There were still a few sneak thief spies in the business, but it was unlikely they would disclose their methods either. It would only mean they would have to work around tighter security on their next job.

His whining client was not likely to get an answer to his information request even though the corporate world was crawling with agents. Mausier smiled. In his opinion after years of watching the business, the most successful agents were auditors.

His smile faded as he turned to his doodlescreen. The project was becoming almost an obsession, claiming increasing portions of his time and concentration. The Brazil workspace was so full he could no longer display all items on the screen simultaneously. He thought he had the answer now, but so much of the pattern still didn't make sense.

The screen flickered and displayed a list of names. These were people employed by the nine corporations who had died recently. He sorted them by corporation, then chronologically. There was a pattern here. On one specific day there had been a surge of deaths in the two corporations listed for the Brazilian location. Within a matter of weeks it had spread to the other names on the list, with the exception of Japan. Japan was a misfit in many ways, but he put it out of his mind temporarily and focused on the others.

He tapped the keys, and a series of articles from newspapers and magazines began to display themselves on the screen. Each would show twice for thirty seconds-first the full article, then the portions Mausier had highlighted for summary display.

He watched them idly as they flashed past. He didn't buy the terrorist group story. In all his reading and study, he could not detect a similar increase in deaths in any corporation outside his list of nine-well, eight. He might have been willing to believe the theory of randomly picked target corporations had he not already been studying them as a unit. As it was, it was too pat to be a coincidence. His eight corporations were the only ones to be randomly picked by a mysterious terrorist group? Bullshit. This was a new development of something that had been going on before.

He interrupted the display to reference an information request from the U.S. government that had gone unanswered for more than a month. They were asking for any and all information about the terrorist group, and offering a price that was well beyond tempting. Nobody answered.

The closest anyone had come to catching a member was one nut with a bomb. Although he swore up and down he was a member of that mystical group, investigation discovered he was working alone with a bomb he had built in his basement. Even the newspapers conceded he was probably a loner who was trying to cash in on the international publicity generated by the hunt for the elusive assassins.

Nobody could get a solid lead no matter what price was offered. That was what gave Mausier his first clue. There was only one time before he had known of when all levels of information hunters, governmental and free lance, had come up empty-handed. That was the aftermath of the Russo-Chinese War, when the C-Block sealed itself up and began buying but never selling information. The only possible explanation was the terrorist group was a front manned by and covered for by the C-Block. After all, wasn't it their inquiries that initially alerted him to the tie-in between the nine-no, eight-corporations?

But there his logic fell apart. Why were they doing it? To infiltrate the corporate structure with their own people? If so, why did they request personnel listings? Wouldn't they know who they were sending in?

He put it out of his mind for the moment and keyed for another display. Japan. During the time period in question, there had only been one death in the Japanese companies under surveillance, and that was of old age.

An article from a martial arts magazine eulogized the passing of an old sensei who had retired from teaching to take over some obscure physical fitness program for Japanese industry. That couldn't possibly tie in with the other items-or could it?

Mausier wished for a moment that someone would put in a request for the coroner's report on the old man's death so he could see if it was actually available, but he shrugged it off as wishful thinking. It never occurred to him to request the information himself. That would be cheating! He'd work with the pieces as they were given to him.

Why had Japan escaped the notice of the assassins? In fact, from watching the information requests, they seemed to have escaped the notice of the other eight corporations. The only one requesting information on them was the C-Block. Were they unrelated to the puzzle, or were they in fact the people behind the assassins?

Mausier shook his head in bewilderment and keyed for another display. An article flashed on the screen. It was an account of the death of a corporate executive, Edward Bush, at the hands of one of the terrorist assassins. This held particular interest for Mausier, as Bush had been one of his clients.

According to the article, the incident had not been unlike a score of others. A long-range sniper working in broad daylight picked him off on the sidewalk in front of his office and escaped without a clue.

The pattern was so repetitious Mausier could almost sing it in his sleep.

He was willing to accept it as an unfortunate coincidence. Bush had been a buying, not a selling client, so it was unlikely that his death was linked in any way to his dealings with Mausier. Still, there was something afoot.

Bush's own corporation had submitted an information request for details surrounding his death. What made it strange was that they had not made any similar requests regarding any of their other executives killed by snipers. Bush had not been particularly high-ranked in the corporation. Why the sudden interest in his demise?

There was still another curious coincidence connected with Bush's death. The C-Block was also requesting details. They hadn't requested details on any of the corporate deaths until now. Clearly there was something strange about the killing, but what? Was it Bush or the manner of his death? If Mausier's theory about the C-Block team of assassins was correct, would they know all about the incident already? Maybe it was the Japanese after all. Those damn Japanese! Where did they fit into it all? Did they fit in at all?

Mausier suddenly became aware of sounds in the outer office and realized his employees were arriving. He hastily turned off his doodlescreen and began composing himself for the day's routine.

As he did, however, he made a mental note to himself. He was going to go out at noon. For years he had seesawed back and forth trying to weigh necessity against childish romanticizing, but now he had made up his mind. He was going to buy a gun. Whatever was going on, the game was being played for high stakes and he was sitting on too much information to ignore the potential danger in his position.