"I don't care," Roger said stubbornly. "I want Caroline back."

"I tell you she isn't here," the Green insisted.

"Fine," Fierenzo said, throwing a warning look at Roger. "Then if you'll step aside, we'll be on our way."

A look of consternation crossed the Green's face. "I'm sorry," he said, the words coming out with an odd reluctance. "That's a decision only the Commander can make."

Roger's left hand twitched as a tingle went through it. There was a second tingle.... "What if you and your group were in immediate danger?" he called. "Would you still have to wait for the Commander's decision?"

The Green's eyes flicked to Fierenzo's gun. "This hardly qualifies."

"Maybe this will." Hoping fervently he wasn't just blowing smoke, Roger lifted his hand to his cheek. "Go," he said into the tel. He lowered his hand, looking surreptitiously around—

And with a thunderclap that seemed to shake the whole forest, one of the tree trunks to his left exploded.

Roger jerked violently, wincing back as a cloud of splinters and sawdust rained down on them. The tree had been shattered about halfway up its trunk, and as he stared in astonishment the upper half leaned ponderously and toppled over, tearing its way through the foliage around it. It reached the ground and settled down at a sharp angle, its branches tangled with those of its neighbors.

Roger's ears were still ringing from the first blast when they were hammered by a second thunderclap, this one to their right, as a section midway up another tree disintegrated into another spray of wooden shrapnel.

He glanced across the car at Fierenzo. The detective was staring at the newly decapitated tree, his jaw and throat muscles tight. "What about it?" he called, turning back to the Warriors. "Does that qualify?"

The Green was staring at the second tree, his own face tight with concentration. Then, giving a microscopic nod, he looked back at Roger. Holding his knife up, he put his other hand onto the tip and shoved, collapsing the trassk once again into a harmless piece of jewelry. "Go," the Green said darkly, fastening the brooch onto his jacket as he and the other three Warriors stepped out of the way. "Don't come back."

Fierenzo seemed to shake himself out of a trance. He glanced once behind them and, apparently satisfied, slipped his gun back into its holster. "Come on," he said to Roger, climbing back into the driver's seat.

"Wait a minute," Roger objected. "What about Caroline?"

"I said get in," Fierenzo snarled, his voice suddenly vicious.

Swearing under his breath, Roger obeyed. He had the door only halfway closed before Fierenzo peeled out, scattering gravel in all directions. They roared past the four silent Greens, whipping down the drive as fast as Fierenzo could manage and still stay on the road. Roger held on grimly, the memory of his own frantic exit echoing through his mind, the escape where he'd run away and left his wife behind.

Which he'd now done a second time.

They were halfway back to the estate when, beside Caroline, Sylvia suddenly seemed to sag. "What is it?" Caroline asked anxiously.

"It's over," Sylvia said. She rubbed her eyes vigorously a moment, then turned to Caroline. "Don't worry, he's all right. The Warriors let him go."

Caroline took a deep breath, feeling the tension draining out of her. "Thank you," she murmured.

Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Sylvia look sharply at her. She braced herself; but the older woman merely nodded. "You're welcome."

There were a hundred other questions Caroline wanted to ask, but she could sense this wasn't the time for them. "So," she said instead, trying to sound casual. "Shall we go back and finish our lunch?"

Sylvia snorted a chuckle. "I rather expect the waitress has cleared it away by now, don't you?"

"Yes, probably," Caroline admitted. "Well, there's always dinner."

"Perhaps," Sylvia said, a little grimly. "Right now, I need to have a long talk with my Warriors."

"Of course," Caroline said. Stretching still-tense shoulders, she settled in to drive.

And wondered why quiet alarm bells were suddenly going off in the back of her mind.

They had gone three miles down the highway, about halfway to the side road leading to where they'd left Jonah and Jordan, when Roger finally broke his silence. "When are we going to let Laurel out of the trunk?" he asked.

"When I say so," Fierenzo said shortly, checking his mirrors. The good news was that there was no sign of pursuit. The bad news was that with this crowd, that didn't necessarily mean anything.

"What about Jonah and Jordan?" Roger asked. "We going to pick them up when you say so, too?"

Fierenzo threw him a quick sideways glance. The other was staring straight ahead, his expression rigid. Feeling angry and frustrated and guilty, no doubt, at the fact that he'd once again had to abandon his wife.

But they'd had no choice, and he was pretty sure Roger knew it. Which was a long way from accepting it, of course. "Yeah, better give them a call," Fierenzo told him. "Tell them we'll be getting to their road in about ten minutes."

"Sure." Roger put his hand up to his cheek and began to talk.

Fierenzo checked his mirrors again, his mind racing. Something strange had happened back there, something that was setting all his detective's instincts on edge, but something which he couldn't get a handle on.

"Hold it a second," Roger cut into his thoughts, waving a hand toward the steering wheel. "Jonah says to pull over."

"What, here?" Fierenzo asked, frowning as he looked around. There was nothing around them but more forest. "There could be an ambush sitting inside any of those trees."

"Just pull over," Roger said sharply. "Jonah says they've moved, and that they can rendezvous with us right here."

"Fine," Fierenzo gritted. Ahead was a slightly wider spot just off the shoulder, and he pulled over and stopped. "Tell them to hurry," he added, leaving the engine running.

"He says to hurry," Roger said. He held the tel in place another moment, then twitched his little finger and lowered the hand. "You always this surly afterward?"

"I'm not surly," Fierenzo insisted. "I'm wondering what the hell happened back there."

"I'll tell you what the hell happened," Roger bit back. "What the hell happened was that we ran off like scared puppies and left Caroline behind."

"You'd rather have stayed and fought?" Fierenzo asked, turning his Official Police Stare on the other.

For once, the stare did no good. "What, you don't have six bullets in that gun?" Roger retorted.

"Actually, I've got seventeen," Fierenzo said icily. "But that's irrelevant. You've never been hit by a Green Shriek, have you?"

The anger in Roger's face cracked slightly. "No," he said, a fraction less truculently.

"I have," Fierenzo told him. "And I was being very optimistic when I said I'd get off two rounds before they introduced me to the dirt. If we'd fought, we'd have lost."

"Even with Gray backup?"

Fierenzo grimaced. "Yeah—Gray backup," he murmured. "You know, I've been attacked by the Greens twice now, and both times it's been the Grays who pulled me out of it. That's left kind of a soft spot in my heart for them... and up to about ten minutes ago I'd have taken their side against Cyril and Aleksander and Nikolos in a New York second." He shook his head. "But after that little display..."

He looked away from Roger, scanning the area around them. "We've been concentrating—at least, I've been concentrating—on Melantha and this Groundshaker thing as the biggest threat to the city," he said. "Now, I'm not so sure. It's one thing to hear Jonah describe how a hammergun round gets more powerful the farther it travels. It's something else to watch one blow the top off a tree."

"So now you're wondering where the real threat lies?"