"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."