Burning Bright (Peter Ash #2)(89)

Peter registered the tiny eyes in the craggy stubbled head, the gray T-shirt and black tactical pants, and the empty black nylon shoulder holster. But his focus was on the big automatic in the man’s enormous fist, pointed directly at Peter’s center of mass.

Chip’s smile spread farther, and Peter was reminded of a reptile unhinging its jaw to swallow its meal whole. “Please,” he said. “Get in the truck. You’ll be my guest. We have so much to talk about.”

Then Lewis came around the boxy back of the SUV and slammed the butt of the assault rifle into the bodyguard’s temple.

The big man dropped like his strings had been cut.

Lewis kicked the pistol out of the bodyguard’s hand and reversed the rifle to cover Peter, not even breathing hard. “This a little awkward,” he said to Dawes, his voice pleasant. “Your man not so big on the ground.”

Dawes held himself still, but the smile remained. The Mercedes growled in the background as he locked his eyes on Peter’s face. The guy was for real. Most people would be focused on the guns.

“Your name is Peter Ash,” said Dawes. “Formerly a lieutenant in the U.S. Marines. Served with apparent distinction, even awarded a Silver Star. But after eight years you were still a lieutenant, which seems to me to be a difficult trick to do. Some sort of irregularity in your record. I haven’t located the details quite yet.”

Peter stared at him, for a moment wondering how the man knew who he was. Then he remembered the Web-connected nanny cam, staring right at him as he lifted it down from the top of the master sergeant’s kitchen cabinet. Facial recognition. Chip was an intelligence officer, after all. Information and its manipulation were his livelihood. No doubt he still had active sources in the CIA.

“I know you, too,” said Peter. “I know your home address on Mercer Island. You tried to kill a friend of mine. Now is the time to convince me not to kill you.”

“Okay,” said Chip. “How’s this for an argument? Betzold Road. Bayfield, Wisconsin.”

Peter felt it like a sledgehammer to the chest. His parents’ house.

Dawes’s voice was soft. Playful.

“That’s where you grew up, I believe? Where your parents still live now? Your father runs a building business with your uncle, and your mother teaches art at some podunk local college. Your aunt is a musician on the snowmobile circuit. So quaint. How is their health, by the way?”

Peter moved in fast and put the gun to Chip’s forehead, pressing hard. Chip set his feet, leaned into the barrel, and kept talking.

“I’m not the only one who has this information,” Chip said calmly. He seemed to be enjoying himself. “I’d advise you to back off. At this moment, this can still go a few different ways. If I’m dead, there’s only one way.”

Peter took a deep breath and pushed down the anger, at the same time admiring the stones of the guy. A gun to his face and he thinks he’s still in charge.

Maybe he was.

Peter shuffled back two steps and lowered the Glock. An angry red circle on Chip’s forehead marked where the gun barrel had pressed into his skin. “What do you want?”

Chip’s smile widened like he could eat the world. “Only what I deserve,” he said. “You choose the delivery system. The software or the girl who controls it. I’m thinking the best outcome for you personally would be her computer and access codes. My people will do the rest. By five o’clock today.”

Peter said, “What’s in it for me?”

“Aside from healthy parents?” Chip raised his finger in a playful scolding gesture. “Don’t be greedy, Peter. You’ve inserted yourself into my business far too much already.”

Peter sighed and let his eyes slip away. “I need another day,” he said. “It’s more complicated than you think.”

“This afternoon,” said Chip. “Five p.m. The girl or the algorithm.”

“What’s your guarantee?”

Chip opened his empty hand in a graceful gesture. “Once that software is in my possession, you have my word. Your parents, your aunt and uncle, your childhood home, all will continue happily as it did before.”

His word, Peter knew, was worth exactly nothing.

The bodyguard stirred. Lewis kicked him in the stomach, and the big man curled abruptly into a ball. The risks of being an asshole’s bodyguard.

Chip looked at Lewis. “You, I don’t know,” he said. “But I will. I have a very good memory for faces.”

Lewis stared back at Dawes, rifle held ready, face utterly devoid of expression.

Peter had felt that implacable gaze before. It had weight and substance, like the hot desert wind before a killing sandstorm. It was a good look.

Lewis’s voice was pleasant. “Won’t have much memory with a bullet through your brain.”

Chip didn’t flinch, but it cost him some effort. He looked back at Peter. “Put your dog on a leash.” Then stepped over his injured man and slid into the driver’s seat of the big Mercedes. “Call my office at four-thirty. I’ll tell you where to meet.”

The door closed behind him with an impressive solidity. Peter watched as Chip drove off.

“Should have killed him,” said Lewis.

“That’s your answer to everything,” said Peter.