The Green And The Gray

42

"That's it," the cabby announced, pointing ahead as they turned off Broadway and drove alongside the park surrounding City Hall. "Where do you want off?"

"Anywhere along here is fine," Roger told him.

The cabby pulled over to the curb and stopped. "Thanks," Roger said, paying him and climbing out.

The vehicle pulled away, and he set off down the sidewalk toward the towering Municipal Building, wondering what kind of security they had in there these days. Hopefully, this Lang person would have left word at the front desk that he was expected.

"Hello, Roger," a voice said from behind him.

Roger spun around, his heart suddenly pounding. Torvald was standing in the middle of the sidewalk a couple of paces away, his face expressionless. "Oh," Roger said, the word coming out weak and rather inane. "Hello, Torvald."

"You're late," the other said gravely.

It took Roger a second, and then he grimaced. Yes—the appointment he and Simon had arranged Saturday morning, just before Aleksander's people had swooped in on him and Caroline. The appointment, now that he thought about it, that he hadn't intended to keep in the first place. "Sorry about that," he said. "We got a little sidetracked."

"So I heard." Torvald lifted his eyebrows. "Perhaps I could have a few moments of your time now."

Roger hesitated. But here, surrounded by courts and cops, surely Torvald wouldn't be crazy enough to try anything. "I suppose I can spare a minute," he said, shifting his own voice into neutral and looking around. There didn't seem to be any benches at this end of the park. "Where?"

"Let's take a walk," Torvald suggested, stepping to his side and gesturing him ahead. "A walk around a park is always a pleasant way to pass the time."

"You do enjoy pushing the envelope, don't you?" Roger asked, eyeing the trees as they started off, slowing from his usual pace to stay with Torvald and his limp. "How did you find me, anyway?"

"Halfdan's surveillance network spotted Velovsky leaving his home last night and going to your hotel, though of course no one understood the significance of it at the time," Torvald said. "Under the assumption that you, at least, might return there for the night, I sent Garth to watch the place. He overheard you mention the Municipal Building, so I came down to await your appearance."

"I see," Roger said. "How is Garth doing, by the way?"

"Mostly fine," Torvald said, smiling faintly. "Mad enough to chew granite, though."

Roger glanced up at the buildings towering around them. Was Garth up on one of them right now pointing a hammergun in his direction? "I hope he realizes it wasn't personal."

Torvald nodded; agreement or simple acknowledgment, Roger couldn't tell which. "You fooled us all," the Gray said. "You and Jonah both. I take it his whole family is in on this?"

"That's not really something I can discuss."

"And that policeman, too, of course," Torvald continued. "Detective Fierenzo. Yes, you had us nicely fooled. My congratulations on an excellent job."

His eyes met Roger's. "But I need her back," he said, his voice quiet but earnest. "It's the only chance the city has. If the Greens get hold of her, we're all going to die."

"All of us?" Roger countered pointedly. "Or just all of you Grays?"

Torvald's lips compressed into a thin line. "So much for the compassion of Humans," he said, an edge of bitterness in his voice. "Yes, it will be mostly Greens and Grays who will die. Does that make you feel better?"

"Not especially, no," Roger said, his face warming with embarrassment. It had been a stupid thing to say. "I'm sorry. I didn't mean it that way."

"How did you mean it?"

"I was mostly questioning your sales pitch," Roger said. "I don't especially want anyone to die, on either side. But threatening me and the city isn't the way to earn my cooperation."

Torvald shook his head. "It wasn't a threat," he said. "It was a statement of fact. Yes, the Greens are coming mainly for us; but don't think you and your fellow Humans will escape unscathed.

Aleksander and Nikolos fully intend to wipe us out; and if they have to order Damian to bring down every building in Manhattan to accomplish that, they will."

Roger felt his stomach tightening. "I thought you didn't believe Damian was still alive."

"What I never believed was that a Command-Tactician like Nikolos would stand meekly by and let his ultimate weapon be destroyed," Torvald countered darkly. "I knew there was something else going on behind those earnest Green expressions, which is why I never trusted the agreement Halfdan and Cyril worked out to sacrifice Melantha. I simply didn't know what exactly the trick was that the Greens had up their sleeve. Now, we do."

Roger stared at him, the conversation with Jonah and Jordan about competing Groundshakers flashing to mind. "Is that why you snatched her from the courtyard Friday night?" he asked. "You knew about Damian and knew that Melantha was the only person who might be able to counter him?"

"No, on both counts," Torvald said. "I never had even a hint that Damian might be alive until you dropped his name Sunday night." He grimaced. "As for Melantha standing up to him, there's very little chance of that, either. She's far too young to counter an adult Groundshaker."

"Then why take her?" Roger persisted. "So you could kill her and blame it on the Greens?"

Torvald snorted. "You persist on getting things backwards, Roger. Halfdan is the one who worked out this Peace Child plan with Cyril. I never agreed to it."

"Because you wanted war?"

"Because I wanted us to have this out like soldiers, not politicians," Torvald bit out. "What kind of soldier demands the death of a young girl to give himself a battlefield advantage?"

"But you put a tracer on me," Roger protested, feeling his assumptions threatening to slide out from under him. Torvald, the alleged bloodthirsty warmonger, concerned about the method by which victory was obtained? "And then you snatched Melantha away from us."

"What else could I do?" Torvald demanded, his voice still charged with emotion. "Halfdan's sons were perched on the back of one of the buildings and Cyril had half a dozen Greens in trees down the street, all of them patiently waiting for the police to finish up and leave. If Garth and Wolfe hadn't gotten there first, Melantha would have been dead by morning."

"Are you trying to tell me," Roger said slowly, "that you've been holding her in protective custody?"

Torvald exhaled heavily. "What's the point?" he muttered. "She didn't believe me. Why should I expect you to be any smarter?"

Roger stared at him, feeling more adrift than ever. Could Torvald be telling the truth? Melantha had certainly been in good shape when they'd burst in on her a few hours ago; not tied or gagged, looking clean and more or less comfortable, with the remains of a good meal on a tray over on one side of the room. True, her guards had fired on them; but if Torvald was right, the most likely intruders would have been Halfdan's people, who would have taken her away to be killed. "Tell me something," he said. "Why did you move into Manhattan in the first place?"

Torvald smiled tightly. "Don't you really mean, why did I move into Manhattan a block away from a Green homestead?"

"Consider the question rephrased," Roger said. "Why did you?"

Torvald's eyes shifted past him, to the trees rustling in the breeze in the park. "The first few weeks after the unexpected contact between our peoples were very strange," he said, his voice oddly meditative. "Like a combination of cold-war posturing and slow-motion ballet. Both sides were feeling out the other, looking for strengths and weaknesses, maneuvering politically and geographically for future advantage. It seemed to me that we were heading toward the sort of frozen trench warfare that gripped Europe in the first World War."

His eyes came back to Roger's face. "People can't live like that, Roger," he said. "It saps the energy and the will, weaving an element of distraction and fear into both sides' psyches and daily lives.

Worse, it sets the stage for animosities that may never be eliminated. You've seen it happen in a hundred different places on your world. I didn't want that for my people or for the Greens."

He gestured toward the north. "So I decided to force the issue, one way or the other. I moved my family into MacDougal Alley, a street that was probably half owned by Greens at the time. I hoped that would either precipitate a full-fledged shooting war, which would settle things once and for all, or force us to learn to live in peace the way we had in the Great Valley. Either way, it would have been over."

"With one side possibly destroyed?"

"I was hoping we would find wisdom before that happened." Torvald grimaced. "Instead, the Greens found Melantha."

For a minute they walked together in silence. "All right," Roger said at last. "So you say you're on Melantha's side."

"I'm on the Grays' side," Torvald corrected him tartly. "But I also have no interest in seeing her slaughtered like a sacrificial goat." He shook his head. "But matters are out of our hands now, yours and mine both. Your upstate Greens seem to be on the move."

Roger felt his breath catch. "What do you mean?"

"There's a police alert out on five white cargo vans presumably heading this direction from the Catskills," Torvald told him. "Whatever Nikolos was building or preparing up there, he's bringing it to the city. And history suggests that Command-Tacticians never begin something until they're ready to follow through."

He gestured toward the park. "The maneuvering and posturing are over. All we can do now is brace ourselves for whatever he has planned."

Roger looked over at the gently waving trees. Powell hadn't mentioned this part. "You say you'd prefer for your peoples to live in peace," he said. "Are you willing to prove it?"

Torvald studied him through narrowed eyes. "How?" he asked.

"I don't know yet," Roger conceded. "But there may come a time in the next few hours when I'll think of something."

"You have my phone number," Torvald told him, coming to a stop and holding out his hand. "Call me any time."

"I will," Roger said, taking his hand. Torvald squeezed it briefly, then turned and started to walk away. "One more question," Roger called after him. "Is there any particular significance in Gray culture to a row of X's?"

The other turned back, frowning. "X's?"

"Specifically, a row of five with another row of four beneath them followed by three dots."

"Not that I've ever heard of." Torvald cocked his head slightly. "Does this mean you have a new message from Caroline?"

Roger hesitated. "Yes, but we haven't yet completely deciphered it. Actually, that's why I'm going to the Municipal Building."

"I see," Torvald said, eyeing him closely. "Bear in mind that both our peoples are in Nikolos's sights now. If we don't stand together, many of us will likely be dead before tomorrow morning."

"I understand," Roger said. "I'll do what I can to keep you in the loop."

"Very well," Torvald said. "In the same spirit of cooperation, it may be of use for you to know that late yesterday afternoon Nikolos was seen leaving his homestead in Morningside Park and heading south in a cab."

Roger frowned. Not north? "Where did he go?"

Torvald shook his head. "Unfortunately, Halfdan's surveillance network has become somewhat strained as of late and lost him somewhere south of Times Square." His lips compressed briefly.

"Several of his people have been pulled off sentry duty to look for your friend Jonah."

"Pity," Roger said. "It might have been helpful to know where Nikolos ended up."

"I'm aware of that," Torvald said. "I've had my people out looking for him ever since I learned he'd disappeared. So far, we haven't found him."

Roger grimaced. "Keep trying."

"We will," Torvald assured him. "Call me."

"I will," Roger promised.

With a final nod, Torvald headed away down the sidewalk.

Roger watched until he had disappeared into the flow of pedestrians. Then, taking a deep breath, he turned back and headed with new urgency toward the Municipal Building and the fax waiting there for him.

"I don't know," S.W.A.T. Commander Messerling said, tapping his teeth gently with the end of his pencil as he stared at the Manhattan map on the conference room wall. "Assuming your informant is right about a sweep from the north, the Broadway or Henry Hudson Bridges are the obvious entry points, with the Washington, the George Washington, and the Cross-Bronx as secondaries."

"That's one hell of a cover zone," Lieutenant Cerreta pointed out. "Even with the tag numbers, there are a lot of white Dodge vans on the roads."

"Personally, I'm more worried about the gang members already in the city," Messerling said. "I don't suppose you have any idea where they might be centered."

"I've got five possible leads, but no actual evidence," Powell said, opening his notebook to his list of Green restaurants. "Two months ago, these businesses sold the upstate group the vans we think they're currently using."

"Way too thin for a warrant," Cerreta commented.

"We might be able to get in under one of the Homeland Security Acts," Messerling said doubtfully.

"But that would mean bringing in the Feds."

"Detective Fierenzo was rather hoping we could avoid that," Powell said.

"That was before he disappeared," Messerling pointed out darkly. "He might be feeling differently right now."

"Assuming his disappearance and this gang war are related," Cerreta said. "Still nothing on his car?"

"It hadn't been approached during the twenty-four hours before we gave up and had it towed in,"

Powell said, an uncomfortable feeling churning in his gut. When Cerreta found out that Fierenzo was alive and well, there were going to be five circles of hell to pay. "So far, CSU hasn't found anything useful."

Cerreta grunted. "I don't know," he said. "Play that tape again, will you?"

Powell touched the button on his recorder, replaying the tape of Cyril's message they'd made from the Whittiers' answering machine. "A possible kidnapping, except that no one named Melantha has been reported missing," Cerreta mused. "Vague threats, but no indication of anything other than homegrown thugs. No foreign connections at all. I'm not sure we could get the Feds in on this even if we wanted them."

"So we do it ourselves," Messerling said. "Fine. When do we need to be set up?"

"That's part of the problem," Powell said. "The message indicates that the confrontation will take place tomorrow night. More recently we got information that it would be tonight instead. But those vans are already on the move, which means it could be as early as this afternoon."

"Or they may have decided it would be safer to cross the bridge when there was more traffic,"

Cerreta suggested. "Once they're in, it would be easy enough to go to ground and wait for nightfall."

He gestured at Powell's notebook. "Possibly at one of those restaurants."

From Powell's pocket came the faint ring of his cell phone. "Excuse me," he said, digging out the phone and punching in on. "Powell."

"Jon, it's me," Fierenzo's voice came tautly. "We've got it."

Roger was sitting in a small waiting area down the hallway from Merri Lang's office, staring at the fax she'd given him, when someone dropped into the chair beside him. He started; but it was just Fierenzo. "Lang told me where you went," the detective said, holding out his hand. "What do you think?"

"It's like two different people wrote this," Roger said as he handed over the fax. "The first part is obviously shorthand, but the meaning is crystal-clear. The P.S., on the other hand, is almost wordy by comparison, and about as clear as a bureaucratic form."

"But it is Caroline's writing on both of them?" Fierenzo asked, studying the paper.

"It all looks like her printing, yes," Roger confirmed. "I just don't understand why she would suddenly change styles that way."

"Let's assume Caroline has the first part ready to go when she suddenly learns something new,"

Fierenzo said, handing back the fax and leaning back in his chair. Lacing his fingers together behind his head, he stared up at the ceiling. "She wants to add it to the note; but for some reason she also wants to make sure it won't be understood if the wrong people find it."

"The wrong people being Sylvia?"

"That's the most obvious wrong person," Fierenzo agreed. "So now she has to write this new information in a way that only the right person will understand, that right person being you or one of the Grays."

Roger shook his head. "I've already run the multiple-X thing past Torvald. It didn't strike any particular chords."

Fierenzo frowned. "You talked to Torvald?"

"He met me on the way over here," Roger said. "We had an interesting conversation."

"You didn't tell him about the message, did you?

"I told him there was one, but that we still needed to figure it out," Roger said. "You have any thoughts?"

"Only the broad scenario I just laid out," Fierenzo murmured. "But don't forget that she doesn't necessarily think the same way you do. You may be looking at this in a literal way, whereas she might mean something symbolic."

Roger snorted. "Frankly, I was assuming the whole thing was symbolic."

"Not necessarily," Fierenzo said. "There are parts that are almost certainly literal. This 'roaming Warriors on Wed' line, for instance. The Wednesday reference seems pretty concrete."

"Well, we sure didn't see any Warriors last Wednesday," Roger told him. "At least, not that I know of. I sort of assumed the Wednesday reference meant tomorrow, not last week, and that she was trying to warn us that after whatever happens tonight there would still be Warriors around tomorrow."

"Possibly," Fierenzo said. "But I'm not ready to give up on last Wednesday just yet. Tell me everything that happened that day."

"We went to work," Roger said, frowning as he thought back. After everything that had happened in the past few days, last Wednesday seemed like an eternity ago. "We came home, ate dinner—"

"What did you have?"

"Fish," Roger said. "Then we got ready for the play, argued a little about whether to walk or take a cab and about not getting enough exercise. Then we went to the play. At the end she managed to lose a ring under the seat, so that when we left all the cabs were already gone. We started walking home, discussed the play a little..."

He trailed off as the whisper of something caught at the edge of his mind. Watch out for roaming Warriors....

"What is it?" Fierenzo asked quietly.

"She liked the play a lot," Roger said slowly. "I mostly didn't. It was one of these deep, psychological things, with a typically ridiculous love triangle in the middle of it." He shook his head as it belatedly struck him. "Relational thinking," he said. "No wonder she likes things like that while I don't. I'm watching the plot contrivances; she's watching the character interactions."

"What in particular did either of you say about it?" Fierenzo asked. "Anything about Romans?"

"No," Roger said, staring at the tiny letters Caroline had printed. "No, wait a minute. I did make a comment about—" He looked sharply at Fierenzo. "About Latin lovers," he said. "Roman Warriors; Latin lovers."

Fierenzo shook his head. "You've lost me."

"I called the villain in the play a Latin lover," Roger said, stumbling over the words as his tongue tried to keep up with his brain. "Caroline pointed out he was French; I said he was a Latin lover in the generic sense; she asked if that was the same sense as the 'when in Rome' cliche. You see? Latin

—Roman. Roman—roaming."

Fierenzo still had a wary look on his face. "I hope there's more to this."

"Plenty more," Roger said grimly. "Because right after I dropped that reference we argued a little about whether the main female character was a victim or not. I thought the woman was dragged unknowingly to her doom. She argued that the character knew what was going on the whole time."

"Knew what was going on," Fierenzo murmured, half to himself. "Knew what was..." He broke off.

"Sylvia knew she was leaving notes?"

"That's what it sounds like to me," Roger agreed. "And that fits with Caroline suddenly having to put this into code. What I don't understand is if Sylvia found out about that first note, why didn't she just keep Caroline inside where she couldn't leave another one?"

"Obviously, because she wanted Caroline to leave it," Fierenzo said grimly. "Sylvia's been feeding her disinformation and deliberately letting her pass in on to us." He looked at the fax. "Which means everything above the P.S. is garbage. The Greens aren't attacking from the north at all."

"But if Caroline knew it was a lie, why send it at all?" Roger asked, frowning.

"Because by then she knew her first note was disinformation, too," Fierenzo told him. "Problem was, there was nothing she could do to call it back. Since the Greens were vetting the notes, and since Sylvia obviously wouldn't let a straight warning get through, she had to say what Sylvia wanted and then piggyback this P.S. onto it and hope they couldn't figure it out."

"And hope that we could," Roger said, thinking back to her first note and the supposed confirmation of Damian's existence. "Does this mean that there isn't any Damian?"

"I'd say there's a real good chance of that," Fierenzo agreed. "Looks like Torvald and Ron were right

—the whole thing was never anything but a scam. A little bait to lure the Grays into planning for the wrong war." He tapped the fax. "And maybe being caught on the wrong part of the island to boot."

"Okay," Roger said slowly. "But if there's no Damian, then what's the trap?"

"Oh, my God," Fierenzo murmured, his face suddenly turned to stone. "What am I using for brains?

Your wife's a genius, Roger. All she has is a gum wrapper; so what does she do but make her words do double duty. One clue, two different meanings."

He nodded at the fax." 'Roman Warriors' points to your Latin lover and Sylvia, all right. But it also clues us in to the X's at the bottom."

Roger caught his breath. "Are you saying... Roman numerals?"

"And at X equals ten, that's ninety Warriors," Fierenzo said. "Or more—those three dots probably mean the series continues."

He looked at Roger, his face tight. "There's Nikolos's dirty little secret, Roger. No wonder he didn't care if Melantha died Wednesday in Riverside Park. He's got a private army of Warriors stashed away in the Catskills."

"With the Grays only expecting the sixty they know about," Roger said, a shiver running up his back.

"Nikolos is going to pull a Little Bighorn on them."

"Not if I can help it," Fierenzo said, pulling out his cell and punching the buttons. "Maybe we can intercept those vans before—Jon, it's me. We've got it."

"Okay, we're on it," Powell said, scribbling one last note. "Thanks."

He punched off the cell. "That was my informant," he told Cerreta and Messerling. "New information: those vans may be carrying soldiers. Possibly over a hundred of them."

"Soldiers?" Messerling said, frowning. "I thought we were talking about a gang war."

"So this means we are talking terrorists?" Cerreta added.

"No, it's still a gang war," Powell said hastily, trying to remember the precise words Fierenzo had told him to use. "But this group has been specially trained and equipped."

"So bottom line is that we're now talking between a hundred fifty and two hundred fighters on the streets?" Messerling asked.

"And that's just on one side," Powell said, nodding. "And it gets worse. There are indications the attack we've been expecting will be only a feint. That means the main thrust could come from any direction."

"Unless we can nab them before they get to choose which bridge or tunnel they want," Cerreta said, picking up the phone and punching in a number.

"State Police?" Messerling asked.

Cerreta nodded. "That type of van normally isn't equipped for passengers," he said. "If they've got that many people crammed in there, we can get them on a traffic violation long enough to search for weapons. Yeah—this is Cerreta; NYPD. Get me Kowalsky in Operations."

"Fine, but what's our reason for stopping them in the first place?" Messerling asked.

"Smith was tracking some white vans," Cerreta said, holding his hand over the mouthpiece. "A white van deliberately forced him off the road. Since we don't know which one it was, we'll just have to stop all of them while we figure it out."

"I'll buy that," Messerling agreed, nodding. "I just hope a judge will, too."

"Let's worry about that after we get them off the road." Cerreta held up his hand. "Matt? It's Paul Cerreta. I've got a little problem for you...."