Robert Asprin - The Cold Cash War

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."

"This still seems strange."

"What does?" Judy turned from gazing out the taxi window to direct her attention to him.

"Dictating terms to the government. It's weird. I mean, as long as I've been working, the corporations have bitched about government controls and chafed under the rules. Sometimes we bought our way into some favorable legislation and sometimes we just moved our operations to a more favorable climate. But just telling them...that's weird."

"Look at it like the Magna Carta."

"The which?"

"History...medieval Europe. A bunch of the lorded barons, the fat cats of the era, got together and forced the king to sign a document giving them a voice in government."

"Is that what we're doing?"

"In a manner of speaking. Look, love, any system of government involves voluntary acceptance of that authority. Once the populace decides they don't want to play along, the Lord High Muckity-Mucks are out of luck."

"Except in a communist police state."

"Including a communist police state. If the people aren't happy or at least content, they're going to take things into their own hands and trample you."

"But if anyone mouths off you can just take them out and shoot them."

"If enough people are upset, you're in trouble. You can't shoot them all. And who's going to do the shooting? If things are out of hand, odds are the military won't follow your lead either."

"It still seems unnatural."

"It's the most natural thing in the world. Ignore governments for a minute. look at any power structure. Look at the beginning of the unions. The fat cats had all the cards. It was their football. But when conditions got bad enough, the workers damn well dealt themselves in whether the fat cats liked it or not."

"But the unions are only a minor power now."

"Right, because they're no longer necessary. Business finally wised up to the fact that keeping the workers happy is the key to success. The conditions that caused the unions to form and justified their existence disappeared, and people started wondering what they were paying their dues for. Just like the corporations are asking what they're paying taxes for. You can't force a loyalty to any system. It's either there or it isn't. Inertia maintains the status quo, but once the tide turns there is no stopping it."

"You make this sound liked take-over."

"Effectively it is. The only reason the governments still exist today is because they do a lot of scut work the corporations don't want to dirty their hands with. But anything we want, we've got. They tried to assert their authority and proved that they don't have any."

"So where do we go from here?"

"We go in there." She pointed through the window at the large steel and glass building as the taxi pulled over to the curb. "As delegates to the First United Negotiations Council, the most powerful assemblage the free world has ever seen-every major corporation and industrial group gathered to decide how we want the world to run."

As they started up the stairs, she drew close to him.

"Stay close to me, huh;"

"Nervous? After that talk in the car, I thought you were ready to take on anyone in the council."

"It's not the council, it's them."

She nodded at the mercenaries lounging around the lobby, their hard eyes betraying the casual manner with which they checked the delegates' ID's.

"Them? C'mon, sweetheart, those are our heroes; without them, where would we be now?"

"I still don't like them; they're animals."

She quickened her step, and Fred had to hurry to keep up.

"How about that?"

"What?" Tidwell drifted over to the mezzanine railing to see what Clancy was ogling.

"That little bit of fluff with the old geezer-rough life, huh?"

"Nice to know what our fighting is for, isn't it-so some fat cat can bring his chippie along to meetings with him."