The 4400® Promises Broken Read Free Page B

am,” Jordan said. “People died out there tonight, and there was no reason for it.” He picked up a singlepage report and waved it angrily. “You didn’t even consultme before sending our people into NTAC’s territory. You knew the island was under their jurisdiction, Kyle. What were you trying to do?”
    “Save their lives,” Kyle said. “We had a reliable tip that a bunch of fifty/fifties with a grudge were going after the fuel tanks. I thought if we moved fast enough, we could prevent the attack.” He paused as Jordan pivoted and made a show of looking out the floor-to-ceiling window at the burning spectacle in the distance. Rolling his eyes, Kyle added, “I know we failed.”
    Jordan tossed the paper onto his desk, then settled into his chair. He ran a hand over his dark beard while he recovered his composure. “Most of NTAC’s agents are p-positive, Kyle, just like us, and they’re trained to handle situations like this.” Dismayed, he clenched his fist. “The real tragedy is that all those people died for nothing. So what if they blow up the fuel? We have people who can transmute fluids into anything we want: drinking water, gasoline—”
    “Promicin,” Kyle interrupted.
    That drew a scowl from Jordan. Pointing a finger, he continued. “We’re not going there, Kyle. This is not the time. We’re surrounded by the U.S. military, and we’ve got rogue p-positives all over the city. The last thing I want to do right now is start a war with the government.”
    “You’ve already got a war with the government,” Kyle shot back. “One that they started.”
    Exasperated, Jordan got up and walked to a wooden cabinet that housed a small selection of premium liquors and some lowball glasses. “I think you and I have different definitions of
war
. I’d call our current situation a standoff.”Jordan opened the cabinet’s front panel, which flipped down to provide a shelf, and he chose a glass.
    “Sure, Jordan, but for how long? You think the Army’s gonna wait forever while we plot our next move?”
    “Provoking them won’t buy us more time.” The self-styled leader of the Promicin-Positive Movement opened a bottle of twelve-year-old Glenmorangie Quinta Ruban single-malt scotch whisky and poured himself a generous measure.
    One perk of having rechristened the now exiled Haspelcorp’s former headquarters (which previously had been known as the Columbia Center, the tallest building in Washington State) as the Collier Foundation building was that Jordan’s new base of operations had come fully furnished and generously stocked with luxuries.
    Pushing the cork stopper back into the bottle, Jordan continued. “In any event, we’ve moved beyond guerrilla tactics. Diplomacy is our true show of strength. Only from a position of power does one have the option to negotiate.” He sipped the amber-hued liquor and savored its forceful overtones of port.
    Kyle stepped closer to Jordan as he replied, “Great. While you’re busy negotiating, the Army’s gearing up to blow us off the face of the Earth. We need to start thinking in terms of ‘divide and conquer.’ If we put promicin in the water of six or seven major cities, we’d force them to split their focus.”
    “And we’d probably kill forty or fifty million people,” Jordan said, wondering when his youthful shaman had become so hawkish in his worldview. He carried his drink back to his desk. “Not exactly a recipe for winning hearts and minds.”
    “So what? You knew before you started giving it out thatpromicin would kill half the people who took it. When nine thousand died last year, you called it ‘the Great Leap Forward.’ So, what’s the matter? Fifty million too big a number?”
    “The problem,” Jordan replied, his tone sharp with wrath, “is that no one was ever supposed to be
forced
to take promicin. Your cousin Danny’s viral ability was an accident, not part of the plan.” He set down his glass. “Did it ever occur to you