The 4400- the Vesuvius Prophecy

by Greg Cox

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  Isabelle shook her head. Sorry, that’s not going to work this time.

  Just as she had with Daniel Armand and his murderous accomplices, Isabelle turned the terrorist’s ability against him. Before Jamie could even exhale, a ferocious wind whipped up behind him, blowing out the glass pane between him and the robots. A storm of broken glass pierced his body as he screamed in agony. He fell forward onto his face. Jagged shards jutted from his back. Blood spread across the tile floor. His body twitched spasmodically before falling still. She felt his heart stop beating. Jamie Skysinger was gone with the wind.

  Contents

  Chapter One

  Chapter Two

  Chapter Three

  Chapter Four

  Chapter Five

  Chapter Six

  Chapter Seven

  Chapter Eight

  Chapter Nine

  Chapter Ten

  Chapter Eleven

  Chapter Twelve

  Chapter Thirteen

  Chapter Fourteen

  Chapter Fifteen

  Chapter Sixteen

  Chapter Seventeen

  Chapter Eighteen

  Chapter Nineteen

  Chapter Twenty

  Chapter Twenty-one

  Epilogue

  Acknowledgments

  About the Author

  The past is not dead. In fact, it’s not even past.

  —William Faulkner

  NATIONAL THREAT ASSESSMENT

  COMMAND INTELLIGENCE BRIEFING

  To: Nina Jarvis, Director, Pacific Northwest Division

  From: Archives (Classified.)

  Re: Case File Chronology

  Note: The events described in this dossier take place shortly after 4400 Incident E25, code-named “Graduation Day.”

  ONE

  THE MAJESTIC WHITE peak of Mount Rainier was one of the first things Maia Skouris had seen when she’d Returned. The snowcapped mountain had loomed above her on that misty morning almost three years ago, when the eight-year-old girl had suddenly found herself standing on Highland Beach, alongside exactly 4,399 equally baffled souls. Maia remembered being scared and disoriented, not knowing where she was or what had become of her parents. Those feelings came back to her as the huge white glaciers grew steadily larger in the windshield of the chartered bus carrying her up the side of the mountain. She shuddered involuntarily in her seat. Maia was used to seeing the future, but sometimes the past sneaked up on her as well.

  One minute I was picking flowers in California, she recalled. The next minute there was a great big mountain on the horizon . . .

  “All right, everyone,” Alana Mareva addressed Maia and the other children from the front of the bus. A hint of a foreign accent colored the teacher’s voice. Maia knew the elegant, dark-haired woman from outside school as well; Alana was Maia’s mother’s partner’s girlfriend. “We’re almost there.”

  The bus had left The 4400 Center over three hours ago, on a daylong field trip to Mount Rainier National Park. Towering green fir trees seemed to rush past outside as the bus full of kids climbed a steep mountain road toward the upper slopes of Rainier. A bright blue sky, dotted with fluffy white clouds, could be glimpsed above the treetops. The class had lucked out, weather-wise. It was a perfect day for an outdoor excursion.

  Cheers greeted Alana’s announcement. The hubbub of dozens of excited voices filled the interior of the air-conditioned bus. Ms. Tobey, the other teacher leading the field trip, clicked off the mounted TV set that had been entertaining the young passengers with a series of educational videos. Many of Maia’s classmates had chosen to occupy themselves with their own books or computer games instead. Looking at the seemingly ordinary students and teachers, you would never guess that each and every one of them was, like Maia, one of the 4400—unless, of course, you noticed that Billy Hulquist was juggling marbles without actually touching them, or that Rory Plummer was drawing brightly colored designs in her notebook using only her fingertip. Duane Foxworth blinked repeatedly as he peered at the wilderness outside; Maia knew he was capturing snapshots of the scenery in his photographic memory. Sumi Price swayed in her seat, snapping her fingers to a rhythm only she could hear. Sumi’s ears could pick up radio signals from as far away as Bucharest.

  Pretty neat abilities, Maia thought enviously. Too bad I can’t trade mine for one of theirs.

  Precognition was seldom any fun.

  Maia tucked her journal into the backpack resting at her feet. Despite her unpleasant associations with the mountain, she was looking forward to arriving at their destination. Her mother had insisted that Rainier was beautiful this time of year, and Maia had to admit that it would be kind of cool to see actual snow in the middle of May. Pushing her painful memories aside, she firmly resolved to have a good time. After all, she reminded herself, this sure beat being stuck inside a classroom all day.

  “As we’ve discussed,” Alana lectured, “Mount Rainier is the highest peak in the Cascades, rising to over fourteen thousand feet. That’s almost three miles high. On a clear day, it can be seen from over one hundred and fifty miles away, all the way from Portland to Seattle. It is a dormant volcano, less than a million years old, and is part of the so-called Ring of Fire, a chain of seismic activity that stretches around the Pacific Ocean all the way to New Zealand.”

  Tyrell Hughes raised his hand to get the teacher’s attention. “The volcano’s not going to erupt while we’re up there, is it?”

  “I wouldn’t worry about that.” Alana gave the boy a reassuring smile. “Rainier hasn’t had a major eruption for over five hundred years. It’s bound to erupt someday, but there will probably be plenty of warning signs first. When Mount St. Helens erupted back in 1980, it was after months of preliminary tremors, bulges, and discharges of steam.”

  Even still, dozens of people got killed, Maia thought. She had read about the 1980 eruption, which had taken place while she was still missing. Alana didn’t seem to be in a hurry to mention that part.

  “These days Mount Rainier is carefully monitored for any signs of increased volcanic activity,” the teacher continued. “They wouldn’t let us into the park if it wasn’t safe.”

  “But it could go off today,” Tyrell persisted. He seemed morbidly fascinated by the possibility. “Couldn’t it?”

  Alana sighed softly. “The odds are very much against it, Tyrell.” The bus pulled into the parking lot outside the visitor center, and Alana looked grateful for the distraction. “Here we are, kids. Everyone ready to get off the bus?”

  Another chorus of cheers testified to the children’s eagerness to set foot on the mountain. Maia peered out the window at the breathtaking vista before her. A sign welcomed them to the Paradise area, elevation 5,400 feet. Acres of wildflowers carpeted the sloping green meadows ascending toward snowier slopes farther above. Granite boulders jutted from the verdant fields. Hiking trails led up and away from the visitor center, a futuristic structure that resembled a flying saucer. Maia remembered Marco telling her that the very first modern UFO sighting had taken place near Mount Rainier in 1947, only a year after Maia had disappeared from California. Marco had speculated that many such UFO reports had been inspired by the glowing balls of light that had abducted the 4400 over the years. Makes sense to me, Maia thought, although we’ll probably never know for sure
.

  Alana and Ms. Tobey herded the kids off the bus. “All right now, everybody stay together.” Maia waited patiently for her turn to disembark. As she stepped down onto the pavement, the crisp mountain air carried the fragrance of heather and huckleberries. She took a deep breath, savoring the refreshing aroma. The sunlight, reflected off the icy glaciers above, was so bright that it made her eyes water. Lifting a hand to shield her eyes from the glare, she observed the winding paths leading up to the snow line. She wondered how high she would have to hike to reach all that frozen whiteness. It didn’t seem that far away. Maybe there would be time to explore the trails after they checked out the exhibits at the visitor center?

  Without warning, the future intruded on the present:

  The snowy mountainside shakes. Hot steam vents from cracks in the earth. Maia’s mother, Diana Skouris, confronts a nearby figure whose face Maia cannot see. Diana is wearing an NTAC vest over her snow gear. Tremors rock the ground beneath her feet, so that she can barely keep from falling. A deafening roar rises from below. The jets of steam smell like rotten eggs. “You have to stop this!” Diana shouts urgently. Maia glimpses a masculine figure in a flannel shirt, his face turned away from hers. The man seems to be trembling in sync with the shuddering mountain. “You don’t want to be remembered this way. D. B. Cooper never hurt anybody!”

  Melting snow starts to bubble and boil . . .

  “Maia? Are you all right?”

  The future faded from view, just like it always did, and Maia found herself looking into Alana’s worried brown eyes. The teacher was crouched in front of Maia, examining her student with obvious concern. Maia saw her own face reflected in Alana’s eyes. She looked pale and frightened. “What is it, Maia? Did you see something?”

  Alana was very familiar with Maia’s ability.

  Maia nodded. She stared up at the crest of the mountain, half expecting to see an explosion of heated gases and lava blowing the peak apart. Despite the warm sunlight, a familiar chill came over her as she spoke with utter certainty. “The mountain is going to wake up.”

  Alana gulped. Her dark eyes widened in alarm. She glanced around anxiously to see if any of the other children had overheard Maia, only to discover a circle of frightened kids surrounding them, obviously hanging on Maia’s every word. Ms. Tobey tried to steer the onlookers away, but it was too late; some of the younger kids were already crying and begging to go home. Tyrell looked like he was about to throw up.

  I’m sorry, Maia thought guiltily. The terrified expressions of her classmates tore her up inside. It wasn’t fair; even in the company of her own kind, she still ended up feeling like a freak. I didn’t mean to spoil everything. I can’t help what I see.

  “Are you sure?” Alana asked, loudly enough for the other kids to hear. She seemed to be trying to calm them as much as Maia. “It’s impossible to predict exactly when Rainier might erupt.”

  “It’s not impossible,” Maia said. She had learned from experience that lying about her visions only made things worse. Like the time she hid her predictions from her mommy and all the 4400 got sick. “I just did it.” The memory of what she had just seen was burned into her brain. “And I know who is responsible.”

  “Responsible?” Alana’s brow furrowed in confusion. “Maia, people don’t cause volcanoes to erupt.”

  “This one will.” She remembered her mother shouting at a faceless figure in a flannel shirt. “His name is D. B. Cooper.”

  TWO

  “THE SKYJACKER?”

  Nina Jarvis, director of the National Threat Assessment Command, sat at the end of a long conference table at NTAC Headquarters in Seattle. A middle-aged brunette, she wore a tan dress suit and pearls. Metal blinds, pulled shut over the clear glass walls of the conference room, shielded those present from outside scrutiny. The low ceiling and overhead lights gave the chamber the feel of an underground bunker. A division of Homeland Security, NTAC had been tasked with monitoring the 4400 situation.

  “That’s what Maia said,” Diana Skouris replied to her boss. Diana was a slender woman in her mid-thirties, with auburn hair and green eyes. A black vest complemented a lightweight turtleneck sweater. She squirmed uncomfortably in her seat. As always, it felt odd reporting on her own adopted daughter, but NTAC had learned to take Maia’s prophecies very seriously. She was never wrong.

  “I always figured he was dead,” Tom Baldwin commented. Diana’s partner sat across from her, his rugged features illuminated by the glow of the computer screen in front of him. Sandy blond hair gave him a youthful look that was belied by his careworn face, which, even when relaxed, showed evidence of the strain he’d been under for the last few years. Pale blue eyes peered out from beneath his furrowed brow. He wore a blue serge jacket over a checked dress shirt that was open at the collar; Diana wasn’t sure she’d ever seen him wear a tie. “That was, what, about thirty-five years ago?”

  “Pretty much,” Diana confirmed. Her own screen was occupied by a 1972 composite sketch of a middle-aged Caucasian male who looked vaguely like a young Ross Perot, with a narrow face, combed-back black hair, beady brown eyes, and a deeply tanned complexion. A narrow black tie was knotted around his collar. An alternative sketch depicted him wearing the wraparound Ray-Ban sunglasses he’d sported during part of the flight. Although she had vague memories of hearing about the notorious hijacker when she was just a kid, she had reviewed the case in preparation for this meeting:

  On the night before Thanksgiving, November 24, 1971, a man traveling under the name “Dan Cooper” had hijacked a Northwest Orient flight out of Portland, Oregon. Claiming to have a bomb in his suitcase, Cooper quietly issued his demands en route to Sea-Tac Airport, where he released the passengers in exchange for $200,000 and four parachutes. He then ordered the pilots and crew to fly the jet toward Mexico at an unusually low altitude and speed. Somewhere over southern Washington state, he had exited the plane via the rear stairway—and was never seen nor heard from again. Despite an extensive FBI manhunt, neither Cooper nor his body had ever been located. Over the years, various names had been bruited about as possible suspects, and there was no shortage of theories regarding his fate, but the fact remained that the true identity of “D. B. Cooper,” as the press mistakenly christened him, remained unknown to this day.

  So how come Maia saw me confronting him on top of Mount Rainier?

  “Even if he was still alive,” Nina observed, “wouldn’t he be in his eighties now?” In fact, Cooper’s file contained an age-progressed version of the original FBI sketch. Scrolling down through the document, Diana found a color drawing of a wrinkled, white-haired old man. He looked rather too elderly to go mountaineering anytime soon.

  “Not if he’s one of the 4400,” Marco Pacella pointed out. The floppy-haired head analyst looked like he should be working at Microsoft, not NTAC. Thick black glasses and a Hawaiian shirt gave him an endearingly nerdy appearance. He sat beside Diana at the table; they had been seeing each other for a while now. She wasn’t quite sure where their relationship was going, but Marco was a sweet guy who was also one the smartest people she knew. “For all we know, he hasn’t aged a day since he disappeared back in seventy-one.”

  Good point, Diana thought. All of the 4400 had returned to the present the same age they had been when they were first abducted by agents from the future. Technically, Maia herself was over seventy-eight years old, but, emotionally and physically, she was still just a ten-year-old girl. Diana tried not to think about the fact that her daughter was actually old enough to be her grandmother.

  “So D. B. Cooper might be one of the 4400?” Tom shook his head at the notion. “Now there’s one theory I’ve never heard before.”

  “It’s possible,” Marco said. Behind his glasses, his eyes gleamed with enthusiasm. “How cool would that be? Cooper’s not just another hijacker; he’s become a kind of cult hero, inspiring books, movies, pop songs, raps, et cetera. A New Wave band named D. B. Cooper released three albums back in the early eighti
es. Seth Green went looking for him in a recent comedy. There’s even a yearly festival, ‘D. B. Cooper Days,’ held over in Cowlitz County, where some people believe Cooper touched down.” He grinned infectiously. “I actually hit the festival a couple years ago. It was a blast.”

  Diana remembered Marco trying to talk her into attending the celebration the previous November. As it happened, she had been busy with a case at the time. “I suppose any unsolved mystery has its own fascination, but I can’t say I approve of people romanticizing a wanted hijacker.”

  “Well, nobody actually got hurt in the D. B. Cooper incident,” Marco pointed out. “The rest of the passengers didn’t know there was a problem until Cooper ordered them off the plane at Sea-Tac. We don’t even know if the bomb in the briefcase was for real.” He shrugged. “Besides, this was back before people were all stressed-out over terrorists. There weren’t even metal detectors in the airports then.”

  Hard to imagine, Diana thought. The world had changed so much over the last few decades. She felt an extra twinge of sympathy for her daughter, who had suddenly jumped from 1946 to the present. It’s a wonder she’s adapted as well as she has.

  “You say Cooper’s been referenced in pop songs and raps?” Tom queried Marco.

  A pop culture maven, Marco nodded in confirmation. “Oh yeah. Kid Rock cited him in one song. MF DOOM mentioned him in a rap just last year.”

  Diana had no idea who “MF DOOM” was. Some sort of hip-hop artist, she guessed.

  “Could that be where Maia picked up the name?” Tom asked.

  Diana shook her head. “I talked to her about that. The name means nothing to her, except that she heard me use it in her vision.” She chuckled softly. “Maia’s musical tastes lean more toward Frank Sinatra and the big band era.”

  “Beats Britney Spears,” Tom said with a smirk.

  Amen, Diana thought.