And copying data showed no audit trail. Relaying data from the system did. And that was what routine security watched. Old tech beat state-of-the-art with depressing frequency.
All Ordo had to do now was watch the surveillance images of the drop point at the female ‘freshers. So far it had picked up nothing. He had no idea how frequently the Separatist contact-and he had to assume it was one-checked the locker, but nobody had shown up. Maybe they hadn’t missed Jiss yet.
It was nearly noon when Supervisor Wennen got up and left the operations room. On a whim, Ordo laid his helmet on its side on the desk next to him at an angle where he could discreetly view the feed from the ‘freshers playing out on his HUD.
Wennen was not the kind of woman who belonged here. Some uneasiness told him so. Kal’buir had told him that a strong hunch was usually based on subconscious observation of hard facts, and was to be treated with respect.
The grainy blue image showed Wennen entering the ‘freshers. She didn’t glance around. She paused at the lockers, scanned along them with her head moving visibly, tucked a strand of pale hair behind one ear, and bent to open several unlocked doors until she appeared to tire of it and left again. She reappeared in the ops room a minute later and gave him a regretful smile that appeared utterly sincere.
Something had irked her.
Ah, Ordo thought, disappointed.
Then he wondered why he felt that disappointment, and realized it was due to impulses unconnected to the business in hand. And business, of course, had just taken a turn for the better.
His shift finished when hers did, at 1600.
He would spend the next few hours working out exactly how to remove her without alerting any other Separatist contacts that might be in her cell. He wanted them all.
1100 hours, 384 days after Geonosis, commercial zone, Quadrant N-09: agreed meeting point to open negotiations with interested parties
“Lazy chakaare,” Fi said, glancing at his chrono. “What time do they call this?”
“Well, if they got here before us and we can’t see ‘em … we’re probably dead meat.”
Darman was somewhere on the opposite side of the Bank of the Core Plaza, three floors above the pedestrian area in a storeroom he had infiltrated. Fi couldn’t see him, but his voice was clearly audible in his head: the bead comlink was so sensitive that it picked up subvocalization via the eustachian tube.
They’d been here since 2330 last night. They had observed and noted every cleaning droid, automated walkway sweeper, late worker, early-morning commuter, shopper, drunk, CSF foot patrol, delivery repulsor, unlicensed caf vendor, and truant schoolkid that had passed in and out of the plaza from any direction. They had also swept the cliff walls of office buildings and-to Fi’s great interest-noted that some employees did not catch up with the filing after hours if they had colleagues of the opposite sex with them.
And every couple of hours, Etain Tur-Mukan had walked briskly across the plaza as if she had business somewhere, sweeping the area with whatever extra sense Jedi had that enabled them to detect concealed people. Etain was said to be good at that. She could place the squad to within a meter. Each time she passed, Fi heard Darman move or swallow, and he wasn’t sure if it was because he could see her or because she was reaching out to him in the Force.
Fi suddenly wanted the uncomplicated focus of a totally military life on Kamino.
You’re getting distracted. Think of the job in hand. Maybe they’d let him keep the bead comlink after this op. They’d never miss a few back at HQ. Surely
“I want my HUD back,” Darman said. “I want my enhanced view.”
“But you get to wear face camo instead. Makes you feel wild and dangerous.”
“I’m wild,” Sev’s voice said. Sev was behind a roof balustrade under a pile of discarded plastoid sheeting. “And then I get dangerous. Shut up.”
“Copy that,” Fi said cheerfully, and clicked his back teeth twice to exit Sev’s open comlink channel. It was far too noisy an environment for their quiet conversation to be heard anyway. “Miserable di’kut.”
“Don’t mind him.” Scorch was at walkway level about fifty meters west of the meeting point, lying prone in a disused horizontal access shaft. “He’ll be fine once he’s killed something.”
Darman had a Verpine rifle with live rounds, as did Sev. Fi and Scorch had the nonlethal tracking projectiles, twelve rounds each. The Verp was truly lovely. Fi had always wondered just how many credits Sergeant Kal had made over the years. His growing collection of expensive, exotic weapons and the modest extravagance of his bantha jacket were the only visible signs that it might have been a lot.