Star Wars: Scoundrels (43 page)

Still, useless as it would be in a fight, it was perfectly adequate for what she needed. The tip of the blade cut easily, if noisily, through the metal, leaving another blackened scar like the one on the door. “Good,” she said. “Close it down, and let’s get out of here.”

“You figured out a spot where we can go to ground?” Kell asked as they crossed back to the door.

“I think so,” Bink said, easing the door open and looking out. The corridor was still deserted. “Service stairs twenty meters that way, and up to the second floor.”

“Wait a second,” Kell said, pulling a flat disk from his pocket and gazing up at the ceiling. “Any idea where the intercom and alarm wires would be?”

“What in space do you need those for?” Bink asked.

“That’s right—you don’t know,” Kell said. “Lando called while you were chatting up Sheqoa. Villachor grabbed Han when he came in earlier.”

Bink felt her breath catch in her throat. “What? Oh, bloody—”

“It’s okay—we’ve got a plan,” Zerba hastened to assure her. “We’ll clue you in later.”

“Right now we need an excuse for Lando to come in and make some noise,” Kell said. “That’s this.” He wiggled the disk.

Bink clenched her teeth, running a practiced eye over the top of the door. If the system was laid out like they usually were … “Probably there,” she said, pointing at the right-hand upper corner of the door. “That should be one of the nexus points, anyway.”

“Good enough.” Straining to his full height, Kell pressed the disk into place against the wall. “Okay, let’s go.”

Bink nodded, frowning back over her shoulder at the disk as she again started down the corridor. “What does it do?”

“Absolutely nothing,” Kell said. “But they won’t know that.”

“We should be quiet now, right?” Zerba suggested.

Bink nodded. She had a lot more questions, but they would have to wait.

The service stairs opened up into a gorgeous hallway, and as Bink led the way across the thick carpet she decided that this was, without a doubt, the nicest target she’d ever hit.

“Where are we going?” Kell murmured.

Bink smiled. They had secrets? Fine. So did she. “You’ll see.”

“What do you mean, they’re gone?” Villachor demanded. “
Both
of them?”

“Yes, sir,” Kastoni said, his tone one of barely controlled fury. “
And
two of Master Qazadi’s guards are dead. Looks like our glitterstim peddler is more than a typical drug dealer.”

Villachor squeezed his comlink hard enough to hurt. That, or they’d had help from whoever had stolen Sheqoa’s key pendant. “Find them,” he ordered, his own anger and frustration dropping to a quiet simmer. Overt fury would only keep him from thinking clearly, and that was the last thing he could afford. “Pull as many men off ground patrol as you have to, but
find them
.”

“Sir, they’re probably already off the grounds—”

“If they are, we’ll deal with them later,” Villachor cut him off. “You concentrate on making sure they aren’t hiding somewhere in my house. Is that clear?”

“Yes, sir.”

Villachor keyed off, snarling a curse under his breath, and keyed for Sheqoa. “The prisoners are loose,” he said when the other answered.

“Yes, I just heard,” Sheqoa said grimly. “I’ve sent Kastoni five more men, and I’m trying to pull enough guards from the grounds to put one on every door.”

“Good,” Villachor said. “Make it clear that no one goes in
or
out without my express order.”

“Yes, sir,” Sheqoa said. “Do you want me to assign a couple more men to you?”

“You mean in case they catch Manning and Tawb napping like they did Master Qazadi’s late guards?” Villachor said acidly. “I think that very unlikely.”

“Yes, sir,” Sheqoa said. “If they’re still here, we’ll find them.”

Han had rearranged the snacks and drink bottles on the tray for probably the seventh time, and was wondering how much farther he should try to press his luck, when he heard the soft sound of multiple footsteps coming his way down the hallway.

He froze, one of the apples still in his hand. Then, deliberately, he set it back on the tray and began once again moving the items back onto the sideboard. If whoever it was decided to take a closer look, he decided, the tray itself would be his best bet. He would swing it at whoever was first in line, flinging its current contents into the guard’s face, then try to get to the second guard fast enough to hit him with the tray itself. The footsteps got closer …

And passed the door without slowing.

Han took a deep breath, some of the tension fading. That had been close.

He frowned, taking another deep breath. Wafting in from the hallway was a faint but highly distinctive scent.

The perfume Bink and Tavia had both been wearing this morning.

He was at the door in three quick strides. Sure enough, hurrying quietly down the hallway were Bink, Kell, and Zerba. At least he assumed it was Bink. “Bink!” he stage-whispered, slipping out into the hall and heading after them.

All three spun around, their blasters spinning toward him as well. All three sets of eyes widened as they saw who it was. Bink beckoned him urgently forward, her gesturing hand shifting to a warning finger across her lips.

Han nodded. He’d already figured out that part.

The three of them had stopped in front of a plain metal door by the time Han caught up to them. “We thought you were a prisoner,” Kell whispered as Bink crouched down by the door with her lockpick.

“I was,” Han whispered back, eyeing the
ELECTRICAL CLOSET
sign on the door. “There going to be enough room in there for all of us?”

“Easily,” Bink assured him. There was a soft click, and the door popped open. “Inside.
Quietly
.”

Han had seen electrical closets before. In fact, he’d spent a fair amount of time hiding in such places off and on over the years. But he’d never seen one nearly this big. It was a good two meters square, with a ceiling that was pushing three meters, and there were a dozen twenty-centimeter-diameter cables running vertically along the back wall. “What are they powering, a Star Destroyer?” he muttered, looking at the massive cables.

“Close,” Bink murmured. She had her syntherope dispenser out and was fastening the end of the cable to a small glob of rock putty. “These are the cables from the generator in the north subbasement to the south-section umbrella shield projectors on the roof.” Unfolding a small slingshot, she fired the rock putty at one edge of the ceiling, the dispenser feeding a thin line of syntherope behind it. “Kell, that one’s yours,” she said, cutting the line with her fingersnips and refitting the dispenser with more rock putty. “Give it a ten-count, then hook in your belt link and go all the way to the ceiling.”

By the time the putty was solid enough for Kell to start pulling himself up, she had two more lines in place. “I guess you and I are going to have to share one,” Bink said, slipping out of her climbing belt and handing it to Han. “Ever had someone sit in your lap two meters off the ground?”

“Not lately,” Han said as he fastened the belt around his waist. By the time he was ready, Kell and Zerba were all the way up at the ceiling, their bodies pressed flat against the ceramic. “What do we do if they look up?”

“Got it covered,” Bink assured him. She stepped over to him, threaded the syntherope through the belt link, then turned around and backed way too cozily against him. “You want to operate it?” she asked. “Or shall I?”

“I’ll do it,” Han growled, feeling an unexpected flush of annoyed embarrassment. Whether she’d meant it that way or not, there was a time and a place for flirting, and this was neither. Finding the control, he sent them swinging up off the floor as the belt reeled in the line. A few seconds later, the two of them were pressed against the ceiling between Kell and Zerba. “Now what?” Han asked.

“Take this,” Bink said, handing him a thick, hand-sized piece of something that felt like the silk Zerba had used to make the women’s tear-away outfits. In the center of one side was a flexible finger-sized ring. “Get a grip on the ring, hold it beneath you, and slip off the loop that’s around the edge. And
don’t
drop it.”

Lowering his hand, Han did as instructed—

And jerked in surprise as the material unfolded outward in all directions, each edge expanding until it ran into the wall on that side.

“Chameleon cloth,” Bink explained. “Instant wall or ceiling, in a handy carry size.”

“Won’t they notice the ceiling’s lower than it’s supposed to be?” Kell asked.

“People never know how high ceilings are supposed to be,” Bink said with a shrug. “You two, get a grip on the edges and stabilize it. Great. Now all we have to do is wait for the searchers to pass this part of the—”

She broke off as a soft click came from below them. A second later, the door was flung open and a glow rod flashed, its light flickering faintly across the edges of the chameleon cloth as whoever was below waved it around the room. Han tensed, waiting for the inevitable shout of discovery …

And then, without any such shout, the door was slammed shut.

Bink gave it a full twenty-count before she spoke again. “And then we’ll be almost ready to go,” she finished.

“Not quite,” Zerba said, pulling out his comlink. “I have to call Rachele and give her the go-ahead.”

“The go-ahead for what?” Han asked.

“After you were grabbed, we decided we couldn’t afford to let Villachor figure out the droid thing by himself,” Zerba explained. “So Lando’s going to help.”

“Lando?”

“Yep,” Zerba said. “Too bad we’ll miss his performance. It should be the crowning point of his career.”

“Really?” Han asked, frowning. “What’s he going in as?”

“The last thing you’d expect,” Zerba said, and Han could visualize him smiling in the darkness. “He’s going as someone
respectable
.”

L
ando had never liked Bink’s idea of hiding in an electrical closet. He’d liked it even less as the afternoon wore on into evening, and first Han and then Tavia were grabbed. Marblewood security would be on even higher alert after all that, and having had the chameleon cloth demonstrated for him hadn’t helped his doubts.

So when he finally got Rachele’s call, it was with both relief and a fair bit of surprise.

And there was even a bonus on the relief part.

“And Han
is
with them?” he asked, just to make sure.

“Unless Zerba messed up with the tap code,” Rachele said. “He didn’t send any details, but if Han had been hurt, I think he would have said something.”

“Probably,” Lando said. So Han had gotten loose on his own. He should have guessed they couldn’t hold him for long. “What about Tavia?”

“No word,” Rachele said grimly. “But if Qazadi has taken over—and we’ve certainly given him enough reasons to do so—it’s likely that both she and Han would have been taken to wherever he’s set up shop. Zerba has confirmed that those puffs of smoke we saw were a signal from Han, so Tavia’s probably in that same area.”

“It’s the place to start, anyway,” Lando agreed, peering around the corner of the portable refresher station at the garage door fifty meters away. One of Villachor’s men had taken up position there, his spine straight and stiff, his head moving back and forth as he continually scanned the area around him. Villachor and Qazadi were jumpy, all right. Time to push them over the edge. “Okay, I’m going in,” he said. “Tell Chewie and Eanjer the door should be clear in a couple of minutes.”

“Got it. Good luck.”

Lando keyed off the comlink and put it away, moving back around the side of the refresher and glancing casually around. Villachor’s techs and security men had chased down most of the scrambler-rigged droids that Kell and Zerba had turned loose, but there were still enough of them running around to give an edge of distracted concern to the otherwise festive crowd. Between that and the fire jets and fountains still going off all over the grounds, there wasn’t a lot of attention left to spare for someone like Lando just standing quietly off to the side.

Bracing himself, he pulled out Zerba’s egg and squeezed the activator.

He’d expected to feel a shock or a jolt as the silk outer clothing was ripped away into the egg. But there was barely a whisper of sensation. A neat trick, Lando decided, and one he’d have to look into for future use.

He took a moment to examine the Iltarr City police uniform he was now wearing, brushed off a piece of silk debris that somehow had come loose during the ripping process, and pulled out the flattened cap tucked into the tunic. He settled the cap on his head, making sure the bill was pulled down low over his eyes, and sent one final hope skyward that the gadget Bink and Tavia had planted to mess up the cam droids had done its job. It wouldn’t do to have the guard over there recognize him as the same man who’d brought in a contraband cryodex for his boss to look at.

Taking a deep breath, stiffening into the arrogant official posture he’d seen way too many times on police and security officers, he rounded the corner of the refresher station and strode toward the garage door.