"I'm so glad you approve," Serena cooed.
Tricker froze, giving her a prolonged, unreadable look. Serena smiled back at him, her eyes twinkling with mischief. Only long experience kept him from blinking as he realized she was actually teasing him. Nobody teased him. "Since everything is going so well," Tricker said at last, reaching down and pulling up the large metal case he'd brought with him. "I think it's time we handed this over to you."
Placing the case before him, he tapped in a code, then pressed his thumb to a sensor, opened it, and studied the contents for a moment before turning it around to allow them to see what it contained.
Colvin and Warren sat forward with gasps of amazement; Serena lifted one eyebrow. Her eyes rose to his questioningly.
Cradled in foam was the mechanical arm that had been stolen and thought destroyed in the Connors' raid on Cyberdyne headquarters six years ago.
"Where did you find it?" Warren asked, stunned.
Colvin reached out as though to touch it.
"It's different," Colvin said in wonder. "I'm sure it is."
"We thought so, too, Mr. Colvin," Tricker said. "Certainly some of it is more damaged than the first one. But these other pieces seem to come from further up the arm. Our people theorize that this is a completely different unit."
"How long have you had this?" Colvin demanded.
"Longer than we'd hoped to," Tricker snapped back. "But you two wouldn't get off your fat backsides and fix your security problems. And we sure as hell weren't going to turn this over to you without some protection in place."
Serena turned the case so that it faced her. She studied the ruined arm.
Terminator, definitely. Cyberdyne Systems model 101. Still fairly new when she'd been sent back. Which had undoubtedly been its problem. Too much to learn in the middle of a crowd of fully functioning human beings.
She looked up at Tricker. "We'll take good care of this one."
"The chip?" Warren said hopefully.
"Sorry," Tricker snarled. "We got lucky. But we didn't get fantastically lucky.
You'll have to make do with this."
"These pieces look like relays," Colvin said, his eyes, as they roved over the mechanism, alight with the joy of discovery. "Relays and subsidiary decision
nodes, memory… We'll learn a lot from this, damaged as it is. A distributed system. There's processing capacity here."
"We'll let these guys worry about how this thing worked," Serena said, grinning at Tricker. "I'll make sure it's safe." She nodded at him, her eyes serious. "I guarantee it."
VON ROSSBACH'S ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT
Elsa Encinas, Epifanio's niece, deftly swung the tray of hors d'oeuvres out from under Victor Griego's hand.
"This is for the guests!" she hissed.
"But I am a guest," he protested.
Elsa simply gave him a look of blistering scorn. Then she turned her shoulder to him and moved away.
Victor hissed and turned to the bar. He hated the way these uppity peasants kept treating him, and everybody else—that stupid rumor about his mother. It had been a bus, not a broken heart.
Victor topped up his glass and turned to study the other guests. The Salcidos, a very well-off husband and wife, sleek and well dressed, were behaving as though he wasn't even in the room. Another couple, fairly new to Villa Hayes, Pedro and Zita Kaiser, occasionally darted a nervous glance in his direction. They felt the undercurrent; they just didn't know the reason for it. But they'd decided to follow the other couple's lead. Not to mention their host's. Von Rossbach had
introduced Victor in an offhand way that pretty much implied courtesy would be wasted on him.
Victor was pretty certain it wasn't his appearance; he was freshly shaved and showered and von Rossbach had insisted on dressing him in what he called decent clothes. Decent clothes consisted of slacks and a sports shirt.
He took another sip of his drink. Sarah Connor hadn't arrived yet and he wondered where in the hell she was. The sooner they got started the sooner he could get out of here. After three days he'd had a bellyful of Villa Hayes. Not to mention putting distance between himself and the knife-happy John Connor.
Rotten kid. He took a long swallow and topped off his drink again. Now, there was someone who could break his mother's heart. If his mother wasn't a loca killer herself.
"Do you mind going a little easier on that stuff," Dieter said from just behind him.
Griego started, spilling gin on his fingers.
"Jesus!" Victor snapped. "Compared to you cats go stomping around like elephants!"
"I want you sober enough to identify her when she comes," Dieter said quietly.
"Or not, if it's not her. I don't want you so drunk you can't tell the difference."
Griego let out his breath in a hiss. "Of course, senor," he said sullenly. He brightened a little. "And then we can part company, eh?"
"Thank God." Dieter moved over to his other guests, who received him with smiles.
Griego glowered. Thank God, he agreed. He couldn't wait to get out of here.
Marieta came in and stopped just inside the doorway; the woman following her almost ran her down. "Senora Krieger," she intoned as though announcing royalty.
Dieter's face lit up. "Suzanne!" he said, and came over to take her hand. "It's good to see you."
Sarah looked at him with a warm smile, although it was all she could do not to flinch as he clasped her hand. It was also hard to keep herself from searching out Griego. But that would be fatal. Instead she turned to the group around the coffee table.
"Come meet everybody," Dieter said with gesture toward the Kaisers.
" Mba'eichapa?" Sarah greeted them in the local fashion as she approached and Pedro rose, putting out his hand. After shaking hands with the Kaisers, she turned to the Salcidos and exchanged hellos and small talk for a moment.
"And this is Senor Griego," von Rossbach said, pointing toward the bar. He gave Victor a disapproving frown.
"Hello," Sarah said politely, her face showing mild curiosity.
"Good evening, senora," Victor said with a slight bow.
"Can I get you something to drink?" Dieter asked.
"A gin and tonic?" Sarah asked. "With a twist."
"Be right back," he said.
Sarah sat and began to chat with his other guests as Dieter went about fixing her drink.
"Well?" he said quietly to Victor. "Is it her?"
"I honestly don't think so," Griego said offhandedly. "But it has been years since I last saw her. And if it isn't her, the resemblance is outstanding. Let me watch her for a while, maybe speak to her, and then I'll know for sure."
To be perfectly honest, Griego had to admit that if John Connor hadn't shown up to threaten his life he really wouldn't have been certain. This woman was very different from the Sarah Connor he'd known years ago. That woman was all stringy muscle and mad eyes. This woman was sleek and elegant and calm.
Could a change in attitude so change a person that you wouldn't recognize them?
He shook his head.
"Give me a little time," he said at last. "Then I'll know for certain."
A muscle jumped in von Rossbach's cheek, and when he looked up from the drink he'd been mixing his eyes were dangerous. "Be very certain," he murmured, and went back to his guests.
Throughout dinner Victor watched Sarah like a hawk while Dieter watched him,
though less obviously. Whenever Griego spoke, even though his remarks were usually limited to "pass the butter," a little silence descended, and at no time did anyone speak directly to him. Victor had started dinner in a bad mood and it went rapidly downhill from there.