Lakatos turned out to be a small, hunched man; the curvature of his upper spine set his head oddly forward on his neck, as if he were tucking in his chin. His cheeks were round, his nose bulbous, and his wattled neck was continuous with his jawline, giving his head a pearlike shape. He was a study in dissipation.

He was also among the biggest arms dealers in Central Europe. His fortunes had risen markedly during the arms embargo of Serbia, when that republic had to seek irregular sources for what was no longer available to it legally. Lakatos had begun his career in long-haul trucking, specializing in produce and then dry goods; his business model, and his infrastructure, required little modification to expand into the armaments trade. That he had agreed to meet with Adam Kurzweil at all was a testament to another factor behind his success: his sheer, unappeasable greed.

Employing a long-disused legend, that of a Canadian principal in a security-services—that is, private militia—company, Janson left calls with a number of businessmen long since retired from the trade. In each instance, the message was the same. A certain Adam Kurzweil, representing a client who could not be named, sought a supplier for an extremely large and lucrative transaction. The Canadian—a legend Janson had created for himself, without notifying Cons Ops—was remembered fondly, his low profile and long periods of invisibility respected. Still, the men he contacted demurred, albeit reluctantly; all were cautious men, had made their fortunes and now had moved on. No matter. In the small world of such merchants, Janson knew, word of a serious buyer would spread; the one who arranged a successful contact could expect a commission on the transaction. Janson would not get in touch with Lakatos; he would contact those around him. When one of the businessmen he spoke to, a resident of Bratislava whose close ties with government officials had kept him safe from investigation, asked him why this Adam Kurzweil did not try Lakatos, he was told that Kurzweil was not a trusting soul and would not use anyone who had not been personally vouched for. Lakatos, as far as Kurzweil was concerned, was simply not trustworthy. He and his clients would not expose themselves to the risk of such an unknown. Besides, wasn’t Lakatos too small-time for such a transaction?

As Janson anticipated, the haughty reproach filtered down to the porcine Hungarian, who bristled at being dismissed in those terms. Untrustworthy? Unknown? Lakatos was not good enough for this Adam Kurzweil, this mysterious middleman? Outrage was joined with pragmatic calculation. To allow his reputation to be thus impugned was simply bad business. And there was no more effective way to expunge any lingering aspersions than by landing the elusive account.