Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(110)

“I have a friend who’s really good with security,” she said. “His name is Tyg3r.”





54





PETER



Sally looked utterly at home with the gray automatic in her hand, as if she’d held one in her crib as a child. It was one of the small Glocks, powerful but designed for concealment. Peter thought it suited her, whoever she really was, hiding inside the skin of a cheerful agricultural researcher.

“Or you’ll shoot me?” asked Peter. He kept his elbows down but held his hands up and out to the sides, floating in the air.

Oliver’s head appeared, then the rest of him, as he finished the climb up from the valley floor. He didn’t appear to be breathing hard. His youthful face showed nothing. He’d left the pitchfork behind.

“Oh, shooting you is definitely an option,” said Sally. She angled her head at the bulky man in the camo pants and buzz cut. “Wilkes throwing you off the cliff is another.”

Wilkes glanced quickly at Oliver, whose expression was unchanged, then back to Peter. Wilkes’s weight remained on his toes, his arms akimbo, hands open. His fingers twitched slightly.

Sally smiled then, her teeth white in her mouth, the wrinkles hard around her eyes. She was still motherly and cheerful, but now the other thing inside her was more visible. Her true self, Peter figured. Her professional self.

She said, “We don’t need to do this the hard way, do we, Peter? We both want the same thing. We both want June to be safe. And we want June to be happy. Right?”

“How do you propose to make that happen?” asked Peter.

“She’s reunited with her father,” said Sally. “Whether she knows it or not, this is what her whole life has been about. Understanding her relationship with her father. Then there’s you. Maybe she likes you, maybe it’s more than that, I don’t much care. But I’ll tell you this, kiddo. The only reason you’re still alive is because our June has taken a shine to you.”

“And what’s your piece of this?” Peter asked. But he already knew.

“Simple,” said Sally. “I’m fond of that girl, but I want the algorithm. I believe that she has it somewhere, and I’m going to get it, one way or another. So it’s up to you. Protect the girl by providing that algorithm, or die here.”

Under Sally’s professional eye, Peter deliberately unsnapped his holster, put two fingers on the butt of the trucker’s .357, and eased it out. Then held it over the edge and let it go. He heard it bounce a few times on the way down. “Now what?”

“Now we wait,” Sally said, and nodded to Wilkes, who took the Browning automatic from his shoulder rig and held it against his leg. Sally tucked her own gun away into the pocket of her barn jacket. “And watch.”

She retrieved a shoulder bag from behind her rock and pulled out a computer tablet. Tapped it and the screen came alive. “It’s amazing what technology can do, isn’t it? I’m seeing a drone’s-eye view of a vehicle convoy. Wilkes, they just turned off Highway 12 at Lyle.”

“Let me guess,” said Peter. “A big Mercedes SUV and a few Ford Explorers?”

“We have a subcontractor who has a misplaced sense of his own importance. He’s coming to make a fuss.” Her eyes were still on the screen. “I should thank you,” she said. “Between California and Seattle, you reduced his personnel significantly. It will make things easier today. Less likely our people will get hurt.”

“Chip Dawes,” said Peter. “He was working for you.”

“He thought he was working for Sasha Kolodny,” said Sally. “The famous Mad Billionaire.” She gave Peter a small smile of genuine pleasure. “I might have contributed to that misunderstanding. With Chip and a few other people. We spoofed Sasha’s email account. There are drawbacks to being a recluse, not wanting to do business in person. We actually track and control his entire online experience. That’s how we figured out Hazel was building the algorithm in the first place. Sasha hacked into his wife’s laptop and we went along for the ride.”

Peter thought about June and what she’d be trying to do. What it would mean if Sally’s people could see everything going in and out through the Yeti’s Web connection. Without knowing it, June might have handed over the algorithm already.

“What’s in it for you?” he asked. “Money?”

She laughed. “I’m a government employee, Peter. Not officially, of course, but I do work for Uncle Sam. I’ve got a good salary and a retirement account and that suits me just fine. Just like Wilkes here, and young Oliver. We’re trying to keep up with the Chinese and the Russians and the other information powers. This algorithm has the potential to leapfrog us several jumps ahead of them.”

“And what would you do with that?”

She shook her head. “Not my department,” she said. “That’s up to Washington. Although I can think of a few things.”

Peter could think of a few things, too. Some of them good, he supposed. Many more of them bad. And who got to make the decisions? The same kind of idiots who started the Iraq war, and screwed up Afghanistan?

He really hoped June wasn’t using the algorithm right now.

He looked at Wilkes, the Browning easy in his hand, regarding Peter with watchful indifference. Peter’s leg throbbed and his ribs ached and Wilkes looked entirely competent. Peter had nothing to gain but a few new holes.