15

They left the art shop and headed back toward Greenwich Avenue. The rain had faded to barely a drizzle, but Roger nevertheless kept the umbrella snugged low over their heads. "You said Torvald's apartment was north of Washington Square?" Caroline asked as they reached Greenwich Avenue and turned southeast.

"Right," Roger confirmed. "We'll go a couple more blocks, then swing south of the park. That way we'll be able to see if Torvald actually leaves."

A broad-shouldered man in a blue pea coat, his collar turned up against the rain, suddenly stepped out of a doorway in front of them. Roger flinched to his side, nearly throwing Caroline off balance as he broke step. But before he could say or do anything else, the man had taken a pair of quick strides and wrapped a large hand around his upper arm.

Caroline inhaled sharply as a second man, this one wearing a gray jacket with a fleece collar, came up alongside her and closed a hand on her arm as well. Both men, she noticed with a sinking feeling, were short and squat. "Well, well," Roger said grimly. "Caroline, meet my shooting buddies from last night."

Caroline turned as far as she could with her arm pinioned to her side to look at her captor's face. It was wide and almost cheerful looking, but with a strange coolness in his eyes. "You shot at my husband?" she asked him.

"Yeah—sorry about that," he apologized. "But don't forget, he was coming at us with a knife." He looked questioningly at Roger. "You did tell her that part, too, didn't you?"

"Save it for later, Ingvar," the man holding Roger's arm said. "Let's just get them out of here."

"Sure," Ingvar said, giving Caroline's arm a gentle nudge toward a narrow side street angling off to their right. "This way."

"Where are you taking us?" Caroline asked, her voice trembling as she took a step that direction.

"They're not taking us anywhere," Roger said, tightening his grip on her other arm. "Stand still, Caroline."

Caroline looked at him in surprise. Resistance from Roger, especially under such circumstances, was the last thing she would have expected.

It was apparently the last thing their captors expected, too. "What do you think you're doing?" Ingvar demanded, sounding more startled than angry.

"We're not leaving this spot," Roger told him flatly. "You want to say something to us, you say it right here. You want to do something to us, let's see how you like doing it in front of fifty witnesses."

The man holding Roger's arm snorted. "Listen, friend—"

"Easy, Bergan," Ingvar soothed him. "Look, Roger, there's no need for dramatics. All Father wants is a little chat."

"Father?" Roger asked, frowning.

"Our father, Halfdan Gray," Ingvar said. "Torvald may have mentioned him."

"No, he didn't," Roger said grimly. "But Melantha did."

"So you do still have her," Bergan said. "Good. He'll definitely want to talk to you."

"Fine," Roger said. "Bring him here, and we'll talk."

Bergan gave a deep sigh. "I'd have thought you'd have learned your lesson last night," he said, shifting hands where he gripped Roger's arm. He twitched his right wrist—

Caroline stiffened as five lines of silvery liquid shot out from under the sleeve of his blue coat onto his palm, twisting together and settling into a dark gray mallet-like object nestled in his hand. "You remember what getting pounded with a hammergun feels like, right?" Bergan went on, pressing the weapon against Roger's ribs. "You don't want your wife to have to feel it, too, do you?"

"We don't want to hurt you," Ingvar added as something hard pressed against Caroline's side as well.

"But as I said, Father wants to talk."

"Okay," Roger said, his voice tight. "Let my wife go, and I'll come with you."

"Sorry, but it's a package deal," Bergan said.

"Come on, let's not make a production of this," Ingvar said reprovingly. "Let's just walk down this street to where we parked our car, then take a nice little ride. Nothing to it."

Roger looked sideways at Caroline. "I don't think we have much choice," she said.

"Yeah, listen to your wife," Bergan said. "Come on, come on—we haven't got all day."

Roger's shoulders sagged slightly in defeat, and with the two Grays still holding their arms they turned onto the side street, their feet kicking up a spray of water. It was a one-way street, Caroline noted, very residential, with the lines of parked cars on both sides leaving only a narrow lane open for traffic. A short block away they reached another small street, this one angling off to the left.

"You might as well wait here," Bergan said, letting go of Roger's arm and continuing up their original street. "I have to come back this way anyway."

"Make it fast," Ingvar told him, glancing around.

"Right." Lengthening his stride, Bergan marched off down the sidewalk.

Caroline looked around. There was a cafe on the corner, but it appeared to be closed. The only moving cars were the ones she could see zipping past back on Greenwich Avenue a block away, and all the apartment windows below the level of their umbrella were blank. Bergan and Ingvar had certainly picked a nice quiet spot for their kidnapping.

"Where exactly did you park?" Roger growled as Bergan disappeared over a slight rise. "New Jersey?"

"We got as close as we could," Ingvar said, nudging Caroline toward the connecting side street.

"Let's walk down here a little, shall we?"

This street was also one-way, in the direction they were currently walking, and narrow enough to allow for only one curb's worth of parked cars. Two blocks ahead, Caroline could see the steady traffic of a major street angling across it. "Sorry for the extra exercise," Ingvar apologized. "There was someone sitting in a window back there watching the rain."

"And you'd like there not to be any witnesses," Caroline murmured.

"What we'd like is not to be noticed at all," Ingvar countered. "So far, that's not working too well."

"What do you expect?" Roger countered. "You didn't have to kill that old woman, you know."

"That was an accident," Ingvar said, stretching his arm out and opening his hand. Like a reversed movie, the weapon came apart into silver tendrils and flowed back down his palm to disappear up the sleeve of his gray jacket. "Bergan was just trying to get her to back off. But she'd Shrieked us, and his aim was a little too scrambled."

"So she is dead?" Caroline asked, her stomach tight.

"Afraid so," Ingvar conceded. "For whatever it's worth, Father was as mad about it as you probably are."

They had reached the cross-street midway down the two-block length now, and Ingvar brought them to a halt. To their left, Caroline could again see the traffic on Greenwich Avenue, and for a moment she wondered what would happen if she and Roger made a break for it. Would Ingvar chase them, or simply bring out his gun again and shoot them down in cold blood?

"So how does Melantha fit into all this?" Roger asked, turning to face the other.

Ingvar frowned at him. "Velovsky didn't tell you? Figures. I assume that's one of the things Father wants to discu—"

And right in the middle of a word, Roger dropped the umbrella and drove his fist hard into Ingvar's stomach.

Ingvar didn't fall. He didn't even grunt. For all the effect Caroline could see, Roger might as well have hit a three-hundred-pound hanging bag.

She looked at Ingvar's face, fearing the worst. But there was no anger there, only a faintly mocking look of amusement. "Come on, Roger," he admonished. "You can do better than that."

Roger was staring at him, his breath coming fast and ragged, his fist opening and closing as if he was gauging his chances of getting the punch to work the next time. "But let's not even try," the Gray added before Roger could make up his mind.