THE 4400® WELCOME TO PROMISE CITY (7 page)

Tom shook his head. “No. If somebody’s messed with my nephew’s remains, I want to know about it.”

“Well, we’re here for you, Tom,” Meghan Doyle said. The Pacific Northwest director of NTAC stood beside him, keeping his hand warm. Wavy blond hair tumbled past her shoulders. Smoky walnut eyes shone with compassion. “You know that.”

“Thanks,” he told both women. “I appreciate it.”

Besides the NTAC agents, attendance at the exhumation had been kept to a minimum: a coroner, with no known connections to Jordan Collier or his Movement; the cemetery director; and the actual exhumation team. Shawn had offered to attend, but Tom had assured him that wasn’t necessary. He hadn’t mentioned the disinterment to Kyle at all. Unfortunately, his son was too close to Collier to be trusted with that information. Tom could only hope that someday there wouldn’t be any more secrets between them.

Maybe when the future sorted itself out, one way or another.

A privacy screen had been erected to shield the somber proceedings from view. As it was only seven in the morning, Tom had spotted few visitors wandering the grounds when they’d arrived, but the fence struck him as a good idea anyway. He wondered if Simone Tanaka was spying on them from afar.

Probably.

Once the hoe scooped out the bulk of the topsoil, the
grave diggers went to work with shovels. The men carefully cleared away the last of the dirt to uncover the top of Danny’s casket. A crushing sense of apprehension came over Tom as the crane lifted the coffin from its vault. Now that the actual moment was nearly upon them, he wasn’t sure he could actually go through with it. Memories of Danny as a child and fresh-faced young man flashed through his brain; Danny had been happy and healthy the last time Tom saw him alive. He swallowed hard.

Meghan gave his hand a reassuring squeeze. “This will be over soon.”

Tom wished he could believe that.
Was Dennis just jerking my chain, or are we in for a nasty surprise?

The crane lowered the coffin onto a waiting tarp. Mud streaked the sides of the mahogany casket, which had lost much of its polished sheen after two months underground. A van waited outside the screened-off grave site to transport the remains to the NTAC’s private morgue. The coroner stepped forward to inspect the coffin. Stefan Vakos was a retired heart surgeon, who had been serving as medical examiner since before the 4400 returned. “Perhaps,” he suggested, “it would be better to conduct the rest of the examination elsewhere?”

“No,” Tom insisted. “Let’s get this over with.”

“As you wish.” Vakos rubbed menthol under his nose. “I should warn you that this won’t be pleasant. There is bound to be a strong odor.”

“We understand,” Diana assured him. As NTAC agents, they were all more familiar than they wanted to be with the ugliness of death and its effects. Over the last few
years, they had seen human beings electrocuted, burned alive, and devoured by their own house pets. “Please proceed.”

Without any further warnings, the coroner unlocked the coffin. Rusty hinges creaked as he pried open the lid. Tattered lining hung like cobwebs from the bottom of the lid. A sickening stench, like cheese gone bad, emanated from the open casket. Tom gagged and placed his hand over his mouth. The cemetery owner and grave diggers backed away from the coffin. One of the men looked like he was on the verge of throwing up. He scrambled away as fast as he could.

Tom barely noticed his hasty exit. He let go of Meghan’s hand.

“Let me,” Diana volunteered, but Tom pushed past her to look inside the coffin. He gasped out loud.

The body inside the coffin had wasted away to hair and bones. What little flesh remained was waxy and bluish white in color. The lips had peeled back to expose a death’s-head grin. Empty sockets stared blankly from a shriveled face. Mold encrusted a fraying dark suit. But it was the grayish beard that immediately caught Tom’s attention. His nephew had been a handsome young man when he died.

Whoever the body in the casket was, it was
not
Danny Farrell.

“Hello, Richard,” Jordan Collier said. “Welcome back to Seattle.”

The self-proclaimed leader of the 4400 stood before
a large picture window offering a scenic view of Lake Washington. A mane of flowing black hair and a neatly trimmed beard and mustache gave him a distinct resemblance to an earlier messiah with the same initials, a look Richard suspected that Collier cultivated on purpose. The charismatic cult leader had been a successful business tycoon before becoming a revolutionary. As Richard knew from experience, Jordan always had an agenda.

Wonder what he wants from me now?
Richard thought. He hadn’t been too surprised to discover that Collier was responsible for springing him from prison. Who else had the resources, and the audacity, to pull off an operation like that? Richard approached the other man warily. “Don’t you mean Promise City?”

“I see you’ve been keeping up with current events,” Jordan said with a smile. Unlike the tailored three-piece suits he had once sported, his clothing now consisted of plain, loose-fitting garments. Wearing a black frock coat over a white cotton tunic, he looked more an ascetic hermit than the de facto ruler of Seattle. “Good.” He gestured toward a nearby couch. “Please, make yourself comfortable.”

After smuggling Richard back into Seattle, the strike team had delivered him to this luxurious lake house safely within the borders of the city. The stylish furnishings were clean and modern. Stained wooden trim accented the airy lines of the living room. An Impressionistic painting of a sunrise hung upon a wall near the foyer. A white leather couch and love seat surrounded a clear steel-and-glass coffee table. A carafe of fresh ice water rested on the table. A pair of bodyguards lurked silently in the background. They
eyed Richard carefully as he took a seat on the couch. A suit of fresh clothes had replaced his blood-spattered prison garb. His face was still bruised from the beating he had received before being rescued. His ribs throbbed painfully.

“I’m sorry about your man, Sanchez,” he said.

“Thank you,” Jordan replied. A raspy voice conveyed his sorrow. “That was indeed an unfortunate tragedy. Hector was a good man and a loyal soldier. Building a new world requires sacrifice, however. He was not the first to give his life for our cause. Nor, I fear, will he be the last.” He sat down opposite Richard. “But all this heartache and turmoil will be worth it when the Movement fulfills its destiny and brings peace and universal prosperity to the Earth.”

Right,
Richard thought dubiously. He tried to reconcile Jordan’s lofty rhetoric with the ruthless businessman he had first met four years ago. The two men had a long and problematic relationship. Although they had worked together on occasion, Collier had frequently interfered with Richard’s life, and had even tried to turn Lily against him once. Richard sat stiffly on the edge of the couch, waiting for the other shoe to drop. “What do you want, Jordan?”

“Just to share some information with you.” He glanced around the elegant interior of the lake house. “To be honest, I chose this location for a reason.” His face assumed a grave expression. “This is where your daughter died.”

The revelation hit Richard like a live grenade. He had been informed in prison that Isabelle had died, but, despite frequent pleas, he had never been able to learn the details of his daughter’s passing. Apparently, that was
“classified” information. Over the last two months, he had spent countless hours wondering and worrying about what had happened to Isabelle in the end. He hadn’t even been allowed to attend her funeral!

“How?” he asked hoarsely. “Who?”

Collier poured Richard a cup of water. “Let me tell you about the Marked …”

The story he recounted, about time-traveling conspirators hiding in the bodies of modern men and women, would have sounded unbelievable to Richard only four years ago. But after having his own life manipulated by a different faction from the future, and being physically transplanted from the 1950s to the twenty-first century in a glowing ball of light, he took Jordan’s fantastic tale at face value, at least for now. But what did this have to do with his daughter?

“The Marked tried to coerce Isabelle into betraying the Movement,” Jordan explained. “When she rebelled against them, they killed her.” He let out a deep sigh. “She sacrificed her life to save both me and Tom Baldwin. You should be very proud of her.”

“That’s really what happened?” Richard asked. Conceived in the future, and catapulted into adulthood overnight, Isabelle had grown into a dangerous and volatile young woman with extraordinary abilities. Although he had always loved her, he had struggled to help her resist her darker impulses. Now he wanted desperately to believe what Jordan was telling him, that his beautiful daughter had found redemption in the end. “She did the right thing?”

“Your daughter died a hero,” Jordan insisted. “I was there. I saw it with my own eyes.”

Richard was overcome with emotion. He wiped the tears from his eyes. “Did she suffer?”

Jordan shook his head. “Not for long. It was over quickly.”

They sat in silence for several moments while Richard processed what he had just learned. He mourned his daughter’s death all over again, but found some comfort in the knowledge that she had truly turned her life around first. To be honest, he’d feared that Isabelle had gone bad again and been killed by the authorities in some sort of deadly stand-off, but apparently that wasn’t the case. He wished he could tell Lily that their daughter had turned out all right, then realized that she probably already knew that. If there was any justice in the cosmos, his wife and daughter were together once more.

A darker thought occurred to him. His eyes dried and his face hardened. He looked up from the floor. “And the Marked … ?”

Jordan nodded, as though he’d anticipated Richard’s query. He extracted a loose piece of paper from his breast pocket. “Three of the Marked have been eradicated. This list contains the current identities of the seven remaining Marked.”

He handed the paper to Richard, who was startled by the names on the list, which included a presidential advisor, a high-ranking Vatican official, a major Hollywood producer, a wealthy Arab sheik, a five-star general, a Chinese bureaucrat, and a world-famous Tibetan lama.
All extremely powerful individuals.
These
were the people responsible for Isabelle’s death?

“Where did you get this from?” he asked.

Jordan’s answer surprised him. “Tom Baldwin. Given the Marked’s political connections and clout, his hands were tied, so he passed the list on to me so that I could ‘take care of’ the problem for him.”

Take care of?
Richard put two and two together. “You want me to dispose of the Marked. Using my abilities.”

“I’m not asking you to do anything,” Jordan declared, carefully maintaining a degree of plausible deniability. “As a friend, I felt compelled to inform you of the circumstances surrounding your daughter’s death and provide you with whatever information I had concerning her murderers.” He looked Richard squarely in the eyes. Despite his words, there was no mistaking his meaning. “You’re an ex-soldier, you have an amazing ability, and every reason to hate the Marked as much as I do. But whatever you do next is up to you. You’re your own man. You always have been.”

He got up from the couch. “I’ll be heading back to my headquarters downtown. Please feel free to stay here at the lake house for as long as necessary.”

He left the list behind.

“A
RE YOU CERTAIN
it was the wrong body?”

Bernard Grayson, of Grayson & Son Funeral Home, reacted in shock to the news that a stranger had been found in Danny Farrell’s coffin. His gaunt face was composed of sharp, angular planes. A widow’s peak met above his high forehead. An austere black suit befitted his profession. He sat behind a large walnut desk as Tom and Diana confronted him with their discovery at the cemetery. Bookshelves lined one wall, while another was occupied by photos of Grayson with various civic leaders and celebrities. The pale blue walls were tastefully muted. Organ music played softly over the sound system. Grayson & Son had handled the funerals of both Danny and his mother.

“Positive,” Tom confirmed. “Dental records have identified the body as Delbert Ludden, a homeless man who was killed in the rioting last year, about the same time my nephew died.” He and Diana had left their NTAC jackets and vests in the car to avoid attracting attention. “There
was no trace evidence that Danny’s body ever occupied the coffin.”

Diana leaned forward in her seat. “But the coffin did match the one Shawn Farrell purchased from your firm two months ago.”

“Oh dear.” Grayson dabbed at his sweaty brow with a handkerchief. He glanced at the office door to make sure it was shut. “I can’t tell you how mortifying this is. I can only assure you that nothing like this has ever happened before. Grayson & Son has enjoyed a spotless reputation ever since my late father founded the business over thirty years ago.” He looked sheepishly at Tom. “You and your family have my profound apologies for whatever went wrong.”

Diana kept the pressure on. “Do you have any idea what might have happened?”

“I wish I did,” Grayson said. “You have to understand, it was a very chaotic time. The outbreak claimed over nine thousand lives in a matter of days. The city’s funeral industry was strained to the breaking point. We were overwhelmed with fatalities.” He winced at the memory. “I can only assume that, in the confusion of those dark days, some sort of mix-up occurred.” He tugged at his collar. “Again, I’m very sorry for this distressing turn of events.”

Tom wanted answers, not apologies. “So where is my nephew’s body now?”

“To be honest, I have no idea.” Grayson called up the relevant files on his laptop. He hastily scanned the display. “All our records seem to be in order. Your nephew
should
be buried alongside his mother.”

Diana asked the logical next question. “Well, where is Ludden’s body supposed to be?”

“Let me see.” Grayson keyed the vagrant’s name into his computer. “According to our records, Mr. Ludden’s remains were cremated. The unclaimed ashes were eventually picked up by the city to be buried in the planned memorial park. It’s possible they’re still in storage somewhere.”