The 4400® Promises Broken (23 page)

Jordan said, “And when it does …?”

“It’ll be like shaking up a bottle of seltzer on a hot summer day, then shooting off the cap,” Marco replied. “Imagine a pool of superhot molten rock three times larger than Los Angeles. And trapped inside it is gas under pressure. Rip off the cap, and all that trapped gas goes
boom
, straight up. It’ll be the biggest volcanic eruption in human history.”

Jed held up his hands. “Okay, but it’s in the middle of Nowhere, Wyoming. So, what?”

“With an eruption that big,” Diana said, “it won’t matter where it happens. If that caldera goes up, it’s game over. Kiss the human race good-bye.”

Genuinely petrified, Shawn asked, “Are you sure you’re not exaggerating a bit? Can one volcanic eruption really be that big a disaster?”

Standing up, Marco said, “Let me put this in perspective for all of you. The last eruption that was even
close
to what this would be happened seventy-four thousand years ago, at Lake Toba in Sumatra. That one blast nearly ended the human species.”

He circled the table as he continued his impromptu lecture. “It blotted out the sun all over the globe, wiped out animal populations, killed plants, and dropped temperatures to near freezing everywhere except the equator.

“Genetic research into mitochondrial DNA has identified that moment as a ‘choke point’ in the history of the human genome. It whittled our population down to a few thousand breeding pairs worldwide. The fact that it didn’t render us extinct might’ve just been a lucky break.”

Stopping at the head of the table, Marco added, “This eruption will be much, much worse. It’ll bury North America from coast to coast with more than two feet of toxic ash. It’ll blot out the sun for years, maybe a decade, triggering a nuclear winter and then a new Ice Age that’ll last thousands of years. This is the world ending with both a bang and a whimper.”

Horrified silence followed.

Then all eyes turned to Maia, who stepped from the room’s periphery and planted herself in front of Jordan. “Like I said: the world turns gray and dies.”

2:45
P.M.

T
OM STOOD IN
Shawn’s office near the closed door, not yet ready to accept Jordan’s invitation to take part in some crazy psychic communion. “Will this be like that time with the pie?”

“No, Tom,” Jordan said. “The phenomenon you experienced in Evanston simply allowed people to share memories. This is about creating a blended perception in real time.”

Three people stood behind Jordan, all of them waiting for Tom. Gary was the only one whom Tom knew. Jordan had introduced the other two as Lucas, whose ability was to create telepathic gestalts, and Hal, a remote-viewer whose specialty was finding people or things even when they were in motion or very far away.

“I don’t want anybody reading my thoughts,” Tom said.

Lucas replied, “It’s not like that. When we link, we’ll see and hear the same things, but our thoughts will stay private unless we choose to share them.”

With a wry, mischievous smile, Gary added, “As private as they can be with a telepath in the room.”

“You’re not helping,” Tom said to Gary.

Gary held up one hand and bowed his head in a gesture of apology. “Relax, Tom. I have more control than I used to. These days I can search people’s minds for specific information, like whether they’re a friend or an enemy, or if they’re hiding something important. Now that I know you’re on our side—”

“I wouldn’t say I’m
on your side
, exactly,” Tom protested. “I’d say we have a common interest in stopping Armageddon.”

The telepath’s jaw clenched for half a second, as if he were resisting the urge to speak in anger. “Call it what you will. The point is, I won’t be poking around inside your head.”

“Tom, I invited you to join us for two reasons,” Jordan said. “The first is so that you can have unfiltered access to the same information we have. That way you’ll know we’re not keeping any secrets from you. The second reason is that once we find this bomb, you and your team will have to come up with a plan for stopping it. All my people who have abilities suited for combat are busy fighting the troops in the city or defending this Center from an impending attack. I can’t spare anyone until the battle for the city is over.”

Tom nodded and stepped forward to stand with the group. “All right,” he said. “I understand. Let’s get on with it.”

The five men joined hands and shut their eyes.

At first, the summons of the gestalt was like a whisper,
barely detectable amid the noise of random thoughts in Tom’s consciousness. Then it washed over him like a warm, gentle wave.

He felt his breathing and his pulse synchronize with those of the others. Though his eyes were still closed, he saw himself and the others in the circle from above, and he instinctively knew that this was Hal’s remote-viewing ability being shared.

Jordan asked, “Where should we start, Tom?”

“I’m guessing our vehicle’s been on the road for a while,” Tom said. “Marco said the fire at the lab was mostly out by the time he got there, so it must’ve been set in the early hours of the morning. By now, the truck could be almost to Yellowstone.”

The remote-viewing perspective raced up and away, through the Center’s roof as if it were vapor, and beyond the clouds, to where the horizon began to show the first hint of a curve. Then they sped southeast, Earth beneath them a blur. Arrowing through mountains of cloud, they flew past Mount Rainier, arced over the Rockies, and soared over the western plains.

“We’ll start at the park and work our way backward along the most likely route,” Hal said.

The others murmured their agreement.

As they spiraled down to ground level, Tom felt a queasy churning in his gut and a sick dizziness in his head. All he saw was a blur of landscape. “How do you know where you are?”

“I just sense it,” Hal said. “I imagine where I want to look, and then I feel my way there.”

Seconds later they were racing parallel to the ground, tracing the path of the road, the dotted traffic lines bleeding into a nonstop yellow stripe.

Over the course of several minutes, cars of every kind whipped past, some alone, others in tight clusters.

At the first sign of any white vehicle, Hal slowed their flight and lingered for a better look. The first was a compact car; the second was a sports car.

On the highway, some distance from Yellowstone, they spotted a third white vehicle, a van.

“Let’s check it out,” Tom said.

Jordan said, “I thought we were looking for an SUV.”

“Close enough. We can’t risk missing this thing.”

Hal guided their floating point of view toward the van, then they pierced its side and were inside. Its cargo area was packed with hanging drapes of fabric, bundled metal rods, and boxes of tools and small parts—but nothing that looked like a bomb. “Not our guy,” Gary said. “He works for a department store, installing window treatments.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “Move on.”

Their disembodied view of the world reversed direction, slipping like a ghost from the van. Miles zipped by, the flat expanse of highway all but unchanging as it twisted like a ribbon toward the horizon beneath an overcast dome of sky.

Something in the distance caught Tom’s eye. “There,” he said. “White SUV, coming our way.”

“Got it,” Hal said, accelerating toward the vehicle.

In a blink they were through the windshield and in the passenger seat beside the driver. He was a Caucasian
man in his early forties, with brown hair and a slim build. There was dried blood along the edges of his fingernails. Tucked between his seat and the gearshift was a Glock semiautomatic pistol.

In the cargo area was an ominously warhead-shaped lump under a dark green canvas tarp.

“Bingo,” Tom said.

“This is definitely our guy,” Gary said. “It’s Jakes. The whole plan’s clear in his head. He’s heading for the western shore of Yellowstone Lake. When he gets there, he’ll arm the bomb and roll his truck into the lake, to keep anyone from tampering with the warhead before it detonates.”

“What about his conspirators?” asked Jordan. “The other members of the Marked?”

“Wells and Kuroda are on a flight out of Vegas. They’re heading to Tokyo, and from there into hiding.”

“Note every detail,” Tom said. “Make and model, license plate, nearest mile marker, how much fuel he has, everything.”

“Nissan Pathfinder,” Jordan said. “Gas tank at one-half.”

Hal pulled back so they seemed to be traveling backward in front of the vehicle. “California plates,” he said. “Tag number: three, X-ray, Zulu, X-ray, seven-one-three.”

“Okay,” Tom said. “Now we just need to know where he is.”

Still pacing the SUV, they climbed to an altitude of what Tom guessed was about a hundred feet and surveyed the area. “There’s something up ahead,” Lucas said. “A toll booth, maybe?”

“Oh, hell,” Tom said. “That’s the entrance to Yellowstone.
Our guy’s only minutes from the Wyoming border.”

Jordan asked with obvious concern, “How long till he reaches the caldera?”

“Fifteen minutes to the perimeter,” Tom said. “He’ll reach dead center in an hour. After that, it’ll be too late to stop him.”

3:06
P.M.

E
VERY MAP OF
Wyoming and Yellowstone National Park that Marco had been able to find in The 4400 Center’s educational library was open on the cafeteria table between Tom and Diana. It was a veritable mountain of paper.

The NTAC team had gathered in the Center’s main commissary to come up with a plan, no matter how hasty, for intercepting the Marked agent transporting the bomb. Despite the fact that the building had a dedicated power generator, the current crisis had necessitated the shutdown of noncritical systems—which, to the group’s collective chagrin, included the air-conditioning.

“Tom’s time estimate was correct,” Marco said, sleeving sweat from his forehead. With his index finger, he traced the line of the highway leading into the park from the west. “By now our guy is on West Entrance Road. He’ll turn south on Grand Loop Road in about twenty-five
minutes. From there, he’s only half an hour from the western shore of Yellowstone Lake.”

Jed returned from the kitchen with an armload of premade sandwiches wrapped in cellophane and thin cardboard. “All I could find was egg salad with low-cal mayo,” he said, dropping the sandwiches on top of the maps. “Heather gave everything else to the wounded folks in the auditorium.”

“I wouldn’t care if it was shoe leather,” Marco said, reaching for one of the packages. “I’d eat anything right now.”

“Ditto,” Tom added, grabbing a sandwich for himself. “What about bottled water?”

Apologizing with a shrug and a shake of his head, Jed said, “They went to the same place as the good sandwiches. Along with the juice and the soda.”

Diana tore open a sandwich for herself and bit off a huge mouthful. Through half-chewed egg and bread, she mumbled, “God, these are terrible,” but she kept on eating, just as everyone else did. It had been a long day, and none of them had eaten since before coming to work seven hours earlier. Not even the ripe odor of exhausted bodies wrapped in heavy, Kevlar-lined tactical vests was enough to put them off their appetites.

Munching on his own sandwich, Jed asked, “Can we alert the Park Service? Have them intercept the truck?”

“It’s not really what they’re trained for,” Tom said. “One mistake and they might get themselves killed, or worse, set off the bomb. Besides, how are we supposed to contact them? We still have no phone, e-mail, or radio contact with the world outside Seattle.”

Jed shrugged. “Maybe one of Jordan’s people can send out a message telepathically.”

Marco looked askance at the agent. “Yeah, that’ll really add to the report’s credibility: a mental message from the people the government’s trying to kill, telling them they need to drop everything to stop a bomb in Yellowstone.”

Glowering at Marco, Jed replied, “It was just an idea.”

Looking back and forth between two maps, Diana asked, “How far is it from here to Yellowstone?”

“In a straight line?” Marco said. “Roughly seven hundred nautical miles. Why?”

“There’s a Cessna Citation jet hangared at Boeing Field,” she said. “Maybe if we—”

“It’d take us twenty minutes just to get to it,” Tom said. “Besides, what if it’s not fueled?”

Marco added, “Plus, the Citation’s top speed is about five hundred knots. Even if we went wheels up right this second, we’d never make it.”

“You’re forgetting one more thing,” Jed said. “How far do you think we’ll get from Boeing Field before the Air Force shoots us outta the sky?”

“Fine,” Diana said, flinging up her arms in surrender. “We can rule out air travel.” She massaged her forehead. “God, this is annoying. Stopping bombs in trucks is the whole reason the Department of Homeland Security was created! But now, even though we know where the truck is and where it’s going, there’s nothing we can do about it.”

They all stared at the maps, each of them wearing the same scrunched look of consternation.

Tom shot a look at Marco. “If you could teleport us—”

“Not a chance,” Marco said. “Shifting myself out to the lab and back was one thing. Taking somebody with me is just too draining. I can’t do that again, not this soon, and not from this distance.” Frowning, he continued: “If we could just get Jordan to pull one telekinetic, or one electrokinetic, and put them in touch with that telepathic gestalt team of his, we could frag Jakes and that truck, and end this right now.”

“Forget it,” Tom said. “It took the threat of an apocalypse just to convince Jordan this was important enough to let us use his team to
find
the damn truck. As long as he’s stuck in a shooting war with the Army, he’s not taking any chances.”

“In other words,” Jed said, crumpling his empty sandwich package, “Jordan can’t see the forest for the trees.” He lobbed his trash into a distant garbage can. “He’s so busy defending his backyard, he can’t see the sky is falling.”