Nick had to get back into character now or he would endanger not only himself but Charity.

He breathed like when he sniped. Long, calm breaths, guaranteed to drop his heart rate ten beats per breath and assumed an expression so bland it was as if he were alone in the room.

He nodded at Worontzoff’s hands. “No problem, sir. I’m very pleased to meet you. Charity’s told me so much about you.”

Worontzoff turned to Charity. “Have you now, my dear?” He placed his claw of a hand on her forearm.

Nick had goose bumps so thick the hairs on his forearm brushed against his shirtsleeve at the expression on Worontzoff’s face when he looked at Charity.

Nick’s instinct—hot, immediate, primordial—was to attract attention away from Charity, the way a mother bear lures a hunter away from the den where the cubs are sleeping. Look away from her, fuckhead! Look at me instead!

“Yeah.” Nick raised his voice a little, enough to carry. Enough to make Worontzoff instinctively look at him. “She said you were like a father to her. It’s really nice of you to let me tag along tonight, though to tell you the truth, I don’t know much about classical music. I’ll let Charity tell me what’s going on.”

He grinned, clueless businessman mainly interested in the woman whose waist he clasped. Tightly.

“Yes, indeed.” Worontzoff’s gaze fixed on Nick’s hand at Charity’s waist, then rose to his face. He nodded gravely. It wouldn’t have been out of place at an imperial court. “Well, all that remains is for me to wish you a pleasant evening, then. I hope you enjoy the music, Mr. Ames. Charity.”

He walked away, the emperor who’d summoned them to his court.

The plan had been for Nick to wander the house. The palatial mansion was too old for its blueprints to be on record. They had a general idea of the layout, but Nick’s task was to explore as much as he could.

A tuxedo ruled out a pen camera. He had a camera built-in to his wristwatch. They’d download the images in the van while Nick drew the floor plan of what he’d managed to see. Maps were his specialty.

So now what he needed to do was wander, but at the same time he was reluctant to leave Charity. He found a big group of boring-looking men and a few women discussing presidential politics and left her with them.

“Bathroom break,” he whispered into her ear. “Be right back. Don’t move.”

She smiled up at him. Okay, she mouthed.

Nick checked each guy in the circle in turn, looking them in the eyes, sending the subliminal message—Watch out for her—and made for the back of the room.

He was good at scouting terrain. Their big break in the Gonzalez case had come when he broke into Guillermo’s office at midnight for the tenth time and hit the jackpot. Ten bills of lading where almost a ton of cocaine was going to be traded for ten thousand military-issue rifles, which the same night were going into the hands of Somali rebels, with a neat 100 percent markup.

The bills of lading told them what, where, and when and the Unit’s elite team had observed the first deal, confiscating the cocaine the next day, and had taken down the terrorists involved in the second deal.

Two for one. Head office had been ecstatic.

But making like a ghost through Guillermo’s household had been easy. The tone of an enterprise is set at the top. Guillermo had been almost totally without self-control and the nights he wasn’t shit-faced on tequila, he was stoned on his own product. The guards were the same.

Getting past them had been a piece of cake.

That was a 180 degrees from here, where the guards weren’t half stoned. They were sober and vigilant and everywhere.

Nick had barely crossed the threshold of the room when a servant came up. “May I help you, sir?” he asked in accented English.

Nick rocked back on his heels and put his hands in his pockets, jiggling some change. Making sure his watch face was exposed and focused on the man.

“Yeah.” He looked around admiringly. “Huge house. Beautiful, too. Lots of artwork.” He grinned foolishly and leaned forward, as if imparting a secret. “Looking for the bathroom, you know. Can you tell me where to find one?”

There. He had the guy on video now, full face. If the goon was wanted anywhere in the free world, the face would be matched up to a name.

The man inclined his head gravely. “Down the corridor, last door on the right, sir.”

“Great,” Nick said cheerfully. He could turn the corner, see what other rooms there were. He stepped forward and found himself staring into the man’s eyes, steely dark gray. Unblinking. Unyielding.

He’d just turned himself into a brick wall and Nick couldn’t get through without exposing himself.

“Allow me to show you the way, sir.” The man turned without waiting for an answer and walked ahead.

O-kay. That’s the way they were playing it. Nobody was to be left alone to wander the house. Not even for a second.

It might just be to guard against theft. God knows there was enough to steal. The place made Judge Prewitt’s house look like a Brazilian favela.

Spotlit antique vases on stands, paper-thin silk Persian rugs, silk tapestries, the odd Monet and Picasso…very civilized, indeed. The abode of a man of discernment and learning. The kind of house money alone couldn’t buy

The whole place gave Nick the heebie-jeebies, a sense of discomfort so great that for a second there, he thought he’d throw up.

Each item he saw was paid for in untold blood and suffering. Every stick of furniture, the walls full of books and paintings, everything there was the fruit of crime, bought with some victim’s body. Nick felt exactly as he’d felt in Guillermo’s house—as if he were walking over human bones.

Without lifting his head, out of his peripheral vision he saw tiny security cameras embedded in the ceiling moldings every five feet. In the bathroom, forcing himself to squeeze a few drops of piss out of his dick, he saw another.

There was no question of going roaming and no question of planting bugs. He was going to get a glimpse of a big receiving room, the bathroom, and, presumably, the room where the music was going to be played. And that was it.

When Nick emerged from the bathroom, the guy didn’t even pretend he wasn’t waiting for him. Wordlessly, he followed Nick back into the room still buzzing with upper-class ladies and gentlemen getting a high on proximity to literary greatness and champagne.

Veuve Cliquot, no less.

Nick couldn’t indulge in even half a glass. Not for security reasons—actually, not drinking a drop in an assembly like this one drew more attention and would compromise the mission more than getting shit-faced—but because the acid roiling in his stomach wouldn’t let him drink a drop of the bubbly. He’d just throw it up, and wouldn’t that be great for an undercover agent?

Nick barely recognized his own body. Danger didn’t freak him out, didn’t make him sweat or fill his stomach up with acid. Danger focused him, made him bright and hard, cool and controlled. Iceman.

Not now. He had a bad case of the jitters, for the first time in his life. The signals he was getting from the outside world—the armed guards everywhere, the cameras—weren’t doing it. Those signals just confirmed he was dealing with criminals. What was messing with him so badly was intangible, a constant buzzing vibe he found it impossible to ignore, and it had to do with Charity’s presence here.

Worontzoff had used the time in which he was outside the room to herd Charity away from the other guests and into a secluded corner. Nick saw them immediately, the instant he crossed the threshold, his eyes turned like a magnet to her.

Charity standing close to the wall with Worontzoff, his back to the crowd, cutting her off from everyone. Charity wasn’t reading it that way at all. She was smiling up at him, talking animatedly, that lovely face pink with excitement.