Chapter 82

82

I fiddled with it. When I pushed in, what sounded like a latch gave way and the bookcase swung out on an unseen hinge.

Behind it was a steel door with a lock plate.

"The key is in my desk," Cushing said.

I went and found the key.

"You first, moron," I said, pulling Cushing to his feet.

The small room I unlocked was dark except for the light that came from several computer monitors on a desk. It was cold. Powerfully air-conditioned.

Then I saw why. Along the back wall were rows of computer servers on a rack. There were over a dozen of them.

I looked back at the screens on the desk. The monitors were huge, the size of televisions. On each were sixteen different screens in a grid.

They were surveillance cameras, I realized.

"No," I said in horror as I saw what was on them.

Because they didn't show hallways or common areas.

But rather, bedrooms and bathrooms and showers.

They were Peeping Tom surveillance cameras of students themselves in their rooms.

"Yes," he whispered. "This is it. This is my job."

"You have hidden cameras?" Colleen said. "You watch...the students? The kids?"

On one of the monitors, a girl turned in her sleep under a comforter.

The screens unnerved me. A real urge to start shooting them flared up. They made me feel filthy for just being there.

I turned to President Cushing.

And the screens weren't the only thing I wanted to shoot.

"You scumbag," I said, putting the barrel of the Glock to Cushing's head. "You filthy disgusting scumbag."

"The parents send their kids here," Colleen said. "And this is what you do? You watch them? You record them?"

"Do you know what Beckford College is?" Cushing said. "Its significance in the scheme of things?"

"No, please enlighten us," I said as I sat Cushing down at the desk and I shifted the barrel to between his eyes.

"Beckford is known among the very wealthiest of elite Americans as a minor Ivy. It is a place that the Park Avenue rich send their black sheep who like to party. My job—my real job—is to gather information on these sons and daughters of the rich in compromising positions."

"Record them?"

"Yes. Every inch of the students' dorms is covered with the latest in pin camera tech. We capture everything. Everything they say. Everything they do. The sex, the drugs, all of it."

"To get your rocks off," I said.

"For blackmail," Colleen said.

Cushing nodded.

"Precisely. Leverage. These children are from some of the richest families on earth. Stone and his people then use this blackmail on a multinational, global wealth–level industrial scale. For insider trading. Political favors.

"The night of Olivia's death, Frank had come up to collect some evidence on a Japanese student who is the son of the prime minister. He had raped a passed-out girl and Frank wanted to use the video right away."

"He would collect the blackmail himself?" Colleen said.

"Yes. All of this is CCTV. A hardwired non-internet system. Otherwise, it would get hacked. But it's not just blackmail. We bring in honey traps. Provide drugs. That's Travers's specialty," Cushing said, nodding at the security director.

No honor among thieves here , I noted.

"It starts, of course, with the admissions department. These students willingly hand over all sorts of personal information that proves invaluable to us once they arrive on campus. Not to mention the medical staff, the advisors, certain professors and resident assistants. We all work together to groom these kids for whatever Frank says. We have jackets on all of them."

"You deserve to die, you know that?" I said, digging the Glock into his cheek. "You should be thrown into a volcano. All of you."

"Well, if you want to do that, you better get some tour busses," Cushing said, "because it's not just us. Do you think we are the only school that does this? Frank is on the board of half of the Ivy League schools in New England and there are other Franks."

"You're going to pay for this," I said.

"I know," he said quietly.

When he began to whimper again, I felt at his dry cheeks.

"No tears. See, Colleen?" I said. "How do you like that. He makes the sounds but his cheeks are dry as a bone."