Burning Bright

by Nick Petrie

  “Maybe it was,” she said. “Or maybe it could have been. I don’t know. The first true artificial intelligence.” Her face was bleak. “But it listened to me. And I told it to kill itself. To delete every trace of what it had been.”

  “Ms. Sanchez had capture software on the valley’s Internet connection,” said Oliver. “My office is now in control of that software. We will have a copy of the algorithm.”

  She shook her head. “Tyg3r knew all about your filters,” she said. “It didn’t matter. Tyg3r had colonized your system before Peter and I even showed up. It was already here.”

  Oliver blinked at her. “Well,” he finally said. “Perhaps your actions are for the best.”

  “They are,” said June. Peter had never seen her more self-possessed. “Now I have a question. Who killed my mother?”

  Oliver sighed. The night seemed very dark outside the remaining circle of lantern light.

  “The fault is mine,” he said. “I took steps to prevent your mother’s death, but I was too late. I knew of Ms. Sanchez’s activities, but had not yet realized the extent of her actions. She pretended to be your father’s proxy, and paid Chip Dawes to obtain the algorithm. He realized what it was, or what it might become. Mr. Dawes took it on himself to order your mother’s death.”

  June’s voice was clear in the night air. “You didn’t answer my question. Who killed her?”

  “That is irrelevant, Ms. Cassidy. The fault is mine and mine alone. I bear all responsibility.”

  “Answer the fucking question.” June’s voice cracked like a whip. “Who drove the damn truck?”

  Peter saw Oliver glance almost imperceptibly at Shepard. Peter figured June was too far away to see the movement of his eyes in the dim light. Shepard gave a slight nod.

  Oliver said, “Mr. Shepard was under my orders to work with Ms. Sanchez first, and Mr. Dawes second. I thought it essential that he gain their trust to avoid an unfortunate outcome. However, events developed quite rapidly. I was overseas and unable to monitor the situation or direct Mr. Shepard. Again, the fault is entirely mine. But Mr. Shepard drove the truck that killed your mother.”

  Peter took Sally’s pocket Glock from his lap and pointed it at Shepard.

  Lewis, who had been eating on his feet, had somehow put down his plate and taken the flat black automatic from his waistband. He didn’t point it at anyone, but he didn’t not point it, either.

  Shepard, who even standing right in front of Peter seemed somehow nearly invisible, didn’t react. He didn’t reach for the pistol in his shoulder holster. He simply seemed interested in what might happen next.

  “In your many deployments,” Oliver asked Peter, “did you ever kill someone who didn’t deserve it?”

  “Of course I did,” said Peter. “And I’m paying for it, believe me. What I want to know is, who pays for Hazel Cassidy?”

  “Ms. Sanchez already has,” said Oliver. “I imagine Mr. Shepard is, too. Besides, he’s retired, and on your side. Would you kill a retired fellow soldier?”

  Shepard still stood calmly, arms at his side. Never a twitch toward his weapon. What was he thinking about? wondered Peter. Maybe he wasn’t thinking at all. Maybe that was the secret to it.

  “June,” he said. “You’re still the boss. What do you want?”

  Her voice was sharp. “My mother was killed. My house was burned to the ground. I want vengeance. I want fucking retribution.”

  Peter tightened his finger on the trigger of the pocket Glock. He knew Lewis would be preparing, too. Shepard was less than ten yards away. He still looked calm, but something was different. He watched Peter with a level of attention that was nearly tangible.

  Then June sighed, and shook her head. “But that wouldn’t bring her back, would it? And it would make me as bad as Sally. So, no. No more killing.”

  Peter released the tension on the trigger. In the corner of his eye, he saw Lewis relax his two-handed stance. A faint expression ghosted across Shepard’s face. It might have been a smile.

  “What about Oliver’s offer,” said Peter. “Do you want to stay?”

  She looked at Oliver. Again Peter saw her strength, her self-possession.

  Something had changed up in that black barn with her dad. He’d have to ask her about it. He wanted nothing more than to walk through this orchard with her in the light of day, to talk to her, to make her laugh, to see the brilliance in her bright eyes.

  He could spend a lifetime at it, if she’d let him.

  Was this what it was like, to fall in love?

  But she wasn’t looking at Peter. She was looking at Oliver.

  “Tell me who you work for.”

  “We’re an unofficial group,” said Oliver. “Washington would prefer not to know that we exist. But we do, because some tasks are necessary, and should remain secret. Like this one. Unfortunately, Sally was one of ours.”

  “So, what?” she said. “You just decide what happens? Who lives, who dies? No oversight?”

  “We have oversight at the highest levels. But because situations develop and evolve rapidly, we often make significant decisions in the field. We are frequently forced to choose between a bad option and a worse one.”

  “What will you do with Chip Dawes?”

  “Our funding is directed through a series of useful shell companies. We plan to incorporate Mr. Dawes’s organization into our operation. This is why he remains alive and in good health. So we can transfer ownership and assets.”

  “And after that?”

  Oliver’s face was politely opaque. “That depends entirely on Mr. Dawes.”

  “Why should I trust you?” she asked. “Why should I believe a thing you’ve said to me today?”

  “You’re alive to ask that question, are you not?” His face warmed with a soft smile. “Conversely, I already believe that I can trust you. Because you and your friends came here to take action. Not for yourselves, but for others. An admirable sense of mission, and one much lacking in our society today. But you never answered your friend’s question. Will you stay? Will you help?”

  She stared at Oliver. “If I do, I get to determine what happens here,” she said. “I’m the boss. Full and final say.”

  Oliver nodded. “As long as the technology stays in our hands, and our hands only. I can have it in writing tomorrow. Tell me the language you need.”

  “Then yes,” she said. “I’m staying.” She looked at her dad. “He’s the one who needs looking after now, not me. I can look after myself.”

  Yes, thought Peter. She sure as hell could.

  58

  Peter set up his tent beside the cook shack. There was a bathroom nearby, and a kitchen for breakfast, and it was far from the site of the killings, although he could still smell the burning car. If he closed his eyes, he could still see the whole thing. And Sally Sanchez jerking backward beside him, the back of her head gone soft and bloody.

  June was with Oliver Bent in the main house, ironing things out.

  He unrolled his sleeping pad and thought about that psychologist in Oregon, telling him to learn to meditate. To find a support group. To get on with his life.

  Well, hell, he thought. I can do that.

  Sometime after midnight, as he lay there thinking in the dark, she came through the flap of the tent, naked as the day she was born, all showered and soap-smelling, her skin cool from the spring air.

  It was gentle and slow, and toward the end, she cried.

  Afterward, he wondered aloud whether she had walked naked all the way from the main house.

  No, she told him. It was too cold. She’d tucked her warm clothes under the tent fly to keep them dry.

  • • •

  THE NEXT MORNING, they walked side by side through the orchard, the buds straining against their casings. He could smell the greenery just aching to burst forth into life.


  She said, “I don’t know if you’re ready for domestic life, Peter.”

  “I am,” he said. “I really am. Tell me what you need me to do, I’ll do it.”

  She stopped and turned to face him.

  “I need you to already know what to do,” she said gently. “And you don’t. Not yet. So I want you to go away. Whatever the hell it is you’ve got in your system, work it out.”

  Peter opened his mouth, but he didn’t know what to say.

  “I’ll wait for you,” she said, “but not forever. Because I need all of you. Not this half-life you’re living now, without work, without a home. I can’t spend my life in a tent. So don’t come back until you’re ready to sleep inside a real house, in a real bed.”

  She put a soft hand on his cheek. The spray of freckles across her face, her pixie-cut hair, he thought she’d never been so beautiful.

  Then she turned and walked alone, back the way they had come, toward the big farmhouse under the sheltering maples, in the shadow of the black barns.

  EPILOGUE

  The old green pickup with the mahogany cargo box rumbled down the arrow-straight road. Lewis was behind the wheel. The ache in Peter’s leg had gotten worse.

  They both saw him at the same time, an ordinary figure seeming pale and insubstantial in the bright afternoon sun. He’d just left one of the plastic-sheeted greenhouses, walked to the next in line, pushed open the flap and stepped inside.

  Lewis hit the brake before Peter could say anything. They both needed to know.

  The engine was clearly audible, but they closed their doors with a thump, just to make sure he understood. They weren’t trying to sneak up on him. A few goats nibbled on weeds from the compost piles.

  He pushed the flap open with a gun in his hand, but it disappeared so quickly Peter almost doubted it was ever there. He looked at them without speaking.

  “Is your name really Shepard?” asked Peter.

  Shepard nodded.

  “I’m Peter. This is Lewis.”

  Shepard just looked at them. His face was impossible to read, but Peter felt something there. Not hostility, but a kind of curiosity. As if Peter was an object of study, and Lewis, too.

  “Are you really retired?”

  Shepard blinked twice. “I believe so,” he said, as if he hadn’t been entirely sure until that moment. “I’ve lost interest in the work.”

  “What else will you do?”

  “Recently I’ve developed an interest in gardening.”

  Lewis smiled his faint tilted smile. “Vegetables? Or flowers?”

  “I’ll start with tomatoes,” said Shepard. “I’ve always liked tomatoes.”

  “You know Chip threatened my parents,” said Peter. “Was it you he would have sent?”

  “That would have been his intent,” said Shepard.

  “I’m curious,” said Peter. “Would you have gone?”

  Shepard regarded Peter with the slightest air of disdain. “I’m not an animal.”

  “So I don’t have to worry about you.”

  “That depends,” said Shepard. “On whether I have to worry about you.”

  “No,” said Peter. “We’re good.” He put out his hand, and Shepard took it.

  He didn’t look like much, Peter thought. But there was a lot to him. You could feel the invisible intention there, the force of his will. The knowledge that it would allow him to do whatever he found necessary.

  Which was basically Peter’s attitude, too.

  “If you see me again,” said Peter, “don’t shoot.”

  “I told you,” said Shepard. “I’m retired.”

  They got back in the truck and Lewis gunned it down the road. “You believe him?”

  “What, that he’s retired? Or that he wouldn’t have killed my parents?”

  “Both,” said Lewis.

  “Yeah,” said Peter. “I do.”

  Lewis shifted into third. “Why?”

  “Same reason I knew you’d be up on that rocky outcrop,” said Peter. “Your word means something to you.”

  Lewis gave Peter one of his elaborate shrugs. “All any of us got, in the end,” he said. “Listen, you gonna need another driver pretty soon. I got to find an airport, get back to Dinah and the boys.”

  “Portland okay?” asked Peter. “I’m headed down to Eugene, to see that shrink I told you about.”

  Lewis smiled his tilted smile. “Jarhead gotta stop camping out someday.”

  AUTHOR’S NOTE

  I began to research the first Peter Ash novel, The Drifter, by talking with veterans and reading about their experiences both overseas and returning home.

  I’m grateful to be able to continue those conversations, in a variety of ways, with veterans of wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Vietnam. A number of you told me how much The Drifter meant to you, and that I “got it right.” Those conversations are the best reward for any writer, especially this one.

  Thanks to all who shared your experiences and helped this civilian get it as right as possible. Comments and suggestions are always welcome.

  Burning Bright has a lesser emphasis on Peter’s post-traumatic claustrophobia than The Drifter. This is due in part to the requirements of the book, which takes place largely in outdoor settings, and also because I want to begin to show Peter’s path through this particular challenge. Just as the veterans who experience the symptoms of post-traumatic stress aren’t defined solely by those symptoms, Peter isn’t defined by them, either.

  We know a great deal more about post-traumatic stress than we used to, and there is more help available now than ever before. Simple steps like meditation and exercise, along with writing in a journal or talking with others with similar experiences, can make a big difference.

  For those who’d like to learn more, Once a Warrior Always a Warrior by Charles W. Hoge, MD, is a hands-on manual for those suffering from post-traumatic stress, or for anyone whose loved one may be suffering. I also recommend The Evil Hours by David L. Morris, both a memoir of post-traumatic stress and a deep exploration into its causes and remedies.

  • • •

  MOST OF THE TECHNOLOGIES presented here are very real, although not necessarily in the form I’ve given them. I thought I was writing ahead of the curve, but the curve is catching up fast.

  Cognitive computing and machine learning are revolutionizing how we interact with the world, from voice recognition in our devices to facial recognition at our borders to industrial robots teaching themselves to solve physical challenges.

  IBM’s Watson, a “cognitive computer” once best known for beating three human Jeopardy! champions simultaneously, now aggregates and summarizes diffuse information for IBM clients.

  As I write this, a large technology company is testing a solar drone that can stay aloft for three months at a time, designed to provide Internet access to remote parts of the globe. By the time this book is in print, those drones may well be in use.

  Our ever-advancing technologies can have the effect of leveraging our mere human efforts into something greater. We can learn more, know more, build more, do more—and that’s wonderful. But access to these tools is not limited to those with good intentions. A small determined group can do a lot of damage. Large institutions, both public and private, operate with few controls in a fast-changing environment.

  For some reason, I don’t find this entirely comforting.

  ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

  Thanks as always to Margret and Duncan for putting up with me during the process of writing this book, and to the rest of my friends and family for their support and enthusiasm and constant salespersonship. If you’ve ever met a member of my immediate family, especially the women I’m lucky enough to be related to by blood and marriage, the odds are good that you now own at least one of my books.

  Thanks again to Barbara P
oelle for being my hotshot New York agent, and to Heather Baror-Shapiro, for getting Peter in print overseas. Thanks as always to Sara Minnich for her lapidary eye and ear, and to the other readers and editors who have made this book far better than it would be otherwise. Thanks to the design team who made this book so beautiful, and to Putnam for believing in the last book, and this book, and the next two to come.

  Thanks to the Putnam publicity and marketing mavens, including (but definitely not limited to) Stephanie Hargadon, Ashley McClay, and Arianna Romig, who help get books into the hands of readers, and keep me talking to interesting people. You didn’t get any credit on the last book, because I had no idea how important your work is and how much it contributes to the success of every book. Please consider this thanks retroactive and extending indefinitely into the future.

  Thanks especially to all those great local booksellers who stock my books and press them into the hands of readers, most especially those who have invited me into their stores. Book people rock. Local bookstores rock. (Boswell Books in Milwaukee totally rocks.)

  Thanks to Richard Preston, whose book The Wild Trees rekindled my interest in redwoods and the people who climb them. It’s a fascinating true tale about the men and woman who have spent their lives learning about the biology and ecology of these giant trees—you should read his book next, if you haven’t already. Peter’s climb was inspired by Preston’s account of Steve Sillet’s far more challenging and risky first ascent of a redwood. Any errors I’ve made about trees and tree-climbing technology are entirely my own.

  Thanks to Todd Schultz, friend, neighbor, and mechanical genius, for information how to roll an old Subaru and drive away, not to mention the ongoing repairs to my own cancerous POS pickup. You don’t know it yet, but I’m going to need your help on the next book, too.

  The Subaru scene was inspired in part by the experience of family friends who were forced off the highway at high speed by a drunk driver. Although their Subaru rolled multiple times, thankfully they walked away from the accident with no significant injuries. I don’t own a Subaru, but as testimonials go, this is a good one.