The Cold Cash War Read online

  The Cold Cash War

  Robert Asprin

  Robert Asprin

  The Cold Cash War

  1

  Tom Mausier was a cautious man. Despite his daydreams of bravery and glorious deeds, he had to agree with his friends that he was one of the most cautious of people. As such, while it surprised everyone that he left his comfortable corporate job to open a business of his own, no one was surprised when it succeeded. Had success not been almost guaranteed in the beginning, he would not have made the move.

  Still he had his dreams. He dreamed of being an adventurer. A secret agent. A spy. Lacking the dash and courage to be any of these, he contented himself with the small pride of being his own man and running the business he had built as an espionage and information broker.

  His day began at six o'clock in the morning, fully two hours before any of his employees arrived. This was not difficult for him since his offices were attached to his house. In fact, he could enter his office through a door in his kitchen. However, he never went into the office unless he was properly dressed. It would have been as unthinkable to him as walking outside in his underwear. The offices were another world to him, a world of business and of dreams, while his home was his home.

  One could notice a physical change when he stepped through the door joining the two worlds. His home was kept at a comfortable seventy-eight degrees; the office was a more crisp and businesslike sixty-seven degrees. His wife maintained a modest and comfortable early American decor with a few tasteful and functional antiques in their home, but his office-his office was his pride and joy.

  Stepping into his office was like stepping onto the deck of a Hollywood spaceship when the budget was both lavish and overspent. While his home was comfortably frugal, he spared no expense on his office. Electronic display screens and their telephone terminal hookups lined the walls as well as machines for recording and storing incoming messages. Gadgetry abounded everywhere, almost all of which he could justify.

  His business was his pride, and he started at six o'clock sharp. He didn't require his employees to match his hours; in fact, he discouraged them from coming in early. The first two hours of each day were for him to collect his thoughts, organize the day, and pursue his hobby.

  This morning started out the same as any other. Without bothering to turn on the overhead lights, he switched on the first two viewscreens and studied them carefully. The first showed memos to himself of items to be done today. They were either dictated at his desk into the memory file or phoned in by him from one of the phones in his home or a nearby phone booth when a thought struck him. The latter was done with one of the portable field terminals identical to the ones issued to their field agents and it always gave him a secret thrill to use one, even though the data he transmitted to himself was usually of an unexciting nature.

  Today's data was as dull as ever. ISSUE PAYROLL CHECKS...RECONCILE THE PHONE BILL...SPEAK TO MS. WITLEY ABOUT HER STEADILY LENGTHENING LUNCH HOURS...He sighed as he scanned the board. Paperback spies never had to reconcile phone bills. Such tasks were magically done by elves or civil servants offstage, leaving the heroes free to gamble in posh casinos with beautiful women on their arms and strange people shooting at them.

  One item on the board caught his eye. CHECK MISSED RENDEZVOUS 187-449-3620. He scowled thoughtfully. He'd have to check that carefully. If the agent had missed the rendezvous because of laxness, he would be dropped as a client. Thomas Mausier didn't tolerate laxness. His own reputation was on the line. All of his clients could deal with each other in good faith because Thomas Mausier vouched for them. If a purchasing client didn't pay in full or attempted a doublecross, he would be dropped. If a selling client tried to palm off falsified or dummied information, he would be dropped. When you dealt through Thomas Mausier, you dealt honestly and in good faith. That's part of what you were paying him his ten percent for.

  Then again, there might be a good reason why the agent missed the rendezvous. He might be dead. If that were the case, Mausier would have to check to see if the scrambler unit on the agent's field terminal had been somehow neutralized, allowing a rival to intercept the message and set an ambush.

  Mausier doubted that this had occurred. He had countless guarantees from the Japanese firm that custom-manufactured the units for him that the scramblers were individually unique and unbuggable, and they had yet to be proven wrong.

  Still, it would be worth checking into. His eyes flicked over the agent's client number-187. Brazil. He'd have to pay particular attention to items from that area when he went through the newswire tapes, newspapers, and periodicals this morning.

  He was still pondering this as he turned to the second board. This board contained both requests for information and items for sale from the world of corporations which had been phoned in during the night. Again the items were of a routine nature. Now that the Christmas production lines had started, the seasonal rush for information on new designs from rival toy companies was dwindling. The majority of items were from corporate executives checking on each other, frequently within the same organization.

  Again an item caught his eye, but this time he smiled. A corporation was asking for information on the design of an electronics gizmo that had appeared in detail in last month's issue of a popular hobbyists' magazine. They were offering a healthy sum. Still smiling, Mausier keyed in the magazine reference and coded it back to the requestor with the footnote "With our compliments."

  There would be red faces when the message was picked up, but what the heck, they didn't have the time for reading that Mausier had. They were chained to a corporation. Better that they got a little embarrassed than if he let one of his agents sell them information that was already public knowledge. He had his reputation to protect.

  Again he scanned the board, automatically assigning codes to the items. When his employees arrived, they would spend hours coding the new data into the computers, but he could do it in minutes. After all, he had invented the code.

  Each item requested would be encoded with the geographic region for which information was available, the specifics of the information required, the date it was needed, and the offered price. Any agent could then step into a phone booth or pick up a motel phone anywhere in the world, and, using his field terminal, review all requests for information in this area. Similarly, any item offered for sale would be encoded with the general category of interest, the specifics of the information, and the asking price. The buying clients would then use their field terminals to scan for any items that might be of particular interest to them. This system allowed both speculative and consignment espionage to be channeled through his brokerage, with Mausier arranging the details and collecting his ten percent.

  With relish he turned on the next board. This board got less use than the corporate one, but was always more exciting. This board was for governments.

  There was a new message on the board this morning. It was a request for information. It was a request from the C-Block.

  Mausier leaned forward and studied the request. Since the C-Block had gone incommunicado after the end of the Russo-Chinese War, no information had come out, but they were always buying. Even though it was known that their own agents roamed the far corners of the globe, they still dealt with him and probably other information brokers. Whether this was to obtain new lines of information or to check on data sent them by their own agents no one knew, but they were steady customers.

  It would be curious to see how his agents would react if they knew how much of their data went to the C-Block. Buying clients were not identified on information requests going out to the agents, for obvious reasons.

  The latest information request seemed innocent enough, but then again, most of them did
. They wanted lists of any and all new hires or terminations for two specific major corporations in a given region.

  It seemed innocent enough. In fact, it duplicated several requests they had made in the past for different corporations. But these were two new lists they were watching, and in a different part of the globe.

  Mausier pursed his lips as he studied the request. The C-Block was sharp. They didn't do anything without reason and they didn't waste money or effort on petty items. There was something going on that they were watching, something that he couldn't see.

  He studied the board. Two new personnel lists. In a new area. In Brazil. Brazil! The missed rendezvous in Brazil!

  Mausier was suddenly excited. Abandoning his boards, he strode hurriedly to his desk and clicked on his doodle screen. He keyed for a clear workspace,, then input two items. Agent missed rendezvous. Personnel hires and terminations. He leaned back in his chair and stared at the two items glowing brightly on the screen.

  Thomas Mausier had a hobby. He never actually handled the information that the clients bartered for, but all the requests and items for sale still crossed his screens even if it was in the vaguest of terms. As a hobby, he put the pieces together.

  You didn't have to see the blueprints of a weapon to know a country was hurriedly stockpiling arms. You didn't have to see the actual medical records to know someone was compiling a dossier on someone else. By combining the skeletal information that passed through his offices with the public data he collected from the incredible mass of news tapes, newspapers, and periodicals he subscribed to from all over the world, he could regularly second-guess the next day's headlines. So far he had successfully predicted three border skirmishes, a civil war, two coups, and several assassination attempts. He never did anything with the information, since that would be a breach of confidence with his clients. Still it made an interesting and exciting hobby.

  He stared at the two items on the screen. They were probably unrelated. All the same, he would take the time to scan the current events public records for any items concerning either of those two conglomerates or Brazil. The C-Block was watching them for some reason and he was going to puzzle it out.

  2

  Thirty-seven is a lousy age for a corporate executive.

  Peter Hornsby grimaced at the busy streets below as he stared out the window of his office. He was taking a break after realizing he hadn't focused on anything all morning. Monday morning blahs, maybe.

  Actually, the "window" was a viewscreen with a continuous loop videotape showing on it, the corporate world's answer to the office-status scramble of which executive got a window viewing what. In his depressed, self-analyzing moments such as these, Pete questioned his own choice of views. Most of the other executives looked at a seashore or a morning meadow. He was one of the few who had the "fifty-seventh-story view of city streets" tape, and, to his knowledge, the only one who had the "night electrical storm over the city."

  Was this a sign of his waning career? Was this all that was left? Deluding himself with illusions of grandeur?

  He shook off the feeling. C'mon Pete, you aren't dead yet. So the promotions aren't coming as fast these last few years. So what? You're getting up there on the ladder; ya know. There aren't as many openings you can move up into. You're just upset because they went outside and hired Ed Bush two years back instead of moving you up. Well, they needed a new person to get the changes in, and even you admit you couldn't do the job Eddie's done. He's a real ball of fire. So what if he's a couple years younger than you.

  Pete returned to his desk and picked up a piece of paper, staring at it with unseeing eyes. The trouble with being thirty-seven was you didn't have the option of starting over somewhere else. Nobody hires a thirty-five to forty year old executive expecting him to go places. That was for the young tigers like-like Eddie. If Pete was going to go any further with his career, it would have to be right here.

  His thoughts were interrupted by a tingling on his hand. His ringpager. He grimaced. Dick Tracy was alive and well in the corporate world. He thumbed back the lid.

  "Hornsby here."

  "Yeah, Pete. Eddie." Eddie Bush's voice was identifiable even with the poor sound reproduction of a three-quarter-inch speaker-mike. "Can you stop up at my office for a minute?"

  "On my way, Eddie." He thumbed the ring shut and hit a button on his desk. The wood paneling of the north wall of his office faded, giving him a one-way view of his reception area. For a change, his secretary was at her desk. However, she was covertly leafing through a cosmetics catalogue. He touched the intercom button.

  "Ginny!" He was rewarded by seeing her start guiltily before hitting her own intercom button.

  "Yes, Pete?"

  "I'm heading up to Eddie's office. Hold all calls till I get back."

  "How long will you be?"

  "Don't know. It's one of his surprise calls."

  He clicked off the intercom and started across his office. As he approached the south wall, a portion slid back and he entered the executive corridor, stepping onto the eastbound conveyor. He nodded recognition to another executive striding purposefully along the westbound conveyor, but remained standing, letting the conveyor carry him along at a sedate four miles an hour. Corridor-walking varied by section. Some crews walked, some ran in an effort to show frenzied enthusiasm or pseudoimportance. Eddie set the code for their group. Let the convey do it. We're smoothly run to the point to where we don't have to dash around like a bunch of panicked rodents.

  Stepping off onto the platform in front of Eddie's door, he hit the intercom button in the doorframe and got an immediate response.

  "That you, Pete?"

  "Right."

  "C'mon in."

  The door slid open and he entered Eddie's office.

  Eddie's office was not noticeably larger than Pete's, but much more lavishly furnished. Instead of a panoramic scene, Eddie had a moving opti-print on his viewscreen. The print had always given Pete an uneasy feeling of vertigo, but he didn't say anything.

  "Make yourself comfortable, Pete. It's two sugars, no cream, right?"

  "Right." In spite of himself, Pete was always pleased when Eddie remembered small details like that.

  Eddie punched the appropriate buttons on the Servo-Matic and in a few seconds, the coffee hummed into view.

  "That reminds me, Eddie. My Servo-Matic is down. Can you lean on someone to get it fixed?"

  "Have you called maintenance?"

  "Daily for two weeks. All I get is double-talk and forms to fill out."

  "I'll see what I can do. What are you working on right now?"

  "Nothing special. Pushing around a few ideas, but nothing that couldn't be delegated or put on hold. Why? What's up?"

  "We've had a live one tossed in our laps, and I need that detail brain of yours working on it. I just got back from headquarters-talked with Becker himself.

  "Who?"

  "Becker, one of the international vps. Check your conspectus-you'll see his name. Anyway, it seems we've been picked as one of several teams assigned to submit recommendations on this. It's a chance for some nice exposure at the top levels."

  "Who else is working on it?"

  "Higgins on the East Coast and Marcus in New Orleans."

  "Higgins? I thought he got dumped after his last fiasco."

  "Just shelved. If you want my guess, someone's using this assignment as an excuse to dump him. I'd be willing to bet that whatever he turns in, it gets rejected. I'm guessing he'll be out by the end of the year."

  "It's about time. Who's Marcus?"

  "Never met him. He's supposed to be some kind of genius, but the word is he rubs a lot of people the wrong way. If he thinks you're an ass, he'll say so. You can imagine how well that goes over in the brainstorming sessions."

  Pete lit a cigarette and exhaled thoughtfully.

  "So our competition is a three-time loser and a loudmouthed whiz kid. If we can't beat that, we should hang it up."

  "That
's the way I see it. But don't short-sell Marcus. If he's lasted this long, he must have something going for him. There's a chance someone's watching for some real dynamic ideas from him. We'll have to watch close, and if things look like they are leaning his way, decide if we go for the kill or if we want to cover."

  "How much time have we got?"

  Eddie grimaced.

  "Quote, as much time as you need to do a good job, unquote. In other words, whoever submits first is going to be holding up their presentation for the other two teams to tear apart. On the other hand, if we take too long, we're going to look like a bunch of old women who can't make up their minds."

  Pete thought it over for a few minutes, then shrugged.

  "If that's the rules, that's the rules. We play the cards as they're dealt. Okay, what's the assignment?"

  "Are you ready for this? Our everlovin' communications conglomerate has got a war on its hands."

  "Come again?"

  "You heard me. A war. You know-soldiers, bullets, tanks-a war."

  "Okay, I'll bite. What are we supposed to do about it?"

  "Nothing much. Just keep a lid on it. We're supposed to come up with a bunch of ideas to keep the public from finding out about it, and at the same time start conditioning the public so that they'll accept it if the word ever leaks out."

  "Are you serious? C'mon, Eddie, we're talking about a war! People are bound to notice a war!"

  "It's not as wild as it sounds. This thing's been going on for nearly a year-have you heard anything about it?"

  "Well...no."

  "What's more, there are supposedly three other wars going on at the same time-one in Iceland over the fishing rights, one in Africa over the diamond mining, and one in the Great Plains over oil. Corporate wars are nothing new. At least that's what Becker says."

  "So who are we fighting?"

  "That's where it gets a bit tricky. We're up against one of the biggest oil companies in the world."