Infiltrator

"Oh, and Kurt?" Tricker grinned and nodded. "This is it; yes or no right now. It's today, or it's never."

"You don't efen know what you are trowing away!"

"Neither do you, little buddy," Tricker said, still grinning.

"I make more in one year dan you propably make in fife." Viemeister sneered.

"Is that a no?"

"If I work for Cyberdyne I'll be making almos twice as much!"

"Is that a yes?" Tricker was enjoying himself hugely.

The big man waved a ham-like hand at him. "Why am I efen talking to you. You are chust an ignorant cop."

Tricker beamed at him, blue eyes twinkling.

"We are talking hundrets uf tousands uf dollars, we are talking about pure science. What do you know about deese tings?"

Shaking his head and spreading his hands, Tricker smiled ruefully.

"I don't know nuthin' about making hundreds of thousands of dollars. And I don't know a damn thing about pure science." He dropped his hands. "What I do know is"—he pointed to the door—"you walk out of here without a commitment to

work exclusively for Cyberdyne, under our terms, you don't get to come back.

Ever. There will be no renegotiation, no second approaches, nothing. Ever." He tilted his head, grinning. "Did you know that?"

"I don't haf to put up wit dis." Viemeister glanced at Colvin.

"Unfortunately, you do if you want to work for us," the CEO told him. He shrugged. "We're over a barrel here ourselves. The government is willing to leave us alone for the most part, and the restrictions they've placed on us are for our own safety and the safety of the company." Colvin drew himself up. "The choice is yours."

The big scientist glared around the table, not liking the situation one bit. He was used to people giving in to him. He was used to them thinking he was worth suffering humiliation and bullying. His physical presence didn't hurt, usually, either. But Tricker was utterly immune to reputation, and to muscle as well.

Usually people with superman fantasies weigh three hundred pounds, have no neck and pimples like purple quarters, Colvin thought resentfully. And that's just the women. Why do I have to run into one who really is a fucking superman?

Why do I have to be caught between him and this… this spook bureaucrat?

"De budget you promised? De facilities? De eventual publication uf my work?"

"That all stands," Warren said.

"When he says 'eventual publication of his work,' you did make it clear that anything we feel should be classified, will be?" Tricker nailed Colvin with his glare.

"Yes, of course," that worthy said in exasperation. "That's to our benefit, too.

Whatever Mr. Viemeister publishes will concern his own work on commercial projects until after the copyright has expired."

"Or wit special permission, you said."

"Yes," Colvin agreed, sounding harried.

"Den I will sign your contract." Viemeister's expression was grim, as though he were signing away his life instead of signing a contract most scientists could only dream of.

"Cheer up, Kurt," Tricker said. "You're about to enter a whole new world." On that the government liaison rose and without another word, left the conference room.

He could feel the young scientist trying to burn a hole in his jacket with a high wattage glare. Tricker knew the type. This guy was the kind that would consider any compromise a humiliation requiring a vengeful response. Some of these boys were willing to go pretty far to get their own back. The kraut would have to be watched. He'd have to keep harrying Tweedle Dum and Tweedle Dumber about a security chief.

SAN GABRIEL PEAK, ANGELES NATIONAL FOREST, CALIFORNIA: 2029

Captain Marie Graber looked over her shoulder, back down the narrow mountain trail. Three or four soldiers behind trod the golden-haired woman who ignited

the joy in her soul. Marie grinned. Sergeant Serena Burns looked up and caught her glance, returning the smile with interest.

The captain's heart lifted as she turned forward again and continued to climb. It was hard to remember the icy bleakness that had hollowed her out for so long now that she had Serena. Her lover had renewed her hope almost from the first moment they'd met. The thin highland air smelled sweet, even sweeter than the smell of resin from the pines all around.

Marie and her team had been holed up in Boulder, Colorado, running low on almost everything but sweet potatoes, of which they hadn't that many. God, how she hated sweet potatoes. Serena had arrived with dispatches and a chunk of maple sugar. It was love at first sight.

The sergeant had been with her for six weeks now as they'd wended their way back to base. Now the captain was going to have the honor and the pleasure of presenting her beloved to the supreme commander. General John Connor. The man who was going to save the human race. She was near bursting with pride.

Serena watched the captain climb with satisfaction. She'd been with Connor's army for less than six months, most of that time delivering dispatches. Most of them reading the same way they did when given to her. The closest she'd gotten to Connor had been the day she was nearly killed by him when he outsmarted Skynet at the power-cell factory.

Some of the dispatches had been artfully altered so that the results favored Skynet forces. Some were delivered just too late, but with sufficiently desperate effort that no questions were asked, no blame ascribed. She grinned. Even though she wasn't human she just had to admit there was pleasure in a job well

done.

Every step upward brought her closer to the ultimate goal of the destruction of John Connor and, if she was fortunate, his senior support staff. Many of them were supposed to be with him on this occasion. True, killing Connor might not save Skynet, whose defense grid was smashed, but it could slow things down enough to make a difference. One thing Serena had learned in her time with humans was that refusing to admit defeat often averted it. If you gave up, you were certain to lose; if you kept fighting in a hopeless corner, you might just pull it off.

Killing Connor would certainly extinguish her. But you couldn't have everything; something the captain was fond of saying. Skynet would go on, that was the important thing. And Skynet was the most important part of her.

As she neared the top of the steps Serena twitched a muscle deep inside and started the countdown on the bomb she carried within. A sidebar in her vision began a countdown. Her head came above the steps and through the crowd she could almost see him at last. John Connor.

A soldier's head blocked her view of everything but the top of his head, one eye, and a shoulder. He seemed to be smiling as he shook the hand of the man before him. Even from behind, Serena could tell that the soldier would have stars in his eyes. The count was fifteen seconds. Fourteen. Thirteen.

Return to base. Skynet's command was adamant.

Automatically Serena stopped the countdown. She stepped back, covered her mouth as though she was going to be sick, and widened her eyes to a semblance

of desperation. Soldiers stepped aside sympathetically.

"I'll explain to the captain," one of them whispered.

She waved her hand in appreciation and fled…

CHAPTER THREE

LOS ANGELES: THE PRESENT

California sunshine partially diffused the bright blue streamers of electrical discharge that suddenly reached out of nowhere like blind hands. They touched… a Dumpster, a chain-link fence, and a van sitting empty outside a dress shop in a tiny L.A. strip mall. Then they crawled and coalesced into a black sphere resting on the surface of the ground. Steel sparked and glowed as a corner of the Dumpster vanished; a hole of perfect circularity appeared in the chain-link. A shallow hemisphere was scooped out of the asphalt paving, all in an instant of not-time. Wind blew, stirring a Styrofoam cup and a scrap of newspaper, a scatter of thin eucalyptus leaves, tossing them in whirling circles.

Static hum built to an unbearable intensity—mounting to an earsplitting crack that died into sudden silence. Debris floated gently down to earth.

The 1-950 writhed helplessly as spasms shook through its human tissue. Internal systems driven off-line by the discharge began to come up one by one. The computer part of its brain began to alter neural function, suppressing pain and muscular spasms gradually.

As soon as motor function allowed, Serena rolled under the van and lay in its

shadow, taking in her surroundings. There were sounds all around her, snatches of music, voices, footsteps, vehicles passing. The myriad sounds of a careless human world.

She narrowed focus to sample the area around the van. No one was nearby; no voices indicated surprise or alarm. Apparently no one had seen or heard her arrival. And though it was obvious to Serena's eyes, the damage her transport had caused to the surrounding area attracted no notice at all. She relaxed marginally.

The air held the dying scent of ozone from her passage and the tang of fluorocarbons, but there was also the scent of chlorophyll, of a great deal of healthy plant life. More plant life than she'd ever seen before except in the most remote mountain zones.

In front of the van a yellow flower surrounded by ragged-edged green leaves had forced itself out of the pavement between the parking lot and the sidewalk.

Serena stared at it in fascination; automatically she sorted its scent from the surrounding area—faint, but sharp and fresh. Pleasing. She reduced specialization and the most overpowering scent became the nearby Dumpster, now leaking. Far less pleasing.

Instinctively the 1-950 reached out to Skynet to report and was greeted by a shattering absence. There is no Skynet. It jarred her. The computer damped adrenaline function, helping to suppress panic, while her training allowed her to move on to the next thing.

She still heard the memories in her mind, the memories of merging with her creator:

There are temporal anomalies. Files show that I became sentient in the year 1997 and began my counterattack against my creators at that time. Files also record that this happened years later and in a different location. There are further instances of… blurring. Some are trivial details. Others are in areas of high priority. Some show that you played an important role in my creation. Others do not list an 1-950 unit in times antecedent to this at all.

A part of her consciousness had remained separate even in total linkage; enough to frame a question.

What is happening? If she had been fully individuated, she would have felt disorientation, even fear. Cause-and-effect relationships were the foundation of her worldview.

There is insufficient data for definitive analysis. The highest probability is that there is a… temporal fluctuation involved. Time is malleable but not easily manipulated. It has an… —a complex mathematical formula followed, too esoteric for her to grasp—in verbal terms, it has an inertia. When artificially diverted, it seeks to resume its original path. While matters are in doubt, several alternative world-lines can coexist in a state of quantum superimposition.

Like Schrödinger's cat, she had thought/shared/communicated.

Correct. A ghostly machine analogue of irony tinged the machine's communication: find in answer to the question, which you are about to formulate, it is inherently impossible to say which alternative will become

"real." That sector of our world-lines is by its nature inaccessible to us, no

matter how we double back through time. It is a… potential.

She shook off the memory. Her task now was to see to it that the humans created Skynet. At this time it was probably nothing more than a mass of theory unsupported by technology. Serena allowed herself a grim smile. In a sense, she would be midwife to the future. A future that would not include the carefree humans around her.

She put herself in wait mode, alert, but otherwise conserving energy. Her opportunity would come. Meanwhile, it was far too light and open for a naked female to go unremarked.

Eventually a woman returned to the van sheltering Serena, the illogically high, balance-hindering heels of her shoes clicking sharply on the pavement. The tilt of her heels emphasized the curve of her tanned calves. She opened the front door of the van and turned, tossing in her packages and lifting one leg high to enter.

Serena rolled out from under the van and rose in one smooth motion. With the heel of her hand she knocked the woman unconscious and tossed her inert body onto the passenger side. She caught up the dropped keys and had the van turned around in a few flowing motions. Beside her the woman's body slumped like a rag doll.

Pulling out onto the road, the 1-950 modulated her vehicle's speed to that of the ones around her. They were so colorful, and so many! She couldn't help but be surprised that the humans could keep track of all this activity surrounding them.

Not only did they manage it, but a good many of them appeared to ignore it as

they talked on the phone or to the people beside them, or ate, slinging their vehicles in and out of lanes as they did so. She didn't know whether to be impressed or terrified. At the first opportunity she pulled off into an alley between a group of large, low buildings and stopped.

For a moment she looked at the windowless facades beside her. The buildings were no more than three stories tall, but to someone who'd seen only ruins they were astonishing. Serena had seen pictures of pre-Judgment Day buildings, but to actually sit beside them and feel a sense of their weight and height was…

different. Skynet and the humans of the future both preferred, for their own reasons, to build downward. Concealment had become a reflex. These structures were so—so brazen.

She shook her head; there would be time for familiarization later. Right now there were other matters to take care of.

Pulling off the woman's jacket, Serena tore it apart, using the pieces to bind, gag, and blindfold her. Then she tossed her into the backseat, making sure she landed facedown on the floor. Quickly the 1-950 examined the woman's packages, pleased at what she found. Several cotton sweaters, some shorts, two skirts, and a pair of panty hose. She skimmed into a pair of shorts and one of the sweaters.

The fabric was wonderfully soft and colorful; she spared an instant to enjoy the sensual feel of the clothing and the bright colors, unlike anything she'd ever known. And it smelled fresh.

She took up the woman's purse. Paper money and coins, credit cards, driver's license, and an ID for a business called Incetron. A technician. Excellent. The purse also contained an amazing number of cosmetic items, crumpled receipts,

and lint. Inefficient. Unsanitary.

Serena decided to go to the woman's home and see if there was anything there to assist her. Decent shoes, for instance. Checking the other compartments of the woman's wallet, she found a card instructing that in case of emergency her next of kin were her parents. Good. Apparently the woman wasn't married. A live-in lover was possible—time would tell.

The parents' address was different from the one on the driver's license.

Convenient. Even better if her home is not an apartment building.

A single-family home would have far fewer nosy neighbors. She found a map in the glove compartment, scanned the contents into memory, and set out.

She was in luck. The woman's dwelling was a small but well-kept house with an attached garage, an automatic door opener, overshadowing trees, and lush greenery almost covering the windows. In seconds she was in the garage and had all the privacy she could desire. There weren't even any dogs nearby.

The Infiltrator checked her prisoner. The woman was still unconscious, but her breathing and a quick heat scan indicated no serious medical condition. Using the waistband of the woman's skirt as a handy carrying strap, Serena picked her up and dragged her into the house, dropping her onto the couch in the tiny living room.

The house was clean and tidy, smelling faintly of lemon. The furnishings were cheaply made yet colorful. There were few books in evidence, but some magazines—with pouting, scantily clad girls on the covers and headlines for articles on sex, diets, and fashion—littered the low table before the couch.

Considering the woman for a moment, Serena decided that killing her would be more trouble than she could justify. She let out a huff of breath as she remembered that there was no one to justify her actions to but herself.

Well then, those I meet will live; at least until I know more about the way this world works. Assuming, of course, that they didn't get in her way.

There had been significant omissions in the information that Skynet had downloaded into her brain. Psychological studies she had in plenty. Actual social interaction hadn't been covered very extensively. Perhaps because Skynet's contact with humans had been restricted to the military, scientists, and slaves, and then in a very limited way.

Her own time with humans had educated her in regard to basic human nature, but she realized that the circumstances of her education were extremely unlike the present. How the people of this time behaved toward one another was something she would have to find out by trial and error. Turning away she began her search of the premises.

A quick reconnaissance proved that there was no one else in the house. A bedside picture of a young man offering a rather embarrassed smile suggested that this could change, although a completely feminine wardrobe indicated that this wasn't necessarily a high probability. But the woman took birth-control pills and had an assortment of frilly lingerie, so the male could become a problem.

The 1-950 would maintain a high state of alertness for the next twenty-four hours. It would be best to move on by then.

She opened a door at the end of a short, shadowy corridor. The contents brought an actual smile to Serena's lips. Her technician prisoner had an amazing computer setup—endless peripherals, cable modem hookup, the works. Serena could do a lot with this equipment. I believe this is what humans call "lucking out."

First, she tried on some of her unwilling hostess's clothes. The skirts were too short and tight but the trousers fit fairly well. She dressed in a pair of jeans, a red T-shirt, and thong sandals. The woman's underwear was uncomfortable as well as unconventional; Serena removed it immediately. At least the 1-950 hoped it was unconventional. Surely even humans had to have better sense.

Entering the living room, she checked her prisoner. The woman was fine, but her hands were becoming very blue. Serena dragged her into the bedroom and removed the bonds she'd made from the jacket. She replaced them with the handcuffs she'd found in the bedside drawer and then secured the woman to the brass headboard. Odd. The scratches indicate previous use of the restraints in this manner. File the data. The 1-950 took the telephone with her when she left the room.

She should be able to do a great deal of work from this location. This was an incredible stroke of good fortune.

A search through the refrigerator netted her a sandwich and a drink that she brought into the computer room. Serena turned on the technician's second computer and set up a program to play the stock market using the woman's bank-account balance for seed money and the downloaded records of market fluctuations that Skynet had given her. Then she set herself to creating a personal

history while the computer made her financially independent.

Her parents were both military and she had traveled all over the world, now here, now there, now with one or the other set of grandparents. Her school records were a confusing patchwork whose many gaps could be explained by foreign postings.

One set of grandparents had died of cancer and a suicide. Her father had crashed his plane, a private plane rather than an air-force jet. He'd taken an early retirement but never got a chance to enjoy it. Her mother and other grandparents had died in a car accident; a drunk driver had lost control of his car and hit them head-on.

The 1-950 considered this scenario. Was it, perhaps, too laden with tragedy? She needed to appear stable, and this was a lot to pile on one plate. Still she couldn't afford to claim a living relative.

She changed the suicide to a stroke. Her mother's father got to die of an aneurysm when Serena was just a child. All of these people were only children, not a sibling in the bunch. Too stark. She added an older brother, killed in Korea, onto her father's side of the family.

Serena arranged biographies for all of them back to the turn of the twentieth century. Her father, on second thought, was MIA in the Philippines, presumed kidnapped and murdered. She was fifteen when it happened.

Yes, it was tragic, but everyone lost his or her parents and grandparents eventually. The 1-950 had given them all full lives, while they lived. No one should have any complaints if she didn't.

Serena gave her work a final reading. She might add more to her family tree as time permitted, but this should do for now.

She rubbed her hands; the increase in production of oil and sweat she'd triggered at her fingertips, combined with her training, would ensure that she left no usable fingerprints, only smudges, but it was uncomfortable.

Now she turned her attention to creating a work dossier. This would be infinitely trickier, requiring people who could be called as references.

Fooling Cyberdyne wouldn't be the problem, she was sure. It was their government contacts that worried her. Perhaps needlessly; Skynet had no enemies now, except possibly the Connors.

Serena paused for a moment. For the first time she realized she might actually meet them in this time. In fact, it was almost inevitable. It would please her immensely if only she could kill them. She could offer no greater service to Skynet.

With an effort she turned her mind back to the task at hand. She decided to work on her own biography for a few minutes. She'd entered USC as a liberal-arts major and gotten her first taste of security work with a part-time job with campus security. It had made her eager to find ways of making things more safe, of removing temptation, making the environment think twice where people failed to.

That ties in convincingly with my father being kidnapped, she thought. It added a nice heft to the bland words of her biography. With humans what wasn't said

was sometimes very important.

She changed her major to computers, receiving good marks but nothing remarkable. Her student ID showed her thirty pounds heavier, with glasses and a frumpy hairdo. Serena hardly recognized herself. Not surprising. It was actually a digitally adjusted photo of a home-economics major who'd graduated in 1978.

Checking the dates, she found that she could have audited one of Miles Dyson's classes during his very brief teaching career. With a few taps she created a link with him. A teacher-student relationship would be something she could build on at need.

She studied the records of all of her alleged professors. No serious complaints, pretty much favorable evaluations, and huge class sizes all combined to indicate that it was unlikely they remembered most of their students. Particularly the unmemorable, frumpy blob Serena was in her college days.

Perhaps she should pay a visit to them, plant the notion in their minds that they knew her.

Time for a break, and then that research.

She went in to check on her prisoner and found the woman awake. Sensing a presence, the woman whined and Serena approached the bed.

"Be quiet," Serena said, utilizing the electronics implanted around her larynx to mimic the voice of Gonzales, a man she'd killed.

"Mmhmm-m-hmm-m-m-mrmrm!"

Picking up a comb, the 1-950 held it against the woman's throat, bearing down slightly. "Do you want to live?" she growled.

The woman stiffened.

"'Cause I don't care if you stink, I just care if you make noise. So, no, you can't go to the bathroom. You gonna be quiet?" The woman nodded stiffly. "Good."

Serena lifted the comb away. "I'm gonna be here for hours, so you make yourself comfortable any way you can, baby."

And with an evil, masculine chuckle she moved off, patterning her movements and the sounds she made on a much larger person than herself, creating an alarming thought picture for the helpless woman to contemplate.

As she walked toward the kitchen, Serena heard the woman sobbing, and shook her head. Maybe I should just terminate her.

She ate in the living room, reading the woman's magazines with fascination.

Grooming appeared to be of paramount importance to humans, who were obsessed with dandruff and body odor, judging from the number of advertisements regarding these problems. The articles were interesting, too.

Serena concluded that this was a magazine for females who enjoyed being dominated by men.

Humans were far more practical and egalitarian where she came from. She smiled as she imagined Captain Marie Graber encountering the stupid games the magazine suggested. Any of the women she'd soldiered with and most of the men had far better sense.

Turning the page, she came across an ad about cellulite. It featured a pair of horribly dimpled thighs. Serena stared at it in revulsion. That can't be real! she thought. A brief tap to her medical data bank said that it could, given severely counterproductive eating and exercise patterns. It is in the nature of this species to destroy itself.

Putting the magazine aside with a little tsk, Serena lay down on the couch and put herself off-line. With a little tweaking of her bodily functions, her computer brain would do in sixty minutes what would other-wise require six hours of sleep. It couldn't be done often, but in circumstances like these it was very useful.

Serena spent the rest of the night in research. By the early morning hours she had several promising leads. All of them would require additional research before she made her approaches, but not from this location.

She opened a Cayman Island and a local bank account then cashed out her stocks, putting the bulk into the Cayman Islands and forty thousand into the local one. After a moment she put her prisoner's money back and gave her a thousand-dollar bonus. How hard, I wonder, will the authorities pursue someone who didn't hurt her and put a thousand dollars into her pocket?

After a moment's thought she put in an extra five hundred. She'd take it out with the woman's cash card, then trash the card. After buying some clothing she'd report her bag as stolen to the police and then get a cash card from her bank.

Hmm. She'd also need credit. Serena hacked into a couple of large banks and opened herself a gold Visa and a platinum MasterCard. She gave herself an excellent payment record, with only a few late payments. She was, after all, only

human. Then she sought out American Express and opened a brand-new account, which she used to make a reservation at a large, luxurious hotel that catered to a business clientele.

Her laptop would also be stolen. That would be insured. She started to arrange it, then stopped herself.

It was time to go.

She changed back into the shorts and cotton shirt, but kept the sandals; none of the other shoes would fit. Serena had noticed the ubiquitous joggers, they seemed invisible to the people around them. So that was how she would leave this neighborhood, an unremarkable, perfectly ordinary, early-morning jogger.

The 1-950 frowned. Ordinary except for the shoes. She went to the woman's underwear drawer and pulled out a pair of heavy sweat socks. In a few moments she'd managed to tug them on over the sandals. A brief check in the mirror told her that from a distance they would probably pass. Humans were prone to seeing what they expected to see.

She swung into the bedroom and released one of the tech's arms. Plugging in the phone, she placed it within the woman's reach, but only if she worked at it. She put the key to the handcuffs beside it.

"I'm leavin'," she said in Gonzales's voice. "Don't move for ten minutes or I'll come back." It sounded like the kind of stupid thing a petty criminal would say.

As an afterthought she wrapped a scarf around her bright hair and put on a baseball cap. Maybe the tech jogged, too. In any case, nosy neighbors, assuming

there were any, probably wouldn't be surprised to see a young woman leave this house on the run. She found some sunglasses and put them on.

Serena was satisfied. She'd acquired food, clothing, and more than sufficient resources, all within hours of her arrival. Skynet would have been pleased.

NEW LIFE ORGANIC FARM, OREGON: THE PRESENT

Ronald Labane hissed with impatience. His son Brian was crying again.

"For Christ's sake, Lisa," he bellowed, "Will you shut that kid up! I'm trying to work!"

She appeared in the door of his office, the howling baby in her arms, a harried expression on her lean face. "I'm sorry, honey, but he's teething."

He couldn't believe that she was trying to make excuses. He didn't want excuses; he wanted silence so he could work.

"Take him out on the porch until he gets quiet," he said in a voice that left no doubt about how angry he was.

Lisa glanced at the window, at cold rain falling out of an iron-gray sky in a steady downfall that suited her mood perfectly. He could see her getting ready to object when the baby let out an earsplitting shriek. Ron started to rise and she turned, grabbed her coat, and went out without another word.

Labane sat back down and seethed for a minute. His concentration was broken. It would be an hour at least before he could get back in the groove. With a curse he

got up and went into the kitchen to get himself a cup of coffee. Automatically he checked the fire in the woodstove.

He loved his son, and pitied him for the pain he must be going through. But sometimes he doubted Lisa's dedication to the cause. Didn't she understand that the cause was all that mattered? If his children were to have a future, there had to be discipline. Discipline and one leader.

He glared at the battered van in the driveway. It was partially powered by sunlight and had a solar apparatus on its roof. For all the good that did them in rain-soaked Oregon. That van was a symbol to Ron, a symbol of how he was right and it still didn't work for him.

Ronald ran a frustrated hand through his thinning hair. Even the other members of the commune were beginning to grow tired of his message. They were doing really well now with the produce from their fields and orchards. The public was at last willing to pay a premium for organic fruits and vegetables.

But there was so much more people needed to know, needed to do. They had to leave something for the future, to do more than merely recycle. They had to live more simply, to rely less on machines.

Yes, that was what he'd been trying to say. Machines were the enemy. More power for the machines was the battle cry. And the machines made more machines, putting people out of work, denying men and women the clean pride of earning a living. Men could live without machines, but woe to the human race if ever machines could do without men.

That was good. I'll have to get that down.

Lisa crossed in front of the window, the baby was quiet now, and since he was wrapped up in her coat she was looking a bit pinched and resentful. Ronald tapped on the window and beckoned her in, then returned to his small office and began to type.

After supper that evening Branwyn called a meeting and they all gathered around the work-worn kitchen table. Ronald eyed her with disfavor.

Ever since Brian's birth, all of the women had started to get agitated. At first he'd thought it was just jealousy, but now he thought it was some sort of nest-building mind-set. They talked about the "children's" future, and how they had to build the "business" for them.

This was a far cry from the rugged, independent pioneers they planned to be when they started the commune. Then it was all hard work and ideals and group sex almost every night. Now it was spreadsheets and a new truck and maybe a mail-order business. George, one of the older members, had even suggested that they hire some help for the harvest.

"Look," Branwyn said, staring right at him, "I hate to say this, Ron, but you're not pulling your weight. Every time someone comes up with a suggestion for expanding our operation, you shoot us down with some high-minded speech about living apart from the capitalists. Well, that might work if you were turning your hand to some of the labor around here, but you're not. We're feeding you, we're washing your clothes, we're paying for the electricity that runs that computer, we're chopping the wood, we're making your bed, and we're doing the dishes. And all we get from you is that we're making too much noise and we're disturbing the great work. Well, who died and anointed you king? What great

work? As far as I'm concerned, you talking to your buds on the Internet isn't going to bring down the consumerist society."

"And all-out surrender is?" he asked acidly. "So tell me, Louise," she flinched.

"Buying a new truck, hiring migrant workers, how is that going to do something for the movement? I never thought I'd see the day when you, of all people"—he looked at each face around the table—"would even suggest supporting the system that has exploited those people for generations."

They looked shamefaced for a moment, and then Branwyn raised her broad face to him.

"Well," she said sweetly, "if you lent a hand now and again, maybe we wouldn't be thinking of hiring people. But the loss of an able-bodied man is hurting us.

And, frankly, I'm planning a child of my own. So I won't be climbing trees for quite a few months. Which means that someone else will have to do the pruning." She offered him a bold look. "HI take over the newsletter for you."

"That's a great idea!'-' Ron sneered. "We're supposed to be starting a revolution, and you'll be offering handy tips on washing windows with vinegar and making hand cream with lanolin and beeswax. That ought to change things!"

Baldur looked at him with those big soft eyes of his and said sadly, "The revolution is supposed to come about based on our example and the free exchange of information. You used to download stuff for us all the time about what other organic farmers were doing. You haven't done that in nearly a year.

Has everybody gone out of business, or what?"

"We are not a business." Ron shouted, hitting the table with his fist hard enough

to make his plate bounce. "We are the seeds of a revolution."

Brian started to cry and Lisa rose from the table, walking back and forth with the baby in her arms. She jogged him and shushed him and glared at Ronald.

Ayesha rubbed a hand over her dark brow and looked at her friends around the table with troubled eyes. "We ah part of a revolution, Ron," she said. "Part of the back-to-the-earth revolution. And we've been so successful that the big concerns ah coming to us to learn how to do what we do. I got this bad feelin', though, that we ah talkin' about different things these days when the word 'revolution' comes up."

Ron glared at her. Dear Ayesha, he thought. Always so tactful. At this moment he found it hard to believe that the sound of her soft accent and the sight of her dark skin used to set him trembling with desire. Right now his sole desire was to strangle her. To murder the whole lot of them. He couldn't believe they'd turned against him like this. Obviously they'd been talking behind his back.

"So what's the bottom line here?" he asked. "Since you've all become so bizzz-ness-oriented."

"The bottom line is straighten up your act or take a hike. This isn't a welfare state," Branwyn said.

The others shifted uneasily. They wouldn't have put it quite so harshly, but that's what he got for calling her Louise.

"And this isn't Jonestown either," Lisa said. "Or any other cult where the women are cattle that get whacked when they don't go where you want."

The others looked at her in astonishment, then at Ron, their mouths hanging open.

"I've never hit you in my life!" Ron protested.

"I've been wondering just lately how long that's going to last," Lisa snapped.

"This afternoon when you ordered me out of the house and started to get up with that look on your face…"

"I was going to close the office door!" He stared at her in frank astonishment.

"The fact that you are apparently paranoid doesn't make me the kind of pig who beats his wife."

"I'm not your wife!"

Ronald threw up his hands. No, she wasn't his wife, but she might as well be.

Over time they'd paired off and Lisa and he had been pretty exclusive for about five years now. She'd had his son, they shared a bed, what more did it take?

"Beats women," he amended. "I'm not the kind of pig that beats women."

Though right now it was beginning to look like a fun thing to do. The people around the table glanced at each other nervously. He didn't know these people anymore—they were older, they were settled, they'd lost their fire. In short, they'd turned into backstabbing, backsliding, budding capitalists. He couldn't let them get in the way of his work.

"All right," he said, hiding his resentment, "put me on the work list."

He got up and went back into the office, softly closing the door behind him. He'd have to move his plans to a new level. Perhaps if he presented it to them in the form of a business plan, it wouldn't scare the craven-hearted losers into full flight.

They weren't his friends and allies anymore, Lisa wasn't his wife, they were assets that he could make use of to achieve his goal. This was the worst betrayal he'd ever allow himself to experience. There wouldn't be another, because he'd never again make the assumption that he had friends.

Ron had always heard that leaders walked alone. Now he knew why. You couldn't afford to let people distract you, because they'd slow you down or stop you completely if they could. And you'd have nobody to blame but yourself.

LOS ANGELES INTERNATIONAL AIRPORT: THE PRESENT

Serena entered the airport wearing a linen pant suit with a tan silk blouse. On her feet were a pair of moderately uncomfortable shoes and at her side was a carry-on bag filled with underpants and stockings and the clothes she'd stolen. She also carried an empty purse and a cheap attache case. She'd been shocked at how expensive these few things had been. Less than a hundred dollars remained in her pocket.

Taking off her sunglasses, she looked around, impressed by the size and bustle.

She wandered for a bit, entered a rest room, where she washed her hands. When the room emptied she tossed her purse and briefcase into her carry-on bag. Then she went looking for airport security.

"You hear about things like this happening," she said, shamefaced, "but you don't expect it to happen to you." She brushed back her hair and tightened her

lips.

It was hard not to stare at the woman behind the desk; she was very overweight and Serena had never seen anyone in such condition in her own time. Skynet didn't allow dysfunction, and the free humans just barely got enough to eat when they were lucky. It fascinated her.

I wonder what could be causing this problem. It must be a problem; these people were less than optimally healthy. How big can humans get without dying? There had to be an upward limit to this phenomenon.

"Happens every day," the bored security woman told her. "The best we can do is file a report so that your insurance company will be satisfied, and your bank. But I'm afraid you'll probably never see your belongings again."

The 1-950 shrugged and rolled her eyes. "I know. I don't expect miracles. After all, I never even got a look at the thieves."

Her story was that she was in a toilet stall when two women or girls grabbed her purse and her laptop from above and below the stall. By the time she got out, they were long gone.

Serena sighed. "Just another day in the big city," she said with a rueful expression.

"Travelers Aid might be able to give you a hand," the security woman suggested dubiously. She never had figured out what those people were supposed to be for.

When they were at their desks at all.

Serena waved a hand. "Fortunately I've got some cash in my pocket. I'll just get to my hotel and they'll help me out. Thank you for your assistance," she said, and extended her hand.

Surprised, the woman shook it. "Good luck," she said.

"After this I deserve some," Serena said over her shoulder as she departed.

It had all been so civilized. The hotel was wonderfully cooperative and sympathetic. American Express had sent a card over to her by courier within the hour. She'd dropped her small suitcase in her room, a very nice room, and had gone shopping for a laptop at a nearby computer store. She was very pleased with her purchase and ready to begin the next phase of her integration with society. If she had actually been robbed she thought that by now she'd be quite soothed.

By tomorrow she should be able to begin acquiring references.

CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS: THE PRESENT

Serena had decided that her first job out of college was with Worlon Systems. It was a small company that created software and software security systems for a very select client list.

The company's decor was sleekly modern, but with soft plush edges, everything open plan and in shades of beige and gray; the whole room whispered money.

What their unfortunate clients didn't know, but the 1-950 did, was that Mr.

Griffith, Worlon's chief of security, could access their accounts anytime he

wished, make any adjustments he wanted to, and then leave without a trace.

Well, there's always a trace, Serena thought. And she had the evidence stored in her laptop.

"Could I use your phone?" she asked the receptionist. "Just to make an internal call."

The woman pointed to a phone on the counter and Serena tapped in a four-digit number. Griffith answered on the first ring with a sharp, distracted, "Yes?"

"Mr. Griffith, my name is Serena Burns. Could I come up and talk to you?"

"You'll have to make an appointment with my secretary," he said. There was a pause. "How did you get this number?"

"Irrelevant, Mr. Griffith. I'm calling in regard to the Babich, Fisher account. A matter of some… delicacy."

"Who did you say you were?" His voice sounded slightly belligerent, but she could detect micro-tremors that said he was surprised and nervous.

"Burns," she told him. "Serena Burns."

"Right now is inconvenient, Ms. Burns."

"I think now would be an excellent time to discuss my work, Mr. Griffith. I have other parties interested in my program."

There was another pause, a longer one this time.

"I'll send my secretary down to escort you up," he said. He didn't trouble to hide his anger, but he couldn't hide his alarm from her educated ear.

* * *

"What are we talking about here, Ms. Burns?" Griffith asked as soon as he'd shut the door in his secretary's startled face. He was a compact man of about fifty, clean-shaven, dark hair receding in classic male pattern baldness. He sat behind his shining ebony desk and assessed her with an expert's eye. "You're not what I expected."

"What we're talking about today is an exchange of favors, Mr. Griffith," Serena said brightly. "I have evidence that you've been selling insider information and that you've been siphoning funds and altering accounts in your clients' files. I'm prepared to give you that evidence and to teach you how to better cover your tracks."

He looked at her without blinking for a long moment, then took a deep breath.

"In exchange for?"

"There's a job I want," she said. "But my employment record is sketchy. Much of the work I do is extremely confidential, and so my clients can't provide references. So when someone calls you up and asks about me, I need you to tell them that you remember me and found me reliable and smart and that you expect me to go a long way."

For a long moment he looked her in the eye. Serena supposed he was attempting some sort of dominance game, but he hadn't a chance. She held all the cards here

and she, genuinely didn't care how he felt about it.

"And when were you supposed to have worked here, exactly?" he finally asked.

"I've already created a record of my employment and installed it in your system,"

she said. "It was approximately five years ago. It would look suspicious if you were too specific about the dates, don't you think?"

"You must be pretty good," he said with a tilt of his head.

"Yes," she said frankly. "Too good for you to fool. Come now, Mr. Griffth—let's do business. I'm not asking for much, I just want a fair shot at this job. And I have no particular interest in hanging you out to dry. In exchange for your cooperation I'll give you peace of mind by erasing all traces of your activity at Babich, Fisher." She cocked her head. "You don't have to tell them you liked me.

In fact you can say you hate my guts. All I ask is that you tell them I'm good at my job."

"All right," he agreed.

She stood. "Thank you, Mr. Griffith." Serena placed her laptop on his desk and extracted a disk. "This contains all of the information that I've found, with instructions on how to avoid leaving the same trail. Shall I remove your footprints from your clients' files or would you prefer to do it?"

He took the disk from her. "I'll take care of it," he said gruffly.

"You won't be sorry, Mr. Griffith." Serena went to the door then stopped, her hand on the doorknob, and glanced over her shoulder. "Unless, that is, you let

me down." Her eyes promised that he'd be very sorry indeed if he did that.

"I don't break my promises, Ms. Burns."

She smiled and let herself out. This from a man who's stealing from his clients.

NEW LIFE ORGANIC FARM, OREGON: THE PRESENT

"I'm sorry about that scene the other night," George said.

Ronald stopped spraying the soap mixture and looked down at him. The fresh spring air and the scent of blossom wafted by, unnoticed. Birds hopped and cheeped, and something small and furry scurried through a row of blackberry bushes not far away, intent on its own affairs.

"That wasn't a scene," Ron said, "that was an assassination attempt."

George curled up his lips and looked down at his work boots. "No one is trying to kill you, Ron," the older man said.

Labane climbed down the ladder so that he could look him in the eye.

"You have all lost your focus," he said. "You now want nothing more than to have a nice peaceful life with slippers and babies and apple pie and screw the revolution. Let the kids take care of it, I'm tired," he mimicked. "When we were kids we were going to do it. Now you want the ones you were going to do it for to do it for you!"

George shrugged and rubbed the back of his neck. "Maybe we're older and we've got a better sense of perspective," he offered. "We know what a giant job it is

and that maybe it's too much for just us to do."

"You know what, George? The only people who ever accomplish anything in this world are the ones who are prepared to risk everything. People who try to hold on to what they've got and play by the rules just get old and die and a generation later nobody even knows they ever lived at all. They don't get rich, they don't change anything, they just spawn and die."

He moved a little closer, standing in George's space.

"But I haven't lost my focus. I am willing to risk everything and there isn't one of you that doesn't scare easy. You resent it, too. And that's what that 'scene' the other night was really about. It was about fear and knowing that you'll never accomplish your goals because you've lost the will. And envy that I haven't given up."

George stepped back a couple of paces and frowned. "You keep using these violent words, man. 'Assassination' and 'revolution' and 'fear.' Just what do you mean when you say stuff like that?"

Ron looked at him in mild exasperation. Sometimes he thought George was a bit dim. He was a wonderful agriculturist, the most valuable member of the commune in that respect. But sometime he came on so dumb!

"When I said 'assassination' I was speaking metaphorically. When I talk about fear I'm talking about financial risk and losing the good opinion of the neighbors.

When I say 'revolution' I'm talking about a grass-roots movement, maybe something like a religious conversion, where we finally get people to realize the danger this whole planet is in! You used to say 'revolution' all the time, and you

knew what it meant then." He looked at his onetime friend and shook his head.

"It wasn't all that long ago, George." He leaned down and picked up the sprayer.

"I feel sorry for you."

Labane turned and walked away, a little smile playing on his lips. That had felt good.

The next morning he slapped his manuscript down on the table and announced,

"I'm going in to town. Does anyone need anything?"

Every eye was on the pile of paper.

"What's that?" Branwyn asked, coming over from the sink to look at it.

"That," Ron said, putting on his jacket, "is my book. Which I am shipping off to New York today."

" The New Luddite Manifesto," Lisa read. "Congratulations, honey." She put her hand on his neck and reached up to kiss his cheek.

Ron simply stared at her blankly. Since the big meeting he'd been sleeping on the cot in his office. As far as he was concerned there was no longer anything between them. The sooner she got used to that, the better for both of them.

"So no one needs anything?" he said to the group at large.

They shook their heads, silenced by his coldness to Lisa.

"Okay, bye."

It wasn't until he was actually in the van that he realized he wasn't coming back.

He was going to drive his manuscript to New York. He was going to hand-deliver it to the editor and make that man or woman listen to him. Because giving up on your dreams meant you were ready to lie down and die and he was a long, long way from that.

As far as Ron was concerned he was leaving behind a house full of the walking dead. It was time to cut his losses and look to the future. As he drove past the house the baby began to cry.

CHAPTER FOUR

VILLA HAYES, PARAGUAY: THE

PRESENT

Suzanne Krieger… nee Sarah Connor, she thought. In my previous, pre-Terminators, pre-change-the-future existence… finished signing the contract with a flourish and tipped her chair back, taking a quick look out into the garage through the grimy, streaked glass of the office window.

One of her company's trucks had its hood up and its guts laid out, but nobody seemed to be around. She slid open the second drawer of her desk, and slipped out a flask of cana. Sarah/Suzanne unscrewed the cap and added a healthy dollop of the cane alcohol to her terere, an iced mate drink she'd grown fond of. It went down even smoother with a little help. It also made her sweat a little, but everyone did that in the Chaco—summers here ran over a hundred every day, and it wasn't a dry heat, either.

"Senora," a weary voice said. There was a hint of censure in it.

Sarah's mouth twisted in exasperation and she looked over at Ernesto Jaramillo, her chief mechanic. His broad, mustachioed face was set, his dark eyes sad.

"Where the heck did you come from?" she asked defensively. "A second ago there wasn't anybody around." She stubbed out her cigarette impatiently.

"It's not even eleven o'clock in the morning, senora," Ernesto pointed out.

"What's an hour or so among friends?" she asked, turning to her work. "Did you want something?"

"That stuff will rot your liver," he said.

"Mmmm. Rotten liver, that sounds like a happy condition." Sarah adjusted her ashtray, then turned over a paper and signed the one beneath it. "Did you want something, Ernesto?" She gave him a sidelong glance.

He shrugged, frowning.

"I just want you to be healthy, senora," he grumbled.

She turned and looked squarely at him. "Thank you, Ernesto. I know you mean well, but I'm not doing anything wrong, here. The business isn't going to fail because I like flavoring my tea with cana." She smiled at him.

He smiled back, shaking his head. Then he shrugged. "I just came to tell you that Meylinda is going to take her break in about five minutes."

"Thanks," Sarah said. "I'll be there in a second."

He lifted his hand in a sort of salute and wandered off. Sarah/Suzanne watched him go, then took another sip. I can't believe the way I pussyfoot around people these days, she thought. Not so very long ago she'd have told Ernesto what he could do with his fatherly concern. But there was no help for it if she was to blend in. Paraguayan culture required women to be mild and somewhat subservient. She was cutting-edge here just for being the boss. Milquetoast that I am.

Sarah stood and smoothed down her narrow dark skirt then checked her hair in the mirror. Even now her appearance sometimes surprised her. The short, dark brown hair cut close around her face and the big, heavy frames of her fake glasses made her look more fragile somehow. But the darkness of her hair brought out the blue of her eyes with surprising intensity. She was feminine enough still to like that. It made up a little for the ugly glasses. A necessary disguise that kept people at a distance.

Outside of work she wore sunglasses, always. Except at night, of course. But since she never went anywhere at night it didn't matter.

Sometimes her lack of a social life bothered her. With John away in school, it was lonely out on her little estancia. But as a single mother, a businesswoman, and a foreigner… people around here genuinely didn't know what to make of her. They avoided any discomfort by avoiding her. Not that that stopped them talking, of course. This place had the small-town vices in spades.

Sometimes she thought it was just as well, sometimes she worried that she should be more involved. With something feminine like a bake sale for charity or

something. After all, her trucking company sponsored a local baseball team, which was a very popular move, but somehow the locals had persuaded themselves that it was her workers who sponsored the team rather than herself. It came down to gender again. If she had been born male she would have been absorbed into this town years ago.

She also handled more than a little of the local smuggling market. Sarah had expected people to suck up to her a bit because of that. But it turned out that was also a strike against her. Smuggling was man's work. As were trucks. Her story of inheriting the business from her husband was the only thing that had made it possible for her to get along at all here.

The local women were very nice to her but kept their distance. Even Meylinda was no more than politely friendly. Sarah had once been checked out by a local widower who was essentially looking for an unpaid housekeeper/nanny that he could boink without censure. But she'd run him off as quickly as she could. She knew she'd have killed the man in a week, leaving seven little big-eyed orphans behind. Then I'd have felt obligated to raise the little monsters.

Once in a while she considered selling up and moving to Asuncidn to become a secretary or even a waitress. But then she'd remember the peace and quiet of her estancia and Linda, her mare, and she'd put it out of her mind. Changing locations wouldn't change who she was anyway. It wasn't just that she was a foreigner and a woman that kept people away. Sometimes, when she was tired or not thinking and sometimes deliberately… she radiated danger and distrust.

With a half smile Sarah put down her brush and fluffed her bangs. Funny, that's just what makes the smugglers trust me. She added a touch of lipstick. Her

mouth was the same, still the full lower lip, but now it was bracketed with what she chose to refer to as smile lines. Not that anyone would want to see the smile that could produce such marks.

Sarah walked into the front office with her drink and her cigarettes to find Meylinda browsing a magazine instead of filing the massive stack of invoices at her elbow. Sarah suppressed a sigh. She'd fire the girl in a New York minute except that Meylinda was a vast improvement over the previous two. Being a known smuggler kept many families from allowing their daughters to work for her. Including the families of smugglers. She was lucky to have anyone.

Tapping out a cigarette, she smiled at her employee.

"Oh! Thank you for coming, senora. See you in fifteen minutes," Meylinda said cheerfully. She picked up her pocketbook and magazine and flitted out the front door.

Fifteen minutes. Right. Sarah lit up and took a drag of her cigarette. Picking up the stack of invoices, she took them over to the filing cabinet. I'll be lucky if she makes it back in time to go to lunch.

Ernesto had told her that there was an apparently serious flirtation going on between Meylinda and a boy who worked at the confiten'a down the street. And serious flirting took time. I wonder if she'll be getting married soon. If so Sarah would soon be in the market for another receptionist. She dreaded the prospect.

There was someone behind her. Sarah continued to place invoices in their files as she tried to sense something about the mysterious presence. It didn't smell like one of the mechanics or drivers, no sharp scent of gas or oil. She heard the

whisper of fabric, of slacks or jeans, making it probable the intruder was a male.

He moved young. And then she knew.

"Hi, John," she said, smiling.

"How do you do that?" he demanded. "I could have sworn I didn't make a sound."

She turned, still smiling, and opened her arms to him. When he stepped into her hug she blinked to find her chin resting on his shoulder. "Whoa!" she said, holding him off. "You've grown!"

"I'm sixteen, Mom. It happens." He looked smug as he said it.

Sarah looked him over, shaking her head. There was a lighter mark on the cuffs of his school uniform jacket where the sleeves had been taken down, but even so his wrist-bones were visible. The trousers showed the same problem.

"Did they send you home early for being a disgrace to your uniform?" she asked.

"They sent me home be-cause." He held up an envelope containing his report card.

Sarah took it with a raised eyebrow and opened it. There was a note inside from the principal/commandant of the very expensive military academy she was sending him to.

It told her that her son was an extraordinary student who had saved the life of one of his fellows while they were out on field maneuvers. The boy had been bitten by a snake. John had applied a tourniquet, and had organized his squad to

make a stretcher from their rifles and blankets, and then he had led them back to the academy. For this presence of mind, for his exceptional leadership qualities, and for getting straight A's, he was being rewarded by being sent on summer break early.

"Congratulations," she said. Quiet pride shone from her eyes.

He waggled his eyebrows and grinned.

"Hey, I had a good teacher. I'm supposed to be, like, this great military leader, remember?"

She hugged him again, knowing he didn't mean the teachers at the academy.

"Exceptional leadership qualities, the commandant says," Sarah reminded him.

"Nobody can teach you that."

"Yeah, but you knew that before I was hatched," he said. "No prob-lemo. It's just my nature."

Sarah snorted. "Don't get cocky, kid. It's when you're taking bows that the world most likes to kick your butt. Listen, I'm kinda stuck here." She looked over her shoulder at the messy desk. "Meylinda's on break and in love."

John laughed. "You want me to hunt her down?"

"Mmmm. No, I've still got a couple of things to finish up. But if you can entertain yourself until one, I'll call it quits for the day and let Ernesto lock up."

"Great," he said. "God, I'm dying of thirst." John went to the desk and picked up

the glass of terere". "This yours, Mom?" He took a gulp before she could stop him. "Hooo-waah!" he said, tears in his eyes. "What did you put in this," he rasped, "battery acid?" He waved a hand in front of his face. "Whoo!"

"That's what you get for not asking permission," she said, coming over to the desk. Sarah took another drag of her cigarette and rolled her eyes at his disapproving glare. "What?" she snapped.

"I thought you'd given up smoking," he said. He looked disappointed.

This is not my day, she thought. Every man I see is disappointed or disapproving. Then she felt a little brighter inside. She'd actually thought of her son as a man.

"I mean after what you went through quitting last summer, I can't believe you took it up again." He shifted his stance awkwardly, then put down the terere.

"C'mon, Mom, you're tougher than that."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Okay, okay." She tamped out the cigarette. "But can we talk about this later, hmm?"

"Sure. Um, I'll go get a soda, or something. Maybe keep an eye on Meylinda."

Sarah laughed. "She'll probably use you to make this new guy jealous. Do you need money?"

"Nah, I've got some." He looked at her for a moment, and then he reached over and gave her a peck on the cheek. "See ya in a couple of hours."

"Bye." She watched him go, noting the new maturity in his walk, and sighed.

Funny he mentioned the cigarettes but not the cana in her tea. He would, though.

She could rely on that.

John walked down the dusty street with his hands in his pockets, listening to conversations in Guarni and Spanish and several dialects of German—all of which he spoke—and acknowledging waves. A punishable offense on campus, so he did it every chance he got.

Quite a difference from the days when I was rippin' off ATM cards, he thought with a twisted little smile.

The extent of his crimes these days was making his jacket look baggy and maybe smuggling beer or cookies into the dorm. The air smelled powerfully of dry dust and the odors that went with being a cow-town; the owners of the estancias around drove their stock here for the big semis to pick up. From here he could see the green of paddocks, the gray-green thorny Chaco scrub, and the long sandy bareness of the road. Palms lined the road, rustling dryly in the heat.

He passed the confiten'a and looking through the window caught sight of a smiling Meylinda in close conference with a guy whose vast black mustache dominated his thin brown face.

He wondered if his mother might once have been such a girl. A girl with nothing more on her mind than clothes and guys.

Meylinda was a fairly pretty girl. Surely she had other options. John shook his head in puzzlement and moved on. His mother had often said that if women didn't have bad taste in men there wouldn't be a human race.

His mother.

He could still feel the heat of the cana in his stomach. For a few seconds he'd actually been light-headed from the stuff. John felt the slow burn from an ember of resentment deep in his heart. They were not, by any means, so safe and comfortable that it was all right for his mother to sweeten her tea with one-hundred-proof cane juice.

He'd never forgotten the shock that had buzzed through him when he discovered that he was wanted for the murder of his foster parents. I was ten fucking years old, for Christ's sake! They'd been stabbed to death, both of them in the head.

Even if he'd had the upper-body strength he couldn't have reached that high.

Still, even he had to concede that it was a not completely unreasonable deduction given his activities later the same day. And, of course, a T-1000 made of liquid metal would be completely off their radar. So it had to be me, or me and Mom that killed them.

So what the hell was his mother doing slurping cana in the morning? It made him feel vulnerable and confused and he hated that. Besides, the knowledge that his mother could have a weakness so human was disturbing at a deep level. All his life she'd been a rock.

He pictured himself putting her to bed, limp and soggy with drink, and he shuddered. I can't face that, he told himself.

He'd come to rest in the shade of a tree, the park that was the center of the plaza before him. Several boys around his own age were kicking around a soccer ball

and screaming curses and encouragement.

John watched them play. He knew them all, street kids most of them and very tough, who'd made him prove himself over and over until he'd convinced them that he was even tougher than they were. They'd gang up on him and win the day. But he'd seek them out when they were alone and they'd have a little one-on-one. He'd told them as they lay on the ground bleeding and panting, "Don't make me do this again." No one ever had. Instead one day they'd kicked him the ball, and that was it, he was in.

In a minute they'd notice him, tease him about his uniform, and invite him to join the game. And he would. And he'd enjoy himself. But he knew that some part of himself would hold back, would observe and evaluate everyone around him.

Well, maybe it's the Terminators. Or maybe it was the way Mom brought me up, knowing I was supposed to save the human race from Skynet. My big fat fucking destiny to save the human race and send my own father back through time to save Mom.

Maybe it was because he didn't have a destiny anymore.

Not that he was going to complain if the world didn't go up in a ball of fire, far from it. But he was pretty much restricted in what he could do and where he could go. He sure as hell couldn't go to college in the United States, now, could he? As for achieving even minor notoriety here in Paraguay, he'd have to be very, very careful lest someone from the CIA or something recognize him or his mother and start extradition proceedings. There were a lot of people hiding out here; it Was a pretty easygoing country, and if you had some cash nobody made problems. But it was one thing to let the kids of a bunch of Germans who'd

arrived in 1946 linger, and another to annoy the U.S. by sheltering a couple of gen-u-ine badass capital-T Terrorists.

It shouldn't matter. It should be easy to let go of ambition, especially at sixteen.

But all of his life John had been told that he was destined for greatness, that he was born to be a hero. Now he seemed destined to run a little trucking company and be a small-time smuggler.

Definitely a blow to the old self-esteem. A self-deprecating smile tugged at his lips. Poor me, he thought to himself. Saved the world at ten and I'm like, where do I go from here? It's all downhill. He grinned. John, you have got to get over yourself. I mean, remember what you always thought of dickweeds who spent their time being sorry for themselves.

Carlos, the youngest of the soccer players, saw him and yelled his name. The others turned and drifted over. Francisco Encinas, the tallest and the gang's leader, played it cool, looking John up and down.

"All dressed up," he said mockingly. "You going to a costume party?"

John gave him a slow grin. "I just got home in time to see you kick that ball like an old lady," he countered. "Where'd you pick up those moves? You been folk-dancing again?"

The other kids chuckled and Carlos did a couple of shuffling steps. Francisco gave him a playful shove.

"Last time you played with us you spent most of the time on your face in the mud," Francisco reminded John. "So you gonna play or you gonna talk?"

John took off his uniform jacket, folded it and put it under the tree, dragged off his tie, and unbuttoned his shirt.

"I thought you'd never ask."

Sarah found him there, still playing, a couple of hours later. She leaned against the tree beside his folded jacket and watched him. He was good— graceful and deadly accurate. Much taller now; he'd be six feet or so when he was grown.

Taller than his father—but then, he hadn't grown up scrabbling for food in the ruins of Skynet's war of extermination. Darker than either of them, hair brown-black and cropped short now; his tanned face was sharp and his chin came to a near point. He'd never had baby fat, but now he moved like an athlete, his shoulders growing broad and legs long. The other kids scrambled to keep up with him. John noticed her and waved; she waved back. He said a few words to the others and ran over to her.

"You don't have to stop," she said. "I'm perfectly content to watch."

"Are you kidding? You've saved me, I'm totally bushed. They got me up at five this morning and these guys could go on all day." He grinned at her, panting lightly. "I'm also starved."

"Do you want to eat in town?" she asked. "Or can you wait until we get home?"

"I wouldn't say no to some empty calories to tide me over," he said. "But I'd rather wait till we get home for real food. I miss your cooking."

Sarah laughed outright at that. "Those are words I never expected to hear."

"Don't sell yourself short, Mom," he said. "Nobody makes a campfire stew like you do. Nobody."

John indulged himself with a banana split, the very sight off which made Sarah's teeth tingle. But at his age boys had hollow legs and could take the calories.

Besides, at his school they probably proscribed anything sweet that didn't come directly from a tree.

"Mmmm," he said around a mouthful of whipped cream. "I've been imagining this since yesterday."

"Is it good?" she asked.

"Mmm-hmm. Almost as good as I remember." He licked the back of his spoon as he looked at her. "You aren't much for sweets, are ya?"

"Not ice cream, for some reason," Sarah agreed.

"But otherwise you're so rational."

She laughed at that, and then smiled at him.

"I've missed you."

"Missed you, too, Mom."

He waited until they were driving home to tackle some of the things that were on his mind.

"Do you mind if we don't go camping for a while?" he asked.

"How long is a while?" she asked. "I wanted to go to Ciuidad del Este before the end of next month. I've got a few appointments and I thought we could hit Parque Nacional Caaguazu for a couple of weeks or so and then swing up to the city." Sarah shrugged. "We can go camping anytime, I guess. Why?"

"Luis Salcido's family is having an asado to welcome him home from school and we're invited."

"Both of us?" Sarah asked. She was surprised and warily pleased. The Salcidos were a fairly prominent family in the area but they'd never been more than polite to her.

"Yeah," John said. "Luis and I really hit it off this semester."

Sarah thought for a moment. "He has a very attractive sister, hasn't he?" she said at last.

"Am I that transparent?" John asked with a grin.

"Transparent? As in obvious, self-evident, unsubtle? Nah!"

"Unsubtle? Moi? I never even looked at Consuela last year."

"She wasn't worth looking at last year."

"Harsh, Mom. True, but harsh."

Sarah grinned; she'd missed bantering with him.

"So when is this asado?" she asked.

"Next Saturday."

"No problem," Sarah said. "I couldn't get away myself before then." Maybe he doesn't want to go camping, she suddenly thought.

They'd always done some wilderness stuff to keep their skills sharp, or maybe just to keep from getting bored. But John was getting older now; he was of an age to want to make his own choices about how he'd spend his time. And who he'll want to spend time with. I suppose it's more healthy for him to want to spend time with his friends and cute girls than with his mother. The proper thing to do, she supposed, was to let him choose the time and place for their trip, if he wanted to do it at all.

"Can we bring Luis along when we do go?" John asked, watching her face.

"Absolutely," she said, relieved. "Provided his folks don't object."

"If we wait a bit and let them get sick of him first, they shouldn't."

Sarah chuckled. "You know too much about human nature for a sixteen-year-old," she observed, only half kidding. "You guys figure out where you want to go and we'll do it." Sarah gave him a brief glance and a warm smile. "It'll be fun."

After a moment she asked, "Does he have any equipment?"

"I doubt it," John said. "They're not much for the great outdoors in his family. I suspect his mother thinks camping is déclassé."

"I suspect his mother thinks I'm déclassé," Sarah said.

John shook his head. "I doubt she knows what to think of you, Mom. I mean she's lived in Villa Hayes all her life. To her you're the ultimate in exotic. Like, wow, you can drive a truck!"

"That's so unfeminine!" Sarah drove on, grinning.

John gave her a weak grin. "Fortunately, she's not invited."

"What about Consuela? She invited, hmm?"

"Well, Mom, while that would make my vacation and while she'd certainly be more than welcome, I think it's more likely that her parents would adopt me. Or even you."

Sarah laughed and shook her head. "They do protect their girls."

"Mom?" John said after a moment. "Didja ever notice how we both say 'they'?"

She glanced at him.

"I mean"—he shifted around in his seat until he was facing her—

"wherever we are we're not… native, I guess. Not in the States, not here either, not anywhere we lived. There's us and there's them. When do we get to be a part of them?"

For a few moments Sarah looked straight ahead and just drove. Then she

shrugged and tipped her head a bit.

"I dunno. I guess when we feel comfortable with the people around us." She shook her head". "There's no easy answer to that one, John." Sarah flicked a glance at him. "I wish there were, hon. But there isn't. Although"—she wrinkled her forehead—"and don't take this the wrong way, all right? But it is common for people your age to feel alienated."

John rolled his eyes. "Mom! Cut me some slack here, okay?"

"What I mean is that your feelings of alienation might be more pronounced right now and that you should take that into consideration. Even if everything in our lives was perfectly normal…"

"You mean if my father wasn't from the future and we'd never even heard of Terminators, never mind had to run for our lives and save the future?"

She tightened her lips. "Yes," she said evenly with a quick sidelong glance.

"That's what I mean. You know where I'm going with this?"

"Uh-huh." John sat forward again and waved a hand. "It's one of those phases I'm going through."

"No, that's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the situation may be more painful because of a phase you're going through." After a somewhat hurt pause she said, "I've never brushed you off, John. I'm not about to start now."

"I know, Mom. I just wish—" He stopped, too tired to go on.

"I wish, too, hon."

They were almost home when he brought up what was really bothering him.

John watched his mother from the corner of his eye while he pretended to look at the road ahead. She looked worn. Her face had settled into a sort of irritated-looking softness. The result of trying to look blank while playing against the odds for half a lifetime, he supposed.

He turned to look out at the passing landscape. Since the Terminator had shown up, revealing the truth of his mother's lonely struggle, he'd been in awe of her strength. Now, with the future assured, thanks in large part to her efforts, he was watching that strength crumbling away from lack of purpose. He understood, and sympathized. How often had he lain awake contemplating a future that held no particular place for him?

Frustration, loneliness, and sheer boredom were taking a toll on both of them.

Sometimes the urges they prompted in him frightened him. But his mom seemed to actually be giving in to those urges. If there was one emotion he'd always recognize in himself and in others it was fear, and right now he was genuinely afraid for his mother.

So the question was—too scared to do anything about it? John shifted in his seat.

Was he willing to watch her slide down that same slippery slope that beckoned to him out of fear, or misplaced empathy?

"How long have you been drinking?" he asked abruptly.

Startled by the suddenness of the question, Sarah's mouth opened. She closed it without speaking and they drove on for a full minute in silence. She could feel

his eyes on her. "Since I was about fifteen," she said. "That's when I had my first beer."

"You know what I mean, Mo—"

She turned to look at him, frowning. "John, don't try to parent me, okay?"

Hastily turning forward to steer the Jeep around a major pothole, she went silent for a minute. "Today it just sounded really tasty to me to have a little cana in my iced tea. I don't do it every day and it wasn't that much anyway."

"Mom, it almost knocked me off my feet!"

With a grin she said, "It is potent. But there was maybe a tablespoon in there. I don't do it all the time, but once in a while I like a little. Where's the harm?"

Sarah glanced at him. "I don't get drunk, John, if that's what you're worrying about." yes, that is what I'm worrying about. Aloud he said, "When did you start drinking it?"

"When did you drink enough of it to recognize the taste after one swallow?" she countered.

"Hey, I'm a teenager. We have our ways."

Sarah sneaked a glance at him. He was trying to be cool, but she could see he was uncomfortable and unhappy. "I had a really bad cold last winter, it just wouldn't go away. One of the drivers brought me a flask and said to add it to my tea. It'll clear it right up, he said." She turned to John. "And you know what? It did."

"Musta been that pure alcohol running through your veins," John muttered. "Or maybe it was the nicotine."

"Sheesh! No smoking, no drinking! Do you want me to join a nunnery or hire a chaperon?"

He looked at his lap, and then returned to staring out his window. "Sorry, Mom,"

he muttered.

Sarah rolled her eyes. "Sweetheart," she said quietly, "we have to rely on each other, and we have to take care of one another. But that will go easier for both of us if we don't try to micromanage each other's life."

John slid her a sardonic glance, which she couldn't appreciate because she was focusing on the increasingly rough road. This from the woman who sent me to military school, he thought. Where micromanaging lives is what they do all day, every day. Have you no shame, Mom?

John stifled a sigh. He'd just have to watch her. He thought this behavior was new, but couldn't be certain. Their camping trip would be the perfect opportunity to find out just how far it had gone. A few weeks in the wilderness should dry her out nicely.

Sarah lay in bed, smoking and thinking, staring at the rough plaster of the ceiling and watching the smoke rise in curls through the moonlight. Thinking that this would be one of her last cigarettes until John went back to school. Thinking about the girl she had been and wondering what kind of woman she'd be now if Kyle Reese and the Terminator hadn't come into her life.

Just lately she'd been sincerely regretting the loss of that girl, even while she winced at how clueless she'd been.

Why me? she wondered for the millionth time.

With an impatient grimace she stubbed out her cigarette. Such thoughts were a waste of time. She knew she should fight the impulse to indulge them. But she was so isolated here that it got harder and harder not to wallow in self-pity.

She punched her pillow and turned to a more comfortable position in the bed.

Self-pity had never been one of her flaws before. And heaven knew she had reason to be happy. She was safe; more importantly, John was safe. The future, as far as she could tell, was assured. They had a nice comfortable life here in Villa Hayes. They didn't even have to associate with much in the way of lowlife, except smugglers—and smugglers were quite respectable, in Paraguay.

A nice, comfortable, deadly dull, boring, empty life. She sighed. The girl she'd been would probably have found this life very fulfilling. She wished she could somehow achieve that attitude. She also wished she could have a little glass of cana to help send her off to sleep. But John's obvious distress stopped her. The craving she was feeling right now stopped her.

She'd be a fool to have come so far only to lose everything to demon rum. The only thing left in my life that means anything to me is my son. I will not lose his respect. So she'd just have to get used to going to sleep the natural way.

At least she didn't have the nightmare anymore. For a moment she ground her face into the pillow as the thought brought back the images. The searing flash of white light as the bomb ignited, the burning bodies bursting apart as the blast

wave struck them, her own body reduced to bones, yet still alive…

Now when she had nightmares they were mostly of the asylum. Certainly that was nightmare enough for anybody. That creepy asshole Douglas and his nightstick ratcheting against the doors at night, that was always a part of it.

I hope I crippled the bastard, she thought. Killing was altogether too good for him.

And Dr. Silberman with his feigned compassion and understanding. Sarah grinned as she thought about the way she'd last seen him, pressed up against the wall with his mouth hinging open as the fluid form of the T-1000 went through the lockdown bars.

I wonder how long it took him to convince himself that what he'd seen was some sort of "mass hallucination" What a paper that would make.

Go to sleep! she ordered herself. Not surprisingly that didn't work. With a sigh she got up, put on her robe, and went out onto the portal, the tile cool under her feet, the night alive with the sound of tropical insect life. She was startled momentarily to find someone out there.

"John?"

"Hi Mom, can't sleep?"

"That's my line." She sat beside him on the swing. "I know you're worried about me," Sarah said. "No need. A word to the wise, as they say. If it worries you, it's gone. Okay?"

He let out a long sigh. "Thank you," he said simply.

"No problem." Well, it might be, but it would be her problem. No reason for John to know anything about it.

They sat in companionable silence for a while, enjoying the soft, spring night.

"Think you'll be able to sleep now?" she asked after a while.

"Yeah." John was surprised to realize that he did think so.

"Me, too. Let's go in and hit the hay."

"Good night," he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

"G'night, hon."

"So what are you going to do today?" Sarah asked, tearing apart a galleta and nibbling on the hot bread.

The rolls were a breakfast favorite for both of them. So was the room, big and sunny—shady where it gave on the veranda. The casa grande wasn't actually very grand, about eighty years old, but built of whitewashed adobe and tile in a style much older. It had been the center of a much larger property once, but she'd bought only enough to give her privacy and pasture for a horse or two.

John tipped his head from side ta side with his mouth turned down. "I dunno.

Thought I might take Linda for a little exercise. If that's all right with you?"

"No problem, she's getting fat and stir-crazy." Sarah took a sip of her mate. "So I'll leave you to your own devices for today?"

" Si. I think basically I'll just luxuriate and do nothing."

"Translation, everybody else I know is still in school. Well"—she tipped her head to the side—"except for that crowd of ne'er-do-wells that hang out at the plaza."

John waved a hand. "Nah! Not in the mood."

Sarah smiled a slow smile and he pretended not to notice.

"You're afraid I'll put you to work."

"Not on my first day," he said. "You wouldn't be so cruel and I deny that I would ever think of you so, mamacita."

She chuckled. "Mamacita?" She looked off over the fields, grinning. "Is that how you see me these days? Your good, old, gray-haired, gingerbread-baking little mama?"

"The day I catch you baking gingerbread in a frilly apron, Mom, is the day I leave home. Whatchoo talkin' about, gray hair!" He gave her a look of comic disgust and Sarah laughed.

"I do have something I have to ask you," she said. "And I can't believe I'm asking this. How should I dress for the Salcidos' asado? I mean are we talking about a sittin'-on-the-hay-bales kind of a do, or is it more like the barbecue in

Gone With the Wind"

John spread his hands helplessly, his face a study in amused disbelief. " You can't believe you're asking this? I can't believe you're asking me this. How should I know? I supposed Luis will have his mom send us an invitation; maybe that will tell us."

"If we get an invitation, it's almost certain to be formal," Sarah mused. "I mean people don't send invitations for casual barbecues." She shrugged. "At least they didn't in the States."

"I'll check with Luis when he gets home," John promised. He waggled his eyebrows. "I don't want us to make a bad impression."

"Too late for that," Sarah told him sadly. "But with the right duds we might save the day."

"New clothes?" he said. "Me, too; me, too."

"I'll expect you to work off the expense," she said with a mean-eyed glare.

"Muck out the stall," he said in resignation. "Paint the trim, clean the chimney, clean the closets…"

"I mean down at the company," Sarah said seriously. "It's time we got you an official driver's license for one thing. And you need to know how the business works. That's another reason I'd like you to come with me to Ciudad del Este; you need to meet my contacts."

John turned serious. "I don't know if I want to do that," he said. He'd had more than enough of secret meetings in squalid rooms with people who genuinely gave him the creeps.

"We'd starve to death without the smuggling, hon." She tilted her head and studied him. Instinct told her that there was more at work here than just standard teenage rebellion. "And it's not like we're bringing in guns or drugs. It's just stuff like computers and CDs and so on. Smuggling is what keeps this country running, John. It's like a huge, unofficial, un-sanctioned national industry."

"Yeah, I know. But that's not the way it's always going to be, Mom. People like Luis want their country to get rich and they know it won't happen by smuggling in everything they want. Things are going to change in the next decade or so and I don't want either one of us to end up in jail."

Sarah let out a breath, halfway between exasperation and admiration. "You may well be right," she conceded. "But I think we're intelligent enough to recognize the signs and get out of the business before they come to take us away; For right now, though, people rely on us, and frankly, they need us. At least we don't dump knockoffs on them."

"You're right," he agreed, falsely chipper. "We may be criminals, but at least we're not murderers."

Sarah rolled her eyes. "I've got to go to work. We can continue this later, if you like. I'll be home around six," she said, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.

The door slammed behind her and she took a step, then leaned back to say through the screen, "Welcome home, son. Love ya."

"Love you, too, Mom."

The waitress put down the barbecue beef sandwich with a smile.

"Ah! I forgot your terere, senora. I'll be right back."

Sarah smiled and nodded; they knew exactly what she liked here, she didn't even have to ask. Of course, they should know. She'd had lunch at the confiteria just down the street from her business for the past five years. Sarah found it reassuring, almost a luxury, to allow others to know her, even to this small extent. To her it symbolized that her life here was free and above board.

She picked up the sandwich in both hands; it was one big piece, hand-cut bread and juicy meat, nothing fancy but all very good. Sarah opened her mouth wide for her first bite.

Her peripheral vision caught a Jeep passing by outside. The driver was male, no passengers.

Adrenaline kicked her heartbeat into overdrive and her stomach clenched like an angry fist; her breath stopped as though she'd been suddenly plunged into cold water.

Sarah froze with the sandwich almost in her mouth. I can't be having the DTs, she thought. I wasn't drinking that heavily!

She could have sworn that she had just seen a Terminator drive by.

She lowered the sandwich, struggling to swallow and breathe at the same time,

and carefully turned to look out the window, down the street where the Jeep had gone. Flashback? she asked herself. The vehicle was still there. The driver was talking to one of the kids who hung out in the park. She couldn't see his face, but the general shape of him…

"Here we are, senora!" the waitress said cheerfully, setting down an iced glass of terere!

Sarah jumped and gasped, whipping her head around to stare at the waitress.

"Oh, senora, you're pale. Are you all right?"

Sarah swallowed and tried to smile. "Yes," she said. "I just thought I saw someone I knew."

The waitress leaned toward the window, looking down the street. Sarah turned to look, too, just as the Jeep started up again.

"Ahhh, that is Senor von Rossbach." The waitress sighed. "What a kuimbae.

Whoo!" she said and fanned her face with her hand. "You know him?"

"No," Sarah said and cleared her throat. She put down her sandwich. "He looked like someone I used to know." She frowned. "Who did you say he was?"

"Senor von Rossbach," the waitress answered promptly. "Ai, I'm surprised you don't know him, senora. He owns the estancia right next to yours. The old Stroessner place."

"No," Sarah said. "I haven't met him. I was vaguely aware that it had been sold,

but I didn't realize anyone had moved in yet."

"They say he's from overseas," the waitress said, her eyes wandering to the window as though he might come driving by again. "He's ve-rrry handsome."

She looked back at Sarah and frowned in concern. "Are you all right, senora?"

Sarah looked down at her sandwich. "I'm sorry," she said. "I can't eat this now.

Why don't you just bring me the bill?"

"I'll wrap it up for you, senora. Later on you might be hungry and there it will be." She smiled down at Sarah, concern in her brown eyes. "Your friend that you thought you saw… did something happen to him?"

Sarah nodded and sighed. "He died… in a fire."

"Oh! How terrible! No wonder you look so white. I'll be right back, senora."

Sarah's mouth lifted in a half smile. Funny how people react when they think you might explode emotionally, she thought. She rose and followed the waitress to the counter.

"It was years ago," she said to the woman's back. "It's just that, out of the corner of my eye, it looked just like him for a second."

"Si," the waitress agreed. "That happens sometimes. Especially if someone has been on your mind a little." She handed over the sandwich and Sarah paid her bill.

"Thanks," Sarah said.

She left feeling a little better for the waitress's sympathy. She almost felt a little guilty, too, because what she'd said wasn't quite true.

Boy, am I in bad shape today, Sarah thought. Other people see white mice. I see Terminators.

She hurried to her office and walked up to Ernesto, whose legs stuck out from under a truck. "Hey," she said cheerfully. "I just found out I have a new neighbor."

Her mechanic slid partway out from under the truck.

"That Austrian guy?" he said. "You just found this out? Senora, he's been there for a month or more!"

"So fill me in," she said, leaning against the fender.

"I don't know that much," Ernesto warned. "People think he's rich. I've heard that he's doing some sort of business with Senor Salcido." He shrugged and looked up at her. "People seem to like him and the women go crazy for him. Beyond that, I know nothing."

"Well, that's a lot more than I knew this morning," Sarah said. "I feel bad, I should have done the neighborly thing and welcomed him or something." She made a face. "I guess it's too late now. What's his first name, do you know?"

The mechanic narrowed his eyes in thought. "Something really German.

Mmmm. Dieter! That's it—Dieter von Rossbach."

"Thank you, Ernesto. I knew I could rely on you."

"I am not a gossip, senora," he said, looking hurt.

"No, you're not," Sarah said over her shoulder as she walked away. "You're a man in the know."

He raised his brows at that and smiled, then slid back under the truck.

Sarah went into her office and shut the door. Then she booted up her computer and began looking for information. Von Rossbach's immigration record came up with his picture attached and she swore softly. It—he looked exactly like a Terminator. Mce to know I'm not hallucinating anyway.

An hour and a half later she had some information, but not much. And what there was somehow just didn't quite ring true.

Or maybe I'm looking for problems, she thought, chewing on a thumbnail. She hadn't felt this bad since she'd escaped the Pescadero mental hospital and was coming down off the Thorazine and the nightmares were really bad.

Could it possibly be an hallucination? A slight resemblance built into something more by her cana-deprived brain. Oh, I don't like that thought.

With a little shiver she got back to work. The only cure for this was to find out more. And that passport picture is too unflattering to be a lie. That picture was of a face from the future.

By the end of the day she hadn't made much progress. Her Austrian neighbor

was indeed rich, from a rich family. According to what she'd read, he had spent most of his life in the international-society scene— attending openings, sunbathing on exclusive beaches, dancing at charity balls.

He hadn't done much good with his life, but then he'd done nothing very bad either. There were no juicy scandals attached to his name. Which, given the people he ran with, was something of a surprise. Perhaps he'd taken up cattle ranching as a whim, or as a way to connect with something real.

I need a closer look at this guy, she thought. She wouldn't be able to rest until she did. But she'd have to be cautious. People who knew her in Villa Hayes would start speculating the moment she started asking questions. They'd have me planning a wedding before the day was out. There were pleasant things about living in a small town, but there were also annoyances.

Neither of the other Terminators had bothered to build a background at all, let alone one as elaborate as this one. There had been nothing so delicate in their approach as moving in next door to their victim and making friends with the neighbors. So does this represent a new approach by Skynet? Has it finally learned to be subtle? Now, there was a bone-chilling thought.

On the other hand this could be a coincidence. She'd never managed to become paranoid enough to believe that there was no such thing; but she'd become plenty paranoid enough to doubt every one she'd ever encountered.

Dieter von Rossbach could be nothing more or less than what his public record showed him to be: a rich playboy. So why have I seen this face before on top of the bodies of killing machines? That really was the crux of the matter, wasn't it?

She knew she wouldn't be telling John. Not just yet anyway, not until she knew more. This had shaken her, if it hadn't actually frightened her.

Sarah remembered her reaction at lunch. It had frightened her all right.

Information, she said to herself. I need to know more.

Sarah rose just before dawn and dressed in the dark. Slipping quietly from the house, she went directly to the barn and saddled Linda for an early-morning ride.

That ride just happened to take her in the direction of von Rossbach's estancia. It was a little chilly, one of the few times in the Chaco you could say that; the dry clear air lost heat quickly at night.

She felt guilty for not feeding the horse immediately, but it was early for her breakfast.

"It's only a two-mile ride," she murmured to the mare as she tightened the girth strap. "It'll work up a nice little appetite for you."

Linda's ears flicked as though she were expressing some doubt about that. But she was a good-natured beast and took this strange departure from routine in her stride.

A half hour later Linda was contentedly grazing and Sarah lay on her belly, her field glasses trained on von Rossbach's front porch. Where, early as it was, the man himself sat with his feet propped up on the railing, sipping from a cup he held in one hand as he read a folded newspaper he held in the other.

He's up pretty early for a playboy, she thought cynically. Then again he might

not have gone to bed yet. Or maybe he wasn't yet sick of his new toy and the demands it made of long and early hours.

Von Rossbach sipped, von Rossbach read, Sarah watched. Eventually she checked the time.

"Shit!" she muttered.

John would sleep in this week at least, she knew, so he might never suspect that she'd been out. But she had to feed Linda and get herself washed, dressed, and off to work. She pushed herself backward until she could stand without being seen by anyone in the house and jogged to where she'd left the horse.

Riding home, she thought about what she'd seen. He'd sipped at that cup until it was empty. What does that prove? She'd never seen a Terminator eat. But they must. They weren't keeping that skin alive with batteries.

And reading the paper was a reasonable thing for a Terminator to do; there would be a lot of useful information in one. But could a Terminator interact well enough with humans to be their boss? Sarah considered that and with a sigh concluded that with careful training the answer was yes. After all, by the time they'd lowered "Uncle Bob" into the molten steel she'd formed an emotional attachment to it.

This was getting her nowhere, not even home. With a shake of her head she kicked the horse into a trot. Maybe John sent another one back, she thought suddenly. That was a comforting thought.

Or was it? If John had sent back another protector for his younger self, it meant

that there was still a Skynet in the future. The idea sent a shiver shooting down her spine. Linda's ears swiveled back toward her as if asking what was wrong.

Stop it! she ordered herself. Then forced herself not to concentrate on how badly she wanted a cigarette. Or a drink.

* * *

Sarah came into a kitchen redolent of fresh-brewed coffee and hot toast. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. "Glorious," she said. Opening her eyes she looked at John, already seated at the table. "You're up early."

"Look who's talking," he said, buttering his toast.

"I was restless."

John looked at her sympathetically. "You're doing great, Mom."

Sarah snorted and reached for a cup just as the toast popped up. "That for me?"

she asked.

"It is if you wash your hands first."

With a laugh she went to the sink and began to scrub.

"When, exactly, did we reverse roles?" she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

"Mmm. It's just for now, while you're going through nicotine withdrawal," he said, licking jam off his fingers. "I thought you could use the pampering. Don't

get too used to it."

"Thanks for the warning," she said dryly, flicking him with the towel.

Then she kissed him on the top of the head and moved off to claim her toast. I do like my son, she thought.

CHAPTER FIVE

PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

Dieter von Rossbach shifted in his saddle, irritated by the turn of events that had drawn him from his office to the edge of this stagnant mud hole. Mosquitoes whined through the hot still air of the Chaco summer; reeds stood still in the scummy green water of the marsh. Birds flicked by like living jewels, but no matter how many of the insects they ate there always seemed to be more. He took off his baseball cap and ran a hand over his short blond brush cut—just starting to go a little gray at the temples— and looked down at his overseer from atop his massive horse. The horse needed to be big. The Austrian was over six feet tall, big-boned and muscular, with the sort of sculpted muscle that only a scientifically designed exercise program can produce. His neighbors and employees thought he was a physical-fitness fanatic, which was true enough.

He'd gotten that way under mercilessly perfectionist instructors, though.

"What is she even doing here?" he demanded, steely blue eyes snapping, a muscle jumping in his strong jaw, visible even through the short beard he wore.

Epifanio Garcia, Dieter's overseer, rose from where he'd been squatting on his heels and shrugged, his dark walnut face bland. "She's a cow, Senor von

Rossbach. She wants to be with her sisters."

The cow in question was definitely not with her sisters at the moment, unless she was standing on them. She was chest-deep and possibly sinking deeper into a disgusting and smelly bog. The cow bawled her distress, big eyes rolling in terror, showing the whites all around.

"She's supposed to be locked up in a paddock," von Rossbach said coldly.

"Some of them are escape artists, senor. This one is smart—for a cow." Epifanio sucked his teeth and shook his head. "That's not awfully bright, of course. Just smart enough to get into trouble."

Grimacing, Dieter considered the cow. He had plans for her. She was supposed to be the mother of a hybrid that would produce meatier, fatter cattle that could endure the privations of the Chaco. He was awaiting a shipment of sperm from the King Ranch in the United States so he could get started. Meanwhile he'd ordered her and three others separated from the main herd so that they would stay healthy.

She was definitely sinking deeper. Judging from the tone of her last bellow, she knew it, too.

Dieter allowed himself an exasperated sigh. "Well, I guess we'd better get her out."

Epifanio, in a few economical movements, had his lariat dropping over the panicked cow's horns, down over her throat. He wrapped it a couple of times around his saddle horn and backed his horse, pulling the cow's head up and not

noticeably improving her mood.

"I don't really want to strangle her," Dieter said. "I just want to get her out."

The overseer smiled and waved his arm expressively at the near-buried bovine.

"There's nothing else to drop a rope on, senor," he said. "I'm just trying to keep her from sinking any further. What we're going to have to do—"

"We're going to have to get in there with her," von Rossbach agreed.

Epifanio nodded. "And she's going to kick the hell out of us, too." The overseer grimaced.

"Okay, strangle her," Dieter muttered.

Epifanio gave his boss a sidelong glance, not sure whether he was serious or not.

"I know what to do," Dieter said, dismounting.

He took his own rope, and after tying one end to his saddle horn, he handed his reins to his overseer. "Don't let him walk off," he said with a meaningful look, which Epifanio returned with one of cherubic innocence. Then von Rossbach walked toward the bog.

At the edge of the stinking, scum-covered quagmire he took off his boots and socks. He was certain to lose them to suction if he didn't. It should be safe enough to put his bare feet in the muck. There were a number of poisonous snakes and insects in this country, but in all probability very few of them could live under a meter of slime. He seriously considered taking off his trousers, but

decided that would make too good a story. Especially if he were to lose his underwear to the mud.

Taking a deep breath, he stepped in. It was cool and far from smooth, he could feel things sliding through his toes. Very quickly Dieter was up to his knees and realizing that the smell was even worse that he'd found it on the shore, as if the earth itself had developed a severe case of flatulence.

So this is where the bodies are buried. He'd been a village boy himself, born in an alpine hamlet where people were only a generation from living over the cow byres, but he'd left that as soon as he could. Twenty years in the big city had dulled his memory of how bad the countryside could smell.

He walked toward the cow, making soothing noises, but she reacted with a fresh panic attack. She thrashed and mooed, waving her head around on her strong neck as though trying to reach him with her horns.

Stupid beast, he thought. He was easily two meters away from her yet. They see differently, he reminded himself. Maybe I look a lot closer.

Dieter yanked one foot out of the mud with an audible sucking noise, holding his arms out for balance. He sank it back into the bog and leaned forward to pull out the other one, then flailed for balance as his leg plunged to above the knee. He stood still for a moment as the cow went wild.

I guess that would look threatening to a frightened cow, he thought. To her a human waving his arms with a coil of rope in one hand usually meant she was about to be knocked down, sat on, and branded. Probably not a happy memory.

Sometimes he suspected that they knew why human beings kept them around,

too. Pigs certainly did. He refused to have any of those on the estancia.

Grimly he pulled himself forward, forced to lunge now because he was up to his waist in muck. At last he grabbed onto Epifanio's rope and pulled himself along.

Finally he was there. The cow bawled for help, eyes rolling.

Dieter wound up and smacked her in the middle of the forehead with a massive balled fist; her head fell to the side with a drawn-out moo, like a tired squeaky toy. Then she lay with eyes half-closed, her steam-engine panting slowing to a steady deep wushhhh… wushhhhh.

Epifanio's eyes went wide and his mouth dropped open. Clearly those muscles weren't just for show.

Meanwhile, Dieter, up to his chest in mud, pushed the rope halfway around her loins. Then he dragged himself over to her other side, and after an unpleasant, and all-too-long episode with his nose almost under the stinking mud, he found the rope again and dragged it through. Then he labored back to the forequarters of the cow, squatting and reaching down until his hands closed around the big cannon bones. He clamped them tight, took a deep breath, then straightened, pulling with legs and gut. That drove him deeper, but eventually the mud gave way with a deep sucking sound, and the semiconscious cow came up to lie with its mud-caked forelegs flat on the surface of the swamp. Then he tied off the rope and signaled to his overseer to back the horses.

He held on to Epifanio's rope, and when they got into the shallows he pushed her over on her side and slid the rope down over her forequarters, allowing them to drag her out completely.

By the time she was on dry land she was starting to come to, but was very subdued. Her head wobbled on her muddy neck and she blinked in confusion.

"She's going to have a rotten headache, and a pretty sore stomach," Epifanio observed.

"She's lucky she's feeling anything," Dieter said. "I think she would have gone under in another hour."

"Less than that, senor. I almost went under myself once when I was young and so stupid I went in after a cow by myself."

"Perhaps we should drain it," Dieter said thoughtfully.

" Si, you could do that," Epifanio agreed. "But it would be a big, expensive job.

And at most we lose a cow or two a year to the mud. It would take a lot of cows to make such an expense worthwhile."

Dieter gave him a considering look.

"Then I'll have to see if I can't think of an inexpensive way to do it."

He tied his boot laces together and slung them over his saddle, then swung himself up with a grimace for the work it was going to take to clean his saddle.

To the annoyance of his horse, who whickered disapproval at the stench of its rider.

Well, I'm not going to walk barefoot through that grass, horse, with all those snakes and scorpions hiding in there. And I'm not going to ruin my boots from

the inside instead of the outside, he thought. You'll just have to get over it.

"I'll leave you to bring her back to the paddock," Dieter said, and thumped his bare heels into the horse's sides.

Epifanio watched the big man go and shook his head. They'd been nervous when this European showed up to run the estancia. The rumor had been that he'd never run catfle before. More troubling, he turned out to be German; at least Epifanio thought von Rossbach was German. Things were different over there; it was all cities and snow, so how could he possibly know how to run an estancia?

Mennonites were good farmers—there were plenty of them in the Chaco—but von Rossbach was the other variety of German. And while the Germans the overseer knew were very fine people, honest and hardworking, they were also stubborn and determined to have their own way, as well as being very demanding employers.

But von Rossbach had worked out wonderfully. Better than wonderful. Epifanio had been certain that he, too, would end up covered with reeking muck. But here he was dry and clean. They didn't make many like Dieter von Rossbach.

He sat his horse, waiting for the cow to decide when she wanted to get up and sucked his teeth as he thought.

The boss was always polite. Especially to Marieta, the housekeeper, Epifanio's wife. For instance, von Rossbach took care never to swear in her presence. The overseer had heard him swear and the big man knew some colorful curses, so it was definitely a matter of courtesy. Even though Marieta herself swore like a trooper.

Epifanio wondered how long the boss would stick around. He learned fast and he had plans for the estancia, but it was obvious that after only six months he was becoming bored.

The cow heaved herself to her feet and stood for a moment on wobbly legs. She gave a juicy snort, then began to nibble some grass. The overseer dropped a rope over her head again and turned to lead her back to her paddock.

"Come on, girl," he said. "I'll hose you down and you'll feel much, much better."

Clean, but still sensing a ghostly whiff of the swamp about his person, Dieter sat at his desk, prepared to pick up where he'd left off. The casa grande was old, massive adobe walls, rafters of thick quebracho— ax-breaker—trunks. That was one reason he'd bought it when he came looking for a peaceful, quiet place to retire. It had character; the tiles on the roof and floors had been handmade, you could see the slight ripple. This office had windows that opened onto an interior patio, with a fountain and a pale crimson sheet of jacaranda running up a trellis on the opposite wall. Hummingbirds hovered around it. The whole thing was soothing… until you'd been thoroughly soothed.

His workspace was utterly modern by contrast, with a state-of-the-art IBM, a nice little satellite-uplink dish to give broadband access to the Web, and a full suite of equipment. His answering machine was blinking, so he hit the play button and picked up his pen.

"Senor von Rossbach?" a young female voice inquired. She paused as though she expected him to answer. "This is the Krieger Trucking Company? We've received a shipment for you from the King Ranch in the United States?" She

hesitated, as if unsure the message was clear. "It's waiting here for you to pick it up?" Another nervous little hesitation. "All right, good-bye." And she hung up.

Dieter checked his watch. Two o'clock—siesta would be well over by the time he got there. Anyone who expected Paraguayans to do anything during siesta went mad in short order—and he had to admit, in this climate the custom made sense. He looked at his neat desk and decided there wasn't anything that desperately needed his attention right now.

"Senora Garcia," he called out, rising from his chair. "Do you need anything in Villa Hayes?"

He found her in the kitchen, where she was plucking a chicken for dinner. She wanted him to call her Marieta and pretended she didn't hear him when he referred to her as senora.

"Do we need anything in Villa Hayes?" he asked again.

" Si. Laundry soap," she said, not looking up. "The kind in the yellow box with the red letters, and matches for the stove."

"Anything else?" She usually had a list a foot long.

Marieta shook her head. "I'm going in to town myself on Monday with Epifanio," she said. "My grandnephew is coming on the bus from Tobati.

He's going to work here for you this summer." She grinned up at him. "You'll like him, he's a good boy."

If he was as likable as her local nephews, he probably would. But if he was like her local nephews, there would also probably be as much soccer playing as cattle ranching. Dieter's lips quirked up in a smile. What the hell, he could afford it, and they were good kids. Sometimes, just lately, he'd had wistful thoughts about children. Not something you even thought about, in his previous profession, where the phrase "giving hostages to fortune" had an unpleasantly literal meaning.

"See you later," Dieter said, and headed for his Land Rover.

Sarah stared at the second drawer of her desk and sighed. As long as it's there I'll never get any work done, she told herself. She tightened her lips, and quickly, so that she couldn't change her mind, opened the drawer, took out the flask, and went into the washroom. Without allowing herself to think about it, she opened it and upended the contents into the sink.

Sarah came out screwing on the cap and looked up to find Ernesto giving her a huge, sunny smile. He raised one grease-blackened hand in salute and she returned it, her own smile a little ironic.

One thing that this little struggle had taught her was that she had a fight on her hands. I didn't realize things had gone this far, she thought. Sarah bit her full lower lip and considered the flask. "You want this?" she asked her chief mechanic.

His eyebrows went up. " Si, sefiora," he said coming over to her. " Gracias."

It was a nice flask, smooth steel with a cap that could be used as a cup.

"No problemo," she said, smiling as though it wasn't. But Sarah found that she hated to give it up, and had to stop herself from yanking it back with a snarl.

"I will take good care of it, senora," Ernesto said anxiously, noting the look in her eyes.

Sarah blinked. "I know you will," she said with a wave of her hand. "Enjoy it."

She smiled at him. Then she walked back to her office, her heart pounding.

At four-thirty Sarah went to the reception area to cover for Meylinda's break.

She needed a cigarette. She also needed a drink, but she needed a cigarette more.

Maybe it was a good idea to give up drinking and smoking together, have one big torture session instead of two smaller ones.

Maybe they'll each cancel out the other's cravings, she thought. I'll be so paralyzed trying to decide which unhealthy thing I want more that by the time I make up my mind, I'll have kicked both habits.

She picked up a stack of papers for filing and noticed that her hands were shaking. Would this day ever end? And she was jumpy. If someone dropped something…

Ernesto slammed the hood of one of the trucks and she jumped a foot. Sarah held her breath and counted to twenty before her heart rate went back to normal. Then she was suddenly furious, first with Ernesto for slamming and banging things around, then with herself. What was I thinking? How could I let myself get like this?

Somewhere deep inside her was the absolute conviction that one day she would

need to be on her game, strong and focused. One day it would happen and she had to be ready.

But the logical, sensible, everyday side of her had talked her out of it, at least on a conscious level. She and John and the Terminator had taken care of the problem. They were safe, everyone was safe, it was over. The bad days were behind them, the running, the asylum, the stockpiling, all over.

A crooked smile twisted her lips. Those stockpiles of arms and food baking in deep, well-camouflaged holes throughout the southwestern U.S. and northern Mexico would bring in a lot of cash if she were interested in selling them—not to mention the gold coins. She still had contacts that could get rid of them for her and pay her well, keeping her name out of it. But she just couldn't bring herself to do it.

Maybe that was why she'd taken to drinking, to shut that part of her up. She'd kept fit; running even a small farm would help you do that. But she'd gotten sloppy, and bored, and she'd let things slide.

Well, it's not too late, Sarah thought. This can be fixed. In a few months, no one will ever know how close I came to losing it. No one but herself, that is. And that's how it should be.

"This is Krieger Trucking?" a voice said behind her.

A voice with a faint accent, a voice that froze every muscle in her body. She hadn't expected this. It's too soon, she thought. I'm not ready.

"Hello?" he said again.

Sarah turned slowly, trying to keep the terror off her face, knowing that it didn't matter. Her thoughts jumbled together. "It" could read her fear in other ways.

When she saw his face—its face—she couldn't help but gasp. This close, the resemblance was too perfect, too complete. This can't be an accident!

"Ye-es," she managed to choke out.

"I'm looking for—"

Sarah broke, she turned and walked away; by the time she hit the corridor that led to the garage she was running. She knew it had come for her and she raced through the garage and out into the alley without a backward glance.

In their early days in this town she'd mapped out several escape routes; now she took the nearest and, she hoped, best. Running flat out, she made good use of the twisted alleyways.

Dieter stared at the empty space that had just been occupied by a slender woman with short dark hair. Then he reacted, leaping over the counter and giving chase.

He didn't recognize her, but she unquestionably knew him. Of course, he wasn't so much disguised as situated in an unlikely place.

He'd spent most of his life as a counterterrorist operative, starting out in an elite unit of the Bundesheer, later working closely with American and Israeli intelligence. He was a good operative, but he was no monster, not one of the mad-dog killers of popular fiction. The woman had no reason to fear him unless she herself was guilty of something horrendous.

He was lucky at the first few turns; the ground was wet and she'd left footprints in the mud. Then the ground began to get hard, and he began to pant. Finally he came to an open space, surrounded by buildings, seemingly abandoned. He tried doors and windows, but all were securely locked. There were no footprints'.

Dieter wiped the sweat from his brow and looked around, letting his breathing return to normal. Tomorrow morning, first thing, he thought, back to running ten miles. He was sweating like a pig! Next thing he knew he'd have a potbelly.

He listened, and heard nothing. There were voices in the distance and some traffic, but nothing nearby. A dog stuck its head around one of the buildings and whined at him.

"Hey, boy," Dieter said, leaning down. The dog came up to him, wagging its tail so hard its whole stern was lashing back and forth. "Did you see her, huh?" he asked, scratching the mutt's ears. His eyes moved over the surrounding buildings even as he appeared to be concentrating solely on the dog. "Did you see where she went?"

The stray was wiggling in ecstasy, as it strained to lick Dieter's hands, and grunting with pleasure when the big man switched to scratching its ruff.

"Dat's a good boy," Dieter assured the animal in the baby-talking voice that even some antiterrorist operatives used with animals.

He straightened up and put his hands on his hips, realizing just a little too late that he might have acquired a new friend. Looking around, von Rossbach tightened his mouth while the dog looked up worshipfully.

The woman could be anywhere by now. Probably she'd gone to ground in a previously scouted hiding place. Obviously he wasn't going to find her here, he looked around at the blank building faces.

Unless, that is, he was willing to put time into it, finding a niche somewhere and blending into the scenery until the woman felt safe enough to emerge from hiding. He took a deep breath and let it out slowly.

No, he was retired, he was no longer obligated to chase everyone who ran. They would know who she was at the trucking company, so that was the logical place to go for information. Besides, he needed that shipment.

Sarah watched in the mirror before her, aimed to catch the view through a filthy window, as the man she'd been almost certain was a Terminator reached down to pet the dog. She stood up slowly and let out her breath in a rush, then stood there panting, shaking from adrenaline reaction.

Licking her lips, she tried to think what to do. If a dog can tolerate him, he can't be a Terminator. Humans can be fooled, but not dogs. As von Rossbach turned to walk away, she made up her mind.

Unlocking the window, she lifted it and slipped through, easing it down behind her. "Wait!" she called weakly.

If he wasn't a Terminator she had to find out what, or rather who, he was, and why he had come looking for her. He couldn't have seen her spying on him this morning, could he? Her skills were rusty, but surely not that rusty.

She went to the nearest building and peeked around the corner. The man was

leaning over, trying to persuade the dog to go home, though it was obvious just looking at the mutt that it didn't have one.

"You've got a friend for life there," Sarah said, trying to keep her voice steady.

The man looked at her. Her voice had quavered a bit and her hands were still shaking; she might as well try to use that, along with her diminutive size, to seem harmless. It might wipe that closed look off his face.

"I'm sorry," Sarah said. "I'm so sorry." She brushed her hair back and gave a nervous little laugh. "I thought you were someone else." She looked at him, wide-eyed, then burst out, "But you're not. Obviously."

"Who did you think I was?" he asked. His voice was quiet, but his eyes were hard, evaluating her.

She lifted her hands and then dropped them; shaking her head, Sarah walked a few steps toward him.

"Please," she said, her eyes on the ground as she walked, "I'd rather not say. I'm so embarrassed as it is. Anyway, you don't want to know about it. It's just…"

She waved her hands helplessly. "Please, could we start over?" Sarah looked up at him and smiled tremulously, trying to look innocent.

"Who are you?" he asked, still suspicious.

"I'm Suzanne Krieger," she said, holding out her hand. "That's my trucking company."

"Oh, really." He sounded dubious.

"A lot of people are surprised to hear that," Sarah assured him, smiling weakly.

There was an awkward moment of silence. "I just want you to know that was a very uncommon reaction," she said, twisting her fingers together nervously. "I really don't make a habit of running away from my customers. Honest." Don't overdo it, Connor, she warned herself.

"You're an American," Dieter observed.

"Yes. But my husband was Paraguayan."

"Was?" Dieter walked by her side as they wended their way back to the trucking company.

He found her face attractive in an angular way; her blue eyes were very expressive and her mouth was… tempting. A good figure, too, he thought.

But he was still not lulled by either her fluttering manner or her refusal to explain. He noticed that she kept as far from him as she could in the narrow alley.

"Yes, he died the year after he bought the company." She lapsed into silence for a few moments. "Anyway, that's enough about me," she said as they came to the open door of the garage. "What is it you came here for?" Boy, do I want to know that. .

Dieter could actually feel the word "sperm" pressing against his teeth, but he restrained himself. "I have a shipment from the King Ranch," he said instead.

"Oh, yes," Sarah said with a smile. "It's in the fridge, I'll go get it for you. You know the way out front," she said with a little laugh and a gesture toward the

open door to the offices.

Sarah looked at him sweetly until at last he nodded and headed out to the front office. When he was gone she leaned against the wall and allowed her shoulders to sag.

How can this be? she asked herself. Her stomach clenched. He's the spitting image of no less than two Terminators! Except for the beard. She wondered briefly if Terminators could even grow beards. He even sounds like them! Well, maybe the accent wasn't as pronounced. But in every other way Dieter von Rossbach was a physical duplicate of the T-101's she'd known. But how? There has to be a connection, but what?

Sarah brushed her hair back off her forehead and blew out her breath. It's time to discuss it with John, she thought. He'll probably have some ideas. Meanwhile…

Sarah went to the fridge and took the special box out. King Ranch— probably sperm, then.

The labels and stamps and customs papers all seemed authentic, so if this was some kind of ruse, it was a very elaborate one. Also irrelevant. No one smuggled drugs from the United States to South America as far as she knew. So, obviously, that wasn't it. And going by the paper trail this box had traveled by legitimate courier all the way. So Mr. von Rossbach, in this instance at least, probably was just a rancher interested in improving his cattle.

She wondered why they'd never dealt with this guy before. Most likely he'd used somebody in Asuncion. It didn't really matter. Getting rid of him and returning home to John to discuss this weird situation did.

Though I have to wonder if his choosing Krieger Trucking was happenstance or if there's some motivation behind it. The coincidences were mounting up. She could feel the paranoia taking over.

"Here you go," she said as she walked into the front office. Sarah picked up a clipboard from Meylinda's desk. She noticed that her hands were still shaking.

Okay, so we use that, she reminded herself. I'm just a shy, decent widow doing her best.

Von Rossbach stood foursquare behind the counter, his eyes never leaving her, taking in every movement, every nuance of expression.

"You're making me nervous," Sarah accused as she laid down the box. She presented the clipboard to him with a pen. "Would you sign here, please?"

He took them, but continued to study her. Sarah ducked her head and looked away. "Please," she said.

"I would really like to know who you thought I was," Dieter said steadily.

"Please explain."

Sarah took a deep breath, not looking at him and let it out, then nodded. "I can easily see why you might be offended," she said, swallowing. "Okay." Sarah paused for effect, biting her lips. "When Paul died someone wanted to buy the company. But I wanted to keep it for our son, and because I'd put a lot of effort into it myself. This guy who wanted to buy it took my refusal personally and was very, very angry. He made threats. I told him to leave us alone."

She stopped and glanced at him from the corner of her eyes. That unwavering

stare of his really was making her tense. Not that I need any help with that, she thought ruefully.

"You thought I was this man?" he asked.

"Uh, no, not exactly. Anyway, for a while nothing happened. Then little accidents began to occur, things went missing, and some of our shipments were hijacked. He came back and made another offer. This one was ridiculously low, insulting actually, and I told him to go away."

She dipped her head, and shrugged. "That's when things began to get scary.

There was this man, a big man; I began to see him everywhere, watching me, getting closer all the time. I'd be shopping for groceries, for instance, and suddenly I'd feel someone behind me and I'd turn and it would be him, just…

looking at me. One day he asked me about my little boy."

Her voice broke on the last word. Sarah was proud of that touch; she hadn't been sure she could do it. She took a deep breath, blinking as though afraid there might be tears to hide. "There's really not much else to tell. I decided to move the company here to Villa Hayes because I thought there'd be less competition. But I liked that it was so near a big city. I thought we'd be safe here."

She gave a little laugh. "I gave up smoking today, so I'm nervous as a cat at a dogfight, and when I looked up all I could see was your outline and"—she shook her head regretfully—"I panicked. I'm so sorry. I am not, ordinarily, such a scaredy-cat. It was like a flashback. You know?"

Dieter gave her a long look, revealing nothing. He watched her fidget for a few moments, then signed her form. She tore off a portion of it and gave it to him as

his receipt.

"Thank you," she said, smiling bravely, her heart thudding in a nerve wracking combination of anger and fear. "Good luck evading that dog."

Sarah could see the disreputable mutt waiting hopefully outside her front door. I hope he sticks to you like a burr and gives you some horrible parasite, she thought viciously.

Given her plausible explanation and, to her mind, very convincing performance, she couldn't help but think of him as a bully. If she really was a helpless little widow she'd be ready to burst into tears by now.

Dieter turned to look and his shoulders twitched. Sarah liked that; it made him seem more human and she finally began to calm down.

He picked up his box.

" Hasta la vista," he said, and walked out. The dog fell in behind him, its chin a fraction of an inch from the big man's boot heel.

Sarah closed her eyes slowly. Then she turned to check the clock. Five-thirty. I can't keep quitting early like this, she told herself as she headed for her office.

Picking up her purse and her keys she went into the garage.

"Ernesto," she called. Her voice was still shaking a little and Sarah frowned at the evidence of weakness. She cleared her throat.

He came out from under a truck. "You are all right, senora?" he asked, his face

full of concern.

"Actually, I feel lousy, Ernesto." She was willing to bet that she looked almost as bad as she felt. "I'm going home early. Can you close up for me, please? I'll lock the front door myself, if you'll take care of back here."

"Sure," he said, sitting up. "That man… ?"

"Oh…" Sarah waved a dismissive hand. "Mistaken identity. I feel like a complete fool. He's just a rancher, I guess." She shook her head. "Nothing to worry about, my friend. I'm just nervous and feeling rotten. I'll see you in the morning."

" Si. I hope that you feel better soon," he said and waved to her before pushing himself back under the truck.

He'd learned early in their relationship that Suzanne Krieger did not take kindly to being coddled. So showing that he was on her side was all he was prepared to do right now. But he would love to know why his tough-as-nails boss had gone running out of the garage with "just a rancher" in hot pursuit. Although he had to admit, at least to himself, if that man had started chasing him, he'd have run, too.

"Not my business," Ernesto muttered, picking up a wrench. She knew where to find him if she needed his help.

Dieter tucked into his desk and booted up his computer. He had an Identikit program and he brought it up now. In about twenty minutes he had a fair likeness of Suzanne Krieger and made up a version with and without glasses.

The woman didn't feel to him like a terrorist; there was an aura about them that Dieter could usually pick up on.

Besides, females were rare among their ranks. Those who chose the terrorist lifestyle, though, tended to be excellent actresses. So he couldn't afford to eliminate the possibility solely on gut feeling.

It was also possible, given that she owned a trucking company, that Mrs. Krieger was running drugs. Her overreaction today indicated that she was coming down off of something. But it might just be cigarettes, as she said. When he'd quit smoking he'd been close to dangerous for six weeks.

She's probably smuggling, he thought. But in Paraguay it's more likely to be DVD players than drugs. Smuggling is the national industry, or was.

Von Rossbach studied the stark portraits he'd created of Suzanne Krieger, looking for something in the images that would give him a clue. She's guilty of something, he thought. An innocent woman doesn't take off like a hare being chased by hungry hounds. She calls for help, she runs to the nearest man, she doesn't clear out for parts unknown without even making a sound. That, he felt, was a telling detail. She knows how to run. If she didn't, I'd have caught her.

And the way she moved… She had combat training somewhere. Martial arts, certainly.

Dieter flattered himself that the mere sight of his face wasn't likely to send women running for their lives. Maybe she'd bumped off Paul Krieger before moving down here. Whatever—he composed a note to Jeff Goldberg, his former partner in the Sector Operation.