The Green And The Gray

47

Across the broad balcony something popped into a cloud of white smoke; and the next thing Roger knew Fierenzo had hauled him to his feet, nearly wrenching his left shoulder out of its socket in the process, and was dragging him across the balcony toward the door they'd just come in through.

"What—?"

"Close your eyes and hold your breath," the detective snapped, tightening his grip and picking up his pace.

And then it belatedly clicked, and Roger took one last quick breath and squeezed his eyes shut as he felt the coldness of the cloud wash over him. They hit the door running, Fierenzo slamming it open and pulling Roger through.

The next minute was a flurry of echoing footsteps and massive disorientation as Roger ran blindly down the empty corridor with only Fierenzo's hand on his arm to guide him. Even with his eyes closed he could feel them starting to tingle and sting. His nostrils felt the same way, and he wondered uneasily what would happen when he finally couldn't hold his breath any longer and was forced to inhale. He had no idea what kind of gas the Greens had used, but if he was incapacitated now it would all be over. The Greens and Grays would have their war, with New York City squarely in the middle of it.

They slowed slightly to turn a corner, then picked up speed again. Roger's chest was beginning to ache from the strain of holding his breath, and he had that creepy sensation that any second now Fierenzo would accidentally slam him full-tilt into a wall or janitor's cart. They'd surely already passed the elevator by now—

"In here," Fierenzo said suddenly, his voice sounding oddly muffled. His hand veered Roger to the right, and there was a hollow thud as the detective shoved a door open and pulled him inside a room.

They ran a few more paces, and Roger noted that the echo in here seemed different.

Fierenzo jerked him to a halt. "Hold still," he ordered.

And before Roger could even guess what he had in mind, there was the sound of a faucet being cranked on, and a spray of cold water washed over his face, splashing across his eyes and up his nose.

He gasped in surprise, sputtering and coughing as some of the water got into his open mouth and tried to go down the wrong way. "Hold still—I'm trying to clean you off," Fierenzo said, letting go of his arm. "Get rid of that jacket."

Roger nodded, and started stripping it off. He was midway through the procedure when the spray stopped. "Okay, open your eyes," Fierenzo said.

Carefully, Roger eased his eyes open. Fierenzo was just pulling a gas mask away from his own face, sniffing cautiously at the air. "You okay?" the detective asked.

Roger gave a couple of experimental blinks and took a careful breath. There was an unpleasant tingle in the air, but it didn't seem to be affecting him any worse than some of the hay fever attacks he'd had as a child. "I think so," he confirmed.

"Good," Fierenzo said, dropping the mask into the next sink over and pulling off his own jacket.

"Give your face another rinse and then shut it off."

"Right," Roger said leaning down and throwing double handfuls of water into his face. "We don't seem to be doing very well out there," he commented.

"We're getting our butts kicked," Fierenzo retorted. "Time to bring in the artillery."

"Right." Roger shook the excess water from his hands, and grabbed a paper towel from the dispenser by the sink. Wiping them dry, he lifted his left hand to his cheek and twitched his little finger.

"Jonah?"

"Right here," Jonah's voice came promptly. "You guys aren't doing so well down there."

"Never mind us," Roger said. "Are you in position?"

"We're ready," the other said grimly. "You're sure you don't want us to target the Warriors?"

"You want peace, or don't you?" Roger countered. "Just follow the plan."

There was a faint sigh. "Right. Here goes."

Roger lowered his hand. "They're on it."

"Then I guess it's show time," Fierenzo said. "Unless you want to take a minute and tell me what exactly this grand scheme of yours is."

Roger shook his head. "No time," he said. "I need to get out there before Nikolos comes up with a counterattack."

"You sure that's all of it?" Fierenzo asked, his eyes boring into Roger's face.

"I know this will work," Roger said, keeping his voice steady. "Just give me a chance."

Fierenzo's lip twitched, but he nodded. "You'd just better be right," he warned, picking up the gas mask and handing it over. "Here you go. Knock 'em dead."

The first of the backup cops had reached the corners of the buildings and were preparing to sidle around them when the river to Caroline's left exploded in a plume of water.

She twisted around to look as the spray fell ponderously down again, some of it drifting onto the shore. "What was that?" she gasped. "Are they shelling us?"

"Hardly," Sylvia bit out, and it seemed to Caroline that her voice had suddenly gone dark and cold.

"The fools. What in the world do they think they can accomplish?"

Another plume of water burst into the air, this one from much closer to the yacht. "What are you talking about?" Caroline asked, her heart pounding in her ears. "Who is it?"

"Who do you think?" Sylvia said contemptuously. "The Grays."

Caroline stared at her. "But you said they were all somewhere else."

"Most of them are," Sylvia said, stepping to the side of the wheelhouse and peering upward at the buildings. "Unless we're being attacked by children, there can't be more than three or four of them at the most." She lifted a hand. "Of course. Jonah McClung."

"Who?"

"The Gray who snatched Melantha from Riverside Park last Wednesday," Sylvia said. "Halfdan was able to backtrack him and his brother Jordan, and was kind enough to share that information with Cyril." She nodded upward. "Apparently, they're still in the rescuing business."

Another geyser burst into the air. "What are you going to do?" Caroline asked.

"What do you think?" Sylvia retorted. "I'm going to bring them down."

"And kill them?"

"I don't have time for finesse, Caroline," Sylvia said patiently. "You see those blue-gray clouds over on the balconies?"

The tear gas clouds did look a little different now, she saw. In fact, they seemed to be dissipating before her eyes. "Catalytic neutralizer," Sylvia identified it. "They've given up on the tear gas and are clearing it away, probably in preparation for trying something new. Unfortunately, that also means improved visibility all around, which will make it even more risky to bring our Gray snipers down in a controlled fall. We can't afford to let the cops see them hanging onto the side of a building."

"But they haven't hurt anyone," Caroline pleaded. She'd only met this Jonah briefly, but nevertheless her heart was instantly on his side. Maybe Roger was right about her and underdogs. "Those are just warning shots."

"Warning shots that are drawing far too much attention," Sylvia pointed out. "They might even scare the police into bringing in heavy reinforcements or doing something equally stupid." She looked out the wheelhouse window again, and Caroline could sense her giving new orders to her Warriors—

"Nikolos!" a distant voice called faintly across the plaza.

Caroline felt her breath catch in her lungs. The voice was distant and muffled, possibly by a gas mask or other protective gear. But even so, she had no doubt as to whose voice it was. "Roger," she whispered, her eyes darting back and forth as she looked frantically around for him.

She found him standing near one of the entrances to the Winter Garden, surrounded by a tight knot of half a dozen people, all of them wearing gas masks, at least one of them clearly having some kind of argument with him. "Somebody over there seems to be wasting his time," Sylvia commented beside her.

"Roger doesn't like confrontations," Caroline said, automatically coming to her husband's defense.

"I wasn't talking about Roger," Sylvia said. "He's doing just fine. I was referring to the other man."

"Which other man?" Caroline asked as the air around her head buzzed with Green communication.

"The large one, Police Lieutenant Cerreta," Sylvia said, her tone thoughtful. "He says he's not allowing any civilians into a combat zone, period. Roger is insisting right back—"

She broke off, chuckling. "What?" Caroline demanded.

"He's insisting that with the gang members vanished from the scene—which I presume he knows full well that we aren't—that there is no combat zone anymore. Clever."

Another figure emerged from one of the doors beside the Winter Garden and crossed to the group.

"Well, well," Sylvia said. "Detective Fierenzo has joined the fray."

"On whose side?" Caroline asked, fascinated in spite of herself by Sylvia's ability to eavesdrop at this distance. Clearly, one of her Warriors must be within earshot of the conversation.

"Not surprisingly, he's on Roger's," Sylvia told her. "I don't know how effective he'll be, though. He seems to be in a certain amount of hot water himself."

"He disappeared right after the Warriors confronted him outside his precinct house and obtained the sketches," Nikolos spoke up.

Caroline looked around in mild surprise. Nikolos had been so quiet she'd almost forgotten he was there. He was crouched on the deck beside a gently snoring Mr. Galen, his hand resting on the sleeping man's shoulder. "Jonah and Jordan rescued him," Nikolos went on, "then took him into hiding while he recovered. Apparently, he never bothered to check in with his superiors afterward."

"Cerreta's displeasure is certainly colorful," Sylvia commented, frowning suddenly. "Nikolos, how are your eyes?"

"Still reasonably good," the other said, stepping to her side. "Where?"

"Inside the Winter Garden, back up on the steps," she said, pointing. "Is that Velovsky? None of my Warriors has a clear view."

Nikolos craned his neck. "It certainly looks like him," he agreed slowly. "I wonder what he's doing here."

"I'm sure Roger could tell you," Caroline said. "Why not ask for him to be sent over?"

Sylvia looked at her in surprise. "Why should I?"

"Because he's in charge of this whole thing," Caroline said. "At least, the Gray part of it."

"What makes you think that?" Nikolos asked.

Caroline gestured toward the river. "The warning shots have stopped," she pointed out. "Whoever's up there is waiting for Roger to make his move."

"Ridiculous," Nikolos growled.

"Not at all," Caroline said, her eyes on Sylvia. "And under the circumstances, I'd think a good Command-Tactician would want to hear him out."

"I've already told you that you can't manipulate me that way," Sylvia said mildly. But her voice was thoughtful as she gazed past Caroline's shoulder at the distant confrontation. "On the other hand, you do have a point," she went on. "Fine. Let's see what he has to say."

Caroline turned to see a Warrior emerge from one of the trees at the south end of the plaza and stride toward the cluster of people. He'd gotten three or four steps before anyone noticed, and then a half dozen machine guns abruptly snapped up to point at him. Ignoring the weapons, he walked to within a handful of paces of the group and stopped. "I'm still amazed at how easy it is to take you people by surprise," Sylvia said, shaking her head.

Caroline shrugged. "We're only human."

"One of your many failings," Sylvia agreed. "It's apparently easy to run you out of ideas, too. Having failed to come up with anything else to do, they're going to let him come talk to us."

Roger had detached himself from the group, and with the Warrior at his side he headed across the plaza. Caroline watched him, suddenly and rather irrationally wondering how she looked after three days in the same clothing. He walked down the steps and onto the dock, where the Warrior took the lead and gestured him to the wheelhouse. Caroline stood where she was, feeling suddenly more nervous than she had at the height of the battle.

And then the wheelhouse door opened, and Roger stepped inside, his eyes flicking around the cramped space and quickly coming to rest on her. For a moment he stood where he was, and she had the sense that he was fighting a battle with the dignity of the situation.

Dignity lost. A second later, he had taken two quick steps across the wheelhouse, and she found herself being squeezed tightly in his embrace. "Are you all right?" he whispered in her ear.

"I'm fine," she whispered back, clutching him just as hard in return, tears of relief welling up in her eyes. "You?"

"I'm okay," he assured her. He held her another moment; then, almost unwillingly, he slackened his grip and turned to the others in the room. "Hello, Nikolos," he greeted the other, his voice gravely controlled. "Sylvia. I appreciate you seeing me like this."

"Actually, it was Caroline's idea," Nikolos said, straightening up from the deck and giving Roger a long, measuring look. "She seems to think you might have something useful to say to me."

"She's right," Roger agreed, stepping slightly away from Caroline but keeping a grip on her hand.

"I'm here to tell you that if you keep this up, you're going to lose."

"Really," Nikolos said, a touch of amusement in his voice. "What makes you think that a handful of bumbling Humans and a couple of Grays skulking at the top of a building are even going to slow us down?"

"A couple of reasons," Roger said. If he was surprised that they knew that there were only two Grays out there, he didn't show it. "Point number one: as long as I'm in here with you and the police maintain their perimeter, you're effectively trapped."

"Nonsense," Nikolos said. "The Warriors who've taken the eastern park area can slip out around that building any time they want. We have others in the trees to the south who can probably do the same, and the ones already in the water can swim all the way to New Jersey if they have to."

"Granted," Roger said calmly. "But you need to take another look at your numbers."

Nikolos's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"

"You left the Catskills with a hundred thirty-five Warriors, Farspeakers, and other support personnel," Roger said, ticking off fingers. "You sent eight of them in the vans as decoys, dropped twenty-two more in northern Manhattan to provide a feint for Torvald's Grays, and landed twenty more in Queens and Brooklyn. That leaves eighty-five here within shouting distance. Subtracting the fifteen in the water, the twelve in the trees south of the harbor, and the fourteen currently in the wooded park by Building Two—all of whom you claim can get away—you still have forty-four here on the yacht or in that line of trees along the northern part of the plaza who are effectively trapped.

Taking into account the sixty Warriors you already had in the city, it looks to me like nearly a quarter of your troops are pinned down." He lifted his eyebrows. "Not to mention you and Sylvia, of course. How's my math?"

Nikolos's face had gone rigid. "You can't possibly have those numbers," he insisted.

"But I do," Roger said. "Which is point number two: we have an inside track on everything that's happening here. Namely, Melantha's mother, Laurel." He looked at Sylvia. "You remember her from our visit to your little retreat."

"Certainly," Sylvia said, her voice far calmer than Nikolos's. "The one hiding... where was she, anyway? Your trunk?"

"That's right," Roger confirmed. "And of course I know now why your people reacted so badly when they realized she was there. At the time we thought she might have overheard Damian talking, or else someone referring to him. But there is no Damian, is there?"

Wordlessly, Sylvia shook her head. "Right," Roger said. "What you were actually afraid of was that enough of your Warriors had been chattering for her to realize how many of them you actually had.

Like everyone else, she'd bought into Nikolos's story that there were only sixty of them. If she'd heard all hundred twenty talking, she'd have realized what the plan really was."

"And if she had, she should have kept it to herself like a good Green," Nikolos said darkly. "But that's behind us. What does this have to do with the situation here and now?"

"The fact that Laurel is listening in on every order you send your troops and passing the word on to Detective Fierenzo and me," Roger said. "We know where each of them is, and what you're planning for them."

"So that's the way of it, is it?" Nikolos murmured in a voice that sent a shiver up Caroline's back.

"Laurel Green has become a traitor to her people."

"Actually, you have that backwards," Roger told him. "She may be one of the few Greens who isn't a traitor to their people." He lifted his eyebrows. "Want to hear more?"

For a moment Nikolos frowned at him, and Caroline could sense a quick wordless conference with Sylvia. "It won't do you any good to move your people around," Roger warned into the silence.

"We'll know the minute you try anything, and can relay the information to both the police and the Grays. But I can also promise you there are no tricks here. All I want is a chance to talk."

"Fine," Nikolos said. "Talk."

Roger shook his head. "Not here." He pointed out the window at the glass and soft lights of the Winter Garden. "In there."

Nikolos smiled thinly. "Of course," he said sarcastically. "You expect us to just walk meekly into the middle of the police camp?"

"Why not?" Roger countered. "Are you in any better contact with your Warriors here than you would be there? Besides, you're actually safer in there than you are here. Right now the cops would have very little compunction about blowing this yacht into driftwood if they thought it was justified.

They're going to be a lot more careful with the real estate in and around the Winter Garden."

"What exactly are you planning, Roger?" Sylvia asked.

He seemed to brace himself. "I'm planning a meeting between both sides," he told her. "I've learned a few things I think you'll both want to hear."

"Us meet with Grays?" Nikolos bit out. "I don't think so."

"There won't be more than four of them at the most," Roger promised. "Surely a Command- Tactician and Group Commander aren't afraid of four Grays."

"That's not the point," Nikolos said stiffly. "The Grays are our enemies."

"Yet you met with them at least once before," Caroline pointed out, wondering if Roger could have discovered the same secret she had about Nikolos's deceit. "Back when you decided to sacrifice Melantha."

"Cyril and Halfdan met," Nikolos countered. "I wasn't involved."

"Well, you're involved now," Roger said. "And frankly, the alternative is that the Grays go on the offensive all over New York with a quarter of your troops pinned down here."

"We can get out whenever we want to," Nikolos insisted.

"Not all of you," Roger said. "Up to now, the police have been treating you with kid gloves. After your little escapades on the balconies, they're ready to start using deadly force."

Nikolos snorted. "Overreaction," he said contemptuously. "We didn't even hurt anyone up there."

"Call it whatever you want," Roger said. "But they're primed and ready... and right now, this conference is the only thing standing between you and an all-out assault."

Nikolos pursed his lips, as if mulling it over. But Caroline wasn't fooled. He played the Command- Tactician role well enough, but she could sense the apprehension in his silent communication with Sylvia. She sensed Sylvia's decision—

"All right," Nikolos said, nodding slowly. "We'll come to your little party. Is that Velovsky in there?"

"Yes," Roger said. "After all, he was present at the beginning, or at least the chapter that began in New York. I thought he deserved to be in on the end of it, too."

"The end," Nikolos murmured. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that. And the other guests?"

"Torvald and Halfdan are on their way," Roger said. "They should be here by the time Cyril and Aleksander arrive."

"Cyril and Aleksander?" Caroline asked, frowning. "Are they nearby?"

"Nearby, and in the company of two Group Commanders, a Farspeaker, and forty of Manhattan's Warrior contingent," Roger said dryly. "As I said, Nikolos has no secrets from us anymore."

"Perhaps," Nikolos said, his voice silky smooth. "Perhaps not. At any rate, we'll come and see what you have to say."

"Thank you." Roger gestured to the door. "Follow me, please."

"Here they come," Cerreta said, peering across the plaza at the figures filing through the wheelhouse door. He watched a moment, then shifted his gaze back to Fierenzo. "You've got until they get here to level with me."

"I already have," Fierenzo said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I went undercover to penetrate one of the sides of this gang war, and I just never had a chance to check in."

"That's a crock," Cerreta countered, matching the other's tone. "You've been manipulating this whole thing right from the start. Everything from the cop-in-distress alarm at the Two-Four, to Smith's little unauthorized jaunt upstate, to this whole damn S.W.A.T. exercise."

"Do you deny these groups pose a potential threat to the city?" Fierenzo countered, waving out at the battlefield. "And remember, you've only seen one of the two sides in action."

"That's not the point," Cerreta ground out. "The point is that your private crusade here has managed to run roughshod over just about every rule of procedure and evidence in the book. We started out thinking we had a conspiracy to commit kidnapping or murder that we could hang these people with.

Now, we've got squat."

"I would think you'd be glad I hadn't been murdered," Fierenzo murmured.

"At the moment, it's at toss-up," Cerreta retorted. "Because anything else we might have been able to use will be thrown out the minute a judge sees how you handled it." He snorted. "In fact, about all we could arrest them for right now would be assault on police officers. And even that would be problematic, given that we don't know who did what."

"Actually, I was hoping to avoid making any arrests at all," Fierenzo said.

"Oh, right," Cerreta growled. "You and Whittier think you can get them to talk out their differences, have a nice group hug, and become fine upstanding citizens again."

"Sarcasm aside, I think there's a good chance we can do exactly that," Fierenzo said, putting all the confidence he could into the words. A neat trick, given that he didn't have the slightest idea what Roger was even planning.

"I hope for your sake that you're right." Cerreta jerked a thumb back toward the Winter Garden. "But if you think I'm going to let you all sit around in there alone, you're badly mistaken."

Fierenzo felt his jaw tighten. Whatever Roger had in mind, the last thing they could afford would be for more people to be let in on the secret. "I don't think that would be a good idea," he said carefully.

"No?" Cerreta asked. "Well, I don't think letting any of these people out of my sight would be a good idea. And my think outranks your think."

"I understand," Fierenzo said, resisting the temptation to point out that a couple dozen of the Greens were, in fact, already out of Cerreta's sight. "But keeping us in sight doesn't mean you have to eavesdrop, does it?"

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning we could go up on the steps to talk," Fierenzo suggested, pointing through the glass wall at the set of semicircular steps leading up from the center of the main floor a few yards beyond the ordered rows of palm trees. "The S.W.A.T. guys guarding us could stay down here, near the exits.

We'd all be in clear view, and there'd be no way out if someone decided to try anything."

"What about the hallways into Building Two and Three?" Cerreta asked, looking doubtfully through the glass.

"Already sealed off," Fierenzo told him. "We'd be isolated, under constant guard, and still have the privacy both sides are going to insist on."

Roger and the others had climbed the steps from the boat basin and were halfway across the plaza before Cerreta spoke again. "All right," he said, his gaze seeming to bore straight through Fierenzo's retinas into his soul. "But I'll tell you this, Detective. No matter what happens here, you're going to have to answer for your behavior this past week."

Fierenzo nodded. "Understood."

Watching the Greens approach, he could only hope that it would be the only thing he would have to answer for.