The 4400- the Vesuvius Prophecy

by Greg Cox

  Diana got right to the point. “How well do you know Cooper DeMeers?”

  Sondra was one of the few 4400s listed in DeMeers’s address book. They had also obtained phone records showing that DeMeers had called the tour guide on his cell phone right after he had escaped from them at the Market.

  “Cooper?” Sondra feigned nonchalance . . . badly. “He’s just a casual friend. We met in quarantine right after we got back from wherever.” Homeland Security had briefly confined the 4400 after their return, before civil rights lawyers forced their release. “He works just up the street at the Market, so we get together for lunch sometimes. That’s all.”

  Diana didn’t believe her. Besides the damning phone records, she found it telling that Sondra had not yet asked them what they wanted with DeMeers. Perhaps she already knew that NTAC was looking for him?

  “When was the last time you spoke with him?” Diana asked.

  “I’m not sure,” Sondra hedged. She fiddled clumsily with the brochures in her lap. “A couple of weeks maybe.”

  “That’s funny,” Tom said, looming over her. “We’ve got evidence indicating that he called you right after the earthquake Wednesday.”

  Sondra swallowed hard. “Oh yeah, right.” Her azure eyes darted from side to side, as though looking for a convenient escape route. “I remember now. He was just checking to see if I was okay.”

  “Pretty thoughtful for a casual acquaintance,” Diana observed. “Are you sure that’s all you discussed?” Her voice held a warning tone. “Think carefully now.”

  To Diana’s surprise, Sondra extracted a small metal rasp from her hip pocket and started filing away at her teeth. She caught the two agents staring at her and blushed. “Sorry about that. Nervous habit. Ever since I got back, my teeth won’t stop growing.”

  Tom and Diana exchanged startled looks. “Seriously?” Tom asked.

  “You bet!” Sondra volunteered, a little too eager to change the subject. “It’s pretty cool, really.” She opened her mouth to show off rows of flawless white enamel. “All my old cavities filled back in, and I even grew back the tooth I lost during a skateboard accident in college. Ever since I became one of the 4400, I haven’t had a single cavity. I don’t even need to brush or floss anymore.” She applied the rasp to an incisor. “The only drawback is that I have to keep filing the teeth down to avoid looking like Jaws.”

  Fascinated, Diana leaned in for a better look. The scientist in her briefly overcame the detective as she contemplated the woman’s unusual ability. Dental regeneration, she thought, impressed by the potential implications for the human genome. Just wait until Dr. Burkhoff hears about this . . .

  “I’ve been tempted to knock out another tooth,” Sondra babbled on, obviously grateful to be talking about anything other than her relationship with Cooper DeMeers, “just to see how fast it would grow back. But that strikes me as a bit extreme, you know.”

  Dr. Burkhoff wouldn’t think so.

  Eying the rasp in Sondra’s hand, Diana remembered the metal file she had found in DeMeers’s medicine cabinet, next to his toothbrush. Sounds to me, she thought, like they’re more than just casual acquaintances.

  So what else was she lying about?

  “That’s not in your file,” Tom accused, deliberately putting her on the defensive.

  All the blood drained from Sondra’s face. “Is that important?” she said anxiously. “I wasn’t trying to hide anything, I promise. It just seemed like no big deal!”

  “That’s for us to decide.” Diana kept the pressure on. “Does the name ‘D. B. Cooper’ mean anything to you?”

  “The hijacker guy?” Sondra blinked in surprise; she looked genuinely baffled by the question. “From the seventies?”

  Diana guessed that DeMeers had never shared his past exploits with the woman. Sondra probably just thought that she was protecting her lover from NTAC’s nefarious clutches. “What about William Gorinsky?”

  Sondra shook her head. “C’mon, folks,” she pleaded. “Level with me here. Am I in some sort of trouble or not?”

  “Not if you’re telling us the truth.” Diana felt a twinge of sympathy for the distraught guide. According to her file, Sondra had been a model citizen since returning to the present. There were no red flags or links to the Nova Group in her folder. Unlike Gorinsky and so many others, she seemed to have picked up the strands of her old life without a hitch. “You getting by okay, since you got out of quarantine?”

  “What, are you my social worker now?” Sondra bristled momentarily, before regaining her composure. “Honestly, I’ve got nothing to complain about. From what I hear, I only missed out on the O.J. trial, Tonya and Nancy, and Monica Lewinsky. No great loss.” She shrugged her shoulders. “I even got my old job back. And I can still use the exact same spiel I recited before I was abducted by the big Ball O’ Light.” She handed Diana a brochure. The flyer promised a captivating peek at Seattle’s rowdy frontier days. “That’s the nice thing about history. It doesn’t change.”

  Diana managed a tight smile. I know some people in the future who might disagree with that.

  Just down the street, at the Elliott Bay Book Company, a woman pretended to browse the self-help shelves while covertly observing the agents’ encounter with Sondra Jonnson. Her spy-eyes picked up every nuance of the tense interrogation. Good thing we never recruited her into Nova, the woman thought. That wuss caves too easily under pressure.

  She hit the speed dial on her cell phone. “Me again,” she informed her cell leader. “Our friends at NTAC seem to have a lead on Cooper.”

  “Keep watching them,” he replied. “Maybe they’ll lead us straight to our seismic fugitive. I’ll notify our operative to be ready to intervene.”

  “You got it.” She ended the call as, two blocks north, the NTAC agents let Jonnson go about her business. Their clandestine observer was momentarily torn as to what to do; should she start watching Jonnson instead of the agents? Unfortunately, not even her remarkable eyes could look in two directions at once. Better stick to the plan, she decided. We wouldn’t want NTAC to get to Cooper while I’m looking elsewhere.

  Guessing that she had a long evening coming up, she headed for the café downstairs. Spying was thirsty work and she could use another chai. Thank God for caffeine, she thought, as she kept her eyes on Agents Baldwin and Skouris.

  NINE

  “I DON’T KNOW about you, but my butt is killing me.”

  Diana and Agent Garrity were parked across the street from Sondra Jonnson’s apartment, a one-bedroom walk-up in Pioneer Square, above Doc Maynard’s old saloon. They had been on stakeout for over five hours now, ever since DeMeers’s suspected girlfriend had gotten off work. Garrity squirmed uncomfortably in the driver’s seat of a nondescript brown Subaru. “You think maybe we’re wasting our time?”

  Jed Garrity was providing backup for Diana, while Tom carried out his end of tonight’s surveillance operation. The dark-haired, thirtyish investigator was a good agent, she knew, despite his consistently pessimistic outlook. Garrity could always be counted on to expect the worst in any given situation. These days, alas, he was seldom proved wrong.

  “I hope not,” she replied, sitting shotgun beside him. She remained convinced that Sondra was hiding something, possibly the elusive Cooper DeMeers. Peering upward, she saw that the lights were still on in Sondra’s apartment. Was she having trouble sleeping? Tom and I left her pretty shook up this afternoon, Diana thought. Maybe we rattled her enough that she’ll make a mistake? Besides staking out her apartment, NTAC had also put a tap on Sondra’s phone.

  Pioneer Square’s thriving nightlife was well under way around them. Music and laughter poured out the doorways of the neighborhood’s many bars and nightclubs. Smokers congregated on the crowded sidewalks. Panhandlers hit up yuppies and college kids for loose change and the occasional cigarette. The neon sign of the local mission offered the vagrants an alternative to the streets. Scores of vehicles crowded First Avenue; parking was at a
premium. A cloudless sky and mild temperatures invited plenty of pedestrian traffic.

  Diana glanced at her watch. It was eleven-thirty; in theory, Alana had put Maia to bed hours ago. Diana’s back ached from sitting in the car all night; she finished off a cup of cold coffee before deciding to check in with Tom. She pressed her cell phone to her ear.

  He picked up on the first ring. “Hello?”

  “Just touching base,” she explained. “Sondra still hasn’t budged from her apartment. What’s new on your end?”

  “Nothing much,” he reported from Abendson. “Gorinsky’s dead to the world.”

  It had taken a bit of arm-twisting, and the threat of a court order, to get Doctor Clayton to allow Tom to camp out in Gorinsky’s room tonight, but the hospital director had eventually capitulated. The plan was for Tom to keep watch over Gorinsky’s sleeping form while Diana and Garrity continued the hunt for DeMeers. If anyone tried to interfere with their investigation again, they wanted to know exactly what the confined mental patient was up to. Diana imagined Tom sitting diligently at Gorinsky’s bedside, bored out of his mind. Talk about above and beyond; she knew how much he hated hospitals.

  “I wish I slept this sound,” Tom added. “The guy hasn’t stirred for hours. To be honest, I’m not entirely sure what I should be watching for. Do we think Gorinsky’s ‘astral double’ is going to rise up out of his body like a ghost?”

  “Beats me,” she confessed. “This is my first case of alleged biloca—” Garrity nudged her with his elbow. She looked up to see Sondra Jonnson emerge from the building, clutching a paper bag of groceries. A jolt of adrenaline shot through Diana’s system. “Hold on, something’s happening!”

  Pausing in front of the saloon, Sondra looked around cautiously to see if she was being watched. Diana slumped down in her seat, while Garrity made a show of checking his haircut in the rearview mirror. Sondra didn’t give the Subaru a second look before taking off briskly down the sidewalk. A pack of clubbing Goth kids asked her for directions to Capitol Hill, but she was in too much of a rush to respond.

  What’s the big hurry? Diana wondered. Anxious to get where you’re going?

  Keeping Tom on the line, she and Garrity slipped out of the car and started after Sondra. The rowdy Friday night festivities made it easy to follow her unobserved. A stylish fedora helped to conceal Diana’s features. Sondra kept nervously glancing back over her shoulders, but failed to spot the plainclothes agents amid the bustling crowd. Her furtive behavior struck Diana as a good sign. The jittery tour guide couldn’t have looked more guilty if she’d tried.

  “Looks like we’re on to something,” she whispered to Tom. “How’s Sleeping Beauty?”

  The last time they’d tried to apprehend DeMeers, some version of Gorinsky had gotten in the way. Diana didn’t want any competition this time around.

  “Out like a light,” he reported. “You’re good to go.”

  Up ahead, Sondra darted into a nearby alley. Diana hurried forward to peek around the corner. The ambient glow of one of the vintage streetlights provided just enough illumination for Diana to see Sondra descend a short flight of concrete steps to a basement door built into the side of the building on the left. A faded ghost ad for a turn-of-the-century headache tonic was painted on the sooty brick wall. More recent graffiti was scrawled atop the ancient ad. Garbage overflowed the top of a rusty metal Dumpster. Seattle’s frequent rains had failed to wash the smell of urine away from the alley. Garrity made a face as he caught up with Diana, who held a finger up in front of her lips. Silence was the order of the moment.

  Sondra held on to her groceries with one arm while she fumbled with a set of keys. The basement door swung open and she disappeared into the lower reaches of the building. The watching agents gave her a ten-second head start before following after her. In her haste, Sondra had left the door unlocked. Thank heaven for small favors, Diana thought. Her lock-picking skills were a bit rusty. Beyond the door, a wooden staircase led straight down into the Underground City.

  After the Great Fire razed downtown Seattle in 1889, city planners decided to take advantage of the opportunity to rebuild Pioneer Square from the ground up. Originally built upon tidal mudflats, frontier Seattle had suffered serious drainage problems since day one, with toilets tending to back up whenever the tide came in. A plan was devised to raise the streets as much as thirty feet higher; unfortunately, impatient landowners and merchants went ahead and rebuilt their buildings before the regrading plan went into effect. As a result, when the streets were finally elevated, the sidewalks and storefronts ended up one or two stories below street level. For a time, pedestrians had to use ladders to cross the streets, but eventually the sidewalks were covered over, turning the ground floors of the buildings into basements. The buried store entrances and sidewalks had languished for decades before being reinvented as a tourist attraction in the sixties. Diana had taken Maia on the tour a few summers ago.

  The beam of her flashlight revealed a maze of musty passageways and interconnected basements. Debris lined walls of crumbling brick and plaster. Former doorways and windows were now blocked by packed earth and concrete. Rubble was strewn across the uneven floors. Built over sawdust landfill, the floors were cracked and sagging in places. Wooden walkways had been set up over the rougher terrain. Here and there, ornamental stonework and elegant columns confirmed that the dusty cellars had once served as the ground floors of fine mercantile establishments. An antique cash register rested upon the floor, next to the splintered remains of an old-fashioned rollback desk. An abandoned sign leaned against the wall, advertising the “South End Steam Baths.” Rats scurried from the agents’ approach. Cobwebs were draped like curtains in front of brick archways.

  Diana guessed that Sondra knew this sub-terranean labyrinth like the back of her hand. Of course, she thought. Where else would she hide DeMeers?

  She heard footsteps echoing ahead. The agents kept their flashlights aimed low to avoid betraying their presence. Too bad we didn’t bring night-vision goggles, Diana reflected. They crept quietly along the wooden walkways. Light from above filtered down through cloudy glass cubes embedded in the sidewalks overhead. Moss hung from the ancient skylights. Legend had it that the district’s once-abundant prostitutes had formerly paraded above the glass cubes with their prices written on the soles of their shoes, tempting the men below back when the underground corridors had still been in regular use. Diana wasn’t sure she entirely believed that story, which she’d heard on the tour, but it certainly made for a colorful anecdote. She ducked her head beneath a rotting wooden water main.

  “You know,” Garrity whispered, “I’m not certain we’ve fully thought this through.” He glanced nervously at the ceiling. “Do we really want to be underground with a guy who can allegedly trigger earthquakes with his mind?”

  Good point, Diana thought. Being buried alive would definitely ruin her day, but it was too late to turn back now. She reminded herself that, according to Maia, she couldn’t die just yet. I still have to confront D. B. Cooper atop Mount Rainier. Unless, of course, the future was tampering with the timeline again . . . It was like Marco said before: trying to reconcile predestination and time travel was enough to make your head spin.

  “Cooper?” Sondra called out somewhere ahead. “Don’t freak out. It’s just me.”

  Just keep thinking that, Diana mused. She and Garrity exchanged a meaningful look. He drew his sidearm from its holster. Sounds like we’re on the right track.

  Sondra’s voice came from beyond a rope stretched across an arched doorway. NO ADMITTANCE, warned a sign hanging from the rope. Diana recalled that only a small portion of the Underground was actually open to the public. She nodded to herself; it made sense that Sondra would store her fugitive lover in one of the areas off-limits to tourists. Torn cobwebs confirmed that someone had passed through the archway recently.

  Lowering her voice, she tersely brought Tom up to speed. “We’re closing in on DeMeers. Any activity
with Gorinsky?”

  “Nada,” he reported. “He’s out cold, at least as far as I can tell.” He sounded frustrated at being so far from the action. “Good luck with DeMeers . . . and be careful.”

  “Will do,” she promised. Stepping off the timber walkways, she and Garrity carefully made their way across the bumpy floor. Sticky strands of webbing clung to her face and hair. The murky darkness gave the buried catacombs a sepulchral quality; she couldn’t help remembering a movie she’d seen on the late show once, about an immortal strangler lurking in the forgotten ruins beneath Seattle. She wondered if Cooper DeMeers was more or less dangerous than that fictional monster. Guess we’re about to find out.

  The glare of an electric light spilled around a corner ahead. As she and Garrity switched off their own flashlights and headed toward the light, Diana overheard snatches of conversation between Sondra and someone who had to be DeMeers.

  “NTAC? They tracked you down already?” The alarmed male voice might have belonged to DeMeers. Diana couldn’t be sure. “They didn’t follow you here, did they?”

  “No, I was careful,” Sondra insisted. “Coop . . . what’s this D. B. Cooper business all about? Is there something you’re not telling me?”

  Diana held her breath, anxious to hear DeMeers’s answer. Would the runaway fishmonger fess up to his skyjacking past? The D. B. Cooper case remained the only unsolved hijacking in U.S. history. Never mind the 4400 connection for a moment; it would be quite a coup for NTAC if they finally bagged the legendary outlaw.

  “Er, what do you mean?” he stalled, obviously in no hurry to answer the question. “You know NTAC. They’ll use any excuse to lock us away.”

  Sondra wasn’t buying it. “Be straight with me, Coop. Are you D. B. Cooper? And who the hell is William Gorinsky?” Her voice took on an hysterical edge. “I deserve to know exactly what you’ve got me mixed up in!”

  “Please, baby. Calm down,” he said soothingly. Diana caught a whiff of cigarette smoke. “You’re right, you ought to know everything.” He took a deep breath. “The truth is—”