“Alive?” Skeeter asked softly.
Kit’s eyes blazed, giving Skeeter a dangerous, top-to-toes assessment that left Skeeter sweating despite the bravado of his return stare. “Preferably,” Kit said in a low growl. “With as little damage to young Hashim as possible.”
“No argument, there. Where’d he agree to meet them? At the Neo Edo?”
Kit nodded.
“When?”
The retired time scout checked his watch. “About fifteen minutes from now.”
Skeeter swore. “I’ll need a good disguise. Get me somebody’s headdress. And a tool belt.” He paused. “You’re sure you’ve got the right assholes? Not just a couple of innocent Arab businessmen looking for long-lost relatives?”
“We’re sure,” Kit said grimly. “They asked Hashim to bring schematics of the station’s brig, so they could plan an attack. They aim to break their buddies out of jail.”
Skeeter whistled. “That’s bad.”
“You’re not kidding, that’s bad. Right now, they’re in room Four Twenty-Three, waiting for Hashim to show up with his pals.”
Skeeter nodded. “All right, let’s get this over with.”
A quarter of an hour later, Skeeter and young Hashim ibn Fahd were walking softly down a carpeted corridor on the fourth floor of the Neo Edo hotel, the latter in Neo Edo livery. Skeeter wore a long headdress shrugged down across his shoulders and a toolbelt at his hips. The toolbelt hid an eight-inch Bowie knife and a snub-nosed revolver shoved into a paddle holster inside his trousers. Kit, too, wore a disguising headdress and tool belt, and carried a sleek little semiautomatic pistol. Security had closed off the corridor at either end, stationing officers in the stairwells and elevator.