Alik bit back on a sigh. He liked Salovitz, he really did. The detective had seen enough of life’s dark side to know how things worked, the dirty political wiring underneath the city that powered things along so smoothly. Every time Alik turned up on a case, no matter how cruddy the given reason, Salovitz knew not to question it. But there were times when Alik thought Salovitz must have gotten his badge on the back of some positive discrimination bullshit for terminal dumbasses. “Look again. Tell me which way those footprints are heading.”

Salovitz glanced back out again. Then, “Holy crap!”

The footprints, which Alik had shown him, started at the stone balustrade and came toward the glass. One-way traffic.

“They came in from next door,” Alik said. “Pulled some pretty fine techno-acrobat shit to zipwire across from the neighboring balcony.”

“Okay,” Salovitz said. “I’ll get the precinct’s G7Turing to run checks on next door, ownership and access.”

“Good. Have forensics prioritize the balcony. Those prints are filling with snow, and Christ knows how it screws residual traces.”

“Sure.”

He went out to find his partner, Detective Bietzk. Alik turned to Nikolai Kristjánsson, a member of the forensics team, who was busy directing a line of microdrones that resembled snails. A dozen of them were sliding slowly over the carpet around the corpse, their molecular sensors mapping the particles they encountered.

Alik told his altme, Shango, to open a secure link to Kristjánsson. “Have you analyzed the bust yet?”

The way Kristjánsson’s gaze slid away from him reminded Alik of ancient high school jock/nerd confrontations—all very secret agent tradecraft, which Kristjánsson probably got off on. “Not yet. They’ve got me scooping residuals to see who was here.”

“I’m no expert, but maybe someone with a fuck-off shotgun? Get that equipment back to your lab and give me a report.”

“It’s not easy—”

“Do it.” Even from an angle, Alik could see Kristjánsson scowl. His official job was with the mayor’s Manhattan Forensic Agency, but friends of Alik’s Washington friends also had him on a retainer, which was why he’d been assigned to the case. Those same people had made it very clear to Alik that the attempted digital mischief was of immense importance. To them, the murders were an irrelevance. Glancing down at the blonde again, as the sheet was drawn back over her, Alik wasn’t so sure.

The apartment was a portalhome, owned by Kravis Lorenzo, a named partner in Anaka, Devial, Mortalo & Lorenzo (that original Lorenzo was Kravis’s father), a very high-end New York legal firm. So high-end it was cleared for ultra-one Pentagon contracts, which was what drew Washington’s attention. Earlier that night someone had tried using the portalhome’s secure link to the legal firm’s office to try to bust extremely secure Defense Department files.