HICKSVILLE, LONG ISLAND

DECEMBER 3

Shortly after 8:00A .M. Romy stepped through the front door of the small two-story office building and made a show of looking at the directory. The vestibule was clean but showing some wear around the edges. Just like the building, which was typical of the boxy, clapboard style popular back in the seventies. The tenants listed - a dentist, a real estate office, an insurance agent - were typical of any suburban office building; all except the lessee of the small corner office on the second floor: a venture capital company she knew was worth billions.

Romy hurried up to the second floor and found the door to Suite 2-C. A strictly no-frills black plastic plaque spelled outMANASSAS VENTURES ,INCin small white letters. She waited outside the door until she heard someone climbing the steps, then she started knocking. A woman in a colorful smock appeared, heading for the dental office, and Romy turned to her.

"When does the Manassas Ventures staff usually arrive?"

The woman looked dumbfounded. "You know, I don't think I've ever seen anybody coming or going from that office."

That's because no one does, Romy thought. Zero had had the place under observation for weeks.

"Really?" Romy said, putting her hand on the doorknob and rattling it. "I've been trying to reach them by phone but no one returns my messages, so I thought I'd come over in person and - "

The door swung inward.

"Now isn't that something," the dental assistant said as she stepped forward for a peek at the interior. "They must've forgot to lock it."

Morning sunlight streamed through the sheer curtains behind an empty receptionist's desk and flared the dust motes dancing through the air. No shortage of dust here - the desktop sported a good eighth of an inch.

"Hello?" Romy said, stepping inside. The air smelled stale, musty. No one had opened a window for a long, long time. "Anybody home?"

"Good luck," the woman told Romy and started back toward her office.

"Thanks."

Romy had to act quickly. She glanced up, searching for the strand of monofilament she'd been told she'd find hanging from the central light fixture. There it was, a length of fine fishing line, barely visible.

Two of Zero's people had broken in over the weekend. They'd unlatched the door and rigged the fixture to drop when the fishing line was pulled.

The original plan had been to loosen the hinges on the door so that it would fall outward when Romy tugged on it. She would let it knock her down and claim a terrible back injury. But Patrick had vetoed the idea. An injury caused by the door might leave the landlord as the liable party rather than the tenant. And it was the tenant they were after.

The most open-and-shut scenario - he'd called itres ipso loquitor  - was to arrange for Romy to be "injured" by a tenant-installed fixture. After some reconnoitering, the fluorescent box in the ceiling over the reception area had received the nod.

Romy was supposed to pull the string and let it crash to the floor, then stagger out and collapse in the hall, pretending it had landed on her.

Pretend...she'd never been good at pretending. How was she supposed to slump to the floor out there and moan and groan about being hurt and have anyone buy it? And the Manassas people, when they heard about it they'd know that what had happened here was all a sham, a set-up designed to drag them into the legal system and expose their corporate innards. They'd respond with lawyers using every possible legal ploy to keep their secrets.

They'll play hide, we'll play seek. A game.

But this was no game to her. Romy was serious. She'd show them just how serious.

Acting quickly, before the dental assistant could unlock her office across the hall, Romy stepped under the fixture and yanked on the line.

Her cry of pain was real.