'Yeah. But you don't know that.' Jordan waited a beat. 'Do you?'
Ferri gave a long sigh, then he chuckled.
'No, I don't, do I?' he said. 'Okay, bring him in. When can we expect you?'
'If I leave now I should be there in three hours. Depending on traffic.'
'I'll stick around,' the Major promised. 'I'll leave word to expect you at the hospital. I'll have them call me when you get in. I'll expect a complete, if off-the-record, rundown on this thing.'
'You got it,' Jordan assured him. 'Thanks.'
'Hey, what are friends for?'
They hung up. Jordan grinned. Then he looked at the car. The kid was looking back at him.
SAN JOAUIN VALLEY, CALIFORNIA: THE PRESENT
'Left here,' Sarah snapped.
Dieter looked at her from the corner of his eye. That was about all she'd said since the fiasco in Sacramento. 'Turn right here, left, right, get on highway five.'
Her calm was beginning to get on his nerves. As was the way she was snapping out directions.
'Where are we going?' he asked as they climbed out of the heat and rectilinear farmlands of the valley and into high, dry hills.
'Friends,' she said.
Five miles down the road he began to see things that looked familiar. When he signaled to turn just before she gave him directions, he knew he was right. It was a tremendous relief.
Ike and Donna Chamberlain would help settle her down. Her very stillness indicated that she needed to be doing something. They'd find something to keep her busy.
Sarah cast him a quick glance the second time he began a turn just before she told him to. Then she settled into silence. It didn't come as a surprise to her that
they had some acquaintances in common.
Dieter honked three times, then twice, then once, then once again as he drove down a narrow dirt track that led to the Chamberlains' cabin in the woods.
Ike was a former Navy SEAL, and Donna was a former MR Not surprisingly they had met in the Philippines one wild night when she'd had to arrest him. And tamed him in a heartbeat, so Ike claimed. They were survivalists first and foremost, making, growing, or hunting most of what they needed to live. For cash and anything else they had a sideline.
Ike was a gunsmith. More of a gun artist, really. He could re-create any gun ever made for a rich man's toy. Or he sometimes worked with the government, or an organization like the Sector, to produce high-tech models that would always be too specialized and too damned expensive for mass production.
The sideline was so lucrative that they could easily have retired to some tropical paradise to be waited on hand and foot for the rest of their lives. Such a suggestion, if one had the temerity to make it, was always greeted by a blank expression and the response, 'Why, I'd just roll up and die if I didn't have nothing to do!'
Dieter pulled into the deserted clearing before the cabin. It was a large place; the Chamberlains had raised two kids in this out-of-the-way spot. Two kids who couldn't wait to get as far from the purity of the woods as their legs and the bus would carry them.
They both worked in computers now and were doing very well. They called often, via cell phone, and never visited. It was almost as if they suspected their
parents would keep them there by force. Which they were perfectly capable of doing if they thought it was the right thing to do.
Sarah looked around like someone coming out of a deep sleep, narrowing her eyes as she examined the two-story notched-log cabin. Dieter sat with both hands on the wheel and waited. Eventually a tall figure in a hip- length suede coat and broad-brimmed hat stepped from the woods, a rifle held under one arm, pointing downward. From the slenderness, Dieter thought it must be Donna.
'Never thought I'd see the two of you sharing the front seat of a car unless one of you was in handcuffs,' Donna drawled. She grinned, her weather-beaten face breaking into a thousand lines, each one a welcome.
'Hello, Donna,' Dieter said.
Sarah got out of the car and came around; opening her arms, she hugged the older woman, who returned the hug one armed. Donna's eyes dropped questioningly to von Rossbach, who tightened his lips and frowned in answer.
She gave Sarah's back a pat.
'C'mon in, why don't you?' she said. 'I'll put on some coffee and roust Ike outta the workroom. Then you people can tell us what's on your mind.'
Ike and Donna blinked as they stared at Dieter and Sarah, then shifted nervously in their chairs and met each other's eyes in sidelong glances. They'd always worried about Sarah. Her strange crusade against Skynet, which Sarah herself said didn't exist—yet—was blatantly insane even by their relaxed standards. It made her a stand out even among the bizarre folk they tended to meet.
Visiting with them had always seemed to center her, though, to bring her back down to earth and the time and place everybody else was living in. She was actually very likable when she was calm and not talking about Judgment Day.
It was with regret that they'd watched her grow harder over the years. They tolerated her wrangy attitude mainly for John's sake. They saw how well she treated her son, even though they thought her discipline was a bit too strong.
And they found John to be a delightful boy, they'd have done anything for him.
Dieter, on the other hand, they'd always liked, and by comparison to Sarah, he was very uncomplicated. Von Rossbach was unequivocally one of the good guys and that appealed to them. The few times they'd met had been fun and he was always welcome. If anyone had asked they'd have said he was one of the sanest, steadiest men they knew.
Now he was telling them that Sarah's wild stories were gospel truth. It was a hard mouthful to swallow. But the look Ike and Donna were giving one another now said as plain as words:
'So where's John now?' Ike asked.
'Probably on his way to the main Cyberdyne facility under a military base somewhere in California,' Sarah said bitterly.
She put her face in her hands and breathed deeply for a moment. The other's around the table glanced at one another in embarrassment, not quite knowing what to do.
'Who'd be dumb enough to build a military base underground in
Ike asked.
'The army?' Donna answered, raising her eyebrows.
'Going to Sacramento was a complete waste of time,' Sarah said bitterly, dropping her hands. 'And way too expensive.'
'Not entirely wasted, Sarah,' Dieter said. He reached down and pulled up his backpack. Reaching in he extracted the portable computer. 'John downloaded a lot of stuff into this.'
'It never occurred to you to tell me about that?' Sarah snapped.
'I thought I'd give you some privacy,' von Rossbach said calmly. He turned the computer on. 'Now we can see what he got for us. Then we can go and rescue him.'
'You're assuming he's alive,' she said.
He stopped and looked at her, his gaze level.
'And what do you assume, Sarah?'
'I assume that if he was brought directly to the boss Terminator that he—' She stopped herself.
Letting her anger take over wouldn't help, and if she gave up hope there was no point in going on. Closing her eyes she took a deep breath, let it out slowly, and
