THE 4400® WELCOME TO PROMISE CITY (19 page)

Tom gazed at the highway ahead of them. They had a long drive back to Seattle, and he wasn’t looking forward to having to deal with all the checkpoints and barriers again. It would be nearly three by the time they got back to HQ. He wondered if it was even worth checking back into the office.
Maybe we should just call it a day?

A roadside sign alerted him to a rest stop ahead. An empty stomach reminded him that they hadn’t eaten lunch yet. A fresh cup of coffee and a turkey sandwich sounded pretty good right now. “You want to stop for a bite?”

“Might as well,” Diana agreed. “It’s not like we’ve got anywhere to get to in a hurry.”

Sad but true,
Tom thought. He pulled into the exit lane and hit the turn signal. The turnoff was only a mile away when his cell phone rang unexpectedly. Keeping his eye on the road, he fished the phone out of his jacket pocket. He lifted it to his ear. “Hello? Baldwin here.”

“Hi, Dad. It’s me, Kyle.”

Tom’s heart leapt at the sound of his son’s voice. “Kyle!” He’d left several messages on Kyle’s machine, after that blow-up at dinner last night, but this was the first time they’d actually connected since the argument. He hoped this meant that Kyle was still speaking to him. “Thanks for calling back. I mean that.”

“Yeah, right.” He sounded tense and uncomfortable. “You got a second, Dad?”

This obviously wasn’t a social call. “Sure. What’s up?”

“It’s about that Grayson guy, the one you were asking about …”

“Yeah?” Tom asked apprehensively. Was his son still upset about that? “Look, Kyle, I’m not happy about the way we left things last night. You’ve got to know that I would never want to do anything that might drive us apart.”

It felt awkward having this conversation right in front of Diana, but his partner thoughtfully pretended to be reviewing Grayson’s dossier instead. She kept her gaze on the folder in her lap. Tom appreciated her discretion.

“I know, Dad.” Kyle kept his voice low, almost as though he was afraid of being overheard. “That’s the thing. I looked up Grayson for you and I found something weird. It’s probably nothing, but …” His voice trailed off. He muttered something beneath his breath. “Just leave me alone, will you? I know what I’m doing.”

“What’s that, Kyle?” Tom wasn’t following.
Did I say something to offend him?

“Nothing, Dad. That wasn’t directed at you.” He sounded embarrassed by his outburst. “I was just talking to myself, sort of.”

Tom got the impression his son wasn’t telling him the whole truth.
Is someone with him?

“Are you alone?” he asked softly. “Can you speak freely?”

That caught Diana’s attention. She gave him an inquisitive look.

“More or less,” Kyle said vaguely. “Anyway, about Grayson …”

“Yes?” Tom tried not to sound too eager, for fear of scaring Kyle off. Judging from his obvious nerves, Kyle was on the verge of hanging up at any minute. “What is it, Kyle?”

Slowly, hesitantly, his son related what he had learned about Bernard Grayson and something called the Global Outreach Committee. The name didn’t ring any bells, but Tom’s ears perked up when Kyle mentioned that the GOC had recently purchased an abandoned plasma center in downtown Seattle. He instantly thought of the way Grayson had converted the funeral home’s facilities into some sort of biological cloning laboratory. His gut told him that Grayson was up to his old tricks.

“Thanks, Kyle. We’ll look into it.” A troubling thought occurred to him. “Er, you haven’t mentioned this to Jordan, have you?”

“Not yet,” he said gloomily. Tom guessed that Kyle felt guilty about going behind Collier’s back. “Although I’ve thought about it …”

Tom silently cursed Collier’s hold over Kyle. “Let’s keep this under our hat for the time being,” he urged. “At least until we know whether there’s anything to it.” He hoped he wasn’t pushing too hard; he didn’t want to drive Kyle away again. “Can you do that, Kyle? As a favor to me?”

There was an agonizing silence on the line before Kyle finally responded. “Okay, I guess.” He gave Tom the
address of the plasma center. Somebody knocked on a door in the background. “I gotta go, Dad,” he said hurriedly. “Let me know what you find out.”

“Will do,” Tom promised. “And, Kyle, thanks again. I really appreciate this.”

“Uh-huh.” Kyle sounded like he already regretted spilling the beans. “Talk to you later.”

He hung up at the other end.

The exit for the restaurant loomed before him, but Tom kept on driving. He switched off the turn signal. Lunch could wait. A hot lead took priority over a sizzling cup of coffee.

“Change of plans,” he informed Diana. “We’re due at a blood bank.”

He hit the gas.

“The walls are darker, more gray than green,” Maia specified. “The bench is lower. There’s a cobweb in the right corner of the ceiling. The toilet lid is cracked. The chair is bolted to the floor.”

Maia consulted her dream journal as she described Tyler’s cell to Marco. He sat at his home computer tweaking an image on the screen to the girl’s specifications. He was no sketch artist, but he and Maia had done this routine before. Maia had started them off by drawing a picture of the scene from her vision. Marco had then scanned the illustration into his computer, and was now using his favorite computer-imaging program to fine-tune the picture while Meghan, Collier, Tess, and the Garritys loitered in the background. There wasn’t much small talk going on.

No surprise there,
Marco thought.
Not a whole lot of trust in the room.

“How’s that look?” he asked Maia.

“Closer.” She stood behind him, looking over his shoulder at the computer monitor. She searched her memory for more details. “There was a brown stain on the ceiling, right over there.” She pointed at the upper left-hand corner of the screen. “It was blotchy and kind of ragged around the edges. Like a jellyfish.”

Marco manipulated his mouse. A few deft keystrokes inserted an irregular brown splotch onto the ceiling. “Like that?”

“Sort of.” She scribbled a drawing in her journal and handed the page to Marco. “But darker in the middle and lighter around the fringe.”

He adjusted the image accordingly. “Better?”

“Yes.” She nodded gravely. “That’s the place. That’s where they’re holding him.”

Marco saved the image, then contemplated the virtual prison cell. It looked pretty dismal. He gulped at the prospect of visiting the place firsthand.
Why couldn’t Richard be under house arrest in Hawaii or something?

Meghan stepped forward to inspect the image. “Is that detailed enough for you?”

The way Marco’s 4400 ability worked, he needed to visualize a location before he could teleport there. He usually focused on an actual photograph as a mental trigger, but would a CGI facsimile suffice? He suddenly wished he’d spent more time testing the limits of his ability, despite NTAC’s policies to the contrary. “Maybe. I hope.”

Collier watched the exchange with interest.

Marco checked to make sure his cell phone was charged. The display screen informed him that it was a quarter after two in the afternoon. He realized there was no point in stalling.

“Okay, here goes nothing.” He rose from his seat. “Wish me luck.”

“Hold on,” Meghan said. “If you do get where you’re going, you don’t want to be recognized.”

Good point,
Marco thought. They had to assume that Tyler’s cell was being monitored. He racked his brain for an appropriate disguise, then rummaged through a foot-locker over by his futon. It took him a moment or two to locate the item in question, but he soon extracted a bumpy rubber Klingon mask, left over from a Halloween party two years ago. (Last year’s party had been canceled out of respect for fifty/fifty.) Clutching the mask, as well as a pair of winter gloves, he hurried back to the computer area.
Here’s hoping today is not a good day to die.

Meghan eyed the Klingon mask, with its bristling fake fur and prosthetic ridges, with bemusement. “You do know this is a reconnaissance mission and not a
Star Trek
convention, right?”

Jed Blue cracked a rare smile. Jed Red chucked to himself. Collier sighed.

Tess, a refugee from the 1950s, looked like she didn’t know what a Klingon was. “Star Track?”

“Hey, sometimes you’ve got to make do with what you’ve got,” Marco said. He tugged the disguise over his head and glasses. The interior of the mask smelled of old
sweat and rubber. His own breathing echoed in his ears. He slipped on the gloves to avoid leaving any incriminating fingerprints. “Okay, I think I’m ready now.”

“Wait!” Maia rushed forward and impulsively gave him a hug. They had been close ever since Marco had dated Diana a few years back. “Please be careful.”

He was touched by the girl’s reaction. “Don’t worry,” he promised. “I won’t be gone long.”

Knock on wood.

Disengaging himself from the girl’s embrace, he faced the computer screen. The rest of the world faded away as he concentrated on the bleak-looking prison cell Maia had described. He felt a familiar tingling at the back of his brain. The image rushed toward him like a 3-D movie …

In an instant, he found himself someplace else. Plastered concrete walls surrounded him. The temperature dropped dramatically. An ugly brown water stain defaced the ceiling. A cobweb hung in one corner. Richard Tyler lay shivering upon a hard concrete bench.

And here we are,
Marco thought. The claustrophobic cell was just as daunting as he’d feared. An imposing steel door trapped him inside the cell with Tyler. Goose bumps broke out across his skin, and not just because of the chilly temperature. This was no place he wanted to be.

But where exactly was he?

He consulted his phone. The high-tech gizmo, which he had blown one’s week paycheck on a while back, also contained a built-in GPS unit that, in theory, could pinpoint his location anywhere on Earth. Pushing the controls in the right sequence activated the PlaceFinder,
which quickly gave him the exact coordinates in degrees, minutes, and seconds:

39.967814, -75.172595.

He quickly interpreted the digital readout. Pennsylvania, it looked like. Maybe somewhere in the area of Philadelphia?

At least it’s not Guantánamo or Syria,
he thought.

He could look up the exact location once he got back to Seattle, which couldn’t be soon enough. There was no need to linger in the cell now that he had determined its location. It was only a matter of time before his presence here was detected and he had no desire to take up permanent residence in a cell like this one. He took a second, though, to check on the jail’s current occupant.

Exhausted from his ordeals, Richard Tyler slept fitfully upon the uncomfortable-looking bench. Uneasy dreams troubled his slumber. He grimaced and thrashed atop the bench. “No,” he murmured. “Not again …”

Poor guy,
Marco thought. He wished he could ’port Tyler away with him, but that was beyond his abilities, at least for the present. So far, he had only been able to transport himself from place to place. Which was going to make getting Tyler out of this hellhole tricky.

A blaring alarm gave him a start.
Sounds like the jig is up,
he realized. Poking the buttons on his phone, he called up a photo of his apartment from the device’s memory. “Time to get out of here,” he muttered. “ASAP.”

The ear-piercing siren roused Tyler, who sat up in alarm. His groggy eyes widened at the sight of the bumpy-headed alien in his cell. He blinked in confusion.

Marco wished he could explain, but who knew who might be listening? Unable to resist a sudden temptation, he threw out his arm in a Klingon salute.

“Qapla’!”

He vanished into the photo on his phone.

His sudden reappearance in his apartment provoked gasps from his fellow conspirators. Tess stepped back warily. Maia sighed in relief. Collier looked suitably impressed.

“You have an extraordinary ability,” he observed.

Marco could practically see the wheels turning in Collier’s Machiavellian brain. “Well, don’t get used to having it at your disposal,” he stated, making it clear that he wasn’t planning on switching sides. “NTAC pays my salary, not you.”

“A pity,” Collier replied. “Perhaps you’ll reconsider someday.”

“Don’t count on it,” Marco said. Joining a religious cult was nowhere on his agenda.

“Stop trying to poach my people,” Meghan warned Jordan, “or I’ll come to my senses about helping you.” She brushed past Collier to join Marco by his desk. Crossing her arms, she waited for his report. “Well, did you find Tyler?”

“You bet.” He hastily entered the coordinates from the GPS system into his computer. Within seconds, it spit out the precise location of the mysterious prison. “Eastern State Penitentiary. Philadelphia.”

“Oh,” Tess said. She lurked off to one side, avoiding both Collier and the NTAC personnel. “I’ve heard of
that. It’s a historic landmark, dating back to the nineteenth century. They turned it into a museum years ago. Al Capone spent time there. It’s supposed to be haunted.”

Everyone looked at her in surprise.

She shrugged. “Kevin likes the History Channel.”

“She’s right,” Marco confirmed. A quick search on the Internet turned up plenty of sites on the old prison, which was indeed located in downtown Philly, not far from Town Hall and the city’s celebrated art museum. “It was closed for renovations right after fifty/fifty. No word on when it’s supposed to reopen.”

“Renovations my foot,” Jed Red grumbled. “Must have been turned over to Haspelcorp for their own private Gitmo.”

Jed Blue shook his head in disgust. “Smack-dab in the middle of the City of Brotherly Love.”

“Look at the bright side,” Marco pointed out. “At least Tyler’s still in the U.S.”

“Ryland probably had no choice there.” Meghan shifted in the easy chair. “Ever since the outbreak, most foreign countries are refusing to allow positives on their soil. Ryland would have a hard time shipping a p-positive prisoner overseas even if he wanted to.”

“Which he might not,” Collier added. “I doubt that the U.S. government wants a powerful 4400 falling into the hands of a foreign power. Sadly, promicin has added a whole new dimension to the arms race.”