Infiltrator

'He's not here,' the man said. 'You tell him when you see him that I'm gonna fire him if he doesn't start showing up soon.' Then he hung up.

Serena sat, phone in hand, and thought. Cassetti could have instructed his friends at the restaurant to say he wasn't there. Which would mean that he must have seen or known about the Terminator's… termination.

She hung up the phone as it began to bleat. She could hire someone to check it out, but decided not to muddy the waters any further. After all, the restaurant man might have been telling the truth. Which would mean that the Terminator had eliminated Cassetti before it was itself destroyed.

The important thing now was that the Connors were alerted and they were coming. Soon.

She smiled. A very comprehensive set of military-history records had been among her downloads. The history of the U-boat campaigns was among them. .

Submarines had been an unanswerable weapon, as long as warships tried to find them, hunting through the wastes of water. The ocean was too big-The answer was to group all the merchantmen into a convoy and surround it with warships. Then the submarine had to come to you.

NEW YORK CITY: THE PRESENT

Ron Labane opened the envelope marked 'personal and confidential' and pulled out the newspaper clipping within. He checked but found no note, and there was no return address on the envelope. With a quirk of lips and brows he shook the

piece open and started to read. Soon he was chuckling richly.

The article concerned a university professor who'd been found, near-smothered by methane, tied to a stake driven into the middle of a lake of pig feces adjacent to a gigantic hog-factory farm. The good professor had conducted a study of such farms and had concluded that their impact on rural communities was minimal.

I wonder if he still feels the same way, Ron thought.

The article went on to list the complaints of the people who lived near the hog factory, including the horrible smell and the resultant drop in property values in the nearby town. A local environmentalist talked about how runoff from the lake of feces had contaminated local streams and the ponds and lakes they ran into.

He also suggested that the wells that many of the area farms relied on were no longer safe.

Ron folded up the piece and put it back into its envelope. It seemed the 'fab four' had taken his advice. He looked forward to their next escapade.

He rose and took the article to his secretary. 'How could we get this picked up by the wire services?' he asked her.

She took the envelope from him and read its contents, then laughed out loud.

'Let me take care of it,' she said, her eyes dancing. 'I know just who to call.'

CHAPTER NINETEEN

VON ROSSBACH ESTANCIA,

PARAGUAY: THE PRESENT

What Dieter meant by 'primitive' was a thatched-roof adobe cottage with a stamped-earth floor and a noisome pit out back sheltered by a broken-down lean-to. The well out front lacked even a bucket. Things rustled and creaked outside, and chirped and buzzed. The Chaco had a fine assortment of things that crawled, hopped, flew, and stung, and nobody here had been waging the continuous battle that was the only way to keep them out of a building. But it was dry and swept clean.

'Well,' Sarah said, dropping her sleeping bag, 'like you said, it will do for one night.'

Dieter squatted down and lit the Coleman lamp. Light didn't make the place look more welcoming; less so, if anything. John came in with his sleeping bag and a satchel of oddments they always took camping with them. Then he went out to the vehicle to get the rest of their gear.

Dieter watched her lay out some plastic sheeting. 'It's a good thing you store this stuff in your barn.'

Sarah gave him a quick grin, gone so fast he thought it might have been a trick of the light.

'Never put all your eggs in one basket.' She dropped her rolled-up sleeping bag onto the sheet and sat on it. 'We have other stashes all over the place. I've probably forgotten where some of them are.'

'Like a squirrel burying nuts,' von Rossbach said.

Sarah grunted and took a sip from her canteen. 'You should get Linda settled down,' she said as she screwed the cap back on. 'She hates being in that thing.

I'm surprised she hasn't freaked out yet.'

As if the horse had heard and understood, there was a squeal from inside the horse trailer and the sound of a hoof hitting the back door.

Sarah raised her brows and gestured. 'There she goes.'

John came in looking worried. 'Dieter, I don't know if Mom's told you or not, but

—'

'She did,' von Rossbach said, rising. 'I'm on it.' He turned to Sarah. 'I'll be back in one hour.'

She nodded and watched him go. John spread his own plastic and sat down. He looked around uncertainly.

'Aren't there supposed to be these parasites?' he asked.

Sarah sighed and lay down on her back, her legs hooked over the sleeping bag.

'Yes, there are,' she said. 'But why talk about the idle rich now?'

Epifanio put down his little tot of cana and went to help the Senor unload the horse without being asked. First because it was his job. Second, but probably more important, he wanted to find out what was going on. Where had this horse and trailer come from? Marieta had told him that she thought von Rossbach was going to visit Senora Krieger. He thought she had a horse, but she certainly

didn't sell them.

It was a mare, he saw, and she was clearly unhappy. Epifanio caught the glitter of a rolling eye as she turned her head slightly. The mare's ears were back almost flat against her shapely head. She let go with a distressed little scream and his own horse, Sita, answered from the barn. That seemed to surprise and yet calm the little mare.

Von Rossbach stood with his hands on his hips and looked at her as though not certain what he should do.

'Let me start her out, senor,' Epifanio offered. 'I will fit better.'

Which was true: he was about a third his boss's size. Also, he knew horses better, having lived and worked with them all his life. He knew right away from the way she was muscled that this little lady was a pet and not a working animal.

Epifanio could almost feel sorry for her, being taken from her home at night like this. He wondered why, and whether she was now to become a cow pony.

'Her name is Linda,' von Rossbach said.

Epifanio got up to her head without incident, which disposed him to like her. He rubbed her nose gently and offered her a peppermint candy he had in his pocket.

She took it gratefully and rubbed her head against his chest.

'You are a fine lady, Linda,' he said gently, scratching under her chin. 'Let's get you into a nice stall and settled in for the night, eh?' He began easing her backward out of the trailer, petting her as he complimented her and soothed her with his voice.

Von Rossbach stood still and off to the side of the ramp so as not to startle the nervous animal. Though he was grateful for the help he was sorry that his foreman was here. His plan had been to just put Linda in the barn and leave without a word to anybody. Now there would have to be some sort of explanation.

'She is a pretty thing,' Epifanio said, stroking the horse's nose. 'What are we to do with her?' He looked at his boss. Surely he knew that she was too small for him to ride.

'She's just visiting,' Dieter said. 'If someone wants to ride her to ex-ercise her that would be good. But all