The 4400- the Vesuvius Prophecy

by Greg Cox

  In fact, that was an extreme understatement. She had mastered advanced calculus in less than a day and probably knew more about higher mathematics than most of the professors at the state university. Still, no need to brag about it, she thought, impressed by her own modesty. That would just be rude.

  “Actually,” Shawn said, “it’s more about politics than numbers. Got to keep all the different departments happy, you know.” He tried to guide her toward the elevator. “Thanks anyway, though.”

  Don’t treat me like a child, she pouted. But she held her tongue, determined to prove to Shawn that she wasn’t the crazy, out-of-control person he thought she was. “I just want to help out my two favorite guys.”

  “That’s really sweet, honey,” her father humored her. “Hey, I might have a project for you. I’ve been meaning to have someone look over our medical database to see if any of our people are showing any long-term side effects as a result of inhibitor poisoning. If you like, I can set you up at a monitor down in the infirmary.”

  Sounds like busywork to me, Isabelle thought. She knew a wild goose chase when she heard one. They were hiding something from her, but she could see right through them. It took all her patience and self-control to keep from demanding that they tell her the truth right here and now. Instead she went along with this transparent charade. “Sure. Let me at that database. I’ll zip through it in no time.”

  Both men looked visibly relieved that she wasn’t throwing a fit. Like she was some kind of spoiled kid.

  Fine, she thought spitefully, I can keep secrets, too. Like the fact that she had been covertly meeting with Dennis Ryland. Intent on keeping up with current events, she had discovered Ryland’s new position at the Haspel Corporation before it had even made the back pages of the news. Instead of serving time in a federal prison, the mastermind behind the inhibitor scandal had been rewarded with a cushy job in the private sector, where he was continuing his campaign to neutralize the 4400 by any means possible. This had all been done very quietly; she doubted that even Tom Baldwin or his partner had heard about Ryland’s new position yet. But it was all there in the fine print; you just had to be able to read between the lines.

  Isabelle knew she had enemies, at NTAC, among the 4400, even in the future. That being the case, securing some powerful allies had struck her as a good idea. If her destiny really was to exterminate the 4400, as the late Matthew Ross had insisted, then that put her and Dennis Ryland on the same side. And if she chose to defend the returnees instead, then infiltrating Haspelcorp could have its advantages as well. Shawn and her father would take her a lot more seriously, she figured, if she managed to get to the bottom of Ryland’s schemes against the 4400.

  Isabelle liked having a foot in both camps. Everyone keeps telling me I have a destiny, she thought, but I prefer to have options.

  She chucked the useless magazine into a waste bin.

  TWELVE

  WILLIAM GORINSKY WAS buried with full military honors in a hillside cemetery overlooking Puyallup. Clouds and drizzle provided an appropriately gloomy atmosphere. Umbrellas blossomed above the heads of the funeral party. An honor guard composed of two servicemen fired shots into a bleak gray sky. An American flag draped the casket. Buglers being in short supply, a portable CD player delivered a recorded rendition of “Taps.”

  Standing apart from the other mourners, Tom listened silently to the farewell salute. A dark overcoat protected him from the rain. Alana stood beside him, sharing his umbrella. She wore a stylish but conservative black suit. “Are you all right?” she whispered to him softly.

  “Yeah, more or less.” He tugged at the band of silk constricting his throat; weddings and funerals were about the only times he broke down and wore a tie. “Thanks for coming with me today.”

  “Of course, Thomas.” She gave his hand a comforting squeeze. “I know this has to be difficult for you.”

  That’s for sure, he thought. Nevertheless, he felt obliged to pay his respects. Diana had offered to accompany him as well, but he had insisted that she spend Sunday with her daughter instead. I was responsible for Gorinsky’s death, not her.

  Oddly enough, the coroner’s report had ruled out electrocution as the cause of death. According to the autopsy, the shock from the power cord had not inflicted enough damage to kill Gorinsky, nor had he suffered any sort of heart attack. In the absence of any other theories, speculation centered around the electromagnetic nature of Gorinsky’s ability. Had Tom short-circuited him somehow by jolting him out of his bilocated state? Perhaps Gorinsky’s physical form hadn’t been able to survive the shock of being forcibly disconnected from his astral double? In the end, it didn’t really matter. One way or another, Tom realized, he died at my hands.

  Gorinsky’s funeral was sparsely attended. Thanks to his fifty-seven-year absence from history, the scarred veteran had outlived most of his contemporaries. Phil Gorinsky watched the proceedings from a wheelchair. A nurse stood by, shielding the old man with a black umbrella, while a uniformed Marine presented Phil with the flag from his brother’s casket. “Taps” continued to play as the coffin was slowly lowered into the earth.

  Tom realized he couldn’t put off speaking to Phil any longer. Letting go of Alana’s hand, he approached the retired schoolteacher. A cold rain pelted his head and shoulders. “Excuse me, Mister Gorinsky?”

  He was shocked by the change in the senior citizen’s appearance. Philip Gorinsky seemed dramatically weaker and more debilitated than he had been just three days earlier. His wrinkled skin was bleached of color. Hollow cheeks and sunken eyes gave him a cadaverous aspect. Despite a heavy coat and blanket, his palsied fingers shook as they held the folded flag in his lap. His brother’s death had obviously taken quite a toll on him.

  Phil looked up at Tom. “Agent Baldwin.”

  Tom was impressed that the old man remembered his name. “Forgive me for intruding, but I wanted to express my sincere condolences on your loss. I really wish things could have turned out differently.”

  He braced himself for a venomous outburst. Tom still wasn’t sure what he could have done differently to save Diana and the others, but Phil was entitled to feel angry about his brother’s death. If venting at Tom made the surviving twin feel better, the agent was willing to take a little verbal abuse. It was the least he could do for the man.

  For a second, he thought he saw a flash of resentment in the elderly veteran’s rheumy eyes, then Phil surprised him by saying, “It’s all right, Agent Baldwin. You were just doing your duty, I understand that.” He watched his twin’s casket disappear into the ground. “My brother was . . . disturbed . . . and he wasn’t getting any better. Maybe he’s finally at peace now.”

  “I hope so,” Tom said, grateful for the man’s forgiveness. He eyed Bill’s withered frame with concern. “How are you holding up, sir?”

  “At my age, holding up is harder than it sounds.” He shrugged his bony shoulders. “I suspect I’ll be joining Phil and Eleanor soon.” His voice wheezed from his lungs. “But not just yet. I like to think I still have a few more innings in me.”

  Tom started to compliment Phil on his attitude, but the man’s nurse interrupted. “Excuse me, I really need to get Mister Gorinsky out of the rain.”

  “Right.” Tom stepped aside to let the nurse wheel Phil toward a waiting ambulette. “Take care of yourself, Phil.”

  Alana rejoined him as he watched the ambulette pull away. She brought him under the cover of their umbrella. “How’d it go?”

  “Better than I expected, actually.” They clung together, sharing the warmth of their bodies. “It still seems a damn shame, though. Bill Gorinsky could have enjoyed a long, full life like his brother. He never asked for what happened to him.”

  “I know,” Alana said gravely. She had been abducted only five years before. “None of us did.”

  THIRTEEN

  A WEEKEND IN a holding cell hadn’t made Cooper DeMeers any more forthcoming.

  “How many times do I have to
tell you?” he griped. “I’m not D. B. Cooper!”

  Seated across from him in the interrogation room, Diana kept a close eye on the veins beneath the prisoner’s stubbly scalp. NTAC’s headquarters was a lot sturdier than either the Market or the Underground City, having been constructed in full compliance with Seattle’s building codes, but she didn’t feel like testing its limits this afternoon. Two earthquakes in one week is quite enough for me, thank you very much.

  Tom kept up the pressure. “Why do I feel like you’re still not leveling with us, Cooper?”

  “What does it even matter anyway, after all these years?” DeMeers blurted in exasperation. “Don’t you folks have better things to do? I thought there was a war on terror going on.”

  In fact, the 9/11 terror attacks had been one of the reasons that Diana had transferred from the CDC to Homeland Security. Here in Seattle, however, the return of the 4400 had trumped the threat of mere human terrorism, at least as far as NTAC was concerned. As far as they knew, al-Qaeda wasn’t capable of igniting Mount Rainier with a thought.

  Tom looked to Diana for her input. She knew exactly what he was thinking. They weren’t getting anywhere and time was running out. Rahmen Aziz could show up with a court order freeing DeMeers at any moment. Clearly, a change in strategy was required. She nodded thoughtfully at Tom. It was time to put all their cards on the table.

  “Here’s the thing, Cooper.” Tom put deliberate emphasis on their suspect’s first name. “We happen to know a little girl who can see the future. She tells us that ‘D. B. Cooper’ is going to cause Mount Rainier to erupt sometime in the near future.” His voice took on a sarcastic edge. “You don’t know any returnee who might have the ability to do that, do you? Maybe a fortyish white male who disappeared around 1971?”

  “Thousands of people could be killed in a disaster like that,” Diana stressed. “Whole cities could be wiped out.”

  DeMeers looked genuinely stunned and horrified by the picture they were painting. He practically had to lift his jaw off the table. “But . . . but I would never do anything like that! I wouldn’t dream of it.” His initial shock morphed into indignation. “What sort of monster do you think I am?”

  “D. B. Cooper threatened to blow up a jet full of innocent passengers,” Tom reminded him.

  “But nobody really got hurt!” DeMeers exclaimed. “He let all the passengers off at Sea-Tac. There wasn’t even really a bomb . . . or so some people think, that is.”

  Any doubts Diana still had about D. B. Cooper’s true identity were rapidly evaporating. “I’d like to think that,” she told him. “And nobody’s saying you’re a monster. You’re just another 4400 who can’t entirely control his ability yet.” As a peace offering, she offered him a pack of Raleigh cigarettes and a matchbook. “If you’ll just be honest with us, we can try to fix things so that nothing terrible happens because of you.”

  She didn’t mention that Maia’s visions had never been proved wrong. Now was not the time for another philosophical debate on free will versus predestination. Besides, Maia didn’t always see the whole picture, just bits and pieces of the future. Just a few weeks ago, for instance, she’d seen herself being kidnaped again, but not that Tom would eventually manage to talk the future into returning her to the present. I have to believe that we haven’t seen the full story here, either.

  “I don’t know,” he said hesitantly. Accepting the cigarettes, he gratefully lit up and took a couple of long draws on the cigarette to steady his nerves. “I’d like to help you, but . . .”

  His voice trailed off into silence. Diana guessed that he was still afraid of being prosecuted for that long-ago hijacking. She wished she had the authority to offer DeMeers some sort of clemency in exchange for his full cooperation, but neither she nor Tom was empowered to make any deals of that nature. Maybe we should ask Nina to talk to the FBI about that, before Aziz whisks DeMeers away from us.

  “But what?” Tom pressed him. He shoved an ashtray across the table. “Aren’t you concerned by what we just told you? Don’t you care that you could be responsible for the biggest disaster in U.S. history?”

  “Maybe that little girl is wrong!” DeMeers said desperately, reaching for straws. “How do I know that you’re not just making this up to trick me?”

  His faced reddened. A plump vein beat out a silent warning upon his forehead. He was so visibly upset that Diana feared that they might have pushed him too hard. To her dismay, the ashtray started vibrating like crazy. She felt a faint rumble beneath her chair. The table rattled. Diana grabbed on to it for support.

  Damn it, she thought. Looks like we went too easy on the inhibitor . . .

  Tom jumped to his feet. He reached for the tranquilizer pistol at his waist, but she signaled him to hold off for a moment. Maybe she could still talk DeMeers down, like she had in the Underground.

  “Cooper!” She kept her voice low, for fear of agitating him further. “Just calm down. Everything’s going to be okay. There’s no need to panic. We’ll work this out somehow.” His frantic eyes locked on to hers. She prayed she was getting through to him. “That’s right. You can do this. Just think of Sondra. You know she wouldn’t want you to lose control again . . .”

  DeMeers closed his eyes. He took deep, calming breaths. Diana tried to do the same as she waited anxiously to see whether the crisis had been averted again. Tense moments stretched on endlessly until the ashtray stopped vibrating and the rumble faded away. Diana collapsed against the back of her seat. Beneath her sweater, she was drenched in sweat. Her pulse was racing. She swallowed hard.

  That was a close one!

  One eye at a time, DeMeers checked to see if the interrogation room was still intact. “Is it over?” he asked tentatively. “Did I stop it in time?”

  “Seems like it,” Tom said. His hand came away from his holster and he signaled the med tech standing by behind the shiny one-way mirror. A young Filipino woman in mint green scrubs entered the room carrying a hypodermic. Her ashen complexion suggested that she had experienced the quake as well. “I think we’re done for the time being.”

  She could hear the frustration in his voice. It was going to be difficult to apply the third degree to a suspect who triggered earth tremors whenever he got riled up. We’re going to need a whole new approach here, she realized, assuming we get another shot at him.

  As if on cue, Nina appeared in the doorway. “Tom, Diana. If I can have a word with you?”

  Diana experienced a flash of déjà vu as they convened outside the interrogation room. Through the transparent side of the one-way mirror, she saw the med tech nervously administer an inhibitor/tranquilizer mix to DeMeers. She hoped the other woman wasn’t trembling too hard to find the vein.

  “Let me guess,” Tom said. “Aziz is here to spring DeMeers.”

  Nina shook her head. “Just the opposite. The NSA is taking him off our hands. They’re ordering that he be shipped to a remote, seismically inert location and kept carefully medicated.” She didn’t look terribly pleased by this development. “I’m guessing they’ll never let him set foot anywhere near the continental United States again.”

  “Isn’t that a bit extreme?” Diana protested. She had just promised DeMeers that everything was going to work out for him, that NTAC would work with him to resolve this dilemma. “Aside from the hijacking, which we can’t prove, he hasn’t actually threatened anyone on purpose.”

  “Washington thinks the magnitude of the risk justifies these measures. To be honest, I’m not sure they’re entirely wrong.” She spotted Diana glaring at her in disbelief. “Don’t give me that look. It’s your daughter’s visions that have got Washington convinced that the entire Pacific Northwest is at stake.”

  “We’re still not one hundred percent certain that we’ve got the right guy,” Tom pointed out. “Just give us a little more time with him. We’re making progress. I’m pretty sure that he was about to open up when all the shaking started. He just needs some time to process what we told
him.”

  “Sorry,” Nina said. “It’s out of my hands. These orders come from the highest level. The transfer will take place within twenty-four hours. In the meantime, the NSA wants him bottled up tight.”

  Diana watched helplessly as a pair of armed guards escorted DeMeers from the interrogation room. He slumped between them, obviously doped to the gills. There was no way they were going to get any more out of him in that state.

  “So much for that,” Tom said, reaching the same conclusion. Nina headed back to her office, leaving the two agents alone. They stared through the glass into the empty room beyond. “Is that it? Case closed?”

  Diana wasn’t so sure. “Not according to Maia.”

  She wondered if she still had a trip to Mount Rainier in her future.

  “Nine A.M. sharp? That works for me. Just make sure there are no delays. I want Cooper DeMeers in our custody before I finish my first cup of coffee.”

  Dennis Ryland hung up the phone. He smirked in satisfaction, imagining the frustrated look on Tom Baldwin’s face as his prime suspect was taken away from him. Ryland didn’t consider himself a petty man, but he had to admit that there was a certain pleasure to be had in getting back at his backstabbing former friend and protégé. If not for Baldwin and his partner, Ryland’s role in the inhibitor program might never have been discovered, and the 4400 would have no longer posed a threat to the nation’s security. I should have reassigned both of them, he castigated himself, once they started developing emotional ties to the returnees. But who could have guessed that a level-headed scientist like Skouris would end up actually adopting one of the menaces?

  I certainly didn’t see that one coming.

  Still, he couldn’t complain. Leaning back against the genuine leather upholstery of his executive chair, he contemplated his sumptuous corner office. With its imported Italian furniture and tasteful objets d’art, it was considerably grander and more comfortable than his old digs back at Homeland Security. The private sector had its advantages, chief among them less governmental interference and oversight. Ironically, he was in a better position to take strong, decisive action against the 4400 now than he had been in as a mere federal employee. With the NSA contracting its investigation of the Nova Group out to Haspelcorp, he was right where he needed to be.