Rising Storm t2-2

by S. M. Stirling

  "That's my boy," he muttered, and went up the near-vertical slope with a scrambling ease that belied the hundred-odd pounds of munitions draped about his body.

  Behind him a streak of flame reached down toward the car. Someone else had a rocket launcher, and when it struck the car the explosion was movie-violent.

  Billy-Bob and Good Ol' Boy must have had some serious explosives in that vehicle, Dieter thought as a huge pillow of hot air slapped him against the wall of the gully. When he looked back, only a crater remained of car, Terminator, and human bodies…

  With the destruction of the third Terminator, Alissa panicked and contacted Clea.

  *What is it?* Clea asked. She'd been working on a prospectus for Roger Colvin, the CEO of Cyberdyne, and wasn't happy to be interrupted.

  Alissa paused before answering, put off by the impatient tone of her older sister's answer. But things at the gully had reached a point where she knew she was out of her depth. *Please access the team I've sent after von Rossbach,* she said.

  Clea did so and was horrified by what she saw. *You sent four?* she asked, trying to keep the message emotionally flat.

  Alissa bit her lip in consternation. *No she said. I also sent the uncle we buried.*

  Clea didn't respond to her sister but ordered the remaining Terminators to disengage. She watched through their eyes as they fought their way clear and ran. It seemed to her that the humans didn't try too hard to stop them. Both bore considerable damage; their skin hung in ribbons and shattered electronics sparked as they ran, causing one to limp occasionally.

  Computer-controlled emotions notwithstanding, it was extremely vexing. She was very vexed.

  *We'll discuss this later, once I've had an opportunity to study the recordings of this incident,* she said to Alissa.

  The younger I-950 frowned. Withdrawal hadn't been on her mind. The Terminators were definitely making progress in their attack; she'd only wanted advice on how to press their advantage without losing any more of them. She now regretted contacting her elder about this. If they'd kept up the attack they'd

  be walking away from it with something to show for it besides the loss of valuable resources.

  *Alissa?* Clea said.

  *Of course,* her sister answered. *At your convenience,* she said coldly.

  Sully was alive and conscious; conscious enough to watch as the living half of his team rolled the boulder off the remains of the… machine, he decided.

  It had definitely been a machine; the fall and the rock had stripped most of the flesh off, leaving the gleaming metal bones bare. Enigmatic shapes lurked within the "rib cage," and a few sparks still sputtered around the severed spine. A man came half falling down the slope of the arroyo wall and gasped.

  "Other one's gone," he said. "His buddies must have taken it. Bottom half of this one, too."

  "And not enough of this one to prove anything to anyone who wasn't here,"

  Dieter von Rossbach said, after bending close. "It landed with its head on a rock, and then this boulder came right down on top. Nothing inside the skull except what was pounded back into sand."

  Sully could tell the big man was upset; his Tyrolean accent was a little more noticeable. He almost laughed, but with the hole in him that wasn't advisable.

  " Now I believe you," he said. "But who's going to believe me?"

  Well, my men, he thought. Although Rogers was lying on the ground with his face in his hands, crying like a kid.

  "Doc Holmes," Dieter said. "Contact him. Blame everything on me when you debrief. We'll be in contact through him."

  Sully nodded slowly. "And I suppose for the details, I can look up Sarah Connor's transcripts?" he said weakly.

  "Ja," Dieter said. "Speaking of which, do you know where she is?"

  "Flew the coop," Sully replied. "Vanished from the halfway house with Dr.

  Silberman, after some weird shit with a janitor. Last seen crossing the border to Mexico—the all-points just missed 'em."

  He noticed Dieter exchanging a glance with John Connor… who is now my ally, Sully thought despairingly. It was so tempting to imagine he was in a hospital having delusions, but he knew better.

  "In that case," Dieter said, "We could use some transportation."

  "Hey, it's my nickel," Sully said. "Now I get a chance to let you go."

  CHAPTER SEVENTEEN

  PORTO VELHO, RONDONIA. BRAZIL,

  DECEMBER

  I don't see why we can't just sail down the river to Paraguay," John complained, looking out over the slow, green expanse of what would eventually become the Rio Paraguay.

  "We took the river down from Colombia," Dieter replied, "and we still ended up walking half the way."

  "The falls and rapids were not my idea, buddy. Anyway, your friend Sully gave us a plane," John pointed out. "We could have flown all the way to Sao Paulo, or even Asuncion if we wanted to. But noooo, that wasn't covert enough."

  "Well, it wasn't," Dieter replied with strained patience. "Leaving the plane in Colombia was more convenient for them and now they won't know which direction we've gone in. I'm surprised that after all these years you don't think that's a worthwhile objective."

  Von Rossbach manifested his annoyance by stomping down the street. Locals moved out of his way, giving him uneasy glances.

  John frowned thoughtfully as he sped up to keep pace. "Well, yeah, it is," he conceded. "But I really don't think being here is a good idea. And I'd like to go on record as saying that seeing Garmendia is a stupid one."

  Dieter stopped in his tracks and turned slowly to stare at the youngster. "John, I hate it when you beat around the bush like that. Don't hold back, tell me how you really feel," he said.

  Chewing on his lip, John put his hands on his hips and glared up at the big man.

  "I'm not taking that back," he said after a long pause. "Because I'm right. Every instinct I have tells me that he'll go for us if we show our faces again, never mind if we come asking for a favor. Do you know anything about this guy? Have you heard some of the stories going around about him?"

  Dieter waved Connor's concerns away. "Every gangster who ever lived has stories going around about them. Half of them are made up by the gangster himself."

  "No, they're not!" John insisted. "I wish to God they were, but they're not, and you've got to know it. The guy's a whack job; you walk in there again, he's going to go off like a bomb." He pointed a finger at him. "You know I'm right. You've been in law enforcement how long?"

  Holding out both hands, palms up, von Kussbach said, "If you haven't convinced me by now, you should know you're not going to. You've been whining about this all the way from Bogota!"

  " Whining? Not wanting to get myself killed is whining? You know what? I've been around paramilitary, terrorist, and just plain scumbag types all my life, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that sure as God made little green apples, that's the kind of thing you old guys—

  "Old guys?"

  "—say when you want us young guys to go take that hill. Which means I'm onto the joke, Dieter. You want to go have a tete-a-tete with Garmendia, you go ahead. I'll send flowers." He moved past von Rossbach. "I'll also find my own way home."

  Dieter frowned, still a little ticked over that crack about "old guys." But when John moved past him and marched down the street, he knew his obligation to Sarah wouldn't allow him to let the boy go. Much as he might want to at the moment.

  "John," he said, hurrying down the street after him. "Wait up." He put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Look, we're both dirty and tired and hungry. Let's find a place to clean up and get some rest, then we'll eat. After that, we'll see what we feel like doing. Okay?"

  Connor stopped walking and sighed, then turned to Dieter. "Yes to the bath and rest and food," he said. "But don't expect me to change my mind about Garmendia." He looked at his friend's face and shook his head. "I don't know why you think you have to do it this way. It just doesn't make sense to me. You, of all people, know better." />
  Dieter held up his hand. "Don't. You're just going to start up all over again. So, like I said, let's get clean and fed."

  Standing back, John said tersely, "Sure. Whatever."

  Von Rossbach moved through the early-morning crowd easily. He was simply dressed in a white, short-sleeved shirt, tan slacks, a light-colored straw hat, and sunglasses. As far as possible his clothing matched that of the local men, with the exception of his well-worn jungle boots. He never wore sandals; they were cooler, granted, but much less stable when the occasion called for action.

  Despite his bland clothing, the Austrian would never blend in here; he was a head taller than most of the people around him, and his build just didn't fit the local type. They seemed to automatically step aside, as though his blond height was somehow dangerous.

  Dieter thought about his last conversation with John, frowning as he walked. The

  boy had refused to accompany him, excusing himself this morning by saying that he wanted to visit old friends. This was the first von Rossbach had heard about them, making him wonder if these old friends were, in fact, mythical. Well, at least they hadn't had another go-round at breakfast about his calling on Garmendia.

  The boy didn't seem to understand that the smuggler was a resource, and if one had a resource one used it. Yes, there were other ways of getting home, but all of them were much more trouble than leaning on the local crime lord. In his days with the Sector, Dieter had extracted greater favors from people infinitely more dangerous than Lazaro Garmendia.

  Of course, at the time he'd had the backup of the Sector's kill squads, should anything happen to him. But even retired, he still had friends in the Sector.

  True, many of them were looking for him at the moment with the intention of interrogating him to within an inch of his life. At least he didn't think they'd go beyond that last inch. But the protection should still be there. After all, if the Sector allowed their retired agents to get killed by the bad guys, morale would suffer.

  The Sector was big on boosting morale.

  Another thing that John didn't understand was that Garmendia was a type. Push the right buttons and you'd get the same reactions every time. Dieter was confident that he could play the smuggler like a piano. The kid was just being stubborn.

  Or maybe it was something about his age. Perhaps he was trying to assert

  himself. Teenagers did that. It could also have something to do with his mother's absence. Dieter considered that for a moment, then mentally swept it aside.

  Whatever was going on with the boy was ill timed and damned annoying.

  John watched von Rossbach go with a disagreeable sense of apprehension. It felt like that excellent Brazilian coffee he'd drunk for breakfast was still perking.

  Maybe the anxiety was because he didn't know what it was his mother held over the smuggler's head and he hated not having vital information like that. Or maybe he was just being opinionated. But deep down inside, something was telling him that Dieter was walking into a hornet's nest, head up, shoulders back, brain in neutral.

  What was up with the big guy these days? They'd gotten through the jungle the first time without a single flare-up. This time they'd struck sparks off each other from day one. He thought about the last weeks. Had he been more irritable lately, or was it that Dieter was suddenly more irritating, and if so, to either question, why?

  A sudden picture of Wendy smiling at him and the heady memory of her kisses came to him on a wave of endorphins, and he shook his head, smiling. Yeah, well, there was that. Maybe Dieter was missing Mom, too.

  He looked up and down the street, then started off for Garmendia's palacete by a different route than Dieter had taken. If he hurried he should get there before von Rossbach walked into trouble.

  John figured the secret door he'd used a few months ago was either blocked or watched, or both. Fortunately there was another way in that he'd discovered and

  his mom had perfected. He thought he might still be narrow enough to fit.

  It only provided a place from which to observe. There was no way into the house from the tunnel, but at least he'd know what was happening to his big friend.

  Then, maybe, with luck, he'd be able to help. At least that was the plan du jour.

  It would have been nice if it was dark. To enter the palacete's grounds he'd take a short jaunt through the sewer, then come up out of a storm drain. But he'd be exposed in the bright morning light for a few minutes as he worked his way to the house itself.

  No help for it. That Dieter was an eager beaver and a morning person to boot.

  Which Garmendia probably wasn't; another reason to not expect a hospitable reception.

  John also hoped that no security of any type was patrolling the alleys, looking for someone trying to break into the surrounding mansions. The local upper class, those just below the level who could afford their own personal security guards, clubbed together to hire men to scope out the whole neighborhood. The really rich loved it, because they benefited without having to spend a cent.

  Using a crowbar he'd "borrowed" from the pension, he hoisted the drain cover, slipped under it, and dropped down, allowing the cover to slam down above him.

  It always cost him a little skin to do it this way, but aside from the sound of the slam, it left no evidence of his passing. He hunkered down to straddle the slimy green trickle down the center of the sewer—it was mostly a storm drain, in fact—

  and duckwalked in the direction of Garmendia's palacete, wrinkling his nose a little.

  The drain cover was just inside the wall of the smuggler's estate, deep in the greenery that made up the garden, and it was a damned tight fit.

  John had to take oil his shirt and rub Vaseline onto the rim to squirm through.

  Even then he was bleeding by the time he dragged himself out, grateful for the first time that he was the rangy type and not a mound-o'-muscle like Dieter. He was still getting bigger through the chest and shoulders, though, no doubt about that.

  He had studied the area as closely as he could through the grille of the cover and seen nothing. Upon crawling out of the drain, he'd lain quiet on the moist soil beneath the bougainvillea and frangipani and assorted tropical bushes, looking for booby traps or cameras. He'd found neither.

  A crook who isn't paranoid, he thought in wonder. He didn't think he'd ever met one before.

  He shrugged into his shirt and looked around, listening for any sound of human activity. John was amazed that Garmendia allowed so much cover so close to such an undeniable weak spot in his perimeter. Unless it was a trap of some kind.

  There was a comforting thought.

  The garden was weed-free and tidy, but the plants were all old ones, indicating that this was no one's special care. So he could look forward to remaining unobserved by gardeners, at least. He still couldn't get over the absence of any electronic surveillance. That meant the smuggler was relying on his muscle to watch over him.

  Given that even working together, they didn't seem bright enough to change a lightbulb. this must mean they're unbelievably vicious. He groaned internally, cursing Dieter's hubris; goons like these might be dumb as a box of rocks but they could be incredibly inventive within their own limited sphere of interest.

  Deliberately he pushed his attention to finding a way across the open ground between the green belt around the wall and the green belt around the house. He set off to explore.

  After about fifteen minutes he found a peninsula of shrubbery that reached toward the house, cutting the empty space between him and it to about twenty feet.

  John pulled out the ocular he'd brought with him and studied the house. He caught no hint of movement through the broad windows that overlooked his hiding place. Not that that meant anything. If someone was sitting or standing still ten feet from the windows, he'd be unable to see them.

  He waited five minutes, wishing it could be more, but knowing he had to get into place or Dieter might be on his way to the river before he ever le
ft cover. John stood and moved quickly to the protection of the shrubs around the house. He didn't run; that would have attracted attention, even if only from the corner of someone's eye. Once he'd burrowed into the thick growth of the bushes, he moved toward the tunnel entrance.

  It wasn't really a tunnel; it was more of a ventilation shaft running from the crawl space beneath the building. This area was still on the alluvial plain of the river, and the builders had wanted insurance against floods as well as some air.

  At least that's what his mother had thought. Apparently it had become a highway

  for rats and other vermin, as a former owner of the place had sealed the shafts at their point of origin on the foundation of the house. The workmen hadn't done a very good job and Mom had cleared the bricks from one place, replacing them with a disguised false door.

  Nothing lethal bit him as he crawled along in utter darkness; which wasn't something you could count on, especially on the borders of Amazonia. A bit of dirt had built up along the bottom edge; he pulled out his pocketknife and cleared it away, then stuck the blade into the crack between the false mortar and the real and pried on the door. At first the blade bent perilously and he didn't think it was going to open: he was about to pull it out when the door began to move. He got his fingernails around the edge and pried until he could get a hand in and drag the little door open.

  John bent and looked into the dark hole. There was a faint light in the distance and the shaft was draped with spiderwebs. He shuddered. It wasn't just that he disliked spiders; hereabouts a lot of them were poisonous, and he didn't look forward to the prospect of being bitten again.

  Biting his lips, he pushed himself forward. At least he would fit. After about twenty feet, though, he began to doubt that.

  Maybe it's time I put aside childish things, like avoiding dogs and crawling through air ducts. He did fit, but it was a damned tight fit. Getting out of here is gonna be a bitch!