Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  His back to the sidewalk, rain falling on his bare legs and ass, he stepped hastily into dry underwear and pants as a clatter of high heels got louder behind him. He turned to see a foursome of young Asian women in flowered dresses and clear plastic bubbletop umbrellas failing to avert their eyes as they turned into the restaurant.

  He was too memorable now. He grabbed his clothes and his phone and climbed back into his seat.

  “We need to get out of here.”

  June’s face was pale. She had a container of noodles open on her lap, but she wasn’t eating. She stared out the windshield, clutching her plastic fork like a weapon. She’d held herself together long enough to get them to this moment, but no farther. Now she was shaky and jagged around the edges, riding the downhill slope of her own adrenaline crash.

  He put his hand on her arm. “Are you okay?”

  She looked at him. “No, fuck no.”

  “You will be,” he said. “Have a few bites, get your blood sugar back up.”

  “They would have killed us,” she said, her voice thick. “Or worse, I don’t know. But you saved us. You saved me.”

  He put his arm around her and leaned into her. It was awkward in the bucket seats, but he held her close while she pulled in one deep, shuddering breath after another.

  Suddenly he wanted her badly. Wanted her more than anything, to feel her hot bare skin pressed against his. In the back of the van if they had to, he didn’t care. But the thinking part of him knew it was a bad idea.

  “Come on,” he said. “Have a few bites.”

  “Jesus.” She looked at the container of Thai food in her lap as if she’d never seen it before. “I’ve never been so fucking hungry in my life.”

  • • •

  TEN MINUTES LATER, she set the shattered remnants of her pad thai on the center console. “What now?”

  “I think we should stay away from your place,” said Peter. “And we need to get rid of this car. There are gate parts stuck in the grille.”

  “But I like this car,” she said. Then began to get angry. “And I like my fucking place, goddamn it.”

  Peter shrugged. “Don’t get too attached,” he said. “It’s only stuff.”

  “I am attached,” she said, aggravation clear in her tone. “People get attached. To cars, to homes, to things. We can’t all be mysterious Buddhist fucking nomads, you know. We get attached to people.”

  Oh, thought Peter. We’re doing this now.

  “You want to get mad, that’s okay. You have a lot to be mad about.” He turned sideways in his seat to face her and reached for her hand. “But you don’t need to be mad at me. Because I’m definitely attached to you. In fact, you’re going to have a hard time getting rid of me. I’m like bedbugs.”

  That made her smile, a little.

  “I thought you were like a Boy Scout with muscles.”

  He smiled back. “I’m a complicated man. No one understands me but my woman.”

  She eyeballed him. “Is that a line from Shaft?”

  He put an innocent look on his face. “What, the movie? Or the song?”

  She smacked him hard in the arm, and turned to face the windshield again. Then looked sideways at him again. “How are you okay again after what happened back there?”

  “I’m not,” said Peter. “I’m just more used to dealing with it.”

  “But I saw your face when you climbed into the car, right after. You looked, I don’t know. Not happy, that’s not the right word. But full of some kind of ecstasy.”

  “That sounds about right,” he said. “It’s horrible and thrilling at the same time. I killed some guys who were trying to kill us. I’m alive, and so are you, and here we are eating Thai food. It’s a fucking miracle. Later, I’m planning to slowly remove your clothes and kiss every inch of your naked body.”

  She blushed slightly, but didn’t take the easy out. He was impressed. She wanted to understand, not be distracted from the topic at hand.

  “But they’re dead,” she said. “How can you think about anything else? How can I?”

  “I had a lot of practice overseas,” said Peter. “You and I, we didn’t start this. We didn’t go after them. They came after us, for their own reasons. There is no moral failure here. Our survival and their deaths aren’t on you, or me. It’s on them. On whoever sent them. And the reward for our victory, for being alive, right now, is Thai food and conversation and if I’m lucky, your naked body on top of mine. Because it’s not over. It’s going to take everything we have to survive the next few days.”

  Her eyes were luminous. “How is it that you’re not like them?”

  “I am like them,” he said softly. “But I’m trying to make up for it.”

  His phone surprised him by ringing.

  Only two people had the number, and one was sitting next to him. He pulled it out of his pocket. “Hey, Lewis.”

  “You okay, Jarhead?” Had Lewis heard something in Peter’s voice?

  “Had a little dust-up a few minutes ago,” said Peter. “I’m fine.”

  Lewis snorted. “Up in the North End? Little dust-up my ass. I’m looking at the footage on Channel 5 right now. Somebody got lit up but good.”

  “Wait. You’re in town?”

  “Flew into Sacramento last night. Picked up your truck, left it in storage outside of Portland, and found something with a little more style. Just checked into the Four Seasons, but I’m bored, brother. I need something to do. Any ideas?”

  Peter looked at June, who was back on her laptop.

  “Yeah. You could do a drive-by on my friend’s place. I’m wondering if someone is watching. We could use some kind of handle. We still don’t know who they are.” He gave Lewis her address.

  “Got it. What else?”

  “We need to ditch our ride. You got a car?”

  “Yeah, a rental. I’ll call when I’m done, maybe an hour. Let me know then where to pick you up.”

  “Sounds good. Hey, Lewis?”

  “Now what, motherfucker? You holding me up here.” Lewis putting some street in his voice.

  Peter could hear the tilted smile.

  “Thanks,” he said.

  “Shee-it. Jarhead gone all sentimental.”

  Then he hung up.

  Peter turned to June. “So, you want to meet my friend Lewis?”

  She looked thoughtful. “Is he cute?”

  “No,” said Peter. “Lewis is definitely not cute.”

  • • •

  THEY KEPT DRIVING SOUTH. Peter weighed different ways to get rid of the car. He could leave it in a high-crime area with the keys in the ignition and hope it got stolen. That way at least the local chop shop got something out of it. But he and June had been in and out of the car for days, it was loaded with their DNA. Blood and hair. If it was spotted by a neighbor at the scene of the shooting, the cops might find it before the crooks.

  So he stopped at a service station, bought a two-gallon gas can, and filled it up.

  The matches were free.

  It wasn’t easy finding someplace inconspicuous, because, like many growing cities in the West, Seattle wasn’t big on zoning. Development seemed driven by views, greenspace, and waterways, so a nice neighborhood might overlook a railroad yard, and a golf course could stand beside a battered commercial strip. Real estate was expensive, so businesses and hipsters were quickly colonizing the crappy neighborhoods.

  But between Google Maps and June’s explorations, they found a long industrial zone in a suburb between two freeways, with a wide vacant area awaiting redevelopment. In order not to be the only car in the area, June parked outside a busy microbrewery-slash-restaurant a few blocks from the vacant lot. Peter’s phone rang again.

  “Your friend definitely got company,” said Lewis. He described single watchers in four different cars.


  “Any Ford Explorers?”

  “No, they diversified,” said Lewis. “Prob’ly personal cars, nothing fancy. But careful. Motors off, windows cracked, slouched down low. One at each end of the block, one pretty much right across the street, and another around the corner, where you might sneak in the back.”

  Peter thought of the neighbor with the woodpile. That would have been his way in. These people weren’t bad.

  “They get a look at you?”

  “Jarhead, who you think you talkin’ to?”

  “You’re a family man now. I thought you might be a little out of practice.”

  “I’m gonna pretend I didn’t hear that. Anyway, they got tiny little cameras planted all over, I counted eight. A little weird, though. They cover the same angles as the cars. Like the guys in the cars don’t know about the cameras.”

  Peter looked at June. “You don’t have any security cameras, do you?”

  She shook her head. “Leo might have put some in, I guess. But I never saw any.”

  “Okay,” said Peter. “Lewis, you might as well come get us.” He gave Lewis the name of the brewpub. “I’m in a parking lot off South Sixth on the west side of the street, a green Honda minivan. We need to offload a few things.”

  “Lemme find you on the map. Okay, I got you. Thirty minutes. I’m in a silver Escalade.”

  June had picked up her new laptop, which had been open and running since they’d gotten to the master sergeant’s house. She was absorbed in the pale glow of the screen, so Peter closed his eyes and went over what they knew. It wasn’t much.

  When he heard her speak, his eyes popped open.

  “Holy shit, yeah!” she said, and thumped her hands on the ceiling. “That’s how Mama likes it.”

  “What?”

  “Oh, nothing.” Her eyes were bright. “I think I just found the bastard. Charles Dawes the Fourth. Ex-CIA asshole and founder of Citadel Security.”

  Lights flashed across the bushes as a car slipped into the space beside theirs. A silver Cadillac Escalade.

  Lewis, right on schedule.

  “Time to go,” said Peter. “Grab your stuff. I’ll get the gear. You take the front seat.” He opened the rear hatches of both cars, and began transferring their stuff. His waterlogged suit, camping equipment, the HK assault rifle still reeking of spent powder.

  June packed her laptop bag, got out of the van with the Thai leftovers, then opened the passenger door of the Escalade. “Hi, I’m June.”

  Peter heard Lewis’s low, heating-oil voice, slippery and dark. “Pleasure to meet you, ma’am.”

  Peter closed the hatches, walked to June’s side of the Escalade, and tapped on the glass. She rolled it down, her eyes bright with amusement. “You were wrong, Peter. He’s both handsome and charming.”

  Lewis flashed the widest version of his tilted grin. “I got out early for good behavior.”

  His skin was coffee-brown, his head shaved. His features could have come from any mixture of races, as if he were from everywhere, or nowhere at all. He wore a crisp black synthetic raincoat over a starched white shirt, black jeans, and polished black combat boots.

  “I can already tell this is a bad idea,” said Peter. “Don’t talk amongst yourselves, okay?”

  June gave her rich, bubbling laugh. “I’m a reporter, Peter. I’m waaaay ahead of you.”

  Peter shook his head and got behind the wheel in the minivan. The Escalade eased out of its spot and around the corner, leading the way.

  At the vacant lot, Peter opened the windows, poured gas through the interior of the van, tossed in the lit book of matches, and stepped away as quickly as he could with his hurt leg. The fumes caught with an audible foomp.

  This was becoming a bad habit. Two cars in two days.

  He watched the flames lick through the windows, sorry to see the green Honda go. It was a good ride. Then he stumped over the rough ground to the Cadillac.

  “Jarhead.” Lewis handed him a bottle of Anchor Steam, already open. “Your friend June’s working on a plan.”

  “Thank God.” Peter drained a third of the bottle. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

  “I got us a suite at the Four Seasons,” said Lewis. “Plenty of room for everyone.”

  “Not for me,” said Peter. “I’ll never fall asleep inside.” June looked at him over the seat back. “Why don’t we camp out somewhere?”

  “You still fighting that thing?” said Lewis.

  “I’m working on it,” said Peter. “But not tonight.”

  “Discovery Park would be fun,” June said, and turned to Lewis. “I’ll give you directions.”

  “It’s a suite,” said Lewis. “At the Four fucking Seasons.”

  “You use it,” said Peter. “You’re not invited.”

  40

  CHIP

  Chip Dawes’s driver navigated the downtown traffic while Chip sat in the back of his Mercedes G63 and thought about the meeting he’d just had with Nicolet.

  Chip had never seen anything affect the tech attorney’s professional cool, so it was fun to see that the girl’s mystery man had managed to put a dent in Nicolet’s Teflon coating. The attorney thought he was tough, and he wasn’t wrong. But he was a civilian. He lived in the world of legal maneuvers, where the worst thing that could happen was a bad court decision.

  Chip lived in the real world, where far worse things were possible. Chip was definitely not a civilian.

  He’d told the tech shark to tighten up his sphincter, things were under control. The mystery man was being handled. The algorithm would be in hand soon.

  Chip didn’t say whose hands, exactly.

  Now Chip was headed back to his office to check on the operation’s progress. He was late. He hoped they had something by now.

  He stared out the window at the headlights shining through the rain and remembered how he’d gotten started.

  Cashing out the Iraqi colonel’s bearer bonds had gone just as Chip had planned. Shepard had stepped back and let Chip take the lead, his natural position. He’d chartered a series of ghost corporations headquartered in Belize, Luxembourg, and the Bahamas, used those corporations to hire his real company, Citadel Security, to do fake work. Then he’d paid himself with his own stolen money, now nice and clean.

  He’d even written himself letters of recommendation on his ghost companies’ letterhead. Citadel Security was the best, their discretion unparalleled. You’d be a fool not to hire Chip Dawes.

  It was appallingly easy to get his first legitimate contract. He paid a high-end prostitute to seduce a senior-level programmer at a company-sponsored outing. She got the guy home and put a roofie into his drink to knock him out. Chip showed up, copied the guy’s keys and passcard, and fucked the hooker, too, what the hell. He was paying her already, right? The next morning he’d waltzed onto the corporate campus, changed some passwords, and downloaded a bunch of client information and proprietary code. Then made an appointment with the CEO.

  The security chief got fired, and Citadel Security got a big fat contract. Nothing to it.

  After that, Chip was pulling intrusions up and down the West Coast, signing up clients left and right. He bought the G63, the big house on Lake Washington, and a couple of boats. The actual work of corporate information security turned out to be pretty fucking boring, and not that lucrative once Chip had hired some tech geeks who actually knew what they were doing. No surprise there.

  It was the other jobs that really turned Chip’s crank. The creative jobs.

  Convince a young developer to sell his very good idea now, not later, for a lowball price. Throw in a Tesla and an oversexed “college girl”? Done.

  Blackmail a programmer into leaving a code glitch for an extra week? Chip had access to a substantial pool of call girls who looked stunning in a little black dress and could also suck a g
olf ball through a garden hose. They made cameras very small these days.

  There were so many opportunities.

  Bribe a dissatisfied venture cap researcher to vet an outdated set of numbers.

  Start an unfortunate and mysterious wildfire to clear the way for a new corporate headquarters.

  Break into a private genetics lab on the verge of a breakthrough.

  Plant kiddie porn on a congressman’s laptop.

  Like taking candy from a fucking baby.

  But even the creative jobs were fee-for-service, and the overhead was higher. He paid his operators very well. Call girls who could carry on a conversation didn’t come cheap. Ethics-free supergeeks were downright expensive. And Shepard took his share, too.

  Chip was careful to keep Shepard happy.

  The man was like a scary robot without a human operator.

  But high seven figures take-home just wasn’t enough for Chip Dawes.

  You could only make so much with fee-for-service. The two biggest things Chip had learned working the tech industry? You want to be digital, and you want to be scalable. Building the software and rolling it out to the first customer cost a certain amount. But rolling it out to every customer after that cost basically nothing. Two millionth customer paid the same amount as the first customer. It was like printing money.

  So that’s what Chip was after. His killer app.

  Seven figures was nice, but he wanted eight or nine. Hell, he wanted ten, the big B.

  1000x venture cap money. IPO money. Google Facebook Twitter money.

  He wanted his own island. His own fucking nation-state.

  And to do that, he needed a big score.

  He was pretty sure he’d found one.

  Thanks to a client, it fell right in his lap.

  Hazel Cassidy’s algorithm.

  Chip had worked for this same client years before, when Citadel was just starting out. He’d had the potential to be a serious whale, so Chip agreed to upgrade the guy’s security protocols, a small project but it got his foot in the door for more work down the line.

  The client turned out to be completely irrational, fucked in the head, a colossal pain in the ass to work for. The added work never materialized, and the job was over in a few months. Chip padded his invoices like crazy and the man paid without a question, so it wasn’t exactly time wasted. You could always tell new tech money. They knew so much about some obscure little fucking thing, but were naïve as hell about everything else. Half of them felt they didn’t deserve the money, the other half thought they deserved twice as much, and they all loved to write those checks. Proving to themselves and everyone else that they’d made it.