Free THE 4400® WELCOME TO PROMISE CITY by Greg Cox Page B

of Grayson, he spun around to confront her assailant. He drew his sidearm. “Hands up! Don’t move a muscle!”

    The gangly teenager snickered at Tom’s gun, revealing a mouthful of metal braces. Acne scarred his homely face. Greasy blond bangs dangled before his eyes. Blue jeans protruded from beneath his stained white lab coat. Ignoring Tom’s order, he ran over to the embalming table and seized a nasty-looking trocar from a set of tools at the head of the table. The shiny steel needle gleamed beneath the overhead lights. He waved it in front of him like a switchblade.

    “Drop it,” Tom barked. He leveled his gun at the kid’s head. “Now.”

    “Go ahead,” Braces taunted him. “Pull the trigger.” He looked past Tom at Grayson. “Bernie, get out of here. I’ll take care of these fascist storm troopers!”

    The undertaker backed away toward the stairs. “What about you?” he called out to his partner in crime.

    “You’re more important,” Braces insisted. “The future needs you. Go!”

    Diana groaned weakly on the floor. Despite his gun, Tom felt the situation rapidly slipping out of his control. “Neither of you is going anywhere. Now put that weapon down.” He cocked the Glock semiautomatic. “This is my last warning.”

    “Oh yeah?” The teen brandished the trocar. “How’s this for a warning. Let Bernie go or your partner gets stuck like a pig!”

    He stepped menacingly toward Diana. Tom pulled the trigger.

    Nothing happened.

    “What’s the matter, big man?” Braces tapped his cranium with his free hand. “Did I mention that I can dampen chemical reactions at will? Pretty useful in the lab, and even more handy in a firefight. Your gunpowder’s no good anymore.”

    Damn,
Tom thought. He heard Grayson scurry up the stairs behind him. Within minutes, the guilty funeral director would be long gone, but chasing after him was not an option. No way was he leaving Diana alone with this guy. The violent teen obviously meant business.

    Tom didn’t bother trying to fire his gun again. Instead he hurled the useless lump of metal at Braces’s head. The teen ducked to avoid the missile and Tom took the opportunity to tackle him head-on. He knocked his opponent backward into the embalming table, jarring the defenseless corpse behind them. His fingers clamped around Braces’s wrist to keep the business end of the trocar away from him. Years of FBI training kicked in as he twisted Braces’s wrist savagely. The razor-sharp surgical instrument flew from the kid’s fingers. It skittered across the floor on the other side of the table.

    “Give it up!” Tom snarled through clenched teeth. Even if they had lost Grayson, maybe they could stillget answers from this creep. He felt like an idiot for not checking for other employees; they should have guessed Grayson wasn’t working alone. “You’re coming with us!”

    “That’s what you think!” Braces spit in Tom’s face, momentarily blinding him, then butted his head into Tom’s forehead. Starbursts exploded inside Tom’s skull and he staggered backward. Braces tore himself loose from Tom’s grip and scrambled over the embalming table, knocking the elderly corpse onto the floor. Lifeless flesh hit the tiles like the proverbial bag of potatoes. A plastic screw in the cadaver’s abdomen popped open. Embalming fluid squirted from the uncapped puncture wound.

    Tom wiped the spit from his eyes and vaulted over the table after his opponent. Braces dived for the trocar, but Tom piled into him first. They tumbled through an open doorway into the cremation chamber. The lab worker fought viciously, biting down hard on Tom’s ear, as they grappled on the floor, but the seasoned NTAC agent soon got the upper hand. A kidney jab caused Braces to gasp out loud, releasing Tom’s ear, and he clambered on top of the thrashing teenager, pinning him to the ground. He drew back his fist to deliver a knockout punch.

    “Wait,” Braces squealed. He