Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Good question," Ron said soberly, looking over at his eldest son. "Jonah?"

"Very good question, actually," Jonah said, grimacing. "As long as he's got Garth working for him, there's no real reason why he can't."

"Actually," Fierenzo said, "he does."

"How do you know?" Zenas asked.

"Jonah said that tracer was a pair of carrier transmitters without a mike or anything else," Fierenzo said. "Can someone show me where that particular component would be on a tel?"

"About here," Ron said, holding up his hand and pointing to a spot just below the little finger.

"About the size of the tracer itself?" Fierenzo asked.

"About that," Ron agreed. "Why?"

"I had a close look at it," Fierenzo said. "It was roughly circular, but not exactly, and the edge was slightly ragged in at least two places."

"Which means what?" Zenas asked, sounding puzzled.

"Which means it wasn't something Garth or Torvald had prepared beforehand, ready to go in case Roger showed up," Fierenzo explained. "It was instead hastily cut out of something else. What could that have been except an actual tel?"

"Or a pair of tels," Stephanie murmured.

"Correction noted." Fierenzo looked at Jonah. "Jonah, you told us that the frequency couple your tels operate on are the safest to use as far as leakage into the main system is concerned. Yet I take it the tracer wasn't running on that exact pair?"

Jonah nodded. "It was close to our frequency couple—that's why we got feedback when they were together—but not exactly on it."

"That's what I thought," Fierenzo said, nodding. "So if yours was the safest frequency couple, why didn't Garth use it when he made up a new batch for Torvald's crowd?"

Ron snapped a pair of massive fingers. "Because he knew Jonah might still have his pair lying around," he said. "He didn't want to take the chance we might be able to listen in on Torvald's private business."

"That was my conclusion, too," Fierenzo said. "And now we come to the interesting bit. Did you and Stephanie have any trouble after you left our meeting at the Marriott yesterday? Specifically, did anyone seem to be following you, or come to your house later, or confront you with accusations about collaboration with the enemy?"

"No, of course not," Stephanie protested. "Don't you think we'd have told you if we had?"

"Of course I do," Fierenzo soothed her, a note of satisfaction in his voice. "But I had to ask. That's it, then."

"That's what?" Ron asked.

"The answer," Fierenzo told him. "I know who has Melantha."

There was a moment of stunned silence. "You what?" Jonah demanded. "Why didn't you say so before?"

"Because I didn't know before," Fierenzo said. "Torvald's tracer was the last piece of the puzzle."

"You've lost me," Zenas said, his hand gripping Laurel's.

"It's very simple," Fierenzo told him. "We know now that Torvald's been able to track Roger's movements since Friday afternoon. That's how he found out where Caroline and Melantha had gone that evening, in fact, after they disappeared from the Whittiers' apartment."

"But it was Halfdan's sons who nailed me in the Youngs' apartment," Roger said, frowning.

"Having probably picked you up during your side trip into Queens," Fierenzo said, nodding. "What we didn't realize until now was that there were actually two separate groups of Grays on hand: Halfdan's sons and Torvald's people."

"Probably Garth and Wolfe," Jonah murmured.

"Whoever, having that tracer let them track Roger straight into Yorkville," Fierenzo said. He looked over at Zenas and Laurel. "We also know there was at least one Green on hand, the old woman who got killed. With one of you on the scene, I gather word gets around pretty quickly."

"True," Zenas confirmed. "There were certainly other Greens already in the neighborhood. Most Manhattan parks have at least a couple of families living there, except for those in the south where Torvald's Grays have moved in."

"So what you're saying is that there could have been people from each of the different factions in the area when Melantha disappeared," Jonah said.

"Exactly, which is what had the water muddied for so long." Fierenzo pointed to Roger. "But now we know that Torvald could track Roger anywhere in Manhattan. We also now know that he didn't do anything to the McClungs after our meeting in the Marriott. Yet he could surely have made some serious political capital out of a family of Grays collaborating with the enemy. If nothing else, he could have accused Aleksander of using his Persuader tricks to torpedo the peace plan."

"So why didn't he?" Laurel asked.

"Because he didn't know about the meeting," Fierenzo told her. "And why not? Because he wasn't paying attention to the tracer.

"Because he didn't care anymore what Roger did."

Roger caught his breath. "Because he already had Melantha!"

"Bingo," Fierenzo said with grim satisfaction. "So now all we have to do is figure out where he's got her stashed."

"It can't be his studio," Roger said, trying to think it through. "There's no room, and he has other Grays going in and out." He looked at Ron and Stephanie. "Unless you think Halfdan could be in on it, too."

"Not Halfdan." Ron was positive. "He was very intent on making the peace plan work. If he knew where Melantha was, he would have taken her straight back to Cyril."

"He can't be hiding her anywhere on Manhattan, either," Zenas added. "He couldn't take the chance that some Green might wander close enough to hear her."

"What about Queens or Brooklyn?" Fierenzo asked. "Those are your original strongholds, aren't they?"

"Actually, they're mostly Halfdan's strongholds now," Ron said. "Torvald and the majority of his supporters moved into lower Manhattan as soon as they found out the Greens were here."

"So she's outside the city?" Jordan demanded anxiously. "But that could be anywhere."

"It could," Fierenzo agreed. "But don't forget that the farther away he puts her, the riskier it is for him. He has to have people taking care of her, and that means traveling to and from their homes."

He gestured to Jonah and Jordan. "You saw how fast word traveled that you two had come up missing, and you know better than I do how much finagling it took to cover up Jonah's absence from his sentry post. I doubt Torvald would risk his caretakers being gone so long that they attracted that same sort of attention."

"Unless she's already—" Jonah threw a hooded look at the Greens.

"No," Fierenzo said firmly. "Torvald wouldn't risk killing her until and unless he was sure she wouldn't be more useful alive than dead."

"And now that he knows about Damian, he'll be taking even better care of her," Roger pointed out.

"Absolutely," Fierenzo agreed.

"So what's the answer?" Zenas asked. "If she's not in the city, and she's not very far out of the city, where is she?"

"Only one place I can think of that's close enough and has the necessary privacy," Fierenzo said, grimacing. "Unfortunately, I'm not sure it really limits our search that much."

"The transport!" Stephanie exclaimed suddenly, sitting upright in her chair. "It's right offshore somewhere, with easy access to the city."

"And undoubtedly out of range of any passing Greens," Ron added with a growing excitement of his own. "That has to be it."

"That's what I'm thinking," Fierenzo agreed. "The question is how we find it. Ron?"

The growing excitement faded from Ron's face. "I have no idea," he confessed. "I've never been aboard it. I don't think I know anyone who has."

"Garth has," Jonah said sourly. "Some of our fancier electronic stuff is still stored down there. You want me to ask him?"

There was the sound of a clearing throat from over by the door. Roger turned; and to his surprise he saw Velovsky standing there quietly, still in his hat and coat. "I thought you'd left," he said.