However, that passion was part of what drove her, so I needed to support it.
“We have managed to help limit collateral casualties,” I said.
Sighing and steadying, she said, “I suppose that’s something. He’s mocking us, though.”
“Part of the game for him,” I said. “Hell, for me too. We ran a hell of a block. He ran a hell of a diversion and shuffle.”
She nodded.
Then I said, “What we need is something he can’t resist, with a nanotransponder. It also has to not be, obviously, something he can’t resist.”
“You don’t want much.” She looked annoyed, but redirected back to the project from beating herself over failure.
“I’m sure it’s simple. I’m just not sure what it is.”
She asked, “What does he like that’s unique enough he can’t just buy it anywhere?”
“That’s a good line of inquiry,” I said. “He’s getting paid a lot of money for this, we assume, or else he’s an idiot. What’s he doing with that money? It’s not a drug habit. He isn’t the gambling type and could get out of debt by relocating. He doesn’t have a family that’s being extorted. He’s saving it for something or spending it on something.”
“What were his hobbies?”
“He didn’t seem to have a lot. He loved Projects work. Little socializing in his past and none while we were operating. He did read books. He enjoyed the old, bound style. Very fond of knives.”
“Would he collect exotic stuff then?” She sat and started twiddling with a touchpad. She wanted to do something productive, or at least make a spreadsheet.
“He might.”
“Would he rent sex?”
“Likely. I couldn’t say what type, though. He made eyes at Deni, but a lot of people did. Tyler didn’t seem to interest him. I recall he liked one of the dancers at Phil’s. A lot. So, he’d probably go for tall women, mixed race.”
She shrugged. “That rules me out.”
I flared eyebrows at that. “While I appreciate your dedication to the mission, you do not want to do that. Not unless you are much better unarmed than your record says.”
She shook and shivered a little. “No, I’m rather glad, actually. I always wondered what the protocol was for seducing someone for the good of the Force.”
“Much like a suicide mission. Volunteers only. Anything else would be rape.”
“That makes sense and reassures me,” she said, with a twist of her head. “So,” she continued, “I could make up a coded nanotransponder, which we can insert in several items and market at auction.”
“That’s possible. It requires knowing the kind of blades he’d be interested in, or the books, and making it desirable without being blatantly obvious.”
“Also check out fine restaurants?”
“Less likely. He complained about the food a lot less than I did.”
“It might be worth doing. He wouldn’t have a secret lair, but he might be building a retreat somewhere.”
“I don’t recall he had a favorite planet, or that he’d been anywhere other than Grainne and Earth. It would fit him to pick a planetoid, though. It seems like his kind of exotic. Otherwise, hard to say.”
“This will take more embassy work.”
“Which I hoped to avoid, but I don’t think we can.”
“Well, there are discreet ways to ask,” she said.
“Another thing occurs to me,” I said. “We’ve blown through most of a million credits so far, between hotels, vehicles, food, ID changes, ship fare. This isn’t cheap for him, either. I can’t imagine he gets more than a million per job, even for such high-placed personages. So he’s not rich. Well to do, but not flush.”
She said, “I’ll get three nanotransponders. You find me something to hide them in. We hit a third-party auctioneer.”
I nodded. “Makes sense. Meantime, let’s get out of this hide before someone comes looking for us.”
“Oh, right,” she said, looking a bit sheepish.
We packed up our “luggage” and went back to the apartment. I’d have to make a trip to recover the rental vehicle and other gear later.
The final irony was that our stunt did serve to promote Alrab’s announcement. I should have billed him for the service. All the doubles were released without charges and unharmed, with all of them repeating that they’d been hired for a publicity stunt. I’m sure the company I claimed and his own promoters had a fun time trying to chase down just who might have run such a program unannounced.
That, and the explosive actually had come in on our ship. He should have used locally available stuff. Not as reliable, but harder to ID. Silver started searching for its source and end-user data.