Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  Peter pushed through the plastic sheeting and stepped into what once was the dining room. It was gutted, too. The living room was the same, and so was the broad front entryway. Peering up the stairs, he could see that the second floor was just like the first.

  Once, it had been a grand house. The interior would have been elaborately detailed, with coffered ceilings and lustrous paneling and built-in cabinets. Now the wind blew through the gaps in the sheathing, and the frames of the old windows were bare. The fresh paint on the outside was like a fine suit of clothes on a skeleton.

  What did that say about Leo?

  “I had no idea,” said June, behind him. “You really never know what’s going on in anyone else’s head, do you?”

  “Maybe you should find another place to live,” said Peter.

  “I can handle Leo,” she said. “You know how hard it is to find a cheap apartment in this part of town? With built-in tech support?” She tugged on his sleeve. “Let’s get out of here. We’ve got things to do.”

  They walked back through the kitchen. But on the landing by the back door, Peter ducked down the winding steps to the darkened basement. June didn’t follow.

  “Peter,” she called after him. “Let’s just go, okay?”

  “I’ll be quick. I just want to take a peek.” He was already at the bottom, feeling around for a light switch. “If your landlord has a row of chest freezers stacked with bodies, wouldn’t you like to know?”

  “No,” June called down from the landing. “I wouldn’t.”

  Peter’s hand found the light switch, and flipped it.

  It took his eyes a few seconds to adjust to the brightness. The basement was immaculate. LED strips hung from the exposed ceiling joists, eliminating every shadow. The joists and subfloor had been sprayed with brilliant glossy white paint, along with the patched concrete foundation, the center beam, its supporting posts, and all the visible conduit, plumbing, and ductwork. Peter couldn’t see a cobweb or mouse turd in the entire space. The washer and dryer and furnace and water heater looked like they’d been polished.

  But that wasn’t the most unusual part.

  The most unusual part was the Faraday cage.

  This was no cigar box lined with tinfoil. Almost half of the basement had been made over into a large rectangular work space. The walls and ceiling were covered with layers of fine copper mesh that also appeared to extend under a new raised plywood floor. The entrance was a screen door covered with more copper mesh that extended past the jambs so that, when the door was closed, it would form a complete envelope, blocking all electromagnetic radiation.

  On one long wall, wooden workbenches were strewn with electronic hardware and soldering tools and a magnifying lens and circuit boards and all kinds of other shit that Peter could never begin to identify. On another wall, an elaborate ergonomic chair faced a big modern desk unit with three keyboards and a wide array of computer screens. A sagging plaid recliner in the corner had a fleece blanket dropped over one arm.

  It was homey, in a weird way. Especially in contrast to the empty shell upstairs.

  Maybe this was where Boyle really lived, Peter thought. Down here. Working with this hardware and his online collaborators.

  Who were doing what, exactly?

  A plastic ID badge on a lanyard hung from the corner of a monitor with the magnetic strip facing out. Peter turned it so he could see the front. It was an electronic access pass for Stanford University’s computer science department, with an unshaven Boyle staring blankly at the camera.

  Could be a coincidence, Boyle and June’s mom at the same institution.

  Peter found the computer mouse and gave it a nudge. The big central monitor lit up. The lock screen’s wallpaper was a photo of June’s face. It was taken from an angle, looking downward, and slightly grainy, as if from long distance. She was leaning forward, talking to someone out of the frame, but clearly not the photographer. Her face was animated and bright, freckles glowing, her mouth open a bit wider on one side, as if delivering the punch line to a private joke. She was beautiful. On the monitor, the photo was much larger than life-sized.

  “Peter?” June called down the stairs. He was glad she was still on the landing.

  “Coming,” he called back. He walked quickly out of the Faraday cage, turned out the light, and jogged up to the back landing.

  “Did you find any bodies?”

  “Nope,” Peter said. “No freezers, no bodies. Just a basement. But it reminds me, I’m wearing the last of my clean clothes. Can I run a load of laundry? And do you want to throw anything in?”

  She gave him a look. “You want to do laundry? My laundry?”

  “Mine, too,” he said. Then shrugged. “Besides, I never got a chance to check out your underwear last night.”

  She smacked him in the arm, pretending that she wasn’t blushing.

  “Don’t get any ideas, bub. We’re going to track down that lawyer, remember?”

  Before they left, Peter loaded the back of the van with some gear. The pad and sleeping bag he’d bought the day before, still trashed from their night of debauchery, but functional. Peter had slept in worse. He added June’s sleeping bag and pad that they’d carried up from California, along with her tent, a tiny backpacking stove, and a set of lightweight cookware. A few bottles of water and some basic food that would be easy to cook on a camp stove. The tool bag he’d bought the day before was in there, too. He’d stocked that bag pretty well.

  “Are we taking a trip?” June asked as he closed the hatch.

  “Just being prepared,” said Peter. “We still don’t know how secure we are here.”

  As he backed out of the driveway, he saw Leo’s scraped-up BMW parked at an angle on the front lawn, windows down in the rain. Leo was fast asleep, sitting up behind the wheel. The engine still running.

  Peter kept driving. He knew he’d be seeing Leo again.

  30

  After a quick stop for coffee at Caffe Ladro, it was a short drive to Nordstrom at Fifth and Pine. The static kept Peter company as June strode toward the men’s department. Peter took deep breaths. The high ceilings helped.

  June introduced herself to a salesman in a lavender shirt and tie over gray suit pants, who pretended not to notice June’s stitched lip and Peter’s medical boot.

  Peter had planned to buy something cheap off the rack, but June took charge.

  “My friend needs a black suit,” she said. “Wool, of course. Clean and classic. He’ll also need a shirt, tie, belt, underwear, shoes, and socks, and I think a topcoat for the rain. But here’s the problem. We need him wearing everything when we leave.”

  The salesman, whose name was Jerome, looked Peter up and down with a slightly more than professional eye. “Well. I’ve always enjoyed a challenge.”

  Peter was amused at this version of June, his fashion consultant, given that he’d mostly seen her in half-shredded tree-climbing clothes or nothing at all. But she looked crisp and classic today.

  June wasn’t the first woman who’d tried to get Peter to upgrade his wardrobe.

  Jerome pursed his lips and stepped around Peter to get all the angles. “He certainly won’t be wearing a slim cut, not with those broad shoulders, and those muscular thighs.” Jerome also seemed to be enjoying himself. “You’re a forty-two long, I believe. I have two suits that would work well, and two more possibles.” He gave June a conspiratorial smile. “This way, madam.” And he strode off with June in tow, the two of them already chatting like old friends, while Peter stumped behind in the medical boot.

  Jerome took Peter’s measurements with great delicacy, then presented four suits for June’s approval. “These are all quite good, both in fabric and construction. Prices are comparable.”

  June selected a suit. “Let’s start with this one.” She handed it to Peter along with a white dress shirt she’d taken from i
ts package. “I think you’ll look quite handsome.”

  She gave him a gentle push toward the dressing room. The mirrors made the small space feel bigger. Peter kept breathing, in and out, changing his clothes while his cracked ribs twanged. He left the boot in the dressing room.

  He hadn’t worn a suit since the last time he’d taken off his dress blues, and he hadn’t missed it. He didn’t like his movements restricted, or worrying about damaging expensive clothing. But wearing the blues had done something to him, and this suit did, too. It made him stand a little taller. It made him want a fresh haircut.

  He stepped out of the dressing room.

  “Mmmm,” said Jerome. “Turn around, please?”

  Peter did a little turn.

  “Oh yeah,” said June. “You look yummy.”

  “Great.” Peter smiled. “I guess this is the suit.”

  “Oh, no,” said June. “We need more information.” She held out another suit. “This one next.”

  In the space of thirty minutes, he’d tried on all four, and in the end she chose the first one. Jerome brought out his chalk, marked up the fabric, and promised to have the alterations done by the time they’d picked out the rest of Peter’s ensemble.

  A belt, socks, and a narrow black tie. Then to the shoe department, where he tried on three pairs of seemingly identical black lace-ups. After so many years in boots, dress shoes made his feet feel odd, slippery and unprotected. Was this how civilians felt all the time?

  When Jerome came back from the tailor with Peter’s new suit, he put everything on again and did the little turn his fashion consultants kept insisting on.

  “My goodness,” said June.

  Jerome looked a little wistful.

  Peter put his hands on his hips. “Is that all I am to you?” he asked. “Just meat?”

  “Oh, no,” said June. “Never just meat.”

  And she and Jerome erupted in peals of laughter.

  The final bill was what Peter had earned in a month in a combat zone. Peter told himself he was adding to the local economy. Jerome would take his husband out for a nice dinner. The waiter and busboy would pay their rent. It still felt fairly obscene, although he knew it was necessary for the next steps they would take.

  June put her hand on his arm as they walked out beneath the low overcast sky. “You were a very good sport in there.”

  “Just hedging my bets,” he said. “If things don’t work out with us, I was laying the groundwork with Jerome.”

  She raised a wry eyebrow. “Is there something you haven’t told me?”

  “Don’t ask, don’t tell.”

  “Man, you are soooo obsolete.”

  Peter smiled. “Mostly I had fun watching you.”

  31

  Peter’s plan for Jean-Pierre Nicolet was to get a last-minute meeting by bluffing his way past the gatekeeper. Then start asking questions.

  “He won’t answer any,” said June. “Because he’s a lawyer.”

  “But he’ll probably make contact with whoever wanted to buy the algorithm, and maybe that somebody will start to get nervous and make a move.” He looked at her. “There’s some risk here,” he said. “They might come after you again.”

  “But you’ll keep that from happening,” said June, her eyes bright. “And maybe we’ll know more.”

  Man, she was something.

  He said, “What about the guys who tried to kill us before? Should we dig into their lives first?”

  She shook her head. “They’re not going anywhere. Nicolet is still alive and probably doesn’t know the current situation.”

  “You think they may try to kill him?”

  “I think these are ruthless people. They killed my mom for a software program. They tried to kidnap me, and when that became difficult, they tried to kill me. So killing Nicolet, their only known contact, would be a logical step.”

  “They’re not the only ruthless people here,” he said.

  “Who?” she said. “Me? Shit, they started this.”

  Proving Peter’s point.

  “So,” he said. “How do we get the meeting?”

  “I have some experience at this.” June smiled. “With an unfriendly source, someone who doesn’t want to talk to me in the first place, I used to say I was Jeff Bezos’s assistant. But that doesn’t work anymore, so I’ve diversified. Today I think I’ll go with Paul Allen. He’s actually got an artificial intelligence research project.”

  Allen, one of two founders of Microsoft, was now running Vulcan, his own wide-reaching company, with its fingers in tech and real estate and medical research and who knows what else. June put her phone on speaker.

  “Mr. Nicolet’s office, Suzanne speaking.”

  “Hello, Suzanne, my name is Mary Swanson with Vulcan, and I need to reach Jean-Pierre immediately.”

  “I’m sorry, Mr. Nicolet is out of the office right now.” Nicolet’s assistant had the calm, firm voice of a high school vice principal, long used to her role as enforcer of rules and keeper of the peace.

  June replied with brisk efficiency. “Then I’ll go to him. Suzanne, this is a matter of some urgency. Mr. Allen insisted I meet with Mr. Nicolet today. This will be an informal five-minute meeting.”

  “May I ask what this is about?”

  “You may not. Mr. Allen has a proposal he would like me to deliver personally.”

  There was the peculiar dead sound of a digital call in which nothing was being said, as Suzanne contemplated the power dynamics involved. Her boss’s schedule versus the desires of one of the wealthiest and most influential men in the city, if not on the entire West Coast.

  “Mr. Nicolet is in a meeting downtown,” she said. “He’ll be finished at one-thirty. Where would be convenient for you?”

  “Actually, I’m downtown, too. Where’s his meeting?”

  Another pause. “Fourth and Madison.”

  June smiled, and made sure Nicolet’s assistant could hear it in her voice. “Let me guess. He’s playing racquetball at the Y. What was his court time?” Peter looked at his phone, mapping the address.

  “Noon,” admitted Suzanne. She sounded less like a vice principal now. “But he’ll want to shower.”

  “I’m glad to hear that,” said June. She leaned over and looked at the screen on Peter’s phone. “Why don’t we meet at Sazerac? Fourth and Spring, just a block from the Y. Mr. Nicolet can rehydrate. Say one forty-five?”

  “That would be lovely,” said Suzanne. “I’ll make sure he’s there on time.”

  “Thank you,” June said, and broke the connection. She turned to Peter. “Change of plan.”

  “It’s after one now,” Peter said as June put the car in gear. “But we’re not meeting him at a restaurant.”

  “Right,” said June. “He’d be too comfortable there. He’s probably a regular. You’re going to grab him as he leaves the Y and scare the shit out of him.”

  “I’ve always wanted to hit an attorney.”

  “No, you’re going to do something worse,” said June. “Tell him you’re from the government, and you’re here to help.”

  They sketched out the rest of the plan on the way.

  • • •

  THE YMCA WAS a beautiful old pile of bricks that took up a quarter of the block and was probably fifty years older than anything around it. June parked around the corner. They were still early.

  Peter had been planning to ask June about her father, but now he was thinking about Leo Boyle. That basement setup had really gotten his attention.

  “How’d you meet Leo, anyway?”

  “Friend of a friend,” she said, then shrugged. “Facebook friend, anyway. He posted that he’d just bought this house with a garage apartment he wanted to rent out. I was couch-hopping with college friends and had posted that I was looking for a place. The pictures
were horrible, but he came down a lot on the price, and I’d actually wanted something cheap I could fix up. It was exactly what I was looking for at exactly the right time. This was right after I got the job with Public Investigations, so I really needed a place in Seattle.”

  Peter nodded, very casual. “Did you look into Leo, at all? Before you moved in?”

  “Just enough to learn he didn’t have a criminal record, which was all I cared about.” She shrugged. “He seemed harmless.” Then she caught it. “Wait.” She turned to look at him. “What did you find in that basement?”

  Peter sighed. He hadn’t wanted to tell her, but she’d be relentless until she found out. And keeping it from her wasn’t protecting her, anyway.

  “Leo had an ID for the Stanford computer science department. That’s where your mom worked, right? And he had a picture of you on his computer’s lock screen. I bumped the mouse and there you were.”

  A thundercloud crossed her face. “Please tell me it’s not a naked picture.”

  He smiled gently. “No. You were outside. It was taken with a long lens. From the trees and architecture in the background, probably somewhere in the Bay Area.”

  Classic stalker behavior, he didn’t say. He watched her face.

  “You were only down there like two minutes.”

  “They were right there, the ID and the photo. Almost like he wanted you to find them.”

  “Yeah.” The muscles stood out in her jaw. “So why the fuck didn’t I?”

  “Don’t beat yourself up,” he said.

  “Yeah? What should I do?” Her voice was sharp. Then she sighed. “Sorry. This isn’t the first time. I’m a magnet for the wrong guys.”

  Peter didn’t take that personally. She might well be right when it came to him, too.

  He said, “What if it’s more than that?”

  She looked at him.

  “The Stanford ID. Would Leo have worked in your mom’s lab? Or could he have gotten access? Somebody had to tell the bad guys about the algorithm, right?”