The 4400® Promises Broken (16 page)

He recoiled from the mere suggestion. “What? No! I don’t want to be in charge!”

“Don’t be so selfish, Kyle. It’s not about what you want, it’s about what the Movement
needs
.”

His mind reeled with horror at the notion. “No way, that’s crazy,” he said. “The last thing the Movement needs is a power struggle at the top. Besides, even if I did challenge Jordan, who the hell would follow me?”

Pinching his chin between her thumb and forefinger, Cassie smiled and said, “Silly! I’m not saying we should hold an election. This is wartime. Bad things happen. If
Jordan were to wind up on the receiving end of a sniper’s bullet …” She let go of his chin and gave the tip of his nose a gingerly tap. “Guess who’d be next in line to lead the Movement to victory?”

They regarded each other with wide-eyed stares—hers one of mad ambition, his one of mute horror.

“No,” he said, shaking his head. “There’s no way I could—”

“Liar,” Cassie said, her words a warm hush across his lips. “You did it once before …” She sank to a low crouch in front of him as she added, “You can do it again.”

Frozen in place, all he could muster was a feeble denial. “But that wasn’t really me that shot Jordan … it was the Marked. I was just a puppet.”

“I know,” Cassie said, lowering the zipper of his jeans. He closed his eyes and tried to pretend he didn’t feel the velvet stroke of her fingers or the sultry kiss of her breath as she whispered, “But I’m sure you remember how to do the deed …”

Diana watched flames dance inside the charred husks of cars that had been abandoned on nearly every street in downtown Seattle.

A golden-brown haze made it impossible to see more than ten yards ahead, forcing her to drive at a creeping pace through the dazed, wandering packs of survivors. The kaleidoscopic effect of tears in her eyes only made it that much harder for her to see. An acrid stench of burnt hair and scorched steel snaked through the car’s vents and made her cough, then hold her breath.

Beside her, Tom sat leaning forward, his forehead almost touching the windshield. He peered through the narrow arc cut by the wiper blade through the car’s thickening layer of grime, searching for any sign of anyone who looked like Maia. Both of his hands were under the glove compartment, wrapped around his semiautomatic pistol, ready to react to any threat.

On either side of the car, looters—some in bandannas and ski goggles, others sporting military surplus gas masks—emerged from storefronts with their arms filled with everything they could carry. Diana gazed at them with contempt.

“Middle of a war zone, and all these morons can think about is swiping a new TV,” she said, swerving through a slalom of jaywalking thieves portering massive cardboard boxes.

Tom chortled grimly. “If you want to run a few of ‘em over, it’s fine by me.”

“Don’t tempt me,” Diana said, feeling genuinely homicidal.

They turned a corner a few blocks from the former site of the Collier Foundation. The fog was heavier here. Grit crackled under the car’s tires as Diana steered slowly around massive blocks of shattered concrete sporting twisted lengths of iron rebar. She heard a high-pitched scrape as one of the metal protrusions left its mark on the side of her sedan.

Another turn led to another street blanketed in ashen fallout, but the haze in the air was brighter, backlit by the afternoon sun.

Diana stepped on the brakes.

Shadows took shape in the wall of dust. Silhouetted in the pale smoke, human figures of all shapes and sizes walked toward Diana and Tom’s car.

For Diana, it was a moment of déjà vu. Her mind flashed back to the day of the 4400’s arrival, nearly four years earlier on the shores of Highland Beach. From a thick white fog rolling off the crystal-clear waters of a mountain lake, forty-four hundred people—some of whom had been missing for years, others for decades— had appeared from a ball of light, with no memories of their abductions and no explanations for their return.

She opened her door and got out of the car.

“Diana!” Tom shouted, but she ignored him and stepped around her door to stand in front of her vehicle.

From behind her, she heard Tom’s door open. A moment later he was standing beside her, wincing and wrinkling his face against the onslaught of foul-smelling fog.

Together they watched human beings appear from the penumbra of dust, which had painted its victims a uniform ghostly gray. Even robbed of color, familiar faces appeared.

At the forefront of the crowd was Jordan Collier.

Behind him followed Gary Navarro.

And sheltered under Gary’s brotherly arm was Maia.

Diana rushed forward. Maia bolted away from Gary and leaped into her mother’s arms. Wrapping her daughter in a fierce hug, Diana wept with relief. “Thank God, Maia!”

Between desperate sobs, Maia said, “They said you left! This morning, on the plane!”

“No, sweetie,” Diana said, stroking Maia’s dust-caked hair. “They tried to make me go. But I’d never leave you. Never.”

She lingered, grateful to be holding her daughter even as the world went to pieces all around them. Then she realized that Jordan and his legion of followers had halted in the street and were watching her and Maia.

Jordan regarded them darkly.

“Maia,” he said. “We need to keep moving.”

“I know,” Maia said, extricating herself from Diana’s embrace.

Gary walked away, heading northeast, leading the crowd past Diana, Tom, Maia, and Jordan.

“Wait, no!” Diana protested. “Maia, you need to come with me, honey. We need to get back to NTAC until this is over.”

Maia shook her head. “No, Mom. My place is with my people.”

“We need her, Diana,” Jordan said. “She predicted the attack on our headquarters, and she knows where the enhanced soldiers are going to strike. The entire city’s a target now, and NTAC’s no exception.”

As shade-pale survivors shambled around her, Diana directed her fury at Jordan. “At least NTAC has some defenses! Bring your people there; we can help you.”

“Thicker walls won’t save us this time,” Jordan said. “All my people who have abilities they can use in combat have been sent to meet the enhanced soldiers. Everyone else is coming with me to find shelter.”

As Diana struggled to tame her anger and find the words to change Maia’s mind, Tom stepped between her and Jordan. “Have you seen Kyle?” Tom asked. “Did he survive the attack?”

“Kyle’s fine,” Jordan said. Nodding at the passing crowd,
he added, “If you want to wait, I’m sure he’ll be along sooner or later.” With a featherlight touch, he nudged Maia into motion beside him as he resumed walking. “Let’s go.”

Tom stayed behind as Diana hurried along beside Maia. “Honey, please,” Diana said. “Don’t do this. You need to come with me. It’s not safe out here.”

“It’s not safe anywhere,” Maia said. “But I’m safer with my people than with yours.” She reached out and took Diana’s hand as they walked side by side. “Come with us. We’ll protect you.”

She desperately wished she could make Maia understand. “I can’t do that, sweetie. I have a duty, to NTAC …” She glanced over her shoulder as her voice tapered off. The ensuing silence smothered her unexpressed thought,
And a duty to Tom
.

“I understand,” Maia said. “You have your duty, and I have mine.” She looked up at Diana with a surprisingly mature mien. “Don’t worry,” she continued. “We’ll see each other again before this is over. I promise.”

Maia let go of Diana’s hand.

Diana stopped walking and let her go. Within seconds, her daughter had vanished into the amber afterglow of destruction, trailed by Jordan’s newborn army of gray ghosts.

Minutes passed without a word being spoken. Tom stepped up beside her, and they stared into the bright veil of dust.

“We raise our kids so that someday we can let them live their own lives,” Diana said. “But how do I make myself let go?”

Tom frowned. “If I ever figure it out, I’ll let you know.”

11:39
A.M.

C
OMMANDER
E
RIC
F
ROST
marked targets with a red grease pencil on a laminated map, which was spread flat on the concrete floor of the Elliott West CSO Control Facility. He and the other twenty-nine enhanced soldiers who surrounded him were garbed in black-and-gray urban combat uniforms whose pockets were stuffed with everything from bottled water to smoke grenades.

“Alpha Team, we’ll be tracking Jordan Collier and the senior members of his leadership council,” the Navy SEAL said to his fellow enhanced soldiers. “Our latest intel says they made it out of their headquarters before it went down, so we need to assess where they’re most likely to go next.”

Brian Gerhart, a Marine Corps lieutenant with a face that reminded Frost of a knuckle with eyes, lifted his hand. Frost nodded to the man, who closed his eyes and said, “I have an image of them moving on foot. Looks like
they’re heading northeast on Madison. Near Pike Street.”

“Not toward NTAC, then,” noted Sergeant Knight, an Army Ranger whose pale complexion, blue eyes, and sharp features gave him the affect of a man made of ice and steel. Pointing at the map, he continued: “I’d say there’s an eighty-seven-percent chance they’ll turn north on Nineteenth Avenue.”

“In which case we’ll be playing catch-up,” Frost said. “That means we’ll need cover, and lots of it.” He circled the city block labeled Seattle Center. “Bravo Team, we need you to draw Collier’s people out of our way while we head east. Start with the Space Needle and improvise from there.”

Bravo’s leader, Captain Hayes, who stood out because of his Sioux ancestry and the fact that he had biceps larger than most men’s thighs, nodded once. “Got it,” he said.

Frost looked to the next team commander, a gaunt and dead-eyed Green Beret lieutenant named John Conway. “Charlie Team, you guys have a change of plan. The GPS satellites are down, so the Navy’s switching to laser-guided munitions. You’ll have to paint Collier’s high-value targets with UV and wait while the
Shoup
takes ‘em out one at a time. Start with bridges, elevated freeways, and hardened sites.”

“Roger that,” Conway said without taking his eyes from the map. Frost grasped the nature of Conway’s focused concentration: he was memorizing the map of central Seattle.

Hayes raised one huge, thick-fingered hand. “Question.”

With a half nod, Frost said, “Go ahead.”

“What are the rules of engagement out there, sir?”

“Check your targets,” Frost said. “There are four companies of regular Army on the move in there, plus at least one company of Marines, all in urban camo. That said, anybody on the street who’s not one of ours is a valid target unless confirmed otherwise,” Frost said. “Don’t target city police unless they engage you first. Any civvie who shows signs of a promicin ability gets lit up. Everybody clear?”

Heads nodded in confirmation all around him.

“Okay,” Frost said, rolling up the map. “That’s it. This is a daylight op, so watch your asses out there. Maintain radio silence unless you’re totally FUBAR. Check your gear, lock-’n’-load, move out. Hooyah!”

The other SEALs in the company shouted back “Hooyah!” while the Marines bellowed “Oorah!” and the Army boys roared “Hooah!”—all part of a shared military tradition, each subtly unique.

Bravo Team was the first to deploy. Hayes led his men out of the CSO facility through a door to the building’s north parking lot. From there, Frost knew, the mission plan called for them to make a rapid crossing of Elliott Avenue West, followed by a fast scramble up a grassy slope to West Mercer Street. From there, Bravo Team would double-quicktime three-fifths of a mile to Seattle Center, set munitions at the base of the Space Needle (which was strategically worthless but ideal for creating a distraction), and unleash hell at precisely noon.

Conway’s unit had a more difficult mission profile. He and each member of his team—ten men in all—would
have their own list of prioritized targets, located throughout the city. After Charlie Team deployed from the CSO facility, each of its members would have to act independently for the rest of the engagement. None of them would have the luxury of calling for backup or extraction. To get out of the combat zone, each man would have to direct the demolition of all targets on his list and then reach the designated exfiltration point at the southernmost point of Lake Union at precisely midnight.

While the men of Charlie Team made a final review of their targets and their timetables, Frost led Alpha Team through a six-foot-wide open valve hatchway, back into the Combined Sewer Overflow pipeline. This had been his platoon’s means of ingress into Promise City. He and his men had SCUBA-dived to the outfall pipes, which lay submerged in sixty feet of water 340 feet offshore from Myrtle Edwards Park in Elliott Bay. The pipes varied in diameter from six to eight feet from there to the Elliott West CSO Control Facility. It had been a narrow passage for men laden with combat gear, but they had made it.

The portion of the tunnel that ran east from the control facility was fourteen feet wide; it extended underneath Mercer Street to Dexter Avenue, where it angled northeast parallel to Broad Street. At Eighth Avenue and Roy Street, there would be another valve hatch that would lead to a manhole cover. From there, Frost and his men would deploy to street level in northern Seattle and continue on to their target.

He splashed down into ankle-deep stagnant water and forced himself to ignore the putrid, sulfur-and-methane-heavy
stench of sewage and rotting vegetation. Thumbing the switch on his flashlight, he made a quick head count and confirmed that all nine of his men were with him.

“Okay, gents,” he barked. “We’ve got fifteen minutes to hump our butts a mile and a quarter. Move out!”

Frost’s men fell in behind him, running single-file through the tunnel with only his lone flashlight beam to light the way. The roar of feet slapping through the water echoed inside the circular concrete passageway and bled into a wall of noise.

The SEAL focused on the sensations of his footfalls breaking the water’s surface, the comforting weight of his rifle on his back and his Beretta at his side, and the seconds ticking by on his digital watch.