"Okay," he said, "you asked me here. I assume you had a reason."
The doctor smiled a secret smile and nodded. "Yes," he said quietly. "I did."
Then he went silent again.
"Uh-huh," Jordan said. "Are you going to let me in on it? Because I do have a life beyond these walls, Doctor. Things to do, people to see."
"I wanted to talk to you about Sarah Connor," Ray admitted. "You were very kind to her when you were both in the hospital. I wondered why, when you'd spent so many years trying to bring her to justice."
Jordan shrugged, and drank a little of the brown sludge the Pescadero coffee machines dispensed. "Maybe I just wanted to be sure that she'd live to stand trial.
Maybe I've been born again and wanted to forgive her.
Or maybe I've come into some new information that left her innocent of my brother's murder."
Ray nodded, never taking his eyes from Jordan's. "And which is it?" he asked, his voice gentle.
Jordan just stared back for a minute, chewing on the inside of his cheek. "Why do you ask?"
The doctor grinned. "I apologize," he said. "It can be hard to turn off the doctor-patient dynamic. My goal is to help Sarah. If you wanted to be of help to her, too, I was thinking that I could arrange for you to visit her. It might be helpful to you as well," he suggested.
Jordan took a deep breath and looked thoughtful.
This is good, he thought. Very good. I wonder if Sarah suggested it. Certainly it would ease John's worries if he could tell them how she was doing here in Pescadero. And it would allow him to keep his promise not to let them drug her insensible. He looked up.
"I came into new information, nothing I can prove, that Sarah Connor wasn't responsible for my brother's death. Yes, he was there because she brought him there, but she did not kill him, and she did not intend for him to die."
Jordan tightened his lips. "That was hard to accept. But I received this information from two independent sources, so I couldn't refuse to believe it. And that changed things for me. I finally realized that it was time for me to move on."
He adjusted his position in his chair. "And once I met the woman"—he shook his
head—"it was obvious that she was acting under some sort of compulsion. She isn't a vicious killer, she didn't want to hurt anybody, but she had to destroy Cyberdyne. Why"-he shrugged—"maybe you can tell me."
Ray nodded solemnly, but didn't rise to the bait.
"In the hospital," Dyson continued, "she was a different person. Entirely different. Of course"—he waved his hand—"the circumstances were also completely different, so I don't know…" He petered out, looking exasperated.
The doctor studied him for a while as though waiting for him to continue.
"Would you be willing to speak with her again?" he finally asked.
Jordan bit his lips, frowning, then opened them as though to say something, but he kept silent.
"As I said, I think it could be beneficial to both of you. It might well help you to put the pain behind you."
Looking thoughtful, Jordan sat silent for another moment, then looked up decisively. "All right," he said. "I'll do it." I'll have to get word to Paraguay somehow. This weather-report thing has its limits.
VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA, PARAGUAY
John was watching the clock, waiting to call Watcher, aka Wendy Dorset, when Dieter came into his room, all smiles.
"Good news," he said.
John didn't doubt it; the big man fairly lit up the room with good vibes. It made a nice change from the solemn Teutonic atmosphere they'd all been living in for the last three months. He sat up, setting aside the magazine he'd been reading.
"What's up?" he asked.
"Your mother is up for a move to minimum security," Dieter said, his blue eyes aglow. "Sometime in the next six weeks, Jordan said."
"You spoke to Jordan directly?" John was both surprised and disappointed.
Surprised that Dyson would risk it, disappointed that Dieter hadn't called him to get on the line.
"For about forty seconds only," Dieter said. "I barely had a chance to say hello and he was gone again. He said he'd call back at the next opportunity. After three months of tapping his phone with no results, he's sure they'll soon move on.
There's never enough manpower or equipment," von Rossbach added.
You should know, John thought. He glanced at the time; almost exactly four.
"I'm about to call a possible recruit named Watcher," he said regretfully. "I think she might be useful. Can I talk to you later about this?"
Dieter nodded cheerfully. "Yes," he agreed. "We have much to talk about."
CAMBRIDGE, MASSACHUSETTS
Wendy brushed back her smooth dark red hair and eyed the phone lying on the table before her, willing it to ring, as she took a sip of the cooling coffee. Her eyes swept the almost empty confines of the shabby cafe, with its bored waitress
and long-dead pastries behind filmy glass; she felt nervous, wary… and a bit excited, she admitted to herself.
Perhaps this secret watchdog group could help. Perhaps they were part of the problem and were onto her and just trying to find out what she knew before they
—
Wow, she thought sardonically, great plot line, there. Maybe I should take a course in screenwriting. Zzzzzt! Cue the black helicopter!
Real life didn't have a plot. It just bumbled aimlessly on its way, unless you directed it by sheer force of will. Which was harder to do than to say, she knew.
She'd seen that in her lather's life. When he was her age he'd been an ardent activist, fighting against the war in Vietnam, fighting for civil rights.
Now he ran a moderately successful insurance business, just like his dad had done. And as far as Wendy could tell, he had no idea how he'd gotten from firebrand to burnout. She saw herself at his age, complacently middle class, being careful not to rock the boat too hard.
Did middle age bring about a failure of will, or did you just have more to lose? I guess, she thought, that you always have a lot to lose, it just seems less important when you're young. So I guess it's better that you're inclined to fight the good fight when you're young and don't have a lot of commitments. Yeah, commitments, that's the glue that slows you down, and when it sets, well, your life's over, I guess.
Wendy lifted a brow. Maybe this wasn't the best attitude to assume when she was about to meet AM. Or anyone else for that matter.
She tapped the cell phone on the table before her. It belonged to the house mother, a really nice woman who left it all over the place, so it wouldn't be missed. Everyone "borrowed" it, then returned it with a cheerful "Were you looking for this?" She glanced at her watch. It was four; AM should—
The phone rang.
She bit her lip and stared at it. Just before the third ring she picked it up. "Yeah?"
she said.
"Watcher?"
It was a young voice; the youth of it hit her before the fact that it was also a male voice. "How old are you?" she demanded.
There was a long-drawn-out sigh. "I get a lot of that," he said dryly. "Not as young as I sound, I know that for sure." Damn! he thought. "Does it matter?"
"Ye-ah! Why would I want to get involved in someone's high-school project?
Look, kid—
"I found you, didn't I?" John asked, letting his voice get hard. "It took about a minute."