by Greg Cox
Tom wondered how Aziz had found out about this situation so fast. DeMeers had been in custody for less than twenty-four hours. Did Sondra Jonnson go straight to The 4400 Center after she was released?
“The Inhibitor Scandal was an aberration,” Nina insisted. “Those responsible are facing federal charges.”
“So you say,” Aziz replied, “but you’ll forgive me if I fear that the government’s antipathy toward the 4400 does not begin and end with Dennis Ryland. These are perilous times we live in. Habeas corpus is not what it used to be. I don’t want Cooper DeMeers to disappear into NTAC’s holding cells indefinitely, or, even worse, be shipped off to some secret prison beyond our reach.”
“Mister DeMeers surrendered voluntarily,” Diana pointed out.
“I’m not convinced he was given much choice in the matter.” Aziz seemed like the kind of lawyer who was very comfortable addressing judges and juries. “I would like to speak with DeMeers immediately to see just how ‘voluntary’ his cooperation is.”
Would DeMeers walk out if given the opportunity? Tom didn’t want to take that chance, not if he was still capable of setting off a volcano with his mind. I’d just as soon keep Seattle in one piece.
Nina was obviously on the same page. “DeMeers is the subject of an ongoing investigation. We have probable cause to believe that he poses a serious threat to national security.”
“All the more reason we must have a full accounting of the charges against him,” Aziz stated. “ ‘National security’ is all too often used as a rationale to deny an individual his rights under the law.” He puffed out his chest. “If you’re not prepared to grant us access to DeMeers at this time, we will have no choice but to seek a court order demanding his release.”
Nina stuck to her guns. “Cooper DeMeers isn’t going anywhere until we determine that it is safe to release him.”
“We’ll see what the courts have to say about that.” Aziz turned toward the door and beckoned for Simone to follow him. “A pleasure meeting you, agents. No doubt we’ll be in touch again.”
“Yeah. No doubt.” Tom watched them leave with a sinking feeling in his stomach. This was a complication they didn’t need. “What do you think?” he asked Nina once their unwelcome visitors were out of earshot. “Do they have a chance at getting DeMeers away from us?”
“Possibly.” She looked tired; Tom knew she had been up all night smoothing over the mess he had made at Abendson. If not for her efforts, he’d probably be cooling his heels in a jail cell right now. As it was, he doubted that he’d be welcomed back to Abendson anytime soon. They seemed to frown on people electrocuting their patients. “In the past, the courts have granted us broad powers in dealing with the 4400, but trying to hold a man on the basis of a psychic vision might be pushing it. Can we conclusively link him to that skyjacking back in seventy-one?”
“Not yet,” Diana admitted. “Our case against him on that front is still pretty circumstantial.”
Nina sighed wearily. “Well, keep on it. Aziz will have a harder time prying him away from us if we can prove that Cooper DeMeers and D. B. Cooper are one and the same.”
“We’ll do our best,” Diana promised. She turned toward Tom. “Back to the drawing board?”
“Just give me a few minutes first,” he said as they headed back to their own office. He extracted his cell phone from his pocket. “I need to make a call.”
“Oh, hi, Uncle Tommy. What’s up?”
One of the advantages of being related to Shawn was that Tom had a direct line to his nephew, allowing him to bypass The 4400 Center’s various levels of bureaucracy. For privacy’s sake, Tom had stepped into Garrity’s empty cubicle to make the call. Jed was taking the day off on doctor’s orders after being zapped by Gorinsky’s hostile double. Diana had stubbornly shrugged off her own brush with death.
“You got a minute?” Tom asked. “I think we need to talk about this DeMeers situation.”
“DeMeers?”
“A 4400 we brought in for questioning last night,” Tom explained. “We just had a visit from one of your lawyers, a Rahmen Aziz.”
“Oh right,” Shawn said. “That guy you picked up in the Underground City. My people briefed me on that this morning. Sorry to space out on you like that.” His tone was apologetic. “I’ve got a lot on my mind right now.”
Tom thought his nephew sounded kind of distracted. Wonder if he’s got his hands full with Isabelle. Between running the Center and dating a homicidal superwoman from the future, Shawn had to be feeling the strain. That’s way too much responsibility for a kid his age to have to cope with.
“So it wasn’t your idea to send Aziz over here to spring DeMeers?”
“If I remember right,” Shawn replied, “Rahmen brought the matter to me on his own initiative. But he made a good case for the Center getting involved. Jordan created this place to look out for the best interests of the 4400. This sounds exactly like what he would’ve wanted us to do in this case.”
“Then Collier would have been wrong,” Tom insisted, “because I’ve got to tell you, Shawn, that this is a seriously bad idea.” He wished he could tell Shawn about Mount Rainier, but NTAC was still keeping a tight lid on that scenario. “You have no idea what this DeMeers character might be capable of.”
“No offense, Uncle Tommy, but I can’t just take your word for it.” Tom could tell he had Shawn’s full attention now. “NTAC’s come down on us too hard too often. Heck, we’d probably still be in quarantine if the courts hadn’t forced you guys to release us.” Like the rest of the returnees, Shawn had not appreciated being placed in captivity right after his return. “Not to mention the time you rounded us all up during the inhibitor epidemic. I don’t want to bust your chops, but if you think this guy is so dangerous, you’re going to have to prove it. That doesn’t seem unreasonable to me.”
Tom played his trump card. “Listen to me, Shawn. Maia Skouris saw DeMeers cause a major disaster, sometime in the near future.” In actuality, the truth was somewhat more complicated than that, but Tom didn’t want to muddy the waters any more than he had to. “You know about Maia. You’ve got to realize that we have to take her visions very seriously.”
“I don’t know.” The Maia angle seemed to give Shawn pause. “I’ll tell you what, I’ll talk the matter over with Richard.” Tom recalled that Richard Tyler, Isabelle’s father, had recently taken over as co-director of The 4400 Center, sharing power with Shawn. “But I’m reluctant to undercut my own people, especially when they seem to be doing their jobs. I appreciate your concerns regarding Maia, but, in the long run, we can’t hold our policies hostage to her visions. That strikes me as a very dangerous precedent.”
“I see,” Tom said, disappointed. “Well, thanks for listening to me.” He sensed that this was as much as he was going to get out of Shawn for the time being. “One last question: was it Sondra Jonnson who got the Center involved in this case?”
“Who?” Shawn asked. “I don’t think so. I don’t recognize the name.”
Then where had Aziz gotten his information from? “Are you sure about that, Shawn? Can you look into that for—?”
A woman’s voice, somewhere in the background, interrupted him. “Come on, Shawn!” she said impatiently. Tom recognized Isabelle’s imperious tone. “I’m getting bored.”
“Gotta run, Uncle Tommy.” Shawn sounded harried and more than a little anxious. Tom guessed that Isabelle wasn’t a girl you kept waiting, not if you wanted to stay in one piece. “Talk to you soon.”
Tom heard a click at the other end of the line. A dial tone informed him his call was over. Damn, he thought. That didn’t go the way I wanted it to. He considered trying to contact Richard Tyler, but thought better of it. Tyler was a decent man, but he was possibly even more suspicious of NTAC than Shawn was. I can’t see him overruling Aziz.
Frustrated, he went looking for Diana. Maybe she had a clue as to what they should do next, because right now it felt like everyone and his brother was con
spiring to keep them from saving Seattle. Where were their “friends” in the future now that they needed them?
Still, at least we don’t have to worry about Gorinsky anymore . . .
ELEVEN
“BUT, SHAWN, you promised we’d go flying kites in Gas Works Park today. It’s supposed to be an ideal romantic outing.” Isabelle thrust a glossy periodical in Shawn’s face. “Seattle magazine says so!”
At moments like this, it was easy to remember that, despite her twenty-something appearance, Isabelle was still in her terrible twos. “I’m sorry,” Shawn replied as he strolled down the carpeted hallway toward Richard Tyler’s office at The 4400 Center. Isabelle tagged along beside him. “I just need to talk to your dad about something.”
“But it’s Saturday,” she whined. “Why do you have to work today anyway?”
The last thing Shawn wanted to do was involve Isabelle in this latest crisis. The gruesome death of Jamie Skysinger, only three days ago, was still fresh in his mind. “That’s why I get the big bucks,” he said breezily, hoping to fend off further inquiries. As they approached the open door of Richard’s corner office, he saw that Isabelle’s father was also putting in extra hours this weekend. Richard was huddled behind his desk, poring over reports. I figured he’d be here, Shawn thought. Running the Center was a lot of work, as he knew from personal experience. Shawn had originally resisted sharing his authority with Richard, but he had to admit that there were advantages to not having to manage the whole enterprise on his own. This job is too big for just one person.
“Excuse me, Richard.” He rapped lightly on the open door as he entered the office. Isabelle attempted to follow him in, and looked positively flabbergasted when he gently closed the door in her face. “Sorry. Private business.”
He half expected her to blast down the door with her mind or something, but, to his relief and surprise, she stayed outside in the hall. Guess I lucked out this time.
“Shawn?” Richard Tyler looked up from the paperwork on his desk. Isabelle’s father was a tall, lean black man in his early thirties who had once served as an Air Force pilot during the Korean War. He had a tense, worried expression. “What is it? Is something wrong?” He glanced apprehensively at the door. “Is this about Isabelle?”
Richard initially disapproved of Shawn’s relationship with his newly adult daughter, but recently he seemed more worried about Isabelle herself. Although protective of his child, he was also well aware of her volatile nature—and lethal potential. If anything, he had come to accept Shawn as a stabilizing influence on Isabelle. Not that anybody could really control her . . .
“No,” Shawn replied. For once, Isabelle wasn’t the problem. “Do you remember the DeMeers situation?”
Richard had been present for Aziz’s original briefing. “I remember. The returnee NTAC picked up last night.”
Shawn updated him on his call from his uncle. Over Isabelle’s protests, he had also taken the time to review the case in more detail. “There’s more. According to Aziz, NTAC really believes this guy can trigger earthquakes and volcanoes, just like the one Maia Skouris saw in her vision.”
“Are we sure about that?” Richard gazed out his office’s expansive picture window at the white-capped mountain hovering over the horizon. “Where’s Aziz getting his inside information from?”
Shawn flipped quickly through a folder of papers. “I’m not sure. Aziz’s report just mentions ‘confidential sources.’ ” It was too bad that Aziz wasn’t on hand to answer Richard’s questions himself, but Shawn was reluctant to spoil what was left of the lawyer’s weekend. He’d confer with Aziz again on Monday. In the meantime, he was less concerned with how their lawyer found out about DeMeers’s alleged ability than with the potentially catastrophic implications. “So how do we want to handle this? I don’t like the idea of NTAC snatching our people off the streets, but I’m not eager to see Seattle wiped out by a volcano, either.”
“I know what you mean,” Richard admitted. “But I still think DeMeers is better off in our hands.” He rescued a fax from the papers on his desk. “Did you know that your uncle electrocuted a mentally ill 4400 at Abendson last night, about the same time that his partner was taking DeMeers into custody?”
“What?” Shawn snatched the document from Richard’s hand and hastily scanned the report. He flinched involuntarily at the sight of the hospital’s letterhead; he still had nightmarish memories of his own recent confinement at Abendson. The fax offered a terse but chilling account of the tragic events in Ward 59. “I must have missed this.”
“NTAC’s claiming the death was accidental,” Richard said. “Baldwin was just trying to stop this Gorinsky from using his ability against Diana Skouris. But I believe this incident demonstrates the extreme lengths NTAC will go to if they think a 4400 poses a threat. I know Baldwin is your uncle but looking out for DeMeers’s personal well-being is simply not going to be his top priority, not if he’s convinced that DeMeers is dangerous.” He reclaimed the damning fax from Shawn. “Hell, he and Skouris wanted to take you into custody during your recent mental . . . lapse. Believe me, it took a lot of arguing on my part to convince them to let us commit you to Abendson instead. If you were anybody else, you might still be in an NTAC holding cell.”
To be fair, Shawn thought, I did almost kill Maia while I was insane. He couldn’t really blame Diana for wanting to put him away after that. It dawned on him that he still hadn’t had a chance to apologize to Diana and Maia for what happened. I need to do something about that soon.
“If it’s up to me,” Richard continued, “I’d rather have our own people looking after DeMeers, helping him learn to control his ability, than let the government lock him away forever, drugged out of his mind.”
“Okay,” Shawn agreed. What Richard was saying made sense. DeMeers is one of us; we should take responsibility for him. “Let’s have Aziz keep working the legal angles. In the meantime, we should try to learn more about DeMeers, find out what kind of person he is.” Shawn knew only too well that there were some very bad apples among his fellow returnees; the Nova Group had proved that beyond the shadow of a doubt. “You ever met him?”
Richard shook his head. “Not that I remember.”
“Me neither.” Besides Nova, Shawn recalled, there had also been that serial killer guy who had used his ability to brainwash other people into committing new murders for him. Shawn had no problems with NTAC locking that slimeball up and throwing away the key. “I don’t want to find out we’re protecting another Oliver Knox or Daniel Armand.”
“Understood,” Richard said. “I’ll get right on it.”
Isabelle knocked impatiently at the door. “Shawn? Are you going to be much longer?”
“I’ll be right with you.” He winced at her voice. “One more thing,” he told Richard: “I think we should keep Isabelle out of the loop on this one. We don’t want her to . . . overreact.”
Isabelle had gone on a killing spree the last couple of times that Shawn had been threatened. He didn’t want to know how she’d respond if she thought the entire city was in danger. She might decide to go after DeMeers herself—and heaven help NTAC or anyone else who got in her way.
“That sounds like a good idea to me,” her father said.
Isabelle paced restlessly in the hall. What’s taking Shawn so long? she fumed. And why is he excluding me like this?
The glossy magazine in her hand, which promised “The Ten Most Romantic Outings in the Emerald City,” seemed to mock her foiled plans for the afternoon. So far she had resisted the temptation to rip the magazine to shreds, but if this delay dragged on much longer she wasn’t going to be responsible for her actions. She glared irritably at the closed door cutting her off from both her boyfriend and her father. Ugly abstract art hung on the hallway walls.
This is all Tom Baldwin’s fault, she thought bitterly. It was the call from Shawn’s uncle that had derailed their Saturday outing. She didn’t know what “Uncle Tommy” had bugged Shawn ab
out, but obviously it had been enough to lure Shawn away from her side. Is he trying to break us up on purpose? She had never told Shawn about the time that, under orders from the future, Tom Baldwin had come close to killing her. He hadn’t been able to go through with it in the end, but she knew Tom still considered her some kind of dangerous monster. Bad enough he tries to execute me. Now he’s interfering with my love life?
She was about to get Tom on the phone and give him a piece of her mind when the office door finally swung open and Shawn and her dad joined her in the hall. “Hello, honey,” her father said, giving her a hug. “Sorry to keep you waiting.”
“That’s okay,” she lied. “I didn’t mind.” She looked hopefully at Shawn. “Are we ready to go? We can still get some good kite-flying in.”
He made that face, the one that he was making more and more often lately: a sort of pained grimace that suggested that he would rather endure a root canal than spend another minute in her presence. “I’m so sorry, Isabelle, but something has come up. Maybe you can go to the park without me?”
She couldn’t believe her ears. “That sort of defeats the point.” She was looking forward to them spending some quality time together, especially after their disastrous date at the Space Needle. Was that what this was all about? Did Shawn blame her for that terrorist’s death? It’s not fair, she thought indignantly. Doesn’t he realize that I saved his life . . . again? “What’s so important that you can’t take the afternoon off?”
“Nothing you need to worry about,” her father insisted. “Just budgets and such.”
“Maybe I can help,” she volunteered. “I’m good with numbers.”