Now all they had to do was figure out what it meant.

"Powell?" someone called from across the squad room. "DMV's on line four."

"Thanks," Powell called back. Hurrying to his desk, he scooped up the phone and punched the button. "Powell."

"Adamson here, Detective," a woman's voice said in a heavy Brooklyn accent. "I've got those tags you sent us."

"Great," Powell said, flipping his notebook to the right page. "Go."

"All five vans are registered to an E. and O. Green Associates of Bushnellsville, New York,"

Adamson reported. "They were purchased used two months ago."

"Mm," Powell said. So Smith's instincts had been right: the Greens were indeed on the move.

"Anything else?"

"I can get you VINs and such if you really want them," Adamson offered. "I was also a little curious about that purchase date, so I took the liberty of backtracking the previous owners. You interested?"

"Absolutely," Powell said, flipping to the next page.

"Turns out all were owned by various restaurants in the city," she said. "What's really interesting is that all the restaurant owners are also named Green."

Powell frowned. "Really?"

"Really," she assured him. "Is this some sort of insurance scam or something?"

Powell smiled tightly. If she only knew. "You know I can't discuss that with you," he said in his best official-neutral voice. "You have the restaurants' names and addresses?"

He scribbled notes as she read them off. "Okay, great," he said when she had finished. "Thanks."

"Any time, Detective."

He dropped the phone back into its cradle, looking over his list with grim satisfaction. So now they had at least a few solid addresses connected with these elusive Greens. Might be worth taking a closer look at them at some point, maybe see if the businesses' finances and ownerships interlocked in any way. Might even be able to work this into a Federal RICO charge if they found they needed some extra leverage.

But that was for later. Right now, there were more urgent matters to deal with, such as what exactly Sylvia was bringing to Manhattan that required five vans to carry. More gang fighters, perhaps? But the vans Smith had described weren't usually equipped as passenger vehicles. Besides, from what Fierenzo had said it didn't sound like there were very many people up there. Weapons, then, maybe more of those sonic gadgets? Drugs?

Explosives?

Hauling out his phone directory, he turned to the listing for hotels. He would call Whittier, as Fierenzo had instructed. But after that, he would give the State Police a quick heads-up. If there was something nasty on the highways of New York this morning, they would definitely want to know about it.

"Just a second," Roger said, wedging the phone between his ear and shoulder and digging a pen and a pad of note paper from the bedside table. "Okay; ready."

"Right," Powell said. "Here goes. 'Roger: Green Warriors moving NYC Tue night...' "

Roger wrote down the message as the other dictated, his heart pounding with new hope even as yawns of fatigue tugged at his jaws. Caroline was still alive, or at least she had been as of last night.

And not only alive, but able to write a succinct yet completely understandable warning to them.

Completely understandable, that is, until Powell got to the P.S.

"Five X's, then four, then three dots?" he asked, frowning at the notepad. "What's that supposed to mean?"

"We were hoping you could tell us," Powell said. "Could it just be the usual shorthand for sending you kisses?"

"Not a chance," Roger said firmly. "Caroline's never done that before, not in any note or letter she's ever written me."

"Then it's definitely a clue," Powell concluded. "All we have to do is figure out what it means."

Roger grimaced. Translation: now all he had to do was figure out what it meant. Caroline was his wife, after all. "Any chance of seeing the actual note?"

"It won't be here for a few hours, but we have a very good fax of it," Powell told him. "I'm sending it to a forensic accountant named Merri Lang—she's in the Municipal Building on Centre Street across from City Hall. She'll be expecting you. Detective Fierenzo will meet you there as soon as he can."

"Muni Building; got it," Roger repeated.

"One other thing," Powell said, his voice suddenly a little hesitant. "Officer Smith is currently on the trail of a pickup truck we think came from the place you and Fierenzo visited. We think your wife may have been driving it."

Roger squeezed the phone tightly. "Did she look all right?"

"As near as he could tell," Powell said. "Just thought you'd want to know."

"Thanks," Roger said. "Okay, I'm on my way."

"The fax will be waiting," Powell said. "Talk to you later."

Roger hung up the phone and leaned back against the headboard, gazing at the message he'd scribbled on the pad. Watch out for roaming Warriors like on Wed. XXXXX XXXX... If this was supposed to be clear to him, Caroline had missed by a mile.

But she'd taken the time to write it, and taken the risk of sending it. It had to mean something.

His eyes dropped to the rows of X's at the end. They were certainly not kisses; Caroline had always detested cutesy stuff like that. Had she been trying to cross something out? Did the X's mean the first nine letters of the note should be erased? Or the last nine letters? Maybe the first or last nine letters of her previous note?

"What's the word?" Velovsky murmured from the other bed.

"Sorry—didn't mean to wake you," Roger apologized. "We got a message from Caroline."

"Clear as mud, I take it?"

"Actually, mostly it's very readable," Roger said. "You're the expert on all things Green. Does a row of X's have any particular significance?"

"It's slang for smooches," Velovsky rumbled. "Like S.W.A.K., and all that. Weren't you ever a teenager?"

"My mother once said I was born forty," Roger told him. "I was asking about Green culture and slang."

"Nothing that I know of," Velovsky said. "Is that what she put in her note? A bunch of X's?"

"Among other things," Roger said, tearing off the top page of the notepad and folding it in half. "I'm going to take a quick shower, then I've got to go."

"Help yourself," Velovsky said, closing his eyes again and rolling over onto his side. "And don't slam the door on your way out. Two o'clock checkout, you said?"

"Right," Roger confirmed. "Pleasant dreams."

The other didn't answer. Grimacing, Roger got out of bed and crossed to the bathroom. Caroline, Fierenzo had suggested on the way to the Green estate, didn't think the same way Roger himself did.

He could only hope the detective had been overstating the case a little. Because if he couldn't reconstruct her thinking, the risk she'd taken would be for nothing.

He'd failed her enough times lately. He couldn't afford to fail her again.

The traffic had been getting steadily heavier for the past fifteen minutes as the highway approached the Thruway and the more populous region along the Hudson River. Smith stayed on the red Ford's tail, trying to strike that magic balance between being close enough to see the subject, yet far enough back that the subject wouldn't spot him. He'd had some training in the technique, but all of his admittedly limited experience had been in the city, where the distance guidelines were completely different.

He frowned ahead down the highway. Coming his direction in the other lane, he could see a white van. One of the group he'd seen driving east through Shandaken an hour and a half ago? If so, what was it doing heading back west? He lifted his foot off the gas, letting the car slow down a little in hopes of catching the license plate as the van passed.

And then, without warning, it swerved into his lane, coming straight toward him.