Bietzk was already there when Alik arrived, along with a couple of sergeants he recognized from the portalhome. The precinct’s senior forensic technician, Rowan El-Alosaimi, had claimed one desk, assembling data coming in from the sensors the Forensics Agency team had deployed.
Alik had barely got through the door when the stage lit up with a 3-D layout of the portalhome. They couldn’t do it to scale; the rooms beyond the hubhall would have overlapped. The corpses started to materialize.
“Anything on the Lorenzos?” Salovitz asked.
“Not yet,” Bietzk said. “I’m on to Connexion Security. They’re going to send us their metrohub logs. Meanwhile, I’m running a continuing global ping on their altmes. No response yet. They’re still off grid.”
“We’re getting the DNA results in,” Rowan said. “There are some matches from the general medisure database and three already in the Justice Department POI list.”
“Splash them,” Alik told her.
Tags flipped up over the corpses. Shango interfaced with the stage, and his tarsus lenses magnified the data.
The scalped New York broad was Lisha Khan. According to Bureau records she was a midlevel soldier for a New York syndicate run by one Javid-Lee Boshburg, who’d carved himself a territory from South Brooklyn all the way down to Sheepshead Bay, thanks to an income from narcotics fabrication and distribution, along with a half dozen clubs and plenty of protection. He trafficked girls in from across North and South America, with Lisha Khan helping to keep them in order.
Mr. Shotgun on the Moon: Otto Samule. A lieutenant for Rayner Grogan, whose territory was a tumor bruising the citizens of western Queens, with ties to technology unions across the city, as well as standard-issue interests in clubs and land development enterprises. According to the NYPD gang task force, he also ran a couple of crash crews who went through high-end apartments like a locust swarm when the owner was out. Alik nodded in satisfaction at how that fitted with what they’d found in the Lorenzo portalhome.
That left—
The Cold Martian: Duane Nordon. Another known associate of Javid-Lee.
Hacked Off: Perigine Lexi. Senior lieutenant for Javid-Lee.
Paris Dawn: Koushick Flaviu, on Rayner Grogan’s payroll, an inseparable buddy of Otto Samule; the two of them were known to work together most of the time.
“Now we’re getting somewhere,” Alik decided. “Grogan versus Boshburg.”Except…Otto Samule and Perigine Lexi are on opposing teams, so why the hell did they have the same type of custom-built shotgun?”
“We don’t know the shotgun next to Lexi’s body was his,” Salovitz said. “Maybe he grabbed it off one of Grogan’s people?”
“Hmm.” Alik wasn’t convinced.
Forensic files started to splash across his lenses. Koushick Flaviu and Otto Samule both had sand on their shoes, matching the Maldives island beach. Equally, Lisha Khan, Duane Nordon, and Perigine Lexi all had trace water on their soles indicating they had invaded the portalhome via the Central Park West balcony.
Salovitz stood with hands on hips, watching the data points rising across the stage as Rowan fed in more and more results. The deaths had all occurred within five minutes of each other, approximately eleven o’clock at night. “And at least one of the Rayner crew escaped,” Salovitz beefed. He turned to Bietzk. “We need a full list of associates for both crews.”
A secure file from Kristjánsson splashed across Alik’s lens. He cleared it for the case office, and it splashed into the stage.
“Koushick was performing the secure network hack,” Bietzk said, reading the new data. “His residuals were all over the node we pulled out of the Central Park West utility room.”
Salovitz turned to Alik. “Do you think that’s why Mr. Shotgun took his head off?”
“None of this was a warning, it was straight-out slaughter. They all knew there was no way out other than over the other team’s bodies.”
“Find out what kind of grudge match Javid-Lee and Rayner have going on,” Salovitz told Bietzk. “If there’s nothing on record, get the gang task force out of bed and see what whispers there are. I need some traction here.”
Shango reported that the Lorenzo diaries had been accessed. “Got something for you,” Alik said, and sent the files across the police case link. Both Kravis and Rose’s diaries had the same entry for the previous day: Palm Beach with Niall and Belvina Kanoto, on their yacht.
Shango called Niall Kanoto.
It took a while to get a response. Niall’s altme was set for zero-interruption, which Alik’s Bureau authority overrode. He eventually answered, audio only.
“Yes?” It was a puzzled voice coming out of the office speakers.
“Niall Kanoto?”
“Who is this?”
“Special Agent Monday, FBI. Please access your altme call data certificate for authentication.”
“Yeah, yeah, sure. You’re FBI. What the hell do you want? Do you know what time it is?”
“I’m trying to locate Kravis Lorenzo and his family. Are they with you?”
“What is this? Is Krav in trouble?”
“Answer the question please, sir. Where is Kravis Lorenzo?”