The Cold Cash War

by Robert Asprin

  "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.

  21

  Tidwell trudged through the darkness trying to ignore the feeling of nakedness he had without a rifle. He grinned to himself. This was a wacky idea, but if it worked it would be beautiful.

  "Okay, Steve, you're there!" Clancy's voice came to him through his earplug. "If you take another fifteen steps, you'll kick one."

  He halted his forward progress, and covertly studied the underbrush as he fished out a cigarette. He stalled a few more seconds fumbling for a match, then grudgingly lit up. These guys are good. He slowly exhaled a long plume of smoke.

  "You can come out, gentlemen. All I want to do is talk."

  His voice seemed incredibly loud in the darkness, even to him. He waited a few moments. The night was still.

  "Look, I don't have a white flag with me, so I'm pinpointing my position with a cigarette instead. I'd like to talk to your ranking officer or noncom."

  There was still no response. If he didn't have absolute faith in his back-up, he would feel silly standing there talking to himself.

  "I'd love to stand here all night, but the bugs are getting bad. Look, we know you're here. We've been tracking you through our scopes for over an hour now. If we wanted you dead, you'd be dead. If it will convince you, there are twenty of you and we know your positions. Now does that convince you or do I have to bounce a rock off a couple of you?"

  He paused again. Suddenly, there was a soldier standing ten feet from him. He hadn't seen him stand up or step out of the bushes; it was as if he had sprung from the earth itself.r />
  "It's about time. Want a smoke?"

  "You wanted to talk, so talk."

  The man sounded annoyed. Tidwell grinned to himself-probably upset that his crack team had been discovered.

  "I've got a message for you. We're asking you once politely to withdraw your men."

  "Give me one good reason why we should pull out, wise guy?"

  "I can give you a list. First off, we found you. Right off the bat that should tell you your hotshots aren't as good as you'd like to think they are. Now, don't get me wrong, they're good-some of the best I've seen in a government force. But you're outclassed, friend. Our troops have been at this game since the time they could walk. Stack that up against your five years' service and you've got some idea where you stand in this war. A poor third in a two-sided fight!"

  "That's your story."

  "Let me spell it out for you. You're the advance scout of a company of light infantry that's bivouacked about fifteen miles back. They've been out here blundering around for over two weeks and I'm the first person you've seen to put your sights on. During that time, we've penetrated your defense at will, putting BANG signs on your ammo dump, green dye in your drinking water, Mickey Mouse Club badges on your tents while you're sleeping at night. The fact that you and your force aren't dead isn't because we've never had the chance."

  "You're the guys who have been doing all that?"

  "You want to know how many of us there are? Five, and two of us are women. A five-member team is all that it takes to keep a company of you bozos running in circles for half a month."

  "So how come you haven't attacked?"

  "Why? We don't want to fight you clowns. None of the corporation mercenaries do. We just want you to clear the hell out and leave us alone. Why are you out here anyway?"

  "Well...supposedly we're trying to keep you from destroying the world economy."

  "Bullshit. You wouldn't know a world economy if it bit you on the leg. Hell, man, the corporations have been the world economy for over half a century now."

  "So you want us to pull back to camp?"