The Cold Cash War

by Asprin, Robert

  “I thought it was their idea to use Brazil for the fighting.”

  “It was, but we got it in writing first. That puts it in our pocket as far as history or the press is concerned. We've got 'em cold.”

  “That's well and good, but what's that got to do with government intervention?”

  “If word of this thing gets out, the real battle is going to be with the government. You know Uncle Sammy-​anything he can't tax he doesn't like, and anything he doesn't like he meddles with. It's within possibilities that he'll try to make us compromise with the Combine and divvy up the mines. If that happens, there will be a brawl, both in the courts and in Congress. If we're going to win that fight, we've got to have public support solidly behind us. That's where the saturation campaign comes in. If we can get the spark started before the specific case becomes public knowledge, it will be easy to fan it and point it in a direction. Hell, Eddie, you were the one who pointed it out in the first place.”

  “Well, I was just...”

  “You were just asking questions that we answered in the first week we had this assignment. Now I thought we had a pretty good working relationship going, Eddie. I could always count on you for a straight answer no matter how unpleasant it was. I'm asking you plain-​what's going wrong? If you can't tell me, say so and I'll back off, but don't give me a smoke screen and pretend it's an answer!”

  Bush was silent for a few moments, his eyes not meeting Pete's glare. Finally he sighed.

  “You're right, Pete. I should have leveled with you sooner.”

  He opened a drawer on his desk and withdrew a sheath of papers, tossing them on the desk in front of Pete.

  “Here, look at these.”

  Pete picked up the sheets and started leafing through them. They were photocopies of the rough drafts of some documents. Crossed-​out paragraphs and note-​filled margins abounded. Whatever they were, they were a long way from presentation state.

  “What are they?”

  “That's some of the rough drafts of Marcus's presentation.”

  Pete raised his eyebrows in inquiry.

  “Don't ask how I got them. Let's just say they got detoured past a copier on their way to the shredder.”

  “Do you have stuff from Higgins too?”

  Eddie made a disparaging gesture.

  “Some, but not as much. He's pushing for a joint effort with the Oil people to save cost. Frankly, I don't think it has a snowball's chance in hell of being accepted. Marcus is the man I'm watching.”

  “Okay, what's he got here?”

  “It all boils down to one assertion. He says we should win the war.”

  “Win the...really? Just like that?”

  “Oh, there's lots of back-​up. He works off the same supposition that we do-​that if the war lasts long enough, the word will leak out. But instead of trying to cover up afterward, he wants to finish it before it leaks.”

  “Does the boy wonder bother to mention how we're supposed to do this?”

  “Rather explicitly. We're supposed to outgun them.”

  “Hire more mercenaries? We've already...”

  “No, outgun them. Better equipment. So far everybody's been fighting with government surplus weapons modified for simulated combat. Anything really new the governments are keeping under top security wraps. He's saying we should go directly to the designers and manufacturers and outbid the governments for the new stuff. That would give us enough of an edge to finish the fight once and for all.”

  “That'd cost us an arm and a leg!”

  “Not as much as you'd think. He points out how much the corporations pad any bill going to the government and suggests by exerting a little economic pressure, we could drive the price down considerably. Then again-​pull page four out of that stack for a minute.”

  “Got it.”

  “What you have there is a document he intercepted. Apparently the bastard has inside information from the negotiating sessions.”

  Pete was scanning the page.

  “What's a 'One-​for-​One Proposal'?”

  “It's some new rule the Oil types are trying to push through. Basically it means the mercenaries would have to destroy equipment and Ammunition as if it had actually been used.”

  “That's insane!”

  “Our negotiating team is giving it an eighty percent probability of passing. If it does, cost estimates for continuing the war go as high as fifty thousand dollars a day.”

  Pete whistled appreciatively.

  “With that tidbit under his arm, Marcus' proposal doesn't sound nearly as expensive.”

  “So where does that leave us?”

  Eddie pursed his lips.

  “That's what's been bothering me. This proposed program has a lot of sparkle and romance to it. It's going to get a lot of support. If we decide to fight it, it's going to be an uphill battle.”

  A warning bell went off in the back of Pete's mind.

  “Did you say 'if we decide...'?”

  Eddie sighed.

  “There's one more bit of information that I haven't told you. It seems that Becker, Mr. Big himself, has been talking with Marcus at least once a week, sometimes daily. If he's taking a personal interest in seeing Marcus get ahead, we might want to think long and hard about our own careers before we set out to try to make the golden boy look bad.”

  The Cold Cash War

  -8-

  The cliff towered grim and foreboding, fully the height of a three-​story building. Except for a few scrawny weeds dotting its face, indicating outcroppings or crevasses, it was a sheer drop onto the rockslide. It was enough of an obstacle that even the strongest of heart would take time to look for another route.

  The man at the top of the cliff didn't look for another route or even break stride as he sprinted up to the edge of the precipice. He simply stepped off the cliff into nothingness, as did the three men following closely at his heels. For two long heartbeats they fell. By the second beat their swords were drawn-​the world-​famous Katanas, samurai swords unrivaled for centuries for their beauty, their craftsmanship, and their razor edges. On the third heartbeat they smashed into the rockslide, the impact driving one man to his knees, forcing him to recover with a catlike forward roll. By the time he had regained his feet, the others were gone, darting and weaving through the straw dummies, swords flashing in the sun. He raced to join them, a flick of his sword decapitating the dummy nearest him.

  The straw figures, twenty of them, were identical, save for a one-​inch square of brightly colored cloth pinned to them, marking five red, five yellow, five white, and five green. As they moved, each man struck only at the dummies marked with his color, forcing them to learn target identification at a dead run. Some were marked in the center of the forehead, some in the small of the back. It was considered a cardinal sin to strike a target that was not yours. A man who did not identify his target before he struck could as easily kill friend as foe in a firelight.

  The leader of the band dispatched his last target and returned his sword to its scabbard in a blur of motion as he turned. He sprinted back toward the cliff through the dummies, apparently oblivious to the deadly blades still flashing around him. The others followed him, sheathing their swords as they ran. The man who had fallen was lagging noticeably behind.

  Scrambling up the rockslide, they threw themselves at the sheer cliff face and began climbing at a smooth effortless pace, finding handholds and toeholds where none could be seen. It was a long climb, and the distance between the men began to increase. Suddenly the second man in the formation dislodged a fist-​sized rock that clattered down the cliffside. The third man rippled his body to one side and it missed him narrowly. The fourth man was not so lucky. The rock smashed into his right forearm and careened away. He lost his grip and dropped the fifteen feet back onto the rockslide.

  He landed lightly in a three-​point stance, straightened, and gazed ruefully at his arm. A jagged piece of bone protruded from the skin. Shaking his head sl
ightly, he tucked the injured arm into the front of his uniform and began to climb again.

  As he climbed, a small group of men appeared below him. They hurriedly cut down the remains of the straw dummies and began lashing new ones to the supporting poles. None of them looked up at the man struggling up the cliffside.

  They had finished their job and disappeared by the time the lone man reached the top of the cliff. He did not pause or look back, but simply rolled to his feet and sprinted off again. As he did, five more men brushed past him, ignoring him completely, and flung themselves off the cliff.

  Tidwell hit the hold button on the videotape machine and the figures froze in midair. He stared at the screen for several moments, then rose from his chair and paced slowly across the thick carpet of his apartment. Clancy was snoring softly on the sofa, half-​buried in a sea of personnel folders. Tidwell ignored him and walked to the picture window where he stood and stared at the darkened training fields.

  The door behind him opened and a young Japanese girl glided into the room. She was clad in traditional Japanese robes and was bearing a small tray of lacquered bamboo. She approached him softly and stood waiting until he noticed her presence.

  “Thanks, Yamiko,” he said, taking his fresh drink from her tray.

  She gave a short bow and remained in place, looking at him. He tasted his drink, then realized she was still there.

  “I'll be along shortly, love. There's just a few things I've got to think out.”

  He blew a kiss at her, and she giggled and retired from the room. As soon as she was gone, the smile dropped from his face like a mask. He slowly returned to his chair, leaned over, and hit the rewind button. When the desired point had been reached, he hit the slow motion button and stared at the screen.

  The four figures floated softly to the earth. As they touched down, Tidwell leaned forward to watch their feet and legs. They were landing on uneven ground covered with rocks and small boulders, treacherous footing at best, but they handled it in stride. Their legs were spread and relaxed, molding to the contour of their landing point; then those incredible thigh muscles bunched and flexed, acting like shock absorbers. Their rumps nearly touched the rocks before the momentum was halted, but halted it was.

  Tidwell centered his attention on the man who was going to fall. His left foot touched down on a head-​sized boulder that rolled away as his weight came to bear. He began to fall to his left, but twisted his torso back to the center line while deliberately buckling his right leg. Just as the awful physics of the situation seemed ready to smash him clumsily into the rocks, he tucked like a diver, curling around the glittering sword, and somersalted forward, rolling to his feet and continuing as if nothing had happened.

  Tidwell shook his head in amazement. Less than a twentieth of a second. And he thought his reflexes were good.

  The swordplay he had given up trying to follow. The blades seemed to have a life of their own, thirstily dragging the men from one target to the next. Then the leader turned. He twirled his sword in his left hand and stabbed the point toward his hip. An inch error in any direction would either lose the sword or run the owner through. It snaked into the scabbard like it had eyes.

  Tidwell hit the hold button and stared at the figure on the screen. The face was that of an old Oriental, age drawing the skin tight across the face making it appear almost skull-​like-​Kumo. The old sensei who had been in command before Tidwell and Clancy were hired.

  In the entire week they had been reviewing the troops, he had not seen Kumo show any kind of emotion. Not anger, not joy-​nothing. But he was a demanding instructor and personally led the men in their training. The cliff was only the third station in a fifteen-​station obstacle course Kumo had laid out. The troops ran the obstacle course every morning to loosen up for the rest of the day's training. To loosen up.

  Tidwell advanced the tape to the sequence in which the man's arm was broken. As the incident unfolded, he recalled the balance of that episode. The man had finished the obstacle course, broken arm and all. But his speed suffered, and Kumo sent him back to run the course again before he reported to the infirmary to have his arm treated.

  Yes, Kumo ran a rough school. No one could argue with his results, though. Tidwell had seen things in this last week that he had not previously believed physically possible.

  Ejecting the tape cassette, he refiled it, selected another, and fed it into the viewer.

  The man on the screen was the physical opposite of Kumo who knelt in the background. Where Kumo was thin to the point of looking frail, this man looked like you could hit him with a truck without doing significant damage. He was short, but wide and muscular, looking for all the world like a miniature fullback, complete with shoulder pads.

  He stood blindfolded on a field of hard-​packed earth. His pose was relaxed and serene. Suddenly another man appeared at the edge of the screen, sprinting forward with upraised sword. As he neared his stationary target, the sword flashed out in a horizontal cut aimed to decapitate the luckless man. At the last instant before the sword struck, the blindfolded man ducked under the glittering blade and lashed out with a kick that took the running swordsman full in the stomach. The man dropped to the ground, doubled over in agony, as the blindfolded man resumed his original stance.

  Another man crept onto the field, apparently trying to drag his fallen comrade back to the sidelines. When he reached the writhing figure, however, instead of attempting to assist him, the new man sprang over him high into the air, launching a flying kick at the man with the blindfold. Again the blinded man countered, this time raising a forearm which caught the attacker's leg and flipped it in the air, dumping him on his head.

  At this point, the swordsman, who apparently was not as injured as he had seemed, rolled over and aimed a vicious cut at the defender's legs. The blindfolded man took to the air, leaping over the sword, and drove a heel down into the swordsman's face. The man fell back and lay motionless, bleeding from both nostrils.

  Without taking his eyes from the screen, Tidwell raised his voice.

  “Hey, Clancy.”

  His friend sat up on the sofa, scattering folders onto the floor and blinking his eyes in disorientation.

  “Yeah, Steve?”

  “How do they do that?”

  Clancy craned his neck around and peered at the screen. Three men were attacking simultaneously, one with an axe, two with their hands and feet. The blindfolded man parried, blocked, and countered, unruffled by death narrowly missing him at each turn.

  “Oh, that's an old martial artist's drill-​blindfold workouts. The theory is that if you lost one of your five senses, such as sight, the other four would be heightened to compensate. By working out blindfolded, you heighten the other senses without actually losing one.”

  “Have you done this drill before?”

  Clancy shook his head. He was starting to come into focus again.

  “Not personally. I've seen it done a couple of times, but nothing like this. These guys are good, and I mean really good.”

  “Who is that one, the powerhouse with the blindfold?”

  Clancy pawed through his folders.

  “Here it is. His name's Aki. I won't read off all the black belts he holds; I can't pronounce half of them. He's one of the originals. One of the founding members of the martial arts cults that formed after that one author tried to get the army to return to the ancient ways, then killed himself when they laughed at him.”

  Tidwell shook his head.

  “How many of the force came out of those cults?”

  “About ninety-​five percent. It's still incredible to me that the Zaibatsu had the foresight to start sponsoring those groups. That was over twenty years ago.”

  “Just goes to show what twenty years of training six days a week will do for you. Did you know some of the troops were raised into it by their parents? That they've been training in unarmed and armed combat since they could walk?”

  “Yeah, I caught that.
Incidentally, did I show you the results from the firing range today?”

  “Spare me.”

  But Clancy was on his feet halfway to his case.

  “They were firing Springfields today,” he called back over his shoulder. “The old bolt-​action jobs. Range at five hundred meters.”

  Tidwell sighed. These firing range reports were monotonous, but Clancy was a big firearms freak.

  “Here we go. These are the worst ten.” He waved a stack of photos at Tidwell. On each photo was a man-​shaped silhouette target with a small irregularly shaped hole in the center of the chest.

  “There isn't a single-​shot grouping in there you couldn't cover with a nickel, and these are the worst.”

  “I assume they're still shooting five-​shot groups.”

  Clancy snorted.

  “I don't think Kumo has let them hear of any other kind.”

  “Firing position?”

  “Prone unsupported. Pencil scopes battlefield zeroed at four hundred meters.”

  Tidwell shook his head.

  “I'll tell you, Clancy, man for man I've never seen anything like these guys. It's my studied and considered opinion that any one of them could take both of us one-​handed. Even...”-he jerked a thumb at the figures on the screen behind them-“...even blindfolded.”

  On the screen, a man tried to stand at a distance and stab the blindfolded Aki with a spear, with disastrous results.

  Clancy borrowed Tidwell's drink and took a sip.

  “And you're still standing by your decision? About extending our entry date to the war by two months?”

  “Now look, Clancy...”

  “I'm not arguing. Just checking.”

  “They aren't ready yet. They're still a pack of individuals. A highly trained mob is still a mob.”

  “What's Kumo's reaction? That's his established entry date you're extending.”

  “He was only thinking about the new 'superweapons' when he set that date. He's been trained from birth to think of combat as an individual venture.”