T2 Rising Storm, page 24
part #2 of Terminator Series
Dieter waved Connor's concerns away. "Every gangster who ever lived has stories going around about them. Half of them are made up by the gangster himself."
"No, they're not!" John insisted. "I wish to God they were, but they're not, and you've got to know it. The guy's a whack job; you walk in there again, he's going to go off like a bomb." He pointed a finger at him. "You know I'm right. You've been in law enforcement how long?"
Holding out both hands, palms up, von Rossbach said, "If you haven't convinced me by now, you should know you're not going to. You've been whining about this all the way from Bogota!"
" Whining? Not wanting to get myself killed is whining? You know what? I've been around paramilitary, terrorist, and just plain scumbag types all my life, and if there's one thing I've learned it's that sure as God made little green apples, that's the kind of thing you old guys—
"Old guys?"
"—say when you want us young guys to go take that hill. Which means I'm onto the joke, Dieter. You want to go have a tete-a-tete with Garmendia, you go ahead. I'll send flowers." He moved past von Rossbach. "I'll also find my own way home."
Dieter frowned, still a little ticked over that crack about "old guys." But when John moved past him and marched down the street, he knew his obligation to Sarah wouldn't allow him to let the boy go. Much as he might want to at the moment.
"John," he said, hurrying down the street after him. "Wait up." He put his hand on the boy's shoulder. "Look, we're both dirty and tired and hungry. Let's find a place to clean up and get some rest, then we'll eat. After that, we'll see what we feel like doing. Okay?"
Connor stopped walking and sighed, then turned to Dieter. "Yes to the bath and rest and food," he said. "But don't expect me to change my mind about Garmendia." He looked at his friend's face and shook his head. "I don't know why you think you have to do it this way. It just doesn't make sense to me. You, of all people, know better."
Dieter held up his hand. "Don't. You're just going to start up all over again. So, like I said, let's get clean and fed."
Standing back, John said tersely, "Sure. Whatever."
Von Rossbach moved through the early-morning crowd easily. He was simply dressed in a white, short-sleeved shirt, tan slacks, a light-colored straw hat, and sunglasses. As far as possible his clothing matched that of the local men, with the exception of his well-worn jungle boots. He never wore sandals; they were cooler, granted, but much less stable when the occasion called for action.
Despite his bland clothing, the Austrian would never blend in here; he was a head taller than most of the people around him, and his build just didn't fit the local type. They seemed to automatically step aside, as though his blond height was somehow dangerous.
Dieter thought about his last conversation with John, frowning as he walked. The boy had refused to accompany him, excusing himself this morning by saying that he wanted to visit old friends. This was the first von Rossbach had heard about them, making him wonder if these old friends were, in fact, mythical. Well, at least they hadn't had another go-round at breakfast about his calling on Garmendia.
The boy didn't seem to understand that the smuggler was a resource, and if one had a resource one used it. Yes, there were other ways of getting home, but all of them were much more trouble than leaning on the local crime lord. In his days with the Sector, Dieter had extracted greater favors from people infinitely more dangerous than Lazaro Garmendia.
Of course, at the time he'd had the backup of the Sector's kill squads, should anything happen to him. But even retired, he still had friends in the Sector.
True, many of them were looking for him at the moment with the intention of interrogating him to within an inch of his life. At least he didn't think they'd go beyond that last inch. But the protection should still be there. After all, if the Sector allowed their retired agents to get killed by the bad guys, morale would suffer.
The Sector was big on boosting morale.
Another thing that John didn't understand was that Garmendia was a type. Push the right buttons and you'd get the same reactions every time. Dieter was confident that he could play the smuggler like a piano. The kid was just being stubborn.
Or maybe it was something about his age. Perhaps he was trying to assert himself. Teenagers did that. It could also have something to do with his mother's absence. Dieter considered that for a moment, then mentally swept it aside. Whatever was going on with the boy was ill timed and damned annoying.
John watched von Rossbach go with a disagreeable sense of apprehension. It felt like that excellent Brazilian coffee he'd drunk for breakfast was still perking.
Maybe the anxiety was because he didn't know what it was his mother held over the smuggler's head and he hated not having vital information like that. Or maybe he was just being opinionated. But deep down inside, something was telling him that Dieter was walking into a hornet's nest, head up, shoulders back, brain in neutral.
What was up with the big guy these days? They'd gotten through the jungle the first time without a single flare-up. This time they'd struck sparks off each other from day one. He thought about the last weeks. Had he been more irritable lately, or was it that Dieter was suddenly more irritating, and if so, to either question, why?
A sudden picture of Wendy smiling at him and the heady memory of her kisses came to him on a wave of endorphins, and he shook his head, smiling. Yeah, well, there was that. Maybe Dieter was missing Mom, too.
He looked up and down the street, then started off for Garmendia's palacete by a different route than Dieter had taken. If he hurried he should get there before von Rossbach walked into trouble.
John figured the secret door he'd used a few months ago was either blocked or watched, or both. Fortunately there was another way in that he'd discovered and his mom had perfected. He thought he might still be narrow enough to fit.
It only provided a place from which to observe. There was no way into the house from the tunnel, but at least he'd know what was happening to his big friend. Then, maybe, with luck, he'd be able to help. At least that was the plan du jour.
It would have been nice if it was dark. To enter the palacete's grounds he'd take a short jaunt through the sewer, then come up out of a storm drain. But he'd be exposed in the bright morning light for a few minutes as he worked his way to the house itself.
No help for it. That Dieter was an eager beaver and a morning person to boot. Which Garmendia probably wasn't; another reason to not expect a hospitable reception.
John also hoped that no security of any type was patrolling the alleys, looking for someone trying to break into the surrounding mansions. The local upper class, those just below the level who could afford their own personal security guards, clubbed together to hire men to scope out the whole neighborhood. The really rich loved it, because they benefited without having to spend a cent.
Using a crowbar he'd "borrowed" from the pension, he hoisted the drain cover, slipped under it, and dropped down, allowing the cover to slam down above him. It always cost him a little skin to do it this way, but aside from the sound of the slam, it left no evidence of his passing. He hunkered down to straddle the slimy green trickle down the center of the sewer—it was mostly a storm drain, in fact—and duckwalked in the direction of Garmendia's palacete, wrinkling his nose a little.
The drain cover was just inside the wall of the smuggler's estate, deep in the greenery that made up the garden, and it was a damned tight fit.
John had to take off his shirt and rub Vaseline onto the rim to squirm through. Even then he was bleeding by the time he dragged himself out, grateful for the first time that he was the rangy type and not a mound-o'-muscle like Dieter. He was still getting bigger through the chest and shoulders, though, no doubt about that.
He had studied the area as closely as he could through the grille of the cover and seen nothing. Upon crawling out of the drain, he'd lain quiet on the moist soil beneath the bougainvillea and frangipani and assorted tropical bushes, looking for booby traps or cameras. He'd found neither.
A crook who isn't paranoid, he thought in wonder. He didn't think he'd ever met one before.
He shrugged into his shirt and looked around, listening for any sound of human activity. John was amazed that Garmendia allowed so much cover so close to such an undeniable weak spot in his perimeter. Unless it was a trap of some kind.
There was a comforting thought.
The garden was weed-free and tidy, but the plants were all old ones, indicating that this was no one's special care. So he could look forward to remaining unobserved by gardeners, at least. He still couldn't get over the absence of any electronic surveillance. That meant the smuggler was relying on his muscle to watch over him.
Given that even working together, they didn't seem bright enough to change a lightbulb. this must mean they're unbelievably vicious. He groaned internally, cursing Dieter's hubris; goons like these might be dumb as a box of rocks but they could be incredibly inventive within their own limited sphere of interest.
Deliberately he pushed his attention to finding a way across the open ground between the green belt around the wall and the green belt around the house. He set off to explore.
After about fifteen minutes he found a peninsula of shrubbery that reached toward the house, cutting the empty space between him and it to about twenty feet.
John pulled out the ocular he'd brought with him and studied the house. He caught no hint of movement through the broad windows that overlooked his hiding place. Not that that meant anything. If someone was sitting or standing still ten feet from the windows, he'd be unable to see them.
He waited five minutes, wishing it could be more, but knowing he had to get into place or Dieter might be on his way to the river before he ever left cover. John stood and moved quickly to the protection of the shrubs around the house. He didn't run; that would have attracted attention, even if only from the corner of someone's eye. Once he'd burrowed into the thick growth of the bushes, he moved toward the tunnel entrance.
It wasn't really a tunnel; it was more of a ventilation shaft running from the crawl space beneath the building. This area was still on the alluvial plain of the river, and the builders had wanted insurance against floods as well as some air. At least that's what his mother had thought. Apparently it had become a highway for rats and other vermin, as a former owner of the place had sealed the shafts at their point of origin on the foundation of the house. The workmen hadn't done a very good job and Mom had cleared the bricks from one place, replacing them with a disguised false door.
Nothing lethal bit him as he crawled along in utter darkness; which wasn't something you could count on, especially on the borders of Amazonia. A bit of dirt had built up along the bottom edge; he pulled out his pocketknife and cleared it away, then stuck the blade into the crack between the false mortar and the real and pried on the door. At first the blade bent perilously and he didn't think it was going to open: he was about to pull it out when the door began to move. He got his fingernails around the edge and pried until he could get a hand in and drag the little door open.
John bent and looked into the dark hole. There was a faint light in the distance and the shaft was draped with spiderwebs. He shuddered. It wasn't just that he disliked spiders; hereabouts a lot of them were poisonous, and he didn't look forward to the prospect of being bitten again.
Biting his lips, he pushed himself forward. At least he would fit. After about twenty feet, though, he began to doubt that.
Maybe it's time I put aside childish things, like avoiding dogs and crawling through air ducts. He did fit, but it was a damned tight fit. Getting out of here is gonna be a bitch!
Garmendia had taken the time to shave and dress before coming down to see his uninvited, and most unwelcome, guest. The grooming was not to honor the man but to allow time for his outrage to subside from murderous to merely insulted. Which most of the smuggler's acquaintances, whether rivals or employees, would recognize as more than dangerous enough.
He'd soothed his anger not in fear of the Sector or its agent but because he wanted to know just how much von Rossbach knew about his secret and who, if anyone, he had told. Once he had his answers, well, the Sector agent might just become fatally accident-prone. He might fall into a river, for example, at a place where caimans gathered.
Garmendia smiled at the image of the crocodilelike reptiles tearing into the foreigner's flesh. It almost put him in a good mood.
He found von Rossbach in the morning room, sipping coffee and smoking a huge cigar. Irritation rose in him to find that his servants had provided refreshment without his permission. He'd deal with that later.
Dieter looked up to find Garmendia standing in the doorway, his eyes still puffy from sleep but bright with rage and hatred. Deep inside him a sense of warning woke and he admitted to himself that, just perhaps, John might have had a point.
The smuggler moved into the room and took a stance before him. "Are you comfortable, Senhor von Rossbach?"
"Very comfortable, thank you," Dieter said, then took a sip from his cup. "Your cook makes excellent cafe com leite."
"I am so glad that you approve," Garmendia growled. He moved closer and clasped his hands behind him, glaring down at the former Sector agent.
"It was also good of you to see me on such short notice," von Rossbach added, smiling falsely.
"Oh," said Lazaro in mock surprise, "I actually had a choice, then?"
Dieter took another sip and smiled. "Not really."
The smuggler looked around. "And where is your young friend? I would have expected him to be with you."
Shaking his head, Dieter said, "Not this time." He put the cup and saucer down on the table beside him. "I find that, once again, I must call upon you for assistance."
"What kind of assistance?"
Dieter began to feel annoyed at the smuggler's persistence in looming over him.
"Travel assistance. Why don't you sit down and we can discuss it?"
"Because," Garmendia said quietly, stepping forward until their legs almost touched, "I do not want to sit down, any more than I want to give you assistance, or wanted to see you in the first place." Suddenly he grinned and there was pure evil in his eyes. "But since you have come, I shall do my very best to entertain you."
Uh-oh, von Rossbach thought.
John had checked the room where he and Dieter had forced Garmendia's cooperation the last time they were here and had found it empty. He didn't check the kitchen, easily found by the scent of coffee and cooking, since he was certain von Rossbach wouldn't be there. He wished he had a floor plan of the place.
They're probably in a parlor or maybe some sort of breakfast room, he thought. The place, a former rubber baron's mansion, was big enough to have both—"red rubber" had been very profitable back around the turn of the last century, what with thousands of Indio debt slaves who could be worked to death collecting latex in the jungle. He headed back toward the kitchen, figuring that if he had a breakfast room he'd put it where the coffee and toast wouldn't get cold on the way to the table.
As he moved slowly and carefully along he thought he caught the rumble of Dieter's voice. Good call, Connor!
He pulled himself through the duct until he was under the room from which von Rossbach's voice had come. John found himself at a bad angle for observation and had to content himself with listening. The conversation was not going Dieter's way.
"You force yourself into my house," Garmendia was saying, walking around his unwanted guest, "you give orders to my servants, you make yourself very comfortable, and then"—he came back to face von Rossbach, holding up one finger—"you tell me I must do you a favor."
He smiled and tilted his head. "You are a very pushy man, senhor."
Dieter took a puff of his cigar and narrowed his eyes, savoring the rich Havana smoke that went so well with good mountain coffee. He'd feel even better if he were armed, but that would have been stupid— Garmendia's men were professionals, if not what you'd call top drawer.
"You will not be sorry to do me a favor, old friend," he said. "You would only be sorry not to."
The smuggler lost it then; he grabbed the silver coffeepot and swung it at Dieter. The big man's hand slashed up and knocked it out of his hand, splashing the smuggler with the hot liquid. Garmendia shrieked, more rage than pain. Doors flew open along the wall that faced the veranda; they were made of slatted louvers anyway, no barrier to sound.
Shit, Dieter thought.
Garmendia tried to grab him around the shoulders; Dieter shoved the cigar over his shoulder, and the smuggler toppled backward with a yell of fear as it nearly touched his eye. That gave Dieter time enough to grab two of the first wave of Garmendia's men and smash their heads together with a ringing knock that made every man in the room wince.
Every man but the one behind him. Dieter's eyes widened slightly as he threw a punch into the man's stomach with all his huge strength behind it. The fist sank through a layer of blubber and rebounded off muscle like…
No, not rubber. Like a rubber tree.
The thug was a good six inches taller than Dieter, with a shelf-browed, huge-nosed face—a hormone-disease giant. He was built like a pear, but most of the bulk was anything but fat. A hand like the Jolly Green Giant's flyswatter came around and hit the Austrian over one ear. The room dimmed and Dieter felt his knees begin to buckle. He had them back in working order in an instant, just in time for the next six of Garmendia's goons to pile on.
Garmendia spat into Dieter's battered face, then swung at him with all his strength. His fist hit squarely on the big man's jaw and von Rossbach's eyes rolled back, his head lolling. The bodyguards let go of his arms and the Austrian fell unconscious to the floor.
Swearing mightily, Garmendia rubbed his fist, then shook it. He turned to Dieter and gave him a vicious kick in the stomach.
