Smith breathed a silent sigh of relief. "For starters, I need to find out where the people from this truck went."

"The rest of my force is canvassing the area," Fishburn said. "I understand you're also looking for some people who were in white cargo vans?"

"Right," Smith confirmed. "They're long gone by now, but if we can figure out what kind of vehicles they switched to we might at least be able to find out where they've landed in the city."

"Well, there's one place in town that rents cars, plus a couple more within a ten-mile radius,"

Fishburn said, forehead wrinkling in thought. "Is there anything to indicate they had any business here in Kingston?"

"I think so, yes." Smith pointed at the truck. "If all they wanted was to ditch the truck, they could have had their friends pick them up someplace out in the woods. Fifty yards off the road, and we wouldn't have found it for a month."

"Yeah, that makes sense," Fishburn conceded. "Your boss Powell's supposed to be sending me a photo of this Mrs. Whittier. Once we have that, we can start a more thorough search. In the meantime

—" he lifted his eyebrows "—you never did get your lunch, did you?"

Right on cue, Smith's stomach growled. "That can wait," he said.

Fishburn shook his head. "There's no point in starting before we have that photo," he pointed out reasonably. "My people are already doing everything that can be done right now. He gestured back toward his car. "Come on," he said. "My treat."

Smith gave him a tight smile. "And while I eat, you'll see if you can find out what's really going on?"

Fishburn smiled genially, putting a hand on Smith's shoulder and giving him a gentle but irresistible nudge toward the car. "Something like that."

"What if I can't tell you anything you don't already know?"

"Then you're buying dessert."

"God of heaven and earth," Stephanie murmured, her eyes wide in a suddenly pale face as she sat on one of the beds between Jonah and her husband. "Two hundred Warriors?"

"We think it could be as many as that, yes," Fierenzo told her.

"And you have no idea where they are?" Ron said.

Even from across the hotel room, Roger saw Fierenzo's throat tighten. "Not yet," he acknowledged, his voice steady. "We're working on it."

"Glad to hear it," Jonah said, only a trace of sarcasm in his voice. "And when exactly were you planning to bring in the real experts on Greens?"

"If you mean the rest of the Grays, I don't know," Fierenzo said. "At this point I'm not even sure we should."

"You're not sure you should?" Jonah echoed. "Fierenzo, you're talking about a mass slaughter here.

Two hundred Warriors—" He broke off, looking over at the three Greens and his brother Jordan, huddled together on the other bed. "Zenas, you tell him."

"The Pastsinger memories of the last war indicate that a single Green Warrior can usually handle four to seven Grays," Zenas said quietly. "And there are, what, about seven hundred of you?"

"Six hundred eighty," Ron said. "But only about four hundred of us are adults and teens who could fight." He looked over at his wife. "That includes the adult women."

"Do the math, Fierenzo," Jonah said darkly, looking back at the detective. "With four hundred of us, the sixty Green Warriors we thought they had would have given us a six to one ratio, a pretty fair balance of power." He looked at Roger. "Two hundred Warriors is quick annihilation."

"You have to warn them, Detective," Stephanie said, her eyes pleading. "You have to."

Fierenzo sighed. "The problem is Nikolos," he said. "More specifically, what precisely he'll do if the Grays don't behave the way he expects them to."

"What are you talking about?" Jonah demanded. "You mean if we don't dance to his tune—?"

"Let him talk, son," Ron cut him off, his voice quiet but firm.

"Thank you," Fierenzo said. "Let's say we do tell Torvald exactly what we think Nikolos's plan is.

Do you think he'd bother sending people to upper Manhattan to counter what we all expect to be a feint? Or would he concentrate on defending the main Gray areas?"

"Probably the latter," Ron said, nodding. "Yes, I see the problem. If we don't send a strong force to the northern end of the island, Nikolos will probably shift to another plan."

"Exactly," Fierenzo said. "Unfortunately, we don't know what this Plan B is."

"Are we sure we even know what Plan A is?" Laurel asked.

"Not entirely, no," Fierenzo admitted. "But the pieces we do have will be useless once he realizes Torvald and Halfdan aren't playing ball. And at that point we won't have any handle on him at all."

"Why can't we just give Torvald—I mean—just half the story?" Melantha asked hesitantly, her hands clutching Jordan's on one side of her and her mother's on the other.

"Are you suggesting we deliberately send our people into a trap?" Stephanie asked, a sudden edge to her voice.

"I'm sure she didn't mean it that way," Laurel countered, a similar edge to her voice as she came to her daughter's defense.

"I don't know what she meant," Stephanie shot back. "But what she said was—"

"That's enough," Fierenzo cut her off. "Everyone just calm down."

"Easy for you to say," Stephanie bit out, turning glowering eyes on him. "They're not out to destroy your people."

"Melantha's not out to destroy your people, either," Fierenzo reminded her tartly. "Or had you forgotten that?" He pointed to the Greens. "Or would you rather just give up on this pesky peace thing and start the war right here? Go on—you've all got hammerguns. Go ahead and use them."

There was an awkward silence. "Don't be silly," Stephanie said, her voice still strained but under control again. "I'm sorry, Melantha."

"That's okay," Melantha said in a small voice. "I didn't mean—"

"It's all right, sweetheart," Laurel soothed her. "We're all new to this." She looked at Fierenzo. "None of us are Warriors, Detective," she added. "We don't know the first thing about how to think and plan this way."

"I realize that," Fierenzo said. "Of all of us, I've probably had the most tactical training; and I'm nowhere near an expert at it. But like it or not, the nine of us in this room are the best chance we've got for heading off this thing." He looked at Roger. "The ten of us, including Caroline," he added.

For a moment he looked around the room, as if waiting for argument. But none came. "All right, then," he went on. "In actual fact, Melantha was on her way to what I was thinking of proposing myself. We obviously can't give Torvald and Halfdan just half the story and let them walk into a trap; but we could give them all of it and ask them to behave as if they only had the part Nikolos wanted them to hear."

He looked at Ron and Stephanie. "The question is, would they be willing to play along? Or would they instead try to turn the situation around and crush the Greens?"

"The deeper question is, isn't that exactly what we want?" Jonah put in before his parents could answer. "Not to crush the Greens themselves, but to whittle the Warriors down to a manageable size?"

"The Warriors are Greens, Jonah," Zenas said warningly. "We can't let them get slaughtered any more than we can let that happen to you Grays."

"I'm sorry, but I'm not sure we have a choice in the matter," Jonah countered. "Those extra Warriors are what's causing this whole problem. They have to be neutralized somehow, or we're dead."

"But you can't just kill them," Laurel protested. "They're not doing anything except following the requirements of their Gift."

"And following Nikolos," Jonah pointed out.

"All of which is part of the Gift," Laurel said.

"I think that's Jonah's point, actually," Ron murmured. "Cyril is supposed to be your leader right now, and Cyril is proposing peace. In spite of that, Nikolos is preparing for war."