The Cold Cash War

20

Lieutenant Worthington, U.S. Army, was relieved as the convoy pulled into the outskirts of town. He only wished his shoulders would relax. They were still tense to the point of aching. He tried to listen to the voices of the enlisted men riding in the back of the truck as they joked and sang, but shrugged it off in irritation.

The bloody fools. Didn't they know they had been in danger for the last hour? They were here to fight mercenaries, hardened professional killers. There had been at least a dozen places along the road through the jungle that seemed to be designed for an ambush, but the men chatted and laughed, seemingly oblivious to the fact the rifles on their laps were empty.

The lieutenant shook his head. That was one Army policy to which he took violent exception. He knew that only issuing ammunition when the troops were moving into a combat zone reduced accidents and fatal arguments, but dammit, for all intents and purposes, the whole country was a combat zone. It was fine and dandy to make policies when you were sitting safe and secure at the Pentagon desk looking at charts and statistics, but it wasn't reassuring when you were riding through potential ambush country with an empty weapon.

He shot a guilty sidelong glance at the driver. He wondered it the driver had noticed that Worthington had a live clip in his pistol. Probably not. He had smuggled it along and switched the clips in the john before they got on the trucks. Hell, even if he had noticed, he probably wouldn't report him. He was probably glad that someone in the truck had a loaded weapon along.

They were in town now. The soldiers in back were whooping and shouting crude comments at the women on the sidewalk. Worthington glanced out the window, idly studying the buildings as they rolled past. Suddenly he stiffened.

There, at a table of a sidewalk cafe, were two mercenaries in the now-famous kill-suits leisurely sipping drinks and chatting with two other men in civilian dress. The lieutenant reacted instantly.

"Stop the truck!"

"But sir..."

"Stop the truck, dammit!"

Worthington was out of the truck even before it screeched to a halt, fumbling his pistol from its holster. He ignored the angry shouts behind him as the men in back were tossed about by the sudden braking action, and leveled his pistol at the mercenaries.

"Don't move, either of you!"

The men seemed not to hear him, continuing with their conversation.

"I said, Don't move!"

Still they ignored him. Worthington was starting to feel foolish, aware of the driver peering out the door behind him. He was about to repeat himself when one of the mercenaries noticed him. He tapped the other one on the arm, and the whole table craned their necks to look at the figure by the truck.

"You are to consider yourselves my prisoners. Put your hands on your head and face the wall!"

They listened to him, heads cocked in alert interest. When he was done, one of the mercenaries replied with a rude gesture of international significance. The others at the table rocked with laughter; then they returned to their conversation.

Worthington suddenly found himself ignored again. Reason vanished in a wave of anger and humiliation. Those bastards!

The gun barked and roared in his hand, startling him back to his senses. He had not intended to fire. His hand must have tightened nervously and...

Wait a minute! Where were the mercenaries? He shot a nervous glance around. The table was deserted, but he could see the two men in civilian clothes lying on the floor covering their heads with their arms. Neither seemed to be injured. Thank God for that! There would have been hell to pay if he shot a civilian. But where were the mercenaries?

The men were starting to pile out of the truck behind him, clamoring to know what was going on. One thing was sure-he couldn't go hunting mercenaries with a platoon of men with empty rifles.

Suddenly a voice rang out from the far side of the street.

"Anybody hurt over there?"

"Clean miss!" rang out another voice from the darkened depths of the cafe.

The lieutenant squinted, but couldn't make out anyone.

"Are they wearing kill-suits?" came a third voice from farther down the street.

"As a matter of fact, they aren't!" shouted another voice from the alley alongside the cafe.

"That was live ammo?"

"I believe it was."

The men by the truck were milling about, craning their necks at the unseen voices. Worthington suddenly realized he was sweating.

"You hear that, boys? Live ammo!"

"Fine by us!"

The lieutenant opened his mouth to shout something, anything, but it was too late. His voice was drowned out by the first ragged barrage. He had time to register with horror that it was not even a solid hail of bullets that swept their convoy. It was a vicious barrage of snipers, masked marksmen. One bullet, one soldier. Then a grenade went off under the truck next to him and he stopped registering things.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind as to the unfortunate nature of the incident. For one thing, one of the men in civilian clothes sharing a drink with the mercenaries was an Italian officer with the Combined Government Troops who corroborated the corporations' claim the action was in response to an unprovoked attack by the convoy.

The fourth man was a civilian, a reporter with an international news service. His syndicated account of the affair heaped more fuel on an already raging fire of protest on the home fronts against the troops, intervention in the corporate wars.

Even so, the corporations issued a formal note of apology to the government forces for the massacre. They further suggested that the government troops be more carefully instructed as to the niceties of off-hours behavior to avoid similar incidents in the future.

An angry flurry of memos did the rounds of the government forces trying vainly to find someone responsible for issuing the live ammo.

The mayor of the town was more direct and to the point. He withdrew the permission for the American troops to be quartered in the town, forcing them to bivouac outside the city limits. Further, he signed into law an ordinance forbidding the Americans from coming into town with any form of firearm, loaded or not, on their person.

This ordinance was rigidly enforced, and American soldiers in town were constantly subject to being stopped and searched by the local constable, to the delight of the mercenaries who frequently swaggered about with loaded firearms worn openly on their hips.

Had Lieutenant Worthington not been killed in the original incident, he would have doubtless been done in by his own men-if not by the troops under him, then definitely by his superiors.

The sniper raised his head a moment to check the scene below before settling in behind the sights of his rifle.

The layout was as it had been described to him. The speaker stood at a microphone on a raised wooden platform in the square below him. The building behind him was a perfect backdrop. With the soft hollow-point bullets he was using, there would be no ricochets to endanger innocent bystanders in the small crowd which had assembled.

Again he lowered his head behind the scope and prepared for his shot. Suddenly, there was the sound of a "tunggg" and he felt the rifle vibrate slightly. He snapped his head upright and blinked in disbelief at what he saw. The barrel of his rifle was gone, sheared cleanly away by some unseen force.

He rolled over to look behind him and froze. Three men stood on the roof behind him. He hadn't heard them approach. Two were ordinary-looking, perhaps in better shape than the average person. The third was Oriental. It was the last man who commanded the sniper's attention. This was because of the long sword, bright in the sun, which the man was holding an inch in front of the sniper's throat.

The man behind the Oriental spoke.

"Hi guy! We've been expecting you."

The speaker was becoming redundant. The crowd was getting a little restless. Why did the man insist on repeating himself for the third and fourth time, not even bothering to change his phrasing much?

Suddenly there was a stir at the outer edge of the crowd. Four men were approaching the podium with a purposeful stride-well, three men shoving a fourth as they came. They bounded onto the platform, one taking over the microphone over the speaker's protests.

"Sorry, Senator, but part of the political tradition is allowing equal time to opposing points of view."

He turned to the crowd.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You've been very patient with the last speaker, so I'll try to keep this brief. I represent the corporations the Senator here has been attacking so vehemently."

The crowd stirred slightly, but remained in place, their curiosity piqued.

"Now, you may be impressed with the Senator's courage, attacking us so often publicly, as he has been doing lately, when it's known we have teams of assassins roaming the streets. We were impressed too. We were also a bit curious. It seemed to us he was almost inviting an assassination attempt. However, we ignored him, trusting the judgment of the general public to see him as the loudmouthed slanderer he is."

The Senator started forward angrily, but the man at the mike froze him with a glare.

"Then he changed. He switched from his pattern of half-truths and distortions that are a politician's stock in trade, and moved into the realm of outright lies. This worried us a bit. It occurred to us that if someone did take a shot at him, it would be blamed on us and give credence to all his lies. Because of this, we've been keeping a force of men on hand to guard him whenever he speaks to make sure nothing happens to him."

He paused and nodded to one of his colleagues. The man put his fingers in his mouth and whistled shrilly.

Immediately on the rooftops and in the windows of the buildings surrounding the square, groups of men and women stepped into view. They were all dressed in civilian clothes, but the timeliness of their appearance, as well as the uniform coldness with which they stared down at the crowd, left no doubt that they were all part of the same team.

The man whistled again, and the figures disappeared. The man at the mike continued.

"So we kept watching the Senator, and finally today we caught something. This gentleman has a rather interesting story to tell."

The sniper was suddenly thrust forward.

"What were you doing here today?"

"I want a lawyer. You can't..."

The Oriental twitched. His fist was a blur as it flashed forward to strike the sniper's arm. The man screamed, but through it the crowd heard the bone break.

"What were you doing here today?" The questioner's voice was calm, as if nothing had happened.

"I..."

"Louder!"

"I was supposed to shoot at the Senator."

"Were you supposed to hit him?"

"No." The man was swaying slightly from the pain in his arm.

"Who hired you?"

The man shook his head. The Oriental's fist lashed out again.

"The Senator!" The man screamed.

A murmur ran through the crowd. The Senator stepped hurriedly to the front of the platform.

"It's a lie!" he screamed. "They're trying to discredit me. They're faking it. That's one of their own men they're hitting. It's a fake."

The man with the microphone ignored him. Instead he pointed to a policeman in the crowd.

"Officer! There's usually a standing order about guarding political candidates. Why wasn't there anyone from the police watching those rooftops?"

The officer cupped his hands to shout back.

"The Senator insisted on minimum guards. He pulled rank on the Chief."

The crowd stared at the Senator, who shrank back before their gaze. The man with the mike continued.

"One of the Senator's claims is that the corporations would do away with free speech. I feel we have proved this afternoon that the statement is a lie. However, our businesses, like any businesses, depend on public support, and we will move to protect it. As you all know, there's a war on."

He turned to glare at the Senator.

"It is my personal opinion that we should make war on the warmakers. Our targets should be the people who send others out to fight. However, that is only my personal opinion. The only targets in my jurisdiction are front-line soldiers."

He looked out over the crowd again.

"Are there any reporters here? Good. When this man took money to discredit the corporations, he became a mercenary, the same as us. As such, he falls under the rules of the war. I would appreciate it if you would print this story as a warning to any other two-bit punks that think it would be a good idea to pose as a corporate mercenary."

He nodded to his colleagues on the platform. One of the men gave the sniper a violent shove that sent him sprawling off the platform, drew a pistol from under his jacket, and shot him.

The policeman was suspended for allowing the mercenaries to leave unchallenged, a suspension that caused a major walk-off on the police force.

The Senator was defeated in the next election.

The young Oriental couple ceased their conversation abruptly when they saw the group of soldiers, at least a dozen, on the sidewalk ahead of them. Without even consulting each other they crossed the street to avoid the potential trouble. Unfortunately, the soldiers had also spotted them and also crossed the street to block their progress. The couple turned to retrace their steps, but the soldiers, shouting now, ran to catch them.

Viewed up close, it was clear the men had been drinking. They pinned the couple in a half-circle, backing them against a wall, where the two politely inquired as to what the soldiers wanted. The soldiers admitted it was the lady who was the reason for their attention and invited her to accompany them as they continued on their spree. The lady politely declined, pointing out that she already had an escort. The soldiers waxed eloquent, pointing out the numerous and obvious shortcomings of the lady's escort, physically and probably financially. They allowed as how the fourteen of them would be better able to protect the lady from the numerous gentlemen of dubious intent she was bound to encounter on the street. Furthermore, they pointed out, even though their finances were admittedly depleted by their drinking, by pooling their money they could doubtless top any price her current escort had offered for her favors.

At this, her escort started forward to lodge a protest, but she laid a gentle restraining hand on his arm and stepped forward smiling. She pointed out that the soldiers were perhaps mistaken in several of their assumptions about the situation at hand. First, they were apparently under the impression that she was a call girl, when in truth she was gainfully employed by the corporate forces. Second, her escort for the evening was not a paying date, but rather her brother. Finally, she pointed out that while she thanked them for their concern and their offer, she was more than capable of taking care of herself, thank you.

By the time she was done explaining this last point, the soldiers had become rearranged. Their formation was no longer in a half-circle, but rather scattered loosely for several yards along the street. Also, their position in that formation was horizontal rather than vertical.

Her explanation complete, the lady took her brother's arm and they continued on their way. As they walked, one of the soldiers groaned and tried to rise. She drove the high heel of her shoe into his forehead without breaking stride.

Julian rolled down his window as the service station attendant came around to the side of his car.

"Fill it up with premium."

The attendant peered into the back seat of the car.

"Who do you work for, sir?"

"Salesman for a tool and die company."

"Got any company ID?"

"No, it's a small outfit. Could you fill it up-I'm in a hurry."

"Could you let me see a business card or your samples? If you're a salesman..."

"All right, all right. I'll admit it. I work for the government. But..."

The attendant's face froze into a mask.

"Sorry, sir." He started to turn away.

"Hey, wait a minute!" Julian sprang out of the car and hurried to catch up with the retreating figure. "C'mon, give me a break. I'm a crummy clerk. It's not like I had any say in the decisions."

"Sorry, sir, but..."

"It's not like I'm on official business. I'm trying to get to my sister's wedding."

The attendant hesitated.

"Look, I'd like to help you, but if the home office found out we sold gas to a government employee, they'd pull our franchise."

"Nobody would have to know. Just look the other way for a few minutes and I'll pump it myself."

The man shook his head.

"Sorry, I can't risk it."

"I'll give you fifty dollars for half a tank..."

But the attendant was gone.

Julian heaved a sigh and got back into his car. Once he left the station, though, his hangdog mask slipped away. Things were going well with the fuel boycott. It had been three weeks since he had had to report a station for breaking the rules. He checked his list for the location of the next station to check out.

The mercenary was wearing a jungle camouflage kill-suit. The hammock he was sprawled in was also jungle-camouflaged, as was the floppy brimmed hat currently obscuring his face as a sunscreen. He was snoring softly, seemingly oblivious to the insects buzzing around him.

"Hey Sarge!"

The slumbering figure didn't move.

"Hey Sarge!" the young private repeated without coming closer. Even though he was new, he wasn't dumb enough to try to wake the sleeping mercenary by shaking him.

"What is it, Turner?" His voice had the tolerant tone of one dealing with a whining child.

"The tank. You know, the one the detectors have been tracking for the last five hours? You said to wake you up if it got within five hundred meters. Well, it's here."

"Okay, you woke me up. Now let me go back to sleep. I'm still a little rocky from going into town last night."

The private fidgeted.

"But aren't we going to do anything?"

"Why should we? They'll never find us. Believe in your infrared screens, my son, believe."

He was starting to drift off to sleep again. The private persisted.

"But Sarge! I...uh...well, I thought we might...well, my performance review's coming up next week."

"Qualifying, huh? Well, don't worry. I'll give you my recommendation."

"I know, but I thought...well, you know how much more they notice your record if you've seen combat."

The sergeant sighed.

"All right. Is it rigged for quartz-beams?"

"The scanners say no."

"Is Betsy tracking it?"

"Seems to be. Shall I..."

"Don't bother, I'll get it."

Without raising his hat to look, the sergeant extended a leg off the hammock. The far end of his hammock was anchored on a complex mass of machinery, also covered with camouflaging. His questing toe found the firing button, which he prodded firmly. The machine hummed to life, and from its depths a beam darted out to be answered by the chill whump of an explosion in the distance.

The private was impressed.

"Wow, hey, thanks, Sarge."

"Don't mention it, kid."

"Say, uh, Sarge?"

"What is it, Turner?"

"Shouldn't we do something about the infantry support?"

"Are they coming this way?"

"No, it looks like they're headed back to camp, but shouldn't we..."

"Look, kid." The Sergeant was drifting off again. "Lemme give you a little advice about those performance reviews. You don't want to load too much stuff onto 'em. The personnel folk might get the idea it's too easy."

This evening, the news on the corporate wars was the news itself. It seemed some underling at the FCC had appeared on a talk show and criticized the lack of impartiality shown by the media in their reporting on the corporate wars.

News commentators all across the globe pounced on this item as if they had never had anything to talk about before. They talked about freedom of speech. They talked about attempted governmental control of the media. They talked about how even public service corporations like the media were not safe from the clumsy iron fist of government intervention.

But one and all, they angrily defended their coverage of the corporate wars. The reason, they said, that there were so few reports viewing the government troop efforts in a favorable light was that there was little if anything favorable to be said for their unbroken record of failures. This was followed by a capsule summary of the wars since the governments stepped in. Some television channels did a half-hour special on the ineptitude of the government efforts. Some newspapers ran an entire supplement, some bitter, some sarcastic, but all pointing out the dismal incompetence displayed by the governments.

The man from the FCC was dismissed from his post.

The blood-warm waters of the Brazilian river were a welcome change from the deadly iciness of the Atlantic. The two frogmen, nearly invisible in their camouflaged wet kill-suits and bubbleless rebreather units, were extremely happy with the new loan labor program between the corporate mercenaries.

One of the men spotted a turtle and tapped the other's arm, gesturing for him to circle around and assist in its capture. His partner shook his head. This might have the trappings of a vacation, but they were still working. They were here on assignment and they had a job to do. The two men settled back in the weeds on the river bottom and waited.

It was oven hot in the armor-encased boat. The Greek officer in command mopped his brow and spoke in angry undertones to the men with him in the craft. It was hot, but this time there would be no mistakes. He peered out the gunslit at the passing shore as the boat whispered soundlessly upstream. This time they had the bastards cold. He had the best men and the latest equipment on this mission, and a confirmed target to work with. This time it would be the laughing mercenaries who fell.

"Hello the boats?"

The men froze and looked at each other as the amplified voice echoed over the river.

"Yoo-hoo! We know you're in there."

The officer signaled frantically. One of his men took over the controls of the automount machine gun and peered into the periscope. The officer put his mouth near the gunslit, taking care to stand to one side of view.

"What do you want?"

"Before you guys start blasting away, you should know we have some people from the world press out here with us."

The officer clenched his fist in frustration. He shot a glance at his infrared sonar man who shrugged helplessly; there was no way he could sort out which blips were soldiers and which were reporters.

"We were just wondering," the voice continued "if you were willing to be captured or if we're going to have to kill you?"

The officer could see it all now. The lead on the target had been bait for a trap. The mercenaries were going to win again. Well, not this time. This boat had the latest armor and weaponry. They weren't going to surrender without a fight.

"You go to hell!" he screamed and shut the gunslit.

The mercenary on the shore turned to the reporters and shrugged.

"You'd better get your heads down."

With that, he triggered the remote control detonator switch on his control box, and the frogmen-planted charges removed the three boats from the scene.

The mercenary doubled over, gasping from the agony of his wounds. The dark African sky growled a response as lightning danced in the distance. He glanced up at it through a pink veil of pain. Damn Africa! He should have never agreed to this transfer.

He gripped his knife again and resumed his task. Moving with the exaggerated precision of a drunk, he cut another square of sod from the ground and set it neatly next to the others.

Stupid. Okay, so he had gotten lost. It happens. But damn it, it wasn't his kind of terrain. He sank the knife viciously into the ground and paused as a wave of pain washed over him from the sudden effort.

But walking into an enemy patrol. That was unforgivably careless, but he had been so relieved to hear voices.

He glanced at the sky again. He was running out of time. He picked up his rifle and started scraping up handfuls of dirt from the cleared area. Well, at least he got 'em. He was still one of the best in the world at close-in, fast pistol work, but there had been so many.

He sagged forward again as pain flooded his mind. He was wounded in at least four places in his chest cavity alone. Badly wounded. He hadn't looked to see how badly for fear he would simply give up and stop moving.

He eased himself forward until he was sitting in the shallow depression, legs straight in front of him. Laying his rifle beside him, he began lifting the pieces of sod and placing them on his feet and legs, forming a solid carpet again.

His head swam with pain. When he had gotten lost, his chances of survival had been low. Now they were zero.

But he had gotten them all. He clung to that as he worked, lying down now and covering his bloody chest.

And by God, they weren't going to have the satisfaction of finding his body. The coming rain would wash away his trail of blood and weld the sod together again. If they ever claimed a mercenary kill, it was going to be because they earned it and not because he had been stupid enough to get lost.

The rain was starting to fall as he lifted the last piece of sod in place over his face and shoulders.