[Republic Commando] - 02(115)
“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.”
“If I knew where here was, I might agree.”
“We’ll let you walk out and then you’ll see.”
“I can land speeders on your roof, can I?”
“Up to Metrocab size.”
“I’ll probably bring two small speeders. I’ll call you half an hour before.”
“I haven’t given you my number.”
“Better do that, then, or you won’t get your goods. I don’t want any further contact until then-and I don’t want anyone following me when I leave here. Okay?”
Perrive nodded. “Agreed.”
And it was that simple. It never ceased to amaze Skirata how much simpler it was to buy and sell death than it was to pay taxes. “Show me to the front door, then.”
Shaven-Head took him down in the polished durasteel turbolift-it always reminded him of Kamino, that brutally clinical finish-and walked him through a ground floor that was just one square room with no rear exit and one door at the front.
Easier to defend-if you were confident you could escape via the roof.
The doors parted. Kal Skirata stepped out onto a secluded walkway and found himself in affluent Coruscanti suburbia. He checked the position of the sun and began walking in the direction of the main skylanes. If he kept walking east, he’d come to the office sector sooner or later. Besides, the holocam that Fi and Sev placed a few hours earlier was watching him right now from the building opposite.
There were a lot of pedestrians about.
Skirata clicked his back teeth and opened the comlink channel. He didn’t like the bead comlink any better than he liked wearing a hearing enhancer.
“Listen up, ad ‘ike,” he said as quietly as he could. “Game on. Game on!”
Logistics center, Grand Army of the Republic, Coruscant Command HQ, 0940 hours, 385 days after Geonosis
“Do I look as if I’ve been flattened by a … PIP laser?” Besany Wennen asked.
“PEP laser.” Ordo, posing as Corr again, helmet tucked under his left arm, let her pass through the logistics center’s doors ahead of him as Kal’buir had told him. It was the polite thing to do. “And no. You just look tired.”
“I can’t say it’s been a typical day’s duty for me.”
“I respect your willingness to accept this without wanting to complain to your superiors.”
“If I did, I’d compromise your mission, wouldn’t I?”
“Possibly.”
“Then it’s just a bad bruise and an interesting evening. No more.”
She was as tall as he was and looked him straight in the eye: her dark eyes made her light blond hair seem exotic in contrast. She’s different. She’s special. He made a conscious effort to concentrate.
“I’ll make sure you have acceptable records for your bosses to show that the investigation was completed,” Ordo said.
“And that the suspects … let’s say that I learned they were of interest to military intelligence, so I withdrew from further involvement?’
“Well, I can guarantee they won’t be troubling you any longer.”
Ordo was still waiting for her to ask exactly what Vau had done to the real Vinna Jiss, and what Ordo was going to do to the employees leaking information-Jinart had identified two-and a thousand other questions. He would have wanted to know everything, but Wennen just stuck to what she needed to know to close down her part of the surveillance. He didn’t understand that reaction at all.