Carl Addison rubbed the back of his neck, glancing toward the west, where the sun’s last rays had painted the sky over Colorado Springs a brilliant shade of orange. It seemed fitting that this evening should be so striking, because for one resident of the beautiful city, it would be the last sunset.

The man had better notice the brilliant sky while driving home from work. He had better feast his eyes on the stunning beauty of God’s creation, because it would be his last chance to do so. Carl had been hired to make sure of that.

He flexed his hands slightly, admiring the long, slender fingers, aching to feel the cold, smooth metal of a trigger against his skin. He longed for the incomparable rush as he watched his victim struggle, lungs rattling, for one last breath.

But he could wait. He had learned patience long ago; it was vital for a man in his profession. With the addition of patience, this once hot-headed young man had become the best at what he did. Carl felt the familiar heady rush of pride that always accompanied that thought.

He had worked all over the world, for presidents and kings, for rebels and guerrillas. He had assassinated political leaders, then moved on to orchestrate carefully planned “accidents” halfway across the world.

Tonight, he was working for a Senator.

The flickering turn-signal light reflected off Jack O’Neill’s handsome face, giving it a faint greenish hue in the semidarkness. Tapping his fingers unconsciously against the steering wheel, the Air Force Colonel gave a faint sigh. He was unaccustomed to the silence in his truck - ordinarily he played the radio on his way home, but tonight he wasn’t in the mood for music.

He had been given an impossible task: to replace someone who was irreplaceable.

Two months ago his 2IC, a brilliant astrophysicist and close friend named Samantha Carter, had died of an alien virus. The SGC’s elite medical staff had been unable to determine the virus’ origin or any method of treatment; fortunately, it must not have been very contagious, because no one else had caught it.

Only Sam.

Damn, but he missed her. He’d never realized just how much he would. He missed her smile, the way she laughed at his dumb jokes, the fierce look she got in her eyes when someone really made her mad ... hell, he even missed her nonstop technobabble.

And now she was gone, and he had to try to find a replacement for her.

The sunset had been stunning this evening - he couldn’t help but notice it on his way home from the SGC. Darkness had fallen now, and the air was chilly as he parked in front of his house, exasperated that he had forgotten, again, to turn on the porch light before he left that morning.

Walking up the sidewalk, he zipped up his jacket, then stumbled slightly in the darkness when his foot hit the bottom step. Unlocking the door, he stepped inside, wondering not for the first time what brilliant genius had decided to place the light switch completely across the room from the doorway.

Jack was halfway across the room when a sudden sharp chill ran up his spine, his subconscious screaming a belated warning. He started to turn, only to hear an all-too-familiar sound and collapse to the floor, nerve endings shrieking in pain, completely paralyzed by a single blast from a zat’nikatel.

Glancing down at the bizarre little gun in his hand, Carl Addison smiled a little. He’d been told that this ‘zat’ was a piece of top secret technology, and he had to admit it was quite effective, although he preferred an old-fashioned pistol any day.

The prey, a man who was in far better shape than his silver hair would seem to indicate, was unconscious for only a few seconds, but even after awareness returned he was unable to move.

Carl had read Colonel Jack O’Neill’s file - including parts that were generally not available to civilians such as himself - and had come to the conclusion that this was one tough son of a gun. The hunter was almost disappointed by how easy his latest assignment had turned out to be.

Setting aside the zat gun, the assassin took O’Neill’s pistol, the one he kept in a drawer at home, from his pocket. This was another nuance of the game that he loved, this irony of a man dying by his own weapon.

Flicking on a lamp, casting a dim swathe of light across the room, Carl walked quietly toward his victim. Brown eyes fixed on him, cool eyes, the eyes of a man who had faced death before. They contained a surprising amount of defiance, those eyes.

O’Neill tried valiantly to resist as Carl pulled him to a standing position, but his muscles were still paralyzed from the shock, and he succeeded only in twitching his fingers slightly.

Supporting the other man’s weight, Carl carefully lifted O’Neill’s hand and wrapped the limp fingers around the pistol, pointing the barrel at the Colonel’s chest. Carl’s own gloved hand covered his victim’s, his fingers poised to apply the necessary pressure to the trigger. Everything was perfect - the angle, the promise of powder residue on the victim’s hand. It would so easily pass as a suicide.

“The NID sends their regards,” Carl said softly. “As does Senator Kinsey.”

For an instant, dark brown eyes met soulless gray ones, and Jack O’Neill drew in a deep breath. “Go to hell,” he whispered.

Carl pulled the trigger.

“Teal’c.”

The one word held a depth of emotion that surprised the quiet Jaffa, who had been surprised by very few things since O’Neill’s death. Daniel Jackson looked terrible. There were dark circles under his eyes and his skin, always fair, was ashen.

“DanielJackson,” Teal’c greeted, his tone reserved. “Are you unwell?”

The archaeologist, Teal’c’s former teammate, waved a dismissive hand as if to say his own health was of no concern. “You must be wondering why I contacted you after all this time,” he said as the two men left the embarkation room. “Teal’c, you aren’t going to believe this.”

The Jaffa raised an eyebrow as if to say he would believe almost anything.

“Jack was murdered.”

Harry Maybourne was a happy camper.

Despite all the less-than-virtuous things he’d done in his life, he must have some good in him to deserve this kind of retirement. The planet the Tok’ra had found for him was a temperate paradise, with a few natives who were friendly but let him do his own thing.

It was Heaven. It was everything he’d ever dreamed of but never expected to get. It was -

Oh, damn.

The ship appeared out of nowhere, hovering above him for a brief moment before landing smoothly in the field next to his camp. For a terrible moment Maybourne thought he was about to come face-to-face with an angry Goa’uld; then two figures exited the ship and walked toward him.

Two familiar figures.

Damn. Double damn.

Dr. Daniel Jackson was the first to reach him. He’d changed, Maybourne realized - a lot. His blue eyes were cold and angry, and Teal’c, well - the large Jaffa looked ready to dismember the first person or object that dared look at him wrong or stand in his way.

“Dr. Jackson,” Maybourne greeted, feeling almost intimidated by the two sets of icy eyes currently focused on him. “What can I do for you?”

The archaeologist and the Jaffa exchanged a look that spoke volumes. “Jack O’Neill has been murdered by the NID,” Dr. Jackson said bluntly, “and you’re going to help us find out who did it.”

It was not a request.

Maybourne looked at the hulking, silently livid Jaffa and swallowed hard. Clearly he wasn’t being given a choice. He had no idea whether any of his contacts were still good, but he didn’t even want to find out what would happen if he tried to refuse.

“All right,” he said, cursing inwardly at the prospect of leaving his paradise for the hell that was the American political scene.

It was a completely ordinary day for Carl Addison.

He was between assignments, gathering his thoughts and honing his focus for his next job, when the doorbell rang. Expecting a pizza delivery - supreme with mushrooms, which was obsessively the only kind of pizza he would eat - he hurried to the door and pulled it open.

“Carl Addison?” The young brown-haired man wore glasses and a smile that did not reach his frosty blue eyes.

He was holding a gun. A very strange gun. What was it called ... a zat?

With that memory came flashes of the assignment on which he’d first seen the zat. He remembered a vivid sunset, brown eyes, whispered words - “Go to hell.” He remembered the shot, blood spurting, leaning over to place the gun in the limp hand.

He remembered eyes, fixed on his, defiant in the face of death. Eyes that had bothered him ever since because they seemed to say that this man could be killed, but not defeated. Never defeated.

The blue-eyed man stepped into the room followed by another, a huge black man with a bizarre tattoo and raw hatred in his eyes.

“Carl Addison,” the tattooed man said, his voice deceptively soft. “Do you remember a man named Jack O’Neill?”

Carl looked into brown eyes and saw death, then switched his gaze to blue eyes and saw the same thing.

The first shot from the zat hurt almost unimaginably. He felt as if his body had been set afire, and he was agonizingly aware of every muscle but completely unable to move even one.

He had only a brief glimpse of a dark face looking down at him before the second shot was fired and everything faded away into the cold blackness that would be his eternity.

Carl Addison, arguably the best assassin in the world, had made one fatal mistake. He had underestimated an alien and an archaeologist who would go to any lengths to find justice for a man who did not deserve to die.