the way he'd braced the man. "Agent Glasc here has some holographs for you to
look at." Hal held his hand out, and she gave them to him, then he fanned them
in front of the manager. "Recognize anyone?"
The man gave them a cursory glance. "No, I don't think I do."
Hal settled his left hand on the man's right shoulder. "Look, pal, I'm
just trying to give you a chance to help yourself here. The surveillance team
we've got on this place has pointed out to us which of these guys has actually
been through here. Now you confirm their information and answer more
questions, or we send you away for obstructing justice. We can still send him
to Kessel for that, right. Agent Glasc?"
Glasc nodded, her expression getting cold. "For a longtime."
The little man shivered. "Kessel? I don't even know what that is."
"And that's the way you want to keep it, friend. Look at the holographs
again, closely."
The man did, running a finger across the surface of each. The manager
didn't let recognition flash through his eyes on any of them". Even so, with
his hand on the man's shoulder, Hal could feel the tiny twitches of shoulder
muscle that marked each pause over an image. Three of the five guys had
actually been in the place, but the longest pause had come over the center
picture, the one of the short blond guy with a military-style haircut.
The manager blinked. "I'm not sure."
"Let me help you." Hal shuffled the blond's picture to the top of the
pack, then plucked it off the top and smacked it against the man's forehead.
He did so with a bit more gusto than he wanted to, but the fact that the man's
head bumped against the wall eased Glasc's scowl and, after all, Hal was
playing more to appease her than anything else.
"This guy was in here and you remember him. How recently?"
"Um, um, yesterday maybe, no, wait, this morning. Early. Only the
habituals in that early, you know?" The manager aped Hal's growing smile. "He
was waiting for someone, but then he burst into flames."
Glasc pounced on that remark. "Burst into flames?"
The manager winced at the sharp tone in her voice. "Well, he was sitting
there, then this woman with a drink and cigarra tripped and spilled the drink
on him. Cigarra caught it on fire, I guess. She helped him put it out and he
was okay."
Hal gave the man's shoulder a squeeze. "Great, and what else do you
remember?"
"Well, when the guy he was waiting for showed, they talked and the blond
guy there, he got agitated. He said he'd been robbed, then he took off like
he'd stolen Vader's cloak, you know?"
Glasc narrowed her eyes and glanced at Hal. "Whatever he had was lifted,
you figure? The woman who set him on fire must have it. What did she look
like?"
The pink tip of the manager's tongue wormed its way over dry lips. "Well,
she wasn't that tall, and she had brown hair...."
Hal shook his head. "This is ridiculous. I have a holograph for you to
look at." He reached into his pocket and slipped a holograph from his wallet,
then pulled it out. He ripped the blond man's holograph from the manager's
forehead and tossed it to Glasc, then showed the other holo to the manager.
"Was this her?"
The manager shook his head. "Never seen her before in my life."
I should hope not. My wife wouldn't be caught dead in a place like this.
Hal shrugged and slipped the holograph back into his pocket. "Thank you for
your help. You're free to go."
The man scurried off as Glasc grabbed Hal's shoulder and spun him toward
her. "What do you mean dismissing him?"
"Forgive me for preempting your investigation, but you know this lead was
a complete bust. We're looking for the person who killed Bel Iblis, right?
Well, what assassin sits around in some dump tapcaf like a jewel thief waiting
for a fence? I've no doubt your pretty boy there is guilty of something, but
has likely already put plenty of hyperspace between her butt and this rock."
Trabler frowned. "The assassin was waiting to get paid."
Hal rolled his eyes. "Then what was lifted? Proof he'd killed Bel Iblis?
I would have thought the galaxywide broadcast of the state funeral on Corellia
would have pretty much been taken as proof. Moreover, an assassin that good
would have demanded at least partial payment up front, so he'd never have to
dive to these depths again. We should be looking on some luxury resort world,
not here."
Hal watched Glasc and saw her eyes flicker back and forth for a moment.
He expected panic to roll less-than off her, but he caught none of it. Which
means my Force reserves are absolutely gone, or she's just that good at self-
control. Her whole cover story, thought up on the fly as Trabler shot Moranda
down, was falling apart, and Trabler's spackle job had only pointed out how
absurd it had been from the start. Whatever they were really here searching
for had been brought to Darkknell by the blond and lifted by Moranda. The fact
that these two reeked of Core World arrogance suggested to Hal that they were
most likely Imperials.
Hal shook his head. And that means both Moranda - com if she's even
alive-and I are in far deeper than we ever wanted to be.
Garm Bel Iblis looked around the threadbare apartment as Moranda gingerly
shrugged on a new blouse and jacket. Her living quarters were little more than
a box with a window and a small refresher station walled away toward the rear,
right beside the closet in which she rooted about for clothes. He didn't see
much there that made him think this was a place she'd lived long-term- - and
before congratulating himself on his deductive ability, he did recall that a
CorSec inspector had come looking for her, which meant she'd been on the run.
The room, he thus decided, was one of those places that was the
underworld's equivalent of a safe house. Governments used safe houses as
places where they could hide a witness before a trial or house a spy during
debriefing. There were little bits and pieces of stuff here-mismatched
glowlamps, a half-dozen periodical datacards, a melange of sheets and blankets
that covered a thin pad laid down out of sight of the window- - that had
probably been left behind by previous criminal tenants.
Now that I'm full into the Rebellion, I guess this will be the sort of
place I'll be spending my time in, too.
"The place isn't much, I know. Neither am I." Moranda emerged from the
closet wearing a vibrant blue tunic and a dark brown coat over it. She eased
her right shoulder around in a tiny circle and almost totally suppressed the
grimace that resulted. "There, good as new."
"A bacta bath would make you good as new."
"True, but the shot mostly just roasted meat-lots of aches but no breaks.
Besides those Emdee droids have a nasty habit of reporting blaster burns to
the authorities." Moranda eyed him closely. "Seeing as how you're a Rebel, I
don't think you'd want that sort of scrutiny."
Bel Iblis stiffened, quite involuntarily, then narrowed his eyes. "How
d
id you guess?"
"No guess about it." She tapped a finger against her temple. "First, you
cared to come find me, and it wasn't to pick over my bones. Compassion is rare
these days and the Rebels seem to have a lock on it. Second, you came even
though you were smart enough to know the folks who shot me were probably
Imperial Intelligence."
Bel Iblis nodded. "The woman was Ysanne Isard, Ar mand Isard's daughter."
Moranda's eyes grew wide at that, then she shivered. "I knew this was
tricky business, but just how tricky..."
"What else made you think I'm a Rebel?"
"Arky has a rep. You're clearly a Corellian and all Corellians hate
taking orders. The patch job you did on me suggests you've done your time in
the military, which helps breed loyalty to the way it was before Palpatine got
greedy. Finally, if the Imps are sniffing around for something, the folks
opposing them are likely to be Rebels."
"Really?" Bel Iblis let the question linger for a moment. "Perhaps I'm
Black Sun."
"Ha! There's that compassion thing, remember?"
"Hmmm, good point." Bel Iblis thought for a moment. "What makes you think
the Imps are sniffing around for some thing and not some one?"
"Well, I could tell you I deduced that from the fact that Iceheart's
daughter is here. For wet work they'd just send out a bunch of her drivers.
She's presumably got brains, so they must want to ask questions before they
shoot."
"Save in your case."
"Hey, that's a better shot than he got in." Moranda gave Bel Iblis a
lopsided smile. "Fact is, I lifted something from a nervous young man here and
it has Imperial property-important Imperial property-coded all over it. That
was what you were sent to pick up, wasn't it?"
Bel Iblis shrugged as casually as he could manage. "Can you prove you
were the thief?"
She nodded and pulled a black scarf from the pocket of her jacket. "The
packet I exchanged for the one I stole had the mate of this tying it up all
nice and pretty. Recognize it?"
He reached out and ran a thumb over the material. "Where's the package
now?"
She laughed. "Not so fast, Reb. I'm grateful for the patch on my arm, but
I'd like the resources to leave this mudball and get far away from Hal Horn.
What's it worth to you?"
"Twenty-five thousand credits."
"How about fifty?"
"Sold."
Moranda's eyes widened again. "That valuable, eh? Can we work some bonus
pay in here, too?"
"Where is it?"
She hissed and Bel Iblis felt his heart tighten. "In a very safe place."
"And that would be?"
"The reason I want to know about bonus pay." She shook her head. "I
slipped the datacards into the door of Isard's rental speeder. I can see that
surprises you, but don't worry. Challenges like that, they always bring out
the best in me."
Hal sat alone in the back of the speeder as Glasc drove them to her
operational center. Back at the Continuum Void she'd pulled Trabler aside and
given him orders that sent him off on his own. She told Hal that Trabler was
going to head to the spaceport to check on how things were running there, but
he doubted she was telling the truth. Any information Trabler could learn in
person could just as easily have been given to her over a comlink.
Hal paid little attention to the world passing in a blurred palette
outside the speeder's viewports. He found himself wondering what had prompted
him to show the tapcafe's day manager the holo of his wife instead of
Moranda's holo. I recognized Morandafrom the description the second he started
in on it-the cigarra used to roast the blond was a giveaway-but why did I
protect her? Now I know she's involved, and that kills the assassin story
dead. We have a simple lift from a thief here, but the presence of Imps
suggests it's not that simple at all.
By not showing the man the correct holo, Hal had killed the only solid
investigative lead Glasc had. He assumed, because she was an Imp, and because
she questioned his loyalty right up front, the quarry she was after was
connected to the Rebellion somehow. Hal Horn had no love for the Rebels-they
put themselves on the wrong side of the law and that was enough to earn his
opposition-but he wasn't much crazier about the Imps. More than once he'd
tried to rein in the excesses of overzealous Imperial operatives, which
generally resulted in his having to clean up after them.
Trabler's actions were a perfect example of the sort of excesses he
wanted to avoid. He could have easily run after Moranda and grabbed her.
Instead he gave no warning, he just drew his blaster and shot. Hal hoped his
messing with Trabler's aim prevented Moranda's death, but he pretty much
assumed she was either dead, dying, or severely incapacitated.
Trabler's willingness to shoot to kill someone who, while not innocent,
clearly was a bystander in the whole situation, told Hal that the Empire
wasn't looking to take any prisoners. Whatever Moranda had lifted had to be
very important-covering state secrets, no doubt. And if I know that much, I
have to assume my life may be forfeit at some point-whenever I've exceeded my
usefulness, or I become enough of an annoyance.
That realization didn't bring with it panic. Yes, Hal felt worried and
hated the idea of never seeing his wife or son again, but a sense of calm
overrode his emotions. He remembered back to when he was very young, not more
than six, and had thrown a temper tantrum over a toy that had been broken. His
father took him back out into the yard and told him that he couldn't let his
emotions run wild that way, that it disturbed the universe. His father began
to teach him simple exercises to calm himself and drilled Hal until they
became second nature.
Calm, he could think, and he did so as Glasc slid the speeder to a halt
before the door of a small house. Shrubbery screened it from the other nearby
houses. An alley ran up the left side and seemed to connect via a gate to an
alley or street at the back of the property. The place immediately registered
to Hal as a safe house, and while he could imagine someone with Darkknell
Special Security using one for her headquarters, the isolated nature of the
building-despite its being in the city- - made him uneasy.
Glasc unlocked the door and entered first, then shut the door and headed
down a narrow corridor through the kitchen toward an extension that jutted out
from the rear of the house. "This way; my office is back here."
Hal followed closely on her heels. She turned to say something to him as
they moved into the kitchen, but her attempt to rivet his attention to her did
not completely work. A half second before Trabler emerged from behind a door
and dropped his hands on the back of Hal's neck, Hal sensed his presence and
acted.
Hal fell to his knees and curled his body forward, forcing Trabler to
bend over to maintain his grip. As the Imperial op tightened his hands, Hal
straightened up and came up on one knee. He drove the back of his head into
Trabler's face, producing all so
rts of snapping sounds that he was pretty sure
were not his skull. Trabler yelped and released him, raising his hands to
cover his shattered face. Hal twisted to the right, scything his right leg
back through Trabler's ankles. The big man staggered. overturning a table,
then crashed down.
Hal snaked a hand inside Trabler's jacket and drew the guard's Luxan
Penetrator. He snapped the safety switch off with his thumb and triggered a
quick shot at Glasc. She ducked back with blaster in hand, firing a shot that
shattered a plate on a shelf just past Hal's head. Hal dove to his right and
came up in a crouch. Behind him Trabler, whose face was a mask of blood, had
drawn a vibroblade from his boot and was scrambling to his feet. Hal drilled
him dead center, burning out his heart, then ducked back where the food
storage unit could give him cover.
Glasc triggered a shot that punched through the storage unit. "That won't
protect you."
"Didn't figure it would." Hal fished the holo of Moranda from his pocket
and tossed it into the middle of the floor. He let Glasc see it, then he fired
a shot that melted it into a burning black bubble. "That will."
"What are you talking about?"
"You Intel types always think you're on top of the game, but I make my
living sorting truth from lies, and I've sorted enough here to know that
you're here looking for something a Rebel op stole. He was the blond, and a