The 4400® Promises Broken (9 page)

Leaning forward ever so slightly, Enright projected a clear sense of menace across the table. “You’re going to tell me why you’re spending two billion dollars of Haspelcorp’s research and development budget without consulting me first.”

After another sip of wine, Dennis said, “Because I can, Miles. That’s one of the beauties of being promoted to executive vice president of the entire company. I don’t have to answer to people like you.”

“We all answer to someone, Dennis. Even if it’s only to God, or to our conscience.”

“Fortunately, I don’t have either of those,” Dennis said. He speared a few chunks of lobster meat and pushed them down into the melted butter pooled in the bottom of his bowl.

“No, but you do answer to the president,” Enright said. “And to the board of directors—on which I happen to sit.” He mirrored Dennis’s taunting smirk with one of his own. “I imagine the rest of the board would like to know what you did to make NTAC and the NSA go poking through our servers this morning.”

Feigning nonchalance, Dennis swallowed his mouthful of buttery lobster, then patted his lips dry with the corner
of his white cloth napkin. “Who says their interest had anything to do with me?”

“Their inquiries all concerned encrypted transactions conducted with your log-in credentials, Dennis. And I have to admit, their curiosity inspired a bit of my own.” He reached to the chilled bucket beside the table, lifted out the bottle of Viognier, and poured a generous measure into his own wineglass. Then he returned the bottle to its chilled receptacle. Lifting the glass, he continued. “I’ve seen some exotic technologies in my time, Dennis, but this project of yours—it’s something else.” He sipped the wine, then pursed his lips and nodded. “Nice.”

“Glad you like it,” Dennis said.

“Let’s cut through the bullshit,” Enright said. “Whatever you’re building, it involves some kind of high-energy nuclear fuel that you could only get from CERN. You’re coloring way outside the lines on this one, and you know it.”

Setting down his fork, Dennis said, “What I know, Miles, is that there are only two kinds of companies in this world: the kind that innovate, and the kind that go out of business. Our business is national security—and sometimes that means classified research.”

“I know that,” Enright said. “I’ve handled my share of top-secret projects. But I’ve always kept my peers and superiors informed of my efforts. You’re treating this company as if it were your own private lab. Who commissioned this project of yours? If it’s a DOD contract, why didn’t it go through my office? If it’s a spook job, why didn’t you notify the board?”

Those were good questions. Up until that moment, it
hadn’t occurred to Dennis to wonder how his strangely visionary rogue scientists had developed their cutting-edge technology without attracting government attention.

He leaned back and reached inside his jacket for a pack of cigarettes. He opened it, pulled one out, and put away the pack with one hand while retrieving his lighter with another.

As Dennis lifted it to ignite his cigarette, Enright said, “You can’t smoke in here.”

“I can smoke anywhere I damn well please,” Dennis said. “As for my project, and the identity of my client, that’s all being handled on a need-to-know basis—and in my opinion, it’s in your best interest not to know.” With a flick of his thumb, he lit his cigarette. He inhaled and then unleashed a cone of blue-gray smoke toward the ceiling. “Besides,” he added, “if this works out as I hope it will, we’ll all be set for life.”

Enright pushed his chair back from the table and stood. “And if it goes south, you’ll be
going away
for life.” He picked up his fork, reached across the table, speared the biggest chunk of lobster in Dennis’s bowl, and ate it. He dropped his fork on the table. “Bon appetit,” he said with a malicious smile.

T
OM WAS THE
last one to report to the meeting in Meghan’s office. Meghan, Diana, and Marco were all waiting for him.

Though there were enough chairs for everyone to sit, they all were standing. Marco leaned against the floor-to-ceiling glass wall that separated the office from the agents’ bullpen. Diana had staked out a spot right in front of Meghan’s desk, and Meghan was pretending to admire the classic foreign film posters with which she had decorated her office.

“What’d I miss?” Tom asked, uncertain of whether he really wanted to know what had gone wrong.

Meghan turned to face him. “We just heard back from Homeland Security about the report we filed on those data intercepts.” She stepped over to her desk and handed a file folder to Diana, who passed it to Tom. As he opened it and looked over the pages inside, Meghan continued. “They shared our data with the DOD, CIA, FBI, and NSA.”

Cracking a wry smile, Tom said, “Did they do it ASAP on the QT?” His quip was met by grim, silent stares. “Tough room.”

Diana replied, “Don’t feel bad. My ‘alphabet soup’ line got the same response.”

“That’s ‘cause the joke’s on us,” Meghan said. “Flip to the last page.”

He did as she asked. On the last sheet of the thirty-page report, an analysis summary laid out Homeland Security’s official conclusions for the President’s Daily Brief.

As Tom read the intelligence community’s joint findings, Marco stepped up beside him. “Nobody else has any leads on the missing parts or nuclear fuels, but DARPA agrees with our conclusion about what’s being built.”

Skimming quickly through the text, Tom’s eyes widened as he read the last two paragraphs. “Are they serious? They think it’s evidence that Jordan Collier’s building a nuke?”

“Not just any nuke,” Diana corrected him. “A next-generation antimatter warhead.”

Marco cut in, “Never mind that the idea’s insane. A regular nuclear warhead has to be triggered exactly right in order to detonate. One mistake and you end up with a dud. But an antimatter weapon would be the exact opposite. It’d be almost impossible to
keep it
from exploding. One mistake and
boom
.”

“Which is why the Pentagon team is saying only Collier’s people could pull it off,” Meghan said. “They think he has one of his supersmart p-positives building him a doomsday weapon.”

Tom shook his head in disbelief. “They gotta be
kidding me. That doesn’t make any sense!” Noting his colleagues’ curious glances, he continued. “I’m not saying I trust Jordan Collier, but with all the crazy powers his followers have, I don’t see why he’d
need
something like this.”

Diana replied, “I don’t see why he’d
want
it. His entire movement has been about preventing a global catastrophe, not causing one. Whoever wrote that report hasn’t got a clue as to what makes Jordan tick.”

Meghan shot a prompting stare at Marco, who looked at his shoes for a moment before he said, “There’s another possible explanation for the report’s conclusion: someone has an agenda, and this report’s been tailored to serve it.”

Suspicion hardened Diana’s face. “What’re you saying?”

“That the government wants an excuse to launch a full-scale military strike on Promise City,” Marco said.

“And we just helped them invent one,” Tom said, his voice tense with rage. He closed the file folder and slapped it down onto Meghan’s desktop. “That’s just great … We gotta stop this.” He threw an angry glare at Marco. “When does that briefing go to the president?”

Marco volleyed the query to Meghan with a glance.

She heaved a defeated sigh and looked at Tom. “It went to the White House an hour ago.”

I
T WAS LATE
, long past sunset, and scores of private homes and squat apartment buildings were dark as Diana drove home to her condo in the Queen Anne neighborhood. Balmy summer air breezed through the open windows of her Toyota hybrid.

She wondered why she bothered going home at all. There was nothing waiting for her except some frozen dinners, a half-empty two-liter bottle of root beer that had lost its fizz, and a few white cardboard containers of leftover Chinese food that had sprouted some troubling gray-green fuzz.

My cup runneth over
, she mused glumly, as the traffic light ahead changed from yellow to red. She tapped the brakes and stopped her car in the glow of a streetlamp. It still surprised her to hear the hybrid’s engine go completely quiet when the car was stopped. After a lifetime of listening to idling engines, it made her worry each time that the engine had stalled.

All around her, Seattle felt like a ghost town. So many
people had fled since the fifty/fifty outbreak that almost every block in Queen Anne had at least one abandoned house. With the escalation of tensions between Promise City and the U.S. government during the past few months, even more people had left. Now entire streets stood deserted.

She almost expected to see a tumbleweed roll across the street as she sat at the stop light and listened to the wind.

Parks that once had bustled with playing children and hawkers selling everything from hot dogs and pretzels to bottled water or balloons now looked like sculpture parks devoted to swing sets and slides and spring-mounted fiberglass horses. Diana could count on one hand the number of times she had seen any children using the park near her home in the last month.

It’s like surviving after an apocalypse
, she brooded.

A shrill ringing made her jump. In the tomblike silence of her energy-efficient car stopped on an empty street, her cell phone sounded even more piercing than it usually did. Fumbling with both hands, she retrieved it from her jacket pocket and looked at the display screen. She didn’t recognize the number, but she answered the call anyway. “Hello?”

“Hi, Mom,”
Maia said.

Hearing her daughter’s voice made Diana’s eyes mist with emotion. Anger, relief, and joy clouded her thoughts. Pressing a hand to her chest to steady herself, she replied, “Hello, Maia. How are you, sweetie?”

After a telling pause, Maia said,
“I’m okay, I guess.”

Was that a hint of fear that she heard in Maia’s voice?
She wondered whether the previous day’s near-miss attack on the Collier Foundation had shaken the teen’s resolve to remain away from home. There was no politic way to ask her that directly. For the moment, Diana would have to try to be coy.

“Do you have everything you need? Food, a place to sleep …?”

“Yes,”
Maia said.
“Jordan gave me an apartment to myself, and I can order food, like in a hotel.”

“Sounds nice,” Diana said. “Do they wash the dishes, too?”

“I think so. They take them away when I’m finished.”
She was quiet for a few seconds, but before Diana could think of a reply, Maia added,
“I just wanted to let you know that I was okay. Y’know … because of what happened yesterday.”

Under the low rustle of warm wind through the trees, Diana heard a few lonely chirps of birdsong. A single tear rolled from the corner of her eye. She palmed it from her cheek. “Thank you” was all she could say. Sniffling to clear her nose, she asked with forced aplomb, “What else is new?”

“Jordan makes me take homeschooling even though it’s summer,”
Maia said.
“It’s dumb. I’m supposed to be on break.”

Genuinely curious, Diana asked, “He hired you a tutor?”

“She’s a volunteer,”
Maia said.
“It’s Heather Tobey, from The 4400 Center.”

That bit of news gave Diana a twinge of concern.
Although Heather was a trained educator, she was also one of the original 4400; her unique ability was to nurture other people’s innate talents and to help them harness and master those gifts.

Suspicion clouded Diana’s thoughts.
I wonder if Jordan picked her to try to refine Maia’s precognitive abilities?
Trying to be diplomatic, she said, “Well, I feel better knowing that there are grown-ups around.”

Maia’s tone became sharp and defensive.
“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Nothing, sweetie,” Diana said quickly, trying to think of a way to pave over her faux pas before it got out of control.

Unfortunately, Maia seemed unwilling to let it go.
“Are you saying you don’t think I can handle being on my own? That I need ‘grown-ups’ to hold my hand?”

“No, that’s not what I …” Listening to herself, Diana decided she was done kowtowing. “Actually, yes. That’s
exactly
what I’m saying. You
are
too young to be on your own, Maia. You’re only thirteen years old, for God’s sake.”

“That doesn’t mean I’m a kid!”
The girl let out a growl of exasperation.
“You always do this! You act like I’m too young to use my ability, but I’m not, and you know it.”

Anger and frustration made Diana’s face feel flushed with warmth, and her pulse thudded in her temples. “There’s nothing wrong with using your ability, Maia, but using it to help Jordan Collier puts you in real danger.”

Overenunciating each word, Maia retorted,
“So. What.”

I love her and I want to throttle her
, Diana fumed.

“So? You’re too young to get caught up in a war, Maia.”

“We’re all stuck in this war, Mom—whether we like it or not. I just decided to pick a side.”

“And what makes you think you’re old enough to make that decision? There’s a reason children don’t serve as soldiers.”

Maia shouted back,
“Stop trying to protect me all the time! I’m not a baby; I can take care of myself!”

Raising her own voice to match Maia’s volume, Diana snapped, “I will
never
stop trying to protect you, Maia! You’re my daughter, and worrying about you and protecting you is what I do! It’s what I’ll always do, because that’s what being a mother is—whether
you
like it or not!”

Enraged silence reigned on both ends of the call.

Something in the car’s rearview mirror caught Diana’s eye. Block by block, streetlamps were going out. The few houses that still flickered with light and life went black. A forbidding darkness descended upon Queen Anne Hill.