The Cold Cash War

by Robert Asprin

"For you maybe. Oh, turn here, I'm parked on the street. Rolled in a little late and the exec lot was full."

  "Okay, but what was that you were saying?"

  "Hmm? Oh! Just that I'm not sure how many more assignments will get thrown my way."

  "Is that what's bothering you? Hell, don't worry. From what I can see in the meetings, a lot of the decision makers know who you are. That idea you had for using a dummy terrorist group to explain the shootings was a stroke of genius. It really saved our bacon when it came to dealing with the authorities."

  "But it didn't go out with my name on it. Oh, out this door."

  "Yeah. That was a bad deal. Well, it didn't go out with my name on it either. But don't worry. The people who count know it was your idea. You'll get other assignments. Say, where's your car?"

  "Up the block a bit. Can you honestly say you think I'm going to get another assignment from a corporate vp?"

  "Well, maybe not directly, but if I get one, you can bet you'll be one of the cornerstones of the team. That much I can..."

  The bullet took him in the center of the chest. It was the first time Pete had seen the effects of one of the exploding bullets. Eddie Bush kind of blew up, pieces of his body splashing over the sidewalk. There was no doubt he was dead before he hit the pavement.

  Pete waved a hand at the assassin on the roof across the street even though he couldn't see him, then stooped over the body. Moving quickly, he reached inside Eddie's jacket and switched the killsuit controls to the "off" position. Then he stood and smiled down at the corpse.

  Wha'dya know, another terrible accident. And Ed Bush wasn't even on the "kill list." Well, it was a risk he ran, wearing a kill-suit. It was only a matter of time before someone took him up on it. Terrible he had forgotten to turn his suit on.

  Still smiling, he turned and ran back into the building to report the horrible incident.

  12

  Mausier smiled as he read the latest information request on the board. Someone was trying to find out how their security was breached. A hefty sum was being offered as well as immunity from prosecution.

  Obviously this client was not as knowledgeable in the field of industrial espionage as Mausier. He briefly considered not even posting the offer, but then decided to go ahead with it. His field agents needed a good laugh once in a while.

  Mausier constantly daydreamed about secret agents crawling through the darkness, picking locks, climbing fences, bribing guards, and taking pictures in the dark with mini-cameras hidden in belt buckles. He daydreamed, but he knew it wasn't real. This client had apparently not learned to differentiate reality from daydreams. Agents didn't climb fences, they walked in through the main gate or the employment office-that is, if they walked in at all. A hefty number of his most successful clients were call girls or waitresses. Most of the information holders would be astounded to learn the grateful little girl they impressed with a one-hundred-dollar tip was actually making three times their annual salary.

  Secretaries, janitors, and shipping/receiving clerks were all potential key agents, if they weren't already actively engaged in it. But the field was not limited to the "little people." Many of his clients were high-placed trusted executives who felt that seventy thousand dollars a year wasn't enough to make ends meet. Mausier didn't feel this was strange. In fact, his own years in the corporate world convinced him that many of the white-collar spies were driven to it because of the financial pressures of maintaining a social front equal to or better than their job rating. It was a source of vague amusement to him that many executives turned to industrial espionage to be able to afford to keep up with other executives who were already supplementing their incomes as spies.

  There were still a few sneak thief spies in the business, but it was unlikely they would disclose their methods either. It would only mean they would have to work around tighter security on their next job.

  His whining client was not likely to get an answer to his information request even though the corporate world was crawling with agents. Mausier smiled. In his opinion after years of watching the business, the most successful agents were auditors.

  His smile faded as he turned to his doodlescreen. The project was becoming almost an obsession, claiming increasing portions of his time and concentration. The Brazil workspace was so full he could no longer display all items on the screen simultaneously. He thought he had the answer now, but so much of the pattern still didn't make sense.

  The screen flickered and displayed a list of names. These were people employed by the nine corporations who had died recently. He sorted them by corporation, then chronologically. There was a pattern here. On one specific day there had been a surge of deaths in the two corporations listed for the Brazilian location. Within a matter of weeks it had spread to the other names on the list, with the exception of Japan. Japan was a misfit in many ways, but he put it out of his mind temporarily and focused on the others.

  He tapped the keys, and a series of articles from newspapers and magazines began to display themselves on the screen. Each would show twice for thirty seconds-first the full article, then the portions Mausier had highlighted for summary display.

  He watched them idly as they flashed past. He didn't buy the terrorist group story. In all his reading and study, he could not detect a similar increase in deaths in any corporation outside his list of nine-well, eight. He might have been willing to believe the theory of randomly picked target corporations had he not already been studying them as a unit. As it was, it was too pat to be a coincidence. His eight corporations were the only ones to be randomly picked by a mysterious terrorist group? Bullshit. This was a new development of something that had been going on before.

  He interrupted the display to reference an information request from the U.S. government that had gone unanswered for more than a month. They were asking for any and all information about the terrorist group, and offering a price that was well beyond tempting. Nobody answered.

  The closest anyone had come to catching a member was one nut with a bomb. Although he swore up and down he was a member of that mystical group, investigation discovered he was working alone with a bomb he had built in his basement. Even the newspapers conceded he was probably a loner who was trying to cash in on the international publicity generated by the hunt for the elusive assassins.

  Nobody could get a solid lead no matter what price was offered. That was what gave Mausier his first clue. There was only one time before he had known of when all levels of information hunters, governmental and free lance, had come up empty-handed. That was the aftermath of the Russo-Chinese War, when the C-Block sealed itself up and began buying but never selling information. The only possible explanation was the terrorist group was a front manned by and covered for by the C-Block. After all, wasn't it their inquiries that initially alerted him to the tie-in between the nine-no, eight-corporations?

  But there his logic fell apart. Why were they doing it? To infiltrate the corporate structure with their own people? If so, why did they request personnel listings? Wouldn't they know who they were sending in?

  He put it out of his mind for the moment and keyed for another display. Japan. During the time period in question, there had only been one death in the Japanese companies under surveillance, and that was of old age.

  An article from a martial arts magazine eulogized the passing of an old sensei who had retired from teaching to take over some obscure physical fitness program for Japanese industry. That couldn't possibly tie in with the other items-or could it?

  Mausier wished for a moment that someone would put in a request for the coroner's report on the old man's death so he could see if it was actually available, but he shrugged it off as wishful thinking. It never occurred to him to request the information himself. That would be cheating! He'd work with the pieces as they were given to him.

  Why had Japan escaped the notice of the assassins? In fact, from watching the information requests, they seemed to have escaped the notice of the other ei
ght corporations. The only one requesting information on them was the C-Block. Were they unrelated to the puzzle, or were they in fact the people behind the assassins?

  Mausier shook his head in bewilderment and keyed for another display. An article flashed on the screen. It was an account of the death of a corporate executive, Edward Bush, at the hands of one of the terrorist assassins. This held particular interest for Mausier, as Bush had been one of his clients.

  According to the article, the incident had not been unlike a score of others. A long-range sniper working in broad daylight picked him off on the sidewalk in front of his office and escaped without a clue.

  The pattern was so repetitious Mausier could almost sing it in his sleep.

  He was willing to accept it as an unfortunate coincidence. Bush had been a buying, not a selling client, so it was unlikely that his death was linked in any way to his dealings with Mausier. Still, there was something afoot.

  Bush's own corporation had submitted an information request for details surrounding his death. What made it strange was that they had not made any similar requests regarding any of their other executives killed by snipers. Bush had not been particularly high-ranked in the corporation. Why the sudden interest in his demise?

  There was still another curious coincidence connected with Bush's death. The C-Block was also requesting details. They hadn't requested details on any of the corporate deaths until now. Clearly there was something strange about the killing, but what? Was it Bush or the manner of his death? If Mausier's theory about the C-Block team of assassins was correct, would they know all about the incident already? Maybe it was the Japanese after all. Those damn Japanese! Where did they fit into it all? Did they fit in at all?

  Mausier suddenly became aware of sounds in the outer office and realized his employees were arriving. He hastily turned off his doodlescreen and began composing himself for the day's routine.

  As he did, however, he made a mental note to himself. He was going to go out at noon. For years he had seesawed back and forth trying to weigh necessity against childish romanticizing, but now he had made up his mind. He was going to buy a gun. Whatever was going on, the game was being played for high stakes and he was sitting on too much information to ignore the potential danger in his position.

  13

  The cliff was as foreboding as ever; the straw dummies waited passively at the base. Still, Tidwell realized his interest was at a peak as he sat waiting with Clancy for the next group to appear. The two mercenaries were perched on the lip of the cliff, dangling their legs idly, about five meters to the left of the trail.

  They came, five of them darting silently from tree to tree like spirits. As they approached the cliff, the leader, a swarthy man in his thirties, held up his hand in a signal. The group froze, and he signaled one of the team forward. Tidwell smiled as a girl in her mid-twenties slung her rifle and dropped to her stomach, sliding forward to peer over the cliff. The leader knew damn well what was down there because he had run the course hundreds of times before, but he was playing it by the book and officially it was a new situation to be scouted.

  The girl completed her survey, then slid backward for several meters before she rose to a half-crouch. Her hands flashed in a quick series of signals to the leader. Clancy nudged Tidwell, who smiled again, this time from flattered pleasure. Since he had taken over, the entire force had begun using his habit of sign language. It was a high compliment. The only trouble was that they had become proficient with it and had elaborated on his basic vocabulary to a point where he now sometimes had trouble following the signals as they flashed back and forth.

  The leader made his decision. With a few abrupt gestures from him, the other three of the team, two men and a woman, slung their rifles and darted forward, diving full-speed off the cliff to confront their luckless "victims" below. The leader and the scout remained topside.

  The two observing mercenaries straightened unconsciously. This was something new. The leader apparently had a new trick up his sleeve.

  As his teammates sprinted forward, the leader reached over his shoulder and fished a coil of rope out of his pack. It was a black, lightweight silk line, with heavy knots tied in it every two feet for climbing. He located and grasped one end, tossing the coil to the scout. She caught it and flipped it over the cliff, while the leader secured his end around a small tree with a quick-release knot. This done, he faded back along the trail about ten meters to cover the rear, while the scout unslung her rifle and eased up to the edge of the cliff ready to cover her teammates below.

  Clancy punched Tidwell's shoulder delightedly and flashed him a thumbs-up signal. Tidwell nodded in agreement. It was a sweet move. Now the three attackers below had an easy, secure route back out as well as cover fire if anything went wrong.

  Tidwell felt like crowing. The reorganization of the force was working better than he would have dared hope. The whole thing had been a ridiculously simple three-step process. First, there had been a questionnaire asking eight questions: Which four people in the force would you most like to team with? Why? Who would you be least willing to team with? Why? Who would you be most willing to follow as a leader? Why? Who would you be least willing to follow as a leader? Why?

  The next step was to pass the data through the computers a few times. Two jobs were done simultaneously: first, the five-man teams were established along the lines of preference stated by the individuals; second, the deadwood and misfits were weeded out to be sent back to other jobs in the corporate structure.

  The final step was to pull various members of the teams for special accelerated training in the more specialized skills necessary in a fighting unit. He had had to argue with Clancy a little on this point, but had finally won. Clancy had felt the existing specialists should be seeded through the teams to round out the requirements regardless of preference lines, but Tidwell's inescapable logic was that in combat, you're better off with a mediocre machine gunner you trust and can work with than an expert machine gunner you wouldn't turn your back on.

  From then on, the teams were inseparable. They bunked together, trained together, went on leave together; in short, they became a family. In fact, several of the teams had formed along family lines with mother, father, and offspring all on the same team, though frequently the leadership went to one of the offspring.

  It was a weird, unorthodox way to organize an army, but it was bearing fruit. The teams were tightknit and smooth running and highly prone to coming up with their own solutions to the tactical problems Tidwell was constantly inventing for them. It was beyond a doubt the finest fighting force Tidwell had ever been associated with.

  The attackers were regaining the top of the cliff now. Suddenly, a mischievous idea hit Tidwell. He stood up and wigwagged the team leader. With a few brief gestures he sketched out his orders. The team leader nodded, and began signaling his team. The scout recoiled the rope and tossed it to the team leader. He caught it, stowed it in his pack, surveyed the terrain, and faded back into a bush. Tidwell checked the terrain and nodded to himself. It was a good ambush. He couldn't see any of the team even though he had seen four of them take cover. He hadn't seen where the scout went after she tossed the rope.

  Clancy was smiling at him.

  "Steve, you're a real son-of-a-bitch."

  Tidwell shrugged modestly, and they settled back to wait.

  They didn't have to wait long. The next team came into sight, jogging along the trail in a loose group. The leader, a girl in her late teens that Clancy was spending most of his off-hours with, spotted the two sitting on the edge of the cliff. She smiled and waved at them. They smiled and waved back at her. They were still smiling when the ambush opened up.

  The girl and the two men flanking her went down to the first burst of fire. The remaining two members dove smoothly under cover and started returning their fire.

  Tidwell stood up.

  "All right! Break it up!"

  There was an abrupt cease-fire.

&
nbsp; "Everybody over here!"

  The two teams emerged from their hiding places and sprinted over to the two mercenaries. Tidwell tossed his "activator key" to one of the survivors of the second team who ducked off to "revive" his teammates.

  "Okay. First off, ambushers. There's no point in laying an ambush if you're going to spring it too soon. Let 'em come all the way into the trap before you spring it. The way you did it, you're left with two survivors who've got you pinned down with your backs to a cliff!"

  The "revived" members of the second team joined the group.

  "Now then, victims! Those kill-suits are spoiling you rotten. You're supposed to be moving through disputed terrain. Don't bunch up where one burst can wipe out your whole team."

  They were listening intently, soaking up everything he said.

  "Okay, we've held up training enough. Report to the firing range after dinner for an extra hour's penalty tour."

  The teams laughed as they resumed their training. Sending them to the firing range for a penalty tour was like sending a kid to Disneyland. Ever since the new weapons had arrived, the teams had to be driven away from the ranges. They even had to take head count at meals to be sure teams didn't skip eating to sneak out to the range for extra practice.

  The girl leading the second team shot a black look at Clancy as she herded her team off the cliff.

  "Now who's the son-of-a-bitch, Clancy old friend? Unless I miss my guess, she's going to have a few words for you tonight."

  "Let her scream." Clancy's voice was chilly. "I'd rather see her gunned down here than when we're in live action. I wouldn't be doing her any favors to flash her warnings in training. Let her learn the hard way. Then she'll remember."

  Tidwell smiled to himself. Underneath that easygoing nice guy exterior was as cold and hard-nosed a mercenary as he was. Maybe colder.

  "Nit-picking aside, Clancy, what do you think?"

  "Think? I'll tell you, Steve. I think they're the meanest, most versatile fighting force the world has ever seen, bar none. Like you say, we're nit-picking. They're as ready now as they're ever going to be."