I, Alex Cross (Alex Cross 16)

For Teddy, it was definitely a night to celebrate. Ask any of these glitterati about the week’s headlines, and nine out of ten would have told the same story. Zeus was dead. A very bad man had done terrible things, and he’d paid the ultimate price for his indiscretions. It was the stuff of classics.

And like any good fairy tale, it was a lie only loosely based on truth. In fact, Zeus was right here among them, enjoying the lobster cocktail and champagne just like anyone else. Well, not exactly like anyone else. Teddy’s was a world where even the power elite kissed his butt on a regular basis, and people paid good money just to be in the same room with him. If that wasn’t a privilege worth preserving, he didn’t know what was.

Still, there was the matter of “the urges.” To screw beautiful girls. To see them in pain. To kill. Whether or not he could keep “the urges” in check now was yet to be seen, but the timing, and the opportunity to leave it all behind, could not have been better. He was in the clear now. He’d been given a second chance.

So Teddy pushed all those hot thoughts way to the back of his mind, where they belonged for now, and resumed working the room as only he could. This was pure Teddy, Teddy at his best, Teddy in his element.

He chatted briefly with Meryl Streep and John McLaughlin at the bar. Complimented the House Speaker on his recent Meet the Press slam dunk interview. Congratulated Patti LuPone, one of the night’s honorees, for all of her stunning achievements—whatever they might have been. And he kept moving, kept moving, kept moving, never staying too long in the same place, never wearing out a welcome, never revealing a thing about himself. That was the beauty and allure of the cocktail hour.

Eventually, he came upon Maggie in the Hall of Nations, schmoozing the new Democratic governor from Georgia and his greyhound-faced wife, whose name Teddy could never remember.

“Speak of the devil.” Maggie hooked her arm into his. “Hello, darling. We were just talking about you. Douglas, Charlotte, and I.”

“Hello, Doug, Charlotte. All good things, I hope,” he said, and the others laughed as though it were expected of them, which it was.

“Your wife was just telling us you’re quite the equestrian,” the governor said.

“Ah,” Teddy answered. “My little-known secret. I have so few these days.

I don’t like those to get out.”

“We’ll have to have you down to the farm sometime. We’ve got some beautiful trails around our summer place.”

“That sounds absolutely terrific—the farm,” he said, telling the kind of lie that never hurt anyone. “And the president and I will have to have you overnight at the White House one of these days.” He looked over at Maggie, smiling placidly. “Isn’t that right, sweetheart?”

Chapter 109

DRIVING IN FROM the airport that night, Ned Mahoney and I were part of an emergency conference call that had been pulled together while we were still in the air. Theodore “Teddy” Vance was known to be with his wife, the president of the United States, at the Kennedy Center Honors. We had him. The question on the table was how to proceed.

Most of the resistance was from Secret Service, who ironically had the least say in this decision, except maybe for me. Their deputy director of investigations, Angela Riordan, was doing most of the talking.

“We’re certainly not going to put up with any of this habeas grabbus crap, understand? This is the First Gentleman of the United States we’re talking about. If the Bureau even thinks about crossing our security line, he’ll be gone before anyone gets inside the building. Do I need to repeat myself?”

“We have no issue with that, Angela.” This was Luke Hamel, the Bureau’s assistant director in charge on the case before it got moved to Charlottesville. We also had the FBI director himself, Ron Burns, listening in with a few of their people from legal. “No one’s talking arrest yet,” Hamel went on. “We just want to speak with him. He’s a person of interest at this point.”

“Then there’s no reason it can’t wait until tomorrow.” I recognized the slight accent of Vance’s personal attorney, Raj Doshi, who was driving in from Maryland as we spoke.

“Actually, there’s a very good reason,” I said. “People have already died under this cover-up. Not doing anything tonight means risking more lives, and the fact that we’re having this conversation only increases that risk.”

“Excuse me—Detective Cross, was it?” Riordan asked. “We’re not going to make tactical decisions here based on your gut feelings or your paranoia.”

“With all due respect, you have no idea if I’m being paranoid or not,” I said. I didn’t want to put too fine a point on it, but Ned Mahoney and I were holding more cards here than anyone else on the call.

Ultimately, I think Riordan recognized her lack of options, and she agreed to pull Vance in for questioning.

When Doshi insisted the interview take place off site, the FBI had no objection to the demand. They quickly settled on the Eisenhower Building.

“This is Cross again,” I said into the speaker. “Can I assume Dan Cormorant is already on duty at the Kennedy Center?”

“Why do you want to know?” It was Agent Silo Ridge this time; I hadn’t even realized he was on the line.

“Cormorant’s been my Secret Service contact on Zeus,” I said. “I’d be surprised if he didn’t have information we could use.”

The full truth was that I had some questions of my own for Cormorant, and I wanted to see him face-to-face before I said anything I might regret later.

They never answered me, but it didn’t matter. I’d find out soon enough. I could see the Kennedy Center looming straight ahead.

Chapter 110