The Cold Cash War

22

The crowds of curiosity seekers threatened to choke off the street and probably would have if not physically restrained by the lines of armed government troops holding them at bay in the shadow of the poshest hotel in Rio de Janeiro. Even so, a sizeable crowd gathered around the limousines as they drew to a halt at the curb and had to be cleared back by the bodyguards who emerged from the autos first.

This smaller mob were members of the press who passed unhindered through the lines of troops with a wave of a media card. The troops were under strict orders not to affront the press, who had been adding volume to the already thunderous chorus of public protest against the governments' actions. Even the papers who had earlier supported the governments were now scathingly critical of the armed forces' ineffectiveness and inability to deal with the corporations. The governments did not need any more bad press.

Three men emerged from the limousines and headed for the door of the hotel. At their appearance, the reporters surged forward again and the men stopped, apparently consenting to giving a brief statement.

Several stories up, in a window of the hotel across the street from the activity, a machine was tracking the movements of the three men. Deeper in the room, well out of sight of the window, a small group of uniformed technicians were feverishly processing the data being collected by the combination closed-circuit television-shotgun mike. Their work was being closely supervised by a nervous officer.

"Are you sure, Corporal?"

"Positive, sir. Identification is confirmed on all three targets. A/V tapes and voice prints all match."

The officer squinted at the three figures in the monitor screen.

"Becker for Communications, Wilson for Oil, and Yamada for the Zaibatsu. They actually took the bait." He nudged the corporal.

"Look at them, soldier. Those three fat cats are responsible for the drubbing we've been taking for the last six months. They don't look like much, do they?"

"Some of the men are saying it doesn't take much, sir," replied the corporal flatly, not looking at the screen.

"Is that a fact? Well now it's our turn. Get Command on the phone and tell them the three little pigs are in the briar patch."

"Can I speak to you a moment, Captain?"

"Certainly, Lieutenant, but it'll have to be quick."

The lieutenant stepped into his CO's office and stood before the desk, fidgeting slightly.

"Well, sir, I think we've got a morale problem on our hands."

"We've had a morale problem for months, Larry. Why should today be any different?"

"It's the executions, sir. There's a lot of bad talk going around the men."

"Were they informed the men executed were infiltrators? Spies for the corporations who've been selling us all out for months?"

"Yes, sir. But...well...it's the suddenness of it all. This morning they had breakfast with those guys. Then all of a sudden...well, a lot of the men think they should have gotten a trial is all."

"Lieutenant, it's been explained-the corporation men have communication devices like we've never seen. They could have had something built into their boots or woven in their uniforms. If we took the time to observe formalities, they could have gotten word out. We couldn't take that chance."

"Well, the men think that without a trial it could have been any one of them. Now they've got the feeling that at any moment they could be pulled out of line and shot without any chance to defend themselves against the charges."

"Damn it, Larry, we know those men were spies. We ran everybody through the computers. Their finances, their families' finances-everybody got checked. You, me, everybody. Those men were on the corporations' payroll, either directly or through a front. We haven't been able to move without those guys tipping the enemy. I don't like it either, but that's the way we had to do it."

"Okay, Captain, I'll try to tell them..."

"Wait a minute, Lieutenant Booth. There's more. I just got the call from HQ. Alert the men to be ready to move out in fifteen minutes. We're mounting an offensive."

"An off...but sir, what about the cease-fire?"

The captain leaned back.

"It's all tied in together, Lieutenant. We've got their commanders tied up at the conference tables and their spies are dead. For the first time in this war, we've got a chance to catch those damn mercenaries napping."

"But..."

"Lieutenant, we don't have time to argue. This is coordinated with all the other forces. Our troops are making a world-wide push to try to finish the war in one fell swoop. Now alert the men!"

Wilson was clenching and unclenching his fists nervously out of sight under the table. It was clear to Yamada that the Oiler wanted to speak, but it had been agreed in advance that Yamada would do the talking and Wilson held his peace. As a solid front, the three men sat staring levelly down the table at government representatives facing them, ignoring the guns leveled at them by the guards.

"We cannot help but notice, gentlemen, that there are no civilians in your number." Yamada's voice was, as always, patiently polite.

"Are your governments sanctioning your action or is this a purely military decision?"

The American officer who seemed to be doing the talking for the government forces smiled wickedly as he mimicked Yamada's speech.

"The military is, as always, carrying out the orders of our governments. You may therefore assume that this is the governments' official stance on negotiating a truce with the corporations."

"Then perhaps you could clarify for us what exactly it is you mean when you say we are under arrest?"

"It means you are detained, incommunicado, bagged. It means that we're sick of being blackmailed. We don't bargain with extortionists; we arrest them. When the corporations pull their troops out, we let you go. Until then, you sit here and rot. Only one thing-you don't get a phone call. Your troops will just have to get along without your golden tones."

Even though he kept his face impassive, Yamada's thoughts turned to the transmitter in his belt. By now the news of their arrest would be en route to the home offices...and to the mercenaries.

"Your usual, gentlemen?"

The petite waitress smiled fetchingly.

"Only if you'll join us, Tamia," leered the older of the three men seated at the table, beckoning to her.

The girl rolled her eyes in exasperated horror.

"Oh, nooo! If the boss saw me..." She rolled her eyes again. "I'd lose my job like that." She clicked her fingers. "Then where would I work?"

"You could come and live with me."

"Oh!" She giggled and laid a hand on his shoulder. "You're terrible!"

One of the other men leaned forward conspiratorially as she disappeared through the beaded curtains into the kitchen.

"Sir, I don't think it's wise to..."

"Relax, Captain." The older man waved him silent.

"That's why we're in our civvies-so we don't have to keep looking over our shoulders all the time. Nobody recognizes us out of uniform. I've been flirting with that little number for over a month now. Sooner or later she's bound to give in."

"But sir..."

"If anything was going to happen, it would have by now. Look, she doesn't even know my name, so relax."

But Tamia knew his name, and a good deal more. General Thomas Dunn was the main reason she was working at this shabby restaurant, an assignment that ended this evening when she received a phone call. The general stopped here nightly for a bowl of won ton soup, and tonight there would be a special surprise in it. Tonight she would include the special noodles she had been carrying for a month.

Actually, the basis for the idea was Eskimo, not Japanese, but the Japanese were never a group to ignore a good idea just because someone else thought of it first. The Eskimos would kill polar bears by freezing coiled slivers of bone inside a snowball flavored with seal blubber and leaving it on the ice floes. A bear would eat the snowball, and his body heat would melt the snow, releasing the bone sliver to tear, at his insides.

The Japanese had improved on the concept. Instead of bone slivers, they were using a substance more like ground glass, guaranteed to cause a painful and irreversible death. In addition, they added a special touch of subtlety especially for the general. Instead of ice and seal blubber, they imbedded their lethal surprise in a special gel. Tamia would serve the general and his aides out of the same large bowl openly at the table. The gel would pass completely through the human digestive tract without dissolving. In fact, it would only dissolve if it came into contact with alcohol.

The files on the government forces were very complete. Of the three men at the table, only the general drank. In fact, he always had at least one nightcap before retiring for the evening.

After his death, his aides could and would tell the medic that they had shared the general's soup without any noticeable side effects, averting suspicion from the small restaurant and from Tamia.

Tamia scowled as she went about her task. While it was true she was successfully completing her mission and it would look good on her performance review, she wished she was in the field with the rest of her team. That's where the challenging work was.

Lieutenant Booth was nervous. So far their "big offensive" had been no different from a hundred other fruitless missions they had been on. All their infrared and sonic scans had yielded nothing. They were sweeping back and forth looking for one of the laser cannons reported to be in their vicinity. In theory, if they could knock out the cannon and if the other forces were equally successful, the government troops could regain air supremacy.

That was the theory, In actuality, they were finding nothing to fight. It was the lieutenant's guess that this mission would end up like all the others-a big bust. The only difference was that their radios were acting up again. They had lost contact both with headquarters and with their flanking company.

This was nothing new. It wasn't the first time they had had trouble with their radios in the field. As such, the captain just kept the company plodding on, but it made Booth nervous. To him it meant their much valued technology was unreliable. If the radios could malfunction, so could the scanners!

"...And I repeat, gentlemen, the troops employed by the corporations have not been fighting at their full capacity."

"Frankly, Mr. Yamada, I find that a little hard to swallow."

Yamada sighed slightly.

"For proof, I would offer two examples. First, it is not in the corporations' best interests to indulge in the bloodbath form of warfare the governments' forces seem to favor. We make a living by selling our products to consumers, to the public. If we inflict heavy casualties on you, it hurts us in the marketplace. Currently, public sympathy, as well as the sympathy of many of your own troops, is with the corporations. We will not jeopardize this by making martyrs out of the forces opposing us. All we have to do is wait until public opinion forces your governments to withdraw from the conflict."

The military men in the room maintained thoughtful silence as Yamada pursued his point.

"Think back, gentlemen. Our troops have spent exceptional time and effort evading your forces. When they have fought, it has always been to discourage rather than to destroy. In every situation, your troops were called upon to surrender or withdraw before our men opened fire."

The American officer was scowling.

"You mentioned two points of proof, Air. Yamada. What's the other one?"

"There may be those who would question our capacities, whether we have the ability to inflict more damage than we have. To prove this ability, you need only to try to phone your commanding officers. I say specifically to phone because by now we will have jammed or disrupted all your radio communications. As soon as you placed us under arrest, an order went out to some very specialized soldiers in our employment. All officers in your forces above the rank of lieutenant colonel have been assassinated. Your forces, already demoralized, are now without communications or leaders."

Lieutenant Booth could scarcely contain his excitement as he waited for confirmation on the smoke flare coordinates.

"I've got it, Lieutenant! Right on the button! They're clear!"

"Open fire! Level the entire target area."

The shells were hitting before he stopped talking as his mortar teams eagerly pumped round after round into the designated target area.

At last! After six months-contact! He watched gleefully as explosion after explosion rocked the area. Luckily they picked up that transmission from B Company. The way the radios had been acting up they could have missed it completely. Probably some new jamming device the mercenaries were using. Well, it was nice to know they had trouble with their gear too.

"Keep it up, men!"

B Company was under fire from the mercenaries. If the radio signal hadn't come through the bastards could have chopped up the government troops one company at a time, but now their plan had backfired. B Company's position was marked by the smoke flare, and for the first time the mortar teams knew where the mercenaries were.

"Lieutenant Booth! Cease fire! Cease fire!"

The lieutenant turned to see a soldier running toward him waving his arms.

"Cease fire!" he barked at his men, and the cry was echoed down the line.

The sergeant who had hailed him ran up, ashen-faced and out of breath.

"What is it, Sergeant?" Booth was aware of the nearby teams listening in curiously.

"Lieutenant, that's not...we saw them...it's not..."

"Spit it out, Sergeant!"

"It's not the mercenaries. We're shelling our own troops!"

"What?"

"Sommers climbed a tree with binoculars to watch the show! Those are our men down there!"

"But the smoke flare..."

Realization struck him like a slap in the face. It was the mercenaries. They had given him a fake radio call and a fake smoke flare.

He suddenly was aware of his men moving. They were abandoning their equipment and walking back toward the base. Their eyes were glazed and some of them were crying. He knew he should call to them, order them, console them. He knew that he should, but he couldn't.

"...Now look, Yamada. We're through playing around. You've got fifteen minutes to make up your mind. Either you and your playmates call off your dogs or we'll have a few assassinations of our own here and now!"

Yamada considered them levelly.

"Gentlemen, you seem to have missed the point completely. First, holding us hostage will gain you nothing. Terrorist groups have been kidnapping corporation executives for over twenty-five years now, asking either for money or special considerations. In all that time, the corporations' policy for dealing with them has not changed. We don't make deals, and the executive threatened is on his own."

He crossed his arms and continued.

"Secondly, you assume that you can threaten us into selling out our forces in exchange for our lives. We are as dedicated to our cause as any soldier and as such, are ready to sacrifice our lives if need be. I do not expect you gentlemen to believe this on the strength of my words-it must be demonstrated."

He raised his right hand and pointed to his left bicep.

"In the lining of my coat was an ampule of poison. As I crossed my arms, I injected it into my bloodstream. I am neither afraid to die nor am I willing to serve as your hostage."

He blinked as if trying to clear his focus.

"Mr. Becker, I fear you will have to..."

His face hit the table, but he didn't feel it. The other two corporation men did not look at his body, but continued staring down the table at the military men who were sitting in stunned silence.

"I feel Mr. Yamada has stated our position adequately," Becker intoned. "And I for one do not feel like continuing this discussion."

He rose, Wilson following suit.

"We're leaving now, gentlemen. Shoot if you feel it will do any good."