Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Point," Fierenzo said, grimacing. All they needed was for Nikolos to expand this to the other four boroughs. "The question is whether Nikolos would prefer a straight-on attack against fellow fighters, man to man, or would he'd prefer the terrorist route of targeting civilians so as to throw the fighters into disarray."

"So what do we do?"

Fierenzo turned and stared out the window at the cars and people passing by. That was a damn good question. He had some ideas, but they all depended on at least partial knowledge of the Green strategy. "We go to the hotel and wait for Jonah and the others," he decided. "Maybe when we put our heads together we'll come up with something."

"Don't you think it's about time to alert Torvald and the other Grays?"

"Let's talk to Jonah first," Fierenzo said, giving his mouth a final dab with his napkin and standing up. "Whatever Nikolos has planned, I doubt he'll move until it's dark."

"You willing to bet all our lives on that?"

Fierenzo looked out the window again at the people of his city. "I don't think I've really got a choice," he said. "Come on, let's get out of here."

It was nearly two o'clock, and the rumbling in Smith's stomach had finally become too loud to ignore, when he arrived in downtown Kingston.

From a Manhattan perspective, of course, the term "downtown" seemed rather quaint. Still, there were a couple of small but adequate-looking restaurants in what the signs called the Historic Rondout Section of town along the riverfront. Picking one at random, he parked and headed in.

"Afternoon," a young woman greeted him as he stepped inside. "Table for one?"

"Please," Smith said, nodding. "And a red pickup if you have one."

The woman blinked. "A what?"

"Never mind," Smith said. He really should know better than to try to be funny on an empty stomach. "I've spent all day looking for a wayward red pickup, that's all."

"A red Ford pickup?" a new voice called.

Smith looked around the empty dining area, finally spotted the face peering out through the low window leading back into the kitchen. "Yes, as a matter of fact," he said. "New York tag NKR—"

"Oh, it's got plates?" the other interrupted him. "Never mind. Gail said this one didn't have any."

"Wait a second," Smith said quickly, not sure he believed this. He'd been killing himself trying to find this truck; and these people already knew where it was? "They could have taken the plates off."

"They?" the waitress echoed, frowning. "It's not yours?"

"No, but I'd really like it to be," Smith said, pulling his badge and ID from his pocket. "Officer Jeff Smith, New York Police. If that's the truck I've been looking for, it may have been involved in a kidnapping."

The woman's face settled into hard lines. "I'll call Gail right now and find out where it is."

"Gail doesn't know," the cook called to her through his window. "Call Rolf Jacoby—he's the one who actually saw it."

"Okay," the waitress called back. "I'd better get Hank on it, too. He's the police chief," she added to Smith.

"Great," Smith said, watching her hurry to the cash register podium. In certain parts of New York, he suspected, the truck could have sat abandoned for a week before anyone bothered to bring it to anyone else's attention. An hour in a small upstate town, and everyone in a five-mile radius knew all about it.

He shook his head. "God bless America," he murmured.

The pickup had been left neatly parked behind one of the local lumber yards. A police car was waiting when Smith arrived, with a single uniformed cop standing beside it. "You must be Smith," the other said as Smith got out of his car and walked toward him. "I'm Hank Fishburn."

"Pleasure, Chief," Smith said cautiously. "First off, I want you to know I'm not trying to poach any of this from your jurisdiction."

Fishburn snorted. "The whole state got an alert about two hours ago on this thing," he said. "No one mentioned a red pickup, though."

"I told Manhattan about it," Smith assured him.

"Report must have gotten lost in transit," Fishburn said. "Happens way too often. Anyway, the point is that I get the feeling jurisdictional infighting is pretty much out the window. What can we do to help you?"

Smith breathed a silent sigh of relief. "For starters, I need to find out where the people from this truck went."

"The rest of my force is canvassing the area," Fishburn said. "I understand you're also looking for some people who were in white cargo vans?"

"Right," Smith confirmed. "They're long gone by now, but if we can figure out what kind of vehicles they switched to we might at least be able to find out where they've landed in the city."

"Well, there's one place in town that rents cars, plus a couple more within a ten-mile radius,"

Fishburn said, forehead wrinkling in thought. "Is there anything to indicate they had any business here in Kingston?"

"I think so, yes." Smith pointed at the truck. "If all they wanted was to ditch the truck, they could have had their friends pick them up someplace out in the woods. Fifty yards off the road, and we wouldn't have found it for a month."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Fishburn conceded. "Your boss Powell's supposed to be sending me a photo of this Mrs. Whittier. Once we have that, we can start a more thorough search. In the meantime

—" he lifted his eyebrows "—you never did get your lunch, did you?"

Right on cue, Smith's stomach growled. "That can wait," he said.

Fishburn shook his head. "There's no point in starting before we have that photo," he pointed out reasonably. "My people are already doing everything that can be done right now. He gestured back toward his car. "Come on," he said. "My treat."

Smith gave him a tight smile. "And while I eat, you'll see if you can find out what's really going on?"

Fishburn smiled genially, putting a hand on Smith's shoulder and giving him a gentle but irresistible nudge toward the car. "Something like that."

"What if I can't tell you anything you don't already know?"

"Then you're buying dessert."

"God of heaven and earth," Stephanie murmured, her eyes wide in a suddenly pale face as she sat on one of the beds between Jonah and her husband. "Two hundred Warriors?"

"We think it could be as many as that, yes," Fierenzo told her.

"And you have no idea where they are?" Ron said.

Even from across the hotel room, Roger saw Fierenzo's throat tighten. "Not yet," he acknowledged, his voice steady. "We're working on it."

"Glad to hear it," Jonah said, only a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "And when exactly were you planning to bring in the real experts on Greens?"

"If you mean the rest of the Grays, I don't know," Fierenzo said. "At this point I'm not even sure we should."

"You're not sure you should?" Jonah echoed. "Fierenzo, you're talking about a mass slaughter here.

Two hundred Warriors—" He broke off, looking over at the three Greens and his brother Jordan, huddled together on the other bed. "Zenas, you tell him."

"The Pastsinger memories of the last war indicate that a single Green Warrior can usually handle four to seven Grays," Zenas said quietly. "And there are, what, about seven hundred of you?"

"Six hundred eighty," Ron said. "But only about four hundred of us are adults and teens who could fight." He looked over at his wife. "That includes the adult women."

"Do the math, Fierenzo," Jonah said darkly, looking back at the detective. "With four hundred of us, the sixty Green Warriors we thought they had would have given us a six to one ratio, a pretty fair balance of power." He looked at Roger. "Two hundred Warriors is quick annihilation."

"You have to warn them, Detective," Stephanie said, her eyes pleading. "You have to."