THE 4400® WELCOME TO PROMISE CITY (23 page)

Ryland chuckled smugly. “You might as well give up. I don’t know exactly who you think you are, but you’re locked up tight.”

“Funny you should say that,” Meghan replied. “’Cause you’re our ticket out of here.”

She traded Tyler to Marco and took custody of Ryland
herself. The nerdy analyst grunted beneath Tyler’s weight. She prodded Ryland toward the doorway with the muzzle of her gun. Tess followed numbly behind them, wringing her hands and sobbing quietly to herself. They left Kozinski sprawled upon the floor.

The gunshots sounded even louder out in the corridor. Crouching low, they trotted back toward the rotunda. Meghan led the way, using Ryland as a human shield. “Wait!” Tyler protested weakly, dragging his feet. “My people. Evee. Yul …”

Meghan didn’t recognize the names, but assumed they were other 4400s imprisoned at Eastern State. “I’m sorry,” she called back to him. They were in no position to liberate the prison’s entire population, let alone potentially unruly strangers they hadn’t been briefed on. They’d be lucky just to get away themselves. “Not on the agenda.”

Thankfully, Tyler was in no shape to put up a fight. “I’ve heard that before,” he muttered bitterly.

They reached the entrance to the rotunda. Muzzle flares flashed before their eyes. Garrity and his unwilling allies had taken shelter behind the security station while firing back at a small army of guards trying to retake the command center. Iron bars had been lowered into place, barring the other entrances. Flying ammo ricocheted off the walls and ceiling, producing explosions of powdered stone and mortar. Smoke fogged the circular chamber. The acrid smell of cordite fouled the air. Sparks erupted from bullet-riddled monitors and consoles. None of the defenders appeared to have been hit yet, but Meghan knew their luck couldn’t hold out much longer.

She shoved Ryland forward. “Order your people to stand down!”

“The hell I will.” He raised his voice to shout to his men. “Don’t worry about me! Shoot to kill!”

Bastard!
Meghan thought. She couldn’t believe this Nazi had ever been in charge of NTAC, let alone a close friend of Tom’s. She jabbed the gun into his back. “Not another word!”

A lucky shot nailed one of Tess’s recruits in the shoulder. He cried out in pain as the impact spun him around. Bright arterial blood sprayed across Meghan and the others. He dropped to the floor before their feet. He whimpered in pain.

The gory spectacle jolted Tess from her daze. She wiped a stray drop of blood from her cheek, then shuddered from head to toe. Her eyes widened in dismay.

“No more shooting!!”

The guns fell silent, the ringing echoes of the firefight quickly fading away. Lowering his gun, Garrity looked back at them in relief. Perspiration dripped from his brow. “About time,” he groused. “I’ve only got two lives, you know?”

His trademark gloominess was strangely reassuring. “Just take Tyler from Marco,” she ordered. Garrity came forward to assist the limping prisoner, freeing Marco up for another vital assignment. “Go get the car,” she told him.

“You bet.” He pulled out his cell phone and called up a photo of the limo’s interior. “We’ll be waiting right out front.”

He ’ported out of sight.

Now they just needed to make it to the street. Lowered steel bars blocked the exit. Tess walked straight up to the
barrier, then looked back at the captivated guards. “Raise the gate. I want to go.”

The two guards still standing hurried to the control panel. Moments later, the bars slid upward into the ceiling like the portcullis of a medieval stronghold. The walkway to the gatehouse stretched before them. Meghan started to think they were actually going to make it.

Then the gas started pouring in.

Vents opened in the ceiling. Thick white fumes spilled into the rotunda, mingling with the leftover smoke from the gunfight. Meghan threw her palm over her mouth, but the narcotic mist invaded her lungs nonetheless. Both guards and intruders choked on the gas. Meghan’s eyes watered. Her throat burned.

“Stop it!” Tess coughed hoarsely. She wobbled unsteadily. “No gas. No gas!”

The billowing fumes kept on coming.
Some sort of automated system,
Meghan guessed.
Immune to Tess’s influence.

But Tess wasn’t the only one with an ability.

A crazy idea flashed across Meghan’s groggy brain. Fighting the light-headedness that was turning her legs to jelly, she stretched out her arms to embrace the noxious gas. Closing her eyes, she summoned up a sense memory of fragrant flowers. Attar of roses, to be exact. Vaporous atoms realigned themselves as the caustic fumes took on a much more appealing bouquet. Meghan’s head and lungs cleared. She breathed deeply of the redolent perfume. Her eyes opened.

The rotunda smelled like a rose garden. To her relief, her team was still on its feet.

Garrity sniffed the air. He stared at Meghan in wonder. “You do that?”

“What can I say?” she quipped. “I like flowers.”

Under Tess’s control, the guards in the courtyard stepped aside to let them pass. “Stop them, damnit!” Ryland cursed the men, but Tess’s eerie ability trumped his authority. Reaching the gatehouse, she pulled open the front gate. They dashed down the steps onto the sidewalk. Hope surged within Meghan as they finally put the prison behind them.

We’re almost clear,
she thought.

A jet-black limo pulled up to the curb. Tinted windows rolled down, revealing Jed Blue behind the wheel. “Took you long enough,” he griped. “Good thing for you I don’t charge by the hour.”

The back door swung open. Marco called out to them from the backseat. A ski mask still covered his features. “All aboard.”

The waiting limo was a sight for sore eyes. Meghan herded the rest of the team toward the door. “Move it!”

Just when she thought they were safe, a shot rang out overhead.
A sniper,
she realized instantly,
on the ramparts of the castle!

The shot missed Tyler, striking Jed Red instead. Meghan froze in horror as the Garrity’s head exploded like a watermelon.

“Jed!”

In the limo, the other Garrity screamed and clutched his skull.

Tess lifted her chin toward the castle’s lofty battlements.
Her delicate face turned into a mask of rage.
“Jump!”
she shouted.

The sniper crashed down onto the sidewalk, adding to the carnage. A broken leg jutted at an unnatural angle. He writhed in pain. Meghan rushed forward and kicked his rifle away from him. She had no sympathy for the injured sniper. Frankly, he was lucky to be alive.

Her brain was still reeling from Garrity’s brutal demise.
Hold it together, Doyle,
she thought urgently.
At least until you get these people home.

“Well, that’s one less 4400,” Ryland said callously.

Meghan’s fist took out her frustration on his jaw. Dazed, he dropped to the sidewalk. Punching Ryland didn’t bring Jed Red back to life, but damn if it didn’t make her feel a little better.
That’s for Garrity … and all the other positives you’ve persecuted.

Leaving her predecessor sprawled on the pavement, she hurried over to Tyler, who had collapsed next to Garrity’s body. He stared at the agent’s shattered skull. “I didn’t even know his name …”

“I’ll introduce you later,” she promised, not bothering to explain. She hurriedly conveyed him into the car, then turned back for Garrity’s corpse. They couldn’t leave the agent’s body behind, not without exposing NTAC’s involvement in the breakout. Her stomach turned as she and Tess loaded the body into the back of the limo with the rest of the passengers. Blood and brains ended up smeared all over her gloves and jacket.

She’d have to burn them the first chance she got.

Tess climbed into the back with Marco, Tyler, and the
corpse, while Meghan checked on the surviving Garrity. Jed Blue was pale and trembling but appeared physically unharmed. Had he somehow experienced his counter-part’s death?
Shades of the Corsican Brothers,
she thought. Looking back over his shoulder, he gazed in shock at his own gruesome remains. “Look at me,” he croaked. “They blew my head off …”

Clearly, he was in no shape to drive. Meghan yanked open the driver’s-side door.

“Scoot over … now.”

She shoved him into the passenger seat and slid in behind the wheel. Tinted windows slid back into place, hiding the fugitives from view. She peeled off her ski mask. Eschewing her seat belt, she pulled away from the curb. Indignant horns honked behind her as she forced her way into traffic.

And none too soon. Sirens howled in the night. She heard police cars converging on the prison. Had someone reported gunshots, or was the manhunt already under way? Either way, this neighborhood was going to be crawling with cops, FBI, and Homeland Security soon.

She hit the gas.

Flashing lights appeared in the rearview mirror. A shrieking police car came squealing around the corner. “Marco!” she called back to him. “Call Collier’s people. Now’s the time for that distraction he promised us.”

“I’m on it!” Nimble thumbs texted the message.

“Done!”

Collier’s sleeper agents didn’t waste time. Seconds later, the lights went out all along the avenue as a city-wide
blackout threw Philadelphia into darkness. Cars collided as traffic lights blinked out. The limo wove through a confused intersection, barely missing an on-coming semi. More honks added to the clamor. She didn’t slow down.

That should keep the authorities busy for a while,
she thought.
Long enough for us to make it to the airfield at least.
Peeking in the rearview mirror, she saw that they seemed to have shaken that police car. Maybe it had stopped in front of the prison to attend to that sniper?

Richard shivered in the backseat. “W-where are we going?”

“Someplace safe,” she promised. Collier’s agents were waiting in Seattle to escort him to a Movement safe house. She turned up the heat to help him get warm again. A vital question occurred to her. “Did you talk? Did Ryland get what he wanted?”

He shook his head. “You got me just in time, though. I’m not sure how much longer I could have held out.”

Thank you, Maia Skouris,
Meghan thought. She was glad that Jed Red had not died in vain.
Mission accomplished.

Retrieving her own cell phone from her pocket, she contacted the plane. “We’re on our way.”

“Affirmative. We’ll keep the engines running.”

It took her a second to recognize the voice at the other end of the call. She couldn’t believe her ears.

“Garrity?”

Marco and Tess reacted in the backseat. Jed Blue nearly jumped out of his seat.

“Who else?” the voice replied. “Everything okay? You sound kind of funny.”

Meghan glanced back over her seat at the dead Garrity on the floor behind her. His blood was still leaking onto the limo’s carpeted interior. Her gaze swung back to the phone. There was a
new
Garrity now? To replace the one who died?

True to form, Marco was already churning out a theory. “Maybe it’s an automatic backup system, generating a safe copy every time one Garrity gets offed.” Excitement filled his voice as he warmed to the idea. “It’s like the ultimate insurance policy.”

“What’s that?” the new Jed asked. “I didn’t catch that.”

“Never mind,” Meghan said. She had too much on her hands right now to deal with any more weirdness. “We’ll explain later.”

If that was even possible.

T
HE EXPERIMENT WAS
under way.

Carl was strapped to a couch across from Tom and Diana, nude except for a pair of dark boxer shorts. A tattoo of Jordan Collier embellished his right bicep. Danny’s body—the real thing, apparently—was stretched out on a gurney beside him. Abby stood between the dead boy and the live one, facing the captive agents. A gray cashmere sweater dress confirmed that she had much better fashion sense than the usual Theory Room geek. She flexed her fingers.

Electrodes were attached to Carl’s temple and chest. An IV ran into his arm. A battery of sophisticated medical equipment monitored his vital signs. Grayson attended to the apparatus, carefully charting the readings. Rosita manned the crash cart, just in case of an emergency.

Still bound to their own couches, Tom and Diana could only watch as Abby and her cohorts completed their preparations.

“This is your last chance,” Abby told Carl. “Nobody will blame you if you want to back out.”

“No way,” the young man said passionately. “I’ve waited my entire life for this moment. It’s my big chance to make a difference.”

Tom imagined suicide bombers felt the same way. He was horrified at how eager Carl was to throw his life away, all for a chance to obtain the same horrible ability that had ruined Danny’s life. Didn’t he realize that Danny had died in torment, with thousands of deaths on his conscience?

“Your commitment to the cause is an inspiration to us all,” Grayson said in a professionally soothing tone he had surely used to console countless grieving loved ones. He injected several cc’s of a dark yellow chemical into Carl’s IV line. “This new compound should ease the transformation and overcome your body’s natural resistance factor. I also included an anesthetic to help with the pain.”

Tom wondered how many earlier compounds Grayson had tried in the past. They knew of at least four fatalities.

“I’m not afraid of the pain,” Carl insisted, not entirely convincingly. Despite his bravado, he looked a little pale. His fingers drummed nervously against the couch beneath him. “Let’s do this.”

“All right,” Abby said. A quaver in her own voice suggested that she wasn’t nearly as confident as she was pretending to be. She took a deep breath, then laid her hands upon the bodies on opposite sides of her, forming a circuit between the living and the dead. Her fingers were splayed atop the chests of both men. She closed her eyes.

“Abby, wait!” Diana called out. “This is insane. You’re going to kill that boy!”

“Shut up!” Rosita barked. She lifted a syringe from the crash cart. “Don’t make me knock you out.”