Star Wars_ The Approaching Storm - Alan Dean Foster [144]
“They’re not my family, and haven’t been for a very long time,” Dooku said. “Does it matter?”
“Motivation is everything in business.”
“Lord Ziro, I suspect you really have no need to ask. Would you put your future in their hands?”
“I wouldn’t trust the Republic to do anything for Hutts except try to stop us from making a living.”
Ziro saw Jedi and Republic as one entity. Dooku had reached a similar conclusion years before. “And anyone who doesn’t want to be part of their happy Republic family must be a tyrant or an anarchist. If a world wants to leave, it’s accused of being undemocratic, because the will of its inhabitants doesn’t suit Coruscant. Such a beautifully embroidered veil of irony.”
“You don’t have to sell me on Separatism, Dooku. I don’t care about your politics, but I know in which sauce my gorog is marinated.” Ziro seemed the braggart in Jabba’s extended clan, but sometimes Dooku saw hints of a subtler intelligence underneath. He kept a cautious eye on that. “You help me get what I want, I help you get what you want.”
“Welcome to politics,” said Dooku. “Don’t delude yourself that it has to have party labels.”
Dooku steeled himself to relax. The doors suddenly snapped apart; two droids strode in at a brisk pace, and Dooku slid quietly into a shadowed alcove to watch unnoticed from the sidelines.
“Exalted Lord,” one said in a flat monotone. “We have bad news. Your nephew’s son has been kidnapped by criminals.”
Ziro reared up in feigned shock, then settled down again with a noise like slapping a wet stone. “It’s an outrage! Have they demanded a ransom? This is an insult to all Hutts! Organize a search team. We’ll find the scum who did this to poor Jabba.”
Ziro wasn’t a bad actor, all things considered. But even if he’d rehearsed it, his choice of words was revealing. Dooku noted that it was more about loss of face than concern for the child’s safety. But Hutts didn’t think like humans, and the social rules of organized crime were not those of middle-class Coruscant. He tried not to judge when his own species had so little to boast about at times.
Dooku listened, waiting for the droid to leave. Now to the next stage. Now to making sure that we lure the Jedi to Teth …
“There has been no ransom demand yet, Lord,” the droid said. “Most unusual.”
“I’ll see the scum fed to a rancor.” Ziro held out an imperious hand to the second droid. Dooku couldn’t quite see the other droid around the edge of the alcove. “Get me the comlink. Let me console my nephew. I expect all Hutts to rally around and help him.”
He’s really getting into the role …
“Lord Jabba is said to be inconsolable. He has asked the Republic to help—to send Jedi to find the child.”
Dooku was a hard man to surprise, but the thought of Jabba—Jabba—throwing himself on the sympathy of the Jedi hit him like a punch.
Why would the head of one of the most powerful criminal organizations in the galaxy, who could buy any number of bounty hunters and an intelligence network that many governments might envy, beg the Jedi for help?
It was an inexplicable move for a species—a gang lord—so concerned about loss of face, about looking weak, about being seen to be an easy target.
Not Jabba. And it will be explicable, if I think about it …
The Hutt was up to something appropriately slippery. Dooku wasn’t sure what that might be, so he was instantly on his guard. But it was the most perfect stroke of luck—unnaturally perfect—for Jabba to ask the Jedi to walk into his setup and implicate themselves in the kidnapping.
Some would say it was meant to be.
And while Dooku didn’t believe in luck half as much as he believed in the less random patterns of conspiracy, plot, and counterplot, he wasn’t about to pass up an opportunity.
He hoped the Jedi Council would do the decent, upstanding, moral thing, and say yes.
He was certain that they would.
TWO
Communications with General Kenobi, disrupted they are.
So a messenger we are sending, with important orders for him.
MASTER