They were in town now. The soldiers in back were whooping and shouting crude comments at the women on the sidewalk. Worthington glanced out the window, idly studying the buildings as they rolled past. Suddenly he stiffened.

There, at a table of a sidewalk cafe, were two mercenaries in the now-famous kill-suits leisurely sipping drinks and chatting with two other men in civilian dress. The lieutenant reacted instantly.

"Stop the truck!"

"But sir..."

"Stop the truck, dammit!"

Worthington was out of the truck even before it screeched to a halt, fumbling his pistol from its holster. He ignored the angry shouts behind him as the men in back were tossed about by the sudden braking action, and leveled his pistol at the mercenaries.

"Don't move, either of you!"

The men seemed not to hear him, continuing with their conversation.

"I said, Don't move!"

Still they ignored him. Worthington was starting to feel foolish, aware of the driver peering out the door behind him. He was about to repeat himself when one of the mercenaries noticed him. He tapped the other one on the arm, and the whole table craned their necks to look at the figure by the truck.

"You are to consider yourselves my prisoners. Put your hands on your head and face the wall!"

They listened to him, heads cocked in alert interest. When he was done, one of the mercenaries replied with a rude gesture of international significance. The others at the table rocked with laughter; then they returned to their conversation.

Worthington suddenly found himself ignored again. Reason vanished in a wave of anger and humiliation. Those bastards!

The gun barked and roared in his hand, startling him back to his senses. He had not intended to fire. His hand must have tightened nervously and...

Wait a minute! Where were the mercenaries? He shot a nervous glance around. The table was deserted, but he could see the two men in civilian clothes lying on the floor covering their heads with their arms. Neither seemed to be injured. Thank God for that! There would have been hell to pay if he shot a civilian. But where were the mercenaries?

The men were starting to pile out of the truck behind him, clamoring to know what was going on. One thing was sure-he couldn't go hunting mercenaries with a platoon of men with empty rifles.

Suddenly a voice rang out from the far side of the street.

"Anybody hurt over there?"

"Clean miss!" rang out another voice from the darkened depths of the cafe.

The lieutenant squinted, but couldn't make out anyone.

"Are they wearing kill-suits?" came a third voice from farther down the street.

"As a matter of fact, they aren't!" shouted another voice from the alley alongside the cafe.

"That was live ammo?"

"I believe it was."

The men by the truck were milling about, craning their necks at the unseen voices. Worthington suddenly realized he was sweating.

"You hear that, boys? Live ammo!"

"Fine by us!"

The lieutenant opened his mouth to shout something, anything, but it was too late. His voice was drowned out by the first ragged barrage. He had time to register with horror that it was not even a solid hail of bullets that swept their convoy. It was a vicious barrage of snipers, masked marksmen. One bullet, one soldier. Then a grenade went off under the truck next to him and he stopped registering things.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind as to the unfortunate nature of the incident. For one thing, one of the men in civilian clothes sharing a drink with the mercenaries was an Italian officer with the Combined Government Troops who corroborated the corporations' claim the action was in response to an unprovoked attack by the convoy.

The fourth man was a civilian, a reporter with an international news service. His syndicated account of the affair heaped more fuel on an already raging fire of protest on the home fronts against the troops, intervention in the corporate wars.

Even so, the corporations issued a formal note of apology to the government forces for the massacre. They further suggested that the government troops be more carefully instructed as to the niceties of off-hours behavior to avoid similar incidents in the future.

An angry flurry of memos did the rounds of the government forces trying vainly to find someone responsible for issuing the live ammo.

The mayor of the town was more direct and to the point. He withdrew the permission for the American troops to be quartered in the town, forcing them to bivouac outside the city limits. Further, he signed into law an ordinance forbidding the Americans from coming into town with any form of firearm, loaded or not, on their person.

This ordinance was rigidly enforced, and American soldiers in town were constantly subject to being stopped and searched by the local constable, to the delight of the mercenaries who frequently swaggered about with loaded firearms worn openly on their hips.

Had Lieutenant Worthington not been killed in the original incident, he would have doubtless been done in by his own men-if not by the troops under him, then definitely by his superiors.

The sniper raised his head a moment to check the scene below before settling in behind the sights of his rifle.

The layout was as it had been described to him. The speaker stood at a microphone on a raised wooden platform in the square below him. The building behind him was a perfect backdrop. With the soft hollow-point bullets he was using, there would be no ricochets to endanger innocent bystanders in the small crowd which had assembled.

Again he lowered his head behind the scope and prepared for his shot. Suddenly, there was the sound of a "tunggg" and he felt the rifle vibrate slightly. He snapped his head upright and blinked in disbelief at what he saw. The barrel of his rifle was gone, sheared cleanly away by some unseen force.

He rolled over to look behind him and froze. Three men stood on the roof behind him. He hadn't heard them approach. Two were ordinary-looking, perhaps in better shape than the average person. The third was Oriental. It was the last man who commanded the sniper's attention. This was because of the long sword, bright in the sun, which the man was holding an inch in front of the sniper's throat.

The man behind the Oriental spoke.

"Hi guy! We've been expecting you."

The speaker was becoming redundant. The crowd was getting a little restless. Why did the man insist on repeating himself for the third and fourth time, not even bothering to change his phrasing much?

Suddenly there was a stir at the outer edge of the crowd. Four men were approaching the podium with a purposeful stride-well, three men shoving a fourth as they came. They bounded onto the platform, one taking over the microphone over the speaker's protests.

"Sorry, Senator, but part of the political tradition is allowing equal time to opposing points of view."

He turned to the crowd.

"Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. You've been very patient with the last speaker, so I'll try to keep this brief. I represent the corporations the Senator here has been attacking so vehemently."

The crowd stirred slightly, but remained in place, their curiosity piqued.

"Now, you may be impressed with the Senator's courage, attacking us so often publicly, as he has been doing lately, when it's known we have teams of assassins roaming the streets. We were impressed too. We were also a bit curious. It seemed to us he was almost inviting an assassination attempt. However, we ignored him, trusting the judgment of the general public to see him as the loudmouthed slanderer he is."

The Senator started forward angrily, but the man at the mike froze him with a glare.