“Any checked baggage, sir?”
“No.” I sling my carry-on over my shoulder. I never bring enough to check luggage when I’m on a business trip, no matter how long. It slows me down when I need to be moving quickly and discreetly.
The man leads me out to a plain black town car with tinted windows. Nothing over the top. Again, ideal when you’re a person who needs to slip in and out of a city unnoticed.
I’m that person, most days of my life.
“How long have you been out?” Steve—the driver—asks, his shrewd eyes stealing a glance at me in the rearview mirror before settling on the stone house as we crest the hill. It’s designed to look like a Tuscan castle. From what I’ve seen in my travels, the architects built a commendable replica.
“Awhile.” I leave it at that, affixing my attention to the hills and valleys of Napa Valley grapevines ahead. It’s not too shocking that this ex-Marine senses my links to the military. Even though I’ve traded in my crew cut for something longer, more stylish, and I’ve shed my standard gear for civilian clothes, there’s something identifiable in all of us, especially the ones who’ve deployed, who’ve pulled triggers that stopped heartbeats. Our movements, our demeanor, the way certain sounds grip our attention, the way we can never truly relax. We all deal with it in different ways. We all let go in different ways.
But most of us never let go all the way.
“Did you and Mr. Bentley serve together in Afghanistan?”
Bentley obviously trusts this guy, to send him to the airport to collect me, to risk the two of us sitting in a car for the ninety-five-minute drive to his Napa vineyard, also his home. But Bentley also trusts me to keep our continued relationship under wraps—which makes the idea of bringing me right to his doorstep all the more strange. This is obviously highly classified. Or personal. Or both.
“No.”
That’s a lie, and thankfully the end to the questions, as the car snakes up the long driveway, the house growing proportionately until it looms over us. Bentley is already waiting at the heavy wood doors when the brakes squeak to a stop. The sight of his broad smile sparks a wave of nostalgia that I hadn’t expected. It’s been more than five years since I last saw him, our communication limited to brief conversations on burner phones and wire transfers to offshore accounts.
“It’s good to see you.” He clasps hands with me the moment I step out of the car, pulling me into a friendly hug. “How was your flight?”
“Long. My secretary will invoice you shortly.”
His deep chuckle rattles in my chest just like it did ten years ago, when I was an eighteen-year-old newly enlisted SEAL and he was a thirty-two-year-old officer. He’s in his early forties now. Once a trim and powerful man, time and wealth have obviously taken their toll on him, his muscles softer, his movements more relaxed.
Still, I wouldn’t want to piss him off.
“Come inside.”
The interior of Bentley’s estate is as ritzy as the outside. “Overcompensating for something?” I murmur casually, trailing him through a small courtyard within, shaded by high walls all around and decorated with flowers and shrubs and patio furniture.