“Track it. I want to know the destination. Jessika, we’ve got to split up. Call a cabez, follow the fake Tarazzi van to its destination, then find out what happened next. I’m going to assign you a tactical team; they’ll follow you. Use them for any face-to-face situation. You’re investigation only, understand? I don’t want you physically exposed to any member of this dark market operation. They haven’t eluded the authorities for years by being the forgiving type.”
“Okay.” She gave him a small, wild smile. “What are you going to do?”
“Come at it from a different angle. The more routes into this dark market we can open up, the better chance we have of getting Horatio back.”
A cabez was pulling up outside the building by the time they walked out of the front door. Yuri watched Jessika climb in, then hurried back to the Hackney hub.
—
Seven minutes later he was coming out of the hub at the eastern end of Royal Victoria Docks, buffeted by the humid air gusting off the Thames. If he looked south across the river, the Connexion tower dominated the skyline. Around him, the buildings were a strange mixture of old industrial and new residential; at one time they’d all been hotels and restaurants to serve the vast exhibition center that stretched out alongside the docks. But with the advent of Connexion making every location on Earth
Boris hacked the lobby lock of what had once been the classiest hotel on the block. Yuri walked across the high-ceilinged chamber and past the lifts to the stairwell. The office G7Turing was infiltrating the building’s security network—which was top-of-the-range, but hardly a match for a G7. He didn’t want to be trapped in a lift, with the doors opening at someone else’s convenience.
The third-floor corridor ran the length of the building but only had a half dozen doors. Two men stood at the end, giving him a hard stare as he walked down the length of it toward them. Yuri ignored them and halted a couple of meters from the double doors they were guarding. He tipped his head to one side in his best condescending manner and looked at where he guessed the camera was hidden.
“Open it,” he said in a tired voice.
“Don’t—” one of the guards began.
“Not you,” Yuri said, sounding even more tired.
The door buzzed and slid open. Yuri tipped the guards a silent salute and walked in. The inside had been the hotel penthouse suite a century ago and remained an opulent apartment overlooking the docks.
Karno Larsen looked like he’d been in residence for most of those hundred years. He was a huge man, whose sixtieth decade had been stretched out for a punishingly long time by telomere treatments, making him seem more like a mannequin than a flesh-and-blood person. He wore a burgundy silk gown embroidered with mythical creatures that barely covered his dome-like stomach. Thick bare legs waddled him forward from the outsize chair he’d been sitting in.
One of the high walls was covered in screens, all of them playing cult shows from fifty years ago. Karno prided himself on his encyclopedic knowledge of historic trash culture. Glass-fronted cabinets displayed a huge range of incredibly detailed miniatures and limited edition merchandise from the last 150 years. It all looked like cheap tat to Yuri, though he knew it was actually priceless.
“Yuri, my friend, what a surprise. I never thought you would visit me here. Welcome, welcome.”
“Really?” Yuri asked. The screens were all playing crap now, but he guessed that a minute earlier they’d been displaying a tangle of finance data. As underground accountants went, Karno Larsen was the preferred go-to for the top men of London’s underworld.
Karno performed a humbled shrug. “A short warning would be appreciated next time.”
“Actual human guards. I’m impressed.”
“One has to cultivate an air of civility. Their peripherals alone cost more than they do.”
“I’m sure.”
“So why are you here, Yuri? You’re not good for business, you know.”
“I need a name, and I don’t have time for bullshit.”
“In some ways, that is almost flattering.”
“Who’s the best matcher in East London?”
Karno’s face locked into a rictus smile. “Matcher?”
“Don’t,” Yuri said.
“Yuri, please, I have a reputation to consider.”
“The only reputation I know is of the person who sets up one-time virtual companies to use the Commercial and Government Services hubs. We talked about that misbehavior before, Karno, and we agreed you have to be useful to me in order to carry on existing. I need the name, and I need it now. I’m asking politely.”
“Yuri, please, I don’t move in such circles. I facilitate finance, you know this.”
“Play close attention, Karno, because either I leave with what I want or you get renditioned to a world that makes Zagreus look like a fucking holiday resort.”