It was a faint hope, he knew. But at the moment it was the only game in town. At least it was better than going back to Manhattan and facing Officer Hill.

Ahead, an increased speed-limit sign marked the edge of this particular town. Speeding up, keeping his eyes peeled, he headed for the next.

Cerreta didn't quite slam the phone down as he hung up, but he wasn't all that far from it. "No, I take it?" Powell asked, cupping his palm over the mouthpiece of his own phone.

"Even less than no," the lieutenant confirmed with a scowl. "He said he might just refuse my next warrant request, too, just to make up for interrupting his morning with this one."

"It didn't matter to him that a cop is missing?" Powell asked, feeling a fresh twinge of guilt over the lie.

"Sure it did," Cerreta said sourly. "He said that if we can prove Tommy's disappearance is connected with these people, he'll be happy to entertain our request for a warrant. Only we can't prove that." He lifted his eyebrows. "Or can we?" he added, his eyes suddenly very steady on Powell's face.

It took Powell two tries to get the word out. "No."

"Because I'd hate for something to happen to him if someone else could have prevented it," Cerreta went on, that half-suspicious look still on his face.

"Yes, sir," Powell said. "So would I."

Cerreta held his gaze a moment longer, then gave a microscopic nod. "Anything new with Messerling?"

Powell lifted his phone slightly. "He's activating S.W.A.T. units all over the city," he said, relieved to be on firmer ground. "I've got Hill and Grosvenor checking with DMV for any other vehicles registered to those restaurants."

"While we're at it, we'd better put someone on the restaurants themselves," Cerreta decided, picking up his phone again. "Outside and in. No law against a cop having a cup of coffee in the restaurant of his choice."

There was a click in Powell's ear. "I've got a preliminary deployment schedule now," Messerling's voice said. "You want to take this down?"

Powell scooped up a pen and pad. "Go ahead."

"No soap," Roger said, lowering his hand. "Jonah says they don't have any way to distinguish Greens from humans, at least not at any distance. Our infrared signatures are similar, we look pretty much the same on a sonic pattern readout, and entropic metabolism detectors are no good beyond about five feet."

"What the hell's an entropic metabolism detector?" Fierenzo lifted a hand. "Never mind—it doesn't matter. What about those metal brooch things?"

"The trassks?" Roger shook his head. "He said they're not going to show up as anything other than ordinary metal. It's the Green psychic manipulation ability that makes them work. We could still watch for people wearing them, I suppose."

"Assuming they're stupid enough to leave them out in the open instead of in their pockets."

"There's that," Roger conceded. "What do you think they're planning?"

"Well, the basics seem obvious," Fierenzo said. "They're assuming you've relayed Caroline's disinformation to Torvald, which means they expect Grays to gather at the north end of the island to wait for the phantom Damian and his Warrior escort to show up. That gives Nikolos the choice of coming up right behind them—say, over the George or the Triborough—and slaughtering them while they're facing the wrong direction, or else coming up into Lower Manhattan to take out the women and children who've been left behind in supposed safety."

Roger shuddered. "Or head directly into Brooklyn and Queens, where the bulk of the Grays still live."

"Point," Fierenzo said, grimacing. All they needed was for Nikolos to expand this to the other four boroughs. "The question is whether Nikolos would prefer a straight-on attack against fellow fighters, man to man, or would he'd prefer the terrorist route of targeting civilians so as to throw the fighters into disarray."

"So what do we do?"

Fierenzo turned and stared out the window at the cars and people passing by. That was a damn good question. He had some ideas, but they all depended on at least partial knowledge of the Green strategy. "We go to the hotel and wait for Jonah and the others," he decided. "Maybe when we put our heads together we'll come up with something."

"Don't you think it's about time to alert Torvald and the other Grays?"

"Let's talk to Jonah first," Fierenzo said, giving his mouth a final dab with his napkin and standing up. "Whatever Nikolos has planned, I doubt he'll move until it's dark."

"You willing to bet all our lives on that?"

Fierenzo looked out the window again at the people of his city. "I don't think I've really got a choice," he said. "Come on, let's get out of here."

44

It was nearly two o'clock, and the rumbling in Smith's stomach had finally become too loud to ignore, when he arrived in downtown Kingston.

From a Manhattan perspective, of course, the term "downtown" seemed rather quaint. Still, there were a couple of small but adequate-looking restaurants in what the signs called the Historic Rondout Section of town along the riverfront. Picking one at random, he parked and headed in.

"Afternoon," a young woman greeted him as he stepped inside. "Table for one?"

"Please," Smith said, nodding. "And a red pickup if you have one."

The woman blinked. "A what?"

"Never mind," Smith said. He really should know better than to try to be funny on an empty stomach. "I've spent all day looking for a wayward red pickup, that's all."

"A red Ford pickup?" a new voice called.

Smith looked around the empty dining area, finally spotted the face peering out through the low window leading back into the kitchen. "Yes, as a matter of fact," he said. "New York tag NKR—"

"Oh, it's got plates?" the other interrupted him. "Never mind. Gail said this one didn't have any."

"Wait a second," Smith said quickly, not sure he believed this. He'd been killing himself trying to find this truck; and these people already knew where it was? "They could have taken the plates off."

"They?" the waitress echoed, frowning. "It's not yours?"

"No, but I'd really like it to be," Smith said, pulling his badge and ID from his pocket. "Officer Jeff Smith, New York Police. If that's the truck I've been looking for, it may have been involved in a kidnapping."

The woman's face settled into hard lines. "I'll call Gail right now and find out where it is."

"Gail doesn't know," the cook called to her through his window. "Call Rolf Jacoby—he's the one who actually saw it."

"Okay," the waitress called back. "I'd better get Hank on it, too. He's the police chief," she added to Smith.

"Great," Smith said, watching her hurry to the cash register podium. In certain parts of New York, he suspected, the truck could have sat abandoned for a week before anyone bothered to bring it to anyone else's attention. An hour in a small upstate town, and everyone in a five-mile radius knew all about it.

He shook his head. "God bless America," he murmured.

The pickup had been left neatly parked behind one of the local lumber yards. A police car was waiting when Smith arrived, with a single uniformed cop standing beside it. "You must be Smith," the other said as Smith got out of his car and walked toward him. "I'm Hank Fishburn."

"Pleasure, Chief," Smith said cautiously. "First off, I want you to know I'm not trying to poach any of this from your jurisdiction."

Fishburn snorted. "The whole state got an alert about two hours ago on this thing," he said. "No one mentioned a red pickup, though."

"I told Manhattan about it," Smith assured him.

"Report must have gotten lost in transit," Fishburn said. "Happens way too often. Anyway, the point is that I get the feeling jurisdictional infighting is pretty much out the window. What can we do to help you?"