Infiltrator

doesn't like me one bit and I don't want to get into trouble with Senor von Rossbach. You know?'

'I know,' Griego muttered. He plowed along, getting redder in the face and sweatier as he went. This stuff had better be worth the trouble or he just might take the bottle and clout the kid.

John led him through a path in the tall brush until they came to a low tree with a little poll of greening grass beneath it. 'See,' he said. 'A very pleasant place for our talk.' He held out the bottle.

'Talk!' Victor said, grabbing the bottle. 'I thought we were here to drink, not talk.' He threw himself down beside the tree and pulled the cork with his teeth, surprisingly white in his unshaven face. He took three long swallows of the liquor. 'Not bad,' he rasped when he came up for air. 'Three thousand,' he said, and took another drink.

'Senor! What are you doing? You must pay before you drink any more.'

Victor chuckled. 'You must learn not to offer a whole bottle as a free sample to a man like me,' he said. 'Three thousand or nothing, and I'm being generous.'

He slung back the bottle again.

Suddenly Griego felt the cold sharp point of a knife on his Adam's apple. He didn't dare move his head, so he plugged the bottle with his tongue and tried to look around it at the boy. What he saw made him choke and the knife bit. A tiny drop of blood rolled down his throat.

'Ah, you recognize me.' John smiled pleasantly. 'At least you've had a farewell drink.'

Victor lowered the bottle; liquor splashed his chin and throat amid the stubble, making the small cut burn.

'What do you mean?' he asked. 'You're not going to kill me, are you?

John, we're friends, you and I. Surely you wouldn't kill your old friend Victor?'

His mouth widened in a nervous smile.

John looked thoughtful. 'We were friends, weren't we?' he said. 'My mother did much business with you, didn't she? That was when she was with…' He snapped the fingers of his other hand. 'What was his name?'

'Peter Gallagher,' Victor said eagerly. 'That British fellow.'

'Yeah, yeah, yeah,' John said, smiling. 'That's right.' He twisted the knife a bit, his young face growing crazy serious. 'What a good memory you have, Victor.

You know a memory like that can get a man in trouble.' John shifted so that he was directly in front of Griego, and closer. 'You do know that, don't you?'

'No, no.' Victor raised one finger and smiled desperately. 'It's not what you know, it's who you tell!'

'Very true,' John said. He looked into Victor's eyes as though searching his soul, something that made him feel slightly greasy all over. 'So, old friend, what are you doing here, eh? Are you also a good friend of von Rossbach's? Somehow you don't seem his type.'

Griego laughed, but the knife didn't back off. The tiny cut deepened. 'It's not that we're friends,' he said, fearful that saying he was might anger the boy. 'We do business together,' he explained. 'Just business.'

'Ahhh, business,' John said. 'I see. And just what business exactly does he have with you?' He watched Griego's pupils grow large in terror. 'I think I know, you understand? So if you lie to me I'll slit your nose.'

John pushed the tip of the knife into one nostril. Victor's eyes crossed and he whined, his eyes filling with tears. Thank God he had a chance to get a nice fortifying drink before we got started, John thought.

'Why don't we back up a bit,' he said soothingly. 'Tell me what you know about Dieter von Rossbach. Start with how long you've known him and go on from there.'

'I've known him for maybe… ten years. He—he's used me primarily to get illegal weapons.' Victor simpered. 'Nothing too exotic, but not on the open market. You know?'

John nodded and made a come-on gesture with his other hand.

'Sometimes he'd purchase arms for a third party and have me do the shipping, that sort of thing. And sometimes he purchased information.'

The knife pressed down slightly and Griego squeaked.

'In-for-mation,' John said, stretching the word out. 'That's right, you deal in information, don't you?' He gave his captive the same smile a cobra might give a rat. 'Any chance that's why you're here now?'

Victor started to shake his head no and the knife pressed down. 'Please,' he begged, and started to sob.

'Maybe we should handle this like a business deal of our own,' John said reasonably, withdrawing the knife. 'If you answer my questions to my satisfaction, I'll not only let you keep all your important body parts, I'll throw in an arms cache my mom hid up by the Brazilian border. Assault rifles, SAWs, some antitank stuff. How's that sound, hmm?'

'Good, good,' Victor said, shaking and sweating. 'Good.'

'Here, take a swig,' John said, handing him the bottle. 'Settle yourself down, there.' He leaned in close and patted the man's shoulder. 'We are friends, right?

Right, buddy?'

' Si, friends. The best of friends.' Victor nodded frantically, then took another slug.

John tapped the blade of his knife against his palm.

'Now, from what you've told me, I'd have to say that ol' Dieter sounds like a terrorist. Do you know?' He lifted an eyebrow.

'No,' Victor said almost scornfully, relaxing marginally. 'He's too stable and too well funded for that. I always figured he was working for somebody's government. Maybe even ours, eh?' He slapped John on the arm and winked.

'Who can say?'

'Uh-hunh. Certainly not me.' John held the knife up and examined its edge, running his thumb lightly down the blade, then grinning as he sucked the blood from the small cut. 'So what business are you doing with him now? Guns or information?'

Griego swallowed, watching John's eyes.

That's right you little piglet, Connor thought. Think before you speak. Think very carefully, because, as much as I wish I didn't, I meant every word I said.

'He wants me to identify someone he thinks might be your mother,' Victor confessed.

John lowered the knife.

'I appreciate your being honest with me, Victor.' He sat beside the gunrunner.

'Let me make your decision easy for you. If you identify my mother as Sarah Connor, I'll kill you. Not all at once, mind you, but a little bit at a time. Like the first time I get you I'll cut off your feet, to make it easy for me to get you the next time. Then I'll maybe cut off all your fingers, and then we'll work our way

up to even more important things.'

He paused to watch Griego's reaction. 'I think you know that the police won't be very interested in helping you,' he cautioned. 'Even if you bribe them. They just don't like you, you know? Must be all those weapons you've sold to people who like to shoot cops.'

'You wouldn't,' Victor said through stiff lips. 'That's crazy.'

'Like mother, like son,' John said cheerfully. 'I assure you, however I do it, you'll be dead. So it's not worth it, is it? Besides, there's that arms cache waiting for you. So, is it a deal or what?'

Griego looked uncertain.

'Are you afraid of Dieter?' John asked.

'Some; he's a big man, and he has money.' Victor frowned. 'I don't know what he'll do.'

'What did he say to you when he asked you to identify her?'

'Actually'—Griego brightened—'he said he didn't think the woman I was to identify was Sarah Connor.'

'Excellent!' John waved an expansive arm. 'So, you tell him what he wants to hear, he'll pay you, we'll pay