by David Mack
Jed grimaced with doubt. “Maybe, but the last thing you want is for Collier’s people to get their hands on a future-tech bomb that won’t even set off a radiation detector.”
Marco replied, “What would Jordan Collier want with a bomb? He’s already got people who can wipe out cities with their promicin abilities.”
“Maybe,” Jed said, “but it never hurts to have an ace in the hole.” He leaned forward. “What do you think, Tom? Could you sleep at night knowing Collier had a nuke?”
“I don’t sleep at night as it is,” Tom said. “But I can’t imagine that would make it any better.”
Diana held out her open palms. “All right, then. We want their help finding the bomb, but we don’t want them to be the ones who get it back. So we’ll do that. We ask them to give us the intel and let us handle the rest.”
“Sounds like a great plan,” Dennis said. “And what do you think they’ll ask for in return?” Mild looks of surprise were volleyed between Diana, Jed, and Marco. Dennis continued: “Do you really think they’re going to drop everything while fighting off an invasion of their shiny new city-state just to help you find one little rogue nuke?”
Tom said, “They might if we convince them it’s on its way here.”
Dennis considered that with a pensive tilt of his head. “Maybe. Maybe not.” He raised his eyebrows. “But you’re missing my point, Tom. If they decide to go looking for quid pro quo in this little scheme, you’re in a world of shit. Because they might be able to give you quid, but you’re fresh out of quo.”
“He’s right, Tom,” Diana said, putting on her most serious face. “We’d better stop and get them a Starbucks gift card.”
Tom replied, “Okay, but don’t go cheap like you did for Secret Santa. Get an Applebee’s card while you’re at it.”
“Right,” Diana said with mock gravity.
“And a fruit basket,” Marco added. “Everybody likes those.”
“Wait, are we chipping in on this?” asked Jed.” ‘Cause all I’ve got is a twenty.”
Frowning at the casual ease with which the NTAC agents riffed on one another’s sarcastic quips, Dennis deadpanned, “This is why I miss working with all of you: your professionalism.”
Hurtling down a narrow street in a potential urban war zone at ninety miles per hour was probably the worst possible place to lose one’s focus for even a second, but for half a minute all that Tom, Diana, Jed, and Marco could do was laugh.
“All right,” Tom said at last. “Put a cork in it. We’re almost there.” He made the left turn onto Crescent, then slowed as he navigated the Center’s snaking downhill driveway. “I know we don’t have jack or squat to offer. I guess we’ll just have to hope that there’s enough goodwill left between me and Shawn to get him to help us.”
“And if worse comes to worst,” Jed said, “we’ll offer them Dennis as a human sacrifice.”
“That won’t work,” Diana said. “A human sacrifice is supposed to be someone of value.”
As they rounded the next-to-last curve in the driveway, Tom saw Dennis in the rearview mirror, opening his mouth to reply.
Then the SUV slammed to a halt with an earsplitting bang, as if Tom had driven it into a brick wall at twice the speed.
The next thing Tom saw was the steering-column airbag as it hit him in the face. After that, his entire world turned red and purple for what seemed like several seconds.
Gradually, the airbag ceased its oppressive pushing against his face and chest, and then it deflated across the steering wheel. Around him, all of the vehicle’s other airbags shrank and went limp, releasing his stunned passengers. Tom wondered if any of them had headaches that hurt as badly as his own.
The SUV’s front end had buckled into an accordion shape, and all its windows were fractured from the brutal impact.
“Is everybody hurt?” Tom asked. “Is anybody okay?”
“Yes, and no,” Diana said.
Nobody asked what had happened. In a world where telekinesis was an increasingly common fact of life, the cause of their calamitous instant deceleration was easy to guess.
In between the throbbing pains in his skull that kept tempo with his pulse, Tom heard an unfamiliar masculine voice inside his head: Don’t move.
He looked at Diana, then at Marco. “Anyone else hear that?”
“I think we all just heard that,” Marco said. Everyone else in the car nodded to confirm his hypothesis.
Stay inside your vehicle, the voice commanded them. And keep your hands where we can see them. We have you surrounded.
Diana pressed the cold-gel pack to her cheek and tried not to think about the bruise that was probably going to cover the right side of her face by tomorrow morning—assuming she and the rest of Promise City lived that long.
The group from the SUV sat on one side of the long table in the conference room where, only two days earlier, they had met with Jordan and his inner circle. Diana was flanked by Tom on her left and Marco on her right; Jed occupied the seat past Tom, and Dennis was at the opposite end, next to Marco.
All four men held cold-gel packs against various parts of their anatomies. Tom pressed his to his nose. Jed was icing his neck. Marco had draped his gel pack over the top of his head, and Dennis had used his to cover his eyes.
For the first time since intercepting him at the NTAC crisis center, Diana noted that Dennis looked like the odd man out, as he was the only one in their group not outfitted with a bullet-resistant tactical vest.
A door opened. Shawn entered the room. He looked haggard. His clothes were stained and wrinkled, and his hands bore a patina of dried blood. Grime and sweat had matted his hair, and his normally bright eyes were rimmed with dark circles born of fatigue. He was followed closely by Heather Tobey, who was only marginally less frazzled-looking than Shawn.
Walking in behind her was Jordan Collier. His clothes remained a spectral shade of gray, and his hair was caked with pale dust, but his face and hands had been rinsed enough to once again reveal flesh.
The entourage that followed him—Gary, Kyle, Maia, and a trio of others whose names Diana never managed to remember—had apparently been too busy to clean themselves. They all were still painted the same ashen hue from head to toe, and carried with them the acrid pall of death wrought by fire.
All of them, from first to last, remained standing on their side of the table. “Forgive us if we don’t sit down,” Jordan said. “We’re a bit busy right now.”
“Gee,” Tom said, “thanks for penciling us in, then.” Jordan responded with a thin, humorless smile. “The only reason you’re not all dead right now is because Gary assured me that your intentions are peaceful.”
Speaking directly to Gary, Diana asked, “What else have you plucked from our heads? Do we even need to say why we’re here?”
“All I know is that you were coming to bring us a warning. Once the airbags hit you, your thoughts got hard to read.”
Marco chortled. “Probably ’cause we were all thinking the same thing: Ouch.”
“For Christ’s sake, we’re wasting time,” Dennis snapped. He looked at Tom and Diana. “Tell them.”
Kyle pointed menacingly at Dennis. “If I were you, I’d shut up for the rest of this meeting.” He gestured at the four NTAC agents. “They’ve earned some slack. You haven’t.”
Jordan lifted a hand and signaled Kyle to back off. As the young man took a half step backward, Jordan said to the NTAC team, “Someone give me the high points— quickly, please.”
Tom leaned forward and folded his hands on the table. “Three agents of the Marked tricked Dennis into helping them build some kind of undetectable, miniature antimatter warhead. Sometime in the last twenty-four hours, they stole it and went rogue. We think they’re looking to deploy the weapon.”
Shawn asked, “Against Promise City?”
Diana shrugged. “We’re not sure. That’s why we’re here. We’ve lost access to most of the tools that would help us track the bomb. We n
eed your help to find it before it goes off.”
Concern creased Jordan’s brow. “You described the weapon as a ‘miniature’ warhead. How big a threat is this bomb?”
“It’ll vaporize everything in an eight-mile radius,” Marco said, “and the shock wave and thermal effects will wipe out everything for twenty miles beyond that.”
“Sounds big enough to me,” Jed said.
Heather asked, “What about fallout?”
“That’s probably the only good news in all of this,” Marco said. “An antimatter weapon has a near-total conversion of matter to energy, so there’d be almost no residual radiation.”
Jordan looked at Gary, who gave a single, grave nod of confirmation. “All truthful,” said the telepath.
That provoked a small chortle from Jordan, whose eyes widened as he shook his head. “I guess it’s true what they say. There’s no situation so bad that it can’t be made worse.”
“What bothers me,” Tom said, “is that this doesn’t fit the Marked’s MO.”
“How so?” Jordan asked.
“They tend to think bigger than this,” Tom said. “Maybe they’re counting on you being too distracted fighting the military to see them coming, but they’d have to know that’s a long shot. I mean, even if they took you down, there’d still be p-positive people all over the world who’d continue the fight.”
Nodding, Jordan said, “True. But if we each have our part to play in shaping the future, maybe getting rid of one person at the right time is all they need to do to win.” He sighed. “Unfortunately, my people have their hands full fighting this invasion. Until we’ve secured the city, there’s nothing we can do to help you. I’m sorry.”
As Jordan turned to leave, Tom said to his nephew, “What about you, Shawn? Are you letting Jordan talk for you? Is he back in charge here?”
“That’s a low blow, Uncle Tommy,” Shawn said. “And no, I’m still in charge of the Center. But right now he and I are working together to protect the city and our people.”
Marco lifted his rucksack and opened the top flap. “Please,” the analyst begged. “All we need is someone to help us study the clues we already found. We’re not asking you to fight the battle for us, just to point us in the right direction.”
“Sorry,” Shawn said. “Maybe when the city’s safe we can do something then.” He began ushering everyone else out of the conference room. “If you want to go back to NTAC, we—”
“We have to help them,” Maia said, halting the exiting group and silencing the room. All eyes turned toward the young teen, whose intense mien was made all the more unnerving by its deathly gray patina of chalky dust. She faced Jordan. “If we don’t help them, the Movement ends today.”
The NTAC agents and Dennis got out of their chairs and joined everyone else in a cluster around Maia.
Jordan dropped to one knee in front of her and placed his hands on her shoulders. “What do you see, Maia? How does the Movement end?”
With the icy finality of words spoken from beyond the grave, Maia said, “The world turns gray and dies.”
THIRTY-SIX
2:38 P.M.
THERE WAS a knock on the conference room’s door. Shawn opened it, revealing the shy young Asian man standing on the other side. “Come in,” Shawn said, motioning the newcomer forward.
Moving in small, timid steps, the bookish man-boy edged into the conference room. Noting the large number of people standing there waiting for him, he swallowed nervously and adjusted his cheap bifocals, which were held together at the bridge by a thick wrapping of cloth-backed tape.
“Everyone,” Shawn said, “this is Chongrak Panyarachun, the one I told you about.” He led Chongrak to the chair at the head of the table. On the tabletop had been arranged the book, rock, and bits of metal that Marco Pacella had brought with him.
Pulling out the chair, Shawn said to Chongrak, “It’s okay. Have a seat.” The American-born son of Thai immigrants hesitated in front of the chair for a moment, then shrank into it, as if he hoped to disappear simply by sitting down.
Shawn stepped back as he nodded to Heather, who moved forward and squatted beside Chongrak. She placed her hand atop his with subtle tenderness and smiled. “Thank you for coming.”
All at once, Chongrak’s face brightened. He smiled back at Heather in a manner that conveyed his trust for her.
Watching the way that Heather brought out people’s innate talents and nurtured their best aspects moved Shawn as deeply now as it had the first time he had seen her in action. At best, Shawn could restore someone to what they were before they met him; Heather’s gift helped people improve themselves. He did not envy her ability, but he deeply admired and respected it.
“We need you to examine these objects,” Heather said to Chongrak, while waving her hand over Marco’s evidence. “Can you do that for us, and tell us what you see?”
Chongrak nodded. With his left hand he reached forward and tentatively took hold of one of the pieces of half-melted aluminum. As soon as he had hold of it, his fingers seized it like the talons of an eagle around its prey, and his entire demeanor changed. He closed his eyes. Sat up straight. Held his head high. Before everyone’s eyes, he transformed from a wallflower into the person whose presence owned the room.
“It’s scrap from a welding process,” Chongrak declared in a confident, rich baritone that seemed too large for his body. “Aluminum. It was chosen for its light weight and its strength.”
Modulating her voice to a soothing volume and pitch, Heather asked, “Chosen by whom? Can you see the welding now?”
The young man’s face tensed with effortful concentration.
“I see her,” Chongrak said. “She’s young. Blond.” Though his eyes were still closed, he reached forward with his right hand and picked up another piece of metal. “It’s nighttime. She’s creating a frame for something. Inside a truck.”
Meaningful looks traveled from person to person around the room. Taking the cue, Heather asked Chongrak, “What kind of truck? Tell me about it.”
“It’s white,” Chongrak said. “A sport-utility vehicle. With a hatchback.” He winced profoundly enough to bare his teeth for a moment. “Can’t see what model … That’s all there is.” The two pieces of metal fell from his hands and clanged brightly as they bounced across the tabletop.
From across the room, Marco waved for Heather’s attention and pointed at the burned book. She reached over and nudged it into Chongrak’s grasp.
He picked it up with both hands, hugged it to his chest, and let out a pained gasp. “Fire!” he cried. “Pages burning!”
“Go back further,” Heather urged softly, placing a consoling hand on his arm. “Before the fire. Has anyone ever read this book?”
Chongrak calmed and took a breath. “Yes,” he said. His fingers traveled slowly along the book’s charred edges. “They all did. They read it together.”
“Who are they?” asked Heather. “What do they look like?”
“Two men and the blond woman. One man is white, the other is black.” He paused and cocked his head at an angle. “They’re flipping pages. Looking for something. A map.”
Shawn grew anxious as he felt time slipping past, and he made a circling motion with his hand to ask Heather to pick up the pace. She nodded and turned back to the psychometric man.
“Chongrak,” Heather said. “What map are they looking at?”
“The United States.”
Confused glances circuited the room. No one seemed to know what to make of that. Shawn threw a questioning look at Heather, who shrugged in frustration. She asked Chongrak, “Is there any part of the map that they seem most interested in?”
“Not sure,” he said. “They’re looking at the whole western half … The white man is pointing at something; I don’t know what. Could be Idaho, or Montana, or Wyoming … They’re closing the book. That’s all.” He dropped the book back on the table with a resounding slam.
All that was left was the roc
k. Heather picked it up and placed it gently into Chongrak’s hand. “Take your time,” she said.
He breathed in deeply and tilted his head back, as if he were staring at the sky. “It’s the white man who was reading the book. He’s picking up the rock. From barren ground covered with water. Skinny trees in the distance.” Chongrak smiled. “Steam. There’s a pillar of steam rising from the ground. A geyser.”
Marco blurted out, “A geyser?” Despite Heather’s glare, he continued. “Is the rock from Yellowstone National Park?”
“Yes,” Chongrak said. “The man is in Yellowstone Park.”
Reeling with shocked understanding, Marco collapsed into a chair and exclaimed, “Oh, my God.”
Shawn sensed that a breakthrough had been made, so he nodded to Heather, who tapped Chongrak’s shoulder. The young Thai man opened his eyes, and his reticent disposition returned.
Heather relieved him of the rock in his hand. “Thank you, Chongrak,” she said. “You’ve been a great help. You can go now.”
He smiled without looking her in the eye, then crept from his seat and walked in tiny steps to the door. Shawn opened it ahead of the boyish man, who slipped out of the room without another word or even a single look back.
As the door closed, Jordan said to Marco, “Explain.”
“It makes sense now,” Marco said. “The Marked are looking for a game-changer. Something that’ll neutralize your movement in one shot. They’re taking the bomb to Yellowstone.”
Everyone except Marco looked utterly mystified. It was Jordan who asked, “So? So what?”
“So,” Marco said with naked scorn, “the park sits right on top of the Yellowstone Caldera.”
Shawn and most of the other people in the room still had no idea what Marco was talking about, but one person did: Diana.
She fell into a chair and covered her open mouth with her hands. “Oh, Jesus.”
Tom looked perplexed as he said to Diana, “Seeing as Marco can’t explain his way out of a wet paper bag on this, you want to take a shot?”
Diana nodded, lowered her hands, and took a breath. “The Yellowstone Caldera is the remnant of the last eruption of the Yellowstone supervolcano,” she said.
