The Cold Cash War

17

Mausier winced as the gun under his coat bumped against the edge of the viewscreen with a loud "klunk!" He shot a covert glance around the office, but no one else seemed to notice. He heaved a sigh of relief, but was promptly assailed with additional doubts. More likely the staff had noticed and known what had happened, but chose to ignore it. The fact he was now carrying a gun was common knowledge since the afternoon he had accidentally triggered the clamshell shoulder holster, and the weapon had slid from under his coat to bounce on the floor in front of the whole office. A few had raised their eyebrows in surprise, but the majority of them had merely smiled indulgently. Mausier had secretly writhed in agony under those smiles, as he was writhing now under their tolerant silence. They obviously thought he was silly, a child with a toy gun pretending to be dangerous or endangered. They weren't aware of the potentially explosive and violent situation they were all living in.

Then again, how sure was he? Mausier considered for the hundredth time taking the gun back to the store. It was doing him no apparent good and causing him untold embarrassment. His wife never tired of making little digs about "that thing" when he stripped and cleaned it each night. Even though he weathered her taunts in stoic silence, it was beginning to take its toll on him.

He felt foolish. Who would want to attack him anyway? He wasn't a key figure; in fact, he wasn't a figure at all. He didn't make any decisions, he never even touched the various items of information his office posted and negotiated for. He was a watcher, not a doer. All he had was some wild guesses and theories based on information any number of people could have if they read extensively and thought about what they read. Why should anyone come after him specifically? More importantly, what could he do if they did?

The closest thing to an attack that had happened to him had occurred last week. He had been walking through the parking lot of a shopping center and a panel truck backed into him, knocking him sprawling. The driver could have backed over him as he lay on the pavement. Instead he stopped the truck and leaped out to help Mausier back to his feet, apologizing profusely and offering to buy him a drink. At the time, Mausier's gun was locked in the glove compartment of his car two hundred feet away. He had left it behind for fear of tripping the shoplifter detection devices in the store.

If it had been a real attempt on his life, he would be dead. What could he have done to stop it even if he had had the gun along? Shot the driver when he heard the gears engage? He could hurt a lot of innocent people that way. Besides, the modus operandi was wrong for the assassin teams. They preferred to work from long range with scoped rifles. Okay, if one of those had taken a shot at him, what would he do, assuming, of course, the assassin missed his first shot, which they didn't seem to do very often? Draw his handgun and try to outshoot him? A professional assassin two blocks away with a scoped rifle? Fat chance.

The handgun he carried was a Walther P-38, a nastily efficient, medium-sized automatic. Its double action allowed him to carry it with one round chambered and the hammer down and still have the ability to get off the first round by simply squeezing the trigger without fielding slides or anything. He practiced with it at a local firing range at least once a week until he considered himself a moderate shot. That is, he could put the entire clip into a man-sized target if it was close enough for him to hit it with a thrown rock.

He was comfortably content with his abilities, or had been until one afternoon when he noticed the young man practicing in the lane next to him was outshooting him easily, snapshooting from the hip. "Instinct shooting" the youth had called it, all the while bemoaning how much his abilities had atrophied since he left the service.

No, Mausier had long since abandoned any hopes he might have once entertained about outshooting the pros. Still, he clung tenaciously to the weapon. It was a chance, a slim chance admittedly, but still a chance. Without it, he would have no chance at all.

He glanced at his watch. Another hour and the workday would be over. He was anxious for the staff to leave so he could return to his hobby. There were two new items on the board today he was particularly eager to start digging on.

One was an information request from the oil corporation linked to the Brazilian branch of his pet mystery. The request was so off-the-wall he almost wondered if they were putting it on the board as a confusion tactic. They wanted lists of any people who had left service with the Treasury Department of any country in the free world within the last year. Special bonuses would be paid for leads on people who had been directly involved with the minting of currency.

Moneymakers? What in the world were they up to? What possible mess could they have gotten themselves into that would require money experts above and beyond those already available to the corporate world? Counterfeiting? If so, why didn't they simply turn it over to the governments to run down? Maybe the problem was so widespread that they wanted to hush it up by handling it themselves. Maybe it was so widespread they were afraid of an economic panic if the truth leaked out.

Mausier shook his head. He was groping at straws. He'd have to hold off until he had time to scan the files for additional details or related items. Instead, he turned his thoughts to the other new item.

The C-Block had a new information request on the board. This one concerned the Japanese industries which they had been watching. They were asking for a complete listing of personnel taking the newly offered bonus world tour. If possible, they also wanted details as to timetables and rotation schedules.

Tour groups! His Brazilian workspace was getting overloaded with items. Soon he would either have to rent additional computer time or start weeding it down. Tour groups and moneymakers. This whole puzzle was starting to get out of hand.

Sometimes he wondered if he wasn't imagining it all. One of the hazards in the intelligence profession was getting hold of minor data and blowing it all out of proportion. If one tried hard enough, it was possible to take any three newspaper articles chosen at random and weave them into a conspiracy of national or international proportions.

Take as an example those items about the weapon design corporations. Suddenly many of the corporations on his list were inquiring about who the arms designers were building what for. It had puzzled him for the longest time until he finally figured it out. They were exploring another possible lead on the assassin teams. If the teams were, in fact, using special weapons, someone was supplying them. Very clever, actually-an angle the governments hadn't thought of checking into yet. Now, if he were the overly suspicious and paranoid type, he could build those inquiries into...well, he didn't know what, but he could build it into something.

But tour groups? Where in the world did they tie into the picture? There was one thing which might be worth looking into. If he recalled the small article he had noticed on the Japanese tour correctly, their first stop on the world tour was Brazil. It was the first time he had been able to draw even the vaguest connection between the Japanese crew and the other groups of corporations on his list. It was shaky and probably purely coincidental, but it was still worth looking into.

His thoughts were interrupted by Ms. Witley, who told him a gentleman was in the lobby who wanted to talk to him about selling some information. Mausier was not enthused over the news and briefly considered stalling the visitor until the morning. Only occasionally did walk-ins have anything really worth selling, and they were always incredibly long-winded about the risks they had run to obtain their worthless bit of trivia. Still, there were occasional pieces of gold among the gravel, and he hadn't gotten where he was turning away potential clients.

With that in mind, he instructed Ms. Witley to fetch the man back to his office. When he arrived, Mausier's appraising eye quickly classified him as pure corporation. It was more than the distinctive conservative suit-it was the way he held himself. His shoulders were tense, his smile forced, and his jovial pleasantness almost painful. Definitely corporate, maybe middle management, obviously desperate, probably overestimating the value of his information.

"Nice little layout you've got here." The man took in the screens with a wave of his hand.

Mausier didn't smile. He was determined to keep this brief.

"Ms. Whitley said you had some information to sell?"

"Yes, I have some information on the terrorist assassin groups everybody's looking for."

Mausier was suddenly attentive.

"What kind of information?"

"Say, do you mind if I smoke?"

"I'd rather you didn't." Mausier nodded at the electronic gear lining the office.

"Thanks," said the man, lighting up. "Now where was I? Oh, yes. I guess I know more about the terrorists than anyone. You see, I'm the one who invented them for the corporations..."

Mausier suddenly realized the man was more than slightly drunk. Still, he was intrigued by what he was saying.

"Excuse me, what did you say your name was again?"

"Hornsby, Peter Hornsby."