Rising Storm

pushed that one, too, and with a gust of cool, musty air a door fell open a crack. John pushed it open farther and entered the moist darkness within. Mom would want him to save the former Sector agent from himself.

***

'Look, Lazaro, I'm offering you first-rate security in exchange for a ride home.

We'll help with the driving and even provide our own food.'

Dieter sat at ease in Lazaro Garmendia's office, ignoring the many weapons hidden on the persons of Garmendia and his discreetly hovering associates; trying less successfully to ignore his increasing irritation.

The Brazilian mobster looked von Rossbach over skeptically, rolling a toothpick from one side of his mouth to the other. An overhead fan made ineffectual efforts to stir the air; it was just as humid as it had been in the rain forest, but with less greenery between them and the sun it was much hotter. The thick hazy air was crackling with diesel fumes as well, and a shantytown stink intruded even into this enclave of wealth. The Austrian tried to ignore the decor, which ran to expensive knickknacks and electronic gadgets, plus several pictures of the sort you'd find in a very expensive Rio cathouse.

Dieter and John, having successfully marched through the rain forest to Porto Velho, now needed transport back to Paraguay; preferably transport that couldn't be traced and didn't involve showing papers. All that slogging through the bugs and muck shouldn't be wasted by announcing their presence in this unlikely spot

by drawing enough cash from their bank accounts to buy or rent a vehicle. But Dieter had no intention of walking home.

More than at any time since his retirement Dieter missed the Sector's endless resources; cash or a new identity on demand, or both. Still, his work with the Sector had left him with a head full of useful contacts. When he'd first thought of taking advantage of Garmendia's underground trucking network, it had seemed like the ideal solution.

'I am to believe that when you left the Sector, senhor, you left it so completely as to join the other side?' Garmendia tipped his head, one gray eyebrow raised.

'I think maybe you should take the bus. No?'

'No,' Dieter said, looking into the depths of his drink. 'First, I'd like to get there in my own lifetime. Second'—he raised a brow—'your people are more… sub rosa, so to speak.'

The smuggler shrugged. ' Si, much more so than a bus.' He narrowed his eyes.

'So, what are you prepared to pay?'

'I'm disappointed that you think so little of my skills as a guard that you would ask for additional compensation.' One's de of the Austrian's mouth lifted in a sardonic smile. 'Perhaps I am insulted.'

'Perhaps this is a sting,' Garmendia responded. He spread well-manicured hands and shrugged. 'If I risk losing an entire cargo, I would be a fool not to try to recoup my losses beforehand. No?'

'This is not a sting, Lazaro,' Dieter said, as he took another sip of his drink. '1

could arrange a sting, or even several if you like,' he went on. 'Then you could see the difference between men trying to put you in jail and an old friend asking a favor.'

'Ah, we are old friends now? I don't remember the friendship part of our acquaintance. The freeze! And don't move or we shoot!—those I remember much better.'

Von Rossbach leaned forward. 'Because you tend to avoid smuggling drugs I've kept the authorities out of your pocket several times.'

'I never knew that,' Garmendia said, holding up his hands in mock amazement.

'So you are implying that I owe you this favor.'

'Several times over,' Dieter ground out.

'I would still prefer to be paid.' The smuggler shrugged. 'It is only good business.'

'Frankly I don't want to access my accounts while I'm out of the country,' von Rossbach said.

Garmendia thoughtfully tapped his cigar out on a cut-crystal ashtray.

'You think the Sector doesn't know you've been out of the country?' he asked with a lift of his shaggy brows.

The Austrian waved a big hand dismissively. 'Don't even try to guess what the Sector does or doesn't know,' he advised.

'Or what I know that you don't want anybody else to know,' John said.

The men turned in surprise to find Connor leaning casually against the wall.

'Who the fuck are you?' the smuggler demanded, tossing a glare at his men, who belatedly unholstered their guns. 'And how long have you been there?'

'I thought I told you to wait for me,' Dieter growled.

John grinned. 'Y'know, I think I do remember something like that.' He ambled over to them, ignoring Garmendia's newly alert guards. 'I've been here long enough to hear you trying to squeeze a little capital out of my friend here,' he said to the mobster. He held out his hand. 'John Connor. You must remember my mother, Sarah.'

Dieter leaned back. He hadn't realized that John and Sarah knew Garmendia. It was only logical, he supposed; Sarah had been a smuggler, too, in a small way, since the Connors left the U.S.A., and before that she had run guns.

After a tense moment von Rossbach decided to let John have his head, for the time being. The way he was handling himself allowed Dieter to relax a bit.

Connor wasn't coming on cocky and teenage arrogant; he was cool and very much in control.

' You are that little boy? Where is your mother?' Lazaro asked, briefly shaking John's hand, then looking toward the door. 'She is not with you.' She is well?'

'It's kind of you to ask, senhor. My mother is well, thank you.' At least I sincerely hope she is, John thought. He hadn't been able to get through to Jordan

yet. 'And no. she is not with us. She had… other business to attend to.'

Surviving, hopefully recovering, stuff like that.

'Ah!' Garmendia said with a satisfied smile, and relaxed. 'So she is not with you.'

'Never fear,' John said pleasantly- 'she's with us in spirit.'

The mobster shot a confused look at von Rossbach. 'So you two are together?'

he said after a moment.

' Si,' John agreed amiably.

'How very interesting,' Garmendia murmured, settling back in his chair. He smiled at them through a cloud of cigar smoke. 'And how unexpected.'

Dieter was very unhappy with the look of unabashed greed that suddenly blossomed in Garmendia's eyes. He imagined the smuggler already had two or three information brokers in mind to whom he could sell the word of a former Sector agent's association with the notorious Sarah Connor. He wished John had kept to their room— damage control on this was going to prove very hard to apply.

John watched Garmendia relax in the predator's role, his fat swarthy face smug with the power he thought he held over them. This was another reason he hadn't wanted to deal with smuggling. A lot of these underworld types were so incredibly, childishly petty.

'So many of your old friends would be amazed to hear of it,' Lazaro continued

happily. His eyes glinted as he twisted the knife.

Dieter's face was impassive as he sipped his drink, but inside he was both worried and angry. Kids! he thought in frustration. They're too impatient and too unconcerned with consequences. He ought to have expected something like this; he'd trained enough youngsters, most of them not too many years older than John, to know how troublesome they could be.

John laughed heartily and Lazaro Garmendia looked almost fondly at him.

And why not? von Rossbach thought sourly. He can wring a lot of money out of this situation.

' Si, Senhor Garmendia,' John said after a moment, smiling widely. 'My friend's former employers would probably be stunned to hear of it.' His face and voice grew hard and serious. 'But of course they won't.'