THE 4400® WELCOME TO PROMISE CITY (2 page)

Tom sighed impatiently, but didn’t raise a fuss. He climbed out of the car. A tan nylon jacket, open-collar polo shirt, and dark trousers protected his muscular frame from the elements. Sandy blond hair crowned his rugged features. Haunted blue eyes hinted at the strain he’d been under for the last four years. He unzipped the Windbreaker to reveal the sidearm holstered at his hip. The guard looked askance at the gun but let it go. Tom stood by while the young soldier entered Tom’s name and Social Security number into a handheld PDA, checking it against an ever-growing list of known p-positive “terrorists.” Drug-sniffing German shepherds checked out the Chrysler to make sure Tom wasn’t smuggling promicin out of the city.

Although openly distributed in certain neighborhoods of Seattle, the artificial neurotransmitter remained strictly illegal throughout the rest of the world. Mere possession of promicin brought a mandatory prison sentence, which hadn’t stopped Collier and his disciples from trying to make the drug available to anyone who wanted it, free of
charge. And judging from some of the reports Tom had seen, Collier was succeeding in his aims, despite the sort of stringent containment measures Tom was currently experiencing.

After giving his car a clean bill of health, the dogs came over and sniffed Tom as well, just in case he was carrying any promicin on his person. He tried not to flinch as the suspicious canines invaded his personal space.

Good thing I left that syringe back home …

Tom sat on his living room couch, cradling the hypo in his palm. The eerie yellow glow of the promicin sent a chill down his spine. He had witnessed firsthand the fatal effect of the drug on those unlucky enough to lose their fifty-fifty shot at making history, watched bright arterial blood stream from their eyes and noses as violent convulsions consumed the last moments of their lives. Taking the shot was like playing Russian roulette, but with worse odds. His own sister had been killed by promicin less than a week ago, along with thousands of other innocent victims …

I can’t believe I’m seriously considering this,
he thought.

“Go ahead, Dad,” Kyle urged him. His son, a lanky young man with short brown hair, sat beside him on the couch. He was dressed casually, in a striped white shirt and jeans. A book bag, containing a volume of mystic prophecies, was strapped across his chest. Kyle had already taken the shot, against Tom’s wishes, several months ago and dropped out of college to become Jordan Collier’s righthand man. Tom didn’t entirely understand how his son’s
ability worked, but he knew that Kyle had acquired some kind of precognitive gift that had led him to a mysterious book that seemed to prophesy the rise of Collier and the eventual coming of “Heaven on Earth.” The cryptic volume had also listed several individuals who were destined to play instrumental roles in the salvation of the world.

Tom’s name was on that list.

A few years ago, he would not have taken any of this talk about prophecies and destiny seriously. He had been a hard-nosed federal agent with little patience for sci-fi gobbledygook. But that was before 4400 missing people suddenly appeared outside Seattle with strange new abilities and no memory of where they had been. The 4400 had turned Tom’s world upside down, even before he’d discovered that their return had been engineered by time travelers from the future as part of an elaborate plan to avert a mysterious future catastrophe. At first, only those original 4400 returnees had possessed unnatural abilities, but once the neurotransmitter responsible for their gifts had been isolated and replicated—by a secret government-sponsored initiative, ironically enough—the promicin genie had been let out of the bottle. Now, Tom didn’t know what to believe. In this brave new world of time travel, telepathy, astral projection, and every other kind of weirdness, why couldn’t a musty old book foretell his destiny? Especially if it had been planted in the past by the agents from the future.

But for what purpose?

“It will be okay,” Kyle insisted. Certainty, and a near-religious fervor, shone in his gentle brown eyes. Unlike his
father, he had total faith in Collier and his vision for the future. “The book says you’ll survive.”

“I don’t know,” Tom replied, shaking his head. “I’m not sure I’m ready for this. Not after everything we’ve been through lately.”

His hand went to his left ear, where his fingers found an X-shaped mole hidden behind his earlobe. The telltale stigma was a reminder that, less than a week ago, Tom had been Marked by conspirators from the future, who had taken over the minds and bodies of prominent men and women in an insidious attempt to prevent Collier and his followers from changing the future. The Marked, who belonged to a rival faction opposed to the time travelers who had first returned the 4400 to the present, had injected Tom with microscopic machines—nanites—that had replaced his personality with that of a ruthless imposter who had stopped at nothing, including murder, to carry out the Marked’s sinister agenda. In time, Tom’s friends and allies at NTAC had seen through the imposter’s act and rid Tom of the invading personality—but not before “Tom” had killed at least two men on behalf of the Marked.

The murders still haunted Tom’s memory, like a bad dream he couldn’t quite shake. He glanced down at the coffee table in front of the couch. The files on the killings, including the victims’ photos and obituaries, were spread out across the tabletop. The faces of Curtis Peck and Warren Trask stared up at him. He remembered killing both of them.

Guilt stabbed him. Although he knew intellectually that he wasn’t responsible for the men’s deaths, that he
had been literally possessed by another mind when he had committed those murders, he still wasn’t sure he could live with the memories.

Kyle thought that taking the shot would make everything better. That it would justify all the pain and suffering Tom had endured and open the doorway to a better future for the entire human race. Tom wasn’t so sure.

“I just got myself back, Kyle. I just got those …
things
out of my brain.” He placed the syringe down on the table, next to the accusing photos. He looked at his son, hoping Kyle would understand. “I’m not ready to inject another potion from the future into my body. Even if it doesn’t kill me, I don’t want to change anymore. I want to be just plain, ordinary Tom Baldwin again.”

“But …” Disappointment was written all over Kyle’s long face. He had been pushing the shot on his dad for months. “The prophecy, heaven on Earth … you have to take the shot. The future depends on it.”

“Maybe,” Tom said. He hated to let Kyle down like this. His son’s newfound commitment to Collier’s cause had too often come between them. Still, he placed the syringe in a padded carrying-case and closed the lid. “But not today.”

“Okay,” the guard informed him. “You’re clear.”

Tom got back in his car and drove past the checkpoint. Putting Promise City behind him, at least for the time being, he drove north on I-5. Traffic was brutal for a Sunday afternoon, but eased up once he turned west onto 526. A short ferry ride carried him from the docks at Mukilteo
to the southeast corner of Whidbey Island. From there it was a quick drive across the island to his destination: Fort Casey State Park.

Located atop the steep cliffs overlooking the Strait of Juan de Fuca, Fort Casey had been erected in the 1890s to guard the entrance to Puget Sound from naval attacks. Although it had been rendered obsolete by the advent of airpower after World War I, the fort’s imposing gun emplacements had been preserved as an historical monument. The massive concrete batteries faced the surging waves below. Antique artillery was mounted on disappearing carriages atop the weathered gray walls. Lookout towers peered out over the batteries. Dilapidated stairwells and catwalks had once served the troops stationed here. A tall white lighthouse had been erected a little farther up the shore, only a short hike from the abandoned fort. Its cozy, whitewashed appearance stood in sharp contrast to the forbidding military ruins.

Tom remembered bringing Kyle here years ago. A nostalgic pang pierced his heart as he recalled how much the boy had enjoyed exploring the old fort. Together, they had manned the ancient guns and pretended to fire upon imaginary battleships. Life had seemed much simpler then. Now Kyle was a grown man, caught up in Jordan Collier’s dangerous ambitions, and the real invaders came from across time, not from the sea. Fort Casey was more obsolete than ever.

A grassy field separated the parking lot from the batteries. On sunnier days, the field often attracted kite enthusiasts who filled the sky above the fort with elaborate
airborne constructions, but the dismal winter weather had kept visitors away today. A clammy mist hung over the grounds. A steady drizzle fell from an overcast gray sky. There was only one other car parked nearby: a black Lincoln Town Car with Washington plates.

Looks like we’ve got the place to ourselves,
Tom thought. Probably just as well; whatever today’s covert meeting was about, it surely wasn’t for public consumption. Why else choose such an unorthodox rendezvous point?

Curiosity, as well as the incessant rain, drove him across the field. He grimaced as icy water trickled down the back of his neck; like most native Seattlites, he wouldn’t be caught dead carrying an umbrella. A quick dash brought him to an arched concrete doorway at the base of the nearest battery. A riveted iron door flanked the open threshold. He darted into the murky confines of an abandoned shot and powder room. The unlit chamber was as stark and barren as a prison cell. Greenish algae streaked the rough concrete walls. An empty elevator shaft connected the powder room with the guns mounted on upper levels. Rainwater sluiced past the doorway, pooling on the hard stone floor.

Tom shook the rain from his hair and glanced around the shadowy bunker. At first he didn’t see anyone and wondered if maybe he had ducked into the wrong storeroom. The old fort was full of secluded nooks and crannies, which no doubt contributed to the location being chosen for this rendezvous. The dense concrete walls discouraged electronic surveillance.

Not taking any chances, I see.

He was about to venture out into the rain again when he heard a rustle of motion behind him. His hand went instinctively to his sidearm as he turned around to see a pair of figures emerge from one of the adjoining storerooms. One was male, the other female. The former was nobody he’d been in any hurry to see again.

“About time you got here,” Dennis Ryland said. “You’re late.”

T
OM’S FORMER BOSS
was a lean, dark-haired man about two decades older than Tom. A gray wool overcoat was draped over his gaunt frame. Shrewd brown eyes peered from his vulpine countenance. After being forced out of NTAC in the wake of a major scandal three years ago, Ryland had ended up at the Haspel Corporation, a private security firm that often worked hand in hand with the Feds when it came to cracking down on the 4400 and the other p-positives. If anything, Ryland had even more power now than before—and considerably less oversight. That made him a dangerous man. Too dangerous, as far as Tom was concerned.

“Hello, Dennis,” he said coldly. His hand came away from his gun.

Ryland glanced at an expensive Rolex wristwatch. Life in the private sector clearly had its perks. “I was starting to think you’d stood me up.”

“I thought about it,” Tom confessed. He and Dennis had once been friends, but there was little love lost
between them these days. Tom still regarded p-positives as people; Ryland saw them only as threats to be neutralized, and preferably eliminated. Their friendship had not survived that clash of viewpoints. “This had better be worth the trip.”

A smirk greeted Tom’s hostile tone. “Sorry to drag you all the way out here today,” Ryland said, “but, as you know, I’m not exactly welcome in Seattle anymore.”

“Imagine that,” Tom said. Among other things, Ryland had been behind a plot to poison the original 4400 with an experimental drug that had nearly killed all of the returnees, including Tom’s own nephew. Although Ryland had received only a slap on the wrist for his role in the infamous Inhibitor Scandal, Collier and his followers still regarded him as a “war criminal.” Banishing Haspelcorp from Seattle had been one of the first items on Collier’s agenda. Last Tom had heard, the company was based out of Tacoma now, which was still too close for comfort.

Ryland overlooked Tom’s sarcastic tone. He gestured toward his companion: a young Asian woman wearing a belted white trenchcoat. A pixie cut flattered her lustrous black hair. Despite the gloom, a stylish pair of dark glasses concealed her eyes. “You may remember my associate, Ms. Simone Tanaka.”

“How could I forget?” Tom said wryly. He and his partner had personally arrested Tanaka over a year and a half ago, after exposing her as part of a now defunct 4400 terrorist cell known as “The Nova Group.” He had lost track of her after the NSA took her into custody, and was
a bit surprised to find her working with Ryland. Philosophically, the Nova Group and Haspelcorp were on opposite sides of the fence; the Nova Group had even tried to assassinate Ryland a while back. “Keeping kind of odd company, aren’t you. For a former radical, I mean.”

She shrugged. “Times change. Given the choice between spending the rest of my life locked up in solitary, doped to the gills on the inhibitor, or lending my special talents to the authorities in exchange for certain privileges … well, you’d be surprised how flexible one’s convictions can turn out to be.”

Maybe for some people,
Tom thought. Still, he was reluctant to judge Tanaka too harshly. Who knew what sort of pressures Ryland and his cronies had exerted to secure her cooperation? Not to mention the fact that the lines between the good guys and bad guys were getting extremely blurry nowadays. Tanaka wasn’t the only person whose alliances had shifted over time. Sometimes not even Tom knew whose side he was on.

“So much for the pleasantries,” Ryland said. “Shall we get down to the business?”

Tom shook his head. “Not yet.” He eyed the pair suspiciously. “Let me check behind your ears.”