Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  “Peter, it’s fine,” she said. “Leo has this great anonymous Wi-Fi setup.” She didn’t look up, her fingers flying over the keys. “I’m a guest user. I’m untrackable here.”

  “And if they hacked your laptop?”

  “I’ve got so much security on this thing, sometimes even I can’t get in. Wait.” She stopped typing and ran her finger over the mouse pad. “What the hell?”

  “What is it?”

  “My cell modem. I turned it off twice at the hospital, and again just now when I opened the laptop. I thought my laptop was just getting old. But the modem’s turned itself back on again.”

  “What have I been saying? They hacked your laptop, and it’s trying to tell your hunters where we are. Triangulating the cell towers.” Peter reached over and pushed the laptop lid closed. “This is now a paperweight. How long has it been online?”

  “A few minutes?” June screwed her face up in frustration. “I fucking need that computer. My whole life is in there. Besides, how else are we going to keep backtracking those guys from the redwoods?”

  Peter didn’t know how long the cell modem needed to talk to the towers. He’d have to take the computer somewhere else and let it really connect. Set a false trail for the hunters. Because he knew they hadn’t stopped hunting.

  But there was no reason to remind June of that.

  “What about the tablet?”

  “It’s a toy. For kids’ games and Grandma on Facebook.” Her voice was getting louder.

  “Relax,” he said. “I’m guessing you’re backed up six ways, right? And most of your work is stored in the cloud, anyway? So you just need a new laptop.”

  She gave him a look. “Easy for you to say, Mr. Big Bucks Buy-Me-A-Car.”

  “I forgot to mention,” he said. “As your security specialist, that’ll be in my expense report.”

  She threw a pillow at him. “I’m a freelance journalist,” she said. “Not exactly rolling in the dough. Laptops aren’t cheap.”

  “Don’t sweat it,” he said. “You can pay me out of the proceeds.”

  She blinked. “The proceeds of what?”

  “The book you’re going to write. About all this crazy shit. I’m betting this time you won’t just be nominated for the Pulitzer.”

  Her mouth twitched, and he knew he was right, she’d been thinking about the story. When he was overseas, he’d had a magazine writer embedded with his unit for a few weeks. The guy had a hardwired need to turn every experience into a piece of published writing, and Peter figured June was no different.

  “I’ll call a few friends,” she said. “I can probably scare up something used.”

  An odd sound came from her bag. A muffled electronic chirp.

  He said, “What was that?”

  “I think it was my new phone.”

  “Who else has the number?”

  “Nobody,” she said. “Just you. I did set up my email in the car last night. But I always leave the email alert on silent.”

  They looked at each other. She dove for her bag.

  It wasn’t an email.

  It was a text.

  And it wasn’t from Peter.

  The sender’s name was listed as Tyg3r.

  Peter stood beside her so he could see when she opened the text.

  Hello, Junie. What would you like to know?

  June’s hands seemed to release the phone of their own accord. It clattered on the table, bouncing in its silicon case. She looked at Peter.

  “Nobody calls me Junie,” she said. “Only my mom calls me Junie.”

  Peter’s voice was gentle. “I do believe that’s your mom’s algorithm.”

  Her look turned into a look. Then she snatched up the phone again, her thumbs flying over the virtual keys. She raised the phone so Peter could see it, then looked at him for an opinion.

  She’d written:

  Who are you?

  He shrugged. She pressed Send.

  After only a few seconds, the phone chirped again. Peter read over her shoulder.

  I am Tyg3r. The Yoga Queen made me. What would you like to know?

  “Who’s the Yoga Queen?”

  “My mother. She was a yoga fanatic before it hit the mainstream. It was her sign-off on her personal email. Plus she had this whole thing about how good code and yoga had all these similarities. Elegance and flexibility.” June’s thumbs were back in rapid motion.

  How did you find me?

  The phone chirped.

  The cellular telephone registered to June Cassidy is compromised. The laptop computer registered to June Cassidy is compromised. This unregistered cellular telephone receiving June Cassidy’s password-protected email is not compromised. Ergo, this telephone is connected to June Cassidy. What would you like to know?

  “Um,” said Peter. “This isn’t exactly my world? But this seems like pretty advanced shit.”

  “Yeah.” June’s thumbs were back in action.

  Who killed my mother?

  The phone chirped.

  Unknown. Please be more specific.

  June replied.

  What was the cause of death of Hazel Cassidy in Palo Alto, California?

  A longer pause, then the phone chirped again.

  According to the relevant pathologist’s report, Hazel Cassidy died of acute physical trauma due to collision with a motor vehicle. See this link for more information.

  This time a Web link followed the text message. June touched the link and her phone’s Web browser came up. It was hard to read the page on the small screen. June expanded the size and panned around the document. It looked like a medical report, almost certainly something considered confidential and hidden behind a government firewall. Yet here it was.

  “If this is your skeleton key,” said Peter, “it seems like it can deliver the goods. Is it really talking to you?”

  June shook her head. “It’s not intelligent the way you or I would define it,” she said, still poking at the screen. “It’s a machine intelligence, with a specific set of skills. It’s probably designed to understand everyday language and respond in kind. Take Google. When you type something into their search engine, it recognizes your query by key words, then performs its function through their proprietary algorithm. I would guess that the skeleton key—might as well call it Tyg3r—uses the same principles, just more highly developed, more specialized. My mom said it was designed to learn, to help it go into hidden places. To open locked doors.” She made a face. “My phone is a crappy tool for this.”

  Her thumbs moved across the screen.

  Do you have another interface?

  The phone chirped again. The sound was already getting annoying.

  You can also find this program here:

  A Web link followed the message.

  “Shit,” said June. “I really need a computer.”

  Peter was still having trouble wrapping his head around this. “You’ve been contacted by your dead mother’s artificial intelligence and you’re still thinking about your laptop?”

  She looked at him sideways. “Welcome to the future. The tech world is full of this crazy shit. Change is exponential. Self-driving cars? Computers you wear on your wrist? We take last year’s miracle for granted. But that laptop is both my primary tool and the source of my livelihood.”

  He was suddenly aware that he was still standing very close to her. After his sweaty panic attack at the hospital, then their all-night drive, Peter could smell himself, and it wasn’t good. But June hadn’t showered, either, and the back of her neck smelled like some exotic, possibly addictive spice, which was entirely unfair. She even had freckles behind her ears.

  He stepped away. June looked amused.

  “Okay,” he said. “You need to be geared up to do this. I get that. But don’t call your friends right now. You don’t want them to g
et hurt. Just take one of those prepaid cards and buy what you need. Sky’s the limit. But right now I need to get your old machine out of here, turn it on and take it for a drive. Get those hunters to think this was just a pit stop, and we’re heading somewhere else.”

  “I’ll start at the library downtown,” she said. “Use a public computer. Do a little more digging. Maybe buy a new laptop, maybe not. I don’t want to take your charity.”

  “I told you, it’s a loan,” he said. “No strings. I’ll stop for dinner fixings on my way back. My default is Mexican, so if you want something different, call or text.”

  She blinked at him. “What, you’re cooking?”

  “Purely in self-defense,” he said. “I’ve seen the inside of your fridge.”

  She held her chin aloft in an aristocratic pose, peering down her nose at him. The fat lip and stitches tended to work against her there, but it was still an impressive look. “I,” she said, “am a modern woman. Your patriarchal expectations of female servitude are both antiquated and sexist.” She dismissed him with an imperial flick of her hand. “I choose not to cook.”

  He grinned and picked up her laptop. “That’s a truly elegant rationalization.”

  He dodged another pillow on his way out the door.

  He still hadn’t asked about her dad. It seemed to be a sensitive topic for her. He’d figure it out on his drive.

  But before he climbed into the minivan, he walked through the unruly little back yard, feeling the relief as the static settled lower on his spine, even as the drizzle trickled down his face. Unpruned junipers and broad-leafed evergreen rhododendrons formed a high wet tangle. Pushing past the thicket, he found a pair of spreading cedars beside the neighbor’s white clapboard garage, making a small sheltered space out of the worst of the wind and rain.

  The static wouldn’t let him sleep inside, not anytime soon.

  But he could make the backyard work.

  He just didn’t want to have to find a place in the dark.

  24

  CHIP

  Chip Dawes would still be in the Clandestine Service if he hadn’t decided to take down an Iraqi colonel who was skimming from the billions that the U.S. had brought in for reconstruction.

  Even the Pentagon accountants expected some shrinkage. The Middle East functioned on authority and graft, and you needed some baksheesh if you wanted to get anything done. Uncle Sugar had brought planeloads of cash into the country for exactly this reason, and SSOs like Chip had access to stacks of hundred-dollar bills for greasing the locals.

  It was easy to get used to, handling that kind of money.

  But this colonel was a particularly nasty fuck with extra-sticky fingers, and Chip had credible intel that the colonel was using part of his skim to fund the insurgents. He confronted the colonel personally, but the man just laughed. He tried to get permission from his superiors to make an example, but word came down that the colonel was somehow protected.

  Chip wasn’t having any of that.

  The man had laughed at him.

  And he’d stolen a lot of fucking money.

  So Chip put together an informal working group. He ran the show, leadership being part of his natural skill set. Six run-and-gun guys from six different units, guys he’d used before, guys he knew and trusted to do the job. And one asset he’d used for years, a particularly successful Farm-trained operator who was used to working alone.

  It wasn’t an officially sanctioned group, of course. This wasn’t Chip’s first rodeo, he knew how to slip and slide with the best of them. These were the go-go years, not a lot of oversight if you got shit done. Which Chip did, and planned to do again.

  The colonel traveled in an armored Range Rover with three personal bodyguards and a pair of escort “technicals,” Toyota Hilux 4-door pickups with the usual heavy machine gun mounted in the bed. Each truck had four men inside and two in the back to operate the gun. Sixteen men in all.

  Chip’s working group caught the colonel’s convoy on a narrow street outside the home of the colonel’s mistress. Two men with recycled RPG-7s on opposing rooftops to take out the technicals and crack the armored vehicle. Four men driving four local cars to block the road in and out, then attack on the ground with SAWs and M16s. Chip on one of the rooftops, using the radio to direct the battle. And his asset, unknown to the other men, waiting in reserve.

  His superiors would have wanted him to have more men. Even the idea of using just six men to attack and kill a heavily armed escort would have made Washington shit a brown river, but Chip was a pro. The job went exactly as planned.

  When the smoke cleared, Chip walked into the street with an M4 and reached through the shattered armored glass to open the door of the colonel’s Range Rover from the inside. It was disappointing that the colonel was dead—Chip would have liked the man to know who’d killed him—but the stainless-steel briefcase was there, as his source had said it would be, along with a cheap duffel stuffed with banded packets of hundred-dollar bills.

  He thanked his men and handed each a stack of hundreds, saying that this small skirmish represented a great American victory against Iraqi corruption. The colonel was helping the insurgents, helping to kill their friends, and they had stopped him. The secrets in the briefcase would reveal more Iraqi traitors, and he was grateful.

  Then Chip’s Farm-trained asset stepped out of a doorway with an M16 and opened fire with ruthless efficiency. Chip dropped to the ground, and a few of the men had time to return fire, but it was over in less than a minute. Six men down. Two men left.

  All according to plan.

  Even the part where the asset, in dusty Western clothes and a black-on-white keffiyeh, jacked in a fresh mag and sighted his rifle squarely on Chip’s chest. “Drop the gun and open the briefcase.”

  • • •

  CHIP WORE BODY ARMOR and a helmet, but they wouldn’t help him if the man wanted to kill him close up. He’d considered this possibility carefully from the start. The asset’s outwardly ordinary persona concealed a truly extraordinary talent. Chip had seen this from the first time they’d worked together, and had treated the man accordingly, granting him independence and respect.

  It was Chip who had given his asset the opportunity to explore his talent and reach his true potential. It was Chip who had paid the man bonuses far above his meager Company paycheck. This had earned him the man’s loyalty, although the asset didn’t seem to function like a normal human being. No evidence of emotion whatsoever. He was more like some kind of advanced killing robot.

  “No problem,” said Chip. He laid the M4 in the bloody dust and worked the latches on the briefcase. His source had also provided the combinations to the locks, and the location of the key, on a gold chain around the colonel’s neck.

  Inside was a stack of six thick international document mailers.

  “Supposed to be Eurobonds,” said Chip. “Do you want me to open one?”

  “Yes.” The asset kept the muzzle of his weapon trained on Chip’s chest. This was the moment of truth. Chip set the briefcase on the smoking hood of the Rover, removed the top envelope, and slid out the documents inside. Thick linen paper with ornate printing and a clearly visible watermark.

  “Bearer bonds,” said Chip. “Unregistered. Payable to the person physically holding the paper. Ten thousand euros each.” He felt the smile grow on his face with each moment his asset didn’t pull the trigger. He riffled the documents with his thumb. “I’d say about a hundred in this stack, wouldn’t you? That’s a million euros.” He slid the documents back in their envelope, dropped the envelope back in the stainless case, then made a show of counting the envelopes. “Six million euros. About six and a half million U.S. at today’s exchange rate.”

  The asset looked at him through those ordinary eyes. He was brown from the sun and the keffiyeh on his head looked completely natural. The rifle barrel didn’t move.
r />   “This was never about the colonel,” said the asset. “This was about you.”

  “No,” Chip said, with calm conviction. “This was about you and me. You just didn’t need to know, not until right now. Unless you really want to go back to the chain of command at Langley? Maybe train the next generation at the Farm? That’s sure as hell not what I want to do.”

  The asset just raised an eyebrow.

  The man was dry, Chip would give him that. In fact, the asset scared the shit out of Chip, but he was committed to his course. The capitalism of war. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.

  “This isn’t enough to retire on,” said Chip. “But it’s enough for seed money. I want you and me to go into business together. With your skills and mine, we’re going to be rich.”

  The asset’s expression remained unchanged. Chip kept talking, selling the dream.

  “Corporate security. Protecting secrets for some companies, maybe stealing them from others, all at twenty times our current salary. We use this money to set up a nice office, hire a couple of hot secretaries. Sounds good, right?”

  “You’re quite a salesman,” said the asset. “You have specifics?”

  “Of course I do. I’ve been thinking about this for two years. We set up someplace near a big military base that also has a big hacker talent pool, like Seattle. Lewis-McChord is just south of there, and that’s where we find our field men, ex-military. We launch by infiltrating a major company, then present their board of directors with what we found. They sign a contract to consult on their security, but before long they’re paying us to steal from their competitors.”

  The asset took out a disposable flip phone and took a photo of Chip standing beside the briefcase, all without taking his eyes off Chip or his finger from the trigger. The implication was clear. Proof of Chip’s involvement. Then he motioned Chip away with the muzzle of his rifle. “I’ll take half,” he said.