by Timothy Zahn
"Go see if there's anything we can use to pull nails," she said, straightening up again. "Don't forget to check the kitchen drawers. I'll look for a place to—"
She gave a strained chuckle. "What?" he demanded.
"I almost said I'd look for a place to dig," she said. "Like we were on Treasure Island or something."
"More like a prisoner-of-war camp," he pointed out, heading for the kitchen. "I'll see what I can find."
By the time he returned, she'd located their best bet. "The previous occupants did a good job of cleaning it out," he told her, dumping a double handful of junk onto the couch. "But this potato peeler might get a couple of the nails started before it gives out."
"Maybe even more than a couple," Caroline agreed, looking over the rest of his loot. Half a hinge, a bent drill bit, a piece of an egg beater, and a power cord like the one on her mother's old waffle iron.
"And for actually prying up the boards once the nails are out, I thought we could use that sparkblocking thingy," he added.
"It's called a fender," Caroline identified it, eyeing the low metal barrier in front of the fireplace.
"Yes, that might work."
"So that's our tool kit," he concluded. "Where's our spot?"
"Right here," Caroline said, pointing to the corner she was standing in. "You see the stains on the ceiling? That's from rain or snow leakage. It's partially rotted the boards here—you can feel how soft it is compared to the rest of the floor."
He pressed a foot down onto the spot. "Looks good," he agreed. Picking up the potato peeler, he knelt down and got to work.
Caroline picked up the broken hinge, her stomach twisting inside her. They could certainly get out of the cabin—she was sure of that now. But after they did...
She stepped to the other end of the board he was working on. Clearly, Roger hadn't thought it all the way through yet. Better not to distract him.
Getting down on her knees, she started digging into the softened wood.
"What do you mean, the car's gone?" Powell demanded into the phone. "I left orders for it to be watched."
"There was a glitch in the stakeout schedule," Smith said, sounding as frustrated as Powell felt. "By the time I realized that, it was too late. But I found a newsstand guy who saw them get in and drive off."
"But it was Fierenzo?" Powell asked, some of the tension in his chest easing a little. Whatever else was going on, his partner was still alive.
"The news guy identified his photo," Smith confirmed. "The others were two males: one mid-teens, who got in back, the other mid-twenties, who got into the front passenger seat. He described them as both being dark-haired and kind of squat." He paused. "He also said that as the car pulled away, he saw the older one holding a gun."
The decreasing pressure in Powell's chest reversed itself. So instead of a murder, they now had a kidnapping. "Get your guy to the station," he ordered. "And get Carstairs and his sketch pad down there."
"Carstairs won't be happy about being pulled in on a Sunday," Smith warned. "Especially not after coming in on Saturday, too."
"Tell him I'll buy him dinner," Powell growled. "Then put out an APB on Fierenzo's car and get a canvass going to see if you can find someone in the neighborhood who can fill in more of the picture. And don't let your witness walk until I get there."
"I won't," Smith promised. "See you."
Powell hung up the handset, and for a couple of seconds he glared blackly down at it. What the hell was happening out there, anyway?
"Jon?"
Powell looked up to see his wife Sandy standing in the doorway. "Sorry, honey, but I've got to go back in," he said with a sigh, reaching down and retrieving his shoes.
"Tommy?"
He nodded. "At least now it sounds like he's alive. Kidnapped, but alive."
"Be careful," Sandy said quietly. "If someone doesn't want him walking around, they might not want his partner doing it, either."
"Hey, don't worry," he assured her, pulling on his coat and turning to give her a quick but serious hug. "We're not on any cases right now that anybody would kill for."
"Sure," she said, clinging to the hug a bit longer than usual. "Just be careful."
"I will," he promised, kissing her. "I'll call if I'm going to be later than midnight."
His last image as he left the apartment was of her standing in the middle of the room watching him go. A cop's wife, with all the pain and hope and determination that came with that job.
The blood of thousands of New Yorkers, the mysterious Cyril had said. Could Fierenzo have been marked to be the first of those thousands?
Was Powell himself marked to be the second?
28
The floorboards were even softer than Caroline had hoped, and it took less than fifteen minutes for them to tear the first one away from the joists beneath it. After that, with the advantage of leverage, the job went quickly. Ten more minutes, and they had a hole big enough to fit through.
"I wish I had a flashlight," Roger said, peering down into the dankness. "On second thought, maybe I'm glad I can't see what's down there. All sorts of creepy crawlies, probably. Any idea how tough the skirting boards will be?"
"It shouldn't be bad," Caroline told him. "They're completely exposed to the weather, and this place obviously hasn't been maintained for decades. I'm guessing a good strong push will knock them right off their nails. Especially the ones by this corner—we know this part of the roof leaks."
"Good enough," Roger said, looking around. "Anything in here we want to take with us?"
This was it. Bracing herself, Caroline took the plunge. "Take anything you think you could use," she said. "You're going alone."
He jerked as if he'd been poked with a live wire. "What? Caroline—"
"Roger, it's the only way," she cut him off quickly, trying to keep her voice from shaking. If she let him argue, she might weaken and give in, and then they'd both be doomed. "No matter how loose the skirting boards are, you're not going to push them off without making at least a little noise. Besides, there are those Warriors on guard. Someone has to create a diversion to get them away from the car."
"So we make a diversion and jump them and just go out the door," he countered stubbornly.
"How?" she asked. "What kind of diversion?"
"I don't know," he snapped. "Maybe—well, maybe we start the rest of the kindling burning in the middle of the room and yell fire."
She shook her head. "It won't work. Even I would know better than to fall for that. They're not going to just charge in blindly and let us jump them."
"Then we yell fire, and when they open the door we charge them," Roger offered. "We leave together, or we don't leave at all."
"Then you condemn the Grays to death," she said. "If Nikolos has Melantha and can make her use her Gift, they won't have a chance."
"Maybe I don't care about the Grays," Roger snarled. "Maybe they deserve whatever they get."
"And the city?"
The muscles in his jaw tightened. "Fine," he growled. "But you go. I'll stay here and make the diversion."
"It won't work," she told him gently. "If they hear me shouting fire and see me jumping around in a panic, they'll assume you're somewhere waiting to jump them. All their attention will be inward, toward the inside of the cabin and the trap they're expecting you to spring. That should give you the chance to get behind them to the car. It won't play with you doing the jumping around and me supposedly in hiding."
"I can't just leave you here, Caroline," he said pleadingly, his voice shaking the way she was trying so hard to keep hers from doing.
"And besides," she went on, "before you get to the road, you'll have to drive through anyone who gets in your way. I'm not sure I could do that."
"You think I can?"
"If you don't, it'll all be a waste of effort." She looked at her watch. "And if we don't hurry, it'll be a waste anyway. Nikolos said they'd be bringing us up to the main house in an hour, and half that tim
e is already gone."
"Maybe it'll be easier to escape from up there."
"No," Caroline said flatly. "If there's anyplace on this property they'll have kept maintained for appearances' sake, it'll be the main house. No flimsiness, no rot, and Greens all around. If you don't escape now, from this cabin, you're not going to escape at all."
Roger closed his eyes. "Caroline..."
"Please," she said. "For me?"
"But what if they—?"
"They won't," Caroline told him quickly, trying to chase the same terrifying thought away from her own mind. "If you get away, they won't dare hurt me. You'll know I'm here, and they'll know you know it."
He exhaled loudly, a sigh of defeat. "How will I know when to move?"
"You'll know," she assured him, feeling limp with relief. The last thing she wanted was to have Nikolos burst in on them while they were still standing here arguing. For once, Roger's tendency to back away from confrontations was proving useful. "Actually, that fire idea of yours sounds like the best way to go. I'll try to scream loudly enough to cover the sound of you breaking the skirting boards."
"But not loud enough to bring every Green within half a mile running to see what's wrong," he warned. Reaching over, he took her in his arms and gave her a lingering hug and kiss. "I love you, Caroline."
"I love you, too, Roger," she said, a lump forming in her throat. It had been a long time since he'd said that in a way that made her feel like he really meant it. "Be careful."
"You too." Taking another deep breath, he lowered himself into the crawl space.
Caroline crossed to the fireplace, her momentary relief that the argument was over replaced by fresh tension as she focused on the task at hand. Now she was actually going to have to go through with it.
She could only hope that she was right about them not killing her afterward.
The Warrior hadn't brought much kindling with the firewood, just a double handful of flat sticks and a half-inch stack of newspaper. But she'd used less than half of it making their original fire, and there should be enough left for what she had in mind. Separating the newspaper into individual sheets, she crumpled each one and made a loose pile of them near the fireplace. She'd heard once that perfume would burn, so she retrieved her purse and dumped the contents of her spray bottle onto one corner of the pile. Then she went to the wicker cabriolet chair Nikolos had been sitting in earlier and lugged it over to the fireplace, positioning it just over one edge of the newspaper.
Roger should have chosen his target skirting boards by now and be in position to knock them out.
Crossing to the hole they'd made in the floor, she replaced the boards over it so that it wouldn't be instantly obvious as to what was going on. Her eye fell on the pile of stuff he'd collected from around the cabin and, on impulse, picked up the spare power cord and folded it up in her hand. Back at the fireplace, she lit one of the kindling sticks from the main fire and held the lighted end against the wicker seat of the chair until it started to smolder. Leaning close, she blew carefully on it until a small flame finally appeared.
The chair was as dry as twenty years of neglect could make it, and within half a minute the fire had spread to half of the seat and the wicker was beginning to crackle with the heat stress. Lighting the newspaper beneath the chair, she stepped back and went into the cabin's kitchen area where the newly blazing fire was out of her direct sight. There she waited until the sound of her fire was clearly audible. Then, taking a deep breath, she ran across the living room, making as much noise on the wooden floor as she could. "Fire!" she shouted, putting panic in her voice as she hammered on the door with her fists. "Help! Fire!"
She was still pounding when the door was abruptly pushed open. "What?" one of the Warriors demanded, looking over her shoulder.
"It caught on fire," Caroline gasped, pointing frantically toward the burning chair. "There's no water in the kitchen—nothing to put it out with. Please—help us."
"Move away," the Warrior ordered, stepping into the doorway. He paused there, and she saw his eyes flick to both sides and then up as he searched quickly for the trap he obviously expected. "Just relax," he added, stripping off his jacket and wrapping it around his hand as he strode into the cabin.
"It'll fit just fine into the fireplace."
"But it's a chair," Caroline objected. "We can't—I mean—"
The Green didn't bother to answer. Grabbing the back of the chair with his protected hand, he lifted it up and turned it sideways, lining it up to slide in with the rest of the fire.
Surreptitiously, Caroline glanced back at the door. The second Warrior was watching the proceedings from just outside the doorway, showing no signs of coming in. From where he stood, she realized with a sinking feeling, it wouldn't take more than a slight turn of his head to see Roger making for the car.
She would have to do something about that.
The first Warrior had the chair wedged firmly into the fireplace now, sticking out into the room but mostly over the hearth where dropped sparks and ashes wouldn't pose any danger. Easing toward him, Caroline put her hands together in front of her as if nervously wringing them. Under cover of the movement she shifted one end of the power cord to the other hand. With the threat from the chair mostly neutralized, the Warrior turned his attention now to the newspaper, methodically stamping out the bits that were still burning and grinding his shoes hard where the floor looked like it might be smoldering.
Clenching her teeth, Caroline stretched the power cord out in front of her and leaped up onto his back, looping the cord around his throat and pulling back with all her strength.
The Green was fast, all right, faster than she would have expected. Before she could even get the cord tightened around his neck he had spun ninety degrees to the side, grabbing her right wrist in an iron grip and bending violently forward with the clear intent of judo-throwing her over his shoulder.
But she'd grown up with three brothers and knew how to counter that one. She leaned sideways as he bent over, sliding off his back but keeping a grip on the cord. The maneuver ended up flipping her all the way over; and suddenly she found herself with her heels on the floor, hanging at an angle by the cord now looped around the back of the Warrior's neck, staring up into the Green's startled and increasingly angry face. "I've got him!" she shouted, realizing full well that that was a bald-faced lie.
"Hurry!"
And then the other Warrior was on her, grabbing at her wrists. She tried to kick him, but he was at the wrong angle and she could only knee him weakly in the side of his leg. He got a grip on her wrists and forced them apart, tearing the cord from her grip. With her support suddenly gone, she fell backward onto the floor, grunting as her back and head slammed onto the rough wood. The first Warrior said something venomous-sounding, rubbing the back of his neck with one hand where the cord had dug into his skin. He lifted the other hand over his head, and Caroline flinched back as the open palm poised over her face.
The slap never came. Even as the Green started to swing his hand toward her cheek, the cabin filled with the sudden roar of a car engine.
The two Warriors reacted instantly, making a mad scramble for the door. Caroline grabbed at them as they fled, but they were out of reach before she could catch hold of anything. The engine changed pitch as Roger threw the car into gear, roared briefly as he backed into a tight half-circle, then changed pitch and roared even louder as he tore back down the drive, throwing a spray of dirt and leaves and gravel against the front of the cabin. Hoisting herself up on one elbow, Caroline caught a glimpse of his taillights as they disappeared over the first rise.
She took a deep breath, her heart pounding in her ears as her fingers rubbed the back of her head.
She'd done her part. The rest was up to him.
The first part was the hardest. As Caroline had guessed, the skirting boards hadn't been much of a barrier, though to Roger's hypersensitive ears snapping them off their nails had sounded like cannon being fired
. He slipped through the undergrowth alongside the cabin, wincing at every leaf that crackled beneath his feet and hoping desperately he didn't trip over some hidden vine. He reached the corner of the cabin as Caroline's diversion was in full swing, only to find one of the Greens still standing in the doorway between him and the car.
He stayed pinned to the corner for what seemed like an hour, agonizing over whether he should try to sneak up on the Warrior or bypass him and head for the road on foot. But then the commotion hit a higher pitch, and the Green charged inside, and Roger sprinted with desperate recklessness for the car. For once the Buick started without protest, and he managed to get turned around and onto the drive before the Greens could stop him.
Which didn't mean they didn't try. Glancing in the mirror as he tore along the narrow drive, he shivered as he caught a glimpse of the knife sticking up out of the trunk. Whether the Warrior had been trying to hit something vital or whether he'd planned to hang onto the weapon and pull himself aboard Roger didn't know. But his muscles trembled with the realization of how close he'd come in that split second to losing everything.
And he was hardly out of the woods yet, literally as well as figuratively. He'd paid careful attention to the scenery as they drove in earlier, and he was pretty sure he knew how to get out again. But in the gathering dusk and the light and shadow thrown by his headlights he might as well have been on a different planet, and all the logic and reason in the world couldn't help the pounding of his heart.
Ahead, a road branched to the right. He hit the intersection and turned hard to the left, hoping fervently that he was going the right way. They'd always turned right on the way in, and he hadn't spotted any other side roads but the ones they'd taken, but it was always possible that he'd missed one. If he had—if he took a wrong turn anywhere in here—he would be instantly lost.
The car shot over another rise, and he winced as it hit the ground hard enough for the rear end to bottom out. He veered to miss a pothole, nearly running off the drive in the other direction, and threw another shower of gravel rattling against his rear bumper as he manhandled the car back on course. Ahead, he caught a glimpse of another intersection, and again turned to the left. One more left turn, he reminded himself, and he would be on the last leg. The intersection after that would be Route 42, and from there he was pretty sure he could find his way back to the Thruway and the relative safety of the city.