why?”
“What did Cassetti tell you about his client?” The Terminator lifted two fingers from Victor’s ankle and Griego screamed frantically.
“No! What? What?”
The Terminator folded his fingers back around Griego’s leg.
“Cassetti, his client. What did he say?”
“He said she was a woman and in the United States!”
“That is all?”
“Yes! YES!” Victor tried desperately to get his hands nearer to the Terminator’s without success. “Please,” he begged, “please don’t kill me.”
The Terminator calculated the odds of Griego surviving a fall from this height.
Particularly in a head-down position. The numbers came back in favor of this method of termination. It had the added advantage of perhaps looking like an accident or suicide.
Griego watched its implacable face, hoping to find some clue to his fate there.
The longer it stayed completely still the more terrified Victor became. The man was on drugs, or insane. He panicked and began to thrash around in midair.
“Let me go!” he shouted. Then realized what he’d said. “NO!”
But the Terminator had already opened its hand and Victor was plummeting earthward. The Terminator watched the body impassively for a moment, noted that its temperature was already dropping, and turned to the weapons cabinet. It examined the bottom of the recess and found that the wood there could be moved. It lifted the lid at the bottom of the case and found several boxes of ammunition concealed below. It took several dozen clips of 5.56, a dozen thirty-two-round magazines of 9mm parabellum for the machine pistol, and both of the 40mm grenades, then closed the cabinet. It retrieved the case from behind Griego’s desk and filled it with weapons and ammunition, clicking the catches shut and hefting. The weight was less than twenty kilos, not nearly enough to
degrade mobility significantly.
The door opened and Cassetti came in. The Terminator’s head snapped around, but it maintained its position. “I told you to wait,” it said.
“I got bored,” Marco snapped back, playing it more cocky than he felt. “So where’s Griego?” he asked, looking around.
“He just dropped out,” the Terminator said. It picked up the case and started for the door.
“What’s that?” Marco asked.
“Something we arranged before he had to go,” the Terminator answered. “We must leave. By the time we get back, the car will be waiting.” It stood in the doorway, its concealed eyes fixed on the young detective.
Cassetti looked around the office uneasily. This wasn’t right. He knew it wasn’t right. Griego hadn’t come down the stairs while he was climbing up, so where could he have gone? He wouldn’t leave his windows open and a stranger in the room, would he?
“Did he say where he was going?” Marco asked.
The Terminator looked at him while it processed his question. Deception was required. “The can,” it said at last. The human’s face showed doubt quite clearly.
Its processor suggested that the length of time it had taken it to answer had aroused suspicion. “It took me a minute to think of the Spanish for that,” the Terminator explained.
“Oh,” Cassetti said. He was still a bit uneasy, but it was plausible. Barely.
“If you want to talk to him you can come back later. My plane leaves at seven-thirty and I’ve got things to accomplish before then,” the Terminator said.
“Sure,” Marco said, and headed toward it.
The Terminator looked at him for another second, then headed out. Marco followed it closely, pulling the door shut behind him. It still didn’t feel right to him. But it would be stupid to hang around only to find out that Griego had in fact simply gone off to use the toilet.
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
SARAH CONNOR’S ESTANCIA: THE
PRESENT
Sarah Connor scanned again with the IR binoculars. The land around their estancia was vacant. Vacant except for several bats—vampires, she thought; they were a menace to livestock here, especially when they carried rabies. And some armadillos, and a wild pig. Nothing human… or in the shape of a human.
Nothing but the sound of insects and the hot spicy scents of the Chaco scrub.
“If they’re out there,” Sarah said quietly, “they’re very well hidden. Nothing but Dieter, and he’s alone in that car. I’ve been tracking him for miles.”
“Maybe they’re not out there,” John said.
“Maybe not,” she agreed. “But von Rossbach is.”
As Dieter pulled up outside she began to feel an adrenaline high, pulse and heart pounding, her skin overly sensitive. She noticed her hands shaking slightly and gave a disgusted “tsk!” These peaceful years had made her soft indeed.
She took one last long glance at the ravine through her glasses, always the danger spot as far as she was concerned. They’d have filled it in years ago except that then the house would probably be flooded every year when the rains came.
Besides, she’d always thought they might find it useful someday for their own purposes. Now her tolerance of it seemed a fatal mistake.
A car door slammed and Sarah brought her attention back to the here and now.
She tucked her glasses into a drawer and John concealed his behind a curtain.
Then she went to the door to greet their guest.
Dieter pulled the car to a halt and sat for a moment staring at the house through the dust and the remains of kamikaze bugs on the windscreen.
Why, he wondered, am I doing this? Over the years he had met some criminals for whom he’d felt a certain sympathy. He acknowledged that sometimes circumstances drove individuals to insane extremes. But that sympathy and understanding had never kept him from hunting down and bringing to justice those who had broken the law. You couldn’t simply let them get away with it.
And yet… here he was about to go in and talk, when he should have simply called the authorities and put in a claim for the reward. Why? Simply because Sarah Connor was a woman he was attracted to?
No, he’d found some of the women he’d hunted over the years to be attractive,
but never alluring enough to let them go. It could be that his every instinct said that Sarah Connor was a good person, one who could be trusted, and, despite what he’d read, completely sane.
Perhaps the reason was simple gratitude for breaking through the boredom that was crushing him into a reasonable facsimile of the cows he raised. Even before he suspected that she was Sarah Connor, he had found her intriguing. From the first he had wanted to find out everything he could about her.
Then it’s curiosity, he suggested to himself. That must be it. So did that mean that when his curiosity was satisfied he’d turn Sarah and her son over to the authorities? Something in him rebelled at the thought.
This is senseless, Dieter thought, and opened the car door. You couldn’t let people get away with the kind of destruction Connor had helped to cause. And yet he knew that he would. Knew they’d at least get a head start from him. He’d never even contemplated such a thing before.
“C’mon, boy,” he said softly.
An older puppy of mixed breed perked up its ears and moved from the passenger seat to the one he’d just vacated, licking its nose as it came. He lifted the puppy up and cuddled it against him as he slammed the car door.
The porch light was on but no one had come out to greet him. Odd behavior in this country, where everyone was so hospitable. And Connor worked hard to fit in. For one brief moment he wondered if he was going to be shot the moment he crossed her threshold.
The puppy wriggled slightly, then looked up at him, as though it had just wanted to remind him that it didn’t like having its feet off the ground. Dieter spoke gently to it and walked slowly toward the portal.
“Hello the house,” he said at last, uneasy at the lasting silence.
“Hello,” Sarah said from inside the darkened doorway. She saw the puppy and her brows w
ent up.
“May we come in?” Dieter asked.
Sarah frowned slightly, as an ordinary working mother might at being put upon like this. After a fractional hesitation she opened the door. “Of course,” she said, with a wry smile.
She had stayed in the same clothes she’d worn to work, a full skirt in dark maroon and a simple white blouse. Dieter was no more formally dressed in khakis and a checked shirt. Just like neighbors having a friendly visit, Sarah thought. If only that were true.
John blinked at the sight of the dog in von Rossbach’s arms and shot a questioning look at his mother over Dieter’s head when he bent to put the puppy down. She shrugged in mute answer.
“He’s about four months old,” von Rossbach said. “And housebroken. At least, he hasn’t had any accidents in my house. But that could be because he’s afraid of Marieta.” He looked up and grinned at John. “He’s still young enough that you could give him a new name if you wanted.”
John opened his mouth, then turned his head to the side.
“I can’t have a dog,” he said simply.
“You can’t go your whole life denying yourself friendship or love, or a dog, based on one experience, John.” Dieter stood up. “He will be good company for your mother while you are away at school. And when you come home, he’ll be here.”
Sarah and John locked gazes, then looked at him.
“We need to talk,” Dieter said simply. He moved into the living room and sat on the couch. “Sit down, Sarah.”
She walked over and took the basket of knitting that marked her place off of a side chair and put it on the floor. Then she sat, shifting slightly as the Uzi she’d concealed under the cushion dug into her backside. She looked up, startled.
“What did you call me?” she asked.
“Sarah.” Dieter held her eyes with his. “Sarah Connor.”
John shifted slightly, squeezing his hands shut. The puppy noticed him and trotted over to give him a sniff. John squatted down and began to pet him, keeping a wary eye on the man on the couch.
She opened her mouth to speak and von Rossbach raised one big hand. “Don’t bother to deny it,” he said tiredly. “I know. I knew before Griego shouted out your name.”
Sarah turned her head slightly, caught John in her peripheral vision, then looked back at Dieter. “What game are you playing?” she asked quietly.
Sarah stayed perfectly still, hands in her lap, ankles crossed, but wanting to shout defiance, fiercely wanting to take him down to punish him for this betrayal.
Something in her recoiled at that, setting her off-balance.
She was glad she didn’t have a gun in her hand at this moment, because she genuinely wasn’t certain what decision she’d make. She brought her emotions back under control quickly. They needed to find out what this man was up to, getting emotional wouldn’t help them do that.
He shook his head, his eyes steady.
“No game,” he said.
“Really?” Sarah asked, turning her gaze full on him. She glanced out the window behind the couch, but saw only herself reflected in the glass. The sun was already down and dark had descended. “So you’re alone?”
“Except for Harold there,” Dieter said, gesturing toward the puppy, “it’s just me.”
John and his mother studied him in silence for a long time.
“That’s not the usual way for the Sector to operate, now is it?” Sarah said, noting the slight flaring of his nostrils as he realized that she knew what he was. “What do they want, if not to arrest us and bring us in for prosecution.”
“As far as I know, that’s exactly what they want, Sarah.” He looked her in the
eye. “But I no longer work for them.”
John and his mother looked at him in open astonishment until the puppy got impatient with being ignored and butted him. John dropped onto his butt and began to massage the little dog’s ruff.
Sarah blinked at Dieter and tried to read his eyes.
“Meaning?” she said at last.
“Meaning that I don’t have to jump when they whistle. Meaning that I believe there’s something behind all that you did that I very much want to understand.
Meaning that I don’t believe that you are a madwoman or a terrorist. I’ve met enough people of that stripe over the years that I can usually recognize them by the third meeting.” He shook his head slowly. “There’s something different about you.”
“So you’re just curious?” Sarah tipped her head to one side and began to drum her fingers on the arm of her chair. “Would you like some… coffee?”
“Yes.” He smiled. “I would, thank you.”
When Sarah left the room John didn’t even attempt to talk to von Rossbach, but played with the dog. Dieter sat quietly, watching them and listening to the sounds from the kitchen. His mind was in a resting state, receiving input but not thinking about it, simply waiting.
In about ten minutes Sarah returned bearing a tray with coffee and slices of pound cake. She put it on the low table before the couch and began to pour. John
drifted over and sat in the other armchair. The dog lay down at his feet, bright eyes moving from one human to the other. When Sarah had poured them each a cup they sat and sipped in silence, as though participating in some meditative ceremony.
After a few minutes Dieter put his cup and saucer on the table beside him and said, “Let me tell you how I found out about you. If you’ll remember, our first meeting was somewhat dramatic.”
Sarah’s full lips lifted in a half smile and she nodded.
“I didn’t believe a word you told me,” he said.
She closed her eyes and shrugged.
“I didn’t think you did,” Sarah said. “But I didn’t know then that it would be a problem.”
“I sent my old partner a drawing that I did of you and asked him if there was anything on file about Suzanne Krieger.” Dieter went on to tell them about the information Jeff had sent, explaining that Griego was his friend’s idea as well. “It was when he sent me the case histories that I became confused,” he explained.
“One time you’re fleeing the man with my face, the next he’s your accomplice.
And then when you first saw me you bolted, and that was real fear I saw on your face. I don’t understand, how could that be? And who is he anyway?”
Sarah and John glanced at each other, then Sarah looked at von Rossbach, her expression weary. “You won’t believe me,” she said.
“I have an open mind,” Dieter said.
John snorted. “Hey, I didn’t believe her until the Terminator showed up.”
“The man with my face,” Dieter said.
“It wasn’t a man,” Sarah said. “It was an ‘it.’ A machine. And there were two of them. The first one was programmed to kill me, the other to help John.”
Dieter nodded. He’d get back to that later.
“When he— it got you out of the asylum, why didn’t you just run for the border then? Why go to Cyberdyne and kill Miles Dyson?”
“I didn’t kill Miles Dyson,” Sarah’s eyes bored into his. “I couldn’t. And in the end I didn’t want to. He was a good man, and a brave one. The police killed him
—or at least they shot him enough times to kill him.” She winced, her eyes on her coffee. “I’d like to believe that, because it would make me less guilty.
Otherwise the explosion did it. But it was never my intention that he should die.”
Dieter nodded, then glanced at John, who was looking down at the pup, sound asleep on his foot. “But why go to Cyberdyne at all? You could have gotten away clean. All of you, but you risked it all, even your son, to destroy a computer company. I don’t understand.”
Sarah smiled to herself, she let her eyes roam her comfortable living room. This was so civilized, a nice chat about chaos over coffee and cake.
“If you know anything about this,” she said, returning her gaze to Dieter, “then
you must have heard about Judgment Day.�
��
He nodded. “Yes. I read about it in your medical records.”
Her brows went up. ,
“You’ve read my medical records?” He nodded. Sarah grinned at his uncomfortable expression. “Boy, I’d love to read them myself.”
“They’re very interesting.”
“I’ll bet they are,” John muttered. “A first-class piece of fiction writing. Science fiction.”
“Horror, if you want to specify the genre,” Sarah said and smiled at him. Then she turned back to Dieter.
“I was never delusional,” she said. “Everything I said was true, the Terminators, Skynet, Judgment Day, all of it. It’s true.”
“You gave the date of the world’s end as—” Dieter stopped speaking when Sarah held up her hand.
“We destroyed Cyberdyne because, according to the Terminator, Cyberdyne was going to create Skynet and Skynet was going to start a nuclear war. By eliminating all of their records as well as the two items they harvested from the first Terminator, we eliminated their ability to continue the project.”
She settled herself more comfortably into her chair. “Which ended the threat.”
Sarah took a sip of her coffee.
Dieter shook his head.
“What?” John snapped, sitting forward in his chair, frowning.
The pup lifted its head sleepily at his tone, with a muffled wrufff? of protest as its warm communion with a friendly human was interrupted.
Von Rossbach continued to look at Sarah, who was staring at him, frozen-faced.
“Tell us,” she said. Her scalp felt too tight suddenly and the hand gripping her saucer turned white at the knuckles.
“They’ve started up operations again on an army base. An underground installation this time. I’ve also been told that they have recovered some item you were supposed to have stolen during your raid.” Dieter watched the color slowly drain from both their faces.
“That’s impossible,” Sarah said quietly. “We destroyed those things, threw them into a vat of molten metal.” She shook her head. “There’s no way they could have survived.”
“The arm,” John said, sounding strangely far away. “When he came up the conveyer belt with the grenade launcher he had only one arm left.” He looked at his mother. “There were all these wires and shit hanging out of his other sleeve!”
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