Lucius was in the main office standing behind Jessika, who had taken her pink jacket off to sit at a desk with several new electronic modules. Yuri hadn’t encountered the captain before, but the file Boris was spraying across his tarsus lenses spoke of good work. You didn’t get to his level in Connexion Security without being competent. One thing the file hadn’t prepared him for was seeing Lucius’s arm around Jessika’s shoulders.

“What have you got for me?” Yuri asked.

Jessika looked around, smiling as Lucius quickly stood up straight. “I still haven’t managed to trace the Tarazzi van in the docks,” she said. “However, we have no record of it driving away again through the commercial transport hub after it delivered Horatio. It’s probably still there.”

“They will have reregistered it,” Yuri said bluntly. “Probably within ten minutes of it arriving.”

“There have only been seven similar vans departing Bronkal since then,” she countered. “All of them legitimate.”

“These guys are professional,” Yuri said uncertainly.

“I think we have two options,” Lucius said. “One: The gang has enough money to scrap the van straight away—break it up, take it to a vapor recycler plant, drive it out of town and dump it in the swamps, whatever. In which case we’ve lost it permanently.”

“Or?” Yuri queried.

“They’re not going to be snatching people every day. The van will be parked up in a shed somewhere, waiting until they get another job. Then it’ll be reregistered and given a bodywork makeover.”

“Good call,” Yuri said.

“The dock area’s a whole industrial district supporting the bioreactor site, as well as the barge maintenance companies,” Jessika said. “Plenty of big buildings. I want to send in a microdrone flock, scan the whole place for the van. Lucius has already brought them through the portal.”

Yuri nodded. “Do it.”

“Who are these people?” Lucius asked. “Any idea?”

“I don’t know,” Yuri told them. “I originally thought it might be a dark market brain transplant, but I’ve been disabused of that notion. Which leaves us with an old-fashioned kidnap and ransom.”

“That’s bullshit,” Jessika said. “Ainsley isn’t going to pay squat for the poor kid.”

Yuri shrugged. “Whoever Devroy works for, they’re professional.”

“Are you sure he’s working for someone?”

“No, but that’s irrelevant at this point. We have to find Horatio, and fast.”

“I’ll launch the drones,” Lucius said. “My people are ready to go.”

“Do that,” Yuri said. “But I have one other lead. The G7Turing found Baptiste Devroy has a cousin right here, in Bronkal. Joaquin Beron; he runs some kind of atmospheric sensor company, a one-man shop, has supply and maintenance contracts with the government climate monitoring board.”

“That can’t be a coincidence,” Jessika said with a knowing grin.

“I wouldn’t like to work out the odds.”

“You got an address?”

“Yes. Fedress Meadows, block seventeen.”

She paused, reading the information Boris had sent her. “An industrial park. Plenty of opportunity to fabricate items and reroute shipping consignments.”