“Our target’s name is John Cameron McAllister.” Mr Mac’s handsome head revolved in the centre of the squad room, the hol shimmering a little as I walked through it, eyes intent on the assembled Demons and analysts. “Aged forty-one. Graduated aged twenty-three with first class honours in Business Studies from Lorenzo City University, Yin Faculty. Aged twenty-nine he turned his back on a life of privilege and luxury to join Covert Ops during the war. Three commendations for bravery and thirty-two confirmed kills. Deserted shortly before the Langley Raid. These days he’s better known as Mr Mac, and if any of you haven’t heard of him you’re in the wrong job. I won’t list the known and suspected offences, since we don’t have all day. Suffice to say, chances are this is the biggest case you will ever work. This piece of shit has been allowed to run free for way too long. I want him, and you better want him too because none of us will rest until he’s in a cage.”
I turned and pointed to Janet. She gave a tentative wave as all eyes swung to her. “This is Dr Vaughn, our Special Investigator. She answers only to me and has full access to all case records. Anything she wants, she gets. I hope that’s understood because I’m not fond of repeating myself.” I scanned the audience, searching for any sign of anti-splice prejudice, finding none which probably just meant most of them were good at concealing their bigotry.
“OK,” I went on, replacing Mr Mac’s head with a scrolling time-line. “Intel on Mr Mac slowed to a trickle eight months ago. We know he spent much of the preceding year winning a war against the Arturo Cartel which consolidated his grip on the Upside Bliss trade. Since then all we have are rumours, which may indicate he’s enjoying the fruits of victory. Luckily the war gave us an in. Don Arturo’s body still hasn’t been found but rumour has it he was nailed to a recently harvested asteroid and thrown into a smelter still alive. After that his organisation went to pieces. Some capos tried to settle the hatchet with Mr Mac, which turned out to be a fatal miscalculation. He doesn’t do peace treaties. We know a few capos are still around and in hiding. Mr Mac will be looking for them which means we are too. Leyla, Timor, I want you working this angle. There’s a list of surviving Arturo goons on your smarts. When you find a live one, sit on him. We’ll put a subtle but enticing clue to his locale through the snitch network and grab whoever Mr Mac sends to finish the job.”
Leyla nodded, gaze bright and keen with anticipation. Promise of involvement in a major case like this was how I’d lured her away from the Robbery Squad. “Will do, boss. But whoever we grab isn’t going to talk. Mr Mac’s people never do.”
I glanced at Janet who gave an uncertain grin. “Hopefully, that won’t be an issue anymore,” I said. “The rest of you, it’s time to start grinding. Every intel report ever filed on Mr Mac will need to be re-examined. I want every bank account, address, contact ID mapped and cross-reffed. Look for nexus points, times when his people got sloppy and used the same smart twice. Mr Mac’s careful, but no one is infallible. Find me a way in.” I paused, making sure I met every pair of eyes in turn. “What happens to lazy Demons?” I asked.
“Lazy Demons fuck off and find another job,” they all intoned as one.
“You’ll find assignments on your stations. Get to it.”
“He likes old stuff,” I told Janet as she scribbled notes on a pad, using an actual pen and actual paper. I wondered why since she seemed incapable of forgetting anything. “Art, antiques, old books. Every time he moves base he takes his collection with him. I thought maybe this was something for you. The past is more your thing than mine.”
“Classical history isn’t art history,” she said. “But there is some crossover, and I have plenty of academic friends who can help. Does he have a favourite period? Renaissance, Romantic, Expressionist?” I saw her suppress a sigh at my baffled expression. “How old would you say his collection is?”
“Dunno. Only saw it once. Looked pretty old. Downside stuff, paintings and sculptures.”
“I’ll need details. Describe one thing as best you can.”
I thought back to the last time I’d been face to face with Mr Mac, in his office on Yang Thirty-Three when he set me on the path that ended in Choi’s death. The memory had a tendency to stir dark impulses and it was a few moments before I suppressed them enough to form a clear image of the various objets d’art.
“There was a statue on his desk,” I said. “Bronze. Some Jed in rags with a noose around his neck. Think he was holding something.”
Janet blinked and pulled her aged smart from the pocket of her combats. “Can’t be,” she muttered, running a hasty search. “This it?” she asked, holding out the smart to display a 2D.
“Looks the same,” I said, peering at the shiny figure. I could see that the object in his hands was a large key. “You know it?”
“The Jean d’Aire Second Maquette,” she said. “One of Rodin’s early studies for the Burghers of Calais. Stolen from the Brooklyn Museum of Art half a century ago. The UN Arts Council has a three million UA reward for information on its whereabouts.”
“Then I guess it fits the bill. Somewhere to start at least.”
“I’ll get on it.” She rose and went to the door. “Oh, your lady Demon, Leyla something Irish.”
“O’Keefe. What about her?”
“She’s in love with you.” She smiled as she closed the door. “Thought you should know.”
The analyst seemed tiny next to Joe, her head barely reaching his bicep, and depressingly young into the bargain. “This is Athena,” Joe said and I noticed how he had to usher her into the office. “From Imaging Analysis.”
“Sir,” she said, clearly fighting a stammer. “Chief Inspector, I mean. Uh, boss,” she added, voice dropping into a whisper.
“What have you got?” I asked. We were five hours in without much to show. I’d been replaying every vid and still capture of Mr Mac, a visual record that lasted all of six minutes and thirty-two seconds. An ability to avoid surveillance was one of his more aggravating gifts.
“Um, a sister,” she blurted, thrusting her smart at me. “Mr Mac’s sister.”
“He doesn’t have any siblings,” I said.
“He does. I think… I know. I mean, I’m pretty certain.”
I glanced at Joe who said, “Athena, why don’t you take the Chief Inspector through it from the beginning.”
“OK.” She began to fiddle with her smart, connecting to my terminal display and calling up the earliest known image of Mr Mac in adulthood. “From his graduation ceremony at Lorenzo U.,” she said. “The younger the face, the better the recognition algorithms like it, can get a clearer fix on the underlying bone structure. Joe, uh, Inspector Martell asked me to concentrate on Mr Mac’s Yin-side days. I came up with nothing we didn’t already know on the first pass so I started playing around with the parameters. Sometimes the search gear misses things if there’s a distorted or corrupted image. This time I got a hit.”
She displayed another image, an adolescent girl holding hands with a woman in her thirties, presumably her mother. They stood smiling outside the gate to some Yin-side mansion. The woman wore a uniform of some kind with her name stitched into the fabric. Lena. At first glance I didn’t find it particularly convincing. They were both dark haired whilst Mr Mac came from a long line of blondies, however, the set of the girl’s eyes was definitely familiar.
“Comes up as a forty-three percent match when the disparate age factor is taken into account,” Athena said. “But once I ran a check for familial similarity…” She hit an icon on her smart and a new readout flashed on screen, ‘Likelihood of familial relationship: 89%.’
“Who is she?” I said.
“Oksana Lenova,” Athena said. “Aged thirteen when this was taken according to the time-stamp on the image, which would make her thirty-three now. It was posted to her smart-wall with the caption ‘Me and mama at work.’ I ran a check on the mansion…”
“McAllister Towers, right?” I broke in.
“Well, officially it’s called Villa Splendido, but it was owned by McAllister Enterprises. Sold off when Mr Mac’s father died six years ago…”
“DNA match on the girl?”
“She has no criminal record so her bio-data is sealed. But given everything else… I mean, seems pretty, um, obvious, y’know.”
I stared at her until she blushed and looked away.
“Relax,” I told her, getting up and reaching for my coat. “I’m sold. This is fine work. You got an address for Miss Wrong Side of the Blankets?”
“She’s still living Yin-side. Cormorant Apartments, Yin-Twelve. Divorced, no kids. No job either as far as I can tell.”
“Makes me wonder who’s paying the bills.” I turned to Joe. “Keep an eye on things here. Dr Vaughn and I will go see if the prodigal bro’s been in touch recently.”