The Cold Cash War 8 страница

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.

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.

“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?”

“No, we want you to pull out completely. The whole damn company-tell your CO we said so.”

“And that’s supposed to convince him?”

“No, but this might.” Tidwell pulled a bulky envelope from inside his shirt and pitched it to the soldier who caught it deftly.

“What is it?”

“Well, you can’t see them in this light, but it’s a batch of pictures of your CO.”

“And that’s supposed to convince him?”

“They might. They were taken through a rifle scope. The cross hairs show up just swell.”

“We’ll show them to him. We were about to pull back anyway.”

“Oh, just one more thing. If you could tell your men to leave their rifles behind when they go.”

“What!”

“You can come back tomorrow and pick them up, but we want to be sure you pass the message to your CO, and showing up without your rifles will make sure you don’t forget to talk to him.”

“Tell you what, fella. Why don’t you come along and tell him personally. We’re supposed to be looking for prisoners to interrogate and I guess you’ll do just fine!”

“You know, I get the distinct impression you think I’m bluffing. Very well; which impresses you more-distance work or close quarters?”

“What?”

“Never mind, we’ll give you a quick demo of each. Um, tell your men to ease off their triggers. There’s going to be some noise, quite harmless of course, but I wouldn’t want to see you all get wiped out because someone flinched off a shot.”

“What are you talking...”

The night was rent by two ear-splitting explosions, one to their left, one to their right. Two full heart beats behind the blast came the unmistakable twin flat cracks of the rifle reports.

“In case you’re wondering, those shots were squeezed off by my partner-the one I was telling you about who is two miles back. He’s firing the mercury-tipped bullets you’ve heard about. Nasty things. Blow a man open like a ripe melon.”

“Jesus Christ!”

“But you’re a sneaky-pete type, so you’ll probably be more impressed by night movement. Hang onto yourself, sonny.”

A shotgun blast went off into the air halfway between the two men, and one of Tidwell’s teammates sat up from where he had been lying prone in the calf-high undergrowth.

“Now then, little man.” Tidwell’s voice was hard. “Let’s not hear any more crap about taking prisoners. I suggest you take your underpaid boy scouts and get the hell out of our jungle before we start playing rough.”

Tidwell was in the blackout tent scanning the radio transcripts when Clancy burst through the double-flap entrance.

“Worked like a charm. They didn’t stop until they got back to their camp. If they didn’t wet their pants when that shotgun went off, it’s only ’cause they haven’t had anything to drink for twenty-four hours.”

“Speaking of drinks, help yourself.”

“Thanks,” beamed Clancy, pouring himself a dollop of Irish. “What a crazy way to fight a war. I wonder who came up with this idea?”

“’The object of war is not to destroy the enemy, but rather to destroy his will to resist.’ Von Clausewitz, On War. The idea goes way back, Clancy. We’re just carrying it out to the nth degree. Have you seen the latest?”

“What? The bit about our robot planes dropping sacks of flour on the steps of the White House?”

“No, the release about the high-altitude reconnaissance planes.”

“What’s the gist of it?”

“Basically the corporations sent a memo to the governments and the press citing the exact times high-altitude reconnaissance planes had flown over the zone in the last week. They pointed out that we were tracking them easily while our own troops were protected from the infrared snoop by jamming screens, and would they kindly refrain from sending them out or we would be forced to start downing them to eliminate the nuisance.”

“Can we do it?”

“I don’t think our force has anything that could, but that doesn’t mean someone on the corporate team doesn’t have a gimmick. Remember last month when the governments called a corporate bluff and we blew up one of their destroyers offshore?”

“Yeah. You know, that kind of gets me down, though-all the gimmick warfare. It takes the personal touch out of things.”

“How about the ’gunsight’ photos? You can’t get much more personal than that. I bet a lot of governmental big mouths changed their tune when they saw themselves in the cross hairs.”

“Tell me honestly, Steve-do you think we’re going to win?”

“I don’t see how it can go any other way. There’s no way they can catch us short of saturation bombing or nukes, and public opinion is too much against them. Hell, they’re having a hard time with the pressures folks are putting on over this united effort. A third of the governments have already had to pull their troops. It’s only a matter of time before the rest of them have to bail out.”

“What then?”

“What do you mean?”

“Just that. Okay, the governments pull their troops out, effectively admitting they don’t have the military power to police the corporations. What then?”

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.

Поиск по сайту: