Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

Abruptly, a high-pitched yelp cut through the air, sending a violent twitch through Powell's body.

The effects on the cops below was even more dramatic. They staggered backward, the one who'd been bringing his gun to bear nearly falling over as the weapon's muzzle swung drunkenly around.

Before he could recover, a metal disk came spinning at him from one of the figures sprinting toward the trees, knocking the weapon out of his hands.

At the corner of Powell's eye, another group bobbed back to the surface of the water, and he looked back just as they let fly a second slingshot volley. With a multiple tinkle of shattered glass, the rest of the spotlights went dark. By the last dying flicker of their light, Powell saw that the attackers had overrun the dazed cops on the curving wall.

"It's like a three-ring circus down there," Messerling muttered. "All right, that's it. Ground level: masks on. Flash-bangs: fire."

There was a stuttering chuff of grenade launchers, and Powell turned his head away, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Two seconds later, the flash-bangs went off, bursting with a thunderclap of sound that seemed to lift him straight off the balcony and a flash of light that was dazzling even through his closed eyelids. The light faded, and he lifted his head again to look over the balcony.

Even with the spotlights gone, there was enough light filtering into the area from the city around them to see the plaza. There should certainly have been enough light for them to see the bodies laid out on the stone walkways, writhing or twitching with the aftereffects of the grenades.

Only there weren't any bodies to be seen.

The soldiers had vanished.

"Where did they go?" he demanded, looking frantically around the plaza, blinking his eyes as if that would change the reality stretched out in front of him. There wasn't anywhere down there where that many people could be hiding. There certainly wasn't any place they could have gotten to in such a short stretch of time, especially not with flash-bangs going off all around them. They couldn't be gone.

But they were.

"Look alive, spotters," Messerling called into his mike. "Where did they go?"

"I don't know," Spotter One said, sounding as confused as Powell felt. "They were right there. And then..." He trailed off in confusion.

"Flankers, move in," Messerling ordered, his voice under rigid control. "Seal the area, and I mean seal it. Units Seven and Two, check the buildings on the north side for open doors. Unit Nine, get aboard that yacht and retrieve the hostages."

"No," a voice said from behind them. Powell twisted around to look—

As Fierenzo and Roger Whittier dropped into a crouch beside him and Messerling.

"Fierenzo?" Messerling demanded disbelievingly. "I thought you'd been kidnapped."

"Forget the yacht for now," Fierenzo told him. "You have to make a perimeter—"

"Just a damn minute," Messerling cut him off, glaring up at him. "I thought this whole thing started because you'd disappeared." He shifted the glare to Powell. "Powell said these guys snatched you."

"Never mind that now," Fierenzo said. "Call Unit Nine back. By my count, there are another twentyfive soldiers still aboard."

"By your count?" Messerling demanded. "Look—"

He broke off as a sudden commotion erupted from the shrubs and trees of the park area at the plaza's south end. "We're under attack!" a voice snapped over the radio. "They just—oof!"

He broke off. "Gas 'em!" Messerling snapped. "Wisbaski?"

"I'm on it," a cop at the far end of their balcony snapped back. Standing up, he swiveled his multishot CS grenade launcher around toward the sound of the struggle below and lifted it to his shoulder.

But before he could fire, another of the strange yips swept across the balcony, sending another twitch through Powell's muscles and staggering Wisbaski backward. With a muffled curse, he stepped forward again, the muzzle of his launcher weaving noticeably as he pointed it toward the commotion below.

And as his shoulders tensed in preparation for firing, another of the metal disks shot up from the plaza, catching the underside of the launcher and knocking it back and up. The shot went wild, the gas canister arching almost straight up into the air, trailing a thin plume of tear gas behind it.

"Oh, hell!" Messerling snarled, grabbing the gas mask hanging from his belt. "Incoming!"

Powell fumbled for his own mask and got it free. Then, on sudden impulse, he shoved it into Fierenzo's hands. "Here," was all he had time to say. He took a deep breath and squeezed his eyes shut—

The canister hit the balcony and burst into a roiling white cloud of stinging gas. Staying as still as he could, trying to conserve his air, Powell felt his eyes begin to tingle as the gas worked its way beneath his eyelids.

For him, he knew, the battle was over.

It wasn't until the hand closed on her wrist and someone began to haul her upright that Caroline realized that she had in fact been lying on the wheelhouse deck. "What happened?" she murmured through dry lips, blinking as she tried to focus on the chaos outside.

"Stun grenades," Sylvia said, her voice sounding distant through the ringing in Caroline's ears.

"Sound and flash. You must have been looking at one when it went off."

Caroline blinked some more, trying to see around the purple blob floating in the center of her vision.

Even with the blob in the way, she could see that the Plaza was inexplicably empty. "Where is everyone?" she asked, a sudden, horrible thought cutting through her. "Did the police—?"

"Kill them?" Sylvia snorted. "Hardly, though I do have to give them points for restraint. No, the Warriors have simply gone to ground." She pointed past the bow end of the yacht. "Many of them are in that row of trees along the north of the boat basin. Others were able to get into the trees on the south side, over by that grassy park area. Others swam out to the river and are heading farther north and south."

There was a sudden sound of commotion from somewhere. "And others worked their way to that other park over by the building," Sylvia added dryly. "Lots of nice trees there to pop in and out of.

The police will never even know what hit them."

Caroline looked that direction; and as she did so, she caught a glimpse of a thin trail of white as it arched into the sky and then tumbled back down onto the balcony to explode into a flat cloud of thick white vapor. "Excellent," Sylvia murmured. "One balcony out of commission. One more to go."

Caroline looked over at the balcony on the other side of the Winter Garden, where she could vaguely see dark helmets and guns poking over the railing. "You're not going to hurt them, are you?"

"Not unless I have to," Sylvia said. "But it may come to that. They're quite good." She paused briefly. "As are you, Caroline. I see now that I missed your hidden message completely. What exactly did all those X's signify?"

It took Caroline a moment to shift gears. "I was using Roman numerals," Caroline told her. "The

'roaming Warriors' line was meant to point Roger in the right direction." She felt her lip twitch. "It was also supposed to refer back to a conversation we'd had Wednesday night that should have told him everything I'd said before had been a lie. I guess he missed that one."

"And I'd seen Roman numerals, too," Sylvia said, sounding slightly disgusted with herself. "Very clever." She shrugged, dismissing her failure. "But no real harm done. Our observers confirm that nearly all of Torvald's troops are still gathered in Upper Manhattan, awaiting our arrival there. With Halfdan's forces scattered with equal pointlessness on sentry duty, that means that once we've bypassed this little obstacle, we'll have free run of the island."