by Greg Cox
“… when that shining orb of light first appeared over four years ago, zooming toward the Earth from what was then believed to be the depths of outer space, many people feared it was the end of the world. And, in a sense, it was. The arrival of that celestial sphere, which returned the 4400 to this crucial juncture in history, heralded the end of the troubled world we had all endured for far too long. A world of hunger, poverty, war, fear and ignorance …”
Blah, blah, blah, April thought. Talk about old news. Everybody knows that stuff already. She couldn’t believe how all these deluded suckers were eating this up. Tell us something we don’t know—like what you did with Danny’s body.
Several annoyed looks and irritated shushes later, she made it to almost the front of the audience. The foot of the steps were only a few rows of gullible sheep away. Jordan Collier was so close she could practically make out the individual hairs in his beard. His shrewd blue eyes looked out over the crowd, oblivious to the downfall creeping up on him. April figured she was close enough.
She had to be within earshot of him now.
April took a second to compose herself. She eyed the nearby TV cameras impishly. Boy, were they in for a show. Jordan Collier was about to go seriously off message.
Wait until Diana hears about this!
She took off her sunglasses. Her jaws opened wide. “Where is Danny Farrell’s body?” she hollered.
Or rather, that’s what she intended to yell. What actually came out of her mouth was:
“Yogurt cavorting algorithms?”
Huh? The bizarre phrase echoed inside her head. What did I just say? She tried again, even louder this time.
“Meniscus swirling artichoke rhythms?”
The meaningless torrent of words drew baffled looks from the people around her. It was like she was speaking in tongues …
“That’s enough, Ms. Skouris.” A heavy hand fell upon her shoulder.
April’s heart skipped a beat. Looking behind her, she discovered two uniformed Peace Officers looming over her. Each guard took her firmly by the arm.
“Please come with us,” the guard on the right said. He had six inches and maybe fifty pounds on her.
“Puyallup obliquely!” she protested incoherently, even as the awful truth smacked her in the face. They’ve done something to my brain! No matter what she tried to say, nothing but gibberish spilled from her lips. “Licentious armadillo queues!”
Nearby spectators eyed her dubiously and backed away. April realized that she must sound like she was on drugs. Distraught, she wondered how the guards had identified her. Had they spotted her only minutes ago or had she been under surveillance for days now? Ordinarily, she could just ask them, but not anymore, not with everything she said getting hopelessly garbled on its way to her tongue.
Unable to argue with the officers, she tried to pull free from their grip. A sudden wave of dizziness washed over her, however, leaving her barely able to stand on her own two legs while the world around her seemed to spin like a carnival thrill ride. She realized at once that one of the guards had to be using his ability against her.
“Mermaid toothpicks!”
A second later, the plaza stopped rotating. The dizziness went away.
“Don’t make this any harder on yourself,” the second guard warned. He was smaller than the other guard, but big enough to push her around. He kept his voice low and menacing. “Let these nice people listen to Jordan’s speech.”
Getting the message, she offered no further resistance as the officers hauled her away from the steps. No one tried to stop the guards from escorting the crazy lady out. The crowd parted readily to let them through. Up at the podium, Collier kept on speaking as though nothing untoward had transpired. If he was aware of the disturbance, there was no indication of it.
“Thus, it is with great joy and humility, that I unveil this brilliant artistic tribute to a day that changed all our lives for the better.” With a dramatic flourish, he whipped the drape off the sculpture. The floating crystal sphere lit up like a star atop a Christmas tree. “Welcome to the beginning of the Promise City renaissance!”
Energetic cheers and applause drowned out April’s forced departure. The guards hustled her out of the plaza and into the back of a waiting green van. Fear gripped her soul. Where are you taking me?
“Slippery by catalogs rampant?”
The guard guessed what she was asking. “Trust me, you don’t want to know.”
Her ability was useless at the moment, but that didn’t matter.
She knew in her heart that he was telling the truth.
ELEVEN
THE RAMBLING TWO-STORY farmhouse was hidden away in the Pennsylvania countryside. Harvested corn and tobacco fields, lying dormant for the winter, surrounded the house and outbuildings. An unlit dirt road led to the Lancaster Pike, nearly a half mile away. A wrought-iron rooster perched atop the weather vane. Amish hex signs were painted on the barns and grain silo. Electric lights shone in the windows. The upstairs curtains had been drawn for the night. A fleet of limousines, parked alongside the house, looked distinctly out of place.
Richard took the limos’ presence as a good sign. Looks like we’re in the right place, he thought. He and his team crept through a darkened field toward the rear of the house. A reliable tip had informed them that the surviving Marked were holding a summit at this very location, offering a perfect opportunity to dispose of the entire cabal in one fell swoop. Subsequent research had revealed that the isolated farm was one of several properties owned by Wesley Burke, the president’s chief advisor on domestic security. The incongruous limos suggested that they had arrived just in time.
Far from the lights of the city, inky darkness concealed their approach. A thin sliver of a moon gave them barely enough light to navigate. It was a crisp, frosty night. Richard’s breath clouded before his lips, as did Evee’s. Only Yul appeared unaffected by the cold. Richard envied the other man’s thermokinetic gifts. All three operatives—a word Richard preferred to “assassins”—were dressed warmly in black wool clothing, gloves, ski caps, and boots. Despite the frigid temperature, they had worked up a sweat hiking across the rolling farm country to this address. Their stealth helicopter, manned by the same blind pilot who had assisted in the prison break, had dropped them off in a vacant field more than a mile away.
Keeping low, they darted across the frozen field. With Sanchez dead, Richard had assumed command of the assault team. Dried corn husks crunched alarmingly beneath their boots. Richard winced at every treacherous crackle. Taking point, he held his breath until they found shelter behind an old tool shed. He peered around the corner of the shed while he scoped out the terrain ahead.
A spacious backyard stretched between the shed and the rear of the house. Tight security belied the rustic setting. A guard in a fleece-lined parka patrolled a balcony on the second floor. Mounted floodlights illuminated the dry brown lawn. A tire swing hung from the sturdy branch of a denuded oak tree. A large aluminum doghouse worried Richard. He could only hope that any inconvenient watchdogs had been brought inside for the night.
His gaze zeroed in on a pair of painted basement doors. The sloping steel doors were angled against the house’s brick foundations. According to their informant, a 4400 whom Richard had met years ago in quarantine, the Marked were meeting in an underground panic room right off the wine cellar.
That’s our way in, he decided. Now they just had to get across several yards of well-lit lawn without being detected. Easier said than done.
He considered the sentry on the balcony. The nameless guard paced back and forth to keep warm. His gloved hands were cupped around a steaming mug of coffee. Richard almost felt sorry for the poor guy, until he remembered just who the guard was defending. A pair of night-vision binoculars hung around the man’s neck. From this distance, Richard couldn’t tell if the sentry was armed, but he figured that was a safe bet. Wesley Burke was a powerful man, with a lot of enemies.
Evee crept u
p behind him. She poked her head around the corner as well. Her kohl-lined eyes followed his gaze up to the balcony. “Want me to take care of him?”
“Save your strength.” Richard kept his voice low. “I can handle this.”
His dark brow furrowed. His eyes narrow as he focused on the guard—and the flow of blood to the man’s brain. It had taken him a while to master this trick, but he had it down now. Slowly, subtly, so as not to alarm his target, he gradually constricted the guard’s circulation, putting the man asleep before he even knew what was happening to him. The sentry teetered unsteadily, then slumped over the railing. The coffee mug slipped from his fingers. Richard experienced a moment of panic as the ceramic cup plunged toward the ground. It landed with a muted thump in the flower bed below. Leafy shrubs mercifully cushioned its fall.
“Pretty smooth,” Evee whispered, impressed by the ease with which Richard had neutralized the guard. “You ever done that before?”
“Yes,” he said tersely. Sorrow stabbed his heart. The last person he had knocked out like this had been Isabelle, back when his rebellious daughter was still alive. He wished now that they had spent less of their precious time together in conflict. If only they could have patched things up between them. But the Marked had stolen that possibility from them.
“What about the lights?” Evee asked.
Richard signaled Yul with a hand gesture. The younger man, who was about a head shorter than Richard, tiptoed over to join them. “Your turn,” Richard said.
Yul nodded. He fixed his gaze on the floodlights, which flared up brightly before burning out altogether. Darkness fell across the backyard. Richard wondered how long it would take the people inside to notice.
Just long enough, hopefully.
“Go!” he whispered urgently.
They were halfway across the yard when the dogs attacked. Savage barks and growls preceded the sudden appearance of four slathering Dobermans, who came racing around the side of the house. The dogs’ fangs gleamed in the faint moonlight. Drool sprayed from their snapping jaws.
Damn, Richard thought. I knew that doghouse meant trouble.
The lead Doberman lunged at him. He instinctively threw up his arm to defend himself, grateful for the thick padding of his insulated jacket and sweater. The dog’s powerful jaws clamped onto his arm. Sharp teeth pierced the fabric, breaking his skin. He bit down on his lip to keep from crying out. Pain broke his concentration to bits. There was no chance to use his mind as a weapon. The snarling dog hung on to him like a vise, tearing at his flesh. Its thrashing weight threw him off balance. It was all he could do to keep the vicious canine from his throat … until, abruptly, the dog went limp.
Releasing its grip, the Doberman dropped onto the lawn. Richard gasped in relief. He stumbled backward, away from the downed beast. Glancing around, he saw that all four Dobermans were now lying insensate upon the parched grass. They snored and snuffled in their sleep. Their legs twitched randomly.
Evee, he realized.
He looked over at his teammate, who was stretching a crick out of her neck. Apparently her ability worked on dogs as well. “Thanks,” he said breathlessly. “Good job.”
She shrugged, as though saving them all from a pack of ravenous watchdogs was no big deal. “I’ve always been more of a cat person.”
“How’s your arm?” Yul asked anxiously. Blood soaked through Richard’s sleeve, looking black as crude oil in the shadows. Shredded fabric barely concealed the bite marks. It hurt like hell.
“I can manage,” he said through gritted teeth. He was more worried about the clamor the dogs had raised before Evee silenced them. Agitated voices sounded within the house. A sliding glass door swished open upstairs. Rapid footsteps rushed out onto the balcony. “What the—?” an anonymous voice blurted above them. “You sleeping on the job, Harris?”
A second voice added to the uproar. “What’s with the damn dogs?” Irritation warred with alarm. “Hey, when did the lights go out?”
Richard dashed beneath the balcony, out of sight of the newcomers. His partners needed no prompting to join him. He clutched his injured arm as he listened tensely to the men trying to rouse the tranquilized sentry. His heart pounded in his chest. His eyes turned toward the basement doors, only a few feet away. He tried to lift the doors telekinetically, only to find them locked from the inside.
No problem, he thought. He had anticipated as much.
Vince Adams, the space-warping 4400 from the prison break, could have wrenched the solid steel doors from their hinges, but he had begged off on this mission due to moral compunctions. Liberating positives from federal custody was one thing, but Adams had drawn the line at outright assassination. Richard respected the man’s position. He might even had agreed with it at one time, before the Marked murdered his daughter.
Now the basement doors stood between him and his revenge. Reaching out with his mind, he located the padlock on the opposite side of the doors. His smarting arm made it hard to concentrate, but he pushed past the pain. Tumblers shifted and the lock clicked open. The freed doors sprung apart. A murky portal beckoned to them.
“Now!” Richard ordered. He sprinted down a short flight of steps, ducking his head to avoid a low-hanging lintel. The toe of his boot kicked the fallen padlock aside. Abandoning stealth for speed, his comrades scampered down the steps after him. A single naked lightbulb, hanging from the ceiling, exposed what appeared to be a well-stocked wine cellar. Dozens of glass bottles were carefully stacked in sturdy iron racks.
Yul whistled in appreciation. “Quite a collection. And all highly flammable.”
“Later,” Richard said. A convenient blaze might help cover their tracks, but first they had to achieve their objective—without interruption. He glanced back over his shoulder. The cellar doors banged shut. A heavy wine rack scraped across the floor and wedged itself up against the entrance. A second rack fell loudly across a stairway leading up to the ground floor. Dislodged bottles shattered upon the hard concrete floor. A dozen competing bouquets polluted the air.
Evee clucked at the spilled wine. “What a waste.”
Richard couldn’t care less about the pricy vintages. All that mattered was eliminating their targets while they still had the chance. Seams of light outlined a reinforced steel door directly ahead. Strident voices sounded from behind the barrier. That’s got to be them, he guessed. The Marked themselves.
Or so he hoped.
Unexpectedly, the door wasn’t even locked. It opened like magic before them as they charged into the chamber beyond. Richard’s eyes quickly assessed the situation. The rumored “panic room” looked more like a furnished basement apartment. Wood-paneled cupboards and pantries were mounted above a small kitchenette at the rear of the room. Shelves were stocked with a library of books and DVDs. A red emergency phone hung next to the door, beside a first-aid cabinet and fire extinguisher. Ventilation grilles ran along the top of the walls, just below the low ceiling. The overhead lights were painfully bright compared to the darkness outside. Classical music played softly over the sound system.
Six startled people stared at the intruders in alarm. An Arab sheik, a Tibetan lama, a Chinese woman, a U.S. general, a bronzed movie producer, and Wesley Burke himself were positioned around a round antique oak table in the center of the room. Richard recognized the Marked from the detailed dossiers they had worked up on all of them. The quorum appeared complete. They were all here, just as promised.
Pay dirt.
Gasps and curses erupted from the Marked’s stolen lips. Most of them had already leapt from their seats. Overturned chairs lay on their sides. Burke drew a Glock semiautomatic from beneath his jacket, but Yul was way ahead of him. The blue steel went red-hot in a heartbeat. Burke flung the sizzling handgun away from him.
“No!” the Arab pleaded. “Have mercy.”
Evee didn’t give Burke’s fellow conspirators a chance to fight back. Her neck cracked audibly. The Marked collapsed like rag dolls.
The
steel door slammed shut behind Richard. He didn’t want anyone else crashing this party. His somber gaze swept over the fallen men and woman. A nerve twitched beneath his cheek. He wasn’t looking forward to this part …
“So far, so good,” Yul commented. “Guess we didn’t need Billy after all.”
Over the boy’s strenuous objections, Richard had scrubbed the bespectacled twelve-year-old from this operation. Never mind the danger, this was no job for a child. It was bad enough that Isabelle had lost her innocence so horrifically. He wasn’t about to let another child get blood on his hands.
Not on my watch.
By now, the Marked’s hired thugs were raising hell outside the panic room. Richard heard them struggling with the uprooted wine racks. Frantic voices shouted at each other. Clearly, the team was going to have to fight their way out of here.
“Okay,” Evee muttered. She tried to claim Burke’s gun, but it was still too hot to touch. She glanced apprehensively at the closed door between themselves and the guards. “Let’s waste these fascist body snatchers and make tracks.”
“Not yet.” Richard approached the sprawled bodies. Before they killed these people in cold blood, and incinerated their corpses, he wanted to make absolutely sure that they had the right people. The helpless targets seemed to match the profiles, but his conscience demanded that he make every effort not to kill the wrong people by mistake. They were talking about human lives here. There could be no margin for error.
Nasir al-Ghamdi was the nearest victim. Richard knelt beside the unconscious sheik. The Arab’s prone body was facedown on the carpet, so Richard rolled him over to get a better look. He tugged the man’s head cloth away from his face and scrutinized his features. Was he just being paranoid or did the young man’s face look slightly different than the one Richard had memorized? He touched the sheik’s cheek. Greasepaint came off on his fingers.
A sudden chill ran down Richard’s spine. This isn’t Nasir, he realized. He’s a fake. A decoy.