Rising Storm t2-2 Read online

  "Ah, we are old friends now? I don't remember the friendship part of our acquaintance. The freeze! And don't move or we shoot!—those I remember much better."

  Von Rossbach leaned forward. "Because you tend to avoid smuggling drugs I've kept the authorities out of your pocket several times."

  "I never knew that," Garmendia said, holding up his hands in mock amazement.

  "So you are implying that I owe you this favor."

  "Several times over," Dieter ground out.

  "I would still prefer to be paid." The smuggler shrugged. "It is only good business."

  "Frankly I don't want to access my accounts while I'm out of the country," von Rossbach said.

  Garmendia thoughtfully tapped his cigar out on a cut-crystal ashtray.

  "You think the Sector doesn't know you've been out of the country?" he asked with a lift of his shaggy brows.

  The Austrian waved a big hand dismissively. "Don't even try to guess what the Sector does or doesn't know," he advised.

  "Or what I know that you don't want anybody else to know," John said.

  The men turned in surprise to find Connor leaning casually against the wall.

  "Who the fuck are you?" the smuggler demanded, tossing a glare at his men, who belatedly unholstered their guns. "And how long have you been there?"

  "I thought I told you to wait for me," Dieter growled.

  John grinned. "Y'know, I think I do remember something like that." He ambled over to them, ignoring Garmendia's newly alert guards. "I've been here long enough to hear you trying to squeeze a little capital out of my friend here," he said to the mobster. He held out his hand. "John Connor. You must remember my mother, Sarah."

  Dieter leaned back. He hadn't realized that John and Sarah knew Garmendia. It was only logical, he supposed; Sarah had been a smuggler, too, in a small way, since the Connors left the U.S.A., and before that she had run guns.

  After a tense moment von Rossbach decided to let John have his head, for the time being. The way he was handling himself allowed Dieter to relax a bit.

  Connor wasn't coming on cocky and teenage arrogant; he was cool and very much in control.

  " You are that little boy? Where is your mother?" Lazaro asked, briefly shaking John's hand, then looking toward the door. "She is not with you." She is well?"

  "It's kind of you to ask, senhor. My mother is well, thank you." At least I sincerely hope she is, John thought. He hadn't been able to get through to Jordan

  yet. "And no. she is not with us. She had… other business to attend to."

  Surviving, hopefully recovering, stuff like that.

  "Ah!" Garmendia said with a satisfied smile, and relaxed. "So she is not with you."

  "Never fear," John said pleasantly- "she's with us in spirit."

  The mobster shot a confused look at von Rossbach. "So you two are together?"

  he said after a moment.

  " Si," John agreed amiably.

  "How very interesting," Garmendia murmured, settling back in his chair. He smiled at them through a cloud of cigar smoke. "And how unexpected."

  Dieter was very unhappy with the look of unabashed greed that suddenly blossomed in Garmendia's eyes. He imagined the smuggler already had two or three information brokers in mind to whom he could sell the word of a former Sector agent's association with the notorious Sarah Connor. He wished John had kept to their room—damage control on this was going to prove very hard to apply.

  John watched Garmendia relax in the predator's role, his fat swarthy face smug with the power he thought he held over them. This was another reason he hadn't wanted to deal with smuggling. A lot of these underworld types were so incredibly, childishly petty.

  "So many of your old friends would be amazed to hear of it," Lazaro continued

  happily. His eyes glinted as he twisted the knife.

  Dieter's face was impassive as he sipped his drink, but inside he was both worried and angry. Kids! he thought in frustration. They're too impatient and too unconcerned with consequences. He ought to have expected something like this; he'd trained enough youngsters, most of them not too many years older than John, to know how troublesome they could be.

  John laughed heartily and Lazaro Garmendia looked almost fondly at him.

  And why not? von Rossbach thought sourly. He can wring a lot of money out of this situation.

  " Si, Senhor Garmendia," John said after a moment, smiling widely. "My friend's former employers would probably be stunned to hear of it." His face and voice grew hard and serious. "But of course they won't."

  "And why is that, meninol" Garmendia asked with soft menace.

  "Because my mother is here in spirit," John said. "And my mother knows many things." He waited a beat before leaning forward. "May I have a drink?"

  The smuggler's complexion looked a bit yellower than it had a moment before, the way one does when going pale beneath a tan. His dark eyes had gone wary, and it was a frozen moment before he responded to John's request. He snapped his fingers and a well-built, well-dressed young man hurried over.

  "Coke," John said, looking up at him.

  The man looked confused and glanced at his boss, as if for confirmation of the order.

  Garmendia hissed impatiently, "A soft drink, idiota!"

  That thug looked so relieved John was sure he hadn't even heard the insult.

  When John had his drink and the smuggler's guard had withdrawn, Garmendia looked at the younger man through ice-cold eyes.

  "So what do you want?" he growled.

  Wow, John thought. What the hell has Mom got on this guy? He knew some of the mobster's secrets, but obviously his mother knew more. And better ones.

  "Only what I've already asked for," Dieter said, deciding to step back in. He'd grill John later. "Discretion and transportation."

  Garmendia worked his mouth as though chewing and swallowing what he wanted to say. Finally he grated out, "You will pay for your own food?"

  "Of course," Dieter said affably. As if I would eat or drink anything your people offered me after this. He wondered how Sarah had gotten the drop on this guy, and his heart warmed with admiration.

  What a woman!

  "I have no idea," John said as they bounced down a Bolivian back road on their way to Paraguay. "I doubt it's anything I already know." He glanced sidelong at his companion. "Or you do. Maybe he collects teddy bears cr something."

  Dieter was silent for a moment, smiling at the thought of Garmendia cuddling a teddy, even though dust gritted between his teeth. They were well into the chaco, the dry scrub jungle that covered most of eastern Bolivia and western Paraguay.

  The road was potholed red dirt that billowed up behind the truck, tasting dry and astringent. The odor was familiar from his time—brief time—of retirement on his estancia in Paraguay.

  "Your mother is an amazing woman," he said quietly.

  John smiled at the sound of longing in the big man's voice. If Mom could just have someone like Dieter, just for a while, he thought, it would make up for a lot.

  He quickly buried the thought that it might keep her sane, then sheepishly dug it up again. His mother had trained him too well to ignore what might be an important consideration for emotional reasons. Von Rossbach would keep her grounded, and she couldn't have designed a better partner if she'd had the option.

  Now all she has to do is survive, he told himself. After that it would be easy. She was smart, she'd see what was right in front of her. I'll make sure she does.

  Inside he smiled wryly. Hey! My first campaign. After getting her free, of course.

  VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY

  The taxi stopped, and hot metal pinged and clinked as it contracted. The ranch was hot, too, but a familiar grateful warmth, none of the humidity of the northern jungles. The gardens around the sprawling old adobe-and-tile manor were still colorful with jacaranda and frangipani, tall quebracho trees, and lawns kept green by lavish watering. Dieter felt a complex mix of instant nostalgia a
nd

  regret. He'd bought this property as a home for… well, perhaps not my old age.

  Middle age. You didn't get old in his profession; you either died, or you retired.

  Now he was back, but it probably wouldn't be for long. Unlike the Sector's campaigns, the one against Skynet would undoubtedly consume the rest of his life—however long that turned out to be.

  Heads turned as he climbed out of the car, stretching. "Senor!" Marietta Ayala ran from the portal with her arms outstretched as though to embrace her towering boss.

  Dieter's jaw dropped at this display of familiarity. It had taken him months to convince the stout, formidable cook to call him Dieter, rather than Don von Rossbach. Come to think of it, he never had convinced her.

  Marietta stopped short a good three feet from him and began to shake an angry finger. "Where have you been all this time, senor? We have been worried sick!

  No word, no idea where you were or when you'd be back. And Senora Krieger's house burned to the ground and she is missing, and you!" she exclaimed as John got out of the taxi. "Where is your mother?"

  Marietta left von Rossbach standing to hurry around the car and start a new tirade at John. "You're filthy!" she said, holding a bit of his sleeve between thumb and forefinger. "And you look like you haven't eaten since you left! What has happened to you?"

  "Calm down, Marietta," Epifanio said. "Let the boy draw his breath to speak."

  The chief foreman sauntered over to them and extended his hand to his boss.

  "Welcome home, senor, it is good to see you again. I am happy to inform you that everything here is under control."

  "Under control!" his wife exclaimed. "There are bills waiting to be paid—

  "Which I have paid as necessary," the overseer interrupted calmly. "Everything is going just as it should." He looked into the backseat of the taxi, then indicated the trunk. "Is there baggage, senor?"

  "No," Dieter said quickly as he counted out bills. "Nothing."

  "Nothing?" Marietta asked, more calmly. "But, senor, you have been gone many days. You have no laundry?"

  "What I have, Senora Ayala," von Rossbach said gallantly as the cab drove off,

  "is a great hunger for some of your cooking. Would it be inconvenient for you to prepare something for us?"

  "Good heavens, no!" she said, and bustled toward the house. "I'll have something on the table for you in just a moment." Just as they thought she was finished with them, she turned and pointed a finger like a spear at John. "You!" she said ominously. "You take a shower right away, before you get one bite of dinner."

  "Yes, ma'am," John said meekly.

  "Elsa!" the housekeeper shouted. Her niece came out onto the portal. "Show the young gentleman to the guest room."

  Elsa looked at John and blushed. " Si, auntie," she said softly. Then with a shy, dark-eyed glance over her shoulder she said, "This way, senor."

  Looking and feeling a bit surprised, and not knowing what to do with his hands for a moment, John cast a glance Dieter's way and at his nod followed the girl into the house.

  Dieter looked around at his land, enjoying the peace of the place. Nothing like a little jaunt into evil and violence to make a man appreciate stability and quiet.

  That was why he'd decided to take up cattle ranching in the chaco of Paraguay when he originally retired from the Sector. The problem was that the old saying

  —the only way you retired from this business was as a statistic—looked more and more prophetic.

  Epifanio watched his boss shrewdly. "Perhaps after you have eaten and refreshed yourself from your journey, senor, you would like to discuss"—he waved a vague hand at the grasslands around them—"what we have been doing here while you were away."

  "Tomorrow will be soon enough," Dieter said.

  " Si, senor." Epifanio gave von Rossbach a slight, two-fingered salute. With a smile he said, "Welcome home."

  Then he put on his hat and headed back to work. This was one of the things he liked about his boss; the man respected his employee's time. Tomorrow was, of course, the better time for this discussion, but many employers would insist on asserting their right to know everything right now!

  He wondered where von Rossbach had been, and where Sefiora Krieger was, and why there was no luggage to take care of. With a sigh he admitted to himself that he might never know. Even Marietta had been unable to find out why the

  senor had left, or about the fire at the Krieger estancia or anything. A sobering failure for both of them. Still, this was a new opportunity, they would have to see what time would bring them.

  Dieter took a surreptitious sniff at himself. First a shower, then he'd check the mail while he waited for dinner. Marietta wouldn't slap just anything in front of him for his homecoming, so he had time. He took a deep, cleansing inhalation of the dry chaco air. It was good to be back. If Sarah was with them it would be perfect. He shook his head and went into the house, better not to think about what couldn't be helped. There was too much to do.

  Sweeping back a damp lock of overlong hair from his forehead, von Rossbach resolved to get a trim as soon as he had time. He walked down the corridor to his office, opened the deeply carved oak door (imported at no doubt ridiculous cost by the original owner of the estancia), and entered his office. A quick check of the hidden program showed nobody had tried to tap in, bug the house, or put it under surveillance—at least nothing more sophisticated than entirely passive systems, or the Eyeball Mark One. His brows rose, half in relief, half in surprise.

  All was tidy on the desk except for the pile of mail threatening to topple out of his in-tray. The most intriguing item was a legal-sized envelope of a rich cream color. Dieter slid it carefully from the pile.

  The paper was of very high quality, with the return address embossed in gold.

  The names Hoffbauer, Schatz and Perez announced that they were attorneys-at-law.

  Frowning, von Rossbach slit the envelope with a rosewood opener and pulled out the documents it contained. When he saw what they were he felt a shock,

  like the quick sizzle of electricity, just below his ribs. The documents gave him custody of John in the event of Sarah's death or disB appearance. There was a letter from her included in the package. The attorney, Perez in this case, cautioned that until Senor von Rossbach signed the documents, they were, or course, unenforceable.

  Dieter stared at the envelope containing Sarah's letter numbly. Had she sensed disaster? He'd been in the field long enough to know that, sometimes, people got such feelings. He'd also been in the field long enough to know that sometimes people simply surrendered to those feelings and by doing so brought disaster on themselves and others.

  But not Sarah, he thought. Sarah had a goal, and a task; fight Skynet, preserve John. And she would fight for both with the last breath in her body. This was just an example of her expertise in advanced planning. Unforeseen things happened during even the best-laid-out campaigns. So this was a contingency plan.

  When did she do this? he wondered. Before the Terminator and the fire that destroyed her home, he was certain she did not trust him. Probably from the Caymans, then. By then she was letting him be a part of the team, getting to trust him. After the debacle in Sacramento he doubted she would have trusted him to take out the trash, let alone provide for her son. Dieter felt honored.

  Of course I'll accept the responsibility, he thought. He'd contact Perez and see what could be done. Sarah being unavailable but not dead made things awkward from a legal standpoint, but few things were insurmountable. Particularly when Sarah's wishes were so plain.

  That reminded him of another call he needed to make. Dieter pulled the phone toward him and entered the number Dyson had given him.

  There were a series of clicks, one ring, and then a woman's voice said, "Hello?"

  "I'm calling for today's sailing report," Dieter said.

  "And you are?"

  "Mr. Ross."

  "Thank you, Mr. Ross. It looks like smooth
sailing from now on."

  "Thank you," Dieter said, and hung up just as John entered the room. "Good news," he said with a relieved smile. "Your mother is out of danger."

  John flopped into the visitor's chair and breathed out. "Thank God," he said. He leaned forward and scrubbed his face vigorously with his hands.

  "Blaaahdddyaaa!" he said, and leaned back. "She's okay." John sat for a moment, contemplating a spot of sunshine on Dieter's office floor, just letting himself feel his relief. He nodded. "Good," he said quietly. "Good. So all we have to worry about now"—a sardonic smile lifted one corner of his mouth—"is what happens next."

  "For your mother, once she's well enough, back to the asylum." Von Rossbach let his expression show that he didn't like the prospect one bit. "At least until we can do something about it." He ran a finger down the length of the document the lawyers had sent him and decided to tell John. He'd want to know. "For you, back to school."

  "School?" John said after a beat. "You think I've got time to screw around with school?"

  Dieter held up his hand to stop what promised to become a tirade. "You should know that your mother has designated me your guardian until your majority, or until she returns."

  "And what?" John said. "That weirds you out so much you can't wait to get rid of me? My mother has a business that needs to be run," he pointed out, then waved a hand to erase that. "More importantly, do you think Skynet is finished? When Dyson told us that Cyberdyne had another backup site?"

  Von Rossbach flipped his hand at him. "Are you suggesting that we go after it?

  Because, frankly, that would be suicide. That site has, no doubt, been more than adequately protected since our attack on Cyberdyne."

  "Protected?" John shook his finger. "No, no, no. I'll go you one better. They've not only 'protected' that site, but they've built a clone of the work they were doing in California on some remote military base somewhere."

  Looking thoughtful, Dieter nodded slowly. It was possible; the military loved redundancy. "They probably wouldn't trust Cyberdyne to bring this project in safely after what happened the first time," the Austrian murmured.