"Can I drive?" he asked.
"No," she said shortly, picking up her sunglasses.
"Please?" John made puppy eyes at his mother.
She smiled and turned her head away at the same time.
"No fair!" she said. "Don't look at me like that."
"Please, Mom? Please can I drive, please, please?" He moved around her, trying to catch her eye while she laughed helplessly.
"No!" she insisted. "John, I'm nervous enough as it is without you behind the wheel."
"Well, I like that!" he said in mock outrage. "Who was it said we should get me a license?"
She grabbed him by the back of the neck and pulled him to her, leaning her forehead against his as she said, "Maybe I'll let you drive us home. How would that be?"
He snorted. "Adequate," he said dismissively.
"Then again," she said, "maybe I won't." She picked up her bag and headed for the door, a little startled at the unfamiliar sound of her high heels clicking on the tile.
"Aw, Mom!"
"No whining!" she said.
"I'll treat you like a queen? I'll stay by your side for the first half hour? I'll muck out Linda's stall for the rest of the week."
Sarah leaned towards him. "John, that's your job for the rest of the summer."
"Since when?" He joined her on the portal.
"You're getting older," she said, locking the front door. "It's time you learned responsibility."
"Okay," he grumbled. "I ride Linda more in the summer than you do anyway."
She turned at the bottom of the steps and tossed him the keys.
"You drive," she said. "Don't make me want to close my eyes."
Obviously Sarah couldn't wear dark glasses when she was trying to meet people; the horn-rims would have to do. So far this wasn't the trial she'd feared it would be. John had stuck to his word and to her side for the first half hour, then with a wink he'd gone off with Luis and Consuela, Luis's newly noticeable little sister.
Sarah gulped a little, hanging back under the arched stone colonnade that rimmed the courtyard, half-concealed by hanging pots of bougainvil-lea. Grit your teeth and mingle, she told herself.
Senor and Senora Salcido had been going out of their way to make her feel welcome. Apparently Luis had been talking up John. Little by little she relaxed, all the while wondering at how a genteel barbecue could traumatize someone who'd spent a third of her life hobnobbing with cutthroats and mercenaries from one end of the Americas to the other.
She remembered an old movie with Peter Ustinov. He had a line that went something like, "Wouldn't you know it. Here we are, desperate criminals, and we've fallen in with nice people."
Sarah accepted another tiny delicacy at Senora Salcido's gracious insistence.
When can I leave? she thought desperately.
There was a stir at the entrance to the courtyard and heads began to turn.
"Oh!" Senora Salcido looked pleased. "It is our newest neighbor. Have you met him, Senora Krieger?"
Sarah shook her head helplessly.
"Then you must allow me to introduce you! A charming man." She took hold of Sarah's elbow and. drew her along. "He bought the old Stroessner estancia."
Sarah was smiling and nodding at her hostess when she saw who it was that she was being drawn toward and, without thinking, dug in her heels.
John turned from his friends to see who was making such a grand entrance. He forgot to breathe and the smile froze on his face. Automatically he looked for his mother. They had to get out of here!
" Oooh, it's Senor von Rossbach!" Consuela breathed. "Ai! Que hom-bre!"
John snapped a look at her, startled by her worshipful tone. At the enraptured look on her face he let out his breath in a whoosh and forced himself to stay where he was. He looked at the stranger again. So this was Dieter the sperm guy.
"He's been doing some business with my father," Consuela was saying. "They're trying to breed a new type of cattle." She tilted her head prettily, as though contemplating the creation of a new rose instead of a beefier cow.
John looked at Luis over his sister's head and almost laughed out loud at the way his friend rolled his eyes. His heartbeat was almost back to normal, but he really had to find his mother. He wanted to be by her side for this.
Sarah had set her teeth and pulled her lips back in a semblance of a smile. She was quietly resisting an unusually insistent Senora Salcido when John showed up at her elbow. She immediately relaxed.
"He can't get both of us at the same time, Mom," he whispered in her ear in English.
They were finally facing von Rossbach, who turned and met Sarah's eyes. His strong face went expressionless as the senora introduced them.
"And this is my son, John," Sarah said.
Dieter offered the boy his big hand. John's hand was dry and strong even by the ex-commando's standards. Dieter was impressed.
"I'll leave you to become acquainted," Senora Salcido said, leading off her surprised husband.
"Mom, could it be that Luis's mother is matchmaking?" John asked in English.
Sarah laughed. She couldn't help it.
"Perhaps it would be better if we pretended that this is the first time we have met," von Rossbach suggested diplomatically.
John studied him. The resemblance to the Terminator was astounding, regardless of the beard. Because of his own feelings toward his "personal" Terminator, he couldn't help but warm to the big man before him.
Whoa, John, he warned himself. Slow down. This isn't "Uncle Bob." And Mom's right. The guy has cop's eyes. Be careful.
Sarah was flustered, and she knew she probably looked flustered. "It's been years
since I was invited to something like this," she said after a moment. "I'm not used to being with so many people at once."
John shot her a glance; she seemed more embarrassed than frightened. "So where are you from, sir? If you don't mind me asking."
"All over, the last few years," Dieter answered. He rather liked the way the boy was backing his mother up. It spoke of a close relationship. "I was born in Austria."
"I thought I heard a touch of an accent," Sarah told him, smiling. I'm going to carry this off, she thought, relaxing. This is just a party, and for all I know this is just some guy. Who happened to look exactly like a deadly cybernetic killing machine.
What the hell. If he were perfect he'd be married.
They were silent for a long time on the drive home. John stared out the window, and Sarah watched for potholes, her eyes steady on the moonlit road. Insects and birds flitted by, and something squalled out in the darkness beyond the white cones cast by the headlights.
"Coincidence," John said at last. His voice held the trace of a question.
Sarah was tense but silent; her mind was full of sentence fragments and her stomach was in turmoil. He was human! He had to be. There was nothing about him that was like a machine. He laughed, he made jokes, he changed expression… he had body language, dammit! Even so, there was something about him that worried her.
"But he does have cop's eyes," John said. He folded his arms over his chest and slid down in his seat.
Sarah nodded slowly. "We'd better find out who he is fast."
Before he finds out about us.
CHAPTER EIGHT
THE FORMER HOME OF MILES DYSON,