The 4400® Promises Broken (12 page)

“You could resign,” Tom said.

That almost made her laugh. “Yeah, right. That’s exactly what that sonofabitch in D.C. wants me to do. Forget it.”

“All right, then,” Tom said. “I’ll request a transfer to Atlanta and go with you.”

She went quiet for a moment, telegraphing more bad news. “Actually,” she said, “you’re being transferred to Milwaukee.”

He waited for a punch line that never came.

“Hang on,” he said. “They’re sending me to
Wisconsin
?”

“Yup.”

“But …” he began, then his voice trailed off. “Wait a minute! If you’re in Atlanta and I’m in Milwaukee, who’s gonna be in charge here?”

“No one,” Meghan said wearily. She looked into his eyes. “They’re shutting us down.”

Standing beside Meghan’s desk with his fists clenched white-knuckle tight, Tom suddenly wished that Meghan had another phone—so that he could throw it against the wall.

Diana thought she had heard her partner wrong. “Shut down? What the hell are they thinking?” Glancing around the Theory Room at Marco and the two Jeds, she asked, “What does that mean for us?”

“It means pack our desks and get ready to bug out,” Tom said to the group, which stood in a small circle near the projection screen. “Meghan’s upstairs breaking the news to the rest of the unit. DHS just gave us a priority-one evac order. They want us all on a transport out of Boeing Field in less than an hour. She and I already have our new assignments. The rest of you will get your orders when we touch down in D.C.”

Anxious looks were volleyed from agent to agent. “Easy for them to say,” Marco replied. “It’s not like I came to work this morning with a bag packed.”

J.B. added, “I don’t even have my passport.”

“Or my toothbrush,” J.R. quipped.

“Too bad,” Tom said. “Cars, property, pets, and anything else you can’t carry on the plane stays here. Only immediate family will be allowed on the evac flight.”

J.R. looked at his twin and said, “Fine by me. I never liked cousin Ted, anyway.” J.B. nodded in agreement.

“Guys,” Diana snapped at the Jeds, “this isn’t funny.” Reining in her temper, she asked Tom, “What about Maia? She’s holed up in Collier’s headquarters.”

Frowning with regret, Tom said, “If she isn’t on the plane with you at nine
A.M.
, she gets left behind.”

“Well that’s just great,” Diana said, seething with anger. “How am I supposed to convince her to leave Promise City when she won’t even talk to me?”

“Tell her the truth,” Marco said. “If Homeland Security’s rushing us outta here, it probably means the military’s about to make a major attack on the city.”

“Do
not
tell Maia that,” Tom interjected. “If it’s true, tipping off Collier’s people would be treason. And if it’s not, we might incite a panic that could get people killed.”

“I don’t give a damn about that,” Diana said. Unable to remain still, she stepped away from the circle and began pacing in front of the blank screen. “But you’re right not to tell Maia what’s coming. It’ll only make her dig in deeper with Collier.”

“Maybe you could trick her,” Tom said. “Tell her whatever she wants to hear.”

“Right,” J.B. chimed in. “The key is to get her outta that building. Say you’re ready to give her everything she wants, if she’ll just come meet you to talk over breakfast.”

Rolling her eyes, Diana replied, “Maia won’t fall for that. She knows I’d never give up that easily.”

Marco folded his arms. “Whatever we’re gonna do, we
better do it fast. The buses leave here in twenty minutes, and our plane goes wheels-up in forty.”

Rubbing his chin pensively, J.B. said, “We could play it head-on. Walk in the front door of Collier’s headquarters, find Maia, and walk her back out.”

J.R. added, “Risky move, but it might have the element of surprise on its side.”

“Don’t even think about it,” Tom said. “Jordan’s people won’t let you get within a hundred feet of that building. He’s got sentries who can melt your brain, paralyze you on sight, or make you walk away and think it was your idea.”

Undaunted, J.R. looked at Marco and asked, “What about your teleporting ability? You could pop in, grab Maia, and pop back out before his people know you’re there.”

Shaking his head, Marco replied, “First, I can’t jump in blind. I’d need a photo reference or a video image of my destination. Second, I haven’t had much luck bringing other people with me when I teleport. So far the biggest passenger I’ve been able to move has been my cat. Plus, Collier’s been installing all kinds of exotic defenses in that building for months. Trying to ‘pop in’ might get me killed.”

“There’s always the roof,” J.B. said.

“What about it?” asked Marco.

“Well, we’ve got tons of photo references on that. You could jump to there, blow the lock on the access door with a C-4 charge, and enter through the main stairwell.”

Tom narrowed his eyes in cynical disapproval. “J.B., think for a second. Collier lives on the top floor of that building. Do you really think he hasn’t secured the roof access? Besides, we don’t even know which floor Maia’s
on. If we go in there guns blazing, on some kind of commando mission to take Maia by force, we’re gonna get our asses handed to us.” Adopting an apologetic tone, he said to Diana, “If you think you can talk her out of there, you should do it now.”

“She won’t leave,” Diana said, imagining how Maia would react to the coming crisis. “Not like this.”

“Then we’d better get ready to go,” Tom said.

“I’m not leaving,” Diana replied. “If Maia stays, so do I.”

Concern hardened Tom’s countenance. “The evacuation’s not optional, Diana. We’re under orders. All NTAC personnel have to be on that plane.”

“Then I’ll resign,” Diana said, proudly defiant.

Marco and the Jeds traded worried looks. J.B. said to Diana, “You don’t really think it’ll be
that
easy, do you?”

“He’s right,” Marco said. “The law says that in times of national emergency, we’re all in for the duration. We can’t just quit.” With a crooked smile he added, “On the bright side, at least it means we have job security.”

Diana looked to Tom for some sliver of hope. “Meghan won’t enforce that, will she?”

“It’s not up to her,” Tom said with a shrug. “Meghan just got demoted, remember? She doesn’t have the authority to let you stay even if she wants to. The tactical unit’s in charge of the evacuation, and Major Falkner has his orders directly from the secretary. One way or another, Falkner
will
put you on that plane—as a prisoner if he has to.”

“Fine,” Diana said, already formulating a plan. “Since there’s no way we can avoid getting on the plane, we’ll just have to think of a way off.”

8:55
A.M.

M
EGHAN
D
OYLE STOOD
beside an open door that led out of the King County International Airport terminal to the tarmac, where a 737NG passenger jet was warming up for takeoff. A line of NTAC agents filed past her, empty-handed as they marched to their forced evacuation from Seattle, escorted by tactical personnel garbed in black uniforms and loaded with gear and weapons.

A balmy breeze tainted with the odor of jet fuel mussed her blond hair. The whine of the jet’s turbines pitched upward and grew louder. She squinted against the early-morning sunlight reflecting off the plane’s tail, then looked away and checked her watch. In less than five minutes, the transport would taxi away from the terminal, escorted by a pair of F-14 fighters from the adjacent Washington Air National Guard base.

She had been keeping a mental tally of who had passed her and who had yet to board the plane. Searching the
art deco interior of the terminal, she spotted one of her two AWOL agents. Tom was standing next to the door of the men’s room, checking his own watch. As the end of the line of agents walked past her, she called out to him, “Tom! Let’s go!”

“I’m waiting for Marco,” he yelled back. Pushing open the door, he shouted into the restroom, “C’mon, Marco! Pinch it off! Our ride’s leaving!”

“All right, all right,” Marco hollered back, his voice echoing from inside the bathroom. He stepped out a moment later, paused to look back, raised his compact digital camera, and snapped a photo before following Tom to the boarding gate.

Ushering both men out ahead of her, Meghan asked Marco, “Do you always photograph bathrooms after you use them?”

“I’m photographing everything,” he said, snapping another shot of the terminal over his shoulder as they climbed the steps to the plane. At the top of the stairs, he looked back and added wistfully, “All of this might be gone tomorrow.”

“Well, we need to be gone in sixty seconds, so get in the plane,” Meghan said, nudging him inside. She followed him in and said to the flight attendant, “We’re all aboard. Close it up.”

The young military officer nodded and sealed the hatch, which closed with a leaden
thunk
. All at once, the shriek of engines fell away to a dull drone that reverberated through the aircraft’s aluminum hull and was partly muffled by the white noise of the ventilation
system, which recirculated overprocessed air inside the passenger cabin.

Meghan followed Tom and Marco aft to their seats, which were in the last row of the business class section. There was no barrier between business class and coach; the only difference between them was that the seats in business class were wider and had more forward legroom than those of coach.

As Meghan fumbled to find and connect the two halves of her seat belt, a man’s southern-accented voice drawled over the cabin’s PA speaker,
“Mornin’, folks. This is Captain Dan Harper, and I’ll be your pilot today. At this time, I need to ask y’all to buckle up and set your seats to their upright positions as we wait for our turn on the runway. We’ll be servin’ breakfast once we reach cruisin’ altitude, so just sit tight, and enjoy the ride. Flight crew, prepare for takeoff.”

Everyone settled in except for Marco, whose face contorted with what looked like the first sign of nausea. He got up from his seat and moved aft, toward the lavatory, where he talked his way past a flight attendant who tried to intercept him.

Leaning across the aisle, Diana asked Tom in a confidential hush, “What’s wrong with Marco?”

“Dunno,” Tom said with a shrug and a shake of his head. “He’s been feeling queasy ever since we left NTAC.”

Diana frowned, then unfastened her seat belt and stood up. “I’d better go check on him,” she said, heading aft.

Meghan watched Diana make her way to the back of the aircraft. Diana knocked on the lavatory door, then stepped clear as it opened, blocking her from view.

Perplexed, Meghan shot Tom a questioning look.

“They used to date,” he said.

She nodded as if that explained everything, but something still seemed off-kilter. To pass the time, she looked out the window at the distant peak of Mount Rainier, or at the lines slowly passing under the wing of the plane as they taxied to the end of the runway, or at her own faint reflection on the window.

Then Tom unfastened his seat belt and got up. “I’m gonna go see what’s taking them so long,” he said. “Be right back.” Before Meghan could tell him to stay put, he was hurrying aft. She leaned across his seat and looked back in time to see him knock on the lavatory door and, like Diana, step back to let it open. The door remained open for several seconds.

Her curiosity was turning to suspicion. She muttered, “What the hell is going on?”

The two Jeds poked their heads up over their seat backs from the row ahead of her. J.B. smiled and said, “Maybe they’re trying to join the Mile-High Club.”

“You have to be in the air before you can do that,” Meghan said. “And I doubt that’s what they’re doing.”

J.R. asked, “Want us to go round ‘em up?”

“Would you mind?”

“Not at all,” J.R. said. The two Jeds undid their safety belts, got up, and marched aft.

A minute later, none of the agents who had gone aft had come back. Meghan decided it was time to see for herself what the hell was going on back there. She liberated herself from her own seat belt and quick-stepped
down the aisle to the lavatory, where J.R. stood holding the door open.

Meghan asked, “What’s going on, Garrity?”

“Nothing,” he said with a poker face. “Everything’s fine.”

“Let go of the door and step back,” she said. “Right now, Agent. That’s an
order
.”

Reluctantly, he let go of the door and backed up against the aft bulkhead. Meghan closed the door and stepped past it, then pulled it back open to see what the hell was going on inside the closet-sized lavatory.

As she feared, it was empty.

“Is he breathing?” Tom asked.

“Barely,” Diana said, holding the wrist of the unconscious Marco. The dark-haired young analyst sat slumped in the backseat of the fugitive agents’ commandeered car, which was hurtling north on I-5 at breakneck speed. “His pulse is weak.”

J.B. was at the wheel, weaving through traffic as if their car were thread and the highway a needle. He threw a nervous look over his shoulder at Marco, then asked Tom, “How messed up is he? Should I head for the VA hospital? It’s the closest.”

Tom volleyed the question to Diana. “Your call.”

“I don’t know,” she said. “I’m not a doctor.”

She was still amazed that Marco had been able to tele-port off the plane and back into the terminal’s men’s room with her along for the ride. They had blinked from one place to the next without any visible sense of transition.
For Diana, it had been almost magical. But judging from the pallid hue of Marco’s face, she realized it must have been far more arduous for him.

To manage such a feat even once would have represented a major step forward in the maturation of his promicin ability; the fact that he had then used a digital photo taken inside the aircraft’s lavatory to teleport back to the plane, which had still been visible taxiing down the runway, and then repeated the round-trip journey twice more—first to smuggle Tom back to the terminal and then, on his last trip, J.B.—had been nothing short of miraculous.