Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

Completely understandable, that is, until Powell got to the P.S.

"Five X's, then four, then three dots?" he asked, frowning at the notepad. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," Powell said. "Could it just be the usual shorthand for sending you kisses?"

"Not a chance," Roger said firmly. "Caroline's never done that before, not in any note or letter she's ever written me."

"Then it's definitely a clue," Powell concluded. "All we have to do is figure out what it means."

Roger grimaced. Translation: now all he had to do was figure out what it meant. Caroline was his wife, after all. "Any chance of seeing the actual note?"

"It won't be here for a few hours, but we have a very good fax of it," Powell told him. "I'm sending it to a forensic accountant named Merri Lang—she's in the Municipal Building on Centre Street across from City Hall. She'll be expecting you. Detective Fierenzo will meet you there as soon as he can."

"Muni Building; got it," Roger repeated.

"One other thing," Powell said, his voice suddenly a little hesitant. "Officer Smith is currently on the trail of a pickup truck we think came from the place you and Fierenzo visited. We think your wife may have been driving it."

Roger squeezed the phone tightly. "Did she look all right?"

"As near as he could tell," Powell said. "Just thought you'd want to know."

"Thanks," Roger said. "Okay, I'm on my way."

"The fax will be waiting," Powell said. "Talk to you later."

Roger hung up the phone and leaned back against the headboard, gazing at the message he'd scribbled on the pad. Watch out for roaming Warriors like on Wed. XXXXX XXXX... If this was supposed to be clear to him, Caroline had missed by a mile.

But she'd taken the time to write it, and taken the risk of sending it. It had to mean something.

His eyes dropped to the rows of X's at the end. They were certainly not kisses; Caroline had always detested cutesy stuff like that. Had she been trying to cross something out? Did the X's mean the first nine letters of the note should be erased? Or the last nine letters? Maybe the first or last nine letters of her previous note?

"What's the word?" Velovsky murmured from the other bed.

"Sorry—didn't mean to wake you," Roger apologized. "We got a message from Caroline."

"Clear as mud, I take it?"

"Actually, mostly it's very readable," Roger said. "You're the expert on all things Green. Does a row of X's have any particular significance?"

"It's slang for smooches," Velovsky rumbled. "Like S.W.A.K., and all that. Weren't you ever a teenager?"

"My mother once said I was born forty," Roger told him. "I was asking about Green culture and slang."

"Nothing that I know of," Velovsky said. "Is that what she put in her note? A bunch of X's?"

"Among other things," Roger said, tearing off the top page of the notepad and folding it in half. "I'm going to take a quick shower, then I've got to go."

"Help yourself," Velovsky said, closing his eyes again and rolling over onto his side. "And don't slam the door on your way out. Two o'clock checkout, you said?"

"Right," Roger confirmed. "Pleasant dreams."

The other didn't answer. Grimacing, Roger got out of bed and crossed to the bathroom. Caroline, Fierenzo had suggested on the way to the Green estate, didn't think the same way Roger himself did.

He could only hope the detective had been overstating the case a little. Because if he couldn't reconstruct her thinking, the risk she'd taken would be for nothing.

He'd failed her enough times lately. He couldn't afford to fail her again.

The traffic had been getting steadily heavier for the past fifteen minutes as the highway approached the Thruway and the more populous region along the Hudson River. Smith stayed on the red Ford's tail, trying to strike that magic balance between being close enough to see the subject, yet far enough back that the subject wouldn't spot him. He'd had some training in the technique, but all of his admittedly limited experience had been in the city, where the distance guidelines were completely different.

He frowned ahead down the highway. Coming his direction in the other lane, he could see a white van. One of the group he'd seen driving east through Shandaken an hour and a half ago? If so, what was it doing heading back west? He lifted his foot off the gas, letting the car slow down a little in hopes of catching the license plate as the van passed.

And then, without warning, it swerved into his lane, coming straight toward him.

Smith reacted instantly, leaning on the horn as he slammed on his brakes, drifting as far right as he could without going off the road. But it kept coming. He angled the car even farther right, eyes flicking back and forth between the van and the shoulder, searching desperately for someplace to escape to without going down the shallow embankment into the drainage ditch that ran alongside the road. But there was nothing; no driveways, no parking lots, nothing even remotely flat.

The van was still coming. With a curse, Smith gave up, twisting the wheel and bracing himself as the car shot off the road. He had a glimpse of the van suddenly swerving back into its own lane—

And then he was sliding down the embankment, the nose of the car dipping sharply into the ditch and then bouncing up again as he rolled up the other side.

For a moment he just sat there, his heart pounding, his body shaking with adrenaline shock. The engine idle still sounded okay, and the hood looked undamaged from where he was sitting. With luck, maybe he'd been able to slow down enough before going off the road that he hadn't done any serious damage to anything.

There was a cautious crunching of gravel from behind him. He twisted in his seat, half expecting to see the white van returning to finish the job they'd started. But it was just a late-model Lincoln with a balding, middle-aged Good Samaritan staring wide-eyed at him from behind the wheel. He was talking urgently on his cell, probably whistling up the nearest cop.

Smith took a deep breath. A cop, and a tow truck, a little bit of luck with his suspension and radiator, and he would be out of here.

But in the meantime...

With a sigh, he turned off the engine and fished out his cell phone. "This is Smith," he said disgustedly when Powell answered. "I've lost them."

"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?"