The 4400- the Vesuvius Prophecy

by Greg Cox

  He turned toward Clayton. “We’re going to need an address for the brother.”

  If Gorinsky was listening to the conversation, there was no way to know.

  SEVEN

  PHILIP GORINSKY RESIDED in Puyallup, northwest of Mount Rainier. The looming glaciers fed the silty green river flowing through the surrounding valley, irrigating blooming fields of daffodils on the outskirts of the city. Farmlands gradually gave way to more residential neighborhoods. As they pulled up to the curb outside Bill Gorinsky’s brother’s address, Diana spotted a VOLCANO EVACUATION ROUTE sign posted along the street. The blue and white metal sign, which flaunted a pictogram of a spewing volcano, was an unwelcome reminder of all that might be at stake every moment that Cooper DeMeers remained at large. She couldn’t help glancing up at the mountain, which looked twice as imposing as it did from Seattle. If and when Rainier did blow its top, Puyallup would be one of the first communities to be flattened by a speeding lahar.

  I just hope we’re not wasting time investigating Gorinsky, Diana thought. But they had yet to determine conclusively the identity and intentions of the aggressive stranger who had accosted DeMeers at the Market the other day. Nor did they know the connection between the two men. Maybe identifying Crew Cut can lead us to DeMeers?

  They approached Phil’s home, a modest A-frame house fronted by a well-tended lawn and gardens. An American flag was proudly displayed from the porch roof. A ribbon-shaped sticker on the mailbox urged them to support the troops. A ceramic gnome peeked out from behind a rhododendron bush. A metal sign informed them that the premises were guarded by Olympic Security. The scene gave Diana a wholesome small-town vibe. She rang the doorbell.

  “Coming!” a voice called from inside the house. When the door swung open a few moments later, to reveal the face and form of Gorinsky’s twin brother, it was obvious at a glance that it had not been Philip Gorinsky whom Tom had pursued at the Market.

  Whereas the twins had once been mirror images of each other, time and the arcane machinations of the future had played a cruel prank on the siblings. Phil was now nearly sixty years older than his institutionalized brother. Instead of the burly, red-headed sailor in the photo, a frail, silver-haired old man stood before them, supporting his weight with the help of a cane. Deep wrinkles creased his face, behind a pair of thick reading glasses. A hearing aid occupied one ear. Although it was a warm spring day, he wore an orange button-down sweater and slacks. A miniature flag pin gleamed upon his lapel. Age spots dotted his skin, which looked as dry and fragile as ancient parchment.

  Diana wasn’t too surprised by Phil’s geriatric appearance. Despite their initial excitement at learning that Gorinsky had a twin, she and Tom had realized quickly enough that Phil would have aged normally the whole time his brother was missing. It was one thing to grasp that concept intellectually, however, and another to find yourself face-to-face with the bizarre reality. It’s like Einstein’s “twin paradox” brought to life, she thought. Born on the same day in 1922, one brother was now twenty-seven years old, while the other was in his eighties. Talk about a time warp.

  “Hello?” the elderly gentleman asked, keeping the chain on the door. He peered at his unexpected visitors. “What’s this about?” A feisty streak emerged as he eyed them suspiciously. “If you’re selling something, I’m not interested.”

  Diana flashed her badge. “NTAC, Mister Gorinsky.” She and Tom introduced themselves. “We’d like to talk to you about your brother.”

  “Is there something wrong?” Phil asked anxiously. “Is he all right?” He was visibly concerned about his sibling’s well-being. “I was at the hospital just the other day and he seemed fine . . . well, as fine as he ever is.”

  “As far as we know, his condition is unchanged,” she assured him. “But we’d still like to speak with you, Mister Gorinsky.” She placed her palm against the door to hold it open. “Might we come in?”

  “What? Oh, of course.” He undid the chain and stepped inside to let them enter, looking mildly embarrassed that he hadn’t invited them in before. “Forgive my manners. And please call me Phil. I haven’t been ‘Mister Gorinsky’ since I retired from teaching back in eighty-six.”

  The living room was as neat and tidy as the front yard. Copies of Reader’s Digest and the AARP magazine rested on a polished wooden coffee table, next to a large-print edition of a Tom Clancy novel. The couch, wallpaper, and other furnishings were old-fashioned, but clean and in good condition. The carpet looked freshly vacuumed. The dust-free furniture and knickknacks smelled of Lemon Pledge. The cozy setting reminded Diana of her grandmother’s old house. After the grungy squalor of DeMeers’s basement dwelling, Phil’s orderly domicile came as a pleasant relief.

  Tom glanced around. “Do you live here alone, Mister Gorin—Phil?”

  “I do indeed,” the octogenarian replied. “Ever since my darling Eleanor passed away some time ago. I have a nurse who checks in on me twice a week, plus there are some nice ladies from my church who drop by now and then just to make sure I’m still breathing.” A medic alert bracelet circled his wrist. “Bill moved in with me briefly, after he got back, but I’m afraid that . . . well, it didn’t work out.”

  “So we understand,” Tom said gently. “You have our sympathies.”

  “Thank you.” Phil gestured toward the couch. “Please make yourself comfortable.” He started to hobble toward the kitchen. “Can I interest you in some fresh lemonade?”

  “No, thank you,” Diana declined politely. She appreciated his cooperation and hospitality. They didn’t get a lot of either nowadays. The agents sat down on the couch, while Phil cautiously lowered himself into a rocking chair in front of the unlit fireplace. A duplicate copy of that photo in Gorinsky’s hospital room sat atop the mantle, alongside several other framed portraits of friends and family. The two young servicemen grinned at her from behind glass; little did they know what the future had in store for them. Looking closely at the old man in the chair, Diana thought she could still see the family resemblance. “Were you and your brother close?”

  “We are close,” Phil insisted, “even with all his troubles. People talk about the special bond between twins, but it wasn’t just an old wives’ tale in our case. We’ve always had a connection. When Bill was nearly killed by that Nazi bombing run during the war, I knew right away that something terrible had happened to him, even though I was stationed thousands of miles away in the Pacific at the time.”

  Diana remembered the burn marks scarring Gorinsky’s flesh, but took Phil’s anecdote with a grain of salt. As far as she knew, there was no hard evidence supporting the idea that identical twins possessed a psychic bond. Then again, a few years ago she would have said the same thing about time travel, telekinesis, and any number of other unlikely phenomena . . .

  “So you sensed that he had been injured somehow?”

  “That’s right.” Phil shuddered at the memory. “But I also knew that he was still alive, just like I did after he disappeared in forty-seven, two years after V-J Day. The whole time Bill was missing, I always knew in my heart that he was still alive . . . somewhere.”

  More like some when, Diana thought.

  “That must have been rough,” Tom said, speaking from experience. Diana knew that he had hired private investigators to search for Shawn after his nephew disappeared.

  Phil’s voice turned bitter. “It was just so goddamn unfair, excuse the language.” His knuckles tightened around the grip of his cane. “Bill had already come through so much. He’d survived the war, endured two years of rehab in a VA hospital, and was finally getting back on his feet again. He had his health back, he was starting college on the GI Bill, he was engaged to get married . . . he had his whole life ahead of him.”

  And then the future snatched him away, Diana realized. No wonder Gorinsky was so obsessed with getting back to his own time. He’d missed out on the best years of his life. “I guess that’s why he’s had so much trouble coping with his 4400 experienc
e.”

  Phil nodded grimly. “Can you blame him? After the war, we were promised the American Dream, but Bill got cheated out of his share.” His face took on a distinctly guilty expression. He hesitated before speaking again. “And I’m afraid there’s more. Bill’s fiancée, the girl he was supposed to marry . . . well, that was my Eleanor.” He glanced up at a wedding photo on the mantle. Diana spotted the bride in several other portraits, aging gracefully over the course of a lifetime. “I hope you won’t judge us too harshly. We both waited years for some word of what had happened to Bill, while growing closer all the while. Eventually, we turned to each other for comfort.”

  What’s to judge? Diana thought sympathetically. It was an unusual turn of events, but not inconceivable under the circumstances. I can see it happening.

  “We had a good life,” Phil continued, a bit defensively. “I don’t regret a thing. But it still came as quite a shock to Bill when he finally returned.” Rising from his chair, he gazed mournfully at his late wife’s portrait. “Eleanor was already gone by then, of course, taken by breast cancer a few years earlier. Perhaps that was for the best, at least for her sake.”

  Diana wondered if Phil ever blamed himself for his brother’s mental collapse. The tragic story reminded her of poor Orson Bailey, one of the first 4400s she and Tom had investigated. A devoted husband, Bailey had returned just in time to watch his beloved wife die of Alzheimer’s. Not for the first time, Diana had to ask herself what sort of grand design could possibly justify all the pain and heartache that had resulted from displacing 4400 people in time. Like Orson Bailey, Gorinsky’s life and sanity had become collateral damage in the future’s byzantine campaign to change the present.

  “I’m sure he understands,” she assured Phil, hoping it was true. “On some level, at least.” Privately, though, she wondered if Gorinsky had truly forgiven his brother for marrying Eleanor in his absence. Would April ever forgive me, she thought hypothetically, if I stole a fiancé from her?

  Not that anything like that was ever likely to happen.

  Tom tactfully changed the subject. “Has your brother ever demonstrated any unusual ability?”

  There was nothing in Gorinsky’s file about an ability, but the returnees’ unique talents often surfaced without warning. Maybe his file was out of date?

  “That really happens?” Phil looked slightly taken aback. “I’ve heard stories, of course, but I thought maybe it was just ballyhoo to sell newspapers, like Bigfoot and flying saucers. It’s hard enough to accept all that screwy time travel business they keep talking about, even though I can see with my own eyes that Bill didn’t age a day while he was away.” He shook his head in disbelief. Tired eyes implored the two agents. “Tell me how that makes any kind of sense. What kind of world are we living in where this sort of thing can actually happen?”

  I wish I knew, Diana thought.

  “Bilocation,” Marco said.

  The Theory Room at NTAC was the basement lair of Marco and his fellow brainiacs, where they applied their collective gray matter to the various mysteries presented by the 4400. The décor was as messy and unconventional as their minds. A movie poster for The Monster That Devoured Cleveland adorned one wall, next to a large dry-erase board covered with abstruse calculations and equations. Legal pads and computer disks were strewn about an assortment of cluttered desks and workstations. A “Jordan Collier” action figure perched atop a humming computer monitor. Christmas lights were strung up along the ceiling. Photos of crop circles and bug-eyed extraterrestrials were pinned to bulletin boards. Cardboard boxes, packed with old computer printouts, were stacked in the corners. The air reeked of microwave popcorn.

  “Come again?” Tom asked, standing awkwardly by the door. He always felt out of his element in the nerds’ domain, but had come to appreciate their frequent insights into NTAC’s weirder cases. When you were dealing with situations as off the wall as the ones they encountered every day, it definitely paid to have some wild imaginations on your side. The two agents had descended to the Theory Room in hopes that Marco and his pals could explain how Bill Gorinsky could be at the Park Place Market two days ago while he was confined within Abendson at the same time.

  “Bilocation,” Marco repeated. Standing like a professor at the front of the room, he scrawled the word onto a blank board with a grease marker. “It’s the ability to appear in two places simultaneously, just like your suspect apparently did.”

  Tom gave him an incredulous look. “There’s actually a word for that?”

  “Yep,” Marco confirmed. “According to some sources, the phenomena has been around for centuries. Various saints, mystics, monks, and yogi are supposed to have been able to bilocate at will.” He started to count them off on his fingers. “Saint Anthony of Padua, Saint Ambrose of Milan, Saint Severus of Ravenna, Saint Alphonsus Maria de’Liguori, Padre Pio of Italy, Pope Cyril VI. . . .”

  “And Aleister Crowley,” one of Marco’s colleagues piped up. Tom knew the guy’s name was Brady, but that was about the extent of his knowledge. Marco tended to act as spokesman for the think tank. “Don’t forget him.”

  “Oh yeah,” Marco added. “Him, too.”

  “So what are we talking about here?” Diana asked. “Some sort of astral projection?” She sat at a cluttered round table facing Marco. A lava lamp cast shifting red shadows over her face. “Gorinsky, if that’s who it really was, certainly seemed solid enough at the Market the other day. He grabbed on to DeMeers at one point.”

  Marco didn’t seem troubled by this detail. “That fits perfectly. In your classic bilocation scenario, the ectoplasmic double appears totally corporeal, and is able to interact normally with the physical world—until it evaporates back into the ether.”

  Tom nodded. “That would explain how he got away from me at that jade jewelry shop. I guess Gorinsky just stopped . . . bilocating . . . once he was out of sight.”

  “If it was Gorinsky,” Diana reiterated. “We don’t know that for sure.”

  “It was him,” Tom said confidently. He had no more doubts on that score. Marco’s explanation made sense . . . in a freaky 4400 kind of way. A thought occurred to him. “Gorinsky’s been getting electroshock treatments at Abendson. Do you think that maybe it was the shock treatment that awakened his ability?”

  “Actually, they don’t call it shock treatment anymore,” Brady corrected him. “The preferred term is ‘electroconvulsive therapy.’ ”

  Tom couldn’t care less.

  “You know,” Diana recalled, “when Gorinsky grabbed on to DeMeers, Cooper acted like he’d received a minor electrical shock. Perhaps there is an electromagnetic component to his ability?”

  “It’s possible,” Marco conceded. “The ECT could have stimulated the production of promicin in his brain.” The newly discovered neurotransmitter had already been linked to the myriad abilities displayed by the 4400. “It’s hard to say. We still don’t know enough about what activates the returnees’ latent abilities. Or how exactly ECT works, for that matter.”

  “In any event,” Diana pointed out, “there’s another mystery that still needs solving. What does Gorinsky want with Cooper DeMeers?”

  Good question, Tom thought. A Star Trek calendar on the wall reminded him that DeMeers had eluded them for nearly forty-eight hours now. A nagging sense of urgency gnawed away at his patience. Although he couldn’t say why, all his instincts told him that it was vitally important that they find DeMeers before Gorinsky did. Beckoning to Diana, he headed for the door.

  “Let’s take another look at that address book.”

  EIGHT

  SONDRA JONNSON (disappeared December 9, 1993) worked as a tour guide for Seattle’s Underground City. They found her down in Pioneer Square, hyping the tour to passing sightseers while handing out promotional brochures. Old-time streetlamps and an ornate wrought-iron pergola gave this historic stretch of downtown a nicely antique feel. A vintage streetcar trundled down First Avenue, past blocks of imposing Roman Revival ar
chitecture. An authentic Tlingit totem pole stood guard over the small brick plaza at the center of the square. A few yards away, a public drinking fountain was topped by a bronze bust of Chief Seattle himself. A sleeping wino added a bit more character to the neighborhood. Art galleries, clubs, bars, restaurants, and sidewalk cafés packed the surrounding red-brick buildings. After the Great Fire of 1889 burned the city to the ground, Seattle’s founders had taken care to rebuild the downtown in stone.

  Diana prayed it wouldn’t be necessary to rebuild the city from scratch again.

  “Trust me,” Sondra told a family of tourists as they approached. She was a tall, strapping woman whose blond hair, blue eyes, and fair complexion betrayed her Scandinavian roots. A baseball cap shielded her eyes from the sun. A souvenir T-shirt advertised the Underground Tour. Hiking shorts exposed long, athletic legs. Flashing a blindingly white smile, she pressed some brochures into their hands. “You haven’t really seen Seattle until you’ve seen what’s underneath it. That’s where the real history is buried.”

  Diana and Tom waited for the tourists to depart before approaching Sondra. “Excuse me, Ms. Jonnson?”

  “Yes?” The woman turned her thousand-watt smile on the agents. She held out a brochure. “Are you interested in the tour?”

  “Not right now,” Diana said, producing her badge. “NTAC. We’d like to talk to you for a few minutes if that’s convenient.”

  Sondra’s smile dimmed. A wary expression came over her Nordic features as she glanced at her wristwatch. She started to edge away from them. “Actually, I’ve got a tour starting in about twenty minutes . . .”

  “This won’t take long,” Tom insisted. He moved to block her escape.

  Sondra gave in. “All right.” She nodded at a park bench underneath the totem pole. An iron fence enclosed a small garden behind the pole. “Over there.” Diana sat down beside Sondra on the bench, while Tom remained standing. “What’s this all about?”