'I'll need a case to carry these in,' the Terminator said, laying the guns down on the desk. 'You have something?'
Victor glared, but nodded. Of course he did. One frequently had to bring these
things in and out, and they looked a little conspicuous wrapped in plastic bags.
'It will cost you extra,' he said between his teeth.
This was getting to be a bit much. Von Rossbach was conducting business with him as nearly as possible as though they were in different rooms. On top of the way Dieter had treated him the other night it verged on intolerable. Even the prospect of obscene profit from this transaction was waning in attractiveness, while throwing von Rossbach out began to appeal.
'The case? The ammunition?' the Terminator said, turning to look down at Griego, its face impassive.
'That's it!' Victor snarled. 'I don't have to put up with this, von Rossbach. Who do you think you are, coming in here as though nothing happened? No apology, no acknowledgement, nothing! Making demands left and right like I'm some servant!' He stepped forward and pushed his face up toward the Terminator's while aggressively poking it in the chest with a chubby finger. 'Well, I don't need you. If the Sector wants to buy from me they can just send someone else, because as of right now I'm terminating this transaction!'
'I have questions for you,' the Terminator said.
'Oh, do you?' Victor sneered. He picked up the Steyr from where it lay on the desk. 'Well, that's too bad, because I'm not going to answer them. Now get lost!'
Griego attempted to put the gun back on its pegs, but the Terminator snatched it out of his hands and pushed him in the chest. Victor stumbled backward, his knees folding as they hit the windowsill and he fell through the open space.
Before he could even scream the Terminator grabbed one of his legs and held him suspended upside down over the alley forty feet below.
'I have some questions,' it said.
'All right, all right! Pull me in and I'll answer them.' Victor reached toward the window helplessly, completely unable to do anything but hang at the end of the Terminator's arm. 'Please!' he pleaded, terrified. 'Help me.' Fingers clawed the air.
'Ammunition, a case,' it said.
'For Christ's sake, Dieter! Pull me up!'
'Answer me.'
'There's a case beside my chair next to the filing cabinet. You'll find ammo for all the guns in the cabinet in a hidden drawer under where the guns are displayed. Now pull me up!' Griego was in tears and was beginning to realize that von Rossbach might actually kill him. 'Why?' he sobbed. 'Why are you…
why?'
'What did Cassetti tell you about his client?' The Terminator lifted two fingers from Victor's ankle and Griego screamed frantically.
'No! What? What?'
The Terminator folded his fingers back around Griego's leg.
'Cassetti, his client. What did he say?'
'He said she was a woman and in the United States!'
'That is all?'
'Yes! YES!' Victor tried desperately to get his hands nearer to the Terminator's without success. 'Please,' he begged, 'please don't kill me.'
The Terminator calculated the odds of Griego surviving a fall from this height.
Particularly in a head-down position. The numbers came back in favor of this method of termination. It had the added advantage of perhaps looking like an accident or suicide.
Griego watched its implacable face, hoping to find some clue to his fate there.
The longer it stayed completely still the more terrified Victor became. The man was on drugs, or insane. He panicked and began to thrash around in midair.
'Let me go!' he shouted. Then realized what he'd said. 'NO!'
But the Terminator had already opened its hand and Victor was plummeting earthward. The Terminator watched the body impassively for a moment, noted that its temperature was already dropping, and turned to the weapons cabinet. It examined the bottom of the recess and found that the wood there could be moved. It lifted the lid at the bottom of the case and found several boxes of ammunition concealed below. It took several dozen clips of 5.56, a dozen thirty-two-round magazines of 9mm parabellum for the machine pistol, and both of the 40mm grenades, then closed the cabinet. It retrieved the case from behind Griego's desk and filled it with weapons and ammunition, clicking the catches shut and hefting. The weight was less than twenty kilos, not nearly enough to
degrade mobility significantly.
The door opened and Cassetti came in. The Terminator's head snapped around, but it maintained its position. 'I told you to wait,' it said.
'I got bored,' Marco snapped back, playing it more cocky than he felt. 'So where's Griego?' he asked, looking around.
'He just dropped out,' the Terminator said. It picked up the case and started for the door.
'What's that?' Marco asked.
'Something we arranged before he had to go,' the Terminator answered. 'We must leave. By the time we get back, the car will be waiting.' It stood in the doorway, its concealed eyes fixed on the young detective.
Cassetti looked around the office uneasily. This wasn't right. He knew it wasn't right. Griego hadn't come down the stairs while he was climbing up, so where could he have gone? He wouldn't leave his windows open and a stranger in the room, would he?
'Did he say where he was going?' Marco asked.
The Terminator looked at him while it processed his question. Deception was required. 'The can,' it said at last. The human's face showed doubt quite clearly.
Its processor suggested that the length of time it had taken it to answer had aroused suspicion. 'It took me a minute to think of the Spanish for that,' the Terminator explained.
'Oh,' Cassetti said. He was still a bit uneasy, but it was plausible. Barely.
'If you want to talk to him you can come back later. My plane leaves at seven-thirty and I've got things to accomplish before then,' the Terminator said.
'Sure,' Marco said, and headed toward it.
The Terminator looked at him for another second, then headed out. Marco followed it closely, pulling the door shut behind him. It still didn't feel right to him. But it would be stupid to hang around only to find out that Griego had in fact simply gone off to use the toilet.
Sarah Connor scanned again with the IR binoculars. The land around their
Nothing but the sound of insects and the hot spicy scents of the Chaco scrub.
'If they're out there,' Sarah said quietly, 'they're very well hidden. Nothing but Dieter, and he's alone in that car. I've been tracking him for miles.'
'Maybe they're not out there,' John said.
'Maybe not,' she agreed. 'But von Rossbach is.'
As Dieter pulled up outside she began to feel an adrenaline high, pulse and heart pounding, her skin overly
