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.
His chuckle sounds again, even louder now that it echoes through the halls. “Eleanor would say that, but that’s because I divorced her before I made my first million.”
And he’s made many since as the founder of Alliance, a private security company that provides elite protection services to companies and governments, including our own. The contracts are worth tens of millions each—sometimes more—and rife with global media attention, with claims of everything from corruption to undue aggression against civilians in war-torn countries. Bentley pushes on, though, succeeding by continually sticking with his good intentions. Keeping people safe is a motto he lives and breathes every day, and America is a country he loves. He draws no lines when it comes to doing what needs to be done for the greater good. Things that our own government doesn’t want to get its hands dirty dealing with.
That’s why sometimes he needs me.
We go through another door and pass several staff members in various uniforms who smile and nod but otherwise remain part of the backdrop. “Have you been back to California since—”
“No.”
He nods but he doesn’t press it any further, reaching for the willowy, pale blonde who rounds the corner. She looks exactly like her pictures in the newspapers and magazines, the Finnish wife of an influential U.S. Navy SEAL officer turned businessman, who likes to dress in white to match her hair and throw cocktail parties.
“This is Tuuli.”
Her cheekbones protrude with a bold smile, her deep-set chestnut eyes flashing with interest as they size me up. “It’s nice to meet you, Mr. . . .” she probes, her English perfect, trace amounts of her origin detectable. She’s been in California for only four years, when Bentley married and imported her, so I’m guessing she’s had the help of a linguistics trainer.
“White,” Bentley answers for me, not giving me a chance to use my real name. He obviously wants to keep his beautiful wife in the dark where I’m concerned.
If she senses any deception, it doesn’t show. “Well, I hope you’ll be staying with us, Mr. White? I can have a room made up for you.”
“I need to get back to San Francisco tonight. But thank you.” As nice as a few nights watching California put its vines to bed for the winter would be, I have big plans for a hole-in-the-wall motel that accepts cash payments and asks no questions.
Leaning in to plant a kiss on her cheek, Bentley murmurs, “I’ll come find you when we’re done.”
She looks at the diamond-encrusted watch that decorates her slender wrist. “Don’t forget that we have that dinner tonight, right?”
“I’ll be in my suit and waiting by the door at six p.m. sharp,” he promises before continuing on, forcing me to trail, Tuuli’s curious gaze on me as I pass. I wonder exactly how much he keeps from her. I wonder if she’d be looking at me like that—and inviting me to sleep under her roof—if she knew the kinds of things I’ve done for her husband.
Maybe. Obscene wealth has a way of making people view the dark side of reality differently.
Bentley leads me into his office—a grandiose room with vaulted ceilings and Persian rugs and even an American flag in the corner—and gestures to a chair with a perfect view through the French doors of a balcony and, beyond that, hundreds of rolling acres of vineyard.
“How do you cope with such poor work conditions?”
He smirks. “Not exactly the Aegean Sea, but it’s a decent view.”
Of course he traced our call.
He settles against a hefty walnut desk in the center of the room, resting his arms on his chest. “How have you been, Sebastian? It’s been a while.”
It has been a while, both since I saw him and since someone has called me by my real name. Sometimes it feels like just yesterday that I was squatting behind blown-out walls with this man—my team’s leader—doing nothing but waiting. To live, to die, we were never sure what the long hours would bring. It was during those times that our friendship grew, that our mutual trust solidified.
A lot has happened since then. Things that cannot be forgotten.
Things that have left permanent scars.
“Fine.” I roll my eyes over the shelves, artfully decorated with books and vases and record albums. Bentley always was a sucker for a good record. My attention zeros in on the gold SEAL trident resting in a glass case. It’s identical to the one stored in my safety-deposit box in Zurich.
He sighs, stooping down to access a false panel in one of the bookcases and opening it to uncover a safe. “Still a man of few words, I see.”
“Always the ones you need, though.”
He nods, more to himself. “Yes, that too.” Spinning the dial with deft accuracy, he pops open the door and pulls out a silver briefcase. It’s the kind of case I normally open at the start of an assignment, locked by a combination and waiting for me in a secure location, left by one of a few highly trusted Alliance employees who won’t ask questions and have no information to share. “We have a situation in San Francisco that needs sorting out. A search and recovery, and potential target elimination.”
It has always been so easy to talk to Bentley. We speak the same language.
He sets the case on the coffee table in front of me and pops the latches. I don’t even need to look to know that there’s a Beretta Px4 inside. It’s my model of choice, what I’m most comfortable with, and Bentley always ensures I have one. Next to it is a suppressor, a Gerber multi-tool, a fixed-blade knife, and a new burner phone. Beneath is a folded copy of the San Francisco Chronicle and an unmarked tan folder.
I don’t make a move for the folder just yet.
“There was a . . . complication recently,” Bentley begins, choosing his words carefully. I never get all the details, but I always get enough to do my job proficiently. “It involves an ex-employee of Alliance, giving explicit details about an assignment in Afghanistan.”