work 
like this, especially without someone -- Miss Parker -- 
leaning over his shoulder and barking at him to work 
faster.

He was so thoroughly into the puzzle that he didn't even 
notice the doorbell ringing. He did, however, notice the 
thunder of footsteps. He froze at the computer, staring at 
the door out to the hall. He'd set up in the kitchen that 
morning, instead of staying upstairs in the bedroom, so 
that he would have ready access to coffee and distractions. 
This was not a normal distraction.

Jarod came down the back stairs, taking three steps at a 
time, with a handgun in his hand. He checked the back door, 
then locked it. Then he gestured for Broots to move to the 
side of the room where he wouldn't be visible to anyone 
looking in through the windows.

Everything was silent. Broots held his breath, wondering if 
this was it. Had the Center found them? Had the Consortium? 
Was the local law about to hammer down the doors and arrest 
them all? He rubbed his hands against his thighs trying to 
dry his palms and told himself that if it were, they would 
have come through by now. They certainly wouldn't be 
ringing the doorbell.

The doorbell rang again.

After a moment, he heard the sound of the lock being 
released and the door opening. Silence.

"Sir?" Silence again.

"If you don't intend to shoot me, Agent Scully, do you 
think you could put your gun away? I'm still recovering 
from the last shooting, and I think it would be better if I 
didn't end up in the hospital again."

>>>~~~<<<

Half an hour later, everyone was gathered in the kitchen, 
other than the bikers who were out patrolling the fences, 
disturbed by the fact that a stranger was able to get all 
the way to their front door without being noticed. It 
didn't matter than the stranger in question was a federal 
agent and former soldier. If anything, that made them more 
nervous.

"How did you find us?" Scully asked, more animated than 
Kincaid had seen her so far.

Kincaid wanted to know the same thing, although not for the 
same reason. If this man had found them, then who else 
would be able to? They would have to move again, and soon. 
Wolfling was already out arranging that. Scully, on the 
other hand, didn't seem to be thinking about that. She was 
focused on the newcomer, eyes glowing.

All right, he wasn't hard on the eyes. Very tall -- and 
Kincaid wondered how it was that he always seemed to end up 
hanging around men taller than himself. He was nearly bald, 
and the fringe that was what was left of his hair was gray, 
and wore glasses. However, under the casual clothing he was 
wearing, he was bulky in a way that suggested muscle, not 
middle-aged spread.

Combined with the deep, gravelly voice and an almost 
overpowering personality, Kincaid could sort of see what 
Scully was so obviously hung up on AD Skinner. His own 
tastes didn't run that way, but the man was attractive.

"Mulder's hacker friends. They got me out of the hospital 
before an assassin could get to me -- although it was a 
close call. They found a safe place for me to stay until I 
was well enough to travel on my own, then sent me here."

Scully seemed to accept that explanation without any 
hesitation, but Kincaid wasn't so ready. "You look pretty 
good for a man that was near death only a few weeks ago," 
he pointed out, ignoring Scully's glare.

Skinner met his eyes without any sign of emotion. This was 
definitely a man well-versed in hiding his feelings. "The 
reports were somewhat exaggerated, I think," he said. 
"Maybe so that no one would be surprised if I died in the 
hospital."

"Right," Scully said. "An overdose of painkillers or a 
pillow over the face. They could just say that it was his 
injuries. We've seen that sort of thing before."

A ghost of a smile crossed the man's lips when he looked at 
Scully, and Kincaid was amazed to see the hard-as-nails 
federal agent start to turn pink.

"How did they find us, though? Mulder left messages for 
them to contact him, but he didn't tell anyone where we 
were, and they never got in touch with him."

Skinner shrugged. "Frohicke explained it to me, but I 
couldn't follow half of it. Basically, they tracked 
Mulder's messages back here. I'm not completely sure how. 
You'd have to ask them."

"Great. How can we get in touch with them? Mulder's been 
trying for weeks. He's been really worried," Kincaid added 
to soften the question.

Scully wasn't buying it, though. "What's with the 
inquisition?" she demanded. "Walter's one of the good guys, 
remember?"

Kincaid's eyebrows went up at her using her boss's first 
name. Not exactly kosher for the FBI, he thought to 
himself. "Because if he and the hacker boys found us, who's 
to say that the bad guys can't? We need to know details so 
that we can cover our asses better." Both Jarod and Broots 
were nodding in agreement. Broots looked nervous, as usual, 
but Jarod was watching the newcomer like a hawk, and 
Kincaid knew that he wasn't alone in feeling worried.

"I wish I could tell you, but I can't," Skinner said 
apologetically. "The Consortium was hot on our tails, so we 
split up. They said they'd be monitoring the boards, and 
that Mulder knew which ones. Other than that..." He lifted 
his hands helplessly. "It was safer not to tell me where 
they were going."

It was all quite reasonable, and Kincaid sighed. "All 
right. Scully will send Mulder a message telling him that 
you've joined us. Wolfling is arranging another place for 
us, so we'll have to figure out a way for them to find us 
without letting anyone else find out." If the hackers had 
found them through their emails, then they were going to 
need a second location for their internet connection. In 
fact, that might be a good idea. Monitoring that location 
would give them an early sign if the enemy was tracking 
them down.

"Send a message? Mulder isn't here?" Skinner said, looking 
around with a frown.

"He headed off to Chicago with Krycek," Scully said sourly 
before Kincaid could stop her. Just because the man was one 
of the good guys didn't mean that they should tell him 
*everything*. As far as he was concerned, too many people 
knew already. He needed to let Krycek know that he and 
Mulder needed to cover their tracks. Not that he really 
believed that anyone here would actively betray the two men 
-- although he didn't really know enough about Skinner to 
make that call -- but there was always the chance that a 
casual slip of the tongue, so to speak, at the wrong moment 
could be a disaster. Loose lips sink ships, as the old 
World War II motto went.

"Krycek," Skinner said with a grimace. "I know he's on our 
side, but..." he grimaced.

"It gets worse," Scully said. Suddenly she realized that 
she had an audience, and one that didn't necessarily share 
her view of the former assassin. "I'll tell you about it 
later," she said, glaring at Kincaid. He just stared back 
at her with a bland expression, while everyone else 
pretended not to notice

Everyone else except Skinner.

>>>~~~<<<

Jack was about ready to blow. In a couple of weeks, the 
Covarrubias woman had managed to piss off just about 
everyone in the base with her high-handed attitude. She may 
have been sent just as an observer, but she seemed to think 
that she was in command. She'd gone through mission 
records, and decided which worlds *she* thought were worth 
going back to. The one time Hammond had started to protest, 
she'd just fixed him with that cold glare and told him that 
he could complain to the acting President if he liked.

Later, Hammond had quietly told Jack that he'd done just 
that, and the response had been that if he did not like it, 
he could always step down from his position. Needless to 
say, he wasn't about to do that; Hammond was far too 
protective of his people to let anyone else take over 
unless he was sure they'd be treated right. So now he was 
treading a fine line between doing as he was told and 
trying to restrain his new 'masters.'

"So, now what?" Daniel asked as Jack stormed into his 
office. At least he'd been able to stay busy during this 
whole mess. He'd been complaining for months that he had a 
pile of documents and artifacts to catalogue and examine, 
but because of pressure from the Joint Chiefs, SG-1 had 
been in the field so much that he never had the chance. At 
least, not if he wanted to have any time for anything 
inconsequential like, say, sleeping and eating. At the 
moment, he was in researcher heaven, with books spread out 
all over every flat surface, including the floor.

Jack sat back against the edge of the table, glancing at 
the plaque that Daniel was trying to translate. It looked 
vaguely familiar, but he couldn't remember which world it 
had been recovered from. If he asked, Daniel would probably 
give him a long lecture on the world it was found on, and 
which Earth culture it derived from, not to mention exactly 
what the carvings meant. Jack would act bored, and roll his 
eyes over the 'useless' information, but would feel better 
afterwards. He wasn't about to let on to the other man just 
how comforting his info-dumps were.

But at the moment, Jack didn't want to feel better. He 
wanted to rant and rave to Daniel, then go have a practice 
session with Teal'c, then have a long talk with Carter that 
neither Daniel nor Teal'c would understand because it would 
be full of obscure mil-speak. "We're about to have some 
off-world visitors," he said sourly, picking up a small and 
probably fragile pot up off the desk. Daniel drew in a 
breath to protest, then let it out with a frown.

"What do you mean off-world visitors?" he asked 
suspiciously.

"It seems that *Ms* Covarrubias has taken an interest in 
several past incidents. A set of armbands, for example."

That really got Daniel's attention. "Anise?"

"Exactly," Jack said, setting the pot down before he could 
break it in frustration. "Apparently, despite the 
unmitigated disaster the last time they played with those 
things, our favorite Tok'ra scientist has been working on 
creating a new version that will last longer, and hopefully 
not make the wearer a complete asshole." He winced, 
remembering when SG-1 had been 'volunteered' to test the 
Tok'ra discovery. They'd nearly ended up dead, and they 
were still banned from O'Malley's. The armbands had given 
the wearer speed and strength, but that was balanced by the 
fact that they also gave the user a belief in their own 
immortality and infallibility, and only worked for a while 
before just dropping off; naturally at the worst possible 
moment. Jack still had occasional nightmares about that 
time, and suspected that he would for the rest of his life.

Even worse were the other dreams, the ones he woke from 
still able to remember the feelings that came with the 
armbands. The feeling like nothing could ever stop you. You 
were a... a god. Nothing could stand against you, not even 
the Goa'uld. It had been powerful, like a drug rushing 
through your system. Jack's mouth went dry, and he firmly 
pushed those thoughts away. He'd be damned if he was going 
to fall in the same trap twice.

Daniel had gone white as a ghost. "Are they insane?" he 
demanded, starting almost as a whisper and ending in almost 
a shout.

"That's what I said, but they *promised* that all the side-
effects had been either eliminated or reduced to 
'acceptable' levels. I told Hammond that I didn't care who 
ordered what, SG-1 wasn't going to be involved in the new 
testing."

"They probably wouldn't use us anyway," Daniel said. 
"Because of our experience with the armbands before, our 
reactions wouldn't be unbiased, even assuming that they 
would work on us. We probably still have the antibodies in 
our systems from the last time. Preferably, they'd want 
subjects that haven't even heard about what happened to 
us."

Daniel might have sounded completely reasonable about it, 
but he was shaking slightly. He blinked twice, then 
sneezed, which was a bad thing. His allergies, which had 
been so much trouble in the first year or so of the 
project, were mostly under control, but tended to show up 
when he was very stressed. Well, if he wasn't stressed 
before, he certainly was now.

"Come on," Jack said, slapping Daniel on the shoulder 
lightly. "I feel the need to go down to the gym and go a 
few rounds with a punching bag, and you look like you could 
use the same thing. And then I'll put Anise's picture on a 
target and let you shoot a couple clips at it." Neither one 
of them would be looking forward to seeing the Tok'ra woman 
again. Anise had made it quite clear that she lusted after 
Daniel, while her host, Freya, had been uncomfortably 
direct about what she wanted from Jack.

"Better living through violence?" Daniel quipped, a small 
smile tugging at the corners of his mouth.

"Hey, it works for me."

>>>~~~<<<

Speaking of violence, around the world, tensions were 
rising as the American government continued to make 
accusations, providing apparent proof to back them up.

Based on that proof, the British government suspended the 
Irish peace process and moved in to subdue the Irish 
Republican Army. The IRA, however, protested their 
innocence publicly, then melted into the countryside where 
they still had some arms caches that had not been admitted 
to during the disarmament process. As the British Army 
moved into Northern Ireland, the troubles began again. 
Irish versus English. Catholic versus Protestant. North 
versus South. A country that had been relatively quiet for 
a couple of years was on the verge of exploding.

Also explosive was the Middle East. Four different Muslim 
extremist groups had been tied into the assassinations, 
groups with a reputation for never working together. All of 
them loudly denounced the accusations as a trick of the 
Great Satan. Iran and Iraq had banded together in calling 
for resistance to any attempt by the American military to 
extract the people they were demanding to have turned over 
to them.

And the extremists groups were striking back against their 
accusers. A bomb had demolished the American embassy in 
Yemen, which thankfully had been evacuated. Not evacuated 
was the military base in Saudi Arabia, where seventeen died 
and many more were injured when bombers managed to get 
through the gates. The Saudi government, under pressure 
from their neighbors and their own people, were threatening 
to expel all foreign nationals from their soil.

The Palestinians were taking advantage of the American 
distraction to step up their attacks on Israel. In Europe, 
police were targeting marginal groups, religious 
minorities, and rebels, sometimes bloodily.

And in the States, reported hate crimes were going through 
the roof. Not just attacks on Muslims and Irish. Hindus, 
Buddhists, and Sikhs were also feeling the spillover. 
Anyone with an action, or even an unusual complexion, was a 
target.

The world was on the edge. It would take very little to 
push it over.

TO BE CONTINUED