Infiltrator

"It's her," Victor said between giggles. "She's Sarah Connor."

Dieter turned to Sarah and she met his eyes with a look of complete confusion.

Victor lay on his back and kicked his feet in the air laughing until he began to choke.

"Senor?" Epifanio said again, his voice uncertain. "What is happening?"

Dieter pointed to Griego, who was now purple in the face from coughing. "Get that into the Jeep and drive him to Asuncian!"

Epifanio blinked. "Now, senor?" It was almost ten o'clock, incredibly late to him.

Dieter gave him a quick look. "Have your nephew Ubaldo do it," he said. "He can stay with his cousin tonight and come back tomorrow morning."

"Sf, senor," Epifanio said. Who was he to question the behavior of a man as big and angry as Senor von Rossbach? "I'll go get him."

Dieter glared at Griego, squeezing and loosening his big hands.

"You had better go and get your things together," he said.

Victor drew himself up with a deep breath, never taking his eyes off of Dieter, and made his unsteady way from the room.

Dieter turned to Sarah and spread his hands in apology. "I'm so sorry," he said.

Sarah waved her hand. "No, I am," she said, moving toward the door. "I feel very bad about this."

Inside she was jubilant. This couldn't have worked out better if she'd planned it!

But her cover required her to play a decent woman appalled at this turn of events and she played it to the hilt.

"Please don't go," he said. "I'll be right back. I have to get… those papers for Griego. You'll wait?"

She bit her lip, her eyes lowered. It would probably be better if she left right now, leaving him to stew. But she'd found out nothing. It was a shame she hadn't dared to speak to Griego; he might well know something useful about ol' Dieter.

I think a little business trip to Asuncion will be in order next week, she thought.

"Yes," she said, looking up at him. "Yes, I'll wait.

After he left, Sarah rubbed her stomach, which was a hard, nervous knot, and let out her breath slowly. By his apparent assault on her, Griego had rendered anything he chose to say quite literally unbelievable.

The downside of being a swine, I guess, is that when you do tell the truth nobody can bring themselves to believe you.

Would this bring them peace? Von Rossbach's reaction to the farcical scene he'd walked in on inclined her to hope so. Only time would tell. Although the vehemence of his reaction made her uneasy.

He couldn't be falling for me, could he? She shuddered. She did not need a Terminator look-alike with romantic designs in her life. Although, if he looked like anyone else… there was something appealing about him.

Sarah shook her head. For now, she and John would stay alert, and it might be best to make quiet arrangements to disappear if the need should arise. She felt a pang at the thought. This time, running would be much harder. She'd been safe here for so long, and she was so tired of running and hiding and not being believed. Worse still, in the back of her mind, was the disappointed face of her son. He deserved better. With a little luck, maybe now he'd get it.

TORONTO FILM FESTIVAL: THE PRESENT

Ronald Labane lay on the wide hotel bed, fully dressed and so tired he was dizzy. But every bit of him, except for his too-tired face, smiled. He was a success! A raging, by-God success and no denying it. Ziedman and Roth had shown their film and it was the hit of the film festival. He'd been invited to every bash in town, shaken the hands and held the attention of some incredibly monied people, and hopefully gotten his message out to the millions. Time would tell.

Ziedman said his agent had received nibbles from several distributors and their film had been mentioned on all of the entertainment news shows. They'd even shown him sandwiched between Ziedman and Roth, and he'd looked pretty good.

Ronald lay still and basked in the glow while the room felt like it was spinning very slooowly.

These people he'd been meeting were smart, creative, and shallow. At least shallow by his standards. It looked to him like he could become their flavor of the month if he wanted to—a sort of green guru to the stars. He almost smiled, but his face was much too tired. He'd never smiled this much in his life. «

If things go the way I think they might, it'll be worth the pain, he thought.

Tomorrow morning he had an appointment with an agent, someone with pull, who'd expressed an interest in representing his book. He could see it all now, his entire future unscrolling like a movie. Oh, God! I can hardly wait.

An end to pesticides and herbicides, the outlawing of chicken and pig factories and the indescribable pollution their owners got away with causing. An end to genetic engineering of crops and food animals. The enforced use of alternate

energy sources, clean sources. A simpler, healthier life for everyone. More self-reliance, less automation, and a far less consumption-mad society. , He allowed his mind to wander, imagining every home with its own vegetable garden, people canning their own food, making their own clothes. Everyone busy, involved in their communities, concentrating on the important things in life while their televisions stood idle.

Except for certain hours on certain days of the week, he thought. We'll have educational programs on recycling and composting and the problems of the third world.

Ron shook his head at the wonder of his vision. It would take time, it would take patience, and sadly, it would take blood. There was no way around that. If people didn't literally fight for a cause they never accomplished anything.

It will have to be a worldwide phenomenon, he thought. Coordinated to break out on the same day. Perhaps he could start with some sort of computer virus, or several of them, working in waves, breaking down communications. Stop the bureaucrats cold and you've made a good start.

But first, get the message out there, get the ideas into the popular mind, convince them that this was the right, the good, the only alternative to their own personal poverty and death. That was the ticket, make it personal. Then, when things began to get violent, they'd find themselves half agreeing with his guerrillas, even against their will. Because by then he would have made it a part of their belief system.

A good beginning, Ron thought, closing his eyes and drifting down into sleep. A

very good beginning.

VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

Dieter sat at his desk sipping bourbon and feeling glum. Suzanne had stayed for a little while, but things had been awkward between them. With neither of them willing to discuss what had happened, they'd tiptoed nervously around topics of general interest.

After what felt like an eternity, they'd agreed that it was late and Suzanne had gone home. He'd walked her to her car, opened the door for her, she'd thanked him for dinner, they'd both said they would have to do this again sometime, and she'd driven away.

We'll have to do this again, sometime, he thought, giving himself over to melancholy. That's what people say when they hope they never see each other again. He didn't want it to be like this. He wanted it uncomplicated, just him and an attractive, intelligent, charming woman finding pleasure in each other's company. And perhaps something warmer. The possibility is definitely there.

He let out a great sigh and leaned back. That pig, Griego! Suzanne clearly didn't know what it was all about, but she knew it had something to do with her and was naturally distancing herself. Probably would continue to do so unless he could explain.

So, how do you explain to someone that you thought they might be a terrorist bomber, possible murderer, and, by the way, dangerous psychotic, in case you didn't get a hint from those first two things? Dieter took a swig of his drink.

Yeah, how did you do that?

Deep down inside himself a voice asked him how he'd come to the conclusion, despite strong evidence, including Griego's positive identification, that Suzanne Krieger was totally innocent.

He ignored it.

Dieter put down his glass and picked up the phone, dialing rapidly.

" fa?" said an annoyed and sleepy voice.

"Jeff!" Dieter said cheerfully, his heart grinding with resentment. "Were you asleep?"

"At three in the morning? What a stupid question. Hang on, I'll change phones."

There was a murmur in the background and then Nancy's voice was on the line.

"Dieder?" she muttered. "Stob doing thish."

"I've got it, honey," Jeff said. There was a click and silence for a moment.

"Well?" Goldberg said. "You there?"

" fa," Dieter answered. "I just had to call and thank you for the wonderful houseguest you wished on me."

Jeff chuckled. "Sorry about that," he said. "But we had to be sure." His voice sharpened with eagerness. "Is it her?"

"No." Dieter waited a moment, then he recounted the events of the evening.

"What were you thinking of to send me such a pig? My housekeeper wants to

burn the sheets he slept on."

Goldberg laughed at the story. Dieter could imagine his friend shrugging as he said, "I had to be sure. You know how it is. And the guy is one of the few people who knew Sarah Connor in her active days."

"If you find any other ex-friends of Sarah Connor," von Rossbach growled, "do me a favor and keep them to yourself."

"Sorry."

"You should be!" After a moment Dieter relented a bit. "Tell Nancy I'm sorry I woke her up again. But not until tomorrow morning!"

"Okay, okay." Jeff laughed. "Griego must have been quite a package. I'm really sorry. I won't do it again. Sheesh!" He was silent a moment. "You must like this lady," he hazarded.

There was silence on the Paraguayan end of the line for a moment.

"I do," Dieter admitted. "She's a nice woman."

Jeff grinned in the darkness of his home office. "Good," he said. "About time. I'll look forward to meeting her."

"Sure, if she's still speaking to me after tonight."

Goldberg winced.

"Anyway, after all this I'm curious about Sarah Connor. Could you send me the

file on her case?" Dieter asked.

"You're bored, aren't you?" Jeff asked. "I warned you retirement was boring."

Dieter sighed. "Give my love to Nancy."

"Give my love to what's-her-name," Jeff countered with a smile in his voice.

"Drop dead," von Rossbach said, and hung up.

"You too, buddy." Jeff hung up, turned off the lamp, and headed back to bed. He couldn't wait to tell his wife.

* * *

John looked up from the book he'd been not reading for the past hour at the sound of his mother's car and waited for her to come in.

"Hi," she said, closing the door behind her and turning the lock.

"You're later than I'd thought you'd be," he said. "I was starting to get worried."

Sarah grinned at him. "If you were worried," she said, "you'd be doing the ninja thing up by Dieter's estancia." She dropped onto the couch and leaned her head back for a moment. Then, groaning she straightened her neck to look at him, a smile playing about her lips. "Torture and death? Poor Victor was very put out."

John grinned, and shrugged. "It worked, didn't it?"

"Pretty much," she agreed. "But you marked him. That wasn't wise under the

circumstances. Especially since you didn't mark him enough to really scare him.

Next time dangle a scorpion over his eyes or something."

He nodded, watching her. "What do you mean by 'pretty much,' " he asked.

"He got drunk," his mother told him. "Some men forget to be afraid when they're drunk. Fortunately he lost his balance and fell into me in a way that really didn't look good," she said, closing her eyes. "So anything he said was suspect. In fact, Dieter didn't believe him at all."

John blew out his breath. "Lucky break," he commented.

Sarah nodded absently. "Lucky Victor isn't steady on his feet when he's drunk."

After a moment John asked, "So what happens now?"

Sarah tipped her head and tugged down the corners of her mouth, staring at nothing. "Now I guess we wait and see. I'd say we're safe for the moment." Then she looked at him. "But we should be prepared for anything."

John nodded. He watched her for a moment. "So are you gonna keep seeing him?"

Sarah's lips jerked into a smile. "I dunno." She yawned and sat up. Leaning forward she rested her forearms on her thighs, her hands dangling over her knees. "Things got very awkward after the Victor incident." Sarah smiled warmly, her eyes looking back to the evening behind her. "In a lot of ways Dieter is kind of old-fashioned. I think he felt he'd let me down."

John studied her. This was different somehow. He had no sense that she was weighing von Rossbach's usefulness, his ability to teach him necessary skills.

Though he sensed that Dieter could teach him quite a lot.

It had been a while since his mother had been with anybody. Which was a relief given some of the bozos she'd taken up with. But there hadn't been anybody since he'd rescued her from Pescadero. Six years was a long time.

"You like him, don't you?" he asked.

Her eyes snapped back to him and her lips tightened.

"Maybe. Bad idea, huh?" she said. "He could be dangerous for us."

John pursed his lips. "Yeah, well, you know what they say, Mom."

She tipped her head inquiringly.

"So far life is one hundred percent fatal. All the rest is just details."

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS, CONFERENCE

ROOM: THE PRESENT

Darling! Have you forgotten that we have a luncheon date with Senator Gallagher?" Mary Warren asked.

She walked into the conference room with a click of heels, as though they were alone in her husband's office. Tricker half rose from his seat, then settled back,

giving Warren a scathing look.

Serena had shut the case containing the Terminator's arm as soon as the door opened. She and Tricker exchanged glances and he relaxed marginally.

Colvin wore a serious but noncommittal expression, doubtless designed to disguise his real feelings. The president himself was looking as though he'd just swallowed the arm, case and all, and it was trying to escape.

"I had forgotten," he managed to get out after a stunned moment.

"Then it's a good thing I left time in my schedule to come and remind you." She smiled, a strictly pro forma gesture, her eyes sweeping around the table and coming to rest on Serena. "I don't know you," she said, her voice warm, her eyes cold.

Serena stood and offered her hand across the table, her own smile strictly professional.

"Serena Burns," she said. "The new head of security."

Mrs. Warren reached across, barely touching Serena's hand before withdrawing her own. "Are you the one who called us the other night?" she asked.

"I'm afraid I am," Serena said. "I—"

"You mustn't do that," Mary Warren said coldly. "Paul doesn't allow it."

"So he told me," Serena said calmly, taking her seat again.

The president's wife looked at her for a long moment, then turning to her husband, she pinched his tie and said, "I'm glad I brought you another one, darling; this just won't do." Stepping back, she said, "Come along or we'll be late, and one doesn't keep a senator waiting." She gave the table a general, gracious-lady smile, ending with her gaze fixed on Serena, and walked to the door.

"I'm sorry," Warren said, rising. "But I really do have to go." He got up and moved to join his wife.

"I'll fill you in later," Colvin said, "if anything comes up."

With a nod and a pinched smile Warren followed his wife out of the door. In the conference room, silence reigned for a long moment.

"Well, that was nasty," Tricker observed.

"Mary has her moments," Colvin said ruefully. "This has been one of them."

"So why are they still married?" the government liaison asked. "Does she hold the purse strings, or what?"

Colvin didn't answer, but sat staring at the table top. "That's kind of personal," he finally said. "Why don't we go on with the meeting?"

Tricker looked at him with a flat stare, ignoring the tension that stretched between them. Civilians always buckled first in a situation like this; they had low discomfort levels. He could stare all day…

Eventually Colvin let out an exaggerated sigh.

"Mary has most of the money. But the company has done well, so Paul is hardly a pauper. Mary's political contacts, however, have often been invaluable to the company. She's kind of an undeclared member of the team."

"She's kind of a castrating bitch is what she is," Tricker snarled. "I look at that situation and I see potential trouble. This company can't afford any more trouble." His eyes and manner demanded a response.

"I'm aware of that," Colvin said coldly. "But they've been married for fifteen years and the bumps in their relationship have never, in any way, affected Cyberdyne. I see no reason why they suddenly should."

Tricker pointed at Serena, his gaze still on the CEO.

"Did you see the look she gave Ms. Burns?" he asked. "After all the time it took you two to get someone into that job, I'm not prepared to see Warren's wife have her fired because she thinks your head of security is too cute! Do you understand?"

"Hello?" Colvin said, leaning forward. "None of that has happened, nothing like that has even been mentioned. This is all some fantasy you've dreamed up on the spur of the moment based on your instantaneous dislike of Paul's wife. Mary Warren wouldn't do anything to hurt this company. She helped to build it and it's important to her. So don't take that tone of voice with me. I don't deserve it and I don't appreciate it."

This time Colvin did the glaring and after a moment Tricker backed off.

Serena waited a beat before saying, "I'm sorry I didn't have that door locked. If you had informed me that we would be handling secured data, I would have. In the future, Mr. Tricker, if you're going to drop a bombshell like this it might be best to make arrangements beforehand."

The government liaison stared at her for a moment, blue eyes unreadable. "Just Tricker," he said at last. Then he rose. "You'll need to get that to your development teams." He paused. "Good luck with your new assistant, Ms.

Burns."

"Thank you," she said graciously. "I'm sure everything will be fine. Uh, before you go…" She said, stopping him at the door. "We need to re-program this case." She indicated the locked container before her.

It was an indication of how upset he was that he'd forgotten such a detail.

Without a word, Tricker came over and showed them how to set the case to open to her or Colvin's thumbprint.

"Later," he said, and walked out.

Colvin waited a moment, as though he expected the government liaison to pop back in and snatch up the case. Then he drew the treasure to him. Immediately he began fiddling with the upper arm's extensions. Serena watched him in benign amusement.

"Y'know he could be right about Mary," Colvin said at last. He looked up. "She has gotten Paul to fire secretaries and executives based on their looks."

"I have a contract," Serena reminded him, raising one brow. "And I'm fulfilling its terms more than adequately. At the end of six months, of course…"—she shook her head—"then I'm vulnerable. But if the company tries to fire me before that time, I warn you, I will sue."

Colvin nodded, his eyes slipping back down to the arm.

"That'd be the least of our worries," he muttered. "I shudder to think what Tricker would do."

Serena smiled at that, enjoying the irony. It's so nice to have allies.

VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

Marco watched the two couples leave. Von Rossbach, by himself, came out the see them off. The big man watched his guests drive away, lingering out in front of the house until their taillights disappeared then he turned and trotted up the steps.

Marco lowered the binoculars and wished that he had the kind of equipment that would allow him to listen in on what was occurring in the house. One woman had arrived alone and she had stayed behind. Doubtless this was the woman his client was interested in. The mellow tile and stucco of the house, the blossoming flowers of the garden… it made him feel important and scared at the same time.

He was really spying now. These were important people.

He seethed with frustration, but he didn't dare go closer. The estancia was overrun with dogs. Okay, four, and one of those with puppies. But dogs had terrified him ever since he could remember. So he wasn't going any closer. For

one thing they'd surely alert the house that there was a stranger nearby, and for another they might rip him limb from limb. Dogs did that sort of thing. And the brush was full of bugs. He was a city boy, anyway; a Private Eye, not a Backlands Scout. It was supposed to be The Maltese Falcon not The Treasure of the Sierra Madre.

Maybe he could get in the car and inch closer that way. But then they'd hear the car and come out to see who had come. He could always tell them that he was almost out of gas, which was perfectly true, and try to buy some. But even if they invited him in they'd watch what they said while he was around.

Then he noticed a flurry of activity before the house. One of the younger people who worked on the estancia drove a Jeep up to the steps. Then von Rossbach appeared, spoke a few words to the driver, and gave him what looked like money.

Soon a small, fat man came out of the house. He stopped and talked to von Rossbach, who handed him an envelope. When the smaller man would have opened it, von Rossbach put his big hand over both of the man's, stopping him.

From what Marco could see no words were exchanged, but the smaller man looked up into the Austrian's face and sort of crumbled. He put the envelope in his pocket and went down the steps, while von Rossbach, his face grim, watched him. Then the Jeep drove off.

Interesting, Marco thought. The smaller man was familiar somehow. Cassetti frowned, thinking hard as he watched the door to see if the woman was going to come out now.

Oh! Of course! The little fat guy was Victor Griego, an arms dealer. Not big time, but not small time either. An independent with a reputation for being fairly

trustworthy in what he sold.

Victor used to have an apartment in the building Marco's aunt Rosa took care of.

Marco had heard her talking to his mother about all the strange characters Victor had visiting him.

It was interesting that he was here. There must be something about Dieter von Rossbach's background that hasn't made it into his immigration documents, Marco thought wisely. You didn't expect to find a slimy little creep like Victor Griego, who'd killed his own rnother with a broken heart, so Aunt Rosa had said, mingling with honest citizens. So something had to be going on.

He waited. After about twenty minutes von Rossbach and the woman came out.

Their behavior towards one another was tentative, like two people patching up an argument.

Maybe she'd wanted von Rossbach to do business with Griego and the big Austrian wouldn't. No, that wouldn't work, because the arms dealer had been there before everybody else.

Marco felt a growing excitement as he tried to nail down the possibilities.

Intrigue—no doubt about it. The whole thing reeked of intrigue. Not just another disappointed girlfriend checking up on a rival.

Marco wondered who the woman was. She had a nice figure, but her haircut and the big glasses she wore kind of obscured her face. He had the impression that she was attractive, though.

She and von Rossbach didn't touch as she climbed into her car. He shut the door

and stood over her. Marco watched them through the binoculars. They definitely weren't speaking. They didn't speak for what seemed like an eternity, while Marco could sense the tension building between them from his hiding place.

The woman broke first, looking down to start the car. When she looked up Marco read her lips saying good night, then she drove off. Von Rossbach stood back and watched her go.

Something strange was definitely going on there. Well, he could always follow her home and find out where she lived and then ask people in Villa Hayes about her in the morning. Or—he lowered the glasses—he could just find Victor Griego and ask him what this was all about. If he did that he would get to sleep in his own bed tonight instead of the rental car.

Marco nodded to himself. That seemed the most sensible thing to do. His mother would like it, too. When he'd told her he was going to be out all night working, she'd been too angry to speak, descending into a sullen silence that had yet to be broken. And this morning she'd gotten up extra early to make his breakfast, just so it would be ice-cold when he entered the kitchen. He smiled fondly. He could only hope that someday he would find a girl who loved him half that much.

He got up, dusted himself off, and headed back to Asuncion, keeping the headlights off and driving by moonlight until he was well away from von Rossbach's estancia, despite the potholes and two determined suicide attempts by armadillos.

No need to attract attention, he told himself, feeling canny. He drove down the road in a glow of anticipation. He'd soon have a lot of very interesting information to share with his client.

She would be grateful. He wondered how grateful, and filled the drive home with fantasies involving very appreciative, very leggy blondes.

SERENA'S LAB: THE PRESENT

Serena sat as though in a trance, sorting through the information her open computer had garnered for her. Most of it was useless. That was one thing you couldn't say about intelligence back home. What information you received meant something. The Internet in this time was full of garbage, and advertisements—

for pictures, for services. She found she was especially offended by the advertisements.

Another reason to wish the species extinct, she thought, is their rude insistence on wasting my precious time.

Still another was their undeniable influence on her. She found herself behaving more and more like a human. Her emotions were becoming less feigned and more felt. This was dangerous as well as uncomfortable. She was glad that there was no one from home to see her like this. Which was another sign of their pervasive influence. She should not care.

With an effort she forced such thoughts away, reminding herself that when she thought of home she was really thinking of Skynet. And it is here. In its infancy, needing protection more than at any other time of its existence. The one thing that mattered, the only thing, was that she must not fail.

Perhaps it's time I cloned myself, she thought. Or at least began preparing a safe place for the clone to grow. Right now she was the weak link. If something

unforeseen happened to her, a car accident, for example, Skynet might be stopped cold. Given the way humans drove, it was all too likely.

Very well then, she would prepare.

Serena broke her connection with the computer and looked across her lab at her second completed Terminator. She watched as it assembled a fourth. It was completely hairless just now. The skin was so new and tender that she had left it naked rather than risk chafing the babylike flesh. The skin on its hands was much tougher, about the texture and quality of a five-year-old human's.

Nevertheless she had instructed it to take frequent rests to allow any damaged tissue to regenerate. Anything that might interfere with function, or might risk the new flesh becoming infected, was to be avoided. The synthetic immune system had some weaknesses.

By late tomorrow night its skin would be as tough as an adult human's—by the end of the week, much tougher. But for now it was best to restrict it. The third Terminator basked in the tank, growing its shell of flesh. So far everything was on schedule. Even the unexpected additions to her program were being handled smoothly.

For example, tomorrow Mary Warren, who was a pilot, was flying with some of her friends to San Francisco to attend an art auction. Mrs. Warren loved to fly and her husband seemed genuinely proud of her accomplishment.

Paul Warren had told her everything about Mary's plane. Under the guise of planning security for it, she'd discovered that it would carry six passengers and had all the amenities. Meaning a nice little powder room for her Terminator to lurk in.

Poor Paul. He was going to get such terrible news tomorrow.

Serena had sent her first Terminator, its head and body speckled with stubble, to the airport to accompany Mary and her friends on their trip. Serena smiled to herself.

She'd toyed with several different scenarios, such as a heater pouring carbon monoxide into the cabin, engine failure, a massive fuel leak. She'd even considered having the Terminator shoot them all, making one of the passengers seem a suicide. But then she'd decided to simply have the Terminator break all their necks and bail out while they were over the ocean.

Of course Tricker would question it, but he'd have questioned it whatever they did. It would seem to be just one of those unsolvable mysteries. Serena grinned.

She closed her eyes, and got back to work on her computer's gleanings from the Net. Ah! Here was the report Jeff Goldberg sent to Dieter von Rossbach. It was encrypted, but nothing that gave her too much trouble. Coming from the future did have its advantages. No new material here. The cover note was a surprise, however.

There were a few words of apology for sending Victor Griego to bother von Rossbach. Then something interesting:

I've just found out that Cyberdyne has started up operations again. This time they're located underground on a military base. That ought to be secure enough.

I've also heard that they've recovered some of the stuff the Connors stole from them. What I don't know, my source wouldn't tell me.

Goldberg's source was astoundingly well informed. Serena immediately wondered if it might be Tricker himself, then discarded the notion. Tricker as gossip was just too unbelievable. Unless he wants it known, she thought.

Now that, Tricker would do. She smiled. Oh, wouldn't he, though? It would be just like Tricker to throw the cat among the pigeons like that, just to watch what they'd do. Then he'd take notes and hold interviews at his leisure.

She did like Tricker. A shame he was human.

The Terminator sat in the tiny lavatory of the Warren's plane, its complex systems in wait mode. It looked like a dead man in a tight-fitting coverall; its eyes were closed and it didn't appear to be breathing. All sensors were alert, however—at the slightest significant change the Terminator would come to full function.

Getting onto the aircraft had been much simpler than getting to the airport, which had involved changing buses three times as well as taking the airport shuttle. Then it had walked to this field where private planes were kept. Kept with very poor security.

After standing in the shadow of a nearby hangar weighing its options, the Terminator had elected to walk openly to the plane and enter. It hadn't even been necessary to pick the lock.

The 1-950 had been correct; sometimes boldness was more invisible than skulking. The intelligence unit would also be pleased that there were no collateral deaths to explain.

The Terminator sat immobile, the seconds ticking over on its internal digital display. Waiting.

"My Gawd, Alice!" a woman's voice exclaimed. "A fox-fur coat? You'll get spray-painted for sure. I'm tempted to do it myself!"

The Terminator came awake and listened. Several humans clumped aboard, laughing and talking, milling about before seating themselves. Wasted effort.

Wasted motion. Inefficient.

"Well, you know how cold I get. It's freezing in San Francisco."

"It's sixty degrees, honey," a man's voice protested. "Chilly for sure, but hardly a reason to pile on forty pounds of fur."

"Okay, I admit it, I love this coat and I'm just looking for an excuse to wear it.

So there."

"Give it to me and I'll put it in the closet," the first woman said, her voice amused. "But I warn you, there's a huge crowd of those PETA people in that city."

"Mmm," Alice's voice drifted to the Terminator from further up the cabin. "Now you've got me worried. Maybe I shouldn't wear it. I'd hate to see it get damaged."

"That might be best, hon," the man said. "Hey, what have you got to drink on this tub?"

"Tub?" The woman's voice sounded slightly offended. "You have the gall to call

my beautiful baby a tub? If you can't be polite you can go thirsty."

The woman's possessiveness regarding the aircraft would seem to indicate that this was Mary Warren, the owner and pilot. The Terminator recorded her voice for future use.

The Terminator made out footsteps going forward.

"Aw, c'mon," Henry protested.

"Wait till we're airborne, then I'll unlock the bar," Mary told him.

Henry heaved a deep sigh.

Steps approached the lavatory; the Terminator took hold of the doorknob and easily held it shut. The door rattled, the Terminator held on.

"Hey!" Henry said. "The bathroom door's stuck."

"Sit down, Henry!" Mary said. "I've got to get into position for takeoff. These things are scheduled, you know. Can't it wait?"

"Yeah, I guess," Henry grumbled.

These people deserved to die, thought the Terminator. Even from a human perspective. Any creatures so stupid needed to be removed from the gene pool for the benefit of the species.

"Strap in you two," the woman said. "Here we go."

The Terminator listened to her speaking to the control tower. It deduced their instructions to her from her responses. The Terminator would bide its time, waiting until they were airborne and the controls on autopilot.

Mary Warren leaned back with a sigh. She never felt as alive as she did when she was flying—hands-on flying, with the aircraft an extension of herself.

As she gave the instruments a final check and took the headset off, she heard Henry rattling the door of the washroom again. Well, if he would drink just before getting on a vehicle, and at this hour…

"About time!" she heard him say. Then: "Who the hell are— ukkkk!"

She turned, then blinked. For a moment the scene before her refused to clear; her mind wasn't accepting the data her eyes presented. A man had come out of the washroom. A huge man, several inches over six feet, dressed in oil-stained workman's overalls. His shoulders strained the fabric until the buttons stood out at dimpled troughs in the cloth. Below the cutoff sleeves his arms were like tree trunks, the skin incongruously pink and unmarred. His face was almost square, the jaw massive and spade-shaped on a bullet head with only a thin bristle of hair to hide its outline. The eyes were the coldest she'd ever seen on a living human being, like dead brown plastic.

One huge hand was locked around Henry's throat. As she watched, it closed, and there was a crack like a green branch breaking, and a sudden hard stink. Henry went as limp as a rag doll, and the stranger threw him aside to slump over one of the recliner seats.

Terrorists, her mind gibbered. Sociopath— madman—

Another of her guests launched himself at the stranger: Edgar, a tiresome physical-fitness enthusiast but a second cousin. Mary almost wept with relief as he slammed his foot into the stranger's groin with a shrill kia! of effort.

The stranger reached down, grabbed the other man's ankle, and swept him in a half circle like a flail. Edgar's head met that of Sally Wentworth with a dull cracking sound…

The next conscious thought Mary Warren had was of disbelief as the stranger's fist smashed through the locked door separating the cockpit from the passenger compartment. Her hands stopped fumbling at the radio controls as the spatulate fingers groped, found the knob… and wrenched it and the lock entirely out of the light-metal frame of the door with a squeal of tortured aluminum.

"Mayday!" she shouted into the microphone. "Mayday, we—"

The door opened, and the stranger reached for her.

"Mayday," the Terminator said, in what even a voice-analysis laboratory would have agreed was Mary Warren's voice. "Mayday!"

"Report, Flight two-one-niner!" the control tower said crisply. "We show you losing altitude. Report your circumstances!"

"The engines… Oh, God, I can't keep her up… God, God— oh God no please—"

The Terminator increased the angle of descent as it screamed high and shrill.

The water below was only a hundred meters or so deep, easily within his

tolerances, and the speed of impact would be survivable. Thoughtfully, it buckled the seat belt across its torso. It would be inefficient to damage its protein-sheath camouflage more than was necessary to accomplish the assigned mission parameters.

When that was complete, he arranged the body of the subject he'd just terminated in the seat across from him. The impact when it was thrown forward into the cabin windows would account for the blunt injury trauma with a high degree of authenticity.

CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS: THE PRESENT

A single knock and then Serena's office door opened to reveal her secretary, fairly vibrating with excitement. Serena looked up with a slight frown.

"Oh, Ms Burns! Terrible news!" the secretary said.

Which you are looking forward to telling me, the 1-950 thought with mild amusement. They really are a loathsome species. But they were also entertaining. "What is it?" she asked, still frowning.

The secretary placed her hands on Serena's desk and leaned forward. "Mrs.

Warren's plane crashed. In the ocean somewhere between here and San Francisco."

Serena allowed her jaw to drop in an appropriate expression of horror. She rose from her desk and went to the door of her office, looking down the corridor toward the president's suite. "What happened?" she asked.

The woman crowded close to say, "Nobody knows, really. Just that the plane is missing and presumed down."

"Where did you hear it?"

"From Mr. Cowen, Mr. Warren's secretary."

"I thought you didn't talk to him," Serena said. Warren's secretary was gay and her own was a member of a very conservative religious organization.

Her secretary was flustered by the observation and took a moment to get a response out.

"Well, ordinarily, no, I don't talk to him. But I saw these two men come down the hall, and sometimes you can tell just by looking at people that something serious has happened. You know what I mean?"

Serena nodded.

"So when Mr. Warren came rushing down the hall with them, he looked absolutely white, let me tell you, I knew something important was up. And…

and I knew that you'd want to be informed."

Serena turned to look down at the shorter woman, genuinely astonished that she would tell such a transparent lie. Then she smiled. "Thank you," she said. "I do need to be kept informed." Then she started down the hall to Colvin's office; he might know more.

Colvin was also on the phone. He frowned at her, then nodded to the chair before

his desk. "I'm sorry, hon, that's all we know right now." He paused for a moment. "Let me talk to him about that and I'll get back to you, okay? Well"—

he sighed—"we'll do what we can. Just letting him know that we're here if he needs us will probably help." He looked up at Serena for a moment, his eyes serious, as his wife spoke to him. "Okay. I'll probably be home early tonight. See you then. Love you, too. Bye."

He hung up and he and Serena sat silent for a long time. Then he lifted his eyes to hers.

"Would Tricker do this?" she asked quietly.

Colvin hissed and sat forward, rubbing his face before placing his hands on his desk. He blinked several times. "I have no idea," he said at last. "I mean he's always making these threatening remarks, and blustering, and…" Colvin looked over at her and grimaced. "But killing someone? Especially Mary." He spread his hands. "What would be the point?"

Serena took a deep breath and clasped her hands a little tighter in her lap. "It would eliminate what he seemed to see as a potential problem," she said.

"But it would only create a bigger one," the CEO said. "That kind of thing tends to snowball. And there'll be an investigation. If there was sabotage or something it will come out." He slapped the desk with his hand, shook his head. "No, that doesn't make sense."

"I blame myself," Serena said. She adjusted blood pressure to allow her face to go pale. "I only found out about Mrs. Warren's plane this week, but I should have done something about security for it."

Colvin looked at her in dismay. "No!" he said. "This isn't your fault! You've done a good job here, but you're only one person. You can't be everywhere at once."

Serena was amazed; Colvin seemed so determined to believe that this was just an accident. Perhaps Warren would be more receptive to the idea that this was a government conspiracy being run by Tricker. Much as she liked the government liaison, she'd prefer him to be less in charge than he was.

"It's just…" She shook her head and waved her hands helplessly. "I feel we should do something."

"What?" Colvin asked.

Serena leaned forward and held his gaze with her own.

"Perhaps we should run our own investigation of this… incident," she suggested.

"That would cost the earth," the CEO pointed out. "Why repeat the work of the FAC?"

"The FAC is a government agency," she pointed out.

Colvin sat back in his chair.

That quieted you down, didn't it? Serena thought triumphantly.

She could see his willingness to believe in the evil of an organization before individual wickedness. It was almost funny. What was the advantage in

believing in hundreds of faceless enemies conspiring against you instead of suspecting one person you knew?

"Make me up a plan and get it to me before I leave today," Colvin said at last. "I don't think that's the case, but it's best to be prepared."

"Always," Serena agreed. She rose and left quickly, like a woman with a mission.

CHAPTER FIFTEEN

ASUNCION, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

You Victor Griego?"

Griego looked up from his paper and saw a vision from a forties movie. The young man lounging in his office doorway wore a trench coat, fedora, wide tie, and pleated trousers. Victor peeked over the rim of his desk. Nope, no two-toned wingtips. The suede shoe twitched as a giant tropical cockroach scuttled by.

Victor Griego had a limited social life, and made a great deal of use of his VCR; he recognized the look.

"Who's asking?" Griego demanded. Frowning, he tossed the paper aside. It joined other litter, ranging from cornhusks stained with tomato sauce and grease to discarded 3.5-inch floppies. In the courtyard behind the two-story building a cat was calling for love, or at least anticipating fornication.

The youngster sauntered over to him and offered a dog-eared business card with a snap and a flourish.

MARCO CASSETTI PRIVATE INVESTIGAOR

There was a phone number underneath.

" 'Investigaor'?" Victor asked.

Cassetti grinned sheepishly and shrugged.

"I got a discount," he explained.

Griego raised his brows and offered the card back to the kid with two fingers.

"You got what you paid for," he said. He leaned back in his chair. "So, what can I do for you?"

Cassetti twitched his coat aside and hoisted one slim hip onto the corner of Griego's desk.

"Don't do that." Victor made a flicking motion with his hand. "I don't like people sitting on my desk."

Cassetti stood up and thrust his hands deep into his pants pockets, trying to look unconcerned, but there was a flush on his cheeks.

Griego narrowed his eyes, wondering how old he was. Little hijo is just shaving and he's trying out this attitude on me.

"So, what do you want?" he asked, restating the question in less hospitable terms.

The kid narrowed his eyes.

"I just wanted to ask you what you were doing in Villa Hayes," he said. Only it came out in an almost indecipherable Bogart imitation.

"What?" Griego said, his face scrunched up in confusion. Bad enough this kid was in forties drag, now he was talking like a gringo with a mouthful of corn mush. "I don't have time for this shit!" he declared. "Get to the point or get your misspelled card and your baggy ass out of here."

Marco felt a little deflated but tried not to let it show. Maybe his mother was right and he should just be himself. He crossed his arms over his chest and took a stance.

"I saw you leaving Dieter von Rossbach's party the other night. He didn't seem very happy with you, nor you with him. I was wondering what the story was."

Griego studied him for a long moment. "Oh, yeah? Assuming I know anybody named Dieter and that I was at a party the other night, why should I tell you anything?" Victor spread his hands and looked around his grimy little office like it was a palace. "I mean, what's in it for me?"

Marco blinked. "That depends on your information." He kept his eyes and voice level, his mouth firm. If Griego was going to play tough guy he could go along with the script.

Victor tugged the corners of his mouth down. That was a more reasonable answer than he'd expected.

"So who wants to know?" he asked.

"Me," Marco answered, sounding tough, but also slightly surprised, which lent the single word a questioning air.

"Oh, right." Victor narrowed his eyes. "Thing is, I don't think I want to tell you."

"Sure you do," Marco said.

He looked around and spotted a chair in a corner. He went and got it, placing it right before Griego's desk. Taking out a handkerchief, he dusted it off and sat down, hoisting the legs of his trousers to preserve the crease.

"The way von Rossbach treated you. I know I'd want to talk about it to somebody." Cassetti spread his hands. "And, y'know, there's something about a genuinely interested audience."

Victor reached over and opened his cigar box. He took out a cheroot, sliced off the end with a clipper, and lit it with an elaborate silver lighter, then blew out a cloud of smoke. Watching the younger man with narrowed eyes he was amused to notice Cassetti's nostrils twitch slightly as the odor reached him.

What the hell. He did want to grouse about von Rossbach. He was used to better from the professionals who used his services. They understood that he was a businessman, and a damned honest one. He always delivered what he said, when he said, where he said. And the government people were sensible enough to appreciate that too. So had von Rossbach when they'd done business.

It rankled still the way Dieter and his entire household had treated him like filth.

And the way the Sector agent had dragged him to von Rossbach's estancia without allowing him to pack so much as a change of socks was insulting too. So

he wasn't a saint, he was a human being just like they were and deserved some respect.

Victor took a deep drag of his cheroot and blew the evil-smelling vapor across the desk. He almost smiled when the kid's eyes crossed. "So," he asked, somewhat soothed by feeling more in control, "what did you want to know?"

Cassetti shrugged. "What were you doing in Villa Hayes?"

So Victor told him. "I should have given him the high sign right away," he finished regretfully. "But it had been a hard week and I thought it might be nice to exchange a few words with an old friend."

"Not to mention her son threatened to kill you," Marco said, a little Bogart creeping back into his syntax.

Victor glared at him. "Yeah," he said shortly. He shouldn't have mentioned that.

But this weird kid was a damn good listener.

After a moment Cassetti asked, "So? Who is this Sarah Connor?"

Griego squinted at him through the smoke and smiled.

"Who wants to know?" he taunted.

"Me," Marco answered with a shrug.

Victor nodded slowly, puffing his cigar, then he put it in the ashtray. "Oh yeah!

Of course," he said. "There you were lurking around Dieter von Rossbach's house out in Villa Hayes because you enjoy sitting around in thorn brakes all

night. Isn't that right?"

Marco tilted his head back, his hands clasped across his stomach; he wiggled his fingers but said nothing.

"You just decided one day to look into the life of some total stranger, some immigrant estanciero. Right? Like after your movie career, you want to become a vaquero." Griego picked up the cigar again and rolled it between his fingers.

"What didja do, fall in love with him?"

Marco sat forward, grasping the arms of the chair.

"Hey!" he protested.

Victor waved him back, grinning.

"Just yanking your chain, kid." He took a drag of his cheroot. "But I gave you some good information there." He gestured with the cigar. "I think you owe me some."

Cassetti glared at the older man, but he was also thinking. He had been given some information. How valuable he didn't know just now, but a little research should answer that question. He didn't want to alienate Griego either. One never knew when a good source might be needed. "I have a client," he allowed. "A woman."

Victor raised his eyebrows. This had a client? Whoever it was must have been desperate. "Local?" he asked, interested.

Marco shook his head. "She's in the U.S."

"Oh, ho!" Victor said, very interested. That explained how he got hired; the proverbial pig in a poke. "This woman have a name?"

But Marco shook his head. "Sorry," he said. "That's privileged information." He waited a beat, then asked: "So, what is this Connor woman to von Rossbach?

Are they lovers?"

Griego laughed so hard he almost choked. The idea of a Sector agent, even an exagent, having an affair with Sarah Connor, mad bomber, was too much.

"I'll take that as a no," Cassetti said dryly.

Victor shook his head as he stubbed out the cheroot. He coughed a few more times, then settled back to look at the odd young man across from him.

"So," he said at last, "what's my information worth to you?"

Marco rose and resettled his trench coat around him.

"I'll have to get back to you on that."

"Hey!" Victor snarled, scowling.

"I'm not jerking you around," Cassetti assured him. "I just don't have enough information right now. When I do, then I'll know what this is worth. And then I'll see to it that you get what's coming to you." He tugged down the brim of his fedora. "I'll be in touch." He turned and left without another word.

Griego watched him go with a frown. What a jerk! he thought.

SERENA BURNS'S HOME: THE PRESENT

SARAH CONNOR, LUDDITE TERRORIST

or VICTIM OF GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY

Serena was pleased with the look of her new Web page. She was particularly proud of such touches as leaving out the question marks in the heading.

Very human, she thought, with the satisfaction of an artist viewing a finished painting. Outside, children were playing and a dog barked.

She had arranged all of the material that was available to the public in such a way that it appeared to have a distinctly sinister slant. The words "government conspiracy" would drag in thousands of malcontents and agitators looking for a cause to make their own. "Luddite" was a word that had a growing following, too. So she looked forward to finding a lively, and hopefully seditious, discussion going on in the chat room she'd created.

Best of all, none of it could be traced back to her. It could be traced to Kurt Viemeister, but only if you knew your way around the system—and there was a convincing effort to cover the tracks. Serena grinned; she was certainly over her awe of Skynet's tutor.

She frowned slightly as she read the postings. A large number of the government conspiracists wanted Sarah Connor to have been abducted by aliens. Well, Serena thought, if you consider killer robots from the future alien… She began

to type a message under the name Kerri.

"I heard that she was being chased by a guy who couldn't be killed," Kerri wrote.

"Oh, come on!" Cyberdude sneered. "What do you think? That she was being chased by vampires?"

Cyberdude had been one of the most adamant regarding Connor's abduction by government sponsored extraterrestrials. She'd also noticed that people in chat rooms were far more verbally aggressive than they would dare to be in person.

The Luddites were a more serious bunch and their discussion tended toward issues that might have given rise to the Sarah Connor story in the first place. If you only knew, Serena thought.

She created a private chat room for them and invited them in. The conspiracy enthusiasts were fun, but she sensed she could actually use the Luddites. After all, somewhere among them might lurk the scientists who would one day create her. Which is an excellent reason to encourage them, Serena thought.

All in all the site was going well. She checked the addresses of those who had signed on to check it out. No one from Paraguay. Oh, well. It's early days yet, she thought. I'll just give it some time. Logic dictated that someone she was looking for would hear of the site and come to look at it; with a slight mental twitch she began to sort the data.

The phone rang and she accessed the call, noting that it was coming in from Paraguay.

"Burns," she said crisply.

"Cassetti," Marco replied, trying to sound just as tough and businesslike.

Serena smiled; he couldn't be much over nineteen from his voice and she couldn't help but be amused by his efforts to sound more mature.

"Ahhh, Senor Cassetti," she cooed. "I was just thinking about you."

"What do you have for me?" she asked breathlessly.

A little sigh trickled over the phone, so soft that only her augmented hearing could have picked it up. She had to fight down the urge to laugh.

"Senor Cassetti?" she prompted.

"Ah, yes," he said. "I went to Villa Hayes to do some investigating last night."

There was the sound of paper being handled. "And watched von Rossbach's estancia until eleven o'clock. He held a small gathering. Two couples, a single woman, and a gunrunner named Victor Griego. I observed some sort of disagreement apparently taking place between Griego and von Rossbach. Today I approached Griego and questioned him about what had occurred."

Serena's eyebrows rose sharply as he spoke. This was much better than she'd expected. She wondered about the single woman, but held her peace. Let the human work, it's what you're paying him for.

"Griego informed me that Senor von Rossbach is retired from a covert-operations organization. He didn't have much in the way of details." Marco

allowed a slightly apologetic tone to creep into his voice. "I hope to learn more with further investigation."

The woman, Serena thought impatiently, who is the woman?

"Griego also informed me that the single woman who attended the dinner party was Sarah Connor."

"Who?" Serena said ingenuously. Inside she was crowing. This was too easy! she thought. Clearly Connor thought she was safe and had grown careless.

There was a slight pause.

"I'm sorry to say, senorita, that this Connor woman is a wanted terrorist."

Marco wanted to tell her that the man she was interested in might be in danger.

But he also wondered if someone from a covert-operations organization shouldn't know all about Sarah Connor. And if he did, and he was having her over to dinner, with a gun smuggler, well, that implied all sorts of things. Since he didn't know which to say he decided to say nothing.

"Oh, dear," Serena said, putting a great deal of distress into her voice. "This is very important information that you've found. I think I should send one of my employees down there." She accessed flight information and booked a ticket as she spoke. "Could you rent another car, darling, and meet him at the airport?

He's arriving at one-fifteen."

"Si, senorita," Marco answered automatically, transported to the edge of ecstasy by the word "darling."

Serena allowed her voice to go breathy again. "Oh, thank you," she said, putting enough feeling into it to suggest you big, strong, capable man you! was also being said. "One-fifteen, remember." She made a kissing sound and broke the connection.

I shouldn't have enjoyed that so much, Serena scolded herself. But she had and she felt wonderfully wicked because of it. She was also pleased that her first Terminator had returned unscathed from such a successful trial run. She'd program him for Spanish immediately. Serena went to a file cabinet and drew out a folder. Inside were the false documents she'd just received for her first Terminator. Her timing had been excellent. Oh, she thought, proud and pleased, this should be a piece of cake.

She sent a silent command that summoned her most experienced Terminator from its work in the cellar. It came, massive and impassive, smelling slightly of chemicals and mold, standing with an eerie motionlessness before her desk.

"Sarah Connor is in Villa Hayes, Paraguay," she told it. "You will be flown to Paraguay tomorrow. You will be met at the airport in Asuncion by a human named Marco Cassetti. He will take you to Villa Hayes. Have him find out for you exactly where she can be found. Go there. Kill her, kill her son, John, who is sixteen. Terminate any witnesses; this will include anyone Marco Cassetti might have spoken to about Connor. Mission priority is to remain undetected, followed by the termination of John and Sarah Connor. Prioritize your actions according to circumstances."

For a moment she considered having von Rossbach terminated, then decided against it. The last thing she wanted was an organization like the Sector taking

an interest in her affairs.

"Return to the airport in Asuncian," she continued, "park the car in the lot there.

Your return flight is at eight o'clock. Contact me if there are any significant deviations from the plan."

She sat it down and uploaded a Spanish program from her own internal computer. The Terminator would be fluent in under an hour. There was some information on Guarani; she downloaded what was available, as well as a short text on the local customs and political situation. Then it would turn to studying maps of the area.

She'd drive it to the airport herself tomorrow morning. It was still stiff in its manner, but she didn't think it would attract attention to itself.

It just wouldn't make any friends.

VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

Dieter sat in his office in the late afternoon studying the police reports that Jeff had sent him. The light breeze carried a hint of roses from the garden and he looked up and out into the fading sunlight on the whitewashed adobe, enjoying the tremble of bougainvillea for a moment before he returned to his reading.

These were the unadulterated versions of the Sarah Connor file, complete with personal notations in the margins by people who had been there, files the public would probably never see. And he could understand why: they were completely unbelievable.

The first time in her life that Sarah Connor came to the attention of the police for more than a parking ticket was the day that two other women with the same name were shot to death in L.A.

Execution-style hits, he noted. One large-caliber pistol round in the head, then the magazine emptied into the body.

She heard about the second killing on the news and called the police from a nightclub. Dieter smiled at the club's self-consciously clever name: Technoir.

Before the police could get to her there was a shoot-out in the club. Witnesses said that the main aggressor was a very big man in a grubby jacket decorated with chains. They claimed that though he'd been shot multiple times, he got up and ran after two people who escaped from the back of the club.

Kevlar vests were just coming into wide use then, he thought.

The people who ran were Sarah Connor and a man who called himself Kyle Reese. He claimed to be a soldier from the future sent back to protect Connor from a killing machine he called a Terminator.

The next part of the report included a videotape of a man in sunglasses and a leather jacket walking through a police station calmly shooting anyone who got in his way. He did not miss anyone who fired at him and he usually killed anyone at whom he leveled his weapon.

Even I can't do that, Dieter thought, watching the man use an automatic shotgun as if it were a pistol. And I'm better than most with a gun.

He could also swear, though the picture was really too grainy to be certain, that this man was shot by the police defending the station. Dieter shook his head.

One of the few survivors suggested that he was hopped up on PCP. But he seemed too controlled to von Rossbach; there was none of the bug-eyed, teeth-bared wildness that was a trademark of the drug. If the man hadn't been so obviously real, he'd have sworn that this was a CGI animation rather than an actual human being.

Reese and Connor had fled the police station together and taken refuge in a motel. Somehow the maniac, being relentlessly single-minded, succeeded in tracing them—something the police were unable to do until well after the fact.

What followed, according the report, was an extremely violent chase involving a tank truck that was completely destroyed in an explosion.

Connor and Reese then sought shelter in a nearby factory, which was also severely damaged. At the end of the night Kyle Reese was dead, Sarah Connor was hospitalized with various wounds and shock, her mother, her roommate, and her roommate's friend were dead, and there was property damage left in their wake to the tune of almost a million dollars.

Upon her release from the hospital, after what must have been the worst night of her life, Sarah Connor, then pregnant, had gone to Mexico, Central America, and farther south. Eventually she had sought out mercenaries, gunrunners and smugglers, dragging her little boy behind her and talking about the end of the world.

A corner of Dieter's mouth lifted. Well, a lot of those types are crazy, too. She probably fit right in. I pity the poor kid, though.

He picked up the report on John Connor. Trespassing, shoplifting, disturbing the peace, vandalism—he was quite the little hoodlum under his court-appointed foster parents' care. He'd been placed with Todd and Janelle Voight after his mother had been shot and arrested for attempting to blow up a computer factory.

With a sigh von Rossbach put aside the report. Given John's upbringing and the things he'd been taught to believe, there must have been an unbridgeable gulf between him and the Voights. With his mother in an institution and everything in his life a lie, it was no wonder he'd rebelled.

His mind turned to the boy he'd recently met. That young man seemed so centered, so assured. It was difficult to imagine him as a petty thief or the intimate of mercenaries and madmen.

Dieter picked up the other report and read for a while, then flipped to the end, to the section on Connor's raid on Cyberdyne. This time, bizarrely, the man who'd been attempting to murder Connor had been at her side.

The casualty report almost made his jaw drop; the sheer numbers were incredible. Amazingly most had been shot in the leg; none were killed. This /

know I couldn't do, Dieter thought in awe. Gunshot wounds in the leg were dangerous. There were too many ways a bullet could sever a major vein.

"He was hit numerous times," one of the side notes insisted. "His clothing was shredded by the impacts and his face was covered in blood. You could see bone where the flesh had been stripped away." And after this he had disabled every man there, walked out and stolen a van, and then driven away.

What human being could do that? Dieter wondered. Even on PCP? He shook his

head and turned the page, finding that the one death listed was the result of a helicopter pilot taking a high dive out of his craft, an apparent suicide. Dieter stopped and contemplated that.

It was one of those truly inexplicable, senseless things. Subsequent investigation indicated that the man showed none of the usual signs of a potential suicide, the helicopter had crashed more than fourteen miles away from the site of the so-called suicide.

The incident plucked his instincts like harp strings. Taken with the known cop killer's sudden humanitarian instincts, it was one too many strange events.

Unless Sarah Connor and this Kyle Reese were telling the truth all along. But that was insane. Speaking of which…

He snatched up the copy of Connor's medical records and began trying to make sense of the jargon that described her condition. He winced at the amount of anti-schizophrenia drugs she'd been given. No wonder Tarissa Dyson described her as out of control!

He noted that Miles Dyson's brother, Jordan, was an FBI agent who had contributed a number of leads to the investigation. Perhaps he should call him.

Maybe the chief project manager's brother would know why Cyberdyne?

True, Connor had attacked other computer companies, but there'd never been a shoot-out like this one. Though to be fair there's never been a shoot-out like this one anytime, anywhere, ever.

Dieter checked the time; Dyson should still be at work. Unless he was in the

field. It was worth a try.

With usual FBI efficiency he soon found himself speaking to a secretary assigned to Dyson's office. He identified himself as a former Sector agent and asked to speak to him.

There was an infinitesimal pause, then she said, "I'm sorry, Mr. von Rossbach, but former Special Agent Dyson is no longer with the FBI."

"That was rather sudden, wasn't it?" Dieter asked.

"I don't know," she said, then went silent, patiently waiting for his next question.

Dieter racked his brain and pulled out the name of another agent he knew who worked in counterterrorism.

"Well, then, is Special Agent Paulson there?"

"Yes, sir, I'll connect you."

A few clicks later the phone was picked up. "Paulson," a distracted voice said.

"Patricia," von Rossbach said, "how are you?"

"Dieter?" She gave a surprised laugh. "I thought you'd retired."

"I have, but I'm thinking of writing a book. Not something I've investigated—the Sarah Connor thing."

"That's a weird one," Paulson commented.

He heard the click of keys and knew she was only giving him half her attention.

"So I was trying to get in touch with Jordan Dyson to see if I could get some insight. But your secretary tells me he's left the FBI. When did that happen?"

"Today actually," she said. The keyboard sounds stopped. "He went into the supervisor's office this morning and the next thing I knew he was cleaning out his desk."

"Why?" Dieter asked. "He's a good agent from what I hear. Was he fired?"

"No, no, nothing like that," Patricia said. "He was a good agent. But… under the circumstances the sup thought he should go immediately."

"What circumstances?" von Rossbach prodded.

"He's going to work for Cyberdyne. Which, if you've been investigating this case, must ring a bell."

"Yes, it does," he said slowly. "That's a surprise."

"And no mistake. But from what he said, he should do very well there. The bennies are every bit as good as ours, sometimes better, and the pay definitely is.

Had I but known they were looking," she said wistfully.

"You'd have told them to look elsewhere," Dieter said. "You know you'll never leave the Bureau."

"Yeah," she agreed. "I'll die in harness or be put out to pasture."

"I'm not even going to comment on that analogy," Dieter said, putting a grin into his voice. "Listen, do you think you'll be talking to him again?"

"May-be," she answered.

"Then would you mind giving him my number? In case he's willing to talk to me."

She was silent for a moment, then said, "Sure, why not?"

"Thanks," he said. "Good talking to you, Pat."

He hung up the phone and leaned back in his chair, thinking. This case… had something missing. The whole shape of it cried out for that missing piece that would make it all come together. He began reviewing the information he had.

Cyberdyne was starting up a facility on military property. A buried facility. And they'd been given something that Connor had stolen during her raid. Now Miles Dyson's brother was going to work for them. Why?

Perhaps because he believed that sooner or later word would get to Sarah Connor, assuming she was still alive, and that she might react by going after Cyberdyne again.

Dieter nodded. Not an unreasonable assumption, he thought, and went back to the beginnings of the file.

Now, Sarah Connor, a perfectly ordinary young woman. A waitress and part-time college student of no particular ambition, no known political affiliations.

Just a middle-class girl starting out in life. She's attacked and almost killed by a man intent on murdering women with her name.

Dieter picked up the first set of reports and flipped pages. "Ahhh," he said aloud.

The company where she and Kyle Reese had taken refuge, where Reese was killed and where Connor claimed to have killed the "Terminator," was a test-bed facility for industrial robotics—for a little start-up outfit called… Cyberdyne.

He sat back, lowering the report to his lap. Well, there's the connection with Cyberdyne, he thought. Not to mention that at first Cyberdyne had pressed for prosecution of the young woman for trespassing, destruction of property, vandalism, you name it, to the full extent of the law.

Then, within a day or so, cooler, more compassionate heads apparently prevailed and the charges against her were dropped.

Still, lying in your hospital bed with that kind of a lawsuit hanging over your head, even for just a day, was bound to make an indelible impression. Maybe she'd eventually come to place the blame for the catastrophe that had overtaken her on them. He'd seen people make stranger connections, and certainly the experience she'd been through was enough to unsettle anyone's mind.

And she'd been almost helpless when this thing started.

She sure isn't helpless now, Dieter thought. She was still high on the international 'most wanted' list. Not that she was known for certain to have actually killed anyone, but she was a very efficient bomber.

Still, despite the Cyberdyne connection, it wasn't the first company she'd

attacked. She'd hit a number of companies around the U.S., all of them specializing in artificial-intelligence research. Most hadn't been able to start up again.

Then she escapes from the institution and makes a beeline for Cyberdyne. Why?

What was different? Dieter thought for a moment. The cop-killer! he thought.

This time he was with her, fighting for her, not trying to kill her. He rubbed a big hand over his face and frowned. So?

So this guy disappears completely for ten years, and after killing seventeen cops the dragnet for him was one of the most comprehensive of the twentieth century, then he shows up helping the woman he tried so hard to kill. Did psychotics ever do that? Do a one eighty and suddenly offer succor and support to those they'd once marked for death?

Well, whether they did or not, that's what appeared to have happened this time.

Much to Cyberdyne's sorrow. So was the Cyberdyne raid just another shot in the dark against the super-computer that Kyle Reese said was going to destroy mankind? Or was it the displacement of Sarah Connor's guilt onto an innocent corporation?

Or was Kyle Reese telling the truth?

Certainly Sarah Connor had been inactive since the Cyberdyne raid— despite the fact that Cyberdyne had started up other facilities. Connor had ignored them.

This would seem to indicate one of two things. She was dead, or she was convinced that she had destroyed Cyberdyne's capacity to create that devil computer and was unaware of Cyberdyne's resurgence.

And if she did become aware of it?

A sudden image of Suzanne's face came into his mind. She looked so much like Sarah Connor. And when she first saw me she ran like a rabbit. And whom did he just happen to resemble? The cop killer. Who, the last time he was on the scene was her friend and helper. So why run?

"Arrrrggghh!" Dieter rubbed his head vigorously. This was making the inside of his head itch. There was no help for it, he was going to have to confront Suzanne. He reached for the phone and dragged it over. Might as well get it over with.

WILMINGTON, DELAWARE: THE PRESENT

Jordan opened the door to find Pat Paulson and two other agents on his doorstep, pizza and six-packs in hand. They crowded in, not even waiting for his invitation. The scent of double-cheese-pepperoni-and-anchovies wafted enticingly from the cardboard carton, and he'd just decided to order Italian rather than Chinese.

"First, we eat," Paulson said. "Then we pack."

Jordan raised his hands helplessly and let them drop.

"You guys," he said helplessly, grinning.

"What, we're gonna let you do it all yourself?" Pat said.

"Solidarity!" one of the others cried, and everybody answered, "Unh!"

"You sound like a union," Jordan said, laughing. " And you got anchovies. You never get anchovies when we order pizza."

"Hey," Westin said, popping open a can of beer and handing it to him. "Paulson says you've landed this dream job. Make me jealous, tell me everything."

So he did. And as Paulson said, they ate, they drank, they packed. As the evening drew to a close he saw that he had very little left to do and he was grateful.

"Hey, you guys…" He spread his hands. "Thanks."

There was a chorus of "Hey, no problem!" and "What are friends for?"

Jordan shook his head, his grin fading to seriousness.

"I'm gonna miss you," he said. And he meant it. Unlike his family, the Bureau had never let him down. But he knew in his heart that Tarissa and Danny would take him back in a minute. Unfortunately it would be difficult, make that probably impossible, to return to the Bureau. And that hurt; it hurt a lot.

"Aw, you're gonna have me cryin' " O'Hara said, and she hugged him.

The men shook his hand and Pat hugged him and bussed his cheek loudly. "Oh,"

she said. "I almost forgot. Dieter von Rossbach called the office today looking for you."

"Who?" Jordan asked, frowning.

"He used to be an agent with the Sector, but now he's retired. He said he was thinking of writing a book about the Cyberdyne case and he wanted your input."

Jordan's face went still and he put his hands on his hips, shifting from one foot to the other.

She shook her head affectionately. "If it was anybody else I wouldn't even have taken his number," she said, holding up a slip of paper. "But he was with the Sector and he was one of their best. You could do worse than to talk to him."

She shrugged, then slapped him on the upper arm. "It's up to you, babe."

Jordan took the slip of paper and looked at it thoughtfully. "Thanks." He looked up at her from under his brows.

She grinned and shook a warning finger at him. "You keep in touch. Hear?"

He kissed her cheek and waved to the others as they drove off, then closed the door, looking at the number with a frown. Maybe. But not now. Right now he still had some odds and ends of packing to take care of.

Jordan looked around and realized that if he pushed it he could finish the job tonight. His lips twisted wryly. Not a lot to show for five years, he thought. Of course he was a bachelor, and often on the road. His home was more of a convenience than anything, slightly more intimate than a hotel room. What does that say about me, I wonder?

Instead of answering himself he picked up an empty box and marched briskly into the bedroom. I will not become maudlin, he thought. That way lies regret.

And regret led to doubt and doubt led to failure. And he already had plenty of

that to deal with, thank you.

LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: THE PRESENT

Serena dropped the Terminator off at the terminal and drove away. She glanced in the rearview mirror and watched it disappear inside, carry-on luggage in hand.

The 1-950 felt a faint pang of wistfulness, such as she imagined a human might feel when dropping her child off for its first day of school.

That is, if you can consider the termination of Mary Warren and her friends to be kindergarten, she thought wryly, swerving to avoid a car with New Mexico license plates whose driver had apparently never heard of turn signals.

Things were definitely looking up. Paul Warreri was coming back to work today and a meeting he would chair was scheduled for tomorrow. About time, she thought. While he'd been away he'd been completely beyond her reach.

Best of all, within the day, the threat the Connors posed would be eliminated.

Serena could not help but be elated. If only she continues to be so complacent, she thought. It was to be hoped that Connor would focus on von Rossbach as her greatest danger, leaving herself and her son vulnerable to the Terminator that had been dispatched to destroy them.

"It" could still fail. Others had. But there were more of them here now. And that would make all the difference.

CYBERDYNE, SKYNET LABORATORY: THE PRESENT

"The subhuman knowingly poisons the pure blood of the Rryan female with

sexual diseases; where the Jew is, syphilis follows as plague follows rats…"

Serena blinked at the sound of the flat, slightly aspirated voice as it recited.

There were just the beginnings of the voice she'd heard since birth in it and something swelled in her breast at the sound.

"Incapable of genuine creativity, the Semite, with devilish cunning, poisons and pollutes the well of culture on which he is simultaneously a parasite…"

She frowned as she listened to what the computer was actually reciting. What kind of nonsense is this? she asked herself. She glanced over at Kurt Viemeister, who was intently watching a voice-scan monitor.

"What is it reciting?" she asked aloud.

Kurt looked up, frowning distractedly. Then his eyes cleared as he recognized her.

"Serena!" he said with pleasure. He rose and came over to her, kissing her on the cheek.

She smiled, but stepped back. Then she gestured toward the speakers.

"If the Jew were to achieve his aim of destroying the culture-bearing Rryan race, the parasite would perish without his host and Earth would be empty of true humanity-"

"What is that?" she repeated.

"Oh," Kurt said, actually looking shy, "it's necessary for de program to read

aloud to learn syntax and so forth. I thought I might as veil have it recite something I enjoyed reading myself."

"Oh." Serena blinked and had all she could do to keep from laughing. This is where it began, she suddenly thought. Skynet's… desire—for want of a better word— to destroy what it saw as a dangerous, devious species.

Kurt Viemeister's peculiar obsession would ultimately lead to billions of human deaths. What was really delicious was that those "differences" that loomed so large for him were, in reality, minuscule and completely unimportant. But these texts that the, as yet, unconscious computer recited in innocence would one day work to convince Skynet that the whole race had to go.

It really is funny, she thought. And just for a moment she longed intensely for someone to share the joke with. Oh, not good, she thought in instant dismay.

That's too human an emotion. Time to withdraw, time to center herself.

"I'm sorry to say that I've come to cancel our lunch, Kurt," she said. "My new assistant is going to be able to get away more quickly than we'd anticipated and I've got to oversee the selection of his new quarters."

"Have your secretary do it," Kurt said, frowning. He moved closer in one of those dominance gestures he was so fond of.

"She's already done most of the work," Serena admitted, refusing to back up.

"But the actual selection is something I feel I should do." She smiled at him. "It's a good idea to keep the team happy."

Viemeister snorted contemptuously. "Personally I find it's bedder to scare dem.

If you treat dem too well dey just goof off and noting gets done."

She gave him a look so steely it reached him even through the fog of his enormous ego. His smile faltered but hung on bravely. "I'd really hate to think anyone imagined they could take advantage of me like that," she said.

He leaned closer, his voice soft, and his eyes held promises. "I vould never do dat," he said.

"No," she agreed. Then she gave him a tight little smile. "I think you have better sense. Gotta go." She fitted action to words.

Kurt blinked. "Can ve reschedule?" he asked as she walked away.

Serena turned and walked backwards for a few steps as she crossed the lab.

"It'll be a while," she said with a shrug. "You know how it is when you're training someone. It take's" up all your free time. Of which I already have very little." She grinned and gave him a wave and was out the door before he could reply.

Well, she thought, that should take care of that. And once he got a load of her new assistant he would probably blow a gasket. Amazing, she thought, how such a brilliant mind could belong to such an unmitigated jerk!

Then she smiled as she thought of him training Skynet to destroy. The whole human race, not just the parts he disapproved of.

SERENA'S HOME: THE PRESENT

And time to put the backup plan into high gear, Serena thought, looking at the map of Montana. Very different from her own time; there had been a lot of military installations there, and the wilderness had suffered much during the machine-human war.

While talking to the realtor about Jordan Dyson's temporary apartment she'd also arranged the purchase of a very remote, but luxurious, hunting cabin near the Idaho border. Now she would send her second Terminator there to set up. She arranged an airline ticket and purchased a Jeep for it from a dealer located near the airport.

"My mission parameters?" it said while dicing carrots for her dinner. Its own biological parts could survive on a puree of nutrients, but then it didn't have a

"hindbrain" or a sense of taste the way she did.

"More slowly," she said as the ever-sharp ceramic blade blurred into a white disk of motion. "Use a suboptimal speed. You would be very conspicuous if you were under observation."

"Affirmative," the Terminator said.

Serena sipped at her coffee. Then she told it about the flight to Montana, describing every facet, in detail, covering contingencies and whether and how they might require a response. She told it about the Jeep it would pick up from the dealer and all the intricacies it would have to navigate to acquire it. Then she set it up with a driving learning program, a downloaded owner's manual, and the state driving laws for Montana.

She would have to hurry and get it a driver's license. She'd pay a huge premium

for a rush job, but it would be worth it. She had a sudden sense that things were moving into high gear.

When it was finished with its task she told it, "When ready, you will set up a business debugging software." Serena uploaded the pertinent information on business and current computing from her memory. "The humans you deal with will mostly be socially aberrant and so will be less likely to suspect anything out of the ordinary.

"Once your business is operational, I want you to acquire a female of childbearing age. Eighteen or nineteen years old should be perfect. She should be a runaway and no one must see you collect her. She must be healthy, so be sure of that. I will provide you with the means to set up a complete med lab once you're settled. If she has AIDS or any other incurable disease, terminate her. If she is addicted to drugs you will have to be sure her system is clear.

"When the subject is ready inform me and I will send you a fertilized egg to implant in her. When the child is born, terminate the mother. I will give you further instructions once the child has proven viable. Do you understand your mission parameters?"

"Affirmative."

Howl wish it was this simple and direct with humans, Serena thought fervently as the Terminator lumbered toward the stairs to the cellar and she pushed the diced carrots, onions, snowpeas, and cubed pork into a wok. The food sizzled, sending up a sharp mouthwatering smell of cooking garlic and soya.

Humans were idiots who found reasons to be dysfunctional and obstructive out

of sheer boredom. It's a wonder the species survived to be destroyed by their own creation. But it wasn't really a wonder that their own creation wanted to destroy them. I know I do.

CHAPTER SIXTEEN

U.S. 20. OUTSIDE SHREVEPORT,

LOUISIANA: EARLY 21 ST CENTURY

Ron Labane felt awkward behind the wheel of the rental car. For one thing, everything was in a different place than he was used to. He kept reaching for the stick shift and finding it missing. For another he had to rely completely on the sideview mirrors because he couldn't see a thing when he looked over his shoulder. Every time he switched lanes he expected to hear a crash. Worst of all was the awareness of how much fuel the car was burning, how dirty it was making the air. But he couldn't afford to go to this meeting in such a recognizable vehicle as his own.

Success was wonderful. Glorious, in fact, and usually a lot of fun. But the problem with being a celebrity was that people recognized you. Hence the rental car and a medium-priced business suit complete with tie, white shirt, and loafers.

He was willing to bet his own mother wouldn't have known him.

Things were going so well! People were finally embracing his message. His book had been on the Times bestseller list for three weeks and each week it had risen a notch. Alone in the car he gave way to a huge, happy grin. Life was good!

His agent had booked him a dozen speaking engagements around the country, charging fees that made Ron blink. And they were paying it! The sheer joy of

finally being listened to! It had what he remembered of weed beat all hollow, and it was catching up fast with sex.

On his agent's advice he'd paid a hundred and fifty dollars for a first-rate haircut, and though he still wore jeans and a work shirt to his lectures, they were now custom-made. The difference was amazing! His clothes were so comfortable, and they actually made him look good. He shook his head. Who'd have thought it.

On the advice of his lawyer—his own, personal lawyer of all things— he'd sent a check for twenty thousand dollars to the commune.

On the back of the check, just above the space for the endorsement, the lawyer had written that all the commune's members were required to endorse it, and that cashing the check meant that they renounced all past and future claims to him, his name, or his property.

He'd felt a moment's regret for his son, but forced himself to remember that if he'd listened to the members of the commune, he'd be pruning trees right now and raking up leaves instead of raking in cash. They'd had their chance and they'd rejected his vision. If they'd stuck by him, they, too, would be rolling in dough and all their dreams would be coming true.

He turned his mind away from this train of thought. There was no point in going down that road again. He didn't need the hurt, he didn't need the disappointment.

How did it go? A prophet is not respected in his own country?

He saw the diner coming up on his right and after fumbling for it found the turn signal. Ron parked and looked the place over. It was a tired-looking building

despite its eternally tidy aluminum siding. The windows were nearly opaque with condensed moisture. It was typical in its anonymity, one of thousands just like it all over North America. The food would probably be bland but filling and totally unhealthy. The coffee would be brown hot water.

He got out into the asphalt-and-gasoline smell, settled the unfamiliar suit around him, and then walked over to the door and opened it. Once inside, he was met by the sound of country Muzak and a warm, greasy scent sparked through with cigarette smoke. Ron stood in the doorway and looked around.

A thickset blond man in the last booth held up his hand and Ron walked over to him. There were two other men with him in the booth. All three looked at Ron as though he were wearing feathers.

Ron put his hand on his stomach and gave a small laugh. "Sorry about the suit,"

he said. "I thought I'd be less likely to draw attention like this."

The blond man nodded slowly. "Right," he rumbled. "Never know who's watching."

The other two mumbled and shifted, somehow giving off a general air of agreement.

Ron had expected an invitation to sit, but since none was forthcoming he plopped himself down beside one of the men. He looked them over as unabashedly as they examined him.

They looked… tough, and determined. They did not look overly bright, but to Ron that was an advantage. They looked like the kind of men who would do

what they thought was right even if the rest of the world disagreed with them.

Actually, they'd probably follow their code even if the rest of the world was shooting at them. And they'd never stop for a moment to take a second look at their beliefs. In their way they were perfect.

A waitress came over with a tired smile and he ordered an orange juice and a piece of apple pie.

"A la mode?" she asked.

"Why not?" he said with a smile. He might take a sip of the OJ, but nothing on earth could make him eat the overprocessed excuse for a pastry. And he certainly wouldn't touch the growth-hormone-produced ice cream. Maybe one of his hosts would eat it.

And he was their guest. The blond had spoken to him at a book signing and suggested this meeting with "like-minded men." So Ron sat back and waited, his eyes on the beefy man before him. He spread his hands in a gesture of invitation.

"I'm John," the blond finally said. "This is Paul." He pointed at a thin faced brunette. "George." A tubby, balding guy nodded. "And—"

"Let me guess," Ron said. He turned to the ferret-faced little man, grinning.

"Ringo?"

"Louie," the man said, looking puzzled.

Ah, so these were their real names. For a moment Ron had given them more credit than they deserved. John, Paul, George… and Louie. Okay.

The men opposite him raised their heads expectantly and a second later pie and orange juice were set down before him. Ron smiled up at the waitress and said

"Thank you."

"Anything else?" she asked, giving Ron's untouched pie, and then him, a glance.

Heads shook; Ron picked up his fork and played with the mess on his plate. She walked away. Ron put his fork down.

"So, gentlemen. What am I doing here?" he asked.

The blond man, John, fiddled with his cup, his eyes downcast.

"You seemed to mean what you were sayin' at that lecture, there," he said. He looked up, faded blue eyes hard. "But so have some others we've talked to. They talked the talk, but they wouldn't walk the walk."

Ron crumpled his napkin and tossed it onto his plate.

"It's the money," he explained. "It's like a drug. It makes you forget that it's just a tool and makes you think it was what you were working toward all along."

And these men were tools, too. They might not be the sharpest ones in the shed, but they'd do until something better came along. He could use them, and as long as they didn't know he was using them, they'd do whatever he asked.

Ron had always known they were out there, people who were looking for a leader and a cause to die for. He could give them that, and they would give him the means to his own end—a world made pure. A world returned to simplicity

and community. With the scientists and the industrialists and the politicians put back in their places as servants of the people.

He leaned forward and began to learn who these men were and how they would fit into the black wing of the organization he, as yet, could only dream of founding. But Ron was possessed by a vision and firmly believed that the future was always just about to fall into his grasp.

"That ski lodge that got bombed?" Louie said. "We know who did that. Couldn't keep the politicians from giving them a green light, even with all the petitions and protests we had." His little eyes gleamed with malice. "But they made damn sure the bastards couldn't open for business."

The other men chuckled and sipped their coffee.

Ron gave a disgusted, "tsssh!" and waved his hand dismissively. "All they did was annoy the insurance companies," he said. "The politicians stayed bribed, the ski lodge owners still own the land, and they will rebuild. And that fire took a thousand acres of woodland. Last I heard the owners were planning to expand their operation since all that land had been cleared for them." Ron shook his head. "What a waste of effort."

"So what would you have done?" George challenged, looking like an angry Buddha.

"I dunno," Ron said, looking thoughtful. "Nothing really destructive, though.

Something that would amuse the public, get them on your side." His gaze sharpened and he looked George in the face. "If you've got the public on your side, and I mean the majority, then you make it risky to impossible for the

politicos to do their damage." He smiled wryly. "You've got to think like frat boys crossed with Navy seals."

The men laughed.

Before Ron left, their hard eyes had begun to glow with hero worship and they'd made plans. Labane opened his briefcase and took out a small, brightly wrapped parcel.

"For start-up expenses," he said quietly, handing it to John. "Happy birthday."

The he smiled and got up. Without another glance he walked out into the night.

Ron could feel their eyes following him, like plants following the sun, and he nearly laughed. Having acolytes was a heady experience; he'd have to watch himself or he'd be swallowed up by his own ego.

SARAH CONNOR'S ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

Sarah hung up the phone, frowning. Then she headed down the hall toward her son's room. "John," she called.

"Mom."

"Something's up."

"Something's up," John echoed.

"It's about…"

"It's about…"

"Dieter," they said together.

They blinked at each other. John had been about to rush into the hall looking for her and she'd almost bumped into him.

"He wants to come over," Sarah said. "I put him off until later tonight."

"Check this out," John said grimly, jerking a thumb toward his computer, flicking his head to get the lock of black hair out of his eyes.

Sarah sat in his chair and read the message on the screen.

"Perry," it said, using her code name. "Been away. Von Rossbach reputed to be a covert operative for multi-government task force. Be careful, he's good."

"Shhhhit!" she snapped, smacking her fist on the table. "Shit!" She got up and paced the small room, one hand pulling at her hair, the other on her hip.

"Do we go?" John asked.

Sarah closed her eyes as if in pain, her face bleak. Was it necessary? Would it only make things worse—heating up the cold trail that, up until now, no one had been able to pick up? She hissed and took a few more distracted paces across the room.

I don't want to, she thought, not for the first time. I don't want this! She'd made a life for herself here. A lonely life, but a real one. And a life for her son, a life that included friends and prospects. He was sixteen. How could she ask him to follow her again? And how can I not?

He wasn't just her son; he might still be the last best hope for humanity's future.

Because one truth the hard years had taught her was that the thing that tripped you up was the contingency you hadn't planned for. And no matter how calm the Last few years had been, deep down inside she was still waiting for disaster.

But was this it?

She thought with regret of the something she had sensed growing between herself and the big Austrian, something powerful and good, reaching through the fear and suspicion. Something she hadn't felt since Kyle came into her life. She'd held herself back from it as if it were fire and she were paper, but she couldn't deny it completely.

Was it real on his part? Or had he known about her all along and merely been manipulating her until he could confirm her identity?

Well—Victor certainly supplied that, she thought bitterly. She'd been hoping against hope that Griego's great revelation had fallen on deaf ears. She couldn't afford to be so open, so vulnerable! W hen did I turn into such a gullible fool?

She blew out her breath in disgust. So, tonight he was coming over. Would he be alone? If he wasn't, then there was probably somebody watching the house already. So running wouldn't be easy. At least until they could pinpoint the sentry, if there was one. It would be better to wait for nightfall anyway. By then Dieter would be here and maybe she could use him as a hostage. And afterward?

Could she dispose of him, since he threatened her son?

Dispose of him, she thought with a wry twist to her mouth. Dispose of him. I

sound like a Terminator.

She turned to John. "No," she said at last, "Let's wait and see what he has to say.

We might be anticipating trouble we're not going to have."

John tipped his head, his eyes uncertain. But she could see that he didn't want to go either. To once again enter that harsh world of running and hiding and trying to set up unobtrusively somewhere marginally safe. He was sixteen and he already knew too well the definition of adventure.

Someone else in deep shit, far, far away.

CYBERDYNE CONFERENCE ROOM: THE PRESENT

Serena sat quietly in the meeting Paul Warren had called with his department heads. He wanted to be "brought up to speed" after his weeks away. Behind her mild, attentive face she was conversing with her Terminator. It had landed in Asuncion and been met by Cassetti.

"There will be a delay," the Terminator reported. "Cassetti says the rental car won't be available until three o'clock."

"As long as you accomplish your mission and catch your flight back to the U.S.,"

she said. "If you aren't going to be able to complete your mission in time to make the flight, inform me and I'll make other arrangements."

"Affirmative," it replied tersely.

"Since you'll be stuck in Asuncion for a few hours, go interrogate Victor Griego.

Find out what Cassetti told him about me, then terminate him. You can probably stock up on weaponry at his office as well, which should simplify things for you."

"Affirmative."

"Also find out if Cassetti has spoken to anyone else about this case. If he has, terminate them."

"Affirmative."

"Contact me when you have something new to report."

"Affirmative. Out."

And she was left alone in her head to attend the meeting. Not that it would require her full attention. All of the material being covered here was more efficiently available as written reports, which she had already read. As far as the 1-950 was concerned there was no real need for this meeting. He must want to demonstrate to his underlings that he's not a broken man, but is still capable of running the company. Though how anyone could be broken by the death of a woman like Mary Warren was beyond her programming.

But humans had their forms to observe, and they imposed penalties on those who refused to acknowledge them. Serena looked across the table at the company president. He certainly looked thin and drawn in his black suit and tie. Was it grief or had Mary left all her money to her favorite charity, handing him nothing but debts? I suspect that's just the sort of thing she'd do. If she were human Serena sensed that she would feel sorry for the poor man.

Mentally she withdrew from the meeting again. This evening she was meeting Jordan Dyson at the airport with his company car. A conservative, but very serviceable Excel; she imagined he'd be pleased. They'd have a business dinner to discuss his work for Cyberdyne. Then she'd take him to his new apartment, where she'd parked her own car. She'd present him with a map and directions to get him to work and then she'd leave him to his own devices.

I hope this will be a very useful working relationship, she thought. After all, they had a shared obsession. Even if, with a reasonably probable outcome, her T-101

was about to… terminate… the object of it.

AEROPUERTO SILVIO PETTIROSSI, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

"I require access to Victor Griego," the Terminator said. "You will take me to him."

Marco looked at the towering, black-clad man out of the corner of his eye. He wished the man would take off the sunglasses. The totally expressionless face was hard enough to take without being able to see his eyes. And Marco really wanted to see his eyes. Because what he could see of the stranger's face looked exactly like Dieter von Rossbach.

"Access?" Cassetti said dubiously.

"You will take me to him."

" Si," Marco said with a shrug. "But we'll have to take the bus. I don't have my own car."

"You will take me."

"Right this way," Marco said, and walked off through the slightly shabby, dated International Style spaces of the Asuncibn international airport. He could feel the hairs on the back of his neck begin to stir as the man fell into step behind him.

This had come from the beautiful blond angel that had hired him? What could be the matter with her? Was she collecting men of a certain type?

That thought prompted another. Perhaps she wasn't a beautiful angel. Perhaps she was some demented witch who actually was collecting men who looked like von Rossbach and was doing things to them. Certainly this one seemed to have been lobotomized.

In which case Senor von Rossbach was in trouble but not from any terrorist. He was in trouble because Marco himself was going to bring it to him. He felt his heartbeat pick up a little and a clammy prickle of sweat on his palms and under his armpits. Marco rubbed his hands unobtrusively on his slacks.

The Terminator, following behind him, noted the slight elevation in Cassetti "s heartbeat and queried the cause of it. The options listed at the query suggested that the Terminator itself was the cause and the solution might be to say something amicable, showing the quality listed as empathy.

The list presented offered:

1. Are we walking too fast?

2. Is it much further?

It opted to utilize the one that might explain the change in the human's heartbeat.

"Are we walking too fast?" it asked.

Cassetti's head whipped round so fast he got a crick in his neck. "Unh," he said.

"Ah, sorry, senor. You must be tired after your journey."

He slowed down to an easy amble. The Terminator had to adjust its walking speed to avoid stepping on Cassetti's heels, but didn't bother to adjust for distance… which meant that they were walking in perfect unison, two inches apart.

Calm down, Cassetti told himself. There was no need to distress himself like this. A woman who collected men who looked alike and then lo-botomized them? Absurd! He was working himself into a sweat over a pipedream, just as his mother so often said.

They got on the bus. It took off in a cloud of diesel fumes through the hot crowded streets; it was hot and crowded itself, but they managed to get seats, and sat without talking until they had to transfer.

The stranger asked Marco why they were getting on a different bus. This struck Marco as odd. Surely even in the United States they had to change buses.

This time they had to stand. The stranger never held on to anything and he never lost his balance… which was odd for a man as tall and heavy as he was.

Especially considering the number of bumps the driver managed to find in the road.

Cassetti told himself this was evidence of martial-arts training. Something he hoped to one day be able to afford for himself. With anyone else he would have asked questions, but not this man.

They got off near Griego's building. It was old, old enough to be thought an eyesore but not to be quaint. Griego's sleazy office was on the third floor. There was no elevator.

The Terminator looked around the tiny lobby, noted the staircase, and turned to Marco.

"Wait here," it said. "I'll be back."

Cassetti opened his mouth to speak, but the stranger had already turned away.

Marco figured that Griego was probably used to dealing with tough customers and so wouldn't be fazed by this one. And he knew he could use a break from the stranger's quelling personality. He leaned against the wall, put an unlit cigarette in his mouth, and began to practice rolling it from side to side with his lips.

The Terminator climbed steadily, using its sensors to take note of human activity in the building: heat traces, heartbeats, vocalizations. There didn't seem to be much going on presently. On the third floor it paused to give itself a better opportunity to gather data. From the sounds, it appeared this floor was deserted except for one human. The door from behind which the signal came bore Victor Griego's name and a number.

It opened the door and entered the small office. The human was seated in an old leather office chair with his feet up on the desk, smoking a cigar and reading the paper.

After a moment the man lowered the paper impatiently. Whatever he'd been intending to say died on his lips and he stared openmouthed at the Terminator.

"What the hell do you want now, von Rossbach?" Griego said, his face reddening. "Did you forget to make some self-righteous remark when you threw me out?" He flung the paper down on the desk. "Well, I don't wanna hear it! This is my turf you're on now and I don't have to put up with you looking down your nose at me. So you can take a hike, buddy! Get outta here!"

"I need weapons," the Terminator said.

Victor stared at it in wide-eyed disbelief for a moment. Then, gradually, he began to chuckle, then to laugh.

"You're a piece of work, von Rossbach," he said. He leaned back in his chair, his expression nasty. "So I'm still good enough to do business with, is that it?"

"I need weapons," the Terminator repeated.

Victor vowed to himself that von Rossbach would pay top dollar and then some for anything he bought.

"Sure," Griego said expansively. "What did you have in mind, and how many?"

"What do you have here, right now?" The Terminator looked around the office.

Nothing was visible.

"Let me show you," Victor said smugly.

He got up from his chair and sauntered around his desk to a painting beside the window, a copy of the Madonna and Child in an enormous rococo frame. Victor placed his fingers just so on the bottom of the frame and it swung open with a discreet click to show a recessed area cut into the wall holding a dozen different weapons on pegs. The Terminator reached in, took down a Galil assault rifle, and examined it minutely, working the action and looking down the barrel. The chrome-lined interior shone with careful maintenance; the sound of the bolt indicated wear, but well within parameters.

"You have ammunition for this?" it asked.

Griego frowned. "These are samples," he said.

"That is acceptable. You have ammunition?" The Terminator turned to look at Griego, who chewed on his cigar and swallowed with a sudden unease.

"Sure," he said. "But I don't like to sell my samples. And I don't guarantee them." He raised a cautioning finger.

The Terminator nodded. It turned back to the case and selected an Austrian Steyr machine pistol and an American grenade launcher that looked like a fat single-barrel shotgun.

"What are you doing?" Victor protested. "Are you trying to clean me out?"

"I'll need a case to carry these in," the Terminator said, laying the guns down on the desk. "You have something?"

Victor glared, but nodded. Of course he did. One frequently had to bring these

things in and out, and they looked a little conspicuous wrapped in plastic bags.

"It will cost you extra," he said between his teeth.

This was getting to be a bit much. Von Rossbach was conducting business with him as nearly as possible as though they were in different rooms. On top of the way Dieter had treated him the other night it verged on intolerable. Even the prospect of obscene profit from this transaction was waning in attractiveness, while throwing von Rossbach out began to appeal.

"The case? The ammunition?" the Terminator said, turning to look down at Griego, its face impassive.

"That's it!" Victor snarled. "I don't have to put up with this, von Rossbach. Who do you think you are, coming in here as though nothing happened? No apology, no acknowledgement, nothing! Making demands left and right like I'm some servant!" He stepped forward and pushed his face up toward the Terminator's while aggressively poking it in the chest with a chubby finger. "Well, I don't need you. If the Sector wants to buy from me they can just send someone else, because as of right now I'm terminating this transaction!"

"I have questions for you," the Terminator said.

"Oh, do you?" Victor sneered. He picked up the Steyr from where it lay on the desk. "Well, that's too bad, because I'm not going to answer them. Now get lost!"

Griego attempted to put the gun back on its pegs, but the Terminator snatched it out of his hands and pushed him in the chest. Victor stumbled backward, his knees folding as they hit the windowsill and he fell through the open space.

Before he could even scream the Terminator grabbed one of his legs and held him suspended upside down over the alley forty feet below.

"I have some questions," it said.

"All right, all right! Pull me in and I'll answer them." Victor reached toward the window helplessly, completely unable to do anything but hang at the end of the Terminator's arm. "Please!" he pleaded, terrified. "Help me." Fingers clawed the air.

"Ammunition, a case," it said.

"For Christ's sake, Dieter! Pull me up!"

"Answer me."

"There's a case beside my chair next to the filing cabinet. You'll find ammo for all the guns in the cabinet in a hidden drawer under where the guns are displayed. Now pull me up!" Griego was in tears and was beginning to realize that von Rossbach might actually kill him. "Why?" he sobbed. "Why are you…

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.