And even if he'd survived all of that, what then? Would he go to Detective Powell, who was half convinced he and Caroline had been involved in Detective Fierenzo's disappearance?
Or would he go to Torvald and the Grays?
She shivered at the thought. Velovsky had said the war was still in its pre-combat stage; but if Torvald decided this was his opportunity to score a major coup by attacking and wiping out a small group of caretaker Greens, there might be no going back. Once a spark was lit between these two peoples there seemed to be no stopping it.
Which led to the really difficult question: what should she herself be doing at this point? Should she be trying to escape, or at least trying to get word to the outside world? Or should she just continue on the path she'd begun at dinner tonight, cultivating a relationship with Sylvia and trying to convince her of the value of human lives?
Because the Wednesday deadline Nikolos had warned them about was fast approaching. Whatever Caroline decided, there wasn't a lot of time left for her to work with.
She frowned suddenly at the ceiling as the humming in her mind interrupted the flow of her thoughts. There was a lot of Green talking going on out there. Even with her limited experience, it seemed more than could be explained by twenty Laborers and a handful of Warriors.
What exactly was going on?
Steeling herself, she pushed back the blankets and swung her legs out of the bed, wincing as her bare feet touched the cold wooden floor. Carefully avoiding the handful of creaking boards she'd discovered during her bedtime preparations, she crossed to one of the dormer windows and pulled back a corner of the curtain.
Outside, the moonlight played softly across the expanse of forest stretching over the hills behind the house. No one was visible, but with Greens and trees that didn't mean much. The window latch clearly hadn't been moved in years, but with a little effort she pried it free and pulled the window open.
The cold air flowed in full force, and she shivered again. There was still nothing to see; but now that the window was open, she could hear faint sounds of movement and scuffling wafting over the roof with the breeze. Whatever was happening, it was happening on the other side of the house.
She got a grip on the side of the window and leaned out, peering around the side of the dormer at the peak of the roof a couple of feet above her head. The shingles on the dormer itself looked a little treacherous, but the rest of the roof seemed in reasonable shape and not too steep to climb. If she was careful, and if she could find enough handholds on the dormer, she ought to be able to walk her way the rest of the way up the roof and see what was going on over there.
First, though, she needed to make sure she didn't freeze to death out there. And, just as importantly, make sure she wasn't seen.
Her brown coat and navy slacks, she judged, would be dark enough to adequately hide her against the moonlight. Her shoes were dark, too, but the soles weren't designed for climbing. She would have to go with bare feet and hope there was no one on this side of the house who might spot a couple of pale spots pressed against the shingles.
Her face, though, was a different matter. She took two turns around the room, looking for something to use to cover it, before inspiration finally struck. Untucking the blankets from beneath the mattress, she got her small fold-up scissors out of her purse and cut a four-inch strip from the end of the darkest one. Tucking everything back into place, she folded her new scarf back across her forehead as if putting on a headband, then crossed the two ends behind her head and brought them forward again around her nose and mouth. Crossing the ends one more time, she tied them together behind her head, leaving only a narrow strip around her eyes uncovered. Returning to the window, she pulled it open, took a deep breath, and climbed out onto the roof.
The shingles seemed even colder than the floor, and she had a fleeting longing for the jogging shoes tucked in the back of her closet in Manhattan. She got a grip on the peak of the dormer and carefully made her way up the slope to the top.
And found herself faced with an extraordinary sight. All across the wide lawn in front of the house shadowy figures were on the move: running or ducking, crouching beside the trees at the edge of the lawn, apparently even dancing with each other. Some of them had dark objects in their hands, and she could hear faint and sporadic chuffing sounds. She caught a flicker of slightly brighter light from one of the figures, and spotted the knife in his hand.
And with that, she suddenly understood. The chuffing objects were paintball guns; the flickering knives were converted trassks; the dancing figures were in fact Greens wrestling in close hand-tohand combat.
These weren't late-night exercises. These were war games.
She lifted her head a little higher. There were more Greens inside the edges of the forest, she could see now, slipping in and out of trees as they ambushed those carrying paintball guns or dodged their shots. To her right, on one of the wings angling off from the main part of the house, she could see several Greens firing from the rooftop and through some of the upper windows. Using the house to simulate Gray attacks from the buildings of New York, she realized, her stomach tightening at the thought. Another look at the forest revealed more Greens at the tops of some of the taller trees, also shooting paintballs at their comrades below.
And standing where the main section of the house angled into the right-hand wing, like a rock at the edge of a swiftly flowing river, was Sylvia.
She stood with her hands on her hips, silently observing the activities, just far enough to the side to be out of the way. Occasionally she would give a hand signal, and twice she summoned a group of Greens to her for a brief conversation before waving them back to their positions. But mostly, she just watched.
For several minutes Caroline did the same, a mixture of fascination and horror swirling within her.
There was a strange beauty to the Warriors' movements, a ballet-like grace to the way they fought their mock battles. Green Laborers, Sylvia had said, were the best in the world. Clearly, Green Warriors were in that same class.
But all the grace and skill in the world couldn't mask the ultimate purpose of their game. They were training and practicing to kill. Soon, perhaps within days, they would be in downtown Manhattan using those knives against the Grays.
She squeezed the shingles hard. There was still a chance to stop this. There had to be.
Off to her left, a flicker of orange light caught the corner of her eye. A car had emerged from the woods and was approaching the house, wending its way cautiously through the melee with only its parking lights showing.
Caroline froze in place, her eyes just above the peak of the roof, as the car rolled to a stop and a tall Green got out. He paused beside the car for a moment, scanning the battleground. Then, making sure to stay out of the way, he crossed the lawn to Sylvia.
Caroline frowned, squinting down at them. She couldn't see very clearly in the darkness, but there was something about the altered texture of the voices whispering through her mind that told her the newcomer was Nikolos himself. For a minute he and Sylvia talked together, Sylvia gesturing at different parts of the grounds as she apparently reported on the war games' progress. Occasionally Nikolos made a comment or gesture, but for the most part it was definitely Sylvia's show.
And then, Sylvia pointed toward the house.
Caroline stiffened with sudden premonition. Not waiting to see any more, she eased her head back down and started moving as quickly as she dared along the roof. She reached the dormer opening and stepped through into her room, closing and latching the window behind her. Whipping off her coat and slacks, she laid them across one of the chairs, then shoved her scarf/mask out of sight between the mattress and box spring. With her heart pounding in her ears, she slipped back under the blankets.