"Okay, let's run over the plan one more time," Liara twitched her dress out from under her heel. They were standing in Liara's office, having just landed on Bekenstein. Liara had changed out of her usual uniform and into a long flowing green and blue dress in order to infiltrate Donovan Hock's party. "I'll be posing as Asana Radai, an investor in Zaeed's private military company."
"Right, and I'll be posing as Zaeed Massani. Mercenary captain, killer extraordinaire, and all-round nice guy," Zaeed nodded. "I know Hock, bloody nightmare to work with."
"Zhar?" Liara looked up at the quarian.
"I'm with Zaeed," Zhar pushed himself off the wall. "I'm part of the team you run in the Terminus systems."
"I've given you and Miss Assana Radai reputations in the Terminus system. Zhar you don't even exist outside the Migrant Fleet so it doesn't matter if you use your real name," Kasumi said, suddenly appearing on Liara's bed. "Eyewitness accounts, reports of very hostile takeovers of companies, some rumours on local networks, and an article in Badass Weekly."
"Always wanted to get in Badass Weekly," Zhar nodded. "How are we getting in?"
"Hock is hosting a party for his kind of people," Kasumi stretched out on the bed. "Murderers, psychopaths, arms dealers."
"Sounds like my kind of people," Zaeed grinned, scratching at his mutilated cheek. "But how do we get through the door?"
"We're already invited," Kasumi sat up. "We'll smuggle in weapons and armour in the base of a statue of Liara's old friend Saren Arterius."
"Any questions?" Liara looked from Zaeed, who shrugged, to Zhar, who shook his head. "Okay, let's go."
Twenty minutes later the skycar touched down outside Donovan Hock's mansion. Zhar stepped out of the pilot's seat, tossed the keys to a nearby valet and joined the others walking towards Hock's mansion. The golden statue of Saren Arterius was being wheeled alongside them, and Zhar flicked his eyes over the base as a mercenary scanned it with an omnitool.
"Is there a problem?" A harsh voice of a dialect Zhar had never heard before spoke from above them. A human was descending the steps. He was smiling, but it didn't extend to his cold blue eyes. This had to be Donovan Hock. A pair of Eclipse mercenaries accompanied him.
"Just protocol, sir," the mercenary replied, putting away his omnitool.
"I don't think our guests would come all the way from Illium to cause trouble," Hock said to the mercenary. He turned to Liara. "I don't believe we've had the pleasure."
"Asana Radai," Liara inclined her head. "Although I believe you have already met my associate Zaeed Massani."
"Ah, Massani it's been a while," Hock smiled that cold, thin-lipped smile again and began talking with the mercenary.
"Sir, I'm going to have to ask you to remove your knife," one of the mercenaries accompanying Hock reached out a hand for Zhar's knife, having only just noticed it. "It will be returned to you when you leave."
"That's not an option," Zhar said, his eyes narrowing.
"Sir, I have to insist," the mercenary's hand wavered a little.
"It stays with me," Zhar replied hotly. Hock was looking at him now, his cold eyes darting warily from the mercenary to the quarian. The Eclipse trooper made to raise his rifle, but Zhar stepped in close to him and trapped the gun, drawing his knife as he did so.
"This is why I like knives. Guns can be a little unwieldy in close quarters," he said, tapping the tip of the knife on the mercenary's helmet. He looked at Hock. "You need to learn a thing or two about how to equip your troops, Mister Hock."
"Is that so?" Hock smiled in a bemused fashion. Liara was glaring at Zhar, and he pushed the mercenary away, slotting the knife back in its sheath. "I'd rather not have this kind of disruption inside, Miss Radai. Your friend will have to wait outside. The buckethead, and her. I don't like the look of her, so she stays."
He was pointing at Kasumi, who shifted nervously under the man's scrutiny. Liara nodded curtly to the pair of them, then followed Hock inside with Zaeed. The mercenary gave Zhar a last look, then followed the group up the steps.
"Now what do we do?" Zhar said quietly to Kasumi.
"It's hardly my fault you didn't get inside," she shrugged. "Do you pull a knife on everyone you meet?"
"Most of them," Zhar looked around. The courtyard they were standing in was empty apart from a pair of valets and a few mercenaries, but none of them were looking at Zhar and Kasumi. "Let's get moving, they'll start getting suspicious."
"Liara, we're cloaking," Kasmui informed the asari, disappearing instantly. "We'll find the vault and tell you what we need to do."
Zhar activated his own tactical cloak and ascended the steps in the wake of Liara and the others. The cavernous room inside was filled with an all-manner of people. Burly mercenaries rubbed shoulders with lithe assassins, who shared drinks with weapons dealers and smugglers of all races and backgrounds. Zhar and Kasumi wandered over to a corner while Liara and Zaeed mingled, and he switched his visor to the thermal setting Legion had installed so he could see the thief.
"So, why do you think Hock didn't let you in?" Zhar murmured to her.
"I don't know," she replied. "We've never met before, I guess he's just a little suspicious."
"Maybe it would help if you didn't actually look like you're trying to rob the place."
"Hey, I'm not the one that turned up in armour with a knife strapped to them," Kasumi tapped him on the arm to indicate he should follow her.
"Found something?" Zhar asked the thief as she slipped through the crowds and approached a bookshelf in the room opposite their corner.
"Two hundred years of crime and adventure novels has taught me one thing," Zhar saw Kasumi's hands dance along the bookshelf, burning white-hot on his thermal imaging. She tugged on a small book, one of the few not covered with dust. "It's that criminals always have their secret doorways in their bookshelf."
"You're good at this," Zhar folded his arms. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a panel in the floor slide open behind a fountain and statue of something-or-other at the back of the gleaming white hall. Nobody around it seemed to have noticed.
"I'm the best," Kasumi walked over to the newly opened panel and slipped down the stairs. "Come on."
Zhar descended into the vault with her. The thief materialised in front of a door, and Zhar took the hint to deactivate his own cloak and thermal imaging. The door slid open, and Zhar found himself opposite a massive metal door, at least twice his height. The statue of Saren Arterius glared imperiously down at them from an alcove, as it disapproved of what they were doing.
"EX700 series," Kasumi said thoughtfully, looking at the glittering orange barrier in front of the door. "Voice-synced password protection, DNA scanner, kinetic barrier."
"Is it a problem?"
"Please, this is child's play," Kasumi contacted Liara on her earpiece. "Liara, we've found the vault. I need you to get Hock talking long enough to get a voice sample."
"What do you want me to do?" Zhar asked her, pulling out his sniper rifle and pistol from the drawer in the statue base.
"There's a security checkpoint by the door," Kasumi took her own pistol from the drawer. "They should have the password."
"That leaves the kinetic barrier and the DNA sample," Zhar reminded her, slotting several thermal clips into his belt, then fitting a silencer to his pistol.
"The barrier is easy, just cut the power," Kasumi said, cloaking again. "We'll have to search Hock's quarters for DNA. That should be fun."
"Meet me back here in ten minutes," Zhar cloaked and slipped his way through the crowded party. He saw Liara and Zaeed talking earnestly with Hock, and nearby he picked out a slight ripple in the light which he presumed to be Kasumi. He located the door and quietly slipped through. Around a corner he heard a pair of guards talking, and sidled closer so he could listen.
"You know, I don't actually see the point of being in here," one of them said mildly. "Wouldn't we be better off standing outside the door?"
"What happens if an alarm goes off though?" His companion replied. "Then nobody would hear it."
"Well if it is a real alarm, it should go off in every room, not just this one."
"But we have to be discreet, that's the whole point of having a guard room. We just slip through the party, the guests aren't disturbed."
"But say someone comes through that door and kills us, who hears the alarm?"
"Exactly," Zhar said, turning around the corner and putting a bullet through the heads of the two guards. They both tumbled to the ground, the red blood leaking from their wounds a stark contrast to the snow white of the floor. He picked up the datapad that had been dropped by one of the guards, then contacted Kasumi. "I've got the password, it's… Peruggia? What the hell is a Peruggia?"
"Vincenzo Peruggia, he stole the Mona Lisa," Kasumi replied.
"The moaning what?" Zhar frowned, throwing the datapad onto the desk.
"The Mona Lisa. It's a famous work of art back on Earth. Well, actually it's mine now," Kasumi explained with a trace of laughter. "I've got the voice and DNA samples. Meet me back at the vault."
"Hang on," Zhar took a seat at the only terminal in the office and hacked through the security system in a couple of minutes. He located the power source for the vault's kinetic barrier and shut it down. "Is the barrier down?"
"Nice to see you can work on your feet," Kasumi replied. "I don't suppose you'll be looking for work after this?"
"Thanks, but no thanks."
Zhar slipped back through the party unnoticed. Liara and Zaeed were nowhere to be seen. He descended the stairs to the vault and found Zaeed standing outside. He stepped inside, saw Liara half-dressed and immediately stepped back out again, decloaking as he did so.
"I seriously need to get one of those," Zaeed said, unsurprised at the quarian's sudden appearance.
"I don't think it'd suit your style," Zhar replied, leaning against doorframe. "Aren't you more of a 'shoot everything in sight' kind of guy?"
"Doesn't mean I can't be subtle," the human shrugged.
"I think that's exactly what it means."
"Hey," Liara stuck her head through the door. "Let's go, we've got a graybox to get."
"I don't even know what a graybox is," Zaeed grumbled.
"Neither do I," the quarian replied. "Just smile and nod when they talk. They'll never know."