Infiltrator

'Hey!' he protested.

Victor waved him back, grinning.

'Just yanking your chain, kid.' He took a drag of his cheroot. 'But I gave you some good information there.' He gestured with the cigar. 'I think you owe me some.'

Cassetti glared at the older man, but he was also thinking. He had been given some information. How valuable he didn't know just now, but a little research should answer that question. He didn't want to alienate Griego either. One never knew when a good source might be needed. 'I have a client,' he allowed. 'A woman.'

Victor raised his eyebrows. This had a client? Whoever it was must have been desperate. 'Local?' he asked, interested.

Marco shook his head. 'She's in the U.S.'

'Oh, ho!' Victor said, very interested. That explained how he got hired; the proverbial pig in a poke. 'This woman have a name?'

But Marco shook his head. 'Sorry,' he said. 'That's privileged information.' He waited a beat, then asked: 'So, what is this Connor woman to von Rossbach?

Are they lovers?'

Griego laughed so hard he almost choked. The idea of a Sector agent, even an exagent, having an affair with Sarah Connor, mad bomber, was too much.

'I'll take that as a no,' Cassetti said dryly.

Victor shook his head as he stubbed out the cheroot. He coughed a few more times, then settled back to look at the odd young man across from him.

'So,' he said at last, 'what's my information worth to you?'

Marco rose and resettled his trench coat around him.

'I'll have to get back to you on that.'

'Hey!' Victor snarled, scowling.

'I'm not jerking you around,' Cassetti assured him. 'I just don't have enough information right now. When I do, then I'll know what this is worth. And then I'll see to it that you get what's coming to you.' He tugged down the brim of his fedora. 'I'll be in touch.' He turned and left without another word.

Griego watched him go with a frown. What a jerk! he thought.

SERENA BURNS'S HOME: THE PRESENT

SARAH CONNOR, LUDDITE TERRORIST

or VICTIM OF GOVERNMENT CONSPIRACY

Serena was pleased with the look of her new Web page. She was particularly proud of such touches as leaving out the question marks in the heading.

Very human, she thought, with the satisfaction of an artist viewing a finished painting. Outside, children were playing and a dog barked.

She had arranged all of the material that was available to the public in such a way that it appeared to have a distinctly sinister slant. The words 'government conspiracy' would drag in thousands of malcontents and agitators looking for a cause to make their own. 'Luddite' was a word that had a growing following, too. So she looked forward to finding a lively, and hopefully seditious, discussion going on in the chat room she'd created.

Best of all, none of it could be traced back to her. It could be traced to Kurt Viemeister, but only if you knew your way around the system—and there was a convincing effort to cover the tracks. Serena grinned; she was certainly over her awe of Skynet's tutor.

She frowned slightly as she read the postings. A large number of the government conspiracists wanted Sarah Connor to have been abducted by aliens. Well, Serena thought, if you consider killer robots from the future alien… She began

to type a message under the name Kerri.

'I heard that she was being chased by a guy who couldn't be killed,' Kerri wrote.

'Oh, come on!' Cyberdude sneered. 'What do you think? That she was being chased by vampires?'

Cyberdude had been one of the most adamant regarding Connor's abduction by government sponsored extraterrestrials. She'd also noticed that people in chat rooms were far more verbally aggressive than they would dare to be in person.

The Luddites were a more serious bunch and their discussion tended toward issues that might have given rise to the Sarah Connor story in the first place. If you only knew, Serena thought.

She created a private chat room for them and invited them in. The conspiracy enthusiasts were fun, but she sensed she could actually use the Luddites. After all, somewhere among them might lurk the scientists who would one day create her. Which is an excellent reason to encourage them, Serena thought.

All in all the site was going well. She checked the addresses of those who had signed on to check it out. No one from Paraguay. Oh, well. It's early days yet, she thought. I'll just give it some time. Logic dictated that someone she was looking for would hear of the site and come to look at it; with a slight mental twitch she began to sort the data.

The phone rang and she accessed the call, noting that it was coming in from Paraguay.

'Burns,' she said crisply.

'Cassetti,' Marco replied, trying to sound just as tough and businesslike.

Serena smiled; he couldn't be much over nineteen from his voice and she couldn't help but be amused by his efforts to sound more mature.

'Ahhh, Senor Cassetti,' she cooed. 'I was just thinking about you.'

'What do you have for me?' she asked breathlessly.

A little sigh trickled over the phone, so soft that only her augmented hearing could have picked it up. She had to fight down the urge to laugh.

'Senor Cassetti?' she prompted.

'Ah, yes,' he said. 'I went to Villa Hayes to do some investigating last night.'

There was the sound of paper being handled. 'And watched von Rossbach's estancia until eleven o'clock. He held a small gathering. Two couples, a single woman, and a gunrunner named Victor Griego. I observed some sort of disagreement apparently taking place between Griego and von Rossbach. Today I approached Griego and questioned him about what had occurred.'

Serena's eyebrows rose sharply as he spoke. This was much better than she'd expected. She wondered about the single woman, but held her peace. Let the human work, it's what you're paying him for.

'Griego informed me that Senor von Rossbach is retired from a covert-operations organization. He didn't have much in the way of details.' Marco

allowed a slightly apologetic tone to creep into his voice. 'I hope to learn more with further investigation.'

The woman, Serena thought impatiently, who is the woman?

'Griego also informed me that the single woman who attended the dinner party was Sarah Connor.'

'Who?' Serena said ingenuously. Inside she was crowing. This was too easy! she thought. Clearly Connor thought she was safe and had grown careless.

There was a slight pause.

'I'm sorry to say, senorita, that this Connor woman is a wanted terrorist.'

Marco wanted to tell her that the man she was interested in might be in danger.

But he also wondered if someone from a covert-operations organization shouldn't know all about Sarah Connor. And if he did, and he was having her over to dinner, with a gun smuggler, well, that implied all sorts of things. Since he didn't know which to say he decided to say nothing.

'Oh, dear,' Serena said, putting a great deal of distress into her voice. 'This is very important information