Infiltrator t2-1

by S. M. Stirling

  “Good night,” he said, and kissed her on the cheek.

  “G’night, hon.”

  “So what are you going to do today?” Sarah asked, tearing apart a galleta and nibbling on the hot bread.

  The rolls were a breakfast favorite for both of them. So was the room, big and sunny—shady where it gave on the veranda. The casa grande wasn’t actually very grand, about eighty years old, but built of whitewashed adobe and tile in a style much older. It had been the center of a much larger property once, but she’d bought only enough to give her privacy and pasture for a horse or two.

  John tipped his head from side ta side with his mouth turned down. “I dunno.

  Thought I might take Linda for a little exercise. If that’s all right with you?”

  “No problem, she’s getting fat and stir-crazy.” Sarah took a sip of her mate. “So I’ll leave you to your own devices for today?”

  ” Si. I think basically I’ll just luxuriate and do nothing.”

  “Translation, everybody else I know is still in school. Well”—she tipped her head to the side—“except for that crowd of ne’er-do-wells that hang out at the plaza.”

  John waved a hand. “Nah! Not in the mood.”

  Sarah smiled a slow smile and he pretended not to notice.

  “You’re afraid I’ll put you to work.”

  “Not on my first day,” he said. “You wouldn’t be so cruel and I deny that I would ever think of you so, mamacita.”

  She chuckled. “Mamacita?” She looked off over the fields, grinning. “Is that how you see me these days? Your good, old, gray-haired, gingerbread-baking little mama?”

  “The day I catch you baking gingerbread in a frilly apron, Mom, is the day I leave home. Whatchoo talkin’ about, gray hair!” He gave her a look of comic disgust and Sarah laughed.

  “I do have something I have to ask you,” she said. “And I can’t believe I’m asking this. How should I dress for the Salcidos’ asado? I mean are we talking about a sittin’-on-the-hay-bales kind of a do, or is it more like the barbecue in

  Gone With the Wind”

  John spread his hands helplessly, his face a study in amused disbelief. ” You can’t believe you’re asking this? I can’t believe you’re asking me this. How should I know? I supposed Luis will have his mom send us an invitation; maybe that will tell us.”

  “If we get an invitation, it’s almost certain to be formal,” Sarah mused. “I mean people don’t send invitations for casual barbecues.” She shrugged. “At least they didn’t in the States.”

  “I’ll check with Luis when he gets home,” John promised. He waggled his eyebrows. “I don’t want us to make a bad impression.”

  “Too late for that,” Sarah told him sadly. “But with the right duds we might save the day.”

  “New clothes?” he said. “Me, too; me, too.”

  “I’ll expect you to work off the expense,” she said with a mean-eyed glare.

  “Muck out the stall,” he said in resignation. “Paint the trim, clean the chimney, clean the closets…”

  “I mean down at the company,” Sarah said seriously. “It’s time we got you an official driver’s license for one thing. And you need to know how the business works. That’s another reason I’d like you to come with me to Ciudad del Este; you need to meet my contacts.”

  John turned serious. “I don’t know if I want to do that,” he said. He’d had more than enough of secret meetings in squalid rooms with people who genuinely gave him the creeps.

  “We’d starve to death without the smuggling, hon.” She tilted her head and studied him. Instinct told her that there was more at work here than just standard teenage rebellion. “And it’s not like we’re bringing in guns or drugs. It’s just stuff like computers and CDs and so on. Smuggling is what keeps this country running, John. It’s like a huge, unofficial, un-sanctioned national industry.”

  “Yeah, I know. But that’s not the way it’s always going to be, Mom. People like Luis want their country to get rich and they know it won’t happen by smuggling in everything they want. Things are going to change in the next decade or so and I don’t want either one of us to end up in jail.”

  Sarah let out a breath, halfway between exasperation and admiration. “You may well be right,” she conceded. “But I think we’re intelligent enough to recognize the signs and get out of the business before they come to take us away; For right now, though, people rely on us, and frankly, they need us. At least we don’t dump knockoffs on them.”

  “You’re right,” he agreed, falsely chipper. “We may be criminals, but at least we’re not murderers.”

  Sarah rolled her eyes. “I’ve got to go to work. We can continue this later, if you like. I’ll be home around six,” she said, giving him a quick kiss on the forehead.

  The door slammed behind her and she took a step, then leaned back to say through the screen, “Welcome home, son. Love ya.”

  “Love you, too, Mom.”

  The waitress put down the barbecue beef sandwich with a smile.

  “Ah! I forgot your terere, senora. I’ll be right back.”

  Sarah smiled and nodded; they knew exactly what she liked here, she didn’t even have to ask. Of course, they should know. She’d had lunch at the confiteria just down the street from her business for the past five years. Sarah found it reassuring, almost a luxury, to allow others to know her, even to this small extent. To her it symbolized that her life here was free and above board.

  She picked up the sandwich in both hands; it was one big piece, hand-cut bread and juicy meat, nothing fancy but all very good. Sarah opened her mouth wide for her first bite.

  Her peripheral vision caught a Jeep passing by outside. The driver was male, no passengers.

  Adrenaline kicked her heartbeat into overdrive and her stomach clenched like an angry fist; her breath stopped as though she’d been suddenly plunged into cold water.

  Sarah froze with the sandwich almost in her mouth. I can’t be having the DTs, she thought. I wasn’t drinking that heavily!

  She could have sworn that she had just seen a Terminator drive by.

  She lowered the sandwich, struggling to swallow and breathe at the same time,

  and carefully turned to look out the window, down the street where the Jeep had gone. Flashback? she asked herself. The vehicle was still there. The driver was talking to one of the kids who hung out in the park. She couldn’t see his face, but the general shape of him…

  “Here we are, senora!” the waitress said cheerfully, setting down an iced glass of terere!

  Sarah jumped and gasped, whipping her head around to stare at the waitress.

  “Oh, senora, you’re pale. Are you all right?”

  Sarah swallowed and tried to smile. “Yes,” she said. “I just thought I saw someone I knew.”

  The waitress leaned toward the window, looking down the street. Sarah turned to look, too, just as the Jeep started up again.

  “Ahhh, that is Senor von Rossbach.” The waitress sighed. “What a kuimbae.

  Whoo!” she said and fanned her face with her hand. “You know him?”

  “No,” Sarah said and cleared her throat. She put down her sandwich. “He looked like someone I used to know.” She frowned. “Who did you say he was?”

  “Senor von Rossbach,” the waitress answered promptly. “Ai, I’m surprised you don’t know him, senora. He owns the estancia right next to yours. The old Stroessner place.”

  “No,” Sarah said. “I haven’t met him. I was vaguely aware that it had been sold,

  but I didn’t realize anyone had moved in yet.”

  “They say he’s from overseas,” the waitress said, her eyes wandering to the window as though he might come driving by again. “He’s ve-rrry handsome.”

  She looked back at Sarah and frowned in concern. “Are you all right, senora?”

  Sarah looked down at her sandwich. “I’m sorry,” she said. “I can’t eat this now.

  Why don’t
you just bring me the bill?”

  “I’ll wrap it up for you, senora. Later on you might be hungry and there it will be.” She smiled down at Sarah, concern in her brown eyes. “Your friend that you thought you saw… did something happen to him?”

  Sarah nodded and sighed. “He died… in a fire.”

  “Oh! How terrible! No wonder you look so white. I’ll be right back, senora.”

  Sarah’s mouth lifted in a half smile. Funny how people react when they think you might explode emotionally, she thought. She rose and followed the waitress to the counter.

  “It was years ago,” she said to the woman’s back. “It’s just that, out of the corner of my eye, it looked just like him for a second.”

  “Si,” the waitress agreed. “That happens sometimes. Especially if someone has been on your mind a little.” She handed over the sandwich and Sarah paid her bill.

  “Thanks,” Sarah said.

  She left feeling a little better for the waitress’s sympathy. She almost felt a little guilty, too, because what she’d said wasn’t quite true.

  Boy, am I in bad shape today, Sarah thought. Other people see white mice. I see Terminators.

  She hurried to her office and walked up to Ernesto, whose legs stuck out from under a truck. “Hey,” she said cheerfully. “I just found out I have a new neighbor.”

  Her mechanic slid partway out from under the truck.

  “That Austrian guy?” he said. “You just found this out? Senora, he’s been there for a month or more!”

  “So fill me in,” she said, leaning against the fender.

  “I don’t know that much,” Ernesto warned. “People think he’s rich. I’ve heard that he’s doing some sort of business with Senor Salcido.” He shrugged and looked up at her. “People seem to like him and the women go crazy for him. Beyond that, I know nothing.”

  “Well, that’s a lot more than I knew this morning,” Sarah said. “I feel bad, I should have done the neighborly thing and welcomed him or something.” She made a face. “I guess it’s too late now. What’s his first name, do you know?”

  The mechanic narrowed his eyes in thought. “Something really German.

  Mmmm. Dieter! That’s it—Dieter von Rossbach.”

  “Thank you, Ernesto. I knew I could rely on you.”

  “I am not a gossip, senora,” he said, looking hurt.

  “No, you’re not,” Sarah said over her shoulder as she walked away. “You’re a man in the know.”

  He raised his brows at that and smiled, then slid back under the truck.

  Sarah went into her office and shut the door. Then she booted up her computer and began looking for information. Von Rossbach’s immigration record came up with his picture attached and she swore softly. It—he looked exactly like a Terminator. Mce to know I’m not hallucinating anyway.

  An hour and a half later she had some information, but not much. And what there was somehow just didn’t quite ring true.

  Or maybe I’m looking for problems, she thought, chewing on a thumbnail. She hadn’t felt this bad since she’d escaped the Pescadero mental hospital and was coming down off the Thorazine and the nightmares were really bad.

  Could it possibly be an hallucination? A slight resemblance built into something more by her cana-deprived brain. Oh, I don’t like that thought.

  With a little shiver she got back to work. The only cure for this was to find out more. And that passport picture is too unflattering to be a lie. That picture was of a face from the future.

  By the end of the day she hadn’t made much progress. Her Austrian neighbor

  was indeed rich, from a rich family. According to what she’d read, he had spent most of his life in the international-society scene— attending openings, sunbathing on exclusive beaches, dancing at charity balls.

  He hadn’t done much good with his life, but then he’d done nothing very bad either. There were no juicy scandals attached to his name. Which, given the people he ran with, was something of a surprise. Perhaps he’d taken up cattle ranching as a whim, or as a way to connect with something real.

  I need a closer look at this guy, she thought. She wouldn’t be able to rest until she did. But she’d have to be cautious. People who knew her in Villa Hayes would start speculating the moment she started asking questions. They’d have me planning a wedding before the day was out. There were pleasant things about living in a small town, but there were also annoyances.

  Neither of the other Terminators had bothered to build a background at all, let alone one as elaborate as this one. There had been nothing so delicate in their approach as moving in next door to their victim and making friends with the neighbors. So does this represent a new approach by Skynet? Has it finally learned to be subtle? Now, there was a bone-chilling thought.

  On the other hand this could be a coincidence. She’d never managed to become paranoid enough to believe that there was no such thing; but she’d become plenty paranoid enough to doubt every one she’d ever encountered.

  Dieter von Rossbach could be nothing more or less than what his public record showed him to be: a rich playboy. So why have I seen this face before on top of the bodies of killing machines? That really was the crux of the matter, wasn’t it?

  She knew she wouldn’t be telling John. Not just yet anyway, not until she knew more. This had shaken her, if it hadn’t actually frightened her.

  Sarah remembered her reaction at lunch. It had frightened her all right.

  Information, she said to herself. I need to know more.

  Sarah rose just before dawn and dressed in the dark. Slipping quietly from the house, she went directly to the barn and saddled Linda for an early-morning ride.

  That ride just happened to take her in the direction of von Rossbach’s estancia. It was a little chilly, one of the few times in the Chaco you could say that; the dry clear air lost heat quickly at night.

  She felt guilty for not feeding the horse immediately, but it was early for her breakfast.

  “It’s only a two-mile ride,” she murmured to the mare as she tightened the girth strap. “It’ll work up a nice little appetite for you.”

  Linda’s ears flicked as though she were expressing some doubt about that. But she was a good-natured beast and took this strange departure from routine in her stride.

  A half hour later Linda was contentedly grazing and Sarah lay on her belly, her field glasses trained on von Rossbach’s front porch. Where, early as it was, the man himself sat with his feet propped up on the railing, sipping from a cup he held in one hand as he read a folded newspaper he held in the other.

  He’s up pretty early for a playboy, she thought cynically. Then again he might

  not have gone to bed yet. Or maybe he wasn’t yet sick of his new toy and the demands it made of long and early hours.

  Von Rossbach sipped, von Rossbach read, Sarah watched. Eventually she checked the time.

  “Shit!” she muttered.

  John would sleep in this week at least, she knew, so he might never suspect that she’d been out. But she had to feed Linda and get herself washed, dressed, and off to work. She pushed herself backward until she could stand without being seen by anyone in the house and jogged to where she’d left the horse.

  Riding home, she thought about what she’d seen. He’d sipped at that cup until it was empty. What does that prove? She’d never seen a Terminator eat. But they must. They weren’t keeping that skin alive with batteries.

  And reading the paper was a reasonable thing for a Terminator to do; there would be a lot of useful information in one. But could a Terminator interact well enough with humans to be their boss? Sarah considered that and with a sigh concluded that with careful training the answer was yes. After all, by the time they’d lowered “Uncle Bob” into the molten steel she’d formed an emotional attachment to it.

  This was getting her nowhere, not even home. With a shake of her head she kicked the horse into a trot. Maybe John sent another one back, she thought suddenly.
That was a comforting thought.

  Or was it? If John had sent back another protector for his younger self, it meant

  that there was still a Skynet in the future. The idea sent a shiver shooting down her spine. Linda’s ears swiveled back toward her as if asking what was wrong.

  Stop it! she ordered herself. Then forced herself not to concentrate on how badly she wanted a cigarette. Or a drink.

  *

  Sarah came into a kitchen redolent of fresh-brewed coffee and hot toast. She closed her eyes and inhaled deeply. “Glorious,” she said. Opening her eyes she looked at John, already seated at the table. “You’re up early.”

  “Look who’s talking,” he said, buttering his toast.

  “I was restless.”

  John looked at her sympathetically. “You’re doing great, Mom.”

  Sarah snorted and reached for a cup just as the toast popped up. “That for me?”

  she asked.

  “It is if you wash your hands first.”

  With a laugh she went to the sink and began to scrub.

  “When, exactly, did we reverse roles?” she asked, looking over her shoulder at him.

  “Mmm. It’s just for now, while you’re going through nicotine withdrawal,” he said, licking jam off his fingers. “I thought you could use the pampering. Don’t

  get too used to it.”

  “Thanks for the warning,” she said dryly, flicking him with the towel.

  Then she kissed him on the top of the head and moved off to claim her toast. I do like my son, she thought.

  CHAPTER FIVE

  PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

  Dieter von Rossbach shifted in his saddle, irritated by the turn of events that had drawn him from his office to the edge of this stagnant mud hole. Mosquitoes whined through the hot still air of the Chaco summer; reeds stood still in the scummy green water of the marsh. Birds flicked by like living jewels, but no matter how many of the insects they ate there always seemed to be more. He took off his baseball cap and ran a hand over his short blond brush cut—just starting to go a little gray at the temples— and looked down at his overseer from atop his massive horse. The horse needed to be big. The Austrian was over six feet tall, big-boned and muscular, with the sort of sculpted muscle that only a scientifically designed exercise program can produce. His neighbors and employees thought he was a physical-fitness fanatic, which was true enough.