“Ah.” There is no monopoly of information. Skirata's happily full stomach chilled a little. Obrim showed no signs of being smug. But he was almost certainly aware that Skirata was planning a sting operation involving explosives. “So they knew who the Seps were and didn't bother to—”
“No. That wasn't the route.”
“What, then?”
“They were carrying out surveillance on a known criminal and that criminal happened to meet up with one of the group that you were watching. Message boy, one chance encounter.” Obrim picked a chunk of smoked nerf from Skirata's plate and crunched on it thoughtfully “You just be careful. I hate finding friends on the slab in the morgue.”
Apart from Jusik, Obrim was one of the few nonclones Skirata felt he might be able to trust completely one day. He was still undecided on Etain. While he didn't doubt her sincerity, she had an emotional, impulsive streak of the kind that got people killed.
Like you. You're a fine one to talk.
“Your boys okay?”
“Tired, edgy, but giving it all they've got. One of 'em has sworn to gut Vau, another is having a love affair with a woman he shouldn't even look at, I'm collecting waifs and strays like an animal shelter, and we nearly killed a Treasury agent. But if I told you the really bad stuff, you'd think I had problems.”
Obrim laughed raucously. “And people think they're good little droids ...“
“Discipline apart, they're still lads.”
The Twi'lek waitress topped up their caf and smiled alluringly. “Where's your son today?”
“At the office, sweetheart,” Skirata said. “Won't I do instead?”
Her lekku coiled ever so slightly but he didn't have a clue what it meant. She glided away, glancing back to smile again. Obrim sniggered. “I see Ordo made an impression.”
“They all have this naive streak about them. It's fatally charming, apparently. Youth, muscle, heavy weapons, and a trusting expression. Maybe I should try it.”
“Forty years too late.”
“Yeah.”
And then Skirata's communicator chirped. He lifted his wrist as close to his mouth as he could. Even in a restaurant full of police officers, he took few chances.
“We like what we see,” said a voice with a Jabiimi accent.
It was interesting how accents were more noticeable over a comlink. Skirata, still looking toward the walkway, scanned his field of view without moving his head. He was sure he hadn't been followed—but this was a bad place to be spotted if he had. “It's not noon yet.”
“I know, Kal. We're keen.”
“What next?”
“Can you get to the bank plaza again in half an hour? I can't locate your comlink signal. But then I can understand why you're a very cautious man.”
Too right, you chakaar. Bard'ika went to a lot of trouble to make me invisible. Skirata was ten minutes by speeder bike from the plaza. “I can just about make it if I hurry.”
“This is just for a conversation. Be there, and don't bring anyone else.”
The comlink went dead. Obrim chewed, silent, but his look said it all.
Skirata reached in his pocket and put some credits on the table to cover the bill. “You're deaf and blind, remember?”
Obrim pushed the credits back at him. “You pick up the tab next time.”
It was his good-luck ritual. Obrim seemed to hope that by saying it, he'd ensure there was a next time.
Skirata had every intention of making sure there would be.
Lower level, skylane 348, 0820 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
Skirata kept the speeder at a steady pace and looped back on himself a couple of times. There was no reason to expect anyone to be following him, but he assumed it anyway. The maneuver also padded out the ten-minute journey to a credible half hour.
No point being too early.
His ankle was agony today.
“Bard'ika, how are you doing?”
Jusik's voice came over the comlink. “We've tracked a target moving to the plaza from the house that Fi and Sev recced. I think that confirms it's Perrive.”
“But he won't come alone.”
“So that means he'll probably have minders nearby that we haven't tagged. New ones.”
“Fine.”
“Vau's on his way,” Jusik said. “They won't recognize him.”
“And you?”
“I'm already there.”
“Fierfek. He knows you. Wait for orders—”
“Trust me, he won't see me at all.”
“Stand down. Get out of there.”
“Okay.”
“I mean it. And I'm going off the comlink now, unless I hit real problems.”
He shut the link, exasperated. But it was his own fault. You couldn't delegate that much to a kid and then expect him to read your mind and work out when he was supposed to wait for specific orders again.
And he was a Jedi, after all. He could take care of himself.
Skirata pushed a bead comlink into his ear and brought the speeder down in the public parking area. Enacca said she was fed up collecting abandoned speeders from around the city, and wanted to know why they couldn't bring their vessels and vehicles back with them every time. The logistics of operations like this depended on a lot of grim drudgery. He'd have to sweeten her up somehow when all this was over.
Out in the plaza, by the bench where he had awaited the Separatists the day before, stood Perrive.
He was busy looking like an executive waiting for a colleague: suit, document case, polished shoes. Skirata walked up to the man as briskly as he could with a complaining ankle.
“Okay, what's the deal?” Skirata said. He tried to focus on Perrive and not look over his shoulder for possible threats or—to be precise—Walon Vau. “I can get you the dets in twenty-four hours.”
“Let's discuss this somewhere less crowded.”
Those were often the worst words to hear at times like this. “Where?”
“Follow me.”
Fierfek. He hoped Vau was watching him or Jusik was monitoring the conversation carefully. If Perrive moved too far out of the comlink's limited mike range, he'd have to make stupidly obvious comments to clue them in. Perrive didn't strike him as quite that naive, even if his surveillance team was some way short of professional.
If Vau was here, Skirata couldn't see him.
But that was the point, and Vau was a very skilled operator.
Skirata followed Perrive across the plaza and back to the speeder parking area, a few moments that made him glad that he had a limp. It gave Vau, he hoped, a little more time to work out what was happening. Perrive stood looking around, and a shiny new green speeder with a closed cabin rose from below the level of the parking platform and maneuvered sideways to set down.
Ah well, Skirata thought. I’d have done the same. But Perrives lungs are coated with marker Dust, and Jusik can track this crate all the way.
“Off you go,” Perrive said.
“You're not coming, too?” Oh no, no, no. Why didn't I dose myself with some of that di'kutla Dust? “Forgive me if I get nervous about the quality of your associates' driving.”
“Don't worry. All they'll do is blindfold you. Keep whatever weapons I'm sure you're carrying. I'll see you at our destination.”
Skirata had no choice but to get in. Two human males—both about thirty, one shaven-headed, one with thin blond hair scraped back in a tail, neither of them the hired help they had tagged yesterday—sat in the front seat, and the bald one leaned over to place a black fabric bag over his head in total silence. Skirata folded his arms to feel the comfort of his assorted hardware in his sleeve, holster, and belt.
“Well, this is fun,” he said, hoping for a display of verbal stupidity that might help Jusik locate him.
But neither man responded. He didn't expect them to.
Concentrate on the movement. Work out the direction.
Skirata tried to count the number of times they seemed to swing right o
r left to get some idea of the route. They were in an automated skylane, so he could count the seconds and try to calculate the distance between turns, but it was a massive task. Ordo, with his faultless memory, would have had the skylane network memorized and calculated the times and distances at the same time. But Skirata was not a Null ARC trooper, just a smart and experienced soldier whose natural intelligence had been sharpened by having to cope with six hyperintelligent small boys.
He had no idea where he was. The speeder continued toward either a nerve-racking deal that would take them a step closer to striking at the heart of this Separatist network, or a lonely death.
Service tunnel beneath skylane 348, 0855 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
“Bard'ika, you'll never need to shave again when Kal catches you,” Fi said.
“You seriously think I'm not going to follow him?” Jusik raced Ordo's Aratech speeder bike along the service tunnel that ran parallel to the skylane serving the southern edge of the plaza. Fi decided that Ordo had no sense of danger if he was happy to ride pillion with the Jedi at speeds approaching five hundred kph. But then the man was nuts anyway. Fi held on to the handgrip behind him for grim death. “Vau, can you still hear me?”
The comlink was breaking up, but audible. “I'm a few vehicles behind Perrive. He's transmitting like a Fleet beacon.”
“Where's he heading?”
“Looks like Quadrant N-Oh-Nine.”
“What's there besides offices and residential?”
“That's about it. Stand by.”
Jusik made an irritated grunt that he seemed to have picked up from Sev and accelerated. At times like this Fi had passed beyond the first flush of adrenaline and into a cold and rational world where everything made sense to his body if not to his brain. He found an instinctive sense of effortless balance as Jusik wove through the ducts, clearing some of the transverse durasteel joists by a breath. Speed no longer felt like conscious fun, as it had in training, but he was beyond fear for himself at that moment.
All he could think of was Sergeant Kal.
“He can take care of himself,” Jusik said. “He's packing more weapons than the Galactic Marines.”
“Are you telepathic?” The thought disturbed Fi, because his mind was the only private retreat he had. “I was just—”
“If you're not as worried for him as I am, then I've read you all wrong, my friend.”
“Bard'ika.”
“Yes? Too fast? Look—”
“Even if you didn't have your Force powers, you'd still be a terrific soldier. And a good man.”
Fi couldn't see the Jedi's expression. For once, Jusik didn't scare the living daylights out of Fi and look back over his shoulder with a silly grin when they were hurtling toward a wall, only to bank sharply at the last moment. Jusik dropped his head for a second and then raised it again. His slipstreamed hair slapped Fi in the face.
“I'll try to live up to that.”
“Yeah, but you still need to get your shabla hair cut.” Jusik didn't laugh. Fi wasn't sure if he was moved or offended. And it seemed impossible to offend Jusik.
“Hang on.”
Whatever element of the Force was guiding the Jedi, it was completely instinctive. He could find Skirata.
The speeder swung hard left and Fi feared for the Verpine rifle under his jacket, its folded stock wedged in his armpit. He was used to wearing the scruffy assortment of dull civilian clothing that Enacca had sent over with Vau. He wondered how he'd cope with his all-encompassing Katarn armor after being out of it for two weeks.
Jusik's head jerked around as if someone had summoned him. “He's heading for business zone six.”
“Been there. Recce'd that place last night. Stuck a remote holocam opposite the house, in fact.”
“Maybe the Force is giving us a break.”
“That's got to be their hub.”
“Let's try that.” Jusik banked right to shoot up a vertical channel. Fi decided zero-g had its appeal. “At least we'll be able to see Kal if that's where they're heading. I bet that's reassuring.”
“It would be.”
“But?”
“But if they're using the speeder that was parked in their roof space last night, I clamped a remote thermal detonator in its air intake.”
“Just remote? Not timed?”
“Yeah.”
“That's okay then.”
If—when—they got Skirata back in one piece, Fi would tell him. He had a sense of humor.
“There's somebody following him,” Jusik said.
“Yeah. You, me, Vau.”
“No, not us.”
“Escort for the speeder?”
“No, nothing like that at all. Someone else. I don't get any sense of malice. But it's not the strike team.”
“What's that feel like?”
“Like someone standing behind me.” He took one hand off the steering and tapped the back of his head behind his ear. The speeder swerved. “Right there.”
“Both hands, Bard'ika …”
“Sorry. Whoever it is, they're focused on Kal.”
“Should we be worried?”
“No.”
Jusik twisted the handlebars and the speeder accelerated as if it had been fired from a Verpine. Fi bit his lip and couldn't stop his knees from pressing harder into the speeder bike's fuselage.
If he dropped the precious sniper rifle, Skirata would be heartbroken.
“That's all right, then,” Fi said. “I won't worry at all.”
Residential area, business zone 6, 0930 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
The airspeeder settled, hot alloy clicking as its drive cooled, and someone pulled the black hood off Skirata's head.
“This way,” said the shaven-headed man. “Mind the steps!”
Skirata walked down from a rooftop parking area through doors to a tastefully decorated room with a large, grainless pale wood table and thick deep gray carpet. They weren't short of credits, then. Some terrorism was the war of the dispossessed, and some was the handiwork of the rich who felt secondhand outrage. Either way, it was an expensive sport.
He was a mercenary. He knew the price of everything.
He sat down in the chair offered, elbows braced on the table, and tried to take in as much useful detail of his surroundings as he could. Two visible escape mutes: back out those doors, or down the turbolift. After ten minutes, a middle-aged human male entered with a woman of similar age: there was nothing remarkable about either of them. They simply nodded to Skirata and sat down facing him. Four more men followed, one of them about Jusik's age, and Skirata found himself surrounded at the table by six people.
Then Perrive walked in.
“You'll excuse us for not introducing ourselves, Kal,” he said. “I know you and you know me, and that's probably all you need to know?”
“Apart from the bank details, yes.”
Perrive stood by the chair opposite Skirata and glanced pointedly at the man sitting in it, who then moved to another chair. You're definitely the boss, then. And the others around the table—who were obviously assessing him as a supplier didn't look like junior minions. This was either the terror cabinet or a rare gathering of cell leaders. It had to be. Perrive handed the man next to him the small sample pack that Skirata had supplied the day before, and he examined it carefully before passing it around the table.
Yes, they’ll be the ones distributing this. I should blow this place now. But that's not sensible. Just satisfying.
“We'd like all hundred kilos of your goods and four thousand detonators?”
Skirata did a quick calculation. About twenty-five grams of five-hundred-grade thermal per device, then: a Bravo Eight Depot incident took the equivalent of two of those. Enough bomb-making kit for that level of carnage every day for five years, or a lower body count and mutilation for more than ten. A very economical war.
“How much?”
“Two million credits?”
Skirata didn't even pause to t
hink. “Five.”
“Two.”
“Five.”
“Three.”
“Five, or I need to go and talk to my other customers.”
“You don't have any others who want this kind of explosive.”
“If you think that, then you're new in this galaxy, son.”
“Three million credits. Take it or leave it.”
Skirata got up and really did intend to walk. He had to look as if he meant it. He skirted the table as far as Perrive and then the man turned and put his hand on Skirata's right arm. Skirata jerked it back, and he wasn't acting the jumpy mercenary. It was his knife arm. Perrive noticed, eyebrows raised for a fraction of a second.
“Four million,” Perrive said.
Skirata paused and chewed the inside of his cheek. “Four, credits to be deposited and confirmed as being in my account before I release the goods, and I want the deal done in the next forty-eight hours.”
“That requires trust.”
“If I don't have any other customers, then why would I want a hundred kilos of explosives hanging around my premises until Mustafar freezes over?”
Perrive paused and then almost smiled. “Agreed.”
Skirata reached in his pocket and handed him a datachip, stripped of all information except a numbered account that would exist only from noon for forty-eight hours. He had a constant stream of accounts like that. All the Nulls could slice like top pros, but Jaing was an artist among data deceivers. My clever lad. “Time and place, then.”
“All in one delivery.”
“Okay. But it stays wrapped in quarter-kilo packs bagged in tens, because I'm not going to unwrap every di'kutla bar and get covered in forensic evidence.” He paused, trying to look as if he was thinking of another reason. “And that's two and a half kilos a bag, which is going to be easier for you to move.”
“What makes you think we're going to move it?”
Smart, eh? “If you're keeping that all in one place, you're insane. I'm used to handling the stuff and even I don't like it around me. You do know what five-hundred-grade does, don't you?”
“Of course I do,” Perrive said. “It's my business. Let's say midnight tomorrow. Here.”
Star Wars: Republic Commando: Triple Zero rc-3 Page 30
