By this time, both men were gaping at him in undisguised astonishment. Clancy was the first to regain his composure.

"Mister, you don't beat around the bush, do you?"

"Excuse my asking," interrupted Steve, "but isn't that a rather large sum to offer without checking our records?"

"Believe me, Mr. Tidwell, we have checked your records. Both your records." Yamada smiled. "Let me assure you, gentlemen, this is not a casual offer. Rather, it is the climax of several months of exhaustive study and planning."

"Just what are we expected to do for this money?" asked Clancy cagily, sipping his drink without taking his eyes off the Oriental.

"You, Mr. Clancy, are to serve as aide and advisor to Mr. Tidwell. You, Mr. Tidwell, are to take command of the final training phases of, and lead into battle, a select force of men. You are to have final say as to qualifications of the troops as well as the tactics to be employed."

"Whose troops and in what battle are they to be employed? "

"I represent the Zaibatsu, a community of Japanese-based corporations, and the focus of our attention is the Oil vs. Communications war currently in process."

"You want us to lead troops against those idiots? Our pick of men and our tactics?" Clancy smiled. "Mister, you've got yourself a mercenary!"

Tidwell ignored his friend.

"I'd like a chance to view the force before I give you my final decision."

"Certainly, Mr. Tidwell," Yamada nodded. "We agree to this condition willingly because we are sure you will find the men at your disposal more than satisfactory."

"In that case, I think we are in agreement. Shall we start now?"

Tidwell started to rise, closely followed by Clancy, but Yamada waved them back into their seats.

"One last detail, gentlemen. Zaibatsu believes in complete honesty with its employees, and there is something I feel you should be aware of before accepting our offer. The difficulties you have been encountering recently, Mr. Tidwell, with your equipment and, Mr. Clancy, with your assignments, have been engineered by the Zaibatsu to weaken your ties with your current employers and insure your availability for our offer."

Again both men gaped at him.

"But...how?" blurted Tidwell finally.

"Mr. Clancy's commanding officer who showed such poor judgment in giving him his team assignments is in our employment and acting on our orders. And as for Mr. Tidwell's equipment failure..." He turned a bland stare toward Steve. "Let us merely say that even though Communications holds the patent on the throat-mikes, the actual production was subcontracted to a Zaibatsu member. Something to do with the high cost of domestic labor. We took the liberty of making certain 'modifications' in their designs, all quite undetectable, with the result that we now have the capacity to cut off or override their command communications at will."

By this time the two mercenaries were beyond astonishment. Any anger they might have felt at being manipulated was swept away by the vast military implications of what they had just been told.

"You mean we can shut down their communications any time we want? And you have infiltrators at the command level of the Oiler forces?"

"In both forces, actually. Nor are those our only advantages. As I said earlier, this is not a casual effort. I trust you will be able to find some way to maximize the effect of our entry?"

With a forced calmness, Tidwell finished his drink, then rose and extended his hand across the table.

"Mr. Yamada, it's going to be a pleasure working for you!"

Mausier paused to wipe the beads of sweat from his forehead, then bent to his task once more. Adjusting the high intensity lamp to a different angle, he picked up the watchmaker's tool and made a minute change in setting in the field terminal in front of him.

Without removing his eyepiece, he set aside the tool, reached over to the keyboard at the end of his workbench and input the data. Finally he leaned back and heaved a sigh. Done. He flexed his hands to restore circulation as he surveyed his handiwork.

The field terminal was a work of art. It could easily pass for a cigarette case, as it was supposed to. But if you pressed in three corners simultaneously, the inner metal lining folded out to reveal its interior workings, stark but functional. Two wires on mini-retracting reels were concealed in the hinge and could be pulled out to connect the unit to any phone. On the side of the lid was a tiny viewscreen. On the other side of the unit was a small keyboard containing both numbers and letters for data input. There was also the thumblock. Once the connection was made, the agent pressed his left thumb onto the metal square which would scan his print for comparison to the one on record in the master file. It would also check his body temperature to see if he was alive and his pulse to see if he was in an agitated state. If any of the three checks didn't match, the unit would self-destruct. Nothing as spectacular as an explosion-merely a small thermal unit to fuse the circuitry.

The Japanese had outdone themselves in producing these units for him. All he had to do was to make final adjustments for the individual's code number before it was issued. This allowed private communication with the individual client in addition to the general announcement postings.

Mausier smiled proudly at the unit. He had come a long way from his coincidental beginning in the business. At a cocktail party, one of his acquaintances had almost jokingly offered to pay him for details on a new machine modification Tom's company was working on. Tom had just as jokingly declined, but expressed an interest in the sincerity of the offer. The result had been an evening-long conversation in which his friend enlightened him as to the intricacies of corporate espionage and the high prices demanded and received due to the risks involved.

A short time after-within the week in fact-another friend of Tom's, this one within his own company, had admitted to him over coffee the dire financial straits he was in and how he was ready to take any reasonable risk to raise more money fast. Tom repeated his other friend's offer and volunteered to serve as a go-between.

In the years to follow, he served in a similar capacity for many similar transactions. Some of the people he dealt with were caught and dismissed for their activities, but he always escaped the repercussions due to the indirect nature of his involvement. Eventually, his clientele grew to the point to where he could quietly resign from the corporate world entirely and concentrate his efforts in this highly profitable venture.

Like most people who went into small businesses, the demands he made on himself were far in excess of any the corporation had ever made, yet he labored willingly and happily, realizing he was working because he wanted to and not because he had to. He was his own man, not the corporation's.

Mausier set aside the field terminal and stretched, rolling his shoulders slightly to ease the cramps from the prolonged tension of his work. It was late and he should go to bed. His wife was waiting patiently, probably reading. If he didn't go up soon, there would be hell to pay. As it was, she had already commented tersely several times in the last week about his lengthening his already long hours.

Finally he made up his mind. To hell with it! A few more minutes couldn't hurt. Having made his decision, he settled in at his desk and turned on his doodlescreen. It never crossed his mind that his wife might grow impatient enough to enter his office and interrupt his work. She might nag or scold or sulk once he entered the house, but she knew better than to interrupt him when he was working.