"Rumor has it." Jeff sounded disappointed. "The Connors were tracked as far as Brazil and then apparently fell into the Amazon and got eaten by piranha. But
the man was never seen after they entered a steel plant."
"That has some unpleasant possibilities," Dieter mused.
"Now that you mention it," Jeff agreed.
"Perhaps they should have analyzed the last batch of steel to see if there was too much carbon. I'm sorry to have put you to all this trouble for nothing, Jeff.
Especially for waking you up at some ungodly hour of the night."
"Hey, what are friends for?" Jeff said, dismissing his thanks and apologies both.
"If it had worked out we'd both have been a lot richer, eh?"
"By how much?" Dieter asked. The quickly said, "No! Don't answer that. I'm just about to go to bed, I don't want to know."
"So why should you sleep when I'm awake?"
"I'm in a different time zone. Show me some mercy, why don't you? And when are you and Nancy coming to see me?"
"How does February sound? I understand it's sunny and warm there in February."
"It is—sunny and warm, that is. All the time. I get up and know exactly what the weather's going to be like. Come on down, you'll love it." Dieter grinned. It would also give him plenty of time to sort things out.
"Pick me out a steer then and we'll barbecue him when we get there. Good night, buddy."
"Good night, Jeff. Give my love to Nancy when she wakes up."
Dieter sipped his brandy thoughtfully. He really couldn't see Suzanne as a killer.
Over time he'd come to have an instinct for this sort of thing. Anybody could be a killer, might be driven under certain circumstances to commit murder. But his gut told him that Sarah had yet to meet those circumstances. As for John, he was the essence of good kid. Dieter couldn't see either of them as cold-blooded murderers.
Besides, this just didn't make sense. The first time his look-alike was seen, he was a killer bent on murdering Sarah Connor. The next time he was her right-hand man. He shook his head. It just didn't add up.
But it might explain why Suzanne Krieger had taken one look at him and run like hell.
I'm going to have to get to know Suzanne and her son much better, he thought.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
SERENA'S BEDROOM: THE PRESENT
Serena was alerted early in the morning, during her rest cycle. She had a computer that was always on-line, searching the Internet for mention of Sarah Connor. Given the sheer size of the Web, the thousands upon thousands of requests for information of all kinds, worldwide, every day, the relay of that information was often far from instantaneous. But when, eventually, mention of the Connors was made, the Internet search engine sent a message directly to the computer part of Serena's brain.
In this case, the request for information about the Sarah Connor case had come from a Jeffrey Goldberg. Subsequent research indicated that he was an employee of a covert— extremely covert—antiterrorist group known as the Sector.
Serena considered the information as data scrolled across the inside of her eyelids, casting a ghostly blue flicker over her eyes, without disturbing the motionless perfection of her face.
The request for Connor's file might have been the result of some sort of bureaucratic housecleaning. Some decade-overdue review of terrorists-at-large.
She checked. Goldberg's session log showed that he asked only for Connor and her son and any known information about their adult male accomplice.
Interesting.
That would seem to indicate that he had a specific reason for inquiring. Goldberg was stationed in Vienna, which implied that Connor might have been sighted in Austria. Or, given whom Goldberg worked for, one of their remote outstation operatives might have sighted them.
She set the computer to search Goldberg's phone and e-mail records for calls and messages over the previous twenty-four hours. The phone log would reveal the numbers of those who called in, which would at least give her some locations.
She had higher hopes for the e-mail, which would carry much more in the way of details. As an afterthought she also directed the computer to check his home phone.
Then she composed herself for sleep. There was nothing inherently untoward
about someone from Sector requesting information on a known terrorist. Dealing with terrorists was Sector's raison d'etre. But it was promising. Serena resolved to continue monitoring Goldberg for the next several weeks.
Perhaps I should set up a Connor site of my own on the Web, she mused. Make herself out to be some sort of advocate, one of those people who see government conspiracies in every arrest and conviction.
In the case of Sarah Connor there was the bonus of the conspiracy actually existing. Even if the organizing force behind that conspiracy didn't quite exist yet.
There might well be people out there who would respond if there was something to respond to. And if it's a good enough site it might even get the attention of the Connors themselves. A cheering thought.
But it would be a delicate line to walk. Knowing what she did about the case, she would need to avoid inadvertently revealing information dangerous to Skynet.
Or, just as bad, information that only the Connors and Skynet should have.
Thinking about her future parent/creator, Serena smiled. It was barely in its infancy just now. Little more than a very capable computer, with no hint of awareness. But the potential was there and the engineers were rapidly closing in on the essential elements that would give life to Skynet.
She'd met Kurt Viemeister and had been charmed to realize that his was the voice that Skynet would use when it spoke. It was the voice of all the T-l0ls who had taught her, «and she couldn't get enough of it or the warm, secure feelings it aroused.
Perhaps she should be troubled to notice a weakness like this in herself. The last thing she would have expected was to be homesick. Perhaps not so much homesick as bereft of Skynet's eternal presence. It was hard, very hard to be completely alone here.
Still, unless it was of benefit to the project, she really shouldn't spend too much time with Viemeister. Other humans didn't seem to like him, though it was obvious they respected him. But she knew that much of her mission's success would depend on her being liked and trusted. If an association with Viemeister would imperil that, then she would just have to sacrifice her developing friendship with the human.
Skynet comes first, she reminded herself, then smiled. In this case, I guess I come first and Skynet follows me.
And, this time, they would win.
Serena tugged at the stringy pink tissue gently, her hand deep in the viscous, faintly salt-smelling goo of the underground vat. Bonding nicely, she thought as it resisted her pull. Threads of the cultured human muscle were weaving themselves into the porous ceramic that coated the metallic bones.
A soundless blip interrupted her. Ah, she thought, drying her hands on a towel as she moved over to the computer workstation. Transmission.
Goldberg was relaying a part of the dossier he had acquired on the Connor case to an e-mail address in Paraguay.