False Value

by Ben Aaronovitch

  We were too far away to clock the indexes, so I got out of the Asbo and stepped far enough away so that I wouldn’t sand the electronics or Guleed’s phone, and cast telescopium. This shaped the air into lenses to form a crude telescope—modern wizards prefer using binoculars, partly because it’s less of a faff but mostly because it’s not possible to set yourself on fire by accident when using them. I noted down the license plate numbers, got back in the Asbo and emailed them off to the inside inquiry office to check.

  The Range Rover and the Transit van were registered to the Serious Cybernetics Corporation, and the other two were owned by a retired schoolteacher in Dunfermline and a solicitor in Preston.

  “What do you want to bet that those are duplicates?” said Guleed.

  If you want to drive around in a stolen vehicle without getting stopped or picked up on ANPR then the best way is to attach fake plates. If you’re clever, you pick an index belonging to some blameless low-risk individual who drives the same make and model as your stolen car. There’s a lively market for suitable numbers on the so-called “dark web,” or if you’re a traditionalist you can pick an individual and steal a car that matches theirs.

  While I’d been scoping the cars, I’d noticed that the empty lot wasn’t totally empty. A row of three articulated lorries were parked close to the fence line. Each one had a dented shipping container mounted on its trailer, with its rear end pointing at the warehouse.

  The empty lot was a large expanse of cheap gravel mottled with weeds and wild grass that had obviously been empty for years. Waiting in vain for that lucky customer who was looking for some light industrial space close to the Medway Ports.

  Guleed nodded at the articulated lorries.

  “I wonder what’s in those,” she said. “They look like they’re lined up with the loading bays.”

  It was true. Unlike the main entrance, the warehouse’s big freight doors were in the side facing the empty lot. There were three of them, and they lined up with an articulated lorry each.

  “Could be a coincidence,” I said.

  “Yeah,” she said. “But we’re going to have to check them anyway—before we do anything else.”

  “Let’s go and have a bit of a look, then,” I said.

  But Guleed wasn’t happy about us being out the front and leaving the rear of the warehouse unsupervised. Neither of us wanted to call in the cavalry until we were sure that the cattle baron and his henchpeople were in residence, so we compromised and called PC Maginty, of the Gillingham Safer Neighborhood Team, instead.

  “He is the closest, after all,” I said.

  His neighborhood must have been unusually safe because he picked up on the second ring and agreed immediately to help.

  “He’s got the Falcon bug,” said Guleed when I told her. “Once you have a taste of it, you start gagging for more magic in your life.”

  “Is that so?”

  “You should know,” she said. “You’re the poster boy for it.”

  While we waited for Maginty, we rooted around in the stake-out bag for snacks. Unfortunately, my suspension followed by my stint undercover meant I hadn’t done any proper surveillance for a while and the score was meager.

  “Percy Pig?” asked Guleed, holding up the pack.

  “I got them for Brent,” I said.

  Fortunately, there was a packet of Marks & Spencer ginger nuts and two bottles of lukewarm Highland Spring.

  “They’re not thrilled,” said Guleed suddenly.

  “What?”

  “Michael’s family in Hong Kong,” said Guleed. “They’re not thrilled. About the melanin thing.”

  “Ah.”

  “Not that anyone said anything,” she said. “Nobody . . . objected. Certainly not in front of me. Not in English anyway but, you know, there was that ripple when I was introduced. That hesitation—you know?”

  “Yeah,” I said. “That.”

  “Like they were all carefully reviewing their next words just in case something slipped out. Something unfortunate.” She sighed. “And my problem is that I don’t know whether I want to put up with that—whether I can put up with that.”

  “Do you love him?”

  Guleed looked shocked.

  “Say that again.”

  “Say what?”

  “That. That word.”

  “What? Love?”

  Guleed laughed.

  “I’ve never heard you use that word before,” she said. “At least not seriously. Who are you, and what have you done with the real Peter Grant?”

  “Stop avoiding the question,” I said.

  “What was the question again?”

  “Do you love him?”

  This time Guleed covered her mouth to smother her laughter.

  “It’s not that funny,” I said.

  “Not for you maybe,” she said. “But for everybody else . . .”

  I waited with as much dignity as I could muster.

  “Yes, I love him,” she said finally. “Does that make a difference?”

  “What do you think?” I said, which is my shrink’s favorite comeback.

  “I didn’t ask him to convert, you know,” she said. “He volunteered—I’d have married him in a registry office with no fuss.”

  “I bet your parents would have loved that.”

  “They love him more than they love me,” she said.

  “Maybe his family will get used to you.”

  “You mean the same way they would chronic back pain,” said Guleed.

  I was about to say that they might actually change, when a blue Hyundai pulled in beside us. Maginty had brought along his skipper—a short, round Asian sergeant by the name of Yasmin Mahmood.

  “I don’t trust him out on his own,” she said, after we were introduced. “He’s been led into bad ways.”

  As police, we are perfectly entitled to stick our noses in where we’re not wanted. However, because Terrence Skinner and God knows what in the way of destructive Falcon material might be in the warehouse, we didn’t want anyone inside to clock that we were sniffing around. The problem was that with the expanse of weed-strewn emptiness around the lorries it was going to be hard to get close without looking suspicious.

  “That might be why they’re parked where they are,” said Guleed.

  But luckily, as police, we also knew that people in general wandered through life in a state of blissful obliviousness, and that if you were swift and didn’t act suspiciously you could cross thirty-odd meters of open ground without drawing attention.

  Nine times out of ten.

  As we strolled across, Guleed asked me whether me and Beverley were going to get married.

  “That’s a good question,” I said. “We’ve talked about it, but there’s problems.”

  “Like what?” Guleed sounded skeptical.

  “Ceremonies,” I said, “can be dangerous things around people like Bev. We don’t want to get hitched and then find it’s necessary to spend every second Sunday outside the New Malden branch of Dreams scattering rose petals into the culvert to keep the relationship going.”

  “Is that sort of thing likely?”

  “I don’t know,” I said. “Neither does anyone else.”

  “Seems far-fetched,” she said. “Why don’t you just say you don’t want to get married?”

  “Let’s just say we want to take it slowly,” I said.

  “Slowly,” said Guleed. “You’re having kids!”

  “All the more reason to wait until they’re old enough to express an opinion,” I said, and Guleed snorted.

  “I’m going to hold you to that,” she said as we fetched up at the rear of the first artic.

  We’d brought a bolt cutter, but in any event the rear door was unlocked—although I had to perch on a narrow ledge along the back to get
it open. The container was only half full and my penlight illuminated a wall of all too familiar greasy gray-green plastic. As I climbed inside I sensed an equally familiar vestigium—the same rotting fish smell like a plateau de fruits de mer that had been left in the sun for three days straight.

  What appeared to be a solid wall of plastic wasn’t, of course. I could trace the outline of a mechanical torso, the lines where one drone’s wings fitted between another’s legs. It was a three-dimensional puzzle constructed out of drones—they seemed dormant at first, but as I got closer I heard a noise. A high-pitched fluttering buzz like the wings of a fly vibrating against a window pane.

  I estimated that half the length of the container was packed with sleeping drones. A solid forty cubic meters of the fuckers. I backed slowly out of the container and climbed down onto the gravel.

  “And?” asked Guleed.

  “We call everyone in,” I said.

  * * *

  —

  It took them an hour to arrive, which gave us plenty of time to check the other two containers. The middle one was empty but the third was completely packed.

  “What are they for?” asked Guleed, as we walked away even more briskly than we’d approached.

  “Nothing good,” I said.

  While we waited for Nightingale to arrive, Guleed ferreted out the site manager and extracted everything she knew about the warehouse.

  “Which was not much,” said Guleed. The building was leased by a company called ThisIsNotABanana, which we found out later was one of a series of shell companies designed to obscure the real owner, Terrence Skinner, and keep it at arm’s length from the Serious Cybernetics Corporation.

  “He did say that it had its own electrical substation,” said Guleed. “Although why they’d need one I don’t know, unless they’re growing dope or something.”

  Guleed hadn’t spent the last month embedded in the upper tech industry like I had, so I explained.

  “A lot of computers,” I said. “And their air conditioners.”

  “And for that they need a whole substation to themselves?”

  “A lot of computers.”

  “To do what?”

  Which was the same question Nightingale and Stephanopoulos asked when they rocked up with a couple of vans of TSG and the local duty inspector, who was there to make sure us Londoners didn’t do anything elitely metropolitan on his manor.

  I gave them most of the options, but left out Bitcoin mining. Because not only would the explanation of why that uses huge amount of power have taken about three hours, but also because I was a bit hazy on the details myself.

  I explained Plan A, which went down about as well as I expected.

  “Absolutely not,” said Nightingale, but I could see Stephanopoulos had given it more thought.

  “Peter’s right—it is what it is,” she said. “We have to try it his way in the first instance.”

  Nightingale gave me a narrow-eyed look.

  “If needs must,” he said. “But I want you to be cautious.”

  “Hey,” I said. “Cautious is my middle name.”

  “But your first name is Never Knowingly,” said Stephanopoulos. Which got all the laughs it deserved.

  * * *

  —

  But first we wanted a quick look at the Transit van parked outside, so I took Guleed. Or rather, given that she was a skipper, she supervised my initial approach.

  “You’re thinking the Print Shop?” she asked as we walked across the staff car park.

  “Why else would they use an antique?” I said.

  Something with no microprocessor to sand, and thus safe to use around high-intensity magic. At some point, I thought, we’re going to have to start tracking thefts of old vans—I mean, why else would anyone steal one?

  This specimen was well kept, with a recent paint job and unworn tires. We strolled up until the side of the van hid us from the main building and I peered in through the passenger side window. The interior trim was ragged, the seat covers torn and held together with duct tape. I craned my head to see over the seats into the back, but all I could make out was a rumpled lump.

  On really old model Fords you used to be able to open the doors with a house key, but unfortunately this particular one came from a more recent and less enlightened time. Still, on the off chance, I tried the sliding door in the side. And, to my surprise, it opened.

  Inside a tarpaulin was draped over a suspiciously cubed shape. While Guleed kept watch I lifted the tarp to reveal the faceted steel and brass corner of the Mary Engine. Judging from the scratching on the cast iron frame this one had seen some use recently. I leaned in and pressed my fingertips against the cool metal—the surface was greasy with light oil, and beneath that I sensed the creaking mechanical rocking motion of a Newcombe Steam Engine.

  And, behind that, a horribly familiar sensation like wriggling cilia and the stench of rotting shrimp.

  This was definitely the original Mary Engine, the one Skinner had brought over from the States, and if it was stashed out here in the van, what the fuck was in the warehouse?

  I snatched my hand away and slid the van door closed.

  “Did you bring your knife?” I asked Guleed.

  “They’re bound to have spotted us by now,” she said as she handed me a bone-handled fisherman’s clasp knife that she swore she only used for getting the stones out of horses’ hooves.

  “Can’t be helped,” I said, and carefully punctured first the front and then the rear left-hand tires. The trick is to turn the blade so it slips between the radials rather than cuts through them.

  I handed Guleed back her knife and she examined the blade critically.

  “Whatever happens,” I said, “we can’t lose this.” I pointed at the Mary Engine.

  Guleed nodded and put away her knife.

  “Good luck,” she said as I adjusted my suit jacket into respectability.

  “Right,” I said, suddenly dry-mouthed. “Let’s get on with it.”

  The main entrance was a pair of innocuous double doors, made of metal and painted with white enamel. A sign attached to the right-hand side said that visitors should use the intercom. This was a silver speaker grille and button recessed into the metal wall beside the door. There was no company logo or helpful name, not even a unit number to aid deliveries. Serves them right if their pizza never arrives, I thought.

  I pressed the button and, while I waited, I checked and counted at least three CCTV cameras covering the door.

  The only reason Seawoll and Nightingale were letting me try Plan A was because Plan B involved a protracted siege, and Plan C involved us going full Nightingale. And for that we’d need authorization from the Commissioner and possibly, since we were on Kent Police’s turf, the Home Office as well.

  There was a buzz, the door opened and I stepped through.

  Into a small antechamber with bare walls and ceiling of cemented concrete blocks; the air was close and unventilated and the only other break in the wall was another reinforced composite security door opposite the entrance. Written on the door in small unfriendly letters were the words: DON’T PANIC!

  And underneath: This door will not open until outer door is closed.

  There was no visible keypad, retina scanner, lock or even a doorbell, although two Perspex domes in the ceiling marked the presence of more CCTV cameras. Like the secret lift back at the SCC, the security here relied on someone inside letting you in.

  The entrance closed behind me with the clatter of electromagnetic deadbolts.

  Someone or something? I wondered.

  Whichever it was, they made me wait at least a minute in the dead air of the antechamber before the inner door buzzed and opened inwards. Lights flickered on, revealing a long corridor lined with rigid metal fencing. The roar of the heavy-duty air conditioning gave away the ro
om’s function—beyond the metal fences were rows of what looked like high-end music centers mounted on shelving units. These were what Everest and Victor would call HPC platforms—High Performance Computing. This was either a server farm or a data storage facility, the sort of thing City firms use to back up their data. At this level of computing, Victor had told me, you didn’t measure things in kilobytes or MIPS.

  “You have to assume they’re running the latest kit,” he said. “So you measure everything in kilowatts of IT load.”

  Hundreds of kilowatts, thousands in a room like this.

  And there was room for another floor above my head.

  There were gates through the fences halfway along the corridor. Locked, but again with no key or touchpad. I paused to watch the unblinking blue lights arrayed across the faces of the black boxes. Victor or Everest probably could have made a guess as to their make and purpose, but all I saw was an enormous magical accident waiting to happen.

  Skinner had made his fortune designing servers, and for all we knew the whole of London’s internet depended on these machines. One magical “incident” and it was good-bye Netflix, Pornhub and online shopping. And the economy would take the kind of hit that registers on the quarterly GDP figures.

  Which was why Plan A involved me walking in and having a chat with Skinner.

  The world is full of rooms like this, for data storage, server farms or internet backbones, although 70 percent of internet traffic passes through Loudoun County in Virginia. Reynolds says she thinks that’s so spooks from the NSA don’t have a long commute when installing yet another tap.

  I’d said that I was fairly certain that you didn’t use a long cable to tap the internet and she shrugged, and we waited a couple of seconds in case whoever was monitoring us could break into the Skype call and put us straight.

  The wall at the far end was covered in foam cut into egg-crate shapes to act as sound baffling. The wide door set into the wall was similarly covered, making it hard to spot from a distance. There was yet another press-button intercom which gave me a static shock when I used it.