Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Call it whatever you want," Roger said. "But they're primed and ready... and right now, this conference is the only thing standing between you and an all-out assault."

Nikolos pursed his lips, as if mulling it over. But Caroline wasn't fooled. He played the Command- Tactician role well enough, but she could sense the apprehension in his silent communication with Sylvia. She sensed Sylvia's decision—

"All right," Nikolos said, nodding slowly. "We'll come to your little party. Is that Velovsky in there?"

"Yes," Roger said. "After all, he was present at the beginning, or at least the chapter that began in New York. I thought he deserved to be in on the end of it, too."

"The end," Nikolos murmured. "I'm not sure I like the sound of that. And the other guests?"

"Torvald and Halfdan are on their way," Roger said. "They should be here by the time Cyril and Aleksander arrive."

"Cyril and Aleksander?" Caroline asked, frowning. "Are they nearby?"

"Nearby, and in the company of two Group Commanders, a Farspeaker, and forty of Manhattan's Warrior contingent," Roger said dryly. "As I said, Nikolos has no secrets from us anymore."

"Perhaps," Nikolos said, his voice silky smooth. "Perhaps not. At any rate, we'll come and see what you have to say."

"Thank you." Roger gestured to the door. "Follow me, please."

"Here they come," Cerreta said, peering across the plaza at the figures filing through the wheelhouse door. He watched a moment, then shifted his gaze back to Fierenzo. "You've got until they get here to level with me."

"I already have," Fierenzo said, trying to keep his voice steady. "I went undercover to penetrate one of the sides of this gang war, and I just never had a chance to check in."

"That's a crock," Cerreta countered, matching the other's tone. "You've been manipulating this whole thing right from the start. Everything from the cop-in-distress alarm at the Two-Four, to Smith's little unauthorized jaunt upstate, to this whole damn S.W.A.T. exercise."

"Do you deny these groups pose a potential threat to the city?" Fierenzo countered, waving out at the battlefield. "And remember, you've only seen one of the two sides in action."

"That's not the point," Cerreta ground out. "The point is that your private crusade here has managed to run roughshod over just about every rule of procedure and evidence in the book. We started out thinking we had a conspiracy to commit kidnapping or murder that we could hang these people with.

Now, we've got squat."

"I would think you'd be glad I hadn't been murdered," Fierenzo murmured.

"At the moment, it's at toss-up," Cerreta retorted. "Because anything else we might have been able to use will be thrown out the minute a judge sees how you handled it." He snorted. "In fact, about all we could arrest them for right now would be assault on police officers. And even that would be problematic, given that we don't know who did what."

"Actually, I was hoping to avoid making any arrests at all," Fierenzo said.

"Oh, right," Cerreta growled. "You and Whittier think you can get them to talk out their differences, have a nice group hug, and become fine upstanding citizens again."

"Sarcasm aside, I think there's a good chance we can do exactly that," Fierenzo said, putting all the confidence he could into the words. A neat trick, given that he didn't have the slightest idea what Roger was even planning.

"I hope for your sake that you're right." Cerreta jerked a thumb back toward the Winter Garden. "But if you think I'm going to let you all sit around in there alone, you're badly mistaken."

Fierenzo felt his jaw tighten. Whatever Roger had in mind, the last thing they could afford would be for more people to be let in on the secret. "I don't think that would be a good idea," he said carefully.

"No?" Cerreta asked. "Well, I don't think letting any of these people out of my sight would be a good idea. And my think outranks your think."

"I understand," Fierenzo said, resisting the temptation to point out that a couple dozen of the Greens were, in fact, already out of Cerreta's sight. "But keeping us in sight doesn't mean you have to eavesdrop, does it?"

"Meaning...?"

"Meaning we could go up on the steps to talk," Fierenzo suggested, pointing through the glass wall at the set of semicircular steps leading up from the center of the main floor a few yards beyond the ordered rows of palm trees. "The S.W.A.T. guys guarding us could stay down here, near the exits.

We'd all be in clear view, and there'd be no way out if someone decided to try anything."

"What about the hallways into Building Two and Three?" Cerreta asked, looking doubtfully through the glass.

"Already sealed off," Fierenzo told him. "We'd be isolated, under constant guard, and still have the privacy both sides are going to insist on."

Roger and the others had climbed the steps from the boat basin and were halfway across the plaza before Cerreta spoke again. "All right," he said, his gaze seeming to bore straight through Fierenzo's retinas into his soul. "But I'll tell you this, Detective. No matter what happens here, you're going to have to answer for your behavior this past week."

Fierenzo nodded. "Understood."

Watching the Greens approach, he could only hope that it would be the only thing he would have to answer for.

Cyril and Aleksander were the first to arrive, passing silently through the door and between the line of stone-faced S.W.A.T. cops Cerreta had set up just inside the glass wall. They ignored Roger as he tried to greet them, brushing past him and Caroline and climbing the steps to where Nikolos and Sylvia had picked out a tier of steps to sit on just above the circular platform midway up. They did deign to glance at Fierenzo as he stood silently a few steps away, though Roger suspected that was mostly from curiosity, and nodded with some genuine civility at Velovsky where he sat a little apart from the others.

Halfdan was next, giving the rows of palm trees below a wide berth as if expecting a dozen Warriors to leap out of them as he passed. He gave Roger and Caroline a curious once-over, ignored Fierenzo completely, and nodded formally to Cyril as he chose a place on the steps at the same level as the four Greens but a quarter of the way around the circle from them. Torvald was only a minute behind him, limping past the palms without giving them a second glance and carefully climbing the steps to where Roger and Caroline waited. "I see we're mostly assembled," he commented, nodding to his brother and glancing at Velovsky and the four Greens.

"Actually, we're completely assembled," Roger said, gesturing him toward the steps. "Please have a seat."

Torvald climbed the last few steps to where Halfdan sat stolidly and lowered himself onto the marble beside him, and Caroline gave Roger's hand a quick squeeze. "You can do it," she murmured.

Letting go, she crossed to Velovsky and sat down beside him.

Roger took a deep breath and stepped to the center of the circular platform. "Thank you all for coming here tonight," he said, looking at each of their faces in turn. None of them, with the exception of Caroline, looked particularly encouraging. "This is certainly a nicely symbolic place, if I do say so myself. Marble and stonework for the Grays; palm trees for the Greens. Something for everyone."

"If you have a point to make, please get to it," Aleksander said impatiently.

Roger took another deep breath, forcing himself not to be intimidated. Whether they knew it or not, whether they even cared or not, what he was about to say was going to change their lives. "But even more symbolic is the view through those windows," he continued, gesturing over their heads.

"Directly behind you is Ground Zero, where three thousand innocent people died when the twin towers collapsed."