I, Alex Cross

Once he'd been satisfied that everything else was in superb working order, Nicholson continued up to his locked office on the third floor. This was the one area of the house he kept off limits to both the guests and the help.

Inside, he poured a glass of seven-hundred-dollar-a-bottle Bollinger – a gift to himself from the client's stock – and sat down. It had been a hectic day; now he could finally relax.

Well, not really relax, but at least there was the Bollinger.

Two large flat-screen monitors dominated the desk in front of him. He powered up the system and typed in a long password.

Rows of thumbnail images tiled open like dominos across one of the two screens.

At first glance, they looked like miniature still lifes, each one from a different area of the house – foyer, mezzanine, guest suites, massage rooms, dungeon, screening rooms. There were thirty-six in all.

Nicholson stopped for just a moment to watch the duplicitous Katherine in one of the changing rooms, wearing just a thong, breasts heaving, fussing at her ru

He clicked on an image of the driveway in front of the house and dragged it so that it jumped screens to open full-size on the other monitor. A time signature began to count out at the bottom.

He clicked once more, on a red triangular button in the border, for "record."

The first cars were just pulling in. The party was about to start.

"Let the fucking begin – mind and otherwise. Whatever their little hard-ons desire."

Chapter 29

BY ELEVEN THIRTY, the very expensive and exclusive Blacksmith Farms was in full swing. Each of the guest suites was occupied, the massage rooms, the dungeon, even the mezzanine was hopping with hot sex and related shenanigans – girl-boy, girl-girl, boy-boy, girl-boy-girl, whatever the customer wished.

The entire house had been booked for a bachelor party that evening: five pretty-boy escorts, thirty-four girls, twenty-one very horny guests, a hundred-and-fifty-thousand-dollar fee, already transferred into the club's numbered account.

The host – and best man – was well known to Nicholson: he was Temple Suiter, a partner with one of DC's most prestigious and well-co

Nicholson had done his homework, as always.

Benjamin Painter, the bachelor of honor, was about to marry into one of Washington 's dynasty families. Next week, he'd be calling the senior senator from Virginia Dad, and one of DC's most beloved plastic-surgery victims Mom. He was also widely believed to be gearing up for a Senate run of his own, all of which made Mr. Painter quite valuable – in Nicholson's way of viewing the world, anyway.

Right now, the future groom and senator was sprawled on a club chair in suite A. Two of the youngest, prettiest, and least threatening girls, Sasha and Liz, were slowly undressing each other on the bed while a new one, Ana, worked him over through the cotton of his yuppie boxers. The threesome looked to be in their midteens, but all were of legal age. Nineteen, to be exact. Barely legal.

Nicholson ran a finger across his touchpad to adjust the image. The cameras were wireless, pan-tilt-zoom units the size of pencil erasers. This particular one was embedded in the room's smoke detector.

A microphone, no bigger than a match head, was hardwired through the ceiling and into the chandelier directly over the king-size bed, where Sasha was just sitting up, smiling blithely, cooing.

She straddled Liz, both of them naked now except for expensive-looking costume jewelry, their slinky black cocktail dresses in tiny heaps on the floor.

Sasha reached across to the nightstand, opened the drawer, and pulled out a thick flesh-colored phallus. She held it up and waggled it for Benjamin Painter to see. His eyes widened appropriately.

"Would you like me to do Liz?" she asked, smiling demurely. "I'd like to do Liz. I'd really like to do Liz."

"That's great," Ben said, as if praising a useful underling at his father's firm. "Get her ready for me, Sasha. And you -" He put his hand on the top of Ana's head as she knelt in front of him. "You just take your time, Ana. Slow and steady wins the race, am I right?"

"Oh, I wouldn't have it any other way, Benjamin. I'm enjoying this too."

If Mr. Painter was busy giving Nicholson excellent video material to work with, his good friend from their days together at NYU Law, Mr. Suiter, was all but writing a blank check.

Suiter had two of the prettiest Asian girls, Maya and Justine, in the spa. Maya was lying across the tiled soaking-tub platform, on her back, with her small, shapely legs wiggling in the air – while Suiter drilled her furiously. She seemed to be enjoying it, which was doubtful, since Maya and Justine lived together and were a couple – recently married in their home state of Massachusetts.

Justine, in fact, was just now providing "the money shot." She stood over Suiter, knees slightly bent, gripping a hold bar on the ceiling and letting nature take its course down the client's shoulders and back.

Suiter panted out in time with his own thrusts, his voice rising toward climax. "That's right… That's right… That'sa girl, that'sa fucking girl."

Nicholson rolled his eyes in disgust and muted the mating sounds. He didn't need to hear this idiot's twaddle right now. Later in the week, he'd pick out a nice thirty-second clip to send to Mr. Suiter at his home office. Something with full frontal and choice words always seemed to do the job best.

Because as much as these men were willing to pay for getting spanked on a Saturday night, or even just to fuck a woman who wouldn't ask what they were thinking about afterward, Tony Nicholson knew that they were always – always – willing to pay even more for the privilege of keeping those dirty little secrets to themselves.

All of them – except Zeus.

Chapter 30

"WHAT HAVE YOU got?"

"License DLY 224, a dark blue Mercedes McLaren. Leased to a Temple Suiter."

"The lawyer?"

"Presumably. Who else would it be? Guy's got more money than God."

Carl Villanovich put the camera down and rubbed his eyes vigorously. It had been three straight nights of surveillance in the woods of Blacksmith Farms, and he was stone-cold sick of the duty.

He unfolded a tripod from his pack and mounted the camera to give himself a break. The image played on a laptop next to him as he zoomed out for a long shot of the house exterior.

The place was huge, limestone from the look of it, with three-story columns in front. It had probably been a plantation house at one point. There was a converted barn in the back and several other outbuildings, all of them dark tonight.

"Here comes another one."

His partner, Tommy Skuba, fired off several shots with a high-speed digital SLR as a wine red Jaguar coupe came rushing out of the woods. Villanovich went in tight on the Jag's license number when it swung around the oval loop in front of the house.

"Got that?" he asked.

"Got it," came the voice on his headset. Command center was seventy-five miles away in Washington, watching everything in real time.

There was no valet out front. The new arrival parked himself and rang the bell. Almost instantly, a tall, gorgeous black woman in a shimmery dress answered the door, smiling, and let him right in.

"Skuba, stay on the windows."

"I know, I know. Doin' my best to make Steven Spielberg proud. Jaguar must be a regular."