Infiltrator

As she gave the instruments a final check and took the headset off, she heard Henry rattling the door of the washroom again. Well, if he would drink just before getting on a vehicle, and at this hour…

'About time!' she heard him say. Then: 'Who the hell are— ukkkk!'

She turned, then blinked. For a moment the scene before her refused to clear; her mind wasn't accepting the data her eyes presented. A man had come out of the washroom. A huge man, several inches over six feet, dressed in oil-stained workman's overalls. His shoulders strained the fabric until the buttons stood out at dimpled troughs in the cloth. Below the cutoff sleeves his arms were like tree trunks, the skin incongruously pink and unmarred. His face was almost square, the jaw massive and spade-shaped on a bullet head with only a thin bristle of hair to hide its outline. The eyes were the coldest she'd ever seen on a living human being, like dead brown plastic.

One huge hand was locked around Henry's throat. As she watched, it closed, and there was a crack like a green branch breaking, and a sudden hard stink. Henry went as limp as a rag doll, and the stranger threw him aside to slump over one of the recliner seats.

Terrorists, her mind gibbered. Sociopath— madman—

Another of her guests launched himself at the stranger: Edgar, a tiresome physical-fitness enthusiast but a second cousin. Mary almost wept with relief as he slammed his foot into the stranger's groin with a shrill kia! of effort.

The stranger reached down, grabbed the other man's ankle, and swept him in a half circle like a flail. Edgar's head met that of Sally Wentworth with a dull cracking sound…

The next conscious thought Mary Warren had was of disbelief as the stranger's fist smashed through the locked door separating the cockpit from the passenger compartment. Her hands stopped fumbling at the radio controls as the spatulate fingers groped, found the knob… and wrenched it and the lock entirely out of the light- metal frame of the door with a squeal of tortured aluminum.

'Mayday!' she shouted into the microphone. 'Mayday, we—'

The door opened, and the stranger reached for her.

'Mayday,' the Terminator said, in what even a voice-analysis laboratory would have agreed was Mary Warren's voice. 'Mayday!'

'Report, Flight two-one-niner!' the control tower said crisply. 'We show you losing altitude. Report your circumstances!'

'The engines… Oh, God, I can't keep her up… God, God— oh God no please —'

The Terminator increased the angle of descent as it screamed high and shrill.

The water below was only a hundred meters or so deep, easily within his

tolerances, and the speed of impact would be survivable. Thoughtfully, it buckled the seat belt across its torso. It would be inefficient to damage its protein-sheath camouflage more than was necessary to accomplish the assigned mission parameters.

When that was complete, he arranged the body of the subject he'd just terminated in the seat across from him. The impact when it was thrown forward into the cabin windows would account for the blunt injury trauma with a high degree of authenticity.

CYBERDYNE SYSTEMS: THE PRESENT

A single knock and then Serena's office door opened to reveal her secretary, fairly vibrating with excitement. Serena looked up with a slight frown.

'Oh, Ms Burns! Terrible news!' the secretary said.

Which you are looking forward to telling me, the 1-950 thought with mild amusement. They really are a loathsome species. But they were also entertaining. 'What is it?' she asked, still frowning.

The secretary placed her hands on Serena's desk and leaned forward. 'Mrs.

Warren's plane crashed. In the ocean somewhere between here and San Francisco.'

Serena allowed her jaw to drop in an appropriate expression of horror. She rose from her desk and went to the door of her office, looking down the corridor toward the president's suite. 'What happened?' she asked.

The woman crowded close to say, 'Nobody knows, really. Just that the plane is missing and presumed down.'

'Where did you hear it?'

'From Mr. Cowen, Mr. Warren's secretary.'

'I thought you didn't talk to him,' Serena said. Warren's secretary was gay and her own was a member of a very conservative religious organization.

Her secretary was flustered by the observation and took a moment to get a response out.

'Well, ordinarily, no, I don't talk to him. But I saw these two men come down the hall, and sometimes you can tell just by looking at people that something serious has happened. You know what I mean?'

Serena nodded.

'So when Mr. Warren came rushing down the hall with them, he looked absolutely white, let me tell you, I knew something important was up. And…

and I knew that you'd want to be informed.'

Serena turned to look down at the shorter woman, genuinely astonished that she would tell such a transparent lie. Then she smiled. 'Thank you,' she said. 'I do need to be kept informed.' Then she started down the hall to Colvin's office; he might know more.

Colvin was also on the phone. He frowned at her, then nodded to the chair before

his desk. 'I'm sorry, hon, that's all we know right now.' He paused for a moment. 'Let me talk to him about that and I'll get back to you, okay? Well'—

he sighed—'we'll do what we can. Just letting him know that we're here if he needs us will probably help.' He looked up at Serena for a moment, his eyes serious, as his wife spoke to him. 'Okay. I'll probably be home early tonight. See you then. Love you, too. Bye.'

He hung up and he and Serena sat silent for a long time. Then he lifted his eyes to hers.

'Would Tricker do this?' she asked quietly.

Colvin hissed and sat forward, rubbing his face before placing his hands on his desk. He blinked several times. 'I have no idea,' he said at last. 'I mean he's always making these threatening remarks, and blustering, and…' Colvin looked over at her and grimaced. 'But killing someone? Especially Mary.' He spread his hands. 'What would be the point?'

Serena took a deep breath and clasped her hands a little tighter in her lap. 'It would eliminate what he seemed to see as a potential problem,' she said.

'But it would only create a bigger one,' the CEO said. 'That kind of thing tends to snowball. And there'll be an investigation. If there was sabotage or something it will come out.' He slapped the desk with his hand, shook his head. 'No, that doesn't make sense.'

'I blame myself,' Serena said. She adjusted blood pressure to allow her face to go pale. 'I only found out about Mrs. Warren's plane this week, but I should have done something about security for it.'

Colvin looked at her in dismay. 'No!' he said. 'This isn't your fault! You've done a good job here, but you're only one person. You can't be everywhere at once.'

Serena was amazed; Colvin seemed so determined to believe that this was just an accident. Perhaps Warren would be more receptive to the idea that this was a government conspiracy being run by Tricker. Much as she liked the government liaison, she'd prefer him to be less in charge than he was.

'It's just…' She shook her head and waved her hands helplessly. 'I feel we should do something.'

'What?' Colvin asked.

Serena leaned forward and held his gaze with her own.

'Perhaps we should run our own investigation of this… incident,' she suggested.

'That would cost the earth,' the CEO pointed out. 'Why repeat the work of the FAC?'