"And I with you," Serena said, opening her office door. "I think the FBI is definitely losing out here."
Jordan shrugged. "I just had to give the private sector a try," he explained.
Serena leaned in confidentially. "You won't be sorry," she said quietly. And neither will I.
KRIEGER TRUCKING, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT
"Victor Griego? That slimebag?" Ernesto's honest face was screwed up with distaste. "Who says it?" he asked.
"Shooosh," Meylinda said, looking over her shoulder. "I don't want the senora to hear us talking about it."
"Why not?"
Meylinda gave him an exasperated look. "Because it's gossip about the senor,"
she growled.
"Ah! So, who?" Ernesto whispered.
"My mama had it from Marieta Garcia herself. Who is fit to be tied about it! The senor just won't listen to her. She says he has forbidden her to speak of it."
Meylinda pulled a face and looked up at him from under her eyebrows.
"Ay yi," he said quietly. He shook his head sadly. "Has Epifanio tried?"
"Marieta says he won't even try. He says the senor knows what he is doing. Who are we to question him? he says." She pulled the corners of her mouth down.
"But how can he even stand to have his wife waiting on that pig?" Ernesto asked.
Meylinda shrugged and rested her chin on her fist, her face glum. Both of them bowed their heads and sighed.
"Hey, who died?" Sarah asked.
They jumped guiltily.
"I was just going back to work," Ernesto said, matching action to words. He gave a little hop as he made it to the door, as though he would start running as soon as he was out of sight.
"I was just about to start that filing, senora," Meylinda said. She gave an uncertain look to the towering pile of receipts and laughed a little.
Hmmm, Sarah thought. "So, what were you two talking about?" she asked.
"Oh, nothing, senora," Meylinda said over her shoulder. "Just some silly gossip.
You wouldn't be interested."
Sarah sat at Meylinda's desk, clasping her hands in her lap like a schoolgirl. "Oh, but I love gossip," she said, a gleam in her eyes. "Oh," Meylinda said, and swallowed hard.
"We have a problem," Sarah said to John when she got home that afternoon.
"Hi, Mom," he said. "I'm fine, thanks, and how was your day?"
She put her purse down on the kitchen table and stood with one hand on her hip.
"You remember Victor?" she asked.
He wore a vague look for a moment, then the penny dropped. He narrowed his eyes, "Grieger?"
"Griego," his mother said. "But that's not bad seeing as we haven't seen him since you were thirteen. He's staying with Dieter."
"Whaaat?" John felt his knees grow weak and pulled out a chair, sitting down hard. He stared at his mother, who looked back at him, her face grim. "How did that happen?"
Sarah moved at last, pulling out a chair of her own.
"How it happened isn't that important," she said. " That it happened is." She shook her head. "We don't know enough. We don't know anything about Dieter, really, and nobody will talk to us."
"Somebody will," John said.
She looked over at him quickly.
He plucked a grape out of the basket on the table.
"Victor will," he said, a peculiarly nasty smile on his young face.
"How are we going to separate him from Dieter?" his mother asked. She grabbed her hair and pulled it back from her face. "I'm supposed to have dinner with him Friday," she reminded him.
Two days from now. Not very long at all to get hold of Griego and get him straightened out.
"Every other Thursday Epifanio and Dieter get in the Jeep and ride the range,"
John told her. "Or at least, since I've been watching them they have. As soon as I see them leave I'll sneak down and confront him."
Sarah nodded approvingly. Her little boy was growing up.
"You can offer him a carrot as well as a stick," she said. "We could give him that weapons cache in Parque San Luis."
It was in an area of rugged subtropical forest near the Brazilian border. The last time she'd checked it two years ago the weapons were just on the edge of being useless. It was damned damp in that part of Paraguay.
"Tell him you'll give him the location after the dinner party." Sarah leaned forward. "But make him believe you'll kill him if he blows our cover."
CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS: THE PRESENT
"I already knew all of this," Serena said to her contact in Paraguay.
She wondered how humans managed not to go mad using cumbersome handsets or earphones or worse yet speakerphones with their poor reception. The
hardware installed in her brain handled telephone calls easily. So easily that she had to keep reminding herself to actually pick up the phone, lest someone catch her talking to thin air… and apparently receiving answers.
"I thought that might be the case, senorita," Cassetti said. "It might save us both time if you gave me a little more direction. Just what exactly do you wish to know about Senor von Rossbach. Knowing that might give me some idea of where to look."
Serena frowned. She hadn't wanted to get specific. Still, this was a small-time operator in a faraway country. He had no idea who she was or who she worked for. Where was the harm in allowing a little information out? And he was right; it might move things along. That he said so argued for a certain amount of intelligence. His English was excellent as well, except now and then he fell into an argot she'd identified with difficulty as typical of American popular culture some decades before.
"I am interested in finding out who he knows in the area." She allowed her voice to get hard. "Especially women."
"Ah! I understand," Cassetti said. One of those cases. "Are you and Senor von Rossbach… married?"
"Not yet," Serena answered. Nor likely to be. "If you could get me pictures of any ladies he's seeing, I would pay well for it." It also ought to speed things up.
"If you have access to a computer you could scan the pictures in and e-mail them to me."
"Senorita, I am not so wealthy. I can take the pictures, but I will have to send
them by mail."
"Federal Express," she countered. "Here's my account number." She gave him the one for Cyberdyne. "As agreed," she said, "I will pay your travel expenses.
So if you need to rent a car, that's covered."
"I will borrow one from a friend," he said. "I don't have a credit card and they won't rent a car without one."
Serena rolled her eyes. "I'll take care of it. Go to the Hertz outlet tomorrow; they'll have something for you. You do have a license?"
"To be a private investigator? Si!" he said, somewhat indignant.
"Actually I meant a driver's license," she said dryly.
"Oh. Si, I have that also."
"Fine. So I'll look forward to hearing from you. When?"
"Give me three days, senorita," he answered. "I'll have something for you by then. If I do before then, I'll call."
"I look forward to that," she said, and disconnected.
She sat at her desk for a moment, considering the conversation she'd just had. So often when dealing with humans she wondered if they were really as clueless as they seemed. She frequently felt as though she'd made a mistake in hiring one of them. And she probably had, but until her Terminators were complete, she had to
rely on second best. They're just so slow! she thought. She hated the feeling of uncertainty involved in trusting a human to do a Terminator's job.
VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT