Timothy Zahn - The Green And The Gray

"Should we check it out?" Roger asked, trying to see around the chairs. "They could have Melantha on the floor behind that last row."

"You couldn't hide a Gray back there," Fierenzo pointed out, shining his flashlight into the compartment. "Not enough room."

"What about that storeroom?" Velovsky asked, pointing his hammergun toward a darker archway opening off the far side of the compartment. "Plenty of room in there for her and a couple of guards."

"Yeah, but all the comfortable seats are out here," Fierenzo pointed out, shining the light at the archway.

"They could have moved her when they heard us coming," Roger suggested.

Fierenzo shook his head. "Dust on the chairs; nothing floating in the air. Let's keep going."

The next door opened into a second compartment arranged in a mirror image of the first, and just as deserted. Beyond the two doorways, the corridor ended in another T-junction, this one with equallength branches leading off to both sides. "Should we split up?" Roger offered as Fierenzo hesitated.

"Bad idea," Fierenzo said. "Let's try right."

"No," Velovsky said suddenly. "Go left."

Roger looked at him. The old man was staring into space, frowning hard in concentration. "Any particular reason?" Fierenzo asked, his voice wary.

"Just go left," Velovsky repeated sharply, gesturing with his hammergun.

A memory flashed into Roger's mind: Caroline in the cab Saturday morning, listening to the Greens as they communicated silently with each other. Could he be hearing Melantha's call? "Let's do it," he said, turning down the left-hand branch. Five paces ahead the corridor bent to the right; not bothering to look first, he charged around the corner.

He caught just a glimpse of the Gray kneeling marksman-style in the center of the corridor as the hammergun shot slammed into his chest, throwing him backward against the wall. He tumbled down onto the deck, vaguely aware of Fierenzo diving flat onto the floor around the corner in front of him as Velovsky leaned his right arm awkwardly around the corner—

"Roger. Roger!"

With a start, Roger came to. Fierenzo was crouched over him, slapping at his cheek. "You okay?" the detective demanded.

"Yeah, I think so," Roger told him. His head and chest ached fiercely, but not with the sharp stabbing pains he would have expected from broken bones. "You get him?"

Fierenzo nodded, getting a grip on Roger's arm. "Come on—Velovsky's gone ahead."

With the detective's support, Roger managed to stagger down the corridor. The Gray was lying on the floor a few feet back from a doorway opening off to the right, his hands cuffed securely behind his back. Roger got a grip on the edge of the doorway, and he and Fierenzo stepped through into another of the passenger compartments they'd seen farther forward.

Propped up on her elbow on one of the flattened-out seats, her eyes heavy-lidded with interrupted sleep as she gazed nervously at Velovsky, was Melantha. "Melantha?" Roger called, taking another tentative step inside.

Her dark eyes turned toward him and abruptly widened. "Roger!" she gasped. Hopping off the seat, brushing past Velovsky, she ran toward him. Roger braced himself—

And then she was in his arms, her own arms wrapped tightly around him, sobbing into his shoulder.

"I knew you'd come," her muffled voice came from his jacket as she cried. "I knew you and Caroline wouldn't leave me."

"We're here, honey," Roger soothed, feeling embarrassed yet strangely comfortable as he held her close, trying not to wince as her arms squeezed his new set of bruises. "I'm sorry it took so long, but we're here."

"And we need to get moving," Fierenzo put in, touching the girl's shoulder. "Do you know how many Grays are in here with you?"

Melantha lifted her face from Roger's shoulder just far enough to look warily at the stranger. "It's all right," Roger told her quickly as she clutched him a little tighter. "He's a cop, and he's on our side.

How many Grays are there?"

"Three," she said, still sounding nervous. "One was with me, and there were two more somewhere else."

"All accounted for, then," Roger said, feeling a trickle of relief.

"But this one probably had time to call it in," Fierenzo reminded him. "Come on."

Melantha held onto Roger the whole way back through the transport, letting go only long enough to fling herself at Jonah for another quick bear hug when they reached him at the entrance. "Is Jordan okay?" she asked as they started up the stairs. "They said Halfdan would do something terrible when he found out who helped me."

"He's fine," Jonah assured her. "He's mostly been worried about you."

"Did they hurt you at all?" Velovsky asked, an ominous undertone to his words.

"No, I'm all right," she said, giving him a curious look. "They said they'd only hurt me if I tried to run or use the Shriek on them. Are you Velovsky?"

"That's right," he said. "Why?"

She clutched Roger's arm a little tighter. "I thought you were on Aleksander's side," she murmured.

Roger looked back at Velovsky, caught the brief quirk of his lip. "We can talk about it once you're safe," he assured the girl.

"If there is any place that's safe," Velovsky grunted as they reached the shed and climbed up through the trap door.

"Oh, I think we can come up with something," Fierenzo told him, opening the outer door and giving the area a quick scan. "Come on, and I'll show you."

The Buick was pretty crowded with the five of them jammed into it. But it didn't stay crowded for long. Barely a mile after Fierenzo directed Roger onto Richmond Terrace, he ordered him to pull over again. "Here we are," he announced. "Everybody out except Roger and Velovsky."

"You're kidding," Roger said, peering at the building straight ahead down the street and then turning to look at Fierenzo. "You are kidding, right?"

"Not at all," Fierenzo said, nodding across the street to their left. "It's a perfectly respectable motel.

More to the point, it's got a very nice stand of trees surrounding the play area out back."

Beside him, Melantha suddenly stiffened. "Mom and Dad are here!" she breathed.

"Which is even more to the point," Fierenzo agreed quietly. "Room 22, I believe. Your family's in the adjoining room, Jonah," he added, looking at the Gray. "I figured that after all you'd been through, you all deserved a little time together."

"And if Torvald tracks them here?" Velovsky countered darkly. "We can't be more than a couple of miles from their transport."

"Torvald's going to expect us to head back to Manhattan as fast as the laws of Richmond County allow," Fierenzo said. "Which is where you and Roger are going, by the way, in case they've got spotters on the Bayonne Bridge. I'll bring the rest of the group in tomorrow when there's more traffic to hide ourselves in."

"Very clever," Velovsky growled, clearly still not convinced. "And if Torvald isn't cooperative enough to follow your little red herring? Are you and a few Grays going to protect Melantha singlehandedly?"

"I don't think single-handedness is anywhere in the picture," Roger told him, pointing out the windshield at the building that had first caught his eye. "I gather you hadn't noticed where we are."

"The old 120th Precinct," Fierenzo identified it, a sort of malicious nostalgia in his voice. "I was here for two years before they transferred me to Manhattan. Still know quite a few of the guys." He cocked an eyebrow at Velovsky. "You think even Torvald's got the gall to try for a kidnapping on a police station's doorstep?"

"Can I go now?" Melantha asked anxiously. "Please?"

"We can all go," Fierenzo assured her. "Roger, you've got my cell number—call immediately if you spot trouble. Otherwise, I'll let you know when and where we'll be meeting. I'm not sure exactly when, but it won't be before noon."