by Greg Cox
TWENTY-ONE
“SO HE’S A VEGETABLE?”
Diana winced at Nina’s choice of words. She and Marco were briefing their boss in Nina’s office. Tom was elsewhere, taking care of some unfinished business of his own.
“Essentially,” Diana admitted. “Doctor Clayton at Abendson doesn’t hold out much hope for his recovery.” A bitter smile tweaked her lips. “Chances are, he’ll get Gorinsky’s old room.”
“Wow,” Marco said. “Talk about irony.”
Diana found it more tragic than ironic. No one would ever know how much Cooper DeMeers had sacrificed for the sake of Seattle and the entire Pacific Northwest. To avoid panicking the public with the knowledge of just how close a 4400 had come to triggering a major volcanic eruption, the entire case file, codenamed “Vesuvius,” had been declared classified information. Probably not a bad move, she admitted. People are scared enough of the 4400 as is.
“What about the D. B. Cooper angle?” Nina asked. “The FBI would love to close that case at long last.”
Diana thought long and hard before answering. She remembered what Cooper had said to her and Tom once, that it was the mystery of D. B. Cooper that kept people talking about the celebrated skyjacker so many years later. “We never conclusively settled that issue, one way or another,” she told Nina, neglecting to mention Cooper’s final remarks atop Mount Rainier. “There’s no real proof either way.”
Let Cooper keep his legend, she resolved. It’s the least I can do for him.
Marco gave her a funny look, but kept his mouth shut.
“Too bad,” Nina said, scribbling a note onto the file. She shrugged and moved on to more pressing matters. “What about Aziz and Tanaka?”
“Looks like they were both in deep with the Nova Group. Besides their involvement in the ‘Vesuvius’ affair, we have reason to believe that it was Aziz who notified Jamie Skysinger that Shawn and Isabelle would be at the Space Needle last Wednesday.” Phone records had revealed that Jamie had received a call from Aziz’s office earlier that morning. Confronted with this evidence, Simone and Aziz had wasted no time implicating each other. “We’re not charging Simone with the assassination attempt, though, in exchange for her assistance in locating Cooper and Gorinsky.”
“That may not help her much,” Nina said grimly. “The NSA has expressed interest in both of them. Needless to say, the intelligence community can’t wait to get their hands on a man who can detect liars and a woman who can see through walls.”
Diana’s conscience tweaked her a bit. This was Gary Navarro all over again. Not that Aziz and Simone didn’t have it coming; their misguided attempts to recruit Cooper had nearly led to a disaster.
“Well,” Marco quipped, “wherever they ship her, I hope it has a nice view.”
Diana didn’t like the idea that Simone would still be able to spy on people without restriction. How long was she watching me and Tom? She wondered if she would ever feel a true sense of privacy again.
“Still, that’s two more Nova members down,” Nina commented, looking on the bright side. “We think we’ve rounded up pretty much all of them now, except for a few stragglers.”
Like Gary Navarro, Diana thought. She wasn’t looking forward to bringing him in, which was only a matter of time. He was our responsibility and we let him down.
Nina closed the file. “Good work, people. I’ve already discreetly informed the emergency response folks that Rainier no longer poses an imminent threat.”
“At least no more than it usually does,” Marco added ominously. He scratched his head. “There’s just one thing that still bothers me. You got to wonder what kind of ripple effect the Far Future People had in mind when they sent Cooper back to the twenty-first century with the power to trigger earthquakes and volcanoes?”
“Maybe we don’t want to know,” Diana said.
“Thanks for updating me in person about Aziz and Tanaka,” Shawn said to his uncle. “Better I hear about it from you than on the evening news.” He shook his head, appalled that the Center was linked once again to violence and terrorism. “I swear, I had absolutely no idea that Aziz was mixed up with Nova.”
“That’s kind of why I’m here, Shawn.” His stern tone caught Shawn by surprise. Looking up from his desk, he saw that Tom Baldwin wasn’t smiling. “This isn’t the first time you’ve lost control of the people around you.” Shawn realized belatedly that his uncle had requested this closed-door meeting at the Center in order to read him the riot act. “Maybe you need to run a tighter ship.”
Shawn couldn’t deny the accusation. He still blamed himself for naively funding the Nova Group’s early operations, before he realized Daniel Armand’s murderous intentions. “I know,” he admitted guiltily, taking his uncle’s words to heart. “I’ve been distracted lately. I’ll try to do better.”
“That’s what I wanted to hear.” Tom lightened up, sounding more like a concerned relative than a hard-ass federal agent. “Sorry to come down on you so hard, but I thought we needed to talk.” He peeked at his wristwatch. “Gotta run. I promised Alana a night out. I figure I owe her one.” He headed for the door. “Say hi to your mom and Danny for me.”
Like I ever see them anymore, Shawn thought as his uncle left. The demands of running the Center, and keeping Isabelle happy, left him little or no time to spend with his own family. He couldn’t remember the last time he’d talked to his mom. Maybe once this whole Nova business was history . . .
“Another hush-hush private meeting?” Isabelle asked sarcastically as she barged into his office uninvited. Her exquisite face was flushed with indignation. She tossed a top-secret file on Cooper DeMeers onto his desk. “I can’t believe you didn’t tell me about this. A dormant volcano is about to blow up in our own backyard and you didn’t think I needed to know about that?”
Shawn flicked through the folder in shock. There were details here even he didn’t know. William Gorinsky had leeched energy from his own twin brother? “Where the hell did you get this?”
“That doesn’t matter,” Isabelle replied. “The point is you withheld vital information from me. I expect that of my father, but you’re my boyfriend. You should know better than that.” Resting her hands on the desktop, she leaned toward him until their faces were only inches apart. He nearly choked on the cloying aroma of her perfume. “We could have all been killed, Shawn. The entire Center could have been buried in a mudslide. Why didn’t you tell me about this D. B. Cooper creep? I could have taken care of him in no time.”
“That’s what I was afraid of!” Shawn blurted.
Isabelle recoiled from his words. Her brown eyes narrowed suspiciously. “What’s that supposed to mean?”
“Nothing,” Shawn lied. He didn’t want to fight this battle yet, not before he was ready. If Uncle Tommy wants to know why I’ve lost focus, he steamed, here’s a big part of the explanation. There was no way around it: he had to break up with Isabelle for good, before she drove him to a complete nervous breakdown. But how could he do that without setting her off on another bloodthirsty rampage? What was that old saying about Hell having no fury like a woman scorned? Whoever coined that quote had probably never envisioned a woman like Isabelle, who could take that fury to a whole new level. He was going to have to handle this breakup very carefully.
But not right now.
“That didn’t sound like ‘nothing’ to me,” she accused him. “If you’ve got something to say, tell me.”
“Forget I said anything,” he said apologetically. Taking the folder off his desk, he tucked it into one of the attached file drawers. “I’m just buried under right now. Seems our chief legal counsel was in cahoots with the people trying to kill us.” He gave her a sheepish grin, hoping to buy himself some time. “Maybe we can have this conversation later? Pretty please?”
His lame excuse did little to mollify her. “Fine,” she said icily. “Come to think of it, I have somewhere I need to go, too.”
She stormed out of the office in a huff.
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Dennis Ryland immediately cleared his schedule when Isabelle dropped in at Haspelcorp without an appointment.
“You know those experiments we talked about before?” She sat down across from him. Although her manner was cool and composed, he got a sense that she was seriously mad at someone. “The tests your scientists want to run on me?”
Ryland’s eyes gleamed avidly. Doctor MacKay and his people had been chomping at the bit to get Isabelle into their labs. They believed that her unique physiology held the key to replicating the 4400s abilities. Doctor Ellsworth in Neuro was particularly keen to monitor her promicin levels, but so far Isabelle had resisted the idea of playing guinea pig for the scientists.
Was that about to change?
“Yes.” He tried to conceal his eagerness. You didn’t pressure someone like Isabelle. You let her come to you. “What about them?”
“Let’s get started,” she said decisively. Standing up, she turned toward the door. “Which way is the lab?”
EPILOGUE
IT WAS A beautiful spring day as Diana drove Maia through the large log gateway that served as the entrance to Mount Rainier National Park. Frankly, she had been in no hurry to return to the mountain anytime soon, but she thought it best to show Maia that there was no longer anything to be afraid of. She didn’t want her daughter to grow up in the shadow of Rainier with that dreadful field trip still lingering in her mind. The goal today was to give Maia some happier memories of visiting the mountain.
Plus, if Diana was completely honest with herself, she wanted to see for herself that the frightening events Maia had foreseen had indeed come and gone. The last time Maia had set foot on Rainier, she had been struck by a vision right away. Would the same thing happen today?
Please, no, Diana prayed. I’ve had enough earthquakes to last a lifetime.
Ever the scientist, she drove all the way up to Paradise to better duplicate Maia’s original experience. Brightly colored lilies, bluebells, and heather beautified the grassy meadows overlooking the parking lot. Fields of flowers sprouted amid the retreating snow. Diana was glad to see the looming glaciers staying right where they belonged at the higher elevations. No steam or ash spewed from the snowcapped summit towering above them. Rainier was on its best behavior today.
Let’s keep it that way, Diana thought.
“Here we are, honey.” She parked the car a few yards away from the saucer-shaped visitor center. Doing her best to mask her own anxiety, she stepped around the car to open the door on the passenger side. “Let’s go check out the snow.”
Maia swung around in her seat, but hesitated before stepping out onto the pavement. The soles of her cute pink snow boots hovered above the blacktop. Diana knew she had to be remembering exiting the school bus over a week ago. Having recently lived through the real-life version of that vision, Diana couldn’t blame her for stalling.
“It’s okay, honey,” she said soothingly. “Mommy’s here for you.”
Maia took a deep breath and bravely stepped down onto the asphalt. Diana watched her daughter’s face carefully, alert for the signs of a scary vision coming on. She mentally crossed her fingers. Here we go . . .
Nothing happened.
Maia let out a sigh and smiled up at her mother.
“Better this time?” Diana asked.
“Yes,” Maia said calmly. “But it’s still going to erupt someday.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
As a devoted fan of the TV series, and an expatriate Seattleite, I jumped at the chance to write a novel about “The 4400.” I owe a debt of gratitude to my editor, Margaret Clark, for thinking of me for this assignment; to my agents, Russ Galen and Ann Behar, for handling the legal end of things; and to Paula Block at CBS for approving the outline and manuscript. I also have to thank Michael Burstein and Inge Heyer for supplying me with the floor plan of the Science Fiction Museum in Seattle, the folks at TV.com’s “4400” forum for helping me with obscure points of trivia, and the 4400 Wiki for being an incredibly useful reference source while writing this book, as was The 4400: The Official Companion, by Terry J. Erdmann.
And, as always, thanks to Karen, Alex, Churchill, Henry, Sophie, and Lyla for putting up with me while I obsessed over the 4400 for weeks at a time.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
GREG COX is the New York Times bestselling author of numerous books and short stories. He has written the official movie novelizations of Daredevil, Death Defying Acts, Ghost Rider, Underworld, and Underworld: Evolution, as well as the novelizations of two popular DC Comics miniseries, Infinite Crisis and 52. In addition, he has authored original novels and stories based on such popular series as Alias, Batman, Buffy, Fantastic Four, Farscape, Iron Man, Roswell, Spider-Man, Star Trek, Underworld, Xena, X-Men, and Zorro. His official website is www.gregcox-author.com.
A former resident of “Promise City,” Greg now lives in Oxford, Pennsylvania.
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This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are products of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.
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First Pocket Star Books paperback edition July 2008
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Cover design: Alan Dingman/Art: CBS archive
ISBN-13: 978-1-4165-4317-6
ISBN-10: 1-4165-4317-1
