Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Yeah, I count eight, too," Keely said grimly, picking up the mike. "Dispatch; Bravo-two-seven. Got a hit on eight, repeat eight, white Dodge vans: tags confirmed on five of them. Heading southbound, just passing Arden."

"Dispatch, copy," a crisp female voice replied. "Pursue and observe only."

"Roger that," Keely said, setting down the mike and starting the engine. Letting the vans pass, he pulled out onto the highway behind them.

He still didn't know what exactly this alert was all about. Dispatch was being very hush-hush, and even the usual departmental grapevine hadn't been any help.

But whatever this bug was that Manhattan had up its butt, it was apparently a big and hairy one.

Before they'd gone two miles a half-dozen terse positioning orders came over the radio as an unknown number of cars were zeroed in on the convoy. Over the next ten miles, Keely noticed an ever-increasing number of squad cars drifting casually into view in front of or behind the vans. The orders tapered off, and for another couple of miles Keely wondered if maybe someone had decided to forget the whole thing—

"Units four and six: close off," the radio crackled suddenly. "All units: move in to assist. Use extreme caution—driver and passengers armed and dangerous."

And with that, red lights exploded into view all around them, not just from the marked cars but from a half-dozen unmarked ones as well. "Holy Mother," Ross muttered as he flipped on their own light bar. "What the hell is this?"

"With this much firepower on tap?" Keely countered. "Ten to one it's terrorists."

"Terrific," Ross grunted, popping their shotgun from its rack. Chambering a round, he held it ready between his knees.

Two of the squad cars were directly in front of the vans now, with three more pacing them. The drivers took the hint, maneuvering carefully through the rest of the startled traffic flow to the righthand lane. For another minute they kept going, as if trying to decide just how serious the cops really were. Keely gripped the wheel hard, hoping they wouldn't be stupid enough to make a run for it.

He'd seen the aftermath of a high-speed gun battle once, and it hadn't been pretty.

The pacing patrol cars moved closer, solidly boxing them in. The vans held their speed another few seconds, then finally bowed to the inevitable and pulled off the road, rolling to a stop beside a cluster of tall maple trees. The cops pulled off with them, positioning themselves fore and aft to block off any chance of escape, with a couple more parking half on the road alongside them to make double sure. Keely found himself a slot five cars back, and a moment later he and Ross were hurrying forward toward the line of vans along with a dozen other cops. The ones who'd made it to the vans first were already shouting orders and pulling open doors, their weapons at the ready.

And because Keely happened to be looking at the faces of the cops at the rear van, he caught the abrupt change in their expressions. "What've we got?" he called as he jogged up beside them.

Silently, one of them gestured into the van with his shotgun. Frowning, Keely eased to the door and looked inside.

The driver was sitting motionlessly, his hands in plain sight on the steering wheel, his face composed and unconcerned as he stared straight ahead through the windshield.

The rest of the van was empty.

"What do you mean, empty?" Powell demanded, staring at Messerling in disbelief. "They can't be empty."

"Well, they are," the other insisted, pressing the phone a little harder to his ear. "Drivers only. No passengers, no weapons, no explosives, no contraband. Not even jumper cables. Nothing."

"What about the drivers?" Cerreta asked. "How do they seem?"

Messerling relayed the question. "Pretty damn calm," he reported. "No panic; apparently not even any surprise."

"With how many cops on the scene?"

"About thirty."

Cerreta looked at Powell. "Your average Joe Citizen would be having a stroke about now," he said.

"These guys were expecting this."

"Only they were expecting it far enough in advance to offload their people before we got there,"

Powell agreed sourly.

"Looks that way," Cerreta agreed.

"Lieutenant, have those vehicles checked, top to bottom," Messerling ordered into the phone. "And bring in the drivers."

He waited for an acknowledgment, then hung up. "They'll be here in an hour," he reported.

"Good," Cerreta said. "Let's just hope we can get something out of them."

"Don't worry," Messerling said tightly. "We will."

They had the drivers lined up beside the vans and had frisked them for weapons; and the cops were just readying their handcuffs when all eight men suddenly bolted.

It was, Keely would realize afterward, an exquisitely coordinated move. All he saw in the heat of the moment, though, was the sudden flurry of activity as each driver shrugged off the hands holding him, gut-punched anyone standing too close, and made a mad and clearly futile dash for the clump of trees beside the road.

"Hold your fire!" the lieutenant in charge shouted from the far end of the line. "Grab them!"

The cops were already on the move, surging after them like Coney Island breakers heading for the beach. Keely joined the rush, a small corner of his mind recognizing that the would-be escapees would be run to ground long before he could reach the party, but caught up nevertheless in the mass excitement.

"Where the hell do they think they're going?" Ross huffed from beside him.

"Who knows?" Keely said, wondering if the whole bunch had gone simultaneously insane. There couldn't be more than a couple dozen trees there—he could see straight through the clump to the snow fence and the rocky field behind it, for Pete's sake. Where did they think they were going to hide?

The drivers reached the first line of trees maybe five paces ahead of their pursuers, ducking and veering around the thick trunks like tight ends punching through a swarm of defenders. One of them ducked down, scooped up an armful of dead leaves, and half-turned to hurl them into the air behind him.

Reflexively, Keely winced back, his eyes flicking to the fluttering leaves just long enough to confirm there wasn't anything solid like a grenade or satchel charge flying through the air with them, then turned his attention back downward.

The drivers were gone.

He caught his breath, his feet still thudding across the loose dirt, his brain refusing to acknowledge what his eyes were telling him. In that single instant of inattention, without any fuss, bother, smoke, or mirrors, all eight men had vanished as if swallowed up by the earth itself.

The pack of cops in front of him obviously didn't believe it, either. They charged straight through into the miniature forest, guns ready, heads wagging this way and that as they searched for their quarry. Five seconds later, they ran out the other side, jogging to a confused halt. "What are you waiting for?" the lieutenant shouted, sounding as bewildered as everyone else looked. "Come on, they're there somewhere. Find them. Damn it all, find them!"

Fierenzo held the phone to his ear, the taste of stomach acid in his mouth. "All of them?" he asked.

"All of them," Powell gritted, his voice as angry and troubled and just plain scared as Fierenzo had ever heard it. "Eight grown men, vanished in a clump of trees a rabbit shouldn't have been able to hide in."

"What about the vans?"

"To hell with the vans," Powell snarled. "Up to now I've been willing to play along with this without anything stronger than your personal say-so. But this has gone way beyond partner loyalty."

Fierenzo winced. "Should you be saying this sort of—?"

"Don't worry, I'm in the stairwell," Powell growled. "But I'm serious. You going to tell me what's going on, or do I have to bail?"