Coruscant, Senate District

Day Eight, early morning

Fox sat at attention in the waiting room of the medical center, staring at the polished tile of the nearby hallway as he tried to figure out what he and the lieutenant had missed. There must be something – there had to be something, because despite all of their painfully careful precautions, another man had died. And on top of that, they hadn't gained even a real lead on the attackers.

In the chair across from Fox sat Lieutenant Divo. He was slouching lower and lower in the seat, his dark hair greasy and his long grey coat getting more rumpled with every passing minute.

Then, without warning, he jerked upright and stared at Fox. "We have to have missed something!" he exploded.

The elderly nurse at registration shot him a warning look, and Divo froze, then cleared his throat. "We have to have missed something," he repeated, in a much quieter tone. "Some test we could have tried, some interview, some suspect, some lead or other. Commander Fox, we missed something, and I need ideas. And don't give me the 'I'm not a detective' line, because I'm bordering on desperate. Is there anything else we could have done?"

"I've been wondering that myself," Fox admitted reluctantly. "I don't think that there is. We went above and beyond the requirements to protect Senator Alita."

"Fat lot of good that did! They didn't even go after her!"

"Then we did learn one thing, Lieutenant," said Fox, ignoring his outburst. "It's clear that the assassins had no intention of targeting her in the first place."

Divo snorted, then subsided. "True enough. I guess we can safely say their motive isn't getting rid of senators from Telos Five. Senator Alita's fine, all members of her retinue are fine. So. . . where does that leave us? If the murders have nothing to do with Telos Five itself, great. Another lead closed. Maybe. But apart from that, we haven't actually learned anything except that the murderers are hellbent on killing everyone associated with Senator kriffing Hilt – which we already knew, didn't we?"

"We hadn't had it confirmed," said Fox. "We still don't. The other senators associated with him haven't been attacked."

"Not yet they haven't." Divo groaned and ran a hand through his hair again, then scoffed in bitter amusement. "Huh. Maybe I should send out generic letters of condolence to the families of everyone Hilt ever shared a drink with, just get the job done early."

There was a long pause. Divo slouched in the chair again and began bouncing one knee.

"We know it's a gang," Fox offered, at last.

"Do we though? It could just as easily be a bunch of random mercs hired for this specific job. They could be hired by a single person, or they could be hired by a gang, or this is the gang acting for themselves. So which is it?" Divo held up a hand as Fox opened his mouth to answer. "And yeah, I know you don't know."

"I'd guess that it's a gang, acting for itself," said Fox, and waited for Divo to start yelling about the lack of evidence.

But to his surprise, the inspector only shrugged. "I've been thinking the same," he said. "With not much proof to support my theory. What have you got?"

"Gangs aren't usually hired to kill people," said Fox. "Not discriminately. They avoided Senator Organa after rendering him unconscious."

"That was one of my thoughts, too," said Divo, straightening a little. "Common hitmen are a dime a dozen here, but these guys weren't common. At the same time, assassins usually work alone, or with one other person, maybe two."

"On the other hand, the attackers had no identifying insignia," said Fox. "Which isn't necessarily evidence one way or the other."

"Agreed," said Divo. "It could be argued that they were hired for a hit, but it could also be argued that their gang doesn't want the credit for the assassinations. And then there's another point we have to consider in favor of a gang acting in its own interest."

"What is it?" asked Fox curiously.

"Every security droid we have is out combing the streets that the attackers must have initially escaped through. And yet we have no leads, no witnesses – at least, none that'll talk. Those attackers have to have passed someone on their way down through the levels, but not a single one of the civilians will say anything. Why not? Fear?"

"Likely, if it's a gang we're dealing with. But why would the civilians know who the gang is?"

"They wouldn't, unless the gang's operated for a long time. And I'm starting to bet that it has. See, Commander, the CSF has dealt with many cases before now where the gang we were up against was never identified. We've seen an upsurge in cases like that in the past five years. The media thought we were trying to cover up for the fact that we couldn't solve various cases. 'The So-Called 'Mystery Gang' Versus the CSF' – that's what they kept saying."

"Hm," said Fox, who had actually seen that headline a couple months ago. Divo had a personal vendetta against the media and their often-sensationalized stories, and sometimes Fox thought he had very good reason for this.

"We knew the gang was there, just not who they were," said Divo. "Or who they were hired by. But the costumes, the lack of an insignia, the higher-profile targets, the striking quickly and leaving . . . all four of those things are the same this time as in the last unsolved one. I was reviewing our casefiles this morning."

"So," said Fox. "You're thinking that the gang we're dealing with is new."

"I'd be willing to bet that I'm right, yeah. Offhand, would you say it's a big group we're facing?"

Fox didn't even have to think about that. "Given how fast they got the information on where every one of the murder victims was, yes."

"Exactly." Divo ran a hand through his limp hair again and tugged thoughtfully at his collar. "And that's what our experts thought about the CSF's 'mystery gang'. I don't think you'd have dealt with them yet. . . they tend to stay in the shadows, not go up directly against law enforcement."

Fox nodded slowly. "When's the last time the CSF interacted with them?"

"Directly? Never," snorted Divo. "We never actually caught any of them. But the last case was a couple months ago."

"I see." Fox stared at the carpet, which was a strange grey-pink, and wondered if it was a requirement for hospitals to have unattractive waiting rooms. "Anything new on this one since an hour ago?"

"Yeah," sighed Divo. "I got an update from the Telos Five shuttle. The servants who left all died within fifteen minutes of each other. That was the last of Hilt's retinue."

A sudden thought occurred to Fox, and he hummed. "One of the attackers also died," he pointed out. "That could give us something."

"Oh?" Divo questioned, folding his arms. "Like what, an 'us versus them' body count? Mystery gang: eight, Galactic Republic: one?"

When Fox shot him a cool look, the lieutenant deflated, just a little. "What is it, then?" he asked reluctantly. "You want to search the morgues? The streets?"

"I don't know," said Fox. "Whoever these people are, they're being exceptionally careful about remaining unidentified. If they slowed down their escape for the purpose of bringing their teammate's body with them, I doubt they'd do something so foolish as leave him where he'd be found easily. . ."

"Yeah," Divo admitted. "But you do realize a lot of the morgues have furnaces, right?" He checked his old-fashioned watch and stuffed it back in his pocket. "The nurse said Organa would be awake within a quarter of an hour. It's been twice that."

Fox hardly heard him. He was thinking through everything they'd done so far to catch or thwart the murderers, and everything they could still do – not that there were many options left. "If we found the morgue," he said. "If we narrowed it down to bodies brought in, cause of death blaster wounds, within the last six hours. . . maybe the owner would have some of his personal effects still. Or even some knowledge of the people who brought him in."

Divo snorted again. "Long shot," he said. "But . . . Yeah. I'll send out the droids, just to be sure. But I'll bet a year's pay that even if we find the correct morgue, the owner won't talk."

Fox thought the same thing, but he wasn't inclined to add to Divo's pessimism by agreeing out loud. The case felt impossible enough as it was. "We could call in the Jedi," he said.

The lieutenant inspector sighed again, but this time he sounded more defeated than irritated. "I did call in the Jedi, Commander. Two of 'em showed up . . ." He snapped his fingers rapidly, as he often did when trying to remember something. "A master and padawan. Oh, what were their names – there was a Nautolan kid and a Roonan . . . Master Halls, maybe?"

Fox thought for a moment before putting names to the description. "Master Halsey and Padawan Knox?"

"Right, right. Those two. They worked at it for hours and didn't find a thing. After that, I tried to call Quinlan Vos in, but of course he's not around. . . Or, at least, he's not answering his comms."

It was Fox's turn to let out an irritable snort. "He's got a bad habit of not answering comms. Did you try contacting him after that?"

"Not today." Divo slouched, somehow sinking further into the hard-cushioned chair. "What's there for him to search, anyway? I can't give him the murder weapon to use his psychometry on, because we don't have a murder weapon. We have a case where every clue melts into thin air and leaves us with nothing."

"Vos could search the landing pad," Fox said, feeling as pessimistic as Divo looked. "Or we could show him where the first secretary was murdered and he could try to figure out where the killer stood while shooting the dart. . ."

"No," said Divo, reluctantly sitting upright. "Even I know that's never going to work, not with all the people who visit that hall every day. We need one of their weapons. If I could just get a weapon to Vos, he could probably tell us something about what the killer was thinking. Maybe even a name."

They exchanged looks, and Fox thought, Yeah, if the killer in that case wasn't a droid. . .

"Well," Divo muttered at the same time, putting his elbows on his knees. "If the killer they used for that murder wasn't a droid."

The two of them were sitting in semi-defeated silence when a young blonde nurse scurried into the room. "Commander Fox? Lieutenant Divo?" she said, looking up from her datapad. "The senator is awake."

Lieutenant Divo jumped up, jammed his hands into the deep pockets of his coat, and followed the nurse. Fox took out his datapad and joined him, prepared to record everything the senator might tell them. At this point, they just needed a lead, any lead, no matter how small. And since the attackers had not seen fit to kill Organa, there was an extremely small chance that there might now be a lead.

The nurse knocked on the door of a private room, leaned in to murmur something, gestured Divo and Fox inside, and left.

Fox wasn't sure what condition he'd expected to find Bail Organa in – after all, the man had been heavily drugged and knocked out not six hours ago – but he certainly hadn't expected to find him fully dressed and sitting on the side of the bed as he wrote on a datapad.

"Senator," the inspector said, with a brisk nod.

"Lieutenant. Commander Fox." Organa set aside his datapad, his usually easy smile more forced than usual. "I wish I had some real information to give you, but although I keep thinking back, I cannot remember much would be useful. I only noticed a few things about the attackers."

"Anything you can give us. . ." Divo trailed off with a gesture.

"There were eight that I saw," the senator said, folding his hands in his lap. The fingers of his right hand were bruised. "They were dressed in black, and wore masks; I believe at least one of them was a woman, but everything was so blurred that I can't be sure. Lane Tarr or I killed one. I injured two more, and I believe Lane also injured two – but again, I'm not sure."

He lifted his hands slightly, and Divo huffed a breath out through his nose.

"As I said," murmured Organa. "Hardly useful."

"Well," Inspector Divo said. "Better than nothing, I guess. Can you tell us what happened?"

"The attackers climbed up over the edge of the landing pad approximately a minute and a half after Captain Thorn cleared the landing pad below ours. They did not fire blasters, and seemed to have no interest in killing me, even when I shot one – or perhaps two – of them." He glanced down. "I believe they hit Lane Tarr with a poisonous dart just like the one used to kill Senator Hilt. The symptoms were identical."

"That's exactly right, Senator," Divo said. "It was the same substance, same concentration. Hilt drank it, Lane was injected with it. The pathologist thinks the assassin fired a retractable dart this time, rather than a dissolving one."

"I see. . . So, they either know or expect what we'd be looking for."

"That seems likely," said Fox. "What happened after Officer Tarr was hit?"

"I continued shooting at the assassins," said the senator. "They left, taking the body with them. I went to Lane, and warned the Senate Guard that the attackers were moving towards them –"

He broke off, giving Fox a questioning look.

"They heard the blasterfire and headed towards you," said Fox. "By the time you warned them, they were already halfway to your position. They returned to the lower landing pad immediately, but were too late to head off the attackers."

"They should have left a couple of guards," said Divo, shaking his head. "But what's done is done, I guess."

Fox thought that Divo would never have been so nonchalant if the CSF men had been the ones to make that mistake. He demanded a high level of professionalism and competence from his men, which they did not resent, because he demanded an even higher level from himself.

Rhys had recently pointed out that for all his complaining, Divo was rather like Fox – and then he'd hastily explained that it was a good thing, Commander . . .

Bail Organa was frowning. "Captain Thorn had already cleared the platform below us, hadn't he? How did the assassins hide without him seeing them?"

"We found that out, actually," said Divo. "After the fact, as usual. They'd gotten inside landing platform three hours before. They waited until the guard had cleared the inside, got inside, waited until Thorn cleared the lower level, climbed up – in other words, they were incredibly efficient about it . . . and they probably had someone watching all the platforms for hours to figure out which one we were using."

"We should have used decoys," said Fox, grimacing. He hadn't considered it earlier, but he should have considered it, and done so before another person died instead of after.

"What's done is done," repeated Bail. "Inspector Divo is right. None of us knew that there were so many attackers, or that they were this determined or this prepared."

"That's no excuse, though," said Divo, voicing Fox's thoughts.

The senator glanced at him and smiled a little sadly. "Isn't it? You cannot foresee or plan for every eventuality, Inspector."

". . . Let's not waste our time," said Divo. "I think we should –"

But Senator Organa interrupted with a sharp glance at Fox. "I believe that both of you, as well as your men and the Senate Guard, were working with what soldiers in the field call bad intelligence."

"Yes, Senator," said Fox, mostly to put an end to Organa's well-intentioned excuses for everyone involved in not preventing Lane Tarr's death. To Fox's mind, bad intelligence wasn't a sufficient excuse for failing so completely; and yet, what else could he demand? As he'd told Divo earlier, they'd not only followed all reasonable precautions, they'd exceeded them.

Divo cleared his throat. "Senator," he said. "To continue our report. . . Thorn and his men reached the scene before you'd fully passed out. They searched Lane immediately. No dart was found, but the wound in his shoulder was significantly larger than the secretary's injuries."

Organa sighed again, his attention shifting to the floor. "Lane Tarr was a good man," he said, then looked up sharply, as if realizing something. "Is Senator Alita safe?"

"Yeah," said the lieutenant, fidgeting with a loose thread on his wide-collared coat. "Not even the faintest hint of trouble in getting her to the building."

"At least that went well, then." The senator swayed a little, leaned an elbow discreetly against the bedside table, and studied Fox and Divo with dark eyes. "Lane Tarr was the last member of Hilt's retinue to be targeted."

"Yes, sir," Fox said. "Which means that might have been the last of the murders."

Lieutenant Divo shook his head irritatedly. "You mean, 'that might have been the last chance we'll get at catching the killers'," he said. "Senator, is there anything else you can give us? Anything at all? The attackers didn't speak?"

"Not a word."

"Of course they didn't." Divo stared at the wall in obvious disgust for several seconds before glancing at his watch and straightening abruptly. "Well. . . thanks for your cooperation, Senator. Uh, glad you're all right, by the way. I've got an emergency meeting to attend, so I'll be bowing out now. Commander – see you later."

And he did, in fact, bow ever so slightly to the senator before heading out.

". . . Hm," Fox said dryly. "I think that he's become more tolerant of you."

"Surprisingly, yes." Organa got to his feet, keeping a one-handed grip on the nearby table. "About the case, Commander – there is no way to get another lead?"

"Not immediately," Fox said. "Forensics analyzed the blood from the attacker that you or Tarr killed. Definitely human, but that doesn't help us much. We watched what little camera footage there was, and we think one of the other attackers might have been a Weequay, but. . ."

"But that doesn't help either," finished the senator, rubbing his forehead. His grip on the table was loosening as his hand trembled.

"Sir," said Fox. "Perhaps you should sit down."

Organa didn't seem to hear him. "Commander, if there are any resources that you or the Coruscant Security Force might need, please be sure to ask immediately. I will provide whatever help I can."

"Thank you, sir," Fox said, keeping a cautious eye on Organa as the senator took a wavering step back. "We'll do that. But at the moment, the only plan the lieutenant and I have is to send out private agents."

"Ah." Organa caught his balance, then nodded. "Perhaps they will discover something where none of the official forces can. I'm afraid I have none currently at my disposal, but I know the police force has several agents available."

"Yes, sir." Those agents were very good ones, fortunately. But Fox had one of his own, whom the CSF didn't know about – and who, Fox thought, was very likely better than any two of theirs. There was no reason to mention her to Senator Organa, though, much as he respected him. At least, not until there was a need.

After exchanging a few more words with the senator, who finally sat down again, Fox left the hospital. Once he was away from the main entrance, and out of the hearing distance of immediate passersby, he took out his comm and entered his agent's code.

She answered on the fifth beep. "Commander Fox?"

"Yeah. Do you have a moment?"

"I am currently safe."

"Good. This case we've been on. . . The trail's gone cold. Is there anything at all on your end?"

"No," she said, sounding displeased. "So far, I have discovered nothing that could help us. Whichever gang these murderers belong to, the headquarters must be very, very well-hidden – or, they are hundreds of levels down on Coruscant. And there are no leads from Telos Five."

"I was afraid of that," muttered Fox, as a team of emergency medical responders rushed a covered stretcher into the hospital. Probably a speeder accident, based on the scent of burned metal and engine fuel that trailed behind them.

"You say the trail has gone cold," she said after a moment. "Even Organa could give you nothing?"

"Right." Fox walked towards his speeder. "We're going to have to approach this from a different angle."

"Very well," she said. "What is it you need?"

"I need one of the murder weapons." Fox waited for her response, fully aware that he was giving her the hardest possible assignment while being unable to give her any good information to work with.

But she didn't argue. Instead, she only stayed silent for a quarter of a minute before saying, "And if I cannot get one?"

"Then capture one of the murderers," Fox answered. "Preferably before the next murder is carried out."

There was another long silence. Then, she said, "Do you think there will be another murder?"

"Yes, I do." Swinging one leg over his speeder, Fox started the engine, cast a quick glance over his shoulder, and cut into the traffic lane, steering with one hand as he kept talking. "Whichever gang we're dealing with – they're determined to cover their tracks."

"I agree with that. They clearly believe that Hilt told his servants something incriminating. But the last member of Hilt's retinue was just murdered."

"I know he was." Fox swerved hard to avoid a couple of police bots as they rushed past on their way to some crime scene or other. "But Hilt didn't only talk to his servants, and if I know that, you can bet the gang will know it, too."

"Ah," she replied, sounding thoughtful. "Yes, I see – though Hilt presumably spoke to many people. I need a potential target, at least to start with. Commander, can you get me the names of everyone Hilt spoke to through comms?"

"Maybe," he said. "How far back?"

"Three months, I think."

"Okay." Angling his speeder down a few degrees, Fox headed for the CG headquarters. "Why three months?"

"Because if the servants were considered a threat to the gang, then it is likely that anyone Hilt spoke to at length within that time frame will be a threat. And Hilt's newest servant joined his retinue eighty-one days ago."

Fox wondered how she'd found that out, but didn't waste time in asking for details. "Understood," he said. "I'll talk to Divo and get a list of names to you in the next couple of hours."