Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  Then there was Dinah, and the boys. He tried to put them out of his mind as he made his slow and silent way through the trees and the cold and the wind.

  It was fully dark and he’d covered half the perimeter before he saw them, a clump of too-deep shadows in the lee of an overhanging boulder. He sat and pulled out the Nikons and scanned for the sentry, finally finding him nestled into a rock pile in the center of the bowl, probably cold as hell but commanding a view of the whole snowfield except for the overhanging boulder at his back, blocking his sight line. You’d have to run fifty yards in deep snow without cover to reach him. You’d never make it.

  These jarheads were pretty good, he had to admit.

  Still, he had a smile on his face as he walked the blocked sight line in toward their camp, hands empty and clearly visible, whistling softly through his teeth. From the halls of Montezuma . . .

  There were five of them, dressed in faded woodland cold-weather tacticals and watch caps. “Shit,” said the man in the center of the group, rising to meet Lewis. His voice was quiet and his face was brown and thoughtful. He looked as wide as he was tall. “I’m guessing you’re Lewis.”

  “And you’re Manny.”

  They had no fire and no tent. With the sun down, the temperature was below freezing. The other four men stood and shook hands and introduced themselves.

  “How did you make it in here?” asked a man with Baltic cheekbones, a nose that had been broken several times, and sad eyes. His name was Laukkanen, and he didn’t seem upset, just curious. Lewis was pretty sure his perimeter trick wouldn’t work twice.

  “I had the advantage,” said Lewis. “I knew you were up here, and I knew you’d have a sentry. I just stayed inside the trees until I found you. I found your sentry last.”

  “You serve with Ashes?” This was Sanders, his skin so dark he looked blue against the snow. He was the blackest man Lewis had ever seen, and he’d seen more than his share.

  “No,” said Lewis, “we met after. Why do you call him Ashes?”

  Sanders smiled, his teeth bright in his dark face. “He call down the fire, yo. Fucking smite those evildoers.”

  Hightower, the biggest of the group, with redbone skin and an Aztec nose, just shook his head. Lewis looked at Manny, whose face twitched in something that might have been a smile. “Sanders got himself some custom homemade religion over there,” he said. “Hand of God and all that. We were all kind of hoping it’d wear off, but it seems to be sticking pretty good.” He shrugged his broad sloping shoulders. “Whatever it takes to make it through, you know?”

  “Listen,” said Lewis, “you got any stragglers bringing up the rear? There was somebody on the trail behind me carrying some kind of long gun.”

  That got their attention. “No,” said Manny, “we’re it.” He looked at the fourth man. “Blanco, you want to take a look?”

  Blanco was very pale with gray eyes and a white-blond beard, the smallest of the group but lean as a shadow, even in his cold-weather tacticals. He stood and silently retraced Lewis’s steps out to the perimeter, then vanished in the scrub. “Blanco could sneak up on a coyote,” said Laukkanen. “And he can run basically forever. Freak of nature.”

  They sat back down with their rifles on their laps and waited, watching the blue moonlit snow for any sign of movement. Finally Blanco appeared again.

  “Nobody,” he said.

  Lewis passed around the walkie-talkies he’d bought, then walked them through the topographical map June had marked up, pointing out the rocky outcrop where he planned to set up with the Winchester.

  When they’d all had a good look, they settled in for the night, some of the men in sleeping bags, some with only survival blankets. Lewis wrapped himself in his bivvy sack, then dipped his finger into a single-serve packet of instant coffee and licked the crystals off his finger like he’d done with Kool-Aid when he was a kid. Kept his eyes on the edge of the bowl and watched for ghosts.

  None appeared.

  At first light they were up and moving, the air sparkling and surreal with no sleep and the anticipation of the day to come, the men quiet as they checked their gear and rolled their shoulders in the cold. Harms, the sentry, came in complaining that his balls were frozen, and somebody needed to warm them up. Laukkanen said it was Harms’s own fault for taking them out and playing with them all night instead of leaving them in his pants where they belonged.

  They followed the gathering river of snowmelt to the edge of a cliff, where it fell off into thin air. Lewis stood on a wicked little rock ledge with a pit where his stomach used to be and searched for some way down other than the narrow descending ladder of rock, wet with spray.

  Peter was down there. Lewis had work to do.

  He took one step down, then another.

  51

  SHEPARD

  Shepard stood on the edge of the precipice, the valley open before him, watching the line of men picking their way down the rock face.

  His primary client had finally made contact. The conflicting interests had been laid to rest. Shepard welcomed the clarity.

  It had taken most of his considerable stamina to keep up with the man from the Escalade the day before. Shepard had stopped at the edge of the bowl-like snowfield as the stars were coming out. Some instinct for self-preservation prevented him from venturing into the open.

  He told himself that it didn’t matter. He knew where the protector’s friend was going, and he wouldn’t be going there after dark. Shepard retraced his steps and found a place to be invisible for the night. He was more tired than he’d expected.

  By the time daylight began to trickle past the eastern peaks, he was back at the edge of the open bowl. When he saw the multiple bootprints in the dawn-lit snow, he realized he was still missing crucial information.

  Shepard did not enjoy surprises.

  He had knelt in the gloom of the tree line examining the tracks when the shadow form of a sentry materialized like mist over the rock pile in the middle of the bowl. Shepard had held himself still and waited to die, but the sentry had not seen him, had turned and walked away, and Shepard knew how close he had come to oblivion.

  This was another signal, he thought. That this life he’d been living would come to an end, one way or another.

  Not that it changed anything.

  He skirted the perimeter of the snowfield and discovered the men’s deserted bivouac behind the shelter of a boulder. They had chosen a good place, the kind of place Shepard would have chosen for himself, and had left nothing behind to show they’d been there, nothing but the marks where they’d rested and their bootprints in the snow. Another day or two of inexorable melt would render even those signs unreadable.

  Shepard found the man from the Escalade in the line of figures descending the rock face by the waterfall, the man’s deft grace clearly visible even from far above. There was something beautiful about him. About all of them.

  It would be a shame to kill them when the order came. If it came at all. Their fates were still undecided. The entire enterprise hung in the air, unresolved, awaiting only a word.

  He wondered if this, too, was some kind of signal.

  He looked across the valley to where a mated pair of golden eagles rode the rising thermals in search of the meal that would sustain them until the next day. It would be one of the small mammals that lived in the orchards, or perhaps even a young goat—a kid, he thought idly—that had wandered from the safety of its shed. A necessary death in order to preserve life. The order of things.

  Would he still think in this way when he retired to grow tomatoes? Would he remain so fascinated with the relentless melee of life?

  After all, tomatoes didn’t cry out when you plucked them from their stem.

  They didn’t try to kill you, either.

  That possibility was part of what kept his interest in the enterprise of living. />
  He looked up above the eagles, past the rim of the valley, where another golden bird flew, watching.

  Shepard waved at the bird, then turned to begin his own descent.

  52

  PETER

  Peter consulted the map in his head. The contours of the valley, the buildings June had laid out on the paper the day before. But the map was not the territory. He had to see it for himself.

  He took the trucker’s .357 from under the seat of his truck and threaded the holster he’d bought onto his belt. He took out the little daypack with the pair of Glocks, extra ammunition, binoculars, a liter of water, and some energy bars. No reason to be undergunned or underfed while he waited for Chip Dawes to show up.

  He left his walkie-talkie behind. He’d thought it would be good to have some kind of comms gear, but without earpieces, they’d be too loud. He didn’t want to get caught with it, either, and betray the fact that he might have help. He’d have to find Manny in person and make a plan on the fly. He needed to tell them that the Yeti wasn’t the focus.

  He knew where Lewis would be. He could see the little rocky outcrop from where he stood. It was a good choice.

  They’d done this kind of thing before, all of them.

  He knew Dawes would want to prepare and plan and bring in as many of his remaining people as he could, but he’d also want to move fast and hit hard. It would be today or tomorrow, Peter was pretty sure.

  If he had to bet, he’d put his money on today.

  He wouldn’t get far walking in the damn medical boot, and he wanted more mobility than he’d get with his old truck in this near-roadless valley, so he limped to a cobbed-together bike rack someone had built with lumber scraps and drywall screws against the side of the barn. It was gray from the weather and had acquired a distinct lean, but still managed to keep an old Trek mountain bike from falling over. He climbed on and set off down a well-traveled trail.

  He wanted to talk to the smooth-skinned young man named Oliver.

  And Sally. He was pretty sure he needed to talk to Sally Sanchez.

  They were meeting for family dinner in the orchard.

  The trail was muddy and hollowed out and it rose and fell with the contours of the ground. After only a minute he came to the big farmhouse in its sheltering stand of maples, but there was no sign of life. No lights, no bicycles leaning against the porch. On June’s map, that was the Yeti’s house. Maybe Sally’s, too, from the sound of things.

  That whole conversation had been a little odd, he thought. Oliver standing there silently with his pitchfork while Sally chatted away like there was nothing unusual happening. He wondered how much Sally knew.

  The trail widened into a two-track with weeds growing in the humped middle, a utility road heading toward the orchards. Peter rode on. His leg was okay, but it wouldn’t be for long. He approached a long single-story building with white siding, a gable roof, and a sheltering porch, surrounded by trees. It wasn’t on June’s map. The windows were open and he could smell the rich flavors of cabrito simmering in sauce.

  He thought of Sally, petting the goat like an old friend as she talked about what they’d be eating that afternoon.

  A 1970s flatbed Ford sat beside the porch steps, a pair of big coolers resting on the warped wooden planks of the bed. Windows down, key alone in the ignition like it hadn’t been taken from its slot for years. He wondered if June had taught herself to drive in that flatbed truck.

  He got off the bike, climbed onto the porch, and knocked on the open door. Nobody answered.

  He stepped inside to see a big commercial-style kitchen with a ten-inch chef’s knife laid out on a cutting board heaped with broccoli sectioned for steaming. Nobody there. A dozen tomatoes sat on the counter, maybe next in line for the knife. In the sink, wet salad greens dripped in a stainless-steel colander. Double ovens held deep roasting pans with lumps of goat meat in a thick red sauce.

  Family dinner in the orchard.

  He pushed through swinging double doors into an empty dining hall, four long plank tables set out dormitory-style with an assortment of unmatched chairs. No sign of life. This was where everyone came together to eat and share the advances they’d made that day.

  Or maybe plan to kill people. Who knew?

  Although Peter was starting to make some educated guesses.

  He got back on the bike and continued down the two-track into the orchard. Goats nibbled at the weeds.

  He rode under the partial shelter of just-budding branches for a few minutes before coming to the half-framed house he’d seen from the road. It was tucked into the trees on a slight rise, a pretty spot. It would be beautiful when the apple blossoms came out, which from the looks of things would be any day now.

  The second story was framed and mostly sheeted, and someone had set the ridge and the first few rafters for the roof. A covered work trailer stood open, gear neatly arranged inside. Four old-school leather tool belts rested in recumbent circles on a stack of framing lumber. A pair of sawhorses held a rafter with a rechargeable circular saw paused mid-cut. Peter touched the battery. It was still warm.

  He got back on the bike and rode on. The two-track took him to a larger clearing in the orchard where a rambling equipment shed held a big modern Case tractor with various attachments and a storage space full of slat-sided apple crates. Three-legged ladders were neatly stacked against one wall. Past the shed on a patch of freshly mown grass, five wooden picnic tables stood end to end in a long row. Another three-wheeled cargo bike, this one blue, held a stack of tablecloths and a plastic bin with plates and silverware and cloth napkins.

  Not a soul to be found.

  This was where the dinner would be. Preparations had been under way.

  Why had they stopped?

  And where the hell were the people?

  He got off the bike and down on one knee to peer through the gnarled trunks of the fruit trees. No sign of the orchard workers he’d seen from the road. He set a tall three-legged picker’s ladder against the eave of the equipment shed and climbed to the roof. The medical boot didn’t make it easy, but the shed roof wasn’t particularly steep.

  He found his binoculars in the pack and scanned the area. He was high enough to see the greenhouses, but there was no sign of Sally or Oliver. They could be inside one of the greenhouses, he thought, but where was her red bike? There were no figures working in the fields on the far side of the road. No sign of Manny and his people, no sign of Lewis.

  No sign of life at all.

  He couldn’t even see the golden drone. Maybe it was up too high, he thought. Maybe it was outside the valley, watching for Chip’s men. Maybe the drone didn’t matter if there were no people out there.

  The shed roof wasn’t a great vantage point, he thought. Not high enough. He glassed the rocky outcrop Lewis had found on the map, where June’s father had watched raptors. It was at least a hundred feet up, maybe more. The view would be far better. He couldn’t see any people, but he did catch a brief flash of light. Maybe Lewis was there already.

  He had a bad feeling.

  Like this entire thing had been orchestrated by an unknown conductor.

  The bike took him most of the way before the ground became too rough and steep. The valley floor rose toward the encircling ridges, the rich black alluvial soil turning to stone. He left the bike leaning against a boulder and continued on foot, hurrying now, his leg beginning to ache as his mind turned over what he thought he knew.

  Until an hour ago, he’d thought the Yeti was behind everything. Had hired Chip to do his dirty work, to kill June’s mom and to track down the algorithm. But unless the Yeti had a split personality or had completely fooled both Peter and June, he was not a player, except maybe peripherally. So who had hired Chip? Had Chip started this whole thing? Had Chip manipulated the Yeti, who was just keeping an eye on his estranged daughter in his own slightly
creepy high-tech way?

  But how had Chip found out about the algorithm?

  The trail up to the rocky outcrop was steep and winding, less a trail than a slightly evolved upward scramble with waypoints marked on the stone in fading blazes of white paint. Like June’s ropes in the redwood, pointing the way up. He climbed quickly, the medical boot a hindrance, his fractured leg complaining steadily now. He could smell the scrub cedar that grew from the cracks in the sun-heated rocks, along with the stink of his own sweat.

  Nearing the top he could see a rough-framed shelter, an open rectangle of unpeeled cedar logs bolted together with a tin roof on top, like a screened porch without the screen. Peter wasn’t exactly quiet, not wanting to be killed by friendly fire, but there was no sign of Lewis yet.

  He rounded the last bony shoulder of the ridge, approaching from the rear, and saw Sally Sanchez sitting on a rock in the shade, big binoculars in her hand, smiling at Peter and looking very comfortable. “There you are,” she said. “I was expecting you earlier.”

  Beside her stood a man Peter hadn’t seen before. He was maybe ten years older than Peter, bulky but not fat, like a career sergeant whose knees were going but he could still pump iron. He kept his weight on his toes, his feet slightly spread, big hands open and ready. His nose had been broken at least once. He wore a starched khaki shirt, faded desert camo ACUs tucked into well-worn desert combat boots. He also carried a handgun in a shoulder holster on his left side, which meant he was right-handed.

  He didn’t introduce himself. He didn’t look particularly friendly. His hair was colorless and so short he probably buzzed it himself twice a week. He watched Peter with great interest.

  Peter was very conscious of the trucker’s .357 on his own hip.